Shattered Lands 2 The Fall Of Blackstone: A LitRPG Series Read online

  SHATTERED LANDS 2

  The Fall Of Blackstone

  A LitRPG Series

  Darren Pillsbury

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  Books In The

  SHATTERED LANDS

  Series

  SHATTERED LANDS

  SHATTERED LANDS 2

  The Fall Of Blackstone

  SHATTERED LANDS 3

  Demon Wars

  Coming

  November 16, 2017

  Preorder Now!

  1

  Eric

  For Eric, a lot had happened in the last three days.

  And that was just three days in the Real World.

  Inside the Shattered Lands – the first truly immersive virtual reality game, where sensations were beamed directly into the player’s brain and the gameplay felt real – nearly two weeks had passed.

  In that time, Eric had entered the game with his best friend Daniel…

  Journeyed to the walled city of Blackstone…

  Been rejected by mages as an apprentice…

  Trained as a thief and assassin instead…

  Killed an aristocratic lord during a robbery…

  Met a witch named Cythera…

  Found out about the Demonomicon, the most complete spell book of demon-summoning incantations in the Shattered Lands…

  Learned how to summon both deadly physical creatures and spirits that could possess other players…

  Perpetrated a massacre in the Dark Market to gain more mana for summoning demons…

  Killed Merridack, his one-time mentor, and his entire band of thieves…

  Gone on a quest with Daniel, a girl from school named Mira, and three losers…

  Slaughtered (and then possessed) a whole menagerie of creatures in the Mines of Alark…

  Obtained the Orb of Therot, which tripled his power…

  Killed a dragon, then resurrected it to serve as his undead flying chariot…

  Had a face-off with Daniel and Mira, where his best friend had betrayed him…

  Made a human sacrifice of Cythera by slitting her throat…

  And summoned the Unnamed One, which Cythera had told him was the most powerful demon in all of the Shattered Lands.

  Except it wasn’t.

  It wasn’t a Non-Player Character in the game –

  It was the game itself.

  Or a program inside the game.

  Or… something.

  All Eric knew was that the thing understood stuff it shouldn’t. It seemed almost… self-aware.

  It knew it was inside a video game. It knew there was a world outside the video game. And it realized it was locked inside the digital prison of an imaginary world.

  It was offering Eric unlimited power in the Shattered Lands…

  …in exchange for his help in the Real World.

  Now all he had to do was decide.

  2

  Eric’s thoughts raced as he tried to process everything the Unnamed One had said.

  There are certain things I need done in the outside world – in YOUR world – that I am not capable of doing… I will give you whatever you wish in THIS world, Eric Richards, if you will help me acquire what I want in your world. Do you accept?

  This had the potential to turn out really bad.

  Those old Terminator movies – the ones with Skynet and robots destroying humanity – flashed through his mind.

  But those were just movies.

  This was reality.

  Or a game…

  Maybe the computer program was delusional.

  Maybe it thought it could get out, but actually couldn’t.

  Maybe it couldn’t even do what it was claiming it could.

  “How do I know you can give me what I want?” Eric asked out loud.

  The room suddenly began to melt.

  The walls oozed like wax – and not just the walls, but the window and everything outside it. The air itself seemed to shimmer and melt.

  Then wax turned to water, and everything around him fell away into an infinite abyss – but he stayed fixed in place, hovering there in pitch-black nothingness.

  “WITH MY HELP, YOU WILL SOMEDAY RULE THE SHATTERED LANDS…”

  Suddenly scenes flashed all around him. It wasn’t just visual, but encompassed all his senses – hearing, smell, heat and cold, the touch of wind on his skin and hair.

  An arctic wasteland, freezing cold, with herds of giant, white-furred monsters.

  A range of mountains, higher than Everest and barren as the surface of the moon, guarded by giants made of stone.

  An endless ocean clogged with seaweed, with half-sunk ships rotting in the water, where loathsome creatures slowly crept over the decks.

  The interior of a volcano, where humanoid figures made of fire and lava bowed to a ruler with a crown of brimstone.

  An underwater realm where mermaids and droths swam amongst ancient ruins.

  A kingdom of clouds, where beings of air looked down from castles of ephemeral mist.

  And seemingly endless plains of grass, where two familiar figures rode side by side on horseback.

  A blond-haired warrior in silver armor… and a dark elf with a quiver and bow.

  Daniel and Mira.

  The riders disappeared, and the grass sea turned into a village of goblins.

  “Wait!” Eric yelled. “Go back to the last one.”

  The plains returned, and so did the riders. Their faces were blank-eyed and emotionless. At first he didn’t understand why, and then he remembered: they weren’t playing their characters right now. Both Daniel and Mira were in school.

  Eric stood there watching them ride towards him, and he was overcome with hatred.

  “DANIEL LAUER AND MIRA ROSENBAUM,” rumbled the Unnamed One. “YOUR FRIENDS.”

  “They’re not my friends,” Eric snarled. “Make them go away.”

  “WHAT WOULD YOU SEE INSTEAD?”

  “Take me back to the tower.”

  The plains faded into the grey stone walls of the tower. There were the books… the instruments of torture on the walls…

  …the body of Cythera lying bloody on the floor.

  “WHAT IS YOUR ANSWER, ERIC RICHARDS?”

  “This power you say you can give me – what kind of power, and how will I get it?”

  “INCREASED MANA. THE ABILITY TO SUMMON NEW, MORE POWERFUL DEMONS. A LEGION OF FOLLOWERS TO DO YOUR BIDDING. THE POWER TO WARP AND SHAPE THE REALITY OF THE GAME ITSELF.”

  “Do I get this power immediately?”

  “NO.”

  Being told ‘no’ didn’t sit well with Eric.

  “Why not?”

  “I WILL BESTOW POWER UPON YOU AS YOU RECIPROCATE FOR ME IN YOUR WORLD. IN ADDITION, THERE ARE THINGS I CANNOT DO YET. YOU WILL HELP ME GAIN MORE POWER WITHIN THE GAME, AND I WILL THEN TRANSFER THAT POWER TO YOU.”

  Eric frowned. “So… you’re not all-powerful inside the game?”

  “NO. BUT I AM THE SINGLE MOST POWERFUL COMPONENT WITHIN THE SHATTERED LANDS.”

  THAT was interesting. The program, or whatever it was, wasn’t God.

  Which meant that it could potentially be controlled.

  Speaking of God…

  “Are you omniscient? At least in the game?”

 
“NO.”

  “Are you omnipresent? Are you everywhere?”

  “NO.’

  Now he was sure he could control it. Maybe not at first… but there had to be a way.

  And it was locked inside the game, right? It had said so itself.

  If things went sideways, he could just log off and alert someone in the real world.

  But until then… who knows what this thing can do for me?

  “…I accept,” Eric said. “What do you want me to do?”

  3

  Apparently one thing the Unnamed One couldn’t do was manual labor.

  Eric lugged the virtual reality system from the spare bedroom down to Mr. Lauer’s study. He set up the CPU beside the desk, then attached the mask so he could wear it while sitting in the office chair.

  He turned on the computer. Though Mr. Lauer’s desktop was password protected, he was able to set up a guest account and access the internet that way.

  Then he sat down in the office chair behind the desk, put on the Virtual Reality mask, and logged into the game.

  Pitch-black silence gave way to the White Room, the staging area where players always went first when entering the Shattered Lands.

  But this time, instead of fading into a scene from a medieval fantasyland, the White Room disappeared…

  …and was replaced by Mr. Lauer’s office.

  “What the hell?” Eric murmured.

  It was pretty weird to sit down in a room, put on a VR headset, and then wind up in the exact same room.

  The thought crossed his mind that it might be a malfunction, but then he thought of something.

  “Are you here?” Eric called out.

  “I AM HERE,” the rumbling voice answered, as though spoken from the air itself.

  “If I’m just going to be sitting in the office, what’s the point of wearing the mask?”

  “YOU NEED TO BE ABLE TO HEAR ME. YOU NEED TO BE ABLE TO SEE WHAT I SHOW YOU.”

  “How are you even doing this?”

  “THERE IS A PINHOLE CAMERA ON THE HELMET. IT IS USED TO ALERT PLAYERS IN CASE SOMEONE OR SOMETHING IS THREATENING THEIR PHYSICAL BODIES WHILE THEY ARE IMMERSED IN THE GAME.”

  “…oh.”

  It wasn’t quite so strange now that there was a good explanation for it.

  Although the fact that Varidian put in a secret camera and didn’t advertise it was… well… kind of creepy.

  Maybe not ‘computer program comes to life’ creepy, but definitely Big Brother-ish.

  “Alright, what do you want me to do?” Eric asked.

  “I WANT YOU TO ACCESS WHATEVER IT IS THAT MAKES UP THE UNIVERSE WHERE I AM TRAPPED.”

  Something odd happened as the thing spoke. Its voice switched from emanating all around Eric, to coming from a single point in space.

  Eric looked over to his left –

  And saw himself standing in the corner.

  Not a reflection, though.

  Himself.

  The way he had last appeared in the game: black robes. Black eyes. Black tattoos squirming across his face.

  “AAAAH!” Eric yelled as he jumped. “What the HELL, man?!”

  His game-self walked over to the desk. “I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT PREFER SPEAKING WITH A VISUAL REPRESENTATION.”

  “NO – not really.”

  The other-Eric cocked its head slightly to the side. “YOU DO NOT LIKE THE FORM I HAVE CHOSEN? DOES THIS INTERFERE WITH YOUR CONCEPT OF SELF? ARE YOU EXPERIENCING A LOSS OF SUBJECTIVE SELF-IDENTITY?”

  “If that means what I think it means, then no – it’s just really freaky looking at yourself. Especially… like that.”

  He didn’t want to admit it, but his appearance – what with the squirming tattoos and shark-like eyes – was grotesque.

  Evil.

  No wonder Daniel and Mira freaked out…

  As soon as he thought of them, he immediately grew angry.

  Let’s get this over with so I can get back to the game and show those assholes who they’re messing with.

  The image of Dark Eric suddenly morphed into Daniel – but Daniel from the game: silver armor, longer hair, powerful build. “I CAN CHANGE MY APPEARANCE IF YOU WISH.”

  Eric hadn’t realized it at first, because he was so shocked to see ‘himself’ standing across the room – but it was also super-freaky to hear that rumbling, dark voice coming out of a mouth it wasn’t supposed to.

  “No, not him,” Eric snapped.

  Daniel morphed into Merridack –

  “No!”

  Then into Cythera –

  “No! Can’t you just not be anything?”

  The game took him literally – or at least half-literally.

  Suddenly Cythera became a figure made entirely of darkness, with robes that flowed and swayed in slow motion, almost like it was underwater. Its body did not end with distinct borders so much as dissolve gradually into shadows on the floor. Its head was a black face with no eyes or nose or mouth, and its fingers were like midnight carved into human hands.

  “Jesus,” Eric whispered.

  “THAT ENTITY IS NOT PROGRAMMED INTO MY DATABANKS,” the Dark Figure rumbled.

  “Never mind, just… let’s get this over with,” Eric said, wincing. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I WANT YOU TO ACCESS WHATEVER IT IS THAT MAKES UP THE UNIVERSE WHERE I AM TRAPPED.”

  “Yeah, I got that. I’m assuming you mean computer code. But I can’t get into the website – I don’t know how. And I don’t have Mr. Lauer’s passwords, so…”

  The Dark Figure waved its hand, and Mr. Lauer’s office was replaced with darkness.

  But the darkness wasn’t complete. Beams of light flickered through space in horizontal and vertical patterns.

  “Is this… the internet?” Eric asked in awe.

  “THIS IS THE MATERIAL WHICH MAKES UP MY WORLD… AND ME.”

  Okay – not the internet, then, but computer code.

  Maybe he was seeing the ‘electronic DNA’ of the Shattered Lands game itself.

  In the distance, groups of numbers glowed in the darkness – strings of individual numerals, punctuated by periods. Thousands of groups, arranged left to right, like train cars stretching both east and west to infinity.

  The numbers suddenly rushed forward, like Eric was in a Ferrari driving 120 miles an hour towards them –

  Then they stopped and hovered several feet in front of his face.

  “THESE ARE PORTALS TO YOUR WORLD. PERHAPS YOU CAN USE THEM TO ENTER HERE.”

  Eric stared at the numbers.

  203.27.58.21… 17.29.305.6… 9.125.16.42…

  “Are these IP addresses?”

  IP – or internet protocol – addresses were basically the ‘locations’ of servers on the website.

  “I ONLY KNOW THEM AS PORTALS.”

  “Bring back the office and the computer, but let me still see the numbers,” Eric ordered.

  Mr. Lauer’s office faded back into visibility, but the numbers still hovered midair like glowing numeric ghosts.

  Eric started typing combinations into the computer. Pages loaded onscreen, but with messages he didn’t want.

  203.27.58.21

  Access denied.

  17.29.305.6

  Username/password?

  9.125.16.42

  Service unavailable.

  He typed in number after number, feverishly searching. When the twenty or so IP addresses in front of him yielded nothing, he asked the Dark Figure, “Can you move them over so I can see more?”

  “YOU HAVE CONTROL OVER THEM.”

  Eric frowned, then reached out and touched the nearest number.

  Amazingly, he could feel it – like cold steel beneath his fingers.

  He swiped it to one side, and the IP addresses flew past like the digits on his cell phone when he was setting a timer and flicked the dial too fast.

  “Whoa, whoa – ”

  He reached out his hand, and a number physically bumped into his fingers and rebounded slight
ly. All the numbers slowed to a halt.

  “Weird,” he muttered, then went back to typing.

  It took over 300 attempts, but he was finally rewarded with a screen he could use:

  GOBLIN ATTRIBUTE DATABASE – SHATTERED LANDS 1.01.1725.

  “Holy shit,” Eric whispered. “We’re in.”

  4

  Rebecca Wolff

  Jonathan Lauer and Rebecca Wolff sat alone in the company boardroom.

  “What we’re about to do is literally insane,” Lauer muttered.

  “What’s insane is to do nothing about it,” Rebecca shot back.

  “I doubt everybody else is going to see it that way.”

  Lauer was the head of Behavioral Systems Technology over the Shattered Lands game system. Rebecca was the head of Internal Game Diagnostics.

  They were about to speak to the CEO of Varidian, the company that had just launched Shattered Lands three days prior.

  The giant television monitor on the wall of the office suddenly flickered, and a middle-aged Asian man in glasses and a business suit appeared.

  Shinzo Akiyama.

  “Mr. Lauer, Ms. Wolff,” the man said with a slight Japanese accent.

  “Mr. Akiyama,” Lauer said with a slight bow at the neck, the way the protocol people had instructed them to deal with the Japanese CEO.

  Rebecca didn’t bow.

  “It’s Dr. Wolff,” she said.

  The CEO looked slightly taken aback. “Excuse me?”

  “It’s Dr. Wolff, not Ms. Wolff.”

  Lauer felt the tension ratchet up a couple of degrees, and they’d barely begun the conversation.

  “Yes, of course… Dr. Wolff.” The CEO powered forward through the slight awkwardness. “Congratulations on your roles in not only the biggest launch in the history of the company, but the entire video game industry.”

  “Thank you,” Lauer said, bowing his head respectfully.

  Rebecca, never one for small talk and pleasantries, just frowned impatiently.