by A. J. Markam
But I knew we couldn’t run forever.
I would eventually have to face him.
And the inevitability of that final encounter filled me with dread.
As the final minutes ticked down, I used my Ring of Diminution to shrink in size and say goodbye to the fairies.
“Be careful, Big Thing,” Wylla said mournfully.
“I will.”
“Thank you for saving us,” Mauvia said. “And please, come back someday soon. We would love to see you when our hearts are not so heavy.”
“We will… I promise.”
Alaria and Stig said their goodbyes, too. Meera just watched silently on the side, occasionally distracted by the golden blurs of light whizzing around her.
When the timer reached zero, I opened up a portal.
We would eventually return to Exardus – but we had a stopover in Fathmos to make first.
Once we reached Abaddon, I avoided looking at the lonely cairn lying there amongst the ruins. It hurt too much.
I exchanged the Ring of Diminution for the Ring of Baloq so we could breathe, and then the four of us stepped through the next portal into the underwater realm.
I would have thought we’d come to the wrong place if I hadn’t seen so many similar scenes over the last 48 hours.
Fathmos had been completely destroyed.
The nymph queen’s palace had been obliterated.
Zali’s compound, which had looked bombed-out before, had been reduced to white gravel in the sand.
At least there were no dead Naga or nymphs lying in the wreckage. That much I could be thankful for.
The thing we had come for was exactly where I’d expected it.
Nix’s powers had turned the sand to glass, and three-foot-high glittering letters spelled out his message:
3
YOU SAY HIS NAME
AND NEVER TAKE NOTICE
OTHERS SAY HIS NAME
AND YOU PERK UP YOUR EARS
The fuck?!
I stood there looking at the riddle in desperation, but it made no more sense after five minutes than it had when I’d first read it.
“Any ideas?” I asked Alaria, Meera, and Stig.
They all shook their head ‘no.’
“Alright, then… let’s go,” I said despondently, and cast the next portal.
28
We emerged in front of Meera’s building – or at least the crater where it had once been.
“What do we do now?” Alaria asked.
“I guess we should evacuate the city.”
But the streets were deserted and deathly quiet, as though the citizens of Exardus had already left.
Could they have found out already about the Black Fleet’s impending arrival?
But how?
As it turned out, it wasn’t Nix that had had sent them running.
Far down the street, several brightly colored, familiar-looking figures rushed out of a building, their arms laden with candlesticks and silverware.
“HEY!” I yelled at them.
Three short muppets dressed as pirates looked over.
“Ian!” they all shouted happily.
I jogged on over, Stig scampered beside me, and Alaria and Meera flew.
I didn’t know their names, but all three demons had thanked me before we’d parted ways.
“I thought you guys were going to steal a ship!”
“Yeah, well…” a green one grumbled.
“Buncha mobsters had other ideas,” a blue one snarled.
“What?!”
It turned out that Peenocchio’s and Varkus’s men had taken over the harbor. Even though they had been mortal enemies just a few days before, the two groups of thugs had forged a kind of détente, having realized they would lose out on a major business opportunity if they continued to fight amongst each other.
Entrepreneurship amongst thieves, if you will.
That business opportunity consisted of holding the shipyards hostage. The thugs were demanding a king’s ransom if Exardus’s merchants wanted their ships back.
It had been a pretty good idea…
Except that none of the merchants were willing to play ball.
They’d basically told the mobsters to go fuck themselves.
In the nicest, most polite language possible.
In a letter.
Delivered by a carrier pigeon.
The merchants didn’t want to get whacked, after all.
If the other party has a tendency to kill the messenger, might as well send a bird.
We, the Exardus Chamber of Commerce, have decided that it is not currently in our members’ best interests to pay the suggested amounts for our former property, so we are breaking off negotiations posthaste. Best of luck in your future endeavors.
Now the shipyards were filled with disgruntled mobsters pissed off that nobody would buy back the boats they’d hijacked.
Krug had gone in without knowing any of that.
When he and the pirates had arrived, they’d found a bunch of goons demanding a couple million in gold for the crappiest ship available.
Of course, pirates being pirates, there was no way Krug and his crew were going to pay for anything – so they attacked instead.
Unfortunately, they were a bunch of 50 Level demons up against a bunch of 80 Level warriors, rogues, paladins, and mages.
It didn’t turn out too well for the demons. Over a dozen of them died before Krug ordered a retreat.
I checked my menu. Sure enough, 14 demons’ icons were slightly greyed out.
I hadn’t realized it at the time it happened because we’d been doing something that consumed every ounce of attention I had: fighting to keep Eluun alive inside the rogue dungeon.
Having been thoroughly whipped, the demons gave up all hope of stealing a ship and turned to the second-best option: stealing anything else that wasn’t nailed down.
They were just going about it as a land-based activity rather than aerial or nautical.
When I asked why, the green one said, “We’re pirates, ain’t we? Gots to get our steal on.”
“Plus,” a purple one muttered, “maybe we can buy a blasted ship if we scrounge up enough.”
“What?!” I exclaimed.
“I know, I know,” the purple pirate groaned. “No self-respectin’ pirate would ever do this shit.”
“We stopped bein’ self-respectin’ pirates when we didn’t go after Tarka and the warlock,” the blue demon groused. “Bent over like bitches and let ‘em fuck us in the ass instead.”
This was just too good.
Krug wouldn’t help me, instead deciding to go off and be a big bad pirate…
…and then he’d fucked the pooch trying to get another ship.
Apparently his crew weren’t amused.
Getting them to swear by the Seven Hells was probably the smartest thing Krug ever did, because otherwise he would have faced a mutiny for sure.
But there was more.
Now that there were not just mobsters and demons running around, but demon PIRATES stealing stuff, the populace of Exardus had gotten fed up.
There had been a mass exodus the day before, with every single citizen fleeing the city.
That’s why Exardus seemed deserted: because it was.
(Which was the one kindness the game had done me in the last three days.)
So now the mobsters were holding a bunch of ships hostage that they couldn’t get paid for…
The pirates were reduced to scrounging for pennies between people’s sofa cushions…
And everybody was going to die in a matter of hours. They just didn’t know it yet.
Stellar.
“Take me to Krug,” I told the three pirates.
“Uhhhh… I don’t think he wants to see you,” the green demon said.
The blue demon snickered. “Yeah, especially considerin’ how bad he’s gotten buggered.”
“He’s going to want to hear what I have to say,” I reassured them
. “Don’t worry – it’s strictly business.”
“…okay…” the pirates agreed hesitantly, then led us down the street.
They brought us to the Exardus town hall, a gleaming building topped by a white dome. In the massive central lobby, Krug was dividing up the booty being brought back by his crew – mostly candlesticks and silverware.
It was a pretty pathetic haul, all things considered, especially for a bunch of pirates accustomed to burying treasure chests full of gold and jewels. Varkus’s and Peenocchio’s thugs had nabbed all the best stuff over the last few days, and the fleeing citizenry must have taken everything else of real value.
As soon as Krug saw me, his expression turned into a scowl.
“What are you doing here?” he snarled.
I put up my hands in a Don’t shoot pose. “I’m here to make a deal. And as a gesture of goodwill – ”
I hit the icons of the 14 dead pirates, who immediately reappeared in front of me.
We had to dodge a few lightning bolts and fireballs before the demons realized they weren’t in the middle of battle anymore, but then we got down to business.
“Thanks for bringing my men back,” Krug grunted without an ounce of gratitude, “but I’m not interested in making any deals.”
“You don’t have much of a choice,” I replied. “Tarka and the warlock are on their way here now with their fleet. By the way, the warlock’s name is Nix… and when he gets here, he’s going to destroy this entire city and everyone in it.”
All the demon pirates looked around at each other in – excitement? Lust for revenge?
“How do you know all that?” Krug asked suspiciously.
“Because we fought him in Vos. Actually, we didn’t so much fight him as he trapped us inside a rogue dungeon until I could teleport us out.” I paused. “Not all of us made it.”
Krug glanced at my group, looking for a specific face. “The frost elf?”
I slowly shook my head no.
Krug was silent for a few seconds. Finally he said, “I’m sorry to hear that. I liked her. But there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“Yes there is. I’m going to kill that motherfucker, and I need your help to do it.”
The other pirates looked at each other and murmured excitedly –
But Krug’s shoulders sagged as though they bore the weight of the world. “You don’t understand. He slaughtered us before… and we can’t even steal a damn ship to get out of here. How the hell are we supposed to take on an entire fleet?”
“You could if you had a fleet of your own.”
He looked shocked. “What – the ships in the harbor?”
“Yup.”
“All of them?!”
“Yes.”
Now the pirate crew was even more excited.
Not Krug, though. He was just too damn pessimistic for his own good.
“I suppose you’re going to kill all those gangsters for us, too,” he said sarcastically.
“No. We’re going to get them to join us.”
“…what?”
Krug listened in stunned silence as I laid out my plan.
The rank-and-file were full of enthusiasm; their captain, less so.
“That’ll never work,” he grumbled.
“It’s worth a shot. If we win, you get the Revenge back, and maybe even an entire fleet of ships. You’d be the most fearsome band of pirates in all of history.”
“If we win.”
“The alternative is we die without even fighting back. We might as well go for it – at least then we’d have a chance.”
Krug didn’t seem entirely convinced, but he looked like he was considering it.
I decided now was the time to bring up the fine print. “My only condition is that you release your crew from their oath of loyalty. If they go through with the plan and fulfill their side of the bargain, I want you to give them their freedom.”
Krug smirked. “Like you gave us ours from Tarka,” he said sardonically.
I ignored his mocking tone. “It’s only fair.”
Krug craned his neck and scratched his massive jaw as he thought. “Hmm…”
“C’mon, Cap’n,” Shee pleaded. “It’s the best shot we’ll ever have at getting the Revenge back.”
“You just want the freedom to do whatever you want,” Krug said accusatorily.
“Isn’t that what we all want?” Shee asked.
Krug sighed, then shrugged. “Alright. Why not. It’s not like I’ll have to pay up anyway.”
A cheer went up from his crew, along with a few celebratory fireballs.
“You won’t regret it,” I promised.
“I already am,” Krug grumbled, but he joined us as we made our way to the docks.
29
And so a warlock, a succubus, an angel, an imp, and 50 demon pirates walked into a den of murderers and thieves.
As we reached the shipyards, I took stock of the situation.
Every ship had a group of thugs camped out on its upper deck, staking out their territory.
Orcs, elves, trolls, goblins, and humans were intermixed – but without fail, each group was dressed in armor that was either drab and battered (Varkus’s former employees) or gorgeously colorful (which meant they had worked for Peenocchio). There was no mixing or matching between the armor types; it was 100% one or the other.
Some of the thugs were in the ships’ riggings or crow’s nests, keeping an eye out to see if the other side violated the temporary truce.
The heckling started as soon as they saw Krug.
“Hey – it’s that demon from earlier!” someone shouted.
“Can’t rightly call him a pirate!” another one hooted.
“Betcha he’s thinkin’ ‘bout buyin’ a ship NOW!” a third yelled, and the entire shipyard erupted in laughter.
Krug bristled with rage, and he reached for his sword.
I put a hand on his arm to stop him from drawing.
“Easy,” I said. “Remember, we’re here to talk, not fight.”
Then the mobsters noticed me, and it was like a bunch of Great Whites suddenly smelled blood in the water.
“Wait – I know YOU!” a thug in scarlet and gold armor yelled angrily as he pointed at me from one of the bigger ships.
“He’s the one that killed Peenocchio!” another mobster shouted.
“And kidnapped Varkus!” an orc in dingy armor roared.
“And I’m here to make a deal,” I yelled back.
A guy from every ship either swung down on a rope, or ran down the gangplank, or jumped from the upper deck and slammed down on the dock in a three-point superhero landing.
Within seconds I was surrounded by a dozen of the ugliest, most brutal-looking warriors, paladins, and rogues – not to mention the two dozen hunters aiming at me from the ships’ decks.
“I should kill you for offing my old boss,” the warrior in scarlet and gold snarled.
“Technically he killed himself by lying too much,” I said. “His nose hit the opposite wall of his safe room and caved in his head.”
It was true. Faced with certain death if he told another lie, Peenocchio just couldn’t help himself.
The warrior chuckled nastily. “Sounds about right… stupid little fucker…”
“You don’t sound too broken up about it.”
“At least he paid us,” the warrior snarled.
“I understand you’re selling ships. What are you asking?”
“15 million gold for the galleon,” he said as he pointed at the ship behind him.
“14.9 for the schooner!” a rogue counteroffered.
“16 for the man-o-war,” a paladin yelled, “guns included.”
Within seconds it sounded like a trading floor on Wall Street with everybody yelling out prices – all of them exorbitant.
Jesus – Krug would have never been able to scrounge up enough silverware to buy anything, even if he had three months to search all of Exardus.
“
I got a better offer,” I shouted, and the thugs all quieted down.
“What?” the scarlet warrior asked.
“We join forces.”
The mobsters laughed.
“How ‘bout you pay us or we kill you?” a rogue sneered.
“Then you die, too,” I said.
Every single asshole on the dock went for his weapons.
“Not from us, you idiots,” I shouted. “You saw what happened to the Underneath, right?”
All the gangsters paused, and a somber silence descended on the group.
“The Black Fleet,” one of the paladins murmured.
“That’s right. And the guy who commands them is coming back, except this time he’s going to wipe out everything.”
“What makes you so sure?” the scarlet warrior asked belligerently.
“He told me so in Vos. Or what’s left of it.”
The scarlet warrior laughed. “You’re a liar. Why the hell would he let you walk away?”
“He didn’t. He trapped me in a rogue dungeon until I could teleport out. He was toying with me.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s totally fucking insane. And he wants to torment me by destroying every place I’ve been that ever meant anything to me.”
“Then why didn’t he destroy Exardus the last time he was here?”
“To send me a message.” Literally – the riddle on Meera’s cross. “But Exardus is where I’ve been living up until a few days ago, so he saved wiping it off the map for the very end.”
The thugs all looked around at each other uneasily. Having worked for vicious mob bosses in the past, they had no reason to question another psychopath’s plans now.
“If what you’re saying is true,” the scarlet warrior said, “we should just get out of here.”
“That would be a good idea – except the Black Fleet’ll be here any minute. If you try to leave Exardus by foot, you’re fucked. Even if you make it out of the city and aren’t killed in the bombardment, they’ll probably just hunt you down for the sport of it.” I had no way of knowing if that was true or not, but it made for good sales copy. “Of course, you could always leave on one of these fine, expensive ships of yours. Any of you know how to fly them?”
The thugs all looked annoyed.
Of course they didn’t; they were triggermen and mob enforcers, not sailors.
