Citadel of Smoke: A LitRPG and GameLit Adventure (Stonehaven League Book 4)

by Carrie Summers

Reward: You will avoid being locked in stone for eternity, feeling exquisite pain during every moment of your existence.

  Accept: Y

  “Wait, why don’t I get the choice to decline the quest?”

  /Question me again, worm, and your chance at redemption will vanish like butterflies in a furnace./

  “Okay. Fine.” Taking a trembling breath, Devon accepted the quest. Bob had finally gotten itself under control, and the wisp drifted close. It nudged her shoulder as if to add comfort.

  Devon raised an eyebrow at what actually seemed to have been a kind gesture. Bob shrugged. “Kinda hard to keep taunting someone who is so obviously doomed, you know?”

  ***

  After a few minutes of walking, hooves clicking against the corridor floor and sparking small licks of flame with every step, Devon finally reached a branch in the hallway. Not that the intersection offered many hints as to which turn she should take. The pair of new tunnels looked no different than the first.

  “You know, some people would say it’s good to have a plan…” Bob said as it drifted along beside her.

  Okay. Maybe the wisp had a point. She’d actually intended to get in touch with Emerson before pushing her Shadowed stat over the edge. Her Vanish spell had added more points than she’d expected—not that she regretted giving Heldi the chance to rescue her son. Anyway, she was here now—wherever here was within the greater scheme of the demonic plane—so no use regretting the delay in dropping a line to E-Squared.

  She did need to toss them an update though. Maybe Emerson would have more for her to go on than the vague suggestion that she search an entire realm for a demon that she was supposed to recognize as her guildmate from another game entirely.

  She focused on the icon for the messaging app and willed it open.

  Connection unavailable.

  Wait, what? She tried again, closing down the app and attempting to restart it. Same result.

  “What you might call planning, I call a vacant stare. I was sort of thinking we could strategize together.”

  Devon rolled her eyes. “Give me a minute, okay?”

  The wisp muttered something that sounded like “corporeal dimwit”, then started bouncing back and forth like a kindergartener waiting for the bathroom. Between the large portion of her awareness dedicated to containing the demon and her efforts to ignore the annoying ball of light, it was pretty damn hard to focus on her web browser app. But once she pinned her attention to it, a cold stone settled into her belly. The browser icon was completely grayed out with a red slash through a Wi-Fi symbol slapped over the top.

  “What in the ever-living hell?”

  “I’m not sure I understand your question. If you meant to ask: ‘Who is in the ever-living hell,’ that would be you and me.”

  “If you insist on talking, could you gargle some battery acid first?”

  “Testy today,” Bob said, booping her nose. “Of course, considering the ambiance here, I don’t really blame you.”

  Devon scanned the field of apps she kept shoved to the edge of her interface. Every single program that connected to the outside world—or rather, everything that communicated with the greater Internet—was unavailable.

  But it clearly wasn’t a problem with her implants’ network capabilities. She was receiving the full sensory spectrum from the game. The figures trapped in the wall still moved, stone grating and cracking now and again. She smelled smoke and brimstone and felt the heat from each brazier she passed.

  Somehow, when Zaa had taken control of her communication with the game, the AI had shut out the rest of the world.

  A terrible thought occurred to her, and she snapped her gaze to the logout button.

  Still enabled. Her backward facing ankle-knees wobbled a bit in relief. Back in the twenty-teens and early twenty-twenties, there had been a rash of books and movies about people becoming trapped in virtual reality, particularly games. Some fans had loved it. Some had ranted for pages about how the trope was so tired, and they were so sick of authors endlessly rehashing the same thing.

  Either way, Devon had never given serious thought to the notion that it could actually happen. Because worst case, you just had to turn off the wireless router. But now that she considered it, wasn’t Owen “trapped in the game”? From what she remembered of some of their banter during raids, he’d been something of a fan of classic Gamelit and LitRPG from back in the early boom. He used to regale them with descriptions of the futures those authors and filmmakers had imagined. Some were hilarious, and some were disturbingly accurate.

  Anyway, she doubted he’d ever imagined becoming a living, breathing 2020s trope.

  She hovered her awareness over the logout button. Even if it meant losing a little time, she should probably disconnect and dig out an old phone to get in touch with Emerson.

  “I’ll be right back, okay?” she said, wondering why she’d bothered to ask permission from the obnoxious wisp the moment the words left her mouth.

  “Yeah sure. I’ll just hang out here. In hell. Where I came to offer companionship and comfort to your sorry self.”

  “I just have to get some information. Five minutes tops.”

  While they were talking, a tooltip had appeared over the logout button, responding to her attention on the control.

  Beware: within the demonic plane, logging out leaves your avatar active and vulnerable. You may die.

  So unlike the physical realm, where her body would vanish while she was logged out, here she’d leave an uninhabited character behind? Great.

  “Hmm. Hey, Bob, do you know anything about the death penalty down here?”

  “Death penalty? Isn’t that kind of redundant? One would think loss of life would be penalty enough for whatever idiocy led to the situation.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I mean, what do you think happens to starborn who die here?”

  “Well, I cannot say for certain seeing as I am neither starborn nor mortal. Not to mention, this is my first visit to the hell plane. But if forced to guess… Eternal torment? Nonexistence? I doubt it would be pleasant in any case.”

  Devon sighed. “You’re probably right.”

  “Though you should know: as an arcane manifestation, I’ll be all right. The worst that can happen to me will be disincorporation followed by a return of my energy to the arcane realm. I’ll coalesce soon after. So that should put your mind at ease. At least one of us will go on.”

  “I feel so…consoled.”

  Devon chose the corridor on the right and started slowly making her way down it. While focusing on her interface—it was probably a good idea to familiarize herself with her demonic capabilities—she forgot to keep her wings tucked close. The tips brushed the ground, causing her to jump forward. When she landed, bursts of flame crawled up her legs, licking her flesh and adding the odor of singed meat to the waft of brimstone.

  The reminder of her new anatomy made her wonder about other changes. Craning her neck, Devon peered over her shoulder and parted her wings to bare her lower back. Nope. No tail. She didn’t think she’d felt one.

  The wings themselves intrigued her, but they were more of a hazard than an advantage in the confining tunnels. She certainly wouldn’t be maneuverable during combat. Which, speaking of…

  She returned her attention to her abilities interface.

  Ability: Blood Mist – Tier 1

  Channel the blood of your dead and dying opponents into energy which heals your wounds. When the healing effect fades, leaves behind a secondary effect, Sated by Blood, granting +2 Strength for 5 minutes.

  Heals 13-15 damage every 6 seconds. Healing and Strength gain scales to +65% as your health approaches zero.

  Duration: 45 seconds

  Cost: 85 mana

  Cast time: 1.5 seconds

  Okay. She was somewhat familiar with that one. A standard heal over time with some creepy wording. Deep in her back brain, she seemed to remember Ezraxis clawi
ng open gashes in her own flesh. The demon had probably been trying for the bigger Strength buff.

  Ability: Demonic Frenzy - Tier 1

  Your rage surges, granting speed to your attacks and movement.

  7% Haste

  Cost: 55 mana

  Stackable: 3 charges

  Duration: 45 seconds

  Cooldown: 10 seconds

  Cast time: 1 second

  That was actually pretty awesome. It would be timing-dependent, but if she wove her spells right, she could stack the spell three times and get herself to 21% haste. As long as she kept casting it every fifteen seconds, she could hold herself there. Effectively, she could increase her damage or healing output by between 15 to 20%—she wouldn’t reach the full 21% because during the cast time of the haste buff she wouldn’t be able to cast a damage spell.

  Unless she could melee at the same time. But given her Agility and Focus scores, she somehow doubted she’d be able to cast spells and hit things at the same time.

  Ability: Enthrall - Tier 2

  Weaker beings are yours to command. You must only seize hold of their will.

  Places the target under your command. Chance of success scales with your Strength and inversely with the target’s Constitution. You may only have one enthralled minion at a time.

  Cost: 130 mana

  Duration: 90 seconds

  Devon grimaced. A charm spell that relied on Strength? It made sense, she supposed. Aside from the occasional succubus, demons weren’t known for their Charisma. Anyway, she was surprised that she’d been able to hit Jeremy with the spell. Given her pathetic Strength score, he should have resisted. Maybe he’d been fibbing about balancing his attribute point allocation between Constitution and Charisma.

  Ability: Planar Rift - Tier 1

  You rend the very fabric of reality, opening a portal between the physical and demonic realms.

  Cost: 520 Mana

  Cooldown: 1 day

  Okay. So that was on cooldown, considering that she had just used it. Not that she imagined escape from Zaa’s dungeon would be that easy…

  A final ability had become unlocked when she’d leveled from discovery experience.

  Ability: Adamantine Strike - Tier 1

  Your claws harden and grow razor-sharp, dealing 150% damage with your next attack.

  Cost: 35 mana

  Cooldown: 12 seconds

  A melee damage buff. Not bad, considering.

  But speaking of melee, Devon’s heart stuttered when she realized that her Wicked Bone Dagger was back in the Drowned Burrow, possibly smashed to smithereens following its service as a chisel to break apart the awakening stone. Her thoughts snapped to the rest of her gear as she looked down at her demonic form. The transformation had been rather disconcerting, and she hadn’t paid much attention to what had happened to her armor.

  “Hey Bob? Were you watching when I changed shape?”

  Devon’s torso was heavily muscled and entirely bare. Over striated chest muscles, small hillocks gave the suggestion of breasts, but there were no nipples. Where her abdomen met her groin, the flesh was smooth and free of genitalia.

  Thank goodness.

  “Sort of. I was also involved in a heated game of Scrabble with one of my arcane brethren, but I do try to keep an open conduit to your general whereabouts. I must admit that your choice to complete the transformation startled me into missing a triple word score.”

  “A triple—?” Devon cut herself off. It didn’t matter how the wisp spent its free time. “Did you see what happened to my gear?” Her legs and feet were just as naked as her top half.

  “What do you think? Among the many pieces of seed content, the game’s AI were given access to something called the Incredible Hulk.”

  “It’s shredded?”

  “In complete tatters. Fortunately for you, demons don’t procreate in the same manner as mortals. The traditional reasons for modesty—largely centered around the concealment of the sex organs—are non-applicable.”

  Well, shit. True, most of her gear was out of date, armor upgrades having been low on her list of priorities. But still…losing everything seemed pretty damn harsh.

  “Wow. That sucks. What about my rucksack? It really doesn’t seem fair for me to have to start over.”

  “Whoever told you life is fair, princess?” Bob booped her nose. “As for the rucksack, I imagine you can recover the contents. Your tremendous lats and deltoids probably just snapped the straps. And claiming that you’ll need to start over is a bit sensationalist, don’t you think? After all, you still have a pair of Superior Medium Leather Trousers lost somewhere in the savanna. And some magic items do resize to fit the owner. Can you imagine what a pain in the ass it would be if after looting every chest, you had to take your treasure to a silversmith to make sure it would fit?”

  “Magic items?”

  “Oh, for Veia’s sake,” Bob groaned. “See, this is why I have to question the logic behind naming you Champion of Ishildar.”

  “What? Why?”

  The wisp shuddered. “Seriously? You can’t think of any magic items associated with your quest?”

  Devon sighed. Right. The relics. She held out her left claw. The Azuresky Band, now larger, still encircled her finger. Tapping her breastbone, she felt the Greenscale Pendant nestled just below the hollow of her throat.

  “The whole situation has been a bit disorienting,” she said in her defense. “It’s not every day your split personality turns you into an abominable beast.”

  “No. I suppose the occurrence is somewhat uncommon.”

  Devon continued to examine her claw as she thought about her newest ability. Adamantine Strike. Sounded cool, but would it be useful? She hadn’t put much effort into raising her melee combat skills. And actually…

  “Hey, Bob? Another question.”

  “What a surprise.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Do you think that my claws are slashing weapons? Or do you think the game will use my Unarmed Combat skill?” Unfortunately, that stat was still stuck at 3. She’d be more likely to poke out her own eye than accurately strike an enemy unarmed.

  Bob gave a strange tinkling sound that Devon thought was supposed to be a laugh.

  “What?”

  “You know, while it might make sense to direct a question about Unarmed Combat to a creature who happens to have no arms, I think you may misunderstand the connotations of the words.”

  Devon locked the wisp with a flat stare. “You know, sometimes I find myself wondering what happened to the fairy.”

  “What fairy?”

  “The one who ate too many beans and produced you. I’d like to have a chat with her about the devastating consequences of her diet.”

  “I don’t get it. Fairies are of the fey. They have nothing to do with the arcane.”

  Quest updated: Escape the Citadel of Smoke. (timed)

  You seem to lack urgency, worm. Allow me to help you rectify that.

  New quest timer added: 2 hours remaining.

  As Devon stared at the popup, the timer rolled over to one hour and fifty-nine minutes. She flicked the window away.

  She didn’t have a precise strategy yet, but at least she’d gotten her bearings. “We’ve gotta move. I’m going to stick to spells where I can. Please don’t do that shrieking thing unless there’s no other choice.”

  “You realize that’s a vague request. How am I to know whether there’s another choice? Or rather, isn’t there always another choice? As in, I could always elect to remain silent, right? No external circumstance can force me to exercise my vocal capabilities if I don’t wish to employ them.”

  Was the wisp really this literal, or did it cultivate the trait to annoy her?

  She sighed. “On second thought, please refrain from using any vocal capability until I give you a direct command otherwise.”

  “Starting when?”

  She smirked. “How about n
ow.”

  In blessed silence marred only by the clack of her hooves, the hiss of flame, and the almost-audible shrieks of the doomed, Devon continued on.

  Chapter Thirty

  EMERSON KNEW HE had to get in touch with Cynthia. At this point, he’d left the woman hanging for two full days. Even if she just needed a few words of encouragement, he owed her that, especially after she’d helped him gather the data he needed to decipher Zaa’s world state. Not to mention, she might have an update he could share with Bradley.

  And it was the decent thing to do, offering support to someone whose loved one was in danger.

  But first, he needed to get Devon on the line.

  He stared at her inactive messenger icon. It was strange; the system listed her as offline. Sure, she had a habit of setting her status to Away or Do Not Disturb when gaming. But with her network connection physically installed in her head, the only time he’d seen her drop off the network completely was when he’d convinced her to wear the electromagnetic shielding device.

  He smirked. Or rather, the tinfoil hat as she liked to call it.

  Regardless, he could at least finish preparing her instructions. He’d typed up a message indicating the plans to help her step through a crack in reality and arrive at the most advantageous location in the demonic plane. At first, he’d planned to send a game master over to Stonehaven—though the powers were reserved for the highest tier of GM, customer service avatars could more or less teleport freely around the world. They could also transport players to specified locations, but that was obviously a severely restricted capability as it broke the immersion and rules of the game world.

  Anyway, he’d reconsidered the plan to send a GM. Whoever interacted with Devon had to be incredibly precise and thorough in their instructions. They needed to be sensitive to the fact that the psychological trials ahead probably terrified her. Devon deserved to be prepared for this by a friend. Someone she might even grow closer to after enduring part of the adversity with their companionship.