Dream Stream Reality: Publisher's Pack Books 1-2: (A LitRPG Adventure)

by Derrick Burke

  Secondly, Ezekial stops his uncontrollable rage and slowly reverts back into his normal Tengu form while kneeling over the downed boss.

  Congratulations! You are now level 19.

  You now have 12 unused Attribute Points to distribute.

  I notice that my experience bar is also just over halfway again towards the next level. Just how much experience did we get for the boss?

  His chest heaving from the exertion, Ezekial looks up at us on the platform before looking at the oncoming troop of guards and their own growling. He must have activated Vanish straight away, as he disappears into thin air just before the guards reach Lord Varim. They start milling around their old boss and staring up at me with murder in their eyes.

  Good thing I’m up here, right?

  On a side note, Ezekial’s Vanish is very interesting. I’m in his party and I can’t even see his outline. That’s certainly a new development. Five seconds afterwards, however, I see his stealthed form creeping over to the shadows under the table again. He reappears on the wooden beams next to me, and I’m not surprised this time. As soon as he leaves the ground, however, the guards turn around and begin making their way back to the entrance.

  Thinking quickly for a moment, I turn to Ezekial. “Ezekial, what just happened?”

  He sighs and slumps his shoulders. “I’ve been bitten by a true tainted three times and it turned me, or so the interface has informed me. Now I have the Tainted skill, which basically turns me into a raging beast. It’s on cool down now.”

  I stare at him wide eyed for a moment before getting my wits back. “Alright, nothing we can do about it now. Stealth down to the ground for a moment. I want to test a theory.”

  “Okay.” Shrugging his shoulders, Ezekial Shadow Steps back down to ground level. Interestingly enough, the guards abruptly turn around and make their way back to the boss to stare up at me again.

  Ha! Game exploit tally? I don’t actually know. Ezekial, being the smart cookie that he is, stays down there and starts looking around for a good vantage point to shoot from.

  Smiling back at them, I begin sending arrow after arrow into their ranks, along with slinging as many Fire Balls as I can conjure. Ezekial hides behind one of the support pillars, sending stealthy arrows into the ones I am single targeting so he doesn’t pull too much threat or aggro.

  Ifalna uses her magic to attack them as well, though she does it sparingly so as to keep most of her mana full in case things go south and she needs to heal. Dosan doesn’t leave all the work to us though, as he Reanimates four new guards from the ones we killed earlier and sets them to work on killing.

  The most ironic part of this, however, is that with our combined effort we kill one or two of them before they can take out one of Dosan’s minions. This being the case, Dosan keeps casting Reanimate so that there are always four minions down below. We slowly grind our way through all of the enemies.

  Congratulations! You are now level 21.

  Server First! Level 20.

  Effect: Gain an extra 10 Attribute Points.

  You now have 30 unused Attribute Points to distribute.

  It takes us a little while, though we ended up levelling twice before we killed all the mobs in the room, which is awesome, considering it resets our mana pools and we were able to keep smacking them silly with abandon.

  “Are you princesses finished with the boss yet, or am I going to have to start pounding all these rascals myself?” Kazzrak yells from the stairs. “The wall is gone, and I can only keep up Enlarge for twenty-five more seconds!”

  Sybaal: Alright, let’s finish this. Ezekial, come on up and give us a hand, eh?

  Ezekial: Already on the move.

  Ezekial Shadow Steps right beside me again, and we all move into the stairwell together to find Kazzrak literally doubled in size and cleaving his axe through the guards trying to get to him. The shield wall is reduced to shattered metal and wood fragments along the edges of the stairs.

  It’s a good thing they can only attack us with at most two at a time; otherwise we would be completely overwhelmed.

  Kazzrak stays up in front when his cool down finishes, staying mostly behind his shield and occasionally snaking his axe out when he sees an opening.

  Every now and then due to the confined quarters, he takes a hit on the Holy Barrier that Ifalna keeps on him. But with that ten-second gap between the Barriers, Kazzrak’s health goes down in little chunks at a time. Ifalna immediately brings him back to full each time, but I can still hear the grunt of pain each time he is struck. This whole pain thing is going to really take some getting used to.

  Woody and I are right behind him, taking any opportunity to slip past Kazzrak with a wooden fist or an enchanted sword. I activate my cool downs every time they come up except for my racial, saving that for if something goes wrong. Frost Spear is my friend here, due to the fact that I’d probably hit Kazzrak if I send a Fire Ball, and that the chance to proc a slow will mean they attack slower.

  Ezekial does what he usually does and shoots them over our heads from up the stairs. Dosan doesn’t worry about Reanimating them because we are in such a confined space and wouldn’t have enough room for that many melee fighters anyway. Instead he keeps up a steady stream of Shadow Bolts into them.

  Interestingly, the mobs have to climb over the ones we kill, and there eventually isn’t enough room for them to get through. At this point they start dragging their own dead away from us down the stairs so they can get to us. This certainly makes it easier, as now there isn’t as much pressure and pushing as there was beforehand.

  I guess the best part of this is that we don’t have to go hunting all the nooks and crannies for all the guards; they instead come to us. It is monotonous work, but we are eventually able to take them all down without a hitch.

  Congratulations! You are now level 24.

  You now have 42 unused Attribute Points to distribute.

  Just with the sheer numbers of mobs, we were able to level up another three levels. I have to dismiss the messages as soon as they come up, just so that I can keep concentrating.

  “Phew!” Kazzrak slumps down on the stairs. “That took a bit out of me.”

  Ifalna comes down and sits next to him. “That’s okay, I put you back together each time.”

  “Getting hit so much was a pain in the ass though. We need to find out if we can get another Barrier-type spell for you so that there isn’t such a great gap between them.” Kazzrak sighs.

  “Indeed,” Ifalna says, nodding her head.

  “Well, we’d better get started on the looting; otherwise it will take nearly as long just to get out of the stairs without jumping off the platform!” jokes Ezekial.

  “Just leave three of the level 40 guards with their items, as I want to Reanimate them along with Lord Varim,” Dosan cautioned. “I also want to wait till we complete both quests before I do so. That way they will be as high a level as they can be because they will reduce to the level that I am at the time of the cast.”

  “That’s fair enough,” I agree. “Let’s loot what we can and just pile the weapons and armour in the hall below into individual types.”

  We get to work clearing out all the loot from the defeated guards. I can tell you now, I don’t envy the people who would have had to do that in real life back in the medieval days. As it is, all we have to do is touch them to remove all their items.

  We have to make piles of weapons and armour on the stairs just so we can get to the bottom of them.

  While the guards were waiting in line for their turn to enter the grinder, they hadn’t been idle. Most of their comrades had been moved down to the hallway below to give them room to manoeuvre. Smart of them.

  Not every guard has a lot of loot. Some of them have nothing but a few silver coins, while others have four or five pieces of gear.

  After what feels like an hour but is closer to fifteen minutes, we have finished looting and have several distinct piles of loot. The armour pile has gott
en so large that we have to separate each individual type of armour into their own piles. The weapons aren’t all swords. Hammers, maces, axes, spears, daggers and a few bows also found their own piles.

  The bows are Exceptional Hunting Bows, which are better than the ones we were using by a substantial amount, so we swap them out. Similarly, all of our gear was Simple, and all of the gear from the level 40 guards is Exceptional, so we swap out everything else too. There is also Normal and Fine gear from the guards below level 40, which makes up the majority of the piles, but they aren’t as good as Exceptional.

  The Exceptional regular-sized weapons have a damage range of 35 to 45, which is a big increase. The small weapons have a damage range of 20 to 25. We also came across the odd two-handed axe, hammer and longsword with a damage range of 40 to 50; however we are fine with using what we have, so we leave them where they are. The arrows are +4 damage, which is awesome. There are eight quivers full of them, with each of the new quivers having six slots.

  The armour is also much better, and although some of the new items we are using are missing a couple of points of Durability, they still give us a new armour rating of 62. Compared to the previous 19, it is an amazing upgrade.

  Kazzrak upgraded his medium shield to a large one of Exceptional quality, increasing his armour rating by +24. Ifalna kept with the smaller shield, and the new armour rating was increased by +12.

  There is just too much money to put into our pockets, and since we don’t have proper bags, all we can do is make a pile of it. There ends up being 1456 silver and 45 gold coins just sitting on the rock floor in neat stacks. We divide up the gold and keep it on us, as we don’t want to just leave that lying around.

  Aside from that, there are only a few uncut jewels and some gold jewellery that don’t have any stat increases. It’s all left in a pile.

  Now that we are finished with the sorting of the loot, we start making our way back to the hall where we defeated Lord Varim.

  “I really wish we knew where to find some proper dimensional bags.” Dosan sighs as he looks back at the loot with longing. “It feels wrong to have all this loot just lying around for anyone to snap up.”

  There are some heartfelt sighs from the rest of us as we move down the hall.

  A grumbling voice sounds from behind us. “You can buy dimensional bags of various slot amounts from many vendors in different towns and cities. Also, you can buy them from our stocks at the Glade Village. We have a few low-level items for purchase there, as we don’t have the ability to make better items yet.”

  We all freeze. I turn around and stare at Woody with a dumbfounded expression, which admittedly we are all doing.

  “Are you shitting me?!” cries Dosan, throwing his hands up in the air. “We could have been wearing proper clothes and looting this stuff from the beginning?”

  “You are the one who defiled one of my nymphs,” grumbles Woody in response. “All you had to do was ask and I would have brought you there after you Bonded me.”

  I slowly close my mouth. All this time, we could have just gone to what sounds like a starter village and gotten ourselves properly outfitted, instead of running around the forest naked. All we have to do is ask? Just ask?

  It’s the simple things in life that we miss for whatever reason.

  “Well then, how do we get there, Woody?” asks Ifalna, smiling sweetly.

  “Simple, really. It is only a couple of hundred yards from the clearing where we met,” Woody replies.

  “Right. New plan. We loot Lord Varim and the guards in the main hall. Then hand in our two quests. Then head to this village to get ourselves some gear, even if it is only bags,” I tell everyone.

  “Sounds good to me,” agrees Kazzrak.

  “And then let’s log out and take a break or something. This has been pretty mentally draining,” Ezekial says.

  “Yeah, I could definitely go for a coffee,” states Dosan, rubbing his belly.

  “You know, I just remembered that we didn’t make our guild when we logged in,” comments Ifalna.

  “I think we were a little preoccupied at the time,” smirks Dosan.

  “We should probably do that,” says Kazzrak. “We might even get some achievements.”

  “Huh, I completely forgot about that,” I agree, opening up my menu and flicking over to the Guild tab. I select ‘Create Guild’.

  Would you like to create a guild with your current party members?

  Yes/No

  I press yes.

  Please input your guild name and select continue.

  Guild name: Venatores.

  Continue.

  I input Venatores and press continue.

  Congratulations! You have created the guild Venatores. All bonuses that are accumulated by any guild member will be given to all members whilst that member is in the guild. You will be able to access and complete guild quests. You are now the Guild Leader of Venatores.

  Kazzrak has joined the guild.

  Ifalna has joined the guild.

  Ezekial has joined the guild.

  Dosan has joined the guild.

  The others must have been sent a guild invite when I created it from the party. Cool.

  “Nice. I’m glad we remembered to do that,” says Ezekial.

  “We didn’t get a server first though, so someone else must have done it before us,” Ifalna says thoughtfully.

  We reach the hall at that point and make quick work of looting the guards before heading up to where Lord Varim lies. I go over to the downed boss to see what he has while the others look over the equipment that was set up along the back wall. I grin as I read the loot.

  Exceptional Wand of Lightning Death.

  60–65 Shadow/Lightning Damage.

  Requires 90 Intelligence.

  Durability: 85/100.

  Quality: Exceptional.

  Rarity: Epic.

  Weight: 1.1 kg.

  +30 Intelligence.

  +0.1% chance of immediate death on hit.

  Exceptional Ring of Wisdom.

  Requires 40 Intelligence.

  Durability: 35/40.

  Quality: Exceptional.

  Rarity: Rare.

  Weight: 0.1 kg.

  +30 Wisdom.

  Exceptional Ring of Health.

  Requires 40 Constitution.

  Durability: 35/40.

  Quality: Exceptional.

  Rarity: Rare.

  Weight: 0.1 kg.

  +30 Constitution.

  Exceptional Cloak of Swiftness.

  Requires 40 Dexterity.

  Durability: 65/100.

  Quality: Exceptional.

  Rarity: Rare.

  Weight: 1.8 kg.

  +30 Dexterity.

  Exceptional Belt of Intelligence.

  Requires 40 Intelligence.

  Durability: 35/40.

  Quality: Exceptional.

  Rarity: Rare.

  Weight: 1.5 kg.

  +30 Intelligence.

  +8 quick slots.

  Signet Ring of House M.

  Signet Ring of unknown origins.

  Quest Item.

  Binds on pickup.

  Quest: The Exiled Son.

  Rarity: Rare.

  Details: Return the Signet Ring to the Head of House Meldoto.

  Reward: Unknown.

  Accept quest?

  Yes/No

  My grin grows wider as I accept the new quest. A new direction is always welcome unless I’m swamped already, which I obviously am not.

  “Don’t forget to put other gear on the boss before you loot everything,” Dosan says in a rush, as he has obviously forgotten himself.

  He runs over to the piles of gear and selects some before bringing them back over. The items disappear from his hands after Dosan touches Lord Varim, and reappear in the loot window with the rest of the stuff. He exclaims in surprise, “Holy shit! This wand is Epic!”

  The others come over and check out the loot as well.

  “Woa
h, this gear is Rare and Epic while the stuff we have on is only Common,” muses Ifalna. “There also aren’t any level requirements on them, just stat requirements, which is interesting.”

  “I think everything is pretty well divided into what we can use. The cloak is obviously mine. The health ring is Kazzrak’s. How do you want to divide the others?” Ezekial asks me.

  There is a pleading look in Dosan’s eyes.

  “As much as I want to have the Epic wand, I wouldn’t put it to the best use with my build,” I say to everyone. “That leaves Ifalna or Dosan. It would be handy for Ifalna to be able to attack without using up any mana; however she wouldn’t be able to heal consistently and attack at the same time. Whereas Dosan has eighty percent of his mana frozen and the last twenty percent doesn’t last very long in a drawn-out fight. This pulls his DPS down quite a bit. Until we get another wand of similar or better quality, this would be best used by Dosan.”

  “Wahoo!” shouts Dosan, jumping up and down in his excitement.

  “That means that I get the Wisdom ring and you get the belt, Sybaal. The signet is a quest item, so you should also take it, Sybaal,” states Ifalna.

  I agree and we all loot our selected gear, equipping them immediately. I exchange the vials into the new belt as well. Ezekial looks pretty awesome in his dark grey cloak.

  A flash of green light followed by a loud boom from the stone wall makes me flinch and spin around.

  “What the hell, Dosan?!” I exclaim while looking at Dosan with his arm outstretched, holding his new wand. There is a shiny new crater in the stone wall near the entrance we came through.

  “What?” asks Dosan with a fake confused expression. “I needed to check to see if it used up any durability when fired. It would mean that I wouldn’t be able to use it as much as I would want. Thankfully, the durability didn’t drop any, so it must only happen when you die or if something damages the wand itself.”