Viridian Gate Online: The Jade Lord: A litRPG Adventure (The Viridian Gate Archives Book 3)

by James Hunter

  He threw back his head and laughed, a deep rumbling thing, while he grabbed at his prodigious gut. Eventually, his cackling subsided. “But enough of my gloating,” he said, absently wiping away a tear from the corner of his eye. “You did the impossible and I’m sure you’re ready to celebrate. Celebrate and feast!” he shouted, taking a stein from the table and hoisting it into the air. Red wine sloshed over the brim, but Hakim didn’t mind. He killed the drink in one hearty chug, then unceremoniously tossed the mug aside.

  “As you can plainly see, the festivities are begun,” he said, “so let us finish our business quickly. Here is the information I promised you.” One pudgy hand shot into his robe, pulling free a worn leather scroll bound with a bit of twine.

  I gratefully accepted, earning myself a flood of new notifications:

  ∞∞∞

  x1 Level Up!

  You have (5) undistributed stat points. Stat points can be allocated at any time.

  You have (3) unassigned proficiency points. Proficiency points can be allocated at any time.

  ∞∞∞

  Ability: Shadow-Spark

  Ability Type/Level: Passive / Level 4

  Cost: None

  Effect: Umbra unlocked. All Shadow-based skill stats are increased by 3% per Shadow-Spark level (Current: 12%).

  ∞∞∞

  Skill: Stealth

  Skill Type/Level: Active / Level 12

  Cost: 20 Stamina

  Effect: Stealth 25% chance to hide from enemies (+16.8% augmented Stealth).

  ∞∞∞

  Skill: Backstab

  Skill Type/Level: Active / Level 9

  Cost: 20 Stamina

  Effect: A brutal backstab attack can be activated while an adventurer is in Stealth. 7x normal damage with a knife; 5x normal damage with all other weapons.

  Effect 2: 9% increased chance of critical hit while backstabbing.

  ∞∞∞

  Skill: Blunt Weapons

  Skill Type/Level: Active / Level 14

  Cost: None

  Effect: Increases blunt weapon damage by 31%; increases blunt weapon attack rate by 5%.

  ∞∞∞

  Skill: Medium Armor

  Skill Type/Level: Passive / Level 7

  Cost: None

  Effect 1: 19% increased base armor rating while wearing Medium Armor.

  Effect 2: +1.5% additional increased base armor rating for every piece of Medium Armor worn.

  ∞∞∞

  I quickly read over the list of skill increases, then closed them one by one and scrolled over to my quest log:

  ∞∞∞

  Quest Update: Hakim’s Revenge

  Congratulations! You have successfully retrieved Hakim’s necklace—all without killing Yusuf or his guards. In appreciation for your cunning and skill, Hakim, owner of the Lucky Rooster, has provided you with the location of the Cult of Arzokh! Additionally, each of your party members has received 15,000 EXP!

  ∞∞∞

  Map Update

  Congratulations! Your in-world map has been updated with a new location: Entrance to the Citadel of Arzokh.

  ∞∞∞

  Quest Update: Path of the Jade Lord

  Find the Citadel of Arzokh and retrieve the Belt of the Jade Lord, which will reveal the resting place of the final set piece: the Amulet of the Jade Lord. According to Hakim, the Citadel is in a set of long-abandoned tunnels, located beneath an Affka den in the Bath District of Ankara. Hakim believes there is almost certainly a secondary entrance, utilized by the Winged Disciples, but you and your party will have to go trudge and battle your way through the decrepit tunnels.

  Quest Class: Ultra-Rare, Secret

  Quest Difficulty: Death-Head

  Success: Uncover the Cult of Arzokh Citadel and retrieve the Belt of the Jade Lord.

  Failure: This is a Death-Head Quest; if you die at any point before completing the objective, you automatically fail and the quest chain will forever be closed to you!

  Reward: The Belt of the Jade Lord; Final Clue for the Amulet of the Jade Lord; 40,000 EXP.

  ∞∞∞

  I smiled as I read over the updates.

  Inch by inch, we were making progress, but as I read over the quest update, I couldn’t help but feel a pang of unease in my gut. This was definitely the most difficult quest I’d ever faced and the complications kept mounting. I mean, sure, we finally had the location of the Citadel, but my first complete day was almost gone and we still didn’t have the second quest item. And now? Now we had to find this Affka den—whatever that was—and battle our way through an underground labyrinth to locate the cultists. This wasn’t like the easy hack and slash missions I’d faced earlier on, and the pressure was weighing on me.

  Abby patted me on the shoulder, sensing my mood. “Whatever it is,” she said with a rueful grin, “try not to think about it too much. Not tonight, anyway.” She paused and stole a sidelong glance at me. “Come on, I’ve got something I think will cheer you up.” She dragged me back into the main hall, up the stairs to one of the balconies, then through a door which led deeper into the Lucky Rooster. Instead of a room, I found myself in a short hallway lined with more doors, each numbered.

  Guest quarters.

  Abby kept walking, though, pulling me toward a door at the end of the hall, which let out into a small courtyard framed by sandstone walls. It was an open-air atrium, filled with lush greenery and a riot of blooming flowers in giant ceramic pots. Above us, the stars smiled down, twinkling in a cloudless sky. Someone—Hakim, or his lackeys more likely—had erected a large table, loaded down with food and drink of every assortment: slabs of beef, chunks of seared lamb, thick pita bread, bowls of spicy stew with thick brown gravy. And that was only the tip of the food-iceberg. There were also cakes, pies, and plates piled with chocolate.

  Not to mention all the hooch. Honey Mead. Copper Ale. Even Law-jiu, from the Storme Marshes.

  A small fire in the middle of the courtyard burned merrily in a stone-ringed pit; all around it were my friends. Cutter, Amara, Forge, Vlad. They looked happy—huge smiles as they laughed and joked, as they ate, drank, and mingled. Even Amara, who perpetually had a stick lodged up her backside, appeared to be enjoying herself. The conversation faltered as Abby and I stepped into the wavering firelight, followed by a round of drunken cheers and raised glasses, sloshing over the brim with mead.

  “The man of the bloody hour,” Cutter slurred drunkenly, before issuing an eye-watering belch. “Our fearless leader. Somebody get this man a drink. The sod deserves a bathtub full of mead.”

  I was hesitant at first, feeling annoyed and tired, ready to call it quits for the night and hit the hay, but then Abby pulled me close, her lips brushing against my ear.

  “You need this, Jack. We all do. Here’s the thing. We’ve been so worried about taking care of the faction, about dealing with Osmark, about all these crazy quests, that we’ve forgotten to have fun. To live life. I know things are tough right now, but we can’t forget what we’re fighting for, Jack. It’s this”—she swept a hand around—“the right to live in peace. To do the things that make us happy. To spend time with friends eating good food, drinking a little too much, and laughing late into the night. After everything that’s happened … Well, I thought we could all use a reminder of why we’re doing this. Why it’s worth it. So please, try to relax. For me, okay?”

  Reluctantly, I nodded.

  In a blur, I found myself in front of the fire, Abby on my left, Forge on my right, while Vlad shoved a hefty stein of golden mead into my hands and the party resumed. I killed the first glass of mead in a few gulps and quickly downed another, feeling a pleasant warmth spread out from my belly, suffusing my limbs and simultaneously loosening the tight ball of dread in my chest. Maybe Abby was right. Maybe we had been too preoccupied lately. With a few drinks in me, I grabbed a plate heaped with food and bulldozed my way through dish after dish while everyone talked and laughed and joked.

  At some point,
Forge whipped out a guitar—more of a bard’s lute, really, but tomato, tomahto—and played some classic country songs while Cutter juggled a host of gleaming black blades for our entertainment.

  The food and booze continued to flow, and after a few hours, everyone settled down around the fire, sprawling out on fanciful Persian rugs with thick, plush pillows. I plopped down, legs sprawled out in front of me, leaning back on my hands as I watched the fire dancing against the dark. Abby lay down, head resting on my thigh, staring up at the stars with her hands folded on her chest. “What do you miss the most about home?” she asked absently. “We’ve been so busy putting out one fire after another, there hasn’t been a lot of time to process what happened, you know?”

  I nodded. “Honestly,” I said after a second, “I miss the ocean. I used to go down to Mission Beach a couple of times a week, even in the winter when it was too cold to get in the water. I’d walk in the surf by myself. Just smell the salt in the air and watch the waves crash against the sand.”

  “I miss home-cooked Russian food,” Vlad offered morosely from across the fire. “The food here … It is passable, but what I wouldn’t give for a bowl of authentic borsht.” He grimaced and looked up. “It is beet stew, bright red, and filled with meat, potatoes, and a healthy scoop of smetana. Oh”—he moaned softly, lips puckered—“you dip a bit of rye bread in. It is heaven. Heaven. The food here, it is good. But made for Western tastes, I think.”

  “That’s really what you miss the most?” I asked with an arched eyebrow. “Beet soup?”

  “Da. And a glass of kvass on the side.”

  “You know what I miss?” Forge said, still fiddling with the lute. “Just about everything. I miss my truck—big ol’ lifted, cherry-red Ford. I miss catching a Sunday football game and tailgate parties. I miss going down to the stock show. There was this rib joint, called the Greasy Spoon, served the meanest pulled-pork sandwich I’ve ever tasted. Hell, ’bout the only thing I don’t miss is the traffic heading into Austin. Bumper-to-bumper bullshit all down the 35.”

  He paused and took a long pull of mead, gaze distant. “The thing I miss most of all? My girlfriend, Candice. She might be in here somewhere, Eldgard I mean. She was gonna make the jump, or try to, anyway.” He faltered, glanced down, and shook his head. “I don’t know what happened, though. Not exactly a search roster, and Eldgard’s a big damned place. I’ve posted letters on the personal message boards”—he frowned and shrugged—“but nothing so far. I can’t stop lookin’, but part of me thinks she’s gone. Dead.”

  Everyone was quiet for a time. Thinking about the people we’d left behind, those we’d lost to the transition or the asteroid.

  “I miss my parents,” Abby said with a sniffle. “My dad didn’t even make it to the end, which is a blessing I guess. Large cell lung cancer got him about six months before …” She trailed off, refusing to speak the words. “I was so busy working I didn’t see it until it was too late. He didn’t tell me he was dying. Not Dad. He tried to get me to go out fishing with him, though. I remember he called a couple of times—said he wanted to get down to the lake. I blew him off. Too busy. If I could change anything, it would be that. I’d go back and spend more time with him.”

  “I have a question,” Amara said after a time, interrupting our nostalgia-fest. “I want to know what happened. We natives”—she hooked a thumb toward Cutter, sitting nearby—“we’ve heard there was a cataclysm that drove you all to our realm. That your kind found a way to open a rift to Eldgard from some fantastical place. Yet, it is a thing we do not talk about. It makes travelers uneasy, but I want to know. Where do you come from, truly? What brought your kind here?”

  Vlad, Abby, Forge, and I shared uneasy looks, not sure what to say or how to say it. We knew the NPCs were not simple computer scripts—they were definitely something more, but they weren’t human and their world wasn’t what they thought.

  “Well, you’re right,” Abby said carefully. “We did travel here through a type of magic gateway, one that allowed us to move between the realms. The realm we come from is called Earth, which is a giant place with billions of people. Or at least there were billions of people. Something bad happened. A giant burning rock fell from the sky. It marked the end of our world. The way our world was, anyway. Some people survived, but most people died. Unless they came here, and even some of those people died. Their bodies, their minds, couldn’t handle the change.”

  “This Earth,” Cutter said, his mouth tasting the strange word, “what was it like? Is Eldgard really so different?”

  Forge whistled. “Oh, it’s a different kinda place, that’s for sure. It’s big—giant, even—and we had all kinds of things. Cities a hundred times larger than Ankara, with buildings made outta metal and glass that damn near scraped the sky. There was one city, New York, nine million people lived in that one city alone. We had cars and planes, cellphones and TVs.” He sounded wistful by the end.

  “No magic, though,” I added. “There was a lot of technology this world doesn’t have, but no magic there. No spells. No monsters—except the human kind. It made less sense, too. I mean here, everything is part of a story. Quests give meaning, everything has a place and a purpose. Even monsters and dungeons fit. Things didn’t always make sense back on Earth. Bad things happened and there was no monster to slay, no quest to set things right. You just suffered and tried to pick the pieces up.”

  “Sounds like a sad place, your world,” Amara said eventually.

  “It was,” I replied, bowing my head and staring into my palms. “It was still ours, though. But enough of that,” I said, clearing my throat and gaining my feet. “This is supposed to be a party, a celebration of second chances. So, let’s celebrate. Who needs another round?”

  We drank and talked for a bit longer after that, then around 2:30 in the morning, I finally drifted off as the fire dwindled and burned low, leaving only cherry-red embers and a blanket of gray coals behind.

  TWENTY-ONE:

  The Knobby Knee

  I groaned and cracked open bleary eyes as someone nudged me in the ribs with the toe of a boot. “Time to get this show on the road, friend,” Cutter said. My head throbbed with dull pain and the light jabbed at my eyeballs like an army of needles. Though not a violent person by nature, I really wanted to punch him in the nose. I mean it couldn’t be time to go already—it felt like I’d closed my eyes two minutes ago. I pulled up my interface and checked the time. 7:05 AM. God that was early. Too early. I pressed my eyes shut, rolled onto my side, and draped an arm over my face to block out the warm morning light already flooding into the open-air atrium.

  “Oh no you don’t,” Cutter said, this time giving me a much firmer nudge with his boot. “If I don’t get to sleep, you don’t either. Abby and Amara are already scurrying about, getting ready to leave, and if you don’t wake up, it’ll be my bloody neck. So up you get, or I’ll start nudging you with the tip of my blade, Jack.”

  I sighed, resigned, and flipped onto my back, glaring up at him from the floor, my head still pulsing.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he replied with a cocked eyebrow and an indifferent shrug. “If it were up to me, we wouldn’t leave before noon. Abby, though, seems to be under the impression that you’ve only got about four hours before your first Death-Head debuff kicks you in the teeth like an unruly packhorse, so she thought we should be moving early.”

  I groaned and pulled up my Active Effects screen. Sure enough, just under four hours until the Diseased debuff took hold. Even more shocking, however, was the other active debuff currently working against me:

  ∞∞∞

  Current Debuffs

  Death-Head Mode: You’ve temporarily activated Death-Head Mode! Time until the Diseased debuff takes effect: 3 hours 39 minutes 19 seconds.

  Hangover: You drank too much and slept too little; as a result, you have a hangover. Mild confusion and disorientation; duration, 1 hour. Mild head pain and light sensitivity; duration, 3 hours.

>   ∞∞∞

  That was great. Just perfect.

  In less than four hours—and with a major boss battle looming right around the corner—the game was going to hit me with a bushel of crippling effects. The Diseased debuff came with a 15% drop in Attack Damage and Spell Strength, plus an additional 25% reduction in Health, Stamina, and Spirit Regeneration. And until then? Well, until then I had a hangover. For the thousandth time, I wondered what kind of twisted, demented jerk would purposely add a feature like that. I mean, the Devs of VGO literally had the option to create the world to their liking, and some Troll still thought it was funny to include hangovers.

  Cutter offered me a hand, which I begrudgingly accepted, and pulled me to my feet. The rush of blood to my head was painful and left me wobbling unsteadily for a second, again cursing the Dev responsible for my plight. Once the ground stopped reeling, I headed over to the banquet table from the night before. It was still loaded down with food. If there was one thing I knew, it was that food was always good for a hangover—particularly in VGO, where eating could cure just about anything. A plate full of flatbread Kabis, piled with meat and veggies, took care of my gnawing hunger. And someone had been thoughtful enough to bring out a pot of Western Brew, so a giant mug of steaming rich coffee took care of my attitude.

  By the time I was done munching and drinking, the rest of the party was ready to step out, even if not everyone was quite as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as Abby and Amara. Cutter was sullen and pale. Forge sported huge bags under his eyes and was diligently nursing a mug of coffee as big as a beer stein. And Vlad? Poor Vlad looked like a disgruntled hobo rudely kicked away by a passing cop: his clothes rumpled, his hair matted, his skin waxy. Yeah, everyone had overdone things the night before and we were all paying the price. Still, hungover or not, the quest was the quest, and we needed to go.

  After only a little prodding by Abby and Amara, we left the Rooster behind, heading for an Affka den called the Knobby Knee in the Bath District.