Court of Thorns: A LitRPG Story Read online

  Artos Dunford

  Level 19 (23 with Leadership bonus)

  Rogue-Warrior-Wizard

  Health 1,204 Mana 1,690 Endurance 965

  Artos was the opposite of the other former Nerf-Herders, spreading his three class choices among different specialties: rogue, spellcaster, and warrior/fighter. From what he’d said, the guy hadn’t liked his first choice (rogue), turned to a magic class, decided he was too fragile in combat, and had just picked up Warrior when he hit level 20 shortly after entering the Labyrinth, to increase survivability. He had prepared for the level change, saving up some fighter-oriented gear in his inventory. The end result was someone who couldn’t do anything as well as a specialist but could take over multiple roles in a party. He only knew spells from Air, Earth, and Fire, including the base offensive spells, so Hawke had assigned him to the rear ranks, where he could act as an emergency tank if a monster managed to get past the front line.

  Blaze (Ethereal Drakofox)

  Level 20 (24 with Leadership bonus)

  Draconid (Epic Elite)

  Health 3,720 Mana 2,073 Endurance 3,650

  The big fuzzy was barely a couple months old and he was already sixteen feet long from his head to the end of its tail. He knew all the spells Hawke did, could breathe Mind-Fire, fly, and communicate telepathically. As an Ethereal Drakofox, he was highly resistant to most forms of magic. And now he could turn intangible, a new level 20 ability he hadn’t used in combat yet. While in that state, physical and most magical attacks couldn’t affect him, the only exception being Celestial, Infernal, Mind and Soul spells. The ability cost 100 Mana per second to maintain, however, so he couldn’t use it for long. His only limitations were his inability to use most forms of gear and his lack of maturity. Blaze was still a child in many ways, and could be a danger to himself or others. But when he matured a little, he was going to be a holy terror.

  Glorificus (Elf, Eternal)

  Level 19 (23 with Leadership bonus).

  Archer-Scout

  Health 1,520 Mana 791 Endurance 1,367

  Glorificus’ original class was a fighting type that concentrated on arrow tricks even more intensely than Hunters and Rangers. They gained warrior Health and Endurance levels but didn’t get the wilderness skills of the other classes or the Ranger’s ability to tame pets. The class was a good choice for dungeon-crawl types who cared only about having good DPS (damage-per-second) abilities. Later on, he had added Scout as a way to increase his versatility. That class was a rogue subvariety that added stealth, wilderness survival, trapping abilities and some spells. Still, the Elf didn’t have a lot to offer beyond the ability to put a crap-ton of regular and magical missiles on target. His DPS wasn’t as good as Tava’s on a level-to-level basis, let alone when her gear and higher level were accounted for. Still, his firepower would be a welcome addition to the team.

  Gosto Kintes

  Level 20 (24 with Leadership Bonus)

  Druid Warden

  Health 1,142 Mana 2,690 Endurance 978

  Gosto had hit the level twenty milestone during one of the big battles in the Labyrinth, but he wouldn’t get a new class until level 35, unlike Eternals. On the other hand, his Elite Class unlocked several new abilities at level 20. He was the youngest Druid Warden anybody knew of, and only one of a handful between Akila and Alpinia, something that would have political ramifications down the line, assuming they survived this mess and returned to civilization.

  Among other things, Gosto now had access to battlefield magic, allowing him to cast spells that could affect dozens or even hundreds of targets at once. Among other things, he could now apply his most powerful heals, which normally had a range of touch only, to everyone in the party as long as they were within line of sight of him. His summoning spells were also augmented; he could call six Nature’s Guardians at once, split into any of the three categories and had a new Greater Nature Guardian spell that summoned a ten-foot tall tree creature that could fight or cast every healing spell that Gosto knew.

  The biggest problem was that Gosto hadn’t practiced using his new abilities. Normally, after hitting a milestone, the smart thing to do was to return to a safe area and spend a few weeks or even months learning how to use all the new cool powers the Realms had seen fit to bestow on you. That wasn’t an option now, and Hawke worried that the group might pay for it. But he also knew that Gosto would do his best. The kid was family and he had grown up fast over the past few months.

  Grognard (Human, Eternal)

  Level 18 (23 with Leadership bonus)

  Battle-Mage and Stalwart.

  Health 1,750 Mana 1,980 Endurance 1,365

  Battle-Mages were a hybrid class that combined weapon skills with attack spells. Like most hybrids, they were worse at both things than a specialist but made up for it with versatility. His second class, Stalwart, was a tanking class, with emphasis on survivability and toughness. He had a number of defensive auras, two self-heal abilities, and two ‘taunt’ spells that forced most enemies to turn their attention to him, keeping them off the squishier members of the party. But his abilities were less important than Grognard’s coolness under fire. He had served in the military back on Earth and although he had never seen combat then, his training or maybe just his personality made him the perfect guy to have around in a fight. The same training made him a good guy to give and follow orders.

  K-Bar (Human, Eternal)

  Level 19 (23 with Leadership bonus)

  Warrior-Knight

  Health 3,852 Mana 208 Endurance 2,982

  The former Marine was a straight-on fighter with heavy armor, a magical mount he could summon at will, and an Epic Quality flaming two-handed sword that could do ridiculous amounts of damage. He was a great tank, with the highest Health of the group and four different ‘taunts,’ two of which were designed to affect multiple targets. Between him and Grognard, Hawke didn’t have to worry about drawing aggro away from the party, allowing him to concentrate on hurting the enemy, helping Gosto or Amelia’s pets heal the wounded, or even take a breath and concentrate on leading the group.

  Luna (Fire Drakofox)

  Level 20 (24 with Leadership bonus)

  Draconid (Epic Elite)

  Health 3,912 Mana 1,440 Endurance 3,800

  Blaze’s sister had evolved into a demi-elemental creature with incredible control over fire. She could modulate her flames to allow Tava to ride her without suffering any harm or unleash torrents of dragon-fire that bypassed 75% of her targets’ Elemental resistance values. She had learned a lot of Blaze’s spells as well as Tava’s, although she preferred to use her fire abilities in combat.

  Tava Kintes (Human)

  Level 23 (25 with Leadership bonus)

  Ranger, Slayer

  Health 2,669 Mana 1,250 Endurance 2,003

  Tava was a DPS specialist with just enough toughening to avoid suffering ‘glass cannon’ syndrome. Her Ranger skills turned her bow into a combination sniper rifle, machine gun, and mortar. Her imbued arrows could one-shot even Elite minions with a critical hit, which she could land almost half the time during ideal circumstances, and her AOE arrow-storms did more raw damage than one of Zippo’s Fireballs, although a lot of the damage type was physical, against which many monsters were highly resistant. Her Slayer Class gave her better Health and a few self-heals, as well as tremendous damage bonuses against her favored enemies, currently Undead and Demons. In melee, she had a magical spear that let her hold her own, but she was at her best when using her Golden Bow of Artemis, a level-25 Epic quality weapon that inflicted enormous amounts of damage and turned a percentage of it into whatever Element or Force the target was most vulnerable to.

  Zippo (Human, Eternal)

  Level 20 (24 with Leadership bonus)

  Fire Wizard-Summoner

  Health 554 Mana 4,965 Endurance 618

  Zippo was a pain in the ass in every possible way, but also was too useful to just cast aside. Besides his bad habit to not care if his allies were in the
area of effect of his spells, the guy had concentrated solely on his mental attributes to be the best magician he could be. Apparently, only Kaiser’s specific orders had made him put some points into Constitution, for a measly total of 20, still within human range. His gear added another 24 to the total, but he still had an indecently low amount of Health. Sure, his Mana Shield could absorb ungodly amounts of damage, but there were attacks that could bypass that protection. Keeping him alive was a chore. Even worse, as a Fire Mage, he had a hefty penalty with any other kind of Element, although Forces and other schools of magic weren’t affected. He was a one-trick pony.

  When it came of DPS, though, he had everyone beat except Tava. As long as he could cast spells unmolested, he could deliver enough firepower to kill most bosses single-handed. His specialty allowed him to reduce the Fire resistance strength of a target with every additional hit he or his Fire Elementals landed. Which over time allowed him to hurt even beings that were invulnerable to fire. Besides fire, Zippo had picked up the Summoner class. Most of his summons were Fire Elementals but he’d indicated he had one big summon available, although it had a long casting time. They were probably going to have to use it.

  The main problem was that Zippo had a tenuous grasp on reality. The guy was going to self-destruct sooner or later. Hawke hoped he could last for one more fight.

  Twenty-Four

  That is one ugly mother-lover.

  Hawke watched the new Emerald Incarnate through the floating projection that Aristobulus had created. The Archmage was scrying the area, using his magic to observe the target before the party went into action. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

  Chaotic Emerald Incarnate (Celestial)

  Level 25 Duke of Entropy

  Health 27,000 Mana 17,000 Endurance 25,000

  The Incarnate of Akaton was still there, sort of. Its skeleton was, at least. The fur and flesh of the original were gone, leaving behind blackened bones surrounded by an unholy aura of chaos energy. The flaming black skeleton of the bear-centaur giant stood perfectly still, watching over its ruined kingdom.

  The final level of the Emerald Wing appeared to be an ancient forest under a hazy gray sky. There were no sun, moon or stars that Hawke could see, but the sky itself seemed to provide as much illumination as a regular overcast day would. Before the Chaos invasion, the forest had been like a living cathedral of massive trees, most of them large enough to make sequoias look like bonsai decorations. Now, half of the trees were down and the rest were… dancing? Swaying back and forth as hands and insectoid limbs protruding from their trunks and waved at random; the branches the new arms replaced burned in black and white fire as they fell to the ground. Things like giant bumblebees hovered drunkenly around them, changing into more monstrous shapes every few moments until some new mutation proved fatal and they dropped dead.

  “Maybe we can come back in the off-season,” Glorificus commented.

  “Just make sure everyone has stacked as many mental protections as possible,” Hawke told them. “This place will probably drive us insane if we stay too long.”

  Saturnyx said.

  “All right. Once we go in, we’ve got sixty seconds before he casts his big area spells, assuming he’s bound by the same rules as the original. Ideally, we should knock him out before then.”

  “Should we assume that we have sixty seconds?” Aristobulus asked. “These things are breaking all the rules.”

  “You’re right, we shouldn’t,” Hawke said. “We have to treat this as a brand-new raid. But we will stick to the sixty-second timeframe. Twenty seconds to get a feel for his defenses, then forty seconds to hit him with everything we’ve got.”

  All the former Earth gamers in the group looked worried. Fighting a big boss without knowing what it could do was a recipe for a party wipeout. But unlike games or even ordinary Proving Grounds in the Realms, they didn’t have the luxury of going back and fighting the encounter over and over until they got it right. Wiping now would send them back to the Labyrinth’s entrance and this time the Gatekeeper shortcut wouldn’t be available. They would have to fight all the way to the bottom. All while the Labyrinth became stronger and unleashed more monsters. There was no way they could recover from losing.

  “We have to win this fight,” Hawke said.

  * * *

  They emerged a hundred yards away from the boss’ hill, in a deep ravine that provided some concealment from the big flaming skeleton.

  Phase One of the plan involved six flying Nature Guardians from Gosto and a Greater Whirlwind from Amelia. The summoned Elementals flew in a wide circle before approaching the monster from the opposite direction as the party, providing a distraction for the team to approach and prepare for action. The fliers swarmed around the monster, trying to be a nuisance.

  One second later, they were all gone.

  Hawke gritted his teeth while Phase Two went into effect. He could see the amount of damage the Chaos Bolts that had wiped out the seven summoned critters had inflicted, and they were no joke. The party members would survive one hit, but two hits would wipe out the casters and three or four would take down everybody else.

  A second wave of summoned critters moved forward, led by Hawke’s Darkness Guardian. The Elite guardian was as big as Digger, a thing of solid shadow in the shape of a multi-legged tentacled monster. Flanking it were a dozen Earth, Fire and Nature Elementals, much tougher than the fliers the corrupted Incarnate had destroyed. The thirteen creatures scrambled up the hill. Some distance behind, the rest of the party moved in loose order. More Chaos Bolts exploded from the boss. One Ifrit exploded into oblivion. A bear-shaped Nature Guardian followed. The rest of the Elemental vanguard reached the giant creature and began to strike back. At the same time, the main party’s ranged combatants opened fire. They were using relatively light attacks, meant to test the Chaos Duke’s defenses.

  K-Bar, Grognard, Bear and Digger charged to join the summoned attackers. At the same time, Hawke and Tava took to the air atop their Drakofoxes. Tava started pouring arrows at the giant monster, but Hawke concentrated on the big picture, seeing the results of the attacks. They were as bad as expected; the Chaos-based defenses of the monster were ridiculously high, something in the 150-percent range against most Elements. That was where having resistance scores above 100% came into play, although according to the Realms’ rules, your maximum resistance score couldn’t exceed 95%.

  It meant that even if you had a high spell penetration score – few had anything better than 25-30% – the monster would resist with a capped resistance of 95%. Only five points out of every hundred inflicted were affecting the Incarnate. A 2,000-damage attack would inflict 100 points of damage. Chipping through that was going to be a problem. But now they knew which attacks would provide the most bang for the buck. Forces were being resisted with a 75% strength, except Order, which was only being reduced by 15%. Nobody had tried Mind magic yet, but Hawke suspected it was vulnerable to it as well.

  Hawke checked the timer. 15 seconds in. Time for Phase Three. He used his Throat Chakra to send out a Mana-pulse message that everyone heard:

  “Pour it on!”

  K-Bar avoided the stomping skeletal paws of the monster and activated Undeniable Challenge. The Warrior-Knight’s magical roar hammered at the Chaos Duke, forcing the monster to focus on him. For a few seconds, the Incarnate fired off all its energy bolts at K-Bar while trying to crush and stomp him at the same time. Gosto used several spells to keep the tank alive. Everyone else focused on destroying the enemy.

  Blaze held still while Hawke leaned forward in his saddle, the Dragunov sniper rifle in his hand. He fired three times in five seconds, working the bolt, reloading, aiming, and shooting with impossible speed. The recoil was massive, but his inhuman strength and the hundreds of pounds of armor turned him into a fairly stable firing platform, especially with Blaze remaining in the same spot through the same telekinetic magic that allowed the massive Drakofox to
fly. All the rounds hit, two critically. The initial damage the massive bullets inflicted wasn’t impressive: they had started out in the 3,000-range (7,000 with the criticals) but after the monster’s resistances were accounted for, they merely reduced his Health by 850.

  But then the Seals of Order that Hawke had magically inscribed into the core of the bullets were activated.

  The inscriptions infused a 30-foot radius with Order energies, which worked against Chaotic creatures the same way Life affected the Undead. The three spots where the bullets had buried themselves inside the Incarnate’s skull began to glow with a steady white light that was clearly distinct from the speckled silver flames surrounding the monster. Big damage numbers began to radiate from those impacts: two, three thousand points per second.

  He hadn’t been the only one shooting, either. Tava was loosing arrows with a metronomic rhythm, sending imbued missiles designed to weaken the target’s resistance values, just what they needed against the boss. Zippo was shooting off Fire Bolts at machine gun speeds, five or six of them a second, and Hawke realized with shock that the spells were laced with Infernal energies.

  Where did he learn that?

  The question wasn’t important; the fact that the Force-enhanced spells were putting a dent on the monster was. All the other magicians cut loose with their best damage-dealing magicks, making up for their low effectiveness with quantity. And down on the ground around the monster, the front-line fighters and the pets were hacking away with everything they had. Alba became visible only long enough to deliver a hefty dose of Aqua Fortis into the Chaos Duke’s shin bone, which promptly began to bubble and melt around the point of impact.

  The melee fighters weren’t escaping unscathed, however. The black and white flames around the Incarnate inflicted hundreds of points of damage and also delivered insanity, bad luck, or weird mutation debuffs. A quick look at the Party Interface showed Hawke that the blessings, protections spells and gear of the frontline team were holding up under the punishment, but wouldn’t do so for long.