Stolen Lives: A LitRPG/GameLit Novel (The Underhill Chronicles Book 1) Keith Ahrens (best e reader for epub txt) 📖

The arrow sticking out of my helmet gets jammed in deeper, causing even more pain and bleeding across the side of my head. Adrenaline blunts the pain, but that’s gonna leave a mark.

The good news is as I hit him, we both slam to the ground, and the shaft of the arrow snaps off, giving me a full field of vision again. Well enough for me to see another ogre coming over and grabbing me by the scruff of the neck like one would do to a bad puppy.

Without much effort on his part, he rips me off his companion and tosses me across the room, a good ten to fifteen feet. I land right elbow first, then the rest of me. The armor absorbs some of the impact, but the bone takes the rest and snaps in half with a burst of excruciating agony. It eclipses the rest of the pain I feel from tumbling across the rough stone floor.

Oily smoke and the smell of burnt hair fills the chamber as Acri burns down another ogre with a spray of white-hot flame from the palm of his hand.

The bastard that threw me is now stalking after me, an evil grin on his porcine face. His weapon of choice is a war hammer held high in his fist. I try to get up, but a jolt of pain from my broken arm drops me back down. I shift my weight, ready to roll out of the way, when I see Olivia.

She takes a few running steps and then leaps high into the air, her one remaining ax held up in both hands. As she arcs downward, she buries the ax through the crown of the ogre's head, splitting it neatly in two. The body falls forward, tearing the ax from her hands.

I roll out of the way as its body comes crashing down right where I was just sprawled.

The final ogre blows a horn, the sound deafening as it echoes off the stone walls. He gets to his feet, or rather, foot, and a poorly carved wooden peg. Olivia's ax is still stuck deep in the hardwood of the crude prosthetic.

I get a good look, and I recognize the damn jailer standing in front of me. He stares down at me and grunts out a challenge. I hold up one finger and lock eyes with him. “Just wait, big fella, I'll get to you in a minute.”

He grunts and snorts something in Ogre and laughs. For the moment, he seems content to allow me to get to my feet. Probably likes the idea of a challenge.

Now, I am not condoning revenge just for the sake of revenge, but I truly believe that every once in a while, a man comes across another being that the world would be better off without. This is one of those times.

My anger and pent up frustration insulate me from the pain of my broken arm.

My voice is calm as I begin to issue some orders, “Acri, begin your spell. Olivia, check on Thirax, then go and be a lookout for us; tell us when their reinforcements are close. I'll handle this… thing.”

The pain bleeds through for a moment and brings a bit of clarity with it. I clamp my hand around the break and concentrate for a minor second. I get a brief flicker of power, as if I were holding a healing stone. I mentally seize that feeling and let myself fall into it. My arm heats up with an intense searing as I feel the bone shift.

A wave of fatigue washes over me as the bone knits itself back together. I open my blurred eyes and see the jailer, not ten feet from me. His various atrocities and casual abuse flood through my mind. My anger refuels me, and the fatigue burns away like a morning mist. I move and flex my right arm; it hurts, but it’ll do for now. It's functional, and that’s all I need.

I pick up my mace and crane my neck upward to look the jailer in the eye.

“I think you know you have this coming, don't you?”

He answers me with a curse, and charges. He draws his club back for a powerful sweep, so I step inside his arc and jab the mace head up under his jaw. His mouth slams shut, teeth shattering as the tip of his severed tongue falls out with a spray of blood. The jab was more meant to stop his charge and get him off balance. The extra damage was just a bonus. If this is only a game, I just rolled a crit.

He staggers backward, clutching his jaw and giving me a chance to stomp-kick the ax Olivia was nice enough to leave behind. The sharpened steel splits the wooden leg in half with a loud crack.

The jailer stumbles to the side, arms spinning around like a windmill, as he tries his best to stay up on one foot. Changing the plan for him, I help him to the ground by bashing in the side of his knee with the mace. He howls in pain as he lands on his ass.

I take some time to line up my next shot, a two-handed swing aimed for his forehead.

The jailer manages to get his club up in a meager, desperate defense, but it barely slows my weapon down. I bury the flanged head of the mace right between his eyes. Natural 20. His face collapses in on itself, and his eyes disappear into the shattered wreck. It takes longer for the echo of the hit to fade then it does for his body to hit the floor. I wipe the gore off on the front of his leather armor and turn to survey the room.

I get my first real look at the gate now. It looks like a free-standing arch of liquid silver that had