“And me,” Gehman added angrily. “I was only level 12.”
“I have some stories about them.” I smiled. “And The Mercenaries. But first, do you mind if we use your Bindstone? We’re so spread out right now that if one of us dies I don’t know how we’d find each other again.”
“Go right ahead,” Lock said kindly, waving his hand toward the hovering blue stone.
“This is quite the place,” I said as we walked across the town square, admiring the beautiful architecture, the rich dark wood and dark green tiled roofs. The soft blue glow from the moss on the trees gave the whole town a cozy feeling, like we’d just stepped into a hidden shelter from the rest of the Dark World. Memories of old Zelda games came rushing back to me as a school of glowing yellow fireflies swept past me and into the trees.
“We like it,” Lock said as we all approached the Bindstone and took out our shards. “And we’re protective of it too, so we’ll ask that you please don’t tell anyone what you found here.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” I said as I tied to the Bindstone. “I was part of the group protecting Stoneburg back in Carrethen. I know all about keeping your people safe.”
The rest of my group successfully tied to the Bindstone, and I took a moment to inspect our new friends.
Lock—level 78.
Gwin—level 65.
Sabotenda—level 77.
Lambert—level 80.
“Well then.” Lock smiled. “Welcome to Cara. We’re the Red Devils.”
24
Cara
“So, you’re all Unchained?” Kodiak asked as we all sat around the fire in the Cooking hut. There was an NPC upstairs who sold ingredients, but the first floor was where players worked. Lambert had dampened the fire down and was slowly roasting some kind of tuber that he said would give us all a good HP boost after he cooked it with some of the herbs he’d gathered in the woods.
“All of us,” Sabotenda said proudly. “None of that Sunken crap for us.”
I glanced at Gehman, who shifted uncomfortably beside me.
“Like Lock said,” Gwin said. “We died in a Sinful raid at Daric.”
“You were bound in Daric?” I asked, surprised. I hadn’t thought about what Daric was like before Sinful showed up. In my mind, it had just always been their home base and a place everyone stayed away from.
“For a little while,” Lock replied. “Then they showed up. We thought we could make it away to the hills, but that Chaucey fellow…”
“He’s a son of a bitch,” Gehman growled.
“Gehman!” I exclaimed. “The mouth on you!”
“He killed me!” he protested.
“We both spawned together,” Lock continued. “We found Sabotenda just outside Brendenwood and Lambert being chased down by a couple of rogue Arugians down south by the Oasis of Larnum.”
“Came north and found this place,” Lambert called out from the worktable where he was chopping herbs.
“What about you guys?” Lock asked. “What’s your story?”
While Lambert cooked, we went over our adventures since arriving in the Dark World. I went over my story about Wintermute three times before they stopped asking me to repeat it. I hadn’t realized just how insane the whole thing sounded until I had to explain it to a group of people. I’d just been focused on surviving, finding Jack and the others, that I hadn’t even thought about Wintermute since we spoke in the hidden admin building. Sure, I could restore the Sunken, but what about everyone else? How was I supposed to get them home?
“So, I guess this makes you some kind of Carrethen celebrity,” Lambert joked as he came over to us.
“Oh, please,” I replied. “More like the reluctant hero.”
“Reluctant, huh?” Lock joked. “So, you’d rather just let us all suffer here in the Dark World until everyone goes Sunken?”
“Well, I thought I was doing the right thing saving Gehman,” I laughed. “But then I spent a few hours with him…”
“Hey!” Gehman protested. Everyone chuckled as I gave him a friendly elbow in the ribs.
“Here’s the grub,” Lambert told us, doling out some Herb Encrusted Forest Squash to everyone. “Tastes good and gives you a nice ten percent HP boost.”
“Not 20?” Kodiak asked slyly.
“Honestly, if you can find me some Thyme somewhere, I can get it up to 20,” Lambert replied.
“I’ll keep my eyes out.”
It felt good to have a break for once. I couldn’t shake the feeling in the back of my mind that I was wasting time—the others were still out there and there was no telling what had become of them. But I’d been going flat out since arriving in the Dark World, and I needed a break.
“By the way, Jane,” Gwin said. “That crossbow of yours.” He nodded approvingly.
“You like that?” I asked. “Got it off an Arugian. I’m not a fan of crossbows personally.”
“I love ‘em,” he replied. “Be more than happy to take it off your hands if you don’t want it.”
“That would work if I had anything else to use,” I replied. “How’s that longbow you’re rocking?”
“It’s okay, but not for a level 126,” he said.
“Well, if I can find a replacement for this, it’s yours.”
“There’s the Festering spawn on the Southside of the forest,” Sabotenda interjected. “Isn’t that where you got your bow, Gwin?”
“Yeah, but it’s all low level stuff,” he replied. “Everything except for the—”
He stopped midsentence as though an idea had just come to him. He looked up at me, eyes twinkling.
“Except for what?” Gehman asked. I could just feel the excitement radiating off of him.
“Except for the boss man,” Gwin said with a smile.
“Oh, come on, Gwin,” Lock said with a heavy sigh. “That’s just not possible.”
“What’s not possible?” I asked.
“He’s talking about the boss. He’s like…level 175 or something.”
“176,” Gwin corrected him.
“And he one-shots people,” Lock added. “Like—everyone in this group except maybe Jane?”
“Maybe not me,” I replied. “But this armor isn’t exactly the best in the world. It’s not bad, but it’s not all that.”
Curafin came in through the door with an enormous grin on his face. He had a wand in his hand made of blue crystal. It was short and semi-translucent, with a diamond shaped purple crystal on the tip that pulsed slightly as he held it. He grinned and spun it around in his hand.
“Well, well, well,” I nodded approvingly, “Looks like somebody’s ready for action. You get all your spells?”
“Oh, yeah,” Curafin replied happily. “I am stacked up. All my buffs, heal spells, and Void Magic debuffs.”
“No War Magic?” I asked. He shook his head as if grossed out by the thought.
“War Magic is for pussies,” he cackled, drawing his flaming sword. “I’m a mage with a sword!”
“Pussies, eh?” Lock growled, getting to his feet and drawing his wand. He took a battle stance, facing off with Curafin, who looked back at him with confusion. “You know I happen to be a pure War Magic mage? You wanna say that again?”
Curafin took a step back as Lock raised his wand towards him.
“Hey!” I cried out, leaping to my feet and drawing my daggers. “What the Hell is this?”
Lock held his wand up like he was going to cast, and I was half a second from dropping all my cooldowns on him, but before I could act, he lowered his hands and broke out laughing like he’d just cracked the world’s greatest joke.
“Oh, you should have seen your face!” he roared, doubling over with laughter.
“Wow,” Curafin replied, shocked, shaking his head as he looked over at me.
“Comedian, huh?” I groaned as I put my daggers away.
“He’s a joker,” Sabotenda warned us. “Better get used to it.”
“So, what do you g
uys think?” Gwin asked. “Wanna check out the Festering spawn? See if we can take down the boss? I mean, if you’re scared we can just stay here—”
“Scared?” I laughed, flashing him a cocky grin. “I’m the girl who killed The Ripper. You really think I’m scared of some high level monster? Let’s do this.”
25
The Festering
Despite my little speech, I was a little reluctant to leave Cara and head out into the Dark World once more. The town felt safe in a way that even Stoneburg and Mountain Retreat never had. We were always on the lookout for Sinful, the Mercenaries, The Ripper or random high level monsters, with the threat of real death looming over our heads.
But Cara was different. It was secluded, cozy and seemingly a secret to the rest of the world. The Red Devils were a good bunch and had made us feel right at home once they decided we weren’t a threat.
But this was no time to rest on our laurels. We needed levels, gear, and a lead on our friends. Were they all trapped in Sheol, or were they Unchained like Kodiak and The Red Devils? On top of all that, I had to find another place to contact Wintermute and figure out how the Hell I was supposed to get everyone out of here and back home.
Another school of fireflies flickered through our group, flowing around each of us like a quiet stream passing through a patch of rocks. The blue glow from the moss lit our way as we left Cara behind us and pushed South as Gwin led the way.
“This place is beautiful,” I said as we came into a small glen covered in low flowers with oval shaped bulbs that pulsed green whenever they were touched.
“One of the developers must have watched all those Avatar movies,” Lock remarked.
“You a fan?” I asked.
“I love old sci-fi movies,” he replied. “James Cameron was the man.”
“T1 or T2,” I tested him.
“T1,” he replied immediately. “Sarah Conner? Yes? Boom!”
“What are you, Jamie Kennedy in Scream 2?”
“Wow,” Lock said firmly. “You really are a movie fan.”
I smiled as we continued on, making our way through the trees until they started to begin to thin out and we found ourselves standing on a jagged spur of rock that sloped down to a long, flat expanse below.
The landscape looked charred, as though a bomb had detonated fifty feet above the surface. The rocks were covered in a thick, red, sinewy slime that clung to everything like the putrid exposed muscles of the world itself.
“Welcome to the Festering Planes,” Sabotenda announced, raising his arms towards the hideous landscape like a magician opening his act.
“Looks like the floor of a butcher’s shop,” Gehman said, obviously disgusted.
“Been to many butcher’s shops, Gehman?” Lock asked.
“Well—what I imagine a butcher’s shop floor would look like.”
Scattered across the plains were various humanoid monsters lumbering about like zombies, pathing back and forth with no obvious rhyme or reason. They were the color of the rotten slime that covered the ground, clad in torn leather armor that hung from them like wet cloth draped across a tree in the winter.
Some of them held bows, and others, rusted swords with chipped blades. I inspected a few of them. Festering Knights and Archers, ranging from level 60 to level 82. I couldn’t see them dropping anything of use for anyone in the group. I looked out for the boss Gwin had been talking about but didn’t see anything.
“Where’s the big bad boss man?” I asked.
“See that big rock there?” Gwin asked, pointing to a massive boulder in the distance. “If we fight our way to there, we’ll be able to see him. He’s up on a ridge not too far after that.”
“I’m gonna buff up now,” Curafin announced to the group. I watched as he cast, lowing his wand to his feet and raising it up above his head, sweeping a glowing purple ball of sprites up his body as the spell cast. “Oh, yeah. Thirty points added to everything.”
“Can you cast some of those on us!?” Lambert joked.
“You’ve got your Forest Squash,” Curafin replied, shifting his buff to something different. This time, he moved his wand down quickly and the sound of a blade being sharpened rang out through the air. “Man, these are sick!”
“Item Buffs?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah,” he replied. “Harden 5 adds 150 armor to my Werren robe, and Blood Lush adds 30 damage to my sword!”
“Wait a minute,” Lock interrupted. “You’re a mage but you use sword?”
Curafin nodded smugly. “Sure am. The Dark World doesn’t even know what it’s in for with me.”
Lock looked skeptical, but Curafin couldn’t have been happier as he drew his flaming sword and spun it in the air in front of him.
“That is a pretty badass sword,” Sabotenda said with admiration. “Wish my halberd did the same thing.”
“Okay, what’s the plan,” I said quickly. I was anxious to get going. The Festering Plains were disgusting and I didn’t want to be there any longer than we had to. The mobs didn’t seem to be clustering about in any sort of way, but there was no telling what would happen when we drew aggro from one. “Can we pick them off one by one? Or will they all aggro at the same time when we pull?”
“Close ones will,” Gwin explained. “But their aggro range isn’t that big. So as long as you don’t shoot one when he’s by a couple of his buddies, it shouldn’t be tough to pick them off.”
“Curafin, did you pick up Menace?” I asked him.
“Sure did. Level 5.”
“Can you just cast it on the closest three to us and we can take them down?”
“It has a 30 second cooldown,” he frowned. “So I could get one of them at a time probably.”
“Okay, that’s fine,” I said, drawing my crossbow. I pointed to the closest Festering Knight in front of us, who was stumbling over a cluster of small rocks. “Let’s start with doofus here.”
Curafin pulled his wand back then shoved it forward. A black cage expanded and swirled around the knight before collapsing into his chest with a sound announcing the success of the debuff.
The undead creature spun around and instantly charged the group with a furious roar. I loosed my first bolt, which slammed straight into his chest, dealing massive damage. Beside me, Lock fired an Acid Bolt that slashed across his legs, peeling off more health. He was below half before he even got close to us.
When he did, Sabotenda and Lambert ganged up on him, drawing his attention and giving me time to swap to my daggers and hit him with an Ambush. But before I had a chance to, Curafin leapt past me, his flaming sword held high, bringing it down on the knight’s back and slashing him into oblivion. He exploded and dropped a small pile of Pareals at my feet.
“How about that?” Curafin cried out triumphantly, brandishing his sword heroically.
“Told you it would work,” I told him.
“Hell yeah, it worked!” he agreed, turning towards the other monsters. “Now, let’s clear these suckers out!”
26
The Nameless Archer
We moved across the Festering Plaines like a well-oiled machine, carving up any Archer or Knight that got in our way. The experience wasn’t bad either, especially for the lower levels in the group.
By the time we reached the big boulder we’d been aiming for, Gehman had reached level 55. Lambert, Sabotenda and Lock each gained a level, bringing them to 81, 78 and 79 respectively. Gwin made it to 67 and Curafin hit 86. Kodiak was 83 and I was almost to 127—finally.
The loot was pretty much trash, Rusted Swords and Rotted Shortbows with low damage modifiers, but we picked it up anyway to resell to the merchants back in Cara. Everyone else’s gear seemed to fit their levels well—everyone but me.
Sabotenda had an interesting perk on his halberd. Every now and then items would come with spells attached to them that could be used by anyone who had trained Magic Lore. This spell basically worked like that old game Portal. Aiming the halberd somewhere would create an entranc
e portal, and aiming it again would create an exit. Anything that entered would come out the other side.
He used it on a Festering Knight that was about to stab Gehman in the back when he was low health. He aimed the exit portal just beneath an archer taking aim. The momentum from the knight’s swing sent him toppling into the portal and thrust him out the other side like he’d been thrown out of a catapult, bowling over the archer like a dead tree. The spell had a long cooldown. but it was a pretty awesome mechanic and nothing I’d ever seen before.
But I was getting anxious as we approached the boulder and looked out at the plains in front of us. I needed a better bow, and if the boss was too hard for us, or didn’t drop his weapon when we killed him, I’d be back to square one, and all I could think about was Jack waiting for me.
Was he wondering where I was, or was he one of the Sunken now, wandering across the Dark World, aimlessly lashing out at anyone he ran into, losing more and more of himself with every death?
No!
The thought was too much to bear. Jack was my friend and had given his life so I could defeat The Ripper. I couldn’t stop until I found him, even if it meant scouring the entire world to find him.
“There,” Gwin said, pointing into the distance. “See him?”
It was still dark out, and when I followed Gwin’s finger, all I saw were the enormous clouds swirling overhead. But then, lightning flashed, illuminating the hulking silhouette of what must have been the boss he was talking about.
“That?” Kodiak said quietly from beside me. “That thing is…huge.”
“Well, it is level 175,” Gwin replied. “See why I wasn’t too keen on going up against it?”
“Do you have any idea what its attacks are?” I asked.
“All I know is that it has a big ass bow,” he shrugged. “Other than that, your guess is as good as mine.”
I frowned, looking out over the ground as it sloped up to the ridge where the boss was waiting. More Festering Archers and Knights lay in our way, but not as many as we’d already passed. Fighting our way up to him wouldn’t be a problem—taking on a level 175 boss that I had absolutely no idea what he was capable of? That was a different story.
Lord of the Flame: A LitRPG novel (Call of Carrethen Book 2) Page 12