Viridian Gate Online: Nomad Soul: A litRPG Adventure (The Illusionist Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Summary

  Shadow Alley Press Mailing List

  Eldgard

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Epilogue

  Books, Mailing List, and Reviews

  Viridian Gate Online: Expanded Universe

  Books by Shadow Alley Press

  litRPG on Facebook

  GameLit on Facebook

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  Summary

  IF YOU HAD TO CHOOSE between your life and your dreams, would you ever wake up?

  Alan Campbell thought he’d gotten his dream job working on a revolutionary VRMMORPG with Osmark Technologies, until the project was canceled. He has one weekend to dive into an untested world full of intrigue, violence, and corruption to prove that Viridian Gate Online works, but the AIs running the game have their own plans for his soul.

  Set a year before the events of “Viridian Gate Online: Cataclysm,” The Illusionist: Nomad Soul takes you back to when VGO was just a game, or so it seemed.

  From James A. Hunter—author of Viridian Gate Online, Rogue Dungeon, and War God's Mantle—and D.J. Bodden, author of The Black Year Series, comes an epic new entry into the Expanded Universe of Viridian Gate Online that you won't want to put down!

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  Eldgard

  ONE

  ONE OF THE PROGRAMMERS pushed past me to join three of her friends in the crowded auditorium. I think her name was Abigail or something—big head of brown hair, curls on curls. I knew her about as well as I knew most of the people in the room, which was a name, an HR file, and not much beyond that because she hadn’t caused too much trouble.

  I was getting bumped, nudged, or squeezed-past constantly. There were over a hundred of us in the room. It was tight and noisy, and a lot of the geeks, like me, were wearing black. Unlike me, a few weren’t wearing deodorant. It reminded me of a documentary I’d watched about penguins in Antarctica, huddling together against the icy wind, except it was hot in here. There were too many of us for the A/C to keep up, which was just unnecessary since there were at least two bigger amphitheaters on Osmark Technology’s Stanton campus. That, and security was out in greater numbers than usual, one guard at every entrance checking badges, and three in front of the stage. No one in the crowd knew why we were here.

  The project had been secretive from the start, with ten-page nondisclosure agreements for all the staff and zero tolerance for press leaks, but this level of paranoia meant something big was going on. There was an energy in the room beyond the usual optimism I’d experienced as part of the Viridian project. People were giddy. Two women near me decided we were going to demo the NexGenVR system at the next tech conference. A neckbeard and his overwhelmingly pierced and tatted friend announced the Bathsheba team—the ones who made The Ancient Rolls—had signed on for a joint venture. Knowing Robert, I thought it was more likely we’d poached one of their team leads to steer the project, but no one asked me, so I crossed my arms and waited.

  A side door opened and Robert Osmark, my pseudo-friend, mentor, and current boss, walked into the room, followed closely by Sandra Bullard, his assistant. Designer sunglasses pushed up onto his forehead, black bespoke suit, a little salt creeping into his hair, Robert was the James Bond of the tech world. Everyone cheered. Robert waved, shook the hand of the guard at the door, called out to people by name, and basically did all the stuff Robert did without thinking that made him beloved. I liked to think I could pull it off, but I mostly worked below the radar. I noticed Sandra fade back against the wall, too, her black hair up in a tight bun, ever-present clipboard raised like a shield, eyes scanning. She was an interesting woman, and my age, which was young for the authority and trust she’d been given. Nice legs, when she cared to show them. Shame she’d never given me the time of day.

  Robert reached the podium and placed his hands on either side of it. The crowd quieted down without prompting, ready to hang on his every word.

  He cleared his throat. “The Viridian project is being put on indefinite pause.”

  Stunned silence.

  I felt my throat tighten. Then someone laughed, and it spread to the rest of the room.

  Robert smiled, but it was strained. “I love that we’re all laughing. I love that your belief in Viridian—in this team—is so strong that it’s inconceivable that the project would fail. And it hasn’t. But I just finished speaking to the alpha testers and our medical staff, and there are some wetware issues we just can’t overcome.”

  I was crushed. This was real. I let my hands fall by my sides. I could feel two years of my life circling the drain.

  “It’s not anybody’s fault, so I’m not firing anyone. You have a job here if you want it. It may not be the job you want, and I won’t blame you for moving on, but this is not a failure,” he reemphasized, spreading his arms as if he were embracing the crowd. “We’re just a couple years ahead of the technology that will make this project a reality.”

  “This is bullshit!” someone shouted from the crowd. Abigail, in front of me, told the heckler to shut the hell up. The room buzzed.

  Robert held his hand up until it got quiet again. “It’s okay to be angry. It’s normal to be hurt. For many, Viridian was... Viridian is a lifelong dream, and we’re going to build it, just not today.

  “I’m bringing in a crew to pack everything up, so I don’t need you to come in tomorrow. Take a long weekend, get drunk, get laid, blow off steam. I wish I could join you, but I’ve been summoned by the Board in San Francisco.” He flashed a lopsided grin that told everyone he wasn’t the bad guy. “Talk to HR on Monday. They’ll have your things all boxed up. You just tell them if you need a desk or a paycheck, and we’ll make it happen.”

  Robert glanced at Sandra. She nodded. Robert made some closing remarks—general feel-good stuff. I tuned that out and pushed my way toward the side door.

  “We’ll pick this up again in two years!” Osmark told the sullen crowd, then left the stage.

  The room exploded into questions and side conversations. Osmark ignored them. I got elbowed, stepped on, and washed up against one of the security guards who was screening Osmark’s exit. I had to shout over the noise. “Mr. Osmark!”

  I caught his eye. There was a split-second pause, the familiar cold calculation behind the facade. He tapped the guard on the shoulder and nodded toward me. “Let him through.”

  I followed Robert and Sandra out the side door.

  TWO

  THE DOOR SLAMMED SHUT behind us. The three of us walked briskly down a long, private hallway that led to the central building. It was floored with square slabs of white granite, and a four-inch strip of the same material formed the baseboard. The walls were seamless dark gray con
crete, but they’d been textured like an oil canvas, with long brushstrokes running in the direction of the hallway. Rectangular strips of white LED lights, each about a hand wide, were set flush with the wall and ceiling as if they were L-shaped cutouts to the sky. Brushed steel doors at regular intervals gave Robert and Sandra quick access to various parts of the campus. It was all very expensive looking, and very much Robert’s aesthetic. The two of them walked side by side, ignoring me for the most part.

  “Jesus, that was a shit show,” Robert said. “Once the press gets ahold of this, we’ll be the next No Man’s Land.”

  “No one’s saying that, Robert.”

  “They will.”

  “They won’t. We didn’t promise them something impossible.”

  “The leaks—”

  “Were rumors spread by disgruntled former employees.”

  “There will be more,” Osmark said, balling his fists.

  “They’ll know better, or they won’t work in tech again—not in this country.”

  It sounded cold, but I got it. No Man’s Land was supposed to be an infinite procedurally generated spaghetti western sandbox. It launched with a hype machine that outstripped its core mechanics, and it flopped, hard. I’d played it. It took the sandbox idea too far—too much to do, not enough reasons to do it—and ended up with a desert. The company, and the careers of the people who worked on the project, never recovered.

  “What about the Board?” he asked.

  Sandra didn’t have to look at her clipboard to answer. “Zwari, Itrom, and Roberts are on your side. Leavitt will say he told you so just to prove he still has a pulse, but he’ll back the majority. That leaves Wagner, Lombardi, and Ms. Mayer. You only need one to side with you.”

  “Wagner?”

  “Still thinks augmented reality was the way to go.”

  “AR is dead.”

  Sandra shrugged. “What about Mayer? You brought her in.”

  “I brought her in to have intelligent dissent in the boardroom. She’s not going to let me off the hook, and if she does, she’s not the right person for the job. Lombardi?”

  “Wants us to shut down Indonesia because it competes with his own interests.”

  “He’s never mentioned it.”

  “He never will, but he’d appreciate the gesture,” Sandra said.

  “Fine. Put it on the agenda just before we break the news on Viridian.”

  Sandra made a note on her clipboard.

  “And give Wagner’s nephew an internship in the Norfolk office,” Osmark added.

  “It won’t make him vote yes.”

  “Will it make him abstain?”

  Another note. “I’ll pull him aside before the meeting.”

  I sometimes forgot that Viridian was just one of the projects Osmark was working on, in one of several companies he oversaw. Maybe that’s why he’d let me tag along—to remind me so I’d let him off the hook, too.

  We reached the express elevator at the end of the hallway. Sandra pushed the button.

  “Why do you use a clipboard instead of a tablet?” I asked her. “You work for one of the biggest tech companies in the world.”

  She looked at me, the hint of a smirk on her face. “Clipboards can’t be hacked.”

  “Oh.”

  The elevator arrived. Unlike the hallway, this was just a functional, steel-paneled service cab big enough for eight people to stand comfortably. We got on. Sandra pushed the button for the roof. Osmark leaned against the back wall. “What do you want, Alan?” No smiles, no pretense, just a question. It was a compliment, really. This was the Robert Osmark most people never got to see.

  “I want to help.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Maybe I can.”

  “The NexGenVR is making people sick, Alan. Puking their guts out, scared for their lives sick. Are you a doctor?”

  I looked away.

  “A neurologist? A man-machine interface expert, perhaps?”

  “Don’t be a dick, Rob,” I said. He raised an eyebrow. I swallowed. I knew I was pushing it, but I was also good at what I did. “Can I at least say goodbye?”

  Osmark frowned. “The whole team was in—”

  “The Overminds, Robert,” Sandra said. “He wants to say goodbye to the AIs.”

  I was... flattered. She had been paying attention.

  Osmark shook his head. “You’re a strange kid, Alan. Why did I hire you again?”

  “You needed a professional cat herder, and sometimes I have good ideas,” I answered. Osmark gave me a look, but I saw the corner of Sandra’s mouth twitch in amusement.

  The elevator stopped, and the doors opened. The noise from the helicopter made me cover my ears.

  “Add him to the list!” Osmark shouted, his hand on Sandra’s elbow. She made a note. He looked at me. “There’s room in the chopper!”

  Getting on that helicopter was probably the right career move. I shook my head.

  He shrugged, patted me on the shoulder, and stepped out. Sandra gave me a nod and a longer-than-strictly-necessary look before leaving. I held her gaze. She was single, and I was interested, very much so, especially if the project that had consumed my life and my imagination for the past two years was ending. The doors slid shut. I rode the elevator down and drove home.

  IF THERE WAS ONE THING California did right, it was freeways. I drove a black 2001 Spyder convertible I’d picked up for a couple grand when I joined the project. The backseat was nonexistent, the trunk space laughable, but the manual shift made me feel like a race car driver, and with the top down, the warm summer wind seemed to strip the day’s work from me during the forty-minute drive home from Stanton to San Juan Capistrano. It wouldn’t be enough after the meeting and the conversation that followed it—that would require a stiff drink and some digital violence—but as soon as I turned the key in the ignition I felt better. The world hadn’t ended. I’d figure something out.

  It was a nice drive. Four or five lanes of smooth concrete on the Interstate 5, or just “The 5,” as the locals called it. Not too many cops, and people weren’t assholes about staying in the left lane. The area around the campus and Anaheim was built up, but past that it was rolling hills that Californians called mountains covered in rock tumors they called boulders, short brown grass that caught fire every few years, and avocado trees. Further south, the scenery flattened out except for landscaping and clumps of palms, but I was always happy with the just the road and the sky.

  The marine layer, a recurring blanket of fog, had come in from the Pacific that day, and the sunset made the whole thing glow in hues of gold, orange, and red. I cruised, listened to classical music on the public broadcast station, watched a pair of military helicopters race south along the coast, and tried not to grip the steering wheel too tightly.

  Home was a one-bedroom apartment in a neighborhood just south of the Mission—neat three-story houses with gray wood-board exteriors and lots of young families. There was a pool and a playground, and community events every other weekend.

  I didn’t know any of my neighbors. It hadn’t seemed relevant. I had a maid who came once a week and had her own key, no pets, and no girlfriend, though maybe if I’d read Sandra’s look correctly that could change just in time for me to move to another state.

  So there I was, thirty-one years old, sitting on my leather couch, life gone wrong and no one to call. I guess I could have told my mother, but she was three time zones ahead and would probably add stress to the situation. I had vodka in the freezer and amaretto in the fridge. There was a host of people who’d drifted in and out of my life—or maybe I’d drifted through theirs—and I was comfortable reaching out to exactly none of them except Robert, who was, at that moment, likely getting his ass chewed in the most polite terms possible. I laid my head back and stared at the vaulted ceiling I’d been sold on but rarely noticed. The apartment felt emptier than usual, which was exactly the kind of sentimental crap I didn’t need.

  I ordered pizza, cut
a lime, poured a shot of vodka and a shot of amaretto into a tumbler, then fired up The Ancient Rolls on the wide-screen. I spent a lot on games, but I always went back to TAR. It was my happy place, somewhere to get lost in.

  I’d left the game at the entrance of an old Mondo-Klathian ruin with cracked, dirty courtyards and broken, inaccessible towers that reached for the gray, cloudy sky. It probably held some low-level mobs and basic loot, but if you’re a role-playing gamer, you can’t think of it that way. That insignificant inventory clutter—just data and some pixels arranged on a screen—was going to let me upgrade my gear, accomplish the quest, beat the monster, and change the fate of a nation. The world hung in the balance, and only I could save it. I took a sip of the drink, sucked on the lime, and dove in. Half an hour flew by. I moved my hands mechanically, but my mind was in the game, sneaking through dark, underground hallways to free bandits of their valuables and their lives. I was so into it, I jumped and dropped the controller when the doorbell rang.

  “Hey, thanks man,” I told the delivery guy, handing him an extra twenty. “Keep the change.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.” I grinned. I was all-powerful. I could move the world with twenty dollars. The drink was working. I’d hunted down evildoers, and pizza beats just about any loot in the world. “You have a nice night.”

  The pizza guy waved and headed back to his car.

  I kicked my shoes off, lost my pants, and worked the pizza into my process, stuffing my face and slitting throats. Spells, pizza, murder, pizza, loot, pizza, bathroom, new quest. A little voice told me I was overcompensating for a lack of self-actualization by hitting every other tier of Maslow’s pyramid of needs. I knocked the glass back. The world was just a puzzle to be solved. If you failed, you tried again or picked up a new skill. It all came down to belief—belief that what you were doing was important, that nothing else mattered, that there was nowhere else you’d rather be.

  I ran out of “try” around midnight. I’d passed on a vodka refill because drinking alone in my boxers isn’t who I am, but I almost wished it was. I set the controller down, browsed through a video streaming site without finding anything to watch, and stewed.