Into the Darkness: A Fantasy LitRPG Adventure (Axe Druid Book 4)

by Christopher Johns

  I left the others and walked to a thickly shadowed section of the rock outside and activated Shadow Speak.

  Maebe’s form became immediately visible, and she crossed over to me to look me over.

  “Where have you been?” She asked, the emotion thick in her voice. “It has been hours here, and I did not know if you were alive or dead. I tried to contact you, but it didn’t work. I thought you were dead so many times.”

  “It’s okay, Mae.” I hushed her softly and touched the shadows with my hand. I had been working with them so much it was almost a physical thing. “Things have been happening, and I was somewhere I couldn’t use communication magic.”

  “I will kill those traitors!” She seethed, her features screwing up in anger, her fists clenched. “They sent me here against my will, how dare they. When I find them, I will tear out their hearts and freeze them as I should have—”

  “No, you won’t,” I interrupted her, and she looked at me harshly. “They were doing their jobs, and they didn’t hurt any of us on purpose. They’re bounty hunters who had taken the bounty before they knew us. They’ve treated us with respect and dignity, and they just helped us get away from the governess who wanted us dead. They’re on the run now, too.”

  “Why would they do such a thing?” She seemed confused but didn’t automatically come at me with questions or accusations. I liked that.

  “They’re good people, and they have a code that they follow. Once they learned that we were truly innocent, they offered to help us clear our names.” I turned to ensure we were truly alone, we were. “I wanted to kill them too, but they proved they meant no harm when the governess tried to have us killed after finding out it was because of Pharazulla that I killed those men. She wants to do away with magic completely, and she’s going to kill people to do it.”

  “What will you do, now?” She put a shadowed hand on my cheek, the coolness of it grounding me more than I thought I had needed.

  “We’re going to hole up here for the night, then go to the capital to report her, and try to get permission to get into the dungeon, I think.” I blinked at her. “The entry is in the mountains somewhere, but if we try to go in without permission, we would just be attacked by unknown odds. How about you? How has home been?”

  “It has been home. I have been trying to reach you since I got here. The time limit of the spell they used is waning, and soon I will be able to return to you all.” She frowned, then sighed. “And I will have no choice but to allow this to pass. For now. But if they ever cross me again, I will kill them all. You have my word.”

  I blinked at the notification that I received that showed her vow and nodded. “Okay. I’ll be sure to let them know.”

  “You do that.” She growled, her shadowy figure stepping closer to me. “I am glad that you are safe and unharmed. I love you. I will come to you soon.”

  She brought her lips against mine and dissipated against me with what sounded like a sigh. My lips still tingled a little where the shadow had touched.

  I returned to the others and passed on the news. The Braves outside the cart were relieved that they were safe, unworried about crossing her or us in the future. Then we plotted.

  “It’ll take about three days to get to the capitol at a good clip, and now that the lot of you know about all of us, there’s no need to travel slow.” Manly winked as the two chefs compared notes over the cooking fire.

  Balmur was off with Nicolas discussing magic and who the hell knows what, while the rest of us planned.

  Dawn was meditating, and the others were preoccupied with dinner, so I was with Manly, Muu, James, and Jaken.

  “Well, since you guys know we’re cool, and we know that you’re cool, why not see about having Zeke acquire the animal forms of those that you have in your possession?” James asked Manly.

  She frowned. “That don’t hurt ‘em, does it?”

  I shook my head, but it was Muu who answered for me, “I’ve seen it hurt him, when they bite him.”

  “Did Ulla bite you?” She seemed concerned, but I just laughed.

  “No. I got her form from holding her while she ate, which you should try sometime, she seemed to really enjoy it.” I stretched but pursued the thought. “It would be really helpful to acquire a few new forms. Or at least one more.”

  Manly eyed me knowingly. “You want Frederick’s?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I grinned happily.

  She frowned. “Only if he agrees, and I’ll see you pay for it too!”

  Ever the shrewd businesswoman. I grunted.

  “Manly, money is not important in this.” Dawn groaned as she opened her eyes and blinked at the halfling woman.

  “It may not be to you, but it is to me. He eats a lot, and I need to feed him.” She reasoned with a shrug as if she couldn’t help it.

  “I’ll give you a hundred gold for it.”

  Dawn gasped, and Nick sputtered as Yoh whipped the food away from his face.

  “Deal!” Manly held her hand out, and I shook it.

  “Why on earth would you pay so much to have that form?” Dawn wondered at me.

  “Because it’s worth it.” I shrugged, trying to decide how to continue. “Manly may be shrewd with her coin and have an eye for business, but I know animals. His abilities would suit the party well. A small price to pay for an advantage.”

  I gave her the hundred gold, and she went to call for the Terran gorilla. He stomped out of the cart and eyed all of us as he passed everyone.

  He stopped at Muu and touched his armor and snorted before beating his hands on the ground. Muu smiled in return. “Good to see you, too, Freddy.”

  “He is fun to play with.” Fred sniffed a bit and scratched his ass.

  “When did you play with him?” I narrowed my eyes, slightly confused.

  “I roam where I want in the cart, I found his cage, and we played many games.” He pointed at Muu, then made a funny face by crossing his eyes and puffing his cheeks out. Muu tried to do the same thing and failed miserably.

  Frederick laughed, his grunts and excited motions making Muu laugh too. “Take it he’s telling you about our games? He fucking cheats, man.”

  I ignored the only slightly indignant dragon-kin and looked to Frederick. “I wanted to see about taking your form, see, I’m a druid, and that’s a thing I can do.”

  He came over and looked closely at me. “If I do this thing, will you play with me, too?”

  I nodded, and he threw his arms into the air and spinning in celebration before looking back at me. “What do you need?”

  “To touch you for a couple minutes or to fight you—oof!” He clocked me right in my solar plexus and laid me out flat.

  The others were moving instantly, and I held a hand up so I could wheeze, “It’s okay, it’s cool. We’re playing. Ouch.”

  “Don’t hurt him, but it’s okay to play rough,” Manly sounded genuinely worried, but I couldn’t tell if she was talking to the gorilla or me.

  I sat up, and Frederick offered me a hand up. I took it, and he launched me into the air behind him. As I flew ass over teakettle, I shifted into my owl form and banked hard so I wouldn’t hit the wall.

  I dropped toward the ground as the sound of scuffling feet came my direction and shifted to fox-form and bolted underneath Frederick as he leapt at me. He hit the ground, and rolled, but I was already up and in my fox-man form to box with him.

  We punched at each other for more than a minute, both of us getting winded and me having to dodge in and out of his range as he came at me.

  Finally, I ducked one punch and took another to the gut, and he tossed me with it. I skidded back and growled as I stepped forward, the rumbling low in my throat.

  I had the form by now, so why not use it?

  I shifted and my body grew until I stared back at the gorilla before me, his face twisting in joy, then play as he galloped forward.

  We clashed with an audible smack and much grunting as each of us sought to get a headl
ock.

  A rumbling voice reached out into my mind, backhand him, then use his arm to throw him.

  This must have been the gorilla’s instincts. He is fighting for dominance. He has yet to find someone who can lead him. Show him that you can lead.

  I grunted and took my metallic right arm and backhanded Frederick across the left side of his face. When his right arm soared into my vision, I slid so my body was facing slightly away, and hip-tossed him over my head. He landed on his back in a heap, and I beat my chest over his head before I booped his nose and skittered away laughing and whooping.

  I shifted in time to see him stand. “Thanks for that.”

  He nodded. “That was fun, we must do it again, soon.”

  I walked over to him and offered him my hand and he took it in his, gingerly. Then his grip tightened, and I was airborne again.

  “Goddamnit!” I cursed as I watch him hoot all the way back to the cart. I landed on my feet this time. “I’ll get that little bastard.”

  Manly laughed out loud at the display, and we returned to waiting for dinner in companionable silence. Bokaj and Manly played a card game she had offered to teach him.

  It looked simple, but I’ve never been one for card games outside Go Fish.

  Dinner was great, and after that, we all laid down to go to sleep. The day’s events having taken a toll on all of us.

  Manly took watch, and James sat across from her, and the two of them spoke quietly. Kayda took her natural form and I slept against her that evening.

  Chapter Eight

  The next morning, I woke up to bickering. Nick and Yohsuke were arguing about what to make.

  “Nah man, eggs and bacon are the way to go.” Yohsuke pointed to his ingredients.

  Nick pointed at his. “Biscuits ‘n gravy be a good start ta anyone’s day, lad.”

  “Boys,” I grunted tiredly as I smacked my lips. “Both sound amazing. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. So, it needs to be badass, yeah?”

  The two of them scowled at me, looked down at the ingredients, then looked at each other and shrugged.

  “Competition it is.” Yohsuke smiled as he began breaking eggs.

  “What’s the prize?” Nick began to work on his own. “Loser cooks dinner?”

  “Sounds good to me!” Yohsuke laughed and patted the dwarf’s shoulder as the two of them worked together, then he paused and amended, “Loser cooks dinner that the winner chooses.”

  I snorted at the two of them and wandered outside to find a good spot to relieve myself. I found it, did the business I needed, and then started back before an idea occurred to me.

  I’m going to go for a flight and see if I can’t check the trail before we get on the move, I warned the others.

  Be safe, and take Kayda along too, Yohsuke advised.

  I called the bird to me and had her take her parrot-sized form, and we soared into the skies. The world below us was empty for the most part, nothing of true interest so far, and as we headed east, not a damned thing came either. It was some time before we crossed a little closer to Lindyburg, and we could see that there were people leaving and fanning out in small parties. None of them seemed to be heading toward our current location.

  As we watched from above, two riders galloped east in light gear. Looked like messengers. If we swooped down there and killed them now, someone from the city might see us.

  Kayda, follow them, but be careful and hide sometimes, so they don’t see you, I ordered.

  Follow, she confirmed and took off.

  I flew back to the mountain as fast as I could and found the others after shifting. “We may have problems y’all.”

  “What’s up?” James asked as he stood from his trance-like meditation.

  “Messengers from Lindyburg are headed east, and there are search parties out combing the land for us as we speak.” I took a drink of water. “Kayda is following the riders.”

  “Good.” Manly had her pipe out and puffed thoughtfully. “You saw them how long ago?”

  “Hadn’t kept track of time.” I picked up a plate of food and began to scarf it down as fast as my Marine recruit training had taught me to.

  “This is something that we can work to our advantage, maybe,” Jaken mumbled, the rest of us turned our gaze to him. “Well these guys wouldn’t give a missive from their leader by word of mouth, right? It’s going to be some kind of written note.”

  My eyes narrowed at him, what was he trying to get at here?

  “So, instead of trying to kill them, we get the letter and switch it to something that would support what we have to say to the king,” Jaken concluded with a flourishing bow. “No one would possibly see that coming.”

  “That’s good.” Yohsuke gave him a fist bump as he bit into the biscuits and gravy. He closed his eyes and groaned. “Yeah, you win man. I got dinner.”

  Nick chuckled and almost spat his food out, “Ack! Forgot Bonnie!” He set his plate aside and sprinted toward the cart muttering, “She’s gonna whack me good, I know she will…”

  We turned our sights back toward the present, and Yohsuke took over. “So, tonight we have a stealth mission. To try and make this happen, we make sure that we get there roughly the same time and then we make sure we go see the king.”

  “How’re y’all gonna get their copy, though?” Manly asked, she packed her bedroll tightly into a waterproof bag.

  “Zeke and Balmur will fly there under cover of darkness and make the switch,” James interjected.

  “What if they have it in their inventory?” Dawn asked as she finished her own plate of food.

  “They likely won’t,” James replied with a shrug. “In a lot of…scenarios I’ve seen in days past, messengers usually carry their message on their person so that if one of them should fall, or both of them, a passerby who finds it will see the attached note and get it to the proper recipient. Or not. But it’s all we’ve got, so it’s best just to try.”

  Yohsuke clapped him on the shoulder and added, “Failing that, they can make a judgment call and decide what to do from there.”

  That wasn’t any pressure on either of us, not really. They would die easily if we deemed it so, but was that what we really wanted at this point?

  Bonnie came out with a languorous stretch that left little to the imagination what kind of curves she had under the plain clothes she wore. She took her plate and began to wolf down her food with gusto.

  I fed Bea and had her run beside us as we traveled to stretch her legs. To keep her near me, I had a tether of shadow attached to hers from Thor’s. The Kirin was irritated because he thought that she would slow him down but was pleasantly surprised to see that not only could she match his pace, she was able to stay just ahead of him for more than an hour.

  She was quite impressive.

  “She’s adorable,” Bonnie’s voice drifted over from the cart, where she sat watching Bea running. “She gonna get much bigger than that?”

  “Yeah,” Manly explained from her seat. “Gust raptors are large for something that’s meant to be so streamlined; they’re built for speed. It’s really not outside the realm of possibility that she could be a faster mount than even the one you’re on.”

  That was interesting to learn, though I had had the idea, generally, as soon as she was born. Still, nice to know.

  That day we ate our lunch on the backs of our mounts. Bea tried to jump up and grab at the pieces of meat that I had been preparing to throw her. The little dickens.

  While in the cart, I’d had a lot of time to spend contemplating enchantments, and there were some I wanted to try soon. Possible spell combinations I wanted to do. I was really interested to see if I could make a shadow holy blade, like a dark version of Falfyre. That would be cool.

  There was nothing I could do on Thor’s back, so I just rode and took in the sights. Kept tabs on the messengers through Kayda and eyed our surroundings some more.

  It was an easy day, for the most part. Boring, at times. So, I
spent time sharing my memories with Bea, as well. Letting her learn more about our fighting styles and how we worked together as a team. I had much more to work with, now, than I had with Kayda.

  Bea was excited to try her hand at combat. She would hop and flail her little legs as if kicking at enemies, and it was adorable.

  As the sky grew dark, the others made camp while Balmur and I prepared for our stealth mission.

  Then it occurred to me. “What the hell do we write? And how?”

  “Oh!” Nicolas came forward and waved his hands. “I know! I have a spell designed for this very thing!”

  “But Zeke can only carry one person in his collar,” Balmur explained, throwing a thumb in my direction.

  “Yer a druid, righ’?” Nick motioned to me from where he rested and let Yoh do the preparations for dinner. I nodded, and he shrugged. “Do ye know the spell Polymorph? Me da used it all the time to get us about quick.”

  “You keep your faculties while transformed?” I asked. It hadn’t said anything in the spell description. Just that it changed the target’s shape for half an hour.

  He nodded, and I looked over to the wizard with a smile. “Welcome to the operation then, Nicolas.”

  “Please, call me Nic, I know it will be confusing with the two of us here, but still, it will be pleasant and easier.” He patted my shoulder softly and turned to Balmur, “Short lesson before dinner? You’ve come a long way.”

  “Lesson?” Bokaj looked up, excitedly. “What lesson?”

  “Magic man.” Balmur grinned, his scarred visage looking a little intimidating. “When I picked up that book the other day from that wizard we put down, I unlocked a class with my high intelligence, mana use, and the proper item. I’m training to pick up wizardry.”

  Yohsuke, Bokaj, and I floundered, our mouths gaping.

  Finally, I recovered. “But, why?”

  “Yeah, man, you straight up kick and redirect arrows and shit as a rogue,” Muu included and stood to walk closer. “You can actually move through shadows and stab anybody you want. Why?”

  “Having magic was the only thing that truly kept my mind from being completely broken.” He threw his hand out and motioned with his fingers moving deftly.