Nova Terra: Liberator - A LitRPG/GameLit Adventure (The Titan Series Book 5)

by Seth Ring

  The Orc Shaman could sense Athena’s gaze and the feeling of danger it brought caused him to speed up his actions. By this point the amulet around his neck was beginning to emit a blinding yellow light and an intense heat that burned the Orc Shaman’s skin. Rather than stop, the burning of his flesh seemed to excite the Shaman who broke into a frenzied chant, all the while stroking the amulet faster and faster.

  Athena took a step forward, her body lowering into a charging stance as she raised her sword over her head. The tip of her sword poked through the top of the bud, slipping outside of the green energy’s protection. The instant that it appeared, the green bud began to split open and Athena moved. Spreading like a new bloom, the red and yellow petals erupted out of the bud, their spinning leaves dicing through everything in their path. The grinding petals began slashing through the corrosive red smoke that made up the smoke elemental’s arm, dispersing it as the elemental tried to jerk its arm away.

  Enraged by the loss of part of its arm, the smoke elemental started to lift its foot to smash Athena, but before it could, she charged straight into its other leg. Red and yellow flashing petals churned up the smoke like a massive fan, blowing it apart and causing the Smoke elemental to stumble. As it fell, Athena charged further into it. A faint series of popping sounds rang out as the glowing pebbles floating in the chest of the smoke elemental were ground to dust under the relentless spinning of the petals.

  With the destruction of the first glowing stones, the smoke elemental began to destabilize further, collapsing in on itself. As it fell, more of the floating stones came into contact with Athena’s red and yellow spinning flowers, exploding into dust that was quickly swept away along with the smoke. Within a few seconds the smoke elemental was gone, leaving a clear path to the now panicking Orc Shaman.

  Letting out a screech, the Shaman gripped the burning hot amulet that was around his neck and gave a sharp tug. Ignoring the fact that the skin on his hands was burning up, the Shaman ripped the amulet from his neck and thrust it toward Athena. A concentrated spurt of magma erupted from the amulet, growing as it shot out over the forty feet that separated Athena from the Shaman.

  Keeping her composure, Athena’s eyes flickered as she examined the spinning flower around her. The red and yellow flower petals had lost some of their luster and the whole formation was rotating slower than it had been initially. Trying to judge if it would be enough to deal with the Shaman, Athena decided not to risk it. Lifting her sword above her head, she spoke softly, commanding the red and yellow petals that spun around her to fly up.

  Stacking against each other, they formed a large blade of energy around her sword, lengthening her reach significantly. Behind her, the blue petals that were still rotating around the Titan Squad players detached and shot toward the blade. For a moment, the battlefield was once again filled with swirling flowers, this time blue. Taking a decisive step forward, Athena slashed down at the incoming gout of magma.

  The blue flower petals spun around the sword, attaching themselves to the front edge and point of the blade as it struck down. With a blinding flash the blue edge of Athena’s flower petal blade cut into the magma, splitting the stream in half. Undeterred, the blue edge separated from Athena’s blade, shooting forward toward the Shaman. Unable to respond in time, the Orc Shaman could only watch in shock as the flower petal blade cut through his fire spell like a hot knife through snow.

  As the blade approached his chest, the red and gold shield that had blocked all of Mina’s spells appeared around him. This time, it only lasted for a brief second before shattering under the force of the powered up slash. Athena’s attack cut through the Shaman’s chest, bisecting him neatly before continuing to cut the partly finished building behind him in half. Without enough time to even scream, the Shaman died, leaving stunned silence in the wake of the attack. As a lull fell over the battlefield, Thorn did not waste the opportunity.

  “All players, all-out attack!”

  Issuing the command through the team chat, Thorn tightened his grip on his tetsubo and scooped up the large axe that the leader of the Orc Guards had dropped. Storming forward, he charged into the Orc lines, the two weapons combined with his long reach and unbelievable strength reaping the lives of the remaining Orcs like a combine. The rest of the Titan Squad gave him a wide berth, not wanting to get caught up in the whirlwind of his attacks.

  Back at the entrance to the peninsula, Heidi led the rest of the Iron Wolves to charge forward, going all out against the shaken Orcs. With both their commander and their elite troops dead, the Orc workers did not last long against the Iron Wolf assault. Soon the Iron Wolf players under Heidi’s command caught up to the Titan Squad, and with the two forces working together, the remaining Orcs were pushed into the tip of the peninsula.

  “Tanks, keep the line steady! I want melee DPS on the left. Ranged DPS, focus the enemy down one at a time!” Snapping out commands, Heidi organized the Iron Wolf players as they cut down the last few Orcs. “Take it slow and steady, we don’t want any casualties.”

  When the last of the Orc workers fell to the combined blaze of six fireballs, she let out a sigh and sheathed her sword. Resting the pointed edge of her kite shield on the ground, she waved to Thorn and Athena who were watching.

  “I’m still mad she joined Nova Luna.” Athena said with a laugh as she returned the wave.

  “Yeah, we picked up a gem.” Thorn agreed. “Heidi, is the harbor clear?”

  “Yes, sir. I had the last sweep done and this was the final group of enemies. With them gone, the harbor is ours.”

  “Great, I’m going to report our victory, but let’s start doing an inventory of what we need to repair and what we need to finish. I want to get a spawn point up here as soon as possible. Otherwise, we’ll be in trouble once we start losing soldiers.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Slamming her fist into her chest in a warrior’s salute, Heidi flipped her shield onto her back and hurried off to give directions to the Iron Wolf players. Under her direction the players rushed to determine the extent of the damage that had been caused to the harbor while Thorn called Corvo.

  “Hey, boss. What’s up?”

  “We’re clear here.”

  “Already? You were not messing around, huh?” Corvo shook his head. “We have cleared the scouts around here, but we can’t find a good spot to stage a camp. The forest is much denser than we thought it would be.”

  “Probably an Elven defensive measure,” Thorn mused, scratching his chin. “The Orcs were almost done with building the harbor here at Twin Bay, so we could probably use this as our base. We caused some damage with our attack, but once we’ve fixed it up, I don’t see why we wouldn’t fit.”

  “Makes sense. I’ll pitch the idea to the Earl. How long do you think it will take to get everything in order?”

  “With players working on it? We can probably be done by the end of the day. I’ll get everyone working on defenses.”

  “Great. It’ll take us about six hours to get down to you, though the ship might be faster,” Corvo said. As Thorn watched through the video screen, Corvo activated [Raven Form]. The image shifted from Corvo to his vision as he transformed into a bird and launched himself into the air, flying back toward the ship.

  “How did your scouting go?” Thorn asked.

  “Smoothly. Almost too smoothly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Orcs don’t seem to have come this far north. To my best guess they are stuck searching for Thilvena every time it moves, which is keeping them further south. We found a few pockets of scouts, but they were poorly organized and just attacked our teams as soon as they saw us. Not very scout-like if you ask me. It almost feels like the game is trying to give us the space to set up so that we are well established for the fight. We should probably gear up for a long campaign.”

  “Got it. I’ll let everyone else know. Oh, if you happen to run across a strange looking guy with a box on his back, let me know. One
of my friends should be wandering around here somewhere looking for me.”

  “Strange guy with a box on his back? Is that Alph? The guy you met down in the Elven tomb? Sure, I’ll tell everyone to keep their eyes peeled.”

  “Great, talk to you soon.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Closing the call, Thorn walked through the half built buildings to where Athena and Mina stood with Delmore and the rest of the Titan Squad.

  “Corvo is going to talk to the Earl about using the harbor as our staging point. I want to get the harbor finished as quickly as possible. I also want to establish defenses in case there is a counter attack,” Thorn said, gesturing to the buildings around him. “Let’s do an inventory to see what we are working with and then we’ll split into work groups.”

  “Got it,” Delmore said, nodding. “What sort of defenses are you thinking?”

  “We will use the instant wall that we set up back at the camp in Angoril. We can support the back of it with dirt and reinforce it with logs. I’ll be responsible for handling that. Once I’m done with the defenses we’ll work on the buildings. Oh, and we’ll need to make sure that the main pier is done as well. The ship we came over in has a serious draft.”

  “Draft?”

  “The part of the hull below the water line,” Athena said, clearing Delmore’s confusion. “Thorn, where do you want me?”

  “Do you still need to rest? That was quite the attack you launched.”

  “No, I’m good to go. That attack borrows strength from the group I’ve buffed so it isn’t that draining.”

  “Great, you can help Delmore handle the teams rebuilding the harbor. Focus on buildings that can bunk soldiers and the warehouses for supplies.”

  Once everyone had their orders, the Iron Wolf Army got to work and Thorn brought two hundred players with him to set up a wall around the harbor. With only a single exposed side to the south, Thorn focused on a barrier that would protect against attacks from the forest. The entrance to the peninsula had three large stone buildings that had already been erected, so Thorn focused on reinforcing them while the other players strung the instant wall they had brought from the valley between the buildings.

  Forming the defensive wall in a concave shape, the players began sinking the posts they carried in their inventory before stretching out the cloth wall across them. While they did that, Thorn used his command of the earth to add an extra layer of thickness to the outside wall of each of the buildings. After he had reinforced the three buildings, Thorn began raising walls of dirt on either side of the cloth wall that the other players had stretched between them. Using his [Spiritual Sense of Earth] to permeate the dirt, it was not hard to lift the dirt and pack it tightly together. Apart from an opening ten feet wide in the wall for a gate, the rest of the harbor was soon separated from the thick forest by a nearly ten foot tall wall.

  For the gate, Thorn took a few of the logs that the Orcs had already cut and nailed them together. Two thick tree trunks were sunk into the earth to act as doorposts and the gate was hung from them with thick chains. Once they had finished, Thorn left a few players to watch the wall and rejoined Delmore who was just about done with his audit.

  “What did you find?”

  Delmore’s whiskers twitched as he passed a list over to Thorn.

  “This is a list of the buildings that we found. Most of them just need to be finished up. We damaged six buildings that will need extensive repairs or will need to be rebuilt entirely. It looks like the Orcs were just about done with the harbor which is great news for us. Of the five piers, all but the two closest to shore have the depth for big seafaring ships. We also found a lot of supplies. There were enough supplies to build two watchtowers, one on either side of the bay’s entrances. There is also enough food to outfit an army. But check out the back of the page. You’re not going to believe this.”

  Reading quickly over the list of seized supplies, Thorn flipped the page over, his eyes widening as he saw what Delmore was talking about.

  “Aren’t those the material for…”

  “An Aether Gate, yeah. It looks like they stored about eighty, maybe eighty five percent of the material that is required for an Aether gate.”

  “What do we still need?”

  “Just the stone to build the frame. And a Void Gem of the right size. Or a bunch of fragments.”

  “Stone is no problem, but where do we find Void Gems?” Thorn asked, his brow wrinkling in thought.

  “Void Gems? Like this one?” Grinning widely, Athena walked over, holding a glistening purple shard of crystal.

  “Yes, exactly like that one.” Thorn said, his eyes brimming with excitement. “Is that big enough to power the gate?”

  “No, it is just a shard. We’ll need at least three more if we want to connect it to the Aether Gate in the capital. Or five more if we want to connect to the valley.” Delmore said, carefully examining the stone in Athena’s hand. “Can I ask where you got that?”

  “Off the Shaman’s body. He dropped this and his staff.”

  “Hmm. Hopefully, the other Shaman have more of them. It looks like we’ll need to go hunting once Corvo and the others get here.”

  “Well, keep this one safe.” Athena said, putting the gem in Thorn’s big hand. “We still need some wood for repairs, so get on that.”

  “Yes, ma’am!”

  Snapping an exaggerated salute, Thorn led the wood cutting team back to the forest while the rest of the players followed Delmore and Athena’s directions to repair the damaged and half-finished buildings. Due to his height, Thorn had trouble cutting trees at the bottom, but the players with him were able to fell the nearby trees quickly. Standing nearby, Thorn simply grabbed the trunks when they were close to falling, keeping them standing upright. Using the large battle axe he had picked up in the battle he trimmed the branches and then threw them down the hill into the bay.

  After tossing five large tree trunks into the bay on the western side of the peninsula Thorn switched to the other side, tossing logs into the eastern bay while the players down below collected the five he had already tossed. Using the hooks and chains that the Orcs had abandoned, the players dragged the floating logs out of the bay, quickly building up a massive stack. Once enough wood had been harvested, Thorn helped move stone and wooden beams to the houses and buildings still being worked on. The players worked incredibly swiftly and it wasn’t long before most of the harbor was finished.

  Carefully handing a massive beam up to a team of players standing on the walls of the harbor office, Thorn heard someone calling his name and looked over his shoulder. Athena was leading Earl Blaige through the swarms of working players, with Corvo and Duratan in tow. Waving for them to wait, Thorn finished lifting the beam into place, making sure it was snug before he let go.

  “Hello, sir.”

  “This is impressive, Thorn. I never would have imagined that the Orcs were this far along.” Said Bothy, looking around at the finished buildings.

  In only a quarter of a day the harbor had transformed completely. What had been a half finished shell was now almost completely finished. From the thick wall that Thorn and his team had erected at the entrance to the harbor, to the tightly packed buildings on either side of the large main street that ran down the center of the peninsula, it looked more like a finished town than a work site. Many of the players, finished with their assigned work on the buildings, had taken to improving other parts of the harbor, lending it the air of a city. Even the wide dirt road had been dug up and the players were transporting stones from a nearby pit to make a cobblestone street.

  “It was only about half done when we captured it.” Thorn said, looking around proudly. “We just work fast.”

  “Wasn’t that just earlier today? Five or six hours ago? Goodness, you do work fast.” Bothy smiled, slapping his stomach in excitement. “Well, finish up what you’re doing and meet me in the Harbor Master’s house. That is going to be our command center. We’ve captured an e
nemy stronghold and they don’t know it yet. We need to move fast to maintain our advantage.”

  His body still jiggling, Bothy turned around and waddled away, heading for the new command center, leaving Thorn behind him staring in astonishment. When he finally tore his sight away from the Earl’s incredible form, he realized that all of the nearby players had stopped what they were doing to watch Earl Blaige walk away as well. Coughing loudly, Thorn ordered the players to get back to work and chased after the Earl.

  Once everyone was settled in the command center, Bothy spread out his map of the island and placed a pin on Twin Bay.

  “This is now our foothold on Rasyn. From here we will carve our way into the Orc lines, disrupting them as much as possible.” Grinning, Bothy tapped the pin on the head. “If you want to know the truth, we were not supposed to be anything beyond a distraction. The Duke’s orders were to land in the north and do everything we could to force the Orcs to focus on us while the Duke’s forces retook the rest of Rasyn. But I don’t think any of us imagined quite how effective your troop would be, Thorn.”

  “Thank you. I hope we’ve demonstrated our value beyond sending messages.”

  “Oh, you have.” Bothy’s eyes gleamed with excitement. “You combine an immortal fighting force with instant communication with a full-on engineer’s division. Is there anything you can’t do? You better tell me now because I’ve got some ideas and if there is something you are bad at; I need to know.”

  Taken aback by the intensity radiating off of Bothy, Thorn looked at the other players in the house. Corvo, Athena, Mina, and Duratan all stared back at him and shrugged or shook their heads, causing Bothy to laugh happily and slap his belly again.

  “Great, great, oh this is so great. Alright. Pay attention, because we are going to blow this campaign wide open! First, we now hold the harbor and have cleared the northern part of the forest of scouts. The Orcs will realize that something has happened soon, so we’ll need to be swift in our actions. This bay is too important for the Orcs to ignore so we need to anticipate a counter attack. The work that has been done on the wall is good, but I want more defenses built up. Let’s strengthen the wall and also add a second layer. In fact, if there is any way to dig a moat in between the two walls let’s do that. We can use the bay water to fill it. We also need to get the two towers up as fast as possible. The material is here so that will be our next priority. I want one on the southern point and one on the end of the peninsula. Any attack will come from that direction so guarding the northern point is not as important.