Neck-Deep In It: A LitRPG and GameLit Series.

by Jason Cheek

  “It killed you with its roar?” Jodi asked, a little freaked out.

  “No, it stunned us with its roar,” Grody explained, as he finished strapping on his leather equipment belt. A sight that Jodie could’ve lived her whole life without seeing.

  ‘Of course not,’ Fiona said with a dismissive snort, ‘I’m about four hundred yards away perched at the edge of the woods and watching the fight going on further up the mountain.’

  ‘How are they doing?’ Jodi asked, concerned for the rest of the raid in spite of herself.

  “We’re having some shit luck with this run,” Warduke complained, as he stepped out with his shield and sword held at the ready. With a frown, he jerked his chin at Bialaer’s corpse. “So, what are we doing with roadkill here?”

  ‘It’s ugly,’ Fiona sent with an undertone of respect in her thoughts, ‘Dreadmere of the Icy Wrath won’t stand still in one place long enough for them to get a clean volley.’

  “Can anyone here cast resurrect yet?” Jodi asked, frowning as she glanced at the Priests around her.

  “Still don’t have the mana required yet to cast the damn spell,” Tumms said in an annoyed voice, as the other Priest nodded in agreement at his words. “A thousand mana is pretty damn steep for a freaking Resurrect spell.”

  “Then, I’ll carry him,” Jodi said, shouldering her bow as she walked over to the corpse of the Ranger.

  “Do we even want to mess with that thing?” Lylar nervously asked.

  “What, you tired of getting your ass whooped?” Grody jokingly asked, as the Ranger/Priest gave him an annoyed look.

  “Somewhat,” Lylar said, “this is more of a death run than I normally like to do.”

  “Eh, we knew it might be like this,” Zeppy said, giving his friend an encouraging clap on the shoulder.

  “Fiona says we’re basically at the base of the mountain that leads to Fang Pass,” Jodi helpfully said, as she looked over the Ranger’s bloody corpse.

  “Well, that’s something,” Lylar said, tiredly running a hand through his hair, “It just sucks dying again and again without being able to do anything about it.”

  “You know what,” Jodi said, shouldering the Ranger’s bow and hauling Bialaer’s body onto her backpack, “I have a feeling that Elandorr and the rest of his crew aren’t simply going to roll over and die,” she stood up with the Ranger’s bloody arms wrapped around her neck, “no matter how much of a badass the Mini-Boss is.”

  “They are pretty impressive,” Zeppy agreed with a faraway look in his eyes, as many of the Zeppy’s Heroes members nodded in agreement.

  “What we can do,” Jodi said, as her determined gaze swept over the tired faces around her, “is help to collect the dead.”

  “Not a bad idea,” Grody agreed, letting out an embarrassed cough.

  “It might help make amends for earlier,” Zeppy readily agreed, as he turned to Jodi with a grin, “any idea where we need to start looking?”

  ‘Think you might be able to give us a hand with that?’ Jodi asked the Blink Lynx.

  ‘I might be persuaded,’ Fiona sent back with an approving sniff, ‘and who knows, that might actually get you out of the doghouse with those guys.’

  It took only a few minutes for Fiona to return and lead Zeppy’s Heroes to all of the various locations where their escorts had been ambushed. There were, surprisingly enough, only eight or so corpses to collect from around them in the Dark Woods. Meaning, that their escort hadn’t been caught off guard as bad as their group had been. Though, the Blink Lynx promised there were more that needed to be gathered further up on the slope of the mountain.

  Around five minutes later, they were moving through the trees at a steady run with the Blink Lynx in the lead, heading for the ongoing battle in the distance. That alone sounded crazy. Whoever heard of a Mini-Boss fight taking over ten minutes to complete, Jodi thought with a shake of her head. This thing wasn’t a World Boss. Though there were a few fights like that in some of the other MMO games that she’d played in the past, but in most cases, that would usually mean a wipe.

  Oddly enough, Jodi noticed a number of dead trash monsters strewn across the ground the closer they got to the edge of the forest. A number of them were the Elite Fluffy Deaths which didn’t come as a great surprise. What did catch her curiosity was the number of Elite Pyro Spitters that had been slaughtered. Everywhere she looked there were whole groups that had been killed it seemed for the fun of it. Was that the Mini-Boss’s doing, Jodi silently wondered, as a sinking feeling came to her stomach

  As they reached the edge of the Dark Forest, Fiona had silently confirmed to Jodi that Dreadmere of the Icy Wrath that had taken them out was a Level 70 Mini-Boss. No wonder the monster had wasted them so easily. Not that Jodi could see how Elandorr and his people were going to do any better against the high-level monster, she thought with a snort, it was a good twenty-five-plus levels higher than most of their raid. Even so, with every minute that went by, it seemed like more and more horns were joining in on the calls to battle.

  Those were the thoughts in the back of Jodi’s mind as they came speeding out of the treeline. Quickly, her eyes scanned the area ahead of them to get an idea of what they faced. About fifty yards ahead, Jodi saw the start of the mountain path, that was supposed to lead up to Fang Pass. and the fortress being built there. While further up, her eyes were drawn to the intense battle being fought by Elandorr and his people.

  There were close to fifteen bodies strewn out across the lower section of the slope along with a number of Elite Pyro Spitter corpses, while the main battle was going on about a hundred and fifty yards further up. From what she could see between the brief spurts of action, Dreadmere of the Icy Wrath was sprinting around Elandorr and his people in great bounding leaps while the raid was broken into four separate groups that were working together to keep the predator off balance. A quick count, including the dead that they were carrying and the bodies they could see, showed that only eighty members of the raid were present.

  Trading questioning looks with one another concerning the missing members of the raid, they continued their trudge across the frozen snow and began heading up the slope towards the dead bodies. Oddly enough, as they ran, Jodi noticed a lone Elite Pyro Spitter hopping about the battlefield. It must’ve been the sole survivor of one of the many family groups that had been exterminated, Jodi realized, while the little guy blasted its heart out trying to take down the Mini-Boss with everything it had. It would’ve been hilarious if it wasn’t so sad.

  As Fiona came to a stop, Zeppy quickly ordered his people to gather up the dead as the fighting continued above them. It was impressive as hell to watch. Jodi couldn’t seem to look away from the train wreck happening right before her eyes. That’s because, even though Elandorr and his people were fighting smart and keeping their shit together, the Mini-Boss was all over them.

  Elandorr had four groups of Rangers being led by Warriors. Those groups kept moving around in support of one another, while Dreadmere of the Icy Wrath tried its best to overwhelm them. The Mini-Boss had some sort of AOE attack that could stun an entire group if it got close enough. She’d actually seen that happen more than once in the short time that she’d been observing the fight.

  Instead of being wiped out like she would’ve expected, Jodi saw Nalaea put up one of her Sanctuary Light Walls to stop the Mini-Boss from taking out the stunned group. Usually, that put Dreadmere of the Icy Wrath in a rage and the monster would start blasting Elandorr’s group directly, but somehow Ava was there to block the breath attack with her shield each time. It was truly some impressive coordination. Even so, what confused Jodi the most, was that none of them seemed to be using their Enhanced Shadow Bolts against the monster. Though, even without their Dark magic attacks, the Mini-Boss looked pretty beat-up.

  “What do you think we should do now?” Zeppy asked, as he came to a stop next to her.

  “Good question,” Jodi said with a frown, maybe circle around the main battle
. We can drop off the dead and try to offer support from maximum range?” Before Zeppy could reply, a chorus of blaring horns cut them both off.

  ““Rrraaahhh … rrraaahhh … rrraaahhh!””

  As her eyes followed the noise to its source, Jodi noticed another group of fifty or so troopers hurrying down the slope at a breakneck pace. She hadn’t noticed them earlier because she was so focused on the battle happening before her. It took her only a second to realize that these must be reinforcements from the fortress at the top of the pass.

  Even from this distance, Jodi could tell that the group was heavily armed and armored. More than that, they looked fresh and energized. Meaning, they hadn’t been fighting throughout the whole day against a bunch of PKers or high-level monsters like Elandorr and his people had been doing up until now. This also put the numbers on the House of Kayden troopers’ side if Dreadmere of the Icy Wrath chose to stay and fight. A fact that the Mini-Boss seemed to innately understand as it turned to face the reinforcements. While all of that was well and good, it, unfortunately, put the rest of them in the monster’s path if it decided to run away and live to fight another day.

  “We’re so fucked,” Jodi said, flinching as the predator turned its monstrous head to look directly at them as if reading her thoughts. Stepping up beside her, Tumms and Zeppy's faces drained of all color as they realized what she meant a half-second later.

  “Rrraaawww!” Dreadmere of the Icy Wrath’s roar echoed off the mountains around them as it leaped over the heads of the two groups of Elandorr’s people between them and began racing down the slope towards the players. As if that wasn’t bad enough, an immense crystalline spike shot out of its mouth aimed directly at Jodi. As the shit destroyed the proverbial fan, she was surprised to see the little Elite Pyro Spitter chasing after the Mini-Boss with its odd little hopping gait.

  “Zeppy’s Heroes form up,” Zeppy cried out, as Jodi dropped Bialaer’s body onto the frozen snow and dove out of the way at the last second, “we’ve got incoming!”

  Rolling to her feet, Jodi unslung her bow while snatching an arrow from her quiver in one practiced motion as the rest of the players reacted similarly. She saw the Mini-Boss’s immense paws tearing through the icy snow as it raced directly toward them, when her first Multi-Shot ripped from her bow. To either side of her, Warduke and ChopU Ginsu, along with another two Warriors she didn’t know, were racing out in front of the raid, while Grody, Zeppy, Lylar, and Pheyed sent arrows flying towards the monster a half-moment after hers.

  Though it was an impressive response, Jodi knew it wasn’t going to be enough to save them as Dreadmere of the Icy Wrath shrugged off the attacks along with several others like they were nothing. Dodging to the side in another dive-roll, she heard a scream of pain come from behind her as the monster’s second and third crystalline spike blasts found targets. Jodi ignored her friends’ cries, as they were nearly one-shotted by the dangerous Mini-Boss, while she continued to send Multi-Shots at the beast’s glowing red-eyes.

  Unfortunately, Dreadmere of the Icy Wrath was moving too fast and erratically for Jodi to get a lucky shot. Seeing her first two Multi-Shots completely miss the beast, she took off at a sprint in an oblique angle to the Mini-Boss’s charge, trying her best to draw the monster away from the rest of the raid. Without a high-damage hit or another way to draw aggro, her efforts were to no avail. Even Fiona couldn’t do anything to slow the beast down, Jodi frustratingly thought, as the Blink Lynx popped out over empty air, when, to all of their surprise, a wave of ice rushed out from multiple directions to freeze the monster in place.

  “What the hell?” Jodi heard Tumms exclaim as five Rogues popped out of Stealth in-between them and the Mini-Boss.

  Jodi didn’t understand what was going on either as she adjusted her bow and shot Dreadmere of the Icy Wrath at nearly point-blank range. Before her Multi-Shot connected, her Darkvision was knocked out as a brilliant wave of purple-black bolts smashed into the Mini-Boss’s back. “Gah!” Jodi swore as she squeezed her eyes shut trying to reactivate her Darkvision, she hated being blind when an enemy was nearby.

  Hearing a roar of agony from Dreadmere of the Icy Wrath, Jodi’s eyes shot open only to see another five Rogues pop out of Stealth which sent waves of ice to wash over the Mini-Boss. Were these the same Rogues from Elandorr’s raid that had been shadowing them this whole time, she urgently wondered as her bow twanged again. Did they have more than one magic tree available to them? That went against everything that she knew was possible for NPC combatants in an MMO game!

  How had Startum pulled this off with his people? Jodi wondered as the players’ volleys of magic and arrows smashed into the Mini-Boss. She knew they were fucking up the troopers’ coordination with their weaker attacks, but when you were in the middle of combat, it was hard to make yourself run away instead of defending yourself. Though, to her surprise, another group of five Rogues popped out of Stealth to freeze the monster in place again. This time, Jodi forced herself to hold her fire and close her eyes as a blinding wave of purple-black bolts smashed into the Mini-Boss’s crystalline-spiked back. As her eyes snapped open, a system window popped open before her eyes.

  Congratulations! Your raid has killed Dreadmere of the Icy Wrath!

  Taking a deep breath, Jodi looked around in surprise to see everyone on the slope begin thrusting their fists into the air and cheering in triumph. She had to admit the whole run through the Dark Woods and constant fighting had been an adrenaline rush and a half as she too raised her fist and hollered at the top of her lungs, “Wwwoooooottt!”

  Jodi didn’t know if that meant the fighting was over for now or not. It didn’t matter. Sometimes, you had to take a moment to enjoy the wins that you got and this was one of those times. Though she silently admitted to herself, it was like a fist that had been clenching her heart had suddenly been removed. Hearing a pop of displaced air next to her, Jodi squatted down to hug Fiona to her chest as the Blink Lynx began rubbing her chin against Jodi’s cheek.

  ‘You did good,’ Jodi said, as she stroked the Blink Lynx’s head.

  ‘Of course, I did,’ Fiona sent back, as she began purring deep in her chest, ‘you would’ve never made it this far without me.’

  ‘Ha!’ Jodi couldn’t help the giggle that came from her lips at the pompous feline's attitude. Instead of arguing with her Combat Pet, she just gave her another hug. Standing up, Jodi was just looking around to see what everyone was doing, when she saw the lone little Elite Pyro Spitter forlornly standing by itself in the middle of the slope not ten yards away. While everyone else was simply ignoring the little monster, Jodi couldn’t help but feel a certain amount of respect and sorrow for the little guy.

  As Zeppy, Tumms, Grody, and the rest of Zeppy Heroes were high-fiving each other, Jodi wandered over to the little squirrel-like monster. Wondering if she was being a fool or not, she squatted down and pulled out a little chunk of beef-jerky-like food. As the monster’s golden eyes focused curiously on her, Jodi triggered her taming spell and held out the food.

  Trash mobs were supposedly not something that you could tame. Jodi frowned in annoyance. Actually, there were a lot of monsters that you couldn’t tame. Supposedly, that was supposed to get better the higher her taming skill became, but at level three, it hardly seemed to do much at all. Feeling a pop of displaced air, Jodi felt the Blink Lynx appear next to her.

  ‘Oh, hell no,’ Fiona sent, in a pissed-off tone, ‘I forbid you to acquire such a disgusting little cretin.’

  ‘Cretin?’ Jodi sent back, trying not to laugh, ‘ain’t that some highfalutin language for a Blink Lynx to be using?’

  ‘I was just trying to communicate using your native tongue,’ Fiona sent, giving Jodi a dismissive sniff.

  ‘Look, I thought the little guy was tough as nails for chasing down the named boss,’ Jodi began to explain, as the Blink Lynx mentally cut her off.

  ‘Don’t mistake bravery for stupidity,’ Fiona superciliously continued, as her mental vo
ice took on the tone of a prim and proper teacher, ‘As you would say, trash monsters such as this beast are simply not intelligent enough to make the mental connections necessary to become a Combat Pet.’

  ‘Is that a fact?’ Jodi sent, ignoring the Blink Lynx's attitude as she noticed the little guy perk up and meet her eyes. Honestly, she knew that the Blink Lynx was probably right. Still, there was something about the lonely little guy that touched her heart.

  ‘If you really want to end its loneliness, I will simply take its miserable little life,’ Fiona drolly said, as she blinked behind the Elite Pyro Spitter’s back. As the Blink Lynx raised her paw to strike, Jodi felt a tingling inside her mind as the taming spell took effect.

  ‘Chirp?’ Fiona and Jodi both jumped in surprise at the sudden mental link that was created. Chittering excitedly, the monster happily reached its little hands out to take the food from a stunned Jodi’s fingers.

  Do you want to soul-bind the Elite Pyro Spitter?

  Accept: Yes / No

  Excitedly, Jodi selected “Yes” as she went through the same process that she’d gone through with Fiona.

  Congratulations! You have acquired a new Combat Pet. Please enter a name for your new Combat Pet:

  Jodi didn’t even hesitate as the name “Blasto” instantly popped into her mind.

  Combat Pet: Blasto (Elite Pyro Spitter)

  Level: 45

  Strength: 11

  Intelligence: 22.5

  Spirit: 22.5

  Agility: 22.5

  Stamina: 11

  Charisma: 22.5

  Attack: 15-25

  Special Attack: 200% of Spell Power.

  Speed: 0.1

  Weight-Carrying Capacity: .5 lbs

  Special Abilities: Flame Blast (special)

  Shared Experience: 10% (up to a max of 50%)

  Additional Information: Your combat pet is bound to your soul as long as you don’t abuse it. This creature will participate in combat alongside its owner like a summoned creature or tamed pet. At each fifth level, combat pets can choose additional feats. To access the feats available for your combat pet, open the properties of your pet to choose from the available selection. Should your pet be slain in your service, your pet will lose all of its current level experience and remains unsummonable for the next hour.