Court of Thorns: A LitRPG Story Read online

  Only Panadel and Leara were visible. Desmond was hiding behind a high-level Glamour that made him near-impossible to be detected with any physical or supernatural sense. He was there for backup, just in case the Court of Thorns tried something; their ace in the hole, as it were. They were about to meet with an emissary from the Court of Thorns to hear an offer from the shadowy group. It was probably a trap, but his bosses were planning on springing one of their own.

  The last Court of Thorns project involved unleashing a zombie apocalypse that would have wiped out the entire continent. Fae didn’t particularly care about humans, Dwarves, or most other species, but they didn’t like Undead hordes rampaging through the Realms, either. The Court of Thorns had been outlawed by all the other Fae factions. It was a miracle that they existed at all. But Panadel was trying to work out something with the local chapter of the cult or whatever it was.

  Desmond was on the lookout for possible threats, so he spotted the hooded figure walking towards his bosses long before it reached them. He didn’t dare say anything, out loud or telepathically, since there were plenty of people in the Rainbow District who could eavesdrop on psychic communications. Instead, he prepared to backstab the stranger if he tried anything.

  Both of his bosses turned towards the approaching figure. They were dressed in relatively low-key finery: a white overcoat with gold trim and a matching wide-brimmed hat over a grey bodysuit for Panadel, and a scarlet robe with silver embroidery for Leara. Their garments were no more real than their Elven features. From the way the hooded man – seemingly human, which made him a minority in the Rainbow Quarter – headed for them, he could see through their disguises.

  “I am here to take you to my master,” the figure said in heavily-accented Common Fey.

  The stat box floating about the man’s head claimed he was a human with no name, basic stats, and no class or level. In Crystal City, someone like that could be killed just by colliding with a high-level Adventurer. Well, maybe it wouldn’t be quite as bad as that, but people who weren’t Adventurers, Arcane Professionals or Leveled Commoners were rare in the city, which would deny entrance to anybody below level twenty. His lack of levels had to be some kind of trick or illusion but Desmond couldn’t see through whatever made hood-boy appear to be a vanilla human with 12 Health.

  “Lead the way, my good man,” Panadel said in a friendly tone that was as fake as everything else in the area.

  Desmond kept pace with his bosses as they followed the hooded figure out of the Chancery and into a nearby tavern. The whole thing seemed strange. The Court of Thorns was supposed to be primarily a Fae organization, so why use a human as a messenger? And why hold a meeting right next door to Faerie’s stronghold in the city? They were less than a block away from most powerful Sidhe nobles in the area. The whole thing smelled.

  The hooded man led them to a private room in the tavern, one with a separate set of stairs going to the second floor, guarded by a pair of Ogre bouncers. Desmond had to do some maneuvering to slip through unnoticed, but he’d been practicing how to move like a trained assassin for some time now. He slunk into a corner in the room. The empty room: there was no furniture and only two exits or entrances, if you didn’t count the lone shuttered window.

  “Where is your master?” Panadel asked the human.

  The human had stepped into the middle of the room and turned around. The voice coming from under the hood changed, becoming deeper and livelier. “I am here, speaking through this vessel. Thank you for agreeing to this meeting.”

  “Speak your piece,” Panadel said.

  “No bluster or droll commentary? I am a bit disappointed in you, Panadel. Surely your master likes his servants to have a sense of humor.”

  “You flatter me. I suppose I could launch into an hour-long diatribe gently belittling you and yours. But why not, as your kind were once fond of saying, cut to the chase? I doubt that your association with my folk has enamored you of our ways.”

  “You assume I’m human? You finally amuse me.”

  “I assume that behind this puppet stands the Outcast. The renegade Arbiter who became a Thorn. Who, like all Arbiters, was born a human until some power, for reasons that escape me, saw fit to grant a handful of your species near-unlimited power.”

  “Not a bad guess. If it is correct, then surely you understand that opposing me will be futile. You and Leara are out of your depth. Laughing Man will not thank you for meddling in the affairs of his fellow Makers. You should leave Crystal City. Or, even better, you should join the True Court.”

  Leara laughed humorlessly. “Join a band of insane malcontents? Is that your best offer?”

  “If you come aboard, you will be richly rewarded. We can replace your oaths of service with something far less restrictive. You will be able to transcend the rules the Makers imposed on us.”

  “All you’ve managed to do over millennia is to fail spectacularly,” Panadel said. “And you are woefully outnumbered.”

  “There are more of us than you realize. The High Sidhe remember that at one time they were the masters of a True Faerie, conquerors of worlds. The Makers dragged them to the Realms, reshaped their powers into the pathetic framework laid out by the Prime Mover, and condemned them to be but shadows of their former selves. For eight thousand years, the Makers have treated you as little more than pieces on their board. The Court of Thorns seeks a way out of this prison. Don’t you wish to be free?”

  “There is always Final Death and the Dreaming. That is the only freedom you offer, Outcast. That, or the end of everything when the Beyonders break into this reality.”

  “Propaganda stirred by the Makers. One would think seasoned triple agents like yourselves would not be so easily fooled.”

  Panadel shrugged. “And yet here you are, trying to fool me with your own brand of propaganda. I think I have a better appreciation of reality than you do.”

  “I was an Arbiter. I have seen the System from the inside. You have no idea what it is you serve.”

  “Agree to disagree? I might have a counteroffer. One from Laughing Man himself.”

  “I suppose it won’t hurt to listen to it.”

  “Surrender. You will never be readmitted to the Arbiter Corps, but you will reenter the system in a more flexible role. All will be forgiven after you spend a mere fifty years at the Breach, undoing some of the harm you have caused.”

  “I think not.”

  “I had to try. Activate Command Mike-Eight-Niner-Alpha-Unicorn-Seven.”

  The hooded man collapsed lifelessly to the ground.

  “What did you do?” Leara asked with mild curiosity.

  “Activated a kill code. All Arbiters have one. Didn’t work, unfortunately, or I would have received a notification. The Outcast must have found a way to rewire his soul and erase the code, worse luck. Let’s go.”

  They left the room without sparing a second look at the corpse in it. Desmond’s head was filled with uneasy thoughts. The High Sidhe had been kidnapped by the Makers. Those crazy bastards had ransacked who knew how many worlds to get playing pieces for this live game. Like some Warhammer fanboy spending all his money on new miniatures. They had no right to do that. Maybe that Outcast guy had been on to something.

  He hid the thought as best he could. Leara mostly left him alone in his head, but if she discovered any treacherous ideas, she would make him pay. But the queen bitch had become complacent over the past few months, convinced that Desmond wouldn’t dare go against her or the even more powerful Panadel. But if he could figure out a way to contact the Outcast, he would.

  If he figured out a way to destroy the entire game, he wouldn’t hesitate.

  Fourteen

  Saturnyx told Hawke, waking him up.

  He rolled out of the simple military cot he’d been sleeping on and began summoning his armor and gear as he headed towards the barracks’ exit.

  What is it?

  toward the fort.>

  That was the critter that had wiped out the Nerf Herder team a few days ago. A Chaos-infused lesser dragon. Well, he had a cure for that.

  The fort’s courtyard was filled with frenzied activity as guards blew horns to sound the alarm. A translucent energy bubble appeared around the entire structure and about fifty feet beyond its walls. It would block the first two thousand points of damage from any spell, although its damage absorption value would decrease with every impact. It was a powerful area enchantment woven into the fort’s foundations, and it might keep everyone inside alive unless the monster decided to put the extra effort needed to break through. The Legion’s magicians began to create additional magical barriers. Nobody was taking any chances.

  Hawke spotted the two party members on watch: K-Bar and Gosto were standing on top of the battlements near the main gate, looking out. He leaped onto Blaze’s saddle and flew up there, noting everyone else was gathering by the courtyard, geared up and ready to fight. Good.

  “The monster is headed this way,” Gosto said. His somewhat distracted tone told Hawke that the Druid was looking through the eyes of one of his flying Nature’s Guardians. “He will reach the fort in a few minutes.”

  “All right.” Hawke turned to Grognard, who had reached the walls as well. “You’re in charge here. Tava and I will fly out to engage the monster. The rest of you will form a tactical reserve. If the two of us can’t take the dragon, we’ll lure it back into range of the fort’s defenses. We’re leaving Bear and Digger here.”

  “We’ll be ready.”

  “See you soon,” Hawke told him before he had Blaze soar up toward the sky. Tava and Luna were already a few hundred feet up, surrounded by a fiery aura that protected without burning. Blaze’s sister had become amazingly proficient at controlling her elemental abilities.

  Blaze called out as the four of them began a shallow descent in the direction of the Malleus Mallum.

  The monster wasn’t the biggest critter Hawke had seen but it was in the top ten. It was hideously malformed and even from a distance it radiated malevolence and toxicity, like a walking chemical spill.

  “So that’s a dragon.”

 

  “And it has leveled up,” Hawke noted as he spotted the monster’s floating stat box:

  Zorgon the Defiler (Chaos-Tainted Lesser Nature Dragon)

  Level 20 Elite Boss

  Health 7,600 Mana 10,000 Endurance 5,000

  “When it fought the Nerf Herders, it was level eighteen.”

 

  “Well, at least we might get some XP from killing it,” Hawke said. “Okay, let’s do this.”

  The Drakofoxes dived towards the monster. At five hundred feet, torrents of flames poured out of their mouths. One was pure white, the other a deep orange-red. Mind-fire and Elemental flames struck the monster while Tava started loosing imbued arrows and Hawke took a shot with his ‘Dragunov’ sniper rifle. The bullet that hit the deformed monster right above its eye was one of a dozen or so, all the rounds that the freed crafters who had joined Hawke’s guild had been able to manufacture. The shot tore through a thousand points of Health in a splash of sludge, showing that the time and expense had paid off. The two flame breaths did about the same apiece. Not a bad start.

  The monster roared and exhaled a thick cloud of dense smoke that enveloped both riders and their mounts. Hawke saw the green-black stuff – spores, not smoke, he realized – begin to eat through the Bulwark of Light Blaze had created around both he and Hawke.

  “Pull us up!” he told the Drakofox.

  Blaze did so, but the spore cloud stayed with them, matching their speed. The energy shield collapsed and Blaze began to cough uncontrollably when he breathed in the noxious stuff. His flight pattern became weak and erratic, despite having several ongoing blessings and healing spells active that should have dispelled most negative effects. Hawke had his own Bulwark protecting him, which gave him a few more seconds to act. A hurriedly-cast Healing spell helped Blaze recover, but only until more spores forced their way into the Drakofox’s body. Blaze had closed his mouth and eyes, but the cloud moved with malicious intelligence, pouring into his ears and even through the pores of the skin beneath his white fur.

  Okay, plan B.

  Hawke cast an Order-infused Major Death Cyclone right on top of him and Blaze. They both took some damage from the spell, but the effect on the spores was much worse, wiping them out in a 15-foot radius. Hawke helped Blaze heal himself to full and they blasted the rest of the spores in short order. By then, Hawke was able to spot Luna and Tava. The other Drakofox’s Aura of Flames had been powerful enough to burn off the spores before they could get to her, thankfully.

  Should we withdraw? Tava asked telepathically while firing another half dozen arrows at the monster. She was scoring hits, but the damage was minimal. Between all of them, they had delivered enough energy to wipe out five monsters with Zorgon’s total Health, but its defenses reduced or absorbed most of it. Even worse, it was regenerating damage at the incredible rate of two thousand Health per second.

  “Let’s make another pass,” he replied out loud, letting Saturnyx transmit his answer. “I’m going to jump that thing and try something else.”

  And if it doesn’t work?

  “You guys will retreat to the fort and I’ll Ninja my way out.”

 
  “I just know a few more tricks than you guys. Not my fault I’m like a Chosen One and all that good crap. And you aren’t.”

  the Drakofox replied as he dived towards the monster.

  Everyone hit the monster again. Blaze stayed on course until he was close enough for Hawke to teleport from the saddle and land on top of the monster.

  Tumor-like growths all over the creature’s back exploded around Hawke but the released spores died when they came into contact with his Thanatos armor’s Life Stealer aura, which he had activated just before teleporting. Each spore counted as a single living being and they died by the thousands, providing Hawke with over five hundred extra Mana. He took the extra energy to create a Tulpa Weapon and stab the monster, using it as a conduit for a five-thousand Mana Elemental Blast. The monster’s high resistance values reduced the ensuing damage by a lot, but it still lost over half its Health in that blast.

  More spores tried to get at him, but all they managed to do was feed him more Mana and some Endurance. The vampiric effect of his armor let him use the Health he stole for any of his pools. The dragon turned its misshapen head around to bite him, but before it managed to twist its neck, Hawke chopped several times into its spine. Tava and the Drakofoxes continued to rain death from range.

  The creature fell apart. Zorgon was dead.

  For slaying your foe, you have earned 1,600 Experience (200 diverted towards Leadership, 200 diverted towards Node Mastery).

  You have found 18 gold, 1 Master Mana Potions and 2 Master Healing Potions.

  You have found 1 Ring of the Healer (+25% to healing spell effects).

  Current XP/Next Level: 204,699/250,000. Leadership XP/Next Level: 81,554/100,000

  Current Node Mastery XP/Next Level: 37,297/50,000. Current Guild XP/Next Level: 9,103/10,000

  “Killing low-level critters sucks,” Hawke grumbled while he scrambled down the disgusting moldy mass.

  Destroying an elite named boss would have earned him something like fifteen or twenty thousand XP at level twenty, but since he was already at level twenty-four he got a tiny fraction of that total
. To be fair, the fight hadn’t been as tough as it would have been for someone without his unique abilities, and Tava and the dragon-kits had helped out quite a bit. He’d gotten spoiled after almost single-handedly destroying a guild of Eternals and earning enough experience to gain three levels in one sitting. Hitting level twenty-five was going to take a long time as long as he stayed in the Common Realm.

  “Luna, you should roast this body. The spores are still alive.”

  He could feel the damn things floating in the air and trying to infect him, only to drop dead as soon as they came into range of his Death aura. They would probably die off soon, but they might as well dispose of them right now. The monster and its vermin were all Chaos-tainted; you didn’t want any of that crap polluting the environment.

  “I bet the Herders are going to complain that I stole their XP and loot,” Hawke said as he got back on the saddle. Behind him, Luna was flaming the rotting remains of the corrupted dragon.

 

  “Yeah. We need to think of some countermeasures or we’re going to take casualties.”

  Chaos and Life combined could make for some nasty stuff. He didn’t know if mold monsters were worse than Undead, but he was afraid that the next batch of critters they ran into would give Chaos the advantage.

  Fifteen

  “If we can’t figure how to deal with the killer spores, we’re going to have problems,” Hawke told his inner circle later that night.

  After he returned to the fort and people not on watch went back to sleep, Hawke had called a private meeting with Tava, Gosto and Grognard, deciding that missing a few hours of rest was less important than coming up with a solution to their problem. He could handle the spores thanks to his armor, and Blaze and Luna had their own ways to make sure the flying mold couldn’t infect them, but the rest of the party was going to be defenseless. He probably should have been thinking about it after hearing of what happened to the Nerf Herders, but he’d been overconfident and thought he could handle the problem on the fly, the way he usually did.