OutRanked (The Weight Of It All): A LitRPG Fantasy Adventure Read online

  Connie let go of my arm with a wink as we reached the main floor. Telling us to follow, she walked towards a door beside the bar at the back of the room. Britta desperately tried to stay longer, but Cassie and Jen pushed her from behind to join.

  Walking through the door, we headed downstairs to a basement. We walked for a few minutes, proving how deep the guildhall went. Throughout, the walls were made of stone, with the occasional picture or news article about a fellow Dungeoneer.

  Fellow Dungeoneer. That felt nice to say.

  “Most of their Ranks were fairly low,” I said before explaining to the others what I’d seen.

  “Goes to show we really aren’t that far behind,” Britta said.

  “Another piece of advice, since you’re new to all of this,” Connie said, not stopping her descent. Her voice echoed some in the enclosed and winding hallway. “Ranks are a useful metric, but they are far from perfect. You’ll learn that as you travel more, but your Rank is there to open doors and make it easier for the Guild to assign bounties. It helps us help you if you know what I mean. Since dungeons and monsters have the same ranking, we’re able to give you a sense of what we think you can handle.

  “With it, we’ll send you on the right missions, to the proper dungeons, and to fight suitable monsters. Of course, some choose to ignore our suggestions, and that’s their decision, but we have Ranks in place for a reason.

  “But past that, it’s all on you. In a fight, anything goes. That means someone at Rank E could beat someone at Rank D or even C under the right circumstances. The same could be said for monsters. Some are higher Ranked because of how difficult they are to kill and not how easily they could kill you. That’s an important distinction.

  “And just because someone hasn’t raised their Rank, it doesn’t mean they aren’t capable. Instead, it might mean that they feel comfortable with their current Rank. They might have even reached a point where they find they can’t progress further.

  “It’s a measuring tool, but measurements only go so far. I could talk about it for hours, but we’re here. So just don’t get hung up on Rank, okay?” Cassie finished, taking a deep breath.

  As soon as Connie said we’d arrived, we reached a wooden door at the bottom of the stairs. Stepping through, we walked into a vast room filled with even more people. These people seemed much closer to what I would have expected from a group of Dungeoneers. Most were fighting or practising with a weapon. In contrast, others seemed to practise as we saw FIRE and WATER Affinity users throwing around their respective elements.

  We drew their attention, so I caught up to Connie and placed my attention back on the room itself, which was just as impressive. The silhouette from the stairs we’d just walked down could be seen along the high ceiling. Around the room were several of the tools we’d gotten used to at Prep: weights, sparring mats, and practice weapons. I was happy to know we would have a place to work out again.

  A couple of doors could be seen, but each was closed. One door was much larger than the rest, but it, too, was barred shut.

  Most impressive was the platform in one corner of the room. We’d used its twin for the tournament, but I hadn’t expected to see one again so soon. And here it was, another projection plate. Alister had been busy.

  We followed Connie past several people. Some looked, while most continued to focus on their training.

  Connie didn’t stop until she reached a man with some of the most vibrant red hair that I’d ever seen. He was fighting another man in one of the sparring areas and didn’t notice as we stopped to watch them. Their unarmed sparring was on another level as I watched them dart around each other. Each hit looked powerful, and any blocks rang through the cavern like a mallet to a gong, as they didn’t let our group distract them.

  Each looked relatively tired, as though they’d been fighting for hours as we came up and saw the man with red hair block a wide swing towards his face. The thwacking sound from his fist made my own teeth chatter, but he barely looked phased as we watched him brush it off and launch into his own assault.

  “Gerard!” Connie yelled, grabbing the attention of the man. The slight distraction was enough for the red-haired man, Gerard, to lose focus on the fight. The split-second proved sufficient as he earned a hard kick to the gut.

  Fumbling to the ground, his opponent looked like he was ready to keep going as he chased after his downed opponent. Instead, Gerard put up his hand, prompting his opponent to stop in time before slowly getting back to his feet.

  “Dammit, Connie, that hurt,” Gerard said, rubbing his gut.

  “Oops,” Connie shrugged, but didn’t look too sorry as she continued to smile.

  “Fine, I guess I deserve it for leaving you up there,” Gerard laughed. “Do you need me to come upstairs? Is someone causing trouble or something?”

  “No, no. Though I would like it if you showed your face more often. That’d scare most off. The staff are complaining about the same men showing up daily,” Connie said.

  “Stupid rules lead to stupid people,” he sighed. “Who’re the kids.”

  “These are our newest group of Dungeoneers. Newly minted G Rank, but I’ve offered them the chance to become F-Rank today. Still, you’re Guild Leader, so you should do the test. I’ll be upstairs, play nice, kids,” Connie waved us off as she walked back towards the stairs.

  “Damn, she must really be mad at me,” he rubbed the back of his head, earning a nod from the man he’d been fighting. “Issue for another time. So, Connie must’ve seen something in you to have you come to me directly. Especially with all the crap happening upstairs. What’re your names?”

  “Jennifer Gleam,” Jen started as we each introduced ourselves.

  “Okay, well, I won’t go through my usual thing since I’ll trust Connie knew what she was doing. However, I will say that I won’t make this easy because she recommended you. You’ll be treated the same, if not worse, than everyone else I judge,” Gerard said. The more he spoke, the less tired he seemed, but more than that, his eyes seemed to shine a reddish hue as his excitement grew.

  His hair was a crimson red, and despite the exhaustion we’d seen before, Gerard was well built. He wasn’t overly tall, nor were his muscles ridiculously proportioned. Instead, he looked reasonably regular, compared to some of the other giants I saw around the room.

  “Bring it. We’ll beat whatever test you throw at us,” Britta said, earning a chuckle from Zane and Cassie.

  “The test will take place in two parts. First, I’ll have you all fight something simple to get a sense of your abilities. If you lose that fight, I won’t revoke your Rank, but I will let the people upstairs know they shouldn’t be giving you anything harder than G-Rank monsters to hunt. Then I’ll have you fight something I’d expect an F-Rank to handle on their own,” Gerard said as they all walked to the projection plates.

  “Don’t worry, it will be fair,” he said, earning a few laughs from the people within earshot.

  Noticing what was happening, several of the people in the room perked up and started paying closer attention.

  “We don’t use this often since the thing costs so damn much, but this way, you don’t get hurt, and I don’t waste any resources.”

  “You keep saying something, not someone. Are we not fighting one of the people here? Wouldn’t that be a good indication of our Skills if we fought another F-Rank?” I asked, still unsure of who we were fighting. Sure, I might not win against an F-Rank, but at least he’d see we were capable.

  “I keep forgetting you don’t know anyone or anything about the world around you,” Zane said, sighing from beside me.

  “That was a bit harsh, Zane,” Jen chided.

  “Sorry, sorry. But you know who Gerard is, right?” Zane sighed.

  Jen knew, but luckily, I wasn’t the only one, as Cassie and Britta hadn’t known either. This made me feel better as Gerard got dressed and the crowd around the platform grew.

  “He’s Gerard the Red Necromancer,” Zane
said. “We’ll be fighting his minions; those are the resources he doesn’t want to waste.

  “Bodies, Ren. He doesn’t want to waste his corpses.”

  ****

  “A Necromancer!” I burst out.

  “Calm down; you’re being dramatic. Gerard’s Affinity is DEATH, but that doesn’t mean he’s automatically going to overthrow the kingdom or whatever you’re thinking in your head,” Zane said. “Supposedly, he’s been one of the best Guild Leaders in a long time.”

  “So he’s not some evil asshole who will try to turn us all into his dead minions?” Cassie joked from behind me.

  “Not today, but who knows how the week will go,” Gerard said, jumping into our conversation. “If it makes you feel any better, I can’t raise dead humans, only monsters.”

  “Only barely,” Cassie joked, which earned a laugh from Gerard.

  “Okay, Cassie will start us off,” Gerard said, to Cassie’s dismay. “Weapons to the side there; let me know if you need help with the projection plate.”

  “But Cassie is our healer!” Jen objected.

  “Like I said, the first fight will be easy. After that, she can take the next fight with one of you. For now, though, she goes alone,” Gerard said, walking to one of the projection plates on the ground. He sat down, and his projected body was up on the platform within moments.

  Cassie swore under her breath but saw there was nothing she could do and walked up to the rack of weapons. Then, grabbing a dagger, she soon appeared on the platform as well.

  “Easy and fair, like I said,” Gerard said, sitting down in one corner. A moment passed, and two dead animals appeared on the ground. At first, I couldn’t tell what they were, but their furry bodies stood up, and I immediately recognized them as G-Rank Serwolves.

  The Serwolves had signs of damage from how they’d been killed, but no blood left their wounds. One of their eyes was missing, and another had a distended jaw that was almost falling off. Still, it didn’t seem to matter as both monsters stood still and glared in Cassie’s direction.

  The silence was the weirdest part.

  Even though I’d seen living Serwolves, the lack of any breathing and movement from their bodies was unnerving.

  A slight red glow permeated their chests. The light was in the same spot for each of the wolves, and despite the lack of movement everywhere else, the glow seemed to fade in and out as they stood there, as though their heart was beating.

  “No time limit; kill them or be killed. I’ll be giving them minimal directions, so they’ll act very similar to monsters in nature. Any questions?”

  “If they’re already dead, how do I kill them?” Cassie asked, standing with the dagger in front of her body. Already, she looked ready in a stance she’d been practicing with Zane or Jen, probably both.

  “The red glow, my namesake. Stab that, and they’ll die. See, easy stuff!” Gerard smiled.

  “Isn’t that a pretty glaring weakness for your Skill?”

  “Like anything, there will always be weaknesses. The key is finding ways to overcome those weaknesses,” Gerard said. “Want to know how I overcame mine?”

  “Sure, if that helps me in the fight,” Cassie said, also smiling.

  “I kept getting stronger monsters,” Gerard said, his eyes lighting up into a menacing red yet again.

  “Here they come.”

  *****

  The two Serwolves moved swiftly towards Cassie. By now, more people in the room were watching the fight. People seemed eager to see how the small blonde girl would handle the monsters.

  Usually sarcastic, Cassie looked more serious than ever as she waited for the two monsters to reach her. At G-Rank, the two monsters likely wouldn’t be an issue, but we all knew that Cassie wasn’t a fighter.

  Still, she’d been working hard the last couple of months to help more in dungeons.

  The first wolf reached her with a thud as it jumped up and tried to bite at her arm. Then, doing her best impression of Jen or Zane, she side-stepped the wolf and tried to plunge her dagger into its shoulder.

  This might have caused the beast to stop and pause if it was alive, but Gerard’s minions were undead already. As a result, Cassie was already at a considerable disadvantage. She couldn’t even use her Rank 1 Skill to find weaknesses.

  Her first attack didn’t work, and she was only worse off for it as the second wolf caught up and slashed at her thigh as it rushed past her. Luckily, the first had jumped far enough she wasn’t immediately attacked by both as she took the attack and could still stand.

  Standing up quickly, she shook her head back and forth, watching the monsters approach. Despite being dead, their movements were eerily like real animals as they began stalking their prey. However, this allowed Cassie to assess the situation and come up with a new plan.

  Not letting her wait for too long, one of them took the chance to attack as she turned her head towards the second wolf. Thankfully, the wolves still had some weight on them, and the sound of the wolf charging was enough for Cassie to know she needed to move.

  Throwing herself to the ground, she dodged the wolf and scrambled to get back up as it tried to reorient itself. The deadness of its eyes darted around, looking for its prey.

  The second wolf attacked, and Cassie changed plans as the monster reached her. Ignoring both the first wolf and the slash across her leg, she held her dagger pointed upwards as she waited for the wolf to reach her. The wolf didn’t jump at all as it went straight at her body.

  Undeterred, Cassie crouched and gripped her dagger in her right hand. The Serwolf lunged, and Cassie leaned forward with her arm forward as she tried to push the wolf’s body upwards. Her energy-reinforced body proved capable enough as she threw the wolf off balance.

  With the body of the Serwolf turned to its side, Cassie continuously stabbed the red mark on its body. The wolf scored a couple of hits through it all as it snarled and scratched towards its attacker. Still, each attack seemed to make the monster weaker, as its energy quickly diminished with each stab until it finally limped to the ground.

  The fight was far from over as Cassie’s first triumph seemed short-lived, and the second wolf came from behind, biting her right arm.

  Cassie screamed.

  The bite really seemed to hurt as the gruesome monster yanked her shoulder from left to right to disarm her, literally.

  Cassie mustered all her strength to stand up, using her remaining arm as leverage. Once up, she transferred the dagger to her left hand before slamming the pommel into the monster’s face and snout.

  Each blow seemed to do some damage as the desiccated skin along the monster's snout fell to the ground. Cassie relentlessly attacks the monster holding onto her, aiming for anything she could reach. Still, the fight wasn’t looking good, as the only blood that seemed to spill was Cassie’s, whose arm was now dangling lifelessly from her side.

  I did my best to focus on my fight as Jen and Britta screamed with all their might to encourage Cassie. Until now, the encouragement mainly had been to keep going, but as they saw the amount of projected blood flow to the ground, their words turned towards the prospect of giving up and coming back to fight another day.

  Cassie eventually got the wolf off her shoulder, but this seemed like a delaying tactic more than anything, as she looked ready to pass out. I wondered yet again how the platforms determined when someone should be taken out of a fight since Cassie looked ready to fall over.

  To her credit, though, she didn’t give up as she ran as far from the wolf as she could. The remaining eye of the wolf was hurt by her assault, so it looked like it was having a hard time finding her.

  Using the distraction to her advantage, Cassie used ‘Soothe’ on herself. Over and over, we saw the glow of her ability take hold of her arm. Ignoring the other wounds across her body, Cassie’s goal seemed to be a way to stop the bleeding on her shoulder. Finally, after a few uses, the Serwolf found its way to Cassie’s general location.

  Cassie debated atta
cking but stuck to her plan for a bit longer as she ran to the other side of the platform. Gerard hadn’t given a time limit, but I quickly worried he might call off the fight as she did this a couple more times.

  Eventually, the wound on her shoulder was far from gone, but the bleeding had stopped. Unfortunately, at such a low Rank, ‘Soothe’ would never be enough to heal her entirely before her energy ran out. Plus, ‘Soothe’ wasn’t a pure healing Skill. In fact, ‘Soothe’ was probably how she could keep going through the pain.

  Still, she finally looked ready to counterattack as she held the dagger forward with her left hand.

  Taking a page from Zane’s book, she didn’t wait this time as she stalked silently towards the wolf looking for her. Its eyes were still injured, but it caught on once she’d nearly reached its position and snapped in her direction with what was left of its mouth.

  Cassie didn’t care, as she dodged around the monster and stabbed everywhere she could safely reach. A lot of her strength seemed to be gone as the cuts were shallow, but it didn’t matter as she slowly cut the monster apart. Again, it took longer because the beast was already dead, but the monster was a heap of bones on the ground by the time she was done.

  The last Serwolf didn’t stop trying to bite Cassie until she plunged the dagger into the red glow, finishing it.

  Exhausted, Cassie disappeared from the platform quickly after that.

  We all ran to meet her as she returned to her real body. Her cheeks still looked a little shallow, even though her arm and body were physically okay. She would need time to regain her energy, but we were all happy to see she was okay as she pulled out of Jen and Britta’s hug and flipped off Gerard, who hadn’t left the platform.

  Gerard laughed but didn’t immediately respond as he went to each of the bodies on the stage before they disappeared into his inventory. “Okay, who’s next? I might put a time limit on the next few fights,” he said, taking his place in the corner again.