Finding a Body (The Dark Herbalist Book #4) LitRPG series

by Michael Atamanov

  The NPC’s of Boundless Realm were, for the most part, fairly pragmatic and surprisingly well-informed even about events in distant lands. If they had a clear example of what happened to the enemies of the Dark Sovereign while neutral residents were left unmolested, many would think twice before helping my opponents. And if I layered that with the inevitable rumors that would spread about the Dark Sovereign’s ability to appear in any city of Boundless Realm with his army, the NPC rulers and common citizens would lose their taste for fighting on the side of the Dark Sovereign’s enemies and would try to distance themselves from them as much as possible.

  But then, while flying on VIXEN, I got a phone call from an unknown number! That meant it wasn’t Kira. After so many days of separation, I was growing impatient for her to call saying I should leave the virtual reality capsule and come see her in real life.

  “Hi, Amra!” I instantly recognized the voice of my green-skinned companion Taisha. “As far as I can tell, your company’s in a real mess. There are groups of armed guards combing every floor of the building. They’re opening and checking every office! There’s some red-headed director lady at their head. My vocal identification algorithms give a 97.4% chance she is your friend Kira, based on a voice sample I have on file. Has something happened?”

  “They’re looking for me,” I guessed and immediately asked whether these search brigades were far from my office.

  “I mean, I don’t even know where your office is,” Taisha answered with notes of abashment in her voice. But she immediately asked if I even wanted to be found.

  When I said yes, Taisha gave a strange reply. She said she would “share all the information she had with Kira,” then changed the topic:

  “Just so you know, that isn’t why I called. I just got a teleportation scroll from a messenger. It says it’s from you. Did you send me something?”

  I confirmed having sent the scroll and added that the note I sent with it contained very important information about exactly when to use the portal so we could reach its destination at the same time. And we had to do that in order to lose our “tail” from the Legion of Steel .

  “The note says, ‘activate the portal immediately.’ But I’ve been following the game forums closely and I know my husband is now in the city of Lars, and that there is a powerful spell over the city restricting the use of portals. So now I have my doubts about who sent the scroll...”

  “Wait, Taisha, something isn’t right! In my message I wrote to come at midnight Southern Continent time. But yours says to use it immediately? I didn’t send that! And my magical messenger couldn’t cross the ocean to another continent so fast! It’s a trap! One of our foes wants to take you to a special server to find out whether you can exist there... Although, Taisha, you most likely don’t understand what I’m talking about.”

  “I see, just as I thought. Then I’ll see you at midnight.” My virtual companion held a prolonged pause but she didn’t end the conversation: “ And yes, Amra-Timothy, I understand perfectly well what a special server isolated from the main cluster is. I could exist there, but I’m not exactly sure I’d like it.” After these words, Taisha abruptly ended the call, leaving me in a state of very serious thought.

  Had my employers really decided to try and get by without me? Seemingly yes. They got me to tell them a surefire way of luring the NPC thief girl to the proper location then decided not to waste time and immediately attempt to trap Taisha. But they underestimated her quick-thinking and cautiousness, as she could tell it was fake and decided to give me a call. But what a girl Taisha was! There was little left of the unintelligent naive goblin she was when I first met her. Now the NPC Taisha not only was perfectly capable of navigating Boundless Realm , she also had a decent understanding of many real-world issues.

  The chat window flickered open. A corporate employee by the now painfully familiar nickname support_013 wanted to have a chat.

  “Timothy! We have received a complaint that you have installed illegal modifications to your game client. In particular, a mod that allows voice messages in Boundless Realm to be encrypted.”

  What? I started to chortle. So that was why there were no faulty connections warnings while talking to Taisha. My stubborn observers seemingly had simply not understood! And that could easily be the case. I had run into this before when Kira didn’t understand my phone conversation with the goblin girl. Then I had assumed we were speaking goblin, but I was laughed at and accused of lying. But how else could I interpret the fact that Taisha and I understood one another perfectly?

  I answered this “support_013” that I was totally clean and the tech support could come check my virtual reality capsule for illegal software at any time. If of course they could find my office. As it was turning out, that was proving more than a bit problematic. I asked him to comment on that strange fact as well, but the chat window just closed: support_013 hurriedly cut off the conversation. And I was glad. With all these irrelevant conversations, I was totally ignoring the battle, and the Dark Sovereign needed to get back to controlling his troops.

  * * *

  VIXEN, flapping her large wings and raising a curtain of watery haze, landed in the midst of a well-maintained garden next to the royal palace. And it was quite lively there. Thousands of soldiers from regiments two and three were preparing to storm the palace. There were NPC’s and living players darting here and there. Giants and cyclopes were hewing fallen trees into battering rams, while somewhat smaller beings were making large wooden shields, hooks and ladders. With all the hubbub, I didn’t even notice my commanders at first, but Shrekson spotted me and hurried over.

  Streaked with blood and soot, the level-124 Ogre Fortifier was holding a heavy spiked club in his powerful mitts, seated atop an even larger armor-bound level-140 moose. It was an impressive and fearsome sight. A true general of the Dark Sovereign! What was more, the crimson criminal marker over my friend’s head bore witness to the fact that the commander of regiment three had not only given orders but personally crushed player heads.

  You have used 2 Direct Intervention Points

  You have 109 points remaining

  The words over his head changed, too:

  Shrekson Bastard

  General of the Dark Sovereign

  Level-124 Fortifier

  The armor-bound titan raised the visor of his helmet, revealing a satisfied tusked face:

  “Amra, everything is almost ready for the assault. Most enemies are concentrated around the central entrance and hall on the first floor. There are fifty NPC royal guards there at level three hundred, plus a couple hundred courtiers and common servants. The enemy also has mages and healers. Jeanette and I decided to attack simultaneously from two directions: through the central entrance and the windows on the third and second floors to stab them in the back. But no matter what we’ve got a hard battle ahead of us. There are so many high-level enemies. There will be no getting past this without losses. But beyond there, the corridors are basically empty. My scouts have been the palace and said that a few minutes ago they saw King Valeon the Thirteenth in the window of the western tower,” said the Ogre Fortifier, pointing his big old hand at a tall angular tower with many balconies.

  I turned and looked closely at the target, trying to picture if I could actually land on one of the little balconies from VIXEN’s back. Hey, now there’s an idea! If their ruler died, the high-level guardsmen might very well cease resistance, which would then allow us to avoid serious losses. While I looked over the tower, Leon drew my attention:

  “By the way, Timothy, I haven’t had the chance to say. I wanted to tell you that I went to our boss’s office today on your request and apologized to Tina for you making her wait. But she looked extremely surprised and kept saying that this was the first she was hearing of it, she had never come to you and doesn’t even have a clue where your office is.”

  Poor signal quality

  If connection problems persist, the Boundless Realm client will be forced to
close

  A very predictable warning... This intrusive censorship was really getting on my nerves! I gritted my teeth in rage and, in order not to be kicked out of the game, hurried to give Leon a more or less plausible explanation:

  “Probably Tina was just too embarrassed to discuss such delicate details of her personal life with a stranger.”

  But I didn’t believe that, because it left a few other strange facts unexplained. Nevertheless, the warning disappeared, which was what I wanted. I pointed Leon to Iron Jeanette as she walked up to the soldiers preparing to attack. I asked my generals to hold off with the palace assault:

  “Yes, there are many high-level enemies there and they can give experience, skill growth and all that. But we stand to lose too much if we sacrifice a few thousand of our soldiers just to clear a few tactically worthless rooms. Let’s try to avoid pointless losses. Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll handle the king. But first I need a highly ranked dwarf from their bank. They said something about a gift and protection.”

  Just a minute later, there were three short bearded chaps standing before me. I had a fuzzy understanding of ranks and distinguishing symbols of the subterranean natives, but still I appreciated the number of braids in their beards and the many vibrant ribbons woven into them, each of which had to be earned. Apparently, all three were very, very respectable members of dwarven society and could speak for their compatriots. I extended Gnum Spiteful’s letter in silence.

  “Yes, Sovereign,” barely having familiarized themselves with the contents of the scroll, the grayest-haired of the three stepped forward. “We requested protection for the Subterranean Bank of Thorin the Ninth and brought chests to your castle with one million coins for your fearless soldiers and a special gift for the Sovereign himself: a new-born Mythical Hound by the name of Fjörm. Some dwarven prospectors found the unique creature deep below the earth in a cave carved by a subterranean river. The pup’s eyes had never even seen the sun. Tondik and Vanessa informed us that the Sovereign collects rare puppies, and we were hoping the gift might be accepted with favor.”

  A unique creature as a gift? And it’s a clear candidate for the Gray Pack? I found this reaction very surprising and, I won’t hide it, pleasant. Such generous tribute was doubtless worth the Dark Sovereign taking the bank of the subterranean folk under his care. It was just a pity I hadn’t received such a valuable gift before the attack on Lars. During combat, experience flowed like a river, and the level 100+ veterans accompanying me had gone up by ten or so levels. For a newborn pup, even a crumb of that experience would have been enough to hit thirty, or maybe even forty. Although... the battle was still ongoing, and I needed to take advantage of that!

  I opened the Gray Pack control interface and threw out one of the rougarou archers I’d added back at Frigid Lake to free up a slot. As I was hoping, among the many and widely varied NPC’s in the Gray Pack interface, mostly the rougarou and stray dogs nearby, there was one possibility of great interest to me:

  Fjörm

  Élivágar Guardian

  Level-1 Mythical Hound (unique creature)

  Great! I quickly took advantage of that and Fjörm appeared in the Gray Pack. However...

  The Astral Explosion spell blocks the summoning of your pet

  Damn! Apparently, the puppy was back in my castle and couldn’t be brought to Lars for the fight. Although maybe that was for the best. The tiny Fjörm would be getting experience regardless, but this way he wouldn’t die here in battle. I thanked the eminent dwarves for such a valuable gift and confirmed that, from here on out, no branches of the Subterranean Bank of Thorin the Ninth in all Boundless Realm would ever be targeted by my army. A swift-footed messenger was immediately sent to inform Vanessa, who had spent her wedding day waving a battle-axe and invading a city.

  And then, when the issue of the gift from the dwarves was resolved, I scrambled back up onto VIXEN and ordered my sweet girl to climb. The time had come to pay a visit to the king of Lars!

  * * *

  YIKES! I TOOK off from massive height, unsuccessfully jumping off the back of the winged snake and underestimating the distance to the nearest balcony. I was still not used to my character’s new lower Agility after the skill changes, which brought along worse jumping ability. My fingers passed a mere couple of inches from the balustrade.

  Agility check failed!

  Acrobatics skill increased to level 34!

  I didn’t even have time to feel any fear before my whole body slammed into the rough stone wall. Peeling the skin off my hands and face, I slid down and awkwardly plopped onto the balcony below. I was alive! And I took no serious injuries from the fall despite the respectable height. That must have been from the Acrobatics specialization. It just put a few wrinkles on my green face, but even they were quickly healed by my regeneration. I turned my head up and estimated the height I’d just eaten shit from. It was fifty feet, maybe even sixty!

  I could have turned into a lizard and tried to crawl back up the vertical wall. And the forms Amra’s new shapeshifter perk allowed included a huge lizard as well as a predatory fish and a giant spider. However, I had never used it before, so I wasn’t sure it would all go smoothly. What was more, I was spooked by the half-hour reload time. Just think how hard it would be for me to fight as a lizard! So I didn’t try to reinvent the wheel and with a crisscross of my fiery whip, I broke through the door, which was locked from the inside. Pieces of the heavy door thundered to the ground and I walked off the balcony into the western tower.

  Three times around the spiral staircase, yet another door to break down and I flew into a small circular room, where I stopped sharply in surprise.

  Valeon the Thirteenth

  Ruler of the Kingdom of Lars

  Level-315 Swordsman [Child-killing scum!!!]

  The gray-haired king was wearing a cuirass and a leather traveling suit. He was standing in the opposite corner of the room from me kneading his hands and tracing figure eights with his long flickering blade. And standing next to him holding a loaded crossbow that glowed with overflowing magic was his wife Elvira, a level-230 Bowwoman. In front of the crown-bearing father and mother there were two dense rows of their sons the princes: nine fearsome knights wielding their weapons and hiding behind shields. The very weakest of them was level-255. The group of enemies was so scary and intimidating that, for a second, I considered taking the cowards way out, pretending I’d opened the wrong door and turning tail.

  I had done so much to make sure the King of Lars didn’t escape retribution, and tried so hard to meet him! My subjects and even sister Valerianna Quickfoot were consumed by the idea of how to stop the king from fleeing, and force him into an encounter with the Dark Sovereign. But none of us had even for one second considered what I should do if I actually did meet him. No one had ever tried to find his level, nor found out about his wife and children. But we should have...

  “Is this the one you were so afraid of? This little shrimp? Is that all?” came one of the princes, not hiding his scorn for my short flap-eared goblin entering their room at level-112. He turned to his parents for an explanation.

  “Yes, that is the Dark Sovereign,” the king confirmed, no longer fidgeting with his sword and seemingly himself surprised at his recent fears. “I was expecting someone a bit more imposing...”

  I then gathered my thoughts and courage, speaking with as confident a voice as I could muster:

  “The woman may leave, she does not bear the curse. And that boy there in the second row, he may go as well. Prince Edward was not involved in the execution of my niece. If he is wise and retreats, he will be made King of Lars later today. But the rest of you shall die here and now.”

  Fame check failed!

  Fearmonger perk used successfully!

  Diplomat skill increased to level 35!

  Superboss skill increased to level 13!

  The Queen looked at her husband and shook her head. She was in no mind to leave and opted to share her husband’
s fate. But a knight in silvery armor raised his helmet visor, looked to his brothers, then gave a gloomy chuckle, sheathing his sword and walking away with the words:

  “And you said the eighth son would never get the crown. We shall see. In any case, this is not my war!”

  “Curse you, traitor!” screamed the enraged father, swinging with all his might. He brought his enchanted sword down on his retreating son, breaking through his armor and nearly cleaving the prince in two.

  Messages about level growth flickered in. The game system thought Amra’s actions had led to the death of the powerful NPC and shared the experience.

  “Don’t touch the child!” the queen quickly shot out at her husband’s back, driving a crossbow bolt into his cuirass up to the fletching. But she was instantly knocked off her feet with a punch from one of her older sons.

  What was going on here?! I stood and watched the bloody battle between the princes and their crown-bearing parents. Just in case, I opened my inventory and checked if I had accidentally activated my gong to summon the goddess of strife Eris. This just looked too much like her work. But no, the gong had nothing to do with this. Seemingly, the tension in this family was like an overfilled boil and this critical situation had popped it.