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

by E. M. Hardy

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Outside, in the halls, there was a little bit of a crowd. But as soon as I and Avygael stepped out, they all went back to minding their own business. Avygael led her band of soldiers up to the private quarters of the family while a small contingency broke off and began scouring the rest of the castle. I left them and made my way to the kitchens.

  When I got there, I was shocked to find so many people going around. Some were busy cooking and others were cleaning or delivering food to the numerous inhabitants of the castle. It was like the kitchen of a high-end restaurant in the real world – the chef was screaming his lungs out, people were constantly on the move, and the aroma from the meals was mouth-watering, to say the least.

  It kind of made me feel guilty for what I was about to do. I quickly looked for the furnace they used as an oven and smiled with joy when I saw they were filling it with oil to bake some kind of pie.

  “All right, everybody listen up!” I shouted as I hopped onto a table, kicking all the food and ingredients out of the way. I grabbed my bow and arrow and activated my Fire Shot ability. “Everybody, get the hell out of here, right now!”

  People scrambled. The head chef tried to fight back, but he dropped his butcher’s knife the moment he saw me reveal my little Molotov cocktail. I heard panic outside, in the hallways. More guards were about to rush in, those not yet instructed by Lady Avygael. None of it mattered now.

  I took the bottle of rum, tossed it towards a few caskets of ale, and struck with my Fire Shot. In a fraction of a second, an explosion erupted and I barely managed to leap down and hide behind a kitchen counter. The roar of the blast was deafening, and the heat that emanated from within the furnace and the surrounding area was so intense I thought for a second that I had miscalculated. I feared that the flames would get to me and end my mission here very abruptly.

  Luckily, I escaped unscathed, and the chain reaction kept on going. The furnace blew and the line of ale kegs started blowing up as well, blasting large holes of smoke and fire along the keep’s walls. Brick and stone flew in every direction as the explosions went one after the other, and I merely ducked down and crawled towards the opposite direction.

  Rubble blasted in the air and the ground shook with a violent force. It was at that point I sincerely wished we had done a few more missions to hit Level 4. I could have really used the extra HP, MP, and new abilities right now.

  A loud roar erupted as another keg of ale blew. If this had been the real world, none of these would have exploded, but I knew video game logic was a lot different than reality. The programmers probably watched way too many action movies. At least, I got to use that to my advantage.

  Smoke was now filling the room fast. I was finding it hard to breathe. My vision was getting blurry and I felt the strength slowly drain out of me. When I checked my status, I realized my HP was dwindling down ever so slowly.

  “Time to get the hell out of here,” I told myself as I started to search for a way out. The door had been blown down and was covered in rubble. The explosions did blast the walls but they were barred with debris. The only window left was on the other side of the kitchen, right where the flames were dancing in pure ferocity.

  I cussed when I realized I was in real danger. I had thought about blasting this place but not how I’d get out of here. I had rushed this plan too much, something I almost never did, and now I was paying the price for being so stupid and careless.

  Another blast erupted and then another. If this kept on going, then the whole keep would soon crumble. I didn’t even know what was exploding at this point. What other combustible items were in this portion of the keep? Whatever was going on, it was like a devastating domino effect. Yet another blast exploded just a few meters away from me and I realized it had created a hole just big enough for me to crawl through. I had no idea where this would lead but I ran forward, dropped down to the floor and crawled my way in.

  It was then that I discovered I was making my way into the small armory. It was nothing like the armory in the barracks outside the keep, but it did have one element I knew would blow this keep sky-high: a barrel of black powder.

  The armory was brightly lit with a couple of torches on scones. The flames from the explosions hadn’t made their way in here just yet but I could see the licks of fire slowly devouring the wooden furniture nearby. It was just a matter of time before this room would blow, with me in it.

  “Y-you,” a voice called out from behind. “This is all your fault!”

  I turned around to see, to my utter surprise and delight, Gorghen. He was pressed up against the corner, right beside the door, holding a ledger tightly to his chest. I wondered for a moment why he didn’t just exit through the door and that was when I saw it was slightly broken down and obstructed by stone blocks. We were trapped together in here.

  “Gorghen,” I greeted with a low voice. “Just the man I wanted to see! Why are you coddled up in here? Don’t you just want to quit and save yourself from the pain?”

  The elder dwarf just sneered at me and gripped his ledger even tighter. That made me understand why he hadn’t logged out to save his skin: he was protecting that ledger. The ledger couldn’t fit into his pouch, so it wouldn’t count as part of his inventory. That meant if he left Vatenkeist Online, it wouldn’t go with his body. It would just remain here in the keep to be destroyed or discovered.

  It would be even worse if he died. Not only would he lose the ledger but all his items and gear too. He had no choice but to escape this fiery hell on foot. The door was jammed and the other side had a blazing inferno slowly making its way towards the black powder. It was just all too good and I couldn’t help but smile and give out a maniacal laugh.

  “Oh, this – this is just too good,” I said as I reached for my blade and flashed it in front of Gorghen. He was probably more powerful than I was but, in this bottlenecked situation, I had the upper hand. “Here’s what’s going to happen, dwarf. You’re going to tell me where the Ascendants are located and you’re going to tell me your real names. Start with your information. I want your real name and your address in the real world.”

  “You’re not in a position to make any demands,” he told me. “I am Gorghen of the Ascendants and no one tells us what to do, punk!”

  “No one tells you what to do except for the Horde, right?” I spat back. “You can’t take them on; they’re too powerful for you guys.”

  Gorghen laughed nervously. “You have no idea what the Horde is or what they really do. In that regard, you have no idea what the Ascendants are.”

  I twirled the dagger in my hand and crept in even closer, the flames waving behind me. “Does it look like I care right now? I’m going to ask you one more time: what’s your name in the real world and where are your headquarters?”

  The dwarf still didn’t yield. Instead, he raised his other hand and began chanting, preparing to cast a spell. That wouldn’t do. I rushed in closer and threw my elbow into his neck, choking him outright and stopping him from casting. He spat out in pain and, in that moment, I quickly poked at him with the dagger, stabbing him multiple times in the thigh and shoulders. He dropped the ledger as blood spilled from his wounds like a pierced plastic bottle.

  I grabbed the book and took a few steps back. There, I dangled the ledger close to the fire and told Gorghen, “You’re going to tell me everything I want to know or this is going up in smoke.”

  Crack!

  The broken door suddenly shattered and we both turned to see Elia and the others breaking it down with axes. “Fhauste! Are you okay? We’ll get you out!” Elia said.

  I didn’t answer. I kept my attention on Gorghen. “Tell me!”

  “What is it to you? We’re just a bunch of kids playing a video game, dude. Calm the fuck down! None of this is real,” he tried to plead.

  “It’s real enough,” I answered. “It was real enough for you to convince my brother Jason to commit suicide!”


  Gorghen suddenly burst out laughing, as if the situation here wasn’t dire enough. “Jason’s your brother? Oh man, that kid was such a freaking moron. You should’ve seen his face when we made him strip in front of the camera just so he could be one of our lackeys. What a freaking loser. It’s no wonder you’re such a freak – you family of degenerates.”

  That triggered me beyond belief. I rushed in and stabbed him straight in the gut. He snickered and I figured he still had a lot of HP left despite the hit. I could hear him preparing yet again for another spell. Quickly, I rolled out of the way and just in time too. He let out a bright lightning bolt that smote the very ground I stood on. The crackle and boom from the impact was enough to let me know I could’ve died from that.

  I cast my Marked Prey ability on him and sheathed my blade right as I took cover behind a pillar. I whipped out my bow and took an arrow. In that instant, I cast Fire Shot and waited. I heard a crackle and quickly jumped out of the way, right in time to evade another Lightning Bolt. I rolled on the floor and fired. The flaming arrow dug right into his kneecap and I saw him howl in pain, but he was still standing.

  Elia was screaming. The whole room was coming ablaze. Lightning bolts were flying from Gorghen’s fingertips and each blast was making the room crumble even further. I took another shot and this one struck his shoulder. Even with the additional damage from my abilities, the hit didn’t seem to slow him down much.

  Gorghen didn’t stop there. He quickly halted from casting successive lightning bolts and, instead, bent down and touched the ground. His fingertips glowed dark green and purple, and with a soft chant the ground broke and rumbled. Out from the floor crawled out five skeleton warriors, armed with swords and shields. Their eye sockets were devoid of any flesh but they still glowed mysteriously with a dark purple and green tint.

  “Oh crap,” I heard Elia say when she saw the undead soldiers rise. This would have been a good time for her battle-priest abilities to shine but the debris around the broken door was making it impossible for them to break in here.

  “This is utter BS,” I cursed as I fired against the skeletons too far away for me to melee attack. I managed to hit one right in the head, driving the arrow through its skull. The impact was so strong that the skeleton remained stuck on the wall. I put my bow back over my shoulder and gripped my dagger.

  The closest skeleton tried to grapple me, but I slid between its arms and drove my blade through its jaws. The light in its eyes faded and the enemy crumbled to the ground. I heard a crackle and, purely by instinct, I dashed to the side, barely managing to evade Gorghen’s lightning bolt.

  A thud sounded at my other side and I groaned in pain as one of the skeletons punched me right in the stomach. It then raised its bony arm and prepared to strike me in the head, but I rushed forward and wrestled it down to the ground. As we tumbled on the floor, another lightning bolt whizzed past us. I took the skeleton’s head in my hands and I twisted hard. With a sickening crunch, the enemy deactivated as I snapped its head right off its neck.

  Gorghen’s next bolt struck so close that I felt the heat throughout my body. It was even hotter than the flames nearing us. It only confirmed that a single hit would definitely kill me on the spot.

  Determined not to lose, I scrambled to my feet and seized the next skeleton. It was attempting to bash me away with its shield, but I punched its face in and shattered its frontal bone. I still kept its corpse in hand and used it as my own shield as I made my way closer to Gorghen. Another skeleton came in closer and tried to strike me down. By some odd chance, however, it stepped right in front of Gorghen’s next attack and the lightning bolt smote the skeleton to ash.

  I had to think outside the box if I wanted to defeat him. He was several levels above mine and if I took one hit I was a goner. My mind numb, I looked around for a solution. I had no chance to win if I kept this a straight fight. He would eventually kill me if this kept on going. And even if he didn’t, we’d both die when the flames blew up the gun powder.

  The gun powder! That was it!

  Once more, I rolled out of the way, but this time I began to circle around him, forcing him to slowly move out of the corner. Gorghen took a step to the side as he flicked his lightning bolts towards me, destroying everything in the room and causing the flames to spread even faster. I passed by the main door and saw Elia and the others still trying to break their way in. I rolled again and Gorghen moved once more to the side.

  I repeated this movement until I was able to place him right beside the keg of black powder.

  “Stop!” I screamed as I took aim and ignited my final Fire Shot. I was out of MP now. “Tell me what I want or I’ll blow us to smithereens and we’ll both lose.”

  Gorghen glanced behind him and saw the gun powder. He looked down at his ledger and then at me. For the first time since we had started fighting, I finally saw a glint of fear in his eyes. He stuttered as he called out, “Please, if I don’t deliver this to the boss, they’ll never let me forget about my failure. They’ll humiliate me in the real world. They’ll kill me!”

  “Then tell me what I want to know! If you help me, we can defeat them and stop all this nonsense!” I yelled. I pulled the arrow tighter and aimed straight at the keg. “I’m only going to count to three. One! Two! Thr—”

  “My name is Richard Holland, I’m sixteen years old and I live in Irvine, California,” he finally admitted. He then tossed me the ledger. “Take it.”

  I grabbed it and handed it through the open panels of the door, giving it to Elia. “Go, now! And take these too!”

  With the ledger, she clutched my Elven Longbow, the dagger, the badge Ritorio had offered me, and my pouch containing all the letters and other notable items I owned. I pushed her out and she glanced at me with a look of sorrow. She knew what I was going to do and she knew there was no way to stop the gears from turning.

  “I’ll see you soon,” she whispered, and she squeezed my fingers before we parted ways. Elia ran out and away from the burning armory door. The soldiers around her, including Gygan, followed suit when they too realized I was about to unleash hell.

  “Richard,” I called as I turned back to him. “Trust me on this. I promise you, we’ll find a way to save you from the Ascendants. We’ll find a way to beat them all. Right now though, you and I will just have to resign ourselves to fate.”

  He looked at me with a confused expression. “Huh? What do you mean?”

  I took aim. “It’s time to die.”

  With that, I fired my flaming arrows right at the keg of gun powder. I heard a sizzle and then a roar. In a fraction of a second, an explosion erupted right before our eyes and the flames engulfed us. I saw nothing in that moment but the bright white light that sucked the life out of me. And then, almost instantly, everything was gone and there was nothing but darkness.

  After what felt like eternity, I was once again caught up in the floating emptiness of Vatenkeist Online. There was absolutely nothing around me and I was nothing but a figment of data floating in the ephemeral realm of the game’s loading segment.

  Then, it was over and my eyes fluttered open to see I was back at the Save Girl. My fancy armor was gone and so was all my gear. It was comforting to know that Elia had it all safeguarded with her.

  There were dozens of people around me and they were all staring at the skies. I looked up as well and saw the Obelisk Gallant swirling around, firing a barrage of cannonballs down not only on the skyship port but also on sections of the Grand Duke’s castle. I figured the castle would have some sort of magical defense against aerial attacks, but the only explanation I could think of was that we must have blown the defense controls from within the keep. It might have been destroyed along with the armory.

  Off in the distance, I could hear fighting. Riots had broken in the city. I could even hear the orc that had helped us before. It was likely the other guilds got word of what was going on. Gossip travels fast, after all.

 
My job was done. Elia had the ledger. That was the most important bit. It would give us vital information about the Ascendants. That was all I needed to find them in the real world and make them pay for what they had done to Jason. I just had to be patient now. I just needed to meet up with Elia and soon I would never have to log into this game ever again.

  The skyship was destroyed. All of the Ascendants were locked in the city of Cael’vron. Most of the Silver Blades were up in the Obelisk Gallant with Captain Klarg. They could now launch their siege on White River and claim it for themselves.

  Quietly, I headed out and down the streets. In due time, amidst all the fire and blood, I made it to the Drunken Stallion.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  “Well, you definitely lived up to your promise,” Sweetness told me as she poured me another drink. “Vahn sent some men to pay me for the items you took and added a bonus as well. I can only guess all the chaos outside is your doing, right?”

  I downed a shot. “Yep. My greatest work is to burn this city down.”

  Sweetness laughed and she took a drink herself. “You did it for a good reason. Nobody wants the Ascendants here. No one can stand up to them though. You’re the first to really give it a shot.”

  “We knew we couldn’t beat them head on,” I told her as I swirled my drink. “The Lord Commander figured the only way to defeat them was to ground them while we conquered their lands and stole their resources right under their noses.”

  “If you can’t hurt them by punching them in the face, you should hurt them where even immortals feel the pain: their wallets,” Sweetness noted. “Without castles, soldiers, and money, they’ll be a lot less capable of stopping the other guilds from taking over.”

  I looked at the Venaris and asked, “Are you rooting for any guild in particular? If you say the Horde, I’m taking back everything I paid for here.”