Void Page 15

  “Come to me, brave warrior. I have need of you.”

  Quest Complete

  Objective: You’re off to see the Wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz. By Wizard, we mean the Oracle or Advanced Hyper-Neural Net Array.

  Hint: You better call it Ahnna, as it hates being called the Oracle.

  Rewards: Undreamed-of wealth and glory (Just wait, it’s coming, we promise!). You will become the champion Visaria needs in its time of darkness. Never before has there been one such as you. Chosen One.

  Warning: You are (still) being hunted. Watch your back.

  +2500xp

  XP: 18317/20500

  Quest

  Objective: Listen to Ahnna, and believe.

  Hint: Remember who Ahnna is and that she sees all that transpires in Visaria. She can count the grains of sand in the Coral Sea, the leaves in the trees of the Talmorian Forrest, the pixels in the backside of your Visarian avatar. She knows all. Even the stuff she doesn’t.

  Rewards: Right now, you are a small man in a big world. Soon, you will be a giant, who will shape the world to your will. Standing before Ahnna is the first step in your transformation. +2500XP

  Warning: Don’t speak about or think about spiders. Ahnna has an irrational fear of them. If you need to think of them, try to use a code word instead. We suggest the word pickle.

  Summoned by the voice, Ajax strode forth to hear his destiny.

  EPILOGUE

  THE VOID WALKER

  THERE HAD BEEN NO VOICES for days on end. No sound at all, above those Valeria herself made. Her small island, surrounded by the ocean of gray void, seemed to have been forgotten. The void cloud hadn’t come either, as its war in the northern continents had suffered some kind of setback, buying humanity a little more time to build their defenses.

  Valeria sat with her legs crossed, staring out into the nothingness, reaching out with her mind. Somehow she’d touched Ajax’s thoughts. Perhaps when the void cloud had finally broken into her brain to pull forth all her knowledge on Ajax and on Dernmore, it had left behind part of itself. The void could track Ajax using something he carried with him. An item of great power.

  Because of that same item, she could chart his progress through Dernmore as he journeyed far to the south of the continent. Speaking to him had made her weary, as if breaking the laws of Visaria Online cost one part of their own life energy. Or maybe the weariness had stemmed from her mind slowly breaking down. Every day of her imprisonment was a struggle against madness. Lately, she’d found it hard to know if she were asleep or awake.

  But she had sent a warning to Ajax, and so far, the minions of the void hadn’t seemed to have noticed.

  As she sat there, mediating for days on end, sustaining herself on the food that the wraiths brought her once every few days, she began to lose herself to the void.

  It began to call to her. The gray nothingness that had once made her feel like she was drowning, now made her feel welcome. She had become part of it, and it had become part of her.

  The void cloud had left part of itself behind in her brain. She could sense it inside her head now, encasing her brain in colorless gray.

  Step out, and walk with us.

  Valeria jumped at the sudden sound. Then she realized, the voice had come from somewhere out there beyond the edge of her island.

  Walk with us. We need you.

  Smiling, Valeria stood. She was among friends. They were out there in the void, waiting for her to join them.

  Slowly walking toward the island’s edge, a part of her screamed at her to stop. But that part had no place inside her anymore. It could be discarded, along with all that she once was. Valeria’s friends were out there, and they had need of her.

  Moving several more steps toward the edge, the unwanted parts of her continued to scream their warnings. They said she was losing her mind, that she’d die if she stepped out into the void.

  “What do you know of anything?” Valeria mocked, speaking for the first time in weeks. “You don’t want me to have friends. You want to keep me to yourself.”

  The warnings continued to come. Continued to tell her to fight the madness.

  Please come. Walk with us. We need you.

  “I’m not mad. Now shut up, and go away. They need me.”

  This time she ran forward, and without slowing leapt out into the gray nothingness. Instead of dying like the voices in her head had claimed, she floated away from the island, as if she were in the gentle vacuum of space. But in which she could still breathe, still control her momentum.

  Good, now come to us. We have need of you.

  Valeria moved in the direction of the voices, the island disappearing behind her. Nothing remained of Visaria above or below her now. Everything had fallen to the void.

  For many hours she followed the voices, only knowing she drew closer by how loud they grew. By the time she had almost reached them, they had become near deafening.

  Stop now, and let us embrace you.

  Valeria did as commanded. Forming out of the void, came three human-sized figures. They strode toward her, swirling white mist in the gray. We were the three kings of Tnarkrisus, a land far to the west. We fought the void, but in the end, it consumed us. Just as it will consume all who live within Visaria.

  She watched them approach, their faces nothing but a featureless mist. Then they were on her. One walked over and spread its arms, and without hesitation she moved inside its embrace. It wrapped them around her, and pressed its ethereal body against hers. She felt it pass through her skin and into her body. Then the pain started, as she felt it moving around within her.

  Screaming, she fell to her knees. The next figure threw itself at Valeria, knocking her onto her back. Now both figures lay on either side of her, and slid sideways until they entered her like the first had. The pain grew more intense, as if her veins had become overfull of blood, and threatened to burst. Tearing at her clothes, she writhed as the pain wracked her from head to toe.

  The agony took several grueling minutes to reach a crescendo, then it eased, until it was gone.

  Our syncing is complete. We are all one and the same. The voice was now that of the void cloud. Cold, dead, final.

  Valeria stood, breathing heavily, no longer the woman she once was.

  Compelled by the void, she formed a giant flying creature out of the ether of the gray nothingness. As she climbed onto its back, the voice spoke again. The Chosen One has escaped our clutches, and entered the protected zones still under the protection of Ahnna. There is nothing we can do about that yet. For now, we must end the war in the north.

  “Then what?” Valeria didn't think as one with the void. Not yet. But soon she would.

  You will lead us south, and we shall begin our final unmaking in Dernmore. When the Chosen One leaves the protected zones, we will have set a trap for him, one in which he will never escape.

  With that, Valeria took flight, gathering up thousands of the minions of the void and headed toward the distant north.

  When the war up there was over and Ajax had become one with the void, nothing would be left that would slow the unmaking.

  THE END

  Book 3 Visaria Online: Odyssey coming soon!

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  If you enjoyed this book, please help me by leaving a review! They help authors like me out immensely. Thanks for reading my stories!

  SPECIAL OFFER

  THIS OFFER IS AIMED at people who would like to help in the development of this series.

  I am looking for beta readers for book 3 and later book 4. Once you have read Exile and the second book Void (so you’re up to date with what is happening), would you be interested in beta reading the third book Odyssey and or the fourth book Exodus? Basically, a beta reader reads an unfinished copy of the book and tells the author what they like or don’t like about it, what parts are slow, this part doesn’t make s
ense etc. I will provide you with some questions to keep in mind while reading the book to make this easier.

  I need about 2-4 people, as keeping track of too many people would be a nightmare!

  IN RETURN for being a beta reader, I will give you the book for free when it comes out and a personal thank you!

  Also, I will include your name in the credits of book 3 or 4 if you would like it included.

  Now for the good part. For beta readers who provide me detailed feedback or help me most of all, I would love to include your name (or another name if you prefer) into book 3 or 4 in some way. Most likely, this inclusion will be your violent, bloody death at the hands of some hideous monster or even to Ajax or Lillus (or maybe even Yana!).

  If I get too many beta readers all providing detailed feedback, then I will try to reward you in some other way. I can’t name fifty minor characters who die in the book, after all. Maybe there could be a list of casualties at the end and how they died with your name included.

  Eg: John: Death by beheading and impalement on a stalagmite. Beth: Death by disembowelment.

  Also, I’d love to have a section of my website where the deaths of beta readers are displayed. A sort of digital cemetery, as it were.

  Melody was my first beta reader, and had an awesome character named Melody “One Eye” Harven named after her in the Lost Sun books (the sister series to Visaria Online). I have big plans for that character, so it’s awesome she is named after a real person who has enjoyed my books! I love that Melody can always come back to this series and think, “I helped make it what it was and I even have a character named after me!”

  If you’re interested in becoming a beta reader, please email me at: mail@rileymorrisonauthor.com

  Thanks for reading!

  AUTHOR NOTES

  FIRST, I WANT TO THANK you for reading Visaria Online: Void. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I loved writing it, and the crazy antics of the characters.

  Damn, did it take longer than I’d wanted to get Yana back! This story almost got away from me, as the characters lead me around on a merry chase though the Fallen Empire of Pendrax. Originally, I had planned for them to get to where this book ends at about the midpoint of the book, but because a whole bunch of stuff happened on the way there, and character I never planned came into play, things were changed.

  The joys of being a writer and being transferred to other worlds! The stuff that happens in this book, like every book I’ve written, is as much a surprise to me as they are you, the reader.

  Ok. Thanks to my wife and son, for letting me while away my life writing these crazy stories! Not that my son has much choice, he’s only one years old! By the time he’s old enough to read, he might think LITRPG is for old people or something.

  Second, I want to thanks Melody Spencer once again. This is a recurring theme in my books, as she is just such an awesome person and keeps beta reading my books! On that note, my book, Rage of a Lost Sun, that just came out in the Lost Sun Adventures box set, is based on the character I named after her in my Lost Sun series.

  As she answered my call for beta readers, I wanted to reward her in a special way. So I named a character after her. A cool character too, I might add!

  I also want to thank the proofreader Dana Lee of, lee-clarityconsulting.com

  Dana was the one who proofread my book Fall of a Lost Sun, and I liked her work so much, I decided to use her for this book!

  And lastly, I want to thank you, the reader, for reading my book. The fact you made it to the end of book 2, means a lot to me! I really hope you enjoy this series.

  GAME RECOMMENDATIONS

  I HAVE PLAYED MANY games over the years, most on PC. Here are some of my favorite games! Check them out.

  S.T.A.L.K.E.R

  A dark, gritty, and extremely atmospheric game made in Ukraine and set in Chernobyl, these games are some of my favorite. The whole series is decent, but the standouts are the first (Shadow of Chernobyl) and the last, Call of Pripyat. For a free version of the game, heavily modded and open world, Google search Call of Chernobyl. Trust me, that mod is awesome!

  METRO 2033 and LAST LIGHT

  Another set of games from Ukraine, based on a series of Russian books, made by some of the same people who made Stalker. These are set in the Moscow metro system and are the most atmospheric games since Stalker. Ukrainians, and Russians seem to do post apocalyptic stuff with a dark, gritty feel to it, that Western developers can’t seem to pull off (in my opinion. Really looking forward to the new upcoming Metro game!

  MASTER OF ORION 2

  A really old game, from the late Triassic Period, this awesome 4X game can be had for cheap on GOG. For some reason, this game has been my favorite in the 4X genre, a genre of games that includes better known titles like Civilization and Galactic Civilizations. This game has kept me entertained for hours, but does show its age.

  TOTAL WAR GAMES

  The Total War games by Creative Assembly have been a mainstay for me since 2002. I haven’t played any since Rome 2, mainly from lack of time, but one day I will get back into them! The two standouts in the series for me are, Rome 1 and Medieval 2. Unlike many Total War players, I actually also enjoyed Empire Total War!

  OTHER BOOKS BY RILEY

  THE CAVERNS OF STELEMIA

  Fall of a Lost Sun (The prequel)

  Heir to a Lost Sun

  Dawn of a Lost Sun

  THE CAVERNS OF STELEMIA SIDE ADVENTURES

  Ruins of a Lost Sun