Goddess Watch: A LitRPG/GameLit Adventure Novel Read online

  The details of the surgery, when they made me sign the releases, had almost made me sick with concern. Removing my remaining eye to interface with the intact optic nerve was the least of it. I’d almost balked, because it was clear I wouldn’t be able to ever return to a normal life. Liara had been the one to tell me it was all worth it. She’d reminded me that what I had in the real world wasn’t really much of a life, according to what she knew. I had to agree, because that care home had been hell.

  Her smile as we flew was maybe a little less enthusiastic than mine, but I chalked it up to experience. This was, after all, not her first rodeo. She’d been living what we both called the simulated life for the past eight months; first with transcranial stimulation and then with an earlier form of the surgery I’d undergone. She still needed to leave the game world periodically to let her mind adjust itself back to her body.

  I had no such limitations.

  The longest stretch I’d spent in these private shards was two weeks. I’d eaten, slept and just plain lived in this artificial reality. During that time, I’d spent a lot of effort trying to poke a hole in it. Somewhere, my near-corpse was lying in a nutrient fluid, with God knows how many weird cables and tubes sticking out of me. But no matter how hard I tried, I could not break out of the simulation. There was no pain or discomfort, except when it happened in the digitized world that surrounded me now.

  I’d tried punching a rock the first day. I figured one of two things would happen: I’d feel nothing, or I’d get a notification of some harm through the interface. Instead, agony had shot up my arm and the augmented reality HUD had immediately reported that I’d fractured several bones in my hand. Luckily, the shard was set to rapid heal, and the injury had passed quickly. Liara had told me not to get used to that, because in “real Aelterna” if you wanted an injury healed fast, you needed magic or alchemy or some other in-world method.

  Speaking of Aelterna…

  “Have you given any thought to what we spoke about earlier?” Liara’s tone was careful, probably because this topic was as close as we’d come to fighting since I’d come to PURE.

  “Nothing’s changed, Liara. I’m not taking a combat outlook.”

  PURE wanted me to dive headfirst into the game, to get me into the role of some kind of warrior hero or wise wizard or something. I’d immediately balked. No part of the deal had said I needed to play the game in any specific way, only that they reserved to right to edit and broadcast footage of my play time as they chose. However, when I’d told them I wanted a quiet life doing some kind of profession, they had almost exploded. It had taken Liara’s full influence to get my demands accepted, but apparently she was still being pressured to change my mind.

  I had wound up agreeing to take one fighting type skill and one magic type skill. There was no way to guarantee that I wouldn’t wind up needing it somewhere along the line. From what I’d seen of the NPCs in the game, they were indistinguishable from humans, and that meant they might take offence to any damn fool thing. To that end, I’d accepted the unsubtle demand that I be at least as combat capable as the weakest of newbies.

  My goal was to live peacefully, as a merchant or perhaps a craftsman. Adventuring was for people who were playing this game for fun, and more importantly, had a filter between them and the pain feedback systems! Of course, the real world and a game were quite different, so I’d spent considerable time researching what skills would serve me best.

  I immediately discarded things like blacksmithing and goldsmithing and the like. The money seemed good on the surface, but I was in this for the long haul. Instead, I looked for things that people needed either in quantity, at regular intervals, or both. I found two candidates: Alchemy and Cooking.

  The first skill, Alchemy, would let me craft potions, poisons, and other strange mixtures with various effects. Adventurers bought and used these consumable items by the truckload, according to the market data. Even a warrior with a friend versed in healing magic liked having a potion or two in his inventory. His healer friend, for their part, could carry mana potions to keep them in the fray longer. Alchemy, then, was an easy pick.

  The other skill, Cooking, was a little less obviously useful. Lower level adventurers didn’t bother with buying food, for the most part. The buffs it gave were wasted on them. But the higher level players, the ones that were engaging in some of the most advanced levels of gameplay, needed every edge they could get. To them, a well crafted meal was worth its weight in gold. A small resistance bonus, or a little bit more mana recovered per second, could mean the difference between winning a fight and getting sent home in a respawn orb. Cooking might not be glamorous, but I was confident that it would keep me living comfortably.

  There was another side of things that I needed to consider. My character would be living full time in the game, and it wasn’t inconceivable that my business would cater to a large number of NPCs as well as players. Most of them were, of course, farmers, craftsmen, and other noncombatants, so they weren’t in a position to afford the +5 Codpiece of Death Resistance, or whatever it was that blacksmiths made. Even the things they could afford, like iron swords and the like, weren’t really of use to the average civilian. But who didn’t enjoy a well cooked, hot meal, especially one that might keep them working a little later into the night during harvest? And when they turn up with tetanus from stabbing their foot on a nail, well, I’d be there with an affordable elixir to cure what ails them.

  The last four skills I chose were Trade, Diplomacy, Knife Fighting and Barrier Magic. Trade would improve buying and selling prices, and Diplomacy would help me deal with cultural differences that might arise. The last two were my nod to the demands of PURE. I could stab a straw dummy and cast a barrier spell strong enough to stop an arrow. I had no intention of using either skill if I could get away with it.

  Skills like Stealth, Lockpicking, Horseback Riding, or other weird stuff, I left entirely alone. My plan didn’t include any of that.

  My Attributes I left average, other than Charisma and Luck. The former would help me deal with people, and the latter, well, who didn’t want to be lucky? The rest I left at the baseline value, because I wouldn’t need them much if things went well. And if they didn’t, I could add points later, every five levels.

  The final choice, and the hardest, was to choose a Trait. Most of these didn’t give combat bonuses, but they were small, helpful additions to my character. Some were more useful than others. Call of the Wild would give me a power that, once per day, would give me a chance to befriend a nonmagical beast. Genderfluid would let me switch between genders once per in game week. Ladies’ Man would make female NPCs flirt with me every chance they got, although the description made it clear that it wouldn’t help my chances with them. The one I wanted, though, was Gift of Tongues. Every race would react to my speech as if I was using their language, and I would be able to understand the language of any intelligent creature native to the material world. No demons or elementals, but for a trader, that was about as good as it got.

  Daniel Descouteaux

  Race: Human

  Level: 1

  Attributes:

  Strength: 10 (ATK bonus: 0)

  Endurance:10 (Vitality/level bonus: 0)

  Agility:10 (Accuracy/DEF bonus: 0)

  Intelligence:10 (Mana pool multiplier: 1.0)

  Willpower:10 (Resistance bonus: 0)

  Charisma: 14 (Disposition bonus: 20%)

  Luck:13 (Bonuses unknown)

  Derived Attributes:

  Vitality:110

  Mana:120

  Traits:

  Gift of Tongues

  Skills:

  Knife Fighting: 1

  Barrier Magic: 1

  Cook: 1

  Alchemy: 1

  Trade: 1

  Diplomacy: 1

  Spells:

  Physical Barrier Rank 1

  We flew onwards, and the plains gave way to a wetter climate. I shivered, but Liara showed no sign of stopping. Th
e landscape turned into a bog, and then a fully developed swamp, complete with dense canopy and misty, open areas of water. I called out to Liara to slow down.

  She came to a stop above a particularly wide pool of water. The surface was dark with tannins and reflected the sky in a black mirror. Fog twisted through the tree roots that dove beneath the surface of the water, and I thought I could see fish in the water. At least, I hoped they were fish.

  “I’m sorry, Daniel.”

  Liara wasn’t looking at me. Something shimmered in the air, and suddenly I was much colder. The environment was somehow more real, and my AR HUD reported that I was in the Mitselheim Swamplands. More alarming to me was the fact that the minimap in the corner of my vision was reporting the area as LIVE rather than SHARD.

  “What?” I sounded like an idiot, event myself. I looked over at Liara, who had stopped midair and was standing in a casual pose. Behind her, some kind of glowing aura was forming.

  “This is where you start your new life. Good luck, Daniel.” Liara winked out of existence in a flash of actinic light.

  I didn’t have time to say anything before I realized I was falling, and fast. My flight power was gone entirely, replaced by an icon shaped like a shield. I focused my attention on it.

  [Invulnerability. Remaining time: 28 seconds.]

  The ground, or rather, the swamp was approaching rapidly. I flailed my arms in an attempt to regain my power of flight, but instead I just got myself into a dizzying spin. The sky and the swamp traded places rapidly and my senses overloaded. I panicked and started trying to scream, but the air rushing past me robbed me of any ability to speak or even draw a breath.

  I curled into a ball, denying that this was happening. Even with my eyes closed, the shield icon slowly ticked down. Just because I wasn’t going to die on impact didn’t mean I wanted to fall from a thousand feet in the sky!

  The timer had just hit nineteen seconds remaining when an incredible impact drove the air from my body. I was stunned, and not just mentally; the AR reported my status as such. More concerning was the flashing overlay that was showing my remaining time to hold my breath at zero! Why the hell did I need to hold my breath? My lungs burned with the need to inhale, but my muscles couldn’t organize themselves. Good thing too, because when I opened my eyes I realized I was underwater. Blackness surrounded me.

  Panic exploded inside me. Cold water entered my nose and mouth and I thrashed wildly. I knew how to swim, but the visceral terror of drowning prevented me from actually swimming. For a moment, I was back in the hospital, crippled and helpless, and I was about to die.

  I shook my head. This wasn’t the hospital, this was Aelterna, and I was not going to drown here. I let my body relax as much as possible to see how I’d float, and then started moving.

  By the time I got myself together enough, the invulnerability timer read less than ten seconds. I couldn’t see a damn thing in the dark waters I’d impacted, but I thought I had a good idea what direction was up. I kicked and thrashed, racing the invulnerability timer. I had no idea where I would respawn if I died here. When my head finally broke through the surface, I drew in the most welcome breath I’d ever inhaled.

  “Pfaaah!”

  I coughed out some cold fluid that had invaded my mouth and began swimming towards the shore, such as it was. When I reached it, I realized it wasn’t ground at all. The surface of the bog was matted with vegetation, and it couldn’t support my weight. Instead of fruitlessly trying to clamber up on the mossy surface, I headed for the nearest tree.

  The trees rose from the water like silent skeletons. Their roots dove deep underneath, and when I finally reached one, I struggled to climb up and out of the water. When I finally got out, I threw my arms around the tree’s trunk and hugged it for all I was worth.

  “I love you, tree.” I took a moment to catch my breath, then started thinking as fast as I could. Two minutes ago, I was flying along with Liara. Now I was soaked, freezing, and clinging to a tree in a swamp that I’d never heard of in my research.

  “Fucking WHY?” I screamed at the sky. Nobody answered.

  6

  I bounced a little on the tree. It seemed stable enough, so I carefully found a comfortable position and checked my overall status. No more Invulnerable, no more Stunned… things could be worse. I was at full Vitality, full Mana, and although I was freezing, nothing indicated that I was going to die anytime soon. The bugs were another issue entirely. Mosquitos and God knows what else started sucking my blood the moment I stopped moving. My face and hands felt like they were covered in welts after a minute.

  What did I know about surviving in a swamp? I was wet, cold and completely disoriented. My map function pulled up nothing useful, as I had basically, well, literally just dropped in from the sky. I had to think!

  First of all, I had to figure out what I had for resources. My clothes were soaked and didn’t provide any real protection anyway. I had about 200 lorin, the currency of the game world, in my inventory. Strapped to the back of my belt was my knife.

  [Steel Dagger]

  ATK: 3 (base 2, +1 from skill Knife Fighting)

  DEF: 0 (base 0)

  Durability: 25/25

  Quality: Normal

  Stored safely away in my inventory were my alchemy kit and my cooking gear. Both were entry-level but would serve me nicely until I could gain more skill. I also had what was referred to as a bedroll and shelter. Too bad there wasn’t anywhere to set it up.

  The only other meaningful asset I had was my magic, but I only knew one spell.

  [Physical Barrier]

  Skill: Barrier Magic

  Rank: 1

  Target: Self or Other

  Maximum base physical DEF: 5 (1 DEF/10 Mana)

  Duration: 10 minutes

  Other effects: +2 effective DEF versus missile weapons

  Only one Physical Barrier may exist at a time. Increase Barrier Magic skill to increase maximum base DEF. Increase spell Rank to decrease mana cost per DEF.

  It wasn’t much, but Physical Barrier would stop just about any arrow or thrown weapon, as long as I put a decent amount of mana into it. Fifty points would give me five DEF, enough to stop an arrow or two dead in the air. My own dagger attacks wouldn’t be able to pierce it either, not that my skill was anything to write home about. Someone who knew what they were doing could probably shatter my shield instantly. I wished I’d paid more attention in the combat tutorials; all I could remember was that DEF opposed ATK, although the actual calculations were kept secret from players.

  The spell required only a slight verbal component, essentially a declaration that I wished to cast it. It took barely a whisper. I knew from the teaching sessions that other spells required more complicated castings, with gestures and such, but that was something to worry about later.

  I cast Physical Barrier on myself, using the maximum of 50 mana. No sense walking around unprotected, and maybe it would cut the bugs a little. Immediately an icon indicating a human form with a bubble around it appeared in the AR HUD. The icon indicated the bonus and duration of the spell. I set it to warn me when it expired and minimized it. Sure enough, the insects stopped biting me. That was mana well spent. I took a good look around while my mana recovered.

  The mists were very effective at randomly obscuring my vision, and the heavy overgrowth of moss and other plants deadened any sounds beyond the immediate area. Behind me, the open pool that had almost drowned me was once again smooth and black, reflecting a shadowy world on its surface. Between the trees and the mists and the heavy growth of moss and vines, the swamp felt very closed in. I spent a few minutes gazing around, trying to find some kind of indication of where I should go. Animal sounds came from all sides, but thankfully nothing that made too much noise. On the other hand, a big predator would probably be stealthy… I tried to stop thinking about it too much.

  A prompt blinked at me in the AR HUD, so I opened it up.

  [On level up, you are eligible to learn the fol
lowing skills:]

  Swimming

  Perception

  Huh. It seemed that performing actions in the world might let me learn new skills. I didn’t remember anything about that in the training. Splashing around in the swamp had opened up Swimming, and looking around had opened up Perception. Once I levelled up I’d have to consider those.

  Something caught my eye, but when I looked directly at it, a troublesome wisp of fog blurred the scene. I waited impatiently and was rewarded; about thirty yards from me was what appeared to be a boardwalk constructed of raw logs. The regular pattern was quite obvious once I saw it, although the colour of the logs was the same wet brown-green that the rest of this bog seemed to be. I plotted a path through the roots of the trees to the walkway.

  Several minutes and two humiliating falls later, I was standing on the logs. They were chopped, not sawn, and they were lashed together with what looked like some kind of vine. The walkway was anchored here and there to the heavy trees, but it still swayed alarmingly when I tried to to walk too quickly on it. I didn’t know what direction I should choose, so I pulled out a single lorin and flipped it.

  “Star side up. Guess I’m going right.” Hopefully my Luck stat had helped me out there. I started making my way carefully down the walkway.

  There was nothing in the swamp to differentiate one area from another, and I soon lost track of time and distance. Only the chime of my Physical Barrier spell running out told me that I had walked for ten minutes. The path did not branch, although it did occasional loops and bends that almost had it doubling over on itself. There were points at which I could see the walkway off to one side. After the fourth recast of Physical Barrier, I was beginning to wonder if I’d chosen the wrong direction, but then things changed significantly.