Lord of the Flame
Call of Carrethen Book 2
Stephen Roark
Contents
Foreword
Newsletter
1. The Dark World
2. Kodiak
3. Ruins of Memories
4. The Shadows of Home
5. Ghosts
6. Sunken
7. Exclusive Powers
8. Déjà vu
9. The Ice Patrol
10. The Return of D
11. The Lord of the Flame
12. Cragrock
13. Anwi of Alexandria
14. Chilgrave Castle
15. Deadly Shadows
16. The Smith
17. The Houndmaster
18. Teamwork
19. The Bishop of Chilgrave
20. A Twisted Fate
21. Curafin
22. Undiscovered
23. The Red Devils
24. Cara
25. The Festering
26. The Nameless Archer
27. The Archer’s Secret
28. Solo Exploration
29. Serenity
30. Scouting Party
31. News of an Old Friend
32. A New Destination
33. Roll Out
34. The Forgotten Grove
35. Stitches
36. The
37. Dokkalfar
38. The Legionnaire
39. Contact
40. Not Quite There
41. The Wastes
42. The City of Jahannan
43. The Outer Wall
44. The Huntsman’s Trap
45. Gragorn the Giant
46. Church of the Dark Moon
47. The Cleric
48. The Cathedral of Fire
49. A Great Reward
50. A Brief Alliance
51. Fools
52. Central Jahannan
53. The Old Graveyard
54. Trewdor
55. The Tomb of the Befallen God
56. The Befallen Grub of Jahannan
57. Unexpected Salvation
58. The Stilt Hamlet
59. The Sea Lantern
60. The Targanic
61. Progress
62. Jack’s Decision
63. Enemies and Allies
64. Beatle
65. Targanic Eggs
66. The White Rose
67. The Underground City
68. The Right Hand of God
69. Catching Up
70. A Sacrifice
71. Fallen God
72. The Dire Wastes
73. Sheol
74. The Lord of the Flame
Afterword
Newsletter
About the Author
Foreword
When I was writing Call of Carrethen, I just wanted to make something that people liked and gave them that same feeling I had when I first logged into my first MMO, when I first ran around exploring and adventuring.
I wanted to create a world where player interactions were just as important as those with the game itself, the monsters, the quests etc. My best memories from any MMO are those that relate to guild politics, friends, enemies, betrayals and all the things that come along with PvP.
Some of the friendships I made fifteen years ago still last to this day, as we went through things together that felt real, despite being in a video game.
In Lord of the Flame, I really wanted to focus on building ou the world even more, introducing new characters and side-arcs and showing a new side of Carrethen that we’d yet to see. This will continue as the series does, and I’d just like to thank everyone who has supported me along the way. I hope you enjoy going into Carrethen as much as I enjoy writing it.
-Stephen
Newsletter
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1
The Dark World
Portal space.
The sound of rushing water, so familiar, but this time…somehow different. A fuzzy sound crackled in the background, like analog static from an antique stereo. The electric, purple-blue walls swirled around me, carrying me back to Carrethen, the world I’d fought for months to escape and was now returning to—voluntarily.
This is taking longer than it should, I thought. I should be there by now.
Was something wrong with the world backup? My Wellspring device? Suddenly, the edge of the portal cracked beside me, exposing hideous flecks of black, like the insulation of a wire, that seemed to chew and tear at the fabric of the conduit whisking me away to another world. My body felt strained as a thousand different forces tugged at my body like invisible fish hooks, yanking me in every direction, threatening to pull me apart.
This is all wrong, I thought, starting to panic. But just before I was about to completely freak out, the portal began to peel away and the ground appeared beneath me, bowed and distorted as though seen through a fisheye lens. My feet hit the ground and the portal disappeared with a snap like an electric shock. I glanced quickly around, trying to find some landmarks, but there was nothing familiar in sight.
I was standing in the bottom of a small basin with dark, jagged hills rising up around me on all sides. It was definitely Carrethen, but there was something…off about it. Thunder crashed above me, so loud I actually jumped, and when I looked up, I couldn’t believe what I saw.
Monstrous dark clouds hung ominously in the air like coal colored jelly fish. Lightning rippled and spread through them like electric hands or tree roots, and I could see a torrential downpour in the distance over the mountains—mountains I didn’t recognize.
Something moved in my peripheral vision, and I spun around to see a group of Horngrin Ravagers making their way across the slope, staggering back and forth like puppets without strings.
I heard a deep, powerful sound behind me and whirled around to see an enormous Magnascar lumbering across the flat ground towards me. Quickly, I inspected it.
Frenzied Magnascar—level 150.
“One hundred and fifty…” I whispered in disbelief. Spinning around, I inspected the Horngrin.
Horngrin Ravager—level 8.
“What…?”
It should have been impossible for two monsters of such different levels to be anywhere near each other. Call of Carrethen, like every other MMORPG, made sure that specific areas and zones contained similar level mobs for players to level. Level 8s should be nowhere near a level 150.
But there was no time to think as an arrow whizzed past my head and slammed into the slope in front of me. I spun around, instinctively reaching for my bow—but found nothing.
“Shit!” I gasped as another arrow hurtled towards me and struck me in the chest, decimating more than half of my HP. But beyond that, it hurt.
It actually hurt.
I cried out and threw myself out of the way as another arrow cut a deadly arc through the air towards my head.
How can that be possible!?
I looked up to see three enormous monsters I’d never seen before racing towards me. They were at least eight feet tall, muscled, dark blue and covered in a white crust that looked like tiny shards of ice or some other kind of crystal. One of them raised an enormous crossbow at me and took aim.
I managed to hurl myself behind a rock and take cover and quickly check my inventory.
Empty.
“Are you kidding me!?”
Another
arrow struck the rock, sending stone splinters into the air. Whatever those guys were, they were powerful.
I’ve got to get out of here, I thought.
There was no time to mess around. Foes were closing in on me from all sides, and I wasn’t about to go toe to to with the Magnascar, so I took off running in the direction of the low-level Horngrin.
Arrows whistled through the air behind me as I ran, faster than I’d ever run before.
Why am I so fast! What’s going on!?
D was fast, but not this fast!
The Horngrin spun around as I dashed up the hill towards them. One of them leapt at me, swinging a spiked mace at my head, but I was ready for him. I ducked and rolled, narrowly avoiding the attack, and threw myself back to my feet and raced on.
Another arrow struck my shoulder. Pain flared through me as a quarter of my remaining health was gone instantly. I was dangerously low with nowhere to hide, no Health Kits, no Healing Potions—absolutely nothing in my inventory.
The ground in front of me was rough, forcing me to jump from rock to rock to make any progress. Arrows zipped through the air, snapping against the stone all around me. The Horngrin screeched behind me but I was too fast for them. Thunder clapped in the sky above as if the very world itself was about to come crashing down on me like the foot of some enormous giant.
My foot slipped on the slick surface of a wet rock and I came crashing down chest first on a jagged boulder. I hit hard, and somehow, impossibly, it knocked the breath out of me.
How…how can this be…?
Call of Carrethen had specific controls built into its engine that specifically prohibited any real-world sensations like pain. The developers wanted the game to be immersive, but not that immersive. But something was wrong. I’d felt those two arrows, and I’d felt that fall.
What happens if we die in your world? That’s what I’d asked Wintermute before coming here. And its response?
Death.
Another arrow hit the rock just inches from me. I scrambled to my feet, spilling stone down the hill in a mini-avalanche as I raced toward the peak. Lightning strobed in the stormy sky as I reached it, and without hesitation, I hurled myself over the ridge towards whatever lay below.
It felt like I was flying as I realized what I’d just done—which was throw myself off of a cliff.
It had to have been at least two hundred feet high, but it was impossible to judge as I plummeted through the air like a meteor. For a second, I thought I was surely dead. The falling damage would certainly kill me, but then I realized that what I’d thought was a plane of black rocks beneath me, was actually a lake of black water with white capped waves crashing across its surface.
As I fell, far, far in the distance, I spotted what looked like a town. But there was no time to take anything in. I slammed into the water like a ten-ton anchor.
Thankfully, the impact had no effect on my remaining health, but I sank deep, causing my breath meter to appear. My feet found the bottom of the lake and I kicked hard, swimming for the surface. My air was ticking down fast as I swam as fast as I could.
You’ll make it, I told myself, keeping my eyes on the surface that raged above me like a storm.
But then, something grabbed my leg.
I looked down in horror as I saw a slimy purple tentacle wrapping around my ankle. Spikes sprang out like switchblades and pierced into my flesh like nails, chipping away even more of my remaining health. Pain flared as I fought to free myself.
I kicked hard, fighting against the tentacle’s iron grip, but it was just too strong and pulled me back hard, deeper into the water. My breath meter was already at half and dropping quickly. I tried to kick with my other leg, but underwater it was completely futile. It was like trying to run in a dream.
My breath kept falling, almost at 25 percent. My lungs felt like they were on fire. I felt my abdomen twitch and my throat spasm. My body was fighting to force me to take a breath. None of what was happening should have been possible in the game.
A horrific roar rang out beneath me, creating a shockwave that tore through the water. I looked down to see rows and rows of green teeth as an enormous mouth emerged from the darkness, rising from the floor of the lake itself. I inspected it quickly.
Lake Beast—level 250.
No…no, that can’t be! I thought as full blown panic set in. Monsters of this high level shouldn’t even exist in Call of Carrethen, let alone in an area close to low level Horngrin.
Everything is wrong…I thought as the Lake Beast pulled me down into the murky depths.
The sky above should have been clear blue.
My trip through portal space shouldn’t have taken so long or sounded the way it did. The walls of portal space shouldn’t have been splintering away like stripped electrical wire.
The Carrethen I was in was not the Carrethen I knew. Whatever had happened when Wintermute created its backup had changed things, corrupted them, like a twisted, horrific reflection of what once was, and now I was lost in a world I had no handle on. And I was about to pay for it.
I looked down at the rows of teeth, gleaming like knives, a perverted version of the Pit of Sarlacc, and knew that by returning to Carrethen I had made a big, big mistake.
2
Kodiak
The Lake Beast’s tentacle tightened and contracted around my ankle, its spikes penetrating deeper into my flesh as it pulled me towards its massive mouth. The more I struggled, the more my breath meter plummeted. Either the Lake Beast was going to kill me or I was going to drown. Either way, I was dead.
I should have been thinking about myself and my own mortality. I should have been terrified about what was going to happen when my HP vanished. But I wasn’t. I only had one thought in my mind as I sank towards the gaping mouth.
I’m sorry, Jack…
But then, something struck the water above me. I looked to see another player diving towards me. He wore all black with a hooded cloth covering his face like some sort of medieval ninja, and swam towards me with blinding, almost impossible speed.
The Lake Beast roared beneath me and tugged hard on my ankle, as if it was aware of my potential savior here to ruin its meal. I looked down as the rest of its hideous body emerged from the mud and it opened its mouth even wider for a bite that would cut me in half or swallow me whole.
As it brought its jaws together, I aimed my foot and managed to kick off one of its teeth. Its jaws clamped shut, barely missing me. I tried to kick away, but its tentacle was like a vice around my leg. The enormous beast opened its mouth for another bite, and that’s when I felt a hand grip mine.
I looked up to see the mysterious player gripping me tightly. I couldn’t see his face, but his eyes were fierce and filled with kindness. He drew a blue crystalline dagger and drove it hard into the Lake Beast’s tentacle. A shriek that seemed to shake the very waters of the lake itself poured out of its grotesque mouth, but the tentacle held firm.
He struck out again and again, spilling black blood from the beast into the water, creating an inky cloud around both of us. I thrashed against the beast’s grip as he rammed the knife home again, and finally felt the tentacle release its unbreakable hold around my ankle.
I kicked for the surface, swimming as hard as I could, but my breath meter was already too far gone. My body spasmed again, trying to force me to take a breath. There was no way I was going to make it in time. I’d been saved only to die moments later.
My rescuer pulled at my arm, turning my face to his. I saw something in his eyes, and then, I felt something tugging at me.
No! Impossible!
He began dissolving in front of my eyes, his body breaking into countless tiny purple dots. The sound of rushing water filled my ears.
Portal space!? How?
And then, I was whisked away, back into a purple-blue portal that twisted around me, pulling me away to somewhere unknown.
Static. The sounds of rushing water distorted like the volume had been cranked u
p past any reasonable level. A thick, constant bass hummed beneath it all, rising up and down like a wave.
Again, pieces of the portal walls tore and snapped away into blackness. A space beyond. A void! The Ripper’s chilling words filled my mind.
Lost forever in the electronic void…
Was that what I was looking at? The space between our worlds? The space our souls would go when we died? The thought was chilling, and I found myself starting to panic again.
Calm down, D! I screamed on the inside.
Something flickered in the edge of my vision, and I flicked my eyes to it and saw my rescuer tumbling through the portal beside me.
Impossible! I thought again as we sped through portal space together. Nothing made any sense. Every rule of Carrethen was being broken right before my eyes. Again, I felt as though a thousand different forces were tearing for control of my body, like I could have been spit out of the swirling portal at any moment to some unknown destination, or even worse, a place between worlds where I’d be lost forever.