by Aleron Kong
The Land: Raiders
By
Dr. Aleron Kong
The Land: Raiders (A LitRPG Saga)
A self-published book by Aleron Kong
Copyright ©2017
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to the whole LitRPG community, authors and readers. We have come so far in one year, but this is only the beginning! Loyalty, Love and Dedication has grown my series and the genre as a whole. Thank you to everyone who has contributed. Stay the course! I want to thank my patrons as well. Your support means the world
Finally, I’m sending out a special mention to my team:
Peter Morena – Consigliere
Steven Fleischake – The Sieve
Jay Morgan – My Right Hand aka Darkwind
Brett Morgan – Lion Heart
ps – as you can see its all about having a last name that begins with M… or an F… which is really just a sideways M… without the last little bit… I don’t know where I was going with that… Gnomes Rule!
Contents
The Dark Court
The Light Court
CHAPTER 1 – Day 140 – Kuborn 30, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 2 – Day 140 – Kuborn 30, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 3 – Day 140 – Kuborn 30, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 4 – Day 140 – Kuborn 30, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 5 – Day 140 – Kuborn 30, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 6 – Day 140 – Kuborn 30, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 7 – Day 140 – Kuborn 30, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 8 – Day 140 – Kuborn 30, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 9 – Day 140 – Kuborn 30, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 10 – Day 140 – Kuborn 30, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 11 – Day 140 – Kuborn 30, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 12 – Retained Memory
CHAPTER 13 – Day 140 – Kuborn 30, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 14 – Day 140 – Kuborn 30, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 15 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 16 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 17 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 18 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 19 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 20 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 21 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 22 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 23 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 24 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 25 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 26 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 27 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 28 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 29 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 30 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 31 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 32 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 33 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 34 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 35 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 36 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 37 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 38 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 39 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 40 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 41 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 42 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 43 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 44 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 45 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 46 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 47 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 48 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
CHAPTER 49 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 0 AoC
CHAPTER 50 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 0 AoC
CHAPTER 51 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 0 AoC
CHAPTER 52 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 0 AoC
CHAPTER 53 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 0 AoC
CHAPTER 54 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 0 AoC
Thank You
Website
How to contact Aleron!
The Dark Court
Screams echoed as the Dark Queen walked the Halls of Pain. Even after epochs, the sounds of suffering could still ease her mind. This section of the hall was reserved for her most skilled torturers and had been crafted by her best engineers. The torture chambers were shaped to magnify and channel the cries of pain. The immortal souls locked in perpetual agony had been worked on so long that their cries were as predictable as the notes of a perfectly tuned instrument. The torturers were artists who created a symphony just for her. This day, she barely noticed the thousands-strong orchestra. Other thoughts occupied her mind.
The plague squad had yet to find whomever had caused such a stir in the River Peninsula. It was such an inconsequential region of The Land, weak and petty kingdoms that bordered areas of old magic and powerful monsters. It was only these natural defenses that had allowed the kingdoms there to survive. Because of this, the agents she had available were limited.
And yet, her truth seekers and soothsayers all spoke of a rising power in the peninsula. They disagreed about everything, but they seemed fairly clear that the power was not from one of the kingdoms. Some said it was on the Plains of Gold, others were sure it was in the mountains, but most swore the power was localized to the Forest of Nadria.
This all would be fine. She could simply move agents from other parts of The Land, but now spikes of change and power had been detected in every corner of the world. Continent-spanning empires were being thrown into upheaval. Nearly forgotten Powers were stirring once again, and the Light Court was as curious as she. The only useful intelligence she had came from her Vizier.
The strange being said that he had detected new Powers walking The Land. He had spoken of men and monsters that seemed to possess a seed of chaos in their souls. The Vizier had identified more than one thousand and stated they were appearing with greater frequency. None had met yet, but he said they seemed to be attracted to one another. A few, the ones at the center of the greatest disruptions in The Land, actually seemed to be pulling others to them. The Vizier said that, from what he could see, the beings were completely unaware of this.
The only exception was, maddeningly again, in the River Peninsula. These “chaos seeds” were being drawn towards the Forest of Nadria, despite the fact that no chaos seed had been detected there. The Queen had asked the Vizier if he could have missed something. As always when she spoke, her voice was sharp and delicate, like a blade of honed obsidian that could pierce the heart before one felt pain. That voice normally struck fear in the hearts of all who heard it, but the Vizier had just replied in the same quiet voice he always used.
“It is possible. As you well know, my Queen, our powers are severely curtailed since The Exile.”
He had simply stood there after admitting his possible fault. Ultimately, she had dismissed him. If any others had failed her, she would have destroyed them utterly, but the Vizier was one of the few members of her Court that she found useful. It was that thought that had reminded her of something and had brought her t
o the Halls of Pain. There was, thankfully, one thing she could always count on: the stupidity of others.
It was rare for her torturers to get seven new subjects in a day. Even more rare that all were Exiles. When she had discovered that the incompetent cabal had sent a Plague Squad into the peninsula without her consent, the Queen had almost been grateful. Such a transgression could not be allowed to pass, however. A part of her considered forbidding breeding among her court again. The offspring of the Originals were always plotting and scheming; her own son was no different.
A scream of pleading agony reached her ear, and she allowed herself a faint smile. On the other hand, without the Exiles she would not now have seven new instruments to add to her symphony.
The Light Court
Screams echoed through the throne room of the Light Court. Celestial blood fell to the gleaming white floor as the former High Chancellor was tortured. Every member of the Court was present, by the King’s decree. He wanted them all to see the consequence of failure. The King sat on his throne and watched impassively as the torturer plied his trade.
Some members of the Court looked away, appalled at this reminder that they were not truly immortal. Very few things could destroy an Original or Exile, but they existed. Others grinned in savage glee at seeing a high-ranking member of the court brought so low. The King made mental notes of each. Nothing escaped his cold, dead eyes.
The chancellor had failed to find answers quickly enough for the monarch. Once again, he had come before the Court with only suppositions and theories. Without any expression, the King had struck the being down with his magic. A moment later, a portal to an abyssal realm had opened, and a demon lord had stepped through. The powerful being had bowed to the Light King and asked, in a voice like the scream of a burning soul, how he could be of service. Seconds later, the demon lord’s claws were digging into the cosmic matter of the chancellor’s body and swallowing it whole while the Court watched.
One idea that the chancellor proposed before all the screaming began was that a squad of vindicators be dispatched. While the King listened to hours of screaming agony, he pondered the idea, and a faint smile came to his face. Other sources of intelligence had brought it to his attention that a Plague Squad had been dispatched to the River Peninsula by the Dark Court. If nothing else, having one of the Light Court’s elite squads battle their Dark Court counterparts should be interesting.
CHAPTER 1 – Day 140 – Kuborn 30, 15,386 EBG
Richter looked up at the opening in the earth sixty feet above him. As his muscles ached, Sion shouted down at him to hold on, and he heard another sprite voice shout in the distance, “Your lord! I must speak to your lord! He has to know!”
The chaos seed hung there, battered and bruised. A stack of prompts flashed in the corner of his vision, waiting to be read, including one that had the clear, pulsing border of an absorbed memory. None of this interested him at the moment, though.
Despite everything that had just happened, despite all of the things that were waiting to be done, and even despite the mystery of what he had ‘to know,’ there was only one thing on Richter’s mind. He sighed heavily in frustration and pain, then shouted up to his people looking down at him, “Would you hurry the fuck up! I’m literally hanging off a cliff down here!
All that kept him from falling to his death was one hand clutching the hilt of his short sword. The weapon was jammed into the wall of the pit he hung over. As he had fallen, Richter had managed to desperately plunge the clear green blade into the stone as he fell. To be honest, he hadn’t actually expected it to work, but luckily the fey metal had been up to the task.
As he swayed slightly in the air, he swung his other hand up with a pained grunt. His muscles felt like they had been stretched and seared, and his free hand was shaking slightly as he came down from the battle high. Despite this, he was able to grab a small shelf of stone. Now somewhat more secure, he breathed out slightly in relief. That feeling didn’t last.
An internal voice told him, no screamed at him, not to, but Richter just couldn’t resist looking down. Both arms extended above his head, he twisted his neck back and to the right. Beneath him, a sea of black satin Dark magic undulated and hinted of hidden monsters.
Gazing at the pool of pitch-black magic beneath him, fear began to worm its way through his heart. That internal voice sat back, smug, and said, ‘See, dumbass? You shouldn’t have looked.’ The voice wasn’t getting any argument from Richter anymore. He kept staring for a few seconds, afraid that a creature of the Dark would rise up and attack him, but thankfully the level of roiling liquid began to drop. Whether it was because the spell duration had elapsed or whether it was because the Witch Doctor had been killed, Richter didn’t know. Even if he did, though, it would be safe to say that he gave absolutely zero fucks. The chaos seed was just happy that he wouldn’t be pulled down into whatever had made that blackness. A few seconds later, it had disappeared, leaving a narrow shaft that led deep into the ground. The bottom was obscured by the natural darkness of shadow.
Richter was about to shout up to his people again when a rope dropped down from above. He ground his teeth together in pure frustration when he saw that the end of the rope was still a few feet short of his position. To make matters worse, the wall he was hanging from was angled. The pit flared out from the hole like a cone with the top cut off. It meant that the rope was not only two feet above his head, but it was five feet behind him. His name wasn’t Pythagoras, and he didn’t know the hypotenuse, but he did know he was fucked! Trying to keep from screaming every curse he knew as he clung to the shaft wall like a fly on glass, he instead shouted up, “It’s not long enough!”
Sion’s head poked out over the hole, “It is all the rope we have. Now grab it!”
“You grab it!” Richter snapped back. He couldn’t help it anymore! “Gahhh!” he shouted in frustration. His body was battered, and he was exhausted. If the shaft rose straight up, he might have tried to scale the rock wall. His enchanted gauntlets gave a boost to climbing, after all. His stamina was already low, however, and the act of supporting his weight while he hung over empty air was making the green bar slowly drop even more. Richter’s jaw was tight with frustration, but he also knew that staring at the rope above his head wasn’t going to bring it any closer. The chaos seed took a deep breath as he steeled himself for what was about to happen.
Keeping a death grip on the hilt of his elementum short sword with his right-hand, he let go of the shelf with his left. For a moment, he once again rotated slowly over the bottomless chasm. The only thing anchoring him to this life was the foot-and-a-half of his green blade that he had managed to jam into a crack in the stone. It did not fill him with a sense of security. He felt even less ‘secure’ when his short sword slid two inches out of the wall.
“Shit! Shit shit shit shit shit shit!” While expletives flew from the chaos seed’s mouth, he yanked his Moonstone Dagger of +3 from his belt. Richter did a one arm pullup, using his already slipping short sword as an anchor, and slammed his white-bladed dagger into the stone above him. It did not enter the rock as easily as the clear green metal of his short sword, but the moonstone weapon was still able to give him another handhold. He had made sure to angle the blade perpendicular to the pull of gravity. With his weight distributed, the short sword stopped sliding. Richter exhaled in relief.
“Be careful,” Sion shouted down. “I think you almost fell.”
Richter’s nostrils started flaring. He breathed out slowly and softly spoke the truth of his heart, “Muthafucka, I’m going to kill you.” Deciding not to waste energy on shouting up his response to his friend’s superfluous advice, he implemented the next phase of his plan. Richter braced one foot on a small knob of stone to try and remove some of the weight he was placing on both blades. Then he began easing his elementum short sword out of the wall. This time, the fact that it slid free easily worked in his favor.
He stretched his body and jabbed the tip of the gree
n blade into the stone above him several times. With each strike against the cliff face, the edge of the blade dulled. The impossibly hard fey metal was tough enough to only lose a few points of durability through the process, but Richter still knew that that Krom would be apoplectic if he saw the powerful instrument of war being utilized in such a fashion. At the moment, Richter didn’t care. The point was that it got the job done. A small hole appeared in the shaft wall.
The chaos seed coughed and shook his head to clear some of the dust and gravel that had fallen down on him, then slid the short sword into the sheath on his back. Richter pulled himself up, using his dagger as a handhold and stuck his fingers into the hole he had made. Slowly wiggling the dagger’s hilt, he eased it out of the wall. His other arm began to tremble, and his stamina bar started falling faster. With a loud cry, he jammed the dagger into a nearby crack several feet higher than its previous home, praying to find purchase. It entered the break in the stone… and it held!
Richter closed his eyes. For the brief moment before the dagger was secure, his heart had started hammering in his chest again. He took several deep breaths to center his mind. When he was able to focus clearly on his purpose, he increased his breathing again to psyche himself up. The chaos seed swung both feet up to the angled wall. Pulling up with both hands, he kicked off of the wall at the same time and turned to face the rope hanging in the air before him!
Richter stretched out, and his hand grabbed for the line that swayed in front of him. He reached like a parched man for rain. In the seconds that his body moved through the air, the rope bobbed away slightly, and his heart seized in his chest. His eyes stayed glued to the plaited cord, refusing to look down again. The chaos seed’s lips curled back in a snarl as a shout built in his chest. As the fingers of his left hand wrapped around the rope, he bellowed, “Yessss!”
The rope slid through his fingers as gravity tried to kill him a final time, but he was able to secure a grip before he slid off of the end. His momentum made the coarse line sway like a pendulum. Once he reached the end of the swing, his body started swinging back towards the wall. Deciding to double down, Richter reached out with one hand and was able to grab the tip of his dagger’s hilt. The rope swung back towards the center of the pit again, and the dagger slid free of the wall!