Veil Online - Book 3: An Epic LitRPG Adventure

by John Cressman

  Moonlake Kroaker Warrior uses Springing Attack on YOU but you Evade.

  “Come get some!” Jace shouted out his Taunt and both frogmen spun to face him. As they hopped over to attack, he cast his Air Armor spell. “Aeris Armatura!”

  Jace spun around so the kroakers were both facing him, using a Feint and then attacking the one that Luna had already damaged.

  You critically hit Moonlake Kroaker Warrior for 42 damage plus 18 acid damage.

  You critically hit Moonlake Kroaker Warrior for 6 damage.

  Mika disappeared briefly as she used her Vanish and then reappeared as she skewered the kroaker with her katana.

  Mika Knightly critically hit Moonlake Kroaker Warrior for 15 damage.

  Moonlake Kroaker Warrior is Bleeding.

  Luna bounded after the kroaker she had attacked and clawed and bit at its back.

  Luna bites Moonlake Kroaker Warrior for 3 damage.

  Luna claws Moonlake Kroaker Warrior for 0 damage.

  Luna claws Moonlake Kroaker Warrior for 4 damage.

  Unlike her pounce attack, Luna’s normal attacks didn’t do much damage. He made a mental note to talk to her later about what attacks she had and how they worked. But in the present moment, there were two angry kroakers who wanted to kill him.

  Moonlake Kroaker Warrior pierces YOU for 0 points of damage.

  Moonlake Kroaker Warrior pierces YOU for 6 points of damage.

  Mild Kroaker Toxin hits you for 10 points of poison damage.

  The first frogman’s spear had glanced off his buckler, but the second one’s spear found the spot under his breastplate and stabbed him near the groin. The piercing pain exploded in his brain and Jace sucked in a breath.

  Just like the other kroakers he’d encountered as Mordred, these also tipped their weapons with their own poison. Jace felt the intense burning in his veins as the kroaker’s poison penetrated his system. It was an instant poison and did immediate damage, versus the damage over time poison that acted more like a bleed effect. But unfortunately, the damage bypassed his Defense completely.

  Gritted his teeth against the pain, he Feinted again and jabbed both his sabers at the wounded kroaker.

  You critically hit Moonlake Kroaker Warrior for 35 damage plus 18 acid damage.

  Moonlake Kroaker Warrior dies.

  You gain 150 experience.

  His blow from Kraken’s Claw took down the damaged frogman and the thing let out a gurgling sigh as it fell dead. Jace adjusted the aim of his second saber to hit the uninjured kroaker but it skidded off the creature’s slimy skin.

  You critically hit Moonlake Kroaker Warrior for 0 damage.

  Mika used her Vanish skill to get a critical hit on the kroaker as well.

  Mika Knightly critically hit Moonlake Kroaker Warrior for 20 damage.

  Moonlake Kroaker Warrior is Bleeding.

  Luna attacked the frogman’s back as well but Jace didn’t see Diana attacking.

  Luna bites Moonlake Kroaker Warrior for 5 damage.

  Luna claws Moonlake Kroaker Warrior for 0 damage.

  Luna claws Moonlake Kroaker Warrior for 2 damage.

  Jace could see Diana behind Mika, her face ashen and her body trembling. He called out to her. “Diana, are you okay?”

  The raven haired woman said nothing. She just stared, wide-eyed at the kroakers, her eyes going from the live on to the dead one on the ground. Her mouth was open, but no sound came out.

  Jace swore just as the remaining kroaker tried to skewer him with its spear. Luckily, his Air Armor diverted the blow.

  Moonlake Kroaker Warrior pierces YOU for 0 points of damage.

  Worried about Diana, Jace wanted to end this as soon as possible. Using his Feint on the remaining creature, he stabbed at its torso with a double saber attack. Followed by Mika’s and Luna’s attacks.

  You critically hit Moonlake Kroaker Warrior for 54 damage plus 18 acid damage.

  You critically hit Moonlake Kroaker Warrior for 10 damage.

  Worried about Diana, Jace wanted to end the fight as soon as possible. Using his Feint on the remaining creature, he stabbed at its torso with a double saber attack.

  Moonlake Kroaker Warrior for 3 damage.

  Mika Knightly critically hit Moonlake Kroaker Warrior for 10 damage.

  Moonlake Kroaker Warrior is Bleeding.

  Luna bites Moonlake Kroaker Warrior for 1 damage.

  Luna claws Moonlake Kroaker Warrior for 3 damage.

  Luna claws Moonlake Kroaker Warrior for 0 damage.

  The kroaker looked the worse for wear and seemed to realize it wasn’t going to win the fight. Jace thought it might try to run but instead, it opened its mouth and a long, pink tongue lashed out of its mouth, right at Jace’s saber.

  Moonlake Kroaker Warrior uses Sticky Tongue Disarm but is interrupted.

  Kraken’s Claw hits Moonlake Kroaker Warrior for 18 acid damage.

  The frogman’s tongue had shot out and wrapped around Kraken’s Claw. It looked as if the creature was about to yank the weapon out of Jace’s hand. That was when the acid of the blade had burned the creature’s tongue and it had retracted it.

  Jace hated creature’s with the Disarm ability. It was an attack against a weapon, rather than a player and bypassed any armor or evasion skills. In this case, the only thing that had prevented Jace from losing Kraken’s Claw was the fact that the blade did acid damage. By voluntarily touching the blade, the creature had subjected itself to the damage and that had interrupted its attack.

  Taking advantage of the surprised kroaker, whose tongue now hung out slightly from it’s mouth, Jace Feinted and stabbed again, bringing the kroaker’s life to an end.

  You critically hit Moonlake Kroaker Warrior for 40 damage plus 18 acid damage.

  Moonlake Kroaker Warrior dies.

  You gain 150 experience.

  The kroaker staggered back and then collapsed onto the bloody sand. Jace stepped over the body and strode quickly over to Diana, who still hadn’t moved.

  Sheathing his weapons, he glanced around her body to see if any darts had hit her. Natives sometimes used paralyzation poison on darts that would render a player immoble. He saw none. “Are you hurt? Are you injured?”

  Diana blinked several times, then slowly swiveled her head from the kroakers to Jace. She tried to speak but nothing came out. Jace repeated his question. “Are you okay?”

  “Ran…” she said but the sound was little more than a whisper.

  “Run?” he asked. Did she want them to run back to the ship?

  “Ran…” she repeated and then swallowed. “Ranidaphobia.”

  “Ran-i-what?” Mika asked, her face a mask of concern.

  “Ranidaphobia,” the older woman repeated and then took a deep breath. “Extreme Fear of frogs.”

  Jace looked from Diana down to the kroaker and then back to raven haired beauty. He saw it now. The cold sweat. The shaking body. The look of pure terror. Their poor Diana had an extreme phobia of frogs. And apparently, that applied to kroakers too.

  Jace swore.

  Chapter 15

  “You are afraid of frogs?” Mika asked, concerned etched on her beautiful face.

  Diana swallowed and nodded. “Deathly. I don’t even know why.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” Jace demanded, shaking his head. “You could have stayed on the ship.”

  “I didn’t know if I would still be afraid,” Diana replied in a small voice and Jace suddenly felt bad for raising his voice. “And I didn’t know if it would apply to frogmen. But it does. Oh my, it does!”

  Reaching over to her, Jace put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. But I wish you would have said something so we would have at least been aware.”

  “I know, I know,” Diana sniffed and seemed to be about to break out in tears.

  Not knowing what else to do, Jace pulled her into an embrace and held her for almost a minute before she pushed him gently away.

  “Thanks.” She smiled. “I needed that.
” Diana stepped back from Jace and pointedly turned her back on the dead kroakers. “I’m okay now. At least, for the moment.”

  Jace walked around so he could face her and smiled. “Good. Why don’t you walk down closer to the water. If we get attacked again, turn away. You can still target us for healing using the group list in your HUD. Just throw us some heals if you can.”

  The older woman appeared relieved and looked down at where the waves were washing ashore. “Yes… I can… I can do that.”

  “Froggies coming,” Luna’s voice said in his head.

  “More kroakers are on their way,” Jace told them. “We need to get going but keep an eye open. Mika, I mean. Diana, you just keep your eyes on the beach and the water. Don’t look at the kroakers.”

  Diana shivered. “Right. Don’t look!”

  “Let’s go!” Motioning them to follow, Jace started off down the beach with the girls following behind him and Luna padded along next to him.

  The kroakers attacked them four more times, in groups of twos and threes. During the third attack, they had killed two of the three kroakers when two more joined in the fight. They were only level 15, but their poison guaranteed extra damage on any strike that penetrated his Defense. And since every kroaker they encountered seemed to use a 2-handed spear, they were damaging him more than he wanted.

  The only positive side to the fighting was that they were earning experience. Diana even hit 10th level, allowing her skills to progress. Unfortunately, the other benefits would need to wait since she couldn’t learn new priest spells until she went to a temple, and the kroakers weren’t dropping anything but spears.

  When they reached the section of beach where they had left their rowboat, they found half a dozen kroakers waiting for them. It was a nasty fight. With that many kroakers attacking, too many blows were making it through his Defense for him to just shrug off.

  With so many kroakers around, Diana was a mess. She was so terrified that she actually started to swim back to the ship, leaving Jace, Mika and Luna to fight them on their own.

  Thankfully, Mika had levels in priest and could heal Jace. Not only that halfway through the fight, she hit level 10 in rogue and received Critical Eye II. Doing 3x damage on her critical strikes instead of 2x damage helped them to burn down the remaining kroakers much more quickly.

  As the last kroaker dropped dead, Jace looked out to the water and spotted Diana. She was only a little over a quarter of the distance between the beach and the ship.

  “More coming,” Luna growled as the cat looked into the jungle canopy. The cat was crouched low with her ears back. “Many.”

  Luna had spoken the words aloud instead of sending them mentally and Mika looked to Jace. She looked from the jungle to the water and then sheathed her katana. “We must go.”

  Jace couldn’t agree with her more and the two of them ran over to the boat and pushed it back into the water. Jace was about to take the oars but Mika put a hand on his chest. “No! You see in the dark. You watch, I row.”

  Her argument made sense so Jace stowed his sense of chivalry and moved to the back of the boat. Luna moved deftly to the front but cast occasional glances back towards the beach. The cat seemed nervous and that worried Jace.

  They’d nearly caught up with Diana when movement from the shore caught his eye. At least twenty kroakers came hopping out of the jungle. The creatures seem to spot their little boat almost immediately. The group began croaking loudly to each other for almost a full minute before they suddenly charged down the beach and then hopped into the water.

  Mika was pulling Diana into the boat, causing it to tilt precariously, as Jace watched the kroakers closing the distance with unbelievable speed. Because of the crystal clear water, he could just make out the forms as they torpedoed towards their rowboat.

  “Incoming!” he yelled and pulled out his weapons.

  Watching the aquatic forms coming towards them, he realized how terrible their predicament was. The kroakers were amphibians. They didn’t even need to surface. They could just attack the bottom of the boat with their spears and cause it to sink. Or, they just capsize the boat and attack his group as they tried to stay afloat. Or once they were in the water, they could pull them down and drown them.

  In other words, there were no scenarios where they won this fight. Jace swore. They’d been so close too. He didn’t see any way they could get to the ship before the kroakers reached them.

  The closest kroaker was almost to the boat when a shadow seemed to grow in the water. The next thing he saw was the kroakers darting out in all directions, apparently no longer interested in his group’s boat.

  He finally recognized the shadow and the two kroakers suddenly disappeared from in front of it, a large turtle head moving quicker than he would have thought possible to snatch up the fleeing kroakers in its huge beak. It was Bob the dragon turtle.

  The enormous head broke the surface for only a moment. “I thought you might need some help. Plus, I was a bit peckish.”

  “Thanks Bob!” he yelled and waved to the dragon turtle as it went back to chasing the fleeing kroakers. He noticed that the creature’s legs were now large fins, making him resemble a sea turtle instead of a land-based turtle like before. Must be some dragon turtle magic or perhaps they were retractable.

  They rowed the rest of the way back to the ship and climbed aboard. Colette was there, as were the entire crew. They only paid the barest attention to Jace and the group as they climbed back aboard. Instead, their terrified gazes were fixed on the dragon turtle that swam between them and the island.

  “Captain,” Colette said, her eyes wide. “It’s… it’s… Tieghosdirth!”

  Jace looked back over his shoulder at the dragon turtle as it swam almost lazily after the kroakers. “Yes, he helped us out with the kroakers.”

  The first mate’s mouth fell open. “Helped you?”

  Jace nodded nonchalantly. “Yes, he thought we might need some help, so he swam over to help us. Plus, he was hungry.”

  Colette looked at Jace like he’d grown two heads, and possibly some antennas. “How… it… huh?”

  Helping the girls up on deck, Jace continued his nonchalance with the first mate. “Yeah, we talked to him earlier, and he showed us the treasure. I thought he was going back to his hot springs, but I guess he wanted a late-night snack.”

  Now the entire crew was staring at him and Jace had struggled to maintain a straight face. The fact that Colette had known Bob’s in-game name meant that it had some sort of reputation. Jace wanted to capitalize on the fear it generated to both solidify his position as captain and also keep his word to Bob about leaving him alone.

  “Tieghosdirth and I talked, and he was fine with you having the captain’s treasure,” he told the crew. “But, he likes his privacy. So he told me to tell you that if any of you breathe a word of having seen him - to anyone - he will find you and swallow you whole. In his belly, you’ll slowly digest for a thousand years.”

  He looked around at the crew. They all looked terrified. “I assume I can count on each of you to keep their mouths shut?”

  Jace had barely asked the question when the crew was practically falling over themselves to answer him. Everyone agreed. No one would say a word. He hoped they were telling the truth. Bob deserved to be left alone if that was what he wanted.

  He knew that once WorldCog unraveled Damian’s code and figured out what he’d done, they’d return everyone to their normal form. Bob would be back in whatever type of character he was originally supposed to be in. Then he’d have to figure out a new way to be alone.

  “Colette,” he told the first mate, “I think we should be on our way now.”

  “Aye, captain,” Colette nodded vigorously and began barking orders to the crew.

  As the crew did their jobs and made the ship ready to get under way, Jace and the girls watched the dragon turtle as it circled back around. The enormous head broke the water and looked their way. Then Bob raised his righ
t front fin in a wave or salute.

  The three of them raised their hands and waved back before the dragon turtle disappeared under the water again and swam out of sight.

  “He was a nice dragon turtle,” Mika commented. “It’s a shame he has to be alone.”

  Jace chuckled. “Good for us he was nice. That could have gone very, very bad had he not been as talkative.”

  “I’m sorry I was such a wreck out there,” Diana said, breaking down into tears. “I didn’t mean to run away. I just… I just… “The woman put her head into her hands and started crying.

  Mika put her arms around the taller woman. “It’s okay Diana. We are all afraid of something.”

  “I… I…” Diana sobbed. “I tried... to make... myself stay, but… I couldn’t.”

  “It’s fine,” Jace said. “Everything worked out.”

  Colette cleared her throat. “Sorry captain, we’re ready to set sail. What’s our heading?”

  “Nynymmost,” he muttered.

  “Aye, captain,” she said and left to look at their charts.

  It was a risk to go to the gnomish capital. Damian could be waiting for them. If he had interrogated any of the servants or intercepted the raven message to Charlena, he would know where they were headed.

  Still, he really had no choice. He had told Charlena he could meet her there, and he needed to keep that promise. He hoped to talk to her, even if it were one last time, so he could explain what had happened. Let her know that he hadn’t lied or tried to deceive her.

  As the wind caught the sales and the ship lurched into motion, Jace just hoped Charlena would listen.

  Chapter 16

  Jace waited until the ship was well under way before bringing out the large treasure chest and popping it open. Given how heavy the chest was, he guessed there were thousands of gold inside.

  “This isn’t just the late captain’s treasure,” he called out to the crew. They were all staring at the chest and practically salivating over it. “It’s partially the dragon turtle’s treasure. I wouldn’t expect this much loot from future endeavors, unless we hit a rich enemy merchant ship.”