Hero's Journey: A LitRPG Adventure (Beta Tester Book 2)

by Rachel Ford

  Larg’tha took them toward a big orc who looked rather like her – but, somehow, broader and more muscular. She introduced him as Tri’gvy, and then introduced them by name, adding, “Migli’s manservant here can fix your ovens, Tri’gvy.”

  Jack scowled, at her and at the dwarf for not immediately correcting her misstatement. “I’m not actually –”

  “Can you?” the big orc asked, glancing him over skeptically. “Have you skill with that manner of thing?”

  Three possible responses presented themselves to Jack.

  [Lie] Of course. Point me in the right direction, and away I go!

  [Tell the truth] I don’t know, but I’ll give it my best.

  And,

  [Insult] Do you think I’m here for your company, Orc?

  Jack decided to lie and pledge himself to fixing the ovens. Tri’gvy harrumphed, then shrugged. “Well, that fool L’f hasn’t been able to make any headway. So I suppose it won’t hurt to have a second set of eyes.”

  He neither knew nor cared who L’f was, but Jack smiled and nodded.

  “Ovens are over there,” the other man said, pointing to a strange, boxy contraption on the far wall, covered in dials and gears.

  Jack blinked at it. “What the heck kind of oven is that?” It looked like nothing he’d ever seen before. But the orcs ignored him. So did Migli, who fell to chatting amiably, and a bit flirtatiously, with Larg’tha. So he rolled his eyes again and headed for the weird box.

  On the outside, it looked like some kind of amateur cosplayer’s steampunk prop: a black box with a bunch of gears and dials slapped onto it. Inside was worse. Inside, there were two compartments: one behind a panel, and one with racks for food. The second portion was the only piece that actually looked like an oven. The compartment behind the panel looked like someone had crammed an entire mad scientist’s laboratory into a small box. There was clear glass piping full of shimmering liquids and perfectly round metal weights on a spinner, pistons and pumps, gears and belts; things that whirred, things that spun, and things that – just sat there. He supposed the just sitting there was part of the problem. But then again, he didn’t actually know. How could he? Who could say if the rotors in an oven were actually supposed to move – because who the hell put rotors in an oven?

  Jack was about to give up when a small voice sounded at his shoulder. “It was built by a traveling wizard and has given many years of service. But the fire went out three days ago, and we haven’t been able to light it through any means.”

  He glanced up to see a slight, almost waifish looking orc watching him with large, curious eyes – a teenager, he assumed. “Did anything happen three days ago?”

  The young man shook his head. “No. But the oven had been cooler than usual. My dad says he reckons the magic has been running out for a while now.”

  “Who’s your dad?”

  The young man glanced over his shoulder and pointed out Tri’gvy. “That’s my dad. I’m Er’c.”

  “Nice to meet you, Er’c. So…I take it you spend a lot of time in these kitchens?”

  He shrugged. “Sometimes. Dad wishes I’d spend less. He wants me to learn to be a mage, or a doctor. But I like cooking.”

  Jack snorted. “Then cook, Er’c. Don’t let other people’s expectations decide your course in life. Always follow your heart, and you’ll do just great.”

  Er’c smiled. “Thanks, traveler.” Then he left Jack to feel good about giving sound life advice, and then feel bad because he still had the oven problem, and it couldn’t be handled so easily.

  He puzzled over it for a long few minutes. He tried moving things. Some of them turned, some didn’t. He spun a few of the gear wheels and toyed with a handful of contraptions. But the problem was, he didn’t know how anything was supposed to work, so he couldn’t say if something moving – or not – was a problem.

  Then, he remembered something the kid said. My dad says he reckons the magic has been running out for a while now.

  He searched the room for Er’c. The young man was hovering by one of the cooks, watching her season something on the stovetop. “Hey,” he called, “Er’c, come here for a second.”

  The youngster glanced up and then headed over. “Anything I can do for you, traveler? I’ll help if I can.”

  Jack nodded. “Actually, there is. You said the fire went out, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you show me where it was?”

  The boy surveyed him skeptically. “Don’t you know?”

  “Of course. Just, not all ovens are exactly alike. Wizards are funny that way – they all have to build it their own way. I want to make sure I get it right.”

  Er’c considered, then shrugged. He pointed to clear glass tubing that ran through the compartment wall into the baking area. “The fire would run through here. And these –” He pointed to the shimmering tubes, “would glow green when the oven was in use.”

  Jack nodded and thanked the boy. Then, he reexamined the apparatus in front of him. Since this was a magical oven, it stood to reason that its fire was magical in nature as well. Somehow the fire had gone out, and L’f hadn’t been able to restart it. But L’f probably didn’t know how to create magical fires.

  Jack, on the other hand, knew the spell quite well. So he wasn’t worried about starting the fire. He just needed to figure out how to get it where he needed it: inside the clear tubes.

  He found his answer on the underside of one of the glass pipes. A little cap screwed into the aperture. He removed it and summoned up fire magic. His fingertips crackled, and he loosed a blast into the pipes.

  The oven blazed to life. All the clear pipes filled with a red glow that drew the eyes of everyone in the room. A few hoots and hollers sounded.

  Then the fire died out, the way a candle in a jar will if you put the lid on: it just petered out, like it had run out of oxygen. The cheers turned to disappointed murmurs. Tri’gvy called, “Well, you’re further than L’f, anyway. Keep it up, traveler, and I’ll bake you a pie like nothing you’ve ever tasted.”

  Jack did keep it up, though not for pie. He figured he might get some gold out of this whole business, but more importantly, he knew how videogames worked. Perform some ridiculous, trivial service for a few people around town, and earn the goodwill of the townsfolk. If this particular game had taught him anything, it was that small actions had big consequences. He didn’t want to find himself in another situation like with the sky raptors and Fafnir because of an oversight here.

  While he worked, Er’c wandered back to his shoulder. “It looks like the oven has run out of magic,” he said after a while.

  Jack nodded. “Maybe if I keep shooting fireballs into the heating tubes, it’ll be enough.”

  The young man watched him try and fail for a few minutes. He said, “If only there was some way to restore its magic.”

  Jack nodded again, absently. “Yeah. I don’t know what the heck…wait a minute.” He turned to Er’c. “What if I restored the oven’s magic?”

  “Brilliant, traveler! That should do it.”

  “I just need a magicka potion.” He reached into his pack, then groaned. “Son-of-a-biscuit. I used the last one on the blessed mountainside.”

  “Sir Jack?”

  He shook his head, trying to brush away the aggravation. “Never mind. Listen, Er’c, is there some place in town that sells stuff for mages or adventurers? You know, things like potions and herbs and stuff?”

  “Sure. Gulbr’nd sells everything, and he’s a smith beside. He can fix you up for whatever adventure you need. But are you going to finish the oven before you leave?”

  “I need to buy something for it.”

  “Oh. Well, I will show you the way. And you can tell me of the adventures you have had. Your friend there tells my aunt that he slew a dragon.”

  Jack snorted. “He did, eh?”

  “Yes. And that he saved you from werewolves.”

  Jack frowned. “Really? He said that?”
<
br />   The young man nodded confidently.

  “I see. Did he say anything else, by chance?”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Er’c filled Jack in on Migli’s litany of lies while they traveled to the shop. The young man didn’t realize they were lies, of course. He recalled them with spellbound wonder. And no wonder. If there had been a grain of truth to it, he would have been a one-dwarf powerhouse of heroism and derring-do, who had pulled Jack out of every imaginable kind of scrape, killed dragons and werewolves, slew demons, and rescued whole towns and villages. He would have rescued children and old ladies by the score and set right more wrongs than any hundred armies.

  Jack couldn’t decide if he was more amused or disgusted by the whole thing.

  But he forgot all of it in favor of a moment of unblinking fear when he spotted the shopkeeper. Gulbr’nd was a gregarious orc whose broad smile and warm welcome did nothing to make him look less terrifying. Because in addition to being happy, he was huge. Not big like Larg’tha or Tri’gvy, or wide like Migli. He was huge. He stood eight feet tall, and his shoulder span must have been another four or five feet easily.

  Jack had to crane his neck just to see his face as they talked. He cleared his throat and fidgeted. “Mister Gulbr’nd?”

  “Welcome, stranger,” the other man said, for the second time so far. “Call me Gul. Everyone does. I hope your stay in our little valley has been a pleasant one?”

  “Oh, uh, yes. Very.”

  “Good. Good! Now what can I do for you?”

  Jack laid out his needs: magicka potions first, and healing second.

  Gul nodded, and beckoned him toward a shelf of goods crammed full of potions and unguents. Healing potions ran at thirty-five gold apiece, and magicka elixirs cost a full forty-five. Jack counted and recounted his coin. He almost had enough for two of the magicka potions, and one healing. Almost. He was five coins short.

  “I don’t suppose…that is, meaning no offense, sir. But there’s no chance I could get a bulk discount, I suppose?”

  Gul laughed, a deep, rumbling belly laugh. “Would that I could do that. But the goods cost me no less just because you need more of them, I’m afraid.

  “But I’ll tell you what. Do you have anything you want to sell? Maybe we can come to some kind of understanding.”

  Jack nodded vigorously, remembering all the baubles he’d collected in Ieon’s mansion. “As a matter of fact, I do.” He pulled out the various rings and necklaces and pieces he meant to sell.

  In exchange, Gul gave him a generous four hundred and twenty-three gold – four hundred and eighteen, after he’d wrapped up his purchase.

  He might have left then, happy with the trade, except that Gul said, “Oh, and you look like a man who appreciates fine armor and weaponry. I’m a smith, you know. I have some items for sale, and I’m happy to work with you on custom pieces.”

  Jack had three options available to him.

  Do you know anything about raptor armor?

  Have you heard of coconut cannons?

  And,

  Thanks, I’m not interested.

  He chose the first option. Gul nodded vigorously. “Sure. Beautiful birds, those. Their feathers are hard as steel, but light as – well, feathers.”

  He guffawed, and Jack felt a smile at least was obligatory. “Light as feathers. Nice.”

  Gul seemed satisfied with the response. “I can make custom armor for you. Or – since you seem a competent fellow – you can work on my armorer’s bench, if you like. And my anvil and weapons bench too, if you’re so inclined.”

  Jack accepted this offer happily, since it didn’t involve any markups for labor, and the orc pointed him to a workbench in the back.

  The bench in turn gave him a whole slew of options – most of which were unavailable, due to a lack of supplies. He couldn’t craft dragon scale armor, for instance, or goblin hide shields. But he could make standard leather and plate armors – and raptor armor.

  Neither the leather nor the plate armor provided a significant boost to his current stats. The plate armor offered a little more protection but came with a movement penalty due to its weight. And since he didn’t have crafting supplies on hand, each cost upward of two hundred gold to craft, presumably, for the supplies involved. So he passed those by.

  But the raptor armor was another story. Each piece required raptor feathers to complete, and he didn’t have nearly enough for a full set. He didn’t have enough for a chest plate, or a helmet, or vambraces and greaves. In fact, the only thing Jack could make was a pair of boots.

  They would cost two hundred gold for additional supplies, but they offered a +5 armor boost in comparison to his current boots. And much more importantly, they granted a light foot bonus – meaning, he could stuff another twenty-five pounds into his inventory.

  Which, of course, sold Jack. He created the boots and got an XP boost for doing so. He was left with two hundred and eighteen gold, and a single raptor feather.

  Then, he turned his attention to the weapons he could build at Gul’s workstation. Most of them were the same sort of thing he’d run into already: swords and bows and knives, and maces and axes too. But there was one that caught his eye: the coconut cannon.

  Its description read:

  A rapid-fire projectile launcher designed for coconuts. Sustainable, environmentally friendly ammo source. Bonus: get a jump start on marinades for later cooking and consumption of edible opponents. Mmm – coconut pork!

  Jack didn’t have any coconuts left. But that description was too good to pass up. So he forked over the one hundred and seventy-five gold necessary to build it. Then he slipped on his new boots and headed back to Gul.

  Gul bought his old boots, which was nice, since it added a little more jingle to his chronically jingle-less pockets. Then Jack took a better look at the man’s assorted wares. Among the foodstuff, he found what he was looking for: coconuts.

  He bought as many as he could afford, which left him with ten coconuts and three gold pieces. Jack left the shop grinning ear-to-ear, cradling his mini-cannon in his arms. He glanced around the town, looking for anything that might make a good target. He wasn’t particularly picky about what good target entailed, either – it just needed to be something he could aim at, and he wouldn’t get in trouble for shooting once or twice.

  Sure, it would be a waste of his limited ammo. But there was no way in hell he was going to hold off on firing an actual coconut launcher until he needed to. He’d be lucky, he figured, if he could restrain himself to a single test shot.

  He was still searching for the right target when Er’c said, “We should return, Jack. My dad needs his ovens back.”

  “Right,” Jack said. “Just a minute. I need to find something to shoot.”

  “Shoot? Why?”

  “Well, to test this.”

  “Ah, I see. Well, perhaps we can test it later, once the ovens are operational.”

  “Don’t be such a wet blanket, Er’c. I have a coconut cannon here. I need to shoot something.”

  The young man nodded, but he didn’t quite lose the skeptical air. “As you see fit, of course, Sir Jack.”

  The problem was, Jack didn’t see anything to shoot. There were a few chickens running around, and a goat grazing in a far pasture. Jack would never harm an actual animal in real life. His principles about violence towards animals were not so firm to prevent him from eating animals. But he didn’t hunt (outside of videogames), and he didn’t like to think about where meat came from. He looked forward to the day when Star Trek’s replicators were a reality, and energy could be converted to whatever matter was needed.

  Forget flying cars or teleportation or deep space flight. No, as far as Jack was concerned, replicators would be the real holy grail of technology. They’d resolve the issue of world hunger while also eliminating the need to raise animals for food, which in turn would vastly reduce human environmental impacts overall. If sliced bread and the printing press had a lovechild, rep
licators would be it.

  But that would be some day in the future. In the meantime, Jack would keep doing what he had to. He just wouldn’t think too long or hard about it. Because he didn’t want to think about things he couldn’t bring himself to do, like killing an animal, even if he could convince himself to eat the end result. He’d never in a million years take potshots at a real chicken or a real goat, or anything else.

  But these chickens and goats were just bits, zeroes and ones, and nothing more or less. And in lieu of any more worthy targets, well… He grinned and lifted the cannon, lining his eye up with the sights and training it on one of the fowls. He grinned ear to ear like a proper sociopath, his finger hovering over the trigger. “Nothing like a little coconut chicken.”

  Then, he froze. A sound like a scream rolled down from the mountains, high and shrill. “Uh…what the fruitcake?” He didn’t even notice the word substitution. He was too busy scanning the horizon, looking for the source of that bloodcurdling scream.

  Meanwhile, Er’c drew a small dagger. “Oh no. It’s goblins, Sir Jack: goblins from the mountains.”

  “There’s…goblins in these mountains?” It seemed like the sort of information Migli, or Ieon, or even Fafnir could have supplied before sending him blindly into the damned things.

  Er’c ignored his question, pointing to a distant horde of small, dark green bodies swarming down the foothills. “Take cover. We must find a place to hide, and lock ourselves away, or they’ll carry us off and eat us.”

  Jack snorted. “Like heather.” Today was the chicken’s lucky day. He’d been looking for something to test his new weapon against, and the goblins had just swarmed in and saved its life. He grinned again, and figured he probably looked just as much like a sociopath as before; but he raised the sight so that it lined up in the center of the swarm. Then, he pulled the trigger.

  A sound somewhere between an explosion and a geyser eruption followed. The force almost knocked Jack off his feet. Puffs of smoke – or was it steam? – rose from the cannon barrel. And the coconut?