Pangea Online: The Complete Trilogy Read online

  Pangea Online

  The Complete Trilogy

  S.L. Rowland

  Other Books by S.L. Rowland

  Pangea Online: Death and Axes

  Pangea Online 2: Magic and Mayhem

  Pangea Online 3: Vials and Tribulations

  Villains aren’t born, they’re made.

  Path to Villainy: An NPC Kobold’s Tale

  Who says a troll can’t be the hero?

  Sentenced to Troll

  Sentenced to Troll 2

  Sentenced to Troll 3

  Vestiges: Portal to the Apocalypse

  Pangea Online Copyright © 2017, 2018, 2021 by S.L. Rowland

  SLRowland.com

  All Rights Reserved. This book may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Table of Contents

  Pangea Online: Death and Axes

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Pangea Online: Magic and Mayhem

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Pangea Online: Vials and Tribulations

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other Books by S.L. Rowland

  Untitled

  Pangea Online: Death and Axes

  Chapter One

  My life sucks.

  I live in a place called The Boxes, which is a city of small, metal, living quarters stacked God only knows how high atop other metal boxes. A small window allows me to look out into the world. There’s not much to look at, really. I watch the drones as they fly by, delivering food that will be dropped, sterilized, and then transported in an airtight chute to others just like me living in their own boxes. Across the alley, hundreds of other boxes litter the landscape. But that’s about it. I don’t know how many of us live here.

  The Boxes used to be a large city called Atlanta. That was back before nuclear war wiped out a large portion of the population and forced those who had survived to live locked away from the toxins and radiations it left behind. I hear there are parts of the country where people can still go outside without masks. This isn’t one of them. I haven’t been outside in close to a year. Not since I turned eighteen and moved from the orphanage to my very own box.

  Once I graduated, the orphanage couldn’t house me anymore and sent me out on my own. They don’t receive funding for me after I turn eighteen, so I don’t really blame them. Mouths are hard to feed.

  It’s been so long since I’ve been outside that I’ve forgotten what fresh air smells like. My box smells like sweat and staleness. The sad thing is I don’t even know what anything smells like in the game. You see, I’m a data miner. Now that I have graduated from my basic studies, I’ve been working eight hours a day swinging a pickaxe in the game, watching trails of data spring from the rocks and drift past me into the air. Data mining is a good profession for someone like me. It at least pays the bills and gives me something to do.

  The mines I work in are designed after coal mines. Coal hasn’t been used in centuries, but I guess the designers thought they were being cute. They love being cute. I’ve never actually been able to explore what the game truly has to offer. It takes money to do that. I can’t afford even the most basic Worldpass, so the only places I go to are the mines and my home portal, a virtual home which is basically just as drab and boring as my box. But I do have free access to the web and am able to read about what others do in the game. I love watching streams of people as they go to the fantasy worlds and level up their avatars. There’s something about the hero’s journey that just resonates with me. Maybe it’s because I’ll never be one. In a fantasy world, I’d be the farmer tending his garden, not the brave warrior riding off to fight monsters and save the princess.

  Data mining doesn’t pay very well. It gets me three meals a day and this small metal box. That’s about it. Oh, and I have my haptic suit. The designers send everyone a basic version the day they graduate. It’s nothing fancy, but it gives me the in-game experience as if I was actually there. There are sensors so detailed that I can actually feel the handle of a pickaxe while I’m working in the mines. The headset I wear has better clarity than reality. Everything feels real, minus pain. They don’t let you feel pain. Instead, your vision goes red around the edges, making it hard to see, and your stamina drops so it’s harder for a player to move. I’ve never died in the game, but they say that everything goes black and you have a chance to lose your items.

  The light flickers overhead, telling me it’s time to power up my room. A stationary bicycle sits in the corner with a few wires that connect to a plug in the wall. I ride the bike for two hours a day and it powers my room for twenty-four hours.

  Most of us in The Boxes don’t have enough money to pay for power. I guess those in charge of the game realized this, so they started installing self-sustaining power sources in each box. They would never let my power go completely out. That would kill me. There is a grid that keeps the air purifier working, but for anything else, I have to power it myself. They do provide free internet, though. They make so much money from the game that they can afford to give it out
for free. It makes people think they owe something to the game designers and therefore, when they have extra money, it all goes back into the game.

  The game is called Pangea Online, named after the supercontinent that existed before it all broke apart and gave us the world as we know it. I think it was their vision of bringing the world together under one game that sprouted the name. Before Pangea came along, everything people wanted to do on the web was segmented in different places. Now, it’s all together. And it’s all interactive.

  Over ninety percent of the world’s population spends time in Pangea Online. For those of us in The Boxes, Pangea is life.

  Unless you’re the uber-rich, most people no longer buy things for the real world. They spend their money on nice homes, clothes, and skills. All in the game. All virtual reality. None of it is real. And still, I have nothing.

  They say that if you think you’re crazy, then you’re not really crazy. I wish that worked with being poor.

  After charging up my room for the day, I strap myself into my haptic suit. I split my charging into two sessions, one before work and one after. It’s less boring that way. The suit fits snugly around my body, capable of dispatching pressure at any moment so that I feel whatever is happening to my body in Pangea. There is a slight discomfort as the suit calibrates to my body. The suit can even warm and cool as I walk through different climates, not that everything in the mines isn’t hotter than the bowels of hell. I put on my VR headset and it takes up the entirety of my vision, allowing me to experience the game as if I were really there. The only senses I can’t experience are taste and smell. Considering where I work, I count it as a blessing. There is nothing worse than a hot fart in an enclosed space. I’ve experienced enough of those in my box.

  I press my fingertips together and the blackness of my headset morphs into a three-dimensional world. The words ‘Welcome to Pangea Online’ appear over a blue swirling portal. If I were rich, I might see hundreds of portals in front of me, but since I am not, there is only the mines. I jump through the portal and dozens of worlds spin by me, offering glimpses of what else Pangea has to offer. Too bad I’ll never see any of it.

  The entrance to the mines greets me when the spinning stops. Tiny icons dot the edge of my vision detailing my health, stats, items, messages and a translucent map of my surroundings. There are hundreds of mines. I can see my destination as a flickering orange dot on the map. My inventory is scarce. All I have are my pick and my hard hat. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to hold a sword or cast magic, but I doubt that will ever happen. I focus on the pickaxe and it suddenly appears in my hand. I check the stats on it.

  Item: Basic Pickaxe. +2 attack. A pickaxe is a miner’s best friend.

  I check my avatar’s stats while I march to the mine I am scheduled to work in for the day. My class is Miner and the only ability I have learned is mining. My stamina has recovered overnight and I’ll be ready to start swinging the pickaxe soon enough.

  The thing about Pangea Online being a worldwide game is that all of the users are bound by the same constraints. Sure, money can buy you items to help your avatar seem more powerful than they actually are, but everyone is bound by two solid principles: stats and experience. Even mining grants experience. As you level up, each level grants a certain number of stat points to be allocated towards various attributes. There is Strength, Agility, Vitality, Intellect, Dexterity and Stamina. Over the past year of mining, I’ve put all the stat points I have accumulated into Strength. My avatar is far stronger than I could ever hope to be, but it allows me to gain more experience with each swing.

  More or less, my character is modeled after me. Dark hair, pale features, and tall. The only difference being that I am thin and lean, like a cyclist, while my character is ripped like a Greek god from swinging an axe all day long.

  My message icon blinks at me. I focus on the message and my inbox pops into view. It is a translucent gray and I can still see the world as I walk. The message is from Buzz. He works in the mines with me and is my best friend. His message reads:

  Yo Esil,

  Did you hear about the new tournament happening all over Pangea? A hundred thousand gold to the winner. Gah, I wish I could compete, but you know, work. See you in the mine.

  -Buzz

  Buzz loves watching people play games during his time away from the mines. It’s practically all he does. He’s never competed a day in his life, though. In fact, he’s just as poor as me. He always talks about how good he could be if he took time off from work. He lives with his mom in a box not much bigger than mine. I only know because he let it slip one day that his mother had been sick. I haven’t told him much about myself. Growing up in an orphanage is something I prefer not to talk about.

  I send him a quick message that I haven’t heard about the tournament and I can’t wait to hear more. The game automatically translates my voice to text and sends it to Buzz.

  He’s waiting for me at the entrance to mine one-twenty-four. His avatar is not as big as mine. For whatever reason, Buzz elected to put all of his stat points into Intellect. In the rest of Pangea, it might be useful. He could equip magic items and cast spells, but there is no benefit to it here. Because of his buffoonery, Buzz is still level two after a year. On the other hand, with the additional experience my strength has garnered me, I am level four.

  He wears a stained white t-shirt and jeans, the same as me. Starter rags for the mines. In one hand, he holds his pickaxe, in the other, his yellow helmet with a light attached to the front. A huge smile beams across his face.

  “Another day in paradise,” he jokes.

  We walk into the mine and immediately I feel warmer. Green ones and zeros flutter past me as they exit the tunnel. Data. Someone has already started working. The mine is dimly lit by dangling light bulbs with glowing filament. A single pair of train-tracks leads us down the cavern. Walls as black as night surround us on all sides. This place would be hell for someone afraid of enclosed spaces.

  At the end of the tunnel, Grayson, one of the longest tenured mine workers, is already sweating as he swings his axe. He enters in the morning with a gray beard, and by the end of his shift, he looks twenty years younger. No one knows how long he has been working in the mines, but everyone I’ve met says the same thing. He was here when they started.

  “About time you boys showed up,” he says. His voice is as gruff as the cavern, but there is a twinkle in his eye. When I focus on Grayson, his stats pop up to the side of my vision. He is level forty-five, practically unheard of in the mines. Over the years, he must have been able to save some gold, because he has a diamond-tipped pickaxe. What I would do for one of those.

  “Good to see you, Grayson,” I say. “How was your night?”

  “It was good. I spent the evening on a beach listening to mermaids sing,” he says between swinging the pick. Grayson is the only miner I know who has a pass to go to other worlds. I wonder if I work hard enough, will I be able to buy one someday?

  “Why would you go to a beach when you could go into a gameworld?” asks Buzz.

  He and I both begin working. Each swing of my pick sends bright green data fluttering through the air. It flows down the cavern, casting an eerie glow in the darkness. I have no idea what kind of data we are mining or where it goes. All I know is that this is my life. My dull, monotonous life.

  Buzz keeps talking. “So, Esil, the tournament. How did you not read about it? It’s the largest payout in game history. One. Hundred. Thousand. Gold.” He enunciates every word for effect.

  “I guess I missed it.” Truth be told, I had spent the previous evening watching a stream following an elven princess and her band of dwarven followers as they traveled through a mountainous pass overtaken by orcs. It had been an exciting three hours before I fell asleep. I much prefer watching people quest and explore in the gameworlds. I guess because in my own life, everything is planned out and routine, I like the freedom and adventure that RPGs bring. Buzz loves PvP game
s, where its player versus player. I think those are boring, it’s the same goal every time.

  “I thought it would have been your kind of thing. It’s a quest this time. They say it will be three stages testing the most well-rounded players in Pangea. No max level players allowed. They haven’t announced all the details yet, but I hear it is taking place over all of Pangea. There is all kinds of speculation on what the quests will be, but no one really knows. It’s going to be epic! If I wasn’t working, you know. I mean, just think of what we could do with that money. We’d be set for life.”