“Where are you guys?” I yelled as dread sank in.
A muffled shout to my left. I made for it, slogging through the marsh. Then I was on something hard and able to move relatively freely. I looked down but couldn’t even see what was there through the murk.
Something clattered near me again. Sticks reverberating on sticks. I spun once again and said, “Karian?”
No answer except for a chittering noise.
The shape came into view, and a white hand again reached for me. Bleached bone covered by rotted flesh, sinew, and muscle that hung like putrid black water balloons. The smell hit me almost at the same time as a club swung at my head. I backed up a step and triggered the spell. The ice blast left my hand and blasted through the rotted skeleton, scattering bones all over the floor. I looked up and found that my XP bar had moved.
300/800
Not only that but the afterimage of an icon shaped like a skeleton faded from view. Great, a new mob to read about in my book. Skeletons: dumb walking dead useful for trying to kill you, would probably be the entry.
More clattering of bones as the fog shifted in the other direction. Tendrils floated before my eyes leaving me confused about what was truly ahead.
“Walt!” Karian yelled, but she sounded far away.
“Karian,” I called back and moved in the direction of her voice.
Another skeleton stumbled into me. I spun in revulsion and swung the staff but missed my target.
Something like a cackle to the right. I moved in the direction I thought Karian had called from.
“Where are you, Karian?” I called again.
“Here, I’m over here,” she said. “Keep talking, Walt.”
“Okay,” I yelled back. “Oz or Thandroot. Are you here?”
Another skeleton appeared in the mist. It was taller than me and lurched as it lifted a great rusted sword that would probably cut me in half. I slid to the left and brought the staff up to smack into its hip. He bore the remains of furs and worms moved around the material. He staggered aside, and a couple of his ribs fell to the ground.
“Karian. There are walking skeletons all over the place. Be careful,” I said.
A second mob appeared, this one shorter and hair the color of silver dangled by long stringy strands across her face. Her lips snarled back exposing teeth set in rotted gums. A gap in front where most of them had been knocked out. Her tongue was a putrid mass that licked her lips, but the only moisture was slime. I shuddered and thought of the ice spell again. Symbols appeared but so did a headache. I looked up and realized I hadn’t even checked my mana.
Ansalon had warned about spell casting when I was this low.
I swung the staff around and just caught the haft of a very sharp looking double axe.
She swatted at me, and I lifted the staff to intercept again, but she hit it so hard the weapon spun out of my grip.
The taller skeleton, Mr. Bones, swept his sword downward. I barely escaped him cleaving my head in two, but it took me right into the arms of Mrs. Bones as I tried to dive to the side. She wrapped her arm around my throat and pulled with inhuman strength.
I pushed into her and grabbed her arm which felt like an iron bar. Her mouth nuzzled around my ear as her shrunken lips attempted to chew it off. I would have shuddered, but I couldn’t breathe, and I was too horrified to do anything other than wonder if I was going to wake up at the shrine near Candleburn with piss covering my lower torso.
I pushed her away from Mr. Bones and swung the staff up and over my shoulder. Much to my surprise, I hit her. The skeleton’s weight fell away, but somehow her arm didn’t. I grabbed her wrist and tore it away to find I was holding her arm.
I danced back with a little squeal of horror as Mr. Bones came at me. I didn’t have time to grab the mace, so I smacked him in the skull with Mrs. Bones’ arm. He reeled back, and I followed up by seizing the mace off my belt, and swinging wildly as he faded back into the mist.
Mrs. Bones wasn’t done with me. Her remaining hand closed on my ankle and tugged.
“Jesus Christ, Bruce Campbell never had it this bad,” I yelled in frustration.
“I’m behind you,” Karian said followed by the sound of a blade sinking into one of the skeletons.
The skeleton relaxed her grip and my XP bar shot up again. Thank the gods of Th’loria for allowing gamers to share XP from kills.
Mr. Bones grabbed my robe and pulled me toward him. I swung the mace but his arms were so long I managed only to catch air. He then tugged me close enough to look into his eyes. They were mostly hollow sockets except for the right side which contained a shriveled up thing like a raisin that hung by sinew. His breath was even worse than Mrs. Bones. Like he had eaten garbage covered in rotting intestines and then chased them with a double shot of bile.
I managed not to wretch and muttered, “Screw it.”
The shapes appeared in my head. I lifted my hands, pointed at his chest, and triggered the ice blast. Like a bolt that passed through my brain, electric current ran down my arms, spine, and legs, the spell leaped fire at point blank range and blew Mr. Bone’s entire chest to pieces.
A headache struck at the same time. Mr. Bones’ fell to the ground in a heap with me close behind. The pain raged and made me see double, then coalesced in a blinding flash that ripped my brain apart.
“WALT,” Karian slapped my face.
Ow.
“Walter. Wake up.” Karian leaned close.
I opened my eyes to something that was becoming familiar. Karian’s distinct features, lovely cheekbones, and dark eyes hovering over my face. She had a piece of skin stuck to a cheek, so I reached up and peeled it off, but it left a trail of slime.
“Gah,” Karian used her sleeve to scrub her face.
I sat up, and fought the urge to grab my head with both hands and squeeze. I dug around in my bag, found a potion, and pulled it out. It was blue, so I quickly popped the cork and drank the sweet liquid.
The pain didn’t go away but my mana pool refilled.
“You gonna make it?” Karian asked.
“I think so,” I said honestly. “Those were skeletons.”
“Perceptive, Walt,” Karian helped me to my feet. “But we kicked skelly ass.”
“Where are you guys?” Oz called.
“Here,” Karian waved her hand. The mist had started to fade, and with it, the marsh became clear again. We had somehow drifted a good two hundred feet away from our previous location and were near a glowing blue shrine.
“Take that ya right bastards.” Thandroot yelled from somewhere nearby, followed by the sound of his massive maul crashing into bones.
“Give 'em hell,” Karian added encouragement.
“I see you guys found the shrine,” Oz said as he came into view.
He had a red lump on his forehead and looked a little worse for wear. As he dragged himself through the mire, I noticed he had picked up a passenger.
“On your shoulder,” I said.
Oz ignored me but looked to the side and flinched. A chunk of skeleton rib had become attached to his light armor. He brushed off the bone and then shuddered.
“Where did those guys even come from?” Karian asked.
“Probably a ‘mancer around here somewhere,” Thandroot said as he joined our group.
“Oh shit,” I muttered.
“The fog too?” Oz said.
“Classic necromancer. Confuse, and then bring in the dead. Bloody bone walkers.” Thandroot brushed chunks of bones off of his plate armor.
“We got two of them,” I said.
“Me, too,” Oz smirked.
“Great. Probably a few more around but the ‘mancer’s still about. Sure of that,” Thandroot said.
“Then let’s get out of the open and find the entrance,” Karian suggested.
“We need to bind up here first,” I said.
“Right. Almost forgot,” Karian said.
The binding stone hung inside a glass box shaped like an enorm
ous lantern with mystic gold symbols worked into the sides. A long chain worked in reds and greens attached to a stone half arch that rose at least twenty feet into the air and shone brightly now that the fog had dissipated. One side bore an opening, and from within, blue light leaked forth.
I stuck my hand inside and touched the stone. A moment of calm passed through my body as my soul was bound to the location. Then my eyes closed as I was called deeper into the stone. A wave passed over me, and for a split second my entire body was numb. I opened my eyes and found darkness. Then a face hovered into view before disappearing again. I tried to look left and right, but my head was immobilized.
“He’s slipping into real time,” someone said.
“Put him back in, you idiot,” another voice.
“It’s not us. He’s reconnected somehow.”
“Stop fucking around and put him back in!”
I blinked, and a room came into view. Machines beeped and whirred. There was something attached to my temples and the back of my head. My neck hurt like someone had stuck in a needle and dug around for a few minutes. I blinked and noticed my body was encased in a thick rubbery membrane.
I stumbled back as my vision returned, and landed on my butt.
“Are you okay?” Karian asked.
“What in the ever living…”
“Is that thing poisoned or something?” Oz had been waiting his turn and didn’t waste any time.
He stuck his hand inside. I waited for him to freak out but he withdrew from the device and took a step back.
“Were you there?” I asked him.
“There? Did you hit your head or something? I’m here just like you,” Oz said.
Karian looked at me quizzically.
“I was back in our world for a second, and there were people in a room. But I’m not sure what they were talking about. Something about me being back in real time,” I said.
“Say what the fuck?” Oz stuck his hand back inside of the lantern.
Oz touched the stone and then ran his hand over it. The opening was tiny, but he jammed his other hand in and yanked at the binding stone.
“Tell me exactly what they said,” Karian said.
“I wish I could, but it was like a distant memory now. I can still picture the white room, but the voices are gone, like they had been erased from my memory. There was something so familiar about them.” I stared into space.
“Let me go home, you piece of shit!” Oz grabbed the glass enclosure and yanked, but it wouldn’t budge.
“You are very strange people,” Thandroot said. “Hearing voices at a binding stone, talking about other worlds, it’s enough to make a dwarf question his choice of companions.”
“It’s hard to explain,” I said to Thandroot.
“I don’t think it’s that hard to explain. We’re stuck in a world where we don’t belong,” Oz said in frustration and then slapped the side of the binding stone holder again.
“Don’t do that, lad. Bad for the hands to fight the Five,” Thandroot warned.
“The Five can smooch my butt cheeks,” Oz growled.
Something howled off in the distance and reminded me of the gray wraith. I stood up like a shot, got a head rush, shook it off, and then realized the tall skeleton had knocked my staff out of my hands during our melee.
“That is where we are heading,” Thandroot said and pointed at a structure that now rose out of the departing fog. “I guess we should get to it then.”
Thandroot strode toward the sound of the scream.
“I wonder what fresh hell we’re going to find?” Oz said.
“We know there must be fallen cultists. At least one of them is the necro going about raising the dead in these parts,” Thandroot theorized.
“So, you think we’re going to face more of them?” I said.
“Probably but if we keep our heads about us, work as a team, and stop bloody arguing, I suspect we’ll come out okay,” Thandroot said.
“Nice pep talk,” I said.
Oz snorted and stared at the binding stone like he was going to beat the hell out of it until it revealed its secrets. Karian nudged me, and I nodded at her.
“I need my staff,” I said and went to find it before we set off for the temple.
23
INTO THE CATACOMBS
Sterile white rooms usually meant one thing.
When I was a kid, I had fallen off some playground equipment and struck my head pretty hard. Mom rushed me to the hospital, but I was barely conscious. Worrying about severe damage, I had been given something for pain while they worked on me. What I didn’t know was that a metal pole, long broken off, and ignored by the community, had been left to rust. It was sharp and had penetrated my abdomen. So they operated on me, and that was what I remembered of the event: the white room. Eyes plastered to the ceiling as lights blinked, machines beeped and whirred, and me adrift on a cloud of some very potent painkillers.
It reminded me too much of being sucked back into our world for a brief time. But if we were in a hospital then something must be wrong with us. Me in particular. I wasn’t sure if the three of us were together in that room. It was honestly easier just to play it off and pretend like I didn’t remember what had happened. But there was enough up there to tell me that it wasn’t one bit normal.
My staff had to be around here somewhere. The mist had dissipated somewhat but still hung over the ground like dry ice at a rock concert. The entire area had a musty smell punctuated with hints of brackish water, mold, and the reek of the dead, now piles of bones.
Speaking of the newly dead undead, I looked up to check my stats.
545/800
Hot damn. A few more fights like that and I was due for a fresh ding.
After getting banged around in the fight earlier my health pool had dropped a little bit. Why in the hell didn’t it have numbers yet like my XP bar? I’d like to know how my life was measured as well as my mana pool. If I were back at home, I probably would have broken with my normal way of playing and started compiling notes on a spreadsheet. That or surfed over to a forum and read up and inhaled all of the stats I could find.
I brushed my robe’s sleeve near the floor to reveal what we were standing on. Dirt and water covered what had once been a striking motif. Swirls of reds and greens, much like my spells, made up the tiles, at least the few I could make out. The remains of the skeletons lay in piles of bones and rotting flesh. I pushed at one with my boot, and a femur practically disintegrated.
I dropped to a squat because one of the corpses had a bag at its side. I ripped it loose and then felt along his waist until I located a sheath. The dead guy had carried a sword, and when I found the sheath, I also pulled it free.
“Oz,” I held up the scabbard. “Check this out.”
“Huh,” Oz said.
He hadn’t given up his attempts at getting the binding stone to respond.
I put the sheath on the ground in case he wanted to check it out.
I brushed aside more of the mist until I located my staff. It was wet with slime, so I used my robe’s hemline to wipe it dry. The other skeleton didn’t give up much.
I stood up and inspected the find. Her bag was lighter and revealed a number of coins that didn’t look anything like the silvers we had used in Candleburn and Weslori. Older, tinged with green, and hard to make out. The writing along the edges looked like runes, and the faces on the front and back were nearly unrecognizable.
“Got some old money,” I said.
Thandroot stuck out his hand. “Allow me to take a look.”
I shrugged, handed them over, and then opened the second bag.
“Ah. Coins from the old empire of Nasha before it split into two. I reckon these are a few hundred years old. Probably worth a good bit of gold if we get them into the right hands. The mages may be interested, or they may not. Finicky bunch. But a researcher would pay well.”
Thandroot offered them to me, so I put them in my bag.
“Ni
ce,” I said and poured the bag into my hand. A pair of green gems sparked, and a small figurine barely larger than my thumb spilled out.
“Couple of gems will also fetch a pretty bit of coin. Those we can sell quickly,” Thandroot grinned. “Already this adventure has paid for itself.”
“What do you think this is?” I asked.
The figurine was dark and featured an elk leaping into the air, back feet still planted on a rounded portion of grassy ground. I was impressed with the level of workmanship. The longer I stared, though, the more it felt like it was calling to me. I let a tiny sip of mana leak from my pool, and it was quickly consumed by the elk. I had to slam the gate shut, though, when it started to lap up more and more of my reserves.
“You okay, Walt?” Karian asked me.
“Yeah,” I tore my eyes away. “I thought this might be a magical artifact, but it’s probably nothing.”
I slipped the figurine into my bag for later study.
“Look at this blade,” Oz gasped as he joined us to loot up.
He held it aloft having finally yanked it from the confines of the rotted sheath. It was a proper long sword and thin as a couple of pieces of paper stacked together. It gleamed, even in the murk, and appeared to be razor sharp. Oz turned the blade downward and studied the writing.
“Is it a good one?” I asked.
“Yeah. Level 7, just in time, and it does 22 damage,” Oz said as he read the stamp. “Durability is off the hook. It says 75.”
“That’s impressive,” Karian said. “My dual daggers are only 50 durability.”
“Thanks, man.” Oz nodded at me but didn’t meet my eyes.
“Yup,” I said but didn’t mention that we were supposed to split our profits four ways. Oz was being a pain in the ass; I didn’t want to set him off again.
“Maybe I can hack that binding stone apart and figure out how to get us back home,” Oz said as he looked toward the glowing lantern.
“Probably just break the blade and then you’ll have to fight with that POS again,” I said and nodded at his sheathed starter sword.
Oz grunted. He pulled his short sword out of his belt and stared at it for a few seconds. “You haven’t exactly been a good weapon. So see ya.”
SHARDS OF REALITY: A LitRPG novel (Enter the Realm Book 1) Page 24
