Benjamin Douglas [Douglas - Quest for Vengeance

HERO ONLINE

BOOK I

QUEST FOR VENGEANCE

Benjamin Douglas

Copyright 2019 Benjamin Douglas, all rights reserved. No portion of this work may be duplicated or distributed without the authors permission.

All persons in this work are fictional and are not meant to represent other persons, real or fictional.

PREFACE:

WHY LITRPG?

_________________

The short answer might be: why not?

Alright. So if you havent been playing fanboy to the denizens of indie authordom the same way I have been for the past few years, let me explain what the genre is, to begin with. Imagine your favorite role-playing game (RPG), with all the interesting characters, skilltrees, quests, world-building, and game mechanics. With me so far? Now imagine a massive multi-player online RPG (MMORPG). You all know the big one that comes to mind for most of us. Features orcs, trolls, elves, humans. Youre still with me, right? Now add a dose of virtual reality (VR), preferabbly full-immersion VR (FIVR), and you have what we call a VRMMORPG. Or, if youre a purist, maybe its a FIVRMMORPG, but thats really a mouthful, isnt it?

Now, last step. Take that gaming experience, and now pretend youre reading a novel that details every part of it. The quests, the dungeons, the bosses, yeah, sure, but also the stats, the leveling up, the crafting, the PvP and PvE and anything else that might come into play. And thats LitRPG.

I discovered the genre through a thread on KBoards a couple of years ago when it started making a splash in the indie market. I voraciously tore through English translations of some of the early Russian LitRPGs. Then I watched Sword Art Online . And the rest is history. Im a fan for life.

Ive borrowed tropes and motifs liberally from some of the LitRPGs Ive encountered in writing this book. I dont mind a bit if it seems derivitive in form, so long as the enjoyment you take in reading it makes for a unique experience. Ive always held that philosophy that all art is derivitive anyway, and I think a little intentional emulation, when done well, can be very appealing. If any fellow authors recognize tropes with a tradition in the genre, I hope they will be flattered rather than annoyed, and indulge my homage.

If youre looking for more good LitRPG stories to read, there are loads. You might check out the community at Royal Road. Or look around on Facebookthere are a handful of groups now. If you hop onto Amazon and just search LitRPG, youll find a lot of books now, and you can usually follow the reviews or number of reviews to something interesting. But my top-three favorite LitRPG novels/series authors are:

Ascend Online by Luke Chmilenko

Afterlife Online by Domino Finn

Euphoria Online by Phil Tucker

I can recommend the above three with no hesitation for their excellent storytelling, smooth prose, exciting game adventures, and overall enjoyable reading experiences. Check them out!

HERO ONLINE is my very first attempt to write LitRPG. And I could really use your help. If you like what you read, man, I would really appreciate an honest review on Amazon , Goodreads, or wherever you talk books. It would help a lot.

I wish to provide a fair trigger warning that this story contains scenes of graphic violence, life-and-death stakes, and a fair amount of cursing. If adult language bothers you, this book may not be well-suited to your expectations. My characters find themselves in very difficult situations, and I gave them free rein to express themselves as they felt necessary given those difficulties.

Thanks to Aleron Kong for his informal permission to use the trademarked term LitRPG in my series subtitle.

Thanks to my wife for putting up with and supporting me in this crazy endeavorI mean it!

And thanks to you . Thank you so much for reading!

Ben

About the Author:

Benjamin Douglas writes action/adventure science fiction and speculative fiction with a quick pace, memorable characters, and twisting plots to keep you reading into the wee hours. Opt in to receive his monthly/bimonthly newsletter and get an exclusive free short story, "The Trials of Io," a prequel to his ongoing Starship Fairfax series. You can find and follow Benjamin at the following locations:

Newsletter:

http://eepurl.com/cQnop9

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/cantankerousben

Goodreads:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16901962.Benjamin_Douglas

Blog:

http://benjamindouglasbooks.wordpress.com

Email:

Benjamindouglasbooks@gmail.com

HERO ONLINE

BOOK I

QUEST FOR VENGEANCE

Benjamin Douglas

CHAPTER 1:

EVERYTHING BEFORE

_________________

You know those gaming console displays they used to have in the electronics section of your nearby superstore? You know, the kind with the console locked up behind plexiglass and the remote sticking out, attached by some weird inflexible arm, so that you could walk up to it and demo a game for five minutes? And you know those kids that made a bee-line for that display as soon as they would walk through the door, and then just camp out playing for free for like an hour at a time?

Yeah. That used to be me.

Like clockwork, man. A couple times a week Id be in there, hands all over that controller, mashing buttons. Sometimes Id go with friends. Sometimes with my kid sister, Angie. Sometimes alone. It was my jam.

So I guess what Im saying is that it should come as no surprise that, some thirty years later, my middle-age crisis was to spring a few thousand for the next-gen next-gen, bleeding edge gaming experience of our lifetimes, even though I hadnt really been a gamer in decades. Some guys pick up a sports car, some, a mistress. But me? I picked up a ridiculously expensive playcard with a hundred hours of gametime in Hero Online , with Janus Corp.s state-of-the-art neurofacing headgear to match. And just what was I, a forty-something ex-college professor with no cultivated hobbies, hardly any family, and no real friends to speak of, going to do with that card and headgear?

Escape.

Dont get me wrong, Id had an easy enough life, I guess. All my complaints sound like first-world problems compared to real drama. I wasnt hungry, or lacking shelter or clothes. But I was lonely. I was depressed. Id come to hate my job, though now Id have given just about anything to have it back (dont even get me started on the decline of the liberal arts education in America in the mid-twenty-first century. I could go on for hours). I guess I had friends, sure, if you counted friendly colleagues but no one really close, no one I could just visit out of the blue without going through an elaborate ritual of calls and missed calls and plans and canceled and rescheduled plans first. And family was almost all gone now. It was just me and Angie left.

Thats why I did this weird, sentimental thing. I bought her a playcard and headgear, too. I wanted it to be like some sort of virtual family reunion, I guess. Some kind of message, me to her, that I still cared, that in some part of me we were still the same brother and sister we had been when we were kids, just meeting up at the superstore and playing a video game to pass the time.

Nevermind that we hadnt actually spoken in a couple of years. Just weird stuff, you know? Family drifting apart. People leave town to go where theres education, then where theres work, and before you know it, boom, the parents are deadthe only thing that really linked you togetherand suddenly youre not seeing each other at Christmas anymore. A few years pass, and its like, do you even know this person you once shared a home with?

It bothered me. And like I said, mid-life crisis. A great excuse for frivolous purchases. So Id ordered us each a starter pack, had hers delivered with a gift note, something awkward about calling me when she got it, looking forward to meeting her online. The call that followed wasnt much less awkward, and I could tell she felt guilty too, as if it was her fault we hadnt been a family lately. Which of course only made me feel worse. Im the big brother, you know? Im the one thats supposed to keep us together, supposed to be the leader, right?