Magus: A Supernatural LitRPG Saga (Apocosmos Book 2) by Dimitrios Gkirgkiris (ebook offline reader txt) 📗

A collective sigh rippled through the gathered crowd, but it wasn't clear whether it was one of relief or impending doom. Despite the dwarf's suggestion that the people should rest, only a very few of them left and even those had probably only done so to inform more of their fellow slaves of the news. With every breath, more eyes focused on Alexander who was now licking the bone clean of any little chunks of meat still clinging to it.

Once he was done, he threw the bare bone into the fire and produced a flask of water he kept by his side. He didn't like to keep the gathered people waiting but neither would he hasten himself for their sake. He gulped down the whole flask and just as the vampire brother was about to interrupt him, he sighed loudly in satisfaction for the meal and water he'd just consumed. It was the first thing he'd enjoyed since he damned himself to this shithole.

"I guess you're not sticking around for the good service," he said, sitting on the ground and leaning back on the log he'd been sitting on before. "You want to hear what happened next, right?"

The group nodded, and some voiced their agreement even though Alexander's question was more of the rhetoric kind.

"Okay then. I was falling from the sky, over an endless hedge labyrinth..."

9

The fiction maze

"Watch out!" I shouted. I moved my arms and legs around, trying to turn myself midair to minimize the damage from my fall.

"The hells?" was the only thing Rory managed to say in response when he looked up right before I crashed onto him.

The dwarf was agile enough to pull his hands up in front of his face just in time to cover it when I fell on him, but not enough to move out of the way. This proved to be good for me since I took very little damage from the fall, but I could have sworn I heard a cracking noise when my elbow smashed into Rory's ribs. The dwarf cringed in pain at that exact moment and I picked myself up as fast as I could. Yet when I looked at his HP bar, it hadn't budged at all.

"Damn ye, half-Celt," he said, holding his side with one hand and placing the other inside his vest.

"I'm sorry," I said, trying to determine where I had hurt him. "The portal just dropped me up there."

"At least the giant and its minions can't cross," Louie said.

"Where did I damage you?" I asked, as Rory took out something from an inside pocket of his coat.

"Where it hurts the most, damn it!" he exclaimed and showed me his long pipe, now smashed into pieces.

"What? I thought I broke your ribs."

"Ye? Break me ribs?" the dwarf snorted, but his face soon darkened again when he realized the pieces were too broken to be reconnected. "Gods damn it. I liked this one... Ye owe me a pipe."

"I'll get you a brand new one," I promised and patted him on his shoulder. "But why wasn't it in your inventory? And how did it break? It must be pretty cheap and easy to enchant mundane items like this to become almost unbreakable."

"Yer face is mundane," the dwarf muttered, and casually threw the pieces away. "I don't want a magical pipe. There's craftsmanship and passion and beauty in non-magical ones."

"I can't believe it," I said, looking at the dwarf with my mouth open.

"What?" he said.

"You're a hipster," I replied, excited about the realization. "You're a fucking hipster, old man."

"What's a hipster?" Rory asked, as he took out an even longer pipe from his inventory and lit it up.

"You've got another one?" I asked.

"He can't be a hipster really," Louie interjected. "He's either old or a hipster."

"What's all this talk about being a hipster and old?" Rory took a huge blow from his pipe.

The bowl of the pipe glowed purple for a moment and the light traveled up its long stem and into the dwarf's mouth, only to come out again when he exhaled a cloud of purple smoke. I watched the smoke form circles and triangles, then change into images and stranger shapes before being blown away by the evening breeze.

"Am I the only one paying attention to our surroundings?" Leo asked. "The last portal we crossed left us in the middle of a charging herd."

"I took a look from above," I replied, finally letting Rory enjoy his new pipe in peace. "It looks like a huge maze, as far as the eye can see. But it should be easy to navigate since Louie can--"

"I can't." he interrupted. "My levitation spell is blocked, so try to remember as much as you can from what you saw when you were falling. Did you see anything that stood out?"

"Shit, shit, shit," I said and winced, trying to remember. "Yes, there was an opening."

"Which way?" Leo asked.

"In that direction," I said, pointing to my left.

"Are you sure?" Leo asked again. "How far?"

"I don't know man, pretty sure," I said, keeping my eyes shut. "A couple miles?"

"Anything else you remember?" Louie asked more softly.

"No." I opened my eyes. "Just that it was full of endless twists and turns. Why can't you fly anyway? Don't you have mana?"

"I do. But check your skills."

I pulled up the list of skills I had available for use and saw them all grayed out. It was as if I didn't have enough mana to cast them, though my MP bar was completely full. I mentally scanned through them and realized what the issue was.

Name: Mighty Shot

Level: 9

Type: Active

HP Consumed: 0

MP Consumed: 17000

Power: 187

Range: 700 inches

Precondition: Only usable with a bow.

Description : A powerful long-distance attack. The arrow is imbued with mana before being fired, making it easier to pierce through flesh and armor.

Looking at the rest of my skills, I noticed the exact same thing. Their power was unchanged