“You can have this for only five-hundred Rhuvians,” he replied as he burst out of the room and glared at me so hard, I thought my clothing would smolder. “It’s ten times better than the piece of shit you have.” He pushed a red lock pick kit into my hands in a way that made it clear he would not help me unless I bought it. Something told me that was going to be a theme with all these specialty shops. “Or are you too poor? Because let me get this out in the open. I absolutely hate poor people.”
“No. It’s fine. If that lock pick is better, I’d be happy to buy it.” I tried to smile at him, but couldn’t because I hadn’t wanted to spend most of my money just to make these people like me. I mean, this was a starter town and something told me I wouldn’t be here much longer anyway.
“Great!” he barked, and my wallet went down a rather painful notch as he rubbed his hands together like a greedy chipmunk. “Let’s get this show on the road and open your chest. I’m dying to see what’s inside.”
37
An hour later, I moved the pick for what felt like the thousandth time, and the lock finally shuddered open. A cry of joy rippled from me as I dropped the pick and pumped my fist with triumph. I’d tried and failed so much, my hands were throbbing from effort, but I’d finally succeeded. Huzzah!
“You have learned the skill, locksmithing. It is now available for use,” Elizabeth told me, and a quick glance at my skill window revealed it to be the case, which while cool, was a lot less cool than what I hoped to gain from the contents of the chest.
Polluck the locksmith smacked me hard on the shoulder with one beefy mitt and shook me violently. “You did it, Kahn! Why, you’re a chip off the old block. A natural, I say.” He put me in a headlock and dragged me around a bit while I struggled to breathe. “How does it feel to be a locksmith?”
“Pretty good,” I replied, wrenching myself free of his embrace. “Thanks for all your help because I’d have never have managed this one on my own.” It was true. Picking the lock had been nearly as tedious as every movie ever made it seem like. I was fairly sure I could have done it if I was a locksmith in real life, but I wasn’t, so, it was nice having him teach me what to do. Otherwise, this would have taken forever.
“Ah, it’s no problem. I love showing people the art of lock picking.” A wide grin spreading across his face and stretching his steel gray beard. “Anytime you wanna practice, we have some dummy chests you can use, and sometimes people want stuff done, you could go help them too.” He rubbed his hands together like a burly Mr. Burns. “Why the jobs I can send you on…”
“Cool,” I said, wondering what rewards the profession quests would bring, but at the same time, I wasn’t sure I wanted to stick around here to find out. I still had to recover the soul stones and get my body back. Doing a bunch of random lock picking quests might be fun, but it would definitely sidetrack me for a while, and I couldn’t have that. Still, it was better not to burn bridges if I could help it. “I’ll probably hit you up for that.”
“Excellent,” Polluck said, moving back around the counter and flopping into his chair. His big brown eyes watched me as I nodded and reached out to open the chest. “Well, don’t let me keep you. Let’s find out what’s inside.”
“Will do!” As I disengaged the opened lock and opened the lid, my mouth fell open from shock. Sitting inside the box was an amorphous blob of silvery light, and as I stared at it, the blob solidified into a knife with a charcoal gray handle and a silvery blade that seemed to absorb all the light in the room rather than reflect it.
“Holy fuck,” I said, reaching in and pulling the unidentified dagger free. I wasn’t sure how good it was, but even not knowing its stats, it seemed pretty fucking good since it was made of light and what not. “Identify.”
As my magic surged into the knife, I nearly screamed with joy. Blade of the Demon Forge. Six damage to small monsters, five damage to large monsters. Does double damage to undead.
I gulped hard. This dagger was so much better than my scythe had been. Hell, it was nearly as good as the bastard sword we’d gotten from the boss. It seemed a bit crazy, but at the same time, it had been pretty hard to get what with all the traps and lock picking.
“That’s pretty nice. It looks like black mithril,” Polluck said, eyes wide as awe filled his voice. “That stuff is really rare. Not only does it hurt undead a lot more than normal since it’s a mithril based weapon, it also can’t be broken very easily.” He shook his head. “Wherever you hunt, take me with you next time.”
I laughed, even more excited. If I had this and a Damascus dagger, I’d be able to fight without worrying about breaking my weapons again, and what’s more, I could do some real damage with my dagger skills.
“I’ll do my best,” I said, smirking at him as I glanced at my party window to see where Two’ Manchu was. With any luck, maybe he’d want to practice in town for a while. Sure enough, he was in town. Now I just had to find him.
“I kid, I kid.” Polluck waved me off. “You go along now. I’m way too old for adventures.”
With that, I nodded to him and made my way outside to turn in the quest. It only took a few minutes to find Gereng, but what surprised me was that Two’ Manchu, Crash, and Dark Heart were all standing there waiting for me. Guess I wouldn’t have to go looking for the barbarian after all.
“Finally,” Two’ Manchu said, glaring at me. “I’m not sure where you’ve been, but can you tell these two pussies to come hunt so we can level up some more?”
“Why don’t they want to go hunt?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at them. “And why are you guys waiting here?”
“We saw you hadn’t turned in the quest yet, and since you have to come to Gereng to turn it in, we figured we’d wait for you. It’s really only been a few minutes.” Dark Heart shrugged at me. “And I’ve tried to explain how much harder it is to fight undead at night.”
“You also said they give double experience at night,” Two’ Manchu admonished, crossing his arms over his massive chest.
“Yes, but my armor won’t be fixed until tomorrow morning,” Crash said, shaking his head. “I say we call it a night and get some sleep.”
Two’ Manchu threw his hands up. “Enough with the whole every hour of sleep makes you regen faster for an hour when you’re awake thing.” He looked pleadingly at me. “Surely, you want to go level, Kahn. Or are you with the scrubbess and her dog?”
“Let’s turn in the quest and go from there, okay? To be honest, I was sort of hoping we could level our skills in town a bit. I’d love to get some of my fighting skills up a few levels,” I said, raising a hopeful eyebrow at him.
“Fine.” The barbarian gave me a conciliatory nod. “I guess that works too.”
“Awesome,” I grinned. “I just got a new weapon I want to try out, but first thing’s first.” I moved past them and approached Gereng before they could ask me about my new weapon.
I reached into my inventory, pulled out the devil’s tail, ghoul nail, skeleton skull, and the imp claw and offered them to the old man as I approached.
“You did it!” Gereng exclaimed, tearing his gaze from a pair of angry pigeons and fixing it on the items in my hand. “Of all the groups I’d sent, I never thought, you’d be the ones to succeed.” He smirked at me. “Goes to show you can’t judge a book by its cover, eh?”
“Wait, how many groups have you sent?” I asked as he snatched the items from my hand and pocketed them. It happened so fast, I nearly missed the fifty percent experience I got for turning in the quest.
“Five? Maybe six?” He shrugged at me. “It’s been a long week.” A sigh escaped him as he watched my face carefully. “I suspect most parties take the quest, but leave before they finish it. Not you though, and because of that, you get a reward!”
“That’s right! I almost forgot you were going to teach me more magic!” I exclaimed, suddenly excited. I’d totally forgotten I’d get level two spells for completing the quest, and since I was level nine, I was a high enough l
evel to learn them.
“If you’d forgotten, I shouldn’t have said anything,” Gereng grumbled, annoyance filling his voice as he pressed his thumb against the center of my forehead and pushed. Heat flooded across my senses as a training montage flickered across the edge of my vision.
“You have learned the magic spell, Cure. It allows you to remove poisonous effects from yourself or a party member.” Elizabeth’s voice filled my ears as I opened my spell window to see three new spells had appeared. “You have learned the magic spell, Fireball. This spell launches a small projectile of fire-type magic at a single opponent. You have learned the magic spell, Firewall. This spell causes fire to rise from the ground for a limited time.”
“I feel like I should have gained more spells,” I said, looking at the old man. “I mean at level one I learned six spells.”
“Ah, you caught me,” Gereng said, giving me the stink eye. “I guess there’s a couple more I can show you.” He pressed his thumb against my forehead once more, and as two more spells appeared in the spell window, Elizabeth began her monologue.
“You have learned the magic spell, Mana Shield. This spell causes damage to reduce your mana instead of health until mana is depleted. You have learned the magic spell, Decrease Weight. This spell allows you to increase your carry capacity by four percent. It lasts for one hour and will renew at a cost of six mana.”
“Hey, if you’re done learning magic, can we find out what the quest does?” George asked, smacking me on the ankle. “Because as fun as watching you stand there looking stupid is, I’m hungry and want to take a nap.” He tossed a look at Two’ Manchu. “Sorry big guy. I’m with those wanting a rest.” The rabbit yawned.
“Fair enough,” I said, turning to Gereng. “So what can you divine with the items?”
“What do I look like? An on demand scryer?” Gereng replied, anger filling his voice as he fished out the four items along with a bronze bowl big enough to stir fry Chinese food in. “Honestly, adventurers these days… always rush, rush, rush. You’d think their ass was on fire…”
“Sorry, I meant no disrespect,” I said as the old man scowled at me before dumping the quest items into the bowl before filling it with dark liquid from a stoppered crystal vial.
“You young adventurers never do,” Gereng said, waving one hand over the bowl. “But that doesn’t stop you from doing it, anyway. Now let me concentrate.”
Gereng shut his eyes and muttered a few words, causing golden sparks to leap from his fingers and struck the bowl. As the frothy black liquid began to bubble, the four items evaporated into a puff of black steam that floated upward into the air until it formed a horrific image of an immense skeleton skull. The skeleton’s eyes began to glow with red fire as they turned to stare straight at me. Then hideous laughter filled my ears.
Very slowly the skeleton nodded, causing the silvery crown upon his head to flash in the malevolent light of his eyes.
“While you may have stopped the cobalt demon, it will not be enough to sate the wrath of the Skeleton King. In one days’ time, he will destroy your pitiful human town and everyone in it. Stop him, if you can.”
Thank You for reading!
Curious about what happens to Aaron and the rest of the gang?
Find out in The Skeleton King coming 2017!
Skills
This is a list of skills and spells used in the book, followed by a short description of them.
Heroic Leap – A skill that allows a player to leap through the air and attack for significant damage.
Heal – A spell that allows the user to increase the target’s health at a cost of one mana per health.
Power Strike – A skill that allows a player to do increased damage with their attack. This costs health to do, but all damage done to the target is regenerated as health if the attack is successful.
Fire Resist – Resistance to Fire both magic and natural.
Magic Resistance – Resistance to all types of magic.
Cure – A spell used to remove poison from the target.
Homing Arrow – A skill that allows arrows shot from a bow to lock onto their target so they have a reduced chance of missing.
Cone of Ice – An ice spell that does massive damage and freezes the opponent.
Energy Bolt – A spell that allows the user to throw a small amount of magical energy at an opponent. It is not particularly powerful.
Sidestep – A skill that allows a user to take full damage from an attack in exchange for appearing behind them to counter attack.
Revering Vendetta – A skill that allows the user to concentrate mana into his weapons for a single, massive attack.
Kidney Punch – A skill used to stun an opponent by punching them in the kidney.
Charge – A skill used by sprinting toward an opponent and swinging one’s weapon for extra damage. This costs health to do, but all damage done to the target is regenerated as health if the attack is successful.
Detect Trap – A skill used to detect traps within a given area.
Detect Lesser Traps – A skill used to detect traps within a given area. Not as effective as Detect Trap.
Disarm Trap – A skill used to disarm traps.
Divine Hammer – A skill used to increase damage done by an attack by infusing it with holy magic.
Dispel – A skill used to remove curses from a victim.
Body to Soul – A skill used to convert health to mana at a three to one ratio.
Killing Tempest – A skill that reduces a player’s health and mana to one, but does the players health and mana in damage to a group of opponents.
Blade Rush – A skill used by sprinting toward an opponent and swinging one’s weapon for extra damage.
Character Sheets
The following are the character sheets for the Aaron, Two’ Manchu, Crash, and Dark Heart at the end of the book.
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Cursed
My name is Mac Brennan and that's the only thing I can remember about myself. Not why I woke up in a dumpster. Not why my right arm is as black as pitch and covered in glowing red tattoos, and certainly not why a vicious death cult is after me.
Actually, that last part isn't true. I know why the death cult is after me. It's because I saved that damned girl from them. I didn't know who she was at the time, but I'd have done it anyway. I just don't like it when girls get beat up, call me old fashioned.
Still, I can tell she's hiding something behind those devilish eyes, and if I want to find out what it is, I'll have to help her.
My name is Mac Brennan. I have no memory, and I'm a werewolf-hunting, hellfire-flinging version of Faust himself.
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Cursed
Chapter 1
The sound of punishing hydraulics snapped me from sleep. My eyes shot open, but I couldn’t see much of anything through the closed lids of the dumpster. The stink of rotten eggs and festering meat filled my nostrils, turning my stomach as I struggled to find my bearings but succeeded only in burying myself further beneath gobs of slimy debris. I reached out, trying to claw my way through the plastic trash bags piled on top of me as the whole world shuddered up and to the left, covering me in dirty diapers, rotten tuna fish, and moldy cheese.
My right hand lashed out with a mind of its own, trying to grip on the inside of the steel dumpster as it began to tilt, dousing the back of my neck in warm, sticky fluid that smelled of rancid beer. Bile rose up in my throat as my fingers scrapped against the paint-chipped metal, desperate for purchase that would not come.
The sound of a garbage truck’s crushing hydraulics filled my ears, reverberating deep down in my gut as a snake of fear twisted inside. I tried to scream, to cry out for the
m to stop as gravity, the bitch that she is, began pulling me toward my inevitable demise.
The lids beneath me fell open then, smacking against the metal side with a sound like a gunshot. The sudden glare of sunlight was nearly blinding, but it was the flash of a trash-filled pit that threw me into a panic. I scrambled to grab onto something, anything that could arrest my fall before I tumbled into the gaping maw of the trash truck.
As my feet cleared the edge of the dumpster and my fingers slid off the metal, a wave of rancid, curdled milk crashed against my face, filling my nostrils with fetid goo and cutting off my air supply. Without thinking, I opened my mouth to suck in a breath before my lungs exploded. Milk spilled down my throat, and while I tried to curse in rage and horror, the only sound that came out was a hoarse, bubbling gag that would never be heard over the noise.
Even if I could have managed to cry out, there was no way for someone to hear me scream over the roar of the punishing hydraulics destined to compact me into pulp. Not that it mattered. If I survived the fall into the metal jaws below, I was going to be pretty damned dead about a second later when the automated press punched my teeth through my brain.
If the driver saw me now, it would probably be too late for him to stop his truck from killing me. As the dumpster upended itself, I fell backward, scrabbling against the metal like a pathetic lizard as the lower part of my body cleared the edge. My heart hammered in my chest like a goddamned bass drum as I tumbled ass over elbows. My right hand shot up, reaching for one last desperate handhold. A stream of crimson light, so bright it was blinding even over the sunlight streaming into the alley from above, burst from the tattoos emblazoned on my arm.
Soulstone: Awakening: A LitRPG novel (World of Ruul Book 1) Page 27