Black Flame in the Barren Steppe: Epic LitRPG (Realm of Arkon, Book 8)

by G. Akella

  The goddess and I had stayed up talking till morning. Divine involvement in the battles of lesser beings greatly complicated things here in Arkon, and this was the first battle of its kind in other respects besides. Breaking it down to the simplest terms, gods provided cover to their allied armies and fought only amongst themselves. Thus, the armies battled each other as usual, but victory went to the side whose gods proved stronger nine times out of ten. Fighting on the side of the orcs were Kahella and Dhoresh; on the enemy's side—Vill and his two summoned morts. Everybody here knew that central to this bloody prophecy was my opposition to the God of Torturous Death. Though Merdoc and Sata both had said that Vill wasn't my enemy, I couldn't abandon the orcs in their hour of need. Besides, I needed the soul of a Great Essence to liberate my wife, so the bastard was going down! My job was to keep him occupied while Dhoresh, Kahella and their companions destroyed the morts. At some point in the battle the Goddess of Will would summon me, and I would go to her, alone. Kahella's buff regenerated thirty percent HP per second and raised armor and all max resistances by twenty percent. With all my gear and buffs, Vill shouldn't be able to make a dent in me, and I still had an ace up my sleeve in the form of Ahriman's scroll in my belt slot. As the saying goes, no battle plan survives contact with the enemy, but having a plan was essential just the same. The only certain thing about the battle was that it would take place exactly here, on the Kohaeryn Prairie. Though the Steppe's border was enormous and could be attacked from any direction, Vill needed Dhoresh and Kahella. And sacrifices, too. But I needed him just as badly.

  "Why so quiet, Roman?" Donut nudged me with his elbow. "You haven't told us anything since you got back."

  "Quiet and smiling blissfully. Missing someone?" Vaessa chimed in.

  I smiled. "You can't even imagine. But there's not much to say. Everything happened according to plan. I got the orcs to play nice, completed the quest, and got a few presents in return."

  "No kidding, I see at least ten levels," chuckled Bonbon who was sitting across from me. "But I suppose you're talking about something else."

  "Have a look."

  I demonstrated Ruination's stats to my friends, which led to a good ten seconds of silence.

  Donut was the first to break it. Scratching his chin, he said, "I'm guessing you crit for over a million now... And what is that stone in the pommel? I hadn't noticed it before. Quest reward?"

  "You could say that," I nodded.

  "You don't have to tell us if you don't want to," Donut waved dismissively. "But I insist that you spill the beans about the Chaos. How much damage does it add?"

  "Oh, who the the hell knows?" I shrugged. "Last time I hit for just under one hundred million—through armor."

  "I see," the rogue's voice became extremely serious. "Then things really are coming to a head."

  "Won't you tell the story from the beginning, dar?" Vaessa asked, gazing thoughtfully at the stone in the pommel of my sword. "The undead won't attack till morning, so we have plenty of time."

  "From the beginning, eh? Well, if you insist..."

  I proceeded to describe in detail my latest adventures, omitting only the parts about Jaelitte. It wasn't that I didn't trust my friends with this information; simply, I didn't feel like getting into it. Once I liberated my wife, I would introduce her to the whole gang. Until then, talking about her served no purpose other than potentially jinxing it.

  "The women are quite the dancers," Bonbon said what everyone was thinking. "And it's like the duke knew we would be moving separately, so he assigned us a spot in one of his legions."

  "Hold on just a second," Reece perked up, turning to Vaessa. "You said that the undead won't attack till morning."

  "Yes, and?"

  "And morts! Sunlight is deadly to them!"

  "The spawn of the Underside fear nothing by the side of the god who had summoned them, including sunlight," explained the necromancer's daughter. "But if you want the scientific explanation, Vill keeps a huge portion of the Gray Frontier around him at all times, so no matter how bright the sun, it'll be powerless against his army."

  "Well, nobody said it would be easy," Kan interjected. The knight-commander squinted my way and smiled. "There's one thing you still haven't told us, prince. When did you become a swordsman?"

  I shrugged. "Rehan's son gifted me the skill. That reminds me, actually. What the heck is it?"

  "Heh. I suppose it's no big deal to someone who shares a bed with the goddess of luck. To everyone else, however..."

  "Out with me, quit speaking in riddles," I hurried him.

  "Once every three thousand years a great champion of the sword can promote a fighter he deems worthy into a swordsman. The orcs have two such champions: Rehan and his youngest son. It took me fifteen hundred years of training to become a swordsman. Lars was one as well..." the knight-commander's face darkened and he fell silent.

  "I get it, Kan. It's not fair. But I really do need to know what it is."

  "Your speed and agility have increased, as well as your swordsmanship," he explained, staring at the burning embers. "I don't know how it works with you two-lived, but I don't think it has anything to do with your traditional skills. Soon you will start to sense combat differently, as if seeing a picture of it within you, and then you'll develop your own moves and combos. This mastery will grow with the years, though in your case, prince, I won't be surprised if you become a great champion of the sword in a week's time," he concluded with a chuckle.

  Though the explanation didn't make it the least bit clearer, it appeared that I had obtained a talent that somehow transcended the classic definition of a game skill. Would I be able to combine it somehow with the skills I was already using? Kan had mentioned something about seeing combat within me. If I did develop new moves and combos, I would see about incorporating them into my offensive arsenal. Until then, I wasn't going to worry about it.

  While Kan and I conversed, Bonbon was arranging skewers with large hunks of meat over the fire, and soon the air was heavy with the aroma of barbecue. Masyanya smiled and snuggled up next to her husband, Raena rested her head on Reece's shoulder, and I felt as if some unseen being flushed me with a sense of comfort and warmth. George got up, walked over to Gloom lounging nearby and plopped down on the ground next to him. Even dragons miss their friends. The sight of them made me feel happy. It didn't matter what morning might bring. We were here, we were alive, and we should enjoy every moment of it.

  Vaessa touched my arm. "You know, dar, I think I'm beginning to sense my Mistress again. Especially clearly right now. I didn't activate the ring, but I know that she's somewhere near."

  The necromancer's daughter looked at me. Her eyes blazed with a sorcerous flame, swelled to the size of the universe, and the world plunged into darkness.

  ***

  Gray Frontier. Limbh. Wailing Valley. Zone level 280-300.

  "I never thought I would owe anyone like this, Dark One, but I need your services once again." The voice I heard was familiar. It belonged to the Goddess of Death.

  "Tell me what I have to do," I replied, taking a look around.

  The valley was shrouded with a gray murky fog. The twilight here seemed eternal, impervious to any source of light, growing thicker as it neared the ground. About a mile to the right loomed a huge square bulk of a black citadel. The road underfoot was lined with dust and ash. Fifty yards ahead roamed zombies and various zombie-like creatures. On closer look, they weren't roaming but rather gathering rocks from the ground and piling them up in a single heap next to which stood a cart harnessed to strange scaly animals, each the size of my boar. Their muzzles were elongated like a crocodile's, and their paws set far apart. A larger zombie specimen stood guard near the cart, observing the peons collecting rocks with a grim expression and arms crossed over his chest. At levels ranging between 280-290 and around three hundred thousand HP each, they posed no danger to me. Not even the mini boss with his level 295 and a measly twenty million HP. Was I being cocky?
Nah. Even if they ganged up on me all together, I could take down a hundred of these guys without breaking a sweat. Well, maybe I'd sweat just a bit. None of the hostiles were paying any attention to me. Left of the road stood a conical crag shaped like a stalagmite. I saw a dozen others like it within my immediate vicinity. Further ahead the sharp edges of black mountains protruded through the fog, with strange rectangular structures standing at their feet. The elements all combined to look like a typical game location.

  "It's a pity I'm not a mortal woman, Dark One," Celphata said with a dash of sadness in her voice. "A man who is always willing to help without asking any extra questions merits special attention. But let's get serious. This road will take you to the Halls of the Dead. Once there, keep going until you pass through the obsidian breach and convince Duke Edgar to put the shimenawa that's in your inventory around his neck. If you do this, Rakot will not set foot on Karn."

  "What if he refuses to be 'convinced'? Do I kill him?"

  "No, killing him is not required. Promise him that he shall be reunited with his beloved without any loss of memory. She is waiting for him. As an oath breaker, she had been barred from rejoining the Great Sequence of Rebirths. If he does what you ask, I will release her. Farewell, Dark One."

  Change of terms for the quest: Rakot's Invasion.

  Quest type: hidden, unique.

  Fulfill the will of Celphata the Goddess of Death and Rebirth by convincing Duke Edgar of Arkaetania to put the holy shimenawa thread on his neck.

  Reward: experience, unknown.

  I accepted the quest and peeked into my inventory. The Grimoire of Ashy Souls and the medallion were gone, replaced by a fine woven rope with ribbons that were made either of paper or leather. If there was one thing that made me feel uneasy about this whole thing, it was that no more than twenty hours remained until Vill would lead his army against the orcs up above. Which meant I had the same twenty hours to pass through several zones and convince a certain idiot to adorn his neck with a piece of rope. With a sigh, I took out my pipe, lit up and started down the ash-covered road.

  The next several hours passed by uneventfully. The ash was soft under my feet, the sharp-edged peaks ducked in and out of the fog, and the groups of zombies kept collecting rocks and debris and heaping them all together, then carting them away toward the citadel. On my left I passed meandering creatures covered with clumped gray fur, one of which attacked me when I drew within its aggro range. After one-shotting the victim, I took a moment to examine it. The creature looked like a mole with a few reptilian features. Nothing that resembled eyes, with crooked three-fingered paws, a sharp elongated muzzle, and whitish tentacles with fuzzy tips. The loot amounted to entrails and a rock fragment with unknown ore of silvery color peeking through. In a word, nothing interesting.

  The interesting thing happened in hour three of my march when I saw a player moving among the stone-collecting zombies! Fergot, level 283 and three hundred thousand HP. He was definitely a player, despite his incredible HP and unknown class. I had no logical explanation for what I was seeing, but then lots of weird things had taken place since the patch. Some had crossed paths with higher essences, others had chosen a different path. The strange creature glanced in my direction, froze for a few seconds, then turned and headed toward a cart standing nearby, carrying a large fragment of rusted metal with both hands. I stopped, lit up, and watched him for several minutes. There was nothing unusual about his behavior—he was acting just like the zombies. Some kind of bug of the game, perhaps? I decided against inquiring of him directly—doing so would require taking out at least several dozen zombies I would surely aggro in the process, and I hadn't the time to spare. Fergot had seen me, and could have approached me himself, but hadn't. So, I simply shrugged and kept going.

  It took me about five hours to make it to the mountains. The passage to the Halls of the Dead appeared about a quarter mile ahead, but then my interest was piqued by rectangular stone structures to my right. They looked like single-story barracks nearly two hundred feet in length, stretching east as far as the eye could see. The entrance to the building nearest to the road was guarded by four level 300 skeletons that took me all of twenty seconds to dispose of, dropping a little over ten silver pieces and a rare dagger. I opened the heavy stone door and stepped inside. Low stone tables stretched alongside the entire barracks, five rows in all. Lying on top of them were glass skulls, arranged neatly and evenly. And judging by the coat of mold-like dust, they had been lying here a long time. All were identical in size and color, with a barely visible gray line hovering above them that looked like an HP bar, all of them differing in length. I moved along the tables, careful not to touch anything, until I came up to a blue-colored skull with a full green bar. Still clueless as to what any of this was, I lit my pipe and got to thinking. As far as I knew, souls that entered Limbh languished here for several thousand years, extracted from the Great Sequence of Rebirths. Perhaps these were their vessels? And the bar above each one signified the length of their sentence? I thought back to the player I'd seen just a little while ago, then considered this skull, so different from the rest. I knew neither what that man had done nor who had confined him here, but... I swung and struck at the skull with my sword. It exploded, blue fragments flying in every direction, but nothing else happened. It was all I could do to hope I had done the right thing. I headed back toward the door. Time was growing short, and I still didn't know when I would reach my destination.

  A fifteen-foot-tall bone monster stood guard at the rectangular stone arch that was the entrance to the Halls of the Dead. The zone boss, by the looks of it. At four hundred million HP, the creature with the rat-like name Schratt actually looked like a bone rat with a scorpion's tail. An imposing sight, to be sure. Its level 420 didn't make me feel optimistic, but for some reason I wasn't particularly worried. I just felt that the thing wouldn't cause me any problems. Not so long ago I wouldn't attempt to fight a boss of this caliber without a party of at least ten, but today... Entering within its aggro range, I picked up my shield, unsheathed Ruination and waited. Schratt rose from the ground upon taking notice of me, shook its body like a wet dog, and then pounced, aiming to crush me with its sheer size while executing a tail strike. I side-stepped the attack easily, blocking the bony tip of the tail with my shield, and struck out at the rat's shoulder with Ice Blade, shattering it. Crit! Nearly three million HP removed from the boss at once. Chaos rules! Infernal Rage! Dispersion! Side roll, followed by Tongue of Flame. Crit! The crooked jaws snapped an inch from my shoulder, breathing the stench of rotting flesh in my face, and the tail tip struck the ground by my right foot. This time the boss lost a full third of its HP. The inch was no accident or random luck—I knew that it would miss me both with the jaws and with the tail. I felt like I was beginning to understand the picture of combat Kan had mentioned. Taking another blow of the right tentacle on the shield, I lunged forward with Ice Blade, letting the bone stinger glance off of my left shoulderpad. Crit! Another twenty million HP gone, and the boss was yet to land a single hit. I rolled again to avoid a paw stomp, blocked another tail strike with the shield, and countered with Tongue of Flame. Crit! This was becoming hella fun! I was toying with the beast, anticipating its every movement. He got me only once—by unleashing a shockwave upon falling to half health—and even then most of the damage was mitigated by my shield. The boss went down in less than five minutes, and I had lost only fifteen percent of my HP. At long last I felt like a good fighter—and one worthy of being the subject of a prophecy.

  You've earned a unique achievement, Schratt's Slayer. Schratt is a unique boss that can only be killed once. You and your allies have been granted a permanent 5% increase to your physical and magic damage.

  I skimmed the system message, shrugged and touched the lifeless carcass. Two thousand gold, an epic necromancer chestguard, a dozen rares and a heap of junk, among which only one item caught my eye—a stone fragment covered with runes. Called a Tablet of Vice, it was the
quest starter toward achieving some title in the local social order. I cared little for the Gray Frontier and had no intention of completing any quests here, so I just tossed the tablet back inside. Then, after another second of deliberation, I returned all the rares as well. I had plenty of similar gear as it was, and plenty of craftsmen back in Craedia capable of producing even better. I stood there a little while longer, contemplating the citadel looming over the valley, then shrugged again and walked through the rectangular arch.

  Gray Frontier. Limbh. Halls of the Dead. Zone level 290-310.

  If one were to imagine a huge abandoned crypt with a ceiling obscured by darkness, deep dark niches, rows of stone sarcophagi stretching into the distance, with zombies and skeletons of varying degrees of disintegration meandering between them, that would paint a pretty similar picture of where I ended up. To the left, a cracked stone staircase led to a lower level, and about one hundred yards to right to the right, a dungeon entrance beckoned beneath a square stone arch, shimmering with a sky blue color. That was pretty weird. As far as I knew, the Gray Frontier was never even considered as a game zone by the developers, but simply existed as part of Arkon lore. And yet, apparently it had zones and dungeons, and even its own social order. It would seem that RP-17 had decided not to stop at Karn and Demon Grounds. Also, why was Limbh considered to be the Gray Frontier's most terrible place? So far I hadn't noticed any significant differences with other similar zones. Could the reason be that the local denizens had been expelled from the Great Sequence of Rebirths? That, once here, there was no escaping the zone? No, there must be a way—Celphata wouldn't have sent me here otherwise. She won't restore her former strength without my help. And, most importantly, I am the enemy of her enemy. I took a careful look around, drew my sword and started toward the center of the hall, eradicating any and all undead that had the misfortune of aggroing on me.