The Vale of Three Wolves: A LitRPG Adventure (Elements of Wrath Online Book 2)

by J. A. Cipriano

  I rubbed the back of my head and shared that laugh. “Yeah, that was not the best moment for that to happen, I’ll admit. I don’t think things will ever get too much better in the rest of EO, though. I mean, there wouldn’t be any good drama if everything was peace and harmony.”

  Don’t worry. I might not be the most socially skilled person but I took the obvious hint and gave her the kiss I had been intending to. It felt as passionate as any real kiss but the coldly rational part of my brain still knew that I wanted the real thing even more.

  As our lips parted, Kayla smiled. “Now, before we get logged out again or get swamped by people when we step back through that portal, maybe we should take a look at the new Rings and, well, see if that smidgen of Trust has given us any break from the Filter.”

  I nodded, finding it harder than I would have thought to take more than a step away from her. “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.” My brain took over from other, more demanding parts of my psyche. “Honestly, I’m pretty shocked the Ring is so powerful already. You’d think every power gamer out there would be forming couples to try to get a set!”

  Kayla frowned as she raised her hand, eyes focusing on her ring. “After what we just went through, I think the AI units would be able to, well, filter them out before they even got close. Those that made it far enough would either actually be extremely close and thus deserve their Rings or else they’d go screaming for the safety of Elementalis before too long.”

  “True enough.” She was right, of course, and I followed suit, taking a close look at my own Ring of Promise. The level up results already told me that the ring had gained a lot of power, and I was curious to know the extent now. The most obvious thing was that the third Gem socket was open but the rest was made clear by the tooltip.

  Restored Ring of Promise

  Grade S Ring

  Absolute Resistance +5%

  +26 Infusion

  +36 Vitality

  Passive: Power of Family: All Defensive and Support Abilities are 30% more effective on your Promised.

  Passive: Power of Friendship: Your Ability and Spell Damage is increased by 15% as long as your Promised is in the same group as you are. This Passive does not function if you are both in the same raid but not in the same group.

  Active: Power of Love: Invoking the power of your bond, instantly heal 1,500 Health Points to your Promised. This Active Ability does not have a casting time and does not interfere with channeled Abilities or Abilities already been cast. 5 minute cooldown

  ‘This ancient silver ring is in perfect condition. Intricate engravings and markings cover its surface and the eyes of the three miniature wolf’s head sculpted on the band glow with intense power. One engraving on the interior of the band looks fresh and reads simply ‘Kayla.’’

  Kayla clenched her ring hand and grinned at me. “So how do you feel about being my new Arena partner? Imagine the havoc I can cause with fifteen percent more damage in the Crucible!”

  My face contorted as I stuck out my tongue. “PvP makes me break out in hives, sorry, but I guess I’d be being thick-headed if I didn’t at least say I’ll think about it.” I conjured up the Watchdog Stance Gem in my left hand. It was a sizeable stone, a crazy, rainbow-swirled sphere more like a child’s marble than an actual gemstone. “What sort of Gem did you get? I doubt we got the same one; the Watchdog thing just doesn’t sound very Damage or Support-y.”

  She laughed at my comment as she stepped around to be shoulder to shoulder with me. “You don’t have to PvP if you don’t want to, but I appreciate you considering it.” She too produced a Gem from her inventory, similar in most ways to my own save the ripple of colors swirled around the opposite direction. “Harmonic Aegis Gem,” she announced. “I guess it attuned the quest reward to my current Role. While hopefully Crysta will be back and doing the healing soon, it still looks to be a really neat Spell.”

  “Let’s take a look,” I enthused. Considering our first real bonding had been over Gems, I was smiling at the prospect of doing so now with things we had never seen before. I held up mine, only slightly surprised to realize that all the UI sharing permissions were now defaulting to ‘on’ in relation to Kayla.

  Grade S Watchdog Stance (Defensive Ability) 100 Elemental Power to activate plus 100 Elemental Power every second channeled

  30 second cooldown, Light Element

  You enter a protective stance, emulating the Elohjin spirit of harmony. As long as you continue to channel this stance, you will immediately react to any offensive Ability or Spell used on you with either Chastising Swipe (a Physical/Light attack) or Punishing Howl (an Area of Effect Light debuff). You will not react more than once to any one Ability, even if that Ability strikes you multiple times. The stance ends if you are affected by a Stun or Knock Down, but not other forms of crowd control.

  “The ultimate weenie rush deterrent,” Kayla whistled, a sentiment I nodded in agreement with. “You could have a hundred Pyrlins all trying to kill you and you'd retaliate with attacks on each and every single one of them with that Stance up. Again, it could be a better tooltip. We can only guess at what the Swipe and Howl will do in a normal game context.”

  “Still,” I pointed out, “it’s something else that will actually do some damage to MOBs. As much as I love being the most defensive tank in all Elementalis, we might need more punch in the days ahead.” I didn’t need to think twice before socketing it in my Ring of Promise. “So, what exactly does your shiny new toy do?”

  “Take a look.” She held her Gem up higher to give us both a better look at it.

  Grade S Harmonic Aegis (Support Spell) 450 Elemental Power to activate

  1 minute cooldown, Light Element

  Embracing the harmonious principle of peace, you surround yourself with a golden shield of harmonic energy. All of your resistances, including against all Element types, is set at 95% while the shield is active and you are purged of all Banes when the shield is activated. The Aegis lasts for 15 seconds or until you use any Spell or Ability that causes damage or inflicts a Bane on any target.

  “Oh, wow,” I nodded. “That is a nice one. The ultimate ‘shields-up-and-heal’ spell.”

  “Yes, this one will definitely save our anchovies in a pinch, that’s for sure.” She grumbled. “Well, Ring of Promise or not, the Filter is going to continue to save us from ‘bad’ language of any sort.”

  Glancing at the corner of my UI, I finally realized how much (or how little) time we had left in this session. Fifteen minutes. We didn’t have all the time in the world and there were still important things to do.

  “Kayla,” I said as I put my hands on her shoulders, “before we run out of time, I want to try something.”

  She put her hands over mine and smiled. As if she were reading my mind somehow, she quirked a brow and said, “You want to try to exchange names, right? Our real names?”

  “Yeah, how did you …” I shook my head and simply smiled wider at our converging thoughts. “Do you want to go first or –”

  “Mina,” she said without a moment’s hesitation. “Well, Wilhelmina but nobody calls me that except for my private dog shaver.” She let out a sigh between clenched teeth. “Stupid Filter.”

  I smiled softly. “Mina. That’s really pretty.” With a self-deprecating laugh, I continued, “My name is a heck of a lot less nice-sounding. I’m Max, well, as with you, Maximillian if you want to get all formal.”

  She flashed a brilliant smile. “I love it.” She quirked her smile into a smirk. “I have a feeling we won’t be able to get out last names, not with what I tried to say getting Filtered.”

  I drew her in closer and as I did so, she slipped her arms around my waist. “Well, I guess I’m going to have to win your trust in the eyes of the AI so we can get there.” I was still smiling but my tone went from playful to serious. “I know I have real problems that you want to help with but you’ve got some problems of your own that I’ve seen, and I promise this relationship is not going t
o be a one-way street.”

  Our embrace was warm and tight as she looked up at me. It was going to be weird, assuming we did wind up truly meeting in real life when she would wind up having to look down to do the same thing we were doing now. “I don’t know what you saw, but I won’t deny it. Still, I think you’ve got the worse end of the stick.” She laughed again, shaking her head. “Though I guess we really don’t need to start a pity fight right now, do we? This is kind of our Elementalis honeymoon period, right?”

  That was a laugh I could share as my heart soared at the prospect of that honeymoon. “I guess so!” Immediately, I knew one thing I had to say right then before our time was up. “Speaking of honeymoons, I won’t be able to get back on until our morning session tomorrow.”

  Concern immediately colored her face. “Is it something bad? Part of your troubles up there?”

  At least I could assuage the worst of that concern. “It’s part of them in a way but it’s actually a good thing. Something the prize money could make better. My pet rock is getting buffed and polished by a rocket scientist next year.”

  “It was worth a shot, Max.”

  I grinned. “Yeah, I suppose so.” I frowned a bit. “Is that okay?”

  Kayla smiled. “Of course it’s okay. I’m just sad I don’t have any Trust points to give you for telling me!”

  As if the Filter AI was listening to her (and it was technically listening to all of us in the game all the time), a system message popped up in the corner of my vision.

  You have gained Trust with your Promised! Your Trust is now at 12 points!

  Quote 16

  I can't comment on those rumors, folks. To my knowledge, Dr. Fontaine has no plans to go back on our recent announcement to close our four underperforming campuses around the country. Nothing has changed in the form of charitable donations or government sponsorship, and I doubt what you're telling me, that a public confrontation with a few disgruntled clients, is going to make the director change the unchangeable economic situation.

  Dr. Jack Endo, Fontaine Institute spokesman

  16

  I came out of the deep dive in a crazy combination of utter contentment and shaking anxiety. In the end, everything with Kayla … with Mina … went about as good as it could have. I came through it a better man than I had started and there was a lot to look forward to. Sure, there was a figurative minefield of possible troubles on the horizon but for now, things were looking good, at least in the game, anyway.

  My concerns were entirely wrapped up in Chrissy’s surgery. Yes, we had gone through these several times over the years, and there had never been any major complications but only a fool assumed that it would go perfectly every time.

  Besides, I believe I have proven without a shadow of a doubt that there is no problem too small for me to worry about.

  Despite that irrational concern, everything started off smooth as silk back in the real world. It was a bit strange not to have everything focused on the evening deep dive but maybe it was good to have that momentary break. Everything that had happened over the past weeks, especially the past days in the Vale, would have a whole evening and a good night’s sleep to coagulate in my brain and Roxanne was especially pleased to see me at the front table all afternoon, chatty and happy for once. In fact, she was so pleased, she didn’t press me as to the reasons for my high spirits, not that I would have had a problem telling her. I planned to but at that moment I wanted to keep the focus on Chrissy and the trip to the hospital.

  Chrissy was not so content to leave me be, something well within her rights as my little sister. To her credit, she waited until we were on our way in the Angelwing where she had me in relative privacy in the disability section. Of course, she also had me with zero ways to get out of the discussion, being strapped in for the flight as I was.

  “So, zxt I think the chrome stuff will look zzt awesome,” she began innocently enough, sidling up next to me in the half-bucket seat still folded down. “I’m gonna brt get a chrome face mask too!”

  “You know you’ll look like a cyborg ninja, right?” I teased with a smirk.

  “Don’t you xzz think I know that already?” She let out a buzzing giggle. “It’ll be zzz sweet.” Leaning in conspiratorially, she lowered her volume a notch. “Speaking of zzz sweet, how are you and Kayla doing? Finish that fzt ring thing yet?” She added a nudge in my side as if that was really needed to get the point across.

  Settling my head back against the headrest of my wheelchair, I smiled. “We did, and things are looking pretty good.” I glanced sidelong at Chrissy. “Keep it on the down low, but I actually know her name now.”

  She made the classic zipped-lips motion, something that didn’t look quite right on her mouthless faceplate. “My voice box is silent on the bzt subject but I’m sooo happy for you.” I could hear the smile in Chrissy’s static-filled voice. “You deserve a little happiness, you know, xzt for all the hard work you do taking care of me.”

  “Eh?” I shrugged. “I suppose I can take that.” With a derisive chuckle, I said, “We don’t often get what we deserve, you know, so I’m a little worried this will fall apart too.”

  She ‘lightly’ punched me in the shoulder with her prosthetic arm. It was a couple of years out of date but it still hurt more than she intended. “Stop bzt being such a buzz*zzzz*kill and enjoy something for once, Max!”

  At least she had bopped me in my good arm. “Okay, okay, if it’ll keep you from beating me up, I’ll do it.” I tried to keep a straight face during my lament, but I just couldn’t do it.

  A moment later, we were sharing a bout of laughter, something that gained us a few annoyed glances from our fellow passengers. It wasn’t long after that before the Angelwing came down at its usual landing spot in from of Neo Angeles Central Hospital and the ball really got rolling.

  Advanced prosthetic surgery, especially the delicate work for Chrissy’s breathing apparatus and feeding tube, wasn’t something that happened in the blink of an eye. Between the fine micro surgery for the neural connections, the delicate melding of damaged flesh and pristine machine parts, and the long process of meshing computer software with the brain’s own programming, this was going to take most of the day even if there weren’t any complications. Fortunately, I was partially soothed knowing that Roxanne was going to be not only watching but involved in the procedure as a surgical assistant. At least one person I intimately trusted would be keeping an eye out for Chrissy.

  As for me, I rolled into my usual waiting/brooding post in the waiting room, off in the empty corner where I had talked to Wynona. Unfortunately, it looked like this time I would be riding the worry horse solo, not a trace of my top Crysta suspect to be found. Maybe this was good news. Maybe her fiancée was out of her coma, and they were having a loving reunion. I hadn’t been lying when I said that the Fontaine Institute’s doctors were the best when it came to neurological issues and especially NSAF-related trauma. Sure, it might have been a little naïve to hope for that kind of happy news, but I wanted more people to score a win than just me.

  The minutes ticked off into an hour, time slipping away as people moved in and out, some smiling as they left with recovering loved ones, others in tears as they learned of new trauma and new troubles ahead. I tried to tune all that out. With Chrissy under the laser, I had enough on my plate for the moment. Before I knew it, I was totally wrapped up inside of my own head, thinking of how everything was going to go wrong even if it was almost certainly going to go completely right this once.

  “Wow,” a familiar voice said from above with a faint giggle, “someone who might be more depressed than I am.” Startled, I automatically cranked the back of my wheelchair up, moving my head from my forward brooding position to staring straight up at Wynona’s shock of red hair and her wan smile. “Oh, sorry, Max, I thought you would have seen me walk up! I don’t exactly, like, blend in.”

  She wasn’t wrong there, not with her height or hair. “Ha, well, it’s me, not you.”


  “It’s okay,” she said with a slow nod. She pointed at the empty chair next to my corner of sadness. “Do you mind if I, uh, join you?”

  With my bad hand, I wrangled the wheelchair controls to put me at a normal seating position as I gestured graciously with my good arm. “Please! I was a little disappointed when I didn’t see you earlier.” I realized how stupid that sounded the moment I said it. “That didn’t come out right. I mean, it would have been great if you hadn’t shown up because I was hoping that would be good news about Maria and –”

  Wynona settled down in the chair with a wry smile. “You’re good. I figured that’s, uh, what you meant.” She let out a soft sigh. “No new news but you know what they say … no news can be good news, right? It’s not bad news, at least.”

  I tried not to show that her news hit me as hard as it did. The longer a coma patient didn’t respond, the more likely it was they would never recover, but that isn’t what Wynona needed me to tell her at that point. She needed my sympathy and most of all my support.

  Forcing myself to keep a brave face, I said, “It’s true. Take it from me and all the things that have happened to me: you’ll relish the no news moments sometimes!”

  She worried unconsciously at her engagement ring. “I guess so.”

  “Are they letting you see her?” I ventured carefully. “I mean, coma, I know, but stimulus from loved ones sometimes helps with that sort of thing.”

  Wynona’s smile grew a little even as her eyes went misty. “Oh, sure. I see her when I can, when her parents let me.” She seemed to see the question on my lips before I asked it. “They, uh, they don’t exactly blame me but because we met through her, well, the stuff she did in the deep dive, I think they connect me with what happened without even realizing it.”

  “I’m sure they’ll come around.” I scratched the back of my head, hoping what I was about to say wouldn’t sound stupid. “It’s obvious to me how much you love her, and I’m sure they’ll see that too.”