by M B Reid
After the guardsmen had filed out of the courtyard I looked back to Duncan.
“You’re the captain of the guard now, right?”
“I suppose I am” He said. This struck me as the first time he’d ever said anything to me without looking down that big nose of his. His bravado was gone - in this moment he seemed utterly defeated.
“I would like to pay off my debts. Can you handle that?” I felt slimy asking him. I’d just announced that most of the guard were dead. The fearless leader of the guard had also perished, leaving Duncan with a job he seemed wholly unfit for. And here I was asking to be released from service.
Duncan looked at me in surprise, an expression that was quickly replaced with anger. He opened his mouth, as if to start screaming at me, then closed it.
“It’ll be one thousand gold.” He said, extending a hand.
I pulled my pack off my back and reached for the pile of gold. Half my cash transferred into a small coin purse which I placed in Duncan’s hand.
“You are hereby released from service to the guard.” He intoned.
“What are you going to do?” I asked, but the broken man had no response. Now that I was no longer a guardsman he seemed to have no interest in me. I decided I should get out of his sight before he remembered how much he hated me, the last thing I needed was another argument.
I turned my back on the barracks and made my way back into town. The rising sun had streaked the sky with red and the old rhyme ran through my head on repeat: Red sky in the morning, shepherds' warning. That damn warning came too late as far as I was concerned. Without really thinking about it I found myself standing outside the only building in town that was open.
Maybe, just maybe, the priestess would have something I could wear.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
The priestess was in her room when I returned to the church. She locked the door behind me before lowering her hood. She wore an expression of shock, at least as close an approximation as a skull could manage. I hadn’t really considered how my bloodstained attire might affect a woman of religion.
“What happened?” She exclaimed.
“We killed the ratkin. A lot of them, and the rat king that they were creating. Is there anything here that I could change into? I’d like to clean this off” I gestured at my filth-stained clothes.
The priestess nodded.
“Of course. Keep your hood on and come with me. There are clothes for the priests when they visit, there must be something that will fit you.” She pulled her hood back up and led me from the room. We walked to the end of the hallway in silence. A few guards were still posted in the church, but they seemed oblivious to us rummaging around in the back rooms.
After finding the promised clothes the priestess led me to the bathing room. A stone tub was set in the ground and a large barrel of water stood next to it.
“I can start a fire to warm some water if you’d like” The priestess offered as she closed and locked the door behind us. Locking doors seemed to be a habit strongly ingrained in her. I suppose it’d be pretty deeply entrenched in me if I was living amongst people that would murder me for what I was. Maybe Logan was right after all.
“No, the cold will be fine” I said, moving to the tub. I removed a round metal plug that was already in place. There was a lot of gore to wash off before I could think about reusing water. I lowered my hood and peeled the gloves from my hands. The priestess filled a bucket from the barrel and set it beside me, then sat on the edge of the tub.
Apparently she wasn’t going to leave me in peace. That bothered me a little, even though I knew it was irrational. For starters, this was a video game and she wasn’t a real person. I wasn’t revealing my actual body to anyone, so I had no reason to feel self conscious. Secondly, I was undead. There was no possibility of my rotting body being interpreted sexually.
I took my cloak off and set it beside the bath. My guards uniform I dropped by my feet. The priestess watched me impassively, apparently uninterested in my nudity. That put me at ease.
“So, what happened? I saw only a few guards return, are the others dead?”
“Yes, everyone else is dead. Including Rudy.” I unlaced my boots and dropped them with the guard uniform. Everything would need replacing, except the belt and perhaps the cloak. My flesh was stained black with the abominations blood, even the bone that showed through in places was no longer white.
I started to wash myself with the water, rinsing off the worst of the gore.
“And you killed a rat king? I’m not sure I’ve heard of them, was it a royal ratkin?” The priestess looked genuinely curious.
“I’m not sure what it was meant to be. Several ratkin merging together, but we interrupted the ritual. I’m pretty sure whatever we fought was an incomplete form. It dropped an amulet, you can grab it out of my bag.” I motioned toward where I’d set the backpack on the floor.
The priestess went to retrieve the pack while I continued to scrub myself clean.
“Strange. I can try to research it if you’d like. There might be some mention of it in my library.” I knew she was talking about the bookcase in the secret room, and the thought comforted me somewhat. The priestess had been incredibly helpful in the past - hell, without her poisons I wouldn’t have survived tonights encounter. If anyone in town would be able to help find out what the amulet was for it would be her.
“That would be great, thank you.” I said before dumping the entire bucket of water over my head.
The priestess refilled it for me. She gathered some lavender scented soaps from a cupboard nearby.
I finished scrubbing myself clean in silence.
When I was done the priestess offered me a towel and the pile of clothes she’d found. In minutes I was dressed in the black robes of a priest, with a big wide hood pulled over my head. I had black slippers hiding my feet. The priestess hadn’t been able to find any gloves, so she’d supplied me with a bright red pair of her own. None of the clothing came with any abilities, nor would they stand up in a fight. I was sorely tempted to buckle the belt around my waist, but decided against it. I could wait until it was washed. I wasn’t exactly happy with my new look, but it would work to keep my identity hidden.
“I see you got a new charm.” The priestess smiled. She’d been gathering up my gear.
“Have you tried it out?”
I shook my head.
She passed me the charm and set a bucket on the ground next to the bath.
“I can spare the bucket” she laughed, stepping out of my way.
Taking the charm in hand, I summoned up some mana and activated Tentacle Whip. A bone white tentacle burst from the top of my wrist and lashed out like a whip, easily reaching across the room to hit the bucket. It exploded into a shower of splinters that tumbled into the tub. A grin stretched across my face.
The priestess clapped, her gloves coming together to make a decidedly human sound.
“You like it?” She asked
I nodded, ecstatic with my new skill. That would definitely be part of my normal repertoire once I managed to get some decent gear to attach it to.
“Look, I was hoping you could do one more favour for me.” I began, taking my equipment from her.
“I need somewhere to stay, at least until I can find something more permanent.”
I could go back to the dungeon, no doubt Logan wouldn’t hold my absence against me. But for tonight I felt too damn wary to travel anywhere. All I wanted to do was curl up and sleep the week away. Hell, maybe by the time I woke up someone would have saved the world.
The priestess looked worried for a moment.
“I can pay” I added hurriedly. I wasn’t asking for charity here.
“The church is not normally open to such arrangements. The accommodations here are meant to be for the priests and priestesses, but for one of our kind I can make an exception. Only for a few nights though.” She looked me over, making sure my rotting flesh was hidden from view, then unlocked and
opened the door.
“Just a few nights” I promised.
EPILOGUE
Voria lay in a comfortable double bed in a lavish bedroom. The mayor had spared no expense in his attempts to woo her. Although she’d slept well during the night, she still couldn’t bear to face the morning. Sunlight was filtering in around the thick drapes that covered the window.
All she wanted was for the darkness to return.
She’d been sulking ever since that shameful display in the slums that afternoon. The mayor should have executed that undead fiend. He certainly shouldn’t have let it go free. If she was being honest with herself she still wasn’t entirely sure what had happened. She was certain that the person they’d accosted had been one of the walking corpses from the forest, but it had appeared to be human. Horrible and disfigured, but human nonetheless.
She was equally certain that it was a trick, and tricksters needed to be punished. She’d seen the way some of the other courtiers had looked at her over dinner. They thought she was making it all up, that she’d invented this horrible undead monster as part of some story to win her favour with the mayor.
It didn’t matter that she had made up the story about them killing Darius. She hadn’t made up the bit about there being undead in the woods. And she couldn’t afford to have them running around unravelling her carefully constructed web of lies.
The mayor was a fickle man. Though she had him all but wrapped around her little finger now, he could easily be swayed if the wrong people made the right moves. Voria couldn’t have that. She was going to live like a princess here, with all the lavishness that this game could produce. The mayor had surrounded himself with beautiful expensive things, and she wanted to make the most of that.
And so, here she was, lying in bed trying to avoid the morning light while plotting her revenge. There were certain young nobles that couldn’t keep their eyes off her. She would easily be able to convince one of them that, for a little favour, she could make all of their dreams come true. And that favour would be oh-so-simple for big strong men like them - Just venture into the woods and bring her whatever treasures were in that dungeon.
It was a win-win for her. It would cost her nothing if the nobles died. But if they succeeded she’d have cleaned up the only loose ends tying her to the death of Darius, and rid the area of any other players. They were the wild-cards after all. If she was the only real person in Whiteridge, she could play the game. But people were unpredictable, untrustworthy.
Yes, the undead would have to be killed.
Hay ewe, yes you.
You’re awesome.
I just wanted to say hi, and thank you. This is my first full-length novel. I know its got some flaws (hey, don’t we all) but I hope you enjoyed reading it.
If you’ve got a couple of minutes I’d really appreciate a review on Amazon. This isn’t like your high-school book reports where you have to work out what the author really meant when he said the curtains were blue, it’s just a sentence or two with your impressions.
Something like “I took perverse pleasure in watching the main character struggle with his undead condition.” Or “I wish there had been more character sheets and hard numbers, but I really enjoyed the boss fight at the end”
Reviews like these help other readers work out whether this is something they’ll enjoy, and with a small genre like LitRPG it’s important to build that sense of community. It also encourages me to keep writing, and can help shape how my next story looks.
If you want to be the first to know when I release a new book, you can sign up to my mailing list on my website - mitchwrites.com - or follow my author page on Amazon.
Again, thank you for taking the time to read my book.
- Mitch
Table of Contents
Contents
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
EPILOGUE
Backmatter