“Vayde,” I begged him. “You have to help me. If she cleanses those people…then I can’t help them. You can’t let that happen, Vayde, please!”
He was torn. On one hand, he was my old friend, but on the other hand, he was Rayne’s right hand man now. She trusted him and had given him the power to cleanse. He was loyal to her, but he had gone through a lot with me. He knew me, and I had to think that meant something.
“I’ll do what I can, Jane,” he replied, calling me by my real name. “But things are going to get hairy down there. There’s not going to be a lot of time if we beat this guy.”
“If,” I reminded him. “If.”
I turned and nodded to the rest of my group. Chaucey stood there miserably, obviously feeling lost and useless.
As portal space travel time was longer in the Dark World, it was a good place to think. Rayne was powerful—there would be no taking her on if things turned south. She could easily take on our entire group, and even if we somehow managed to hold our own against her, she had Gottfried, and possibly even Vayde.
In a way, I found myself hoping that their attack on the Lord of the Flame would fail. At least that way I’d be able to show Rayne what I could do. Members of her guild would begin to go Sunken, and I could restore them in front of her eyes. She’d have no choice but to believe me then. Maybe she’d even become an ally.
So many uncertainties and still so much to do.
I felt solid ground beneath my feet and looked around as the portal disappeared and found myself standing on a vast expanse of dark purple rock that stretched out in all directions. Thick ribbons of silver light poured out from cracks in the plateau, some stretching towards the dark clouds of the sky, and some twisting back on themselves as though pulled by some internal gravity or force originating far below.
The air was chilled, vacant and dead. Nothing grew around us—no trees, no vegetation, nothing. The earth looked scorched, as though a wildfire had swept through the land and turned everything to coal. Lightning crashed above us and I looked around to see tall, towering shadows in the distance, swaying slightly back and forth.
“Dire Giants,” Vayde said, portaling in behind me. “Level 225. Keep your distance.”
He brushed past me and made his way to Rayne’s side. I inspected one of the massive shapes and saw he wasn’t lying.
Dire Giant—Level 225 Elite.
They were everywhere, like moving mountains, far greater in size than the Stone Giants in Carrethen. The one I was looking at turned to me, and I saw its great violet eyes glowing in the darkness beneath the sky. Thunder clapped over head.
“This way!” Rayne’s voice rang out. I turned and looked in the direction of her voice and saw her arm raised above her troops, still clutching Norman’s scimitar. Her men cheered as she waved them forward and began marching forward like the Spartans heading into battle.
Curafin and Baltos stood at my side as we watched them walk, moving down a slope that seemed to have been carved out of the ground by an enormous chisel forming a sloped chasm leading down into the dark rock.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” I smirked to myself, wishing Jack was around for my reference. I gazed at the light spilling out from the ground and over to the Dire Giants that lumbered around us like titans, protectors of the land, like gatekeepers of the entrance to Sheol.
I felt like a small boat being blown around in a raging storm as I took my first steps forward to follow Rayne and her forces. There was no telling what we were getting ourselves into. I wasn’t optimistic about our chances against the Lord of the Flame, but even if we did manage to defeat him, what then?
Kodiak had told me he was a player, so that meant he would simply respawn if Rayne didn’t cleanse him or I didn’t restore him. One of us would have to do something before finishing him off, or he’d just keep coming back. And what about all the Sunken in Sheol? Even if Rayne let me try and restore them, there were tons of them. How would I be able to handle an entire horde of brainless players all intent on destroying us?
The thunder seemed louder as it slapped the sky above us. As we walked, the ground continued to slope down until we were moving through a canyon with sheer stone walls on either side of us. They looked impossible to scale, which meant the only escape would be the way we had come, and I didn’t like that at all, not with those giants behind us.
“If this goes south, get your Bindstone Shards ready,” I told Baltos and Curafin quietly.
“I hear that,” Baltos replied. “This place gives me the creeps.”
Veins of light cut through the rock around us. I reached out and ran my hand through a twisted tendril and felt a tug on my arm like I’d felt when Shard Riding with Vayde, as though the very core of the Dark World was pulling at us, trying to suck us into its depths…down into Sheol.
Fallen God’s forces came to a halt and I glanced up and looked out over their heads to see the black void of a cavern in the stone ahead of us. Dark lines in the rock flowed into the darkness like wrinkle lines around an open mouth, threatening to swallow whole anything that came close to it.
Sheol.
My stomach turned at the sight of it. I wasn’t sure if it was just the way it looked or whether it was the fact that I knew what lay inside: countless souls and a monstrous boss that had yet to be defeated. And here I was, marching in with a bunch of people I didn’t even know, nowhere near max level, without any real plan of what to do.
“Ready!” Rayne cried out. Her followers called back in response, raising their chosen weapons in the air. I glanced at Baltos and Curafin as I nocked a frost arrow in my bow.
“Here we go,” Baltos said quietly.
“Yup.” I nodded. “Here we go.”
73
Sheol
One by one I watched as Fallen God’s forces were swallowed up by the mouth of Sheol like a giant fish sucking up a school of minnows. The three of us stopped just outside the entrance. I could feel a gentle current of air pulling at us from within, as if Sheol itself was beckoning us to enter. There was nothing left to do but answer the call, so with a deep breath, I stepped forward into the darkness.
In an instant, all sound from the outside world was gone, as though we’d entered an isolation booth. No thunder. No lightning. No nothing. All around us was black, with a barely visible, directionless glow across the cavern walls that sloped in around us like a slowly closing fist.
I heard hushed voices in front of us and peered into the black to see Rayne’s men pressing forward through the cramped cave. A feeling of dread ran through me as we moved. The place felt like it was not part of the rest of the world, the same way Wintermute’s hidden admin sites had felt, or the way Jack had described the cave where he found the Sparkling Arlan Stone. I don’t know what I’d expected, but what I saw in front of me wasn’t it.
As we progressed, the walls around us began to narrow and the ceiling lowered until we were all stooped down, crouch-walking forward like workers entering a coal mine. I took a deep breath and focused, trying not to let my claustrophobia act up. It normally wasn’t a thing that affected me, but being surrounded on all sides by impenetrable stone a few inches from my face was doing nothing for my nerves.
“How deep are we going?” Baltos whispered behind me. “Feels like we’re walking to the center of Carrethen.”
“This isn’t Carrethen,” I replied grimly. “This is something else.”
My foot caught on a rock, causing me to stumble forward into one of Rayne’s men.
“Watch it!” he hissed back. Anger flared inside me. I was already on edge and this guy’s attitude wasn’t helping. I felt like driving both of my daggers into his back and sending him back to Neydeesa where he belonged.
Calm down, D, I told myself as I did my best to push down my emotions and focus. This was no time for weakness. We were on our way to confront the Lord of the Flame, and if there was even a chance at us succeeding, Rayne needed everyone at their best. So I kept moving.
>
The tunnel continued to narrow until we were almost on our hands and knees, and that was when I heard them.
Voices.
They came towards us like the murmur of a crowd, a single organism filled with voices impossible to make out. I already knew what they were.
The Sunken.
“Is…is that them?” Baltos asked. I nodded and continued on.
The voices grew louder and louder as we continued, rising like a howling wind in a storm. There had to be thousands of them, their minds lost and memories gone, shells of the people they once were. I thought back to Gehman and Chaucey when we’d first encountered them, and wondered what the sight must have been like down there.
Hell. A twisting mass of bodies stumbling over one another, writhing and fighting, lashing out at the nearest person like a hive of zombies fueled by nothing but rage and the basic desire to destroy. And guarding it all, making sure none of them escaped, was the Lord of the Flame.
And what happens if we defeat him? I thought. All those voices. There was no way Rayne could cleanse them all on her own, and my restore function only worked on one person at a time. Part of me was actually hoping we lost this fight and I would have more time to figure things out. Maybe I could get back in touch with Wintermute and it would have a new solution for me—something to stop the spread of an entire army of Sunken across the Dark World.
I ducked even lower under a jagged piece of rock jutting down from the ceiling, and as I emerged on the other side, saw the tunnel open up in front of me into a large antechamber. Rayne’s troops were spread out now and had positioned themselves in battle formation, three horizontal rows with mages and archers in the back.
Stalactites hung from the ceiling like deadly spears the size of two men. The roar from the Sunken was deafening, a constant howl of pain and loss that made my stomach turn. It was like a fierce wind from the bowels of the Dark World itself.
Rayne’s men had stopped talking and I stepped slowly up behind them. Their Fallen God stood at the front, her back to them, scimitar in hand, gazing down at something. I circled around the left side of her ranks and came up behind her. A soft orange glow flickered off her face as I approached, and when I followed her gaze, I finally saw him.
Seated on a slab of rock at the center of a large cavern beneath us, wearing the most impressive suit of plate mail I’d ever seen, was the Lord of the Flame. His head was resting on the hilt of his monstrous flaming sword that was buried in the ground in front of him, illuminating the chamber like a bonfire. He looked exhausted, with an ashen beard and snow white hair that fell from his head, obscuring most of his face.
He sat calmly, breathing slowly, as if lost in thought. Or was his mind simply gone? Kodiak said he may have once been a player—could he be suffering the same fate as Baltos and Curafin? Somehow, him just sitting there oblivious to our presence made him more frightening. An entire group was here to take him down, and he either hadn’t noticed, or was completely unconcerned.
“Round two, my old friend,” Rayne whispered to herself as she stared down at him.
“Are you sure this is a good idea, Rayne?” I asked her. She didn’t answer, but I saw her hand tighten around the hilt of her sword—Norman’s sword.
I glanced behind me at her loyal troops, all willing to fight and die for her. If this went south, at least I’d be able to restore them all and prove to her that no more Sunken needed to die.
On the far wall of the chamber, beyond the seated guardian of Sheol, was the mouth of another corridor that clearly led down to the pit where everyone had been trapped. Their tortured cries echoed across the walls of the cave like a disease, an infection just waiting to spread out into the rest of the Dark World and consume everything in its path. The Lord of the Flame was a dam in a poison river, a lynchpin holding something terrible together. Without a plan on how to deal with the flood of Sunken that would spill out once he was gone, defeating him would only make things worse.
“This is a bad idea, Rayne,” I hissed, stepping up closer to her. “Do you hear how many of them are down there? What’s your plan for dealing with them?”
“If you are not here to help, feel free to retreat,” Rayne responded coldly.
Retreat? Did she just say that?
She was needling me, goading me into staying to fight for her. She may not have liked me, but she was no dummy. The more people by her side the better, especially in a fight like this. But as I gazed down at the old knight leaning on his sword, I felt anything but confident.
“Let’s just wait, Rayne,” I pleaded with her. “Let’s go back to Neydeesa and find another Sunken—maybe Walten back at the Targanic! I’ll restore him and you can see that it works! We can clean up the Dark World and then come back and fight him.”
“All I need is one strike from this,” Rayne replied viciously, raising her scimitar slightly. “No one is immune to the cleansing.”
Without giving me time to reply, Rayne spun around to face her troops. Throwing her scimitar into the air, she let out a battle cry. Her men cried out in response and I watched as the Lord of the Flame raised his head from his slumber.
“Oh, no…”
One of Rayne’s mages cast Menace on him and the rest opened fire with everything they had. Her archers fired a volley of frost arrows as he rose to his feet. Frost Bolts and chilled steel crashed into him, but his health bar barely budged. In fact, I couldn’t tell if it had even dropped at all.
“Charge!” Rayne cried out, leaping down the slope and racing towards him, her sword held high and ready to strike.
The Lord of the Flame drew his sword from the ground, and I realized that more than half of it had been buried. An explosion of embers and charred rock shot into the air and rained down around us as he raised the fiery blade to his side as Rayne dashed towards him to attack.
Before she could reach him, he leapt into the air with impossible speed, swinging his sword in a broad arc that cut through the air towards her. But Rayne was somehow expecting it, more than likely from her first fight with him, and dropped to her knees. Her momentum carried her forward and she slid across the ground as the towering knight came crashing down.
Now behind him, Rayne lashed out with her sword, aiming her strike at the Lord of the Flame’s exposed back. But at the last second, as her cutting edge was about to find its mark, the Lord spun around and drove the hilt of his sword into her chest.
The blow sent Rayne off her feet and spiraling through the air like a cannonball. As the rest of her men raced down the slope into battle, I watched as the Fallen God soared straight into the mouth of the cavern leading down into the depths of Sheol where the Sunken lay. I thought I heard her cry before she was swallowed up by the darkness.
And just like that, the leader of this assault was gone.
74
The Lord of the Flame
The first line of Rayne’s men charged into action, melee weapons raised to attack. The Lord of the Flame lashed out with a broad stroke, his blade dripping flames across their ranks. Half of them died instantly. Some of their attacks found their marks, but again, the boss’ health barely budged.
Another volley of frost arrows and Frost Bolts crashed into him, and I finally saw a sliver of his HP vanish. He brought his sword down on the troops around him, and the floor of the cavern erupted in a torrent of flames like Hell itself was fighting to get out. More of them fell, and the remaining ones threw themselves backwards, struggling with Health Potions and Health Kits while their mages spammed healing spells as fast as they could.
“This is bad,” Baltos replied.
“Let’s get out of here, Jane,” Curafin said quickly, pulling out his Bindstone Shard.
“I agree,” I told them, reaching for mine. I turned around, but before I could use it, something embedded itself in my back, ripping away half my health. Before I could react, a powerful force tugged me backwards, yanking me down the slope and sending me crashing into the ground.
I hit
hard and rolled onto my feet and ran for a wall. I dropped to my knees and used a Health Kit charge and looked up to see the Lord of the Flame fire another shot from a grappling hook that struck one of Rayne’s men and pulled him quickly down from the antechamber where the rest of Fallen God’s forces were standing.
In one swift combo, the Guardian of Sheol drove his flaming blade into the player’s chest and completely obliterated his health. His lifeless body fell on the heads of his fellow comrades beneath him, who were swinging futilely at the Lord’s legs like an army of ants trying to take down a lion.
My health restored, I grasped again for my Bindstone Shard, but watched in horror as the Lord of the Flame drove his sword into the ground. A shockwave cascaded out across the ground like an earthquake, knocking me off my feet and slamming into the remainder of Fallen God’s forces firing down from the ridge above the cavern. Baltos and Curafin both came tumbling down the slope to land amidst the bodies of the already fallen troops.
“Baltos!” I screamed as the massive flaming sword cut a deadly arc across the players. More went down as the blade cleaved away their health like it was nothing but warm butter. Baltos threw himself out of the way as it passed, narrowly escaping death. He looked at me from across the cavern, and activated the shard.
His body quickly broke apart into countless purple sprites and disappeared, and I breathed a momentary sigh of relief.
The roar of the Sunken assaulted my ear drums as I stared out across the mayhem. Bodies of Fallen God’s men were strewn about everywhere, heaped across each other like ragdolls, their eyes staring vacantly around the cavern as the boss continued to hack down their remaining companions.
Curafin rose from the fray, his Bindstone Shard in hand, but just as he moved to activate it, the flaming sword again found its mark and cut him down in a single blow. His body landed among the others.
Lord of the Flame: A LitRPG novel (Call of Carrethen Book 2) Page 36
