Shattered Lands: A LitRPG Series

by Darren Pillsbury

  Eric had two choices: head for the aristocrat’s house he had burgled…

  Or go to the city wall where Merridack had shown him and Daniel the mansion.

  He didn’t know the city well enough to risk anything else. One wrong turn and he might end up in a dead end, or facing down a squadron of blue capes.

  He decided on the wall.

  He reached it in a matter of minutes, his lungs burning, heart pounding. He raced up the steps, forcing himself onwards.

  Once he reached the top, he paused to look back.

  Merridack was at the bottom, and began hobbling up the stone steps.

  Eric ran along the top of the wall. A hundred feet to his right, the forest stretched out into darkness, the treetops painted silver with moonlight.

  He could feel his mana climbing, but was it enough? He didn’t want to check his stats right now – one false step and he could stumble and fall two hundred feet to the city streets below.

  Suddenly a figure stepped out from a battlement thirty feet in front of him, spear held out menacingly.

  “Halt!” the watchman shouted, moonlight glinting off his brass dome.

  Crap – I don’t have time for this –

  “Peratoz otomnix!” Eric yelled, and a giant millipede with a human-like head sprang out of the darkness.

  The guard was not as quick as Merridack, and the demon embedded its teeth in the man’s exposed throat.

  Seconds later, the man’s body fell to the ground with the metallic crash of armor.

  Eric hopped over the corpse as the demon feasted, and continued running down the massive stone wall.

  I have to finish this soon. There’ll be more guards – and the faster I run, the faster I’m going to run into them.

  I don’t have enough energy to deal with them AND Merridack –

  In fact, I don’t think I have enough energy to deal with Merridack, period.

  He could feel his energy reserves were low. If he was going to get out of this alive, he only had one shot. He had to make it count.

  No more running.

  He stopped and turned around. He circled his wrist, brought up his stats –

  He had enough mana to summon one, maybe two creatures.

  GREAT.

  His mind raced for a plan – and suddenly he had one.

  He emptied the contents of the purse into his palm, stuffed the diamonds and gemstones in his pocket, and replaced the gold coins in the bag.

  A hundred feet away, Merridack reached the fallen guard. As the millipede raised its blood-smeared face, Merridack bashed it in the head with his staff.

  THWACK!

  The monstrosity disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

  Merridack stepped over the guard and hobbled across the wall towards Eric.

  “I have to congratulate you, little mage,” Merridack said, his smile both a grin and a grimace of pain. “You turned into something far worse than I ever could have imagined. But that all ends right here… right now.”

  “Here,” Eric said, jingling the bag of gold in his hand. “You can have it.”

  Merridack laughed, an ugly sound. “You think that’s enough to buy me off? You think that’s enough to make up for the very insult of your continued existence?”

  “Think of what we could do together,” Eric said. “Think of everything we could steal if we teamed up.”

  “That might have been an excellent business proposition, if you hadn’t just slaughtered all my men,” Merridack seethed. “No – the only way I’ll ever trust you, little mage, is once you’re dead. And even then I’ll keep an eye on you.”

  “Okay,” Eric shrugged. “But if you’re going to kill me, then I don’t want you to have this.”

  He flung the purse out as he held onto a bottom corner.

  Gold coins shot out of the mouth, sparkling in the moonlight as they clinked and bounced on the stone wall and rolled off the edge into the darkness. Seconds later they jingled on the city streets below.

  Merridack’s face contorted in rage and horror. “You fool!” he screamed, and stomped the nearest coins to keep them from falling off the edge of the wall.

  “Expecto patronum!” Eric yelled, and leaned over to one side as though pointing behind Merridack.

  It wasn’t a real incantation.

  But Merridack didn’t know that.

  The thief whirled around, readying for an attack that did not come.

  Eric’s hand flashed again in the moonlight. But this time it was not a spell or gold that flew from his fingertips, but hard, tempered steel.

  The knife sank into Merridack’s back, right between his shoulder blades.

  Merridack screamed and arched his shoulders back in agony –

  At which point Eric threw his final spell.

  “Blamok natorus!”

  The bat creature materialized and slammed into Merridack’s arm.

  The thief dropped his staff as he tumbled sideways and plunged over the edge of the wall.

  At the last second, though, he was able to grasp the edge with his hand.

  Now he dangled 200 feet above the city streets by his fingertips.

  The bat circled around for another pass –

  “Wait,” Eric commanded, and the demon flew off into the sky where it hovered far above him.

  Deception: +5

  Eric smiled smugly, but the points were just the icing on the cake. The best was yet to come.

  He strolled over and held up another throwing knife between his fingers. “Remember these? Your ‘going-away’ gifts? You said maybe they were a permanent going-away gift. Funny – you just didn’t know which one of us was going away.”

  Merridack stared in hatred at Eric. He grunted in pain and managed to swing his other arm up so he could grasp the edge of the wall. But with a blade buried in his back, he didn’t have the strength to pull himself up.

  Eric couldn’t help himself. After so much abuse at the hands of the thief, he was enjoying his moment of triumph. “Turns out that to defeat you, I didn’t need any of my new ‘magic tricks.’ I just needed something you taught me.”

  Eric leaned over and picked up the staff, which had clattered to the stone parapet when Merridack fell.

  “You leave that alone,” Merridack grunted, his voice anguished. “That’s mine.”

  “Not anymore,” Eric said. He walked over and stood above his former master. “What’s that they say? ‘To the victor go the spoils’?”

  “All right, you’ve won,” Merridack snarled.

  “Since when do I need a dead man to tell me I’ve won?” Eric asked softly.

  Merridack didn’t answer. He acted.

  The thief was fast. His right hand pulled backwards from the wall, and suddenly there was a throwing knife clutched between his fingers.

  But due to his injury, he was slower than usual.

  Eric simply stepped backwards. Because of the angle – and because the edge of the walkway was now between him and the thief – there was no way Merridack could hit him.

  “Drop it,” Eric commanded, and slammed the bottom of the staff into the pinky of Merridack’s left hand – the one still clutching the wall.

  Merridack howled as his little finger snapped backwards.

  “Drop it,” Eric warned, “or we’ll see how many I have to break before you fall.”

  “Alright – alright,” Merridack hissed. Seconds later, the knife clattered on the city street beneath him.

  Merridack threw his right hand back up onto the wall and grabbed the edge again.

  Eric smirked in triumph. “Good. You may think I want you dead, but I’ll spare your life.”

  He held out the bottom of the staff towards Merridack, just inches away from the thief’s face.

  “Why?” Merridack asked, bewildered.

  “Because I want to know the answer.”

  “The answer to what?”

  “To the question you said I could ask when I’m a better thief than you.”

&nb
sp; Merridack’s pride got the better of him. “You’ll never be a better thief than me.”

  “Oh, but I already am.”

  “And how do you figure that?” Merridack sneered.

  “Because I’m the one who took your life.”

  At that second, Eric wrenched the two halves of the staff in opposite directions.

  The stiletto blade shot out of the end, stabbing Merridack through the eye.

  The thief shrieked in agony, then let go of the wall.

  The scream quickly receded as he tumbled down the stone walls, then ended abruptly with a vicious THUD on the cobblestone street below.

  “Oh well… I guess I didn’t really want to know that bad,” Eric said with a smile.

  He twisted the two halves of the staff again, and the stiletto slipped back into the shaft.

  Eric looked at the walking stick admiringly.

  “I think I’ll keep this,” he said – then gathered up what gold coins were still on the top of the wall and set off for the stone steps.

  42

  Eric arrived back at the Dark Market twenty minutes later.

  Time for Phase Two of the plan.

  The ogre at the door let him in without a word of protest.

  Oh yeah… I never took that demon out of him…

  It was so late (or early, depending on how you looked at it) that it was basically only him and maybe half of the usual merchants in the entire Dark Market.

  When Eric walked in, the shopkeepers saw he was back and immediately began vying for his attention. It was like a feeding frenzy of greedy sharks.

  He didn’t have time for their shenanigans.

  “Listen up!” Eric shouted. “I want your best stuff – dark mana and anything that can multiply dark mana! Healing potions! Blocking spells! Fire spells! Levitation, illumination, defense! I want the best you’ve got to offer – and whoever gives me the most for the cheapest price gets all this!”

  Here he poured out the contents of the purse, which he had refilled with the diamonds, gold coins, emeralds, and rubies.

  The entire room went berserk. The shopkeepers started piling their wares up on their tables, calling him over, gesturing excitedly.

  What happened next was basically an auction. The dealers began offering as much as possible for his money. When the smaller dealers saw they were getting cut out of the bidding, several of them pooled their resources to start competing with the big boys. The two largest merchants saw that and joined forces, and by the end Eric handed over his money for a veritable treasure trove of occult objects – rings and necklaces that increased mana by various percentages or sped up its regeneration. More sources of dark mana. Spells on scrolls. One merchant even threw in a long, floor-length black jacket to store all the vials of potions in, and a couple of bags to carry everything else.

  Eric lugged his treasure trove to the end of the Dark Market and sat down in an unoccupied stall. Then he began absorbing dark mana from the objects.

  He got up to 1730 when he started putting on the rings and necklaces. The incremental changes weren’t much by themselves – 10% here, 20% there – but when compounded, his mana jumped up over 2900 as long as he wore all the objects.

  He unstrapped the pig’s bladder bag and pulled out the Demonomicon, out of view of anyone else.

  Then he opened it up and put his fingers on the pages.

  Ink flowed up his arms in a liquid wave.

  The feeling was astounding – like he could do anything.

  Destroy anything.

  He flipped through the Demonomicon.

  Almost half of the pages had text on them now.

  He packed up the tome, slung it on his back, and took everything else and bundled it up in a couple of bags.

  Then on his way out, he stopped by the two merchants who had sold him the bulk of the products.

  “Vexicra nomadik,” he whispered twice in a row – and the most powerful spectral demons he could summon entered the two shopkeepers.

  It sapped his reserves by half, but the shopkeepers’ eyes immediately clouded over with black.

  “Gentlemen, I’m going to need my money back,” Eric said softly. “In fact, I’m going to need ALL your money.”

  The two shopkeepers stared at him with blank faces, then gathered up the diamonds and emeralds and handed them over.

  He would have gotten away with it, too, but a nearby merchant saw what was going on and immediately started screaming, “The human possessed them! He’s ROBBING them!”

  Oh shit –

  “Pertos inumbilx!” Eric shouted, and a scorpion-like demon burst out of the air and engulfed the merchant’s face.

  Down the hallway, several merchants’ hands glowed – and then blasts of light and heat shattered stones in the column next to Eric’s head.

  He ducked down and began screaming, “Sabatos vitolik! Peratoz otomnix! Vulpist anostika! Hstero myklexinot!”

  The central aisle of the Dark Market filled with rampaging nightmares, scything and slashing and biting their way through the merchants.

  The air filled with screams and explosions of heat and light.

  Eric looked up. The two merchants he had possessed were standing there, blank-faced, oblivious to the carnage around them.

  “FIGHT THEM!” Eric screamed.

  The two merchants suddenly wheeled around, determination and rage on their faces, and began throwing spells through the air – lightning strikes, ice daggers, rays of black energy.

  They took down five other merchants with the element of surprise before all the shopkeepers concentrated their attacks on them.

  Eric suddenly saw the way forward to victory.

  “Vexicra nomadik!” he whispered, over and over again, picking his targets by sight.

  A merchant fifty feet away would convulse, his eyes darken – and then begin attacking his fellow dark mages. By the time they took him down, another would get possessed and start up the battle again.

  Not to mention the murderous creatures that stormed down the aisle.

  The extra mana and faster regeneration worked wonders. Eric was able to counterattack just seconds after depleting his entire supply.

  Three minutes later, it was all over.

  Eric stood up and peered through whirls of smoke that filled the air.

  Blood dripped from the stone walls. Bodies gasped and wheezed before falling silent. Chunks of rock tumbled from the damaged arches of the catacombs.

  He walked down the hallway, surveying the damage.

  No one was left alive, except for a couple of possessed merchants who stood there obediently, black-eyed and waiting. Plus the orc manning the door, who had watched the entire thing go down without lifting one green finger.

  “Get me all the money in this place… and any dark objects worth a damn,” Eric commanded the two possessed merchants.

  They hurried to obey his command.

  Ten minutes later, they plunked down several clanking, jingling bags of money and dark artifacts – way more than he could carry himself.

  “You – carry these,” Eric ordered the orc.

  The monster bent over and shouldered the bags like a green, warty version of Santa Claus.

  Where to put them, though?

  Eric looked around – and saw the answer in his own hand.

  Merridack’s staff.

  The thief is gone… but his den’s still there.

  “Follow me,” he commanded the two mages and the orc.

  Twenty minutes of slogging through the sewers and they arrived at their destination.

  He banged on the iron door.

  The viewing slot opened up, and Big Ears peered out in utter shock.

  “What are you doing here?!” Then he saw what was in Eric’s hand. “And what are you doing with that?!”

  Eric didn’t even bother answering him. Not directly, anyway.

  “Vexicra nomadik,” he said, and black smoke burst snaked through the viewport.

  Big Ear’s
eyes immediately clouded over with black.

  “Now open up,” Eric said.

  The bolt clanged on the other side, and the door groaned open on its rusty hinges.

  Eric thought about walking through first. He was reasonably sure that all of Merridack’s men had been up there on the roof.

  But just in case there were any nasty surprises waiting on the other side…

  “You,” he said to the orc. “Go in there and kill anybody who tries to hurt you.”

  The orc bent over to fit through the doorway and stumbled into the room.

  Eric had been right: no one but Big Ears was inside.

  He had the orc and mages unload the loot on the floor. It was a veritable treasure trove of magical objects, gold coins, and jewels – but the thought of treasure brought up another memory.

  The quest… damn it…

  He had to get back to the real world and grab some sleep before Daniel woke up.

  Why even GO on a quest? We probably couldn’t even get as much of a haul as I did just now.

  He thought for a second, then decided he was still going. It was important to Daniel, so it was important to him.

  There was no way he could tell Daniel about what happened here tonight, though.

  He just wouldn’t understand.

  Eric looked over at Big Ears, who was standing by the still-open door. Eric had never said to shut it, so the guy never had.

  What to do with him?

  On the one hand, he didn’t know how long the demon would possess him. The orc’s malevolent spirit had stuck around, but that had just been a matter of hours. What about days, or weeks?

  He also couldn’t exactly leave the guy alone in here. What if he woke up?

  Bye-bye gold and diamonds, that’s what.

  On the other hand, he needed somebody to stay in here to open the door up.

  …or did he?

  “You,” he said, pointing to one of the possessed merchants. “Can you enchant this door so it will only open and close at my command?”

  “Of course,” the mage said, and spoke a few guttural words. Then he nodded at Eric as though to say, Go ahead.

  “Close,” Eric said.

  The door slammed shut and the bolt shot into place.

  “Open,” he said.