Unlucky Dead: A LitRPG Adventure (Liorel Online Book 1)

by M B Reid

“The gate stays shut. Mayors orders. Go make yourself useful, and know I’ll be watching you.” The guard gave me a look of dismissal, making it clear the conversation was over.

  Deflated, I turned away from the guards and walked back toward the wounded men. It looked like I wouldn’t be going through the gate, but the wall around the town was only a few meters tall. Perhaps the blacksmith could fashion me a ladder of sorts.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  “Y’know boy, I think we’re going to get along just fine” The blacksmith laughed as he clapped me on the shoulder, his big belly bouncing as he guffawed. And just like that, I had my way over the wall. It wasn’t exactly as…subtle as a ladder, but it left less evidence behind - the big man was going to boost me over the wall.

  “You’re a good man Waylan” I said. I didn’t exactly have a way back into the town with this plan, but I figured I could handle that hurdle when I got to it. The town couldn’t remain in lock-down forever. So long as Logan wasn’t dead, and I wasn’t about to jump over a wall into a den of kobolds, everything would work itself out.

  “Come on then” The blacksmith said and he led me away from his wounded son. The younger man gave me a wink as I left, his spirits higher now that mischief was afoot. Anthony seemed like a decent guy, and I hoped I’d be able to help him in the future. Losing an arm in a world like this would not be easy on him.

  The old blacksmith led me past his shop and directly to the wooden wall that encircled the town. Unlike the thicker walls by the gates, there were no walkways built at the top here. The blacksmith settled into a crouch with his back against the wall. He slapped his knees.

  “Come on boy, ain’t got all day” He laughed, giving me a wink.

  I stepped forward, carefully placing my right foot on his right thigh. After a moment to gather my balance I stepped up onto him, then took a quick half step so I was standing on his shoulders. From here I could reach the top of the wall.

  “Stop!” Someone yelled nearby.

  I grabbed the wall as hard as I could and hauled myself up. Waylan pushed at my feet, propelling me skyward. With the shield strapped to my backpack, and my scimitar in its sheath at my waist, I was carrying a fair amount of weight. It took a full ten seconds for me to haul my bulk up to the top of the wall and plant one foot between the spiked poles. I was in an awkward half crouch, one foot dangling just above Waylans shoulder, the other with my hands atop the wall, when the guards came into view.

  “You, down off the wall. In the name of the mayor I command you to stop!” It was ol’ big nose from the gate, his shorter compatriots in tow.

  “Go on boy” The blacksmith laughed, standing up to face the guards.

  I paused atop the wall just long enough to flash big nose a clumsy salute, then dropped over the other side. Unlike say, a castle, Whiteridge had no defences beyond the wall. The river ran past a few hundred meters away, working it’s way toward the river gate. Aside from that I was in open grassland, with nowhere to hide, and nothing to attack me. As I’d hoped, I hadn’t dropped straight into a pack of kobolds. In fact, as far as I could tell, the entire hoard had died during their assault.

  I started jogging in the direction of the river gate. I figured I could get there, and edge my way around the wall to reach the bridge, before big nose and his friends could open the gate to catch me. Besides, with their insistence on the rule that the gate had to remain shut, it was unlikely they’d open it to chase me. What’s the worst they could do? Taddle to the mayor that someone left the town during a lock-down?

  Big noses’ nasal voice drifted toward me as I neared the river.

  “Open the gate! There’s an intruder.”

  “But boss, the gate has to stay shut” a rather thick sounding guard responded.

  I made it to the corner of the walls, which edged along the river. There was only a small sliver of safe ground as I worked my way around, using the walls for balance so that I wouldn’t topple into the rushing water.

  “I said open the gate!” Big nose screamed.

  To my surprise one gate began to swing outward, the hinges screeching in protest. The gate a dozen meters away. A nose came into view, followed a moment later by a red faced guard. He glared at me for a moment as I completed my balancing act and stepped back onto solid ground.

  The bridge was maybe ten meters to my left, and I’d have to go forward almost to the gates to get to it. Big nose came to the realisation at the same time, and a wide smile spread across his face.

  “You’ve nowhere to run” He announced, stepping confidently through the gate. The two shorter guards were right behind him. Any move I made toward the bridge would put me on an interception course with the guards.

  I raised both hands in surrender and took a half step forward.

  “You’re right. However, you’ll always remember today as the day you almost caught Captain Azoth Sparrow” Okay, I was ad-libbing the last name. And the line didn’t seem quite right, but it felt close enough. Big nose frowned at me, his companions spreading out as they came closer.

  I flourished my arms into a theatrical bow, and activated Chameleon Cloak, popping out of view. The moment the spell activated I started sprinting for the bridge. The guards were too stunned at my sudden disappearance to move to block it. Perhaps it would have been a more authentic move to dive into the river and walk across, but that was an experience I’d rather not repeat.

  I crossed the cobblestones, keeping an eye on my sinking mana bar. Invisibility was costly, and would only last a few more seconds, but it would give me the head start I needed. Big nose didn’t seem like the type of guy to stray too far from the city during a lock-down, and one of his companions looked altogether too rotund to run.

  I made it another hundred meters down the road before my mana ran out. I flickered back into view and one of the guards cried out. I risked a glance back over my shoulder. The three men were standing by the gate, the fatter of the three was pointing in my direction. Big noses’ red face had become even darker, almost purple. With a huff he turned on his heel, and stepped back through the gate.

  I was in the clear.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Something seemed off as I stepped into the woods surrounding my new home. I couldn't place the sensation. It wasn't the skin-crawling feel of being watched, nor the hair-raising spider-sense of peter parker. A general uneasiness sat over me like a cloud. There were no corpses among the trees, indicating that Logan hadn’t fought off any attackers. With any luck the kobolds would have passed by our hiding place without giving it a second thought.

  As I first stepped into the trees an icon flashed in the corner of my vision, indicating that my Flesh Meld ritual had worn off. That wouldn’t be a problem, not here with Logan, but I made a mental note to re-cast it before returning to town.

  I was pondering where the kobolds might have come from - hadn’t we killed the major clan in this area? - when the door to the dungeon came into view. As expected it was shut, we’d agreed to keep it shut at all times. There was nothing strange about that.

  Doh!

  There weren’t any defences outside the dungeon. We’d spent hours building spiked walls, but the clearing in front of the dungeon was empty now. What the hell had happened to all of our work?

  I took a moment to affix my shield to my arm and draw my scimitar before continuing. The door slid inward without any resistance. The stairwell was mostly dark, but a lit torch flickered feebly at the foot of the stairs. I grabbed another torch from the stack by the door, holding it awkwardly in my left hand. The shield made for a formidable defence, but forced me to hold my arm in a position that was useless for normal tasks. You know, like picking things up.

  At the bottom of the stairs I held my new torch against the sputtering one. The cloth roared into life, almost doubling the circle of light around me. The stairs were perhaps a little more scuffed than when I’d left, but they were so old there was no telling for certain. Most likely I was imagining it, because
this whole situation was a bit creepy. If Logan was here I’d have expected more light from the front room. Maybe a skeletal zombie shuffling around performing mindless manual labour.

  Instead, the dungeon was dark and still. I walked through the first room, then paused briefly in the entrance to the second. There were no torches burning within, which indicated that Logan wasn’t here… or something more sinister had happened. My knuckles were white against the grip of my scimitar as I stepped into the room.

  A pile of blankets, and Logan’s backpack, were stacked in one corner of the room. The door leading deeper into the dungeon was blocked with the spiked walls from outside. Instead of pointing at me the spikes were pointing away from me - deeper into the dungeon.

  I crossed the room in a blur, straining my eyes to see down the hallway into the final room. Nothing moved in the dim torchlight, and no matter how hard I strained my hearing I couldn’t detect anything from the room beyond. I could, however, hear muffled breathing coming from somewhere nearby. Making my best impression of a statue I turned to survey the room I was in. I didn’t want to let on that I had heard whatever it was, so I tried to keep my movements calm and collected. I turned away from the hallway lined with spiked walls and pointed my torch back toward the centre of the room.

  Aside from the pile of gear in the corner, the room was almost empty. A few logs were stacked in one corner, cut to roughly the same length. The breathing, I decided, must be coming from the pile of gear.

  “Logan?” I asked the empty room.

  The breathing caught for a moment, like someone trying to silence themselves mid-exhale. Whatever was in the room with me, it was definitely coming from the stack of gear in the corner. I took a half step closer, trying to keep my shield between us. The torch burnt brightly in my left hand, the flames licking the air near my forehead. If something attacked me I would have to remember to drop the torch before trying to use the shield, otherwise I was liable to brand myself.

  “Logan? It’s Azoth” I tried again, using my voice to mask my footsteps as I crept closer.

  The creature in the corner sobbed for half a second before cutting itself off. Whatever it was, it seemed to be trying its best to remain quiet. Even though it must have known there was only one place in the room it could hide. I crept another few steps forward. I was only a meter from the bundle now, and in the torchlight I could clearly see the blankets moving ever so slightly. This thing, whatever it was, sucked at hide-and-seek.

  “Logan, buddy, is that you?” I asked again, slowly lifting my scimitar to the ready. God help whatever it was if it lunged at me.

  The blankets parted suddenly, like moses parting the sea, and a cracked skull leered up at me.

  “Jesus. Logan, what happened?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  We worked quickly to build more defencive walls from the logs in the corner as Logan explained what had happened.

  “I dunno man you must have been gone for four or five hours at least when the seal started to glow. I thought I heard something a bit before, a chattering you know, like rats? But then the runes started changing and it started to glow. I should have run, but it was fascinating. I couldn’t look away” His words were coming out in a jumble, all chasing each other to fill the story in.

  That was what worried me the most, in all my years of knowing Logan I’d never seen him so rattled. Even when his father had died he’d just been kind of numb about things. This seemed like full blown panic, and it was a scary thing to see in a friend. Particularly when that friend was a talking skeleton with a fracture running across his face. Could skeletons get brain damage?

  “Anyway, the spell or whatever finished and the seal opened up. We’re definitely in a dungeon, stretches out as far as I could see. I was looking in when I got this - “ He ran a bony finger along the fissure in his skull before continuing “ - some big ratman clubbed me. Horrible thing, taller than me, with a gimped arm and one hell of a club. My skeletons jumped him, and I took off. Grabbed those barricades from outside and blocked things off. My skeletons are dead, I can’t see them in my HUD no more. Ratman didn’t try to get through the barricades though, so I’ve just sort of been waiting you know?”

  We finished crafting our barricade then and moved it into position behind the door. Logan wasn’t going to like my next suggestion, but we had to know if the dungeon was secure enough to stay in, or if we needed to retreat. And if that were the case where would we go? The blacksmith had offered to house us until we could get on our feet. Was it worth the risk of staying in a town terrified of the undead? A town that was also under attack by all sorts of monsters? Hell, I was going to have enough trouble dealing with big nose and his companions when I went back. That was without considering what the murderous woman might have been up to.

  This was turning into a disaster.

  “Has your health not recovered?”

  “Yeah, it has. This crack seems to have stayed though. It’s a wound, but it doesn’t seem to do anything. No debuff or whatever” Logan answered.

  “Hey Jira, what’s a wound?” I asked the empty room. The bright pixie appeared with an audible pop. Something about seeing her again was reassuring. As absurd as it sounds she gave a sense of normality to the room.

  “Particularly dangerous attacks can leave wounds, which can only be repaired by a healer. Wounds stack, and after the second one start applying debuffs to particular attributes depending on where the wound is. Whenever your health drops below twenty percent you have a chance to develop a wound. For each wound, the percentage increases. For example, if Logan dropped below thirty percent he would roll for a wound, because he already has one.”

  “Wait, you dropped below twenty percent?” I asked, turning to face Logan.

  “I thought you said it just hit you?”

  “Na man, it hit me a couple of times before the skeletons could get it. And it hit damn hard.”

  That was worrying. Suddenly my plan seemed a lot less appealing to me. Still though, we didn’t really have a choice.

  “Thanks Jira. Logan, can you help me clear this doorway?”

  Jira vanished, and Logan gave me a slack jawed look that gave no illusions as to what he was thinking of me.

  “Why would you want to move them?” He asked slowly, drawing out each word.

  “Because we need to know whether the dungeon is safe, or if we should abandon it.”

  “Where would we go?” He asked with an accusing tone. His fear and worry seemed to have given way to anger now.

  “We can stay in town”

  “Amongst the mob with the pitchforks? They’ll kill us if they learn what we are. We won’t be safe there.” He was shouting now, spittle flying from his mouth.

  “We’ve only got one life in this god damned place. You want to throw it away by hiding among people that would kill us if they knew what we were?”

  “Dude, we can keep covered. They don’t even seem to notice that we’re walking around with hoods and things. And you’re getting ahead of yourself. We might be safe here, but we have to move those barricades to find out.”

  “And what if we move them and ratman is just waiting to ambush us?”

  “I’ve killed two of them.” Those words came out as gloating, which was absolutely not what I’d intended.

  “Oh, so you’re good enough to kill them, while I get fucked up?”

  “No man, I don’t mean it like that. I got lucky, and I’ve got this shield now. The two of us can take anything in that other room, same as we did that Leader.”

  I could see him soften then. We did make a pretty formidable team, and we definitely had a better chance if we stuck together.

  “Okay, but you’re going first. And if it looks like ratman’s going to kill you I’m getting the fuck out of here.” He was deadly serious.

  “Deal”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  The lone torch flickered in the middle of the third chamber. Shadows danced across the wall as the flames
wobbled in an unseen breeze. We’d thrown it into the room as soon as we’d moved enough of the barricades aside, but so far we hadn’t seen anything. Opposite us I could just make out the deeper darkness where the seal had been, leading off into the distance.

  We moved another barricade out of the way, trying to work quietly. It was a futile gesture. Anything in the next room would be able to hear us scraping the barricades across the floor. Somehow it made the whole situation a little more palatable though. It gave the illusion that we were the ones plotting a surprise, rather than the fools stumbling into an ambush.

  The final spikes scraped aside. There was a small path between the barricades now, just barely wide enough to walk through. I lowered my shield into position and waited. No skittering sound came from the room beyond, and nothing charged at us. As far as I could tell the room ahead was very much empty.

  I glanced back at Logan and he nodded.

  Drawing my scimitar from its scabbard at my waist I began to stalk forwards, holding my shield held up in front of me. My boots seemed to echo through the darkness as I tried to creep through the opening. In this moment I wished I’d gone with my normal play style. A rogue wouldn’t have been so great standing here like a meat shield, but at least I would have been able to sneak around. I always played as a rogue as well, why had I decided to change things up completely for the one play through that actually mattered. If I died here that was it. Game over. This was not the time to be mixing up my play-style.

  My shield poked out from the path into the third room. I paused for a long moment but nothing hit me. Taking that as an indication the room was safe I continued. I couldn’t see anything on either side of the doorway. Nor was there anything on the roof. Years of watching horror films had taught me that there were three places to scan when entering a room - left, right, and up. I’d already been dropped on from above once today, I was not going to make that mistake again.