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

by John L. Monk

Rita smiled. “Monks make the best fliers. But we don’t get the skill until five hundred.”

  “What level are you now?”

  “Still five hundred. Been in a castle since the Vale, and I didn’t get credit for killing Bessie.”

  Bessie: Jaddow’s name for the enormous undead dragon guarding the ruins Cipher had hidden Melody in.

  “How many lives do you have left?” I said.

  “Thirty-four. No regrets.”

  I gasped in shock. Hard Mode had taken her to 100 lives. The Curse of Power, to 50. Rita had lost a third of that.

  “I don’t even know what to say. I’m sorry. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, and no sorries. We need to focus. How do we follow this guy? We’re not rangers.”

  I started to say I had no idea, but then suddenly I did.

  “Divination,” I said. “There’s a spell called Seek. One of the standard ones you have access to right away. I’ve never used it, though.”

  “What does it say?”

  “When you knock and it won’t open, or ask and get denied, one in three ain’t all that bad. Seek and ye shall find!”

  Rita covered her mouth, stifling a giggle.

  “What?” I said.

  “The spell descriptions … They just kill me!”

  I rolled my eyes. “Never mind that. What do you think? Should we try it?”

  Still laughing, Rita said, “You should hear mine. Some of them … The devs must have been high when they wrote them.”

  “Come on, Rita, focus. It doesn’t say how it actually works.”

  She nodded. “Might be some horrible drawback. This is Mythian, after all. What’s the mana cost?”

  “Low,” I said. “No cooldown, either. I’m gonna try it.”

  Having lost the trail, I backtracked to the first discernible track the person had left. On a hunch, I put my hand in the footprint, concentrated, and said, “Seek.”

  The sudden euphoria of spent mana told me something had happened, though it wasn’t immediately apparent what.

  “Well?” Rita said.

  “Dunno. I sort of expected an arrow to pop up and show us where to … Hmm. Hold on a second.”

  I checked my map of the local area. Sure enough, there was a new graphic. In addition to the three blips representing me, Rita, and Sammy, there was a dotted line leading into the woods. Judging from the scale of the map, the line went about fifteen hundred feet before stopping.

  I told her.

  “Let’s go see!” Rita shouted.

  “Hold on,” I said. “No need to run off half-cocked. I can’t just leave Sammy here by himself.”

  “Why not? He’s a lucid. He eats if he feels like it, but doesn’t have to. Why even bring him when you can fly?”

  That was a good question. Truth was, I’d never been a hundred percent comfortable with flying. Not from any fear of heights, though there was a little of that in there. No, it was more the exposed feeling I had so high up—as if people on the ground were looking at me. And considering this was Mythian, and not the real world, that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

  “Just send him on to Heroes’ Reach,” Rita said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  She covered her mouth and laughed. “Sometimes you’re like a little kid, I swear. It’s not a real horse, Ethan. Here, I’ll show you.”

  She soared across the clearing to Sammy, who was pawing the snow looking for something to chew on. A few seconds later, I joined her.

  “Sammy, sit!” she said.

  Sammy looked at her, then at me as if wondering whether or not to listen. Mystified, I nodded.

  Sammy dropped to his knees, then sat in the snow—which couldn’t have been very comfortable for him.

  “Okay, Sammy, roll over,” she said.

  “Don’t do that,” I told him, then glared at her. “It’s too snowy. And he’s not a dog.”

  Rita said, “He’s actually smarter than a dog.”

  I told Sammy to stand up and he did. Then I materialized an apple for him.

  “You’re a good horse,” I said while he chewed it. “I want you to go to Heroes’ Reach and wait for me outside the Mediocre Marauder. You know where that is?”

  Sammy snorted and bopped his head against my shoulder.

  “Stay in town,” I said. “I’ll be along when I’m done here. It might be a while. Go on, now.”

  Sammy nudged me again with his big head, then started along the road north.

  Mostly to myself, I said, “Bernard’ll give him something to eat. He always knows what we’re up to.”

  When I looked at Rita, she was smiling like she’d never seen something so bizarre as sweaty eyes before.

  “Shut up,” I said, blinking rapidly. “All right, I’m gonna shield us.”

  For Rita, I cast Mighty Shield, which would last until destroyed or dismissed. I couldn’t have two mighty personal shields going, so I cast Major Shield on me, followed by a Mighty Group Shield for both of us.

  “How come I get your biggest one?” Rita said suspiciously.

  Whenever I shielded someone, a brief opacity would wrap around them like a bubble. If shielded heavily, like Rita, it was far more visible. Mine had been noticeably fainter.

  “You only have thirty-four lives because of me,” I said.

  “And how many do you have?”

  “Way more than you.”

  If she knew I only had 16 lives left—thanks largely to the dryad—we’d have to wait on the 8-hour cooldown to switch spells.

  Before she said something else, I soared over the trees heading for the spot on the map. Though I reached it fairly quickly, the dense forest canopy made it too difficult to land.

  “That way,” I said, pointing. “We’ll backtrack.”

  I flew to an open spot a ways back and landed. Rita landed deftly beside me and we started walking. A few minutes later, we stopped.

  She pointed at the ground, only lightly covered in snow. “He was here. The tracks keep going.”

  “Are we sure this is really the clue?”

  Rita shrugged. “If it’s not, we can always fly back and keep looking.”

  “All right.”

  This time I didn’t put my hand in the print. I cast Seek and hoped the context was obvious enough.

  Once again, my map showed a dotted line leading into the forest another fifteen hundred feet.

  The next time we landed it was directly on the spot. When all we saw were more footprints, we didn’t even discuss it. I cast the spell and we flew on.

  Over the course of the day, we landed and re-cast Seek countless times. The spell, we learned, wouldn’t work if I was too high over the tracks, so we were frequently forced to land somewhere clear and hike back on foot.

  “It’s getting dark,” Rita said after a particularly difficult march through undergrowth so thick I was half-tempted to burn it away.

  “And colder,” I said.

  “We should look for a place.”

  We settled on a lightly-covered clearing in the lee of a large hill. I summoned a utility demon named Kandoo to clear two spots for our tents and remove any hidden rocks.

  “Neat demon,” Rita said. “Looks like a toad.”

  “More of a frog, I’d say…”

  Rita rolled her eyes.

  After dismissing the demon, I set up my tent and unpacked two chairs and other camp supplies.

  Falling into our old routine, Rita—a master at karate-chopping branches—built the campfire. After lighting it (my specialty), I found Rita watching me, arms folded, with a troubled look on her face.

  “What?” I said.

  “That’s an awfully nice tent you have there,” she said. “You wouldn’t happen to have another, would you?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “You don’t have a tent?” I said.

  “Do you see a tent?” Rita said. “That’s fine. I’ll just sleep by the fire. No big deal.”

  Rita’s truth orb was
black, so clearly it was a big deal.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s freezing out. And it’s snowing again.”

  “I used to like snow, back in the real world,” she said wistfully.

  “Enough of that. You’ll sleep in the tent next to me. It’ll be fine. We’re both adults, right?”

  Rita shrugged and sat before the fire.

  “We’ll be asleep in no time,” I said, mostly to myself, trying for a tone of confidence.

  For the next few minutes, I busied myself preparing dinner—cheese, magic apples, and two steaks from my horde of about thirty, which I’d purchased before leaving Heroes’ Landing. One great thing about bottomless bags: time stood still inside them. Anything perishable stayed fresh, just like in a refrigerator. Also, nothing inside ever seemed to bump into each other.

  “Wow, steaks,” Rita said when I pulled up my camp chair and handed her a small thin sword with two steaks skewered on the end. I’d gotten the little sword at Crunk’s for a single gold piece. Originally meant as a starter weapon for warrior-types, it was also great for campfire cooking.

  “Only the best,” I said. “Though I haven’t seen a single cow since coming to Mythian. Or any married ones, come to think of it…”

  Rita laughed politely.

  To break the ice further, and to quell my nervousness over the sleeping arrangements, I reached in my bag for something I almost hadn’t packed: a bottle of whiskey.

  “Oh,” she said, eyes wide. “Would you look at that?”

  “Should keep the cold away.”

  “Wait a minute, I still have my cups! Hold this.”

  She handed me her sword-skewer, opened her bag, and pulled out two earthenware mugs.

  I remembered those mugs. We’d shared many a cup of coffee together, back when we were grinding out levels in Ward 1.

  “Here, I’ll fill yours,” Rita said, taking the bottle and filling both mugs before handing me one. “Sorry, no ice. I’ll put the bottle in the snow.”

  “Good idea,” I said.

  Rita raised her mug and said, “To your wife.”

  Lifting mine, I joined her. “To Melody.”

  Our mugs, when they touched, made a light thunking sound.

  Rita sipped and made a face. “I’m more of a wine person.”

  “Maybe add a little snow to it,” I said.

  “I’m fine,” she said and took another sip to prove it.

  Having less to prove, I preemptively added snow to mine. I’d always been an on-the-rocks type because I enjoyed tasting it.

  I raised my mug again: “To Rita. A great friend, who was there when I needed her most.”

  “And Jaddow,” she said, tossing me an arch look.

  “Him too,” I said drily. “And his mysterious debt to my wife.”

  This time when Rita sipped, her face recovered more quickly.

  “Weird about that,” she said. “But maybe it’s more of a … you know, like a metaphor. Maybe he had problems with women in real life, and by helping her, he fixed all that.”

  I shouldn’t have said anything. Hoping she’d drop it, I stared quietly into the fire.

  She didn’t drop it.

  “Maybe he knew her in real life too, the way Cipher did. Maybe they used to game together way back when, and she gave him a reason for living. Something like that.”

  “That’s probably it,” I said. “You drunk yet?”

  “You’re angry…”

  I shook my head. “No. It’s just…”

  “What?”

  It always got dark quickly under the trees. The campfire cast Rita’s pretty features in a primitive light, making the world seem new.

  “My whole life,” I said, “I’ve never been one to unload my problems on other people. Money was a problem until I learned to save. It helped that I never wanted much. I met Melody young. For more than thirty-five years, we got along.”

  Rita met my gaze. The concern in her eyes had me feeling like a jerk for dragging down the mood.

  Smiling apologetically, I said, “She, um … I’m not sure she wants to be married anymore.”

  “Oh, Ethan, I’m sorry.”

  I smiled gently. “You’re lying.”

  At her surprised expression, I pointed at the little black orb floating over her head, invisible to her but plain to me, even at night.

  “Bleh,” she said. “I hate that thing…”

  Laughing, I said, “It just turned gold.”

  She held out her mug. I refilled it.

  “Well, she doesn’t deserve you,” she said. “Am I lying now?”

  I took another sip.

  By unspoken agreement, Rita and I stuck to less personal topics: monk skills, sorcerer spells, and some of the weirder things we’d seen in our time apart. I also summoned a guardian demon she hadn’t seen yet to watch the camp. And because summoning guardian demons made me think of Melody, I checked in on her demon.

  Aushiel was still grayed out, and thus not triggered. Which meant she was still safe.

  When the whiskey bottle was empty, we got up and stumbled unsteadily to the tent. Neither of us bothered undressing. We huddled under our blankets and kept our hands to ourselves.

  In the morning, I noticed Rita had curled up closer to me.

  Given that cuddling with anyone other than Melody was best avoided, I snuck out as quietly as I could and got the fire restarted.

  “Begone, demon,” I said, and the demon lurking in the trees disappeared with a hiss.

  I had a hangover. If I kept up the drinking, I’d need a go-to cure that didn’t involve more drinking. Pain resistance potions, maybe. For now, I’d settle for the only remedy at my disposal: coffee.

  “Drats,” I said when I checked the jar. It was down to a few tinkling grounds. Then I smiled. Rita always kept extra coffee…

  “Ethan,” I whispered, “you, sir, are a genius.”

  I slipped into the tent, reached into her bottomless bag and thought, Coffee. When I pulled it out, I smiled. The jar was full.

  Turning to go, I stopped as something occurred to me. Yesterday, when I asked Rita if she had a tent, she’d said, “Do you see a tent?” She’d answered my question with a question—which wasn’t the same as an actual answer, however much it sounded like one.

  Feeling like a sneak, I reached back into her bag and thought: Rita’s tent.

  When my hand closed over tent canvas, I stifled a gasp. Part of me was shocked that she’d tricked me like that. Everything in our relationship so far had been on the level, forged by mutual respect and genuine affection. Or maybe not. The truth was, the discovery didn’t bother me as much as it should have. In fact, I felt a strangely familiar warmth inside.

  And that was a problem.

  Chapter Sixteen

  That morning we had steak, eggs, potatoes, and Rita’s delicious coffee. Naturally, I didn’t let on about my discovery. I was still puzzling over it. Maybe she realized we’d be too cold and lied by omission to save us both embarrassment.

  And maybe you’re a flying ostrich.

  Fine, so she was lonely. Could be she “liked” me, as we used to say in school. Heck, I liked her too, a little. But I also loved my wife and the life we’d made together. When we got to Heroes’ Reach, I decided, we’d buy another tent.

  “Ready to go?” I said after draining my mug.

  “Nooo…,” she moaned, then smiled to show she was kidding.

  Like me, Rita had a headache. But she also had weird monk abilities to push away the pain, whereas I only had coffee. As such, breaking down the camp happened slower than usual, and we didn’t get going until mid-morning.

  Just like yesterday, the tracks led us through the seemingly endless forest. We did notice one change, however: the forest had gotten more dangerous.

  Quite a few times, we passed monsters of one sort or another—giants, packs of freakishly large wolves, and colorful young dragons. Flying as we were, most of these were relatively easy to avoid. We only had problem
s when the occasional young dragon popped up for a look.

  This happened three times that day.

  Young dragons had 800,000 health points and awarded 300,000 experience points when killed. They came in multiple colors, each corresponding to their breath weapon, as Rita termed it. The red ones breathed fire, and the blue ones shot a blast of freezing cold air. For these, at least, I could help mitigate the damage a little with my Ice Guard and Fire Guard spells. But the greens spewed poison.

  Though young, they were nimble in the air, soaring and diving so fast I could barely track them—this while slashing out with razor-sharp claws. When they went for a bite attack, the effect was reminiscent of those big-jawed fish that live at the bottoms of oceans.

  Rita was forced to tank them with defensive abilities that reduced her damage output to almost nothing. The plus side was she took fifty percent less damage. This was further mitigated by Mighty Shield, then Major Shield, and then Greater Shield when those were gone. While she tanked, I’d cast spells and attack with my demons for the majority of the damage—all while doing my best to stay out of the way.

  These fights were long, exhausting slogs that left Rita weeping afterward. The green dragons were particularly awful because of their poison breath.

  After these fights, we were awarded a chest made of iron. Each contained 10,000 gold pieces.

  Just then, I would have given anything for a few health potions. They were incredibly expensive, so I’d only bought enough for Melody’s apartment.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said helplessly after the third encounter, this with a fire dragon.

  “We’re supposed to … group with … a healer,” Rita huffed in an agonized voice. Her face was a singed mess of welts and cuts, and one arm was crusted black and seeping juices from a direct hit. “Got any more … whiskey?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  I’d brought along several bottles. I gave her a little with snow, then had some myself. It seemed to help. Rita’s health regeneration was fast compared to my own, and soon we were flying again—back on the trail for the remainder of the afternoon and into dusk.

  The second day came and went without dragons, but we kept a nighttime watch of demons anyway. By morning, I was half-drained of mana. I was also running short of garnets—a chief summoning component of the demons I favored. If we didn’t find this mysterious person soon, we’d be forced to rotate watches.