Into the Pit: A LitRPG Adventure (Brad the Impaler Book 2), page 51
“I don’t know. But I’ll figure it out. I’m not some dumb muscle head. I actually have a brain inside my skull.”
“That might be more challenging in the future,” Fortune said.
Slash looked to the side and up as if he saw something in the low branches of the out-of-place Cyprus tree. “What will?”
“Being able to share your thoughts with each other about the Electors. Not with the live stream feature about to be operable.”
I slowed out of my jog. “They’re going through with that?”
She fiddled with her hands. “I’m afraid so. It won’t be much longer. Not if the last log update is even half accurate.”
“How soon?”
“Those details aren’t in the log. If I were to say anything, it would simply be speculation. I wouldn’t want to do that sort of disservice to you.”
Bad news delivered, I picked up the pace again. Slash stayed by my side. “You haven’t been, and I don’t think you’re going to be anytime soon. But it’s good to know what we’re looking at. Slash, you’re going to have to be even more careful with what you say.”
“When have I ever been careful?”
“That’s not something to be proud of.”
“Don’t hate the player, hate the game.”
“I don’t think you’re using that correctly.”
“I use it how I want. You’re not the boss of me.” And as if to drive his point home, he stretched the distance between us.
“Thanks for the heads up, Fortune. We’ve got a lot of stuff to keep in mind. This is one more thing. Don’t worry. It won’t stop us.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I’ll see what I can find about the level now that your pathway is open.”
“Will it be much?”
She shook her head. “Not if the tests were anything to go on. Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I wouldn’t expect anything like that from these bastards. Still, hoping doesn’t hurt, does it?”
“As long as it doesn’t lead you to do something that will get you in trouble,” she said with a timid smile.
“She means don’t do anything stupid!” Slash said, getting distracted by a yellow butterfly and chasing after it.
“Don’t go too far.” As he approached two years old, a young teen in human years, I was lucky if he listened to half the rules I gave him. “And I promise I won’t do anything stupid.”
“Good. That makes me happy. I hope Kira is also happy to hear about your situation. I know it may be tough for her because of what’s happening with her game. If something comes to mind, I’ll inform you immediately.”
“You’re the best, Fortune. I mean it.”
“Bye, Brad.” She blanked out before I could return the farewell.
We made camp a short time later. Though it’d be more accurate to say Slash had. As we neared, his ears shot straight up. He held his chin high and walked with stiff legs that always made it look like he was a show pony prancing for judges. It was never a good sign.
“What’s wrong?”
He started whining. I raced to him, dropping to my knee and carefully wrapping my arm around his waist to scoot him closer without impaling myself on his jacket spikes.
“I don’t smell her, Brad,” he said, looking up at me with Chihuahua tear-stained eyes. “I don’t smell her at all.”
I clenched my teeth, looking around the quiet camp.
He wiggled out of my arms and put his nose to the dirt and sniffed in ever-widening arcs. He raced forward, out of the cover of the forest and into the fields of wild grass surrounding our camp.
Even though I couldn’t see the cage from here, I still craned my neck and scanned for anything that looked out of place. I didn’t want us to run into even more bad news if something had already happened to Kira.
I cursed myself as we sprinted across the fields. This was what I’d been worried about. We had to take chances. The game mandated it. If we didn’t, we ultimately ended up no better than Jasper. Slash and I had started the game cautiously and nearly paid for it. I swore I wouldn’t go back to that, but in trying to build a firm foundation here, maybe I inadvertently had.
By the time we hit the wheat field, I was calling out her name and not getting an answer. Cupping my hands, I shouted until my throat scratched. By the time I started going hoarse, panic had set. Even if she was off to the side of the camp doing her personal business, Kira would have responded. She didn’t play around with stuff like this.
I ran into the house while asking Slash to check the other side of the well. He was faster than me and would be back before I could even clear the house, even though he was covering a greater distance. I rushed into the main room. The place was empty. I was jumping down the stairs when Slash curled around the corner, kicking up tiny plumes of dust in his wake.
When he pulled the brakes on his run, coming to a complete stop within two strides, he panted, his tiny tongue rolling from his mouth. “She didn’t answer.”
“She’s not inside either.” I looked along our camp, from the unfinished stable for Lady Sparklehoof, past her temporary shelter where she stood, her white tail swaying back and forth, to the campfire. I wanted to say I was relieved when I saw Ricky sitting cross-legged in the cage, but even the sight of him still imprisoned did nothing to relieve the pressure. “How long would she have to be gone for you to lose her scent?”
“Normally, it would take hours.”
“So she’s been gone for a while?”
Slash only whined.
I bent and scratched behind his ear. “We’ll find her, buddy. Let’s go ask our prisoner what happened.”
I hate feeling helpless. It’s the last thing I want to feel. When I do, I become frustrated, which often fires up my temper if there’s nothing I can do to solve a particular situation.
As we approached the cage, Ricky turned in our direction. It was a good thing for his health and well-being that the bars separated us. The smirk he wore was smeared with antagonism.
“Where is she?” I said, practically growling.
One disadvantage of being a good human is considering other people’s comfort. That was proven in that moment when Ricky gave me a look like I was the most disgusting thing he’d ever seen before turning away. Had I been smart or cruel enough, I would have made the cage just big enough for him to stand and not be able to sit. Then I could have snatched him and introduced him to each bar. Lucky bastard, that I had a heart.
I gripped the bars, the wood rough against my palms. “I said, where is she?”
His shoulders jiggled. The fucker was laughing.
“Open the cage, Brad,” Slash said. “Let me at him.”
Tempting, honestly. He was weaponless, and even though he was twice my level, being weaponless served him disadvantages I could leverage. Lucky for him, I was a better human.
“Ricky,” I said in the coldest tone I could manufacture, “I’m not interested in playing games.”
“And I’m not interested in talking to you,” he said, shoulders still bobbing. “Probably best if you stop wasting time talking to me and go look for her. She could be in big trouble, you know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I leaned closer to the bars, almost pressing my forehead against them.
Even with his back to me, he flipped his hand in the air, dismissing me like I was just another low-level player he’d taken advantage of until we changed the course of his path.
The cloud descended on my mind before I recognized it. Somewhere, in the background, I heard Slash talking, but his voice was mumbled. It reminded me of childhood summers, days spent in the pool with my friends. We had an underwater game where we tried to relay messages. That’s what Slash’s voice sounded like. As a kid playing those underwater games, the voices were funny. Now, it was an annoyance. Everything was. The way the wood felt as I strangled the bars. The roughness of the knot tied to the stake that secured the cage door, preventing Ricky from escaping. The way it seemed to take forever to pull up my Inventory and equip my dagger.
Slash’s words grew louder, but in doing so they also grew deeper, jumbling his message. He started barking when I ignored him.
The handle of the dagger, rough, unpolished wood, was bumpy against my palm. The cage hinges creaking as I threw the door open was grating. The way Ricky told me to back off in a panicked voice, as if he had a say in what happened, was like a thousand nails on a chalkboard. The way his hands clasped my forearm when I grabbed him by the throat, pressing my dagger to his skin as he stiffened, was pathetic and only stoked my fires.
For the second time in this goddamn game, I couldn’t stop the feelings of needing to break, to rend, to hurt.
Ricky’s mouth moved, his bottom lip trembling and looking a lot like a fat hot dog bouncing on a trampoline. His words reached my ears, their meaning lost. All I saw was the deviousness of his nature in his eyes. I outweighed him and I was far more muscular. The only thing I didn’t know was the difference in our game stats. But I held a weapon. He had to know none of his superior stats would save him if he made one wrong move. I saw that knowledge flicker in his eyes, right behind the entitled bravado of someone who got away with getting everything he wanted for far too long.
I pressed the dagger blade, dull as it was, against the side of his neck as I squeezed.
Behind me, Slash barked nonstop.
Ricky slapped my forearm as if he meant to break my hold.
I pulled him away from the bars just far enough to get momentum and then slammed him back. I did it again. And again. I only retracted the blade as I slammed him. Once I’d pinned him to the bars, it was back at his neck again.
My nose touched his. “Answer me now, or the next time I slam your sorry ass, it’ll be on top of this dagger.”
Even Ricky’s eyebrows trembled. His eyes rolled up into his head, and he went dead weight so suddenly that I dropped him.
I stood over the top of the unconscious man, staring down and trying to understand what had happened. I felt a slight pressure just below my knee. Looking down, my seven-pound Chihuahua stood on his hind legs, looking up at me. I’m used to Slash being afraid. Almost everything scares him. I’ve seen him cower in fear the first time he discovered a cricket. But now, I saw a different type of trepidation in his wet black eyes. He shivered nearly uncontrollably.
Something in me snapped. My breath rushed back, filling my lungs. I smelled rank, realizing after a moment that Ricky had pissed himself. His tan undergarments, soiled. “Hey, little buddy.”
“Are you okay?” He pressed his front paws against me, still trembling.
“Yeah, I am.” I scooped him up, and stepped outside the cage, securing the door once again. I activated my Conjurer’s Cane and called on my guide. “Fortune?”
“Hi, Brad. I’m sorry about this,” she said, worry lines creasing her forehead. “I would have come myself before you called, but I was scouring the game logs to see if I could find something on Kira.”
I wanted to sigh with relief, but it was still too difficult to breathe. My pulse raced. “Did you?”
She nodded. “It appears he,” she said, turning to the side of my mindscreen, which led me to believe she was referencing Ricky, “has a snake charm spell and he used it while you were in the city.”
“What does it do?” Slash asked.
“He’s able to speak with snakes. At his level, he’s fairly effective and can control six.”
“What does this have to do with Kira?” I asked, nearly incapable of resisting the urgency of getting helpful information.
“The ones he charmed invaded the camp.”
“Noooooooooooo!” Slash howled. “I knew there was something off about that asshole.”
Tenderly, I wrapped my hand around his snout, quieting him. “Is she… Is she okay?”
Once again, Fortune nodded and the pounding of my heartbeat in my ears slowed. “Yes. I can’t see anything about her condition in the game logs, but she fought the snakes. However, she was injured before they took her.”
“Took her where?” Slash asked, squirming in my arms.
Fortune swallowed. “To Ssserenia Serpia. The level-two boss.”
56
56 - Into the Pit
Sarpa Raja had been a nightmare to fight. Granted, it wasn’t a fight I’d gone looking for. All I’d wanted was to collect vines for use around the farm. To him, my actions were a violation worthy of risking death. I’d delivered him to that death, though it wasn’t something I’d wanted to do. But since when did things like that matter in Darkworld? Be it a reptile, giant squirrel, blob, or fellow human being sucked into a game? What I wanted was of little relevance.
Fortune helped to make that even more apparent as we approached the marker on our map denoting the kingdom of Ssserenia Serpia, a thick mist beginning to cling to the upper branches of the trees. “She might be far more challenging than Sarpa Raja,” my guide said. “Even though he was their leader, the one responsible for keeping their community together, he was more of a politician than she is. According to the game notes, even when she’s not used as a level boss, she’s had a violent history. She seems to enjoy it.”
“Did any of your other entrants have to fight her?” I asked, figuring that answer could lead me to other questions that might give me information that would be useful in the battle to come. The battle for Kira.
Fortune shook her head. Three thick strands of dark hair curled horizontally, defying gravity. “No. None did. All I know of her is what I read while you secured the camp. The game notes have a lot on her. Practically an online encyclopedia.”
Lady Sparklehoof snorted as if even she were upset. She stomped once, kicking off a fizzle of green sparks. I patted the pony’s neck to comfort her, even though I didn’t feel like I had an ounce of comfort to give.
“Brad, she’s going to be extremely dangerous. I don’t think she’ll be forthcoming about what you’ll need to do to free Kira.”
“Sort of like a snake in the grass, you’d say?” Slash said, smirking.
Fortune missed the joke, which I was grateful for. “She may, but I doubt it would be that obvious. Her realm is heavily guarded, from what I’ve read. I doubt a grassy environment would provide much security.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so either,” I said, looking around at the foreign forest.
We’d left Ricky with food and water, enough to get him through three days. I warned him to ration the supplies, not giving him a timeline for our return. When I saw the familiar glint of deviousness in his eyes, I reminded him it’d be unwise to attempt to free himself from the cage. Not only had I installed a few counterweights to keep everything secured, but he was in unfamiliar territory. His confidence slipped as I refreshed his memory.
He’d only seen the road and trail leading to our camp. With his map fog lifted for only the path we brought him along and the area surrounding the camp, he didn’t have much to go off. To everything else in the surrounding forest, he was blind. I used that to my advantage in trying to convince him to behave. I also might have embellished a little on the swath of dangers awaiting him in the forest if he took a wrong turn. With enough seeds planted in his head, we were confident he saw the sense in sitting tight until our return.
Because I didn’t trust him, we brought Lady Sparklehoof with us. I didn’t want to, but it was the only way to protect the pony. After slinging a pair of saddlebags filled with grain over her back, I brushed her nose and explained what we were doing. I swear, she was talking to me with her eyes, letting me know she was up for an adventure. With both hands, I scratched behind her two sets of ears.
An excellent traveling companion, she provided me a reprieve from having to carry Slash when he got tired. The small dog sat atop her back like Cleopatra in a palanquin. He’d never looked more regal. Watching her clip-clop along the trail, I worried about the pony’s sparkling hooves, but I was out of solutions and time. So far into this dark forest with its towering trees, the first rows of branches lost in the mist above, the chiming sparkles she gave off with each step hadn’t created a problem. I sent a silent wish to Lady Luck to keep the momentum going.
“Yeah, there seem to be enough vulnerabilities around here,” Slash said as he took in the dark forest. “Tons of hiding spots.”
“That’s not helpful, wee man.”
“Doesn’t make it any less true.”
To my guide, I asked, “I don’t see anything in my log about this quest like we had with the Vampire King. Am I missing something?”
In our first boss battle, we had a slew of mini-quests to complete. This time around, we had the grand total of one quest listed in our log.
RESCUE KIRA FROM SSSERENIA SERPIA
“There’s not much I can do with that.”
“I have little information as well.” Fortune paused, then her eyebrows drew together.
“What’s that about? Are you okay?”
She seemed to draw closer, which was weird in a spatial aspect. As an avatar on a digital overlay of my vision, I wasn’t sure how dimensions worked for Fortune. As far as I knew, not only was she restricted to existing within the boundaries of my mindscreen, but also to the corner of it. I’d never seen her occupy other space. Yet when she leaned forward, she actually seemed closer. “I worry that the awareness I’m gaining is detracting from my ability to be your guide. Because of…” She rolled her eyes from left to right in a slow arc as if to say ‘all of them.’
“Someone is listening?”
Since the game designers coded her, I was sure there was a part of her personality that was accessible to them. Everything in Darkworld except for my anachronistic high-tops, fanny pack, and sunglasses was captured in a log somewhere. Wouldn’t guides have their own logs?
On top of that, I had the live stream to consider. Fortune had few details, but the implication was that as soon as it was live, there’d be viewers. How many and who they were was ill-defined, but it was safe to say we had to be careful sharing information once that happened. Even now. I’d be smart to leverage any opportunity I had to use contextual clues to share my message. If Fortune was wary, I needed to be as well, doubly-so.
