Vault of the Magi: A LitRPG Adventure (Stonehaven League Book 5)

by Carrie Summers

  You receive 105 experience.

  Congratulations! You have reached level 2!

  Quest Updated: Eradicate the Vermin

  Beetles Slain: 1/10

  Panting and trembling, Emerson planted the tip of his sword in the dirt and used the weapon as a cane while he fought a wave of dizziness. As he nudged the beetle-mess with his toe, the creature’s mangled husk shimmered and then decomposed into a couple of objects. Once the tremors passed, Emerson crouched and plucked them from the ground.

  You have received: Beetle Carapace Segment

  It doesn’t smell great, but a nearby armorsmith might be interested in taking this off your hands.

  You have received: Compound Eye

  Hollow it out, and you could probably fashion a simple kaleidoscope. Otherwise? Pretty useless.

  Hands now full, he looked down at his body in search of pockets or something. It seemed like he was supposed to sell the carapace at least. But what was he supposed to do with the insect parts for the time being? Should he just pile his stuff at the edge of the field until he was done murdering things? Or should he take the carapace into the settlement now?

  As he stood waffling, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. Shivering, he turned to see if anyone was watching him, but the fortification master seemed to be inspecting the hinges on the gate. Otherwise, the area outside the settlement was deserted—except for the legion of vermin scuttling through the grass.

  Emerson plucked a handful of grass and used it to wipe the bug guts off his face—mostly he just smeared them around. Taking a deep breath, he planted his feet and looked out over the field again.

  Drop by drop, the adrenalin from the first battle began to fade. Emerson’s breath slowed as he noticed a particularly scraggly-looking rat snuffling in the grass. Glancing down at his injuries, he noticed that the wounds had already closed up, and the red bar at the corner of his vision was nearly back to full.

  All right, so he wasn’t exactly competent. And the beetle’s attacks had been pretty horrifying.

  But the combat hadn’t been that bad, had it? In fact, it was maybe even a little fun.

  He tossed the beetle body parts toward the path at the edge of the field and stepped toward the rat. “Okay, beast. Let’s do this.”

  ***

  Quest Updated: Eradicate the Vermin

  Rats Slain: 9/10

  Emerson grinned through the mask of rat blood and beetle goo that covered his face. His hands were sticky with it, and his sword practically dripped the stuff. He was almost regretting nearing the end of the quest. Not only was he now level 3, he’d also gained 4 skill points in One-handed Slashing. He could almost feel the grateful eyes of the citizens of Stonehaven looking out at him, the brave warrior, purging the vermin that plagued them.

  Heaped at the edge of the grass lay the spoils of his conquest, all manner of beetle and rat and snake parts. Just looking at the astounding piles, a sense of warm pride filled him. Out in the real world, he was awkward and never quite fit in. But here, he was a hero. Valious, slayer of beasts, vanquisher of nuisances. Or wait…nuisanci? Like cacti?

  Either way. He was a vanquisher for sure.

  Jaw set, he turned his—surely steely by now—gaze on the field stretched out before him. Grass trembled just a few feet away, a sure sign of yet more prey. Emerson strode forward and struck.

  Chapter Nine

  You have gained a skill point: +1 Stealth.

  After failing to increase her stealth for so long, Devon almost felt like this was cheating. If watching this weird newbie hack away at the grass snakes and rats and beetles wasn’t so genuinely painful, anyway. She narrowly avoided groaning as the guy yelled—she assumed he thought battle cries were cool—and brought his notched short sword down in an overhead arc. Of course, he missed what he’d been targeting, and was forced to chase it down. Devon sighed quietly and hurried to keep up as best she could.

  She had just gotten within stealth range when the rat keeled over and died with a sad little squeak. The man—Valious, what a name…—squatted and touched his blade to the corpse to activate the decomposition.

  You have gained a skill point: +1 Stealth.

  You realize most of these are pity points, right? Because watching this really is painful.

  She sighed again. At least Veia shared her opinion on this guy. Of all the noobs to give her as a starter, why’d she have to get the bloodthirsty weirdo who acted like slaying newbie yard trash was some kind of heroic epic? The man wasn’t even bothering to swipe his hand down his face to force the game to clear off the bug goo. His body looked like he’d put a frog in a blender, hit liquefy, then poured the results over the top of his head. Maybe in his mind, it was some kind of badge of honor thing.

  The man stood from the sight of his latest kill, clutching his newly looted items in his off hand, but not for long. Devon ducked, nearly losing her Stealth effect as the rat parts went flying past her to land in one of the heaps near the edge of the field. Was the guy not even worried about the items despawning? As far as she could tell, he had nothing but the short sword and his cloth tunic and trousers to his name. Oh. And a pair of sandals that appeared to stay on by some kind of weak atomic force. At his level, even patches of rat fur would sell for a worthwhile amount of money—provided her villagers would pay for it, anyway. Gerrald could probably do something with the stuff—though hopefully that wouldn’t be creating a new outfit for Devon.

  Regardless, the newbie’s idiotic tactic seemed to be working. She wasn’t keeping a strict count or anything, but it seemed the game was allowing the loot to linger. Which made her wonder whether Veia just liked watching her deal with such a kook.

  Distracted by the rat body parts that had nearly taken her out, Devon forgot to keep an eye on the noob, and when she turned back around, he was just a footstep away. Much to her horror, she heard a squeak of surprise as it escaped her throat.

  Stealth canceled, loudmouth.

  To Valious’s eyes, it must have looked like she appeared out of thin air. The man yelled like a schoolgirl on the playground and swung wildly at her head. Just before the flat of his blade slapped her on the ear, Devon got a hand up to block. The sword glanced off the sleeve of her Stonehaven Jerkin, a splatter of innards flying off the blade and landing on her face. She yelped and wiped them clean, gagging in disgust. The sudden change in momentum from his failed attack knocked Valious off balance, and he stumbled forward, going down on a knee. Coughing, he remained near the ground for a moment, then slowly turned his face toward her.

  “I—you startled me, Dev—” He clapped his hand over his mouth as if shocked to have started to use her name. She sighed. His introductory quest line had probably talked about her as the leader of Stonehaven. She extended her hand and clasped his wrist to help him up.

  The man peered at her face. “How did you get clean so easily?”

  Had he never played a VR MMO before? Blood and guts were pretty much standard immersion tricks, usually configurable in the settings. She realized she had cocked her head like a puzzled dog and rolled her shoulders in an attempt to recover. “Sorry about the surprise. I’ve been training stealth. Just wave your hand down your arms and face to get rid of the mess.”

  He mouthed the words “training stealth” as his eyes went distant, the classic expression of a player inspecting their UI. Devon blinked. Maybe he actually didn’t know about the Stealth skill? Was this an honest-to-goodness first timer? Watching someone play an immerso VR game for the first time was like spotting an exceedingly rare and nearly extinct wildebeest or something.

  “First time in game?” she asked, then quickly added, “I mean, I haven’t seen you here before.” She winced inwardly, hoping she hadn’t embarrassed him.

  Valious made as if to run his hands through his hair, but quickly realized he was holding a sword. “I guess there haven’t been many fresh faces around here. Must be how you know I’m new.”
>
  Devon paused a moment before nodding. “Right, yeah. I just put two and two together.”

  He straightened his shoulders. “I…” A curious look passed across his face as if he were considering what to say. “Yeah, so I got access quite a while ago, but I’ve had so much going on. Couldn’t get a decent time block to log in until this morning.”

  “Well,” Devon said. “I guess you already talked to the trainers.” She hoped they’d given him some guidance. Once the horde arrived, it would put a big drain on her settlement expansion if her regular citizens were stuck helping out the noobs.

  “Just one more kill to finish my initiation rite,” he said, looking way too proud.

  Initiation rite…? She smiled and nodded. “Okay, well, I better get back to…” She circled her hand in the air. “Settlement management and stuff.”

  She turned to go, but the man made a couple hurried steps forward and touched her with a still-goo-covered hand. “Devon?”

  She took a deep breath and turned. This guy wasn’t to blame for having the misfortune of spawning in the path of the demon invasion. If anything, she should encourage him to progress as quickly as possible so that he could be some help when the demons came.

  Still, he must’ve seen the impatience on her face, because whatever he’d been about to say seemed to die in his throat. “Merry Christmas…if it’s your thing, I mean. And nice to meet you.”

  Chapter Ten

  “TO TELL THE truth,” Hezbek said as she plucked a small bowl made of woven straw from one of her shelves, “I haven’t been able to figure out a way to use these particular treasures.” She smirked as she held out the container.

  Devon peered inside and examined the items.

  Item: Cave Mushroom

  This variety of fungus grows deep in caverns in the Argenthal Vassaldom and is known to prefer crevices fertilized by centuries of skin flakes shed by orcs.

  Item: Shrunken Felsen Head

  Maybe not the best idea to show this to your new felsen friends. Though the item doesn’t offer any benefits, some weirdos might consider it an interesting decoration.

  Both were ingredients she’d brought back from the Cavern of Spirits, satisfying a quest to provide Hezbek with new components for her potion experiments. After her return, though, the medicine woman had refused to show Devon what new concoctions she’d invented with the ingredients until Devon visited the nearby player encampment. Hezbek had claimed that Devon needed the social interaction. Of course, the visit to the player camp had basically ended with Devon turning into a demon and stepping through a planar rift into the underworld, so now was the first chance she’d had to take Hezbek up on the quest reward. She’d been looking forward to seeing what kind of cool potions the woman had learned to produce.

  “What? Really? These totally seem like good ingredients for potion making.” If anything, Devon had been rather pleased with herself to discover them, especially the shrunken head. Exterminating the orc infestation had been hard enough. Doing it while finishing a collection quest had shown impressive multitasking skills, in her humble opinion.

  Hezbek snorted. “You see, if I’d given the quest to you directly rather than to Hazel— I’m still not too pleased with the scout for distracting you by sharing the work—I probably would’ve been more specific about the ingredients I needed. Experimentation is fine and well. Providing me such with a revolting collection…I can’t say it inspired me to tinker.”

  Devon poked at the shrunken head, the blue felsen skin turned wrinkly and dark gray. Scraggly tufts of white hair were still stuck to the scalp, but their grip seemed tenuous. A tiny hooked nose was missing a chunk of flesh, granting a view into the hollow interior of the skull. Okay, so it was kind of gross. Maybe taking little shavings from the object wouldn’t be high on her task list either.

  “But the Cave Mushroom…that’s a totally classic ingredient.”

  Hezbek gave her a flat stare before planting her walking stick and crossing the room to her hearth. “If you want to take a horsehair brush to it and make sure not a single of those desiccated orc skin flakes remain, I’ll consider trying to incorporate it. In the meantime, I’m a medicine woman, not a witch doctor.”

  Devon sighed. “Okay, but did you have to give the Tiny Scintillating Dragon Scales to Gerrald? I mean…Dragon? Scales? Don’t tell him I complained, but there must have been a better use than to turn them into glorified sequins.”

  “To my credit, I did try to concoct something with those,” Hezbek said as she dipped a wooden spoon in the kettle bubbling over her low fire. “But after the second explosion of glitter, I gave up and passed them off.”

  “All right, so what were you able to create from the ingredients Hazel and I grabbed?” The quest reward was supposed to be access to Hezbek’s new potion lines. Devon was starting to think it had all been a bluff.

  The medicine woman smirked as she pulled an earthenware pot from a shelf, then grabbed a narrow-necked glass decanter with swirling red liquid inside. She tucked the decanter into the crook of her elbow then picked up her walking stick. Devon quickly jumped up when she realized how hard the woman needed to lean on her staff and how difficult that made it for her to carry two items.

  Hezbek gratefully handed over the potions. The glass decanter was warm in her grip.

  You have received: Phoenix Spirit Potion

  The fires of reincarnation smolder inside this delicate vessel.

  Grants the Phoenix Spirit buff. If your health drops below zero while the buff is active, you immediately return to life with 5% health remaining. After this resurrection, you are immune to damage and healing effects for 10 seconds.

  Duration: 10 minutes

  “Oh, nice!” Devon said. Already she imagined a group’s tank springing back to life, leaving the healer to count down the seconds in hopes of landing a heal just at the right time. With 5% health and poor healer timing, a single boss-mob hit would just kill the poor tank all over again. But with a great healer, it could make or break an encounter.

  “It took me quite some time to figure out how to use those phoenix feathers you brought back from the mountains. I didn’t want to waste them, and I especially didn’t want to start a bonfire in my cabin.”

  Smiling, Devon peered at the earthenware pot.

  You have received: Lightfooted Potion

  The road may be long, but your burdens are light.

  Reduces Fatigue gain by 15%.

  Duration: 3 hours

  Very nice indeed, especially since Devon expected a long journey to the Stone Forest. “These are great, Hezbek,” she said.

  “That one”—the woman nodded at the Lightfooted Potion—“used a mix of the lichens and mosses you and Hazel collected in the mountains. In the case of both of those, I can only make around a dozen each of the potions with the ingredients you supplied. Of course, if you’d like to gather me more of the components, it wouldn’t be a problem to increase supply.”

  Hezbek is offering you a quest: More, more, more! (repeatable)

  The cauldron is always bubbling. Gather more of the rare ingredients used in the Phoenix Spirit and Lightfooted potions to increase Hezbek’s production capacity.

  Objective: Collect 5 x Light Green Lichen of Moderate Flakiness with some Orangish Spots and/or 5 x Phoenix Feathers.

  Reward: Expanded potion production

  Reward: 50000 experience

  Accept? Y/N

  Devon hovered her attention over the Accept prompt. Just getting back to the mountains in any reasonable amount of time would require drinking a constant supply of the Lightfooted potions. Not the most efficient quest. And the thought of climbing the sheer pinnacle to once again reach the nest of the Phoenix Prince did not appeal. But it didn’t hurt to have the quest in her log if—by some chance—she could find another way to get the components. Maybe she could work out an arrangement with the dwarves who worked the ore caravans. Regardless, with a little
shrug, she accepted the quest.

  “Good good,” Hezbek said. “I realize that many of your tasks are more important than fetching components for an old woman who fills her days brewing potions and mixing salves. But I appreciate that you’d consider it.”

  Devon cocked her head, surprised at her friend’s self-deprecating tone. “Is everything okay, Hezbek?”

  The medicine woman seemed about to say something, but quickly shook her head. “Nothing you need to worry about, child.”

  Which of course was the best way in the world to make Devon worry. “Maybe I can help,” she said.

  Hezbek sighed as her face crinkled in a wistful smile. “It’s nothing. Just…while you were in the demonic plane, I spoke with your friend Emerson about my past. Thinking on the years that lie behind me has made me a bit nostalgic and melancholy. Now don’t get me wrong. I am proud of my journey and what I’ve made of myself. There’s just a couple of regrets that I can’t seem to let go.”

  Devon set the potions down and helped the woman to a chair at the small table. Hezbek’s arms shook a little as she used her walking stick for support while lowering into the seat.

  “I’m happy to listen if it would help you to tell me about them,” Devon said. “Even if we can’t do anything to change the past.”

  “You see, that’s why just about anyone in Stonehaven would leap to the walls to defend you and what you’ve built,” Hezbek said, patting Devon’s hand. “You speak in terms of we, not me. Of course, my youthful choices are not your burden, yet you accept the weight anyway.”

  Devon blinked, cheeks coloring. She wasn’t really sure what to say…her upbringing hadn’t exactly taught her how to accept gratitude and praise. When Devon’s mother had bothered to acknowledge her, it had been to complain about how Devon was always in the way. Always underfoot or costing too much money because she had the inconvenient—to her mother, anyway—need to eat to stay alive.