Cuckoo's Lament (Cuckoo's Dream Book 1), page 1
Cuckoo’s Lament
Elizabeth Oswald
Copyright © 2023 by Elizabeth Oswald
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This one is dedicated to my dad, who never got to read my books, but who would definitely have bragged about his author daughter to absolutely everyone he ever met.
Contents
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
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Author’s Note
Other Books by Elizabeth Oswald
Chapter One
Ava stared down at the spreadsheet displayed on her screen, tapping her stylus against her teeth with a soft click. “Just two hundred dollars, huh? Just.” She laughed bitterly, tossing the stylus down on her desk and leaning back to stare blankly at the ceiling.
Ever since her mother had lost her battle with cancer the year before, Ava had been drowning in debt. Not that she begrudged the expense, since every moment she gained with her mom had been worth any price, but she was just so… tired.
Shoving the chair back away from the desk, she stared at the virtual reality game pod sitting in the corner of her cramped studio apartment. It was the last thing she had that was worth selling, but the thought of giving it up made her heart ache like it would crumble into a thousand pieces. The pod had been her mother’s last gift to her, before the diagnosis, and playing Veritas Online was Ava’s only relief from the stress and fear that had been her daily companions since the doctors delivered the news.
“I’ll try one more time,” she muttered, standing. She glanced at the clock. She had six hours before she had to go to work at the grocery store, and after that, she had a full shift at VaVaVoom, a clothing store that catered primarily to drag queens and crossdressers.
Honestly, she should sleep for most of those six hours, but thanks to the magic of technology, Veritas somehow doubled a player’s perception of time spent online. That meant that if she played for three hours, the game would give her a full six hours of play time. The creators of Veritas Online, Veritas Corporation, had recently announced that they would be releasing some of the technology that allowed their ground-breaking system to work, and it seemed like the whole world was waiting to see how that would play out.
The whole world except for people like Ava, of course. Things like earth-shaking technological breakthroughs were something that wouldn’t affect her until they managed to trickle down through all of the scientists, governments, and multinational corporations who would get first dibs. Meanwhile, Ava was only able to feed and clothe herself because of the employee discounts she got through her various jobs.
Speaking of jobs, her third one was off the books, and if she logged in now, that was the one that just might allow her to pay her bills this month. She hired herself out in Veritas in exchange for money in the real world. Thankfully, the game didn’t allow players to abuse each other, but that didn’t mean the people who hired her always treated her like a real human being.
She smirked a bit at her inadvertent joke, even as she pulled on the worn bodysuit. Never once had she played Veritas as a human, so complaining about not being treated as one… Well, it was a good thing she didn’t really care, as long as she got paid.
Her pod beeped, and she glanced down at her screen, sighing before swiping away the familiar notification. The VR pod had been sending her warnings that the nanomaterial of her suit was wearing thin and would soon provide a ‘sub-optimal experience’, but there was nothing she could do about it. Until someone figured out how to bling out the suits, VaVaVoom wouldn’t carry them, and there was no way Ava could afford a new one without the all-important employee discount.
She climbed into her pod and tugged the headset down over her face. Lying back, she blinked her eyes, focusing on the hovering Veritas Online splash screen. “System,” she murmured, “start Veritas.”
Without further ado, Ava’s dark, pathetic little world fell away.
(===||:::::::::::::::>
Alpha opened her eyes and sat up with a grunt. As always, it took a moment to adjust to the small tusks that protruded between her lips, and she swiped at the corner of her mouth, carefully wiping away drool. If someone had told her she’d have so much trouble with the darn things, she’d have opted to create a half-orc with a smaller underbite. Still, when she’d wiped her old character, she hadn’t exactly been looking to make friends, and her brutish appearance made other players keep their distance in a way her original character hadn’t.
Alpha stood slowly. She wasn’t short in real life, but at nearly seven feet tall, her inhuman avatar was much taller than she was used to. If the tusks were the first thing someone would notice, her height was the second. Someday, she’d have to invest more stat points into dexterity, since she’d heard that could help if your real body was significantly different from your in-game body.
Not that most people had that problem. Veritas based your avatar’s appearance on your own, and prevented you from altering it too much. She’d heard that the idea was to prevent players from using anonymity as a shield, since if your behavior could lead to real-life consequences when someone recognized you, you were less likely to be a complete and total jerk.
She snorted, a much more imposing sound coming from her slightly piggish snout than anything she could produce in real life. There were ways around anything, and while she gave the developers kudos for their efforts, all someone had to do was wear a mask or helmet, and all bets were off. Or, if they were really determined, they could do what she’d done, and choose one of the half-monster races. While she could still see her original face in her orcish features, she doubted anyone else other than her mother could have done so.
Her eyes burned at the thought of her mother, and she scrubbed at them with one grayish-green hand. What was it with the devs that they allowed drooling and snot bubbles, but wouldn’t let someone cry? Though she had often been grateful for that in the early days, since it allowed her to keep her composure when she would otherwise have broken down sobbing. In fact, she had logged into Veritas more than once simply to escape the physical symptoms of devastating grief.
Sighing, she stood and began adjusting the pouches that hung from straps all over her body. Alpha spent most nights sleeping in a Dead Tent, which was within the non-combat zone surrounding the Traveler’s Guilds that were scattered around the world. Players were known as Travelers in Veritas, and their backstory was that they were people from another world who used magic to transport their souls into new bodies here in this world.
Because of this, when a player logged out, their avatar, or soulless Zombie, was left behind, and while it couldn’t be moved, it could easily be killed, since it had no defensive capabilities. Most players gave their Zombies instructions to find the nearest Inn or Dead Tent and rest until they logged in again. The benefit of the Dead Tent was that it was significantly cheaper than an Inn, though it was certainly lacking in amenities.
Alpha transferred one last pouch from the belt that draped low over her left hip to one of the bandoliers crisscrossing her chest, and shrugged, trying to get all of the dangling bits to hang comfortably. She was, for lack of a better term, a pack mule, and she’d learned a long time ago that being comfortable beat looking good any day. Wincing in anticipation, she reached out and opened the hanging curtain that blocked the small, silent room in which she’d awakened, stepping out into chaos.
“Buy Lunar Moth Wings, only six silver each! I have five hundred!”
“Looking for a cleric for a Barrow run! Must be at least level sixty!”
“Need two custom dual-”
“...never split the party!”
Voices and bodies surrounded her, and she stopped, a single stone in the midst of a raging river. No NPCs could enter the space close to a Dead Tent unless they were in a party with a player. It was only recently that the ability to add NPCs to a party had been patched in, and since the average NPC was much weaker than any player character, very few people even bothered recruiting them.
That meant that all the people surrounding her were almost certainly players. Real people, with their own needs, interests, and lives. And Alpha didn’t give a damn about a single one of them. If she could have left them all behind and gone off to live al
With a twitch of a clawed finger, she opened the interface for the Traveler’s Guild bulletin board. This was where quests and requests were posted. For Sale signs mingled with notices about people looking to buy something. She smirked as a note from one person selling Ant Jaws slid by right after another from someone looking to buy Ant Jaws. Human beings were stupid.
A few deft movements separated the notices into categories, and she dismissed all the ones she wasn’t interested in. What was left was a short list. Unusually short, in fact. It looked like someone else was clearing Help Wanted tasks, and she gritted her teeth as she saw how many remained.
Three.
The first one was an easy no. A mage and a warrior were looking for a distance damage dealer and a healer to head into the newbie forest north of Bright. Not only did Alpha not fit either of those categories, the rewards would never be enough to make up for that two-hundred-dollar shortfall in her budget. Besides, Alpha didn’t really enjoy actual combat, and her lack of enthusiasm meant she wasn’t particularly good at it, in spite of her relatively high level.
The second was a possibility. Two members of the Angelic Embers guild were planning an exploratory mission into the area east of Bloodhaven, and needed someone to carry their loot. According to game lore, that area had been part of the prosperous human nation of Quarternell before their borders intruded on the expanding lands of Lich Lord Akuji. Akuji’s army had devastated the area, leaving it an abandoned ruin, but now that the war was over, people would occasionally find a map or receive a quest that claimed to lead to some forgotten dungeon or lost treasure.
The downside was that these exploratory missions were exactly that. Exploratory. They might find untold riches, or they might find diddly squat. It was impossible to know. Also, they might be back within a few hours, or the mission might take days, and Alpha couldn’t commit to something with such an uncertain schedule.
Reluctantly, Alpha flicked that notice away, too. She’d heard good things about Angelic Embers. They were one of the few all-female guilds, and avoiding males and their compulsion to dominate and posture was always a good thing. Not to mention that their guild leader, Doom Bloom, was a Hero of the Realm, and as a result, her entire guild and their party members got a boost to all reputation gains. Which Alpha could definitely use, since as a half-orc, pretty much all NPCs hated her on sight.
With a scowl, she popped open the last advert. She already knew she didn’t want this one, simply based on who posted it. The Forceworn Guild had been one of the powerhouses of Veritas until very recently. She didn’t know exactly what the deal had been, but even she had heard that several of the high-ranking members had been banned from the game for life, a punishment that no one had even realized was an option until it happened. She’d even heard rumors that one of the highest rankers had gone to jail for whatever he’d been doing, but she suspected that was the usual overblown hyperbole.
LOOKING FOR MULE FOR BLACK CATACOMB RUN. NO WIMPS. BRING YOUR OWN BAGS. LEAVING AT 15:30, HARD. -FG
Quite aside from the message being in aggressive caps, the ‘no wimps’ part set her teeth on edge. ‘Mules’ were people who had acquired a large number of spatial bags and would use them to carry excess items when a person or group ventured into an area where the amount of loot was likely to exceed the standard amount of inventory space. Strength and stamina were their most important stats, and none of the successful ones were ‘wimps’.
Veritas had a fairly simple inventory system. The base inventory held one hundred slots, each of which could hold up to 99 identical items. Anything worn by the player did not count against this total, and it wasn’t uncommon for someone who ran out of space to wear a number of unidentified items, taking the risk that they might have a negative effect in hopes that they would turn out to be something amazing. That hope was almost always wrong, but it didn’t keep people from trying.
The base inventory was also known as the ‘safe’ inventory. Anything you placed inside could not be stolen or dropped. The same did not hold true for any items held in extra spatial containers, and if a player died while carrying a bag, anything and everything inside could drop. There were also some items that couldn’t be placed into the primary inventory. These were almost always extremely valuable, so whoever carried them absolutely could not be allowed to die. This led to the use of mules.
When a player or group went into a dangerous area, they would hire someone to hang back and hold onto the loot they acquired. The person had to sign a contract to return any items that so much as touched their hands during the hire period, and since they also had to share their inventory logs, there was no way to get around it. All the party members gave the mule their items, which the mule identified stored away in the many bags hung about their avatar.
The mule’s job was simple: get out with the loot, no matter what. In particularly dangerous areas, the mule was given a Return Scroll, and if it looked like a party wipe might occur, they would run or teleport back to a preselected meeting place, and hand over the goods and their logs. Mules who could use a high-level [Identify] or [Appraisal] skill were highly valued, but the number one requirement was a willingness to be alternately terrified and bored out of your mind.
Mules weren’t allowed to fight. Their one job was to keep the group’s items safe. Even if everyone else was slaughtered around them, they had to stay until they were told to run or it became clear that no one would remain to help them escape. Fighting and healing both attracted aggro from mobs, and so the mules had to do absolutely nothing except carry other players’ junk.
As a result, mules had a reputation for cowardice and weakness. While it was vaguely possible that some mule somewhere had earned that reputation, it wasn’t any of the ones Alpha had met. Standing and passively taking damage while depending on others to save you, or watching other people die while being unable to assist… it was incredibly difficult, especially if you liked your team-mates.
Alpha sighed and flicked her gaze at the game clock. It was fifteen fifteen, which was actually good. She didn’t have time to stand around and wait while a group dragged their feet getting ready. If the Forceworn members were ready and willing to pay at least two hundred dollars for her services, she’d go with them. Black Catacomb was well-mapped, so it shouldn’t take longer than six hours to do a run with a decent-sized group, and Forceworn was still a large guild, even after the recent hit to their reputation.
She clicked on the message and sent the poster a reply.
@AlphaOmegadon: Two hundred bucks and you have a mule.
@R3dLit3: WTF?
@AlphaOmegadon: Your ad, idiot. You need a mule. I’m the best. Two hundred bucks, and I’ll do Black Catacomb with you.
@R3dLit3: Two hundred is too much. One hundred.
@AlphaOmegadon: Your group leaves in fourteen minutes. Let me know when you change your mind.
Alpha smirked as she closed the chat window. She hadn’t been lying. She was the best. She’d worked hard to make sure that was true, and if the guy bothered asking around, he’d quickly find out. Two hundred was a little high for a BC run, but he needed someone now, and she was, again, the best.
A commotion nearby drew her attention. A small group of boys who looked to be in their late teens or early twenties were arguing amongst themselves in the clear. This close to the Traveler’s Guild, they should have been using private messages, but no, these jerks decided to pollute everyone’s air with their cursing.
Her eyes widened as their words began to sink in, now that she was focusing on them.
“-say we take it. We can always-”
“No way, man! That’s my allowance-”
“-can definitely make it back. C’mon, you cheap-”
Surely, surely these idiots weren’t her potential clients. She knew her luck was crap, but this was really taking it too far.
@R3dLit3: Fine. Two hundred when you deliver.
She scowled.
@AlphaOmegadon: Half up front.
@R3dLit3: F— you.
Alpha snorted. Veritas automatically censored chat, which meant some players spoke in little but dashes and asterisks. She had a feeling this was a guy who knew exactly one expletive, and used it for absolutely everything.
