PrimeVerse: Dose of Chaos: A GameLit / LitRPG Adventure Read online

  PrimeVerse

  Dose of Chaos

  R.K. Billiau

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief direct quotations in a book review.

  Copyright © 2020 R.K. Billiau

  All rights reserved.

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  To my five kids who put up with me spending too much time writing and editing, and especially to my oldest, Reagan; without her the subtitle Dose of Chaos would not have happened. I love all of you so much and hope that this and future books will help to make a bright future for you all.

  Follow your dreams, guys. They're within reach.

  Chapter 1

  “Knock, knock.”

  “No.”

  “Oh come on, Kai. Knock, knock,” I repeated.

  “No one’s there, Hudson,” Madison said, her usual chipper voice had lost its bubble edge. Her steps faltered again, nearly tripping on an exposed root. She shoved out a sigh, exasperated. “Literally no one has ever been here.”

  We had been in this god-forsaken forest for what felt like weeks but was really only a few days. After all, it had been less than a week since we ditched the old tribe, the Ascendants, and made our way off into the great wide open. Or in this case, the great closed and spooky. We had been following my Hunch skill and it led us into this unending forest.

  The trees were tall and gnarled, twisting up high into a canopy overhead that was so thick it barely let any light through. I say barely because it let just enough light in to be annoying. It was an oppressive, gloomy darkness broken up by the occasional bright beams of sunlight that dappled the forest floor, making it hard to see the rocks, roots, and other trip hazards that littered the ground. We did a lot of tripping and falling, taking bludgeoning damage from our own inability to see exactly where we were going. At least there were no spiders.

  There was actually no anything. No wildlife at all. Which was great for the whole not-being-attacked-and-continuously-killed aspect of our travel, while not so great for the have-to-actually-eat part. I don’t know how much that would have helped us anyway, since none of us had any hunting skills. But hey, if something attacked us, at least we could have eaten it after we killed it.

  I glanced at my mini-map again, and again, there were no dots besides our own.

  By the end of the first day we had all gained the Dehydrated debuff, blocking out 10% of our total Stamina and cutting our speed down by 25%. By the end of the second day, that debuff had doubled in strength and we received the Starvation debuff, reducing the regeneration of our various expendable pools and cutting all our physical attributes by half.

  “Do you want to try to make a fire again?” Kai asked, rubbing his hands over his bare arms. That was the other wonderful thing about this forest: so little sunlight came in that it was cold. I mean, anything below tropical might have been cold to us, seeing as the only garment we had on was our system provided underwear. After our tangle with the death trap, a perpetual spawn camping nightmare, our gear took so many durability hits that everything was destroyed. Except, of course, our indestructible underwear.

  Madison had also been caught in the death trap, but her unique class System Cleric gave her an indestructible set of armor; a chain-mail hauberk with four octagonal plates of filigreed metal strapped to it. The hauberk ended just past her waist in a plaid skirt, her legs protected with silvery greaves and sturdy boots. I was a little salty about it. Kai and I had gotten cool outfits, too, as part of our classes. He was a basic class called Martial Artist and I had gotten an Advanced class, Treasure Hunter.

  I groaned but pulled us to a stop. I was the only one with the Survival skill which was supposed to allow us to survive in situations like this. The problem was it wasn’t in either my Secondary or Personal skill slots, so it was a piddly level 10, and that was only because my Audeo skill had raised it that high in the first place. I honestly had no idea how to use the skill to make fire.

  I poured over my character sheet for the hundredth time, trying to will something helpful in existence.

  Name: Hudson

  Year: 0

  Race: Human

  Age: 18

  Title: Vassal of the Adjudicator

  Class: Treasure Hunter

  Level: 1(3)

  HP: 254

  Armor: 0

  Body – 171 Stamina

  · Strength - 11

  · Agility - 12

  · Physique - 14

  Mind – 162 Mana

  · Conscious - 14

  · Subconscious - 14

  · Superconscious - 1

  Heart – 152 Zeal

  · Empathy - 5

  · Projection - 1

  · Emotion - 13

  Soul – 141 Spirit

  · Self - 1

  · Aura - 1

  · Connection - 6

  Attunements:

  · Light

  Class Skills:

  · Hunch - 33

  · Audeo - 10

  · Lucky Find - 17

  · Illugraphy - 29

  · Throwing Mastery - 14

  Personal Skills:

  · Driven - 27

  Secondary Skills:

  · Camouflage - 10

  Unassigned Skills:

  · Survival - 10

  · Archive - 20

  · Climbing - 10

  · Running - 10

  · Jumping - 10

  · Willful Ignorance - 10

  · Obstinance - 10

  · Makeshift Crafting - 10

  · Assessment - 10

  · Athletics - 10

  · Parkour - 10

  · Diving - 10

  · Toughness - 10

  · Sucker Punch - 10

  · Core Manipulation - 10

  · Active Dodge - 11

  · Brawling - 11

  · Camouflage - 10

  · Cohesiveness - 10

  · Center - 10

  · Spear Mastery - 10

  · Teaching - 10

  · Conductor - 10

  · Scavenging - 50

  Unique:

  Character Scan - NA

  Prime of Death - NA

  “Well?” Kai asked.

  “I guess it’s worth a shot,” I said with a sigh as nothing new magically appeared. I pulled out the sticks I had been keeping in my inventory.

  “You want another Boost?” Madison asked.

  I shrugged as I gathered a small pile of dead leaves and other burnable detritus. “May as well I guess.”

  “Great!” she replied, and her fingers moved in the motions of her skill. She winked at me and made a finger-gun as the Boost landed.

  You have been Boosted!

  Please choose what attribute you would like to Boost by 21 points

  Not choosing after 5 seconds will default to Max HP

  Expendable pools are Boosted by 42 points

  I smiled at her silliness, feeling my mood lift a little. That was the thing about Madison, she was ridiculously positive all the time. The girl watched me with those intense green eyes, a faint smile never far from her lips. I still found myself having a hard time looking away from her sometimes. My eyes traveled the length of her face and she smirked, making a shooing motion at me. I coughed and glanced at Kai and caught him rolling his eyes.

  I wished I could have transferred the heat from my face into the sticks. I focused intensely on them, watching the bark chip away as they scraped against each other. I gripped them tighter, using all the strength I could muster to move them even
faster together.

  No choice made, Boosting HP.

  “Ugh,” I said, my face even more red.

  “Come on now,” Kai said. “Did you forget to choose again? You two really need to work that out already.” He gestured to us, his usually placid face replaced with a smirk.

  “It isn’t like that,” I lied.

  “Hudson, if you were any more smitten, I would think you were a golden retriever whose owner had just come home.” He pointed at Madison as a chuckle escaped from her lips. “You’re just as bad, girl. You guys need to talk it out or hug it out or whatever, but all this moon-eyes back and forth is driving me crazy. I would rather be in the death trap.”

  Madison gasped. “Kai! Come on, it’s not that bad!”

  The two kept arguing while I refocused all my energy on the sticks. With a burst of intuition, I grabbed a stray piece of bark, set it on the forest floor, and placed the tip of one stick against it, rubbing it between my hands like I was making a snake out of clay. I focused all my embarrassment on it, willing the emotions to leave my body and start burning, if only to get past this moment. Nothing happened.

  With a sigh I stood up, and felt for the Hunch skill that was active, still pulling me deeper into the forest.

  “Okay. Let’s uh, let’s just keep going, yeah?” I had never been great with women. Never even had a girlfriend before, but then, when you’re living on the streets survival took precedence. Kai grinned at me.

  “Come on man. You know I am just messing with you,” he said.

  “Well Kai, now you’ve embarrassed him,” Madison said. She took my hand and held it up to Kai’s face. “Is this what you want?”

  Kai looked back and forth between us, his eyes settling on me as I stared at my hand in hers. Then he burst out laughing. He turned, evidently having wrung enough pleasure out of my discomfort, and started walking the way we had been heading. If I wasn’t mistaken, his step looked a little lighter.

  “He does that just to get a rise out of you,” Madison said. She had not let go of my hand yet and my mind flashed back to that moment when she had admitted she liked me, but then told me she wasn’t ready for anything. The literal definition of bittersweet. She caught me staring and let go, following Kai.

  I sighed, checked my map and set off after them. This little excursion sucked, but the company was nice, even if Kai got his kicks from needling us. Sure, the debuffs were terrible, but the worst that could happen would be dying and respawning at some wilderness spawn point that may or may not be close. As long as we stayed in a party we would be able to find each other if that happened.

  “Guys, you know, I still think we should just try respawning to get rid of these debuffs,” I called out to the backs of my friends.

  Without even breaking stride, Kai shook his head. “Hudson, I have died enough. Being killed may be your special power, but I am not really into it.”

  “Besides,” Madison said, “would you want to kill me?”

  I sighed again. “No, I guess not. This just sucks so much.”

  “Well, this forest cannot go on forever,” Kai said.

  I looked at my mini-map again, our small dots surrounded by an unending field of green.

  “I hope not,” I said.

  ***

  Hours later, I tripped over another root and fell face first into the dirt. I don’t know if it was really funny or if the starvation and dehydration made us all slap happy, but Madison couldn’t stop laughing and even Kai let out a few chuckles. They both sat in the dirt next to me as I rolled over and puffed my cheeks out, blowing an errant leaf off my face.

  “I guess this would be a good time to take a little break anyway,” Kai said. He reached down and rubbed his feet, wiping the pebbles and twigs off them, leaving the newly formed blisters. “You know, I have never thought as much about shoes as I have these last few days.”

  “I know what you mean,” I said as I copied him and rubbed all the loose stuff off my feet. I winced at the pain from the cuts and pokes. It was an effort in futility though. We were just going to have to get up and get walking again.

  “I don’t know why you two are so whiny, my feet are fine,” Madison said as she wiggled one of her boots at us. I threw a stick at her, my Throwing Mastery skill allowing me to get it right between her eyes. “Hey!” she shouted and threw leaves back at me, coating my face. I spluttered and got back to my feet.

  “Do you have any idea how much longer, Hudson?” Madison asked.

  “Not any more this time than the last time you asked,” I said. “All I know is we just keep following my Hunch and it will take us to something helpful.”

  “This archon, the Adjudicator, it didn’t tell you anything more about this quest?” Kai leaned backwards, arching his back.

  I checked my quest log again.

  Quest: Follow your Hunch! - Reward: Unique skill to help you in combat.

  You have a Hunch, you know where something is!

  I activated my Hunch skill again, feeling the pull through the forest.

  “We just need to keep going,” I said. It was that moment when the debuffs flared, again reducing the maximums on all my expendable pools by 25%. “Well that’s just great.”

  “You got hit with more debuffs too?” Madison asked. Her cheery demeanor seeming a little forced.

  “Yeah. Fun times,” I sighed and we continued walking.

  ***

  We finally stopped for the night, laying down on the cold, pokey ground. We slept close together as a feeble attempt at warmth, but none of us spoke. There wasn’t anything to say. Sleep was a fitful affair, leaving us with yet another debuff.

  Bad Night’s Sleep!

  Due to sleeping conditions you have gotten a poor night of sleep; your expendable pool regeneration has been reduced by 20%.

  We rose and walked in silence. The forest was also silent, but a peaceful silence that did not match our moods. After an hour or so Kai spoke up.

  “Hudson, I am beginning to think your idea might be what is needed. I am so tired, and tired of being tired. I am ready for these debuffs to be gone.” He stopped and turned towards me. “Maybe you should kill me, and we can start over wherever we respawn.”

  Madison cocked her head, a strange look on her face.

  “What?” Kai asked. “You have to admit this is pretty terrib-”

  “Wait!” Madison put her hand up, palm out. “Do you hear that?”

  Kai and I stopped moving, listening intently. A few seconds went by before I heard what she was talking about, and it was music to my ears. A slow, rhythmic rush. A quiet trickling. Water! There was moving water somewhere close.

  Chapter 2

  My heart did a double take at this new sound in our otherwise monotonous surroundings. It did another when Madison’s face lit up while she turned this way and that to find the source of the noise. Her eyes were bright with expectation. This better be what we thought it was.

  We all started running, well, hobbling, towards the noise. We stumbled here and there, but as the noise got louder, and we got closer, the canopy of trees above us seemed to open slightly and more light was filtering in. As if I had been following Hunch, we found the source of the noise within minutes with relative ease. A river!

  It wasn’t a grand river, maybe ten feet wide, and didn’t appear overly deep, but it was grand to us. It was the most wonderful thing I had seen all week. We got closer and watched as the water flowed, mesmerized by the swirls and eddies. The gentle slope by the river’s edge was dotted with smooth rocks, and the water danced around them, producing bubbles and the calmest swishing sounds.

  It was probably just our hunger and thirst deprived brains that caused it to be so hypnotic. I opened my mouth to say something only to have my words cut as Kai let out a huge yelp and cannon-balled into the water.

  “What are you doing?!” Madison yelled, wiping off the water droplets that had splashed onto her. Of course Kai couldn’t hear because being underwater was an excellent wa
y to not hear someone talking to you.

  I glanced over at her and grinned. “It’s water Madison, WATER!” With no further explanation I jumped in after Kai, shuddering as the cold water snapped me alert. The water was so clear I could have almost been convinced it wasn’t even there if it weren’t for the biting cold that embraced every part of me. I swam to the surface, treading water and gulping sips of the river as I went. I reveled in the fact that my Dehydration buff went away, freeing up some of my attributes and expendable pools.

  I looked over to the edge of the river to splash Madison, but she was gone. I scanned around and found her off to the side, in her system underwear, slowly making her way into the water a little at a time, flinching as she went.

  “Don’t tell me you’re one of those people!” I yelled at her. She stopped moving and cocked her eyebrow at me.

  “What do you mean, ‘those’ people?”

  “You know, someone who takes forever to get in the water. Like you’re doing right now.” I reared back my hand to splash her but stopped cold as she jabbed a finger at me, her face scrunched up like she wanted to blast me with laser-eyes. It looked mean enough for me to hope she never learned a skill like that.

  “Don’t you do it! If you know what’s good for you, you won't-” she spluttered her last word as the water from Kai’s splash smacked her right in the face.

  “Kai! You’ll pay for that!” she shouted and, defeated, jumped the rest of the way into the water. She surfaced and proceeded to poorly attempt to get Kai back while he just laughed.