Rising Tide: A LitRPG Novel (Age of Steam Book 1)

by Mitchell T. Jacobs

  “That only works if half the members didn't quit out of frustration.”

  Shane sighed. “Yeah, we know about that all too well.”

  “So that's why I'm here. I know that you don't know me all too well, but after being with you on two missions I think you have a solid foundation for a new guild. And you're going to be fighting against the Iron Guild.”

  “That's where you're wrong,” Shane said. “We're not going to be fighting against the Iron Guild.”

  “Oh? And why is there the change of heart?”

  “No change of heart. We're doing what we've set out to do. We want to open up the sea lanes so everyone is able to trade freely. That's it. We're not going out and picking fights with the Iron Guild. If they leave us alone and let this happen, then that's fine. It accomplishes our goal.”

  “But the guild isn't going to let you do that. They'll use force to put you back into line. So you're going to have to fight them anyhow,” she said. “I'm not sure that it makes that much of a difference.”

  “It makes every bit of difference.”

  She frowned. “I'm still not understanding what you're saying.”

  “It's simple,” Shane said. “We're not going to be the aggressors. Our goal is to defend the sea lanes and keep them open. Now, that might mean we'll take aggressive action. We'll attack the guild when needed, and if they're going to fight a war we'll engage them. But that's on the tactical level. On the strategic level our role is purely defensive.”

  “Listen to our leader, the idealist,” Kelvin said with a grin.

  Shane shrugged. “Hey, I have no desire to fight the Iron Guild, only to turn into the exact same thing under new management. We're opening the seas for everyone. That's it. We're going to be part of this world. We're not going to try to own it all.”

  Jamie nodded. “I see.”

  “So are you with us?”

  “I'm with you,” she said. “And after hearing that, I'm with you even more. It might just be lies, but it sounded convincing.”

  Shane smiled. “Ah, so you think I'm lying.”

  “She's just a cynic,” Brandon said. “Makes me feel like an optimist.”

  “I try.”

  “Well, she'll fit right in,” Kelvin said.

  “If you'll allow me to join, that is,” Jamie said.

  “Why wouldn't we?”

  She hesitated. “Because of my previous guild affiliation. It might bring unwanted attention to you.”

  “I'm pretty sure we'll be getting plenty of attention, unwanted or otherwise,” Shane said.

  “But in the beginning, when you're getting your guild going-”

  “We're in a safe zone. The Iron Guild can't do anything to us here. We have plenty of friends we can go to for help, either through overt or covert channels. And we have our ship.”

  “But if the guild tries to bar you from purchasing on the market...”

  “We'll deal with it. But I don't think that will happen. If we started taking in hordes of players from destroyed guilds then I could see it, but just one? Is that really going to catch their attention when they have thousands of other things to keep track of?”

  “I don't want to cause a problem.”

  “I don't think you will. And if we have problems I'm pretty sure that we're going to be the ones causing them. But you should already know that after the last one. We seem to like to pick fights with a certain type.”

  “Doesn't that go against those goals you were talking about earlier?”

  “She's got you there,” Brandon said with a smile.

  Shane smiled as well. “There's always exceptions. Raiders are one of them. But the point's the same. I don't think this is going to be a problem. We'd be glad to have you.”

  Jamie nodded. “Then I'll head down to the hall of records and put in an application to join the guild.”

  “I'll accept it as soon as they send the alert to my guidebook,” Shane told her.

  Jamie turned to go, then hesitated for a moment and looked back.

  “Oh yeah, I should probably ask you that,” she said. “What's the name of the guild?”

  “The name of the guild?” Shane said. “The name of the guild is Maelstrom Squadron.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  It took another week for them to get their new base resembling something decent. The rooms needed to be cleaned, the floors replaced, and there was still no way to get up to what remained of the upper two floors without a ladder, but at least the debris had been cleared away.

  Shane stepped through the doorway and called the rest of the guild together.

  “OK, change of plans for today,” he said. “We're taking the rail to Mamlare.”

  “What for? We have other things to do,” Bailey said. “They're still working on our designs, and-”

  Shane held a hand up. “Look, we've been working on this stuff for a week straight, plus making runs between Dux and Tengra. I know we're doing this so we can get the guild on its feet, but it gets boring after a while. Let's do something a little different.”

  “What do you want to do?” Kelvin asked.

  “Go monster hunting in the forest up there, of course. It's something different for us to do, and who knows? Maybe we'll find one of the random caches as well. Or at least we can get pelts and that kind of stuff.”

  “Make a little cash on the side,” Brandon said.

  “Well hey, we can't just run in there and shoot animals just to leave the corpses there. That would make us psychopaths. But if we take some stuff off of them that makes us hunters, right?”

  The others laughed.

  “Oh come on, does that really matter?” Kelvin asked.

  “It matters to me.”

  “Is there a particular way that you hunt?” Jamie asked.

  “Simple. Find our prey, stalk them, and if it's a predator we kill it before it kills us. If it's not it then we shoot it before it gets away. Like I said, simple.”

  Jamie looked at the others. “So how many times has he been chewed on?”

  “You don't think I'm capable of hunting things?”

  “I'm assuming the things you're talking about there are the ferox cats, right? Because that's the only large predator outside of the wolf packs, but those only come out at night.”

  “Yeah, what about it?”

  “There's nothing simple about hunting ferox cats. Or they're hard to shoot, at least.”

  “For lone hunters or pairs, but that's why we're going in a group. We'll have more than enough of us to deal with a few cats.”

  “But they'll chomp on us if we're not careful,” Bailey said.

  “Of course. That's what makes it fun.”

  “So are we switching specializations?” Kelvin asked.

  Shane shrugged. “You can do it if you want, but I wasn't planning on it. We can track the fine without the hunter specialization.”

  “Makes it a lot easier, though.”

  “Of course it does, but where's the challenge in that?”

  Brandon turned back toward the office. “Whatever. I'm going to tune up my gear to make sure it works when we're out there.”

  “OK, let's head out to the station in ten minutes or so. That should give us plenty of time to get out into the wild and do some hunting before the sun sets.”

  “Why, you don't want to be wolf chow?” Kelvin grinned.

  “Nah, but if you really want to we can arrange that.” He followed Brandon to get his gear.

  It took them about two hours to reach Mamlare, and another to make their way from the inner city into the forests. Everyone had their weapons drawn and remained on alert, watching for any signs of danger.

  Brandon swept his eyes over one patch of brush but saw nothing. So far he only heard singing birds and the occasional sound of something small moving in the brush, but he remained wary. Ferox cats were extremely dangerous, only about one-hundred and fifty pounds or so, but they were almost completely silent hunters, extremely strong for thei
r size, and very intelligent. They could easily kill a man-sized victim, or at least wrap their jaws around its neck and drag them into the brush before anyone had time to respond.

  And they could climb. Brandon made sure to keep a close eye on the trees above. He had seen the animals drop down from the trees a few times before, and if they timed it right their pounce meant almost certain death.

  Even with five of them, guns and blades in hand, this hunt was highly dangerous. But while Brandon remained alert and concerned, he also felt excitement coursing through his veins. Here they were, out in the middle of nowhere playing a dangerous game and teetering between being the predator and prey. One wrong step, one wrong move or decision and they'd have ferox jaws around their neck.

  The idea thrilled him. It was different than naval combat, more personal, faster, less predictable. At sea the fights were about timing, about mathematics and maneuver. A ship could only move in a few predictable directions, so fighting was based on figuring out which of those directions it would move toward. In contrast, fights on the ground seemed to move faster and had far more unpredictability.

  “Nothing,” he said. “I don't see anything.”

  “You won't if you keep talking,” Jamie said.

  “What, you think we're going to scare away a ferox cat? Or tip it off? If it's anywhere near us it's already either heard, seen, or smelled us.”

  “If you get your head bitten off then don't blame me.”

  “We should stay quiet,” Bailey said in a low tone. “We don't know what's out here, and there aren't just cats.”

  Brandon nodded and lapsed into silence. The forests contained all manner of hidden areas and diversions, ranging from simple hideaways to complex caverns and rocky labyrinths, all teeming with danger. The wildlife wasn't the only threat out here. NPC pirates and brigands also made their hideouts here, and they'd attack anyone that strayed into their territory.

  But this place also provided players with plenty of rewards as well. Hidden treasures, resources from plant and animal life, devices from long-dead civilizations, all of it made the forests north of Mamlare a tempting target, even if stepping foot inside of them risked death.

  And they could deal with that. All of them were near the skills cap with their chosen specialization, and they had been playing the game for a while. Weapons skills weren't tide to a specialization, and any player could learn any type of weapon. Some of the temperaments made it easier than others. Brutes, for instance, could lug around heavier weapons and fire them more effectively, but in theory a champion, a shadow, and a brute were all capable of becoming proficient with the same weapons. And-

  Brandon stopped in his tracks and held up a hand as he noticed the situation. His sentinel specialization had gradually increased his perception the more he used it, but time and seasoning played a major part in increasing his awareness as well.

  The birds had stopped singing, and the forest had gone quiet. That could only mean they perceived some sort of threat. The question was, what that threat might-

  He heard a click, and his mouth began shouting before his mind fully comprehended where the sound had come from.

  “Ambush! Ambush!” Brandon yelled, throwing himself off the path, but the others must have heard it to. They hurried into cover simultaneously.

  Just in time, because a shot rang out and zipped down the path. If Brandon had been a split-second slower he would have been standing at the head of the column right when the bullet passed.

  “Brandon, status!” Shane ordered.

  “Working on it!” he replied, glancing around and trying to pick out any sign of the enemy.

  They were NPCs, no doubt about it, but that didn't make them any less dangerous than other players. The enemy had been completely silent, right up until their sniper had cocked their weapon and opened fire.

  He scanned the forest and brought his steam rifle up to bear, looking for any signs of the enemy. Brandon thought he saw movement to the left and focused on the area. Another shot zipped by them, but Brandon ignored it and started counting outlines.

  “Looks like five, six of them,” he said. “All of them have steam rifles, at least I think.”

  “OK, wait for the next volley and then start moving through the ambush. Brandon and Kelvin on cover duty. The rest of us, we're going to close and used our close-combat weapons.”

  Brandon heard the confirmations from the rest of the group and looked down his steam rifle's scope. He flipped one switch on his weapon to fill the compression chamber with steam, then flipped it back off once the gauge reached the proper level. Too little pressure and the gun wouldn't function properly, but too much and it would either damage the gun or in extreme cases make the breach explode in his face.

  Brandon pulled the bolt to chamber a round, then looked down the scope and focused in on an enemy target. This bandit had a long gun, probably used for sharpshooting. With a little more time their foe might be able to pick them off, but…

  He exhaled to steady his nerves, then adjusted his aim one last time and squeezed the trigger in one smooth motion.

  The target jerked backward and then flopped over, its weapon slipping from its lifeless grasp. Perfect headshot at relatively close range, instant kill. Brandon flipped the switch again to prep his weapon to fire.

  He heard another thump, much louder this time, and a metal spike smacked into a tree. It passed through the midst of the enemy position harmlessly, but it forced them to cover into cover and hug the ground.

  “I see your aim hasn't improved,” he shouted to Kelvin.

  “Yeah, yeah, I'm working on it,” Kelvin replied. He struggled with his spike driver, a massive weapon that needed that required large amounts of steam to propel large lengths of pointed metal. It was unwieldy, but the sheer power from an on-target strike could cause serious damage.

  Brandon heard another volley zip overheard.

  “Let's move!” Shane ordered.

  The assault team pushed themselves to their feet and charged up the path, blades in hand. Brandon finished reloading and shifted himself into a kneeling position. It would expose him to enemy fire, but it would also give him a better field of vision. Besides, then enemy were reloading, and he'd only get one shot off at most.

  Brandon focused in on the rightmost enemy so he wouldn't risk hitting his comrades and squeezed the trigger. He felt the rifle's hard kick and heard the thump as it ejected a gout of steam out of the barrel.

  His second target flopped back, killed by the sheer punch of the weapon. It might be slow to reload and kicked like a mule, but he couldn't complain about the steam rifle's power. Every on-target shot would either kill or incapacitate the victim.

  For a moment Brandon thought about reloading again, but the others closed the distance and started hacking their way through the surviving ambushers. He stood up, slung his rifle over his shoulder, and drew his blade, but by the time he moved down the path to join them they had already finished their attack.

  “Well, that was a bit unexpected,” Brandon commented as he joined them.

  “Yeah, no kidding. I guess we're not hunting ferox cats anymore,” Bailey said.

  “Why's that?”

  Shane stood up and handed him a sheet of paper. “Found that on one of the bodies.”

  Brandon looked down to see a crude map with several locations marked off. It took him a moment to figure out where they were, but Brandon managed to find the spot, along with another large x…

  “So, is this just a random event or a mini-quest?”

  Bailey opened her guidebook and held it up. “Mini-quest.”

  “I assume we're going to follow it?”

  “Why wouldn't we? We'll probably be better off doing this than just hunting for ferox cats.”

  “What's the quest say?” Kelvin asked as he moved up to join them.

  Bailey looked down at her guidebook and read the entry aloud. “You have found a mysterious map on the body of a bandit. Maybe you should investig
ate the location marked there.”

  “Sounds fun. And dangerous too, but I'll go for it.”

  Brandon nodded. “Random quest on a random journey. Why not? Sounds like fun.”

  They made their way through the forest, staying alert for any signs of danger. Kelvin heard the birds singing, so there weren't any immediate threats around, but he remained wary. These type of mini-quests either had ambushes all the way to the objective, or one large monster guarding the loot. Unprepared players could quickly find themselves becoming overwhelmed, but the rewards were worth it.

  And if they wanted the loot they had to do it now, because these quests disappeared after a short amount of time.

  “So, what do you think we're getting at the end?” Bailey said. “Money? Resources? A weapon?”

  “First we've got to kill whatever's guarding the location,” Jamie said. “And since we're all pretty high-level I'm going to bet that we're not going to have an easy time of it.”

  “We never do,” Kelvin said. “But-”

  He stopped speaking as Brandon held up a hand from the front of the column. Kelvin was about to ask him what he had found, but a sound pierced the air. It was a snarl, almost a scream that seemed to shake the very forest around them. He moved up and deployed with the rest of the team.

  A clearing in the middle of the forest spread out before them, mostly bare dirt with only a few patches of grass. A cave dominated the other end of the clearing, and Kelvin noticed piles of bones scattered all around.

  Brandon glanced over his shoulder at them. “We-”

  He didn't get a chance to say anything further. A ferox cat dropped out of the trees and tried to wrap its jaws around his throat.

  Kelvin reacted without thinking. He charged forward and smashed the monster aside with one swipe of his spike driver. The blunt force of the heavy weapon sent the cat flying, and it crumpled in a heap when it landed. As it struggled to rise the rest of the party cut it down with a series of gunshots.

  “You alive?” he asked.

  Brandon climbed to his feet, one of his arms bleeding “Yeah, still breathing. Thanks for the save.”