This Class is Bonkers! (This Trilogy is Broken (A Comedy Litrpg Adventure) Book 2)

by J. P. Valentine

  Eve was going to give them a show.

  Her semifinal opponent, Dale Ironleaf, was not among the list of competitors she considered a threat. As Arbiter of Echoes, his was the only Mythic class in the tournament, but his interesting brand of utility-based sound magic, while powerful, couldn’t kill quickly.

  Eve pumped her Strength up to ten thousand—enough to hurt herself without Defiant Charge’s Constitution boost—and Jetted in for the kill.

  This time, when her club struck the impenetrable barrier of Divine Intervention, Eve kept a hold of her weapon.

  “Victor: Evelia Greene!”

  Dale didn’t protest. He didn’t cry ramtshit or insult Finch or the Archbishop. He simply nodded, accepted his defeat, and left the arena.

  Eve was through to the finals.

  Coming from the loser’s bracket, she’d have to win twice in a row against the knife-throwing Fenn Lucenia-Henthis, but she had a full week to prepare. Dodging knives was a lot easier to practice than surviving a hit from Eve’s griffin-bone.

  As she made her exit through the coliseum’s twisting bowels, Eve allowed herself to smile. Roric’s training had finally paid off! Sure, it had just been learning how to properly grip a weapon that had allowed her to keep hold of her club after she had already won, but it was something. If there had been a second enemy waiting for her, perhaps not losing her club might’ve saved her life.

  Eve clung to the proof, however little, that her efforts in the practice yard were paying off. More than that, with the finals looming, the end to the Proving Grounds was in sight. One more week, two more fights, and she could finally embark on the next adventure.

  She was so close.

  Eve accepted the curious looks and the chorus of whispers that followed her as she weaved her way through the busy streets back to the palace. They could gawk all they liked. Soon enough, Eve would be leaving Pyrindel behind to be the Dragonwrought’s first new recruit in over a decade. She could hardly wait.

  They were waiting for her at the palace gates.

  A dozen queensguards, each equipped head to toe in enchanted armor that glimmered silver in the afternoon sun, stood between her and the palace, their fingers resting at the stasis enchantments on their belts. At their head was a gray-haired man Eve didn’t recognize, his own shimmering breastplate adorned with more medals than she could count.

  “Evelia Greene,” he greeted her with stern disdain in his voice. “Please come with me.”

  Eve didn’t move. “What’s going on?”

  “You’re under investigation for criminal espionage against the kingdom of Leshk and her people. Your companions are already in custody. Now I repeat, Evelia Greene, please come with me.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  I Spy

  SHIT. EVE’S MIND raced. Shit shit shit shit shit. It wasn’t the most productive line of thinking. She stalled for time. “What’s this about?”

  The uniformed man pulled a notepad from his pocket. “We have it on good authority from sources high up in the Leshkian Adventurer’s Guild that you first joined the guild as a human Striker from…” He checked his notes. “Nowherested.”

  “That bitch,” Eve cursed just loud enough for the guards to flinch. “This is all a misunderstanding,” she tried. “The guild clerk has hated me since day one. She’s clearly trying to—”

  “You can say your piece when we get you in front of a Trueseer,” the official interrupted. He didn’t ask her to follow him again, simply gesturing towards the palace.

  For a moment, Eve thought about running. Defiant Body gave her a resistance to immobilizing effects, and she was fairly certain the stasis enchantment most guards carried qualified as immobilizing. All she’d need to do would be to Jet backwards and Charge away and she could be out of Pyrindel before they even knew what had happened.

  Of course that would leave her a fugitive of the eastern fields with no supplies, no contacts, and no money save for the two copper pieces that never left her pocket. None of that mattered, though. They had her companions.

  She couldn’t break them out, not without three hells of a lot more power than she had at the moment. Maybe if she could leave to go fight dragons for a few months, but there was no telling what might happen to them in that time. Preston had reminded her enough times of how Leshk treated spies and traitors.

  Eve cursed for a third time. No matter how she thought about it, her best bet was to play along and hope Emily could help her. “Alright,” she eventually said. “Let’s go.”

  The platoon of guards formed a semicircle behind her as the silver-haired gentleman led the way forward. It didn’t escape Eve’s notice that not a one of them removed their fingers from their stasis enchantments. She didn’t bother to tell them the futility of the countermeasure.

  After a few minutes of walking in silence, Eve took the opportunity to try and get into the man’s head. “So who are you?” she asked bluntly. “I don’t think Emily’s ever told me about you.”

  “Who her majesty does and does not discuss is none of my concern.” He remained stony-faced. “You may call me Lestrad. Minister of Internal Defense.”

  Eve blinked. “Internal Defense? What does that even mean?”

  “I deal with threats within our borders. Everything from bandits to insurrectionists to spies that have wriggled their way into places they don’t belong.” His words carried a sharpness to them, as if he sought to slice her open for all to see.

  Eve flashed a grin. “I guess it’s a good thing I’m not a rebel, outlaw, or spy, then.”

  “That remains to be seen.”

  Eve kept the surprise from her face as he led her not to some guard outpost or prison building but into the palace itself. They took her through the servant’s passages, down tight stairways and through narrow halls, deep into the bowels of the royal palace, only to end up in a torchlit room with a simple wooden table and chairs on one side and an iron-barred cell on the other.

  “Eve!” Wes jumped to his feet, pressing himself against the bars. “What happened?”

  “Quiet!” a guard barked.

  They stripped her of her weapons and armor, stowing them in a chest just outside the cell.

  “Our Trueseer is on loan to a local noble for the next two days,” Lestrad explained. “We’re to keep you in custody until then.”

  “What about the tournament?” Eve asked. “The finals are in a week, how am I supposed to prepare from a holding cell?”

  “The Proving Grounds are the least of your worries,” he snapped. “I’ll be speaking to Minister Finch about your immediate disqualification. According to our source, you lied about your class on your registration papers.”

  “That’s bullshit! You can’t disqualify me based on the word of that…” Eve trailed off as she noticed the flashing notification in the corner of her vision.

  Legendary Quest Milestone Reached: Exit the Arena!

  +256000 exp!

  “Gods damnit.”

  Lestrad raised an eyebrow. “If I were you, I’d spend this time working on your defense, not that it will help you. The truth will out one way or another.”

  The cell door swung open silently. Eve stepped in of her own volition rather than giving the guards a reason to manhandle her. It shut behind her with an echoing thunk.

  “I hope, for both our sakes, that you’re speaking the truth and this is all unwarranted,” Lestrad offered. “But I would be negligent in my duties if I didn’t treat these accusations with the utmost caution.” With that, he and his men unceremoniously departed, leaving a pair of guards on watch.

  Eve turned to Preston with a sigh. “Don’t say it.”

  “Don’t say what? Don’t say ‘I told you so?’ Don’t say that this whole idea was terrible from the start?” He exhaled. “I saw the way you paused there. You got a milestone for this, didn’t you?”

  Eve nodded.

  Wes sat down at Preston’s side, leaning against the back wall. “Well, at least we know we’
re supposed to be here.”

  Preston snorted. “Just like we knew we were supposed to be at the palace? This is all assuming the Stones aren’t making up Eve’s milestones as she goes along.”

  Eve moved to sit across the cell from the couple, putting Reginald and Art between them. “We’re not entirely fucked. A Trueseer will tell them I’m no Emissary, but he should also be able to prove I’m not a spy either.”

  “Which would only help if lying about being an Emissary weren’t a crime itself.”

  Eve shrugged. “Sure, but it isn’t espionage or insurrection or anything major. It’s the kind of thing Emily might be able to get us out of.”

  Preston scowled. “Yes, because the queen is going to pardon you after you spent two months lying to her face.”

  “Could you stop that?” Eve snapped at him. “I’m trying to think of a way out of this—I don’t need you shutting everything down with negativity.”

  Silence hung in the air for eternal seconds before Preston finally sighed. “I’m sorry. I just don’t like depending on your relationship with Queen Elric to save our necks.”

  “We could always break out,” Wes whispered just quietly enough to avoid alerting the guards.

  Eve paused. “Do I even want to know how enchanted these bars are?”

  “I can burn them.”

  Eve rubbed her temples. “Wes, you can’t solve every problem with fire.”

  “Why not? It worked in the Dead Fields, didn’t it?”

  “Because burning through enchanted iron in an enclosed, poorly ventilated space is a quick way to suffocate?” Eve was beginning to understand Preston’s frustration. “Not to mention that you need time to get through that much metal, and I’d rather not fight through the entire royal guard.”

  “I’d also prefer if you’d refrain from murdering any of my household,” a stern yet feminine voice filled the room.

  “Your Majesty!” Both guards leapt to attention.

  “Sit down,” the queen ordered. She stepped into the room, flanked by two tray-carrying servants.

  Eve jumped to her feet. “Emily! You have to understand, I—”

  The queen cut her off. “Lestrad informs me you represent an espionage threat to the kingdom of Leshk. He tells me I’m not to speak with you. Fortunately, I don’t take orders from my ministers.”

  Eve tried to make her case. “I know it sounds bad, but the clerk—”

  “That said,” Emily interrupted again, “I don’t ignore their advice, either.” She nodded to the guards and the servants, prompting the former to open the cell for the latter to deposit their silver trays on the cold stone floor. “I’m here because I counted you as a friend, and until I hear the Trueseer’s word one way or the other, I’d like to grant you what comforts I can.”

  The servants removed the coverings from the two trays, revealing a meal of fruit and meat fit for a king.

  Eve looked Emily in the eye as the valets left and the guards resealed the cell. “I hope we can still be friends once this is over.”

  “Your hope means little. Either you are my friend, or you aren’t. Friends don’t lie to each other. The Trueseer will tell. Much as I wish to hear that you speak the truth, I cannot allow outsiders to infiltrate my domain under false pretenses.” There was a hardness to the words that clashed with the girlish warmth Eve had always known from Emily. She prayed they didn’t come easy.

  “I understand.” Eve bowed her head. “Thank you.”

  “But know this.” Emily’s voice grated through the air. “If the Trueseer reveals you have been lying to me and to the realm this entire time, whatever your reason, I will not hesitate to see you executed.”

  Eve’s eyes shot open. “Exe—what? I’m your friend!”

  Emily’s glare cut her off. “I have laws to uphold. Whatever truth residing behind the lies you’ve told has no bearing on my duty to the security of the realm.”

  “But—”

  “Goodbye, Evelia.”

  The queen’s gaze lingered for a moment on Eve, stripped of her armor and locked behind bars. Eve thought she saw a glimmer of sorrow in those eyes, a spark of yearning behind the icy wall Queen Elric kept, but an awful voice at the back of her mind whispered it was but wishful thinking.

  With a long blink and slight nod, Emily turned and made her exit.

  “Well that went well,” Wes said through a mouth full of roast pork. “She sure as hells isn’t gonna save us, but I’ll take free food as a consolation prize.”

  “What’s in there?” Preston gestured to an ornate silver flask that sat nestled between two apples.

  Eve grabbed it, unscrewing the top to lift it to her nose. Sweetness met her. “Brandy.” She put the flask down. “It’s what we drank the night I first met her.”

  “If that’s not proof she still cares about you,” Wes offered, “I don’t know what is.”

  “Or she’s hedging against the possibility I’m innocent.”

  “If they thought there was a possibility you’re innocent, we wouldn’t be in this cell,” Preston argued. “They just don’t know what exactly you’re guilty of.”

  I’m bored! Art exclaimed, his own comment unimpeded by the talonful of grapes in his mouth. Can we get back to the game?

  Eve raised an eyebrow. “What game?”

  Wes grinned. “When they brought us in, that minister guy said it was for criminal espionage. Then we had to explain to Art what espionage is, which led to explaining what a spy is, which led to us teaching him how to play I Spy.”

  “H-how did you get from espionage to I Spy?”

  “That’s not what matters,” Wes said. “What matters is that Art is a filthy cheater.”

  Am not! I’m just good at it!

  “It’s hard to play a guessing game with someone who can read minds,” Preston explained.

  Eve allowed herself a tight smile, grateful for the distraction if nothing else. “Let me try. I spy with my little eye… something brown.”

  The guard’s keys! Art practically shouted in her head.

  “What?” Wes protested. "The keys aren’t even brown, they’re bronze.”

  Eve shrugged. “Yeah, but he’s right.”

  “Great,” Wes sighed, “now both Art and Eve are cheating.”

  My turn! Art blew right past Wes’s accusation. I spy with my little eye… He trailed off, not actually ready to take his turn yet. Let me think…

  From the gloom of the back corner of the cell, a grizzly voice rang out. “I spy with my little eye, something sneaky.”

  Eve leapt to her feet, adrenaline rushing through her veins as she turned to confront the source of the noise. Even as her manaheart eyes cast their white glow into space, the figure there remained shrouded in darkness. “Who are you? How did you get here?”

  “What? Giving up on the game so quickly?”

  Wes rolled his eyes, not extinguishing the handful of fire he held up. “Are you the something sneaky?”

  “Bingo.” The man’s voice—Eve thought it was a man—had a rough hiss to it, as if he elongated his vowels just to force more grizzle into the words. He extended an arm, holding a small envelope in his gloved hand. “I have a shadowgram for Evelia Greene.”

  Eve took the sealed missive. “What’s a shadowgram? How did you find me? How are you here?”

  The messenger didn’t reply. He simply took a step back, further into the impossible shadows in the corner of the cell. Eve blinked, and he was gone.

  “Well that was fucking weird.” Wes didn’t hesitate to give his read on the event. “Anyone heard of a shadowgram before?”

  Preston looked up at Eve. “What’s it say?”

  She was already reading.

  Evelia Greene,

  Tales of your exploits have reached us even here, as have those of your failures. Should you find a way to escape the tyrant’s service come the tournament’s end, we hereby invite you to trial for a place in our ranks.

  Your first test shall be the simples
t: Come to us. Our hold lies along the barrier between man and beast. May you survive your journey.

  -Valya Hest, Chair of the Dragonwrought War Council

  “It’s from the Dragonwrought,” Eve muttered. “They’re offering me a trial.”

  Wes perked up. “Can they get us out of here? They’ve gotta have some sway.”

  She handed Preston the missive. “I get the impression they don’t even know we’re in here. How their messenger did is beyond me.”

  “Or they do know we’re here,” Preston said as he read and reread the shadowgram, “and they explicitly want you to break out on your own. It says getting to them is the first test. I suppose that includes escaping.”

  “Shit,” Wes cursed. “There’s one less way out of this mess.”

  “I’m calling it good news,” Eve argued. “We came here to get the Dragonwrought’s attention, and now we have it.”

  “That’s not the only reason we came to Pyrindel,” Wes said.

  “Sure, but it’s the only one left.” She took the folded parchment back and waved it in the air. “You’ve signed with a company, Preston tried—and failed—to find a lead on Art’s father, and I’ve got this. We’ve done everything we needed to do in Pyrindel.”

  Preston looked up at Eve, then right to the enchanted iron bars keeping them captive, then back up at Eve. “All but one thing.”

  “Right.” A sly grin stretched across Eve’s face. “Now we just need to break out of prison.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Stumble Free

  A FEW HOURS later, when only scraps remained on the two silver trays, the team returned to their brainstorming.

  “So what if we wait for whenever they next bring in food, and then jump the guards?” Eve offered.

  “That’s exactly when they’ll be expecting us to try something,” Preston countered.

  “But they won’t expect me to be able to escape their stasis enchantments,” Eve whispered back.

  “Assuming you even can. That’s not something we’ve tested.”