Fantasy Online
Hyperborea
(Book One)
By Harmon Cooper
Edited by George C. Hopkins
Copyright © 2017 by Harmon Cooper
Copyright © 2017 Boycott Books
Cover by Tom Shutt
Edited by George C. Hopkins (georgechopkins@yahoo.com)
www.harmoncooper.com
writer.harmoncooper@gmail.com
Twitter: @_HarmonCooper
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All rights reserved. All rights preserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Map of Hyperborea
Author’s Note
Prologue: Troll battles
Chapter 1: Tamana’s great leap of faith
Chapter 2: Home is where the killer droid is
Chapter 3: Digital hallucinations
Chapter 4: Goblin security and why you’re better off without it
Chapter 5: Paradise of the Insane
Chapter 6: Brotherly love
Chapter 7: Is this the real life, or is itファンタシー?
Chapter 8: Natty Dread
Chapter 9: Dream armor or bust
Chapter 10: The Thulean
Chapter 11: Back to life, back to reality
Chapter 12: Hanging coffins
Chapter 13: Breakfast in the sky
Chapter 14: Cherry blossom ninjas
Chapter 15: Game changer
Chapter 16: The gun has no trigger
Chapter 17: Boaster Toaster
Chapter 18: A tendril of white magic
Chapter 19: Digital memories
Chapter 20: A puppetless puppetmaster
Chapter 21: Rilakkuma pancakes on the fly
Chapter 22: Dirty Dave’s Armor and Weapons Depot
Chapter 23: Orc zombie battle royal
Chapter 24: An egg for another day
Chapter 25: Drop in, drop out
Chapter 26: Kaizen
Chapter 27: Shogyo Mujo
Chapter 28: Aramis Solid Waste Management and Abatement Service
Chapter 29: Life in the fast lane
Chapter 30: The golden door
Epilogue: Brother’s keeper
Ryuk Matsuzaki’s character sheet
LAUNCH MONTH SPECIAL OFFER
Tritania Basics
Acknowledgements & More
Fantasy Online Merch!
The Feedback Loop preview
LitRPG book list
The Fantasy Online series is dedicated to the memory of Tom Shutt.
Map of Hyperborea
Click to enlarge
“Continents, three,
Float over the Endless Sea,
Hyperborea, Polynya, and Ultima Thule.”
--A famous Tritanian poem
“Takha bae bitakh novlaa rakh Aya Bortaetae,
Huborakha, Polonkhya, Hutamae Dulekh.”
--Written in Romanized Thulean
Author’s Note
The Proxima Galaxy consists of uncounted digital dreamworlds, all developed by the Proxima Company, a very specialized entertainment corporation. To access a dreamworld, one ‘dives’ with the aid of a neuronal visualization (NV) visor, which induces a lucid dream-like state for the ultimate first person VR experience.
Tritania is the VRMMORPG world in which the action of this novel takes place; the real world setting is 2075 Tokyo, Japan.
Within Tritania, there are three floating continents. The starter continent is Hyperborea, which is the setting for this book. To travel to the next floating continent, Polynya, a player must reach level 15. To travel to the third continent, Ultima Thule, a player must reach level 35. The game mechanics of Tritania are based on the JRPGs that shaped my childhood.
For more information about Tritania, I’ve included a Tritania Basics section at the back of this book, including an explanation on the in-game language spoken in Tritania, some of the common terms, time, and the relation of this book my other series, most notably, The Feedback Loop. Tritania Basics is accessible through the table of contents.
-Harmon Cooper
Prologue: Troll battles
At half the length of her body, Tamana’s buster sword is meant to be held with both hands, to be used as both a shield and a weapon, but she’s never been one to do things in a conventional way. She takes to the air, and following a perfect arc, she slashes through the enemy troll’s poorly crafted leather chest plate.
-15 HP!
She botches the landing, still not used to her buster sword’s weight, and cartwheels to the right. A fiery explosion suddenly flings the mountain troll backwards.
-5 HP!
Glancing over her shoulder, Tamana watches Ryuk load another black marble into his magic slingshot. He pulls back and lets go. A blast at the troll’s hairy feet produces a cloud of dust and a scattering of debris.
“Both hands on the sword!” Ryuk shouts to her for the third time that afternoon. He pops off another black marble at the feet of the troll, causing more dust to obscure the air. Range isn’t an issue with his magic slingshot; it propels the marbles with magic, not elastic, and it self-adjusts for range.
This is a good thing, as Ryuk is utterly terrible with his new avatar.
Tamana is by his side moments later, the strands of her long white hair beating in the wind. “My attack looked cool though, right?” she asks.
He has to smile at this.
“You chose a much stronger avatar than I did,” he reminds her.
She winks at him. “You always were up for a challenge.”
They lock eyes for a moment longer than necessary.
A smaller troll, likely the bigger troll’s wench, flanks the two. Grimy dreadlocks cover her face and yellow man-bone jewelry clinks around her neck. She pauses, grunts, and charges.
Ryuk loses his footing and muffs his next shot. The marble explodes and a nearby bush bursts into flame.
Still holding her weapon incorrectly, Tamana side swipes her ironing board of a sword at the she-troll and manages to cut the wench’s hairy arm clean off at the elbow. The she-troll shrieks as her black blood jets into the air.
-39 HP! Critical hit!
The dust clears. “Doka duchaka!” Maddened with rage, the savage male troll charges at the two with his fists held high over his head.
“I’ve got this!” Ryuk procures a clear marble from the pocket on his belt, pulls back, and looses it.
What the … ?
The male troll freezes in place, his chiseled arms still held over his head. Ryuk glances back to Tamana to find that she’s also fixed in place, her tremendous sword held awkwardly in the ‘ready enough’ position at her side. Turning to the dying female troll, he gasps once he sees that the blood spraying from her arm is pixelated, it too frozen in midair. From the grass that was moments ago blowing in the wind, to a bead of sweat on the side of Tamana’s face – everything around him is completely stationary.
But I can still move, he thinks as he squeezes the handle of his slingshot.
Not knowing how long he has until time returns to its normal pace, Ryuk moves to the side of the alpha troll, takes a few steps back just to give himself some distance, reaches for a black marble and …
Time blazes ahead and the troll turns to him.
Taken off guard, Ryuk is seconds from being clobbered when the tip of Tamana’s buster sword pierces the creature’s chest, splashing oily black ichor onto Ryuk’s face.