Game Alive: A Science Fiction Adventure Novel by Trip Ellington Read Free Book Online Page A

his buckler. The painful impacts juddered up and down Jake’s arm, but he slapped the wolf back again and again until it suddenly reared up on its hind paws with an enraged and feral yowl. Jake saw his chance, and pivoted at the hips quickly to thrust the length of his unadorned steel blade deep into the belly of the weakened dread wolf.
    It howled in agony as 248 shimmered above its head. Jake ripped his sword free with a wet, tugging sound and stepped back as the giant wolf collapsed to the ground, dead before it had even fallen. He stood over it, panting for breath, until the bloodied carcass faded away.
    “Yeah!” he shouted exultantly when he’d caught his breath. Turning around, he started back toward his friends and the immobile Ixus Rites on the stretcher. They had better see about getting him into town. Jake paused to wipe the thick blood from his sword and re-sheathe it, then went up to Des and Kari.
    “How about it, guys?” he started to ask, grinning broadly. But just then, a previously unseen dread wolf hurled itself over the top of the overturned wagon. Streaking through the air toward Kari.
    Des had already fitted another stone in his cup, and hurled it toward the wolf, just clipping the tip of its left ear as the stone whizzed past. Distracted by the sound, the dread wolf landed in the middle of the road, and began bounding forward again with saliva streaking back over its coat from the gaping maw full of jagged razor teeth.
    Kari leveled her staff at the charging monster, steadying herself with a wide stance. A red, laser-like beam burst from the ruby on her staff, scorching through the air toward the dread wolf. The burning light struck it right between the eyes and its long, loud howl filled the air as it slammed into the dirt and slid forward, coming to rest at Kari’s feet.
    In the meantime, three more of the beasts circled out from behind the overturned wagon. Jake thought they must be respawning almost immediately, which certainly didn’t make any sense. But where else would the wolves be coming from? Something was very wrong indeed, but he had no time to give the matter further thought as he drew his sword yet again and rejoined the fray he’d thought they had won.
    It was over several minutes later, and the three friends stood together in the center of the road breathing hard. Kari leaned heavily on her tall, onyx staff. Des leaned forward, bracing his hands just above slightly bent knees, and stared up at a winded Jake with accusation in his eyes.
    “You need to turn down the difficulty,” he said, sounding angry. “That was really hard. For a minute there, I thought we were going to wipe out on the mission and have to start over from the spawn point.”
    “It’s on normal,” answered Jake, shaking his head in confusion. “This should have been a Level One battle. It should have been easy, especially with all three of us here. Des, it should have been a piece of cake.”
    “Yeah, sure.” Des shook his lacrosse-stick-slash-slingshot at Jake. “Don’t these things always start out with little monsters? You know, rats or maybe half-starved bandits or something? Not a pack great big snarling wolves that select their targets individually?”
    Jake started to reply, but bit off what he had been about to say. “You noticed that too, huh?” He sounded more worried than ever.
    “Hey, guys? We won, didn’t we?” Kari came up and gave Jake a hearty slap on the back, still grinning. “I don’t get what you two are complaining about. That was freaking epic! If the rest of Xaloria is anything like Everheart, I’ll play it every day.”
    Des straightened up at that, sensing he had lost another member of his VR lacrosse team. Still, angry as he was about how hard this first bout had been, Des had to admit to himself that Jake’s game was an incredible achievement. He nodded grudgingly. “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “I guess I will too. Though I’m definitely trading out the lacrosse stick