Lord of the Dead: A LitRPG Saga (The Eternal Journey Book 2)
Page 42
That was another mystery: the entities of Tartarus and those of Undeath were antithetical to each other, both hungry for souls to torment in utterly different ways. The Upstart was upsetting the fundamental order of things. He must be stopped.
The deity ran, making the ground shake and driving all living things within miles to flee in mindless terror. He covered the distance separating him from his quarry in scant minutes; any tree in his way was knocked down with little effort and even less compassion. Many Fae loved the fruits of Nature, but Akaton was a being of Death, and he knew even the mightiest oak was doomed to fall to him. He cared little for any life he destroyed in his wake.
The entrance to the Dungeon stood before him. A mere mortal or demi-mortal would have to fight through a maze filled with demons and their ilk. Akaton was not bound by such constraints, however. By an application of Will and Power, he transported himself to the Core and its ruler.
“You are late,” the Upstart said, sitting on a throne of bone and gristle. Demons’ bones, to be precise.
The abomination had once been a lesser member of one of the Courts, the Seelie, if the god cared to hazard a guess. Minor Fae nobility were no match for the gods, although the Dukes and Kings of Faerie were a different matter altogether. Undeath had altered the Upstart in disturbing ways, however. Akaton saw what the entity before him had done to the denizens of the Dungeon, and, for the first time in millennia, he felt a stirring of doubt. Something new walked the Realms. And this sixteenth-level aberration was a mere manifestation of something far greater.
“Who is your master?” he asked the Revenant.
The Upstart smiled. “You finally begin to see what you face, Blood God. Rather than answer your question myself, I have a message for you. From my Master.”
A Notification unfurled before Akaton’s eyes. The Arbiters who ruled over the gods were fond of them. But this Notification came not from an Arbiter, but from one of the Makers themselves:
AKATON BLOOD-DRINKER:
YOU WILL NOT INTERFERE WITH THE ACTIONS OF MY REPRESENTATIVES. YOU WILL WITHDRAW FROM THE COMMON REALM AND INSTRUCT YOUR FOLLOWERS TO BEND THE KNEE TO THE POWER OF THIS LAND. OBEY OR SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES.
- VAZALAK ZOMBI
Akaton recoiled from the message, signed by the Maker who had brought Undeath to the Realms. Against such power, not even the gods could prevail. He had arrived ready for battle, wielding all the power he could muster in his lowly Incarnation, more than enough to lay waste to a city or shatter a Dungeon Core. But the knowledge that to act would doom him to the fate of the other Fallen Gods stilled his hand and drowned his rage with chilling fear.
“Are we finished here, godling?” the Upstart said mockingly.
For centuries, he had nurtured the power in the Foothills of what once had been the Green Cauldron, preparing for the day when the Wild Sidhe would rise and contest with the Courts of Faerie for dominion of Alfheim, the Realm of Light. Akaton saw those dreams and hopes turn into ashes in his mouth, his power usurped, his followers forced to follow the abomination the Maker of Sorrow had inflicted upon the land. All was lost.
Without giving the Upstart the satisfaction of an answer, Akaton left the Dungeon.
A Maker was involved in this affair, making direct action impossible. But no Fae ever relied solely on strength. There were many tools at hand in this very valley. One of them had dealt the Upstart a defeat, prompting him to seek refuge in the Dungeon. The new Lord of the Green Cauldron was a Fae-blooded Eternal, but was no friend to the Wild Sidhe. Akaton had been thinking of ways to deal with him.
Sometimes it was easier to let two problems solve each other.
One
Hawke Lightseeker blocked a thrust that would have skewered his left eye and countered with a swing meant to sever the attacker’s hand at the wrist.
He missed and barely had time to use his shield to deflect a slash aimed at his own sword arm. This was a tricky fight; he couldn’t use magic and his opponent was fast as hell. A flurry of blows drove him back, most of them landing on his shield with enough force to stagger him, while he waited for an opportunity. His sword was longer, giving him a few inches of reach, but his opponent wielded two blades with tireless fluidity, weaving a complex web of feints, cuts, and thrusts. Striking back risked having his sword trapped in a parry-envelopment maneuver, leaving him open for a counterattack he might not be able to block.
At the last moment, Hawke reversed course and stepped forward, leaning into the shield and crashing into his opponent. He thrust under-hand and felt the point strike right below his target’s ribs – just as one of the short swords smashed his left temple with brutal force. Both fighters were driven to their knees by the near-simultaneous hits. Hawke’s Combat Log helpfully informed him that he had sustained a Critical Hit that would have dropped his Health below zero. At least, it would have if he was fighting for real instead of sparring.
“You win,” he said, dropping the training sword on the ground with mild annoyance. Hawke hated losing at anything.
“You drew blood before I brought you low,” Saturnyx Demons-Bane replied with a grin.
They were fighting mock duels inside the miniature realm where the Fury inhabiting Hawke’s swords could manifest herself. They mostly used them for a different kind of exercise, but Saturnyx had been pestering Hawke about sharpening his swordsmanship, pun definitely not intended, so there he was, working up a sweat, and not in a fun way. Hell of a way to spend half of his first day off in almost a month, but Hawke had to admit that he needed the practice.
“Call it a day?” he said, rising to his feet and picking up the training sword.
Unlike the paired blades that he had been using since becoming a Twilight Templar, the wooden weapon – with a lead core to simulate the weight of the real thing – was longer, with a hilt that could be wielded one- or two-handed. It had been a while since he had fought with sword and shield, and as soon as he made his next level, he was going to be switching to that style. He had a shiny new super-weapon waiting in his Inventory for that occasion.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Saturnyx said. “It is time to stop. You have a meeting with Captain Kinto in twenty minutes, another with Korgam Stern over lunch at the Copper Kettle, and after that you were going to the Death Spire to assign new Upgrades to your Domain’s many structures.”
Hawke sighed and took a moment to admire the sights. Saturnyx had fought the sparring bout naked, the way she liked to do most things, and it was hard not to stare at the redhead’s body, tight with muscle but soft and curvy in all the right places. Sort of like a hybrid between Gina Carano and Christina Hendricks. Maybe he could push his meeting with Kinto to lunch, and move Korgam’s to dinner. Or move everything to tomorrow.
“Get out,” she told him. “We shan’t be bedding today. Nor tonight, for that matter, for you have a date with the Spider Empress her own self.”
“It’s a rough life,” Hawke said as he found himself returning to the Common Realm that he called home. “But someone’s got to live it.”
* * *
“I’m recommending Marko for a promotion to Opto,” Kinto said.
The Hunter and currently the captain of Orom’s Town Guard had gone from a grizzled man who appeared to be in his late fifties to someone twenty years younger. The truth was even more impressive; Kinto had been almost eighty years old when Hawke found an Alchemical concoction to turn the clock back.
“Sounds good to me.”
The rank was roughly equivalent to lieutenant, which the Town Guard could use; it had grown its ranks to sixty soldiers total, including ten Adventurers, levels three to eight; two of them were Eternals like Hawke. Marko had been doing well, staying off the sauce and keeping corruption to the bare minimum. People could surprise you when you gave them the opportunity.
“As to the rest, things remain peaceful. Your fellow Eternals continue to behave, for the most part. There was a brawl yesterday at the Wine Bag, but the two parties involved to
ok it outside and settled things where they could only damage each other.”
Hawke nodded. The Eternals they had rescued from the Necromancer’s Stronghold had had almost three weeks to get acclimated to their new world. Out of forty-three people Hawke had found, thirty-one had decided to stay in the Sunset Valley; the rest had gone off to seek their fortunes elsewhere, singly and in small groups. Hawke’s Guild, the Earth and Realms Defenders, now numbered twenty-four members.
“Anything else?”
“Only that, as per your orders, we are keeping well away from that Shadow Assassin of yours.”
Orom currently had two members of that very secretive Elite Class. One was Alba, the former server at the Copper Kettle who Hawke had mentored and who was now his chief spy and covert operator. Kinto wasn’t talking about her, however, since he didn’t know Alba’s true Class. The second Shadow Assassin in question had shown up a little over two weeks ago, pretending to be an eight level Rogue by the – pretty lame, in Hawke’s opinion – name of Girl-Has No-Namee.
She had gone straight to Hawke’s Keep and went on some song and dance about having arrived at the Realms somewhere near Alpinia to the south, and wandered around until she heard about Hawke’s deeds in Orom. Girl, as she asked people to call her, was a gifted liar. Hawke would have bought her story hook line and sinker, if he hadn’t gained a few special abilities along the way. He had smiled and nodded while she told her store, all the while examining her with Advanced Mana Sight, which allowed him to observe and identify the many varieties of magical energy that flowed through all things. In the case of people, he could also pick up things like their emotions and the magic Schools and Elements they knew.
As he watched her and did his best to keep his poker face on, the status box and nameplate that floated over all Adventurers in the Realms changed before his eyes:
Girl-Has No-Name (Human) (Unknown Guild Officer)
Level 8(15) Rogue (??)
Health 438 Mana 361 Endurance 380
Hot damn, Hawke had thought when he saw Girl’s real stats, and was even more impressed when he found the telltale ‘frequencies’ of Darkness and Twilight Magic coursing through the alleged ‘Rogue.’ He only knew of two Elite Classes that had access to those kinds of magic and could disguise their real class and level. And she had even hidden her Guild, which normally was part of your nameplate. You didn’t have to be Batman to figure out what Guild she belonged to, and what she was doing in Orom.
“As far as we can tell, Girl has done little more than spend time with other Eternals,” Kinto went on. “No one has anything bad to say about her. But someone with her skills would not give herself away, wouldn’t her?”
“No. She’s casing us out. Getting the lay of the land.”
“After which she will return to Akila and inform the Nerf Herders,” the Hunter concluded.
“Or she could knock me over the head, stuff me into an Inventory slot, and deliver me personally.”
“I am surprised your Fury did not suggest killing her on the spot.”
Saturnyx said.
Hawke’s future father in law knew about the sword, but wasn’t in mental contact with it. Under the circumstances, having Kinto eavesdrop on Hawke’s second future wife would have been way too weird.
You like to show homemade porn to people.
“She did,” he said out loud. “But killing her would send her off to respawn, and my guess is, she’ll respawn right back on the Nerf Herder’s compound. I’d be saving her a trip.”
There was a way around that. During his final fight with the Necromancer, Hawke had learned a new Primal Force: Mind Magic. One of the spells he had picked up as a result could let him destroy an Eternal’s Identity. It had been the ugliest thing Hawke had done, and despite the fact that the target had deserved his fate, the process, which involved torture and getting to know the victim more intimately than anyone should know another living being, still gave him nightmares weeks later.
If there was no other choice, he would do it, but he didn’t want to.
“And you do not think we can take her alive, I know,” the Hunter concluded, not caring to rehash the argument.
Shadow Assassins could pull off many of Hawke’s favorite tricks, which made them impossibly hard to contain. Their short-range teleports alone could ruin a small army’s day. Hawke had proved as much by waltzing into the Nerf Herders’ compound and escaping despite being heavily outnumbered and out-leveled. If he tried to capture No-Name, she would cut a swathe through his people, most of whom only had one life to spare. That was another problem with using Communion to zero her out; she had to be rendered helpless first, no easy task.
Hawke had a plan, and it revolved around one of the Dungeons up north. Girl had volunteered to join in on the expedition. Once they were inside a Proving Ground, their respawn sites would be moved there. That cut both ways, of course. If the assassin wanted to take Hawke out, that would be the ideal place. Meanwhile, he was working on a Plan B.
When facing a mortal enemy, there were a couple of ways to end the threat. Killing was the surest. The riskier but more profitable way was turning said enemy into an ally.
To learn more about LitRPG, talk to authors including myself, and just have an awesome time, please join the LitRPG Group. https://www.facebook.com/groups/LitRPGGroup/