Phoenix Grey [Grey - The Adventurers Guild

The Realm Between

Book 3: The Adventurers Guild

PHOENIX GREY

Text copyright 2019 by Phoenix Grey

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the authors imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the author.

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PROLOGUE

EARTH - October 7th, 2057

"There's been an anomaly."

These were words that Michael Coleman never liked to hear. It could only mean one of two things. Either the AI of The Realm had gotten so advanced that it was creating its own monsters and scenarios that were not within its programming parameters, or Shinichi Sometani was fucking with the game again. Mr. Coleman wasn't sure which one would be more of a nightmare to have to deal with.

"I'll be right there." There was hesitation in his voice as he spoke over his wrist comp. This was not something he wanted to have to handle right now. Two of his patients had already died today after taking on a foe that had clearly been marked as impossible to beat at their current level and skillset. Oh well. He supposed that Darwinism even worked inside The Realm.

Mr. Coleman took long strides to his office inside of Grand Willow Hospital. It was one of the four largest hospitals that Radical Interactive owned internationally. They had other locations in Japan, Australia, and England. Many aspiring doctors would come for their residency after being trained with Radical Interactive's software. The hospitals owned by Radical Interactive were hailed as some of the most technologically advanced in all the world. They were also where many of the patients who were in The Realm beta were sent. The rest were scattered among the other fifty-two smaller medical facilities that Radical Interactive owned and operated. Facilities that were solely dedicated to The Realm patients.

Thankfully, Mr. Coleman only had to oversee the four major hospitals, boomeranging between them every month to check on the status of his patients. What time he didn't spend on the medical floor, he used to hole away in his office at whatever hospital he was in to check on updates to The Realm that might affect his patients.

Anomalies were code redsomething that demanded his immediate attention because they could affect the entire game or the outcome of a patient's recovery. Thus far, there had only been a handful not related to Shinichi Sometani, and they hadn't been anything too vital. A deformed bugbear. A troll that had gone berserk. An invincible dragon that scorched a small village to ash. Luckily, there had only been one live adventurer in the village, and he had known well enough to run. Mr. Coleman considered these more glitches than anomaliesthings that could quickly be fixed once he got a programmer on them.

Shinichi Sometani, on the other hand, could not be fixed. He currently owned half the shares of Radical Interactive and thought that entitled him to do whatever he pleased with The Realm. And sometimes, he did just that. There was rarely a time when he wasn't busy testing the limits of the programming. Periods of silence on his activity were a blessing, that of which Mr. Coleman had just enjoyed two solid weeks. Scowling at the calendar on his computer, he figured that it was about time for Shinichi to rear his head and create chaos again.

Mr. Coleman booted all applicable programs. He connected to the reporting agent with video software and did a screen share, holding his breath in the hopes that whatever the problem was, it wouldn't be too much of a clusterfuck to fix.

"Is it him ?" he asked before the image of The Realm had even fully loaded.

Shinichi Sometani could rarely be reasoned with. Threats only worked to a certain degree. He was too smart for his own goodfor the good of The Realm. Shinichi was, perhaps, The Realm's greatest threat...which was ironic because he was also its creator. That alone gave him more power than anyone could have fathomed. He was a genius and as stubborn as men came. All that the programmers at Radical Interactive could do was try to mend the backdoors that he'd found to make exponential changes. Their hands were proverbially tied.

"I don't know," the reporting agent replied hesitantly, "I don't think so."

That came with some relief. Hopefully, 'I don't think so' meant 'probably not.'

The screen illuminated with the image of a character walking alone in the woods. Naked. Stumbling. A newborn to The Realm with no bearings.

"This isn't supposed to exist in the game," the reporting agent pointed out, though it sounded more like a question.

Michael Coleman sighed, his stress abating. "It's fine." He waved the image away, feeling slightly uncomfortable for watching. "It's an exception."

"This is an incredibly high-risk character." The agent pursed his lips and shook his head, clearly not concurring.

"It got approved by upper management," Mr. Coleman quickly shut him down. He didn't have time to explain. This character was the equivalent of a Make-A-Wish kid asking for his 'experience' to be to stick his finger in a light socket. It might kill him instantly; it might not, but whatever the case... "It's an experiment," Mr. Coleman told him. "Inform the others not to flag this in the future."

"All right. Would you like for me to assign it to someone on the visual team or would you prefer if I handled this one personally?"

Mr. Coleman smirked. "Whoever gets this one will probably be very excited. Go ahead and assign it to someone on the team, but wait until I send over further instructions."

"Okay," the agent replied dryly. Mr. Coleman couldn't tell if it was because he had wanted to be assigned the character or because he still thought it was a horrible idea that the character had gotten approved.

"I'll have a special NDA written up for that person to read and sign. Should this experiment fail, we definitely would not want it getting out to the press."

"Understood." The agent nodded.

Mr. Coleman ended the video call. He grabbed a stress ball from his desk and squeezed it as he leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. Perhaps it would have been smarter to have assigned this character to the agent. Visual team members were on the lower rung of Radical Interactive's staff. It was a job that didn't require a degree, only attention to detail. Most of the employees on the visual team were fresh out of high school. He didn't doubt that some of them had big mouths. Assigning this character to the wrong person could spell disaster for the company. It could also mean bad press and lawsuits. After thinking on it for a few moments longer, he called the reporting agent back and reassigned the character to him. This man, he could trust. He hoped.

CHAPTER ONE

THE REALM Day 48

"Can I take both of these?" Azure asked, looking at two out of four of the quests he'd been offered. They paired together perfectly, so he thought it would make sense.