Blood for Power: A LitRPG Apocalypse

My options were rapidly shrinking as the wraiths closed in. I considered using Crimson Domain to escape but it would be a temporary one at best, and they would be waiting for me when I returned. No, I had to get out of this mausoleum for good.

None of my weapons or abilities would work on them directly, but what about the things in here? The walls in this place were solid to them. They were also moving around the stone coffin in the center of the room. If those things had a physical presence to them, then surely other things in the room must too.

To my left was a simple vase with flowers in it. Now, I doubted that ceramic would be their one fatal weakness, but it would serve as a test.

I snatched up the vase and hurled it at the nearest wraith. The object phased right through and smashed to pieces on the wall behind it.

So these creatures didn’t consider it a part of this place. Maybe it was too recent. Some new addition that a grieving family member had put here. Or maybe it wasn’t considered spiritual or holy enough. Regardless, I had run out of throwable objects in this depressingly sparse tomb.

Unable to fight them, there was only one option left, which was to run past them. There were two on one side and one on the other, blocking both paths. So going through the middle and over the coffin seemed prudent. But the mausoleum wasn’t that big and if one of them touched me, paralysis would start to set in. I’d have to be fast and at my most agile to make it work.

The wraiths slowly floated along either side of the coffin.

Okay, it was now or never.

I leapt up onto the stone coffin and raced along it. Hands lurched forward, grasping to take me. I hopped over one and went into a handstand to launch myself over the others. I landed back at the entrance with relief. One good thing about them holding those lanterns is that it limited them to only attacking with one hand.

Of course, I had forgotten about the fourth problem in the room. The wraith from the box I’d thrown had now fully emerged to block my path. It floated menacingly towards me, with one hand outstretched, ready to take my life.

I backed away until I felt my hands touch the stone coffin and the lid shifted slightly. It gave me an idea. I didn’t know if I was strong enough to do it, but I had to try.

I grasped the lid with both hands and heaved. The heavy lid came free. My arms shook as I raised it up and swung it at the wraith. The lid slammed into the side of the creature, knocking it into the wall.

The wraith made no sound at this and did not appear to be injured. The other wraiths didn’t seem to care either and were once again closing in.

I used the lid like a board to push them back, before I dropped it and rushed outside. With my sword, I made a double Air Slash attack over the mausoleum entrance. Two crescent streaks of power shot out of my sword and blasted the entrance to rubble.

They were trapped inside, and though I dreaded whatever poor fellow might unearth them the next morning, I didn’t have time to leave a note. I had to catch up to Hugo and the orcs. After retrieving my real hand from where I’d left it and re-attaching it, I contacted Hugo for an update.

Lucas: Hugo, are you there?

Hugo: Yes, I’m still following them. They’re at some wall at the back of the cemetery and… wait, they’re moving some of the stones. There’s a secret entrance back here!

It was probably easier to avoid detection by coming and going that way. Who knows how many bodies they’ve stolen using it?

Lucas: Okay, stay with them. I managed to trap the wraiths and I’m on my way.

Hugo: Does trapping them mean…

Lucas: Yeah, I have no idea what to do if they throw more of those things at us. But we’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.

I left out the part about how only cemetery items seemed to affect them. I didn’t want to worry him given the fact that we were moving away from the graveyard. On the plus side, the city streets made it a lot easier to tail someone without being seen.

Hugo gave me directions to the back of the cemetery. There, at the stone wall, was a section with a large scratch on it. I pushed and the section of it moved inwards like a hidden door. Someone had expertly cut out a section of the wall and reinforced it somehow. This would’ve taken time and tools to accomplish. It was a lot of trouble to go to for grave robbing and it made more curious about where the orcs were going.

I climbed through, which led me back onto the street. Luckily, there was no one around. I put the wall back how it was and hurried to catch up with Hugo.

Hugo: Wait, they’ve stopped behind a shop.

Lucas: Okay.

Hugo: They dumped the body! They threw it down a thing and now they’re walking away.

I felt like saying anything else in chat would distract him. So I kept running and waited for his next response.

Hugo: Wait, they’re gone too!

I doubled my speed and reached the area where he’d lost sight of them. According to the bird, they’d walked down a narrow side street and turned a corner. By the time Hugo had flown over the buildings, they’d vanished.

Hugo landed on my shoulder with a huff. “They must have ducked into one of the shops,” he said.

I retraced the path he had described and studied the storefronts. All of them were dark and many of the doors had bells on to announce when a customer had entered. It was possible, but unlikely that the local cobbler was the orc's secret base of operations.

I looked around and noticed a sewer grate that was slightly askew. I pointed to it and said, “I think they went down there.”

The crow frowned. “Maybe?” he offered reluctantly, still annoyed at his failure for losing them.

“It’s okay. You did the right thing. They would’ve heard if you tried to open the grate and follow them.”

I got down and put my ear to it to listen. There was nothing.

Opening it up proved equally fruitless once I poked my head down. The grate led to two sewer paths that both went to intersections.

Damn, there was no way of finding them now. They could be anywhere by now.

I suppressed my irritation and focused on the one remaining lead we had. “Show me where they dumped the body,” I said. Maybe we could still salvage something from tonight.

Hugo led me around to the back gate of some courtyard that was behind a butcher's shop. The gate had been left unlocked, and the scent of blood still faintly hung in the air. It looked like an area that they used to accept deliveries.

Hugo told me that they’d dumped the body in a thing which turned out to be a garbage chute. I opened the chute door and recoiled from the smell. A disgusting mix of death and stale blood wafted up.

Hugo flapped over to the wall to get a respectful distance away from the smell, which meant I had to investigate. With my hand over my nose, I peered inside. There was only darkness and I couldn’t see where it ended. The chute must go down quite a way.

Which begged the question of why a butcher shop in a city of this technological era would require one. Judging from the smell, this was where the butcher threw leftover carcasses and other refuse. But why would the orcs dig up a body only to throw it in the trash?

“Can you send a spirit summon down there?” I asked.

The crow shook his head. “There are markings inside the chute that are giving me bad vibes. The same as what I felt from the church.”

Odd, I hadn’t seen any markings. I switched to Magical Awareness and suddenly saw the sigils.

“How bad is this stuff?” I asked.

Hugo thought for a moment. “I think it’s meant to repel spirits. We should be fine.”

“Should be? Well, that’s comforting.”

I stared at the chute, unwilling to move.

“You know what this means, right?” he asked.

I made a face. “I do. Have I mentioned how much I hate Tower Climbing?”

“Not specifically, but I think the general sentiment has been expressed.”

I climbed into the chute feet first and told Hugo to follow behind me. I held onto the ledge and tried to psych myself up.

“What are you waiting for?” he asked.

“Oh god, the smell is even worse once you’re inside it,” I groaned.

Hugo summoned his spectral hand and gave me a shove.

I flew down the chute, sliding faster and faster. It was far deeper than expected. I should’ve been worried, but all I could think about was why would someone go to this much trouble for refuse?

Eventually, I reached the bottom and fell into an enormous stone room. It wasn’t a dump at all. The room had high ceilings and carved pillars against one of the walls. A doorway thirty feet high led to darkness could be seen at the far end of the room. The city wasn’t supposed to be that old, but this looked like an ancient chamber buried under its foundations. Perhaps this wasn’t something that was built, but something the grave robbers had unearthed.

The body the orcs had thrown down here lay in the sack just a few feet away. Past it were many other bodies, all human, and in various states of decay. There must have been close to fifty of them all scattered around the room. And given where the chute came out, someone else would’ve had to have come down here to move the bodies around.

Hugo gracefully landed on my shoulder. “Huh, the smell isn’t so bad down here.”

Sensing more magic was afoot, I used my other sight. Fiery symbols blazed across the walls and ceiling of the chamber. This whole space was enchanted and something told me it did more than eliminate the place's odor.

I opened the sack. Inside was the body of a recently deceased young woman and the shovels they’d used to dig her up. There was nothing special about the body that Hugo or I could discern. We checked a few of the other bodies, but none of them had any distinguishing features. They were men and woman of various ages and sizes. Even their clothing suggested that their level of wealth varied at their time of death.

“Maybe whoever’s doing this is stealing the bodies for an undead army?” Hugo suggested.

“Or it’s for some kind of experiment. Remember that Enzo said that live people were disappearing. You wouldn’t go to all that trouble when there’s an unguarded graveyard filled with bodies.”

“It could be two separate crimes. There are supposed to be other Tower Climbers here working on other quests.”

That was a good point.

“Let’s keep going and see what else is down here,” I said, indicating we should go through that giant doorway.

I only made it a couple of steps before a phone started ringing. The sound was muffled slightly. I looked around in confusion until discovering the source. The ringing was coming from inside the young deceased woman’s stomach.

While I stared, Hugo was trying to get my attention. “Er, Lucas?”

“What is it?”

I followed his gaze and realized why he was concerned. All of the other dead bodies were stirring.