by S. R. Witt
Corvus came in again. In her rage, there was no artistry, no finesse. She had no thought of defense, just a single roaring line of aggression.
It was her undoing.
She leaped into the air and swung her cruel weapon at my face. It was a blindingly fast attack, but it was also clumsy. I stepped back and to the side, and the scything attack screamed past my face with less than a handbreadth separating me from death.
Committed to her attack, Corvus spun and landed facing away from me. She’d expected to take my head off with that blow, and missing threw her off balance. Her sword was across her body, and she was half-crouched, out of position to defend herself.
I didn’t have time for anything fancy. I threw my weight forward and down, slamming both fists into the base of Corvus’ feathered skull.
The blow landed where her spine connected to her brain and drove her to the floor. I landed on her back and pinned her arms to her sides with my knees. She wriggled and writhed beneath me, spitting and cursing, her beak clacking with each sharp word. “You’re dead. There will be others. And they will not stop until you are dead.”
“Stop,” I commanded. “You don’t have to do this. We can work together against whoever’s forcing your hand.”
“You’re an idiot,” she snarled. “They’ll find you for this. Your brother, your mother, none of you are safe. They’re coming for you now.”
“Shut up!” I shouted. I grabbed her head between my hands and bounced it off the cold stone floor.
Her body went limp, consciousness fleeing.
I staggered to my feet and stumbled away from my fallen foe. The throne blazed a brilliant green, the fire shifting colors as light poured into the thick channels surrounding it. And then, a moment later, light flowed out from the throne, filling the narrower channels and rushed out of the chamber with a sizzling crack.
Oh, yeah, the Key whispered. That’s the stuff.
My breath caught in my throat. My side ached, but it was no longer the sharp agony it’d been a moment before. It was dull now, a slow, rumbling throb that made me aware of my own mortality. Every beat of my heart spit blood onto the stone floor. I was dying.
Corvus didn’t stir. Her health points were at zero.
I’d killed her.
I kicked Corvus’ hooked sword away, and it skittered across the floor and struck the wall with a dull clang. I found a glass flask filled with glowing blue fluid in her belt pouch and confiscated it.
POTION OF HEAL MAJOR WOUNDS
Object Class: Consumable
Object Power: N/A
Rarity: Uncommon
Consuming this potion will heal 50 to 100 health damage. It will also remove one crippling wound, one serious injury, and any non-poison, non-curse status effects.
Approximate Value: 500 gp
Oh, yes. I popped the stopper on the potion and gulped it down in a single swallow.
“You look like hell.”
Indira sauntered into the room. Her single horn glittered with supernatural power, and a ball of fire bounced in her palm.
“Little late,” I said, wiping the last of the potion from my lips. “I could’ve used your help a few minutes ago.”
She smiled. The changes to her face transformed the expression into a narrow rictus, and there was no humor in her eyes. “I didn’t turn you in. If that’s what you’re worried about.”
I shrugged. I was too tired to care if she had or not. “Someone did. It doesn’t matter who. I’m more worried about that fireball you’re bouncing.”
She feinted at me, flicking her wrist, so the ball rolled to the end of her fingertips. She reined it in before it could fly at my face. Another flick of her wrist and it split into three smaller fireballs, all of which orbited Indira’s twirling fingers. “This little thing? This is nothing. Just something to distract me with.”
The air was thick between us. I didn’t know what Indira wanted, but I knew she wanted something. Finally, she tilted her head back and tapped her chin with one forefinger. “Remember the promise you made?”
I laughed. The wound in my side ached, despite the healing potion having restored most of my health. “I made a lot of promises. You’re going to have to be more specific.”
Indira grinned. “This one was pretty specific. You promised me the first choice of any treasure.”
I nodded. “Sure. Of all the nothing we recovered from the Crumbling Temple, which nothing did you want the most?”
She pointed at the Burning Key. “That. I want the Key. I want the Dominion.”
My headache was back. Everyone thought this stuff was so simple. Surely Indira would understand I couldn’t just hand it over. “I can’t give you the Key. It’s tied to me. The pattern is complete and as long as I’m alive…”
Indira grinned. “We can fix that.”
Then the fire came, and I burned.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
I saw Indira complete the pattern tied to those little balls of fire too late to do anything about them. They streaked away from her hand in tight formation, getting bigger as they came at me.
The first ball hit me square in the chest, knocking me back onto my heels and setting me on fire. The flames chewed away at my health bar, and I knew I wouldn’t survive another direct hit.
Throwing myself prone saved me from the second ball of fire, and rolling behind the Throne kept the third one from finding its mark. But the balls didn’t sail past and splatter harmlessly against the wall. They curved through the air, pursuing me with dogged relentlessness.
I jumped to my feet and ran to the nearest wall, kicked off it, and did a rough tumble back in Indira’s direction. The second fireball just missed me, exploding against the wall, and I landed in front of Indira, close enough to strike. I drew my fist back for a punch to her chin.
The third ball slammed into my back and bowled me off my feet. I didn’t even try to get back up, just lay on the ground and burned.
Indira kicked me in the ribs with her pointy little toes. She didn’t put much force behind it, but that was all right. I was dead.
“All you had to do was give it up. It didn’t have to end like this.”
Congratulations! You have mastered the Shadow Death talent!
You look really, really dead.
In fact, you basically are dead.
Any effects, magical or mundane, do not affect you while you are within the grasp of the Shadow Death. You will suffer no damage from the environment, you cannot be further injured, and NPCs will not attack you.
To return to the land of the living, simply cancel this talent.
However, you must wait at least five minutes from the time this talent is initiated before you can end it.
Be warned, as well, that any status effects, magical or mundane, will re-assert themselves when you return to the land of the living.
Enjoy being dead!
You have earned enough experience to ascend to Level 5!
Indira ignored my corpse and turned her attention to the Burning Throne.
I was dead, which meant I was only vaguely conscious of my surroundings. It wasn’t as if I was blind or deaf, but my senses were muted. I was aware of Indira moving around, and I was somewhat aware of what she was doing, but I couldn’t focus on her or anything else.
The counter in the upper right-hand corner of my vision ticked down. Four minutes to go. I waited patiently as Indira chanted and moved her hands through arcane patterns. She was pulling apart the Dominion, reweaving her threads to its pattern using the massive energy channeled into the Throne by the Dragon Web.
What she was doing was risky, but she’d seen the ritual in progress and knew enough magical theory she might be able to make it work. Without the power of the Dragon Web flooding the Throne, she’d have certainly failed. With so much mana pooled around her, though, maybe anything was possible.
With a shout, Indira went rigid. Green flames crawled over her body, covering her in a cloak of light so intense I co
uldn’t even see her through it. “Yes!”
She was so excited by her achievement, it almost seemed a shame to disappoint her.
Almost.
The timer counted down to 0. I ended the Shadow Death and prayed my little plan had worked.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
Coming back to life was painful. It felt like my skin was on fire and my head was being pulled apart by an ogre’s clumsy fingers. I hoped it wasn’t going to be like this every time, and crossed my fingers the sudden spasm of agony meant my plan had worked.
Status messages from the game popped up into my field of view faster than I could discard them. I sifted through them until I found what I was looking for, and grinned.
Indira spun to face me, balls of fire jumping back and forth between her hands. “What did you do?”
I brushed myself off and got back to my feet. The healing potion I’d swallowed earlier had done most of the work, and I’d limped through the fight with Indira pretending to be far more injured than I truly was. Most importantly, I’d fooled everyone, including the Key, into thinking Indira had killed me.
I raised both hands toward the magus, trying to calm her down. We needed each other, now more than ever. “I didn’t have a lot of choices, did I? You tried to kill me.”
Fire dribbled between her fingers and sizzled on the stone floor. “I can still do that.”
I gestured at the Burning Throne with one hand and toward her with the other. “No, you can’t. Look at the pattern.”
I turned my Thief’s Vision toward the throne and smiled a little too smugly.
When I died, my thread to the pattern had been suspended. The game thought I was dead, and removed any status effects from my corpse. That included my bond to the Burning Key.
And when I returned to the land of the living, the game restored all status effects to me. Including my bond to the Key. And the Dominion.
“It was the only way. Now we’re both bound to the Key. We both control the Dominion.”
Indira reared one hand back to fling fire at me. “Not if I destroy you.”
The Key’s voice rang through the chamber. “Wait! You can’t do that. We’re all tied together. Killing him will kill you. It might even kill me.”
Indira stopped, and the fires in her hands sputtered out. “What are you talking about? He was just dead.”
The Key snickered a nasty little laugh. “He was only pretend dead. You’re both bound to me. Which means that you’re also both bound to one another. Killing him would be like cutting off one of your hands. On the plus side, you know he won’t stab you in the back, either.”
For the moment. This was the only way I’d figured out to stay alive and keep Indira from trying to kill me every chance she got. On the other hand, this plan offered me a few outs. I just needed time to explore them.
Indira had betrayed me, and she’d done it knowing full well the cost. That wasn’t something I was going to forgive or forget, quickly.
She leaned back, arms crossed over her chest. “Now what?”
I smiled and offered a hand. Indira looked down at it, sniffed, and then took it in her own.
“Now, partner, were going to run this town the way it was meant to be run.”
THE END OF DRAGON WEB ONLINE: DOMINION
COMING SOON
DRAGON WEB ONLINE: INVASION
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RISE UP!
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Where’s Mercy?
If you want to find out what happened to everyone’s favorite hunter, you do NOT want to miss the totally free story, Dragon Web Online: The Blood Crone. Click the link below and it’ll be ready for you to devour in no time (like, a week, honest!)
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Without my wife, Kim, none of these books would ever get written. If you're digging what you're reading, the credit goes to her. If you hate it, well, my email address is in the back of the book. Drop me a line and lemme hear what I can do better.
This book had a lot of helping hands getting out into the world. My beta readers, Jay, Eric, and Chris provided me with helpful notes and feedback that made this a much better book.
Huge props to Andrew B. for a last-minute catch. You da man!
And a special thanks to Dorene who stepped in for editing duties.
Couldn't have done it without all of you!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
When I was a wee lad, my mother bought me the Blue Box edition of Dungeons & Dragons. You know the kind with no dice, just cardboard chits you had to cut up and draw out of a cup to generate your random numbers? Ah, the olden days...
So started my lifelong obsession with writing and gaming, the culmination of which you are now holding in your hands. It’s been a long, strange trip, and it’s going to get even stranger as we travel through Dragon Web Online together.
Strap on your shield, grab a sword, and call up the hirelings - it’s time for adventure!
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I look forward to hearing from you, and can’t wait to bring you even more exciting tales of adventure.
OTHER BOOKS BY S R WITT
THE ELECTRIC SHADOWS SERIES
Dragon Web Online: Inception
Dragon Web Online: Dominion
Dragon Web-Online: Invasion (coming soon)
THE GAMER’S UNIVERSE SERIES
Operation: Catspaw
Operation: Snowblind
Operation: Pirates vs Ninjas (with J.L. Hendricks)
Operation: Baitdog (coming June 2017)
Operation: Starmind (coming July 2017)
Writing as Sam Witt
THE PITCHFORK COUNTY SERIES
Half-Made Girls
Ghost Hunters
Night-Blooded Boys
Witch Hunt
Dead-Eyed God
THE ARMAGEDDON THRONES SERIES
The Apocalypse Hive: Episode 1
The Apocalypse Hive: Episode 2
PARTING SHOT
Dragon Web Online: Inception was one of the fastest and easiest books I’ve ever written. The burgeoning LitRPG genre played to my strengths and the whole story burst out in a frenzied bout of dictation.
The sequel, though, had a more troubled development process. The world grows more complex and detailed with every new book in the series. The characters start getting minds of their owns, which played hell with my plot.
Indira, the once-elven magus, was only meant to be in a small part of the book. Her role was initially to get the Lens into Saint’s hands, after which she’d disappear until book three.
Too bad for me, she had other plans…
Havelock, on the other hand, started out as a new ally who would follow Saint throughout the series. And then…
There’d initially been the idea that Bastion would take Frosthol
d with Saint’s blessing, allowing the thief to move on to other problems and adventures.
But Saint just wouldn’t let go of that damned Key.
The good part of this is that the story is way more awesome now that I let the characters run their own way. They’ve given us a lot of hooks to follow on their further adventures.
So many questions, right?
Did Corvus kill Bastion?
What happens with the Hoaldites?
Is the Grandfather of Shadows going to be really pissed at Saint?
Who is Indira’s guild leader, and when’s he going to show up?
How the heck is the fight between Yark and Mercy going to end?
Lots of those questions are going to get answered in Book 3, Dragon Web Online: Invasion which is coming very soon to a Kindle (or computer, or phone, or bookshelf!) near you.
Oh, and if you want an answer to that last question, you really want to sign-up for the totally free novella, Dragon Web Online: The Blood Crone, like, right now, at the link below:
http://srwittwrites.com/dwo
WHAT CAME BEFORE
It’s been a minute or two since Dragon Web Online: Inception was released. If you need a summary of what happened in that book, I’ve got you covered.
Karl and Adam are brothers who enter the virtual world of Dragon Web Online in order to make money to pay for the deathly ill mother’s medical bills. Karl, a former professional gamer, has a plan that he hopes will give them the edge they need to prosper in this brave new world.