Dragon Web Online: Dominion: A LitRPG Adventure Series (Electric Shadows Book 2)

by S. R. Witt

  His face had wrinkled into an angry mask, so I killed the word before he killed me.

  “Before I could deliver your critical message.”

  I pulled the blood-splattered envelope from the pocket inside my cloak and slapped it on the pew between us.

  “Interesting.” The old man scooped the envelope up and turned it over between his fingers. He sniffed it and shook his head. He flicked his fingers, and the blood-stained envelope vanished as if it’d never existed. “The goblins attacked the merchant’s home and killed him?”

  Thinking back, that’s not how it went down at all. We’d been coming down the hill when I saw them. Then Bastion attacked, and we were losing the fight when Indira…

  “No, they weren’t coming after the merchant until after he started crying for help. They were heading for Frosthold. I know it.

  “The wizard who showed up was packing serious firepower and claimed her guild master had sent her to stop an invasion.”

  His bushy eyebrows shot up. “An invasion? That’s impossible.”

  “Are we back to the part where you call me a liar? Because that isn’t my favorite part.”

  The old man drummed his fingers on the back of the pew in front of us. “It makes no sense. There hasn’t been an incursion by the nightspawn since the Screaming Wars. The Dragon Web keeps them on the other side of…”

  His words tumbled around in my head like a bunch of croutons rattling around an empty bowl. I understood each of them, individually, but all together they were a syllable salad tossed with a nonsense vinaigrette.

  “…thanks to the Burning—”

  “Throne? The Burning Throne?” I latched onto the familiar words. “The Hoaldites were talking about finding the key to that while they made me pick locks for them.”

  The old guy was full of surprises. Before my brain registered his movement, I was lying in the aisle that ran down the center of the Sanctuary with a bruised skull and aching spine. He crouched on my chest and pushed all of the air out of my lungs with his bony knee. “What do you know of the Hoaldites?”

  Oops. Probably should have kept that secret a little closer to my vest.

  His eyes burrowed into mine. “What do you know about them?”

  There was something in his stare that made me bite my tongue before a lie could leak out. If I wanted to have any future with the Shadows, it was time to come clean.

  Besides, the Hoaldites were dicks and screwing up their plans could only help me get out from under their thumbs. “When I first came to Frosthold…”

  The Grandfather helped me to my feet as I unspooled the whole sordid story. How I’d stolen some crappy starting gear from the donation box at the Temple of Hoald and gotten caught red-handed. I spilled the beans on my little side trip to pick locks in the temple and the appearance of the evil priestess. “…and that’s why I didn’t come straight here and tell you about the invasion. You know how those priests are when it comes to thieves.”

  The Grandfather said nothing. His gaze burrowed into my skull and I swear he rifled through my thoughts as easily as I’d picked the pockets of the newbs at the marketplace.

  He helped me to my feet and clasped my shoulders. “This is all happening much faster than planned.”

  I guess it’s not happening too fast for more of your cryptic old man speeches, though.

  “Want to fill me in on what’s happening too fast?”

  The Grandfather motioned for me to take a seat at the front of the Sanctuary. He stalked back and forth before the altar, head bowed, hands clasped behind his back. He stopped for a moment, as if he about to speak, then dropped his head and went back to pacing.

  I’d had enough for one day. My hands hurt from all the lock picking. My stomach hurt from getting punched by a Templar with a bad attitude. My back and skull felt like someone had used them for heavy metal xylophone practice. I was exhausted, body and mind.

  “You’re going to wear a hole in the floor if you don’t stop pacing.” The old man shot me an annoyed look, but I didn’t care. I was sick of being bossed around and treated like an ignorant lackey. “Go on. Spill it.”

  There was a moment when I thought he was going to stick his finger in my eye, through my brain, and out the back of my head. I’m pretty sure he could have done it with about as much effort as it took me to stomp on a bug.

  I still think he wanted to do it.

  But he didn’t kill me. He laughed.

  “I’ll tell you what I can, but even I don’t understand everything.”

  The pews were uncomfortable, but I did my best to get comfy for a long speech. The Grandfather raised an eyebrow when I put my feet up on the altar rail, leaned back, and cradled the back of my head in my interlaced fingers. It was obvious he didn’t approve of my disrespectful posture, but he didn’t get snippy about it, either.

  He took a deep breath and dove into his history lesson. “At the end of the last Screaming War…”

  I cleared my throat. “The short version.”

  His eyes narrowed into angry slits, and then he shook his head and laughed. “I’ll see if I can compress this for your diminutive attention span. There have been three great conflicts between the nightspawn and the rest of us. The Screaming Wars, as they were known, devastated Invernoth.”

  If I was getting lectured, I might as well ask a few questions. “Why did they call them that?”

  Pleased for an excuse to dig deep into his bag of lore, the Grandfather nodded and plunged into an explanation. “Magic infuses all of Invernoth. It flows through hidden channels like great jade rivers beneath the earth. All magi and priests, though the so-called holy men deny this truth and claim their power comes from elsewhere, draw upon this magic when they cast their spells or perform their occult rituals.

  “This power is known as mana, and its manipulation requires implements of power, specific gestures, and incantations in secret languages.

  “During the Screaming Wars, the magi and priests of both sides drank deeply of this mana. Their incantations burst from them in roars and—”

  “Screams,” I finished.

  He nodded and raised a finger to add, “Correct. But it was not only their voices that screamed. The very world screamed with them until their spells shattered it.

  “At the end of the first war, the Spellswords of El-Aljaiha performed a ritual so mighty it entombed the entire army of the dragon Incaruloeth the Diseased.

  “But when the foul army sank beneath the waves, it took with it the kingdom of El-Aljaiha. At a stroke, the greatest heroes of man and the darkest enemies of mankind were gone from Invernoth.

  “And the war ended.”

  SUCCESS! You have learned the rudiments of the Lore: Screaming War skill. (Rank 1)

  The story of the second Screaming War was more of the same. Some asshole nightspawn kicked off a nasty tussle. Big heroes rose up to face off against even bigger enemies. They second time around the bad guys were led by a dragon named Harlugosk the Vile.

  The good guys won, natch, but a whole continent went missing at the end of that little dustup.

  Blah blah blah, three hundred years of peace.

  And then round three really got the party started.

  “After seeing the hellish damage caused by Harlugosk during the Second Screaming War, the immortal dragons vowed never again to participate in the endless conflict between the forces of light and the armies of the dark.

  “But as the Third Screaming War dragged on, they were left with little choice. The great forests of the elves had burned. The dwarven mines overflowed with horrors that shattered the minds of all who laid eyes upon them. The Kingdoms of Gold were torn asunder, and their temples were thrown down.

  For three days, neither the sun nor the moon rose into the skies above Invernoth.

  To save Invernoth from destroying itself, the dragons stepped into the fray.

  “They drew the territories of light and darkness and separated them one from another with veils of magic.
They created the Dragon Web to contain these regions and prevent their inhabitants from crossing into the lands of their enemies.”

  With that, the Grandfather swept an arm toward the ceiling of the Sanctuary. There, hidden beneath years of cobwebs and candle soot, was an enormous map. A complex network of lines divided into distinct sections. At the center of each region, crouched on the vertices of the lines that made up the web, were pale circles.

  “Within each territory, the dragons placed a seat of power. The thrones were connected to the great lines of power beneath Invernoth’s surface. Whoever sat upon the throne ruled the territory, and held it safe against all invaders.”

  Which sounded great, but I knew there was more to the story. “Until?”

  “Until the dragons died.”

  There was something he wasn’t telling me. “How is that possible? If they were so powerful that they could divide up the whole world and keep people from fighting, what could possibly kill them all?”

  The Grandfather tapped his index finger against his chin. He paced. Tapped his chin. He paced some more. “That is a subject of some debate. No one knows what killed the great dragons. But we do know that all of the dragons are dead.”

  Something didn’t make sense. “If the dragons all got croaked, how is the Dragon Web still keeping the bad guys away from the good guys?”

  The Grandfather smiled at the question. “All things are built from magical patterns. The Dragon Web is no different. Though its creators have passed from this plane, their grand design remains. It is powered by primal threads woven from its pattern into the mana streams of Invernoth.”

  That was a lot to swallow all in one go. “Patterns? Threads? I don’t understand.”

  He leaned against the edge of the pew and asked, “Do you trust me?”

  There was something in his words that made me pause before I answered. He wasn’t telling me something, but I didn’t know what. He didn’t blink, and he didn’t say anything else. Fine. “Yes.”

  “Then it’s time you saw the world for what it really is.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Grandfather’s ominous words faded away and a quest message swam into view.

  LEARNING TO DIE

  The Grandfather of Shadows has offered to show you the truth behind the world of Invernoth. Will you accept this quest?

  REWARD: 2,000 XP

  DIFFICULTY: Advanced

  That wasn’t very informative. The old man watched me with his hawk’s eyes until I cracked and accepted the quest. “Fine. Teach me, senpai.”

  The Grandfather reached out and pressed the first three fingers of his left hand against my chest. “Die.”

  A jolt of purest cold speared through me. My lungs seized up, and my heart shuddered to a stop. The edges of my vision turned black and shrank down into a terrifyingly narrow tunnel.

  The strength fled my limbs and I slithered out of the pew and onto the cold stone floor. The me inside my flesh tried to pry itself loose from the moorings of my body, eager to flee from the creeping numbness stealing through me.

  Son of a bitch.

  The Grandfather was killing me.

  I fought back against whatever he’d done to me. The Grandfather’s power pressed against my heart and clouded my thoughts with fear. Death’s bat wings fluttered around the edges of my vision, ready to embrace me and haul my ass off into the great beyond.

  And then, without warning, I was staring down at my body from the Sanctuary’s highest point. My body was shadowy and indistinct. But at the center of that motionless, miasmic mass glowed an effulgent pattern. Six spheres of fire joined together by crisscrossing lines of blinding energy, sat where my heart should be. Three smaller, but no less brilliant, orbs floated around the perimeter.

  Hair fine threads of glimmering energy flowed from each of the spheres of my pattern and into the world.

  What the hell is that? Curiosity was what had killed this cat, but my dying mind still couldn’t stop asking questions.

  “That’s you.” The Grandfather’s voice rang in my head. I didn’t know if I was more shocked that he was in my head or that he’d heard my thoughts. “At least, the part of you that matters. That part exists beyond life and interfaces with the truth behind the veil you’ve been trained to see.”

  Despite the panic brought on by my impending demise, I couldn’t tear my eyes off the what formed around me. It was like seeing the world for the very first time.

  Everything around me had a pattern, a glowing construct just below the surface that defined every aspect of its existence in this reality. Every person, every candlestick, every mote of dust had, at its heart, the same glowing spheres. The threads of mana flowing away from them connected them all to a great, throbbing network and through it to one another.

  That’s when I realized my pattern was different. The threads leaking out of my spheres had narrow gaps in their lengths. I wasn’t connected to anything.

  Another question bubbled up from the depths of my panicked mind. What is wrong with my threads?

  The old man chuckled. “You’re dead. As long as you stay dead, your threads are severed from the Dragon Web.”

  But if I was dead, I shouldn’t be able to think. Or look at my body far below me. Or hear the Grandfather’s words.

  All of this had to be a trick. My health bar was gray, but it was still full. The pain I’d felt had faded, and I saw no system messages alerting me to my demise.

  It couldn’t be real. It had to be another one of the old man’s sneaky tricks.

  The instant I realized I’d been fooled, my mind rushed back into my body. The world regained its colors, and the shadowed gray tones seeped away. The patterns I’d seen faded back into the objects they defined.

  A series of distinct snaps ran through my core. My threads were once again whole.

  And, just like that, it was over. I got back to my feet. Ha. Take that old man.

  The Grandfather frowned at me. “It’s as I feared. You’ve learned nothing.”

  My jaw dropped. A quick look at my quest log revealed the Learning to Die mission was still open. What the hell did he want from me? “Letting you kill me wasn’t high on my list of things to do today.”

  The Grandfather waved my protest away with a dismissive flick of his fingers. “You would not have died. At least not permanently. If you cannot trust me to guide you, what can I possibly teach you?”

  This old man was the most infuriating NPC I’d ever encountered. Why couldn’t he just hand over juicy quests and straightforward bits of game lore like every other trainer and guild master?

  That would be too easy. With this guy, everything had to be a riddle or puzzle for me to break my brain trying to decipher. “I’m getting a little tired of all the tricks and pointless parables.”

  “And I’m getting a little tired of trying to teach valuable lessons to an ingrate.”

  The Grandfather stalked away from me, his tattered cloak trailing behind him like a cloud of angry ravens.

  I called after him. “You won’t tell me the rest of the bedtime story because I didn’t play dead long enough for you?”

  The Grandfather looked at me over his shoulder. He seemed to consider my plea for a moment and then said, “If you can touch me with your stiletto, I’ll consider telling you the rest.”

  Great. We were back to the catching a fly with chopsticks routine. The old man was faster than anyone I’d ever encountered and twice as sneaky. There was no way I’d be able to walk up and stick him with my dagger.

  I shrugged my shoulders in defeat and headed toward the exit. “I’m not playing your stupid game.”

  I didn’t look back, but I heard the faint rustle of the Grandfather’s approach and felt his hand land on my shoulder. “You see? This is why—”

  Without hesitation, I spun on one heel and whipped my cloak up between us to conceal my dirty trick. My right hand followed the gesture, snatching a dagger from above my left hip and driving it up with all t
he speed and strength I could muster.

  The silver stiletto punched into his chest with a sound like cracking ice.

  CRITICAL HIT!

  Opponent’s lung is punctured!

  Your opponent is bleeding severely (50/second)

  Duration: 1 minute

  The Grandfather’s hand closed around the stiletto jutting from his chest, and he sagged to his knees. His face took on an ashen pallor. His lips quivered as they turned pale blue. He opened his mouth and staggered away from me.

  His legs folded up and he crashed to the floor.

  Holy shit.

  I rushed to the old man’s side. He’d driven me half insane with his rambling and his irritating tests, but I didn’t want to kill him. I hadn’t even thought it was possible to murder the old guy. That’s what I got for getting mad instead of just doing what he asked. What the hell was wrong with me?

  I grabbed him by the shoulder and flipped him onto his back, checking to see how severe the injury was. Maybe I hadn’t killed him. Maybe he was tougher than he looked.

  The Grandfather jabbed my stiletto under my chin hard enough to draw a drop of blood. “You see? The Shadow Death is a useful talent to master.”

  In my surprise, I was helpless. The Grandfather grabbed the front of my armor and flipped me onto my back. He straddled me and kept my dagger pressed against my throat.

  “You cheated,” I croaked.

  “Did I?” The old man asked with a grin. “I merely showed you why it is important to listen to me. The Shadow Death is no small trick.”