Underpowered Howard: A LitRPG Adventure

by John L. Monk

  “I’m here,” I said when he didn’t stop reading the worn paperback in his hand.

  “Ah,” Parker said in a voice brimming with indifference. “That explains it.”

  “Explains what?”

  He put the book down and looked up. “Why my heart is suddenly all aflutter.”

  In keeping with his gumshoe persona, Parker could also be a wise guy.

  “I would have been here quicker,” I said, “but some idiot kept killing me. Waited until I reached the gates three times before griefing me, the prick.”

  Parker smiled. “You could report him to the city watch.”

  “And risk dying of old age waiting for justice? No thanks.”

  The watch was an all-volunteer group chartered by the city government to keep outlaws in check. They were also notoriously lazy. Most only joined for the free uniforms and the pin with the run-speed enchantment.

  “Up to you,” Parker said. “Anyway, if you can stop crying a minute, I’ll get your thing.”

  He reached down with an economy of motion and opened a drawer. From there he removed the small silver treasure chest I’d given him two hours ago. He placed it on the desk and pushed it toward me.

  It was a Chest of Persistence. I’d bought it years ago from a high-ranked enchanter for 9 million gold. You could put anything into it except a bottomless bag, and it was the only way to smuggle valuables to yourself after Giving Up. Bank accounts wouldn’t work. Hiding treasure in the woods wouldn’t either, and neither would handing it off for someone to give back. Anything not in the chest before Giving Up would disappear as soon as you reached for it.

  “If you ask if I opened it,” Parker said, “I promise not to be offended.”

  “Then I won’t ask.”

  He cocked his head. “What’s with you, anyway?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re not the only one I do this for,” he said, gesturing at the chest. “But you’re the only one who’s leveled-up in twenty classes.”

  “Fifteen,” I corrected him. “You can only Give Up once a year.”

  “Fifteen, like I said. Some people say you do it to clear your karma. That true?”

  Karma was a hidden stat all players had. As such, not everyone believed in it. The more you exploited the rules, the more it would drop, spoiling your luck.

  “Maybe I’m just a rebel,” I said.

  “I hear women like rebels… Maybe I should try rebelling.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, eyes on the chest. “Every time you give me one of these, it’s lighter than before. Just a little. This time, it’s heavier.”

  That was surprising. “You noticed?”

  “I’m paid to notice things.”

  I paused in thought, then figured what the hell.

  “Usually, it’s just gems, bought with gold from my hotshot days. Fewer each time, because I have no way to replenish them. But this time, I added something new.”

  “Yeah, what’s that?”

  “An item that’s never been seen in Mythian, as far as I know.”

  “You gonna tell me?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “But you’ll definitely find out. Of that, I promise you.”

  I was being vague on purpose. Parker was probably the most honest person I’d ever met, which is why I kept hiring him for these little handoffs. That said, if he knew the full extent of my plans, he might try to stop me.

  “Now I really am curious,” he said. “Before, I was just faking it. What class you going for this time?”

  “Necromancer.”

  Parker looked puzzled. “Could be I’m losing my touch—doubtful—but if recollection serves me, you’ve played that one before.”

  “You actually remember?”

  “I’m paid to remember things.”

  I smiled. “You’re right. I tried necro ten years ago. And before you ask, yes, they’re definitely underpowered. Broken for anything but PVP.”

  “Oh yeah,” he said, pointing at me. “That’s the other thing they say about you. Underpowered Howard is looking for the perfect character class.”

  Much like the proverbial telephone game, the story of my nickname had morphed from The guy who whines about the Domination to The guy who calls every class he fails at “underpowered.” Not that I minded.

  “Actually, no,” I said. “That’s just a cover.”

  “For what?”

  Instead of answering, I tucked the chest under my arm and smiled. “You should have looked when you had the chance.”

  “Just so you know,” Parker said, “when I’m not helping little old ladies cross the street, I’m a staunch defender of the sacred bond of brotherhood. Means I don’t peek, and I keep good secrets.”

  “All that and you still have time for detecting?”

  “It helps if I pace myself.”

  Eager to open the chest and get started, I tipped an imaginary fedora.

  “Take it easy, Parker.”

  “Until next time?”

  “Not if I’m lucky.”

  It was under the PI’s calm, intelligent gaze that I left through the old-style office door into an unremarkable medieval alley. After that, I hastened to the Slaughtered Noob—one of the special inns set aside for low-level players—to set in motion a plan many years in the making.

  “Underpowered Howard!” Bernard shouted angrily from across a common room, currently populated with about ten dejected noobs drowning their sorrows in free ale.

  Likely all of them had been robbed on Heroes’ Approach. This was the road just outside the city. There, noobs entered the game with 3 gold coins in a pouch around their neck. Because the Sanctuary flag began and ended at the city gates, they were frequently killed three times for 9 gold, after which the game gave up and stopped giving them money. Why the designers had set it up this way was a mystery.

  I would have given them something but didn’t want the attention. That, and septuagenarian retirees liked to talk.

  “No time, Bernard, maybe tomorrow,” I said and made a beeline for the stairs.

  Or tried to.

  “Not so fast,” he said, teleporting from behind the bar to block me.

  Bernard was a “lucid,” the official name for self-aware AIs. The powerful innkeeper stood seven feet tall, with a big black beard and muscly arms covered in runic tattoos. As such, he would have been a sight to behold if I hadn’t beheld it countless times already.

  “What’s in the bag?” he said, nosey as ever.

  “You already know.”

  “I do know,” he said. “I see them sitting together like bombs ready to explode and destroy us all. But why do you have them?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “No… I mean, yes, I know that too. You know I know.”

  “I know you know I know what you know.”

  Bernard blinked in confusion. His Nosey Innkeeper perk had tipped him off to my plans, at least somewhat. How much he knew, I couldn’t tell. Whatever it was, I could only hope he’d keep it to himself. If anyone found out—and believed I’d go through with it—I’d be a hunted man.

  The inn’s patrons, I noticed, were craning to see what the commotion was about.

  Quietly I said, “I consider this a secret. Tutorial lucids are here to help me, not rat me out. Your godlike knowledge of our personal business is supposed to make you more interesting—to draw us into trusting you as you dole out quests. Use it against me and you’ll incur a massive karma hit.”

  Bernard stiffened to his full height, eyes stormy with indignation.

  “I would never rat out a hero,” he said. “I’m on your side! You know that.”

  “I do know that.”

  “But I’m also supposed to help you. Why do you want to destroy the world? Let’s talk about it—see if we can get to the root of your deep-seated psychological problems, hmm?”

  Though impatient to get started, I felt the need to argue. “I’m not trying to destroy the world, you idiot. I’m trying to break the
game. And yes, there’s a difference.”

  Many lucids knew the world was a game created for retirees from the real world. Some, like Bernard, knew quite a bit about the real world—to relate better to new retirees. For those, he occupied a dual role as both therapist and quest giver.

  “You never got over losing those fights!” Bernard shouted angrily. “Now you’re taking it out on the rest of us.”

  “No, I didn’t lose. I told you before: the Domination’s glitched. Unbeatable. A hill for unsuspecting players to die on and disappear forever.”

  Bernard made an impatient sound. “Everything’s glitched with you! That’s why you keep jumping from class to class like a crazy person. You’re never satisfied with what you have!” He leaned close. “Heed my advice: Take you know what and throw it as far away from you know the other what as you can. As far as I’m concerned, it’s an exploit, and a real doozy, too.”

  “No, it isn’t,” I said. “Says so right in the description.”

  He started to reply, but I faked right, ducked around him, and took the ascending stairs three at a time while Bernard sputtered after me about dire consequences and the end of the world and how I needed to be stopped.

  Sitting in my sparsely furnished room in the Slaughtered Noob, I gazed at the Chest of Persistence with a feeling of trepidation. No, the items inside wouldn’t destroy the world. In theory, the worst they’d do was ruin it for a little while.

  “There’s always plan B,” I said.

  Plan B had me leveling slowly to 1300, then sitting outside the Domination’s lair for all eternity yelling, “Go back, it’s glitched! Take my word for it!” Even if people listened, it’d be a miserable existence.

  I opened the chest and found the fifty mythereum gems I’d stashed there, along with two other things: a mummified finger, and a large gold amulet I’d never seen or heard of in all my travels through the four wards. In the right hands, with the right spells—one in particular—it was also the most powerful item in the game.

  Amulet of Ethan

  Major Perks: Good Grief

  Flags: No Loot, No Steal

  Description: Hello, Howard, how do you do? My name is Ethan Crane, and I’m a new god here in Mythian. I started as a player just like you. Also like you, I wasn’t above a little cheating if it helped me get the job done. From one cheater to another: I’m impressed. You’ve leveled to 100 in nearly half the classes, and along the way exploited every bug anyone’s ever heard of. You even found new ones, and you took gobs of karma hits in the process. That’s the real reason you keep Giving Up—because you’re tired of walking around under a perfectly clear sky, only to be hit by a whale tossed by a hurricane thousands of miles away. Karma, as they say, is a bitch.

  I know what you’re up to and I commend it. But much as I respect your efforts, you’ve been thinking too small. Everlife gave up support for Heroes of Mythian a long time ago. Rather than fix the game, they put in the karma system so it could police itself. As true as that is—and it is—I have reason to believe they’re still watching it, at least on some level, which is why I’m awarding you this amulet.

  The strictures placed on me and gods in general are forbidding: I can lead you along a twisty path in the furtherance of a “quest,” but I can’t outright give you things. To get around that, I created a secret quest objective: “Whoever loses the most karma in ten years wins The Amulet of Ethan.”

  Congratulations! You’re a winner!

  Easy for you, painful for me. Mythian’s a smart cookie—practically alive. It sniffed out my intent and smashed me half to death for it … but I lived. Which, I think, means it approves. In a weird way, I think Mythian’s playing the same sort of game we are—sticking to the rules while breaking the spirit of them in the pursuit of a better world.

  I’m sure you know how best to use this amulet. Get their attention! Stir things up!

  Best of luck,

  Ethan

  I’d had very little interaction with the gods of Mythian. Mostly they buddied around with priests and paladins or made grand appearances at the end of long quest chains. But this god had me pegged, all right. Giving Up was the fastest way to clear one’s karma, which is why I’d done so just a few hours ago. And I had been hit by a whale—once, in the middle of nowhere, though I hadn’t known it was flung by a hurricane. What a hoot.

  It felt good knowing I wasn’t the only one trying to fix things.

  “Thank you, Ethan,” I said. “It just so happens I do know how to use this amulet.”

  The perk it provided seemed just the ticket to wake up whoever’s job it was to make sure Heroes of Mythian didn’t go off the rails:

  Perk Name: Good Grief

  Description: You may now kill players repeatedly without griefing restrictions. Players you kill while wearing the amulet feel no pain, and they always provide experience points. Hard-mode players lose no permanent lives, and neither do Normal-mode players in wards 2-4 and all the faraway places. Griefed players load with their gear, so you can’t steal from them—which seems only fair, right? Here’s the best part: Griefing beyond three kills will NEVER incur a karma penalty. All other offenses still apply.

  The amulet was the size of my palm and maybe half an inch thick. On one side was an engraving of a man with a big smile, flashing me a thumbs up. On the other side, a picture of a woman with curly hair giving me the OK sign. Like everyone, I’d heard of Ethan Crane—a new god and a former player. The woman, I figured, was his current wife, Rita. Word was he’d had another, but nobody knew what happened to her.

  I placed the amulet over my head and let it fall against my noob tunic.

  “Now for you,” I said, holding up the mummified finger. Absolutely disgusting-looking, and it tasted horrible. I knew this because I’d eaten one just like it years ago.

  Wishing I’d thought to grab a free ale on the way up, I shoved the finger to the back of my throat and did my best to swallow it whole.

  When I eventually got it down, I screamed as unholy fire consumed me from within. The conflagration spread from belly to chest, along my arms, and down each leg. Acrid smoke filled the air as my eyes cooked in their sockets. I couldn’t see or move or even breathe as my tiny pool of 10 health points ticked slowly down to 0. Then I died.

  Three minutes later, I came back to life in Martyr’s Square, where’d I’d bound myself after reaching the city. Once again, I loaded with a free noob tunic. I was also wearing my new amulet. The No Loot/No Steal flag meant I’d load with it every time I died. Any other gear would have to be retrieved from my corpse, per the usual.

  I reached inward, pulled up my character sheet, and smiled when I saw “Necromancer” listed next to “Classes.” I checked my game log and saw a recent notification.

  RARE CLASS UNLOCKED: Necromancer

  Major Perks: Necrotic Aura, Death Blossom

  Description: Assert power over death as you conjure skeletons, wraiths, and specters to your command. Hark! Decay sustains you, and mortal flesh resigns as you march a path of ruin. Henceforth, the cries of the doomed and moans of the risen shall follow. Woe and terror! All hope entombed!

  The flowery wording fit with Everlife’s standard: ultra-serious roleplaying for class descriptions, and often absurd or even contemptuous spell, perk, and item descriptions. Usually they were accurate. This one, however, was a little off. It completely glossed over several major obstacles to the thoroughly broken necromancer class.

  For one, it omitted the fact that necromancers couldn’t multi-class except in one very specific case, which I planned to exploit. Also, necromancers were not sustained by decay. Quite the opposite: Anytime they summoned a creature, they lost some amount of vitality per hour—their key stat—while maintaining it. This was a fixed amount based on the summoned creature’s power, officially termed “Rate of Decay,” or ROD. If a minion killed something, the necro received a surge of vitality from a perk called Death Blossom. The more powerful the minion, the bigger the Death Blossom.
And killing players gave more vitality than non-players.

  All health in excess of the necromancer’s base vitality healed what damage it could, then formed a shield called a Necrotic Aura with the unused remainder. So long as it had health points, no attacks could physically touch the player. In a regrettable twist, Everlife had made this aura capable of transmitting pain. Hits against it hurt for half the amount delivered. This forced necromancers into the already crowded marketplace for pain protection items.

  The trick with necros was they needed a steady supply of enemies—preferably other players, so as to establish a massive pool of low-cost bonus vitality. This placed necromancers almost exclusively in the company of those who joined lucid champions and lucid armies against players. Universally hated, necros were the turncoats of the game—the outlaws and crazies of the world. Luckily for everyone, they were rarely played.

  Another thing that made them rare was the griefing system. This was the main reason I considered the class broken. Mythian only let players kill each other a maximum of three times per victim. When that limit was reached, swords passed through bodies as if they were apparitions, and spells missed their targets completely. The anti-griefing penalty lasted until the griefed player leveled at least once. That, or the griefee attacked their griefer for some reason.

  Though critically flawed, there were a few non-PVP situations in which necros could be powerful, if not unstoppable. If monsters came at them in a series of one, then two, then three, and on like that, a necro could quickly raise a small army and build up a massive Necrotic Aura.