In the Shadow of Mountains - a litRPG adventure

As soon as the thought occurred to me, I swerved to the right, keeping the pillars between myself and the pursuing skeletons as well as I could. Each brief moment where the space between me and them was empty and open was another opportunity for them to hit me. I had been gambling my speed and unpredictable movement against their aim and foresight so far, but as time went on, I was liking my odds less and less.

In the dozen heartbeats between making my decision and bursting out past the last of the wailing spires and onto the edge of the plateau overlooking the Chasm, three more projectiles had dented stone behind my head. I still managed the time to wonder idly if I was going to receive a ducking skill from the system, but no such luck.

I pushed my head down and sprinted to cover the hundred or so meters from the edge of the stone forest to the Chasm, and I felt the wind whistling past my head, the constant drone of the wailing wind momentarily overshadowed by my own movement.

I skidded to a stop and dropped my shield to focus solely on the spear in my hand. I hefted it over one shoulder, front leg pulled up ready. As soon as the first sling-wielder shambled past the cover of the stone spires, I threw the spear, stamping my front foot down and hurling with my entire body behind the throw.

It cut smoothly through the air, but I spent no time to watch its trajectory. I fell and rolled with the momentum of my throw, coming up from my roll to grasp the shield in front of me. My arms shook with the impact of two projectiles hitting its centre, and the bronze dome rang with a mournful note.

I scampered back, trying to keep the shield between myself and the approaching skeletons, and only when a quick glance back showed the plateau coming to an abrupt end behind me, did I lower the shield. I shoved my left arm through the straps and left most of my forearm exposed above the rim – I needed the range of motion in both wrists if I was to climb down the mess of jagged edges and small cave entrances that riddled the Chasm’s sides.

My eyes widened as I caught sight of one of the skeletons releasing its sling towards me. I activated Check-Step and time slowed for a fraction of a heartbeat – enough for me to trace the contours of the small pebble hurtling directly towards my exposed head.

I had planned to grip the edge and descend only towards the first cave entrance I found. That was obviously still a risk, but Nathlan had confirmed earlier that tunnels riddled the Chasm walls, and I could reasonably expect to find at least a single entrance within a few dozen meters.

That would require a chance to view the wall immediately below me, and climb relatively carefully down towards it, and that would take long moments I no longer possessed.

As I saw my death come flying towards my head, I only had time for two thoughts. The first was an idle one purely in the realm of my conscious mind – I should ask Jorge for a helmet once he returned, plumed ideally but I would accept anything right now as long as it was metal and fitted. The second thought was a product of my older, deeper mind and could hardly be classified as such – the one buried deep in normal conversation that nevertheless came screaming to the fore in dangerous situations. It was a command from my brain to my body, and as the command screamed through my nervous system, my body moved to obey.

The brief moment granted by Check-Step wasn’t wasted, as I rolled neatly off the edge of the Chasm before the stone projectile could make mincemeat of my brain. Another brief moment of triumph flitted through my mind before panic took over. I had time to flail in the air, attempting to get my legs underneath me, before I hit a ledge. My legs buckled under the impact and my shoulder slammed into the wall.

If that was all I’d consider it a blessing and take my bruises with gratitude, but fate had other plans for me it seemed. The momentum of my fall wasn’t stopped so easily, and I rebounded from the wall out into the empty space, falling again. I managed to reach an arm out to snag at the ledge as I fell past but all I achieved was a nasty gash on my forearm and bloody fingers. Another few meters whizzed past in a blur before I slammed down onto a plateau large enough to take my whole body.

Skill ‘Check-Step’ has increased in level. Check-Step – level 5

I lay there for a few moments, dazed. In the back of my mind, alarm bells were ringing – there was something approaching, some reason for me to run, something urgent I had been doing – but I couldn’t understand the situation. My mind was working like sludge, my thoughts moving at a glacial pace while my heart hammered away so fast it felt close to bursting.

Another dozen heartbeats passed by in the blink of an eye, and I was slowly returning to myself. A crack sounded next to me, and I flinched as stone chips sprayed into my face. I groaned and rolled to the side and wobbled as my arm and leg disappeared into open air. I flailed again, managing to roll back the other way and hug the rock wall. The near-fall sharpened something within me, and all at once my awareness returned. I looked up, saw one of the skeletons I’d been fleeing above me, and dove towards the small hole in the rock wall.

Without pausing to consider, I fled within the tunnel that had opened up, glancing back only briefly to see the other side of the Chasm – It was a vast distance between both walls, but my enhanced perception could still make out the honeycomb structure of the far wall with tunnels and caves dotting its surface like a pockmarked face. I could only hope I was in the former rather than the latter, as I needed an exit.

*Nathlan*

Nathlan heaved for breath. His arms hung leaden at his sides, sweat slicking his brow and back, but his gaze was firm and his smile bright. Splitting up had been a great idea.

He was initially worried when Lamb had sprinted off without a moment’s hesitation, but was quickly relieved to watch most of the pursuing skeletal horde follow him and give Nathlan himself some breathing room. The worry was starting to ramp up again now that it had been a while and the man hadn’t returned, but he couldn’t be too worried given the amazing results he’d seen.

He stood surrounded by bones, his sword chipped and his breathing ragged, but not a single wound marred his body. He was close though; he could feel it. A few more battles, a handful more corpses, and he would be there.

Resetting a class was a painful and mind-numbing process. He needed to rid his soul of the links that had formed with his current class and skills. He then had to gather enough experience to hit level 15 all over again, but without any of the advantages he was so used to enjoying from his current class and attributes.

Being reborn as basically a baby – a base human with no spirituality or system-bestowed power to speak of – facing down creatures 20 or so levels above him, was not an easy feat. It was made easier though by his ability to still use wards to some degree. With his class skills gone, he should have had no ability to manipulate the mana in the air, but his vast and uncanny comprehension of ward-craft and intense study of system-less magic – real wizardry – had allowed him to cling on to enough magic to see him through. Not enough to make the experience something he would recommend to others, but enough to make the undertaking theoretically possible.

That was enough for Nathlan though. His first year with Jorge had focused on building skill and intent with his blade, visualising and trialling the type of warrior he would want to be, the truth of his future class. The second year, of which he was almost through with now, was focused entirely around weakening the bonds of his current class and getting his soul ready for the reset.

He was supposed to wait for an ideal time, but opportunity didn’t wait for your readiness after all. He had decided when only a single skeleton remained from the original group to go ahead. A controlled effort of will broke his soul, cracking the spiritual bonds between his class skills and his core. Strength and vitality instantly left his limbs, and his thoughts moved as if through mud. He still managed to kill that last corpse though.

The next few bells had been difficult. Hellish truthfully, but Nathlan wasn’t one to complain when he was making progress. He was now on the verge of level 15, and his dream of a new class was at his fingertips.

He needed it, craved it. The power to reshape his world, to stand unbowed before his family’s petty tyranny. He’d wanted vengeance for the longest time, but the last two years had taught him more of the world. He now wanted only justice.

Justice couldn’t be achieved without power though. He wouldn’t walk through the gates of his city and lay waste to his family’s ancient estate – he no longer dreamt of wielding the power directly. But he needed it all the same, to ensure that peace was seen as a credible option. Power was never transferred from the powerful to the powerless – it always ran up hill.

It had been a long struggle to get to this point, but that didn’t matter. His parents were the ones who so often said that the winnings meant more after a struggle. No, what was important was that he was on the cusp of his first class once more, and this time he would choose for himself how his future would be shaped.

Onwards then, to further battles and the rest of his life.

I moved through twisting passages, taking any intersections that felt like they would lead me upwards. After a while I began to second-guess my approach and tried to retrace my steps, but it was useless – I was already hopelessly lost and had no good sense of direction down in the tunnels without light to guide me.

I could feel the panic beginning to set in, so I tried to breathe deeply and activated Heart of the Hills. The skill steadied my thoughts, allowed me to think clearly and forced some much-needed separation between me and the world. The sense of distance, of dissociation, helped me plan, but I knew the panic would come roaring back in as soon as the influence of the skill vanished. I needed light – the darkness was too oppressive and drowned out any rational thought.

I leaned against the wall and slumped down to a sitting position. Taking a deep breath, I sought the meditative state of introspection I had managed weeks ago, and dove into the world of my soul. I visualised my core, and after what felt like entire bells of focused effort, I managed to stabilise the visualisation until it became real.

I watched a stream of mana leave my core, winding its way up to the constellation that represented Heart of the Hills. The swirling globe of stars danced in its dizzying pattern, lit from within by the blue-white fire of my mana. I could see my core slowly draining, and knew I only had a 10th of a bell left at this rate, at the most.

I focused on slowing the spin of the stars, and at first I made no progress. It was like trying to grasp a wheel covered in grease, and I felt the fingers of my intent slip off the edges of the skill. But why was I trying to grasp this like something physical? This was my soul.

I focused on slowing the constellation again, but this time purely with my will, not through some visualisation of hands grasping the skill but through direct effort. I simply wanted the skill to slow its constant motion, and I felt my breath hitch slightly as the spinning reduced in speed.

The stream of mana leaving my core slowed in turn, becoming a small babbling brook, and the light from the whirling stars diminished ever so slightly. It took constant effort to hold this reduced rate of spin, and I lost control several times. Each time the skill reverted to its base rate, and I felt my mind steady with the reassuring emptiness granted by Heart of the Hills.

The steady reassurance would in turn allow me to try again, and uncounted heartbeats passed as I manipulated the skill inside my soul, numb to the outside world and focused entirely inwards. I stayed in that inner world for what felt like an eternity, learning the intricacies of manipulating my mana and skill, until I could slow and speed up the skill with only a flex of effort and a moment to prepare.

Increasing the spin of the constellation took far more effort, and my mana drained at an alarming rate – not a linear relationship between speed and spin, but more exponential, although I was not enough of a mathematician to know if the relationship truly fit that pattern. Either way, it was a case of diminishing returns, where the mana required to increase the power of the skill was not worth the relatively small increase in power, to say nothing of the intense focus it required either.

What I did manage to confirm was that by decreasing the speed of the rotating constellation of stars that represented the skill inside my soul, I could reduce the mana cost of the skill to a point that I could keep it active for nearly half a bell at a time. I would need to stop and let my core refill from the ambient mana every now and then, but the increased mana density in the Chasm seemed to aid in my mana recovery significantly, so it wouldn’t be a long delay.

The effectiveness of Heart of the Hills would be lessened its in weaker state, but it was a worthy trade-off. I didn’t need serenity and absolute calm, just enough control over my mental state to prevent myself becoming overwhelmed by the darkness and possibility of becoming lost in the labyrinthine structure of the tunnels.

My shield stayed firmly in front of me as I traversed tunnels of complete darkness, no longer flinching at every unexpected scuffle of my boots on rock, but still hunched behind it’s protective embrace nonetheless. At every junction I chose the tunnel with either the fresher-smelling air, or the one that angled upwards slightly. They were often one and the same, and I hadn’t yet had to make a choice between one or the other.

I kept a sharp rock clutched in my right hand and prayed that it counted as enough of a weapon for my Guerrilla Warfare skill to help with its wielding, in case my other prayers of finding nothing hostile down here were ignored. On I trudged, as time became a meaningless concept that I measured in periods of rest between my constant activation of Heart of the Hills.

*Nathlan*

The howling wind whistled past below him, dancing in eddies and currents around the stone pillar he sat upon. An upturned ribcage sat a few feet to his right and a skull rested casually against his boot, but Nathlan paid the grisly trophies no mind. The animating light was gone from the bodies that littered his pillar, and their weapons had fallen to the ground around him, unable to stand up to the intensity of his purpose. His head was hung low, dark hair spilling past his face in an untidy tail, with the occasional strand slipping out to quest forth on its own.

No longer did his breathing match his sweat stained appearance, for he sat calmly with an even rise and fall to his chest. His eyes remained closed, shut tight against the sun as if to block out the world and allow the focus to wander inwards.

The system had dinged its acknowledgement of his progress only moments before, and he sunk deep into the meditative trance following his level-up. Normally, it would be the height of foolishness to try and advance a class in hostile territory without a safe place to consider, but Nathlan knew his heart – what he wanted, what he had achieved.

He knew the course his life was to follow, with a fire and intensity that still surprised him sometimes when he thought back on his carefree ways before leaving the Serpent Isles. Before Marcus, before the truth.

His eyes snapped open, and the newly advanced Warden of Truth viewed the world again in a new light.

I crouched there in the dark, rocking back and forwards with indecision for a few moments. I could hear the creature in the room just around the corner. It shambled back and forth, hissing and rambling incoherently.

When I had first heard it moments before I had almost believed it to be speaking in an unfamiliar language, but by now I knew it was simply the ravings of a mad creature. There was apparently no language from an intelligent being that I couldn’t comprehend at this point, according to Jorge and Nathlan at least. My experiences seemed to confirm it so far, and I’d even got hints and flashes of insight from the communication of the wolves and bear I’d encountered in the Endless Valley, so this God-Touched title apparently did do something useful.

But even without that clue from the system, the random shuffling pattern and frequently repeating hisses and snarls were enough to confirm to me that whatever I was hearing was long past communication.

The click of bone against rock was familiar to me by this point, and I knew that what lay beyond the tunnel entrance was another skeleton. Its gait was strange though, the click-clack of its footsteps seeming to be faster than I would expect considering how long it took to cross in and out of my hearing. There was also an unusual clank of rock against another material that I couldn’t quite place, and combined with the heavy footfalls, I was trapped in indecision.

I felt the fresh air through the tunnel in front of me, and I knew that route would take me closer to my goal of escaping the labyrinth of tunnels riddling the side of the Chasm. But a known fear was sometimes hard to leave in the face of an unknown enemy.

Ultimately the darkness made up my mind. Thoughts of scarab beetles swarming up towards me from below pushed me forwards, and I hurriedly shook the terrifying thoughts from my mind before I could question where they had come from. The dim light ahead drew me forwards, and I gripped my shield and my trusty rock in hand before stepping through the tunnel and round the corner.

The tunnel opened out into a carved stone room, roughly circular and with thin stalagmites rising from the floor to ceiling, forming pillars of rippling, smooth stone throughout the room. The last rays of the fading sun trickled down through the chasm and wended their way into the room, bathing it in a grey dusky light. I saw spiralling carvings on the rounded walls, matching those curling scripts that crept forwards across the ceiling and the floor to a central pillar absolutely covered in flowing drawings. I could make out no detail from them though, for my gaze was drawn to the creature across the room.

It was no longer moving, and resembled the animated skeletons I had seen thus far, but the glacial blue light behind its eyes also pulsed at every joint and shone from cracks in the dented and rusted armour it wore. It stood well over two meters tall, towering in the low-ceilinged cavern and seeming to absorb the light around it, drawing my gaze inexorably towards it.

I felt myself falling across the room, gravity losing its hold on me altogether. But that wasn’t quite right, it was more like gravity was warped, and the skeleton before me became the focal point of that most basic of forces. The stalagmites began to warp and twist towards it as it locked its unnatural gaze on my own, and I felt the feeble light in the room being sucked away from me.

I blasted Heart of the Hills in reaction to the confusion, and as soon as the skill activated, I realised my legs hadn’t moved. The room was still spinning and writhing in bizarre patterns but while I felt as if I was falling towards the figure, I could clearly see my feet staying rooted to the ground. It took me a few moments – moments where the skeletal figure strode towards me and seemed to further tower over the surroundings – to recognise what was happening based on Jorge’s lessons and Nathlan’s description of my own aura. As soon as I realised, I retaliated.

My posture straightened as I glared back at the creature, and as soon as Indomitable Prey activated, I saw the room settle itself back to normality. As normal as an underground cavern covered in dense waving carvings could be anyway.

The massive creature rocked backwards in response to my aura skill, and then released a shriek like a teakettle before lunging forwards. It skittered forwards on three thin legs, far more mobile than I had originally predicted. It explained the strange gait I’d heard but seeing it in action was far more unpleasant than simply hearing it could ever be.

I dashed to my right, keeping one of the thin pillars between us so that it couldn’t lash out with its massive arms. It bore no weapons that I could see, but its arms were as thick as the pillars themselves, covered in rusting plated armour, and l had no doubt that a blow from one of them would hit me like a charging rhino.

We spent a few moments dancing around between the pillars, trying to outmanoeuvre each other, although I wasn’t too sure how much damage I could realistically do with my sharp rock. Nevertheless, when I spotted an opening, I dived in anyway and slammed the rock into a joint on one of its legs. For a brief moment I felt the leg buckle under my blow, and I stepped in towards the monstrosity, shoulder checking it and intending to drive it to the floor.

Reality was bitterly disappointing though, and I bounced off the creature’s side as it spun aside. The creature pivoted rather than stumbling back, using the momentum from my blow to whip around and slam a heavy backhand towards my head. I activated Check-Step as soon as I felt my shoulder rebound and that instinct was all that saved my life. The world slowed around me briefly and I managed to turn my stumble into a fall, letting the arm whistle past above my head.

I landed on my back and rolled to my feet to see the creature already advancing towards me, my rock discarded on the floor behind it. The leg I had hit seemed none the worse for wear, and I had to desperately dive to the side behind another pillar to prevent my chest begin caved in by another heavy blow from one of its massive arms.

Heart of the Hills was activated again to keep the panic from consuming me, but it was a close thing, and I could feel my mana already at less than half capacity. I swayed away from a few more strikes, interposing pillars between us whenever I could, and making liberal use of Check-Step to avoid injury when I couldn’t. It took no more than a hundred breaths for me to realise how outmatched I was in this fight, and so I acted as all great men do when confronted with something beyond them.

I ran.

I avoided a blow that left the creature slightly overextended, and sprinted out through the room, opposite to where I had entered. Following the dull light, I careened around another corner and up a steep sloping tunnel. The light grew progressively brighter as I climbed, and heartbeats later I emerged out into the mouth of a cave. The hammering of my heart was only just drowned out by the pounding of skeletal feet on rock as the behemoth surged up the sloping tunnel behind me like a wave of chittering bone.

I shoved my shield further up my forearm once again and leapt at the rock wall above me as a starving man leaps at a buffet. I gorged myself on the freedom of open air and daylight long denied me, and jammed my fingers into thin cracks with wild abandon. Heaving with my entire body, I surged up the wall in a frenzy, making dangerous leaps out of sheer desperation to put more space between my fragile, squishy body and the skeleton’s robust, heavy fists.

My mana was running dangerously low, but I couldn’t risk losing what little sanity I had from abandoning me – I needed to keep Heart of the Hills active. It was a risk, but I cut the mana flow to Indomitable Prey to slow the rapid drain and prayed the bizarre gravity domain wouldn’t have the same affect outside of the script-covered cavern.

My prayers were answered as I continued to climb without issue, and I chanced a quick glance below me. It was just in time to watch the skeleton wind back an enormous fist before driving it into the rockface barely a meter below my trailing leg.

Another few breaths of reckless climbing before I looked again, and the skeleton was now glued to the wall, both hands drilled into the cliff-face by its sheer power. I could mark its progress by the heavy thuds I both heard and felt through the rock as I ascended, and while I was widening my lead, I knew I couldn’t keep this frantic pace up for long before I faced consequences. A misplaced foot here, a broken hand hold there – something would get me soon enough if I continued in this manner, and even if luck itself was on my side and I reached the top of the chasm, I would still only have a moment or two to escape before the abomination below caught up to me.

I slowed my pace, taking more care with my hand and foot placements, testing holds wherever I was unsure of the rock. I made it another dozen meters up the chasm wall before my caution paid off. As I gave the slab above me a tentative pull before putting my full weight on it, I felt a slight give. On instinct I shied back, searching out another route upwards that didn’t rely on the jutting slab before glancing back down at the skeleton doggedly following me up the rock.

It was below me and only a meter or so off to one side, drilling its way methodically up the wall one pulverising punch at a time. An idea bloomed in my mind, and I cursed myself for not thinking of it earlier.