The Alchemist of Aetheria: A LitRPG Adventure

by Jared Mandani

  “Do you want to live, little crab?” a familiar voice asked next to his ear. “Do you want to live another second? ANSWER ME!”

  “Yes!” Zack exhaled without thinking, his copper dagger filling his hand seemingly on its own.

  WHAMM!

  Duel Accepted!

  Zack (Human Alchemist Lvl 4)

  VS

  Roxxor (Human Rogue Lvl 21)

  I’m a dead man, Zack thought absently.

  The next moment, a mighty Backstab threw him to his knees, making Zack’s eyes blur and a wave of sickness rise in his chest.

  He tried to get up and couldn’t.

  “This is the little bastard I told you about, Conan,” Roxxor’s voice doubled in Zack’s ears.

  “Oh, I happen to know the guy,” Conan’s voice, incredibly peaceful, answered next. “Finish him, please. No talking.”

  Chapter 7: Of Humans, Orks, and Elves

  “Look, it’s nothing personal, kid,” the Barbarian said to him as Zack begged for his life in the most humiliating way, trying to explain this would be the end of him for real, both permadead as the character and dead as a person trapped in this game.

  Their faces cartoonish as ever, Zack still could see they didn’t believe a single word he was saying.

  They were camped around the fire. Zack was sitting down, with Roxxor’s character parked straight behind him, a cold sharp blade prodding into Zack’s neck, his back already stabbed once and still hurting quite bad, and Zack himself feeling close to bleeding out.

  “It’s not that I don’t congratulate you on what you did, it’s just that I don’t trust you, little Alchemist, you see,” Conan the Barbarian said, his blade also trained on Zack’s chest. “The chances are, you just lie to get away. You lie about this Permadeath thing, or if you don’t, let me say it was quite stupid of you to turn it on, and I see no reason not to give you this painful lesson.”

  “There will be no lesson!” Zack said for a hundredth time. “You will kill me for real, is all. Like in the Matrix. When you die in the Matrix, you die for real.”

  “Yes, he’s not to be trusted,” Roxxor said from behind his back. “This kid is a little ticking bomb, he is out of control; I mean, he’s crazy and misanthropic. He will betray and poison you at any second. I mean, he watched me beg and die slowly right in front of him, and he was cold like a psycho killer.”

  “He did the same to me,” the Conan guy agreed. “It was a very dirty trick, totally unexpected, I have to admit it. After I offered him to join the party, can you believe it? We lost everything thanks to this guy.”

  Roxxor laughed and said, “I’m all for disposing of him completely no matter what he says. If it erases him from this world, I swear I will not mind, for many crabs like him make this game a terrible MMO, not at all what it used to be back when only us hardcore VRMMO players played it. This kid here, I tell you, his kind is like a plague. They destroy this game. They must be eradicated.”

  “Hey,” Zack was unable to hold back. He looked at AliceX, the golden-braided Elf. “This guy, this Roxxor or whatever his real name is, he most likely joined your party only to wait until you’re rich, then set you up and rob you blind, rob your corpses. I mean he killed three innocent girls, Elven Rangers, in front of me! So of course I had to attack him after this, I was on the girls’ side.”

  “I am okay with you, dude,” AliceX said, gloomily regarding her bow and arranging arrows to fire them in specific patterns, perhaps using some Ranger skill. “I’m sorry. But you’re outnumbered. Two against one. No matter what I’ll say, I’m but a Ranger. And an Elf. I have no say in this.”

  “I can be of use to your party though,” Zack tried another way. “I can craft Healing Salves and all kinds of things.”

  “He double-binds them to Poison Darts,” Roxxor explained. “Then he poisons you, and he watches you suffer and die, and he laughs in the process, I swear. Milennials. I say kill them on sight. Don’t talk to them.”

  “I could scout ahead,” Zack said.

  “Now this is interesting,” the Barbarian said, moving close up. Zack could swear he smelled ale and garlic in his breath. Zack wanted to live like never before at that moment.

  “You see,” the Conan guy said. “We just passed a place called Old Mithril Anvil Mines, it’s a dungeon which is supposed to be low enough level for us to explore, regain some equipment we lost. Just before us though, a party of greenskins entered it right before our eyes. The bastards must be hunting low-level Human players like you. A PvP raid.”

  “So what do you want me to do?” Zack asked. “Spy on them?”

  “I want you to alert them and accept their duel and die, just like brother Roxxor here explains me you can do. I need them to kill you and decide to go for your altar and kill you again on respawn.”

  “But they… they will simply kill me!” Zack said. He was desperate to explain to them but none of the trio seemed to listen at all. “I’m trapped inside the game. I will die for real, You see. I will die. D-I-E.”

  “It’s also fine,” Conan the Barbarian said. “What? You think I feel any pity towards you? Think again! You made me lose my axe. You created a lot of problems. I think you deserve everything that’s happened to you. Get up. March forward.”

  “Please don’t do this,” Zack said.

  “March.”

  And so he marched, a prisoner awaiting execution.

  They went down a different route, a rocky path that Zack hadn’t explored yet, leading higher up into the mountains, from where the lands of Aetheria and the chaos raining upon them could clearly be seen. No land was ever safe now. Orks may have come here to hide, demons driving their party out from the Swamplands. Maybe Hawkspoint area was still more or less untouched by the invasion. Zack wondered if this was a dynamic event, and the demon presence would soon increase, making the travels dangerous and the lands of Aetheria wilder still.

  Zack and the silent party on his back stopped near a wooden door loosely fit into a stony entrance, an artificial crevice leading deep into the rock.

  Location Marker Added: Old Mithril Anvil Mines (0 leagues)

  Dungeon: Medium (Lvl 19-29)

  “I still cannot believe you could treat another human being like that,” Zack said.

  “It’s just a game,” the Barbarian replied. “Isn’t it?”

  “No one cares,” Roxxor added from behind his back.

  AliceX, the Elf Ranger he didn’t see, remained silent. Prodded by the Rogue’s starter blade, a simple yet still deadly item, Zack glanced at the reaches of Aetheria for one last time, breathed in the ozone-rich sulfur-smelling air, and stepped through the door of the dungeon, leaving the daylight and Conan’s party behind.

  “Maybe I’ll make it out alive,” Zack muttered. “Maybe there’s a way to solve this.”

  CREAAAAK! BANG! The wooden door banged shut behind him, cutting off the daylight. Only the glow of weird mushrooms growing on the main shaft’s pillars and supports lit up the surroundings now. Zack slowly moved forward, trying not to set off any traps, because he knew in those dungeons traps were aplenty, same as hard party-oriented encounters, same as...

  Too late. He discovered a pattern of eight red eyes glowing right in front of him.

  Right then Zack felt something bubble-gummey straining as it blocked his way – a cobweb! – and then the popping sound, disorienting him and making the glowing interior of the mines swim and swoon before his eyes.

  You encountered a Lesser Spider!

  Lesser Spider Lvl 21

  It was a nightmare all over again. Now Zack truly realized what bravery was. Bravery was when you abandoned all hope and fought for your life tooth and nail, no longer even concerned if you survived at all, just doing what you have to do to increase your odds if only a little.

  Zack prodded the darkness frantically with his Copper Dagger, and seemed to hit the dog-sized spider even, or at least push it back a little. But then the unp
leasantness and discomfort finally condensed in him, and the darkness around, so mystically real and smelling of rock, started to push on Zack for real. It was like he was indeed trapped somewhere inside the guts of this mountain, a tense and dark stony passage closing in from every side. Bravery, it turned out, was a short-lived thing, and he was madly afraid for his life once again.

  Zack was hit by Lesser Spider Lvl 21 and lost 2 hit points

  POISONED!

  The spider finally managed to nick him. Its bite felt even worse than a Wolf latched to your throat – it stung like a couple needles, and more – it burned. It felt like his calf muscle was injected with acid, which might have been even true from what Zack could tell. He didn’t fight anymore, just limped away as fast as he could, the venom ticking off his hit points as he made his escape.

  Zack lost 1 hit points to Poison damage!

  Zack lost 2 hit points to Poison damage!

  Zack lost 3 hit points to Poison damage!

  Finally he managed to sneak into a cul-de-sac of sorts, a dark appendix of the main shaft not lit by the mushrooms. The good news was, the spider’s venom wasn’t very potent, and the burning sensation soon was gone along with the piercing pain. The bad news was, Zack was trapped in this dead end now, and he could see the Lesser Spider roaming the main shaft, its red constellation of eyes watchful and inquisitive, its unpleasant insectile legs scuttling and scraping against the rock as it patrolled Zack’s last known location.

  “Maybe there IS another way out?” Zack muttered, desperately probing the rock walls of his cul-de-sac. All of a sudden, his fingers struck something resembling a handle made of bone, exactly the kind of thing that would open a secret passage. Zack nearly let out a triumphant shout but managed to hold it down.

  Clang! Clang! He pulled this invisible handle and, to his horror, heard the rattling of chains. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness a little bit, Zack’s terror intensified, as he saw a human skeleton chained to the rock wall, manacled in rusty iron. Instead of the handle, Zack was pulling one of his remaining ribs.

  Clang-clang-CLANG! The next moment, the entire thing – the skeleton, and chains, and rusty manacles – crashed to the floor of the cave, and the clamor was so loud it could probably be heard through the entire mine. Zack instantly heard the sound of approaching scuttling legs.

  This was when he broke. Zack ran straight into the incoming spider. He stepped right on its resisting back, and jumped over it, then he darted down the main shaft, turned left and followed a narrowing crevice, splashing around in an underwater stream, the echo of his steps resounding through the mines. So much for the stealthy approach. Zack didn’t care though. He simply wanted to run away from the spider. He had never felt so arachnophobic in his life.

  He ran past some glowing mushrooms, and more glowing mushrooms, and suddenly entered a cave with a high vault entirely covered in glowing mushrooms. But there was also a huge cobweb instead of the floor, for it was supposed to be the insides of a spider nest, the fluffy cocoons and huge spider eggs scattered all around it.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  “Dunno. Something above.”

  Zack froze in place. The Orkish party, he thought. Straight down below.

  He really hoped the cobweb floor would hold.

  “So why the hell we even came here, boys, I’m asking you,” he heard an Orkish gurgling voice speak up again.

  “It’s all Zorg’s idea,” another voice responded, more Goblinish than Orkish, sort of squeaky. “He thought these pretty green lands of Humans will be easier to farm on. I told him, we’ll get killed in here, it’s open season. Not all Humans are stupid crabs and milennials. But he says we Orks own yo, and this place will be safer by definition, you know you can Brute your way through almost everything around here.”

  “Zorg, you’re an idiot,” the Orkish voice said. “No land is safe, how many times do we have to go through this? You think if they don’t spawn Lizardfolk here it means it’s somehow easy? How about Direwolves going for your neck, something you can’t smash with an Area-of-Effect? How about Bears, huh? You ever fought a rabid Bear?”

  Then the spider chasing Zack crashed the party, and attacked him. Zack slashed back and forth with his dagger, and of course it was all a neatly staged trap-based encounter, for the next moment, the cobweb floor underneath his feet gave way and popped like a huge bubble.

  Zack and the spider fell down amongst exploding cocoons and sacs of eggs which broke as they dropped, and soon there were more spiders all around.

  You encountered a Spider Nest!

  Spiderling Lvl 19 Spider Lvl 21 Spiderling Lvl 19

  Spiderling Lvl 18 Spiderling Lvl 18

  Spiderling Lvl 18

  Zack crashed into a water torrent, so strong he could do little but follow it. In a moment, he rode down a waterfall and fell straight into a pond, and hid behind a stream of raging water. He could distinctively see three Orks by their underground campfire, now disturbed by the spider rain.

  One of the Orks rose up, buffed up for a second. He crushed one of the spiders with a huge mace he carried, made of a whole trunk of some young tree. Orkish midlevel stuff was scary-looking if not too elegant: broken trunks and fang necklaces, and everything properly barbaric and swamplandish.

  Another Ork, or rather a little goblin, seemed to be a Shaman of some sorts, spitting darts through a square wooden mask, which was a painted enchanted thing.

  Spiderling Lvl 18 was hit by ZorgTheCrusher, lost 18 hit points, and was killed!

  Spiderling Lvl 18 was hit by ZorgTheCrusher and lost 11 hit points

  Spiderling Lvl 18 was hit by ZorgTheCrusher and lost 11 hit points

  Spider Lvl 21 was CRITICALLY hit by MadDoc and lost 25 hit points

  Spiderling Lvl 18 was hit by )))Illuminatus((( and lost 4 hit points

  Spiderling Lvl 18 was hit by )))Illuminatus((( and lost 5 hit points

  Spiderling Lvl 18 was hit by )))Illuminatus((( and lost 7 hit points

  Spider Lvl 21 was hit by ZorgTheCrusher, lost 20 hit points, and was killed!

  Spiderling Lvl 18 was hit by ZorgTheCrusher, lost 10 hit points, and was killed!

  Spiderling Lvl 18 was hit by )))Illuminatus(((, lost 5 hit points, and was killed!

  Arachnids died one after one, from powerful AoE attacks and from quickly dispensed goblin darts, their spider kind hardly a real trouble for the Orkish party. The Orks were brutish and very effective. They would crush Zack on sight, he knew that for sure. It was the whole Ork idea: strong but stupid. The problem was, they were not stupid; they were player characters, as savage and ruthless as the Barbarian that had sent him here to challenge this party and distract it by dying.

  No one will ever believe I’m trapped inside this game, Zack realized.

  As the Orks were hacking through the spider swarm, Zack hid well behind a fallen column so conveniently placed at the corner of the camp. He was neatly close to the flame; Zack could feel the healing warmth of the underground bonfire with every fiber of his soul, and he just sat there, soaking in warmth, while the Orks rid themselves of Spider Lvl 21 and a couple remaining Spiderlings, then sat back to regen and talk.

  “So what do we do now, Zorg?” asked the dart-spitting goblin.

  “Who cares, you damn snotty little thing,” the Orkish voice replied.

  This goblin was probably Ranged, a rare thing seen amongst the Orks in MMOs, nearly obsolete, Zack observed. When you cosplay a goblin in an Ork party, you have to play a scapegoat of sorts, a little runt harassed by bigger comrades. Any good game designer understood this feeling must be relayed and enhanced by the gameplay. Every Orkish class not dealing with brutal strength, like those bigger Orks, were supposed to be found puny and ridiculous; this involved a racism of sorts, which game designers were always happy to enhance by making these non-brutal classes look like weak funny-sounding gibbering goblins.

  This was sort of like a joke on us
nerds at school, Zack realized. Us weird and pasty-looking fellows who did not rely on raw strength and chose knowledge instead, which was and still is considered a weird hobby for a kid. So it resulted in one’s permanent isolation in this game world and the real world alike; intellect being an undisputed mark of a weakling, someone to push around and laugh at if you are supposed to be a strong kid in your class.

  It finally dawned on Zack how dark the humor of this fantasy world was, the make-believe world he was now trapped in. He always thought most of fantasy games and books and movies out there to be little more than clumsy fanfics of this universe or another, mostly LoTR of course, elves and orks being tall and strong, not knee-high, like in the actual folklore. He considered this Tolkien tribute a regular fan service, a commercial solution, a pop culture move in general. It was something every fantasy fan had to live with, like the fact there were so little chemistry and Alchemy-centered RPGs and so many RPGs centered on Backstabbing and skull-bashing your way up The Ladder of Player Coolness or whatever took its place in your particular MMO.

  Whatever it was, it was always Pay-to-Win (it had to be! Who would pay otherwise?)

  Whatever it was, it was always as mainstream-looking as possible, so every noob moron from some virally-connected demographic could also be hooked up and feel cool and all-knowing. So the game was, show them as little new things to know as possible, nothing to learn, everything within grasp of every little kid. Orks bad, Humans good, Elves noble and maybe a bit too good.

  Zack had accepted it all mindlessly, never realizing there was darkness underneath.

  Now he could see how this cliché fantasy world was a cruel caricature of reality, of his own world, the one Zack was missing so much. The world where nerds didn’t always look twice as snotty and fragile and funny-looking as they really are. Where big muscular guys weren’t always super-strong. The world where wolves didn’t resemble a slick ripening mango inside, and didn’t carry a bag of gold in their stomachs. The world where demons were metaphorical stuff, like personal quirks or whatever, not something that can grab you with some tentacles and cut you up for real.