Manipulating Magic: An Epic LitRPG Series (Jeff the Game Master Book 2) Read online

  MANIPULATING MAGIC

  ©2021 AETHON BOOKS

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  Print and eBook formatting, and cover design by Steve Beaulieu. Artwork provided by Fernando Granea.

  Published by Aethon Books LLC.

  Aethon Books is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

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

  All rights reserved.

  I’ve known many great friends over the years, but perhaps none as loyal and true as Rhett C. Bruno.

  —J.C.

  Contents

  ALSO IN SERIES

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  FROM THE FORUMS

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  FROM THE FORUMS

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  FROM THE FORUMS

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  FROM THE FORUMS

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  FROM THE FORUMS

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Epilogue

  Thank you for reading Manipulating Magic

  ALSO IN SERIES

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  ALSO IN SERIES

  MANUFACTURING MAGIC

  MANIPULATING MAGIC

  MASTERING MAGIC

  1

  JEFF_

  Four minutes and thirty-five seconds ago, according to Jeff’s in-game clock, he’d been squaring off against Terverag, the Father of Dragons. The massive silver dragon hadn’t just been a worthy foe; it had been an impossible one. The thing shouldn’t have existed. Something wasn’t right and hadn’t been for some time.

  First, Hard Rock Data had been reduced to one lone Game Master: Jeff Driscoll. He wasn’t even Infinite Worlds’ best GM. Probably not even top ten, if he was honest. Sure, he’d always met that magical fifteen-minute response time for player complaints and nearly always found a solution to their problems. He’d even done his best to be kind and never break character. But there was no reason for him to have been chosen.

  He recalled CEO Dan Shaklee’s words on the very first day Jeff had met the man. He’d told Jeff, “All we do know for sure is that only you can fix it.”

  Like he was Obi-Wan Kenobi, and this was some life-threatening, world-endangering event.

  And that’s just it: he wasn’t, and it wasn’t.

  This was a game. He knew it. They all knew it. But more than that, it was a game generating a buttload of money. Players had been unhappy, leaving, canceling their subscriptions, and with Jeff as the only GM, Dan Shaklee was desperate.

  Except, Mr. Shaklee and the tech-heads had no clue why it had been Jeff. All they’d known was he was it. No one else could help. Jeff was utterly alone.

  That was then.

  Now, five minutes later, Jeff stared at the character screen open in front of him. The design was familiar. He’d seen enough screenshots of them, even opened a couple himself. It was what a Level 1 noob character’s screen would look like.

  Not his GM sheet, that’s for sure. That had been simpler. Far simpler. None of the graphical details this one had. No flourishes. It wasn’t designed to look like a tattered and worn parchment—ends rolled up, showing rips and stains. It didn’t have fancy lettering or multiple tabs like Abilities, Reputation, and Inventory.

  Back then, it just had a picture of a hooded figure in green, barely detailed and decorated, robes with only three tabs along the bottom.

  Tickets | Messages | Log Out

  As a GM, that was all he needed.

  Jeff wasn’t sure what he was looking at now, but it sure as hell wasn’t that.

  Driscoll, Level 1 Manipulator

  He wasn’t wearing the fresh-meat underwear and practice sword combo new players got upon logging in for the first time. He wasn’t wearing his old boring GM robes.

  Now?

  Green with gold trim, hood drawn up, shrouding his face in darkness. But how? Seven minutes ago, when fighting Terverag, the Father of Dragons, Jeff had decided to manufacture his own brand of magic and force the game’s code to outfit him in magical armor before growing to a size comparable to the great beast.

  That armor may have been gone, but he had to admit, his new robes were pretty badass. He could get used to this look.

  The only problem was that he shouldn’t look like that.

  Upon closer inspection, that gold trim was a series of runes stitched into the hood’s brim, sleeve openings, and lower hem. He wore a wide, black leather belt, a couple small scrolls hanging off the side, two cork-stoppered potion bottles on the other. And positioned cross-body, a sheathed dagger. Even without drawing it, he could see that it too bore etchings up and down the hilt.

  “Well, ho-lee…”

  He had stats. Same as the players.

  Streng
th

  Dexterity

  Endurance

  Intelligence

  Willpower

  Charisma

  Things he hadn’t had before.

  With a thought, Jeff closed the Character Sheet, then looked down at his in-game body. There they were, the same robes he’d just inspected in the character portrait.

  He raised his hands. The robe’s many folds fell away to reveal pale white skin, ten fingers. He thought about wriggling them, and they obeyed.

  So, what happened?

  Fighting Terverag, the Father of Dragons. All GM powers intact. Involved in a world event. A pivotal one at that. He’d been the one to end it. Not the players. Not the Infinite Killers or any other guild. Him. And when the fight ended, he’d teleported out of there, away from the valley in the Bristleridge Mountains by Culver Port.

  Jeff Driscoll, the only active Game Master in Infinite Worlds—a rogue patch still left to deal with. One that had sent out a ton of buggy code that had been making Jeff’s last couple weeks pure hell. And it appeared Jeff was no longer a GM at all.

  Instead of the GM Break Room—dull gray stones and the HRD logo—a gray boulder surrounded by a bright, glowing sun—he faced the Northfield Abbey. Beautiful, white stone walls soared upward, the sides sloping to form a tall tower with a four-sided, brown-shingled, steepled roof. Three sides were open, allowing a different bright sun—the game’s real one—to glint off the onyx bell.

  The human starting zone.

  The Holyfire Cathedral.

  This was all confusing, but Jeff wasn’t an idiot. He wasn’t sure why, but one thing was for damn sure: he was a player now.

  Jeff recalled up the Character Screen, mentally hitting the tab for Game Options. At the bottom, beyond Music, Effects, and Gameplay settings, was the Log Out button.

  He clicked the command.

  The Abbey’s white stone walls faded to black, replaced with Hard Rock Data’s familiar logo. Then, his TerraMount 720’s virtual desktop.

  He reached back and yanked the helmet from his head, then sat forward. Breathing heavily, he stood, his legs wobbly. He glanced down at the VR rig, a gift from Hard Rock Data to assist him in his duty as the game’s only GM.

  A bribe, more like it.

  He backed away slowly.

  “What the hell?”

  He staggered around his small apartment, trying to control his breathing. South Florida sunlight filtered in through the large window he’d forgotten to fog before logging in.

  It was a fluke. That’s all—some kind of holdover from the fight with the dragon. Whatever had caused him to become part of the event, it was still in effect.

  But again, Jeff wasn’t stupid. He’d heard the players call him “the Manipulator” during the fight. And that’s what the Character Sheet said.

  Level 1 Manipulator

  He sat on his sofa, hoping it would help his head to stop spinning. He hadn’t been Level 1 during the fight. He’d just been a GM, using his new understanding of code manipulation to battle the dragon. Fix the rogue patch so the game could get back to normal. There were no levels. Just him and his own abilities. His own ideas. So, maybe it did make sense that there would be some kind of aftereffect.

  Jeff turned back to the TerraMount, something he had grown to loathe over the past few weeks.

  Terror coursed through him.

  What if the rogue patch had done something irreparable? What if the whole world event had been designed to remove all GMs and Jeff was a leftover? An accident. An oversight.

  What if its chaos was now complete in turning Jeff into this Manipulator? Or maybe it was all designed to somehow destroy Jeff?

  He chuckled. That was a bit of a stretch. Ego much?

  Okay, so maybe not him, specifically, but any GM? Obviously, the rogue patch’s intent had been to pull a GM into the event and make him or her have an active hand in the final fight. For whatever reason, Jeff had been the last GM standing, so it would have been him. It could have easily been any of the others.

  Right?

  He knew the former GMs were still active in the game as players, at least. He’d run across one of them, so it stood to reason the others would be as well. Why not take advantage of not being a GM and actually get to play the game? But would Hard Rock Data support that?

  The GMs were banned from playing the newest and greatest VRMMORPG because HRD didn’t want to foster GM bias. If they played, they might be tempted to help out their guildmates, give bonuses behind the scenes.

  Get Player-Killed? As a GM, you could hunt down the PKer and deal with them harshly.

  HRD would have none of that.

  But who was responsible for the rogue patch?

  “What the hell…” Jeff repeated. He slid off the sofa and shook his head, then walked to the fridge. This was too much. All of it was too much.

  The rogue patch, the overwhelming number of tickets he had been dealing with…

  Oh, yeah. And at one point, his boss thought he was responsible for the bugs. That Jeff himself had somehow hacked into the game and created the perfect environment for him to be blessed with being the only GM. What a great joy it had been.

  So, all of that… Now this.

  “It’s just some kind of weird aftereffect,” he said aloud, pulling a beer from the fridge. Popping the top, he took a deep swig. Was he overreacting? He was overreacting. Had to be.

  It was all getting to him, that’s all.

  He’d log back in, and everything would be normal. He’d have a dozen or more new help tickets to deal with, would file them with his new system, and go about his day. His job. The job that HRD was expecting him to do and kept saying they’d reward him for.

  Without saying how exactly they would reward him.

  But why? Why the hell should he not just quit? He didn’t owe Dan Shaklee a single thing. This was a freaking game. It was nonsense. Why was he giving his entire life to such foolishness?

  He couldn’t lie. He might have had one or more fantasies about this mirroring Charlie and the Chocolate Factory… Willy Wonka being all hard and gruff right before handing Charlie the keys to the kingdom. Jeff kept picturing Mr. Shaklee tossing everything he had at Jeff, trying to get him to break, to quit, and when Jeff didn’t… boom. New CEO of Hard Rock Data.

  Jeff laughed.

  He looked around his apartment.

  All of this was so Dan Shaklee could keep living in his big mansion on a hill somewhere while Jeff scraped by in this place. A roof over his head and food to eat. What else was he going to do? Flip burgers?

  He had to get back in there and sort this out. Then, maybe, when all was said and done, he could move on, put all of this behind him.

  But not right now. Right now, he could take a break. Enjoy another beer. Eat a big bowl of Cruncher Browns. Maybe even watch a vid for the first time in longer than he could remember. He deserved a break. As long as he didn’t jack into the TerraMount, he could ignore everything for a time. What was Mr. Shaklee going to do, show up here in the armpit of America to harass him? Not likely.

  Jeff walked back to the kitchen to get some food. But after only a few steps, the phone rang.

  His stomach sank.

  “You’ve gotta be…”

  He cautiously stepped over to the counter where his phone sat and looked at the screen.

  Unknown Caller

  “… kidding me.”

  Jeff hesitated a moment. HRD had never called him. He wasn’t even sure they had his number. Then again, they employed him… they had to have it. But they’d never used it.

  Jeff inhaled deep, his whole body shaking. He picked up the phone.

  “H-hello?”

  “Hello,” said the voice on the other end. There was a slight pause. “We’ve been trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty—”

  Jeff laughed, relief flooding over him like waves.

  He sighed, hung up, and set the half-finished beer on the counter before turning to th
e TerraMount.

  He wouldn’t rest until he sorted all of this out. He needed to know now whether he would be player or GM when he logged back in. He needed to know who was responsible for the rogue patch.

  Plugging back into the VR rig, Jeff pulled up Infinite Worlds.

  The HRD logo appeared, followed by the one for IW and then the log in screen. His information was there, all the same. With a thought, he entered the game. The screen faded to black. When it reappeared, those same white stone walls were before him, steps leading up to high wooden double doors. He turned in a slow circle. On both sides, tall pines rose up, touching the clouds. The echoes of bird songs permeated the forest, and the sound of metal on metal rang in the distance—not a fight, a smithy. It was peaceful. So absolutely peaceful.

  He stood in the middle of a wide dirt circle, hard-packed. Behind him was a flower-dappled meadow. To his right, a wide road disappeared into the woods. On his other side, a bright blue river could just be made out down a gentle slope.