Throne of the Ancients: A LitRPG Adventure (Stonehaven League Book 6) Read online

  At the edge of the bowl, angular lines caught her attention. It looked as if blocks of glass had been cut from the rim and removed, but with the distance and angle from which she viewed the scene, she couldn’t say anything for certain. She pulled the spyglass from her eye and took a few seconds to compose herself before continuing her survey.

  Turning to examine Stonehaven, Devon felt her throat clamp down. It wasn’t just the destruction, though it was like a fist to the gut to see the holes where hellfire had melted through the curtain wall and palisade that had taken months to build. The worst part was seeing how the demons were changing her settlement. Atop the remaining parts of the main palisade where wood and stone merlons had provided cover for Stonehaven’s archers, a row of wicked iron spikes now speared upward, their barbs like thorns. The stone itself was darker in color than it had been, though she couldn’t say whether the change had been worked by magic or soot from some other means. Oily smoke rose from points along the wall, and when Devon gathered her courage and peered through the spyglass, she saw that yellow-green fire blazed in some kind of dark-iron braziers. Because the settlement was still contested, the crest that Devon had never gotten around to customizing still adorned a set of banners hanging over the battlements, but the cloth was now tattered and charred. She shook her head. It would almost be better if the banners were gone.

  As a patrolling defender, a demon thrall, marched into the circular view of the spyglass, a barbed spear gripped in its claw, Devon tore her eyes away from her town. Staring would do no good, especially while Hazel needed her.

  Once again, Devon turned her attention to the landscape beyond the player camp. A few miles farther to the south, a gray line of cypress and mangrove-like trees marked the ragged edge where the savanna met the swamp surrounding the Fortress of Shadows, the subterranean temple at the heart of the former Grukluk Vassaldom. Devon mentally ran through the windsteed’s account that Greel had translated for the group. Hazel, Zoe, and the windsteed had been racing toward the scene of the player camp when the pits had opened in the earth, disgorging the demon army. Hazel had first tried to turn for the safety of Stonehaven, but the archdemon and his lackeys had blocked her path. She’d stood no chance of making it through, so she’d turned her mount in the opposite direction, figuring she might be able to circle around and eventually approach Stonehaven from the south. Or at the very least, she’d hoped she might find shelter in the swamp. The demon army had already come through that area and would be far more interested in advancing on Ishildar than flushing out strays from the braided channels of fetid water and boggy land.

  Turned out that wasn’t precisely the case—the horde might be focusing on a march north, conquering settlements along the way, but that didn’t mean they were ignoring their rear flanks. When talking to Tamara, Devon had considered the possibility of a rear base between Stonehaven and the Noble Coast. She’d even wondered if she might be able to leapfrog the demon army, attack this other base, and force them to divide their forces if they wished to defend it. It turned out, she was right about the presence of another base, but to call it that might be something of an understatement.

  According to Hazel, who usually judged these things well, Devon needed to see what was going on in the swamp’s heart. Hazel had happened upon a raised causeway that struck through the swamp from north to south and had followed it, thinking that her duties as a scout demanded that she investigate. But just as she caught a glimpse of an installation, the construction anchored not far from the entrance to the Fortress of Shadows, she’d been spotted by a demon patrol. To escape, Hazel had been forced to flee onto an isolated peninsula of dry land surrounded by water too deep to wade. Turned out, not only was Zoe unable to fly, she couldn’t swim either. Hazel and her war ostrich were pinned down deep in the demons’ territory. Meanwhile, the windsteed’s ability to swim combined with extraordinary speed had allowed her to return to Ishildar bearing Hazel’s message and a hastily scrawled map.

  Devon shook her head as she lowered the spyglass. It hadn’t escaped her that spending resources on an expedition through enemy territory to rescue a single follower could be seen as an emotional rather than a rational decision. But there were a couple of counterarguments. First, Hazel had claimed that Devon needed to see the installation for herself. And second, as Greel had translated the windsteed’s communication, Devon had received a quest update. To double-check that she hadn’t missed anything, she pulled up the log.

  Quest: Hazel’s Fate

  You have discovered Hazel’s whereabouts. And it seems the woman has discovered critical information about the demon army.

  Objective: Rescue Hazel from the Grukluk Swamp

  Objective: Investigate the demon installation near the Fortress of Shadows

  Bonus Objective: Might as well rescue the ostrich, too. Hazel is fond of her.

  Reward: 250000 Experience

  The thing was, Veia probably wouldn’t nudge the NPCs into giving her quests that weren’t important to the overall goal of saving the world. So even if it seemed a questionable choice to head south with a party of her best fighters, she could have faith in the almighty quest log.

  As for a location to target with their expedition, the object that had come straight from the horse’s mouth—quite literally and covered with frothy slobber—had been a hastily scrawled map. Despite what had surely been terrible conditions for mapping, Hazel’s Cartography skill had won out, and the additions to Devon’s in-game map marked this so-called installation with a pin. Another blip showed Hazel’s location. So, altogether, it seemed that venturing into the swamp was the best way forward.

  At least, that’s what she hoped.

  With a deep breath, she canceled her Levitation effect and sank to the ground. Landing lightly on her Longstrider Boots, she turned to face the group.

  “I think we stand a chance if we use the terrain for cover and swing wide around the player camp. We’ll need to take out some scattered groups of demons, though, and if the main demon force spots us, we’re toast. Does anyone want to back out? I’ll need to find a replacement quickly.”

  Silence reigned while her friends shook their heads.

  “All right then,” she said. “Buff up. We’ve got a woman to save. And an ostrich, I guess.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  OKAY, THIS WAS dumb. Right? Or maybe it wasn’t. Emerson really had no clue about this stuff.

  He paced up and down the grocery store aisle, blinking in the godawful glare from the light bars overhead. What was it with store chains and migraine-inducing wavelengths? Some kind of partnership with the drug company? He stopped at the end of the aisle and glanced toward the shuttered pharmacy and the racks of over-the-counter medication that paid fealty to it. Was it his imagination, or was the light friendlier there? Like a promise of relief as you laid your trembling hand on a box of pain relievers.

  Anyway—he blinked again—back to the task at hand. Why did there have to be so many kinds of chocolate? Cacao contents from 35% to 87%. Chocolate with coconut cream. Organic truffles. Raspberry infused with orange zest. Sea-salt sprinkled. Some kind of super-food variety with Himalayan berries that was supposed to make you look ten years younger without spending fifty thousand dollars a month on anti-aging therapy. Hell, they probably made chocolate that was supposed to raise your IQ to, like, Einstein-level. Stephen-Hawking-level. So you could no longer think about anything but solving the universe’s greatest mysteries.

  Anyway…

  Closing his eyes, he made a step forward and ran his finger back and forth over the shelf while he counted down from ten. At zero, he snatched the package under his hand.

  Swiss-made milk chocolate with single-origin cacao from Bolivia. Probably fertilized only by the poo of a rare, cloud-forest-dwelling spider monkey. Probably picked by trained spider monkeys. Maybe the Swiss chocolatier was able to afford the carbon tax for shipping from South America to Europe and back to North America by payin
g the monkeys in bananas grown on the next plot over.

  Speaking of price—he turned the package over and held it to the scanner mounted on the shelf.

  Emerson grimaced when the price flashed on the readout. “Ouch,” he muttered. It wasn’t that he couldn’t afford ridiculously overpriced candy. He still had a salary from E-Squared, and they probably wouldn’t fire him for ignoring Bradley Williams’ latest demand for a detailed report on why Veia’s servers were working so hard lately. Was there something wrong with the AI’s content generation?

  No. The problem was that Bradley hadn’t shut Zaa down, and now the evil AI’s minions had crossed the realm boundary into the mortal plane. It was taking everything Veia had to get her NPCs coordinating a defense on the current front while preparing for assaults from new angles.

  Actually, that was kind of wishful thinking on Emerson’s part. Turned out, he’d run a query on the network traffic and the models he’d constructed of Veia’s world view. Granted, it was just a model—the state of the world was spread across a neural network and through a set of quantum cores. In other words, totally opaque to someone looking in from the outside. Like a neurosurgeon looking at an exposed brain and trying to determine what her patient was dreaming about.

  Okay, the exposed brain was kind of a gross metaphor. It was exactly the sort of analogy that turned conversations awkward at company parties, the biggest social events of his existence. Actually, the only social events he attended. But anyway.

  Emerson waved his wrist in front of the scanner to authorize payment for the chocolate bar, then dropped it in his messenger bag and glanced down the aisle again. A single chocolate bar wasn’t really enough for the situation, was it? Outside, the moon had risen, and the power-saving algorithm in Saint George’s streetlights had flipped off all but a few of the bulbs. Movement detection would reactivate them, but for now, the autocab pull-through was painted in a pleasant silver. It was the kind of night when he would typically step out into his patio back in Tucson, careful to tiptoe around the bird droppings that marked the outline where his dilapidated patio furniture used to stand. He liked to look up at the moon and enjoy the sound of night birds, the stray chirps of crickets in the storm drains.

  But he wasn’t in Tucson, and the windows in his Saint George hotel room didn’t even open.

  Anyway, kind of stupid to be thinking of standing outside when it was actually the middle of winter. Saint George might be in a desert, but January wasn’t exactly balmy.

  Also, if he didn’t want to make a complete idiot of himself tomorrow, turning up at Devon’s doorstep and hoping he wasn’t about to ruin everything, he ought to get some sleep.

  After he figured out what the hell else to get her as a sympathy gift for having her home taken over by demons. With a sigh, he headed for the next aisle. Maybe the store had a floral section or something.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “WHAT IF THEY have, like, infrared vision?” Magda asked as the party filed across the savanna through the darkening gloom. It had been early evening when the party set off from Ishildar. First, they’d traveled east through the strip of demon-free terrain until they’d reached a point that would—barring detours to follow the most concealing terrain—grant them a relatively straight shot through to the swamp. Then they’d cut away from the city and out of the shelter of the Veian Temple’s repelling effects. Between the falling darkness and the sense of exposure, Devon didn’t blame the woman for worrying.

  “I dunno. I guess we deal with it,” Hailey said.

  “I mean, maybe we’re safer traveling in daylight. Maybe we can sort of blend with the grass. We could camp until dawn.”

  “Says the woman who has a whole quiver full of nature camouflage spells,” Torald called over his shoulder.

  They’d set the marching order to put Greel in front, his martial artist’s reflexes complementing his ability to move stealthily despite his twisted spine. The paladin followed behind, leaving enough space that the clanging and squeaking of his platemail wouldn’t blow Greel’s cover, but sticking close enough that he could run forward and grab aggro if Greel was jumped. Hailey followed, ready to drop a heal over time on the tank at the first sign of danger, and Magda came next. Devon brought up the rear with her Shadow Shifter combat form activated. If an attack came from behind, at least that granted her a 30% chance of avoiding damage.

  Not very reassuring, but Devon couldn’t think of a better alternative to the ordering.

  “Anyway, infrared doesn’t really fit the world, right?” Hailey said. “Wouldn’t they just have a Darkvision skill like the rest of us?”

  “Well, I wasn’t thinking infrared exactly. More like ‘ability to see the lifeblood pumping through mortal veins.’”

  “Then if that’s the case, it doesn’t matter whether it’s night or day,” Hailey countered. “Maybe the darkness will let us spot the glow of their baleful eyes or something.”

  Torald seemed to shudder at the thought and adjusted his grip on his greatsword. He walked with the blade exposed, heavy steel held before his body. Just watching him hike that way made Devon’s arm ache.

  The party was trekking along a dry wash. The idea was that the grassy slopes on either side of the stream bed would conceal them from any creatures roving the grassland nearby. But the wash also prevented them from noticing approaching enemies. In truth, Devon would be glad when the gray light of dusk gave way to full night. Infrared vision notwithstanding, the darkness would provide as much concealment as the gully. Never a fan of moving through low-lying terrain where she’d have a disadvantage in combat, Devon would be glad to climb out of the wash and resume a straighter-line march for the swamp.

  “I don’t think we should camp, but what do you guys think about finding a spot to rest until full dark?” she asked. Though not in any danger of maxing out any time soon, her Fatigue bar had been steadily climbing since they’d set out from the city. Even if they crossed the savanna without incident, they still had at least a couple of hours of wading through the swamp to reach Hazel’s position.

  Ahead, the wash bent to the right. Greel stopped at the turn and whirled to face the group, fists balled.

  “Have none of you people ever heard the term stealth? I don’t know which is louder, your stamping feet or your annoyingly shrill yammering.”

  “That’s why we put you in front,” Magda said. “The point is for you to flush out anyone who might otherwise hear our melodious voices.”

  “The point is—”

  Greel’s statement ended in a strangled yelp when a dark shape burst from a waist-high stand of cattails and tackled the man. Or rather, the demon attempted to tackle the lawyer. Quick-stepping backward, Greel evaded the attacker as if he’d expected the appearance all along. The lawyer leapt into the air as the demon charged past, and he somehow kicked his legs in opposite directions. Devon winced, imagining the tearing sound her groin would make with that kind of maneuver, as one of Greel’s heels slammed the demon between the shoulder blades. She actually jerked in surprise as the lawyer’s other foot connected with the jaw of a second demon that seemed to have appeared out of thin air. A satisfied grin flashed on the lawyer’s face as he landed, but he quickly turned a glare on the group.

  “Little help here? Or do I have to do this on my own too?”

  “Veia, bright goddess, guide my weapon in your work!” Torald shouted as he broke into a run. “Give me the strength to defend your creation against evil, and may my heart never falter.”

  “Seriously?” Devon heard Hailey mutter. “Wouldn’t ‘Veia grant me strength’ work just as well?” Despite her commentary, the woman’s cast bar was already active. A moment later, her Guide Vitality spell surrounded Torald with a glowing heal-over-time halo.

  Just before the paladin reached Greel, another demon sprang from low brush beside the dry stream. Torald first elbowed the attacker aside, then hesitated. He whirled and raised a mail-armored fist. “Look upon
me, foul beast. Look upon me and quail!” As he spoke, he pointed at the staggering demon.

  Was that his…taunt? Devon guessed it must be because the paladin’s shout seemed to have grabbed the demon’s full focus, assuring that it wouldn’t recover from its daze and turn on a different member of the group.

  Ridiculous battle cries or not, Torald was a good tank.

  “Wait, isn’t a quail some kind of extinct bird?” Magda asked.

  Hailey shrugged as she started casting Self-Actualization, a group buff that increased damage and effectiveness with class abilities. “I thought so. But I don’t think they’re extinct. Don’t they have that weird head feather or something?”

  Devon glanced at the sky—no moon, which meant no moonlight-based shadow puppets—before funneling mana into casting a Glowing Orb. When the cast finished, two balls of light appeared, one on her hand and one in the air nearby. She blinked, wondering for a split second if Veia had improved the ability, but then the floating ball executed a loop the loop.

  “Oh. Hi Bob,” she said. “Hey, mind floating up and watching for more—”

  She stopped talking as the wisp streaked forward…and booped Hailey’s nose. What the heck? Wasn’t that their thing? As in hers and Bob’s. Not that she liked having her nose booped. But still. First, there’d been that weird moment between her friend and the wisp just after Devon had exited the Vault of the Magi. Hailey had claimed that she’d explain the situation to Devon later, but it never seemed to be the right time, which made Devon wonder if she just didn’t want to share. And lately, the wisp had been spending a whole lot of time with Devon’s friend. Way more than Bob had been spending with her.