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

  “What’s going on?” Fano’s unsettled voice echoed from the other side of the cave, and that was the last thing the ambitious crystal fence ever said. Three soul-rending screams broke out and filled with unearthly pain just before their frames turned gray.

  “What the hell?” Nalio asked nervously as he pulled himself to his feet. When the entrance had closed, he’d just barely had time to leap away and avoid the sharp rocks. Grabbing his sword and turning toward where his team had just been, the fighter squinted in an attempt to make out the enemy by the flickering light of the fire. And that was his last move in the release. A long spear pierced his personal shield and armor as if they weren’t even there, after which his lifeless body was dragged off into the depths of the cave. After another deep growl, Valanil felt her stomach turn — unlike the boy, her outfit didn’t come with a hermetic seal, and she could only suffer as an unpleasant smell filled the air.

  But they were lucky. Fresh air sucked in through the clenched teeth to drive away the acidic fumes — yes, teeth. Back in Crobar, Valanil had heard stories about an enormous creature that opened its maw and waited patiently for a chance victim to wander along. Sometimes, they sat there for years in a condition something like sleep. But as soon as someone alarmed them, that someone was met with certain death. It was a scary story they told kids at night, and Valanil had only ever laughed at anyone trying to get under her skin with it, but she wasn’t laughing then. The creature was real. Not only that, but it had even learned how to make a phantom fire to lure in innocent lambs and terrifying monsters hunting nearby alike. That was why she and Tailyn hadn’t come across any of the latter while they’d been climbing. The smartest monsters were long gone; the dumb ones had already been eaten.

  The worst part was that Valanil couldn’t even make out the name of whatever was going to kill her. The creature’s concealment and camouflage levels were off the charts. A few moments later, the spear that had dragged Nalio off into the cave had returned, that time moving slowly and bending from side to side like a snake as it hunted its prey. And Valanil knew who that was — her and Tailyn. It was hard to imagine, but that sharp, black appendage was the creature’s tongue, and it was looking to find food caught in the creature’s mouth and send it down into its stomach. The tongue was the reason the woman didn’t make a break for the teeth — she wouldn’t have made it. But if they stayed quiet… Well, they were going to live another couple minutes.

  The monster decided to start the search at the other end, its tongue poking into every crevice.

  “What is that?” Tailyn asked, though he didn’t get a reaction. Suddenly, he remembered that sound couldn’t get out of his hermetically sealed armor, so he opened the shield protecting his face and just about coughed when the pungent fumes found their way down his throat. It was practically impossible to breathe. But after regaining control and realizing that any sound would attract the spear, Tailyn repeated his question.

  “The monster’s tongue,” Valanil whispered back. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in its mouth. Okay, Tailyn, you need to get out of here. Crawl through the teeth and jump to the side — I don’t think this thing will climb out of the mountain.”

  “What about you?”

  “Someone has to grab its attention.” The herbalist’s decision surprised even her. Sure, she couldn’t have gotten out, though it would have taken a few seconds more than Tailyn, and the creature would have had enough time to take two shots at her. And that was the factor Valanil told herself she was basing the decision on. It had nothing to do with how she’d started to really care about the kid over the previous six months. Without her own kids, she’d started to feel something she’d never thought she could feel for someone else, and she had to shake her had to fight back the unwanted tears. No, even to herself, she couldn’t admit that she would have liked to have a son like Tailyn. She could have hit him multiple times over the previous few days, and that’s not how mothers acted. But no, it couldn’t be feelings. She’d decided to sacrifice herself solely because Tailyn was the only one who could make it out through the teeth.

  As her throat tightened, Valanil couldn’t hold back a cough.

  “Put this on,” Tailyn suddenly said as he materialized a complete set of level one armor. “It’ll make it easier to breathe. How do you think this thing will react to flames? I have some alchemical fire.”

  “Do you have any idea how big it is?” Valanil asked, though she still stepped away from the boy and began pulling off her clothes, her eyes fixed on the tongue poking around the opposite wall. Yes, they were going to die, but she wanted to spend her last few minutes without the discomfort in her eyes and throat. Knowing the boy would just see her in her underwear, Valanil had no problem pulling her outfit off and changing into the mage’s armor. The smell of poorly processed rubber hit her nostrils, though it felt like the most beautiful of aromas the woman had ever smelled. Turning on the hermetic seal and breathing deeply, she couldn’t hold back a smile. She was still alive. Even if that wasn’t for long.

  A few settings later, and Valanil had turned on the audio channel for the group.

  “Can you hear me?”

  “Yes!” Tailyn replied happily, turning his own hermetic seal back on.

  “Okay, tell me what you have. I haven’t been keeping tabs on your loot, and I want to fry this thing’s insides when I’m dragged away.”

  “Alchemical fire and acid spittle, fifteen of each, as well as three flasks of accelerated growth. I don’t know what — ”

  “Let me see it.” Valanil turned the quaint little flask with its green contents over in her hands. She’d never heard of it, though that was easily explained by the fact that the mage hunter school was divided into attack and defensive potions. There weren’t any household potions like accelerated growth. Needless to say, it was more suited to gardeners, florists, and the like, letting them pour it over their plants without having to wait for the natural process.

  “Give me the fire. Let’s see what the monster thinks of it.”

  The fire at the back of the cave was still burning cheerily to show where the snake was. Valanil took aim, sent the shimmering red flask flying, and watched as it shattered right next to the black spear.

  You were stunned. Recovery time: 2 minutes.

  Neither Tailyn nor Valanil saw the message that popped up, having both collapsed lifelessly to the ground. The roar cut loose by the ancient monster turned out to be so powerful that even the mountains shook. When they heard it, the odd night monsters still in the area suddenly remembered important business they had somewhere very far away and dashed off.

  Two minutes later, Tailyn opened his eyes and found himself staring at a burning wall. The decoy fire had gone out, replaced by an alchemical fire that was going to burn for another eight whole minutes. The flames smoked mercilessly as if eating away at a living being rather than a stone surface, and that was when Valanil woke up, groaned, and clutched her head. For whatever reason, it had been worse for her than for the boy.

  “Get out of here!” Tailyn pointed at the entrance, which had expanded when the creature screamed. While it wouldn’t have been big enough for a wagon, of course, there was more than enough room for a human to get out. If they bent over.

  Valanil wanted to tell Tailyn to go, but she saw that he couldn’t budge. After the howl, the rock they’d been hiding behind had popped like a bloated cyst, dumping black goo all over the boy’s legs. He shrugged guiltily as if to say it wasn’t his fault. Just then, Valanil noticed a green flask in his hand — acid. He was going to need time to get himself free, and that was why he was sending her out.

  “Hurry up,” the woman replied, the decision anything but easy. Still, it’s always a dumb idea to die when there’s a way to save yourself.

  “Yep, I’m going to just dissolve all this, and I’ll be right out,” Tailyn replied as he began pouring the acid over the sticky substance. An acrid smoke filled the air, though it didn’t take long for
the goo to melt away. His legs were free.

  “I’ll be waiting for you outside! Before you make a run for it, throw the fire again.” Valanil wanted to throw her arms around Tailyn, but she repressed the urge and darted out of the cave. As soon as she’d cleared the teeth, she dove to the side. And just in time. The black spear-like tongue tore through the air just millimeters from her body. With an annoyed gurgle, the mountains shook once again, the monster unhappy that its food had gotten away.

  Just in case, Valanil dove behind some rocks, wary of another blow from the tongue, but it wasn’t forthcoming. The creature had recognized the woman’s right to life.

  “As soon as you’re out, jump to the side!” she said to Tailyn. Giving her the suit had been a great idea on his part.

  “Got it. I’m almost done — one leg is already free. As soon as the other one’s loose, I’ll throw the fire. We’ll probably get stunned again, so get farther away.”

  “I don’t think it’ll be as bad out here.” Valanil turned to find a better spot and —

  And found herself staring into Sloan’s grinning mug.

  “You’re slippery. And hardy. Cute, too — it’s a shame we’re going to have to hand you over to the lixes…”

  Valanil took a breath to activate one of her cards, but that was when convulsions gripped her body. Sloan had struck first. It was his favorite weapon, the epic Shocker-II card, which cut straight through any armor through level three. The herbalist’s OGM-I suit had told him right away that pollen wasn’t going to do the trick.

  “Okay… And where’s Tailyn?” Sloan looked around, scanning the area in search of anything alive. His device was an advanced model that cost an absurd amount of money and had saved his life and the lives of Berad and the rest of the group many times over. Ferreting out ambushes before they’re sprung was important in their line of work.

  Only there wasn’t anything living within a hundred meters, and that made Sloan nervous. If he didn’t bring the boy back, his expertise would be brought into question. He never stayed inside the dome, considering himself better than that — while he hadn’t graduated from either the academy or Crobar, life itself had been his schoolmaster. The lessons had been hard. So hard, in fact, that he never forgot them. For instance, in that moment Sloan sensed with his whole being that he couldn’t head into the cave the woman had just come running out of. And it wasn’t the sharp, tooth-like rocks. If the scanner didn’t show anything living, and the mercenary was accustomed to trusting his equipment, the thing had to be some kind of mechanism. He had a bad feeling about it. The kind of feeling he got when he was in mortal danger, the kind that told him he was in the worst kind of trouble. And while Sloan didn’t know where the feeling was coming from, he wasn’t going to argue with something that had saved his life dozens of times.

  Pulling out a rope, he began rolling Valanil up. The woman was going to be recovering soon, so he had to hurry. Ultimately, the helmet turned out to be the biggest challenge — the woman had a surprisingly large personal shield. That wasn’t a problem for Sloan, of course, though he did have to keep an eye on the timer that told him how much longer Valanil would be unconscious. In the meantime, he began hacking away at her protection with his knife. Dealing twenty thousand damage turned out to take an entire minute and another charge from his shocker. But that did the trick — the woman’s personal shield ran out, and the knife bit through her visor. Stuffing a gag into the mage’s mouth and wrapping a rope around her head to keep her from spitting it out, the ranger was about to get back to his search for the boy when he thought better of it. Night was falling. Frowning with annoyance, Sloan got comfortable, ready to spend the night where he was. He needed to find out where Tailyn had run off to. Of course, he wasn’t afraid for his own life — he’d already figured out there weren’t any monsters in that part of the mountains. There had been one, of course, that had yelled like a banshee just a few minutes before, but it had run off before the ranger could get close.

  “It’s a shame Tailyn was able to hide,” Sloan said more to himself than to get on the woman’s nerves as she woke up. “The blacks would give more for him alive. But this is fine — we already got ten crystals for Valia, and they’ll probably give us the same for the boy’s body. You, on the other hand, are cheap. Just two for you!”

  Sloan prattled on to pass the time, not suspecting that anyone else could hear him. While Tailyn had long since freed his legs and could have left the cave, he was in no hurry to do so. The mercenary had forgotten to turn off the microphone when he opened Valanil’s visor. That meant the boy knew what was going on, not to mention the fact that the black lixes had Valia.

  Suddenly, the black spear showed back up. The ancient monster remembered that there was one more chunk of meat in its mouth, and it wanted it. Realizing that its prey might have relocated while it was indisposed, the creature began searching the cave from the beginning. Tailyn watched in horror as the tongue approached. The bonfire didn’t appear, the alchemical fire had burned out, and it looked like even the stars in the sky were hidden behind clouds. As it crawled around in the complete darkness, the appendage elicited a sticky fear that clutched at Tailyn’s soul, and he lost control. The boy grabbed another flask with alchemical fire and heaved it across the cave, only it fell a few meters short. The flames that leaped up barely singed the tongue. With lightning speed, it ducked into the wall, only that time there was no deafening roar. Tailyn sensed that something was wrong and dove back down into the sticky goo. The stone above his head erupted — the black tongue’s strike had been so quick that the boy hadn’t even seen it.

  Pulling on his leg, Tailyn found that he was stuck yet again. The monster flung out his tongue once more, only at the last moment it stopped and plunged down onto the boy. Flexible steel wrapped itself around his chest like a boa constrictor. And just then, when he realized that all hope was lost, he looked up and saw Sloan standing a few meters away from the cave.

  “That’s not good,” the fighter said as the monster jerked its tongue back along with its victim. Tailyn’s breath caught in his throat when he flew off dozens of meters in a matter of seconds and was sucked into the wall. Having seen what happened, Sloan could only raise his eyebrows as the alchemical fire burned itself out and a dark calm settled back over the cave. The stone teeth disappeared, the entrance opened wide, and a fire appeared near the far wall where the boy had vanished just a few minutes before.

  “Oh, wow,” Sloan said, stepping away from the cave. He’d seen how quickly the monster’s black tongue worked. And he’d already figured out that it was a monster’s mouth, that monster being so high-level that even he couldn’t read it. The ranger was going to have to disappoint Berad — the boy was gone without a trace. Even his bones were lost forever. Perhaps, if Sloan summoned the god to witness that the monster had swallowed Tailyn, the blacks would open their purses — they were going to want confirmation that Halas’ enemy was dead. Sloan needed to have a chat with the boss. He was smart, and he’d definitely figure out how to get as many crystals as possible.

  “Well, that’s that,” Sloan said, turning back to Valanil and heaving her up onto his shoulder. It was time to head back to the group. “Tailyn Vlashich is no more.”

  Chapter 5

  THE BLACK TONGUE released Tailyn as soon as he was through the wall. The boy was able to feel something soft and pliable — the hit didn’t knock the wind out of him. A little disorientation later, as up became down and then up again, and he found himself in a wide, smooth intestine leading steeply downward. Throwing out his arms, he tried to stop his slide, but it didn’t work. There was nothing to hold on to. And not only that, but his side ached — the monster had broken a rib. The timer told him he’d be feeling better in half an hour, but how was he going to find that kind of time down in the monster’s innards?

  Finally, Tailyn was able to pull out his knife and thrust it into the intestinal lining. The metal slipped in without a problem, only that didn’t help i
n the least. The knife cut through the creature’s body like butter, eliciting neither blood nor screams of pain. Apparently, the thick-skinned creature didn’t even notice something that insignificant, and a Tailyn just plunged ahead even faster. A few moments later, he swished out of the intestine, hung for a few moments in mid-air, and dropped like a rock into a pool of bubbling goo.

  The impact hurt, the pain in his chest exploding with even greater intensity. Stunned and confused, Tailyn settled to the bottom, and it was only the message that popped up that goaded him into fighting for his life.

  300 damage received.

  Shield reduced. Remaining: 21254.

  The notifications kept coming every second. For a little while, Tailyn laid on the bottom of the creature’s stomach as he tried to figure out what to do, though he soon pushed off and breached the surface. Bubbles popped all around him, but there was nothing they could do given the boy’s huge shield. Also, the stomach juices didn’t seem as potent as the concentrated acid alchemists made. It couldn’t get through his shield.

  Using his scanner, Tailyn found a small area of high ground and swam over. The knife in his hand sloughed off into the goo and dissolved, showing the boy what awaited him the moment his shield ran out. Of course, that brought to mind the somewhat less than apropos thought that he wasn’t going to be getting rich down there — all the loot just dissolved. Getting rid of that idiotic thought, he got to the high ground and jumped up, brushing the remains of the acid off himself. The damage kept coming, only at a much lower level.