Dungeon Crawl: A LitRPG Adventure (The Crucible Shard Book 1)

by Skyler Grant

  Between the steady drip of XP from the undead on the way here and that kiss, it had pushed me over the line for another level. A number of notifications blinked at me. I went through them.

  You have gained a new skill

  Arson

  You like fire, you really like fire. There is an art and a science to how fire spreads and you have taken your first steps on the road to understanding it.

  2% Arson gained

  2% Long Blades gained

  1% Shield Use gained

  1% Medium Armor gained

  Congratulations!

  You have reached level 6

  You have one stat point to assign. As a Paladin of Yvera you have gained a further 15% skill to Long Blades. As the Chosen of Yvera you have further gained 1 point of Charisma. Due to your attunement you have an increased presence in the physical world and have gained 1 point in both Power and Endurance. You have further gained the abilities...

  Fire Within: Combat and certain status effects such as disease or curses can stop passive HP regeneration. Yours can no longer be stopped.

  Divine Power: You can now bless yourself or others for a gain of Power equal to half of your Charisma. You cannot have more than two active blessings at a time.

  Congratulations! You have passed the skill threshold of 75% in Long Blades unlocking new skills.

  You have gained a new skill

  Double Attack

  On any standard attack you have the chance to deliver two blows instead of one in the same amount of time because of your increased skill.

  1% Double Attack gained

  Blademaster

  You have started the journey to become a master of the blade. Progress in this skill results not just in increased damage and accuracy of attacks, but in artistry. Further advancement will require combat against other Blademasters or training from a Master of the skill.

  1% Blademaster gained

  Wow. If some previous levels had left me feeling a little underwhelmed this one was overkill. A free point of Charisma for being Yvera’s Chosen, I wondered if those points had applied retroactively. I needed to check my sheet. Between the Divine Power spell, Double Attack, and the Blademaster skills I’d gotten a rush of things all at once to make me more dangerous in a fight. And the points in Strength and Endurance were overwhelming. I was, by default, getting just one point a level.

  I decided to pull up my new sheet.

  Name: Liam Ottani

  Class: Paladin of Yvera

  Deity: Yvera

  Titles: Chosen of Yvera

  Level: 6

  HP: 240/240

  Stamina: 22/60

  Mana: 19/50

  XP: 200 of 1000 to next level

  Alignment: -1000

  Stats

  Power: 12 Endurance: 12 Dexterity: 2

  Intelligence: 5 Awareness: 3

  Charisma: 11 Luck: 5

  Skills

  Long Blades: 79

  Blunt Weapons: 16

  Hand to Hand: 11

  Mounted Combat: 15

  Light Armor: 15

  Medium Armor: 22

  Heavy Armor: 15

  Persuasion: 15

  Seduction: 18

  Meditation: 4

  Barter: 15

  Shield Use: 1

  Arson: 2

  Double Attack: 1

  Blademaster: 1

  Spells

  Evil Aura

  Smite

  Sense Virtue

  Lay on Hands (2 uses per 4 hours)

  Bless Water

  Bless

  Divine Steed

  Divine Power

  Innates

  Blessed Nature

  Fire Resistance: 50%

  Sense Alignment

  Fire Within

  Once I finished going through the sheet I noticed that the stat boosts from becoming Yvera’s Chosen did look like they had applied to my previous levels, and the points were split up evenly between Luck and Charisma. Luck had been one of those I’d been wary about having put no points in, so I was rather glad for the buff there. The point of Charisma made me feel comfortable assigning that stat point elsewhere. The points for my attunement had applied retroactively as well and it was a huge difference. I considered where to put my extra point. Power appealed—who didn’t want to hit harder? And if I understood stats properly that also helped with my health points, but with my new spell I could already deliver a major boost there as half my Charisma would be nearly doubling it. Endurance was health too and helped me in various other ways at being a tank.

  So far I was doing a lot of casting though. My spells were pretty useful, but I kept running into a problem with that limited pool. Why was I bound to a stat that seemed controlled by intelligence when most of my spells seemed to be making use of Charisma?

  Weighing the pros and cons I decided Intelligence was my best option and added the point to it.

  When I got out of the interface, Walt still looked to be lost in his sheets, Maria was patrolling the edges of the garden and Ashley had moved in to loot—which was, of course, no surprise. I headed towards Ashley to see what she’d found.

  “Nothing good for you,” Ashley said, dashing my hopes. “Maria got a set of badass monk gloves that aren’t really gloves.”

  “How does that work?”

  “Essence of the Eternal Gardener,” Ashley said. “Weird right? Now I’m wondering if she’s secretly in full armor. Aura of the creepy ass spider chick, silent footsteps of a monotone bitch.”

  “You get mean, when you don’t get loot.”

  “Damn straight. She’s okay though. Otherwise it was a lot of stuff for making potions. I stashed it all in inventory.”

  “We can’t make potions here? It would be nice to have them for the big fight.”

  “No lab. There were alchemy stations down in the magic labs, but that would be a hike.”

  “What about Maria? Isn’t her spider dress one crawling alchemy lab?”

  Ashley made a face. “Good thinking. I try not to think about the spiders. Do they... no, I won’t ask for sex details. I want to be able to sleep at night. I’ll go check and see if they can do anything.”

  Ashley wandered off towards Maria and I went to see how Walt was holding up. He still looked to be distracted by his display.

  “Still leveling up?” I asked. “How many new powers did you get?”

  “There are a great many options,” Walt said distractedly. “With the new class I can open portals to other worlds and gain various allies or effects, all with certain advantages and combinations possible.”

  “I saw you teleporting around in the fight. That seemed pretty useful.”

  “Purely local portals. I get a few common utility spells early on. That ability to blink, I can access a storage plane for considerably enhanced inventory capacity without worrying about weight. After those though, the number of variables are daunting. It must be similar being a Paladin.”

  “Err,” I mumbled. “I have to assign a stat point each level.”

  Walt peered at me disbelievingly. “What about your skill points each level?”

  “They just get assigned.” I explained more, really starting to feel rather self-conscious about the whole thing. Just how one-track was this Paladin thing compared to the others.

  “Well,” Walt said, trying to be polite. “That explains why you usually finish your sheet first.”

  This conversation was bad for my mood. I looked over to see how the girls were doing. An alarming-sized pile of plant parts was growing larger as Ashley added to them, an enormous number of spiders crawling over them—and a totally bare Maria lacking her usual spider garb was lounging in the ashes of the ruined garden as if catching some sun.

  Right. Life had gotten odd that I could witness this scene and it instilled a comfortable sense that all was right in the world and plans were proceeding exactly as they should be.

  Walt was squinting. “She must have some form of portal magic of her
own. The number of spiders is disproportionate to the coverage they normally provide.”

  “Really? Your reaction to a hot, naked Queen is that her spider count is off?”

  “The imbalance is vexing.”

  I wandered off to leave Walt to ponder this further.

  Soon we were preparing for the big fight ahead. The gardens should have been little more than a distraction—and had nearly been our downfall. What we would find, when we actually made it to the throne room?

  We decided to wait in the garden for our timers to refresh. For whatever reason the undead elsewhere in the castle didn’t come here. The struggle of our army versus theirs could well be an endless sort of affair until one side took down the leader of the other.

  I wound up next to Maria, struck by how her pale skin contrasted with the black ash and not finding the lack of spiders in the least upsetting.

  “Are you okay?” I asked. This had to be strange for her, returning to the upper levels and knowing that she must soon face her father.

  “Awful,” Maria said, flatly. “I should feel nothing. I don’t remember this place and I don’t remember my mother or my father.”

  “It’s okay to be upset. This is the life that was taken from you.”

  “Liam, I tell you truly it has never bothered me. Ever since I swore to your goddess however I am awash in feelings. Is this normal?”

  Was it? I really had no idea. I tried to think of my own emotions since meeting Yvera. I’d definitely been hornier than usual, but then I’d also been surrounded by an unusual number of beautiful women in varying stages of undress. Things had been vivid, and even now Intemperance echoed with the desire to indulge in life to the point of destruction. None of that really seemed to be what Maria was describing, but then I wasn’t emotionally stunted to start with.

  “She is a Goddess of Passions,” I said, since there was no helpful whispering voice in my ear.

  “I wish she’d take them back. I don’t like feeling,” Maria said.

  I wrapped an arm around her and after a moment of stiffness she relented, resting against me.

  Eventually we were ready to move out again. The spiders had managed to convert the massive salvaged remains of the plant into forty leaf-wrapped bundles of healing salve. It was an impressive take and we each wound up taking ten bundles to stash in our inventory for healing. We’d probably need it.

  With that done, we set off.

  Chapter 24

  We left the garden and made our way into what must have once been the chambers of the royal family. The mists were thick here and things were surprisingly well-preserved. Furniture elsewhere in the castle had been decayed and broken, but here it looked as if the owners had just stepped out for the day. Actually, given the way closet doors hung open and clothes were scattered across the beds, it was more like they had just hastily packed and fled.

  In one room was a cradle and I found myself glancing towards Maria. She was pretending to be okay with it. Good.

  We heard the echoing of heavy footsteps in the hall ahead and I motioned the others to stop.

  “I can sneak in and scout things out,” Ashley said.

  I nodded and she disappeared. Even my sense alignment no longer detected her aura.

  “Maria, was that your cradle back there?” Walt asked.

  I winced. Subtle.

  “They ran and they forgot me. Those who forget me again will do so at their peril,” Maria said in that creepy, deadpan voice of hers.

  One day she was going to be the worst ex-lover ever. That was tomorrow’s problem though and it was still today. I flashed her a reassuring smile.

  Ashley phased back into sight.

  “Royal Guards patrolling. Lots of them. Big bad skeletons in plate mail and wielding halberds. They look pretty scary.”

  “Any way around them?” I asked.

  “Not that I saw, but I think I have a plan. We charge in, they’ll keep stumbling in one at a time and we’ll soon be royally fucked.”

  “That’s pretty funny,” Walt said.

  “Pun not intended. Fuck, really? That’s what you find funny?”

  “Puns are the highest form of humor.”

  “Is there something unique about how we royals fuck?” Maria asked.

  “Most girls are probably less spider-infested and this is so far off topic,” Ashley said with a glare at everyone. “Listen. Here is the plan. I sneak in. When one is far enough away from the others I backstab it, draw it back here, and you witty souls pummel it even deader while I go grab the next.”

  “I like it,” I decided.

  “I want to hurt things,” Maria agreed.

  “Tactically sound,” Walt said.

  “You’re all freaks,” Ashley said, and she disappeared from sight again.

  It wasn’t too long until a rather breathless-looking Ashley ran past. Close on her heels was a formidable figure in plate mail.

  Royal Skeleton Guard

  Level 10: Type: Undead HP: 833/1000

  Loyal even after death these guards protect the King from any and all threats. A single one is a formidable foe, as a unit they are a devastating threat.

  Why was I a tank and yet everything had so much more HP than I did? If I understood my sheet correctly that would mean a combined power and endurance of 100 points for me to match this thing. I suspected monsters had different rules of some kind, but it still made me grumble that even with my frankly overpowered buffs they still seemed to be more overpowered than me.

  I engaged with my sword and shield as Ashley again went invisible behind us. It was a short, but painful fight. The Royal Guard swung its halberd with devastating force that cleaved right through the chain links of my armor and cut into my flesh. With my increased attunement that felt more or less like it should have—which is to say agonizing. Walt might be impaled, but I knew to him he would just be feeling a dull ache.

  Even as I had a rib or two broken and organs pierced I was lashing out and Intemperance was flaming brightly away.

  Temporal Venom

  Maria dealt blows with a dizzying speed, each aimed with unerring accuracy to those few unarmored sections of the Guard’s body.

  Dimensional Tremor

  Walt’s magic made the very air around the skeleton warp and vibrate in a way that made my eyes ache, bending and fracturing those bones.

  It took only a minute for the fight to be done, yet still in that time I was at under half my health bar. Even the plant hadn’t damaged me this much, perhaps those halberds had some extra ability to penetrate armor?

  Spider’s Succor

  Maria focused on me and I experienced a steady rush of regaining hit points.

  I belatedly realized that I wasn’t using my latest spell boosting Power at all. It was something that would help with my health and damage. I focused and again felt that almost intoxicating feel of divine power coursing through me as I reached out to extend the blessing to both myself and Maria.

  She gave me a look asking why I was just doing this now.

  “I forgot I had it,” I explained.

  “Idiot,” Maria said. I could hardly argue.

  Apart from the occasional bouts of tremendous pain it was a surprisingly relaxing way to pass the time. We’d hang out until we again heard pounding footsteps and Ashley would slip past followed by a guard, which we would pummel into submission.

  The only interruption to this routine was when Ashley wound up bringing two back instead of one, which wound up with me tanking one while Maria took the other with Ashley sticking around to assist. Halberds pierced bare flesh even easier than my chainmail and although we both finished that fight on our feet, we were both bloody messes.

  Eventually my trusty chainmail was more or less a ruined mess and I wound up scoping out the gear of one of the slain guards.

  Royal Guard’s Plate mail Set

  AC: 250 Type: Common

  Worn Position: Legs, Arms, Chest, Hands, Head, Feet

  Once a resplende
nt suit of armor, long neglect has taken its toll. Still a functional set of heavy armor to fend off the worst of blows.

  It was slightly better than my existing chainmail despite being an item grade lower, at least in terms of the armor value, although it lacked the special effect.

  When I slipped into it, stylistic flames appeared. I might be a horrible tank, but at least I would always be a fashionable one.

  By the time Ashley reported there were no more guards to dispatch, I’d gained another level, although I’d held off on opening the notification until making sure we were done with the fight.

  Congratulations!