PrimeVerse: Dose of Chaos: A GameLit / LitRPG Adventure

by R K Billiau

  “Ah, yes,” Kai said, “I increased a skill earlier today as well. It is good to be able to advance.”

  Carl grunted and turned back to the walk, and the others followed. I jogged to catch up to Madison.

  “Okay, what’s up. You’ve been weirdly distant this morning. Spill it,” I said. I hated to see her pushing me away, and I didn’t know how to bring it up, so I figured being blunt was the best bet.

  “Yeah, well,” she huffed out, “you just passed out last night. You were asleep before I even got in the tent. That was our chance to talk with some privacy, and I was looking forward to it.”

  “I know, I know. I really was too. I’m sorry.” My shoulders dropped. I really was sorry, it was a missed opportunity for me too. “I don’t have an excuse or anything, I was just exhausted.”

  We walked a few more seconds and I couldn’t take the silence. “Madison, look,” I said, stopping and grabbing her hand to stop her, too. “I’m really sorry. I promise it was nothing personal. Believe me, I would love any alone time with you. In fact, want to go take some now?” I grinned mischievously and pointed off into the woods.

  She studied me for a long moment, then her customary grin came back. “I mean, I get it. I was tired too, honestly. I was just disappointed because those moments where things slow down seem to be few and far apart.”

  “Except for the days we just spent walking through this damned forest. Those were pretty slow,” I said.

  She chuckled, “Yeah, well, it was kind of hard to have any interest in anything other than survival when we were debuffed to hell and back. Plus, you know, our third wheel.” She hid her finger with her other hand while she pointed at Kai. I laughed.

  “Fair enough, let’s just get through this dumb quest and hopefully we can join the village and have a few moments peace. Maybe even a bit of normalcy. Whatever that looks like here.”

  “You guys coming?!” Carl shouted from up ahead. Kai muttered something and the man laughed and rolled his eyes.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I called back, then looked at Madison. “C’mon, lets catch up.”

  We picked up our pace and when we caught up, I started archiving what I remembered about the tutelar. I had been wondering when we would run into some of the more fantastical creatures in this world. For the most part, everything I had come across had been somewhat natural. Except for the man-eating plants in the tutorial zone, anyway. Oh. And the zombies.

  Congratulations! You have increased your Archive skill!

  Only 8 more points until 30 in Archive, then I might get a milestone skill. I put my book away and kept walking. And kept walking. And kept walking. This was starting to feel too familiar.

  “You know,” Madison said, “I think I’m starting to hate this forest.”

  “I already do,” I said.

  Carl laughed. “We’re almost there, but I know what you mean. This is such a weird place, why isn’t there anything but trees?”

  As if he’d spoke them into existence, red dots appeared on my mini-map like a bunch of zits on a teenager’s face. “Heads-up!” I whisper-shouted, stopping. “Looks like you spoke too soon.”

  “I want a million dollars, and a harem of hot babes!” Carl said and spun around, gazing at the forest floor. “Oh well, it was worth a try.”

  “Madison, would you please give us a battle formation?” Kai asked. I wondered if he was constantly annoyed or just really good at tuning us out.

  “Coming right up!” she said and waved her hand, a wedge-shaped formation appearing before us. We all took our places and an offensive combat bonus popped into our HUDs.

  “Let’s advance,” Kai said from the lead position. Madison and Carl were right behind him with their spears ready, and I brought up the rear with my rocks. I quickly popped a wolf core out and summoned one, putting it into sentry mode. We walked in formation as the canopy overhead got thicker, allowing less and less light in.

  When we finally got close enough to see what the red dots were, we also understood why the canopy was getting so thick. Ahead of us was a massive tree, kind of like those trees you see in the old postcards that were so big you could drive a car through it. Only bigger. You could drive a tank, or maybe a transport truck, through this thing. That wasn’t even the weirdest part, though.

  Dead in the center of the trunk was a gigantic knot the size of an elephant. The knot framed a glowing portal of swirling purple light.

  “Damn that’s cool,” I said, suitably impressed.

  “You won’t think so in a bit,” Carl said and pointed to the ground in front of the portal. There was what appeared to be a massive pile of leaves, as if fall had just dropped her treasures and someone had raked them up. But the leaves were swirling strangely, similar to the tutelar, only much, much bigger. If the tutelar were around three feet in height, this thing was easily nine, although it was hard to tell by the way it was lying on the ground.

  “Oh. Yeah. That looks like it sucks,” I said.

  The rest of the clearing was like a dance floor, with a bunch of regular tutelar swirling around this way and that. They didn’t seem to have noticed us yet.

  “What do you think guys?” I whispered. “Should we try to clear out all the little guys, then go after the big one? I could try pulling them from a distance.”

  Kai was scanning the area. “I count 15 of them. That is too many for us to take, do you think you could pull them in such a way as to not draw them all?”

  “Well, let me scout it out a bit,” I said, then I zoomed out on my mini-map as far as it would go. “Madison would you Boost me please?” I asked.

  “Sure! I should probably Boost us all just in case.” She made the gesture and I selected Stealth when the pop-up arrived. “I really need to get some levels, casting that many Boosts is such a Mana drain.”

  “I’ll be right back,” I said and crouched down into the Stealth position, walking slowly towards the clearing filled with mobs. The tutelar were clumped up conveniently, groups of three to five spread out across the area. Classic game design. I snuck back to the group and popped out of Stealth. “Okay, it looks like I should be able to pull the groups individually. The question is, how far away do we need to be so we don’t aggro all of them… or the boss?”

  “Should we just stay right here?” Kai asked.

  “Well, they haven’t aggroed to us yet so I could try pulling to here. Madison, can I get another Boost? I want to swap out from Stealth.”

  “Okay,” she said, “but I want to use the rest for healing.” She Boosted me again and this time I selected Throwing Mastery.

  “Here I go, wish me luck.”

  “Don’t die!” Madison said. I rolled my eyes and headed to the closest cluster of tutelar. I kept a careful watch on my map as I got closer, I wanted to try to archive their threat zone. I took another step and they all stopped doing their swirly little dances and turned towards me. I broke out in a run back to the group, the cluster hot on my heels.

  “Incoming!” I shouted, although it was mostly unnecessary as they could clearly see the train of strange things behind me. I rolled into position just as the tutelar made their way up to the formation. They tried to follow me since I was the highest on their hate list, but Kai pulled off his powerful roundhouse kick to one, sweeping out a huge chunk of the debris that formed it. Then both Carl and Madison struck at the same time, their spears spiking through the lead creature, tearing off chunks.

  I kept back but sent my wolf in to help, watching as it performed its growl-lunge and causing enough damage to put the lead tutelar down before it could even pop off its special. We weren’t quite so lucky with the final two, who both got a chance to use their whirlwinds of doom. We came out of the fight hurt, but happy. If we Managed this right, we could easily take out all the little guys, then we would get to fight the boss alone.

  After the last tutelar died, instead of dissipating like all the rest, it moved as a glowing cloud of static energy, floated across the field towards the
boss and settled over it. I frowned as I watched the massive tutelor absorb the energy and grow a little larger.

  “There’s always a catch,” I said.

  Chapter 9

  “Um… did you guys see that?” I asked.

  “Did the boss just get stronger when we took out the minions?” Madison asked.

  “That’s what it looked like,” I said, and chewed on my lower lip. “Well, that’s going to make this harder.”

  “What should we do?” asked Carl.

  “Well, there are a couple options,” I said. “We could keep pulling the clusters and fight them to get the XP. Maybe gain another level or two, then try to take on the boss. Or we could try to take the boss on now, but possibly get sandblasted to death by all the adds.”

  “Or we could try to run for it and jump in the portal!” Madison added.

  “That’s another option,” I agreed. “What do you guys think? Any preferences?”

  Kai looked out into the field of trees, intense concentration on his face. Which was saying a lot because he always looked like he was concentrating. “I think we should fight the minions first. It will be good to gain more levels, and even better to test ourselves against a new, powerful threat.”

  “That’s one for fighting the minions,” I said, “anyone else?”

  “I’m fine with whatever,” Madison said.

  “Remind me never to ask you what restaurant you want to eat at,” I said.

  “What? Why?” she asked.

  “Never mind. Carl, what do you think?”

  “I think no matter what we do we will end up having to fight that boss, so I kind of agree with Kai, we should start with the smaller guys and clear them out,” Carl said.

  “Okay, I agree then, let’s focus on that.”

  There were four other clusters of tutelar, and we pulled and attacked them in a clockwise rotation. This is what I loved about gaming. Systematically going through the zones with a good group, planning and pulling intentionally and taking them out. We had figured out how to defeat the tutelar clusters easily by the last one, having only one stupid death during our fights, but it was only my wolf. I still had a couple more wolf cores though and used one to bring out another companion for the last cluster.

  After we defeated it, we all leveled up except for Madison. “That sucks!” she said, “I’m so close to leveling!” She had been getting less per kill than the rest of us, probably because she was already a level higher if it worked like it did in other games.

  “Hey,” I said, “when was the last time we were the same level? Let me revel in this moment.”

  “Oh revel away,” Madison said, “I fully expect you to lose your levels again soon.” She chuckled and gave me an evil grin. I rolled my eyes.

  “Whatever, just because I’m willing to do whatever it takes to help the group!” I said.

  “You mean the respawn dance?” she said, then laughed like that was the funniest thing ever.

  “Shall we attempt the boss?” Kai asked, once again ignoring our comments. Carl had just watched us, a look of disgust or annoyance on his face. At Kai’s words he shook himself out of it, and looked into the clearing where the boss, now longer and nearly twice as wide as it had been, lay.

  “We could do that,” I said, “or we could hang tight and see how long the tutelar take to respawn, maybe clear them out again and get more XP?”

  “That could be a long time,” Madison said.

  “Yeah,” Carl agreed, “waiting around doesn’t sound very fun, plus if we kill more after they respawn, won’t they just make the boss even stronger?”

  “That is a good point,” Kai said. “I think it’s time to attack the boss.” He cracked his knuckles and looked at the sleeping figure with an eager glint. “Renew our Boosts Madison? Set up a defensive formation, let’s take this slow and learn what we can.”

  “Let’s do this!” Madison shouted as she hit us each with a Boost and changed the formation type. We took our places and readied ourselves.

  “Okay Hudson, hit it,” Kai said, and I pulled back my arm and let a rock fly straight towards the things face. I swear time slowed down and I could watch every facet of that rock as it sailed perfectly towards its target. I had no idea which appendage was which, but guessed that it didn’t matter with such a huge size. The rock landed with a loud crack against another rock that was part of the creature. The ground rumbled.

  “Uh oh,” I said. Kai just grunted, holding his combat stance while Carl took a hesitant step back. “Don’t break formation!” I shouted to bolster his confidence.

  Pebbles and leaves at our feet bounced. The trees at the edge of the clearing behind us trembled, their leaves a chorus of rustling. It felt- and sounded- like an earthquake. We watched in awe as the ground stood up before us. I had thought the thing in the clearing was just another, larger tutelar, a swirling ball of energy that collected debris to make up a pseudo-body the same but bigger than the others. I was wrong.

  It stood up, fully ten feet tall and solid: made of multiple smooth, gray stones formed together to create a bipedal creature in the shape of a man, though with no head. The face was embedded into its chest, eyes glowing like lit sapphires. The debris swirling around while it slept formed an aura of dancing rocks and forest remnants spinning around its entirety. The aura spun around it like a tornado, picking up speed and creating a strange, eerie whistling sound that made the whole scene even more ominous.

  This was going to suck.

  “Hit it again, Hudson!” Kai shouted, and I threw another rock at the thing. The rock flew straight for it, and was sucked up by the tornado of debris, becoming another piece of it. Damn.

  “Uhhh, that’s not good,” I said helpfully. Then the creature started to move. It was surprisingly fast for something that big and stony, and it charged into our line, the ground shaking with each massive stride.

  As soon as the tornado of doom came within range, Madison and Kai’s health started dropping while they were pelted with rocks and sticks, as if they were too close to a helicopter landing. Eyes blinded by their whipping hair, wind, and debris, it slammed into Kai with a massive shoulder tackle. When the full force of the rock monster hit Kai, the martial artist’s health dropped by half, leaving him at roughly thirty percent health and sending him flying through the air in the exact way you’d picture a person who was just hit by a 10 foot tall rock-man would.

  “Holy crap!” I shouted when my friend’s health bar dropped so low so quickly.

  Madison screamed in pain as she was scoured by its wind-aura, but her health didn’t drop nearly as much as Kai’s, thanks once again to her armor. Or maybe because she at least remained upright. She Managed to fire off a heal on Kai, who was still on the ground, bringing him to half health and catching the things attention. It lashed out with a tremendous backhand that laid her to the ground, dazed. At least it looked like a backhand. To be entirely honest, I couldn’t tell which side of the hand it was, just that it was as big as a hubcap and smashed against her face.

  I had no idea what to do and froze, trying to come up with a plan. Carl had not frozen and lunged in with his spear. I was impressed. The attack looked powerful and spot on, but when it hit the wind-aura, Carl clenched his teeth, brow furrowed in concentration, as if he was having to put everything he had into moving the spear forward. Finally, he pushed through the aura, and with a gentle ‘tink,’ the spear tapped the creature inside.

  The thing completely ignored Carl and his spear, continuing to focus on Madison. It lifted its boulder sized hands into the air, lacing the rock fingers together into a massive double fisted slam, which it brought down squarely on Madison. Her health bar bottomed out as her now lifeless body was pounded about a foot into the soft earth.

  “No!” I shouted, and snapped out of my inaction, sending my wolf in while I scrambled for Madison’s spear. The wolf was about as useful as you would expect it to be, instantly becoming a mass of shredded fur from the wind. Its teeth left a
beautiful white scratch on the rocky rear end, though, before the wolf mist faded away.

  I planted the spear into the ground and taunted the creature. Not like, with a skill anything, I just yelled at it. “Over here, you big, bulbus, brick bastard!”

  Carl continued to try to attack, actively attempting to hit the debris in the aura, knocking little bits of it away like we had when fighting the tutelar. It might have been a good idea except that the rock-man grabbed his spear and yanked, pulling Carl into the tornado. Carl screamed and tried to back away, but the thing snatched him by the throat and held him in the debris field, allowing the pummeling rocks and sticks to do its dirty work. It didn’t take long until Carl’s health bar bottomed out and the thing dropped him to the floor, a limp and bloody rag doll.

  Kai finally made his way back in via a powerful jump kick. Which was a really stupid idea, I’m sure he recognized in hindsight. He took damage going into the aura, but surprisingly made it through, his foot cracking against the hard stone, to no effect. He bounced off, careening through the damaging aura again on the way out, his health dropping dangerously low.

  My taunts had had no effect, so I yanked the spear out of the ground and held it over my head, waiting for an opportunity. The monstrous rock creature lifted its foot and slammed it down onto Kai, sending him for respawn, then turned, its chestface looking right at me.

  It was just him and I now. I gazed into the deep blue eyes that were at least a couple feet above mine. They were devoid of any intelligence, but contained a malevolence so striking it was obvious this thing was created for destruction. I knew I was going to die, but I had to try something on my way out.

  I charged in. Compensating for the wind, I threw the spear as hard as I could. My aim had been good and the spear just barely made it through the debris storm, its tip gently tapping against the sapphire eye. The creature flinched, backing up quickly, and I smiled. Gotcha.

  Maybe I could outrun it now and meet the others back at the respawn point. We really should have talked about our plan for when or if one of us died.