The Tree of Ascension: A LitRPG Apocalypse (Peril's Prodigy Book 2)
Page 41
“Will I be able to speak with you again?” Garath asked. The unanswered and unspoken questions in his mind were burning a hole in his consciousness. The once-solid form of the Chief across the fire from the Necrologist was fading even more, hazy and indistinct.
“It is possible for me to manifest in this manner again,” the Chief said, his words coming at great effort as his form continued to degrade, “but not without great cost. I will be with you though, whenever you are within The Tower. My ability to communicate will be limited. You will see my words in the written form on occasion, but the words I convey will be less coherent. For this, I apologize.” The Chief’s form was merely a shade at this point. Just a hazy shadow of the man that Garath had been speaking with. The physical embodiment of The Tower choked out a final sentence before it was gone entirely. “Be well, Garath.”
Garath was alone. The longhouse around him blurred and then everything was black. Garath stood now, dumbfounded and blinded by the afternoon sun, atop The Tower. His Party was not there with him, but their names and Healthbars were once again visible in his peripherals. A ridiculous number of prompts awaited his attention, but he kept them minimized as he took in his new surroundings.
He was back on Earth, finally outside of the world within The Tower. The air was thin at this altitude, each breath only barely satiating his lungs. He stood upon a terrace of interlacing branches, brown and green. In front of him was a simple fountain, the stonework looking very out of place atop the living structure. Crystal clear water flowed freely from the fountain, pooling into a circular basin as it fell. Garath was overwhelmed with a feeling of serenity, a calm that soothed the pain and mental strain of the Dungeon. His reverie was interrupted by a faint pop, accompanied by a flash of white-blue magic only a few feet away from where he was standing.
A person materialized from the flash, a middle-aged, homely woman with wide eyes and the expression of someone who’d just tried a spell and wasn’t sure what it was going to do. She turned her head, looking around in awe at the scene around her before her eyes landed curiously on Garath-the glowy-eyed Necrologist with neon tattoos and a headdress of jutting sticks. She opened her mouth to speak, but her words were stopped in her throat when another faint pop sounded off right beside her, also accompanied by the flash of white-blue magic. Another person materialized from the second flash before a third, fourth, and then even more faint pops and flashes took place all across the fountain’s terrace. Then there were more. A lot more.
Garath hadn’t even noticed just how large the fountain’s terrace was until then. He was looking across the growing crowd, filled with curious-looking people. Then the pops and flashes began to come from farther and farther away from the fountain itself. He climbed on the fountain’s stonework to see over the crowd. Garath guessed the circular terrace to have a radius of nearly a mile, and every bit of it flashed and popped as more people appeared.
He remembered then what the prompt that everyone received at the end of The Culling had said about the ‘Fountain of Tabisama’. It had said that anyone within 1,000 miles of The Tower would be able to transport there instantly. His stomach sank as the realization of what this would mean dawned on him. Civilization would happen right here, and it would come with every complication that entailed. With seventeen days left until the other races would be allowed to inhabit the planet, Garath wondered how in the hell he was supposed to set up the infrastructure to run a city of this size while also preparing for the inevitable attack from the Sandrani. Where, oh where could he find that fabled chamberlain with an uncanny competence in administration and an undying devotion to serve him?
Garath’s lips pulled to one side as a crooked grin spread across his demonic features. Large-scale battles he’d read in fantasy books and his experience in real-time strategy games would have to be his guide for the dangers ahead. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous. But as nervous as he was, Garath was even more excited to see what the future had in store for him.
“By Brooks and Eddings,” Garath said to himself, “by Warcraft and Age of Empires I swear it. The Sandrani have another thing coming.”
Here ends book two of Peril’s Prodigy.
Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the story. As a new and self-published author, your honest review and social media shares are the best ways to support me. -<3/CRAIG!
Also, if you want to take an early look at the prompts Garath has waiting for him - and/or want to discuss this series with like-minded people - I’ve made a Facebook group where I have posted the prompts. I tried the email list thing to help me stay connected with my wonderful readers, but I hate writing emails so much that I never used it. For that, I am sorry. I interact better with social media, so this group will be the platform I use to keep you posted on upcoming releases as well. Book 3 will not continue from the moment this book ended and I know, as a reader, I would definitely want to see the prompts after a day like Garath just had. You can find the group at www.facebook.com/groups/perilsprodigies
If you’re new to litRPG and want to connect with others that are into this awesome genre, check out these other groups too. Everyone in the groups below love litRPG/gamelit and they will provide recommendations with any number of specifications for character/story that you want to read. Seriously. Any number of specifications.
www.facebook.com/groups/LitRPGsociety
www.facebook.com/groups/LitRPG