The Road East (Epic LitRPG Adventure - Book 2) (Fayroll)

by Andrey Vasilyev

  The halfling nodded and opened a portal.

  What I saw when we got there was massive. The portal opened on a small hill that offered a view of the desert. On either side, were huge dunes, turning the space in front of the hill into a large ravine. At the foot of the hill, the Wild Heart warriors had been marshaled.

  “Ah, there you are.” I heard Gedron the Elder’s voice behind me and turned to see him.

  “Here we are.”

  “Just in time. Let’s step over this way for a second.” He took me by the elbow and walked me over to the side.

  “Where is the spider going to be coming from? Years ago, he would jump out of the sand, but what about now? My forces are lining up and asking me questions, and I have no idea what’s going on.”

  I hesitated. Really? Where would he be coming from? The dryad hadn’t told me anything. She just gave me the whistle, and that was it.

  “I think he’ll be coming from where he always did.” I decided to go out on a limb, figuring that the one place he wouldn’t be coming from was under the hill.”

  “You think or you know?” asked Gedron.

  “I think. If I knew, I would tell you.” He’d already gotten a rise out of me.

  “Come on, we already have our strategy ready—we spent half the night coming up with it.” Gedron looked at me sharply.

  “I get that. You just tell me when you’re ready to start, only be quiet about it,” I told him. “And, make sure I stay covered. The rest is up to you.”

  “Okay, we’ll be ready to go in ten minutes.”

  Gedron walked over to a group of players that were apparently the clan’s high command and started giving orders.

  Since everyone there besides Gedron was making a point of ignoring me, I had the chance to leisurely look around. The view from the hill was excellent. The troops were split into three columns, each five players wide. It turned out to be true that there were mostly just warriors left. There weren’t more than thirty archers, all of which were dug in on the flanks and the top of the dunes. On the other hand, they all looked to be seasoned veterans. Each of them had dug up small trenches waist-deep to make sure they were prepared for whatever the beast decided to throw at them.

  At the foot of the hill, I saw a group of ten mages and just as many healers, which, I presumed, was the clan’s entire reserve. Next to them, was someone I recognized: Diord, who I recalled was the clan master. He was waving his arms around as he explained where everyone was supposed to stand and what they were supposed to do.

  I wouldn’t say that I felt reassured. What I saw paled in comparison to the might of the Hounds gathered by the walls of the citadel—and that wasn’t even their whole clan. Judging by the conversations the three tanks had had with Milly, they didn’t even have all their veterans. And there in the desert…well, it was the shattered fragments of a has-been clan.

  That’s when I understood the strange smile I’d seen on Gedron’s face the day before. What we were facing wasn’t just a battle with an elite monster; it was a battle that would determine if the clan lived or died. If they lost, the clan would be doomed to collapse. The last warriors, mages, and archers of the Wild Hearts gathered there still believed, if weakly, that the clan could rise again to new heights and new victories. But if they lost, even that last belief would flicker and die. It’s hard to stay on top when you’re weak, and that’s what they’d come there to prove—that they still had strength and belief in themselves.

  It crossed my mind that I knew nothing about the city itself. Why and when was it abandoned? By whom? I’ll have to—

  “Hey, you. Gedron wants to see you.” Mato walked over.

  “That’s ‘Laird Hagen’ to you,” I said sharply. “Talk to your own furry people how you want, but you’ll respect me.”

  “You don’t think you ought to be a little more careful?” He was no longer hiding his distaste for me. “You’re not feeling nervous at all, La-aird?”

  “You know, I’m not,” I answered, closing the distance between us. “Touch me, and they’ll bury you right there where you stand. And, Gedron himself will do the honors since I’m his guest. Then, you can bet my clan will chase you around the whole of Rattermark, and I’ll be the one leading the chase. Get out of my way, you mangy-furred dog.”

  I pushed him aside and walked over to Gedron, who was looking out over his army. The clan was ready for battle. Three squads of fifty warriors formed a triangle with one in the center and two flanking it near the dunes. The rest of the troops were waiting on the other side of the hill. Sure, the spider wouldn’t be trying anything terribly strategic, but having too many soldiers involved at once still meant that they’d be getting in each other’s way.

  The archers were stretching their bows in their trenches. From what I could tell, they—along with the mages who’d been pulled back almost to the hill—would be the ones to begin the battle. Farther to the left, the healers were getting their last instructions on who to heal in what order. The mages were buffing everyone around them—you can never have too much protection. Diord was arguing with one of them named Kriyen.

  “You’re telling me you can’t cast Will of the Court three times?” he shouted.

  “No, I can’t!” responded Kriyen. “I only have so much mana! And Will of the Court takes so much that I’ll have nothing to do but pick up some cleaver and start hacking when the battle starts.”

  “Well?” I asked Gedron, pulling myself away from the spectacle. “Is it time?”

  He looked at his forces and roared in their direction. “Are we ready?”

  The swordsmen erupted with the clash of blades on shields—that was a yes.

  “Let’s do this.” Gedron nodded to me.

  “All right,” I said, nodding back. “Just one thing. Are we all on board here?”

  “What are you talking about?” He shook his head.

  “I mean, nobody’s invited me to join the raid yet.” I smiled innocently.

  “Ooph,” Gedron said, embarrassed. “I forgot—really.”

  And I believed him. You can tell when someone really forgot and when they’re lying.

  Gedron the Elder invited you to join a raid: Death to Arachnids.

  Accept?

  “Nice name.” I shook my head and laughed.

  “We do what we can,” answered Gedron. “Okay, summon him—everyone’s waiting!”

  “Hey, what happens to whoever dies here?” I’d been wondering that.

  “They go back to their last save point and wait for the battle to end. Once we kill the spider or it kills all of us, they’ll be able to port back. We won’t be able to port out either once the battle starts.”

  Not the worst option. I figured I’d be able to get my hands on the spider’s body one way or the other. Either with my shield or on it, and in the latter case, I might even be able to get my belongings back.

  I winked at him, pulled out the whistle, raised it to my lips, and blew into it. There wasn’t much of a sound, though a message did pop up.

  You used the whistle to summon Mandiblefighter. Get ready—a child of Darkness is coming!

  “Okay, hold onto your hat,” I told Gedron. “Here he comes!”

  “As long as he pops up where we’re expecting,” he said with surprising calm. “Otherwise, we’re all dead men.”

  The sand near the entrance to the ravine rippled, a few whirlwinds kicked up, and then everything settled back down.

  Swordsmen crouched behind their shields; archers notched arrows in their bows. For another thirty seconds, it was so quiet I could hear the sweat dripping off the halfling. Then, suddenly, and with all due drama, the silence was broken by a boom. A spider of Biblical proportions exploded out of the center of the ravine (our first piece of good news). Although to be fair, we only called the enormous monster a spider for lack of a better term.

  Its gigantic round body was protected in places by bone armor, and it had an equally round head with glistening, saucer-like eyes and
a toothy mouth out of which loomed long mandibles that glowed a sickly green color. That was all held up by eight long legs bent at the knee and securely covered by a chitin shell. Mandiblefighter’s entire body was covered in thick hair or fur; I couldn’t tell which.

  He flew out of the sand, landed on his feet, and threateningly clacked his mandibles while simultaneously glancing around and debuffing everyone there.

  You are taking mental damage. For the duration of a minute, you run the risk of having a panic attack, at which point you may temporarily leave the field of battle.

  So, he’s playing mind games with us.

  “Archers, fire!” barked Diord. “Left flank, charge! Mages, start working on him!”

  Everything happened at once, though the result was underwhelming. Arrows hurtled toward Mandiblefighter from both sides, though they didn’t do much damage. Only a few of them hit the beast’s body; the rest clattered off the boney armor or failed to penetrate his hairy skin.

  “Go for the head” yelled Gedron tensely. “The head and the eyes! Put out his lights!”

  The mages threw curse after curse at the sand creature, but I couldn’t tell if they were actually having an effect.

  Just then, the first wave hit the spider—the clan’s lowest-level fighters sent in to gum up the works. I noticed that, when they got there, they all went straight for one leg rather than the chaotic slashing I expected to see. None of them managed to land more than five strikes.

  Mandiblefighter dipped his head and swept the protrusions jutting out of his mouth across the sand. It happened so quickly that most of the warriors didn’t even have time to react before they were hacked apart. The first cocoons appeared on the sand as acid spit finished off the first wave.

  “Right flank, and then the center, in fifteen seconds. Center: get there and disperse,” again shouted Diord. “Mages, keep it up!”

  The right flank hurled themselves at the spider, and soon the center rushed in to join them. The right flank’s strategy was the same as that of their predecessors, while the center fell back in an effort to get the spider to attack them.

  The warriors had already seen what happened to the first wave, and so the spider’s second sweep didn’t have nearly the same deadly effect. A few swords buried themselves in the creature’s head.

  The archers kept firing in an attempt to blind the spider. His constant movement made it hard to hit their target, but somebody ended up finding his mark—the light in one of the spider’s saucer-eyes went out. He bellowed in pain and unveiled our next surprise: a burst of flame that knocked out nearly the entire wave coming in from the right flank.

  Replacements joined the remaining fighters, this time made up entirely of veterans. Just as I’d figured, the lower-level players were there to jump in and die, leaving the veterans to finish the spider off.

  Mandiblefighter started to fall back, his health beginning to wane. But, oh, so slowly…

  His was obviously not one of Fayroll’s intelligent races, but he could tell which direction the stinging needles were coming from and jumped toward the left flank in an effort to finish off the annoying little people there. He was generally successful, killing almost all the archers on that side. Then he went back to the remains of the first three waves. They came at him from the left, still hacking away at his leg.

  “Archers, cease fire!” ordered Diord. “Left flank, get ready!”

  The spider again fell back to the ravine and demonstrated yet another trick: a spider web shimmering all the colors of the rainbow swept over all the warriors nearby, and they were slaughtered to a man. In their place, however, appeared a group from the left flank. They were able to finally take out the spider’s first leg and quickly start working on the second.

  The spider tried his mandible swipe again, though this time it was much harder. He had to move backward in order to swing all the way around, and the troops at his feet quickly dispersed as soon as they saw him begin the maneuver. Losing a leg obviously made him much clumsier.

  The healers were hard at work healing the troops in front of them and drinking elixir after elixir. The mages, unfortunately, were still having no effect—Mandiblefighter seemed to be immune to magic.

  “Center, go!”

  They were just in time. Only a dozen warriors were left by the spider, though they were having an easier time with the second leg.

  I finally figured out what Gedron and his team’s plan was. A frontal assault would have been suicide, as Mandiblefighter was too strong for four hundred players, but taking out two legs on one side would either take him down or render him practically immobile. Three would certainly bring him crashing down. Then Gedron’s troops could take their time shredding him like cabbage from the sides and back.

  A couple minutes later, the next group from the right flank joined the battle.

  “Reserves, get ready!” bellowed Diord.

  “If they don’t take out that third leg, we’re goners,” said Gedron calmly. “We won’t have anyone left.”

  The third group, in the face of potential death, used the spider’s inability to turn around to hack desperately at the third leg. The troops left over from the two groups in the second wave took another debuff that killed most of them in a poisonous cloud of acid.

  Finally, the third leg broke, sending the spider crashing down onto the sand.

  “Archers, fire!” ordered Diord.

  They popped out of their trenches and started firing at the spider, who was trying to get up.

  “Reserve, let’s go!” Diord issued the command and joined the charge himself.

  The cream of the clan’s crop had all apparently been held back in the reserves, and they rushed in to push Mandiblefighter’s health bar steadily lower.

  The latter was still trying to fight back, and he managed to kill ten unwary warriors with a stinger that suddenly popped out of his hindquarters. A few more died from his poisonous spit, but ten minutes later, he breathed his last.

  An agreeable sound told me that Mandiblefighter’s death had jumped me up two whole levels. Just two more to Level 50! How much experience must he have given in total, given how many there were of us?

  Silence reigned for a second until the remaining fighters shouted in triumph. It sounded something like how I imagine wild cavemen sounded after they brought down a mammoth. The group there, however, may have shouted even more loudly than their ancestors—they were announcing that the Wild Hearts weren’t dead. Dead clans don’t kill elite monsters.

  Portals flashed, and out poured the remainder of the clan to hug the survivors and look for their belongings.

  Gedron, who seemed to have gone limp, turned to me. “You know, I didn’t think it was possible. Not even until the very end.”

  “Don’t tell anyone that,” I said, offering a piece of heartfelt advice. “Forget you ever said those words and go talk to your clan. They’re waiting for you.”

  Gedron walked down the hill and over to Mandiblefighter. “We did it,” he said to his clanmates. “We did what no one else has been able to do in two years! I’d like to see anyone who dares call our clan weak come here and do what we did today.”

  Well, aren’t you clever? Nobody would come, and nobody would do what they did because nobody else had the whistle. Even I didn’t, as it had disappeared immediately after I used it.

  “What did we get?” shouted someone from the crowd.

  Gedron reached into the carcass. “Gold, special spider venom, a medallion called the Black Widow, two things for archers, and…you know, forget it. Otherwise, you’ll start bragging about the loot, and we don’t even have a clan storehouse!”

  Everyone laughed in relief at his simple joke and headed over to take pictures of themselves with Mandiblefighter’s body.

  I saw my chance to get the item I needed and walked down the hill. Everything besides some tomfoolery in front of the camera would look suspicious, and the fact that I belonged to the Thunderbirds meant that I’d be fought and
killed. And, what if the body disappeared before I could get back?

  I ran over with a question for Kriyen, who was standing there. “Hey, can you take a picture of me, please?”

  Kriyen squinted at my name and clan before giving in to the generosity that comes with victory. “Sure, go for it.”

  I posed as the Great Spider Killer, slinging my sword over my shoulder.

  “Okay,” said Kriyen, “I got it.”

  “Hold on, can you do one more?”

  Kriyen grimaced and stared at me.

  I laid prone on the body, pretending to tear it apart with my bare hands. A small item slipped into one of them.

  You received a crystal vessel holding part of Ogina the East’s soul.

  I had it! Finally…

  You completed a hidden quest: Soul of the Dryad.

  You retrieved the part of Ogina the East’s soul kept by Mandiblefighter.

  To get your reward, go talk to Ogina the East.

  “Good?” asked Kriyen.”

  “Yep,” I responded in relief. “That’s it.”

  “Hagen!” I saw Gedron waving to me from the hill and walked toward him.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  In which our hero yet again tries to balance between two poles.

  “Open your exchange,” said Gedron succinctly as soon as I got over to him.

  “Of course,” I answered in kind. “It’s never a bad time for trophies.”

  Two items dropped into my bag: yet another helmet and, to my surprise, the Black Widow medallion Gedron had mentioned.

  “Wait a second.” I looked at Gedron. “What’s the medallion for? We’re supposed to flip for it, no?”

  “Yep,” said Gedron simply. “But, I’d like to propose something different. I’ll give you the medallion, which, incidentally, is from a set, and you let me keep the scroll.”

  “What’s the scroll?” I asked inquisitively.

  “A good one,” admitted Gedron after a second’s hesitation. “A really high-level mage ability.”