Eden's Gate: The Scourge: A LitRPG Adventure

by Edward Brody

  Mordok slammed his hands on the ground, attaching the end of the chains and releasing them from his hands. When the gremloyl lord’s leg moved higher, the chain that was attached to its lower leg snapped in two, but the portion of the chain wrapped around its ankle held secure.

  The monster only lost a little balance at first, tilting and shifting to prevent a fall, but the weight of its heavy stone body was too much. The gremloyl was forced into a forward lean, and awkwardly fell, unable to catch itself fast enough with its arms. It landed with a penetrating boom, and the whole room shook violently as dust was thrown in every direction.

  Boiling Blood had run out, but I ran at full speed towards the fallen gremloyl, and half jumped, half climbed on its back as it started to push itself up with its hands. A vicious, angry growl buzzed from its mouth.

  My boots pattered as I ran up the smooth hard stone of its back, and I held my hands out to avoid falling off as it moved. I nearly slipped as I made it across its neck, but finally made it to its head. I balanced myself with a knee and hand on its cranium and one foot on its ear as it pushed itself up to its knees.

  Rithnar was standing below the gremloyl, holding his hammer in his hand and watching me ride the monster’s head. When the gremloyl saw him, it hissed, “Dies!” and opened its mouth wide.

  From where I was standing, I saw a bright ball of white energy form in between the gremloyl’s jaws, and it started to grow bigger. It wasn’t the same rings that it had ejected before.

  At that point, the tide of the battle was turning, and we were starting to get the upper hand. From my experience, most monsters in games had an ‘ultimate attack’ that they’d save for only when they were getting desperate, and I was afraid that might be what it was charging. If that were the case, I had no time to consider the best way to execute the assault I had planned. It was a countdown to do or die.

  I shifted my balance and gripped the hilt of my shoddy sword with both hands before jumping at an angle and down in front of the gremloyl lord’s face. Right as I passed the monster’s eye, I hammered the sword sideways, ramming the tip right into its pupil. And as I expected, the eye was soft and organic, so my blade slid deep into its socket. My weight shifted the blade down, and crimson liquid spewed from out of its wound.

  The monster howled, jerked its head back, and whatever magic it had been casting burst out of its mouth and into the ceiling, causing huge chunks of stone to fall to the ground when it exploded.

  I dangled by the hilt of the blade for just a second or two, but the monster’s violent movements forced me to let go, and I howled as I weathered the long fall down to the hard ground below.

  I landed roughly on my hip and shoulder, bringing my remaining health down to only a little more than 5%. I coughed, and a bit of blood sprayed out of my mouth.

  You have gained 1 point of Willpower!

  I was dazed, but knew I had to both heal and get out of the way of the gremloyl that was still screaming and thumping around the room, seeming to move way faster than it had before. I reached in my bag, pulled out a health potion I had brought, and drank it as fast as possible.

  When my feeling of equilibrium returned, I looked to my side to see the gremloyl on one knee, holding a hand over its eye. Its other hand was on the ground, curled into a fist. It lifted its fist then quickly slammed it on the floor again, seemingly for no other reason than frustration.

  I tossed the empty health potion aside, and behind me, Mordok was standing with his eyes closed, and one of his spinning triangular attacks had formed in front of him. He flicked his fingers forward, and the strange magical energy sped for the gremloyl, smashing into both its face and the hand the monster was using to cover it.

  The magic obliterated half of the gremloyl’s hand, and smashed all the way through the gremloyl’s head, leaving a giant see-through hole where its eye and cheek used to be.

  Its damaged fingers fell to the ground, and what was left of its head tilted slightly to the side. There was the quick sound of rock crunching and hardening. The creature stiffened, froze in place, and its one remaining eye turned from soft and organic back to a hard vacant stone.

  You have gained 11,100 XP!

  You have completed the quest: A ‘Grem’ Strategy!

  You have gained 17,000 XP!

  Advancement! You have reached level 33 and gained 3 ability points. To assign your ability points, open your status page. You can also increase any of your known skills by 1 level. Choose wisely, as your choices cannot be undone.

  You have gained 10 SP!

  I sighed in relief between heavy breaths when I saw the stream of notifications appear. I shook my head and laughed a bit, knowing that if everything hadn’t come together the way it had, we would’ve all ended up dead. We had been lucky, but I knew a big part of our success had been because of me.

  There was a sharp hiss from overhead, and then the noisy sound of hard banging on organ keys. The music suddenly stopped, and then there was an explosion. We all turned to the clamor, only to see both a gremlin dressed in a black shirt and pants and a wooden organ falling from a ledge positioned just a few feet below the ceiling.

  We all tensed as the organ smashed to pieces when it hit the ground, and the gremlin flopped dead beside it. Smoke rose from its body.

  I looked up to the ledge and could see organ pipes running up from it to the ceiling and circling the perimeter of the room. Also on the ledge was a giant treasure chest with no obvious way to reach it. Once again, I saw a brief distortion in my vision, but I was tired, foggy, and the ledge was far away.

  “Are you okay?” Mordok asked as he walked up to me and offered me his hand.

  I gripped the mage’s thick leathery palm and pulled myself up to a standing position. “I’m bleeding, but I’ll be okay,” I said as I started rustling in my bag for a bandage.

  “We did it,” Rithnar said as he joined us. He placed his hand on my shoulder. “But mostly, you did it.”

  “Ow.” I winced and jerked away. “Watch the shoulder. It’s uh…”

  “Sorry,” Rithnar said.

  “No worries,” I said, shaking my head. I pointed towards the fallen gremlin. “What the hell was that?”

  Mordok shook his head and looked up to the ledge. “I’m not sure. Did you sense magic as I did?”

  “Well, there was obviously an explosion,” I said. “Perhaps it was triggered to blow when the gremloyl lord was defeated. If it was just there to play music, it wouldn’t serve a purpose any longer.”

  Mordok rubbed his chin and furrowed his brow. “Yes, you’re probably right. Odd, nonetheless.”

  “I want to thank you properly,” Rithnar said, “but we shouldn’t linger here long.”

  “Right,” I agreed. “Let’s all heal up and get that fucking stone.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  2/22/0001

  “It was over here, right?” I said as we all stepped into the mosaic and approached the rightmost treasure chest. The magic of the mosaic was no longer active, as no bright light or slowing effect occurred.

  “There it is,” Mordok said, pointing towards the blue of the stone peeking through the dust. He kneeled, patted away the dust layer and lifted it from the ground.

  There was the unexpected sound of metal dragging against the ground as Mordok stood, which revealed, strangely, that a chain was attached to one end of the shard.

  “What is…?” Mordok muttered. He turned the stone over, barely inspecting it, then let it fall to the ground. He lowered his eyes, took a step back, and shook his head.

  “What is it?” I asked and bent down to pick the stone up myself.

  You’ve received: Broken Ornamental Earring. Durability: 3/100. Quality: Great. Rarity: Rare. Weight: 0.1 kg.

  I swallowed hard when the information about the stone appeared before me. I rubbed my hand against it, brushing away more dust, and could see that while it was very similar to an infinite mana shard in size and color, it was less jagged and far les
s dense. The only thing giving it any substantial weight at all was the long, golden chain attached.

  I turned to the statue and looked at the red stone dangling from one of its ears, then homed in on its other ear. It was barely connected after Mordok’s final attack, but there was a tiny section of missing stone at the bottom end that I was pretty sure we hadn’t removed ourselves. The item in my hand had once been attached to the gremloyl’s ear.

  “No…” Rithnar muttered, shaking his head. He stepped towards me, grabbed the stone from my hands, and turned it over several times. “This isn’t an infinite mana shard?” He took a hard step towards Mordok, thrust the stone out in front of him, and his eyes were wide. “This isn’t what we need?”

  Mordok shook his head. “I’m sorry… I had only seen it from a distance the first time. There was no way I could’ve known.”

  “This can’t be!” Rithnar yelled. He looked down at the stone with wild eyes, shook it back and forth twice, then hurled it hard at the treasure chest. It clanked hard against the side of the chest, ricocheted, and slid across the ground.

  “What now?” I asked. I looked up to the large, unopened treasure on the ledge. “Should we try to get up there?”

  Mordok shook his head. “There’s no way we’re getting up there without magic, and there’s no reason to believe there would be an infinite mana shard in the chest.”

  I stared at the chest, wondering what could be inside. If I ever got ahold of a good teleportation spell or ever advanced far enough to use the Levitation scroll I was safekeeping, I’d have to make a note to come back to check it out.

  “I can’t believe this!” Rithnar roared, and he rushed to the chest, flipped it open and started rummaging through its contents, tossing anything and everything inside to the ground. “There must be an infinite mana shard in here somewhere!” He pushed the chest over, then stormed to the other. When the second chest was locked, he punched it, pulled the lid harder, then grabbed the chest and tried with all his might to lift it. It rose from the ground a few inches before he dropped it with a loud thump.

  “Calm down, Rithnar!” Mordok ordered.

  “Calm down?!” Rithnar shouted. “We must find the shard!”

  Mordok sighed, lifted his hand towards the treasure chest, and there was an audible click.

  Rithnar quickly leaned over, opened the lid, threw out a helmet, then started rubbing his hand around the chest, sifting through something that sounded like gold. “It’s not here! There’s no shard here!”

  “That’s right! There’s no shard here!” Mordok repeated loudly. “Now calm yourself!”

  Rithnar glanced towards Mordok, exhaled loudly, and slumped his head down. All the rage and hope and urgency seemed to flow out of him all at once. He dropped to one knee and placed one of his fists on the ground, shaking his head.

  “We can try again,” I suggested. “We’ll find a lead for another infinite mana shard.”

  “No…” Rithnar muttered. “We have no time to look for leads and go who-knows-where. Ergoth could strike today, tomorrow, any day now.” He pushed himself back to his feet, took a deep breath and puffed his chest as he stared forward. “We go back to my original plan. I will challenge Ergoth and take the position as head of the Scourge. I will stop the war when he’s defeated.”

  Mordok sighed and looked down, shaking his head.

  Rithnar turned to me. “You’ll still help me, right?”

  I looked to Mordok, and he glanced up to me before looking down again. Since he had no input to offer, I looked back to Rithnar and nodded. “Yeah, I’ll try my best to help.”

  “Mordok,” Rithnar said. “Can you still bring the human in front of Ergoth? My chances will be greater if Gunnar can release his beetle onto him. From behind, like you said.”

  Mordok shifted his jaw from side to side a moment before nodding lightly and murmuring, “We can try…”

  “Perfect,” Rithnar said, seeming more confident than he had a moment ago, like he had completely forgotten about the shard and was now focused only on killing Ergoth. He looked to all the items on the ground. “We have time to gather this loot, but let’s move quickly so we can get back to the portal and find Ergoth.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  2/23/0001

  You’ve received: 43,000 Gold Pieces

  “All of it?” I questioned. “Are you serious?”

  “We orcs repay our debts and favors,” Mordok said, waving his hand to a pile of gems and weapons on the ground. “Consider everything here yours due to the help you’ve given and are about to give.”

  “And if you help me defeat Ergoth, I’ll give you a reward as well,” Rithnar said. “As the new leader of the Scourge, I’ll make it substantial.”

  You’ve received a quest offer: Defeat the King!

  Rithnar requests for you to help him defeat King Ergoth.

  Reward: 20,000 XP, Unknown Reward

  Do you accept this quest? Accept/Decline

  I nodded and said, “Okay, and thank you,” as I pocketed the gold and proceeded to sort through all the items that were in the gremloyl lord’s lair.

  You have accepted the quest: Defeat the King!

  You’ve received: Topaz Necklace. Durability: 7/10. Quality: Exceptional. Rarity: Common. Weight: 0.2 kg.

  You’ve received: Leatherworking Ring. Requires 25 Dexterity. Durability: 8/10. Quality: Average. Rarity: Uncommon. Weight: 0.1 kg. +3 Leatherworking

  You’ve received: Leather Gloves of the Long Lived. +4 Armor. Durability: 5/10. Quality: Average. Rarity: Rare. Weight: 0.3 kg. +10 Vitality

  You’ve received: Overburdening Heavy Plate Boots. +20 Armor. Durability: 10/10. Quality: Exceptional. Rarity: Rare. Weight: 1.7 kg. -15 Dexterity.

  You’ve received: Scroll: Rescind Divinity. Cancel and nullify all active Divine Magic spells, effects, and statuses within a large radius. Requires 45 Intelligence. Dark Magic Lvl 25. Durability: 6/10. Quality: Average. Rarity: Epic. Weight: 0.1 kg

  You’ve received: Hinged Wooden Staff of Piercing Energy. 18-25 Attack Damage. Requires 11 Strength. Requires 24 Intelligence. Durability: 9/10. Quality: Average. Rarity: Rare. Weight: 1.0. On Cast: Energy Shard: 89 Charges Left.

  Finally, I had found a staff upgrade with a decent number of charges. It was unusual as it had a mechanical hinge in the center that allowed it to be folded in half and placed in a container. The hinge locked in place when unfolded, and only folded back when a flush button on the side of the staff was pressed. It was perfectly smooth and straight so that it looked like it would be better for physical fighting than other staffs I had used, but there was a flat, clear crystal that looked like it had been ground smooth on one of the tips. The crystal lit up blue and filled with energy when using its on-cast, and the spell that shot out of it looked like hard, arcane energy in the shape of an arrow tip.

  Chunk! The spell rang out when I cast it at the gremloyl lord’s statue. It pierced deeper into the stone than an Arcane Missile would, had a lower effect radius, and left fewer residual marks.

  I shoved the gems, jewelry and smaller items that I could fit into my pockets and placed the scroll and larger items that I couldn’t carry into my unburdening bag, but there was a lot of valuable loot left that I couldn’t carry.

  “I wish I could take more,” I said.

  “I’ll carry what I can for you,” Rithnar said.

  “You will?” I asked.

  Rithnar nodded. “It must be deep into the night by now, so we’ll have to wait ‘til morning to locate Ergoth. That will give me some time to sell off what I can in Morgsgorg. You can have whatever the items sell for.” He looked to the items lying on the ground. “Just tell me what you want me to take and I’ll handle the rest.”

  “Wow, okay,” I said with a shrug and a smile. “How about that helmet? That sword over there? Those gloves will probably sell for a good amount. Maybe take that hammer as well.”

  I pointed out item after item until Rithnar was nearly overburdened, a
nd we all hurried towards the door. Thankfully, the locked door without a keyhole had automatically unlocked after defeating the giant gremloyl, so we were able to exit the lair and make our way back to the portal outside.

  I breathed a sigh of relief once we reappeared in the Morgsgorg Mages Hall. It was cool inside, and the air was fresh in comparison to Mount Ardorflame.

  “I’m sorry to have wasted your time,” Mordok said. He crossed his arms and sighed. “I really thought that stone was an infinite mana shard, and for as long as I’ve traveled, I can’t recall ever seeing another.” He pursed his lips and rubbed his chin. “Well, there was one time when I was training as a mage that I came across one, but I assumed it had no value and left it behind.”

  “Where was that?” I asked.

  “It was a random encounter with a Krazir bandit who had snuck into the Wastelands and attempted to rob me after I passed through the Wastelands entrance and started for home. Why he had an infinite mana shard is beyond my knowledge, but I left his body and everything he had outside to rot. It was years ago, so it’s long gone by now.” Mordok turned to Rithnar. “Would you like to rest here tonight?”

  “No,” Rithnar answered. “I’m going to sell these items, return to my home, and sleep there tonight. I need some time to think alone and mentally prepare for whatever will happen tomorrow.”

  Mordok stepped forward and placed his hand on Rithnar’s shoulder. “You can still reconsider.” He looked to the ground and darted his eyes. “Now that we know this human, perhaps I could… cast a portal… to somewhere in the human lands. With luck, we can safely bring your child back to the Wastelands for you.”