Bastions Read online

  Contents

  Title

  Jeff Sproul

  Previously in the Sigil Online universe

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: New Beginnings

  Chapter 2: Outpost

  Chapter 3: Command

  Chapter 4: Rational Plan

  Chapter 5: Less Rational Plan

  Chapter 6: Visitor

  Chapter 7: New Friend

  Chapter 8: Management

  Chapter 9: Crimson City

  Chapter 10: The Best Defense

  Chapter 11: Bastion Hound

  Chapter 12: Lockbox

  Chapter 13: Landfall

  Chapter 14: The Crimson King

  Chapter 15: SHO Cafe

  Chapter 16: Checking In

  Chapter 17: Rose

  Chapter 18: Threats Detected

  Chapter 19: Boom

  Chapter 20: Good Night

  Chapter 21: New Day

  Chapter 22: Safe Return

  Chapter 23: All Together

  Chapter 24: Crimson Tide

  Chapter 25: Breaking The Tide

  Chapter 26: Recoup

  Chapter 27: The Wait

  Chapter 28: Bait

  Chapter 29: The Gate

  Chapter 30: The Gilded

  Chapter 33: Pondering Plans

  Chapter 34: Let's Do This

  Epilogue

  Newsletter

  Special Thanks

  LitRPG

  GameLit Society

  LitRPG Books

  About the Author

  Sigil Online: Bastions

  Jeff Sproul

  Text Copyright © 2019 Jeff Sproul

  All Rights Reserved.

  This book may not be reproduced in any form or medium without the express written consent of the author.

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

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  Previously in the Sigil Online universe

  In Paragons, Riley lost his high-level character 'Radiance' when his own best friend killed him in-game without realizing who he was. Riley worked his way back up with a new character titled 'Relinquisher,' with all new powers, and eventually came face to face with his friend Aaron, discovering his true identity as the player known as 'The White Weevil.' Aaron had been amassing funds to help pay for his mother's medical treatments after she lost her job, and had turned to taking out high level players to get their gear and then sell it for profit.

  In Hellions, Riley faced off against new enemies and groups of players who were part of the brand-new hellions faction. The game became centered around pitting paragons versus hellions, along with the inclusion of actual pain which was felt in-game. After numerous fights for survival and the loss of several friends, Riley ended up discovering that he has a health complication that causes him to black out temporarily when using in-game portals. His health is now at direct odds with playing in virtual reality.

  At the end of Hellions, he's forced to make a decision for his entire guild. Join a hellion alliance, or be killed?

  He decides to join to save not only himself from the potential of actual death, but also the in-game lives of his friends.

  Prologue

  A figure clad in silver-trimmed black robes dashed around the corner of a cave tunnel. His hood had fallen back, revealing deep red hair coming down to his shoulders with part of it tied back in a braid.

  Standing there in the tunnel were two other figures, both clad in similar garb, but one was a woman with deep sea-blue hair and piercing opal eyes. "Where's Argon?" she snapped.

  The red-haired figure looked between the blue-haired woman and the younger man beside her. The runic tattoo of a white lotus upon his forehead glowed faintly in the dim light of the cave. Torches were interspersed throughout, and a yellow fungus emitted a dull light from patches on the floor.

  A dull rumble emanated from the tunnel that the red-haired figure had come from. He shook his head. "We were overrun when we tried to collapse the tunnel. They just dug through and overwhelmed us. Where's the rest of the guild? How many do we have left?" he asked, looking past the two figures standing before him but not seeing anyone beyond, just an empty tunnel.

  "If Argon is dead, he can't remake for twenty-four hours. You're in charge," said the man with the lotus upon his forehead.

  "Like hell he is," said the blue-haired woman.

  "It's true!" the younger man exclaimed. "Check your permissions. In the case of Argon dying, guild rights fall to Sage." He loosely gestured to the red-haired man.

  "It's irrelevant, Gregory," said Sage, looking to the other man. "There won't be a guild if this escapes. Hell, there might not even be a game in a week's time."

  "What are we going to do then?" asked Gregory.

  "We keep fighting it," said the blue-haired woman. "You may be in charge of the guild until Argon comes back, but I'm the war officer. You won't tell me, or the guild's soldiers what to do!"

  Sage shook his head. "We've been fighting it, Melissa!" he snapped. "How many soldiers do we even have left? Twenty, thirty players? How many made it back through the tunnels? And how many NPCs did we lose? We can replace them, but we're running out of time! This thing is getting stronger and we've barely slowed it down!"

  "It's already exhausted the resource nodes down here, it can't grow any further," said Gregory.

  "It doesn't have to grow any further!" Sage's voice rose over the slowly growing rumble, emanating through the caves. "We can't even slow the force it already has. If it escapes the tunnels, it will grow indefinitely and overrun the whole game. We screwed up, bad." His gaze went to Gregory, who immediately lowered his own, staring down at the floor.

  "Then we'll bolster the entrance and defend there," said Melissa. "That's all we can do. If it breaks free, then we can…relocate to one of the outposts, and rebuild from there." Her eyes were flitting around, as if thinking about the region around them as she spoke. "If it expands, it'll hit the Dorinth Knights to the south and probably the Lavender Lurkers next to them. Both enemies of ours, I should remind you. So if they get destroyed, we might—"

  "Everything is going to get destroyed!" Sage exclaimed, shaking his head again. "You're not getting it! We researched, we built, we planned. We created the greatest weapon this game had ever seen. We gambled, and we lost! This is the end. This game is done. We just killed it."

  "There has to be some way to stop it, or slow it down or seal it away," said Gregory.

  "We're one of the wealthiest and most powerful guilds in Mage World Online. There has to be something we can do!" said Melissa. "Some weapon, some spell, some…thing!"

  The rumble continued to reverberate through the caves. All three of them could feel the vibrations in the dark blue stone of the floor.

  "We just lost most of our military strength when our soldiers died in this damn cave," said Sage. "But we probably have more gold in our coffers than anyone."

  Gregory thought for a moment, then looked up to Sage. "It'll take time to buy the resources to make new soldiers or hire mercenaries or—"

  "We're not doing any of those things," said Sage. "But we need to get to the entrance. You evacuated everyone else out of the tunnels, right?"

  Melissa nodded. "I did. It's just us. We were waiting for you so we could teleport you and Argon out."

  A terrible scr
eech echoed through the tunnels.

  Sage whipped around and looked down the tunnel he’d just come from. He pulled his head back just as a series of jagged spikes shot past his face and cut into the wall on the other side.

  "We have to go! Now!" he yelled.

  Gregory stepped forward and gestured in the air. He placed his hands together, then moved them in intricate sequences as his fingers curled and twisted in odd patterns.

  "Hurry!" Sage pushed.

  "He's working on it!" Melissa snapped.

  "He needs to work on it faster!"

  Hissing and clawing came up the tunnel that Sage had just looked into. It couldn't be more than feet away.

  Sage turned his head, keeping an eye on the corner of the tunnel. "Come on, come on," he murmured.

  Gregory's hands continued to move, his eyes unblinking.

  Three long claws, like sickles, curled around the corner of the dark stone tunnel. A shadowed form pulled into view. But its features were unrecognizable in its otherworldly mass as a bright light blinded the three players.

  A moment later, they were transported to the entrance of the cave system. Two suns lit the sky, one more distant than the other.

  Despite the presence of two suns, the cave entrance was veiled in shadows due to the tall, dark stone castle reaching up into the sky like an obsidian mountain. The castle's wall stretched far and wide, encompassing the area that the cave entrance inhabited. The entrance was part of a small hill, easily dwarfed by the nearby castle.

  There was a small clearing between the cave and the castle. Open space led all the way to one of the side entrances to the castle itself.

  Sage stood there with his two comrades. "We have no choice. This is our last measure," he said as he turned toward the cave entrance. He placed his hands together and took in a deep breath to better focus and relax.

  "What are you going to do?" asked Gregory. "Collapsing the tunnel won't work. They'll be out in days, if not hours."

  "Maybe less than that," Melissa murmured.

  Sage kept his hands together. He hadn't started moving them yet but was staring at the cave. "This is the end of the Argoknights. And the end of my time here in Mage World. I'm going to build a barrier, using the guild's treasury as a component for the spell. I'm going to empty everything we've ever amassed and throw it into this spell. And maybe, that'll buy the game a year…maybe more, maybe less. There's no telling how much damage they'll be able to amass on the field. But once it breaks free, this game will fall in months. Every guild, every castle, every player. There won't be any place to hide. This thing we created—" He stopped and turned his head to Gregory. "This thing your partner created will claim everything. I suggest you both go ahead and sell off whatever personal assets you have. We have to hold this secret between us. Else, someone might come along and think they can control it. Hell, even if they could, that's all the more proof that we need to keep it secret. It's too powerful and if we could destroy it, that'd be the optimal outcome. But…I don't see that happening. There's nothing in Mage World that's up to the task."

  "So this is it then?" asked Melissa. "We're going to drop all our money into this…this prison, and then abandon ship?"

  Gregory's gaze fell to the ground.

  Sage nodded, his expression solemn. "There will always be another game. I've enjoyed what we've done here. Even if we did bring about the destruction, or future destruction of a whole virtual world. But this is it. Maybe I'll dabble with that new game. You know, the superhero one that's getting a lot of attention?"

  "What, that Sigil Online game?" Melissa scoffed.

  The corner of Sage's lips curled. "Yeah, maybe I'll try that one next."

  With that, his hands moved as he cast what would one day be hailed as the most expensive spell ever conjured in Mage World Online.

  Chapter 1: New Beginnings

  Riley's eyes scanned his character screen. Much had changed in the last few weeks. Apendia had pushed through a whole myriad of patches. Fixing, fine-tuning, balancing, reworking. It was the most comprehensive update that Sigil Online had ever received. Changes reached every corner of the game and every feature and mechanic.

  Riley checked out some of those changes as he sat inside a small ground vehicle, zooming along an open desert on hard, dry dirt. The vehicle wasn't all that large. There was only enough space for him and barely any cargo space to speak of. The surrounding area was pitch black, as the sun hadn't risen yet. But Riley wasn't paying attention to the surrounding area. Mainly because he didn't need to.

  The game had only been updated to the new expansion 'Bastions' a week ago. But the new framework and patches had started two weeks before that.

  Riley had just hit level 100 the day before Bastions arrived. He'd worked hard to attain those three digits for the second time now in Sigil Online. The first time was on his previous character, 'Radiance.' But Radiance had died at the hands of his own best friend, Aaron. Of course, he hadn't known that at the time. Aaron had worn the visage of a monster and even his best friend didn't know that he'd killed Riley.

  But that was in the past now.

  Riley stared at a holographic image of his status screen, suspended in the air for his eyes only. He noticed a new question mark icon at the top right of the screen and tapped it. Upon doing so, new tooltips and information appeared in his view beside different areas of his readout. His eyes widened. "Oh, wow," he murmured.

  -

  Relinquisher

  Level: 100

  Tier: Three

  Hitpoints: 2750/2750

  Energy: 2800/2800

  (3500 Max Energy without Debuffs)

  Command Potential: 160/160

  Buffs:

  Well Rested (+5 to Pow,Con,Tgh,Min,Stam,Dex)

  Observant (Increased Stealth Detection by 10)

  Debuffs:

  Absorbed Power 1 (-10% Maximum Energy, from base amount.)

  Absorbed Power 2 (-10% Maximum Energy, from base amount.)

  None

  Primary Stats:

  (Displayed are the base stats based on level and acquired permanent stat points. Numbers in parenthesis are derived from buffs and equipped gear.)

  Power: 30 (+5) = 35

  (1 Power = 10% damage increase to Power abilities. At 25, additional points are worth 5% damage. At 40, points are worth 2.5% damage. Different Power abilities have different damage outputs.)

  (A Physical hit, such as a punch or a kick, is worth 25 damage by default. Modified by your current Power, it will do 100 damage.)

  (Each point of Power adds 1 pound of carrying capacity to hidden inventory.)

  (Current added carrying capacity is: 35 pounds)

  Constitution: 25 (+5) = 30

  ( 1 Constitution is worth 100 health. At 25, additional points are worth 50 health. At 40, additional points are worth 25 health.)

  Toughness: 25 (+5) = 30

  ( 1 Toughness increases damage mitigation by 1%. At 25, additional points are worth .25%. At 40, additional points are worth .1%.)

  (Current damage mitigation is 26.25%)

  (Each point of Toughness adds 1 pound of carrying capacity to hidden inventory.)

  (Current added carrying capacity is: 30 pounds)

  Mind: 10 (+5) = 15

  (1 Mind = 10% damage increase to Mind abilities. At 25, additional points are worth 5% damage. At 40, additional points are worth 2.5% damage. Different Mind abilities have different damage outputs.)

  Stamina: 30 (+5) = 35

  (1 Stamina = 100 energy potential. Energy potential is used as abilities are used.)

  (Each point of Stamina adds 1 pound of carrying capacity to hidden inventory.)

  (Current added carrying capacity is: 35 pounds)

  Dexterity: 30 (+5) = 35

  (1 Dexterity = 1% movement speed increase. At 25, additional points are worth .5% and at 50, additional points are worth .25%.)

  (Current movement speed bonus is 30%)

  Command 16

  (1 C
ommand is worth 10 command potential.)

  Luck: 5

  (1 Luck increases loot chance by 1%. 1 Luck also increases crit chance by .5%. At 25, additional points are worth .25% crit chance.)

  (Critical hits do twice as much damage and are applied to Mind or Power abilities.)

  (Current crit chance is 2.5%)

  (Current bonus loot chance is 5%)

  Secondary Stats:

  Stealth Rating: 0

  Stealth Detection: 0 (+10*) = 10

  Carrying Capacity: 150 pounds

  (50 Base + 100 from stats.)

  Character weight: 150 pounds

  -

  "Did you both see these new tooltips for all our stats? This is great, isn't it? I mean, we can finally see how important everything is. We can finally min-max properly," he said, referring to 'min-maxing,' where players took extra efforts to see every little extra number that they could, to maximize their potential.

  "Well yeah, the devs finally decided to give players what they've been begging for. Which isn't any surprise, since the game's population has been in a steady decline since the arrival of that pain patch," said Aaron. Aaron's face was viewable in a little screen to the right of Riley within the vehicle. The black-haired, soft and androgynous featured guy on the screen had been Riley's friend for a long time. Even if their friendship had met a few bad turns along the way, it always got back on track. Now, they were closer than ever. The vehicle wasn't all that large. There was only enough space for him and barely any cargo space to speak of.

  "Well yeah, but nearly every game out there had a pain update at around the same time," said Chrono. Chrono was also viewable on a little screen in the cramped vehicle, but he was on the left side screen, while Aaron was on the right.

  Chrono was always in a hellion form, unlike Aaron, who could take the form of a hellion-like monster. Chrono had deep blue-gray skin and an overall humanoid form. His eyes were a deep red. A series of horns surrounded his bald head, making it look as if he had a natural crown.