Neck-Deep In It: A LitRPG and GameLit Series. Read online

  “I will make sure the proper formalities are followed,” Mutoline choked out, as her voice cracked.

  “That’s great Mutoline,” Zeven nervously said, as he began backing away from the children, “BC, keep a watch on everyone while I get to work.”

  “Bbbwwa bbrraaa?” Bright Claw asked, giving Zeven a sidelong look.

  “Just do it,” Zeven hissed under his breath, as he turned around and strode for the bloody lake of goo.

  The process went surprisingly smoother than Zeven had initially thought it would. Mostly, that was due to the Dwarven children. As he headed off to collect up the bodies of the dead to be burned, Mutoline got the younger children organized and working. Mutoline took over the more physically demanding task of carrying the bundles of wood while Doufalynn and Lokuth began breaking the bundles open and laying the wood out into a bed for the base of the pyre.

  Even then, Zeven didn’t expect much from the young Dwarven children. In the modern-day world, one didn’t expect children of that age to be personally responsible for anything but enjoying their childhood. While a young adult in their late teens to early-twenties of Zeven’s generation would’ve simply been expected to perform such a grisly task without complaint, the same expectation of personal responsibility didn’t hold true for the following generations. Now young adults weren’t expected to start shouldering the responsibilities and burdens of adulthood until their late twenties to early thirties. So, even as Zeven went about the process of fishing out the partially digested empty meat-sacks, he simply expected to be responsible for the majority of the work required to build the pyre once he was finished as a matter of course.

  Also, after everything Zeven had already been through up until now with the deaths of his clan, the mounds of corpses barely registered on his personal disgustometer. If anything, it helped that the Dwarven bodies were much smaller than that of his Beast Kin. It made the work go by that much quicker. Well, that, and the flat raft-like condition of the corpses helped too. Zeven could easily gather up ten or twelve of the bodies into the crock of his arm if they weren’t completely falling apart. That, and if he was willing to ignore being covered in more bloody smegma.

  Bringing his first load of corpses up to the slowly forming pyre, Zeven was shocked to see how much work the young Dwarven children had already managed to complete. Honestly, even then, he didn’t really expect them to continue with the work until the very end. It wasn’t until he came back with his third bloody load of corpses that Zeven truly began to understand that something very different was going on.

  To Zeven’s silent dismay, Doufalynn and Lokuth were unflinchingly going about the gruesome task of stacking the empty, partly-digested corpses of their friends and neighbors onto the pyre. Watching the young Dwarven children going about their work, it quickly became apparent that they were all to well-versed in performing such work. While a part of Zeven silently cried out that such young children couldn’t possibly understand what they were doing, one look at the despair on their young tear-streaked faces and the special tenderness they showed some of the individual dead made it perfectly clear that they understood all too well the loss that was before them.

  It wasn’t just that, as Zeven stepped forward with his load of corpses, both young children came up to help him ease them to the ground. Not only that, as Mutoline dragged another bundle of wood up, she hurried over to assist without a second thought. Altogether, they carefully laid the dead down into a pile and then went back to work.

  There was no trying to dodge the disgustingly unpleasant work. There was no complaining about being covered in blood or that such work shouldn’t be expected of them. No whining that their hands or clothing was dirty. All three of the young Dwarven children simply faced the horrible situation before them with a maturity that many of the adults Zeven knew and had worked with in the real world would’ve found difficult to manage.

  Silently going back to his work, Zeven’s mind churned in turmoil as he tried to comprehend what he was seeing. In an odd sort of way, the young Dwarven children’s odd maturity level made a certain kind of sense. From what Zeven understood of the brutal conditions throughout most of Human history, that was simply par for the course in medieval and tribal societies around the world. The general concept of childhood being an important period of development that allowed children to grow into being responsible adults for their community didn’t come about until well into the twentieth century.

  Before that, children were not particularly cherished as individuals and usually had no status in their societies. They were considered “miniature adults” that had to be trained to be productive members of their communities before gaining any sort of worth as an individual. If Zeven remembered his history lessons accurately, that was mostly due to the high mortality rates for infants and children. The general consensus was that there was no sense in getting emotionally invested into a child until they’d managed to survive their first couple years of life, which unfortunately said a lot about Dwarven society within The World.

  Zeven forcibly suppressed his initial critical thoughts, trying to see the situation from a different perspective. Who was he to pass judgement on how Dwarven society raised their children? While he didn’t know if it was as bad as it had been in Earth’s past, could he seriously say the flip side was any better? How many times had Zeven heard of thirty-year-old “adult children” who still lived in their parent’s home, couldn’t hold a job, or handle the trials and tribulations of everyday life? In truth, the general lack of personal and societal responsibility seen in many of the newer generations of teens and young adults within modern-day societies could be judged just as harshly.

  Sadly, such concepts seemed to always go to the extremes, which was never a good thing regardless of the direction the pendulum swung. Not recognizing the differences in thought processes and how children viewed the world was, in its own way, just as bad as not ensuring children were instilled with the basic societal and personal responsibilities and skills that they needed to face the most basic challenges of being a responsible member of society. While his own generation’s upbringing had its own set of problems, at the same time, it had allowed him time to be a child while still adequately preparing him for successfully dealing with life’s difficulties. Zeven laughed at his introspective thoughts as he went about his disgusting rounds. All of which was easy to say when he’d never had a child of his own.

  As he worked, Zeven made sure to run a quick Identify on each of the Dwarves that he recovered. He didn’t want to accidently bring any of the children’s parents to them without warning them ahead of time. As the bodies started to get further and further apart, Zeven started piling up the various pieces of armor and weapons that he ran across. While that might sound cold, the player part of his soul simply couldn’t leave good loot laying around on a battlefield. That, and he also had a quest to return the old Dwarf’s hammer to his daughter.

  Unfortunately, nearly everything of value had been destroyed. If the various armors and weapons weren’t shattered, bent, or crushed from the Elite Beithir’s terrible blows, then the small lake of half-digested innards that covered nearly the entire town square had dissolved or severely pitted the rest. While most of the iron could probably be melted down and recrafted, any of the leather armor or clothing that the Dwarves of Kragrock had worn was completely ruined. Well, maybe some of it could’ve been cleaned up and reused, but it would’ve noticeably stunk of blood and bile.

  Zeven had mostly been moving on automatic when he ran across a female Dwarf named Kuggulynn Kegflayer. Being careful of his kilt, Zeven gently bent down and picked up the corpse of what he suspected was Lokuth’s mother. To his surprise, the shiny sword that was still clutched in her pancake-handed grip still looked to be serviceable. Curious, Zeven gently peeled the female Dwarf’s fingers away from the hilt and did an Identify on the blade. He was surprised to see the turquoise color of an exceptional item as the description of the blade popped open in a syst
em window before his eyes.

  Steel Blade of the Crusader

  Item Quality: Exceptional

  Item Type: Crafted

  Attack: one-hand edge

  Weapon Type: Sword

  Damage: 140-160

  Durability: 126/250

  Weight: 6.5 kg

  +20 Stamina

  +20 Agility

  -fifteen percent chance to inflict a Critical Strike for sword's maximum damage on every successful hit.

  -fifteen percent chance to wound target for an additional forty points of damage on every successful hit.

  While it was a damn decent weapon and one that he would’ve loved to save for his people, Zeven couldn’t find it in him to not give the weapon to the female Dwarf’s son who was working so hard on building the pyre. That, and he wasn’t really into swords. He’d take a polearm or an axe over a sword any day of the week. Not looking forward to what was coming next, Zeven silently carried Kuggulynn Kegflayer and her blade over to the young Dwarf boy.

  “Lokuth,” Zeven called out as he walked up, as both children paused in their work, “I found your …”

  “Mother,” Lokuth exclaimed in a tone that instantly made Zeven’s eyes tear up with emotions.

  Kneeling down, Zeven held out the body to the young boy who gently gathered up his mother’s half-dissolved body into his thin arms. Lokuth didn’t fall down on his knees and cry like Zeven had partly expected. Instead, the Dwarf stiffly turned around and carried his mother over to the pyre to gently lay her to rest. While Zeven could hear the boy’s soft sobs as he went about the ugly task, it hadn’t stopped the young Dwarf from doing what was necessary. As Lokuth solemnly stood up deep in thought Zeven stepped up behind him.

  “I believe your mother would want you to have this,” Zeven said, holding out the Steel Blade of the Crusader.

  Though it went against the basic MMO player rule of hoarding or selling all the loot you could possibly get your hands on, Zeven felt in his heart that this was the right course of action. He’d seen how the decisions of his own actions during the completion of his Nightmare quest had affected the other Beast Kin around him. Maybe, he could do the same with the Dwarves and their natural bias against his race.

  No one ever took someone else’s side by being treated like shit, Zeven silently thought. You only changed minds and fought prejudice by being a personal ambassador of your own values and beliefs. In doing so, you forced others to reevaluate their own actions and beliefs.

  Zeven had learned that during his time in the Navy. Command was always telling the sailors that they were personal ambassadors whenever they were traveling abroad in uniform or on leave. Their actions, good or bad, would represent what everyone would think of all service members. A concept that Zeven had found to be mostly true during his time as a sailor.

  “Thank you, Chieftain Al'Zaric,” Lokuth emotionally said, bowing his head as he reverently accepted the blade with both hands, “Mother always said she wanted me to follow in her footsteps and protect the hold.”

  “I think she would like that,” Zeven said, giving the young Dwarf a reassuring pat on his shoulder, before turning away to get back to work. Before he’d taken three steps, a system window popped open before his eyes.

  Congratulations! You have successfully completed the Secret Quest Respecting the Dead!

  Your personal actions and choices greatly affect how you are perceived by the people in The World. Due to respecting the heritage between a fallen Dwarven mother and her surviving son, you have gained 100 points to Reputation with Lokuth Kegflayer, along with the Clan of Hammertoe and the Dwarves of Aeroch Nor once the story of Kragrock’s fall is retold to the Dwarves there. You have earned 1000 Experience Points. You have unlocked the title, Honorable Wanderer. This title will give you a five percent chance to receive a positive reaction when meeting new races.

  Not too shabby, Zeven thought, not letting the message trip him up as he got back to work. Though, he hadn’t expected The World to reward him with any type of acknowledgement for his personal choices, especially not for something as minor as this. Still, it was a pleasant surprise. One that might actually make this side quest ultimately worth the time it was taking away from his personal quest to save Nahi.

  Ultimately, no good deed ever went unpunished, Zeven sarcastically thought, as he found nothing else worth looting while he finished up collecting the remaining bodies lying around the destroyed town. Some of the Dwarves were still in the burning buildings which was fine. His goal in all of this was simply to properly put the dead to rest. After a final check around the town, Zeven strode up to the Elite Beithir’s corpse.

  “This is going to completely suck,” Zeven muttered under his breath, as he began stripping off everything but his equipment belt and rucksack. He’d warned the children to keep their distance while he worked, unless they wanted to see a naked Badger Kin. That, and he didn’t know if the corpse was dangerous or not.

  Thankfully, his skinning knife worked fine for removing the larger scales and cutting away large swaths of the Elite Beithir’s hide. While that might sound strange since the Dwarven Defenders high-end spears, swords, and axes could barely pierce the monster’s natural armor, MMO style of games made that a relatively simple task with the proper equipment once the monster was slain. Though, unlike any other MMO game he’d ever played, The World made the entire process much more hands-on. More like body-on, Zeven sourly thought, as he hacked his way deep into the Elite Beithir’s body.

  With his Rucksack of Holding, Zeven was able to store a massive amount of the monster’s hide. The cobra hood, the fine scales of the head and neck all went into storage. Working down to the main body, Zeven began slicing away blue scales the size of his chest and sliding them directly into his rucksack in stacks of ten, leaving the larger ones for later. Once Zeven had a large section of fine-scaled hide clear, he’d carefully slice a section off, before rolling it up and storing it away. He even took as much of the serpent’s meat as possible, figuring that Bright Claw would enjoy munching on the fresh Elite Beithir meat.

  Altogether, the Mini-Boss’s corpse was a stroke of luck for the future of his clan. Once Zeven was able to recover his people and get Blaidd Ogof Hold set back up, he figured the hide and scales would make great armor to outfit his clanmates in. The excess could easily be sold as needed which could give him access to Dwarven weapons and armor for his clan, Zeven giddily thought, when his skinning blade sliced too deep as he accidentally pierced the viscous sack that held the body’s internal organs.

  The reaction was instantaneous as the corrosive fluids of the sack began eating away at itself as the entire Elite Beithir’s body began to disintegrate before his very eyes. Zeven tried to get out ahead of the corruption consuming the precious hide, but even as he raced over to the last third of the serpent’s body to slice it free, the tail portion began dissolving before he’d even managed to slice half way through the coil with his skinning knife. Zeven could only watch in horror as his meal ticket dissolved away to fleshy goo, leaving only the Elite Beithir’s stomach and the intestines.

  For a long moment, Zeven silently pressed his clawed fingers against his eyelids and breathed deeply as he fought to control the bestial rage coursing through his veins. Slowly, the raging fury began to ease away enough for him to think logically again. Though, it helped to remind himself that he never could've recovered the entire body even if he’d been able to skin it all. As it was, his Rucksack of Holding was over two-third’s full and that didn’t include everything else he’d planned on taking back with him to Aeroch Nor.

  Shaking the last of the tension out of his shoulders, Zeven trudged over to the stomach and intestines as he began searching through the contents for the remains of the Dwarves that had been eaten alive and any loot Warptooth the Thunderstrike might’ve dropped. While he’d never had such a large creature to loot before, he was well versed in looting smaller monsters and knew what was needed. Taking his skinning knife, he began
the disgusting task of slicing the gooey mass open.

  Unsurprisingly, Zeven found the body of Borear Hammertoe first. The old Dwarf wasn’t recognizable but Identify worked well enough to let him know who it was as he gently gathered the ruined body in his furry arms. Solemnly carrying the old Dwarf far enough away to not be in the bloody pool of digestive fluids, he laid him down and crossed his arms over his chest.

  With a final nod of respect to the corpse, Zeven got to work cleaning out the rest of the corpses of the Dwarven Defensive line. Pulling out body after body, he moved the corpses to the side along with their destroyed weapons and armor. It wasn’t until Zeven had cleared out the majority of the bodies that his knee bumped onto a shiny axe that looked to be nearly undamaged. Pulling out the familiar looking war axe, he did a quick Identify as blue text popped open before his eyes.

  Brutal Bearded Axe of Slaying

  Item Quality: Superior

  Item Type: Special

  Attack: One-hand Edge

  Weapon Type: Axe

  Damage: 160-200

  Durability: 157/200

  Weight: 14 kg

  +30 Stamina

  +30 Agility

  *Causes the target to bleed when hit for an additional 50 points of damage for 15 seconds.

  *50% Chance on Hit of a limb to sever from the target.

  *Increase wielder's movement and attack speed by one percent with each successful hit. The effect caps out at one hundred percent. This speed boost will end if a target has not been struck after thirty seconds.

  Damn, Zeven thought as he stood up and took a few practice swings with the shimmering axe. It was sweet as hell. While it was probably the same axe that Bristletoe had been using, Zeven didn’t feel like he had to give it up. Hell, as far as he was concerned, it was simply one of the weapons that had been in the Elite Beithir’s gullet. Although it wasn’t a polearm, Zeven felt better being armed with a decent weapon again as he slid the shaft into his rotting belt and got back to work.