Hero's Journey: A LitRPG Adventure (Beta Tester Book 2) Read online

  Hero’s Journey

  Beta Tester, Book 2

  By Rachel Ford

  Chapter One

  Jack Owens stared into the clear blue sky overhead. It wasn’t a real sky, of course. It was all part of the virtual world of Dagger of Doom: Iaxiabor’s Revenge. It had been a beautiful sight, back when he’d first settled into the game.

  Then, Jack Owens had been a free man, who could come and go from the game as he saw fit. That had been before the patch from hell, that trapped him here until he finished his quest. And being stuck in a virtual world stripped away some of the shiny veneer. It didn’t seem quite so mind blowing, and quite so beautiful, now.

  Although that might have had more to do with the artificial intelligence companion beside him, and not the world at all. Migli, a short, boxy, bearded dwarf who stood as tall as he was wide, certainly didn’t do much to ease the burdens of his imprisonment.

  At the moment, they were trying to figure out how to get off an island in the middle of the Great Sea. At least, Jack was trying to figure it out. Migli kept reminding him, about once every forty-five seconds, “Our first step is figuring out how to get off the island.”

  Which had been obvious the first time he’d said it, and, about half an hour and forty-some repetitions later, had him just about ready to throw himself over the side of the castle.

  He didn’t do that, though. The castle had been built on the tallest mountain in the world –the digital world. It would have been a very long, and probably terrifying descent. But more importantly, he wasn’t quite sure what his last checkpoint was. He didn’t want to have to climb the tallest mountain in the world a second time, if the game had saved before he reached the castle.

  Not that he had any more business in the castle. He’d come in search of Iaxiabor’s dagger – a magical item that held the soul of an archdemon who had plagued the world eons ago. A demon strike squad had beat him to it, and a devil called Kalbidor killed the dagger’s keeper, and rode off with it on his dragon. Jack’s only clue as to where they might have gone came in the Keeper’s dying words. Seek the wizard of Ieon’s Spire. You will find your answers there, in the seeing stone.

  To reach Ieon’s Spire, they first had to get to Ieon’s Valley, and speak to Ieon himself. Which meant getting off the island.

  As Migli reminded him, since the next forty-five seconds expired. “Our first step is figuring out how to get off the island.”

  Jack peered out into the horizon. The perk of hiking up the tallest mountain in the world meant you had the best view in the world – literally. He could see the whole of the island, with its sandy beaches and palm trees in every direction. And as he gazed beyond the island’s borders, he could make out other dots of land – some of them smaller islands, some larger. From his vantage, they looked like tiny specs against a pale horizon.

  He focused on the north. Migli had told him Ieon’s Valley would be several days north by sea, in the northernmost realm. He couldn’t make out the mainland, and he still couldn’t see a way off the island.

  Precisely forty-five seconds later, Migli said, “Our first step is figuring out how to get off the island.”

  “Migli, how are we going to get off the island?” He’d tried a few variants of the question already, but since his own observations hadn’t turned up anything, he figured it would be worth another try.

  “We can’t swim,” the dwarf answered. “The distance is too great, and the sea snakes would devour us before we got out of the shadow of the island.”

  “Yeah, I wasn’t thinking of swimming. I was thinking more along the lines of making a boat or something. I mean, you’ve got an axe, and there’s trees here. Can you make some kind of raft or boat or something?”

  “My true skills lie with smithing, Sir Knight. We dwarves are a people who have mastered metal and gems, and even stone. But I’m not much of a hand at wood.”

  “I’m not asking for a work of art, Migli. I mean, chop down some trees and string together a raft. I don’t care how ugly it is, as long as it floats.”

  “You know,” he said, like he hadn’t heard Jack at all, “there are rumors of a type of sea bird – a huge thing, that can fly for days on end. They’re said to inhabit the islands in these parts.”

  Jack sighed. He wasn’t in the mood for trivia. “Focus, Migli: the boat.”

  “In days of yore, my ancestors used them as beasts of burden. They could ferry ores and gems, and sometimes even finished products from islands to the mainland.”

  “That’s great. But we need to get off the island. Maybe you can save the history lesson for later? Like, once you’ve built the boat?”

  “Sometimes, if the cargo was precious enough, the smiths would send guards along with the cargo. The birds are huge – they can carry passengers as well as items.”

  Jack was about to complain again about the dwarf’s time wasting when he paused. “Wait, is this some kind of in-game clue? Are we supposed to capture one of these birds to get off the island?”

  Migli’s eyes widened. “Ah. A good plan, Sir Jack: if we capture a sea raptor, we can probably escape this place.”

  He nodded. “Right. Okay. Where would we find one of these raptors?”

  “I don’t know. But I suggest we start by looking for an eyrie.”

  Jack scanned the horizon a second time. He hadn’t seen any trace of birds or an eyrie before, but he’d been looking for boats, not nests. He turned in a full circle and saw nothing of interest. Then, as he returned to his starting position, a set of dialogue options appeared in his thoughts.

  Alas, I see no sign of an eyrie.

  Or

  Thanks for wasting my time, dwarf. There’s nothing there.

  He opted for the first one, and Migli nodded. “Then it must be concealed from our vantage. These are not stupid creatures, remember: they would hide from the inhabitants of the castle.

  “Come, Sir Knight: let us go in search of a sea raptor.”

  Jack grumbled at that. “How are we going to find one of these darned things, if we can’t even see them?” He hadn’t said darned. Not in his head. The alteration came thanks to the game’s profanity filter, which converted any moderately offensive term to a mild, and often ridiculous, filler word. Damn became darn, hell became heck, and so on. Sometimes the results were annoying. Never in his life had Jack Owens meant to say you’re joshing me, especially when the English language provided him a solid, tried and true classic like you’re shitting me. But sometimes they were really appalling, like when the game translated piss as piddle. He could deal with mother trucker and backside; he’d put up with blessed instead of damned and good heavens! instead of what the fuck? But to say piddle on that?

  He could forgive Marshfield Studio for accidentally trapping him in a game. He could forgive them for their overzealous nannying in policing his words. He could even forgive them for Migli. But he had to draw the line somewhere. So it was his firm belief that whoever had programmed the substitution list to include piddle should be fired.

  Now, every time the profanity filter kicked in, he was reminded of just how bad it could get. He paused a moment, cleared his mind of the memories, and took a deep breath. “Speak to supervisor.”

  That was the magic phrase that pinged the human overseers. One of them would slip into the game, taking over Migli’s avatar. They could communicate through the dwarf, and the technology would transfer their facial expressions and intonations to the character’s. The only thing it wouldn’t do was transfer their real voices. Everyone who played as him sounded like Migli.

  But half an hour ago or so, Richard the i
ntern had told Jack that his shift was ending and Jordan would be taking over soon.

  Jack preferred Jordan to Richard for a couple of reasons. First of all, Jordan was a lot less worried about bending the rules to help him. As overseers, neither she nor Richard were supposed to interfere with the gameplay in any way. But Jordan had helped him out of a few snafus, mostly caused by bugs. Still, Richard hadn’t been willing to jeopardize his internship. Not even if it helped Jack finish the game – and therefore leave the game – sooner. Jordan had been willing to risk her job for him.

  But Jordan was more fun to talk to, and the fact was, Jack couldn’t remember when he’d spent as much time talking to a pretty woman as he’d spent talking to her since he’d been trapped. Granted, their talk was all work related and they were both technically on the job – she was overseeing his beta testing, and he was officially employed as a beta tester. And granted, he hadn’t realized she was a woman when they’d first started talking; nor, for that matter, had he actually ever seen her. He only had Richard’s word about what she looked like.

  None of that really mattered, though, except that it was a testament to his own growth in the face of adversity. Jack had something of a problem talking to pretty women, or smart women – or any women, really. It didn’t matter what the topic was. He tended to say stupid things and get flustered and red and shy, and generally look and feel like, in Dagger of Doom vernacular, a proper backside. So being able to carry on an intelligent conversation without convincing her that he’d been dropped on his head as a baby was progress. Being able to do it when he was already under an extraordinary degree of pressure – what with the prospect of being stuck in a video game for the rest of his life and all – only made him a little prouder of himself.

  And the truth was, Jordan struck him as a really decent person. She’d been sympathetic to his plight, and not just in the professional, C-Y-A corporate way all of Marshfield Studio had been so far. She wasn’t thinking about liabilities or bottom lines or what the snafu might mean for her employer, and consequently, her employment. He was stuck in a virtual reality unit, his mind hijacked, his body on what was essentially life support. And he was going to stay there until her company figured out how to get him out, or he finished the game – and even that was just their best guess at this point. So she felt bad about it, like a decent person would.

  As far as Jack could tell, decency was in short supply at Marshfield Studio. So he was glad to run into it when he could. And right now, he ran into it again.

  The game paused around him, and Migli turned around with a big, fresh-faced smile. “Jack, how are you doing? Did you get some sleep?”

  “I did.”

  “Good. Richard tells me you were disappointed?”

  “I thought the game would be over by now,” he admitted.

  “Sorry,” she said. “You’ve got a long ways to go yet.”

  He nodded. “I know. Richard said I’ve got about seventy-five percent of the game still.”

  “Eh…it might be more than that. Maybe eighty, or eighty-five.”

  He groaned. “That is not what I wanted to hear, Jordan.”

  “Sorry.” She must have been smiling under her VR headset, because the dwarf flashed a chagrinned smile his way. “But hey, look on the bright side: you’re already twenty percent done.”

  “Or fifteen.”

  “I said ‘bright side.’”

  “Right. Okay, bright side it is. So, since I’ve only got eighty percent of the game left, you want to, I don’t know, give me a pointer?”

  “About what?”

  “Well, how I get off the island, for starters.”

  She nodded, and the dwarf’s beard bobbed with the action. “Did you talk to Migli yet?”

  “Yeah. He said something about sea raptors.”

  She nodded again, and the dwarf’s red braids bobbed a second time. “Good.”

  “But I can’t find the eyrie.”

  “No. You have to find a raptor first. They’ll lead you to the eyrie.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “You know I can’t tell you that.” He started to protest, but she added, “But, if it were me, I’d probably start looking for raptor feathers. And then I’d follow those feathers until I found the eyrie.”

  He grinned. “That’s better. And – if it was you – where would you look for raptor feathers?”

  She hemmed, and hawed, and looked around the top of the tower. Then she pointed westward, toward a rocky ledge. “I don’t know, but I might start there. It looks like the sort of place a bird of prey might sit and watch for food, doesn’t it?”

  “I guess it does.”

  Chapter Two

  Jordan went back to her regular work, and Migli resumed his AI personality. Jack pointed to the rocky outcropping and told the dwarf that they’d begin their search over there. “It looks like the kind of place a raptor might sit and watch for prey.”

  “A fine deduction, Sir Knight.”

  The trip down the mountainside was long and arduous, and he stayed on the alert for signs of monomal – the vicious, monkey-like creatures who inhabited the mountain trees and thickets. They came across a few monkey tracks and a rather worrying giant cat’s pawprint in the sand. But the sun blazed bright overhead, and they could see far and wide – and so far, anyway, nothing came out to meet them.

  He paused as the morning wore on, and he started to get hungry. He cracked open a coconut, which opened far more easily in-game than it would have in real life. But it tasted every bit as good as the real thing, from the water to the flesh. Then he got up, feeling refreshed, and continued on his journey.

  Migli took to singing on their descent. Jack didn’t pay much heed at first, lost to thoughts of his own. He was wondering what they’d do when they actually found this bird of prey. Would they have to tame it somehow? Or fight it, and best it in some manner of combat?

  One of the dwarf’s phrases pulled him from his thoughts, though.

  And their steel turned to stone,

  Now they fought with food alone

  Steak and fowl and mutton bone

  Like angered children these men grown

  Driven mad by the words of the crone.

  “Uhh, Migli? What kind of song is that?” It was a far cry from his usual fare of pretty maidens and lost gold.

  “Ah, a fine and bloody tale of witchcraft and death.”

  Those weren’t phrases Jack would normally use in conjunction, but he nodded anyway. “Sounds like some kind of…lethal food fight?”

  “A bloody fight to the bitter end. Old King Raversen was beaten to death with a slab of blubber. One of his sons was drowned in a vat of pudding.”

  Of all the implausible aspects of the story, one stood out to Jack. “Who keeps a vat of pudding just lying around, much less one big enough to drown someone in?”

  “King Raversen loved his pudding,” the dwarf said in sober tones that didn’t really match the absurdity of the story. “And the crone – she ingratiated herself to the king and worked her way into his court. It was she who first developed the dagger enchantments, you know.”

  Jack blinked. “Wait, you mean the dagger? The one we’re chasing?”

  Migli shook his head. “No, not that one. Long before that. She developed the dark enchantment that better men would use to bind a soul to the dagger.”

  “Oh. So it’s not the same dagger, but the same spell?”

  “Aye. She cast the first spell and bound the first dark soul to steel: Raversen’s himself, for he had as black a heart as any.”

  “Hold on. You’re telling me the guy who drowned in his own pudding is the starting point for all this trouble?”

  “T’was the king’s son Bjorn who drowned in the pudding.”

  “That’s right. Raversen got bludgeoned by blubber.”

  Migli nodded again. “That’s right.”

  “So we’re chasing down a soul consuming dagger thanks to some evil guy who got beat to death
with whale fat?”

  “In a sense, yes.”

  “Blessed salvation,” he said, although his actual train of thought had gone in the opposite direction. “How high are these writers when they think of this crap?”

  “These daggers have always been a source of mischief to he whose heart was not pure,” Migli continued, ignoring his question. “They can sense evil. They yearns to feed its own darkness.”

  Jack waved this away. “I know, I know. I watched the cutscene. Evil, dark, doom: it’s what happens if Iaxiabor gets out.”

  “If it senses malignance, it will consume you.”

  “Like old Raversen consumed his pudding, I guess.” Jack laughed to himself at his own comment, and then focused his attention on the horizon. Migli was still talking about the dagger and its appetite, and pure hearts and a bunch of other standard fantasy video game stuff. He’d heard it a million times in a million ways in a million games.

  The day had got warm, and he was glad of the fact that he couldn’t sweat from exertion. For whatever reason, Marshfield Studio had left in the ability for nervous sweating in players. But he would have been a mess if temperature and exertion created perspiration too.

  They reached the cliffs by late afternoon. By then, the sun had already scorched the open ground for hours. The rock blazed with heat, and so did the sand underfoot. He could feel it radiating off of – well, everything, it seemed. “Come on, Migli. Let’s find one of these birds.”

  But the rockface was empty. He didn’t see any eagles circling overhead or find any nests nearby. “What the heck,” he wondered. They’d reached the edge of the rocks now, and were staring into a long, tropical valley. A little river wound its way toward the sea, and palm trees dotted the horizon.

  “Verily, I believe thou hast discovered the correct location after all, Sir Knight.”

  He ignored the fact that Migli had switched to the game’s rather unfortunate version of Old English. That was one of the things the bug fix that trapped him here was supposed to, well, fix. It not only hadn’t – the dwarf, and all the NPC’s, randomly switched dialects – but it had trapped him in the game too. It was a teeny bit of a sore spot, so he skipped over it and asked, “What?”