Death Singer: A LitRPG Fantasy Adventure, page 1
DEATH SINGER
Ascension Quest Series
Volume 1
by Randy Ellefson
Copyright © 2023 Randy Ellefson / Evermore Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means; electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.
This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously. Any semblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Table of Contents
Map of Karendi Kingdom
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Glossary
General
Places
Life
Randy Ellefson Books
About The Author
Randy Ellefson Music
Acknowledgments
LitRPG Group
Map of Karendi Kingdom
Map of Karendi Kingdom, on the world of Llurien.
View a larger, full color map online at https://fiction. randyellefson.com/ascension-quest-litrpg- series/death-singer/
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Chapter 1
Max turned his back on the three people giving him the finger. He couldn’t make out their faces anyway, with them being backlit in the noisy Baltimore club as Steel Panther blasted from the loudspeakers. They’d been flipping him off all night while he was on stage with his band, Burp the Worm, cranking out 80s metal tunes on his axe-shaped guitar. It wasn’t the first time the flip-off fest had happened. He’d always thought being good would get him support, not jealous people eager to see him fail. Today, he wasn’t in the mood for the haters. It was time to go home.
With his last glance at the stage to ensure he’d grabbed all his gear, he strode over to his guitar case and crouched down as much as his black leather pants would let him. Max took a last look down at “Kat,” the prized electric guitar he’d built. She was all silver hardware and black paint except for a silver area on the bottom, where it looked like a blade. And he knew people hated him for this above all else.
He zipped the case closed and rose, casting a last look at the club where drunk people were wobbling into each other and slithering out into the darkness. Last call had come, and he felt a little inebriated from the shots two hot girls had brought him on stage. He slung Kat over his shoulder and stepped out of the club with a last wave at his bandmates, who were busy with their own gear or hanging out with people.
His black leather boots crunched on the parking lot’s gravelly asphalt as he strode toward his banged up, red Dodge Charger. As he neared it, three figures stepped out from behind a van parked beyond it. They took up positions on either side of the Charger and blocked the way to it. The blonde held a hockey stick, but the short one and the overweight one had nothing in their hands. With the streetlight above backlighting them, Max recognized their silhouettes from inside and stopped. They weren’t really going to attack him, were they? This was getting out of hand.
“Hey dickhead,” the blond one called out, his voice echoing off the stone walls of the surrounding buildings.
“Give it a rest, guys,” Max said, suspecting that was the ringleader.
“We’re gonna give you a rest,” said the chubby one, the voice revealing she was female.
Max rolled his eyes. “Clever. Maybe you should be a poet.”
“Fuck you, dude.”
The short one finally spoke. “You think you’re so much better than us.”
Max sighed. “Maybe that’s because I don’t go around flipping people off or accosting them at their car. Come on, guys. They just did last call. Go get another beer and see if you can get laid before it’s too late.”
The blond guy glanced around before yelling, “Get him!”
They rushed at Max, who stepped back and saw from their body language that they weren’t kidding. He turned a little too late and ran, but they had a head start. The soft guitar case bounced haphazardly on his shoulder. He lost a precious second getting it into one hand, where it was almost as awkward. Running from these bozos irritated him, but 3-on-1 and unarmed weren’t good odds. With the footsteps closing in, he risked a glance back just as the blond with the hockey stick swung it at his legs and tripped him.
Max fell too quickly to break his fall, one knee slamming painfully into the asphalt as his hand slid on loose gravel. The guitar case fell to one side. As he reached for it, the short one kicked it away. The girl stomped on his other hand. Pain, anger, and fear of broken bones tore through him. As they laughed, he rolled onto his back to see them surrounding him. He held up his injured, bloody hand and saw it shaking, whether from adrenaline or pain, he didn’t know.
“Get the guitar!” the blond one in front of him hollered.
“No!” Max yelled, struggling to his feet. He moved left toward the short one who’d picked it up, but the blond one swung the hockey stick to keep him back. “You’ll never get away with stealing it. Everyone knows it’s mine.”
The blond one sneered and walked toward Kat, limping for some reason. “We’re gonna smash it to pieces, not get caught with it. This is what happens to arrogant motherfuckers.”
Shock tore through Max. After all these years of taking care of Kat, her being destroyed was the worst thing he could imagine. To think he’d gotten upset when he’d scratched the back of her on his belt buckle until he’d learned to pull the front of his shirt over his waist. And now three dumbasses were gonna break her? Over his dead body.
“Leave the guitar alone,” Max demanded, as the short one pulled it out of the case.
“Leave the guitar alone!” the girl mocked. Only now could Max see she had long purple hair braided on one side, and a nose ring attached to an earring. He wanted to yank it out of her face.
The short one dragged Kat across the gravel, likely scratching the paint.
“I’ll give you whatever money you want,” Max pleaded, cradling his injured hand. “Come on. That guitar is priceless.”
“It’s about to be worthless,” said the blond one.
The girl laughed. “Hey! We are poets!”
The short one raised Kat over his head by the neck like she was an actual axe. Dread filled Max at the impending motion of it slamming into the ground. He lunged forward. The blond one jabbed him in the chest with the hockey stick hard enough to make Max gasp at the pain. But Max yanked the stick out of the guy’s grip with his good hand. Suddenly Max was the one with a weapon. He ran toward the guy holding the guitar over his head and cocked his arm back to swing.
Pain exploded across his right temple as a flashing light blinded him. He never saw the ground as he fell hard to his left and slammed headfirst into the asphalt, which stunned him. His ears rang. A punch. From the blond one. Max hadn’t seen it coming and now couldn’t see anything. He dimly heard the crack of Kat being smashed into the ground. Once. Twice. And the sound of wood clattering. Laughter. He tried to lift his head but couldn’t. Or his arm. His legs wouldn’t move and felt impossibly heavy.
Crunching footsteps neared him and stopped. Max feared what they were about to do to him.
The girl said, “Shit, dude. I think you hit him too hard.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I think you’re right. We better get the fuck out of here before somebody sees us.”
“Let’s go.”
The footsteps rapidly faded away. Max blacked out with a groan of pain, despair, and helpless fury.
Chapter 2
Max opened his eyes to see tall trees just feet in front of where he stood. A rocky dirt path led between them and through a forest with low bushes scattered throughout. A glance around revealed more of the same, the trail behind him, too. The turning motion caused him to notice coarse fabric rubbing against his skin. Looking down, he saw a pl
He’d never been much of a nature buff, but the air smelled pristine, with a pine scent. His sinuses hadn’t seemed this clear in forever and he took a deep breath. He felt relaxed and rested, as if after a good night’s sleep. A slight breeze felt wonderful against his skin. Everything seemed almost too vivid. His sight was even clearer than before, even though he’d never needed glasses and presumably had 20/20 vision.
But he had no idea what he was doing here.
Confused, he tried to take a step forward, and while he could lift his foot, it went back to the ground in the same spot instead of forward like he’d intended. He tried again with the same result. Was something invisible holding him in place? He couldn’t back up or go sideways, either. He extended his arms successfully, reaching around and up, but he appeared stuck in place. Though he didn’t see anyone, he was about to call for help when a semi-translucent display of light appeared, hanging in the air several feet before him. Instead of an edge, it had an outline of glowing yellow light with rounded corners. It looked like a TV or computer screen, but there was no stand, and it wasn’t hanging from a tree or crane or something. The image just floated there. It had no cables or apparent battery supply. Words of blue then appeared in the middle of it, a pleasant female voice reading them aloud.
Welcome to Llurien Online, the world’s premiere virtual reality game. You must choose a character before you begin your adventure. Proceed?
“What the hell?” Max muttered, not remembering logging in. Or buying Llurien Online. In fact, he didn’t even own a VR headset or whatever else he needed for this. He’d played MMORPGs before, just not the virtual reality kind. Maybe he was at a friend’s house? No, he didn’t really have any, and not one that would do this with him. And no one else was nearby in the game as if they were doing it together. Maybe he just couldn’t see them until he made a character.
He’d heard of Llurien Online, which was based on several series of books set on a world called Llurien. The game had launched a while back, but between work, the band, and his nearly complete degree in classical guitar, he seldom had time for computer games anymore. He wasn’t that good at them anyway, not having the patience for them—or dealing with other players attacking him. It was aggravating building up a character and getting loot only to have someone kill you and take your shit, not that all of them had that. Hopefully, this one didn’t.
He'd seen enough games to know that the screen before him was a Heads Up Display, or HUD. In theory, in could be dismissed, but he left it there.
He sighed and looked for a logout button. As if reading his mind, one appeared in the upper right corner of his vision. When he turned his head, it moved with the motion. It looked greyed out so he couldn’t click it, and he wasn’t sure how to anyway. But just thinking about it caused the button to depress and release with no apparent effect. It certainly didn’t log him out. He tried several times. Had the game crashed?
Frowning, he imagined taking off the virtual reality headset he assumed he was wearing in the real world, but nothing changed. He moved to do it as if he was wearing it in the game, but still nothing happened.
He sighed. “I can’t really be stuck in a VR game, can I? Maybe I can save and quit after creating the character.”
At his impulse to reach up and click the “Proceed” button, it clicked by itself.
A character creation screen appeared. In a row at the top were eight species from which he could choose. A unique color bordered each circular picture of a head. He noticed the colors were the red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet rainbow spectrum from left to right, with the human one at the end encircled by white. That one was already selected, which didn’t surprise him, as his hands and limbs appeared human.
Below that row stood a human warrior that looked nothing like him, but he figured he could change it later in the process. The gender had been set to male and could apparently be toggled, though this was also greyed out. He mentally clicked a few times to be sure, not that he really wanted to switch it, so he moved on. As he read a description box on the screen’s right side, the same pleasant female voice spoke the words.
Species: Human.
Summary: The eighth species of Llurien, humans were created by all twenty-eight of Llurien’s gods, who realized no species equally represented all of their traits. They are, therefore, the most unpredictable. Evil to some, good to others, humans are sometimes called Antarians after the first male and female, Antar and Taria; Antaria is also the name of the continent upon which you stand. Their language, Antarian, is spoken throughout Llurien.
Species Strengths: Superior Versatility, Mastery, and Resilience. All religions are possible.
Species Weaknesses: -5% Luck, -1 Wisdom, -1 Morale.
Species Bonuses: None.
Class Restrictions: None. Dual classes permitted.
Proficiency Points Bonus: None.
The human player didn’t sound interesting, but being able to choose any class or be dual class was attractive. And yet, playing something else was part of the fun of RPGs. The description suggested that the other species had not inherited the traits of every god. How would that affect game play? He had also noticed that all the options were called a “species” and not “races,” and when he began clicking on the other seven, he saw that most of them had more than one race under them. Humans did not.
But what he immediately noticed was that the “Continue” button was greyed out unless he was on human. That didn’t make any sense. Why have these options here if none were available? For a moment, he wondered if the game was in a beta or test mode, and that explained these not being available. But the game had been around a year or more. Was his account screwed up or something? Starting with a glitch was just what everyone wanted. That would explain the logout button issue. He irritably clicked through the other species again anyway, mostly to get a sense of what other players might be using if they weren’t also restricted. And NPCs were likely to be these species, with him needing to fight some.
Several were taller than him, including one that looked like a humanoid descended from dragons. Another had the muscular and agile body of a male gymnast, while the third had webbed toes and fingers for its life in the sea. The rest were shorter, one reminding him of halfings, another like a goblin or another nasty species, and one having feathered wings in addition to two arms and legs. From the depiction, a final one appeared able to control spirits. Max saw an icon showing two blended figures. Clicking on it revealed a dizzying array of hybrids. It wasn’t just humans crossed with other species, but each other, though some combinations appeared to be missing. None were available to him. Only human.
Max sighed and reluctantly clicked the “Continue” button to select human. He got a message that his wisdom and morale had both dropped by 1. The race restriction had indeed deflated his mood. The wisdom drop amused him because he had to agree that people weren’t wise. Neither was he, really. No other stats changed and nothing had affected his body, so he didn’t feel any different. He still couldn’t walk anywhere.
Now he saw options for changing his appearance, his character before him on the floating screen. It looked nothing like him, so he decided to make it closer but with a slight makeover. Max replicated his long, straight blond hair that grew to mid-back. He also kept his blond mustache and goatee, tall height, broad shoulders, slender waist, oval head, arched eyebrows, and straight, slightly large nose. But he improved his jawline, added muscles, tanned his skin a little more, and changed his brown eyes to blue. When he hit the save button, he noticed getting several inches taller as the ground moved slightly farther away from his vision. The rest of the changes he wouldn’t see without a mirror or unless he viewed himself on the character screen like this.
Satisfied, he clicked through to the next screen and found a list of classes, most familiar: fighter, knight, paladin, hunter, rogue, bard, healer, druid, wizard, sorcerer, monk, Coiryn rider, winger rider, and warder. He didn’t know what the last three were, but they were listed as heroic classes. Each of them and paladin were inaccessible until higher levels. He also didn’t understand the difference between a wizard and sorcerer, so he checked out each.
