Watcher’s Fate: A LitRPG Saga (Life in Exile Book 3)

by Sean Oswald

  Jackson had joined the fight and even slowed by his burns, Dave made short work of the monster once it could no longer retreat. Emily realized though that if the cycle continued, then the flames would burst forth from the stalactite nearest Dave again, and so she called out, “Run to me!” Due to her quick thinking, both husband and son were able to get out of the radius of the next fire burst just in time.

  Emily watched and waited, expecting the cycle of flaming traps to continue, but once they were beside her, fifteen feet away from the trap, no more bursts came. This allowed Emily to focus another healing spell on Dave to bring him back to full health.

  “Thanks, honey. Not sure what would have happened if I didn’t hear your warning,” Dave said as he rubbed a spot on his low back where he had taken a glancing blow from a leaf blade.

  “What were those things?”

  “Some kind of assassin shrubkin. Remember, the earlier ones were warrior type, so it stands to reason that there will be other types. They must have a type of stealth or even invisibility that keeps them hidden until they strike because I didn’t see or hear anything until you cried out.”

  “Would Esoteric Sense let us detect them if they are stealthed?” Jackson asked.

  Emily watched as Dave face palmed himself. “I always am forgetting about that skill. Thanks. The other thing though is that the fire traps don’t seem to go off until we are actually in range. That will make it much harder to time the fire bursts. Mom was able to count them for us, but I couldn’t have counted while fighting for my life. It’s funny how much easier it was to keep everything straight in my head when I was sitting behind a keyboard playing a game versus facing shrubkins that want us dead.”

  What he was saying made sense to Emily, “Is there any way for us to either stop the traps or trigger them for us. Wait. Would my magic cancelling spell stop them? Those are magical traps, right?” Emily’s words came faster as she got more excited with her idea. Both Dave and Jackson were staring at her, enraptured. Was this nerd love?” Emily wondered to herself.

  “I know this is serious mom, but it is soooo cool to hear you talking like that,” Jackson said, practically bursting with excitement.

  She couldn’t help but blush a bit, but her dusky skin did a good job of hiding it. She was stuck for what to say, but Dave stepped in and saved her. “I suspect that her spell would work, but it only has a 20’ radius, so she would have to cast it at least twice or maybe three times in order to cover one entire side. That would use up a huge amount of her mana. We have two mana regen potions left between us but none of the instant mana potions. So it’s a risk. We would also have to keep everything off of her while she was casting as any assassins are certainly going to attack her once they realize what she is doing.”

  “I’d like to be able to contribute, or are you saying it isn’t worth the risk?”

  Dave sat there, thinking. Emily knew that look. He was trying to shoulder the weight of the world all on his own and wanted to figure out a way to let her sit there eating bon-bons while she watched him do all the work. Still, she waited. He had shown signs lately of learning to grow beyond his old limits. He had been learning that true love required him to treat her as an equal, not just in privilege but also in responsibility. “No, you are right. This is the best option, but since the boss doesn’t seem to be moving towards us and none of the assassins seem to attack unless we enter their section of the floor, I want to try another spell too.”

  “Oh, what do you have in mind?”

  “Well, I am thinking that we let you clear the first couple of traps, and then I can send my summoned Dire Rhinoceros charging through the rest of the traps. Hopefully he will cause any further assassins to reveal themselves, and he might even do some damage against the boss,” Dave said.

  “I thought Mira said that it was dangerous to control.”

  “Yes, but then again, all of this is dangerous. So far, I have managed to control it every time I’ve cast it, and I’ve become stronger since then. If you trust me, I think it is worth the risk.”

  “I do trust you Dave, but are you sure you aren’t just coming up with this plan because you don’t trust me?”

  Dave sighed and looked at her. She could see the turmoil within him, fear and love competing. “I admit it was hard for me. Not because I don’t trust you. You, I will always trust, but it is hard for me to let you make yourself a target.”

  Emily started to speak up and remind him about his promises to treat her as an equal, but he cut her off. “But, I’ve been listening. I really have. So we are going with your plan. I just want to add in a little extra oomph if you don’t mind.”

  She could feel the smile on her face as she said, “You’re the expert. I’m just glad to be at the center of the plan.”

  With that, Dave began casting his summoning spell. The thirty second cast time felt exceptionally long when the longest of his other spells only took eighteen seconds to cast, and most took far less than that.

  Once the dire rhino poofed into existence with the usual burst of arid heat, the air around them was displaced, and there was little room left in front of the trap. The creature was not the largest one he had summoned, being only level twenty four, but it was still massive. The struggle of wills was blessedly short, and within moments, he was fully under Dave’s control.

  Summoned Creature: Dire Rhinoceros Level 24

  Health: 4200

  Defense: 103

  Attack: 80

  Damage Resistance: 46

  Fire Resistance: 160

  Strength: 1239

  Constitution: 420

  Endurance: 20

  Intelligence: 4

  Wisdom: 1

  Move: 60

  Run Speed: Triple

  Main Attacks:

  Trample 244 dmg

  Gore: 376 dmg

  Special Attack:

  Charge (2 stamina) 609 dmg 150% of max run speed.

  “Okay, I will activate my cloak of shadows and walk up to cancel the first set of traps,” Emily said with a blend of grim determination and excitement.

  “Um, that is part of what I’m worried about. I don’t know if using the spell in an area effect like that will cancel out your cloak, so I would recommend that you not activate it until you are attacked. You will have to trust me and Jackson to be able to move quickly enough to be able to protect you,” Dave said.

  “So that was why you were so worried. Okay, I’m in your capable hands.”

  Jackson said, “I used a pulse of esoteric senses. I can detect an assassin on the right side front row, but on the left side, there doesn’t appear to be any creatures until the second row. Then there is one at each of the rows of fire traps.”

  “Okay, Jackson, you watch our back, and when I send the Rhino running, don’t get in its way. I will protect mom as best I can.” Then they were moving forward, running past the first fire trap before it could trigger. They heard the clicking and knew that the timer had begun, but Emily had learned from watching. She was proud of herself for she timed her spell to go off just as she reached the second fire trap and before its explosion could consume her. The spell did exactly what it was meant to do, and not only did the clicking stop, but there were also no gouts of flame.

  Emily noticed out of the corner of her eye that Dave must have somehow sensed the shrubkin assassin before it even moved. She saw its long-bladed branches coming her way but watched as Dave knocked it to the ground and hacked off its branches two at a time. Three quick flashes of his sword, and the creature was pathetically screeching on the floor.

  Jackson closed in on them in time to bury his axe into a second assassin which ran from the third row of traps at them. Her spell had canceled whatever invisibility it had hiding it, and after a momentary pause, it too had thrown itself with a screech at Emily. She worried as she saw that her son was having more trouble with the longer branches than he had with the warrior type shrubkins. Yet, each time, she saw him move just slightly, just e
nough to avoid a bladed sword blow. In the brief time that Jackson and the shrubbery turned killer were dancing, Dave had finished his own and promptly took advantage of the distraction provided to him to activate both Sneak Attack and Flanking. This caused his first sword slash to take the head off its shoulders and leave its body thrashing on the ground.

  Dave smiled at her. “You did perfect. You got two traps in one go. Now, let’s save your mana for healing and let the rhino trigger the last row.” It was just fun, for Emily to feel like she was getting the hang of this. The ease with which Dave and Jackson were dealing with the shrubkin assassins now that they knew about them helped to make it less worrisome.

  The room had been relatively quiet except for the shrubkin shrieks, a noise she had virtually learned how to tune out. Now, the room became a cacophony of chaos. Dave’s rhino started moving forward. At first, it looked like that snow sled at the top of the hill that you are pushing just to try to get gravity to take over but which seems to be dragging along. Then, every couple of steps it seemed to be increasing in speed. It would hit each row of defunct flame traps and shatter the stalactites. Each row it ran into slowed it again, but inexorably, it continued on. As it hit, the final row’s flames burst up and charged it, but its thick hide seemed largely resistant. Still, it attracted not only the shrubkin hiding at the last row on the left side but also the four on the right side.

  They weren’t doing much to slow it. Rather, they were hanging on it, akin to a spider clinging on, with some of their tentacle-like branches latched on and others repeatedly trying to stab through its tough hide. It barreled forward into the boss, which flung itself forward from the platform into the rhino. Its structure seemed to be a blend of the warrior and assassin types, and its powerful bladed branches slammed into a front leg and sent the summoned creature plowing into the ground. A pair of the shrubkins clinging to it were turned to pulp.

  Once his opponent was down, the boss conjured a huge globe of flame that was three feet across and then launched the orb at the rhino. The room became so bright for an instant that Emily had to rub her eyes to stop seeing the after images. The heat was so intense that it overwhelmed even the heat resistance from the lesser shrubkins and the rhino. The summoned creature was trying to stagger to its feet but was clearly woozy. Even then, the shrubkin boss was keeping its distance and launching lances of fire repeatedly at the rhino.

  Emily heard Dave call out, “Hopefully that was its special attack. Hit it with everything you have while it’s still distracted by the rhino!” No sooner than the words had left his mouth than she saw him chanting a spell. She reached out her hand and immediately cast Minor Wither. It was a custom-made spell for plant creatures, and while the lesser ones had died too fast for her to make much use of it, she figured the extra damage couldn’t hurt against this creature. Once the sickly green aura settled onto it, the boss started to weaken and lose (13) points of damage every tick, but the real value was in the fatigued Debuff which was applied to the boss. His movements were just that much slower, his strikes at the rhino just that much less vigorous. Best of all, it hadn’t attracted what Dave called agro to her.

  As soon as she finished her spell, she started trying to sneak up on the creature. Her cloak made this much easier. She saw a flash of lightning streak by from Dave’s spell and slam into the boss, scorching a hole into its hip and knocking it prone. Jackson rushed in and hacked at it with his axe, and Emily decided to do something daring. Dave would probably lecture her about this, but she ran faster and leapt. Then, in an acrobatic twist, she drove a weapon she had never used down into the creature’s prone back. The instant before she struck, she dropped the protection of her cloak and felt the translucent blade of her Dagger of Mage Slaying pierce right through the bark skin of the shrubkin boss.

  Emily’s arm almost went numb as she felt a backlash of magical energy surge up through the dagger. She saw the creature go completely limp as its life force was extinguished in a single instant. Then the notification popped up in her head:

  Your party has slain Shrubkin Fire Elite (Boss). Base damage 150 * agile strike (1.54) * 500% (short blade, sneak attack-prone enemy) =1155 * critical hit (prone enemy) = 2310 damage.

  * * *

  Congratulations! You have completed the Fire Section of the Shrubkin Wing of Bastion of Thralls, Raid mode. Step into the colored circle to be sent to a waiting/staging area and find out how your companions in the other elements have fared.

  No sooner had she said that than a ten-foot wide circle on the platform where the boss had been standing appeared. It was the same red as the circle that brought them here.

  Emily sighed. It had worked. Dave rushed over to her side and said, “What was that?” His tone was harsh, but the concern in his eyes spoke louder than his words.

  “I wanted to contribute, and I saw it opening, so I took it.”

  “Yes, but you could have been killed. You don’t have the same defensive skills that I have. Even Jackson knows better than to jump on top of the boss. And what opening are you talking about anyway?”

  “Well I saw the boss cast that big fire spell, and I thought he might be a mage of some sort. Then I saw him keep blasting your pet with those fire bolts, and so I took a chance that he was a caster. When your spell knocked him on his face and Jackson started hacking at him, I realized that I could probably land a sneak attack. So I took a chance and tried out the mage slayer dagger. It does more damage to a mage based upon the level of their Intelligence. Then, because he was prone, it turned into a critical strike and hit for over 2000 damage.” Emily felt herself growing prouder the longer she spoke.

  “Uh.” Dave didn’t seem to know what to say. Then suddenly his taunt face brightened with a smile. “It’s official now. You are so totally a ninja healer.”

  They all laughed and hugged before Emily finally started to walk towards the circle.

  Dave said, “Wait, we need to see what is in that treasure chest behind the platform.” Sure enough, as Emily looked, she saw a small alcove with a chest about the size of a toaster in it. Dave walked over and opened it, pulling out an amulet. “Okay, now we can go. I know we both want to make sure Mira is okay. We can look at this later.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Fire and ash are all that my foes shall taste. The bounty of their blood shall make us rich and we shall dance upon their bones as we bathe in the tears of their widows.” — Pledge of an unknown goblin shaman.

  Dungeon: Bastion of Thralls - Dave and Sara Nelson

  Once Dave and family stepped into the red circle, they found themselves in a lounge similar to the one between the first and second wings. It had a tree with fruit and a fountain as well as several benches for people to sit on. They were the third team to arrive with the guild members already there, but the person who caught his attention was Mira sitting on a bench with Daichi and Rak’kar standing near her.

  “I’m so glad to see that you made it sweetie,” Dave said as Emily started checking her over for injuries.

  “Yes, it was easier than I thought. We were actually the first team to arrive. And mom, don’t worry, I already healed us up.”

  After that, the three groups spoke for another half an hour detailing how their various sections had gone. That transitioned into everyone breaking out some of their rations and eating. Dave began to worry about Steffen. He didn’t want to have to explain how another noble and general of the kingdom disappeared along with his son, not to mention the royal mage. Beyond that, he had taken a genuine liking to Steffen. The limited contact he had with the nobles convinced him that Baron Eikhorn was the best of them. Some were downright despicable like Holstein. Most were boot lickers and clearly only interested in their own power, wealth, and comfort.

  Even King Harold, who seemed a decent enough chap, was motivated by political concerns beyond anything else. Dave didn’t want to judge the king. He imagined that there was a great deal of pressure on a man in such a position. Yet, some of the rumor
s he had heard, both from Steffen and the couple of traveling merchants who had reached as far north as Eris’ Rise, cast the king into a rather unfavorable light. If there was one thing that personally chaffed Dave, it was marital infidelity. He just couldn’t find it in his heart to trust a man who would betray his wife.

  As this line of reasoning ran its course in his head, the last squad finally arrived. They were battered and bruised. Steffen had a pronounced limp, and Tabor was clearly nursing an arm that was badly hurt if not outright broken. Emily and Mira hopped up and ran over to begin healing. Steffen insisted that Tabor needed looking after first.

  Less than a minute after Tabor’s bone had been set and healing spells had been cast, a notification came up for all of them.

  Unique Quest: Rescue the Daughter

  The normal third wing of the raid has been altered from slay the drake hound tribes to a rescue and escort mission.

  Objectives:

  Find Sara Nelson.

  Hint: she is currently lost in the next section of the dungeon.

  Free Sara Nelson.

  Ensure that Sara Nelson reaches the portal stone unscathed within 1 hour.

  Reward for success: 3 unique set patterns found within the archives of elder dungeons and 10 pounds of refined magicyte crystals.

  Penalty for failure: those left alive, if any, get to have a really sad funeral

  Accept Quest: Yes or No

  Yes has been selected for all raid party members

  The mood immediately went from a rushed urgency to heal the wounded group to a hysterical mother. Dave wasn’t in the best situation to control Emily either as his emotions were almost as raw as hers. If it weren’t for the fact that he needed to stay strong for his wife and other kids, he likely would have lost it too.

  “Not again …” Emily mumbled, “This can’t happen again.” Dave took her in his arms, and she beat her hands against his chest. “Why, why is this happening again?”