Temple of Sorrow: A LitRPG and GameLit Adventure (Stonehaven League Book 1)

by Carrie Summers

  Nice, two hits. Of course, Flamestrike gobbled mana. Her pool was down by a quarter and she still had one boar left. Shouldn’t be a problem, as long as—

  A roar cut off her inner dialog. Where the first boar had fallen, some sort of mutated crocodile thing stepped into the street. Its head was almost as big as a compact car.

  Devon focused on the newcomer, using her Combat Assessment.

  Corrupted Croc - Level 17

  What are you, crazy?

  “Well, crap,” she cursed. She tried Flamestrike anyway, tier 1 so she didn’t waste mana. It washed over the croc’s scales and fizzled.

  All right, so this wasn’t going to be easy. Not a solo mission, anyway. Time to cut her losses and return once her followers could heal.

  She turned to run.

  And saw why the streets had been so quiet. The corrupted creatures hadn’t been ignoring her. They’d simply fallen in behind her. Filling the alleys and streets between her and the jungle, an army of oversized, red-eyed creatures stood growling. In front, some sort of condor thing with a wingspan wider than a four-lane freeway flapped into the sky. With a shriek, it dove.

  Desperate, Devon cast Freeze on the bird. It plummeted to the ground and blew a crater in the street. The ice shattered in a glittering explosion of shards.

  The bird climbed slowly to its feet, favoring a wing. But it continued to advance.

  The condor shrieked again, and the corrupted army charged.

  Devon burned through her mana, casting Flamestrike as fast as her cooldown allowed. She took down another two beasts before they were on her, ripping her to shreds with talons and beaks and claws.

  The pain was like nothing she’d ever experienced. And then it was over.

  You gain special attribute points: +2 Bravery.

  You were slain by a Corrupted Parrot.

  Respawning…

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  DEVON AND HEZBEK both shrieked when Devon respawned in Hezbek’s cot, awakening with an arm and a leg tossed over the woman. Hezbek jerked upright, shoving Devon onto the splintering wood floor of Hezbek’s newly built home.

  “I—codswallop but you scared me, girl,” Hezbek said once she’d collected her wits.

  Devon coughed, shaken by her death and the unexpected situation at respawn. “I guess we forgot to reset my bind point.” She glanced toward the window where wooden shutters had been closed and latched. Evening light still leaked through the cracks. “You’re in bed early.”

  “When you’re my age, child, I might give you license to comment on my sleep habits. But for your information, I’m taking a nap. Or rather, I was.”

  “Sorry,” Devon muttered as she stood.

  Hezbek’s brows drew together. “Are you all right? I guess you died.”

  Devon ran a hand through her hair then patted her body. The vest was still on, as were her hide pants. She laid a hand on her hip; the dagger was still there, too. Pulling up her message log, she saw a notification informing her that between levels 10 and 20, her items would suffer durability loss at death. She wondered what happened after level 20 but decided that didn’t matter right now.

  “I got in a little over my head, I guess you could say.”

  Hezbek chuckled. “Well, I’d like to hope that won’t happen again, but maybe we ought to figure out a new bind location.”

  “How about at the Shrine to Veia?” Devon’s legs shook as she stood. The death—or more precisely, the events leading to it—had rattled her hard. There must’ve been a hundred mobs lined up against her. How in the hell was she supposed to deal with that?

  Well, she’d have to think of something. With a deep breath, she opened the door. The medicine woman grabbed a small pouch of reagents and followed Devon out of her new cabin.

  Deld had finished the shrine while Devon had been away. It was a cute little tower of stone, the middle of the three blocks set on end. The top block had a small basin carved from the stone, now filled with rainwater from a shower in the afternoon.

  “The construction requirements said I needed to swear myself to Veia,” she said. “Any ideas?”

  Hezbek shrugged. “Do you believe in her?”

  “I… well, in a way, I suppose. I know she creates everything we experience here.”

  “Then why don’t you tell her that?”

  Devon swallowed and placed a hand on the shrine. “Your creation is… I’m not sure how you do it, Veia, but this is more than a game for me. You’ve created something I can believe in.”

  A yellow glow surrounded the shrine, motes of light falling away from it like fireflies.

  Congratulations! Your village now has a Shrine to Veia.

  Devon shrugged. That wasn’t too hard. She turned to Hezbek and nodded, and the medicine woman pulled out the reagents she needed for binding. After the spell casting was finished, Devon laid down in the grass. She needed some time to think about all this, come back fresh. If she could handle coming back after being torn apart like she had been outside the Temple of Sorrow. Emerson’s words echoed in her mind as she hovered her awareness over the logout button. Take a couple weeks off while I work on the pain thing. Right then, Devon was sorely tempted.

  ***

  It was midnight when Devon dragged a chair from the kitchen table out onto the balcony terrace of her apartment complex. Hearing the noise, a neighbor nudged open their curtain. Curious eyes peered out before the curtain was quickly drawn tight. With its cheap rent and crappy maintenance, the apartment complex wasn’t the sort of place where people put down roots. Devon didn’t know her neighbors, and most likely, they didn’t want to know her. Sitting outside nursing a beer under the desert moon probably made her look pathetically friendless, but Devon didn’t really care. She needed time away from her couch to think.

  The quest for the relic, the strange purple temple, and the corrupted animals were related. They had to be. Sure, there was a minuscule chance that the quest lines led to different content, meaning she could blow off the corrupted animals quest and still find the Greenscale Pendant without going back into that death trap. But she’d already explored the rest of the area, minus a few basements. Devon knew down in her gamer heart that awesome rewards weren’t given for conquering random mini-dungeons with no real danger to the player. The solution to both her main objectives lay in the Temple of Sorrow, but reaching it seemed impossible.

  She took another swig of beer, which was rapidly getting warm in her hand. Down in the parking lot, tires crunched as an autocab dropped off a pair of drunken college students. In the distance, she heard the hum of tires over the freeway. And somewhere, far beyond the sprawl of stuccoed homes, a pack of coyotes yipped. She’d been spending so much time in game lately that the sounds of the desert and city seemed like the imaginary world. The chirring of insects and cacophony of jungle birds was more natural than this. That might have bothered some people, but it didn’t get to her. Whether the reality she chose to inhabit existed on computer servers somewhere, or whether it lay in this city built atop red soil and frozen lava rock didn’t really matter.

  What was important was the kind of person she played in that reality. As much as she wanted to take Emerson up on his offer, she simply couldn’t abandon Stonehaven to the disasters that would befall it without her. Which meant she had to find a way to do the impossible. She had to make her way through the sprawl of ruins, either by wits or by her blade, and she needed to take down whatever dwelt in that temple. The question was, how?

  As unachievable as the quest seemed, she didn’t actually believe the game would give her an assignment she couldn’t complete. As a level 10 sorcerer, it might be impossible. But she wasn’t just a sorcerer. Somehow, her unique class and attributes were key to her mission. Aside from her panic during the fight with the spider swarm, she’d avoided using her lightning shadow. But, thinking back to the effectiveness against both the horde of spiders and the corrupted python that had resisted her
Flamestrike, she had the uncomfortable feeling that her lightning-based Shadow Puppets were her strongest advantage. They worked on a wide area and didn’t seem to take damage as easily as her moon- and sun-conjured puppets.

  So how could she use them without incapacitating herself whether by pain or by sheer damage?

  During the fight with a python, the lightning damage had been unbearable. She’d theorized the wet ground had conducted electricity back to her, and her battle on dry stone with the spider horde seemed to confirm it. But even then, she’d been shocked in the lower legs. Which meant the damage definitely came from the floor.

  As the solution came to her, she shook her head. It had been staring her in the face for days, but the pain response had made her too afraid to even mess with her greatest power.

  Tomorrow would be different. She stood and dragged her chair back inside. Best to rest up, because she doubted she’d spend much time logged out until the Greenscale Pendant belonged to the Stonehaven League.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  DEVON LOGGED IN to the sound of the stream and the kiss of a light breeze on her skin. Slanted sun rays lit the little meadow around the shine. She laid an affectionate hand on the shrine as she stepped past it and hopped over the brook to begin her day.

  She visited Gerrald in the crafting workshop first. The leatherworker grinned when she entered.

  “Are you finally ready to replace that snakeskin vest?” he asked. “I’ve been hoping...”

  Devon didn’t let her relief show. She had been worried about hurting the man’s feelings.

  “My skills have advanced to the point I could use an upgrade,” she said tactfully. “How has your work on armoring the rest of the tribe been going?”

  She’d noticed scattered pieces of leather armor appearing on the villagers. Though she hoped they’d never have to fight, it was nice to know they were better protected.

  The man nodded and flipped open a ledger. She squinted at his chicken scratch but couldn’t make any sense of it.

  “I’m afraid I can’t read this script,” she said.

  Gerrald chuckled. “No, you wouldn’t be able to. The guildmasters in Eltera City were concerned about others discovering our trade secrets. They invented a special alphabet for us to use. In any case, I’ve outfitted around two-thirds of the villagers in armor pieces they have the expertise to wear. I’m happy to continue…” he said, eyeing her now-ragged leggings and vest. They’d taken quite a beating with her death and were now down to about 40% durability.

  “Eventually I’d like that, but first, I need a set of the best gear you can make.”

  “Veia be praised,” the man said, stepping to a chest that had been built into the wall during the workshop’s construction. Curious, Devon peered in as he lifted the top. An inventory screen representing the chest’s contents sprang up in her vision.

  Chest:

  27 x Heavy Leather

  43 x Medium Leather

  17 x Light Leather

  13 x Leather Strap

  10 x Sabertooth Scales

  102 x Sinew

  10 x Polished Moss Agate

  “The agate… Did that come from Dorden?”

  Gerrald nodded. “I wasn’t supposed to say anything. I haven’t yet worked out how to incorporate the stones, but I feel like increased skill will help me understand how to embed them into equipment, which I believe will grant bonuses much like the runes I engrave.”

  Devon smiled. She’d granted Dorden rights to the agate without expecting anything in return. It seemed, though, that his loyalty now lay with the league as much as his clan.

  “I need the most armor value you can add, and as many pieces as you think I have the skill to wear while still moving gracefully. You’ve done an excellent job with your enchantments. Add what you can there. And when you’re finished, I’d like you to do the same for Bayle and Falwon.”

  The man gave a little salute. “I’ll begin this afternoon.”

  “I’ll be sending Dorden your way as well. Most of the dwarves’ armor is chain and plate, but many of the pieces are held on with leather straps. Please repair what you can for them.”

  “As you say, Your Gloriousness,” he said in a cheerful voice as he started digging through a tool chest. Devon smiled to herself as she slipped out the door. Even NPCs must get bored grinding out the same low-level items over and over to skill up. She hoped the chance to craft some items of higher difficulty would refresh him enough that he’d be able to finish the townsfolk’s armor without losing too much morale.

  “How long do you think it will take?”

  Gerrald already had a pair of leather shears in one hand, a length of strap in the other. The strap flapped against his face when he raised a hand to scratch his head. “One and a half or two days, I’d say. I swear it will be as fast as someone of my skill can go.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” she said. “When you’re finished, you’ll likely find me at the edge of camp practicing some of my own skills. Otherwise, I’ll be resting near the shrine.”

  ***

  Devon summoned a Glowing Orb and stuck it to a tree. While her mana refilled, she sprinted to the village perimeter and back. When the purple mana bar flashed a last regeneration pulse, she dismissed the Glowing Orb and cast it again. Finally, after an hour of creating the balls of light, not only had she leveled her Sprint skill up to 8, she finally got the notification for her next tier in the spell.

  You have learned a new spell: Glowing Orb - Tier 3

  Cost: 15 mana

  You may create up to three separate orbs, and you can attach each to a different object or surface. You must really like this spell.

  Finally. Before moving to the next phase of her preparations, she pulled up her character sheet. She’d gained 3 levels without spending attribute points, wanting to think about where to assign them after confronting some more challenging situations. The Temple of Sorrow certainly qualified. Staring at the attributes section, she assigned 1 point to Constitution—she would have added more if not for the +3 she gained from her daily helping of Stonehaven Scramble—3 to Focus, 6 to Charisma, and 2 to Intelligence. The results looked like this:

  Character: Devon (click to set a different character name)

  Level: 10

  Base Class: Sorcerer

  Specialization: Unassigned

  Unique Class: Deceiver

  Health: 223/223

  Mana: 375/391

  Fatigue: 16%

  Her attributes window now showed this:

  Attributes:

  Constitution: 19

  Strength: 11

  Agility: 16

  Charisma: 33

  Intelligence: 26

  Focus: 16

  Endurance: 12

  Special Attributes:

  Bravery: 7

  Cunning: 4

  Available Points: 0

  Now, to get fancy.

  Devon chose three trees spaced around twenty paces apart. She checked the spell description for Levitate.

  Spell: Levitate - Tier 1

  Cost: 35 mana

  Duration: 5 minutes or loss of concentration

  You float a few inches off the ground.

  - +10 intimidation against creatures of low intelligence.

  - Cushions falls under two stories height, eliminating falling damage.

  - Movement speed reduced to 62%.

  When she cast the ability the first time, her head swam as gravity gave up some of its hold and other forces pushed upward. She clenched her jaw until she got used to the sensation then focused on the first of the three trees. With a mental twist, she summoned a Glowing Orb and attached it to the trunk. Next, she turned to the second tree. When she tried to walk towards it, her feet paddled the empty air. Hmm. That wasn’t going to work.

  After some experimentation, she found that if she focused on the ground and imagined herself gliding over it, she began
to move. It took a few minutes to get the technique dialed, but eventually, she reached the next tree. She cast another Glowing Orb and stuck it to the bark. Finally, she focused on the third tree and began the slow process of getting herself there. A third orb appeared on the trunk, and she returned to where she’d started. Her mana had almost refilled by the time she reached the first tree, and she only had to wait a minute or two before dispelling the ball of lightning and replacing it.

  “Four down, what, three thousand to go?” she muttered aloud. Man, she hated grinding. But she hated failing quests and losing out to other players much more. She turned toward the next tree.

  Seventeen hours and thirty-seven in-game minutes later, Devon received a notification.

  You have learned a new spell: Glowing Orb – Tier 4:

  Cost: 42 mana

  You can create up to six orbs at once! (why?)

  In the intervening time, she’d also leveled up her levitation, getting the notification:

  You have learned a new spell: Levitate - Tier 2

  Cost: 55 mana

  Duration: 10 minutes or loss of concentration

  You float a couple of feet off the ground.

  - +18 intimidation against creatures of low to medium intelligence.

  - Cushions falls under four stories height, eliminating falling damage.

  - Movement speed reduced to 75%.

  Though playing with levitation was now nearly as easy as walking, Devon dispelled the effect while testing her new Glowing Orb. She decorated six nearby trees with glowing balls of light and glanced down at the half-dozen resulting shadows. Funneling mana into them, she raised six Shadow Puppets from the jungle floor.