Underpowered Howard: A LitRPG Adventure

by John L. Monk

  Be he nice, or be he mean,

  I’ll eat his brain and chew his spleen!

  In he’ll go between my chompers,

  Unless he’s got some … Giant Stompers!

  “Cute,” I said.

  I probably wouldn’t encounter many giants in Ward 4, but the other stats were great. The agility penalty wasn’t a big deal, and it couldn’t drop lower than 1 in any event.

  “Time to cast off,” I said and pushed the boat into the water.

  Upon reaching the shore of the Ward 4 mainland, I was greeted by a reptilian scent whose return appended the following messages to my game log every ten seconds.

  RESIST ATTEMPT [Poison]: Success

  RESIST ATTEMPT [Poison]: Success

  RESIST ATTEMPT [Poison]: Success

  To keep the messages from ruining the usefulness of my logs, I added a filter to deduplicate poison attacks, which incremented a counter every time the same one arrived.

  The poisonous smell was called “The Miasma”—a continent-wide flag that would kill anyone with less than 1500 points of poison resistance. Its presence ensured very few people would bind themselves on the mainland for fear of having to perform a corpse run without gear. Doing so here, where normal-mode players only had ten lives, could result in a chain of deaths that killed you repeatedly.

  Starting from 1 health point every ten seconds, the damage doubled every hour. Certain classes could deal with it better than others. Priests could purify themselves, and wizards could cast resistance shields. Warriors had mighty health regeneration at high levels and could, perhaps, reach their corpses before the compounding damage became too much—a not-unrealistic solution, and one I’d employed during my infrequent trips here.

  Necromancers were in a better position than most in that we could cast Return, allowing us to come back to life with all our gear again, albeit with 10 health points. My situation was even better because of that cake I’d eaten on the ship. I wouldn’t lose lives when I died. But Ward 4 was around three thousand miles corner to corner, and I’d be here for many weeks. Marie Antoinette’s Revenge lasted through death, but it expired in three weeks, so I’d need a safe way out after I got the spell. Which is why I didn’t bind myself at the binding stone twenty paces up from the shore.

  The stone marked the beginning of the Blood Road. It appeared at whatever point a player arrived on the mainland, then snaked through the continent, branching off at various important places only it could lead to: the Tree of Death, the Well of Dreams, the Domination… As such, the Blood Road was often jokingly called “Ward 5” by players. It was also incredibly dangerous—with every sort of monster imaginable traveling it.

  I pulled the boat up the shore and turned it upside down, more out of habit than any feeling I’d need it again.

  The actual beginning of the road was sort of amusing—it started as a bit of stone no wider than your hand and looped in a spiral, growing bigger and bigger with each turn until it was about ten paces wide. Whoever had made it was clearly a fan of that ancient classic, The Wizard of Oz.

  “All right, Toto,” I said, taking my first steps. “We’re off to see the Well, the wonderful Well of Ward 4.”

  I didn’t make it two hours down the road before dying my first of many deaths to come—this to a raging rhinoceros engulfed in blue flame the size of a building. My paltry 50,000-point shield ring lasted about ten seconds as it trampled me flat. And because Greater Return wouldn’t let me regenerate health or vitality until an hour had passed, I was once again forced to endure the excruciating pain of living with 10 health points.

  Well, no, not actually… I took a one-dose swallow from one of Felix’s pain potions, then sorted through his gear looking for anything with pain resist stats. One pair of gloves offered 200 points, and I put those on. I also found an earring with another 50. I jabbed a hole in my ear but didn’t feel it. In fact, I felt nothing at all—not even my tongue.

  One interesting discovery about the Greater Return spell: The little bit of muffin in me from before was gone. I didn’t replace it, though. I wouldn’t need stats or inflated health, and I wouldn’t be flying so long as I was on the road.

  There was also the matter of the glitter. Per the spell description, my new body was lightly sprinkled with glitter … for some reason. I did my best to shake it off, lest some creature pick up my trail and kill me. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why they’d added that except to be annoying. One more gripe to complain about if I ever met the devs.

  “When,” I said.

  With both pain and glitter situated, I continued walking and tried to ignore the hellish scenery: smoking volcanos in the distance casting the sky in a murderous orange light, vultures with red-glowing eyes sitting on the skeletal branches of stunted trees, rocky ridges, the ground strewn with the bleached and broken bones of unidentifiable creatures…

  There were also the occasional roadside cacti that quivered if you approached them. The needles they fired spread a disease that attempted to control you, luring you off the road until it vanished. Protection from Disease would work, but none of Felix’s gear had that. Having a high intelligence score could defeat the mind control effect.

  Though I hated hats, I nonetheless donned a ridiculous wizard’s cap that offered 600 points of intelligence. I also replaced my Nightpath Robes with a set offering 450 intelligence. If memory served me correctly, players only needed 1000 points in intelligence to counter the disease every time.

  “Probably ought to find out now,” I said after making the swap. “Better than later.”

  I removed Elfie’s ring and approached one of the nasty plants. I stamped my foot next to it and winced in anticipation. Sure enough, the needles exploded outward, sticking me in a hundred places. Happily numb from head to toe, I didn’t feel a thing.

  I returned to the middle of the road, put the ring back on, sat down, and watched my logs:

  SUCCESSFUL ATTACK: Disease

  FAILED ATTACK: Mind control

  FAILED ATTACK: Mind control

  FAILED ATTACK: Mind control

  The attacks went on for a good five minutes before stopping. This proved I’d stacked enough intelligence. Now I just needed to keep walking and hope I didn’t run into any more demon rhinos.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  For the next week and a half, death, pain potions, and general discomfort were my constant companions. I say discomfort because even though I didn’t feel pain, the potions were aggravating—an all-over numbness that made me stumble because I couldn’t feel my feet.

  I traveled by day and camped by the side of the road at night, always within view of it so as not to get lost. Some parts of the road were heavy with dirt, making it easy to wander off. I could have used Ghost Flame, but Ward 4 was loaded with creatures that could spot it a mile away.

  On average, I died anywhere from one to six times per twenty-four-hour period, and not always quickly. Being torn to pieces by serracious fiendlings or deboned alive by inter-planar horrors called xordians was psychologically debilitating.

  Then there was the weird stuff…

  One morning, while legging it through a flat, blasted plain with nothing in view for miles, I heard a faint sigh next to me.

  After yelping in fright, I turned to find the semblance of a man walking along beside me. Semblance, because I could see through him, and because he had no coloration. It was as if he were a shadow that had become three dimensional.

  Eyes closed, I tensed in wait for the inevitable death blow—the first that day—but nothing happened. Cautiously, I opened my eyes.

  “Well?” I said.

  “Very well, thank you,” the being said. “How-ard are you? Get it?”

  Of all the things I’d expected it to do or say…

  “How did you know my name?” I said.

  “I know some things … but not others.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Great. Wonderful. Well, are you going to kill me or just stand there?�
�

  The thing laughed quietly. “I’m not standing here, you are. I go where you go. I stay where you stay. And when I die, you shall follow me, but there is still plenty of sunlight.”

  We stood for a time studying each other. Emboldened, I tried touching it—and my hand felt cool and wet until I pulled it back dry.

  “Why’d you bring up sunlight?” I said.

  “Why not puzzle over it while we walk?”

  Apparently, it wasn’t going to kill me. At least not yet. But why?

  I started walking. And puzzling.

  It’s my shadow, so it follows me. But a shadow that likes sunlight? Makes no sense… Oh. Of course.

  “You like the sun.”

  “I do,” it said.

  “Because without it, you don’t exist? And when you cease to exist, you’re saying I’ll die too?”

  A hollow chuckle…

  “That seems to be the size of it,” it said. “I knew you could figure it out.”

  Even though Marie Antoinette’s Revenge was still active and would be for another week and a half, this hardly seemed fair. Unless it was lying. But no, I believed it for whatever reason. Ward 4 didn’t seem like the kind of place where monsters appeared and went “boo!” A deathtrap like this made much more sense. But why now? Why here?

  Curious, I checked my map and saw the clue in the name. The Plain of Lengthening Shadows was between the eastern shore and the middle and would take two days to cross. There was no way I could reach the end today without running about twice as fast as I was capable. Well, unless I ate one of Felix’s muffins. My worry there was I’d accidentally trigger its flying properties. Doing so would dispel the road, forcing me to trek cross-country to Ward 3 and back. By then, my delecto-protection against life loss would be gone.

  I wasn’t worried, though. One more death meant nothing.

  “Tell me,” the thing said, “what brings you to this terrible place, so far from sanity and comfort?”

  I wondered how much to say. Perhaps giving it more information would make it turn real, transforming me into a shade. Would it take my body and all my gear, something like that? Was I being paranoid?

  “Just traveling,” I said vaguely.

  “Out for a stroll?”

  “Sure,” I said. “What about you?”

  The best way to stop someone from asking questions was to ask your own.

  “I suppose I’m traveling too… I miss our time on the boat, though.”

  I blinked in surprise. “Wait a minute, you know about that?”

  “I was there beside you. I just couldn’t talk about it. And I don’t blame you for not talking to me. That’d look strange. But I miss my friends.”

  “What friends?” I said.

  “The other shadows, of course. Elfie’s and Felix’s. They were good for a laugh. But here we are, the two of us. Just like old times, remember? Hunting together in Ward 3 for … what was it? Two centuries? What makes someone do that, do you think?”

  Shame, I thought. Sadness. Fear. Hopelessness.

  While alive, I’d been an avid gamer, just like everyone else. In a world where most people didn’t need to work—where lucids handled most jobs and Q4 programmers were glorified babysitters—games and video subs had become the modern-day bread and circuses. I’d had friends who’d retired to Mythian, and I’d joined them at seventy. We’d ground out levels, killed monsters, won treasure, laughed and loved, and nothing else. Then, one day, they started to disappear. They’d left me, but I was too afraid to follow—not ready to give up my un-life for the unknown. New friends? I could have made them. But each new friend that “went into the west,” or in this case north, felt like an unstated challenge. What was I hiding from? What was I if not a gamer?

  “What is anyone?” my shadow said.

  I blinked in surprise. “You can read thoughts?”

  “A little. And I enjoy talking to myself. As do you.”

  I smiled. “I do, don’t I?”

  Shadow Me’s voice turned cautious. “There’s someone coming. He has no shadow, for he knows the nature of this place. You should avoid him if you can.”

  Sure enough, about half a mile ahead, a lone figure stalked the road. My new friend said nothing, and nothing in its bearing gave anything away. Was it trying to trick me into leaving the road and getting lost?

  I kept walking. In time, I could tell it was definitely a man. A swordmaster, based on the twin blades strapped across his back. As he got closer, I saw he did have a shadow—on the ground, next to him, where any self-respecting shadow ought to be.

  When he was ten feet away, I said, “Hello, there! How’s it going?”

  The man wore rust-colored armor that shimmered if I stared at it too long. He had faintly glowing jeweled bracers, and a crown of fangs that pierced his skull, such that small rivulets of dried blood had seeped down his face. I knew this crown but had avoided it in the old days. It gave massive bonuses to stats but sucked away all emotion from the wearer. People who wore it too long became more machine than human and were generally kept out of groups for being too selfish.

  The man stopped an uncomfortable two feet away and gazed at me with glassy, inhuman eyes.

  “What is a noob doing here?” he said.

  I glanced at my shadow, who shrugged.

  “Traveling?” I said for the second time that day.

  “Your ring is good,” he said, head tilted as he stared at it. “Give it to me.”

  “Sorry,” I said, a faint tendril of fear crawling up my spine. “It has poison resistance. I need it.”

  “But I want it.”

  Faster than thought, he pulled both swords and murdered me with a series of devastating blows that chopped first through my shield, and then me. Felix’s ring trigger-healed me for 20,000 points of damage, but the man chopped twice more and I died.

  From my hole in the world—the one I stared up from during the Return state—I watched the man reach down and remove Elfie’s ring from my corpse. He then jerked at my body a few times, then grunted in frustration and left.

  With only 10 health points, I’d die in a minute and forty seconds. After rezzing again, I’d die again. Then on like that nonstop for a week and a half until Felix’s cake wore off. I needed that ring.

  Greater Return! I silently shouted three minutes later.

  “Greater Return,” I cast upon rezzing, protecting myself.

  Despite only having 1 vitality point, Greater Return let me sprint as if it were 100. This helped me catch up to the man with maybe ten seconds to spare. I’m sure he didn’t expect to see me so soon, but his evil crown kept all human expression from registering on his face. He pulled his swords and stalked toward me.

  “Give me your artifacts and I will not kill you,” he said dully.

  That caught me by surprise, but then I figured it out. After the ring, he must have tried taking them off my corpse, only to be stymied by the No Loot/No Steal flags. I’d wondered why he kept tugging at me…

  With no time to spare, I pulled the Ray of Sunshine—now off cooldown—from the Portable Hoard. Squinting my eyes against the brightness to come, I triggered the relic, blasting him in the chest the same way I’d done Jane. An instant later, the beam cut him in half when he failed the fire resistance check. Once again, I leveled like crazy, though not as much as when I’d killed Jane. This time, I gained a hundred and eighty-four levels, bring me to 542.

  Then came a game message I’d never seen before.

  ANNOUNCEMENT: Jesse Wilson has left the game. R.I.P.

  I died again, this time from the poisonous Miasma. I barely noticed, so focused was I on those strange words sitting in my game log. A few moments more and the logical part of my brain processed it in chunks. This man—Jesse Wilson—had just died. As in forever.

  Because of me.

  Return!

  Desperately, I searched Felix’s bag for… What did he call it? Resin of Life? He’d said if I died on the ship and needed resurrectio
n, he could make a little dough man out of it. His bag, however, had neither resin nor the little man he was talking about. And I didn’t have the skill to make one, regardless.

  “Why did you do it?” I yelled at him. “Why the hell were you in Ward 4 with only one life? Are you stupid? Are you insane?”

  “Probably that, yes,” someone behind me said.

  I whirled in sudden fear, as if I were in trouble.

  “You should put your ring on,” Shadow-me said. “And cast Return again.”

  I stared at him uncomprehending—then straightened in surprise when I remembered the Miasma. “Oh, jeez, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” it said.

  I bent down and removed Elfie’s ring from Jesse’s finger while trying my best not to touch him. I’d never felt this way about a corpse before. Putting the ring on left me with a feeling of corruption I couldn’t shake. Why had he come here? Not for some quest—not if he was going around robbing people indiscriminately.

  “Greater Return,” I cast.

  “If you ask me,” Shadow-me said, “he was crazy, or just about. That crown saps your emotions. Turns you into more of a computer than a person.”

  “And fear is an emotion,” I said. “But what about greed? Isn’t that an emotion?”

  “Maybe he wasn’t greedy so much as reacting—a reflex from however he was before putting on the crown. Maybe he was a bully used to taking things, and now he’s a drone who takes things, registering value and weakness logically and acting without compunction.”

  I stared at my shadow sideways. “In my whole life, I’ve never used the word compunction.”

  “You should. It’s a fun word. Very respectable.”

  Of all the things Mythian had sent my way, this shadow was one of the weirdest.

  “Are you going to loot him?” Shadow-me said.

  “Why?”

  “Think about it.”

  I thought about it.

  “If he’s this deep into Ward 4,” I said, “he probably has good poison protection. If something like this happens again—getting robbed—it’d be good to have an extra item like the ring to keep me going. But I can’t do it.”