Wizard's Tower: A LitRPG Adventure Read online

  WIZARD”S TOWER

  ©2022 GREGORY ALLANTHER

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  CONTENTS

  ALSO IN SERIES

  Maps

  Maps (cont’d)

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Interlude 1: Adam Answers for His Crimes

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Interlude 2: Meathead Plays a Game

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Interlude 3: Lilly's Day at the Tower

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Thank you for reading Wizard’s Tower

  Groups

  LitRPG

  ALSO IN SERIES

  Wizard’s Tower 1

  Wizard’s Tower 2

  MAPS

  PROLOGUE

  "Ram!" I cried out, a warning I knew already to be too late.

  The world seemed to still as the bladed tail of the metal drake sheared through the dwarf. The top half of his body squelched and fell, leaving behind entrails and pools of blood. Round little pieces of the finely crafted ringmail chimed as they hit the ground and rolled away. The shock paused me just a moment before the anger took hold. With a desperate cry, I unleashed one of my most powerful spells.

  "[High Tempest!]" I cried. My voice broke, and the illusion I wore of a hunched old man flickered.

  Wind whipped through the grand hall and burst around the enormous gray columns that lined the platform in the middle of the room. Giant, heavy chains attached between the columns like a spider’s web rattled and shook. The tar pits on either side began to swell with waves in a splatter. In the ceiling above, clouds formed. They blocked the mural of an ancient city. Lightning flashed.

  Nika, the [Paladin], shouted something, but her words were lost in the wind. From the corner of my eye, I saw her armored figure kneel down behind her shield. Erik, our rogue, dove behind her.

  But my attention was not on them. No, it was on the 4th Tier [Metal Drake] that clung fiercely to one of the huge iron chains and roared back at me. With a tilt of my staff, I pointed toward the monster and focused it as the target of my spellcraft. In that instant, lightning struck. One bolt, followed by the second. Three, four, and five struck all at once. The arcs of lightning pummeled the drake and then jumped back and forth along the chain it had latched on to. Its roar shifted from one of challenge and anger to a shriek of pain, but I didn’t care. My anger was absolute.

  Ram was my oldest friend. As a half-elf, that meant a lot. Together, we drank, we laughed, we adventured, we lived. We lived while the humans around us became frail with age. This dungeon, one we’d finished before, was to be the last for a while. He’d had two classes, [Berserker] and [Armorsmith]. His son, Little Ram, had recently started to walk and talk, and he needed to be there. A few more gold for the coffers and a few more levels for the vitality, we’d agreed before we set out.

  I snarled. What good were gold and levels to the dead? Damn this adventure. Damn this dungeon. Damn this drake!

  With a cry, I unleashed it all. The [Tempest] spell should have lasted an afternoon’s worth of time unleashing bolts of lightning and cyclones of wind every few minutes, but I forced mana through its framework. For the price of half its power, I made it strike all at once. Chains swung and snapped, no longer able to hold against the forces of wind. Metal links and bolts flew through the air. Tar, hot and sticky, climbed funnels of wind that lashed out in a spray of sizzling drops. Cracks formed in the columns and the room itself shook. The drake fell to the ground, its burnt wings spread in a parody of flight until it landed on its side. The clanging thump could just barely be heard over the wailing wind.

  I watched as it raised its head and stared at me. The shiny metal of its scales reflected the storm above like a mirror. I took one hand from my staff and reached forward as if to grasp the monster. Its own claws stretched and dug into the stone platform as though it intended to crawl its way to me. I squeezed that outstretched hand into a fist and watched as the final force of my tempest spell landed on the beast.

  I ignored the messages I received that told me of its defeat. I ignored the crackling sounds of pillars as they broke. I ignored the noxious plumes from burning tar. I ignored the smoking and steaming remains of the foe. My eyes were fixed on the body of my friend. Inside, I felt only numbness and shock.

  1

  In silence, we had made our way to the exit of the Chillrest Dungeon. After the battle, I’d ignored the other two as they collected the treasure and harvested the drake in favor of spellcrafting a levitating stone coffin for Ram’s remains. It wasn’t the first time I’d used [Earth Manipulation] for this purpose, but I never found it easy to do with someone I knew. Immediately before the entrance of the dungeon stood a fortified barracks and tollhouse supporting a dozen guards tasked with controlling escaped monsters. To my left were the three high towers of the King's Seat, the greatest castle in the Kingdom, peeking up into the horizon from where it sat in the very center of the city. Beyond that was an open-air market, with tables and crowds focused on trading items bought or sold by adventurers. There were maybe twenty or thirty
people besides the normal merchants and marketgoers gathered around the exit, all ready to cheer for our success.

  This mob of lackeys, originally hoping that cheering on victorious delvers would earn them a spot of victorious charity, quickly saw the mood of our party. Cheers and well-wishes became the murmurs of quiet conversation, but only for a moment. It didn’t take them long to return to normal volume. Sycophants. It just showed how they were more attached to riding along an adventurer’s potential success than they were to the adventurer themselves. The scum.

  Behind me, I heard Nina say to Erik, "Did you see that? He hasn’t shed a single tear! How cold-hearted can one be?"

  Nina's question was rhetorical, of course. Tall and pretty, her muscular build suited the plate mail she wore. She spoke as if I couldn’t hear her. That was just her way. For the decade I’d known the [Paladin], I'd long since realized she wasn’t as open-hearted as one would expect. That she’d failed to be in the right position to guard Ram went unspoken.

  Erik’s answer, though, was loud and clear. His voice cascaded over the crowd. "Well, if it means more loot for us, then more loot for us!"

  The crowd cheered with his words as if they were entitled to a coin of our prize. His brashness now was at odds with how he normally carried himself. The short man, with a head of curly, dirty blonde hair, was normally soft-spoken. Maybe pretending not to care was how he dealt with death, an act put on as a contemptible show of nonchalance. Or, maybe, this was his way to redirect Nina to a different topic of conversation.

  "Erik! Do you know no shame?" Nina scolded. "What if it was you?"

  "But it wasn’t, was it? I am alive and well, and the split need only go three ways now!" the bastard answered. My anger was about to get the best of me, and I gave him a sharp look before turning down a side way to leave the market by a different direction. I didn’t want to hear their conversation or face the crowds or really speak at all. Not when I had such a heavy heart.

  Instead, I took the in-between paths away from the market. Despite several attempts by the city, the third ring lacked a purposeful layout of buildings. Few entrances or exits to shops were along the same road. Houses and temples, shops and schools had been built next to each other with no thought given for their placement beforehand.

  It was almost dusk when I arrived at the undertaker. The entrance itself was a thick set of double doors made of dark wood shined to a high gloss. As with the other buildings, this two-story was also constructed in local light blue stones, though the ornate coffins on display outside did set it apart. It wasn’t the first time I’d been here, though almost a decade had passed since my last visit.

  I only knocked once, and the door opened promptly. Inside, the floor was made of the same dark slate as the street, but faded stains of blood and bile marked the difference. Several heavy oaken tables were laid about in no particular fashion, though the rightmost held up the body of a child. Beside that table a couple cried and held each other, the husband whispering softly to his wife.

  "Please come in.” A heavyset woman gestured me inside with an open hand. Her face and voice held a practiced gravitas, though her hair was frayed and her clothes covered by a slightly worn burgundy apron.

  I gave a single nod before I entered. The stone casket floated in behind me. If she was surprised, it didn’t show.

  The frontmost table, I saw, supported the corpse of a horse. Before it, a young nobleman in green silk argued at an elderly undertaker. “What do you mean you do not have a casket for my poor Bloodfire? You can make one! Why, I loved her more than my own mother! You absolutely must—"

  Any other day, I might have been entertained or outraged by the thoughtlessness to bury a horse while a couple grieved their child nearby, but today, it was meaningless. I let the woman lead me to an empty table, then I moved the casket to lay atop it.

  "My friend, Ram Stonemouth. Dwarven.” The words themselves nearly broke me. I could hardly speak for fear of bursting into tears.

  "Do you know if he had any preference to ceremony?" she asked politely.

  I shook my head. "No, I’ve yet to tell his family, though. I imagine they might."

  She nodded. "Certainly. We can maintain his body as it is now for a fortnight before a decision should be made. Adventurer?"

  I nodded.

  "Good. The guild usually covers the cost of burial, but it's rare that we see a dwarf. I will have to consult for their peculiarities." She spoke hesitantly.

  I almost gave her a sharp look. How could she speak of costs when I had just lost my best friend? But I knew that it was only her job, and she wouldn’t feel the pain I felt. With a deep breath, I answered her unspoken question. "I will notify his wife. Anything the guild doesn’t cover, you may ask of me. Send to Nemon Fargus at the Arcanum of Elementalus. Do you need me to open it?" I gestured at the stone coffin I had made.

  "No, the system is showing it as a [Coffin], so our skills will work. Is there anything else?"

  I shook my head and left. I needed to speak to his wife before she heard from someone else.

  With my mind in a fog, I made my way toward one of the square tower gatehouses for foot traffic that led to the fourth ring. The guards didn’t stop me as I passed through, but leaving nearly always felt easier than when I returned.

  The roads and pathways in the Trader’s Ring were no different than the third, built from the same dark slate cobblestones. While the buildings here still used the same blue stone, many were not so well-maintained. Those buildings that boasted a second story had the higher level built solely with darkened timber walls and matching shingles.

  The larger roads in the fourth ring and the wider spaces between its more common one-story buildings allowed a chilly spring breeze to push snow flurries about. The weather would have been suited to a jacket or thin coat, but I didn’t feel a thing.

  It was in a morose fugue that I made my way to the smithy and home of my closest friend. Each step was harder to take than the one before it, like an invisible weight pressed against me. Regret and shame burned, and more than once I found myself standing still at a crossroads with no attention spent to those around me. I would have been an easy mark for a pickpocket, though few would dare to steal from a wizard.

  I don’t know how long I stood before Ram’s house. The dusk had turned to night and, except for the occasional drunk or guard, the streets had cleared. The familiar one-story cottage possessed a single shuttered window facing the street, and a wooden door with brass banding and knocker. The home connected to a covered smithy next door; the smells of metalwork dominated the whole street.

  Ram was the type of person to throw himself fully into everything he did, and his home reflected that. Despite how welcoming the home looked, and how I’d spent more than the occasional evening sharing a fine dinner and ale here, I hesitated. This was not a conversation I wished to have.

  It had been my suggestion to my friend Ram to go on one last adventure. A way to close out that part of his life so he could focus on his future with their new son, I'd claimed. A way to ensure that he didn't feel that his time as an adventurer was left unfinished. Lutha had been against it, of course. She was always against him adventuring, but that's part of who he is. Was. Who he was. And this time, she'd been right. Now the rest of his life was left unfinished. So, in my mind, I set most of the adventure through the dungeon to word. I carefully chose how I would tell my best friend’s wife that her husband was gone. My shoulders and hair collected snowflakes while I thought.

  Eventually, with a sigh, I knocked. I heard the shuffle of feet as I waited. Soon, the door creaked open to reveal Ram’s wife Lutha, carrying in her arms his son, Little Ram. Compared to Ram’s short black hair and beard, Lutha had short brown hair and freckles. And piercing blue eyes. Though they weren’t always piercing—only now as they looked around behind me before settling in an accusing glare. A glare that was the least of what I felt I deserved.

  "Lutha, about Ram. I—" I began, but the wo
rds that I’d prepared moments before were already lost.

  "No. Where is he?" she demanded. Her lilting accent was at odds with her curt words. An undercurrent of anger made her question a demand. The normally jovial woman showed no signs of happiness. Not that I blamed her.

  My mouth opened as if to speak, but I couldn’t force any words out. With a pained grimace, I looked away. We stood in silence for a while, with only the sounds of the wind and the occasional gurgle from Little Ram.

  "Nemon," she said softly, and I glanced up. I wished I hadn’t. "I know Ram loved you like family, but I… I hope never to see you again." Her voice no longer had the edge of anger, but instead a solemn weight that hurt more than I could have ever imagined. Her expression was one of condemnation.

  I closed my eyes and nodded slowly. If that was all she wanted, that was the least I could do. It didn’t mean it hurt any less. It wasn’t until I heard the door slam shut and Lutha’s anguished scream that I opened my eyes again and started slowly making my way home.

  2

  I awoke with a parched mouth and a pounding headache. I wasn’t one to give in to drink heavily, rarely going beyond a cup or two. Last night, though, I’d felt inspired by a false hope that I could perhaps postpone the emotional pain of losing my friend by drinking myself into oblivion.