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

by Carrie Summers

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Gerrald told me that they’d been searching for a shaman who had experience with shaping ivory. They’d decided that was their best hope for fashioning my blade.”

  “Huh…yeah, so whether their magic came from Veia—I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what I think about that—or whether their shamanic beliefs had validity, Esh shamans were known across the continent for their abilities. One of the footnotes mentioned that the shamanic magic laid the groundwork for modern sorcery, which I believe you know something about.”

  Devon found herself looking back to the south where Stonehaven had disappeared behind a horizon of gently rolling hills. Between what the scorpion guy had said, his ability to apparently turn into fog and run away, and this talk about shamans, she was getting a strange suspicion about Night’s Fang.

  “All right, back to the Rovan and Drivan…”

  Torald nodded. “So the author of my book—”

  “The library’s book,” Bob cut in.

  Devon rolled her eyes. “Ignore it. I do.”

  Torald smirked. He’d stopped walking backward and now had fallen in beside Devon, leaving Chen to take up the rear. The last time Devon had looked back, her knight friend had plucked a few stalks of grass and was busy braiding or weaving them as they walked.

  “Anyway, the book claims that all Esh hoped for the eventual restoration of Ishildar. Some even believed that the city’s rebirth would push back the sea and that their home would once again rise above the sea. Where the factions differed was in where the relic should be kept. The Drivan believed that their tattered civilization would face enough challenges just surviving and that they should entrust the key to others. The Rovan called them weak, traitors to their race. In the end, a small party of Drivan loyalists made off with the relic—the book didn’t say what happened to them, but apparently they made it to Shavari’s temple.”

  Devon nodded, thoughts whirling as she strode through the grass. Because her eyes were unfocused, the coiling mist that started rising from the earth didn’t register until Torald laid a hand on her arm and pushed her behind him.

  “May Veia’s light shine through me and bless my sword!” he shouted.

  Devon, stumbling backward, ran into Chen just as the teenager said, “What the…?”

  As Torald began to glow with divine light, making his armor even harder to look at, the mist swirled and then vanished, blown away on the breeze.

  Devon whirled, searching the grasses, but there was nothing. Whoever or whatever had been listening to them was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  REMEMBERING WHAT FOOLS the other newbies had looked like stumbling around the training grounds, Emerson tried to plant his—unfortunately still bare—feet with purpose as he stalked out the gates of Stonehaven and into the slaughtering fields behind. The fortifications guy, Jarleck, cast him a glance as he passed, and perhaps what might be described as a faint look of respect. Or confusion. Or pity. Honestly, the guy’s face was pretty damn stony, and Emerson had never been good at reading expressions anyway.

  Die.

  Honestly, the quest objective seemed a little…odd. Having watched a couple of documentaries on real-life combat training, he could kind of see how learning about in-game death could teach someone what to expect, maybe keep people from freezing up at the wrong moment. The objective seemed similar to simulations of fog of war and other intense experiences that would come up in a real life-or-death situation. At the same time, even he’d seen enough game footage and chatter to know that death was commonplace. If it was going to happen sooner or later, why force him to undergo the experience now?

  At the very least, it hardly seemed a quest that ought to be handed out to someone that the trainer “had a gut feeling about.” Unless that gut feeling was that Emerson’s only future skill was going to be getting his butt kicked.

  Regardless, the five thousand experience on offer would bump him up to level 5, at which point he’d finally be able to choose a class. And then he’d have these rats and beetles cowering in their boots. Er…not that they wore boots. But anyway, back to the mission at hand.

  Emerson scanned the field in front of the settlement. Unlike his last venture out the gates, there were now at least two-dozen level one and two players striking at foes in the grass. If what they were doing could be called anything so flattering as striking. Mostly, they were swinging swords and clubs in the general direction of the vermin, most of whom were wandering along random vectors, oblivious to the weapons that were thudding into the ground on either side of their paths.

  Emerson shook his head, suddenly as perplexed as the GMs had been about Veia’s decision to move the Eltera City starting content here. If Devon were to be believed—and he pretty much believed everything she said ever—the coming demon army would be the biggest challenge Stonehaven had ever faced. These people were a liability, nothing more.

  Gritting his teeth, he fought the urge to march back into the settlement and give the trainers a lecture. If this was the kind of soldier they were going to turn out, they might as well open the gates and welcome the demons into the inner keep. But seeing as Aravon was…16 levels higher than him and at least six inches taller, Emerson didn’t think that would further his cause much. Watching a particularly inept young woman—who had, for some incomprehensible reason, decided to name her character WizKitten—aim a makeshift wand at a rat, mutter an awkward incantation, and set fire to a patch of grass five feet from her target, he was tempted to head into the field and try his own hand at instructing these people.

  “Don’t bother,” someone said from behind him.

  Emerson whirled and felt his spine stiffen as he recognized Greel. “Don’t bother what?”

  The lawyer shook his head. “Helping them. The mayor—who has her own suite of competence issues—asked me to pick out a prodigy or two. Train them properly. But I haven’t spotted a single candidate. I mean, it almost makes me think I should take you on.”

  Emerson blinked, totally unsure whether he’d just been complimented or insulted. “How did you know I was thinking about giving them some pointers?”

  Greel scoffed. “Because you look like the charitable type. Which I’m sorry to say isn’t going to get you far when Zaa’s legions come to destroy us all. Also, I saw the way you were looking at Mayor Devon. It’s a common enough reaction, given her obsession with raising her Charisma. Don’t worry though—you build up a resistance.”

  Emerson, feeling decidedly uncomfortable, had already started to sidle away. He nodded politely as he scanned the area beyond the field. His mission might be to die, but he’d just decided he would not do it in plain view of Stonehaven. And anyway, what kind of example would he be setting for the noobs if he fell beneath the claws or pincers of a level 1 monster?

  “Well, come on, then,” Greel said, gesturing with his chin toward a path that led south from the settlement, toward the stone quarry if Emerson remembered right. “Let’s find you something challenging to fight.”

  “Wait, what?”

  Greel sighed and rolled his eyes. “I hate to see what your Intelligence score is going to be revealed as. I am suggesting that, if only by virtue of having arrived before the rest of this lot, you are perhaps the only fighter worth my time instructing. It’s a stretch, to be honest, but seeing as the settlement teeters on the verge of ruin, I feel I must compromise my standards and hope you will somehow rise to the task.”

  Emerson chewed on the corner of his lip as Greel gave him a disdainful once over. “I…Aravon already sent me on a quest.”

  “Really? You’d consider a mission from that lout as more important than the chance to train under Stonehaven’s preeminent martial artist?”

  “Well, it’s got a good experience reward. And I had sort of imagined myself as some sort of…I think they call it a tank class.”

  Greel shook his head in apparent disgust, but another expression had crept
onto his face…a sneer, yes, but it seemed almost respectful. “Ah. A practical man. I can understand why you would be loath to abandon a potential reward, even if the granter of this boon is himself unimpressive. I myself first ventured to this Zaa-pulled wilderness under the command of someone far beneath my considerable intelligence, purely because it suited my interests to join. Fine. We will work together to satisfy the quest requirements. And as for your plan to become a…” Greel curled his lip in abject revulsion. “…simple meatshield, we will have to discuss that later.”

  Unsure what to do, Emerson finally nodded. “Okay, I guess.”

  “Good then,” Greel said before whipping out a piece of paper and a sharpened piece of charcoal. “Please sign here to formalize the apprenticeship agreement. If you are illiterate, a simple X will suffice.”

  Emerson stared down at the paper, then squinted. “I’m sorry…I can’t read this.”

  Greel sighed again, his loudest yet. “That is because I have drafted the document in Carpavan legalese, the only known tongue which creates magically enforceable contracts.”

  “Uh…I really don’t think I should sign something I can’t decipher.”

  “Oh for the sky’s sake, why me?” the lawyer said. “Fine. We’ll deal with the paperwork later. For now, let’s go. I can’t stand looking at these incompetents any longer, and no matter how inept she can be at governing this settlement, I do believe Devon was wise to suggest I take an apprentice. Every fighter will matter when the dark army comes. Even if they can barely hold their own swords.”

  With that, the man turned on his heel and stalked southward, stuffing the paper into what appeared to be a hidden pocket.

  “Uh, thanks, I think?” Emerson said as he fell into step behind.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “OUCH,” TORALD SAID, rubbing his now-dented breastplate. “For being the champion of the place, Ishildar’s guardians still don’t like you much. So much for the Chosen One trope.”

  “Yeah,” Devon said, flopping down in a pile of vines. The jungle on the outskirts of Ishildar felt as thick as ever, and apparently, the city’s stone giants were as aggressive as ever. If her acquisition of the Ironweight Key had given her any more hold over them, it hadn’t shown. Her head still hurt from focusing on the thin connection created by Ishildar’s Call and attempting to command the dang things.

  If anything, actually, this attempt to venture into the city had gone worse than last time. Unlike Hazel, her companions today weren’t exactly quick on their feet. Torald had been forced to spend all his mana chain casting his Creator’s Shield spell while trying—awkwardly—to jog backward toward the edge of the city. About the only thing they’d actually determined this trip was that there was a reason that real-world athletes didn’t wear platemail to track and field events.

  Still, the paladin had managed to take a solid handful of hits without going down, pretty damn impressive for a level 22 character facing down a level 40-something stone giant. Maybe his studies of the game lore had made his battle cries stronger. Either way, he’d held the rear guard long enough for Devon and Chen to make a retreat, and only now did Devon realize how close he’d come to getting smashed. That dent was going to take Garda a lot of work to bang out.

  After a minute or two spent staring up at the tree canopy and feeling ants crawling through her hair—nothing like a trip into Ishildar’s jungled outskirts to cure her of any leftover nostalgia from the time when dense, humid forest blanketed the whole region—Devon sat up and sighed.

  “Honestly, I have no idea how we’re going to do it. Hezbek has an invisibility spell that lets her go into the city—at least, that’s how she explained her ability to go there when Uruquat commanded it. But she couldn’t teach it to me…NPC sorcerer only.”

  Chen, who had been watching Sigfried attempt to hunt bugs with his new boomerang, stomped to the center of their small clearing and dropped to a cross-legged seat. “Is it really impossible to go around?”

  “I guess there’s a way to the west, but it would take something like a month’s travel each way.”

  “Well, you only need to go one way, right? Because after you get the relic, the city should stop attacking you. You should be able to take the direct route back.”

  “I fricking hope it stops attacking after that,” Devon said. “I’m really starting to hate stone giants. But anyway, I don’t think we even have a month. How long did it take you and Hailey to cross the Noble Sea?”

  “Foreverrrrrrr…” Chen said. “But it was probably like eight days in game.”

  “Right, so even if it takes Zaa a couple of weeks to get his shit together, the army could still be here in around three. And actually, it’s already been at least a week since we rescued Owen, so…”

  “Speaking of, how is he? Heard anything?”

  Devon shook her head. “Nothing. It’s got to be fricking hard. He was in a coma for weeks. And if his girlfriend hadn’t helped us, his own dad would have basically sacrificed him for politics. So yeah, I’d bet he’s not feeling too great.” Devon’s upbringing had sucked, but at least her mom hadn’t actively tried to harm her. Even if Governor Calhoun had had some sort of mental justification worked up to convince himself he was doing the right thing, the truth was pretty irrefutable.

  “We should ask Emerson. See if he knows anything.”

  Devon nodded. Yeah, she should. But then she’d have to figure out how to interact with him now that the whole attraction thing was out in the open. “Maybe after this Ishildar business is taken care of. So…ideas? I’m hoping you can come up with something I’m missing.”

  Still examining his armor for blemishes, Torald gave an uncharacteristic sigh. “It’s not that I don’t have faith in you, Devon, but even if we were to put together a raid, we wouldn’t be able to hold the guardians back long enough for you to make a run for it. What about those tunnels you found? The ones the Rovan Mistwalker fled into.”

  Devon nodded appreciatively. “Hadn’t thought of that. I guess we could try exploring a little, see if they go in the right direction.”

  Chen grimaced. “Don’t think it will work. It would have to be some damn good luck to find a remotely straight tunnel all the way to the other side. Not to mention, you’d probably have to deal with the scorpion guy’s friends the whole way. Isn’t Ishildar something like ten miles across?”

  They all winced at once, thinking of how long it would take to crawl through a ten-mile dungeon. “Okay, new plan,” Torald said. “What about Blackbeard. He can carry Bravlon, right?”

  Devon laughed at the idea of flying over the city on a giant, loudmouthed parrot. “Even if that stupid bird would agree to carry me, I know I’m too heavy. He’s been struggling to take off with the kid lately.”

  “Hmm,” Torald said, pacing.

  Dev.

  Devon sat up straight when the message from Tamara flashed in the corner of her vision. Her friend had gone into surgery even earlier than expected, admitted on the day after Christmas. Devon had received a quick note from Tamara’s mom before she’d logged in this morning, the note saying that Tamara was home recovering and that everything had gone great.

  “Don’t tell me you’re using the implant interface already,” she subvocalized into the messaging prompt.

  Dev! Yes! The Entwined people said it’s the fastest anyone has assimilated the sensory input or something. I’m some kind of cyborg prodigy. They say I can probably log in tomorrow. The day after at the latest.

  “Holy—” Devon backspaced, thinking that might be considered blasphemous and started over. “Wow! I can’t believe it.”

  It’s for real. You’ll come over and help me, right? Mom says she can set up couches side by side. I can’t wait to see my bike.

  Devon went rigid, eyes wide. Tamara’s bike. Shit.

  “Hey so I know we talked about walking back and scouting for awakened creatures, but have you guys ever tried the sorcerer teleport? I
gotta get back ASAP.”

  “Uh, sure,” Torald said as he climbed to his feet. Chen shrugged, then nodded.

  Devon pulled up her messenger window while working through the mental casting motions.

  “Text me first thing,” she said. “I’ll be right over, and we’ll get you on your bike.”

  Tamara would ride tomorrow if it took Devon cannibalizing cart parts and building a bike herself.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  THE KNOCK CAME at the door at ten-thirty in the morning. The doctor must have been monitoring her brain waves or something, because it had been just about fifteen minutes since she’d surfaced from Relic Online, enough to get her bearings and for the dose of painkillers to take hold.

  Hailey made him knock a second time for the same reason she’d avoided opening her messenger app even though he’d asked for her to keep an eye on it for news about the trial therapy. For the decade or so that she’d lived here, migrating from the assisted-living wing to the hospital rooms to the sterile chamber she now occupied, it hadn’t really bothered her that the physician on staff treated her like a number. A stat on his charts. The fact that he only communicated with her through the most convenient channels—messenger when he could get away with it, or by forcing her to come to his clean-room office when he couldn’t—hadn’t bothered her.

  But if the news was what they expected—if there was no room in the clinical trial for someone as unimportant as her—and he was coming to tell her she was going to die, it shouldn’t be convenient.

  “Yeah, come in,” she said.

  The pain medicine made it less agonizing to sit up and face him with dignity even if she still felt fragile as a moth and ready to barf. Her body was shutting down, her organs no longer able to clear the waste from her system or extract nutrition from her food. They’d put her on a high-calorie, low-protein diet and an appetite stimulant. The food still tasted like crap.