Hive Knight: A Dark Fantasy LitRPG (Trinity of the Hive Book 1) by Grayson Sinclair (poetry books to read TXT) 📗

“Message to all members. We have what looks like another guild coming to fight. Harper counted thirteen riders, so it’s a full guild. Ten minutes out, coming in fast. Heal what injuries you have, and if you need a recovery potion, take one. We’ll worry about the consequences later. Prepare a defensive formation. I’m on my way.”

Taking my own advice, I pulled out a recovery potion and chugged the contents. A crisp, minty flavor filled my mouth, washing out the lingering taste of battle from my throat. The drink went down smooth with only the barest hint of bite. However delicious it was as it went down, it wouldn’t make up for the pain that would come later.

The rush that filled me was nearly indescribable, as Atlas would have felt if he’d stopped carrying the weight of the world.

All of the aches plaguing my body washed away instantly, and the timer for all my abilities lowered to zero and then faded from my vision, a new one appearing in their place.

I had three hours until the timer zeroed out, and potion sickness set in. It usually took an overdose of many different potions in a short period to cause it, but with how powerful recovery potion was, the cost had to be equally severe.

By the time I met up with the frontline a short jog later, I was back to my usual self. Everyone looked in peak condition, so I was sure more than a few had followed my example. All right, time to form a plan.

“Gil,” I hollered.

He turned at my call. His bright green eyes lit up with humor at my approach, and he smiled widely at me, despite the situation, I couldn’t help but return his infectious grin; it was hard not to smile around him.

“Fancy seeing you here, D,” he responded as I walked up. After the obligatory fist bump between us, we got down to business.

“How bad is it?” I asked him, looking at growing silhouettes in the distance.

“Not good, but it’s also not as bad as it seems,” Gil said. “Everyone else was pretty conservative with their abilities during the fight with the soldiers, so most of us aren’t nearly as bad off as you.” He gave me a knowing look. “You’re going to regret that recovery potion when this is over.”

I laughed but couldn’t deny it; he knew me inside and out and didn’t even have to ask if I wiped myself out fighting. “Most definitely, but we’ve all dealt with potion sickness before. It’s godsdamned miserable but survivable.”

“True enough,” Gil said. “So, what’s the plan of attack?”

I paced back and forth for a moment, kicking up a small cloud of dust as I worked through the rest of my thoughts.

We’d faced other guilds in the past, but those had been organized duels, either in a small group or one-on-one fights. They were meant to settle disputes, not wipe us out entirely. We’d never had an all-out free-for-all with the entire guild before, and with one seat empty and Alistair gone, we were outnumbered. I can’t know how this is going to play out, but anything I come up with is going to have to be simple. Once the fight starts, everything is going to go to hell anyway.

“Stay on the defensive till we figure out our enemy’s weaknesses and then goad them to waste their abilities. Don’t let any of them overwhelm us, and take them down one by one,” I told him.

Gil thought on my words for a moment, rubbing the back of his bald head as he tried to add any other ideas. “Yeah, that sounds like the best plan we’ve got,” Gil agreed. ”I can’t see a way to improve it without knowing more. If we don’t jump the gun on anything, we should be able to handle it.”

After our words, Gil went and walked over to Levi and Behemoth. Since both of them as our tanks would be handling the brunt of our defenses, Gil would want to hash out the tiny details with them. I left him to his strategizing and went to talk with the rest of the team.

I didn’t want to risk any one of my friend’s lives if I could help it. That made talking to Adam and Markos priority one. Since Markos was back at the castle, I went to find Adam. He was standing with Evelyn, talking amongst themselves.

“Adam,” I said as I walked over to him, realizing that I’d inadvertently interrupted whatever Evelyn had been telling him. “Sorry, Evelyn,” I said quickly as anger crossed her eyes, but it faded, and she inclined her head, letting me know I was forgiven.

“What do you need?” Adam asked.

“You have any tricks up your sleeves?” I asked. “I don’t want to take any risks here.”

Adam was quiet for a moment, staring off into space before turning and giving me a small smile.

“Oh, yeah, I have a new creation that I just made and have been dying to test out. Also have a few smaller beasts that I caught recently,” Adam said with a wild look in his golden eyes. He was lost in thinking about his babies.

As similar as the pair looked, Adam was different to his sister in nearly every capacity, kind and funny where Evelyn was cold and calculating. I considered Adam a steadfast friend. Though they’re both batshit crazy in their own twisted way, at least Adam doesn’t leave my ribs broken.

As our unofficial engineer, summoner, and beast tamer, if it could be crafted, hatched, summoned, or tamed, Adam was master of them all.

I left Evelyn to her own devices since she didn’t need any input on how to kick ass. Besides, as my still-sore ribs could attest, anything other than the most basic of conversations with her