Dungeons of Strata (Deepest Dungeon #1) - A LitRPG series Read online

  He forced a smile. “I am.”

  “You’re sitting at your desk.” She smiled back.

  He took a deep breath. Calm. Friendly. Accommodating.

  “Do you need me to go somewhere else?” he asked.

  “Don’t you have somewhere else you need to go? Don’t you need to eat?”

  “Got to watch my figure.” He smiled back, patting his stomach.

  Gillian’s eyes narrowed. Despite eating nothing but garbage and leading a life characterized by a series of seats and desks, his body still refused to take on the spherical shape he was clearly destined for.

  Gillian did not share his metabolism. She was starting to look a little round at the edges, despite her daily trips to the gym, and she was known to be touchy about it. Damn.

  There was a definite edge to her voice when she replied, “Proper nutrition and rest are important to living your best life, Martin.”

  “Thanks for caring, Gillian.”

  He didn’t let his smile slip for a moment, and after another long glowering moment, she moved on. Once he was sure that she was gone, he shuddered.

  His life might be sad, and he was in pieces over finishing a video game, but at least he wasn’t Gillian.

  Now that he had acknowledged why he was feeling miserable, the afternoon went by a little easier. Long ago he’d made a game out of processing the orders and finding new ways to tweak the system to make the process faster.

  It wasn’t exactly mentally stimulating work – except when something went horribly wrong and he got roped into trying to fix everyone else’s problems. Then it made him feel like his brain was burning as he tried to puzzle it all through.

  Today, there was no helpful crisis to keep him occupied, so his mind kept drifting back to the quiet death of Iron Riot. Lindsay had asked them to go their separate ways. He supposed that meant picking a new game to play, but what could ever compare to Dracolich?

  He’d dabbled in other VRMMOs over the years, even hitting the level cap in a few of the better ones, but Dracolich and the guild had always been the center that he orbited around. He supposed he could just vote to stay put – to linger in the world they had conquered for a little bit longer – but without the challenge he wondered if he would get anything out of it beyond nostalgia. No matter how distasteful it might be, he was going to have to look for a new game.

  He’d jump online when he got home, browse around and talk it out with Lindsay. There were plenty of new games out there that would already have her attention. All he had to do was convince her to pick one that was old enough for his rickety old gear to operate it, then switch to an all-ramen diet for the rest of the month so he would be able to afford the software. He could have just picked a new game for himself, he supposed, but letting go of Dracolich and Iron Riot at the same time seemed like too much to bear.

  He hit the power switch exactly as the clock ticked past five and hurried past Gillian so she couldn’t drag him into another pointless conversation about pointless things. Some other poor sap had the full weight of her attention as Martin ducked into the elevator.

  Much like his work life, Martin had optimized the trip home. A brisk walk to the subway station with a stop at a convenience store on the corner if he was trying to save money, or one of the innumerable fast-food joints if time was more valuable that day.

  With the purchase of a new game on the horizon, he opted to buy a pack of instant ramen for dinner and browsed the net on his phone as he walked, hoping to see which old VRMMOs were still being updated. Unfortunately, the moment he tapped “VRMMO” into the search engine he was flooded with people gushing about the newest, hottest one around: Strata Online. He skipped right past it without even looking.

  The hype around that game – and the brand new “NIH” VR rig that you needed to play it – was ridiculous. Nothing could be as good as people were claiming Strata was. The fact that you couldn’t get any footage from inside the game just made his disdain for it deepen. All that hype and nothing to show for it sounded like the latest industry scam to him.

  Normally he jogged from the subway station to his block, but tonight he strolled. There was nothing waiting for him in his crappy little apartment, so what was the point of rushing?

  Dead trees lined the boulevard, their leafless branches abstract against the backdrop of brutalist concrete. The streets were clogged with trash this far out from the center of town, but nobody in this neighborhood could afford a car anyway, so it didn’t make much difference except when he had to crunch across a road.

  The elevator from the street to his apartment had been out of order for somewhere in the region of six years, so Martin took the rusty utility access stairs in the alleyway instead.

  Behind every door he passed on his way up the building were people living their lives, cooking their meals, or screaming at each other for one mundane reason or another. Martin drifted by them all like a ghost.

  He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t notice the box dumped outside his apartment until he tripped over it, mashing his forehead into the plywood of his door and leaving a dent. That would probably come out of his security deposit if the landlord ever swung by.

  The box wasn’t huge, but it felt like it was filled with bricks when he tried to lift it. He hadn’t ordered anything. He wouldn’t order anything unless he was sure it would be delivered when he was here. He was lucky this package hadn’t already been stolen. Yet here this mystery parcel sat.

  Flipping it over showed his address printed very clearly on the front, right beside the “This way up” stamp that the delivery guy had completely ignored. Martin picked it up and was halfway through unlocking the door before a sense of something being not quite right made him re-read the label. The address was correct, but the name was Ake Stormbringer – the gnome juggernaut he had once made as an April Fool’s joke.

  Only one person in the world knew both his address and that name. Lindsay. Even more intrigued than before, Martin rushed the package straight to his desk and cut it open with the point of his tiny screwdriver. The cardboard split, and Martin hissed, “No way.”

  A plastic card bore the words “Strata Online” on its front, along with an alphanumeric code. But the real prize was what lay beneath: a brand-new, pristine NIH VR rig.

  Martin clapped a hand over his mouth to stop a squeal from escaping. She couldn’t have. She wouldn’t. He knew Lindsay had a decent job compared to his own entry-level hell, but there was no way she could have dropped this kind of cash just for fun. The Neural Interface Headset alone cost more than a month of his rent.

  This was insane. While he had frequently accused Lindsay of madness before, he never suspected she would actually do something like this.

  Lindsay. He needed to speak to her immediately. He had to get her to return the NIH and the game. She could still get her money back if he was quick enough.

  He doubled back to lock the door and put the ramen on the boil while the computer booted up, then jumped right into chat. Lindsay was online, of course, but next to her name there was the damning little note: In game - Strata Online.

  He stared at the words until the pot started to boil over, then ran back to rescue his noodles before it was too late. Scooping a pair of chopsticks from the sink, he slurped his dinner down and returned to staring at his screen.

  If Lindsay was playing – and playing on the same schedule they usually did – she would be online for another six hours or more before she got any messages he sent her. She was notorious for sealing herself off from all distractions.

  He glanced at the returns policy and the date on the blacked-out receipt inside the box; it would have to be sent back before the night was out. But he couldn’t do that himself. He needed Lindsay’s details.

  If he installed the NIH and the game to get in touch with her, she would lose her money on the game, but the NIH could still be returned.

  A traitorous little voice in the back of his head added, and you will get a chance
to see what all the fuss is about with Strata. He tossed the pot and sticks into the sink and came back to the computer with excitement bubbling just beneath the surface.

  Even if he didn’t keep Strata, he would get to see all of the character creation options, not to mention test out the next generation of VR before he saved up for the rest of his adult life trying to afford his own set. He could play for just one night. He had enough self-control to pack this all back up in the box later after he found Lindsay and sorted all this out.

  With reverence, he lifted the thin metal band of the NIH out of the box and connected it to the computer to start installing. Tapping in the Strata code to activate his account was easy. He jumped back online while he waited for both hardware and software to get their act together. There was so little information about Strata it was almost impressive.

  All he could really find online were auction listings for in-game items, but from those he was able to get the first hints at some of the classes and stats involved. The number of items that were actually on sale was miniscule compared to most MMOs, and the prices were much higher as a result.

  It made him wonder just how exclusive a club Lindsay had dragged him into. He was just starting to compare the listed stats across the different items when a notification went off and on-screen instructions talked him through adjusting the NIH to fit his head. It didn’t pinch exactly, but there was definitely pressure where it ran over the fresh bruise on his forehead, pressure that amped up to a throbbing when the countdown to activation appeared onscreen.

  He hurried to lie down before the VR kicked in. He didn’t know much about NIH, but he’d heard all the horror stories about people falling and hurting themselves when it activated unexpectedly. Even as he scrambled blindly towards his bed, he started hearing the countdown.

  Three.

  Two.

  One.

  Darkness.

  Three

  Decisions in the Darkness

  For an awful moment, Martin thought he was dead; that something had gone wrong with the neural interface, and it had accidentally shut down his heart along with his voluntary motor functions. He was blind.

  Panic strangled him, the encroaching darkness growing colder. Then, from nowhere, words coalesced like gathering mist.

  Welcome to Strata Online.

  Would you like to create a new character?

  There were other options drifting beneath those words but they were nebulous and dark; choices he couldn’t make yet. Martin tried to reach out, but with a lurch in his stomach, he realized he had no hands, no arms, no body.

  Looking down, he couldn’t see anything at all. He tried to bring his hands up to touch his face but there was simply nothing there. Closing his eyes did nothing without eyelids to block his sight. The same words were still hovering in front of his non-existent face.

  Martin groaned, and the sound echoed through the boundless void. Okay, he could at least make noise.

  “Yes,” Martin said.

  From out of the darkness, a ring of people stepped forward, materializing from the same smoky nothingness. Each wore different armor and sported different weapons, but their faces were the same – a blank white mask. He might have shuddered if he still had a body.

  He examined the closest form It bore a suit of intricate full-plate armor, coupled with a sword and shield in its hands. As he stared, it evaporated into a mass of words.

  The questing Knight is a bastion of martial might. Wielding the heaviest armor and armaments, they make up the bulk of the Crusade’s fighting force.

  Strength: 6 Agility: 4

  Endurance: 8 Willpower: 4

  Health: 40 Stamina: 30 Sin: -10

  The words vanished as Martin read them, replaced by a mass of other statistics and sample abilities. Armor Proficiency. Lancing Strike. Shield Slam.

  Martin let his gaze unfocus, and the words resolved themselves back into the shape of a man. His brief bout of fear had faded away – this was at least familiar. He looked around the circle, reading off the class names.

  After the Knight came the Knave, clad in light armor and wielding daggers. Next, the Invoker, draped in a robe with a staff clutched in one hand and a glowing fireball in the other.

  Those were all easy enough to understand; the fighter, thief and mage had parallels in every fantasy game going. The rest were a little harder to understand.

  The Exorcist had some armor on, but nowhere near as much as the knight, with a sword in one fist and a golden light emanating from its counterpart. Maybe it was some sort of paladin?

  The next one along, the Hierophant, wore robes and carried a staff just like the other caster, but instead of elemental magic, that golden glow surrounded its form too. Probably the healer class.

  The last one in the circle was strangest of all. The Martyr had a few pieces of armor strapped onto its featureless body, but huge expanses of skin were bare. And instead of weapons, its empty hands were held out. Some sort of monk, or unarmed combatant? Martin looked closer.

  Drawn to the Dungeon of Strata by strange dreams and omens, the Martyr is one of the chosen of Aten. Imbued by the god of light with holy powers, and a ceaseless desire to protect others, even at the expense of their own lives.

  Strength: 4 Agility: 4

  Endurance: 6 Willpower: 8

  Health: 50 Stamina: 30 Sin: -30

  Sufferance – You suffer 10% of the damage that would otherwise be dealt to your allies within a 20ft radius.

  Penance – Increases the effect of Sufferance to 50% of your allies’ damage for 20 seconds.

  [1-minute cooldown]

  Celestial Body – You regenerate 1% of your health per second at all times.

  Martin grinned. The language might have been different, but the meaning was the same: martyrs were some sort of masochistic tank class. Martin assumed the self-healing scaled up with time to make up for the lack of armor.

  It was a neat change from the usual man-in-a-can set-up, but he had no interest in playing a tank ever again. He’d learned from his last attempt in Dracolich that it wasn’t for him. When you spent the whole battle face to face with the enemy, there was no chance to read the battlefield or to plan out your strategy. You couldn’t see the woods for the trees, or the dungeon for the dragon.

  The big problem in choosing a class was that he didn’t know what Lindsay would have chosen. It was hard to complement her choice without knowing. She would never have picked the martyr – because she hated tanking as much as Martin did – but beyond that he had no idea which direction she would have jumped.

  He’d seen her take on every other role over the years, although he doubted she’d have picked a healer if she was the only one playing. Still, he couldn’t pick the healer class in case she was an invoker, because then they would be stuck without any melee fighters at all.

  He wasn’t a huge fan of healing, if he was being honest. It felt like it all came down to churning out raw numbers, and that just wasn’t terribly satisfying. Still, with no inherent healing at all, their progress would always be limited, and even if the game had healing items, they usually weren’t very economical. Martin stopped in front of the exorcist and peered closer.

  A foot-soldier of the Crusade and a mortal instrument of Aten’s will, the Exorcist seeks out darkness wherever it takes root, using every tool at their disposal, from steel to the holy light itself to drive it back.

  That wasn’t a particularly useful description, but the sample abilities helped a lot more.

  Strength: 6 Agility: 4

  Endurance: 6 Willpower: 6

  Health: 30 Stamina: 40 Sin: -20

  Celestial Strike – Deals combined physical and light damage equal to the user’s weapon damage.

  [10-second cooldown]

  Healing Touch – Restores 33% of a target ally’s health on physical contact.

  [60-second cooldown]

  Rite of Retribution – Increases all allies’ critical hit chance by 33% for 1 minute.

>   [60-minute cooldown]

  Healing abilities, melee combat, and buffs too – it seemed exorcists had a good spread of abilities, and hopefully he’d be able to build his character more in one direction or the other as they leveled up. That way, he could fill whatever gaps there were in the party.

  That was, if he planned to keep the game and the NIH. Which he definitely didn’t. He was only here to talk to Lindsay. It didn’t matter which class he picked. He was just here to talk.

  Martin said, “Exorcist,” and the other class mannequins took a step backwards into the darkness once more.

  To his surprise, four new figures stepped forward. Each of them was clad in the exorcist’s light armor, but the bodies inside were wildly different. It seemed Strata Online didn’t have any of the usual generic fantasy races to play.

  There was a lizard-man, a wolf-man, a bird-person and a rat-man to choose from, with any other options still to come drifting in the maelstrom of shadows just beyond Martin’s field of vision. He drifted closer to the wolf man to marvel at the detail on its fur.

  It looked real. The faint breeze passing through the darkness was ruffling the individual hairs. But how was his computer managing to render all of that detail without melting through the desk?

  A sudden block of text appeared, and he was startled out of his admiration.

  The proud and powerful Wulvan are the undisputed masters of the northern steppes. While even the name of their race has always been synonymous with warfare, they have come to the Dungeon of Strata on a mission of peace, to prevent the darkness within it from spilling out and consuming the world.

  Strength: +3 Agility: +2