The Marchstone Dale_Omegaverse 6

by G. R. Cooper

  The blond woman stepped back, pulling the blade from the back of Wulfgar’s neck. Jay jumped toward her, trying to block her arm, but she managed to stab Wulfgar again in the upper back, through to where his heart would be.

  “NOOOOO!” screamed Tim as Wulfgar pitched forward into the dirt, lifeless.

  Jay raised his shield between Wulfgar and the woman, and activated his Greater Heal spell, targeting Wulfgar. It was no use - he was dead. He looked to Tim and shook his head as his shield took a blow from the woman’s short sword.

  “Get to the church! Get him when he resurrects!” Tim yelled.

  Jay easily parried another thrust, refraining from attacking. He wasn’t sure if Tim wanted this one dead or captured.

  “He’s not bound at the church, dumbass!” the woman yelled. “You lost him. He’s gone.” She tried to get past Jay’s shield, but he again easily moved to counter her attack.

  “Kill them!” Tim screamed, “Kill them all and burn this entire fucking village to the ground. Leave them nothing to defend!”

  Jay pushed forward, using his shield to knock the woman backward, off-balance. He raised his blade and brought it down on her exposed head. A look of sudden fear shot across her features as she tried, futilely, to block the heavy hand-and-a-half sword.

  “Critical hit!”

  “19 points of damage!”

  “05 points of damage, First Blood!”

  “12 points of damage, Lightning Bolt!”

  “Congratulations! You have gained a level in Heavy Blade!”

  He grinned savagely as the woman dropped dead against the wall of the building.

  Wow! he thought, Twelve-points additional damage from one swing. He had just one-hit killed her; the extra damage from First Blood wouldn’t have applied if she was already wounded or had managed to hit and do him any damage first. The Knight Magus took a second to apply another Lightning Bolt to his sword. He looked down at the body, “Damn, she’s cute.”

  Jay flinched at a roar from the east.

  Was that a fucking tiger?

  Whatever had made sound, it saved him - attracting his attention toward the keep. He managed to raise his shield just in time to parry a wild blow from a savage looking blond giant of a man. He was enveloped in a blast of Lightning as the Viking’s double-bladed axe rang off his shield, knocking him to his knees.

  “You have taken four points of damage!”

  Jay rolled away from the screaming madman as one of the other tanks moved in and struck. He stood as he felt his Hit Points rise; he assumed that Tim was healing him. Buffaloing his way forward, he rammed his opponent with his shield, causing him to stumble. He brought his blade over and across his shield, aiming a crossing blow.

  “07 points of damage!”

  “11 points of damage, Lightning Bolt!”

  The man fell to the ground, his face grimaced in pain and smoke rising from his torso. Jay raised his sword and looked down at his target just as he felt a blow against his left shin.

  “You have taken five points of damage!”

  Lightning once again played through his body, causing him to shudder. He stepped back, away from the laying viking.

  How the hell did he hit me with two Lightning Bolts? He didn’t take any time to recharge the axe! Is he a higher level Knight Magus than I am?

  His questions would go unanswered. The other tank stepped forward and thrust his blade down, cutting into the viking’s throat. Killing him.

  Jay looked up. Another roar came from the castle keep. Screams, human and inhuman, rang from within the stone walls. Whatever was happening in there, it sounded nasty. Wulfgar’s people were being beset from both sides.

  “Burn the village!” screamed Tim. “Everything!”

  Tim’s scream rose in pitch and volume. It became one of pain and anguish, then stopped altogether.

  Jay spun, looking to the west in time to see Tim falling from the saddle. Jay immediately raised a hand and activated his Greater Heal spell, but like before it was too late. Tim lay in the orange dust, his body riddled with arrows. Big ones.

  He looked up. On the edge of town, about two dozen riders were arrayed in a half circle focusing on him and the other tanks. Elves. Dark elves. Each had a bow bigger than any rider had a right to carry and each was nocking and releasing arrows in frightening rapidity.

  Jay heard a scream to his right and, looking, saw several arrows strike one of the tanks. They cut through his heavy plate armor like a hot knife through warm cheese. One of the missiles splashed flame across the player’s chest. He dropped like a stone.

  Jay fell to one knee, raising his shield as his companions began falling around him. He saw the viking, apparently resurrected and re-equipped, standing in front of the line of elves, talking to them. Jay focused on him and launched a Lightning Bolt.

  “03 points of damage, Lightning Bolt!”

  The blond shivered as he was hit, but continued directing fire.

  Shit, thought Jay, that sucked. Becoming a Knight Magus now allowed him to cast a spell onto his weapon, and also let him use offensive magic while wearing full metal armor, but it limited his damage with direct casts. That was the one drawback.

  He looked to his blade and recharged it with a Lightning Bolt and rose, charging the line of elves.

  I’ll at least take out that blond fucker again, if nothing else!

  He stumbled past the fountain and Tim’s corpse, his shield raised in front of him. He jerked his head back as an arrow punched through the heater and the skull visor of his helmet, scoring his cheek.

  “You have taken one point of damage!”

  He began to growl as he increased his speed, sprinting toward the deadly rain of arrows. Another missile shot through his leg armor, into his right thigh.

  “You have taken seven points of damage!”

  “You have a bleeding wound!”

  Jay groaned, pushing himself ever forward.

  A bleeding wound! Not only are the arrows bigger and harder hitting, they’re enhanced too. Bleeding Wound and Fire Shot he had already seen. What else was there?

  Another arrow answered his question as it tore through the shield and into his chest. He was enveloped in a blast of lightning that dropped him to his knees.

  “You have taken six points of damage!”

  The plate at least seemed to have blunted a lot of the potential damage of the arrows, but not enough.

  “You have taken one point of damage from your open wound!”

  If he didn’t tend to that bleeding wound soon, he would bleed out and die.

  He laughed, As if I’m going to last that long!

  To accentuate the point, two more arrows knocked into his chest, putting more holes through his breastplate.

  “You have taken eight points of damage!”

  “You have taken six points of damage!”

  “You have taken one point of damage from your open wound!”

  “You have been stunned!”

  He fell forward, hard, into the dust of the square. His helmet rolled from his head as his body lolled sideways. Just before he succumbed to darkness, he saw the last of his allies falling underneath a hail of elven arrows.

  Name: Wulfgar the Mighty, Rogue Magus of Evening, King of Marchstone

  Level:06

  STR:11

  INT:09+01

  AGI:12

  PRS:02+02

  FRT:01

  HP:25 (ST+AGI + (LVL/3))

  AC:03 (Leather, Full)

  STA:18 (AGI+LVL)

  MNA:20 (INT+ (Magic Level x 2))

  ALI:Neutral Good

  REP:Mighty (+2 PRS)

  Dwarves: Dwarf Friend.

  Faerie: High Esteem

  Rats: Awe, Allied

  Orcs: Respect

  Elves: Respect, Allied

  Skills (Level):

  Alchemy (10): This skill provides the player the ability to use recipes for the creation of potions and access to those recipes that requir
e the Alchemy skill. In some cases, the skill level adds to the potion level to determine the efficacy of the brew.

  Strength Potion (1): Allows the creation of Strength potions. Drinking a Strength potion gives the player +3 Strength for four (4) hours plus ten (10) minutes per level over one (1). Recipe automatically granted at level 2 Alchemy. Buff potions cannot be stacked with the same effect.

  Intelligence Potion (1): Allows the creation of Intelligence potions. Drinking an Intelligence potion gives the player +3 Intelligence for four (4) hours plus ten (10) minutes per level over one (1). Recipe automatically granted at level 4 Alchemy. Buff potions cannot be stacked with the same effect.

  Agility Potion (1): Allows the creation of Agility potions. Drinking an Agility potion gives the player +3 Agility for four (4) hours plus ten (10) minutes per level over one (1). Recipe automatically granted at level 6 Alchemy. Buff potions cannot be stacked with the same effect.

  Mana Refresh Potion (1): Allows the creation of Mana Refresh potions. Drinking a Mana Refresh potion gives the player five (5) times their current base mana regeneration rate for ten (10) minutes plus ten seconds per level over one (1). Any other buffs for Mana regeneration are factored after the potion’s effects. Recipe automatically granted at level 8 Alchemy.

  Superior Strength Potion (1): Allows the creation of Superior Strength potions. Drinking a Superior Strength potion gives the player +6 Strength for four (4) hours plus ten (10) minutes per level over one (1). Recipe automatically granted at level 10 Alchemy. Buff potions cannot be stacked with the same effect.

  Blade Wind (2): Targets most vulnerable facing part of the opponent. Activating causes player to spin and gives a +10 to hit attack on the opponent. Player cannot be hit during the spin. Cool-down 30 seconds minus 1 second per Blade Wind level to a minimum of 10 seconds. Active. Skill automatically granted at level 3 Small Blade.

  Climbing (3): Increases ability to successfully climb what would otherwise be an impossible vertical barrier! Each level adds .5% success chance per skill check, each point of AGI adds 1%. Active. 100 - Difficulty% + (Skill Level bonus + AGI bonus) = Success %

  Cure Poison (1): Allows the creation of poison curing potions. Higher levels can cure more deadly poison. Active. Skill automatically granted at level 3 Herb Lore.

  Healing Poultices (2): Allows the creation and application of healing poultices. Amount healed is dependent upon skill level. Active. Skill automatically granted at level 2 Herb Lore.

  Herb Lore (4): Adds ability to detect and use valuable plants. Each level increases the amount of harvest as well as the detection range for the player by 1%. Passive

  Hidden Stab (4): Increases damage done using a Small Blade while in Stealth. Passive. (STR+AGI) x .5 + (Small Blade Level + Hidden Stab Level) = Additional Damage. Removes player from Stealth.

  Meditation (2): Increases the natural regeneration rate of Mana. The user must be completely still and silent to use the skill and the skill is disrupted if the user moves, speaks or receives damage (physical or magical). ((2 + (Meditation Level x .1)) x Base Regeneration Rate = Regeneration Rate. Cool-down 10 minutes minus 10 seconds per level. Active.

  Small Blade (5): Gives to-hit and damage bonuses when using a knife or short sword. Passive.

  Sorcery (5): This profession skill gives access to specific spells. The player’s Sorcery level adds to the spell level in some cases, as well as helping to determine amount of mana. Spells success depends upon relative relationship between Sorcery level and spell level. If Sorcery Level < Spell Level Then Success % = RND - Spell Level + Sorcery Level.

  Stealth (3+4): Lowers the detection likelihood and radius of the player. Each level removes 1.5% of radius, multiplied by player’s AGI. Separate checks are made for visual and aural radii, each based on several environmental variables. Each level allows for 10 seconds of stealthy movement. Cool-down 10 minutes. Active.

  Abilities:

  Highlander: +1 AGI. +1 Climbing. +10 PRS with other Highlanders.

  Magus: +2 INT +1 Meditation +1 Sorcery +1 Illumination

  Druidism: Can enshrine holy sites at sacred trees (or facsimiles) that can be used to bind. +1 Rep with Faerie.

  Items:

  Clandestine Slippers: Provides wearer level 7 Stealth. Does not stack with skill levels, but will stack with other Clandestine items. A full suit of Clandestine gear provides a +4 Stealth bonus in addition to the stacking effects. Rare. Item 3 of 4 for suit.

  Baen Si’s Cloak: Provides wearer +10% magic resistance. Once per day, has 25% chance of completely negating one (1) magical attack. Uncommon. Modified to provide +1 INT.

  Cowl of the Wolf: Provides visual camouflage in similarly colored environments, as well as infra-red cover in all environments. Reduces species aggression from Canis Arcturus to neutral. Unique. Bound.

  Shepherd’s Bite: Provides upon successful attack a 50% chance of inflicting poison damage for 1d4 damage per (1d6 + Small Blade level) seconds. All poison damage is applied to attacker as healing at 1:1.

  Sack of Herbs: Each herb or natural magical reagent placed within this bag gets ten uses. Rare.

  Spellbook: Contains all of the spells that the owner has learned. Bound.

  Illumination (3): Lights the area around the caster until the spell is canceled. Area is a sphere centered on the caster whose maximum size is determined by the spell level (3 meters plus .5 meter per level to a maximum size of 20 meters). Caster can set maximum size upon casting. 05 Mana per cast. No cool-down.

  Fire Shot (3): Sends a directed ball of flame up to five meters from the caster (plus 1 meter for every level). Maximum size of the ball is determined by the skill level of the caster. The fire can only ignite and damage flammable objects. Maximum size = ((Spell Level + Magic Level)) x .1 meter). Damage depends on flammability of object. Damage continues until flame is extinguished. 09 Mana per cast. No cool-down. Ingredients required: (1) Goat’s Rue, (1) Motherwort, (1) Mountain Mint.

  Confer (10): Grants the spell-caster the ability to confer temporary non-magic skill to another player. The skill level granted is half of the current level of the spell-caster’s modified skill level. Duration is one (1) minute per Confer level or the natural duration limit for the skill at the conferred level, whichever is lower. Mana cost is one (1) per level of skill conferred, and skill level transferred is capped by user level or mana pool, whichever is lower. Restricted to Evening. Cool-down 1 hour.

  Heal (3): Allows caster to heal another being within sight. Damage heals at a rate of one (1) hit point per level of spell skill per second. Mana is drained from caster at one-half the rate of damage healed. Cool-down 1 minute. Ingredients required: (1) Gotu Kola, (1) Goldenrod, (1) Yarrow.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you. I really appreciate that you’ve read all of these books. I have fun writing them and hope that translates into fun for you.

  I’d also like to thank the members of the LitRPG Reads and GameLit Society and LitRPG Books and RPG GameLit Society groups on Facebook, as well as the LitRPG Forum. They’ve been an awesome source of enthusiasm and feedback on these things, and the group continues to grow. Please join in the fun if you’d like to discuss, learn about, or hear release updates about the genre. I’d also like to thank everyone who has ‘liked’ my Omegaverse page or befriended me on my GR Cooper page.

  ~~~

  I often get asked if I'm going to keep all of the Omegaverse series in Kindle Unlimited.

  Short answer - yes.

  I like the *idea* of KU. A lot. Enough that I'm willing to put up with the problems. Getting paid by the page is fine. I lose money compared to a sale, but I'm willing to eat that.

  What bothers me, though, about the per page payment rate is that it gives incentives to Amazon to undercut the page count of novels. My first three novels are, according to Amazon, 170, 180 and 200 pages long. That's low by at least 50 pages for the first two, even more for the third - but we'll go ahead and assume they're accurate for this example.


  The Omnibus edition is *literally* the three files for each of the first three novels pasted into one single file. That's it - I created a new 'title' in my writing software and copied each file into it.

  The Omnibus edition of the first three Omegaverse novels is listed - by Amazon - at 440 pages.

  170+180+200 = 550 pages.

  Amazon is leaving out half of one entire novel when they factor in how much they're going to pay me for a read of the Omnibus edition.

  So I get why some authors only leave the first book or two of their series in KU and will only sell the rest. I get why some authors refuse to use KU at all.

  But I'm still a fan of the concept if not the implementation. As long as no major changes occur in KU, I plan to leave all of my books in the program. I like that folks can read all they want for the price of a couple of novels a month.

  I'm willing to support you in that.

  I'd like you to support me as well.

  If you've read, and enjoyed, the Omegaverse series in KU - leave reviews. It doesn't have to be much. It doesn't have to be insightful or provide critical feedback. Just leave a lot of stars and some nice words.

  If even 10% of the folks who read my books in KU left a review, I'd have a thousand reviews per book.

  Reviews matter. They not only help drive sales they open marketing doors - books with fewer than 500 reviews are pretty rarely accepted for marketing opportunities like Bookbub.

  So there's the quid pro quo. I leave all of the Omegaverse series in Kindle Unlimited. I take the monetary hit. In exchange, you leave reviews.

  Seems fair, right?

  ~~~