The Skull Throne: A LitRPG novel (Kingdom of Heaven Book 1)

by J. A. Cipriano

  “Because we’re through the West End,” she answered, cracking her green knuckles and taking a deep breath which made her back arch and her green breasts heave in a way that made me both excited and uncomfortable. “You know what that means.”

  My mind raced for a moment. If I knew what it meant, I didn't remember it, of course, maybe her heaving bosom had something to do with it. The Forest of Indecision was huge and home to at least a hundred crisscrossing lanes, all of them but a handful leading you down a path to certain death. To make matters worse, they were always shifting, always changing. If you didn’t know what you were looking for – the signs letting you know which paths were the right ones – it was a lot easier to make the wrong decision than it was to make the right one. Hence the name, the Forest of Indecision.

  Those paths were still miles off though. They were closer to the far end of the forest, much closer to the Lake of Rebirth. Here on the West End, you didn’t even have to worry about the sort of trees which gave you apples and scooped up the remnants for you. Nope, all you had was straight forward, regular, still trees and…

  “Oh goddamn it,” I muttered, realizing exactly why Hecate had stopped, and what it meant for the next few minutes of my gameplay or, as I liked to call it nowadays, my existence. God, that was a trippy thought. It was almost enough to make me turn tail and run, but what good would that do me? “You’ve got to be kidding me. I seriously don’t have the energy for him right now.”

  “Has anyone ever had the energy for the Jackal?” Hecate asked, shaking her head and looking over at me. “Though, last I checked, the Jackal didn’t much care whether we had the energy for him or not.”

  I sighed, knowing how true the statement was. Of all the NPCs in Kingdom of Heaven, the Jackal was by far my least favorite. An annoying imp with a living shadow who seemed to serve no purpose other than to double the amount of “douche” which could fit on my screen.

  The Jackal was the resident trickster of these woods. Many the wasted night I’d spent following a path I knew to be the right one only to find the Jackal had shifted the details, leaving only the slightest oddity to point to his deception. To say it was annoying was like saying the situation I now found myself in was “slightly off-kilter.”

  The only way to assure the Jackal didn’t bend you over and metaphorically screw your entire night away was to either bribe him or to face him head on. Neither option seemed particularly palatable at the moment.

  “How do we deal with this?” I asked, looking over at Hecate.

  “Got any coins?’ the ogre asked, looking over at me with curiosity.

  “I’m a freaking ghost, Hecate. I wouldn’t have any pockets to put them in. Of course, I don’t have any coins!” I snapped, rolling my eyes. “If I had coins, I’d have already bribed him.”

  “Geez, it was just a question,” she sniped back. “Since I left all my money in my other armor, it looks like we’re going to have to take option two.”

  “But I hate option two,” I groaned, and if ghosts could slump in defeat, I would have. Instead, I stayed there, all incorporeal and depressed.

  “Everyone hates option two,” Hecate answered as though she was telling me something as plain as “everyone likes cake, you jackass.” “Everyone hates the Jackal in general. Haven’t you ever wondered why he spends all his time out here, accosting passersby in a forest? It’s because no one can stand to deal with him.”

  “I just thought it was a function of the game,” I admitted, shrugging my ghostly shoulders.

  “The game’s not a game here,” Hecate reminded me. “Everything you think of as abstract or a plot point has a real and distinct reason here.” She gave me a firm nod. “Now say the words.”

  “You say the words. I’m not saying the words,” I said, and folded my arms over my chest.

  “If I say the words, he’ll ask me the questions, and I’d rather if he ask them to you. You have an eighty-seven percent success rate when dealing with the Jackal’s questions.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked, my curiosity piqued.

  “I told you, we did research before we picked you.” She turned back to the forest. “It was thorough.”

  “Who’s this ‘we’ you keep talking about?” I asked, floating over in front of her. “Who are you working for exactly?”

  “For? No one,” she answered in a way that suggested she didn’t want to tell me. “With? Well, that’s a question that will answer itself in time. Until then, I say we get you back to your body so we can actually talk some shop, but to do that, Iron Jack, you’ve got to say the words.”

  I sighed, turning around and speaking those horrible words in a flat monotone which left no doubt about how much I did not want to do this.

  “Jackal of the Forest, hear my call. Jackal of the Forest, stand up tall. Jackal of the Forest, come to me. Jackal of the Forest, with your questions three.” I spun around immediately. “Well, I guess he didn’t hear us. Maybe he’s digging a hole to China or something. Better luck next time.”

  “There’s no China in this world,” Hecate replied, smug satisfaction leaking into her voice. “And I’m not the one who needs the luck.”

  She motioned behind me. I turned back around to see branches dip as the Jackal hopped toward us like some kind of deranged kangaroo. His stupid, annoying laugh crackled through the forest. Like nails on a chalkboard while Fran Drescher was laughing—it was unbearable.

  “Here we go,” I sighed. “Why couldn’t the explosion have just killed me?”

  The laugh resounded through the forest once more as the Jackal bounded toward me. Just like in the game, the first thing I saw was his shadow. For whatever reason, the damned thing always preceded him. The black, imp-shaped mass landed in front of me an instant before the Jackal himself followed suit and crashed to the ground.

  With scraggly strings of long brown hair, skin the color of rust, and teeth that were a lollipop away from rotting out of his skull, he definitely wasn’t winning any beauty contests.

  Luckily, what the Jackal lacked in beauty, with his pointed ears, jutting nose, and gigantic unibrow, he more than made up for with a personality about as pleasant as acid rain.

  “Well, well, well,” the Jackal sneered, looking up at me. “If it isn’t good old Iron Jack. Been a while.”

  “I saw you three days ago,” I answered trying to ignore the need to defend myself as I glanced over at Hecate. “I die a lot.”

  “Be that as it may,” Jackal said pushing himself closer to me in a way that suggested he’d never actually heard the term “personal space” before. “Something about you looks different, though.” He tapped one yellow-nailed hand against his temple. “What could it be…? Something, something, something…”

  “He’s actually here this time, Jackal. Like, really here,” Hecate answered impatiently. “Can we move this along?”

  The Jackal looked at me, then at Hecate, then back at me. Then he stopped a beat, before looking back over at Hecate once more. “I’m not following you.”

  “Whatever!” I said loudly. “Can you just ask me the damned questions so we can get this over with?”

  “If it pleases you, Iron Jack,” Jackal said, leaning forward on his calloused heels. “Question one, and be aware that an incorrect answer may very well result in you receiving my full wrath.”

  “Which means you’re going to burp on me or something?” I muttered, rolling my ghost eyes. I was just trying to play it cool. I knew the Jackal could really screw with me if he wanted. Tricksters weren’t exactly harmless in these parts.

  “Question one!” he yelled. “Who, Iron Jack, is your best friend?” His eyes looked up at me expectantly.

  I sighed, half expecting this sort of inane and sad questioning. “I mean, I guess my sister is. Is that sad?” I said.

  “Incorrect!” he yelled. “I will give you one more chance to answer correctly and, should you fail again, you might very well receive my full wrath. Now,” he repeated through g
ritted teeth. “Who, Iron Jack, is your best friend?”

  “I’m pretty tight with my friend, Donny,” I answered.

  “Nuh-uh!” the Jackal said, and both he and his shadow stomped the ground in frustration. “Come on, dude!” He cleared his throat. “I will give you one more chance to answer correctly. If you fail to do so, you–”

  “I get it, your full wrath,” I finished. “I just don’t know what you want from me. I mean–” I caught him, looking up at me still expectantly. Then it hit me, what he wanted. God, this was sad. “Ask me again,” I sighed.

  “Iron Jack, who is your best friend?” he boomed, and as he spoke the forest around us quivered in trepidation.

  “You are, Jackal,” I said in a flat voice.

  “Oh, really?’ he answered, his ugly face lighting up. “No way. That’s so nice of you.” His face went stone again. “Question two. Let’s pretend you and your best friend, whoever that may be, decided to go on a picnic. What kind of sandwich would you prepare for your platonic soul mate to celebrate your perfect day of fun?”

  “Seriously?” I balked, raising an eyebrow at me.

  “What kind of sandwich?!” he repeated, leaning in closer to me.

  “Turkey and cheese, I guess.”

  “Mayo?” he asked.

  “Light mayo,” I confirmed.

  “I’ll accept that,” he replied, clapping his hands together. “Final question. Which is cooler, dinosaurs or robots?”

  I sighed again. It was like a freaking reflex at this point. Looking down at the Jackal, I answered the only way I knew how. “Tie.”

  The Jackal stepped back, freeing our path. “Be well, Iron Jack...and company,” the Jackal said, his eyes raking over Hecate with barely hidden disdain. “Know you have the blessing of the Jackal.”

  “Lucky me,” I muttered and floated past the annoying creature.

  “Okay then,” the Jackal shouted from over my shoulder as Hecate and I made our way through the forest. “See you later. I’ll … I’ll call you.”

  5

  “Well, this is embarrassing,” I said, looking down at my dead body and realizing that after I was struck down, but before I died in game, I’d soiled myself. I shook my head, twisting my ghost mouth down into a shameful frown. “I swear; I never do that sort of thing.”

  “You sort of do,” Hecate answered, glaring down at me with a green hand on her chin. “Don’t feel bad though. All of you Earth-based folk do this when you die. It’s basic science, you know. Death causes the loss of bowel control while we spiritual beings don’t have to worry about that messy excretion problem.”

  “Right,” I muttered, glancing down at the mess of a man lying on a patch of ultra-green grass. He looked absolutely nothing like me. Well, at least not the real Earth me. I was tall and gangly, with my mother’s pointed nose and my father’s weak chin. It had been enough to make high school a less than spectacular place and, if I wouldn’t have at least partially grown into my decidedly geeky looking features, I’d have probably suffered the same “female drought” in college.

  I had grown into them, though, for the most part. I’d filled out in the places I needed to and learned how to be self-effacing to make up for not being one of those male models Taylor Swift was always either falling for or getting revenge on in her music videos.

  Who knew if it worked though? I hated to admit it, but Amanda had been right. I had spent so much of my time taking care of her and John, I’d let my own needs fall to the wayside.

  The thought of them – Amanda and John – pulled at my ghostly heart as I looked down at this body. They wouldn’t recognize this guy. If they saw me, they wouldn’t know who I was.

  It was sort of embarrassing, but because I was a guy who liked to see himself a certain way whenever possible, I decided to make my KOH guy look a little different than myself. I liked to think of it as me with a couple of slight upgrades.

  “Damn, that’s a good looking man,” Hecate said, shaking her head and staring down at the body, her forked tongue running across her lips.

  I grimaced. Looking down at the corpse (a corpse that was almost as familiar as my own body at this point, given the sheer amount of time I’d spend wielding it in game). Had I gone overboard? “Iron Jack” had a chiseled jaw studded with George Clooney facial hair, the kind of bright blue eyes girls were always saying they got lost in, and enough muscle to be attractive without being off-putting.

  It was basically Ryan Gosling with armor and a kickass sword.

  “I mean you’re almost too good looking if that’s possible.” Looking over at me, she amended. “I mean, not the real you, of course. The real you is well…” she gestured lamely at me. “You.”

  “Of course,” I muttered, a pang of rejection rushing through me. “So,” I swallowed hard, “how do I do this?”

  “Excuse me?” Hecate asked, looking over at me with wide eyes. “How do you do what?”

  “Get back into this body,” I answered flatly while pointing at it.

  “What?” Hecate asked, looking from me, to “Ryan Gosling” me, and then back at me again. “Am I to assume you don’t know how to do this?”

  My heart sped up as I took her in. This green bitch was completely serious. She expected me to know how to reinsert my spirit back into this body. Respawn for real.

  “How the hell would I know how to do something like that, Hecate?” I said, my own incorporeal eyes locking onto his. “I’m not from here.”

  “I don’t know,” she spit back. “Maybe because you’ve done it two thousand and seventy-six times before! I figured you could just go with experience.”

  “I don’t have this kind of experience,” I answered, crossing my arms over my ethereal chest. My psyche was tensing up because I knew what happened to people in Kingdom of Heaven if they stayed out of their bodies for too long. They became prey to some pretty awful things. “All those respawns – and I’m a little freaked out that you seem to know exactly how many times I’ve done it – were done on a screen, using a keyboard.” I shook my head. “This is definitely not what that is.”

  “It’s the same basic principle, right?” Hecate asked, looking over her shoulder.

  “What is it?” I asked, turning to see what she was looking at. “What are you sensing?”

  I knew enough about Ogres, NPC and player alike to know they had a very specific skill set. On the semi-regular occasions, I would run into an NPC ogre during my gameplay; it was almost always for the same reasons. They could sense some horrible energy on the horizon, and they were looking for a strong type guy with a big sword to keep them safe. Is that what was going on here? Had Hecate duped me into being plunged into this land so I could keep her safe to the nth level?

  “Nothing,” Hecate answered. It was an obvious lie. “Can you just get a move on? We have things to do.”

  “You’re lying,” I said quickly. “You don’t respawn two thousand times for nothing. I’ve been around the block more than once.”

  “What block?” she asked, shaking his head. ‘What are you talking about?”

  “It’s an expression,” I explained, still looking past her and trying to decipher what it was Hecate felt coming. “It means I know what I’m doing.”

  “Really?” she scoffed, her forehead denting in the middle as she furrowed it. “That’s a strange expression for someone who doesn’t even know how to resurrect.”

  “Says the ogre who’s lived literally her entire life here!”

  “Like that matters!” She turned from me, looking back in the direction she had moments ago, off toward the forest we’d just left. “This isn’t something I have a lot of experience with. Resurrection is reserved for earthbound creatures. Only avatars without attached souls can be brought back to life.” She cleared her throat. “Which is why I was hoping you’d know your way around this.”

  “Wait a second,” I said, deducing the information I’d just received from my ogre guide. “You can’t respawn because your soul i
s in this plane?”

  “Correct,” she answered. “As the Earth afterlife is a mystery to most humans, our own afterlife is a mystery to most of us.”

  “But you said my soul was transported here. You said it was what I was. So, when I attach myself to this irritatingly handsome bastard–”

  “You won’t be able to resurrect again either,” she said, nodding and completing my thought. “It’s a one-time shot, Iron Jack. You are this person now. Once your soul takes root in this body, death will be death. Simple as that.”

  My heart thudded to a stop. Suddenly, this game didn’t seem so fun. It didn’t seem so…game-like. My mind began to race, and my palms felt itchy and unreal. “Well, isn’t that a bitch?”

  I was a kickass Kingdom of Heaven player. That much was evident from the fact that I had been magically transported here to save the Skull Throne. Was that enough though? Was I really good enough to do this? What if I wasn’t the player I thought I was?

  There was no denying though that I leaned pretty heavily on respawning though. I was a tactician. I liked scoping things out, getting the lay of the land, and biding my time. That usually meant I didn’t complete quests the first time. In fact, there had been missions where I’d spent entire weeks just gathering intel from various lands or enemies. Of course, I died more times than I (though apparently not Hecate) could count in the process. If I used those tactics now, I’d be as dead as the carcass I was now looking at. My heart broke at the thought of that, of never seeing my sister, my friends, or John ever again.

  “I get that this is probably a big deal to you, Iron Jack, but I sort of need you to focus right now,” Hecate hissed from beside me.

  The sound of her giving me an order sent a jolt of anger through my non-body. This bastard had a lot of nerve. She’d conned me into following her out to a portal leading to a weird, make-believe video game land, and now she wants to give me orders about what I will and won’t do? If I wanted a chick to tell me where to go and what to do, I’d have stayed at home. Who the hell did she think she was? More importantly, who the hell did she think I was?