by R. A. Mejia
Damage dealt: 4 (Shield Bash)
Even though the attack itself does minimal damage, it stuns my opponent. I see a glazed look come over the gnoll and it slumps to the side creating just enough room for one of the smaller mercenaries to slip through. This gnoll has much darker fur and is half the size of the others. Though I’m occupied holding up my shield, preventing the other mercenaries from rushing into the room, out of the corner of my eye I see the short gnoll draw a knife. It glows briefly, and then I feel a searing pain in my lower left back.
Damage received: 24 (Backstab)
The blade withdrawals with a wet plop and I hear the gnoll laugh as it pulls its arm back for another easy attack. It never gets the chance to make it though, since a red blur crashes into it yelling, “You no hit my brood brother!”
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch glimpses of Vrax and the short dagger wielding gnoll grappling on the floor of the living room. I can hear them knocking over the furniture in the room as they battle. However, I’m forced to return my attention to my own opponents as a sword snakes over the shield I have raised, and it scrapes against its bladed top in an attempt to stab me. I duck my head and push harder against my shield.
Vrax deals damage: 7
My opponents currently stalled, I yell out, “Mary, magic missile the hell out of Vrax’s opponent and then come help me kill these guys. Kitsune…” However, before I’m able to tell our healer her job, I feel her hand pressed against my injured lower back and an intense cool sensation spread through the area she’s touching. This is followed by a less intense cooling sensation, and when I glance up at our group status bars, I see that my health is nearly full and her mana has dropped by a third.
I see my stamina drop slightly from the strain of holding these fighters back but yell out, “Thanks for the heal Kitsune.” If there’s one thing gaming taught me, is the importance of thanking your healer.
More damage notifications pop up telling me Vrax and Mary should have the gnoll they’re fighting taken care of in a few more minutes. In the meantime, a hairy arm with a dagger appears under my shield and tries to stab me in the leg. I have to shift my left knee slightly to avoid being stabbed, and I feel myself pushed back an inch. Thankfully, Mr. Snuggle Butt saves me from being stabbed by biting down on the hairy hand holding the knife causing it to drop it and pull back.
Your group has helped kill a Gnoll Mercenary, lvl. 7. You receive 10 XP.
I hear Mary yell, “We’re done with this one. Coming to help.”
I breathe a sigh of relief that my friends are on their way. Then I feel the shield I’m pushing against, losing the resistance I’m expecting, and I find myself stumbling forward a step. Worse, hairy hands appear on the sides of the shield, and they pull on it. Rather than risk being pulled into a room full of enemies I let go of the shield and feel it pulled off my arm. I see my shield tossed away and laughing grins on the faces of the four remaining gnoll mercenaries.
The closest gnoll slashes at me, and I’m forced to leap back into the living room. The move creates enough room for a second gnoll to run into the room. His hasty rush is met by the swinging tail of my kobold brother and the gnoll trips and falls onto the living room floor, where vines magically burst from the floor and cover the creature pinning him down. I see Vrax leap onto the back of the gnoll and begin stabbing it.
Vrax deals damage: 20 (Backstab)
Vrax deals damage: 11
Vrax deals damage: 9
I ignore the remaining damage notifications and am barely able to turn my body enough to avoid being skewered on the point of another gnoll sword. The thrust overextends the gnoll trying to stab me, and I see that he’s off balance slightly. I help him stay off balance by grabbing his extended sword arm and pulling him to my right, turning the front of his body away from me and exposing his backside. My right arm snakes around the throat of the creature and with the inside of my forearm pressed against its windpipe, I lock my right arm with my left in an armbar and begin to choke the gnoll. He flails around, swinging his sword, now pointed towards the two other mercenaries in the entryway. I see the three purple bolts hit the gnoll I’m holding and ignore the accompanying damage notifications.
I yell out, “No Mary. Aim for the guys in the other room. This one is my meat shield.”
Mary sends a barrage of magic missiles into the entryway, killing one of the gnoll mercenaries. Vrax finishes off the gnoll pinned to the ground by [Nature’s Grasp], and he stabs the gnoll I have in a chokehold until he too is dead. When the final gnoll mercenary sees its last comrade fall, it turns to flee, but Mary uses the last of her mana to cast [Nature’s Grasp] and entangle his feet, causing him to fall forward. Between, Vrax, Mr. Snuggle Butt, and me, the last gnoll mercenary doesn’t last long.
You’ve helped kill a Gnoll Mercenary, lvl. 7. You receive 10 XP.
The last fighter dead, Kitsune uses her healing magic to seal all of our wounds. Looking up at the corner of my vision, I see everyone’s health is near full. However, Mary’s out of mana and both Vrax and I have less than about a quarter of our stamina left. Kitsune’s mana, while low, seems to be regenerating at a much faster rate than I thought was possible. I’ll have to ask her how she does that sometime.
My concern for the team’s well-being is disrupted when I hear the creak of a floorboard above me. I look at Vrax, and the two of us run upstairs, expecting to find more gnoll mercenaries. The stairs lead to a narrow hallway with four open doors and crashing sounds come from the open doorway farthest down the hall. Vrax and I rush down the hall ready to fight, but instead see a figure bent over an open chest. Jaxson Miltonha is loading up a large traveling chest with coins, books, and other valuable looking items.
The floor beneath my feet creaks as I enter the room and Jaxson turns while saying, “It’s about time you finished…” The rest of his sentence is lost as he sees that we’re not the gnoll mercenaries he was expecting. His face pales to a light green, and he falls backward, yelling for help. Hearing none coming, the goblin raises his right hand and begins writing with a white light in the air. Recognizing that he’s spellwriting, I grab Vrax and toss him underhanded at the goblin traitor. Vrax crashes into Jaxson, disrupting his concentration and the floating symbols in the air fade away.
By the time that I walk over to Jaxson, Vrax already has his shortsword at the goblin’s throat. I hear the floorboards behind me creak and turn, ready to fight more gnolls. But it’s just Kitsune and Mary. Turning back to Jaxson I ask in an angry growl, “Why?”
The goblin, now on his knees, sitting on his heels, has his hands in his lap. He looks up at me, fear evident in his eyes and asks, “Why what?”
Without thought, I strike out and I slap him with the back of my hand. He’s pushed backward from the force of the blow and rubs his cheek with his right hand as he looks up at me, “Please, there’s no need for that. I’ll answer any of your questions. Just ask them.”
Anger at his betrayal burns inside of me, and I ache to beat the tar out of the sniveling creature. But we need information. I take a deep breath and ask, “Who were those people and why did you betray us to them?”
Jaxson nods eagerly and rubs his hands together, “Yes. Yes, I can tell you who they are. They’re mercenaries sent by the Imperare Empire.”
“You work for the Imperare Empire?”
The goblin quickly shakes his head, “NO! They made me betray you. They said if I didn’t help them, they’d kill me.”
“Who told you they’d kill you?”
“Uh, the gnolls did. I came home one day and found them waiting for me. They made me lure you here, to my home. They said they had orders to take you for the Empire and that I had to help them.”
That doesn’t make sense. Six gnolls just show up out of nowhere and happen to find the one person able to trick us into walking into a trap?
The goblin leans forward on his hands and knees, begging, “Please, don’t kill me. Haven’t I been a good friend to you? Haven’t
I helped you decode the ledgers you left?”
“What? You did decode them after all. It wasn’t a lie?
Jaxson’s right hand reaches up and grabs the leather of my pants. He looks up at me with big round eyes and answers, “Yes, yes. I found out where the kobolds were sold. Let me go, and I’ll tell you what I know.”
The sword Vrax is holding blurs, and I hear a clunk as it chops into the wood floor, through two of the goblin’s fingers on his left hand. Vrax pulls his blade from the floor, causing the stumps from the goblins fingers to pump a stream of blood. Jaxson emits a piercing wail and pulls his injured hand off the floor and cradles it to his chest.
Kitsune tries to rush forward, her instincts to heal the wounded taking over. I hold her back, stopping her from helping Jaxson. Vrax points the blade at the wailing goblin and screams, “You no hide where my family is from me! Tell me now, or I take more than your fingers!”
The goblin gulps and yells back, “Attilius! They were sent to Attilius.”
Mary, hovering near my left shoulder, cries out and I see her cover her mouth with her hands. She looks at me with fear in her eyes and says, “No! Not the arena.”
Having gotten the answer we’ve been seeking for such a long time, I let Kitsune push past me. She gives Vrax and me a disapproving look, but she says nothing as she stops the goblin’s bleeding with her healing magic.
I’m about to ask the goblin more questions when the sound of a door splintering and crashing comes from downstairs. It’s followed by the sounds of many boots rushing up the stairs, and we see heavily armored figures pour into the room. While I was expecting more mercenaries to appear, it’s instead a group of orcs bearing the insignia of the city on their armor. The lead orc brandishes a broad sword at us and yells, “Drop your weapons in the name of the guard!”
I glance back and see a goblin known to be a professor at Trinitarian college on his knees, a sword held at his throat, cradling his hand to his chest as tears stream down his face. Two of his severed fingers on the floor at his knees. I can only imagine what it looks like to the guards.
I face the armed guards in the room, and raise my hands in surrender. I feel Mary land on my shoulder, and see her raise her hands too. I glance at her face and see that she looks as worried as I feel. It’s not particularly encouraging when I hear her mutter, “We’re so screwed.”
Epilogue
Sitting in prison waiting for a trial is not my ideal way to spend the weekend. However, I can’t fault the city guards for doing their jobs. They responded to a report of a battle happening. I just wished they’d arrived sooner and could have actually seen what happened. Instead, by the time they arrived, the bodies of the gnoll mercenaries had already vanished, and all that was left was their armor and bags of loot.
When my team was questioned about what happened, we told the guards that we were lured into a trap set by Jaxson Miltonha. We explained how we contracted him to do some decoding work for us based on a friend’s recommendation but that when we arrived to pay him at the college, he wasn’t there. Instead, he left us a note to come to his home to get the information. When we arrived, he was acting weird and then he called for the gnoll mercenaries to come get us.
When the guards asked us why they found us pointing a sword at Professor Miltonha, I admitted that we had to threaten him to give us some information. After taking our statements, we were whisked away to jail. I’d hoped we’d only be here for a couple of days, but it seems that the authorities believed whatever story Jaxson told them over ours and we’re now scheduled for trial.
While I’m concerned about our fate in the Monstrum legal system, I’m more concerned for Vrax’s kobold family. Jaxson told us he’d decrypted the ledgers and that the kobolds were sent to Attilius. Which, according to Mary, is a famous gladiatorial arena in the Imperare Empire.
Gripping the bars of my cell, I steel my determination to reach Attilius and free the kobolds. That’s my new mantra. Free the kobolds. Free the kobolds. Free the kobolds.
--------------------------------------------------------------
This ends Book One in the Adventures on Terra series.
From the Author
Thanks for reading Adventures on Terra: Escape. It’s taken me a long time to write and edit the story. I hope you enjoyed it!
If you liked the story, please do me a favor and leave a review. Even if it’s only a couple words, it helps a self-publishing author like myself tremendously. Plus it helps other readers find the book.
If you want to read the next story in the series as it’s being written and get exclusive artwork, support me on Patreon.
https://www.patreon.com/ramejiawriter
Some of the great Patreon Supporters even got put into the novel. You might recognize some of these names in some form. Thanks guys for your support on Patreon.
Daniel Faulkner
Arknon
Jason Hamilton
Ryan Jones
If you liked this story you might like others in the LitRPG genre. For a list of recommended LitRPG books, you can visit http://www.geekbytespodcast.com/lit-rpg-novels/
You can also watch or listen to my podcast about LitRPG here:
Facebook – LitRPG Podcast
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There is also a great community of LitRPG authors and readers on Facebook.
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Special thanks to everyone that helped Beta read and point out errors in the story. You all made this a less frustrating read.
Richard Boggs
Jay Taylor
Don Miller
Brendan Walsh
Kegan Hall
Brett Davis
Jennifer Haviland
Travis Pullen
If you want some specific LitRPG recommendations, check out Aleron Kong and his LitRPG series Chaos Seeds. They’re consistently some of the most entertaining LitRPG available. In his own words it’s like “Warcraft, DnD and Sword Art Online had a sexy baby!”
I can also whole heartedly recommend The Divine Dungeon series written by Dakota Krout. You know all those dungeons that adventurers go into to fight monsters and get treasure? Well, this story is told from the dungeon’s perspective. Yup, it’s as cool as it sounds.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1.1
Chapter 1.2
Chapter 1.3
Chapter 1.4
Chapter 1.5
Chapter 1.6
Chapter 1.7
Chapter 1.8
Chapter 1.9
Chapter 2.1
Chapter 2.2
Chapter 2.3
Chapter 2.4
Chapter 2.5
Chapter 2.6
Chapter 2.7
Chapter 2.8
Interlude 1
Chapter 3.1
Chapter 3.2
Chapter 3.3
Chapter 3.4
Chapter 4.1
Chapter 4.2
Chapter 4.3
Chapter 4.4
Chapter 4.5
Chapter 4.6
Chapter 4.7
Chapter 4.8
Chapter 4.9
Chapter 4.10
Chapter 4.11
Chapter 4.12
Chapter 4.13
Chapter 4.14
Chapter 4.15
Chapter 4.16
Chapter 4.17
Chapter 5.1
Chapter 5.2
Chapter 5.3
Chapter 5.4
Chapter 5.5
Chapter 5.6
Chapter 5.7
Chapter 5.8
Chapter 5.9
Chapter 5.10
Chapter 5.11
Chapter 6.1
Chapter 6.2
Interlude 2
C
hapter 6.3
Chapter 6.4
Chapter 6.5
Chapter 6.6
Chapter 6.7
Chapter 6.8
Epilogue
From the Author