Mark of the fated a litr.., p.15
Mark of the Fated: A LitRPG Adventure, page 15
I made my choice for A Green and Pleasant Land and waited. Never in my wildest dreams had I ever imagined praying to be transported to an orc infested warzone, but there I was.
“Volunteers, we have a winner. It was a close call, but you’ll be transported to the world in ten seconds. Prepare yourselves.”
I waited for the mind-message to fill in the most important detail; where we were going. Nothing else came through on the Brain Radio, and I started to get antsy. “Hang on! How about a clue?”
Silence.
“It better not be bloody pixies!”
My world burst into a white supernova.
Going from a standing position to one where you’re laid down was perturbing to say the least. I breathed in deeply, smelling mud, straw, and other not so pleasant scents. I was staring at thick wooden beams holding up layers of thatch. There was no symmetry to the construction or square edges on the timber. These were trees cut down, stripped, and laid directly on the wattle and daub walls. Judging by how much of the daub had crumbled, the property wasn’t in the finest of states. The thin wattles peeked through like the ribs of a corpse. That brought back memories of the spider’s food, so I quickly forced them away. I looked to my right and found a clay pitcher of water on a small, wooden stool, and on the floor a clay pot containing… well, I’m sure you can guess. And it wasn’t mine, I knew that much. I’d been here for a few seconds at most. My bed was lumpy, packed with hay. The pillow was slightly better, feathers if I were to guess based on the sharp tips that poked at my cheek through the sweat stained fabric.
“Where’re the pixies?” I whispered.
Swinging my legs from the bed, I checked myself over. All of my equipment was still present and correct. Weapons. Armour. A million torches. Fifty eight health potions, forty one mostly useless mana potions, and too many spider legs and chunks of people to count. I was hoping to find a cannibal vendor who could take most of them off my hands. I’d keep a couple back for Spidey, of course, but the rest needed to go. On that note, I fed my companions before stowing them safely back into my pack.
“What now? I feel like Goldilocks sleeping in the kid’s bed. I better not get mauled to death by an angry daddy bear.”
I made the mistake of looking too closely at the chamber pot. It certainly wasn’t porridge floating within.
One of the previously greyed out tabs was flashing in the corner of my vision. I activated it and a whole new interface showed up. The Journal portion was filled with my only success so far which was the completion of the tutorial. To the left, the Quest icon was backlit with gold.
“Ok, let’s see where we are.”
Quest – Save the Villagers
Description – A raiding party of orcs led by Snaglak the Famished has struck the farming village of Peacehaven. Rescue the survivors before they become the celebratory feast.
Reward – Basic crafting box (bronze)
+ 10 Reputation with Dawnstar Alliance
“Yes!” I whisper cheered in the disgusting bedroom. No pixies! This was the best day of my life! I said a mental thank you to the other adventurers and readied myself. This was the real shit. I opened up the minimap and expanded it into the world map. I whisper cheered again. “Open world, baby! Yeah!” Unsurprisingly it was just a vague landmass shaped like an inverted horseshoe, littered with places of note with no descriptions or names. I could see fortresses, wall-guarded passes, vast mountain ranges, kingdom spanning forests, and a lighthouse. I was in my element as I looked it over in more detail. My starting position was marked with a golden, four-pointed star. A skull was overlaid on the mountain to the west, and I assumed that to be the location described in the world selection tablet; Whitespear Mountain. A red crown lay atop a fortress to the southeast, and I took that to mean the potential location of Milton Dawnstar. Or I had the whole thing wrong and would wind up getting myself totally lost.
Leaving the bedroom, I found the first signs of the attack. The door was hacked to pieces, laying on the earthen floor like spilled kindling. The small dining table had been knocked over, splashing uneaten stew up the walls. A cook pot smoked in the fireplace as the food dried out and burned. I also noticed the blood which sat in thick pools. People had died here. My excitement ebbed away as I thought of their suffering. A toy rabbit had been shredded, the head staring up at me, its neck a stump of torn straw.
“Orc bastards.”
I could hear faint, dark laughter coming through the doorway. The purple twilight outside was creeping into the full darkness of night. I wanted to see what was going on before formulating a plan of attack, so I took off the greaves and left myself free to sneak. My toe caught a small coin purse on the floor as I made to leave. Ordinarily if something wasn’t nailed down or guarded by an observant NPC, that shit was going in my pocket. Cash, jewellery, useless weapons I could see, family heirlooms. It’s not my most noble trait, I’ll admit. This was different somehow. Everything around me spoke of the toil that had gone into amassing such a meagre kitty. I had no way of knowing if the owners were still alive, but I left the coins where they had fallen just in case.
The alleys between the small hovels were a quagmire from recently fallen rain and heavy footfall. I put one shoe down and the sucking squelch as I removed it was no better than ringing the dinner bell. My only other option was the roof. I looked at the tightly packed thatch and decided against it. The rustling would be less severe, but knowing my luck I’d get to my reconnaissance point and crash through the bloody thing. Noticing the mud closest to the homes was protected by the overhanging straw and thus marginally drier, I hugged the wall and set off. The safest route was behind the humble properties as the weak torchlight of the main thoroughfare couldn’t penetrate the gloom. This in turn meant I had to tread carefully because I couldn’t see much either.
I slowed as a noticeably larger building came into view, backlit by the flames.
As I approached, I could smell the familiar scents of beasts. Whichever animals were inside, they were clearly agitated. I could hear the low nickers as heavy forms shifted within pens. The rear doors stood open, throwing a cone of light from within. Before taking a chance on being revealed by the glow, I stood with my back to one of the barn doors and listened. The evil laughter nearby was now more pronounced, but to my untrained ears nothing was moving inside except for the penned animals. I kept low and snuck a glance around the edge, quickly whipping myself back out of sight. I’d been both right and wrong. It was only the animals moving, because the orc in the barn was passed out next to a collection of empty bottles and a partly eaten foal. The sight of the gutted, defenceless creature filled me with a cold rage. I looked again and pulled up the orc’s stats.
Name – Orc Raider (Lvl 4)
Description – A common orc warrior used as fodder by the goblin overlords. As ugly as they are useless at anything but killing and dying.
Weakness – Poison ???
Immunities – None
I could see there was a status afflicting the orc and I pulled that up too.
Affliction – Drunk (Unconscious)
Description – Consuming large amounts of alcohol inhibits fighting ability, stats, and vision
Duration – 8 hours
So this thing was paralytic? Good. I left cover and pulled out my coward’s blade. The horses snorted as I passed, having lost all their trust in the two-legs. One of the mares was leaning from her pen, staring dolefully at her slain child with expressive brown eyes. I pulled a face that to humans expressed sorrow. To the grieving animal, all that mattered was the loss of her baby. My teeth clenched so hard my jaw started to throb. I noticed as I neared that the killer still had a strip of its partly eaten flesh in one hand. Its snaggle fanged mouth was twisted in a bloody sneer. Its oily green skin was mottled with purple blemishes. My hatred overrode my fear of the thing which would stand taller than me if awake, not to mention more muscular. Even unconscious, the layers of muscle below its rusting armour were staggering. The rats and the spiders were governed by their nature, nothing more. The orcs were a manifestation of true evil, existing only to bring suffering and death. Any compunction I felt about killing vanished as I buried my blade to the hilt in its eye socket. The armour clad legs kicked once and then fell still. An achievement pinged and I ignored the notification, kneeling at the foal. I let the bloodied dagger fall to the hoof scuffed earth.
“You’ll regret this,” I warned myself.
I didn’t care. The scene reminded me of a tragedy that I’d witnessed outside my arcade. An elderly woman, walking her own two pugs. One of the dogs saw something and bolted from the pavement, directly into the path of a car. It was killed instantly. The thing that stuck with me wasn’t the wailing owner, but the dog’s companion who pawed at the dead friend, whining. When it couldn’t rouse the body, it lay beside it and mewled pitifully. That shit stuck with me. The mother horse had the exact same expression of loss. I pulled out one of the resurrection scrolls and double checked the wording again. Biological entity. It was pretty damned clear. I flattened the curled parchment as best I could, laid it in the mud, and placed a hand on the still warm foal.
“Ara Vero Zuulo Mer.”
The yellowed paper crumbled to dust as I said the final word. Deep within the open chest of the infant horse, its heart reformed and started to thump with life. The savage claw marks knitted closed. I climbed to my feet as the hollowed body began to steam with regenerating organs and flesh. Fresh hide grew at each side of the ghastly opening, flowing together like water. Breath blew from its nostrils, kicking up a puff of hay dust. In a state of confusion, the foal lifted its head and looked around. Spying its mother nearby, it stood up on shaky legs and approached.
“There you go, little one.”
My hand reached for the iron bar securing the pen, but I suddenly realised I had next to no knowledge of equine behaviour. The mother had seen her child perish. Would she accept this reborn simulacrum? I watched nervously as the parent cautiously sniffed at the resurrected animal. The seconds dragged out interminably until I was sure my efforts had been wasted. I sighed with relief when big momma whinnied and licked at the little one. Throwing caution to the wind, I gently eased the gate open, and moved back to allow the reunion to take place. When they were safely snuggling together again, I locked the gate and turned my attention back to the mission. I’d been lucky with the drunk orc. I might not be with the rest of the raiding party.
Chapter 19
Suppertime
The lack of spilled black blood from the killing wound helped me immeasurably. Anyone looking for their orcish friend would see the horse blood and assume the brute had taken his meal somewhere more private.
Or at least I hoped that was how it looked.
I dragged the corpse into an empty stall and covered it with loose straw. Leaving through the rear, I merged with the shadows again. The homes and barn gave way to stores keeping ploughs and other farming equipment out of the rain. All in all, the village comprised about thirty buildings of varying size around a central square. Picking the darkest path, I slunk closer to the raucous activity. What I spied peering around the corner of a small home will forever haunt me. Two dozen weeping villagers bound by chains to thick posts near the well. The splayed ends of the stakes indicated they had been recently hammered into the ground. A row of fires burned, the meat being turned on the spits above had once been the family of the captives. It was hard enough to see the adult sized forms sizzling as they cooked. The smaller one… Well, let’s just say I made a vow there and then to commit genocide on the orcish race so absolute that it would make the gods take notice.
There were nine other raiders and the big orc himself; Snaglak. This lumbering hulk wasn’t famished at all. His gut was as massive as the rest of his muscular body. The status bars on every enemy was set to Drunk, minus the unconsciousness. My best bet was to wait until they drank themselves into a coma and then cut their throats. To my horror, I wasn’t that squeamish about the brutality I was considering.
“Dese fings make good eatin’!” Snaglak grunted, biting down on a leg.
“Dere ale’s aright an’ all!” replied one of the raiders.
“What we gonna do wiv da rest of ‘em, boss?”
“Bleed ‘em an’ cook ‘em. We take da meat back to Klog an’ ‘e makes me a warboss.”
“Wha’ ‘bout us?”
“You gets to take da new boys raidin’. I gets a cut a da loot you find.”
A merciless cheer went up as the bound villagers begged for mercy.
“Shut it, you lot, or I bleeds ya slow like I did yer wee one!” Snaglak bellowed.
Even without looking directly, I could see the blackened husk of the child slowly being turned. At that point I hated as I’d never hated before. A tingle started in my toes that burst into a tempest of fury by the time it touched my heart. I equipped the flail, activated my rat swarm on the other side of the table, and strode out into the firelight. The chitter-shriek of my rats as they scurried from their magical realm drew the attention of the orcs. Two of the raiders that went to investigate were buried in fur and snapping teeth immediately.
“Git ‘um!” Snaglak roared.
It took me twelve paces to get within striking distance. I wound my arm up on thirteen, and repaying every ounce of pain suffered by the child, I swung on the fourteenth. The glowing skull seemed eager as it arced over my head. With a resounding clang, the dome of Snaglak’s horned helmet sunk inwards and his eyes burst from their sockets with wet pops. The slain leader crumpled to the ground like an invisible giant had stomped him flat. I took advantage of the chaos to kill the distracted orc at his side with a looping sideswipe that bent his neck at a ninety degree angle with an awful crunch of crumbling vertebrae. My rats were being stomped by the bleeding raiders, but the plucky rodents had taken three down for their trouble.
“Watch out, you divs!” cried the cook, gesturing at me. He knocked the small body from its mount in his haste to draw the wicked looking iron sword.
I ignored the cries of anger and jumped up onto the table as the orcs finally noticed me. Running its full length, I knocked plates and goblets flying into startled faces. Reaching the end, I leaped at the butcher, flail following. My aim was off, and I only caught him with a glancing blow that shattered his sword arm.
“Run, boys!” yelled one of the other orcs as he tried to throw off the scrabbling vermin.
I ignored the frantic flight of the remaining raiders. My attention was reserved solely for the filthy fuck that was slowly backing away from me.
“You’re not going anywhere. If you run, I’ll bleed you slow.” If it was good enough for them, it was good enough for me.
His fearful red eyes darted around, looking for support that was already long gone. I kicked the fallen sword towards him. “You can die here and now, or you can answer my questions and maybe survive the night,” I lied.
“Ya promise?”
“Choose!” I screamed, making the creature fall to the ground in a snivelling, snot dripping heap. I had more important things to do than guard him, so I smashed his left knee to powder. His cries echoed out into the dark land, giving motivation to his compatriots to pick up their pace. Over seventy percent of his health pool remained, so I didn’t fear losing him to the damage.
“Move to where I can see you. If you so much as look at me funny I’ll burn you alive.”
I think he replied. I didn’t care. My attention was turned to the infant lying half in, and half out of the fire. I looked anywhere but at the body as I pulled the carcass free. I couldn’t do anything for the adults by myself, so I pulled out my dagger and headed for the villagers. They cowered as I approached, the pervasive terror of the day’s events overwhelming any sense of gratitude.
“Can you please get the… the others down. I need to concentrate.”
I left them glancing at one another fearfully, massaging their abraded wrists.
Kneeling at the charred body, I strived to breathe through my mouth. The sickly sweet tang of burned flesh still caught in the back of my throat, but I ignored it and unfurled my second, and last, resurrection scroll. I carefully cut the rope which was secured tightly to the wooden spit and peeled the severed strands away one by one, leaving the grotesque body free. The blackened crust still leaked boiling fats as I placed my hand on it. I ignored the pain and read the words.
“Ara Vero Zuulo Mer.”
Once again, the paper crumbled and I sat back and crossed my legs, waiting. The once hesitant villagers were letting their grief bleed through as they gently lowered the bodies of their kin. Their sobs broke my heart too, game or not, though I was beginning to question that point. In the back of my mind, I knew that my haste to save the foal had stolen the chance of another human. I’d been like a child on Christmas Day; so keen to tear off the wrappers of each new toy, that I appreciated none of them. I’d given no thought to the long term ramifications of my decisions and now a life was forfeit.
The child’s wasn’t, though.
A faint whimper escaped the burned lips. Over the wails of the villagers I heard a crackle that reminded me of when I’d once fallen through thin ice. I could still remember the feeling of a thousand tiny needles stabbing me from head to toe. I didn’t want to disturb the process, but when the whimper became a shrill whine of fear, I dived right in. The burned shell of her face broke away, revealing new, unharmed, baby pink skin beneath. With care, I removed pieces of the rictus twisted mask and bright green eyes blinked out at me.
“Hey,” I said as the girl extricated herself with a great heave, like she was shucking off a chrysalis and emerging as a butterfly. Her brittle prison crumbled, leaving her as naked as the day she was born. I swapped out my shirt and covered her with it. The onlookers gasped in shock.
