Second Chance Read online

  Second Chance: A Battle Mage Reborn (Book 1)

  An EndWorld Everlasting Saga

  R. Brady Frost

  To my wife, Tara. Thanks for sharing my dream with me for all these years. I know it hasn’t always been easy, and there are so many words I’ve yet to publish.

  I love you.

  To my kids…

  Dreams can come true if you work hard

  and never give up.

  This book is proof.

  Now, go clean your rooms… (ya hooligans!)

  Stephen Murray. You know why.

  And special thanks to Tyler Joseph.

  Thank you for entertaining your faith when you could have walked away.

  Your music has been an inspiration.

  There is a magical place that exists beyond memory and reason. Somewhere between dreams and reality, this world awaits the steadfast dreamers. Only those who act on their dreams and persist through self-doubt and the temptation to abandon their quest may find purchase within its boundaries.

  Second Chance

  What if you could guarantee life after death?

  Denton Wade is Dying.

  And Cyberternal Industries has the answer. An answer he isn't willing to accept: life everlasting in a game world of fantasy, swords, and magic.

  EndWorld Everlasting. A man-made afterlife. It goes against everything he's always believed in.

  But there might still be hope. And hope is a very dangerous thing.

  Far below their headquarters in Dallas, Texas, Cyberternal has been working on a secret medical program. A program made available to Denton though his personal, if not complicated, connection to a Vice President of the powerful company.

  After agreeing to undergo the procedure, Denton finds himself awakening to a strange, new world. A world he never wanted.

  Second Chance is the first book in the series: A Battle Mage Reborn, and is a GameLit Fantasy Adventure with soft LitRPG elements set in the digital world of EndWorld Everlasting.

  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

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Author Notes

  […]

  Copyright © 2019 R. Brady Frost,

  PermaFrost Press

  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 is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters, places, or events is purely coincidental.

  1

  Cyberternal Industries, Inc. wasn’t housed in one of the newest-generation mega skyscrapers that had reshaped the American skylines. It wasn’t hidden in a super-secret mega bunker. The elusive headquarters wasn’t even operated out of a lunar base, as some rumors might suggest.

  I took one labored step. Then another.

  No. The company behind EndWorld Everlasting, a game for the dead, had a story of far humbler origins.

  At least according to Roger, the Assistant Vice-President of Something-or-Other at the world’s newest and fastest growing gaming conglomerate.

  Roger was also my ex-wife’s new husband.

  And, as he told it, EndWorld Everlasting was the biggest breakthrough science had ever achieved. It wasn’t just a game. It was a man-made afterlife.

  For that reason alone, it scared me.

  Yet, people all around the world paid Cyberternal Industries a subscription fee, all hoping to live forever in their world of make-believe.

  Their headquarters, Roger was more than happy to inform me, was located right here in the middle of Dallas, Texas.

  How horribly convenient.

  It still didn’t change my mind. If that’s what he thought would happen, he was a bigger fool than I’d taken him for.

  The heart of the company was no further than a stone’s throw away, he’d said, in the newly renovated glass spire once associated with one of the largest banks in North America.

  It seemed like such a superfluous detail at the time, but it reminded me now of how much the world was changing. He told me it was because Cyberternal Industries wanted to invest in technology, to grow the capabilities of the human mind and even save lives, rather than getting mired in other, frivolous pursuits. Like fighting for real estate above the clouds.

  I looked up at the once-familiar glass building in front of me and let out an exasperated sigh.

  So much for my sense of progress.

  There were still twenty more steps before we reached the entrance and my legs were already wobbly. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been as bullheaded about walking in on my own. It didn’t help that, despite all I seemed to have forgotten in recent months, I could still remember a time when I wouldn’t have batted an eye at climbing twenty steps.

  I could also recall a time when this building didn’t have nearly as many. So much had changed but, I had to admit, despite the building’s old bones, the new renovations looked amazing.

  “You doing okay, Daddy?” My oldest daughter, Eliza, asked as she walked with her elbow linked in mine. “We can stop for a minute if you need to.”

  At seventeen years old, she’d only recently started calling me Daddy again. It was something she hadn’t done since she was small. I wondered if she even noticed she was doing it.

  My guess: probably not.

  Maybe it was her way of grasping at the past. Whatever it was, it was my first real tip-off that she’d discovered the secret I tried so hard to keep from her.

  I was sick.

  Okay, I wasn’t just sick.

  I was dying.

  Though I hated to give in to my weakness, I agreed.

  “For a minute, if you don’t mind,” I huffed, placing my hands on my hips and leaning forward to catch my breath.

  I wanted to be stronger.

  And not just in some game. That was just it, wasn’t it? With all the promises this company made its prospective customers, they couldn’t give me the one thing I wanted most.

  Time.

  I wanted to be around to watch Eliza get married and have children of her own. I wanted so much to be a part of that experience. And not just for her, but for all three of my children.

  It didn’t take much to wear me
out these days, what with the heavy doses of medication they forced me to take as a part of my government health plan. If it were up to me, I would have stopped taking them altogether, but things weren’t that simple.

  Even though there was no hope for a positive outcome, abandoning my treatment meant giving up any death benefits that might go to my kids.

  Not that they needed it, what with a high roller like Roger in the picture, but a man has to stick with his principles. At least, that’s what my father used to say.

  “We’ll go at your pace.” Eliza smiled again. “There’s nothing wrong with taking our time.”

  I wanted to take more than just my time. I wanted to turn around and walk right back to the light rail station. I wanted to get on the next train and leave the whole idea of Cyberternal and the reminder of my sickness behind.

  I just wanted to enjoy what I had left before it was too late. I’d already lost so much.

  But a promise was a promise. So, I stayed and let my mind wander where my body couldn’t.

  After the initial shock about the location of the Cyberternal home office wore off, I guess it sort of made sense. The financial sector had exploded in recent years, especially with the global monetization of in-game currencies for the latest online games, fully immersive virtual reality MMORPG’s.

  Once, long ago, there were only a few games dominating the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game scene with smaller titles scrambling for the scraps. Things were different now.

  For the first time in a nearly a whole generation, business was booming. The emerging virtual markets reinvigorated a stagnant economy. People could go to work inside their favorite game worlds, outside the over-saturated and highly mechanized manufacturing and consumer goods industries that had failed them.

  With the widespread shift in fortunes, many financial institutions moved their headquarters into the new generation of skyscrapers, ones that truly contended with the clouds for dominion of the horizon. This left their old real estate empires up for grabs at better prices than new startups could ignore.

  For those of us used to the old speed of progress and construction, it seemed as though entire cityscapes changed almost overnight. It was now apparent that companies like Cyberternal had capitalized on that change. Even as I stared at the new heart of Dallas, I realized that the future was here.

  “I used to work over there,” I said, pointing across the street, “in the old Earle Cabell Federal Building, before they tore it down. It was a lot different back then. You could actually see the sky from street level, believe it or not.”

  Eliza nodded and smiled. I’d told her this before.

  “Right,” I added. “Mentioned that already, didn’t I?”

  “It must have been a whole different world back then,” she said without skipping a beat.

  “It was.” I returned her smile and started walking again. “Ten years ago, these fancy, endless steps weren’t even here.”

  “Oh?”

  “Believe it or not—” I turned and surveyed the area we’d come from. “Where we’re standing now would have been in the middle of the street. And that over there,” I pointed diagonally to the spot in front of where the federal building once stood, “was a park.”

  Eliza laughed. “A park. In the middle of the city?”

  I nodded. “Complete with water features and squirrels, if you can imagine that. Of course, the buildings weren’t as big back then. The folks who lived in the high rises needed a place to walk their dogs and, as far as I know, there weren't any of the indoor facilities like they have now.”

  Eliza had grown up in the once-rural townships, about an hour to the east, and well outside the booming Dallas-Fort Worth megaplex. I silently wished I could see the world around us with her eyes instead of mine. Everywhere I looked, there were ghosts of a city I once knew.

  I stretched my back and glanced at my watch.

  “I suppose we have an appointment to get to,” I said, doing my best to keep the resistance I felt out of my voice. “Enough reminiscing for now, we better get a move on.”

  Climbing the final steps leading up to the grand entryway was like hiking a mountain. Each successive foothold was a triumph, but it was also one step closer to an experience I had no desire to endure.

  “It was nice of Roger to arrange this,” Eliza said.

  “Eliza—”

  She stopped and looked at me in earnest. “Daddy—”

  There it was again. The regression. The desire to hold on to something that was rapidly slipping away. But there was also stubborn obstinance. I knew how she felt, but I didn’t have the luxury of hope. I was certain there was nothing Roger or Cyberternal Industries could do for me.

  Some things couldn’t be changed, no matter how badly you wanted it or how hard you tried. If only she knew that I’d already been down that road.

  “You said you would keep an open mind,” she reminded me.

  “I did, didn’t I?” I asked, allowing her to help me up the steps. “And I suppose you won’t be letting an old man off the hook, will you?”

  She laughed. “You’re not that old.”

  Her laughter faded, leaving in its place an unmistakable note of sadness. “Anyway, no. I won’t let you off the hook. Besides, we’re already here. Would you really want to turn back now?”

  “Yes?” I answered.

  She rolled her eyes.

  The door in front of us swished open, sending a blast of cold air out into the hot, Texas day. It felt good. More than that, it felt almost heavenly.

  “Oh, wow,” I muttered. “On second thought, maybe we can go inside. Just for a little while.”

  Together we walked through the threshold and into a beautiful lobby. The door swished closed behind us, the lights dimmed, and we heard the unmistakable sound of falling rain.

  A clap of thunder rumbled through the air, sending a shiver down my spine. Eliza and I exchanged glances and looked around for the source of the sounds.

  “What is real?” a disembodied voice asked.

  A flash of lightning lit up the area, followed by a second, and then another.

  “What is reality?” the voice emphasized the last word.

  Tiny raindrops stung my skin before another reverberation of thunder and lightning unleashed a downpour. Eliza grabbed my hand and huddled close.

  “Is this real?” the voice whispered.

  Just as quickly as it had begun, the storm faded, and the sun seemed to break out from whatever cloud it had been hiding behind. The rest of the lobby, once enshrouded in shadow, was now far too bright.

  The fresh scent of rain receded, and the dry smell of desert heat infused the surrounding air. I shielded my eyes against the glare with my hand.

  “How about this? Is this real?”

  An impossibly large lizard scampered around Eliza’s legs and then faded into the glare. Startled, she screamed and jumped before insisting, “It touched me. It really did.”

  “Imagine a world full of possibilities.”

  The light receded, and I blinked in an effort to return my vision back to normal.

  “Cyberternal Industries, Incorporated, proudly presents the biggest revolution in gaming history. EndWorld Everlasting. What comes next? You decide.”

  When I surveyed the lobby, I saw two guards in crisp uniforms standing to the side, eying us with a sense of casual amusement. An attractive woman with platinum blonde hair sat behind an immaculate glass desk.

  She adjusted in her seat as the program dissipated and she flashed us a warm smile. Her piercing green eyes seemed to take in every detail and she stood as we approached.

  “How did you enjoy the VIP treatment? You must be Mr. Wade, and—” she cast a thoughtful glance toward my daughter, “Eliza, I presume?”

  “That’s us, and it was amazing.” Eliza beamed.

  “Roger has told me so much about you both,” the woman said, reaching out her hand.

  I looked for a badge or name tag but cou
ldn’t spot one. I didn’t want her to think I was staring at her chest, so I promptly shook her hand and averted my eyes.

  A quick look to the side confirmed both guards wore building access badges, reinforcing the feeling that something was a little off.

  “It’s an embedded chip,” she said, as if reading my thoughts.

  “I see,” I murmured.

  “All high-level employees have them instead of the normal badges. It’s a much more secure way of tracking our movements inside the facility. The chip works with biometrics to grant access to certain restricted areas. It also monitors our vitals, and a few other things we don’t disclose to the public.”

  Then she added, “My name is Krysta.”

  My mind was reeling. I tried in vain to process all the implications of what Krysta had so casually explained.

  Chipping employees wasn’t exactly groundbreaking territory by any means, but the idea still evoked a certain sense of apprehension that bordered on superstition.

  I swallowed hard and forced a smile.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Krysta,” Eliza said and shook the woman’s hand.