Underpowered Howard: A LitRPG Adventure

by John L. Monk

Parker stepped in front of me and whispered something in her ear. She stared incredulously from him to me and said, “This guy?”

  Parker nodded.

  The woman’s pretty eyes hardened. “If we were outside the gates, I’d gut ya. Here, take it.”

  She handed me a small silver pin with the words Sweet Drams stenciled on it. I affixed it to my suspenders and followed Parker inside.

  “What’d you tell her?” I said.

  Parker smirked. “Who, Magda? Nothing, really. Just that you’re the one who caused all the liches.”

  I stared at him like he was crazy. “Why would you do that?”

  “It got us inside, didn’t it? Look—there she is. That’s Dory.”

  I gazed across the empty common area and saw a woman sitting at a table against one of the walls. She was pretty, but not insanely so like Magda the comeliness junkie. Sitting across from her was a level 32 wizard. The setting seemed private, so we waited while they talked. The man would ask her a question and she’d close her eyes. Then she’d reply. Eventually, he got up, thanked her, and left with a bleak expression.

  “Let’s go meet the lady,” Parker said and led the way. When we reached her table, he bowed mockingly. “You were right. He was wearing a mask. You know, with your skills and my beauty, we could make a great team.”

  Dory smiled blandly. “I don’t do this for the money. Not anymore. Hi, Howard.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said and reached over to shake her hand.

  She looked at it a moment, then shook it like someone pretending to be a grownup.

  “Have a seat,” she said.

  Parker and I sat down.

  “Looks like Jane was right about you,” Dory said. “Too bad she couldn’t stop you before you ruined the world.”

  I’ll say this much for her: She was blunt.

  “How do you know Jane?” I said.

  “She hired me in Brighton. I told her you were sailing to Ward 4. Sorry, but knowledge doesn’t pick sides.”

  Parker made an ahem sound and we looked at him.

  “That was an honest throat clearing,” he said. “I mean, I wasn’t suggesting we get to the matter at hand or anything.”

  Dory said, “Technically, this session is for Parker alone.”

  “He’s fine,” I said. “What do you mean session?”

  “I’ve already revealed where your friends are, and I’m sorry about the ones that are stuck out there—though not as sorry as you, I’m sure. It doesn’t take a diviner to know your next question.”

  “How do I stop the liches?” I said.

  Dory pursed her lips. “I can glimpse a few weeks into your future. To see more against your will, I’d need the upgrade to Raul’s Lesser Vision, and I won’t get that for many years. But I can cast Lesser Vision for you. Be warned, the spell uses up an unspecified number of karma points from both of us. Considering the events at hand, I’m willing to give them up.”

  “I have gobs of karma,” I said. “What do I do?”

  “First, I’ll take you to my room.”

  “Now we’re talking,” Parker said with a lascivious smile.

  Ignoring him, she continued: “After you’re lying down, I’ll cast Raul’s Lesser Vision. Then you ask your question. You’ll be knocked out for several hours. If you’re fine with that, we’ll head upstairs.”

  Divination had always given me the creeps, and I’d avoided diviners for most of my time in Mythian. But if it meant fixing things, I’d put up with anything.

  “Let’s do it,” I said.

  Dory took me to her room and tucked me in bed in a way that was almost motherly. Despite the seriousness of the situation, I felt self-conscious about that. It had been a long time since I’d been mothered. Perhaps too long.

  Softly, she said, “Overly specific questions are the easiest to answer. But you’ll miss out on tangential details that sometimes make all the difference. Broader questions yield more data, but the phrase ‘mile wide and an inch deep’ comes to mind. The trick with visions, and Raul’s in particular, is to be as specific as you can while leaving the door open for more.”

  “So what should I ask?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve given you all the advice I feel comfortable with. The question you settle on, and the choices you’ll make afterward, belong to you alone.”

  Frustrated, I almost said something hasty, but her eyes held nothing but sympathy. Willing myself to calm, I took a deep, steadying breath and nodded.

  “Fine,” I said. “I understand. I’m ready.”

  Dory cast the spell and named me as the target. Afterward, all ambient noise drained from the world as if I’d been dropped into a sound booth. Though I could still move freely, she didn’t seem to be breathing, and her expression had frozen on her face.

  In a voice that seemed too loud, I said, “How do I stop what’s happening?”

  The next few moments passed in something like thoughtful silence. And then the world replied.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Ten hours later, I woke to find Dory slumped on the floor in a corner, lost in a trance.

  While she was out, I contemplated everything I’d seen. The experience was remarkably similar to other visions I’d had. Those had been part of quest chains, often involving divinities or fiends of one sort or another. This vision involved numerous perspectives. Sometimes I was one of my liches’ victims, other times the liches themselves.

  The vision culminated in two ways to defeat the dark tide. One was awful for everyone but me. The other confirmed they’d vanish if I died.

  The awful-for-everyone idea had us building a tunnel from the west gate to Heroes’ Approach, where new players arrived. We’d erect a shielded cage around it with signs telling noobs where to go, what was happening, and instructions on how to change their default sleep timers to one million years. As Heroes’ Landing filled with new players, it would magically expand to every corner of Ward 1. Every time the city limits overlapped a binding stone, Sanctuary would kick in, pushing out the liches controlling it.

  In the end, choosing what to do came down to just how selfish I was. Turns out, I was feeling pretty damned selfish all of a sudden.

  Dory opened her eyes. “Sorry… I was remote viewing. How did it go?”

  “Not great,” I said.

  Perhaps from a need to confess, I told her not just everything I’d seen, but how I’d gotten to this sorry state in the first place.

  “I won’t tell anyone if you won’t,” she said afterward.

  I snorted. “Thanks to Parker, everyone knows it was me. And they won’t need a vision to see that killing myself will fix this.”

  “What about the other idea?”

  I sighed dejectedly. “With the whole continent a city, there’d be no way to level-up and progress to the upper wards. The game would become a prison.”

  “It’s already a prison,” she said. “Or will be soon.”

  “Yes. An ocean of liches a thousand miles high, sealing the world in absolute blackness.”

  Bernard had given Jane a similar vision, though hers hadn’t included an ocean of liches. Just the blackness. If I’d had that detail early on, I would have assumed my plan had a flaw and held back.

  Ah, but would you really have done that? I thought. Or would you have rationalized it away?

  At the very least, I would have thought about it more carefully. But still, their behavior made no sense. My calculations were based on them following the normal master-minion arrangement.

  “As for my suicide,” I said, “it shows me flying out over the ocean.”

  I’d been standing alone on the cliffs of Sandpiper Vista. I stood there for a while, then shook my head—and then laughed. Then, with a wave goodbye to nobody at all—to Mythian, I supposed—I leaped off the cliff and soared out over the bay. Ten seconds along, the Leviathan leaped out of the water and gobbled me down. The vision then switched to all the various sites around the world. One by one, the liches cr
umbled into dust. Such were the rules of the vision that I knew these were my minions, their progeny, and the rogue liches too.

  “It doesn’t have to end that way,” Dory said.

  “It seemed pretty clear to me.”

  “Raul’s Lesser Vision shows several possible futures, but not all futures. Your idea could still work. The developers could still notice your super high level. Maybe they review things once a month. Or maybe they do it quarterly. Point is, someone could still notice.”

  “It’s possible,” I said, feeling the first stirrings of hope since yesterday.

  “Is there anything else you could do?” she said. “Some necromancer spell you haven’t gotten yet that might help?”

  After level 6000, I’d gotten all my spells. Many were for different types of undead, self-buffs I didn’t need, or ornamental in nature. One utility spell let me control other undead if I wanted to, but not multiple undead. Even if I controlled a master lich with a thousand minions, ordering it to disband them would be a drop in an ever-filling bucket.

  And then I had it.

  “At level 6000, I learned the Gate spell,” I said. “I could use it to teleport people to Heroes’ Reach. We could still do the thing with the tunnel for the newcomers, but then we could all live in Ward 2. Not as immortals, sure, but a thousand lives is still better than being stuck here for a million years. High-levels could help lowbies until they reached around three hundred. It could work!”

  Dory wasn’t looking at me. In fact, she was looking anywhere but me.

  “What?” I said.

  “I was going to tell you about that,” she said. “You see, I was scouting there remotely, just on a hunch. It turns out there’s liches in Ward 2 now.”

  I smiled in relief. “Oh, those. I stationed a bunch in the Storm King’s castle.”

  “These liches were on the coast.”

  I thought for a second. “They must have been attacked by powerful players and fled. I gave them orders to do that so they wouldn’t kill anyone.”

  What I’d said made perfect sense. So why was Dory biting her lip and not nodding her head like I wanted her to?

  “Even lucids can’t fly over oceans,” I said. “And lucids can’t cross the bridge by themselves. It’s a single-player instance.”

  Dory shook her head. “They’re not using the bridge. They’ve made their own—by linking hands and legs and floating in the water. Not that many right now, but their numbers will grow in time. I’m sorry, Howard.”

  Time passed slowly as the enormity of her words sank in. Liches were smart. They could think and scheme just as well as any player, and they were obsessed with conquering and killing.

  “Can you fly?” I said.

  Dory nodded.

  “Do you remember where you saw the incursion? Not that I don’t trust your spell, but…”

  “I understand. The viewing showed them around two hundred miles west of the bridge. I marked it on my map.”

  She told me the coordinates and I opened a gate, with the addendum “five thousand feet up” tacked on for safety reasons.

  “It’ll be open five minutes,” I said. “If you want to come.”

  “Sounds fun,” she said.

  Together, Dory and I flew through and appeared five thousand feet over the southern shore of Ward 2. Below us, thousands of liches swarmed like ants at a picnic, and tens of thousands were stretched in a long line over the water to Ward 1. Little gouts of colored flame lanced into the water here and there as the liches fended off sharks and other seagoing monsters. Coming across their backs and heads, one after another, were thousands more.

  “You were right,” I said.

  “It’s a curse.”

  I glanced her.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Gallows humor.”

  I smiled. “It’s fine. But between you and me, I can’t let this happen. If one person dies permanently because of my actions…”

  A sudden image of that lunatic, Jesse Wilson, came to me. A possible serial killer, but I’d felt awful about it. How much worse when hundreds of thousands in Ward 2 permanently died because of me?

  “Come on,” I said and opened a Gate back to her room. “There’s nothing for me here.”

  Our return to the common area of the inn was bittersweet. Felix and Elfie were waiting for us, along with Parker, Darcy, and a few other friends I’d made over the years. Even Bernard was there, standing next to his annoying paladin, Jane. The latter stared at me with a curious, inscrutable expression.

  One person I was happy to see again was Sarah, and her significant other Brian, a.k.a. “Zor,” back together again after he’d tried running off with my gold.

  To my surprise, he sheepishly approached me. Sarah looked nervous.

  “Hey, you two,” I said with a big, non-threatening smile. “Great to see you again.”

  “It’s good to see you, too, Howard,” she said, leaning in to peck me on the cheek.

  I reached out and shook Zor’s hand.

  “Don’t even sweat it,” I said as he started to talk. “I remember what it’s like to be new to the game.”

  “I’m still sorry,” he said. “I thought you were crazy … uh … I mean…”

  My laugh was quiet and without humor. “So you’ve heard?”

  “About the liches? Yeah. Everyone’s talking about it. How did you do it?”

  His expression as he said this was full of wonder, and something more…

  Sarah grabbed him by the arm. “For the last time, you are not switching to necromancer!”

  “I’m just asking!”

  I held up a finger to interrupt. “Uh … would you two excuse me a minute? There’s someone I need to talk to.”

  “Oh, absolutely,” Sarah said. “We’re gonna mingle. Come on, Zor, let’s go mingle…”

  I left them and headed in the direction of Parker, Elfie, and Felix. They were standing near a punch bowl that hadn’t been there earlier. Dory, I noticed, was sitting at her original table, quietly performing divination for a stranger.

  “Did Bernard put this thing together?” I said to Parker.

  “You’re thinking too small,” he said.

  Elfie said, “We received this at our inn saying there was a party here in your honor, and that we should definitely come. So we definitely did!”

  She handed me a folded piece of paper with a broken wax seal that might have been a letter E.

  I opened it and began reading:

  Elfie and Felix,

  Your illustrious presence is requested tonight, 6 p.m., at Sweet Drams. You have both been great friends to Howard, and he needs you now more than ever before. He has the tendency to do the absolute worst things ever. Keep him safe!

  Oh, by the way, good job finding those fleckulents. I play a mortal avatar named Ethgar. When this is over, we should group up and go get more. My wife, Rita, is a powerful monk, and an all-around fun person. You’ll love her.

  Felix, who was looking over my shoulder while I read, said, “He wants to jump my claim!”

  Elfie said something and Parker laughed … and the world pulsed blue.

  When I looked around, everyone stood motionless. Even Bernard. I glanced at the note and blinked as the words rearranged. A few seconds later, an entirely different note rested in my hands.

  Hello, Howard,

  I would have come to the party, but there are a number of annoying strictures governing god-human interactions. Getting that amulet into your hands took a holy ton of effort on my part, and I won’t be able to help you anymore.

  That said, I can advise you generally, and I will: There are no other ways I can think of to save the world other than the ones you already know about. Still, I think you should wait before doing anything rash. Mythian’s designers have always struck me as capricious at best, and sadistic at worst. But even they would have put something in place to stop things like this from happening. Yes, I know people will begin dying in Ward 2. But a chance to actually speak with someo
ne at Everlife is too precious an opportunity to waste. Once they find out what’s happened, they can bring back anyone who dies. Well … maybe … I think. Obviously, I can’t know for sure, but it seems reasonable, doesn’t it?

  One other thing: around sixty players fight the Domination every year. Most fight it to the bitter end, refusing to give up if it means staying another day in a world they’ve come to hate. I think these lost souls can be brought back too, but only if you stick to the plan.

  I remain,

  Your new friend, and not a bad guy at all, even though it might seem like it right now,

  Ethan Crane, the god.

  After finishing the note, the words reverted back, and the world resumed its former cadence. Nobody seemed to have noticed, either.

  Elfie said, “What did he mean about Howard always doing the worst possible things ever?”

  Parker laughed. “I said close to the same thing back in my office. He must have been eavesdropping. He’s a god, right?”

  Her breath caught and she looked at me, eyes brimming with sudden tears. “No, you will not. I forbid it! Don’t you dare do anything so stupid as that. Felix, tell him!”

  Gently, Felix said, “Something will come up, we just have to think.”

  “I’m with them,” Parker said. “For what it’s worth.”

  I almost told them about the developments in Ward 2, but they seemed so earnest and worried for me that I held my tongue. Instead, I smiled.

  “Don’t worry about me,” I said, chuckling as if my guts weren’t roiling in turmoil. “The last thing I want is to die.”

  Which wasn’t a lie…

  Relief swept over Elfie’s face and she grabbed me in a hug.

  Felix chucked me on the shoulder. “The future hasn’t happened yet. Which means every moment we’re alive is an act of creation. It’ll work out, you’ll see.”

  I smiled and hoped I didn’t look as sad as I felt.

  “Not bad for a non-practicing atheist,” I said.

  Parker, I noticed, said nothing. He just watched me. I appreciated that.