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

by Derrick Burke

  Sybaal: Righto.

  Heading over there, I can see that everyone is concentrating on their professions, especially the nymphs, who are busy smelting all the ore we picked up. Knax is helping them as well.

  As I walk up to them, Kazzrak is the first to look up. His jaw drops, and the hammer he is using slips out of his hand on the downward swing. It spins as it sails through the air to strike Dosan in the back of the head.

  Dosan drops like a stone, and I see that his health plummets. The others see this and start laughing before they look over at what Kazzrak is still gaping at, and the laughter dies in their throats.

  “Holy shit!” exclaims Ifalna, her smelting forgotten.

  Chuckling, I nod towards Kazzrak. “I'm never going to let you live down letting go of your hammer, Kazzrak. Some dwarf you are, eh?”

  That seems to snap him out of it, and he shakes his head a couple of times. When he opens his eyes and I am still standing there, he smacks himself on the head a couple of times.

  Around the same time, Dosan has gotten up and is now also staring at me unabashedly. “Nice! You got the good end of the lizard stick, I think. And cool familiar, dude! A twilight dragon?! Awesome!”

  “No kidding!” Ezekial pipes up.

  “Lord Sybaal! Is that still you?” Eloise asks hesitantly.

  “Yes, Eloise, it is still me. I'm still the same person, although with some external appearance changes,” I reply, still smiling. “Meet Grace. She is my new twilight dragon familiar.”

  Grace promptly leaps off my shoulder and starts flying around their heads gracefully.

  “Well, isn't she a beauty. You should meet Sorrel. He's around here somewhere,” Ifalna says, a wide smile on her face. She then looks around for a moment before looking at a little ball of light.

  The little ball of light zips towards me, and I can see that it is actually a little green glowing male pixie. He has long green hair that flicks around his face, and clothes made from tight-fitting leaves. Four transparent wings come out of his back, which he uses to zip around.

  “He is a healer, magic DPS caster and has a pretty nice paralysis and blind spell. So can crowd control, or CC, someone,” says Ifalna, finishing the introduction.

  “Well, isn't he pretty cute. Hello, Sorrel. What other familiars did you guys get?” I ask the others after I give Sorrel a smile. He smiles back, then zips off to chase Grace, and they begin a game of aerial tag, using everyone standing around as cover.

  Glad to see they are getting along.

  “Adelram is a shadow elemental,” Ezekial says as a wisp of man-shaped shadow detaches itself from Ezekial's own shadow and rises like smoke in front of him. “He is immune to physical damage and resistant to all magic that doesn't have a light component. He is weaker in the light, though, unless there is shade around. He has possession and can even cast stealth on party members within a certain range.”

  “No way?! Castable stealth? That's new,” I exclaim in surprise. Depending on what the drawbacks of that skill are, we are definitely going to be able to capitalise on that.

  Dosan holds out his hand and a palm-sized bloodfire elemental in the vague shape of a woman appears. “Jena here is actually a bloodfire elemental. She can heal all of my minions and myself, though she can't heal any of you. Except your familiars. It means that my necromancer minions will have a healer, as normal heals don't work on them. She's so awesome. She even has a crowd control ability.”

  Nodding, I can see why Dosan likes her so much. “To have a healer for your minions will be a big help and will mean they'll last longer, being able to dish out more DPS before you have to raise new ones. I like it.”

  By this time, Kazzrak has gotten over his stupor and bends over his furnace, straightening up and holding a small salamander in his palm. It has golden flames coming off its body, which looks to be made from glowing red and yellow scales.

  “This is Karma,” says Kazzrak gingerly. “Be nice to her; always be nice to Karma. She is made from liquid gold and is always burning, but can decide when her flames hurt others and the environment or not at all. She can petrify and spew fire, and it is how I've been keeping the forge so hot so that we have been melting the ore faster than we can cast it. She has a passive buff that increases all Blacksmithing and Smelting abilities by 10%.”

  “Ooh, that is going to come in real handy when we get into the higher levels and are creating great things,” I coo happily. A Blacksmithing buff is awesome.

  “Well, what can Grace do?” asks Ifalna, still watching the two flying menaces.

  “Well, she healed me after my transformation with her Twilight Healing Flame ability, and it gave me the spell too. It heals everyone friendly it touches and simultaneously damages anyone hostile caught in the blast for the same amount healed. Our abilities will probably get more powerful when they get stronger,” I elaborate, then frown. “Not sure what else she can do though, except fly around.”

  Dosan laughs. “Didn't you open your familiar tab in the menu? It has all the information available at level 1 there.”

  “Oh. Right,” I say, feeling dumb. Opening the required window in the menu, I see a still image of Grace and also all her statistics and abilities. “Well, looks like Twilight Healing Flame does the same for her. I can see this spell doing a lot of damage with raid-wide heals later on down the track. She also has Twilight Fire Blast, which shoots a ball of twilight fire that explodes in a decent area of effect, or AOE. It only damages things that don’t benefit from the Twilight Aura that we both give off.”

  “What's that aura?” asks Ifalna, before her eyebrows shoot straight up. “Whoa, that's nice. An extra five percent damage done when I'm within fifty yards of you?”

  Ezekial smiles and comes over to me, draping his arm across my shoulders. “Buddy, you and me are gonna be the bestest of buddies and never leave each other's sides, right? Right? I won't even joke about the horns.”

  Laughing, I agree wholeheartedly, then process what he said. “Wait, what horns?”

  Ezekial's eyes widen a bit and he grins. “You haven't seen them? Open your character statistics and have a look at your handsome mug, buddy.”

  Opening my character's statistics, I can't help but gape at what I now look like. Apart from looking completely badass, I also have two obsidian horns that start at the top of my forehead and sweep straight back in a curve before curving back up slightly. Semi-short midnight purple hair is swept back quite loosely.

  That's not all. Even though I have my normal-shaped face, I no longer have my normal skin tone. Instead, I now have scales all over my face that are much smaller than the ones everywhere else, and the lines of light are tracing patterns down my jawline. Eyes glowing with the same brightness as the lines stare back at me, and my smile is full of fangs. Running my tongue over my teeth, I wonder how I hadn't noticed that part before now.

  Well, what's done is done, and to be honest, I'm not really disheartened by my new look. I kinda dig it, actually. At least I'm even more unique than I was before.

  Like, come on, who wouldn't want to glow like this? I just hope it doesn't pop me out of stealth. Not to mention I have a cute baby dragon. I'm going to have to find out how to see the video footage of this whenever I want. Would be good to get a couple of stills hung up in the real world.

  Shooting off a quick message to the admins before I forget, I turn my attention back to the others. That's when I realise they have been waiting for my reaction to how I feel about my new physical appearance.

  Raising my hands and grinning, I say, “I look like I'm wearing a suit out of that old-school Tron movie, only a heck of a lot cooler. I'm a dragonkin version with swirls and runes instead of straight lines. And I'm purple. I love purple!”

  They all let out a collective 'phew' even though Kazzrak looks a bit sceptical.

  “I'm good, Fuzzy,” I say quietly. He knows I'm serious when I use real names in games.

  Letting out a snort, he grins and turns away, retrieving
his hammer before getting Karma to stoke the flames back to heat.

  Glancing at the time, I notice it is now 23:20. “Does anyone know where we can get some meat? I need to feed Grace.”

  Kazzrak pulls a chunk out of his bag and throws it at me. “Here, catch.”

  Before it even travels halfway to me, Grace has dive-bombed the chunk and let out a Twilight Fire Blast at it. The meat is instantly seared all around the outside from the AOE spell. She expertly catches it in her claws before flying to the ground next to me, and begins tearing into it.

  Shrugging, I look around slyly at everyone getting back to their professions.

  “So, who's up for a stroll in the dark to go have a chat with some goblins?” I ask nonchalantly.

  Within thirty seconds, everyone has their profession gear packed away in their bags and is looking at me expectantly.

  Laughing, I set off into the mine, Grace coming to land on my shoulder after she gobbled the rest of the meat quickly.

  Ezekial and Randall take the lead at a dead sprint to get far enough ahead to warn us if there is anything going on. Eloise and Kazzrak go next, as our mainline tanks. Then come the rest of us, with Dosan bringing up the rear with his menagerie. He brought out Ratatoskr to be the rear guard with his three other melee minions.

  We don't bother with the ore that litters the mine as we travel, seeing as how our bags are very full indeed. I haven't even been able to smelt any of mine yet either. Oh well.

  Upon reaching the main chamber, we turn towards the goblin tunnel and begin going through it. This tunnel is virtually the same as the one for the kobolds, just having a few more twists and turns and side shafts.

  We travel roughly the same distance through the goblin tunnel as it took to reach the main chamber from the kobold village before Ezekial stops us with a warning.

  Ezekial: Ok, there is a wooden barricade reinforced with steel around the next bend. It blocks the mine shaft completely except for a tiny section at the top to see through. I can't get through it, but I can see that there are twenty goblins all level 20 and decked out in steel gear on the other side. They are playing some sort of gambling game with dice.

  Kazzrak: How do you propose we get through? Should we just break it down?

  Sybaal: Attacking first will probably make them hostile towards us without being able to change it later.

  Ifalna: Did you see a door or an entrance that they could get through?

  Ezekial: Yeah, there is a small cut-out section that is hinged and barred with a steel bar on the other side. I can only see the seams on our side when I'm standing right next to the little door.

  Dosan: Okay, so we just have to get them to open it for us, then.

  Sybaal: Indeed. Let's see how their diplomacy works.

  Knax: Oh, this is going to be good.

  As we walk around the corner, I can see the barrier, and it does look solid indeed. Ezekial is hanging off the little opening in stealth. Taking a stroll up to the wall, I look at it for a moment, thinking. Not much of a choice though, to be honest.

  Raising my voice, I call to the goblins on the other side, “Hello to the goblins! My companions and I are seeking passage through this tunnel. Please open up the gate.”

  Ezekial: They are scrambling and gathering their weapons. One is coming up to look out the hole.

  A second later I can see a little goblin head in the empty space. Green skin, thick nose, wide mouth with sharp teeth, big eyes and even bigger ears are the typical goblin traits. This guy has them all, along with a couple of rings in its ear as well.

  The little guy's eyes grow large before narrowing. “Who trespasses in our mine?! Leave! You are not allowed to be here!”

  “What are you talking about? This isn't your land, it used to belong to us kobolds, and now it belongs to the new duke,” shouts Knax in my defence.

  “Knax, let me, please,” I admonish him softly with a shake of my head.

  He splutters for a moment before falling silent with a nod and a determined look.

  “The kobolds?! You kobolds never owned this mine! It is ours and always has been!” squeals the goblin.

  “Mr goblin, do you have a name?” I ask politely.

  “Not for the likes of you I don't!” the little green shit calls back smartly.

  “Pray tell, why not?” I ask, frowning.

  “Because you are with that stinking kobold! They always try to steal our ore,” mutters the goblin in disgust.

  “Well, that won't happen now. They are my vassals, and I own all the land within the Glade. Why don't we have a civil conversation, seeing as how that wall is no longer needed,” I say, putting a bit of authority into my voice.

  “You don't own shit, we do! Who are you to come in here and make demands?” shouts the goblin angrily.

  “My name is Lord Sybaal, and like I said, I am the duke of all the lands within the Glade, including this mine. My companions and I have also taken care of the rat threat that you created when you blew a hole in the main chamber back there,” I say, throwing a thumb over my shoulder.

  “Duke? Hosh-posh, there hasn't been a duke here for ages. You are probably just some creature that came out of the depths and is trying to trick me! Begone, demon!” cries the goblin.

  “Look, I don't want to have to break down this pile of scrap and then slaughter you all. I would much rather have a civil conversation. Would you kindly go and get your boss so that I can do so?” I say civilly. “And by the way, I'm a dragonkin, not a demon.”

  “No! Chief Kraztiol told us specifically to watch this barrier and to tell him if any rats came this way. He said nothing about no demons.” The goblin chuckles menacingly. He even goes so far as to poke out his tongue! The little shit.

  Having apparently had enough, Grace leaps off my shoulder and flies up to the goblin's face and breathes a gout of twilight flames right in his face.

  “A dragon?! Eek!” The head disappears before the flame can hit, and I can hear squeals of fright from the rest of them.

  Ezekial: They are mostly running away in fright, yelling 'Chief' over and over again. There aren’t any left.

  Grace lands back on my shoulder, looking all smug.

  “Seriously, Grace? I didn't want to attack first.” Sighing, I frown at her. “Oh well.”

  “Are you going to knock down their wall, my lord?” asks Knax with a pointed grin.

  “It will have to come down. Though, not yet at least,” I reply.

  “So, we waiting for the chief, then?” Kazzrak asks.

  “Not quite.” I smile. “Ezekial, would you be so kind as to Shadow Step to the other side of the wall and unlock the little hatch?”

  “Certainly, was just about to ask that.” Ezekial grins at me, then disappears.

  Moments later the hatch opens and a grinning Ezekial wiggles his eyebrows at us. Chuckling, we all make our way through. Though Dosan's minions have to squeeze a little and he has to dismiss Ratatoskr completely. Once we make it to the other side, he appears again though.

  We take our time walking the short distance from the gate to the entrance to the mine. Looking around, we see a couple of hundred goblins in close proximity, all rushing forth towards us, though they stop with quite a large gap between us.

  Behind the goblins are a multitude of buildings that are quite sturdy and look like something out of a steampunk game. So many various machines and things all over the place and I have no clue what they all do.

  “Who dares to step onto my lands?! That's no dragon. What are you scared of? Surround them!” a nasally voice cries.

  Looking to the sky as if someone up there will give me strength when dealing with this new pitiful excuse for a goblin, I bring my gaze down to the creature in question. The only difference I can see from the previous goblin is that this fellow is much more overweight and only level 6.

  Probably stuck around the cream puff stand for too long. Or maybe it's a Twinkies issue, well, the game version at least.

  A few
of the goblins closer to the chief cast him furtive glances when he isn't looking. The hundred or so goblins already surrounding us in a semicircle have pretty decent gear; however, they are mostly levels 17 to 20. The ones closest to the chief are all level 20. Not much of a resistance to us, but certainly more powerful than the kobolds and the nymphs.

  Raising my voice, I speak loudly so everyone can hear me. “Chief, we come in peace and wish you no harm. However, certain issues need to be put to rest, or there will always be conflict between your people and mine.”

  “The only issue I see is the trespassers in front of me. And a sorry lot at that, with nymphs and a kobold.” The chief chuckles.

  He obviously hasn't seen Dosan and his minions that are still in the mine.

  “Well, it's actually my land, being the duke and all that,” I say nonchalantly, then call back to the others, “Dosan, does your Giant Rat King still have that AOE stun ability?”

  “He sure does.” Dosan grins. “Shall I use it if they begin to attack?”

  “That would be preferable to us killing them, yes,” I agree. Turning back to the chief, I see that he has gone a deeper shade of green. Maybe that is his version of a blush or something?

  The chief's jowls wiggle as he splutters angrily and waves his arm to indicate his warriors. “I see no duke here! Tremble at my might! Kneel before me and I may spare your lives. Or I'll kill you slowly. Maybe I'll let a coin decide if you aren't hasty enough.”

  “To be quite frank, I sincerely hope that your actions as chief don't create a situation that will endanger the rest of your village needlessly.” Letting my words sink in for a moment, I stare boldfaced at the chief. “I wish to make peace with you all, but if I have to resort to violence, then I will not hesitate to cut down any who raise arms against us.”