Escape from hell a litrp.., p.16
Escape from Hell: A LITRPG Adventure (Kingdom of Heaven Book 2), page 16
“You look different,” Barry said, a little fear in his voice.
“I am different,” I explained. “Iron Jack has been proved in the fire. He’s been tested and found worthy. Now it really begins.” I took a deep breath and walked the final steps up to the oasis.
The water glistened with magic and, looking down, I could see the open portal ready to take us back. “Let’s go,” I said, looking back at them and feeling the energy as it pulsated through me. “There’s a world to save, and we don’t have time to waste.”
One by one they all jumped through until there was only Glimmer and me. It was fitting. This sort of started with us and now it was ending with us.
At least it was over.
"You know something?" she said with the same unspecified intensity that had been present in her voice off and on this entire time. "I thought I knew you before this. I really thought you were this one kind of guy." She moved closer. "Literally ninety-nine percent of guys in this game, hell, of guys in general, are douchebag idiots who don't deserve my time."
She leaned in, pressing her lips against mine and kissing me. It might have been the same kissing emote I had seen a hundred thousand times in the game, but the words behind it added a hungry edge to it. My body lit up as I felt her pressing against me, as I felt the hunger radiating off the rest of her body.
She pulled away. "I'm beginning to think you're not one of them."
"There's … there's a person," I said, thinking of Ori even though I was unable to deny the heat I felt between Glimmer and me.
She looked me up and down. "I bet there is. It's just a game, Jack, and the best thing about games is that they encourage sharing."
With one last smile, she dove headfirst into the portal.
My mind was racing, and my entire body tingled as I neared the thing, thinking about everything that had just happened. It was my turn now. I took a deep breath and bid this shithole a not so fond farewell with a pair of armored middle fingers in the air.
"Go to hell, Hell," I muttered and jumped forward.
As I leaped into the glowing blue portal, I saw the Shadow, his Power, his arrogance, and his greed. Then I saw Ori; the love, the purity, and the belief. One was being held by the other, strangled by the other. It wouldn’t last. I’d make sure of it.
“I’m coming for you, my love,” I whispered and, for some reason, I felt like she could hear it.
As the portal fell away, I found myself on the Surface once more.
Quest ‘Ascend to the Skull Throne’ updated!
You have discovered a portal to the Surface Layers and escaped!
You can now freely spend unspent Attunement ranks on the Power of the Principalities Attunement!
Congratulations! You are now Level 65!
Your maximum Energy increases to 160,900!
You now have 5 unspent Attribute points and 1 unspent Attunement Rank!
New objective: Fight through the Surface Layers and find your way to the Skull Throne!
We were all there, ready to do battle. We were back in the Kingdom of Heaven, and it wasn’t anything like we had known before.
GLOSSARY
Glossary of Kingdom of Heaven Game Terms
Races of Kingdom of Heaven: Unlike most online role playing games, Kingdom of Heaven limits its players to human avatars. As the game concept revolves around spiritual realms and various afterlives, this appears to be a conscious decision by the game’s developers. However, it is possible for the human characters to develop non-human characteristics through the Attunement system.
Character Attributes: Attributes define the capabilities of the human avatars in Kingdom of Heaven. When a human soul is integrated with their avatar, the avatar’s Attributes replace the ones previously possessed by the human body on Earth.
Strength: Raw physical might and muscle power. It also affects the avatar’s melee damage and serves as a prerequisite for heavy weapons and armor.
Agility: A combination of running speed, hand-eye coordination, and physical grace. It also increases the damage of ranged attacks and certain lighter melee weapons as well as serving as a prerequisite for those same weapons and light armor.
Stamina: A measure of both physical fitness and durability. Stamina directly adds to the avatar’s Energy, the equivalent of health or hit points in other games.
Spirit: As opposed to a normally quantified human trait, Spirit represents the connection between the human avatar and the various spiritual entities with which they can attune to in KOH. Spirit increases the effect of Active and Passive Powers gained from Attunements.
Advancement: Avatars in Kingdom of Heaven advance in two primary ways: gaining character levels and Attunement ranks.
Character level: Character level ranges from 1 to 50 (though this is expected to increase in the game’s next expansion pack). Levels are gained from earning experience from defeating monsters and completing quests. Every level gained increases base Energy by 100 times the number of the new level and provides both spendable Attribute points and Attunement ranks.
Attunement ranks: Attunements replace the conventional idea of ‘classes’ in other games and represent the human avatar forming connections to powerful spirits in the afterlife realms of KOH to access both mundane and supernatural powers and knowledge. These Attunements range in rank from 1 to 100. They can be increased with Attunement ranks gained from leveling or quest rewards, but most commonly are increased by using the Powers gained from the Attunement.
Attunements: As mentioned above, Attunements are representations of the connection between the human avatars and various afterlife spirits and spiritual creatures. Quite a few of these Attunements are archetypical heroic roles such as Knight, Wizard, Barbarian, or Archer, some are rather mundane professions like Miner, Blacksmith, or Chef, and finally there are many that are connections to non-human races and spiritual creatures like Demons, Ogres, Celestials, and Faeries. An avatar can gain as many Attunements as they can earn in-game but many require completing quests for trainers or powerful beings to access. It is quite possible that certain Attunements can prevent an avatar from learning one that comes from an opposing force, such as trying to access the Demon Attunement if you already have the Celestial Attunement.
Active and Passive Powers: Attunements are the source of all Powers in the game. They provide Passive Powers automatically, with one Passive granted at rank 1 and an additional one at rank 10 and for every 10 ranks beyond that. Active Powers, however, must be trained by NPCs, learned from scrolls sold by shopkeepers, or granted as quest rewards. Each Attunement uses a special resource to active their Powers and these resources can vary wildly from one another.
Iron Jack’s Attunements: Iron Jack’s Attunements are detailed to some degree below along with a brief explanation of their unique resources and how they work.
Knight: The Knight is a heavy melee combatant and front-line fighter, both dealing damage and absorbing the attacks of opponents. Their resource is Endurance, a 'rage' type resource that is gained from inflicting damage, killing foes, and absorbing/taking damage. It starts at 0 with a max of 100 and trends towards 0 when out of combat. Their Abilities are all about melee combat (Knight's Flurry, Rending Strike), surviving damage (temporarily increasing armor, resistances, and defenses), or drawing the attention of monsters (shouts and taunts).
Celestial: The Celestial is a connection to the holy servants of the Principalities, angels, paladins, and other heavenly spirits. Celestials can learn abilities that both inflict spiritual harm on foes (Holy Smite, Censure), heal the wounded (Mercy, Protective Halo), and even physically transform into an angelic form. Their resource is Sanctity, which is only spent on the strongest of Abilities, but dramatically affects the ability to use Abilities and their strength. It is gained slowly over time with large boosts for completing quests from good NPCs and 'performing good deeds', while it is lost from doing the opposite. Sanctity doesn't degrade without cause and ranges from 0 to 100%.
Woods Mystic: Attunement to the Woods Mystic is a spiritual connection to druidic spirits and nature itself. Nature magic that can both harm and heal with natural powers. Lightning bolts, animated trees, entangling roots, protective wooden skin, and purifying waters are all within its portfolio. Its Resource is Balance, which oddly ranges from –50 to 50, always slowly moving toward 0. Negative Balance is called 'moving towards Wrath', increasing the power of damaging Nature Powers and weakening healing/support Powers. Positive Balance is called 'moving toward Harmony' and does the opposite: strengthening healing and support Powers while weakening damaging Powers. In general, offensive Powers build Wrath and healing/support builds Harmony, but there are exceptions.
THANK YOU FOR READING!
Curious about what happens to Jack next?
Find out soon!
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Dear reader, if you REALLY want to read the next Kingdom of Heaven novel- I’ve got a bit of bad news for you.
Unfortunately, Amazon will not tell you when the next comes out.
You’ll probably never know about my next books, and you’ll be left wondering what happened to Jack and the gang. That’s rather terrible.
There is good news though! There are three ways you can find out when the next book is published:
1) You join my mailing list by clicking here.
2) You follow me on my Facebook page or join my Facebook Group. I always announce my new books in both those places as well as interact with fans.
3) You follow me on Amazon. You can do this by going to the store page (or clicking this link) and clicking on the Follow button that is under the author picture on the left side.
If you follow me, Amazon will send you an email when I publish a book. You’ll just have to make sure you check the emails they send.
Doing any of these, or all three for best results, will ensure you find out about my next book when it is published.
If you don’t, Amazon will never tell you about my next release. Please take a few seconds to do one of these so that you’ll be able to join Jack and the gang on their next adventure.
Also, there are some LitRPG Facebook groups you could join if you are so inclined, however, joining them does not ensure you will learn about my books in the future, but they are fun.
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Table of Contents
Copyright
Table of Contents
Want to get this FREE?
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
J.A. Cipriano, Escape from Hell: A LITRPG Adventure (Kingdom of Heaven Book 2)
