My foot caught a high spot and sent me sprawling to the floor. I hit hard and rolled back to my feet and found myself staring at the purple shell of an Ilizak blocking the tunnel in front of me.
Quickly, I inspected it.
Ilizak Soldier—level 45.
Somehow, it hadn’t noticed me. I must have been right behind D and its attention was still on him, but I had to get past it or I’d be lost—as would the rest of us.
Quietly, I used one of my health packs to restore my health to full and drew my sword. If, somehow, I was able to score a critical attack from behind the creature, I might be able to stun it, which would allow me and the rest of the party to get by.
But as I swung my sword, the Ilizak Soldier spun around to face me. My blow dinged off its hard carapace like a toothpick on a steel slab. The Ilizak hissed and slashed out.
I leapt back, dodging the blow, but it was fast and raced towards me, its four arms slicing through the humid air like serrated swords ready to cut me to pieces.
“Gah!” I shouted, activating Executioner’s Charge. I twisted my shoulder into the thing but was flung back instantly with one blow from its pincer. I hit the ground and scrambled to my feet. More than a third of my health was gone.
“D!” I screamed, starting to panic as the hideous insect charged me. “Help!”
“Jack!” I turned to see Vayde race up behind me and pull his wand from his robe. Quickly, he aimed it at me and cast a heal spell as the Ilizak Soldier swung at me again. I felt the tingling sensation as my health bar was restored to full, but instantly was knocked off my feet by another blow from the monster.
Almost instantly, another healing spell restored my health, but I was in trouble. The Ilizak Soldier was right on top of me, and if it managed to hit me twice in rapid succession, I was done for.
“D!” I howled through the tunnel again.
What was I thinking? D was gone. At the speed he was running, like an Olympic sprinter, there was no way he could even hear me. He was probably shouting directions to me for the next intersection, completely unaware that I was no longer behind him.
“Jack!” Baltos shouted, coming up behind me. The Ilizak slashed at me again. I managed to leap out of the way and its pincer struck the wall, sending stone chips flying everywhere.
An arrow cut through the air above my head and struck the Soldier. The attack barely registered, but it was enough to distract it for a moment. I looked to see Shorros nocking another arrow.
I smiled. My party was with me. At least there was that. But there was still a high-level monster standing between us and our destination, and I had no idea what we were going to do about it.
The Ilizak Soldier screeched and raced towards Shorros. I was between them, and it slammed into me, knocking me aside as it tried to reach him.
“Oh, shit!” Shorros cried out.
“Ahhhh!” Vayde shouted as he tried to get out of the way of the angry Ilizak as it barreled towards him.
“Hey!” I whipped around in time to see D in the tunnel ahead of us, an arrow nocked in his bow. He let loose and the shaft streaked through the air to slam into the Ilizak’s back.
It scored a critical hit and actually did enough damage to be noticeable. The Ilizak screeched, skidded to a halt, and whipped around to face D.
“Jack, come on!” D roared, putting his bow away.
I slid against the wall as the Ilizak, its attention now on D, streaked past me. D had given us the room to keep running.
Let’s just hope there’s another jump soon!
I raced forward after them. It was strange, as I was basically chasing a high-level Ilizak. But D was in front of the monster, and that meant I was still following him.
Left, right, left again, then down a slope and under a mossy overhang with branches like roots that I had to duck under.
Right, then right again, and then straight through two four-way intersections in the tunnel.
I heard the clattering of more Ilizak feet behind me.
“It’s getting thick back here!” Vayde shouted. There must have been a horde behind them by now.
Come on, D. Where’s the jump!?
“Left at the fork!” his voice rang out. I took the left and spotted something on the wall beside me. It was like a green cocoon that seemed to grow out of the wall itself. Semitranslucent, it resembled the tub of pink goop Neo woke up in in the Matrix. The puke-colored sack tore open, spilling an Ilizak into the tunnel behind me.
It turned to me, hissed and leapt out with its claws.
“Holy shit!” I shouted as the attack barely missed me. “Look out! More Ilizak!”
“We’ve got plenty back here!” I heard Baltos shout. He sounded panicked, and I didn’t blame him.
“Come on, D! Where’s the jump!?”
“Coming up!” he shouted back.
It better be, I thought as another steam jet blasted me in the face, filling my lungs with the acidic fog that seemed to be filling the Catacombs more and more as we ran.
This time, something started blinking in the corner of my vision.
A debuff!
Sure enough, my health was ticking slowly down. Each increment wasn’t much, but I was already at half health. If I didn’t heal soon, there was a good chance it would kill me.
The tunnel sloped up for the first time, and I looked behind me to see an uncountable number of Ilizak hot on my heels. I couldn’t even see the rest of my party through them all. It reminded me of videos I’d seen of bees attacking a hornet. They swarmed it with sheer numbers. The hornet had nowhere to go. It was like a sea of bees all over it, and that’s exactly how I felt with the swarm of Ilizak at my back. If that horde reached me, I’d be dead before I could blink.
“Here we go!” D shouted. “Jump left!”
I looked up to see the jump into the darkness. This time, he jumped with an angle to the left. With the ground sloping up in front of me, there was no way for me to see where he, or I, was going. All I could do was jump in the exact same direction he had—and pray.
“Jump left!” I shouted to my group behind me as my feet propelled me off the ledge and into the air. I looked back as I soared and watched as the Ilizak swarm spilled over the edge, screeching and clawing at the air as they plummeted into the void below.
Yes, I thought triumphantly as I streaked towards the opening in the wall where D had landed. We might just make it!
42
The Pit
I hit hard, but this time I was able to roll and preserve more of my health from being destroyed by the fall. But my health was still ticking down, approaching 25 percent.
“Look out!” Vayde shouted and I threw myself out of the way as he came crashing down behind me. The fall hit him hard, but I didn’t have time to worry about that. I had a Health Kit in my hands and quickly used it. It recovered more than half of my health, but the debuff was still ticking down and I was still falling.
“Shit! How do I get rid of this debuff!?” I cursed. I had to wait a few seconds before I could use my Health Kit again and was forced to sit and watch as my health continued to drop. I was already almost back to half.
“Watch out!” It was Baltos’ voice and I looked up to see him nose-diving towards us. Somehow, he’d managed to almost flip over in the air and looked like he was going to slam right onto his face when he hit.
Vayde stepped aside at the last possible second, and Baltos hit the ground like something out of a cartoon. Half of his health vanished as his body scorpioned up behind him as he skidded across the stone, chipping away even more.
“Ah—ah—ah!” he groaned as he finally slammed into the wall and came to a stop.
Vayde quickly healed him as he was well below 25 percent. Shorros hit the ground, followed by Xavier, who was looking shaken up, an emotion I wasn’t used to seeing from him.
“Did you see all those damn Ilizak!?” Shorros asked as he used a Health Kit to restore his health to full. “Holy—I’ve never seen anything li
ke that!”
“I can’t imagine how many are beneath us…” Xavier said slowly.
“Why are we stopped here?” Vayde asked.
“We’re almost there,” D replied as I used another Health Kit. My health was full again, but the debuff was still ticking down.
“Vayde, you don’t have a damn cleansing spell or something for this debuff?”
“Hmmm, let me see,” he said, opening his spell sheet. “I have Cleanse, but I’m not sure it’ll work. It says, ‘Removes Curses and Debuffs.’”
“Try it,” I told him.
Quickly, he cast the spell. A green light enveloped me, and my body pulsed slightly. But the debuff kept ticking down.
“Shit!”
“Didn’t work!?” Vayde asked. I shook my head.
“Okay, we’re almost there,” D interjected. “Once Jack’s debuff wears off, we’re going. But it’s going to get tricky.”
“This hasn’t already been tricky enough?” Shorros asked.
“Well, so far we’ve only had to worry about Ilizak,” he replied.
I didn’t even bother replying. I knew what he meant. We were almost to the exploit spot, and that meant players. Sinful most likely, but maybe The Mercenaries if the guilds were warring over the spot. And that meant we were going to have to fight.
Everyone else got the message too. Vayde already had his wand out, but Shorros pulled out his bow and I took out my sword. Xavier brandished his enormous halberd and Baltos ran his fingers over his cestus, flexing his fingers like a boxer before a match.
What are you going to do? I asked myself as I thought about what lay ahead of me. It was like a cold jet of water running through my body, a reminder of the horrible decision facing me.
The “it’s just a game” excuse didn’t work—not anymore. We played games to get away from the realities of life, to take a break from its hard decisions. How ironic it was that a game was forcing me to make the hardest decision of my life.
“We’re going down,” D explained. “Three intersections, then left at the next one. There’s a room full of Ilizak, but there’s a ledge on the right wall we can run up to avoid them. At the end, we jump down and then we’re at the freeway.”
“Freeway?” Xavier asked.
“That’s what it’s called,” D replied. “A long straight stretch before the exploit wall. It actually is the exploit wall. We run right alongside of it before we round the corner and make a U-turn. If you do it right, the Ilizak get stuck behind you.”
“If,” Baltos repeated grimly.
“That’s where we’ll find them,” D added.
Them…
No one said anything. Nervously, I twisted my sword in my hands, spinning it by the hilt between my thumb and forefinger.
Who would be there? Chaucey? Bonecrusher? Others?
Gritting my teeth, I pushed aside as much of my apprehension as I could.
I had to focus.
Focus! Focus! I shouted inside. Get it together!
We still had to make the run to get there, and for all I knew, there might not actually even be anyone leveling down there.
You wish…
“All right,” I finally said. “We ready?”
Everyone nodded. D turned, readied himself, and took off. I raced after him, followed by the rest of my party.
The air was thicker than it had ever been as we pushed forward. The sound of Ilizak pincers was like a percussion section of some evil band, playing the grizzly soundtrack of our journey.
We reached the first intersection and blazed right through it. We were a group now, which would give the Ilizak less time to react and pick one of us off. I heard at least one Ilizak Soldier screech behind us as it came out of one of those sacks on the walls, but I didn’t even bother looking back.
We kept moving, through the second intersection, and then down a long decline into the very bowels of the dungeon. The air was so thick it felt toxic, like breathing through a wet rag covered in vinegar.
I glanced to my left as we crossed the third intersection and saw at least five Ilizak pathing aimlessly through the tunnel. But as I passed, they caught sight of me and aggro’d instantly.
“Shit,” I cursed. “Look out!”
They attacked. Baltos and Vayde dodged out of the way, but one of them hit Shorros and knocked him down to below half health.
“Shorros!” I shouted as he leapt past the group, narrowly dodging another attack that surely would have killed him.
“I’m okay!”
“Vayde, can you heal him?!”
“Not while I’m running!”
“Shit!”
“This way!” D called out. “We’re almost there.”
I saw the next intersection and followed D around the left corner.
The sound of Ilizak pincers echoed off the walls around me as the ground sloped down. Suddenly, the tunnel opened up ahead of us and we entered a room that could only be described by two words: Pure Hell.
43
Resolve
The entire room was filled, wall to wall, with Ilizak. I saw Soldiers, but then others I didn’t recognize. Some were larger, darker looking, standing at least twice as tall as the Soldiers with six striking arms instead of four.
Others were smaller, more jittery, and more likely much faster than the rest. They also had a green hue to their exoskeleton, like something dragged out of the ocean. As we entered the room, every single one of them turned to us.
“This way!” D called out, sprinting to the right, just out of reach of the wall of monsters.
My body almost froze completely as I stared at the eyes of the deadly horde of Ilizak, far too high level for any of us. I was literally staring death in the eye as I pushed with every ounce of strength I had in my body to keep up with D as he made his way to the ridge on the right wall of the cavern.
“Run!” I shouted to the rest of the party still behind me. “Run!”
I leapt into the air and onto the ridge of crimson stone jutting out from the wall. My foot slipped, and I felt myself falling back, but D’s hand clasped my wrist and pulled me back up.
“Thanks,” I said, quickly moving up to make room for the others. Vayde, then Baltos, and Xavier. The mass of Ilizak was moving like a single organism, closing in on Shorros who was a few paces away and hadn’t yet made the jump.
“He’s not going to make it!” Vayde cried out.
“Yes, he is!” I snapped. “Come on, Shorros!”
I pushed my way towards the edge and reached my hand out towards him. “Baltos, hold onto me!”
Baltos grabbed my hand, Vayde and D grabbed him, and I was able to reach out farther than I normally could have.
“Jump, Shorros!” I bellowed as the insect swarm moved in for the kill.
Like bees attacking an invading hornet…
Shorros panicked and threw himself into the air. The jump itself wasn’t good enough, but luckily for him, the group had his back.
I snatched his arm out of the air and he clasped tight onto me with both hands. Without the rest of them holding me back, I would have been pulled over the edge and into the horde. But they held strong and I shouted back at them.
“Pull!”
All four of my companions pulled back and the force practically sent Shorros flying into the air. He landed right on top of me as we all fell back onto the stone.
“I can’t do it!” Shorros stammered. “I’m going to have a panic attack! I can’t—I can’t breathe!”
“Relax, Shorros,” I said calmly as he rolled over, his hands clasped over his chest. “It’s okay. We’re okay.”
His health was still low from where the Ilizak had slashed him. Vayde quickly cast a healing spell and restored it.
“Th—those things!” he stammered. “They would have killed me! One hit took off more than h—half my health! What the Hell are we doing here!? I’m going back to Stoneburg!”
It was hard to believe this was the same ice-cold archer who’d ha
d an arrow aimed at my head not too long ago. He stumbled to his feet, his entire body shaking as he pulled his Bindstone Shard from his inventory.
“Shorros, wait!” Baltos pleaded.
“We need your help!” Vayde cried out. But Shorros wasn’t listening to anyone. He was seconds from activating his Shard and teleporting back to Stoneburg. Something had to be done, but I didn’t know what to do.
I had no idea what to say to him. The truth was, I was afraid to continue on as well. The Crimson Catacombs were worse than I’d ever imagined, and after what had just happened, I didn’t blame him for wanting to go back. As I looked down at the writhing mass of killer insects beneath us, I was almost ready to follow him.
I looked at D, but he didn’t have an answer either. We were about to lose the sixth member of our group and something had to be done—fast.
I watched as his chest heaved up and down, and an idea sparked in my mind.
Quickly, I snatched his wrist, causing him to look up at me.
“Shorros, stop.”
“Let go!” he cried out. “I’m going back to Stoneburg!”
“You don’t have to do that,” I told him. “Just calm down, okay? You’re all right. You made it.”
“I can’t calm down! I can’t! I’m freaking out, dude! I can’t breathe!”
“You can, Shorros,” I assured him. “It’s all in your mind, okay? This is just a game.”
“It’s not! If we die here we die, Jack!”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” I asked him angrily. “Do you think I don’t know the consequences too?”
Shorros’ eyes were on his feet, and I looked over at D as I said my next line.
“You think that’s air you’re breathing now?”
D’s eyes lit up with surprise, and then broke out into an enormous smile. Shorros looked up and I brought my gaze back to him. He stared at me, and I stared back at him and watched as he started to regain his composure. Slowly, his breathing started to slow, and his chest started to slow.
“Stealing my movie quotes now?” D chuckled.
Baltos sighed heavily beside me and braced himself against the wall with one hand. The stress was getting to him too. I clasped Shorros on the shoulder as he stood up straight and pulled his shoulders back. Slowly, he put his Bindstone Shard away and nodded.
Call of Carrethen: A LitRPG and GameLit novel (Wellspring Book 1) Page 19
