Arcane Chef - Slice of Life x Adventure LitRPG

We stopped, watching in both awe and horror, as a giant fissure split open along the mountainside, followed by the strongest tremor yet.

The streets erupted with panic and fear. Buildings cracked at their foundations, people screamed, and all eyes turned to the mountain as the fracture widened.

Then, with a deafening bang, we saw it.

An absolute behemoth—a massive, round-bodied dragon—burst free from the mountain. Boulders tumbled down in its wake, each one enormous even from this distance. I could only imagine their true scale up close.

The city dissolved into chaos. Bells tolled, adventurers and guards rushed toward the mountainside, while others fled in terror.

My stomach turned cold. Did the dragon know we had its kin?

It forced its way free, wings unfurling in a display so vast it stole my breath. With a roar that shook the very ground, it announced its presence to the world—an awe-inspiring, terrible sound.

Half-panicked, I blurted, “Do we run?”

I expected Hari to answer, but it was Milo who spoke instead.

“No point. We can’t outrun that if it’s coming for us.”

We watched as the dragon launched from the mountainside, gliding into the sky. Its sheer size made it seem as though time slowed, but the avalanche of rocks that followed it came fast, crashing down the slopes.

Was this it?

With only a few beats of its colossal wings, it was over the city, its shadow swallowing everything beneath. But its gaze wasn’t on us.

No… it was on the Temple.

The next moment, the loudest boom I had ever heard tore through the world. Pain split my skull as I collapsed to my knees, clutching my ears. Around me, others did the same.

I forced my eyes upward—and froze.

The Temple was gone. Not just the Temple—half the hill itself had been obliterated.

A rain of stone and debris followed, hammering down upon the city. Screams filled the air, cries of terror and pain blending into one. Everyone around me also fell to their knees, eyes wide, hands pressed to their ears.

We were going to die.

That was all I could think as I watched. Then, with two heavy flaps of its wings, the dragon lifted off and began to fly again, heading east.

It didn’t take long before the shadow cleared from over the city. We watched the dragon gliding away, but the screams still carried, and rocks continued pelting down from above.

I didn’t dare look up through the rain of stone and dust, but I caught sight of Milo. He was using air magic to shield himself, so I edged closer, slipping into his bubble-like pocket of safety. From there, I saw the devastation that had been left behind.

The Temple was no more—completely obliterated. The mountain peak above had been sundered open. Something hot trickled down my neck. When I reached up to touch it, my fingers came away smeared with blood and grit.

I was bleeding?

I couldn’t tell where from. Nothing hurt—other than the ringing in my ears. Probing further, I found the sticky mixture of blood and dirt at the sides of my head. It was coming from my ears.

Notifications:

You have suffered 29 damage!

Hari was the first to pull himself together.

I saw him shouting, but his voice was muffled, words blurred and distant.

“We need to go help protect the city from the incoming rockslide!” he cried.

“Liane, stay with Trevor! Everyone else, move now!” He called, and the others nodded before sprinting towards the mountain side of the city.

I felt Liane’s hand on my shoulder. When I turned, I could tell she was saying something, but it was just muffled, and I could not hear her properly. I pointed at my ears so she could know I couldn’t hear, when her eyes went wide and a small red vial appeared in her hands, before the liquid inside was forced down my throat.

It only took a moment before the sound returned to normal, and part of me wished it hadn’t. The screaming and crying I had heard before became almost deafening. All around me, I heard people yelling.

“Trevor, focus on me for a second,” I heard, and turned to see Liane looking at me.

“We need to move to safety. Are you okay to move?” she asked.

I just nodded, and we started running at a steady pace, with Crisplet in his brazier by my side.

I kept seeing adventure groups running past us, heading the opposite way towards the mountain.

“Where… where are we heading?” I asked, still following Liane.

“We’re heading as far away from that mountain as we can right now. I can’t imagine how much rock is about to come crashing down into the city.”

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As we ran through the streets, I noticed more and more damage. Many buildings stood with their roofs collapsed, some entire walls had fallen down. On the streets themselves, I saw groups huddled together; some were crying, some were just holding on tight to family as they looked towards the destruction.

Wherever we ran, nothing was free of damage.

It took a while, and we didn’t stop running, but we reached the far side of the city, the dockside.

We joined an ever-growing crowd there that were all in different states of shock, some looking to the mountain with tears in their eyes, others crying and sobbing.

All around me, I saw suffering.

The bells of the city were still ringing loudly, indicating a threat.

It was several hours before the bells went silent. We had just been standing there the whole time as more and more people collected at the docks. There would have been thousands of people now.

When the bells went quiet, people started getting to their feet and moving back into the city, many wondering what state their homes and livelihoods would be in.

Myself, I didn’t know what to think. I had sat there the whole time just feeling like it was all my fault. I caused this. I had been the reason so many had suffered, so many had been injured… and I’m sure people lost their lives today.

Because of me.

Liane lifted me to my feet and said something, but again I didn’t quite hear it.

“Trev, need you to focus again. Look at me,” she whispered. My eyes focused on her as she stood in front of me.

“We are going to find the others. We’ll head towards the stables. That’s our meetup spot in emergencies, so let’s go,” she said, her hand on my shoulder as she shuffled me through the crowds of people.

When we got a break from the crowd, we started jogging. I followed Liane closely, but my focus was on all the damaged and destroyed buildings.

It wasn’t long before we reached the stables, where Jen and Hari were already waiting.

“Where is Milo?” Liane asked, a little bit of concern showing through in her voice.

“He’s helping search for survivors by removing the rubble,” Hari said in a sombre tone.

“We’re going to take Trevor to Jackson’s, then Jen will stay with him while we go out and search as well,” he said, looking at Liane, who just nodded.

“I’m sorry, Trev, there is not a lot you can do to help people right now,” he said. I just nodded. I knew I’d only get in the way and slow them down if I tried to tag along.

As we moved through the city towards Jackson’s house, the damage was getting worse. Part of me wondered if everyone we knew was okay. Curtis and Char were closer to the mountain side of town, or that bookshop… that was very close. Was the old man okay?

“I will be okay by myself if Jen needs to go out and help too,” I said, but I was shot down immediately.

“Absolutely not. We all agreed someone would be with you at all times when we entered the city; we’re not changing that now. Besides, Jen is an amazing scout and archer, not a very good digger. Liane has the luxury of searching through shadows,” Hari said.

The Shadows… The Cat! What if it came looking for a meal now?

But it hadn’t shown up when the dragon attacked, even when I was so close to disaster, so was it even watching right now?

I shook my head. No, no, I needed to focus on now, not worry about what-ifs. If the cat shows up, I’ll blame the dragon. Simple.

When we reached the house, Gael was standing out front, and there was significant damage to the place. Several windows were broken, and part of the roof had caved in near the back. As we arrived, he spotted us.

Jen ran forward. “Is everyone okay? Are you hurt?” she said, rapidly approaching Gael.

“Thank you for your concern, but just a few scratches. No one else was home at the time. It’s likely not safe to go inside right now,” Gael said while bowing to Jen.

“That’s okay. We can get it repaired when Milo comes back; what’s important is everyone is okay.” Jen was looking around.

Around us in the residential area, most houses had at least some damage—either cracks, small collapses in the roof. One unlucky house had a large piece of rock sticking out of the wall. There were not a lot of people, however, so I wondered if most of them had moved towards the dock area like we did.

We did not enter the house for fear of further damage. Instead, I followed Jen as we walked through the streets, making sure people were okay and that nobody was trapped in a damaged house. Luckily, the injuries people had suffered were minor—ear damage, scratches, and bruises. There was a man with a large cut on the side of his face where a piece of flying debris had hit him, but he insisted he was fine.

Jen did not agree and forced him to swallow a health potion to help heal it rapidly. If I had access to a kitchen, I could be helping. I could make a large pot of soup or stew or something, but even then my pots were not very large. I felt useless.

It was early evening when everyone else came back to the house. They stood outside looking up. Milo couldn’t repair it properly yet, due to being severely low on mana, so he instead did just the very bare minimum to ensure no further collapse, and we all went inside.

Milo passed out almost immediately.

As we sat around the table in the dining area, I saw Jackson looking awful. He was covered in dust from head to toe. Hari and Liane didn’t look too bad, but Hari especially looked tired as well.

“Is the city okay?” I asked timidly. I was still blaming myself for everything; this was entirely because of me.

“Yes and no,” Jackson mumbled.

“We managed to stop the rockslide before it decimated the city, but it’s going to take weeks before it’s truly safe again. We’ve had every mage capable of producing earth walls building and reinforcing giant barriers to catch any falling rocks. But there are just so many. I feel like the entire peak fell off,” Jackson explained, resting his head on his arms.

“That’s because it did…” Hari said.

“Why did it destroy the Temple? I thought he was the chosen one of the Storm god?” I said, confused by that part.

“We’re not sure, honestly, Trev,” Jen said, now noticing that Jackson had passed out as well.

“But it has absolutely decimated the entire hill the Temple sat on, as well as everyone on or directly around it,” Jen said.

“It’s all my fault,” I said quietly.

“No, it’s not. You do not control the Cat; you did not know it had some kind of feud with the dragon; and you certainly were not responsible for the dragon destroying its own God’s Temple,” Hari said firmly.

“He’s right, Trev. This isn’t your fault. You didn’t ask the Cat to attack the dragon, you didn’t ask the Cat to come along at all, and you certainly didn’t ask the dragon to destroy its own god’s Temple,” Jen said.

Crisplet, who had been very reserved today, burst into weak sparks, showing it agreed.

I appreciated their trying, but honestly there was nothing they could say that would have made me feel like it wasn’t my fault.

If I hadn’t left the Lord’s manor in Dunhearth, none of this would have happened.

“Is there any way I can help? I feel terrible. Can I maybe make food for people?” I asked.

“No, that would just draw a lot of eyes to you, Trev, and we’ve made enough mistakes regarding that as is. We really need to be smarter,” Jen said softly, patting my arm.

In the end, I went to sleep on the floor in the dining room that night.

I slept horribly. I kept waking up to nightmares—scenes of all the crying people, imagining all the dead people. It was horrible. I was in a cold sweat from head to toe, and I don’t think I have ever had a worse sleep.

It didn’t get better in the morning. I woke to see Kara sitting at the table with Jackson, having a hot drink of sorts. Getting up from the floor, I noticed that Hari and Jen were also sleeping down here and had not woken yet.

“Morning, Trev,” Jackson said, sipping his cup. “Sleep well?”

I shook my head. “Not at all.”

“I suppose tragedy makes for poor dreams. Come, come, take a seat, have some tea; it’ll do you some good.”

Saying good morning to Kara, I took the offered cup. Not much was said as we all sipped our tea. It wasn’t until Hari and Jen had risen, and Milo stumbled into the room still looking absolutely exhausted, that any real conversation happened.

It was Kara who began when everyone sat down.

“Well, I likely don’t need to begin to explain to you why, but the Lord is currently trying to blame you entirely for this disaster. As a result, I expect your stay in this city to get progressively more uncomfortable with mounting pressure,” she began.

When Hari went to say something, she raised her hand.

“It’s okay. As a guild, we know the events here were not his fault, and he did not ask for this to happen—but politics. Now, we’ve had reports flooding in already that there is currently a tremendous battle happening above and in the Dark Forest, between our friend the dragon here, along with another green dragon he has awoken from slumber, and what has been described as the shadows of the forest themselves…” She looked at me.

“I’m sure we can put two and two together to work out who that might be,” she said before taking another sip of tea.

“Now, the fight currently is not directly affecting any known city or town, but the beasts fleeing the battle are causing considerable danger to the settlements near the forest. Would you be able to head to Forest’s Edge and, in particular, protect its boundaries from any particularly nasty threats that flee that way?” Kara said, looking to Hari.

Hari just nodded. “We can do that. We’ll need to stop in Divinmere for supplies, but after that we can move to Forest’s Edge for a time. How long do we need to defend?” he asked.

Kara just laughed. “Hari, I suspect you’ll know when it’s safe to leave before anyone else. When the Cat comes to collect on its dinner, the fight’s likely over.”