Watcher's Question: A LitRPG Saga (Life in Exile Book 2)

by Sean Oswald

  WATCHER’S QUESTION

  ©2020 SEAN OSWALD

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the authors.

  Aethon Books supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact editor@aethonbooks.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Aethon Books

  PO Box 121515

  Fort Worth TX, 76108

  www.aethonbooks.com

  Print and eBook formatting, and cover design by Steve Beaulieu. Artwork provided by Luciano Fleitas

  Published by Aethon Books LLC.

  Aethon Books is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead is coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  ALSO IN THE SERIES

  YOU’VE JUST READ: WATCHER’S TEST

  UP NEXT: WATCHER’S QUESTION

  Contents

  I. A Story of Reclamation

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  II. A Tale of Questing

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  APPENDIX A- ENDING CHARACTER SHEETS

  FROM THE PUBLISHER

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  LitRPG

  Part I

  A Story of Reclamation

  Prologue

  An instant of time and a flash of light and the Watcher had drawn his remaining aura back around himself. Pulling it away from the Condemned was the best he could do, but the damage was done.

  “What have you done? This was not what we agreed to.”

  “Oh cut your sanctimonious chatter. We agreed to a test and so it is a test. I have given her much.” The Condemned had given up all pretense of niceties and revealed his true disdain as he spoke.

  “You have given her a death sentence. No one will understand her. She will be the enemy of all civilized people. She is but a child, how could you do this to her?” The Watcher’s anxiety of his recent actions rose to a new level as he pondered what fate would befall the youngest of their test subjects.

  “Child or not, she is a fleshling, made of meat. She is …” The Condemned paused as he sought the right word. “So much less. Unworthy, as they all are. What does it matter if her speck of a life is a tiny bit of a smaller speck than the others?”

  Anger and concern played across the face of the Watcher as the Condemned stared back at him defiantly.

  “Besides, if she survives, the power I have given her will make her a veritable godling to the mortals.” Hearing his words, the Watcher wasn’t sure if his former brother could even see anything wrong in what he had done or if he was beyond such concepts.

  “I will—” he began in response.

  “Oh no, you will do nothing. We agreed to a test. I have given her the aid that she asked for, and more. It is not my fault that she may not be prepared to deal with the consequences,” the Condemned maintained his smug tone.

  So many things began to fall into place for the Watcher. How could he have been so naïve? Perfection was his to grasp and yet … a moment of doubt, but what could he do about it now? The One who could fix it certainly would not. How could he even admit to this? Then, one more piece of the puzzle became clear. “You did this to the first didn’t you?”

  All he got back was that infuriating smile from the Condemned.

  “Don’t bother denying it. You did it to him. I don’t know how, but you are to blame.”

  “No, no, and never. I accept no blame. This is justice. Fairness. The thing the mortals are always mewling on and on about. They have that which should be ours and yet they ...” His words trailed off as the rage consumed him.

  At that moment, the Watcher understood something that he never had before. Something which every parent learns, but which the nature of his race had denied to him. The same question can be asked in anger or in curiosity. While the question remains the same, the intent is very different, and it is intention which colors the outcomes.

  Chapter One

  “The search for a scapegoat is the easiest of all hunting expeditions.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Dave stood there as the first sun rose to signal the morning, staring up at the mountain to the north. The elevation was higher here than back in the forest, and it showed in the colors splayed across the horizon. The air all over Eloria had been fresh, nothing like back home. In the forest, it had been that verdant scent of growth. In Eris’ Rise, it had been the farm fresh scent. Even in Konig, the capital city of Albia, it was fresher than what he was accustomed to, but this morning there was a crispness in the air. Almost as if they had skipped from the late summer it had been in Eris’ Rise to early winter. For just a moment he allowed himself to stop and set down his baggage. At that moment, he felt free as he breathed in the fresh, cold air coming off the mountain. It was more than he could handle, though, to just be in the moment. Responsibilities and fears crept back into his mind, concerns for Sara foremost among them. He needed to get the rest of the party moving. It was time to start another day.

  Nudging his traveling companions to wake them, Dave went to his bedding area to don his new armor. It still took some time to get it on each morning even after owning it for the past week. He wasn’t accustomed to it yet, but then, a week wasn’t really that long. This week, though, had been as filled with change as the week before it. Hard to imagine that little more than two weeks ago he was still on earth, blindly walking through each day, oblivious to the family that he loved so much. Dave hated that it had taken being magically portaled to another world for him to wake up to what was truly important in his life. There was a jumble of emotions left to process in that, but Eloria never seemed to allow him the time. First, there was the constant fear and fighting for their lives. Then, before he even had the chance to settle into the cozy, rustic life offered by Eris’ Rise, that too was all stripped away
from him, along with two of his children. In many ways, the past week had been far rougher than the life and death struggles he and the family had first faced in the Murkwood.

  He didn’t hold out much hope for finding Sara, but he wasn’t ready to give up yet, and the thought of telling Emily he hadn’t been able to find their little girl was almost more than he could bear. She already blamed him for enough of the decisions he had made over the past week. It was easier to focus on the task at hand. That had always been his modus operandi. He finished up the last of the buckles on his chainmail. It was a high quality set of armor which had belonged to one of Max’s fallen squad members. The big man had gifted it to Dave, which sorta felt funny, but there was no sense in letting the armor go to waste. It was a big improvement and well-made as a combination of chain and leather armor, so it had little to no impact on his mobility. It consisted of a short chain hauberk which came only a third of the way down his thighs which ended about where the leather greaves started. The greaves, like the vambraces, were a supple leather that fit well and had pockets where small metal plates were inserted to increase the protection without limiting the movement. Even the leather gloves had a steel plate sewn into the back of the hand. The armor was completed by a chainmail coif, which as of yet Dave had been unable to make himself wear. Protection was fine and dandy, but he never liked having anything on his head, which was somehow appropriate since even in Eloria his hair was thinning. Inspecting it again, he saw its stats:

  Masterwork Chainmail and Leather Armor Set

  Defense: 12

  Weight: 49.5 lbs

  Type: Medium Armor

  Masterwork Effects: -10% weight, +2 Defense

  Thinking about the armor made Dave think about Max. It was hard to imagine how he could have become better friends with another man in such a short span of time. He thought of Max more like the brother he never had, and not just a fellow Marine brother, but as a brother in blood. The fight that they had against the death knight played no small part in bonding them. It is always shared experiences which form the quickest and often the deepest of bonds. The fight had been eye opening for Dave in many ways. He had of course realized that there might be parts of Eloria that were much higher level than the Murkwood he had hunted in, but it was still a hard blow to take. Drazenai’kai the Death Knight had been almost twice Dave’s level, but even more than that was the difference that his gear had made. It was a common theme in many of the MMO games Dave had played that gear played an important role in the relative power of players. This was even more so after the invasion of micro transactions. More and more, the games became pay to win if not outright pay to play, and while Dave wouldn’t have thought of himself as a casual player, he certainly never had the time to farm the best gear or the willingness to spend thousands of dollars on digital blips. Eloria followed a blended model. Levels and stats were important but so was the equipment that you had available, at least in what he had learned so far.

  This of course made looting the fallen death knight all that much more fun. If it hadn’t been for fears around Sara being taken, Dave would have loved to haggle over who got which piece of gear. As it was, he had just let Max assign it out. They had agreed to split the loot between Max, Engel, Ronald and the three Nelson’s. In the end, Max gave two of the pieces of gear to Mira since it was her breaking of the spell that had been the deciding factor in the end. Engel had taken the death knight’s black armor which, besides its rather high armor, allowed the wearer to Shadow Step 3/moonrise. The archer, Ronald, got the Epic Ring of Dire Health which gave him 150 base health and allowed him to gain 15 health per successful melee strike. Max took the shield they found amongst the gear which seemed like the weakest of the pieces. That as much as anything convinced Dave that Max really did care about his people. Emily got the Cloak of Fleeting Smoke which allowed her to transform into a mobile cloud of smoke 2/moonrise. If she hadn’t been so worried about Sara at the time, she likely would have made a comment about how she was becoming even more of a ninja. Mira got an Epic Ring of Health which gave her an additional 300 health. He chuckled about how tanky their glass cannon became with that. For her second piece, she got the Nightmare Bridle. She hadn’t used it yet, but apparently, it could summon some sort of extradimensional mount. For his part, Dave was thrilled with the Flaming Longsword he got. Its base damage was as high as the masterwork longsword he had, but it also came with the ability to burst into flames adding an extra base 10 in fire damage to each blow. Just as cool, it had a jewel in the pommel which acted as a repository for mana. It could hold up to 300 mana for its wielder to use and had been full when Dave got it.

  As he was remembering events of the past week, his traveling companions were finally up and ready to go. Dave had been uncertain about having these two along with him, but since events had conspired so that neither Emily nor Mira could come with him, it was better to have some help than no help at all. Max, vouching for them, also didn’t hurt. He may have only known the man for a week, but he had come to trust him. Of course, Max’s origins undoubtedly had made them feel the type of bond that two foreigners feel when they find each other in a country far from home.

  They had both proven to be useful so far. Albia’s royal wizard had been able to cast a spell which tracked Sara as far as the northern border of that nation. Then, after the agreement he had come to with King Harold, the same wizard had been ordered to provide magical transport for Dave and his two companions to that same spot on the border. That had been two days ago, and as much as Dave didn’t want to trust in strangers, he wouldn’t have been able to track the trail as Karl the ranger had. It was uncanny how the man could make heads or tails of the least bit of spore or the tiniest partial footprint. Dave was a bit frustrated about that actually. He had points in tracking, and yet, there seemed to be a disconnect between having the points and being able to apply them well. It wasn’t that he couldn’t track. In fact he did fairly well tracking in the forest, but the ranger had an uncanny knack for finding nuances in the spore, which put Dave to shame. It was clear that he still had much to learn about Eloria in general and tracking specifically.

  He still shook his head that he had assigned so many skill points into Diplomacy. Well, at least he had assigned twenty points since that was the most he could assign at his current level, but when added to his base level of 30 that he got as part of the Watcher’s preparation, it pushed his total up to 50 and well into the journeyman level. The notification he had received when doing so demonstrated the usefulness of the skill, and it was further confirmed by the shock of Max and others around him at how well his negotiations went.

  Diplomacy: (50) +250% on all diplomacy related matters. You have reached Journeyman (Tier 4) level. You will now be recognized by all guilds, merchant houses and royal courts of Tier 4 or less as an official negotiator. You may be appointed by any of the above type of organizations as an ambassador. You will start with a base faction of +10 with all members of your race who hear you speak and +5 with members of non-hostile races. Even members of hostile races with whom you speak will start with a neutral position (0 faction).

  He still didn’t know how faction worked, but from what Max had told him, it worked on a scale of -100 to 100, and obviously, the higher it was with anyone that he wanted to negotiate with, the better. Besides assigning those points, he had decided to wait on his remaining 12 character points until he found something to use them for. His Forest Survival skill seemed to make tracking easier in the forest, but he hadn’t as of yet taken the plunge to assign any further points into tracking, instead relying upon Karl. He had however assigned the stat points he gained upon reaching level 17 with the XP from the battle in Eris’ Rise. One point had gone into each of Strength, Endurance, and Intelligence. Thinking about this made Dave pull up his character sheet for a quick glance even as he saw Karl looking for the trail again. He still shook his head at the new position designated on the page.

  Name: David Nelson

  R
ace: Human

  Age: 40

  Level: 17th

  Alignment: +1

  Position: Baron of Murkwood

  Movement: 39

  Defense: 14 (5)

  Attack: 20 (10)

  Stats:

  STRENGTH: 36

  Bravery: 10.8

  Regen Rate: 3.6/hour

  Melee Damage: +72%

  DEXTERITY: 8

  Ranged Damage: +16%

  Rogue Skills: +16%

  AGILITY: 16

  Movement Rate: +32%

  Defense Rate: +80%

  CONSTITUTION: 24

  Health: 320 (240)

  Regen Rate: 2.4/hour

  Fury: 7.2

  Regen Rate: 2.4/hour

  Endurance: 21

  Stamina: 6.3

  Regen Rate: 2.1/hour

  Needed Rest: -21%

  INTELLIGENCE: 20

  Mana: 500 (200)

  Spell Damage: +40%

  WISDOM: 10

  Mana Regen Rate: 150/hour