Escape from Hell: A LITRPG Adventure (Kingdom of Heaven Book 2) Read online

  ESCAPE FROM HELL

  KINGDOM OF HEAVEN BOOK 2

  J. A. CIPRIANO

  CONNER KRESSLEY

  Copyright © 2017 by J. A. Cipriano

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  CONTENTS

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  Also by J. A. Cipriano

  Also by Conner Kressley

  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

  Glossary

  Thank You for reading!

  Author’s Note

  Litrpg

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  ALSO BY J. A. CIPRIANO

  World of Ruul

  Soulstone: Awakening

  Soulstone: The Skeleton King

  The Legendary Builder

  The Builder’s Sword

  Elements of Wrath Online

  Ring of Promise

  The Vale of Three Wolves

  Kingdom of Heaven

  The Skull Throne

  The Thrice Cursed Mage

  Cursed

  Marked

  Burned

  Seized

  Claimed

  Hellbound

  The Half-Demon Warlock

  Pound of Flesh

  Flesh and Blood

  Blood and Treasure

  The Lillim Callina Chronicles

  Wardbreaker

  Kill it with Magic

  The Hatter is Mad

  Fairy Tale

  Pursuit

  Hardboiled

  Mind Games

  Fatal Ties

  Clans of Shadow

  Heart of Gold

  Feet of Clay

  Fists of Iron

  The Spellslinger Chronicles

  Throne to the Wolves

  Prince of Blood and Thunder

  Found Magic

  May Contain Magic

  The Magic Within

  Magic for Hire

  Witching on a Starship

  Maverick

  Planet Breaker

  ALSO BY CONNER KRESSLEY

  Immortal Mercenary

  Mark of Cain

  Curse of Cain

  Rise of Cain

  1

  I took a deep breath, or as deep as I could, given the fact that the air here seemed to literally burn my lungs. I had been walking for what seemed like hours, though maybe it was longer. It might have been days; whatever days were in this crazy world I’d found myself in.

  The ground was hot, dry, and dead. The sky was a black mat blanket overhead, and this place was as barren and empty as I had imagined it might be. A dead and desolate desert stretched out before me, no greenery for as far as the eye could see. The world, it seemed, was flat and without much in the way of hills or valleys. The whole place looked like a box I was never going to get out of.

  Oh right, and there was all the fire.

  Everything in the Lower Levels was either dead, dying, or on fire. How long before I joined them? How long before one of these fires jumped out at me, or an enemy I didn’t know existed came out and made easy work of me?

  After all, I was Iron Jack. I was the guy unlucky enough to not only have found myself inside the MMORPG known as Kingdom of Heaven (which turned out to be an actual world as opposed to the video game I thought I was dealing with). I was also the dude who couldn’t get in touch with my online crew, the dude who accidentally murdered his predecessor, and the person who allowed his nemesis to trick him into getting thrown into the game’s Lower Levels, which was pretty much the closest thing to actual Hell you could think of.

  So, all in all, it probably wouldn’t be long.

  I kept moving, my armored hand up to shield my eyes from the constant flame and the heat, which made this place even more hellish somehow.

  How had I let things get this bad? I was on top of the world before. I had a plan. I had the stats. Hell, I even had Ori- the hottest angel warrior chick in a realm full of hot angel warrior chicks- macking on me on my way to Heaven.

  What a disaster.

  Each step was like a knife in my gut. Each thought was like a dagger in my brain. I had let all of this happen. I had dropped the ball, let the axe fall, and whatever else people say when everything goes to shit right in front of them. The whole kingdom and everyone in it who hadn’t aligned themselves with a crazy person in black glowing armor were going to suffer, and it was all my fault.

  I thought about stopping. The idea that this place might be better off without me laid heavy on my mind. If I just laid down and died, maybe the Power that was stuffed in me after the Shadow murdered the Principalities would drift away. Maybe it’d find a more suitable avatar, one Ori and Hecate could find and nurture.

  If they weren’t dead already, that was.

  My heart threatened to rip apart at the thought of that. If Hecate was dead, the guilt I felt when I accidentally killed Flexmaster would look like a prelude to what I would be forced to endure. And if Ori was dead, well, that would probably just kill me outright.

  Her memory washed over me, granting me the smallest of reprieves from the hell I found myself in. Her lips, her skin, her hands, her eyes, and the way she believed in me. I had spent my whole life on earth looking for someone who would believe in me like that, looking for someone who would make me feel the way I felt whenever she was around.

  Sure, she was the hottest chick in any world, and she was as badass as any person I had ever met, but it was deeper than that. I wanted her because of her and with any luck, I would live long enough and fight hard enough to earn the chance to see her again.

  I was almost to the mountain now. The large expanse of open, burning land was barely a concern for the grief-filled quicksand that was my mind because I had barely felt the journey once I dipped head first into my pity party.

  If I was going to suck it up and get back on track, I needed to focus and figure out what assets I had left. Fortunately, I had all that experience and Attunements gained through the battle against the Shadow, even if that had lowered back to their normal-if-impressive levels.

  Iron Jack, Level 63

  Energy 173,000/173,000

  Knight Rank 62, Celestial Rank 38, Woods Mystic Rank 32, Power of the Principalities Rank 1

  There were also a couple of new Abilities unlocked too. I had a new Woods Mystic Spell, Thorn Shield, and a new Knight Ability, Charge to Battle. The first was a protective shield aga
inst damage that also stunned opponents that hit it, while the second gave me a momentary burst of speed to get to opponents that needed slashing. The Power of the Principalities Attunement was maddeningly grayed out, not letting me improve it with the spare points I had to spend. Still, the improvements would help, if there was any hope left.

  There had to be because the quest was still lit up in my quest tracker:

  Ascend to the Skull Throne

  Current Objective: Discover a portal out of the Lower Layers!

  Secondary Objective: Master the Power of the Principalities!

  I took another deep breath, momentarily forgetting the air itself burned and smelled of death and dying. I almost gagged as I took it in, looking up at the mountain I now stood at the foot of.

  This was the source of the shaft of light, the waypoint that had been my only guide across the wastes. I sighed, clenching my hands into fists and preparing myself for the first step in what seemed like an impossible journey. I was meant to pull myself out of this place by my bootstraps and take the kingdom back from the souped-up clenches of the Shadow, and this is where it was all going to start.

  The Mountain of Broken Babel

  Broken Babel looked different than anything I had seen in-game.

  A tall blackened mound that had sharp edges made up of what looked like rock and metal, Babel stretched as far as I could see toward an equally black sky. As I blinked, the mountain formed and reformed, changing shape as the jagged black pieces shuffled and reshuffled. Like it was alive, an entire formation built of moving pieces.

  “Well, this should be interesting,” I muttered, surprised at how ragged and hoarse my voice was. With no one to speak to here, I had slumped into a prolonged silence during my march.

  I stepped forward, blinking again as I neared the mountain. As I grew closer, I could smell a distinct scent coming off the thing. While the entirety of the Lower Levels smelled like fire and hurt and rot, this mountain smelled almost sweet. It was like a breath of fresh air as I neared it. A cool breeze seemed to drift off it, rustling my hair and sending glorious shivers through my body. The smell of mint, sugar, and water filled my nose.

  It was strange. This place was a horror show, seemingly designed to bring about the most agonizing death imaginable. Yet here, in the center of it all, stood an oasis of a monument. It was like I was seeing a mirage as my hand reached toward the mountain. It wasn’t on fire. It was actually cool to the touch, slick, beautiful, and still moving.

  It was almost tempting. It was-

  My hand jerked away as I realized what was going on. When I was a kid, my grandfather used to preach to my sister and me. It was strange, given how crappy his daughter (my mom) turned out to be, but he was a Bible thumper; really stoic and religious.

  He used to tell me about the devil, used to tell me how he wouldn’t come with horns and a pitchfork.

  “The worst things in the world,” he’d say, “the most dangerous, destructive things in your life will look like the things you want. In the beginning, evil always tempts you.”

  The words echoed in my head as I looked at the thing, moving back and forth inches from my armored hand as if there were gears and shafts under it.

  “You’re not going to touch it, are you?” a voice startled me from behind. I turned around to find a woman-shaped humanoid with pale white skin, no hair atop her head, and vacant white eyes stared at me. Her entire body was a plain white shape, though she was as full and detailed as any woman. She was sort of like a Barbie doll in her proportions, small waist, big eyes, and heavy breasts. Unlike Barbie though, this white humanoid was completely and tantalizingly anatomically correct. She had all her bits and bobbles where they were supposed to be, and she wasn’t ashamed to show them off. “I’ll try not to take that personally.”

  Along her smooth, white body, an array of black dots ran up and down, moving much in the same way the mountain did. In fact, as I turned from the mountain back to the weird hot lady standing before me, I saw the dots were moving exactly as the mountain did. When they rearranged, so did the dots along her shapely body.

  “I’m trying my best, I’ll have you know,” she said, her white, lidless eyes boring into me. “It’s not very often I have company. Just goes to show you, I try to make myself look good for you and what do I get in return? Ignored, rejected.” Her voice was a coo that trailed into something like Marilyn Monroe in one of those movies my grandfather used to make us watch.

  I narrowed my eyes at her, trying to make sense of just what she was talking about while also trying to make sure she didn't think I was sneaking a peek at her naughty bits, which I most certainly was.

  “Who are you?” I asked, my voice still hoarse.

  I didn’t need to wait for the answer. As with most every NPC, well, native inhabitant of the kingdom, she had a convenient marker with her name and Level above his head. Much to my confusion, it read Mistress Mountain of Broken Babel. Level 60, something not normally possible in the Surface Layers, with their Level cap of 50, but something I was starting to get used to.

  That didn’t make any sense though. That would mean-

  “Oh damn,” I muttered. “You are the Mountain, aren’t you?”

  A weird ass smile spread across her face as the dots continued to mirror the mountains movements. “You’re as clever as you are cute. They’re usually near death before they figure that out.”

  “They?” I asked.

  “You think you’re the first person to get lost in here, to come to me asking for a reprieve?” she scoffed, giggling as her hand moved toward her mouth modestly. “Hardly. They all come to me. They all want relief. They all want a way out, and I’ll give it to them … if they pay the price.”

  My stomach turned. I hated this, negotiating with crazy things, even sexy, naked crazy things. What could I do though?

  “And what’s the price?” I asked, swallowing hard.

  “All you have to do,” the Mountain said, her smile still wide and present on her face, “is kill the last person who came here.”

  The dots on her skin separated, like a bathing suit being popped open to reveal what was underneath. As they did, a cavern opened near the foot of the mountain, the chunks of it moving in accordance to those dots.

  The cave was about fifty feet up along the jagged pieces of the mountain and in it stood an avatar just like mine. My heart sputtered to a stop as I looked at the person in the cave. Confused, scared and, more than anything, familiar.

  “You’re not serious,” I said, swallowing hard. A smile drifted across my face too now because the person on the other side of the avatar I was looking at was none other than my guild mate Glimmer.

  2

  To say Glimmer and I were not the best gaming buds in the world would be an understatement of almost tragic proportions. When I joined the Avenging Angels back in the day, Glimmer was the lone voice of dissent in an otherwise unanimous crowd of cheering approval. I thought it was because of my prior relationship with Barry. The Angels had a pretty strict rule banning the RL friends of existing members from joining their ranks. So, it made sense that she wouldn’t like the exception they made on my behalf.

  As things went on though and I became an acting member of the group, I started to think that it was just because she didn’t like me. As the resident healer, Glimmer was tasked with making sure we were in fighting shape, but I always got the raw end of that deal. My grievous wounds were always the last to be tended, and my Energy bar always seemed to rest just a little emptier than the others. This one time, I walked around with a gaping chest wound for a full hour before she bothered to get around to helping me.

  I let this go, of course, for the good of the guild. I wanted to be a team player and if I was being honest, she kind of scared me a little. Not physically, of course. Though she was definitely a force to be reckoned with, her fighting skills weren’t on the same Level as mine, and her limited offensive magic didn’t frighten me. She was a healer, after all, and mo
st of her gear and Attunements were focused around that.

  No, it was something else entirely.

  “You?” Glimmer said, catching sight of me looking up and her and sneering. “Of course, it’s you.” She huffed loudly. “God, could I run out of luck any harder?”

  “Good to see you too,” I muttered.

  She shook her head, her red braid moving along the front of her body, and looked up to the sky in a move I instantly recognized. You see, Glimmer had this habit of screaming at the heavens. Not the Kingdom of Heaven, heavens, no. It was more like the way William Shatner cursed Khan’s name in Star Trek 2. A full on ‘rend your garments and beat your chest’ type scream where she lamented all the horrible things that had happened to her and wondered why she was so unlucky. I was a near constant subject of those cries, and it looked like that wasn’t going to stop anytime soon.