Hunger: A LitRPG Adventure (Unbound Book 3) Read online

  HUNGER

  Unbound Book Three

  NICOLI GONNELLA

  Copyright © 2022 by Nicoli Gonnella

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  To Cornelius.

  Inspiration for Pit and all around Best Dog.

  CONTENTS

  Newsletter

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  About Nicoli Gonnella

  About Mountaindale Press

  Mountaindale Press Titles

  NEWSLETTER

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  PROLOGUE

  NINETEEN MONTHS AGO

  Beneath the jewel bright skies of the Continent, the glorious edifice of Amaranth shone like the sun itself. It was said that when the sun sets on the world, Amaranth will still burn bright. Alabaster buildings soared into the sky, structures held together by Mana and the ingenuity of Humanity. Great arches, built Ages past, were suspended between their lofty peaks, artistry the likes of which could never be replicated.

  Several of those stories-tall arches connected to a vast palace at the center of the city. It was beyond immense, a walled compound beyond the scale of any other thing in Amaranth. It was one of the wonders of the Continent, a construction that had few equals: the Shining Palace, the Seat of the Hierophant, Holder of the Lamp, the greatest mortal servant of the Pathless God and ruler of the Hierocracy.

  At the center of the compound, rising dozens of stories higher than the Shining Palace itself was a tower. There were no walls to this tower; it was built of exposed, filigreed sculptures, immense Human figures lifting stairs and floors above them with grace and dignity. A spiraling staircase ascended its outside, only the clever scriptwork inscribed in the stone keeping the wind from snatching supplicants into the sky.

  On this day, beneath the setting sun and the rising moons, a gathering was happening atop the highest room of this tallest tower. Priests, garbed in gold and white, stood along the edges of a large circle inscribed into the stone floor. The circle was covered in complicated writing, sigils of power that pulsed with a delicate tracery of light. In the center of the inscribed circle were nine smaller circles, each one bisected by a bold sigil that lay dark and inert. As one, the twelve priests raised their hands and summoned forth columns of white light that speared down upon them from the heavens.

  "Faithful are we, O Pathless," intoned one of the priests, and his words were echoed back by the rest. "Tempered by your light, strengthened by the darkness you illuminate, we chosen seek your aid in this one dire task. Bless us with your radiance, He Who Remains."

  The outer circle lit up brighter, the maze of sigils igniting as a torch to oil. The large sigils within, however, remained dark.

  A woman stood outside the circle of priests, her body covered in thin, flowing layers of pure white cloth. A staff of alabaster was in her hand, intricately carved and humming with power, while atop her brow rested a silver diadem of the simplest construction. Surmounting her regal head, however, was another. This one was made of light itself, bent into the shape of a nine-pronged crown and hovering above. She was neither old nor young, comely nor haggard; ageless and beyond description, she tapped her staff thrice.

  BOOM.

  BOOM.

  BOOM.

  "We come to you on bended knee as humble supplicants, Trackless One," the woman intoned. "Dark forces gather against us, creatures of ill intent seek to destroy us. Your Ancient Enemy returns, and none shall survive its fury. The balance of the world has once again come undone, and we seek to tilt the scale toward Order. Toward Strength. Toward Purity."

  Another pillar of light stabbed from the sky, this one hitting the very center of the circle and splashing outward. Power burned through the air, and all of the priests' vestments flapped in a gathering breeze. The air smelled of sharp, crackling char.

  The ageless woman, crowned and mantled, stepped forward. She raised her hands to the sky, palms open and face tilted up with an expression of serenity.

  "We seek those unchained by fate, untouched by the laws of our realm. We seek saviors, O Pathless," the woman tapped her staff once more.

  BOOM.

  "We seek—"

  Shouts sounded out. One of the priests shed his robes, hurling them into the circle and revealing robes that were a dark, sinister red. Black iron greaves were strapped to his legs, and worn leather sandals secured his feet as he stomped upon the edge of the ritual circle.

  "The Gods live!" he cried.

  "A Chanter! Destroy him!"

  The priests all around him sent off bursts of condensed light, Skills that could shear through a Manaship with ease. But the spells turned, bent away from the man's body at wild angles. The man himself staggered and cou
ghed, but bared his teeth in a bloody grin. Rage mounting, the ageless woman raised her staff and summoned a bolt of pure, golden light. It blasted forth with such speed that the waves of its passing sent several priests to the ground. It hit the red-robed man directly in the chest.

  And he was unmoved.

  The woman gaped, her face falling from haughty anger to a dawning horror. "Mad as his goddess: he's deathwarded!"

  As she said it, the man began to age visibly as attack after attack hit him. What was once a healthy, hale Human of middle years soon became a hunched crone. Yet still he struggled forward anyway. As he did, he began to flicker with blue-white lightning, his skin charring as he ran into the circle. He sang, loud and bright.

  "The Coward in White shall rule no longer!"

  "Stop him! He cannot damage the ritual!" The woman was apoplectic with wrath, and she called upon her power and sent it careening into the chorister. "Do not strike the circle!"

  Just as the woman gathered her Mana for another pass, the man reached the center… and detonated.

  *KRAKOOOOM!*

  A globe of blue-white lightning erupted from the chorister's position, his body the focal point for a powerful strike. A thundering harmony sundered the air as if the skies themselves were delivering judgment. The scripted circle flared in agonized response, its surface raging as the light and air Mana contained within bucked and shot outward. It was overwhelmed and replaced by the blue-white power, and as Mana began to congeal around the outer inscriptions, the central sigils flared with a harrowing potency.

  A pulse of power shot into the sky, a beam woven of wrist-thick strands of incandescent brilliance. From it, that awful, haunting melody dominated the air just as a terrible, buzzing cacophony shattered windows for miles around. Priests were thrown from their feet, out of their careful positioning, and very nearly swept out into the sky itself. Above them, the clouds were scrubbed from the sky as something ineffable blasted through them. Beyond them.

  The woman strode forward, her face a thunderhead. The circle they had painstakingly perfected was ruined beyond repair, while the power they had summoned from their God had been burned away entirely. She crossed the circle, her steps heavy.

  On the ground, the remnants of the chorister heaved his sunken chest, a smile upon his broken lips. More skeleton than man now, his ruined eyes were unable to even see the terrible fury that filled the woman in white.

  "What have you done, you cretin? You've doomed us all," she spat. "It comes for us. Even the Chanters."

  A single, wheezing breath was taken in, and that smile never abated.

  "Let… it come… Hierophant."

  The chorister died then, but that did not stop the white-robed woman. She hurled a beam of light into his ragged corpse until it melted the warded stone beneath, and her screams could be heard throughout shining Amaranth.

  CHAPTER ONE

  "Father. I have done as you asked. Let me free. Let us rage."

  Unknown

  Found Scratched On the Walls

  Crafters’ Quarter, Haarwatch

  The sky lightened with the hesitant touches of dawn. While nocturnal creatures had long gone to sleep, daylight creatures were waking to a new day. The temperate forests of the Foglands rustled with a cool breeze, but one that heralded an oppressive heat soon to come. It was a calm morning, all things considered, were it not for the screaming.

  Mervin Cors ran for his life.

  Oh Pathless protect me! Mervin heaved himself over the rocky terrain, pushing his Agility to the limit. It wasn't much, and he feared for that lack. If I'd have known… I wouldn't have focused… on Perception!

  Mervin leaped over a fallen tree, planting his sturdy boots on the slick trunk and throwing himself forward. He'd always been more attentive than his friends growing up, and he'd thought to specialize by focusing on it once he'd started gaining real levels. He had even earned the Clear-Eyed Title as a result of that training, granting a plus two bonus to his Perception and Vitality! Now, it was all that kept him alive.

  The Tin Rank ducked beneath a grip of clinger vines and dove around a thicket, narrowly missing the large thorns he had only seen at the last instant. Sweat poured down his face and neck, his leathers already sodden with it despite the early morning chill. He had been running for fifteen minutes, but it felt like hours since he'd been separated from his patrol and Iron Rank patrol leader. He was only a Tin Rank, and level 11 at that, so the last thing he should have been doing was running through the Foglands all alone, but he followed orders. Iron Rank Kelas ordered them to scatter and regroup back at the city gates. So they did.

  *BUZZZZZZZZZ*

  The hated sound came again. They were gaining on him.

  Blind gods! Mervin gasped at his own profanity. Forgive me, Trackless One. I meant… no disrespect!

  It was the beasts! They tore at his mind, leaving only fear behind. The monstrosities were tireless and more aggressive than any monster he'd seen before. He'd been told about the four-winged Chimeras that usually stalked the mists, but now that the land was cured of its impure enchantments, they must have come closer to the walls.

  A powerful sucking sound tore through the air behind him, and Mervin flopped forward, banging his shins against some rocks and bouncing painfully against the hard earth. The acid, by pure chance, sailed over him and splattered against the thick trunk of a lethwood, eating through its bark in seconds and leaving a gaping hole behind. Mervin forced himself to his feet and kept running.

  The buzzing grew louder to his left then his right, the sound of their wings a terror to his senses. He ran, breath loud and side cramping, and entered into a rocky gully covered in moss and vines, the only place clear of the awful sound. Mervin only made it thirty feet before he realized his error. A large rockfall had closed off the entire path—the gully was a dead end.

  No no no no, he thought frantically. Mervin cast his eyes to either side of him, flexing his Perception so that he might notice something, anything. The walls were too steep, the rocks too large and smooth to climb, and though there were vines, the plants were fragile; they wouldn't hold his weight.

  I'm going to die here. That grim thought was followed up by another. They… herded me here. Like an animal.

  He had family back in the farmlands around Setoria, family he'd never see again, most likely. Already the buzzing increased in volume. They were coming. Mervin wiped at his face and unsheathed his short sword; not an ideal weapon for the enemy, but useful in the tight terrain in which he found himself. He tried to think like a Guilder. There were a couple places he could use his Skills, and the heavy rockfall behind him was a solid defense at his back. Large blocks of stone, quarried a long time ago probably, based on how pitted and moss-grown they were. There was even an odd triangular stone, half buried, and his Perception picked out a dark etching on the surface—

  *BUZZZZZZ*

  The monstrous lizards hovered into view, four of them, all level 20 and up. Mervin’s backside puckered, and his stomach heaved perilously. They differed from the old Guild reports, which called them Four Wings and said they had four glowing eyes and bodies of noxious smoke, but so many things had changed recently. They were actually called Sharpwing Skinks, according to his fledgling Analyze Skill. They only had two eyes and were scaled, with large, triangular heads and fat tails, their dog-sized bodies flying on four blurring wings. The one in the lead let out a croaking yarp, and Mervin noticed it was at least twice the size of its brethren. A Sharpwing Bruiser, and it made that awful sucking noise again. Its throat swelled.

  Mervin's heart thundered, though his short sword shook only slightly. He was proud of that. If nothing else, he could tell the Pathless he died bravely. Perhaps the priests would pass that onto his mother and father.

  "Pathless… anyone… if anyone can hear me," he whispered, eyes filling with tears. "Please… save me."

  Impossibly, a brilliant light suddenly kindled behind Mervin. A rainbow haze of light and dancing mist sh
ot into the air and glimmered with a kaleidoscopic frenzy, driving the lizards back and forcing the Tin Rank to cover his eyes in astonishment. There was a heavy thud on the ground that Mervin could feel through his boots, and when he blinked away the spots in his vision he beheld… a man.

  "Finally," the man grunted.

  What?

  Mervin's hair stood on end as the wave of powerful, chaotic Mana passed and dissolved into the air, but his skin crawled as he beheld the man before him. He was covered in blood, some of which was not red but a dismal gray. Even as he watched, however, the gray ichor burned off him like smoke, leaving only the crimson. He wore no armor beneath that blood, just simple clothes that had seen better days. He had a head of shaggy black hair which hung about his ears, and wide shoulders suitable for smithing or… or fighting. There was a sense of weight to him that Mervin couldn't parse, but he felt his mouth go dry and his trembling intensify.