BladeDust Online: A LitRPG Adventure (Book 1) Read online

  A really excited look came to Tommy's face. “Oh yea,” he yelled. “So we can just sleep at his place? Right?”

  “Probably,” I replied. “I don't see why we couldn't.”

  “I'm sure if he was still alive, he would want us to stay at his home,” Tommy replied.

  I pointed at his crappy little home. “It's right there.”

  We ran over to the house. Once in front of the door, I carefully looked around just to be certain nobody was watching. I twisted the doorknob. “Crap, it's locked.”

  “Why would he lock it?” Tommy asked. “Do you think he's worried someone will steal his weird paintings?”

  I circled around the home until I reached the back side of it. There had to be a window. Then, I saw it. There were two windows. One of them was closed, but the other wasn't fully closed. “Over here,” I whispered.

  Tommy came closer. “What if someone's watching?”

  Tommy was right. If someone was watching, we could look like we were breaking into the home. What were the laws in this village? I didn't know. But, I did know that the artificial intelligence in this game was advanced. We had to be careful. “Make sure nobody is watching,” I replied.

  We both carefully looked around. There were many players running around, but there were no guards that really patrolled the village. The only guards I had seen, were at the front entrance. So, I carefully tried to wait until no characters were near us. It took about thirty minutes, but finally, there was a big enough gap to give me the confidence I needed to open the window. With a quick push, I popped the window up. “Hurry up,” Tommy whispered.

  My body struggled to get through the small window for the first minute or two. But eventually, I manage to get through it. I crashed to the floor and felt a surge of pain. The pain quickly left me as I jumped to my feet. After that, I ran to the front door and opened it. Tommy waved at me. “Get in here,” I whispered.

  Tommy came in and we both sat down at the yellow table. “This is kinda sad,” Tommy said.

  “Yea,” I replied with both elbows on the table.

  “Look at his eyes,” Tommy replied while pointing at one of the paintings on the wall. “I can see the pain in them. It's a deep pain. I never noticed it until now.”

  I squinted my eyes and tried to see what Tommy was talking about. Nope. All I saw was the same ugly little elf. “Do you think there's a dumpster around here?”

  “You want to throw away his paintings? But how will the world remember him?” Tommy asked.

  I laughed. “Are you serious?”

  Tommy raised his shoulders. “Kinda. I do feel a little bad moving into his home.”

  “He did this to himself. Besides, he almost got us killed. He totally used us for his own selfish agenda.”

  “I guess you're right,” Tommy replied with his head on the table.

  “We gotta get some sleep. Who's gonna take the bed?”

  Tommy didn't answer, so I took out a gold coin. “Okay, we'll flip for it. Heads or tails?”

  “Heads,” Tommy replied. “I mean tails,” he said with a stutter.

  Which one?” I asked while secretly wanting tails for myself.

  “Well, I think I want heads more actually.”

  I flipped the coin into the air and watched it come down. It hit the ground with a jingle. “Crap. It's heads.”

  “Yes! I get the bed,” Tommy replied.

  I cleared my throat. I was irritated, but didn't want to show it. I had lost fair and square. “I guess I'll be sleeping on the floor.”

  I grabbed a hard biscuit and began to nibble on it. After that, I laid on my back and looked up at the white ceiling above me. Suddenly, it hit me. What was I doing here? I was going to sleep in the game world too? If they didn't fix the glitch, would this be my new life? Wow. It was a strange feeling to actually consider that. How could this happen? The truth was, I wasn't sure I even wanted to go back to the real world. Things were exciting here. But, I still wanted the option to go back in case things ever got too crazy.

  I closed my eyes. All sorts of thoughts drifted through my head. Then, I raised up. Why hadn't Todd messaged me back yet? Had I waited too long? Was he dead? I checked my messages just to be certain I didn't miss one. Nope, there was nothing new. I was about to send him another message, but I was too tired. Eventually, I drifted off to sleep without even realizing it.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When my eyes opened, I wasn't sure where I was. Was it the real world, or the game world? Then, I remembered. I remembered everything that had happened. It was almost like my game life was merging into my real life. I sat up and looked around. Tommy was curled up into a ball on his bed. But, he didn't look comfortable. “What's wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he mumbled.

  Something was wrong. But, I knew how Tommy was. If something was bothering him, he would sometimes wait before talking about it. I popped my neck. Cool. It felt just like it did in real life. “Guess we will have biscuits for breakfast.”

  “Is that all this elf had?” Tommy asked.

  “I don't know. I don't see anything else, do you?”

  Tommy looked around. “Not really.”

  I grabbed two biscuits and tossed one over to Tommy. “Once you break into it, it's not too bad.”

  Tommy carefully bit into his biscuit. “I still gotta get my tooth fixed,” he mumbled.

  “How did you sleep?”

  Tommy became quiet before he finally answered. “Well,” he slowly replied. “Something weird happened.”

  “Oh yea? Like what?”

  “I think the elf haunted me last night,” he replied with a tremble.

  Haunted him? How was that possible? I nibbled on my biscuit before asking him to clarify himself. “You mean Samson? How did he haunt you?”

  Both of Tommy's hands went together. “He was there. His spirit. He came to me in my dreams.”

  “Come on dude. That was just a dream,” I replied with a swat to the air. “There's no way that was really his spirit.”

  “I'm telling you, this was weird.”

  “Oh yea? Well, what did his spirit say?”

  “He told me to get out of his bed, and said that he's a lost soul now because of us. He also said that we were going to pay for killing him. Then, he kept saying he would come back to life and kill me. He wasn't happy that I was sleeping in his bed either. He told me to leave, but I was too sleepy to leave.”

  I stopped eating my biscuit. Wait. Was it possible that a lost soul could actually communicate with a character? “Did he say anything else?”

  “He told me not to touch any of his paintings. Said he could never replicate such art again.”

  Crap. Was this just some weird dream that Tommy had? I didn't know. The last thing we needed was him and Dante coming after us. This elf was really starting to become a little pest. In fact, I almost regretted ever meeting him in the first place. I continued eating my biscuit. “Do you think it was a dream?”

  “I mean, it's possible. Dreams can seem real. But this just seemed different.”

  I finished eating my biscuit and stood up. “We should really throw these paintings away. They are creeping me out.”

  “Maybe,” Tommy replied.

  “Not now though. We don't have much time to waste.”

  “Now what? What are we going to do today?”

  “Lets get out of here and see what's going on in the village.”

  Tommy followed me out of the house and into the village. “It's nice here isn't it?”

  Tommy flexed his rather small muscles. “I look good in the morning sun,” he mumbled.

  I rolled my eyes. Then, I looked at my arms. Damn, they really were skinny. Oh well, it wasn't the end of the world. I began to walk towards a large water fountain in the center of the village. Several characters were busy swimming in the water and it seemed much busier than usual.

  I looked around at the different shops and guilds around us. “Oh, there's a fighter's guild!”
I yelled with excitement.

  “There's a mage's guild too,” Tommy answered back.

  There was literally too much to do. I wanted to try out a guild, but I also wanted to level up. Not only that, I wanted to get our army going. Oh, and then there was Todd. I needed to message Todd again. I opened my messages and began to type out a new one:

  “Hey Todd. Are you okay? Please message me back when you get this. Let me know how we can locate your soul.

  Walker.”

  Within minutes, I had a reply.

  “It's kinda complicated. My soul was sent to this horrible place called UnderDead. If you come to my soul, we can work together to find my body. It's easier with the help of living players. I will explain all of the details later. I need a special potion called “Astral Dust” though. Without it, I can't even jump back into my body. Astral Dust can be hard to find though. I am seeing if I can get someone else on my friends list to give me that. Once I get that, things will be much easier. You will need to come to UnderDead to get my soul. Also, I will give you 78 gold coins! I will send you directions soon. Just let me write them out first. Thanks!!!

  Todd.”

  78 gold coins? That would be great. I could go ahead and set 35 coins aside for the monthly dues. Then, I would have 43 gold coins left over as pure profit. I looked around for Tommy and realized that he had run ahead of me. “Tommy,” I yelled. “I got a message from Todd.”

  Tommy ran back to me. “Okay. What did he say?”

  “Said he still wants us to help him find his body. He also said he would give us 78 gold coins.”

  A greedy look came to Tommy's face. “Can we ask him for more?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Come on. The dude saved my life. Did you forget that? Yea, you probably did because you were too busy doing nothing.”

  “Fine,” Tommy replied. “If you really want to save him, I guess we will do it.”

  “We will save him. But first, we should level up. Maybe gain some stat points. Then we can start building our army.”

  We began to walk. Suddenly, a character in bright yellow bumped into Tommy. “Get out of the way you dumbass,” he yelled.

  “You're the one who bumped into me,” Tommy replied.

  “Shut up,” the character yelled before running away.

  Tommy straightened up. “That guy was annoying.”

  In the far left corner of my view, I noticed a big building of some sort. Walking closer to it, I realized it looked like a coliseum. “Wow! Dude, this is awesome,” I yelled.

  Tommy smiled. Then, he ran closer to the coliseum. In front of the coliseum, was an older man wearing a white robe. He looked like an NPC. “Care to place a bet today?” he asked.

  “We can bet on fights?” I asked.

  “Indeed you can,” the NPC replied.

  It sounded like a lot of fun, but I knew we needed to level up. That was more important. “Not right now,” I replied.

  “I always know who's going to win wrestling fights,” Tommy replied.

  “That's because they are fake,” I replied as we walked away from the coliseum.

  “Where are the rats? We need to kill some rats and level up,” Tommy replied.

  I looked around. Where were the large group of players grinding away? I had not seen that yet. But I knew there was a zone for it. A few players were grouped together not far from us. “I'm gonna ask these guys,” I said while walking towards them.

  The players turned towards me. There were three humans and an orc. The orc waddled closer to me. “What's up?” he asked.

  “Do you guys know where a good grinding zone is? I'm level 2 and my friend is only level 1.”

  The group of characters began to laugh. “You should go to the rat dungeon.”

  “Rat dungeon?”

  “Yea, it's mainly a mix of rats and goblins. It's just right outside of the village. Take a right and head down towards the river. You'll see it. It's not too far.”

  “Oh okay,” I said with a smile. “Thanks.”

  I turned around. Then, one of the other players yelled at me. “Wait.”

  “Yea?” I asked while turning back.

  “Do you like the game so far? Just wondering since your new and all.”

  This character was pretty cool looking. He had a black dragon tattoo that went down the left side of his face. His long dark hair was tucked behind his ears and went well with his black robe. I itched my eyebrow. “More than I ever imagined,” I replied. “It's amazing. I almost want to live here.”

  “Well, the glitch might make your dreams come true,” he laughed. “But, why do you only “almost” wanna live here?”

  “I mean, I might want to. I'm just not certain yet.”

  “Just do it,” the character replied.

  “Yea,” another character yelled back. “We all live here. Right here in this village. RockHead is a great village to live in.”

  RockHead? Was that the name of this village? I scrunched my forehead. “Really? How common is that?”

  “More and more common. In fact, this game has a fifty percent conversion rate now. Can you believe it?”

  “Wow. Over fifty percent of the game players live in the game world? I had no idea the statistics were that high.”

  “It's growing by the week too.”

  I itched my nose. “That's crazy,” I replied with a smile. “Well, thanks again for the help. I better get going.”

  The player seemed like he didn't want me to leave. “Are you going to the rat dungeon right now?”

  I pointed at Tommy. “Me and my friend are.”

  The character in the black robe smiled. “Mind if I join you?”

  I looked over at Tommy and then at him. “Yea, that would be cool. I don't see why not.”

  Another character took a step forward. “Me too. I want to slaughter some rats.”

  I nodded. The second character looked like a strong barbarian type. He was built like a tank and wore heavy red armor. His Mohawk style haircut made him look pretty tough too. “Sounds good,” I replied.

  Right after that, an alert message popped up in front of me:

  You Have Been Invited To Join A Party! Accept/Decline?

  Party Name: RatKillers

  I accepted the invitation and took the two new players over to Tommy. “Yo, what's up,” one of the players yelled.

  Tommy looked at me and the new characters. “Hey? What's up?”

  “These guys wanna join us in the rat dungeon,” I replied while putting one hand on Tommy's shoulder.

  “Nice build,” the barbarian player said. “We need to get you some armor.”

  Tommy smirked. “Thanks. Yea. But, I hate to cover my muscular body. You gotta admit, it's pretty impressive isn't it?”

  I rolled my eyes. He wasn't even that muscular. The two players looked at each other and laughed. “Whatever makes you happy man,” one of them said.

  I looked at their names over their head:

  Stan The Smasher – Level 13

  Human - Barbarian

  and

  Cosmo Dust – Level 16

  Human - Mage

  Tommy looked confused. “How do I accept this invitation?”

  “Just do it mentally. You will get the hang of it,” I replied.

  “I am doing it,” Tommy replied.

  We walked beside the characters as our stamina levels kept dropping. We had to stop and rest many times. While we rested, the two characters cracked many jokes about our low stamina. Then, I had an alert pop up:

  Congratulations!

  Your Stamina skill has increased by 2 points!

  Stamina level has increased to 12/12

  “Hey,” I yelled. “I finally leveled up my stamina!”

  “What about me?” Tommy asked. “I am tired of huffing and puffing. It's kinda ruining my life.”

  Stan laughed. “You look so pathetic when you start wheezing. Your big body gasping for air. It's hilarious.”

  Cosmo threw some insults our
way too. “You guys should just carry paper bags with you. You can barely even walk without breaking down.”

  I laughed. It was true. Having the lowest level of stamina sucked really badly. Even at level 2, I already felt a bit more air flowing through my body. “Watch this!” I yelled while running full speed.