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

by J. A. Cipriano

  He ran his hands together and, in my line of sight, I saw the words Tremor of Despair scroll past. It was a raid boss alert, a built-in feature to warn players of massive attacks from the kind of monsters it would take twenty players to take on. Needless to say, it told me how much out of my depth I truly was.

  Like the freaking Incredible Hulk, his clap sent a shockwave through the air so intense, it shot me into the air. I flew like a ragdoll out of the outpost, slamming hard against the trunk of a tree over a thousand feet away and dropping my health to one.

  There, I found Ori and Hecate beaten and broken. Their bodies were twisted and bruised. Looking at my unconscious brethren, one thought repeated through my brain.

  We were screwed.

  20

  “What just happened?” Hecate asked me, seconds after her body jolted awake. I was pacing beside her and had just had this conversation with a newly awakened Ori, who hadn’t taken the news of “what just happened” very well.

  Let’s see if the ogre has a better attitude.

  “The Shadow just handed our asses to us. That’s what happened!” I shouted, shaking my head and practically stomping my foot like I was a petulant child. “Well, he handed me my ass. I guess all it took was a couple of his goons to bring the two of you down.”

  For whatever reason, there was contempt in my voice. We had all just gotten beaten. I wasn’t sure why I thought it mattered who did the beating or how.

  “Wait,” Hecate coughed, sitting upright. “The Shadow was here? In this pissy little outpost?”

  I practically growled in response. “This pissy little outpost was a goddamned trap, and you were too stupid to know it! The Jackal led us here like sheep to the slaughter, and you just allowed it to happen!”

  I could tell the words were way harsh coming out of my mouth, but I couldn’t stop myself. Maybe the Shadow’s words had gotten to me a little more than I was letting on. I mean, just how reckless had these two been in the past? What kind of destruction had they caused and what sort of remorse did they feel because of it?

  “How many?” I asked, looking from Hecate to Ori with clenched teeth. “How fucking many? I want you to tell me right now!”

  “How many what?” she asked, her voice similarly studded with anger. “How many nervous breakdowns have you had? You seem to be having another.”

  “How many people were here before me? How many people from my world died trying to save yours?”

  “We’re back to this?” Ori asked, throwing her hands out at her sides. “We’re back to the ‘us vs. you’ mentality? What are you going to do if you don’t like the answer, Jack? Are you going to run away again? We all saw how well that turned out the last time.”

  “Don’t lay that on me!” I shouted, as angry as I had ever been maybe. “And don’t think I didn’t notice you conveniently left out the ‘Iron’ part of my name again.”

  “You get it when you deserve it,” she answered crossing her arms over her chest.

  “And when do I deserve it, Ori?” I balked, walking toward her. “By doing exactly what you tell me to do whenever you tell me to do it? Isn’t that what got all the others killed, or were you just not going to tell me about that?”

  I watched her hand as it settled over her mace. My Energy bar appeared overhead which, for the sake of clarity, definitely put the “Iron” in front of my name. Guess it wasn’t as fickle with the usage as Ori turned out to be.

  Her Energy bar came up too, not as full as my own, though we could both use a power up. I started thinking about insane things, like whether or not I could actually take the Mistress of the Void and Keeper of the Sanctity of the Portals in a fight. This was completely insane, of course.

  Ori was an NPC for one and not just any NPC. She was on the goddamned game box for Christ’s sake. This was like walking onto the cover of Sports Illustrated and bitch slapping LeBron James before challenging him to a game of horse. Which, of course, wouldn’t have been a good idea either.

  “Are we going to do this?” I asked, stupid anger replacing the area in my brain where things like “healthy fear” and “knowing better” would normally go. “Are you really going to fight me?”

  “I’m going to protect myself,” she answered, her eyes burning into me. “Regardless of what shape that takes.”

  “Stop this right now!” Hecate snapped, getting between us, though I couldn’t help but notice that her Energy bar was nowhere to be seen. Guess she didn’t intend on taking part in this beat down. “Both of you are acting like idiots.” She turned to me. “Mostly you. Now calm down and tell me what crawled up your ass and died. Is it that you finally came face to face with the Shadow? Did he scare you?”

  “That doesn’t have anything to do with it,” I said, looking from Hecate to Ori. I was just screaming at her and junk, but the idea of her thinking I was afraid still rubbed me the wrong way for some reason. Maybe it was because I wanted her to see me in a much different light. “And no. He didn’t scare me.”

  “Then you’re more foolish than even I thought you were,” Ori answered.

  Okay. Well, that backfired.

  “The Shadow is perhaps the most dangerous person in all of KOH. Why do you think the Principalities have turned tail and run from this particular realm?”

  “Because the Upper Level is freaking awesome?” I asked, remembering the stories and rumors I’d read in game magazines about what the secret and (as far as I could tell) completely uncharted level had to offer.

  “You know nothing of the Upper Level or what it really holds,” she scoffed, talking to me like I was a nun trying to explain multiple orgasms to her or something. “And, regardless of what splendor may or may not exist there, do you not believe the Principalities would rather train you for the fight ahead?”

  “If that’s true,” I answered, settling my gaze on her. “Then they should get their feathered asses down here and train me.”

  “And risk death?” she asked. “Do you have any idea what would happen if the Shadow managed to kill the Principalities? The very shape of this place is built on their backs, because of the laws or magic, faith, and science that they implemented. Without them, this place would become subject to the whims of whoever managed to steal their Energy.” She shook her head. “It’s a risk they can’t take.”

  “It doesn’t seem to me like they’ve been taking any risks,” I shot back, folding my hands over my chest. “I mean seriously; they weren’t even involved in this until recently. Were they?”

  “Who told you that?” Hecate asked. “Did the Shadow tell you that? What else did he whisper into your ear?”

  I shook my head. “Why don’t you answer my question, and then I’ll consider answering yours.”

  Hecate huffed loudly, balling her fists up (though her Energy bar was still a no show) and looking from Ori to me and back again. Finally, the ogre blinked hard and explained. “The Principalities are old. They’re geezers practically and, even in this realm, old people are slow to change. It took them a while to believe what I was telling them was the truth. I managed to convince Ori first, and even that wasn’t good enough. They just couldn’t believe a mortal from the Earth realm could ever prove to be a real threat.”

  “Didn’t they know about the Skull Throne?” I asked. “About the fact that only a child of Earth could sit on it?”

  I felt like Frodo Baggins as I asked these questions, going on about thrones and spells, and magic people.

  “That,” Hecate said uneasily, “is a newish development.”

  “How newish?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at her.

  “The Shadow made a play for the throne some time ago. I asked the Principalities for help, but they scoffed at my request. Then he killed one of them.”

  “What?” I asked, my muscles tensing in shock. “He killed a Principality?”

  “They couldn’t believe it either, but he did. That kill gave him a lot of Power, Levels, and Attunement ranks, and he didn’t waste it. He cursed th
e Skull Throne, changed reality so that only a child of Earth could sit upon it. He thought that it would be enough to ensure his rule.” Hecate’s eyes drifted to the ground. “That was when the Principalities came up with the game. Bringing humans into this world, it helped us fight him off. But only truly bringing a human into this world would allow one to sit on it.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said, biting my bottom lip. “If he changed the throne, why don’t the Principalities just change it back? It was their Energy that did it in the first place, right?”

  “Yes and no,” Ori said, which was the kind of answer I never wanted to hear about anything, let alone something that involved the fate of an entire world. “The Principalities each have their own energy signature. None is more powerful than the other and none can undo what the others have done. So–”

  “When the Shadow took the Power of the slain Principality, it basically screwed the rest.” That must have been the glitchy Attunement I had seen. It was the Power of the Principality he had taken unto himself.

  “Precisely,” Hecate answered.

  “Man,” I muttered. “No wonder he was so pissed about them working with you.”

  “What?” Ori asked, her entire body clenching. “The Shadow knows of the Principalities’ involvement in all of this?”

  “I mean, I’m sensing from your tone that you’re not okay with that,” I said, hoping I was wrong.

  “I am certainly not okay with that!” Ori yelled. “There was a truce, a vow made by the Principalities to keep out of this struggle. In exchange, the Shadow vowed never to harm them.” She shook her head. “They never truly believed he would keep up his end of the bargain, but if he knows they didn’t–”

  “Then it’s open season,” I gulped.

  Despite my fear, I mentally opened up my quest log. The pending request from the Shadow, the offer to switch sides, was still there flashing. Even though every bit of common sense told me I had no chance to ever beat that guy, I flicked over to the 'N.'

  Request denied!

  Quest “Hero of the Principalities” updated!

  Objective completed: You have confronted the Shadow and denied his offer to join him!

  Objective renewed: Complete Orgina's quest to learn Magic and defeat the dragon!

  The Principalities smile on you! You gain 5 Attunement points!

  You gain 3 Essences of the Principalities! 7/100 Essences until a new Attunement unlock.

  21

  “Where are we going?” I asked, huffing as I struggled to keep up with Ori and Hecate while we rushed through the forest.

  It was strange. I was in the body of Iron Jack: a ripped, perfect, “Captain America” style, super-soldier physique. Even in this heightened form, it was taking all I had to keep up with the flying angel warrior and my ogre companion.

  To say they flipped the hell out when I told them about my little slip of the tongue with the Shadow would be a massive understatement. What I thought of as a throwaway line in the worst conversation I had ever had in my life, they saw as the biggest freaking potential disaster since the Hindenburg.

  I leapt over a fallen tree trunk, losing even more ground. Hecate was much more graceful than me as she wove her way through the tree lines, and Ori was in the damned air. So how was I supposed to compete with that?

  “Where are we going?” I repeated breathlessly as I trailed along behind them. “Or have I lost the privilege of getting to know that kind of crap?”

  I was only half joking. Though I didn’t mean to spill the proverbial beans when it came to the Principalities bringing me here, the slip up was bound to be more harmful than I’d ever imagined. It was a spark that could start a war, if I was to believe what Ori had to say.

  Still, it wasn’t like reading minds was part of my skillset. I didn’t have a Helmet of True Intentions or anything. Would it have killed them to keep me in the loop in terms of things like treaties, truces, and who’s on whose side in this big cluster of madness?

  “We’re going the way we came,” Ori answered, looking down at me. I couldn’t tell whether the look in her eyes was admiration, disappointment or, more likely, some mixture of both. That might be because she was so far up there, or maybe it was because I couldn’t look at her for too long for fear of running face first into a tree.

  Hey. If you’ve got a nose as perfect as the one my avatar did, the last thing you want to do is smash it all up.

  Either way, her words pissed me off. She had a lot of nerve being upset with me. After the crap she and Hecate pulled, she should have been on her knees begging for my forgiveness. She’d lied to me. They both had. They never had any intention of sending me back home. Hell, they didn’t even have the ability to get it done.

  If the Principalities couldn’t find it in their mysterious and all-knowing hearts to free me of the burden of ruling this place, then I was stuck here forever, and unless I was very mistaken about where those damned angels’ loyalties lied, I doubted they were going to side with me on this very much.

  Still, Hecate had told me they would reward me, and being close to the power that could send me home was better than running off again. The last time I’d done that, I ended up killing an innocent guy who only wanted to make a life for himself in this strange new world.

  It was strange, though. When I was back at home, my sister and her kid felt like a weight around my waist. I’d have never said it out loud. What kind of guy would admit to feeling anything less than utter joy and happiness with the family he was surrounded by, even if he hadn’t actively created it?

  Still, having them meant I needed to be a grown-up, and the truth was I had never been much good at that. Maybe that was why I was drawn to games like this in the first place. Losing myself in a fantasy world had always been a welcome escape to the crappiness and monotony of my normal, everyday life. Or, at least, it had been until I found myself literally lost in one.

  Ever since then, ever since the idea of never being able to get back to them became a reality, the idea of what my little family meant to me made me feel like a complete schmuck for how I’d acted IRL.

  Now, I’d give anything just to see them again, to hold John in my arms one last time. I absolutely had to get back to them, no matter the cost. So what if having them meant I would be forced to act like an adult? Maybe I needed to act like an adult.

  I couldn’t fail them now. I would do what Ori and Hecate asked of me. I would level up enough to be able to jump through the mysterious portal to the Upper Level and come face to face with the Principalities.

  I wouldn’t give a warmed up damn about what they wanted after that. They needed me. The Shadow would tear them apart otherwise. It was only a matter of time. I would trade my continued support for their sacred vow to send me back home once he was defeated. And I would seal it in their blood to make sure it stuck. After all, the blood of the Principalities supposedly held the power to shape this entire place. It might not have been able to undo the curse on the throne, but that would be their problem to solve once this world was at peace.

  Lord knows I could find a jackass around any corner who liked the thought of having a crown on his head.

  That was my plan, anyway. It was my only shot, and I was going to take it. Of course, that didn’t mean I was going to be tossed around like a rag doll anymore.

  “Stop!” I yelled, pulling to a stop and resting against a nearby tree as I struggled to catch my breath.

  Ori and Hecate ignored me, continuing forward in the air and on the ground respectively.

  “If you expect me to continue on this little quest of yours, you will turn your asses around and head back this way immediately!” I snapped, fixing their backs with my best Iron Jack stare.

  I felt like the King in the North as they stopped where they were. Turning, they looked at each other and then back at me, but made no move to come closer.

  “Jack. We don’t have time for–”

  “Then you better make time,” I said, cutting O
ri off. “If I’m going to continue to put my life and my future at risk, you’re going to have to be crystal clear about where we’re going, what we’re doing, and why.” I glared up at the angel. “And it’s Iron Jack!”

  Hecate’s eyes narrowed at me, and she started back, hollering through the woods. “You’ve got a lot of nerve! Your loose lips have put the Principalities in more danger than they’ve ever been in. We don’t have time to hold your hand through every step of this process anymore.”

  “The Principalities are big boys. If they didn’t want to be in danger, they shouldn’t have gone courting it. You don’t strut around an entire world with the power to shape reality to your whim without garnering an enemy or two. They need to man up and let their balls drop.” I pointed toward the ogre. “And what you can’t do is continue any of this without me. So, if I were you, I’d quit with the commands or moral superiority complexes and just tell me what’s going on here.”

  “You were fine before,” Ori said, flapping her way over to me. “You seemed to understand the severity of this situation and now what? You expect to be pampered and treated like you’re already a king?”

  “This isn’t about severity, Ori, and it sure as hell isn’t about being pampered. If I wanted that, I’d have taken the Shadow up on his offer. This is about being treated like an outsider, like a pawn in a battle.”

  “You are a pawn in a battle,” Hecate answered bitterly.

  “I’m also a person and, while you guys might be used to taking orders and treating people like they’re two-dimensional, I’m not.” I shook my head. “At least not in the real world.” I moved toward them. “If this is going to continue, it’s going to do so by my rules. Seems fair enough to me, seeing as how I’m the one who’s probably going to end up dead out of the deal.” I blinked hard at them. “You lied to me. You lied to me more than once about the most important things in my life, and I started to think the Shadow was right when he said you guys weren’t on the right side of this moral quandary.”