Court of Thorns: A LitRPG Story

by C. J. Carella

  The Drakofoxes dove closer to finish Phase Three. Time to deliver the final blow.

  Blaze and Hawke breathed fire on the monster, concentrating on his upper torso, well away from the melee fighters. They burned through Mana at a prodigious rate as they flew in a wide circle around the target, keeping up a continuous, deadly stream. The torrents of Mind-Fire affected the monster almost as much as the inscribed bullets; Hawke had been right about its vulnerability. Between the shots and the magic dragon’s breath, they burned through well over 12,000 Health. The rest of the party added another 12,000 to the total, give or take several hundred. It was close to a kill. But close was another word for not good enough.

  The Chaos Duke raised his arm and screamed a word in a language Hawke couldn’t identify, let alone understand. A wave of darkness erupted from the flaming skeleton, reaching everyone in the party.

  Hawke’s Mana, which had been down to less than a thousand, dropped down to single digits. On the party interface, he saw everyone’s Mana pool dip down to near zero. Several ongoing spells and other effects fizzled out when the energy empowering them ran out.

  Warning! You have been afflicted by Mana Drain.

  You cannot regenerate Mana for 30 seconds. Potions and other forms of Mana renewal work at 50% effectiveness.

  “You mother…” Hawke growled as he injected a Master Mana Potion into his veins.

  He only gained a fraction of his pool back and didn’t get any continuous Mana regain effect from it. It looked like everyone in the party had been affected by Mana Drain. Except Zippo, for some reason. The Fire Mage’s Mana pool was still full; he laughed maniacally and kept shooting Infernal spells. Everyone else was chugging down Mana potions. The monster took the opportunity to stomp on three Elementals and would have squished K-Bar if Hawke hadn’t mentally commanded his Darkness Guardian to tackle the boss. The massive Darkness creature wasn’t as strong or large as the Incarnate, but it kept him busy for a few seconds.

  The bad news didn’t end there, either. The Chaos Duke had used the stolen Mana to heal himself. His Health was up to 24K. All their efforts had barely carved out a bit over a tenth of his Health.

  “Keep it up!” Hawke ordered as he turned on his Advanced Mana Sight and examined the target.

  He’d held off doing that because Chaos had a way of using that sort of enhanced analysis as a vector of attack. This time was no exception. There was something seriously wrong with the Mana currents within and around the Duke. Looking at the bizarre flows of energy made the inside of Hawke’s head itch. Made him want to start laughing hysterically or force Saturnyx’s point into his mouth and then jump off Blaze and plummet facedown toward the ground, driving the blade through his skull. Only his natural defenses and Tranquil Mind kept him from doing just that. He shrugged off the mental onslaught and kept looking.

  Hawke could see the remnants of the Incarnate the creature had once been: a mixture of Life and Death energies that the Blood God Akaton favored. The intrusion had transformed them into something like Undeath, but not quite. The Incarnate of Akaton was dead but it was kept alive by something. It wasn’t simply Chaos. Hawke caught glimpses of a kind of Mana he hadn’t encountered before. Or rather, he saw something transparent, or perhaps invisible, flowing in between the familiar forms of energy, like a stream of oil through dark water, never mixing together. Maybe it wasn’t Mana.

 

  That didn’t sound like anything Hawke wanted to mess with. He looked deeper. The non-Mana was only a small fraction of the energy powering up the giant monster. There was something nestled between the ribs of the humanoid upper half of his body, where the heart would be. A Dungeon Core. One originally attuned to Akaton’s Blood magic, now transformed into Chaos.

  “Keep him busy,” Hawke said. “I’m going in.”

  Blaze relayed the command to everyone in the party.

  the Drakofox said accusingly.

  Time to return that Core to its factory settings.

 

  We hit it with our best shots and it’s back to near full Health. We can’t win a fight of attrition.

  It was do or die time.

  Twenty-Five

  “Take me in close.”

  Blaze didn’t sound happy.

  It’s out best chance, he replied as the Drakofox altered his course until he was headed right for the Chaos Duke.

  Right for the Duke’s back, that was. No sense giving the big monster a free shot at either of them. It still wasn’t anybody’s idea of a safe approach. Dozens of spells, explosive arrows and even chunks of rock from the surviving Earth Elemental were hitting the monster, mostly to little or no effect. Due to their reduced Mana, everyone’s special attacks were being put on hold or used less frequently. They had little chance to inflict the massive amount of damage they had before the critter had used Mana Drain on them. Nobody knew how long the cooldown of the draining ability was, but Hawke feared the worst. And the melee tanks were down to the two Eternals, Rabbit and Digger. The Darkness Guardian and all the other Elementals had been battered into nonexistence. Time to end this.

  As he prepared to leap from the saddle, a second gigantic figure entered the fray. Zippo had summoned his secret weapon:

  Drekavak (Infernal)

  Level 23 Demonic Noble

  Health 8,050 Mana 9,200 Endurance 4,600

  The creature was surrounded by deep red flames and a chorus of howling voices emanated from him like the soundtrack of the damned. It walked on a pair of ram’s legs that matched its bestial horned head but not the purple-skinned torso, which looked perfectly human except for its skin color and the pulsing red sigils that spelled out blasphemous words of power using perverted Celestial letters. It was a good thirteen feet tall, which made it two-thirds the size of the Chaos Duke, and had only a third of the boss’ Health, but it charged up the hill without hesitation.

  “Everybody in melee, pull back!” Hawke shouted as Blaze halted his swoop. That thing wasn’t going to care about collateral damage.

  Everyone mostly managed to move away as the Elite demon leaped and landed next to the Incarnate in an explosion of Hellfire. Mostly. Alba had just teleported down from the Incarnate’s bear-shaped lower back after delivering another dose of anti-Elemental poison. The deadly burst killed her instantly. Hawke knew the Soul Jar would bring her back, but the loss shook him. Digger and Rabbit got caught in the conflagration as well; their Health levels dropped to near-fatal levels. Grognard and K-Bar were far enough away that they only lost half of their Health. Tava activated a pet-heal ability while Hawke and Blaze used their Life and Light spells to save the rest. Zippo was going to answer for this.

  By the time he turned his attention back to the boss, the fight between the two monsters was well underway. It was a brutal affair. The two flaming creatures tore at each other with claws, fists, and spells. Infernal flames against cold Chaos fire. The demon Drekavak was clearly the underdog, but he was making the Chaos Duke work for it. And the ranged members of the party were still shooting. The monster’s Health had dipped back below eighteen thousand.

  That was when it summoned his adds.

  Dozens of smaller versions of the Incarnate popped up all around the hill, each about the size of Rabbit. One third of them went after Drekavak; the rest split into two groups, one headed for the melee fighters, who had retreated some distance from the fight, and the rest towards the rear ranks.

  “Tava and Luna, help the ranged contingent. Blaze, back me up. Everyone else, concentrate on the adds coming for you. I’m going in.”

  Finally. Assuming nobody else decides to surprise us.

  Hawke used Twilight Step and landed right by the humanoid upper torso, behind the monster’s spine. The creature was bucking around, still fighting the demon noble; he had to act quickly. The Chaos flames around the skeleton
were nasty, burning for 460 damage per second, but his shields and defenses handled it while he stepped forward, grabbed onto a blackened vertebra for support, and thrust a Mana spike right into the Dungeon Core.

  You have accessed: Dungeon Core (Dark Chaos)

  Access Denied. Core is held in ownership by another.

  Hawke had expected that. The last time he had reached a Dungeon Core, he had used Mana to restore its original pattern, programming, or whatever. His plan was to turn it back into a Dungeon Core (Blood), which didn’t sound like a nice and cuddly attunement but had to be better than Dark Chaos. He sent energy through the spike and tried to start the process. Nothing happened. That was, nothing happened with the Core. Plenty of stuff happened to him.

  A surge of Chaos condensed into a thin energy beam and hit him right in the Third Eye, the one closed Chakra in his system. The hostile attack tore through the closed gate like a battering ram, shattering it. Shattering the Chakra.

  Hawke felt something basic, something fundamental, break inside him. Physically, it was like having a huge hypodermic injecting hydrochloric acid right into your forehead. Except hydrochloric acid would eventually kill all your nerve endings or destroy your brain and the pain would stop. This went on and on, spreading through all his Mana pathways, burning each Chakra it encountered along the way.

  It was the end.

  Twenty-Six

  “It doesn’t have to be.”

  Hawke was suspended in darkness. The pain was gone, although he worried that was either a temporary condition, or a much too permanent one.

  “Does not have to be what?” he asked the voice. Time for another meeting with a Greater Being.

  “The end.”

  His host appeared in front of him. The furry horned elflike humanoid half and the ursine bottom were unmistakable; Hawke had been examining the skeleton of just that kind of creature a moment before.

  “You’re talking in Common Fey,” Hawke noted. “And using contractions. Unlike the last time we met.”

  “A small humiliation I’m willing to endure. This once. But I don’t relish speaking in this debased tongue, so let’s, as your true people like to put it, cut to the chase.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I offer you a simple trade. Your service in exchange for your life.”

  The rest of the offer came through in bursts of sensory input. Hawke coming back to life, grabbing the Dungeon Core and claiming it as his own. Hawke, transformed into an Incarnate of Akaton, doing battle with the Archduke of Chaos – a thing like a tornado filled with supernovas – and defeating it. Hawke claiming the Labyrinth Core and absorbing it into his body, gaining godlike abilities. More images of the future, each worse than the last. Bringing the Evergreen Council to heel. Declaring war against all non-Fae races, a war that started with the sack of Akila. The images beyond that were blurry, as if the outcome was nowhere near as certain as Akaton wanted it to be, but they involved unceasing war against other Powers in the Realms. Hawke would become a champion of the Wild Sidhe and fight everyone else until his Final Death.

  He didn’t see Tava in any of the visions. Or Saturnyx. He could make some good guesses as to why.

  “No.”

  “You’ll die without my help.”

  “And you’ll get crap without my life. I’m not turning into your pawn, Mr. ‘Blood for the Blood God.’ I’m not harming innocents in your name, or any other name. Go to hell.”

  Hawke was fully prepared to go to the great beyond if the alternative led to the future Akaton had shown him. But he hoped the Fae god needed him too much to let him go without doing a little bit of horse trading. Maybe a quest that Hawke could do and still live with himself afterwards.

  Instead, Akaton glowered at him, took a step back, and vanished into the dark.

  A swing and a miss, Hawke thought as he waited for oblivion.

  “Not quite,” Tenebra, Goddess of Darkness, said from the shadows.

  “Been a while,” Hawke said, relaxing ever so-slightly. Maybe this was going to be like A Christmas Carol, with multiple gods paying him a visit and showing him stuff. Maybe things would be all right, there would be turkey for dinner, and Tiny Tim would walk again.

  “That it has,” the deity acknowledged. “Unfortunately, greater Powers than mine and my fellow goddesses have decided our involvement needed to stop, at least temporarily. Even now, I am here merely as an intermediary.”

  “An intermediary between me and who?”

  “Between you and the Maker known as the Architect.”

  “You know, if the dude shows up looking like Bizarro Colonel Sanders from The Matrix Reloaded, I’m going to be disappointed.”

  Tenebra giggled, a disturbingly humanlike sound. “He will not be amused by the comparison. Not much of a sense of humor there.”

  “Maybe we can keep it between us?”

  “He is listening, Hawke Lightseeker. Perhaps you will keep that in mind as we continue this conversation.”

  “I hear you.”

  “Good,” the disembodied voice continued. “You did well in rejecting Akaton’s offer. It would have allowed you to survive and prevail, but only at the cost of losing yourself to your basest impulses. You would not have liked the person you would have become.”

  Hawke nodded but kept his mouth shut.

  “The offer I am making on behalf of the Architect, however, is the only alternative you have left. Other than Final Death, which is a ninety-seventh of a second away from happening.”

  I wonder how long that is in nanoseconds.

  “That would be 10,309,278 nanoseconds, but that’s not important now.”

  “At least someone has a sense of humor. So go on. Might as well hear the offer I can’t refuse.”

  “You can still refuse it, should you decide that the price is too high even in return for your life. That is why I will tell you of all it entails, so you can make an informed choice.”

  Something tells me a lot of this is going to suck.

  “The Architect cannot act directly,” Tenebra went on. “However, he can transform you into an Archon of Order to act in his name. Archons are Celestial beings, somewhat like Furies, Incarnates or Seraphim. As a result you will be transformed into something other than what you are. Your new state of being will enhance some of your previous abilities but will shut off others.”

  “What do I lose?”

  “You will be the first Fae-blooded entity to become an Archon of Order. You will retain your current Fae abilities, but you will not gain any new ones. Furthermore, using the abilities you still have may have unintended consequences.”

  “May?”

  “Let us say that you are a unique case. We do not know what will happen until you try.”

  “But I probably shouldn’t try, right?”

  “That would be advisable, but you have a long track record of doing the unadvisable while still coming out ahead.”

  “Okay, noted. What else?”

  “You will lose access to Chaos and all spells and abilities associated with that Force.”

  That meant goodbye to Chaos Funnel, which had saved his life twice already and which he had hoped to use for a variety of purposes. No more Blessing of Chaos, no more Chaos-enhanced stealth spells. He nodded without hesitation. He could live without them.

  “Furthermore, you will be forever denied access to the Infernal Force.”

  That one was easy. Hawke had seen what delving in Infernal stuff got you. “Not a problem.”

  “And Undeath.”

  That wasn’t as easy, although Hawke had never been comfortable with being a Paladin or Twilight Templar who could raise the dead. The loss of his Undeath spells would keep his from pulling stunts like raising the skeleton legion that had helped him wipe out the Nerf Herders, but that had been a one-time thing and he really didn’t like being a necromancer. Not that he had much of a choice if he wanted to be anything other than perma-dead. And he still would retain his Death spells and the
Thanatos armor bonuses.

  “No more Lord of the Dead, I suppose.”

  “Your title will remain but the spells and potential to learn more will not. Also, your species will change. You will be the first Archon, Eternal, and Half-Elven hybrid. The interaction between your different lineages will produce unpredictable results. Unpredictability is something the Architect abhors but he has grudgingly allowed it to happen.”

  “I’m the wrong guy to work for someone who doesn’t like unpredictability,” Hawke blurted out before realizing he was literally talking himself out of a life-saving job.

  “The Architect understands that. Trust me, he was hoping you would accept Akaton’s offer.”

  “Which is why Akaton got to try first.”

  “Yes.”

  “Always good to be someone’s second choice.”

  “You are mistaken. You were his last choice. And only because he…” The voice paused. “My apologies. I spoke of things I should not have.”

  Yeah, I bet the Architect got orders from his boss but he doesn’t want me to know that.

  It made sense that the Architect and the Prime Mover would work together. Colonel Order had probably been in on the rules design while the big guy upstairs (so to speak) did the world-building. That didn’t explain Laughing Man’s involvement, unless both Order and Chaos were working against Dark Chaos.

  “All right, I accept,” he said.

  “There are things about your new status you should know.”

  “I can read my character sheet. Just tell me what I need to know in the ensuing ten million nanoseconds or whatever.”

  “You have a new ability: Impose Order. Use it as soon as you awaken, putting at least a thousand Mana into it. The rest should be obvious.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Time to finish this.

  “Send me in, coach.”

  Twenty-Seven

  The impossible pain was still there but he only kept one thing in his head: the mental command to activate Impose Order. He poured all but a hundred points of his current Mana Pool – well over two thousand – into the ability.