BlackFlame Online Vol 1

by A P Gore

  “Okay. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that, but can you please try the ice arrow?”

  Rihala nodded and shot her normal ice arrow. The arrow hit the rat in the eye, and the frost spread to its body, shattering it into pieces.

  Rihala lowered her bow, staring at the ice crystals left behind by the shattered rat. “That doesn’t make sense. They have 400 life, and my arrow could only deal 100 damage, and only that with a crit.”

  Noah grimaced. Her level 5 skill was doing 100 when it crit, and his level 9 spell was only doing 125 max on crit. “I think it’s the fire resistance. They are highly resistant to fire damage, but that mean they are weak against ice damage.”

  “Great!” She rapidly shot more ice arrows at the rats, killing them one by one. She grinned wider with every kill she scored.

  “Wait! You are shattering the rats, not leaving me any corpses.”

  “Why do you need one?”

  “We have to get to the other side, and I have a feeling these rats are the means to do that. Do you have anything that would just add ice damage, but doesn’t shatter them?”

  “My normal arrow should do that. Thanks to your gift, it has +3 ice damage added.”

  “Great! Use that and kill them. I’ll help you with my spell, too.” He started shooting poison orbs at them, one after another. Coupled with Rihala’s normal arrows, they downed the last 3 rats in less than five minutes.

  “What do you have in mind?” Rihala’s tail reached for his waist again once the rats were dead.

  Noah grinned. “Hang on. I’ll show you.” He had a creepy idea, which Rihala wasn’t going to like, but it was the best idea he had. Noah turned the dead rats into zombies. They turned into fine zombies, retaining their fiery paws. He commanded them to come closer.

  When all three zombies were closer, he commanded one to sleep on the surface between the lava patches. The rat looked at him in confusion and did nothing.

  Shaking his head at the dumbstruck rat, Noah kicked it, making it fall on its side. The zombie hissed at him and stood back up, but its skin remained intact. It was immune to the scorching ground.

  “Great, just as I thought.”

  Rihala gave him an are-you-crazy look. “What? What are you planning to do with their skin?”

  “We’ll tie them around our shoes.”

  “No. I’m not doing that. They smell disgusting. My mom will kill me if I go back with dirty, stinky shoes.”

  “Do you have a better idea? If we had all six, we could have made a rat bridge. Three wouldn’t be enough, and they won’t lie down one by one anyway. Clearly, they are not that smart. Don’t worry about your shoes. I’m pretty sure we will level up, and you will get nice new shoes.” It was an effective way to get your clothes patched up and cleaned. It even worked for NPCs.

  Rihala shook her head firmly.

  Noah shrugged one shoulder. “You give me no choice.” He lifted her in his arms. “Shall we do it like this?”

  Rihala blushed a deep pink but nodded.

  The next ten minutes were grueling, even for Noah. He had no experience with butchering animals, and none at all in skinning them. By the time he was finished, his arms were covered in black blood to the elbow. He smelled like a rat. A dead, zombie rat. Damn, he disgusted even himself.

  Noah washed his hands and cut off his shirt’s arms so Rihala wouldn’t feel disgusting. He didn’t want to piss her off with the smell and blood. When he was done cleaning, he was wearing a sort of rat shoes. He cautiously put a foot on the lava patch, expecting a severe burn, but only a small hint of smoke rose.

  “Let’s go, girl.” He pulled her closer and lifted her in his arms again. She wasn’t light, but his strength enabled him to lift her easily. His stamina started falling quicker than normal, but he had enough to cross the fifty-foot-long room.

  With a pounding heart, he took the first step while balancing Rihala in his arms. Her breasts were pressed against his chest, and they were sending all sorts of wrong signals to his body. He wished it were a different time, that he was taking her to his bed rather than walking over a lava patch. When he locked eyes with her, she closed hers and her tail wrapped around his waist, pulling her closer to him. She rested her head on his shoulder and moaned. “You are so warm, Noah.”

  “And you are so soft.” He bit his lips. He was putting his emotions on the table.

  Not so early champ!

  She pulled herself even closer to him, flattening her breasts against his chest further. If earlier was just a touch, now it was a deliberate push. “Really? You want to feel more softness?” she murmured in a sexy voice that sent electric pulses to Noah’s core.

  “If you do that again, I might drop you here and start doing something else.” He winked.

  Control Noah!

  He needed to concentrate on the dungeon and not on the girl, but it was getting harder with every passing moment.

  “Here we are,” he said, slowly lowering her down, but her tail didn’t want to let go. It clung around his waist like it was glued to it.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to hold me in your arms a little longer?” Her tail was now slowly slipping inside his armor, then under his shirt.

  He held her close to his heart, kissing her forehead. “I have two women to save, babe. You and my little girl, Thia. So, I can’t really give in to these emotions, not right now.”

  Her back straightened, and she pulled her tail away, but with a sweet innocent smile covering her face. “I trust you, Noah. With my life. And for the first time, someone has induced hope in my heart that I can be freed too. Thanks for meeting me.” She held his hand and kissed it lightly.

  Congratulations! Your commitment to save the demon female has won her heart. +10000 reputation gained with her. New reputation: Ally. She will try to save you until danger threatens her own life.

  Experience/Reputation deferred until the dungeon is cleared.

  Not having the experience notification until then worried him. Well, it seemed it had come after all. He also spotted his dungeon progress meter had moved into the amber color. He hoped that meant they’d cleared the first room.

  “Thanks for coming into my life, babe. Let’s move ahead and see what the second room has in store for us.” He turned back and found two fiery, skinless rat zombies following him. He was their master, after all.

  23. Raining Fireballs

  It was a big mistake.

  To step into the next area without probing for danger was a big mistake. Noah paid for it when the first fireball blasted him and reduced his life by 50 points. The next one scored a double crit, reducing it another 150.

  He didn’t even know there was such a thing as a double crit before he read the bright red notification. Rihala’s tail pulled him back to the safe zone—a five-foot-wide area next to the doorway.

  “What the heck was that?” Noah dropped to his knees, peeling open a vial of health potion and emptying it in his mouth. His life slowly climbed back to full. “I thought this was a level restricted dungeon, not a double critting fireball barrage. This is hard!” He stared at the dust-laden deadly pathway. Black marks dotted it, and the smell of scorched earth hung in the air.

  “Who told you to jump in?” Rihala dropped next to him on the rough ground with an annoyed huff and took his face in her soft hands. “My mom always says, ‘DO NOT jump into an area before scouting it with clear eyes.’ Just give it a careful look first. That’s all I’m asking.”

  Noah gave her a quick look. She suddenly looked like a fiery, feisty demon, totally different from her usual shy, sweet, clumsy—and at times dangerous—self.

  He liked her this way.

  She shrugged. “And there is a three second timer between the fireballs’ trigger. Have a closer look.”

  Noah looked at the path with empowered eyes. She was right. The fireball barrage started after three seconds from the far end and quickly moved across the path. Bam-bam-bam. The barrage stopped just a foot away from the s
afe zone. Every fireball took half a second to reach the ground, and there were a total of ten of them.

  “Can you run fast enough?” Rihala asked.

  “I bet I can.” Noah smiled—a crooked smile, as he realized he had a skill for this. “I love this game, Rihala. You get a skill for everything.”

  “Game?”

  “Never mind. You are as real as my life, sweetie.” He kissed her cheek, quite close to her lips. It left Rihala pink-cheeked.

  “Let’s time this out. How fast can you run?”

  “Let me show you.” It was her turn to give him a devilish smile. She dashed forward when the fireballs started hitting the ground, sending dust all across the way through the mountain walls. She vanished from his sight and reappeared ten meters ahead. Sitting on a sloped wall, on the balls of her feet with the help of her tail, she waved and blew him a kiss before vanishing again and reappearing next to him.

  “Wow! That was crazy.” Noah admired the slithering beauty standing next to him. She looked all soft and curvy, but she was deadlier than any woman he had ever met. “How did you do that?”

  “That’s my demon trait. Speedrunner. I lack physical strength, but I make up for it with speed. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be able to carry you.”

  “I don’t think I can run that fast, but I’m damn sure I can cross the halfway point with my skill. But what about the one fireball that would hit me?”

  “We have to soak that damage and move forward. Once we are beyond that point, we can walk. Our task should be to meet up at the farthest fireball possible so we’ll have more time. Just be safe, okay?” She traced a nail over the back of his hand. “My mom always says—"

  “Don’t worry, sweetie. I just need to run as fast possible, take one fireball and continue running. Sounds easy.”

  She settled into a running stance. “I’ll go first. Just watch.”

  “Wait. Take this with you.” He handed her a health potion. She might not need it, but he couldn’t let her go out there without a backup.

  She blinked her eyes with compassion and winked at him.

  In the next round of fireballs, she zipped forward, moving like a lightning bolt passing through the air. She only stopped once, embracing the impact of the fireball and then instantly moving forward.

  The hit took 150 of her hit points, which was almost one quarter of her life. And then she was standing at the other end of the pathway, waving at him.

  Noah breathed heavily, waiting for the next barrage to start. He activated his spirit run. He dashed forward with his heart in his throat. The last experience of a scorching fireball burning his skin wasn’t a good one.

  He met his first fireball at the middle of the pathway. The second, a step later. And a third, a step after that.

  Something was terribly wrong.

  The burning sensation dulled his movement. His life dropped below 100 points as the third fireball burned his shoulder.

  But he couldn’t lose now.

  Blackness clouded his vision as he dropped to the ground.

  A last bright ray of fire winked at him before he lost his senses.

  Noah expected to wake in the respawn room. His heart pained him, because without him Rihala couldn’t beat the dungeon. He prayed to every god he knew that she’d abandon the dungeon and get out. He couldn’t see her die. Not now. Not ever. But it wasn’t in his hands anymore. The dungeon mechanism shifted in the middle. The fireballs started shooting backward when Noah reached the middle point. Like the dungeon had sensed the weaker prey and changed its strategy.

  “Shit!” He opened his eyes, but he wasn’t in the respawn room. He was staring into two big lavender eyes. His pain was decreasing, along with Rihala’s life. She was pushing her life into him.

  “No, stop!” He coughed. His health bar was just at 100 points, and even speaking a word was excruciating for his lungs. “Health potion.”

  She gave her health potion to him.

  “No, you… drink,” he said, coughing hard.

  She sized him up with a deep frown and emptied the vial in his mouth instead. The sparkle in her eyes returned when his life started rising.

  When his life reached 150, he removed her tail from his body and pulled her head down to taste her cherry red lips. They tasted like a coffee-laced chocolate from real life, delicious and exquisite. “Thanks for saving my life.” He groaned, parting his lips and sliding his tongue inside her mouth. If her lips were like coffee-laced chocolate, then her tongue was rich milk chocolate—the kind that leaves its taste in your mouth for days after you eat it. She was that tasty.

  He parted away from her after a brief kiss. They were in a dungeon, not on a beach to make out. “We’ll continue this once we get out of this shithole.” He smirked, teasing her.

  She seemed lost, the kind of lost where you have nothing left for yourself, and you give everything to someone else. She regained her composure when he touched her shoulder. She glanced at him with half closed eyelids and nodded.

  He checked his wounds. Most of them were healed up. He loved the way healing worked in the game. “How did you save me from the fireball?” He noticed a nasty patch of burned skin on his hand, which hadn’t shown any sign of healing.

  Her face twisted, and her hand reached to her shoulder, exposing the burn mark on it. Noah moved forward and checked her burn. It wasn’t much, but it pained him to see her injured.

  “I also found something on the way here.” She trudged towards a hidden latch in the wall. She pulled it out, and a room opened. “I accidentally pulled it when I ran for you.”

  “Let’s see what’s inside. But first, promise me you won’t risk your life for me again. Remember, I’m a traveler, an immortal being.”

  “How can I?” Her eyes turned watery, and she snapped her face away, swiping at tears with back of one hand. “I’ve already killed you once, and I can’t just watch you die again.”

  “But…”

  She put her index finger to his lips. “Please, no dying,” she whispered.

  “I’ll try. Let’s check out the room. I’ll go first and check if there’s a trap.”

  She tilted her head slightly, exposing her long neck.

  Noah had to hold back the urge to kiss that long, sexy neck.

  24. Well of Healing

  The door opened on a strange five-by-five room. It was illuminated by a light coming out of a small blue basin at the center of the room. A stream of foggy blue water streamed out of it and vanished inside a circular area of unknown depth covering the basin. The water was clear and crystal blue. It evoked an urge to drink until he passed out, and when he woke up back, drink more.

  Rihala stood beside him, the skin on her neck shivering a little. “What is Well of Healing?”

  A property had appeared next to the well as Noah moved closer to it. A faint scent of something divine was evident around the well. Yes, something very divine. The scent reminded him of the bitch Sumara. If only she could give him the cure for his virtual daughter, Thia would have been here with him. He missed her so much.

  “This could be an illusion.” Rihala kneeled down and smelled the water in the well. “My mom always says don’t trust anything in level restricted dungeons.”

  “Don’t you feel the thirst to dive into that beautiful water?” He wandered around the small room. Three metal chests, bronze, silver, and golden, were placed in a big gap carved in the wall opposite the entrance. Words were written on top of the chests. ‘Choose what you want to face.’

  Noah moved forward, toward the wall adjacent to the chest wall. It had a door in it, but there was no lever or lock. He tried to push it, but it didn’t budge. He had a feeling that the door opened from the other side.

  “Sweetie come here. What does this door do? Is it another secret room?”

  “No, come here. This well is something special. Shall I taste the water?” Rihala was leaning on the well, ready to drink the water.

  Noah zipped forward, pulling her back by he
r shoulder. “Don’t! Let me try it.” He kneeled next to her, staring at his own reflection in the water. He looked like a smoking monkey. His skin was tattered. Black patches of soot covered his neck. He felt a tug of embarrassment.

  When he looked at Rihala’s reflection, he felt further embarrassed. Even after so much adventure, she looked just out of the bath, and he looked like a joker.

  He wasn’t particular about his looks in real life. Work was his passion, and he believed in showcasing his knowledge and research rather than his face. Moreover, he’d remained busy with work in the real world. But here, he had time to look after himself—or at least look presentable, and not like the vagabond staring back at him from the clear water. He sighed. At least he was fitter than real life, with better muscles and no stomach. Still being unpresentable in front of a woman you wanted to have sex with wasn’t a good thing.

  Blood crept into his cheeks when he thought about sex. It was in the back of his mind a lot lately—a lot after meeting Rihala, anyway. Was it because she was the only woman he’d met? No, it wasn’t that. He had felt something for her, something real, and not the digitized reputation thing.

  “Before I try to suicide by drinking this water, I want to ask you something.”

  “Ask?” She blinked, puzzled.

  He placed his hand on her heart. “The feeling in there, is that because of reputation?”

  She blushed like a virgin being touched for the first time. “The feelings I have for you? No, they are not based on reputation. I don’t understand those numbers. For example, I love my mom so much, but even for her, my reputation started at Friend. Isn’t that weird? I wonder why the greater gods set it as a rule of our world.”

  “So, you think in those terms.” It made sense. An NPC having real intelligence should have some explanation for the game rules and other things.

  Is it still a game for me?

  The line was getting blurrier with each passing day.

  I need to get back to my real daughter. At any cost.

  He was pulled into the foggy gray area—his memory land. He didn’t want it to trigger now, but he couldn’t do anything about it.