God Mode: A LitRPG Adventure (Mythrune Online Book 1)

by Derek Alan Siddoway

  That left me with:

  Unused Skill Points:

  One-Handed Battle Axe: 1

  Two-Handed Battle Axe: 4

  Exploring: 1

  Combat Assessment: 4

  Medium Armor: 2

  Assassination: 3

  Unarmed Combat: 1

  Dual Wielding: 1

  Sneaking: 3

  Heavy Armor: 1

  Mercantile: 2

  Tracking: 1

  Unassigned: 1

  I was fairly confident there was at least one other skill I could purchase in one of those Pursuit Spheres, but with my head swimming, I didn’t even want to think about it.

  It was around five o’clock when I returned to camp with the last two mules. I hadn’t found every animal that had escaped, but this pair brought me up to the required nine in the quest, which was all I cared about. I unceremoniously tossed their lead ropes to Lucas, who looked like he’d just woken up, the bastard.

  Quest Complete: Horse Play

  You have gathered enough animals for the Crystal Fen traders to continue toward the Horuk tribe encampment.

  Reward:

  — Each member of your party receives a mount from the spare animals.

  All that work and no extra Skill Points or Attribute Orbs to speak of. Though, considering all I’d received during the fight, I supposed I shouldn’t complain. The mount was a nice reward in and of itself, even if my grumpy ass didn’t want to admit it at the time.

  Unlike many other MMORPGs, MythRune allowed you to start riding a basic mount as soon as you could get your hands on one. They came in all shapes and sizes, but even the beginner-level ones weren’t cheap or easy to come by. Chalk one up for Leesha’s bargaining even though I’d been the one to actually do all the work.

  Just as I swiped the quest box away, my vision started to blur before another prompt took its place.

  Debuff Added — Sleepiness! You have been awake for twenty-eight in-game hours and are now affected by the extended Exhausted debuff (-29% to all ratings and skill effectiveness). To remove this effect, please set your character to a rest cycle for a minimum of four and a half hours. Time to rest up!

  Ugh. This stupid notification kept on bothering me as I made my way through the livestock-collecting quest. Even worse, I noticed that since I’d eclipsed twenty-four hours, I had another half hour tacked on to my required rest.

  My mood didn’t improve when I saw Leesha lounging in the grass. She’d somehow procured a floppy merchant hat and had it resting over her eyes, protecting them from the morning sunshine. I gritted my teeth and stomped over to her, ready to kick it off her head.

  The lack of sleep was clearly taking over, and before I could stop, I swung back and kicked her in the ribs. I knew she’d hardly feel anything with her pain sensitivity turned down, but what I wasn’t expecting was my foot to connect with what felt like a cement wall.

  “Ow!” My HP dipped down several points. If I’d put my whole body into it, I would have broken my avatar’s toe for sure, I realized. Apparently people in rest mode were completely impervious to any kind of damage, with repercussions I’d just painfully discovered.

  Still fuming, I figured I’d better do my best to get some real shut-eye before the merchants wanted to head out.

  I took my place several feet away from Leesha and rolled onto my side, feeling around to make sure I was in a soft enough patch. Knowing my luck, I’d end up sleeping on a rock and end up with some awkward debuff upon waking up. I opened up my menu and was just about to select Rest Mode when Leesha’s voice interrupted me.

  “Hey, Z!”

  I groaned and rolled over to meet her eager and annoyingly well-rested face.

  “When did you get back?”

  “Just now,” I said, my voice dry and unamused.

  “That took you four hours?”

  “Yes, four hours, now can you just let me go to rest mode now?”

  “Nope.”

  “What?”

  “No, you can’t sleep yet,” Leesha said. “It’s daytime. It’s the best time for traveling, and by now, the rest of the Blue Hands will be wondering what happened to their buddies. Right here is the last place we want to be when they come looking.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, even if it would have made perfect logical sense to well-rested Zane. I was not well-rested Zane.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “I didn’t want both of us to have a debuff,” Leesha said, holding her hands up. “But hang on a second. Before you freak out, take a look.”

  She beckoned for me to follow and, as we rounded one of the wagons, a pile of loot greeted me. I smiled at the sight. It wasn’t just because it looked like a solid haul, but mostly because I understood the real reason Leesha hadn’t pocketed it all for herself.

  “Waited for me, huh?” I said.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” she said with a glare.

  “Out of the goodness of your heart, huh?”

  “Only to see if you were smart enough to change the party loot setting,” she admitted.

  “And?”

  “And you were smart enough to change the loot setting.”

  In parties that trusted each other, you usually had a system where members grabbed whatever was there, and at the end of a raid or quest, everybody divided things up according to whatever rules they’d established. Another setting, and the one that I’d employed, allowed nothing outside of Attribute Orbs to be placed into one’s inventory. Leesha could literally pick up the items, but she couldn’t put them in her inventory without me relinquishing the items to her since I was party leader.

  “What if I hadn’t been smart enough to change the settings?” I asked, making her wait even longer to get her hands on her share of the haul.

  Leesha gave me a thin smile. “Guess we’ll never know.”

  My eyes perused the various armor pieces, weapons, and odds and ends pulled from the dead guards and bandits. I settled on a neat stack of RuneCoins, the easiest item to divide. Pulling up the party menu, I selected Loot, then the RuneCoins, and tapped Distribute Equally. Our RuneCoin wallets each grew by twenty. I now had a stash of 185 RuneCoins, which wasn’t bad, especially since more were on the way.

  As I looked over the pile in front of us, it became clear there wouldn’t really be much fighting between us in terms of who got what. Most of it consisted of heavy armor and big weapons, which fell into my area of expertise, or leather armor, which was more Leesha’s level — especially since she seemed very interested in developing her Sneak and Assassination Pursuits along with her general attack-related Pursuits.

  If there was a disappointment, it was that the magic users didn’t actually wear anything special. Just some now-bloodstained robes that anybody could pick up sans blood at the MythRune version of Joann Fabrics. There was no special property, aversion to specific elements or anything. Lame.

  “Yo, Johnny Slowpants,” Leesha said. “You’re doing that thing where you just stare and think for a long time.”

  “That’s because I’m thinking.”

  “Just grab an item, dude!”

  When all was said and done, I managed to find more useful gear than I expected. I had items for almost every armor slot, even if I looked more mismatched than a thrift-store junkie. My new haul included:

  Chainmail Chausses and Plate

  Description: Basically pants made out of mail rings with metal plates attached to protect your thighs. Because leg day matters. +15% Defense Rating.

  Quality: Good (Can be improved by a journeyman smith)

  Rusted Steel Pauldrons

  Description: If knights played football, they’d love these. +3% Defensive Rating.

  Quality: Fair (Can be improved by most smiths)

  Worn Leather Gloves

  Description: Just a pair of leather gloves from the medieval equivalent of a hardware store. Probably not worth the effort to fix up. +1% Defensive Rating.

  Quality: Poor (Don�
��t bother trying to improve these)

  After equipping all the pieces of armor, I looked at my character screen. I was only one step above Don Quixote in terms of fashion, but it still felt pretty good to get all my vital parts protected, especially considering my pain sensitivity. None of the items were in pristine condition, and all needed some mild repair, but I’d cross that bridge when I got to it.

  Leesha made out pretty well herself. As I looked up from my menu, I saw her dual wielding a pair of improved daggers. She also had a large bow and quiver slung across her back.

  “Since when did you learn to use a bow and arrow?”

  “I’ll have you know, bows and arrows were my specialty in beta.” She took out the bow and gave it a test pull. MythRune drew the realism line by not requiring players to unstring their bows when they weren’t in use.

  “It looks pretty heavy.”

  “It looks heavier than it is,” Leesha said, looking back and forth from me and her bow. She had an arrow on the string and gave it a few experimental pulls. “You’re going to hate me.”

  “I already hate you,” I assured her.

  “Please don’t hate me,” Leesha said. “Promise you won’t hate me?”

  “What can you possibly — ow!”

  Before I could even blink, Leesha drew back and shot me through the foot. I wanted to collapse to the ground, but doing so would have required pulling the arrow out of not only my foot, but the earth it was buried in as well.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I yelled. Gritting my teeth, I broke the arrow in half. Luckily before I had to go through the excruciating effort to pull my foot free, the arrow faded and I started to heal.

  Leesha put her hands in a praying position. “Sorry, Z! When you did a pinning shot like that in the beta, you got a whole bunch of Skill Points as a reward. I wanted to make sure I could get them and didn’t think it’d be smart to wait until I had to do it to some random bandit who wouldn’t sit still.”

  “You could have at least warned me first,” I said, my breathing finally slowing as I relaxed as the pain subsided. “Please tell me you still get those points in the real game. And don’t do that ever again.”

  Leesha gave me a sheepish grin. “Uh-huh. Yeah. Just like before. Same Skill Points and all.”

  “You didn’t get any, did you?”

  “Hey, you can’t blame me for that! The real game’s been annoyingly different from beta, and you know it.”

  I gave her an unamused glare.

  “Look at the bright side,” she said, as if I were complaining for a completely unwarranted reason, “I did still get one Skill Point.”

  “Wow, that’s so great.”

  There was one last item we hadn’t claimed yet, and I did so then to provide a distraction from my maniacal companion. The second I claimed the Mysterious Map, a notification popped up.

  Quest Updated: The Road Less Traveled

  Objectives:

  1. You have located the hideout of the Blue Hand Raiders thanks to a map taken from a dead bandit. Travel to the hideout to learn more about their alliance with the Eedari.

  2. Kill the remaining members of the Blue Hand Raiders.

  Exactly what we needed: a legitimate lead! As productive as this entire quest thread with the bandits had ultimately been in terms of loot and advancement, it all meant nothing if it didn’t lead somewhere. I hoped that “somewhere” involved a tournament token.

  I opened my map and found a new waypoint to the east. It was in uncharted territory for me and far from precise directions, but at least it gave us a direction…even if that direction meant we’d be going out of our way to deliver the merchants safely to the Horuk camp.

  “Looks like we’ve got some work to do!” Leesha said, swiping away an invisible screen. I assumed she’d gotten the same quest update as I did when I picked up the map. “Let’s get a move on!”

  I groaned as my vision blurred slightly. But there was nothing for it — the sooner we got back, the sooner we could continue on with our real goal of eliminating raiders.

  “Now, the one question is…” Leesha put a finger to her lips as she looked down the line of potential mounts. “Which one of these adorable beasts wants to do the honor of carrying me, for better or for worse, in battle and peace, in sickness and health?”

  None of the horses so much as whinnied in response, but one mostly white steed with a black diamond pattern on its face lifted its head slightly. I couldn’t have said for sure, but I thought he was switching his head at a fly buzzing around his ear.

  “Ah, we have a volunteer!”

  “And you call me a nerd,” I said.

  “Correction. I called you a square. Which you are.” Leesha patted the bridge of the horse’s nose. “You can be a nerd without being a square.” She then turned to the black diamond-faced horse, asking for affirmation in a baby-talk tone. “Can’t you, my cute little trusty steed?”

  I turned my attention to one of the ostrasaurs that had been ridden by the Urok guards. While they wouldn’t inspire any heroic statues, they were much better suited for Uroks than horses. With their stockier builds, they suffered much less fatigue and balance issues, even if they weren’t quite as fast. A quick examination confirmed both their stats were equal — I’d have to rely on another method to pick between them.

  Whereas the first ostrasaur looked at me with some serious trepidation, the other merely glanced my way with a glossy-eyed look before turning back to grazing. When he picked his head up again, he stared off into space as his lower jaws worked a mouthful of grass. Maybe not the brightest dinosaur ever, but I’d take that over one that threw me off at the first sign of danger. It wasn’t like I was going to specialize in mounted combat, anyway.

  I gave him a pat on the head, to which he responded with a gentle nudging in the direction of my hand. “Attaboy, Frank,” I said without thinking.

  “Frank?” Leesha said, riding up on her stallion. “You’re literally riding a dinosaur, and you’re calling him Frank?”

  “Life is complicated. I don’t know why I need to put any more work into naming him than the first thing that comes to my head. Besides” — I rubbed Frank’s face — “doesn’t he just look like a Frank?”

  “He looks like an idiot. Like the digital gods didn’t spare him any intelligence points.”

  I glared at Leesha and the prancing stallion she rode. “And what, O Great Namer of Names, did you decide to call your mount?”

  “Beauty.” The way she said it left no room for criticism.

  I climbed into the ostrasaur’s saddle and gave it a few quick taps with my heels. Frank didn’t move.

  “Come on, Frank,” I said. “Get going. Don’t make me look like an idiot in front of the bad lady.”

  “Too late,” Leesha called as her horse cantered away.

  Well, that wouldn’t do. I wasn’t going to let some prissy Sylvad show me up.

  “Frank, let’s g—” I smacked the side of the ostrasaur’s neck. It let out a panicked bleat and barreled forward. I instinctively tightened my legs, but that only made him ramble forward even faster.

  If there was one thing I hated about MythRune that hadn’t changed from beta, it was horseback riding — especially at the beginning when your character was learning to ride. I’d performed a lot of amazing athletic feats IRL in my day, but perhaps my most humiliating moment had been my first attempt to ride a horse. I had selected Frank in hopes that he’d be an easy one to master. Apparently I was wrong.

  “Whoa!” It went against every instinct I had for self-preservation, but I relaxed my legs as I pulled back on his reins. After a few seconds, the beast finally came to a stop.

  “Great one, Z.” Leesha laughed. “You look just like a valiant knight on the back of his trusty steed.”

  “You look like…” I tried to search my brain for an insult, but nothing came out. Honestly, Leesha looked like she was British gentry out on a fox hunt the way she handled her horse.

  Fo
rtunately a new notification saved me from her smug look.

  Congratulations! You have unlocked the Riding & Combat Riding Pursuit Sphere! Open your Pursuits Menu for more information.

  Riding & Combat Riding: Whether in battle or on a long journey, the smart adventurer knows the advantages that come from the back of a trusty steed.

  +1 Riding & Combat Riding Skill Point

  As I rode the ostrasaur — who had finally started to calm down — a pair of circles appeared in my party display at the corner of my vision. One for Frank, and another for Leesha’s horse, Beauty. I wanted to ask her who named a male horse Beauty but figured I didn’t need any more unwanted attention until I had both feet firmly on the ground.

  “Move out!” Lucas called out as I closed Frank’s stat menu. My eyes spent way too long readjusting to focusing on the outside world, reminding me of my exhausted debuff.

  The good news was that our journey to the hunting camp proved to be an uneventful one. Whether the Blue Hand Raiders hadn’t started looking for their missing members or if we’d outpaced them, I didn’t know. And I honestly didn’t mind.

  The bad news was that the swaying was so relaxing that I had to constantly keep myself from falling asleep. And even when I did doze off for a few minutes, it did nothing to improve my debuff. The rules were clear: only a legit rest mode cured sleeping debuffs. I considered lashing myself to Frank’s saddle and activating rest mode, but a quick test of my plan resulted in an alert warning me that I could not enter rest mode while moving.

  After hours of slow riding (and a couple of Riding & Combat Riding Skill Points later), we finally came upon the Horuk camp. I could barely keep my eyes open. By then, my debuff had climbed past the thirty-two-hour range. That meant I was more than one-third less effective at all of my skills and stat ratings. Plus, I now required five hours of sleep to return to normal status.