Travail Online: Transcend: LitRPG Series (Book 3)

by Brian Simons

Tawn reached toward Daniel with a wand bathed in yellow light, but Sybil hurled a knife across the room. It was the ceremonial dagger Tawn had given her along with her initiation quest. It pierced his hand and forced him to drop his wand.

  The entire room trembled for an instant, splitting cracks up the walls and sending a large rock covered in burning moss crashing onto a drow archer and ending her life.

  The dark elf wizard ripped the dagger from his hand and tossed it aside. “Let them have this dying mountain!” Tawn yelled. “We must live to take the forest!” He sheathed his wands and raised his bare hands into the air. The room filled with a strong wind that extinguished the ceiling fire and pushed Daniel backward. The remaining minotaurs shielded their eyes and stepped away from the winds that swirled around Tawn while drow raced toward their leader.

  When the wind stopped abruptly, the drow were gone and the room was once again dark.

  >> The drow have abandoned The Ersatz! Drow starting race temporarily disabled.

  >> The drow are marching on Diardenna! Countdown to arrival: 6 hours. Drow players who wish to assist may join Sage Tawn’s army. Elf players who wish to defend may join Sivona’s.

  Midnight, Daniel thought. Sage Tawn will lead his army on the elf queen in the dead of night. Fitting.

  18

  Daniel wrapped himself in his cloak and the minotaurs calmed. Many dropped their weapons and slumped onto the floor, exhausted.

  The battle was over.

  “We did it,” Sybil said.

  “But at what cost?” Daniel asked, kneeling beside the minotaurs’ fallen monarch. “King Rumin?” he asked.

  “Thank you, both,” he said. “My people are free.” He pressed his hoof into the blood that pooled on the stone floor by his side. “Give me your hands.”

  Daniel removed his red gauntlet and held his hand out, curious what the minotaur intended. The king pressed his bloody hoof into the back of Sybil’s left hand first, then Daniel’s, leaving a dark red hoof print behind.

  >> Rumin’s Mark of Honor. Strength+5, Diplomacy +5 (permanent bonus). Proof of heroic feats.

  “And for you, Last Hope,” the king said. He held out a necklace with a small yellow jewel hanging from it. “This amulet reduces the MP cost of your songs by 12%.” Sybil equipped it immediately. Anything with that powerful of an effect would be a rare, and valuable, piece of equipment. As much as Sybil hastened to sell things, Daniel hoped she’d keep this one.

  “Hang in there, King,” Daniel said. “I’m sure Petra has something to heal you.”

  “My fate is sealed,” he said. “Isn’t that right Onik?” Daniel looked over his shoulder and saw Onik there, tears in his eyes.

  “Cousin,” Onik said, “you can pull through.”

  “Don’t lie to me,” Rumin said, stopping to cough. Flecks of blood speckled his lips. “Do you honestly believe I can fight my fate?”

  “No,” Onik said, bowing his head. “It is a fait accompli.”

  “When we met you,” Daniel said over his shoulder. “You said the battle would take place up here. You knew. How?”

  “There are only so many paths,” Onik said. “Some are simply more likely than others. And I rolled a 20 for Perception. That helped.”

  “You perceived the future?” Daniel asked. This was a complex game, but not that complex.

  “I perceived that your friend had an extra key,” he said. “After that, it was just a matter of setting her up to give it to me.”

  “By betting that you could get up here without our help,” Sybil said. “You knew that was impossible, and that I’d be happy to give you the key if it meant winning the bet.”

  “Well you do seem like someone who likes to win,” Onik said. “Besides, better to lose the bet and owe you a favor than to lose the war and die like a trapped animal.”

  “Where is Ulthor?” Daniel asked.

  “Here,” said a voice unseen. Petra rounded the corner into the archway, supporting Ulthor with his arm around her neck. “Don’t be alarmed, he’ll recover from his earlier battle with the drow. He wanted to fight alongside you, but his wounds were too fresh. I wouldn’t allow it. We couldn’t risk losing the king and the prince on the same day.” She set Ulthor down. He took a moment to get his balance, then ran to his father.

  “Ulthor,” Rumin said, his voice weak.

  The prince shook tears from his eyes. “No. No! This is my fault. If I were more patient I would have been in better health. I could have fought with you.”

  “Ulthor,” Rumin said, “you made a brave sacrifice today. Though injured, you fought to protect your people. I have no doubt you will serve as an honorable and devoted king.”

  “I don’t want to be king,” Ulthor said, “not yet. Not if it means losing you.”

  “Petra will guide you,” Rumin said. “Lead our people into the light, King Ulthor, as I was never able to do. First, would you sing for your father one last time?”

  Ulthor wiped tears from his eyes and nodded. He sang a slow song that Daniel didn’t understand. Its notes were long and full of sadness. Rumin seemed to relax at the sound of his son’s voice. He smiled weakly, then began to fade away. By the time Ulthor had finished, his father’s body had vanished.

  “Think there’s a chance he’ll respawn?” Daniel asked. He knew, deep down, that he’d never see Rumin again, but he wasn’t ready to believe it.

  “Doubtful,” Sybil said. “The more important a character is, the more likely their death becomes a fixed story element. A lesser character, like a shopkeeper, would respawn. A king wouldn’t.”

  The ground began to shake and a large slab of rock fell from the ceiling, revealing a sliver of sunlight. The minotaurs froze in place, mesmerized by the first glimpse of the outside world they’d had in centuries.

  The fallen rock punched a hole in the floor below and other rocks quickly cascaded into it, tearing apart the ground underfoot and threatening to plunge everyone back into the tunnels they had just escaped.

  “We need to get out of here,” Sybil said.

  “Yes,” Petra said, “but first you should see this.” She disappeared through the archway. Daniel and Sybil followed her to Tawn’s chamber as the mountain continued to shake.

  “I’m an Herbalist,” she said. “I collect plants and make potions and salves from them. It looks like Tawn had a bottle of Thanaker’s Mark here.”

  “Meaning?” Sybil asked.

  “One drop could turn a living thing undead in an instant. There’s also an empty jar of synapstick, which is used to heighten intelligence. What really worries me is that the empty jar is right next to the empty spot labeled Thanaker’s Mark. If someone wanted to turn a person into an instant zombie with a high IQ, my guess is that’s how they would do it.”

  “Who is he planning to use that on?” Daniel asked.

  “I have no idea,” Petra said. “Be careful.”

  “Let’s loot this place before we leave,” Sybil said. “Quick.” Her eyes grew wide as she grabbed a stack of wands from Tawn’s desk. “Most of these still have charges on them. They could be worth a lot.”

  “I’m not touching the potions,” Daniel said, recalling the last time he poached something from Tawn. It turned out to be a potent poison that started speaking to him. He did not need that nonsense again.

  “Do you know how to turn a wand off?” she asked. “This petrification wand is lit up like it’s in use. I don’t want to waste the charges though.”

  “No idea,” Daniel said.

  Sybil shoved the burning wand into her inventory and ran a hand along the bookshelf behind Tawn’s desk. “None of these are magic tomes,” she said. “Mostly it’s history, game lore, and other stuff we don’t have time for. Wait, what’s this?” She pulled on a bookend shaped like a gargoyle and Tawn’s bookshelf slid away, revealing a small hidden chamber. Daniel followed her inside.

  “Look at all of this stuff,” Daniel said, marveling at the shelves full of strange items.

  �
��Is this clay?” Sybil asked.

  Daniel inspected a pellet of the puttylike substance. “This is qualia. The same stuff Coral was crafting with after we went mining on Hiber Mountain. There’s so much of it here.”

  “What use is it to Tawn?” Sybil asked.

  The mountain shook, rattling a weapon rack at the back of the secret room. Most of the weapons had such low durability they looked like they would fall apart in Daniel’s hands. Sybil lifted a polearm from the rack that was in decent shape. A long curved blade like a scythe’s ran from the long wooden pole. Sybil gave it a practice slash.

  “It has good balance, and better stats than my spear. I’m taking it,” she said. The ground continued to shake, jostling a large purple rock loose from the ceiling. It crashed into the weapon rack, spilling rusted blades and bludgeons onto the floor at her feet.

  “Too close,” she said, climbing over the fallen rock and toward the chamber’s exit. “Time to get out of here.”

  They gathered the rest of the minotaurs and rockmanders in the meeting room and led them toward the exit. The minotaurs took some time to move their heavy bodies up the ladder hewn into the rock wall and squeeze out a hatch that led to the outside world. The rockmanders had an easier time of it, climbing up the rock face itself. The lizards closed their eyes against the afternoon sun, unaccustomed to such bright light.

  For a moment, they all stood there, letting a gentle breeze play against their tired faces. Then the earth shook and reminded them that time was of the essence.

  The hatch door sat in the middle of a large depression ringed with purple mountaintops. It seemed to be a lake or a basin in the distant past, but had long since dried up. Holes began to open in the flat expanse as the ground shook more violently.

  “All aboard!” Onik yelled, and reached out to pull Daniel and Sybil onto his rockmander. Minotaurs left and right mounted the large lizards in groups and took off, racing away from the basin as the ground crumbled behind them. Purple rocks tumbled into a black abyss as multiple basement levels of tunnel collapsed in on themselves.

  The reptilian steeds waddled forward with breakneck speed and scurried up the side of the basin, clearing the rim of the former lake and continuing toward the Dokkal Pass without looking back. That pass was the narrow opening in the mountain wall that led to The Ersatz, now restored to its proper name, the Aster Mountains.

  When the lizards had carried the group through the pass and into the rolling terrain of the Hollow Hills, they stopped.

  “Look up there,” Sybil said, pointing to the distant space above the drow’s former home. A cloud of black shapes darted back and forth in the air. Ruined souls born of the mountain’s decay.

  “We got out just in time,” Daniel said. “We couldn’t handle that many mobs, not after the fight we just had.”

  “Right,” Sybil said, “and it would be a shame to die now that we finally have something to sell.”

  >> Sybil_in_Shrouds has led the minotaurs to freedom!

  “Wait,” Daniel said. “Did Travail just send out a worldwide system message about how awesome you are?”

  “It looks that way, yeah,” she said.

  “But I helped!” Daniel pleaded.

  “I know,” she said, patting him on the cheek. “Thanks for helping me finish my quest. I guess we’re even now.”

  19

  “We can’t stay here all day,” Sybil said. “We have to get to the forest.”

  “It’s so far,” Daniel said. “Can we take an orc blimp?”

  “Only a fool would take one of those dirigibles into enemy territory,” Sybil said. “Any decent archer would take us down in a heartbeat, and the forest is full of them.”

  “We could teleport back to Hiber Camp and trek down the mountain,” Daniel said, “but that’s a long walk.”

  “We could,” Sybil said, “but only if we don’t go back empty-handed. Remember what the mayor said. If you don’t come home with an ally that can stand up to Sivona and save Ze, you won’t be General much longer. Either way, we should get a move on before it starts getting dark.”

  Daniel didn’t want to be insensitive, but Sybil was right. “Petra,” he asked. “How long is this ceremony?”

  Petra wiped tears away with her forearm. “That is up to the prince,” she said. “Rather, the new king, I suppose. We have no patron god, and no temple. There are no priests to conduct the ceremony for us, so the responsibility falls to the next of kin.”

  Ulthor, now king of the minotaurs, knelt on the ground with his eyes closed. His voice filled the open space between the Hollow Hills and the Dokkal Pass with a long, painful dirge. He sang well after his voice became hoarse. Finally, he stopped singing and stood. “May his soul be honored among those who wrote history,” he said.

  Daniel took that as confirmation that the old king would not respawn. “King Ulthor,” Daniel said, “your father led your people through the darkest period in your history. I have no doubt you will lead them into their brightest.”

  “Thank you for those kind words,” Ulthor said. “Rebuilding a civilization from the harsh terrain here will be quite a challenge. It is neither as lush nor as hospitable as our legends described it.”

  Now for the tough ask. “The dwarves face a dark moment in their history,” Daniel said. “The elves would see them obliterated the same way the dark elves tried to eradicate the minotaurs. With your support, we might help the dwarves survive.”

  “I am eternally grateful to you and Sybil_in_Shrouds for leading the charge against the drow. Without you, we would be buried under the rocks. Still, the battle cost us many lives. We are not prepared for another war so soon.”

  “Mayor Hammergeld sent me out to secure allies against the elves,” Daniel said. “Given how the dark elves treated you, I thought you might spare some warriors to help another mountain race.”

  “I don’t know this Mayor Hammergeld,” Ulthor said. “Of course I sympathize, but look around. This is all that is left of us. Can you honestly say that risking their lives is the decision a wise king would make?”

  There were less than thirty minotaurs left. Many were exhausted, injured, and carrying broken equipment. “No,” Daniel said. “It was my duty to ask, and yours to refuse. I understand that.”

  “Here is what I can offer,” Ulthor said. “Give me your songbook.”

  Sybil handed the king her minotaur songbook, and he flipped through the pages, most of which were blank. “Three new songs,” he said. “And here is a perfect teleport orb. It will not degrade from use. You are welcome in our kingdom any time.”

  “Thank you,” Sybil said.

  “I’m only sorry I can’t offer you more,” Ulthor replied.

  Daniel pulled Sybil aside. “Did we make the wrong move coming here?” he asked. “At least if we had saved Embra we might lure Hiber back into the fight against Sivona.”

  “Sounds like we lured someone else into the fight,” Sybil said. “Tawn wants her dead too. He’s leading an army of drow into the forest as we speak.”

  “But we want to get to her first, don’t we?” Daniel asked.

  “Tawn may have a bounty on my head,” Sybil said, “but he’ll still owe me a quest reward if I’m the one who kills her. I want my bouquet of dark lotuses!”

  Daniel nodded. “I’m going to need a break soon,” he said. “Should we log out and reconvene here in a bit?”

  Sybil frowned. “I need a break too, and I’m dying to tell Farah about the loot we just picked up, but I’d feel better if we made it to Diardenna first.”

  “It’s so far though,” Daniel said. “It could take forever to get there.”

  “Which is why I don’t want to lose any time,” Sybil said. “Tawn is on his way there now. We have to get there first.”

  Daniel checked the in-game clock. He was overdue for a meal. What they needed was a quick way to get to Diardenna so he could get some lunch.

  He turned to King Ulthor. “Your majesty, would you spare us a roc
kmander?”

  “Yes,” the king replied. “That I can do.” Petra led one of the giant rock lizards over to Daniel. He climbed onto its back.

  >> Congratulations! You have unlocked the Mount ability. Your handling will improve with each level.

  “Brilliant,” Sybil said, climbing up behind Daniel. “Tawn will head through the Hiber Woods. And we should steer clear of Havenstock, obviously.”

  “Then let’s head toward the mountains and hope we don’t run into the mayor. Or Kronnar.”

  Sybil and Daniel said goodbye to the minotaurs and set out on their new steed. The lizard galloped with abandon, jostling its passengers and taking giant leaps with painful landings. Daniel’s legs were sore from clutching the bucking rockmander.

  He called out to the creature to steer it, and it only partly listened. They weaved for some time through the Hollow Hills and the flat grasslands beyond. From there, Daniel begged the lizard to take the bridge west over the River Rove. He wasn’t sure how a rock lizard would fare in the water, but he didn’t want to find out. Luckily, the lizard slowed when it approached the bridge and walked across it with care. The rope supporting the footbridge held, and then the rockmander raced off again, tearing through the outskirts of the Hiber Woods as low branches and high bushes scraped at their arms and legs.

  “This thing climbed up the rock walls in the tunnels, right?” Sybil asked.

  “Yeah,” Daniel said. “Why, what were you thinking?”

  “I was just thinking we should try walking up that rock wall.” She pointed toward Hiber Mountain. Its sheer face was practically perpendicular to the ground below.

  “That would be terrifying,” Daniel said.

  “But quick,” Sybil added. “It would be a straight shot across the mountain’s side west to the forest, with no obstacles. Other than gravity.”