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

by Christopher Johns

  Keep up? Yohsuke shot back with a snort. Fool, I was bred for this. See if you can kill as many as I do with my spell sniping.

  I’m rolling my eyes at both of you, Jaken admonished them, but I could tell by the note of dread in his tone that he was worried. Be careful. Remember, we can drop them off the top, and they will likely die.

  I raised an eyebrow. Top is where Bokaj and I will be playing, Jaken. I told the paladin in a matter-of-fact tone. And we will see who has the most bodies to his name. Muu, if you would have Fainnir count us off, I’ll release the scaly beast and Kayda, and we can begin the culling.

  There was a slight pause, then, Go!

  So much for a countdown, I chuckled dryly and set Bea loose with orders to stick close to Kayda and to create mayhem. Kayda grew significantly larger, and off she went buffeting the kobolds with her wings and screeching as she moved about the floor. I took out Storm Caller and cast Aspect of the Hare. I grew lighter, my muscles lengthening in my legs and a little of my strength leaving me for it, but that was okay. I activated feather axe and bounded forward.

  My axe cleaved through kobolds who scattered and tried to form any kind of defense against us that they could, but the venom won out and sapped their strength. This operation was brutal and efficient, and I was exceptionally proud of Fainnir for it. Though, I knew that he would likely think of this for some time to come as a victory that cost him much personally.

  I cleared my thoughts just in time to shift out of the way of a cracking whip from one of the larger kobold overseers on this level.

  Kobold Overseer Level 20

  His muscular body easily dwarfed the skinny, almost-malnourished forms of his staff, but what stuck out to me were his eyes; they seemed a little more intelligent than the others that I had seen in here. As if this wasn’t just your run of the mill kobold. And I know what you’re thinking, ‘But Zeke, it’s not a run of the mill kobold, it’s an overseer, it has to be more intelligent, right?’

  Not always, and there had been a specific lack of intellect in the creatures in this place since we got here, the fox being the major exception. This thing seemed like it could be on par with that fox, and that worried me a little. Each floor seemed to feed off a theme, right? What was the theme to this one?

  The overseer interrupted my worries once more by trying to whip me with that long cord of leather and metal. Rather than just ducking it, I let the whip wrap around my metallic arm and yanked the creature toward me. It caught on to the tactic and released the whip, the item’s handle whacking me in the snout for my efforts. He took out his short sword and prepared for a fight.

  A blur of green anger leapt over his left shoulder, gashing it on the neck with a clawed foot, and I activated Charge to cover the distance between us instantly. I slammed my great axe into his stomach, a charge of electricity jolting through him and throwing him over the ledge, his cry of fear echoing throughout the pit.

  “STORM COMPANY!” I roared into the depths, the thought of the group working together like this under a single banner and badass name had chills running down my spine and a fresh surge of adrenaline running through me.

  “YEAH!” I heard one of my friends cry out, then another worldless cry of assent. Two more and finally, Fainnir, as he sprinted into the room and stood in the center of the quicksand pits.

  “Ye’ll all die here! Come and get what ye can!” His axe was out, spittle flew from his lips, and he raised his hand. “Grav!”

  The larger elemental burst from the ground and went to work slaughtering kobolds with its arms mutated into blades of metal. It roared wordlessly, likely feeding off Fainnir’s rage and desire to end this fight swiftly.

  I couldn’t help the overwhelming urge to return the same energy the others were putting out. I saw Bokaj and Tmont begin moving toward the lower levels and decided it was time to move on from where I was.

  Ten minutes of down and dirty fighting later, Storm Caller and I covered in gore and blood from head to toe, we stood at the bottom of the pit. Grav had been able to halt the quicksand, solidifying it easily and killing any inside.

  “Pretty sure I killed around twenty?” Balmur winked at Yohsuke from where he cleaned his weapons. Sorrow he left alone, the blade craved blood, and as soon as it touched it, it sucked it into the blade like a straw.

  “Those are rookie numbers,” Muu scoffed, Yoh rolled his eyes.

  “I am certain Fainnir’s quicksand has more than thirty-five kobolds in there,” Maebe observed out loud as she stepped closer to me. “I think he wins by default. And you, my love, are absolutely terrifying.”

  I grinned at her, some of the dried blood caked in my fur cracking as I did. “Thanks.”

  Shadows passed over my body, and the blood and sweat left with them. “Being clean is nice too, but still very frightening.” Maebe turned to the others and did the same for them. Her intervention was appreciated.

  “The loot has been a little garbage,” James said, grunting as he rifled through our findings. All the coinage we found; we gave to Fainnir because he would need it more than us. The weapons were shitty at best, and the ore, judging from what Jaken and Balmur saw, was very low quality.

  And I hadn’t seen anything of value up top or down here, but Balmur and I made our way back up the levels and looked around while the others did a report with Fainnir, letting him know how things went and what they thought. It was nice. Balmur and I were about done with the third floor when something caught his eye.

  “That section of stone look weird to you?” He pointed toward a section of the wall that looked like stone to me. It matched the stuff around it too. I shook my head, and he paced closer to it with a confused look on his face. “It does look weird, here check this out.”

  I looked at the portion of the wall he touched and noticed an indent and hole. “Door?”

  He nodded, and I relayed our find to the others, they sent James and Muu up, and the others stayed below just in case.

  Once our paladin and fighter arrived, Balmur worked on unlocking the door. It took him a couple moments, but eventually, he made it in. The small room held food, and a large supply of mediocre ore that Muu and Jaken gathered for inventory.

  Jaken sighed. “Just copper and iron, but we can give it all to Rowland or something.” Jaken turned and looked askance at us. “Onward to the boss room?”

  We made our way down to the bottom once more and gathered together to give the food to Yohsuke.

  “Anyone need to prep anything? Fainnir?” I glanced around and no one made a move to stop, so I shrugged. Bea was busy munching on something, I stopped and looked, and it was an arm. “That’s fucking gross, dude. You have food with us, why would you do that? There’s venom in there.”

  Hungry. Her mental shrug prompted Kayda to poke her head over my shoulder.

  Food? She looked down at the arm that Bea now pulled away like a dog with a bone and sniffed. Yuck.

  “Finally, some sense!” I threw my hands up and walked on, the two of them following as they would.

  The boss door was gigantic, easily more than twenty-five feet tall and thirty feet wide. The doors were metallic and had a large circular glyph in the center.

  “Something is wrong,” Maebe warned as she stepped ahead of us.

  “What is it?” Fainnir’s voice quavered lightly.

  Maebe touched the glyph lightly, it glowed for a second, and she whipped her hand away. “This isn’t designed to keep things out, but to keep something in. Whatever is inside that room will be coming out here to fight us.”

  I looked around more than I would like to have admitted than I did before. There were two altars on each side of the door, both of them loaded with items and sacrifices of food. A small kobold’s corpse laid on top of one pile split open and spread apart like some kind of kobold baked potato.

  Oh god, I can’t believe I just thought that.

  “So, what do you suggest we do?” Yoh stepped closer to the door.

  “Prepare,”
I said with a grunt. The others looked at me. “Look, whatever comes out of there is likely going to be huge, we need to be ready. I want Bokaj, and Fainnir up on the second level raining down spells, Grav can be down here to help the melee fighters. Yoh and I are going to provide support from down here, Bea will do what she can to run distraction and Jaken and Muu know what to do. I trust Balmur and James to know where and how they will be most effective.”

  “What would you have of me, my King?” The Fae Queen’s hips swayed as she walked toward me, firelight playing in her deep-green eyes.

  “Can you open that door?” She nodded. “Then I need you to open it and let us work. With how high the levels of the kobolds were, it wouldn’t surprise me if the boss is even higher leveled than the norm. If you feel we’ll be overwhelmed, step in.”

  She smiled and kissed my cheek. “As my King wishes.”

  Heat rushed to my cheeks as the others rolled their eyes and turned to their own tasks.

  “See something, say something—no one be a hero,” I said, my voice a rusty growl. “Call it out loud if you have to, I don’t give a shit, but we will communicate through this. Fainnir, if you need us, yell. And I swear to you, if you do something crazy, I’ll have more than just words for you, do you understand?”

  “Yes!” Fainnir’s jaw set in a determined manner, and he sprinted up toward the second level.

  Good shit, you do know that he’s going to try some stuff, right? Bokaj lifted an eyebrow as he walked by me. I nodded, and he smiled.

  I was hoping he would surprise me.

  I waited until everyone was ready, then nodded to Maebe. She lifted a hand, said a word, and her fingers shifted. The temperature in the room dropped wildly, and I had to fight not to shiver, then the cold sucked in toward her all at once, and a large shard of pure ice floated above her hand. She lazily threw her hand forward, and the ice shard sailed through the air into the crease between the doors and dented it open, then burst into a thousand tiny shards that blew the door wide.

  A set of glowing blood-red eyes opened, then a pair of golden-hued eyes and another lavender-colored pair glared out at us and stepped forward from the darkness. A dragon’s head, copper scales glowing in the firelight with slitted-red eyes, stood tall in the center of the creature’s body. The head on the left shoulder looked more like a ram’s with lavender eyes, and the final head was that of a man with a bald head and bland features except for his golden eyes.

  As the lion-like body cleared the broken door, so too did the tail, a large snake’s head rose from the shadows behind it and hissed at us with irises of a cornflower blue. The fur looked mangy in places, and the back legs had to be the goat portion of the creature.

  “A Chimera?” Balmur groaned.

  “Yeah seriously, what the fuck are we going to do with this thing?” Muu snorted. “It’s gonna look at us really hard.”

  Yohsuke whistled. “Shut your sucks and get ready for a brawl. Each of those eyes communicated better and more naturally than we do, and chimeras are magical creatures. This thing is going to have magic, buckle down!”

  Dungeon-born Chimera Level 35

  This is some bullshit, I growled at the others. How is it so much stronger?

  “Don’t know, don’t care—kill it!” Yohsuke barked, and the show was on.

  Jaken and Muu both roared in unison as they dashed forward, weapons drawn and an aura of enmity grabbing red around each.

  “You eight-eyed freak of nature, I bet your mother only talks to you on Halloween!” Muu cried, and the creature roared at him.

  Jaken let his dancing sword and shield do their work as he took out his holy sword and swung at the creature’s heads.

  Fainnir shot shards of earth down at the creature, and Grav fought desperately to keep the tail’s attention so it wouldn’t attack the dwarf.

  Get that tail! I ordered, and Bokaj rained down unholy hell on the thrashing snake-like appendage. It hissed and thrashed, damage appearing above its head—making us aware of more bad news.

  They each have health bars! Balmur cried, moving from a shadow off to my right into line with the chimera’s stomach, where he stabbed brutally with both of his weapons, but he didn’t seem to be doing much there. It roared and stamped the ground near his position, but Balmur moved easily enough, a cloven hoof leaving a mark on the floor.

  “I’ll be charging a spell, give me a moment.” Immediately I activated the ability and held a fireball, adding more mana and manipulating the spell so that it would do what I wanted. I only held it for ten seconds, the full cost of the spell 457 MP, but a javelin of pure flame streaked toward the chimera’s chest.

  “Ahhhhhhhh!” The human head screeched, and the spell seemed to redirect toward Bokaj’s position.

  “Bokaj lookout!” The spell crashed into the floor, and the archer fell even as I called out. Tmont soared through the air after her falling master, letting the elf grasp the loose fur near the nape of her neck so that she could haul him from the chimera’s reaching, salivating maw. He still took a healthy chunk of damage from the fall and some of the rubble smacking into him, but it wasn’t immediately life-threatening.

  “No more big spells like that,” James called. “Looks like the head has more magic capability than we could have thought.”

  “Kill it!” Bokaj roared as soon as he could stand. His bow was up, and arrows flew forth at increasing speed and volume.

  “You gonna get in there, Zeke?” Yoh hollered as he took his astral adaptor in hand.

  “Yeah, give me a second.” I focused myself and cast Aspect of the Ursolon, then pulled out Storm Caller, leaning the weapon against my body as I put Magus Bane onto the latches of my armored back. This was going to be fun, and I’d be switching between the two weapons when I needed to.

  Glancing about, I found a target—the snake tail. Or the freaky-looking human head.

  I took Storm Caller and whipped the weapon toward the human face, but the chimera’s dragon head shifted over to it protectively, and the dragon just roared at it, taking the attack to the scales of its throat as if it were nothing. I had not expected that the nearly 4% of the head’s health bar that it took away was alright, but I’d need to change tactics to get to my real targets.

  I called the weapon back to me, the bolt of lightning striking my palm and solidifying into my great axe once more. This time, I aimed my weapon above the chimera, and called Bea, I need a distraction but don’t get too close.

  The adolescent raptor barked three times and booked it straight at the chimera’s legs, crying out in challenge. Muu’s short spear blurred into the creature’s chest three times, and finally, the dragon’s eyes glowed deeply and its chest expanded widely.

  “Breath weapon!” Jaken and I shouted in unison, I thrust my arms forward, summoning Void Shield in front of Muu and Bea to stop the flames. 203 MP and counting as the thing exhaled, and kept going, and going. It finally stopped after I had expended 398 MP total. The fucker was getting on my nerves, making me dip into Mage’s Well so early into the fight and with very little mana left.

  Time to go old school.

  Magus Bane felt good in my hands as I marched forward, activating Charge once I was in range and slammed the invisible blade into the Chimera’s leg, draining a small chunk of HP and stealing forty-seven mana. It roared and tried to bat at me, then the ram’s lavender eyes ignited, wreathed in electricity. A pulse of static charge filled the air around me, the fur on my body rising to stand up on end.

  Kayda! I roared mentally and felt her presence even as I called to her, she was there duking it out with the snake, but her own electrical field had begun to meld and spark against the chimera’s, almost canceling it. The sensation of building electrical energy continued to rise, and the scent of ozone with it. That gave me an idea, but it was unlikely if that human head had anything to do with it.

  Focus on the human head and make sure it doesn’t see me. The others didn’t acknowledge my order so much as they went ape
shit on the chosen target. The beast cried out in pain and anger.

  If our casters were to stand a decent chance, I had to hope that each of these heads had some kind of off switch, or an elemental difference. Meaning that the ram’s head was probably highly resistant to lightning damage, but that another might not be.

  As soon as Kayda’s warning came, I cast Water Sphere on the human head from beneath it at the same time as the goat cast its, spell and Kayda loosed her own. The electrical current passed me and zipped straight at the water with Kayda’s added lightning, and the water rippled, but the current fried everything inside. The head tried to shriek in agony, but it merely took in water, the other heads struck at the spell, but the damage was done. The majority of the human head’s HP was gone, and Muu and Jaken had decided to capitalize on it.

  “Guuuuragh!” Muu grunted and launched his ice lance at the globe of water, freezing it solid while Jaken hopped off his hovering shield like a springboard and shattered the sphere with the pommel of his sword, the head shattering with it.

  “Yeah!” Fainnir howled in triumph, just in time for the snake’s mouth to snap forward and grasp Jaken by his leg, swinging him toward the dragon’s maw and the ram’s waiting horns. A length of shadow snapped out from my left and wrapped around Jaken’s left arm as a trio of arrows sprouted from the snake’s eye. The snake released Jaken, and the shadow pulled him clear of the chimera.

  The beast roared in rage, and a claw whipped out and smacked me from my spot as an observer, sending me flying into James. “Oof!”

  The two of us careened into the far wall, his health taking the brunt of the damage, but I still lost 35% of my HP, the gash on my chest smarting something fierce. I hated to do it, but I cast Void’s Respite on myself, then covered myself in shadows so that I would get the full benefit of the spell. It’s not cheating if you’re smart enough to do it.

  James flashed with golden energy, and his health was topped off once more. “This thing is pretty fucking bonkers, man. I don’t know if we want to keep going down the dungeon if shits gonna be broken like this, you know?”