Realm of the Nine Circles: A LitRPG Novel

by P. Joseph Cherubino

Martin removed the objects from the carbon fiber printer. He checked the four points with his micrometer, then used sandpaper to make sure the tips were sharp enough, and the shafts smooth. He took the four-pointed cleats back to his workbench and fastened them to a tube also made from carbon fiber. He hoped the discarded network cable was flexible enough as he fastened its bare conductors to the tube and secured it with cement doped with carbon dust. A few minutes under an ultraviolet lamp cured the cement so that, after sanding, it was fused perfectly with the shaft. After fiddling with air hose connections and double-checking the coils, wires and electronic control circuits, Martin had a pair of fun toys to play with.

  The engineer walked back over to Najeel and placed a hand on his shoulder. “What have you got for me, Doctor?”

  “I interpolated your end goal and came up with a range of calculations presented in the tables here,” Najeel replied, expanding a spreadsheet to reveal the data, along with several energy curves.

  “Aw, Najeel,” Martin said, “you took all the fun out of it for me. Now I can’t make pretty charts to see if they match real-world performance.”

  Najeel stammered, looked to Martin, then back at his screen. It was a near miss, Najeel had selected the documents and was about to hit the delete key when Martin put his arm over the keyboard.

  “I’m kidding!” he said, a little too loud. “Shit. Your sense of humor still needs work.”

  “I..I don’t want to prevent your enjoyment of things,” Najeel said.

  “That was the joke, Najeel,” Martin said, softening his voice. “You need a break.”

  The opportunity for a pause presented itself, but the prospect did not promise relaxation. A blinking red square popped up on Najee’s screen, with a single Farsi word in the center.

  “What’s it say?” Martin asked.

  “Devil,” Najeel replied, dismissing the alert. From the column of numbers on a terminal, he determined, “They’ll come from that vent.” Najeel pointed to a space on the wall in the corner near the 3D printer.

  “Perfect,” Martin said, rushing over to his devices. After making sure his machines were safe, he methodically flipped the workbench on its side and pushed it directly in front of the grate. He made sure to kick as much as much of the remaining materials close to the wall, hoping the attackers might trip on something. He set one machine on either side of the upturned bench, pointing their business ends upward at an angle that represented a wild guess. He struggled to turn off his engineer’s mind and enter Marine mode once again, wishing desperately for more information on where to aim.

  “I can hear them,” Martin hissed. “Hide!”

  They took cover in a far corner of the room, and Najeel dimmed the lights to create shadows throughout the lab. Martin quickly pulled up a simple, custom app on his phone written precisely for this task. A single big, red button icon dominated the screen.

  “If the WiFi holds out and my coding is any good, we might survive this,” Martin said.

  “I doubt neither,” Nejeel said, leaning back against the wall as comfortably as he could with a throbbing bullet wound in his shoulder.

  “Just relax, Marine,” Martin whispered to himself as sweat beaded on his upper lip. “Chaos is your friend.” He set one pistol on the floor by his knee and adjusted the other pistol in his waistband. “Please,” he said to whatever forces he believed had providence over fools and their tasks. “No gunplay, please.”

  Muffled thumps reached out from the air vents at random intervals. The scratch of clothing and the rumble of hard objects on thin steel followed. Then there was a pause. A second later, the room exploded with sound as a heavy boot kicked the air vent from the wall. The register clattered to the ground. Martin expected to near boots hit the floor an instant later. A thin metallic ting, followed by a faint hissing made his blood grow cold.

  “Flash bang! Open your mouth, close your eyes and cup your ears,” Martin screamed, leaping from the shadowy corner as the flash grenade hit the floor two feet in front of him. He tried to count the seconds in his mind and hoped the attacker threw the grenade early. Martin would not have paused were he tasked with deploying such a device while essentially trapped in a metal box. The guess was correct.

  Martin kicked the grenade like a soccer ball, and it hit the wall near the 3D printer, then exploded as he dove to the ground, phone in hand. He was blind, and could not hear his own grunt as his chest hit the polished concrete floor. He only had a single button to tap on his phone screen. When his index finger found the smooth, warm surface of the screen, he had no idea whether his plan worked. He could not tell whether the sharp vibrations through the floor were his toys at play or men with guns about to kill him.

  A few seconds later vision snuck back into his brain, with hearing an estranged sibling nearly forgotten. Martin rose with pistol in hand, sweeping the room. OK, he thought to himself, I’m not being killed. And this was a good thing, because, momentarily blinded, he had little idea where he pointed his pistol. Several hard blinks later, Martin found that he was facing away from the air vent.

  When he moved to the upturned workbench, the sight of boot heels clattering against the floor made him bellow with laughter he could not hear. He came upon two men, clad entirely in black. One man had a black shaft sticking straight up from the right chest section of his bulletproof vest. The other man tried desperately to pull away the dart that skewered his left shoulder.

  Martin kicked their weapons away with sharp motions, careful not to make contact with bodies that coursed with sixty thousand volts. He picked up one of the weapons, quickly noting that it was an MP9, set to fully automatic with the safety off. Martin took his time disconnecting the juice. He wanted the two to feel every bit of it. That these men came to kill him, he had no doubt. One finger on the off switch, he waited until the front of both men's pants turned dark with urine before pressing it.

  Martin stood over the men with his finger on the trigger. His cold eyes met glassy counterparts that jerked with fear more potent than the electricity that had shot through them. For a moment, Martin considered the best way to manage this threat. He considered their value to him as he swept the weapon back and forth between two heads.

  “Martin,” Najeel said softly, appearing at his shoulder. “I believe we discussed a less-lethal solution to this problem.”

  “Listen to him, Martin,” one of the men rasped. He was the larger of the two, older with longer black hair and a bulbous nose with wide pores and vivid veins. A drinker.

  “Sir,” Najeel said, leveling a pistol at the man. “I am very angry with you at the moment, so please be quiet.”

  The man shut up as his partner moaned.

  “Roll over on your stomachs,” Martin growled. When the men didn’t move fast enough, he stomped the nearest man on the ankle hard.

  “Fucker!” the older man screamed. A red-faced Martin leaned down and pressed the muzzle against his forehead. Both men rolled over quickly.

  “If you so much as twitch,” Martin said. “I will kill you.”

  Wasting no time, Najeel retrieved more network cable and used it to bind the men’s hands and feet. The computer scientists dragged both attackers roughly across the floor and pushed them into the brightest corner of the lab for observation. Martin gave them tough-guy points for rolling onto their sides to stare back at him with angry eyes.

  Still breathing rapidly with corralled rage, fear, and barely able to hear, Martin turned to his workstation. He brought up the internal Plexcorp chat app and composed a message to Dennis Stroener.

  “Immersion VR Dev Team: 2. Security Department: 0.” He didn’t smile when he stabbed the enter key with his middle finger.

  Chapter 21

  "Balthazaar, I need you to relieve Qwerty, give him a chance to eat and re-buff. Candyland, are those healers all set to go yet?" Keerna spoke quickly, eyes on the the swirling dome of protection above as she organised her troops.

  "More or less." Candyland stood, back to Keer
na as she spoke. The avatar's arms moved rhythmically as the orc healer produced standard linen bandages, each one falling to the ground and vanishing as it was completed. "They're getting bored, we've had a few go AFK but for the most part they're responding if called on."

  Keerna took a deep breath and made an effort to unclench her jaw. The players had no idea of the stakes of this battle—to them, it was just a game. Though Virgil's announcement and new restrictions helped, the threat of permanent character death had lost them a few good soldiers. The only thing that stopped half of them logging out to take breaks, eat dinner, or get laid was the knowledge that any player who logged out would not be able to access the game until the battle was over. The promise of a giant heaping of experience and one-of-a-kind loot was an excellent enticement that had brought in even some of the old, retired players via the promotional messages Virgil had sent out into the real world. It didn't, however, combat the boredom.

  "Tell them we've seen two scouting patrols overhead. The next portal goes up in four minutes, I wouldn't be surprised if an attack happens then, or straight after."

  Candyland nodded, finishing off a final bandage before turning to salute Keerna. "I'll make sure they're at their stations."

  Keerna nodded absently, her mind already turning to their offensive capabilities. The last evacuation, moments before the first of the scouting parties was spotted, had taken a small contingent of mages. Though she tried to keep the numbers balanced, at some point the shield would come down. When that happened, she wanted all of the NPCs out, the lowest level characters, the traders and the craftsmen, especially those who owned rare schematics for weapons and armor. If those characters died, they would take that precious knowledge with them.

  "Cleo, is the next batch of evacuees ready?"

  Cleoleo, a level 12 hunter, nodded. "Those that will go are in the square. Some of the remaining players have given them items for safekeeping, so we need to make sure the portal leads somewhere safe."

  "Those that will go?" Keerna queried. She thought the numbers had been sorted earlier, that all who were rostered to flee were packed and ready.

  "Sorceress… some of the NPCs are refusing. I guess they're bound here or something."

  Keerna needled the hunter with flashing eyes. "Refusing my orders?"

  Cleo made an exaggerated shrugging action, the motion accompanied by text to the same effect. She was unphased by Keerna's irritation. As a member of Keerna's clan, she knew the sorceress wouldn't take her anger out on anyone if it wasn't deserved. The respect Keerna garnered not only from her own people, but any player who'd seen them in action, relied on this.

  "You might want to speak to them. They're acting all weird, I guess the world event is to usher in a new update." Cleo saluted just as her comrade had before leaving.

  "Update my ass," Keerna grumbled. Still, a flutter of excitement buzzed in her stomach. This was her chance. All the work she'd put into building her power, building her reputation… if she and Kalmond could pull this off, it would be her greatest accomplishment ever. Rallying not only her clan, but an entire Realm. Not just for loot or experience, but to save their world. And, she would do it without the impediment of a screen and keyboard. A smile touched her lips as she smoothed her armored robes and stalked off to find the cluster of evacuees, the thrill of battle lingering over her shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, Master Thief, but the choice is not yours.” The child—a girl Kalmond recognised as a village NPC, looked at him with grave eyes and a resolute stance. Her thin, British accent suited the cotton pinafore and braids in her hair. Not exactly the image of a seasoned soldier.

  “You can’t stay. We’ve been over this, it’s not safe. You’re a child!” They had, indeed, been over it. Several times. A shuffling in the crowd made Kalmond look up. “Keerna?” he called to the sorceress, as the people moved aside to let her pass. “Can you talk to them? They think they’re going to stay and fight.”

  “And what’s wrong with that?” she asked. “We need all the bodies we can get.” Realising her unfortunate choice of words, Keerna’s winced.

  Kalmond stormed over, dropping his voice to a harsh whisper. “She’s a child.”

  “You don’t know what she is,” Keerna pointed out, keeping her voice low and even. “For all you know she’s a fifty-year old man covered head to toe in pin up girl tattoos.”

  Kalmond ground his teeth. “It’s suicide. You let them stay, you’re condemning them to die. We don’t know if the brains die in real life. Hell, we don’t know what is going on with our bodies now.”

  Keerna touched his shoulder, moved by the desperation in his voice. “Kal, that’s just it. I don’t think we are condemning them to death. We don’t know what Virgil’s done, but I don’t think he’d lead his people to slaughter. He’s the steward of the realm, after all.”

  “You don’t know he’s behind this.”

  “He’s behind everything, Kalmond! He’s the only reason we’re here.” Keerna’s gaze slid away and she turned her head to hide the emotion that spilled onto her face. “And besides. If I’m wrong, maybe it’s for the best. Maybe if they die… it’ll set them free.”

  The stark reminder of who—or what—these people were sat in Kalmond’s gut like a sour lump. Keerna walked off and though he raised a hand, no words left his mouth to call her back.

  “She’s right, you know.” The soft voice behind him made Kalmond jump. “The Gods have been restless lately. A storm is coming, Master Thief, and you will need my people to survive it.” Her face broke into a startling grin and she skipped away, humming the familiar tune many of the NPC children would sing as they traipsed the streets in their programmed loops.

  “Well that’s not creepy at all,” Kalmond muttered. Shaking his head, he stalked off to the fountain where four portal mages were preparing to cast their spell.

  One waved to catch the dwarf’s attention. “Ready to go when you are!”

  Kalmond gave him a nod and the elven portal mage who promptly raised his hands to begin the incantation. The portals were time and labour intensive. The hour-long cooldown, two-minute cast time and limit on travellers made the whole operation difficult, to say the least; but, with the entire Third Circle designated a battleground, teleportation services were closed down and the only other way out of the area was on foot, past the armies of Mylos himself. Keerna had organised the evacuation well. A portal went up every fifteen minutes, taking a new group to a new location each time. Keerna had already sent scouts to each of the locations to make sure the hordes of Mylos were nowhere in sight. She and Kalmond were the only ones with a list of those locations.

  Light slashed a vertical slit through the air, widening until it formed an arch.

  “Where are we taking this lot?” one of the casters asked.

  “Golden Steppes. Near the cathed…” Keerna’s words trailed off as a shadow crossed over the dome above. As one, every person, player or generated character, looked up. A collective gasp flowed over the protected area as darkness fell. The sun dimmed under the wings of a thousand drakes, the winged reptiles no less impressive than their larger draconic cousins.

  The purple light on the ground faded, then flared as the first flames erupted. The drakes breathed fire onto the dome while their riders, too high to see from the ground, threw spell after spell, the attacks sending rumbles of thunder through the air. On the ground, the collective silence held strong. Kalmond watched, heart in his mouth, knowing it would not be so for the shield.

  “Go!” Keerna’s scream broke his hypnotized stare.

  Kalmond harried the portal caster and the arch flooded with colour. Green hues coalesced into the lush plains of the Steppes and the first of the evacuees dove through, stumbling as they darted terrified looks over hunched shoulders. The dwarf turned from the portal just before it blinked out. “Keerna, we’re almost out of ti—”

  The purple taint vanished. Bright sunlight pierced the shadows overhead, banishing the muted hues benea
th the protective shield above.

  “Run!” Kalmond screamed.

  Some may have heard him. It didn’t matter. They were too late. Fire fell from the sky, great balls of flaming pitch, shining bubbles of white light, speckles of burning ember. mages, drakes, archers, all sending their own particular brand of fiery death into the crowd below.

  Just behind Keerna, one of the mages casting the shield burst into flames. One moment, swirls of energy coursed from the tips of his fingers, in the next instant, he was an elf-shaped figure of flame. His flesh burnt away to the bone as Kalmond lifted his eyes to follow the pillar of fire that drew a straight line towards Keerna. He opened his mouth to bellow a warning and readied his furious lunge, knowing he had zero chance of reaching either the Drake or Keerna in time. He ran anyway.

  The sorceress turned just in time to cast a shield. It held, but faded quickly. Kalmond watched helpless as Keerna bent low with effort. Just when he thought Keerna would fall, two figures, merged into one, burst from the flames. Horsehide, human flesh and elf skin shimmered with an armor enchantment, and spiven crystal armor danced with flame. Thornbark let loose with a perfectly-placed ice bolt, just as Thuglar stood on the centaur’s back and leaped.

  The ice bolt caught the drake in the neck, just above his shoulders. The fire-breather veered off, but the flames did not stop. Instead, the column changed its angle and headed straight for Kalmond. The dwarf was committed to his lunge and could not stop. Even if he could change course, he did not want to take his eyes off the elf, who flew like an arrow in a graceful arc toward its target. Thuglar held a dagger in each hand that caught the drake-flying mage squarely in the chest. No sooner than Thornbark loosed his arrow, did he take up two lighting sabers that slashed at the drake.

  Keerna made eye contact with Kalmond, who managed to shrug his shoulders, even as he ran with axe held high above his head. Keerna managed to roll her eyes in response, and with the last of her stamina, rushed towards the dwarf with her shield, protecting both. They tumbled together on the ground with the last of the shield wrapping them like a fire blanket as flames licked at them hungrily.