Showing results by author "Arthur Stone" in All Categories

It started with a girl. Her father, as it turned out, was a barbaric maniac. Decades into the 21st century, the madman seemed terribly out of place. Yet he was also a powerful mogul - and determined to turn the life of every man who had ever been romantically involved with his daughter into a particular variant of hell only made possible by the latest VR technology. All 17 of his girl's former lovers would suffer in virtual reality until they snapped. For the first 16, the project succeeded. But the 17th was different. The 17th was Dark.

You are no one. Level zero. Empty of mind and memory. Even your past has been stripped from your brain by the inscrutable System. A long, difficult road lies between you and remembering any part of who you are. A road punctuated with one death after another. You are too puny to survive by might alone. Information is the single resource that might keep you alive, but the brainless “digis” have none of it. Only those with experience can give you what you need, but most care nothing about you or your plight. In fact, some make it their mission to kill you.

An unexpected roadmap—or better yet, a book—makes looking for treasure so much easier. Reading into it what the authors have never even thought about makes for a welcome bonus. These are all but lucky waystations on my journey to the doorsteps of this world's greatest mystery. There's a catch: everyone and his brother has already been there, and even the worst losers know the way. So, is this the end of the road? The demise of the Great Plan? Or have they all knocked on the door the wrong way?

The Continent is full of all kinds of places, and in some, fear rules every corner. Approaching the worst of these places is beyond the stomachs of most men and women. Entering and crossing them? Even fewer would dare that. And they would only do so with an experienced team or a heavily armored trade caravan, for only in such company would they have a chance of making it.

I had a plan; a good one that I thought through really well. But it only took a single cunning dwarf accompanied by two goons to force me into acting earlier than I’d planned to.

Imagine a warm, beautiful country populated by friendly and happy people who live in harmony under a true democratically elected government. In a feudal world dominated by a small cohort of ruthless nobles, that would indeed be a bright spot, right? It sure would—except keep dreaming, folks. Where our hero is going this time is the exact opposite of the above—a slum of a city in the middle of a dry, inhospitable desert, pervasive corruption, and all kinds of formidable enemies.

Welcome to the challenge. You're an absolute nobody here—nothing, a zero, a useless lump of meat filled with bones. You're but a delicious morsel for your antagonists and those who got lucky at the start. The only goal you can have in your miserable existence is to kick the bucket as soon as possible.

On his shoulders, he carries a heavy rifle that digs into his burned flesh. Worse still is his load of loot. In mass, it amounts to dozens of pounds. But in worth, it is weightier than a palace. Only the luckiest of geniuses could manage to escape a dangerous wilderness, where he is hunted with every step, with such riches on his back. Luck, of course, is something Cheater has plenty of. Genius, though, is less clear. He watches his haul grow with each new place he visits, adding to the physical and emotional strain of his pilgrimage.

No empty child has ever reached a year of age, yet I am now 13. It has been a long and miserable 13 years, where the best I can manage to do is walk with difficulty. Sometimes, I cannot even manage that.

The history of our world tends to move along a shallow spiral - when completing a turn, you end up mighty close to where you started. The history of Second World, in contrast, seems to have simplified its path to a ring from which there is no apparent way out. An unforeseen invasion lays waste to whole provinces, prompting the game's most powerful clans to ally with the emperor's guard to stop the monstrous hordes in their tracks. A war erupts that nobody saw coming, shattering the tedium of peaceful life.

Some fall prey to those holding a gun for the first time. Others cannot be defeated even by the most experienced shooters in the world, unless their luck comes to save the day. Cheater’s accuracy is unparalleled, and Lady Luck is on his side. He has all the marks of a champion, and champions never miss. The true aim of his heart, though, is not one that can be hit with a single fortunate shot. No, she is far to the west, beyond several of the Continent’s most dangerous locations: the bleak boundaries dividing regions from one another.

Something quite odd is happening in Second World - the planet's foremost MMORPG. Something that's causing alliances to be broken, and friendships, forgotten. A worthless low-level mine becomes the stage of vicious battles, its burned ruins suddenly contested by the game's toughest clans. Every border is controlled, and every road in the province blocked off. The weak players and NPCs alike are subjected to non-stop violent raids courtesy of Eastern invaders. And the strong are scouring the virtual world for the culprit - the weirdest noob the game has ever seen.

The desert has been left behind, but Sinner's troubles have not. He finds himself in an elaborate trap—him, and everyone else who failed to go north early. Now he has two options: accept his fate and die along with countless other losers or escape from the trap and pull his friends out. Except to do that, he will have to fight the most terrifying animal ever. Man.

The Grove is a perilous wound on the face of the planet, home to the most fearsome creatures in all of Rock. Death himself has trod these paths, leaving in his wake freakish mutants who still bear within themselves a piece of his morbid nature.

The Second World is a mire of intrigue; the game's creators have left several back doors permitting them to terminate anyone at will, and an unlikely sequence of events has brought someone unsuspecting into their field of attention. One player has managed to upset the game world's balance, and now he's hunted by everyone. Every clan wants to recruit him for his achievements while other powers want him for their own, more sinister purposes.

Rumor has it that this year's leaders will receive an unusual reward from the Emperor himself. The exact nature of that reward is a mystery to everyone. What is absolutely clear, though, is that the number of prizes is limited, and just about everyone wants them. So let the battle begin—in the hearts and minds, within the school walls, on training grounds, and even in the streets of the capital city. This will be the ultimate test of one's strength and cunning. It will be fair, and not. It will be bloodless and the stuff of one's worst gory nightmares. And the winner will take all.

Welcome to the challenge. You're an absolute nobody here - nothing; a zero; a useless lump of meat filled with bones. You're but a delicious morsel for your antagonists and those who got lucky at the start. The only goal you can have in your miserable existence is to kick the bucket as soon as possible.

At first, stories of Cheater caused nothing but laughter and rolled eyes. As the months went on, however, the tales became more terrific - and more terrifying. Now, Cheater the Lovestruck Loser has become Cheater the Lucky Legend. He never misses. He can never be held captive. And his luck never runs out. In pursuit of his love, his inexorable progress eastward leaves a trail of story upon story and corpse upon corpse.

So you want a brilliant cut for your rough diamond? In that case, you should get on with the cutting! That’s how I found myself looking for a suitable lapidarist. Since I was anything but your run-of-the-mill little rock, the master crafter also had to be special. The one fitting the bill happened to be truly excellent, but, alas, he did have his quirks, too. A recluse living on top of a tall, barren mountain, he did not take kindly to most uninvited intruders, sending them back rolling down the hill in the most unceremonious of manners. And he had plenty of secrets, too.

For two years, I have been thinking of this place and how to get here. Every step in my grand masterplan was but a waystation en route to the main prize: the door. And what a special door it is! Behind it lies what will not only make me strong, but put me at the very top of this world...or at least close. At the moment, the door is as good as locked for me. Unapproachable. To get access, I will have to do my damnedest, because you cannot just buy your way to it using regular cash. One needs a special currency here: points. Rating points.