Arcane Kingdom Online: The Fallen City (A LitRPG Adventure, Book 3)

by Jakob Tanner

  “King Fergus,” I said, “I know you called this meeting but I’ve discovered new information we must address first.”

  The king nodded, giving me room to speak.

  “Sir Oren Kaige. The general leading the Arethkarian armada. He has the arm of a monster. A crab pincer artificially bound to his body. The last time I saw such a weird amalgam of creatures was when we fought the corrupted fragments.”

  The room fell silent.

  “Pathetic,” spat Edward Silver. “I never had much respect for Arethkar and now they’ve stooped so low as to use forbidden magic to help carry out their terrible deeds.”

  “It’s bad,” I said. “They’re somehow manipulating the power of the corrupted fragments to their own will.

  The king pulled his head away from his hands. He sighed, resting his head against his throne. I got the feeling I wasn’t bringing him news he hadn’t heard already.

  “You knew already?” said Serena, irritated.

  The king was about to say more when stumbling out from the side of the room was a large Rorn with a grumpy face and long gray beard. The stout wizard was Theobold Longstaff. He and I went back to my early days in Arcane Kingdom Online. He had helped me unlock my apprentice mage class and upon being corrupted by the evil corrupted fragments and gaining the power of the Prophetic Seal, he was first one to inform me of its power. While under the guise of an NPC, he was actually an early TriCorp developer trapped in the game. He used to reside in Arondale, south of Land’s Shield, but after the fiasco with the last court wizard and advisor, Theobold had been hired to replace him.

  “I’ve done it,” he said, holding up a golden orb. “Everyone—take a look at my newest inventi—Agh!”

  A small explosion erupted in front of the old wizard’s face, covering his glasses and bulbous nose in a thin layer of soot and ash. He spit out debris and shook his head.

  “Ah, my new court magician,” said Fergus, smiling. “I’m happy you came to join us. We were about to get underway.”

  Theobold nodded. “Please, your majesty, don’t mind me.”

  The king nodded and turned to Serena. “Only recently have I been made aware of Arethkar’s potential manipulation of the corrupted fragments. Believe me when I say, I haven’t had this information much longer than you have.” He sighed and turned to me. “As you already know, Arethkar is waging a war of attrition. They’ve created trade embargoes and are policing the coasts of both our neighboring continents Renzar and Solmini. While as a continent, we can sustain ourselves for a long time, without trade it means our supplies get limited, prices go up, competition gets fiercer, and those living across the land grow embittered with my rule. Will the people eventually welcome Arethkar with open arms? I doubt it. Will other nobles across the land claim they’ll do a better job then me? Certainly. That’s exactly where our enemy wants us: fighting amongst each other.”

  “So what is there to be done?” I said.

  “Well, it’s clearly only a matter of time before Arethkar wins its war of attrition against us, which means, we must change our tactics.”

  Sir Archades stepped forward, holding a scroll in his hand. He stretched it out and held it up. It was an old stained map of Argon’s Rage, the largest cloud ocean in Illyria, the one separating us with Arethkar. The map had markings for different wind currents, locations of unique sky species, floating islands, and trade routes.

  “If you look at this map closely,” said Fergus, pointing at it from his throne. “You’ll notice a peculiar label on the map. In the upper right corner.”

  I stepped up and examined the map of the cloud ocean, particularly where Fergus had told me to look. It took me a moment to spot it. A small dot with delicate handwriting above it. The word resting over the dot was one I’d had heard before. Ariellum. The lost city of the Lirana.

  “But this is—”

  “Arethkar is growing more and more powerful,” continued the king. “They’ve learned how to manipulate corrupted fragments and use the power to their own benefit. Our only hope lies in retrieving an ancient device of incredible power: the Ultriga Weapon, last seen in the fallen city of Ariellum.”

  A quest prompt appeared in my vision.

  New Quest Alert: Ariellum and the Ultriga Weapon

  The royal king of Laergard, Fergus Ravenmour, wants you to seek out the ancient Lirana capital of Ariellum and uncover the lost power of the Ultriga Weapon.

  Quest Type: Unique, Dynamic

  Quest Difficulty: Hard

  Time Limit: 4 Days

  Reward: 25,000 EXP + ?

  Accept: Yes/No?

  Interesting. The last quest given to me by the former king of Laergard pretty much forced me to take it or face a lifetime imprisoned in a dungeon cell. This quest didn’t even come with a failure detail, meaning there were no immediate consequences to declining it. Fergus wasn’t going to arrest me or chop my head off if I said no to this mission. Of course, there were still ramifications. They were far reaching, unseen in a future unknown: a dreary world where Arethkar’s red banners hung across Land’s Shield and all of us players lived in cages with slave necklaces wrapped around our throats. Any desire to escape or fight back would be completely drained from our bodies. We’d be nothing but empty shells.

  “Why us?”

  “Exactly the question we were asking,” said Sir Archades.

  “While there may be sky ships with high level captains and stronger crews,” said Fergus, “You’re the only ship with the power of the Prophetic Seal.”

  He was referencing the black mark on my wrist, a tainted scar left by the corrupted fragment I had fought in my early days of A.K.O. It was a power created by the game’s developers to manipulate the game’s code from inside the game. So far it had been a giant curse more than anything else.

  “I can explain further,” said Theobold, turning to me and waving his hands. “Ariellum was supposed to be the first bit of downloadable content after the game went live and received its first patch. The location is locked behind a special gateway. Only someone with your power can unlock it.”

  “Downloadable content?” I asked. “Like end-game content? We’re not nearly high enough level.”

  Theobold shook his head. “Not in this case. The Ariellum area was planned to open up after a few weeks of the game’s launch. We predicted most players wouldn't have been at max level at that point, so it was content geared more for those around level 20 and above.”

  Shade stepped forward, cutting the conversation off. He muttered words under his breath and shook his head. “You all know me: I don’t take issue with a lot of things. Thievery? I love it. Drinking? I’m always game. Treasure hunting? I’m your man. But this—this isn’t right. Ariellum fell thousands of years ago. It no longer exists. Whatever lies at the coordinates of the map isn’t worth searching for. The Ultriga Weapon destroyed Ariellum. It was the hubris of my people. We shouldn't seek it out unless we wish to seek our own demise.”

  The thief scratched the back of his head. “You’re the boss Clay, but you know where I stand on this. I’ll be waiting outside.”

  The Lirana walked out of the throne room, tail still and forlorn.

  Serena crossed her arms. “If what Shade says is true, do we really want to unleash such a power onto the world again?”

  “I’ve discussed it over with my advisors,” said Fergus. “We see no other option.”

  “Didn’t the last king on the throne use ancient power in the name of protecting his kingdom?” asked Serena. “How did that end up?”

  The throne room went silent.

  “Surely this is different,” said Edward Silver.

  “I don’t have a problem with this quest,” said Kari, waving her hand. “I used to work as a trainee doctor in London. You learn sometimes doing the right thing can be a messy, even gross job. This one time I had a patient who had a toothbrush shoved all the way up—”

  “We get it,” said Serena.

  “Basically, I’ll go
where you guys go,” said Kari, with a chipper sound to her voice. “I can’t let you go off on adventures without a dedicated healer. Remind me how you guys even survived until you met me?”

  I scratched the back of my head, nervously. “Uh, we didn’t really.”

  King Fergus coughed and turned to me. We had heard everyone else’s opinion, but now he wanted to hear mine. I was the elected captain of our airship and the de facto leader of the group. I held the final opinion on what our party did and didn't do. I was already learning it was a position I didn’t like very much: the decision-maker. A position that was becoming all the more difficult in the field of war. How far was I willing to go to protect those I loved?

  I took a breath and closed my eyes. When I opened them, everyone was motionless, frozen, like a movie on pause.

  Lounging in the lap of the king was a little girl with brown hair and pigtails.

  The ghost girl from my dreams.

  4

  The girl dangled her feet off of King Fergus, nestling her head into his frozen arms. She wore overalls like a tomboy. Her whole body glowed with a silver ghostly hue. She was a translucent specter. She was filled in enough so she wasn’t see-through, but she still possessed an immaterial quality. I had a deep urge to see what happened if I swiped my arm through her stomach. I also had a deeper urge to do nothing because she absolutely terrified me. This girl had been haunting my life in A.K.O. since very early on but this may have been the craziest shit she’d ever pulled.

  “What are you doing here? Dreams are more your thing, aren’t they?”

  “You’ve noticed the pattern then,” she smiled. She picked herself up and slid off King Fergus’ leg and walked towards me. “I am the guardian of dreams and dreams are my domain. You blinked—a momentary second of respite. Arguably a miniature dream.”

  “Sounds like a bit of a stretch—”

  “Let’s just say I used a lot of power and energy to emerge here and now, rather than wait for you to fall asleep more potently.”

  “You’re awfully talkative today?” I said. Usually she confronted me quite quickly with only the vaguest of information. This had been the most I’d ever heard her say. “Mind telling me what’s so urgent?”

  The girl shook her head and sighed. “This quest. Everything that is happening. I don’t like it. I’m unsure of its source. Arethkar’s manipulation of the corrupted fragments worries me. It means my family members—the other guardians—are helping them. I suspect my father and my sister. I don’t know yet. This is a very important warning, Clay. Take the quest but be very very careful. I predict dangerous times ahead.”

  I was about to ask her what the hell she was going on about but King Fergus tilted his head at me. “Clay—your thoughts on the quest?”

  I shook my head and walked to the end of the throne room. “I need time to think.”

  I walked out to the city, taking the heavy choice along with me.

  5

  The streets of Land’s Shield thronged with activity. I hurried past kids playing soccer in an alleyway and acolytes of the Haeren Church of the Nine helping out the homeless. Air trams and ships swooshed far above the city’s rooftops. I passed by a sushi restaurant opened by a Japanese couple who had entered the game together. It was one of the first real businesses started by The Chosen. They had worked diligently on leveling their fishing, skyfishing, and culinary craft skills to the point where they were able to open a business. Their skycrab tempura had become particularly popular with the local NPCs. During one of the few nights off we had from adventuring and doing missions for the king, Serena and I had gone on a date here. Our first in A.K.O.—unless you count saving Arondale from a giant dinosaur or defeating an evil king as romantic excursions.

  The restaurant had inspired other player-owned businesses and the area beside the engineering district had become known as Chosen-Town. Other players had opened up hardware stores, while others had created a newspaper called the Land’s Shield Times. They had interviewed me quickly for a story about fighting Bertwald and the former King Jared. I only answered questions briefly. Players and NPCs glanced at me as I walked through the streets, recognizing me either from the article or from popular rumors and gossip. My party and I had begun to gain a reputation throughout Laergard. We weren’t the strongest or the highest leveled but we were seen as the go-to party when it came to story-driven quests and universal world events.

  I turned a corner and entered the engineering district. The air grew heavier with smoke. Machine drilling and buzz saws echoed through the streets. Bright beams of ash flew out of open warehouse doorways along with grunts of workers and the shouts of foremen.

  Eventually I came to a tall building made from green glass: the Land’s Shield Northern Aerodrome. A muumuu attendant stood by an elevator. It led to the top platform where citizens boarded large passenger ships to other parts of Laergard and—at, least before the current trade embargoes—to the other continents of Illyria as well.

  I moved past the attendant and entered the back warehouse area of the aerodrome where ships were built and repaired. I walked across the bay, passing by smooth frigates, schooners, brigantines, and galleons. An assortment of both Rorn and Aeri workers ran the repair factory—an odd pairing as choosing either one as a starter race dinged you with a negative alignment against the other. In the case of Laergardian aircraft, however, the two antagonistic races had a shared project. Unlike the Arethkarian vessels purely influenced by the Rorn with their iron exterior, Laergardian airships were a hybrid blend of Aeri-infused wood powered by Rorn magitech. It meant the Laergardian fleet was less statistically powerful than Arethkar’s, but more nimble and quicker.

  At the end of the long factory, I found the Horizon’s Dream, propped up with scaffolding. It was attended to by an assortment of different workers repairing the damage from earlier today. It was one of the perks of flying under the king’s banner, I got free repairs; which was one less expense in what was still an insanely expensive enterprise.

  Waiting for me underneath the bowsprit was the mustachioed helmsman.

  “I’d like my cut of the ship’s earnings before I quit.”

  Damn. I had hoped he’d only been whining on board the ship earlier. Finding someone to replace him would be tough.

  “Is there anyway I can convince you otherwise?”

  “Nope. Earnings, please.”

  The last mission had really taken its toll on the crew morale, which was a big problem. Morale was a major part of the game’s airship mechanics. I opened up the captain’s log in my HUD and poured over the stats of the Horizon’s Dream.

  Horizon’s Dream

  Type: Air Frigate

  Size: Large

  Turning Radius: Wide

  Classification: Warship

  Min. Crew: 16

  Crew: 24/200

  Cannon(s): 14/32

  Cargo: 36/80 (tonnage)

  Speed: Fast

  Crystal Mana Fuel: 30%

  Food Supply: Low

  Health: 45% (Good)

  Crew Morale: Unhappy

  Gold: 10,000

  I see. The crew morale had tipped into the negative. I opened up the explanation for how crew morale worked; no matter how many times I read it, it was still a difficult balancing act to keep a crew happy while doing insanely dangerous missions. I reviewed the information in my HUD.

  Info: Crew Morale

  A sky captain is nothing without his crew. The crew morale is always decreasing based on multiple factors: how long you’ve been out in the sky, the crew’s cut of the earnings, and the general food (and alcohol) supply onboard the ship. The key to morale, then, is to pay your crew as much as possible in gold, meat, and wine. Be greedy and keep everything for yourself and you’ll soon be walking the plank into the clouds.

  Crew morale status can only ever be in one of five states: overjoyed, happy, content, unhappy, defiant. A positive crew runs the ship faster and increases cannon reload speed, a negative crew w
ill operate at a more sluggish pace.

  I clicked on another window in the HUD to open up the ship’s earnings.

  Earnings ( - mandatory expenses)

  Arethkarian Supply Vessel = +200,000 gold coins

  Extra Loot = +1,200 gold coins

  Crystal Mana Fuel = -20,000 gold coins

  Accept earnings (and expenses): yes/no?

  Awesome. The supplies on board the ship were part of the mission and so didn’t count towards our earnings, however, the actual ship and the remaining loot on the fallen soldiers did, giving us a brilliant pay-out. I gladly clicked accept and the Horizon’s Dream gold stat rushed up to 192,000 gold coins. Fantastic. A new screen popped up afterwards.

  Are you ready to divide the earnings and pay out the crew: yes/no?

  This was the tricky part. I closed the window, knowing I would return to it in a few minutes.

  There were different regulations and systems available on how to divide the ship’s earnings. Sky pirate captains were known to keep up to 50% of a ship’s earnings for themselves and have the rest of the crew vie for the rest. It was a bit shortsighted, though, as such divisions had a strong likelihood of creating a mutinous crew. Greed clearly played a part in sky pirates having such short life expectancies. The current system we had agreed to was after upkeep the earnings got divided equally amongst the entire crew. We were all risking our lives out there, we all deserved to be recompensed fairly. The difficult part was the crew morale declined every time I purchased anything for the ship, eating away at the individual crew member’s profits. The morale would shoot up into the positive zone as soon as I divided the earnings and paid out the crew; however, once I did so, I wouldn’t be able to afford any of the expensive and desirable upgrades for the ship. Worse, even with the earnings before pay-out, I wouldn’t be able to upgrade it as much I’d like to, due to the crew morale status already at “unhappy.” If I spent too much of their cut on the boat, they’d quit. For this very reason, I was thankful we didn’t have to pay for repairs.