Swordsman of the Rift Read online

  The women came back and Brad had all of us sit down on the recliners. Almost as soon as I sat down, the recliner lit up, the holographic screen flickering to life. It must have been using some incredible technology because it displayed my name despite how I never imputed my data. It also showed all my vital functions, pulse, blood type, heart rate, biometric rhythms, etc. I was pretty impressed, but I was also unnerved. I’m pretty sure technology like this wasn’t something you could buy unless you had deep pockets.

  “If everyone is ready, you should log in now,” Brad called out as he placed the helmet over his head and flipped a switch near the back. His body went slack almost the moment he did so. I actually had to blink when I saw how it looked like he’d passed out or maybe even died, but I knew it was because his mind had been transported into whatever virtual world this equipment sent us to.

  I stared at him, then looked at Elric, Vyra, and Ju Chen as they also placed their helmets on and flipped the switch. Like Brad, they all relaxed as if they were unconscious. Sighing as I realized I was the only one left who hadn’t done so, I placed the helmet on my head, ignored the blackness filling my vision, and flipped the switch.

  I stood in a white space. There was nothing around me at all. I couldn’t tell what was up, down, left, or right. It felt almost like I was floating through an empty void. Even when I looked down, all I saw was white space. There was not even a shadow to mark where I stood.

  Freaky.

  As I was looking around, a screen suddenly appeared before me.

  Select your race:

  1. Angel

  2. Demon

  3. Human

  4. God

  5. Dragonfolk

  6. Elf

  7. Elder

  8. Ork

  Selecting an avatar, huh? This really was like one of those MMO games. After a moment of thinking, I decided to select human. Having never played an MMO before, I decided to go with what I was most familiar with. Besides, what if I selected Demon and ended up transforming into some ugly red guy with horns on my head and bat wings sticking out of my shoulders blades? I know some people thought that was cool, but I was not one of those people.

  The screen changed.

  You have selected the race “human.” Now select your class:

  1. Warrior

  2. Rogue

  3. Fighter

  4. Monk

  5. Barbarian

  6. Paladin

  7. Bard

  8. Druid

  9. Space Marine

  10. Space Cadet

  11. Sniper

  12. Medic

  13. Space Marine Commander

  I stared at the list of class types, which looked like they went on forever. The list was so long I found myself scrolling down for several minutes and still hadn’t reached the end. Not only did I see classic DnD classes such as Warrior, Rogue, and Paladin, but I saw sci-fi classes like Space Marine, Sniper, and Medic. It looked like someone had combined every class from every video game under the sun into a single list.

  After a moment, I selected the class titled “Magic Swordsman.” I honestly thought about going with one of the sci-fi classes like Space Marine, but Magic Swordsman made a bit more sense to me, since even though I wasn’t huge on video games, I at least understood what a Magic Swordsman was.

  The screen flickered and changed again.

  Select magic color:

  Red

  Pink

  Orange

  Yellow

  Green

  Blue

  Purple

  White

  Black

  Brown

  I frowned as I studied the colors available, but I didn’t know which one I should choose. It said magic color, so I assumed different colors would mean I could use different types of magic, but I couldn’t figure out which color represented what magic. Worse still, there didn’t seem to be a help button or even a manual to help me out. That meant I had to choose based purely on my own guesstimation.

  Not cool.

  Since I could only select one color at the moment, I went with red. I was pretty sure red generally represented fire. Fire was, to me, a strong magic, and I imagined myself releasing blazing hell-like flames upon my enemies, or enhancing my sword’s power with flames, allowing me to cut through enemies with a lot more ease.

  The screen changed again.

  Name: Bryan Jenson

  Class: Magic Swordsman

  Level: 50

  Magic Color: Red

  Attack: 0

  Agility: 0

  Defense: 0

  Magic Defense: 0

  Mana: 0

  Total Status Points available: 500

  Special Skills: None

  Total Skill Points available: 50

  I scratched my chin as I looked at the Status Points I had available. 500. Because I’d never played any RPG or MMO games, I wasn’t sure if that was a big number. I was the guy who played FPS and RTS games in my youth. At the same time, I at least understood enough to know that I needed to carefully think about how I allotted my available Status Points.

  After a moment, I raised Attack to 100, Agility to 100, Defense to 100, Magic Defense to 100, and Mana to 100, putting me even across the board. I figured I’d start with even stats and adjust them accordingly.

  Next, I looked at my Skill Points. I had fifty available, which wasn’t as big as my Status Points, but I assumed you earned one Skill Point for each level gained. After a moment of searching, I realized I couldn’t see what skills I had available, but then I noticed an icon in the bottom left hand corner, which said Special Skills and had the symbol of a man holding a sword.

  I selected it.

  “Whoa!”

  I nearly leapt back when the screen expanded to about three times its previous size. It was huge. I didn’t understand why at first, but then I realized this screen revealed the Special Skills to me as a type of skill tree. There were a total of four skills currently available to me. I could tell they were the only skills I could use because they weren’t grayed out like everything else.

  Available Special Skills:

  Whirlwind Slash: an area attack with a wide range that damages multiple opponents at the same time. Good for attacking many targets. 60 second recharge time.

  Death by Piercing: Thrust your blade into a single enemy and cause critical damage. Excellent for attacking one strong enemy. Damage doubles if enemy is vulnerable to piercing damage. 30 second recharge time.

  Fire Slash: Enhances blade with a flame that can be projected outward to create a ranged attack. Range depends on skill level. At level one, the skill has a range of 15 feet. 60 second recharge time.

  Fireball: Shoot a fireball from your hand. Power varies depending on skill level. 30 second recharge time.

  After looking over the current skills, I pressed Whirlwind Slash and allocated 5 of my 50 Skill Points to it. After reaching five, the Whirlwind Slash skill flashed several times before several other skills appeared around it. Each skill was connected to the Whirlwind Slash ability. It looked like most of them enhanced the Whirlwind Slash, but there was also one branch called Dual Whirlwind Slash. It was currently grayed out. When I followed the line connecting it to another branch, I noticed that it was connected to a skill called Dual Wielding, which I couldn’t unlock until I reached level 60. So I could only use this skill if I had the dual-wielding skill.

  I put five points on each of my current skills available, which dropped me down to 25 Skill Points. After that, I allocated the remaining skill points to the damage each attack inflicted per strike. My thoughts were that if I could do more damage per strike, I could kill my enemies more quickly.

  After allocating all my current Skill Points to my skills, I went back to the main status screen.

  Name: Bryan Jenson

  Class: Magic Swordsman

  Level: 50

  Magic Color: Red

  Attack: 100

  Agility: 100

 
Defense: 100

  Magic Defense: 100

  Mana: 100

  Total Status Points available: 0

  Special Skills:

  Whirlwind Slash: Attack +5

  Death by Piercing: Attack +5

  Fire Slash: Attack +5

  Fireball: Attack +5

  Total Skill Points available: 0

  I looked everything over and nodded, satisfied with my choices. Now I just needed to know what I should do next. However, even as I wondered what I should be doing, text suddenly appeared over my status screen

  Status Allocation Complete. Do you accept? Yes? No?

  As I stared at the bright “yes” and “no” buttons, I found myself hesitating just a bit, but then I pressed the “yes” button, which flashed once before the text and status screen disappeared. As the world once more turned to white, my vision flashed in and out. I wondered what was happening. However, just as this thought crossed my mind, new text flashed across my vision.

  Welcome to the Rift Plains, Bryan Jenson.

  Then my vision faded to black.

  Chapter 2

  I gazed around at the grassy field, completely flabbergasted and trying to figure out what the fuck just happened. One minute I was standing in a blank space. The next I was here, in this field, which looked like an idyllic prairie from some old western movie. Off in the distance I saw trees and mountains. The others had appeared with me, looking as confused as I felt.

  As a soft breeze blew through the planes, causing the grass to sway and my hair to ruffle, a thought crossed my mind that I could feel the wind caressing my skin. It felt… real. It felt way too real to be a simple game. I knelt on the ground and pressed my hand against the grass, fingers splayed, feeling the soft blades rubbing against my skin. The grass also felt real.

  “What. The. Fuck?” Elric’s voice knocked me out of my stupor. I looked up to see him gawking at everything as well.

  So, he hadn’t been to… wherever this was yet. Good to know.

  “Welcome, everyone. I’m glad you could all make it,” Brad said. He walked over to us from a distance away, arms spread. “This place is called the Rift Plains. If you’d like, you can think of this place as a massive hotel resort with thousands of different places to go. I’ve come here multiple times to do some scouting before pulling together this team. We’ll have to be careful. Much of these plains have already been occupied by enemy forces, but so long as we avoid the areas where enemy forces are heavily concentrated, we should be fine.”

  “That sounds incredibly ominous,” Elric said with an awkward chuckle.

  “I’ve already mapped out the areas with the highest concentration of enemies,” Brad reassured him. “We’ll be able to avoid trouble until we reach the portal.”

  “Before we start, I want to know a little more about what just happened,” I said. “I created my character, but I can’t say I understand everything.”

  Brad shrugged. “Ask away. If I know the answer, I will tell you.”

  I nodded, my eyes narrow. “When I was going through the character creation, it asked me to choose a color… what was that all about?”

  “Ah.” Brad’s eyes lit up. “So you were able to choose a color. Very nice! The color selection system was created based on world connections. When you connect with a world through Soul Bonding, you gain a color, which represents a specific element. None of you have done that right now. You’ll learn about that later if it ever becomes relevant. Your color right now is in relation to what skills you specialize in. Think of it as… selecting which elemental attribute your character has. Something along those lines.”

  “And this world?” asked Vyra, gesturing to the grassy plains around them. “This… Rift Plain? What is it?”

  “It’s like I just told you.” Brad spread his arms wide. “However, if you want a more complicated version, this place is basically the starting point in this ‘game’ as you called it. It is a rift that leads to the many worlds of the afterlife, which you can travel to via portals. By my estimation, there are probably hundreds or maybe even thousands of portals in the Rift Plains, though don’t quote me on that. Each portal leads to a different world. I’ve been traveling to and from this place for a while now, and I still don’t know how many other worlds are out there.”

  Everything that came out of this man’s mouth was getting harder and harder to accept, and yet… I looked around this place and couldn’t help but believe him. I was a skeptic. I only believed in what I saw. If it wasn’t something I could see, smell, or feel, then it obviously couldn’t exist.

  This place obviously existed. I could see the grassy fields, smell the earthen scent as it filled my nose, and touch the soft loam beneath me. This place, this Rift Plains, was obviously a real place. Whether or not it was the “afterlife” as Brad had called it, I couldn’t say, but I could at least verify that this place was real.

  “So, what are we doing?” asked Ju Chen, slinging a rifle over her shoulder.

  That was when I realized all of us had changed. The changes weren’t extreme… well, they were, but they weren’t as extreme as I would have imagined. Ju Chen still looked very much like Ju Chen. Elric, Vyra, and Brad all had the same faces I remembered before we entered these Rift Plains. However, that was where the similarities ended.

  Ju Chen was still very short, but her body was now clad in high-tech armor that vaguely reminded me of this game I had played long ago called Warhammer. Thick pauldrons sat on her shoulders, a chestplate wrapped around her torso, and strong leg guards protected her lower half. She was carrying an impressive looking rifle. I wasn’t sure what it did, but it looked badass. She also had some kind of chainsaw thing strapped across her back.

  Elric was dressed like a classic Paladin. His shiny steel armor was complemented by blue clothes underneath. He was wearing a tabard that trailed down the front and back, had a single pauldron on his right shoulder, and was clutching a large mace with his left hand, which was covered in a thick steel gauntlet. A shield was in his other hand. Combine that armor with his blonde hair, and he made me think of someone from Lord of the Rings.

  Standing in between Ju Chen and Elric was Vyra, whose dark-skinned body was covered in… scales? Yes, they were definitely scales. Not only was she covered in scales that resembled armor, but there was a tail jutting from her lower back and large wings extending from her shoulders. The pinions held a distinctly reptilian aesthetic, making me realize she was the one person who had chosen something inhuman. I remembered reading one of the race names called Dragonfolk. I was sure that’s what Vyra had chosen to be.

  Brad’s character was… I didn’t know what he was. Clad in dark armor and chainmail blacker than midnight, his entire body seemed to exude an aura of death. While his face looked the same, everything else about him was different. What’s more, he was wielding a massive scythe with jagged edges and a wicked-looking claw at the end. He was carrying a helmet under his left arm. The iron wrought helm looked like something straight out of Mordor.

  I was wearing something vastly different from the norm as well. My body was covered in a type of light armor. The gleaming chestplate covered only my chest and left my stomach bare. Gauntlets and greaves covered my feet and arms, gleaming brightly in the sunlight. Black pants and a long-sleeved shirt covered me underneath my armor, and a dark cloak with blue trim had been thrown over the entire ensemble.

  On top of my wardrobe change, I also had a broadsword sheathed at my waist.

  “I believe I told you,” Brad said with a slight smile. “Our task is going to be traveling into a world occupied by the enemy and pushing them out. A group of powerful demons have invaded a world that can be accessed from the Rift Plains. If they get any closer, it’ll spell a lot of trouble for our side.”

  “I’m still having trouble believing any of this is real,” Vyra said, her brow creased. “This is some freaky shit, and I have seen a lot of freaky shit before.”

  “I can assure you, it’s all real
,” Brad said. He stabbed his scythe into the ground and scratched his head. “Now, then, before we actually do this, you guys should familiarize yourself with your equipment. You can pull up a menu screen and look over what sort of equipment you’ve got that way.”

  While everyone else was still very skeptical, all of us swiped our fingers through the air. I felt foolish as I did so, but then, to my surprise, a screen really did appear in front of me. It was small, about eight inches wide and five tall, and shaped like a rectangle. It displayed my name, an image of myself, my basic stats, and several options, including an option that said “equipment.”

  I pressed that option. The screen didn’t change entirely. The image of me stayed there, but the stats were replaced with a list of the equipment I currently had equipped.

  Equipment:

  Asura Sword

  Mythril chestplate

  Mythril gauntlets

  Mythril greaves

  Nightingale Cloak

  Commoners garb

  While the commoners garb confused me—I assumed it was my underclothes, but the name was so drab—the rest was simple enough to understand. I’m pretty sure this was some good equipment. At least, I think it was good equipment. Mythril was always said to be a strong alloy in books and movies. According to Bilbo Baggins, mythril was harder than dragon scales.

  “Have all of you familiarized yourself with your equipment?” asked Brad. “If you have, then let’s go.”

  While Vyra grumbled a little about how none of this still made sense to her, Ju Chen just slung that badass rifle over her shoulder and marched after Brad. She seemed to be the least surprised by all this. I assume she had experience with VR games. To her, I guess, this world was just an incredibly realistic simulation.