Finding a Body (The Dark Herbalist Book #4) LitRPG series

by Michael Atamanov

  Max Sochnier in his turn not hiding his pride at a job well done reported that the trade system in my lands was already built up and quite stable. Orcs, rougarou and even forest monsters were spending the money they earned and selling their loot from Lars in market pavilions to buy food and drink. Blacksmiths and armorers were also working nonstop on weapon and armor orders from my subjects. Just in the last twenty-four hours, four ships loaded with fish had been sent to the Dark Sovereign’s lands, and they all came back full of antiaris wood, rare herbs, unique rose pearls from Frigid Lake and mithril.

  “Mithril?” I stopped my friend.

  “Yes! The dwarves are as happy as pigs in shit! Almost directly below your palace they discovered rich veins of iron, silver, and ‘true silver.’ Two thirds of the bearded chaps got their picks out as soon as they heard and left straight from the wedding!” After seeing my disturbed expression, Max Sochnier hurried to add. “Don’t worry Timothy. We’ve been keeping track of what’s mined and the Dark Sovereign will get coins and a share of the ore.”

  That was very interesting and informative, and there was lots I still wanted to discuss with my friends, but I had to twist out of it. The problem was that lots of testers had started gathering around our table, clearly having overheard our conversation. A few had their phones out and were taking pictures with me in the background, some even selfies. I heard muted voices from all sides: “That’s the Dark Sovereign!” “Yeah, that’s Amra himself!” It was becoming harder and harder to ignore the buzzing crowd which grew by leaps and bounds with every minute. What was more, a few especially rude beggar types had started edging into our conversation and asking my friends and I for money to “grow their characters.” So I got up from the table showing that the conversation was over and suggested we all get back to the game.

  * * *

  SO THEN, loading. And the first thing I noticed was a big bright full-screen message congratulating me on setting a record. Level four hundred and forty-two!!! I was the first and for now only Boundless Realm player ever to reach such dizzying heights! But I hadn’t actually spent my many stat points, or selected new specializations and perks yet. I just didn’t have it in me now, and this important issue would need to be thought over long and hard, all the while holding in mind that I might be able to reset and redistribute all my stats later.

  I found myself deep in the dungeons under the palace, where I had placed a respawn stone. It was behind many locked doors, impenetrable to other players and thus safe. A second later, the Storekeeper appeared nearby and gave me a deep bow. The NPC demon couldn’t come any closer to the humming stone, but was acting impatient with his whole appearance, so I hurried to walk over to my servant. But before I’d taken five steps, the Storekeeper was suddenly hidden behind a furry block that took up half the room. Where the heck did that come from? I shuddered in surprise and only then realized I was seeing the Gray Pack rammed into a room that was too small for them like a can of sardines.

  But oh how my pets had grown! I could only recognize Fimbulthul by the words over his fanged head. The unique Mythical Hound was at level 420. Now he wasn’t so much a hound as an elephant or a woolly mammoth covered in thick white fur. And the gray Akella, now an Ancient Alpha Forest Wolf, was no smaller than the icy white Fimbulthul. Woah! He had now changed classification from normal to rare and his stats had grown to match. Lobo, White Fang and Blanca also became rare “ancient wolves.” The level-421 Guard Dog had also become rare, but still remained nameless. The Ancient Alpha Swamp Wolf Baron was at level-421 and had even entered the ranks of the unique creatures.

  Gjöll couldn’t be called a little girl anymore either. The unique piercing black she-wolf was just two levels behind Fimbulthul, while at shoulder height she was no smaller. And I was seeing Fjörm in the flesh for the first time. The pup I’d received yesterday from the dwarves had grown in one day from level 1 to 418 and was an exact copy of Fimbulthul, but bright red and his fur was not quite so matted. The animals whimpered for joy and ran over to me but they couldn’t get past the invisible boundary. It was as if the area around the respawn stone was blocked by transparent glass.

  I then walked over to the huge beasts and, caressing the pets who rushed out to greet me, sent the Gray Pack out to hunt in an endless glade of magically-warped centuries-old trees inhabited by ghastly monsters. Even the scouts I sent out to explore the Dark Sovereign’s lands didn’t risk going too deep in there, impressed by the power and danger of the creatures that lived in the murky forest. But now I’d let the eternally hungry giants of the Gray Pack hunt for monsters in that distant forest. Better than having them lick their lips while staring at my subjects. What was more, no matter how fearsome the huge monsters in that dangerous glade were, my pretties could take them down in one bite. And that would make the forest less dangerous.

  “Well Storekeeper, I trust that you managed to hide the underwater treasure,” I started, getting straight to business as soon as the giant predators were out of the room.

  I was expecting a long story from the Storekeeper about what was hidden where but the demon unexpectedly fell to his knees and went into a frenzy, tearing at the already sparse hair on his head and chest:

  “Master, I couldn’t carry it all! I only took one trunk of the most valuable weapons, and some luxurious rings and jewelry. I hid the rest of the treasure in an underwater cave guarded by a huge kraken. There is enough treasure down there to make Aladdin’s cave look like a dump! I thought I’d go get it all in another few trips. But for some reason I couldn’t go back to that magical place! So much has been lost! Forgive me, master...”

  The demon had done much more than I had hoped. He not only acted as live bait which the Legion of Steel took hook line and sinker, he’d done the same trick to a whole army of undying, scrupulously gathered the most valuable loot and brought it to my treasure chamber. However, seeing the greedy demon lament about the rest of the lost treasure, it would have been fundamentally wrong to try and calm him down and tell him everything was fine and we already had plenty. Doing that would only damage my authority in the eyes of my servant. So I whipped up a fearsome dressing-down:

  “How could you?! We’ve lost a whole cave of treasure! And right now every coin is important to reinforce my army before the final battle! You dolt, do you even understand how my foes will laugh at me? Could you at least put together a map of the location?”

  The demon gave a very rapid nod of his horned head and extended me a rumpled yellow sheet of rough paper with some partially-erased numbers and half-smeared scrawling. These must have been the approximate coordinates of the hidden treasure and a sketch of the cave entrance drawn by the Storekeeper himself. So let’s see what we have here...

  A depth of twenty-three thousand feet??? And thirty miles away from the ocean trap? I looked at my servant in surprise and even unwitting admiration. He must have made hundreds of trips in complete darkness at such a monstrous depth to get it all there in the first place.

  Mission received: Don’t drown, Aladdin!

  Mission class: unique, group, time-limited

  Description: Explore the underwater cave within 2 days, 23 hours, and 59 minutes. Watch out for sea monsters!

  Reward: variable

  I hadn’t received a quest in a good long while! And this one was unique and time-limited! In any other situation I would jump for joy and immediately start hunting treasure. But this was such bad timing! And if I approached the issue from a purely technical standpoint, how could I even haul the treasure up from underwater???

  Anyhow, it was a unique quest and, as Kira had once advised me, it could always be sold to others at a profit. Or... I bared my teeth in satisfaction, revealing my sharp fangs... I could use it to have a bit of fun! When else would I get such a great chance to play on the greed and vanity of the players!

  “You are forgiven!” I told the Storekeeper and the demon instantly relaxed, got off his knees and straightened his shoulders. “I’ll be keeping this
paper, though. You go show Valerianna Quickfoot the loot you did get. My sister might see something she likes in there. The rest you should seal up tight under lock and key! Ah yeah, I almost forgot. Also show Valerianna the unopenable case the Gremlin Banker gave me. If even the highest-level enchantress in Boundless Realm doesn’t have the Intelligence to unravel its mystery, I’ll have to regift it. Let the mystery occupy someone else’s mind!”

  As soon as the demon of avarice disappeared, I demanded my Steward bring me to the Dark Sovereign’s personal chambers. I needed to spend some time alone concentrating to gain inspiration. I understood that, in the next few days, I wouldn’t have the strength or time to deal with the underwater treasure. In a different situation, without a Sword of Damocles hanging over my neck with the risk of invasion, I might have done it. Even still there would have been a whole bunch of technical issues on the path to victory. But now was not the time for that.

  I could, however, use that unreachable treasure another way. What did Iron Jeanette say today? Amra was known for his unexpected gifts, which often made his enemies look like fools. And the players knew that so they were in no rush to get into a war against the Dark Sovereign. The last thing they wanted was to join the sad list of losers with blackened reputation. So I needed to ramp up the psychological war and stem the flow of volunteers joining my enemies!

  So, in ten minutes, all Boundless Realm saw a new message from the Dark Sovereign:

  “Today, I’ll be celebrating a glorious victory over a grand army of jackasses who forgot they were land animals with hooves and thought they were dolphins. And jackasses, as you know, don’t need any clothes or weapons, so I took all their valuables and hid them in a secret location. That means somewhere there is a buried treasure worth tens and maybe even hundreds of millions of game coins. But the Dark Sovereign will simply give the coordinates of that treasure to whoever can write the most acrid, pointed and memorable poem about my enemies and posts it on the Boundless Realm forums. I will be tallying the results in exactly twenty-four hours and will personally name the winner. And they will become a millionaire that very instant! Of course, that is if they can take the treasure in the next forty-eight hours. But that will all depend on the moxie of the victor and their team.

  P.S. My enemies who want their things back can also take part in this literary competition. Self-criticism will be looked on with special favor.

  P.P.S. I am aware the items are exceptional, so the winner will be free to remain anonymous.”

  * * *

  I DIDN’T EVEN have time to leave my chambers before two huge iron-bound chests plunked down on the luxurious carpet right at my feet one after the next. The magical winged demon messengers, wiping the sweat from their brows and grumbling in dismay about the long road and massive weight, both disappeared at once, leaving a palpable stench of sulfur in the air. Without opening the chests, I already knew what was in them. New shipments of blood. And just in the nick of time! I had just finished the last one. My alchemy laboratory was running low on samples, and I’d even already eaten half of the caged beasts. And meanwhile, I was levelling Taste Tester double-time.

  A high Taste Tester score was vitally necessary, because it gave me increased defense against sunlight and holy magic. Those types of damage were well known to be a vampire’s critical weakness, so that was exactly the way they would want to take down creatures like me. I had to prepare for the inevitable sunlight attack, so I was just downing one vial of blood after the next. And what was more, Regeneration improved in parallel with Taste Tester, which was also pretty vital.

  So, what did I have here? It came with a description of the contents as usual. This time it was the “Complete Collection of Blood Samples from the Pearly Sea” and the “Complete Collection of Blood Samples from the Gloomy Swamps.” But there was also a letter attached. I immediately unfurled it and read:

  “Dear junior brother of the night!

  We have heard your call and will come to your aid. All seventeen of the elder vampires of Boundless Realm voted unanimously that it was time to emerge from the shadows and announce our existence. We come from various races and classes, but the thing that binds us all is that we’re each worth a dozen soldiers in battle. And Sovereign, you need not doubt our loyalty because there is too much at stake and we cannot go back. Expect us to come by tomorrow. We would like to make a new home in the ancient ruins of Acheron, which is rumored to be in your lands. We are not afraid of the undead that live there, while the ancient mysteries of the city are worth enough to leave our past lives behind.

  P.S. Amra, if you can, please put together a list of blood samples your collection is missing and send it in a private message. My game name is: Rick Jolly. Human. Level-249 Jester. We’ll all try to get some together before going off to see you.”

  Very interesting! To be honest, I did not understand how the group of vampires was planning to get to my castle. Maybe, when they thought they were ready they’d ask me to send a portal scroll. Or did the elder vampires have modes of transportation normal players couldn’t use? Too bad I was such a blockhead and hadn’t thought to record all the blood samples I’d already tried. Now, having drunk more than three hundred different samples, it would be quite an undertaking to get that information in one place. And obviously that made it all the harder to know what was missing. I also hadn’t ever seen any place that listed all creatures in the game with unique blood for leveling Taste Tester.

  Alright, I’d handle the dangerous bloodsuckers on my own. I’d find them a place in my army and something to do in peacetime. What was more, the old ruins of the ancient city, located half day’s walk to the south of my castle and teeming with ghosts was not a place claimed by the rougarou clans or any other settlers and refugees. Why not have it become the place for all vampires?

  Now I’d have to get to other business. For appearances I at least had to attend Tondik Exuberant’s wedding to Vanessa Hamfist. At the same time I’d have to talk with the dwarves about moving to my lands long-term. I had to figure out why the warg werebeasts Darius and Darina had come back to me after asking to be set free. And most importantly, I had to finally see my beautiful goblin bride Taisha. We had so much to discuss.

  * * *

  DESPITE MY high Resistance to Poison and Constitution of well over fifteen hundred, I left the dwarven wedding a bit tipsy and on shaky legs. Heady meads and strong liqueurs flowed like a river, toasts to my health came one after the next and the zombie servants couldn’t pick up the empty dishes and bring new ones from the kitchen fast enough. And although half the dwarves were sawing logs under the tables, there were also a good number in a soberer state. My long-awaited coming was met with a howl of joy. I was then quickly assigned a half-bowl “penalty drinking” for the almost one day I had come late. So, popping the cork out of an ancient barrel, they poured some aromatic ruby red wine into a bowl.

  “We waited to open it until you came, Sovereign. This is mandrake wine, it’s been in an oak barrel for three hundred years and infused with Blue Agave pollen and dragon’s blood,” Tondik’s mother Pirona Zealous explained. “No drink in Boundless Realm is rarer or dearer! The legends say dwarven King Balin the Third cut down eight of his own brothers for the pleasure of drinking a bottle of this stuff all on his own!”

  Well then... Sounded intriguing. I raised the bowl, wished health to the young couple who were not there at the time, and to all the wedding guests, then I drank the impressive-sounding beverage.

  Woah... The floor shuddered under my feet. It felt like I had swallowed liquid fire. But at the same time the drink had a luxurious sweetness and a bitter foretaste that kept my throat from catching flame. Seemingly, despite the centuries since corking, this wine still had an appreciable quantity of dragon’s blood.

  Achievement unlocked: Taste tester (328/1000)

  Blessing received: for the next two weeks your Resistance to Fire is increased by 30%!

  I didn’t want a repeat of the drunken shitshow
I started on the Isle of the Wanton Widow, so I refused a second swallow and returned the bowl to Pirona Zealous, who in her turn also drank a bit of the fiery liquid and let the precious wine make its way further down the room. The gloomy dwarven woman, also barely having caught her breath, dug in her endless jacket pockets and extended me the promised vial of blood:

  “Here is the rare item I promised you. Please let me express my gratitude to you, Amra! My son Tondik is now the most respected dwarf in our clan. Our minstrels have even written a ballad about his ghostly hand and all-seeing eye. Now my son will go down in the ages! And look at the bride you found for him, she’s just a delight! And she has character, which is very important. She told me off as soon as I came to give advice about their first night. And the expressions she used! I hadn’t even heard half of them before! Still I am sure that my son will be well looked after!”

  Mission completed: Marrying off a son

  Experience received: 40000 Exp., vial of Horror of the Depths blood

  Bonus condition completed

  Experience received: 80000 Exp. +10 to the opinion of all Dwarves in Boundless Realm

  At my level of 442, I was neither hot or cold toward an extra one hundred twenty thousand experience points, but the rare unique creature blood came very in handy. And what timing, improving dwarven opinion of me right before a round of serious negotiations! Now I had no doubt I could entice the underground folk to permanently settle in my lands and get their unsurpassed master smiths to make weaponry for my army. And the capable bearded engineers were very useful in building fortifications both in the Icy Mountains and the other sections of the border.