Steel and Moonshine: Book 1, page 1
Contents
CHAPTER 1: JOB GONE SIDEWAYS
CHAPTER 2: THE BURNING BOSOM
CHAPTER 3: BOTTOM’S UP
CHAPTER 4: A NEW HOME
CHAPTER 5: THE LEDGER
CHAPTER 6: LOOSE ENDS
CHAPTER 7: HIRED HELP
CHAPTER 8: MOK’FERA
CHAPTER 9: THE INVITATION
CHAPTER 10: GRIMOIRE
CHAPTER 11: THE BLUE HAMMER
CHAPTER 12: OLD ACQUAINTANCES
CHAPTER 13: DUNGEON CRAWLER FRANK
CHAPTER 14: NEW ACQUAINTANCES
CHAPTER 15: A JOB TO THE RESCUE
CHAPTER 16: VINNIE’S LEGACY
CHAPTER 17: TO FRIENDS
CHAPTER 18: STONE COLD SUPPLIER
CHAPTER 19: SHADOW OF SANKTA VARATH
CHAPTER 20: THE STAFF OF DREAMS
CHAPTER 21: THE FIRST NIGHT
CHAPTER 22: THE TAX COLLECTOR…MAN
CHAPTER 23: SMACK TO THE HEAD
CHAPTER 24: RACCOON OVERKILL
CHAPTER 25: BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE
CHAPTER 26: HECTOR
CHAPTER 27: MIDNIGHT BOUNTY HUNTERS
CHAPTER 28: TREE HUGGER
CHAPTER 29: LEVEL-UP!
CHAPTER 30: THE MENU
CHAPTER 31: HAMMERS AND NAILS
CHAPTER 32: OF FAMILY AND POISON
CHAPTER 33: THE BURDEN OF AGE
CHAPTER 34: A FLOWER
CHAPTER 35: THE WEDDING, PART 1
CHAPTER 36: THE WEDDING, PART 2
CHAPTER 37: A PROMISE
CHAPTER 38: THE MESSAGE
EPILOGUE
THE LITRPG COMMUNITY
MORE LITRPG COMMUNITIES
STEEL AND MOONSHINE
BOOK 1
COPYRIGHT © 2023 BY
CASSIUS LANGE & NED CASTOR
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CHAPTER 1: JOB GONE SIDEWAYS
I didn’t hate my job, not really. Yet every once in a while, there was a day when I wished I was still digging ditches on one or the other battlefield, slinging dung, or folding sheets at a whorehouse.
Sal Hayhut turned what should have been routine into one such shitty day. I wasn’t going to let that slide. No way.
“Why the hell did you have to be hiding out here, Sal?” I muttered, sloshing through the shit water and mud. What kind of braindead lowlife smuggler gang made its hideout downriver and downwind from the city’s main dump?
At least tracking them hadn’t been that hard. I could smell the man and his dead cronies from a mile away. I shook the blood off my sword and sighed. The three moons hung low in the night sky, shedding their light on Sal’s dumb face. He just stood there among the dead smugglers, his jaw loose, eyes dull and thoughtless as I pointed my blade at him.
“Got nothing to say? Alright, let’s get this over with.”
The weathered smuggler shot me a death glare that almost made me laugh. Newfound courage or just mindless anger? He was decently geared, unlike the six barefoot buffoons in his entourage. But the tight leather gear and his sad little rapier were hardly a match for me. Sal was just another job I’d bring back in a bloody sack.
“Alright then, here we go.”
I stomped through the shit, piss, and blood-soaked mud, cursing the day I took on the job, and just as I came in range to part Sal’s head from his shoulders, a sudden tingling under my eyepatch made me stop.
Sal twitched and his eyes lit up with a fierce crimson glow. His hanging jaw suddenly dropped even further, and big, sharp canines grew in his mouth as he grabbed onto his leather vest and tore it from his body. He snapped his head back and howled as a thick coat of hair spurted from his chest, shoulders, and arms.
“A werewolf? Really?” I mumbled, sheathed one of my two swords, and fumbled for my silver dagger. “Fucking Vinnie said nothing about any gods be damned werewolves. That will cost him extra.”
The man who hired me, Vinnie, hadn’t said a word about his bodyguards either, but at least those idiots were kind enough to die quickly. I, on the other hand, wouldn’t be that kind when I returned with the werewolf’s head. All that additional trouble would make the bill, I’d make sure of it.
Once fully transformed, Sal was one of the least impressive werewolves I had ever seen. Good for me. I really didn’t want to stay longer in that shitscape of a hideout. He looked angry, though, and who wouldn’t be? Nobody liked being chased down by a bounty hunter, seeing his pals get stabbed harder than a brothel druid in goat form, and then being told he was next.
Sal charged me with reckless abandon, his claws swiping at me from both sides, but that left his chest wide open. I kicked out, catching him under the throat, but the claws got into the meat of my leg as there hadn’t been enough stopping power behind my kick. The werewolf staggered a step back and I winced as pain shot up my leg.
“Ohh, go to Hell,” I spat, seeing the open wound on my leg. With all the shit clinging to my feet and armor, there was now a good chance of a nasty infection.
Sal growled, then lunged at me again, swinging his sharp claws like a flailing child. I blocked his right with my sword, ducked his left, pivoted on my heel, and dug the dagger into his thigh. The werewolf whined like a puppy. I followed up smashing my elbow into his jaw, bloodying it against his sharp canines.
Sal staggered backward, his legs twisting as he fell into the shitty mud face-first. I glanced at the wound on my forearm and rolled my eyes.
“Time to go,” I grumbled. Though I had already stabbed him with my silver dagger, which meant he’d die sometime before dawn anyway, I surely wouldn’t be sitting there in the dung and wait for him to bite the dust.
I touched my fingers to the blade, invoking one of my dark magic spells. A red glow snaked along the sharp edges.
[SKILL: Festering Blade]
[DESCRIPTION: Inflict FESTERING debuff with every successful attack]
[EFFECT: Accelerates all negative effects inflicted on the target]
With the silver already in the werewolf’s bloodstream, Festering Blade would accelerate the effects and kill him that much quicker.
Sal scrambled back to his feet, panting hard, and bleeding from his mouth and thigh. He seemed even angrier, the poor sod. He charged me furiously, slinging mud behind him as he stomped through it. I planted my feet down just as hard, taking up a solid defensive stance. Sal leaped at me to close the distance, and I brought up my sword high, letting him impale himself on it. He landed throat first on the tip of my blade, eyes widening in shock as he realized his mistake. Instead of swiping me with his claws, his limp claws landed on my shoulders in a sort of disturbing hug.
With the debuff in place, his skin was soft enough to slice through with ease. I slid my blade out of his throat and kicked him away from me. The werewolf stumbled back a step, then slumped forward to his knees.
“See? You can be a decent chap,” I said as he positioned himself perfectly for a swift downward strike that took his head off. A short but rich spurt of blood sprayed my entire body.
“Oh, fuck you, Sal!” I snapped, wiping my face. “You’re an asshole even in death!”
My Deeproot system notification chimed.
[You have slain a Level 44 WEREWOLF]
[You have received 400 experience points toward your FIGHTER CLASS]
A white window outlined by a gold-green frame of vines and leaves appeared before me. I swiped it away and breathed out. People said the Deeproot missed nothing. It counted your experience, made you improve in the skills you trained, decided the efficiency of your fishing pole, the strength of the table you put together, and made people like you if you had one of many persuasion skills. Still, it did miss things here and there. We all knew it, but for one reason or the other, people avoided the topic. Fear of the Gods or whatnot.
Sometimes it felt like the Deeproot had a mind of its own. We’d suddenly get points in a skill that never gave points before, or we’d become extremely good at haggling within a week, then stagnate for a year. I never gave it much thought until I lost my eye. After I did, well, I was absolutely certain the Deeproot was fucking with people.
I shyly checked how much more experience I’d need for level 58, then sighed.
[FIGHTER LEVEL: 57]
[EXPERIENCE: 3,490 / 15,100]
“Bah, go to Hell,” I muttered. I was sitting on 57 for ages. It came with the job. Bounty hunting made me just enough coin so I could live to see another day, which was still more than most jobs in Sankta Varath. However, most of my targets were lowlife scum that never bothered to level much, which meant they yielded next to no experience. Sal was the exception and not the rule, but even he barely made a dent in that XP bar.
There was one more notification that I wasn’t too keen on checking out, but did so anyway.
[You have received 210 experience points toward your WARLOCK CLASS]
[CONGRATULATIONS, YOU HAVE LEVELED UP!]
[WARLOCK LEVEL: 6]
[EXPERIENCE: 140 / 630]
There it was. My warlock class kept leveling. Sure it would, I was only level 6. A strong fart could move that XP bar ahead by leaps. With a sigh, I removed my eyepatch, revealing the orb inside the socket and scratched it. Ever since I entered that cursed cave in Ogremouth’s Valley with Godric, a former boss, my entire life had been turned upside down. That was a day I wished I’d just slept through. Should have slept through.
I shrugged and stretched my back. There was no point in wallowing over the past. Now, I was a dual-class. All my experience was split between my fighter and warlock classes depending on what spells or skills I used. Which wasn’t too bad because the spells came in handy more often than not, but the damned demonic whispers? Those I never got used to. Every time I used my warlock abilities, I could pretty much count on some kind of words from Hell or wherever they came from.
I sheathed my sword and looked to the three moons in the sky. The Small Moons seemed to inch closer to the Mother Moon every night. In a couple of years they’d vanish completely. Maybe, maybe not. I knew shit about the moons and stars. I knew shit about anything but killing and sleeping.
On that note, I realized I was more tired than I thought. Tracking the smugglers was a long and boring affair. The killing was done, and now I wanted to find a nice place to do the other thing I knew how to do best: sleeping.
“Grow so you can come… grow so you can free.”
I cleared my throat and shook my head free of the whispers. They didn’t hang around for long. A few words here and there was all I got.
“I’ll grow alright,” I muttered, sloshing through the bloody mud towards Sal’s now-human body. His head lay in the shit. I picked it up and eyed the ugly frozen-in-death thing. “You know, Sal, I wish it was you who gave me the job to kill Vinnie. And not the other way around. At least you had the balls to do your own killing.” His eyes were wide open and a few of the hairs he spurted in his werewolf form still stuck to his cheeks. More blood suddenly streamed down his throat and onto my boots.
“Fuck’s sake, man! Why can’t you stop bleeding already?” I yelled into the emptiness of the Hollow Forest. I stuffed the head into my burlap sack and looked around. “All this cleaning is going to cost me an arm and a leg at Fidgety Rick’s. Vinnie better pay me proper.”
With that last thought in mind, I went over the bodies of the other smugglers, beheading one by one and stuffing their heads into the sack. I soon realized the last one wouldn’t even fit.
“Son of a—I told you, Frank, take the big one!” I hissed, angry with myself. Why did I trust fucking Vinnie Forefrost?”
“He’s on his own, Frank,” Vinnie had said. “Don’t you worry, Frank, he’s an easy kill. That old geezer can’t cause you any trouble, you have my word.”
I spat into the mud and shit. “Fuck your word, Vinnie!”
I sighed and swung the sack over my shoulder, then grabbed the last head by the hair. “Don’t let him get to you, Frank,” I whispered, and agreed with myself. Assholes were a dime a dozen in Sankta Varath, and I had the luck to meet some of the stingiest on offer. At least I learned not to brood over the fact too much.
I found the Grace’s Road soon after leaving the Hollow Forest. It was the main road that connected the capital of Steelhearth, Sankta Varath with the southern and northern parts of the kingdom. Luckily, it was late and mostly empty of people. Only a single family rushed past me, pushing a cartful of vegetables ahead. The weathered peasant greeted me with a polite nod and a terrified look that circled between my dirty face, the bloody sack on my shoulder, and the severed head in my hand. His wife hugged her children and kept her head low.
I tried to look as non-threatening as possible, which was rather difficult. Not just because I looked the way I did, but because that guy pissed me off. Taking your whole family out along the Grace’s Road in the night was an open invitation for trouble. Sankta Varath was not a safe place, it was a city of thieves and killers, but at least they did their dirty work behind closed doors. The blackhelms, Gods curse their damned souls, kept some semblance of order in the city. Or they did so in the richer parts. Outside the city walls? Shit, anything went in the wilds.
A nice, cold breeze swept over me a short distance from the city, carrying with it the scent of burning braziers from the north. It helped with some of the smell I carried with me. Or at least I wanted to think it did. I couldn’t wait to get back to my room in the Bounty Hunter’s Guild, wash up, and go to sleep. I was almost home, but I wouldn’t make it before dawn on foot. No, for that I needed a mount and those were damn expensive.
As the Grace’s Road sloped up over one of the hills surrounding the city, I could make out a small group of humans and dwarves coming my way. They seemed armed and chatty, their voices filling the darkness around us. Once they noticed me, the chatter died down and they approached me carefully. I was wrong though, one of them was an elf lady with two swords on her back, not a human. The other one was human, some kind of broad-shouldered paladin or whatever, and the dwarf? Well, he was indeed a dwarf.
“Adventurers,” I muttered under my breath. I always thought adventurers would have a special place in the Dhozen Fires, as I never understood what all the fuss was about. People treated them like they were the belle of the ball wherever they went for some reason. Stupid. All they ever did was run around dungeons, argue over loot, thieve around the city, cause trouble in various taverns, and brag about the newest fiery sword they found and could hardly even use. The worst of them? Castelian Fair the Dreadweaver. A whole procession of sycophants waltzed after him singing his name wherever he went. All he ever did was cause trouble and not even the King’s Guard could stand up to him. Shit, not even the Three of Steel, the King’s personal bodyguards, wanted to get on his bad side.
The adventurers seemed proud and eager enough as we closed the distance. It was that kind of approach that promised to turn into a brawl with the blink of an eye. But once they saw all the blood and severed heads, their stance quickly changed. They slouched their shoulders, bowed their heads, and rushed onward. For a moment I thought the dwarf would say something, but then he of all people nodded and forced a smile on his hairy lips.
“Nice evenin’ for a walk, innit?”
“Uh-huh,” I muttered and just walked on.
The severed heads weren’t the only thing that made them reconsider any foolishness. I was probably a good 20 levels above them and the Deeproot must have given them a warning. True heroes of Sankta Varath, no doubt about it.
About halfway to the city, I decided to call it quits and find a place to sleep. I’d make the rest of the journey in the morning since I was completely drained. I left the road for the nearest woods and found a nice, secluded place down a slope to make camp. Most creatures that close to the city were below level 10 and would avoid coming anywhere near me.
I gathered some firewood and dry leaves and lit a cozy fire.
[CAMPFIRE: 33/40]
[BUFF RECEIVED: Quick Recovery, Level 3]
[DESCRIPTION: Every level of the Quick Recovery buff adds a 5% recovery speed to the user’s stamina and helps heal minor wounds]
[BUFF RECEIVED: Improvised Cooking, Level 3]
[DESCRIPTION: Every level of the Improvised Cooking buff adds a 5% chance to create a special meal that adds a random buff lasting as long as the user is out in the wilderness]
“No points in strength for gathering all this wood, eh?” There was always a chance that some physical activity would net me some points in strength, agility, or even stamina, depending on the type of work. Intellect, which increased the potency of my spells, however, was a different beast, though I had some tools in the shed to tackle that one too.
