Civil War

by James A. Hunter

  Contents

  Summary

  James Hunter's Mailing List

  ONE: Trolled Again

  TWO: Repairs

  THREE: Scott “PwnrBwner_OG” Bayani

  FOUR: Market Run

  FIVE: The Weapon Trainer

  SIX: Lead from the Front

  SEVEN: Customer Service

  EIGHT: Hellbender

  NINE: Wurgfozz the Sadistic

  TEN: Setbacks

  ELEVEN: Respawn

  TWELVE: Memento Mori

  THIRTEEN: Changes

  FOURTEEN: Heroic Pursuit

  FIFTEEN: Reservations

  SIXTEEN: Blessings and Curses

  SEVENTEEN: Grind Time

  EIGHTEEN: Bonding and Bladework

  NINETEEN: Might Makes Right

  TWENTY: Fisticuffs

  TWENTY-ONE: Unwelcome Visitor

  TWENTY-TWO: Forge Work

  TWENTY-THREE: Battle Lines

  TWENTY-FOUR: Hold Fast

  TWENTY-FIVE: The Gears of War

  TWENTY-SIX: Savory Saffron

  TWENTY-SEVEN: Friends and Traitors

  TWENTY-EIGHT: Glorious Insight

  TWENTY-NINE: The Resistance

  THIRTY: Dual at the Crossroads

  THIRTY-ONE: All Hail the Overseer

  THIRTY-TWO: Hexorcist

  THIRTY-THREE: Chain of Command

  THIRTY-FOUR: Hanging Oaks

  THIRTY-FIVE: It’s a Trap!

  THIRTY-SIX: Outnumbered

  THIRTY-SEVEN: Sage Advice

  THIRTY-EIGHT: Death Wish

  THIRTY-NINE: Dreams and Nightmares

  FORTY: Champion

  FORTY-ONE: The Mighty Gourmet

  FORTY-TWO: One-Eyed Unicorn

  FORTY-THREE: Boss Raid

  FORTY-FOUR: To the Victor go the Spoils

  FORTY-FIVE: Grand Feast

  FORTY-SIX: Deep Dive

  Books, Mailing List, and Reviews

  Other Works by James A. Hunter

  Other Works by eden Hudson

  Books from Shadow Alley Press

  About the Authors

  LitRPG of Facebook

  GameLit on Facebook

  Dedication

  Special Thanks

  Copyright

  Summary

  Build. Evolve. Conquer. Welcome to the Civil War ...

  Roark von Graf—former noble and hedge-mage, current mid-level mob in a MMORPG—has his sights set on taking down the tyrannical Dungeon Lord. But the reigning Troll despot is nearly as devious as Roark, and his followers are much higher level.

  With forever-death on the line, civil war breaks out in the Citadel, pitting Roark’s new regime against Azibek’s horde of loyalists. To survive, Roark will have to outfox the Dungeon Lord, forge new, dirtier weapons and shady alliances, and above all, Evolve …

  But while the Trolls are entrenched in their civil war, an outside threat is growing. Eyes from the IRL world are beginning to turn toward the Citadel. There’s something strange about this Roark, and they intend to find out what.

  ***

  From James A. Hunter, author of the litRPG epic Viridian Gate Online, and eden Hudson, author of Legend of the Treesinger and the Jubal Van Zandt Series, comes an exciting new litRPG, dungeon-core adventure you won’t want to put down!

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  ONE:

  Trolled Again

  The mist-veiled graveyard was silent when Scott Bayani, in the form of his main, PwnrBwner_OG, crept through the rows of run-down tombs toward the outer wall of the Cruel Citadel. Under normal circumstances, this place was overrun with Shambling Revenants. Tonight, though, their bodies lay around the gravestones, overtop vaults, and hanging halfway out of mausoleum doors. Somebody else’s party must’ve come through and wiped out these low-level mobs while he was respawning.

  Good news for him. Scott didn’t have time to waste on Shambling Revenants. At ten-thirty he had to be at Taco Bell for the munchies shift, serving up reheated chalupas and floppy tacos to stoners. The wonder twin rejects Kevin and Kellie—better known as Dude_Farkowitz and RogstarKel when they were playing their alts—had already logged out for the night out of frustration after the failed raid. Well, screw ’em both sideways and upside down. PwnrBwner_OG didn’t run away crying like a baby when he died. You didn’t get to be a level twenty-frigging-two High Combat Cleric by giving up in this game. No, PwnrBwner_OG was going back to get his shit.

  And not just that, he was gonna pwn that little shithead Roark. Him and his stupid crew of reject freaks. Maybe not on this run, but he’d get him eventually.

  Scott paused at the gate and spoke the ritual prayer to the High Combat Cleric’s god, Rajthorne the Mighty, to cast Shield of Blades on himself. A spherical barrier of ghostly swords surrounded him, shining pale lavender, then disappearing. The only sign he was still protected by the spell was the double circle of lavender light around his feet, but any enemies who walked into the barrier would instantly take 22 points of slashing damage—one for each character level, stackable if he backed off and ran them through the invisible meat grinder again.

  Sufficiently protected, Scott equipped the Three-Headed Cerberus he’d bought at the Averi City market in his right hand and readied a Wreak Injury spell in his left. He gave the lever outside the pitted iron portcullis a kick. Chains clanked somewhere inside the walls, and the heavy grating gave a rusty screech as it rose as if it were trying to get the attention of everybody within a hundred miles.

  Scanning the moonlit courtyard for movement, Scott slipped inside and cautiously made his way toward the crumbling staircase that led down into the Cruel Citadel.

  He had cleared this dungeon at least a couple of different times in various alts. The first few floors were a common gold and XP farm for new to mid-level characters, brimming with easy mobs—though the bottom two levels of the dungeon were a nightmare.

  At least it had been until about two days ago when that Griefer chode started ganking him. From the very beginning, Scott had known there was something weird about that Changeling. Either the devs were trying to restructure the citadel without telling anybody—a total dick move—or Roark the Griefer was some modding asshole dressed up like a mob and hiding out in the dungeon to steal loot for his main. That was the best explanation; after all, a literal online Troll? That was just too on the nose to be anything other than some douchebag modder. Supposedly, the studio’s security had cleared up every backdoor that allowed hackers to do that with the 5.9 patch, but Scott knew that if you locked a door, a hacker would just write in a window and smash it open.

  Whatever it was, this shit had to stop. Scott was going to teach this body-camping Troll a lesson. He just had to recover his OG gear first.

  A shadow by the staircase caught his eye. A little trash mob, level 2, all scrawny blue arms and legs and jiggling potbelly. The Changeling should’ve attacked Scott as soon as he stepped inside the creature’s aggro zone, but it took one look at him, turned on a heel, and darted away, disappearing into the inky depths of the stairwell.

  Wary of a trap, Scott gave the Changeling a ten-second head start, then slowly—carefully—followed it into the citadel, ready to lash out with his three-headed flail and Wreak Injury spell.

  Yep, there it was. As soon as he stepped out of the shadows and into the first room, a pair of Reaver Bats dove screeching at his head. The first one hit the Shield of Blades and died right off, toppling to the floor, its wings still twitching sporad
ically. The second one had slightly more HP. It pulled out of the dive with its Health bar flashing below ten percent. Scott swatted the flying rat down with a massive overhand swing of the Cerberus. The blow hit like a semi-truck, and the creature’s bones crunched like potato chips under the spiked balls. It hit the floor in a spray of gore, dead.

  A croaking shout of pain rang out behind Scott just before a blunt object hit him in the back of the head and knocked off a handful of his Health. He spun around to find that level 2 Changeling swinging a spiked club like a baseball bat. Little blue turd had hidden off to the side of the doorway, waiting for him to come into the room and expose his back, but the Shield of Blades had chopped it up good. Blood dripped from dozens of gashes all over its body, and the Changeling was down to half Health.

  Scott slapped it with a Wreak Injury. Green light sliced through the Changeling’s lumpy shoulder, and its left arm dropped, useless. It kept swinging the spiked club with its right, but Scott easily jogged out of the way—the little fartsack was slow as balls—then pushed forward again and fired off another Wreak Injury, shaving away the last of the Changeling’s HP. It tumbled backward into the doorway and died, choking on a lungful of its own blood. Awesome.

  Scott spun around, eyes squinted, brow furrowed, looking for more Trolls to kill. There didn’t seem to be any more in this room. He checked the ceiling overhead for the giveaway distortion of Stone Salamanders—those annoying little bastards had literally gotten the drop on him too many times over the last few days—before continuing down the steps and into the doorway to his right. Immediately, he was faced with a fork in the road. He remembered the hallway to his right leading to a dead end full of traps and mid-level Thursrs the last time he’d come through. Probably couldn’t survive a horde of those on his own without his Thorny Armor of Major Casting. He took the hallway to the left.

  That opened into a dining hall where the remains of a feast were strung out around the long table, chairs, and floor. Smoked meats, flagons of mead, and bowls of half-eaten stew were everywhere—the scent of the food enticed his belly into a low rumble. That was another thing. Since when did mobs cook or eat? Yep. Some bullshit hackery was definitely afoot, though he had no clue why the devs hadn’t swooped in to fix this shit. Whatever. He would fix it for those stupid losers. Despite the food, no Trolls wandered the room or fought over the scraps. No Reaver Bats dangled from the chandelier overhead.

  A shadow moved on the wall beside him, not quite right with the flickering torchlight.

  Scott spun, bashing the Stone Salamander with his Cerberus. The trio of spiked heads hit the invisible creature with a series of dull thuds. Blood splattered the stones and the creature’s Health bar flickered into view. Down by a quarter. The salamander growled and snapped at Scott even though he was out of reach of its needle fangs. He took a step closer, just within range to dice the creature up with Shield of Blades, but the spell timed out and went into cooldown. He wouldn’t be able to recast it for two and a half minutes.

  Rolling his eyes, Scott shot a Wreak Injury at the betraying distortion on the wall. More blood flew as he shaved off another slice of its HP. He downed a Mana potion with one hand while he swung for the fences with the Cerberus. It connected, the heads thud thud thudding into the creature’s back like a screwed-up heartbeat. The third one snapped the salamander’s spine.

  “Eat it, assbag!” The creature squeaked in agony and winked into view—all fat and slimy gunmetal gray skin—as it dropped to the floor.

  Paralyzed. Scott finished it off easily. Nothing attacked him from behind while he did. That, in itself, sent up more than a few red flags. That Roark was a tricky little turd and seemed to have a million tricks hiding up his sleeves.

  Scott climbed up on the table while his Shield of Blades cooldown ran out and kicked plates and scraps around. No Trolls wandered into the room. No Reaver Bats flew by.

  Yep, definitely suspicious as hell. There should’ve been more activity. Was this some kind of trap to lull him into a false sense of security, or had whoever cleared the graveyard wiped out most of the first level, too?

  If somebody had wiped them out, where were all the mob bodies? He saw PC corpses waiting for their owners to come retrieve their crap, but no Infernal chimeras.

  The cooldown timer flashed. Scott recast Shield of Blades on himself.

  Protected once more by the sphere of ghostly swords, Scott moved out, slipping down a torch-lined hallway. There were only a few PC corpses here. As he stepped over them, the feeling that this was all some sort of prank started eating away at him. Let’s all pull one over on the awesome level 22, hahaha! That Griefer cockmouth was probably hiding around the corner ready to spring some bullshit trap. Scott switched his Wreak Injury for a Lightning Lance, his highest-level attack spell.

  But when he edged around the corner, Lightning Lance ready to fry some Griefer ass, the hallway was empty.

  What the crap is going on here? Why is this so easy? Did somebody really come through and clean the place out? That might explain why only a few of the mobs near the beginning were there. They’d been the first to die, so naturally they were the first to respawn. Maybe there weren’t any Infernal bodies left lying around because the rest were getting ready to respawn at any second.

  To be safe, Scott dropped his High Combat Cleric into Sneak, wrapping shadow around himself like a cloak, and crept down the hallway to the throne room.

  The portcullis was already standing open. That Other Party theory was starting to look pretty plausible.

  Scott stopped in the doorway, a frown pulling down the corners of his lips as he examined the ceiling and walls all around the throne room. The spiny obsidian throne sat like a tribute to hemorrhoids on the dais, empty and uncomfortable looking. Tapestries fluttered along the walls, but no visual distortions gave away any invisible Stone Salamanders stalking the room. Even the corners were yawning with empty shadows.

  PwnrBwner_OG’s corpse lay in front of the door, less than twenty feet away, hands clutching the broken end of the long, thin stone spear the Griefer had kebabbed him with in their showdown. Complete and utter bullshit was what that was. Scott had searched every inch of the H-boards while he was respawning—in the eight-year history of the game, no one in any of the forums had mentioned anything like a stone spear spell. And certainly not one cast by a cockbag Changeling.

  Scott checked the ceiling over his OG corpse once more—really studying the shadows thrown between the rotten beams by the glowing stained-glass windows—then stealthed across the stone floor toward the High Combat Cleric’s body.

  Nothing dropped on his head, no army of mobs poured out of the doorway leading to the second level over in the corner. Maybe somebody really had come through and slaughtered the Griefer while he was out.

  Cautiously, Scott opened up the corpse’s Inventory and started transferring items. It was all there. Not a potion or Crusty Bread out of place. Talk about weird. When PCs died in a place the first time, they were supposed to drop one random item and 2-4% of their total gold, but nothing seemed to be missing. Was it possible that whoever cleared this level out had somehow forgotten to loot the PC corpses on their way? Idiots. He sure as balls wasn’t going to make that mistake. As soon as he recovered everything, PwnrBwner_OG was going to turn around and loot everybody on this level. Kellie and Kevin would assume it was somebody else. Junior would probably assume Scott’d done it, but she was almost never on at the same time he was, so who cared?

  Besides, she would do the same to him.

  He finished transferring the items and traded his Three-Headed Cerberus for his infinitely more powerful Unique Rose Mace of Thorn Tethers, then put on his matching set of Thorny Armor Boots, Gauntlets, Breastplate, and Helmet.

  The moment Scott equipped the Thorny Helmet, a notification popped up.

  Potent Contact Poison (Rare) Absorbed!

  Effect: Immediate loss of life.

  “Better luck next time, mate,” came an all too fam
iliar voice.

  The world went black as his level 22 High Combat Cleric died.

  “Shit!” Scott roared, ripping off his CandorSight UIVR headset and chucking it across his living room.

  TWO:

  Repairs

  A box of text appeared before Roark von Graf’s eyes, obscuring his view of the blade he had just shoved into the glowing red coals. He let off the bellows and read the notice.

  [The Potent Contact Poison (Rare) you applied to Unique Thorny Helmet was absorbed by PwnrBwner_OG!

  Reminder: Passive kills (i.e., by poison or trap outside combat) yield only 50% Experience points.]

  Roark grinned. When he had applied the poison to the dropped piece of armor and returned it to PwnrBwner_OG’s corpse, Roark had told himself he would be satisfied with anyone it managed to take out. Gaining Experience while he was doing something else was just as efficient no matter who the points came from. However, now that he had confirmation that the points had come from PwnrBwner, Roark was forced to admit they tasted twice as sweet. That contact poison had been well worth the pile of gold and newly forged set of Breath of the Cockatrice—steel throwing flechettes with a hollow channel leading to the point for delivering any number of nasty concoctions—he’d traded Zyra.

  Macaroni, who’d been sleeping curled with his fat-padded belly pressed to the forge, chirped angrily as if the suddenly motionless bellows had disturbed his nap. Roark dismissed the box and stooped to scratch the Elite Salamander behind its bulbous slate-colored head. Mac gave a second, mollified chirp and returned to his spot, blinking lazily, before shutting giant, gold-rimmed eyes.

  With a touch more enthusiasm than before, Roark went back to the longsword his Vassals had looted from the fallen heroes in their failed raid. Blasting the blade with heat wasn’t how he’d learned to dismantle a weapon, but that seemed to be how smithing functioned in Hearthworld.

  Another pump of the bellows brought up the option to improve or destroy the longsword. He selected Destroy.