PrimeVerse: Dose of Chaos: A GameLit / LitRPG Adventure

by R K Billiau

  This would be extremely useful! I had never intended on being a wizard or any of that crap, but if I could have abilities that would help my team through crowd control and summoning, I would gladly accept a touch of magic. Before I could ask my friends what they got, I had another system message pop up.

  Quest Complete!: Follow your Hunch!

  You have gained 25 XP

  I guess that explained why the skill was such a good fit for me. “Thank you, Adjudicator,” I said into my mystical tattoo and panned around with a thumbs up. I could picture its wide smile on one of its random faces, as I knew that would thrill it.

  I turned to my friends, who were busy reading things only they could see. I waited patiently for Madison’s eyes to refocus, and when they did and she caught mine, she grinned hugely.

  “I’d say that dungeon was worth it, yeah?” I asked her.

  “Hoo boy, yeah!” she agreed. “I was given a prestige class, SpellCrafter. I can turn any ability I have into a spell! I can’t wait to try it out! It’s one of those ‘have to be in a safe place’ abilities, though. And I got more skill slots!” She breathlessly finished her statement. And then, as if she remembered her manners, she said, “ooh, what did you get?!”

  I smiled, genuinely smitten with her cheerfulness. I could watch that girl talk all day.

  “Well, hopefully we will be at the village soon. I got a prestige class also, and now I need to adjust my skills,” I said. “I got Core Mage, which will let me do even more with cores. I need to get more!”

  “Hah, looks like you’ll be hunting more than regular treasure now. Gotta catch ‘em all, huh?”

  I raised an eyebrow at her. “Is that a Pokémon reference?”

  She smiled wide, eyes as shiny as the strange liquid we floated in. “Finally, you got one of my references!”

  “Well yeah, that one wasn’t outdated. Didn’t Pokémon Ultra Sonic Instinct and Super Optic Blue just come out last year?”

  “I thought you weren’t into games,” she said.

  “Well, it’s not that I wasn’t into them, I just didn’t have enough time or money to play them as much as I wanted. Besides, you would’ve had to have been long dead to miss the ads for that release.”

  Kai finished his reading and came over to us. “I never did like the Pokémon games. I preferred harvesting the creature I got, not training them. Why are we talking about this?” he asked.

  Madison pointed at me. “He got a Pokémon master class! Poke’-Master something-er-other.”

  “It’s not a poke’…” I cut myself off as I playfully tackled her, dunking her back into the Mana, then pulling her up with my arms around her. She laughed and shoved away from my embrace, splashing me. She was smiling hugely, her arms crossed as if daring me to get her back. I rushed at her to dunk her again, wrapping my arms around her completely in an effort to pull her under. My face was at least a foot above hers, with her head pulled against my chest, and she looked up at me, her smile turning softer. I lost all track of what I was doing and memorized her face, the light smattering of freckles, the way her nose turned up ever so slightly at the end. I don’t know if I had ever noticed how intensely green her eyes were before.

  Congratulations! You have increased your Emotion attribute!

  Kai cleared his throat. Loudly.

  “Do you two need a little alone time or can we get on with this?” he asked. I couldn’t tell if he was pretending to be annoyed or if he actually was.

  I looked at Madison and smiled shyly, willing myself to not feel embarrassed.

  “Did you get a prestige class, Kai?” I asked.

  He nodded. “I did. Mana Cultivator.”

  “That sounds boring. You’re like, a farmer or something?” I asked.

  “No, I can convert Mana into other things. Like strength, agility, or any of the attributes.”

  “You can cast buffs then?” Madison asked.

  “No,” he said. “I can burn through my Mana to give myself permanent upgrades. It seems like it will take time but is a way to become more powerful over the long term.”

  “What do you do, just sit around and spend your Mana, wait for it to regen and do it again?”

  “Essentially, yes,” Kai said.

  “Are you even interested in it?” I asked him.

  “I am a very patient man,” Kai said. “I can go through a lot to get what I want.”

  I feigned a yawn which triggered an actual yawn. “Let’s head back, shall we? I want to try out my new abilities. But I have to get some cores first.”

  “How many?” Madison asked with an evil grin on her face.

  “Uh, I don’t know, I need-”

  “All of them?” she asked.

  “Don’t,” I said.

  “You gotta-”

  “Don’t you do it!” I shouted.

  “You gotta catch ‘em all?” she asked with a huge grin.

  “Ugh,” I said. “That will never get old for you, will it?”

  She laughed her pure, genuine laugh. “Nope!” she said and dove into the Mana. With a bemused sigh, I followed after, giving the statue of Minuitt a salute before diving into the liquid, Kai following right behind.

  Chapter 29

  We made it to the bank with no fuss and pulled ourselves out of the Mana water. As I stood up, expecting to shake the liquid off myself, I realized we came out of it just as dry as we had been before it appeared. Our hair was not wet, our clothes were not soggy. Magic was cool.

  You have used a Mana node, do you wish to claim it? YES/NO

  I had a strong feeling this was what the village wanted so badly and claiming it for ourselves probably wouldn’t be a good idea. I selected NO and turned to my friends.

  “Did you guys get that prompt to claim the Mana node?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Kai said. “I believe it is what the mayor wanted.”

  “Yeah, me too. I didn’t take it,” Madison said. “Let’s head back to the village now. I certainly could use a bit of civilization and I’m excited to tell them about this place.”

  “And get a chance to go over our skills. I can’t wait until we can get back and have some downtime to figure things out,” I said.

  “Me too!” Madison said. “I have so many things I want to try out.”

  “I assigned my skills right away,” Kai said. “I had been planning skill reassignments for some time though and knew what I wanted. It was fortuitous that I was able to apply the things I wanted without losing anything. It makes me wonder how rare dungeons will be if the rewards are that great.”

  “Just another reason I can’t wait to get out there and explore more,” I said. “Since the dungeon is gone now, does that mean no one else can beat it? If it’s like that with every dungeon, then being the first to find them is a must.”

  I popped open my Illusory Map to make sure the lake was on it and smiled at how nice it looked; it was even shiny on my map. Then something caught my eye, or rather, a lack of something.

  “Hey, where did the statue go?” I asked as I looked up and confirmed that indeed, the small island with the statue was gone.

  “It must have only been there to give us the reward for unlocking the Mana node,” Madison said, looking back. Then she looked at me with a half-smirk, half-frown. “So that statue, that was Minuitt, eh? Quite the outfit she had on.” She raised an eyebrow at me.

  I coughed. “When I met her, she was in a business suit, not that.. Uh...” I had a feeling Minuitt had that statue dressed like it was simply to get this reaction. She was probably sitting with the Adjudicator, watching on his viewscreen and laughing. Stupid archons.

  “Well, I guess you’re not the only one who’s met a god now,” she said.

  “Archon, not god, they are very particular about that. Or well, the Adjudicator is anyway,” I said. “ANYhow, let’s get back to the village, I’m starving.”

  We headed out, walking quickly. We expected the trip back to be painless and fast since we knew the way and t
he forest had been empty of, well, everything. We were wrong.

  It could have been the new small shrubs and plants growing out of the ground, or the bugs flying through the air, or even the sounds of birds chirping that clued us in to the changes in what had once been a desert-forest devoid of all life except the trees. Instead, it was the large blue glob we met on our path. That and the loud screeching “REEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!” as something small, furry, and very loud flew down from the branches and collided square on with the blue glob.

  We all stopped at once, watching this bizarre scene.

  The creature was strange but very cute. Certainly not anything I had ever seen before. It mostly resembled a monkey, but was the size of a hefty squirrel that had eaten a little too much into its winter storage. It had a long tail, and arms and legs that ended in hand-like appendages with sharp, tiny claws. Stretching between its arm and leg on both sides was a flap of furry skin that seemed to allow it to glide down from the branches like a flying squirrel. Its face looked just like a small dog’s, big puppy dog eyes included, and its coloring of brown, white and black reminded me of one as well.

  The thing bit and scraped with a loud racket of yips and tiny snarls against the blue glob which in its little deserved defense, had seemed to be minding its own business, although that’s hard to tell on a thing with no face.

  I was impressed when I saw the tiny claws actually pierce the membranous wall of the glob, blue goo leaking out. I was less impressed when the glob stretched out a pseudopod and slammed the creature into the ground, killing it instantly. I inhaled sharply and Madison let out a surprised and sad sounding “oh no!” We stood still, patiently waiting to see what would happen next, when the glob charged right for us.

  Well, I use the term ‘charged’ lightly, globs are slow, but this one was making its best effort to move as quickly as it could toward us.

  “Form up!” Kai shouted, and Madison activated her formation. We all stepped in, gaining the combat bonus, with Madison in the point position. The triangle formation was becoming our tried and true now, with Madison able to tank. I wondered what I was going to do since I was, once again, weaponless.

  The thing struck at Madison, who blocked the attack, letting Kai have an opening. He lashed out with the dagger, slashing the pseudopod several times, the Bleed effect kicking in. Kai proved once again why he was our DPS. It was hard for my untrained eye to tell, but he attacked with the dagger as if he had been training with it just as long as his fists. For all I knew, he had been.

  I hung back and resorted to my old school move of finding a rock on the ground and throwing it. It bounced off ineffectively and I sighed.

  Madison was getting quite violent in her block, shoving at the thing with her shield and yelling at it. “We… don’t… kill… cute little… fuzzy things!” She didn’t seem to mind that her shield attacks did nothing but bounce it around a little. I couldn’t help but laugh.

  The best I could do at this point was provide another target to help distract it as Kai cut it down. Fighting a single glob was easy, and in short order it exploded, covering the area in blue goo and granting us a Slow debuff.

  “Well,” I said, “I think whatever happened with that giant tree must have unlocked or upgraded this forest. It’s like that explosion rained down life. There seems to be so much living and growing here now.”

  “I noticed,” Kai said, “the forest felt more like a forest should, and I did not immediately recognize the threat that involved. I apologize.”

  “Well, I don’t know if I would call a single glob a threat. Especially since we’ve gained a couple levels,” Madison said.

  “I am sure there will be more, as empty of life as the forest seemed before we destroyed the dungeon, it seems now full,” Kai said.

  Looking around and taking in the differences, I had to agree. There were signs of life everywhere now; birds flying, those weird monkey-squirrel-dog things loped from branch to branch up in the canopy, new plants were growing out of the ground. We heard rustling leaves and bird songs. The forest really had changed.

  “Yeah, I agree, which is kind of annoying because if we have to fight more globs, I’m about as useful as a noodle in a sword fight,” I said.

  “Aww Huddy, you’re less useful than that. I watched your rock bounce off the glob,” Madison jested, prodding me in the shoulder. “Why didn’t you try out your new Magic?”

  I smacked my forehead. “Damnit! I forgot! Wait, why didn’t you?”

  She laughed that infectious laugh and I found myself smiling along with her. “I forgot too. I mean, I don’t even know how to do it anyway, but I didn’t even think to try it out.”

  “Okay then,” I said, “maybe we should take some time right now to do our character sheets? I hate being so useless in combat. And who knows what else will cross our path.”

  Kai gave it some thought. “I do not see the need for that, but perhaps we should experiment with our new skills.”

  “Spells,” I corrected him. “Magic is spells.”

  I held up my hand and thought intensely about the spell I intended to cast, Mana Orb. As if I’d done it a thousand times before, my hand moved on its own. My Mana dropped by ten points and a floating, translucent orb appeared above my hand. It was perfectly round, beaming with energy, like someone had bottled electricity in a glass ball. I tried to touch the orb with my other hand, but couldn’t. It was as if it had a magnetic field and my hands had the same pole, being pushed away from the orb. I tried to toss it in the air, but it stayed with my hand, always hovering the same distance above it.

  Congratulations! You have increased your Superconscious attribute!

  “Soooo now what?” I voiced.

  Madison and Kai had both copied me and were playing with their orbs, having as much success as my own attempt to make it do something.

  “This seems pretty useless,” Madison said.

  “I doubt that is the case,” Kai said, “there is a reason this is the first spell learned, it is probably the building block to understanding magic.” He waved his hand around, trying to throw the orb, with no result.

  “Well great, it’s wonderful the game wants us to learn it slow and steady. That doesn’t really help our immediate needs though, and I’m not sure it’s my learning style. I think I want to try a shortcut,” I said, and with a demanding thought canceled the spell, the orb disappearing.

  “Madison, can you get out the gems from the treasure chest? Let’s take a look and divvy them up, what do you think?”

  “I’ve been wanting magic since I got here, so I’m all for it. I was surprised we didn’t do it right when we found them, honestly,” she said as she waved her orb away as well and pulled the gems from her inventory. The three stones appeared in her hand out of thin air.

  With a frown and a look of concentration, Kai also canceled his spell and looked at the gems. “Normally I would disagree with you, however, there is so much more to learn that perhaps a shortcut would be in order.”

  “Let’s see them, lady,” I said, gently unfolding Madison’s hands open. “Okay, so we have three gems. Two,” I pointed to the black, then the white gem, “grant us a set of four spells, while this one,” I pointed to the cyan gem, “only grants one. How do we want to work this?”

  Kai pointed to the cyan gem, “I have little desire to become a spellcaster, however Dispell would be an excellent addition to fight against those that are. That would be my choice.”

  “Sure, go for it,” I said.

  Madison handed him the gem and he popped it into his mouth with no hesitation. I watched in gross fascination, relieved when he smiled. He placed his hand on my shoulder and I felt a cold tingling where he touched, but nothing more since I had nothing to dispel. It was very obvious Kai had figured out how to work it.

  “Yes, this will be useful for fighting things with buffs,” he said with a nod and I think a hint of excitement in his eye. Always hard to tell with that guy.

  I rolled my eyes
. “It’s always about what’s useful, I swear you came from the Isle of Sodor sometimes. It’s okay to think something’s just cool.”

  “Hey!” Madison said, “I got that one! You aren’t as uncultured as you let on, are you?”

  “I don’t know that I would consider Thomas the Train cultured...”

  “Hey now! You lay off, that was once really popular,” she said with a smile. “Okay, which one do you want?” She proffered up the two remaining gems. “I would rather have the black gem, it would add some versatility to my tanking, and the white one would give you a bunch of attacks. What do you think?”

  I thought her points were good. It would be nice to have more crowd control and utility with the spells from the black gem, but I was already really utility focused and could use some damage to round myself out. I snatched the white gem, and with a wink toward her, popped it into my mouth.

  The second it hit my tongue, it fizzed, filling my mouth with a tasteless foam that nearly came out my nose, then dissolved, filling me with warmth, and just as quickly faded away.

  “Hmm, tasteless, and yet still better than Food™ bars.”

  Congratulations! You have learned the spell Frost.

  Congratulations! You have learned the spell Flame.

  Congratulations! You have learned the spell Poison.

  Congratulations! You have learned the spell Light.

  I held up my hand, focusing hard on casting Flame, and within a couple seconds, a foot-long gout of fire shot from it while my Mana drained by ten points. So. Cool. I didn’t feel any heat, just a circle of energy on my palm that almost felt like wind blowing condensed in just that circle. It was a baby spell, and I had so much to learn, but boy oh boy did I feel bad ass.

  Madison swallowed her gem and grinned hugely. She crinkled up her nose and tried to stifle a laugh as the fizz filled her mouth. Then she closed her eyes hard, pointed her hand out, opened her eyes, and a small electric charge like from a taser arced between her fingers, snapping with electricity.

  “That’s so cool!” she said.

  “Heck yeah, I can’t wait to try this out,” I said. “Let me loot these corpses real quick and let’s get back to our hike.” I went to the glob corpse and opened the loot box, finding a small ugly blue rock inside it.