Citadel of Smoke: A LitRPG and GameLit Adventure (Stonehaven League Book 4)

by Carrie Summers

  Well, she had gone with Hazel to try to do something about the awakening stones. But that didn’t really count toward restoring the city. And now she’d been roped into turning into a demon and heading off to the underworld or whatever. She was tempted to tell Torald and company to decamp and come back in a couple of months.

  She took a deep breath. “Yeah, I’ve had a bunch of maintenance to do. And I really need to get some of my basic skills leveled up.”

  “I found her playing commando in the grass over there,” Baywen offered.

  Torald raised an eyebrow, failing to hide his amusement. “Anything we can help with? The dueling’s been pretty decent skill gain, actually. You can get your abilities to higher tiers as well.”

  “I don’t think—”

  The paladin grabbed her arm and dragged her forward. “Oh, come on. Even if it doesn’t help with your character progression, you can’t come all the way out here and not show these guys that Phoenix Fire spell you unloaded on me. I didn’t have a chance to defend myself because I was too busy trying to sell you back Stonehaven’s ownership. Up for a friendly challenge?”

  Devon tried to stop, but the paladin’s enthusiastic tugging nearly pulled her off her feet. She stared in horror as her steps brought her closer to the circle of strangers surrounding the ongoing duel.

  When they neared the ring, she finally managed to get her feet planted, and Torald lost his grip.

  He turned and smirked. “What’s the matter? Afraid you might be outmatched?”

  Devon sighed. At least she might get some skill gain out of it. “I guess we’ll just have to see,” she said with a faint smile.

  ***

  Devon winced as the druid’s Barkskin faded, exposing the woman’s bare arms, just before the paladin’s one-handed mace slammed into her shoulder. The caster staggered, a grimace of pain on her face, but she widened her stance and her eyes began to glow green as she mouthed quiet words.

  “Nice try,” the paladin said, bashing her with his buckler and canceling her spell cast. She growled and jogged backward, snapping off an instant-cast ability that caused tendrils of greenery to erupt from the paladin’s boots, wrapping him like a pea plant growing up a trellis. Slowed, the paladin couldn’t catch the druid with another swipe before she was able to restore her Barkskin. The woman raised her staff into a guard position, and her eyes glowed for another brief moment before the spell rushed out from her. A wave of energy spread across the dueling ring, then sank into the ground. Moments later, thousands of insects tunneled their way out from the earth and swarmed over the paladin.

  “Oh Christ, I hate fighting druids,” the man bellowed, vainly swatting at the writhing layer that covered his body.

  Devon grinned, enjoying the combat more than she’d expected she would. The fighters were within a few health percentage points of one another, with just around a third left for each of them. But as damage from the slicing cuts of thousands of insect mandibles took their toll on the paladin, his health bar went into free fall.

  “He gets Cleanse next level,” Torald said quietly. “But until then, there’s not much a pally can do against a druid if they can keep their Barkskin up.”

  Devon nodded, realizing how ignorant she was about much of Relic Online. It seemed strange to have been so intimately involved in the game but to know so little about the other player classes and general mechanics.

  In the combat arena, the druid smirked as she said a quick word and thumped the butt of her staff onto the ground.

  The air seemed to pulse with vitality.

  “Oh no,” Torald muttered. “Poor Jaron.”

  “What?” Devon asked.

  “Heartwood,” he said, shaking his head.

  Devon glanced at the spectators. Everyone else seemed to know what was coming as well, and their pity for the poor paladin was reflected on their faces. Devon almost didn’t want to watch.

  “I yield,” the paladin squeaked between swats at his coat of angry insects, but it was apparently too late, because his words ended with a strangled cry. The man froze, standing stock still as his eyes widened. Without warning, branches burst from his torso, warping his plate mail in their efforts to make it through the chinks. The man shrieked as roots erupted from his feet and tunneled into the ground. His arms rose from his sides, and twigs sprouted from his fingers. Needles popped from both the new-grown branches and the man’s flesh. Moments later, he looked like some weird cross between a Christmas tree and an armor rack. With a generous coating of ants.

  “Yield,” he said again, pleading.

  The druid laughed. “I know, sorry. It was just that I got a new tier in the spell during the last duel and I wanted a chance to try it out.”

  With a slice of her hand through the air, she canceled the Heartwood spell, and the paladin crumpled to the ground. Another wave of the druid’s hand sent the insects fleeing back into the ground.

  Devon stared at the loser. Where branches had erupted from his body, his armor was damaged, but not as badly as she’d expected after seeing the spell effect.

  As the man caught his breath and gathered himself to stand, streams of light flowed from healers’ hands and into his body. Soon enough, he appeared no worse for wear aside from the minor damage to his armor. And his wounded pride, no doubt. With a sigh, he started unbuckling his breastplate and headed toward one of the many anvils.

  The druid took a little bow, then grinned. “Got a tier-up in Earth Swarm that time. Anyone want to challenge?”

  “Great,” Torald mumbled. “Remind me not to agree to a duel with Magda. Even with Cleanse, I don’t think I can beat her.”

  “Even if you could, I don’t think it’s worth the risk,” Devon said. “That didn’t look pleasant.”

  Torald chuckled and stepped into the ring. “So we’re doing this, yeah?”

  Another pair of combatants seemed to have been waiting their turn and stepped forward at the same time. Torald gave them a pointed glance, then flicked his gaze toward Devon. Around fifteen sets of eyes turned to stare at her. The rogue and wizard who had been waiting their turn quickly stepped back.

  “Great,” Devon muttered. While the spectators had been distracted by the combat, she’d been able to remain unnoticed. Apparently that respite was over.

  “I assume you guys recognize this lovely lady,” Torald said with a flourish of his hand.

  Devon gritted her teeth. She was tempted to turn and run.

  “I guess it’s our lucky day,” a woman across the circle said. “I’ve been wanting to see if the rumors are true.”

  Devon met the woman’s eyes and saw a faint challenge there. She sighed. No matter the situation, some women were just plain catty. She ignored the remark and reluctantly stepped into the ring.

  “So what do we do now?” she asked Torald. “Is there a countdown or something?”

  The paladin pulled his helm from his Manpurse of Holding and put it on. “Not sure why, but there’s no formal dueling system built into RO. We figured out some rules for ourselves. Basically, once we both declare we’re ready, we ask the healers. They get two seconds to object before we start.”

  Devon nodded. Mentally rifling through her spell list, she thought through an opening salvo. The sunlight was probably too bright for a Glowing Orb/Shadow Puppet combo, but she could pull out a sun-based puppet. Or better, open with Phoenix Fire for the slow effect, then worry about combos once she was safely out of Torald’s range. And she might as well use the debuff ability on her chest armor.

  “Ready, I guess,” she said.

  “You have to bow while you say it.”

  “Uh.” Devon gave an awkward bow. “Ready, I guess.”

  “As am I,” Torald said, bending extravagantly at the waist.

  He looked at her expectantly. Devon blinked.

  “I forgot to add that it’s customary for the least experienced dueler to address the healers.”

  Couldn’t th
ey just say, “one, two, three, go?” These people had to be really bored to come up with a set of dueling customs. Devon glanced toward one of the clerics who had healed the last combatants.

  “Healers ready?” she said somewhat tentatively.

  Quest updated: Stop being such a shut in.

  Bonus objective: Actually talk to people while you’re there. (3/5)

  “Game. Enough with the quest,” she muttered.

  With a roar, Torald sprinted forward. Devon back stepped and laid a hand on her Leather Doublet of Darkness, preparing to pop off its debuff while she poured mana into a Phoenix Fire cast. A split second before the spell fired, the most god-awful noise filled the combat arena. It sounded like someone was torturing a mutant fairy.

  “AAAiiiiieeeee!” Bob came streaking into the ring.

  The wisp zinged between Devon and the paladin, shrieking the whole time.

  “What the hell?”

  “Christ. Shut it up!”

  Around the circle of spectators, people clamped hands over their ears. Torald slid to a stop, only to have Bob start in with the obnoxious ducking and weaving it had practiced around Devon’s legs.

  Devon grimaced as the tone of Bob’s shriek shifted to something like the death howl of a pygmy monkey. Fighting a sudden stabbing headache, she tried again to start casting Phoenix Fire, but her cast bar vanished instantly as the wailing interrupted her effort.

  “Bob! Dude!” she shouted. “Stop!”

  The wisp seemed oblivious, continuing to dance around Torald’s face in a shimmering, pulsating cyclone that shifted battle cries to the ear-shattering keening of microphone feedback.

  The paladin roared and struck blindly, two-handed sword slicing the air. The massive blade whiffed, and the tip gouged a trench through the packed dirt. Torald gave another strangled cry and took one hand from the hilt. He clapped his mail gauntlet over one side of his helm and pressed his other ear against the steel plate protecting his shoulder. Devon could only imagine how awful Bob’s shrieks sounded while echoing around inside platemail.

  Staggering, she forced herself to focus on the combat. At the very least, she should try to keep fighting.

  She pushed mana into an insta-cast Shadow Puppet. The figure rose from the earth, and she formed it into a blade of darkness, as sharp and hard as shadows cast by the sun. She readied the mental impulse to send her creation lancing toward Torald but hesitated. This really wasn’t fair.

  “Bob!” she shouted. “Chill!”

  The wisp continued to ignore her. If anything, its plague of noise worsened. Tiny bolts of arcane energy flew from the glowing ball into Torald’s face, but if they did any damage, the paladin’s in-combat regeneration erased it.

  All at once, she couldn’t take it anymore. Devon’s head felt like an ingot on an anvil. She whipped open her ability screen and selected Teleport, fixing the Shrine to Veia in her mind.

  Nothing happened.

  She focused on the ability again, very deliberately working her mind through the mental gymnastics to activate it.

  Still nothing. But she was pretty sure her eardrums were going to rupture if she didn’t go insane from the noise first.

  “Fricking Teleport already!” she whined, mentally button-mashing the ability icon.

  Cast failed. Did you forget the little detail about not teleporting while in-combat?

  Cast failed. Did you forget the little detail about not teleporting while in-combat?

  Cast failed. Did you forget the little detail about not teleporting while in-combat?

  Cast failed. Did you forget the little detail about not teleporting while in-combat?

  “But I’m not”—she glanced at Torald, now trying to cover his other ear with the hilt of his longsword—“Okay fine.”

  Maybe the only way out of this was through. Gritting her teeth, Devon focused on the wisp-tormented paladin and sent her Shadow Puppet flying toward him. The black spear hit Torald’s leg plate and glanced off, arrowing into the spectators where it slashed deep across a woman’s arm. The impact knocked Devon back, and she nearly staggered into the crowd behind her.

  “Shit! Sorry!” she shouted, her words lost in Bob’s racket.

  A woman in chainmail with white vestments and iron-hard eyes stepped forward. “Dispel!” she commanded, raising a hand. The air shimmered as a ball of colorless energy shot forward and slammed into Bob, scattering the wisp into a cloud of glittering motes that squealed like angry mosquitoes and then faded away.

  The following silence was glorious, then suffocating, then embarrassing. Devon swallowed and glanced at the spectators, especially the woman she’d sliced with her Shadow Puppet.

  Light streamed from the cleric who had dispelled Bob and sank into the injured woman’s arm. The gash on her bicep narrowed and then sealed, the blood crusting over and fading away.

  “I’m really sorry about that,” Devon said quietly.

  Quest updated: Stop being such a shut-in.

  Bonus objective: Actually talk to people while you’re there. (4/5)

  Devon flicked the pop-up away and fought the urge to wrap her arms protectively over her midsection. She felt the stares on her, and at the edge of her vision, noticed more members of the player camp hurrying over to see what had happened.

  “Well, this is vaguely humiliating,” she said to no one in particular.

  Torald finally managed to stand upright again. He pulled the tip of his sword out of the dirt and winced at the damage to its edge. With a swallow, he focused on Devon, “Okay, so that was unpleasant enough that I propose we make an exception to our rule of allowing all combat abilities the duelers have available. But humiliating? You basically incapacitated a whole camp of players around your level. What spell was that anyway?”

  She swallowed. When he put it that way, Bob’s “attack” had been pretty effective. Except for the fact that she’d been just as flattened by its horrific shrieking as the rest of them. Maybe if she could figure out how to get some earplugs crafted…

  But anyway, maybe none of them had noticed her failed attempt to control her “spell.” As long as they were stuck out here waiting to swear fealty to her, the least she could do was pretend to be competent. Better that than deepen their despair once they realized their future ruler earned more insults than insight from her so-called guide.

  Figuring the wisp would need some time to reconstitute its arcane energy and lick its wounds, she decided it wouldn’t hurt to fib a little.

  “To tell the truth, I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so…loud. It’s a new ability I hadn’t tried yet.” That was even mostly true. She hadn’t known Bob would join combat until around an hour ago. She glanced at the cleric who had dispelled the rampaging wisp. “Thanks for the clutch Dispel. I was kinda fumbling around trying to cancel the effect because it took me by surprise.”

  Quest updated: Stop being such a shut-in.

  Bonus objective: Actually talk to people while you’re there. (5/5)

  Yeah, that’s going kinda easy on you. Most people wouldn’t call a stray word or two “conversation,” but given the source of the words, you get a pass.

  “Well,” Torald said with a somewhat frazzled chuckle, “it worked. But what do you say to forbidding it in duels?”

  “Yeah. No problem. To be honest, I’m not really a fan of the effects.”

  At the edge of her vision, a white ball appeared from beneath the canvas of a shade pavilion. She snapped her head toward it, ready to command Bob with a very explicit request to leave, but whatever energy the wisp had put into rematerializing in the physical plane gave out before she had a chance. Her guide’s light flared then winked out as a faint voice cried, “I am an ancient being. Companion to many of history’s greatest wizardssss…”

  Though the words had sounded cacophonous to her ears, no one else seemed to have heard. She turned a bright smile on the gathering.

  “Anyway,” Torald said with a gri
n as he twirled his immense sword with one hand, “we’ll call that one a win for you since Havaeni intervened with her Dispel.”

  “I was just saving our ears,” the cleric objected.

  Torald nodded but held Devon’s eyes. “Up for another go? I really need the chance to redeem myself here.”

  Still shaken, Devon took a deep breath. “Okay, fair enough.” She paused and gave him a sly smile. “Just don’t complain if your pride takes another beating.”

  Torald laughed. “You’re on. Ready.”

  Laying her off-hand on her Leather Doublet of Darkness, she nodded and drew her Wicked Bone Dagger. “Ready. Healers?”

  Around the circle, players nodded.

  Devon counted off two seconds in her head and activated the Night’s Breath ability on her doublet. Darkness swelled in the small arena as Torald’s eyes widened. He blinked and shook his head, standing somewhat unsteadily as the spell landed.

  “Full of surprises, aren’t you,” he muttered as he thundered forward with his sword raised.

  Devon barely managed to sidestep his slash; the wind from his blade cooled her cheek as she frantically scrambled clear. Running sideways, she dropped a Freeze on the paladin, momentarily locking him in place as she started funneling mana into the longer-to-cast Phoenix Fire spell.

  Torald, locked in ice up to his hips, raised a gleaming arm and pointed at her. “Stillness!” he commanded.

  Devon’s breath froze in her lungs as her awareness of her mana pool abruptly vanished. It was as if her heart had stopped beating, leaving her blood lifeless in her veins. Until that moment, she hadn’t been consciously aware of the vitality—the life—that mana gave her. All at once, she perceived that mana was her connection to Veia, even more than the life energy represented by her hitpoints. Her mana pool had been drained before, but she’d still been subconsciously aware of the pool itself.