Tales of Adventure
The smell from the roasting meat reached its peak, the sizzling sound combined with the mouth watering smell was as good as any timer. Of course it would be delicious, any meat made with care and high level cooking and handicraft skill would taste delicious. But this meal was especially so, it had been too long since I had enough time to prepare a delicious meal.
With my carving knife I peeled meat off the skewer and ate it. No need for plates or utensils, a good knife was all that was needed. And it was delicious. The meat was that of a recently hunted bear, I was surprised to see it out here in the middle of nowhere, a place I choose specifically because it was so far out of the way. Perhaps it was by the grace of the goddess, but I needed it all the same. After slicing off my share, most of the bear meat still remained, With a chunk of roasted bear meat in one hand, I took the spice shaker in the other and coated the whole of the meat with my special blend.
Taking his cue, Keagan, a beast that looked like a sabertooth tiger the size of a school bus with intricate patterns on his fur, my partner, ripped the remaining meat off the skewer and began eating. The mythic fire cat liked his meat spicy. He looked majestic, even while doing something as mundane as eating. I could watch the thin blue embers that danced in the air around his body and over his orange fur all night. But Keagan’s perpetually dancing embers and my cooking fire weren’t the only fires in this desolate place. In every single direction as far as the eyes could see was a line of small lights, campfires several miles out. The reason they could be seen in every direction was because I was completely surrounded. An army of 22,000, made up of a small alliance of guilds and NPC soldiers set up a perimeter around me as the sun set.
Why am I so popular? Well, it might have something do with the 350,000 gold bounty on my head. Of course to collect, I had to be captured alive. The bounty was not from a single kingdom. Usually, if you had a bounty in one kingdom and left, you were safe. However I got quite unlucky. I had gained bounties in several kingdoms, some large, some small, some deserved, some not. But I never took the effort to lower my infamy. When I had the murderer’s mark I would hunt until it disappeared, but infamy was not lowered so easily. I forgot about it and at some point, my infamy hit 1500, causing something of a special event. My notoriety had reached a point where the kingdoms that had bounties on me figured out they weren’t the only ones who wanted me, so they pooled their funds together and made a collective bounty. Of course it wasn’t so large then. Less than now anyways, I earned the rise in bounty by evading and killing the hunters. Entire guilds fell to me before they knew they were my targets. But I often went too far, often those who weren’t involved got hurt or killed, and steadily my infamy grew to a whopping 2389. When infamy reaches a certain point, and you have a bounty, anyone searching for you can actually receive your exact location. The guys after me now took their time. I ran away for weeks but they were always right on my trail. It was time to confront them. I’d chosen this battlefield and prepared as much as I could. Whether or not I would make it through, only time would tell, but as I sat beneath the stars, I remembered, I remembered what lead to this point.
In the event the media later called, The War of the Kings, I played a secretive and crucial role for Jinir, true name, Herios Goldking VI, the ruler of Donriel kingdom. It was the first large scale conflict since Royal Road’s beginning, and the entire thing was orchestrated by me. In the restricted section of a library that no one should have entered, I learned of Jinir’s imprisonment and sought to break him out of incarceration, but for purely selfish reasons. The kingdoms involved in the War of the Kings had areas I believed would either make me stronger of have knowledge of Runes, the original magic from which all magic is derived.
My role in the war was to cripple the opposing kingdoms with the task force under my command and ensure Jinir’s victory. With the help of Setsuna, my classmate, I started coup d’etats, broke economies, and sabotaged entire armies. Not that anyone really knew what I was doing. Other than those I told and Jinir, those who saw what I did thought it occurred naturally, and never considered that someone was behind it. The only ones who figured it out, did so only in their final moments.
The television new stations reported the battles of the war, because battles had been occurring often, stations got a large volume of content which to show. The battles were unlike anything anyone had ever seen. Tens of thousands of people wielding sword and magic in an epic clash. There was hardly any strategy, it was an all out brawl where the strongest force won, but the battles did not contain a single dull moment. This became the dawn for the game known as Royal Road. People realized that in this world you could have adventures more real than anything you could find in real life.
After the final kingdom was taken, I confronted the Cult of the East, a group of mystics a century old witch doctor told me about. They surrendered and begged me to let them live, but most of all, they begged me to save the world. The mystics had the ability to see into the future, but only small bits, never the whole thing. I spared them and asked what they were talking about, but their visions were blurred. They decided to give me their skill so that I could see what they saw, the whole lot of them relinquished their skills to me giving me a complete skill, Future Sight. Although at beginner level 1 I couldn’t control what I saw, I used it and immediately understood. The vision was of a sky covered in shadow and a king with black eyes who sat upon a throne of death. The man I saw was Jinir.
I left for Jinir’s palace where I was warmly welcomed.
Jinir told me, “You have returned, I understand that you wish to gain access to those areas and I will gladly give it, but before I do, I would like to make you an offer. Please come this way.”
Jinir seemed happy, not at all like the figure cloaked in darkness that was in my vision, I thought maybe the person wasn’t Jinir afterall.
Jinir took me to a room where we could speak alone and said, “Crane, you have proven your worth a thousand times over. Please become my right hand man. With you under my command, the continent will fall as easily as the east did.”
This gave me a sense of foreboding. I told him, “You have barely reestablished your ancestor’s empire. Why continue, is this not enough?”
“Of course not.” He answered. “In these months I have done much, including spending some time in the central kingdoms. You know what I found? Corrupt, worthless, cowering fools lead them. No better than these kingdoms before I came. It took a day to rid this city of the corrupt, I shall remove the fools from power and take it from myself.”
I had kept myself up-to-date on the comings and goings of Jinir’s kingdom during the war, in his first month he had beheaded 9 people for lying to him. The politicians no longer kept their secrets from Jinir, but that didn’t mean he told any of them to stop. Jinir only made sure they ran the kingdom efficiently, but other than that, they made life for the commoners just as bad as it had been before Jinir came into power. Jinir didn’t want to help the poor or the weak, he saw an opportunity to take candy from a baby and had no doubts about doing it.
I said, “I don’t think that is the right call. Build your empire, let the army grow and strengthen, let you descendants take over the world.”
Jinir shook his head, “No, the wheels are already in motion. As soon as the other kingdoms see me strengthening an army, they will ally themselves to oppose me. No, now is the right time, the armies are equipped and have great fighting experience. I will move them directly into the kingdoms to the west and strike while the iron is hot!”
I couldn’t convince him otherwise, he was right, if he brought his army directly from this war into another, they would moe down enough kingdoms to reach the central continent and make a foothold to spread out from there before anyone could do anything. I decided I would stop him other ways, ways I had great practice at.
I said, “I’m sorry Jinir, I won’t take part if you go through with this.”
I turned to walk away when I heard from behind, “Liar.” I turned around to see that shadows were pouring from Jinir’s shoulders like a waterfall of darkness. Although Jinir’s face remained as always, impassive, the shadows radiated powerful killing intent. He continued, “You will take part, but not with me, so you must be thinking of fighting against me. After all this, do you think I would let you out knowing what you’re capable of?”
The shadow that had spread from Jinir’s feet shot out and in a moment, spread throughout the entire room, covering it in shadow from the floor beneath my feet to the wall the door used to be in. Suddenly I started sinking, I remembered what had happened to the last person who had disappeared into Jinir’s shadow and tried to fight it, but there was no way to fight against it, I put my hand against the shadow and tried to push away but my hand sunk in. I used Rune call for several elemental runes but their effects had been nullified by the shadow. Jinir chuckled, “That won’t work Crane, you are not strong enough”
It was black and it was cold. The Darkness felt like it wanted to eat me alive. This probably would have had an effect on me, were it not for the fact that I had an enormous amount of fighting spirit.
I did not know if I was seeing pure blackness, of if I had been blinded and deafened. There was no difference between open eyes or closed eyes. “Kenaz.” My hands started glowing, answering one of my questions. I saw that I was floating in a sea of shadow, although right in front of me my glowing hand’s light was diffused in this shadow. It wasn’t difficult to move around, and other than killing intent and darkened vision, the shadow didn’t have any other negative effects. But that didn’t mean much. I saw that Jinir could use the skills of those he had consumed so he would have access to my skills unless I escaped. I tried everything I could but nothing worked. At most I could burn away some of the shadow with fire but more shadow would move in to replace it.
I did the only thing I could think of. “Call Keagan.”
A fire of golden flames burst forth and Keagan appeared from them, floating in the dark shadow with his blue flames. “Master,” he called, “What is this?”
I said, “I need you to go all out and burn as much of this shadow as possible.”
“Understood.” The flames on Keagan dimmed for a few moments as he was getting ready, then, he erupted, azure flames surrounded him in a sphere of fire a few meters in diameter. I had already moved away to where I was safe, and could enjoy the sight. The shadows around Keagan’s flames seemed to diffuse, making it easier to see, but soon, his fire died out.
“I am sorry master, I must rest.” He had never done anything like that before and wasn’t used to the strain. It didn’t take long for the shadow that had burned away to replenish itself anew, but it did take awhile for Keagan to recover. He burst into a large orb of blue flame again, and again, his fire died out before any significant change occurred.
Keagan continued for a few hours, after each failure he said, “I’m sorry master.”
I used the time he was on fire as a light to write double Fehu talismans, I wrote talismans until I ran out of mana. It was a risky idea that would likely kill me, but I had no choice. I told Keagan to accumulate as much oil as he could on his hair so when ignited he could burn his brightest. I set all of the talismans around Keagan at different distances so that the closer ones would ignite the further ones created an enormous explosion that would hopefully burn enough shadow get out.
I traveled as far as I could from the epicenter and equipped my fire resistant Red Scale Overcoat and Kegan ignited. The time between the first talisman igniting and the last which ignited at the end of the chain reaction was less than half a second, making it seem like one, large explosion. The shockwave spread throughout the shadow filled netherworld, but other than the shadow in the immediate area, not much burned away. But I did not care about that, for in the center of the fireball, I saw something incredible. Keagan was glowing, his entire body was glowing so brightly it pierced the shadow and the fire and his perfect outline could be seen. It was then that I noticed his tail, it was splitting in half, right down the middle, and he was growing larger. As the flame and smoke cleared away, Keagan emerged, but he was a different cat. He was now almost twice as large, ten meters from the tip of his saberteeth to the tip of his twin tails. His tiger stripes, had become intricate patterns of black on orange that was asymetrical on both sides of his form, something impossible in nature. And the the flames which once randomly flowed over his body now swirled around him in a majestic dance.
He looked over at me and his feet erupted in fire, after which, acting like he was on a rocky surface, his jumped from point to point and moved easily to me. “Master, the fire has awoken me. I can use magic. I can get us out.”
I had once heard of a legend of a cat who grew so powerful his tail split in two and learned magic, but I did not think that Royal Road would have such a system. Now Keagan was a mythic beast, capable of using powerful magic.
Keagan closed his eyes and seemed to concentrate. After a few moments, the blue fire that flew around Keagan coalesced, forming a large blue orb. It grew brighter and hotter till it burned white. Keagan yelled, “Eternal Flame!” and shot the ball of light forward. It traveled some distance before it hit what seemed to be a mass of thick shadow where it burst into searing light and fire. The white fire seemed to spread slowly, but I quickly realized that considering the distance the shadow mass was away, the speed it was actually burning was incredible. The white flames did not dim, in fact they seemed to grow brighter. Soon it became clear that it wasn’t becoming brighter, it was burning away the shadow at such a great rate that more and more could be seen.
After a minute of watching the incredible sight, a white flash surrounded us, and we were back at Jinir’s castle in a room. Many politicians were there as well, and upon seeing the now enormous fire cat ran for their lives. Jinir looked both weakened and pissed. Shadow flowed around him and shot at us, but Keagan used the white flame spell to burn the shadows. I jumped off and assaulted Jinir directly. He said, “You dare?!” At that moment he himself was engulfed in his own shadow. A moment later he emerged, clad in armor and wielding a sword made of darkness. His eyes were black, and above his head, the red name shown, “Shadow King.”
In a deep voice that came from every shadow in the room at once, Jinir cried, “I will send you to oblivion!”
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Keagan handed all the shadow attacks and I attacked the main body, However Jinir was as strong in body as I. Whereas I had weapons and armors that I had crafted and empowered with runes, he wore weapons and armor crafted of shadow and darkness. His physical skill and power was the result of growing up in a great prison. And of course, he was much larger than me. Sure my avatar was tall, but I’m still a fifteen year old and he was over twenty. However my skill with a sword was a little better than his, over time, with the damage from my sword and Keagan’s flame, Jinir fell to one knee.
And then I saw it. Jinir’s shadow had taken form, it looked like an enormous lion that was still burning from Keagan’s eternal flame. It cried, “Noo, NOO!” as the flame engulfed it. It died and I leveled up several times.
Jinir collapsed and I rushed to his side. He gasped for air and coughed, he said, “It was always with me.” He hacked and wheezed, “A voice in the dark. It lived in my shadow, I think it always had, a remnant, from my ancestor.”
I remembered the story I had told Jinir, about how the ancestor that founded the Muspelheim empire had defeated the great monster Doleax and that no one knew how. It seemed that Doleax had been swallowed whole by the ancient king’s shadow and that was where it remained. After so many decades, it must have fused with the shadows and used them to gain influence over Jinir.
The great king died afterwards, and unfortunately as things things often go, things got worse and the guards came in right as he died, not having witnessed the fight or the shadow monster. The last witnesses saw me appear from nothing and now here I was with Jinir’s dead body.
It was then that I got the first bounty, 70,000 gold for my capture and almost 1000 infamy. I had of course escaped. One of Keagan’s new abilities allowed him to run through the sky like it was the ground.
Things went downhill from there. I never received permission to go to the areas I figured had rune knowledge or places I could train. Because I had killed the king of those places, even trying to show up would get me thrown in prison. Later the empire fell apart and returned to separately governed kingdoms, but the bounty on my head was still in each one.
Then things got strange. In the middle of nowhere I met an old man who offered me a quest out of the blue. I had nothing better to do so I accepted and did it. It was a simple quest to deliver a package to another kingdom. Keagan didn’t so much fly as he did run through the air, but it was still faster than running on the roads because there was nothing in the way so we made good time.
After delivering the package I received a small bounty and some more infamy. It seemed the contents of the package was not pleasant and the king had taken such offense that he decided to kill the messenger.I later learned that the sender name on the package was fake, and that the king thought the sender was another king, with which he immediately declared war with. After escaping I found the old man again who seemed to appear out of no where. He was in a fit of laughter, merry and cruel. A moment later his appearance wavered and then changed. He revealed himself as the god, Loki. As a reward for delivering the package, Loki gave me some rune knowledge. He explained that he had been watching me and enjoyed the chaos I caused. He also felt a bit bad for me to have caused so much chaos and not get what I wanted, so he offered an alternative. He would give me quests and reward me with rune knowledge. I had little other choice so I shook the hand of the god of mischief and chaos and agreed to spread both.
Over the next few months I used my skills to embarrass, taunt, and fool everyone from princes to paupers, all the while slowly increasing my infamy. I never received the murderer mark so I was never barred from town, so I didn’t think it would affect me too much.
Eventually I received the last rune, through Loki I had collected all remaining runes, 24 in all at the cost of my pride and dignity.
Before leaving, Loki asked for one more thing, not a quest to sow chaos, but a favor that would not affect anyone. I agreed to listen him out and found out that Gods are very strange. Loki used to have a mighty long sword, but his wife locked it in a box with seven lock and said she would not return it until Loki gave her the feather of a chicken. Not just any chicken of course, but a certain, very large chicken named Faz that sat atop a very large tree. The weird thing though is that it is known that the only sword that can slay the chicken, was Loki’s sword. So Loki needed the sword to slay the chicken, and a feather from the chicken to get the sword. He decided to ask me to see if I could obtain a feather from the chicken.
I agreed for no particular reason. However I soon regretted it. I found the tree and the chicken. The tree stood taller than a mountain and the chicken was larger than a ship. If Keagan flew up there the chicken would notice so I had no choice but to manually climb all the way up. I plucked a feather the size of a car off the chicken’s butt, it jumped and turned around and tried to peck me, but I already jumped off. The chicken actually followed me, a terrifying sight to be sure. A chicken whose nostril holt was bigger than I faller after me in rage while clucking loudly. I dived down like a skydiver through the clouds faster than the chicken. When we passed through the lower clouds the chicken fell back. I used Isa to slow myself down to the point where Keagan could catch me.
Loki took the feather and after some time, returned with a sword in his scabbard. He thanked me and gave me a pair of shoes before leaving. At first I was mad at him for just giving me shoes, but after identifying them, I realized they were Loki’s shoes. In case you didn’t know, Loki’s shoes grant the power to fly freely in the sky.
I could fly about as fast as Keagan could sky run, at first I immensely enjoyed it, but later I wanted more. I trained up my rune skills and the spell, Spirit Bind and went to hunt a spirit king. After several failed attempts and many levels gained through training, I successfully captured a Wind spirit king and bound her will to own. With her, I would be able to control the flow of air in the sky and fly faster than the fastest bird.
However, binding a spirit is unnaturally and cruel. And because I bound a spirit king, my infamy increased greatly. It was then that I received the message that all the kingdoms that had bounties on my found out they weren’t the only ones who hated me, and that was when they combined their bounties into one, lump sum.
Of course that wasn’t the biggest problem. The kingdom offering almost half of the bounty was one I had done much sabotage in during the war of the kings. They knew of my abilities and wished to capture me for the sole purpose of using my skills for themselves. If captured, I would be forced to craft for all hours I was logged in, and I had no intention of being tied down.
The morning sun peaked over the horizon and the army around me. In unison they advanced. When they were within a half mile, they passed within an enormous magic sphere. It didn’t affect them of course, it wasn’t that kind of spell. I spent hours erecting it to strike at anyone who used magic other than me. Should a mage try to cast a spell, the sphere will sense it and strike that person with a mana bolt using the very mana they were going to use for their spell, harming them and cancelling out the spell at the same time. Of course this also affected healing spells, no priest could be used in this dome.
Of course the army knew that. This was the third time they had entered my spell striking dome and had learned much from their past encounters.
Rows of explosions came from every direction. The marching men activated my land mines, but they knew these were there as well, and knew they had the number to be able to afford the losses. Standing at the edge of the army was thousands of archers. Should I decide to take flight on my own or with Keagan I would be riddled with arrows. Even with the help of the spirit king, 3,000 arrows coming at you from all sides cannot be defended against. Even if I could escape, I would have to repeat all of this again sooner or later.
But this would be the last time. The spell striking dome was a diversion to the true magic circle carved in the grounds, It was something I had never done before. I attempted it once, but was told that the consequences would be dire. However, now even those dire consequences seemed better than the current predicament.
The army saw Keagan and I in the center and rushed. Keagan looked angry and ready for battle, but he knew not to move. I placed my hand on the ground and set the true magic circle to activate.
Warning!!!
The use of this spell has been restricted until update 2.0
By using it, you will receive the following penalties until you meet the correcting
-You will no longer receive a bonus for being the first to discover something unless you are in the party of a user not under the same conditions.
-You will no longer be able to record what you see while playing Royal Road
Do you wish to proceed?
Yes|No
“Yes.” I said calmly.
Random transfer initiated. Please clear the area of anything within the activation circle
I smiled. This spell’s effect was so powerful, the shockwave affected anything in the area of the activation circle. An area that extended from a few feet outside of where Keagan and myself were and about a mile out.
The valley lit up like an explosion had taken place, the people who stood over the now glowing activation pattern sounded the retreat, but it was too late. They ran fast but a few moments later, the spell activated. They felt themselves being beaten from every direction like space itself was pounding them. Most died save a few of the strongest veterans. When the light vanished, half the army was dead, and Crane and Keagan were gone.
A captain of one of the guilds said, “He got away this time, but he can’t run forever.” He opened up his bounty list to ascertain Crane’s location as he had always done.
-Target not found
“What?”
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The creator of Royal Road, Kim Han Seo, heard a small beep at the station behind him. “Yes, what is it?” He was talking to the A.I, the one who managed Royal Road.
-A user has left the continent.
“What? How?” The continent of Versailles was not the only continent in Royal Road, but for now it was the only one Users could explore. When someone became emperor and beat the game, there would be an expansion, Royal Road 2.0, that would make it easier to leave the continent and even give new players the opportunity to start in the cities of the new continents. Bur for now there should be no way to leave.
-Used rune spell, Random Transfer.
Kim Han Seo grumbled to himself. He knew which user she spoke of now. It was that kid, the user of the Rune master class.
“How, he shouldn’t have had access to the runes that would allow teleportation off the continent.
-Loki completed his rune list.
Another grumble. Loki was just a bit different from all the other NPCs in Royal Road. Because he was supposed to be a god of chaos, he added a bit of unpredictability to Loki’s programming. But this, to provide that kid with every rune, something that should have taken months, years for him to have done on his own was just too far outside his predictions
But then again, that kid had already broken the system.
After the war of the kings, Kim Han Seo’s attention was fixed on Crane. He did things that shouldn’t have been done.
First, he joined the kallamore army, a chance opportunity that had a 12.7% chance of occurring. Then, at the same time a witch doctor NPC had been created to allow for the secret witch doctor class to be used, the kid requested to access the restricted section of a library, something that should not have been allowed no matter what, but in an event that had a 3.63% chance of happening, the creation of the witch doctor NPC coincided with the creation of the quest to access the restricted section.
After succeeding, the kid got the Rune master class, something that by a 0.24% chance the witch doctor could direct him to. He then spent two months recording everything down there. And what did he do with it? He gave the info he found to a dark guild. Later he got something that shouldn’t have existed in the first place, a quest to rescue the price of Donriel kingdom from the impenetrable prison.
Jinir was a program Kim Han Seo worked on personally. He was supposed to become the shadow king later in the game and become one of the man antagonists, equal to if not greater than Bar Khan! But not only did the kid rescue Jinir, he put him on the throne! Thousands of terabytes of data had to be rewritten to erase the future that no longer was and rewrite the new possibilities. The kid used what he knew and his unique skills to allow Jinir’s underpowered army to defeat seven kingdoms in a few months. After which he obtained the prediction calculation skill which showed him the consequences of his action, after which he killed the shadow king at less than a twentieth the power he would have had if all had gone how it should.
Then he runs into Loki, who gives him all the runes and sets him loose on the world. What could be more chaotic?
Kim Han Seo sat down and looked over the data. The chance of someone leaving the continent through such means were close to impossible, but should it happen, precautions were taken. To prevent anyone from leaking sneak peeks, the kid wouldn’t be able to record videos to share with the world. So he wouldn’t be able to take advantage of the fact that every town and dungeon he explored would have him be the first explorer, that bonus was turned off until the correcting conditions were met, that is, to return to the exact spot he first teleported from.
Kim Han Seo sighed. It was unexpected but it wouldn’t make too much of a difference. Maybe he could use this kid as a lab rat and test some of his newer ideas on him. He smiled at the thought.
“So, where did the kid end up?” Random transfer could transfer him anywhere, absolutely anywhere.
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