Hell's Glitch (LitRPG): Into a Dark Adventure (3 page)

Sam felt goosebumps all over his body from the
announcement.  The addition of bonuses made this gig even sweeter and made his
excitement levels reach a fever pitch.  They were all mere moments away from
delving into the game.  He couldn’t hear himself, but he felt his lips mouthing,
“I hope this doesn’t suck.”

He couldn’t contain his childlike grin after that.  The
minute long wait was agonizing, but soon after he heard a robotic system voice. 
A large white number ten and some text appeared on the screen in front of him,
in a strange script.  The numbers were all different and seemed to play with
his eyes.

“Initialization in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, ...”

........

...........

Sam had the strange feeling that he had just woken up.  Did
they knock him out?  Whatever had happened, he couldn’t feel his limbs or his
excess sweating anymore.  He couldn’t even feel his face and he still saw
nothing but blackness all around.  Suddenly, his world lit up all white, nearly
blinding him.  He wished that he had his hands to block out the brightness.  For
whatever reason, he couldn’t even squint.  He was soon after surrounded by a
beautiful blue sky and moving clouds that seemed to have come from nowhere, but
there was nothing else.  Text popped up on screen as if someone was typing as
they went.

Sky Eden initialized...

Textures 100%...

GUI 100%...

Packages - H 100%...

Packages_I – Z 100%...

Maps 100%...

Audio_Packages 100%...

Char_Resources 100%...

Objects_Resources 100%...

Babylon language packages initialized...

.....

VR Systems booting...

The text disappeared as fast as it had appeared.  Then more
text appeared, but this time it lingered.

Personalization in progress...

Sam heard Milner’s quiet voice all around him then the man
was slowly digitized into existence right in front of him.  Virtual Milner was
a tall and absurdly thin man with short black hair that seemed to fly in every
direction.  It was cut shorter on the sides, but each strand seemed to have a
mind of its own up top.  It was like he tried to take care of his appearance,
but didn’t follow through.  There was dark stubble all around his chin, but the
hair growing atop his upper lip was a little fuller.  He had bags under his
thin dark eyes and a blank tired look as he seemed to stare right through Sam. 
Sam had no idea why the man was wearing an unbuttoned white lab coat with
rolled up sleeves either.

“Welcome to the personalization process, alpha.  This is a prerecording
of my voice.  I’ll be feeding you instructions that will allow the Miyabi Full
Dive technology to perfectly sync with your movements.  Follow my simple
instructions for the best results.”

Milner disappeared after his message and left Sam with control
of his head, but he could only move it left and right.

“I want you to look at the clouds.”

Sam looked around at the various white clouds.

“Good.  Now look at that red cloud behind you.”

Sam quickly turned his head and spotted the bright red
cloud.

“Good.  Now I want you to find the dark blue cloud.”

Sam could see part of the cloud already.  It was above him,
but he couldn’t lift his head.

“Can’t look up at it, can you?  Sorry about that.  I’ll need
you to ask for my permission to look at it.”

That annoyed the hell out of Sam.

“You’ve got some nerve, asshole!”

He heard himself speak for the first time and it astonished
him.

“Good, you can talk.  But I still need you to ask for my
permission to look up, to complete this trial.”

“Fine, jerk bag.”

Sam was amusing himself, but he hoped that this creepy man
couldn’t hear him.

“Will you please let me move my head like a normal person,
Mr. Full-tan?”

“Yes, I will happily comply with your request, but my system
detects heavy sarcasm.  No need for such an attitude,” said the seemingly
omniscient designer.

Sam decided to keep any further smart aleck comments to
himself and hoped that the system couldn’t read minds as well.  Still, that was
impressive.  For a game to be able to detect emotions in someone’s tone of
voice was pretty advanced.  This was stuff that developers had promised ten
years ago and were still struggling with today.  He complied with Milner’s
request and looked up at the blue cloud above him.

“Good, now find the yellow cloud.”

That one was below and to his left.

“Perfect.  Your system now fits you like a glove.  Movement
here should feel as natural as it did in the real world, at least when it comes
to the camera control.  Personalization complete.”

The screen went black again, then some words formed in thin
white mist in the middle of the screen.

Project_DH

2 Create-A-Character

The title faded to black, then the screen showed a panoramic
view of a thickly canopied forest that was mostly shrouded in shadows, but had
some open paths bathed in beautiful moonlight.  The trees were various shades
of grey, with leaves ranging from dark green to deep purple.  It all looked
both enchanting and deadly.  Sam tried to take in every detail of the forest as
he waited for the next phase of the game.  The camera stopped in a small
clearing, visible by moonlight.  A single empty textbox dropped down, asking
for the player’s name.  A two-dimensional, nearly-transparent keyboard appeared
in front of Sam and he wondered how the heck he was supposed to use the thing. 
He didn’t seem to have hands at this point.  Fulton’s voice seemed to come from
the very shadows.

“You can summon and dismiss a keyboard with a thought while
immersed in the Miyabi Full Dive.  You can also choose your text with nothing
but a thought.  With no barriers between your thoughts and the keyboard, you’ll
be able to communicate much more quickly with our developers and other
players.  Menus function in the same manner.  Voice functions between players
are disabled, as we like to maintain a certain atmosphere within the game. 
You’ll only be able to vocally communicate with the developer you report your
progress to.  I’ve begrudgingly allowed this with the advisement of my most
trusted designers.  Now, I’d like you to choose a player character username,
one that suits you.  Just remember, make it cool.”

Sam laughed at this ridiculous man, Milner.  Truth be told,
the guy was already starting to grow on him with his strange personality.  He
decided to take Milner’s advice to heart and start with a cool character name. 
He wanted a name that was dark and mysterious.  He also wanted it to be
timeless and unique.  He came up with it on the spot, Sarem the Sanguine.  His
thoughts manifested as text on screen.  Ideas flooded his head about a cool
character to match such a dark name.  He hoped that the game had a robust
character creation feature so that his ideas may come to life.  Milner’s voice
interrupted his thoughts.

“Good, now you’ll be able to create your character.”

“Yes!”  Sam couldn’t help but scream.

“You’ll start with your physical features such as skin
color, height, weight, and body type.  I’ll let you create your perfect virtual
body in peace.  Just say ‘help,’ if you need anything.”

Good,
Sam thought and then he focused on what his new
body would look like.  He scrolled through the genders and skin colors.  He
thought about a female character, but his hunch was that the game had a first
person viewpoint instead of third person viewpoint.  He wouldn’t be able to
stare at the virtual babe’s ass the whole time if it was first person, so there
was no point in gender bending, he figured.  He also wanted an experience
completely different from his everyday existence, so instead of transferring two
hundred and eighty pounds of his five foot eight Asian self into the game, he
made himself into a tall, broad, and superbly muscular man with a deep black
skin tone.  He wrestled with whether to make the character bald or not and
settled for a dark haired close shaved Caesar haircut like he actually had in
real life.  He went for a full-on black goatee. along with creepy silver eyes
that seemed to glow in the moonlight.  He kept his character’s main sword hand
on the right.

That completed the character’s physical appearance and he
moved on before he got lost in the minutia of all the other tweaking options.

Now came the fun stuff.  As he read the text on this current
menu, his excitement started to build again.

Choose your class:

Fighter

All around combatant.  Best at close range.  High STR and
DEX.  Good VIT and DEF.

Starting Gear: Burnt Iron Helm, Burnt Leather Cuirass,
Burnt Leather Gauntlets, Burnt Leather Leggings, Burnt Leather Boots, Steel Sword,
Burnt Iron Shield

Soul Intensity: 3

VIT 10 DEF 10 RES 8 STR 12 INT 6 DEX 12 SPD 8 SPT 2 BLF 5
PCP 2

Sam’s character, Sanguine looked every part the fighter in
his tough and flexible burnt leather gear.  He looked like he had weathered one
hell of a battle.  Now Sam knew what kind of game he was playing.  It was a Planes
game, like he and Robert had hoped for.  This was some modern day version of
one.  The term “Soul Intensity” and the way the stats were spread out gave it
all away.  This stat distribution and the stats themselves reminded him closely
of the Death Planes, a game he played to death about ten years ago.  Sam read
the class’ description to himself, trying to remember what each stat stood for.

“I think ten vitality is good and would be my max health, so
I would be able to take a few hits.  Ten defense is solid too.  It would
protect me from some physical attacks.  That’s eight resistance, I think.  I’d
need to raise it higher if I wanted better protection from negative status
effects like poison.  Twelve is a really high strength level, perfect for this
class and its physical attacks.  Of course the intelligence is down to six, not
like a Fighter is going to be using spellcraftes or need any magic points. 
Twelve dexterity is really high too.  I could actually wield some of those
tricky weapons or probably even a bow.  Eight speed seems good for a class like
this.  It’s not that fast, but more importantly it’s not slow.  SPT?  What’s
that?  Is that uh ... sss... spirituality!  Spirituality is for spellcrafte
slots.  See!  I knew this game was a rip-off!  They even use the same terms! 
I’ll probably need at least five points in spirituality to get my first
spellcrafte slot.  And that means that BLF is belief, for characters that
worship the gods.  And soul intensity three should be about the standard for starting
level.  But PCP is new, I’ll have to figure out what that is later.”

Milner’s voice cut in.

“PCP is short hand for the Perception stat.  Perception is a
multifaceted stat that affects a player’s field of vision, among other things. 
It’s a stat archers will want to invest points into as well as those who like
to discover all sorts of hard to find treasures.”

Interesting
, Sam thought.  He’d have to remember to
try a point in PCP every so often to see how it affected things.  So far, he felt
the balance was good, but that had to be easy since they mostly copied the
stats wholesale from The Death Planes.  Even the distribution of the Fighter’s
points and his equipment seemed exactly the same aside from the new Perception
stat.

“Okay, let’s see who’s next.”

Knight

Defensive combatant, able to
outlast opponents.  Best at close and mid-range.  High VIT and DEF.  Good STR.

Starting Gear: Ashen Knight's
Helm, Ashen Knight's Armor, Ashen Knight’s Leggings, Ashen Knight's Greaves and
Sabatons, Ashen Knight's Gauntlets, Arming Sword, Knight Shield

Soul Intensity: 3

VIT 12 DEF 12 RES 6 STR 10 INT
8 DEX 8 SPD 6 SPT 3 BLF 8 PCP 2

Sarem looked like a towering metal
sentinel in the Knight’s armor.  The helmet obscured most of his face, aside
from his eyes and a few small holes on the left side where it looked like some
weapon had pierced it.  The Arming Sword and Knight Shield both looked weighty
compared to the Fighter’s sword and shield.  The Knight was the defensive side
of the Fighter’s coin.  They were nearly the same, but the Knight had more
range with its starting weapon and a better head start when it came to using
spellcraftes thanks to its higher INT and SPT.  With some effort the Knight
could become a paladin type near the beginning of the game.  Good classes, but
Sam wanted a less standard style of play.  The next class fulfilled that
perfectly.

“What a badass!  Look at that
shadowy assassin gear!”

Cutthroat

Sneaky assassin, able to
dispatch unaware enemies easily.  Best at extremely close range and one-on-one
combat.  Extremely high DEX and SPD.  Good INT.

Starting Gear: Twilight Hood,
Twilight Armor, Twilight Pants, Twilight Boots, Twilight Gloves, Deflector,
Dagger, Throwing Knife x10

Soul Intensity: 5

VIT 7 DEF 6 RES 7 STR 6 INT 10
DEX 15 SPD 15 SPT 4 BLF 4 PCP 3

Soul intensity five meant that the
Cutthroat started at a higher level than the first two classes and that meant that
it had more stat points distributed at the start.  Sam added up all the numbers
and it found that the Cutthroat had seventy-seven total stat points compared to
the seventy-five of the Knight and Fighter.  So each soul intensity increase
only granted one point for increasing a stat.  It was identical to the Death
Planes.

“These guys are shameless.”

Sam thought of Fulton Milner.

“Lead designer my ass!  You’re a
copycat, Milner.”

The Cutthroat had a great
advantage in mobility over the other classes, but its crippling lack of
defenses insured that it wasn’t a good class for people just beginning the
game.  It was strictly an expert class, just like in the Death Planes.  If this
was a simple game console, it would be a no brainer.  Sam would choose the
Cutthroat, but this was a VR sim and he didn’t think he could count on his own
physical coordination, or rather lack thereof, to be up to par for operating a
class like that.  He begrudgingly moved on despite really liking the class’
badass all black gear.

Ranger

Adaptable combatant, although
highly specialized.  Prefers ranged battles.  Extremely high DEX.  High STR,
and RES.

Starting Gear: Ranger's
Bandana, Ranger’s Pouched Vest, Ranger’s Leather Tassets, Ranger's Tall Boots, Ranger’s
Archery Gloves, Short Recurve Bow, Hunting Sword, Army Arrows x25, Absorption
Herbs x2

Soul Intensity: 4

VIT 8 DEF 6 RES 12 STR 12 INT 6
DEX 15 SPD 8 SPT 2 BLF 2 PCP 5

Another really cool class.  It was
distinct from the rest, yet balanced.  Long range bows weren’t the best option
in a game like this, but with patience many enemies could be cheaply killed
with it.  The Ranger could fight up close too, but lacked the defense and HP
(health points) of the Fighter.  Sarem looked like a grizzled vet in the Ranger’s
gear, but he thought he might come back to this one.

Scholar

A highly intelligent user of
soul based spellcraftes that defy nature.  Adept at long ranged combat.  Extremely
high INT.  Good SPD, good DEX.

Starting Gear: Thinker's Cap,
Scholar's Gown, Practitioner’s Pants, Practitioners Boots, Practitioner’s
Gloves, Staff, Soul Shield, Imbuement

Soul Intensity: 5

VIT 6 DEF 5 RES 8 STR 4 INT 15
DEX 10 SPD 10 SPT 15 BLF 2 PCP 3

A very specialized class. 
Definitely suited for expert play if this was anything like The Death Planes,
which so far it was identical to with its classes.  With virtually no defenses,
this class was a nightmare to start in the former game.  The early bosses all
fought close range, giving no time for spellcrafte casting.  With a starting fifteen
points in spirituality, the Scholar had slots for three craftes.  That
confirmed Sam’s theory of getting new spellcrafte slots after every five points
put into spirituality.

“Sorry, I never liked mages. 
Let’s see who’s next.”

He also didn’t like how strange
the Scholar’s robes and cap made Sarem look.  Having a giant like Sarem
wielding a staff looked pretty ridiculous to Sam.

Raider

A bandit that relies on
reckless strength.  Collects equipment from defeated foes.  Extremely high STR
and high VIT.  Good RES and DEX

Starting Gear: Fallen Soldier
Helm, Cross Bandolier, Mercenary Tassets, Fighter Boots, Iron Bracers, Hawk
Shield, Steel Axe

Soul Intensity: 3

VIT 12 DEF 8 RES 10 STR 15 INT
4 DEX 10 SPD 8 SPT 3 BLF 2 PCP 2

The Raider was definitely a fun
class.  It was similar to a Fighter, but with a greater specialization in
offense.  With fifteen points already invested in strength the Raider could
even wield those unwieldy strength based weapons that no other class could, and
could do it from the beginning of the game.  No one would confuse the Raider
for a defensive fighter.  Sam made a mental note of this class as well, though
didn’t like the Raider’s uncoordinated patchwork gear.  After staring at it for
a while, he had to admit that it did look cool on Sarem.  He especially liked
the avian look that the masked helm had.

Barbarian

A cave dwelling warrior who
excels at fighting and shuns society.  Extremely high VIT and STR.  High DEF.

Starting Gear: Fur Headdress,
Fur Loincloth, Big Club

Soul Intensity: 4

VIT 16 DEF 12 RES 6 STR 18 INT
1 DEX 4 SPD 8 SPT 4 BLF 5 PCP 1

Sam didn’t linger too long on the
Barbarian.  The gear it started with was too crappy, not to mention Sarem
looked absolutely stupid in the fur covered getup.  No, the mercenary did
everything the barbarian could do but better.

Primeval Prophet

A sorcerer attuned with nature.
 Can summon forth the power of primeval pyromancies.  High RES and SPT.

Starting Gear: Burned Crown,
Burned Prophet Robes, Burned Patched Pants, Burned Shoes, Burned Wraps,
Tattered Wooden Shield, Ignitor, Oil Sword

Soul Intensity: 4

VIT 8 DEF 8 RES 12 STR 8 INT 6
DEX 6 SPD 6 SPT 12 BLF 6 PCP 4

“Damn, this is shameless.  It has
to be a sequel.  No way Milner could be this blatant.”

Just like in The Death Planes, the
Primeval Prophet was a strange class.  At first glance it appeared weak or, at
best, mediocre thanks to its spread out stat distribution.  But the Primeval
Prophet had a killer secret to it that made it stronger than it appeared—or, at
least that was true in The Death Planes.  The class’ burned tatters left Sarem
looking like he’d barely survived a catastrophe.  Sam didn’t like the look.