Lion's Quest: Trinity: A LitRPG Saga Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  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

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  End Notes

  The Destroyer Excerpt

  Lion’s Quest 3

  Michael-Scott Earle

  Chapter 1

  “Leo! I’m so happy you are back! I missed you so much,” Allurie said as soon as my vision cleared. I was in our room on the ship heading to Tylue, and I hadn’t logged into Ohlavar Quest for more than two days.

  “I missed you too, Allurie. Uhhh, can you get off me?” I asked as I attempted to peel the pretty elf girl from off my lap. She was coiled around me like a snake, and every time I pulled one of her arms away, the other one wrapped around me.

  “Did you have fun at home? What did you do? Can I come with you some day? I want to meet your family!”

  “Yeah. It was good. I had breakfast with my dad. It had been a while since we were able to talk. I missed him.” I didn’t know why I bothered explaining my real life to the virtual elf woman, but the AI had done a good job of making her seem sincere when she asked me questions, so I just figured I would play along.

  “Why?” She stopped resisting my attempts to pull her arms away and tilted her head like a confused puppy.

  “Why what?”

  “Why has it been so long since you talked to him?”

  “He, uhhh, has a sickness.”

  “Oh, no!” Her eyes opened wide. “Like a cough or fever?”

  “No, it is in his mind. He has problems remembering.”

  “That is so sad. He doesn’t remember you?” Her turquoise eyes started to glitter, and I wondered if the elf girl was about to cry. Ugh. I didn’t need that right now. I shouldn’t be talking about this.

  “He’s getting better. So that is why I’m happy,” I said. Breakfast yesterday with my father had been terrific. He was doing a bit better than my mom, and he actually remembered me winning my first world championship bout.

  “That is wonderful. Yay!” She hugged my chest tightly and buried her face into my shirt. “I’m so glad. I hope I can meet him some day.”

  “Yeah. I dunno. Where is Cornalic?” I asked as I looked around the small room. I hadn’t logged in since we first left on the ship, and the room didn’t look much different from before. It seemed as if his bed hadn’t even been slept in, and I guessed Allurie was sleeping in my bed.

  “Oh, he is up on ‘top deck’ as he called it. He told me to wait here.” She smiled at me and batted her long eyelashes.

  Then I heard the screaming.

  “Uhhh. Allurie?” I asked.

  “Yes, Leo?” I didn’t think her smile could get any bigger, and she held her arms up to her chest as if she was squeezing an invisible stuffed animal.

  “What is with all the screaming?” I asked.

  “Oh, that is probably the pirates.” She smiled at me.

  “The pirates?” I asked with confusion. What was she talking about?

  “Yep! They boarded us about ten minutes ago. Cornalic told me to wait here, lock the door, and not let anyone in. I’m very happy you are here! I missed you so much. Are you going to be--”

  “Pirates?” I shot to my feet and slammed my head against the ceiling of our cabin. It hurt like hell, and I groaned.

  “Oh! You hit your head! Can I rub it for you?” she asked.

  “Why didn’t you say anything about the pirates?” I yelled at her.

  “I just did, silly!” she laughed. “Oh! Maybe the bump hurt your memory.”

  “I gotta go top deck. Wait here. Lock the door. Don’t let anyone inside. Understand?” I growled at her as I undid the lock on our door.

  “Of course! Cornalic said exactly the same thing. I don’t forget things that are important. Especially after being told twice about them.” She rolled her eyes at me as if I was the idiot.

  New Quest: Repel the pirates.

  I finished unlocking the door, stepped into the hallway of the ship, and then closed the door behind me. The screams onboard the ship were louder now, but I still heard the lock slide into place on the door. There wasn’t a lot of space to swing a long blade here, so I pulled my short sword out, and moved toward the stairs that would take me to the upper deck.

  A bare-chested man stepped into the hallway from a side passage. He held a large dagger in one hand, and a young woman in the other. He was holding onto her long hair as the girl struggled to escape.

  “Stop squirming!” he shouted at her.

  I shuffled forward three steps and stabbed the man in the side of the skull. The blade in my hand was the green titled Short Sword of Minor Damage. It sunk into the side of his face with almost zero resistance. His red health bar dropped to nothing, and his corpse instantly began to twitch.

  “Are you alright?” I asked the young woman as I yanked the blade out of the man’s skull. It made a wet, syrupy sound and his head bounced against the wood floor twice.

  “Yes, thank you!” She had big brown eyes and elaborate clothing. She was probably a noblewoman, but I didn’t know for sure.

  “Are there any more back there?” I asked.

  “Four more! Can you help?” she begged. I spared a glance down the hallway to where I knew the stairs were. I had no idea where Cornalic was, but I knew we were stronger together than separated. “Please!” the woman begged again, and I nodded at her.

  I pulled her to her feet with my left hand and then followed her through the side passage. These were the nicer quarters, and we had to step over the bodies of three personal guards. All the men wore chain armor that looked too heavy to wear on a ship and carried broadswords that were too long to use in the narrow hallway. Perhaps these men had never been on a ship before. Well, I hadn’t either, but I knew how to fight, and just as you didn’t bring a knife to a gunfight, you didn’t bring a bazooka to a wrestling match.

  The screaming got louder, and I heard one of the screeches end with a horrific gurgling sound. I pulled the girl behind me and then crept the next few feet down the hall. There was an open door to the left, and I stepped over the corpses of two more guards. The room was massive, maybe ten times the size of mine with an eight-foot ceiling. There was a nice looking wood desk on the adjacent wall, several armoires on the left, and a queen sized bed on the right side where four men were holding down three girls.

  Another woman lay on the wooden floor in the middle cabin with her throat slit open. Blood was still pumping out of the wound, but her green life bar outline was empty, and I knew I couldn’t heal her.

  I yanked my other short sword free of its sheath and sprinted the eight steps to the side of the bed. One of the men caught me running toward them out of the corner of his eye, and he turned with surprise. He clutched a bloody dagger in his hand, and I guessed he was the one who had murdered the poor girl. My blade lashed out, and it ripped his neck clear of his body before he could scream a warning to his friends. Blood from my strike sprayed across the othe
r three men, and they flinched with surprise. I punched to the side with my left hand, and my sword stabbed another one of the men in his back where his heart lay.

  “Ahh!” the third man said, but none of them had their weapons out, and their pants were down around their knees. They couldn’t do anything more than try to stumble out of my way, and that wasn’t going to be good enough.

  The next pirate had fallen on his ass. He shouted at me to have mercy, and he raised his hands in front of his face in time to be sliced off by the same swing that cleaved his skull in two. His health bar dropped to nothing, and I spun to the last pirate. This one seemed to have recovered from his surprise, and he shuffled forward with a jab aimed at my face.

  I actually hadn’t expected the attack, but he was slow, and I tilted my head to the side an inch. I felt his knuckles brush past the hairs on my chin, and I brought my short swords forward to stab into his chest. My magical blade cut through to his heart, and my non-magical blade pierced his stomach. His eyes opened wide with surprise, but his health bar lost its red filling.

  “Are you okay?” I asked the girls on the bed. They all wore simple brown dresses with white aprons.

  “We are fine. Where is Lady--”

  “I am here!” the dark-haired girl with the big brown eyes shouted as she dashed into the room.

  “Thank the Light!” The other three girls embraced the well dressed one.

  “Stay in your cabin,” I said as I stepped to the door. I was about to tell them to lock it, but I saw that the door had four sturdy locks on the inside, and the pirates had broken it open, anyway.

  “You need to remain here!” one of the girls wearing the brown dresses demanded.

  “I can’t. I have to go.”

  “No. Lady--”

  “What is your name?” the young woman with the beautiful clothes asked. I was positive that she was a noble now, and the other girls were probably her handmaidens or something. All the dead guards in the hallway were probably on her staff.

  “Leo. Just wait here. I’ll be--”

  “What is your family name?” she asked as she wiped her teary eyes. I realized she was pretty. Well, not just pretty. She looked like one of the girls Jax and Garf would date, but less “supermodel in a swimsuit” and maybe a bit more “elegant actress.”

  “Lennox,” I said as I stepped out of the room.

  “Wait! Sir Lennox,” the woman called out, and I checked the hallway for pirates before I looked back inside again.

  “I’m sorry, I have to go. I’m needed up top.”

  “They will come down here again. I am the reason that the pirates are here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t have time to explain. I agree that you are needed up top, but you must get us to safety first.”

  “Just go to another room with a lock. I don’t have time to--” I started to say, but then the quest text scrolled across my UI:

  New Quest: Secure the noblewoman and her three maids in your room with Allurie. All four must live.

  “Ahh shit,” I muttered under my breath so the women couldn’t hear me.

  “Please, Sir Lennox. You will be handsomely rewarded if we all live through this,” the noblewoman asked again, and I nodded.

  “Stay behind me. I’m going to take you to my cabin. It will be a tight fit, but my friend is there.” I pointed behind me with the tip of one of my bloody swords, and the women scurried out of their room to stand behind me.

  I was a bit disoriented, but I remembered the bodies of the guards I had stepped over, so I was able to walk back to the intersection where I first saved the noblewoman. Two more pirates were examining the body of their friend, and they both growled at me. One of the men was a human. He was whip thin and his bare chest was covered with scars. The other man was a half-orc, and while he wasn’t as big as Cornalic, he must have still weighed a good two hundred and ten pounds. He also had a hook for a left hand, and the thing was barbed with a wicked looking point.

  The women behind me gasped as the half-orc stepped into the hallway. The man drew a long knife from his belt, and he advanced with his hook held out toward me. I could understand the women’s terror. The green-skinned man’s shoulders practically filled the small hallway, and he wore an evil smile on his ugly face.

  I stepped forward in a fencer’s stance and made a thrust with my short sword. The man lifted his hook to parry the blow, but my attack was a feint, and he waved his arm through the empty air. I came around with the flat of my blade and flicked across the metal part of his wrist. I was crazy strong in Ohlavar Quest, and the man’s eyes widened when my parry drove his hook into the wall of the hallway. It buried into the wood there with a loud thunk, and the smile instantly disappeared from his lips.

  I kept the flat part of my magical short sword pressed up against his hook so that he couldn’t pull it free, and I darted forward to stab with the blade in my left hand. He tried to bring up his dagger to block, but the half-orc couldn’t pivot away from this anchored arm. My short sword was a foot longer than his dagger, and it plunged in between his wide eyes like a toothpick through a green olive.

  The women behind me shrieked, and I almost turned around to tell them to shut up. I didn’t though. Instead, I relaxed the tension I was holding on the half-orc’s left hook arm and pulled my other sword out of his skull. He slumped to the ground with an empty health bar, but the hook was still stuck in the wood, and his arm continued to hang there like a macabre doll.

  The lean human didn’t seem surprised by my victory over his friend. He pulled twin daggers out of his red belt sash and stepped a foot into the hallway. The dozens of scars on the man’s chest convinced me that he was a mean fucker, and my adrenaline surged with the idea of an epic duel.

  I stepped past the dead half-orc, twisted my body so that my stronger right side was closer to the man, and then studied his footwork. He danced a step forward, but then he shuffled away when I made a lazy parry against his first feint. The guy was really skilled, and I wondered if I should trigger my Rwunidar's Might stance. I kind of wanted to save it until I reached top side of the ship. There might be crewmen that needed healing, or protection, and as soon as I used a skill, the stance would be unusable for eight hours.

  But if I died, I wouldn’t be able to respawn for another twenty-four hours.

  What would happen if the pirates sank the boat, and I tried to log back into the game? Would I just re-spawn in the middle of the ocean? Would I have to swim back to Arnicoal?

  The man pressed up against the left side of the hallway and made a slash with his right blade. I leaned out of the way and brought the sword in my right hand up to check his dagger, but the pirate twisted his blade around at the last second. I parried by flicking my blade down a bit more, and I caught the dagger against my hilt. The tip of his weapon did nick the side of my forearm, and the world suddenly turned black.

  “What the--” I was about to curse, and I thought the game might have crashed, but I could hear the surrounding screams, and the gasps of the four women I stood in front of. No, I couldn’t see for some reason, and I guessed the pirate must have done something to make me blind.

  I spun my short sword in front of me and caught the edge of one of the man’s attacks. His blade still skipped across my forearm, and I hissed with anger. I noticed that there was an orange eyeball with a darker orange “X” over it on the top left of my UI. It was blinking, so I guessed the effect was about to wear off, but then I felt the man’s blade slice into my left shoulder, and I noticed the debuff stop blinking.

  The dagger must have been causing me to become blind, and every time he cut me the effect triggered again. Shit. How was I going to overcome this asshole? I’d done a bit of blind training with Bantog, and Astafar Unlimited often had blind effects I could fight through, but my old game wasn’t nearly as detailed as Ohlavar Quest. Zarra’s game was practically real, and I couldn’t fudge an attack by waving my weapon around with hopes that I would co
nnect for full damage.

  I swung my arms together with a complicated kata that I hoped would buy me some time. Would the weapon trigger its effect if I had Guardian of Fortune on? I used the skill on myself and felt a spark of joy when I saw the icon appear on my UI.

  The eye debuff started to fade, and I mixed up the pace and technique of my kata to keep my opponent guessing. I didn’t feel him slash me, and the blindness wore off at the same time as my protection enchantment did. The pirate had stepped back into the intersection of the hallway, and he eyed me warily.

  “You aren’t bad,” he growled. “Whadda say you join us?” his voice sounded like sandpaper rubbing against even grainier sandpaper that was sitting on top of rough asphalt.

  “No thanks,” I replied as I stepped to him. If he backed up anymore, he’d trip over the body on the ground.

  The man surprised me by glowing slightly. It was a reddish outline, and he darted forward with a sudden burst of speed I didn’t expect. His twin blades were suddenly coming at me from ten different angles, and I used Guardian of Fortune again on myself with a hope that it would help me defend against his onslaught.

  It almost seemed as if the man had two more arms and I couldn’t keep up with his cuts. I did catch the first two on my right side, and tried to lock his knife up, but he yanked the dagger away while he made crazy-quick strikes with his left. I parried the first two again on that side and twisted the handle of my blade against the wooden wall. I caught him there and moved to cut his arm off with my right blade. Before I could do so, the man’s other dagger was already there, and he slammed his weapon into my right shoulder. Guardian of Fortune didn’t catch this one, and I screamed with the sudden shock of pain. Then my vision went dark again, and I growled with frustration.

  Damn it. I felt powerless against this guy. I could probably take him toe to toe without magic, but his haste powers, if that was what it was, combined with the blindness of his dagger strikes were quickly swinging the odds in his favor. The injury on my shoulder was deep, but I could still swing my blade around with that arm. I made another series of kata movements to try to defend myself against attacks I didn’t see, but I knew I needed a plan. This wasn’t nearly as hopeless as the situation I had been in with Lady Feeyaz, and I had been able to get out of that by using Ember.