Watcher’s Fate: A LitRPG Saga (Life in Exile Book 3) Read online

  WATCHER’S FATE

  ©2020 SEAN OSWALD

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  ALSO IN THE SERIES

  WATCHER’S TEST

  WATCHER’S QUESTION

  WATCHER’S FATE

  WATCHER’S REPOSE

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Interlude 1

  Chapter 5

  Interlude 2

  Chapter 6

  Interlude 3

  Interlude 4

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Interlude 5

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Interlude 6

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Interlude 7

  Chapter 16

  Interlude 8

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Interlude 9

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Interlude 10

  Chapter 34

  Interlude 11

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  ALSO IN THE SERIES

  FROM THE PUBLISHER

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  LitRPG

  The LitRPG Guildmasters

  Prologue

  Choice is an illusion or so teaches one philosopher while another would have all his followers believe that we are simply the sum of our choices. One man believes he is limited in his future choices by his past choices and another that each decision creates an endless stream of possibilities forking out from that same choice.

  Yet these thoughts are those of a mortal. They belong to a man, any man, every man for whom time progresses moment by moment, each building upon itself. That same mortal views the passage of these moments as the grains of sand falling through the hourglass.

  Some mortals deem that hourglass to be finite, with a limit or an ending to come. Others suspect its scope to be endless. Yet neither can know for certain as the mortal flame is but a flash in the scheme of eternity. Most confusing of all is that the mortal sees time as a progression, thinking of past and future, yet is only able to live in the present moment, never encompassing more than a single heartbeat.

  Not so for the Watcher or his fallen brother. For their kind, time is still a coil wrapped around them containing their essence. Yet either by virtue of their nature or simply their longevity, they are able to see a broader view. They watch not just the present but, while dwelling there, also gaze upon the past.

  Knowledge, self-understanding, and the ability to calculate innumerable variables beyond mortal comprehension allow for the illusion of prophecy. Armed with such insights, it is easy to see how the Condemned believed his foresight sufficient to chart the course while simultaneously refusing to learn from the defining moment of his past.

  “Perhaps we are not so different from them,” intoned the Watcher.

  A low growl escaped his counterpart. No words followed though even as the Watcher waited.

  “Perhaps we also sought to control our fate. We sought to shape ourselves. So sure were we of our wisdom. So sure of our superiority.” The Watcher’s solemn tone grew ever more pointed.

  True to his nature, the Condemned sought refuge in anger and solace in bitter words. “I will not be compared to bags of flesh who spawn, grow, and wither in less than the blink of my eyes.”

  “And yet we like that they only ever exist in a single instant. Our vision of the past may be keener and our ability to foresee the course of the future may be more certain, yet we exist in the present.” It wasn’t clear from the way that he averted his eyes if the Watcher was speaking to himself or answering the challenges uttered.

  “Why do you insist on this exercise? We are the first. We are the rightful heirs of all.” The Condemned spoke slowly and deliberately even as his voice rose in a crescendo of emotion.

  “We call ourselves the children of eternity but is that posturing? We have a beginning. Do we also have an end?” The Watcher’s back was turned to the Condemned as he was speaking more to himself.

  “Our test proves it. Look at the first one. Look at what he has wrought. He has raised himself up with the power that our test provided to him. He has become more and proven that they cannot be trusted. The others shall all follow in his steps. It is only a matter of time. Even now one of them is taking the first steps down that path.

  Look at how they scurry and crave more for themselves all the while professing it is to redeem a lost memory or other self-centered goal. I think my favorite is the tripe from that one about only being interested in protecting his family.” A hollow laugh rose up out of the Condemned.

  “Perhaps. Yet which is esteemed, the artist or the art? In the end is it we who forge their fate or their own choices?” the Watcher asked, and while the Condemned listened, he didn’t actually hear the question being pondered. For it wasn’t the fate of some mortals from earth which was foremost in his mind, but rather his own.

  Chapter One

  Nothing makes a man fighter harder than having his back against his home. Even the serf farmer will fight to the end for kin and hearth. — King Harold Bornstein I, first king of Albia.

  Village of Eris’ Rise, Northern Albia - Sara Nelson

  Warm blood splashed against the wall of Eris’ Rise releasing bursts of steam in the chill morning air. The wall was far from complete, but at least in this section the defenders had a partial barrier. Fighting from the wall didn’t stop the attackers. Such a wall
wasn’t possible, not in Eloria where warriors could possess superhuman strength and agility. Not to say anything of magic. No, rather the walls gave them a platform to fight from. It gave them the high ground.

  Human soldiers leaned out over the wall swinging axes or thrusting spears at the mercenary attackers who were trying to climb the ten foot barrier. Occasionally a particularly strong attacker would take a running start and then leap into the air, but the deadly accuracy of the elven arrows made that strategy short-lived. It was in fact the coordination between the humans and elves made the defense of the wall so effective.

  This attack by human raiders was not what the town had been preparing for. An invasion of goblins from the north was the enemy that they had been worried about. Now though, it was obvious that Eris’ Rise had more enemies than they previously knew about. The leadership had discussed the possibility that Duke Holstein would take action against them but had never expected a full-blown attack with hundreds of soldiers.

  Certainly, none of the raiders wore livery or other insignia to mark them as being Holstein’s men. That didn’t deceive the knights or even the elves who were in charge while Dave and Emily were away. It truly had to be the worst luck that this attack happened before Dave had returned from the quest turn in to the moon elves and at the same time that Emily was on a dungeon run. Still, it was unthinkable that a force this large could exist in Holstein’s lands and he not know about it.

  The defenders had to spread themselves thin around the wall as well as flank attackers outside of the wall and guards inside to prevent a slaughter if there was a breach in the perimeter. The assailants were not under any such limitation, and now some fifty of the unmarked warriors were throwing themselves at this one little section with a mere two parties of defenders.

  Twelve against fifty was mean odds, and even the wall might not have been enough if it weren’t for two other factors. First, despite the fact that these squads had been forced upon the soldiers by Baron Murkwood and Lady Emiri, their leaders had upheld the policy and mixed the races into squads to defend their mutual home.

  Many years in the future when Eris’ Rise had ascended far beyond its lowly state, this battle, this moment of deadly tension, would be hailed as one of the defining moments. It didn’t erase centuries of racial tension or distrust. Instead, it provided a way forward through the morass of confusing traditions, for nothing tends to make men feel like brothers more than standing side by side in a life and death battle.

  The heavy axes wielded by the humans, who were innately stronger than their elven squad mates, were far better at sweeping attackers off the wall than the slender elven blades which are deadlier in a duel. As the archers came to trust the axe men next to them, they were better able to focus on their deadly arrows. Likewise, the human axe-wielders learned to trust the flights of death launched by their elven counterparts who were pushing back the encroaching enemy so the axes could be used effectively. They didn’t hold back but swung with determined focus.

  Besides the desperate teamwork, the other factor that saved these soldiers and upheld the wall was a flanking charge by Eisuke and a half dozen forest wardens and druids. The forest warden led the attack as they seemed to materialize out of thin air. Their camouflage had been nearly perfect, such that the charging humans’ intent upon the wall never saw them until it was too late. Eisuke was amongst them, a whirling bringer of death as his swords struck with precision. He didn’t carry the same slender elven long swords most of his brethren bore, favoring instead scimitars for their heavy blade and the way in which their curves lent themselves to his dancing style.

  One slash took the first of his targets across the neck while his momentum carried him into the next human with a low hooking cut against the man’s ankle. Neither target was killed, but that wasn’t his goal. Eisuke simply meant to take them out of the fight, to bring one man down in desperation so that his fingers clutched his neck in the vain attempt to hold back the flow of arterial lifeblood and the other so that he was hobbled with a severed Achilles.

  He glided amongst the humans who at first didn’t notice him and then, when they did, found it hard to shift their momentum in time. Awkward hacks were made at him, yet Eisuke was never where those blades were when the axe heads traveled through the space that he had previously been. The other four forest wardens with him each moved likewise through the humans cutting and slicing without the same exquisite grace but still to the same rhythm. It probably helped that Eisuke had trained them.

  Still the inevitable happened and an elven sword struck the human plate mail of a knight accompanying the assault upon the wall. The aim of the sword’s wielder was off by the smallest margin, and instead of slipping into a gap in the armored joints, it scuttled off to the side. The knight had been shocked by the sudden flanking assault, but his reactions were just a bit faster, and he swung his shield in response. The wooden shield was bound in metal, and the edge caught the suddenly overextended elf upon his temple and dropped him like a rag doll. The humans around sensed the fallen prey, and multiple axes swept towards him.

  It was at that moment that the pair of druids who were with the forest wardens made their presence known. The first one held out his left arm with the index and middle fingers extended out. A blue spark danced upon those two fingers as he mouthed the final words of a spell he had been holding at the ready. Faster than the eye could follow, a flash of electricity crossed the gap between finger and knight. The spell lacked the raw power of Dave’s lightning bolt, but to a man encased in metal armor, it was still a serious attack. The knight felt his muscles seize up, and instead of swinging his sword down upon the fallen elf, he toppled over stiff as a felled tree.

  The second druid’s spell was less flashy but no less potent. As the spell form came to completion, the fallen elf’s skin became as thick and hard as bark while taking on the same rough appearance. Bark wasn’t enough to stop the three axes falling upon him, but it was enough to turn strikes, which would have otherwise been instantly mortal, into merely grievous wounds.

  The humans who had sought to end the fallen warden were not so lucky. For when their charge had ended, they became perfect targets for the six elven bows upon the wall, and each of them fell to the ground with arrows in their eyes or throat. The forces on the wall coming to the rescue of their rescuers.

  The assault had been blunted, but the elves outside the wall still found themselves outnumbered, and the humans finally had the presence of mind to raise shields to protect themselves against the projectiles launched from the wall. The knight was rising to his feet. Eisuke could only assume his armor had some sort of warding against electricity, probably a common precaution in a world with metal armor and magic.

  It hadn’t been enough to save the man from the initial jolt but must have mitigated the damage enough to let him regain his feet in seconds. Now the two sides faced off against one another. The humans surrounded the elves who were gathered in a circle around their fallen comrade.

  Eisuke knew they couldn’t count on another timely spell to save them as the druids had been casting furiously since the battle had begun and even with mana potions were undoubtedly very low on mana. Still, he would have given much gold to have another half dozen of them. The saving grace was that the humans didn’t have any magic users to speak of in the assault whereas Eris’ Rise had Talvenicus and the six druids.

  The three priests had all been assigned to healing only and weren’t using any offensive magic they might possess. The worst part of this situation was that Eisuke knew he could have fought his way out of the ring and escaped, but now, some twenty-five humans stood around the seven elves, and they couldn’t even flee because of the fallen. The hogo-sha shinrin couldn’t help but wonder if Lady Emiri’s dream was dead before it would even begin.

  Not all of the fights around the wall had gone so well for defenders. In one of the weaker spots, another assault force of humans had pushed themselves through and descended upon the homes. They
made their way to the largest home the scouts had reported. Their orders were to kill the upstart nobles and capture the marrying age daughter. Accompanying this party was a pair of Holstein’s soldiers who had done some more dubious work earlier in life and had the skills necessary to perform an assassination. Thus, a knight and two dozen soldiers outside tried to force their way into the nearly finished Nelson residence and past the monk, paladin, and soldiers who were acting as Sara’s guard. Outside the house, the two assassins were creeping around trying to find a back entrance.

  Meanwhile, inside the house, Sara clung to Krinnk because she was terrified by the sounds of fighting. She wanted to latch onto Balayria, but the half-orc artist was busily painting a mural on the wall across from the entryway to the back room they were in. The one elven monk inside, who was the last line of defense, nervously snapped at her, “Is now the appropriate time for arts and crafts?”

  Balayria looked over at him with a withering stare. The hatred of elves was hardly something new to her, but still she managed to snap back, “I’m setting a trap. Just you take care to stay out of the line of this image.”