Hero's Journey: A LitRPG Adventure (Beta Tester Book 2)

by Rachel Ford

  It sailed up, up, up overhead, and then down in a long, slow arc. It smashed into the center of the horde, and then careened down the line of them – like a giant who didn’t quite understand the rules of bowling, throwing his ball overhead at the pins. Except instead of knocking down pins, this particular projectile was knocking heads – and knocking off heads. By the dozens.

  Jack hooted with laughter. “Alright.”

  “Well done, Sir Jack,” Er’c said.

  “Let’s see what another shot does, eh?” He fired again, still grinning ear to ear. This time, he braced against the recoil, and maintained his balance a lot more easily. The coconut cut a second line through the invading force, taking out dozens of the little monsters.

  By now, people were coming out of their shops and homes. Gul had emerged covered in armor from his forge, wielding a massive morning star. The thing looked almost as big as Er’c.

  Jack took a third shot. More of the goblins dropped. A few archers fell in beside him, carrying heavy bows and arrows that glowed with some manner of orcish magic. He didn’t know what kind of magic – not until the first goblin exploded in a puff of green vapor. Which still didn’t tell him the particular strain of spell. But it told him everything he needed to know in the moment.

  The archers kept evaporating goblins with their mystery magic, and he fired through the remaining six coconuts. By now, the horde was less a horde, and more an angry clutch – less an invading army, and more the kind of sight waiters and baristas the world over see when someone’s coffee order wasn’t quite right: waving arms and irate expressions and all manner of threats, but more bark than bite.

  Still this particular clutch of irate visitors had reached the borders of the village, so Jack drew his sword and charged forward with the defenders. They were little things, the goblins: short and scrawny, and not much taller than small children. But they carried vicious weapons and snarled and fought with a ferocity that far outmatched their size.

  Jack sliced through only two goblins before the fight was over. The villagers had finished most of the rest off, and the last dregs of survivors ran back toward the mountains posthaste. He was almost disappointed by how short the battle had been.

  The orcs of Little Valley, however, proved far from disappointed. They showered adulation on Jack, and a thought flitted through his mind.

  You have gained goodwill with orcs of Little Valley.

  You are well liked by the people of Little Valley.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Jack’s heroism earned him XP and favor, but no gold. Which was disappointing, since he’d spent all of his coconuts in defense of the town and had no money to get more. Still, a joyous crowd escorted him to the mayor’s house, with promises that they’d never forget his courage.

  So Jack preened a little, and figured it was all in the line of duty. A hero can’t expect to get rich off his work. Then he went in search of the ovens.

  Migli was still there talking to Larg’tha, while Tri’gvy bustled around the kitchen barking orders at his underlings. He paused long enough to demand of his son, “Where were you? And what was that commotion out there?”

  “I was with Sir Jack. Goblins attacked, father, and Jack used a strange and mighty weapon to defeat them.”

  Jack shrugged in an aw shucks way, like he didn’t enjoy the attention. Which was partially true. Jack did like appreciation. But at the same time it made him uncomfortable, even in a videogame. So he liked it, and disliked it, the way he liked and disliked most social interactions. But he did add, “A coconut cannon. I built it myself.”

  “Indeed? Very ingenious. Well, Mister Jack, I hope you are as good with ovens as you are with cannons. We’ll all be in your debt then.”

  He resisted the urge to quibble about the then the other man had used. As Jack saw it, Tri’gvy was as much in his debt as the rest of the village, even if he had missed the commotion. If their raid had gone their way, the goblins wouldn’t have stopped at the mayor’s house. So the head cook would have been in as much of a pickle as anyone else.

  But he fought, and mastered, the urge to say so. Instead, he smiled in a forced way, and said, “Right. Well, I guess we’ll find out.”

  “Aye. Aye, that we will, and I cannae wait to see what happens, if you ken my meaning.”

  Jack blinked. “What?”

  “Ach, get on with you then. But, I beg yer pardon. I hope ye’ll not take me to be ill-willy, or some fashion of bodach, but with how hot tempers are flaring in these kitchens, there’s bound to be a collieshangie afore long if ya don’t dae something. An’ the mayor’s in an unco carfuffle with all the disarray.” He shook his head, like all of that was supposed to mean something to Jack.

  It didn’t. He just stared at the other man. “Uh…was that some kind of…Scottish dialogue?” The accent sounded vaguely – badly – Scottish. The words were a complete mystery, though.

  But Tri’gvy ignored him and turned back to his son. “And you, you glaikit loon, far hiv ye been? Gabbin’ and havering, I reckon, instead of studying. Now ye get back to your books, or I’ll dook your head in a tub, and sort ye right. Ye hear me?”

  This was too much for Jack, because he called, “Speak to supervisor.”

  Migli turned from Larg’tha, and the game world paused. The dwarf asked, “Yo, what’s up Jack?”

  Richard again. “I think I hit some kind of bug.”

  “Oh good. Avery’ll be glad to hear it. He’s been breathing fire down my back about you earning your paycheck and all that.”

  Jack decided to ignore that comment. “The orc guy, he just started talking in this weird accent. Gibberish, I think. Or maybe…some kind of Scottish accent?”

  “Same difference,” Richard laughed. “But yeah, it’s probably Scottish. They were experimenting with making the orcs sound like Scots, you know.”

  “Okay, but I have no idea what he’s saying.”

  “Yeah, that’s why they eventually scrapped it. No one could understand them.”

  Jack, though, shook his head. “If they scrapped it, why the heather am I still hearing it?”

  Migli rolled his massive shoulders. “Like you say, dude: it’s a bug. They must have turned it off but never deleted the alternative dialogue clips.”

  “So how do we turn them back off?”

  Richard hemmed and hawed for a few moments. “I don’t know. Basically, we got the same two options: you ignore it and keep playing, or we try to patch it. Which, I mean, it’s your call. But considering the last patch…”

  Jack nodded. “Right, the patch is out of the question.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But if we leave it alone, how am I going to figure out what to do? I can’t understand this guy.”

  “Where are you at?”

  “I’m fixing the oven, in the mayor’s place.”

  “Have you gone to dinner yet?”

  “No.”

  Migli – Richard – nodded. “That’s too bad. There’s some good dialogue there. Although, I guess I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “Is it anything I need to hear?”

  “Eh, need is relative.”

  Jack frowned. “Not really. Either I can reasonably play without hearing it, or not.”

  “You’ll hear it. You just might not understand it.”

  “Whatever. Can I go through the game without understanding it?”

  Migli hesitated. “I don’t know if I should tell you.”

  “Blessed heavens,” Jack’s character said, even though he meant the exact opposite. “I’m not asking to know what it is, or whatever. I just need to know if this bug is going to fry me over.”

  Migli laughed. “Fry you?”

  “You know what I was saying.”

  “Of course. And no, Jack, I don’t think the bug is going to fry you.”

  “Good.”

  “Alright, was that it?”

  Jack confirmed that it was, and Richard took his leave. The game resumed, with Migl
i returning to his orc maiden, and him heading to the oven.

  Jack reexamined the strange setup, with its gears and gizmos. He didn’t see anywhere where the magicka potion should go, except the heating tubes. They were the only tubes with a stopper that could be removed.

  So he took the time to save the game himself, just in case he accidentally blew himself up by pouring something in the wrong tube. Then, he proceeded.

  The elixir swirled and burbled and changed colors as it filled the tube. But it didn’t drip or leak out. Then Jack cast a fire spell.

  The oven blazed to light, bright and roasting hot. He put the stopper in quickly and pulled his hands out of the oven.

  Tri’gvy had been watching, and now he clapped Jack on the back with an enormous hand. He said something that he couldn’t make out, and something about how Jack should “be thankit.”

  Then the game told him that a potato pie had been added to his inventory, and a plate of haggis – but not gold.

  Jack was starting to feel rather ill-used by his new friends. He’d spent money defending them, and money restarting their precious ovens; and what had he got in return? Potatoes and sheep offal.

  Despite not lifting a finger to help at any point, Migli seemed to be faring much better – at least within the dwarf’s parameters. Larg’tha was all giggles and had eyes for no one else. She walked arm-in-arm with him back to her home. Jack followed behind the lovesick pair, like an unwilling chaperone.

  Part of him wanted to bail and find some place to crash on his own and leave Migli to his own devices. Then again, the dwarf’s record where women were concerned hadn’t been great. He wasn’t a creep, exactly. He didn’t bother women who weren’t interested. Still, his interest had got them chased out of town by a jealous husband and thrown overboard by a protective father. And that didn’t even count the lover who tried to make a meal of him back in Ieon’s Valley.

  No, Jack didn’t trust Migli. Which meant he had to suffer through whatever was going to happen next.

  Which, due to the dialogue bug, proved almost interesting in a bizarre way. Jack understood very little of what was said. He got that Larg’tha’s father was named Ol’f. He figured out that he was some manner of poet or scholar or entertainer. It wasn’t until after dinner, when the old, gray orc pulled out a lute and began to play that he understood fully: he was a musician.

  And not a good one, which, he supposed, explained their poorer dwellings. But in Jack’s experience, confidence and ability seemed to be inversely linked: the more a person had of one, the less he’d have of the other. And Ol’f was no exception. He was every bit as confident in his ability as he was talentless, so he tormented the dinner party for three long hours with his playing and singing.

  But other than that, Jack didn’t glean much. He heard the country before them mentioned a few times, but in what context, he couldn’t say. He heard Larg’tha and Ol’f mention someone by the name of Sv’nd, in disapproving tones. He seemed to have betrayed someone, or a confidence, perhaps.

  Jack couldn’t quite tell, and Ol’f’s sage warning, “A freend tae aa is a freend tae nane,” meant exactly nothing to him.

  But eventually, dinner concluded. The food had been hearty and filling, and the atmosphere relaxing if confusing. Now, Larg’tha thanked them for coming, and Ol’f said something that might have been a bit about being pleased to meet them. Or it might have been a comment on the weather conditions in New Zealand. Jack really couldn’t say for sure one way or the other. But he smiled, thanked his host, and said he too had been delighted to make their acquaintance – and hoped that’s what the other man had been talking about. It would have been a very strange rejoinder to a comment about the weather, after all.

  Then Migli said, “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow morning then, Jack.”

  He frowned at the dwarf. “Wait, you’re not coming with me?”

  Larg’tha flushed, and her father made a point of busying himself with the plate ware, with the kind of look on his face that said he knew his daughter was a grown woman, and he wasn’t going to intervene with her decisions – but he couldn’t always approve of them, either. In Migli’s case, Jack sympathized.

  Larg’tha said, “I’m terribly sorry, traveler. Our house, as you see, is very small.”

  That was true. It consisted of nothing more than an eat-in kitchen, a bathroom, and two bedrooms on opposite sides of the house. “Oh. Well…uh…”

  “But there’s an inn by the river crossing. I’m sure they’ll rent you a room.”

  So Jack took his leave, and Larg’tha bid him farewell while Migli hurried him away. Ol’f saw him off in a cascade of consonants and vowels that sounded as much like gibberish as ever. And he headed into the night.

  By now, the sun had set, and dusk had come and gone. Moonlight and bright lampposts lit the streets, but otherwise darkness shrouded the valley. Jack wandered for a bit in search of the inn. Larg’tha – whose speech, mercifully, hadn’t been hit with the Scottish brogue bug – had mentioned an inn by a river crossing. Which at the time, had sounded like solid directions. Until he stepped into the town and remembered how many times the hodgepodge of streets bridged the stream.

  So he sighed and glanced around and, seeing nothing that drew him one direction or the other, headed to the center of town.

  He found the inn by the sixth bridge he crossed. It was a picturesque place, with bright white shutters that gleamed in the dark, against the red backdrop of the place’s siding. A sign hung at the door, declaring it to be Tu’va’s Tap, an “Inn and Pub of the Finest Quality.”

  Jack pushed open the door and stepped into a vibrant place. The bar was about three-quarters full, but the pub tables were only half occupied. The smell of ale and good food, and the sounds of hearty conversation and loud laughter, filled the room.

  He found himself a seat at a table in a far corner, and before long a waitress showed up. “Welcome traveler, what’ll ye be ‘avin’?”

  “Can I see a menu?”

  She handed him a card and advised that she’d be back in a minute. At least, that’s what he took her response to be. He glanced through the offerings. There were two types of beer on tap, and a few orcish drinks. Some of them sounded less than appealing. He wasn’t sure how a Razorhog’s Skull would taste, or a glass of Goblin Glub, or a pint of Tartree Smoothie, and he had no interest in finding out. But one caught his eye. Mountain Frost sounded alright – light and smooth, maybe a little crisp and brisk too. He felt he could handle that.

  The card had a slew of food options, but Jack had eaten well at Larg’tha’s house. He didn’t need more food. So he gave his order and watched the crowd while he waited for his drink. There were couples – new ones, shy and awkward, and old ones, familiar and comfortable with each other – and groups of men laughing and talking raucously, and clusters of women, as loud and happy as the men. Here and there, a lone figure sat hunched over a glass, looking a little forlorn and lost to their own thoughts. Jack figured that’s probably how he looked now, sans the glass.

  One of the figures must have felt his eyes on him, because he pivoted a quarter turn on his barstool so that their eyes met, and nodded. Jack nodded back out of politeness, and then glanced away for the same reason – that, and he really wasn’t feeling sociable. He didn’t want anyone to think he’d welcome conversation.

  Then the barmaid returned, and set a glass full of glowing, silvery blue liquid before him. “That’ll be thirty-five plack, sir.”

  “What?”

  “Thirty-five plack.”

  Jack figured plack was some kind of coin or unit of currency, so he nodded and reached for his purse. “Sure thing. I’ll leave it to you to work out the conversion rate.”

  She looked at the purse, and then stared at him. “Thirty-five plack, sir.”

  He frowned, and then remembered he only had three gold coins. “Sugar.”

  “Thirty-five plack, sir.”

  A third voice sounded, a man’s, raised to
be a little scolding. “Lass, do ye not recognize this man? He’s the savior of Little Valley, for it were he who drove those goblin bastards away this very afternoon.”

  Jack caught a glimpse of the other speaker. It was the orc who had nodded his way. He was a youngish man, not young, but far from old, with features that were, he supposed, handsome for an orc.

  Jack tried to diffuse the situation. “I’m sorry, miss. I didn’t realize I was low on coin.”

  “There you have it,” the other man said. “An honest mistake, from the hero of our valley.”

  She wasn’t impressed, though. “I don’t care if ye be the king hisself. Thirty-five plack is thirty-five plack.”

  The newcomer sighed, and plunked coins down on the table in front of the barmaid. “There ye be. Now, off with ye, and don’t be harassing this upstanding citizen.”

  She took her coins, and Jack returned his lean purse to his inventory. “I’m sorry. I really wasn’t trying to bum drinks off anyone.”

  The newcomer waved it away, “Ach, it’s me honor. I seen what you did out there. Jack’s yer name, ain’t it? Sv’nd is what I’m called. And it’s an honor to meet ye.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Jack had been expecting a light, froofy drink. Light turned out to be a relative term. The shimmering beverage certainly didn’t come across heavily. It hadn’t been loaded down with sugars or cream or syrups, or anything else to add much to its almost ethereal body. It flowed lightly and easily, like a chilled mountain stream. It arrived with a sharp, brisk tingle, and left a cool sensation in the mouth afterwards.

  Jack couldn’t say what the alcohol content was. It barely seemed to contain alcohol at all. But he liked it. It wasn’t sweet or sour, thick or burning, intense or mild. It was a perfect concoction of almost sensations. It almost froze and it almost burned, like it almost tasted sweet and almost tasted sour.

  He took a sip and nodded, then thanked the newcomer again. Sv’nd accepted the thanks, switching between the kind of mediocre Scottish brogue someone whose familiarity with Scottish accents came from television might manage, and English with a slight midwestern accent. The latter of which, Jack figured, explained the former: Marshfield Studio didn’t break the bank on voice actors. So when they needed a Scotsman, they probably didn’t actually hire someone from Scotland. He imagined that they assigned the role to whatever aspiring actor they’d already hired at discount for other parts.