New Game+: Vörissa's Catalyst Online Patch 1.01

By Larry Gent

What's worse than being stuck in a video game? Being stuck in your Bank Alt.

Vörissa's Catalyst Online is a VR MMORPG with 10 millions players and nobody plays the game better then Devon Priestly. His mage is legendary and is known across the game. But when a glitch robs millions of player of the ability to log out, Devon is t

• Language: English
• Publisher: Midnight Reading Publishing
• Release date: Apr 19, 2017
• ISBN: 9780995951525

Book preview

Vörissa's Catalyst Online

New Game+

by Larry Gent

CHAPTER ONE

Copyright

Published in Canada by Midnight Reading Publishing, Ottawa

Gent, Larry, 1983-, Author.

New Game+: Vörissa's Catalyst Online/Larry Gent

Ebook ISBN: 978-0-9959515-2-5

Copyright © 2017 Larry Gent

This is a work of fiction. All characters and situations are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblence to actual persons, living or dead, events, locals or businesses is coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduce or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without written permission from the author, except for brief passages quoted in a review.

Cover Design: Valérie Gent

Midnight Reading Publishing

511 Brittany Drive

Ottawa, Ontario

K1K 0S1

CHAPTER TWO

Dedication

To my loving wife, Valérie Gent.

I love you

Nuff Said

Chapter One:

Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combating the forces of evil... prayer, fasting, good works and so on. Up until Doom, no one seemed to have thought about the double-barrel shotgun. Eat leaden death, demon... ― Terry Pratchett

A volley of arrows came from the approaching ship, arcing across the sky until gravity took hold and pulled them downwards. The wooden projectiles, with deadly steel tips, became a downpour of murderous rain.

Coalition's here, a warrior said dryly.

I turned my head, lifted up my arm and called on my magic. The mana flowed through my body and turned my hair from blond to a hue of ice blue. The magic erupted from my fingertips, circled around me and formed a protective energy shield. I glanced back at my plate-wearing party member and frowned as the arrow bounced off the magic barrier. Each arrow dropped harmlessly to the ground before fading away. Yeah, I noticed.

A long time ago, I found myself asking how any game could be so addictive that people would willingly give up their lives. It didn't make sense to me but time and time again, I'd be online and I'd come across a story about talked about some guy - it was always a guy - who didn't work, didn't have any family and did nothing but play a silly game all day, every day. It seemed ridiculous. It seemed impossible. Six months later I found myself lost in a fictional world know as Aspumer.

My name is Devon Priestly and I am addicted to Vörissa's Catalyst Online.

VCO is a MMORPG - a massively multiplayer online role-playing game - that I would pay $15 a month to play. The game was set in the fictional fantasy world of Aspumer, a land of sword, sorcery and adventure. A player would embark on quests, instances and raids in order to obtain gold, gear and power. VCO was about the dark Goddess Vörissa. She fell to the mortal realm and in her descent, either freed, awakened or created the monstrous threats that filled the game's many expansions. The world of Aspumer was filled with such a vast a rich story, that the lore for the fictional world had its own wiki, one I had lost countless days simply reading.

The idea behind VCO wasn't new, it was a fantasy MMO.   The concept had been done to death in the old style with games like Rifts, World of Warcraft, Ragnarok Online, Guild Wars and Final Fantasy XI - simply to name a few - but what made VCO different was the system.   VCO used a Mark IV Looking Glass immersion brace to put you right in the game.   In layman's terms, VCO was a virtual reality game. It wasn't a clunky VR with bulky mitts, large helmets or awkward glasses that filled bad TV. This was true VR. This was the type of immersion that could only be bested by taking the blue pill yourself and seeing how far down the rabbit hole went.

The Mark IV Looking Glass - made by Chesire Technology - was a sliver of metallic tech that wrapped around the back of the neck.   The brace was filled with several thousand bits of tech, a long wire and one impressive piece of computing hardware.   These three pieces, combined with a billion dollar server somewhere in Winnipeg, Canada, was all it took for me to leave my world and travel to Aspumer.

I honestly don't believe that I'm addicted to VCO - my ex-girlfriend did - but I do love it.   I love leaving my world and traveling to theirs.   I love traveling through their fantasy landscapes, exploring their caves and moving through their dense forests.   But even with my adoration of the game, I know my limits.   I know when I have been on too long and I know when I have to log-off.   The only hindrance is that my definition of limits and too long tend to be vastly different then most people's.

VCO was a serious game to many people. They held major tournaments, annual PVP seasons and raid competitions, each with some serious money as prizes. These players were professional gamers and much like sports stars, they needed the best gear. In golf that means buying a Nike VR S Covert 2.0 Tour Driver with new Fly-Brace technology that allows for higher ball speed, more distance and greater forgiveness with every shot; in VCO that means having the best weapons, strongest armour, and most powerful magic items. A pro-gamer could get the best by spending thousands of hours questing or they could spend real money to buy them online from hard working treasure hunters, treasure hunters like me.

When I started playing VCO, it was purely for fun. Now I spend most of my time hunting down rare swords and selling them for several hundred dollars apiece. The amount I make a week varied on the time of year. When a tournament was a couple weeks away or when the PVP season was in its homestretch, my sales would skyrocket and I would end up making two or three thousand dollars a week; but as the excitement slowed so too did my sales. I knew that if I would budget my money, I could live off of my VCO earning alone but deep down I knew that I needed more. I needed to get outside and talk with people in RL; real life. It's why I kept my minimum wage job, a crappy part-time shelf-stocker at some Wal-Mart clone, and it is how I knew I wasn't addicted.

Then again, addicts are known for making excuses.

The warrior Steelion, drew his two-handed sword and clutched it tightly as he watched the approaching ship. We were in an instance, a dungeon encounter, called Fillmont's Landing and the Collation was bearing down on them. Each instance had a story, a plot surrounding the dungeon. Fillmont's Landing had a team of five leading a small platoon of men into a Collation outpost. The first half of the encounter involved the five players taking out the guards and - forcefully - subduing the commander. Then, after pulling a lever to force the next half to begin, the Coalition would show up on ships, with every archer firing, and attempt to retake the base.

VCO, like many games before it, was one based on factions.   Players choose a side and fought against the opposing faction. There were the Collation of the Damned, housing Orcs, the blood-thirsty Dhampir, the illusionary Changlings, and the feral Fenririans.

I was part of the opposing faction; I was one of the Descendants of the Eternals, a cheesy name for the human-like races of Aspumer. They were the humans, the elves, the dwarves and the halflings.

The two factions had been at war for one clichéd reason or another.   It never really mattered why. Humans versus Orcs; it was a classic battle. I, being a mage of Elven descent, chose the Descendants not for moral reasons or for beliefs. I chose the Descendants for the reason most people do: my friends were already in that faction.

The ships are docked, Bearcules, the druid, said. I gave him a glance. He was a tall elf with long flowing green hair tied into a ponytail. They're coming up the main path now.

I nodded and kept eyeing the druid. It amazed me the looks people choose for their PCs. This druid that stood before me, explaining the battle-plan for an instance I'd run literally dozens of times, could have looked like anything. Instead of some young druid he could have been an elderly male, a fifteen year old teenage boy or even a woman. Crossplaying was a major aspect in an MMO, especially when they took the leap to VR, but it was never a practice I subscribed to.

We'll rush in and start dealing with the trash mobs. The druid continued, Then we'll head for the first boss.

In RL, I was a tall guy with short dark hair, glasses and a thin frame that was best meant for playing the geeky best friend in a movie. In VCO, I was the Elven mage Stov. I kept my character close to reality. I still chose the tall frame, I just made minor tweaks. I made my hair blond and made it flowing, adding life to a mop that had none in reality.

Stov? Stov? I blinked and looked at the four faces impatiently staring back at me. Ready check?

Yeah.   I'm good.   Open the gates and let's do this.   Of course I was ready.   I was the High Mage Stov; I knew this instance inside and out.

I waved my hand and brought up my party info. Four names and their life bars floated before my eyes. Bearcules, our elven druid-tank, Punchocalypse, a dwarven monk-DPS, Tialla, a human shadow priestess, and my old friend Steelion, a human warrior.

I'd known Steelion for a long, long time, ever since launch. He and I ran our first instances together, randomly pugged by fate. PUG, for those who aren't in the know, stands for pick up group; it's a term for when the game puts a group together. Steelion and I exchange friend-codes and we partied together often. The warrior was even the person who introduced