Underpowered Howard: A LitRPG Adventure

by John L. Monk

  “I thought you’d get a kick out of it,” I said. “Anyway, I got my spell. Rezzed just an hour ago. I wanted to thank you both again—and oh, yeah, return this.”

  I unstrapped the Portable Hoard and handed it to Felix, along with his trigger-heal ring. He accepted them with neither haste nor sign of relief.

  “Did it help?” he said.

  “More than you know. As for this ring…” I held up the hand with Elfie’s shield ring. “I was actually hoping I could keep it for a while. I mean, if you can spare it.”

  Elfie made a brushing away motion. “Just keep it. We decided we’re not doing any more island runs, at least anytime soon.”

  “With those fleckulents we found,” Felix said, “we’re gonna open a shop in Heroes’ Landing.”

  Elfie nodded, beaming with pride. “Inside one of the towers. The pretty blue one!”

  The various towers in Heroes’ Landing were a hundred times bigger inside than their exterior diameters implied. They were also populated by the most exclusive shopping districts in all of Mythian, and thus hideously expensive to rent. Which is why I almost never went there to gear up, preferring to shop at Milton’s Outfitters, or Darcy’s Elixirs & Mixers.

  I didn’t tell them that, though.

  “Why don’t you come down?” Felix said. “I’m cooking a roast.”

  “Actual cooking? With fire and instructions and delicious smells?”

  “Yep, and you’re invited, now let’s go.”

  Hard Modes, who had to eat, usually bought their food pre-made from lucids. They stored it in their bags so it wouldn’t go bad and then heated it later.

  As much as I wanted to try Felix’s fine cuisine, I shook my head. “I’m actually in a hurry. In fact … and don’t take this the wrong way, but… How soon can you leave for Heroes’ Landing?”

  They looked at each other in confusion, then back at me. In unison they said, “Why?”

  I wasn’t sure how much to tell them.

  “Let’s just say I’d really, really appreciate it if you both left. Just pack up and fly to Heroes’ Landing. Once you’re there, don’t leave the city, no matter what.”

  “What for?” Felix said.

  “Are we in some kind of trouble?” Elfie said.

  I shook my head. “I need you to trust me on this one.”

  Felix said, “Trust goes both ways, Howard. Now, what’s this about?”

  Beside him, Elfie giggled. “Are you going to destroy the world? Like that woman said?”

  When I didn’t laugh, their smiles faded.

  “Of course I trust you,” I said. “No, I’m not going to destroy the world. But it will be a lot more dangerous for a while. Not actual danger-danger, if you know what I mean. More like incredibly annoying. Something I wouldn’t wish on anyone, normally, but it can’t be helped. It’s part of that plan I told you about—getting Everlife’s attention.”

  “So you’re gonna ruin the world for a while, is that it?” Felix said in a hard voice. Then he burst out laughing. “I love it! Come on—now you have to tell us!”

  In a small voice, Elfie said, “If you don’t want to, you don’t have to.”

  I sighed in defeat. “Okay, fine. But you can’t tell anyone. Deal?”

  Two nods.

  I told them.

  “Howard, that’s insane,” Elfie said afterward.

  “I love it!” Felix said.

  “You’re really going to do that?” she said. “To all those people?”

  “As many as I can. There’s no other way.”

  She gave a small shiver. “Won’t it hurt? It always hurts me a little when I die. Just for a moment.”

  I shook my head. “The Amulet of Ethan takes care of that. Here, touch it again.”

  “Still sounds naughty…”

  I held the amulet away from my chest and they both touched it, filling their game logs with the item description. Their eyes glazed over, and their heads nodded slightly as they read the part about how necromantic damage was painless.

  “You can’t use this safely in Ward 2,” Felix said. “Not the way you plan to here. If you do…”

  “Yikes,” Elfie finished.

  “I’m staying in Ward 1,” I said. “No worries there. So, will you move to Heroes’ Landing? Today?”

  They looked at each other, then back at me.

  “Of course we’ll go,” Elfie said. “We just need to pack.”

  “Later,” Felix said. “And only after you’ve come down and had some of my roast.”

  My soul rejoiced in happy relief. “When you put it that way, how could I not?”

  Chapter Forty-One

  After enjoying the roast (slightly overcooked, but still good), I hugged Elfie and shook Felix’s hand, then wished them both a good trip. Before leaving, Felix gave me a parting gift: a pair of red suspenders.

  “What’s this?” I said when he held them up.

  “Can’t have you walking everywhere. And I can’t be there to ply you with muffins.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Any pants to go with them? All I have is this robe.”

  “I’m sure I can find something.”

  He tossed me the suspenders and I checked my game log:

  Suspenders of Disbelief

  Air Speed: Fast

  Description: Finally, something for stylish boys and girls who dream of flying but hate flapping their arms. These unbelievable suspenders will carry you hither and thither, to and fro, and even post to pillar if the occasion permits. Pretty fast, too. Get yours today!

  Sometime later, after a bittersweet goodbye where Felix pretended to have “sweaty eyes,” I flew south along the coast. I took pains never to fly over the water. What a disaster that would be, slogging through Ward 4 to get the spell, only to be eaten by the Leviathan during a moment of carelessness. Along the way, I brainstormed various ways Jane could stop me. There were poisons that’d bust through the high protection offered by Elfie’s ring, but the ones I knew about were only usable by assassins. She had deep pockets, though, and she’d hired at least one assassin already.

  Four hours into my flight south, my worried musings were interrupted by a familiar sight: a half-submerged village of huts where seal-like humanoids called “weddells” lived. Though cute as the dickens, they were valiant fighters with powerful shamans. There were always at least a few groups of players here killing them for their skins, which were highly sought after. Caravan quests used up most of the supply, pulling them out of the game after delivery and keeping them scarce. They could also be crafted into magical leather armor for rangers and various non-tank classes. High-level enchanters could create bottomless bags that shared the same N-dimensional space with other bags, provided they were crafted from the same skin. These bags were typically used by player-run mining companies. Miners would bag whatever resources they found while a foreman kept meticulous count of everyone’s contributions. Typically, players who didn’t meet a certain quota were kicked out of the company. A scary prospect for anyone hoping to level pain-free but unable to reach high-resource areas by themselves.

  The village below was called “Tuathwa” on my map. West of it, on a small rise, was a binding stone. I flew there, landed, and examined the ground. Even a non-tracker like me could see the recent tread of players heading east from the stone back to the village. Flight in Ward 1 was common, but mostly for wizards or mid-to-high-levels.

  “Okay, Lich 1,” I said. “Listen carefully.”

  “I always listen carefully,” it said.

  “Your job is to stand guard here. Whenever someone appears at this binding stone, kill them and raise them back as liches. Order these liches to maintain a thousand-foot patrol, killing any heroes they find and raising more liches. For every hundred liches created, add another mile to the patrols. If any patrol stumbles across a different binding stone, they are to begin killing and raising liches there using these same instructions. Every lich created will receive these instructions. Do you under
stand so far? Because there’s more.”

  “Yes, Lord Howard,” it said. “I am to spread a dark tide of terror and death across the continent, catapulting you to heights of power so great the gods themselves will tremble in despair.”

  Hearing the heartless creature spit back my plan in those terms gave me the creeps, and I couldn’t help second-guessing myself. This wouldn’t be a pleasant experience for anyone. But at least it wouldn’t be painful.

  “Right…” I said. “The ratio of players to liches cannot exceed one-to-two hundred. Can you sort that out? Keep track of it?”

  The lich chuckled. “We are smart, Lord Howard. This is a trivial request. But it shall be followed once the limit is reached.”

  “After you reach it,” I said, “keep killing and raising liches, but immediately dismiss the new liches raised.”

  With a rate of decay of 60 an hour, a Death Blossom of 600, and a respawn rate of one every three minutes, a single player killed twenty times an hour could support a maximum of two hundred liches. Any more than that and my ROD would exceed my vit-per-kill and I’d slowly start to die.

  “A wise choice, Lord Howard,” the lich said. “The coming age of terror shall be glorious indeed!”

  “It won’t last forever,” I said defensively. “At some point, I’ll give the order to stop the killing. I’ll order that order to be passed around, just like the first order.”

  The lich shook its head once. “Respectfully, Lord Howard, this part of your plan is flawed.”

  “How so?”

  “The minions I summon are under my command, and the ones they summon are under their command. They will let you pass, but they will not follow new orders beyond what their masters have already given them. To stop the wave of death, you will have to find me.”

  I’d almost forgotten about that.

  The lich kept talking: “If I die, my immediate subordinates will devolve to your control. You will need to find them to stop the wave. This line of succession will repeat with the deaths of each of your direct minions.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. “When the time’s right, I’ll visit my directs one by one.”

  Lich 1 nodded. “If you order it, so shall it be done, Lord Howard.”

  Was it me, or did Lich 1 seem just a little bit smug in its word choice?

  I racked my brains for anything I’d missed, but couldn’t think of anything.

  “What am I missing?” I said.

  “Some object, my lord?”

  “Not a… No, in my plan. What am I not seeing?”

  “Your plan seems quite perfect to me, Lord Howard. I would not presume to improve upon it.”

  “You already presumed,” I said. “Repeat my orders back again, as you understand them. Use your own words.”

  Listening to it recite my plan back to me—far more concisely than I’d delivered it—I could only conclude that it understood my intent perfectly.

  “As I said, my lord, your plan is sound.”

  I’d thought of something else.

  “Be quick with the kills,” I said. “And stay shielded! Don’t give them a chance to fire off an AOE. Add that to the other instructions.”

  “Liches are good at tactics, Lord Howard. We shall stay shielded regardless of whether you order it or not. As for area-of-effect attacks, I had already planned a rotation of five-minute anti-magic blanketing to stop just that.” The thing chuckled evilly. “None shall escape the dark tide!”

  Liches were technically undead casters with necromantic powers. As such, they had shields, flight, and other useful spells I hadn’t fully explored during my brief tour of the class.

  “All right, then,” I said. “Stay here and be ready.”

  “As you command,” Lich 1 said, bowing just low enough to qualify as lip service.

  Dark tide, I thought while flying toward the weddell village. Not a name I would have chosen, and I worried it sounded a little too close to Jane's “eternal darkness” talk. The problem with that was the word eternal. One couldn’t foresee eternal darkness unless the vision lasted eternally. But her vision had ended. What if she’d waited a few more minutes?

  You’re talking yourself into this, aren’t you?

  “Yes,” I said. “I guess so. What if she’s right? What if I missed something?”

  My run as a necromancer hadn’t lasted long because I couldn’t find a way around the griefing restrictions. And my stint as a diabolist hadn’t lasted nearly long enough to summon greater demons, which they got somewhere around level 1000. As such, the minions-of-minions command structure hadn’t sunk in deeply enough. Years later, after receiving the Amulet of Ethan, I’d only remembered the biggest and flashiest sorts of things about the class.

  Flying along, I kept an eye out for a certain type of player in the bog below, and that type was: A) lowish level, and B) a melee class. This would allow my lich, back at the stone, to hover above them when they respawned, shooting spells while staying out of range. The amulet caused people to load with their gear, after all, and there was no telling how long they’d last against my one sole lich.

  In time, I found just what I was looking for—a camp about three miles outside of Tuathwa with a tent and a fire going. There were lines strung up between the trees with weddell skins hanging over them to dry in the air. Behind the tent was a large ditch filled with water. It was stained dark brown from the tree bark tannins used to cure the skins. Unlike most professions in Mythian, skinning animals and using the leather was a craft one learned the slow and hard way, operating the same way here as in the real world. My guess was the developers, or at least one of them, considered killing animals for their skins cruel and had made it harder. What they probably hadn’t counted on was the craft’s attraction to people looking for more realism in the game—one that created a barrier to entry in the weddell skin trade, driving up prices. As such, whole weddell villages were wiped out every month while crafters tanned their hides, packaged them for delivery, and shipped them to whoever was buying.

  Sort of a cruel profession, I thought. And messy. Two good reasons I’d never tried it. That said, the skinners I’d met hadn’t seemed like psychopaths. They looked at lucids the way most people did: as blips in the game put there for players to engage with in officially prescribed ways. Not blips to be philosophized over by wishy-washy necromancers running a death machine.

  “Calm down,” I muttered. “This is for Jenny and Marc, and this guy too, though he probably wouldn’t see it that way.”

  “Who’s there?” the man below shouted.

  He had a sword out that glowed a dull red. I squinted him and saw he was level 98. Quite a bit higher than I’d hoped for, but he was also a warrior.

  I landed at max range and cast Harrow.

  The black beam caught the man in the chest and began draining him for 385 points a second. Being a warrior, though, he’d have incredible damage mitigation. His natural health was probably around 1600-2500 before gear bonuses. Unlike necromancers, warriors had to spread their points across strength, agility, and vitality. But tank buffs like Will of Iron and Endurance Chant would knock my hits down by as much as sixty percent.

  “Blood and Honor! Blood and Honor! Blood and Honor!” the man chanted and tore off through the trees, regenerating what damage he’d taken via his battle chant. Just my luck, the man was tank specced.

  I must have really scared him, as he could only do that chant once a day—Mythian’s way of making healers worth playing.

  I flew ahead of him, landed, and cast Harrow.

  He angled left, making for a thicker tangle of trees I couldn’t fly through easily. With his strength, he’d get there in under a minute. Between him and the trees was a section of rotted stumps and thick, spiky grass.

  I flew in close behind him, landed, and cast while he worked his way through the mess.

  With a howl of rage, he pulled his sword, turned, and ran toward me. Grinning ear to ear, he began hacking away.

  I scream
ed in feigned terror as his blows drained my 50k shield for between 700 and 1200 points a hit. His strikes came quickly, every fifth attack resulting in a mini-explosion for 1500—a serious affix for someone his level. Hopefully, he wouldn’t notice they weren’t striking flesh.

  “Stupid necro!” the man shouted. “Shoulda’ never messed with Big Jim!”

  “I’m sorry!” I cried while still channeling. “Please let me go!”

  I’d drained him to maybe two-thirds health before he caught on that his attacks weren’t connecting. Not his fault—he wasn’t used to fighting shielded enemies yet.

  “Leave me alone!” he yelled.

  He turned around and resumed his mad dash for the trees.

  I kept up my attack from behind until he ran out of range. Still alive. Just how many health points did he have? Apparently, more than I’d thought. I wasn’t looking forward to tracking him through a jungle.

  Just as he crossed the threshold, a waist-high log bristling with sharp spikes snapped out of nowhere and impaled him.

  ENEMY DEFEATED: Big Jim Olson, 57,885 EXPERIENCE POINTS (SHARED)

  I’d shared the kill with whoever or whatever had set that snare. If they were players, they’d have gotten the same message as I had, though it was likely a weddell trap. In an ironic twist, weddells were as good at trapping as the players who hunted them.

  Not waiting to see who showed up, I flew into range and raised my second lich, popping my ROD to 120 an hour.

  “Lich 2, follow me,” I said.

  In a raspy voice exactly like Lich 1’s, it said, “My will is yours, Lord Howard.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  By the time I reached the binding stone six minutes later, Death Blossom had awarded me 1200 vitality from Jim respawning and dying twice. Each kill had given 59,225 XP—a bit higher with no weddells to share them with. This would drop in time, due to our growing level disparity, though no lower than fifty percent.

  Hovering over the binding stone with my Jim-lich beside me, I watched the scene below carefully and waited. Lich 1 and its two minions stood obediently next to the stone, skeletal hands raised in anticipation. When Jim resurrected, he didn’t have time to react before three liches simultaneously blasted him with gouts of green or blue flame. At 2000 points a hit, they chopped through his gear and natural vitality. Too fast to enable Will of Iron, I noticed.