Underpowered Howard: A LitRPG Adventure

by John L. Monk

  “Time for plan B!” Felix shouted. He thrust something into my hands.

  Seconds later, Elfie arrived.

  Felix said, “You know Ward 4 just as good as anyone. There’s no reason you can’t grind your way to the Well using Return, then suicide to Brighton before the cake wears off. If you’re game. But you’ll have to fly to reach the island.”

  I stared at him in disbelief. He’d given me his Portable Hoard, filled with all his delectomancy gear, wealth, fleckulents, and even his Ray of Sunshine.

  “What about the Leviathan?” I said.

  “We’re gonna distract it,” Elfie said, grinning happily.

  “One!” Felix said, grabbing an arm.

  Elfie grabbed the other. “Two!”

  “Wait a minute,” I said.

  “Three!” they shouted together.

  They whisked me a hundred feet straight up. In the nick of time, it turned out. Jane's ship—listing heavily in the water—fired another volley at the floating wreckage that had been the Royal Banshee, destroying the area we’d been standing. At the same time—miraculously—some of our gunners managed to get off another round of explosive shot, hulling the enemy ship a second time.

  “We have to land!” I shouted.

  “No!” Elfie said. “You do. See you in Brighton!”

  “It’s been good!” Felix shouted.

  “And weird!” Elfie yelled.

  Then I felt as if the side of a mountain had slammed into me. The telekinetic force was so strong, it blew away more than 2200 points from my borrowed shield ring.

  Felix and Elfie streaked in two directions way out over the water. My own trajectory carried me toward the island at breakneck speed.

  I twisted in the air just in time to see Elfie get eaten in a single gulp by the snakelike Leviathan. Moments later, Felix followed her.

  Then it was my turn—or would have been, if I’d been a few seconds slower. I cleared the shore and started flying under my own power, then twisted to see our ship turn to colored vapor before my eyes. My guess was Captain Richards had died in the last volley. Even if he’d lived, the ship was doomed…

  And all those men.

  A minute later, I squelched my shame at not being smart enough to save them. They’d served their purposes nobly. Now I had to do the same.

  In the distance, a chilling sight. Coming from the enemy ship—currently sinking—was a small rowboat. Even from this far out, I knew who it was.

  Jane.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Roughly four miles at its widest, three at its narrowest, the Island of Yes Return resembled an ink splotch. Little fingers of land radiated outward in a rough circle to create ten natural bays. The cone of a smoking volcano rose from the northern side. Scrub grass and stunted trees represented the only vegetation in every direction, and I didn’t see any animals besides birds and a few large lizards sunning themselves in the late afternoon sun.

  Each of the ten bays had a narrow road leading to the exact center of the island, and that’s where I found the binding stone. After landing, I searched the skies for Jane but didn’t see her. This meant nothing, because she’d demonstrated her ability to turn invisible way back at the Timeless Tourney.

  I waited several minutes, peering in the direction I’d last seen her. A sudden whiff of peppermint in the air almost caused me to smile.

  I spun around six times—counterclockwise, the opposite direction needed to trigger the binding. No way was I binding myself in Ward 4 if I didn’t have to. It fooled Jane, though. She tackled me to the ground, snapped into visibility, and held a dagger to my throat.

  “You are an absolute menace to common sense,” she said. “Had to do it the hard way, didn’t you? Are you trying to make me kill you?”

  “Wait, let me explain!” I said.

  “Explain what?” she said.

  “Uh … that I thought we could get to know each other better?”

  Yes, it was a silly thing to say, but I actually meant it. If I could bring a powerful paladin like her over to my side, she’d be an amazing ally.

  Jane, apparently, hated silly things to say. She didn’t get to know me better at all. Instead, she just killed me.

  Three minutes later, I triggered Return, then silently re-cast it.

  In feigned outrage I shouted, “Damn you!” Then I cast Harrow.

  As my beam of black energy splashed harmlessly off her armor, she said, “Are you serious?”

  “Victory shall be mine!”

  I cackled fiendishly—a well-known requirement when being diabolical.

  “You’re trying to make me grief you,” she said. “I’m not going to, so you may as well cut it out.”

  With the jig up, I stopped the spell. “Worth a try.”

  Jane gazed stonily at me—and then curiously as I readjusted Felix’s bag, looped over my chest.

  “Where’d you get the Portable Hoard?” she said.

  “Never mind that,” I said. “How were you planning to take me to the Dryad?”

  She seemed surprised.

  “Sleep poison,” she said. Her tone was a mix of embarrassment and guilt. “You have enough vitality to survive her easily. You’d have lived for eternity cradled in love and comfort. I’ve known women who’ve changed sexes to feel that way.”

  I backed away in genuine fear. Sleep poison… In a way, it was even worse than the Mirror of Captivation in that she could keep dosing me. My guess was the only reason she hadn’t done so in Ward 1 is that I hadn’t fought the bridge guardian. If she’d tried to carry me across, I’d have been teleported to the fight. By coming to the Island of Yes Return, I’d made her job easier.

  She rolled her eyes. “The assassin hired to administer it died in the battle. You’re perfectly safe. But I can’t let you reach the mainland.”

  “Because I’ll destroy the world?”

  “I told you before: I saw it in a vision. In it, you plunged the world into eternal darkness.”

  I smiled my most patronizing smile. “Jane, I promise you, my plan has absolutely nothing to do with plunging the world into darkness, eternal or otherwise. All I’m going to do is level-up really, really, really fast—to heights never before seen in Mythian—all with the hope of gaining the attention of Everlife’s ops team. If I’m right, they’ll see what I’ve done and investigate—probably even talk to me. My guess is they have a huge number of changes waiting to go in but just haven’t had the time. A huge patch, basically.”

  She shook her head like I was the dumbest person in the world. “That’s a lot of things to hope for. Why risk the vision being right?”

  “Because the game is murdering people,” I said. “I tried to tell you that back at the Timeless Tourney, but you wouldn’t listen. Got all Jane on me. You’re too set in your prejudice against necromancers and your belief in Bernard—who’s kind of an idiot, by the way. Just saying.”

  Jane's hand strayed to her sword and her jaw took a set. “He’s not an idiot. And no, I’ve never met a necromancer before who didn’t deserve a death machine. Though … I’ll admit you seem different than those others. You’re stupid, not evil. But go on, tell me: How is Mythian murdering people?”

  Calmly, and with practiced ease, I recounted the story: having only nine lives, fighting and losing against the Domination eight times in a row as it messed with my mind…

  “What if you’re just not as good as you think you are?” she said. “I’ve known lots of people who’ve beaten it.”

  I shook my head. “I’ll allow I’m not the best player ever, but I hold my own. According to the Domination, I had a forty percent chance per fight to win. Eight fights would have given me more than a ninety-eight percent chance to eventually win. But to your point: How can you be sure the people you think left Mythian actually did? Did you see them leave?”

  She paused briefly. “Well, no, but… That doesn’t mean they didn’t. Even if it’s bugged, they had a choice: to keep going or quit. With one life left, t
hey should have given up. Nobody forced them to commit suicide.”

  “I told you, the thing messes with your mind somehow.”

  “You saw that in your logs?”

  She had me there.

  Hating how it sounded, I said, “There’s no requirement for Mythian to log anything. It logs what it logs.”

  “You could justify anything that way.”

  “Then how about this? Imagine the mindset of your typical adventurer trying to leave. They’ve spent a hundred or more years mindlessly grinding out levels. When they get to Ward 4, they find bigger monsters to fight and fewer friends to do it with. They’re tired, lonely, ashamed at the choice they made to come to this sadistic, pointless retirement world, and all they want is out. When they meet the Domination for the first time, they learn the fights will be hard, but that they’re more or less guaranteed to win if they keep at it. They fight, and they lose. They fight again and lose again. Each time by the skin of their teeth. In the distance, the exit rune is flashing blue, taunting them to try one more time. If that’s not enough compulsion for you, I don’t know what is.”

  Jane was quiet for a time. I took this as a good sign. If she was thinking then she wasn’t following a demented lucid bartender’s idiot dogma.

  “For what it’s worth, I believe you,” she said finally. “But it changes nothing. Mythian might not be the world we want, but it’s the one we have. My vision was clear: Your plan, however innocent it seems, is going to usher in an age of endless darkness.”

  Despite the situation, I couldn’t help wondering why she was so pretty. True, the comeliness could have come from gear, but something told me she’d added a few permanent points over the years.

  Maybe she was as lonely as I was.

  “Bernard can only foretell things in this universe,” I said. “Not what Everlife will do. Why not help me? Take a chance—a leap of faith?”

  Jane’s laugh was harsh and belittling. “I’ve already helped you. There are two more ships out looking for you. They have orders to rendezvous with me here in two weeks. How they missed your ship, I have no idea, but when they get here I’ll suicide back to Good Riddance and hire a fleet to assist them. That fleet will stay here for all eternity, paid for by me to guard you.”

  I hung my head in defeat and sighed dejectedly. “You’ve thought of everything. I guess… I guess I just need a minute to think.”

  “Take all the time you need. We’re going to be spending the next few weeks together, camped right here while I wait for the ships.”

  “You’re right about one thing,” I said, smiling my pearly whites. “I’m a pretty swell guy. But you messed up. You just told me you have multiple lives. Being a swell guy, I was a teensy bit worried you’d secretly fought the Domination and only had one life left.”

  Jane's chuckle seemed more forced than villainous. “No, I never fought it before. I like Mythian. Why would I want to leave? I have everything here I never had in life.”

  “So you definitely have more than one Ward 4 life?”

  “Are you deaf? Yes, for the love of all that’s…”

  Jane was good. All high-levels were for the most part. Sensing a rat, her eyes narrowed and she started to move.

  “Blackout,” I said.

  As had happened back on the ship, the world turned inky black.

  “Righteous Bomb!” she shouted, righteously bombing me for a staggering 26,325 health points, all of which was soaked up by the 50,000-point shield ring.

  Though the blackout effect would only last for twenty seconds, in truth I only needed three.

  One: I reached into Felix’s bag, pulled out one of his bran muffins, and bit off half.

  Two: I pulled out the Ray of Sunshine.

  Three: I launched myself upward, aiming the relic at a point directly above where I’d last seen Jane. When daylight greeted me, I willed the brilliant yellow orb to life.

  A blinding beam of sunlight shot from my hand, burning into Jane’s chest for fifty percent of her total health pool. If she survived a -1500 resistance check against fire, she’d be able to kill me again without adding to her griefing count. If she lost the check, she’d receive another fifty percent in damage.

  Jane lost the check.

  The Ray of Sunshine flared like a supernova, slicing her into two cauterized pieces that fell smoking from the sky. After that, I leveled two hundred and seventy-three times, bringing me instantly to level 357.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Having spent centuries as a warrior-thief, I’d come to favor a thief ability called Shade Step, which let me silently disappear in battle. Whenever I did this, my enemy would invariably retreat rather than wait to be attacked. On those occasions when I’d faced a flying opponent, the odds of them jumping to the sides were around ten percent, in my experience. Retreating backward accounted for another thirty percent. But most opponents leaped upward, and that’s what I guessed Jane would do. I’d finally gotten lucky—a rare and refreshing experience these days.

  So why didn’t I feel good about it?

  “Because you’re a sucker for a pretty face,” I said, though that wasn’t the real reason.

  I was upset because I’d failed her. My attempt to communicate the problem—to sway her to my side—had been a disaster. She was a Believer with a capital B.

  “So prove her wrong. When this is all over, ask her out. On a date. It’s been forever since you’ve had a date.”

  I nodded. “That’s definitely true.”

  “You’d better do it…”

  “I will!”

  No, I didn’t shake hands on it. Because that’d be weird.

  Once again, I bent down and looted Jane’s bottomless bag with the hopes of returning it to her. A quick check showed very little in it this time. Which made sense, if she was sailing around Ward 4.

  Killing Jane—a high-level paladin—had awarded me a vast fortune in experience points. She hadn’t stood there waiting for me to kill her, which would have resulted in a fraction of the XP. Nobody had helped me, and the stakes were real.

  “Two billion, five hundred and eighty million,” I said, sounding it out in disbelief.

  From level 100 to 500, the cost per level was 10 million XP. Other than the Curse of Power—a possible prize for Hard Modes in the Trial of Pain—I couldn’t think of a single legitimate way to gain two hundred and seventy-three levels that quickly.

  “Well, except one,” I said.

  But first I had to get to the Well.

  While flying to the shore where the sea battle had taken place, I applied 1365 stat points to vitality, and 273 class points to necromancer. I also attuned Return the full 50 points, upgrading it to Greater Return:

  Greater Return

  Cost: Nothing

  Cooldown: 3 minutes

  Expiration: 10 minutes after death

  Death STILL has no claim on you. Cast this spell before a killing blow to return with 10 health points and 1 vitality point. This nearly dead state will last one hour, regardless of gear bonuses. During this time, vitality regeneration will not happen, and restorative spells and potions of any kind will fail. Failure to resurrect after the expiration period will force you to respawn at your last bind location.

  That said … there are a few improvements:

  1) Your corpse is now indestructible to most creatures.

  2) You may run as if you had 100 vitality for one hour after returning.

  3) Glitter. Because everything is better with glitter.

  Without Elfie and Felix to help, I’d need to protect my corpse from creatures who might try to eat it. I’d also be taking the Blood Road. Flying on the Blood Road, or straying too far from it, would cause it to disappear, dropping you into the Ward 4 wilds. To regain the road, travelers had to cross into Ward 3 and come back. So I’d be doing a lot of walking, and possibly running.

  As for the glitter, well, as the spell description said…

  I didn’t bother divvying up the rest of my ski
ll points. Nothing I summoned could stand against the creatures of Ward 4, and I still planned to dump everything into the Summon Lich spell. Most necros spread their points between Harrow, Return, various minions, utility spells, or saved up for the undead dragon—an infinitely attunable class-ender purchasable for 1000 skill points.

  But I wasn’t a typical necro.

  “Delecto-necro?” I said.

  Elfie would have laughed.

  I looked in Felix’s bag and counted six more muffins. The XP draw was about twice what it had been at level 85. Not that I felt worried. I hadn’t expected to level at all. As far as I was concerned, my leveling bonanza was just fuel for the fire.

  There was a lot more in the bag than muffins, though:

  Bushels of fruits and vegetables.

  Every spice imaginable.

  A pantry full of already made dishes whose names implied their usage but which came with no item description.

  Various animal parts, including tiger toes and a severed moose’s head.

  A coin purse with over 30 million gold.

  A Boat in a Tote(™)

  “Well, what do you know?” I said and continued with the inventory.

  A massive wine collection.

  Thousands of books, including an impressive collection of horror novels.

  A disassembled field stove.

  A handful of potions with limited usages: astral projection, seasickness, pain resistance…

  Twenty-eight fleckulents.

  A 50-foot rope.

  A 10-foot pole.

  A steel mirror.

  There was actually a lot more than that, most of it what I’d consider junk. I did find a good supply of weapons and armor of Ward 2 and 3 quality.

  After landing next to Jane’s rowboat, I swapped out my old, non-magical boots for some serious stat-heavy footwear:

  Giant Stompers

  +500 Vitality

  +500 Strength

  -500 Agility

  +20% Damage against giants

  Description:

  Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum. I smell a hero of Myth-ee-un.