The Skull Throne: A LitRPG novel (Kingdom of Heaven Book 1)

by J. A. Cipriano

  Get at me, Dickweed.

  A pang of panic rolled through me, not so much about the quest or the guild meeting that would undoubtedly follow my no-show. Even though a guild like the Avenging Angels didn’t come along every day and I’d probably never find myself in one as good if Ember went through with his threat to replace me, I had bigger concerns. If I had been gone a couple of days for Ice (who was my best friend Barry) it meant I had been gone that long for Amanda and John too. They must have thought I abandoned them. They must have thought I’d run away.

  My attention moved to the light beside Ice’s name in the message. It was off. Damn. He wasn’t online.

  Still, if I knew my friend, he would be before too long. Twisting the same knob in my brain that checked the notification, I pulled up my messaging tab and mentally jotted down a plea for my friend.

  Ice…

  You’re not going to believe me, bro. I’m here. I’m in the freaking game! Call Amanda. Tell her I’m okay. Tell her I’m trying to get back to her and get your ass online ASAP! I need you and the others to help me out, dude.

  This is like, beyond a Level Ten emergency!

  On top of that, there was a new quest notification as well. Another mental flick and I brought up my quest tracker. There, shining at the top of it, in a fancy gold script I'd never seen in the interface was something new.

  Primary Quest: Hero of the Principalities

  Objective: Learn about the threat to the realms from Orgina and Hecate!

  Reward: Unknown

  Well, it looked like the very game itself (or reality, or whatever you wanted to call it) was corroborating Hecate's story. That was a bitch. With that behind me, I mentally scrolled over to my stats bar, checking to see just how bad off I was.

  Iron Jack, Level 50

  Knight Attunement 52, Celestial Attunement 20

  Energy 30,450/87,000 (35%)

  Endurance 0/100 (0%), Sanctity 1/100 (1%)

  The low Energy (health in other games) was typical for a fresh resurrection, but that kind of damage was easy to mend with a few healing potions. Likewise, flat line Endurance was normal, the resource used by Knight Abilities, as it was gained from dealing or taking damage in combat (my kind of thing, for sure). The loss of Sanctity was distressing, though. I didn’t remember using so much before. Well, it could be worse … I didn’t like most of the magic-y stuff in-game so I mostly used my Knight Skills.

  Still, it’d make my sword a bit less effective. Heck, it’d been the only reason I had bothered with putting points into Celestial. The Sword of Judgment gained a lot of extra damage based on Sanctity. I spun the sword experimentally in one hand as I checked out its current status.

  Sword of Judgment

  One-Handed Sword

  Requires Celestial Attunement 20, Strength 380 to equip

  3,000 – 5,000 Physical Damage, 2.0 attacks per second

  Passive: 100-200 Spiritual Damage added per swing. This scales exponentially with current Sanctity to a maximum of 10,000 – 20,000 Spiritual Damage at 100 Sanctity

  “A holy blade that can cut through the living, the dead, the in-between, and most spiritual entities. In the hands of the pure-hearted, it is said to be able to bisect a demon in one swing.”

  With so much power of my sword based on my lost Sanctity, I’d be better off relying on just about anything else in my limited arsenal. “Yeah, yeah …” I muttered. I’d figure it out later.

  That wasn't the only thing that had changed though. I felt tall now too, much taller than I'd ever had before. It took Orgina all of thirty seconds to shove me into the tall and super attractive body of my in-game creation. Now that she had, the half-naked angel woman seemed less than thrilled with her handiwork.

  Her violet eyes stared at me with what I could only describe as the sort of disapproving disgust I had – up to this point – only seen from my Irish Catholic mother the day I told her I wanted to skip my confirmation so I could play in a Dungeons and Dragons tournament in the next town over.

  She seemed so much different here, pacing back and forth in front of me in real time, the Mace of Justice hanging from her side and a torrent of in-world curse words I didn’t understand streaming from her lips.

  How could I tell they were curse words if I couldn’t understand them, you ask? Because I had been married for a couple of months now and since I was the biggest screw up in the entire world (well, two worlds now), I knew what a woman cursing at me looked and sounded like.

  “I feel, like, super muscular right now. Like a lumberjack or something,” I said, leaning over and whispering into Hecate’s ear. “Am I that muscular?”

  “What’s a lumberjack?” she asked, taking my armor-clad body in as she looked me over.

  “Quiet!” Orgina yelled, pulling to a stop in the center of the great valley and turning to us, her teeth grinding together in frustration. Her hand jutted out toward me, her palm flattening out as she pointed to me. “This!” Her violet eyes turned, her glare like razor blades, to Hecate. “You bring me this!”

  “He’s Iron Jack, Ori,” Hecate responded, walking toward the angel with enough hesitance to remind me that she had the power to squash her into a bug.

  “He is no Iron Jack.” She shook her head, sending a spike right through my metaphorical manhood, and moving her hand from me to Hecate and suggesting she stop in her tracks.

  She did.

  “He may look like Iron Jack. He may even be the same person whose accomplishments earned the notice of the Principalities, but I have seen what lies beneath this veneer. I have looked into his soul and discovered the fear residing inside.” She shook her head again. “He is not Iron Jack. There is no Iron Jack.”

  I bristled, suffering from the biggest case of avatar envy anyone ever had. It was humiliating. This woman, a woman who graced my freaking lock screen for Christ’s sake, had looked at me- the real me – and found me all too lacking.

  A rush of all too familiar self-consciousness swelled up inside of me. This was like high school all over again, with the coolest girl in school barely having to look at me before labeling me a dork who wasn’t worth her time.

  Suddenly, and a bit surprisingly, I felt a different sort of sensation bubble up inside of me. I wasn’t sure whether it was instinctual or just contrary, but listening to Ori (as Hecate called her) not only doubt me, but go a step past it and straight up condemn me to failure, made me want to not fail. It made me want to not fail so hard.

  ‘Of course, there’s no Iron Jack,” I said in a tone that came out a little louder and a little less polite than I’d intended. “This was a video game, for God’s sake. What did you think was going to happen? You think you were going to pull me into this place and find out I was every bit the hero in my world that I am in this one?”

  “Ideally,” Ori hissed, narrowing her eyes at me.

  “Well, that’s stupid,” I said, riding the wave my anger had thrust me on. “If I was this guy in real life, I’d be a marine or something. I’d be saving people for real and not just–”

  “Just what?” Ori asked. Her wings flapped hard as she walked toward me and I couldn’t help but notice the mace bounce against her bare leg as she moved. “You speak quickly and without reverence or thought. This may be a game to you, and the lives you save within it may mean little more than a blip on a screen, but to us, there is no world more real than this one.”

  I sighed loudly, letting her words take all the wind from my angry sails. She was right, of course. This wasn’t a game for her, but to be fair, I didn’t know that until a few hours ago.

  “Look,” I said, running an armored hand through the kind of luxurious brown locks I could absolutely never grow in my original body. “I get that you guys are going through some pretty rough waters or whatever, and I suppose I even understand if I’m not exactly what you thought you were going to get, but there’s nothing I can do about that. I am who I am, and I’m pretty tired of being forced to apologize for it. So, maybe we’d a
ll be better off if I just went back home and you found yourselves a new champion or something.” I nodded firmly. “Though, I will say I was making short work of those wraiths before you got here.”

  Ori scoffed at me. “What you were making was a fool of yourself. Those creatures are jokes, the sort of peons no true warrior should ever concern themselves with, let alone break a sweat while failing to evade them.” Her eyes moved over to Hecate as she spoke again. “And if restoring you to your world and finding an adequate replacement was that easy, the selection process wouldn’t have been nearly as exhaustive as it was. The Principalities scoured your entire realm looking for the fiercest warrior imaginable.”

  “And you found me?” I asked, my brows furrowing. It wasn’t that I was getting down on myself. I was a kickass Kingdom of Heaven player. I mean, hell, you don’t get invited the join the Avenging Angels for nothing. Still, if an actual world was actually hanging in the balance, I wasn’t sure I’d be the actual guy you actually wanted to actually do the job.

  Actually.

  “Why didn’t you get like an FBI agent or something? Maybe a Black Ops dude?” My eyes widened. “Oh! Chuck Norris! Go get Chuck Norris. That dude will solve your problem, give you heartfelt life advice, and look damned good in a cowboy hat while doing it.” I nodded my head. “That’s your guy.”

  Her wings flapped angrily again as her violet eyes bore into me. I had played the game enough to know Orgina was a tough customer. As Guardian of the Veil, she worked for the Principalities and made sure that things that weren’t supposed to get into or leave the kingdom stayed put. She did it well, and she did it with an attitude that would have rusted metal if you pointed it in the right direction.

  That, and the iron bikini, was a big part of the reason why she was so popular with gamer guys all over the world. That stare and that snark, coupled with the fact she could, without question, kick your ass six ways from Sunday, made her one of the sexiest women in the world.

  Even now, with her anger so free and without reservation as it drilled down on me, I had to admit, the woman was hot. There was something else in there though, something I’d never seen when fawning over her from the other side of my computer screen. She looked scared.

  “Have you not been listening, Just Jack?” Ori shrieked at me.

  “See, I’d really rather if you didn’t call me--”

  “The energy needed to pull a person’s soul from your realm and into this one is nothing to disregard. It took all the Principalities had and more. It was a one-time thing. I could easier recreate a flood than what happened to you, and Hecate knew that, which is why her decision to champion you to the Principalities was so foolhardy.” She turned back to the green ogre. “You have truly damned us all. You never think with your brain.” She pointed to the green woman’s heaving bosom.

  “Her brains are in her tits?” I muttered.

  “That’s enough of that!” Hecate yelled. I guess I wasn’t the only one who was starting to get angry with the angel woman.

  “Choose your next words wisely, Ogre,” she answered, her hand hovering over the mace and her wings spreading out. At their full girth, the wings were massive at her back and made her look more menacing than a million wraiths ever could. No wonder she made such easy work of them.

  “I choose everything wisely, Ori,” she huffed. “And stop it with the ‘ogre’ stuff. You know me. You’ve known me since both of us were pissing in diapers.”

  Did angels wear diapers?

  Evidently so.

  “You don’t get to pretend we’re not friends just because you think I made a mistake.” Hecate stomped toward her. “Which reminds me, you don’t know it was a mistake yet.” She looked over at me, her mouth tightening into a line. “Sure, this guy might not be everything I was hoping for. He’s not exactly a menacing type when you get him outside of this body, but he is in this body now, Ori, and he’s still the guy we looked at.” Hecate turned to me, his hands tightening into fists. “You asked why we didn’t pick a warrior from your world, why we didn’t choose Chuckie Norwood.”

  “Norris,” I muttered in response, feeling very learned in this particular area. “You know what, it doesn’t matter.”

  “It is because we are not in your world, and those warriors would be as lost in your place right now as you would be in theirs. You know this world. You know the rules. You know the layout and those who would wish to end your mission before it even starts.” Hecate turned back to Ori. “He hasn’t failed yet, and what’s more, he might not. You say I spearheaded the campaign to get him here, and that’s true, but I’m not the only one who thought it was a good idea. I seem to remember you having a few good words to say about his skills.” Hecate smirked. “That is, when you weren’t talking about how pleasant his appearance was.”

  “What’s that now?” I asked my heart speeding up just a little. Sure, I wasn’t actually this person, and Ori had already made it crystal clear what she thought of the real me. Still, there was something exciting about hearing that she thought the body I’d created was hot.

  “And no one can force the Principalities to do anything they don’t wish to,” Hecate continued, completely ignoring me. “They agreed with me, Ori. They thought Iron Jack was the man for the job.” She pointed at me. “That he is the man for the job.” Okay. Well, that was good at least.

  “That was before!” Ori shouted, her wings flapping so fiercely that she lifted from the ground.

  Hecate stepped forward, her muscles tightening and his face furrowing with worry. “Before what, Ori? What’s happened?”

  Her violet eyes moved from Hecate, to me, and back again. “What we always feared, Hecate,” she said, her voice low and shaky. “What we hoped never would.” She swallowed hard. “They found them.”

  “Oh…oh no…” Hecate said, and her tone showcased more horror than I had heard from her since we got here.

  “What is it?” I asked, curiosity and fear blooming in me like a rose.

  “We need to move,” Hecate said, grabbing my shoulders and pulling me close. “We need to get out of here immediately because this situation just got a thousand times direr.”

  8

  “How is that even possible?” I asked, looking from Ori to Hecate and back again.

  Without a response, the armored angel smartly moved us from the valley into the surrounding forest. While I’d already dealt with the Jackal and didn’t think he’d show up again so soon, being out of sight of potential enemies was important, especially given my pitiful current state.

  Until I could regain some Sanctity through time or (more quickly) through deeds the game considered “good,” my best weapon was far too weak to rely on. Being without the Sword of Judgment left me with a couple of Soul Daggers; weapons I only bothered to carry on the rare instance I needed to throw them at something for a pull. They weren’t horrid, but they weren’t compatible with most of my Knight Abilities, all of which relied on heavier melee weapons.

  I shook my head. The truth of the matter was, I hadn't really crafted myself as a solo player. I was a part of a larger guild, a cog in a kickass machine that was finally starting to get the recognition we deserved on the message boards. That wouldn't help me now though. In fact, it would hurt me. If some high on their horse player saw me walking around without Ember and the others beside me, they might want to garner bragging rights by taking me on. I sighed because that might very well lead to me being on the receiving end of a pretty thorough PVP ass kicking. Unless we got attacked by a bunch of noobs on a forest quest, we were completely screwed.

  Of course, there were other things to deal with, including the absolute nuclear bomb Ori dropped on Hecate and me.

  My mind was still spinning as I asked another question.

  “The Principalities are always hidden. It took me three goddamned months to find them the first time, and when I went back two hours later, the stupid angels were gone. I never saw them again, and I promise, I looked.” Shaking my head, I
added. “I spend a lot of time in this game, a lot. If I couldn’t find them, how could somebody else?”

  “Maybe I’m right, and you’re not the best player on your planet after all,” Ori said, her voice dripping with sorrow. “And maybe we’ve spent our last best hope at saving the entire realm on a boy dressed in knight’s clothing.”

  A wave of anger filled me. Who the hell did this chick think she was anyway? Sure, she was as hot as hell, had an unattainable character Level of 60 with a full 100 Celestial Attunement, and was basically the NPC breakout star of the game. Also, she was a half-naked angel chick with huge tits. Who was I to argue with that?

  I had to though. I wasn’t some pissy little kid. I might not have accomplished a lot in the real world, but when it came to KOH, there were maybe a handful of people on the whole of Earth who could hold a candle to good old Iron Jack.

  “Or maybe you were screwed before you started any of this,” I said, widening my eyes and letting my notifications bar unfold in my line of sight. It had been nearly an hour my time (and who knew how back on Earth). Still, none of my friends had popped up online. It seemed strange. I had known these guys for months now, and Barry a lot longer. The idea of them going an entire afternoon without logging on was almost out of the question. So what the hell was going on here?

  I took a deep breath and continued. “You pull me out my life and bring me here without so much as asking if it’s okay, and now you want to complain that I’m not as tall as you thought I’d be?”

  “Is that what you think this is about?” Ori asked, moving toward me with a ferocity in her eyes that would have been enough all on its own to stop me in my tracks. The fact that her wings stretched out to full mast when she spoke was just an added (and terrifying) bonus. “I assure you, Iron Jack.” She put a lot of English on my name, just so the sarcasm wasn’t lost on me. “Your height, weight, or other bodily dimensions when outside of your current state is of little to no concern to me.” She looked me up and down. “It’s your other shortcomings that have me worried.”