Total Immersion: Dark World: A LitRPG Adventure

  TOTAL IMMERSION

  Dark World

  S.J Larsson

  Copyright 2017 by Severed Press

  WELCOME TO MY OBSESSION.

  I never get sick of the intro cutscene to Elora Online. Headband on, and then fifteen seconds of the most wicked graphics and exciting immersion in the greatest epic of battles, with Ananta causing complete mayhem. And damn if he doesn’t look cool as hell.

  Ananta is controlled by a Nuudle Mystic who summons him. He comes out of the little Nuudle’s heart as a swirling blue mist, and then quickly gains form, floating in the air before him.

  Ananta is massive. He fills the screen in defined, scaly detail.

  He’s blue, with nine snake heads that make up most of his body, which is that of a long, forked-tailed serpent. The eyes on the heads have glowing lightning bolts shooting out of them in sparks of silver. Their mouths are enormous, sharp-toothed, and open with hunger only flesh can appease. Surrounding Ananta is an aqua fog with black, wispy shadows dancing within. At his outer glow, water droplets spray in a mist.

  An army of all races and classes stands before the Mystic and Ananta. One green, especially gnarly Mylop lizard can’t stand it, the waiting. He raises his axe, roars, and makes a mad run at Ananta.

  That’s my PoV, point-of-view, in the cutscene.

  Ananta’s belly opens a hole and a golden-skinned man’s face emerges. He has glowing, white eyes. That’s why we all know Ananta is a he. The Mystic chants words, commanding the beast. Ananta’s mouth opens as all the snake heads turn toward our army of Elora, with gaping mouths brewing fireballs, and flames spew out. They are red, black, yellow, orange, blue, green.

  I’m the first to get fried. Then, I’m floating above, and I see the army is wiped out, and Elora is slowing burning, city by city, territory by territory.

  And now I’m logged in, in game.

  I access my item menu and use my Comfort Ring. I’d been so tired last night that I logged out outside Baneswood in the middle of nowhere. I warp back to my home point in Cashmere, where I’m meeting the guys. And Sally, of course. She gets mad when I call her a guy, but she is.

  Today is a big day. Today I get my revenge, and I’m confident. I’m ready. I’ve been working relentlessly toward this day for eleven months since The Seeker jumped me. I haven’t told anyone, but today… I can’t wait to get to Lucille’s Brewery and tell them what I’m about to do.

  They’ll think I’m mad. I’m not. Maybe I’m a hero, and not the kind above some revenge. The hero who, yes, does it for revenge, but also because so many people would be free. All over Elora. Heroes are complicated.

  No, I’m not one. I know deep down. What I am is a gamer who has taken on the biggest challenge in-game I could find because I can’t resist. I made my own mission—I will defeat him where everyone else has failed.

  CHAPTER 1: THE TELL

  I spawn at the Kila Crystal, where I usually keep my home point, in Cashmere on Wet Eyes Isle. It’s in the Marana Sea just outside the underwater Siren Territory. My mansion is on the east coast of the isle. Kila Crystals are for getting around faster, and you have to earn accessing them by finding them. Nobody ever knows if they’ve found all of them. They’re also the only places you can set your HP before you get your first home. Otherwise, you go to your graveyard.

  Cashmere’s where everybody goes to hang out. Maybe because the auction house synchs up to all the capitals’ auction houses, or maybe it’s the taverns with the best stat boost brews you can get. It’s beautiful, right on the water, peaceful, bustling. Everything is gray, moss-covered stone and quaint structures.

  I’m a Dragonbane Maniac. Maniacs are hand-to-hand fighters. I gave myself red spikes down my back, three black spikes on my tail, and curling, big, black horns. White hair, dusky smoke skin. Dragonbane were created eons ago when the mad, power-hungry Bane bred humans and dragons into Dragonbane. It’s a long story, the history of Bane, his brother Kane, and Dragonbane altogether. Once, there were humans and dragons, but now only Dragonbane.

  Maybe it’s because it’s this day, but I’m reflecting a lot on my character. How I feel like he’s the real me. In Elora Online, you must choose a first and last name, no special characters or numbers. I’m Sid Vicious. That’s the real me.

  Sometimes you see someone running around with just one name. Must be some secret quest, some item, some reward. No info on the wikis. My guildmates and I have speculated on it for ages, among other oddities of this world.

  I’m anxious about telling the guys what I’m going to do—take on The Seeker and destroy him. I know I can, but will I choke and come back defeated, with all my loot gone, starting over? It would be mortifying to tell them after I boast my plans. Better keep it subdued. Like it’s not the big, huge deal that it is.

  I walk the gray cobblestone streets of Cashmere, watching the other players I pass on my way to Lucille’s Brewery. The five races are everywhere—Sirens, the lovely ladies of the sea; Nuudles, the little people who are best at black magic; Mylop, the lizard men giants made for tanking; White Elves, best known for their healing and huge, beautiful territory; and Dragonbane, the best damage dealers in the game, in my opinion. You can pick what race and class you want, and each race has race-specific stat boosts when you start, but you get even more of a stat boost of the race-specific kind if you pick a race and class that are made for each other.

  And stat boosts are everything.

  I’m a level nothing. There are no levels in Elora Online. Everything is item and stat-based. My stats are through the roof, especially my strength, or STR. It’s up to 346 now. When The Seeker got me eleven months ago, it was at 278. Every single digit of a stat boost counts. As a Maniac, STR is my most important stat to do the most damage. My two other big stats I work on to get stronger as a Maniac specifically are attack, or ATT as my secondary stat, and CRG, courage, as my third.

  There are seven different stats for your character, and even if you don’t have much use for stats like mind (MND) as a Maniac, you still work on all seven as you go. The more stats, the more power, the harder you hit, the more damage you can take, the more good loot you can get, especially when you get high enough to start running dungeons. Plus, Attack (ATT) and Defense (DEF) are must-haves we all grind. We get Attack, Defense, Strength (STR), Mind, Intelligence (INT), Concentration (CON), and Courage (CRG). In eleven months, I’ve gotten them all higher than they were before The Seeker got me. Yeah, I’m a determined man when it comes to righting wrongs done to me. Revenge, indeed. I want it so bad, I have lived for it for almost an entire year.

  I enter the brewery. It has wooden tables and chairs, light wood floors, and a long bar with beautiful Siren NPC, non-player character, bartenders. Behind the bar, a large open window looks out at the water. I see my crew sitting at our usual booth, and they wave and call out to me.

  “Sid! He’s here! What, you sleep late?” says Peter Johnson, my RL, real life, friend, Jacob, who started playing the day I did. We’ve been friends since we were kids. He’s a green Mylop Lancer. But really, he’s a social player and crafts all the time. He’s rich as hell from it, too. Tells me everything about crafting. I’ve tried to explain I like farming for cash, but he still geeks out on crafting so much that he can’t help but talk to me about it like we are still eight.

  “Be there in a minute, gotta get a drink.”

  A green-haired Siren NPC behind the bar serves me a huge mug of Blue Ice Ale. It costs a pretty penny. I need it today.

  I sit with my friends and guildmates at our booth, between Good Deeds (Sally) and Koolio Koolaide. I see Koolio has the same brew I have but not as big.
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br />   I can’t wait to tell them, but they are in the middle of talking about Koolio’s quest for a new special Lord move that was in the update last week. He’s a Siren Lord, a tank who uses healing to do his job, and as all Sirens are female, you know we tease him relentlessly. He always has something witty to say or downright puts you in your place in response. He leads the guild—Nowhere Squares, it’s called.

  I start chugging my drink. I can feel my body’s heart pounding in RL. I don’t want to interrupt, but at the same time I want to stand on the table and scream it. I chug instead until Sally notices my drink.

  “What are you doing a courage stat boost for? And that huge?”

  The drink is a CRG stat booster that lasts four hours, and the stat slowly goes down to your usual stat by the end. My base CRG stat is 271, but once the whole drink is in me, it’ll be at 325.

  “I was wondering that about Koolio, but I’ve gathered it’s the Chain Heal quest. You have to fight a dragon from the past?”

  “Yeah, man,” Koolio says. “Need the CRG boost so I can have faster moves.”

  “Good luck.”

  “I ain’t gonna need it.” He sticks his forked Siren tongue out at me.

  “But why you, Sid?” Sally persists. I know Sally in RL, too. She’s a few years younger, a friend of my sister’s. “I know your digital expressions. Your eyes are burning redder with every sip of the brew, and you’re all twitchy. Spill.” She’s a Dragonbane Knight, a real hack-and-slasher. Silver scales and white spikes with red hair. Black, twisting horns.

  Nottingham Rose, a UK player and a Nuudle The Black, says, “I see it, too. And how much did you spend on that monstrosity of a drink?” The Blacks are the nukers of the game. Black mage, basically, and big damage. He’s slow, but excellent in dungeons. Thorough. Nuudles are small, skinny things, a little like gnomes, but they are proportionate. Nottingham has blue skin, long, black hair in a ponytail, and a red glowing spiral on his forehead. His race is well-known for Nuudle Eyes. Big, round, and oh-so-expressive.

  The other Nuudle in our group, Raging Rampager, a Stylist class—the buffers basically—who’s always dressed in fabulousness, speaks up. “You’ve been grinding hard since… you know. Your STR stat must be through the roof now with all the quests and missions you’ve done. What is it now?”

  “346.” I chug down the last of the blue ale. My red dragon eyes must be like fire.

  “Damn, son,” says Peter. “You’re drinking all that, you’re fidgeting, Deeds’s sixth sense is kicking in. What’s the game plan for today?”

  They all stare at me. Now’s the time. I pause. I could just not tell them. What if I lose? I’ll be so crushed to tell them I’m doing it and then come back a loser.

  However, a little gusto from my friends will help just as much as the blue ale.

  In a quiet voice, I say, “I’m going after The Seeker today.”

  Dead silence. And then everyone talking at once. Lots of questions.

  The Seeker is a Dragonbane Killer, basically a ninja. Got the Dragonbane stat boost like I did for picking a race and class that naturally go together. He’s often invisible. He’s black, has black spikes all over, and sports six twisting horns on his black-haired head.

  They want to know how I can find him.

  “I’ve been watching him. He has patterns. I’ve followed message boards of his attacks on other players, and there’s a pattern. He picks certain places at certain times. I’m almost positive I know where he’ll be in about a half hour. Plus…” I give them a cocky grin. “I got me a Seer Amulet last week.”

  “Seer Amulet! Where did you get that? Was it a hidden quest?” yells Peter. Players inside peek over at him with curious expressions.

  A Seer Amulet, when worn in the necklace slot of my gear, lets me see invisible things, like an invisible Killer who will be outside the Mantle of Bliss in White Elf Territory ready to pick off mage fishers for their stat boosting items so he can sell them on the AH. All the while killing their progress from possibly years of playing, like he did me. Like he’s done to many, many good players.

  I hear Sally in the guild chat channel. “He’s doing it, guys! Sid is going after The Seeker!” I don‘t get a chance to tell of the treasure map I bought and found it with, all after reading a Nuudle history book in a library in the Temple of Nuudlel. But meh. We’ve all done that.

  “Dammit, Sally, don’t tell everyone. It’ll get back to him,” chides Peter.

  It’s too late. Nowhere Squares’ chat channel explodes with excitement, all the while Koolio and Peter telling them to keep it to themselves. On the down-low.

  “When, Sid?” I hear my favorite voice in the guild say. Silvia Diamond, a blonde, pale White Elf Blessed class. Best pure healers in the game. I’ve had a crush on her for two years, but never had the balls to do anything about it other than join all her dungeon runs and help her with missions and quests. It’s made us good friends, but she’s not at our booth every morning, is she?

  “I just had my CRG boost drink, and if timing’s right, I need to hit the Kila Crystal and head to White Elf Territory’s Kila Crystal in the Mantle of Bliss. I’ll get him there. He should be lurking outside in the territory somewhere close,” I tell her.

  “Wow! That’s amazing! I’m in the Mantle now. Want me to tele you here? I’ll give you something for good luck,” Silvia says.

  Nottingham raises a blue eyebrow.

  “Sure, thanks. That would be great.”

  “Give me a minute to run out of the Mantle. That is, you said you wanted to be out there, and it’ll be quicker that way. I can use Swift Feet and I’ll tele you in five. That stat drink will wear off.”

  “Well, thanks,” I say. In RL, my cheeks are warm.

  My friends at the table can’t stop talking to the guild about it, so I turn off guild chat. It’s making me nervous.

  I reach up in RL with my right hand and adjust my headband’s viewing to 50 percent. Now I see my apartment and the game equal 50-50. I set my character on auto-static movements. Better empty my bladder before all this gets going. I get up from my gaming recliner and walk to the bathroom, turning off my mic as I take a leak. Then back to my seat. I adjust the headset back to 100 percent and turn my mic back on.

  I wonder what gift Silvia might have for me. Now my heart is really hammering.

  Silvia invites me to a party. I accept. “Thanks, guys. It’s time. Silvia invited me, and she’s going to tele me.”

  Sally tilts her Dragonbane head. “You got this, you know it. If anyone can, you can.”

  “Yeah,” says Koolio Koolaide. “You’re the best in the guild. I never said that.”

  I grin at them. I haven’t turned guild chat back on, but I hear Silvia in party chat channel. “Hey, Sid. Are you ready?”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  Everything goes white, and then beautiful White Elf Territory surrounds me. Rolling, green hills, bushes, flowers everywhere. Small trees with buds and blooms that never die brush the landscape.

  Even more beautiful is the image of Silvia Diamond standing before me, still sparkling from using her white magic to get me here. She smiles at me. I smile back.

  “You look nervous. Is that why you got off the guild channel?”

  “Yeah.” I don’t want to look nervous in front of her. I want to be a badass that she swoons over.

  “Well, I know you have to get to it. Here. A gift.” Her long, slender arms wave in the air and pale blue, sparkling light comes out of her hands. She’s using a big move, with me as the target.

  Silvia Diamond casts Blessing of Inner Peace. Sid will dodge all Special Ability attacks in next battle.

  “That’s incredible! Thank you so much, Silv.” Blessing of Inner Peace, a Blessed’s biggest move acquired through a near-impossible quest (I helped her with it), will allow me to dodge all Special Ability attacks in the next fight I have. She won’t be able to cast it again for another day. I’m surprised she had been able to cast it at all. “I mean
it.”

  “One more good luck charm,” she says, then takes a step toward me. She leans up and kisses me on the cheek. I’d never wanted physical sensation in Elora more than that moment. She leans back down. “Copy the gameplay log, win or lose. I want to read it, and I want you to tell me all about it. Maybe we could go down to Siren Territory and hang out in a sunken ship or something?”

  “I’d like that,” I tell her.

  “Now go. I know you’ll defeat him.”

  I grin at her. She likes me, acting like it’s more than friends. Hell, I don’t know. Wow, this day gets crazier and crazier.

  We say goodbye, and I’m off to lurk behind trees and bushes in Laninga, an area south of the Mantle of Bliss where, according to my research, I will find The Seeker. Thanks to Silvia’s tele, it only takes about three minutes to walk there. I don’t dare use my Chimera mount. He’d see me a mile away. Once in Laninga, I use a shadow potion and equip my Seer Amulet. The shadow potion will make me invisible, but if The Seeker also has a Seer Amulet, which he must certainly have stolen off someone, he could see me if he has it equipped. I’m gambling he’s in true Killer mode, ready to cut people down fast, and for that he’d have a Stealth Choker equipped. I won’t be able to examine his gear. He’d know I was there because he’d get a message saying he was being examined. If he is wearing the Stealth Choker, his Sneak Attack move will do devastating damage when he hits his unknowing victim while invisible at first attack.

  Still, I stick to the trees.

  I see a few players running here and there. None would be his targets. Too low of stats. They wouldn’t have anything good. I can tell simply by looking at what they are wearing.

  At sea’s edge, on the farthest east side of White Elf Territory in Laninga, I see a shadowy figure crouched down by a Nuudle fishing off the edge. As I get closer, I read that the Nuudle’s name is Fangs McGore, and his gear tells me he’s a Magician. Wealthy, high stats. I can’t imagine the jewelry he has on, but I know that’s what The Seeker is after. He’ll make a killing on the auction house.