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

by Jakob Tanner

  “I’m assuming you saw I accepted the king’s quest in the party logs,” I said.

  “Yep.”

  “You were pretty adamant about not doing the quest back in the throne room. Do you still feel that way?”

  He sniffed and blinked. He still wasn’t facing me. “It’s this quest. I have my doubts about it. All my life I’ve thought about Ariellum, thought about what it would be like to grow up there, or even visit. The Lirana have made their peace with their alliance with the Haeren and other races, accepted their lot as merchants and nomads, confided to certain quarters of certain cities, adopting Haeren celebrations as their own. It isn’t all bad, but it isn’t what we truly want, there’s a hole in our hearts. Part of me thinks it’s punitive. The hole, the feeling of something missing. It’s my people’s punishment for creating the Ultriga Weapon in the first place.”

  I took a sip of my pint. “I guess it comes down to: what are you willing to do to protect those you love?”

  Shade went quiet. I imagined he was thinking about the kids at the orphanage who looked up to him, Kari, and the rest of us. While the Lirana ruminated, I considered all those I’d lost on Earth to the deadly ZERO virus. My parents, my brother, everyone I’d ever known. I’d done nothing to help them, especially my brother, who had done everything in his power to help me survive, to have my mind uploaded into this game. He pulled strings with the government, fought angry rioters ready to kill and take us for all we were worth, laid his life on the line to get me where I am. What had I done for him? Nothing. In the years preceding the outbreak of the virus, I had moved away from home and barely kept in touch. I’d send a postcard once a year, if anything at all.

  I did nothing to help my brother, but I could still make it up to him. I could help others like he had helped me.

  Shade turned to me and smiled. “Nothing I do or say is going to stop you, huh?”

  “I don’t care how high your Luck stats are, I’m going on this mission.”

  Shade stretched his arms. “You really are a crazy bastard, you know? I guess I’m crazy too as I gotta come with you. Let’s agree now the ship has to have a well-stocked kitchen and we better have quality liquor too. And cheese. And fruit. And did I say liquor? That’s the most important thing we need on this quest.”

  “Agreed! Do you know what else we need? A sky navigator; and Shade, my friend, I know just where to find one.”

  8

  Below the Grand Casino Palace in the Night Court of Land’s Shield existed a gladiatorial arena, an illegal underground fighting ring for those to gamble and satiate their bloodlust. Shade and I, through a snafu I 100% blame on my Lirana thief pal, had previously been contestants. I was in disbelief I had returned here willingly.

  Bright lights glowed in the center of the pit as a fighter ran head to head with the largest wolf I’d ever seen. It was thick and beastly and shadowed over the Rorn brawler going up against it. Its yellow eyes glinted outward. Its snout scrunched into a growl. The wolf barred its teeth and dug its claws into the sand of the pit.

  The audience cheered at the wolf’s display of anger and rage. It was the crowd favorite.

  The Rorn fighter was a stout muscular man with a thick gray beard falling below his hardened pecks. He wore an orange headband to keep his hair from falling in his eyes. A single beaded braid fell down beside his left temple. His thick arms were weapons of muscle and strength. Bronze bracers wrapped around his wrists. He wore baggy cloth pants offering quick movement speed and dexterity. He was a brawler, A.K.O.’s equivalent of the Monk or Pugilist class.

  “Hey, don’t we know him?” said Shade, as we walked down the staircase between seating areas.

  We did. He’d given us advice when we’d been imprisoned in this very arena. He was currently wearing slave’s bracers. The bronze arm bands would keep him enslaved until he earned his freedom in these fighting pits.

  “Don’t tell me, you’re thinking he’s going to be our next navigator? He’s a brute!”

  “Has no one ever told you not to judge a book by its cover?”

  “I have,” said the Lirana. “But I’ve come to believe that is false advice, peddled by charlatans. I always judge a book by its cover; even well-hidden truths have a way of making themselves known on the prettiest of surfaces.”

  “Whatever you say man,” I said. “The guy mentioned while we were imprisoned—because of you by the way—that he knew how to operate an airship. We need a player—not a hired stranger—with insider knowledge on how airships work.”

  We hurried down the arena’s steps to get a closer view of the fight. I was prepared to strike a deal, buy him outright, or break him out of here myself. If we were going to stop Arethkar from enslaving its Chosen, we needed to start with the people in chains on our own continent.

  We moved further down the steps, passing a goblin selling candied apples. A group of rat creatures—Skren, they were called—handed the goblin some coins and walked away, licking their apples as they took a spot on the stone benches of the stadium.

  In the pit, the wolf roared. It dug its claws into the ground and pulled its neck back like a slingshot readying to shoot itself forward. Its legs and claws strained as it pulled its body towards its target, launching into the air.

  The stretched-out claws came for the fighter’s flesh first, but the Rorn slid back and jumped out of the way. The over-sized wolf widened its mouth and pushed its neck forward ready to take a chomp. The fighter retaliated by clenching his fists and stretching his arms out at the side. A swirl of blue light enveloped his body. He let out a bellowing roar of his own, creating a tremor as far as the stalls. The gray wolf’s fur prickled from the attack, sliding backwards from the tremor, taking 4% of its HP off.

  The wolf shook its head. It was startled, unused to such retaliation. The battle wasn’t going to be as quick and easy as it was used to. The large beast let out a massive roar. Spit flew from its mouth as a gust of wind pushed the brawler back a step.

  The fighter’s face remained calm in front of the fearful opposition. He clenched his fist and crossed his arms, knocking his wrists against each other. A swirl of wind spun around his person from his feet to his head. A speed buff.

  The brawler ran across the pit, straight for the monstrous wolf. Red energy swirled around his right hand as he screamed with rage. He threw the empowered fist right into the creature’s snout. The wolf let out a whelp and the audience gasped. The wolf stumbled back. Blood dripped from its gums. It quickly retaliated by whipping its tail in the direction of the fighter. The Rorn leaned into it, holding up his arms like a boxer blocking a punch. His skin crusted and flaked with a layer of stone and met the attack head on. The two moves nullified each other.

  The brawler jumped in the air, purple arcane tendrils of smoke flowing out of his fist. He delivered an uppercut punch below the wolf’s jaw. The attack sent the wolf into the air. The brawler jumped after it. The fighter clutched onto the wolf’s fur and arched back his arm for another punch. When the fist landed right in the center of the wolf’s head, a beam of energy followed it right across the wolf’s body. Two entities fell back to the ground together, making a massive thud and cloud of smoke.

  The debris cleared and the wolf’s body laid across the arena floor split in half, organs and entrails leaking out of either side of it. The brawler stood between the two halves of the wolf’s corpse, breathing heavily.

  The audience roared and bellowed around us. A fight broke out in the stands on the opposite end of the arena. Two Muumuu had made a private bet of their own and one party was very upset with the outcome.

  Goblins rushed across the arena to clean up the mess of the dead monster wolf. An announcer appeared at the front of the ring above the stands. He held a glowing crystal device in front of his mouth, allowing him to project his voice.

  “Wowee! Everybody give a big round of applause for Jackson Thorne everybody. Now tonight’s celebrations are almost over. Tonight is Jackson’s final night with
us. Will he leave us in death or freedom? Can he survive the next and last fight of this evening? A battle with the Mother Herax!”

  Loud thumping footsteps came from down a tunnel locked behind a caged portcullis. What horrible creature was being drawn from the casino’s menagerie of monstrosities?

  An Orc whispered to a Lirana bandit in the stands in front of us, “Is it even safe for them to bring that thing out here?”

  The portcullis cage was raised and emerging from the dark shadows was the Mother Herax: a dinosaur-dragon hybrid. It took the shape of a tyrannosaurus rex with large powerful back legs and a smaller set of clawed hands in its upper body. Its body was coal black and its abdomen glowed with orange ember beneath its scaly skin, exposing the sinewy web connecting all the tissue. Smoke leaked from its nostrils and out the side of its neck. Its jaw was four feet long, meaning when it opened its mouth fully, exposing its giant sharp teeth and long lizard-like tongue, it had a massive target radius; not to mention such jaws would be able to rip bodies and bones apart with ease.

  If Jackson was going to be our future sky pilot, odds were he wasn’t going to get free from his servitude tonight. Not with him facing a fire-breathing tyrannosaurus-rex on his own.

  The Herax stretched out its neck, eyeing the entire audience. Its mere breaths made the floor at our feet tremble. The owners of the arena saw her as a monster to fight other contestants, but the Herax itself wasn’t so specific; it would eat all of us.

  A man wearing a fur vest cupped his hands around his mouth and projected his voice, hollering at the Mother Herax. He chanted and the dinosaur nodded. It focused its eyes on Jackson Thorne below her in the pit. The chanting man must have been a druid or tamer class.

  A group of black-robed mages headed down the aisle on the other side of the arena pit. They cast spells one by one, shooting blue and golden orbs of support magic onto the Mother Herax. Status buffs lined up under its HP bar, giving it better critical hit rate, stronger attacks, higher defense, and on it went.

  “What the hell?” I said. “Is nobody going to call interference?”

  The goblin in front of us looked up at me and shrugged. “It’s how tonight’s show was set up. Anyone can participate in the fight; it was how Drakus agreed to promise the Rorn his freedom.”

  “Anyone can join the fight then?”

  “If they were dumb enough, sure. Hey, where are you go—?”

  Shade and I ran down the arena steps, pushing past the goblin candied apple vendor, creating a rotating turn of the audience’s heads as we hurried to the edge of the stalls and climbed over the banister.

  “You ready?” I said to Shade as I perched on the railing.

  “In times like these mate, you shouldn’t stop to ask questions. Otherwise you’ll stop and think about how idiotic the thing you’re about to do is,” said Shade, jumping towards the sandy pit. “See you down there.”

  I followed suit, rolling onto the pit floor.

  The Mother Herax was big from the stands, but it felt ten times bigger when it loomed over you from the ground. It darted towards Jackson Thorne, who buffed himself with more speed boosts, and side stepped the creature. Without looking over to us, he hollered, “I figured I’d be seeing you two again. Correct me if I missed what happened from my peripheral vision. Did you two just voluntarily jump into this pit?”

  “I’ll be the first to admit, it was a terrible idea,” said Shade, pulling out his revolvers.

  “We have a vested interest in your freedom,” I said.

  “Oh really?” said the brawler, narrowly diving out of the way of the Herax’s lunge.

  “Care to elaborate?”

  “Can we discuss this when we don’t have a starving dinosaur about to eat us alive?” Shade fired off rounds at the monster’s head, drawing its aggro away from Jackson.

  The Mother Herax headed towards us at a rapid clip. It bounded across the arena with each step it took. It lunged its giant jaw towards us, snapping up and down, ready to catch our flesh between its fanged teeth. We all dove to avoid the blow. The dino spun around and opened its jaw. A thick wavy cloud emanated in the air around its mouth as fire surged up its throat and out towards us in a massive blast. Jackson and Shade dove in opposite directions away from the dino’s blast.

  The ball of flame flew towards me. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I combusted into a crackle of lightning and reemerged meters away from where the attack landed.

  The crowd clapped and cheered.

  Shade and Jackson looked at me, impressed.

  “Got new moves, huh?”

  Blue magic flew across the top of the arena and buffed the Herax with a speed boon. We really had to take care of those mages. I conjured a ball of flames and whipped it at the mages above. The ball of flame flew towards the roof and puttered out as blue lines of a magic barrier appeared in front of the stalls. Aha. So spells were able to cross the barrier into the arena, but nothing was able to go out.

  The Herax turned and whipped its tail in our direction. A gust of wind following its tailwhip, knocking Shade and Jackson back.

  The giant flame dinosaur turned in my direction.

  “C’mon guys,” I said. “Time to aggro this thing.”

  The dinosaur kept moving towards me. No attacks or movement from Shade or Jackson.

  “Guys?”

  I turned around and Shade was moving around in circles. Jackson was walking into one of the many boulders littered across the arena. It didn’t matter there was an obstacle in front of him, he kept walking into the boulder.

  Crap. They’ve been confused!

  I electric blinked away from the incoming dinosaur and emerged closer to Shade. I stretched out my arm and sent a ray of glowing diamonds around his person, curing him of the confused debuff. I quickly did the same to Jackson.

  “You guys all there now?”

  “Sorry about that,” said the brawler.

  The mages above us threw more defensive spells onto the Herax.

  “The only way we’re going to beat this thing,” said Jackson. “Is to do so faster than the mages above can heal and buff it.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “Let’s pile on as many debuffs as we can and then hit it with everything we got.”

  Jackson swayed his arms, manipulating the wind around him, and granting himself a speed boost. He ran ahead, charging the Herax head on. Transparent red flames of energy coated his body as he swung his fist right into the Herax’s head.

  The monster’s nose scrunched. Its eyes went cross-eyed. It tripped and stumbled. Jackson had stunned it.

  Shade jumped in next. His guns were now sheathed and out were his daggers. They were coated in green venomous poison. He did an uppercut slice into the Herax’s jaw, cutting open the creature’s flesh and letting the poison mingle with the monster’s bloodstream.

  “Out of the way you guys,” I yelled, clenching my fingers to the air and manipulating the ground at the dinosaur’s feet. The hard stone beneath the surface of the arena crackled and tore apart, jagged pieces of stone stabbed the dinosaur and made it trip and fall. A crippled debuff appeared alongside the poison and stun debuffs.

  I waved my hands in an arcane dance, creating a circular floor of ice behind the dinosaur. Next I held both my arms out, fingers stretched out as wide as possible. I conjured the strongest air blast I was able to muster and shot it towards the Herax.

  The dinosaur stumbled back onto the plate of ice. It screamed in pain as the frost debuff overwhelmed it. Water magic was its weakness.

  “Alright let’s give him all we got,” said Jackson. “Its head and tail are its weak points.”

  Jackson granted himself another agility boon and then beat his chest, creating more red energy flames around his body, amping his critical hit chance. The brawler ran towards the dinosaur. He jumped into the air and unleashed a flurry of blows right into the head of the creature.

  Shade snuck around and triggered backstab onto the creature’s tail, damaging it from
behind.

  The casters above were sending healing magic but with all of our debuffs plus outgoing damage, the monster’s HP was falling.

  The Herax roared and whipped its fiery tail, flinging Shade right into Jackson and shooting them across the pit.

  My hand fell to my side while an icy feeling traveled through my arm. A crystallized ice sword materialized in my hand. The blade was a sharp frosted blue; not as big as Serena’s giant blade, but definitely big. If it were a normal sword and not magical, I don’t think I’d even be able to lift it with my current stats, but because it was a conjured weapon, it felt just right in my grip.

  The glorious sword had cost me 50 MP, leaving me with only 40 MP to spare. I only had two electric blinks if I chose to use them. One to get in, one to get out.

  I ran towards the Mother Herax, ice blade in hand. I leapt towards it and triggered electric blink. Its jaws snapped down, biting empty air, while I landed on its snout, facing its shocked yellow eyes. I ran to its right eye and dug my conjured sword into it. The ice blade pierced the liquid of the eye and slid deeper. Red clouts of blood soaked through the yellow iris. Particles of frost formed outside its eyelid. I pulled the sword free, bringing a splatter of blood and mucus with it. The creature wailed and thrashed in different directions.

  I kept my balance and hurried over to the other eye, stabbing it next. I was blinding this poor beast. I pulled the blade out. The creature was down to 25% health. Not quite finished yet. It was time to risk everything. Using my last bit of mana, I electric blinked, and reemerged behind the beast at its other weak spot: its tail. I slashed the ice blade back and forth, left and right, up and down. The Herax squirmed and cried out. It spun around to attack me but the frost debuff had slowed its movement making it easy for me to turn with it, staying out of reach.

  I did one last slash taking it down to 19%, at which point, Shade flung to action jumping into the air, spinning his blades, and ripping his daggers right across the throat of the monster. The assassinate ability sliced open the creature’s neck, plummeting it down to 0% HP as a torrent of blood gushed out of the creature and onto the arena’s floor. The monster collapsed on the side.