Realm of the Nine Circles: The Grind: A LitRPG Novel

by P. Joseph Cherubino

  “Let’s hope,” Martin said.

  Najeel took Kalmond’s side and said, “He’s probably right. There may be an infinite number of solutions. We are looking for the result.”

  “Exit the pit of despair,” Kalmond said. “That’s the name of this quest.”

  He tromped through the worm diarrhea letting his axe lead the way. Soon, they came to a branching where the tunnel widened, and its ceiling lifted to peaked arches with lines that swayed back and forth as they rose up nearly to vanishing points. Staring up at them strained his neck and made him slightly dizzy.

  Chapter 22

  “Which path do we take?” Najeel asked, placing fists to hips. His female character struck a majestic pose considering the question.

  Kalmond shrugged his shoulders and pushed past Najeel into the right-hand passage.

  “Why there?” Martin asked.

  Kalmond shrugged again and cast a detection spell. Another glowing path drew a straight line down the tunnel floor. They followed it until the passage turned left, then right, then opened into a roughly-domed chamber. The trail turned into a rough ledge that ran around the edge of the chamber to their left.

  Scree, scree! Came a sound in the dim light that brought crossbow to shoulder with a second-nature reflex. The first shot missed the giant bat, but the second shot scored a critical on the bat behind it with a poisoned bolt. Of the six or so bats, the berserker occupied at least half as it attacked its own.

  The score gave Kalmond time to backpedal up the path while Najeel used a flaming chain weapon to set alight another bat. Martin, however, was not as fortunate. His flaming arrow went wide and stuck into the rock at the far end of the chamber.

  Kalmond exchanged his bow for cloudsplitter and the axe of warding that he swung as easily as hatchets, cutting the wing off one bat and chopping the second cleanly in two for 117 XP. Martin punted the de-winged bat into the pit.

  The poisoned bat remained, and it turned its rage directly to Martin, who abandoned his bow for flaming sabers that made short work of the wounded animal. When it was over, Kalmond didn’t bother to loot the bodies. “Let’s go,” he said and tromped down the path.

  As they spiraled down, dim red light reached out to them from the chamber floor. When they reached the bottom, they found the red river once again flowing from seven holes around the rim of the cavern. The flows reached out like spokes to form a perfectly round pool at the center of the cavern. A portal sphere hovered silently above the center of the pool.

  “It looks like the twin of this one,” Martin said, removing the portal sphere from Driskroll’s inventory.

  “What do we do now?” Najeel asked.

  The Doctor’s tone struck Kalmond with a new realization. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” He asked, begging the question. He already knew the answer.

  “I must admit, I am,” Najeel said, casting a striking smile across Runecaster’s face.

  “Every second counts,” Martin said, looking around the cavern. “Stop the chatter and let’s figure this thing out.”

  The portal began to vibrate until it blurred, then it rose up as a long, teardrop shape formed beneath it. The drooping form seemed made from the same flesh-like material as the pool and the rivers that flowed into it. A form emerged from the blood-red teardrop.

  “Virgil!” Kalmond screamed. The wizard’s robes were covered in blood as he hung from a rope that bound his wrists. His chin rested on his collarbones.

  Kalmond leaped towards him, but Martin pulled him back. “No,” he barked. “He’s bait!”

  Skittering sounds from the edge of the chamber drew their attention. From each spoke hole, a Gideon monster crawled. Each one continued crawling on the ground, then turned to the cavern wall where they climbed up it like spiders using their hooked fingernails to latch on to the rough stone. They hissed in unison, and more scratching sounds announced the arrival of worm antibodies.

  “Damn it,” Kalmond groaned. “Not those things again. He put away the axe of warding and brought cloudsplitter to bear with both hands on the closest antibody.

  The axe scored a solid hit aided by a rage attack and landed dead center on one of the fat claws, scoring 3140 points damage. The backswing wasn’t so lucky, and the surprisingly fast creature skittered to the right and away.

  “Look out behind you!” Martin called. Kalmond whirled to find nothing there, and when he turned back, the antibody nearly ripped out ins abdomen.

  The claw scored 4300 damage, bringing Kalmond great pain compounded by the realization that Martin did not shout that warning. “We’ll never survive this,” One of the Gideon’s said in Martin’s voice from his perch on the wall above.

  Kalmond gave a front kick to the antibody to gain some distance for his axe to swing, taking 800 points damage to do so. He brought cloudsplitter down in an overhand swing that cracked the antibody’s head shell and stunned the beast. He followed that 2510 points worth of damage with a side swing that also scored a 3700 point critical and more stun damage. He finished the monster with a backswing earning him 230 XP.

  “Way to go, flunky,” Martin’s voice cheered from the Gideon on the wall. “Looks like you’re better at playing video games than writing code, which is why we keep you around.”

  “Shut up!” Kalmond screamed, taking up his crossbow. The hasty shot went wide, and as he reloaded in a rage, Kalmond didn’t notice the other antibody that took a hunk of meat out of his back for 1360 damage.

  Kalmond whirled around, and a lucky trigger pull scored a direct hit on the antibody with a poisoned bolt. Though the score was critical and took 5500 hit points from the beast, the berserker poison had no effect. Kalmond found himself dancing away, where he stumbled backward over the river edge. He landed on his back, then bounced straight back up as if he’d fallen onto a trampoline.

  “Shit!” Kalmond exclaimed as the rebound brought him hurtling towards the antibody who faced him with two open claws.

  Whoosh! In an instant, the antibody flew to the left as Najeel hit it with a dual-wield wind blast.

  “Incompetent!” Najeel’s voice shouted from another Gideon nearby. “If you weren’t a useful guinea pig, I’d have fired you months ago!”

  “Don’t listen,” Martin said, rushing over with flaming swords.

  “Listen,” a Gideon said, skittering down the wall to nearly ground level. “I’m in your mind. This is what really think of you. You’re a half-wit man-child.”

  Kalmond charged the Gideon, but before he could reach it, another antibody burst out of the passage and squared off against him. cloudsplitter scored a rage strike to its chest, taking 6000 damage. The dwarf blasted it back with a water cannon spell, taking one hand off cloudsplitter to do so. He used the extra second to draw the axe of warding, then went at the antibody with two axes.

  “You’re angry because you know it’s true,” Najeel’s voice said. “I tolerate you, but I don’t respect you. The only reason I hired a lab assistant with a B average is that you agreed to wear the harness.”

  Kalmond finished the antibody with a double rage strike, earning him 300 XP. He focused all his rage on the fight, trying to keep his mind clear. These Gideons were in his mind, so his only hope was to keep them distracted and not dwell on what he had planned, otherwise, they’d know. The problem was that Najeel and Martin were not catching on.

  The dwarf lunged and leaped again at a Gideon that he had no hope of reaching, and the attack brought him closer to another entrance. Another antibody skittered out.

  “Shut up, you asshole!” Kalmond screamed. “You’re just a bad dream in the mind of a comatose crazy person!”

  cloudsplitter clanged against rock as a wild swing went wide. A claw caught him in the chest, pinching away another 1100 points.

  “Fall back!” Martin yelled behind him as two other antibodies closed in on Kalmond from the flanks.

  “Fuck you, Martin!” Kalmond screamed, picking one of the attackers at random. “Fuck you for
thinking that!”

  “You’d being baited, kid!” Martin screamed back, charging in with Najeel right behind him.

  “I cover lies with lies,” A Gideon said in Martin’s voice. “I killed men for a living, but I don’t kick defenseless little puppies like you.”

  Kalmond kept the Gideon in the corner of his eye as he focused his anger on the back of an antibody tangling with Najeel. Runecaster had some kind of glowing pike in her inventory—a rare weapon enchanted with some sort of magic the effect of which was not entirely clear. Whatever it did was working. Najeel used it expertly in Runecaster’s hands, slashing from a safe distance with the curved point and thrusting at the weak parts between the shell sections. Between the three of them, they killed the two antibodies in short order, but the combined attack only earned Kalmond 100 XP.

  Two of the Gideons skittered down the walls nearby. Kalmond waited, thinking about all the things they said to him in Martin and Najeel’s voices. The memories stoked his rage.

  “You see?” Najeel’s voice came mockingly over Kalmond’s shoulder. “Even in the game, you are barely competent, allowing emotion to cloud your meager intelligence.”

  “Dumb lab rat,” Martin’s voice said. “Think for once, knucklehead.”

  Another Gideon neared, and Kalmond backed away from Martin and Najeel towards the nearest passage.

  “Dante, no!” Martin pleaded. “Don’t listen to them! They’re in your head.”

  “Yours too, you arrogant asshole! That’s what you think of me, both of you!”

  Kalmond drew his crossbow and listened. Scratching and clawing prickled his ears from the passages close to his back. The dwarf drew his crossbow and aimed it at Najeel.

  “Fuck you, you insensitive prick!” Kalmond screamed and brought the crossbow to his shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” Najeel said, letting his pike fall. “I don’t know how I sound sometimes. You must believe I respect you. I think of you as a son sometimes.”

  Kalmond’s stomach lurched at the sadness in Najeel’s voice, followed by rage that made his vision blur. He whirled around, dropped to one knee and fired. The bolt scored a critical perfectly center of the nearest Gideon’s chest.

  The other two Gideons froze in surprise, giving Kalmond the chance to load another bolt. He managed to score a critical even as four antibodies closed in. A claw snapped closed in the air where Kalmond’s head was before he rolled away.

  The escape move brought him to the ground with the antibody looming over him. The dwarf thought he was dead before one of the crazed Gideons launched itself at the antibody clawing at the creature’s eye stalks. The antibody whirled away screeching as Kalmond rose to his feet.

  He found Najeel standing slope-shouldered nearby.

  “Fight, Doctor, fight!” Kalmond yelled, taking a hand off his crossbow to blast a charging antibody away from Runecaster with a water cannon spell. It took Kalmond a couple of seconds to understand what was happening. “I was acting!” Kalmond yelled. Najeel looked up. “Working for you and Martin is the best thing ever!” Najeel looked up and smiled with Runecaster’s face. “Now fight, dammit!”

  Najeel whirled with the pike in one hand and a fire spell in the other. He sliced through the abdomen of one antibody, set a third on fire and rammed the pike through a fourth.

  Kalmond ran out from the melee and leaped over one of the little rivers. He hated to leave Martin and Najeel surrounded by antibodies, but he had to work his overall strategy. He found one of the Gideons far up on the dome wall watching the action. He didn’t seem to notice Kalmond, who activated invisibility spell and sneaked closer for a clear shot. The bolt struck home in Gideon’s neck, scoring yet another critical and sending the monster into a rage. With three of the seven Gideon’s in berserker mode, Kalmond considered the strategy a complete success. He left invisibility active to gain a sneak attack critical with the axe of warding on one of three antibodies that had Martin pressed against a wall.

  “Sorry, Martin!” Kalmond yelled as he whirled with cloudsplitter, cutting off several antibody legs. He finished the downed monster with the axe of warding, scoring his first decapitation against one of the troublesome beasts.

  “I get it,” Martin said, breathing hard as he slashed with his dual sabers against the two remaining antibodies. He backed away skillfully drawing them away from Kalmond, who now had a perfect view of their backs.

  Kalmond brought cloudsplitter down on the skull of one, finishing it off with another critical and earning him 250 XP. He brought the axe of warding around in a right-to-left horizontal swing that met a blocking claw. The dwarf’s failed attack opened him to a counter attack, and the claw would have finished him had Martin not been there to thrust two sabers between the rear shell plates in a move that set the antibody on fire and broke off his attack. Kalmond finished it with a double strike from both axes for 200 XP.

  The last Gideon hissed and ran frantically back and forth over the walls. Kalmond tried to shoot it several times, but missed, as did both Najeel and Martin.

  “It’s too fast,” Martin growled.

  The Gideon paused, standing straight up off the wall and pointing both hands at the Suspended Virgil. Two streams of blood-red energy shot out and pierced Virgil, making him glow from feet to bound hands.

  “Limitless bounty!” Virgil exclaimed. “Find and kill Kalmond the Stone Dwarf!” Silver tendrils whipped out from the gelatinous pool and attached themselves to the spasming form of Virgil. The old wizard fired off quests in hundreds of voices of which Kalmond could only hear snippets. It was enough. Virgil was giving quests to hundreds of players to find Kalmond and kill him.

  “Oh, that’s bad,” Martin said.

  Kalmond whirled and took another shot at the last Gideon, who dodged away, keeping the energy flowing. The pool beneath Virgil rippled, and several brains burst out and flew in a panic around the cavern. One of the silver tendrils detached itself from Virgil and snared one of the brains, which dissolved instantly and flowed into the tendril that then wrapped itself around Virgil’s legs.

  The living game interface opened its eyes wide and consumed some point far out in a space the adventurers had no hope in understanding.

  “We need to set him free!” Kalmond yelled, searching the cavern for something that might let him do just that.

  “How?” Martin asked, looking up at the ropes suspending Virgil from nothing.

  “I don’t know, but we have to stop this,” Kalmond said.

  “Search the Gideons,” Najeel said, rushing over to the nearest corpse.

  Kalmond followed suit and found a single item. “It’s a simple portal globe,” he said. “I don’t have portal ability, but Driskroll does.”

  “Who?” Martin asked. “Oh yeah, that’s me.”

  “It’s the character you hijacked,” Kalmond said simultaneously. “Search them all. This must be significant.”

  They rifled through the corpses, running around the cabin to the various places of death where Gideons fought Gideons or the antibodies. Kalmond had to lift the body of a particularly large antibody that lay atop the last Gideon. When he searched the corpse, he found a portal globe with a name.

  “This is a named object,” Kalmond said. “Portal key.”

  “That’s it,” Martin said, rushing over. “Give it to me.”

  Both Kalmond and Najeel handed all their portal globes to Martin, who placed them in his inventory and waited. “Nothing happened,” Martin said.

  Kalmond groaned. “It’s not automatic,” he said.

  “What do I do?”

  “You hurry,” Najeel said, activating his fireball spells. “Something’s coming.

  Sure enough, the sounds of skittering and scratching echoed out from every passage around the cavern. The silver light from the running veins glowed stronger and pulsed faster.

  “Ah, shit,” Martin said.

  “What!” Kalmond said, squaring up to the nearest passage.

  “I pulled up the
portal list. I see hundreds of locations,” Martin replied.

  “Search for Dundree. We need to go there,” Kalmond said, shifting on his feet from left to right like a boxer in round one.

  “How do I do that?” Martin asked. The sounds from the passages grew louder.

  Kalmond stifled a curse. “Figure it out,” he shouted as the first antibody emerged from the passage.

  The dwarf blasted the antibody back with a water cannon from his left hand, then followed through with a right-left swing from cloudsplitter as he charged forward with a power strike. The critical hit brought 6000 damage and stunned the creature long enough for Kalmond to retrieve his axe of warding. He went at the beast with both axes until it was dead. He had no time to note the XP bubble because four more antibodies surrounded him.

  “No time for Virgil,” Martin yelled over the clatter of snapping claws and the scrape of claws on stone. An instant later, the crack-flash of a portal opening shook the cavern.

  “Oh no!” Martin yelled as several antibodies jumped through the portal. “Are they supposed to do that?”

  “No,” Kalmond grumbled, spinning low to use both axes in combination to take the legs off two attackers. Two others tripped over their fallen companions, allowing Kalmond to escape.

  Najeel blasted back a solid wall of antibodies with his fireballs, then followed up with a lightning bow. Kalmond was about to ask where he found the bow, but a snapping claw near his face brought a reflexive side kick that threw back his attacker. Seven more came up behind it. Kalmond ran to the portal and dove through.

  The dwarf rolled across the ground; both axes held out straight, blades clattering in the dust. A hard body landed on his back, driving the air from his lungs. A flash from the portal and the hem of armored battle robes streaking by let Kalmond know that it was Martin pressing down on him.

  Kalmond freed himself and squinted in the bright sunlight. What time is it? Kalmond thought to himself in a panic. But he quickly decided this was no time to check the clock. The village of Dundree was in chaos. Five antibodies rampaged through the town, destroying anything in sight.