DIE TRYING [A Roguelite Extraction LitRPG]

"Your plan is stupid, you're stupid, this whole fecking place is stupid." Illy hissed.

"You voted this to be the safest thing we could come up with." Wade argued back.

"I didn't say I didn't agree with it yank. I just said it's fecking stupid."

They'd gone through all their options, anywhere from setting up sound traps, to the best way of working around the golem. It either wasn't enough to draw attention and get things rolling, or it was too direct and would expose them. The real danger, as Leon had explained from his experience, was being seen even once by the golem. So long as they didn't know humans were running around, they wouldn't come looking. The moment any caught sight, they'd give chase through alleyways, living rooms, tunnels - nowhere was safe.

But that could be used as an advantage:

"Just remember the contingency plans." Wade said. "Anything goes wrong, split into two groups and book it for the golem. It'll clean up whatever's chasing us while we hide."

Selena could fly, and she could carry someone with her. Like a certain scottish girl. Their duo could get out of basically everything.

Wade couldn't run too well with his limp, but Leon had started with high strength and already put his points to further up it. He was the fastest runner they had, with more than enough strength to carry Wade.

"If either group can't escape for whatever reason, find and barricade yourself into a house." Barricaded buildings had skeletons but they hadn't run into skeletons out in the alleyways. That meant the beasts outside didn't have the means to break into a barricaded building. The people who lived here once had also come up with the same idea given that they'd found multiple barricaded buildings, all of them unbroken.

"Whatever's out there will likely make way more noise and draw the golem. It'll attack whatever's outside first, clear the area, and then could be led to the nearest skeleton infested home. In the chaos, we slip back out. Far as you two told me, it's only used visual eyesight to track things, right?"

"If ye aren't seen, ye don't exist." Illy nodded.

Golems attacked everything bigger than a rat, would crush through buildings without a care in the world, and chased after threats and noises until it killed whatever caused those noises.

Anything

could get it's attention.

And here was the real reason the groups were split as they were. Wade has his arm throwing capabilities augmented by the blackrot, letting him fling rocks far outside the regular range and Selena had her magic pulse strike from her spear. Wade didn't expect it to do much damage to the golem, but it could hit from long range and she could easily reposition fast.

They'd split up resources in half as a result. Illy had five knives on her, and handed off five more to Leon and ten to Wade. If they were planning on getting split up, they needed to be equipped for it.

"Just keep in mind the ultimate plan. We find a house out here with enough skeletons within it to give the golem some time to clear it out, and draw it there. Or failing that, we find a place with multiple houses next to each other that have skeletons within. Golem's going to probably cause the collateral damage needed."

And while all that chaos was happening, the group would sneak across the road. They didn't need that much time, only ten seconds at most to make it across.

Ironically, the most dangerous part of this entire operation wasn't wrangling the golem over. It was the scouting they had to do first: Identify all the houses skeletons were barricaded within, so that they knew the best location to draw the golem in, or to hide from danger.

"You reckon if we take down a few more of these gentlemen, we might level up?" Illy asked as the group eyed the health bars floating in front of the walls of this house. "Could do with another point or two meself, and this house is too isolated to be useful in the golem wrangling. Won't make a damn bit of difference against the fat metal nugget, but might give us a fighting chance against everything else down here."

This was the third house so far to be barricaded, and all three had skeletons within it. They'd traveled around the outskirts of the gloom, moving into, then back out each time. Name of the game was to be careful, steady, and safe.

There's no need to go deeper into the gloom. All they needed was a house with twelve or more skeletons inside. So far, the most they'd found was six.

"Had to kill a lot of them to get a level up last time." Wade said as they traveled back out into the lit sections. "But since partial experience is a thing, if you somehow manage to tag some and then let the golem destroy them later, might work?"

"We staying focused," Leon said, one hand patting Wade's head like he would an excited puppy as the group started venturing into the gloomy sections again. "No greedy plans, remember? More skeletons alive out here, more time golem takes to clean up, less chance we spotted running across road. Can always level up later, in safety."

Wade was about to argue for Illy's plan, powerleveling was never a bad choice, but then he felt a chill go through his blackrotten arm. Like some kind of squirming within it. Normally the arm didn't feel like anything. Rather, like a normal arm. But every now and then, the squirming inside it reminded him he had an invader steadily eating his body.

"How about just one level?" Illy asked, unaware of Wade's flinching. "Come on, that'd be like what, ten or eleven houses split between us three?" Her eyes flickered up back to the group. "You all right there Wade? Arm still causing issues even with the collar?"

"Uh, no, it's fine." He moved the arm around. The feeling had vanished. Even looking under the shirt it still seemed as it was before. "Just felt a chill through it or something." Debuff hovered around seventeen percent now, but that was all in the arm. The mithril disks were doing their job.

Selena followed behind the group, ears looking more like flattened antennas given how they were angled. Wade could tell that angle meant nothing language wise, she was going for maximum hearing. The other two were also on guard, hands on their weapons, eyes always looking at the approach angles. Wade wasn't sure if their idle chatter was to help him feel more at ease, or themselves.

The next building was barricaded, and when they went to the side to test with Identify, they found nine enemy nameplates. "I think we found a good contender here. Nine could keep the muppet busy for ten seconds at least. More would be better, but if we don't find anything, this'll do."

They mentally added the house into their internal map, and withdrew from the gloom section, back into the light. Wade looked behind him, still feeling that sense that something was out there, sniffing him out.

"You know, been wondering how'd that beast-transformation ritual failed." Illy said as they returned into the safer sections. "Could you ask her for me?"

The ears twitched in a slight shrug when Wade asked. "It was simply not a compatible race, a poor gamble. Goblins, kobolds, treants, and orcs have attempted merging with wyverns, all successful with kobolds having the greatest benefits. Humans too, but your kind are mutts compatible with everything, it's already assumed."

"…Did she really call us 'mutts'?" Illy asked.

"Sort of." Wade shrugged. "The word choice makes it sound more like there's a

lot

of humans on Azdrial and we're seen as… pests? Maybe not exactly that but close-ish. Also she is part high-elf, and they're apparently racist pricks, so it's built into the language."

Her intonation with mutts and dismissal of humans was more just… pragmatic. There wasn't any inflection of insult in her wording at least. Also her current dislike of humans was solely aimed at one

specific

human who was constantly throwing herself into danger, and Wade really couldn't argue with that.

"Great. So when we get out of here, we'll have to deal with

people

." Illy said.

"Probably not high elves. They kicked Selena's people out, and I'd bet you ten dollars they don't allow anyone into their lands if you don't have pointed ears. We might be in trouble if this city's under their turf."

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Walking out into the world only to be chased by the locals seemed… depressingly possible.

"Hah." Illy scoffed. "If you of all people are offering up ten dollars in a bet, I sure as shite ain't taking that on. What happened to her people after they got kicked out?"

"Exactly what you'd anticipate from people driven from their land." Selena said as Wade dutifully translated. "They became nomads with little personal wealth. For a considerable period our people were regarded as con artists, bandits and hired cutthroats. Their deformed bones and appearances only fed into this stigma. Desperation has its own inertia, and the insular culture made it easy to justify stealing from others, especially since they never stayed in one place for long enough to forge ties with any of the people there."

"You mean we've been running around with the fantasy equivalent of half-dragon elf vagabond peddlers?" Illy asked. "With the Quasimodo treatment?"

"I see what you're trying to do here Illy," Wade diplomatically said. "And I'm not dumb enough to translate that back to her, thank you."

"… What if I paid you ten quid to say it?"

He considered it, running mental calculations on if he could get away with being stabbed for ten quid. The math clicked into place one digit at a time and finally displayed an official answer. He turned right to Selena, took a breath, but Illy jumped between them in a panic. "I'm not being serious you tosser! You mental or something?"

"Ten quid is ten quid."

"You don't even fecking know what a quid is!"

That was true, Wade had no idea how much a quid was worth dollar wise - but he did know it was

money

. And there wasn't a mossy stone in the world he wouldn't turn over for five bucks. "No-take-backsies."

Illy groaned, "Fine, that one's on me, I should have known better. Go ask her why she looks more like an Esmeralda than a Quasimodo. But do it in a way that isn't going to get you shanked."

Wade gave her a thumbs up and then turned to Selena. "Illy wants to know what happened to change your race up, because what you're describing sounds more like deformed half-dragon vagabonds, and you

really

don't look like that at all. I think you mentioned Nox healed your racial deformities, so I'm assuming that's what it means?"

Selena twitched her ears in pride, puffing her chest out. "She saw potential in my ancestors, and used her personal power to heal and restore us somewhat closer to our high elf roots. We were given a second chance at growing past our old culture's roots and she even realigned parts of our core to unlock a lesser version of flight dormant within the wyvern parts. In return, we pledged to serve her and have done so faithfully ever since."

"Ahhhhhh, I see where the picture's coming together." Selena had mentioned Nox was a lesser deity with very weak power a while back. And all this sounded like something real expensive power wise. "So she traded her power to heal your race?"

"Not quite… Her loss of power came about a century after our people were restored." Selena's ears dropped slightly. "You see, Equinox was the furthest moon in our world. Beyond the sunrings."

"The... Sunrings? I mean, I heard your world doesn't have a sun, but what are the sunrings?"

That might be what Play talked about, a solution the gods of that era did.

"You do not have sunrings? No, of course you wouldn't have those if you are from another world." She said, more muttering to herself for that last part. "Your world likely uses the old heliocentric solar model, I remember being told that's the naturally occurring system..." Her ears twitched and she looked up at Wade. "The sunrings are several large rings aligned in a disk around the world, containing fragments of our old sun's power. A comet was crafted that drags the largest concentration of sunlight behind in its wake. Divine wards made by the old gods keep the system stable and have been for centuries now."

He remembered Play mentioned this system was breaking down? Maybe the gravity well or something was off. "So... did your moon drift off into space out of range of these rings?"

"No, it met the standard fate of any unprotected celestial body floating in the void." She said, as if it were obvious. "Our sunrings are far less powerful than a true sun. Yours likely protects your entire system, if I remember my astrology classes on the subject. The rings only have enough power to protect our world and celestial objects in close orbit. And Equinox was far beyond that range."

Wade had a sudden feeling what was breaking down was a lot worse than just de-orbiting issues. "Selena... what happened to your moon?"

"Equinox was ea-" She stopped. Ears twitching. "Something's destroyed my vision ward behind us."

"What? But we're in the safezo-" He stopped as once more something within his blackrotten arm squirmed. Almost as if in danger.

The quest notification pinged.

New Personal quest: Challenge Gauntlet - An enemy forty levels or more above you is hunting you down. Evade or defeat your hunter. Reward: One storefront coin if your pursuer is eliminated.

"Shit, it's back!"

Leon and Illy must have also gotten the same notification, because both sprang into action.

The thing after them got into view almost at the same moment.

It was almost comical how silent it was for the size. Closer to a horse in scale. And yet as it crawled through the alleyway, it felt like someone had pressed the mute button where the sound should have been.

A giant spider-like creature. Each leg as thick as Wade's torso. Its body was a writhing mass of blackrot, the inky substance flowing across its exoskeleton like oil. Two reflective eyes fixed on their group, flashing green, then it came running after them like a goddamn tarantula hunting down lunch. It wasn't so much as running on all eight legs, more like jumping on them.

Level 46 Greater Blackrot Spider Broodspinner

Yep. That would indeed be forty levels or more above him.

Leon grabbed Wade by the hip and yanked him backward just as one of the spider's legs stabbed into the ground where he'd been standing. A knife zipped right for it but pinged off the carapace without so much as a scratch.

A flash of bright blue light came from Selena, and the elf outright bodychecked the entire thing with her shield. She bounced backwards right after, leaping twice to avoid two pounce attempts.

"This way!" Illy called, already sprinting down a side alley. "Can't outrun that thing, find shelter!"

The spider crashed through debris behind them, gaining ground with each passing second. Illy took two quick turns, then blue wings flashed in Wade's side vision.

Selena raced through the air, yanked Illy up and flew, kicking off as hard as she could off the sides of the walls.

And unfortunately, between the flying duo leaving the scene, and the running duo, the spider picked the running targets.

Leon was fast. The spider was clearly faster. The only advantage they had was that Leon could corner through the alleyways better than the spider could. But just barely.

Wade reached into the bouncing backpack behind him, yanked out a rock, and fired. For a level 46, he expected his rock to bounce off or something, but he had to test it first before he dipped into his reserves of Illy daggers.

The rock flew through the air, hit, and at least crushed through some part of the spider's shell, staying lodged inside. Three percent was knocked off the health bar. No skyviper archer debuff triggered however.

He had to trigger it somehow. But so long as he was riding on Leon's shoulder like a sack of potatoes, there wasn't any vaulting happening. And, unfortunately, whatever THE GAME used as it's rules, having both his feet off the ground did not technically mean he was jumping.

Wade crunched the numbers, and came up with another stupid plan.