Shattered Lands: A LitRPG Series

by Darren Pillsbury

  He did take two gold coins with him, careful to put one in each pocket so they didn’t jingle against each other and provide an invitation to a passing thief.

  Merridack had influenced him more than he’d thought.

  He broke one of the coins at an inn, where he had a feast fit for a king for the equivalent of a couple of pieces of silver. While he was there, he listened to other players – and NPCs, he assumed – talk about their daily adventures in the wilds around Blackstone. One thing he heard people mention over and over again was the Questing Market, apparently a place where players could outfit their expeditions. He left the inn with a plan, and wandered the streets of the city under the gloom of overcast skies until he found the market and covered it twice from end to end.

  It was on his third trip when he heard someone call his name.

  “…Daniel?!”

  He turned around in the busy street to see a female, indigo-skinned dark elf staring at him with her yellow eyes. Across her back she wore a bow and a quill full of arrows.

  He frowned, trying to place the voice, which was very familiar…

  “…Mira?”

  “It is you!” she cried out with a huge smile, and rushed forward to hug him.

  After they pulled back from each other, Daniel looked her over. Besides her unusual coloring and elfin features, she was also wearing a black, skin-tight leather outfit that showed off her athletic figure. Which was so not Mira, who favored baggy hipster attire in the real world.

  Truth was, she looked pretty hot.

  “How did you get to be a dark elf?” Daniel asked, astounded.

  “Simple! After you’ve been here in the game 24 hours – 24 game hours, anyway – the computer lets you change your appearance, so I did.”

  “Yeah, but – we skipped 6th and 7th period and we still haven’t been here 24 hours.”

  “Weak sauce,” she teased. “I skipped the whole day so I could start playing as soon as it was available for download.” Then she looked around eagerly. “‘We’? Is Eric playing, too?”

  Ordinarily Daniel would have had to suppress a smile, since Mira had something of a crush on Eric.

  Now, though, her question filled him with alarm.

  If she finds out what we did last night, will she turn us in?

  He was hoping her feelings toward Eric would insure her silence – but there was no need to go testing that just yet, though.

  “Uh… yeah, he is.”

  “Cool – I was afraid he might not…” She paused. “The game system’s kind of… you know…”

  She trailed off, too tactful to say Eric’s poor, and I didn’t think he could afford to play. Mira might have preferred thrift shop clothes, but her parents were loaded.

  She tilted her head to the side – a gesture she often did back in the real world that confirmed this was Mira, not some computer-generated creature. “Where is he? Why aren’t you guys together?”

  “Uh… he and I had to split up for a little bit.”

  She frowned. “Is something wrong?”

  “No, no… I’ll tell you more later…”

  “Why not now?”

  He looked around uncomfortably at the hundreds of people milling past. Who knew who might overhear and turn him in for a reward?

  “It’s kind of a secret, and the walls have eyes,” he said. “And ears.”

  “Oh… okay,” she answered, not understanding at all.

  “What about you? You must have been here for a couple of game days – what have you been up to?”

  “Mostly training. I want to go on a quest, but I don’t have much money yet,” she grumbled. “I don’t know anybody who’d be willing to front me the cash, so mostly I’ve been training in archery.”

  “How’d you get to do that?”

  She looked at him like What planet are YOU from? “The Court of Mercenaries – there are tons of trainers there trying to get people to sign up. Didn’t you go through the main gates?”

  Suddenly a text box appeared:

  New Quest: Get training at the Court of Mercenaries

  Challenge Level: Easy

  Reward: Increased fighting skills, strength, endurance, and dexterity

  Punishment for Failure: Incompetence on the battlefield

  He skimmed the message then said, “Uh… not exactly…”

  She frowned again. “What have you been doing, then?”

  “It’s… complicated.”

  “I’m all ears,” she joked, pointing at her own long, pointy, blue ones.

  “Yeah, so’s everybody else,” Daniel said. “I’ll tell you later. What was that about money and questing?”

  “It takes money to get a campaign up. Unless you just want to walk a couple of hours outside the city walls and see what you can kill in the forest, you need to buy a whole bunch of stuff. Weapons, armor, food, pack horses…” She sighed. “I’m trying to grind out some money by killing boars and deer in the woods and selling them in the food market, but I’m not that good a shot yet, and there’s not much money in game.” She laughed and added, “‘Game’ as in ‘meat.’ I’m pretty sure there’s plenty of money in the game.”

  He thought about the satchel of coins and jewels hidden on the rooftop.

  You have no idea.

  “I think I can help with the money part,” he said. “Can you find a bunch of guys who want to go questing?”

  “Yeah, sure, there’s like ten million of them.” She frowned. “Where’d you get the money?”

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  “That’s kind of your standard response to everything,” she said, annoyed.

  “For a really good reason – which you’ll find out later,” he teased her. “Let’s meet back here tonight. Or, even better – where’s that Court of Mercenaries you mentioned?”

  “Why, what are you going to do?”

  “Go get some training.”

  24

  Eric

  Eric sat on a stool in the dark earthen hut, hungrily eating a bowl of stew from the cauldron over the fire. It was pretty good – salty and spiced with herbs. The meat was stringy, but he didn’t ask what animal it came from. He didn’t want to know. The most important thing was his Strength and Endurance stats rose and the rumbling in his belly stopped.

  Cythera reclined on her seat of animal pelts, watching him as he ate. Most of her was hidden in darkness, with the good half of her face illuminated by the glow of the embers. Without the hideous scarring visible, it was easy to see how beautiful she’d once been.

  “First you will need to learn to control your mana,” she said.

  Eric had a lot of experience with mana in other RPGs, but he wasn’t entirely sure how it worked in this world. “That’s magical power, right?”

  “Is is the mystical energy of the universe, inhabiting all things, flowing through all spaces. It binds us together, you and me, with every living thing, every tree in this forest, every rock from Blackstone castle to the Mountains of Morril.”

  “Like the Force,” he said. In his head he was thinking, Somebody’s cribbing from pop culture again.

  Cythera nodded. “It can be a force, yes.”

  “No, THE For…” Then he caught himself. “Never mind. Different universe.”

  “…different universe?”

  “Yeah, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.”

  She shook her head in amusement. “You are indeed a strange one, Darkling.”

  That was funny. When a disfigured witch in a hut in the woods of a mythological land created by a computer game said that you were strange for quoting Star Wars, well… that was something.

  “Is mana both dark and light?” he asked, returning to what he wanted to know.

  “All mana is the same at its core, though use and intention gives it either a light aspect or a dark aspect. There are common uses for both light and dark mana, but there are some things we will do that will only utilize the darkness.”

  Some things we wil
l do.

  Her words made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up – but in a good way. All he felt was excitement.

  “How do I learn to control mana?”

  “I will teach you. We will begin after you eat.”

  He nodded and ate another spoonful. “Those guys outside – how did you kill them?”

  “One I bound with an earth incantation, then used a fire summoning on him. The other I killed with a liquefy spell.”

  Earth incantation. Fire summoning. Liquefy spell.

  “Can you teach me those?” he asked greedily.

  “In time. First you must learn the basic tenets of all magic. Many are common both to the light and the dark… though it depends on what you are summoning or controlling.

  “There are spells of protection, both against physical and supernatural harm.

  “There are spells of warding and banishing.

  “There is divination, for the attainment of information.

  “Healing, which is obvious.

  “Illusion and the casting of glamours.

  “Transmutation – the ability to physically change into other forms.

  “Enchantment – mystical enslavement of another’s will or senses.

  “Energy manipulation – especially light for seeing and lightning for attack.

  “Elemental spells, which control fire, water, earth, and air.

  “Ice magic – again, obvious.

  “Potions, for everything from healing to the engendering of love and lust.”

  He didn’t quite like the way she looked at him when she said ‘love and lust.’

  “Summoning – both of creatures and items.

  “The manipulation of time, which is the most difficult of the maging skills, and one I unfortunately do not possess.

  “Necromancy – the summoning of departed spirits and the control over the dead.

  “And of course there is Demonology, the darkest and most unpredictable of the arts.”

  He had been struggling to try to remember everything she said, but the information washed over him in an unending wave –

  Until she got to Demonology.

  He sat up excitedly. “The most powerful?”

  For the first time, she seemed vaguely uncomfortable. “…yes.”

  “What happens with Demonology? I mean, are you just making them possess people, or…?”

  “That is one facet, yes. There are untold multitudes of demons, both in this dimension and in others – some of them with physical forms, some of them incorporeal. The ones without bodies, yes, you can cast into others and cause Possession.”

  “There are physical demons, too?” Eric asked, intensely interested. “What do they look like?”

  “They come in every form imaginable. Some are shaped like men, with arms and legs and skin. Others exist in the form of beasts, misshapen and foul. Some are comprised of darkness made physical. A few, it is said, are impossible for the human mind to comprehend the sight of, and drive the observer mad by the very act of seeing them.”

  Like something out of H.P. Lovecraft, Eric thought. “How do you summon them?”

  “By incantations – but the more important thing is to bind them. A demon who is not bound by magic is free to follow his own desires and wreak havoc on this world – sometimes on the very person who summoned it.”

  “How do you bind them?”

  “There are various ways, but the most powerful is to know the creature’s True Name. Once you know the name, you can use that in a spell to bend it to your will.”

  “And you know how to do all that?” Eric asked eagerly.

  Cythera shifted uneasily in her seat. “…I know the fundamentals.”

  Now he wasn’t so pleased. “What? What do you mean, ‘the fundamentals’?”

  “I am primarily a Summoner,” she said defensively. “I know the basics of the other crafts, but – ”

  “So you can only teach me the basics of Demonology?” he asked in irritation.

  “The basics are enough to make you more powerful than almost all living things in this world.”

  ‘Almost all’ isn’t good enough.

  “Can I only do one type of magic?”

  “No, you are not limited. In fact, you should learn at least something about all the types. There are many who are adequate in several of the different branches.”

  “I don’t want to be adequate,” Eric snapped. “I want to be the best.”

  “It is impossible to be ‘the best’ in all the different areas.”

  “Especially if you only know the ‘basics,’” he said sarcastically.

  She gave him a withering look. “Right now, you know nothing, so I would say ‘the basics’ is a considerable step up from your current situation.”

  “A bowl of soup is a ‘step up.’ I was looking for something more like a couple dozen levels up.”

  “Mind your tongue, Darkling, or I might just pull it out of your mouth and bind your lips together with a spell,” she hissed. “Then see how well you can learn magic.”

  Eric reconsidered his approach. Maybe it’s not a good idea to make somebody mad who can melt my face off with a wave of her hand.

  “I’m sorry. My best friend always says I’m too impatient,” he apologized, more out of caution than real contrition.

  “You would be well to heed him,” she muttered, then softened her tone. “Although some might say impatience is a virtue rather than a vice.”

  He grinned, then grew serious again. “Okay, say I want to master any one area – how do I do it?”

  “Study and practice are your greatest allies. As they are with any other skill, from cooking to swordplay.”

  Study and practice.

  He couldn’t help but think of the arrogant old man in the temple, and he grew angry again.

  “Great,” Eric grumbled. “So what’s it going to take – years?”

  “To know everything about one of the schools of maging? Yes.”

  He thought for a second. Maybe he didn’t need to know everything. “What about just getting the most power possible in the quickest amount of time?”

  She hesitated, and he noticed that her eyes flickered over at something on the other side of the room. “There are… ways to go about such things, but they are fraught with hazard.”

  He looked over at where she had glanced.

  The table of books.

  Including the one that had whispered to him when he touched it.

  “What are those?” he asked.

  “Dark magic,” she said, and for the first time he heard a bit of fear in her voice. “Grimoires of spells from the Old Ones.”

  “Old Ones?”

  “The Ones who were here before mankind, and who sleep in darkness till the end.”

  Okay, that didn’t really help much.

  “What about the book that whispers?”

  She looked at him in shock. “One spoke to you?”

  “Yeah – is that unusual?” he asked, slightly alarmed.

  “Very.”

  “Good unusual, or bad unusual?”

  “It depends on your outlook,” she said. “The books call out to those with great affinity for them. And since they are all dark magic…”

  “Do all of them call out?”

  “All of them are able, but usually each speaks only to one person. Which one spoke to you?”

  He got up, walked over to the table, and picked up the book with the skin-like binding.

  As soon as he touched the cover, the whispers started again – but this time they were louder. More intense.

  “There they are again – you don’t hear that?” he asked.

  A frightened look passed over Cythera’s face, and she shook her head no.

  “What is this one?”

  “The Demonomicon… the oldest, most complete tome of Demonology that exists.”

  He looked at the book with slightly more respect, and traced the binding beneath his fingers. Again he noted ho
w the leather had a smooth feel to it. “What’s this cover made out of?”

  “The truth has been lost to the sands of time, but there are two stories. One is that the wizard who compiled the Demonomicon went mad, and in his final throes of insanity flayed himself so he could bind the book in his own skin.”

  Eric winced – but didn’t put the book down. “What’s the other story?”

  “The other is that he accidentally summoned something not in the book… and to punish him for his arrogance, the creature ripped off his skin and bound the book itself.”

  Eric swallowed, though his throat was dry. “Which do you believe?”

  “I try not to think about it.”

  “How did you get this book?”

  “My master was the keeper of the libraries at the Crypt of Tiernan. When the Crypt was raided years ago by the Order of the Light Mages, he entrusted those copies to me. I fled with them while he died holding off our enemies,” she said bitterly.

  Eric imagined a massive battle between white- and black-robed figures casting fire and lightning in the dark aisles of a book-filled labyrinth.

  But that raised another question.

  “So you keep them out in the woods now?” Eric asked. “That doesn’t seem very safe.”

  “If the Crypt was not enough to keep them safe, then what would be? They will only be safe in the hands of those meant to wield them.”

  As if on cue, the demon-faced dial on the book began to turn – first one way, then the next. Its ruby eyes lit up bright red, and suddenly the clasp released with a CLICK.

  The whispers were louder now.

  Eric looked at Cythera in shock.

  “Open it,” she murmured. “It calls to you.”

  He pulled back the cover. As he did so, a text box of translucent green appeared:

  Demonomicon

  Grimoire of spells to summon demons of various power levels

  Quality: Epic