Gods of Myth and Midnight: A LitRPG Novel (Seeds of Chaos Book 3)

by Azalea Ellis

  Adam’s gloved fingers played restlessly with the air, as if wishing he had something to twiddle. “Is that safe?”

  Zed turned to the others. “I’ll go with her. We have to do this. If it gives us any chance of making some headway, it'll be worth it. We'll stay right by the opening, so be alert, and be ready to pull us out if anything happens.”

  He stepped through first, and I followed him. "Ack," I said, almost choking. "I don't know how this place somehow manages to be even colder."

  "It's because the cold isn't just temperature-based," Zed said.

  First, I sent my awareness up and out. There was no hint of Seed glow, but I’d given up on that long ago and didn’t let it discourage me.

  I knelt on the ground, and very carefully stretched my awareness out. Nothing responded. No watchful eye turned to us. No sucking hunger pulled at us. I let out a sigh of relief, then delved down, pushing my senses outward, deeper and deeper, spreading out through the ground like a weighted net. I searched for anything strange, anything different from the ice and rock and dirt I knew so well by now.

  Minutes passed. The Other Place eased away the tension in my shoulders, the little frown between my eyebrows that I didn't realize was there. I slumped forward onto the ground, relaxing as I pushed farther. We were only a few miles out from the ocean, and the sea-spray tasted metallic at the back of my throat. The water flowed beneath the ice, cutting into the rock and dirt. Over time, it had carved out caves, tunnels, and trenches far below, hidden to man and eschewed by the animals and even the little pieces of vegetation that could survive such conditions.

  My awareness rode the currents, drawn into the water as if it were a gently rocking cradle. I blinked slowly, lazily. I had been cold, but I didn't feel it anymore. I knew that was probably bad, but I would deal with it…in a moment. After. My eyes closed again.

  Deep below, I brushed against something. My eyes flew open.

  Something grabbed me roughly, yanking me upward painfully and holding my limp form.

  Suddenly, the air burned my face. I leaned over the shoulder of whoever was carrying me and threw up, my throat burning not only at the feel of acid, but from cracks and burst blood vessels in the flesh.

  Adam cursed. "Did you not notice the blood?" he snarled.

  "Her face was hidden!” Zed’s voice said. “It's only been ten minutes. I was doing okay, and she's kept up with me before when she came into the Other Place. How was I supposed to know she was turning into a popsicle and not just meditating?"

  Hands wiped the vomit away from my face. "Get her into the pod. It's warm in there. Sam!”

  I was jostled roughly as they packed me in between them, and then hot hands pressed against my forehead. “You’ll be fine,” Sam’s voice said, a little too stressed to be reassuring.

  I coughed again, swallowing bloody saliva. "I found it," I croaked.

  There was a long beat of silence.

  "What? You found the god?!" "Tell me I’m not hallucinating." Adam and Zed spoke at the same time.

  I fumbled for the water thermos at my waist, and Zed helped me, lifting it to my mouth so I could drink, then clasping my cold-burning fingers between his hands and rubbing the warmth back into them. I could feel the weight of everyone’s attention on me, waiting for me to speak.

  "I found a spot, deep under the ground, where the ocean has eaten away at the coast. There is a place where the water is warm."

  Adam and Zed were silent, waiting for me to swallow painfully again.

  "The Other Place doesn't have any places with warmth," I croaked. "I think it might be an opening to somewhere else. Just like what Zed does." My lips cracked as I smiled, but I ignored it. The wilderness burst to life with cheers of elation.

  We marked the spot where I'd found the anomaly on the map with as much accuracy as possible, and I added notes about the structure of the underground caverns and rivers, as well as the approximate depth. I wanted to be able to find it again more quickly when we returned.

  A couple hours later, the snow pod arrived at the cabin. I could sense Torliam inside.

  I burst through the door, and, before he could say anything, started talking. “We found it.”

  He was sitting at the dining table, and turned his head toward me slowly.

  “We found the thing we’ve been searching for,” I said. “It’s not the god, but I think it might be a portal to him.”

  Whatever expression had been on his face was washed away by excitement. “Tell me more,” he ordered.

  I explained what I’d sensed, and the energy he’d been lacking suffused him as I spoke.

  "This is most promising,” Torliam said, examining the spot on the map. He looked at me, and his voice cooled a little. “However, we should be wary of throwing ourselves blindly into what could be a dangerous situation. We have no idea what this anomaly might do. It could be harmful."

  "No," I agreed. "But we don't have time to waste. We need to research and prepare as quickly as possible."

  "I'm hungry all the time, now," Gregor said, coming up behind me. "It's not normal. I'm not waiting any longer than I have to. I want to find this stupid god and get him to heal us."

  We were silent for a pained moment before Torliam said, "I have no intentions of hindering our mission. However, we cannot allow haste to ruin us if there is danger to be avoided."

  Zed pressed his lips together. “So what do we need to do?"

  Torliam turned back to the map. “We must examine this ‘warm space' and do our best to determine its purpose and what effect it might have on us. The fact that the animals and even the plants avoid it for miles around could be a bad sign.”

  “Maybe radiation, or some other undetectable emission,” I said. “Or maybe it’s some sort of Seed-created barrier set up by the god for anyone who’s not part of the Seal of Nine.”

  Gregor clenched the edges of his seat with his hands, turning to me instead. "Chanelle's dying. When she's lucid, she's either being venomous and hateful, or crying. She's like a starving animal, and I can see her veins, all dark and sick-looking. We have to hurry."

  I laid my hand on Gregor’s shoulder and squeezed. “Trust me, we’re not going to procrastinate on this. We'll need a way to get down there, to start," I said. "Maybe a boat, and some heavy duty diving gear?"

  Adam nodded, already tapping on his link. “I’ll order some detection equipment for radiation and poison. We should be able to get it flown up here in a rush order, if we pay enough. And I’m getting some cameras. If the portal is like Zed’s, we should be able to send one through and see what’s on the other side.”

  “Electronics lose their charge quickly in the Other Place,” Zed warned.

  “I’ll see if an EMP shielding case helps with that at all. Not much else we can do, I think.”

  Torliam rubbed at his jaw. "We must be ready for the possibility that things will go wrong. We should not approach the area unless we are as prepared as possible for what might be on the other side, whether we plan to encounter it or not."

  "We should all go together," Jacky said. "We can tie ropes to connect us all, like we did in that ratman Trial, or when we crossed the broken bridge of the North."

  "And extra supplies," Sam said. "What if it sucks us through? What if what's on the other side is an underwater realm or something? We have to make sure we won't run out of oxygen. And I'll make sure my healing is well-charged." Sam turned to Adam. "Maybe we could go fishing?"

  Adam nodded. “And I’ll get some more standard ink constructs ready to be Animated. As strong as I can make them. It’ll save time if we’re in an emergency. If only I could just get my legs working again, I wouldn’t need to use Animus so much just to get around.”

  We continued talking and planning for a few more hours till I nodded off in my chair.

  I woke the next day to darkness, but the mood in the cabin was enough to brighten the air, everyone rushing about with barely contained excitement.

  Chanelle wo
re a muzzle. When she turned to me, she smiled widely behind the metal cage covering the lower half of her face and strapped securely onto her head with strips of leather. "I got Gregor to make it for me, when I heard," she said. Her fingers twitched, and she pressed them to the table in front of her with a frown. "I know I'm not in very good shape. But I want to come with you. And this way, you'll be safe from my teeth."

  I moved to sit beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her closer. "You realize all this will be over soon, right? I know it's been hard. But you're going to feel like yourself again. You'll be able to walk around and be part of the team like normal. Like it should be."

  A warm drop of clear liquid splashed onto the table in front of us. My Perception was high enough that I smelled the salt in it, but I didn't need that to know it was a tear.

  I reached up with my other hand and stroked Chanelle's short hair like I would Birch's, hoping that the motion was comforting. I tried to think of something else to say, but I just felt awkward and helpless, the emotions battling against the anxious hope I was also feeling. What if I was wrong, and the spot of warmth wasn't our answer?

  We spent the next few days preparing, and Zed and I returned with Torliam to the spot at the north end of the island. I went into the Other Place again and, under careful supervision from both Zed and Torliam, pushed Wraith down to the spot of warmth, finding it much more quickly the second time around. I wrote detailed instructions for how we would navigate the underwater caverns to reach it, exiting the Other Place several times to warm up within the snow pod before returning to mapping our way.

  I found the same spot in the normal world. While the terrain was the same, there was no indication that anything about that spot of water was different from the rest. I wondered if Testimony and Lore had known this would happen, when she gave us each our Skills. “One for each of the greater Trials,” she had said. The thought made me shudder, hoping that whatever was on the other side, we would be ready for it. Why couldn’t one of the gods have given us clearer information about what we would be dealing with?

  I pulled up my Attribute Window, running my eyes over my levels.

  PLAYER NAME: EVE REDDING

  TITLE: BEARER OF TESTIMONY

  CHARACTERISTIC SKILL: SPIRIT OF THE HUNTRESS, TUMBLING FEATHER

  LEVEL: 38

  SKILLS: COMMAND, WRAITH, CHAOS, VOICE

  STRENGTH: 25

  LIFE: 76

  AGILITY: 33

  GRACE: 28

  INTELLIGENCE: 32

  FOCUS: 26

  BEAUTY: 16

  CHARISMA: 33

  MANUAL DEXTERITY: 10

  MENTAL ACUITY: 29

  RESILIENCE: 71

  STAMINA: 31

  PERCEPTION: 42

  The harsh conditions had toughened me up a little more, and all the searching had increased my Perception. Even though I’d never put many Seeds into that Attribute, I had meditated exhaustively before I got control of Chaos, and I used Wraith all the time, so Perception had leveled up spontaneously.

  With my Life ad Resilience so high, my healing factor was inferior only to Torliam and Sam. Still, from my collapse shortly before, it was obvious that I still had limits. I thought back to the time when I’d received my first Seed. My levels had been so much lower, then, but even with all the improvement I’d done, it never seemed to be enough.

  When we were as ready as we could be, with equipment to get us to the spot and keep us alive while doing so, we headed out for the coast. Adam had found a man with a boat that should be able to get us closer to the spot, and, since none of us knew how to operate a water vessel larger than a rowboat, we needed the owner along with his boat.

  “Let me handle this,” Torliam said, before knocking on the door.

  A grizzled man with a weathered, sagging face opened the door suspiciously, glaring out at the group illuminated in the glow of his porch light. “Watch’a want?” he asked, his accent turning the words in a way that sounded strange to my ears.

  “We wish to rent your boat, and your services as a captain,” Torliam said. “We are doing some research about a section of the reef to the north of the island.”

  “Come back in th’ summer,” the man said, moving to shut his door.

  “Wait!” Torliam thrust a hand forward to stop him, removing it awkwardly when the man glared at the offending appendage. “We can pay well. Thirty thousand credits, for a few hours of your time.”

  The man grunted. “Where exactly, north o’ th’ island?”

  “Just off Somer’s Rock,” Torliam said.

  The man drew in a breath, as if Torliam had just called his mother a whore. “Don’t matter how many credits you’re payin’, I’m not takin’ my ship into no cursed waters.” He slammed the door before Torliam could stop him this time, and the resounding click of a lock sliding into place sounded through the wood. Then the porch light turned off, leaving us in darkness.

  “Well, that’s just rude,” Zed muttered.

  Torliam turned to Jacky. “Do you wish to break down the door, or shall I?”

  Her eyebrows rose, but she grinned, then hopped forward. She slammed a foot through the wall next to the door handle, then shouldered the door open, banging it into the inside wall.

  “What th’ hell?” the man screamed.

  Torliam reached into his jacket pocket and calmly drew out a handgun, an old model that was probably around before guns were made illegal to civilians.

  I gaped stupidly.

  He grinned like a little boy. “I saw one of these ‘guns’ in one of your human films about the ‘old west.’ Very entertaining. I bought it from one of the townspeople. It is much less conspicuous and attention-drawing than threatening this man with our Skills or physical power.”

  “Whoa, mister, I don’t want no trouble,” the old man said, arms raised as he backed away.

  “That is why you are going to take us out in your boat,” Torliam said. Then he twirled the gun around his finger dramatically, like he really was in a film.

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

  The man tried to talk his way out of it, but Torliam was very convincing, and didn’t even need to threaten or torture him with any superhuman abilities.

  Jacky pouted. “At least I got to kick in the door,” she muttered.

  Under Torliam’s watchful eye, the grizzled boat owner got dressed for the task at hand and readied his vessel, watching suspiciously as we loaded our gear, and ourselves, onto the deck.

  Birch wore little booties and a thermal sweater, both for warmth and to cover up his wings. Still, he was obviously not a domesticated animal, and he snapped his teeth at the man as he passed, letting out a cat-chortle when the man jumped back in fright.

  After the process of undocking, we slid out into the icy dark waters, our captain muttering complaints and cursing us under his breath the whole way. A couple hours later, he brought us as close to the edge of the reef as possible, and we suited up, doing one last check of both the waterproofed packs on our backs and the wrapped pallets of supplies we would be dragging with us.

  Chanelle was lucid, for the moment, and filled with such a combination of excitement and trepidation that her hands shook while she fumbled with her suit. She’d kept the muzzle on despite the boat owner’s strange looks, worried that she’d go crazy at a crucial moment and harm our chances of successfully finding the Champion.

  I hoped, not for the first time, that I was making the right choice in bringing her. She had a good number of Seeds in Life and Resilience, so she was much harder to kill than a normal human, but she was also struggling with the later stages of a terminal illness.

  Since we hadn’t been able to buy any diving equipment to fit him, Birch instead climbed into a little bubble with a small oxygen tank. We tied ourselves and the supplies all together with a long length of plastine rope and stood on the edge of the boat with our backs toward the water.

  DEAD WEIGHT

  LEAV
E CHANELLE BEHIND.

  COMPLETION REWARD: NO CHANCE FOR THE SICKNESS TO AFFECT YOUR SEARCH

  NON-COMPLETION PENALTY: BRING THE SICKNESS WITH YOU

  I did a double-take when the quest popped up in front of my face. What kind of mission was this? Was the Oracle just responding to my doubt? Or maybe she had some sort of prejudice against Chanelle, since she didn’t have one of the Nine Skills.

  I looked to Chanelle, and she met my gaze, grinning. She checked her oxygen supply one last time, then threw herself backward over the edge of the boat, disappearing into the water.

  The rest of us followed, one after the other.

  Chanelle would be heartbroken if we left her behind. I couldn’t do that to her, even if she would be dead weight. Truthfully, I had no idea what we would find on the other side. What if we weren’t able to return for her in time, and she died waiting for us? I’d already made my decision about this. I waved my hand in front of my face, and the quest disappeared.

  The supplies wanted to float, but we’d sucked all the air possible out of them and sealed them, so, with a bit of tugging, they sank down through the water with our flippered forms. Only the bubbles we released with every breath marked our path, shimmering slightly in the light of our headlamps.

  I led the way into the water-eroded caverns, which loomed around us like the gullet of an enormous sea-whale—ominous and utterly silent.

  Chapter 26

  And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

  Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,

  In her sepulchre there by the sea—

  In her tomb by the sounding sea.

  — Edgar Allen Poe

  Swimming into the dark with only the light of our headlamps was somewhat nerve-wracking, especially since our mobility was limited by the rope tying us all together and towing our supplies. Despite knowing there was nothing alive in this section of the island, I kept expecting a monster to swim out of some dark corner and attack us.