The Marches of Edonis Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Also By

  Dedication

  Author's Note

  Character Sheet

  Prolog

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Epilog

  Character Sheet

  Acknowledgments

  Bonus Story

  Epigenisis

  The Better Part of Valor

  About the Author

  The Marches of Edonis

  by G.R. Cooper

  Copyright © 2016 G.R. Cooper

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review.

  Trademarked names appear throughout this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, names are used in an editorial fashion, with no intention of infringement of the respective owner's trademark.

  The information in this book is distributed on an "as is" basis, without warranty. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this work, neither the author nor the publisher shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Also By G.R. Cooper

  Omegaverse Series:

  Shepherd Moon

  Shepherd's Crook

  Shepherd's Cross

  The Kings of Edonis

  Coming soon:

  The Better Part of Valor (Book 1 of the Valor series)

  To SRM and SLD

  Author's note

  Included at the end of this volume are two extra works. The first is a science-fiction short story that was included in an anthology this year. Following that is an excerpt from a forthcoming novel I'm working on. It is also science-fiction, and neither are LitRPG. I hope you enjoy them, but understand if they're not what you're looking for from a LitRPG book.

  I point out their inclusion mainly so that I can let you know that this novel, The Marches of Edonis, ends at approximately 90% on my kindle. Without those extras, this novel is approximately 400 words - a couple of pages - shorter than The Kings of Edonis.

  Name: Wulfgar

  Level:03

  STR:10

  INT:05

  AGI:11

  PRS:02+01

  FRT:01

  HP:22 (ST+AGI + (LVL/3))

  AC:03 (Leather, Full)

  STA:14 (AGI+LVL)

  MNA:05 (INT+ (Magic Level x 2))

  ALI:Neutral Good

  REP:Dangerous (+1 PRS)

  Dwarves: Friendly

  Faerie: Respect

  Rats: Awe

  Skills (Level):

  Blade Wind (1): Targets most vulnerable facing part of the opponent. Activating causes player to spin and gives a +10 to hit attack on the opponent. Player cannot be hit during the spin. Cool-down 30 seconds minus 1 second per Blade Wind level to a minimum of 10 seconds. Active. Skill automatically granted at level 3 Small Blade.

  Climbing (2): Increases ability to successfully climb what would otherwise be an impossible vertical barrier! Each level adds .5% success chance per skill check, each point of AGI adds 1%. Active. 100 - Difficulty% + (Skill Level bonus + AGI bonus) = Success %

  Cure Poison (1): Allows the creation of poison curing potions. Higher levels can cure more deadly poison. Active. Skill automatically granted at level 3 Herb Lore.

  Healing Poultices (2): Allows the creation and application of healing poultices. Amount healed is dependent upon skill level. Active. Skill automatically granted at level 2 Herb Lore..

  Herb Lore (3): Adds ability to detect and use valuable plants. Each level increases the amount of harvest as well as the detection range for the player by 1%. Passive

  Hidden Stab (2): Increases damage done using a Small Blade while in Stealth. Passive. (STR+AGI) x .5 + (Small Blade Level + Hidden Stab Level) = Additional Damage. Removes player from Stealth.

  Small Blade (3): Gives to-hit and damage bonuses when using a knife or short sword. Passive.

  Stealth (2+12): Lowers the detection likelihood and radius of the player. Each level removes 1.5% of radius, multiplied by player's AGI. Separate checks are made for visual and aural radii, each based on several environmental variables. Each level allows for 10 seconds of stealthy movement. Cool-down 10 minutes. Active.

  Abilities:

  Highlander: +1 AGI. +1 Climbing. +10 PRS with other Highlanders.

  Items:

  Clandestine Gauntlets: Provides wearer level 7 Stealth. Does not stack with skill levels, but will stack with other Clandestine items. A full suit of Clandestine gear provides a +4 Stealth bonus in addition to the stacking effects. Rare. Item 2 of 4 for suit.

  Clandestine Slippers: Provides wearer level 7 Stealth. Does not stack with skill levels, but will stack with other Clandestine items. A full suit of Clandestine gear provides a +4 Stealth bonus in addition to the stacking effects. Rare. Item 3 of 4 for suit.

  Baen Si's Cloak: Provides wearer +10% magic resistance. Once per day, has 25% chance of completely negating one (1) magical attack. Uncommon.

  Cowl of the Wolf: Provides visual camouflage in similarly colored environments, as well as infra-red cover in all environments. Reduces species aggression from Canis Arcturus to neutral. Unique. Bound.

  Shepherd's Bite: Provides upon successful attack a 50% chance of inflicting poison damage for 1d4 damage per (1d6 + Small Blade level) seconds. All poison damage is applied to attacker as healing at 1:1.

  Prolog

  Duncan Sheriden rolled gently out of bed, moving quietly so as not to wake the sleeping woman next to him. As he stood, he looked down at her. She sighed a little and pulled the blanket close, under her chin. He smiled and, turning, pushed his way out of her bedroom and into the blacksmith shop to which it was connected.

  He'd come a long way, he reflected, in the past week.

  He laughed quietly to himself.

  He'd come a long way in the past year.

  Ever since he'd first purchased the virtual reality helmet that allowed him to log into the Omegaverse. That single purchase, instigated by his friends Matt, Vince, Clancey and, especially, Shannon, had introduced him to an entirely new world. A world - a universe - that showed him things he never dreamed possible.

  The Omegaverse was a massively - truly massive - multi-player game in which tens of millions of players around the world competed with and against each in a dizzying variety of activities. He'd participated in first person shooters where he and thousands of other players had simultaneously attacked an alien stronghold. He had participated in space battles between titanic combat ships. He had established interstellar trade routes and founded colonies. He had terraformed a planet and fought in a huge battle for the control of it.

  He had also made friendships and fortunes.

  He had an incredible string of luck, then he had learned that it wasn't luck at all. He'd been selected for an alien study of humans, a study that was trying to determine the best method for the aliens to initiate fi
rst contact with Earth.

  He shook his head. It was a lot to take in.

  Reaching down, he scratched the neck of the Bernese Mountain dog - named Bear - that slept next to the blacksmith's forge, wallowing in the residual warmth. The dog had been the byproduct of his relationship with his friend and business partner, Phani Mutha, an Indian who'd been instrumental in Duncan's success.

  He laughed a little.

  Had Phani been instrumental in Duncan's success or had Duncan merely been instrumental in Phani's? True, the man's business had been immeasurably helped by the pair's use of the moon sized space station that Duncan had found - been led to, he corrected himself. One of the many partnerships that they'd developed was to create virtual pets - dogs, cats and lambs - for players within the Omegaverse. They'd been wildly popular, and profitable, and Bear had been one of their 'products'. Duncan had brought the dog through with him - along with the Cowl of the Wolf artifact - when he'd disconnected from his physical life and entered into the Omegaverse permanently; entered into a fantasy based realm where RPG archetypes ruled the existence of all inhabitants.

  He had entered the realm because, when he had first been introduced to the concept that he could separate his consciousness from his physical body - forever - by the alien Clive who he had believed was his in-game AI assistant, he had, without thinking, resurrected his friend Shannon who had died six months earlier.

  She had died, suddenly, of an aneurysm shortly after he had received a beta version of a new virtual reality helmet. The helmet, he was to learn, not only gave the wearer an enhanced experience within the Omegaverse, it recorded the consciousness of the player - to the point that they could be recreated digitally. She had worn the helmet enough for her personality and memories to be recreated, but not, Clive insisted, enough to be sure that she was complete.

  Their reunion seemed to corroborate Clive's fears. When she'd come back - confused, scared, and agitated - the first thing she'd done was pick up a rock and knock Duncan out. Then she'd disappeared into the fantasy realm. Clive had convinced Duncan that it had been his fault, and that he needed to enter the world to find and help her. The only way to do that was to disconnect his consciousness from his physical body; the world he was now a part of operated at a much higher speed or frequency than his organic brain could handle. So he had. Duncan's body now rested, without whatever it was that defined his consciousness, in the outer universe. A vegetable. Waiting to die.

  Duncan looked back toward the bedroom he'd just left. Since he had entered this world a week before, he had gone on several adventures - quests - that had served not only to introduce him to the world and its rules, but had introduced him to several people who had rapidly become friends.

  Foremost was Lauren - or Laur'En. He had immediately hit it off with the lithe, athletic blond blacksmith. Through her Duncan - or Wulfgar as he was known within this world - had met Snorri, a huge fighter. The three of them, along with Rydra, a professional thief, had embarked on a quest that had taken them over the sea, to the east, to liberate the home of a banshee from a lich. After they'd killed the lich, and reaped the rewards, they had returned. After they'd arrived, just the evening before, they had been approached while they celebrated within a tavern. Approached by Clive's - King Clive in this world - chamberlain and given a new quest.

  Wulfgar put his hands on his hips, reflecting. That was his past year, he mused, in a nutshell. He shook his head - it hadn't even been a full year, maybe nine or ten months.

  He could have, would have, never been able to predict the route his life had taken in that time. He wondered if the next period of his life would be similarly exciting.

  Wulfgar walked back to the bedroom, to wake Lauren and find out.

  Chapter 1

  Wulfgar and Lauren, with Bear pushing his snout between them, left Lauren's blacksmith shop and merged into the crowd moving back and forth in the streets abutting the northwest gate of the city of Edonis. The early morning light, shadowed by the mountain range into which the city was built, threw long, stark shadows to the west. This western side of the city would not be fully illuminated until the sun broke over the peaks sometime around noon. By that time, Wulfgar hoped, he and his party would be heading out of the gate they now passed and on their way to completing the quest that they'd been given by King Clive's Chamberlain the evening before.

  But, first, there were several errands he needed to accomplish.

  The most important was binding at a local church or holy site. Since entering this world, he hadn't - and he had no idea where he would resurrect if he happened to get killed. Conceivably, it would be at the point he first entered the world, high on a mountain top to the south. That would be a problem. The first thing he'd had to do in this new life was to climb down the side of a sheer mountain and he was afraid of heights. It would have been much easier, he'd since reflected, if he had chosen to begin in this world as one of the several human groups that originated from the city or its environs instead of as a derided Highlander.

  He'd been lucky that he hadn't been killed in the quest chain that had taken him to sea, to the east of the city, to an island housing a low level, but nonetheless deadly, lich. Lucky, but it had been close. He and his friends - Lauren, Snorri and Rydra - had been battered and torn by the lich and barely survived to emerge and return to the city to lick their wounds.

  That return had been the day before. Today they were preparing to begin their second journey together.

  Wulfgar, Lauren, and Bear moved into the long open square - really a rectangle - between the northwest city gate and the gate into Clive's keep. The crowds thinned out a bit, allowing them to move faster. Wulfgar felt a slightly uncomfortable silence between himself and Lauren. Neither of them had spoken of how they'd ended the night before, or that they'd fallen asleep in each other's arms. He wasn't sure if she didn't want to mention it, wanted to forget all about it, or was waiting for him to bring it up. Bear, as always, was silent on the matter.

  Wulfgar decided to follow Bear's lead. At least for the moment.

  He turned to follow Lauren as she made her way up the rounded front steps to a small, ornate, church.

  "This will do for binding you for now," she said, looking back as she held the door open for them. "And we'll be binding to the churches in the various villages we pass through on the way to the frontier," she smiled, "just in case."

  "Does it seem a bit odd to you," he asked her, "that we're still using things like religion in this new life?"

  "How so?"

  "Well," he shrugged, "it just seems weird that since we're all basically going to live forever now, we're still using concepts that usually revolve around an afterlife."

  "I never really thought of it that way. To me, it's just a kind of buff. A character boost. I'm a blacksmith, so my religion is just a way that I can get a bonus that helps my profession."

  She smiled up at him, "It's just another kind of magic, really. There aren't any metaphysical meanings associated with it. At least, not to me."

  He nodded, then held the door open as Lauren and Bear entered the small church. He followed.

  As his eyes adjusted to the low light, he scanned the room. The small building wouldn't have been out of place in any European town. It looked like any number of churches - high, arched ceilings; fluted stone columns; an array of carved monstrosities lining the heights - all that seemed missing were the rows of pews. Instead, the central area of the room was taken up by a round, elevated stone about knee high. As he looked at it, a bright light appeared in the center and an adventurer, naked but for a linen loincloth, appeared. He dashed by them, toward the door.

  "Watch out for bandits," he muttered. "South of town." Then he was out the door and on his way to retrieve his belongings from his fresh corpse.

  Wulfgar looked to Lauren.

  "Now what? How do I bind?"

  "Will it."

  He looked back to the altar and told himself that he wanted to bind at this po
int. A calming green glow enveloped the stone. He returned his gaze to Lauren.

  "That's it?"

  She smiled and nodded, then turned toward the church door. She pulled one of the heavy pair of doors inward, allowing him and the dog through. As he passed he looked down at her.

  "What religion is this? This church, I mean."

  "Don't know," she pulled the door closed as they reentered the square. "Doesn't matter. At least for binding purposes. You can bind at any holy site. There are no bonuses if it happens to be for your religion."

  "What?" she asked as she saw a smile work across his face.

  "I was just thinking about what a friend of mine used to say. She liked to say, 'In the universe where I'm god, when you die you're placed upside down in a barrel. All of the alcohol you've ever wasted in your life is poured into the barrel. If you drown, you go to hell'. She called it Valhalcohol."

  "Sounds like my kind of girl. I'm sorry I never got to meet her," Lauren continued. "You mentioned that story last night. She meant a lot to you, didn't she?" He just nodded.

  Wulfgar nodded, "I think the two of you would have been great friends."

  He smiled grimly.

  And maybe you will be great friends, he thought, assuming I can ever find her in this world.

  "Now let's get you to the Magic User's Guild," she said happily, changing the subject.

  The three of them approached the guild building through the crowd in the square. Wulfgar was suddenly forced to stop as a large warhorse carrying a black knight plowed its way through the milling people. The knight, looking every bit the evil warrior out of a nightmare, pulled off his demon horned helmet and looked down at them. His long blond hair spilled out over his armored shoulders and his square, handsome jaw split into a grin as he saw the three of them.