Blessed Time: A LitRPG Adventure

by Cale Plamann

  He ran out of time as the animal lunged forward, snapping its jaws closed around Will’s forearm and drawing a shrill and bloodcurdling shriek from him. The Air Knife slashed into the creature’s side, drawing a line of blood and causing it to withdraw and hiss in pain.

  Will grabbed the creature, his now stone hands barely able to wrap around its girth, and squeezed. Frantically, it tried to bite him again, but its teeth were unable to find purchase in his heavy rock skin. Sarah slid forward, a frown on her delicate face as she held a nocked arrow half-drawn, waiting for an opening to shoot the snake grappling her party member.

  Micah turned to the other snake just in time to see Jo pirouette out of the way, her body dancing past the lunging snake as a blade cut a line through its scales. For a moment, he couldn’t help but marvel at her fluid grace and the ease with which she narrowly dodged the attack. Behind her, Drekt brought his cleaver down on the overextended reptile, cutting it in twain with an angry bellow.

  Instantly, Micah felt the warm buzz that indicated an earned point of attunement. Returning his attention to the first snake, his eyes widened as he watched Will scream and clench his fists, stone fingers tearing through scales and pulping the monster.

  Will dropped the snake, panting, and grabbed his forearm. His skin faded from gray to pink as he whimpered and fell on his rear.

  Micah ran over, prying Will’s free hand from the bite, and blanched. Each fang wound was gigantic, almost as big as a walnut and deeper than a finger. Already the flesh around them was turning a sickly gray, highlighting angry red blood vessels that pulsed away from the injuries.

  “Fix it, Silver.” Will’s eyes were wide as his breaths came in short, quick bursts. “Oh gods, it feels like I stuck my entire arm in Granny’s oven.”

  Micah cast Mending. At an almost-glacial pace, a drop of yellow ichor began to form over each puncture wound as Will’s flesh rejected the venom. Frantically, Micah began mouthing the words again, holding Will still as the heavy man began to thrash under him. As the second spell sank in, Micah didn’t slow down, casting it a third time.

  At some point, Will passed out from the pain. Sarah propped his head to the side with a grimace, trying to prevent the thrashing man from choking on the froth caking his mouth. Finally, after the fifth Refresh, venom stopped seeping out of the injuries and Micah took a second to wipe the sweat from his brow.

  He glanced up to see the rest of the party surrounding him, frowning at Will’s quietly twitching form. Micah cast Augmented Mending, running his mana reserves dangerously low as he closed up the snake’s deep fang wounds.

  For a second, there was no sound except Will’s restless shifting and Micah’s panting. Even if Micah really hadn’t exerted himself, the tension and magic use was more than enough to completely exhaust him.

  “Will should be fine,” Micah said as he stood up, his muscles tight from stress. “I got to him in time to prevent the poison from getting to his heart, but that was a lot closer than I’d like.”

  “What kind of healer needs to wait until combat is over to fix a wound?” Sarah snapped at him, her hands clasping and unclasping nervously as she kept her worried eyes on Will’s unconscious form.

  “The kind that is on his first dungeon run with a newbie party, Sarah.” Jo shook her head. “If it wasn’t for Micah, Will would’ve already died.”

  “Just because you li—” Sarah began before slamming her mouth shut. For a second, there was silence, then she rounded on Drekt. “What about you, oh fearless leader? You just shoved a boy at a high-threat-level monster. How in the hells are you supposed to lead this team if you start sacrificing its members?”

  “He should have transformed,” Drekt said, shrugging. “Ankros says that the only way we improve is through struggle. He’ll be fine in an hour or so, and maybe a little bit of pain will be good for him. Next time, when a monster attacks, he’ll know to use his blessing right away. Don’t underestimate the usefulness of negative reinforcement.”

  “Why in the names of the Sixteen are we here anyway?” Micah asked Drekt, trying to stave off another explosion from Sarah. Somewhere to the side, Jo chuckled at his transparent deflection. “I know the Lancers told us to come here, but why did they need us to raid this dungeon?”

  “It’s all part of Ankros’ great plan,” Drekt said, a smile on his face. “Without conflict, mortals become complacent and weak. We need constant struggle to become our most perfect selves. The dungeons are him providing that struggle. They provide danger to hone our reflexes and experience, and attunement and loot to increase our power.”

  “Loot?” Micah asked, cocking his head slightly.

  “Yes,” Drekt replied. “Just as the monsters in a dungeon respawn endlessly, the Sixteen provide appropriate rewards for those that can fight their way to a dungeon’s boss room and defeat its champion. Sometimes it’s as simple as a valuable bar of metal, but truly lucky adventurers can get their hands on enchanted items or even skill books detailing lost spells or martial arts.”

  “So we’re just here risking our lives to make a profit for the guild?” Micah frowned slightly.

  “Drekt likes to leave out the other side of Ankros’ great plan,” Jo said with a snort. “Each day a dungeon goes unraided, more monsters spawn. They fight each other and gain experience. Eventually, they start evolving. If you leave them alone for too long, they evolve beyond the ability of the dungeon to control and you have a break. Mutated and superpowered beasts roaming across the land, destroying villages, burning churches and raping livestock.”

  “... livestock?” Micah asked quietly, trying to gauge Jo’s poker face.

  “Ankros is the master of both the carrot and the stick,” Drekt spoke over Micah’s mumbled thoughts proudly. “He understands that we are motivated by both greed and fear, so he gives us both. Truly he’s the most insightful of the Sixteen.”

  “What now?” Micah shook his head, unable to pierce Jo’s sardonic grin as she winked at him. “I mean, we just fought a couple of monsters. What comes next?”

  “Well.” Drekt nodded at Will’s barely stirring form. “We wait for Mr. Grantly to recover from his unfortunate run in with the cave adders, and then we prepare ourselves. Dungeons are meant to test adventurers, and they aren’t meant to be taken lightly. I’m sure Will is in a lot of pain right now, but with any luck, it will serve as a reminder to take all combat seriously. We’ve been fighting relatively sedate battles against weaker creatures up until now in order to gain levels. This dungeon will be our first real challenge and proof that we are worthy of being promoted from a reserve to an active-duty adventuring team.”

  “Glory, honor, etcetera.” Jo rolled her eyes. “I’m mostly just in this to see what we’re goin’ to get from the boss. My gear is starting to get a little beaten up and I’d like an upgrade sooner rather than later.”

  11

  Accomplishment

  “Well” —Trevor wrapped his arm around Micah’s shoulders, his cheeks flushed and the faint smell of brandy on his breath—“how does it feel to be a real adventurer?”

  “I thought I already was an adventurer?” Micah mumbled back, his voice muffled by Trevor’s bicep. “I’ve been hunting animals in the forest around town for at least six months now.”

  “But this is your first dungeon.” Trevor’s head moved up and down in an overexaggerated bob. “You popped your dungeon cherry and that makes you, officially, an active-duty member of the Lancers. That means we’ve gotta celebrate.”

  “I’m not even old enough to drink, Trevor,” Micah protested, trying to squirm out from under his brother’s arm. “Do you have any idea what Mom would say?”

  “That hasn’t stopped you in the field,” Drekt interjected with a chuckle. “Remember that time we fought the bog horrors? Micah got so drunk, he ended up singing a duet with Jo.”

  Micah blushed, trying to wrench himself from Trevor’s grasp as his brother laughed at his discomfort. Even drunk, Trevor’s Body-based class wa
s more than enough to casually overpower Micah’s efforts.

  “See?” Trevor staggered slightly into Micah. “Listen to tall, dark, and musclebound over there. If you’re old enough to drink after killing a couple of bog horrors, you’re old enough to drink in the Lancers’ tavern.

  “Plus”—Trevor winked at Drekt before leaning closer to Micah—“first time after you clear a dungeon, your drinks are twenty percent off. Mom raised us to be thrifty. It’d be a positive shame to pass a bargain like that by.”

  “Of course we want to hear another rendition of that lovely duet,” Sarah snickered, elbowing her sister. “I think we recovered more than enough in monster parts and attunement from the dungeon to ensure that we can get Micah drunk enough for an encore. Possibly with some dancing on tables.”

  “I’ll leave the dancing to Micah.” Jo rolled her eyes at Sarah. “The last time I tried that, I got fined for damaging guild property.”

  “It is more or less a tradition for rookies at this point.” Trevor nodded sagely, the faux seriousness of his voice betrayed by the drunken flush of his cheeks.

  “Then it’s settled.” Drekt slapped a brooding Will on the back hard enough that the portly man stumbled. “We get the two newbies drunk enough to dance on the table. I’m sure I can justify it in our ledgers as a team-building activity.”

  “Let’s build our team, then!” Trevor released Micah and veered toward the guild hall, leaving the rest of the party bemused outside of the entrance.

  For a couple seconds, they stood in silence, all sharing glances. Finally, Will spoke up, a hint of frustration in his reedy voice.

  “But he isn’t even on our team?” His face was scrunched in confusion. “I get that he’s Micah’s brother, but why is he hanging out with us?”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Drekt chuckled as he pushed open the door. “Trevor isn’t a big hitter with the Lancers, but everyone likes him, mostly because he’s one of the most sociable people in the guild. Mostly because of scenes like this. He just has a tendency to appear in the middle of parties and make himself the center of attention. Even if he wasn’t Micah’s brother, he’d probably find a way to sneak into our celebration. Just think of it as networking.”

  “Networking.” Will puffed his cheeks unhappily. “Why should I have to talk to a bunch of people? They should already know that I have a powerful blessing. They should be getting to know me, not the other way around.”

  “Whenever you add a third person to a pair,” Sarah replied over her shoulder dryly as she walked into the building, “things get political. Being high-level and powerful will let you ignore some of those concerns, but at the end of the day, people are going to have preferences. You don’t have to bow and scrape, but it makes sense to be friends with as many important individuals as possible. You never know who the team will be paired with next month or which group might have news about a big score that they’re keeping hush-hush.”

  “You should talk, Sarah.” Jo brushed past Micah on her way into the guild hall, filling his nose with the scent of the lilac shampoo from her post-dungeon bath. “You spend half of these events drinking expensive wine by yourself, a quarter complaining to whatever pretty boy you manage to corner, and the final quarter drunkenly sobbing. If it wasn’t for me, no one would talk to either of us.”

  Seeing Will puff himself up to respond again, Micah shook his head. Will’s opinion of himself was as inflated as his waistline. He was an adequate fighter, mostly relying on the strength of his gift to make up for his lack of skill and instincts, but Micah had only talked with him a handful of times where Will hadn’t made the entire conversation about himself. Sarah humored him, but Micah suspected that everyone on the team mostly just tolerated the arrogant fop.

  “I’m heading in to make sure Trevor doesn’t get into any trouble.” Micah waved off Sarah and Will before one of them could say something that would annoy him. Sarah wasn’t quite as bad as Will, but she certainly had a tendency to be hypercritical toward everyone that wasn’t her, Jo, or Will. “Mom would kill me if he came home with a black eye for hitting on Zoe while drunk again.”

  Behind him, Micah heard Will sputtering something to Sarah, but he did his best to ignore it. The world was hard and unfair enough without having to listen to Will invent more reasons why his relatively charmed life was the result of outside forces oppressing him.

  Inside the guild hall, Micah nodded at the receptionist as he walked past the front desk toward the wing that held the tavern. It wasn’t terribly large, a bar with one worker servicing a couple kegs of ale and several bottles filled with spirits of dubious vintage, but it was one of the most popular places in the hall. There was something about risking death fighting against Ankros’ children on a daily basis that inspired the Lancers to revel in creature comforts.

  As Micah entered the tavern itself, a wall of noise hit him. There was only one other party there—B company, squad two, Trevor’s team. Most of them nodded or briefly hoisted a glass on Micah’s entrance, recalling him from his pre-blessing days. He waved back, only to be interrupted by Trevor once more.

  “There’s one of the men of the hour!” Trevor slurred from the bar, where he stood next to Drekt and Jo. “Come on, Micah, let’s get you good and sauced.”

  Micah waded through a crowd of back pats and formulaic congratulations from the other party to stand next to Trevor at the bar. Immediately, Micah’s brother draped an arm over his shoulder, eliciting a snicker from Jo, and leaned toward the bartender, a grizzled older woman with a deep scar puckering the right side of her face.

  “Marlene!” he practically shouted at her, likely unsure of his own volume. “This is my kid brother, Micah! He just finished his first dungeon run, so we’re trying to celebrate in style. Get him a mug of brandy, please.”

  “I heard you the first couple of times, Trevor.” Marlene didn’t move from her spot at the bar, leaning back against a keg with her arms crossed. “What’ll ya have, Micah?”

  “It’s a celebration.” Trevor swayed into Micah as he spoke to Marlene. “He needs brandy! It’s not a celebration without the good stuff.”

  “Can I have an ale, please?” Micah asked, his ears turning red as Jo practically doubled over laughing at him. “A red, if you have it.”

  “Come on, Micah.” He had to reach out and stabilize Trevor as his brother lost his balance turning around while trying to speak to him. “This is a special occasion. If you don’t like the brandy, at least try the juushk.”

  Micah blanched. Drekt had tricked him into drinking juushk once, the impossible-to-live-down “singing incident.” Juushk was little more than millet, reduced to a mash and fermented. Spellcasters or alchemists were used in the process to ensure that the product wouldn’t poison the drinker, but that was about all that could be said for it. Juushk tasted vile and left a hangover that lasted a full day.

  “We’ll save the juushk for Will,” Jo intervened, snaking her arm through Micah’s and pulling him away from Trevor. “I’m pretty sure he’s taken a liking to the stuff.”

  Micah snorted, trying to contain his laughter as he let Jo lead him away. As bad as the drinking juushk had been for him, Will had spent most of that evening in a bush throwing up while Drekt watched on, laughing uproariously. Even the morning after, when Micah had lain curled in the fetal position beneath a tree barely able to drink water and wishing that healing magic worked on hangovers, Will had it worse. The man spent an entire day moaning, vomiting, and whimpering for hours in a puddle of his own fluids. Laundry the next day had been particularly vile.

  As they left, Jo snagged two mugs of ale, both filled with a frothy red brew. He’d never had it before—being underage did have its drawbacks. Instead, he relied upon the rest of the party’s recommendations. Well, the rest of the party other than Drekt. The crazy giant actively seemed to like juushk, to the point that Micah suspected that he had some sort of poison resistance as part of his blessing.

  Jo practically pushed him in
to a seat in the corner before taking her own next to him. At the door, Will and Sarah walked through to another round of congratulations as Trevor talked animatedly but inaudibly with Drekt. Micah raised the chipped ceramic mug to his lips before taking a sip of the ale. It was sweet with a somewhat woody and bitter finish, but most importantly, after a long day of fighting monsters, it was cold.

  He leaned back in his chair and sighed, enjoying the taste of the drink on his tongue and the wood on his back. Across from him, Jo chuckled.

  “It’s all a bit much sometimes, isn’t it?” She finished her statement with a pull of ale, her gray eyes staring past him at the chaos near the bar. Micah squinted at her slightly. He’d never really noticed that she had gray eyes.

  “I don’t have something on my face, do I?” Jo cocked her head, brushing a stray strand of hair aside.

  “No,” Micah stammered, hastily taking a drink from his beer as he averted his gaze.

  “Well then” —she set down her drink and placed her chin in her hands—“what were you looking at, Silver?”

  He turned beet red, floundering for words as he wilted under Jo’s gaze. She let him suffer for a couple of seconds before her laughter cut through the fog surrounding him.

  “Gods, you’re so cute when you get flustered like this.” Her voice washed over him like cool water in a desert. “I’ve literally had your hands inside my torso as you healed a punctured lung while Drekt and Will fought off willow creepers an arm’s length from your head and you didn’t even blink, yet every time I try to flirt with you, you turn into a puddle.”

  “Wait.” Micah’s face twisted in his confusion. “You were flirting with me?”

  “It’s a good thing I don’t mind them a little oblivious.” Jo’s laughter wrapped around Micah, filling him with a strange warmth. “All of the jokes in the field? Every time I found an excuse to touch your arm while talking over a scouting report? None of that ever registered with you?”