Without further word, Kalmond slid back down the mossy boulder and back onto the jungle floor. This time, Driskroll followed because Kalmond had a plan. They made a complete circle around the town, discovering a single entrance, which was perfect. Before he passed the town gates, Kalmond activated invisibility and placed two fire potion traps on either side of the gate.
Kalmond belly-crawled back on top of the boulders as the last of the sun sank beneath the treeline. Torch flame rose up all at once along village walkways and hut entrances. Kalmond drew his crossbow and waited, watching.
Chapter 19
Until the music drifting up from the village became louder, and the wedding party appeared, Kalmond wasn’t sure exactly what he’d do. He and Driskroll spotted the two guards by the armory hut, and they’d taken careful note of the town layout as they made a circuit around it. From their vantage point on the boulders above the town, they had a perfect view of most of its area. The only parts they couldn’t see clearly were those near the entrance, where the buildings were a little higher, and some of the jungle trees extended branches over roofs.
But when Kalmond caught sight of the wedding procession, he knew exactly how to proceed. When he told Driskroll, his orc friend sent back a stream of exclamation points surrounding a single “wow” emoji.They had to be careful about talking while trying to hide. The Realm counted overall chat towards stealth.
The boulders they hid atop lifted them about forty feet above the village and Kalmond’s main target moved into view about 100 feet away. All the targets moving towards the Mylos bull head statue wore the red, horned icon above their heads. The entire village of more than twenty questers followed the monster.
Kalmond’s grin strained against his teeth and turned his cheek muscles to knots as he recognized the head of the wedding march. It was the elf assassin who tried to kill him. The groom was his dwarf partner, and the bride was a human mage.
The wedding party stopped in front of the Mylos carving and fanned out around the bride and groom while the first elf stepped up on a small mound of dirt to elevate himself slightly. Getting a clear shot would be tough, as the audience packed itself tightly around the bride and groom. Kalmond took a deep breath and focused on the sight picture past the blurred tip of the crossbow bolt.
When the officiator spoke, Kalmond heard the words clearly, “We come here today to witness the joining of two adventurers who love each other. In the Realm, that is enough. By the power vested in me by the might of Lord Mylos, the true ruler of the Realm, I pronounce you married!”
The dwarf groom turned to his human bride, and while they activated their kiss animation, the crowd shifted to get a better look. The animation started, and dwarven arms reached out for the mage bride. The bride moved forward, tilting her head to the side. Just as their lips met, Kalmond let out a breath, held it for a moment and squeezed the trigger.
He didn’t hear the bow release, but the weapon pulsed slightly in his grasp. The silence enchantment did its job perfectly. Critical hit, text scrolling before Kalmond’s eyes announced, 2400 points, With the critical, the poison did its job. Instead of kissing, the bride screamed as blood streamed from her eyes. She wrapped her arms tightly around the dwarf and sank her teeth into his neck.
Text bubbles appeared above every head. Kalmond made out a few words of the jumbled text. “WTF!” said one. “She shot!” said another. “Attack…” said someone else, but for a second or two, nobody moved.
Kalmond had already loaded another bolt before the elf assassin recovered enough to wonder where the shot came from. Kalmond planted a bolt in the chest of the player beside him. Double critical. 3000 damage, the hit text announced. The target screamed, grabbed the another player by the face and gouged out his eyes. Kalmond shot two more questers, scoring criticals on both, making them attack other members of the party.
“We gotta go!” Driskroll said over voice chat. “Now!” He activated invisibility and scrambled down the boulders.
Kalmond took one last shot at the first elf assassin, who had jumped back from the crowd trying to spot where the shots came from. The bolt missed, and Kalmond knew his luck was done. He cast invisibility and left his perch.
Once on the jungle floor, he circled around towards the entrance where he set the traps. Just before he left the brush, he chugged a mana potion to keep invisibility going. He stopped short just inside the gate as two human mages ran past. Kalmond resisted the urge to kill them both.
It took Kalmond longer than he’d hoped to reach the armory where the only two armed adventurers stood guard. With a satisfied, toothy grin, he spied the chaos around the hut where the wedding guests stored their weapons. The guards tried to keep order, shouting for people to form a line over voice chat while frantic text bubbles of the unarmed crowd demanded access to weapons.
Kalmond crouched down in the narrow space between two huts a few feet away and chugged another mana potion. He raised his crossbow and waited. When one of the guards became frustrated and shoved the crowd back creating a clearing, the dwarf found his opportunity.
The silenced crossbow jerked slightly in his arms again, and a bolt appeared in the gap between pauldron and chest piece. It was an inspired shot. The guard staggered back, screaming, then drew his sword. It happened so fast, Kalmond had barely enough time to reload and take a second shot that scored a hit on the other guard without scoring a critical.
Kalmond reloaded even though it put him at greater risk. Most of the crowd was trying to escape the berserker guard, but a few wise souls stayed cool and tried to figure out where the crossbow bolts came from.
“He’s gotta be over there!” texted a human mage in ceremonial robes. He raised his arm to point in Kalmond’s direction in what must have been a complicated set of keystrokes for a character without an immersion harness. The gesture cost him his life as Driskroll took him out with a single arrow between the eyes.
Kalmond’s second crossbow bolt scored a critical on guard number two, who ran his two-handed sword through a sea dwarf leaving the armory, killing her instantly. The rest of the unarmed crowd ran away as those leaving the armory tangled with the raging guard. Ten seconds was a long time in a fight. The poison’s duration gave Kalmond ample opportunity to shift positions while Driskroll took potshots with his longbow, setting characters on fire or slowing them down for the guard to slaughter.
“I can’t control myself!” shouted the second guard over voice chat. Kalmond was close enough to hear the voice channel from his new position one building closer to the armory hut. “What is this shit!” he screamed, with the sounds of a keyboard being abused in the background.
“Don’t know,” a stone dwarf warrior replied, as she and a human mage dodged wild sword thrusts. “But you have to go!” and she brought her hammer down on the guard’s leg, breaking it and sending him crashing to the ground face-first where a human mage stabbed him in the back with a flaming rapier.
Kalmond lined up another shot on the human mage and fired. His luck was out. He missed just as his mana ran out.
“There he is!” the female sea dwarf bellowed, pointing his way. “Two down from the armory!”
Kalmond put away his crossbow and activated the water cannon spell with both hands. He blasted both with a double-sized ball of water that sent both adventurers tumbling. He took the time to slug down another mana potion and activate invisibility. Then, he ran between the two huts and paused to set a fire potion trap just at the end of the narrow alley. For the moment, the trap was wasted, as the two had enough sense to split up and cover both sides of the hut, where they waited for Kalmond to emerge.
He was still invisible, but that did him little good with his position known. He let the spell play out and drew the axe of warding and cloudsplitter. He charged out from behind the hut holding his power attack directed towards the human mage.
A powerful ice spike spell hit him on the right side of his chest as he swung and missed with cloudsplitter. The backswing was
too slow, as the cold slowed him, but the left-hand swing with the axe of warding scored a critical, defeating armor for a solid 2500 points of damage.
But the first melee only gave the female warrior dwarf the chance to pound Kalmond between the shoulder blades with a two-handed warhammer. Kalmond staggered forward and into another ice spike that was followed with a slash across the chest with that flaming rapier. Now he was both slowed and on fire. That was not good.
He turned to face the other dwarf, but couldn’t get the axe of warding up in time to block another hammer blow that hit him in the chest this time, staggering him again. Half his hit points were gone. If he didn’t catch a break fast, he was done, as more adventurers streamed out of the weapons hut fully armed and armored.
The break came in the form of a blurred streak that dashed in front of the mage, whose robes sported sudden bloodstains. Driskroll’s invisibility faded an instant later. He paused for a moment and let the mage line up with him. Just as the mage raised a flaming sword, Driskroll lunged forward and shot the mage in the face with a fetid wind spell. The mage staggered back, shouting obscenities over the open channel. Driskroll was already running in the opposite direction when the mage gave chase along with two others.
“Just you and me now,” Kalmond growled, squaring up with the dwarf. Female dwarves were bigger than males, and this one had two levels on him.
“Not for long,” she said, lunging forward with an overhand hammer strike that caught Kalmond squarely on his bare skull.
Scoring 4000 damage brought his health down to the very end. From there, berserker rage kicked in. He activated his endurance attack on top of it and swapped out the axe of warding for Boris’s axe.
His first strike from the dead ghost’s axe scored a critical of 5000 points, but Kalmond guessed the dwarf had the iron feet ability, because she held her ground and brought her hammer around with both hands, catching Kalmond in the right ribs. That brought her close enough for a headbutt that did stagger her. With his rage almost spent, Kalmond cut her down with a one-two combination from the axe of Boris Ilyich.
The kill earned him 550 points and brought him to level eighteen.
Kalmond the Stone Dwarf
Level 18
XP 24817
STA 39
STR 37
INT 36
AGI 37
CHA 37
MAN 34
MLVL 1035
Hit Points 15575
With his health restored, he still felt sluggish and foggy-headed, so he slammed another rejuvenation potion to clear his head, then ran away from the body. He hated to leave her loot behind, but he had no time as a group of fully-armed villagers headed his way. He barely avoided several spells and arrows hurled in his direction.
He gained some distance, then turned to lob a fire potion at his pursuers. The hasty throw fell short, but the wall of flames gave him a precious couple seconds to cast invisibility and take another mana potion to keep the spell going.
Kalmond crouched down and slipped behind the huts arranged in a rough circle around the central square. That damn Mylos bull head statue dominated the scene.
“Ridiculous, isn’t it?” a voice came in over voice channel in Kalmond’s left ear. The dwarf jumped, nearly blowing his cover.
“How did you find me?” Kalmond asked.
“Just followed the trail of destruction,” Driskroll replied. “Also, your invisibility is only level 2. You shimmer a bit.”
“Won’t be able to keep this going for long,” Kalmond replied, nerves tingling at the risk. Their conversation made it more likely that they’d be spotted as adventurers armed themselves and began tearing around in random search patterns.
As if to mirror his thoughts, a sea dwarf warrior found his way between the huts. With the same impulse, both Kalmond and Driskroll stabbed him repeatedly with their daggers, Kalmond using two of the poisoned blades he stole from the assassins who murdered Alchemist. The XP bubble announced another 200 points for the double critical sneak attack. But the kill sounds drew attention. A centaur stopped dead in his tracks and turned to the huts where Kalmond hid.
“Over there!” the centaur bellowed. Kalmond drew his crossbow just as his invisibility faded. As he fired off a shot, he regretted not taking another mana potion instead.
The centaur blocked the berserker-poisoned bolt easily, and Driskroll’s hasty shot with his flaming longbow scored a light hit against the centaur’s great shield. The attacks revealed the centaur was a level twenty-five. Kalmond wouldn’t stand much of a chance, but as a level thirty, Driskroll would fare far better.
“Stealth game is about over,” Driskroll said, allowing his invisibility to blink out. “I’ll buy you time.” He drew two rapiers as Kalmond turned and ran.
Kalmond caught the action as he cast invisibility, and tried to gain good cover. Driskroll made a quick feint, his rapiers fast, but not fast enough to get around the centaur’s great shield. Kalmond plastered his back against a hut wall to avoid being detected by two human mages and an elf warrior who rushed by him to join the centaur.
Driskroll jumped back and disappeared between the huts again, baiting the others into the trap. The ploy worked for the elf warrior, but the centaur spotted the trap and held back the mages. Boom! Went the fire potion trap, and Driskroll finished the warrior with a double strike from the rapiers, dancing through the flames and taking damage to make sure the job was done.
“Go around the other side!” bellowed the centaur. Kalmond got off two shots, making one mage go berserk with a single critical after the first shot went wide.
Even with invisibility, the centaur was on him, so Kalmond let the spell blink out and drew his hammer and cloudsplitter.
“Murdering Mylos scum!” Kalmond bellowed. “Die!”
The dwarf charged, holding his power attack. The hammer bounced off the great shield, staggering the centaur with a critical. cloudsplitter came around in a wide sweep to slash the centaur’s hindquarters for a full 10,000 damage points.
When two spells came at him, Kalmond wished he’d selected the axe of warding, because blocking one-handed with cloudsplitter didn’t do much against the ice spell that took 1000 hit points and slowed him enough for the second lighting spell to knock him back. Both magical attacks diminished his rage attack significantly, allowing the centaur to move in with a broadsword that was clearly intended to take off Kalmond’s head. Instead, it took another 1600 hit points and made him worry.
Kalmond pulsed his power move to get within striking range of the nearest magic user. But closing the distance took the last of his endurance. At least the move paid off with two solid hits, first with the hammer, then with cloudsplitter. Neither hit was a critical, but they paid out with another 1200 points damage. A shimmering blur revealed itself to be Driskroll, who managed to sneak up invisibly to finish the mage.
Kalmond bellowed with joy right before the centaur slammed into him at full gallop, using his shield as a battering ram. The dwarf tumbled over his shoulder but managed to land on his feet just in time to take a broadsword to the left side for another 900 points damage as the centaur planted his hooves and whirled.
There was no help from Driskroll, who fought hard against the remaining mage. The bigger problem was that fighting out in the open drew the attention of the remainder of the Mylos devotees. Kalmond was shocked to realize they’d not killed as many as he thought.
As he brought the hammer down on the centaur’s back for a critical hit, Kalmond was dismayed to understand just how many they still had to take out to get away. Fear and anger and a recharged endurance bar allowed Kalmond to score a critical on the centaur’s hindquarters with cloudsplitter. The one-two attack took a full 1000 points from his opponent, both hits slowing the centaur considerably.
When the horse-man came around again, Kalmond used a roundhouse kick to the rear legs to bring the centaur to the ground. cloudsplitter sank its blade into the human ribcage, and the warhammer crushed the cen
taur’s skull for the kill and earned kalmond 330 XP.
“We need to move!” Driskroll said, tossing a fire potion at the incoming wave of angry Mylos cultists.
Kalmond followed with a potion bomb of his own, and the flames bought them a few more precious seconds. They both cast invisibility.
“Gates,” Driskroll sent via text, and the move cost him several seconds as Kalmond bolted towards the exit, knowing what Driskroll had in mind.
As he turned and ran, Kalmond couldn’t help but count at least ten characters pounding hard into the village courtyard. Spells and arrows streaked by, miraculously doing no damage. Orc and dwarf made it through the gates. Driskroll ended his invisibility spell a few paces past the gate and stopped. He whirled as he drew his longbow.
Kalmond stopped beside his orc partner and drew his crossbow. They’d earned enough distance for their magic missiles to score direct hits. Kalmond earned himself two criticals out of five shots. The berserk poison bought them time as a several attackers had to deal with allies that suddenly turned against them.
The crowd reached the gate threshold and all three fire bomb traps detonated at once. Kalmond and Driskroll were already in motion back towards the gate, which now burned like the entrance to hell.
Kalmond finished two dwarf warriors who staggered towards him completely engulfed in flames. He didn’t notice the XP, as the bombs and massive fire damage from so many direct hits threw up a mess of damage bubbles. All he knew as that the plan worked. As the flames faded, charred bodies littered the ground, slowing their attackers further as obstacles.
Kalmond cast invisibility again and darted back into the jungle, losing sight of Driskroll. He didn’t have to see his old orc friend to know that Drisk would also pull the same move. The classic hit and quit strategy needed repetition to drive the enemy wild.
Evidence of tactical success filtered through the nearby voice channels.
“Cowards!” frustrated questers yelled at an unseen enemy. “Fight fair,” they said, and other silly things designed to bait the thieves into fighting. But the nameless clan was far smarter than that.
Realm of the Nine Circles: The Grind: A LitRPG Novel Page 24
