The Vale of Three Wolves: A LitRPG Adventure (Elements of Wrath Online Book 2) Read online

  Kayla: It sounds to me that we should meet back up at the Crystal Hall and head to the desert. There may be some clues or quest hubs out there that will point the way for us.

  Shale: Understood, I’ll head there now.

  I pushed off the wall and rolled my shoulders. Every hour in the dive was precious to me, and the aggravation of all this runaround was burrowing under my skin something fierce. Maybe it was that annoyance that made me sloppy, more preoccupied with getting this whole thing started instead of paying attention to my surroundings. Whatever it was, I didn’t see the white-robed Embers pushing through the crowd toward me nor their hands reaching into said robes and fingering long-handled daggers.

  What I did notice was the full combat UI flaring to life and pulling me out of the immersion of the sights, sounds, and spicy smells of the bazaar. Around the center of my vision, red and blue arcs displaying my personal Health Point and Elemental Power levels popped into solidity, with Kayla’s status coming up smaller around it.

  Years of NSAF experience came to the fore as a micro-twitch of my brain summoned up my Solar Guardian’s Shell, the shining fragment of an Elohjin guardian that served as my shield, and the Banner of Two Nations, the flags of the Mountain Kingdom and the Ocean Mother’s realm proudly flying from the crossbars.

  Shale, Level 42 Craggar Warlord, Tank

  HP 3560/3560 EP 2660/2660

  Kayla, Level 42 Nix Sorcerer, Support

  HP 2300/2300 EP 3400/3400

  As I spun, searching for the impending trouble, Kayla was shouting in my ear, surprise mixed with concern. Though I couldn’t hear it, I could easily imagine the sound of her hard-soled boots hitting the cobblestones as she ran towards me.

  Kayla: I thought you said you stayed out of trouble, Shale! Why did the combat UI come up?

  Red outlines flared into life around the robed Embers, instantly pegging them as hostile MOBs alongside the notifications of their identities, levels, and relative challenge ratings. The four elementalkin, three men and a woman, drew their steel. That instantly set the crowd scattering, looking for any hole they could hide in to avoid the impending violence.

  All four came up as Mysterious Cultists, and they struck me more as the fanatical assassin type as opposed to the folks handing out data chips filled with prayer books at the airport.

  They were all level 30 which warranted a C threat rating. While they were too low level for me to worry about one on one, their numbers might give me trouble if they got lucky.

  Shale: I’ve got cultists. No idea why. They can’t be wandering MOBs at the level they are. Kalaam is a starter zone, levels under 10 only. I didn’t see a quest – Dynamic quest ‘An Answer Of Violence’ initiated!

  Objective: Fend off the Mysterious Cultists and find the answer to your questions!

  Reward: 50,000 Experience

  Kayla: That answers that. Kite them to me! Don’t get cocky, no matter what level they are.

  Shale: Me? Cocky? Also, me? Able to kite?

  Kayla: I know, both of those were silly of me to say. Just don’t die before I get there!

  So maybe we really did have that connection I hoped we did. At the very least, Kayla knew me well enough to know I wasn’t some cocksure idiot. I was a team player. In this situation, though, it was a real problem with no team by my side. My build and all my gear were set-up to tank, to take damage and keep the enemy on me and away from my group. It wasn't to kill the bad guys. On my own, it was quite probable that they could whittle me down before I had a chance to finish them off.

  Pushing that out of my mind, I met the lunge of the first cultist, his blade glinting in the bright sun, with my shield, deflecting it aside with little effort. Even as the Fragment arced burning Primal Light into my attacker, the other three were making a move to cut off any possible escape. Before they got out of position, a quick mental command activated the linked array of Gems in my shield.

  “Feel the Primal Light, assassins,” I cried as a cone of pure, burning sunlight exploded from my shield, blinding the whole pack of jackals and searing their flesh.

  Mysterious Cultist A’s Killer Lunge hits (blocked)! You take 127 (-127 blocked) Physical Damage. HP 3433/3560

  Mysterious Cultist A impales himself on your Thorns! He takes 108 (-12 resisted) Light Damage. HP 892/1000

  Your Solar Shield engulfs the area!

  Mysterious Cultist A takes 504 (-56 resisted) Light Damage and is Blind! HP 388/1000

  Mysterious Cultist B takes 620 (-70 resisted) Light Damage and is Blind! HP 380/1000

  Mysterious Cultist C takes 882 (+490 critical, -98 resisted) Light Damage and is Blind! HP 118/1000

  Mysterious Cultist D takes 371 (-41 resisted) Light Damage and is Blind! HP 629/1000

  And that was literally emptying both barrels at the very start. The combination of Shield Slam and a Light Elemental Gem created a big, aggro-grabbing blast but also upped the cooldown by several seconds. The rest of my active use Gems (the source of all player Skills and Passives in Elementalis Online) were either defensive buffs or non-damaging, threat-building moves. Still, three seconds of blindness was plenty of time to both turtle up and let Kayla get to me.

  White robes charred and smoldering, the cultists shouted back and forth with each other in some strange language, slicing wildly in the air as they stumbled toward my last position. Even though my big stone body and heavy armor made me slow on my feet, I wasn’t rooted to the ground. I hopped backward out of the arc of their knives and glanced uselessly at my ability hotbar for something I could use to hurt them.

  Out in the rest of the plaza, the sounds of running turned into the sounds of hurried cries and shouts as the shopkeepers and merchants raised a general alarm.

  Normally, any kind of combat in a capital that wasn’t a sanctioned duel or arena event would bring the city guards coming. No one messed with the guard of any capital; they classed as Grade S threats to even top-notch raiders. Unfortunately, this encounter was part of a quest, and I knew I couldn’t count on them to come running.

  No, I was on my own until Kayla arrived to DPS them down. Before they recovered from their blindness, I raised up my banner, invoking the power of my Entrenching Call Gem. “Cry out all you want, thugs, but it won’t help you in the end,” I taunted. “No Craggar is going to go down under those puny little knives.”

  Boon ‘Entrenchment!’ gained! All allies in range gain +12% Block, Dodge, and Physical resistance!

  And all that after I had thought I wasn’t cocky. Maybe I should have hit Strength of the Mountain or something bigger defensive move but still, this wasn’t arrogance. Kayla wasn’t far away (I hoped) and these guys were already pretty badly hurt. This felt like an introduction quest so they wouldn’t make it too extreme. Again, maybe this was all a big assumption on my part but the dev team, even the ever-wily Kyle Patruski, had a rhyme and reason to how they built things, and I had a good read on them by now.

  Kayla: Why in the chrysanthemum are there so many NPCs clogging up the streets?

  Shale: Because devs, that’s why! Don’t worry, I’m holding on.

  Kayla continued to grumble as she shoved through the streets, the occasional ineffectual curse slipping into the channel and immediately caught and replaced by the Filter, the omnipresent AI that caught every dirty word or revealing real-life fact before it even left your brain.

  As opposed to her concern, mine was that these jokers would despawn if I ran too far away. It was a classic mechanic, forged in the olden days of World of Warcraft and other progenitors of the MMORPG genre. When people figured out they could kite nasty MOBs around, they immediately figured out how to exploit that tactic, be it dragging armies of beasties down on unsuspecting players or pulling massive world bosses right into town or a newbie yard to watch the slaughter. I had no idea what precisely I had done to attract this attention but I was also pretty sure it’d take another hour to retrigger it if I mucked things up.

  With that in mind, I spent the next two ag
onizingly long seconds of blindness carefully shuffling out of the reach of my would-be assassins. While I could have thumped them with basic shield attacks and whittled them down a little, why risk myself? The most critical part of learning how to work as a group was to realize that grandstanding and showboating got you nowhere. Thwapping these guys before my Solar Shield recharged would be pointless because the second Kayla showed up, she’d blow these guys back to their Life Crystal.

  Charred and rattled, the blind effect finally faded away, allowing the cultists to clear their eyes and collect themselves. The leader, the guy who had managed to tag me before, growled and finally whispered something I understood, “Even if you defeat us, more will come. Your jabbering mouth will be silenced.” With that, he flicked his dagger at me, and his compatriots charged.

  As they swooped in from all sides, I slammed my back into the wall so they couldn’t get behind me. Moving my shield with all of Shale’s skill (as properly determined by all my stats and Passive Gems), I easily deflected the first two stabs, but even my own intimate connection with the NSAF gear couldn’t move my arm fast enough to deflect the last. Lower threat or not, give a Shadow class MOB an opening and they could do some real damage. The cultist’s dagger found a chink in the side of my breastplate and slid in, piercing right through my rocky skin.

  Mysterious Cultist D’s Stealthy Stab hits (critical)! You take 712 (+316 critical) Physical Damage. HP 2521/3560

  While the NSAF filtered out the worst of the pain, the knife ignited a searing pain in my side, forcing a hiss through my clenched teeth. I’d dealt with plenty worse after all. I plowed my shield into the poor fool’s face. Thankfully, Cultist D was the one I’d critically injured earlier and was only hanging by a thread after my Fragment’s passive Thorns fried him some more.

  Your bash hits Mystery Cultist D! He takes 172 Physical Damage and dies!

  I flashed a grim smile over the curved, reflective surface of my shield. “I think we’ll defeat plenty more of you sorry lot before you ever have a chance to kill us.”

  The felling of their friend didn’t give the fanatics pause. Instead, the two on me threw themselves at me with renewed vigor. The one hanging back did arch an eyebrow a hair. “We? Are you delusional, champion?”

  As always, I had to tip my nonexistent hat to the programmers and AIs that kept EO going. I was always surprised by the next level of interactivity that NPCs of all stripes showed, even in a straightforward encounter like this.

  Keeping my back set against the wall and fending off another couple of slashes, I laughed. “Not at all.” I didn’t even blink, the range finder next to Kayla’s status ring stopping no more than fifteen feet behind me. Over the clang of knives off alien metal and the general din of battle, I heard Kayla’s voice chanting out an intricate spell.

  The cultists caught on a moment too late. Maybe it was the glowing white light that backlit me or maybe it was the tear in the air above them, a hole torn into some starry space beyond the surface of Elementalis.

  In that strange language they had spoken before, the head cultist shouted something that probably translated into either ‘run’ or ‘we are totally hosed.’

  It didn’t matter. Before they could take any defensive action, a sparkling miniature comet roared through the rift and slammed into the center of the pack of assassins. The burst of icy shards and the echoing shockwave from the tremendous impact blasted out from the strike zone, shattering bones and freezing bodies.

  Kayla’s Celestial Comet hits Mysterious Cultist A! He takes 990 (-110 resisted) Light Damage and 1,210 (+110 vulnerability) Water Damage. He dies!

  Kayla’s Celestial Comet hits Mysterious Cultist B! She takes 810 (-90 resisted) Light Damage and 990 (+90 vulnerability) Water Damage. She dies!

  Kayla’s Celestial Comet hits Mysterious Cultist C! He takes 972 (-108 resisted) Light Damage and 1,188 (+108 vulnerability) Water Damage. He dies!

  The tremendous blast passed through me, and I was thankful that EO didn’t have friendly fire … usually. I glanced over the blasted cultists as they sparked and dissipated, bursting into two glowing loot orbs that lazily spun in the air over the approximate center of the engagement.

  With a low, appreciate whistle, I looked back at Kayla, her armored robes still swirling in an arcane wind along with her long, watery hair. Her staff was still held high, the large diamond Light Gem at its tip still blazing. That was terrible, majestic beauty, and I was ecstatic to know that beauty was on my side.

  “Great save but wasn’t that a little bit of overkill?” I grinned.

  She smoothed out her skirts. “You could say I respond poorly to people who threaten those I care about.” Putting her staff over her shoulder, she hung her arms off it nonchalantly. “Now, let’s see if this little side quest was what we needed.”

  I chuckled and nodded. Even if this whole Promised thing didn’t turn out how I hoped it would, it was nice to know she cared, that we’d be, at the very least, friends. “Your wish is my command.” With that, we turned to the loot orbs, and I crossed my fingers.

  Quote 2

  The Fire Sultanate is a land of burning deserts, volcanic mountains, and blazing heat. Much like the Elemental Fire infused into the land, the primarily Ember population is a passionate people capable of great good and terrible evil. Ruled by complex traditions and elaborate ritual, the Sultanate is a place of great magic, self-made merchant lords, fabulous wealth, and terrible danger. The Fire Sultan itself is a hereditary position but often bizarre machinations, labyrinthine plots, and treasonous crimes lead to twists and turns in the Sultan's family.

  From the Fire Sultanate page, EO internal wiki

  2

  With a touch of my hand, the glowing orbs performed their usual spiral into a lazily rotating ring vertical to the ground. As the translucent loot UI pane flared to life in the center of that ring, the hustle-and-bustle of the bazaar washed back over us as if there hadn’t just been a vicious assassination attempt in its midst. If the guards were actually alerted, it was obvious now that they weren’t going to show.

  Mysterious Cultist A’s Remains contain: 38 Gold (lootable by all) Innocent Bundle (Quest Item, openable, lootable by all) Kayla and I reached out for the orbs at the same time, our hands touching for just a moment before the gold split and the missive multiplied into our inventories. As they brushed, we shared a mutual smile and maybe just the hint of a chuckle. Call me strange but I simply loved playing the game with Kayla even more than doing it by myself and I wasn’t afraid to let it show.

  “Is this where I should go ‘ladies first’ or call out ‘jinx’?” I offered jokingly.

  Kayla’s smile broadened. “I think you could flip a coin on that one and not go wrong. You would also be a bit late on the first.”

  I nodded slowly. “Point taken.”

  Opening my hands, I mentally conjured up the ‘Innocent Bundle’. A neatly tied up roll of white cloth as innocuous as its name appeared neatly into my palms. Instead of summoning her own bundle, Kayla let me take the lead, incanting a spell as she laid a hand on my shoulder. Soothing waters seeped over my body as the Healing Cascade mended the wounds I had taken and the pain along with it.

  On a purely logical level, the time and energy she spent to heal me were pointless. Out of combat, avatars healed at a rapid rate, all to maximize game time and keep people playing. I would have been fine in a minute at most … but the pain would have stayed throbbing the whole time. That she took that time spoke volumes.

  I gave her a warm look and a renewed smile before looking back to the bundle. Kayla conjured up her own as I pulled the leather thong that kept the cloth closed, letting it flop open in my hands.

  The contents were simple. A small, steel flask sat next to what looked like basic trail rations wrapped in waxed paper. Dried meat and fruits alongside a hardtack biscuit, from the looks of it. Those provisions took up most of the bundle and immediately showed up through the lens of the UI as basic food and drink, the s
ame stuff you could buy from any starting vendor.

  The last two things in the bundle were both the smallest and by far the most interesting. A worn, scratched-up brooch old enough to have lost all its distinguishing marks to the mists of time, was next to a rolled-up bit parchment. I immediately noticed that the amulet had a circular hole in the center of it.

  Innocent Bundle contains: Grade C Trail Rations x2 (lootable by you) Grade C Bottled Water (lootable by you) Ancient Lykos Pendant (lootable by you) Cultist’s Note (Quest Item, lootable by you) Dynamic quest ‘An Answer of Violence’ updated!

  Objective updated: Read the Cultist’s note and follow its clues!

  Kayla rolled her eyes. “As if we wouldn’t read the note!” Having opened her bundle while I had taken stock of things, she gently plucked the note from her bundle and absently dissipated the rest of it back into her inventory. With gentle fingers, she unrolled it and began to read while I endeavored to catch up with my own clumsier touch.

  It was written in a clean, simple hand … but the characters were completely incomprehensible as the symbols themselves were garbled and constantly shifting.

  I blew out a sigh. “Seriously?” I should have expected it honestly, what with all the chatter between the cultists being equally baffling. Before Kayla could answer, the UI popped to life, almost as if to spite me.

  Dynamic quest ‘An Answer of Violence’ updated!

  Objective updated: Discover a way to decipher the Cultist’s note!

  “Sweet relish!” Kayla cursed. I couldn’t blame her. I was about to say something similar given the effects of the Filter. “One day, I swear I’ll slug K-Pat!”

  With a sympathetic nod, I added a hearty, “You and most of the player base.”

  Despite the immediate roadblock, the answer struck me almost immediately when I took a moment to consider it. Even if you looked past the typical quest design of the dev team, it seemed logical that the cultists would need to have some way on hand to decipher their messages. It had to either be a Gem of some kind or an item. No Gems dropped so the obvious thing to investigate was the weird little trinket.