The Wyvern in the Wilderlands: Planeswalking Monster Hunters for Hire (Sci-fi Multiverse Adventure Survival / Weird Fantasy) (Monster Hunting for Fun and ... Hunters and Mythical Monsters) Book 1)
The Wyvern in the Wilderlands
A Novel of the
“Monster Hunting for Fun and Profit”
Series
Book 1
EDDIE PATIN
Copyright
“The Wyvern in the Wilderlands” is a work of fiction.
All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this book are either created by the author, used in this fictional setting, or references used within a fictional framework.
Copyright © 2018, Eddie Patin and Lost Woods Publishing LLC
EBooks are not transferable. All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded, or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission.
Published in the United States of America by Lost Woods Publishing LLC, 2018
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Table of Contents
The Wyvern in the Wilderlands
Copyright
Table of Contents
Book Introduction by Eddie Patin
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
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About Eddie Patin
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Author Notes & Appendix – Wyvern
Book Introduction by Eddie Patin
Explore other Universes.
Hunt Deadly Monsters.
Make a Profit.
Jason always loved dinosaurs as a kid. He never thought that one day he'd be trapped on a dinosaur world struggling to stay alive.
This is the story of Jason Leaper of Earth, universe 934. In the mind-bending expanse of parallel universes and higher dimensions, the unexpected death of an alternate Jason Leaper launches our hero's boring life into a wild adventure of survival, fantastic creatures, and bizarre other worlds!
All Jason Leapers across the infinite multiverses have the ability to rift--to open portals through other dimensions to shift between alternate realities. And when the last survivors of the Reality Rifters--an interdimensional Monster Hunter crew--come looking for Jason 934, the directionless man suddenly finds his latent powers awakened and his life is changed forever. When he is suddenly teleported to the Wilderlands, a vicious and primordial alternate Earth overrun with dinosaurs, primitive savages, and epic wilderness, Jason is cast into a visceral struggle for basic survival and needs to figure out his rifting powers in a hurry if he expects to get home. And when the monster hunting planeswalkers finally catch up to him, will Jason Leaper 934 slay the apex predator in the region and take his place in the Reality Rifters?
The Wyvern in the Wilderlands is a fast-paced survival story and is the first book in the "Monster Hunting for Fun and Profit" series about Jason Leaper 934 and his planeswalking Reality Rifters, Monster Hunters for hire. If you love books about guns, survival, vicious and terrible mythical monsters, cosmic horror, time travel, DINOSAURS, and exploring strange new worlds ... read this today!
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Chapter 1
The colors were as brilliant and varied as they were terrifying.
"Jason!" Riley shouted against the noise. "What do we do? How can we stop it?" He could hardly hear his own voice above the din that sounded like white-hot lightning arcing around them, tearing constantly through the world. Underneath all of the deafening chaos was the crinkling noise of cracks and splits spreading through glass.
Above the soldier was a prismatic spread of blue and indigo; shades of red and yellow. The tearing and crinkling racket—Riley was sure that the deafening roar would rupture his ears if they weren’t cybernetically fortified—was shaking the house to pieces. Crystals constantly erupted into vast and rapidly shifting geometric patterns as the world was being torn apart. Rainbow fractals built upon themselves, bigger and bigger, expanding to the size of clouds. The slashing sound scratched and tore at Riley’s synthetic eardrums—bizarre noises of glass shattering and crawling along the earth and metal; piercing through the concrete foundation and the walls of Jason’s living room. From here, Riley could only barely see the deadly rift, still yawning open in the garage. It twisted violently. The colors lashed out all around the portal's swirling form. As the roof of the house was being torn away with each shriek of the crystalline air expanding from the incompatible universe, the soldier could see Earth’s sky filling with rainbows and streaks of color that glimmered in the sunlight as if made of stained glass.
The other Reality Rifters were dead, and Jason Leaper 113 lay dying.
Riley Wyatt crouched down next to his friend, afraid to touch him because it looked like Jason was melting. Parts of Jason were melding into the floor. His boss's warped and half-crystalized body was bathed in dangerous shades of violet, green, and orange.
Jason Leaper 113 tried to speak, and broken bits of colored glass fell from his lips.
Riley’s good friend and employer struggled to stay conscious.
Half of Jason’s wizened face had hardened into translucent, ever-sharpening gemstones—one of his blue eyes was like a sapphire, half of his salt-and-pepper dusky blonde hair had stiffened into translucent crystalline growths. His distorted hairs expanded into a brittle lattice—growths finer than Riley could make out even with his enhanced vision—reaching and branching off in endless symmetry until cracking under its own weight and falling to the floor.
"Riley.
.." Jason croaked. "Gliath..."
Riley’s Krulax bodyguard ran up to Jason’s side, crouching down with an easy grace, his huge and bipedal feline form a stark contrast against the brilliant and colorful crumbling landscape. Gliath’s glossy, black fur was bristling all over, and his brilliant yellowish-green eyes darted around at the incomprehensible madness around them. The leopardwere's long, dark tail swished back and forth frantically.
"Jason, tell us what to do!" Riley exclaimed. "How can we close the rift?"
"Listen," Jason snapped, the crystals of his hair growing like spreading ice as a flash of red and violet rippled over his face. "There isn’t time—the light won’t last. You’ve got to take this..."
Jason pressed his OCS into Riley’s hands. The soldier felt the hard, metal lines of the device—it hardly ever left his employer's side—and saw that the screen was still on. Riley stared down at the large gadget in shock but didn’t protest. He knew that Jason wasn’t kidding. They were surrounded by an intense sphere of white light, which was blocking the weird atmosphere of universe 1240 from overtaking them for now, but the sphere was using a hell of a lot of power to keep it blazing. Those fusion cells wouldn’t last for much longer.
If Jason was giving Riley his OCS, then this was bad.
"Aren’t you gonna come with us?!" Riley asked, running a hand through his short beard in fear. A broad, vivid rainbow suddenly streaked across the room outside the light sphere, crashing through the wall near the couch. It punched through drywall and wood framing as if the house was made of paper. The young soldier saw the fragile structure remaining suddenly overwhelmed and crawling with rapidly-growing crystalline forms and beautiful colors. Time seemed to be moving strangely as adrenaline coursed through the soldier’s enhanced system. "Jason, I don’t know how to—"
"Shut up and listen!" Jason cried. Gliath drew in closer, his large, black form shading Riley from a yellow and orange flare that popped by on his right. "I’m going to open a rift here before the light goes out. It’ll take you to Earth of universe 934!" Their leader stopped to cough. Jason’s voice was turning hoarse and scratchy, and the dying man grimaced for a moment as his legs and left arm spread more into the floor like rainbow jelly. "Find Jason 934! I’ve watched him. He’s a good fit—no attachments. There’s a portal to—oh God, it’s happening!—portal to the Wilderlands behind his house!"
"What’s the Wilderlands?" Riley shouted over the noise. He suddenly felt too young for all of this. He and Gliath were about to be on their own again...
"Take a portable gateway!" Jason cried in pain. He tilted his head and grimaced, then gestured to the big satchel near his overturned armchair, still protected within the sphere of light. "Use it to—holy hell, this fucking hurts!—to get to the Market from there if you need to. Other Jason ... might not be able to use the focus key. Give Jason 934 this infinity crystal and—"
They were interrupted by a loud crash of one of the house's exterior walls falling down into a sea of green and purple, then disintegrating into colorful dust. Riley looked around and gasped—his cybernetic eyes let him see through the glare and brilliance of the light sphere protecting them. The walls between here and the garage were now gone and the rift to Universe 1240 stood brilliant and horrific, swirling like the center of a storm, spitting colors out all around it like a monstrous tesla coil bursting with lightning and rainbows. The piercing streaks and sizzling hues crackled and boomed and hissed. Even the concrete floor of the garage below it—and the earthen ground below that—was gone. It was all gone! Crystal branches like the nightmares of fractals and lightning frozen in time extended in all directions, swallowing clouds, reaching for the stars themselves...
Riley felt disoriented, trying to make sense of the incomprehensible details all around him. It was as if the passing seconds pulsed in and out of minutes and moments; speeding and slowing...
Time was becoming weird, but everything was happening so fast!
"Gliath!" Riley shouted over the noise. "Get the bag with the gate!"
The tall, black leopardwere stood and dashed over to the bag on long, nimble beast-legs, hefting its weight onto one muscular shoulder. It was no doubt pretty damned heavy with those fusion cores inside, but Gliath was strong.
"Riley!" Jason exclaimed again, and the soldier leaned in close. He could hardly hear his friend’s voice over the deafening sound of unmaking. His words were distorted by the crystals growing in his throat. "The infinity crystal is special ... focus key to the Wilderlands! Get more, start over!"
The soldier felt a stab of panic and sadness.
He didn't want to lose Jason. He didn't want to lose his leader.
"But we need more gear!" Riley replied. "We’re low on ammo and everything after... Shet! And all of my guns—"
"No time, Riley!" Jason shouted. Fruk—it really looked like he was melting into the floor! Did that mean that the invading crystals under the floor were coming up to them, too? There really wasn’t much time at all! "Give Jason 934 the OCS! I’ve tuned its informational ... set point to 934! I’ve also restricted—" Jason voice hitched up and he writhed through a spell of being wracked with pain then he focused on the two of them again. "I’ve restricted ninth dimensional travel to within ... a 95% tolerance to the physical laws of—" He clenched his good eye closed in pain. The other eye remained open and unmoving like a solid gemstone, no longer part of a man. "... Laws of 934 ... so this doesn’t happen again! Now go!"
Riley Wyatt stood, his duster jacket flaring out around him. He felt Gliath’s powerful hand encouraging him to his feet as Jason opened a rift right next to them. The portal unfurled and roared—loud as hell but drowned out by the madness around them—protected for the moment within the brilliance of the white light sphere.
One last rift.
"Jason..." Riley offered, not knowing what to say. I love you? I’m sorry? Jason was his good friend of four years now, and the soldier had failed to protect him. His boss was dying. Riley didn’t want to leave. He felt like he'd never see Jason 113 again, and a crushing feeling in his chest grew like bags of sand keeping him from breathing. What was probably a second or two felt like much longer...
Dust and splinters of wood showered down around them through the white light.
"Gliath, get him out of here!" Jason shouted. Riley felt the firm push of his feline friend, guiding him toward the portal, which swirled and spit and fluttered at the edges, revealing a vista of a dark mountain town covered in snow with wet streets and rows of quiet houses under a grey night sky. "Find Jason 934! He can get you to the Wilderlands with that infinity crystal!" Everything roared in Riley’s ears, and he could hardly understand Jason now. "Use the portable gate ... Reality Rifters ... start over!"
Riley looked around at the apocalyptic, prismatic sky.
The colors were bold and deep—as deep as space—and he could easily lose himself inside that infinity of blue ... indigo ... violet...
Shaking his head and scratching his beard with a trembling hand, Riley looked back down at Jason 113 with a frown.
"Goodbye, Jason!" Riley finally said, shouting above the chaos.
"Yes, goodbye, Jason Leaper 113," Gliath added with his low, rumbly voice.
"Goodbye, you two..." Jason replied. "Now hurry before I die and this portal goes away!"
Riley glanced up at his leopardwere friend when he felt Gliath's strong, black-furred hand on his shoulder. The Krulax looked back down at him, grim and stoic, all the colors of the rainbow bursting and flashing past behind his shadowy face. Then, the two planeswalkers—the last of the Reality Rifters—both looked at the swirling rift together and stepped through to the other side.
Chapter 2
"All of you make a reflex save," Tom said suddenly, putting down his diet soda and gathering several six-sided dice from behind his cardboard DM’s screen.
"Wait!" Jason cried. "I’m at thirteen—don’t I get to go next?"
"Jeez!" Amanda scoffed. "Patience!"
; "We’re still at the cult leader's initiative," Tom replied to Jason flatly. "He’s at fifteen. Do your reflex saves."
Ben rolled a twenty-sided die, sitting across from Jason. His green die tumbled to a stop against the man’s ratty Player’s Handbook, then, he read his result aloud after running numbers in his head. "Twenty-two," Ben said with a wry smile. He took a sip of his own diet soda, plucking up the can with his dark, nimble fingers.
Amanda also rolled.
Jason Leaper frowned. The big bad guy was almost dead, and Jason was looking forward to finishing him off. He already had nine six-sided dice clattering around in his hand. Disappointed, Jason put his clutch of dice down onto the table and rolled his d20 instead.
His lucky red die rolled to a stop on a 12.
"Damn it," Jason said, then, after doing some math in his head, announced, "sixteen."
"Fifteen for me," Amanda said, sitting back in her chair with a nervous sigh. The light of the kitchen seemed harsher since all of her and Tom’s stuff was packed away, and all of the wall hangings had been taken down. Now they played in an almost empty room, and Jason could see that Amanda was really starting to look older. They’d even taken down the Halloween stuff, which made sense since they wouldn’t be around for the 31st...
"Okay," Tom said, rolling a frightening amount of dice behind his screen. The DM furrowed his brow, and the light reflected off of the areas of Tom’s head where his hair was thinning. Jason hardly ever noticed these things, but now that the comfortable environment of Amanda and Tom’s apartment was changing—back to blank walls and empty spaces—everything seemed different in little ways. "So, the minotaur leader is in rough shape, and he’s coughing up blood as he glares up at you all, but when you drop his champion, he suddenly points to you all..." Tom pointed for effect across the table cluttered with books, dice, and empty diet soda cans. "He grunts out some words in his dark language, and you guys see a single point of inverted light fly at the champion’s body! It lands in between all of you and explodes in a huge burst of black fire! Amanda, your character takes thirty-four damage. Jason, you barely made it, and take half ... seventeen."