AVARICE ONLINE: KEL'VAN RED HAND Read online

  AVARICE ONLINE

  Copyright © 2021 by Titus A. Nettles All rights reserved.

  Nettles, Titus, AVARICE, Online: KEL’VAN RED HAND. Titus A. Nettles. T.Knock Publishing

  The following is a work of fiction created by Titus A. Nettles. All characters and references are solely from the imagination of this man, and any likenesses, phrases, and ideas are purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, borrowed, reproduced, and scanned in any form, be it digital or printed without the author’s expressed permission.

  [email protected]

  To my father, Edward Nettles. The man who bought me my first comic book, who got me my first library card, and who was waiting in the auditorium for me when I got my diploma.

  Thanks for believing in me when others didn’t…Love ya, pops…

  CHAPTER 1

  5...4...3...2...1...

  BEGIN!

  The announcer shouted out the start of the battle. Kevin dashed to his left as his opponent’s long sword came crashing down in the space he previously occupied. The guy practically telegraphed his attack the way he carried his weapon before the fight. He quickly closed the gap and jabbed his own weapon, a wakizashi short sword, into the side of his opponent named “Noobkilla.” Kevin mentally sighed at the ridiculousness of the opponent’s tag.

  Turning on his heels from his side attack, he then delivered a vicious strike into the man’s back, the blade raking down the spine. The quick succession of blows knocked down his opponent’s health bar by 18 points.

  “Son of a bitch!” cried Noobkilla as he swung his blade behind him. A clumsy attempt Kevin easily avoided by jumping backward. The large man turned to face him once more, breathing heavily and a snarl etched across his face. He was garbed in heavy leathers, which only mildly mitigated attacks on his person compared to chain or plate armor. Though it no doubt gave him strength and speed bonuses. His initial attack was quick and powerful, but Kevin saw it coming a mile away.

  “This guy must be a barbarian build,” he mused. The speed of his attack, combined with the strength of the blow, made it apparent that it was what he was dealing with. A powerful combination.

  There wasn’t a doubt in Kevin’smind that the guy in front of him was going to lose.

  First off, his opponent kept his sword close to his body. Noobkilla had a long two-hand weapon, so he should be using its length to keep Kevin at bay and control the pace of the fight. Especially since Kevin was using a short sword.

  Kevin openly shook his head at Noobkilla’s incompetence, which only made his adversary angrier than before. The large barbarian charged him again with an overhand strike with his sword. This time Kevin dodged forward to his right, moving just under the sword blow. With both hands on the handle of his blade, he jabbed his weapon into his opponent’s gut.

  Noobkilla’s hp went down another 15 points.

  Kevin was about twist the blade in his stomach when the man front kicked him in the chest.

  “Ooof,” he huffed as his back hit the dirt floor of the arena.

  Mr. barbarian, with his loose black hair covering his face, quickly thundered forward and tried stomping on his head, but Kevin rolled his body to the side. The blow missed Kevin’s face by inches as dirt and grime peppered his back and neck. Noobkilla then raised his sword over his head, intending to cleave Kevin’s prone body in half when he lifted his left hand towards Noobkilla’s face.

  “Burn.”

  A gout of flame hurled forth from Kevin’s outstretched hand and bathed his opponent’s face in fire. Noobkilla backed up, instinctively raising one hand to his face to protect it from the flames. Kevin took advantage that his attack gained him by rolling to his left and slashing his short sword across the barbarians kneecap. Noobkilla’s leg immediately gave out on his right side.

  The three seconds it took for the barbarian to recover from the assault gave Kevin just enough time to stand on his feet and see him drive his blade forward into his chest.

  Critical hit 20 points

  Kevin twisted his blade in Noobkilla’s torso and quickly pulled it out.

  Bleed effect- body will leak 5 points a second for a 10-second duration.

  The barbarian fell on both knees as his stamina began bleeding out of him, and his health points were now drained to the halfway point. Kevin had already spun and was behind the barbarian. He hopped on it’s back and grabbed his wild black hair, wrenching it around in his fist with his right hand. Then stabbed his sword into his eye socket with the other.

  Critical Hit 20 points

  Noobkilla weakly tried to reach behind him and lay his hands on the relentless monster who was bleeding him like a stuck pig. Kevin merely clamped his legs around the large man’s waist for a tighter grip and then plunged his weapon into the other eye.

  Critical hit 20 points

  Between the critical hits and the bleeding effect, Noobkilla fell forward, hitting the ground face first, sending dust in debris in all directions. Kevin picked himself off of his defeated opponent’s back and stood in the center of the arena. He stared down at Noobkilla grimfaced, chest booming with a sense of satisfaction at his handiwork.

  “Match over...The winner is Warblade,” bellowed the announcer.

  Kevin collected his pvp currency and thought about the gear he was gonna get from the war vendor. He needed the Fire blade rings to augment his fire skill by 10 and complement his necklace that added extra mana. The plate shoulders and boots he possessed increased his endurance and health. The five-piece leather set he owned enhanced his strength and agility greatly. The collection also granted him bonus weapon damage by 10, as well as his sword, which did the same.

  His style of play depended immensely on sword knowledge using the wakizashi short blade. He already had 3 years experience in the use of the Japanese sword before his former commander handed him a job at Wellcorp, which owned Avarice online, the biggest MMO on the planet.

  Virtually all of the players at his level already had a class. He was one of the few that had not, and he counted that as a plus. In his eyes, most players were too dependent on their class abilities and would have been better off honing their craft with their weapons or magic use instead. Which is why he won most of his fights. No doubt, getting a class did give you more powerful abilities, but it also pigeonholed you with what type of gear you could wear. Since he primarily depended on his sword skills and a level 3 fire-based attack, he could use any armor he saw fit. So he hadn’t picked a class and was actually thriving. When he reaches level 20 though, he will be at his limit with his fire-based skill and could not advance it without a class. He would be hampered since he used the skill mainly as a gap closer to attack enemies until he was in range for a sword strike. The cost of that will not outweigh the plus of picking whatever armor he wanted. But that was a bridge he would cross when he got to it.

  For now, he would finish his day the way he had for weeks. He logged off his character, logged on to his in-game avatar for work, and marched into Gladys mountains.

  My god... This is Awesome….

  Kevin stared back at the scene before him. A beautiful landscape of green mountains, peppered with lush blue and red trees and rocks. There were open sections where you could see pockets of orcs, traveling with their weird form of oxen (for lack of a better word), carrying their wares and supplies. He then turned upward toward the sky and looked at the two moons. Auron, the closer of the two, way above, only partially blocked by a mountain tip, and Degan farther back in the horizon with a giant crater in the middle. Both silhouetted by a blue sky just turning dark.

  This was his new spot to hang out towards the end of the day for w
ork. As an in-game Tech or “glorified beta -tester” as some of the gaming community would call them, he helped maintain the realism and functional interaction within the online game. They created their own characters and then proceeded to monitor and interact vaguely to make sure everything is functioning normally and in the parameters of the “Gaming Artificial Intelligence of Avarice” or G.A.I.A. for short. As of 2027, Avarice online was the only full immersion mmo on the market with no evidence of slowing down. 54% of the world had accounts, and it was steadily growing. It’s because of this growing population of gamers that G.A.I.A. is repeatedly expanding the world of Avarice to accommodate the new influx. There are multiple game techs for each section of Avarice, but Kevin had just discovered “The Gladys Mountains” a week ago. It was quite the fluke of actually finding it. He was mapping out a cavern to see if G.A.I.A. had placed boss level monsters or N.P.C.’s in it when towards the end of the massive cavern, he spotted light shining through a narrow crevice.

  “What in the world...” he asked himself, as he squinted his eyes and made the arduous climb towards the light. The chasm between the rocks and the light was just wide enough for two people to walk through it.

  “Crap,” Kevin thought. “Might as well see what G.A.I.A. put here.”

  As he walked through the narrow crevice, he was assailed by the smells of lush plants, the feel of rock, and deep black soil underneath his feet. It did pale to the sight of the overland view of both the mountainside and the beautiful scenery of the sky above it near dusk. Since that time, 6 days ago, he has made this scene the last thing he sees before logging out. A peaceful, unspoiled look at a possibly brand new DLC in the making….

  One of the perks of being an in-game-tech is the ability to shape your character how you want to interact with the environment. Upon observing the many animals and plant life in the mountains, the only signs of an organized society or race were beings that looked like orcs.

  “Is G.A.I.A. creating new types of mobs? Or is it going to be a new playable race?” thought Kevin. Orcs are not a playable character on Avarice, at least not yet. Maybe G.A.I.A. was setting Gladys Mountains up as an expansion? Kevin knew there were talks about adding them. Mainly because in most D&D type MMO’s there was always an orc-like race to choose from. He couldn’t’ see their stats from where he entered the mountain. As far as he knew, all monster races were raged induced or aggroed by both mortal and semi-mortal races... Elves, humans, dwarves, and half-giants. That sort of thing.

  Kevin clicked open his D.S.or display screen for short. It is an active menu that showed stats, experience earned, and other forms of communication forms with players, including messaging techs in-game. He used it turned to his skills tab, and jacked the magic scale up a bit in order to have fire magic available for his in-game tech character. Then he added a level 1 healing spell as well. Mage characters were nothing new to him. They used to be his forte before...before he decided to leave the armed forces. Not wanting to go down that train of thought, he quickly pushed the “yes” icon, and his new character sheet was available for him to see. He nodded his head in approval; he’d rather fight up close and personal, but being out here alone, the A.O.E. or ( area of effect )ability might come in handy. Just in case he needed to do some nasty massive damage before retreating.

  He tried messaging others to join him via mail. Still, for some reason, no other characters were able to find the entrance to the cavern he used. So he just upgraded his reports up the chain and told the other techs what was going on there for the last 5 days. Including his run-in with the orcs the day before, which wasn’t much to tell. He introduced himself by waving his hand….and then got hit with a tomahawk type weapon in the chest. He lost 30% H.P. and began using his Heatwave spell while running back up the hill without looking back. All pain receptors were turned up to 50% for techs to ensure that players who played up to 40% (the most allowable for adults playing Avarice) were working.

  “Yeah…no problem there,” he moaned.

  After casting a healing spell, he decided to just keep his inspection on the other wildlife and possible dungeons available for now.

  “Man, I wish I could see it. “Kandice sighed.

  Kevin had opened up his D.S. and talked to what he considered to be his only friend at his job. It was only 30 minutes before he was going to log off, and he wanted to make sure he kept people updated on his progress.

  “I still don’t know why nobody else can find the entrance," Kevin mused. It really wasn’t that covered up. 3 seconds later, Kandice messaged, “I’m telling you Kev; every tech has been to the entrance you texted us about. There is no entryway in this new part of the game G.A.I.A. has made. If it wasn’t for the screenshots, nobody would have believed you, Mr. Orc, lol.”

  Kevin chuckled at the screen. The tech guys have taken to calling him Mr. Orc after he sent them an in-game pic of the monsters that attacked him. The last three days were almost painful at meetings. “Well, we’ll see who’s laughing once I figure out-”

  All of a sudden, he froze, and a sharp, white searing pain blazed across his head. His body started to freeze up. He could barely look down when he noticed his arms and feet started to blaze through all types of multicolors. He fell down on his hands and knees as the pain became more intense. As arcs of light started to explode outside of his body, he rolled over onto his back, screaming in abject agony.

  “AAARRRGGGHHHHHH…”

  When Kevin came to his senses. He was lying on his side, crumpled up in a fetal position. The D.S. was still up, and messages were still coming in. “Hey Kev…are you still there? Kev!” cried a voice over his head. Groggily He stood up and began speaking.

  “Yeah, I’m still here, “he grumbled. “I don’t know what the hell happened, Kandice. Not sure if there has been a short in the game or my dive unit. I just went through the most pain in this game ever…. way past the 50% margin.”

  There was a slight pause, then Kandice spoke,” Maybe you should log out right now and do a diagnostic on your capsule. The last thing you want is a head injury Kev.”

  Kevin shook his head, trying to shrug off the lingering effects of his ordeal. “Yeah, Maybe you're right. I’ll call after I log off to tell you what I find out.”

  “Okay, Mr. Orc,.” laughed Kandice. “Afterwards, let me know what happened. Bye”.

  “Bye,” Kevin sighed.

  As the D.S. read call terminated, his hand slid down the interface and pushed the logout button. He was waiting for the graying of the world and flatness as if looking at a widescreen television that accompanies logging out of the game. It sometimes made him dizzy, so he usually closed his eyes and waited for the logout voice to let him know he can step out of his dive capsule. It was a full human-sized pod filled with liquid and a headset that clasped onto your head to enter total immersion in-game. He waited almost a full minute before he opened his eyes and saw that nothing had changed.

  “What….? He quietly said under his breath. He accessed his D.S. screen and tried again. Nothing. Not even a graying of the world. Kevin slowly started to panic. He began pushing the log out button frantically until he noticed that the button was greyed out. “WHAT?!!”

  He gripped his head to calm the rising panic from his gut threatening to take over.

  “Okay,” he thought. “First things first…gotta get hold of a tech guy or customer service. Better than that, get Kandice. Why the hell should I wait in line in a time like this!’

  All the while punching up the screen, he whispered to himself, “Please work…god help me please WWOORKkk”. Just before the panic took him, Kandice’s voice sounded on the D.S.

  “Kandice!!” Kevin screamed. “Thank god…. you gotta help me!’

  “Calm down Kev,” she said. “Slow down. Did you run a diagnostic on the pod? I know it’s expensive to replace, but you’d rather have it working than have an accident with something that’s faulty.”

  Kevin closed his eyes to stay calm enough to get his point ac
ross. “Kandice,” he said slowly. “I never got a chance to run the diagnostic…. I can’t log off.”

  There was a pause on the D.S. “What do you mean you can’t log off, Kevin?”

  He felt like ripping Kandice’s face through the D.S. at this point. Clenching his teeth, he slowly said. “Just what I said, Kandice. I tried logging off multiple times; there is no graying out that comes with logging off. Hell, the logout button is the only thing that IS greyed out. Can you yank me from the comm system there?”

  That seemed to wake Kandice up to the seriousness of the situation, at least by the tone of her voice.

  “Okay Kev, hold on while I try a manual pull.”

  Kevin closed his eyes and tried to think of any way he could fix this while he waited for help. Nothing came to mind at the moment. 5 minutes later, Kandice was back.

  “Kevin, it says you’re logged in, but I can’t access the account for some reason. Look, I talked to the other guys, and we are coming to your apartment with the cops…We are going to have to manually log you off from your pod.”

  “Great. Thank god I wore pajamas tonight before diving in”, Kevin thought. Whatever, they can joke about “Mr. Orc” for the rest of the year as long as they get me back.

  “Okay,” Kevin said. “Have somebody contact me when you guys are ready.”

  “Hang tight, Kev, we’ll get you out.”

  End message.

  The D.S. flicked off. He looked around, no longer interested in the terrain, orcs, or anything else. Kevin sat down with his head in his hands and waited.

  It was almost night time when Kevin lost his patience and tried to message Kandice.

  Nothing.

  He tried three more times with a message calling back, saying, “Leave me alone, you despicable human being.” That freaked Kevin out. What in the hell is going on? He reached out to her one last time, and finally, she picked up...Before Kevin even got a word in, Kandice started screaming into the D.S.