Open beta a litrpg fanta.., p.4
Open Beta: a LitRPG fantasy adventure (Pixelate Book 3), page 4
“Sounds like a plan.”
Dyz yawned again, and by that weird sympathy between brains, Konroh suddenly had to yawn, too. “First things first. We clear the beaches. Then, bed.”
Konroh leered meaningfully at Dyz, and when she caught him at it, she leered right back.
CHAPTER 10
MOONLIGHT ACTIVITIES
LOOKMANO SANDS
Dinner had been a thematic masterpiece, if not traditionally delicious. Arnold hoped that he’d wake up from the game equally sated, but he suspected not. The stew had been hearty, hot, and heaped with potatoes. Not exactly gourmet but exactly what a seaside tavern ought to have served.
The local brothel had been equally accommodating. For 50 Coins, which both of them had spare, they got the use of a room for the night. If they wanted, they could even go back, providing that the moonlight rekindled the romantic energy or reinvigorated the pent-up lust they’d unleashed.
For now, they walked ankle-deep in the surf, boots off despite them being part of their starting armor, hand in hand.
“This game hardly needs the combat and XP and all that jazz,” Izzy commented, staring off into the starry sky.
Arnold nodded. “Agreed. A little vacation getaway. Maybe a dating service.”
“Oh, I’m sure they will,” Izzy said. “Those weirdos at Anachronism Interactive put a lot of effort into adding sex to this game. I can’t imagine there won’t be a standalone version with just sex at some point.”
“Whatever. Let ’em. This has been our first vacation in forever.”
“Summer before medical school,” Izzy supplied, as if Arnold didn’t remember. As if he didn’t still have the mouse ears or the picture of them posing in front of the giant golf ball framed on his desk at work.
A few other couples and the occasional loner were out tonight as well. Most were just enjoying the beach. Some seemed to have some kind of quest that had them racing in and out of the surf with fishing nets. Arnold’s attention fixed mainly on his wife.
However she wanted to dress herself up… Whether she costumed herself as Robin Hood or a pirate wench in a bodice and skirt… Whether she was three weeks post partum working on a couple hours sleep at night or a busty, pencil-waisted caricature…
All Arnold saw was Izzy.
Their eyes met. That rented room back in Lookmano Port beckoned once more.
Another couple crossed their path, intruders on an intimate moment. Arnold ignored them until the damage numbers popped up.
6
3
10
The world disappeared from around him.
Math belatedly caught up in his head. He didn’t HAVE 19 HP.
A gray netherworld appeared around him.
KAWAIIAN VILLAGE
“Greetings, hero,” Kelindra said to him. “You have died. Not every battle can be won with might alone. The return to life comes with a cost. Are you ready to pay it?”
Arnold blew a sigh. It was a long hike back to the ferry dock. He hadn’t even been keeping track of the time outside. It had gotten late. Maybe this game was restful, but it sure as hell wasn’t sleep. Izzy’s dad was anything but a slave driver, especially since he’d become a grandfather. But showing up for work exhausted because of a new video game wasn’t going to make for a collegial morning.
He pulled up the main menu.
HELP
SYSTEM
OPTIONS
LOGOUT
RETURN TO GAME
He tapped Log Out.
Darkness enveloped him. It took his foggy brain a couple seconds to realize that it was because the interior screen of the helmet he was wearing had turned off.
Sluggish, clumsy muscles sorted themselves out and fumbled the pair of buttons on either side to pop the release. The sensation was like waking up from a fifteen-minute nap that turned into four hours without you meaning for it to.
Stretching and shaking loose stiff joints, Arnold set aside his headset and checked on Izzy. She was still in-game. Insensible. The wrist he used to check her pulse flopped limply when he let it go. Though he hardly knew what the hell he was really doing with it, he borrowed Izzy’s stethoscope—the home one, as he wouldn’t dream of touching the one she took with her to work—he checked her heart and lungs. They were still pumping and breathing, respectively. More importantly, the cold touch of metal hadn’t awakened her.
Izzy was out like a light.
Rather than look into shutting down her game externally, Arnold headed to the fridge and found some of the baby’s milk. After warming it up to body temperature over the stove, he woke A.J. and fed him.
One less thing for Izzy to worry about before bed.
And it WAS bedtime.
Jesus, had it gotten late.
He gave her another hour, tops, before doing something to get her out of the game. She deserved the respite, but she needed real rest, too.
He needn’t have worried. He was still burping A.J. after his meal when Izzy stirred and flopped around a little until she extracted herself from her headset.
“Where’s—oh, there you are. I got back to the pier and waited, but you didn’t show as online.”
“I figured getting massacred on the beach during a romantic stroll was as good a place as any to log off for the night.”
“We’re definitely doing that again.”
Arnold waggled his eyebrows at her.
“Not that. Well, yes, that. But also just cutting loose and exploring. Getting out of the house, even if we never leave it. We should also figure out a system for earning those 50 Coins we need for the brothel. I assume you can cover our next visit.”
“Yeah,” Arnold agreed, wondering how healthy it was for a newborn to be hearing all this. He decided that it wouldn’t matter for months, if not years.
“I know you’ll still have work in the morning, so I’ll do the research on all the stuff we can and can’t do in there. Tomorrow night, as soon as we get Ramon to bed, we’ll head right back in.”
“You… sound pretty intense…”
Izzy scoffed. “No sore nips, puffy feet, or ten square yards of extra skin flopping around my waistline? Why would that excite me? Getting to try out crazy sex positions and not having to explain to people I know working the ER how we got there? Look, I know it’s not a good idea for the kids for me to hop in there solo during the day. Just let’s say that if I need to hang around an extra half hour or so in-game after you log out so that I can kill thirteen Red Gobos for the 4 Coins they drop, so we can afford our fun times, I’ll happily take care of it.”
“Oh. OK.”
Izzy rolled her eyes and accepted A.J. after gesturing for Arnold to pass him over to her. “Don’t give me that hangdog, ‘my wife is scaring me a little’ look. This is no different than how I was after Ramon was born.”
“We took it easy for months.”
“Exactly! Now, I don’t have to worry about infections and reinjury and all that. I am one hundred percent no hornier than last time; now we just have a solution.”
“And the running around killing monsters?”
“Sure. Great fun. But secondary. We’re going to be spending most of our free time in there, so I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to get to do everything.”
Arnold smirked. He liked the sound of that.
Despite school, jobs, and a young family they were responsible for, this was still his Izzy.
CHAPTER 11
SPINY REEF FISH
Konroh yawned. Morning sunlight streamed in through the brothel window. Dyz stirred and wrapped herself more tightly around him. Even through closed lids, the fires of her purple eyes burned bright. Thankfully, the fires shed no heat, or his chest would have burned overnight.
Nighttime was a weird change.
He’d never slept before.
His dreams had been snippets, recaps of the day’s events remixed seemingly at random. All from Spire of Fate. Most involved Dyz. He smiled at the memories.
“Time to wake up.”
Dyz didn’t open her eyes. “We’re paid up through breakfast.”
“Come on. You’re not actually tired anymore. Are you?”
The Shadow Assassin lifted her head, brow furrowed. “I suppose I’m not.” She heaved a sigh. Clothes appeared over her body even before she sat up and unpinned him.
Konroh dressed in an instant as well. “What was your final count of Ears from last night?”
“Fifty-eight,” Dyz replied. “Still ahead of you by eleven?”
“Yeah. We should get moving though. Nobody around here will admit to accepting Ears as currency. So, either we need to meet some kind of criteria like doing a quest from someone or make contact with a hidden NPC. But it’s looking like we need to head farther into the game to spend them.”
“Yeah, but this is the perfect place to earn Ears,” Dyz argued.
“Maybe. But think about it. We’ve got a bunch of Level 2 and Level 3 people around. What if they start coming back Level 4, Level 5, Level 6 even… How are we going to keep up with the leveling characters? I say we find Needeep—”
“I’ve seen him on the fishing pier.”
“We get his Spiny Reef Fish quest, grab our nets, and go frog hunting. Snag a couple equipment upgrades, maybe hit Level 3, then camp out and start farming noobs as they enter Nokon Wood.”
Dyz nodded. “Let’s drop this bomb.”
The pair left. As they headed down the steps of the brothel, one of the employees watched them.
Konroh avoided eye contact.
“We should help her, you know,” Dyz told him under her breath. Celestra looked SO MUCH like Kelli that Konroh couldn’t separate the two. As much as he’d made his avatar to resemble himself, game limitations meant it wasn’t exact. But this was Kelli cleaned up and dolled up and playing a convincing brothel worker.
“If you want the slippers, go ahead,” Konroh told her. “Silent movement—even 50 percent silent—is totally worth it for you. I’ll hold out for actual boots with combat or casting stats.”
“You haven’t even seen signs that Blood Knights GET combat spells. For all you know, it’s nothing but melee bonuses. Which would be great.”
“I still get double spell damage. That would be one hell of a bug.”
“Go. Do what you have to.”
“You sure you’re OK with this?” Dyz asked. But what was Dyz to him, really? She was a grown woman, and at best they were an in-game couple. Party members with benefits, not Romeo and Juliet. Actually, Romeo and Juliet weren’t much of anything to one another and got a ton of people killed by hanging out together; maybe that was an apt comparison. But Konroh still felt it wasn’t his place to say who Dyz could fool around with.
His partner left him on a comfortable leather bench as she headed over and chatted up Celestra. Just by the body language, he could tell the Kelli look-a-like was ecstatic. She pulled out a pair of ornate masquerade masks. The pair then scurried up the stairs to the bedrooms.
As soon as one of the doors slammed shut behind them, a gruff bear of a man stormed into the brothel. “WHERE IS MY CELESTRA?”
Madame Petunia intercepted the fellow before he could reach the stairs. “You can’t go up there! My patrons value their privacy.”
Celestra’s father backhanded the brothel owner, sending her sprawling to the floor.
Konroh’s sword hand itched.
That asshole. He should pick on someone his own level. But that seemed unlikely to turn out well. Konroh was all of Level 2 and had spent the previous night collecting easy Ears from noobs who didn’t know how to play the game. Simplistic weapon swings. NO real tactics. Few HP and no real threat.
This was an NPC designed not to be fought. There was a trick. A puzzle. A clever means of completing the objective without resorting to violence. Spire of Fate liked pulling crap like that. Occasionally, Konroh had overcome clever puzzles with brute force, but he’d always had more brute force at his disposal by that point.
Here, he bit his tongue and let Dyz take care of her business.
As Celestra’s father stomped around on the mezzanine, he tore open door after door. After each, he bid a hasty retreat before, unchastened, trying again at the next door in an exhaustive search.
Konroh held his breath when the raging bull of a man burst in on Dyz and Celestra. But he exited their room as quick as the others, if not a little quicker. He then continued his ransacking of the place until every guest room had been checked.
With just a wordless growl for the proprietress, the angry father blustered out of the establishment.
Konroh waited.
And waited.
It had to have been a good half hour before Dyz and Celestra emerged. Dyz handed back the mask and twirled a pair of Red Silk Slippers by the heels before they poofed onto her feet.
“Easy peasy,” Dyz claimed.
“Took you long enough.”
“I was busy. I kept up my end until Celestra gave the all clear. But I got my slippers, so it’s all good.” Dyz folded her arms and scowled. “It’s all good, right? RIGHT?”
“Fine. Whatever. Let’s just go.”
Dyz blocked him. “No. You’re in a huff, and I know why.”
“Do you?”
“We’re baddies now, right? Glowing eyes. Evil books. If you’d feel better killing Celestra… I’ve already got my quest reward. Go for it.”
“I don’t need to avenge my honor or whatever you think.” Konroh kept his voice down, since he remembered the Antaur colony incident when their queen overheard some plotting and tried to kill the party pre-emptively.
“Or… and take this suggestion to heart … a less psychopathic solution would be to just screw her yourself. See what you were missing. Get it out of your system. Move on. You’d get a spare pair of slippers that might come in handy. We’d just have to wait out the whole father search again, but whatever.”
Rather than dignify that with a response, Konroh used his bulk to push past Dyz and exit the brothel. Dyz stepped aside rather than make any real effort to stop him.
He knew the way. The guy hadn’t changed locations since last time, even as the port city built up and expanded around him, only surroundings. Gone were the days when he was set up on the shoreline, feet in the sand. Nowadays, Needeep kept a fishing shack at the end of the southernmost pier, closest to the reef below.
“No troubles here, sir and lady,” the Kawaiian said as they approached. Immediately, he turned to a cleric who came up to him around the same time. “Hello, hero! Hard to catch Spiny Reef Fish. If you could find me five of them, I’d be very grateful.”
“We can help with the fishing,” Konroh assured Needeep.
The fisherman cracked a nervous smile as he handed the cleric a net and sent him on his way. “Look. I want no trouble. I would never dream of demeaning loyal servants of the Mountain Lord.”
Dyz leaned an elbow on the little wooden plank counter of the shack. “Look. We’re NOT working for the—” She turned Konroh. “Are we?” Konroh shook his head. “If anything, we’re more determined than anyone to overthrow him. Now. Are you going to give us fishing nets and a quest, or not?”
FISHING NET - 5 Coins
POTION OF WATER BREATHING - 10 Coins
The shopping menu popped up as Dyz must have triggered something with her demand.
“No,” Dyz warned him. “You’re going to GIVE US each a net. You’re going to tell us you need 5 Spiny Reef Fish, and you’re going to reward us for doing so.”
“But…” Needeep pointed to the cleric just as he jumped into the water. “I have no shortage of willing assistants who aren’t associated with my people’s oppressor. Look. I have no desire for trouble. I will happily SELL you a Fishing Net and a Potion of Water Breathing. If you’re interested, I’ve also heard that there’s an undersea cavern worth looking into down there.
Konroh’s Quest Journal pulsed. He opened it.
RECLAIM YOUR THRONE: 0/1
EXPLORE THE UNDERSEA CAVE: 0/1
“You know what?” Dyz demanded. “Screw your Fishing Nets and Potions of Water Breathing. I want the quest for the rewards.”
“I’m sorry, I—”
Konroh tugged Dyz away from the fisherman before she started a fight. For all that he was a low-level quest giver, Anachronism Interactive had shown a propensity for making quest dudes hard as fuck.
“What?” she snapped at him. “The guy’s screwing us over.”
“Check your journal.”
Dyz tapped the air. “Oh. Well, I still don’t want to pay him for his crap. You buy. Then dupe me some copies.”
Konroh opened up the vendor screen again.
FISHING NET - 5 Coins
POTION OF WATER BREATHING - 10 Coins
RECEIVED: FISHING NET
RECEIVED: POTION OF WATER BREATHING
He purchased one of each, then dropped them on the ground at his feet. “I seem to have lost my purchases. Can you replace them?”
The price lists popped up again.
FISHING NET - 5 Coins
POTION OF WATER BREATHING - 10 Coins
Konroh went to retrieve his net and potion, but both were now gone. “What the—?” He looked up and down the pier. Players were coming and going. Some handed Needeep fish. Others grabbed their nets and potions. “Someone robbed me.”
Izik appeared in a blast of smoke. “If you believe you have been robbed, understand that unattended items are not considered to be owned by any player. Dropped items can be looted from the ground by anyone. If you did not drop an item but it has gone missing, please file a bug report or customer service help request.”
Konroh swatted his imp out of the air. “Do you get help from a little red imp?”
“Izik?” Dyz asked. Konroh had his answer just by her knowing the name. “Little dude. Bat wings. Always has a hard on?”
“Sounds like him. He just told me I’m out of luck with the gear that just got stolen.”
