Call of Carrethen: A LitRPG and GameLit novel (Wellspring Book 1)

by Stephen Roark

  “Maybe,” I replied slowly. “But maybe not.”

  “What are you talking about? They own the town!”

  “Sinful are probably the highest levels on the server,” I replied. “Along with the Mercenaries. They’re like that big orange dragon in the first Avatar movie. Remember?”

  “Toruk?” Baltos asked.

  “Exactly!” I pointed. D grinned as he began to understand where I was going.

  “Toruk was the baddest cat in the sky,” he said, quoting Jake Sully. “So why would he ever look up?”

  “Can someone translate for me?” Vayde asked with confusion.

  “Remember Avatar?” I asked. “The big orange dragon thing that Jake rides at the end of the movie?”

  “Oh, right!” Vayde replied. “

  It always made me sad he abandoned his other old dragon thing—” Baltos said.

  “Anyway,” D interrupted. “The point was that he was so big and scary that no one ever attacked him, and he knew that.”

  “So… maybe Sinful isn’t defending Daric?” Vayde asked.

  “And we could get in and out without being noticed,” I smiled. “How far away are we?”

  “Not far,” D replied. “But to get there, we have to go through the Witching Woods…”

  “Oh, no!” Baltos scoffed, waving his hands in front of him. “Bad idea. Baaaad idea.”

  “The Witching Woods can be pretty sketchy,” D replied. “Undead mostly. And now that the sun’s going down…”

  I knew what he was getting at. It didn’t matter what game you were playing—zones with undead always got worse at night. Skeletons, specters, goblins, vampires, or whatever the case may be—when the moon was out, everything was worse.

  “That’s them over there?” Vayde pointed. I followed his finger across the snowy tundra to a line of skeletal trees in the distance. They fanned out in all directions, and if Daric really was on the other side, we had no choice but to go through them.

  “Have you been?” I asked Vayde. He shook his head.

  “Well, D has—”

  “No, I haven’t,” he replied quickly.

  “What?”

  “I said Daric is that way,” he clarified. “I never said I’d ever been in the Witching Woods.”

  “Oh, God…” Baltos muttered.

  I looked towards the woods and something in the distance howled. It didn’t sound like anything that existed on Earth. I looked at my party and took a step forward.

  As we made our way across the snowy ground, I realized that up until now, someone had been familiar with where we were going. D had been to Stoneburg and the Bandit Tower, and Vayde had been to the dungeon where we’d fought the Horngrin Executioner. We’d always had a bit of information or experience to guide us, but now, we were all going in blind.

  We made our way to the edge of the trees and stopped, looking up at the sky, which was beginning to fill with stars.

  “We could… wait until morning?” Baltos suggested.

  “No,” I replied firmly. “Cavey and his men are relying on us. We have to get to the Catacombs, Portal Tie, and get back to Stoneburg.”

  “To boldly go where no man has gone before,” D said with a smile.

  “All right,” I replied, gritting my teeth and drawing my sword. “Let’s do this.”

  23

  The Witching Woods

  “This place gives me the creeps,” Vayde said quietly as we moved through the Witching Woods. The trees were bare, leafless, with skeletal branches that clattered against each other as the wind blew. The snow at our feet had turned into a chilling mist that rose from the ground as we walked, and the sky above us seemed to have clouded as we made our way deeper into the woods.

  “That makes four of us,” D replied. He was holding his bow ready, his eyes scanning for any potential threats.

  “Reminds me of Halloween,” Baltos whispered. “I hate Halloween.”

  “Quiet,” I hissed, holding up a hand signaling for the group to stop.

  “What is it!?” Vayde whispered. Slowly, I pointed ahead of us through the trees. A shadow moved, freely, like it was floating above the ground. It disappeared behind a tree, then reemerged in a shaft of moonlight cutting through the branches overhead, and it was then I saw what it was.

  A legless, ghostlike monster, its shadowy body clad in a tattered black robe. Its skeletal fingers clutched a long scythe, its lethal edge covered in dried blood. It began to turn towards us.

  “Get down!” D said. Instantly, we dropped to our stomachs, doing our best to hide in the mist rising up beneath us.

  “What is it!?” I whispered as quietly as I could.

  “A specter!” D replied. “They’re like level 50 or something. Elites. Super-rare spawns and cast an AoE curse spell that would kill us all in like two seconds.”

  “I thought you hadn’t been here before!” I replied.

  “They spawn in other places too. There are two in the Marian Oasis. We were hunting Sand Crocodiles there and someone pulled one over to us. It killed our entire six-man group with one spell.”

  “So, what do we do!?” Baltos asked, sounding worried. “Go back?”

  “No,” I replied quickly. “We just have to go around it.”

  “They roam pretty wide paths,” D said. “We have to be careful.”

  Slowly, I lifted my head above the surface of the mist and searched the trees for the specter. It took me a second to find it. It had moved to our left, and thankfully was facing away from us as it drifted through the trees.

  “Its back is turned,” I said, getting to my feet. “Come on. Stay behind me and keep quiet.”

  I moved as fast as I could without making any noise. The Witching Woods weren’t easy to traverse, with low-hanging branches and roots poking out of the ground, rocks to catch your foot on and impenetrable shadows that could be hiding any number of dangerous monsters. Skirting around a sharp rock, I glanced back over my shoulder and could barely make out the specter in the darkness behind us.

  “We’re almost clear,” I told the group, feeling a sense of relief wash over me.

  “That was close.” Baltos sighed.

  “Over there.” D pointed. “Looks like a clearing.”

  I looked ahead and saw what he was talking about. It looked as though the trees opened up and the moonlight was actually able to reach the ground.

  “Come on,” I told them, leading the way through the woods. I could hear the sounds of something scurrying through the darkness behind us but ignored it and pushed forward until we were clear of the trees.

  The ground sloped down ahead of us. I looked around for signs of danger, but everything looked clear. Nothing moved besides the wind that blew across my face like a cold caress from an icy hand.

  “We can go through there,” I said quietly, pointing across the clearing to a break in the trees. “Where the trees thin out.”

  We set off across the open ground, the mist pooling around our ankles as we moved through the clearing, doing our best to stay low and quiet. We had almost reached the other side when I heard it—a rattle behind us, like a pile of dead wood falling over.

  D glanced over his shoulder.

  “Shit!”

  “What—?” Baltos cried out, spinning around. I spun at the same time and found myself face-to-face with an undead horde of skeletons, emerging from the ground behind us, armed with swords, clubs, and maces with thick spikes.

  Vayde didn’t hesitate and sent a massive Fireball spinning into their midst. Three skeletons exploded instantly.

  “Nice!” Baltos shouted, but more kept coming, pulling their shredded corpses from the frosted ground. I watched in horror as the bones of the fallen skeletons began to move, as if possessed by some deathly spirit, and began putting themselves together again.

  “Oh, no…” I gasped as the arm and legs found each other, finding pieces of spine, shoulder blades and skulls. Within seconds, every fallen foe was standing again. One of them picked up
its rusted axe from the snow as the horde continued to march steadily towards us.

  “What!?” Baltos shouted.

  “How do we kill them!?” Vayde shouted.

  “We have to find the Necromancer!” D shouted back, firing arrows as fast as he could across the field. “As long as he’s alive, he’ll just keep rezzing them!”

  “Are you kidding me!?” Baltos cried out.

  “Haven’t you ever played Dark Souls?” D spat back. His eyes landed on something and he pointed to the horde. “There!”

  I followed his finger past the skeletal army, through the horde of moving bones, and saw it—at the back of their ranks, a shadowed figure, clad in a crimson robe, his face shielded beneath a hood. All that was visible beneath the shadows were two glowing red eyes. In his hands, he clutched a long and deadly looking bone wand.

  Vayde fired a spell in his direction, but the horde was thick, and the spell spilled over them, crashing through their ranks. Bones sprayed into the air but began to quickly form again.

  “There’s… so many of them,” he said slowly.

  “We’ve got to run!” Baltos said. I could hear the panic in his voice. “Come on. Jack, come on!”

  I felt him tugging at my arm, but the Necromancer’s eyes were almost hypnotic, and held my gaze like an iron chain had been forged between us. My feet were frozen in place, like I’d been bound by invisible shackles.

  “Come on!” D shouted, spinning me around. “We’ve got to move!”

  I leapt back as a Skeletal Warrior, much larger than the rest, leapt out of the ranks and swung at me with a mace the size of a small car. I moved just in time. The mace slammed into the ground where I’d been standing, spraying chunks of frozen earth into the air.

  The horde was approaching. Countless numbers of them, like a single organism bent on our destruction. I couldn’t even see the necromancer through the bones. There was nothing left to do but run.

  24

  The Skeletal Horde

  Vayde and Baltos were ahead of D and me as we sprinted across the remaining open ground of the clearing. I could hear the clattering of bones behind me, like frozen branches of the trees of the Witching Woods. An arrow whizzed by me. Another stuck my back, chipping away at my health.

  “What level are they!?” I shouted.

  “Low 20s!” Baltos called back.

  “Wouldn’t be bad if there weren’t a frigging thousand of them!”

  It was an exaggeration, but that’s how it felt as we ran. If we weren’t able to outrun them, I didn’t know what we’d be able to do.

  “We’ll lose them in the trees!” D shouted as we pushed forward to the tree line. I watched as Vayde and Baltos disappeared into the branches and glanced behind me just in time to see the Necromancer aim his wand at me.

  A purple curse leapt forth from the bone wand he clutched in his pale wrinkled hand. It spat through the air like some kind of deadly blob, humming with a deadly frequency. I tried to get out of the way, but it was massive. I had no chance.

  The spell slapped me like a giant’s fist, knocking me off my feet and sending me flipping head over heels. I slammed into a tree and slid to the ground and quickly checked my HP.

  Critical.

  “What the—?”

  A single spell had almost killed me. One more of those, one more anything, and I’d be dead.

  I quickly downed a Health Potion, almost restoring my health to full.

  “Jack! Get up!” D shouted, grabbing my hand.

  D pulled hard and I staggered to my feet. Behind me, I heard the Necromancer cast again, and leapt behind a tree as another one of his spells nearly tore it out of the ground. As I raced through the trees, one of Vayde’s healing spells hit me and filled my health bar. It was just in time too, because another one of the Necromancer’s spells slammed into me and sent me spiraling into another tree.

  “Heal him, heal him!” Baltos shouted.

  “I’m trying!” Vayde snapped.

  I was stunned, motionless on the icy cold ground. My head was spinning, and some kind of vision blur effect had been applied to my sight. There was a debuff in the corner of my vision, but I didn’t have time to read it. I had to move.

  I tried to get to my feet, but my legs were jelly, and I spun out of control like a drunk and slammed into another tree before hitting the ground again.

  My health was blinking critical. I was completely vulnerable. An arrow from a level 1 Horngrin would kill me. The sound of the horde echoed through the trees around me.

  Bones approaching. Death.

  Real death.

  The electronic void.

  Finally, Vayde’s healing spell wrapped around me like a warm embrace, restoring half of my health. I tried to fumble through my inventory for another potion, but my body just didn’t want to respond. It was like looking at the world through a kaleidoscope. Waves of color blurred my vision, and I tripped and fell as I tried to get to my feet.

  D was firing arrows, and I heard one of Vayde’s Fireballs crackle through the air above me. Something was going on with my hearing too, like everything was far away at the end of a tunnel.

  Bracing myself with my sword, I managed to struggle to my feet. With my vision the way it was, the incoming skeletal horde was even more terrifying, like a single hideous organism moving towards me.

  Several of them broke through the trees, and I was able to make them out individually. I gazed up as they charged me and knew I wouldn’t be able to raise my sword in time. One of them raised his club at me, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  But then, as if in slow motion… flames.

  A fireball bellowed through the air like dragon’s breath. Bones scattered on impact, and the skeleton burst out of existence. Another warm fuzzy feeling filled me, and I looked down to see the blue and white spirals of Vayde’s healing spell sweeping over me like a thousand fairies, returning my health to full.

  The debuff was blinking in my peripheral vision, but my legs were still spaghetti.

  “Keep moving!” D shouted as he fired another arrow. I tried to run but stumbled. Baltos slid under my shoulder and lifted me, bracing me with his body.

  “How much longer on the debuff!?” he shouted.

  “F—five seconds,” I stammered, finally able to focus on the number.

  “Vayde!” D shouted. “Blast ‘em!”

  Vayde fired again. Fire bloomed around me and I heard the sound of another one of his Fireballs chattering through the branches around us.

  Something slammed into the tree beside us, and I heard Vayde shout in anger. Another Fireball sizzled past me as he aimed his wand in the direction of the skeletons that must have been closest to us.

  3… 2… 1…

  Finally, the debuff vanished, and instantly, my senses were restored. The world came back into focus and the strength returned to my legs.

  “It’s gone!” I shouted, spinning around just as a group of three skeletons closed in on me. I activated Broad Strike and cut them all down with a single blow. D fired and Vayde loosed another Fireball. But more skeletons kept coming, climbing over their fallen comrades as their bones fought to find each other and piece themselves together again.

  “Let’s get the Hell out of here!” Baltos roared, waving us on. We turned and ran, following him as the woods began to thin out. The ground was slick and uneven, covered with thick roots and stones that were coated in ice. Each step was treacherous. My feet threatened to slip out from under me as I ran, but there was no other choice. We just weren’t equipped to handle the mob behind us, and without a clear view of the Necromancer, we couldn’t even try to fight him.

  Not that we’d get very far. A single spell had almost killed me. I couldn’t even speculate what level he was.

  This is my fault, I thought as we ran. I was the one who wanted to go to Daric. They told me this wasn’t a good idea…

  I ducked beneath a low branch and swung my sword into a thorn bush, shattering it into pieces
. Suddenly, we were at the edge of the woods, staring up at a smooth rock face that jutted into the sky. It must have been at least two hundred feet tall.

  “What the Hell is this!?” Baltos cried out, his voice quivering with fear.

  “We must have taken a wrong turn or something!” D replied, flabbergasted.

  “There’s no way around!” Vayde shouted. I spun around in time to deflect an arrow. We backed up as the skeletons pushed through the trees. The cliff face stretched out on either side of us, forming a V shape that funneled us into somewhere impossible to escape from. And then I realized what had happened.

  A trap, I thought. And we fell into it.

  25

  The Necromancer

  I backed up, holding my sword at the ready, twisting my hands nervously around the hilt. Skeletons began to emerge from the trees, their weapons ready to strike. Behind them, something red moved. I opened my mouth to shout at my group to take cover, but before I could, a purple and black streak spit out of the tree line and slammed into Vayde. The sliver of life remaining on his health bar was so small I could barely make it out.

  “Vayde!” I shouted, leaping in front of him. Another hit and he’d be dead.

  “Heal yourself!” Baltos called out.

  “Use a Health Potion!” I snapped. “It’s faster.”

  But Vayde was already doing it. I watched as he gulped one down and restored his health to about 70 percent.

  I looked up as the rest of the horde emerged from the trees, their hideous white bones glowing silver beneath the moonlight. A volley of arrows streaked through the chilled air and struck the rock behind us. Vayde was in the middle of casting a heal spell on himself, but one of the arrows hit him right in the chest and interrupted his cast.

  “Shit!” he yelped as he began to cast again.

  D fired back, shooting arrows as fast as he could. Vayde’s health filled and he began spraying Fireballs at the closest skeletons, smashing them down with his flames before they could reach us. I slammed my sword down, using Flame Strike, which took out a small group of them, but there was little else for Baltos or me to do but wait for them to get into melee range.