Veil Online - Book 3: An Epic LitRPG Adventure

by John Cressman

  Chapter 49

  They reached Demon’s Grin on the following Friendsday, or Friday in the real world, around 3pm in the afternoon. Jace had Colette sail around the island so he could look for any signs of Damian, or monsters. Luckily, there were no signs of either. At least, there were no signs he could see.

  The island of Demon’s Grin was dominated by a volcano in the center. The rest of the tiny island seemed to have been formed by lava from the volcano and as they circumnavigated the island, he understood where the name of the island had come from.

  As far as islands went, Demon’s Grin was tiny. He guessed it to be roughly a mile or two long and a half mile wide at its widest point. The most notable feature was an active volcano which seemed to be the source of the island.

  Even as they circled the island, Jace could see the bright yellow-orange lava rolling down the face of the volcano. It was definitely an active volcano. He could see some of the lava reaching the ocean and sending up plumes of steam as the molten rock hit the cold ocean water. As long as the lava flowed, the island would continue to grow.

  “See there,” Colette pointed out to the spot close to the island. “That’s what I mean by cursed.”

  Jace looked where the first mate was pointing. At first, he didn’t see anything, but then he realized what she was pointing at. It looked like the mast of a ship, sticking up out of the water. “Is that a ship?”

  “Aye,” she said. “All you can see is its mast.”

  As they sailed around, Jace saw two more shipwrecks. On the southern tip, part of the hull of a ship had been washed to shore and the remains of the ship lay on its side.

  “See, the island is cursed,” Colette said grimly.

  Jace doubted it was cursed as much as possibly the home of some large monster, like Bob the Dragon Turtle. He remembered the steamy cave Bob enjoyed on his island. Was there a dragon turtle on this island too? Or some other creature who called it home?

  “Let’s keep our distance for now,” he told her, folding up his spyglass. “Keep circling until I talk with the others.”

  “Aye, captain,” she said, casting a wary glance at the island. “The further the better.”

  Jace went back to the captain’s cabin, the vacant eyed avatars of Charlena and Mordred following him. Whether because they were programmed to ignore auto-following player or they didn’t say anything out of respect for him as captain, none of the crew commented on the strange behavior from the two auto-followers. That was fine with Jace. It meant he didn’t have to make up a story to explain what would be bizarre behavior in the real world.

  “Is it really cursed?” Diana demanded as soon as he had shut the door.

  Jace chuckled. “Not that I can tell. As far as I can tell, it’s just a volcanic island with some shipwrecks. But there’s no telling what caused them to wreck.”

  “A monster?” Mika asked curiously. Diana flashed her an annoyed look but then she looked to Jace for an answer.

  “No idea.” Jace shrugged. “But considering it’s a volcanic island and Bob liked the steam from his volcanic island, it’s a possibility.”

  “What?” muttered Diana, her brow furrowing in concern. “You think it’s another dragon turtle.”

  Jace shrugged again. “I don’t know. Maybe not a dragon turtle but it could be something else. I’d like to keep the ship as far away from the island as possible. So, I’d like to go over in one of the boats.”

  Diana looked around. “What? Now? It’s only Friday.”

  “Friendsday,” Mika corrected but the older woman ignored her.

  “We have to assume Damian got the message the same day we sent it,” Jace explained. “He could get here anytime. I’d like to get the lay of the land as soon as possible.”

  “That makes sense,” Diana admitted. She frowned. “How do we know he’s not already here?”

  “He should still be at work,” Jace said but there was no conviction in his voice. He wouldn’t put it past Damian to take off work to get here ahead of them. But then again, they’d made the meeting for Sunday, so they were days early. Would he really come this early? It wasn’t like he could stay on 24 hours a day.

  “I take it we’re there?” Mordred asked from behind him and Jace jumped. He spun to see Mordred blinking and looking around. “Charlena’s not home yet but I thought I’d login and see where we were.”

  “Yes. We got here an hour and a half ago and did some long distance reconnaissance,” Jace replied.

  “Cool!” Mordred replied. “I've been resting all day so I could log on and stay on for a few hours in case you need me.”

  “Good thinking,” he told his other self. “I was telling the girls we should head over now and check it out. There’s a good chance Damian is still at work, so even if he’s on a ship heading this way, he hopefully can’t login until around 5:30 or so.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Mordred agreed. “Let’s go.”

  “What about Charlena?” Diana asked, pointing to the vacant eyes redhead.

  “As long as she’ll follow me onto the boat,” Jace replied, “we should be okay. She followed me on a raft for a couple of days when we were making our way to Whitecliff.”

  He saw a look pass Mordred’s face but it was gone in an instant. Was that jealousy? What did he have to be jealous about? Jace wasn’t even real. Or was it the fact that Jace had technically gotten to know her first? Either way, the look was gone.

  After taking some of the dried fish to eat for the next few days, the group went out on deck. Colette called down from the wheel. “You heading to the island, captain?”

  “Aye,” he said. “Once we’re gone, I want you to take the ship about a day away and stay there. Avoid any other ships and come back at sundown on Sunsday. If you don’t see us after an hour, sail back to Nynymmost and wait for there for us.”

  “For how long, captain?” the first mate asked.

  Jace let out a breath. “If we don’t find you in Nynymmost after a week, we won’t be finding you.”

  Colette was quiet for a long moment before she gave him a curt nod. “Aye, captain. We’ll wait the full week for you.”

  He returned the nod and then motioned his group into the boat. Colette followed him over to the side of the ship, watching them climb aboard the boat. Just before they started to lower the boat, the first mate called out to him. “Be careful captain.”

  He gave her a smile and the crew began to lower the boat into the water. Jace looked over the deck of the Wyvern’s Tail until it was out of sight. It was a good ship and he hoped he’d see it again.

  They were going up against Damian, someone who had nearly unlimited access to the source code of the game. There was no telling what he might be able to do. For all he knew, Damian could have a pouch full of imprisonment scrolls. They were some of the most powerful pieces of magic in the game. It wasn’t much of a stretch to think that Damian might think of them too. He certainly had the funds to buy them.

  If Damian imprisoned them, it would certainly keep them out of commission. Without the resources that Damian had, Mika, Diana and he would be trapped in the spheres indefinitely. His real self and Charlena would be forced to delete their characters and start over if they couldn’t find someone to help them. But at least they wouldn’t be trapped forever.

  His team would need to make sure they struck first. Even if he imprisoned one of them, if they got Damian, they could always come back later and release the person trapped, after they contacted the helpdesk.

  The boat touched down in the water, jarring Jace from his thoughts. He and Mordred disconnected the hooks from the boat and began to row towards the shore. Luna was at the front of the boat, back in her normal size, looking warily at the water.

  Jace and Mordred kept up a fast pace, trying to get them to the shore as soon as possible. They were focused on the shore, concentrating on rowing when the boat hit something. Freezing, Jace and his counterpart stopped rowing.

  Charlena was still vac
ant-eyed, obviously not logged in yet but everyone else was looking around nervously. The group waited for another sound or some sort of attack, but nothing happened. They all exchanged worried glances, hands on weapons, and waited. But still there was nothing.

  Jace motioned to Mika with his head, signaling her to look over the edge of the boat. They were close enough to shore that the water was clear and hopefully she could see something below them. He silently mouthed the word: carefully.

  Mika peered over the side of the boat and moved her head around, looking into the water. Her brow furrowed and she looked at different angles for almost a full minute before pulling her head back. She looked at the two Jace’s. “There’s something there but I don’t know what it is.”

  He and his counterpart exchanged looks. Each of them took a different side and peered over carefully. Jace put his head over the side of the deck and looked into the water. Mika slid in next to him, their bodies touching and pointing with her finger to something just to the side of the boat.

  He could barely make it out, but there was something long and transparent next to the ship, barely touching it. He watched carefully for any signs that the transparent thing was a creature but there was no movement, other than the movement of the water.

  “What is that?” Mordred asked.

  Jace looked but wasn’t sure. “I don’t know, but it’s transparent or translucent. Hard to tell in rippling water.”

  “It’s glass,” Diana said, also peering over the edge. She pointed a few feet away to their left. “There’s another one.”

  “Glass?” Mika looked up confused.

  “Sand makes glass when it gets hot enough,” Diana said, sitting up. “Probably magma pips underneath us have caused glass pillars by slowly heating up the sand to a point where it forms glass. Over the years, it’s formed these pillars.”

  Both Jaces exchanged looks and then shrugged. It seemed as plausible an explanation as any.

  “So, they are all over the island?” Mika asked as her dark eyes searched the area.

  “Probably,” Diana nodded.

  “So, it’s not cursed.” Jace smirked. “The shipwrecks are probably being caused by ships running into these glass pillars. Like the…”

  “Titanic,” Mordred finished, and they grinned at each other.

  “That makes sense,” Diana agreed.

  “Mika?” Jace asked her, “Can you go to the front and keep an eye out for the pillars and let us know where they are so we can navigate around them?”

  “Aye captain,” she saluted and climbed across his lap to the front with Luna. Gently, she lifted the cat, who briefly objected and handed her to Diana, who gave her scratches.

  With Mika’s help, the Jaces were able to navigate around the pillars and make it to shore. Pulling the boat onto the shore, the group scanned the island for any signs of Damian. There was no sign of him, so they dragged the boat onto store and hid it in a crevice.

  Now, it was time to explore the island and find the best place to ambush Damian.

  Chapter 50

  By the time Charlena had logged in an hour later, they had already explored the small island. It really was small and most of it was featureless, having been created by the lava flows from the volcano. They did find two large lava tubes that lead into the volcano.

  The first tube, a long tunnel that led down into the heart of the volcano, grew increasingly warmer the further down it went. When it finally opened up into a large cavern far below sea level, the edge of the tube dropped into a pool of molten lava about twenty feet down.

  “Unless we’re going to lure him in here and push him into the lava,” Diana said, wiping sweat out of her eyes with a handkerchief and then covering her nose and mouth with it. “I don’t think this is what we’re looking for.”

  The heat from the lava was suffocating and each of them were covered in sweat. The heat, as well as gases released from the lava, made it difficult to breath, though none of them had taken any damage. It also reeked of rotten eggs, which Jace guessed was sulfur gas.

  “I agree with her,” Mordred said, wiping his own face. “I don’t see any strategic advantage here.”

  Suddenly Charlena blinked and looked around. She immediately wrinkled her nose. “Geez, where the hell are we? And what is that smell?”

  Diana chuckled. “Hell is a good word for it. We’re at the bottom of an active volcano.”

  “Probably sulfur gas of some sort,” Mordred said and walked over to her. He took her hand. “Glad to see you’re back.”

  “I got a little worried,” she said, looking up at him. “I came back, and you weren’t in the apartment.”

  Mordred gave her a sheepish grin. “Sorry, I should have left a note. I wanted to log in early in case Damian was waiting for them.”

  “Not that I don’t like reunions,” Diana blurted out. “But can we take this conversation somewhere else. I think I just went from medium-rare to medium-well.”

  Mika, who was in the back, didn’t need any more prompting. Turning, she began to walk back out the tunnel. Luna, who had followed them in, saw that the group was turning around and bounded past them and disappeared up the tunnel.

  “I guess Luna did not like it down here either,” Mika said as the cat disappeared up the tunnel.

  “Probably the smell,” Jace grinned, remembering how sensitive Luna’s nose was.

  The group left the lava tube and investigated the second tube. This one did not slope down but stayed around ground level. Several times, it widened into a larger chamber, before narrowing back down into a tunnel.

  After only a few minutes of walking, the lava tube ended in a large ledge inside the main open area of the volcano. The ledge was at least fifty feet wide and twenty feet long. There were also large pieces of rock that must have broken off the inner wall of the volcano and fallen onto the ledge. While the ledge was warm and stank of sulfur, it was bearable.

  “Not bad,” Jace and Mordred said at same time. They looked at each other and exchanged grins. Jace got a kick out of seeing how often the two of them thought of the same thing at the same time. Once again, he wondered if this was what having a twin brother would be like.

  Thoughts of a twin brother reminded him of what the real Jace had told him. His real life counterpart had planted some evidence that he “existed” in the real world. During the journey to the island over the past week, the other Jace had planted even more.

  But would it be enough? There would be no official records anywhere. No birth certificate. No orphanage records. No death certificate. Would the fake profiles and little things the real Jace was doing really make a difference? Or would WorldCog see through it and delete him?

  It was something that had been weighing heavily on his mind since his counterpart had told Jace what he was doing. He had all but accepted that he was going to die, that WorldCog would delete him from the system. In a way, he had come to terms with it.

  Now, he was daring to hope that maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe, just maybe, they wouldn’t purge him from the system and he’d get to keep living. And while he had a better chance to live now, the uncertainty was eating away at him. He sighed and turned his attention back to the group.

  “Assuming he comes down this tunnel,” Mordred said, pointing back to the way they’d come. “I could hide over there.”

  Mordred was pointing to a large group of rocks just to the left of the entrance. The rocks were large enough that it did make a good hiding spot. Except that Damian was high enough level and rich enough that he would likely have an item to detect invisible and hidden creatures. He shook his head. “Damian will have something to allow him to detect you.”

  Shaking his head and grinning, Mordred pulled out an amulet from underneath his jerkin. “I might have spent some money on a little something extra.”

  “Is that an amulet of obscured location?” Jace asked with his own grin. An amulet of obscured location was a high level item that was sought after by those Stealth
classes who engaged in PvP, player versus player combat. They prevented detection by any means except mundane eyesight and hearing. That meant magical scrying and detection would not reveal

  Mordred nodded. “Even if Damian has scrying glasses or some other detection spell or magic, he won’t be able to detect me.”

  “Good job.” Charlena smiled and elbowed him playfully. Mordred smiled down at her and Jace knew his real self was smitten with her. Not that he blamed him, she was a cool girl. He smirked inwardly, she just apparently preferred live men.

  “How will we get Damian to come down here?” Mika asked, looking around.

  “Luna can lead him down,” Jace told them and all eyes turned to his familiar.

  The big cat paused and looked up from where she had been circling, apparently about to lay down. Luna looked at the faces staring at her. Purposefully, she ignored them, circled two more times and then plopped down.

  “I think she was saying how thrilled she’ll be to play a part,” Diana said dryly. The group chuckled but the mood quickly became somber again.

  “When Damian comes down,” Jace continued and walked to a spot fifteen feet from where the tunnel opened into the chamber. “Mika, Diana and I will be over here.”

  “Isn’t that a bit close to the edge?” Diana asked with concern.

  “Damian is a level 90 warlock,” Jace told them. “It won’t matter where we are in the room. If he wants to, he’ll be able to instantly kill us.”

  Jace glanced over at his ledge only five feet away. Even from where he stood, he could feel the stream of hot air as it rose past them and out the top of the volcano. “Falling into the lava might be preferable to anything he has planned for us.”

  Diana crossed her arms over her chest and pouted but didn’t say anything else. Jace realized she was scared and let her sulk in silence.

  Mordred walked over to the spot where he would be hiding and ducked down. He moved his head back and forth, looking at the area in front of the tunnel. “Charlena, can you walk back up the tunnel and then come into the room. Jace, stay where you are so I have a point of reference.”