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

by J D Astra

  “Hey!” I looked over my shoulder to see the boy pointing his sword through the hole I’d made in the door. “You’re not getting away with this! We’re coming for you!”

  I shot a fireball at his face and he yelped as he dropped back from the door. “We’re ready for you!” I shouted back at the fireball smacked the opening and sprayed embers out over the white sand.

  “Get on,” Otto urged as he started working the crank for the pulley. The lift dropped at a snail’s pace, and I hopped onto the platform, grabbing hold of the second crankshaft opposite Otto. My barely recovered Stamina dropped as I moved the handle around and around, aiding our descent by a miniscule amount.

  The platform dropped into darkness as the top of the gondola obscured the sun. We cranked away at the pulley system in silence, blackness. It was a claustrophobic descent into madness as thoughts of failure rattled around in my all-too-quiet brain.

  How would we get out? How would we even find Eisen and Renzik? I just got Otto back, could I lose him forever to this place?

  Cries of pain and orange light filled the lift as the platform crossed into the open air of the detention center. Stinking sulfur burned my eyes and wrinkled my nose as the air from below whooshed into our open lift. The low light was just barely enough for me to see the forges and bellows being cranked away by slaves.

  The prisoners.

  They were completely nude, shackled at the wrists and ankles and tied to the bellows wheel. Slave drivers stood to the side, whipping and screaming as the men and women marched in constricted circles, heating the forges.

  The pounding of iron and steel rang out in the blackness, laying down the beat to the chorus of terror and agony. I wanted to plug my ears to block out the horror, but we had to go on, we had to rescue our friends.

  No. We had to rescue all of them.

  “Otto.” I breathed his name at the fluttering of anger in my heart. These people were all likely just as innocent as Renzik and Eisen. Good people condemned to painful slavery and murder at the hands of frightened teens, all for rebelling against a totalitarian, cookie-cutter perfect government. I gritted my teeth and looked on the hate and tyranny of the dictatorship Osmark would surely bring to all of Eldgard.

  The crank moved faster, my arms burning as I pushed myself harder than before. I was going to kill every slave driver, every master, until I killed Osmark himself.

  “We can’t leave any of them here,” I said loudly as we descended to the depths of the torture hall.

  Otto’s head snapped to my face and we locked eyes, surprise in the creases of his forehead. A ghost of a smile appeared on his lips and he nodded with determination. We were going to set them all free.

  Fury of a Firebrand

  I SUCKED IN LARGE GASPS of hot, smoky air as my Stamina tried to recover. Residual Heat had triggered a moment before, which was awesome, but not helpful with my current predicament. Otto kept cranking away, moving us ever so closer to the ground where five guards awaited our arrival.

  There were three forges no more than thirty feet from where the guards stood waiting, each one manned by a team of four slaves working the bellows, two slave drivers, and one slave holding the hot metal still for the blacksmith. The slaves’ eyes flicked up to us, then back to their task, then to us again. I could see the fear in their weary faces, but behind that fear was hope.

  My breath caught in my throat as I looked up some ten stories to the ceiling above. The walls of the square cavern were lined with barred doors, and each walkway for each wall had a guard, all of whom were rushing toward the nearest staircase. Not long after we’d dropped in, the top-floor guard told the next one down we’d arrived, and the news traveled much faster than we did.

  We were only four floors from the bottom, but there were already two guards from the other walls rushing across the slave-factory floor to group up with the others. At the center of the room the completed works from the forges were sorted in piles: helms, swords, bucklers, bolts and hinges, along with several other components I couldn’t identify. They were loaded into wheelbarrows, rolled to the outside walls, and dropped into carts on a track system headed to who-knew-where.

  “Keep your eyes on your work!” A master at the closest forge cracked his whip, slicing into a woman’s back. She yelped, stumbling forward, but she kept her hands on a spoke of the wheel that pumped the bellows. She kept walking, kept pushing. Her blue eyes flicked up to meet mine. Black streaked her face where old tears streamed down her cheeks long ago, but there were no tears now, only hopelessness.

  My clenched fists trembled as I moved back to the crank. My Stamina was full enough. I wasn’t going to need it for this fight in any case. I was going to feed them the heat of their own malice, and for that, I only needed Spirit.

  “Wildfire!” I heard the name of my robes, and my gaze hunted through the crowd for the voice that spoke it. His blond hair was shaggy and tangled, smudged with black soot from the bellows. His skin was raw from fire and lashings. Blood snaked down his thin bare legs to shackled feet.

  Eisen.

  He was only a hundred feet away, working the bellows at a forge crafting helms.

  The master whipped at him, shouting, “Quiet! Work!”

  Pain shot through my jaw at the grinding of my teeth, and I moved the crank faster. They were going to pay. They were going to know his pain. They were going to understand their own wickedness.

  Otto began dishing his plan. “When we hit the bottom, open us a path with Inferno Blast, then I’ll clean up the mess as you run to Eisen—”

  “And Renzik?” I cut him off, aghast he would think of our objective, but not our friend.

  Otto smirked, some amusing secret playing behind his eyes. “We need Eisen to break their bonds, all of them. And we don’t have a lot of time,” he said as he pointed across the open hall to the other lift. The chain for the other lift was wiggling, working the platform down, though it hadn’t breached the ceiling. My gut turned as I thought of who it could be.

  Sandra. It would be Sandra, of course.

  “Get ready!” Otto bellowed as the seven guards on the ground poked their swords and spears up at the platform, almost reaching.

  “Stop here!” I shouted and moved to the edge of the lift, barely out of the soldiers’ reach.

  I opened my palms and triggered Fire Inside before hitting the soldiers with Inferno Blast. Within a second, five of the seven had a Burning Affliction debuff, and after three more seconds, they all had one. Numbers flashed through my vision as the Health of the soldiers below seared away. Big lettered critical hits here, orange Burning Affliction procs there. It was a beautiful prismatic display of ravaging fire.

  My Spirit bar hit half, and I cut the spell off. With Fire Inside still active, my Spirit regen was significantly hampered, but we needed this head start. I cracked open my second to last Spirit potion and sucked it down as I dropped into the chaos of screaming, flaming, flailing soldiers. Otto thumped down behind me, going to work on what I’d left for him.

  It was crowded through the hall; slaves and slavers alike were trying to keep out of the way while still manning their posts. A soldier pushed through billows of smoke at the right forge, and I didn’t hesitate to give him a fireball, then stack him up with Burning Affliction.

  Fire ripped up the man’s clothes and filled his helmet. He dropped his sword, his screams of agony punctuated by gasps for air as flames filled his lungs. The soldier fell to his knees, his Health down by more than half. I hit him with one more fireball and turned my back as I moved with purpose toward the closest forge. I locked eyes with the slave driver as he backed away.

  “Have mercy!” the slaver cried as he looked between me and the charred bodies behind me. Otto stepped up to my side, his sword coated to the hilt in blood. The slaves continued their trudging around the circle to keep the bellows stoked, but there was an excited energy about them as they looked on their cowering slave driver.

  “Only as much as you’ve sho
wn them.” I growled the words and triggered Blazing Weapon. I threw the javelin with deft ease, my limbs instantly taking on the nimble agility of a huntress. Before the spear hit its target, I charged. The man raised his whip to snap the weapon out of the air, but too late, as it pierced his chest and took him to the ground.

  I leapt over his squirming body, ripping the spearhead from his chest as I did, and bolted through the crowd. Eisen wasn’t far, but the soldiers from all around were closing in, and I had sixteen seconds left.

  Jab.

  Parry.

  Spin.

  Skewer.

  The steel breastplates of the soldiers were no match for my fiery weapon. I sliced through them like a hot knife through butter, dropping two more soldiers with ease before I continued my sprint through the crowd. The slaves parted for me, their cries of terror and agony shifting to hopeful cheers of, “Wildfire, Wildfire!”

  Nine seconds left. Eisen was in sight, his slave driver too. Nope, not a slavedriver.

  Sandra.

  A surge of feral fear shot down my limbs and raised my javelin arm. She snarled and darted forward. I hurled the spear, my sight locked onto Sandra. I didn’t watch it fly as the timer slowly clicked down to detonation, I wanted to see the look on her face the second she realized her error.

  Three seconds.

  Sandra’s head turned as the javelin flew past her into the hot embers of the forge.

  “Down!” I screamed as I dropped to the ashen floor and covered my head.

  The ground trembled as the forge blasted apart. Sandra flew forward, landing chest first ten feet from me. My ears rang as hot coals showered down around us, and a pop-up notification appeared:

  <<<>>>

  Debuff Added

  Perforated Eardrum: The tissue separating your middle ear from the canal has ruptured! Experience severe hearing loss and mild disorientation; duration, 3 minutes.

  <<<>>>

  Sandra pulled her arms under her in a haze, then pushed against the ground to lift herself to her knees. I charged and pushed her back to the ground as I dropped my knee into her back. The thumping of my heart was loud in my damaged ears, and the garbled shouts of slaves around me were nothing more than noise.

  Sandra bucked, becoming more lucid with every passing second as my fingers worked the spell for Flame of Holding. Sharp pain seared in my thigh, and my hand instinctively moved to the spot, interrupting my cast.

  <<<>>>

  Debuff Added

  Paralyzing Poison: You are being paralyzed by a Rogue’s poison! Your motor functions are reduced by up to 85%, increasing over sixty seconds. At 30% you cannot cast spells requiring hand gestures. At 70%, you can no longer cast any spells. Duration, 3 minutes!

  <<<>>>

  Crack!

  An elbow flew back into my nose and I landed on my back, holding my face. Sandra flipped around and held up her dagger, dripping blood onto my chest. Why in the hell did I ever think I could take her on in close quarters? I was completely outclassed.

  Sandra’s lips moved, but all I heard was a droning series of syllables. My gaze moved past her to the open elevator shaft and the glimmer of red dropping out of the sky. Arcona, wrapped in Flame of Holding, descended belly-first like a meteor, and atop her stood a blond-haired woman in glittering black robes emblazoned with the symbol of a Firebrand.

  Naitee.

  Arcona’s drop slowed with a whooshing of air that blew Naitee’s hair straight up, and they fell out of sight behind the mass of surging slaves running for the exits.

  Sandra grabbed my chin and her blade came up to my neck. “Look at me,” her lips said in exaggerated movements. She went on, her mouth moving with deliberate intent, but everything I heard was garbled nonsense.

  “Typical bad guy,” I interrupted, and she bared her teeth. “So busy letting me know how you’ve won, you failed to notice you’ve lost.”

  A dark mass slammed into Sandra’s side, throwing her to the ground. I cleansed myself with Sorceric Blessing and rolled over with a groan.

  Renzik, as nude and bloodied as the day he was born, straddled the frenzied Sandra as he pried a dagger from her grasp. He plunged the pilfered blade down into her eye and she shrieked, stabbing frantically at his abdomen with her off-hand. Renzik’s life dropped by 30% on the first two hits and 10% on the third. I lunged forward and grabbed her arm at the wrist before it could get in another, then dragged it up above her head.

  Renzik pulled the dagger free from her left eye and brought it down on the other, putting all his body weight behind it. Sandra’s Health dropped below 5% and her attempts to get free grew weaker and weaker, until she was still.

  Renzik fell to the side, holding his bloodied gut as he coughed. His Health bar was over half empty, and it was still dropping. I reached into my inventory for a Health potion, but there were none. Only a single Spirit potion remained.

  “Shit,” I cried as I crawled over Sandra’s body to reach him. I pressed my robes onto his wounds, trying to slow the bleeding as I used Sorceric Blessing to remove his poison debuff.

  “Otto! Potion!” My voice was loud in my inner ear, but I could tell the mayhem of the surging crowd was louder.

  I looked up, my gaze flicking through the masses to find Otto. I gasped as I noticed dozens of eyeless creatures dropping through the other open elevator shaft, their fox snouts sniffing hard at the air. Hundun Broodlings. I turned back to the other lift and saw a familiar brilliant glow. A portal.

  Something pinched my arm, and I looked down to Renzik. He moved his mouth, but I still couldn’t hear the words. I focused on his lips.

  Leave.

  Leave me.

  “No!” I declared as I fought back the lump in my chest. His Health was at 30% and dropping. It wasn’t just the bleeding out, he was bleeding internally.

  “Otto! Otto!” I screamed until my lungs burned, my eyes watered, and my throat ached. I couldn’t wait for him, I couldn’t hope he’d find us here on the ground amid the masses of fleeing slaves. I had to do something.

  Renzik’s legs curled into my grasp easily, and I wrapped his arms around my neck. “Hold onto me!” I screamed as I planted my feet and heaved, lifting us both to standing. The sharp pain from my stab wound reminded me of how weak I was, but I bit my lip through the anguish.

  My Stamina leaked away as I carried Renzik forward to salvation. He was at 20% when his arms dropped away from my neck and his body went limp. I staggered, my fingers digging into his sides to keep his blood-slick skin from slipping out of my grasp.

  I refuse to fall. I refuse to fail him.

  “Otto!” I cried, and my ears popped as the Perforated Eardrum debuff ended. The shouts of horror swirled with the caws of the Hundun Broodlings and my head swam from the sudden sound. Stars prickled at the edges of my darkening vision as the pressure in my temples mounted. I pushed out the held breath and sucked in another through clenched teeth.

  A towering Risi appeared above the heads of the crowd and my body shuddered as my Stamina dropped to critical. “Otto!” I called out one last time as my knees buckled. I fell to the ground, cradling Renzik as his Health dropped to 15%. “Just hold on,” I whispered as I protected him from the trampling, shackled feet of fearful slaves.

  The surging bodies parted and massive green arms lifted Renzik from my grasp. “Get up, Abby!” Otto yelled as he pulled Renzik close to his chest.

  “He needs a potion,” I gasped as I stumbled upward into him.

  Otto grabbed my hand, jerking me forward as he ran toward the shimmering light of the portal. No, portals! Naitee and Eisen stood beside glowing doorways, hurling balls of fire and bolts of ice at dozens of swooping Hundun Broodlings that swirled overhead like a tornado of terror. Slaves leapt thoughtlessly into the conjured exits at Arcona’s ushering.

  “Hurry!” Naitee yelled as her portals flickered, fading like they were losing power with every slave that escaped through them. We were only feet away when the left portal blinked into nothing
ness, gone with a crackling snap. The collective gasp and cry from the slaves sent a shiver of fear down my spine. Otto pulled on my arm harder as he sprinted toward the remaining portal.

  Too late. The last way out fizzled and popped. Gone.

  “To me!” Naitee yelled as she flipped a final scroll in her hand and popped the seal. A portal materialized in a shower of sparks, and the Hundun Broodlings shrieked, collectively diving like a mad flock of buzzards. I reached into the glowing mass, willing myself to leave behind the horrors of Alaunhylles.

  Freed

  “ARCONA!” OTTO BOOMED over the rabble of terrified slaves as he lowered Renzik to the dirt floor of the Great Room. The disorientation of portal travel had its grip on me as I stumbled to Otto’s side. Arcona parted the crowd and knelt beside us. Renzik’s Health was nearly gone, 5% and still dropping.

  “Tilt back his head,” Arcona commanded, and Otto angled the Dokkalfar so that his jaw fell open. She popped the cork on a red vial and tipped the contents into Renzik’s slack mouth. She massaged his cheeks and throat, forcing the liquid down to his stomach.

  I grabbed Renzik’s hand, squeezing it tight as I watched the last two percent leaking out of his Health bar. His skin was cool to the touch, and the pulse in his finger was a slow thump, tha-dump.

  “Hear me now, Goddess,” Otto whispered at Renzik’s ear. “This one’s not yours yet.”

  The last percent in Renzik’s Health bar flashed a deep red, and then... it started to fill. 5%, 10%, 15%. The death-defying Dokkalfar gasped as the wounds in his gut mended and he regained consciousness.

  Renzik’s eyes twitched around the room until his gaze landed on Otto’s face. “She says,” Renzik panted the words, “Don’t waste it.”

  Otto smiled, helping our friend to sit up as he said, “She’s a gracious goddess indeed.”

  Renzik squeezed my hand and I realized how tight I’d been gripping. I released him with a tearful grin. “Thank you, Renzik. You could’ve let me die, you know,” I said as I gave his arm a playful punch. “You didn’t have to risk your only life for one of mine.”