PrimeVerse: Dose of Chaos: A GameLit / LitRPG Adventure

by R K Billiau

  Well, that actually sounded pretty cool. “Okay, so how do you win this contest?”

  It turned and started walking back up the carpet towards the dais where its chair reappeared. It spun to sit, and waved its hand, the table in front of me disappearing. I wasn’t done eating, but whatever.

  “We earn points by having our vassals perform assigned tasks. You, Hudson, as the first vassal, carry an enormous bonus for that goal. Your actions count for ten times as much as the others. However, I can only earn points once a Viator reincarnates, and only if they have learned enough to earn a new class. Thus it may be some time before I can win.”

  I started to feel the pull of the light. “I guess it’s time for me to go, but I want more answers when I get back here.”

  It smirked at me from its chair and the light yanked me back into the world.

  Chapter 13

  Well, okay. The light didn’t yank me back into the world, just into the menu screen for me to choose where in the world to respawn. I could go back to the respawn point at the edge of the forest, or for an XP cost, I could respawn wherever I wanted. I was tired of losing XP but wanted to make it back as fast as I could to my group. With a sigh, I found the spot where the boss had been and selected it. That had been my tenth death in this incarnation, so it had only been ten minutes since the fight. I hoped they hadn’t entered the portal, but with my train of monsters surely going back to their spawn points, they probably had.

  As the world materialized around me, it was obvious my group had entered the portal. The massive tree towered over me, pulsing purple light and buzzing like a terrifyingly loud electric fence. I looked around, noticing that the tutelar had returned as they danced around each other in their shifting forms. I activated my mini-map and confirmed the entire train had made it back to their origin points. I was glad my idea had worked.

  Laying on the ground next to me was the corpse of the Genius Loci. Is it really a corpse if it’s not made of flesh? Sometimes I missed having the wellspring of information that was the internet. I touched the rubble and the loot window popped up, empty. Of course my group already took whatever it had. I hoped it was good. I activated Scavenging and grinned as another loot window popped up. Then to my delight another box popped as well, a Lucky Find!

  Congratulations! You have gained a point in Lucky Find!

  I looked in the Scavenging box first and pulled out what looked like a plain gray rock.

  You have received Living Ore - Iron

  Living Ore – Iron: Crafting Item

  Activate: create an Iron Ore

  Recharges 1 charge per 12 hours

  Durability 10

  Huh. I had no idea how hard it was to get a single ore of anything, or how many were required in crafting, but I bet this could certainly help a blacksmith. I closed the box and moved to the Lucky Find.

  You have received Stone Shield

  Stone Shield – Shield slot

  20 Armor

  Durability 50

  -10% to all passive dodging skills until Strength 20

  +100% Stamina use while blocking until Physique 20

  Crag Face – The craggy nature of the face of the shield can cause an opponent’s attacks to deflect in a direction they weren’t expecting. +20 Accuracy on your next attack against this opponent after a deflection.

  Nice! I had never seen the Heavy substat before. I was curious, so I equipped the shield. On my left arm appeared a hunk of rock, smooth on the side with my arm and craggy on the outside. It was heavy. Not like, ‘I’m picking up a bag of groceries’ heavy, more like ‘I’m too manly not to bring every single bag of groceries in at the same time’ heavy.

  I wondered if I raised my Strength by wearing it. I took a few jumps, attempting to parkour off a tree trunk, and found the heaviness threw me off. I decided to keep it on for a while, I didn’t have any blocking skills yet, and I bet I could get some if I used it.

  I got the chance to test that out right away. My focus had been so intent on looting and the shield, I hadn’t noticed a patrolling cluster of tutelar had found me. There were three of the swirling entities and the closest one got a cheap shot in while my back was to it, scoring a critical hit. My back lit up in pain like I’d taken a lashing from a hundred whips. The Pain debuff faded in and out as a full fifth of my health bar drained.

  “Ow! Damn you!” I shouted and spun to face my attackers with my new shield in front of me.

  I had just hefted the shield up in time for the force of another blow to come crashing down onto it. I couldn’t tell if it was my lack of skill with a shield or the force of the blow, but it crushed my arm to my chest and my Stamina bar drained as if I was running. I still took damage, but it was definitely less than I had been taking from these things. Who knows if it was because of the armor bonus or because I had blocked, but I couldn’t dwell on it too much. Too many mini tornados to fight.

  I weathered a few more attacks, taking damage and trying to keep blocking, when I saw a happy notification.

  Congratulations! You have increased your Strength attribute!

  My health dropped to 60% and I started backing away towards the portal. I attempted a few random punches and kicks, but it felt like trying to punch through a sandblaster and was about as effective. I gritted my teeth, desperate to be more than pitiful in a fight, and concentrated on anticipating their attacks and trying to block them.

  My Pain debuff had risen to 20% as the skin on my hands was blasted away and I was pummeled from every side. I pushed through, determined to make myself better, determined to be more helpful to the team.

  I made it to the portal with less than 20% of my health left. I had a choice here; I could keep fighting and die, but maybe pick up a new skill, or I could jump through to safety.

  I stood my ground. I could respawn near-instantly in the same spot, even if it cost me some XP. But if I could learn a new combat skill, I needed to do it. I spun about, gauging attacks and attempting to block, as the Pain debuff went higher and my health went lower. Finally, after missing a block with the shield, I felt a crushing blow to the head and the world went black.

  “Now this is more like you,” the Adjudicator said as it sat in its throne, watching the scene I had just come from. It had a red and white striped tub on its lap filled with popcorn. “Coming back often and quickly! Would you like some?” It offered the tub of popcorn to me. I rolled my eyes and pushed myself through the light.

  I selected the spot where I had died, and respawned, nearly tripping over my corpse. Just another day seeing my own dead body. I had a strange idea and grimaced. With my eyes squinted and teeth clenched, I stretched my hand out and touched my dead shoulder. A loot box popped up, but empty. Darn. It was worth a shot. Within seconds, I watched as my flesh separated into millions of pieces, getting smaller and smaller until the whole thing had disappeared. What a strange, strange world.

  I whistled to gain the attention of the tutelar. If I was as good at reading the tutelar as I thought I was, they were excited to see me again. I screamed at the tutelar as they charged me. Once again blows came from all sides, and I concentrated on blocking and using the shield. I lifted it to chest height, ducking behind it. My arm ached against its weight, so I used my other arm to support it as well. I moved to face each blow, keeping my body behind the shield while it took each attack. My moves felt smoother, my aching arm adjusting to the weight. My health dropped to under 40% before I finally got what I had been waiting for.

  Congratulations! You have learned the Shield Use skill!

  Shield Use – You know how to use a shield. All penalties for using a shield are reduced by 1% per level of Shield Use. You now have the use of Shield Stance – 50 Stamina per use, prevent 50% of damage while blocking with a shield, for 10 seconds.

  Audeo – Shield Use has been increased to level 10.

  Congratulations! You have achieved a milestone in your Shield Use skill!

  Passive Block – While equipped with a shield you ha
ve a 10% chance to automatically block 50% of damage from any attack from an opponent you are aware of.

  I smiled as this info scrolled across my vision and popped off a Shield Stance, watching my Stamina drain by a large chunk and feeling my body move into a more defensible position behind my shield. The shield glowed with a faint pulsing white color while the skill was active. My health bar moved much slower for the next 10 seconds as blows rained down on me and I took less than half their damage.

  When the timer ran out, my shield stopped glowing and with the release of a rude gesture, I hopped backwards into the glowing portal.

  Chapter 14

  I didn’t know what to expect when I jumped into the portal, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that the transition into another zone felt like what I imagine a giant soap bubble suddenly popping all over your body would feel like. I barely had time to register it before everything around me changed from the view of the forest into the view of a large stone room. I stood in an archway, my back facing the portal leading back to the forest. That was probably the most disorienting bit, that I went in facing one way and came out facing another.

  You have entered a dungeon!

  All party members are now present. If all party members exit the dungeon at the same time in any capacity, the dungeon is considered failed, and you will not be able to enter again.

  Your party has a total of 10 deaths allowed before the dungeon is considered failed.

  Oh, yeah. I guess it made sense that this would be a dungeon. That stuff about failing after so many deaths was interesting. I bet the number of max deaths before failing had something to do with the difficulty of the dungeon, but since I had no idea whether ten was high or low, that didn’t tell me anything about this dungeon.

  Before taking a step, I looked all around to take in the room. It was a domed room, made of stone so smoothly sliced it had to have been done with a laser precision tool. Er, coded well. The stone was light gray and you could see rivers of ore flowing through where the room had been carved out. I expected there to be a dusty or musty scent, but it was strangely sterile. The oddest thing about the room was the lighting. I couldn’t see any. There were no torches or glowing stones or anything like that, but the room was still perfectly lit as if there had been.

  The room was about thirty feet wide and just as long and was empty, except for me and the rest of my group, who were over near the wall to my right, looking at a large circular doorway, with a silvery metal door inlaid into it.

  “Look!” I heard Madison say as she excitedly pointed towards something on the door. I stepped out of the alcove I was in and caught a flash of blue light. I spun to see the alcove with the portal leading back out had a blue floating cube contained within it. I remember you, cube.

  “Hey! What did you find?” I said loudly so my group could hear.

  Madison and Carl jumped.

  “Hudson!” Madison shouted and ran and hugged me. “Glad you made it, did you have to die 47 times?” she asked.

  I shook my head with a grin. “No, not this time. But I did pick up a new skill to go with this!” I hefted my shield and took a defense stance behind it. It probably looked awesome.

  “Nice!” she said as she inspected the stone shield, “looks heavy.”

  “It is, just using it for a bit I increased my Strength by one,” I said. I tried to casually heave it up and down as if curling weights, but I think I groaned a little too much for it to seem effortless. “I spent some time messing around with it and a group of the tutelar, and picked up a new skill- Shield Use.”

  Kai smiled. “I see you have taken to heart wanting to become a better combatant. That determination will help you learn, though the style of combat I can teach cannot make use of a shield.”

  I nodded at him. “That’s fine, I just want to learn as much as I can. Besides, without slotting it into a higher skill category, I’ll only ever just be proficient.”

  “Did you get that off the boss we took out?” Carl asked.

  “Yep, what did you guys get off it?” I asked. “And how did the fight go, anyway?”

  “Much easier than last time,” Kai said. “The creature was significantly weaker without the bonuses from the other mobs.”

  “Well, it wasn’t THAT easy,” Madison said. “We still had to kite it around a bit, then when its health was low enough Kai waded in. I ran out of all my expendables and almost died spending HP to heal him while Carl kept plinking away at its back.”

  “Still,” Kai said, “nobody died, therefore, much easier.” Madison rolled her eyes.

  “We got some weird living ore thing off of it, and a few pieces of gold,” Carl said.

  “You got money?!” I asked, excited. I hadn’t seen anything like that yet. “What does it look like? Can I see it?!”

  “Not money,” Carl said, “gold.” He pulled a hunk of rock out of his inventory and showed me the gold nugget the size of my thumb. “Not sure what to do with it honestly. I suppose we have to find someone who can work it.”

  I shrugged, “Yeah, I guess so. I wonder if gold has any special properties in this place. Anyway,” I pointed towards the exit with the glowing cube in front of it, “looks like we’re stuck here for now, unless we want to fail.”

  “What are we looking at here?” I asked, walking up to the metal door.

  “We have been unable to open this door,” Kai said. “Until you arrived, there was no way to interact with it.”

  “Then you came in and BAM there’s a handle on the door!” Madison said.

  “The dungeon must have waited until the entire party was here before we could go further,” Carl said.

  “Are we ready?” Kai asked as he put his hand on the handle.

  “Hold on!” I stopped him from turning it. “Don’t dungeons usually have traps and stuff? Heck, even if they don’t, we should be cautious, what if there’s something on the other side that wants to kill us?”

  Kai took his hand off the handle. “Yes, caution would be wise. It has been a long time since I have infiltrated hostile territory. I think too, I tend to throw caution away since I keep thinking of the game mechanics.”

  “You infiltrated hostile territory?” I asked. “I would love to hear about that sometime. But for now, I think I have something to help me check out the door.” I scanned through my skills, remembering one I had from my Treasure Hunter class.

  Assessment – Attempt to determine the properties of an object. 10 Spirit and 1 minute of study per use. For every 10 points in the Connection attribute, the time needed to assess is reduced by 5 seconds.

  “Yep, here we go, give me a minute,” I said. I hadn’t used this skill yet, mainly because I had been running from zombies for so long. With eager anticipation, I activated it while touching the door. As soon as I activated it my Conscious attribute increased by one, and my eyes automatically began combing over the door searching every nook and cranny. I closed my eyes and they paused in their search as a message popped up.

  Cancel Assessment? YES/NO

  I selected NO and let the skill continue to run its course with my eyes open. When the skill was done, a small bump of metal near the handle glowed faintly, and I got an increase to my Connection attribute. Nice. “Okay, yep, there’s something here.”

  “What is it?” Carl asked.

  “I honestly have no idea,” I said, “but if I had any money, my bet would be on a trap.” I inspected the handle better now and noticed that when the handle turned, it would scrape against the bump, setting off whatever it was that would happen.

  “Can you disarm it?” Madison asked.

  I coughed. “No, I uh, don’t have a skill for that. But, hey! At least I found it, right?”

  “Yeah!” Madison said, “Knowing is half the battle!” She looked at us expectantly, then frowned when none of us responded the right way. “Anyway, can’t we just set it off and if it kills one of us, just wait for respawn?”

  “I’m not doing that!” Carl said. “Y
ou guys are way too easy going about death, don’t you care that it hurts?”

  “Pain is fleeting and makes you stronger,” Kai said.

  “Except when it lingers and makes you weaker,” Carl snapped, “like with a slow acting poison or something.”

  “A ten-foot pole would be nice about now,” Madison said.

  Carl smiled and winked at her, “I’ve got a pole for you,” he said.

  The room went dead as we all just stared at him.

  “What?” he asked as he whipped his spear out. “How about this?”

  I blew out a breath, “Okay, good idea,” I said. “Hold on, let me put my shield up and you can do it from behind me.”

  “That’s what she said,” Carl replied.

  “Dude, just... no,” I said, shaking my head. We arranged ourselves, Kai and Madison staying way back, just in case. Moving ever so carefully, Carl used the tip of the spear to scrape against the odd bump under the handle. A small needle shot out of a hole where the bump had been, and flew through the air, landing on the ground next to us with a quiet “tink.”

  I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding.

  I bent down and picked up the needle, inspecting it. It was made of dark stone, like obsidian or something, its tip extremely sharp. I narrowed my eyes and saw there was definitely a dried coating of some sort on it. Maybe poison or something?

  “This looks like it could have ruined someone’s day,” I said. I tossed the needle in my inventory and walked up to the door, placing my hand on the handle. “I’m glad I found that, it could have really slowed us down.”

  I flung the door open and was about to say something else when the huge falling boulder tied to the ceiling in the next room swung down and excitedly met my face with enough force to crush my skull, instantly killing me.

  Chapter 15

  This time there was no death tunnel. Everything just went black as if thick paint was poured over my eyes, then it faded into pure white like the respawning light. Soon after it cleared to show me I was back at the entrance to the dungeon, right next to the glowing blue cube. I tried to move but found the world was frozen in place.