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

by Christopher Johns

  “We kill her, then make sure that we get the fuck out of dodge so they can’t come after us.” Yohsuke stated as he stepped from the side of the wall. “James told me everything that was happening in real-time while all of you were in there. Maebe and the boys are okay over there, so let’s start getting you guys across.”

  “I’ll jump across, see you guys over there.” Muu marched over to the wall behind us, took a runner's stance with his head down, then pushed himself forward as hard as he could. Once he came close to the ledge, he leapt with all his strength and sailed through the air with his legs and arms windmilling as he did. He easily cleared the distance and landed about twenty feet from the far wall near the entrance to this place.

  Balmur just shook his head and looked to me. “You want to polymorph someone, and I can do the other?”

  “Since when do you have polymorph?” I asked incredulously.

  “It was in the book that I was studying, once I understood the spell, I could cast it to a lesser degree.” He shrugged and tapped the book in the breast portion of his armor. “Granted, I can only do creatures I’ve seen before, and it only lasts for fifteen minutes, but that’s plenty of time, right?”

  I nodded and looked to Jaken. “I’ll turn you into a sugar glider, then throw you over there, okay?”

  He nodded, and I cast the spell. His body disappeared in a puff of white smoke, and on the stone ground rustled a small, brown-furred critter with huge eyes and skin flaps meant to help him glide.

  I bent to pick him up, and noted mist had gathered where Yohsuke had been, then he was back. “Nope, that won’t work.”

  “Can you turn into a bat?” Bokaj asked curiously, the rest of us looking at him oddly. “What? Homeboy is on some Dracula shit now, and that’s a pretty common thing in a lot of stories, right?”

  “I guess I could try. There’s a status screen for vampirism, but it’s kind of grayed out.”

  “Do you need to feed?” I asked quietly. He glanced up at me, a strange look passing over his face, then gave a nod.

  “I don’t think you want my blood, but is there anyone else willing to donate?” I looked over at the others, and they seemed a little wary. “Guys, it doesn’t have to be him actually biting you. You can just bleed into a cup, and then he can drink it.”

  “I’ll help.” Balmur sighed, glancing over at me. “You heal me after?”

  I nodded, and Yohsuke pulled out a cup and handed it over. Balmur took one of his other daggers and slid it over his wrist with little more than a hiss of pain like he’d gotten a paper cut. Crimson droplets dribbled into the cup, then more as Bokaj stepped over and did the same.

  “We can all help share the load.” Once they were both done, I cast Renewing Flames on each and their wounds knit cleanly back together.

  Yohsuke took the cup from me, sniffed it before shrugging and upending the glass into his gullet. He drank deeply, a little color returning to his body as he did so. His eyes closed, and he seemed to just still for a moment before they reopened, slightly darker than before, but still orange.

  “Thanks, guys.” He shook out his shoulders and had shadows come and clean the cup out for him before putting it into his inventory. He appeared to try and do something but seemed confused. “I’m activating the skill, but it’s not working.”

  “Did you try envisioning the animal you want to become?” I asked sincerely. “I have to do it every time I shapeshift. Try to see the bat in your mind first, then activate it.”

  He closed his eyes, his brows knitting together in concentration. He took a deep breath, then a poof of smoke, and a bat fluttered in the air where he had been. His flight was a little more harrowing than I would have liked, but he eventually made it across the chasm safely.

  I glanced down at Jaken, his little brown eyes staring up at me in fear.

  “Let’s practice your gliding first, okay?” I lifted him and tossed him to Balmur. It took a couple passes for him to get it down, but by the time he was ready, I warmed up to the idea of throwing one of my best friends over a chasm that could easily mean his doom.

  I picked him up and rocked my arm down low, then rotated like a pitcher and whipped my arm up and over with a good follow-through. Jaken’s sugar glider form passed through the air without incident, but he couldn’t seem to stick the landing as he hit the ground harder than we had expected he might and rolled until he lost his form and crashed into Muu with a resounding crack.

  Kayda flew over with Tmont in one of her claws in her smaller cat form, and Balmur had turned Bokaj into a corgi who also dangled from Kayda’s delicately clenched talons.

  “Our turn, how do you want to do this?” I clapped my hands and looked over at Balmur who eyed the distance.

  “I think I can shadow step it now, with our blessing from the shadow elemental, I have a much farther range. I just haven’t really had the chance to try it out yet.” He frowned, then shook his head. “Better not push our limits over a chasm, right? I’ll wait here, and you can ferry me.”

  It was a swift flight to cross the distance over the chasm, and by the time I made it there, Kayda had already gone back for the Azer dwarf.

  Once the two of them landed, Balmur having patted her in gratitude, Kayda looked to me, Do we go to fight, now?

  “I think that’s something we need to discuss,” I informed her, then looked at my friends. “We’ve very obviously been set up, and we also know that whoever that vampire chick was, she was a minion likely working for a general. We haven’t seen the two of them working together before, it’s kind of been loners here and there. You think they’re starting to organize?”

  “Makes sense.” Yohsuke sighed, rubbing his neck. “They want us to back off, then they start to organize and actively try to cause as much chaos and strife as possible. Not to mention that once we kill Lilith’s sister, we’re likely on the hit list. What’s the point in trying to do that?”

  “Keeping Djurn Forge safe?” Muu spread his hands wide, then pointed at Fainnir, who seemed lost in thought and staring off into the stone in the distance. “See? He’s already fucked up about it!”

  “So, then we kill her and the major baddies, then we grab Gerty and beat feet,” Bokaj suggested softly, then seemed to decide that was best. “There’s no way we can go up against that many drow and vampires at the same time. And since the vampires took the fight to the drow, they may decide they just don’t need us, and then try to kill us on sight anyway. So, we need to do this right. I have a plan, so hear me out.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “This is fucking nuts; you know that, right?” Muu tried desperately not to look as scared as his complaining made him out to be.

  The plan was simple enough; we had an extraction team ready to go in and get Gerty while the assault team created both a distraction and an attack meant to…well assault.

  The teams broke down as follows: the assault team would consist of me, Balmur and Yohsuke. The extraction team would consist of Muu, James, Jaken, Bokaj, and Fainnir. Servant, Maebe, and Jafrik would go with them to wait at our rendezvous point, which was where the extraction point would be at Lilith’s palace. It would be easier for us to get there than it would be for the extractors to get back to the entry to the city. Plus, teleporting made anywhere a viable extraction point.

  We were hoping that in the confusion of fighting, we would be able to either blend in or be overlooked. But that would mainly depend on how well we did this.

  I opted to let Bea out of the collar for this one. Her dizzying speed could prove useful to the extractors. I told her she had to listen to what the others told her to do, and she nodded before licking my ear.

  “We all remember our roles?” Bokaj stared at all of us, and we nodded. “Alright, let's hop to it.”

  We had already teleported back to the city’s entryway, the one to the cavern, not the gate. Then waited for the cooldown to end before the mission truly began because that was going to be our escape card. While I wanted to
make a weapon for Gerty and to be sure we were good for the fight, our planning had to come first, and we would make do. We could hear muted fighting in the distance, watching as flying figures and blasts of flame and magic shot into the sky at what I assumed to be the vampire bats that darted down and lifted figures from the ground.

  There was no telling if someone would catch sight of me while I was enchanting and send forces here to fight us. Another loud gout of flame breached the second of silence.

  It was looking bad out there. I looked up at Kayda. “You ready, sweetie?”

  We hunt! Her feathers fluttered as she spread her wings and lifted from the ground with Balmur on her back. Yohsuke and I took off behind her, me as an owl and Yohsuke as the bat held in Balmur’s left hand.

  Our goal was to get to the crystals up at the top of the cavern and create just a smidgeon of mayhem.

  We had done well the first couple minutes to avoid some of the flying vampire bats, but spells still flew like mortar fire and surface to air missiles all around us. Dodging them took everything we had, and even then, some of the bursting eldritch and shadow spells swatted the storm roc a bit, damaging her little by little.

  I willed her to fly higher, dipping down to take the brunt of a spell that looked like some sort of pure ball of magic the size of a baseball. It hurt, dipping me down by a quarter of my health, but we made it to our destination and hid in a cluster of the crystals for cover.

  I landed on Kayda’s back as she flapped her powerful wings carefully to keep us hovering.

  We’re in position for Operation Disco Ball, Balmur reported through our earrings, then out loud, he said, “I love him to death, but between Bokaj and Muu trying to name things, this gets weird, you know?”

  I nodded my owl head, and we waited for a moment longer, then Jaken reported, We’re outside the Spider Queen’s palace now. The majority of the vampires are out in the open, but the worst ones seem to be over here. Whatever you guys have planned; you may want to get on it so we can get in there after Gerty.

  Let’s get to it, Zeke, Balmur whispered fiercely. We had one go at this, and it would leave both of us dangerously close to tapped even after I used my ace in the hole. 1,400 MP at my disposal and I was about to burn through all but two hundred of it for a single spell. Balmur would be spending at least 376 MP from what he had explained about his half of the spell.

  I shifted into my fox-man form, tapped Yoh in his bat form still cradled against Balmur, and he filtered into my collar for safety. Then Kayda descended, from where we were, slowly as I charged Solar flare and activated Vulpine Casting, a once-daily ability that halves the mana cost of a spell. Twenty seconds in, I was ready with a glowing metallic palm. We were well below the crystals now, and Balmur muttered and motioned before nodding at me as he touched my hand. I focused on the point I wanted the spell to originate from, then blasted it. A miniature sun dawned into being in the center of the crystals, refracting light blazed all over and screaming began in earnest.

  Balmur had done to my spell what he had to Fainnir’s in the dungeon, amplifying it and making it larger with his knowledge of magical laws, conversion, and relativity. It wasn’t by much, but it helped.

  Who knew what would be attracted by this much noise—but we wouldn’t be here to find out.

  I rolled off of Kayda’s back and shifted into my eagle form immediately, my feathers whistling a little as we soared toward the palace of web and lies. I glanced down and saw vampires bubbling and bursting into flames when they touched direct light from it. Drow elves held their faces in their hands and hid their eyes from the harsh light of the spell.

  Heat radiated out of it in waves, and concentrated beams of light flared down, as if from a magnifying glass. Kayda and I dodged them as we came upon them, but that didn’t mean we didn’t bully some of the vampires into them how we could. Shoving them, leading them—we drew them to the light like moths to the flame.

  A moment later, we were in sight of the huge mass of webs and stone that was the Queen’s palace, the roof of spires barely jutting out from above it. I caught a glimmer of something below us, just inside.

  My friends looked to be fighting the drider guards and the vampire invaders in the shadowed cover of the webs. The fight seemed to be going poorly, as it was a free for all. Drider and drow fought vampire and our party members alike in a melee that made my adrenaline spike harder than ever. I screeched, and both Kayda and I dropped toward the fray.

  A crack of booming thunder echoed above as lightning rent the air before us, striking one of the driders in the chest where he stood in front of Fainnir and James.

  “Bout time!” The dwarf called with a smile drenched in blood. He was covered in it, but his health seemed to be fine. “Come on; the fight’s almost won!”

  I had no idea what he meant, but it would be a good idea to start to beat some ass. First, it would be a better idea to try and recover some of my mana. I shifted into my fox man form as I landed, then took out Magus Bane and looked around for a good opponent.

  Driders and drow elves tried to fight the same hulking vampires that we had been battling at the steel fort, and there was no shortage on either side of free bodies.

  “Where is the Queen and the Vampire Lord?” I called over the din of the fighting.

  Yohsuke filtered from my collar and flitted by me, stepping in front of a hulking vampire and shouting, “Fuck you!”

  A spear of hellish, sulfur-smelling flames soared from his grasp and caught it in the chest as Muu sailed onto its back and stabbed his spear into the back of its neck where its black blood drained with its HP bar.

  Muu pointed toward the steps where the two women seemed to be duking it out ferociously. Larger drider guards standing with the Spider Queen as she swung a rapier against her undead sister.

  We get Gerty yet? Balmur spoke through our earrings as he tore into a vampire bat who had come too close to him. His holy crystal weapons flashing in the darkness and severing the creature’s wings.

  We couldn’t get into the place; it was too heavily guarded by the drow, and then the vampires came in en masse. James huffed as he punched a drow spellcaster in the face, a blast of his ki shattering their focus and dropping them to the ground where they floundered like a fish out of water. I think Maebe mentioned something about going in after her.

  Shit, let’s get moving then boys. I growled as I set my sights on the front lines of the battle, the vampires ganging up on the drow and lifting them into the sky more often than they had been before. They began sinking their teeth into their prey’s necks, draining their life force, and bolstering their own in the process.

  “We need to keep that from happening too much more,” Yohsuke called out, taking his Astral Blade and cutting into one of the hulking vampire’s legs as it clutched at a drider it had been trying to drain. Jaken leapt forward with his greatsword out and severed the foul creature’s arm with a mighty cleave and then kicked it as hard as he could in the chest. The thing rocked back but managed to grasp his leg with its remaining hand, dragging Jaken along with him.

  James and Balmur were on top of the beast in the blink of an eye with their fists and weapons flashing dangerously.

  “Where’s Bokaj?” Balmur called once the beast was dead.

  The others glanced around in a panic, then, Where the hell are you, Bokaj?

  The ranger answered Yohsuke tersely, Inside! Then seemed to find a little more time to fully answer, Lilith set the creatures in the cages free and we’re fighting our way up. Maebe is killing them quickly, but there are things that are immune to shadow in here, and she’s getting tired!

  Muu was next to me in a heartbeat. “Think we should make our own door?”

  “What do you have in mind?” I raised an eyebrow as dread gripped my heart.

  “I’m going to jump with you in hand as high as I can, then throw you at the wall. You go belgar and have Kayda keep me from touching the webs.” He put his spear into his inventory, then pull
ed out his hammer and affixed it to his belt with a strap. “Once you get inside, I can try and get the others up to you as fast as possible, but it’ll take a second unless you take one of them in the collar?”

  Jaken stepped forward and touched the collar and filtered into it, answering my unasked question for me.

  “Let’s drop my fat ass on them.” I sighed and filled Kayda in swiftly, she understood, and another bolt of cold lightning crashed into a battling set of drow and vampire bats.

  Gem lumbered over with Fainnir at her feet with his axe swinging and a savage smile on his lips as he cast a stone shard that pierced a drow warrior’s eye where he fought his way forward. I had to admit I was proud of how far he had come. Something about fighting the enemies of his people seemed to drain the meekness from him. Made him stronger and more willing to lead and hunt them down.

  I shifted into my fox form, and Muu snatched me up by the scruff of my neck, shaving a couple points off my health bar with his claws, but I didn’t care. A heartbeat later, Muu’s powerful legs sent us soaring into the air, the wind making my fur ripple and my eyes water slightly.

  “Get ready!” He pulled me back, and I straightened my body like a furry arrow, and he hurled me at the top of the tower as hard as he could. I tried my best to strobe my eyes, the stone and webbing looming ever closer, ever faster, until finally—NOW!

  I shifted into my massive belgar form, my body hardening, and the horn jutting from my face. This was going to hurt.

  CRASH! The stone and mortar before me collapsed inward, and dust rose around me. I shifted back swiftly, and Jaken filtered out of the collar at a thought.

  “Let’s get to them.” His grim countenance shifted to irritation as he put his greatsword away so he could grab his dancing sword. The place was too small for his larger weapon, even though it was large enough for driders to pass through comfortably.

  “You go ahead, I’ll grab Gerty, and we can put the moves on getting the hell back to the party and out of here.” He nodded at me and turned to move down the stairwell as he bellowed, “I hate being separated from you, asshats!”