Titan: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 4)

by Jez Cajiao

  Screams of pain rose from further back, but the leading gnomes simply grunted and groaned, then marched on. Finally, when they were within a dozen meters from us, the shield bearer gave up with a groan and dropped the shields as his ability ran out.

  As soon as he did so, before the next in line could sweep them back up, Stephanos and Miren loosed their arrows, slamming a continuous volley into the gnome and staggering him back.

  The blow was enough to block the next gnome in line, and as he frantically tried to shove his former comrade aside, we unleashed hell.

  Two lightning bolts flashed forward, joined by three firebolts, and a Fireball from me as I stopped casting the fountains, now that my mana was down to forty-eight.

  A necrotic black bolt flew ahead, taking the next gnome in the face and making him stagger. All attempts at order finally dissolved, and the remaining three gnomes shoved their way forward to sprint at us, relying on their stone coating to protect them.

  “Boss, be ready,” Grizz said suddenly, grinning at me as he sheathed his sword and shrugged his shield aside. “I’m gonna try something…” As the spells cut off, he dove forward, sweeping up a section of broken vehicle from one of the crashed Badunkas.

  The gnomes raced forward to meet him, the one in the lead brandishing an axe that glowed an unhealthy green. The tiny creature roared and drooled, the light of fanaticism glowing in its eyes.

  Before it could reach him, Grizz spun, sweeping the four-foot section out in a low swing that connected with the gnome’s upraised arm and spun him about. He slammed into his oncoming fellows and took them all down, the crunching of stone and screams of fury rising… until Grizz stepped in, discarded the metal length, and grabbed the gnome by the ankles, then tugged him backwards into a clear section of corridor.

  “Gonna need some room…” he grunted, swinging the gnome around by his feet and building up speed. We backed up as far as we could, Jian’s bonding meaning we didn’t have much room, but as Grizz got a handle on the weight, he grinned wildly. I watched in open-mouthed amazement as the mad bastard spun around, swinging the gnome, and slammed him into one of his companions as it rose from the ground.

  The force of their heads colliding was enough, combined with the speed and weight, to break both their necks, and the now-familiar deaths head symbols I’d added oh so long ago lifted into the air.

  I grinned, impressed, as Grizz spun the corpse around again, then flung it at the third gnome, who took his flying friend to the face, sending him to the floor in a screeching pile of rage.

  “Well…” huffed Grizz, bending over and gripping his knees as he tried to catch his breath. “… I’m … not taking… them all…”

  “Mad bastard!” I shouted, laughing as I lunged forward, rushing past him, even as I heard Lydia following me, along with more clomping footfalls.

  I ran as fast as I could, managing to cover the distance before one of the injured gnomes could get the last uninjured one, whose stone coating was still intact, to her feet. She hissed up at me, hate clear on her face as I skidded to a halt over her, throwing up a spray of water as I stabbed forward. The blade of my naginata tore out the throat of the gnome who was half hidden below her, pushing upwards.

  Then I yanked the blade back across, the tip scarring a line in the stone over her throat and up her jaw before she punched out, her small fist hitting with the power of a bulldozer as it slammed into my weapon, knocking it aside.

  She shoved herself upwards, ignoring the bleeding-out gnome beneath her as she opened her mouth wide to bite and flung herself at me.

  Lydia slammed her shield into the side of the incoming gnome, battering the small female aside and raising her mace, slamming it down again and again.

  “Hold it!” came an order from behind us, and I spun around, seeing Stephanos pointing at the gnome… and a short, stumpy figure, no bigger than three feet high, dove past both Lydia and I, slamming itself down atop the gnome and pinning it.

  It was his Earth Golem, I realized, and if the way the gnome was struggling was any guess, it weighed at least as much as she did.

  It wrapped its arms and legs around her and clung on tenaciously. The little gnome screeched and bucked around, furiously trying to get free, before sinking her teeth into the Golem… to absolutely no effect.

  I looked further up the corridor, and while I could hear a faint splashing noise somewhere in the darkness, the cause was out of my sight.

  “Let me…” Bane said, stepping up and hefting the crossbow he’d taken from the Drow trap. Somewhere, he’d gotten a bushel of bolts from for it, and he sighted carefully down its length before firing… and cursing.

  He grabbed at it with his secondary arms, holding it in place and heaved with the bigger pair, yanking the string back into place and tried again.

  He missed.

  And again, until on the fourth shot, a scream echoed back to us, followed by a faint splash and the sound of something thrashing in the water.

  “I hate crossbows…” Bane muttered to me as he slung it back onto his back, striding around the gnome pinned on the floor and jogging into the darkness.

  I stood there with Lydia for a few minutes, watching the frantic gnome as it bit, chewed, and bit again, seemingly determined to eat the Golem while trying to punch and kick it.

  “That’s not normal,” Lydia said finally.

  “Really?” I asked as Bane slowly came back into sight, dragging a wailing figure by one ankle. “I mean, I didn’t think it was, but you know, different realm and all that…”

  “No, this is really not right,” Yen agreed, stepping up next to us, with Grizz following close behind. “Gnomes are generally crazy, but they’re more of a ‘what will happen if I pour these crystals into that liquid and drink it’ crazy. I mean, yeah, they tend to blow shit up a lot, and they even make the goblins look sane at times with their addictions, but…”

  “Their addictions?” I asked, and Yen snorted.

  “Yeah, you know those drugs you seized? Gnomes. Always the gnomes.”

  “What’s with that?” I frowned. “I mean, slavery is legal‒well, you know what I mean; it’s accepted, as is some seriously dodgy shit in the city, like blood sports, but there’s illegal drugs?”

  “Gnomes,” Yen repeated, shrugging. “They’re the ones that love the stuff, and when they’ve got a nose full of that white powder, they all seem to want to do crazy shit, like finding out what happens when you add a ‘harmless compound’ to the city water supply. To ‘help people enjoy themselves,’ was the last justification I remember hearing.”

  “They really did that? Man, what was it?” I gaped, amazed.

  “Who knows?” Yen scoffed. “Whatever it was, though, the street of negotiable affection was rammed that night.”

  “Literally!” Grizz said, grinning crazily. “It was like I had a rocket in my pants…not that I don’t normally, but… you know…!”

  “Oh, god… Grizz, you remember when we talked about this?!?” Yen groaned, dropping her face in her hands. “We talked about engaging the brain before speaking?”

  “Yeah, I remember,” Grizz said evenly, grinning and winking at me where Yen couldn’t see. “I decided not to do that this time; after all, what’s the worst that could happen?”

  “What’s the worst?!” she growled, popping her head back up to glare at him.

  “Yeah, and remember, I’m a Centurion… Legionnaire…” he said, raising one eyebrow.

  “Oh, really? You think that’s going to work?” she growled. “Speculatores of the Dravith Cohortes Praetoriae, remember?” She stepped in close and fumed up at him. “You might be a Centurion, but I can still give you orders!”

  “You’re a Legionnaire…” he started to repeat when she interrupted him, her voice a low growl of anger.

  “By my authority as a Speculatores of the Dravith Cohortes Praetoriae, drop and give me a hundred!”

  The cocky grin was wiped off Grizz’s face as his body reacted to the ord
er, enforced by the Oath the Legion took, and he swore viciously, trying to apologize to Yen, while she ignored him, turning a sweet smile upon me.

  “Sorry about that, Lord Jax,” she cooed, and I simply shrugged.

  “Hey, Legion politics are your problem,” I said, and she snorted .

  “He thought seducing me was even more fun because he was technically screwing a member of the lower ranks.” She laughed. “He forgets that the Speculatores are outside the normal chain of command and can give orders to those within it. Now he gets to rethink his position on that… for the next little while, anyway. Would you like him to do a hundred for you too, sir?”

  “No…” I said, and Grizz let out a relieved breath.

  “Thank you, boss…” he began, his grin coming back, until I went on.

  “But only because we’re in hostile territory. I think keeping order is important, though, so maybe two hundred more on top will remind him? Burpees, I mean?”

  “Burpees?” Yen asked curiously, while Grizz tried to interrupt with pleas for understanding and increasingly genuine apologies.

  “Yeah, you do a pushup, then stand, do a jumping jack, then drop, do another push up, roll onto your back, sit up, roll over, start again,” I explained, demonstrating the ‘jumping jack’ portion.”

  “Oh, I like that!” Yen said. “Good point about the area, though; I’ll let him finish his hundred, and he can do the rest tonight when we make camp.”

  “I’ll leave it with you.” I returned her salute, watching as Bane dragged the injured gnome up. The Mer dumped him unceremoniously on the floor before us, just as the one pinned under the Golem lost its white coating and gasped as it was crushed.

  I looked down at the sound of breaking bones, and saw the blood running from her mouth and nose.

  “Ah, well, never mind,” I said simply, surprised at myself for not feeling anything at the prisoner dying. I’d planned on just holding it until we could take it prisoner... “Anyway, you were saying?” I asked Lydia and Yen.

  “Ah, right!” Lydia said. “Yeah, I used ter drink with a couple o’ gnomes; they were twins, pretty crazy, but as I say, that’s gnomes, right? These, though? They’re crazy. Like, not in the normal way.”

  “Yeah, the chewing on my leg is a good hint!” Grizz called up, and Yen squatted down to whisper something to him. I couldn’t hear it, but I saw the fear on his face, and when she stood up, he was back to doing the pushups perfectly, as fast as he could.

  “So…” I said, turning back to the groaning, bleeding gnome on the floor who glared at us all while clutching a crossbow bolt that protruded from the front of his right leg. “Anyone speak gnomish?”

  “It’s common,” Lydia said shortly.

  “What, everyone speaks it?” I asked.

  “No, it’s ‘Common’ that they speak, usually, like we do. Whatever they were sayin’ before, it’s not a real language…”

  “You understand us?” I asked the gnome, and he glared up at me through gritted teeth. “Bane, get the bolt,” I said shortly. Bane squatted down and grabbed the tiny leg in one hand, the creature’s two arms in two more, and then yanked the bolt free with his remaining hand in one smooth motion.

  The gnome screamed in pain, then spat at Bane, who slapped him, hard.

  “Oracle?” I said quietly, and she hit him with a healing spell, then swore.

  “What’s up?” I asked her.

  “I need more mana,” she said urgently, and I felt her building a spell. I immediately recognized it, and trusting her, I pulled a potion free and downed it, then sighed and moved to the side of the corridor, where a dry patch remained. I sat, closing my eyes and beginning to meditate, as Oracle used ‘Battlefield Triage’ on the gnome.

  After a few minutes, she’d burned through the mana I had regenerated, and I groaned at the mana migraine that started to spread, before managing to ignore it again and sinking my mind into my meditation even deeper.

  I locked the world away, envisioning myself first as I was. Working my way from the top of my head to the tips of my toes, I separated out every individual muscle I could identify and relaxed it.

  Once they were all loosened, I envisaged the energy field I could feel flowing through my channels, the mana, forming a box around me. I visualized it pulling at the nearby ambient mana, twisting it and tugging it down into the form of the box around me. I created six sides and closed myself inside on a whim, drawing the mana into channels that twisted and compressed the mana down, without knowing why I did it. Then I created a second box just slightly larger, surrounding the first, and visualized the mana that moved from the outer box to the inner as being purified on the way, compressed and given a slight spin, for some reason.

  The more I visualized it, the more natural it seemed to become. Every so often, I felt the mana inside me dipping down, before being slowly refilled by the mana in my ‘box’.

  “Jax… you can stop now…” I heard Oracle say to me, as if from a great distance, and I blinked, slowly opening my eyes and looking around, an afterimage of a glowing blue-white box around me fading away into the ether.

  “Hell, that was impressive, boss…” Grizz panted, nodding to me as he stretched and recovered from his exertions. As I continued looking around, I discovered that the others were watching me intently as well.

  “Okay…” I said, shaking myself and glancing over at the gnome, who sat rubbing at his head and moaning, but he sounded… hell, he looked totally different. “What happened to him?” I asked in surprise, and Oracle flitted around him to land next to me, laying her hand gently on my arm.

  “We cured him,” she said simply, and I turned my gaze back to the gnome, who was gaping around at the rest of us with a mixture of horror, fury, and terror.

  The tiny gnome stared at our group before finally settling on me and Oracle. He shuffled to his feet and reached out a hesitant hand for Oracle, then when nobody did anything to stop him, he snarled and grabbed her, pulling her close and glaring defiantly at us all as he held her cradled to his chest.

  “It’s okay!” Oracle called out quickly, halting us as we all reached for weapons. The little gnome pulled her closer to his chest and started to growl defensively.

  “Well, shit,” I muttered. “Looks like we’re gonna have to housetrain a gnome now…”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “It’s okay…” Oracle repeated, but this time, she said it to the gnome, reaching up and patting his cheek. He made a cooing sound down at her, then bared his teeth at the rest of us, before growling and attempting to back away in the direction he’d come from.

  “I don’t think so,” I said warningly, hauling myself to my feet and glaring at the little bastard while pounding the base of the naginata down once, hard, and channeling a flare of mana into it for emphasis.

  The light that flared out from my weapon made the gnome shy away, raising one hand to cover his eyes, though he held Oracle tighter to his chest.

  “Let her go, or I swear you’re dead meat,” I growled at the diminutive figure. He glared up at me, squinting past the light, and I readied myself to give the order, pausing as I noticed a blur that I knew to be Bane shifting around behind him.

  “No!” Oracle said holding a hand out to me and getting crushed to the gnome’s chest again. “No, Jax, honestly, it’s okay… we need him!” She reached up and twisted herself around. She planted her hands on his chest and pushed hard, arching her back to make the gnome release her, but she didn’t flee when she fell to the ground.

  She landed lightly, her wings growing again, and I realized I’d missed them vanishing. When she reached up, she took the gnome’s outstretched hand on her left, then patted it lightly with her right hand as she faced him.

  “Come on; you can understand us now, can’t you?” she asked him, and he grunted, looking confused. “My words… do you understand them?” she asked again, slowly, and he squinted at her, moving his lips, as though sounding out what she’d said, before tilting his
head in thought.

  “Jax,” Oracle said, turning and looking up at me. “There’s more going on here than ‘crazy creatures in the darkness.’ Seriously, I don’t know what happened here, but the buildup of metals in his body was toxic; they were making him crazy, and I’ll bet that the rest of the gnomes are the same.”

  “So, they’re not evil, they’re sick?” I clarified, and she nodded. “What about the undead?” I asked, and she paused in thought.

  “Maybe they’re not all one team?” she hazarded a guess. “Maybe the undead are controlling one side of the ruin, and the gnomes run the other? Or maybe there’s a gnome necromancer who’s gone mad? I don’t know, okay? All I know is that, with the toxins in his body, he was driven mad, desperate to fight and kill. He was filled with all sorts of contaminants… I hope… I mean, there’s a chance they might not all be like this….?”

  “Do they know they’re mad?” I continued, and the gnome surprised us all by croaking a response.

  “M….aaaa…dddduuur,” he said, his voice raspy and clearly unused to speaking.

  “What?” I asked, and Oracle smiled up at him, nodding encouragingly for him to continue.

  “Maaa…aadddurrrr… brrrrriiiinggg… mmmmetttttalll… maaadddduuurrr giiiiivvvesss cllllleeeean… wwwaaaaaatttuuurrrr,” the gnome ground out, making us glance at each other in confusion.

  “Master!” Oracle said suddenly, working it out first. “The ‘master’ makes you bring metal, in exchange for water?” she asked.

  “Waaaaattttuuuurr, speciiiiiaaallll wwwatttturrrr….” The gnome whined, and the rest of us looked at each other grimly.

  “Special water?” Oracle repeated, and the gnome nodded eagerly.

  “Waaaattturrrr sppppeciiiiiallll… taaaake youuuu? Giiiivvvve to maaaaadddurrrr! Givvvvessss morrrre waaaaatttturrrr tttto Giiiiinnt?” the gnome half-asked, half-insisted, pointing frantically down the corridor into the darkness.

  “He wants to take me and give me to his master; I think his name is Gint?” Oracle translated, and the gnome nodded to her frantically.

  “Taakke yoouuuu, giiiiivvve! Ggettt moorrrrreee!”