The Luckless: A MMORPG and LitRPG Online Adventure (Second Age of Retha Book 1)

by A. M. Sohma

  Kit flicked her pink bangs out of her eyes. “And with that cheerful prediction, let’s get ready.”

  Kits eyes were so narrowed in concentration, they were little slits she could barely see out of as she pressed herself against the cavern wall and slowly waddled along, doing her best to remain in the shadows.

  “You are aware that just because your eyes are closed and you can’t see the dragons doesn’t mean that they won’t be able to see you, right?” Prowl drawled quietly. He, like Cookie, had cloaked himself with the shadows and was invisible.

  Riko must’ve had some kind of Prowl-radar, though. When she lashed out with a foot, she connected with Prowl’s invisible shins.

  “Ouch!” the saboteur hissed.

  “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all,” Riko chastised in a whisper.

  “But then I would never talk,” Prowl murmured.

  A drop of sweat trickled down Kit’s back. “Would both of you just be quiet?” She spoke a little louder than she meant to, and one of the five dragons that roamed the cavern—the orange one which was closest to them—turned in their direction. Its eyes glowed in the dim light, and a growl rumbled deep in its throat.

  Kit bit her tongue and stopped moving. She even stopped breathing.

  The dragon raised its snout and tasted the air with a flick of its tongue. After what felt like an eternity, it turned away and nosed a pile of gleaming jewels.

  Kit released the puff of air she’d been holding in.

  “That was frightening,” Cookie whispered just off Kit’s left side.

  The wall curved inward, and Kit dropped to her knees and scurried along to avoid any more draconian attention. “Can either of you see the seal, Prowl, Cookie?”

  “I think I see it,” Cookie said. “Or at least where it’s being kept.”

  “That inlet at the very back of the room? Yeah, I’d bet Riko’s last gold coin that it’s in that little hovel.”

  “Which reminds me, do you think the dwarves would mind if we grabbed some of their extra treasure?” Riko whispered as she and Kit skittered past a gold statue.

  Kit paused momentarily to pull up the collar of her shirt, which was steadily traveling south as she inched along. “You already asked that, and there’s no way we’re risking you making a noise when you start grabbing handfuls of coins.”

  “A girl can dream.”

  “I’d say you should just marry one of the rich dude players,” Prowl said. “But I don’t think any of them would want you.”

  Riko snarled. “You mushroom-faced brat!”

  “You can get married in Chronicles of Retha?” Cookie asked.

  Kit frowned when she crawled around three stacked treasure chests and came to a huge pile of coins that was as big as a small house. She had seen it from the entrance of the room and thought there was a space between it and the wall. Now she could see it was flush against the cavern. They would either have to climb over it or crawl around it, which would veer them dangerously close to a red dragon, who was curled up like a cat and kneading its claws into two different sets of gold armor.

  “It’s not really marriage, per se.” Riko used the momentary pause to adjust the hood of her robes. “In the game, it’s referred to as ‘pledged,’ which is really just a fancy way of saying engaged.”

  “Oh revered party leader, are we going to get moving anytime soon?” Prowl asked.

  “As long as you’re invisible, you are incredibly cocky and absolutely insufferable,” Riko whispered.

  Kit, having made the decision to creep around the pile of gold rather than climb it—as she feared they would loosen some of the coins and send cascades of them falling down, alerting the dragons to their presence—started to army-crawl alongside the mini-mountain of gold. “Retha doesn’t offer marriage because it wants to minimize the possibility of legal action. There’re lots of cases in which couples got married in other games, and then eventually separated, which made going through their joint character bank accounts and belongings a legal nightmare. With the whole pledged thing, characters never combine belongings, so any kind of break up is very cut and dry.”

  “Oh,” Cookie said. “That’s a fun thing to include.”

  Though Kit couldn’t see the red dragon over the piles of treasure, she heard the alarming noise of its claws crushing armor. The creature had to be only a gold stack or two away. Kit pressed herself so close to the floor she was almost slithering around like a snake as she edged along the mountain of gold coins.

  When she almost reached the safety of the cave wall, she exhaled with thankfulness and even dared to push herself up onto her hands and knees. She scurried forward about two feet before she was blasted with hot, sulfur-scented air.

  A dragon.

  Kit, barely daring to breathe, glanced over her shoulder. Only Riko was there, blinking curiously at her. “Kit?”

  Kit’s heart pounded in her throat, and another blast of acidic air hit her. Dread boiled in her stomach, and Kit slowly turned to stare at the pile of gold coins.

  Barely visible under the show of wealth, a gold dragon snout poked out from under the mountain of coins.

  Kit swallowed her exhale and carefully pointed out the dragon.

  A sharp intake of breath that came from behind her told Kit Riko saw the beast as well. Together, they slowly crawled away from the pile of money, sweating profusely whenever the creature breathed on them.

  When they were finally far enough away from the sleeping dragon that Kit could inhale without fear of waking it, Cookie whispered, “I’m sorry. I should have scouted ahead and noticed that dragon. That was my failing.”

  “Not at all, Cookie,” Riko said out of a corner of her mouth. “Useless Prowl could have found out that much as well.”

  “The important thing is we made it.” Kit’s heart sputtered as they closed in on the little inlet. They were almost there! “We’ll just have to make sure we don’t go back that way.”

  “I’ll check ahead and make sure the seal is really here,” Prowl said.

  Kit, Cookie, and Riko were silent as they inched along, weaving their way through priceless treasures in order to reach the seal.

  When Kit and Riko dared to stand, Prowl threw off his cloak skill and flickered into view. “It’s here.” He pointed to a rather unassuming burnished gold disc that was the size of a saucer. A couple of runes were carved into its surface. Otherwise, there was nothing remarkable about it. It sat on a little wooden stand on a gold table that was probably far more valuable.

  Kit swallowed thickly and held her breath as she picked up the seal—which was heavier than she expected. She froze for a moment, waiting for some kind of outcry from the dragons, but nothing happened. A quest certification, however, popped up.

  You have obtained: The Dwarvish Seal.

  The Elvish Seal, Human Seal, and Fae Seal remain for you to claim.

  “Well done,” Gil praised over the party channel. “We received the notification that you successfully retrieved the seal. We shall continue to wait for you at the cavern entrance.”

  “Great, thanks guys.” Kit turned on her heels and peered into the darkness. “Cookie?”

  “Here.” The night stalker stepped out of the shadows, revealing herself.

  Kit passed her the seal. “Remember, if we are attacked, you have to get out. Just keep running, even if the rest of us stop to fight. Do you understand?”

  Cookie gave her a businesslike nod. “I’ll get this out of the treasure chamber. I swear it.”

  Kit smiled and squeezed her shoulder. “Just do your best.”

  Cookie slipped the seal in her inventory, then stepped back into the shadows and disappeared again.

  With the seal safely stowed, Kit turned her mind to the increasingly difficult task of picking a way to exit the cave. “There’s no helping it,” she said. “I think we’ll have to edge past the gold dragon again. If we follow the opposite wall, it will put us smack dab in the path of the gree
n dragon, and he roams.”

  “Don’t sweat it,” Riko said. “We already got past the gold dragon once. As long as we don’t stop to tickle his nostrils, I think we will be fine.”

  Kit pressed her lips together. “I still don’t like getting that close to a dragon. But I don’t think we have another option.”

  Prowl, having also cloaked his character, spoke somewhere to Riko’s left. “You could always strut up to a dragon, kick it, get one-shotted, and then respawn back in the city.”

  “Once again, your helpfulness is positively astounding,” Riko said.

  “It’s a legitimate tactic,” Prowl said.

  “It is, but quest lines can be tricky,” Kit said. “There’s no way to tell how fussy it is— and if anyone dies if it will still count. So I would at least like to attempt to make it out of the treasure chamber in one piece.”

  “The gold dragon it is,” Cookie said.

  Kit nodded and again got down on her hands and knees with Riko copying her. Together, they inched along the cavern wall, pushing themselves as close to the ground as possible whenever one of the dragons happened to glance in their direction with its glowing eyes.

  Though the chamber air was cool, sweat glistened on Kit’s brow as she edged past the gold dragon’s protruding nostril. (Glistening, Kit knew, because elf characters—even elves who were disliked by their fellow elves—would never resemble a sweaty pig.)

  She was starting to feel optimistic about their chances of survival after navigating around almost the entire mound of coins that were piled on top of the sleeping dragon. She could almost reach out and touch the cave wall when there was a scrape of metal being dragged across the ground. It was barely louder than a pin falling, but all the dragons in the room turned and looked at them.

  Kit turned around to look at Riko, who was wide-eyed and clutching a coin in her hands. “Sorry?” the druid said.

  The previously sleeping but now enraged gold dragon shot out of the gold pile, sending coins flying through the air like metallic bits of hail. The coins hit Prowl and Cookie, interrupting their cloaking skills and revealing them to the room.

  Kit scrambled to her feet as the dragon roared with enough force to shake the chamber. “Run!” She shouted. “Cookie, stick to the wall. Riko, Prowl, split up!” Kit fought every part of her mind that screamed at her to make a beeline for the exit, and instead turned sharply to run into the middle of the room.

  The red dragon swatted at her with its tail, and she barely managed to fling herself out of the way before it crushed her. She immediately rolled to her feet and kept running, making good use of her swear-proficiently skill when a white dragon spat a ball of lightning at her.

  “Maggots, mobs, and malarkey! I hate dragons!” she yelled. The crimson-orange dragon swiped a claw at her, and it was so close, it cut through the puffy fabric of her pants, but only nicked her leg. “We have zero luck. Zero!”

  “This is all Riko’s fault, with her greed and lack of self-control.” Prowl jumped onto a dragon’s back and slid down its side. “The dragons are just following their nature.”

  “Shut the front door, Prowl!” Kit thundered as she jumped a treasure chest and continued to weave her way toward the smaller passageway.

  “Yeah, Prowl.” Riko darted behind a gold statue to avoid a dragon, which cut straight through the thing with one of its claws. “Now is not the time to point fingers!”

  “Oh, would you rather review your stupidity in a post-battle tactics discussion?” Prowl yelled.

  Kit glanced back and saw the gold dragon unfurl its wings—revealing five pony-sized mini dragons that zoomed around it. “Great, we’ve got a mini-boss on deck.”

  “Do you want us to come help?” Gil asked over the party chat.

  “A dragon mini-boss? I bet it has amazing drops!” Axel enthusiastically added.

  “No!” Riko shouted.

  “In fact, get out of the cavern. We’re coming in hot!” Kit said.

  “I’m in the passageway!” Cookie reported.

  “Keep running!” Kit said. “Don’t stop until you’re out of the treasure chamber.”

  When the gold dragon reared back and its throat and mouth started to glow with white hot flames, Kit was inspired to new speeds and zipped under the belly of the green dragon—which stood between her and the tunnel.

  She was trying to hustle around its clawed paws without getting herself impaled, when trumpets sounded, sparks fizzled around her, and a pop-up window loaded in front of her face, blocking her view.

  Congratulations! You have learned the life skill: Cowardly Leader

  Due to your cowardly ways, you have learned how to flee faster!

  Skill effect: If you are leading a party, all party members receive a speed boost when fleeing engaged enemies. PASSIVE SKILL

  “Worst! Timing! Ever!” Kit shouted as she tried to dismiss the screen.

  “Oh, Kit! Did you just get a new skill? That is a nice speed boost,” Cookie said.

  “Yeah, but what’s the name again?” Vic asked.

  Kit didn’t answer and concentrated on hustling the remaining distance to the smaller cave.

  Why does everybody in this party turn into a peanut gallery in the most dangerous moments?

  “I’m in the hallway,” Riko said.

  “Me, too,” Prowl said.

  The ground shook again when the gold dragon heaved its head down, flames crackling in its mouth.

  “Yikes!” Kit yipped as she made it into the passageway and turned the corner just before the dragon spat out its fire. Flames exploded just outside the passageway opening and shattered several of the crystals that dotted the walls with its heat.

  “Kit, are you okay?” Riko asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Is everyone out?”

  “Gil, Axel, and I are out in the main hallway,” Vic said.

  There was a pause, then Cookie added, “Exiting the treasure chamber now.”

  Kit followed the passageway as it snaked, making a sharp ninety-degree turn. The angle let her see back into the large cavern, where two dragons slithered into the passageway after her. “Two dragons are following me in,” she announced. After she turned the corner, she could see Riko running just ahead of her, her blue robes streaming behind her like a puffy cloud. “I’m just behind you, Riko.”

  “Great! We’re almost there.”

  The dragons that had followed Kit into the tunnel picked up their speed. One of them was the white dragon, which spat another ball of lightning at Kit.

  “Incoming!” Kit shouted. She dropped to the ground so the lightning sailed harmlessly over her head. As soon as it passed, she leaped to her feet and sprinted down the tunnel, encouraged by the sight of the treasure chamber entrance.

  “Look out, Prowl.” Riko darted to the side, also avoiding the lightning.

  “I see it.” The saboteur spun around to face the attack and threw some kind of powder at it.

  The lightning froze for a moment, then sizzled and exploded with a deafening thunder.

  “What was that?” Axel stuck his head into the treasure chamber, his red hair and man bun making him stick out like a sore thumb.

  “I said stay out!” Kit roared as the other dragon, the red one, closed in on her.

  Axel sucked his head back out of the room like a mouse retreating to its hole. “Geez, you don’t have to be so cranky about it.”

  The red dragon lunged forward, its jaws gaping open, and barely missed snapping Kit up in its mouth. “I have two rampaging dragons who are close enough behind me to snap off my neck. I’ll be crabby if I want!” she shouted as she started running in serpentines.

  “I’m out,” Prowl announced.

  “Me, too,” Riko added after a moment or two.

  Kit tried to put on another burst of speed as she aimed for the small dark entryway. She heard the white dragon inhale deeply, then spit out another ball of lightning.

  If I try to avoid it, the red dragon will be on me in an instan
t. I’ll just have to gun it.

  Her heart hammering in her throat, Kit sprinted for the entryway. The lightning crackled just behind her, bearing down on her like a missile. She threw herself forward and flew through the small entryway, barely avoiding getting struck by the attack.

  She rolled into the main passageway, flying head over heels, and smacked into a boulder parked in the middle of the path. “I hate dragons,” she said.

  A trumpet sounded.

  Congratulations! Your life skill, “Cowardly Leader,” has risen to level two!

  “We made it!” Cookie laughed. She jumped for joy, then squeezed Vic into a hug.

  The wizard, for once, did not resist and instead suffered through the sign of friendship. “Just barely.”

  “It is still worth celebrating,” Gil said. He was far calmer than the rest of the party members. “They managed to escape five—no, six—dragons, one of them being a mini-boss.”

  Riko wiped sweat off her forehead with the sleeve of her robe. “It was a little more excitement than I bargained for.”

  Prowl shrugged, though he couldn’t disguise his happy grin. “It’s one of the main quest lines; of course they will make it difficult. Not to mention you all were under-leveled. And Riko is a greedy git.”

  “I wish I could’ve been there,” Axel sighed. “I got a new skill with my last level. I want to see how effective it is against dragons!”

  “With your level? Not very,” Vic predicted.

  Kit had not untangled herself from the heap she sat in at the base of the boulder, and instead concentrated on regaining her nerve.

  Cookie glided up to her and leaned against the rock with a smile. “Thank you for entrusting me with the seal. Do you want it back?” She held out the large disk, which seemed to glow under the light shed by the crystals and sputtering torches.

  “No!” Kit shivered and rolled onto her side so Cookie no longer appeared to be upside down. “Heck no. It still is best for the party if you keep carrying it.”