Soulstone: The Skeleton King: A LitRPG Novel (World of Ruul Book 2)

by J. A. Cipriano

  “Yeah, I’m a genius,” I said, as I took all the stone walls he’d constructed so far and made my way toward the perimeter of the town.

  “Don’t let it go to your head,” George replied, shaking his head at me.

  “I’ll do my best,” I said as I approached what had been laid of the gate.

  As I stared at it, an idea hit me. I’d had the Kapre build window frames into some of the wall segments with the idea we could shoot out of them, but I definitely didn’t want people to be able to get through the windows or attack us the same way.

  I’d thought about having windows made with slats or something, but I didn’t really like the idea of that since they’d eventually get destroyed. Worse, it might allow a giant hook or something to punch through and pull the whole section down.

  No. I had to improvise, and I knew just the thing. I was going to double stack the walls, only I’d leave a six inch gap in between them. So that there’d be the window wall in back and two sections of wall in front of it. That way they would have to get through three sections of wall to pull it down, but we could still shoot out of it.

  As I stepped in front of the windowed section, I reached into my inventory and selected two stone fence foundations. Then I laid them down so there was a six inch gap between them that aligned dead center with the window wall behind it. Satisfied I pulled two solid wall pieces from my inventory and laid them down in front.

  I took a step back and looked at it, and as I did, I began to feel pretty good about it. That would be tough to get through, and better yet, I wouldn’t have to double stack the walls all the way up. I mean, Ideally, I would, but this would be fine because the lower level would take most of the damage and it would be double stacked.

  “Can you lay the whole thing like this?” I asked, pointing to the three sections of wall I’d put down while addressing Gromarty the goblin, who evidently was a mason in addition to being a bad gambler. “Or do I need to do it myself?”

  “I can do it, you filthy human,” Gromarty sneered, staring at the wall while scratching his stomach with one yellow-nailed claw. “Get out of my way.”

  “Will do. Call me when it’s done,” I replied, nodding to him as I moved back inside and made my way back to the Kapre. By my estimations, we’d need one hundred pieces of wall per side, and the Kapre was well on his way to completing that job. Better, with the wagons now in place, material gathering had increased exponentially. Now, I could focus on other things than the walls.

  Like gunpowder and explosions.

  “So, did you crack it?” I asked approaching Groricky the goblin. The one-eyed goblin glanced back at me from his perch beside an immense campfire, his face covered in black soot as he hauled armfuls of charcoal out from its depths with a metal rake.

  “As long as we get lots of flint, and we burn lots of wood?” The goblin shrugged his bony, yellow-spotted shoulders at me. “Yeah, I can make the mines.” He pointed at the charcoal. “Well, I can make them go boom, at least. As far as the actual mine part? You need to see Groabigail.”

  I nodded to him. “Good work.”

  As he waved me off so he could get back to work, I ventured toward the tiny stand run by a female goblin with long black hair, sixteen golden hoops in one ear, and a smile that would both crack mirrors and make every dentist in the world rub his greedy paws together.

  “How ya doin,’ boyo?” she squeaked, giving me a quick glance up and down while licking her lips hungrily.

  The gesture made some very strange feelings run through me because while she, like all the other female goblins I’d seen, was green and sounded like a squeaky fence, she looked like someone had taken a photoshopped version of Nicki Minaj, shrunk her down to three feet tall, and slapped a big-eyed goblin’s face on top. And yes, while I’m ashamed to admit it, I’d actually sort of considered George’s suggestions of either hitting it from behind or finding a nice bag.

  “I was wondering how the mines were coming,” I said, sidling up to her where she sat amid a plethora of metal ore and tools I couldn’t distinguish.

  “A lot better than me,” she said, leering at me as she adjusted the golden scope strapped over her left eye. “But I was hoping you could fix that.”

  Her words hung in the air as she popped to her feet, eliciting a very enticing bounce from her, well, everything, as she sauntered over to me and grabbed my hand. Her skin was cool to the touch, and as I pulled my hand back instinctively, she giggled.

  “Don’t worry, I’m warm in all the places it matters.” She cocked a sly grin at me before dragging me over to look at a small bronze box. “These are the pressure switches for the mines. As soon as someone steps on one, it’ll trigger whatever Groricky has put inside.” She nodded furiously at me.

  “So what’s the problem?” I asked, confusion filling my voice as I glanced from the device to her and back again.

  “I don’t have enough materials to make more than ten,” and before I could say more, she waggled one long delicate finger in front of me. “And don’t tell me they’re still bringing them in. I know that. I was using that in my estimations. After all is said and done, the average will be ten. Might be eight, might be twelve at a stretch. I’d count on ten though.” She smacked my ass. “Now unless you wanna do something else, I’ve got work to do.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I said before I could let inappropriate thoughts run roughshod through my mind. “Have you seen Grochuck?”

  “He’s over with the Kapre,” Groabigail replied, shooing me away now that our conversation was done. I nodded my thanks and began making my way toward the center of town.

  “Yeah, you should totally tap that ass. Maybe get her and Gromandy and have a threesome.” George nodded furiously. “I mean, I remember this one time—”

  “We don’t have time for that,” I said as I tried to push the image of two busty bootylicious goblins from my mind.

  “Seriously?” George asked, raising an eye at me. “How long could it possibly take? I mean, I’m not saying to make a career out of it. Just go blow off some steam, if you get my drift.”

  “Not gonna happen, George,” I replied even though he was sort of right about how long it’d probably take, and most things would go along until I was done. Still, I’d feel bad if we lost because I was getting some virtual nookie.

  “You’re the most boring person in the world. Why I bet Two’ Manchu would be neck deep in goblin bitches by now.” George glared at me. “And he’s a total dumbass.”

  “Well, when he shows back up, you suggest it to him,” I replied, turning pointedly away from him as the Kapre and Grochuck came into view.

  “No. You’re the idiot!” the goblin engineer snapped, flailing at the demon tree with his monkey wrench. “It can be done. I know because I’ve done it before.”

  “If by done it before, you mean lied about doing it before, then yes, I believe you,” the Kapre said before blowing smoke at the overall-clad goblin.

  “Done what?” I asked, approaching them.

  “He doesn’t think I can build a goblin shredder,” Grochuck exclaimed, furiously pointing his wrench at the Kapre.

  “Not only did I say that, but even if you could, I doubt we have the materials for that.” The Kapre folded several branches across his arms and made a “hmph” noise.

  “Goblin shredder?” I asked, peering at the menu above the engineer’s head as he continued to rage at the smoking demon tree.

  Goblin Shredder

  Durability: 1000

  Use: Can be used to harvest material at ten times the normal rate.

  Cost: 50 metal, 1 Magestone

  “Yeah, I think the Kapre’s right,” I said, and as I was about to elaborate as to why we didn’t have Magestone, something crashed into me, knocking me face first into the fountain. My head smacked into the stone and my vision went blurry as my health dropped by two percent, and I flopped face first to the cobblestones.

  36

  “What the fuck!” I cried, roll
ing over and pointing my hands at the thing that had hit me like I was in a bad episode of Dragon Ball Z.

  “Jesus, why can’t you be softer!” Dark Heart snapped, fixing me with her angry blue eyes as she rubbed the back of her head with one hand. “Did you seriously have to be standing in the teleportation spot?” She pointed to the section of floor I’d been occupying, and though I hadn’t noticed it before, it was covered with weird runes. “It’s clearly marked.”

  As I glared at the spot, I realized she was right. It was clearly marked, but at the same time there were ten other spots and the game should have been smart enough to not put her on one I’d occupied.

  “We’re fine by the way,” Crash said, trying vainly to keep the humor out of his voice as he grinned over at us from an identical rune-inscribed stone a few feet away. “We got the Magestone.” He held out a glowing chunk of red ore. Crimson steam wafted off of it, and little sparks of energy danced across its surface.

  And as I stared at it, my eyes went wide. “How much did you get?”

  “That’s what you ask?” Crash replied, confusion settling across his features. “We got a sack full since we didn’t know how much we’d need for the sword. Trust me. You do not want to go deal with the dwarves a second time.” He shivered visibly. “Why?”

  “And why are there goblins everywhere?” Dark Heart exclaimed, getting to her feet and leaning against the fountain in a way that made the sunlight glint off her armor.

  “I recruited them to help with defending the city.” I pointed to the Kapre. “That’s the Kapre. He is helping us make walls to assemble. The goblins are making bombs and helping gather materials.”

  “Um… what?” Crash asked, his jaw hanging open as he looked around at the flurry of activity going on all around us. “I thought you were just going to get the Ring of Strife?”

  “We did, but then Asmodai wouldn’t give it to us unless I took the tree back to town. Sabre and Two’ Manchu are still with the demon.” I shook my head, dismissing it as I moved toward Crash. “Come on, let’s get that sword fixed because if we have extra Magestone, we could really use it.”

  “Um… what would you use Magestone for?” Crash asked as we moved along the cobbles toward Sam’s blacksmith shop.

  “The goblins can make shredders which harvest materials much faster than a peasant or peon can. If we got a couple, we could make some real defenses, but each one needs a chunk of Magestone.” I pointed at the glowing rock. “So I’m hoping we have some left after.”

  “What are you building?” Dark Heart asked, watching a goblin peon as he brought a cart laden with stone to the Kapre and dropped it off.

  “Walls. We’re going to replace the rickety wooden ones with stone walls. Then we’ll build some spots for people to stand at the top and shoot down.” I nodded. “Also, metal gates if we can, and I’d love to do the spiked walls too. If we could have a set on the outside of the stone, that’d really help.” I pointed to an empty space on the street. “Ideally, I’d love to get the fletcher shop, music shop, and apothecary too.”

  “Um… are we playing the same game?” Crash asked, regarding me carefully. “How are you getting all this done?”

  “Like StarCraft, man. Once the quest started, I could control the town’s folk like we were in StarCraft.” I touched my chest with my thumb. “Also, I’m mayor of this town now.”

  “Cool,” Dark Heart replied, rolling her eyes at me in a way that suggested she wasn’t terribly impressed. “So, while I was dealing with gangster dwarves who kept trying to cop feels, you were, what? Ordering around minions?”

  “Man, I wish I had been there to see that,” I replied, rubbing my chin. Part of me wished I could have been there to see it. Not because I liked the idea of her being attacked by gropey dwarves, but because of the whole brain in a box thing. So far I’d had to play nice, but that didn’t mean I didn’t enjoy seeing her experience some discomfort at the hands of the game she’d forced us into. “Did you enjoy it?”

  “No,” she said, glaring at me as she crossed her arms over her chest. “No woman enjoys that.”

  “I think the building you’ve done is awesome,” Crash said, his voice cutting off our conversation in a way that suggested he hadn’t been listening to us, which was probably because he’d been too busy looking around wide-eyed while nodding at the walls toward the South. The bottom section was nearly complete now thanks to all the materials, and the town was starting to actually look almost defensible. “Mind if I take a look at what they can do? Maybe I can come up with some strategies or something?”

  “Of course. We’re all going to be fighting here when the Skeleton King comes, right?” I nodded to both of them. “So anything you can do to help would be great.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited than I am right now,” Crash replied, the grin on his face stretching his cheeks as his words rushed together. “This is almost better than when I got to go to the Playboy Mansion.” He huffed out a breath. “It’s not as fun as it seems like it’d be.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, shrugging as we approached the blacksmith’s shop. “You know, next time I get invited to the Playboy Mansion.”

  “I’m not gonna lie. It is pretty awesome, but it’s not real life StarCraft awesome.” Crash gestured at the walls. “I used to play on story mode in Warcraft and defeat the enemy until they couldn’t make any more peons, but the game hadn’t ended. Then I’d just build a massive town.”

  “Really?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “There’s only like six or seven buildings, no?”

  “Yeah, but I’d fill like the whole map. You can actually build so much that the game won’t let you put down more stuff.” He smacked me on the shoulder. “Once we’re out of this, I’ll show you guys.”

  “I’m not sure what’s worse, that you still have Warcraft installed or that you want to show it to me,” Dark Heart said, stepping past us and into Joe’s shop. “Now let’s hand this over. You two can prattle on about how cool it is to make NPCs do your bidding after we’ve got this thing crafting.”

  “Do you guys have the Magestone?” Joe asked as we entered. She was covered from head to toe in soot, and as she wiped her face with the back of one hand, smearing more across her cheeks, I spied two sweaty female goblins messing around with the forge.

  “Yeah, we got some,” Crash said, eyes stuck on the pair of big-titted goblins. Then, very slowly, his eyes looked to me and the look he gave me was very clear. It was “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” look, I’m sure I’d had when I’d first seen the female goblins.

  “Well, hand it over,” Joe said, holding one leather-gloved hand out to Crash. “The sooner you get it to me, the sooner we can process it.” As she spoke, one of her goblin helpers dumped a bucket of water over her head causing it to cascade down her body and make her tight white shirt stick to her green flesh in a way that left little to the imagination.

  “Here you go,” Crash said in a glazed, far off tone that made me think he hadn’t heard a word she’d said to him, though that might have been because he was too busy watching the second goblin bend over to pick up the dropped bucket.

  “This is way more Magestone than we need,” Joe said, looking into the bag for a moment and biting her bottom lip as she examined the contents. Then she scooped out some of the glowing red ore and turned to the left goblin. “Grobetty, can you take this and begin the processing?” Only as she spoke, color spread across her cheeks. “Um… I can see your nipples.”

  “Yeah. It is a bit nippy in here,” Grobetty giggled, taking the ore from Joe and moving off into the backroom and out of sight. It almost made me sad to see her go because watching her in that wet t-shirt had been almost enough to make me take up George on his advice. Jesus, I really needed to stop staring at the female goblins. If I didn’t, I’d never get anything done, and that wouldn’t stop the Skeleton King from killing us all.

  “I changed my mind,” Crash said, swallowing hard as he
took the rest of the sack back from Joe. “This is way better than the Playboy mansion.”

  “Anyway,” Dark Heart said, stretching out the word as she moved in front of Crash and me. “How long do you think until the sword is ready?”

  “Three hours,” Joe said matter-of-factly. “Maybe two and a half, but I’d plan on three.”

  “You can’t get it down to an hour?” I asked, glancing at the quest timer that indicated we had about an hour and a half until the siege began. “Or an hour and a half? Or, you know any amount of time closer to when the Skeleton King comes and roflstomps our asses?”

  “This isn’t a negotiation. Shit takes time,” Joe replied, crossing her arms over her chest. “I don’t want to get killed any more than anyone else. If I could do it faster, I would.”

  “Fair enough,” I replied, trying to keep the despondency out of my voice as I looked at the floor. I wasn’t sure if we could hold off the Skeleton King for that long, at least not with the way we had things set up now. Then again, we did have a bunch of Magestone. Maybe we could make some shredders and harvest enough materials to win?

  37

  As I watched the three shredders strip mine the land, I almost felt glad we hadn’t had enough metal to craft more. It was so bad watching them work that I could actually see tearful Indians in my mind’s eye. Still, there was nothing for it. Without more materials, we wouldn’t be able to defend the town. And we needed more materials. Stat.

  If we survived, then we could worry about it.

  “Carl, how are the buildings coming along?” I asked, turning toward the carpenter as he surveyed the three spots on merchants’ row we’d cleared to make room for the Fletcher, Music Shop, and Apothecary.

  “Now that the groundwork is laid out, we should get them all done in the next thirty minutes.” He nodded to the goblin armada armed with hammers and what not as they framed up the buildings under his watchful and hyper-critical eye. “We can speed it along a bit with more people, but not much, and it’ll cost more materials.”