Eat, Slay, Love: A LitRPG/GameLit Adventure (The Good Guys Book 10)

by Eric Ugland

  No pranks, then, I thought, closing the door. Then I headed out to find Yuri and Arno.

  Time for some detective work.

  Once again, I had to find people, a ridiculously difficult task. My dukedeom for a cell phone! I guess. It was kind of nice not having a digital tether.

  It didn’t help that it was hideously late. The dwarves were mostly still going strong on their group project, but the ball had wrapped up, and the kitchens had switched to bare bones staffing. It seemed like only those who had to be awake that still remained awake.

  I walked the halls and only saw the occasional guard patrols. I got mixed sorts of salutes from the men and women, and wondered if there was a standardized salute, or if that was at all necessary. Something to—

  You have been offered a quest:

  The Coggeshall Salute

  Determine an official salute for the soldiers and citizens of Coggeshall

  Reward for success: Increased community cohesion

  Penalty for failure (or refusal): Unknown

  Yes/No

  Fuck.

  I accepted the quest. Might as well get some extra XP for something stupid.

  Up and down the halls I went, finally coming across Yuri and Arno walking down a set of stairs. We almost ran into each other.

  “Your grace,” Arno said. “Everything okay with the guard?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “nothing big. Communication errors.”

  “Ah.”

  “You two make some progress?”

  Arno looked to Yuri.

  “Your grace,” Yuri said, “it is quite late. Finding anyone awake is, uh—”

  “Challenging?” I offered.

  “Improbable,” Arno replied.

  “You haven’t found anyone?” I asked.

  “We found where they live,” Yuri said, “but we have chosen to not wake them as of yet.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we hold no formal position in Coggeshall.”

  “He’s a Legion mancer,” I said. “That’s formal.”

  “Technically not even a member of Coggeshall, your grace,” Arno pointed out.

  I sighed.

  “Let’s pretend this is my first Fiends’ Night,” I started.

  Arno held up his hand.

  “Is this something that might need privacy?” he asked.

  “Oh, yeah. Maybe, I guess—”

  My ears popped, and all the noises echoing around the stairwell went silent.

  “We can’t hear what’s going on outside the circle,” I said, “right?”

  “That is a side-effect of the spell,” Arno replied.

  “Just something to be aware of. I’d rather not get hit with fruit again. Or, you know, something slightly more deadly.”

  “Like broccoli?” Yuri asked, straight-faced. He held it for a second before breaking into a toothy grin.

  “Yes,” I said. “Like broccoli.”

  “Are you allergic?” Arno asked, genuinely concerned.

  “A joke,” I said. “Because of the limes.”

  “Ah. Right.”

  “Back to what I was saying. Let’s pretend this is my first Fiend’s Night—”

  “How could that be?”

  “Let’s pretend.”

  “I find this a pointless exercise already,” Arno snapped.

  “There’s a long story that can explain things. Just, well, not right now. It is not germane to any of this other shit. I need to know what to expect over the course of this night. I need to know things you guys may think is total noob shit, but—”

  “Noob shit?” Arno asked, then turned to Yuri. “Do you know this creature?”

  “The noob?” Yuri replied. “No.”

  “It’s not a creature. It’s slang for new. Newbie. Noob.”

  “I don’t know what it is you are looking for, but Fiends’ Night is thirty-six hours long,” Arno said. “Fiends come out and take who they can back to the hells. Fiends cannot come inside a home unless invited. They will, however, try to get you to come out to them in a myriad of ways. When the sun rises, you go outside.”

  “You can hunt fiends,” Yuri added. “Get a bounty from the heavens on the conclusion of the night, during the day after Fiends’ Night.”

  “Which is usually not spoken of.”

  “The bounty?” I asked.

  “The day after,” Arno said. “It’s the start of the year, and nearly everyone believes it bad luck to speak of it prior to Fiends’ Night ending.”

  “What? Why? They think it’ll bring the fiends in or something?”

  “Likely,” Yuri said. “I think it all a bit foolish.”

  “Different cultures have different ways of making it through the night,” Arno said, “as you have seen. Glatonese people prefer a social or family gathering. Parties and drinking all night long. Many of the dwarven clans choose to have work parties on large projects and do their best not to sleep. I have heard of certain, more primitive tribes far to the east who spend the night in the company of the most powerful beings in nature, as a test of their connection to the natural creatures. Relying on the great beasts to protect them from the fiends. Then there are those cultures who make deals with fiends, and they complete the deals on this night. Souls are transferred, power is bestowed. Towns offer up prisoners or sacrifices to ensure the night is peaceful. Every place on the planet has some means of making it through the night; elsewise, they will not last past a year. Is any of this giving you the information you need for us to find whatever you are looking for?”

  “Not really,” I replied. “Good to have the information, but I’m grasping at straws here. The Master is somewhere in Coggeshall. That much I know. He has to have helpers. I know he had followers in Osterstadt — quite a few of them. I can’t imagine he just left them all behind. I’d bet he’s had his followers here for some time, even. Fuck. I’m at a loss. This sort of shit is not what I’m good at.”

  “You did well enough in Osterstadt,” Yuri said.

  “True,” Arno agreed, “you were instrumental in hunting down a master vampire.”

  “I didn’t do much,” I said. “You two and Bear did all the hunting. I just did the punching and kicking part.”

  “Then perhaps we need to get Bear.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Skeld is not going to like this.”

  74

  After a little running around MountainHome, a grumpy dwarf finally gave us good directions to the quarters of one Skeld Woodingson.

  I pounded on the door.

  I heard some shuffling going on inside, as well as a few hissed words exchanged. The door opened, and Skeld’s wolverine snout poked out, then his eyes. He looked at me, then at Yuri, then at Arno, and back at me before blinking a few times.

  “Yes?” he asked, his voice husky in the late night.

  “I know you’re busy getting busy, but we need you,” I said. “And Bear.”

  “Why would you think Bear is — I, uh, really?”

  “Yes, really. You think I’m out here in the middle of the night just to be an ass and interrupt you getting ass?”

  “You have a rather, um, different view of night and day, your grace. Some of us must sleep. Is this an emergency?”

  I looked over at Arno, who oh-so-helpfully shrugged.

  Yuri tapped something out on his leg and then shook his head. “If we are confident in the timeline, then we have twenty hours remaining. Roughly. Which feels like plenty of time to me.”

  I nodded, then turned to tell Skeld to go back to bed. But the door had already shut. I hadn’t even had time to give him the proper shit he deserved! One more thing to add to the to-do list.

  “It’s been sixteen hours already?” I asked. “How is that possible?”

  “Time feels different during Fiends’ Night,” Arno whispered. “Some people can sleep all the way through all thirty-six hours. It is an affectation of the way the planes are psuedo-merged.”

  “So we’re nearly at the half-way poi
nt? That’s crazy.”

  “It is as it is, your grace.”

  I looked at the two of them standing outside Skeld’s door. Arno had dark rings under his eyes, and Yuri leaned against the wall, his eyelids heavy.

  “You two look like you need sleep,” I proclaimed.

  Both men hesitated before answering. I knew immediately they’d say that they were a little tired, but could push on. That finding The Master was too important. I also knew I couldn’t expect them to live on my schedule. I had to look out for my people, instead of forcing them into burnout.

  “That wasn’t a question,” I said quickly. “I want you to each sleep for say, six hours? Then come find me. Hopefully Bear and Skeld will be rested by then as well. And maybe even Ragnar. Or someone else.”

  I got nods from both men. They headed to their quarters quickly, perhaps worried I might change my mind.

  I was alone again.

  So I did some rounds.

  I thought about sleeping.

  I ate some more food.

  Nothing felt important enough to do, so I didn’t exactly know what to do with myself. My only genuine lead required speaking with all the people who were sleeping. And calling it a genuine lead seemed more and more like a stretch. If a follower of The Master was actually on that list, first I’d have to figure that out somehow, and then I’d have to get them to slip up and tell me the truth. But I only had one use of veritasium, which meant I really needed to be sure about using the forced-truth-telling when it was time to force someone to tell the truth. And that felt like an impossibility.

  Finally, I went to the throne room and sat down. In my duchal throne. I felt like an imposter.

  What was I doing...

  I got to thinking about how The Master needed a lair. He had to have a place to eat his victims. How was he transporting people around Coggeshall? It’s not like Coggeshall was a fully functioning city, with rooftops and sewers to move through.

  There were only a few ways you could move a body. We didn’t use wagons so much as carts — carts that were, for the most part, pulled by hand. When we’d moved our livestock into the mountain, there was an uptick in animals pulling carts. But there had to be something I was missing. I needed someone to bounce ideas off of. There were probably only two people in Coggeshall, besides myself, who had truly fucked-up sleep schedules. One was busy watching an egg, and I knew nothing would pull Darius away from that duty, no matter the emergency.

  But then there was Lee.

  75

  I found the Minnesotan in the treasury. It was exceptionally quiet, just the soft clinking of coins and the occasional scratching of pen on paper. Lee barely looked up when I walked in, merely held up a finger, and said, “A minute.”

  I dutifully waited.

  He was moving coins around the place, taking them from barrels, weighing them, and then putting them in crates.

  A few minutes of this, and he wrote a few things down on a clipboard, then hung the clipboard up. He grabbed a small broom and swept the floor, then pushed everything back into place, and finally clapped his hands.

  “Your dukeness,” Lee finally said. “To what do I owe the honor of this late-night visit?”

  “I need some help.”

  “I live to serve.”

  “Really?”

  “No, but it sounded good. Seems like what you’re supposed to say to a duke, right?”

  “What would I know about that?”

  “What do you need help with?”

  “If you were going to move bodies around Coggeshall, how would you do it?”

  “Is there something I should know?”

  I leaned back and made sure I’d shut the treasury door.

  “I’m trying to find The Master.”

  “Who?”

  “He’s a monster, let’s leave it at that. From what I know, he’s got a lair somewhere within Coggeshall. And he eats people. So he’s been snatching our people, moving them through Coggeshall in secret, and eating them.”

  “Seems, um, terrifying? If I didn’t know I could respawn, I think I would be running and screaming right now. He eats people? And has been doing this?”

  “That’s what it seems like.”

  “You’re awfully calm.”

  “I’m dumb enough when I’m calm — what do you think I’m like when I’m riled up?”

  “Violent.”

  “Probably fair.”

  “And violence is not the answer?”

  “I have to find him first.”

  “That would make being violent rather challenging.”

  “Very. So that’s where I need your help.”

  “You’ve got a raft of helpers.”

  “They’re all asleep.”

  He sighed and stretched. “I suppose that’s true. This Fiends’ Night stuff is strange.”

  “Very. Did you know time moves differently?”

  “Does it?”

  “Or maybe it just feels like it moves differently.”

  “I can see that. The unnatural darkness, the strange behaviors. It’s all so unsettling.”

  “Have you been in here the whole time?”

  “I started at the dinner and checked out the dancing, but it’s not really music I’m used to dancing to. And plus it felt wrong. My wife and I loved dancing, and...”

  “Yeah, I get it.”

  “But we are not here to wax poetic about lost loves and lives, are we? We are here to save lives. Hunt monsters.”

  “Count coins.”

  “Weigh coins. Nikolai asked me to prep some gold into crates.”

  “Why?”

  “I assuming he’s going to melt the gold down. Sell it in ingots.”

  “Makes sense. But moving bodies — any ideas?”

  He grabbed the clipboard and ripped a sheet of paper off the pad. Then he took his pen out and began sketching with quick, confident strokes.

  “This is MountainHome, more or less, right?” he asked, pointing at his drawing.

  “Sure.”

  “If you were going to have a secret people-eating spot, where would you put it?”

  “Confined to Coggeshall?”

  “Yes. Why would I — never mind. Where in MountainHome?”

  “I don’t know, near a stairwell?”

  “That’s one idea, certainly. For all intents and purposes, we live in a vertical community. There is plenty of travel up and down, but not as much horizontally. Which means...?”

  “It’s easier to move things down, so—”

  “Exactly. We can reliably focus on the lowest levels. Bodies are heavy, and if you are trying to move things in secret, you’d want it to be as easy as possible. In fact, I would look to see if someone’s installed additional laundry chutes. Because then you are only moving bodies along the hallways — never having to use the stairs. And if that’s the case, you could just use the laundry carts to move the bodies, and no one is the wiser.”

  “We have laundry chutes?”

  “Ever wonder how you have clean clothes all the time?”

  “It’s more that I get clothes all the time. Mostly I get chided because people have to burn my old stuff.”

  “Well, you are a special and unique sort of boy, your grace, and we can’t all get new clothes instead of laundering them. Although, I suppose that’s not exactly fair, considering most of your dirt is really blood. Forget I was making fun of you there, I did not think it all the way through. There are laundry chutes, and a laundry service. Most of us set out bags with our apartment number and name, and the clothes are taken in the night and returned in the morning.”

  “It’s got to be them.”

  “Who?”

  “The laundry people. That’s the perfect cover—”

  “You realize they would also have to do all the laundry for Coggeshall.”

  “Sure, but—”

  “And several thousand people generate an immense amount of laundry.”

  “Sure, but—”

&
nbsp; “There’s, in fact, a rather large group of people who do nothing but handle laundry.”

  “I get what you’re saying, Lee. But what I’m saying is that The Master might have that many followers.”

  “I think I’ll just remain in the treasury until you’ve got this situation resolved.”

  “It is a little creepy to think about.”

  “No, Montana, it is a lot creepy to think that there is a large group of people working together to feed other people to a monster while acting like normal members of this community.”

  “Vuldranni, eh? What a fucking place.”

  “Indeed.”

  76

  Now that I knew about them, I spotted laundry chutes all over.

  I headed to a residential wing. In every hallway, halfway up the wall, I noticed two small metal doors. And even more telling — there was a sign above each: Laundry. One chute was for clothes, and the other was for everything else.

  Shoving my head inside made one thing clear: there was no room for me to slide down the chute. There was an initial sloped decline, which then opened into a vertical chute. I guess that’s how they tried to keep things from jamming up. It was a clean solution.

  The non-clothes chute looked the same. I didn’t think they’d be able to get an entire body through, though. Maybe if they did something about those pesky collarbones first, they’d be able to slide a person down. Oh, and the hips. But that seemed like a lot of work, and something obvious that would have to get noticed at some point.

  Still, the chute idea made the most sense. At least to me.

  The Master and his ilk were big into remaining hidden. Maybe they’d built their own chutes. It’s not like excess construction was ever noticeable within Coggeshall. There was so much going on it would be easy to make nearly anything blend in.

  I walked along the hallway, running my hand against the wall, seeing if I could find a secret door.

  Then it happened: my hand nudged a piece of rock inward. A glow of light came out, and something squeaked.