Seasons in the Abyss: A LitRPG Adventure (Brad the Impaler Book 3), page 1
SEASONS IN THE ABYSS
©2025 PAUL SATING
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Also in Series
Brad the Impaler
Brad the Impaler
Into the Pit
Seasons in the Abyss
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Contents
Prologue
1. One-Trick Pony
2. (Not So) Funhouse
3. Cheap Tricks
4. Beautiful People
5. Fake
6. Tomb of the Boom
7. No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem
8. Secrets That She Keeps
9. Wired For Worthless
10. It Takes A Thief
11. Down In A Hole
12. Rock Hard
13. The Gambler
14. Shift Work
15. Don’t Know What You Got ‘Til It’s Gone
16. No News Is Good News
17. Revelation
18. Gates Of Eden
19. Bigger Than The Whole Sky
20. Ace In The Hole
21. Black Hole… Moon
22. Call My Name
23. Never Say Goodbye
24. Rescue Me
25. If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free
26. Bad News
27. We’re All In This Together
28. Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?
29. Hurts So Good
30. Gangrene
31. Stairway To Heaven?
32. Blind Leading the Blind
33. Nobody Wins
34. This Means War
35. Bark At the Moon
36. A Warrior’s Call
37. Flood
38. Smells Like Team Spirit
39. I Stand Alone
40. Bad Moon Rising
41. Hero of the Day
42. Remember the Time
43. Hot For Teacher
44. Peace Sells, But Who’s Buying?
45. A Star Is Born
46. The Gang’s All Here
47. Army of (Sixty) One
48. All Along the Watchtower
49. More Than Words
50. Hero of War
51. Rumble
52. Run to the Hills
53. The Stage
54. Someone’s Final Song
55. All I Do Is Win
56. Overwhelmed
57. Got The Time
58. Change Or Die
59. Fade To Black
60. Seasons in the Abyss, Summer
61. Seasons in the Abyss, Summer Part II
62. Seasons in the Abyss, Fall
63. Seasons in the Abyss, Fall Part II
64. Seasons in the Abyss, Winter
65. Seasons in the Abyss, Winter Part II
66. Seasons in the Abyss, Spring
67. Man in the Mirror
68. Another Spring
69. Creeping Death
70. Strange Days
71. Invisible
72. Simple Plan
73. Final Goodbye
74. Everybody Wants to Rule the World
75. Wind of Change
76. So Long, Farewell
77. In the End
78. Fight Fire with Fire
79. Nothing Else Matters
Epilogue
Thank you for reading Seasons in the Abyss
Also By Paul Sating
About the Author
Groups
LitRPG
To Rhett, Steve, and everyone at the Aethon team for taking a chance on this series and giving me a chance to play in Slash’s head. That’s one messed up place to be. Glad I didn’t walk it alone.
Prologue
Seven pounds of terror. That’s where all of this began. My ultimate fate. If I’d adopted a cat, would things have turned out different? Hell, an iguana would have been safer. I’d have bought a parakeet if my girlfriend at the time had been okay with birds. A freaking chinchilla would have been perfect.
But no. Instead of taking the safe route, I’d fallen for the adorable soft eyes, the two tan dots hanging above them, the seven pounds of shivering fierceness named Slash.
Falling in love with that dog was the easiest thing that’d happened to me since my decision to leave the military. Chasing after him into the Olympia night to make sure he didn’t run out into the road was the next easiest.
Ah, the things you do for those you love.
A handful of simple decisions and actions, mostly without thought, landed me here. In Darkworld. The medieval video game world where I’d been fighting for my life for a year. Maybe ten months. Maybe fourteen. Gauging time was impossible without the luxury of calendars, smartphones, or a routine.
Darkworld. The realm of Dark Dominion Games. The company behind this violent world, behind the mysterious chest Slash found in an Olympia park. The one I opened that thrust us into the craziest nightmare I’d ever had. Into the midst of madness. Facing an AI that forced me and my wee man to face challenge after challenge. To eat. To build a safe shelter. To defeat an endless slew of enemies spanning the animal kingdom. Dark Dominion Games. A corporation’s name I’d repeated often in the time since my guide shared the insight she’d gained about them. The basement dwellers who’d forced unknowing people to fall for their ploy, backed by powerful people, pulling us into the fight of our lives. The people I’d make pay for this if they ever had the guts to show their faces here.
When I thought of them, I couldn’t help but think of their trick of legality that pulled me into Darkworld, the first of many deceitful practices. They’d stoop to whatever low they could dream up if the circumstances were attractive enough. Biggest bang for their buck. Putting Slash in harm’s way with a vampire’s minions? No problem. Using a friend to lure me into a boss fight against Medusa’s uglier sister? I’d barely survived to save Kira. Showing cruelty beyond words by allowing her butcher to make an in-game purchase that flooded her camp. The disaster wiped away her hard work. A single click of a mouse button back in the real world. That said everything. Early on, I’d learned there wasn’t a low they’d stoop to in order to meet their aims.
I’ll admit. I’ve gotten pissed at Dark Dominion Games even before I knew them as the culprits behind Darkworld. Having a name made my anger more intimate. More intense. More focused. Their cruelty ratcheted up my anger a few dozen degrees. When they let my butcher buy a quest that resulted in my horse being zapped away from our camp to force me to find her, that was as low as it was pathetic. Even for Dark Dominion Games. That they did it just to kick off my fight against the level-three boss path was my final straw.
Before Darkworld, I had a lot of “final straws.” I was way too patient. Way too understanding. I’d considered it a sign of me growing up. Putting my dark past behind me. Shelving the version of me that evened the score with my high-school bullies. A child’s folly, that version. As an adult, especially one in the military, I couldn’t resolve my problems by being a brute. More importantly, I no longer wanted to.
Sure, I understood the reality that the world was full of tiny boys in grown men’s bodies. The type who lusted for violence. The type who adored, admired—hell, worshipped action movie heroes with take-no-prisoner attitudes. Didn’t matter that those heroes shared the same dimensions with a piece of paper. As complex as solving a two-plus-two equation. The Air Force was full of guys like that. The bars around Olympia were too. Bars everywhere were. Children, just with nut hair. Bra ins driven by testosterone. People I didn’t want to be around. The type of people I never wanted to be like.
I’d stayed true to the maturer version of myself throughout the early days and weeks of my life in Darkworld. I swore I’d beat the game without resorting to becoming a club-wielding Neanderthal. Leave that shit for the gamers who can’t watch movies with a plot because they’re “too confusing.”
Funny, really, how life moves in cycles. It may never replicate earlier stages accurately, but it can come damn close at times. I wasn’t the adolescent tower of rage I’d been in high school, looking to beat the desire to bully others out of my bullies, but Darkworld had pushed me.
All because of my seven-pound terror.
Not that I blamed Slash. Nothing better had happened to me. Not in my entire life. Not my high-school accomplishments. Definitely not the military career. Not even the rewarding, if not ill-timed, relationship with Tess. Loving parents. No. The tiny black-and-tan Chihuahua had brought a sense of peace to my life. When Darkworld gave him the ability to speak, our mutual love had only deepened.
Had the circumstances been different, I might have been grateful to the game for giving him that power. It’d helped us grow closer than any man and his best friend could hope for in their wildest dreams.
Slash.
That stubborn, foul-mouthed brat. Goddamn. What he’d accomplished in Darkworld. People could have picked on him about being frightened by a blowing leaf or a weed that snagged his legs on walks or the chittering of a squirrel. I sure did. Before Darkworld, that little guy had pissed in my apartment after being scared by outside sounds so often that I had more potty pads on the floor than bricks in the Yellow Brick Road.
In the end, Darkworld had made him better, even if it’d made me worse. I—
I sat back, looking up at the clear sky. Sighing.
Another pen run dry in my journaling.
I’d gone through a lot of the gel pens, a convenient loot drop from weeks ago, while I captured my experience in Darkworld before time committed it to the deepest reaches of my memory.
I didn’t want to forget a thing. Not about Darkworld, why it existed, what it’d pushed me to become, or what I’d given over to it. Most importantly, I wanted to be sure I’d always remember those who’d been part of my life because of it. People who’d helped me change and become the best version of me I could be. People and creatures who’d laughed, sacrificed, loved, and hated. Creatures and people who’d only wanted to live their lives. Not all of them had. Journaling about them was my small, way-too-little, way-too-late way of keeping them alive.
I wanted to. I needed to. It was important.
I looked down at my side where I’d laid the fresh pens and bundle of parchment. Funny, that a loot drop contained items that weren’t supposed to be included in the game. Items that served as my means of keeping its secrets alive. Exposing them. Ensuring something like this would never happen again. The gel pens and the parchment would help me reach that objective. My last objective.
1
One-Trick Pony
“This will be difficult, Brad.”
Fortune was limited to my mindscreen, but she paced in tight steps. From my perspective they only carried her inches, but she could have been cutting a path across a carpet in hers.
“We’ll be fine.” I tried to choke my chuckle at her concern, stroking Lady Sparklehoof’s mane. The horse snorted in pleasure.
“Yeah,” Slash said, sitting swiftly like he did those times when I struggled to pull a training treat from the pouch I’d bring on walks. Impatient little dude. “We’re almost level ten now. Both of us. We’ve got this.”
“I’ve got to say, buddy. We found this a lot faster than I thought.”
He tilted his small chin. Four black whiskers poked out. “That’s what happens when you actually use your map, Brad.”
“I know.”
“What’s your Map Reading skill?”
“You know what it is. You can see my stats.”
“Come on. Don’t be shy. I’ll share mine if you share yours.”
“Just look at my—”
“Sixteen. What’s yours?”
“Will you stop asking if I tell you?”
“Sure.” But he winked after that.
“Two.”
Slash rolled onto his side. His paws went to his belly, and he held it as he curled his hind legs. “Two. Two. Pathetic, Brad.”
“You’re the map reader in the party. And you’re a brat. Get up so we can get this over with.”
He did, but not before another round of dog chuckles that sounded like a long-time smoker going through a bout of asthma. “Two.”
“Keep acting like that and some of the people watching the live stream will start disliking you. Lots of people have issues with small dogs.”
“Pffft. Let them hate. They’re just jealous because they’re not nearly as cool as me.”
“Very true.”
“Plus, I’ll get their names when Fortune reads the game logs. When we get out of Darkworld, I’ll have you drive me to their house and I’ll—”
“Poop in their beds,” I said, finishing for him.
“You know me so well.”
Fortune smiled. “Little Sir, you’re so adorable. I don’t know why anyone would dislike you.”
“Because they’re morons, Fortune. You’d be amazed how many stupid people we have back home.”
“Forget about them. They’re not worth your time or attention.” I gave him a quick butt rubbing. His eyes narrowed to a satisfied squint. “And let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, wee man. Just like with the level-three boss, we can’t walk right through this one.”
He turned his head, looking down the long sloping hill. “I’ll do what I want. You’re not the boss of me.”
When we defeated the level-three boss, a giant spider named Arachne Monet, we’d leveled up, earning so much XP that we were now on the verge of leveling again. Throughout our time in Darkworld, Slash remained fixated on becoming a level ten. It was significant in that it’d allow us to join alliances, but beyond that this upcoming level wouldn’t change our game much. It wouldn’t have to either. We’d done that ourselves ever since freeing Kira from the snake queen’s grip.
After seeing the lengths Darkworld went, the extent of what it was willing to do with living, breathing people to make us fight its beasts, and after learning that the company behind the game had an incredibly successful IPO launch, funneling untold riches into its coffers, I couldn’t sit by anymore. The game was expanding, and no one seemed willing to stop it. With Fortune’s invaluable advice and Slash’s inner murderhobo coming out, we took the game to the… well, game.
We’d cruised through quest after obstacle after objective. We’d expanded the camp. We’d worked to get Kira the precious XP she needed. She still didn’t have her PvP kill. Without it, she wasn’t eligible to face the level-two boss. A major problem. But we were doing everything in our power, short of walking into the nearest city to find a player and standing by while she assassinated them.
We’d gained bags full of cool loot. Thousands of gold. Tens of thousands of XP. Magical Chimera cloth, which ended up being a rare loot drop. New greaves. A new skill called Bodyguard. My Annihilator’s Shadow spell leveled.
Slash, not to be left behind, gained a passive skill called Breakfast of Champions and a new spell called Chihuahua Chant. He pouted when I wouldn’t hand over “his share” of the gold, even though he already knew mascots, the game’s term for pets of players, couldn’t hold it. He could be a brat like that.
Kira had gained tons of loot, gold, a new spell called Arrow’s Head, and was still stuck looking for a PvP kill. Though our game was rocking along, hers was at a near standstill. While she racked up the riches of her efforts, she wasn’t any closer to leveling. It was becoming a problem.
Right now, though, we had a bigger one.
“I wish Kira could have come with us,” Slash said as we made our way toward the maze entrance.
“Me too.” What more could I say? I couldn’t, wouldn’t, get a PvP kill for her. The task was hers to complete. Since she hadn’t, she couldn’t fight this boss with us.
Slash stopped and raised a paw. He looked like a small, furry version of a kid in a classroom needing to get the teacher’s attention. Lady Sparklehoof shifted her head to look down at him, mimicking his stance the best she could with her front leg. “I also wish,” he said, stressing the second word, dropping his paw and aiming it at my new greaves, “those stupid things would be quiet.”
