Village of Noobtown: A LitRPG Adventure (Mayor of Noobtown Book 2)
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CONTENTS
Chapter 0: The Recap
Chapter 1: The Cellar
Chapter 2: Soup Verses Potions
Chapter 3: Crystals and Where to Find Them
Chapter 4: The Mine
Chapter 5: Battle for Ironpass Mine
Chapter 6: Why I Dislike Shadow Goblins
Chapter 7: Licking out Wounds
Chapter 8: Much ado About a Mine
Chapter 9: Mine Alone
Chapter 10: Scratching in the Distance
Chapter 11: Badgelor
Chapter 12: Inter Goblin Warfare
Chapter 13: Unlucky Jim
Chapter 14: Town Hall
Chapter 15: The Problems with a Socialist Utopia
Chapter 16: Clerks
Chapter 17: Breakfast of Champions
Chapter 18: Fenris Matters
Chapter 19: Tailor Made Problems
Chapter 20: Trade Missions
Chapter 21: Biological Aeromancy
Chapter 22: Safely Walking with No Danger
Chapter 23: A Minor Threat
Chapter 25: The City of Narwal
Chapter 26: Blots
Chapter 27: A Visit with a Spellmonger
Chapter 28: The Inn
Chapter 29: The Well Protected Castle
Chapter 30: The Pumas
Chapter 31: Reasonable Precautions
Chapter 32: Calex’s Bad Day
Chapter 33: Coming to Grips
Chapter 34: Unfortunate Career Choices
Chapter 35: Professional Discussion
Chapter 36: Melphius
Chapter 37: And Everything Was Going So Well
Chapter 38: Bashara
Chapter 39: Durg
Chapter 40: The Long Highway
Chapter 41: Poor Choices
Chapter 42: Being One with the Earth
Chapter 43: The Fate of ThooClicky
Chapter 44: Zorlando
Chapter 45: Housekeeping
Chapter 46: The Plan
Chapter 47: Brilliant Ideas
Chapter 48: Jim Strikes Back
Chapter 49: Return of the Puma
Chapter 50: A Relaxing Bath
Chapter 51: My Two Best Friends
Chapter 52: More Walking
Chapter 53: Appropriate Response
Chapter 54: The Morning After
Chapter 55: Windfall in Danger
Chapter 56: A Casual Stroll
Chapter 57: Ambushing the Ambushers
Chapter 58: The Long Road Back
Chapter 59: Goblin Infestation
Chapter 60: Battle for Windfall Road
Chapter 61: Back to Windfall
Chapter 62: The Siege of Windfall
Chapter 63: The Night Before
Chapter 64: The Raid at Dawn
Chapter 65: Diligent Goblins
Chapter 66: Melee at the Mine
Chapter 67: Things get Weird
Chapter 68: Two to Go
Chapter 69: Two Sided Battle
Chapter 70: The Clever Plan
Chapter 71: Loose Ends
Chapter 72: Final Victory
Chapter 73: Epilogue
Village of Noobtown
a LitRPG Adventure
Copyright © 2019 by Ryan Rimmel All Rights Reserved Dedicated to My Loving Wife, Sarah. We did it again. You are my shoulder angel.
Thanks to everyone at Podium Publishing. Special thanks to Alexandre Rito for providing cover art for both the first book and also this one. Special thanks also goes to Victoria and Emily, and to my narrator, Johnathan McClain. Even now, all these people are hard at work on the audiobook for Mayor of Noobtown.
Thanks to my friends and fellow adventurers who sped book two on its way. Thanks again to Sarah R. for editing my book. Thanks to Ben H and others for the early reading and suggestions.
If you'd like to contact the author, I can be reached at ryan.rimmel@gmail.com
Chapter 0: The Recap
“Cause no one fucks with the Mayor of Noobtown” I said, as I left Fenris and his family to have their long overdue moment alone. I felt good. After not only defeating the goblin menace at the Western Fortress, but also ruining their ability to use Wargs, things were looking up.
I strode purposefully through my city, watching the scores of new inhabitants filing through the dusty, broken streets. Each was looking for a new place to call home. My internal menu kept flaring with requests whenever someone decided on the place they wanted to inhabit. I was still adjusting to that. On Earth, you didn’t get actual prompts in your vision. Here, you did.
Dying was strange. That was how I got here. I died on Earth and was brought to this place, where my inept captors were planning on having me start some sort of revolution. The problem with this little idea of theirs was that they really needed my soul more than my mind. Thus, they planned on ‘erasing’ me and programing what was left to run their little enterprise.
Unfortunately for them, they screwed up. I ended up trapped here on Ordinal, with one of my captors, Shart. I am sure, at one point, he had some actual, real name. Who cares? He is now Shart. Worse for him was the fact that when we both departed the demonic realm, he’d had to leave most of his power there. So, my former 30 foot tall super demon now looked like a particularly ugly cherub, with red skin and crooked horns. Worse still, at least for him, was that I managed to defeat him through a technicality; what little power he kept mostly evaporated, but not before he tried to bind me to him. However, the binding backfired, spectacularly. This left him as my minion, a state that he utterly detests but can do nothing about.
Not all was perfect, though. Shart spent as much time poking around in my mind as he did ignoring me. Neither was all that desirable
After that, I’d found the City of Windfall, which was a terrible name. The city was apparently a newbie town from some earlier version of the world that had been abandoned, left to decay. Discovering it let me lay claim to it and become its mayor. Afterward, I’d found AvaSophia and her children, who had been captured by goblins. I’d rescued the trio, procured a doggy friend, and then rescued a bunch more people, bringing all of them back to the village. I was a hero, a mayor, and a god among men. Things were looking up. I guessed a few days in town, to help everyone get situated before I continued my adventures in the wilderness, was for the best.
Chapter 1: The Cellar
The cold, stagnate air blasted into my face from the unknown darkness that threatened to drink my soul. My hand roughly scraped flint and tinder, trying unsuccessfully to get my lone remaining torch lit. I had started with three, but torches didn’t last nearly as long as they claimed, especially when you were located deep underground, hunting for monsters.
“Focus, Dum Dum,” Shart thought at me. He had the ability to see in the dark and liked to point out all the darkest spots in the underground. It amused him.
I heard the skittering again. Grumbling, I concentrated. This time, the spray of sparks mostly hit the torch and it caught, suddenly giving me another precious few moments of light.
That’s when I saw the creature. A Rottweiler sized rat snarled and lunged at me. I yanked my torch to the side, and that’s the story of how I lost my last torch. The rat slammed into my chest, knocking me backward.
Despite its claws raking against my armor, it wasn’t doing any real damage. I dropped the extinguished torch, which clattered to the ground next to my head. As I attempted to grab the creature’s throat, it lunged again. As the furry menace bit my fingers, I yanked my bloodied hand away. Fervently fumbling with my non-injured hand, I f
inally held my dagger.
Now ready for battle, I took a step towards the rat. It promptly turned around and ran back into the dankest recesses of the darkness.
“I thought this was a starter zone!” I exclaimed to no one in particular. So, of course, Shart responded.
“Well, it is, but you are just kind of inept,” replied the demon.
“They don’t fight me when I’m ready for them. They just ambush me when I’m not ready,” I stated. “If this becomes a trend, I’m going to be nettled.”
“What kind of pansy ass “hero” only fights when he is ready? A loser, that’s who.” The little maggot actually did air quotes.
Now, listen up, you Jive Turkey,” continued Shart.
“No.”
“Alright, Dum Dum,” returned Shart. He had been reading my mind in search of new insults. The results had not been promising, so far. “I’ll just say this, right now. You will never catch me whining like a little bitch about my battles. Now, the rat went into that hole, which opens up into the next hallway a bit further down.”
Glancing down the ominous hall, I observed how truly deep, deep underground we were. We had been walking for ten minutes through old, narrow corridors of mossy bricks, located deep beneath someone's kitchen. All the while, a question had been boiling up deep within my soul.
“I don’t see how this is a cellar,” I stated, out loud. The echo rebounded further down into the abyss. I was hoping for something more like a horror movie, the kind my wife liked. Based on my limited experience, this was something bordering on a dungeon.
“It's underneath the nice woman’s kitchen; she stores her dried goods here,” replied Shart. “What else do you expect from a cellar?”
“First off, she stores food at the bottom of the stairs in the very first room,” I replied. “However, after that room, we went down a hallway into another hallway, fought some rats, and went to a third hallway. We’ve been walking for more than half an hour down here.”
“And?”
“The cellar is bigger than the house,” I yelled. My voice reverberated through the underground rat lair. “Who would dig out this much free space without actually using more than a 10 by 10 area?”
“Oh, well, it was probably built on the ruins of an old city,” replied Shart. “Ancient ruins make for good land for building. Something about new life springing from death or some such philosophical human drivel.”
“I’m pretty sure we are going to find a burial chamber down here somewhere. Our real quest is to find and destroy a skeleton lair, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Well, sometimes they build cities on old cemeteries.” the demon informed me. “That’s good land, too. Something about ancient burial ground and poltergeists, or some such haunted human drivel.”
Not for the first time, I wondered how much Shart really knew of Earth. “Are they not afraid of the undead?” I asked, holding my weapons tightly. Since the rat had run away, I had drawn my shortsword. It was marginally better against rats than my dagger, assuming that you could actually hit one. From my D&D days, I knew it was less good against Skeletons.
“Not any more than monsters,” replied Shart, “and that’s what they have you for.”
That’s when I heard the clattering. Two distinct clatters, as two distinct feet started coming toward me. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
“No torch, so, of course, we finally find them,” I grumbled. Turning, I saw a pair of glowing red, hollow, eye sockets staring back at me from across the dungeon. Its eyeless holes were nearly bright enough to illuminate the room in an eerie, blood colored light. Somehow, despite the absence of actual eyeballs, the glint in its empty expression still appeared malevolent. In its hand was a broken piece of sharp metal.
“It’s coming right toward you,” stated Shart, as the skeleton lunged at me with supernatural speed. It covered the 5 paces between us before I realized what was going on. Thrusting its short length of rusted metal, he hit me square in my gut.
I caught one bony arm, but it continued to use its speed and mass in an attempt to push me backward. The problem with that was that it wasn’t moving THAT fast and it only weighed, like, 30 pounds. The rat weighed more than that. I grabbed the skeleton by the sternum and lifted the squirming form off the ground.
That’s something they don’t cover in the fantasy books. Skeletons are only about 15% of your body’s weight; a 200 pound man has a 30 pound skeleton. Even with magically enhanced strength, it wasn’t terribly threatening. I used Lore to check and was disappointed.
Skeleton: Level 1
HP 20/20
Stamina 20/20
Mana 0/20
Skeletons are the least form of undead, crafted by taking a skeleton and animating it with magic. Due to the loss of flesh, skeletons are comprised of mostly magical energy. Thus, they require an investment of Mana to sustain themselves. They will eat of the flesh of a body to absorb its Life Mana and increase their power, in theory.
Suddenly, my concerns about a lack of a bludgeoning weapon were gone. The world itself was my mace. Rotating my wrist 180 degrees, the skeleton’s head was now pointing conveniently towards the ground. Smashing it repeatedly on the old cobblestones, it didn’t take long for the skeleton to entirely come apart.
Just like Dungeons & Dragons.
You have killed 1 of 5 skeletons. Defeat the remainder and take back what they stole to earn a quest reward from JohnMickle.
I walked into the next room, only to come face to face with the remaining 4 skeletons. Each skeleton’s glowing red eyes filled the room with an unearthly light that was, in many respects, better than daylight for illuminating the darkest corners of the room. One skeleton was scary, but a group of them was almost comical in their flailing bony maneuvers. I flattened my hand, palm up, and signaled for the skeletons to charge me.
Imagine a grown adult fighting with a particularly inept group of 5 year olds and you’d have a fairly accurate picture of how the battle went. They were quick, strong, and had a vice like grip, to be sure. They were also light and fragile. Additionally, they got some really good airtime if you flung them far enough.
The first one lunged, and I grabbed a frail white arm, adding more momentum to its flight. It smashed into the wall behind me, bones clattering to the floor in a pile. The second swung at me. I easily dodged and then kicked its knee. The joint held up, but the force of the blow caused the smooth heel of the skeleton to slide backwards. The creature’s legs splayed out, performing a painful looking version of the splits. While the third one swung at me, I grabbed the fallen one by the ankle and proceeded to use it as a club. Both skeletons, the one being used as a weapon, and the one being beaten, soon succumbed to their destruction.
Droopy had a point.
The final skeleton kept on coming, its lack of imagination telling. I grabbed my squawking Shart and flung him off-center, straight into the chest of the remaining foe. The little demon’s position on my shoulder made him an ideal mid-range projectile. The fact that he was oddly shaped typically made him somewhat harder to throw, though.
“What the hell?” managed the demon, as he exploded through the final Skeleton, scattering its bones in all directions. “You know I hate it when you do that.”
“But I got a strike!” I replied. The sights and sounds of bones snapping and flying everywhere took me back, at least for a brief moment, to that first date with my wife. The bowling alley where…
“Fuck you,” Shart growled.
Right, I’m here now.
With all five skeletons taken care of, I examined some of their parts. I momentarily considered keeping the leg bones, but the magic was now broken. I couldn’t think of any real practical use for regular, non-magic, human bones, and holding a femur looks more creepy than threatening.
Letting a leg bone, no longer connected to a hip bone, fall to the ground, I gazed about. With the eye sockets of the skele-crew all extinguished, it was dark as a tomb in the room. However, a
long the wall I found a torch. It must have been left in its sconce, untold centuries ago. Striking it up with long practice, I examined the now lit room. Tucked away in a back corner was a small chest. I walked over and opened it, revealing its contents.
You have found a small chest, contents: 1 silver, 68 copper.
You have found quest item: a jar of preserves.
You have completed the quest, Something's Rattling in my Cellar, Quest reward 25 experience points.
I had just performed a fetch quest to get canned goods.
“We are never going to level at this rate,” I grumbled, staring at the jar questioningly.
“Not with that attitude,” stated Shart, but as he glanced at the prompts in my vision he whistled. “This is the starter village, after all.”
We started walking back towards an exit. The little demon had resumed his perch on my shoulder and was humming a weird tune I couldn’t place. Luckily, we had no issues finding a way back out, despite the limited light my torch could generate. I was a little uncertain that we were following the exact route we had taken an hour ago, considering our general meandering through the maze of this glorified basement.
Within minutes, we climbed a ladder and I was once again above ground. As I had feared, we were not at our starting point. Instead, I popped up into EstherSasha’s house without any preamble. She didn’t even move away from whatever terrible smelling concoction she was cooking. I sincerely hoped she hadn’t spotted me; she would offer me some of whatever was in that pot, and I had already dodged death this morning. No need to push my luck.
Something else strange on Ordinal was that if you were an adventurer, you could literally go just about anywhere, with no one asking any questions. I’d popped up in the room of the village blacksmith’s 16 year old daughter yesterday, and the man had offered me coffee. I’d left when the girl started giving me doe eyes. However, in general, being an adventurer was just like being a guy holding a ladder.