Shatterdark a litrpg adv.., p.1
Shatterdark: A LitRPG Adventure (System of Nil Book 2), page 1
SHATTERDARK
SYSTEM OF NIL
BOOK 2
TIM PAULSON
Copyright © 2024 Tim Paulson. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission excepting brief quotations for use in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Mark Smith Illustration
Internal illustrations by Mark Smith and Aidan Andrews
First Edition: February 2024
Ikkibu publishing
OTHER WORKS
Arcane Renaissance series:
Path of Ruin
Betrayal at Goliath Gate
Wrath of the Risen God
Bone knight series:
A Grim Demise and Even Worse Resurrection
A Doomed Fight and Not So Great Landing
A Hard Truth and An Unwise Decision
A Lost God and A Hostile Land
A Daring Plan and A Cold Shoulder
An Agonizing Day and A Dread Knight
An Impossible Task and A Vile Solution
A Brutal Clash and A Bitter Rival
A Grave Threat and Ultimate Illumination
Join Tim's mailing list at www.paulsonwriter.com to receive updates on all his new projects.
CONTENTS
1. Thief of Hope
2. Unresolved Issues
3. Icy Veins
4. Messages In Blood
5. Horrors in the Depths
6. A bright spot
7. Ancient Assets
8. The Adamant
9. Guns and Needles
10. Lift Off
11. A Special Message
12. Chuck Norris
13. Fallen Friends
14. Deceiver
15. Unexpected Treasures
16. Into the Mountain
17. And Back Out Again
18. Blood wood
19. Crafting a Companion
20. Infamous
21. Doubling Up
22. Rats in the Sewers
23. An Ugly Reunion
24. Defeat in Victory
25. To the Spire
26. Mending
27. A Grave Situation
28. On the Wing
29. A Failure
30. Elves and Men
31. Hungry Hordes
32. To Kill a God
33. Pointless Pursuit
34. So Many Spiders
35. Sent to Hell
36. Surviving Death
37. Fateful Escape
38. A Chat on the Train
39. Rod the Conqueror
40. The ultimate currency
41. A Bad Headache
42. Together
43. Neutered
44. Awakened
45. Dirty Jobs
46. A Little Subterfuge
47. Skull Crusher
Acknowledgments
1
THIEF OF HOPE
In the courtyard of The Vow, a symphony of soft humming filled the air as thousands of solemn figures, clad in white robes, stood in parallel lines on the smooth stone. They shuffled their bound feet subtly, anticipating the ascent of the slope ahead. A diffuse golden light enveloped their bodies, casting a heavenly glow that gently diminished any imperfections, gradually rendering them insignificant.
In the distance, a single bell rang out, echoing from the curved walls of the Tower of Aon. In response, the humming ceased as all the supplicants lowered to their knees, placing their hands before them on the stone and lowering their heads to touch between them.
“Haaaaa Mi… Suuuuu Yah!” the crowds cried out as one.
Six sets of feet stepped out of thin air, touching down with a soft sizzle that released sulfurous fumes into the breeze as they stained the pure white stone to an ugly rotten shade of brownish black. Once the feet had touched, their owners appeared as well, hulking misshapen creatures barely shoved into dirty white robes.
Seeing all the white-robed forms around them, one of the newly arrived reached for a blade, but a gray skeletal hand stopped him.
“No,” said the skeleton. “Watch.”
All six profane beings stood still as a second toll rang out from on high.
“Haaaaa Mi… Dennn Chaum!” the crowds called back in unison.
“What is this?” growled one of the creatures, gesturing with clawed fingers as the white robe that strained to contain his thick, thorny shape, tore around the shoulder.
“Disgusting,” sneered another.
“This light,” said a third. “It aches.”
The bell rang out a third time, echoing across the courtyard.
“Haaaaa Mi… Maaaaa Sa!” the figures chanted.
“Their eyes are down, ignore them. Let’s go,” the skeleton said, stepping over a line of white-robed figures, and heading toward the huge spire on the other side of the courtyard. The others seemed wary, but followed, leaving black marks with every sizzling step.
The skeleton led the group around to the side of the great spire. They stopped as the stone ended. A yawning moat-like chasm stood between the group and the stone wall of the tower.
“We cannot fly here,” said one of them, its horned head craning up to where the spire, which had no visible windows or doors, disappeared far above into thick swirling mist.
“You don’t say,” the skeleton snapped flatly as he produced an ornate golden key from his pocket and waved it. The air curved and swirled, warping to reveal a walkway with a golden door at its end.
The door opened without incident, and the group followed the skeleton inside the tower into a curved stone hall where a single white-robed guard stood at attention.
“What are you doing here?” the guard asked, sounding annoyed, his mailed right hand wrapped around a long golden spear.
“Can you point me to the seventh vault?” the gray skeleton asked.
“Are you mad?” the guard replied angrily, his white wings spreading out behind him. “That’s forbidden!”
The skeleton laughed as the five others moved to surround the guard, pinning him against the curved wall. “Good,” he said.
The guard’s angelic eyes swept downward, taking in the clawed feet of the robed creatures arrayed against him, and widened. “Demons… here?” he whispered. “But how?”
Claws, talons, and teeth tore the angelic guard to pieces before he could utter another word.
The skeleton turned away with a shrug. “Good thing I already know the way,” he said and put a single bony hand on a white plate on the wall. “The seventh vault,” he said.
“You fool,” one of the demons replied, his torn hood revealing a wide mouth filled with long thin teeth. “You can’t just ask-”
The white stone at the end of the hall evaporated, revealing stairs that curved upward. The skeleton chuckled softly as he ascended, casting a glance back at the others. “Keep up now,” he said.
They hadn’t ascended very far when the stairs terminated at a new floor with a high vaulted ceiling. Here the ceiling seemed to stretch on endlessly, its vaulted arches soaring high overhead. The air was thick with the scent of incense, and the only sound was the faint echo of the dark party’s footsteps. The walls were lined with tall gothic columns, each with a stone statue of a knight at its base. At the far end of the room, a pair of tall golden doors awaited.
In the center of the floor was a golden plaque, inlaid with the angelic symbol for the number seven. The symbol was surrounded by a seven-pointed star that glowed with soft light, its radiance suffusing the room with a sense of reverence and mystique.
The skeleton paused at the threshold, eyeing the statues on either side of the chamber while his demonic companions passed. The moment the first of them stepped on the symbol at the center, the light brightened, filling the chamber with a blinding radiance.
“Demonic interlopers,” stated a clear feminine voice that echoed throughout the chamber. “Your presence has been detected. Flee, or be destroyed.”
“You hear that?” the skeleton asked his dark companions as he strode between them, his bony feet clacking against the smooth white stone. “They think you’re cowards.”
The demons snarled as they tore the stained white robes from their bodies revealing scaly skin, spines, horns, claws, and teeth. Wicked weapons dripping with poisonous malice were drawn and flourished.
“So be it,” the voice replied as the armored statues arrayed against the pillars began to move, bringing their lances to bear. Behind them, eyes opened in the walls and turned to focus on the demons.
The battle was joined as the armored golems and demons clashed. The room filled with the sound of clanging metal but the gray skeleton did not take part. He kept walking calmly toward the far door, watching as the eyes all came to rest on a large demon to his right.
“You should duck,” the skeleton said softly as he passed.
The demon ignored him. His eyes were burning with savage glee as he tore through the golems, his thick black sword leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. He decapitated one enemy with ease and then swung his weapon in a wide arc, smashing three mo
This all ended, however, when beams of pure white shot from the eyes on the walls. They came together as one, hitting the demon in the chest, making his flesh glow so bright that the skeleton had to look away, shielding his eyes as the demon was consumed. When it ended, all that remained was a pillar of ash that collapsed to the floor.
“Argh!” cried another of the demons, one with a long curved beak, as it pulled a spear from its broad chest. “What was that?”
The skeleton waved his hand dismissively as he continued toward the great golden doors. “I told him to duck. When the eyes look, you duck.”
“Just get those doors open!” the demon snarled back. “Or I’ll use those bones to pick my teeth.”
The skeleton chuckled and kept walking, arriving in front of the massive golden doors. Here he pulled back his hood, revealing a skull with glowing green eyes. He placed his left skeletal hand against the door and slid it down along the center.
Behind him, the eyes had turned their attention to the beaked demon, who became alarmed. “You said… duck?”
“Duck,” the skeleton confirmed, still inspecting the doors.
“When?” the demon asked as it hooked a spear from the hands of a golem with the axe in its left hand. Then it followed up by chopping an arm free with the axe in its right hand.
“Hmmm?” the skeleton replied.
Beams shot from the eyes on the walls for a second time, converging on the beaked demon and hitting it in the center of its broad chest. The creature glowed with savage violence before it too was annihilated, leaving only a collapsing pillar of ash.
The skeleton tilted his gray skull as the sound of weapons clanging and golems being smashed echoed all around him. He switched to his right skeletal hand and ran that down along the right side of the meeting between the two golden doors, tracing along a line of etched symbols. As the tips of his bony fingers ran across them, the symbols began to glow with a dim white light.
“There we are,” he said.
“The eyes!” shouted a third demon, with a higher, more gravelly voice. “They look at me! What should I do?”
“Duck,” the skeleton said without looking.
“Phenoth tried that!” the demon said.
“Maybe try jumping,” the skeleton said as he leaned in and whispered something to the doors.
“What?” the demon snapped. “But… that’s impossible!”
The skeleton turned his skull, casting glowing green eyes toward the demon speaking to him. The creature was one of the merg demons with one large eye and two thin bat-like wings that were currently folded behind its back. It was obvious when you looked at it, that the demon’s tiny stick-thin legs were far too small to jump its bulbous body more than a few inches off the ground. A half second later, as the demon’s mouth was opening to utter something else, the eyes on the walls fired again and burned it to ash in an instant.
With a hiss, the tall golden doors of the vault opened inward, recapturing the skeleton’s attention. “There we go,” he said as he stepped forward into the long hall beyond. There was an incredible array of shining weapons, armor, and items glittered on racks, shelves, and stands.
Having dealt with the last of the vault guardians, the two remaining demons followed the skeleton into the vault. “We should be safe in here,” said a demon with a long crocodilian snout. “They wouldn’t shoot at their treasures.”
The skeleton was scanning his glowing green eyes across the shelves, looking for something specific. “You’re probably right,” he replied absently.
The eyes outside the vault then locked onto the crocodilian demon and fired, burning him to ash.
“Gevelor!” The last demon cried, before turning on the skeleton, his four red eyes glowing with fear and rage as he lifted a huge toothed war hammer, high over his head. “You lie! The eyes do not see you. Tell me how, or I’ll crush your bones into powder!”
The skeleton turned back and shrugged. “I’m not a threat.”
The demon looked stunned, frowning as he lowered his weapon. “But… So I should…” He placed the massive hammer on the ground beneath his cloven toes.
The skeleton nodded his head as he continued scanning the shelves, passing dozens of powerful weapons, armor, and items. “Good thinking,” he said. Then he saw it, sitting on a shelf between a ruby necklace and a glittering golden axe: a little white drop satchel. It had a single word stitched on it in angelic symbols. Read aloud the symbols would form a single word in English: Nil.
“There is so much!” the demon said, finally letting his eyes take in the wealth of treasures that surrounded them. “We shall steal it all!”
The skeleton placed his right hand on the satchel, which disappeared. “Nah, I just want this.”
“Then you are a fool!”
The skeleton turned around just in time to see the beams fire once again. He used the sleeve of his robe to shield his undead eyes from the blinding light as the final demon was burned to ash.
He chuckled. “Yes, I am,” he said and then raised his skeletal hands above his head. “I surrender!”
“Stay where you are!” called the same voice from before.
“Oh, I will,” the skeleton replied as he summoned an item into his left hand and another into his right.
“What are you doing?” the voice asked. A half dozen angelic guards had appeared at the far end of the entrance and were approaching quickly, their weapons at the ready.
“Not much,” the skeleton said as he dropped one of the items, a vial containing a pure white liquid.
“Stop that!” the disembodied voice called. “Stop him!”
The angels were swooping forward, using their wings to propel themselves as quickly as they could. They knew what he was trying to do. Unfortunately for them, they were already too late.
The skeleton sprinkled a small amount of a potent catalyst over the white liquid as he dropped the second vial, filled with a black, tar-like substance. The second vial shattered with a clash, mixing the white and black liquid with the catalyst. A half second after that, the Tower of Aon detonated like a dynamite-packed piňata. Stone rained down on the assembled supplicants who cried out in terror at the sight and sound of it.
Far away, in a dark corner of the living world, a dirty man shuffled down a crooked street, stumbling a little. He knew his favorite brothel was somewhere nearby. Eventually, he’d find that blasted red door. If he just kept at it, it would happen. It was… he paused, frowning, scratching at the thick goiter jutting from the side of his neck.
“Ah…” he said, blinking as he leaned against a mossy stone archway.
“Are you alright, sir?” a young boy asked.
The man frowned, twisting to the side. It wasn’t a boy at all, but a mutt. “Get out of here you filthy beast!” he shouted at the young werewolf.
The dog-like creature growled at him. “I was just tryin’ to help!” he said, backing away.
“You better back off!” the dirty man shouted. “Why, I’ll kick you right in yer… snout…” The man suddenly found his body seizing up, his arms and legs contorting painfully in all directions, even his fingers and toes bent to the side and backward. He lost his grip on the stone and toppled to the side, splashing into the black lumpy muck that filled the gutter.
“Sir?” the young werewolf asked again. “Do you need help?”
It was that little beast. He’d done this! That was the only thing that made sense. It was…
There was a wet crunch, followed by a scream as the young werewolf witnessed all the man’s flesh turn to liquid and slough from his body in a wet steaming rush, billowing out his clothes with blood, liquified organs, and the largely alcoholic contents of his stomach.
After a few seconds, the young werewolf’s ears twitched as he looked to the left and the right. Then he checked the dead man’s pockets and took what he could, before pattering off into the night as fast as his feet would take him.
Only a few more moments passed before the remnants of what had once been the dirty man, now little more than a bloody skeleton with bones the color of ash, twitched. A few moments more and the eyes began to glow green. The gray skeleton then sat up and calmly surveyed his surroundings.
