On My Brother's Grave: Reconnaissance: A LitRPG Adventure (Vatenkeist Online Book 1)

by E. M. Hardy

  “Come on, now!” I said when I looked up and realized I had no means to get back up there.

  Stuck in this hole, I glanced around and saw that I was standing in a much lower portion of the tunnel network. The same mossy stone covered the walls. This time, however, several old crates littered the ground. Unfortunately, whatever was once in these boxes had long been looted.

  I waved the torch around and finally uncovered a way out in the form of a wooden door. It was slightly rotted and it barely hung onto its hinges. And perhaps this was a time to be more cautious, but I decided to forego that plan and kicked down the door. It flew off in an instant and I ran through the open pathway and into the room beyond.

  I now found myself in a large octagon room with a dais in the center and several stone pillars lining the area. There were lit torches on the walls and on each pillar. On the dais was an altar table with an old man bound and gagged on top of it. Preparing to sacrifice him was another kobold, this one with wings, and it carried a dagger in one hand and a staff in the other. Beside it were three regular kobolds, similar to the ones I had battled in the woods, and one large grey wolf.

  “Oh my gosh,” was all I could say to sum up the direness of my situation. I had walked right into the lion’s den.

  There was no time to waste though. I had to move, and the enemies knew that. All three of the guards and the wolf came charging at me. I dropped my torch and did my best to evade their immediate attacks and fire my arrows. Only one of the kobolds went down, despite the volley I fired. The wolf took this opportunity and snapped at me. Before I could get away, the beast had managed to chomp down on my leg and grapple me to the ground.

  Both of the remaining kobold guards were turning around to try and put me down. That’s when I noticed that the winged leader was chanting, preparing to cast a spell.

  Beast Whisperer! I then recalled, and I looked at the wolf. I gently reached out to its snout with my hand and did my best to communicate with it. “Be a good boy, let go of my leg. I need to handle these guys, okay?”

  The beast stared at me with curious eyes, but it still latched onto my leg like I was on the menu. Before I could try to talk to it again, one of the guards stepped in and tried to stab me with its sword. I took an arrow from my quiver and jammed it right through the kobold’s nose. The thing fell dead right beside me.

  A sudden roar was heard and I looked over to see the winged kobold blasting a ray of fire my way.

  Instantly, the wolf let go of me and ran out of the blast’s path. I had no time to get up and flee, so I did my best to just roll out of the way. Even then, I felt the searing blast tear through my skin and I screamed in agony. My body flashed and I took 9 points of damage. I was now down to 4 HP.

  Smack!

  The one guard left had used that occasion to strike, and it hit for another 2 points of damage. I was in real danger now. I leaped up to my feet and parried the kobold’s next few blows with my bow, until I managed to knock its head and slam the creature against the wall. Before it could gut me, I wrestled the blade out of its hand and decapitated the creature with one fell swoop.

  A howl pierced through the air and, when I turned around, I realized that the wolf was giving me a warning just as the winged leader was about to cast yet another fire bolt. I activated my Marked Prey ability and cast it against the winged kobold. I waited until the enemy fired its spell, and I dodged to the right as soon as possible. As I leapt and my feet left the ground, I took an arrow and let loose.

  The arrow struck its mark and the winged kobold shrieked in pain. The projectile had dug right into its neck, yet the damn thing was still standing and preparing to cast one of its infernal spells.

  “Wolf!” I then hollered at the animal. “Come on, help me out! Distract that ugly thing, will you?”

  The wolf scowled at me like I had said the stupidest thing. It cocked it heads, snarled and then measly walked away without a care in the world. Well, that didn’t go as neatly as I had planned.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw the winged kobold launch another fire bolt. I made a run for it and barely managed to evade the blast. I slid down on the ground and hid behind a stone pillar. I then peeked out and fired an arrow. Missed.

  My enemy took flight and let go of its staff. It flew straight at me and reared its hand as it prepared to strike me down with its dagger. Freaking out, with only my 2 HP left, I took another arrow and fired, and then another, and then another.

  All three shots missed as the kobold whirled around in the air. It came at me with its blade. At the very last moment, I managed to parry with my bow, and I pushed down hard on my heels to shove the creature against the pillar. It smacked against the stone with a satisfying thud before it slumped to the ground.

  “You’re not going to kill me just yet,” I exclaimed as I kicked the kobold in the chin and finished it off with an arrow stab to the soft spot under the collarbone. The kobold died with its eyes wide open, and the light dimmed out with a flicker and a moan.

  “Serves you right,” I said to the dead creature, with one last kick for good measure. I took a hold of its staff and dagger, the latter of which I slid into my boot while the other I strapped to my belt. I now owned two of these ugly daggers. I then looked over and saw the wolf by the sacrificial altar, lying down and dozing off.

  In the end, my Beast Whisperer ability hadn’t proven as useful as I had hoped it would be. It required me to spend time with a beast and communicate with it in a normal environment, not in the heat of combat. Still, my efforts did at least serve to calm this wolf down and stopped it from attacking me. Otherwise, it might have killed me and I would be back at Strovport, re-spawned with no gear and a failed quest.

  After taking a breather, I headed to the table, careful not to awaken the wolf, and I checked the body on the table. To my utter relief, the man was alive and conscious, but he was tightly blindfolded and gagged. I quickly cut through his binds with the new dagger I had looted.

  The old man coughed and his eyes fluttered weakly when he tried to get a glimpse of who I was.

  “Hello sir,” I greeted slowly. “How are you feeling? I don’t have anything to heal you, but I can help bring you back to Strovport.”

  He looked at me, a little wary, and then asked, “W-who are you?”

  “My name is Fhauste,” I explained. “Louisa sent me.”

  The man’s face lit up at the mention of that name, and he managed to give a weak smile. “Louisa? Oh my, it is so good to hear she is fine. I’m Roren. Louisa, she’s my daughter.”

  “I know,” I answered as I wrapped his arm around my shoulder and aided him up to his feet. “She was at the tavern, asking for someone to help find you. What the heck happened anyway? How did these kobolds get you?”

  Roren coughed, wiped his face with his hand and said, “I was only going to be out in the woods for an hour to get some logs for our hearth. I then heard a song, almost like a lark’s, but it had this strange ethereal air to it. I followed it, curious as I was, until I reached a clearing where several kobolds grabbed me. They dragged me through a small cave opening and made me wait for their master to arrive.”

  “You didn’t go through a metal grate in some old, abandoned village?” I asked.

  He shook his head. This meant there must have been a different exit.

  “Did those things tell you why they were going to sacrifice you?” I asked.

  Roren shook his head but then seemed to recall something “Wait… I did hear them snarl something. I think it was Kwindethyxion or something similar. I do not know what tongue it was, I swear.”

  I had no idea what it meant either. I figured to jot the word down in my journal and then worked together with Roren to search for a means out. Fortunately for me, the old man was a little more observant than I was and soon found a small switch close to the altar. Once pressed, one of the walls gave way, revealing a tunnel that led us back to the woods.

  While it
took us longer than I’d hoped, we did get back to Strovport and I managed to bring him back to his home, where Louisa was waiting for us. As we settled in and got Roren in bed, Louisa brewed me a cup of tea and sat me down by the dining room table.

  “Here,” she said as she handed me my drink. It tasted so much like black tea, I almost – just almost – forgot I was in a virtual world.

  I smiled and told her, “I hope your father recovers. He was beat up pretty bad back in that cave.”

  Louisa nodded solemnly and said, “My father is strong. It will be a while but I am sure he will get back on his feet. Anyway, I wanted to give you something for helping us out. Like promised.”

  “Nah, it’s okay, you don’t have to,” I tried to politely refuse her.

  She wouldn’t take no for an answer though, and she pulled out a big object from beneath the table. It was long and wrapped in old white cloth. “Here,” she said as she pushed it towards me. “Please, take this. My father cannot use it anymore anyway. His days of adventuring are long behind him.”

  Curious, I finally accepted the object and removed the cloth. I was pleased to find an elegant longbow made from ebony wood with silver furnishings.

  “This is gorgeous,” I told her. “Are you sure it’s okay for me to keep it?”

  Louisa nodded and gave me the sweetest smile ever. “Yes. It would make us both happy, knowing that it was in your hands instead of being wasted in here, gathering mold and dust.”

  I took a hold of it and a notification flashed. I took a moment to glance at it and Louisa acted as if she couldn’t even see the out-of-this-world notification box hovering in the middle of the dining room.

  I then slung the Elven Longbow over my shoulder, where it now stayed beside my regular bow. I got up from my seat and bowed at Louisa. “I have to go now. My friend might be around and we have a long journey ahead of us.”

  “Oh, certainly,” she said, and she got up to shake my hand. “Thank you, again, and I wish you safe travel. Mind if I ask but where will you go?”

  “Cael’vron,” I told her. Immediately her face twisted as if in shock and disgust.

  “Be careful,” she said. She gripped my hand and squeezed. “Nothing good comes from Cael’vron. Whatever mission you have there, it will be dangerous and unfulfilling. It would be wise to always watch your back.”

  I took good note of her warning and walked out of the house. After that, I spent an hour in the tavern, discussing nonsense with some of the other patrons and listening to the minstrel play his music. It wasn’t until later that night that Elia got online and we reunited.

  Chapter Thirteen

  By the next morning, Elia and I met outside one of the smaller taverns. She had already gotten us two potions. She handed me one and also showed off the new shield she had purchased. It was nearly as tall as she was, and it had this beautiful blue and silver emblem of a dove on it.

  “I got something new too,” I said, giving her a peek at the Elven Longbow. “I completed a minor quest for some girl named Louisa.”

  Elia’s face grew wide with surprise and pleasure. “Wow, that’s really neat. How hard was it?”

  “How hard was what?”

  “The quest you took to get it,” she elaborated. “You went in on your own? Going solo on a quest might be pretty common but, at such a low level as ours, it can get a little dangerous.”

  I shrugged it off. “I didn’t have time to think about the danger. I just dived right into it.”

  “Speaking of diving right into things, I think it’s time we got on that ship to Cael’vron,” she said. “We don’t want to be late for the party. I have the letter Mikaela gave us, so we should just hop on the next skyship.”

  There was no denying that. We had to leave. I took a hold of my gear. “Okay then. Do you know which way?”

  She gestured for me to follow her. “Come on, slowpoke.”

  We left the tavern and took a stroll down the city streets. As we traveled down the roads leading up to the skyship port, I lamented how we were in such a rush that we couldn’t even get to explore Strovport further. If we hadn’t been so hell-bent on getting even, then we could have taken things slowly and played the game as it was intended, naturally. I could only guess at how many quests and activities were available just in Strovport alone. All the secrets and loot we would never discover.

  I was so caught up in my thoughts that I didn’t notice we had walked into the temple district. Nearly every large building was some kind of big temple dedicated to one of the game’s many deities. Some were gods of war, the elements, agriculture, music, and so many more. Many of these temples offered the basic services like divination (to know how much EXP we needed to level up), curing us to raise our HP back or to remove curses.

  Several hundred people were around, availing of the temple services, and it was nice to see so many players just having a good time. Perhaps when my quest for vengeance would be over, when I could rest with the assurance that I got to deliver justice for Jason, I could hop back in and play it nice and slowly. Maybe I could…

  “Fhauste,” Elia yelled. When I turned to her, she was waving her hand in front of me. “Fhauste! Hey, you doing all right? I’ve been calling out to you for ten seconds.”

  I stared back at her with a blank expression, “Hmm? Yeah? What’s going on?”

  Elia sighed and pointed out ahead of us. We had reached the gates of the skyship port and, sailing right above us, was one heck of an enormous vehicle. For all intents and purposes, it looked like a regular wooden ship, with three masts and sails, except that instead of floating on water it was somehow flying through the air.

  “We’re here,” she told me. “I hope you don’t get airsick or something. They say the trip from here to Cael’vron can take over a day by skyship and I don’t think they’ve got any Meclizine.”

  “That’s a long ride,” I said. “How long would it take if we were going by foot?”

  Elia shook her head. “Too long, is all I know. The distance isn’t really the problem; it’s dealing with the Shadowvale lands that get people all up in arms.”

  “Shadowvale?” I had no clue what she was talking about.

  “Dark lands, where the sun doesn’t shine and all sorts of evil creatures come crawling out of the woods and caverns,” she explained. “Even if this is just a video game, I still wouldn’t want to try venturing into that place until I was sure we could handle it.”

  I grabbed her arm and led her into the port. “Let’s not worry about that just yet. Let’s first try to get aboard one of these things.”

  “Sure,” she answered, and we began looking around for a ticketing booth.

  “Do you know where to start?”

  Elia pointed to a large station, almost like a train station. “That looks like a good place to start.”

  I almost smacked my face with my palm. So much for the eagled-eyed PI. “Should have seen that one. Okay, let’s head over there and see if we can get on the next trip to Cael’vron.”

  We walked in slowly, watching as the crowd bustled in and out. A lot of people were coming off the recently docked skyships and others were lining up to get on their rides. When we found the ticketing booths, we were relieved to discover the lines weren’t that long.

  “Two tickets for Cael’vron, please,” Elia told the elven lady at the counter when our turn came up. “How much would it be and how long is the trip?”

  The lady didn’t even look up to answer. She merely kept her attention on the papers she was stamping. “Eighty-five copper each for coach, and five gold pieces each for First Class. You can pay in any denomination. The trip will take a little over a day.”

  We paid seventeen silver pieces for the tickets and waited for the lady to give us our passes. She then pointed to the hallway to our left. “The boarding stations are down the hallway. The next ride for Cael’vron departs in forty minutes at Gate C. Please enjoy your time aboard the Obelisk G
allant.”

  I took the boarding passes and led the way. Elia followed, but she couldn’t help and look around at the sublime architecture. To be honest, even I was tempted to take a moment and stare at our surroundings. The station looked so ancient – there were Elven murals on the walls and gorgeous paintings here and there. In truth, it looked more like a museum or an old Elven structure than a skyship station.

  Our gate was already filled with passengers waiting to get onboard. There were at least thirty or so people there – that alone made me wonder just how big these skyships could get. Fortunately for me, I didn’t have to wait long to find out as the Obelisk Gallant arrived shortly after our arrival.

  The ship itself revealed to be far more elegant than what I had expected. The decks were lined with black and silver, and the sails were a gorgeous white with light-blue linings that made them dance beautifully with the colors of the sky. With two main masts and three decks, it was one massive piece of naval engineering.

  “All of our First Class, please line up as we prepare to board,” announced an elderly Venaris male with silver-platinum hair and spectacles.

  I didn’t really mind boarding after the First Class. Just like in real life, I didn’t care about such differences when riding an airplane because, in the end, all of the passengers would land at the destination at the same time regardless of where they sat.

  When it was finally our turn, I realized I was just as giddy as Elia was. She was jumping up and down like a little girl about to meet her idol and, while I wasn’t that ecstatic, I did notice I was fidgeting in place as our line slowly moved.

  “I wonder what our cabin will look like,” she said. She wasn’t even aware of how tightly she was squeezing my arm.

  I shrugged, trying to hide my own excitement. “If it’s like any regular ship I’ve been in, we can expect double-deck bunks, little to no space and poor lighting. I’ll take it though – at least, this ship freaking flies!”

  It was a marvel just to say that. In the real world, such things could have existed. After all, zeppelins had been a promising creation once. I could only imagine how far the technology could have gone if the Hindenburg didn’t crash and burn. The skyships in the game looked like that promise coming to life, but infused with magic instead of real world physics.