A giant telepathic parrot with a rather foul mouth, a horde of smelly goblins, and a tyrannical demon priestess…
Welcome to Devon Walker’s “new normal.”
During her first weeks in the deeply immersive VR game, Relic Online, she’s hacked out a home from a choking jungle, gathered a tribe of loyal followers, and earned a wisp stalker who insists she’s some kind of champion.
But Relic Online isn’t some wussy kids’ game, and there will be no easy-street cruising for Devon. Like a monk racking up combo points, the system opens a fresh offensive by crippling her most powerful ability. Following through, it strangles the village food supply, sends demons bursting through rifts in the earth, and delivers a final, devastating throat punch by exploiting Devon’s worst fear.
The players have discovered Devon’s home. Now everything changes.
My Opinion: 294 pages, $4.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
A good follow up to book 1. I actually liked this one more. It felt more focused. From the very first pages I was aware of where the story was going and while the destination was known the trip there was still entertaining and had some nice surprises. The story advances well with both the in-game and the real life storyline. I was pleasantly surprised to see some of the things setup in book 1 regarding other players finally paid off with some good emotional resolutions.
Game mechanic wise, there’s good advancement of the main characters abilities and levels and some interesting new classes described with other players entering the story. There’s more village development and the addition of logical food management issues was a nice touch. Also, death is more frequent for the main character and is used as a learning experience. It’s a mechanic improvement over book 1 and it helped me feel that the MC won’t always win. The only thing I’d gripe about is the wand waviness of a few new players powers that just happen to also be the key to solving a couple problems in the story.
Overall, a good story that improves on the first in many ways.
Score: 7.6 out of 10
Fortress of Shadows: A LitRPG and GameLit Adventure (Stonehaven League Book 2)