Escape from Hell: A LITRPG Adventure (Kingdom of Heaven Book 2) Page 4

  I might be down. I might be a few seconds away from dying with one foot in the grave, but I wasn’t dead yet. She believed in me, and that belief made me stronger than I had ever been before. It was the training. It wasn’t the knowledge or the magic she forced me to buy. It was her. It was the way she felt about me, the way she made me feel about myself.

  Wait. She made me buy magic.

  A solution ran through my head as the acid made its way up to my chest. I had tried to ignore my worsening condition and the shape of my armor, but it was hard to ignore the blinking red dummy, now with hand and leg slots joining the rapid blinking. It didn’t matter; I could repair it all later. I needed to get out of this, and I needed to do it before this acid ate its way to through my Energy and, by proxy, my heart...

  With as deep of a breath as I could muster, I tried to still my mind, to push out the pain or the way this place smelled just as bad you’d imagine the insides of something nasty’s stomach might smell.

  I needed to focus. I had been so eager to show up Glimmer that I ironically dropped into my old habit of screaming and leaping. I just did it in a new, creative way. No, I needed to be the person Ori always told me I could and use every tool at my disposal as she had taught me.

  Pulling up my bar, I brought up my Lightning spell. I had been none too happy to get it, though my innate want to stop Ori from complaining meant I was happy to purchase the thing. I hadn’t let the fact that it was the Power I had used to kill Aaron deter me from using it for good later. This Lightning alone and combined with my other Abilities had saved my bacon a few times now, and I hoped it would do so again.

  Concentrating, I summoned the Nature Magic inside of me and channeled it right into the sword pressed against my leg. The blade would focus the blast and send it right where I needed it to be. Unless I was too late, of course.

  With a final surge of magic, I cast the spell. The acid tore into my chest now, eating its way through my breastplate and invading my vulnerable chest cavity. The pain took on an entirely new dimension now. It was more real, rawer than before. It was intense, insane, and I couldn’t stand it.

  I felt myself fall into sleep, or was it sleep? Maybe this was it. Maybe this was what death felt like. My Energy had gotten torn away far faster than I’d expected so maybe it was. If so, it was darker and swifter than I ever imagined. There was no preamble, no ceremony, so time for last wishes or final thoughts. There was just the blackness, tugging at my soul, tugging at myself.

  Then, with an intense jolt, the entire world lit up bright white.

  6

  “Hey.” The noises pulled at me, tearing into the blackness that had snapped me up. “Hey. Dumbass. What the hell are you doing?”

  My eyes snapped open, and my body went rigid. Looking up, I saw, not only the open sky of the hell dimension I’d found myself in but Glimmer’s judgmental eyes staring down at me.

  Her hands were glowing bright gold, a sign that I instantly recognized as the aura of her healing abilities. She was fixing me up, making right what the insides of that snake monster made wrong.

  I felt okay, though, amazing considering that I had gone about halfway through the journey of becoming snake poop.

  I blinked up at Glimmer. She might have been a grade A bitch sometimes, but she was good at what she did. With 63 ranks of Anchorite Attunement, she was invaluable in situations like this. Without her extraordinary skills, more than half of my body would have very likely been riddled with sores, burns, or even worse. I’d have been like a damn Walking Dead zombie up in this place, not to mention the obscene pain something like that would undoubtedly provoke in this body.

  I didn’t feel any pain as I looked up at her, though. In contrast, I felt pretty freaking great. I was rested. I was hydrated. I was calm even. Damn. Was this what being healed actually felt like? No wonder healers were so popular in this game.

  “Hey, stupid,” she huffed, looking down at me. “We need to get going. The Mountain ejected us after you came popping out of that snake but she didn’t look very happy doing it. I doubt we’re going to get much mercy from her if we stay around here much longer.” She blinked hard, her eyes moving up to the horizon. “Also, could you put some clothes on?”

  “What?” I asked, my voice louder and tone stronger than I figured it might be, given what I’d just been through.

  “Whatever happened to you inside that snake almost ate right through you. I could heal your wounds, but I couldn’t do anything about your armor. It’s lost unless you know where a repair shop or a Master Armorer is in these parts. So yeah, basically lost for now.”

  I looked down at my avatar body to find I was as naked as the day I was dreamed up in the Character Creation menu. More so, as the ‘T-for-Teens’ loincloth that had been unremovable before this point was most certainly gone now.

  “There’s not enough to repair,” I muttered.

  I didn’t move to cover myself instantly, though. I might have been trapped inside of this, but it wasn’t like this was my real body. Besides, as impressive as Iron Jack was with his armor on, this body was even more awesome au natural.

  Washboard abs, wide shoulders, and tree trunk legs. Let’s just say I was well proportioned … especially where it counted.

  “Damn, that’s impressive,” I muttered, giving myself the once over.

  “Yeah,” Glimmer scoffed, chancing a glance at all of me. “You wish, Jack.” She stood and glared at me, a new fire in her eyes. “Now get your naked ass up so we can find a way out of here.”

  I stood, feeling a sandy gust hit me in all the right (and wrong) places.

  First things first, I scrolled through my inventory and grabbed a suit of armor I used to wear when I was a few levels lower than I was now, er, well, quite a bit lower now that I was gaining experience again. The Dwarf-steel Plate set was black and sort of junky in appearance but it was sturdy, I had the entire set, and it would definitely do the trick of covering this body up, not that I was sure I even wanted to.

  “What are you waiting for?” Glimmer asked, throwing her hands out at her sides.

  “Fine,” I muttered and threw on the armor. It felt strange and a quite a bit cheaper than the Platinum Plate of Justice. The oddest thing was actually feeling the loss of Attributes from switching gear. As my Strength, Agility, Stamina, and Spirit were all lowered, I could feel the weakness, sluggishness, and what I could best describe as a weakening will set in. Still, it was better than nothing, and it would do the job of temporarily replacing what I’d just lost.

  What I’d lost!

  My mind raced as I realized my armor wasn’t the only thing with me inside the snake’s abdomen.

  “My sword!” I shrieked, spinning to look for it. “Where the hell is my sword?”

  “Calm down,” she muttered, rolling her eyes at me. “Boys and their toys. Honestly, you guys are so predictable.” She pointed off in the distance. “Your sword is over there.”

  I followed her hand and saw my beautiful weapon sticking straight up from the sand.

  “Seriously,” Glimmer said as she followed me, “even your dumb ass knows that weapons don’t take durability hits from incoming damage. It’s perfectly safe and sound.”

  “If only you realized how different things were for me in this game, you wouldn’t make assumptions like that,” I shot back, grabbing the Blade of Justice. Its energy pulsed through me as I reconnected with it. “But yeah, it’s got as much Power as ever.”

  “That’s a shame,” Glimmer said. “With all that Power, I would have thought you would have spared some to protect your own tip.” Her eyes traveled up and down me as though she had just seen what was under this armor, which made sense because she had.

  Still, something about the idea of Glimmer thinking I was anything other than completely useless struck me as odd. So, I shrugged it off and changed the subject.

  “What do we do now?” I asked, shuffling in my new armor.

  “Now, you start talking,” she said, turning and starting off toward the horizon. “As we walk, of course.”

  “What do you want to know?” I asked, keeping pace with her. Now that I had the armor on, this place got as hot as ever. Even the air began to burn my lungs again. I needed to get out of here, and I needed to do it quickly. Otherwise, this place might be the death of me.

  Still, my only shot at escape was to find the rest of the Angels. I needed Glimmer to do that or, at very least, to be present when I hopped a ride with them back to the surface.

  “I want to know how you did what you did,” she demanded, looking over at me. “How’d you get inside that snake thing? I’ve never seen anyone do that. What’d you even see in there? What was the scenery like?”

  “No scenery,” I answered. “Total darkness. It did smell awful though.”

  “Smell? How do you know what it smelled like?”

  My heart skipped a beat. Uh-oh. I was letting my oddity show, well, show more than it already was.

  “I mean it looked like it smelled bad,” I clarified.

  “But you just said you didn’t see anything,” she reminded me.

  “What is this, a police investigation?” My eyes widened, no matter how cool I tried to play it. “It was the inside of a damn snake. I had an idea, and it turned out I could hop into it without dying. I guess this place really does work differently than the surface.”

  “Which is why I’m so worried about us.” Glimmer shook her head, seeming to let me off the hook for now. “If this was the surface, we could communicate with each other. Down here, these guys could be anywhere.” She shot me a glance. “We can’t even form a party and talk over party chat, which you would know if you had bothered to send me an invite like you should have.” Before I could retort, she smirked. “To
cut you off, I did indeed try to invite you to a party the second I saw your stupid face.”

  Well, there went my snappy comeback. “So where do we start?” I asked, sighing heavily.

  “With a phone call, duh. Ice told me he was on the banks of a fire river.”

  “What’s a fire river?”

  “A river made of fire. What do you think it is?” She shook her head in judgment. “In any event, I told him to stay put, and we’d find him.”

  “We?” I asked, blinking hard. “Barry knows I’m down here?”

  “Ice?” she asked, using the avatar name.

  Of all the people in my guild, Glimmer was the one who was the biggest stickler about this. She never used real life names when talking to or about the guild and its members. Maybe she wasn’t comfortable with the idea of there actually being real people on the other end of these characters, or maybe she just didn’t want to know us like that. It didn’t matter. I did know Barry like that. He was my best friend, and I needed to let him know what was going on here.

  “Of course,” Glimmer continued. “I was on the phone with him when you threw yourself into that snake mouth.” She sighed. “He thought it was a stupid move too.”

  “That’s Barry,” I muttered.

  “Ice,” she corrected. “He also let me know that you aren’t answering your phone and that your sister called him and is ‘shitting a brick’ about where you disappeared to for days straight.” She made a dissatisfied clicking noise with her mouth. “I told him to focus on the game.”

  “Right,” I muttered, thinking about my sister and how angry she must be at me right now. My heart sunk as I thought about what I had put her through. To think all of this started because I didn’t want to get diapers. It all seemed so ordinary now, so small. “So, we find the fire river. Simple as that.”

  “Is it?” Glimmer asked looking over at me. “Because last I checked, neither of us has a map of this place. There’s no information I can find on any of the forum boards. It’s ridiculous; you’d think someone else out of millions of subscribers would have made it here before.”

  “So, we keep walking.” I wondered if that would be quick enough. I needed to get back to the surface as quickly as possible. I didn’t have time to go hunting for a river, even if it was made of fire.

  What could I do though? We didn’t have any other choice.

  “We have another choice,” Glimmer said.

  Oh. Well … okay, I guess we did have another choice.

  “There’s somebody who might be able to help us,” she answered, though I could tell from the sound of her voice she didn’t like the idea.

  “Who?” I asked, biting my lower lip. If Glimmer hadn’t already decided to get help from this mysterious ‘someone’ before, this couldn’t be good.

  “Come on. It’s better if I show you.” She trotted off in front of me before yelling back over her shoulder. “But I’m telling you right now you won’t like it.”

  I kicked the dirt in response.

  Of course, I wouldn’t.

  7

  “So, what’s the what?” Glimmer finally asked, looking over at me. We had been walking through this desolate wasteland for some time now, and neither of us had really spoken to each other.

  “Be more specific,” I suggested, keeping pace with her in my black, thrift shop armor. She had told me we were going to need help finding Barry and, moreover, that I wasn’t going to like where that help came from. She hadn’t elaborated on it any more than that, and I knew better than to ask.

  She knew me well enough to know how to push my buttons which meant she knew me well enough to know what I would and wouldn’t like. Given that I was going to have to throw myself down this path regardless of what it was, I didn’t see the need in stressing myself about it before I had to. Better off to go into things with at least the hope that everything might be okay.

  “You, like, afraid of life or something?” she asked, staring at me.

  “What?” I retorted, my heart speeding up at the thought. This was unlike Glimmer. She had never been the type to be interested in the personal lives of those she knew online. She was our teammate and our healer but definitely not our friend. Even with people she liked, like Barry, she always kept a distance.

  “What the hell would make you think that?” I reiterated. I had just cut my way out of a snake, for Christ’s sake. What more could I do to prove my fervor?

  She chuckled, shaking her head at me. “What wouldn’t make me think that? You live with your sister and her kid. You basically took on the role of whatever douchebag knocked her up was supposed to. I don’t see another reason a healthy, young guy would do that other than being afraid of actually having to live his life.”

  I looked over at her, my jaw tightening and my hands clenching at my sides. If I could have lopped her head off without being stuck here for the rest of eternity, I probably would have. Who did this bitch think she was anyway? She didn’t know anything about me and, what was more, she didn’t want to know anything about me.

  Glimmer had made it her business to see me and the rest of the guild as digital pieces of a puzzle, nothing more. And now, for some reason, she thought she could just come in here and tell me I was afraid of living my life?

  Hell no.

  “Maybe you’re just not being inventive enough,” I growled back at her, “or maybe you’re just a bitch because, the way I see it, I can’t think of anyone in any world who could see someone they love in trouble and not want to help out.”

  “There’s a difference between helping out and throwing your lot in with someone,” Glimmer answered.

  Was she really going to combat me about this?

  “She’s my sister, Glimmer,” I said, so frustrated I felt like smoke might start pouring out of my ears. “My lot was already with hers. Our lots are tangled together forever. That’s the way it works with family.”

  She shook her head, which infuriated me more than I had words to describe. “It only works that way if you let it.” She cleared her throat. When she continued talking, I could hear that she was chomping on something. Bitch was chowing down in some comfortable apartment while my ass was suffering through hell and she had the nerve to comment on my choices. “Your sister made her own decisions, dude. Look, I get it. You want to prove you’re a good guy or something. Maybe your dad split when you were a kid or something, and you want the whole world to know you’re not like that, but you don’t have to throw yourself onto a sword just because you think it’s the right thing to do. Trust me.”

  The way she ended the sentence, the tone of her voice as she added the ‘trust me,’ made me think there was more to what she was saying then she was willing to let on. It didn’t matter. She could have spent her youth holding the world up on her back like Atlas, and it wouldn’t have changed anything. She still wouldn’t know anything about what it was like to be me. Not one damn thing.

  “What the hell do you care anyway?” I asked, deciding it was better for me to stop trying to convince her why I was right about the whole thing. It was obviously a dead end, and I needed to stop going down it before I lost my temper. Still, this was so different than who she usually was, what she usually acted like, that I needed to know why.

  “I don’t,” she answered flatly, “but Ice does, and he seems sweet.”

  Ice? She was talking about Barry. What on earth had they talked about when he called her? What sort of connection had they forged since I had disappeared into this world?

  “Barry shouldn’t have spilled secrets about my life to you,” I answered in a near huff. My eyes moved up to the black matte sky, and I wished more than anything that I could be with Ori right now. It was funny. My wish used to be that I could be back home and here I was dreaming about being in an angel’s arms.

  A warm rush ran through me, combined with something darker, something sadder. I couldn’t be with Ori, not really and certainly not forever. I had a life to go back to, a life Glimmer thought I’d rejected to run away. What if she was right? What if it had been a mistake?

  I shook my head. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t like there was anything I could do about it now. I had made my choice. I was laying in the bed someone else had made, and I was okay with it.