Dawn of Adventure: Legendary Weapons
The Dungeon Master's Quests: Journey into Glory a LitRPG Series
Andrew Bardsley
Copyright © 2019 by Andrew Bardsley
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Books by Andrew Bardsley
The History System Chronicles
Book One in the Series: The First Era
Book Two in the Series: The City god
The Ether World Series
Book One in the Series: Into the Ether
Book Two in the Series: The Inscribed Angle
The Dark Part of the Soul
Book One in the Series: The Unknown god
Dawn of Adventure: The Dungeon Master's Quests: Journey into Glory a LitRPG Series
Book One in the Series: Origins
Book Two in the Series: Dungeon Master
Book Three in the Series: Dungeon Battle
Book Four in the Series: King of the Realm
Book Five in the Series: Legendary Weapons
See Author’s page
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B07LGBBBYD
Contents
Chapter 1 Defense of the City
Chapter 3 Experimental Results
Chapter 4 A Working Legend
Chapter 5 Thieving Scoundrels
Chapter 6 Preparation for a Hunt
Chapter 7 The Hunt
Chapter 8 A Legendary Run
Chapter 9 Breaking and Entering
Epilogue
Chapter 1 Defense of the City
The king had just defeated Moryam, the Duke of Riverwind and now it was time to defend his city. With his wife, daughter, guards, Ceras, Qyndad and Rinaldo in his party, the king ran for the exit of the palace toward the platforms to get to the lower levels.
One of the officers of his guard ran ahead and shouted, “Make way for the king!” providing a route for the king's party through all the large armored doors and toward the platform. As the party ran through the long tunnel, all Ceras could hear was the clang of armored feet hitting the floor and his staff striking the ground.
When the running party left the tunnel to the elevation platforms, Ceras could see a warrior standing in the center of the platform with a grin on his face as he saw the king. The king ran up to him with the rest of the party trailing behind.
“General, I’m surprised to see you here,” said the king with his own grin.
“I was wondering where Your Majesty was, so I came looking only to find you running toward me.”
As the platform started to plunge into the darkness of the night, the king said, “We had a little bit of trouble at the palace. I’ll tell you about it later.”
The general looked closer at the king and saw the hole in his armor with dried blood all around it. He looked at the queen and said, “Pulled him out of the fire again, I see.”
“Yes, she did.”
The general turned serious for the first time and said, “While you were playing in the palace, Your Majesty, we have had a goblin horde attacking the lower city. For some reason we had no warning of their approach until the city's sentries raised the alarm and the army was already amassing before the walls. The goblin Shamans are creating lava trolls one after another.”
By the time the general had finished talking, the platform had stopped on the lowest level of the city with an abrupt clang that shook everybody to their knees. When the magical barrier fell, the king and the general rushed out of the platform building into the plaza and headed for one of the gates, joining companies of soldiers who were running for their posts to defend the city.
Without pause, the king ran directly to the large stone gate tower that was now shining with activated magical wards and entered through a side door, with his party following in single file up the spiral staircase.
Ceras was one of the last to get to the open top of the gate tower. By the time he did, the king was already talking to several of his armies with his general at his side as he surveyed the horde descending upon the city.
Ceras looked over the side of the tower's parapet into the field beyond the city walls and with the aid of magical lights hovering in the air, he could see an immense sea of green and brown creatures packed together. There was no order or rank to the goblin horde; it was just a mass of bodies that were packed so tightly that they seemed to be climbing over each other in waves. As he scanned left and right he could just make out the end to the sea of goblins in the far distance along the wall and wondered how many thousands of the creatures there were - it was certainly more than had attacked the adventurers on their journey to the city.
At the front of the horde were the goblin Shamans, who were recognizable by their feathered outfits. They were chanting around bright circles of light with dark mist billowing out of the centers. Dark shapes were emerging with eyes that glowed with power once they had formed. As the creatures crawled out of the circle they pounded the ground, looking around and roaring toward the defenders of the city. The goblin Shamans screamed in their high-pitched language and pointed at the city wall. Each of the creatures moved slowly forward in response, trampling anything in their path. The goddess blessing helped Ceras to identify the creatures being created:
Name of Monster
Level
Agility
HP
MP
Skills
Lava Troll
50
10
800
100
Lava Ball
Giant Mountain Troll
45
1
1000
-
-
Steel Troll
40
1
250
-
“Let's thin out the horde before they raise even higher-level creatures,” the king told his generals with concern, watching the monstrous mountain trolls cause the ground to tremble with their heavy footsteps as they advanced on the city wall. “You know what to do, General.”
The now grim-looking general who had met them in the upper level nodded his head, and walked over to talk to a young wizard in army uniform. The wizard immediately raised his hands in the air and started casting a light spell. High above his head five balls of red light shone into the night sky. For a second they hovered there alone, then up and down the wall on each of the towers five balls of red light appeared. When all of the towers along the city wall had five red lights hovering above them, the topmost light disappeared from each group. This countdown proceeded with the lights disappearing one by one and when the last ones had vanished from sight, from Ceras’ perception, all hell broke loose. As if as one, hundreds of catapults fired with a great thud up and down the walls of the city in a wave of movement. Each catapult shot several of what appeared to be pottery vessels that were on fire as they soared into the air toward the goblin horde, who were still chanting as they continued to create monsters.
When the vessels were at the apex of their shot above the horde, hundreds of small fireballs shot out from the walls, so fast that they looked like a steady beam of red-yellow light in the darkness of the night.
Each of the fireballs impacted a vessel above the goblins, causing it to burst open with a flaming explosion. A curtain of blazing rain appeared above the horde in a burning flash, all along
the wall as it rained onto the sea of packed creatures. Ceras watched in amazement as yellow fire rained on the ranks of the goblins. At first it covered them in a yellow light that set them on fire. Screams could be heard from the goblin mass as they started to burn like a dry grass field on a hot day. The oil was sticking to their bodies, making them appear like individual candles in a sea of flames.
The smoke from the ocean of the burning goblins soon became very black and oily as the creatures tried to put out the flames. To Ceras’ surprise he saw that instead of the fire being extinguished, it grew more intense with all the movement of the small creatures and even spread to others in the tightly-packed ranks as if water was being poured on hot oil.
Again, five red lights appeared above the walls of the city and the whole process of raining, fiery death was repeated, killing increasingly large numbers of the goblin horde. This practice continued for several minutes and the horde was in disarray with the burning rain pouring down upon it from the city walls. From the rear of the horde, large drummers started to beat with a deep, thudding sound that carried across the battlefield.
The Shamans stopped chanting, and the magical circles that had been producing the trolls flashed with a deep purple light and disappeared, as if all their magical energy had been sucked back into the ground.
Ceras saw tens of different trolls up and down the battlefield, all looking toward the defenders of the city with blazing eyes. The Shamans all seemed to gesture at once with their staffs toward the wall and as if of one mind, the various trolls ran forward at once, pounding toward the city.
The general beside the wizard gave him some more instructions and this time, two blue lights appeared in the air above the tower to be repeated up and down the wall. When the lights disappeared, large rocks were shot out from the towers. Ceras felt hundreds of magical spells all being cast at once as the rocks flew toward the rock, lava and metal trolls crashing toward the wall like a single wave of movement. During the flight of the rocks, he felt the power of their magic guiding the large projectiles on their course, enabling them all to hit the trolls dead-center in the chest.
The first rock to hit one of the giant mountain trolls simply crumbled to dust as the loud impact rang out across the battlefield. The troll staggered back for a second, but kept on coming as many more rocks impacted it, only to disintegrate with no substantial effect on the charging monster. Looking up and down the line of the wall, similar scenes were being repeated as most of the trolls were only slightly damaged by the pounding rocks.
“General, the lava trolls are susceptible to water or frost spells in their joints! It slows them down, then water will kill them off,” Ceras told him as the rocks kept firing at the lava trolls that had nearly reached the city wall.
The general just nodded and went over to talk to the wizard, who was providing communication to the rest along the city wall. After a brief discussion, Ceras felt the man cast a spell as his eyes rolled back into his head. The wizard remained in a catatonic state for a few moments, during which Ceras thought he must be communicating with the others.
The shaking of the tower drew Ceras’ focus away from the wizard and back to the battle raging below, and he had to steady himself with a hand on the rampart. Looking over the tower's parapet he saw the giant trolls had reached the wall and were pounding at it with their large fists. Each time one of the trolls hit the wall a loud crash would sound up and down the city wall with tremors that everybody on the wall could feel, and Ceras saw several faces on the tower turn white with fear and shock, but the king’s face remained resolute.
Each time it was pounded on by the trolls, the surface of the wall flashed in cracks on the magical field that was holding back the damage. Around the areas where the trolls were gathering the shield was now burning brightly, with cracks of color spreading from the impact points.
Soldiers on the top of the wall were throwing rocks and other projectiles at the trolls below, which were having minimal effect on the thudding strikes of the giant stone attackers. Suddenly, about a hundred feet along the wall Ceras saw and heard an explosion of steam from one of the lava trolls. As the clouds of vapor rose up from the troll’s massive, glowing body, additional gallons of water were poured onto its now blackening body. As the water from above continued to flow, the troll gradually stopped moving and ground to a halt before the wall, now a blackened body frozen in the act of hitting the wall with its fist.
The goblin drums beat into a frenzy and suddenly, the goblin horde rushed forward toward the wall, howling and shouting as they charged over each other like a stampede of cattle running from a lion. The wave of frenzied goblins closed in on the wall and when they’d reached within a certain range, the wizard shot up a red blast of energy into the sky.
All along the wall Ceras heard shouted commands telling the thousands of archers to ready their bows. Then a blast of green magical energy reached into the sky and Ceras heard the sound of thousands of bow strings pinging as a black shower of arrows moved from the wall and rained down onto the goblin horde. A whole section of the green wave of creatures fell, as black arrows pierced their bodies and pinned them to the ground. The frantic green wave of goblins behind just climbed over them, stamping their remains into the ground with no consideration for their fallen comrades.
“Considerate little buggers,’ said Rinaldo, who was beside Ceras and staring in amazement at the scrambling frenzy.
“Let’s really hope that the wall doesn’t fall to this mob,” Ceras said grimly as he shot a few fireballs for good measure, taking out goblins within a few meters of where they’d landed.
“Don’t worry, boys. We’ve plenty more tricks up our sleeve to stop this lot,” said the king with a smile.
As the arrows fell in a near continuous barrage of death that wiped out wave after wave of goblins, the front ranks of the horde still managed to reach the wall like the sea on a winter's day smashing against a breakwater.
The trolls were still banging sections of the wall with their giant fists but had not yet broken the shield, so when the goblins hit the wall it was still brimming with magical defensive energy.
Ceras looked down from the top of the tower, expecting to see the goblins putting up ladders to try and scale the wall, but all he saw were the small creatures trying to climb. Most of them fell and landed back in the crashing wave of goblins to be broken to pieces, but some of them managed to start clambering up the stone-cut wall.
Ceras was about to start blasting the goblins beneath him, but the king leaned over and said, “Save your spells, son. The wall’s wards will take care of them.”
As the large presence of the king moved back to talk to some of the generals, Ceras continued to gaze over the edge of the parapet. When one of the lead goblins got to about three meters high a disc of glowing light emanated from the wall, like a spinning circular blade that moved back and forth. The blade of light cut through the top of the goblin’s head, slicing it in half and exposing the brains, before the creature fell to the ground and was crushed by its companions. Ceras saw this repeating all along the wall as more blades of light cut goblins in two while they tried to clamber up the wall.
“It's time to earn my keep and deal with these giant mountain trolls trying to break into my city,” said the king, as he moved forward to look at some of the trolls gathering around a spot of the wall that they were concentrating on.
“Dungeon master, I could use some of your magical support with this, and from your friends too.”
“Yes, Your Majesty, that will be fine,” said Ceras as the other two nodded eagerly.
The king spun around and started to the stairway leading down onto the wall, as the young men and some of his guards followed him. Once on the wall the king ran as quickly as he could to the location of the half-dozen mountain trolls, who were still bashing at the wall with great thuds of power. The area was crowded by sergeants dropping rocks onto the monsters, but when they saw the king they started to clear the wal
l and head for the towers to make way for him. Many of them looked relieved to see the king take over as their efforts had not met with much success.
The king arrived to just above where the trolls had convened. He surveyed the scene for a few seconds and turned to Ceras. “Can you clear an area of goblins around the trolls, so we’ll have some room to work?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Ceras moved his hand in a circular motion to cast a magical shield spell in a hemispherical dome around the pounding trolls, about twenty meters in radius. The blue magical light shot up from the ground cutting in half all the goblins it passed through, eventually forming a dome over the monsters. Inside the shield with the huge trolls were hundreds of goblins trying to climb up the wall, many of whom found themselves hit by the fists of the trolls who did not seem to care if a goblin was in their way, and the wall became coated in the many bloody stains of goblin remains.
Launching a barrage of slow, yellow-burning fireballs, Ceras started to set the area in the shield alight. The spells spread across the ground, engulfing the goblins and burning them with oily flames. When the fire had filled the whole of the dome, the only living beings within it were the trolls who seemed unaffected, while the blackened, burning bodies of the goblins scattered around them were still smoldering.
The king leaped down from the massive wall, dropping quickly to the ground and landing on his feet as if he had just jumped on the spot, and ran toward the giant mountain trolls that were intensely beating against the now flashing shield of the wall.
“I guess we should follow his lead,” said Rinaldo to Qyndad. “Do you think you can make the drop?”
“Of course, human,” snorted the dragon, leaping off the wall and landing as deftly as the king.
Ceras saw Rinaldo pause for a second and then clamber over the wall, less gracefully then the other two had, and drop like a stone to the ground. A loud yell came from where Rinaldo had fallen, but after a few seconds Rinaldo was seen to limp over to the trolls where the king and Qyndad were already attacking. Feeling sorry for his friend, Ceras sent some healing power toward Rinaldo and his limp seemed to heal, allowing him to run the remaining distance to the trolls.
Legendary Weapons Page 1
