Forged By The Apocalypse - A LitRPG With Draconic Potential

“Can’t we just stop and take a break?” Aaron moaned for the eighth time in twenty minutes. The curse of a high Mental attribute meant keeping track of small numbers like that started to happen subconsciously. Eight felt like far too high a number to ignore, so I was glad when Luke decided he had also had enough. Turning on the denim and leather-clad brawler, the slightly taller Luke leaned in angrily.

“Literally no one is forcing you to come, shut the fuck up or fuck off.” As he spoke, Luke’s Dao added actual weight to his words, making Aaron flinch away. Luke was forceful now, while Aaron wanted more control. It seemed that the Dao became part of one’s personality quickly. “If you want to stop getting better then that’s your choice but I’m in this properly. I don’t even understand why you’re bitching, you can’t be tired already.”

Aaron grit his teeth and stuck out a lip while glaring at Luke but with a sigh, he brought himself under control. Tom chuckled this time, as the follow-up pun about Aaron’s Dao went through his mind. Force and Control weren’t quite opposites, but it made sense that the two had started butting heads more and more.

The System had brought chaos, but it had also given their small group a purpose far more serious than anything they had experienced before. Before all of this started, none of them had even finished college. When Harry’s brother had vanished into the dungeon which had just faded away, he became the new goal. They had pushed themselves, fighting actual monsters and gained a fair amount of levels. Enough to enter the mysterious place that Jason disappeared into. There had been a danger in their momentum failing when their self-assigned quest was completed, or failed depending on your perspective.

Luckily, that was where the dungeon had changed things for them all. Instead of letting their group wallow in sorrow, it had given them a path. It was there they met me, after all. In a single moment, I had dominated them and held them at my mercy. Instead of crushing them, like my power had been desperate and ready to do, I had offered them grace and offered them shelter. In me, the group saw a person who had embraced the System entirely, and soon found themselves doing the same.

“Both of you should shut up. Trouble ahead.” A whispered suggestion echoed gently through the trees they stalked through. Each of them had been practising with mana control and casting their voices was quite simple at this stage. Ellie’s words came just before a ripping noise broke the relative silence. It was swiftly followed by an earth-shaking crash as a reasonably far-off tree fell heavily.

Harry was already in front of the party, his eyes scanning the forest. Massive trees surrounded them and stretched onwards and their defender had been on edge for the past thirty minutes. No wonder then, when he activated his skills and started burning mana. I watched as the nearly invisible aura around him hardened. The Dao of Protection required a level of earnestness and diligence which made him serious at all times.

More than just making him as solid as a tank, there was a provocation effect being thrown towards the creature which had knocked down the massive tree in the distance. “It’s coming,” Tom shouted in warning. Normally, randomly throwing out taunting skills would be a stupid idea. It still was this time, but marginally less so because this was technically the plan. It just didn’t seem like a very good one when faced with the beast in question.

Grasping at the weave of magic all around, Tom began preparing for the battle being forced on them. The location had been chosen carefully, and full sight of the approach was one of the benefits. The charging monster was the scariest thing Tom had ever seen in his life, but that was largely due to the fact it was rushing right at him. If it was minding its own business and not feral, it might even have been cute.

From my vantage point out of the way, I analysed the creature.

Boss Monster - Valleycarver Beaver Lord - Lvl 56

Like a train hitting an immovable object, the immense furry creature’s momentum was stolen as it slammed into Harry’s shield and the true battle commenced. Within moments, the opening salvo started. Tom sprayed arcane bullets strong enough to puncture a bank vault at the big rodent’s face, the potent attacks joined by less plentiful but even more powerful arrows courtesy of Luke. Ellie and Aaron closed in and began to run interference as Harry continued to distract the massive rodent.

The monster’s face took most of the damage, losing the classic teeth and most of the upper jaw to the assault. In a fascinating but gruesome display, the damage healed within a few seconds. It didn’t seem pleasant for the beaver, but two dinner plate sized chompers shot out from its gums, accompanied by a screech of pain. It was stunning enough that it managed to bite down on Harry, who was suddenly fighting for his life to stop the jaws from closing. He scrambled free, slimy and angry.

The fight continued in this panicky, uncoordinated way for a while. “They’re not hopeless, but it’s not great, either.” I couldn’t argue with my companion’s assessment of the scrappy and chaotic combat ensuing close by. The Ascent was ostensibly my faction, and therefore their performance reflected on me, hence the training exercise. Now, was a giant beaver which could easily slaughter a small town the best option?

Absolutely, I thought, considering it would apparently be my town it destroyed.

I sighed and opened the System menu for my faction once more.

Faction Page Members: 7 Buildings: 7

Home Base

Guild Hall

I had hidden the names of everyone else’s homes once Aaron had called his the Love Shack, not knowing I could see. I didn’t have the heart to tease him about it, especially since I was pretty sure he didn’t like me very much. I probably riled against his sense of control or something. I was still getting a handle on Dao, and I got the sense mine was pretty domineering. Considering Aaron’s Dao was literally one of control, it wasn’t a great mix.

Still, control was something I’d want in a sensible subordinate, so hopefully the party of five could figure out how to continue working as a team while their powers continued to grow. Each of them had managed to grasp their own Dao and continue on the path of power, even if all of them combined still couldn’t match myself. Letting them - making them? - fight the beaver was a decent way to gauge the power level of the group outside of a dungeon.

Considering the dungeon had been aiming to kill me specifically, they had done well enough against the heightened opposition. It quickly became clear, though, that outside of the dungeon there was almost no way to level up through combat. While we hadn’t travelled far from our new hub, the pickings seemed slim. I sighed and pulled up the quest I had received.

Quest received! - Lording It

A claim is not the final step towards ownership. All other claims must now be removed, too. Four local creatures have found strength of their own, enough to challenge your’s, perhaps. Defeat these false claimants and cement your place as Lord.

Ulterior claims remaining - 4.

Reward: Lord Title, Ownership of valuable (Grade 2) resource.

“It could obviously be harder,” I quipped to the fairy sitting on my shoulder, throwing her away indignantly as I gesticulated with abandon, “but it’s still bullshit that creating the resource didn’t also give it to me.” I hadn’t actually found the supposedly valuable asset yet but I was still upset. My working theory was that these creatures were using it to get so far ahead of the curve. I was shaken from my random train of thought as the tree I was sitting in began to crumple.

“Timber!” Naea shouted below, though the crashing battle was definitely too loud for her to be heard. With a hop, I soared thirty feet away to a different tree in the opposite direction. The fairy turned to me with a smirk. “Harder? More than this and that big lug in the armour would be a pancake.”

“Harry knows what he’s doing, I’m pretty sure. The fact that he’s not a pancake probably means there’s some kind of plan. No clue what it could be though.” Unless impromptu deforestation was the idea, in which case using a giant beaver to do it was inspired. The rest of the team were left playing chase as the heavily armoured tank was pushed further and further away by the beaver’s attacks.

Unlike with my own technique, Drain, Harry had no ability to make himself stronger as the fight continued. What he did have was good ol’ human ingenuity, which eventually allowed him to place his back to a more solid structure than a tree. A solid wall of rock rose high in the air, an eyesore when compared to the geography before the Shift but right now, a perfect way to stop the pushing.

Once the runaway train of fur and muscle was kept in a single area for long enough, the others were able to catch up. Naea had been cackling the whole time, giving a running colour commentary which did not leave The Ascent in a positive light. I cringed at some of her more brutal barbs but couldn’t argue against it.

There were definite kinks to work out.

——————————————

“It’s just… sad, now,” Luke whispered. Tom nodded silently as the others whittled down the bulky boss monster. It clearly had a heavy leaning towards vitality, and Tom swore he could even hear the whispers of a Dao occasionally, but it never materialised into anything. The group struck as hard and as fast as they could, redoubling their efforts once the beaver started to scream and fill the air with a feeble attempt at magic. From the trees above it was honestly kind of pitiful all round.

Once Harry had figured out that placing his back on something that wouldn’t break was the answer, the fight became trivial. They were all freshly minted level 30s, sure, but the difference between Grade 0 and Grade 1 was indescribable. Even without going all out, each of them could sail through the foliage at ground level like it wasn’t there. When they did go all out?

I grimaced down at the massive limb still smouldering off to one side, the beavers massive haunch cleaved away by a single Mana Bolt, empowered by Dao and the upgrade to Grade One. If I had been the first to engage with the creature, I might have been able to finish it with one solid hit to the brain. Now, it was suffering. I’d had enough. Thankfully, so had Tom. “There’s such a thing as being too careful,” he said to Luke before stepping forward.

With Aaron’s chains seizing its movements and Ellie’s devastating poisons doing their work, the wounded animal had clearly worked out that the best it could do was take someone down with it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t able to break the effect of Harry’s taunt, nor the hardness of his defence. They weren’t wrong in their approach, but the way that the three of them seemed slightly gleeful at the battle wasn’t a great sign. “Move!” Tom shouted from behind Aaron.

He reacted petulantly, in my opinion. “You fucking move,” he threw back while turning on Tom. Chains were hanging from his wrists, snaking into the ground and then around the large boss monsters, still screaming at Harry on the other side. The metal tinkled as Aaron took another step and squared up to Tom.

I wasn’t too surprised he would go so far, though a part of me was angry for Tom, it was his problem. During our time in the dungeon, I had spoken to each of them a bit, but Tom the most. It was clear as an outsider that he was the least integral part of their group. He had told me that Aaron had always been a bully, even before the Shift. They weren’t a friendship group before this, not really. It had been Harry and Aaron as a pair, Luke followed them out of boredom, Ellie following Harry out of something closer to desperation. Tom had been closest to Harry’s brother, Jason, who had passed away in the dungeon.

I watched as Tom’s Dao flickered to life. Aaron took a step back, seeing something in the other young man’s eyes that he didn’t feel like poking further. “I wasn’t asking,” Tom said simply. In the time it took Aaron to blink hard at his words, Mana Bolts appeared in the air. Whatever their dynamics were before they entered the dungeon, they had changed now. The other four were strong, but Tom had the ability to be powerful in a different way. With a click of his finger, the magical projectiles shot forward. One of them brushed Aaron’s hair slightly before a few, loud screeches of pain signalled a permanent silence for the beaver lord.

Before the antagonism could turn into a fight, Tom spun on his heel. He might have heard Harry asking what had happened, and Ellie shouted something after him but he didn’t seem to care. He stalked away, giving Luke an eye roll to show he was just pissed off and not going to do something stupid. Looking up, Tom noticed me sitting in a nearby tree. I waved, but apparently I was also on the naughty list for now and was ignored. That was fine.

He just needed to be alone for a minute.