Quest into Hidden Realms (Hidden Realms LitRPG Series Book 1)

by Tom Gallier

  Killum looked shocked. She had him, and knew it. All he could do was look around for support, but no one else was interested in stopping her. Fergus wasn't happy about it. Rand and Tiana looked eager.

  "With those robes I could sneak in," Rand said. "In fact…"

  "No." Asha wasn't giving him the glory. The robes were hers, so she'd be the one sneaking into the castle to look around. "I've got this. You just have to rest up and be ready to go when I return."

  "Okay, you can go scout the castle," Killum said. She gave him a 'you can't stop me' look. He continued. "Just don't go inside the castle. No further than the main gate, look inside and see where everyone is stationed. Mostly, we need to know the easiest, safest route to the castle gates. Once we're inside, we can close the portcullis to keep the others out long enough to take out Lord Kathro."

  "Anything you say, boss," she said. Asha willed herself invisible, and vanished before their eyes. Killum, Tiana, and Rand all reached out to find her. She giggled and wiggled out from between them, not allowing anyone to find her. "Bye-bye. I'll see you before you see me."

  To her dismay, Fergus followed her easily with his eyes. After a moment, and some fifteen feet away, she stopped and faced him. The ranger grinned.

  "I can see your footsteps."

  She looked down to see the parting of the weeds and the impression of her feet in the ground. That was good information to know. The ranger was probably more attentive to such things than the zombies, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

  Asha used the same game trail that Fergus followed. Moving slowly and cautiously, she nonetheless made good time. Before she knew it Warlord's Castle loomed high above, perched over the road. Undead goblins, humans, orks, and hobgoblins stood in ranks around the castle, guarding the road and all trails. She moved down to the road, which was hard-packed earth, so they couldn't spot her disturbing weeds and brush. The guardians of the castle were packed pretty close together on the road, forcing her to slide sideways between some of them.

  Warlord's Castle. Seat of the Duchy of Highcliff. Death and danger are assured, but the rewards of its conquest are power and wealth.

  How are we going to fight our way through that many? she wondered. Killum has to use Gye. No other way.

  The dragon had admitted that Lord Kathro was a very real danger to him. The necromancer was powerful enough to kill the dragon. Gyevikxus' death would be the end of him forever, so Killum was reluctant to "throw his dragon away" just to beat a dungeon. She didn't blame him.

  The elven sorceress moved quickly and carefully through the milling zombies on the road up to the plateau. Most of them were goblins, but there were quite a few drow zombies, too. She found that odd, since the drow were so Dark they would probably follow the necromancer of their own free will.

  He probably didn't bother to ask.

  That spoke of arrogance on the necromancer's part. It worried her that he might have good cause to be so arrogant and dismissive of those who might support him. Or maybe he didn't trust free-willed people and wanted absolute control over everyone.

  He's probably a megalomaniac gamer with a god complex.

  He could also be one of the designers or programmers. Such a person could artificially grant themselves enormous powers, starting out at level 1000 with every known spell as part of their arsenal. She could only imagine how much mana such a player could possess. After all, it was their game and they made the rules.

  A semi-circle of tall, muscular drow warriors defended the gate. All wore the elaborate, heavy armor of their warrior caste. Their long, white hair was pulled up into topknots, and they each carried a long curved sword on their hip and a stabbing spear in their hand. All but one was undead. The sole living drow was a female in armor designed for sexiness rather than function.

  Petriana. Drow Sorceress (Lvl 21). -7 Dark. PK: 1.

  The drow sorceress had a cobalt blue crystal glittering in the middle of her dark gray-skinned forehead. She stood arms akimbo, armed with nothing but a pair of Drow swords on her back and a whole lot of arrogance. Her knee-length white hair was pulled back into a ponytail. For a drow, Asha thought her quite attractive.

  As she passed between two drow warriors, Asha noticed the drow sorceress's eyes turn her way. She froze, heart thundering in her ears. The drow's eyes only lingered on her a second, before moving away.

  I must be careful with her. She might've noticed some disturbance caused by my invisibility. To be invisible meant light was bent around her. It might take a spellcaster to notice something like that.

  Asha ducked low, and moved with extra caution. She slowly passed the drow sorceress, giving her foe a wide berth, and headed for the gate. Her heartbeat returned to normal by the time she passed into the castle.

  Warlock's Castle's gate was a formidable structure. It was twice the size of the curtain wall's other towers. She estimated it fifty feet tall, two round towers with a portcullis and iron-bound gates between them. There was a tunnel to pass through, with murder holes above. The tunnel was wide and tall enough for two mounted knights to pass through side-by-side. The ground was cobbled.

  She exited the fifty-foot long entrance tunnel to find an almost empty inner ward. The walls encircled a massive keep, which looked like a mini castle within the castle. It had a huge central square keep, with fortified wings surrounding it. On the inside of the surrounding walls were stables, barracks, smithies, and other necessary shops all castles needed. They were all empty as best she could tell, except for one of the stables. The farrier's shop appeared abandoned, though.

  "Lord Kathro's undead horde has no need of such things as sleep and food."

  The sorceress found the open door into the gatehouse. She entered cautiously, found the mechanism to raise and lower the portcullis, and figured out a way to jam it that wasn't immediately obvious. They weren't going to close it before she and her friends entered.

  "How clever," a deep feminine voice whispered into her ear.

  Asha's left wrist was seized and twisted up behind her back. Another hand grabbed the back of her head and slammed her forehead against the wall. The sorceress's knees buckled.

  "Uggh!"

  Black and white exploded behind her eyes. Asha felt all strength bleed out of her limbs, and she struggled to stay conscious. Her captor gave her arm a savage twist.

  "Aaaiieee."

  "Elfmaid players make the best playthings, Asha," her captor purred into her ear, before kissing her cheek. She forced Asha to cry out again with another brutal twist of her arm. "And I love hurting pretty little things like you way too much."

  Slanting a look back, she discovered the drow sorceress from the gate.

  "You saw me?"

  "I saw you. I have several different Sight spells," Petriana said. "Tell me, are you the elf sorceress Asha that hung out with Killum and Fergus?"

  "Yes. Why?"

  Petriana nuzzled her ear before kissing it. "Because you killed me in the previous realm. Now I'll get my pound of flesh."

  Asha sighed gustily. What was wrong with all these players holding grudges? She didn't sit around hoping to capture someone who might've wronged her. Hell, there'd been players who had her number and always defeated her, but she barely remembered their names. The sorceress just moved on and avoided them. Life was too short to spend time hating someone so thoroughly.

  "Mercy. I give up. You win," Asha begged. "Please don't hurt me."

  Her face burned. Humiliating herself was a tactic, but a shameful one. She could only do it because none of her friends were around. And if her plan worked, Petriana wouldn't remember it either.

  The drow sorceress laughed. "You are so pathetic. I knew you'd grovel and beg if I ever got the drop on you."

  Supreme confidence distracted the drow. Asha felt Petriana's hold loosen a tiny bit. Hopefully, that would prove enough. So the sorceress bowed her head to reinforce the drow's feelings of triumph and invincibility.

  "You're right," Asha gasped out. Her e
yes narrowed, and she ever so stealthily prepared to move. "I'm still very weak in this new world. You are so much more powerful. I have no choice but to submit."

  The drow's grip on her left arm loosened a bit more. The elfmaid considered what spell to use. There was really only one.

  "Mistress?"

  "Yes?"

  "Say ouch."

  Asha used her levitating spell to shoot straight back and up at a forty-five degree angle. Petriana was driven before her as their speed increased super fast. She put as much mana into the spell as possible.

  "Agh!" Petriana cried upon impact.

  She lost her hold on Asha, who spun around and brought her knee up with brutal force. The drow was already dropping straight down, so her knee slammed into her jaw. Asha dropped down after her foe, kicking the drow sorceress in the head three more times to be sure she was down and out. And then she quickly hogtied Petriana, before gagging her.

  "Somehow, I think you're going to enjoy being tied up like that."

  After double-checking the jam in the portcullis mechanism, Asha slipped out of the gatehouse and circled the inner ward. Once back to the main gate, she turned her attention to the main keep. Part of her wanted to go in search of Lord Kathro. If she killed him, then the castle would belong to her. Owning a dungeon had to be worth something in that world.

  God only knows how much mana this place has stored up.

  Since it was a dungeon that meant it stored up mana. There were probably spells and other benefits available to the castle's master. Whoever was master of that castle would have access to all of its spells.

  A chill slithered up her spine before she could take a step towards the keep's entrance. She had the oddest sensation. Really, more of a premonition. Was another mage seeing through her magic invisibility?

  Asha looked left and right. No one was paying any attention to her. The undead guards on the curtain walls were all looking outward. And then something pulled her eyes up.

  "Welcome to my lair, said the spider to the fly," a large, scary looking man said.

  Kathro. Drow necromancer (Lvl 102). -81 Dark. PK: 119.

  "Oh no."

  "Oh yes, Elven Sorceress Asha," Lord Kathro said. He grinned with wicked delight. "And while you skulked around my castle, I took the opportunity to send a force of undead knights to kill your friends."

  Chapter 36

  "How long has she been gone?" Killum asked

  "Three seconds longer since last time you asked," Fergus said. "Jesus. Did you worry about me like this when I was out scouting the castle?"

  Killum leveled cool eyes on the ranger. "Who are you?"

  "She has been gone longer than you," Tiana said.

  "That only means she got past the zombies on sentry. She's probably chopping Lord Kathro's head off right now, winning the castle without any of our help," Fergus said. "Asha's more of a glory hog than Rand."

  Rand opened his mouth to protest, but a distant thunder reached them. Killum turned northward, looking up the road. The sound was vaguely familiar, but he couldn't quite place it. It definitely wasn't Asha, unless she was being chased by…

  "Horses!" Killum cried. "Cavalry?"

  "Knights!" Tiana shouted when a double column of mounted men topped the hill.

  His eyes locked on the rider in the lead.

  Human knight (Lvl 12). Undead.

  In fact, every one of them came up as Human knight, undead, of various levels when Killum checked them out. And there were a lot of them. Easily twenty or more.

  "Zombie knights? Now I've seen everything," Rand said.

  Killum cast Temporary Blindness at the charging knights. It didn't faze them. They continued charging down the road, swords and lances pointed at him and his friends. With a heartfelt, "SHIT," Killum hurriedly cast Gatecrasher.

  That blew a hole right through the middle of them, scattering knights and screaming horses in all directions. About a third of them fell, but it didn't kill any of them.

  "Even the horses are zombies!" the battle-mage warned. "Scatter into the woods."

  Mounted knights were all but useless in heavily wooded terrain. That tactic would force them to dismount, and that would give him and the others much needed time. Rand followed him to the east side of the road, while Tiana and Fergus went west.

  Fergus' arrows started ricocheting off the knights' armor. The battle-mage checked his stats. Gatecrasher took away fifty mana points. He quickly drank a Mana Restoring potion.

  The undead knights all dismounted and split up. He saw one of them giving the orders. His armor had lots of gold and silver decorations. When Killum checked him, he came up as just an undead knight. He was half expecting the zombie to be a king, or duke, or general.

  "Rand, get ready. I'm going to hit them with Disorientation. Blindness didn't affect them, so I'm not sure if this spell will work or not."

  "Hit them!"

  Killum stood up and stepped out to have a clear path to the charging zombies. He cast the Spell of Disorientation. About half of them tripped and fell, whereas the others stopped running and swayed. Rand whooped with battle joy and charged down, with the battle-mage fast on his heels. They hit the undead knights with all they had.

  Rand couldn't reach their heads, and decapitation was the only way for him to kill them since their hearts were so well armored. So he chopped off a leg at the knee, before turning to attack another's legs. Then he'd go back to the first one who was down on all fours and behead him. And back and forth he went, leaving death and destruction in his wake.

  Killum shook his head, impressed with his friend's ability to level the playing field. The kid is a savage.

  He'd left his Wolfsheart Spear back with the mule, so just had his Lightning Ring and Power Sword. The battle-mage discovered the lightning bolts worked much better up close, and could literally blow the zombies apart. His Power Sword, though, could blast through their thick helmets, allowing him to slaughter them.

  Tiana streaked between them and a zombie, leaping on the back of one coming up behind Rand. She angled her sword up under his helmet and thrust it up through his brain. And then Fergus caught his attention, darting in from the forest to dart back and forth between their foes. His curved elven sword left bloody ruin, and a lot of headless bodies, in his wake.

  "Ugh!" Killum cried when an undead knight thrust a lance into the back of his left shoulder. "Son of a bitch."

  The pain was exquisite. The worst pain he'd experienced since he got a compound fracture falling off a bike in 7th grade. Not counting the fifteen seconds of Purgatory he experienced the one time he died in that realm.

  The knight yanked the lance out and prepared to thrust again. Killum spun and smashed the lance aside with his now almost useless left arm. He brought his sword down on the lance and cut it in two, before rushing the zombie knight and thrusting through an eyehole of his helmet. The enchanted sword made the monster's head explode.

  Quickly drinking a healing potion, he immediately felt the edge taken off the pain. Yet, the pain was still too great and his arm hung limply at his side. More than half the knights were dead, but he and his friends were still outnumbered.

  "Gyevikxus."

  The dragon erupted from the helmet with a savage roar. Even the undead knights stopped attacking and looked. But they didn't run. Those knights not already engaged in a fight attacked the dragon. Gye swept most of them aside with a single swipe of his long tail. That left more than half of the remaining knights sprawled on one side of the road.

  Gye incinerated them with dragonfire.

  The dragon charged over to help Tiana. Killum joined Rand in fighting a trio of zombie knights, while Fergus fought his way to Tiana's side. Gye proved a master at culling zombies away from the others and killing them.

  Killum and Rand slowly sidestepped as they fought, working their way to Fergus and Tiana. The last five knights fought them. The undead weren't the least bit tired, while the four friends were struggling. Killum's sword arm felt l
ike it was a hundred pounds.

  "Duck!" Gye shouted.

  The four friends all dropped flat on the ground. The dragon swept the undead knights away with his tail, and then flamed them to ashes.

  "God, I love that dragon," Tiana said.

  "I have to admit, he is a splendid specimen of dragonkind," Fergus said.

  "He's a glory hog," Rand said. Gye looked at him. "Thanks, big guy!"

  Killum looked up the road. "We have a problem."

  "Not anymore," Rand said. "They're all dead."

  "No, Asha," Tiana said. "They know we are here, so they probably know Asha is there. I think she's in trouble."

  "Come here. I'll heal you," Killum said. He laid his hand on Rand's shoulder, and felt magic flow into the dwarf. Rand sucked in a deep breath, stood taller, and stopped panting. "Better?"

  "Much better."

  Killum quickly healed Tiana and Fergus of their minor wounds and exhaustion. His mana was getting low, so he hesitated healing his much greater wound. His health was so low it might eat up the rest of his mana, and there was still a fight ahead of them.

  He checked out the zombie knights' undead horses.

  Knight's battle steed. Undead.

  "I'll ride Gye into battle," he said. He looked past them. "The zombie horses aren't attacking. Do you think you can ride them up to the castle?"

  "No," Rand cried. "They are zombie horses."

  "Killum is right," Gye said. "They are undead, but are still dumb horses. They will let you ride them, but be careful. They will try to bite you, and if bitten…"

  "Great, I feel much better," Rand said.

  "It's for Asha," Killum said. "She needs us. Mount up."

  Chapter 37

  Ka-Boom! Ka-Boom!

  "Ugh," Asha groaned.

  Each strike against her magical shield sapped a little mana and health. Lord Kathro's bolts were so powerful she felt the strikes in her bones, and she was slowly being forced backwards.