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

by Christopher Johns

  Jaken roared, and a red aura surrounded his body, his great sword planted into the ground. He lifted his longsword and spat, “Dance!” The blade lifted and swung toward some of the drow that had surrounded our position.

  Maebe threw a volley of frozen meteors down onto where the other two women fought hand to hand, splitting the ground in twain. They the projectiles burst, sending shards of ice into the immediate vicinity.

  “Balmur, I need you to ensure that the boys are protected, Yoh, you too,” I ordered and the two of them moved away. “Jaken, I need you and Muu to get to the dwarves and keep them healed and up, so we don’t have to worry about any more vampires.”

  “What are we doing then?” James looked around as the others moved away. “I’m assuming you have a plan for Bokaj and me. too?”

  “Yeah, you and I are going to be playing duck, duck, goose with the queens, and Bokaj is going to make it rain,” I said, then growled as I looked up to the sky where Kayda circled. “Kayda, you keep the guys safe. Bea? Come here, baby.”

  The tug on her mind brought the swift raptor over to me, her brown and lavender eyes searching mine. “I need a favor.”

  She nodded her head, and I hopped onto her back, my legs molding to the sides of her body easily enough. “I’ll see you boys over th—”

  Bea jolted forward, wind stealing the words from my mouth as she pushed herself on faster. The queens moved and cast spells at each other with devastating effect to the ground and the world around them. Shadows wove and slashed through the air and defended against blasts of crimson energy, met by ice and cold bursts that attacked and defended simultaneously.

  Lilith looked to be drained, one of her legs crushed and hanging limply on her bulbous spider body, but she wove her spells as swiftly as she could. The vampire lady, whose name we hadn’t even gotten to learn, levitated, her eyes glowing with a crimson energy like that out of an eldritch nightmare. Her hands moved, summoning a sign in front of her that ate the darkness at the same time as the general’s cloaked figure stepped from the darkness and seemed to fuse with her.

  Maebe was cut, her left arm bleeding a little bit as she moved her hand through the air, frost forming around her good hand and shooting forward in blistering cold cones of ice that shot forward at both women.

  Break off before you get too close, I’m gonna jump for it, then you go and help the others out where you safely can. I patted her side lovingly, I love you.

  I focused and jumped as I said that last bit, sailing through the air as Bea broke away from the fighting, battling to remain upright against my pushing away from her, and responded, Love you too.

  I shifted midair into my werewolf form and tackled the distracted vampire leader to the ground with a grunt and gasp of surprise on her part.

  As I went to slash at her throat with my claws, she managed to grasp my wrists and shoved up so that she flipped me, and I landed on my back.

  “You truly are an annoyance, assassin.” She hissed, her face contorted in rage, her glowing red eyes bleeding into the whites. “You dare to interfere and not just die? My lord War will have this world and all others!”

  As she spoke and we struggled, I could see her name above her head, and it gave me a little hope.

  Marizan level 75

  “I always was one to try and steal the last dance,” I said back in the snarkiest tone I could manage given the vast difference in our levels. I knew that James and Bokaj were coming, I just didn’t know how soon and the fact that her level was visible now meant I was in deep shit.

  She pressed her hands up in front of her, palms out and fingers curled toward me like claws. She whipped them downward diagonally, and a stream of red energy scythed toward me only to be stopped by a small mountain of ice.

  Maebe growled and raised her hand, then pressed forward to shoot an ice spike of some kind from it, but the vampire just bounded over it to try and land on me with her fangs bared.

  An arrow sliced the tip of her nose, and a ball of golden energy smacked her in her hip, throwing her off course slightly.

  Ebony energy shot from the ground in front of me and caught her on the chin like a fist, rocking her head back.

  I rolled to miss another strike from a similar spell, then bounded forward on all fours. My limbs pumped powerfully as arrows with silver flashed dangerously close to her and I. The nearness screwing with my concentration, but it was bearable.

  She took one of the arrows in her shoulder before she stood, trying to dig it out, but then James was on top of her. His fists collided with her face, narrowly avoiding her fangs as his golden ki snapped into her body with devastating precision.

  Her health bar fell steadily, but not nearly enough to be indicative of the level of ass-whooping she had taken before and what we were dishing out. She had to be a higher level, losing a single percent of health even with the silver in her shoulder and both of us wailing on her.

  Lightning smashed into her from James’ fists as he hit her with both at the same time, then a bolt of freezing lightning pierced the ground between her feet and hit her at the same time. The electricity ripped through her body, stopping her long enough to allow me to dig my claws into her chest, hoping to find her heart and pull it out.

  She wrapped her hands around my wrists once more, and cried out as she ripped the bloodied and blackened limbs from her chest and lifted me bodily off the ground. She grunted deeply, then swung me bodily, and I felt a body against my legs and a stream of labored obscenities.

  She’s not taking any damage you guys, Bokaj warned. And more vampires of higher quality have shown up. Five of the dwarves are down, and I don’t know what else is coming.

  We needed to end this shit. And the only way was looking rough.

  Yohsuke, I’m probably going to have to cast Solar Flare, hide. I sent him mentally as I tried to stand up.

  But I couldn’t. I looked up and saw the evil bitch holding my hand with hers, and a sickening smile spreading across her face.

  “I don’t need to bite you and ingest your blood, wolf,” her voice touched my mind as her gaze met mine. “I can steal your mana too, and only by touch.”

  My health and mana dropped slowly at first, then faster and faster. As I neared the 30% mark, a scaled figure appeared above her, digging claws and teeth into what it could.

  Bea had come back to save me.

  Tmont, her tail lashing out like a scorpion, jabbing what she could reach savagely. A blur of brown streaked through the air above me and crashed into the woman’s chest with a squelch that dropped her to her knees. A shaft of blackened wood that looked to have been burnt and slightly eroded stuck out of her clothes. She touched it, slight embers of light flame spread over her flesh.

  “Pie!” Adrenaline poured into my brain as I heard Maebe savagely snarl our safe word for stupid actions a heartbeat before a second blur of black swiped through the Vampire Lords neck and the head dropped off to the left of me, seeming to still be looking around for an explanation of what happened.

  I glanced up at my wife, her chest heaving, blood dribbling from a cut on her head, her chest, her arm, and shoulder. She looked at me, her eyes still a little wild. “Are you alright?”

  “Funny that you think you’re done with me.” I blinked and turned to look down at Marizan’s head, her eyes stared up at us. “This is merely an inconvenience, and I have other plans in motion, already. I am so much more than my brothers, and when I return to my full glory, this world is ours.”

  I took Magus Bane and put it on my shoulder, “You won’t get the chance. We’re coming, and you’re done here.” I lifted Magus Bane and cleaved the laughing head in half.

  I heard the cheering from both sides and clapping from where Lilith had been. Maebe turned, Morningstar in her left hand and her right lifted to prepare a spell, but Lilith spoke loudly, “Well done, you’ve done your duty.”

  “And no thanks to you,” My Queen retorted angrily. James helped me to stand, passed me some medium mana
potions as Bokaj crept forward. “You planned to try and kill us from the start, didn’t you?”

  “I did not,” Lilith insisted, though her voice was hardly contrite as she walked forward. The drow who had survived the onslaught flocked to her, casters in the front and warriors to the sides at the flanks.

  I heard movement behind us, turning to see my friends and the dwarves marching toward us. Farnik and Gerty held hands, but each carried an axe in their free hand, and now she wore mithril plate armor like the others. Good.

  Granite limped forward with his son at his side, supporting his father as they stoically took in the scene, blood leaked from one leg. Jaken hit Granite with a healing spell that seemed to help him be able to walk on his own again.

  The party looked bloodied and seemed to be recovering well enough, Yohsuke’s clothes were a little shredded, but he seemed minutely beaten, and his wounds sealed slowly on their own. He lifted his arm and wiped crimson from his lips, managing to spread and smudge it a bit, but continued forward.

  “Then, you will see that our quest is completed, and we will be on our way.” Maebe sheathed her weapon but didn’t put it away as she watched Lilith for some kind of reaction.

  “It seems that all of her line are dead, those here.” She shrugged. “But how can I be certain that all of them are dead?”

  “You can’t,” Yohsuke muttered, attracting attention to him. When we glanced at him, he shook his head. “They never stay in one place, and they never have their entire group together, though we burned their place down thanks to Zeke’s spell.”

  He stopped when he stood next to Maebe and me, “But you knew that we wouldn’t get the whole line, didn’t you? That’s why you worded the quest that way. So, we would fail it, or be beholden to you.”

  “Why would I desire anything of the sort?” Lilith did her best to flutter her eyes at us innocently, but the smug look on her face said it all. Blood seeped from several wounds along her body, and another leg dangled from the rear of her bulbous body. She had really fallen from the major player that she’d been when we got here.

  Fighting can do that.

  “Because you wanted to have another reason not to be indebted to me, or my people, which I can respect.” Maebe seemed comfortable enough that she put Morningstar away in her inventory. “But what will not be tolerated is an abuse of my time and efforts. That quest was nigh impossible without the proper intelligence, you withheld valuable information, and upon our arrival here, your people attacked us.”

  “Only because it looked as if you had failed in your mission to them, and because my sister told me that you had been swayed to join her.” Lilith waved a hand, and her people nodded, but Maebe stilled.

  The Fae Queen took a single step forward, and regarded the other woman oddly, her head tilting to one side.“Do you swear to that?”

  Lilith seemed confused, before she nodded and stated, “My sister told me that you had been swayed to her cause, I swear it.”

  Maebe laughed out loud, clapping her hands, causing the few around her to lean back as if struck, except for me. Granite’s voice drifted over, the deep tone scraping against my hearing, “Think she’s gone daft?”

  “No, I’ve been lied to.” Maebe sounded absolutely delighted. “Oh, this is delicious. She thinks she needs to lie so that her people will support her willingly, but in doing so, she’s given something up.”

  Lilith seemed confused until realization dawned on her, and Maebe continued, “You had been so fun to play the game with, my dear sweet child, but now I have won. And for your lies against me and mine, I will collect what is mine for twice the lies of thine.”

  Maebe’s hand shot out, and purple flowing magic spread like thick smoke and wrapped around the liar lifting her into the air.

  “For your lies and wicked thoughts, I will take what I please. Two lies, two thefts—this is the way.” Maebe smiled sweetly, the drow around their Queen began to beat on the smoke. Their fists hit the magic, and it shot them back onto their backs and rendered them still. “First, I take your power as my own, not your throne, but your personal power. And second, I take what was owed, and the child who acted as bait that you intended die, regardless of the outcome.”

  As she opened her mouth to speak for herself in outrage, the smoke poured into her. It filtered into her body until it was completely gone, and she landed on her spidery legs as if a marionette with invisible strings moving her limbs.

  After a long moment, the smoke poured out of her, green now, and spun toward Maebe. The Fae opened her mouth expectantly as the gaseous magic shifted toward her, seeking entry. She inhaled, her green eyes flaring with bright light and her head rocking back before she closed them and swallowed.

  A contented sigh escaped her lips. She raised her hand, and wiped away the blood on her forehead and the wound was gone.

  “Before we wear out our welcome, I will make one thing perfectly clear,” Maebe spoke slowly and enunciated perfectly. “The dwarves of Djurn Forge are mine to protect now, as they are kin and clan to my husband. An attack on them is an attack on me, and I will respond not in kind but with reverence to the detail at which I could lay waste to those who touch what is mine. Not a threat, but an oath. One I intend to see through. Our quest with you is done, despite your attempt to control us. Failed or not, I assume you know the consequences of lying to a Fae, now, and those are not what I would bring against an enemy.”

  The drow stood silently, but Farnik spoke up, his voice thick but unwavering, “I found me and mine, and much blood was shed today. I’ll see me kin home to their burial grounds, and me wife to me clan, but if ye e’er set foot in dwarven halls, me clan will nae rest until yer all with the stone. This, I swears on me life, and me beard to grow.”

  He spat on the ground, and so did every dwarf with him, even Granite and Fainnir, then they turned their backs and walked away. I made sure to eye each of the drow who watched us, Lilith looked weak, and she may have been almost about to be set upon by a pack of lions for all we knew, but our business here was done, and that was good.

  We walked away, with Kayda watching our backs we didn’t need to worry about an attack. But that didn’t mean violence wasn’t about to ensue. More than a dozen female drow spellcasters set upon the fallen queen as we walked away. Her enraged shouting and angry casting making the fur on the back of my neck stand.

  On our way to the gates, the dwarves stopped and grabbed their fallen, not a tear shed, but for the stoic words of the tales of glory to be sung in the halls this night.

  Once we reached the entry point the dwarves had created, they stopped and turned to us.

  Farnik and Granite both stepped out, the latter clapping Farnik on the back. “Ye always were bet’er with yer words, lad.”

  “Aye.” Farnik chewed his lip, stubble growing on his chin. It looked better after he had shaved it all off, but it had paid a debt and cleared a clan’s name, so I wouldn’t give him too much shit. “I were gonna give ye a piece o’ me mind for not bringin’ Balmur to us sooner, but he gived us a good reason, so I let it be. But then Fainnir summoned us with his elemental, and when we heard ye were with the drow, we come runnin’.”

  He looked back and reached out for his wife and son, who hugged each other close but stepped forward.

  “Ye did the clan proud, lads.” Farnik sighed. “Did us all a great favor, ye did. And we be in yer debt—you put your hand down boy, or I’ll wallop ye right on tha’ scaly head o’ yers!”

  Muu looked abashed and thoroughly cowed as he put his hand down, and the dwarf continued, “Come celebrate with yer kin, tha’ be an order from yer clan head as all of ye be clan now. That means yerself too, Highness.”

  Maebe nodded her head once with a genuine smile. “I would be delighted to join you.”

  “I can’t teleport all of us and all of you.” I frowned. I had notifications from after all the fighting, but unless I leveled up a royal shit ton, I wouldn’t be able to carry almost thirty people to wherever
we were going.

  “That’s a’right lad. We’re gonna go home how we came, and we’ll be obstructing the path as we go, though young Fainnir is welcome among us to assist if he be willin’?” Farnik looked to the earth mage, who nodded excitedly. “We’ll be seein’ ye soon lads, Highness. The hammer falls.”

  “And rises again.” Jaken reached out and pulled the stout man into a fierce hug and gave each of the others a slap on the back.

  We had a raucous goodbye from there, then waited until they were on their way, and Fainnir sealed the stone behind them. I turned, watching as several drow lifted the former Queen’s body, the legs curled in and carried it toward the tower doors. A single female drow swayed forward after them, all of us forgotten, and the survivors of the fight hardly seemed willing to stand against us. Not without support of numbers against the people who had destroyed their former leader.

  I glanced over toward where Maebe stood next to Jafrik and watched as Servant separated himself from the boy’s shadow. His jaws were covered in gore, and he seemed pleased as he nodded to Mae, then me and faded into thin air. He’d likely spent the fight killing anything that had ventured too close to the boy.

  Bea butted her head against my chest, drawing my attention, and Kayda landed next to me, and the others gathered around. It was time to get the fuck out of this hell hole. Then I paused.

  “I don’t know if it’s daylight or not outside.” I looked at Yohsuke, and he shrugged. “Don’t vampires know that kind of shit?”

  “Well, I’ve been stuck underground, so I don’t really have a concept to go on for it.” he raised his fist and flipped me the bird tiredly. “We need to get me a coffin when I’m up there too. It’s required, I think.”

  “We can work on that.” Jaken nodded placatingly to Yoh. “I think he should be in the collar for now, though, just to be safe.”