by Vic Connor
Hunters of Arkhart: Battle Mage
A LitRPG Adventure
Vic Connor
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Copyright © 2019 by Vic Connor
All rights reserved www.austinbriggs.com
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Also by Vic Connor:
Istoria Online: Square One
Diary of Anna the Girl Witch
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
LitRPG Communities
IF YOU ENJOYED THIS BOOK…
Chapter One
The colosseum roars as hundreds upon hundreds of people watch, entranced by the spectacle they have just witnessed. It has been glorious carnage and heroic deeds have been plentiful. The arena throbs as blood and gore litter the ground, the sounds of battle drowned out by the crowd’s cheering. It is sunset by the time the finale begins and a ruby glow hovers over the western horizon, bathing all of Arkhart in its radiance.
Aremos, acclaimed battle mage and the last warrior standing in this epic bout, briefly takes it all in, his heart pounding. He has been worn ragged by this fight, and now can barely stand. Fresh wounds crisscross his body and a great, vicious burn spreads over his shoulder, having singed through his robes and gambeson.
The pain could overwhelm a lesser person, but it’s insignificant to him right now. He’s well-trained in his craft, a powerful caster and a veteran of several campaigns. His mental discipline and pure willpower lend him an alacrity in battle which he draws on now, shuttering away the fatigue and hurt, delving deep within himself…
I need a plan, he thinks.
His staff is broken, rent asunder by the dread wyvern’s mighty claws, and his sword is in a bad state. One swing more, maybe two, and it will sheer in half. The tools of his trade are useless to him, he realizes. As if in slow motion, the monster rises before him, but he ignores it.
The tools are not what make the man, he reminds himself. You are more than sword and staff. You are Aremos the Wise, Aremos the Bloody, victor of a hundred battles, wielder of the winds of magic, master of your own fate…
He hits upon a plan as the wyvern spreads its leathery wings, climbing ever higher before him. It’s the only plan—the only way out of this situation, the only way to slay the beast—and it’s risky. But what is life without risk? he thinks. What is my growing power worth without the joy of being able to use it as I wish?
The wyvern arrests its ascent, and Aremos allows himself to become present once more, to look upon the beast he’s about to slay. As his audience clamors, he fixes his gaze on the monster. It’s a great drake from the distant mountains, raised by the Makers of this world to test their many subjects. There will be a great reward for any who can defeat it—and many have tried over the course of this tournament. They are dead now, either devoured fully by the beast or littered in gory fragments about the colosseum’s floor.
Many more subjects watch on, crowding into the arena to see the destruction. Only Aremos remains. His own comrades are dead, the battle brothers and sisters with whom he has shared so many of his epic quests. They’ve been shredded and broken and they left him alone, ascending from this world to the other, beyond, to watch and hopefully cheer as Aremos defeats this foe.
The Makers have made one hell of a beast, however. They gave it greater strength and stamina than has ever been seen before. They gave its attacks damage beyond anything previously known and they gave it a limitless supply of deadly, flaming breath. Many charred skeletons lie in its wake. It is only by virtue of Aremos’ magical shielding that he has escaped the worst of it.
He glances at his stats in the corner of his vision. If he’s honest with himself, they’re woefully inadequate for the fight he’s in:
Level: 26
Unallocated XP: 32
HP: 425 / 500
Magical Power: 523 / 672
Agility: 52
Melee Weapon Skill: 38
Ballistic Accuracy: 31
Damage: 46
Resistance: 37
Morale: 60
Core Skills: Battle mage
His shielding is also running low, and he can feel death approaching. The great wyvern spreads its wings, inhales, and bathes Aremos in its volcanic breath. Everything turns to light and fury as Aremos backs away, surrounded with flames, his health depleting as his charms burst and his wards break down—until, finally, he must begin the end.
Even after the fire subsides, his health bar continues to tick down; he’s received the “Roasted” debuff.
A voice floats to him in the ether, a voice out of time, from the world beyond worlds. “Get ready, my love, the time is coming… You are needed, prepare yourself.”
He takes a swig from his flask, stopping the decline of his health. Then, gathering his thoughts, he whispers a slow, methodical incantation to bolster his own protection and evaporate the fire. His pool of magical power depletes as he chants. Reaching deep within himself, he draws the last of his resolve, his willpower, and his strength, and his incantation changes.
The wyvern sees what he is doing and roars its fury, flattening its wings against its back and reaching its bladed claws forward before swooping down to gut Aremos, to tear him to shreds before he can finish. Its great maw yawns wide, layered with row after row of serrated teeth and glowing orange with its baleful, internal fire.
The audience knows it’s over. Even the great and powerful Aremos cannot get out of this alive. He’ll fail, the same as everybody else, and there will be honor in his defeat.
“More honor than you can know,” Aremos mutters, his spell ready. He has just enough magical power left to use it.
His sword is good for just one more blow, so badly has it been shaken against the wyvern’s scaly hide.
“Ah-reh-mos,” someone in the audience chants—a lonely voice, barely audible over the crowd’s clamor. “Ah-reh-mos!”
The beast, Wyvern_hardmod9, was made indestructible on purpose, an anomaly in the system powerful enough that it remains almost unharmed even now, after several days spent fighting the greatest warriors of Arkhart by the hundreds.
The tension is almost unbearable as the colosseum watches, faces from around both this world and the next come to see it conduct its last slaughter of the day. The wyvern roars as it drops from the sky and the commentators bellow, their voices blasting out around the world from the seat of the Makers themselves.
And overlaying it all, sneaking, interwoven between every noise, comes that familiar, nagging voice: “Get yourself ready, it’s nearly time, present yourself well and do us proud…”
“I will show you proud,” Aremos mutters. “I will show you who is ready.”
“Ah-reh-mos!” More voices join the chant. “Ah-reh-mos!”
There’s only one thing left to do. Nobody in the audience suspects it. Only he and the wyvern even know that it’s possible—and the great drake descends, faster and faster, to stop Aremos from going ahead with it.
He hesitates. As hopeless as Aremos
feels, he wavers until the last. He doesn’t know if it’s allowed. He doesn’t know if it’s what he wants to do. He doesn’t know if it will count, or if he will be disqualified. It has never been done before but, as the Makers must surely have known when they set this challenge, it’s the only possible way to defeat Wyvern_hardmod9 and win the glory and the reward.
“Ah-reh-mos! Ah-reh-mos! Ah-reh-mos!” The audience is going insane now—people screaming at the top of their lungs, reaching out their hands, stomping their feet.
Finally, when the wyvern is only a few meters away, Aremos screams, “Screw it!” He shouts it aloud, yelling over the ethereal voice that wants to know “what on Earth is going on up there, young—”
He reverses his shattered sword and plunges it into his own chest.
The observers gasp in unison. The chanting stops, as if cut off with his blade.
Aremos unleashes the last great power, called the Final Freedom by everybody in the know. It’s the battle mage’s ultimate gambit, automatically killing any players present and, in the process, destroying their enemies without fail.
His health bar was at 130/500 after the wyvern’s last breath attack—and he managed to keep that much only because of his energy potions and his own incantations, limping on beyond what everybody expected. But while his health is depleted, it takes a great deal more to exhaust the power stores of a mage as accomplished as he. His magic bar has remained relatively strong, aided by his various potions, at 480/672. Without his staff, he has been unable to use his magic to attack, unable even to perform any but the simplest of wards. But the Final Freedom requires no staff, nothing but the definitive sacrifice by a strong magic user.
As he plunges his sword into his chest, the wyvern bowls into him, tearing through his body and sending him into what should be a graceful, final arc before landing, dead and defeated.
But all of his magical energy is now unleashed. It burns and it exalts him, both terrible and magnificent, as every drop of power in his body pulses through him and rushes outward.
Shocked, the spectators watch from on high within the colosseum, each viewing the fight through their own avatars. They stare intently as the wyvern uses its breath attack and the battle mage resists against the odds. Before the tournament, nobody knew who this new upstart was—this Aremos character was nothing more than yet another battle mage, the same as hundreds of others. But he has won fame and he has won their admiration: Now, he will win his way into legend.
As the wyvern descends, they seem certain it’s all over. Wyvern_hardmod9 has 90098/100000 in its health bar, full strength and, by the look on its face, it is angrier than they have seen it all day.
But then, the seppuku—the Final Freedom. Aremos gathers his strength, stabs himself in the chest and, as the wyvern collides into him, a blinding white light explodes outward from his body. A split-second later, the wyvern and the mage evaporate, and the glare and the fury from all that energy clears the stadium floor. Every broken questing knight, every dwarven smith and half-elf sorcerer, every troll and goblin and orc, everything bloodied and broken and crumpled on the colosseum’s floor vanishes, disintegrated by the blast. Still, the power keeps on coming, burning the spectators’ eyes as they try to look upon it. The colosseum’s stalls are battered, and its walls begin to crumble. The various pennants and banners held aloft by fans are burned to ash, and everyone in the audience sees their own health bars crippled by at least a third.
Instant pandemonium breaks out. A mixture of feelings arises from the ashes of the bombardment. Some are impressed at the evident knowledge of the game mechanics. Some are awestruck by the audacity of whomever is in control of Aremos, pulling a stunt like that with the Makers themselves involved, watching from on high. Others are furious. They say, “It’s bad faith.” They say, “It’s cheating.” They say, “The rules of the game clearly state the victor will be whomever defeats the wyvern, and Aremos did not defeat it.”
“He did,” others argue.
“No,” people reply. “He got himself killed, it’s a draw at best, if he isn’t disqualified on the spot.”
For the most part, however, the community of Arkhart is elated. Whatever happens next, whatever their opinions and their own judgements, nobody—nobody—comes away bored.
“This was the best fight ever,” they say.
“Get yourself ready, it’s nearly time, present yourself well and do us proud…”
“…Get yourself ready, they’ll be here soon, hey, are you even listening to me…?”
“Somera!” her mother calls from downstairs. “Are you listening to me? It is nearly time, they will be here soon. Ten minutes, tops, and you need to be ready!”
“Yes, mama,” Somera shouts back, pulling off her headset. She hears her mother’s moody, frustrated footsteps clomping upstairs, her feet slapping against the cold stone. Somera swears and bundles her headset and Zikya rig together, pulling the cords out of her laptop’s sockets. She jumps up from her desk, stoops down to slide the rig under her bed and blinks, hurriedly, trying to refocus.
That fight was intense, she thinks.
She still can’t believe her own audacity. The Final Freedom had just been a rumor she’d read about in the Arkhart forums. She’d never seen it done, let alone dared to attempt it herself. But the look on that wyvern mod’s face when it understood what she was about to do … it was priceless.
One more win, she thinks. As Aremos, she feels she can take on the whole damned world.
As she smiles in satisfaction, relishing the feeling of having released so much power against a creature built by the game developers themselves, her mother bursts into her room, all bluster and fuss.
“Oh, Somera, look at you,” she begins, the usual litany as she buzzes about Somera’s room, tidying it up as she instructs her daughter how to look, how to behave, how to be. “Your hair, Somera! You look like you have been dragged through a hedge. And you can’t wear this scarf, it makes you look so washed out. Come, come, let us fix this mess. The Bharatis will be here soon and we want—we need—to make a good impression.”
She sits Somera down at her desk in front of the mirror, and Somera has to concede her mother has a point. Her headscarf has slipped back, revealing tangles of thick, flyaway hair that seem to be doing whatever they please. And the garment she’d pulled out this morning at random from her box of scarves, as she usually does, is indeed unflattering. It makes her look ill, she admits, and has ragged ends with strings of cotton fraying and pulling loose.
Her mother chatters away about the Bharatis and their son Sameer, “Who has a very good job, you know. Local government, lots of potential, lots of—” She rubs her finger and thumb together, indicating money. “Such a good match, I do not want any of this—” she gestures to Somera and her scruffy appearance, sucking her teeth in distaste “—to put him off, darling. It would be such a shame, you know? And your father and I have worked so, so hard to make it happen.”
“I know, mama.” Somera sighs, wincing in pain as her mother begins to drag a comb through her thick tousles. Her mother carries on extolling Sameer Bharati’s virtues while simultaneously trying to humble her daughter, bemoaning her scruffiness, her lack of interest in potential husbands, her endless daydreams…
“Look, you are daydreaming now!” her mother snaps, pulling at a particular knotty tangle and making Somera yelp. She is right: Somera had been fantasizing, pretending once more she was Aremos, her alter ego, fighting hordes of monsters through Arkhart…
“I’m sorry, mama.” She sighs again, forcing herself back to Earth.
“That’s a bit better,” her mother says with satisfaction. Somera’s hair is neat and well-brushed. “Now, put this on,” she continues, handing Somera a plain, yet elegant, headscarf. “And this.” She pulls a very traditional dress from Somera’s wardrobe. “And then come downstairs. You need to make tea for when they get here.”
“Yes, mama.” Somera takes the headscarf and the dress, stifling a
nother heavy sigh.
Somera has three brothers, and all three have fled the household to pursue their dreams. “As befits young men of their standing and intelligence,” her mother often explains, beaming proudly. Somera’s father, a lawyer for one of the local political parties, just nods and sighs.
“I miss them,” he tells Somera simply whenever her mother is not around. “But…” He shrugs. “They are their own men. They fly the roost, who am I to stop them?” And he pays for their education, and he receives emails and Skype calls from them every so often, and he takes what pleasure he can from his thoughts of their future successes.
“But at least I still have you,” he always says to Somera.
“Yes, papa,” she replies, looking at the ground, avoiding his eyes.
She wants to fly the roost, she wants to be her own woman. But she can’t. She is not allowed.
Her eldest brother Dawud is into movies. He grew up watching Bollywood and Hollywood in secret, eschewing the strict religious customs of their town to instead join a world of make-believe. He became a talented artist, and as soon as he had the chance, he went to Europe to study animation. Next in line is her brother Abbas, who had always seemed torn in two. “I either want to study religious philosophy or modern literature,” he used to tell them, clearly struggling to choose between them. “Then I will either be a famous Quranic scholar or a famous poet.” He eventually decided on literature and went to a university in Australia to study. True to his word, he has managed to publish a couple of poems and, according to Somera’s mother, is thinking of writing a novel next. “My clever boys,” she says of her sons. “What a lucky mother they make me.”