The Herald: The World of Geoe, #1

By Shawn McGee

The future of Earth depends on unwanted misfits.

 

Argrenn and his wife were saved from Earth's destruction by the Vrelth and transported to Geoe, a world run with gaming rules. They need to get a message out to other human planets but the Vrelth turned Geoe into a war zone.

The only protection they have is their new friends and the rules of the game – none of which they know.

Either they learn to play the game or Earth is doomed.

 

 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Assetstor
• Release date: Jul 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201901080

Shawn McGee

Shawn McGee writes fantasy and is an IT professional with hobbies in mathematics and gaming. Along with his current series he is writing a new gaming system. Please this book as reviews are the life blood of independent writers. You can join Shawn's discord channel, join his email list, and find out all the book information at https://worldofgeoe.com

Book preview

Chapter 1

Ten minutes ago, I as was as happy as a man could be. Now, the only thing I had going for me was that Talindra and I still held hands. Only, instead of being at the event for Worlds Project, getting ready to demo a game in the middle of a downtown Atlanta hotel, we sat in the snow in the wilderness.

A tree limb cracked nearby. I checked the bulbous tree across from me, bare of any leaves, its height rising thirty feet into the cold sky. Limbs drooped with fresh snow, but underneath the ground remained uncovered. Its branches stayed intact.

A single bird chirped while I exhaled, watching in awe and confusion as my breath blew away.

Are you okay? I asked. When I focused on Talindra’s face, she looked so much younger, but her wide-open eyes, dropped jaw, and frantic glances let me know our experiences matched.

Are you okay? I asked again, trying to get a hold on what just happened. Where are we?

Shh, she shushed me.

I whispered, I need to know you’re okay.

Talindra smiled and punched me lightly. Shh.

I rubbed my arm. Was Talindra stronger? Younger and stronger? Did Gormesh tell us the truth?

I remembered, I whispered.

My soaked jeans clung to my legs, covered in snow. Rising to my feet I glanced around us, my balance a bit wobbly as I tried to assimilate this drastic change from Atlanta’s heat to this winter wonderland, and walked to a fallen tree, which made a good seat after I brushed the snow off, so I cleared a spot for Talindra and patted it.

Don’t panic.

My recollection of Gormesh’s outlandish story that Earth was under attack and we had escaped in a ship made no sense, so I focused on what I knew. This was a survival situation and step one in survival was to recognize the situation and inventory everything around you. I needed to get my bearings. Looking around again with a sharper eye to resources, I noted a few trees and shrubs surrounded us and gave us cover. We sat between hills, and the sky above us was blue with a few clouds. Nothing close by could help.

What do I have?

I held a pad in my hand, which I was surprised at as I gazed down at it, wondering how in the world I had kept it in my grasp given the shock, the change... everything. I continued my personal search to find my pockets were empty, and no wallet. I’d lost my glasses, but nothing appeared blurry. That fact needed to wait.

Talindra showed me the pad Gormesh had given each of us and shrugged. He had stressed to keep hold of them and grasped my hand so emphatically it’d struck me as odd, since these pads were for a game.

I recalled the last statement from him before... before the light and everything changed. He’d said we had to get ready for danger and needed to go west to Sardyna. He’d also said our situation was abnormal. I stifled a laugh.

Talindra glared at me and I winced when I noticed she held herself. We should be in a room with computers at the yearly Worlds Project event testing out the new game. I had invested in the company and avidly gamed. When Talindra had found out how much I’d invested, she’d tagged along to understand why, despite the requirement to take part in a full day of gaming.

We had met up with friends, skipped the keynote speech, and showed up in time for the gaming session... Where we met Gormesh and everything had suddenly crashed, like an explosion or attack—glass, walls, the ceiling, and then nothing made sense.

Gormesh had brought us into a reinforced room and claimed we’d traveled to another world to escape the Vrelth. What the heck is a Vrelth? I needed to ignore that part of the story for now. Alien invasions needed more proof, and I was struggling to keep a firm grip on my sanity and panic bubbling below the surface.

Here, there was no rubble, no sign of the building we had been in, but I counted plenty of sparse trees, bushes, and tons of snow around us. Since I trusted Gormesh, I decided that before we gathered wood or did anything else, we needed to follow his advice, as he had been the only one with answers during the chaos—odd though those answers may have been. We were wherever we were because of choices I made, so I needed to help Talindra deal with this and skip my feelings. To project confidence, I straightened my spine and pushed my shoulders back.

Talindra thrust her screen toward me and shrugged again, this time with her eyes open wide. The game screen displayed her character. Talindra did not game, and I had only prepared her to play a paladin, not to create one. She’d joined me at the conference to hang out together.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

Given we had little else to go on, sitting in the wet snow and trying to reason our way through our circumstances, I focused on the pad Gormesh had seemed adamant we not lose. Giving it a closer look, I pointed to the initial inventory on her screen. A disclaimer popped up, and I nodded to accept, then walked her through the screens as a chill raced through me, though I wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or due to the uneasy feeling that ruled my senses. I had built her as a Charisma Paladin, so we chose chain mail, a shield, and a long sword. She also chose two devotions. I pointed to Faith Heal and Smite of Sol, then a pop-up appeared on her pad and asked her to accept her build.

She tapped accept, and suddenly, as though magic were in play, she stood up, wearing full chain mail with a shield on her left arm and a long sword on her right. A white cape draped over her back.

I fell backward off the log into the snow, gazing in a stupor at my wife, fully fitted for battle... as though she was a living avatar. She wore leather boots, leather pants, and a leather jerkin under the chain mail, the white cape on her back as crisp and clean as the surrounding snow. Without working out in her life, she now sported broad shoulders, muscular arms, and looked like she had when we first met, her skin smooth, youthful, and vibrant, the years having slid away as though reversing time.

Why do you look scrawny? she whispered as she helped me sit back up.

A branch snapped in the distance, crashed through a tree, and landed with a thunk. I verified we had a clear view of the sky without tree limbs and no widow makers. I had no answers. I couldn’t reason my way through this, but I assumed Gormesh had answers and decided in that moment to roll with our new reality... conceding that we really had no choice in the matter. Suspending my disbelief, I nodded to her sword at her hip, smiling at the thought of her wielding it.

What is happening? she asked, though I knew she knew I couldn’t answer. I shrugged and watched her slide her shield down her arm and grab it while sliding her sword from its scabbard. She stepped through a burst and then a lunge, a natural with the blade as she seemed to instinctively practice three sword stances: the ox ward, plow ward, and fool ward stances.

I knew she had never held a sword before, and I didn’t know those terms until she practiced them in front of me. I sensed the weight of knowledge in my mind that hadn’t been there only moments ago and once again shrugged off the odd sensation, trying my best to simply accept the circumstances and move forward.

She stared at me like I would explain what was going on and it ate at me that I had nothing to offer her. No answers or explanations, no comfort or assurances we would be okay. Would we be okay? Hell, we could die in the next moment for all I knew... freeze to death, starve to death, be eaten by wolves. I wanted to curl up and hold myself, but I needed to project confidence for her sake, so I offered a smile with as much confidence as I could muster and stood from the wet log.

Cracking sticks and rat sounds interrupted my attempt to straighten. The birds stopped chirping and Talindra emphatically pointed to my pad.

Right, follow Gormesh’s instructions. If my lovely wife had somehow become a striking, well-equipped paladin, what then could I look forward to?

I had rolled a wizard to play this weekend and had punted strength, keeping everything except my dexterity average, so I exceeded the limit on intelligence. Reading the screen in my cold hand, I noted my gear and spell choices consisted of two glamors, a belt pouch, a two-inch square, and a quarterstaff. This made no sense. Mages should not start with so little, since the test games gave me something for defense.

Rat screeches sounded louder, and I rushed to complete my selection. I chose Fistful of Fire and Planar Pull, then accepted my stats and stood. My clothing didn’t change. I still sported jeans, sneakers, and a gray t-shirt, though now I wore a belt pouch and held a quarterstaff with a piece of amber inset into the wood.

Where did the quarterstaff come from? How do I cast spells?

I imagined Talindra was even more confused. I at least had gaming experience and could comprehend the nuance of whatever game we were forced into here, but she was a nube in every sense of the word. Knowing this, I quickly took stock and focused on the threat at hand.

The staff was my height and its weight pulled my hand down, so whatever magic was at play to equip us as we were, it seemed as real as if we were at a cosplay event, though in my gut I knew this was real... not a dress-up party, and the stakes would be real too.

I stood next to Talindra, now at least four inches shorter than her, though it used to be reversed. Before I could let that sink in and emasculate me, several cracks from tree limbs reverberated in the forest.

Help, called a male voice. The tone sounded firm, with a hint of desperation.

This might be someone from the room Gormesh had shuffled us into. He’d claimed the room became a ship and... wait... an emergency escape for the hotel? It made no sense to me, and though he had been the only one to offer direction, I needed something real to latch onto.

Talindra poked me and pointed to the noise’s location, and I gave her the thumbs up. She seemed to have fully accepted her position, or at least she appeared to be the strong, assured paladin she embodied. This eased my heart, seeing bravery and calm in her eyes, and I nodded to her.

We will help, I whispered. Helping others, that was something I could latch onto. Take action with confidence and figure the rest out later. This was how we’d survive—compartmentalize and continue. With that plan in mind, I sank into my character, allowing a full immersion, welcoming the role, and it made me feel better to not fight it, as though my resistance had been keeping me from my true self. My new self, I clarified, as I certainly could not let go of reason.

Talindra smiled and put her hand on my back to follow me, a mage leading a paladin into danger—the opposite of what we’d do in a game. Only this was me in a life and death situation, and this was my wife, a nube to protect until she got her feet under her new paladin form.

We crept through the few trees and scrub brush, the snow crunching underfoot despite our light steps. I peered around a tree and glimpsed a blue-tinted elf in splint mail fighting two rat-looking creatures.

Yep, we’re not in Kansas anymore.

The elf swung a mace and the two rat creatures swung sticks. The thwack sounds the sticks made when they hit the elf’s armor sounded painful. Talindra took a step back at the site of three-foot-tall rats fighting an elf, and I couldn’t blame her. Both of us would have scurried from a real rat on Earth. But we were not on Earth, that was clear. And though I had no idea if we were in some form of matrix or another planet, I had already decided to be the mage, and my gaming instincts pulled at me to help. I had no facts I trusted, but I had to survive. I followed Talindra’s example of compartmentalizing and going with the flow. I had entered a game, and games were my domain. If this game pulled me in, it would learn not to mess with Argrenn Dawnstrike. I’ll pull, and you stab, I whispered.

The staff and my spells completed my options. I grasped how to fight with a staff now, only I was too weak to be effective. I wondered if the spells I chose worked, and then I realized I understood how to cast magic. It had always existed in my head, but now I understood it. That made no sense, so I filed it away for later. That later list already growing.

Planar Pull fit. Again, the knowledge existed in my mind, though I knew I hadn’t known it before, but that problem had to wait.

I opened a barrier, pulled something from the other side, closed the barrier, and channeled this something through a rune I drew in the air with my hand. A thin line of smokey gray material exited my palm. It snagged the creature and pulled it to me. The creature’s snout and ratty whiskers had seen other fights, but when it saw us, its eyes opened wide with horror.

Talindra knocked it to the ground with her shield.

That’s awesome, I said. My voice broke the weird silence that had seemed to grip us, and it felt good to talk.

I focused on the second rat creature. The spell-casting process matched for my Fistful of Fire spell, except I had two choices for the rune. The second choice projected it at my target. I chose that rune, and a fist-size ball of fire shot above the head of the creature.

I cast it again and when it hit, flames cascaded through the creature’s brown fur and smoldered its pink flesh, causing it to scream in pain.

The rat creature near me rolled on the ground and squealed with a high pitch. Talindra had it pinned with her shield and it thrashed beneath it, but she held firm.

I cast Fistful of Fire and pink blotches of skin replaced the burned hair. I cast it again and again. Miss. Hit. Hit. Miss. Hit. And dead.

My hair fell into my face, so I tucked it behind my ear since I couldn’t see through it. The screeches stopped and Talindra never even let it grab its weapon, but she never pulled her sword.

The creature was a gobelyn, and it used cudgels to fight. It made sense to call it that, but the knowledge popping into my head needed an explanation.

Compartmentalize and continue. We should find the others in our group. We had not been alone in the room Gormesh had ushered us into, so surely those people were here as well. Find the others, go west to Sardyna, and figure out what happened.

The elf jogged over. I’m looking for the group I arrived with, he said. He stood shorter than me, had four-inch-long ears, and a blue tint to his skin. He stared off into the distance, seeming as distracted as me. I could relate to the expression on his face, as though coming to grips with landing on an alien planet... which was a bizarre truth.

Are we supposed to kill things? asked Talindra. She fiddled with her medallion of the Archangel Michael on her necklace.

With gobelyns, it’s kill or be killed, said the elf. He made eye contact with Talindra and gathered his composure. His voice sounded familiar, but I had barely recognized anyone at the event except Talindra and our friends Grehn and Thralk.

Talindra. I needed to check on her. She had never gamed before, so she must be confused.

I put my arms around her. You did great, honey.

She gave me a quick hug back, then waved her shield at me. How can I hold something this heavy?

Did the information on how to use the sword and shield pop into your head? I asked.

My hair fell into my face and I poured sweat despite shivering. I pulled my hair back to see.

She nodded as she hung her shield on her armor.

The elf agreed. Me too. Man, I don’t know what’s what. I did the pad like Gormesh said and gobelyns attacked me.

Talindra broke her stoic demeanor and spun on me. What is going on? Is this one of your game things? You told me you’d be geeky for a couple of days and I’d play on a computer and tag along as a pal who helped protect and heal. Now I’m wearing armor, carrying a sword, and you tell me to kill a creature I’ve never seen before! Plus, you’re short and look like a teenager! Her hands clenched on her sword hilt, and her face was flushed.

Given this crazy experience, the outburst seemed tame.

Fair, but I understand nothing right now except we need to stay alive. Pinky promise I will look things up when we make it to the city. I held up my pinky, but she didn’t take it. Hold on. I put my hand on her upper arm and brushed her biceps, triceps, and quad. She had no natural flex, but I couldn’t squeeze her arms. My baby is buff, I joked.

She patted her stomach and smiled. The fastest diet ever, too. She gave my scrawny arm a playful squeeze. What happened to you?

Talindra’s face and hair belonged to her, as well as her complexion and voice. My skin felt tight when I touched it and didn’t have my usual scars and blemishes. I must have lost over a hundred pounds and eight inches in height. I’m shorter and in much better shape.

You look like a kid.

The elf broke in as we adjusted to our new, younger selves. You two must be the old couple who walked in before the hotel hall collapsed. I’m Marick, the black guy who sat across from you on the shuttle. Thank you for helping me. He offered his hand.

I shook it and checked him out. Brown hair, tinted blue skin, ears that stuck up four inches, and he wore leather pants, a leather jerkin with boots, and splint mail. No cape?

I chose a cleric, not paladin, but your wife’s cape is sharp.

So, we are the characters we chose at the convention. His comment confirmed what I had already concluded, but at least it gave me a better sense of what to expect. I knew how to play a mage well.

More tree limbs cracked from the weight of snow and crashed into other branches. This sound echoed in the woods, and to my right, a plume of powdered snow rose into the air.

A woman’s voice called out, Help! Daisidian is in trouble!

Compartmentalize and continue, I said aloud this time.

Talindra and Marick nodded, and we jogged to find the voice.

Cresting a mound, we noticed five gobelyns surrounding a female fighter in chain mail wielding a long sword. Her ears stuck through her hair, though not as far as Marick’s did. She stood back-to-back with a male halfling holding two daggers and bleeding from his shoulder, while cudgels thumped against swords and daggers.

All the gobelyns chattered, but I focused on two with crossbows shooting at the surrounded fighters below. The crossbow wielding gobelyns had easy shots with a height advantage on the two, and no one could withstand that. The halfling and half elf should have disengaged and found cover, though I didn’t blame them for panicking, but they needed saving.

I cast Planar Pull and pulled one gobelyn shooter next to me. Its long hairy snout face had gray in it and I registered surprise in its eyes as it dropped its crossbow and pulled out a cudgel, when I realized Talindra had followed Marick to help the others. I blasted at the creature next to me with Fistful of Fire. Missed.

A crossbow bolt whizzed over my head and the gobelyn I’d pulled swung at me with a cudgel. I jumped back and cast fire again. We traded and dodged these blows while crossbow bolts alternated firing at me and those below from the last shooter. My fire finally blasted in the gobelyn’s face and its eyes emptied, the creature’s face turning red with missing flesh as shrieks wailed from its snout. The body lay on the ground, burned, while its torso contorted, the beast no longer a threat in its death throes.

I ran to a tree, took cover, and cast Fistful of Fire at the writhing body. The fire hit and it quit moving. I grabbed my gut and tried to rub where the gobelyn had gotten a hit on me. I needed to think. Two solid hits or three partial hits with fire to kill a gobelyn.

The fire continued burning the dead gobelyn, melting the surrounding snow, and I turned from the gruesome scene just as a crossbow bolt hit me in the Achilles tendon. I screamed and my leg jolted like they had been hit it with a hammer and then jabbed with a screwdriver.

Games were not supposed to hurt. The stakes here were real.

Blood filtered out onto the ground from my leg, staining the surrounding snow as I yanked my exposed leg behind the tree with me. Whoever turned that screwdriver in my leg needed to stop.

My breath barely filled my lungs, my hair fell into my face, and my pant leg was soaked through with blood. I pulled my hair off my face and tucked it behind my ears, doing math in my head as I grit my teeth against the pain. Planar Pull could be cast every five or six seconds. Fistful of Fire could be cast twice as fast, but only hit sixty or seventy percent of the time.

Marick screamed in pain below as the group battled the gobelyns alongside the two we had rushed to rescue. I had to think faster. If I tempted the gobelyn to shoot an errant crossbow bolt, I had time to cast two Fistful of Fires and still have a fifty-fifty chance to get off a third. An approximately eighty percent chance of survival?

Ugh. The others had their hands full. We should have planned this. I couldn’t fight on my own, so I grabbed a stick and threw it out from behind the tree, causing the gobelyn to shoot. Its bold stuck in the tree an inch from my hand, so I rolled over and cast Fistful of Fire. Hit. I cast it again. Missed. A third cast of Fistful of Fire hit with a massive shot. The bolt of fire shot into his mouth and exited the back of his head.

It died as he shot the crossbow and the bolt soared high.

I attempted to stand and collapsed when my leg gave way and I may have uttered a guttural sound as pain shot through me.

Suddenly someone was at my side. Wow. Now that sounds like you’re in pain. Marick took my leg with a solid grip and extended it slowly. Hold still. I’m a registered EMT, ex-army, and have tactical combat care specialty.

He yanked the crossbow bolt out of my leg when he said the word ‘tactical.’ Sharp pain seared through my leg and hip, and the air left my lungs. I gasped instead of crying out, and my eyes filled with tears.

I’m out of magical healing, but I can get this wrapped.

Apparently, taking out the shooter had enabled them to finish off the rest of the attackers, as the group now hurried to my side.

Wait, I can heal, said Talindra. "I’ve got a Faith Heal spell, but I don’t know how to cast it."

Try to, I gasped out between breaths. Put your hand on my leg and pray for it to be healed.

She knelt beside me, did as I had directed, and I swallowed another yell as golden light emanated warmth through my leg, my gut, and the rest of my body. My leg stopped bleeding and no longer hurt. My gut no longer hurt from the cudgel hit either. I stood straighter, breathed clearer, and saw farther than I ever remember seeing. My knees didn’t hurt, my back bent without cracking, and I breathed clearly through my nose. Even my skin lost the red from cold exposure.

Looks like I didn’t need to pull out the bolt after all, said the elf, holding a linen wrap.

I held up my hand, and he helped me to my feet. Please don’t apologize for an attempt to help. I appreciate the effort. I pointed to his hand. Can I have that wrap?

I pulled my hair back and tied the material around my head since I needed to keep the strands out of my eyes.

What are you, a member of the Hooters? teased Talindra.

Teasing me on the battlefield? Wait, she has a good idea. Keep things light.

More like John Rambo, I said.

Maybe Olivia Newton John.

Bruce Springsteen?

We found the two old people. The halfling held out his fist and I bumped it. I’m Daisidian Black, and this is my sister, Kitara Black. We owe you three.

I already owe these two, said Marick. He pointed at Talindra and I.

I’m a boy, said Kitara. She—I mean he—didn’t look... whatever, I’d seen stranger things today. It seemed as though he had rolled up a female half-elf character, which he now inhabited. Mixed races and sexes seemed weird, but not as weird as me casting magic.

She—I mean he—searched the gobelyn bodies and cut off the ears. The second I wondered why, the knowledge that the ears were a quest item popped into my head. I didn’t like knowledge appearing in my head without warning, but couldn’t argue with gaining knowledge. We needed as much information as we could get, as this was clearly a deadly situation we had all landed in.

A deep sounding crack from a tree falling reverberated through the hills.

I’m Marick Al Gasani, said the elf. No, I cannot explain why I’m blue.

We’re the old people, said Talindra. What’s our silly names again?

We had signed contracts stating we would only use our Worlds Project aliases while in the game and on Worlds Project properties, and at this moment, I couldn’t remember my real name. I’m Argrenn Dawnstrike and this lovely woman is my wife of the past thirty years, Talindra Dawnstrike.

No cap? said Daisidian.

Cap? I asked.

The three newcomers laughed. Cap is like a lie, said Marick.

Wait, man, said Marick. How old are you?

Not that old.

We’re grandparents, in our fifties, Talindra corrected. How about you?

Twenty-six, said Marick.

Twenty-two, said Daisidian, the halfling.

Twenty-one, said his half-elf sister. The sister that identified as a man.

Grandparent gamers? asked Marick.

I played Might and Magic on an XT before your parents met, I joked.

What year? asked Kitara. He jingled his earrings and fidgeted with a necklace.

I thought for a second, eighty-six.

OG, said