Viridian Gate Online: Crimson Alliance: A litRPG Adventure (The Viridian Gate Archives Book 2)

by James Hunter

  I flipped the page, and was presented with a spell:

  Terror Bound

  In order to bind a wild Void Terror to serve as a minion, the Shadowmancer must have at least one available point invested in the Void Terror ability, then the Shadowmancer must cast the specialized conjuration spell, Terror Bound, on a severely weakened Void Terror. If the spell is successful, the caster and Void Terror will enter into a Contest of Wills: If the caster prevails in the contest, the Void Terror will be bound. If the caster loses the battle, they will instantly be killed and sent for respawn.

  Would you like to learn the specialized conjuration spell, Terror Bound?

  Accept: Yes/No?

  “Yes,” I muttered into the empty air, eyes still fixed on the book in front of me. Another prompt popped up below the spell page:

  Using this item will destroy it, permanently removing “Taming the Void: A Shadowmancer Primer” from your inventory. Are you sure you would like to learn Terror Bound?

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said again, nodding my head.

  There was an audible pop accompanied by a brilliant flash of light as a small tornado of violet light swirled around me, brushing over me with arctic air. The book dissolved in my hands, turning into a pile of dust, caught up and carried away by the slapping wind. In the same instant, my head began to throb, a deep dull ache building behind my eyes as if my skull had been caught in a vise grip. I dropped unceremoniously to the ground as the whipping wind died and began to grind my palms into my eye sockets, furiously trying to release the mounting tension in my head.

  Then, in a blink, knowledge bloomed in the back of my mind—it vaguely felt like recalling some fact, half-forgotten ages ago—and the pain was gone. Vanished as quickly as it had come.

  Since I was already seated, I sprawled my legs out in front of me and leaned back against one of the stone bookcases behind me, stealing a brief moment of well-deserved rest as I pulled up my user interface. A lifelike image of myself floated in the air, slowly rotating, showing my gear. I had gunmetal gray skin and a short-cropped beard lining my jaw. I absently gave my gear a once-over. My medium armor, covered in swaths of ebony chainmail, glowed with swirls of purple shadow power. My leggings and boots were dark leather and finely made. I had a black cloak, pinned shut with a silver brooch, around my shoulders—the thick cowl pulled up to conceal much of my face.

  I grinned. I had to admit, I was looking pretty badass these days. Then, with a sigh, I toggled over to my character screen, wanting to review my stats before I made any significant changes or point investments.

  After killing the Moss Hag and earning my class kit, I’d crawled up to level twenty-three, but the progress had crept along at a glacial pace since then. That was sort of to be expected, though; there really wasn’t much point in designing a game as sweeping and immersive as V.G.O. only to let players power level to one hundred in a week. I closed out of the screen and quickly flicked through a few additional menus until the Void Terror ability description lingered before me:

  Skill: Void Terror

  Through their unparalleled connection to the Umbra, Shadowmancers are able to call upon the denizens of the Shadowverse for aid.

  Skill Type/Level: Spell/Locked

  Cost: 500 Spirit

  Range: 1 Meter

  Cast Time: Instant

  Cooldown: Void Terror must rest for 1 hour in the Shadowverse for every 3 hours spent in the Material Realm; Void Terror must return to the Shadowverse after 24 consecutive hours in the Material Realm.

  Effect: Call upon denizens of the Shadowverse to fight on your behalf; some conjured minions can also be used as mounts.

  Restriction: Must have a bound Void Terror in order to utilize this skill.

  Restriction: A Shadowmancer can only bind up to seven Void Terrors—one for every Proficiency Point invested.

  Restriction: Only one Void Terror may be summoned at a time.

  At this point, I still had 8 Proficiency Points waiting in reserve, so I didn’t hesitate to invest a point into the Void Terror ability, unlocking the skill and allowing me to bind (1) Void Terror to my will.

  Satisfied, I dismissed my interface, gained my feet, and brushed my dirty palms along the front of my trousers, preparing to resume my scan of the library. A bellowing roar stopped me dead in my tracks; the noise was so loud it rattled tomes from their shelves—a rain of hefty books suddenly hit the floor. A second later I heard the urgent slap of running footfalls, and watched as Cutter bolted from behind a bookcase, sprinting for all he was worth toward the archway.

  I didn’t know what was happening, but it couldn’t be good, so I broke into a run, tearing after him. “What did you do?” I hollered as I pulled up alongside him, my legs pumping and churning.

  “I found a secret passage,” he wheezed, not bothering to look at me. “Whole shite load of Raw Darkshard Ore—the absolute motherload, I’d wager—but there was something in there with it. Guarding it.”

  “What is it?” I called, stealing a brief glance over my shoulder. I saw nothing but encroaching darkness.

  “Not sure,” he huffed, “but it’s big and very, very, very pissed off.”

  SIX:

  Void Drake

  The roar came again, a bellow that rattled my teeth and reverberated in my bones—I didn’t want to look back, but I couldn’t help myself and stole a peek anyway. Bad idea. There was something giant, scaly, black, and serpentine charging toward us, its wicked jaws snapping at the air as strings of purple drool dripped from its maw. My heart sped up a few notches, pounding away in my chest while a cold sweat broke out across my brow. Six days ago I’d been an EMT, waiting for the world to come to a fiery end, and the scariest thing I’d ever seen was a nasty four-car pileup on the I-15 South.

  And now I had to fight the monstrosity tearing after me. Even after battling a swarm of horrible monsters and slaying a school-bus-sized Swamp Hag, I found I still wasn’t built for this kind of thing. All I wanted to do was go home and hide under the bed. This game was just too intense.

  But, despite my fear and my desire to curl up in the fetal position, I threw out a hand and summoned Umbra Bog. I glanced back again and felt a momentary wave of relief as I watched a quagmire of black goop spring from the walls and floors, temporarily snaring the approaching whatever it was. My budding relief quickly disappeared as the creature issued another bone-shaking roar, crouched low, and spewed out a gout of purple flame as thick as a telephone pole. “Run faster!” I hollered at Cutter, before wheeling around and dropping to a knee as I conjured my Dark Shield.

  With my Dark Shield ability, I could afford to take a big hit, but Cutter couldn’t. He could deal out some serious damage, but he couldn’t take much in return. Not as a Rogue. A dark dome of shimmering light flared around me, eating through my already depleted Spirit supply at an astonishing rate. The dome did, however, absorb the majority of the flame burst, and the little that seeped through was quickly sapped by the Night Armor wrapped around me like a second skin. My Spirit gauge—a luminescent purple bar—flashed a warning in the corner of my eye, letting me know I was almost out of juice.

  Thankfully, the column of unnatural fire faded and died about the same time as my shield did.

  A quick look at the Umbra Bog countdown timer on my right told me I had about ten seconds before that thing broke loose and unleashed nine kinds of hell on me. Oh yeah, definitely time to move. I gained my feet in a second, spun, and put every ounce of effort into bolting for the library entrance as I pulled a Spirit Regen potion from my belt and quickly downed the contents. I killed the potion in a few quick glugs, tossed the empty bottle as I cleared the entryway, and scrambled into the connecting tunnel beyond.

  I skidded to a stop, wheeling around, wildly searching for my teammates.

  For a second, I couldn’t find either Cutter or Amara and jumped to the irrational conclusion that they’d heard the creature roar and decided to leave me for dead. If I weren’t a generous guy, I’d proba
bly consider doing the same thing if I were in their shoes. My uncharitable thoughts vanished when I spotted two partially blurred forms lingering by the far wall, both cloaked in Stealth. I slipped right, pressing my back against the wall, then bent over and took a handful of ragged breaths as I regained my diminished Stamina, now down by a quarter bar.

  “Did you kill it?” Cutter hissed at me from across the way.

  Another deafening roar ripped at the air, answering the question for me.

  “I don’t even know what that thing is,” I replied, hooking a thumb toward the library archway. “I think it’s a dragon. A. Dragon. We’re not equipped to fight a dragon.”

  “Unlikely,” Amara replied. “Dragons roam only the most distant northern regions, and even there they are rare. More likely a Drake or juvenile Wyvern.”

  “Which means what, exactly?” I asked.

  “That means it’s a small dragon,” Cutter supplied, and even blurred I could tell he was rolling his eyes.

  “Are your defensive wards still in place?” I asked Amara, fixing on her blurred form.

  “Yes,” she said with a bob of her head.

  “The real question,” Cutter muttered, a nervous edge in his voice, “is whether they’re gonna hold that thing.”

  She hefted her bow. “We’ll find out in a moment,” she replied before unleashing a hail of lightning-fast arrow fire at something out of view. A bellowing, reptilian cry of rage rang out as a scaly head thrust into the hallway, jaws snapping ferociously. Up close, the creature was even more terrifying. Its head was a little larger than a horse’s, covered in oily black scales with wicked spikes jutting from the back of its skull like a crown of bony scimitars. The thing had six eyes total, three running up each side of its serpentine face, each glowing with a spectral violet light.

  A tag briefly appeared over its head, [Void Terror Drake], before vanishing.

  The thing dropped its snout—huffing, grunting, growling—as it tried to fight past some unseen force barrier. A second later, a tremendous snap-crack filled the air followed by a blast of neon-red light—one of Amara’s wards discharging right into the creature’s ugly face. I managed to blink away the purple afterimage of the blinding explosions and found the creature alive, but frozen. Temporarily locked in place by a paralyze spell.

  My teammates launched themselves at the Drake almost as one: Cutter leapt on the creature’s outstretched neck, materializing as he sunk twin daggers down at the base of the creature’s skull, earning a critical hit and a hefty amount of backstab damage. In the same instant, Amara let out a thundering war cry as she backpedaled away from the overgrown lizard, firing arrow after arrow into the creature’s pebbly skin. Unfortunately, the Drake was built like an armored tank, and Amara’s arrows didn’t penetrate deeply enough to do any real damage to its overall HP.

  I hefted my hammer and joined the fray, triggering a Savage Blow as I lunged forward and smashed my weapon into the creature’s petrified snout. My attack landed like an oncoming freight train, obliterating several of its jagged black teeth, though knocking off only a fraction of its HP. The creature grunted, a snarl of pain building in its chest, but its body was still frozen in place. Wanting to take maximum advantage, I sidestepped left, raking the outside of my bladed Battle Vambraces across its face, before spinning my hammer in a tight arc and jabbing the spiked end into one of the creature’s purple eyes.

  Another critical hit.

  For a split second, I felt like maybe this battle was going to be a cakewalk after all.

  Then, the paralyze spell wore off and the creature swung its head toward me like a wrecking ball of scale and bone, broadsiding me in the chest and tossing me through the air with scornful ease. I flipped head over heels and came down directly on my neck. A crack, as loud as a gun’s report, split the air as stars exploded in my vision and fiery agony cascaded through my body. I tried to cry out as I crumpled to the ground on my back, but found I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move.

  A combat notification appeared:

  Debuffs Added

  Critical Fall: You have suffered a debilitating spinal injury and are temporarily immobilized and unable to speak. You cannot move or cast spells. Duration, 1 minute.

  Internal Bleeding: You have sustained internal bleeding: 3 HP/sec; duration, 1 minute.

  That was no good. I was already down to 350 HP, and that internal bleeding would knock off another 180 points over time, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. Not even the Health Regen potions at my belt could help, since I couldn’t move to get them. I could only lie on the floor and hope that monster didn’t trample me to death.

  The enraged Drake—finally free from Amara’s trap—burst into the hallway, giving me a full glimpse of the thing for the first time: it had a sinuous body, easily twenty-five feet long from snout to tail-tip, with gleaming spikes of bone running along its back. Powerful legs and forearms, each tipped with purple talons, scrabbled for purchase on the grimy ground as it moved. A pair of dark wings, laced with throbbing veins of blue, were folded up along its sides so they wouldn’t hinder its movements in the cramped hallway.

  But just one look told me this thing could fly if it wanted to.

  I stared on in silence as Cutter clung to the creature’s neck, methodically jabbing his blades home over and over again, drawing viscous purple blood, which splattered against the walls every time he pulled his daggers free. The Drake thrashed and bucked, veering left, then careening right, its head flailing about as it smashed into the tunnel walls, fighting to dislodge the scrappy thief. The whole while, Amara continued to drive arrows into its scaly flesh—a small forest of quills now protruded from its flanks and wings.

  Cutter pulled one blade free and strained forward in an attempt to drive the dagger into the Drake’s vulnerable eyes, but the creature was smart. Smart and ready. It dropped low as Cutter moved, unbalancing the thief, before surging up, scraping its shoulder along the wall. Cutter let out a muffled curse as the earthen tunnel tore at his face, dragging him from the back of the Drake. He landed on the floor with a muffled grunt, dazed and suddenly exposed. The creature didn’t waste a moment: it wheeled around, surprisingly agile for such a large animal, and grabbed Cutter in its monstrous jaws.

  Huge teeth sunk into Cutter’s middle, chomping down as he cried out in agony. His face contorted in a grimace of pain as bright red blood burbled out from his lips, and his HP bar plummeted like an incoming asteroid. A frantic surge of panic raced through my body: this thing was going to kill Cutter, and if he died, there’d be no respawn for him. He’d be gone for good. Cutter wasn’t exactly a nice person, but he was the closest thing I had to a friend in V.G.O.—barring Abby, who I wasn’t even sure was alive—and I couldn’t imagine him dying like this.

  But there was nothing I could do except watch. Not for another thirty seconds.

  SEVEN:

  Contest of Wills

  Suddenly, Amara blurred past me, leaping over me in a single bound, then sprinting for the Drake. She raised one arm high in the air, and in a puff of shadow, an obsidian spear formed in her hand; the weapon gleamed in the dull light and burned with spectral fire. Amara screamed out a challenge as her feet touched down—a taunt that immediately drew the Drake’s focus. Her other hand flashed out, pulling a small glass orb from her belt, which she smashed into the ground, releasing a cloud of sooty smoke that made it nearly impossible to see anything.

  The cloud lasted for only a few seconds, but by the time it cleared, Amara was already vaulting through the air, flipping gracefully like an acrobat.

  She came down directly on the Drake’s back, screaming again as she used the momentum of her fall to drive her conjured spear all the way through the creature’s scaly hide. The shaft cut through muscle, bone, and sinew like a hot knife through butter, exploding through the creature’s stomach and continuing downward, driving into the floor, literally pinning the Drake in place. Wow, that was a ridiculously cool move, which had
to be some special skill in her Huntress class. Needless to say, I was impressed. The massive Terror responded accordingly, tossing back its head in a thundering bellow of pain and hate. Cutter—weak as he was—seized the brief window of opportunity and managed to shove himself from the creature’s jaws, dropping to the ground.

  He was free, but in bad shape: his HP bar was flashing manically, and blood liberally coated the front of his leather armor and pale skin.

  The Drake, in turn, fought in a frenzy to free itself from Amara’s spear, but nothing did the trick.

  Once more, the Drake was stuck in place. Realizing the futility of its struggle, the creature turned its gaze back on Cutter, who was tirelessly dragging himself out of the monster’s reach. The creature’s jaws flashed out again, but Amara was quicker. As the Drake’s jaws descended, a thin wire appeared in her hands—some sort of extra-long assassin’s garrote, maybe—and she slipped it around the Drake’s snout. With a fierce yank, she pulled the creature up short, reining the beast in like an unruly horse.

  Meanwhile, Cutter continued to slug his way across the passageway, leaving a smear of gore behind him as he cast furtive glances at the death-dealing Void Terror.