Underpowered Howard: A LitRPG Adventure Page 15

  “The zealots can’t see these assignments,” I said. “Just us. Now here’s the plan.”

  They were good listeners, only interrupted a few times for questions, and at 11:29, I was able to start vamping up.

  One by one, Ellis tossed his figurines into the air per the instructions in the item description. With each cast, the figurine turned into a different kind of bird, each the size of an ostrich, yet capable of flight. I Harrowed down the first as it squawked in protest, then summoned its wraith and killed the next one. I kept that up until all fourteen were dead and raised.

  “All right, line up,” I said. “Not you, Master Ezinsio.”

  “Whoops, almost forgot myself,” the merchant said with a chuckle. “That was rather brave of me, wasn’t it?”

  It was to the sound of nervous chuckling that fourteen wraiths murdered Mark. Twenty seconds later, I killed Elliot. Twenty more and Audrey got it—and I tried not to enjoy it, I swear. Then Mike, then Zor, then a quiet wizard lady named Shelly, then Jacob the shapeshifter, then Blake the thief-swordmaster, and then it was Sarah’s turn.

  “Quick,” I said in a stage whisper. “What’s Zor’s real name?”

  Sarah laughed. “Brian.”

  “Secret’s safe with me,” I said, then I killed her too.

  Twenty seconds times three is one minute, and there were nine players. Our mobile binding enforced a six-minute rez timer to discourage unrealistic reinforcements during dangerous encounters.

  Eventually, Mark returned and I killed him again, then the others as they arrived in twenty-second intervals. After they’d all been killed three times each—eighteen minutes, plus the time for cooldowns—I whistled in surprise at my Necrotic Aura: It was the strongest it had ever been.

  Death Blossom for PVP kills was 200. Killing nine players three times gave me 54,000 health. Add another 1400 vit from the figurines and I was sitting safely behind a 68,000 health aura. More good news: Because most of my vit came from PVP, I was only losing a fraction of that an hour.

  In total, I had forty-one wraiths at my disposal. My biggest army yet.

  “Everyone ready?” I said after they’d all returned and changed back into their gear. The time was now 11:56 a.m.

  In reply, they each went to their assigned stations and I began a countdown from ten.

  Then we attacked.

  While the lucid caravan guards charged the enemy to draw their fire—with our pre-shielded hitters just behind them—each ranged member fired on the skulled target. I, in turn, split my forty-one wraiths across the next five, with the dangling forty-first wraith helping against the skull. I also Harrowed that one for a little more oomph.

  Our five targets died immediately under the onslaught, and the skull took a few seconds longer. My logs showed that each group of eight wraiths hit for 4400, resulting in around 500 points of overkill.

  “Frenzy!” I shouted, and my wraiths began flying every which way over the enemy while bolts of white-hot fire streaked through the sky. It was the only way to keep them safe while on cooldown.

  While I waited, I brought up the raid tab and mentally clicked the Announce button:

  “Everyone—they have under 4k health each!”

  To my chagrin, I noticed one of the players cupped his ears. Another stumbled and fell, then scrambled to his knees and resumed his charge. Curious, I checked my raid tab and swore. Announce was set to audible, and the volume was at 100%.

  I fixed that with time I didn’t have and blanched as the zealots moved their counterattack from the wraiths to the players. Twenty-four gouts of fire slammed into both lucids and players alike. Several had burned my wraiths out of the sky, dropping my complement to thirty-four. Every lucid except the merchant’s bodyguard, Zeke, went down in that volley, as well as Jacob, our shapeshifter. He’d made the mistake of turning into a bobcat and outrunning the others, presenting an obvious target.

  Then Mark, the level 79 berserker, reached the line of stationary zealots. Chop-chop-chop with his ax, and the one he’d chosen went down under the hardest-hitting melee class in the game. This front-loaded power came with a terrible drawback: Berserkers received two hundred percent damage from all attacks. This was mitigated slightly by their high health and imperviousness to pain during combat, but in my experience, the drawbacks far outweighed the plusses for most use cases.

  Four new lines of fire shot into him as he charged at another zealot. He actually reached it and even got off a successful chop—and then fell over dead, his body a smoking husk. Zeke came up behind him and finished the zealot with a series of spinning slashes like a dervish. Then Zeke was killed, and the remaining melee reached their targets, rocking them back and breaking the symmetry of the zealot line.

  I summoned seven wraiths, then swore as two were burned out of the sky.

  Attack! I ordered, and watched as they split their help evenly among the melee.

  Frenzy!

  The melee attackers and my wraiths did the trick, bringing down four more zealots.

  Lines of fire finished off our remaining melee, and two gouts of flame splashed against my Necrotic Aura, not doing much damage but dropping me to my knees from the pain.

  Four wraiths died seconds after I raised the four killed by the melee. I shook my head in frustration. If only they’d keep their focus on me…

  “Harrow!” I shouted when our ranged attackers brought down the next numbered zealot.

  “Summon!” I shouted when it fell.

  All this happened in the span of twenty seconds. I knew this because my first cohort finally came off cooldown.

  “Attack!” I shouted, splitting my forces into five pieces.

  Four zealots died immediately. I Harrowed a fifth as I ran toward the leftmost zealots, waving my arms wildly to draw enemy fire.

  Out of nowhere, a protective bubble of a thousand hummingbirds formed around me. Druid magic.

  My progress faltered as I opened the raid tab and sent out a message: “Don’t shield me or heal me! I’m fine!”

  Too late, I witnessed several lines of fire peel off toward Elliot. I didn’t have to check my logs to see he’d died, because the shield of birds disappeared. Druid shields, unlike those of sorcerers and wizards, didn’t outlast their casters.

  “Aaahgh!” I cried when every zealot focused their efforts on me. Though my Necrotic Aura was still strong, fire was fire—even at one-half pain—and it hurt like hell.

  Very quickly, my health dropped 22,000 points from the concentrated attacks of sixteen zealots—then fifteen zealots as our remaining ranged attacker (Audrey) brought down another.

  “Summon! Attack!”

  Twenty seconds passed with agonizing slowness, and with it 25,600 health.

  “Attack! Summon!” I screamed, and then there were ten enemies.

  Soothing balm from Sarah, healing me despite my admonition not to…

  “Attack!” I choked with a voice raspy from smoke, and then there were six.

  I forgot to yell frenzy and lost six wraiths before I remembered. I also forgot to summon the last batch of dead again, so complete was my misery.

  Sarah healed my aura again as the wraiths and our remaining ranged players finished off the zealots, and then the battle was over.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The XP from the fighting—including the PVP—leveled me to 85. Levels didn’t matter yet, and wouldn’t until I got the lich spell. I couldn’t even use the skill points afforded because I needed them to “learn” the spell once I’d acquired it. That’s how broken the class was.

  After everyone respawned, we split up the loot. An incredible haul at their levels. Zor got a sword that glowed and talked to him. Mark got an ax that—when thrown—would fly back like a boomerang. We all got a kick watching him throw it into the desert. It would sail out over the sands, surely gone for good, then come spinning back into his hand with a slapping sound.

  My recent critic, Audrey, found a grimoire that’d let her take the sorcerer clas
s.

  “Sorcerers might be the most powerful nukes in the game,” I said.

  After a brief pause, she said, “I’m level 50. Way too late to start a second class.”

  Now that the threat was over, her words lacked their earlier venom.

  I smiled. “For a million gold, you can pay for a Ritual of Rebirth at a shrine. It’ll refund all your skill, class, and stat points.”

  “Oh, yeah? Where do I find a shrine?”

  “There’s one in the southwest quarter of Ward 1. If I had the map location I’d share it. Oh, and if you want a free reset, do the Trial of Pain. You’ll get the choice of a new class, too, thus the reset. But let me warn you: It’s a horrible, horrible, horrible, teeeerible experience. Quite possibly the most painful thing I’ve ever done.”

  She cocked her head at me. “Oh, that’s right. You’ve played other classes before.”

  I was about to say yes when Zor came over. He grabbed my hand in a firm and vigorous shake.

  “That was damned fine necro’ing you did there,” he said. “Or so I heard… I got knocked out in the first thirty seconds.”

  “We needed more shields and trigger heals,” I said. “FPs would have made it easy, but who knew we’d be fighting zealots?”

  “FPs?”

  “Fire protection potions,” I said.

  Zor laughed. “Oh. Duh.”

  Mark came by to offer congratulations, and also to commiserate.

  “You sure you have to leave?” he said.

  “You know I do.”

  Mark smiled. “I was just being nice. So what are you gonna do, hand off your gear, suicide back?”

  That was definitely an option. Once my portable binding was ten miles away, I’d revert back to the stone in Heroes’ Landing. Given my luck, I’d definitely be killed by something within twenty-four hours.

  I shook my head. “I’ll stay the night, wait for our lucids to repop, then make for Brighton on my own. I’ve got a trick.”

  I told him about the Return spell.

  “Now that’s handy,” Mark said. “I know you say necros are broken, but from my perspective, they seem pretty buff.”

  Not wanting to be a killjoy, I didn’t argue with him. Instead, I made my excuses and sought out Sarah. When I found her, she was sitting on one of the wagons, letting Zor massage her shoulders. Her vestments and his armor were singed in places from the fight but would mend over time.

  “Hey, you two,” I said.

  Zor smiled. “You’re not leaving now, are you?”

  I shook my head. “In the morning.”

  As before, they expressed disappointment at my decision, but like Mark, I could tell they were just being nice. There was no other way, and no hard feelings.

  “I was hoping one of you could do me a favor,” I said.

  “Yeah, what’s that?” he said.

  Wondering if I were crazy, I pulled out my coin purse, looked at it a moment, then tossed it to him. He caught it easily and studied it… Then his eyes seemed to bulge out of his head.

  “Holy hell, man, how did you get all this? It’s a fortune!”

  Sarah rested her hand on the pouch and gasped. “There’s over 20 million in there. We can’t take that. It’s too much responsibility!”

  And with those words, I heaved an internal sigh of relief. In general, I’d found most people in Mythian to be more or less honest, just as they were in the real world. Those who weren’t showed it in little ways they couldn’t control: bragging, over concern about loot, vanity, that sort of thing. Living three hundred years turned all but the least observant people into good judges of character. I wasn’t sure about Zor yet, but Sarah seemed honest.

  “This too,” I said and pulled out the Boat in a Tote.

  Zor picked it up and studied it curiously.

  Calmly I said, “I’m gonna need both. You and I know my bad luck’s gonna get me killed by fanatics or raiders or more of those zealots. Which means there’s no way for me to carry anything without losing it forever. You two are my only hope.”

  “What about someone else?” Zor said.

  I just looked at him.

  “Shit,” he said.

  “Language!” Sarah said.

  “Sorry, I… What if we die? What if we get robbed? If someone…” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “If someone knew about this, we wouldn’t last five minutes.”

  Nodding, I said, “Closer to no minutes, but yeah, I agree. Which is why you’ll carry it to Brighton and wait for me there. I’ll meet you at a tavern called the Briny Scalawag. Sort of a pirate-themed place. You’ll want to keep your wits about you. Lots of pickpockets in Brighton. Wherever you go, Sarah walks behind you. Or if she’s carrying it, you behind her. There’s a town watch, so you won’t get attacked unless you hang out in dark alleys at night.”

  Both of them stared at me like I was crazy.

  “Also,” I said, “if you want, I can turn it into a quest. You won’t get millions of XP because carry quests in Ward 1 cap at 200 thousand, but it’s still a lot.”

  Zor said, “Heck yeah, that’d be great.”

  Sarah just smiled.

  After our talk, I returned penniless and gearless, having swapped out what I had for a noob tunic and sandals someone had cast aside after rezzing.

  Lying on my back next to my assigned wagon, I stared overhead at the Mythian constellations, thinking of old friends, lovers… Then, out of nowhere, Sarah’s sweet smile. She was kind and fun-loving, and naturally pretty. Far more than warranted by her moderate comeliness score.

  “But she isn’t yours, you lonely old fool,” I whispered, feeling the crushing weight of my age all at once.

  Willing such thoughts away, I closed my eyes and turned the world off for eight too-short hours.

  In the morning, our dead lucids had respawned. They remembered being alive yesterday but thought nothing of it, having lived and died tens of thousands of times since the game’s inception.

  “Sad to see you go,” Ezinsio, the merchant, said while pumping my arm vigorously. “There’s a binding stone ten miles north if you wanna use it.”

  I smiled politely. “Thank you.”

  Always nice to play along with the lucids. They tended to view the world through the prism of their roles. Ask a lucid fisherman about the local dungeon and he’d warn you away from it—even lie to keep you safe if they were kindly disposed to you.

  “Best of luck, Howard,” Mark said, also shaking my hand.

  “See you around,” Audrey said with a short nod meant to convey, I acted like an ass, I’ll drop it if you will.

  Then Zor, and then Sarah—the latter with a whispered promise to meet me in Brighton.

  The merchant’s bodyguard gave me a canteen of water that wouldn’t last a day if I actually had to rely on it. I thanked him and everyone else. Then I watched as they climbed aboard their wagons and prodded the camels forward. Ten minutes later, the last wagon disappeared over a sandy rise, and then I was truly alone.

  I waited a while longer and then started walking. Not in the direction of Zha’daran to the southeast. No, I headed east-northeast with a goal of reaching the coast in a week. One thing I didn’t do was follow the merchant’s advice and bind myself at the stone he’d suggested.

  “Come and get it, boys,” I said resignedly. “Return.”

  The boys in question didn’t come and get it for a few more hours. Then I saw them in the distance, lined up across a windswept dune, red robes flapping in the breeze: zealots, thirty of them—and an air elemental.

  Perhaps sensing that I had no tribute to hand over, this group didn’t bother with the ridiculous speech or the timeline to surrender. Maybe they knew I’d bested their friends. Whatever the reason, when I got to within twenty yards, they raised their hands in holy supplication and bathed me in fire, killing me instantly.

  I watched from my death hole as my body was stripped of my noob tunic, sandals, and canteen, leaving only my Everlife underwear and amulet. T
hank goodness I didn’t need water or food like Hard Mode players. I’d still get hot, though, and refilling at the odd oasis would have made the journey more pleasant.

  Unsure how long the zealots would stick around, I waited the minimum three minutes for Return to cough me back into my body, then lay half-naked on the ground as if I were still dead.

  “Return,” I whispered through the agony.

  Unlike other times I’d done this, I had no pain resist gear. Per the spell description, I’d need to wait an hour before I started regenerating. And not quickly, either—ten percent of 425 vit an hour came to 42, rounded down.

  Through eyes streaming with tears, I looked around. The zealots had returned to wherever random attackers went when they weren’t needed.

  I resumed walking east-northeast, barefoot this time. Though I didn’t have any blips on my map to home in on, I recognized the grayed-out, crescent-shaped indentation of Brighton Bay. At some point, I’d find a road leading to the town. This would replace my burned feet with aching feet. And of course, the sun would still beat down relentlessly.

  An hour later, the agony of Return began to lessen, and a bit more every hour after that. By afternoon, my feet got a reprieve on the downslope of every dune as the sun dipped lower in the west.

  I didn’t need sleep, so I kept walking through the night. My luck turned against me again when I stumbled on a camp of fanatics. Despite my luck, they missed seeing me in the darkness. I took a wide and careful route around them and continued.

  Till now, I’d rebuilt my karma by running people through quests—working off my penalty through community service. I could have built it back more slowly by sitting around rotting in the city. But there was another way to regenerate karma, and that was to suffer. Each day, I encountered two groups of baddies I couldn’t hope to defeat on my own. Payback, if you will, for breaking the spirit of the rules with my suicides and stink attacks in Jane's mirror, and later when I’d killed Sarah and the others for their corpses.

  My guess was my karma was wallowing in the high teens. If I kept suffering, it could rise to the mid-twenties. But I wasn’t a masochist. If I ran into enemies I could avoid, I’d do so. That’s why this usage of Return wasn’t considered an exploit. I was saving myself a walk from my last bind point, which is exactly what the spell was for.