Titan: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 4) by Jez Cajiao (free ebooks for android .TXT) 📕

them down on pain of death; they were to find whatever was of value, or they’d be left here.”

“Figures,” I muttered, examining Bane and finding that he was down to forty health again, before starting to heal him.

I spent a hundred mana, boosting him back up to almost two hundred health. I left the majority of his wounds alone, concentrating specifically on those left by the dagger, as they were the most life threatening.

“Okay, he has two hundred and fourteen health now, and he’s losing fifteen points a minute. That gives us, say, twelve minutes to get moving; then we stop and heal him again, or I meditate and keep refilling more mana, then boost him higher and higher…” I muttered, thinking fast.

“The gnomes,” Yen interrupted.

“What?”  I asked, confused.

“The gnomes were coming. We’ve killed the Lich, so there’s just escaping and killing the asshole nobles left. With the Lich dead, there shouldn’t be anything between the gnomes and here… and knowing gnomes, they’ll have made things to carry everything…”

“Go,” I insisted. “Go as fast as you can. Find them, get them here fast. We can ride their machines, I can meditate and keep Bane alive, and then we just need to find that ship and escape. I want that noble’s head, but I want Bane alive more. Between Nerin and Hellenica, they’ll be able to save him.”

Yen nodded once and tore out of the cross corridor, the illusory walls long since vanished. As she went, I settled back down and called to Arrin to join me again. As he hurried over, I looked up to Grizz.

“Grizz… Lydia, Bane, and Tang are all out of action. I need to meditate, so I need you to deal with all this shit. I want to know what the hell is going on down here, so ask the questions however you want. Find out where the nobles went and why they came down here, instead of behaving themselves, and most of all, why the hell they decided to join with Himnel and attack us,” I finished irritably. Grizz moved straight to the others, spreading them out to guard Arrin and I as we meditated, and then he went to work on the researchers.

I heard a rude response to his first question, something about him being ‘just a Legionnaire,’ then the sound of a fist hitting flesh, the crunch of cartilage being broken, and a wail of denial. I filtered it all out after that.

“Okay, Arrin, let’s go over the meditation again…” I said, speaking slowly and calmly as I led him through the simple steps.

The next fifty minutes were enough to make me want to murder someone, but by the time Yen returned, both Arrin and I had gotten in some good meditation, and we’d hit Bane over and over with healing spells, getting him up to a decent amount of health, despite his remaining injuries and the speed at which it was constantly draining away.

We’d also managed to spare enough to fully heal Tang back to consciousness, and he’d set off scouting again, absolutely furious over being taken down.

Arrin was just finishing his turn at healing Bane when a noise started up in the distance, rapidly growing louder as the minutes passed.

We readied ourselves, just in case, but it was quickly obvious that it was the gnomes, both by the crazed speed they were approaching, and by the feeling of the bond with Yen getting noticeably closer.

I blinked when I realized that, as I should have sensed the injuries to Bane and Tang, and their location as well. My HUD showed them as they were now, after all, so that meant that the magic that had been used to take them out and to trick us was even stronger than I’d thought.

The lights and noise in the distance soon resolved into five sled-like contraptions, each with multiple wheels. The sleds were all of totally different designs, with gnomes hanging on all over them. As they pulled up and stopped, I shook my head at the sheer volume of crap the gnomes had secured to the vehicles, and I wondered how they’d respond to being told to dump most of it so we could ride.

When Yen arrived back, the first thing she did, after bringing the Elder to me, was to pour a bottle of ‘Legionnaires’ Might’ into Bane’s mouth. It damn near choked him, solidifying as it did, but she managed to get it down him a little at a time. She followed that quickly with a ruby red healing potion that practically made him glow with health for a few seconds.

“That should keep him going for now,” she said, grimacing. “I didn’t think about it until I was halfway there, but the healing is creating the blood he needs from his body. To do that, it’ll be stripping him of everything else: muscle mass, fat, all his reserves will be gone by now. The ‘Might’ potion won’t make up for that, but at least it’ll help.”

“I was worried about that,” I admitted. “But I didn’t dare stop healing him.”

“We came as fast as we could, Lord.” Frederikk said, stepping up and bowing his head to me, clearly unsure as to what he was supposed to do now.

“Thank you, Frederikk,” I said simply. “I see you managed to make some transports?”

“Basic, shoddy things that they be, but yes, my lord.” he said proudly, looking up at me. He barely came to my waist, but he was easily ten foot tall in suppressed insanity and vibrating with energy. “The Legionnaire said you needed us, and fast, so we left a lot of the salvage we needed, but we took the bare essentials.” Frederikk sadly looked over the sleds that were piled high with random-seeming metals and mechanical parts.

“I don’t suppose you found a stash back there?” I asked carefully.

“Oh yes!” he said, a truly manic grin threatening to split his head, it was that wide. “Speakin’ of which…. Your Legionnaire there, she took it.