Dissonance: A LitRPG Adventure (Unbound Book 1) Read online

  DISSONANCE

  Unbound Book One

  NICOLI GONNELLA

  Copyright © 2022 by Nicoli Gonnella

  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 publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  To my wife, Allyson.

  Always and forever.

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Newsletter

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  About Nicoli Gonnella

  About Mountaindale Press

  Mountaindale Press Titles

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  More than anything I wish to thank my wife for being so incredibly supportive during the writing of this book. Whether it was hyping me up or running interference with our wonderful kids on long school breaks so I could write, without her this book would have taken far longer and been way worse.

  A special shoutout goes to my best friends and TTRPG group, the Papermates: Miek Martin, Brent Kelley, Rob Hance, and Greg Painter. You dudes rule, and your enthusiasm for me chasing this thing has been a seriously bright spot in an otherwise cloudy world.

  Other acknowledgments go to my friends that have helped me out in many different ways. My mom, for igniting a love of fiction at an early age. Artem Sivak, for being the eternal hype man and always being willing to bounce around some ideas. And to the Discord community The Silver Pen, whose members helped me immeasurably, of which this is a small sample: MelasD, CoCo_P, Traitorman, Nulls, and Draith.

  I also need to thank the people over at Mountaindale Press, who have put in the work helping me prepare this book through editing and guidance. They're amazing people that I'm more than happy to work with now and in the future.

  Finally, I need to thank you. Yes you. For picking up this book and giving it a shot. Thanks.

  Now let's get that story started.

  -Nicoli Gonnella, May 2022

  NEWSLETTER

  Don’t miss out on future releases! Sign up for the Mountaindale Press newsletter to stay up to date. And as always, thank you for your support! You are the reason we’re able to bring these stories to life.

  PROLOGUE

  In Ages Lost, we summoned demons to serve us. Yet their might came at a terrible cost, and their ambitions unleashed nearly brought Ruin to us all. Why then would we still seek their aid? What fool would court the Unbound?

  -Sanjat Lar, Hierei of the Conclave of Amaranth

  At the dawn of the third day of the fourth month in the Fifth Age, the Shining City of Amaranth, Capital of the Heirocracy, bustled with all the activity of a beehive. Chaos masqueraded as orderly progression in the wild dance of civilization and mortal enterprise. The mechanisms of the city moved as they always did.

  A woman, garbed in soot-smeared robes of an indeterminate color, stood regarding the sky. In her hand was a long rod of iron, the end of which was pinched into an odd, narrow shape. Her pale hair was tied back, exposing skin too smooth for an Untempered. Her bright orange eyes regarded the eggshell blue of the sky with a curious tilt.

  Clouds, white and thick, crowded above the alabaster expanse of the Shining Palace, barely visible through the press of buildings. A tower in its center stretched high into the sky, taller than all other structures in the city by divine decree. The Pathless was a jealous god, after all.

  The woman tapped her rod with a manicured finger and hummed aloud.

  "Ana?" said a voice, sharp and high. A Human woman, similarly garbed and holding an identical rod, stepped out of a side street toward the first. "Twin's teeth, Ana. What're ya doin' here? Yer streets're two blocks west!"

  Ana did not answer, merely tilted her head in the opposite direction, eyes still fixated on the sky. A frown played at the edges of her mouth as the other woman kept on talking.

  "Pathless above, you frustrate me, Ana! It's like you've got no sense! An' after I went out on a limb for ya, gettin' ya this job. Lamplightin's a quality gig; ain't nothing quite as easy for the pay. And you're like to ruin it. Quit this dawdlin' and get movin’! If the lampmaster learns of this, she'll have both our heads!"

  "Shh," Ana whispered, tense. "Something is happening. Something important."

  The other woman paused, outraged. "Yer shushin' me? Me? How dare ya, ya overgrown—"

  An awful, terrible pressure spiked all around them. The air screamed, as if keening, and far down the street, windows shattered. The shattering spread, quick as lightning, until it rocked past Ana into the distance. Ana leaned upon her iron rod, tilted into the shockwave, and barely kept her feet. She stared up as blood trailed from her nose and ears. The sky had been riven, the clouds banished in a perfect pattern above the alabaster tower. To her eyes, the remnants of an unimaginable sending trailed upward, outward.

  +1 AFI

  +1 PER

  Eyes of Silver Sight is level 98!

  "He did it. He altered the ritual," Ana whispered. Sorrow hung from her lips before her tone sank into breathy relief. "They'll come. Thank the gods."

  Ana dropped her iron rod and turned away from the tower. She stepped carefully over the prone lamplighter. The other woman moaned on the ground while her ears and nose bled profusely, but Ana paid her little mind. She had a long way to go before lying down could even be considered. Against all odds, a summons had been performed.

  She prayed it would be enough.

  Power lanced through the clouds, implacable, arcing along a path known only to itself. Colorless and invisible, the only evidence of its passing was a sense of concordant melody that lingered in the air long after it departed. It crossed the Continent like a tiny, contained hurricane, kindling storms along the Oscallan Plains before kissing the craggy peaks of the West.

  It followed a path set into its ritual, a course unused in Ages.

  The power descended from on high, blowing into a dank, fog-strewn valley filled with the stench of burnt flesh and rotting vegetation. It twisted through a row of rusted blades, each larger than any Human, sending rainbow-hued sparks cascading from their faded edges. Mana gathered along them, boosting the power as it passed.

  Eyes, ancient and deep, watched from within that fog. Hungry things that lived in the dark of that place gazed, unable to venture out. One in particular woke from an atavistic slumber, yellowed bones creaking as the clutch of potent Mana flitted through its grasp. It cried out, a breathy scream that shook the earth, a moaning of hunger.

  Miiine.

  A thread of its crimson Intent wove among the corroded blades, tangling with the power as it wove among the odd artifacts; remnants of an ancient civilization fallen to Ruin. The flush of bloody red stained the power, but gave it the juice it needed to escape the tangle of rusted blades. It arced upward, toward the sky.

  The power shifted, altered its course, and punched a hole through the icy mist and then hollowed out the clouds above. It leaped beyond the thin coating of tepid gasses far above the Continent's surface. It speared toward the moons, those eternal, celestial bodies t
hat ruled the heavens and the net of nigh invisible power that criss-crossed the sky. Flashes of bronze, gold, silver, orange, purple, and blue-white sparked around the sending, an aurora that streamed about its crown and slowed its push for freedom.

  The sanguine Intent surged, hurtling the summons beyond the ephemeral net that held it back. Free, it shot off into the Void beyond the stars, where the darkness pressed close and the songs of creation dimmed to almost nothing.

  Among that darkness, the power thinned, losing pieces of itself as it passed unnaturally bright holes in the inky black. The nine strands of the summon's woven Mana were stripped raw, peeled away, and cast into the Void until only a portion remained. This one, lonely piece of the summons shot unerringly forth, touched still by a carmine glow. It continued beyond the lingering symphony of existence and into the bare echoes of its dwindling refrain.

  To a blue-green marble set beyond the Void, where even echoes came to die.

  To Earth.

  CHAPTER ONE

  He had been sitting in his car for fifteen minutes.

  The radio had been on when he'd arrived, blaring some indefinable alternative rock between mattress commercials, but he'd switched it off. The silence was better. Suited him more, he found. In the confines of his small, decade-old sedan, he had a few minutes of peace.

  Then, his phone started ringing.

  Casting about, he pushed through fast food wrappers and empty plastic bottles on his passenger seat until he'd found it. The screen was cracked in three places, but it still worked, mostly. On the screen was the face of his sister, Gabrielle, with a big, goofy smile on her face. He tapped the button on the side, ignoring it.

  He was parked outside the large gate of a private marina. The gate had a guard, but a number of folks streamed through it without worry. The area was considerably more upscale than he was used to, and he'd dressed up in his nicest button down and jeans that evening. He'd run into some old friends at a bar two night's prior, friends who had moved from college onto bigger and better jobs than he had ever managed. It had helped, of course, that they had come from money in the first place. The right word from a friend of the family had opened doors for them that people like him never got beyond.

  Yet, they had all talked easily enough. The four of them were all in town for some conference and were having a party on a luxury yacht one of their pals owned. The plan was to party a bit, then set sail for international waters. He was invited along. Casually, almost offhandedly, in the same breath that they asked a waiter for more wine.

  A party. On a yacht.

  What am I doing here?

  This wasn't his scene. There was a reason he'd dropped contact with these people; they had more money than he was comfortable with, and going out was...not his style. He was more of a stay inside and read a book or browse the internet kinda person. Except his apartment still reminded him of her, and of better times. He didn't want to be there, not if he didn't have to be.

  But did he want to be here?

  Part of him did, he knew. The part that was sick of the same dull drudgery of his nine to five gig, that groaned every morning when it was time to ditch the oblivion of sleep and commute for an hour. A party was something different. A yacht? A new experience. Why not embrace it?

  For all that he was comfortable alone, he craved company. After...after, when his apartment became far more empty than before, the worst of it was the lack of connection. Sitting on the couch together, watching bad police procedurals and eating junk food had been his happy place. His gut was proof enough of that.

  Then get up. Open the car door. Go to the party.

  Still he sat, staring in silence at the light pollution that ruined the night sky around Fort Lauderdale. The night was mild, a brisk sixty-five degrees, and more than a little windy. A good night, all things considered, for getting shit-faced on a boat.

  A sharp pinging noise alerted him to another voicemail. That made four in the past ten minutes. He didn't listen to them. That would just make him feel guilty for not picking up in the first place. Gabby knew that.

  He knew what she would be saying, anyway.

  "You gotta get out more! Can't move on if you're not movin'!"

  Of course, she was as energetic as she was wrong. Sure, he could move on. He had been moving on for three months now. Making big changes in his life now that he didn't have...Big changes. He hadn't changed his job or apartment or his car, but he'd started going to a different coffee shop in the morning. That was something, right?

  Right?

  His sister was nineteen and filled with more joy for life than he had ever personally experienced. It was like every day was a new adventure to her, and with a few years left of college before the real world smacked her in the face, he could see why she thought that. He, on the other hand, was closer to thirty than twenty and found her joie de vivre to be exhausting.

  Everything had become exhausting recently.

  His phone rang again.

  Might as well get it over with.

  It was easy enough to get in. The guard barely looked at him as he passed the gate, and it was as simple as following the crowd onto the massive two hundred foot long boat. Lights pulsed atop the main deck, and a crush of bodies filled with the insistent bump of EDM. Men and women, mostly young, mostly clad in bikinis and board shorts, drank free drinks and danced to the frenetic music.

  It was awful, so he got a drink. The liquor was doled out into a red plastic cup by a half-naked man out of a plastic bin. He recognized it from his college days as a drink made of whatever the hell you had to hand. It was red, fruity, and packed a serious punch. Pretty much exactly what he needed to take the edge off. Sipping at it with a grimace, he wound his way around the deck, feeling distinctly out of place.

  Help me...

  Blinking in confusion, he looked around. Had he just heard someone? It was impossible to tell; the deck swirled with dancers, all of them moving and gyrating against one another in a way that cut all his lines of sight. Someone could have been talking right next to him and he'd never have noticed.

  He turned, and nearly tripped over a young woman.

  "Oh my god, are you okay?" He half stumbled over her splayed legs, and it took him a moment to reorient himself on the slightly rocking boat. "Hello? Are you—?"

  The girl was sitting against the bulkhead, legs out and bent, and her head was resting oddly against her chest. Worried, he knelt down, checking her neck for a pulse. Her skin felt clammy but warm, and her breath was labored. Everything he knew about medicine came from TV so when he felt at her neck, he could only guess that it was maybe weaker than normal. It wasn't racing, at least.

  Did she take something? He couldn't tell and, looking around, he didn't see anyone he could actually call over to help. Do I induce vomiting? That's a thing, right?