Ring of Promise: A LitRPG novel (Elements of Wrath Online Book 1)

by J. A. Cipriano

  Crystal Ogre’s Earthquake Smash hits (blocked)! You take 317 (-317 blocked) Physical Damage! HP 2532/3230

  Crystal Ogre’s Earthquake Smash hits Pyrlin A! It takes 73% Physical Damage and dies!

  Crystal Ogre’s Earthquake Smash hits Pyrlin B! It takes 68% Physical Damage and dies!

  NSAF pain filter or not, even through my solid slab of shield, having ten percent of my Health knocked off through a blocked shot stung like heck!

  The Ogre’s overhead, two-handed smash drove me to my knees before carrying through into the Pyrlins prancing at my feet, the half-melted beasts smashed into blood, stone, and melted fool’s gold. Most MOBs didn’t, couldn’t hurt their allies, and I know I hadn’t seen a Crystal Ogre do that before. No, this was definitely new.

  The only plus side was that this guy seemed as slow as the rest of his kin. Dragging the massive club back into position, the thing dug a furrow in the snow and left an opening that we had to capitalize on. Burndall was reading my mind as he dove forward, drawing back his rune-covered sword.

  “I got this!” And I’m sure he thought he did as he slammed the sword home. After all, the Explosive Strikes combination had worked great on Scorchie. It seemed to be fine for a moment here too. Whatever Passive he had slotted guided the blade home, cutting a gouge in the Ogre’s faceted arm before Burndall's Fire Runes ran over the beast's body. The kid didn’t even dodge back, confident he would blow the beast straight to the Primal Elements from whence it came.

  The exploding runes blew smoke and flames outward along with a spray of crystal bits. What snow hadn’t been disturbed by the Ogre’s massive blow or melted by the rings of fire still danced around us and melting Pyrlins burst up from the shockwave, mixing with the smoke to obscure the Ogre from any normal sight. If this had been real life, there would be no way to know if the beast was toast through the fog of war.

  This wasn’t real life, though, and nothing fools the combat log. The Ogre’s blood red outline was still visible through the debris cloud along with Burndall’s green one.

  Burndall’s Explosive Strikes hits Crystal Ogre! It takes 9% Fire Damage.

  That was when things kicked into high gear. Kayla raised her orb high over her head as her cast finished, a downpour of life-giving water flooding over me with a Healing Cascade. It was a big heal along with lingering healing over time. For a DPS player, she knew how to handle Support pretty damn well too!

  This was right in time to make up for the nicks, scrapes, and claws of the four remaining Pyrlins all over me, even as the Fire Ring tore another huge chunk of their HP away. I wanted to finish sweeping away the trash, something even my super-limited offensive capabilities could do, but I had a greater responsibility to take care of first.

  See, I wasn’t sure how much threat 9% damage meant in this scaling system but I had a knack for knowing when a DPS had overdone it. And I was sure Burndall had, especially as the kid’s silhouette backpedaled clumsily out of the cloud. Big Fatty’s shape loomed forward to splatter Burndall, and I didn’t fancy our chances without his fires to melt this guy.

  Instincts and years of NSAF time clicked as a mental nudge activated my Impose Skill, targeted on the kid’s green glow. My body burst into action of its own accord and the world around me blurred with speed. Before my conscious mind caught up, I shot like a rocket into the smoke, the wind rushing in my wake blowing a hole through the cloud, and I slid to a sudden stop exactly where Burndall had been standing, the Impose shoving him back a good ten feet and momentarily shifted all the aggro he had just nabbed onto me.

  Just in time for the Fatty to give me a homerun swing right into my side, the side opposite of my shield.

  Crystal Ogre’s Corrupting Swing hits! You take 832 Physical Damage and 216 (-24 resisted) Darkness Damage! HP 2120/3230

  “Darkness Element!” I got out between a gasp of pain.

  We should have been expecting it, of course, especially with the hinting in the quest dialogue. One of the Elements of Power, the lore said that the Darkness was linked to the Elements of Conflict. Considering it was death and destruction, it made a degree of sense. What it meant, in this case, was that this thing didn’t necessarily follow traditional Elemental Affinities.

  “Holy kumquats!” Burndall must have dropped an f-bomb or the like; the harsher the curse word, the sillier the words the Filter used. “Man, that’s like raid stuff!” Despite his gripe, he didn’t give up or whine, though, spinning on his heels to take out his frustration on the last bits of melted Pyrlin with a snap Fireball.

  “Shale, I know he hits hard but can you tank him for a few moments?” Kayla’s voice was tinged with concentration and maybe a hint of concern too.

  Not everyone really understood that tanking hits could literally be a pain in the rear (or wherever the MOB attacked you) and while real physical damage didn’t cause that pain, it was always touching to meet people who were sympathetic to the neural lumps I took every day.

  “Do whatever you’re doing,” I growled back. “I can handle it.” Honestly, I wasn’t sure I could. Even if I blocked every swing, I could only take a few more straight hits, but on the other hand, I wasn’t going to sit still and let the Ogre use me as a piñata. Unlike most bosses, Fatty had already shown he could be crowd-controlled to at least some degree so that’s what I would do.

  Blackness had started to cloud the Ogre’s facets from the inside out as he slowly readied the massive club, but before he could bring it around for another bone-crushing swing, I cut him off with another Shield Slam square into his massive belly. Though the crushing impact barely cracked the brute's outer shell, the Ogre was shoved back and stunned once more. It wouldn’t be for long, though, with the diminishing return rule on stuns kicking in.

  I took the second I had to circle around to Fatty’s equally enormous rear, fortunately, concealed by a furry kilt. “Burndall, do you have any kind of roots, slows, anything to slow this guy down?”

  Past the Ogre, I could see that the kid had torched the remaining Pyrlins while Kayla was stuck in the automatic animations of changing Gem configurations in her staff. “Of course I do, man!” the kid called back. “Guy’s gotta solo somehow, but it’s, uh, kind of suck.”

  Hoping Kayla was doing what I thought she was doing, being in a raid guild and all, I snapped back, “Just do it!”

  The black ‘light’ was seeping through every part of the Ogre’s body as he shook off the stun and lumbered around to face me. He wasn’t going to make it into the Moscow Ballet, but for a ten-foot tall, fat chunk of crystal, he was nimble. The Ogre raised his club up once more and –

  Crystal Ogre’s Corrupting Smash is interrupted by Burndall’s Hotfoot! It takes 0.1% Fire Damage and suffers -10% Movement Speed.

  I almost laughed. Suck it did, but Burndall’s Grade C Hotfoot Gem was still enough to cause the corrupted beast to arrest his swing and hop up and down for a moment as his right foot caught on fire. Hell, I probably would have laughed if I hadn’t seen how much carnage the Ogre had caused, and how much more he would in mere moments. The threat switch from Impose was almost up too. Crap-on-a-sandwich, so many Skills to juggle, so little time.

  Kayla had to be almost done so I only had to hold on for a few more moves. The Ogre started yet another pivot, this time back to Burndall, but I put a halt to that with a Defiant Display as I slammed my banner into the now-bare earth.

  The monster staggered forward a step as the familiar red glow of an infuriation effect burst around his head, forcing his AI to make the Ogre keep pivoting and spin back toward me like a grotesquely chunky top.

  I was expecting it this time, my arm guided by all those Block bonuses I had cultivated and the Entrenchment boon. The club crashed into my shield, stone chipping away from both, as the dark energies lingering in the weapon exploded out of it. Tendrils of blackness scored my armor with strangely precise cuts, as they cleanly turned little bits of the steel plate into dust.

  Crystal Ogre’s Corrupting Swing hits (bl
ocked)! You take 366 (-366 blocked) Physical Damage and 205 (-23 resisted) Darkness Damage! HP 1749/3230

  I almost bit my tongue as my jaw involuntarily clenched from the jolt of the strike. Where the Elemental Darkness had crept in, the wounds were cold, and I realized this was the first time I had run into any Darkness Elemental monsters or effects. As Burndall had said, this was end-game stuff … but isn’t that what I was sticking my nose into now? A quick glance told me that Kayla was almost done, an empty socket in her staff now filled with a small but pristine Gem, emitting a clean, white light. Even with the right element slotted, I wasn’t sure if we could burn it down before he knocked my head off but we sure as heck were going to try.

  Even as those near-instant mental calculations ran through my brain, the kid decided that if we were going down, we were going down in a boom.

  “Suck on this, banana-peeler,” he shouted as he tossed back what I thought might be a Runic Power Elixir, a stupidly expensive Power-boosting consumable, and charged, swinging his black blade with all the grace of a first-day kendo student.

  By dint of the Ogre not paying attention to him, Burndall cleaved deep into his crystal hide, actually cracking into the Ogre’s internal structure. The blaze of runic power surged through the sword and burst, knocking off an impressive twelve percent damage in one go. Unfortunately, that much damage triggered a hidden mechanic: as the outer shell shattered around the wound, the Ogre bled a pressurized gout of corrupting blackness, hitting the kid square in the chest.

  Crystal Ogre’s Corrupting Thorns hits Burndall! He takes 805 (+73 vulnerability) Darkness Damage! HP 15/1030

  The spray threw Burndall off his feet, and he tumbled ass over tea kettle before landing in a groaning, wheezing heap in the snow next to Kayla. Worse yet, that last strike had earned the boss’s aggro quite decisively. The Ogre turned his back on me and began to lumber towards the kid. It would be bad enough if Burndall got knocked out, but he was so close to Kayla, and for all I knew, the Ogre’s big AoE Smash might be off cooldown by now.

  Impose was still cooling down so I had only one choice. As I said, Fatty was nimble but slow and Burndall’s stupid little Hotfoot was still hobbling it a hair. It added up to enough for me to run past the Ogre and skid in front of it, activating Walking Wall as soon as I was in the way.

  “To get them, you gotta go through me, fiend!” It was corny, sure, but it felt right. It felt like what Shale would say and maybe the game got that because the Ogre sneered in some dim understanding.

  Unable to target Burndall and Kayla through the Wall, the Crystal Ogre, now entirely filled with inky blackness, raised his mighty club with both hands. That was the wind-up for the hit, and all I could do was pray to the RNG gods and brace for impact. Either way, the others would be safe for this hit, and I was sure Kayla could finish this off.

  That moment, RNGesus smiled upon me.

  Crystal Ogre’s Corrupting Smash hits (blocked)! You take 472 (-472 blocked) Physical Damage and 306 (-34 resisted) Darkness Damage! HP 971/3230

  Burndall is Behind the Wall and takes no Damage!

  Kayla is Behind the Wall and takes no Damage!

  The impact drove me to one knee as my bones rattled under my rocky skin. One more hit if I was lucky. Wasn’t going to count on it, though. “Blow him away, Kayla!”

  Brilliant white light backlit me, and even that initial glow caused the tendrils of blackness that seeped out of the Ogre’s club to smolder.

  “My pleasure, Shale,” the Sorceress replied in a clear, calm tone. I risked a brief glance back to see the blinding sphere building at the tip of her staff. “Let the Light of Creation wash you away with the Water of Life!”

  Burndall picked himself up to his knees in time to see the gleaming orb launch itself at the Ogre’s chest. The monster’s expression twisted into one of incredulous fear moments before impact. As the glittering, sparkling orb smashed into the ogre’s chest, it exploded into a spray of glowing white liquid like holy napalm on steroids. Corrupted crystal dissolved under the tenacious waters, igniting the darkness underneath as the opposing Elements of Power mixed like matter and anti-matter.

  Kayla’s Holy Rain hits (critical) Crystal Ogre! It takes 16% (+8% critical) Water Damage and 57% (+19% critical, +19% vulnerability) Light Damage and dies!

  Black blood, chunks of crystalline flesh, and shards of bone sprayed over us, well, me at any rate, the Walking Wall effect shielding my groupmates even from the cosmetic mess the Ogre’s demise caused. I peeked past my shield and joined Kayla and Burndall gaping at what remained of the Ogre, two stumpy, shattered stumps of legs made of hollow, occluded crystal.

  “Kayla?” I murmured, wiping bits of gunk off my face with one hand.

  “Yeah, Shale?” she half-whispered in awe as I flung the gobs of flesh onto the ground at her feet.

  “I’m never doing another quest without you.”

  What keeps me engaged in EO? The loot cycle, I mean, it’s the heart of the game, right? I mean, every MMORPG has boiled down to that, at least on the game side of it. EO’s wrinkle is the whole sockets versus links versus stats deal on the gear. You can get a higher Grade and Level weapon, let’s say, but if it doesn’t have the number of Gem sockets you need or the links of those sockets aren’t just so, you still might sell it off or junk it. Some folks think that’s frustrating but most of us love it. It lights a fire in your gut to keep playing!

  Thadivus, guild leader of Elementalis Reclaimed

  Fast travel around Elementalis can be done through various Sky Posts (where airships can take players from post to post for a fee), via Spell Gems that provide various teleports and summons, and most commonly by Mount. Each kingdom breeds their own iconic mounts, Mountain Rams, Desert Striders, Sea Horses, and Wind Gliders, but there are many more available through vendors, quests, and activities.

  From the Travel page, EO Internal Wiki

  6

  The slow orbits of loot orbs were a bit of a let-down, only revealing a generous bit of gold and some general Grade A minerals for crafting, but the experience reward was something else entirely. It took me a moment to process the jump in my numbers and to run through the system log to fully grasp it.

  Victory! You gain 16% Experience (13% per Crystal Ogre + .5% per Pyrlin)! Experience 624,600/720,000

  So, that’s what percent experience actually meant. Even better, a third of a Level or so was waiting back at Granholm for us once we got the diplomats home.

  Kayla answered my declaration with a simple smile before throwing two small heals in succession, balming the worst of my and Burndall’s injuries. “That Light Spell ate a chunk of EP, guys, but this should tide you over until we recharge some.”

  “Holy grapes, that was awesome,” the kid whooped, “but I seriously don’t want to get whacked that hard ever, ever again.” He slapped me on my shoulder. “I will never ever peacock handkerchief about tanks again!”

  I bit down the wince the slaps set off. “Yeah, well, that’s a good idea, Burndall.”

  I wanted to snark at him, but I held it in. After all, all things considered, the kid was pulling his weight and paying really well to boot. The Runic Power thing confirmed the vastness of his wealth, after all. In EO, there were moments where money could buy you superpowers.

  The Nix ambassadors crept out of their hidey-hole, a mixture of concern and relief etched on their faces. Richly dressed in flowing silks of blue and green, all three of them wore jewelry of polished coral and pearl, most notably a medallion with the three-wave sigil of the Ocean Queen etched in gold on it.

  The eldest of the three, a tall, regal woman with sea-green skin and drooping hair that reminded me of wet kelp, stepped to the lead as the world pulled out of focus and the Quest Dialogue interface popped up. As was customary for group quests like this, our entire team stayed in focus as the lead diplomat began to speak in watery tones.

  “Brave champions, I and my companions thank you for your courage and, well, excellent timing.”
She folded her palms over her chest, bowing slightly at the waist. “I am Princess Kelissandra, born of the Ocean Mother, and we are liaisons traveling to Granholm. If you had not come when you did, I fear what would have happened to us in these wilds.”

  A few obvious dialogue hints popped up like ‘we were sent to escort you’ and ‘what can you tell me about your attackers.’ Normal group quest protocol was to let each group member have a turn at dialogue, going around and around until the quest either continued or no one had any dialogue to add. As the group leader, I was up at bat first.

  “What happened, princess, that drove your carriage so far off the trade roads?” Yeah, it was obvious but a bit more nuanced than simply asking about the attackers. It might glean some more information about the quests ahead.

  A bit of fear crept back into Kelissandra’s voice. “Black-cloaked bandits ambushed us as we neared the mountains, coming out of the forests. These were no ordinary thugs, though. They were well-armed and equipped with powerful Gems. A contingent of the queen’s guard stood their ground, willing to sacrifice themselves to give us a chance to escape. With no choice and all other routes blocked by brigand or battle, we were forced into the Dominions.”

  Burndall got the focus next, his avatar becoming crisper against the out-of-focus valley. “So, like, did the dudes who attacked you use Darkness Element stuff like that Ogre?” Not a bad question at all, I had to admit. The kid needed a lot of pointers but I’d run into far worse in my time.

  The princess pursed her lips. “Not that I saw but they used considerable amounts of Fire. A wise choice I suppose when your usual targets are Craggar but not as effective against we Nix. Still, their love of Fire might have more … sinister motivations.”

  “Most importantly, your Highness, do you think those bandits are still in pursuit?” So far cool as ice, Kayla betrayed a bit of anxiety as she asked her question, probably the one I should have led with. We could be under a hidden quest timer as we prattled on until a big wave of reinforcements wiped us out.