Sovereign Rising (The Gods' Game, Volume III): A LitRPG novel

by Rohan M Vider

  The behemoths, blinded by agony, floundered in the fire’s grip, their tortured screams echoing loudly in the still mountain air. Kyran hardened his heart against their pleas. He could not let them escape. “Gaesin! Adra!” he snapped, drawing the attention of the two who had been staring aghast at the burning ogres. “Target any that appear close to escaping. Understood?”

  Adra’s mouth closed, and her lips firmed into a hard line. She nodded tersely. Gaesin turned a horrified and uncomprehending gaze towards him. The half-elf’s mouth worked soundlessly while his expression bespeeched Kyran for mercy.

  Kyran shied away from the youth’s gaze and pressed his lips firmly together to hold in the apology that sprang unbeckoned to his lips. This has to be done, he told himself. He glanced at Mirien.

  The whiesper stood on the edges of the blaze, seemingly mesmerised by the sight of the burning creatures. “Back, Mirien!” he growled. “You are still coated in oil.” Hastily, she scrambled away.

  He forced himself to turn his attention back to the ogres. The squad leader, Dilauk, whether by happenstance or gritty determination, had neared the edges of the pool. Soon, he would escape the fire’s grasp. Kyran could not allow it.

  Spinning tendrils of psi, he cast mind shock and launched the weave towards the ogre in the mindscape. The projectile sailed into Dilauk and splashed into his pain-befuddled mind. The ogre hissed in redoubled pain, clutched at his head, and staggered confusedly back into the fire.

  Kyran’s jaw clenched. From across the mindscape, he sensed Aiken’s offer of comfort and understanding. He denied it. This has to hurt, he told himself. This has to be difficult. His face hardening into grim lines, Kyran set himself to watch the ogres’ demise, determined not to let any escape.

  Battle Log (Ogre squad)

  The battle has ended.

  Combat results

  Creatures bonded: 0.

  Hostiles killed: 6 of 6 ogre mountain guerrillas.

  Levels gained

  Kyran: 1 level (9 SP, 2 AP). New combat level: Level 22.

  Adra: 1 level. New combat level: Level 22.

  Items acquired

  None.

  ✽✽✽

  Mirien’s face was ashen, and her hands trembled. Watching the burning ogres, her mind flashed back to the similar fate suffered by her fellows not so long ago. Her stomach heaved violently, and her glance slid unwillingly to the free agent, Kyran.

  His eyes were cold and his face set in an implacable mask. Where did he learn such ruthlessness? she wondered. And while she knew that his ferocity would serve him well in the Game, dread coiled in her heart as she wondered what it meant for Myelad.

  Blinking back tears, she turned her attention back to the ogres. The last of them had fallen, and the flames had begun to die out. Steeling herself, she walked forward to inspect the remains. After a second’s hesitation, she sensed Kyran move up to join her.

  She pulled out her sword and prodded at the charred and still-smoking corpses. Very little remained to examine. Nonetheless, she crouched down to divine what she could from the bodies.

  “What is it?” Kyran asked.

  She glanced back at him. He stood a step behind her, with one hand buried in the fur of the great bear. Aiken gave her hope. Kyran could not be as hard-hearted as he seemed, not if he had bonded one of the earth guardians.

  “Something about this entire encounter seemed wrong,” she said, her lips pursed in thought. “I wanted to see if I could learn anything from the bodies.”

  “What do you mean?” His face, she saw, had little colour to it, and for all that his expression remained impassive, perhaps he was not as unaffected by the slaughter as she had assumed.

  “Well for one, there is no reason for Xetil’s forces to be this deep in the mountain. Not unless the goblin-god is hunting you. But if that were the case, surely he would have sent better troops than these.”

  Kyran tilted his head and looked at her curiously. “I don’t understand,” he said. Adra and Gaesin had moved up to join them. The wolven’s eyes were hard and flinty, but tears streamed openly down the half-elf’s face. She cast him a sympathetic glance. Gaesin was too compassionate for grim work like this.

  “Did you notice anything unusual about the ogres before the battle?” asked Mirien.

  Kyran’s brows furrowed. “Hmm, their armour seemed basic and their flag makeshift.”

  Mirien nodded. “What else?”

  Kyran fell silent, thinking. Adra spoke into the silence. “They were undernourished, starved even,” she said, her voice flat.

  “Exactly,” said Mirien. “Ogres are slow, but not as slow as this bunch was. The fight was entirely too easy.”

  “Easy?” murmured Kyran, looking disturbed by her words. “Not the word I would have chosen to describe the battle, but I take your meaning. So, you don’t think that these were Xetil’s troops?”

  “Oh, I think they were Xetil’s followers. Very few are so foolish as to attract the goblin-god’s ire by falsely bearing his colours. But no, I don’t think these were Xetil’s elite or even regular troops. No, these ogres must have been living in these mountains for some time. It’s the only explanation for their starved appearance. And this is both good news and bad.”

  “Bad because it means there are likely to be more ogres around,” said Kyran. “But why good?”

  “Because it means Xetil doesn’t have any better equipped troops nearby—yet. These ogres are a far cry from the elite forces that Xetil could send after us.”

  Adra nodded in agreement, but Gaesin was staring off in the distance. “Kyran...” he began, licking his lips anxiously. “Look!”

  Mirien glanced in the direction in which the half-elf pointed. A cold shiver of fear, quickly suppressed, rippled through her. Advancing down the northern slope of the valley was an ogre warband. The ogres were about an hour away but moving fast. She stood up suddenly. It was a full warband, thirty ogres at least. Damn, she thought, that’s too many to fight.

  The same thought occurred to Kyran. “We run,” he said, his face grim.

  ✽✽✽

  The dwarves had been on the march for a week before the first sign of trouble appeared. Escaping the troll cordon around the cave network that had been their home for the last six hundred years had been easier than Hamen had suspected.

  Unbeknownst to him, and in fact to most of the dwarven council, their forebears had dug out an escape tunnel north in anticipation of such a day.

  The tunnel surfaced in the middle of the southern Skarral range, well beyond the encampment of Xetil’s legions besieging their refuge. With luck, the trolls would be unaware of the dwarves’ escape for some time yet.

  The entire clan was on the march. All twenty thousand of them, including women, children, and the elderly. The thane had refused to leave anyone behind. Not even the sick and the frail. They had been packed on one of the dwarves’ few carts, along with whatever meagre belongings the clan still claimed.

  It would take the dwarven clan a few weeks yet to reach Durn Duruhl, and food was the thane’s greatest concern, especially with winter not far off. There simply wasn’t enough food to go around, and the barren Skarral ranges had little to offer. The thane had dispatched multiple dwarven parties to forage far and wide for whatever they could scavenge.

  Even so, Hamen expected the clan to be on half rations well before they reached the city, and Eld help them if the first of the winter’s storms hit before then. But as critical as the mission to gather food was, Hamen and his men had been assigned a different task.

  The twenty dwarves of his warband, including his lieutenants, Benin and Borin, huddled in the darkness of a crevice high up one of the mountain peaks while they watched the enemy column snake north. To Hamen and his men had fallen the task of scouting out the clan’s trail through the mountains.

  “Are they after us, do you think?” asked Borin.

  Hamen shrugged. The company of enemy soldiers, some two hundred spear-wielding troll
s outfitted in reinforced wyvern leather armour, trotted through the mountain pass hundreds of metres below. The pass led directly from Xetil’s domain to Durn Duruhl, and it seemed pretty obvious that the trolls were heading to the city.

  But if they were after the clan, why were they not cutting west, out of the pass, and into the mountains to intercept the dwarves’ own line of march? The bulk of the clan was many days behind Hamen’s warband, travelling slower than Hamen and his men could.

  Benin snorted. “What? You mean all two hundred of those little blighters? Against twenty thousand dwarves? We’d eat them for breakfast,” he said with an amused laugh.

  Hamen shook his head. “Look again, my friend. Those are no ordinary trolls. Look at the banners they carry.”

  Benin turned to frown at him. “I can see they are from the Dread Spears legion, but so what? There are still only two hundred of them.”

  Hamen twisted his bushy moustache and smiled in amusement at Benin. “You don’t recognise the banner at the head of that company, do you?”

  Benin blushed. “Uh…uhm, you know I was no good remembering all that nonsense they taught us.”

  Hamen sighed. “Borin, tell him.”

  Borin smacked Benin on the back of the head. “You should pay more attention, you idiot. One day, it might save your life. That flag at the head of the company, brother, is the personal banner of Yiralla.”

  Benin’s face went ashen. “No…”

  Hamen nodded. “Yes. And even with only two hundred trolls at her back, I don’t fancy the clan’s chances against her.”

  They watched the enemy column in silence for a while longer before Borin repeated his earlier question. “Hamen? Do you think they are after the clan?”

  Hamen tugged unhappily at his beard. “I don’t know, Borin. But it can’t be coincidence that Yiralla herself heads towards Durn Duruhl the same time we do. Come, let’s head back. We must inform the thane.”

  Chapter 12

  15 Octu 2603 AB

  Through manifestations, a god self-wills his presence on the physical plane. He may do so anywhere, but incurs damage if done outside his temple. When this happens, the god must remain in the ether until he has repaired the damage to his spirit. —Jostfyler Graldvir, Game scholar.

  The ogres were gaining.

  The party had been on the run for hours, and the sun was already falling in the sky. Exhaustion was setting in, but they had not been afforded an opportunity to rest. Early on in the chase, Kyran had resorted to activating inspiring.

  Kyran has cast inspiring (radius: 152m, buff: +15.2% stamina regeneration).

  The spell’s regenerative aura had allowed the party to maintain their relentless pace for much longer than they would have otherwise. And while Adra, Aiken, and Mirien hardly seemed to have need for its effects, both Kyran and Gaesin would not have managed without.

  They had travelled as quickly as they dared, taking unavoidable risks in scaling cliffs and hurrying across crevices. Gaesin especially had risen to the challenge and, despite his fears, had redoubled his pace through the crossings.

  Yet still the ogres gained.

  Xetil’s forces were relentless in their pursuit and, Kyran realised, far more suited to the terrain than the party. But hope was not lost. According to Mirien, the party was nearing another mountain crossing—a gorge at least ten metres wide that cut across a large section of the mountain range. The ogres would be forced into a time-consuming detour before they could resume the chase.

  Assuming they have no ropes of their own of course. Keeping pace with Gaesin in the steady half-run that they had maintained over the last few hours, he risked a glance over his shoulder and reassured himself that the ogres carried none of the supplies necessary to cross the gorge.

  In fact, the ogres seemed to carry no supplies at all, their only pieces of equipment being their armour and hammers. No doubt they had shed the burden of additional equipment in favour of speed.

  Which is to our advantage, thought Kyran, determined to be optimistic. The longer this chase went on, the better the odds of the party’s survival. But first we have to reach the gorge and get across, he thought, gritting his teeth.

  “We’re at the gorge,” said Adra from up ahead.

  Kyran blew out a breath in relief. He had begun to doubt the accuracy of Mirien’s information and feared she had misremembered, or that they would reach the gorge too late.

  The ogres had closed the gap to less than five minutes, which left them precious little time to manage the crossing. “Great,” he replied. “Don’t wait for us. Tell Mirien to cross and get the rope fixed in place. We’ll be there in a minute.”

  “She is already on it.”

  “Good. You cross over, too, as soon as the rope is in place.” Adra said nothing. Kyran could taste her reluctance and knew she wanted to be assured of their own safety before crossing herself. But they couldn’t afford the delay. “That’s an order, Adra,” he said firmly, before she could protest.

  “Yes, milord,” replied Adra, formally acknowledging his command.

  Kyran closed down the telepathic link to Adra and turned his head to the side. “Gaesin, sprint out the last few hundred metres to the gorge.”

  Gaesin opened his mouth to protest. “No arguments,” said Kyran.

  The half-elf nodded in response and, pushing his tired legs to greater effort, increased his pace.

  Kyran glanced over his shoulder again. The ogres, looming menacingly in his sight, were fanned out in a loose, ragged line. Over the last hour, as the ogres had drawn dangerously close, he had been forced to delay their pursuit with an assortment of spells, including confusion, oil slick, grasping roots, and slippery ice.

  While the spells had worked well the first few times, the ogres had learned their lesson and countered by spreading themselves out.

  He would have to delay them again, he knew. The ogres were too close, and Gaesin would need time to cross. “Aiken, keep pace with Gaesin and guard his back. I’m going to teleport ahead and start casting.” The bear huffed his acknowledgement.

  Kyran unshielded his mind and cast teleport, skipping ahead twenty metres at a time until he reached the lip of the gorge. He ran his eyes quickly along its length. It was as wide as Mirien promised and disappeared off into the distance in both directions. Good. Glancing across, he saw Adra and Mirien safely on the other end.

  He spun about and began casting again. He had been tempted during the chase to attempt to whittle down the ogres’ numbers. But the behemoths were too tough and their numbers too great. And most crucially, there had been no natural chokepoint in the terrain to entrap them.

  But now perhaps, with the hunters forced to close in on their quarry, he had an ideal opportunity to inflict damage upon them and hopefully dissuade further pursuit.

  Opening his internal pathways, Kyran spun threads of orange essence out of his body and wove them into a protective mesh. The spell weaves snapped into place, and a bubble of shimmering flames flickered into existence around him.

  Kyran has cast fire shield (shield strength: 434 HP, duration: 8 minutes).

  With his fire shield, in place, Kyran began drawing in essence for his next—

  “What’s the plan?” asked Mirien, her breath tickling the back of his neck as she stepped into his shadow.

  “Did you have to teleport right behind me?” he snapped irritably to disguise his burst of fear at her sudden appearance.

  Mirien shrugged. “I can only teleport between shadows, and yours was the nearest,” she replied, amusement lacing her words.

  Kyran scowled, but dropped the matter. “We have to delay the ogres until Gaesin crosses. Can you handle any that avoid my wards?”

  Mirien drew her blades. “I will,” she said, suddenly serious, and cast her own buffs with weaves of air.

  Kyran left her to it and cast slippery ice. Reaching into the magical core of his spirit, he sent tendrils of cold rippling outwards to suffuse the ground to his left and coate
d the hard-packed earth in a polished layer of gleaming ice.

  Kyran has cast slippery ice (radius: 51m, chance to resist: 35%, duration: 8 minutes).

  Mirien has cast mirrored selves and haste.

  “Aren’t you just full of surprises,” murmured Mirien, her words echoing weirdly as they were repeated by each of her illusions.

  He glanced at the duplicate copies of the whiesper produced by mirrored selves. “As are you,” he replied, before returning to his casting.

  Kyran has cast ice wall (length: 25m, wall HP: 510).

  Kyran has cast grasping roots (radius: 51m, chance to resist: 27%, duration: 8 minutes).

  Kyran has set a root field burning with a flaming dart.

  Kyran has cast oil slick (radius: 5.1m, chance to resist: 7%, duration: 51 seconds).

  Kyran has cast poison ward (radius: 5.1m, duration: 10 seconds, chance to resist: 25%, damage: 26 HP per second).

  For his last spell, Kyran wove white strands of essence into lines of air, charged with static and with the form of lightning.

  Kyran has cast shock wall (length: 25.5m, chance to resist: 8%, duration: 51 seconds, damage: 5.1 HP per second).

  The shock wall flared to life in a shimmering curtain of air that completed his magical defences. Mirien whistled soundlessly as she stared at the crazy criss-cross of spelled ground arranged in a wide arc around their position. “Well,” she said wryly, “I don’t think, my blades will be needed after all.”

  He ignored her comment, his eyes fixed on the panting Gaesin, who had run up to them. “Take a moment to catch your breath before you start, Gaesin.” His gaze slid to the approaching ogres. “Brother, cross over with Gaesin, I will follow shortly,” Kyran added to Aiken through their bond.

  Trusting Adra and Aiken to oversee Gaesin’s crossing, he advanced a few steps forward. His essence pool was running low, what with his flamboyant casting and the sustained use of inspiring through the morning’s flight. But he still had a few more tricks to play.