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

by Derek Alan Siddoway

  The shaman chuckled in response, his mild-mannered demeanor back. “I only hope it will serve the two of you well. But remember, it’s only for the next twenty-four hours. So no time to dillydally.”

  We thanked the Jotun leader and exited the lodge…only to find our redheaded friend wide-awake from his rest mode.

  “Oh, great,” Leesha muttered as she held a hand to her eyes, blocking him from her vision. “Just don’t make eye contact.”

  “You know he can still see you, right?”

  “Hey, it’s you guys again,” the prisoner said as we passed the bone cage.

  “Now he can!” Leesha let out an exhausted sigh.

  “This is great — I thought you’d left! You’re headed to the temple, yeah? I can help! Just tell the Jotuns to let me out!”

  It was at this point I made the mistake of feeling bad enough for the guy to apologize for leaving him behind. He jumped on me like two alley cats in heat.

  “I’m Dart. Please don’t leave me here.”

  While I had no desire to have Dart join our quest, I gave Leesha a sideways look, begging her to get us out of the situation with her bluntness. Instead, she held up her hands and backed away.

  “What, you want me to be the bad guy? Okay, fine. It’s this easy. Watch.” Leesha turned around and walked away.

  “Thanks,” I grumbled. I cleared my throat, feeling like a total asshat for what I was about to say. But Brandon’s life was on the line, and I couldn’t afford any more screwups.

  “Sorry, man,” I said with a shrug. “I really —”

  “Please don’t leave me here!” The guy fell to his knees, literally begging. “You can have all the loot — I don’t care. Just help me get out.”

  His voice sounded almost frantic by this point, but nothing would come before Brandon.

  “We have to come back to turn in the quest,” I said. “I promise I’ll talk to the Jotuns then and try to get you out.”

  I felt like a complete tool the whole way out of the Jotun village. Picturing myself in Dart’s situation, it wasn’t hard to imagine how desperate he was. What kind of messed-up game allowed a player to be locked up for days? I wondered if he’d thought of putting in a support ticket. There had to be something the dude could do to fix his predicament. That didn’t make me feel any better about myself, though. Dying or not, I knew Brandon would have insisted we help the guy out if he’d been in my place.

  “Head in the game, Z. We’re almost there,” Leesha said as we crested a snowy, pine-covered hill. As soon as we reached the top, an ebony structure loomed out of the drifts, every corner of it looking as sharp as the edge of my battle axe. Had I not known any better, I would have thought we’d stumbled into some evil wizard’s lair, not a sacred Jotun temple. Magic had to have played a part in the construction — the whole thing looked like a giant stone thistle on steroids. Leesha gave a low whistle.

  “That thing looks like it was ripped straight out of a fantasy novel. I almost expect to see a bunch of marching guards yelling out, ‘Oh-ee-oh, eoh-ah!’”

  “What?” I said, not understanding.

  “You’re kidding. You don’t get that?”

  “I just don’t —”

  A loud roar cut me off. The snowbank a few yards in front of us suddenly sprang to life. A pair of giant jaws snapped out at me as I leaped away, drawing my battle axe in the process. The off-white mass roared again and shook, revealing a giant polar bear with shards of ice sticking out at random angles from his massive frame like some frozen demon porcupine. This definitely wasn’t one of those scarf-wearing, Coke-drinking sorts.

  I immediately enabled my Combat Assessment Skills.

  Frost Bear, Level 6

  The name was in red, meaning that we should have been running about then. But before I could make the suggestion, two arrows whipped past me and struck the frost bear in the front paws, pinning it to the snow.

  “That’s right, eat arrow, Frosty!” Leesha yelled.

  “Guess we’re doing this,” I muttered to myself, digging for courage. “Here goes nothing!”

  Screaming, I charged forward and swung a diagonal strike at the beast. It pulled away just as my axe struck, resulting in a glancing blow that sliced its shoulder. I followed it up with another slice and an Overpowering Blow that resulted in a satisfying crunch.

  +1 Two-Handed Battle Axe Skill Point

  While the frost bear took quite the dip in its HP, it was far from down. Yanking its paws free with a snarl of pain, it plowed toward me like a thousand-pound fullback. Lowering its massive head — thankfully devoid of icicles — the bear hit me hard in the chest and I went flying.

  I landed in a bank of powdery snow a solid thirty feet back, gasping for breath. Luckily, nothing was broken. Leesha tried to draw aggro, but as I scrambled to my feet, the terrifying beast headed straight for me. A horrible thought crossed my mind: for me, this was the equivalent of actually being attacked by a polar bear in real life.

  It took everything I had to stand my ground as the monster charged. At the last second, I dove aside, only to catch a nasty sideswipe that hit my shoulder and knocked me into the snow again. My armor caught most of the blow, but by the time I rolled over, the frost bear had me.

  But rather than tearing me to shreds, it reared up on its hind legs, bellowing in rage and triumph. In full armor and in the snow, I was like a turtle on its back. I scrambled to find something to pull me away before those massive paws came down to mash me into Urok pudding.

  My hand grabbed something like a branch — my axe handle! Just as the bear dropped down, I brought my axe up, triggering another Overpowering Blow. The combined force of the move and the bear’s momentum jerked the axe from my hand as it struck.

  +3 Two-Handed Battle Axe Skill Points

  The mighty beast collapsed on top of me, driving the back of my own axe into my chest. My breastplate held, but I was once again without breath.

  Razor-sharp ice and white fur filled my vision. The icicles dug into every part of me, one even going through the slit of my helmet and stabbing me in the chin. Without my armor I would have been shredded, because the frost bear wasn’t dead. Oh no. Although he had to have been on his last bits of hit points, the bear struggled to rise with me underneath him, pushing me deeper into the snow, and it grunted in pain.

  I couldn’t move my head. In my panicked state, I started to hyperventilate and felt like I was suffocating. I yelled and struggled, but all my efforts earned me was a jarring blow on the side of my helmet from what I imagined was the bear’s head.

  And then the bear went still.

  I had the smallest air pocket to breathe in, but it took way longer than I would have liked for Leesha to partially dig down in the snow and drag me out from under the bear. I could do nothing but lie there until she pulled me far enough out that my arms were free. When I finally escaped my hellish burial, we sat next to the dead frost bear, catching our breath.

  “You know, you picked like the worst character build for a guy who can feel everything,” Leesha said.

  “Believe me, I know,” I said. The thought of agonizing pain was starting to make me hesitate, which wouldn’t do either of us any good. “Maybe you should rush into battle, and I can pick them off from afar.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Leesha said.

  I was surprised there wasn’t any sarcasm in her voice. Or that she hadn’t told me that would cost more. “Thanks,” I said, hoping she knew how much I appreciated it. Still, when push came to shove, I’d have to suck it up and be the lead blocker.

  Dodging what Leesha identified as more frost bear snow mounds, we soon found ourselves at the entrance to the ominous black structure. I had thought maybe its sharp-looking nature had been exaggerated by the distance, but up close I could tell that bumping against the angles would cut like a sword.

  We pushed open the ten-foot doors of the temple, which gave way much easier than I thought they would. Inside, the air within smelled sickening
. The silence pressed down on us from the depths, and nothing stirred.

  Leesha sniffed. “It smells like…dead things.”

  Were it not for the smell, you never would have gotten the impression that this place had been overrun with monsters. Icy blue tile led from where we stood at the entrance to the cavernous depths of the hall. Enchanted torches flickered with pale, white flames, casting shadows on the ebony pillars. Studying the chamber, I noticed something interesting. I couldn’t find any doors or pathways that led to any of the tall towers of the temple that I saw outside.

  +1 Exploring Skill Points

  And apparently the game rewarded me for noticing the odd architectural quirk. I mentioned my insight to Leesha.

  “They must just be a façade. Where this temple really goes is underground.” As she spoke, she leaned on a nearby banister. It gave way against the pressure, and an entire set of stone pews parted several feet away. I stared from Leesha to the hidden entrance and back.

  “How did you…?”

  She winked. “Told you I had skills. The Underground Pursuits come in handy.”

  A set of stairs led underground. Thankfully, the walls were lined with more enchanted torches so we wouldn’t have to stumble around in the dark. I looked at Leesha, who seemed almost as anxious as I was, and nodded. This would be our first real dungeon dive together. Our first chance to put our abilities and experience to the test.

  I took a deep breath and descended.

  33

  Temple Run

  After entering from above, the temple turned into a confusing mess of catacombs. It was easy to get lost and even easier to run into groups of deadly monsters, such as the mini mobs of ice gremlins we’d been forced to cut down at almost every turn. We spent the next hour and a half fighting our way down several paths, getting lost, finding our way back, repeat, repeat, repeat. Even more frustrating, Leesha didn’t want to waste our health-regen items, so we had to sit still several times as our HP naturally refilled.

  “Wait! The other way!” I turned the corner just in time to see Leesha step on a booby trap and get impaled by a pair of spears that shot out from the walls on either side. Her health bar dipped down to zero from its already-precarious position, and she went limp. The spears retreated into the walls, and her body collapsed to the floor, a pool of blood expanding under her.

  Avoiding the tile that set off the trap, I bent down and touched her arm. This should have resuscitated her immediately, but it didn’t. I turned around and saw three ice gremlins making their way toward me from another corridor. Instead of trying to engage them, I picked up Leesha’s body and threw it over my shoulder. In order for her to revive, I had to get outside a combat zone.

  After a few wrong turns and near-misses with some reanimated corpses and gremlins, I finally found myself at the bottom of the staircase. Halfway up the stairs, Leesha inhaled with a gasp.

  I tossed her onto the stone stairs. “Well, that was uncharacteristically stupid of you.”

  While Leesha was a rogue-type player, she had yet to work on any of her Detect Trap skills due to the fact this was our first dungeon. At that point, she was just proficient enough to uncover some of the more painful traps in the dungeon, including one that sent ice shards straight into my face and exposed skin, basically setting it on fire…with ice. If I could die, I was pretty sure I would have six times over. As it was, I’d been in some form of pain practically every minute since we’d descended the hidden staircase.

  “Let me check my Pursuit Spheres,” I said while we waited for her to heal. “Maybe there’s something else that can help us out.”

  “Take your time. It’ll take a bit for my health to come back anyway.” Leesha looked down at the holes in her armor made by the spears and scoffed. “That really was stupid of me, wasn’t it?”

  I just shrugged and pulled up my Pursuits Menu. The one reward of wandering around the temple catacombs was that I’d earned a bunch of random Skill Points. Hopefully, I had enough to make a difference in some way.

  Unused Skill Points

  One-Handed Battle Axe: 1

  Two-Handed Battle Axe: 10

  Exploring: 8

  Combat Assessment: 0

  Medium Armor: 2

  Assassination: 3

  Unarmed Combat: 1

  Dual Wielding: 1

  Sneaking: 3

  Heavy Armor: 3

  Mercantile: 4

  Tracking: 3

  Riding & Combat Riding: 4

  Survival: 3

  Unassigned: 1

  The two Pursuits that stood out most to me were the Two-Handed Battle-Axe Pursuit and the Exploring Pursuit. Both had served me well thus far, but I really needed to up the ante if I was going to survive in this dungeon. Of course, I’d survive either way, but at our rate, we’d spend the next ten days trying to grind through this icy hell. To make matters worse, none of the drops from these guys were Attributes, so we weren’t even getting much stronger as we made our way through.

  This was a three-man dungeon, no doubt about that. And even with three in our party, I wasn’t sure we’d have what it took to tackle it.

  Except you’re special, I reminded myself. You have something no one else has. You have something gamers around the world would kill to have.

  I opened up my Two-Handed Battle Axe Pursuit Sphere and scanned the different possibilities. I needed something that would benefit me now. Something that could actually assist in getting Leesha and me through the godforsaken ice temple.

  Tier 1:

  Hook and Hack (Unlocked) — Hook your enemies with your axe and hack at them once they’re down.

  Lock and Twist — Hook your enemy’s weapon with your battle axe and twist it away. Requires 5 Skill Points.

  Cyclone (Unlocked) — Spin around in circles with your axe in hand, taking your ferocious enemies down in style.

  Swing Speed Increased by 5% (Unlocked)

  Disregarding some of the more expensive Tier 2 Skills, I unlocked Lock and Twist, lowering my total number of Two-Handed Battle Axe Skill Points from 10 to 5.

  Next, I opened up the Exploring Pursuit Sphere. Reading over the different skills, I smacked my forehead with the palm of my head in mild frustration.

  Tier 1:

  Backtrack — Set an anchor point that allows you to trace your trail back to it like breadcrumbs. Area of effect: One half of a mile. Requires 3 Skill Points.

  Dungeon Diver Level 1 — Can’t find the exit? This special skill will allow you to map the safest route from entrance to exit of any level in a dungeon classified as Level 1 — though “safest” doesn’t always mean safe! Requires 5 Skill Points.

  Pathfinder Level 1 (Unlocked) — It ain’t easy being green in the world of exploring. While “as the crow flies” is the quickest way to get from point A to B, the terrain of any landscape sometimes makes that impossible. Based on your skill level, you will be able to search out hidden paths of varying difficulty.

  What’s That? — This skill will allow you to better notice items hidden off the beaten path, or even ones hidden in plain sight! Requires 6 Skill Points.

  “I have two skills in the Exploring Pursuit Sphere that can help,” I said, annoyed I hadn’t checked my Pursuits sooner after all of the points we’d been earning. “One helps track the way we came, and another helps guide us to the exit of a level in dungeon.”

  “So I’ve been dying for nothing!”

  “Forget you, I’ve literally been put through a wood chipper thanks to my stupidity,” I said, unlocking Backtrack and Dungeon Diver Level 1. I hoped those new skills would save us future pain and death.

  “Don’t get too excited,” Leesha said as I closed the Pursuits Menu, “but me setting off that one trap actually gave me enough Skill Points to unlock Detect Trap Level 2. I think we might actually stand a chance now!”

  With that, I drove a stake into the ground at the base of the stairs and activated the Dungeon Diver Level 1 skill. Several things happened. On my map,
a green line showed where I’d come from, and a red one showed where I needed to go, but more helpfully, on my HUD were red and green arrows. Like the lines, the green ones showed how to get back to where I planted the stake, and the red showed the safest way to get out.

  +2 Exploring Skill Points

  This was exactly what we needed. The two of us started down the familiar corridor, better prepared for what lay ahead.

  Hopefully.

  While I wouldn’t call what followed a walk in the park, the ease with which we found a path and detected traps made me realize how big it all was. Without utilizing our newfound skills, it might have taken us days to get through the catacombs.

  But the going was still slow. By the time we made our way to the end of the third floor, I was absolutely beat, both literally and figuratively.

  We took each corner carefully, attracted each monster one at a time, and then retreated so we could take them down one at a time — though some of them were still a hassle to kill, and I continued to take an unenviable number of hits and slashes that continued to paint the corridors in dark blood.

  I leaned up against a frost-covered wall, taking in heavy breaths.

  We had initially managed to isolate one Jotun frost zombie, only for it to cry out at the last minute, signaling for a handful of other monsters to join in on the fun. Leesha had been killed again, and I found myself going toe-to-toe to with two monsters alone. What resulted was nothing less than pure pain.

  There was no way I was carrying Leesha way the hell back where we came from, so I continued to take the hits from these monsters, landing enough little hits along the way, finally taking out the last zombie after about twenty-five minutes of combat — combat that probably looked boring and pathetic to any third person.

  I collapsed to the floor, my HP hovering at zero, but not actually hitting it. God Mode at work.