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

by Derek Alan Siddoway

  Firebrand

  Day 8 — Twelve Days to Tournament Start

  “We’d better be ready for this. I really don’t wanna go back and get that ‘gift’ of his again, ya know?” Leesha said.

  I let out an exhausted sigh. Following our rest, for the sake of completion, we’d returned to get another blessing from the Jotun shaman, and Leesha hadn’t shut up about how annoying it was.

  Even when we stopped by the local shop in the village to buy potions and revives, she couldn’t find it in herself to just let it go. She only grew more persistent on the matter as we entered and plunged deeper into the bowels of the Temple of Hoarfrost, retracing our steps from before.

  After making our way past the trail of dead bodies we’d left behind in our previous dungeon dive, we stopped at the collapsed wall within the weremammoth chamber, taking the time to go through our new Arcana Pursuits in preparation for the coming boss battle against the yeti.

  “You listening?” Leesha said, eager to bend my ear about the obnoxious Jotun shaman once more.

  “A little busy,” I said, in the midst of reading through my new Arcane Fire menu, whose details weren’t filling me with any confidence.

  “Well, so much for arcana being any use to me.” I cursed under my breath and hit the wall with a restrained punch.

  “What?” Leesha said, half-concerned, half-preoccupied with her own research into Arcane Darkness.

  “I think the arcane is pretty much going to be useless to me,” I said, my tone and anger rising.

  In committing to a full tank character, there was one Attribute I hadn’t bothered with at all: my Intelligence. Sitting at only two, my Intelligence resulted in an arcana pool of forty. If I wanted to utilize Arcane Pursuit Spheres in any meaningful way, I’d really have to invest more in Intelligence, which was completely contrary to my strategy.

  Leesha only snorted when I told her as much. “No surprises there. You can’t be the best at everything. The best you can do is use Arcane Fire in specific instances to gain an edge before hammering the enemy with your battle axe. You don’t magic things. You hit them.”

  I was about to agree when a blinking sphere on the edge of the menu caught my eye. I focused my attention on it and the word Firebrand appeared. Intrigued, I opened up the Pursuit Sphere and found the following requirements for the first tier of skills.

  - Unlock at least two tiers in a weapons-related category

  - Raise your Attack Attribute to at least 5

  - Unlock Arcane Fire

  Well, that was easy enough, but what did the Firebrand Pursuit even do? I had no use for magic that let me shoot off vanity firework spells or ranged attacks. I hovered over the Firebrand text at the bottom, where an asterisk sat. The asterisk opened up a text box.

  Firebrand: This special Pursuit Sphere combines arcana use with close-combat and melee tactics. When using Firebrand skills, arcana is calculated based on the user’s Attack instead of Intelligence. By focusing on this Pursuit, you receive 20 Arcana for every Attack Attribute Point you’ve invested. This special reserve is only available for Firebrand skills.

  “Huh,” I said aloud.

  “What is it?” Leesha said, this time with more intrigue than she had before. She was probably done figuring out her Arcana Pursuit Spheres and was waiting on me.

  “Hang on,” I said, glancing at my current Attack. As of right now, my Attack was at 5. That meant my arcana within the Firebrand Pursuit Sphere would sit at 100 — a solid 60 higher than my arcana within Intelligence. The skills could be especially helpful if I wanted to chop my way through an ice yeti — which I totally did. I glanced at the Tier 1 skills — of which there were only three instead of the usual four.

  Tier 1:

  Flaming Weapon Tier 1 — Light your weapon on fire for 30 seconds, causing an additional 15% fire damage — 20% to enemies with a weakness to fire, and 0% to enemies who themselves are made of fire. (Cost: 1 arcana per second) Requires 1 Arcana Skill Point.

  Berserker’s Inferno — A fiery rage fills your soul, causing your body to burst into flames for one minute! +5% Defense, +5% Attack, Fire Damage to any enemy you come in contact with. (Cost: 50 arcana) Requires 6 Arcana Skill Points.

  Fiery Fists of Fury — Light your fists on fire for 35 seconds, causing an additional 15% fire damage — 20% to enemies with a weakness to fire, and 0% to enemies who themselves are made of fire. (Cost: 1 arcana per ten seconds) Requires 1 Arcana Skill Point.

  Tier 2: Unlocked when Tier 1 is completely unlocked (except for Tier 2 skills, which are available after their respective Tier 1 skills are unlocked).

  Flaming Weapon Tier 2 — Light your weapon on fire for 30 seconds, causing an additional 15% fire damage — 20% to enemies with a weakness to fire, and 0% to enemies who themselves are made of fire. (Cost: 1 arcana per second) Requires 2 Arcana Skill Points, Flaming Weapon Tier 1.

  I could see the inherent weaknesses already. The actual skills were pretty limited — at least for the first tier. It was probably a significant step down from some of the other stuff I’d be able to do in the other Arcana Pursuits. It sucked, but it made sense. The devs likely wanted to give battle-centric characters a chance to utilize fire abilities, but didn’t want them to be too OP. I sighed, wishing it would have been a balance issue they caught after the tournament, then allocated my single Unassigned Arcane Fire Skill Point into the Flaming Weapon skill.

  You have learned Flaming Weapon Tier 1!

  When I finally exited the menu, I was met by Leesha’s nervous face.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  Leesha shrugged. “You know that feeling you get after hacking your way through a dungeon and you’re standing outside the boss’s door? Like that sweaty-palm feeling where it feels like you have lead marbles in your toes? That’s what I have right now.”

  I laughed. “What do you care?” I said. “You’re not the one who has the pain set to one hundred percent.”

  “You know, it’s not fun for me either, watching you get smashed into a pulp, knowing full well that you’re feeling every bit of it.”

  “So if I didn’t feel it, it’d be fun?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Leesha said. “If you didn’t feel it, I’d be backstabbing the crap out of you just for the heck of it.” She winked at me, though I could tell she was forcing it.

  “It’s going to be fine,” I assured her. “You let me have a whole bunch of Attribute Orbs, I have a fire ability to help us out, and we have a few different strategies that can work wonders on this guy. Hopefully. And you have Arcane Darkness skills now. I couldn’t think of a better match. I draw fire, you do the attacking. If he’s especially slow, we’ll do the opposite so I can do the attacking. Easy.”

  “Right,” Leesha said with a nod. “You’re right. We got this.”

  We stared down the dark, imposing tunnel. Who knew what horrors awaited us in the frozen abyss. Oh, right — a giant snow sasquatch awaited us. And I would face it, for Brandon.

  38

  Yeti-Gain

  The tunnel was completely frozen, ice-coated from floor to ceiling. No surprises there — we were somewhere in the guts of a cold, nasty mountain range. And, of course, the ice was über-realistically slick and cold. Both Leesha and I slipped and fell on our asses multiple times before we’d covered the length of a football field. Once, Leesha fell hard on her side and careened straight for the edge of the path that just so happened to end in a nasty underground cliff. Only a last minute dagger stab into the ground saved her long enough for me to crawl forward and pull her back from the edge of the abyss.

  We were a lot more careful after that. I didn’t want to think about what would happen to me if I fell down a bottomless pit. So, of course, that was exactly what I started thinking about. Would I just fall forever until I was forced to log out? What if I hit the bottom and came to in complete darkness, alive in an area of the game no developer ever meant for a player to experience?

  The good news was I didn’t have t
o worry about that for long, because the tunnel soon opened up into a massive underground dungeon full of ice stalagmites and stalactites the size of telephone poles. Oh yeah, and a big bad boss yeti.

  Unlike the weremammoth, the yeti didn’t wait long before he made his presence known. As soon as we crossed from the tunnel threshold into the ice-covered chamber, the familiar roar we’d heard the night before enveloped us. Both Leesha and I had already covered our ears — we weren’t about to suffer ruptured eardrums a second time. The stadium-sized room shook, and several massive icicles dropped from the subterranean ceiling and shattered just yards from us. A cascade of snow and ice chips followed the explosion, like we’d just smashed the world’s largest mirror.

  When the frost settled, I looked up to assess the danger. There were more icy stalactites than I could count. Seemed a pretty safe bet that they’d smash us to a pulp if we got caught under one, but my immediate attention was drawn back to the boss as it stepped into the glow of enchanted ice. I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting, even after seeing a yeti in Tauren’s book. This thing avalanched every written or drawn description of it in the worst way.

  If a gorilla and a snowman had a three-way with one of the frost bears outside the temple, it might have come close. The yeti was at least twice the height of the weremammoth, covered in ice-matted white fur. As an Urok, I was a pretty big dude, but the yeti itself couldn’t have been shorter than fifteen feet — enough to make me feel like a damn leprechaun. I suppressed my instinct to flee, instead activating Combat Assessment.

  +1 Combat Assessment Skill Point

  “Ah, crap,” I said involuntarily as the text above the yeti’s head flashed not with red, but gold, indicating a boss. I didn’t know if that was worse than white (run for yo’ life, foo!) or if we stood a chance. Then the Level 10 marker also appeared.

  “How’s it looking?” Leesha asked.

  “You don’t want to know,” I said, without taking my eyes off the yeti. My heart sank as I activated Weak Spot. This dude was either too high level for the skill to be any use, or the yeti had none.

  “No, trust me. I wanna know.”

  “Somewhere between we’re in for the fight of our lives and we’re doomed, I’d say.”

  “That doesn’t tell me anything, you know,” she said with an irritated scoff.

  The yeti boss stooped forward and rested its weight on long powerful arms like an ape. Its mouth was a mess of twisted fangs and frozen lines of drool. Beady black eyes full of hatred dared us to step onto the ice shelf and have a go with the brute. A part of me wondered if we should turn back right then and there. That, though, was short-lived because it apparently got tired of waiting and hurled a canoe-sized chunk of ice at us.

  The boss must have been a football field away, but it threw the ice chunk so hard (and so poorly aimed) that it slammed into the ceiling overhead. Leesha and I barely had time to dive back into the tunnel as a downpour of razor-sharp icicles crashed to the ground where we’d been standing. I say we dove back, but really we just slipped on the ice and frantically scrambled for cover. It was clear we wouldn’t have reliable footing for this fight.

  Just as we managed to get our footing, ole Frosty the King Kong Snow Bear came at us.

  Using its knuckles to lumber forward, the yeti covered ten yards with each bound. It was like seeing the world’s largest, angriest lineman coming right at you for a downfield block, and all you could do was stand there and take it.

  “Good luck, Z — try to stay on your feet!” Somehow, even in the face of the yeti, Leesha’s earlier confidence had returned, and she darted away to the left, her Sylvad dexterity skills activated to handle the ice with ease.

  I had no such figure skater abilities. I pulled the battle axe from my back and jogged as fast as I dared along the far right wall. Seeing us split off in opposite directions, the yeti stopped in its tracks in confusion. Its hideous face switched from me to Leesha and back, trying to parse out this complex dilemma. Well, at least it wasn’t too smart.

  After a long moment, the boss snarled and shook its head as if to say, “screw it, I’ll just kill the Urok guy.”

  I had no idea how the yeti could move so fast on the ice without falling, but it was on me in an instant. It lifted its giant paw to swipe at me, but as I raised my weapon to give it a battle axe high five, the yeti’s wooly body continued sliding and crashed into me like a freight train. My entire body cracked and popped as we both crashed into the wall. I might have been wearing my Helmet of the Lucky, but that didn’t keep the stars from popping into my eyes as my head bounced off the cavern wall.

  A second later, the yeti shoved off the wall. All I could do was sink to the ground and hope I didn’t get squished like a bug on the sidewalk.

  A glance at my HP showed that single hit had dropped me down to seventy percent. A list of debuffs scrolled by, and I wisely ignored them all. I felt bad enough to know I’d just taken a whooping — I didn’t need to read about it in the moment, too. I tasted blood, and a quick wipe of my nose confirmed that it was broken — wiping a broken nose probably wasn’t the smartest idea, but that wasn’t important in that moment. I looked up at the yeti, which let out a roar of pain and clawed at its back.

  The creature spun around, revealing a scattering of arrows lodged in the middle of its back. Sucking it up, I stood on shaky feet and charged as fast as I dared on the ice, activating my Flaming Weapon skill in the process. I swung with all my might, all the while hoping I didn’t fall. The fiery edge of my axe buried itself deep into the yeti’s rear end.

  Critical Hit!

  My victory was fleeting at best. I’d struck a solid blow, but when the yeti whipped around to see who’d just tried to chop off his butt cheek, I slid away like an Olympic curling stone. Desperate Urok fingers grasped at my axe handle to no avail. At the last moment, I made the split decision to ditch the weapon and half ran, half crawled on the ice to reach Leesha. I turned to see the boss still struggling to dislodge both the arrows and the axe. As rewarding as it was to have survived the first exchange, the yeti’s health dipped a pathetically small margin — maybe five percent at best.

  This wasn’t looking good.

  Leesha looked as cool and collected as an old west gunfighter, calmly drawing arrow after arrow and sending them into the beast. “Where’s your axe?” she asked in surprise.

  “I lost it in his ass, okay?” I yelled back. A glance showed me the last of my debuffs had faded. For good measure, I yanked the cork out of a health potion I’d picked up at the Frostfang village and downed it, bringing me back up to eighty-five or so percent.

  “What the — why’d you do that?”

  “It was an accident!”

  “You know we can’t beat him if you don’t have a weapon, right?”

  “You think?” Growling in irritation, I went back for my axe, this time running and dropping onto my side to slide closer. It was much less graceful than it sounds. The boss, still being peppered with arrows, turned this way and that to reach for my weapon’s handle. I waited for my opportunity — okay, I was stalling, so sue me — to get the axe back. What little luck we had left spent itself as a stray swing knocked the axe out. The yeti screamed in pain as dark blue blood ran from the wound onto the ice. I knew it was now or never.

  Thwip-thwip!

  Two more arrows buried themselves in the yeti’s side, and just as I was about to grab my axe, it spotted me. I felt a cold rush of air as a bowling-ball-sized fist narrowly missed smashing me to a pulp. A stray arrow glanced off its big dumb head and was thankfully enough to divert the attention of the boss back to Leesha. Apparently tired of being a pincushion, it lumbered after her, bleeding and limping from the wound I’d given it.

  I snatched my axe and glanced at the yeti’s health bar. The arrows hadn’t done much more to move the needle. Time for the axe work.

  Leesha continued to fire and retreat but was quickly running out of room. Wishing I still had my cleats, I moved across t
he ice as fast as I dared.

  “Zane!” Leesha’s voice was shrill with panic as the boss closed in on her. “A little help here!”

  I activated my Flaming Weapon again and struck. I’d aimed for the same wound, but a last second twist from the yeti and my axe sank in just below the hip. Blue blood gushed from the wound again. When it met the axe blade, it quenched the flaming steel and flash froze, once again leaving my weapon stuck in the yeti. Apparently its blood had the properties of dry ice when exposed to the air. Fun fact, I guess? The yeti screamed and whirled on me.

  I was too close to escape and too slow to dodge. All I could do was look up into its raging little eyes and bare my Urok teeth.

  “You’re one ugly son of a —”

  I didn’t realize I’d been punched until I was airborne. I hit the ice hard and skidded to a stop about forty yards away from Leesha and the yeti. My mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, and another long list of debuffs scrolled by. Worst of all, I had done nothing to get Leesha out of the danger zone.

  At long last, I sucked in a heaving gulp of precious breath. I tried to rise, and my wrist gave out from under me. Once again, the side of my helmet smacked the ice.

  I heard the shrill scream before I saw anything. It ended an instant later as the yeti smashed Leesha into the ground like a rag doll. Her health bar plummeted to zero in an instant.

  Dropping Leesha’s body, the yeti pounded its chest and roared in triumph, then stumbled backward and let out a whining sound. Its breathing came in rattling gasps, though it still had well over half its health remaining. I remembered that this big idiot hadn’t always been a dungeon boss. Once, according to Tauren, it had been the guardian of the temple. It was almost enough to make me feel sorry for it.