The entire chamber lit up as if I’d just placed a copy of the sun in each of my hands.
The monsters screamed, I screamed, the big boss creature screamed, and even my friends screamed from behind the cover of their rock wall on the other side of the cavern. My vision went black, except for the corners, which kind of had a burned imprint of my swords outlined. I tried to keep running, but I stumbled when I lost my sight, and I stubbed my toe on a rock pile. Then I was falling and rolling, on the stone floor of the cavern while the agonized voices around me screeched.
“Ahhhh!” I kept blinking my eyes, but I couldn’t see anything but the outlines of my bright swords. My head felt like I was hung over and someone had smashed a cymbal in front of my nose while they poked my eyes out. I kept trying to open my eyes, but my lids refused to stay open for more than half a second. I was going to have to tell Zarra that the flare and blind game mechanics were a little fucked up in the game. She was definitely going to have to tone down the brightness of any sort of spells cast in darkness.
At least the mistake wasn’t costing me my life. I couldn’t see the monsters, but they were still screaming around me. I tried again to force my eyelids open, and they peeled apart for a full two seconds before they teared up, and I had to close them again. I did manage to get to my feet, and walk a few steps toward where I thought the boss was. I started waving my broadsword around in my hand and hoped that I might catch the fucker with its edge, but that was pretty much like playing drunken blindfolded piñata during a badminton match.
Even though I wasn’t hitting anything with my swords I knew that I needed to do something quickly. I was easy prey for any of the monsters that might be able to get their eyes open first. I did another round of flailing about with my blades with a hope that I would keep the short monsters at bay, and then I made another attempt to open my eyes.
“Fuuuuucccck!” I gasped as I willed my eyes to stay open. Tears were streaming down my face, and it felt like someone was driving ice picks into each of my pupils, but there were open, and I could see the rest of the cavern through the salty tears of agony.
Every single gnolbold was rolling on the ground. They were all still screaming, clutching their eyes, or trying to bury their faces into the stone ground. There wasn’t a single one that was looking at me or preparing to engage me in combat.
Except for the boss.
He must have just done the same to me and made some sort of willpower roll to pry his eyes open. Tears streamed down from his burning dog eyes, and he leapt over his minions with his long sword in both of his paws. The monster was about the same height as me, maybe a few inches taller, and he swung his big sword with way more speed than I would have guessed possible.
I leaned away with a gentle sway, and the tip of the blade passed a few inches from my chest. His swing had come from his left side, and he hadn’t expected me to dodge the strike. I brought up the short sword in my left hand to check his blade’s return swing, and the metal of our weapons made a sharp snapping sound when I locked my guard against the edge of his weapon.
I stepped toward the gnolbold leader as I swung my broadsword, but the boss anticipated the movement, and he released his left hand from the hilt of his longsword so that he could drop the arm over my elbow as I swung. It was a great move, and it caused my sword to come in at the wrong angle. The side of my guard slammed into his shoulder, instead of the blade, and my opponent only let out a pained gasp instead of what should have been a death scream.
His health bar dropped down about five percent.
He pushed down onto me with the weight of his left arm and the sword in his right hand. The creature was strong, but I was more surprised that I could actually feel some sort of strength coming from him. Everything else in this game so far had seemed weightless, so while this wasn’t overwhelmingly powerful, it was actually pushing against me with the strength of what I guessed would be an un-athletic man.
His eyes opened wide with surprise when I twisted my short sword guard against his weapon and pushed back. His arm quickly collapsed against my strength, and I flicked out the hilt of my broadsword so that it hooked onto the back of the tricep of this left arm. He knew I was a few seconds away from forcing the short blade through his chest, so he wiggled out of my sword hook, and attempted to pull away from me. I didn’t try to keep him locked up, but when he freed himself from my short sword, I brought the blade up and took a generous cut out of his muzzle. The monster yelped with anger, and then he backed away from me a few feet to ready his sword again.
He knew I was stronger than he was, and he knew I was skilled with my blades, so he made a few small thrusting attempts with the point of his weapon to try and test my defenses. I smacked his first two attempts away with my broad sword, and then parried the third with my short sword. I feinted a shuffle forward and made as if I was going to thrust with the longer sword in my right hand. The gnolbold boss took the bait and then made a flinched parry with his own blade. It was the opening I needed, and I made as if he had actually caught my weapon while I closed the space with my short sword.
My swing caught him on his right arm, and my blade dug into his bicep deep enough to smash into the bone, and take his red life bar down a quarter. He screeched with pain and terror and tried to bring his sword up from his block to stab me. But I was too close now, and I hooked my left foot around his right ankle to knock him down next to his struggling minions.
He actually managed to keep his long sword in his left hand, but the weapon was a little too heavy for him to effectively wield while he was on the ground, so my lighter broad sword removed his skull from his shoulders before he could block me, and his dog head rolled onto the ground with a spray of blood.
I sheathed my short sword and grabbed the head of the gnolbold leader. The minions on the ground here didn’t know he was dead, and they might not be able to get their vision back for another few minutes, but there was another group coming from the other tunnel, and I wanted to try and scare them away without fighting the rest of the horde.
I reached the opening to the other tunnel a few seconds before the second group of gnolbolds made it into the cavern. They skidded to a halt when they saw me, snarled, brandished their weapons, and then let out a collective yelp when I raised the head of their leader.
The animals turned to each other in confusion, and started to make whispered growling noises to each other. The game UI wasn’t translating their words, but I guessed they were trying to determine if they needed to flee or attack. I finally got impatient and did my best scary roar while I raised my sword and their leader’s head. The twenty dog-men startled at my display, and they tripped over each other as they fled.
I ran past the nook where my friends were hiding and returned to the other group of gnolbolds. A few of the mob were starting to look around the cavern with teary eyes, and I debated trying to scare them away as I had the group on the other side of the cavern. That would probably take too long, since they seemed to be emerging from their state of stupor at different times. It seemed kind of a waste of time to murder them all, but this was just a game, and I’d probably get a little bit of extra experience if I just killed them before they managed to attack me.
My broadsword sliced the neck off of one of the monsters, and then my short sword pierced the skull of another. Within a few minutes I’d managed to kill all of the small creatures easily, and I stepped away from the pile of their bodies with blood-drenched swords. The stench of their corpses, combined with the thick pool of blood in the center of the carnage, made me feel slightly nauseated for a few moments.
There was plenty of blood and corpses in Astafar Unlimited, but the bodies and blood were kind of muted once the monster died. I’d killed hundreds of thousands of monsters in the game, and never felt a shred of remorse, but Ohlavar Quest felt amazingly real, and this scene was making me question my humanity. I would have to ask Zarra for an option to maybe tone down the blood, shit, and body graphics or something f
or dead monsters. Or maybe I just needed to get over it. This was just a game.
“It is safe! You all can come out now,” I said as I walked back to the rocky nook that my friends hit behind.
“You got them all?” Gratia asked as she rubbed her eyes.
“Yeah, first I killed their leader, some of them ran, and then I killed the rest.”
“What was that bright light?” Artus asked.
“I used that Ember ability to make my swords glow, but I did too much, and we all got blinded for a few moments.
“Leo saved us! Hooray! If you liked women, I would offer to mate with you as a rewa--”
“That’s okay, Allurie. I don’t need a reward.”
I helped pull my friends out of their hiding spot and then turned to the dwarf woman.
“Which is the quickest way back to your stronghold?”
“If ya killed all of those gnolbolds, the best way would be to go back to the first cavern we were in and take the right tunnel. Otherwise, I think we’ll add an extra few hours if we go this way.” She pointed to the tunnel where the terrified gnolbolds had run after I showed them their leader’s head.
“Alright. Let’s return. I need to look at their leader’s sword anyway,” I said to my three companions, and we walked back to where I had killed all the gnobolds.
“By the Shadow. Leo, you did this?” Artus asked with his cat eyes open as wide as I had ever seen them.
“Yeah,” I sighed, “the other group ran away, but I didn't think I could scare these ones.”
“Leo is so strong. Wow,” Allurie gasped.
“Let me check his sword.” I tiptoed through the piles of bodies and picked up the boss’ blade. It was a longsword, or it was sometimes called a bastard sword. The blade was a bit longer than the broadsword that I currently used, and the handle was a “hand and a half” length so that it could be used with two hands.
The weapon wasn’t magical when I inspected it, but I did see a sparkle of gold around the tall creatures’ wrist. It was another bracelet, and I unclasped it so that I could examine the piece of jewelry.
Bracelet of Deflection- For one minute every four hours, the user can generate a three foot by three foot weightless shield that will deflect all non-magical missiles. The effect appears on the users outside forearm as if it were a worn shield. Trigger word is “shield.”
“Cool!” I said as I put the bracelet on my left wrist. As soon as the thin band of metal was clasped together around my arm the icon on the top right of my UI flashed. This item wasn’t quite as cool as the Wand of Wine, but it would be much more useful in combat.
“I don’t see any other loot here,” I said as I glanced around at the piles of bodies. Then my eyes set on the silver-haired elf girl, and she gave me a small wave.
“Allurie, can you search all these bodies for any coin, or gems, or items we could sell?”
“Of course! That sounds like so much fun!” The elf girl knelt down at the first pile of bodies and started rummaging through the corpses.
“Leo, can I speak with you a moment over here?” Artus asked as he nodded toward the tunnel we intended to return through.
“Sure, buddy,” I said as I followed him away from Allurie and Gratia.
“When we were hiding behind the rocks, I saw a tattoo on Gratia’s neck. It was of the Golden Hammer.”
“I don’t know what that means. Should I?”
“Grrr. Sorry, I forget that you aren’t from here. She is a royal. It doesn’t make a lot of sense for her to be down here, or to be captured by gnoldbolds in the first place.” My friend’s eyes flashed back toward the dwarven woman.
“What are you thinking happened?”
“Dwarves are a weird race. I have never heard of a clan being in the Laven Mountains. Doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Sometimes they can keep to themselves, but it is suspicious. I think she could be lying to us about where she is from. Or, it could be that her clan really is there, and she was trying to escape them for some reason. Or I could just be paranoid. If she is a member of the Golden Hammer she should have a dozen Blood Smiths around her all day.”
“She mentioned Blood Smiths before, and I thought it was just a weird dwarf word.”
“They are the elite warriors of the clans. Each one is rumored to be incredibly skilled and tougher than a mountain. There are rumors of a single one fighting off hordes of trolls. They wouldn’t have a problem with gnolbolds.”
“Huh. Okay. Maybe she will open up to us more as we head back to her stronghold?”
“If she is even taking us there.” The fenia shrugged. “If she is trying to escape, she might not want to return.”
“Shit.”
“But if she does take us back, they will owe you a favor. Several favors actually. Dwarves are somewhat difficult to do business with because they won’t sign contracts, but they are very prideful. If you take Gratia back to them, there is a good chance they will gift you weapons, armor, supplies, and a wagon for our journey to my home.”
“Ahhh.” I nodded at him. “Let’s ask some questions as we walk. Maybe we can figure out what is going on and adjust our plans if we need to.”
“That is good.” He nodded and then we turned back to the chamber where Gratia and Allurie were.
“Leo! I’m done!” Allurie spun around on a toe like a ballerina and then gestured to the pile of neatly organized bodies. There was a small stack of coins off to the side, and some shiny gemstones. There was also a pair of pants on the ground, and I realized that she had taken them off of the headless boss mob.
“You seemed uncomfortable being naked. I think those pants will fit you.”
“Uhhh. Thanks, Allurie, you did great.”
“Yay! Too bad no mating,” she sighed. “Can I help you put those pants on?”
“No, that is okay.” I looked at the brown trousers that the large boss had worn. There weren’t exactly the cleanest pair of pants I’d ever seen, and the idea of my penis rubbing against the inside of the pants where the monster had seemed kind of gross. I also wondered if the garment had lice, or fleas, or other nasty shit on it.
Then I realized this was a damn game, and I was being a prima donna. I took off my sword belt, slid the pants on, and then ran the belt through a few of the makeshift hoops on the cloth so that they stayed around my waist. The trousers were more comfortable than I expected, but they smelled a bit like dog fur. There was also a hole in the ass of the pants for the creature’s tail, and I could pretty much fit my hand through the gap. Ahh well, it was better than being naked.
I threw the coins, and gems into the pockets of my gross pants, and then checked the lay of my swords on my belt. Once I was settled, I nodded toward the tunnel, and we began to walk back to the cavern where we had climbed out of the river.
“Hey, Gratia,” I said to the dwarf after we had walked for a few minutes.
“Yes, human?”
“How did you get captured by the gnolbolds? Did they invade your stronghold?”
“Invade our stronghold? Ha! By my great uncle’s thick beard, that is impossible.”
Half a minute passed and the woman didn’t say more. Artus and I exchanged a brief look, and he shrugged.
“So… if they didn’t invade the stronghold. How did you get captured?” I asked.
“Ehhh. You, humans are nosey, huh? Just mind your own damn business.”
“Hey. We did save you from them. Then we helped you escape.”
“I had those gnolbolds exactly where I wanted them.”
“You were wrapped up like a present, and four of them were taking you to be sacrificed to a giant spider.”
“That’s what you think. I was just about to break free of my bonds, and then smash them all. Then you interrupted and threw me into that blasted river. I saved your life in there. Humans are such poor swimmers.” The woman grunted, but she wouldn’t look at me.
“If you don’t want to tell us exactly what happened, that is fine, but I want to make
sure that you are taking us back to your stronghold, and I want to make sure that we’ll be received warmly. Not viewed as kidnappers.”
“Ahhhh. I see.” She growled a bit as she glanced at me. “You saw the tattoo huh?”
“Yes.”
“Grandfather’s bearded beard,” she sighed. “I was escaping.”
“The stronghold?” I asked.
“Yes, the stronghold, human. By the Shadow, you are an idiot.”
“Hey, now. No need to be mean. I’m trying to help. You are my friend.”
“Friend?” she asked with a thick eyebrow raised.
“Yes. Leo doesn’t mate with his friends, though. Unless they are men,” Allurie chimed into our conversation, but we all ignored her.
“Friends help each other. We stand back to back against the world. We save each other without asking for anything in return. You don’t have to tell me what is going on, but I’m looking out for Allurie and Artus. I don’t want to put them in danger. I definitely don’t want an army of dwarves thinking I stole one of their royal family members.” I thought about Jax and Garf when I finished talking. I was really going to miss them for the next two years, but I imagined that I would make friends with the Arnacript employees, and of course, there would be the NPCs that I would befriend while I searched for these fifteen relics.
“I understand,” the short woman said, but she didn’t say anything else for a few moments, and I figured that the discussion was over.
“I’m betrothed. Supposed to get married next month. He’s coming here through the Underdark.”
“You don’t like him?”
“I’ve never met him, but he is old. I’ll be his tenth wife. The others have died under mysterious circumstances. Also, the man doesn’t drink beer, so I know something is wrong with him.”
Lion's Quest: Undefeated: A LitRPG Saga Page 32