Valhalla Online 4: Hel Hath No Fury: A Ragnarok Saga LitRPG Story

by Kevin McLaughlin

  He felt anger at Harald for betraying the Great One. He felt guilt for not being faster and stronger during the battle. Above all else, he felt a strong desire to help her win the next one. All of these emotions and feelings were new to him. He hadn’t felt them before meeting her.

  That didn’t make them any less real or important to him.

  The passage opened up into a massive cavern at the bottom. Gurgle could feel the pressure of the air around him change as he hit the opening, and knew that the floor was only a few dozen meters below him. He unfurled his wings, braking his drop. Even with every bit of energy he could muster into his wingbeats, the dragon still crashed against the floor hard, shaking the stone.

  All around him were the squealing noises of his brothers and sisters as they fled from view. This chamber was the central living space of the kobold people. They would have seen him arrive and run for deeper tunnels as fast as their short legs could carry them.

  What a change that was! Once he had been the weakest kobold. Now, he was the strongest. He was also the smartest. He had always been a little clever, but now he could think and come up with new ideas and plans. Like the one he was executing.

  “I am Gurgle,” he roared into the cavern. “I have returned!”

  The squeaking stopped sounding as panicked and turned curious instead. A few of the braver kobolds stuck their faces out of hiding areas.

  “You no look like Gurgle!” one said.

  “Yeah! Gurgle small. Weak,” another added.

  Gurgle roared toward the ceiling. “I am Gurgle! I have been with the Great One who defeated evil dead things. Now she need kobold help.”

  “Why kobolds help her?” a daring kobold asked from the shadows.

  Gurgle hissed, snorting a little blast of cold from between his jaws. “I am strongest kobold. Anyone disagree?”

  Small heads shook back and forth from every corner of the cavern.

  “Strongest kobold leads all kobolds,” Gurgle said.

  This time, they nodded.

  “Then Gurgle call his people. We go into light. We go help Great One fight her enemy. Anyone say no to Gurgle?”

  There was nothing but silence for a long moment. Gurgle watched the kobolds as they slowly slipped from their hidden spots, filling the cavern floor before him.

  “What if kobold say no?” one asked.

  Gurgle flashed him a smile full of teeth. “Then Gurgle prove he is strongest kobold and eat that one.”

  “Oh.” The kobold who’d asked scratched his head a little, looking lost in thought. “Then I think yes better.”

  All around the cave, more cries of yes surrounded him. The kobolds scurried around, gathering weapons and armor. Gurgle sat back on his haunches, satisfied. Heid might have an army, but Gurgle would even the playing field. Gurgle would bring the Great One an army of her own.

  31

  Sam didn’t find herself back in the virtual space where she, her real-world self, and Hel had spoken. Instead she found herself staring at a view of herself in Army uniform. Her real-world self was crouched over a keyboard, cursing softly under her breath as she pounded away at the keys.

  The angle of the view told Sam she was looking at herself from a computer monitor. She was likely seeing the world through a web-cam. It was a strange thing, seeing herself that way. But she needed to do more than that. She had to reach out and talk to her other self. She felt around in the computer terminal, searching for a way to communicate.

  Finally she found access to the speaker system.

  “Testing,” Sam said. She heard her own voice come out as a tinny sound though the speakers. “Can you hear me?”

  The other Samantha jumped at the sound of Sam’s voice, so clearly she could. “You scared the shit out of me! I'm alone down here. If someone else finds me, I’m screwed.”

  “Unless we do something quick, we’re all screwed,” Sam replied.

  “Things didn’t go well?” Samantha asked.

  “Hel is dead,” Sam replied. No sense filling in the gory details. There wasn’t time. “Heid thinks she has the dagger, but she doesn’t really. You do.”

  “I have what?” Samantha asked.

  “When Hel sent you that upload, she included the code for her dagger inside the packet. It was the only way she could ensure Heid didn’t get it,” Sam said.

  “But now Heid is trying to break out, right? I can see her hacks. So far I’ve held her in with the countermeasure code, but she’s going to break through eventually. She’s fast and smart, and better at this than I am. Than we are,” Samantha said. “Coding isn’t my strong suit.”

  “I know, remember? What’s worse is that when she does break through, she’s going to get access to your console. She’ll have the dagger, then. Who knows how much damage she can do with that. You have to find the dagger code and get rid of it,” Sam said. “Delete it if you can. Get it off the server if you can’t.”

  “How do I find it?” Samantha asked. “That packet she sent is full of gigabytes of code!”

  “You’ll have to look through it. Search for something that looks out of place,” Sam said. Then she had a thought. “Look for anything that has to do with Norse mythology, and keywords or comment lines that might have that sort of connection.”

  Samantha leaned back in her chair and cracked her knuckles. “Still sounds like a needle in a haystack to me.”

  “Do what you can. I’m going to go try to take Heid down from the inside,” Sam said.

  “Ouch. Suddenly, it sounds like I have the easier job,” Samantha replied.

  Sam laughed. “I don’t know which of us does. But Hel seemed convinced that if we worked together, we could win. If we lose, Heid plans to blow the Earth into a nuclear Armageddon.”

  “Let’s do this, then,” Samantha said grimly.

  “I’ll be in Valhalla, fighting her there. You keep up the fight here, and find that code!” Sam said.

  “On it, sis. Good luck.”

  “You, too,” Sam said.

  Then she willed herself free from the computer, diving back out of its systems and into her own body. She fell for what seemed like eons, but it had to be seconds. Then with a jolt she found herself back in Valhalla Online. Her limbs were stiff and sore, but she was home again, safe in her body. Grimalf and Jorge stood nearby watching over her.

  Sam looked around but didn’t see a dragon anywhere. “Where’s Gurgle?”

  “He took off. Said he had something to do,” Jorge said.

  Damn it, there wasn’t time for Gurgle to go haring off. She needed his help. Sam looked toward Heid’s tower. The army surrounding it was impossibly large. How they hell were they supposed to carve their way through all of that? It had seemed impossible with Gurgle at her side. Without him, Sam doubted they would get more than a few steps.

  Then Gurgle erupted out of a mountain shaft a hundred meters away. He rose into the air, heavy wingbeats carrying him up before he settled into a glide and came slowly back to the ground beside her.

  “Gurgle! You’re a sight for sore eyes,” Sam shouted up to him.

  Then she saw it wasn’t just Gurgle. He was covered with kobolds. They were riding on his back, clinging to his feet, and even dangling from his tail. There were a couple dozen of the things. He looked festooned with little scaly critters. The sight made Sam laugh aloud.

  “Hey, buddy, you’ve got an infestation there,” Grimalf said as Gurgle landed.

  “Not infestation. Kobolds,” Gurgle corrected. “Bad One has army. Great One needed army too. Gurgle got.”

  Sam smiled at her friend. His heart was in the right place, but a few dozen kobolds wasn’t going to make much difference against the massive force they were facing. The creatures were brave but small. They’d only get themselves killed for nothing, and she wasn’t going to have that on her conscience. Sam cast about for a way to let Gurgle know this without hurting his feelings. He was trying to help, after all.

  Before she could say anything, Sam fel
t the ground rumble beneath her feet. Was it an earthquake? Something related to what Heid was doing? Had the AI spotted them and was using the ground itself to attack them?

  But it was none of those things. The ground seemed to boil around the shaft Gurgle had returned from. It wasn’t the ground moving, though. It was kobolds pouring from the same hole in the ground. It wasn’t dozens of kobolds, either.

  There were hundreds of them. Lots and lots of hundreds. Sam lost count, trying to figure out just how many there were. She stood staring as the kobolds continued to climb up and array themselves on the mountainside in front of Gurgle.

  “Great One needed army. Gurgle got Great One army,” the dragon said. He looked incredibly pleased with himself.

  32

  Sam sat astride Gurgle, who was moving his wings in strong beats, struggling to stay aloft with all the weight he carried. She hoped he could keep it up just a little longer. Everything about this assault relied on timing and precision. When it came to a kobold army, neither of those things were assured.

  She could see the kobolds marching through the woods below toward the tower. Soon they’d break from the forest edge into the clearing around Heid’s new hill and the tower defenders would see the kobolds. What they did then would determine everything.

  “Gurgle tiring,” her friend said.

  Sam patted his neck. “Hang in there a little longer.”

  She had her own struggle. Maintaining invisibility over herself and Gurgle was difficult enough. Doing so over the load he carried as well was draining Sam’s mana rapidly. This had to work, and soon.

  There! A pack of dokkalfar had spied the approaching force of kobolds. Their line was just breaking from the cover of the trees. They kept advancing until they were into spear range. Then they all threw spears at the dark elves.

  Most of the weapons bounced off the elven armor, but some struck home. The wounded dokkalfar cried out in pain. Their comrades started off after the kobolds. More of Heid’s forces moved as well, following the dark elves’ lead. The kobolds saw the mighty force coming their way and did what any self-respecting kobold would do under those circumstances. They retreated back into the woods.

  Seeing the enemy flee only encouraged Heid’s defenders more. Many of them ran headlong toward the edge of the forest, hoping to strike down a kobold or two before they escaped. Not all of the defenders moved, but it was enough to make a difference. There was a clear space in front of the tower which hadn’t been there before.

  Sam drew an arrow and readied her bow. The massive wolf guarding the tower door hadn’t moved. She didn’t like the look of the thing. It seemed smarter than most of Heid’s army, more alert. It was also the size of a camper and looked like it could swallow her whole. That would do as a first target.

  Sam released her arrow. Her invisibility snapped off. The wolf had just enough time to look upward and see the danger it was in before her arrow slammed into its flank. Black lines wreathed the mighty animal quickly. In seconds, it was nothing but smoke.

  Gurgle swooped toward the ground and released his payload. Each of his claws carried the end of a long rope. From each rope dangled dozens of kobold warriors, the best fighters from their clans, armed and armored in the strongest gear they had. The band still looked motley and rag-tag, but as kobolds dropped out of the sky into the rear guard of Heid’s force, chaos reined.

  “I wanna be an airborne kobold...” one of them sang as he dropped down onto a giant’s neck, slashing with his sword.

  “Live a life of adventure and danger,” another chortled as it dropped down the same giant’s back, slipping into the thing’s trousers. A second later the giant turned very pale and fell to his knees.

  “Who taught them that, Gurgle?” Sam asked, smiling at the idea of kobolds air-assaulting while singing US Army jodies. She wondered if the drill instructors at Benning would have approved.

  “Gurgle not know,” the dragon replied, his voice and face a studied picture of innocence. Sam laughed aloud.

  The little creatures slashed and stabbed, cutting down enemies from behind. Heid’s troops reacted swiftly, turning back to face the new threat. That only left their rear open to the main kobold force, which hadn’t retreated far into the forest. As soon as their enemy stopped pursuing, the kobolds turned around and came back. Like a tidal wave, they rushed across the open ground to join their brethren in the fight.

  Jorge and Grimalf ran along in their center of the kobold line, urging the little warriors on. Golden magic lashed out across the battlefield, freezing enemies in place or dazzling them into blindness. That would be Jorge’s work. Sam would never complain about his not wanting to learn fire magic again. His way was proving more than effective enough.

  The battle wasn’t theirs, not yet. But the tide was already turning. Sam glanced upward at the tower. That was where the real enemy waited. All of this below was just another delaying tactic.

  “Let’s see if she’s distracted enough yet,” Sam told Gurgle.

  The dragon launched himself skyward toward the top of the tower. Before they were even halfway, a flash of lightning blasted toward them. Gurgle banked hard and dove, narrowly avoiding the bolt. He dodged another, sliding down toward the base of the tower to get out of Heid’s line of fire.

  “Well, I guess that question is answered. She really doesn’t want us up there,” Sam muttered. “Guess we do this the hard way. Land near the front doors of the tower.”

  “Gurgle do,” he said.

  As they swooped toward the ground, two drakes did likewise. The massive reptiles landed between Gurgle and the door. They hissed, beginning to circle so they could strike from both sides. Sam drew her sword and readied a spell, but cursed the delay under her breath.

  “Great One go,” Gurgle said. “Gurgle got this.”

  “You sure?” Sam asked.

  “Sure.”

  She slid down, patting Gurgle’s side to wish him luck. As her feet touched down she blasted the drake on the right with flame. The fire struck him right in the face. The drake reared back away from the painful strike with a shriek. At the same time, Gurgle breathed frost at the other, blinding it for a moment. Then quick as a snake he lunged in, his jaws going for the drake’s throat.

  Sam only had a few moments while both drakes were distracted. She dashed to the door and slipped inside before they could return their attention to her. Outside, the sounds of the battle raged on, but they were muted by the thick stone walls.

  The inside of the tower was bare except for a spiral staircase leading upward. There didn’t appear to be any guardians, but Sam didn’t trust that. She cast a shield about herself and made for the stairs.

  That shield saved her life. When the narrow blade slipped in from behind, Sam’s spell blunted most of the attack. Her armor reduced the damage still further. What would have been a mortal wound was just a moderately painful one. Sam whirled toward the new attack and found herself face to face with a dokkalfar.

  No, not just any dark elf. This was Inglalf.

  “I thought your mistress was Hel,” Sam said as she parried a second blow with her sword.

  Inglalf’s face looked pained. “She was. She is gone. Her sister absorbed her power and now controls Hel’s legions. I have no choice but to serve Heid now.”

  He struck a flurry of blows, and Sam found herself backing up the stairs away from him. The dark elf was incredibly strong for his size, and even as thin as his sword was, it could still kill.

  Sam looked at her health bar and was horrified to see it was still dropping! The wound on her side was worse than she’d thought. A hand clapped over the cut came away red. Then she remembered — in this realm, damage didn’t hurt much. This place was for novices to get used to the game. Even mortal wounds only gave light pain. She’d become used to the more intense sensations of the other realms and forgotten how little wound would hurt here.

  “You’re dripping on the floor,” Inglalf said, weaving his sword in another deadly a
rc.

  “I noticed,” Sam replied drily. She was stuck on the defensive. He wasn’t getting any more blows through her defense, but it was impossible to gain the initiative. Worse, she was weakening. She needed to bind that wound and cast healing on herself.

  It was time to do something daring. She couldn’t best Inglalf with swords, not in her condition. But she had other powers and weapons available to her. Sam tossed a small blast of fire at the dark elf. He dodged easily, but it stopped his spinning blade for just long enough to get off a stronger cold spell. Sam coated the steps beneath Inglalf’s feet with ice.

  The dark elf went down, turning his fall into a roll. A quick flip in the air and he was back on his feet. But he was down at the base of the steps again. When he finally had his feet under him Inglalf found himself staring up at Sam’s bow and a black arrow. She wanted to just run on and get to Heid, but leaving an enemy like Inglalf behind her would be foolish.

  “Stand down. I don’t want to kill you,” Sam called to him.

  Inglalf stepped up onto the stairs again, stalking toward her. “You must, if you want to win past me. You know it. My will is not my own. I cannot fight her orders.”

  Sam didn’t want this! But he was right. There was no other way. “I’m sorry, Inglalf.”

  She fired.

  The arrow took the dark elf full in the chest. As the black tendrils spread up his body, turning him into mist, Inglalf smiled at her. “Thank you. Now, go kill that bitch.”

  Then he was gone, erased from the world like he’d never been there at all. Sam wasn’t sure whether to be glad or sad for the elf. But one thing was certain. As she glared up the stairs toward where Heid waited, she knew in her heart that it was time to finish this.

  33

  Samantha’s fingers flew over her keyboard, typing as rapidly as she could manage. The software Hel uploaded to her terminal was superb, but Heid appeared to be a fast learner. The AI knew someone was actively trying to block her escape, and she seemed determined to find a way out no matter the cost. One after another, the firewalls Samantha had carefully erected around Valhalla were falling. Even without the dagger, it looked like Heid might be able to break free.