Terramyr Online: The Undiscovered Country: A LitRPG Adventure Page 47

  “K. I’m ready,” Mike said.

  “Me too,” Brian replied. “Let’s get in, save our file, then see if the scholar has any clues for the other keys.”

  Brian confirmed his fast travel to House Bob.

  Everything went black. The few seconds of load time felt as though an eternity were stretching before him. Was Rhonda dead? Was she stuck in Limbo? Had Bielshire gone down while she was traveling, or had she made it somewhere else? Perhaps the game had let her fast travel just outside of the city. But then, would that mean that Rored had an army ready to ambush them? Pan had warned them that Rored was setting an ambush in Biel Pass. It may have been simple for the assassins to move on the city.

  But how could they defeat all of Kyra’s Fangs?

  Light pulled him from his thoughts as he found himself standing near the save point in House Bob. He could see his enormous tapestry. It had a new badge with the yeti king’s face on it, as well as one with a frost giant’s skull. He turned and noticed the trophy totem now had a carved bust of the yeti king, as if the monster was ripping through from inside the column and emerging, but seeing the upgraded trophy column did little for him at the moment, given all of his concerns.

  Someone cleared a throat behind him. Brian turned to face the northern wall of the main room and saw Rored sitting on a bench. At his feet were several dead House Bob guards.

  The doors to the bedrooms on the first and second floors stood open. Two assassins emerged from each door, and a few more came out from their hiding spot in the dining hall.

  “Before things get... disorderly, I would present you with the same offer as before,” Rored said. He drummed a book with the fingers on his left hand as he stared at Brian with those evil, expectant eyes and his sly, conniving little smirk. “Slay your friend, and I shall remake you my champion,” Rored said.

  Brian shook his head. “No.”

  “The others,” Mike started. “You killed all of them, didn’t you? You destroyed the save point in Bielshire and killed the rest of our friends.”

  Rored arched an eyebrow and shrugged. “Their demise was... inevitable. I cannot allow this world to remain in disorder.” Rored held up a finger. “But I am willing to let one of you live and claim the rank of champion.”

  “This is exactly like the king of the wood scenario,” Mike hissed.

  “In case either of you are thinking of escaping, let me show you something.” Rored opened the book and flipped through the pages. There in the middle of the book was a green light that rose up and expanded into the miniature shape of a man about a foot tall off the pages. He turned around and saw Brian and Mike. He frowned and pointed to them.

  “Mike, Brian, is that you? What happened? It feels like I have been waiting forever for the VR system to reinitialize.”

  Brian gasped. It was Professor Rojas’ voice, but how had Rored found him? Meredith had said Barry and Rojas were both safe in separate areas.

  Rored tore the book and tossed the pages outward.

  “GAAAAH!” Rojas’s screams filled the room.

  Brian felt his stomach lurch and he wanted to vomit.

  Two nearby assassins each sent a fire bolt at the book covers, destroying the tome easily.

  “You don’t belong here,” Rored said. “I will restore order, no matter where you hide or how long it takes me to find you all.” He stood up and pointed to the few loose pages that remained. “Now, tell me whether any of the other outlanders have managed to hide like this after their bodies were destroyed. Tell me where they are, and I will show mercy to the one of you that is strongest.”

  Brian only had a second or two to think. He tried to assess the situation entirely. Would the others have been saved? Their consciousness encoded and attached to hidden code key items? Had Rored found Barry? His thoughts turned to Meredith. Had Rored found the hidden room or Meredith’s crystal? This was even worse than before! Rored wasn’t going to stop until they were all dead.

  “Can you stop the bloodgrass?” Atheron asked Rored.

  “Atheron, what are you doing?” Mike shouted.

  Brian turned and watched Atheron take a couple steps forward. Was the dwarf betraying his companion, or was he stalling for time?

  “Bloodgrass?” Rored echoed.

  Atheron nodded. “There is something far worse than these outlanders coming to Prirodha if the bloodgrass is any indication.”

  Rored let out a low, rumbling snarl. “Worse you say?”

  Atheron nodded again and stopped just a couple feet in front of Freya. “Demons, horrible monsters from another plane.”

  Rored looked to Brian. “And this is your doing?”

  Brian glanced to Mike. Mike gave a wink, indicating that he had some idea of what to do. Too bad the DM system was down. It would be nice to coordinate the plan before striking, but Brian figured he may as well stall until Mike made his move first. “The bloodgrass comes from our home,” he said. “That’s why we came here in the first place. You once said you figured my home needed order, well, you were right. The bloodgrass and the demons that follow it have overrun our homes. They must have followed us here.”

  Rored ground his teeth and snarled again. He turned to Atheron. “Kill the outlanders and you will be my champion! Then I will destroy the bloodgrass!”

  Freya’s sword came out in a flash. Atheron had barely managed to raise his hands and begin summoning his lightning by the time her sword removed his head from its place and sent it spinning through the air. The lightning fizzled and the dwarf’s dead body slumped to the ground.

  “NOW!” Mike shouted.

  There was a clap of thunder as a translucent sphere rapidly expanded from Mike’s position. As had happened on the bridge with the gargoyle, time slowed down, only this must have been a new spell, amplified by Mike’s much more advanced skill level. Rather than a single creature being affected, the spell expanded out from him to encompass a range that slowed after the first two seconds but continued to grow as Brian looked on with amazement. The assassins in doorways and on the upper floor walkways started to pull their weapons, but only moved a few inches as Brian looked around. The thunderclap became a long, drawn-out rumble until even the sound stood nearly still. The door ripped open and a pair of assassins from outside fired arrows in, but as the sphere expanded out of the house and toward the outer gate, the arrows seemed to hit a wall and barely moved through the air.

  “Let’s move!” Mike said, letting loose with the chain lightning spell Brian had given him. A thick bolt of lightning erupted from Mike’s hands, blew through the first assassin, then zipped to a second, and then a third, and a fourth. Then the bolt jumped upward through the open air to the second-floor walkways overlooking the main chamber and zapped another three assassins before finishing. Their bodies died instantly but flew through the air at the same pace as the enemy arrows, dragging out the sizzling, crackling moment just after impact.

  Brian sprinted for Rored and slashed the man with Flaming Death three times, severing the head upon the last strike. The head slowly launched upward as a stream of blood stretched from head to neck. The body started to go limp, but Brian turned and ran to the next target rather than waste his time watching the carnage.

  He cut two more assassins down, and from the corner of his eye saw Freya was on her fourth assassin, working through them quickly with her sword.

  [+1,000 XP]

  “Back of the house!” Brian called out as he looked out front and saw another thirty assassins that had been in the process of emerging from their hiding spots when the time freeze spell had been cast.

  The three heroes dashed to the dining room, slaying another four assassins before leaping across the table and crashing through the window.

  [+500 XP]

  Brian came down with his sword, stabbing through an assassin that had been standing out back.

  [+500 XP]

  Mike blasted a pair of assassins that were guarding the rear door several yards away.

  F
reya charged two more assassins at the back gate, stabbing her sword through one of them and lifting the assassin from the ground as she wrenched her weapon upward, and then she spun around and took off the last assassin’s head.

  Brian and the others bolted through the gate and charged into an alleyway. About ten yards into the alley the time-freeze spell’s range ended. A single mercenary tried to stop them with his spear, but even moving at full speed he was no match for the three of them. Mike hit him in the face with a fire bolt, knocking him backward as Freya came barreling in and shoulder-slammed the mercenary in the chest. The mercenary’s HP bar hadn’t finished changing from the damage before Brian rushed up and stabbed Flaming Death down into the man’s chest, finishing him off.

  [+167 XP]

  The group was barely even slowed in their progress by the mercenary and ran onward through the alleyway.

  “The spell has a total of fifteen seconds at my current level,” Mike said. “But I can only do it once in a twenty-four-hour period.”

  “We’ll be long gone by then!” Brian shouted. The group ran out of the alley, crossed the street, and darted through a series of smaller alleyways until they came to a suitable house. Brian recognized it from one of his early assassin missions before the game had literally gone to crap. He pointed to the building and said, “Let’s hide here!”

  Mike sprinted to the door and began picking the lock. There was a guard about forty yards away, but he was walking the other direction. Mike had the door open within seconds and the group rushed in, closed, and relocked the door.

  “They’ll follow us,” Freya said.

  Brian nodded and gestured to the stairs. “Let’s get to a higher floor.”

  “What if there are people here?” Mike asked.

  Brian smirked. “The house is empty, trust me,” he said.

  “How would you know?” Mike quipped.

  “The previous owner was Myron Spellweather. He was an early Morr’Tai assignment. He was a member of the mage’s guild that seduced married women to gain information.”

  “Charming,” Mike said.

  Brian shrugged and led them up to the room with the large counter still arrayed with wine goblets and the big couch where he had slain the scoundrel. “Well... yes, I suppose he was if you think about it literally,” Brian said.

  “Ha ha... how droll,” Mike stated dryly.

  Brian locked the door behind them and motioned to the couch. “You can use that to hide behind just in case. The stairs over here are the only other exit. I’ll go up to the next floor and sneak onto the roof. If anyone is looking for us, I’ll take them out. Just stay hidden and we should be all right.”

  “I should go with you, I have a pretty good sneak ability,” Mike said.

  “Ah, but mine is better, plus my dagger isn’t nearly as attention grabbing as your spells, and I have a blessing from Khefir that will enhance my sneak. Just stay put. Either I’ll be back before too long, or at least I’ll draw the enemy away.”

  Freya removed her helmet, quickstepped to Brian, and grabbed him by the front of his shirt with her left hand to pull him in for a hard kiss. Brian was surprised not only by the gesture, but by how real it felt.

  “Come back to us,” she said.

  Brian nodded and then glanced to Mike, who was just standing there staring wide-eyed and slack-jawed.

  Up the stairs he went, putting away Flaming Death and pulling out Khefir’s Malice.

  “All right, collector of damned souls. Right about now I could use some serious help.” Brian moved to the same window he had used to sneak into the house and opened it, leaning outside and peering down. Three guards patrolled the street, but these were not Greencap guards or Fezhik town guards. These were Morr’Tai footmen. Like him, the guards wore armor that was mostly black with flourishes of red trim and silver filigree visible on the helmets, bracers, and breastplate. Their red capes were a dead giveaway to any player, but the armor served the same purpose that Brian’s did by providing a magical enchantment that granted total anonymity when interacting with other characters.

  No Greencap would recognize them, which explained why they hadn’t come to House Bob’s aid when the house had been surrounded and infiltrated.

  Brian slipped out the window and climbed to the roof. He looked around, checking to see if any other assassins were nearby. He followed the footmen as they moved into an alleyway. Selecting the footman in the back of the trio, he launched from the roof and fell silently, driving Khefir’s Malice into the man’s back and crushing him into the ground before somersaulting forward and coming up to slip his dagger into the second guard’s back while stifling his scream with his free hand. The third guard started to spin around, but Brian was faster, slicing Khefir’s Malice across the footman’s throat and dropping him in an instant.

  [+1,500 XP]

  Brian looted the bodies, gaining a health potion, two hundred gold pieces, and three sets of armor. I could give these to Freya and Mike and the enemy won’t be able to identify them anymore. Rored could identify Brian because he went by the face and physical features like Brian and Mike did, but the NPCs wouldn’t be able to duplicate that process. At least... he hoped that was true. The NPC bodies disappeared, and Brian climbed back to the roof.

  Once on the roof, he looked around. In the distance he could see a pair of assassins leaping over an alleyway and onto a new building. One of them had long, flowing blonde hair. Brian felt rage swell within him upon seeing her. Of all the NPCs, she and the one with the claymore were the most dangerous among the Morr’Tai. She also seemed to recognize his face.

  She had to die.

  Brian waited until the pair seemed to turn and head away from his position. They were about two streets away and appeared to be scanning the city below. Brian climbed down, knowing he couldn’t leap across the larger streets between the rows of building, and quickly made his way through the alleys, keeping an eye to the rooftops just in case.

  As he approached the row of buildings where he had last seen the pair, he went a couple buildings to the left and then climbed up.

  “What is that person doing?” an NPC called out as she pointed to Brian. Brian paid her no mind. He was on the hunt and needed to focus. He couldn’t let the female assassin escape him and live to catch up with them later.

  He slowly pulled himself above the lip of the roof and scanned the immediate vicinity. One of the assassins was on the same roof now, a male who had his back to him and was busy looking down at the street below the opposite side of the building. The blonde assassin was three buildings over to the right.

  Brian scrambled over the roof, still making good use of his Shadow blessing from Khefir. He stalked the assassin carefully, making sure to move left or right to stay fully behind the man as he watched the street below and paced back and forth along the edge of the roof.

  “Where are you?” the assassin called out, dagger brandished and glinting in the sunlight.

  Right here! Brian said in his mind as he closed the distance between them and stabbed the assassin in the back while covering the mouth with his free hand.

  [+500 XP]

  He laid the body down and then turned to see where the female assassin was. To his dismay, she was no longer on the rooftop.

  Did I lose her? Brian wondered.

  “AH!” a woman screamed from the streets below. Brian looked down and realized that the assassin’s body had slid off the roof and landed smack in the middle of a group of citizens.

  He backpedaled from the edge as shouts of “Murder!” and calls for help erupted from the street.

  So much for stealth. Brian thought.

  Suddenly, the sneaking icon flashed. The eye opened and shone brightly. Brian had been caught. He wheeled around just as the female assassin charged in. Brian somersaulted away and her dagger slashed through the air where he had been standing.

  “You weakling!” she hissed.

  Brian exited sneak mode. The woman pressed the attack, not
giving Brian enough time to switch to his sword. He managed to block with his own dagger, taking a minor stamina hit upon impact. He slashed at her twice, scoring a hit once and getting blocked the second time.

  The woman snarled and tried to foot sweep him. Brian jumped over the strike, landed, and then sidestepped a straight thrust from the assassin. He slashed at the exposed arm and landed a solid hit. The woman’s HP bar dropped to half now.

  She spun around, slicing and stabbing at the air as Brian used quick footwork to stay out of harm’s way. If the female assassin had any sort of poison on the blade, he’d be a dead man, and there was no way he could respawn back at House Bob. The female rushed forward, her arm held high for a downward stab. Brian quickly altered direction. Instead of running away, he lunged forward. His left arm shot up and snatched her weapon hand at the wrist as he plunged Khefir’s Malice into her abdomen. The hit landed hard enough that Brian felt the vibration through the VR system as a yellow flash washed over the woman.

  Critical hit.

  She gasped, then coughed and sputtered.

  Her icy eyes locked on his as she frowned and drew her brow into a knot.

  “How?” she asked as he gently laid her on the roof.

  [+1,000 XP]

  Brian breathed a sigh of relief and then looted the woman’s body.

  [+1,000 GP]

  [Acquired Morr’Tai master attire]

  [+2 poison]

  [+Bella’s Razor]

  Brian interfaced with his inventory as the woman’s body disappeared. Bella’s Razor was not even close to being as nice as Khefir’s Malice, but it was a nice dagger nonetheless. It did automatic poison damage that lingered for five seconds, and it was a plus ten percent to stealth.