Viridian Gate Online: Embers of Rebellion: A litRPG Adventure (The Firebrand Series Book 2)

by J D Astra

  Otto had been a source of my weakness. I’d written him off as baggage that held me back from achieving my full potential, just like Sandra had said. But she was wrong, and so was I. Otto was stronger than I knew, and his depth of thought and emotion was vaster than I’d known was possible. Yes, he was computer generated, but hell, now I was too.

  The scent of old roasted chicken, raw onions, and a hint of sewage reached my nose and I realized it had been far too long since I’d bathed. I recalled the last bath after the Septillian. Oh, that had been my only bath in V.G.O., and I’d been here several days. Yuck. I didn’t even want to check my character sheet for the massive debuffs.

  I moved to the wardrobe and dropped off Wildfire, putting on my Initiate’s Robe so I could walk to the bath. Once I was dressed to depart, I checked the hallway, then looked back at my makeshift party. Otto snored loudly, and Renzik’s chest barely rose as he breathed. They would be fine.

  Before I left the bunks, I set my bind point. Not that I was intending to die in the baths, but just in case I did, I’d come back here instead of the highly inflamed Boar’s Head. White light swirled about me and I watched the others, making sure it didn’t wake them. All was good, and I poked my head out the doorway.

  I looked left and right. One plaque read B4, the other B6. It didn’t really matter, as I was sure that both ways ended up back at the Great Room. My map wasn’t super helpful beyond telling me that to the left were rooms B4, 3, 2, and 1, since I’d traveled past them already. That hall would eventually lead to the large open area they called the Great Room. With fireball in hand, I walked down the hall to my destination: warm bath.

  The empty tunnel was still and quiet, my flame the only thing making a sound—a gentle lapping noise as it flickered from my movements. Besides the occasional snort I could hear from Otto down the hall until I passed out of range, I was alone, for once. It felt like it had been ages since I was alone, but really it was only a few days ago that I had sent Otto away and went solo. Sure, it was only for half a day, but it was enough to remind me that the wrong kind of solitude was not welcome in my life. But a solo trip to a hot bath was just the right kind of solitude.

  The Great Room was all grays and silvers. Moonlight trickled through the openings at the top and bathed the somber little treehouses in dim light. The smoke trails were few and twisting as they played in the gentle breeze that the outlets above provided. Two night birds swooped from the grizzled roots and circled closer to me for a better look. Their name tags appeared briefly above their heads: [Ancient’s Grove Owlette].

  The birds hooted as they returned to the safety of their homes. It was a soft sound, like a pan flute. The two birds hooted back and forth, then settled into a nest near the top of the main root structure.

  “Alright, past the center, through the north hall, then... hopefully the wall plaque is easy to read,” I mumbled to myself as I returned to the quest at hand.

  The torches lining the path were mostly extinguished; only a few flickered in the darkness to guide the way. I quickened my pace and dimmed my fireball. I wasn’t sure if anyone was going to get their panties in a tizzy about me being out of the bunk, since Arcona was adamant about us staying in the underground, but it was probably best I wasn’t seen.

  As I got closer to the center of the Great Room, I could hear the sprinkling of water and noticed the Life Well, as Tabor had called it, was a fountain. It was about twenty feet across and deep enough that it was black at the center, though I could see some shiny coins lying in the dirt near the edges.

  Water squirted up three feet from the center, defying gravity with no apparent apparatus to make it do so. A tag appeared above the jet of water: [Essence of Life Well].

  “What?” My brow furrowed as I leaned into the well and touched the water. The jet dropped to the surface, sending violent ripples out to the edge. The water surface grew still after a moment, and the name tag was gone. What the hell was that?

  A shadow moved under the surface without disturbing the water. No, it was more like a density difference in the water. A bubble appeared on the surface just two feet from my hand, and three shiny black eyes opened on that water lump. The name tag appeared again, just above the eyes, as it drifted back and forth.

  “Are you an elemental?” I asked aloud, and the three eyes blinked with little blop, blop, blops. It swam in a circle, watching me, then edged closer. I held out my hand above the water. It was unlikely that the rebels kept dangerous creatures in the water at the center of their hideout, so it was probably safe to interact with.

  Another bubble appeared at the surface, and as it pushed out of the water, it took shape. Fingertips, slender and short like mine, reached out to me. I dipped a single finger down and touched one of the water digits. The hand splashed away into nothingness in a flash, and the three little eyes scurried away back to the center of the well, leaving a trail of ripples in their wake.

  “It’s been fun, little guy, but I need to get to the bath,” I whispered and waved goodbye to the Essence.

  There was so much I still didn’t know about Eldgard, so much to discover. It was thrilling to think I had eternity, or however long the servers held out, to explore it all. That was, unless Osmark got ahold of me. Then I was sure I would know what eternal torture felt like.

  My eyes flicked to the quest timer in the corner and I growled as I moved on toward the north hall. I pushed away depressing and upsetting thoughts like Arcona making us wait two days and focused on getting myself to some comfort.

  The minimap in the corner of my vision updated as I moved closer to the north hall. I could see it branched into three different paths: one went straight and two looped to either side. The plaques on the walls were pictographs like all the rest, but the bath was not hard to decipher. It was an elongated oval with three squiggling lines drifting up to a pair of water droplets.

  “Thank the gods,” I breathed as I brightened my fireball and jogged down the indicated hall. The mild scent of sulfur reached my nose as I hurried, and the moisture in the air tripled. Sounds of rushing water reached my ears and I quickened my pace even more, until I was nearly running.

  The minimap opened up to a larger room before I could see the doorway, and I slowed to a jog as the sound of running water overtook nearly every other noise. My fireball brightened as I stepped up to the rocky arch with stone steps carved into the path leading down. I couldn’t see too far into the room, damn my Wode eyes, but the minimap told me there were several ponds at the bottom of the stairs, and then a wide valley that was likely the source of the rushing: an underground river.

  I took the stairs slowly, as the stone was slick with moisture, and marveled as more was revealed to me. The ponds were stacked, each one leading into the next until the final one let out into the river that flowed from right to left. The room was at least sixty feet from end to end, but only about half that in depth. The ceiling was a bit higher than the tunnel had been, but it also dropped about ten feet to the riverbed.

  At the right wall, the water came in from the ceiling, dropping down at a sharp angle that made the water pick up good speed by the end, where it disappeared through the rocky wall. The ponds steamed with the smell of volcanic activity and burbled gently. It wasn’t just a bath, it was a hot spring!

  “Hell yes.” I grinned as I dismissed my fireball. As soon as the orange light was gone, the rocks above and on the walls began to shimmer with a green glow. Lumalgae! The cave reminded me of the planetarium I used to visit back IRL. They had a room I remembered standing at the center of to see the entire known universe projected in green-blue holograms. It was enchanting. I smiled at the thought of home, trying not to let the memory remind me of its imminent destruction.

  I stripped off the Initiate’s Robe and looked at my bikini-like undergarments, then looked around me. There wasn’t anyone here, and getting in that hot spring with clothes would undoubtedly make them reek like rotten eggs later, so I stripped them off too and put everything
in my inventory.

  Fully nude, I dipped my toe in the water of the top pond.

  Perfect.

  It was just the right temperature for a relaxing bath. I stepped all the way in and shivered as my Residual Heat passive ability kicked in. I dropped all the way down to my neck, sighed as the water helped my shoulders drop away from my ears, and unclenched my jaw. The tension melted out of me almost instantly, and a pop-up appeared in the darkness of the cavern.

  <<<>>>

  Buff Added

  Natural Hot Spring Infusion: Your porous skin is absorbing the minerals of the richly infused volcanic water! Soaking for ten minutes will increase your Stamina regeneration by 15%, twenty minutes will increase your Stamina regeneration by 30%, and thirty minutes will increase your Stamina regeneration by 50%. There are no additional effects for longer soaking periods. Duration, two hours.

  <<<>>>

  Oh yeah, I was coming here every day. Hmm, but the whole communal nudity thing, that was going to be interesting. I shrugged it off as I felt my muscles relax even deeper into the water. That was a problem for tomorrow Abby. For now, I was going to enjoy every second.

  I hadn’t been to a hot spring for at least three years back IRL. It was a six-hour drive from my apartment in Los Angeles to the closest hot spring in Sequoia National Park, and Osmark Tech had taken most of my time, outside of my personal coding projects.

  I tilted my head back, closed my eyes, and let my hair soak in the water. I would need to get into one of the ponds farther down to wash off the egg smell, but for now, it felt amazing. The heat made my scalp tingle, and I massaged it with my fingers to rub the mineral-rich water into the tissue.

  The sound of a man’s voice pulled me from the pleasure of the moment, and I held my breath. I moved to the edge of the pond and ducked as low as I could against the smooth rock. Along with the garbled words, I could hear labored trudging through the river.

  “... know anything. Now be quiet.”

  Another voice, still masculine, but not as deep, replied. “But she’s starting to wonder—”

  “Silence!” the first man spat. “We’re nearly home. Keep your tongue.”

  The outlines of the men were barely visible to me from the top pond as they marched upstream toward the stairs. I took a slow, deep breath and pushed myself below the water as they began their ascent. The heat on my face was pleasant, but fear hammered in my heart. They were rebels for sure, but their tone and the conversation made me wonder if something else was going on. I’d have to tell Otto.

  I waited until my lungs burned, begging for a fresh breath, and then I surfaced. It took all my will not to gasp and take a slow, steady breath instead. The men were nowhere in sight, but I could hear them speaking in low voices down the hall.

  When I could no longer hear them, I lifted myself out of the pond and crept down the slippery stairs to the river. It was freezing, no more than a few degrees Fahrenheit above forty, but I didn’t want to smell like a fart.

  Pain shot up through my body as I stepped into the flowing water. My Residual Heat buff dropped instantly, and I trembled. Damn it, why did I stick my hair in the hot spring? I took a deep breath and dunked my head into the river in one fluid motion, and gasped in shock as I pulled it out just as fast. I squeezed the excess liquid from my once-curly-now-flattened locks and then dipped my hands up into the stream and ran them over my body.

  If I wasn’t careful, I was going to get the Hypothermia debuff. My limbs remembered that feeling at the thought, and I shivered. I did not want to experience that again. I splashed one last handful of water up onto my chest and wiped myself down.

  I jumped out of the stream and tiptoe ran back to the edge of the steaming hot pond. The warm, stinky air helped. Why hadn’t I grabbed a towel? I snatched up my clothes from my inventory and popped them on my damp body. It was going to have to do.

  The hall was quiet, but that didn’t mean no one was about. I crept from intersection to intersection, keeping my fireball as dim as possible without going totally blind. When I reached the Great Room, I snuffed out the spell, keeping to the outskirts of the space to avoid being illuminated by moonlight.

  I didn’t know why I felt like I needed to creep, but something was up with that conversation I’d heard. I needed to tell Otto right away.

  Not ten steps away from my room I heard the gentle jingle of chainmail and something that sounded like a sword on a whet stone.

  “Who’s there?” a young man’s voice asked with wavering confidence. “I see the light around the corner, come out now!”

  There was nowhere else for me to go. There was more than five hundred feet of hallway behind me, and no way out, nowhere to hide. I turned up the fireball, stood upright, and moved to the end of the hall.

  “I’m coming out,” I said with hands upraised as I stepped around the corner.

  “Explain yourself!” The light-haired Dawn Elf boy pointed his shortsword at my chest. The weapon seemed in ill-repair, little dents and chunks missing from the blade, and his chainmail shirt was a size too big for him, coming down to his mid-thigh. The rebels must’ve been worse off than we’d thought.

  “I needed—”

  “I am escorting Miss Hollander from the bath.” Renzik’s confident voice raised hairs on the back of my neck. He said the words so coolly, assertively, it was like he already belonged here, like he knew the rules and was allowed to break them.

  The boy moved the sword so it pointed just to my left, at Renzik. “Who are you?”

  “Renzik Wiriya,” he said as he straightened to his full height and gave a gentle bow. “Who might you be?”

  “What were you doing at the baths?” the boy accused, sword swinging back in my direction.

  I squeezed a bit of water from my soaking hair and said sarcastically, “Taking a bath.”

  The boy wiggled on uncertain feet, looking uncomfortable at our total confidence in the situation. I was glad I’d picked up on Renzik’s tactic. He’d noticed how young the kid was, too, I was sure. It would’ve been unlikely for some young boy in dented armor three sizes too big to be an actual patrol, or one with much experience. Just acting the part of knowing what we were doing could be enough to scare the new recruit into not mentioning it.

  “You’re going to come with me. I—I need to report this to Arcona,” the boy stuttered.

  Nope, this was bad. I was not going to the principal’s office first night at school. “Look, we’re new here. I’m a Traveler. I don’t know anything. Please don’t tell on us.” I pouted my lower lip.

  He looked from me to Renzik, then said, “Get back in your rooms, now. I’m going to follow you.” His helmet tilted as he moved, and he struggled to get it back in place with his other hand.

  “We were just headed that way, thank you,” I said, remembering Otto had mentioned something about being polite. I didn’t know if it carried merit with the Dawn Elves down here with the rebels, but I hoped so.

  Renzik and I took the lead as we passed the boy down the hall he’d come from. B5 was just a few feet away, and so after a mere ten seconds we turned back to face him. I smiled and said, “Thank you for the escort back to our room. We feel much safer with you here to watch over us.”

  The boy averted his gaze, cheeks flushed. “You’re welcome. Don’t do it again.” Then he was off, marching down the hall.

  Oh my god. That was my first police getaway!

  I’d only been pulled over a few times back IRL, but I’d always known what I’d done and was willing to pay the price without a fuss. This time though, I’d needed to make sure I could get back to Otto and warn him. More was on the line than just my bank account or my pride.

  But first. “What were you doing following me?” I demanded of Renzik with a hiss when the guard was out of earshot.

  “I heard someone walk through the hall, speaking with another man about a Binding’s Hook. I got up to listen and...” Renzik paused, his cheeks flushing with purple.

  “A
nd?” I asked, brows raised.

  “And I followed them for a little while until I heard the guard call for someone. Then, I came back to see you being questioned, so I stepped in to help.”

  “There was five hundred feet of tunnel behind me, and I didn’t see you,” I said, my eyelids tightening to slits.

  Renzik tilted his head in confusion. “I’m a Tracker.” He said it as if it meant something to me. I tried thinking back to when I reviewed the available class kits. Tracker was there, and I skimmed the high level description since I was pretty sure it wasn’t for me. Ugh, I couldn’t remember any of the abilities. I’d just have to trust him.

  “So,” I said with a smirk, “You were eavesdropping on the rebels?”

  He nodded his head solemnly.

  I patted his shoulder. “Good work. There’s some weird stuff afoot here. I think I heard the same men talking at the pools. We need to wake Otto.”

  Chores

  WHEN WE’D FINISHED telling Otto each of our stories about the men chatting in the hall, he shrugged us off.

  “It happens,” Otto said dismissively. “This is a rebel hideout, and that waterway is one of the old passages from before the portals sprung up. They’re frequently used on missions still, especially if you need to lose a tail in the city or lure them far enough out to kill them quietly.”

  “But Otto,” I said, holding the flame in my hand close to my face, “I feel it in my gut that something is up. We should investigate.”

  He shook his head. “Abby, Arcona has many different groups out on many different initiatives. It is not our place to interfere or intervene. Remember what we’re here for,” he said as he eyed me with that “stop having ADHD” gaze.