Recruit - An Infinite Labyrinth prequel

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

A prequel toThe Infinite Labyrinth.

The year is 1816. The British Empire is in full swing, under the auspices of King George III. The Infinite Labyrinth has been pouring out its product from beyond our reality and fostered a new industrial revolution. Times are changing, and the people of London are feeling the winds of the revolution while British Professionals push into the Labyrinth.

The newly formed Artefact Hunting Company is looking for recruits, and they have new technology to help them. From the slums of London, they aim to recruit a new wave of Professionals. And make Zacharias and the Earl of Carnavon lots of money.

So, for Rowan Rivers and a handful of lucky ones, it's time to head into the Labyrinth, and discover what makes it different from England. And what makes THEM different?

Recruitis a bunch of chapters I wrote to create to the setting, mood, and game systems of the Infinite Labyrinth. It is NOT a complete story in the classic sense. It's more of a slice of life view of early days of a normal Professional from the Infinite Labyrinth, and it's heavy on info-dump. It's 90% canon - there's probably a bit of a difference between how some characters and common behaviour are portrayed here and how they'll come out in the main story.

Set two years before the events that kick-start the main series, it features some of the secondary/peripheral characters of the Infinite Labyrinth and will tell you all about the basic mechanics of the Labyrinth's RPG system. It can be considered a spoiler, as the characters in the Infinite Labyrinth are going to need to figure out all that, on their own. But if you like a much deeper exposition in the mechanics, here it is.

The entire prequel is about 80 pages long.

Information

Status: Completed
Year: 2019
Author: Vincent Archer

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.4/ 5.0
Followers: 65
Views: 25,091

Chapters(14 total)

Reviews

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Community Reviews(1)

KoboldPatrolRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
(this prequel is completed, at the time of this review in the main story part one is completed which means chapter 37)
I recommend reading at least the first 10-15 chapters of the main story before reading this prequel to better witness the feeling of discovery the main story's characters have.
As the name implies, this story is the prequel to 'the Infinite Labyrinth', occurring two years earlier than the main story and serving as an explanation of the system and the mechanics. Both take place in an alternate history of the early 19th century in Europe, Napoleon has not been defeated and there is a lukewarm war between England and France. Both countries have access to portals that lead to a huge fantasy world (the 'Infinite Labyrinth') where valuable resources can be found that changed the world. But only those people that have at least one exceptionally high stat are able to enter the portals to level up as 'Professionals'. This prequel follows some random lower class workers that each possess such a stat and are recruited by a guild. The experienced pros run the greenhorns through what is basically a beginner training course, explaining how the Labyrinth functions and how the mechanics of skills and levels work.
Style/Grammar: The story is told in third-person style by an omniscient narrator. The LitRPG mechanics (blue boxes) are pretty complex but the explanations for them are good. This is often a bit info-dumpy but what else do you expect from a training course? Descriptions are okay but a bit sparse. Grammar is good and there are a few typos, but for the author not being a native speaker that is excellent.
Story: Straightforward, the quick pacing fits the story, as the "teacher" wants to get the annoying task over so she can return to her real job.
Characters: There is enough information to give the readers an okay idea about the central characters.
All in all, while it would be too bland for a stand-alone story, this prequel does what it is intended for: expl