Forest of Desire (The Alchemist Book #2): LitRPG Series Read online

  Valanil Revolt is inviting you to join We need to run. Tomorrow it will be too late.

  Note! If you accept the invitation, you will be removed from the Atrium group.

  Tailyn was all too happy to accept the invitation, frustrated as he was with the limitations he still had to endure a year shy of completing his initiation. That was when all the functionality would be unlocked, including the ability to leave groups.

  The only way the boy could respond was to try and move around to give her a kick in the leg. But when he tried, he groaned in pain. His muscles cramped so hard his eyeballs very nearly popped out of his head.

  Group renamed. New name: Don’t move. Burn your ropes. Quietly. Pull out your knife and free me. We have to run. I figured out where they’re tak…

  Apparently, there was a character limit on group names, though Tailyn had figured out the main idea. Things were only going to get worse.

  Burn his ropes… His cards weren’t an option given the gag in his mouth, and that just left alchemical fire. But it took Tailyn a while to work up the nerve to try something that crazy. As soon as the potion hit the air, it burned for ten minutes, which meant the lixes would definitely notice. And if only that were the worst of their problems… The boy shivered, remembering the word quietly in the name of the group. His regeneration would take six hours to restore his limbs — he’d been through that before.

  “Unload the mages!” came the order, and Tailyn was jerked roughly. His arms and legs ached as the rope dug into his skin and knocked off his personal shield.

  “String them up!” the fat lix continued.

  Tailyn’s arms were pulled hard, and he howled in pain as he was pulled up off the ground. Valanil groaned next to him. No matter how tough she was, few people could grin and bear what they were going through.

  “Let them hang there. We’ll be heading off in the morning, so keep an eye on them until then.” The fat lix showed he was boss before hurrying off to his tent to get some rest. The other lixes glanced at each other — who had the shaman’s apprentice told to watch the mages? It was a long journey, and everyone wanted to relax.

  “You!” the strongest said to one of his punier comrades. “You’re on guard duty.”

  “Me?!” the latter replied indignantly, though he stopped when he saw the spear pointed at him. “Actually, yes, I was just going to volunteer. You all should rest.”

  The reds scattered to their respective tents, and another wail broke out from the numericals as one more was dispatched.

  “Shut up!” yelled the puny lix as he ran over to the wagon where the humans were standing. He was looking to take his frustration out on someone, and there was a chorus of dull blows and groans as he went to work on them.

  Now!

  The dangerous thought flashed through Tailyn’s head, scaring even him in the process. Still, a couple moments later, he was holding a bottle shimmering with a red color. It was just a wonder his hands weren’t shaking. The fear was gone, replaced by an indomitable resolve, and Tailyn felt for and yanked open the lid while doing his best not to think about what was going to happen. An acrid smell hit his nostrils, and flames leaped out of the container.

  His back and arms burned like the devil, but Tailyn didn’t utter a sound, burying his teeth in his gag. Still, despite his bravery, his fingers reflexively opened up, and the bottle crashed to the ground. The earth exploded in flames. The boy’s stomach dropped — his suffering, albeit short, had been in vain.

  “Where’s the light coming from?” came the puny lix’s unpleasant voice, and the dull blows stopped. The monster turned and stared dumbly at the fire burning away under the wriggling bodies. Both Tailyn and Valanil were twisting as they felt the temperature around them rise, neither able to get away. Finally, something in the lix’s head clicked, and he ran over to the rope holding the mages off the ground.

  “You’re going to burn!” he rattled away as he untied the knot. “And on my watch, too!”

  The rope released, and Tailyn and Valanil dropped right into the fire. The boy’s OGM-III kept him from the worst of it, taking the brunt of the alchemical flames, and the lix had dragged them out a couple moments later.

  “Who lit the fire?” the lix asked, bending over Tailyn. “Where did it come from?”

  The boy’s brain raced, having been freed from the heat. Suddenly, he had an interesting thought, and he began bleating away into the gag as he gestured in the direction of the tents.

  “What? Lixes?” The little creature followed his gaze before glancing back in surprise when the boy nodded.

  “You can understand me?” If his terrifying face had had brows, they would have shot upward. The boy nodded again before trying to say something else. Not only that, but the lix could have sworn he specifically said tent and set you up.

  “I can’t understand you!” the lix said, crouching down next to the boy. He wasn’t aware why Tailyn had been gagged, having never seen captive mages. But the boy just murmured again, looked over toward the tents, and said something that sounded like bet and laughing at you. That did the trick. Already angry at all and sundry, the lix had heard the key words, and his thirst for the truth overcame the shaman apprentice’s order. Although, to be fair, he was still keeping an eye on the prisoners like he’d been told. What could a little kid do with his arms and legs tied? Nothing.

  The lix picked the boy up and untied the ropes holding the gag in place.

  “Okay, who set me up?”

  “Hermetic seal! Ka-Li!” Tailyn whispered with difficulty, and the lix’s body began its thirty seconds of convulsions. Without losing a moment, the boy rolled around to the other side of the lix and began kicking him into the fire. It only worked so-so, with a couple more electricity strikes required, though the result was eventually achieved. The creature ended up in the alchemical flames and quickly turned into a charred corpse. That done, it was time for Tailyn to head into the fire himself. The ropes lit up immediately like dry straw, and Tailyn flipped onto his stomach as he howled and did his best not to roll around putting out the fire. The ropes had to burn off. Pain seared deep inside him, though his regeneration took the edge off, and he jerked at his arms to check the knots. Finally, there was a snap, and Tailyn was free.

  Leaping to his feet, the boy materialized his knife and ran over to Valanil. His body was still burning — alchemical fire wasn’t that easy to put out, going out either by itself after ten minutes or when it was deprived of air. And since Tailyn didn’t have any thick cloth, his only option was to suffer through it and thank the god for his regeneration. He would have given up right at the beginning if it hadn’t been for it.

  The boy cut through the last rope, and Valanil’s hand streaked out to grab the knife and hold it to Tailyn’s throat.

  “What took so long?” the herbalist growled angrily. It took an effort to pull the knife away. According to her plan, Tailyn was supposed to suffer, not her, and it had been a long time since she’d felt that kind of pain. The last time had been during her education at Crobar. For a few moments, Valanil had even been afraid her road had come to an end, and such a horrible end, too. First, in the fire, then in the stomachs of the hungry animals.

  “I… I didn’t…” Tailyn stammered, afraid to move. Even the pain from his burns faded into the background. There’s nothing like cold metal against your throat to wake you up.

  “Next time, follow my orders exactly.” Valanil gave Tailyn a shove and cut through the rest of the ropes. Her timer told her she needed three hours to heal, and she couldn’t move until then. Her legs were in bad shape.

  “We need to kill the lixes. Is your wave of fire full?”

  “Yes,” Tailyn whimpered as he came back down from the shock. It was mostly the way his trainer was behaving — he’d saved them even if it had been a bit rough for them. Tailyn’s own regeneration timer showed just one hour.

  “Don’t skimp on charges! I’ll be expecting you a minute from now with a report. Get to it!”<
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  The lixes had set up twenty tents. There were no guards — who was going to risk venturing into red lix territory at night? Even the other lixes were too afraid to do that. The prisoners were bound, the mages were under guard, and the protective system kept the night monsters away. Why not sleep when you have another day to travel?

  Ka-Li.

  Indeed, Tailyn didn’t skimp on charges. After picking the best vantage point, he cut loose twenty waves. He was going to have to replenish all his cards once the combat status was over, anyway.

  You destroyed more than 10 creatures at least 10 levels above you.

  You received a level-up for one random attribute.

  Agility +1 (2).

  Status change: combat complete.

  Tailyn couldn’t help cursing. It was exactly what he’d been worried about — a completely useless attribute had gotten the boost. And while his body bent over double, he’d been expecting that. Valanil had warned him. It was his muscles and ligaments adjusting to match the new parameters, becoming more flexible and mobile. But soon enough, the discomfort was gone, and Tailyn could feel the changes. His body was…faster. Sharper. It was hard to describe the feeling exactly, but he liked it, and he suddenly realized why Valanil had just snorted when he’d mentioned his reservations about spending points on useless attributes. He’d been wrong. While they didn’t make him a stronger attacker directly, they didn’t hurt to have.

  There was nothing left of the tents. In fact, all that had survived were the shimmering boxes left from the dead bodies, though a message popped up as soon as Tailyn took a step toward them:

  Group renamed. New name: Even split.

  Loot division type selected for Even split group: divine will.

  Tailyn just stood there for a while, his gazed fixed on the shimmering boxes, before turning back to Valanil. No, he was having nothing to do with divine will.

  “Kick me out of the group,” he said. “I don’t want to share my loot.”

  “Did you fry the lixes?” Regeneration had dulled the pain to the point that the imperious note had returned to Valanil’s voice.

  Tailyn wavered. He’d come back full of conviction that he shouldn’t have to share, and there she was asked about the obvious. She knew very well what the answer was. Still, the boy wasn’t going to give in.

  “Kick me out of the group,” he said again. “Everything from the lixes belongs to me, and I’m not going to share it. I didn’t roll into the fire just to watch you take the best loot.”

  It took all Valanil’s composure not to kill the little bastard right on the spot. There he was, talking about rolling into the fire, and he was the only one who could stand on his own two feet.

  “You don’t trust the god and its distribution?” Valanil was trying to push back on something that was sacred to anyone — the god’s inerrancy.

  “Ka-Do-Gir was enough for me. He was always getting the best even though I did all the work. Sure, I’d like to trust the god, but I can’t. Coins are too important to me to waste right now.”

  “For what? Looking to buy paper to wipe your ass with?” The herbalist was running out of patience, and her annoyance was beginning to peek through.

  “I’m planning on buying an alchemical lab,” Tailyn replied frankly. Suddenly, the herbalist’s negativity disappeared. “They cost twenty thousand coins.”

  “But you know the first one doesn’t include materials, right? What you need costs half a million. And how many thousand years do you think it will take you to save up that much? Or do you think the red lixes have something that valuable?”

  Tailyn was taken aback.

  “Let’s do this. For now, we’ll split the loot evenly, but when we get back to Culmart, I’ll make sure you get your own portable workshop that lets you buy ingredients. And I’ll do it within a month of us getting back. Deal?”

  “You won’t go back on that?” Tailyn asked, his eyes squinting. Valanil’s offer seemed too good to be true.

  “The god as my witness!” the herbalist said, instantly bathed in a snow-white cocoon. Her oath had been heard and accepted.

  Actually, Valanil wasn’t risking anything — the most important thing was getting back to Culmart. She already had the mission to expose Isor, and Tailyn presumably had the same. That would leave the town without an elder, and the Crobar agents so interested in the boy — that was where the potions and right to train him had come from — would be able to enter Culmart without a problem. They’d shell out for the workshop, too. Valanil had been brought in from the cold, though even the wisest trainers at the mage hunter school didn’t know her true motives. Revenge… It was sweet and beautiful. Valanil was going to avenge herself on everyone who’d left her in that backwoods twenty years before without a chance of appeal. With the boy’s appearance, she’d earned the pardon she’d dreamed of those first ten years. But it was too late, Master Hunters. Too late.

  “Deal,” Tailyn replied quickly, unwilling to let the opportunity slide. “We’ll split the loot.”

  “Okay, why are you still here?”

  “Right!” Tailyn was about to dash off after the shimmering boxes, but he stopped. “What are we going to do with the people? We can’t just leave them here, can we?”

  “Loot first. Go, Tailyn! We don’t have as much time as you think.”

  Tailyn Vlashich receives Alchemist’s Bag.

  Tailyn Vlashich receives Alchemist Flask x1533.

  Tailyn Vlashich receives Ordinary Daisy x3888.

  Tailyn Vlashich receives Ginseng x772.

  …

  Valanil Revolt receives Lesser Armor x15.

  Valanil Revolt receives Shaman’s Staff.

  Valanil Revolt receives Intellect Ring-I x2.

  Valanil Revolt receives Steel Claws x4.

  ***

  You found an alchemist’s body. Your Perception and Enhancement attributes let you learn several recipes from his book.

  ***

  Recipe received: Alchemical Fire.

  Recipe received: Cold Explosion.

  Recipe received: Acid.

  Recipe received: Lesser Regeneration Potion.

  Valanil kept an indifferent expression on her face as she went through the list of loot, though everything inside her was exploding. The herbalist knew very well that a shaman apprentice blessed by Halas would have quite a bit. She just hadn’t been about to tell Tailyn that, not wanting to spook the boy into trying to grab everything himself. But in that moment, the woman just wanted to wail as she looked at the loot. It even crossed her mind that getting back alone would be much simpler, and she could have even told the Crobar agents that Isor had been the one to get rid of the boy. Seriously, how could Tailyn have been the one to get the bag from an actual alchemist, not to mention its entire contents? Was that half the loot? No, it was all the loot. And the worst part was that the god hadn’t just thrown her trash. There was the lesser armor and steel claws that she could have tossed under the nearest bush, of course, but everything else was valuable even for her. The staff, especially. But the alchemist’s bag… That was too much for a kid like that. And the recipes? While the first three were fairly common if valuable, the herbalist had never even heard of that lesser regeneration potion. She didn’t have it, and she very much wanted to see what it could do.

  A regeneration potion… Something capable of pulling anyone back from the other side so long as they had a drop of life left in them. The woman knew of just five terminals where you could buy potions like that — one in Crobar, one at the academy, and one each belonging to the emperors of their expansive world. That was it. Not only that, but you could only buy one each month, which was why they went for hundreds if not thousands of times the list price. How quick Tailyn had been to spend one on the lix… Valanil still shuddered half a year later when she recalled that moment. And there he’d gotten something about a lesser potion… She was going to have to figure out how to get a look at the description without raising suspicion.


  In fact, Tailyn was right then looking over everything he’d gotten. The first description was simple and clear.

  Alchemist’s Bag. Description: dimensionless space that lets you hold as many ingredients required for your Alchemy skill as you want.

  It was definitely practical. Another icon appeared, and all his flowers disappeared into the new bag. It just looked much simpler on the outside than it was on the inside, where it was a veritable warehouse. Tailyn couldn’t have even imagined how many different materials alchemists needed. Just the flower section had more than a dozen names. And there were just as many little rocks, powders, and strange lines, all of them leaving the boy’s head spinning.

  But the recipes were what really piqued his interest. Finally, he was going to be a real alchemist as soon as he picked up a workshop.

  Shield restoration potion

  7

  Mana restoration potion

  4

  Magic Enhancement Elixir

  3

  Alchemical Fire

  1

  Cold Explosion