Carnival - A LitRPG Apocalypse

The sound of snoring disturbed Armand from an uneasy sleep. His dreams weren’t as bad as they had been immediately after his fathers death. He knew it wasn’t long ago but at first his dreams had been filled with nothing but blazing light and melting flesh. Watching his fathers face melt away like a candle left next to a fire had left him with heavy bags under his eyes and a foul mood for days.

He had been beginning to move on. His dreams were now more bittersweet than horrific. Hazy memories, softly spoken words of support and love, things he wasn’t sure had ever happened but if he had a choice: these dreams were how he would want to remember his father. They hurt more when he woke up than the grotesquery's that had haunted his sleep before.

The noise of a bandsaw trying to cut through knotted wood had dragged him from a pleasant memory-dream. He’d been seven when he had first been introduced to his tutor. Marie had been kind. Her comforting, no nonsense approach to him had been a refreshing change. She was the first person since his mother had died, other than his father, who had approached him with anything other than a patronising note in their voice.

He kept his eyes closed and took in information from his senses as he’d been trained. He didn’t so much as twitch as he came back to consciousness. The politics of the Court weren’t above assassination so he’d been trained to sleep lightly and emerge from sleep carefully. He immediately understood the hacksaw noise was echoing down the tunnel leading to their refuge and that his other friends were still asleep. Their quiet snuffling and light breathing confirmed there was no immediate threat.

Armand slowly moved his sleeping bag aside and rolled silently to his feet. Moving stealthily was something else that had been drilled into him since he was a child. Most of the Court were casters and couldn’t afford to enter physical combat against anyone near their level. Sneakiness was encouraged from a young age.

He ignored his boots and padded quietly down the tunnel in his socks and undergarments, leaving his armour behind. As he emerged he was blinded by the moon. The light from the gibbous orb took a moment to adapt to. As he blinked his vision clear he took in the peaceful valley stretched out below and turned to the source of the noise.

Bad had settled himself above the entrance to their cave and had clearly laid back at some point, eventually drifting off to sleep. He was fully armoured, stretched out like a starfish on the soft, dew covered grass and snoring like a freight train. Armand shook his head and located a stick. He wasn’t about to wake a bruiser without being a reasonably safe distance away.

He summoned an illusory kitten and gave it the stick to hold in its mouth. He backed away as he commanded the summon to gently poke Bad in the head with the stick.

“Jesus Christ!” A hand came down and smashed the kitten into particles of light. Bad leapt to his feet and glanced around frantically.

“Your snoring disturbed me. Who guards the guardsman, non?” said Armand quietly.

“Shit. Sorry mate,” Bad sat back down and put his head in his hands. “Fuck. When Dad finds out I fell asleep on watch I’m going to be in so much trouble!”

“I will not mention it, mon amis. Perhaps we should have two people on watch in future? Then the watchmen can watch each other!” Armand said with a faint chuckle as he sat down next to Bad and looked up at the moon. “From what you say both of us have been subject to training the others have not.”

“Yeah. Maybe not Ryn, her Dad is kind of mental, but Sally and Kev got lucky. No idea what Bolf went through being raised by Zeeg though so maybe he’s in the same boat as us?”

“I was hunting monsters within six months of my birth. Despite the life extension the system provides we canines live much shorter lives than you humans and we mature much faster. No point wasting time,” said Bolf, making both the boys jump.

“Where did you come from?” asked Bad.

“I have been patrolling the area while you slept, watchman,” said Bolf and Bad looked at his feet guiltily. “Fear not. Humans, especially juveniles, are well understood by my kind. If we wag our tails and loll our tongues you are putty in our paws. Your weaknesses are also well known and Mother briefed me thoroughly before we met.”

“Anything out there?” asked Armand. He was well used to ignoring being patronised by humans so when the one doing it was furry and had a wagging tail… it was somehow even easier. Maybe the dog was on to something about human weaknesses?

“There is a foul smell coming this way. It comes from all directions and is creeping closer. I suspect we will have to fight soon and it will be more than we can handle,” replied Bolf with a doggy shrug. Both boys leapt to their feet and scanned around.

“Armand, go wake the rest. Can you hide us?” asked Bad, pointing to himself and Bolf.

“Oui.” Armand cast an illusion to conceal the others and they vanished from sight. “Bolf, how are you so casual about this? Is it a test your mother has put you up to?”

“No. She is nearby, somewhere, and will intercede if we need her but I suspect this is something to do with the Doom Egg. The smell is different but… It’s hard to describe scent to beings as limited as most humans. It smells similar enough that I don’t think killing the Doom Egg was the end of the problems that thing could cause. I trust you have researched it on your implants?” Both boys shook their heads. “Typical. It was an unrecorded species. We don’t often see new breeds of monsters these days. Armand, go get your armour and weapons and wake the others please?”

Below them Kev crept quietly out of the cave entrance and scanned around.

“Oi!” he hissed. “Something’s coming! Where the hell- Armand! Go suit up! The others are getting ready!”

Armand leapt down and disappeared into the darkness, running a hand along the wall while his eyes adjusted. On the way Ryn and Sally both came running in the other direction, shrugging into their armour and adjusting the fit as they ran. Claire stumbled along behind them.

Armand arrived back at the cavern and quickly shrugged into his armour. As he was adjusting the straps he went round and gathered everyone’s camping gear into his storage space. He looked at the faintly illuminated tunnel leading into the space they had made their temporary home and began planning where he would summon barriers to help them defend if they had to fall back. As he pulled the last straps tight with a grunt and his armour settled into something approaching a comfortable fit he heard a surprised yell from outside and began running back down the tunnel.

He emerged to find the night sky was obscured around the periphery of his vision. Tendrils of midnight waved in the air like fingers grasping at the moon and blocking out the stars. Ryn was throwing blasts of fire into the base of the monsters while Sally and Bad slashed at where they emerged from the ground before ducking back.

Name: Void Parasite

Level: 5

“Why the hell are void monsters here already?” gasped Bolf as he ducked and dodged. He was turning intangible every time a whiplike protrusion would have hit him.

“They aren’t so tough, we can do this!” called Bad as he spun around the bases of the snakelike monsters, hacking at them with a glowing kukri. He dodged sideways in a move that seemed to surprise even him, judging from his startled yelp, as another column of darkness sprouted beneath where he’d been standing and barely missed him.

“Hey, You guys look like snakes made of shit!” yelled Sally. “Oh shit!” all the tendrils cut through the air in her direction and she abandoned attacking and focussed on dodging and dancing in a desperate attempt to survive the attention her taunt had brought her, the rifle she carried continued to put out withering blasts of energy into the nearest enemies though.

The focus of the beasts shifting to her bought the others a moment of respite that they exploited. Bad began flashing from place to place with his blade rising and falling. Bolf was bolting past the beasts, multiple blade tipped tails slicing into the monsters as he passed.

Armand felt useless as he stood next to Kev. Even Kev was more useful than he was. The lanky boy would glare at a tendril for a few seconds, a look of extreme concentration on his face, and then the thing would burst and melt into the ground. Armand summoned dogs, copies of Bolf, that began running around the monsters to distract them as he pulled his knife and prepared for it to come to close quarters.

“Pull back into the tunnel!” barked Kev. “We can’t hold them here!”

“You guys go! I’ll burn them as I fall back!” called Ryn. From each of her hands a column of fire burned, reaching out to melt the shadow-flesh of the parasites. Her friends followed her instruction and they ran back into the tunnel, stopping a few metres in to wait for her.

Ryn backed into the tunnel waving her hands in front of her. Wherever the flames went the monsters melted and died but there always seemed to be more to replace them. As Ryn reached her friends Armand threw up a barrier of summoned steel across the tunnel, temporarily blocking the monster's access.

“It won’t hold long!” he muttered. “Back to the cave! We can hold there more easily!”

“Where the fuck is Zeeg?” gasped Bad. he was clutching his left side and Claire ran next to him with an arm on his shoulder to heal him.

“Mother will be nearby! She’s probably attacking them from outside! We’ll only need to hold for a little while,” barked Bolf.

As they arrived at the cave they spread out. Armand created barricades that would force the snake-things through one or two at a time. Ryn was a human torch, filling the cavern with light.

Bad and Sally grinned grimly at each other and moved forward to stand to either side of the improvised defences. Bolf crouched down in front of Kev, Armand and Claire, intent on guarding the most fragile members of the team if anything got past the frontline. Ryn tossed her shotgun to Claire, the girl fumbled the catch but quickly had the gun in position, aimed at the much narrower tunnel.

For a few seconds the only sound was the panicked breathing of six teens and a dog. Then the rush of slithering flesh, a subtle sound, reached them and they all braced themselves for what was to come.

The blast of the shotgun and the faint whine of Sally's rifle opened the next round of the fight. Pellets and coruscating energy smashing the monstrous fingers aside and back. The damn things hadn’t made any noise beyond the sounds of their flesh on other surfaces since the battle began. No screeches of pain or howls as they died. It was like fighting something already dead.

Bad and Sally held position and twin columns of fire burned through the narrow gap Armand had left from Ryn’s palms. She held her pose, arms reaching forward, wreathed in flames and she poured her reserves into transforming the tunnel into a glowing incinerator.

“I’ve got to stop! I’m down to half reserves!” She called as she moved towards the glowing stone she had made and took position next to Bad and Sally with a spear in her hands.

“We need more casters on the team,” muttered Bad, earning a reproving look from Ryn. “You did great! Look, the bastards aren’t pushing while the stone is that hot, but we need more like you. It was a compliment for god’s sake!”

“I’m still counting the swearing. You’re going to owe a fair bit to the Jar, mate!” Ryn replied with a slightly manic grin.

“Fuck the Jar. If we live we can negotiate,” said Bad with a broad smile. “You guys ready? They'll be back in a second.”

As time ticked by and the glow from the tunnel began to fade, the stone gradually cooling with occasional clinking sounds and becoming solid once more, their breath filled the silence as they braced for another wave of black snakes to crawl through to kill them.

“Where are they? Did we win?” asked Sally in a hushed voice after a tense minute.

“I cannot reach anyone on my implant! I’ve been calling for aid!” snarled Armand. “Is this an assassination attempt?”

“You cannot reach out because as long as I’m alive you do not need aid. You’ve done well children but I am disappointed on a number of fronts.” The kids glanced back to find Zeeg standing behind them, crouched down in what, for her, was a room with a very low ceiling. Three Scout-Bob’s were standing next to her with bulbous rifles held in front of them. “Bob?”

The drones nodded as one and moved forward. The partially molten stone didn’t bother them as they advanced into the tunnel. Blasts of light threw long shadows behind them as they began to clear their way out with their flamers.

The kids and dogs followed carefully. Stepping quickly over the patches of stone that were glowing the brightest. As they emerged into the cool air of the night once more they paused, taken back by the sight before them. Columns of fire cut across the sky to smash into the nest of pseudopods that had taken over the once peaceful seeming valley. Blades flashed and esoteric firearms discharged slugs and burning energy into the monsters as the drones slammed into the ground and deactivated their jump packs.

An Egg, one of Bob’s drones, disgorged fighters who fell a hundred feet to blast dust into the air as they landed and rushed towards the seaweed-like tendrils rising from the soil. The human fighters began unleashing their powers and from the shockwaves and speed of the melee combatants it was clear they were much higher level than Ryn and her friends.

Zeeg shook herself as she emerged from the confines of the cave and glanced up.

“Father. A portal to evacuate the pups might be in order?”

John glanced down and a blue portal opened next to Ryn and her friends.

“Thanks puppy.” Zeeg’s tail wagged briefly at the word puppy. “Get them home. I’ll see you later Ryn but right now I’ve got rocks to drop. The void being here already… It's bad news.”

Team Report:

43 Void Parasites Killed (Level 5): Essence per kill 1.5

Total Essence gained per team member: 64.5

As Ryn hurried through the portal back to safety she began working out how many levels she’d be able to go up.