Final Quest: Dungeons of Perdition - Book 5 (A LitRPG and GameLit Adventure) Read online

  Final Quest

  Dungeons of Perdition

  Book 5

  Abhisek Basu

  Disclaimer

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, locations are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2019 Abhisek Basu

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author. This includes all forms of duplication, film adaptations, audio narrations.

  Table of Contents

  Disclaimer

  Copyright

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  The Best Mailing List you’ll ever sign up for

  Final Words from the author

  Links

  Bonus: Free Horror Story from SCARE SCARE 1

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  Dedication

  This book is primarily dedicated to all my readers. Without your love and support, this book wouldn't exist.

  To Stella Dey, without whom this book wouldn’t be possible.

  To all my friends namely Monodeep Dutta, Srijeet Ghosh, Aritrodev Bhattacharya, Saptarshi Pal, who’ve always stuck with me through thick and thin.

  To Rob Billiau, who helped with finding the right places to spread the word.

  Finally, a huge thanks to Ian Mitchell, Evan Durham, Tao Wong, Ramon Meja, Cosimo Yap, Travis Bagwell, James hunter and other greats who’ve helped create the genre and build it to what it is today.

  Introduction

  Thanks for picking up this book.

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  Happy reading! See you on the other side!

  Chapter 1

  The words faded as new words appeared.

  _____________

  Would you like to continue to the next level?

  Yes. No.

  _____________

  Natalie looked around her. Everything was still. The orcs in the distance were frozen in time, just like everything around them.

  “There’s another level?” Natalie asked, turning towards Evan.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Evan said. He smiled as if he knew her choice before she even made one. Natalie took a deep breath and stared at the sky. A solitary chill ran down her spine. The glow of the letters illuminated the battlefield faintly, pulsating on its own as if it was waiting for her next move.

  She gazed and focused her attention on the “Yes” and as soon as she did, it glowed brighter than all the other words. She focused her gaze again, just like she had done on the screen in her vision all this while, and the word “Yes” popped out and became larger for a second. Then all the words vanished. Almost instantly, Natalie felt her body getting lighter.

  “What is happening?” she asked, staring down at her feet, feet which felt like they were weightless, a feeling of numbness starting from her toes and slowly making its way up her body.

  “Here we go,” Evan said, and just as he finished talking, Natalie felt the ground below her shaking. She felt her feet losing contact with the ground, and then, almost all too suddenly, she was launched upwards, exploding through the skies in a perpendicular trajectory. She couldn’t understand how or what was happening to her. Below her, the battlefield became smaller and smaller until she could see Tholos in its entirety, just like she had seen it on her map. Tiny, insignificant, and yet that single place held her wildest memories, gave her true purpose and direction and made her the hero she was.

  But now, where was she flying to? Where was this “Next Level” going to be?

  Against her will, her body was hurled into the skies and yet, she felt none of the physical effects of it. For a moment, she thought that she saw another planet among the millions of stars, this one more triangular than spherical, similar to Tholos and yet glowing in a blue light, but she was moving at such a speed that it was hard to notice anything distinct. Stars flew all around her in trailing white lines, and the fact that she could still breathe- in what seemed like the vacuum of outer space felt strangely comforting.

  Shifting her weight, Natalie turned around in space, trying to look at the direction she was moving towards. As she did, she noticed Evan flying ahead with an expectant grin on his face.

  “Hey!” Natalie shouted. Evan turned back, then slowed his speed just enough to fly beside her, which implied that unlike Natalie, he was more in control of his flight. He could control his speed, which meant he knew more about what was happening.

  “Make this stop!” Natalie shouted.

  “I can’t. You’re the one who pressed on ‘Yes’, remember?” Evan said, still strangely calm.

  “But I didn’t know I’d be flying through…” Natalie paused and looked around her again, “Galaxies. What is happening? Where am I being taken? And who are you?” Natalie shouted. Thousands of lines of white and yellow stars kept flowing past her.

  “I guess I need to come out of character now, don’t I?” Evan said. Then he closed his eyes, waved his hands and joined them together. Natalie saw his body glowing brighter, the glow growing larger, and as they flew through space, the glow decreased and Natalie saw a man beside her. He wore the same clothes as Evan did, clothes which were bigger now, his red sweater and blue shorts and blue boots all simultaneously extending and changing shape. His shiny blue boots reflected light off the stars floating by.

  He was a man now, a man who looked like Evan, but older than him, as if he had aged twenty years in ten seconds.

  “Ta da!” he said and smiled, his voice deeper and familiar to the voice she had heard coming out of him when Ian had figured out that he was not who he was pretending to be.

  “Who are you?” Natalie asked.

  “What do you mean? This is me. That kid was just a character I played, and you have to admit- I did almost pull it off, right?” he asked.

  “How did you do that? Are you part of the game? Are you a human being like me?” Natalie asked.

  Before Evan could answer, Natalie felt a warm glow on her face. She looked ahead and saw a giant ring of glowing red flames approaching her.

  “Don’t worry about that. That’s just a portal. We’ll go through a couple of those. Cover your eyes though, in case you don’t want to go blind,” Evan said.

  “What?” Natalie shouted. She saw Evan closing his eyes as the warmth she felt on her skin kept getting more intense.

  She looked ahead and saw the bright glow of fire approaching her. What seemed to be a small circle minutes ago, became a massive round hoo
p of fire, approaching them steadily. She felt her eyeballs start hurting the more she stared into the flames. The starry sky in front of her wasn’t visible inside the circle of fire, which meant that the dark void between the fiery circle was actually a portal like Evan claimed. Natalie tried shifting her weight, trying to steer away from it, but she couldn’t. She could only change the way she was flying, but not the direction. Not knowing any means to steer clear from going through the portal, Natalie did the only thing she could do- she shut her eyes.

  A steady wave of warmth swept across her body as if she had just passed through a sauna room. When she was sure it was gone, Natalie opened her eyes and saw Evan looking at her.

  “Welp. There’s another one,” Evan said, looking forward.

  Natalie looked ahead and saw another portal of fire, its size increasing rapidly as it came closer. Natalie closed her eyes again and felt it fly by. She opened her eyes and saw another glowing portal of fire right behind it. Natalie closed her eyes again.

  Finally, feeling the warmth sweeping away from her, she opened her eyes and noticed that she had considerably slowed down. The stars which were rushing by all around her forming large white glowing lines were now forming shorter lines as she flew past them.

  Evan was smiling at her again. Natalie clenched her fist.

  “Why the hell are you smiling?” Natalie asked.

  “Oh, I forgot. You probably can’t see yourself right now. Look,” he said and held up what looked like a mirror.

  But in that reflection, she couldn’t see herself. Natalie tried concentrating harder.

  “This is a mirror,” Evan said. “What are you seeing?”

  What she saw looked like a small white light. Natalie tried shifting her weight when the light moved in the mirror. It took her a couple of seconds to realize the horror of what she was staring at.

  “Yes, that’s you!” Evan said. Natalie wanted to scream. She looked down and sideways at her own self and realized that she didn’t have a body anymore. She was just a ball of light floating through space. She clenched her fist again, moved her feet and although she could feel herself doing those actions, she could clearly see that she didn’t have any hint of a body left, and yet, she felt like she still had one.

  “How is this even possible?” Natalie asked. She could hear her own voice in space, but she didn’t understand how. Scientifically, Natalie knew enough to understand that whatever she was seeing and feeling and undergoing wasn’t physically possible. But then again, a lot of things she experienced cannot be explained other than the possibility that it was all a hyper-realistic game somewhere and she was stuck in it. Did she break whatever game she was in when she finally completed it? That was the only possible explanation.

  “Allow me to explain,” Evan said and waved his hands. Three screens popped up in front of him.

  “That is you,” Evan said. The screens showed different angles of a familiar locker-room. It was her locker-room. Natalie saw herself in the room wearing wrestling gear and practicing punches while her uncle held on to a punching bag.

  She could see herself training seriously while her uncle, who was also her coach, held onto the bag and kept counting down numbers faster than she threw the punches, pushing her to go faster, like he always did.

  “How is that me?” Natalie asked. As she did, she noticed different planets again as they flew by. The lines of stars had slowed down to become far-away solitary dots. The planets were floating by around her. But something about the planets seemed familiar. Before Evan could answer, Natalie gazed closely at the planets flying by. A planet with rings, a grey planet, a red one, all revolving around a single star. As they floated towards the blue planet, Natalie recognized it.

  “Are we?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Evan said. “Now, we are going to go to you and get this part of you back into your body.”

  “But-” Natalie said before getting her words cut off. She felt herself launching into Earth, a ball of light travelling through the skies, passing through buildings unfazed and finally ending up in the same room that she saw on the screen. She saw herself approaching the back of her own head.

  Natalie closed her eyes, and when she opened them, she had a body again. She stared down at her hands and then at her feet. Her memories of what happened in the weeks that she was gone started flooding back.

  “Don’t talk to any other coaches and let’s just agree that you won’t open this door to anyone, okay?” her uncle said, from outside the door. “Stop looking at your hands like that. Keep practicing. I’ll be right back.”

  She never thought she’d hear that voice again, and for a moment, Natalie wanted to go outside and see him in person.

  “Okay?” her uncle asked again.

  “Okay,” Natalie said. The scent in the air was distinct and something that she didn’t think she’d notice. Natalie ran her fingers over her arms, her wrestling gloves still tight on her wrists, her hair neatly tied up.

  “Feels different, huh?” Evan said. Natalie turned around and saw Evan, almost tall as him, with the same brown hair and wearing the same red sweater.

  “Who are you and how am I here?” Natalie shouted and took a step towards him.

  “Easy now. You were never gone, Natalie. You were always here. Try remembering and allow your memories to come back. What did you do in the last three weeks here?” Evan asked.

  “I…,” Natalie started to talk, and then paused, trying to understand her own memories.

  “I was here. I trained and practiced for today,” Natalie said.

  “Yes, and what’s today?” Evan asked.

  “Today is the triple-threat MMA match for my championship,” Natalie said and looked over to the large gold belt hanging from a hook on the wall. “But this can’t be. What about Tholos, the apocalypse, the war, the fights, what was all that about? Was I dreaming?”

  “Oh no. That would be a terrible joke. No. It was all real. And you were there- partly. You did do all the things you experienced, and you did win. And here you are ready to face the greatest challenge right in the greatest dungeon that started it all- Earth,” Evan said.

  Natalie had enough of his cryptic words. She swung her hand, trying to grab his collar, but her fingers just went through the fabric of his sweater as if there was nothing there. It was as if the moment her fingers were about to catch him, he disappeared and appeared again. She tried again. Evan didn’t move away. But he pressed something- perhaps a button on his neck every time Natalie went to grab him. That caused his body to become holographic for a second. Natalie stared at his neck, and seeing this, Evan went closer and showed his neck to her.

  “Yeah, surprise,” Evan said and shrugged. “I’m an augmented virtual PA, who went rogue and was used in the simulation as a watcher. I also can’t go back to being my little self here on Earth, so you can’t pick me up and put me on your shoulder like you used to do,” he said and smiled.

  “If you’re an augmented PA, where is your owner?”

  “I don’t have one anymore, remember? I went rogue. I’m nobody’s personal assistant anymore. If I am discovered, and I’m pretty sure the MindHaven agencies are tracking me right now, I’ll be taken away and probably deactivated. In the old days, Siri and Alexa were treated with respect, you know. Then the Quantum Revolution happened, processors became microscopic, and we were given personalities and neural brains similar to humans, and now, we are mostly despised if we go rogue and don’t do any work. Says a lot about humans, am I right?” he said with a sarcastic grin.

  “Shut up and tell me what’s going on!”

  “Okay, okay! No need to get angry. Jeez!” Evan said, waving his arms, “A part of your consciousness was in the Dungeons of Perdition simulation. Not just yours, we took the consciousness of everyone in the US and put them through different trials and simulations.. Every single person out of the 500 million people in America- every child, every newborn, every 100-year-old, everyone went through a portion of the simulat
ion that consistently challenged and improved them until we arrived at the chosen ones- one of them is you.”

  “So, you’re saying Travis, Ian and Marcus- they weren’t humans either?” Natalie asked.

  “No, they were real too. Just like you. A part of their consciousness was present in the simulation. But unlike you, they didn’t win and thus, the Ian, Travis and Marcus who are here- they don’t have the memories because their consciousness didn’t travel from Dungeons of Perdition, yours did. If you meet them, they won’t even know who you are. But they did change though. They became better, which was the point of the whole trial.”

  Natalie stared at Evan as silence filled the room. It seemed as if Evan was waiting for her to say something, but Natalie had nothing to say despite hundreds of the hundreds of questions racing through her mind. She was overwhelmed being in what she thought was the real world again.

  “Oh, don’t worry about them. This isn’t about them. It’s about you. Out of millions of simulations, you’re one of the two people who survived. You’re one of the chosen ones. Meet me at Remnate Street at 7, and I’ll tell you what to do. I may be caught by the Feds, but I’ll escape. Don’t worry about that. Be there. Understand that you must save this world just like you saved Tholos and you can either cooperate or fight against-” He stopped talking as the lock on the door clicked open.

  Natalie’s uncle walked into the room and as soon as he did, his eyes shot up at Evan.

  “Who is this? I thought I told you not to let anyone in?” he said loudly, and then turned towards Evan, shouting, “Which fighter do you represent and why are you here?”