Duskbound 1: A LitRPG Adventure, page 3
One more beer, then I go roll his ass out of bed so we can get started.
Raising a hand to get Induar’s attention, Torwin jiggled his empty mug and said, “One for the road?”
“Morgus’s massive hairy balls, why are we awake right now?” Jensen whined.
Doing the guild master a favor. Getting paid well for it. Just keep the kid alive for another six months. It’s his own fault if he’s still a [Tracker] then.
Torwin wanted to reach out and smack his apprentice upside the head. Instead, he said, “Because we’re here on a job and we’re not making any progress on it, which means we’re not working hard enough.”
“I’m working plenty hard. You could have at least let me eat breakfast.”
“You could have if you’d gotten out of bed when you were supposed to.”
Torwin blocked out Jensen’s complaining and glanced around curiously. It was never truly silent out in the woods, not unless something really bad was going down. There were always bugs buzzing or chirping, birds singing, and countless rustles of small animals moving through the brush. It only got quiet when predators were nearby and everything went into hiding, and even then, it didn’t get this quiet.
“Jensen,” Torwin said, interrupting his apprentice, “shut up.”
Not totally useless, the old hunter thought to himself. Jensen wasn’t actually that bad at his class; he just lacked the dedication needed to be truly great. Once he was focused on an issue, however, he was competent. The kid was already bringing up that fancy bow his father had bought him, the one that created steel arrows out of magic.
“I don’t smell anything,” he said. Glancing back at Torwin, he added, “Downwind, you think? Or some sort of scent-masking skill?”
Cocking an eyebrow, Torwin pointed up into the sky. Jensen followed the finger and froze, the blood draining from his already pale face when he saw what was flying overhead. It was obviously using some kind of magic to keep itself aloft, there being far too much mass for those thin skin flaps to do the job on their own. It looked something like a squirrel, except thirty feet long and covered in scaly plates of dark gray. Its incisors were huge and pointed, perfect for tearing into meat, and its tail had none of a squirrel’s bushiness. Instead, bony protrusions grew out of it every foot or so.
Torwin could quite easily imagine that tail smashing through a tree just from the physical force of the strike, never mind whatever magic it had besides what was supporting its flight. This one was probably beyond Jensen’s ability to tackle.
“What level is that?” his apprentice whispered harshly.
[Dire Clubtail Flying Squirrel (elite) – level 22. Stats: 39ph, 22me, 29my. Skills: Wind Tamer, Shred, Massive Impact.]
Well, he won’t kill it, but it’s good to experience fighting monsters stronger than you. Plus it’ll keep him humble.
“If you had [Identify], you’d know. Get after it, now. We can’t leave something like that to just roam around the forest causing problems.”
“After it? Are you insane?” Jensen protested.
Putting a hard look on his apprentice, Torwin said, “This is the job. Sometimes the monsters are bigger than you. Deal with it. Now, move.”
5
[Predator’s Visage] had a couple of different skills mixed into it, but one of the most important aspects to Velik was that it gave him a sort of intuitive sense of where to look for prey. With the skill at rank 7, it had a nice range on it, about five hundred yards. The forest was a riot of autumn colors right now, all yellows and oranges except for a few stubborn evergreens clustered together, which made it far more difficult to spot animals than it might otherwise be.
In another month, the trees would be filled with the grasping wooden claws of bare branches, and the brilliant leaves would be nothing more than a forgotten carpet of detritus on the ground, but right now, Velik’s primary class skill combined with his high mental stat did the heavy lifting when it came to finding and killing new monsters.
Normally, he slept through the morning and got up sometime around noon. Perhaps it was something in [Duskbound] that he didn’t understand, or maybe it was his class. Something the system had given to him had drastically cut down on his need for sleep, and a good day for Velik was three to four hours.
That gave him plenty of extra time to do things besides just kill monsters. Today, he busied himself with hunting game, which had become scarce as more and more monsters appeared in the area. There were plenty of those that had no problems eating a deer or turkey. Even aggressive game like boars often died when they challenged a monster that had wandered into their territory.
But Velik’s food reserves were running low and monster meat generally tasted awful even when it wasn’t outright poisonous, so he went hunting for less dangerous prey. Luck was with him, and it took less than an hour to find fresh signs of a herd of deer that frequented the stream near his home. There were a lot fewer tracks than there’d been last year, the herd already decimated from the monster infestation, but they’d spare one more of their number to keep Velik fed for a few more weeks.
His movements were more deliberate in the day, slower and cautious, acutely aware of the world around him and how it might perceive him. Still, he quickly spotted the herd through the trees some fifty yards off and circled around to get downwind. It wasn’t something he had to consciously think about these days, not with [Predator’s Visage] coloring his behaviors. Stalking prey was second nature to him now.
Velik didn’t own a bow, not because he couldn’t shoot one, but because his style of movement revolved around slipping through narrow openings that a bow would get caught on. He was hoping to get one that had the same [Shape Shifting] property as his spear, and possibly with the ability to make its own arrows like that one he’d seen the younger of the two hunters using yesterday. Either whatever he’d been using wasn’t system-crafted, or it was so expensive that Velik hadn’t been able to find it in the store yet.
He was more than familiar with hunting in melee range, which was admittedly much harder to pull off, even with a rank 6 [Stealth] skill. Sneaking up on a single monster was easy compared to approaching an entire herd of skittish deer, but Velik had done it plenty of times before and he knew how to do it again today.
He was in position on a thick tree branch hanging over the trail, spear poised and ready. All he had to do now was wait, and probably not for long. A few minutes, maybe half an hour at most, was all it would take. He already had his eyes on a nice, big doe, one that didn’t have any fawns hanging around her.
Everything was going perfectly, until something crossed the sun overhead and cast its shadow over the herd. They panicked and scattered immediately, with the majority of them running off in the wrong direction and the stragglers darting between trees instead of down the trail. Not a single one of them passed under Velik’s perch, meaning he’d wasted the last two hours of his life tracking down next week’s dinner and getting into position to take one.
Maybe a bow would be worth it, just for hunting trips. It’s not like I’d need to carry it for killing monsters. Those don’t run away.
Velik peered up through the branches to see what had scared off his dinner, only to freeze and pull on [Stealth] for all it was worth. The monster was big, one of the biggest he’d ever seen, and definitely one of the strongest. [Predator’s Visage] had long since swallowed the [Identify] skill he’d picked up years ago, and while it no longer functioned to give him hard numbers, it told him plenty.
Little bit lower level than me. Significantly lower physical, despite its size, and probably geared more toward agility and speed than raw strength. High mental for a monster; I’m betting that’s mostly perception and processing speed. And a lot of mystic. Is that all to keep it flying, or does it have some offense, too?
He studied the massive scaled squirrel as it glided by on enormous skin flaps, sizing it up for exploitable weaknesses and trying to get a feel for what its magic did. The last thing he needed was to be right in its face, about to stab its eye out, only to have it breathe out shards of ice or stone on him.
One thing he was certain about, though: it had to die.
“It’s not subtle, is it?” Jensen said.
“Not much tracking involved in this one, no,” Torwin agreed. “I hope you’re thinking about what you’re going to do once you catch up.”
“I thought I might shoot it to death.”
“Think harder. It’s got four levels on you and it’s an elite. You want to be a [Ranger]. Here’s your chance to prove you’ve got what it takes.”
If you didn’t have half a million decarmas worth of gear, your skills and level would be rising a lot faster. You rely too much on the toys and not enough on your brain, Jensen.
“Tch,” his apprentice said. “Have a little faith in me. Morgus himself has my back.”
“I’m sure. That’s why he warned you about that root you tripped over yesterday, right?”
“Only because you kept prodding me to go faster! I don’t have a level 50 rare class, old man! My physical is less than half what yours is.”
That would have been a fair point, except that a classless child could have shown more grace than Jensen had. He’d stumbled entirely because he wasn’t paying attention to anything but that magic bow he’d gotten right before they’d left Cravel for the frontier. Admittedly, a bow that made its own arrows was useful, but he needed to focus on his priorities.
“You’d better milk it for all it’s worth, or we’ll be chasing that elite till nightfall,” he told Jensen. “Damned thing is pulling away.”
“What? No, we’re just in a rough patch of the woods. Soon as the trees thin out, we’ll catch up.”
They’re not going to, and you should know that. We’ve been through here twice this week. Unless that elite swings to the south, the woods are only going to get worse. You’re going to lose it in about twenty minutes, assuming it keeps flying at the same speed and we don’t run into something else before then.
“You’ve got ten minutes to bring it down before I go ahead and do it myself,” Torwin told him.
“What?!” Jensen yelped. His eyes narrowed and he growled, “Fine, if that’s how you want to play it…”
Magic surged through Torwin’s apprentice and his speed suddenly tripled. He tore through the underbrush, snapping branches and ripping stubborn plants out by their roots. And there it is, Torwin thought to himself. You could have circled around to the south and shadowed it in parallel. You could have scaled a tree and fired a few shots at it to get its attention. If you were better at harnessing the potential of your stats, you could have just slipped through the thicker underbrush faster. But no, all problems are solved with money.
You’ll never turn [Tracker] into [Ranger], and I’ll never hear the end of your failure. Maybe it’s time I start thinking about retirement if this is what the new generation is like.
Torwin sped up, easily pacing his gear-assisted apprentice’s speed. It wasn’t hard to follow him; he’d left a trail a blind man could walk by bodily tearing through the foliage. He shadowed Jensen as the young man ran the elite monster down, always hanging back enough to let Jensen take the lead. They lost sight of the monster frequently, especially with the canopy getting thicker, but it was easy to spot it whenever they caught a glimpse of the sky.
Until, unexpectedly, it wasn’t. “It went to ground,” Torwin said. “Huh. Maybe it found something to eat. Either way, lucky for you. Maybe you can ambush it now.”
They hurried forward the last thousand feet or so. A bitter leaf hare distracted the old [Ranger] for a second, just long enough to draw an arrow and release it, taking the beast through the throat and pinning it to a tree mid-jump, when Jensen’s strangled cry of mixed surprise and outrage pulled him back to the chase.
“Hmm?” Torwin asked, rushing to catch up. “What in the world…?”
“He’s stealing my kill!” Jensen sputtered, outraged.
“He’s magnificent,” Torwin uttered, not even realizing he’d spoken out loud until Jensen turned a bitter glare on him. Oops, that’ll bruise his pride.
6
Velik wasn’t expecting an audience, let alone the hunter pair from yesterday, but he’d already ambushed the elite. Too late now. Best I can do is end this quickly and disappear.
A titanic flying squirrel was a new one, but nothing surprised him anymore. Practically every flavor of animal in existence had a monstrous counterpart, and in the case of things like rodents and insects, they were almost always several times bigger. Weirdly, they were always the most aggressive breed of monsters, which had made them difficult for a younger Velik to deal with.
Unchecked aggression was great against inexperienced and low-level hunters, but it didn’t work against him. He knew he was a higher level with better stats. The only thing the monster had on him was the typical insanely high amount of physical resilience all elites shared and several hundred pounds of mass.
Wind tore around the two of them, manipulated by the elite monster and threatening to steal Velik’s balance with each billowing gust of dead leaves. The opening was there, a tempting target as the monster spread its paws wide and bared its chest. All Velik had to do was leap forward and thrust his spear into the monster’s fur. But he knew he couldn’t muster up the speed to complete the strike when fighting against a headwind so strong that it ripped branches out of the trees.
So, he didn’t fight directly against it. Instead, he let it speed him on his way as the monster’s paws lashed out. Crackling lines of magic trailed behind it, tracing the path its nails cut through the gale. They were too slow to catch Velik, but only because he’d moved with the screaming wind instead of against it. Any other direction would have seen him wounded, at best.
His own spear flashed forward, scoring a hit against the monster and leaving a thin trail of black blood in the air as it swept away. The squirrel-beast screeched, more in rage than in pain, and lunged forward. Its full weight slammed down where it tried to pounce on Velik, but he was already gone. Leaping high into the air, his spear whipped around like a living thing to lead his dive. Point first, it slammed down into the monster’s back.
Unlike most of the monsters Velik had killed lately, this one wasn’t so easy to take down. Wind tore at Velik’s arms, trying to pull him off-course, and fur hard as steel resisted the tip of his spear at impact. Without his [Duskbound] strength driving the blow, he couldn’t get a clean strike in. Rather than puncturing a foot of muscle and possibly crippling the squirrel, his attack dug a deep furrow across the monster’s back.
Velik’s feet barely touched fur before they were sliding sideways, but his balance was perfect. He slid off the elite, swinging his spear even as he tumbled through the air to keep it at bay, then twisted to land upright and facing his opponent. It wasted no time in pursuing him, but just like before, it couldn’t catch him.
This is taking too long. If it doesn’t run out of magic soon, I’m never going to get a clean shot in.
Normally, Velik would have danced around it, harrying it with precision strikes and bleeding it out, but now he wanted this thing dead so he could get away from the hunters. Without the boost granted by [Duskbound], he wasn’t going to be able to simply overpower it, which meant taking a risk.
Before he could attack again, the younger of the two hunters decided to help. His bow came up, an arrow materialized out of nothing, and then he shot it into a wall of wind so strong that it was immediately ripped off-target. Velik jerked out of the way just in time to avoid being struck by the magical bolt, but he didn’t have time to follow up on that.
[Spear Warden] was an amalgamation of a few different skills related to controlling the battlefield, namely [Serpent Strike], [Bleeding Thrust], [Shepherd’s Cane], and, of course, [Spear Mastery]. His style focused on executing lightning-fast attacks designed to limit a target’s movement options while he drove them into a position of vulnerability, where he then left deep, weeping wounds. Blood loss indirectly killed many of the monsters Velik hunted, helped along by the fourth enchantment on his weapon, [Bleeding].
Two more arrows came in from the apprentice hunter, both predictably missing their target. The older man said something to him, but Velik was too busy to pay attention to that. The arrows hadn’t come close to hitting him this time, and that was all he cared about. He watched the squirrel move, studied the way it swayed with the breeze, and he grinned.
Got you, you ugly bastard.
It was controlling the wind ripping around them, but it wasn’t immune to its own magic. The only difference was that it could work with the wind, speeding up its movements or at least not slowing itself down, but that meant the monster itself served as a warning to help Velik compensate for the rapidly changing direction and speed.
The arc of its swinging paw told him that he could take a long step to the right, that the wind would push him the last few inches he needed to get out of the way in one smooth movement instead of two stuttered ones. When it rose up in front of him, he knew to expect another billowing cloud of leaves that filled the air and blocked his vision, and he was already shifting out of the way to slash his spear at its leg.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t still fighting against the elite monster’s magic to deliver his blows, nor was he capable of casually slicing through its thick fur. Worse, whenever he tried to get out from directly in front of it, that long tail lashed out, proving that the thick, bony knobs on its length weren’t decorative.
This would be so much easier in twelve hours. At least it’s ignoring those other two. I’m not sure I could stop something this big if it decides to go after one of them.
Of course, that was the exact moment an arrow suddenly sprouted from its eye.
He figured it out, Torwin thought as he watched the kid with the spear dance around a monster five times his size. Gale winds cut through the field, throwing wood, leaves, and dust everywhere, as well as spoiling Jensen’s aim. A few of the arrows had come close to hitting the new hunter, but the boy had the presence of mind to dodge out of the way.
