Helping a friend, p.1
Helping A Friend, page 1
part #4 of The World Series
HELPING A FRIEND
BOOK FOUR
OF
THE WORLD
Copyright 2019 Jason Cheek
Published by Jason Cheek on Amazon
Cover Art by Leonardo Black
ISBN-13:
ISBN-10:
License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Amazon.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Note from the Author
Changes to the Story
Map of the World
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Character Sheet
Startum Ironwolf’s Gear
Character List
Glossary
About Jason Cheek
Connect with Jason Cheek
A Note from the Author
I hope you enjoy the story and apologize in advance for the grammar and proofreading mistakes that are sure to be a part of this work. Being an ‘Indie Writer’ typically means that you do not have the extra money to pay for a professional editor or proofreader and end up doing all of the work yourself. While I do the best I can to find mistakes, I know well my lack of ability in the proofreading, spell-checking and editing arena. At the same time, I have done my best with the tools available to clean up the story for publishing to the best of my ability.
I was also fortunate enough to get the help of Eric (Totenliste). A fan who freely offered his expertise for getting book four cleaned up for release, besides going through the first three books to work his magic too. Eric and another fan Steven were my beta readers and listened to me when I’d have those bad days that writers get, especially when you have a group of writers ganging up against you to do their best to block your work on Amazon, Goodreads and Audible. This book would have never been written if not for the fans that read the book, loved the story and supported me against the group of writers’ attacking me online with false accusations. You have my heartfelt thanks and this book is truly for you.
This series came from reading great LitRPG works from my favorite authors like Aleron Kong and D. Rus. I hope that I have done them justice as I’ve taken the experiences from my group of friends and our online adventures and turned them into the series you’re now reading.
As you enjoy this story, I ask that if something does stand out grammatically that you let me know at jasonacheek@gmail.com so that I can make the necessary corrections needed to make this book as enjoyable to read as possible. Also, if you enjoy the story, please make sure you post a positive rating on Amazon. Only in this way does this let us ‘Indy Writers’ know that our stories are appreciated and helps to motivate us to write more. It also enabling new readers to find our works and helps to stop established writers who would stop ‘Indy Writers’ from breaking into the writing field.
Also, a special shout out to Robert, Mike, Cole, Patryk, Steven, Timothy, Jeff D and Jodi Witte who took the time to send me lots of corrections to get the first three books in the series as cleaned up out of the kindness of their hearts. Also I’d like to thank any other fans who made comments that allowed me to go back and correct the more notable mistakes that needed to be corrected. For those who can’t see the updates, please delete the book from your device’s local cache and re-download or Amazon has an area in your account where you can force the updates onto your device.
Lastly, Amazon does some odd stuff to pictures, so unfortunately the map in the E-book is tiny. You can checked my website for the updated image, http://www.thecheekyfellow.com/home-blog/the-current-map-of-the-world
Lastly, I’d like to address three points that came up in reviews:
The first is that there are some people who think that Startum Ironwolf disrespects women and thinks they are inferior to men. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The one great thing about video games is that there are no differences between the sexes, age or races. Men and woman are absolutely equal on all levels. It is your choice of starts, your choice of class, how you distribute your stats and how you treat others in the game that is important.
In most online games, the golden rule is you have no idea who is really on the other side of that computer screen. Women play men, men play women and players play themselves. There is no prejudice except for what you bring with you into the game world. On the field of battle, you slaughter your enemies, period. There is no consideration of the sex, race, religion or age. Over the many years of gaming I’ve had so many online friends from all around the world that it is truly amazing at times when I think about it.
Please understand, Startum is a guy in his early twenties. He likes women, he finds them beautiful and he enjoys seeing that beauty. There is nothing wrong with finding someone desirable, pretty or sexy. In my experience, women do this the same as men. Enjoying beauty is not judging the worth of a person or their capability. How you treat those people though is important. In Startum’s case, you have a first row seat to his every thought.
The next issue that has come up is armor. The truth, at least in The World, games and real life. Leather armor generally sucks for protection. Zombie claws and wolf fangs will shred it relatively easily and piercing weapons aren’t really stopped by it. How much slashing protection it provides is debatable, but I assure you that you don’t want to take a battle axe or even a wood axe to the chest wearing boiled leather armor. Chain mail protects against certain types of attacks and is not bad against zombie claws and wolf fangs, depending on how high their levels are. Pieces of plate do very well in most situations. They all come with their pluses and minuses. Startum has his chest piece survive a lot of attacks, but everything else becomes a shredded mess that has to be repaired to be relatively affective. Most of the good thing about his armor are the bonuses and rightly so. It’s mostly leather except for a few areas.
The last issue that came up was artificial intelligent beings. In the story, the people of The World are software artificial intelligent programs as far as people know. Will they be something more in the future, who knows, but for now they are software artificial intelligent. They live in The World. Their reality is from their lives that they grew up in inside their digital world like any other creature. If an NPC decides they like how a person treats them and are attracted to them, they might decide to seek a relationship from that connection, whether that person is a player or software AI. That is perfectly fine for me and my morality. It is as much choice as anyone else has so please allow them at least that level of self-determination.
One of the things I always hate is how people treat NPCs in games as card board cutouts there for their enjoyment. While current games do not have AI NPCs, they do represent people of the world in the game and give out quests and have their digital lives. I’ve found in EverQuest, Anarchy Online and World of Warcraft that opening up conversations with NPCs usually leads to special items, dungeons and quests. In The World, players who treat NPCs as real living entities tend to get a lot of help and the possibility to build a more personal relationship is there. Those that don’t, the NPCs know that and react accordingly which is why Startum does so well with NPCs. As far as he is concerned, they are just another race of people in a digital world instead of a biological one.
Changes to the Story
Raise Zombie has been reduced from three minutes to one minute.
Arcane and Dark Magic was separated into completely unique flavors. Keela is casting Shadow Bolts now not Arcane Missiles.
The level difference for a Nightmare start is a total possible 60 levels. The level difference for a Advance start is a total possible 30 levels. While it sounds like a huge buff, the game is designed for advance players. Think of Nightmare players as Heroes in the game. Successful Nightmare players are rare and the game never stops challenging them. Instead it gets progressively getting harder and harder always seeking to take away their castle and profession.
Map of the World
Chapter One
(Sunday, April 27th/LAN Party With Friends)
Hamburger buns … chips … more chips, stopping at the end of the aisle I stared thoughtfully at the half-full grocery cart. I just needed brats and hamburger meat and I’d be good to go. The ringing of my cell brought me up short as I looked at the number on the display in surprise.
“Yo, what’s up JellyDonutMan?” I said with a grin as an old lady walked by giving me a nasty look. Ignoring the old biddy, I started walking towards the meat section of the store. I’m sure she took offense at the name, but that’s what we always called him. I don’t think I’d actually ever heard his real name the entire time I’d known him.
“Hey Star, long time no see. You need to take a break from those MMORPGs sometime so we can hang out more.”
“Yeah, you know how that is.
Not that I could say anything negative about that, since that was my story too. The only reason it took so long for me to get online was because it took forever to get a fast DSL connection to my house. Playing an MMORPG via modem was for all intents and purposes impossible. You’d appear in a city and fall off the edge of some building from all the lag in the first ten seconds of game play and die. The only option I had up until I had fast internet was to host my own LAN parties to feed my gaming addiction. Yeah, I know just how pathetic that sounds but you wouldn’t understand if you weren’t a gamer.
“So what can I do for you, man?”
“I heard from Jon Fay that you’re having a LAN party. Wondered if you minded if LittleAsianGirl and I swung by?” JellyDonutMan asked with a pleading undertone to his request. I grinned in understanding. We used to have the best LAN parties ever.
“God, I haven’t heard from LittleAsianGirl in forever. How is he doing?” LittleAsianGirl was a little geeky white dude that was cool as hell. I’d have tried to meet up with both of them more often, but Stuart was a good two hour drive north. Otherwise, I’m sure they’d have tried to meet up with us for breakfast at the Gun Club Café on Sundays.
“I haven’t seen much of him either. He started playing online about two years ago. He still uses LittleAsianGirl for LAN parties, but not when he’s online.”
“Why not?” I asked somewhat confused. “Did he have someone troll him or something?”
“Not exactly. He said something about being stalked by men sending inappropriate messages to him whenever he joined online games. It freaked him out so much that he changed his handle.”
I tried not to laugh. It was funny but creepy all at the same time. The sad part was that I understood exactly what he must have went through. The half year I played my female Elf warrior in World of Warcraft VR was full of episodes like that and that was considered a female friendly game.
I’d have strange male characters following me around whenever I was leveling. They’d strip down to their underwear and dance as I grinded out my levels. More than one would stop to give me gifts whenever they came by to stalk. It was morally very confusing. The straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back was when Domenic was leveling with me and this young kid wouldn’t stop harassing me. It finally took Dom telling the kid that I was an old man in real life for the kid to go away.
Dom wanted to know why I didn’t report the pervert to the admins to stop the harassment, but I just didn’t have the heart to get the kid banned. Besides, he always gave me nice blues that were level appropriate for my warrior. Yeah, ugh. I ended up deleting my character after that, but my group of friends never let me live that episode down.
“Nuff said.” I cut JellyDonutMan off quickly. “Yeah, no problems about coming to the party. Looks like I’ll need to setup some more tables when I get back to the apartment. When do you think you’ll make it down?”
“We should be there by four.” JellyDonutMan answered excitedly. “Later man.”
“Later, my friend.” I replied hanging up. Now the only question was who told Jon Fay about the party and how many people did he tell? I’d have to give Mike a call since I didn’t have Jon Fay’s number. Turning the cart around, I headed back for some more chips and buns when my cell rang again.
“Jay speaking.”
“Hey Star, it’s Zilla.”
For a second, I moved the cell phone away from my ear giving the phone an incredulous look before putting it back to my ear. “Wow, now there’s a name I haven’t heard in forever. How’s it going, man?”
“It’s all good. Jon Fay said something about you throwing an old-school LAN party today. Mind if I swing by with a friend?”
“Um … sure. Who is it?” I asked loading up my cart with more snacks.
“Some guy I met at the last Fort Lauderdale LAN party. His name is Seb. Nice guy, you’ll like him.”
“Dammit, I’m definitely going to need to setup more tables and chairs.”
“So is it cool?” Zilla asked hesitantly.
“Yeah, it’s all good. I’ll just have to grab some more burgers. Do you guys mind bringing soda?”
“Yeah, if you don’t mind.”
“Um … sure, we can bring sodas.”
“Okay, cool. That helps a lot. See you guys in-?”
“We’re packed up and in the car driving down right now.” Zilla said excitedly as I silently shook my head. “Should be there in an hour.”
“Sounds good.” I silently sighed already making plans for how to fit in more people in my apartment. “Later, man.”
“Later Star!”
I hung up, this time heading towards the frozen food section. I wasn’t going to bother with picking up ground beef to make my own burgers with as many people as it sounded like were going to be showing up. Stopping by the freezer, I threw in six of the BUBBA Angus beef burgers and twelve of the Johnsonville Cheese brats before hurrying to the register. I had to get home and get everything setup before people started arriving.
While dishing out all the money sucked on one level, it was more than worth it to see that many gaming friends which I hadn’t seen in forever. It had been years since I hosted my last LAN party. Ever since going pro I never seemed to have the time to just hang out anymore.
The cashier at the checkout line was a cute little blonde that immediately gave me a once-over as soon as I stepped up to the front of the line. I distractedly returned her friendly smile as I looked up Mike’s cell number. The lanky bastard was supposed to let me know ahead of time if he was going to invite more people. My train of thought was interrupted by a sweet voice.
“How late is your party going to last?” I met the cashier’s eyes in surprise as she bit her lower lip before flipping her hair over her shoulder. “I get off at seven.”
For a long moment, I gave her a deer in the headlights look before realizing that she was definitely flirting with me. While female gamers were always welcome to a LAN party, no one really wanted to deal with a princess who was looking to dance and drink the night away. At least, not at a LAN party. “Sure, we’re having an old-school LAN party. You’re welcome to come, but you’ll need to bring your own computer.”
As soon as the words left my mouth, I could tell she wasn’t a gamer. The glazed look that suddenly appeared in her eyes as soon as I said the words ‘old-school LAN party’ told me that plainly enough. I’m sorry but Candy Crush and Fruit Ninja doesn’t count as being a true gamer. There was a flicker of a frown that came to her lips as she registered what I said.
“Why would I need a laptop when I have my iPhone?” You could almost hear the unspoken ‘duh’ she wanted to say as the bag girl spoke up excitedly.
“Wow, an old school LAN party. What games are you planning on playing?” I’m sure the girl was under eighteen. Even so, her next words earned her some creds and caught me by surprise. “Are you gonna play some Source Counter-Strike source squared or Team Fortress three?”
I paused for a second to give the bag girl a second look. She was short. Standing barely over five feet tall with hazel eyes peeking out from under her light-brown hair cut at the shoulder. Still, she had that whole geek girl thing going for her. Jailbait to be sure. Not that I was looking to pick her up or anything. I’m sure she didn’t get along with the ex-cheerleaders that the local Publix manager typically hired for the cashiers. That thought was confirmed by the next words out of my current cashier’s mouth.
“Terry, don’t you have something else to do like bring in carts or something?”
For a second, no one said a word. I could almost feel the heated embarrassment coming from the bag girl’s face at being made fun of in front of a customer she thought was cool. Before the poor girl could take off, I spoke up handing the cashier my money.
