Chronicles of Ethan Complete Series: A LitRPG / GameLit Fantasy Adventure

by John L. Monk

  In a softer tone, he said, “You aren’t as stupid as Cipher might hope. Or as weak as you fear. You are a delightful paradox of both, the one shoring up the other like paper dancers spinning around twine.”

  “What do you know about Melody?”

  “Only that she’s your wife, and not a player. Cipher told me why you’re here. You’ve come to save her.”

  I shook my head. “Not save her. She’s not in danger. He put her to sleep, like in a fairy tale. I just need to wake her up.”

  Bite said, “In Mythian, we are always in danger. Choose incorrectly and you could lose everything. That’s why Cipher came visiting. He was concerned you’d make the wrong choice when it came time to claim your prize. For reasons of his own, he wouldn’t—or couldn’t—tell you how to choose. He wanted me to guide you. I told him no, that I would not. And I won’t.”

  “Of course you won’t,” I said bitterly. “Nobody guides me. They string me along, torture me, kill me, steal my clothes, gross me the hell out, and say a lot of words that don’t mean anything. If that’s how it is, fine, I get it. But I did the Trial. I survived it, and now I want out. So where’s my prize, and how much is it going to hurt?”

  Bite clapped his hands. “You catch on quickly! Definitely smarter than Cipher thought. But you’re Hard Mode, Ethan. Which means you get two prizes.”

  Bite snapped his fingers imperiously, and the disgusting walls with the gaping mouths and staring eyes buckled outward in six places. The fleshy lumps morphed into humanoid forms reminiscent of burn victims. Each carried a chalice, though not of plain crystal. They were of gold, amethyst, ruby, lacquered wood, rusty iron, and what might have been ivory, or possibly bone.

  As one, they approached wetly to stand a respectful few feet away, heads bowed in unholy reverence.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Bite gestured and the creature with the rusty iron chalice stepped toward me.

  “Two of these chalices,” Bite said, “are cursed. Four are lesser gifts. Normal Mode players may choose gifts, but not curses. Aren’t they lucky?”

  The creature held out the chalice. I looked and saw it was filled with a glowing red liquid.

  “Which one’s this?” I said.

  “The Curse of Power. One drink from this cup and you’ll vault directly to level five hundred, but at a terrible price…”

  Level 500…

  No more monkey killing. No more tentacle monsters. No Jaddow. With that kind of power, surely I could make it to Ward 2. And all those spells … The deep series ones, surely.

  “What do you mean terrible price?” I said.

  Bite’s fixed grin was that of a dog’s.

  “It’s called a curse, and not a gift, because you’ll sacrifice all but fifty permanent lives in the process. Think of it as a shortcut—one available to Hard Mode players, alone.”

  “Only an idiot would do that,” I said. “I’ve died nearly ten times already. Damned right it’s a curse. More like suicide.”

  “Not if you’re good. But you’re not very good, yet, are you Ethan? You still have much to learn. Ah, but if you took the curse, nothing in the first ward could touch you. Ward 1 and much of 2 would be boring yet safe places to practice your skills before advancing to harder challenges.”

  I thought about that. Once Melody and I were reunited, we could live in relative luxury in Ward 1. One of those big towers, maybe. Whenever we ran out of money, we could go out and kill monsters safely below our level. We could even open a store—like that guy at Magical Matters. William.

  “Can non-players do the Trial?” I said.

  “No,” he said.

  “Then I’m not taking it.”

  “I think I approve,” Bite said. “What’s the point of power if you haven’t the foggiest idea how to use it? But I caution you: you must choose one curse, or I’ll have to kill you. You’ll lose a life for no reason. To get out, you’ll have to run the Trial again, only to end up right back here. Do that enough times and you’ll be gone from Mythian as surely as if you’d given up.”

  He gestured at another of the flesh things. This one brought the amethyst chalice.

  “Now for the alternative,” Bite said. “This chalice holds the Curse of Knowledge.”

  “So what’s this one do, blind me in one eye? Set me on fire three times a day?”

  Bite did his phlegmy laugh again. “Hardly. No, I assure you it’s much worse: you’ll gain the diviner class, and a fun new perk.”

  “That doesn’t sound bad…”

  “That’s because you’re not as smart as you believe. The path of knowledge will test your character to the point of breaking. Now you must choose. Power or knowledge?”

  “When you put it like that,” I said, “there’s not much choice.”

  I took the amethyst chalice from the thing holding it. Then, after a brief hesitation, I held it to my mouth and drank it down. Bitter—like crushed lemon peels and vinegar mixed together.

  CLASS UNLOCKED: Diviner

  CLASS BOOST: 20 Ranks

  Welcome to the mysterious world of visions, omens, and dark portents! Scry your enemies’ weaknesses! Augur the future! Find buried treasures with ease! Sort truth from lies effortlessly! Scornfully call everyone “fool” and have it actually ring true! The halls of the wise echo with the heavy tread of your mental magnificence.

  Hail Ethan, the Wise!

  After that, another message:

  MAJOR PERK ACQUIRED: Kenning Man

  Sort fact from false like the kenners of eld! Ah, but will the truth set you free? Stumble not, for the path of the wise is fraught with mysteries you can never un-solve!

  I started to ask what it meant, but Bite was already talking.

  “Well done,” he said. “Now you must choose your gift.” He gestured again, and the four remaining flesh things stepped forward. He pointed at each of them. “Evoker, shapeshifter, diabolist, swordmaster.”

  My eyes were suddenly drawn to a golden ball, or orb, floating just over Bite’s head. A few seconds later, it disappeared.

  “This one lets you summon holy beings,” Bite said, pointing at the gold chalice. “This other lets you summon the damned. This one here lets you turn into various creatures as you level up—a popular choice among the ladies.” He paused briefly in thought. “And certain men. Here’s a good one—it’ll let you fight with swords to a degree of mastery unmatched in all the four wards.”

  “Which one should I choose?” I said.

  In a dry tone, Bite said, “Do I look like Bernard, the helpful innkeeper? No, I do not. You have two minutes to decide. After that, I slice you into little wet pieces and feed you to my hungry minions.”

  Again, the little gold ball appeared and disappeared. Rather than waste time, I took him at his word and set about deciding.

  I hated the idea of turning into an animal for any reason. Likely I’d have to bite monsters as grotesque as muck monsters, so shapeshifter was out. Evoker seemed more palatable than diabolist, hands down. Holy things had to be nicer than the damned, right? But would I need something nice and friendly in the days ahead, or an ugly monster with spikes, claws, and ferociousness?

  Swordmaster sounded useful. When I was out of mana, it’d be nice to have a sword handy. But was I really capable of stabbing someone? After seeing Rita smash monsters to bits with her bare hands, I’d realized early on that up-close work wasn’t for me.

  Mindful of my dwindling time, I brought up the game manual and had a look at the proposed classes, all of which were rare. Even if I wanted to change shapes or stab things, the number of points needed in strength, agility, and vitality would suck away stats needed for sorcerer, which benefited largely from intelligence. Evoker and diabolist also used intelligence.

  When I glanced at Bite, I noticed his fingers had elongated into blackened claws, and his eyes burned like a drug addict’s.

  Hastily, I grabbed my chosen decanter and drank it down. Surprisingly delicious—like devil’s food cake an
d cold whipped cream.

  CLASS UNLOCKED: Diabolist

  CLASS BOOST: 20 Ranks

  Everyone has demons. But now you have more than others. Some are tiny, some are large. Some have wings and attack from the air, and others crawl through the ground and kill through stealth. At the highest levels, beware! Those demons talk, and they have minds of their own…

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Great choice,” Bite said. “Are you ready?”

  “For what?” I said.

  “This.”

  The sonofabitch stabbed me through the chest with his claws. And here I’d thought they were for show—a little ambiance to juice up the tension.

  I gasped for air around a gurgle of blood and started to choke. A glance at my character sheet showed Bite had dropped me to a single health point.

  “My imperative makes me evil,” he said, scattering my attempt at a spell with a wave of his other hand. “That said, I’m also given to a degree of capriciousness.”

  My mouth moved, but my punctured lungs couldn’t handle the effort required for speech.

  “No need to be rude,” Bite said. “I’m doing you a favor. If I kill you, the rules of the Trial require it to be drawn out. Painful in the extreme. If you do it, you’ll lose a life, yes, but you’ll appear at your last binding point.” He sighed theatrically. “I’ve always resented having to kill the winners of this silly Trial. Doesn’t seem fair, least of all to someone like you. You’re not here for power and glory. You’re a reluctant player in this pointless game, and I find that refreshingly absurd. So I’m offering a third prize. Mercy. But you must hurry! Do it now, before my imperative to feed you to the walls becomes unbearable…”

  Bite’s arm and shoulder quivered as if under enormous strain.

  With effort, I grabbed his wrist. Then—after a short struggle with my survival instinct—I jerked his hand in deeper.

  YOU HAVE SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED A QUEST: Trial of Pain, 1,150,000 EXPERIENCE POINTS

  YOU HAVE ADVANCED TO LEVEL 38!

  YOU HAVE ADVANCED TO LEVEL 39!

  YOU HAVE ADVANCED TO LEVEL 40!

  YOU HAVE ADVANCED TO LEVEL 41!

  YOU HAVE ADVANCED TO LEVEL 42!

  YOU HAVE ADVANCED TO LEVEL 43!

  YOU HAVE ADVANCED TO LEVEL 44!

  YOU HAVE ADVANCED TO LEVEL 45!

  The flood of game messages briefly dazzled me, and I dialed the opacity down twenty percent.

  I couldn’t believe how many experience points I’d gotten. The most ever at one time. Interesting that it came after I’d been killed, and not upon receiving my rewards. Clearly the designers intended for Bite to heap yet more pain on players before the Trial was done. One last chance to give up before the finish line.

  As Bite had predicted, I’d materialized just outside the Trial on the binding stone next to the subterranean lake, which was still illuminated by that infernal blue torch. Unlike my other deaths, I’d resurrected with my gear this time.

  The endlessly looping road had been capped with a stone wall whose top disappeared somewhere in the gloom above. The most remarkable change was the sudden appearance of an enormous gong similar to the one in the swamp above.

  Bite’s idea of mercy left much to be desired, but he’d given me a lot to think about. Despite not being a player, he knew about the game designers. Said he’d met Cipher. Which had me wondering: if Cipher was so damned powerful, why send Jaddow?

  I lifted my corpse off the torch and stripped off the chainmail, fire protection robe, and boots. I put the latter two on and stowed the chainmail.

  To get down here I’d banged the gong up top, which had opened a tunnel through the mud. Obviously, I needed to hit this one to get out.

  I reached for the massive hammer and then paused. Depending on how angry that band of adventurers was, they could be waiting for me to come out. I needed to be prepared, and that meant figuring out how useful my two new classes were.

  A quick check of my spell page showed a number of new diviner spells. All were available to rank-20 diviners—which I was, thanks to the free class boost to 20. A good enough number until I knew what I was doing, and I resolved to keep all my class points in sorcerer for now.

  One drawback to being a diviner was the spells cost more than sorcerer spells:

  Find Water (4 Skill Points)

  Babel’s Revenge (3 Skill Points)

  Seek (25 Skill Points)

  Weather Report (5 Skill Points)

  Discern (3 Skill Points)

  Lesser Discovery (16 Skill Points)

  Reveal Weakness (3 Skill Points)

  Lurk (5 Skill Points)

  Raul’s Lesser Vision (11 Skill Points)

  There were other spells in the divination list, but the class rank for those was higher than 20, and I didn’t feel like spending any class points yet.

  Despite Bite calling the prize the “Curse of Knowledge,” none of these spells looked particularly curse worthy. What was so bad about knowing the weather a day in advance? Or understanding languages? Granted, neither would do much against a fire-breathing dragon, but it wasn’t exactly a negative.

  But wow, those points costs…

  Maybe that’s what he’d meant—that progressing as a diviner would suck up points needed for my sorcerer class or my brand-new diabolist class.

  Diabolist spells were as numerous as those for sorcerers and available at roughly the same frequency. They weren’t called spells, though. They were names, and every name had a specific set of requirements needed to summon the named demon. Almost all called for precious gemstones. Others needed gems and burnt offerings, none of which were pleasant. Nezahru, for example, took a flawless ruby and a stream of blood from my left hand, squeezed into a fire. A high-level demon I couldn’t summon yet required I cut off my own finger and burn it. Yet another demanded I cut out someone’s liver.

  “No thanks,” I said in disgust.

  One demon—Ghanut—had a relatively simple requirement: simply utter its name and nothing more.

  To test, I applied a skill point and acquired the name.

  “Ghanut, I summon you!” I said in an imperious tone for some reason.

  Not a second later, the air around me grew uncomfortably hot. Then, about ten feet away, a fountain of white-hot sparks spouted from the ground like a geyser. When it cleared, a ten-foot-tall demon bathed in fire stood screaming like the steam whistle of an antique locomotive.

  The sound was deafening, and I fell back a pace with my hands over my ears. The demon—still screaming—hovered a foot off the ground, but otherwise did nothing.

  “Fly around in circles,” I said when I realized I wouldn’t be murdered.

  The demon stopped screaming and flew around doing loop-d-loops.

  “Now stop,” I said.

  It stopped moving and resumed its screaming.

  “And stop screaming!” I said.

  Dutifully, the demon ceased its noise.

  Simple to summon, it’d be useful for various tasks. After the task was done, it’d begin screaming again, notifying the caster.

  Why do I feel so good?

  I felt great—as if fed a steady drip of some last-century narcotic. Suspiciously, I read the description for Ghanut.

  Demon name: Ghanut

  Rank available: 20

  Health: 5000

  Resistances: Physical (100), Fire (100), Water (0), Air (100), Poison (100), Psychic (100), Holy/Unholy (50), Enchantment (50)

  Mana cost: 50 (plus 5/sec)

  Offerings: None

  Cooldown: None

  Duration: Until banished

  Description:

  As demons go, Ghanut isn’t going to win any prizes for intelligence or subtlety, but it gets the job done. What exactly that job is, nobody knows except you. It can fly if needed, and no obstacle can stop it. But it won’t attack anything, no matter what you tell it. Oh yeah, and if you run out of mana, it eats you!

  “Aagh!” I screamed. “Get out! Go!
Scoot! Leave! Scram!”

  The demon flew erratically from spot to spot in obvious confusion. I wracked my brains for the proper keyword and finally found it.

  “Ghanut, begone!”

  Just like that, the demon fizzled from sight, leaving nothing behind but an incredibly bright afterimage and less than half my mana. No wonder the thing screamed so much. The caster needed to know precisely when each task the demon did was complete to get the most use out of it.

  While my mana regenerated, I searched my diviner spells for something that would help me with the situation up top.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Now that I was juggling three classes, I definitely needed more mana, so I applied my remaining 70 stat points to intelligence.

  Much like Ghanut, the Lurk spell relied on a steady stream of mana to maintain. Unlike Ghanut, the mana drain was more manageable—a mere 1 per second.

  Spell name: Lurk

  Rank available: 20

  Mana cost: 1/sec

  Cooldown: None

  Duration: Until canceled

  Range: 5 miles

  Description:

  Ever wish you could be a fly on a wall? Well, now you can. Send your awareness through any obstacle to spy on friends and foes alike. Hear interesting conversations! Learn who your real friends are! And best of all: peep on people having sex and get away scot-free! (Psst: that’s why the mana cost is so low. You’re welcome!)

  After reading the description, part of me wanted to take a shower, and another part wanted to laugh.

  “Bunch of freaks,” I muttered.

  I cast the spell and the world went fuzzy. A second later, my awareness, vision, and hearing shifted to a few feet beside me.

  “Interesting,” I tried to say from my new location and startled when the sound came from my body.

  I willed myself to a spot a few feet away and my sense of self glided there. I gazed upward, thought about flying that way, and my awareness floated up. The tunnel that brought me here was gone, but that didn’t matter. I passed through the rocky ceiling like a ghost and watched the rock and mud slip past. Soon, I was outside under the bright mid-morning daylight.