The Scout of Artemis (LitRPG Series): Press X to Loot Book 1

by Gregg Horlock

  She took another step until she was in front of the stone. She raised the hammer in her hand.

  “From now on, the people of Dostooth will be free.”

  In one strong blow, she stuck the gemstone with her hammer. The stone cracked and then smashed into hundreds of pieces. A blue light flooded out and seemed to swim up above us, before swirling in a circle and trailing off into the sky.

  Quest Completed – Improve the Villager’s Opinion of You

  - 60 EXP Gained! (19 EXP until level 6)

  - Dialogue options unlocked

  I waited. With the gemstone destroyed, that should have been it. I listened out for something, but I didn’t know what I expected. Would there be a voice telling us that we’d found Helder’s Bane? Would a message appear?

  Instead, there was nothing. The wind blew through the gaps in the walls of the village shacks, and the trees surrounding us swayed. Joldemass stepped forward.

  “It is time for your reward,” she said.

  This is it, I thought. This is the end. I couldn’t believe that we’d done it.

  Joldemass opened her robe.

  “Woah,” said Jack. “We didn’t want that kind of reward.”

  Ignoring him, she reached inside and took out a stone. At first, I wondered what it was, but then I realized that I’d seen something like it before.

  “Is that a respawn rune?” I said.

  She nodded. “And you are welcome to set it in Dostooth. For now, and ever more, you are honorary members of our village.”

  I didn’t know what to say. This was wrong; we’d found the cursed gemstone, and now it had been destroyed. What was going on?

  Jack was the first to speak. “No, no, no,” he said. “Don’t try and fob us off with a rune.”

  Joldemass looked confused. “This is what you seek, is it not?”

  “A pebble?” said Jack. “No thanks. What gives?”

  “I don’t understand,” said the old woman.

  I sighed and took a step forward. “We’re here for Helder’s Bane. That’s why we came to Artemis. I thought that his bane was the curse.”

  One of the villagers stepped forward. He was a short man with large hands, and he wore his hair so long that it reached down beyond his shoulders.

  “Helder was one of us,” he said. “But the curse was not his bane.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. I looked at Joldemass. “Who is this guy?” I said, nodding at the man with long hair.

  “He’s the bookseller,” said Rex.

  Joldemass walked forward and put her hand on my shoulder. “I fear you have gotten the wrong idea. Helder was cursed, like us, but the curse was not his bane. Helder became a wicked man in his age, and he grew to love his curse.”

  “You’re saying we did all this for nothing?” said Jack.

  Joldemass held up the respawn rune. “As I said, this is your reward.”

  “And like I told you,” answered Jack. “We don’t want your pebbles.”

  The bookseller was the first to answer. “I think I understand, now. You came to seek Helder’s Bane, but I fear we cannot help you. None here know what it is.”

  “There must be something you can tell us,” I answered.

  The bookseller reached into a pouch at his side, and he pulled out a crumpled roll of parchment. He unravelled it, studied it for a second, and then passed it to me.

  I took it from him. The parchment was a map of the island of Artemis. It was much like the one we’d gotten from the ranger’s shack, except much more of it was filled in.

  The bookseller spoke. “This will help you find what you seek. And I can tell you one more thing, too.”

  “We’re all ears,” said Jack.

  The bookseller cleared his throat. “Go where the eyes watch but cannot see.”

  Jack scoffed. “We did all this just to get a riddle from Rumpelstiltskin? I don’t believe it.”

  “That is all we can tell you,” said Joldemass.

  I stood in the centre of the village. I couldn’t help but think that we were further away from finding Helder’s Bane than ever. My limbs ached, and I needed to sleep.

  “Now you must go,” said the old woman. “The sky turns dark, and the wave creatures will be here soon.”

  “But we cured you,” I said.

  Joldemass nodded. “Aye. You cured us, but the wizard cursed many people in many places. Artemis will never truly be free of it. There are lots of dungeons, and lots of cursed gemstones. Perhaps that is why so many Eternals are journeying to our island.”

  Rex put his hand on my shoulder. “We better get back to the base,” he said.

  I knew that he was right. I couldn’t help a feeling of choking disappointment inside me, but I knew that we had to go. Cursing the programmers of Pana Reborn, I turned to leave the village.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  We had precious few hours until night fell completely. I’d hoped that after breaking the curse of Dostooth we wouldn’t have to deal with the night waves anymore, but it wasn’t to be. Rather than brood on it, I decided to get on with improving our base.

  Rex used his crafting to improve the roof, and we dug a ditch around the alcove so that was deep enough for the wave creatures to fall into. I filled the ditch with traps. This, we hoped, would be enough to keep us safe. With the new improvements on our base it levelled up to level 2, which unlocked a second rune slot.

  Gabriella used her magic to craft a rune that regenerated our health and stamina at a rate of 2 points per second while we were in Gossard. I asked her to make a defence rune for our second slot. After working for 30 minutes, she approached me with a rune in her hand. This one was oval shaped, and a green lightning bolt glowed on the surface.

  “Is this just melee defence, or will it help against other damage too?”

  The witch shook her head. She had a grin on her face. “This is something better,” she said.

  Without asking me, she approached the empty rune slot on our wall and fixed the rune into it. I heard it click into place, and then text appeared in front of me.

  Fast Travel unlocked.

  “This will let us travel back to Gossard from anywhere on the map,” she said. “It’ll only take seconds.”

  That was much better than a defence rune, I conceded. Our shelter was starting to shape up now. With our protective ditch in place, Rex spent the last hour crafting better beds for us. With that done, he made a comfortable area for Clive to sleep in. In the corner of the base, the eagle egg was nestled in a bed of leaves. It still hadn’t hatched.

  “If we’re going to rest here from time to time,” said the barbarian, “we might as well be comfortable.”

  The five of us – was I really starting to include the Burr as a core member of our group? – stood in Gossard and looked around. The base had come a long way from being an alcove cut into a hill.

  “This should be enough to survive the wave,” I said. “Well done, guys.”

  “One last thing,” said Gabriella. “Hand me that stick you always carry with you.”

  “Death Bringer?” I asked.

  She rolled her eyes. “Yes, if that’s what you call it. Sheesh, men and their toys. Pass it here.”

  I pulled Death Bringer from my pocket and handed it to her. Gabriella gripped it in her hands and began to chant. With each word, the stick started to glow. Finally, little red scratches appeared along it. She handed it back to me.

  “Now it’ll do some fire elemental damage with each strike,” she said. “If you insist on wielding it as a weapon, it might as well be of some use.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I only have it because my character is too weak to handle anything else.”

  “Your character?” said Gabriella.

  I released that I’d broken the 4th wall again. I’d been trying not to refer to Artemis as a game in front of the NPC, but it was becoming harder not to think of her as a person. I was about to change the subject, when I realized something. Not only ha
d she heard me refer to my scout as a character, but she’d questioned me on it. What was going on?

  Awareness levelled up to level 4!

  -Improved hearing and sight

  -See enemy stats

  Before I could push the subject any further, a message appeared. From the looks on Jack and Rex’s faces, I knew they’d received the same one.

  Night is coming – Prepare for the wave!

  Chapter Forty-Four

  The air always changed in the minutes before a wave hit. It thickened, somehow, as if someone poured tension into the atmosphere and gave it a stir. It made my movements feel slower, and it spread a chill across my back.

  The others could sense it too. We were in our alcove. We decided that since it had regeneration runes on it, it would be best to wait out at least part of the wave here. We could listen out for the damage that my traps dealt. Then, if the wave creatures managed to get close to us, we could retreat. Cal, Rex and I had dug through part of the wall so that we had a short tunnel that led out to the beach. Rex had crafted a crude door from bits of timber and homemade rope. If worst came to worst, we could always use the emergency route and then fight them on the beaches.

  “At night,” said Gabriella, “Elder Esrand would cast a glimmer spell over the witch tower. Then two apprentices would take it in turn to stay up all night and maintain it. My day was Wednesday. I used to do it with Yyron, an orphan from the mainland. The light would keep the creatures away.”

  “These people,” said Rex. “You’ve referred to them as family before now, yet sometimes you seem detached from them.”

  “They make us call them family, but they aren’t. Not really.” said Gabriella. “It’s just hard to forget something that’s programmed into you.”

  “They don’t have wave creatures where we’re from,” I said.

  “You haven’t been to some of the nightclubs in town, then,” said Jack.

  Gabriella had stared at us while we spoke. There was no more pretense of ignoring us when we spoke about the outside world. “Where do you come from?” she asked.

  A howl cut through the night. It sounded like a creature, desperate and in pain, screaming into the air. The noise was so loud that even the wind seemed to stop for a few seconds and take note.

  We looked at each other. Rex gripped his sword, while I held my enchanted Death Bringer Mark 3. Gabriella looked worried, but I guessed it had been a long time since she’d spent a night away from the protection of the witch tower.

  I heard the creatures before I saw them. I listened out and I picked out the sounds of their claws scraping on the ground. I stood against the shelter wall and I peered out. The wind had picked up again now, and it blew against my face. The area around me seemed clear, at first. And then I saw something.

  Wave Creature – Level 23

  Wave Creature – Level 17

  Wave Creature – Level 11

  Wave Creature – Level 19

  Wave Creature – Level 24

  Wave Creature – Level 7

  Wave Creature – Level 4

  Wave Creature – Level 5

  Wave Creature – Level 12

  The text spread out above the trees. I couldn’t see the animals that the labels belonged to, but I watched as the text moved closer toward us. I had hoped that my improved awareness would allow me to see the creatures better, but it wasn’t to be. Still, if I could see their names, then at least I knew where they were. Not that it was of much comfort to me. The twenty names that stalked ever closer didn’t inspire me with hope.

  As the creatures moved toward Gossard, we waited. There was no sense going out to fight them. There was little information on the Pana forums about the wave creatures, since the public ships hadn’t arrived yet. I guessed that was why my subscriber count was so high. People eager for their fix of Artemis had to settle for watching me.

  That meant that, along with Ellis and his friends, I was one of the few wave creature experts on the island. I was no David Attenborough, but I’d guessed some things about them. My main theory, and the worst for us, was that I was sure that the Wave Creatures had some kind of infinite respawn. They were a feature of the expansion pack, so it made sense that their numbers were endless. It wouldn’t be good for sales if they were wiped out a few days after the public ships arrived.

  I heard a snap, and then a howl.

  10 EXP gained!

  10 EXP gained!

  Level up to Level 6!

  -HP increased to 189

  -Stamina increased to 200

  -2 attribute points gained

  My traps started to snap and crack as the wave creatures wandered into them. While they had strength in number, it seemed that they had little environmental awareness. But with each snap, I knew my traps were running out. This wasn’t good; in the other waves I’d seen, it had taken hours for my traps to deplete.

  “There’s more of them tonight,” I said.

  “Some nights are harder than others,” answered Gabriella. “And I heard Elder Esrand say that the more Eternals are on the island, the more creatures come out at night.”

  “Does that mean the public ships have landed?” said Jack.

  Rex shrugged. “I always assumed there’d be some kind of notification. Like a text box or, I don’t know, a horn or something.”

  I stood against the wall and looked over the edge of the alcove, lifting the canopy so that I could see around our base. The wave creatures in our traps were close enough for me to look at. I could tell from the way they were spread limply on the ground that they were dead.

  One of them, just twenty meters away from me, had the misfortune of having one of my traps slam shut on its head. I felt a pang of guilt when I thought about the wizard’s curse, but what was I to do? Just let the creatures attack me?

  A thin trail of light seeped out through the air, then gathered around the dead wave creature. I knew that bodies in Pana disappeared after a certain amount of time, or after they’d been looted. The light fell so that it covered the creature’s skin.

  The wave creature’s paw moved. I saw its claws gleam when moonlight hit them. It thrashed its arm, then straightened its legs. The beast began to reanimate, lifting itself off the ground and grunting as it got back on all fours. When it finally stood up straight, my trap was still wrapped around its neck.

  I followed the trail of blue light and saw that it led away from the creatures and toward the woods, where it concentrated under an NPC label.

  Wave Creature Reanimator – Level 29

  I shut the canopy, moved away from the wall, and faced my friends.

  10 EXP Gained! (83 until level 7)

  I ignored the message. The 10 EXP meant another creature had been caught in one of my traps, but it didn’t matter. The beast would be on its feet again soon. This wasn’t good.

  “How are the traps holding?” said Rex.

  “Well,” I began, not sure how to explain the new development to them.

  “Guys,” said Jack. “Our odds of surviving tonight’s wave just dropped dramatically. Check the betting forums – there’s a lot of money being placed on one or all of us dying. What gives? We’re prepared, aren’t we?”

  I logged into the forums and saw what Jack was talking about. Although gambling was prohibited on the Pana forums, users got around that by talking about ‘guesses’. There were forum topics titled ‘Place your Guesses on Wave Survival’, where users debated our likelihood of survival.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” said Jack.

  I closed the interface. The wave creatures howled around us, and I received 20 more EXP points as the last of my traps slammed shut.

  “I’ve been doing some searching on insider tips for gambling,” said Jack.

  “Inside tips?” said Rex. “You’re one of the people being gambled on. It doesn’t get any more insider than that.”

  Jack ignored him. “And I ended up looking at some pretty dodgy sites. But I’ve found something you won�
�t like.”

  “Sites? Gambling? You’re talking a foreign language,” said Gabriella.

  “Go on,” I told Jack.

  The gambler looked at me. “Well, it turns out there’s a Pana programmer who will make the wave harder if you pay him. He’s hidden his IP address behind a VPN so that nobody will catch him, but other than that, he’s pretty brazen about it.”