Labyrinth to Tartarus: A LitRPG Saga (The Eternal Journey Book 3) Read online

  Labyrinth to Tartarus

  The Eternal Journey, Book Three

  By C.J. Carella

  Published by Fey Dreams Productions, LLC

  Copyright @ 2020 Fey Dreams Productions, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced, displayed, modified or distributed without the express prior written permission of the copyright holder. For permission, contact [email protected]

  Cover by: SelfPubBookCovers.com/ thrillerauthor

  This is a work of fiction. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Books by C.J. Carella

  The Eternal Journey

  Twilight Templar

  Lord of the Dead

  Labyrinth to Tartarus

  Guilds at War

  Warp Marine Corps

  Decisively Engaged

  No Price Too High

  Advance to Contact

  In Dread Silence

  Havoc of War

  Warp Marine Corps (The Complete Series)

  The Bicentennial War

  To the Strongest

  They Shall Not Pass

  Victory or Death

  The Bicentennial War (The Complete Series)

  New Olympus Saga:

  Armageddon Girl

  Doomsday Duet

  Apocalypse Dance

  The Ragnarok Alternative

  New Olympus Tales:

  The Armageddon Girl Companion

  A Crucible of Worlds

  Outlands Justice

  Short Story Collections

  Land of Gods and Monsters

  Heroes and Rogues

  Beyonder Wars:

  Bad Vibes (Short Story)

  Shadowfall: Las Vegas

  Dante’s Demons

  Prologue: Rise and Fall

  Akaton Blood-Drinker walked the land, spreading terror wherever he trod as he set forth to confront an upstart.

  A tribe of the Folk – what Humans and other pests called Woodlings – felt the god’s presence from half a mile away and as one they fell on their bellies, mewling piteously for mercy and promising to sacrifice every firstborn in their tribe if he would spare the rest. He sent a fragment of himself to them, in the form of a rusty-red fog that rolled over the Folk’s camp, filling their nostrils with the stench of fresh gore. A Shaman rose to his knees and chanted a song of propitiation; for his piety, he was spared, along with his immediate family. The others screamed in agony as their flesh melted, becoming part of the crimson mist. In a moment, it was finished, and Akaton felt the life force of the consumed tribespeople flow to him as the fog returned to its maker.

  Satisfied, the god moved on.

  The upstart and his followers had lost a battle. Akaton walked past the mass grave where the victors had unceremoniously dumped hundreds of Folk corpses into ditches and covered them up. Inadvertently, the enemy had done something proper: the Folk were meant to feed the ground with their mortal remains in order for new life to grow anew. The dead were meant to provide sustenance for the living. The Blood Drinker nodded approvingly as he passed the gravesite – and froze, when he found another one that no longer held any bodies.

  The corpses in the second mass grave had torn their way out of the earth, awakened by the unholy power of Undeath. The sight gave Akaton pause. He had known that the upstart was an abomination, a Fae whose inner fire had been twisted and perverted in ways none had thought possible. That was the only reason he had abased himself by assuming a physical form and entering the Common Realm, where only a fraction of his true power could be brought to bear. An Undead Fae was a crime against all the Children of Light. Akaton had come to personally set things to rights.

  But now, more Fae-Blooded had been roused from Death’s cold embrace. Their life energies had been plucked from the cycle of rebirth that was the province of the Lesser Fae. That was another impossibility, but there it was. The upstart could spread his contagion and bring others into Undeath. The Folk should have been immune to such things, but whatever devilry had created the first abomination was powerful enough to create more.

  Akaton growled. His Incarnation had the body and four legs of a bear, along with a two-limbed humanoid torso where a bear’s head would be, all covered in thick tawny fur. The centauroid shape stood eighteen feet tall and twenty-four feet long; its multi-ton weight left deep footprints on the land. The elfin face of the Blood God twisted in inhuman anger; his antlered head shook and his eyes glowed red as his senses searched for the abomination – and found him. The Revenant had overcome an Infernal Dungeon and now controlled its Core, tainting it with the unwholesome energies of Undeath.

  That was another mystery: the entities of Tartarus and those of Undeath were antithetical to each other, both hungry for souls to torment in utterly different ways. The upstart was upsetting the fundamental order of things. He must be stopped.

  The deity ran, making the ground shake and driving all living things within miles to flee in mindless terror. He covered the distance separating him from his quarry in scant minutes; any tree in his way was knocked down with little effort and even less compassion. Many Fae loved the fruits of Nature, but Akaton was a being of Death, and he knew even the mightiest oak was doomed to fall to him.

  The entrance to the Dungeon stood before him. A mere mortal or demi-mortal would have to fight through multiple levels filled with demons and their ilk. Akaton was not bound by such constraints, however. Through an application of Will and Power, he transported himself to the lowest level of the Dungeon, where the Core and its ruler awaited.

  “Greetings, Blood God,” the upstart said, sitting on a throne of bone and gristle. Demons’ bones, to be precise.

  The abomination had once been a lesser member of one of the Courts, the Seelie. Minor Fae nobility were no match for the gods, although the Dukes and Kings of Faerie were a different matter altogether. Undeath had altered the Revenant in disturbing ways, however. Akaton saw the things that the entity before him had done to the denizens of the Dungeon, and, for the first time in millennia, felt a stirring of doubt. Something new walked the Realms. And this sixteenth-level aberration was a mere manifestation of something far greater.

  “Who is your master?” he asked.

  The Upstart smiled. “You finally begin to understand, Akaton. Rather than answer your question myself, I have a message for you. From my Master.”

  A notification unfurled before Akaton’s eyes. The Arbiters who ruled over the gods were fond of their written messages. But this Notification came not from an Arbiter, but from one of the Makers themselves:

  AKATON BLOOD-DRINKER:

  YOU WILL NOT INTERFERE WITH THE ACTIONS OF MY REPRESENTATIVES. YOU WILL WITHDRAW FROM THE COMMON REALM AND INSTRUCT YOUR FOLLOWERS TO BEND THE KNEE TO THE POWER OF THIS LAND. OBEY OR SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES.

  - VAZALAK ZOMBI

  Akaton recoiled from the messive, signed by the Maker who had brought Undeath to the Realms. Against such power, not even the gods could prevail. He had arrived ready for battle, wielding all the power he could muster in his lowly Incarnation, more than enough to lay waste to a city or shatter a Dungeon Core. But the knowledge that to act would doom him to the fate of the other Fallen Gods stilled his hand and drowned his rage with chilling fear.

  “Are we finished here, godling?” the upstart said mockingly.

  For centuries, Akaton had nurtured the power of what once had been the Green Cauldron, preparing for the day when the Wild Sidhe would rise to reclaim their ancestral lands and contest with the Court
s of Faerie for dominion of Alfheim, the Realm of Light. Akaton saw those dreams and hopes turn into ashes in his mouth, his power usurped, his followers forced to follow the abomination that the Maker of Sorrow had inflicted upon the land. All was lost.

  Without giving the Revenant the satisfaction of an answer, Akaton left the Dungeon.

  A Maker was involved in this affair, making direct action impossible. But no Fae ever relied solely on strength. There were many tools at hand, some of them in this very valley. An Eternal had dealt the upstart a defeat, prompting him to seek refuge in the Dungeon. The new Lord of the Green Cauldron was Fae-blooded, but no friend of the Wild Sidhe. Akaton had been thinking of ways to deal with him.

  Sometimes it was easier to let two problems solve each other.

  One

  Hawke Lightseeker blocked a thrust that would have skewered his left eye and countered with a swing meant to sever the attacker’s hand at the wrist.

  He missed and barely had time to use his shield to deflect a slash aimed at his own sword arm. This was a tricky fight; he couldn’t use magic to defend or attack. It was all down to simple hack and slash, and his opponent was fast as hell. A flurry of blows drove him back, most of them landing on his shield with enough force to stagger him, while he waited for an opportunity. His sword was longer than his opponent’s, giving him a few inches of reach, but he was facing two blades. His enemy wielded the paired weapons with tireless fluidity, weaving a complex web of feints, cuts, and thrusts. Striking back risked getting his sword trapped in a parry-envelopment maneuver, leaving him open for a counterattack he might not be able to block.

  At the last moment, Hawke reversed course and stepped forward, leaning into the shield and crashing into his enemy. He thrust under-hand and felt the point strike right below his target’s ribs – just as one of the short swords smashed into his left temple with brutal force. Both fighters were driven to their knees by the near-simultaneous hits. Hawke’s Combat Log helpfully informed him that he had sustained a Critical Hit that would have dropped his Health below zero. At least, it would have if he was fighting for real instead of sparring.

  “You win,” he said, dropping the training sword on the ground with mild annoyance. Hawke hated losing at anything.

  “You struck a mortal blow before I brought you low,” Saturnyx Demons-Bane replied with a grin. “I would have preceded you into Hades, were we merely mortal.”

  They were fighting a mock duel inside the miniature realm where the Fury inhabiting Hawke’s swords could manifest herself. They mostly used the place for an entirely different kind of exercise, but Saturnyx had been pestering Hawke about sharpening his swordsmanship, pun definitely not intended, so there he was, working up a sweat, and not in a fun way. Hell of a way to spend half of his first day off in almost a month, but Hawke had to admit that he needed the practice.

  “Call it a day?” he said, rising to his feet and picking up the training sword.

  Unlike the paired blades that he had been using since becoming a Twilight Templar, the wooden weapon – with a lead core to simulate the weight of the real thing – was longer, with a hilt that could be wielded one- or two-handed. It had been a while since he had fought with sword and shield, but he was going to be switching to that style fairly soon. He had a shiny new set of weapons waiting in his Inventory for that occasion.

  “Unfortunately, yes, it is time to stop,” Saturnyx said. It was nice to see her instead of hearing her disembodied voice inside his head, even if she was, as usual, telling him things he didn’t want to hear. “You have a meeting with Captain Kinto in twenty minutes, after which you must go to the Death Spire to speak to Korgam Stern, work on Upgrades to your Domain’s many structures, and have dinner with Nadia afterward.”

  Hawke sighed and took a moment to admire the sights. Saturnyx had fought butt naked, the way she liked to do most things, and it was hard not to stare at the redhead’s body, tight with muscle but soft and curvy in all the right places. Sort of like a hybrid between Gina Carano and Christina Hendricks. Maybe he could push his meeting with Kinto to lunch, and move Korgam’s to dinner. Or move everything to tomorrow.

  “Get out,” she told him, knowing what the look he was giving her meant. “We shan’t be bedding today. Nor tonight, for that matter, for you have a date with the Spider Empress her own self. Unless she wishes to include me at some point.”

  “It’s a rough life,” Hawke said as he found himself returning to the Common Realm that he called home. “But someone’s got to live it.”

  * * *

  “I’m recommending Marko for a promotion to Opto,” Kinto said.

  The Hunter and current Captain of Orom’s Town Guard had gone from a grizzled man who appeared to be in his late fifties to someone who looked twenty years younger. The truth was even more impressive; Kinto had been almost eighty years old when Hawke found an Alchemical concoction to turn the clock back. Tava’s father could now pass for someone in this thirties or early forties, weathered by a life in the great outdoors, but not old.

  “Sounds good to me,” Hawke replied.

  The rank was roughly equivalent to lieutenant, which the Town Guard could use; it had grown its ranks to a total of sixty full-time soldiers, including ten Adventurers, levels three to eight; two of them were Eternals. Marko deserved the promotion, too. He had been doing well, staying off the sauce and keeping corruption to the bare minimum you could expect in the local culture. Sometimes, people could surprise you when you gave them the opportunity.

  Kinto went on. “As to the rest, things remain peaceful. Your fellow Eternals continue to behave, for the most part. There was a brawl yesterday at the Wine Bag, but the two parties involved took it outside and settled things where they could only damage each other. Fists only – well, some kicking as well, I’ve been told.”

  Hawke nodded. The Eternals they had rescued from the Necromancer’s Stronghold had had almost three weeks to get acclimated to their new world. Out of forty-three people Hawke had found, thirty-one had decided to stay in the Sunset Valley; the rest had gone off to seek their fortunes elsewhere, singly or in small groups. Hawke’s Guild, the Earth and Realms Defenders, now numbered forty-two members; besides most of the Eternals, several members of the Town Guard and a few other Adventurers had joined in.

  “Anything else?”

  “Only that, as per your orders, we are keeping well away from that Shadow Assassin of yours.”

  Orom currently had two members of that very secretive Elite Class. One was Alba Bastardes, the former server at the Copper Kettle who Hawke had mentored; she was now his chief spy and covert operator. Kinto wasn’t talking about her, however, since he didn’t know Alba’s true Class. The second Shadow Assassin in question had shown up a little over two weeks ago, pretending to be an eighth level Rogue by the – pretty lame, in Hawke’s opinion – name of Girl-Has No-Name.

  She had gone straight to Hawke’s Keep and given him some song and dance about having arrived at the Realms somewhere near Alpinia to the south, after which she had wandered around until she heard about Hawke’s deeds in Orom. Girl, as she asked people to call her, was a gifted liar. Hawke would have bought her story hook, line and sinker, if he hadn’t gained a few special abilities along the way. He had smiled and nodded while she told her story, all the while examining her with Advanced Mana Sight, which allowed him to observe and identify the many varieties of magical energy that flowed through all things. In the case of people, he could also pick up things like their emotions and the magic Schools and Elements they knew.

  As he watched her and did his best to keep his poker face on, the status box and nameplate that floated over all Adventurers in the Realms changed before his eyes:

  Girl-Has No-Name (Human) (Unknown Guild Officer)

  Level 8(15) Rogue (Shadow Mistress)

  Health 438 Mana 361 Endurance 380

  Hot damn, Hawke had thought when he saw Girl’s real stats, and was even more impressed when he found the telltale ‘fr
equencies’ of Darkness and Twilight Magic coursing through the alleged ‘Rogue.’ He only knew of two Elite Classes that had access to those schools of magic and could disguise their real class and level. It looked like she’d gone the next step on the Shadow Assassin path, selecting Shadow Mistress as her specialty at level ten. She had even hidden her Guild, which normally was also included in your nameplate. You didn’t have to be Batman to figure out what Guild she belonged to, and what she was doing in Orom.

  “As far as we can tell, Girl has done little more than spend time with other Eternals,” Kinto went on. “No one has anything bad to say about her. But someone with her skills would not give herself away, would she?”

  “No. She’s casing us out. Gathering intelligence.”

  “After which she will return to Akila and pass it on to the Nerf Herders,” the Hunter concluded.

  “Or she could knock me over the head, stuff me into an Inventory slot, and deliver me personally to Kaiser.”

  “I am surprised your Fury did not suggest killing her on the spot.”

  Saturnyx said.

  Hawke’s future father in law knew about the sword, but wasn’t in mental contact with her. Under the circumstances, having Kinto eavesdrop on Hawke’s second future wife would be way too weird.

 

  You like to show homemade porn to people.

 

  “She did,” he said out loud. “But killing Girl would only send her off to respawn, and my guess is, she’ll respawn right back on the Nerf Herder’s compound. I’d be saving her a trip home.”

  There was a way around that. During his final fight with the Necromancer, Hawke had learned a new Primal Force: Mind Magic. One of the spells he had picked up as a result allowed him to destroy an Eternal’s Identity. It had been the ugliest thing Hawke had done, and despite the fact that the target had deserved his fate, the process, which involved torture and getting to know the victim more intimately than anyone should know another living being, still gave him nightmares, weeks later.