Irrelevant Jack 3

by Prax Venter

  Irrelevant Jack III

  By Prax Venter

  Cover by Jaka Prawira

  Edited by Celestian Rince

  Copyright © 2019 Prax Venter

  All rights reserved

  Author’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Characters with any resemblance to persons that exist now, or have ever existed, are purely coincidental.

  ~ Special Thanks ~

  Clover

  Table of Contents

  Irrelevant Jack III

  Table of Contents

  - 1 -

  - 2 -

  - 3 -

  - 4 -

  - 5 -

  - 6 -

  - 7 -

  - 8 -

  - 9 -

  - 10 -

  - 11 -

  - 12 -

  - 13 -

  - 14 -

  - 15 -

  - 16 -

  - 17 -

  - 18 -

  - 19 -

  - 20 -

  - 21 -

  - 22 -

  THE END

  - 1 -

  “Hello!” Jack called out as he approached the travelers. “I’m Jack, Mayor of this little Town. Welcome, Heroes, to Blackmoor Cove!”

  The newcomers stopped outside the Wall and shared a somber glance before the man in the robe spoke with a quiet, monotone voice.

  “Farah and I are all that’s left of Emberstone,” he said as tears welled in his bloodshot blue eyes. “All the Townsfolk are dead and the entire mountain range south of here has been taken by the Corruption.”

  “No…” Harrak wheezed the word as if he’d been punched in the gut. “Are you saying Emberstone’s Tower-”

  “Yes,” the woman with the daggers answered in a smoky voice, her gaze locked on the ground between her boots. “We had already fled, but we saw it… happen, in the distance. The sour tendrils of Corruption spread up its length to the heavens before a wave of darkness settled across the land.” She turned her sorrow-soaked eyes up to Jack’s before continuing. “I’m grateful Blackmoor Cove still stands, Mayor, but your Town is now trapped between the Endless Sea and a fallen Tower.”

  Jack held her steady gaze for a few heartbeats before turning to see the look of wide-eyed terror on the faces of those he cared for more than anything.

  It was time to do his job.

  “Harrak,” Jack said with a commanding voice as he turned to the Town’s Combat Master. “I need to know what this means for us.”

  He saw the two new Heroes give him a confused look. Lex’s father took a deep breath.

  “Where do I start? The closest Town to Blackmoor has been consumed by the Corruption. Powerful monsters will take residence around the fallen Tower, and the area will become infested with armies of the nastiest Demons imaginable…” Harrak trailed off as he turned to look out toward the distant shadowy mountains.

  Alt took this pause to speak quickly in Jack’s mind.

  “If what they say is true, this area of System Sana is worse than I thought. After the last attack on Blackmoor was obliterated by our new defenses, the Corruption may be reacting aggressively and moving to take a nearby Town… to gain the strength for a much, much larger army.”

  Jack nodded.

  “How do we take Emberstone back?” he asked out loud, and the man in the white robes scoffed.

  “Is this some kind of sick joke?”

  “No,” Jack said, “You’ll quickly find that I am not from around here. I don’t know everything about how this world works- and I am way past caring what anyone thinks about that. However, I do care about this Town and its people more than anything. To protect them, I will take the fight to the Corruption. Otherwise, aren’t we only delaying the end of everything?”

  Jack paused and then softened his tone before continuing.

  “There is a lot to discuss, but you two must be exhausted. Come to The Eye o’ the Storm, our Inn. You’re safe here.”

  He then held up his hand to indicate the gem-topped lightning towers flanking the gates, and both displaced Heroes cast their eyes up the Town’s new defenses.

  The man in the white robes spoke first. “What are those?”

  “Autonomous Lightning Towers,” Thymus said from behind Jack. At some point the old Sage had come from his studies in the Wizard’s Athenaeum, drawn out to see what new arrivals had been broadcast by the signal horn. Jack gave him a nod.

  “Look at their Tower, Andor,” the dark-haired woman said, her tan eyes focused higher over the Wall at the gleaming silver thread that stabbed into the heavens. They both gazed at the upgraded Tower for a moment before the refugee called Farah moved through the arch. She covered the distance in a handful of long strides, and Jack realized the lithe rogue was about an inch taller than himself. He took the opportunity to Inspect this new Hero as she passed.

  Farah - Hero: Shadow Blade | Level 33

  [Health 365/365 | Mana: 39/199]

  Relationship -

  [Disposition: Cautious]

  He was immediately thrilled to see she was almost at his team’s Level. Jack wondered if she’d be the one to round out their party but was distracted by the other new Hero still just staring at him.

  “Andor, if you want to stand guard here at the Wall, be my guest,” Jack said. “Tonight, your rooms and meals are on me. I’m not sure if you two will want to climb our Tower and feed Blackmoor so soon after your ordeal, but it never hurts to have that Rest Bonus.”

  The other man nodded slowly, fresh tears welling in his eyes and then moved to join Farah past the arch. As he approached, Jack inspected the emotionally wrecked Hero.

  Andor - Hero: Light Weaver | Level 33

  [Health 305/305 | Mana: 2/518]

  Relationship -

  [Disposition: Apprehensive]

  Jack thought the pair must have been a climbing team and started constructing the grisly scene in his mind. It was something he worried about all the time. These two Heroes must have come out of their daily climb in the Tower to find an army of Demons and all their Townsfolk gone. Before his vivid imagination gave any more color to the events that led them here, Jack started moving the group toward the inn.

  He felt Alt’s mental disagreement as a reverse echo before the digital entity responded.

  “Exit was only a few minutes ago. I have no idea how close Emberstone is, but there would be no way they got here this fast- that is… if the event had happened today.”

  “You can trust Jack,” Thymus said, moving closer to the younger man in the white robes. “We’ve worked unimaginable wonders within Blackmoor all because we stand behind this one peculiar man with a solid vision.”

  Jack shot him a half-smile.

  “We never saw them coming,” Farah said as they walked, her tan eyes locked on Jack. “We had a new Hero spawn a few months ago, and she was helping turn our Town around. But then an attack led by a Stalker Demon made it past our guards few nights back. It circled around while we drove the rest of the attackers out of the Fangs. We lost Kaneen, and then everything fell apart from there.”

  “She… was very important to me,” Andor added quietly.

  Lex stepped closer to Jack, and he caught her golden eyes on his. The two had spent virtually every moment together since they formed a party and had since become very much in tune. Currently, by the way her darker eyebrows were slightly inverted, and the tips of her ears were flushed, she was thinking about how he had been the one to fall out of the sky and become very important to her. He would change the world for these sorrow-filled people. He would do it for her.

  “Please tell me when and how the Emberstone Tower fell,” Jack said, pulling his eyes from Lex and looking back at Farah. “Also, what are these fangs?”

  Unlike the sullen
man next to her, Farah seemed to have her wits together. The lithe rogue took in a deep breath before letting it out, her eyes locked on his- and with an intensity that was crossing over the socially acceptable line.

  “You weren’t just blustering about assaulting the Dark Tower, were you.”

  “No, and I need to know everything.”

  Farah held his gaze a moment longer and then nodded.

  “All of Emberstone suffered a terrible loss when Kaneen was taken. She was a skilled healer, and her sunny disposition helped everyone’s mood as much as her assistance in the Tower. Then, after… it was down to Andor and me. Things were a bit shaky. We didn’t feed the Town as many items, and Emberstone regressed a level yesterday.”

  “It was my fault,” the white-robed Light Weaver said. “I found it impossible to focus after losing her… And now?” He looked up at Jack, his blue irises standing in sharp contrast to his bloodshot eyes.

  “Now you take care of you, Andor,” Jack answered. “I can’t even imagine what you are going through. You are welcome to do as you please here. I would like your contribution to help us fight our true enemy, but if you end up staring out across the Endless Sea for a few weeks- that’s fine too.” Jack turned back to Farah, implying that he expected her to continue.

  The Shadow Blade kept her gaze on Andor for a few steps, then returned her steady eyes to Jack’s. “The attack that eviscerated Emberstone came this morning, before breakfast and before we got our Rest Bonus. The two of us killed a few and did what we could, but…”

  “We ran,” Andor finished.

  Farah shot him a venomous look. “We did what we could,” she repeated.

  Jack met eyes with Harrak.

  “Nothing wrong with retreating, son,” the bearded Combat Master said. “If you were overrun, there’s no sense in throwing your lives away.”

  Thymus took a shuddering breath and excused himself to return to his studies with unlocking more rituals. Harrak and the ex-Arcane Mage had only recently come to terms with the events surrounding the death of Lex’s mother, and Thymus was still recovering from the twelve years of isolated confinement within the Tower. His new Sage class was a perfect fit for the old time-lost scholar, and Jack knew the job would keep him busy as his mind healed.

  “I’ve never seen a building like that…” Andor said as they watched the blue-robed Thymus shuffle through the tall waving grass that dominated the open spaces of Blackmoor.

  Harrak snorted through his bulbous nose. “The old fool mentioned wonders, the Wizard’s Athenaeum certainly meets that criteria.”

  They all passed the strange seashell-shaped building with orbiting spheres, and the conversation died as Jack, Lex, Haylee, Harrak and the two refugee Heroes continued along the stone path toward Demi’s inn. According to Alt, the Town was due for another upgrade tomorrow, and Jack sent a silent query to the spaceship linked to his mind about what to expect.

  “Yes, I’ve been doing some table searches and calculations- er, the short answer is: Quite a lot, actually. The jump from Town Level 4 to 5 is a significant milestone, and we will see an increase in those building slots I mentioned before. In addition to everything getting a minor boost again, Blackmoor will gain three new structures tomorrow after you feed the Town. Chance is going to have more of a say this time. I’ll probably only be able to affect one of them with all the drastic changes lately.

  “Also, because of my increased capabilities, I can say that you’ll need to acquire items with a combined value of exactly 19,802 to reach Town Level 5. It will be no problem if you continue to leave after defeating the Floor 35 Boss.”

  Jack sent Alt the message that they were going higher- much higher if he was right about this Shadow Blade joining them for the climb. No messing around with training this time. The rogue-looking woman seemed to know how to handle herself, and they were going to power-level her in one run.

  “I agree,” the AI responded telepathically. “I assume you’ll need still more Heroes if you are going to try and take back a fallen Tower… I wish I knew more about those details. I have no access to any of that data.”

  Jack almost tripped when he remembered that only Heroes could cross over the Corruption. He thought back to that first day he’d sprinted over the crawling, vile stuff to get Garl’s net. If they went to take back Emberstone, would they be walking over that stuff for hours? He tried to remember how much damage that HP-draining status effect caused.

  “I’d remind you,” Alt said, “but I wasn’t fully aware of your surroundings until after that first upgrade.”

  Jack was about to turn and ask Farah how much Corruption they had to cross to get there, but the Inn was right around the corner, and he figured he’d try and let them eat before pushing for more details. If they’d skipped breakfast, the two Emberstone Heroes must be starving.

  “We have a moderate selection of food,” Jack said instead as they rounded the crossroads. “Please order as much of anything you want. I insist.”

  Both displaced Heroes nodded as they all entered the busy beehive of activity that was The Eye o’ the Storm.

  Ryea immediately stood up and waved her hand over her head before shouting, “Hey! It’s the new people, everyone!”

  A cheer went up as the blissfully unaware citizens of Blackmoor Cove all hopped to their feet, smiles lighting their faces to welcome the potential new Townsfolk.

  Jack stepped ahead of his group and held up his hands, palms out. His loyal friends and constituents saw the serious look on his face and the cheers died.

  “People of Blackmoor,” he began as he strode through the tables toward the small stage near the fireplace. “I have some very bad news and some good news. Which do you want to hear first?”

  Everyone looked at each other, and Jack had the distinct impression that the cheesy question wasn’t a thing they did here. Was it something he should be doing at all- as a real leader?

  “Say the bad first,” Sol said from their usual table.

  A few people in the room nodded in agreement while several others looked more terrified than he’d intended with his stupid, lighthearted question. Still so much to learn. Maybe he should get advice before opening his…

  A perfect use for the Town Hall building struck him at that moment. With a hasty plan solid in his mind, Jack cleared his whirlwind of thoughts and pushed through his bout of self-doubt.

  “The bad news is that our nearest neighbor, Emberstone, has fallen to the Corruption. Farah and Andor are all that survived the attack.” He paused for a moment for the words to sink in. Some of the Townsfolk started darting their eyes around, and the tension in the common room began rising exponentially. Jack continued loudly and pulled their attention back to him.

  “Facing this fear... is the only way we are all going to survive. This world is ours, and the only way we can take it back is by facing the Corruption… by taking back control of this battle for our lives. I’m still learning about the ways of my new home. Harrak, the first lesson you taught me was to know when to fight, and when to head for that Exit Orb. In order to keep our home and our future, we have no choice; we must take some risks… But that doesn’t mean we have to take stupid risks. So, as Mayor, I am hereby creating new roles for Harrak, Demi, and Sol. They are now all considered Town Leaders, and we will be convening after dinner to plan our next move with some experience and thought behind it.”

  People started nodding and a few glances of pity were sent back toward the two Heroes still standing by the entrance.

  Alt spoke in his head. “I can’t give them official titles- yet, but nothing is stopping you all from meeting and talking. Smart, Jack.”

  “What was that good news?” Ryea called out, cupping her hand to her mouth to amplify her already voluminous voice.

  Jack nodded. “Blackmoor Cove will hit Level 5 tomorrow.”

  The Townsfolk began murmuring to themselves again, and he heard excited whispers.

  “No, again so soon?”

&nbs
p; “I believe in him.”

  “We fight for our children.”

  Then Andor spoke over them all, loud and clear.

  “What madness is this? He’s clearly some sort of ch-charlatan!”

  Jack looked up to see the Light Weaver’s blue eyes practically bulging out of his head.

  “Take it easy.” Farah tried to calm him, but Andor violently shook her hand off his shoulder.

  “Claiming to create Townsfolk Jobs on a whim? Claiming to see the future? Attacking the Corruption? What’s wrong with this Town? He’s going to lead you all to your death!”

  “Enough!”

  Of all people to straighten out this distraught young Hero, Jack did not expect Harnal the Dock Master to be the one to do it. The older, gruff man continued. “I thought the same thing when I sailed up to this insane Town. I’d seen some truly strange things in my travels around this cursed world, but nothing compares to that man standing there. Trust me, kid. The Mayor of Blackmoor Cove backs up his bold words.”

  “The old ways of thinking are dead, or we are.” Haylee’s voice was quiet yet was clearly heard across the common room.

  “Okay,” Jack said, and pushed out the ominous silence that had hung in the air after the Dark Prism’s words. “Andor, chill out, eat, and we’ll talk later. I’d like you and Farah to join us at some point during our first Town Council meeting to talk more about what we all can do to handle this situation. With all of us moving as one, we will be unstoppable.”

  Jack didn’t wait for a response and hopped off the small stage.

  Demi was watching from behind her bar and she leaned forward when he approached. Jack opened a trade window and passed the silver-haired innkeeper a pile of coins. Out of habit, he checked his Heads-Up Display hidden in the upper left of his vision.

  JACK HP 415/415 MP 78/212

  Coins: 9538

  Inventory Value: 20,349

  Alt Value: 46,308/250,000

  Items still stuffed his inventory from the day’s climb, but he put that chore off until later.

  “This is for their meals and their rooms,” Jack said as he accepted his one-sided trade.