Eden's Gate: The Scourge: A LitRPG Adventure

by Edward Brody

  “If you need our approval, it must be a bad idea,” Jax scoffed.

  “Listen to the thought before you judge,” I said. I refastened my staff, cleared my throat and motioned with my hands as I spoke. “Everyone in Highcastle is talking about housing prices going up, and business is set to boom with people from Newich flooding in. With Bartholomew’s deeds, I have a chance to take control of an Inner Highcastle shophouse at a pretty steep discount if I act fast.”

  “So, you want to put the castle on hold and buy a building in Highcastle?” Aaron asked.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I’ll take out a guild loan. I’ll pull out the maximum amount I can from the Guild Hall and use that to pay off Bartholomew’s back-taxes. If I do that, we’ll need to pay back the loan, 150,000 plus 1,000 gold in interest per day, if I remember correctly.”

  “That’s a lot of gold,” Sung said with a whistle.

  “Yeah,” I said. “The whole guild will be on the hook, so I need everyone’s commitment to get out there questing and making gold every day until we pay it off. The Scourge is pulling back, and we have a pretty decent guard presence. We can all just start grinding away…”

  “A shop in Inner Highcastle could bring in some serious cheese,” Gerard said. He turned to Aaron. “Cheese is what you call it, right?”

  “Hell yeah,” Aaron said. “Let’s get some cheese!”

  “Because cheese is nearly the same color as gold, right?” he asked.

  Aaron wrinkled his brow. “Actually, it’s called cheese because way back in the day there was a…” He shook his head. “Actually, never mind. Yeah, it’s called cheese because gold looks like cheese.”

  “Great!” Gerard said. “Well, a shop in Inner Highcastle has a high cheese opportunity.”

  “And we’ll need your help setting it up,” I said. “Once our second shop is up and running, you can choose which one you’d like to stay in.”

  Gerard’s eyes went wide, and he blinked several times. “Wow… I’ve always dreamed of running a shop in Highcastle.”

  “Well, then it’s yours,” I said. “We’ll find someone else to run the general goods shop here.”

  “But…” Gerard groaned. “I kind of hate to be so disconnected from the guild.” He swallowed hard, and his eyes started glistening. “You’ve all become my best friends. Coming to work in this village was the best decision I ever made.” He waved his hands to the destruction around us. “Even if it’s all a mess right now.”

  “Aw.” Rina pouted. “I know what you mean, Gerard. I’m so glad I came to Edgewood too. I love everyone here. I don’t know what I’d do without all of you.”

  “We love you too,” Keysia said with a smile.

  “Rina friend!” Trynzen cried out.

  Rina’s lips drooped, and she placed her fingers under her eyes. “Stop it, you’re all going to make me cry.”

  Jax smiled and slung his arm over her shoulder.

  I chuckled and felt a tingling under my eyelids that caused me to look away. “All of you stop it. You’re going to make me emotional.”

  Aaron turned around, put his head in his hands and started sobbing like a baby. “I… I… can’t hold in all these feelings.”

  I sighed and slumped my shoulders. “You don’t have to hold it in, Aaron. You can—”

  “Psych!” Aaron yelled as he jumped up and turned around. He snickered and wrinkled his nose. “You guys can be some emo-ass bitches sometimes!”

  Jeremy snorted. “Buzzkill!”

  “Oh man,” Jax grunted as the two jokers closed in and gave each other fives and shoulder bumps. “You Reborns are too much.”

  I shook my head and sighed. “Have some respect, Aaron.”

  Aaron shrugged. “I think humor is my defense mechanism. If you guys bring the onions to the party, I’m bringing the eggplant, because I’d rather get butt—”

  “Okay,” I said, raising my hand and cutting him off. I rolled my eyes at him, knowing whatever joke he was about to tell was probably highly inappropriate and mistimed. “We get it, Sizzler. We get it.”

  Jeremy and Sung were both snickering.

  “Anyway,” I groaned. “You can keep working in Edgewood if you want, Gerard. Once the shop in Highcastle is set up, we’ll hire someone to run it day to day.”

  Gerard smiled. “I’ll do whatever I can to help, of course.”

  I held my hands out to my side and let out a deep breath. “And that’s that, I guess. That’s the plan for Edgewood two point oh.”

  “Hell yeah,” Aaron said.

  “Let’s get it, baby!” Jeremy yelled, clapping his hands together.

  I leaned in and stuck my hand out, and the guild members proceeded to each place their hands on top of mine. Trynzen was a bit confused about what was going on, but Keysia guided his paw on the very top before we all counted out, “One, two, three, Unity!” and threw our hands up towards the sky.

  As the guild began tossing high fives to each other and discussing plans, I started walking toward my house and turned around halfway. “Sung, can you fill in Ozzy when he returns?!”

  “I sure will!” he yelled.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I stepped into my house, closed the door behind me, and breathed a sigh of excitement and relief. I hadn’t gotten much sleep the past several nights, and I needed some time to decompress, relax, and just think in general.

  I did it.

  Or I was at least about to do what I had promised I was going to do when I first met up with Aaron. I had already scaled Dragon’s Crest—never again—and was about to build that castle I said I would. Sure, it wouldn’t be much at first, but maybe you could still call four stone walls and a roof a castle anyway. Why not?

  I had gained my yellow belt—success.

  But I had lost a friend in Rithnar and failed his wife’s quest to reunite him with his child. The image of him getting cleaved by Ergoth would probably never leave my brain.

  I walked further into my house and pulled a broken piece of the Liar’s Mask and the Stabilizing Medallion out of my bag and slowly hung them on the wall beside the ruined Mythanthar’s Blade and the other mementos I had collected over the course of my time in Eden’s Gate. The Liar’s Mask had been one of my most powerful items, so it was a disappointing loss, but at least it had helped me defeat Xurrak and Hoshgrim. If I hadn’t had it, Mordok and I both would’ve joined Rithnar in death.

  I touched the mask’s sharp broken edge. “Sorry, Rithnar,” I said with a sigh.

  What’s next? I wondered. We had started the colonization process, had a castle coming, and would soon have a shophouse in Highcastle, hopefully. We had plans to rebuild everything we had lost. Our guild had a game plan.

  But what about myself? Now that all hell wasn’t breaking loose, I could focus more on training with Eanos and Darion and start asking around about Razza Jen. I needed to work on my inscription and…

  I walked to the tiny window of my home and looked outside to see Keysia skipping from the center of our village back to where all the other dark elves stayed. She was so damn adorable.

  As I watched her trot away, I noticed something unusual sitting on my bed and walked over to inspect it. At first glance, it was a shard of rock with a yellow-tinted piece of parchment sitting on top of it. I lifted the paper and started to read.

  Greetings, Gunnar,

  I didn’t want to interrupt the pow-wow you were having with your guild, so I figured I’d just leave you a note here instead.

  Did you see yesterday’s patch notes? You got your quest log, and you should be able to tussle with Princesses in impractical situations now, even if it means certain death. Have you tested it yet? Was it worth it? Ha!

  Particularly, I wanted to point out the memory stones that were mentioned in the notes. I took our discussion the other day to heart, and more recently I had a talk with someone else, whom I very much regard.

  Fairness.

  I guess that’s what I’m getting
to.

  I tried to make Eden’s Gate as fair as possible, and sometimes I justify incredibly difficult world features, such as the death system, with fairness. But sometimes what’s fair isn’t always what’s right.

  It’s easy to look at the immortality that we’ve been gifted and justify the short mortality I stole from everyone on launch day as a fair and righteous trade. And maybe it was for some people, but it wasn’t for everyone. After speaking with you and my associate, I recognized that I would trade my own immortality and this wonderful world we live in now for just another single day with my wife and child.

  Strange, isn’t it, how family or just simple love can make us all completely unreasonable? I suppose I was slow to remember this, because I had long lost everyone I had ever loved and was simply trying to do what seemed right by creating a massive net positive.

  I had memory stones planned as a potential future feature of the game, but I worked overtime to get them out as soon as possible after our talk. They allow players to essentially generate a character image from the past—the better knowledge of the person they’re recalling, the better the image—so that they can share the image and more easily post bounties on their heads. This is a cool feature for bounty hunters in itself, but Reborns have a unique use case as all the memories you had from Earth are still stored in your minds.

  You’ve been adamant about finding someone you knew from Earth and have mentioned it a few times since we first met. I brushed it off, as I’m sure you’ll find her in due time without any help from me, but I was also being fair. And again, sometimes fairness isn’t what’s right.

  There’s a memory stone below this note that you can use as you see fit. Just throw any inscription powder on top of it and use your mind to activate it. They’re programmed in the world as a rare find, so be careful not to waste it.

  Is it fair for me to give you a special relic without you having to go out and earn it on your own? No, it’s not fair. It’s quite a bit of cheating actually, but once again, sometimes what’s fair isn’t always what’s right. You’ve done much for me, so I hope you’ll find it of some use.

  Good luck, and please let me know if you find any additional bugs!

  -Dr. Winston

  I smiled at the doctor’s strange note, and an odd tingly feeling came over me as I looked down to the Memory Stone on the bed. It was a square, dark grey slab with a perfectly polished light grey square filling up three quarters of the center. It looked almost like an ancient e-reading device like you’d find on Earth, and when I picked it up, it had roughly the same weight as one.

  To my surprise, there was a vial of red inscription powered tucked under the stone. I guess the doctor wanted to make sure I could use it right away.

  I sat down on my bed, and my hands started sweating a little. Something felt off as I wasn’t as amped as I should’ve been. I was definitely a little excited to have a more direct way of finding Rachel, but as my future flashed before my eyes—walking around Eden’s Gate posting fliers of Rachel and showing people her image so I could track her down—an oddness overcame me.

  I popped the cork of the inscription powder and took a moment to think of a good visual memory I had of Rachel. We had several good memories, but the most memorable image I had of her was the very first day we had met. I was a total dweeb and nervous as hell to meet someone from online. When she showed up with her hair down and looking even better in real life, I could hardly control my giddiness. It was awkward at first, but she guided me through the unease, and eventually everything just started to feel natural.

  What a girl she had been to put up with me. She’d be proud of how much I’d changed.

  I sighed before sprinkling the inscription powder onto the memory stone, and then I focused on the image I had of her that day.

  The polished square of the memory stone started glowing almost immediately, and the inscription powder rattled around very subtly. Underneath the powder, I could see portions of the polished square were starting to darken, and the red of the powder was slowly turning black.

  It took a good thirty seconds before the memory stone ceased glowing and the inscription powder stopped shaking, and I was surprised that the powder hadn’t disappeared. I waited another few seconds to make sure nothing else needed to happen before I blew at the stone, causing all the spent powder to float away.

  My eyes widened, and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end as I saw a perfect grayscale portrait of Rachel etched in the polished portion of the stone. It looked just like her, and it was the first time I was seeing her face outside my mind since entering Eden’s Gate.

  She looked great. Just as I remembered her.

  I was excited—excited and confused.

  I stared at the image for at least a minute before I groaned and put my head in my hands. I missed Rachel a lot, but I wasn’t dying to find her anymore. I wanted to find her, of course… but in actuality, I was dying for something else.

  I stood from the bed and walked back to the window to see that Keysia had brought a female dark elf I didn’t recognize into the center of the village. She was pointing out landmarks as if she was showing her all the things we had planned. She said something to the girl, and the girl’s eyes sprang open. The girl threw her arms in the air in excitement. Keysia smiled, nodded, and gave her a big hug.

  Had she offered someone a job at her eatery before it was even set up? Whatever it was, she had made the girl happy somehow.

  I exhaled loudly. Keysia made a lot of people happy, didn’t she?

  She sure made me happy.

  I missed Rachel, and I still cared for her. I missed Adeelee too—loved her, even. I had the terrifying fear of missing out on them both, but would that ever change? I had gotten to know three wonderful, beautiful women, and no matter which I chose to pursue, I’d always have lingering ‘what-if’ feelings for the other two. Yet, somehow even though I consciously knew this, I still had an aching feeling that I needed more time to figure out what to do.

  It wasn’t fair that I couldn’t just have them all.

  But maybe Dr. Winston was right about something: sometimes fair isn’t what’s right.

  Keysia was something special, and while there would always be greener pastures somewhere in Eden’s Gate, I knew I’d be doing myself a grave injustice by not taking a chance. She was a great guildmate, a great friend, a wonderful lover, and she had shown herself as being a potentially good mother. I didn’t have to worry about her dad chopping my head off either.

  But, if the stories were true, maybe she’d cut my head off someday herself. I didn’t believe those crazy dark elf tales anymore though. I had seen no evidence that dark elves were any different than any other elf.

  Yeah… Keysia was what I needed. While I was running around figuring out what I wanted, the perfect woman for me had been right there all along. It took her leaving me for me to finally realize that.

  Now, I just needed to convince her to give me another chance. I was going to do whatever I could to get her back and to create something solid between the two of us.

  I should start right now, I thought to myself. Maybe I can go back out there and chat with her—maybe invite her out for another adventure with just the two of us.

  I looked at the memory stone once more, and my shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry, Rachel,” I whispered. “I’m sure we’ll meet again someday.”

  I tossed the memory stone on the bed and practically ran out the door.

  “Keysia!” I yelled as I jogged closer to her and the other dark elf.

  Keysia and the girl both looked up to me and beamed.

  Bummm! B-Bummm!

  A loud horn suddenly rang out from right outside our village, causing me to stop in my tracks and turn towards the sound.

  Riding our way was a group of around ten High Elves. At the front of the group and on large white Great Cats were Queen Faranni and King Ryvvik. Riding behind them was Princess Adeelee and a group of High Elf guards, all on fine
white horses.

  They rode slowly towards our village, and as they approached, they slowly turned their heads back and forth, taking in the destruction around Edgewood. The King and Queen both rode with sad, troubled eyes and mouths slightly ajar. The Princess, to a lesser degree, also seemed disturbed by what she was seeing.

  As they approached, Keysia joined me where I was standing, and all the colonized dark elves who were further back in the forest started filing out and forming a large crowd right behind us. The dark elf guards joined the crowd around the perimeter, and when my guildmates heard and saw the crowd, they joined Keysia and me to see what was going on.

  Arryl and a couple of the High Elf guards marched in front of me, and Arryl threw me a cocky smirk before he turned around to wait for the nobles’ approach.

  The entourage came to a stop a short distance in front of us, and all the elves immediately fell into a kneeling position. I eyed the other members of my guild, motioned my hands for them to follow suit, and we all fell into a kneel as well.

  “You may rise,” the Queen said powerfully.

  I got to my feet along with the rest of my guild, but I noticed that all dark elves, aside from Keysia, only looked up and hadn’t risen from their kneel.

  I threw the Queen a bright smile. “Nice to see you, Queen Faranni, King Ryvvik, Adeelee… What brings you to—”

  “Your majesty!” Arryl interrupted. “I’m so glad you’ve finally come to bear witness to the repulsive happenings of this forest!”

  I swallowed at Arryl's words.

  “Your messages were received, Arryl,” the Queen said pointedly. She looked to her side and stared at a burnt tree stump. “This was all done by the Scourge?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Goblin fire arrows.”

  The King gritted his teeth. “That Ergoth! I should kill him myself! He should know better than to use such creatures in his army and to allow them so close to our forests!”