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

by S. R. Witt

  Jumping away from the approaching guards, I shed the goblin cloak to reveal my much nicer armor and much more handsome face. I was still covered in mud, but I didn’t look that much like a goblin. “Come with me if you want to live!”

  Look, I can’t help it. I’m a sucker for the old Terminator movies, and I wasn’t going to pass up a chance to use such an iconic line when it fit the situation.

  It worked, spurring them into action.

  Mercy, her hands bound in front of her, managed to pitch into the fight with surprising speed. None of the guards were looking at her, so she jumped into the air and drove both of her feet into the small of the nearest elite’s back. Her claws weren’t sharp or long enough to punch through his armor, but the impact knocked him off his feet. He sprawled in the mud and Mercy rode him to the ground. She jumped up and dropped both knees onto his shoulders. Before he could lift his head from the mud, her talons shot forward and latched onto either side of his neck. With a cruel twist of her wrists, still bound by thick cords, she shredded the sides of his throat and removed all the important bits carrying blood to his brain and oxygen to his lungs.

  The elite flopped around under Mercy, but he was already dead.

  The enraged goblin guard didn’t stop coming after me to mourn his dead companion. He stomped and swung his massive scimitar like a farmer scything wheat.

  His first stroke missed me by inches, but a passing goblin soldier wasn’t so lucky. The poor bastard never saw it coming. One second he was on his way to take a dump, scrounge up some tasty rat meat, or whatever it is goblins do in their downtime, the next an oversized scimitar ripped through his armor and emptied his torso like a watermelon dropped from the top of a ten-story building. Distracted by this new target, the elite proceeded to stomp the eviscerated corpse into a bloody paste.

  Even the other elite guards paused for a moment to watch as the berserk brute completely lost his shit.

  Apparently, enraged wasn’t something they saw every day.

  An idea occurred to me, and I darted forward and nicked the back of the berserker’s left leg. Not enough to cause serious damage, just enough to get his attention.

  The goblin roared, deciding he’d much rather have live prey than keep on stomping a corpse into muddy goo. His enormous scimitar swept after me as he returned to the chase, ripping through the side of a tent and scattering goblins like chickens running from a fox.

  Too late, the other elites realized what I was doing. I charged right between them.

  The enraged goblin came after me. He didn’t care who he killed or how. He kept right on swinging that big ol’ sword and kicking anyone who got too close, occasionally lashing out with an unarmed fist if anyone was stupid enough to get within range.

  The resulting carnage was even more spectacular than I’d hoped. Out of his mind with pain and near death, the enraged elite cleaved another elite in half and punted a goblin soldier into the gathering crowd.

  That set off a confused chain reaction, and the goblins turned on one another in a crazed attempt to keep from getting killed. Too stupid to just stop fighting and run, the camp was soon engulfed in a bloody struggle for survival as panic and homicidal mania spread through their ranks like wildfire.

  I stopped next to Mercy and sliced the ropes from around her wrists. I handed her a fallen goblin weapon and nodded toward Indira. “Get her loose, I’ll get Cringer.”

  We worked quickly. In a few seconds, the four of us were on the run.

  It wouldn’t be long before the rest of the goblins figured out what had happened, but the mass melee gave us a head start. Maybe it would be enough to let us survive.

  We ran as fast as could go. We were exhausted from our day, but fear and adrenaline gave us enough energy to keep going despite all that.

  We cleared the camp in record time, but our problems were far from over. Scouts responded to the alarms raised inside the camp, and our pursuers had finally figured out we’d slipped the noose. In a few more moments, we’d be trapped between the returning scouts and the army, and they’d pop us like zits.

  Then I saw our escape.

  The damage to the Crumbling Temple had spread to the land surrounding its crater. Cracks and crevasses opened all around us, and I spied a gap in the earth that looked wide enough to accommodate us, but also had a bottom I could see. The last thing I wanted to do was jump into an escape route only to discover it plunged a few thousand feet into the abyss.

  “There,” I shouted and pointed out the hiding spot to my friends, “get in there.”

  The others followed my lead without hesitation. We slid off the snowy earth and into the trench, dropping five feet to its cold bottom. We hunched over to keep our heads below ground level and followed the channel away from the camp.

  The goblins raced across the ground behind us, screeching and hollering. Their torches cast a bloody glow over the snow, but they hadn’t seen us drop into the trench.

  If our luck held, we’d get out of there.

  But, of course, it didn’t.

  The trench we were running through suddenly descended and curved back toward the camp. We couldn’t risk popping up out of the ground and running into the army, so we just kept on keeping on.

  The crack narrowed until we were forced to run single file, our shoulders scraping against the earthen walls, and our knees banged against the occasional outcropping. Our flight became a bruising stumble, and I wondered how long it would be before the walls narrowed to an impassable crevice and we had to turn back.

  Knock it off with the pessimism, I warned myself. People depended on me to lead them out of this mess. I was the ruler of freakin’ Frosthold, after all. This was a good plan, and it would get us through this mess. I just knew it.

  Then the goblins found us.

  They dropped screaming into the trench behind us. A thrown spear stabbed into the earth ahead of me. The little bastards weren’t great shots, but the goblins would get our range soon enough.

  We ran, and Indira shouted a spell that threw light and heat in every direction. I couldn’t see what she’d done, but I smelled singed flesh and burning hair. From the sound of our pursuers, she hadn’t killed many of them, but she’d certainly given them something to think about.

  And then things got even worse.

  Cracks appeared in the trench’s walls. A familiar, noxious scent leaked from them. “Gas!”

  We scrambled to get out of the trench. The walls were high, but so close together even Cringer managed to wedge himself in between them and climb toward the surface. The choking reek of the gas grew stronger as we climbed, a terrifying reminder of how close we’d come to dying the last time we ran into it.

  I clawed my way out of the trench, threw myself prone, then turned around to grab Cringer and haul him out of the trench. Indira and Mercy scrambled up from the earth and joined us on the snow. The goblins raced into the narrow portion of the channel, screaming with rage when they realized we’d gone up instead of forward. With any luck, a bunch of them would die before they realized they were standing in a cloud of poison gas.

  But that wouldn’t stop the rest of the goblin army. Hundreds of them were screaming across the plains, torches held high and weapons flashing. In a few minutes, they’d reach us, and it would all be over.

  Unless…

  We’d run into gas cracks in the Temple and out here on the plans. That suggested the whole area was riddled with them and there was a whole lot of gas beneath our feet.

  I pointed down the trench. “Indira, can you cast a delayed fire spell? Something that will ignite in a few seconds?”

  “Of course I can,” she said from beneath the hooded cloak she’d picked up somewhere during her escape from the temple. Everyone’s gotta have a souvenir, I guess.

  She wove a small pattern in the air and filled it with mana. With a flick of her wrist, she dropped the spell into the trench.

  “Run!” I shouted and showed everyone what I meant by fleeing from the tr
ench as fast as my legs could carry me. The others followed me, putting as much distance between us and the trench as we could before Indira’s spell ignited.

  I slowed and risked a glance over my shoulder. Goblins crawled up out of the trench, howling and pointing their weapons in my direction. Had Indira’s spell failed or…

  A muffled thump sounded from deep within the earth. The snow jumped under us, flinging us off our feet and onto our bellies and backs. Violent tremors rocked the ground, making it impossible to stand.

  The dark sky above me caught fire. A billowing column of roaring flame rose into the air and curled into a towering mushroom that stung my eyes with the intensity of its light and tightened the skin against my skull with a wave of fierce heat.

  Indira crawled across the shaking ground toward me. The hood of her scavenged cloak was thrown back, and the light from the burning sky gave me a clear view of the elf for the first time since the Crumbling Temple. I couldn’t register what I saw. It was her, but it wasn’t. She’d changed, in so many ways.

  The ground jumped under us again, accompanied by the sound of great stones grinding together.

  The goblins chasing us vanished into a burning sinkhole that swallowed acres of land. The flames transformed tons of snow into a cloud of steam that billowed into the sky like a geyser.

  The rumbling went on for minutes that felt like hours. The sinkhole expanded, gobbling up snow and dirt at an alarming rate.

  My companions and I helped each other back to our feet when the tremors settled down enough to allow us to regain our balance.

  I looked out over what had been a snow-covered plain, and my jaw dropped in disbelief.

  The sinkhole we’d created by igniting the gas had expanded by miles. The network of cracks filled with highly flammable gas had become an enormous bomb. Unstable stones had shattered and fallen inward, revealing a massive hole filled with burning gas.

  The goblin army was gone.

  So was the Crumbling Temple.

  And everything in between those two points.

  If the temple was gone, then so was Corvus. And Yark. And Jarissa. And all their little cultist buddies.

  And Havelock.

  And Bastion.

  We’d won. But we’d lost so much in the process.

  The earth rumbled. From somewhere far below us, another explosion sounded. It rolled like thunder through the ground, vibrating up through the soles of my feet.

  Jagged cracks radiated away from the crater, new fissures opening in the earth as the fractured foundations of bedrock gave way.

  The earthquake split the world, and we ran, blind with panic.

  We fled the disaster until our legs were exhausted and we could go no further. I couldn’t tell if my friends were following me. I couldn’t tell where I was going.

  Exhausted, I flopped to the ground and watched as the earth shuddered and collapsed, leaving me stranded on an isolated butte of shivering snow.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  I stared over the edge of the jagged chunk of earth I was stranded on and saw nothing but fire below me. Waves of heat rushed up from the blazing depths, melting the snow at the butte’s edges. Smoke and steam poured into the night sky, obscuring everything behind their undulating waves.

  Standing seemed like a lot more effort than I was willing to put forth. I lay on my belly and watched the world burn. “Well, that was a little more extreme than I’d anticipated.”

  The Key hissed in the back of my brain. It sounded like an angry snake, looking to strike. “Now what, genius?”

  Great, the mighty Key had decided it was time to start giving me shit again. I dragged myself to my feet and paced the perimeter of my new domain. It was a little more than 10 steps on each of its three sides, a rough triangle isolated from the rest of the land around me by vast, steaming cracks in the earth. Two of the sides were raised above the land across the crevasses from them, but a towering pillar of earth overshadowed the third side.

  Jumping was out of the question. The smallest crevasse was twenty feet wide if it was an inch, and the largest was three times that size. I was trapped on a shuddering pillar of snow and earth, which could collapse under me at any moment.

  I’d come all this way, and I was about to get dumped into a burning cauldron beneath the earth. It was enough to make me want to punch something.

  Even if that something was me.

  A quest icon appeared at the corner of my vision, and I checked it. I needed some good news just then.

  QUEST SUCCESS: INFILTRATE THE GOBLIN ARMY

  Objective 1: Success! +1 Hide in Shadows skill

  Objective 2: Failed

  Objective 3: Success! +1500 experience points

  CONGRATULATIONS! You have ascended to Level 4!

  CHARACTER INFORMATION

  Saint, Human Thief, Level 4

  ABILITY SCORES: Strength: 10, Dexterity: 15, Endurance: 11, Intelligence: 13, Wisdom: 10, Charisma: 10

  HEALTH (Strength + Endurance + (Level x10)): 61

  MANA (Charisma + Wisdom + (Level x10)): 60

  SPEED (Intelligence + Dexterity + (Level x10)): 68

  TRAITS: Fast Learner, Adaptable, and Favored Class

  TALENTS: Weapon Affinity (Piercing, 1H), Friendly Fire, Shadow Magic

  SKILLS: Acrobatics: 1, Cartography: 6, Climb Walls: 5, Craft (Fletcher): 1, Detect Traps: 1, Disarm Traps: 1, Disguise: 1, Evade: 2, Foraging: 1, Herbalism: 1, Hide in Shadows: 9, Listen: 6, Lore (Noctivagant Incursion, Third Screaming War): 2, Lore (Screaming War): 1, Pick Locks: 15, Pick Pockets: 10, Search: 1, Spot: 3, Threadweaving: 2, Unarmed Combat: 2, Weapon (Bow): 2, Weapon (Piercing, 1H): 4, Weapon (Thrown): 1

  REPUTATIONS:

  Church of the Freehold: -10

  Law: 0 (-50 if revealed as a thief)

  Priests of Hoald: -10

  Shadow: -24

  Sisters of Merciful Fortune: -20

  Sunmurder: 1

  Villagers: 0 (-10 if revealed as a thief)]

  I had to give it to the devs for DWO. They made leveling an event. In other games, getting to Level 4 might take an afternoon, and the achievement would feel hollow. Here, I felt like I’d done something.

  Like killing bunch of bad guys. That goblin army was gone. My explosive trick had killed the whole host, wiping them out in a single blow. There might be a few stragglers here and there, but I doubted it. From the destruction around me and the soot raining from the sky, I was the only living thing for miles.

  Which meant I’d managed to kill my brother, my friends, and my enemies all in one day.

  I flopped down on the snow and hugged my knees to my chin. I wasn’t cold anymore, the air around me was warmed by the fires burning in the ground all around me, but I’d never been so alone.

  Karl was going to kill me the second I logged out of the game. I was actually surprised he hadn’t ripped me out of the game already, but he probably didn’t want to lose everything in one fell swoop. He’d wait for me to log out, see if I’d succeeded or failed in my quest, and then beat me bloody for being an idiot.

  It stung to admit it, but I’d kind of earned that beating.

  The Key roused itself. There’s no point in sitting around crying. You don’t even know everyone’s dead.

  “Are you going to suggest anything, or is bitching at me the only thing that brings you joy in this life?”

  That got me a nasty chuckle from the Key, but not much else. Clearly, it wasn’t in the mood to listen to anything I had to say.

  “Saint!” I heard Mercy cry from across the foggy wasteland. I couldn’t see her, but that didn’t mean much with all the steam and smoke in the air.

  “Over here!” I called back.

  Mercy peered over the edge of the pillar towering above mine. “How’s it look down there?”

  I shrugged. “Pretty crappy, honestly. I’m stranded.”

  She sat back on her haunches and shook her head. “Same.”

  “Well, look who it is.” Indira’s voice c
ame from the other side of my butte.

  Indira looked terrible, and with a shock, I realized she’d been the one who’d saved Bastion back in the Crumbling Temple. Her long, golden locks were gone. Her pale scalp was ridged with black veins, and one jagged horn curved up from a knot of blackened scar tissue on the left side of her skull. Her feathered cloak had burned down to become a cape of greasy ash, and her silk gown was riddled with scorched holes. Swaths of her naked skin were covered in black, flame-like patterns that undulated like living things.

  The elf spread her arms and turned once, giving me a clear view of my handiwork. “Like it?”

  It was hard to look at her, but I forced myself to meet her gaze. “What happened?”

  She smirked and showed me her hands. A perfect half-circle was branded into the flesh of each of her palms. “Your little plan happened. Even the Lens couldn’t contain all the power you pushed into it. When the artifact shattered, the power escaped into my pattern. It…changed me.”

  Cringer shuffled his feet next to Indira. He looked worse for the wear, but at least I hadn’t turned him into a monster. Half his beard was gone, and his eyebrows had been scorched off leaving him with a perpetually wide-eyed, surprised expression. He sketched a shaky wave in my direction, then let his hand fall to his side.

  “We lost all the loot,” Indira said.

  Not all of it, I thought to myself. Better if everyone thought we had left with nothing, than suspect I was holding out the only piece of good treasure we’d gotten our hands on. “Yeah. Sucks.”