The Tree of Ascension: A LitRPG Apocalypse (Peril's Prodigy Book 2)

by Craig Kobayashi

  Purchase the Skills listed below for Handsome?

  Blight, Creeping Death, Plague

  Yes or No

  Cost: 7

  Summoner’s available Skill Points: 22

  Garath sighed and chose ‘Yes’. The price was steep, but increasing Handsome’s damage and versatility was worth it. He didn’t know whether the Cambionic Flayer would benefit from his Mastery - Pestilent passive Ability, but he hoped so.

  Unused Skill Points: 15

  A thought occurred him. He glanced south to the mysteriously wandering smoke pillar, then pulled open his World Map and zoomed into his current location on the coast. Sure enough, right about where he would have marked the column of smoke on the map, a red icon roughly resembling a turtle was moving, very slowly, northward. He willed more information from the system to identify this new icon.

  World Boss: Rum’bah

  Encounter Type: Raid

  Suggested Party size: 10+

  Suggested Party median Level: 15

  A grin slithered across Garath’s slightly demonic features, his upper lip shifting just enough to reveal his oversized incisors. Now Garath knew exactly what to do next to get stronger. He willed Handsome back into reality as well and stood to address his underlings.

  “Bill, Handsome,” he said, folding his arms, “we’re going on a field trip.”

  Chapter Three – I’m Not a Monster, You’re a Monster

  The prickling sensation that always accompanied a BeastScape-enabled transformation was starting to spread from the back of Garath’s neck to the rest of his body when he caught sight of Gary approaching. The ginger, bearded, lumberjack-looking man had joined Garath’s Raid group during The Culling with his five red-headed boys, and had since taken on a limited leadership role within The Band. He was wearing his customary outfit, blue jeans, a flannel button-up, and a warm smile.

  The Necrologist abruptly ended the transformation. He was now hypersensitive to the maximum amount of form changes allowed by the BeastScape Ability per day (13 transformations), after his attempt to go Crow form had failed him during a battle in Aquawood Depths the day before.

  “Hey, Garath!” Gary raised a hand in greeting. The bearded man bounded up the grass-covered hill, where Garath stood with his two summoned demons. “I know you said last night that you wanted to be alone for a bit, but do you have a second?”

  Garath smiled toothily. “Actually, we were just about to go on a little field trip. You’re welcome to join us though, if you want?” he said, raising his voice to cover the distance between them.

  “This field trip wouldn’t happen to be related to that smoke column to the south, would it?” He glanced briefly at the Fel Hound and Flayer, his discomfort only visible for a fraction of a second before the bearded man’s face relaxed.

  Garath nodded, unfolding his arms to shake Gary’s outstretched hand. “I kind of figured I wouldn’t be the only one who noticed. Yeah, my demons here just…”—Garath paused, looking for the right word to describe their recent advancement—“evolved? So I thought this might be a good opportunity to test out their new capabilities.”

  “So you think something hostile is making the smoke?” It didn’t sound much like a question.

  “Check your World Map.” Garath didn’t intend to give off the let-me-google-that-for-you vibe, but a quick check of his MENU panels would have given Gary the same information. “It’s a World Boss. Generally hostile, but not always, in my experience at least. In some games I’ve played they just wander around unless attacked. I was just about to go Crow form and do some recon when I saw you coming up the hill.”

  Gary’s eyes went vacant for a moment, adopting the expression that Garath knew to mean someone was accessing their MENU panels. He waited for the man to find the icon on the map and process the information that he had read himself only a moment before.

  “The map information recommends ten or more people. Do you want to wait here while I try to round up some more folks from our group?” Gary asked, then made a face. “Its name is Rum’bah? Really? Like the vacuum?”

  Garath shrugged. The way he saw it, this ‘Rum’bah’ wasn’t anything to worry about. He was eight Levels above the recommended median, even if it was a ten-person recommendation. On top of that, Garath was significantly more powerful than almost any other Level 23 would be due to his additional Attribute and Skill Points. “You don’t have to come. I’m just going to scope it out. If it looks like too much for me and my demons to handle, then we can drag more people over to help.”

  “Alright,” Gary agreed nervously. “But I don’t have a flying BeastScape form.”

  Garath’s expression went flat. “I can help you unlock Crow form in like two seconds. You didn't get it from Brandon?”

  “And also...” Gary scratched the back of his head, looking a little ashamed. “I’m not a big fan of heights.”

  Garath tried to hide his disappointment at even the prospect of walking, “Well, it isn’t that far. We can hoof it. You did unlock your House Cat form from Tarzan during The Culling though, right?”

  Gary’s large shoulders dropped. He looked like Garath had just asked the one question that he was hoping not to hear. “Yeah, I have a House Cat form.”

  “We can probably get there faster with four legs,” Garath suggested reasonably. “You ready to go now?”

  “Oh, why the hell not?” Garath knew the man was uncomfortable outside of his own skin and had only attempted a BeastScape transformation once, when Garath had insisted that everyone in The Band unlock their House Cat form during The Culling. Even then, Gary had stayed in his feline form for all of thirteen seconds before transforming back into the barrel-chested, bearded, redhead festooned in flannel and blue jeans.

  Garath nodded and began the transformation into his House Cat form. An intense tingling started at the back of his neck, followed by the prickling sensation that spread to the rest of his body. Like a sneeze, but less comfortable. Soft white fur sprouted from his skin as he shrunk, now only slightly larger than a kitten and pure white. Garath watched as Gary transformed as well, and was glad that his smirk was hidden by the cat’s limited facial expressions.

  Gary looked exactly like Garath had imagined he would. The feline shifting uncomfortably from paw to paw was roughly three times his size. It was orange, striped with a flaming red identical to the color of Gary’s hair and beard in his natural form.

  Without further discussion, Garath took off south toward the column of smoke that served as a beacon to the World Boss. He gave his demons the mental command to follow. Without looking back, he knew that Handsome wasn’t far behind him. Bill sprinted ahead on Garath’s projected course, head on a swivel as he searched out potential threats to his summoner. Garath was almost positive that they wouldn’t run into anything incredibly dangerous on quick run from the clifftop to what had once been downtown Everett. The entire city was deemed a safe area by the World Map, but he could still appreciate the Hound’s diligence. He sent a mental ‘good boy’ to the demon-dog as he wound through the streets between abandoned vehicles, fallen trees, and destroyed buildings.

  Out of curiosity, Garath took an unexpected turn without any kind of warning to his minions. He ducked under a rusted Mercedes and into a side-alley, then waited beneath a fire escape hanging from the brick wall of a half-demolished apartment building. He wasn’t disappointed in his pets’ reactions.

  Garath could feel Bill's growing anxiety through their mental connection immediately. A second later, the demon came barreling eagerly into the alley with his teeth bared, eyes searching wildly. When Bill located the little white cat hiding under the derelict staircase, he gave a little tail wag and approached. With a mental command telling Bill to ‘hide’, the Fel Hound joined him beneath the staircase.

  From there,Garath noticed for the first time how large Bill was in comparison to his under-sized House Cat form. The hulking Fel Hound hunched over his front paws, somewhere between sitting and lying dow
n. Greenish drool oozed out of his mouth in long strands. The muscular demon Hound and the fluffy white Necrologist waited patiently for Handsome to find them. After about a minute, Garath started to worry that the Cambionic Flayer had gotten lost.

  *Handsome?* Garath projected the thought to his Flayer. *Are you okay?*

  The high-pitched, scratching sound that was Handsome’s voice responded in his mind like nails on a chalkboard. *Up.*

  Garath craned his neck and looked to the sky, which he found was a fair bit more difficult with four legs on the ground. Sure enough, Handsome hovered some thirty-feet above them near the tops of the broken buildings. But Handsome wasn’t looking down at them. He was staring intently off to his right.

  Without being prompted, Handsome scratched another word into Garath’s mind with a raised finger pointing to whatever held his gaze. *Friend.*

  It dawned on the Necrologist that Gary hadn’t followed him and, as usual, he hadn’t communicated his plans. Garath’s eyes followed Handsome’s twisted bony finger out of the alley and into the street beyond. Gary had shifted back into his natural form and was hunched over something. He had no trouble seeing the forms approaching the bearded man from behind.

  Three shopping-cart-sized, black-and-grey quadrupeds.

  Because of the relatively poor long-distance eyesight of the feline form, he wasn’t able to make out any more details about the creatures but, as they fanned out in a semi-circle behind Gary, he recognized them as a pack of predators. During his gaming days before the apocalypse, Garath always had a nature documentary of some variety playing for background noise while he was dungeon diving or fighting in an arena. Even without paying complete attention to the wonderful commentary of David Attenborough, Garath had picked up a thing or two.

  These creatures were stalking their prey.

  *Behind you!* Garath called in the mental form of communication he had become accustomed to while in beast forms that lacked vocal cords.

  Gary didn’t react to his warning.

  *Gary!* he called again. No response. Garath couldn’t understand why the bearded man wasn’t moving and tried again with a, *Move your ass!*, to no avail.

  A fourth creature came into view, approaching Gary from the front as Garath, Bill, and Handsome exited the alley. Gary finally looked up. The bearded man looked first at the creature approaching him, then around him. His eyes widened as he equipped what was left of his shield and crouched into a wary fighting stance. The great white Dragon, Aldrasyl, had destroyed most of the shield Gary was granted for choosing the Armoron Class with a single attack. All that was left of the item that had kept Gary alive throughout The Culling was a thick leather arm holster connected to a cracked metal plate. Well, half a cracked metal plate.

  Garath issued orders to his demons as he stood with Gary against the snarling monsters surrounding them.

  *Bill, that one.* Garath projected a mental image of the creature approaching from the front. *Keep its attention ‘til we can down the other three. Handsome, approach from above. Get behind the group and wait for my signal.*

  Garath, still in House Cat form, looked up at Gary. The bearded man’s eyes narrowed as they shifted from one monster to the next, and he backed up against an abandoned GMC. Bill sprinted ahead toward his target while Handsome gained altitude with a few flaps of his bony wings, then circled around to Garath’s left to get into position and wait for the signal.

  *What the hell, man?* Garath crept closer to the cornered Gary. *You couldn’t hear me?*

  Gary didn’t even turn to acknowledge him. When Garath finally figured out why Gary was ignoring him, he wanted to facepalm. Of course, he couldn’t. He was a cat.

  Gary hadn’t been ignoring him at all. The mental form of communication while in a beast form wasn’t provided by the BeastScape Ability, it was the Party and Raid Group communication channel, and they weren’t in a Party. Garath had dissolved the Raid Group the day before. During The Culling, and over the week that had passed since, he had gotten so used to using the Raid communication channel while in a BeastScape form that he didn’t even think about it. He quickly fired out a Party invitation, then finally took a good look at the approaching predators.

  Oh you’ve gotta be kidding me.

  They were goddamned racoons. Not like any racoon that Garath had ever seen. Apart from having swollen to be the size of a bears, these racoons had apparently developed a taste for blood, if the red stains on their teeth and fur were any indication. Whether they were specifically hunting humans, or if Gary had just looked like easy prey to this pack of scavengers, Garath didn’t know. He triggered Inspect to get a better idea of what they were up against.

  Racer

  Beast

  Health: 340/340

  Level: 7

  Station: Wild Animal

  Mana: 0/0

  Description: Though originally nocturnal scavengers, these Racers have fed on the (plentiful) remains of Mana-infused humans, causing their evolution from Raccoon to Racer.

  Oh shit. Garath hadn’t even thought about the human remains blanketing the planet like fresh snow after The Culling, let alone the effect the corpses would have on wildlife that considered carrion to be an acceptable lunch. In his most tainted form, Garath had to shake away his curiosity concerning ingesting Mana-infused human remains himself. It may make him stronger, but even in his filthy House Cat form, the thought of that act was repulsive.

  Gary, apparently, had just been considering something very similar. Two corpses, a woman and her small child lay in the street like old trash. Garath had never seen a dead body left to decay naturally and nothing in his life, not violent video games, graphic television, nor his vivid and morbid imagination prepared him for it.

  The mother’s blistered hand reached even in death toward her child lying a few inches away. Their bodies had reached the peak of bloating and looked as though they may pop at any moment. The child’s skin was stretched so tightly over its swollen innards that it almost looked like the Pillsbury Dough Boy, if the PBD peddled nightmares for a living. Maggots squirmed in their eyes, ears, and a few open wounds that Garath had to assume were the cause of death for the two unfortunate souls. He knew maggots on dead bodies was a thing, everyone did. But the sheer amount of squirming white worms nibbling on the soft flesh in every visible orifice was astounding. The child faced the horrific visage of its mother, Garath had to turn away upon seeing the larvae nesting within the poor child’s ear, chewing and squirming deeper into the corpse. Though the maggots were still in their larva form now, almost all of the squirming maggots would grow into flies.

  The horrific image affected him more than he wanted to admit. Something would have to be done about the bodies around the place The Band of the Hawk had made their home. Even without the possibility of attracting and dementing more scavengers, being surrounded by thousands of decaying corpses had to be a health concern. He would have to talk with the good doctor, TodoroKen, about how to handle that later. In the meantime, he and Gary had a fight on their hands.

  Gary has accepted your Party invitation.

  *They’re only Level 7,* Garath informed Gary on the communication channel that had opened with the Party formation. *We’ll make quick work of this.*

  “I think that’s what they’re after,” Gary responded verbally, nodding toward the rotting remains of mother and child. “We probably don’t have to fight them, Garath. They’re just animals.”

  Garath looked up at the bearded man, his disgust recognizable to the other even on feline facial features. He wasn’t about to let the easy Experience Points that this pack of Racers would give them just walk away with even more Mana-infused human remains in their bellies. With three snarling Racers on one side and another growling and hissing now only ten feet away in front, Garath wasn’t about to have a discussion about it. Neither was Bill, for that matter.

  The Cambionic Fel Hound slammed into its target at full speed, lowering his head at the last second to knock down the R
acer that had been approaching from the front. Without waiting for it to recover, Bill opened wide and bit down hard on the Racer’s neck, thrashing and tearing viciously. Garath paid the 188 Mana cost to activate Plague. Another 10 Mana continued to tick away from his Mana pool every second to keep the effect active, but that was a drop in the bucket compared to his 1,660 total Mana. He was still amazed at the feeling he got from infecting enemies with Plague, but was surprised when he felt the damage-over-time debuff take hold in not four targets, but five. The other Racers did not wait for him to locate the fifth.

  As one, the three Racers not currently being shredded to ribbons by a 200lb demon dog turned sharply to look at the fluffy white Necrologist that had infected them. They seemed hesitant to attack, instead moving closer to circle Gary, Garath, and the bodies near their feet, hissing and snarling with aggressive posturing. Garath, for his part, was not hesitant.

  He gave the mental order for Handsome to attack and, as one, the Cambionic Flayer and the Necrologist got to work.

  They released two simultaneous casts of Blight. Two identical rings of deep purple magic shot out from their bodies in a shimmering circle, adding two more DoT’s on each of the three Racers. Between the three debuffs, each of the giant, twisted raccoons took 42 damage every second, but Garath wasn’t done. He and Handsome sent orbs of black energy at the Racers, who howled in pain.

  The fifth target, an even larger Racer, hadn’t been hiding. Presumably the pack leader, it was only a few feet away from where he stood next to Gary. They just hadn’t noticed it somehow. Garath had to assume this larger Racer had some kind of Ability that allowed it to go unnoticed, similar to Warrion's Stealth. He wasn’t sure. What he was sure of was the relief he felt knowing they had thrown a wrench in the sneaky Racer’s attack plan. Who knows what could have happened if the pack leader had finished its approach unseen. Stealth/rogue type could inflict some serious damage when attacking from the shadows. Luckily, Garath’s no bullshit approach forced its hand early.