Vault of the Magi: A LitRPG Adventure (Stonehaven League Book 5)

by Carrie Summers

  “You’ve done so much for me,” Devon said. “How could I not want to help?”

  “Thank you, child. Sincerely. And if you really want to hear, I’ll tell you. But first, I’m surprised you haven’t asked about the more mundane potion lines…after all, the main reason I sent Hazel on a search for ingredients was because I’d run out of components for the potions I made from substances collected in the jungle.” Hezbek smirked. “Maybe part of your mind doesn’t want to know…the part which processes taste.”

  Devon grimaced. The truth was, for her first weeks in the game, she’d done everything she could to avoid consuming Hezbek’s revoltingly unpalatable health and mana potions. Death—especially when the penalty had been milder—seemed preferable than gagging on one of the godawful concoctions.

  Laughing, Hezbek reached for a pair of small stoppered bottles on the shelf overhanging the table.

  You have received: Savanna Health Potion - Mid

  Heals 259-318 damage.

  You have received: Savanna Mana Potion - Minor

  Restores 179-187 mana.

  The woman smiled, her face crinkling. “Made from boiled acacia bark, termite larvae, witchtuber, and cichlid fins in different ratios. Plus some orchid sap for the mana potion. Hazel has been helping me stockpile the components, so I can make as many as Stonehaven is likely to need. In fact, making more will help me figure out the recipes for the higher tiers.”

  Keeping the mana potion at the end of her outstretched arms to distance herself from the smell, Devon worked the cork free. To her surprise, she wasn’t immediately assaulted by the stench. Gingerly, she brought the bottle under her nose and sniffed.

  “Actually, it’s…”

  “Not too bad, right?” Hezbek said, looking pleased.

  “How’s the taste?”

  “A little bitter. I suspect it’s the bark. But I realized that my foul-tasting medicines weren’t discouraging you adventurers from taking risks and getting hurt. It only made you less likely to heal yourselves.”

  Devon smirked. “Guilty as charged.” She nestled the set of new potions into her satchel and saw her inventory icon flash to indicate changes. “When you finish making the rest of the Phoenix Spirit and Lightfooted potions, I’d love if you could create a stockpile of the Savanna potions. I have a feeling we may need them soon.” Devon again thought of the massing demon army. “But back to you…if you feel like sharing, that is.”

  Hezbek grunted quietly while she shifted in her chair and leaned her walking staff against the wall. “I said I had a couple of regrets, but really it all goes back to Eldon and the Cragscale Wars. Almost forty years ago now. You sure you want to hear such ancient history?”

  “Yes, and I’m not leaving your cabin until you tell me.”

  Hezbek chuckled. “Then fix me some tea, and you’ll have the story.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “I WAS YOUNG then,” Hezbek said. “We all were. Rimeshore people. Hardy and stubborn.”

  Devon sat silently beside the medicine woman on the small stoop outside her front door. Between their chairs, a pair of mugs held steaming infusions of an herb that tasted similar to peppermint. Hezbek claimed the tea boosted the spirit, but Devon hadn’t noticed a buff icon or a change in any of her stats, so maybe it was more of a psychological thing.

  “Where’s Rimeshore?” Devon asked when the woman sat back in her chair, eyes tracking Bravlon as he toddled along behind Blackbeard the Parrot, tugging at the bird’s immense tail features.

  Hezbek waved toward the north and east. “A long, long way from here. It’s a mostly empty place…or at least it was in the years I knew it. I haven’t set foot in the shorelands for decades, so I don’t know what changes have happened since I left.”

  Devon wanted to ask more questions. Why did Hezbek leave her home? How far away exactly was Rimeshore? But she picked up her tea and sipped, letting Hezbek tell the story in her own way.

  “It wasn’t the war that led me to sorcery,” Hezbek said. “More accurately, I think, it was sorcery and the combat disciplines chosen by my peers that brought the war to us. We thought we were defending our freedom, keeping our coastal villages answering to no one except maybe Graymist Hold, and only then because we needed some sort of rallying point for our Rimeshore identity. But now I see it differently.”

  As the woman spoke, a notification popped up.

  Congratulations! Stonehaven Hamlet now has a Tailoring Workshop.

  She brushed away the pop-up, though she couldn’t help scanning the parts of the settlement visible from Hezbek’s porch. If she recalled from her recent, yet brief, tour of Prester’s new project, the Tailoring Workshop had been under construction near the rear wall of the kitchen. The area was out of sight from her current vantage, but she did not doubt that Prester would soon seek her out with the news.

  Hezbek chuckled, perhaps noticing the distant look in Devon’s eyes. “Go ahead. Check over whatever it is you need to attend to.”

  Devon smiled at the woman, grateful for her understanding. Prester would also want orders concerning his next major project. Her fingertips tingled with anticipation as she pulled open her interface and scanned down to the tier 4 building tab.

  Tier 4 buildings:

  -Guild Hall - Trade-specific

  A hall of study for the advancement of trades. Individual halls may be built for most crafting professions and are usable by both players and NPCs for advancement.

  Expand for details.

  - Guild Hall - Class-specific

  A hall of study for the advancement of combat classes. Guildmasters for the classes often hear about these dedicated facilities and will journey to a settlement holding one in hopes they'll be granted citizenship.

  Expand for details.

  - University

  Dedicated to the pursuit of general scholarly knowledge. Often results in the discovery of rare information and rumors that can lead to specific quests and awesome loot.

  -Theater

  Popular with bards. Raises town morale by 5-15% depending on the quality of performers.

  She chewed her lip while thinking. The most practical would be a guildhall for one of the crafting trades—with so many NPC tradespeople in town, the hall would be a great benefit for the settlement as a whole.

  But what she would probably do instead was build a university. The promise of rare loot and quests was just so tempting. Besides, building something not directly related to a defense against the demon horde was her way of looking forward to a future where she would have time to go hunt for rare treasure.

  Hezbek was looking at her with an amused smile when Devon dismissed the interface. “So what was it? Another message from the starborn realm?” she asked.

  Devon shook her head. “I just got word that Prester completed one of his projects.”

  “Ah. Well, that’s fine news. And Jarleck recently told me that we have almost everything needed to call our fortifications a castle. Just need a drawbridge and to finish closing the roof over the top of the dungeon.”

  Devon nodded. “The drawbridge is done, actually. Just waiting on the dungeon.” She hadn’t mentioned it to Jarleck, but it did seem stupid to have to dig a hole in the ground and fill it with stone cells and iron bars. They didn’t have anyone to lock up, and if they did, couldn’t they repurpose part of the Inner Keep? But it wasn’t Jarleck’s fault that the game had put the requirement in place. And as soon as the dungeon was finished, the upgrade to the fortification’s classification would give defensive bonuses beyond what the actual structural updates provided. Given the demon threat, Stonehaven needed any added defense she could muster.

  “Anyway, go on,” Devon said. “I’d much rather hear your story than worry about settlement upgrades.”

  Hezbek gave her a wistful smile. “It’s not the most pleasant of tales. I hope you won’t regret asking for it. In any case, the simple story of how I found myself in a band of fig
hters and rebels is that I left home at sixteen. Went to Graymist in search of any job that would spare me a life of digging clams from frigid sand. I met my first mentor there, a level 7 sorceress who had scoured the Hold’s libraries and taught herself almost everything she knew. Avylin. She was probably in her mid-30s, but to my teenage eyes she seemed ancient and wise.” Hezbek snorted. “I studied under her for about a year, working in the Hold’s kitchens to support myself. I was around third level when Eldon arrived at Graymist. He spoke passionately of the greed in the lands over the Cragscale Mountains, of kings and baronesses who had designs on Rimeshore. It didn’t take long for Eldon to gather many of us around him, and that was the start of our army.”

  “So did the outsiders have designs on your homes?” Devon asked.

  Hezbek shrugged. “Maybe. They had certainly built watchtowers beside the roads not just on their side of the mountains, but on ours as well. Those sentry posts were our first targets, and I suspect that if historians ever study events as remote and—to the wider world—insignificant as the Cragscale Wars, they’d certainly conclude that our initial raids were the spark that ignited the conflict.”

  “How long did the war last?”

  “Wars, actually. There were five, though I’d left by the time the fourth began. The first lasted two years and left the mountain settlements on our side of the divide bleeding. The second was longer. Six years, but it felt like twenty. We lost that one, and it’s my fault.”

  Hezbek’s jaw clenched, and Devon didn’t know what to say. Should she console the woman? Try to reassure her that she couldn’t possibly have been her army’s downfall? Instead, Devon swallowed and remained silent, figuring that any attempts at consolation would feel empty and false.

  You have gained a skill point: +1 Leadership

  “We were in council. Me, Eldon, and some of the others who had been in the fight since the beginning. A messenger burst in uninvited, and Eldon nearly drew his blade at the man’s insolence for interrupting. He was hotheaded that way—it was the biggest source of conflict between us.”

  Devon blinked. “Were you…?”

  “Lovers for most of the second war, yes. Sometimes he scared me—his fervor and battle rage most of all—but I believed in him too. It was thrilling to be with someone so close to the center of things.” She shook her head. “Like I said, I was young then.”

  Somewhere behind Hezbek’s cabin, a rowdy cheer went up. It sounded like the dwarves had discovered the new building. No doubt one of the short-legged band was already sprinting to fetch a keg.

  “So what happened?” Devon asked. “In your council.”

  “Eldon’s fury with the messenger naturally put me on edge. I guess I felt like I had to compensate for his anger. I was afraid I’d lose him to his lust for battle, but I was also afraid of where he might lead us. So when the messenger claimed that a raiding party sent by the Grass King had crossed the divide at the Funnel, a narrow pass about a half day's ride to the south, I urged caution. I said we should request a parlay, or at the very least, that we should send scouts to determine whether this was truly a raid before we struck. In the past year, our squads had mistakenly harassed two trade caravans and a party of Veian clergy, killing guards and taking innocent people prisoner before the real situation became clear.”

  “I imagine that made the travelers more likely to increase their guard,” Devon said.

  Hezbek nodded. “Which made it increasingly difficult to distinguish between raiding parties and simple journeyers. In any case, I wasn’t the only one in the leadership circle troubled by Eldon’s behavior. All the others needed was a nudge, so when I spoke against his declaration that we should ride hard and attack swiftly, a majority of our group voted to send scouts ahead of our fighting force.” Hezbek swallowed and blinked, shaking her head slowly. “I suppose they killed the scouts. We never found out. By the time our fighters caught up with the raid, two coastal villages were in smoking ruins, and a third—Eldon’s hometown, Haverton—was under attack.”

  Devon reached across the gap between their chairs and touched Hezbek’s arm. Hezbek smiled faintly. “Thank you, child. As you can imagine, Eldon went into a rage. He plunged into the battle, sword drawn and screaming. And then…” Hezbek’s eyes went distant. “Well, as you can imagine, many followed him into battle. The fighting was brutal. Awful. And then, everything stopped for a moment. There was a blinding white light, and almost every combatant on the field vanished. Forever.”

  “Wait, I don’t understand. Vanished? There was some sort of magic?”

  Hezbek shrugged. “At first we thought it was the act of some sorcerer or wizard on the Grass King’s side, a teleportation spell so powerful that it moved the battle elsewhere. But no missing soldier was ever heard from again—from either side of the conflict. And many scholars studied the site in the years after, looking for residues or signs most commonly associated with the known schools of magic. There was simply nothing. The mystery was never solved.”

  Devon blinked as she processed the information. What could have done that?

  Hezbek sighed. “In any case, the fight went out of us after that, and the Second Cragscale War ended when we conceded to the Grass King’s demands for tariffs on trade through the Cragscales. Enforced by manned garrisons along the major routes through the peaks, of course.”

  “Is that when you gave up sorcery?”

  The corner of Hezbek’s mouth pulled back in an ironic smirk. “If only I’d been so wise then. No…in fact, I think some of Eldon’s spirit took residence in me following his disappearance. Peace held in Rimeshore for maybe a year before the presence of the garrisons and the trade tariffs started to chafe. People were hungry, unable to make a living off salt fish and pearls. Soldiers on leave from the forts harassed the local girls and picked fights with the young men from the coastal villages. I could blame those factors, but the truth is that the Third Cragscale War started when I led a party against a sentry post defending the Funnel.”

  “Awwwk! Land ho! All hands on deck!”

  Devon jumped as the giant bird flapped out from the gap between Hezbek’s cabin and the adjacent home. Her shoulders inched toward her ears as she waited for the parrot’s telepathic complaint. But none came, and moments later, Bravlon came tumbling out from between the buildings. The toddler laughed. Devon looked away when she felt the urge to start cooing at the child. Stupid Adoration spell.

  “Aww hands on deck!” the dwarf child repeated.

  Blackbeard made a strangled sound that sounded almost like a laugh, then crouched down. Squealing, Bravlon grabbed handfuls of feathers and paddled his feet as he clambered onto the bird’s back. Devon tensed, ready to run to the boy’s rescue when he started thumping his feet against the bird’s ribs, but the parrot just spread his wings and started trotting through the grass, squawking.

  Hezbek shook her head. “Hate to be around when that obnoxious bird finally gets his resistance to the Adoration spell up. I imagine he’ll find even more choice spots to fertilize in revenge for us standing by while he acts like a fool.”

  Devon smirked. “You’re probably right. Best if we check for roof leaks before that happens.”

  “Indeed.” Hezbek grimaced.

  “You said you weren’t around for the start of the fourth war. What happened?”

  “It wasn’t so much a single event that ended my interest in fighting. I suspect the weariness was building for a long time before I finally acknowledged it. But I do remember that I woke up one morning and realized that home was leagues and leagues away. We’d pushed the Grass King back over the passes and were raiding settlements on the opposite side of the mountains. We’d been justifying it by claiming that a punishing defeat would make the Grass King rethink any plans to encroach on Rimeshore again. But I knew differently. We’d won, but we were fighting on out of habit and greed. That morning, I packed a bedroll and rucksack and left the war behind.”

  “Did you g
o home?”

  Hezbek shook her head. “There was nothing left for me there except more fighting. Eldon was gone. So were my parents, taken by the lung rattle during a particularly damp winter. I went west, from town to town and city to city, and eventually, some three years later, arrived in Eltera City. I spent decades there, and eventually took up the healing arts.”

  “Is it big? Eltera City?” Devon ran her eyes over the settlement. Nearly every cobblestone footpath had someone walking on it; every day, Jarleck welcomed another refugee or two from the demon attacks that had decimated the city.

  “Not as big or as grand as some cities. But big enough. It was a good place to reinvent myself.”

  “I wish there were more I could do to help you feel better.”

  Hezbek smiled sadly and sipped her tea. “You have, simply by letting me tell the tale. The truth is, I’ve had more than four decades to regret my youthful choices. Some might accuse me of being self-indulgent to keep bemoaning them. And anyway, every time I heal someone, I feel that I am atoning for the past. Even if it’s just helping out a carpenter who smashed her thumb with a hammer.”

  “I’d like to be able to say that life in Stonehaven will always be peaceful. But it would be dishonest after what I saw in the demons’ council chamber. As soon as another general takes command of Raazel’s forces, they’ll head straight for our shores.”

  Hezbek sighed and nodded. “I know, child.”

  “If I can find the last relic in time, I may be able to bring the city’s ancient defenses to bear. But if not…”