Eloria's Beginning: A LitRPG/GameLit Epic (Enter The louVRe Book 1)

by Tom Hansen

  Scarhoof understood that mechanic. He had mana, which meant he could burst spells when he needed to, but once he was out of mana, then he was out of luck. Shit out of luck. The phrase rolled around in the dark recesses of his mind. Something about it sounded familiar but he couldn’t place where he had heard it.

  He took another glance back, just as Jaxyl disappeared in a puff of smoke and sprinted faster than Fourhoof to catch up with his two companions.

  “Imagine the sort of damage he could do if he could keep those abilities going full-time?” Scarhoof quipped.

  His two companions got a good laugh out of it. “Unstoppable killing machine.” Firemane smiled.

  “I just think that would get tiring, being so powerful all the time.”

  They continued to thunder toward the hidden crag somewhere to the south. Scarhoof hoped they would be welcome once they got there.

  He pondered being an unstoppable killing machine. Unlimited mana, energy, rage, and stamina. Whatever it was, imagine if you had an inexhaustible supply of whatever it took to keep you going, keep you fighting.

  The thought sustained him until the first arrow flew at them from the front.

  Chapter 28

  “Incoming!” Firemane shouted.

  Both Tau’raj dodged as another arrow came at them. Jaxyl stood on top of Firemane’s shoulders and shouted, using his voice throwing ability.

  “Hold, friends. We are Scouts for the Tau’raj Army, returning with a message of vital importance for Chieftain Bloodhorn! We have escaped from a secret base location for the Nagos and they are hot on our tail!”

  Scarhoof heard some shouts in the foreground, and the arrows from that direction stopped.

  Quest Update! The Missing Scouts:

  You have reached the relative safety of the Tau’raj forward crag base, but two contingents of Nagos are hot on your tail. Survive the inevitable battle! (Gained 50 XP!)

  He glanced behind him at the thundering alliance of beasts hell-bent on their death. They were out for blood. Who else would send a contingent of hundreds to hunt down three spies? Whatever was going on in that quarry was so vital that they weren’t taking any chances with the information getting out.

  His stamina was nearly depleted, and the other’s were too. His mouth was a dry coppery cavern and hungering for moisture. He bled internally somewhere, perhaps his muscles or lungs, but none of that mattered.

  He had keep running, keep ahead of the pack, and not get hit by a stray Nagos arrow.

  He spat out pink foam and continued to thunder directly at—he saw it now. It wasn’t hard to see since he knew what he was looking at, but there was a distinctive dip in the ground.

  Had he been just wandering around, it might have caught his eye as an odd depression in the soil, but it wouldn’t have been so noticeable to have to go investigate, just one of the many features of this beautiful and unique land he called home.

  But since he was looking for a disguised crag, that’s what he saw, like when you see Tau’raj faces and forms in the clouds.

  “Shore up the bridge and prepare for Nagos and Shellwalkers!” Jaxyl shouted.

  Firemane leaned toward Scarhoof. “Directly in front is a bridge, see how it rises up slightly, a darker color soil than the rest?”

  Scarhoof saw it.

  “That’s the only safe way across the cavern, it’s a fortified bridge across the divide. The rest of the cover is made strong enough that a single Tau’raj or two could pass over it without falling in, but at these speeds and with the weight of their Shellwalkers, they’ll fall through, plummeting to their death.”

  Scarhoof slowed and fell in behind the rest of his party.

  Behind him, he heard the clicks of the Shellwalkers mouths over the thunderous roar of their legs. He was cutting it close again, too close. Why did all of these trials lately have to be with a hobbled leg? When would the ones with upper body strength come?

  He knew instantly when they were on the bridge, the hard-packed dusty ground giving way to a hollow feel. His heart lurched as his mind tried to ignore that he was sprinting a razor edge here between life and death.

  Despite the fear of falling in, he continued to pump his legs as hard has he could.

  Behind him, as they were about halfway across the odd depression he now knew was a covered crag, screams erupted from the Nagos soldiers.

  “Keep going!” Jaxyl yelled before vanishing again. One of the shellwalkers had followed directly behind and was on the bridge with them.

  Moments later, their hoofs contacted hard-packed clay, meaning they had made it to the other side, but so had a badly damaged Shellwalker.

  Four Nagos leapt off their fallen mount and hit the sandy soil to the side of them. Jaxyl appeared out of nowhere with a dagger to the back of the largest.

  Both Tau’raj changed out of Fourhoof, still sprinting for their lives as the three riding Nagos charged. Firemane grabbed Scarhoof’s bo off his back and leapt at the foremost enemy.

  They fought hard against the Nagos, who were a bit shaken from the fall, but otherwise fully rested and ready to fight.

  Scarhoof tossed heals, threw Spirit Shocks, and tried to keep his focus. Around him, screams pierced the air.

  A heat flooded his side and he was shoved hard from the blow. He looked down, turning his head.

  A Nagos, small and wiry, grinned as he brandished a large knife dripping with blood. Scarhoof’s blood.

  He had been stabbed. His brain took a second to process this information, because the way his side felt didn’t match up with the information his brain was given.

  Didn’t getting stabbed hurt more?

  He threw himself a heal out of habit, then turned to face the Nagos.

  His head swirled. He stumbled back.

  Then the pain hit.

  It was like his skin had been sliced open and red hot coals had been shoved inside.

  Firemane was there, using Scarhoof’s bo to swing at the smaller Nagos, two other Nagos behind him. Jaxyl struggled to keep up with another.

  It was four against three, and they were losing.

  Scarhoof needed to heal, needed to fight. He healed Firemane, then Jaxyl, then Firemane again.

  His vision constricted, a haze growing around the edges, and he finally glanced at his health. He was down under 25%!

  That one side stab had taken off so much of his health! How could that have happened?

  “Help me!” Jaxyl was injured, trying to dodge two attackers. His abilities had been used up taking down the mount, it was all he could do to stay out of the strikes of one of the Nagos.

  Firemane turned and charged at the two.

  Scarhoof threw a heal to Jaxyl, who disengaged, limping badly while holding onto his arm.

  They were five meters from a Tau’raj military base, and they were losing the battle. Where were the other soldiers?

  His vision went fuzzy as he tried to focus on their health bars; his stamina completely depleted, blinking yellow and red.

  Scarhoof’s mana ran out, and he shouted to his companions, but his words were lost in the tumult of the fray.

  Suddenly, his health maxed out, a warm and inviting spell rushing over him and his companions. The spell felt familiar, that power, the underlying Spirit like a string plucked at just the right tone. He glanced around, and finally saw him at the ridge, standing regal and proud against the skyline.

  Helu Hillbender had just saved their lives.

  Despite the deadly surprise awaiting the Nagos at the bottom of the crag, the fight was fought well by both sides.

  Only the first couple lines of Shellwalkers fell into the trap, but it was enough that only a dozen remained.

  Still, the mounts were fast and agile, able to dodge to the side faster than any Tau’raj, making them difficult to target with anything but spells.

  Behind them, the sky was blotted out with the red dust. The rest of the Nagos army was close behind.

  Everyone fought valiantly, but the base
had been on a skeleton crew the last few days because of some other army exercise. Still, they had weapons of the like Scarhoof had never seen.

  When he was originally stationed in the Plains, blunderbuss rifles were the latest technology. But that was before the peaceful alliance treaty between the Tau’raj and the Goblins, who were now their major supplier of weapons.

  If he’d seen a handheld blunderbuss before, he’d never seen anything like this. They called them cannons and they were mounted to the wall of the crag on a winch and pulley system that allowed them to be raised up above the lip of the chasm.

  The sound they made was so loud that it shook the earth around him. Each one took out an entire Shellwalker, throwing the helpless riders violently to the ground. The handful of guards posted at the underground station quickly followed with handheld blunderbusses, taking out individual Nagos.

  The air filled with the dying screams of Nagos and Tau’raj. An acrid smoke permeated the stagnant air, making his lungs ache. The smell of black powder burned his throat and made his eyes water.

  It was the most violent thing he’d ever seen, and it was both terrifying and awesome each time they fired.

  Soon, the smoke cleared, and the bodies were counted. Twenty-nine mounts and over a hundred Nagos had died.

  Three from the Tau’raj side were dead, and four injured, including Firemane, who had waded into the fray amidst the thick smoke, and taken a spear through his side.

  Hillbender moved through the group, administering aid where needed, directing Scarhoof to tend to the lesser wounds. Hillbender handed him a mana draught, which tasted cool and sweet, restoring his mana instantly.

  The whole scene was surreal and frightening but exhilarating. That was until the fight was over, the bodies were counted, and the yelling started.

  Quest Complete! The Missing Scouts:

  After rescuing your new friends from the Nagos, a death-defying sprint across the desert, and a heroic battle, you have survived to tell the tale! (Gained 100 XP!)

  “What the hell did you think you were doing coming to this location? Do you know that you have compromised the integrity of this entire forward base, possibly even committed treason by announcing our location to the Nagos?”

  The yeller was Muata Skysong, a petite Commander whose voice was five times larger than her stature. She was thin and furry but shouted like she was an elephant in a trumpeting competition. She wore bloodstained scale armor, dented and scratched to match her hide. Her diamond-shaped spiked shield had been formed from a sea tortoise shell, it’s gleaming mother of pearl interior splattered with drying Nagos entrails.

  Her right hand rested on her sheathed scimitar while an orderly worked on cleaning out her helmet.

  “Three years we have been working on this base! Three years of late night rendezvous, and clandestine meet ups. Scouts died to keep this place safe, and we were three months from being fully operational with a proper retractable roof!”

  The irritated cow with the splotchy white hide paced back and forth, her eyes never quite looking directly at Scarhoof.

  Hillbender spoke up. “Commander Skysong, were you planning on allowing them to explain their rationale or just yell at them until you discovered it for yourself?”

  This got a threatening glare from the Commander, but Scarhoof felt something between the two, an unspoken respect.

  Scarhoof suddenly wondered how the Shaman Trainer fit into the army. Was he even part of it?

  Commander Skysong continued to pace, glowering at the three of them. Jaxyl produced the missive he had originally tried to get Scarhoof to take to Whistling Pass.

  Skysong snatched it from the Goblin’s hands, tearing away the seal and unfurling the scroll.

  She squinted at the text, her eyes darting back and forth while she read. Finally, after an intense few seconds, she rolled up the scroll and handed it off to a soldier to her left.

  “Get this to the Chieftain ASAP. Take a portal. I expect you back with his reply shortly.”

  “Yes Ma’am!” The soldier turned and rushed out of the small meeting room.

  Turning back to Jaxyl, Skysong squinted. “Give me the ten second version.”

  Jaxyl sighed, collecting his thoughts.

  “North of the beach, before you reach Spiritmother’s Hem, they are digging up a massive shard. There is a whole quarry there. I’ve never seen as massive of a shard as that, Ma’am.

  “They are also amassing a large contingent of airships below the cliffs there. You can’t see them from anywhere else in the Plains, but from that quarry, you can see them below.”

  “How big a contingent?”

  Firemane spoke up. “Ma’am, I don’t know, but more are arriving each day. We were there for three days until they spotted and captured us. They are planning something big. The shard they’ve dug from the ground is huge, larger than a single bull could carry. In fact, it’s so large they are using the crabs to hoist it out and carry it down the forest to the beach. I overheard that another had been found and was being excavated as well.”

  “It’s true,” Scarhoof blurted out, regretting his outburst after her steely gaze focused on him. “The forest has a huge swath of cut down, allowing for something large to be moved.”

  Skysong stopped pacing in front of him. “And I still don’t know who you are.”

  He saluted. “Matuk Scarhoof, Ma’am. I have been defending Sunset Cove for the last twenty years. I met with Chieftain Bloodhorn a few days ago and was assigned to work on shard research with Haliin Earthwhisper.”

  The Commander scrutinized his face. “Is that why your eyes glow white?”

  Scarhoof swallowed. “Yes, ma’am. I can handle the shards with no ill effects. Chieftain Bloodhorn wanted me to help find out why.”

  She ground her mouth for a moment, deep in thought. “Do you know what the Nagos want with those shards?”

  “Ma’am, I can’t say that I do, but I know that Grath’gar tried to use it to create an army of feral Kobolds in Sunset Cove a few days ago.”

  Scarhoof swallowed, the nervousness in his chest telling him to stop talking, but he was on a roll, and he felt passionate about this.

  “We have become predictable, securing our defenses, rarely attacking them. Meanwhile the Nagos are using that time to plan. Why else would they devote so many resources to setting up a quarry to dig up shards? We know how damaging those can be, so why has their focus shifted from ground assaults to excavation? Perhaps, while we’ve been improving our black powder weapons, they are making a new weapon of their own, one that might make the last two years of careful planning all worth the wait.

  “I don’t know what they’re going to do, but I think it’s worth investigating. Why else would they send two hundred of their warriors to track down and kill the three of us? If they didn’t think that quarry was worth it, they wouldn’t have attacked. That is why we came here. It doesn’t matter if they know we have a forward base anymore. The only thing that matters is finding out what they are doing in that quarry and putting a stop to it.”

  Commander Skysong rubbed her chin, her mouth turned to a slight frown as she processed his information.

  “Alright, you have my attention, and you obviously already have the Chieftain’s. We are going to send in a strike team to that quarry to find out more. I want the three of you running point on this.”

  Quest Available! Quarry Infestation:

  After reading the intelligence provided by the missing scouts, Commander Muata Skysong has asked you to infiltrate the Shard Quarry near the Tau’moor Hem. Rout all Nagos and defeat any bosses hiding there. Hold the quarry until the rest of the army can arrive.

  She turned to Firemane. “You up for tanking this?”

  Firemane clamped a hand on Scarhoof’s shoulder. “As long as I have this bull healing me, we will be fine, but we’re short by two.”

  Skysong nodded and shouted into her ranks. “Xanovi, Hanrahan! Ready yourself for battle!”

  Xanovi
? Scarhoof’s stomach clenched.

  In the back of the crowd, a squat individual replied in the affirmative and scrambled off to ready herself. All Scarhoof caught was a mass of curly hair on a rather small but stocky individual. Hanrahan had to be a Dwarf.

  Xanovi, however, was a different matter. He looked very much like he had last time Scarhoof saw him. Beside him, a small panther sat to his side licking its paw. A large bow was slung across his back, indicating his Beastmaster class. Seeing him dredged up painful memories for Scarhoof. He replayed the scene from days ago in the Misty Cave, where both Kardkaw lost his life, and he and Xanovi almost joined him.

  Xanovi noticed him staring and frowned, then turned and left the room in a huff.

  Scarhoof watched him go. He’d failed their last party, he hoped he wouldn’t fail this one.

  Scarhoof searched the crowd for Hillbender, needing a distraction from his souring mood. He excused himself from the Commander, Firemane, and Jaxyl. “I need to speak to my trainer if I am going to heal this expedition.”

  Skysong inclined her head. “That’s fine. Get prepared however you need, Scarhoof. I’ll have someone escort you to the potions room, so you can stock up before you head out.”

  Scarhoof approached his trainer with a conflicted set of emotions. On one hand he was excited about heading to the quarry as a healer. It would be his first five-person party. A full party, with him being responsible for everyone else’s lives.

  He felt inadequately equipped for the task at hand, knowing all too well his limitations with his own healing. Broken bones, bleeds, diseases, and who knows what else were all things he couldn’t cure, and he simply lacked the mana or regeneration needed to handle any kind of sustained fight.

  “Scarhoof.” Hillbender looked him up and down, scrutinizing his eyes most of all. “The light is fading.”

  Scarhoof frowned, wondering if there was a way for him to sense how bright his eyes were going to be. Better yet, could he ever find a way to control it?