Glory to the Brave (Ascend Online Book 4)

by Luke Chmilenko

  And a hell of a lot more damage and stats too if I remember right, I said mentally, rubbing my face as I stood under a hot stream of water in the bathroom’s shower, my brain still struggling to boot up and become capable of rational thought. Unless…I dreamed the whole thing? Did I actually do that last night, or—

  “Sir, pardon my interruption, but I wanted to let you know that your breakfast will be arriving shortly,” Sterling’s soft voice suddenly echoed through the bathroom. “And your coffee is ready.”

  “Already?” I replied tiredly, glancing towards a digital clock conveniently placed in the shower and realizing that my slow daydreaming had cost me nearly twenty minutes of my morning. “Oh, damn. Be right out.”

  “Of course, sir,” the AI replied as I turned the shower off and reached for a towel, muttering softly as I did so.

  “Come on, wakey, wakey, Marc,” I said in a whisper as I began to dry myself. “You need to be sharp this morning and not lost in your head. You’re only going to get one shot to politely convince a group of strangers to abandon their current homes, march who knows how many miles through a growing guild war, and then pick a fight with a giant horde of marauding orcs. And to do it fast, because if they show up too late, the orcs will simply steamroll them too.”

  Sighing loudly into the empty apartment, I finished drying myself off and got dressed, continuing my grumbling all the way into our kitchenette, where I was greeted by a full carafe of steaming coffee, courtesy of Sterling’s digital efforts.

  I know they’re going to want to know everything they possibly can about the orcs when I talk to them, but at the same time, we know next to nothing ourselves, I thought with a grimace as I poured myself a large cup of coffee, adding my usual amount of sugar and cream. The only thing that we know for certain is that they’re enslaving the local NPCs somewhere farther north of us and into the swamp. Not to mention our settlers too. We have no idea of their numbers, their goals, or even where their city is—at least not beyond ‘somewhere in the Hartwyld’. Our only option might be—

  I was saved from my spiraling thoughts by a soft chime coming from the door, followed by Sterling’s voice once more echoing above me.

  “Sir, breakfast is here,” he announced. “Shall I let it in?”

  “Yes, please,” I replied, grabbing my cup of coffee as I stepped out into the main room, seeing the door open and a waist-high serving robot soundlessly glide into the room. Essentially a motorized white rectangle standing on its end, the droid came to a stop and a compartment on its side opened, sending out an enticing aroma of food wafting into the air.

  “Greetings, Marcus. Your order has arrived. Please remove your tray,” the robot intoned in a soft, genderless voice.

  Setting my coffee down on a nearby table, I retrieved my breakfast from the open compartment, instantly happy to see a large plate filled with a small mountain of eggs, bacon, hash browns, and toast. Its task then complete, the serving droid’s compartment closed, and it silently wheeled itself out of the room without another word, the door sliding shut behind it. With the tray in hand, I took a seat at the table and eagerly began to dig into my meal.

  Now that food’s settled, let’s change things up and see what’s going on in our offline chats, I thought as I ate, turning on my tablet with my free hand and bringing up the messaging program that we used. Hopefully, nothing has caught on fire since last night and the others are having a good night keeping the orcs back. If they are, then I can at least use that to help sell the guilds in coming up to join us.

  Bringing up one of our group chats, I busied myself catching up with the news, starting with the few reports from yesterday and continuing onwards into today.

  Looks like they managed to keep all of the orcs at bay near Shadow’s Fall yesterday, I noted as I mentally summarized all of the messages which outlined the status of our war so far.

  After being forced to give ground all weekend, Freya and all of the other adventurers had managed to momentarily stall the orc advance on the northern edge of the lake where Shadow’s Fall once stood. From what I gathered in the messages, she had managed to trick a portion of the orc forces into pursuing her eastwards around the lake and across a series of rivers that drained out from it. Then as the orcs were forced to ford each river, she made sure to harry them as best as she could, forcing them to make the crossing while under fire before abruptly retreating. Repeating the process across each river, she managed to stretch the orcs out across several miles before finally committing to an assault. The end result had the orcs on a sudden retreat with several rivers at their back that they were forced to scramble over, resulting in a great deal of casualties on their end—and more importantly, stalling their advance for the rest of the day and night.

  Though even with that delay, everyone still thinks that the orcs will be at our doorstep sometime Tuesday, I noted as I finished reading. It’s a matter of time until they flank the lake from the west and make it onto the plains. Once they’ve made it that far, the terrain will be too open and wide for us to do anything other than harass them and pull back towards Valor’s Point.

  Trusting that Freya and the others had everything in hand with dealing with the orcs, I typed out a short note of encouragement for all of them, along with a brief update on how preparations on our side were proceeding. Once I finished with my message, I tabbed out to the next chat in my list seeing that it had a new response waiting for me. As I did so, I felt my heart begin to race with excitement as I realized that the channel belonged to the one we’d set up with Lazarus and the others before their departure. When I had last checked it before going to sleep earlier in the morning, there hadn’t been any update at all, prompting me to drop a short message in the channel to check in with the group.

  It seemed to have done its job, because a few seconds later, I found myself coughing violently, having accidentally inhaled a lungful of eggs and bacon after making it halfway through the single message waiting for me.

  “Ah! Urk…damn it! Ugh!” I managed to wheeze amid my coughing as I desperately tried to clear the food that had gone down the wrong way. “Rah!”

  Sucking a deep breath as I soon as I was able to again, I looked back down at the message that had nearly killed me, rereading it carefully once more.

  Gavin: Sorry for the late update, Marc, it’s been a complete shitshow on our end the last day or so. Finally made it to Coldscar late yesterday, and this place is already screwed. Players are at one another’s throats, and the NPCs aren’t taking any shit. Someone apparently tried to sabotage both the defenses and supplies here the day before we arrived. For what reason, I have no idea.

  Then, if that wasn’t enough already, last night someone tried to assassinate Marshal Tarius. If it wasn’t for us, they probably would have managed it too. Too early to say who’s behind it, but so far it looks like the Church of Nil might be involved along with some of the nobles back in Eberia. Possibly players too. Not sure. Crashing to sleep now, then diving back in. Will update as we know more, but it might be a few days until we can get a handle on this. Hope things aren’t as nearly as exciting back over there.

  “Damn,” I whispered as I finished reading the message again, this time noting the timestamp, which showed that it had been posted shortly after five this morning. I guess it’s a damn good thing that we sent Gavin and the others back after all! From how highly Aldwin speaks of the marshal, losing him would have been something that Eberia couldn’t have afforded, not that the other parts of Gavin’s news is really any better.

  Exhaling with resignation, I rubbed my face in defeat before looking down and starting to clean up the mess that I’d made of my breakfast. As bad as the news was, there was little realistically that I’d be able to do to affect it, at least beyond what we’d already done and set in motion. Our exposé on Graves, or the man that we thought was Graves, was currently being crafted by Paul and would be ready soon enough. Plus, with the others now on the scene so to speak, we at least had th
e ability to affect events and hopefully steer them in the direction that we needed to.

  I just had to trust them to do their best and not micromanage.

  “That and because you have your own problems to worry about, Marc,” I muttered to myself as I finished off the remains of my breakfast, remembering a time when my life seemed so much simpler—and a great deal less surreal.

  I mean, seriously, who’s ever really had to deal with their very own horde of orcs and mysterious corruption before? I added mentally, picking up my tray and taking it back to the kitchen before heading over towards one of the computers with a new cup of coffee in hand. Glancing at the time as I sat down, I saw that I had just enough time before the meeting to type out a few replies in our various other chats as well as prepare a few notes for the meeting.

  “All right, Marc, fingers crossed,” I whispered what felt like an instant later as I pulled a headset over my head and began the meeting on the conference program I was using. “No stress. You got this.”

  With nothing to do until the others joined, I turned my attention inward as I drank the rest of my coffee, mentally clearing my head for the meeting to come. When we’d first sent out our inquiries to the Lionheart and Legion guilds, we’d made sure to be completely upfront about our agenda to make sure that the interest to move to Aldford was there in the first place.

  After all, there was no reason to waste our time trying to convince them to move if they already had no intention of doing so. But in addition to the inquiry itself, however, we’d also made sure to include highlights of what we’d be able to offer the two guilds if they chose to come and help us, hoping that it would be sweet enough to entice them. All that remained at this point was to finally meet them face to face and to formally extend the offer and answer any questions that they might have.

  Plus update them on our current situation now too, I reminded myself, hoping that our latest developments with the orcs didn’t scare the two guilds off.

  My thoughts were abruptly ended by twin chimes echoing out back to back as a pair of users joined the meeting, my screen splitting itself in half and revealing two faces on the left side, and a single one on the right. Focusing first on the left half of the screen, I saw a man and a woman in their mid-twenties staring back at me, their near-identical black hair and green eyes causing me to peg them as siblings. Shifting to the other screen, I saw a man around my age with close-cut blond hair and blue eyes gazing back towards me expectantly. All three of them were exceptionally lean from what I could see out of my small screen, a sure sign that they’d spent enough time in Ascend Online for the VR diet to affect their physical bodies.

  “Good morning, everyone,” I said as I flashed a warm smile to the group, my quick appraisal of everyone having only lasted a second. “Thanks so much for coming.”

  “And miss a chance to meet Lyrian, the mysterious man behind the legendary guild that is Virtus?” the man on my right asked, matching my smile as he spoke. “I think not.”

  “We’ll second that,” the dark-haired woman from the other screen agreed, her face narrowing in confusion. “On that note though, are we going by game names here or our normal ones?”

  “Normal names are fine with me,” I answered with a slightly embarrassed shrug, not quite used to the fame my reputation was starting to garner in certain circles. “I’m Marcus.”

  “You’re a Marcus, eh?” the woman replied with a grin as she tested the name. “I’m Elissa, and if you can’t tell, this quiet lump over here is my brother, Elliott.”

  “I’m only quiet because you’ve said more words than everyone else combined so far, sis,” the dark-haired man beside Elissa said, his voice sounding faintly exasperated. “But anyway, good morning, everyone.”

  “And I’m Jay,” the blond-haired man said, his hand appearing briefly as he waved at the screen. “Happy to meet you all.”

  “Likewise,” I said, feeling some of my initial nervousness for the meeting fade now that the ice had been broken. “Now before we get things rolling, I’m not sure if you’ve had a chance to cross paths with one another in-game. But so we’re all on the same page here and know who’s who, Elissa and Elliott co-lead the Lionheart guild, whereas Jay is the guild leader of Legion.”

  “I’ve heard of the name, but I don’t think we’ve ever met,” Elissa said, offering her own wave to the screen.

  “We have now,” Jay replied with a polite smile, offering a nod to the two siblings in greeting.

  “Great,” I said, relieved to be through the introduction process. “Now I’m sure you’re all wondering about the invitations that brought you here, and well, to put it bluntly, it’s because we need help. Specifically, help that we can trust, and after researching all of the guilds in Coldscar, it was your two that stood out the best for us.”

  “Well, I have to admit that’s pretty flattering to hear,” Jay replied. “But I’m curious, what do you exactly mean by help? Your original email that you sent asked if my guild would be open to making a move from Coldscar and settling in Aldford. Is that something that has changed now and why you asked us to move up the meeting?”

  “At its heart, no,” I stated, shaking my head as I spoke. “But unfortunately, the situation in Aldford itself has evolved since we sent that invite, and we’re looking at new challenges. Some of them with the potential to be rather serious. If you are still interested, I think it’s only fair that you know where things stand now.”

  “Well, that damn sure sounds ominous,” Elliott said, his head moving in my screen as he readjusted his seat, settling into a more attentive position. “What’s going on exactly?”

  “Actually, let me answer that with a question first so I know where to start,” I said. “How closely, if at all, have you three been watching our feeds?”

  “Close enough to know that you’re having a throwdown with Carver and his ‘Dread Crew’,” Jay answered without a moment’s hesitation, clearly having done his homework on us beforehand. “Or well, at least you were last week.”

  “We’re caught up about the same as well,” Elissa stated, a curious expression visible on both hers and her brother’s face.

  “Okay, good, that means I don’t need to go over too much background,” I replied, pausing for a second to collect my thoughts before continuing. “If you watch our feed over the next little while, you’re going to see our war with them hit a stalemate, followed by Carver and his inner circle vanishing. A few days after that, you’re then going to see the entire Dread Crew also vanish after we thoroughly kick their asses and take a few prisoners.”

  “I’m guessing that they didn’t just quit,” Elissa stated, a frown coming over her face.

  “If only,” I replied with a shake of my head. “I don’t suppose you remember those orcs that we saw briefly during Carver’s ambush a few weeks ago?”

  “I do,” the woman answered slowly, her frown turning into a grimace as she realized the implication. “Shit, that means you found them then, didn’t you? With Carver.”

  “Eventually,” I replied with a nod. “It took us a few days to regroup after they vanished, as well as to interrogate the prisoners. Along the way, we made a few disturbing discoveries…”

  Over the next few minutes, I proceeded to lay all my cards on the table as I told the trio everything that we’d experienced over the last week, starting with our initial discovery of what had really happened to our missing settlers and continuing straight through our encounter with the corrupted guardians. I tried my best to leave little out as I spoke. I knew that if I was to have any chance of convincing them to join us, honesty was my best path to take. After all, our original goal for reaching out to players in Coldscar had been to find ones that would make good long-term partners. Lying about or downplaying our challenges would only serve to hurt that relationship.

  “And that’s where we are today,” I stated, coming to the end of my explanation. “It’s still too early to say what Carver’s or the orcs’ goals are in a
ny of this or what exactly this corruption is—and if it’s even relevant to anything—but I’m pretty confident that unless we get some help dealing with all of this, there’s a good chance that things are going to go bad. Really bad.”

  “Damn,” Jay whispered, shaking his head as he absorbed my story. “You guys really don’t do things by half measure at all, do you?”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Elissa said, prompting her brother to also grunt in agreement.

  “We do our best,” I said grimly as I glanced between both halves of the screens and the faces within, seeing their trepidation. “But with all of that being said, I’m not going to lie and say that there isn’t opportunity here either. Given some of the threads we’ve seen with the orcs, there’s a good chance we have a brand-new story arc here in the making, if not the beginnings of another world event. There’s no telling what the feed value for that even comes close to being, nor the more tangible things from a game character perspective either.”

  “Loot and experience are certainly their own motivators,” Elliot stated, prompting a round of nods from everyone. “But on that note, you’d let us manage our own feeds? You’re not looking for any control, royalties, or rights?”

  “Nope, at least nothing past basic common sense and operational security,” I replied, having expected the question. “If you do decide to join us, I’m sure there’ll be things that we would obviously like to keep under wraps until they’re no longer relevant, but otherwise, your feed is your own. If you want too, I can also introduce you to the company that manages our feed, and they can help keep everything straight.”