Gamelit Novel, 4 (Patreon)

Nick crouched on the rock outside the Star-Touched Chalet, playing with one of his knives while waiting for the rest of his friends to arrive. They’d run the Chalet so many times that he thought of this rock as his rock. Because inevitably he got here before any of his friends. They were all bound to big capital cities, which was great if you wanted access to capital city things. But he preferred wandering the countryside, and had his soulgem bound to the human starting zone, and that meant out of the way places like the Chalet were closer.

He didn’t really want to run the Chalet again, which bothered him, because he loved the Chalet. But since applying for the beta slot, he’d noticed his enthusiasm for the game waning. After the initial excitement, he’d looked at the odds. Really looked at the odds. There was no way he was getting into that beta, not with twenty slots available.

He could quit until they rolled out the new version. Maybe that would be best? It would be too hard, playing while knowing there were forty lucky people evolving the game and that he had no chance to help.

“Hey, Nick! You’re always here first.” Blythe jogged up with a cheery wave. Her main was a ridiculous miniraptor rogue with a mohawk and so many bags strapped to his body that they joked that they were the armor… but no one ever wanted to play a healer, so she’d leveled one so they’d have dungeon support. She was running that character now, as usual, a deerkin like Nick’s character, but kitted out as a caster and looking all druidy. “One of these days I’m going to beat you here.” She leaned into his shadow and pressed her palm against his brow, buffing him. “You get the extra special single-person buff since you’re the only one here.”

Nick closed his eyes as the light flared around his head. “Thanks, Blythe.”

“You’ve been quiet lately. Things going okay?”

“Yeah. A little burnout, maybe.”

She sat on the ground, resting her staff on her lap, and set her back against the rock next to his. “Hope no one’s giving you any grief?”

Puzzled, he glanced down at the top of her head. “Nothing like that.”

“Okay, good.”

What was that about, he wondered? Should he ask? But Fish, Shellie, and Falcon were riding up the path, so he let it go.

The Chalet had stopped being a challenge thirty levels ago, but it dropped a ton of mats needed by the more annoying professions, like gemforging and runecarving. Fish’s personal quest was to max out all the professions, so when they had nothing to do, they ran the Chalet.

Despite his mood, Nick couldn’t help smiling when they stepped through the portal and the decrepit butler greeted them with his long face and sepulchral tone. “Welcome, guests, and begone. The master is not receiving tonight.”

“It’s always night at the CHAH-LAY!” Fish yelled, as he always did.

“Party at the chalet!” Falcon added, shaking his arms.

They plunged through the antechamber and into the hall, where they ran amok. Dungeon mobs at this level still needed more than one hit to go down, but three took care of most of them, and the mayhem was as funny today as it had been the first twenty times. As usual, Fish ran ahead in an attempt to pull as much of the instance as he could, ‘to give Blythe a challenge,’ when most of the challenge involved her healing through her laughter. The Chalet was always a good time, especially the bottom floor. The top floor had some weird mechanics, intended to give appropriately-leveled adventurers time to recover mana and health. They usually triggered those and then had dance-offs or hauled out a minigame to play while the bosses went through their monologues.

“Good news, everyone!” Fish said. “I maxed out my rep with the Eagle Range Marauders and scored the Five Step Holdup minigame.”

“Something new!” Shellie said. “Good, I was sick of Angry Aardvarks.”

“Angry Aardvarks is the best,” Fish said. “But I concede that new things are better, because they’re new. Right, Nick?”

Nick rolled his eyes. “Right, Fish.”

“Totally why we’re still playing this ancient game,” Falcon agreed.

They were halfway through their first playthrough of the new minigame when a dialogue box interrupted Nick’s vision. He brushed at it, trying to get it out of the way, but it stuck.

And then he bothered to read it.

YOU HAVE JOINED THE RANKS OF THE EVOLVING

WALK SOFTLY OR BOLDLY AND WATCH THE WORLD CHANGE

YOUR DESTINY WILL AFFECT EVERY DESTINY FOREVER AFTER

LEGIONS WILL KNOW YOUR NAME

Nick jumped so fast he forfeited out of Five step Holdup. “I GOT IN I GOT IN!”

“More like you got out,” Fish said with a snicker.

“I don’t think he’s talking about poker, idiot,” Shellie said, elbowing him. “You serious, Nick?”

The dialogue was prompting him now.

DO YOU ACCEPT THE CHALLENGE

“Yes!” he said, nearly lunging for the accept. “Yes, yes, I accept!”

YOUR ADVENTURE BEGINS NEXT WEEK

CONGRATULATIONS

Nick dropped back down, but the minigame had canceled his entry, and his chair with it. Falling hard on the floor, he looked up at his bemused friends… and past him at the boss, who was wrapping up his final lines. Pointing, he said, “Um…”

“Oh, fine,” Fish said. “But you’re not telling us they let you into the beta?”

“They let me into the beta!”

“Apparently they’ll let anyone in the beta,” Fish told Falcon, who grinned.

“There goes the neighborhood.”

“I got in!” Nick repeated to Shellie, stunned.

“Grats,” she said. “You’ll have to tell us all about it.”

“That’s so cool, Nick,” Blythe said as the card game disbanded and the group turned to smack the boss to death. Barehanded, in Falcon’s case, ‘to level my hand-to-hand combat skill.’ “I can’t wait to see what you evolve into!”

“Me neither!” he said. And then, realizing, “I should tell my mom! Gotta go, guys, you can handle the rest on your own.”

“I see how it’s going to be,” Fish said. “Bailing on us without warning, all the time, never talking to us, not playing with us…”

“Hey, check it, I crit him for 10 damage with my index finger!”

Nick grinned and logged out. He tore his headset off and bolted down the stairs. “Mom! Mom!” He skidded to a halt in the living room, saw that she’d been sleeping… well, she wasn’t sleeping anymore. “Mom, we got in! WE GOT IN!”

“Oh,” she murmured, rubbing her eyes. “That’s great, Nick. I’m so glad.”

“We start next week!”

“We’ve got some time to plan, then,” she said. “It’s going to be great.”

“It is,” he said. “We should celebrate! I’ll text Dad.”

“You do that, love.”

Figured that the best thing to happen to him made his friends jealous and his parents baffled. But that was okay. It was still going to be amazing.