Path of the titans sys.., p.1
Path of the Titans - System Activation: A LitRPG Epic Fantasy, page 1
PATH OF THE TITANS - SYSTEM ACTIVATION
A LITRPG EPIC FANTASY
PATH OF THE TITANS
BOOK 1
TIMOTHY MCGOWEN
ILLUSTRATED BY
CHRISTINA P. MYRVOLD
EDITED BY
CANDACE MORRIS
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Copyright © 2024 by Timothy McGowen
All rights reserved.
System Activation, Book 1
Path of the Titans
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-956179-36-1
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-956179-37-8
Hardback ISBN: 978-1-956179-38-5
First Edition: February 2024
Published By: Rising Tower Books
Publisher Website: www.RisingTowerBooks.com
Author Site: AuthorTimothyMcGowen.com
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
For permission requests, email to timothy.mcgowen1@gmail.com . This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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SPECIAL THANKS
I wanted to give a special thanks to those that helped bring this book to its current state.
Candace Morris - Editor and Super Hero.
Dantas Neto, Sean Hall, Hugo Morais. (Elandar) - Proofer
I dedicate this book to my fans. Without your loyalty and dedication I’d never be able to craft so many wonderful stories.
CONTENTS
1. Adventure
2. Danger
3. Battle
4. Clean Up
5. Gifts
6. Hunting
7. Farewell
8. Sun Harvest Festival
9. New World
10. Techniques
11. Haste
12. Camp
13. Dungeon
14. Rat King
15. Techniques
16. Puzzles
17. Blighted
18. High Priestess
19. Traps
20. Themed Branch
21. Big Don
22. Sheriff
23. The Loot
24. Change
25. Death
26. Titan Engine
27. System Understanding
28. Echo
29. Exploring
30. Pirates
31. Boris, Vlad, and Edgar
32. Armory
33. Grinding Away
34. Talent Trees
35. Wards
36. Nolic Den
37. Maintenance
38. Pirate Hunting
39. Rescue
40. Grinding
41. C Ranked Monsters
42. Guild Charterhouse
43. Mires Gloom Dungeon Town
44. The Hunted
45. On the Way
46. Winter is Coming
47. Breaking Apart
48. Safe Travels
49. Into the Swamps
50. Dragon’s Ire
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CHAPTER 1
ADVENTURE
Knox felt his sense drift. Something was close by, but he couldn’t tell what it was just yet. Instead of revealing his awareness of its presence, he continued his work of cutting away at the tree before him.
Thwack. Thwack.
The sweet release of exertion filled him as his axe bit deep into the wood under the practiced blows of an experienced woodsman. He fingered the shaft of his axe with each swing, shifting his grip to avoid blisters.
He had decided long ago that even though he was a natural woodsman, he wouldn’t stay one for the rest of his life. What would his father think if he knew what he was planning? It didn’t matter, and he wasn’t going to let him dictate his life any longer. His father couldn’t stop him, no one could.
Under Common Law of Laurdenar, any citizen born of any station or house had the right to challenge his destiny within a Dungeon. He would become an Adventurer.
The winds shifted and he caught the scent of a predator behind a forty-year-old pine marked for cutting. A Dire Wolf by the feel of it.
Knox’s dark brown hair blew with the wind and his vibrant blue eyes scanned the horizon. His sense was his best tool against threats, and he reached out with it.
He shifted his weight to his other foot and swung downward—his axe flying from his hands and landing with a loud crunch. He caught sight of a moon-grey swish of a tail as it turned and fled from its hiding place.
Dire Wolves could be dangerous, they had above average intelligence and were unwilling to let themselves die needlessly. Being just dangerous enough that you might kill or maim your opponent went a long way when you lived at the edge of civilization. One of the less monumental reasons why Knox decided he wouldn’t live and die as a woodcutter. He had to be an Adventurer. He recovered his axe and went back to work.
Thwack. Thwack. Growl.
Knox’s sense shot out like a web of fine silk, and he prepared for the attack.
At the last possible moment, he rolled to the side, having a good idea of the Dire Wolf's presence now. Without looking, he raised his axe and swung behind himself, turning to face his attacker. His quick blow did the job of keeping it at bay.
The Dire Wolf was different than he expected. His keen sense only gave him a general feel and location for the beast. The strong thick fur was marred by traces of dark blue, almost black, gashes. One of the wounds that traced the Dire Wolf’s frame crossed directly over its left eye. A bright blue glow emanated from one cunning eye, where the other looked normal, if not a little bloodshot.
Regardless of its odd deformities, Knox had no plans to kill the wolf if he could avoid it. Trouble was, he knew he couldn’t avoid it. The odd infection that drove the Dire Wolf to attack when it would normally flee, couldn’t be ignored.
The wolf pounced again.
Knox easily avoided the swift attack and delivered one himself. Like a hot knife through butter, his axe head slid through the wolf's abdominal wall and into the unprotected internal organs. The axe’s arc finished, and blood dripped from its sharp edge. The Dire Wolf stumbled another few steps before collapsing from the devastating attack.
Knox observed his fallen foe and reached out with his special sense but was unable to detect the warm glow that he’d always attributed to the signs of life. He had downed the creature in one blow, whatever had driven this Dire Wolf to forgo its natural instincts had also weakened it significantly.
A bird cawed in the distance and Knox approached his kill. Cleaning this carcass and trying to salvage its hide would be useless. Whatever the infection was, it had eaten through the Dire Wolf and ruined it thoroughly.
He would report the attack and the dead wolf to the foreman after his shift, not wanting to waste any more time that could be spent felling trees. The more trees you dropped, the more money you were paid.
Wolves were common in the forest of Feralease. The King’s guard was—in theory—supposed to provide safety to all the workers of his realm. Feralease was on the Easternmost edge of King Wilham’s domain and only tax collectors, Adventurers, or people looking to be forgotten, ever traveled this far out.
An older Adventurer, Dernal Dorntooth, had arrived in town this very week. You could set your calendar by Dernal. Each year after the last snowfall, he arrived like clockwork.
Dernal was a short—by Keenlen’s Vale standards at least—and sturdy man with amber-colored eyes that spoke of knowledge untold, and black hair that was long enough that he kept it in a tight bun atop his head. He had a shrewd and sensible way of talking that was more growl than speech half the time. It was like he only wanted to speak a few words at a time and any time Knox’s questions drew more out of him, it looked like it pained him.
&
It wasn’t as if there wasn’t an authority in the area. There was a Guild-controlled Dungeon a few days’ journey from the town, and a Guild Charterhouse bordering the Shadowfall Swamp.
Tavern gossip suggested that the charterhouse was only there to hunt the powerful creatures that lurked in the swamps, giving strong Adventurers a chance to advance further down the path of power. It was a day’s journey from the Mires Gloom Dungeon, which put it just a few days' travel from their town. Its exact location wasn’t common knowledge. Even the most up to date maps of the area didn’t show the location of the Dungeon or the Guild Charterhouse. The Dungeon made sense, as it was bad luck to put a Dungeon marker on a map, but why they hid the location of a Guild Charterhouse was anyone's guess.
Thwack. Thwack.
The wind blew through the trees cooling Knox’s sweat-covered arms. He took it in with a deep breath, appreciating the smells of the forest as he continued to work. He loved being a woodsman on most days. Although, he had seen too many lives wasted in mediocrity not to take measures to change his fate to avoid a life as stagnant as the Shadowfall Swamp.
That is where Dernal Dorntooth came into the picture. Knox wasn’t like most townsfolk, and he took every opportunity he could to speak with Dernal. Just this week he was finally going to do something he had wanted to do for the last three years, ever since Dernal agreed to the bargain.
He was going to buy a weather-worn set of enchanted armor. That would put him just above the bare minimum—according to Dernal—that it took to get into a Dungeon group and survive.
The bellow of a low horn cried out in the distance. It was quitting time. Knox let his sense span through the forest like a spider sensing vibration in its web, as he turned himself toward the town. He located his friend Terrim not far off from where he had been working and changed his direction to intercept him.
He was a tall man, much taller than anyone had any right to be, with a decently muscled body born from countless hours of cutting down trees. His eyes were a keen emerald and his hair the same color as Knox, a darker brown. He had a perpetual grin on his face that was at odds with how grim his face looked. He appeared most days to be angry smiling at people, but Knox knew that was just his resting grim face and not a true expression of the joker beneath.
“Today’s the day,” Knox shouted up to Terrim as he finally caught up to his freakishly tall friend.
“What’s that?” Terrim asked, turning his attention toward Knox. “Oh, you mean you are going to finally let Beth have her way with you?”
Terrim’s words were followed by a burst of booming laughter that could easily be mistaken for the echoing crash of a fallen tree somewhere in the forest. Knox joked daily that Terrim should take a job with the town watch, one yell from him and the entire town would hear it.
Terrim in turn liked to take a too-close look into Knox’s love life, or the lack thereof. It wasn’t that Knox didn’t like the company of the opposite sex; he was just busy. Between his job as a woodcutter, repair work with Mr. Tome, and taking care of his drunken father, he didn’t have much time for a social life.
“Har har, Ter,” Knox laughed sarcastically, swinging the handle of his axe to rest on his shoulder. “You know I only have eyes for Danielle.”
This caught Terrim’s attention and Knox had to dodge a lumbering punch. Terrim tried a few more halfhearted swings as Knox expertly nudged himself out of the way at the last moment. Terrim wasn’t trying to do him harm, Knox knew, but if he didn’t pay attention, a blow from him—playful or not—was likely to land him on his ass.
“Stay still you shit-fly!” Terrim boomed, his attacks abating. “You know I’m planning on asking Danielle to the summer feast.”
“It was a joke, Ter,” Knox said through a series of chuckles. “Besides, today is the day I tell my father that I’m going to be an Adventurer!”
“Hah.” Was Terrim’s only reply.
“I’m serious this time, Ter. I’ve finally saved up enough money and I’ve spoken with Dernal, he has the armor.”
“Dernal?” Terrim asked in surprise. “The old bastard that cheats at cards in the tavern. He’s the Adventurer you’ve been talking with?”
“Sure is,” Knox said proudly.
“Well good luck, I say,” Terrim sneered, his nose pointed down toward Knox as he spoke. “I don’t need to tell you, but your father is a bastard, and you know he won’t be happy to hear you want to leave.”
“To hell with my father,” Knox snapped, the words leaving his lips before he could stop himself. He tried his best not to talk down about his father, but it was hard. He really was a bastard. Nearly eight years back he’d been injured in a woodcutting accident and had stayed mostly drunk since. He got a small amount of coin each week, but he wasted it on booze without fail. How he’d earned a weekly stipend from the crown Knox didn’t know, but it was one of the few mysteries about the sad old man. Knox’s mother had died during childbirth, or so he was told, and that left just him to care for his father.
The edge of the village came into view, a vast assortment of mismatched buildings.
“Good luck talking to your father,” Terrim said, moving away toward the tavern. “I’m going to grab a cold drink and a hot meal, come meet me afterward if you can find the time.”
Knox smiled after his friend, but the smile didn’t last. He had to talk to his father, and telling him anything, even good news, ended in an argument. Finding the foreman, Knox reported the incident with the wolf and gave directions for its recovery, before heading toward town.
Nearly two thousand townsfolk called this area home, only half of them lived within the main walls of the town. To the East lay the Forest of Feralease, and further out the Shadowfall Swamp—a place where no one in their right mind would live. To the North and West lay the Spike Peak Mountains that pierced the clouds. They ran from the Endless Sea’s edge to the capital city of Sedriseal. And finally, to the South lay the Valley of the Dead, where most of the crops were planted and animal stock grazed.
Of course, most townsfolk just called it ‘The Valley’ and avoided the official name given by the original settlers.
For a village so far out of the way, Keenlen’s Vale was a prosperous place. A river ran off Valespring’s Lake with a strong current that made trading with the capital city a lucrative endeavor. Getting trade to run back to the town was an issue. The water's current and elevation of the river made traveling back nearly impossible.
So, the town’s goods moved downriver in wooden barges that would be taken apart and sold upon arriving. Every month they’d receive a trader or two that would bring an assortment of exotic items into the town. These same traders would bring down tokens of wealth, mostly coin and exotic spices, rewarded from the supplies the village provided.
Truth be told, Keenlen’s Vale was almost entirely self-sufficient and only truly considered themselves citizens of the realm when they required some type of royal support or trading was involved. The kingdom rewarded inner-realm trading over foreign trade by a reduced tax. But, considering how far out Keenlen’s Vale was outside of anything regarded as civilization, inner-realm trade was really the town’s only option.
Passing beneath the shadow of several steep structures, the town’s administration buildings, Knox made his way to the western most side of the town. He encountered a few hellos and hey there’s but didn’t come across anyone he was overly acquainted with and therefore avoided getting pulled into a longer conversation. The nicely painted white buildings at the center of the town soon faded away. He found himself surrounded by dilapidated structures seemingly placed at random on the edge of the west side of the town; a place where the town-planner had failed to impose rule of law.
Knox was home.
He stood without speaking outside his childhood residence and examined the runes that no one else seemed to be able to see. They looked as if they were scratched directly into the wood, but upon closer examination, he had been surprised to see that the wood was left untouched.
