Rise of the Crimson Order: A Crematoria Online LitRPG Novel

by Matthew J. Barbeler

  James turned around with a grin on his face, barely able to contain his amusement. "Are you okay? Did you skip breakfast this morning? I wouldn't eat those garbage scraps if I were you."

  "The only thing I've had to eat since arriving in Eldin are the jam and cream scones back at Langdon Specialist Investigations."

  James held a hand up in front of me. "LSI. Not Langdon Specialist Investigations. That's a mouthful. Just call us LSI."

  "Oh, sure. LSI. I'll remember that. Yeah, it was a bit of a mouthful wasn't it?"

  "I've got some snacks that I can share with you if you need something. Just remember that solving cases in Eldin is hard work. You need to make sure that you always have some kind of sustenance with you. You never know when you going to get trapped in a situation where your next meal is days away."

  "In the city? Really?"

  James grinned. "Sure. We've only just scratched the surface."

  His tone inferred a joke that I wasn't yet in on, but I found myself laughing awkwardly anyway.

  A message appeared at the bottom of my view.

  You are now hungry. Your health regeneration rate has been reduced by 10%. A snack will tide you over and restore your health regeneration rate to 100%, but a hearty meal will sate your hunger, and provide you with a useful well-fed buff.

  That was all well and good, but I didn't have anything that would be classified as a hearty meal on me. I doubted that whatever snacks James had with him would be considered a hearty meal either. Whenever we managed to get out of these damned sewers, I would need to find somewhere to have a decent meal. It was strange that even with all the incredibly dynamic and emergent systems that existed within Crematoria Online, it seemed as though hunger was expressed in almost exactly the same way that it was in the real world.

  When my avatar's body felt hungry, I felt hungry. I felt that emptiness in my stomach, and the slight queasiness that came with it. That must have been why my mouth had watered when we passed through the kitchens.

  The kitchens!

  I put a hand in my pocket and took out the small, sweet cake I'd taken from the kitchens. I lifted it to my lips and bit into it. It tasted like honey and cinnamon, and I'd made short work of it in a couple of bites.

  I chewed, then swallowed, and another message appeared at the bottom of my view.

  You have eaten a snack.

  You are no longer hungry.

  The debuff disappeared, which meant that my health regeneration rate had returned to normal. I made a note to ensure that whenever I got back topside, I would pick up some portable food to take with me on any future adventures. I couldn't risk getting into a situation where my health regeneration was affected by hunger.

  "Come on," James said. "We're not far away now."

  Some kind of path-finding or tracking spell would have been super handy traipsing through those sewer tunnels. They didn't follow any kind of predictable pattern, but James seemed to know exactly where to go. That made sense though; he'd been here before. Years ago, but still, he'd been here. If you dropped me in the middle of New York, I'd be able to tell you exactly how to get to all the important places that I'd been to as a kid too.

  The sounds of the sewers unnerved me. Echoes of movement seemed to come from all around us, but we hadn't yet spied anything in the tunnels with us, and I think that was scarier. Whatever was out there could stay hidden if it wanted to.

  We came to a star-shaped junction of converging slop and James didn't even take a moment to consider the direction in which he chose. He led us straight up one of the paths leading to the left. I had gotten myself so turned around that I couldn't tell whether that was leading us north, east, south or west. The waste was accumulated down this path, and there were signs of scavengers. Paths had been tracked through the muck. Anything that could be eaten had been found and consumed. Moist rags covered in dark substances were everywhere. Whether it was shit or blood, I couldn't tell, but the smell made me feel sick.

  James turned into a doorway, and adrenaline flooded through me as I saw it.

  On the wall at the other end of this new chamber was a symbol identical to the one in John Byrne's cell. The inner circle and the six incomplete triangles facing inward. Jagged and menacing.

  There was movement in the trash piles. They shifted as something crawled underneath the surface.

  "There's something here," I said.

  "Get ready, kid. Things are about to get nasty." James drew his sword, a rapier with a piercing tip and an ornate hand guard. It was the kind of weapon you used against another person in a duel, not the kind of weapon you'd kill sewer monsters with. I drew my sword too. It was the same crappy longsword I had started the game with. Common quality. I hadn't actually used it yet, but that would soon change.

  An enormous cockroach launched itself out of a nearby trash pile. I recoiled at the sight of it. Two more giant cockroaches exploded from other trash piles in the room, and suddenly James and I were being attacked from all sides.

  Panic set in as two of the gigantic cockroaches scuttled across the room towards me. Their claw-tipped legs left a wake in the garbage like a passing boat. Their mandibles chittered furiously. I swung my sword at them wildly, realizing too late that I had no idea what I was doing. A couple of the hits connected, but one of the giant roaches managed to chomp down on my ankle. I screamed out in pain as I saw my health drop. Two on one? This wasn't a very fair fight. At least when I helped Ellie fight off those two hoodlums in the alley back in Banshee Cross, it was a fair fight. Two versus two.

  I wasn't a powerhouse class like an Enforcer so I would have to fight smarter. The cockroach with my ankle in its mouth seemed content to just hold on like a bulldog, so I focused on keeping the other one at bay. I felt like I was just flailing wildly at the thing, which probably wasn't far from the truth. I just had no idea what I was doing. I kept seeing notifications pop up at the bottom of my view. My secondary attribute Swordsmanship ticked upward at a pleasant rate. As it rose, I felt like I could really feel it influencing my combat abilities. More of my hits were connecting and the gouges in the giant cockroach's chitin were getting deeper.

  My HP was steadily dropping, and it was almost down to 50%. Two debuffs appeared in my view. Bleeding and Immobilized. That damn roach that had latched onto my ankle was responsible for both. I was taking health damage at a constant rate and couldn't move while the damned thing was chomping down on my leg. I shouldn't have been focusing on keeping the other one at bay. I should have been focusing on killing the damn roach that had my leg in its mouth.

  Across the room, I saw James drive the tip of his rapier through the mouth of the giant cockroach, which shuddered as it died.

  "A little help over here!" I shouted.

  James bounded across the trash heap and took the attention of the roach that I'd been keeping at bay. That let me focus on the damned thing that was keeping me immobilized. I slashed my sword downward, but the angle didn't let me do much damage. I could see that showed how much damage I was doing to these enemies, and from the looks of it I would have to inflict killing damage on these monsters for them to die. It wasn't just a matter of bringing an invisible health bar down to zero.

  I took the hilt of my sword in both hands and slammed the tip into the giant roach's thorax. That wasn't enough to kill the damned thing. It just bit down harder on my ankle as my health kept dwindling. I pulled the sword back out and jammed it back into the thing's thorax once, twice, and then a third time. As I worked the blade back and forth, something within the cockroach gave way, and the thing finally let go.

  My health was at 10% and still dropping. The Bleeding debuff was whittled away at my health.

  "I'm hurt bad," I said as the strength left me. I fell back and landed hard. I had gained some experience points, and my Swordsmanship secondary skill increased a couple of times during the fight.

  James rushed over to me and looked down at my ankle. "Goliath Cockroaches are no joke, kid. You should be dead. H
ere, take this."

  A vial filled with green liquid appeared in his hand, and I took it. An information panel hovered in front of it.

  Regeneration Potion

  Increases healing regeneration rate by 300%

  Heals flesh wounds

  I lifted the vial to my mouth and drank it down. Cold flooded through me, followed by a pleasant warmth. It was almost like plunging into a cold lake on a hot summer day. White shocks of bone and tendon shone through the ribbons of meat and slowly disappeared as the flesh knit together.

  If that Goliath Cockroach had held on for only a moment or two more, I would have been dead for sure. It was interesting that this potion didn't actually heal you immediately - it just increased your healing rate by a significant percentage.

  "Regeneration Potions aren't cheap, but I'd highly recommend taking them with you into danger from now on," James said. "They don't leave scars. If you heal the old-fashioned way, well, let's just say you might come out of it looking a lot less pretty."

  I got back to my feet and dusted as much of the wet trash off my ratty old suit as I could.

  "Ugh, I'm sorry. I'm not going to smell great from here on in," I said.

  "It all blends in down here, kid. Don't worry about it. What we need to worry about is that." James pointed at the symbol waiting for us on the wall.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Bleed

  "So, what's your theory?" James asked.

  "We need some more information first. Let's check this place over for clues," I said.

  James nodded. "Let's get to it then."

  I activated my Find Clues ability and looked around the crime scene for anything wreathed in purple haze. The symbol on the wall was obviously highlighted, but there were also a number of other things highlighted as potential clues that I hadn't noticed.

  The muck directly beneath the symbol contained a partial footprint. I knelt next to it and inspected it further. The print was small, probably belonging to John Byrne. It was barefoot, so he wasn't wearing shoes. Strangely, the footprints seemed to begin facing away from the wall. He hadn't stood in front of the wall and painted the symbol in his own blood as he had done above. Someone had been waiting for him.

  Another pair of shoeless footprints moved with the child-sized footprints away from the symbol and towards the entryway. They had walked together, side by side. The child-sized footprints, the second set of footprints and the second symbol were all recorded in my Investigations Journal.

  A notification appeared.

  Crime scene investigation completed. You have gained 200 experience points!

  I glanced down and my experience points bar materialized. 200xp wasn't enough to hit the next level, but I was now very close to Level 3. With only three new clues, I decided to activate my Deduce ability right away.

  A recreation of the scene formed in front of me. A ghostly figure walked through the entryway, past me, and stopped below the waste grate. Based on the pattern of the footprints below the waste removal grate, I could tell that the person there had spent some time there before moving on. They shuffled back and forth and stayed in one place longer than the other prints. They had sunken deeper into the muck.

  Then the ghostly form moved on to the wall and painted that terrible sigil with their blood. There wasn't a single drop of blood highlighted by the Find Clues ability, so the person must have been prepared. The ghostly figure stepped to the side once the symbol was complete, and a smaller figure appeared next to it. A child-sized figure. John Byrne's apparition walked out of the stone wall. Together, they left the room at a jog.

  The room returned to normal.

  "Our missing kid came through that wall," I said, pointing at the symbol.

  James nodded slowly. "I came to the same conclusion. Are you certain?"

  "Yes. Look at the footprints by the wall. He didn't appear there stationary, did he? No. He walked out of the wall already moving. Someone was waiting for him, and they left together."

  "Excellent. Edwin has done well to recruit you," James said.

  "Was that a compliment?" I asked, dubious.

  "Yes. You should learn to accept those."

  "Oh, I do. I just didn't expect it from you."

  "Low expectations are often a good thing. Expect the worst and you'll be constantly amazed at how wonderful everything is. Expect the best and you'll spend your life disappointed."

  "You're not wrong," I said.

  I looked back at the symbol drawn on the wall. When I saw the strange symbol in the cell above, I got the feeling that I knew it, but I was sure that I hadn't seen it before. How was it possible that it seemed familiar, then?

  Then the penny dropped. Ellie, the other player I'd met when I first arrived in Banshee Cross! She said that she was on the hunt for a symbol which looked a little bit like a snowflake with a circle in the center, and strange lines jutting off in all different directions.

  "I ran into someone earlier in Banshee Cross who said that she was trying to track down a symbol like this," I said. "She was a new recruit in the Eldin Judiciary, and she said that there had been a killing where the wound resembled the symbol drawn on the walls here."

  "A wound?" James asked, then his face lit up with realization. "Aha! I can see it now! I still don't know what the symbol means, but now I have a pretty good idea about what it is. It's a set of jaws! You see? The circle in the center there is the opening to the throat, and the inward facing triangles are all teeth!"

  "I've never seen anything with a jaw like this," I said.

  "Nor have I, but a weapon doesn't leave a wound that shape. Except maybe some kind of elaborate torture device. I'm sure there is something out there with a mouth like this, and somehow that creature is linked to the disappearance of John Byrne. What did you say the recruit's name was? Where can we find her?"

  "She works all over Eldin. I did tell her that I was starting a job with LSI and that I would help her out if I could. She might come to find me, but I can't be sure."

  "That's unfortunate. If she approaches LSI, they have no idea we're down here. It sounds like we need her."

  A yip sounded in the distance, like a dog being surprised. Then, heavy footfalls from the corridor outside the room. Someone was running away from something. A jabbering, chittering noise came behind those footfalls, followed by animalistic snarling.

  "Do you hear that?" James asked.

  "Yeah, I hear it. Should we be ready for another fight?"

  "Absolutely! It sounds like roach hounds! This is the last thing we need."

  "What the hell is a roach hound?"

  "Exactly what it sounds like, kid. Half roach, half hound, all nasty and afflicted by The Bleed. There was a sizable colony that lived down here in the sewers a while ago, feasting on scraps and unlucky vagrants. The Emperor sent his soldiers down here to clean them out, but they mustn't have gotten them all. Roach hounds are well armored, and vicious. If there are only a couple, I think we should be okay, but if there are any more than three, I think we might be in trouble."

  The noise continued to get closer, and I was sure I could hear someone in armor being chased. If someone was in danger, it was our duty to help. A person wearing steel armor with blue trim, the uniform of the Eldin Judiciary, appeared in the doorway. She held a shield in one hand and a hammer in the other.

  "Ellie?" I asked, dumbfounded.

  "Don't just stand there! They're right on my heels!" Ellie shouted as she burst into the room.

  There was a pack of Roach Hounds right on her tail. They thundered into the room. They were even more horrifying than anything I could have imagined. A flurry of insectile legs, wings and mandibles mashed together with canine biology rushed in and immediately went on the attack.

  "Try not to get bitten, kid. These filthy creatures live in the most putrid parts of the sewers. Their bites carry all manner of diseases!" James said.

  Roach hounds. Disgusting. They were covered in thick chitinous armor, but with night
mare mouths and a stink like carrion.

  Ellie turned to face the monsters and shouted a challenge. "Come on, you filthy beasts! Let's end this!"

  A message appeared in the bottom of my view.

  Buff received

  Courageous Shout

  10% attack speed increase

  10% damage increase

  Strength surged through my body from Ellie's Courageous Shout.

  She met the roach hounds head on. She had a bigger, bulkier shield than when I had first met her, which provided more protection than before. Her hammer was the same, but she wielded it with a graceful strength that made it look like she'd been fighting with it for years. She brought the hammer down on one of the roach hound's heads, and it staggered backward, stunned. She followed it up with a charge forward, and a killing blow. The roach hound's white brain-meat oozed out of its cracked face.

  The ravenous abominations chittered maddeningly as they swarmed around us.

  I lashed out with my longsword at an approaching roach hound and was shocked that the blow glanced off the creature's armor, doing no discernible damage.

  "What the hell?" I asked, frustrated.

  "Slashing won't work!" Ellie shouted. "Plus, you can't bludgeon them like I can, so use your sword to pierce their armor!"

  I didn't have access to my Expose Weakness or Precision Strike abilities yet, and I found myself at a serious disadvantage.

  "Fight like your life depends on it, Lucas!" Ellie shouted back towards me as she flung her hammer at one of the roach hounds. The hammer crunched into the beast's side, sending it sprawling back into a pile of muck.

  Instead of trying to use my sword to slash, I tried to thrust it forward in a piercing motion. It was a lot more difficult than slashing wildly. The first thrust missed the target, but the second hit home. My longsword sunk between the armored plates.

  The roach hound shrieked as the tip of my sword sunk into its stinking flesh. The monster's insides were a grotesque marbled combination of white insect meat and red mammalian muscle. It really was like someone had just smooshed two disparate creatures together.