Fantasy Online
Polynya
(Book Two)
By Harmon Cooper
Copyright © 2017 by Harmon Cooper
Copyright © 2017 Boycott Books
Edited by Andi Marlowe @ www.andromedaediting.com
Audiobook Narrated by Jeff Hays
Cover by MILB Art Studio
www.harmoncooper.com
writer.harmoncooper@gmail.com
Twitter: @_HarmonCooper
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.
----Other works by Harmon Cooper---
The Feedback Loop – A LitRPG sci-fi series filled with action, humor, and cyberpunk musings.
Book One – The Feedback Loop
Book Two – Steampunk is Dead
Book Three – High Fantasy
Book Four – Reapers and Repercussions
Book Five – The Mechanical Heart
Book Six – Cyber Noir Redux
Book Seven – Proxima Riven
Three Book Box Set
Three Book Box Set (Volume 2)
The Last Warrior of Unigaea: A LitRPG about a Player Killer and his big bad wolf.
Life is a Beautiful Thing – A hallucinatory cyberpunk series. Book One Book Two Book Three Book Four Box Set
Dear NSA – A collection of 12 satirical stories about the troubled times we share.
The Zero Patient Trilogy – A literary dystopian thrill-ride that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Book One Book Two
Boy versus Self – A psychological, coming of age thriller about an Austin,Texas artist struggling with inner demons.
JOIN THE PROXIMA GALAXY
Reader,
Before you begin, you should know that most of my series are connected through the “Proxima Galaxy,” which is the name for the online galaxy in which works such as The Feedback Loop series, the Fantasy Online series, and The Last Warrior of Unigaea trilogy take splace.
You can join the Proxima Galaxy on Facebook here, or by clicking the image below. The group gets exclusive content, early previews of new works, advanced copies, free audiobooks, and eventually, we will work on a wiki that shows just how intertwined all these series are.
-Harmon Cooper
The Fantasy Online series is dedicated to the memory of Tom Shutt.
Table of Contents
JOIN THE PROXIMA GALAXY
Table of Contents
Map of Hyperborea
Map of Polynya
Chapter 1: A Digital Spider in the Land of the Rising Sun
Chapter 2: Choose a Quest
Chapter 3: Port of Corpses
Chapter 4: Special Delivery
Chapter 5: A Scar is a Success Story
Chapter 6: Chalupa vs. Churro
Chapter 7: The Bronze Crystal Super Package
Chapter 8: Pink Salon
Chapter 9: Relics ‘R’ Us
Chapter 10: Someone’s Little Blow-up Doll
Chapter 11: Surprise Attack
Chapter 12: Wolf Trap
Chapter 13: The Takeover
Chapter 14: Extreme Vetting (For Fick’s Sake)
Chapter 15: Doing Oric a Solid
Chapter 16: Poisoned by a Seagull
Chapter 17: The Empress Speaks
Chapter 18: Cave --> in
Chapter 19: Imp Melee
Chapter 20: Mark of the Beast
Chapter 21: Warm Hands
Chapter 22: FeeTwix “Turncoat” Fajer
Chapter 23: DJ Ride the Lightning Rides the Lightning
Chapter 24: After Party
Chapter 25: Mani-Pedi and a Royal Confession
Chapter 26: Repetition is a Form of Change
Chapter 27: Get Woke
Chapter 28: Friends in High Places
Chapter 29: House Call
Ryuk Matsuzaki’s Character Sheet
Back of the Book Shit
Get connected with other LitRPG readers!
The Last Warrior of Unigaea PREVIEW
Map of Hyperborea
Click to enlarge
Map of Polynya
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“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
Chapter 1: A Digital Spider in the Land of the Rising Sun
Ryuk rips the NV Visor off, takes a deep breath, and collapses back onto his pillow. His anger does nothing to warm him; even with the blanket up to his chin he’s frigid, his teeth chattering, his blood cold. He closes his eyes, thinks back to the last thing he saw.
He gulps, swallows the thought of Tamana standing over him with her buster sword.
She killed me.
His doppelgänger is an entirely different issue, something he can theorize over later. What matters to him at the moment are Tamana and her terrible actions. As he lies in his bed, he tries to capture the moment that she changed. Was it in Kayi as they were engaging the zombie orcs? It couldn’t have been. Was it after, during their private conversation in the lobby of the Mondegreen?
It seemed authentic, it must have been authentic. But was it?
“Why did you do it?” he whispers.
Something in the upper corner of his bedroom catches his eye but he ignores it. Returning his focus to his iNet screen, Ryuk watches as his three guildmates pace around their room at the Mondegreen hostel trying to come to grips with what has just happened.
A light flashes into the room as Hajime peeks in.
“It’s too bright, Hajime.”
The humandroid reaches a hand up and turns off the headlamp strapped to his forehead.
“You’ve logged out earlier than I thought you would. Are you hungry?”
“I’m fine … ” He swallows his dismay, tries to bottle it as best he can.
“Is everything all right?”
“Why are you wearing a headlamp?” Ryuk asks.
“I was doing my weekly check of our earthquake supply kit.” The heater attached to the wall kicks on – Hajime’s doing. “You never answered my question. Why are you logged out? What happened?”
“It was Tamana.” The words are harder to push out than Ryuk anticipated they would be. “She betrayed me, us. She killed all of us. Just now.” He chokes on the words. “Stabbed each of us in the back.”
And Ryuk realizes then, saying it aloud in the real world, how stupid this sounds. Yet it was exactly what happened, and regardless of the location, real or digital, the act of betrayal cut just as deeply as her ironing board of a sword.
“I see. Was there anything you could have done to stop it?”
“I don’t know.” Again, the image of her standing over him flashes across his mind’s eye. “It happened suddenly, without warning.”