The Bare Hunt: A LitRPG/GameLit Novel (The Good Guys Book 7) Read online

  The Bare Hunt

  Eric Ugland

  Air Quotes Publishing

  Air Quotes Publishing

  Copyright © 2019 Eric Ugland

  Cover by Sarah Anderson/No Synonym

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of Fiction. Fantasy. All of the characters, places, things, and/or eldritch beings in this novel and series are fictional and any resemblance to people living, dead, undead, or another state of being is purely coincidental and surprising. Mentions of places are incidental or accidental. You might be looking for the secret passphrase here. It’s not here, it’s cleverly hidden in the book. Have fun! The magic and spells have been researched in absolutely no way whatsoever, and any ill-effects after you attempt to cast them are completely on you. Any science is likely wrong considering the laws of physics are different in places with magic, you dig?

  Also by Eric Ugland

  The Good Guys - Epic LitRPG/GameLit

  One More Last Time

  Heir Today Pawn Tomorrow

  Dungeon Mauling

  Four: The Loot

  Dukes and Ladders

  Home Siege Home

  The Bad Guys - Epic LitRPG/GameLit

  Scamps & Scoundrels

  Second Story Man

  Roseland - Private Investigator Mysteries

  Series One

  For Rob.

  Blame him for Abominaball and snarret.

  I certainly do.

  Chapter One

  “You must get your rest, Montana. At least what little you can. Tomorrow, you go on a bear hunt.”

  “Gonna catch a big one?”

  “Your grace, you are going to have to catch them all.”

  I groaned audibly. Which wasn’t totally fair, since it’s not like the guy knew it was a stupid catch-phrase from Earth.

  “Though by catch, you mean kill,” I said.

  “Yes, Montana, I do mean kill,” Nikolai said. “Is that a problem?”

  “Just seems a bit, I don’t know—”

  “You have not been hesitant to unleash violence in the past. What’s happened?”

  “Most of the time it’s because someone or something is trying to kill me, so I’m just killing back. This is straight up hunting.”

  “And you aren’t a hunter?”

  “Not in either life. At least not yet.”

  “So you would prefer to let these abominations regroup and come for you once again? Or, worse, engage in whatever vile activities they have thought up and take it out on some innocent population?”

  “Fuck no. I just wish it wasn’t me that had to do the hunting.”

  “Welcome to being a responsible lord.”

  “Not something I asked for.”

  “Do we need to do this again?”

  “No,” I said, sighing and shaking my head. “I just needed to vent or something, I guess.”

  “Good, my lord. Now rest. You have quite a quest in front of you.”

  “And you don’t think I need to help out with Wian and his attack?”

  “No.”

  “Are you—”

  “Your grace, please.”

  I smiled, and shrugged. “Okay, got it. Rest.”

  “Thank you.”

  I walked away from my erstwhile mentor, the person ostensibly in charge of my holding. He’d become so different since he’d been in prison, since he lost his levels and his strength. Nikolai had always been a bit of an asshole, but now he was darker, broodier, unhelpful, and — I know this might be a bit much coming from a dumbass like me — he was a bit stupid. He was just a little thick. My confidence in the man was waning, but I wasn’t sure what to do about it.

  At that moment, however, there wasn’t much I could do. Nikolai was right on one count: I needed some rest. So I went into the mountain and walked quietly and calmly among my people. Which was a weird thing to say — my people. What the actual fuck? I had pretty severe imposter syndrome going on. Or maybe I was an actual imposter, since most of the people I passed either looked at me like I was a bloodthirsty devil or that I was the chosen one, there to save them from the dangers of the world. Again, I say to you, what the fuck?

  I finally got high enough up into the mountain-building so I didn’t have to slip between people or deal with them standing to the side to let me go. At last, I was in my bedroom. My suite. I peeled off my armor, trying to ignore all the dried blood flaking off. It was a disgusting, poignant reminder of the violence I’d just committed. I headed for my huge, amazing shower and did my best to get all the blood and guts off of me.

  The water turned red around me. I just kept my eyes closed as long as I could, scrubbing myself with wild abandon, trying to get not just the physical blood, but also the memory of the violence off of me. I thought about Emeline, and her head, and the rage that washed over me. I thought about Fritz and his sacrifice, once again, for me. I thought about all the people who were counting on me, and I started to feel a rising panic. I wondered if there might be a way of talking to an alchemist and making a Vuldranni equivalent to Xanax. I pinned that in my head for another day.

  I lost track of time. I’m sure I wasted a literal ton or two of water, considering the ridiculous flow-rate in the shower, but, well, it’s good to be the king, I guess. Or duke.

  My body ached as I got out, and I dried off. It had been a long day. I threw myself into bed and closed my eyes, immediately drifting into sleep.

  Chapter Two

  But as it turned out, it was the first time I’d slept since hitting level 25, or level 26 really, which meant my sleep was immediately interrupted as the game world assholes popped up the whole choice nonsense.

  IT IS TIME. YOU MUST CHOOSE.

  For reaching Level 25, you must make a Choice. This prompt may not be minimized nor ignored.

  Third Choice

  1) Burgmann — Not quite undisciplined enough to be a barbarian, nor so noble as to be a knight, you are still a grand warrior with honor who lives to protect those who cannot protect themselves. Martial skills advance double. You take less damage from all attacks as long as you are protecting at least one non-combatant. Gain bonus XP from protecting others.

  2) Reaper — Reapers kill. Indiscriminately. A reaper provides death for any and all. Gain double XP from all kills. Gain zero XP from other sources. Do 10% more damage to living creatures.

  3) Noble — You have a title, whether or not you deserve it. Leadership skills advance double. You gain a portion of your sworn followers’ XP. Bonuses to relationships with other nobles, penalties for Freemen.

  4) Master of Monsters — You have a way with the creatures that others fear. Monsters are your friends, companions, family. Bonus to taming attempts on all Monsters. Increased damage from Monstrous pets. Monstrous pets require less taming to become domesticated. Able to see breeding lineages of monsters. You make sentient humanoids uncomfortable being around them.

  5) Juggernaut — You are an unstoppable force on the battlefield, but might not find a place off the battlefield. You gain the ability Indomitable. You gain the ability Charge. Martial skills advance double. You gain increased XP while in battle, but your XP is halved outside of battle.

  You have one minute to decide.

  I was underwhelmed with my Choices. And why call it Choice? Capitalizing the word didn’t make it cooler; it just made the whole thing kind of presumptuous. And what would happen if I didn’t Choose? Ri
diculous. I chose to continue along as a Burgmann. Seemed like a pretty decent thing, and frankly, I wasn’t super sure there was any real tangible benefit to the damn choices at all. Besides, I wanted to sleep.

  BONG. You have made your choice. You are a Burgmann. Martial skills advance double. You take less damage from all attacks as long as you are protecting at least one non-combatant. Gain bonus XP from protecting others. Let them come, they will crash upon you and perish.

  Like it tended to, morning came way too early.

  Someone poked me awake while it was still dark out.

  A young woman stood next to my bed, her armor beat to shit. She held a small candle that provided a weak light.

  “Pardon, your grace,” she said, “but I was sent to brief you.”

  I struggled to sit up, wiping my eyes on the back of my hand and wishing I had some sort of insta-wake ability. My wish did not come true.

  “There some reason Nikolai or Wian aren’t here?” I asked, stretching.

  “Yes, your grace,” she answered, eyes to the floor.

  Whatever it was, it was a bad reason. I threw the blanket off, realized I was naked, pulled the blanket back over my body, and wrapped it like a toga. Then I got out of bed.

  “Didn’t seem right to get the news laying down,” I said. “Who died?”

  “Many men and women lost their lives this night.”

  “Did we win?”

  “I was told to tell you that the siege has lifted. Though there was a cost.”

  “Who told you to tell me that?”

  “Chancellor—”

  “Nikolai’s fucking politic answer. And Wian?”

  “He fought through the battle, but took many wounds. It is unclear if he is going to—” she said, and then choked back a sob or two.

  “It’s okay,” I said, resting a hand on her pauldron. I had to hide my disgust over the bits of someone I definitely just touched. “I’m sure you did all you could.”

  I didn’t want to lose Wian, and I had to wonder what the limits of magical healing were in this world. Why might someone not make it? What couldn’t healers heal? Losing Wian would be a blow, to be sure. Even having him out of commission was going to be challenging. Of all those controlling our military, he seemed to have his head about him. Which was more than I could say for Emeline. Too soon? Probably, but I’d like to believe she’d have appreciated the joke.

  The female soldier, Thingwoman I guess, shook her head. Then she stood tall once again, like nothing had effected her.

  “I’m sorry, your grace,” she said.

  “For showing emotion?” I asked. “Nonsense, you don’t need to apologize for that.”

  “I should have waited until I was on my own,” she replied.

  “How high was the cost?”

  She looked from side to side, and finally said, “Over a hundred dead. At least two hundred injured. I should not speculate how many might pull through.”

  I listened to her rattle off the numbers and names of people who’d just perished pushing back Caticorix and his foreign mercenaries, and it meant little to me. Not emotionally — I was devastated that all these men and women died. But from a logistics standpoint, I had no idea what it meant that we lost over a hundred of our Thingmen. Plus the leader of the Thingmen. And what did it mean that Nikolai sent this girl to talk to me instead of coming himself?

  I realized my internal monologue had gone on long enough that the girl was just staring at me.

  “Thank you,” I said. “And I am sorry for your loss.”

  “It is our duty to serve,” she said. “A death in the line of duty is not to be mourned.”

  Then she saluted me, the fist to the chest, and gave a brief nod. She turned on her heel and marched out of my chambers.

  I sat back down on my bed and let the blankets fall back across the mattress. This was not something I was prepared for.

  There wasn’t much of a chance I was going back to sleep, so I walked over to my balcony, strode out, and looked down at the world beyond.

  It was fucking cold outside.

  Probably didn’t help that I was naked.

  I went back inside to look through my available clothes. Nothing stood out as being particularly comfortable or climate appropriate. In a moment of extreme sadness, I tried to pull my white fur sort of garment on, the one I’d come into the world wearing. But it no longer fit. My arms were so thick I couldn’t even get them through the legs. What had happened to me?

  I settled for layering up the clothes I did have, and then went back out on the balcony. I looked down and saw people running. There were cries of pain, calls for mercy, all sorts of horrible sounds as young men and women grappled with mortality. I wanted to do something for them. I flexed my hands, thinking that I did have my one healing spell. I thought about what Tarryn had told me, though, that my muscle blocked my magic, that I hadn’t built the mana pathways to let magic through. That was probably hogwash and superstition though. I closed my eyes, and felt the mana deep inside. Then, I cast humus.

  It felt like there was a blockage inside, so I forced the magic through.

  I heard a tearing sound, followed by an incredible amount of pain. A flash of incandescent colors flitted up into the night sky. I felt weird. Oddly cool on the inside.

  Looking down, it made sense. Something had torn out of me. I stared through a big hole in my clothes at a huge gaping wound in my midsection. I blinked, maybe twice, and then I toppled over, pain overtaking me. My mind went black.

  Chapter Three

  I’m not sure how long I was laying out there in my blood, but it was still night when I woke up. The moons were still out, there were still cries of pain from the wounded below, but their sad moans had decreased in volume and intensity. A dismal metric for gauging time, but effective. I got up slowly, watching the dried blood all over my abdomen flake out through the vague remains of my shirt. There was also a decent portion of my balcony missing and some rocks had been knocked out of my wall.

  “Duke Coggeshall!” came a shout from my suite. “Coggeshall!”

  “Out here,” I said, brushing some of the blood off.

  I heard the footsteps of someone running through my room. Correction: several someones. A bunch of soldiers burst through the doors out to the balcony. They stood there, weapons drawn, looking around for, well, whatever they were looking for. They seemed mostly fresh, but were wearing armor and had spears.

  “Evening boys,” I said, stretching a little. My stomach, in particular, felt remarkably tight. “Something up?”

  “There was,” the lead soldier started, “we saw, Nikolai had us come up here because we saw a flash of light, and there was a boom of some kind, your grace. We thought, perhaps, you were under attack.”

  “Nope,” I said, “just me.”

  “Might I ask what happened to you?” he pointed to my torn shirt.

  “Caught it on a door,” I lied.

  Everyone in the group knew I was lying, but it’s not like they could really say anything about it. So they smiled, and then I smiled. Then we all stood around awkwardly.

  “I’m going to take a shower,” I said, and I pushed through mass of armored men and women. “Have a good night. Thank you.”

  There was definitely some mumbling, and some of the soldiers left while some stayed out on the balcony searching around. I didn’t care either way. I wanted to get the blood off my body (again) and get some sleep before having to go on my bear hunt. So that’s what I did. I went to the shower, scrubbed off the blood, and went to bed. By which point the room had emptied, so I was alone again.

  I should have gone right to sleep. Naturally that didn’t happen. I laid there, staring at my ceiling, listening to the water in my ‘shower’ rushing through the bathroom. I didn’t turn the shower off because I wanted the noise to drown out the sounds of the wounded warriors below. Big problem of not having glass in the windows, I suppose. Or having such a massive group injured. Over two hundred soldiers.<
br />
  I sighed.

  I realized I should use the time to look at my notifications. It was a problem that I left so much unread, and I knew I needed to get better at it. But, I mean, reading. Ugh.

  I’d killed a lot of Ursus. Like, a lot more than I expected. I felt a real pit forming in my stomach. I’d never been much for dealing out death so much as dealing out meth. Which wasn’t true either, I mostly specialized in opioids. I liked to say that I dealt pain and pain meds. Which was hilarious to the dumb junkies. And the bikers. But neither were exactly a discerning group when it came to comedy. Or morals.

  All the death and destruction had kicked me up to level 25, and gotten me my new Choice.

  But the most interesting notification was this:

  Look at that, you’ve learned the spell: ManaBomb

  ManaBomb is the result of attempting to cast mana in the form of a spell whilst possessing no open mana channels, and causes all internal mana to become external mana in short order. It makes you a magical bomb. Any of you that gets in the way largely becomes shrapnel. All mana must be used at once.

  So that was a new spell. Sure, it seemed to require me literally tearing a hole through my flesh to let the magic out. But hey, no pain no gain, right?

  I took a few more minutes in bed, and then dragged my sorry ass out and got another set of clothes. It was my last shirt. And it still didn’t fit right.

  Still, it was time to get working. And my work, at least at that point, was getting ready for a quest. A quest I would embark on later that morning.

  To start, I emptied out my knapsack to take inventory. It was full of a lot more gack than I expected, as always. And a surprising amount of small shiny rocks. I had the feeling the prinkies had been dropping the shiny rocks I’d had them bringing Nikolai. There wasn’t much I needed to throw in the bag, at least from my room. I was really tempted to claim ducal privilege and not clean the mess of random crap up. But that seemed kinda dickish, so, instead, I summoned up some prinkies, and had them sort everything.