Blood for Power: A LitRPG Apocalypse

I surveyed the area outside the tunnel entrance. There were no marks in the sand other than my own and there was nothing in sight besides the city. Whoever used this place either hadn’t been here for some time, or had taken the precaution of covering their tracks.

So we made our way back towards the city. Back to Bart’s shop to confront him.

Hugo: Okay, I’m just gonna say it. That phone call was weird.

I turned to look at him. We’d been walking in silence for the past five minutes.

Lucas: You’re just discovering this now?

Hugo: I was trying to work out how giving us those potions would help us avoid trouble with the other gods.

Lucas: And did you figure out?

He sighed.

Hugo: What do you think?

I shrugged and then gave it my best guess.

Lucas: I think the call itself was a part of it. He mentioned something about champions and tribunals. Yakeshi had mentioned something about holding one for Roan. So maybe the Officiator believes that we will be free of his influence before that happens.

Hugo: Maybe Daisy really has found something that can help us.

Lucas: Let’s hope so.

Entering the city was much easier than last time. I guess even goblins need to sleep. But then again, maybe they too were afraid of the threats that could be lurking out at night. I kept my senses on high alert just in case.

When we reached Bart’s shop, my gut told me that something was off. The feeling grew stronger the closer I got to the door. So I kept going and walked past the shop window. Strangely, a mannequin had been placed there that wasn’t there before. I watched it out of the corner of my eye as I walked past. The mannequin's head turned, following me with its faceless gaze.

I switched Magical Awareness on. The mannequin now had glowing orange eyes, and wherever it looked, it cast a wide orange haze that stretched out to the middle of the road. It was like a field of view cone.

I kept walking past the shop, to Hugo’s confusion.

“What is it?”

I hurried past the shop and crossed the road. Once we were well outside of the thing’s field of view, I pointed to the window. Hugo watched as the mannequin’s head repositioned itself to back where it was.

He shivered. “That’s creepy. What is it?”

The orange glow in its eyes faded, like it was powering down, but the haze remained.

“I think it’s guarding the shop. Some kind of machine maybe,” I murmured.

“Aw man. I was hoping to try out the Soul Lance. Do you think robots have souls?” He asked, his voice hopeful.

“That’s kind of a complicated philosophical question that I’m not equipped to answer. Let’s just say the odds of it having one in this place are low.”

“So you’re saying there’s a chance?”

I know he was excited to test his new ability, but I had to be firm with him. This thing was motion activated. It was built for a specific purpose. Giving it a soul would only complicate things.

“In this case? No, absolutely not,” I said. “Using that new ability of yours takes a toll, so it’s probably wise not to test it right now. But I’m sure the opportunity will arise soon.”

“What about the Wraiths in the cemetery? Didn’t they beat you? We could go back and get ‘em.”

“First of all, they didn’t beat me. That was a draw. Second of all, they’re buried under a ton of rubble that I don’t feel like digging through. Let’s focus on one problem at a time.”

After watching for a few minutes, we saw no movement in the shop. As an experiment, I picked up a stone and threw it into the orange haze.

The mannequin didn’t react.

“It seems to have a limited cone of view that we must have triggered when I walked past the window,” I said.

Its direction was only pointed outward toward the street, and our voices didn’t seem to trigger its attention. If we could find another way inside, then perhaps we could simply avoid it all together.

“Come on,” I said. “We’ll find another way in.”

If Bart was this paranoid, then he would’ve put something at the backdoor of his workshop. But that part was windowless. It could be another mannequin or something else entirely. I decided it was safer to avoid climbing the building directly and come at it from another way.

Hugo noticed we were walking pretty far away from the inventor’s shop. “Where are we going?”

I stopped in front of a taller building. It was nothing like the tower the orcs had, but it was several stories higher than the shop and it would serve for my purpose.

I climbed up to the roof and looked over the edge. Hugo realized what I was thinking. “Oh, so you finally discovered the best means of travel.”

“I figured this was as good a time as any to test the Shroud.”

Though now I was having second thoughts, and I found myself wishing the building was much, much taller. At this height, there wasn’t a lot of room for margin of error.

My cloak lengthened behind me, and I could feel my heart beating. I tried to get it under control, but my body wouldn’t listen. A direct fall from this height was still dicey if I landed wrong and broke my neck. Even with my healing power, my body knew how dangerous this was.

I had to push those thoughts aside. This will work, I told myself.

“It’s easy,” Hugo said. “Just spread your wings, feel the air current, and then step off.”

I spread the cloak out like a wingsuit behind me. There wasn’t much air to feel, but that would quickly change as I started to fall. Theoretically, the cloak would help me turn that fall into a gentle glide that I would use to access the roof of the inventor’s shop.

Hugo, to his credit, didn’t try to push me this time. There was nothing to say or do. He waited until I suppressed the primal part of my brain that was screaming for me to reconsider.

Everything inside became quiet, and I slipped off the roof with my body straight.

Panic quickly took over. The cloak wasn’t catching the air, and I began falling like a stone. There was no time to call out for help. I could only watch as the ground got closer.

A blast of air hit me from below. My stomach dropped as I suddenly shot upwards.

Hugo: Don’t worry. I got you.

He’d bought me a little time. I changed the cloak’s shape, widening it and held it firm in my mind. This time the air current slapped against the fabric and the fabric held. I’d done it. I was gliding across the city.

It was a strange feeling. I thought that gliding would be exciting, but instead I felt a calm sense of peace.

Hugo came in to fly alongside me and helped guide me back to Bart’s shop. I was grateful for that too. I’d completely lost sight of it and many of the buildings looked the same from this angle.

With my black cloak, Hugo was inspired to start humming a theme tune.

I smiled.

Lucas: You saw that show too then.

Hugo: Of course. Every Saturday morning, these kids on the forty-second floor would throw cereal onto the balcony for me during the advertisements.

Lucas: You know, sometimes I doubt that your life on the streets before all of this was as hard as you make it out to be.

I heard a gasp through companion chat.

Hugo: You wouldn’t say that if you saw how the kid’s mother would try to hit me with a broom. I had to be in and out of there like lightning. I will not be slandered for maintaining pop culture literacy during my struggles.

I conceded the point to him, mainly because we were almost above Bart’s shop and I hadn’t figured out how to land yet.

As soon as I got close, I collapsed the cape’s shape, and hit the rooftop with a smooth roll.

I couldn’t help but grin as I got to my feet. “Okay, that was awesome.”

Hugo swooped down and landed on my shoulder. “See? Way better than walking.”

There was a skylight over the front half of the shop. Peering down, showed us that the door to his workshop was closed and the mannequin wasn’t moving. The skylight had a window that could be slid open. I tried to open it but it was deadbolted shut on the inside.

Lucas: A little help here.

Hugo’s ghost hand moved through the window and pulled the bolt back. There was a loud creak, and we stopped. I held my breath and stared at the mannequin, but it did not move. Maybe it wasn’t designed to hear, but I wasn’t taking any chances. Gently, I slid the window open.

Hugo summoned Archer and had her hop down first. I wanted to go down next, but the crow beat me to the punch and swooped down to land on a table. Still no response. Hugo waved his wing at me to come down.

I held onto the edge and slowly lowered myself down before letting go and dropping softly to the ground.

Hugo: I can see the directional view thing you were talking about. I think the robot is only programmed to react to threats coming from the street.

Lucas: We don’t know what’s waiting for us in the workshop though, so be ready.

There was no sound coming from the workshop, but I could see light shining beneath the door.

I drew my sword, and a summoning circle of light formed on the palm of my other hand as I primed a Hemorrhage gate.

Archer opened the door, but this time I went in first.

The workshop turned out to be empty except for one immobile figure. As I suspected, there was another machine facing the backdoor. Unlike the thin mannequin, this one was bulkier and made out of a suit of armor. Instead of hands, it had metal clamps which made me wonder if these we more than security. What if they were used to help with production and then repurposed for security? Enzo had said that Bart had changed at some point and sworn off direct contact with the orcs. I wonder what caused it?

“Let’s take a look around,” I said. “See if there’s anything here that tells us where he lives.”

There were papers strewn across one of the tables. I skimmed through them but all of them were random sketches of schematics except for the last one. There, under the rest of them, was a sketch of the spirit killer device.

“He was building them,” I realized.

“There’s more stuff missing over here,” Hugo said, pointing to another table. “Sets of tools that have been taken. I don’t think he’s coming back here.”

I took all of the diagrams and put them in my inventory. Hopefully Enzo might have some ideas about where Bart might’ve gone.

“Maybe he has a house in the city somewhere?”

“Maybe,” I said, frowning. “The whole thing still doesn’t make sense though. How is he connected to the goblins or the orcs that are stealing bodies?”

We searched the rest of the workshop but didn’t find anything of value. We were about to leave when we received a message.

Roan: Hey, just giving you a heads up that I’m back.

Both of us sent him a flurry of questions.

Roan: Yeah, I can’t answer any quest specific questions. Mostly because I don’t know, I haven’t been following Tower events recently. One thing I will say is to be wary of Enzo. Right now, you’re useful to him and his people. The second you’re not is when you could be in trouble.

Lucas: I’ll keep that in mind. What about the device we picked up before? Could it be used to create more Wraiths?

Hugo: You think this is all about building a ghost army?

Roan: That’s a strong possibility. Hugo receiving a soul magic attack makes it even stronger.

Lucas: How did you know that?

Roan: Oh, I can see your stats. It’s normal for patrons.

That was a little disconcerting. Does that also mean he can see what we’ve got in our inventories? If that were true, then he would’ve read the note that Daisy had given me. He could have confronted us about it, but nothing we’ve done so far technically constitutes a betrayal. He might simply be biding his time and waiting for us to make a move.

Hugo: Hey I was wondering, what’s the tribunal?

I shot Hugo a concerned look and mouthed the word careful.

Roan: I’m surprised you’re asking about that now. Did you hear something more about it?

There was suspicion in his voice. We needed to tread lightly here.

Lucas: No, it’s just that we’ve finally had time to process what happened at the Golden Door and the comment about a tribunal was something that stood out to us.

Roan: That was nothing but an empty threat relating to inter-god politics. It’s not worth concerning yourselves about.

Hugo: And things with Tanver Vhar? How goes those?

I closed my eyes and ran a hand through my hair. You’re really pushing it, little buddy.

Roan: Things are… ongoing. Can’t say more than that, but why did it look like you were about to leave the workshop?

Lucas: We searched it. It looks like he cleared the place out.

Roan: While leaving security as a trap? Mad inventors love secret hiding places. I can’t guarantee anything, but I’d suggest you keep looking in case there was something you overlooked.

Hugo glanced at me and I shrugged. It couldn’t hurt to be more thorough.

We divided the room in half. Hugo used Archer to search while I pulled drawers out, checking for false bottoms. When I got down to the lower cabinets. There were some cans of oil, some chemical cleaning supplies, and a few spare tools.

I almost gave up when I spotted a cable tucked away at the back of the cupboard. I followed it and behind one of the cans of oil was a button. I pressed it and one of the walls shifted back, revealing a hidden alcove.

Elation turned to disappointment when I saw that it was empty.

Lucas: Well, you were right. He did have a secret storage space, but there’s nothing here.

Roan: It’s not a total loss. You now have a target to go after and those diagrams with his signature on them will be enough to convince Enzo to have his people help you look for him.

Lucas: I thought you said we couldn’t trust him.

Roan: I said he was using you. I never said you shouldn’t use him back.

The alcove suddenly closed shut and iron bars dropped down over the door. I looked in the other room. More bars were covering the front window, the door, and the skylight.

“I must have tripped some kind of failsafe,” I said.

Hugo wasn’t impressed. “Again!?”

“That last one doesn’t count,” I muttered while pressing the hidden button, only now it had no effect. “There must be a way to turn it off.”

The large robot suddenly turned, orange eyes afire.

Roan: Whatever you do, don’t fight the robots.

There was a table between us and the armor robot. Rather than go around it, it brought a set of clamps up and smashed the table in half.

We started backing away into the other room, only to see the mannequin slowly approaching us.

Lucas: What? Why on earth not?

Roan: At this level of the Tower, power sources small enough to be inside those things are going to be rudimentary and unstable. If you damage them in the wrong way, then they could explode.

Hugo: We’ve survived worse.

Roan: The explosion would take out half the street.

We backed into the front of the shop, but the mannequin was closing in.

Lucas: So what do we do? We’re trapped in here.

Roan: I’m working on it. Just hold on.

The mannequin’s hands retracted back and two long, thin blades slid out. It held its arms outstretched as it walked towards us. The arm blades sliced through the wooden shelves like butter.

Lucas: Work faster!