Lord of the Flame: A LitRPG novel (Call of Carrethen Book 2)

by Stephen Roark

  A portal appeared in front of me and I hurled myself into it before I even saw the exit portal. He must have cast it in time, as I was flung out and back onto the bridge 5 yards ahead. It wasn’t much, but it was faster than running.

  Stitches’ eyes went wide for a moment, but not out of fear. It was more like he was taken aback, amused—even impressed by what had just happened. But that didn’t stop him. He spun around and ran. I chased after him, but as he raced away from me, I could see it was a hopeless battle. There was no way I’d ever catch up.

  “Stitches the immortal!” he shouted, his voice barely audible over the sound of the wind and the flames. “Stitches the clever!”

  I heard the steps of my friends behind me, and knew I should just let him go, but my anger had taken me over. When I’d seen Anwi’s reaction when she thought she’d been reunited with her long lost love, I’d been reminded of just how much I missed Jack and knew that I’d do anything it took to find him again.

  She and I weren’t that different, really. Her resolve was different than mine, but we were both fighting for the same thing. Stitches had betrayed us both, and I hated him for it. He was filth, like Chaucey and Bonecrusher, killing for fun, maybe even just for the sport of it.

  I was lost. The ash swirled around me as I ran. Flames lit the air beneath me. It was chaos. The Dark World was chaos. My mind was chaos.

  “Jane!” Sabotenda screamed after me. Ahead, Stitches vanished into the ash, but I kept running. I knew it was too late. I’d never catch him, but stopping meant admitting defeat, and that was something I didn’t know how to do.

  Something flared in front of me. More flames, not surprising given what was going on around us. But then the bridge shook. Something exploded behind me, and I spun around in time to see a series of wooden barrels bursting into flame. I hadn’t noticed them as I ran, but they lined both sides of the bridge around us and were now detonating like a row of bombs.

  As the bridge crumbled and gave out from beneath us, and my group and I found ourselves tumbling through the ash filled air towards the raging inferno below, I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the situation.

  Stitches, I thought as I fell. You did it again.

  56

  The Befallen Grub of Jahannan

  As I fell, time seemed to slow down. I saw the ash around me, the rubble from the bridge and the rest of my group tumbling towards me. I heard the dull roar of the raging inferno beneath us where the city was burning.

  The fall would kill me, there was no question about that. In no more than a few seconds, my entire group would be dead and back in Cara, our bodies lost and more than likely unrecoverable, lying somewhere in the flames of the city.

  Stitches was crazy. I’d trusted him when we first met—I’d wanted to. The old D would never have even given him a chance to betray us. I would have taken him out immediately and moved on.

  I went soft, Jack, I thought as I plummeted towards the earth. But that’s over with now.

  Flames swelled around me and I looked down as I hurtled towards the roof of a burning building. I braced myself for impact, but when I hit, the entire building collapsed beneath me and I barely took any damage at all. My leg caught on a beam which spun me around in midair, causing me to glance off at a sharp angle.

  Eyes wide, flailing around for any kind of control, I looked down and found myself diving straight towards a crumbling well at the center of a small square. I reached out and tried to grab ahold of something to stop my fall, but it was useless. My momentum almost tore my arm off as I snatched at the stone and I cried out as I fell into darkness.

  I continued to fall, face first into the black, far longer than I’d fallen from the bridge above. Sick thoughts began to invade my mind.

  Was this another part of Stitches’ trap? Was it a bug in the game? Was this Norman’s Electronic Void? But then, a soft light formed in front of me. I squinted, trying to make out what it was, but before I could, my fall ended.

  I slammed into something soft and squishy that cushioned my fall. Still, the damage was enormous and my health was flashing critical in the corner of my vision. Whatever I’d landed on was sticky, like a bubble of slime that tugged at my body as I tried to wriggle free. But the harder I pulled, the more stuck I became.

  “Help!” I screamed in futility. “Help me!”

  I thrashed and tugged against whatever it was that held me, but it was no use. I was stuck. I gasped and went relaxed, letting my body go limp and tried to force myself to calm down. Looking around, I tried to get my bearings and see where I was, but it was so dark I could barely see more than a few feet in front of my face.

  There were stone walls around me—I could see that. The only light around me came from tiny bulbous mushroom things that were forcing their way out of the cracks, giving off a faint white glow.

  “Well, I can always use my Bindstone Shard,” I muttered to myself as I accepted my hopeless predicament. But then, the sticky mass beneath me moved.

  It was like the pressure had been relieved within and the entire thing began to deflate. The pull on my limbs subsided and slowly, as though it were alive, the bulbous mass sloughed me off onto the ground. I turned around and watched as it shrank in size and retreated into a corner by the wall.

  “Yeah,” I said slowly to myself. “Okay…now what?”

  I looked up to where I’d fell, but all I saw was a tiny glimmer of light hundreds of feet up. Glancing around, I appeared to be in a sewer of some kind, and to my right was a rusted iron grating blocking my passage in that direction. To my left, the tunnel continued on into the darkness.

  “This way, I guess.”

  I started to walk, the softly glowing mushrooms providing just enough illumination for me to see where I was going. As I progressed, the ceiling began to slope down, causing me to stoop down to continue. I kept going for what felt like forever as the walls of the tunnel closed in around me.

  I’m not a claustrophobic person—not really, but once I found myself on my hands and knees, crawling forward like a caver exploring some unknown passage deep beneath the earth, I started to freak out. I could barely raise my head without hitting the stone above me, and felt the walls against my shoulders as I fought to make progress. It was cold and wet and miserable, and if the walls kept closing on like they had been, it wouldn’t be long before I was stuck.

  To make extra room for myself, I took off my armor and tossed it in my inventory. It gave me a few extra inches on each side, allowing me to wriggle forward, but unless something changed quick, I was going to have no choice but to Bindstone back to Cara.

  Grunting, I kicked against the ground with my knees and shoved myself forward. A high spot on the rock caught on my arm, but I managed to twist slightly and get past it. I looked ahead, trying to see if there was an end in sight, but the glowing mushrooms had thinned out considerably and I found myself staring into blackness.

  “Keep it together, Jane,” I muttered. The sound of my voice was muffled, uncomfortably close as it bounced off the stone walls that seemed to be closing in around me. I pushed myself forward again, pulling with my elbows, when suddenly, the ground in front of me fell away and I tumbled forward over an edge I hadn’t seen. It was like hurtling down a tube slide as a child, only this time being wrapped in complete darkness with no end in sight.

  I screamed as the ground again gave out beneath me and I was spat out of a hole in the wall of a larger chamber. I slammed into the stone, my head spinning, and rolled onto my back as I used my Health Kit to restore my health.

  I looked up and it took a moment for me to understand what I was seeing. The ceiling seemed like it was moving. Black shapes expanded and contracted, shifted against each other with a crackling sound like hard shells knocking up against each other. It was then I realized what they were.

  Eggs!

  Quickly, I glanced around the chamber as I got up into a crouched position, and found myself in a hollow that appeared to have been hast
ily carved out of the rock by something. Nothing about it gave off the impression of being man made like the rest of Jahannan, and at the center of the room was a towering shape, encased in shadow, its body rising and falling slowly with each breath.

  It was an insect, massive and triumphant, at least twenty feet tall, and as I looked closer, I realized what it was. The statue we’d passed in the town square in Jahannan, the many eyed god that the Pilgrims and Villagers were praying to on that massive stone carving. Before me was the Befallen God of Jahannan.

  It appeared to be sleeping, or at least not aware of my presence. The walls of the chamber, and most of the floor, were completely covered with eggs, and as I slowly got to my feet, I made sure not to touch any of them. If there was anything I’d learned from video games over the years, it was that you never touch eggs—not unless you want something very bad to happen. I inspected the enormous grub before me.

  Befallen Grub of Jahanna—Level 235 Elite.

  “Shit…” I muttered to myself. For the time it appeared as though I was safe. The boss appeared to be sleeping, but its many eyes still seemed to follow me as I moved. Stepping carefully around the room, I searched the walls for an exit but saw none. More holes lined the walls like the one I’d come tumbling out of and I wondered how many more tunnels and traps lay about the city for unsuspecting players to tumble into.

  Sabotenda and Curafin must have died from the fall. It was only pure chance that I’d landed where I did and survived, and I had much more health than they did. They would be back in Cara now with Kodiak and the rest of the Red Devils, wondering what their next move was, while I stared at an Elite boss that had over a hundred levels on me.

  I circled the room, careful not to disturb the countless eggs at my feet, when I spied something on the ground just on the other side of the grub. I recognized it immediately; a hand wearing Anwi’s armor. I had to stop myself from racing forward, but stepped as quickly as I could through the eggs until I reached her fallen body.

  “No…”

  It felt somehow impossible to see her lying there like that. Anwi the invincible, her unbreakable will fueling her quest through the Dark World. She’d been our guide, helped us through the city with an unwavering confidence, and it had gotten her killed. Because of us. Because of me.

  I sighed, futilely attempting to loot her body so I could recover whatever items she’d dropped on her death, but the corpse was locked. Only she could return to reclaim her possessions. Hopefully she had found a Bindstone nearby or somewhere inside the city, but her death meant she was now on her way to becoming one of the Sunken. She was now weaker, more vulnerable, and if I couldn’t find her and restore her, she’d be on her way to joining Hectar in his madness.

  Something moved behind me, and I turned around to see the egg closest to my foot open with a sickly cracking sound. A small purple larva emerged, about the size of my lower leg. It hit the ground with a disgusting plop that seemed to cause a chain reaction. One by one, the rest of the eggs opened around me like dominos toppling against one another.

  The ones on the ceiling opened, and larva spilled onto me like thick drops of sludge. They clung to my body and began to tear at my flesh with rows of needle like teeth. My health began dropping rapidly, and I realized I hadn’t put my armor back on. Quickly, I equipped it, which helped mitigate the damage, but it was still too much for me to handle, and more and more of them kept coming.

  I used my Health Kit to restore my health as it fell past half, but the larvae were like a wave spilling over me, threatening to completely overwhelm me. I equipped my daggers and slashed at them, killing each of them in one hit, but there must have been hundreds of them, and if that wasn’t bad enough, at the center of the room, the Befallen Grub stirred.

  A sound like a deep growl ran through the chamber as though the Grub was groaning as it awoke from its slumber. I continued to cut at the larvae as they tore at me with countless teeth. But it was a hopeless battle, one I knew I couldn’t win. And as I looked up at the enormous boss, I knew I had only one choice: admit defeat and use my Bindstone Shard to get back to Cara.

  “Who…dares…?” the Grub roared. Its voice was thick and wet, sounding almost like it was fighting to get the words out. I looked up at its countless eyes as I retrieved my Shard from my inventory. “Who…to invade my…sanctum?”

  My health was dropping fast. There was no time to waste. The Grub swelled and three mouth-like holes opened on its body and I knew it was about to strike. I selected my Bindstone and was a second away from activating it when something stopped me. The Grub spoke again, but this time its voice was much more human, and filled with despair.

  “Please…help me!”

  57

  Unexpected Salvation

  Instantly, the larvae stopped swarming and fell to the ground as if dead. I stared up at the Befallen Grub in disbelief as it loomed over me. It was so big it was all I could see, nearly filling the chamber with its girth, its near infinite number of eyes all focused on me.

  “Help me,” it repeated. Its voice was bold, but there was pain behind the strength. I was finally able to make out its mouth, a tiny slit near the top of its body beneath a cluster of eyes. As it opened, strands of mucus peeled apart but seemed to fight to keep it closed.

  “What the—”

  “Who dares—no!” the Grub stammered, its voice was thick and shaking the chamber. The fallen larvae quivered as it spoke. “Invading my…No, help! Who—who dares!?”

  The Grub staggered backwards so quickly I almost jumped out of my skin. It twisted violently to the side, slamming its carapace shell into the wall of the chamber. The soft parts of its body sloshed back and forth like it was filled with jelly, making disgusting sounds that made my stomach turn.

  “H—help me!” the Grub cried out, slamming down and crushing countless eggs under its enormous weight.

  “What—what’s happening!?” I shouted as the Grub thrashed about. But then it hit me. Like Curafin before, this was another one of the Dark World’s curses. Another player had been trapped in the body of the Grub—a player that knew me.

  “I will destroy you!” the Grub cried out, lurching out at me with impossible speed. I ducked as it struck out at me like a snake. The wall crumbled behind me, spilling stone everywhere, shattering more eggs and crushing larvae as I hurled myself out of the way.

  The shells of the eggs sliced into my back as I fell through them. I cried out and looked up as the Grub flailed out again, slamming its colossal body down at me. I barely managed to roll out of the way of its attack, feeling the bodies of larvae explode underneath me.

  “No, please!” the Grub cried out again, hurling itself backwards as the player within fought against the monster’s programming. I seized the opportunity and found the restore button in my character sheet and quickly selected it. My hand glowed and I reached out just as the Grub struck out again. Inches before impact, the Grub froze in place as the light from my hand shot out and encased its body.

  It cried out like a squealing pig, but as the restore progressed and lines of golden energy began to pulse through its body, the voice became more and more human. The light became so bright I had to shield my eyes as the Grub’s body burst out of existence. Like before with the Bishop, where the Grub had been, lay a man—a young man with a bit of a baby face. I recognized him instantly.

  “Mr. Glorious,” I said, as Baltos twisted on the ground at my feet. He gasped as though in shock, then turned to face me, rubbing at his eyes like he couldn’t see. Not that it really mattered if he did, he wouldn’t recognize me anyway. The last time he’d seen me I was D, my true self hidden behind my character’s avatar. But now, he was looking at the real me.

  “How—how do you know that name?” he asked, the relief in his eyes turning to fear. “Are you…The Ripper?”

  I tried not to laugh, but couldn’t help myself. “The Ripper!? You have got to be kidding me. Come on, Baltos, buddy ol’ pal. Try again.”

&nb
sp; Baltos stared at me and I could almost see his brain working as he tried to figure out what was going on. Under ordinary circumstances I would have let him suffer a while, but after what he’d just been through, being stuck in the body of a monster for weeks, I let him off the hook.

  “It’s D, doofus.”

  “D!?” Baltos practically shouted. “Wait, what!?”

  “What, you don’t remember your old buddy, D?” I replied indignantly, folding my arms across my chest.

  “What the—” Baltos stammered, his mouth hanging open in shock. “You’re a girl!?”

  “That’s the first thing you say?” I replied. “Not, ‘Wow, it’s great to see you!’ or ‘How did you pull me out of that Grub?’ or ‘How the Hell did you get here?’ You just had to comment on me being a girl?”

  “I’m sorry!” Baltos replied instantly. “I just didn’t expect that at all! I mean, you’re D…the scruffy archer dude that looks like Daryl from the Walking Dead!”

  “Well, not anymore I’m not.” I smiled.

  “So, wait…is this the real you? Or did you just create a new character?”

  I thought about lying to him, just to keep any potential future flirting off the table, but after what had happened I felt like I owed him the truth. “No, this is me. The real me.”

  “Damn,” he muttered. “You’re like…hot.”

  “Okay, that’s enough,” I said quickly, grabbing his hand and hoisting him to his feet. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like a milkshake!” he replied.

  “Yeah?” I laughed.

  “And I’ll tell you what—this place is disgusting!” he exclaimed, glancing around us at the eggs and larvae that lined the floor of the chamber.

  “So were you about thirty seconds ago,” I joked.

  “You can say that again.” He smiled. “Say, how did you do that? Pull me out of there?”

  “It’s a long story,” I told him. “I’ll tell you later.”