by Charles Dean
“I don’t blame her,” Lilith said, beaming a huge smile at him. “But see! You were being down on yourself. Of course she would stay with you! You’re such a great guy. It’s not like she had some weird motive to hang around. She’s just your friend, and that’s why we’re off to save her. ‘Cause you’re a good bad guy. The type of charismatic bad guy that doesn’t let his minions rot in cellars or die meaninglessly under a weak hero’s blade. You’re definitely the type that people will be drawn to.”
No, she only stayed with me because I was trying to save the game she loved. It wasn’t a complicated reason, but it made sense. She was here for the story, not for Lucas. If it had been anyone else, she likely would have stayed too. If anyone else had a better story, would she leave to work with them? He was briefly absorbed in his thoughts, and when he looked up again, he realized that the beacon was somehow moving toward the center of town, away from the market.
Where are they going? Lucas wondered as he rushed ahead. He didn’t understand how someone could have made it into the academy without creating a big hoopla and then made it out just as quickly. Even if they are high level, they should still have to stop while fighting guards. They shouldn’t be able to move so quickly.
When he and Lilith reached the gate, his suspicions grew even more. The giant array of Force Shields was above the gate, yet there were the two guards just casually standing about. If the guards are still here, shouldn’t the players be dead? Shouldn’t they be waiting to respawn somewhere? Likewise, if the players had muscled their way through, the NPCs shouldn’t have been there at all. He had heard of NPCs that would respawn after an hour, potentially two or three, but never instantly. If a player killed a village, and it wasn’t during a quest event that would create a permanent death for villagers, that village would still usually be gone for the rest of the day. Nothing about this made any sense at all.
“Shianne? Pelham?” Lucas asked. They were the same two he had met when entering the academy, and he hoped that he remembered their names correctly. He was also hoping that they weren’t the same ones he remembered since that would have made a lot more sense. Maybe the guards are just cookie-cutter models . . . that look similar but aren’t. It’s been a while since I’ve been through here.
“Yeah? What do you want? Out with it. Some of us still have jobs to do,” Shianne demanded impatiently with the same terse and tense attitude that she had greeted him and Nick with before.
Wait, they saw us last time and ignored us, maybe . . . “Did you two see anyone go through here?”
“No one you need to know about,” Shianne spat.
Lucas looked up. Sure enough, there was a Force Shield directly above them.
“No one? Not a single person? Perhaps someone from outside of the Imperium?”
“No one worth mentioning to you,” Shianne said again.
“Look, you gave her a hard-enough time your first go through, so could you just be on your way? We got a gate to guard,” Pelham said. “We gotta keep this place safe.”
Nobility. I thought it was players because the guy’s level has to be way higher than the zone, but . . . what if it’s someone from the nobility? Maybe . . . No, that doesn’t make sense. Lucas sighed. He didn’t know what to make of the two guards’ reactions.
“I think we should just kill them,” Lilith said.
“Huh?” Lucas turned to see Lilith holding a dagger in one hand while grinning at Shianne and Pelham like they were the main course at a dinner party.
“They are keeping important information from you. They’re obstacles. It might be something small this time, but next time, who can say that they won’t keep a secret that might cost you your life?”
She’s not wrong. They actually could turn into a threat. They’re not on my side, and yet they know every person who comes and goes from campus. This is a problem that I’ll need to handle. I need my own men at the entrance. I need people I can trust to keep the information about who enters and leaves. This is a key chokepoint, and if they won’t cooperate, I need to replace them. But . . . killing them without an audience feels like a waste.
“Hey! Easy there, girl! We’re just following orders! Don’t go stabbing me,” Shianne screeched, awakening Lucas from his contemplations. He looked up to see that Lilith had gotten behind her somehow and that a dagger was hovering dangerously close to Shianne’s throat.
“Put the blade down. We can’t help it! Duke Edmund said he’d kill us himself if we let anyone know what was going on!” Pelham said hastily. “It’s not her fault. We just really don’t want to die.”
“Oh, but I don’t believe you,” Lilith said demurely. She leaned in and pressed her cheek against Shianne’s while looking over at Pelham from the corner of her eye. “I think that, maybe, if I just take a little bit off the top”--she paused long enough to pull the blade around Shianne’s neck, and a small line of blood appeared as the knife cut her skin ever so slightly--“I’ll be able to find the information I’m looking for. You’ll tell me the truth. The whole truth.”
“Outsiders!” Shianne blurted. “We were told to let some outsiders through into the academy and point them in your direction! The headmistress and Duke Edmund organized it. It’s-- Please, don’t tell anyone. They’ll kill my whole family. Edmund won’t even leave us with bodies to be buried.” Shianne’s breath was coming in irregular, fast gulps. She was clearly hyperventilating and each deep, frantic breath pushed her neck against the blade.
“Aww . . . Now, that I believe.” Lilith pulled the blade away from Shianne’s throat only to replace it with a hand around her jaw. Still white from dread, Shianne didn’t move as Lilith twisted the guard’s head toward her, gave her cheek a kiss, and said, “Now, be a good girl and don’t make me angry in the future. Otherwise, I’m going to have to punish you. And you won’t like that. Do you understand?”
“Yes . . . Y-yes, ma’am,” Shianne stammered.
With that, Lilith released her hold on the guard, and Shianne collapsed onto her knees almost instantly, clutching at her throat with both hands.
“There. We got the information you wanted. It’s both this Edmund guy and outsiders,” Lilith explained, repeating the information that they had only just heard. “Whatever that means. You think it’s like a type of cult? Or a guild?”
Or just players. It made sense that they would have their own way of addressing players in the Imperium’s main town. Given how insular the whole city was, “outsiders” seemed like the perfect term to describe them.
But why didn’t they kill the guards? Why is this guy, Edmund, who is clearly nobility, letting them through the academy gates? But Lucas already knew the answer. His team was an extension of himself, and they were trying to pick him off piece by piece. They had gone for his crew, his healing-capable members first, and were likely trying to isolate him so that they could handle him more easily--either that or they had been sent to grab Lucas, and the players had just grabbed the princess in hopes of completing the quest that had been generated on Hesse instead.
“You know, they might have a whole army waiting for us,” Lilith warned while giving Lucas a look he couldn’t quite understand. “This guy has the authority to open gates and bribe guards, and he has people terrified of him. I’m assuming he actually has a real fighting force, and you’ve just got . . .” She looked over at the Ant-Dragon that had been running behind Lucas. “You’ve kind of only got a weird, lizardy dog with you.”
“Eri?” Lucas turned to look at the Ant-Dragon who had been following along this whole time. The beast had actually grown a little bit since she had eaten the NPCs. She still wasn’t a ferocious dragon, but she had doubled in size, and she seemed to understand her name. “She can fight an army, I think.” Depending on how low a level they are. If this were back on Hesse, she could easily kill a ton of Level 1s, but Lilith is right. “But . . . Hmm . . . I do need more people.”
“That’s the spirit!” Lilith said, patting Lucas on the back. He enjoyed th
e fact she was so upbeat, but he didn’t know why she seemed so confident even while pointing out the tribulations he would face on this mission. “You could always go back and find the rest of your crew. I’m sure that’d be helpful.”
“Right,” Lucas agreed as he turned back. The only thing he was worried about was that the academy was large, and he didn’t even know where to check for Nick and Katie.
“Or, if you like monsters, there was a really big monkey-shaped one flying around the center of town. He had the prettiest blue coat of feathers, and there were weird soldiers waiting perfectly still underneath him,” Lilith added. “Maybe, since you get along with monsters, you can talk that one into helping?”
“What?” Lucas knew exactly who she was talking about. Linnaeus was a massive six-winged, six-armed, six-tailed light-blue flying monkey monster that had served as Lucas’s transportation many times, and he had been tasked with bringing his maid Hanna from Hesse to the main city once she found a suitable replacement to run his dungeon there so that he could keep getting revenue from dead players.
“You know who that monster is, don’t you?” Lucas pressed suspiciously. “You know Linnaeus is a brother of sorts to me, one I picked up on Hesse.”
“Yes, I do,” she answered simply with a smile.
Then why didn’t you just tell me that? Lucas was about to ask, but then he realized that he didn’t have time to deal with another mystery. He still had to save Bonnie and Viola, and even if this girl had her own secrets, she was being helpful for the moment.
“Alright, show me the way.” If there were soldiers hanging out with Linnaeus, they must have been his as well. “I need to meet them sooner or later anyway. If you wanna come, join up,” Lucas said, going through the motions to invite Lilith to his group.
“Sounds fun; count me in,” she said, accepting the invite. “And it looks like we’re headed in that direction,” she added before taking off and forcing him to run after her.”
Lilith has joined your party.
Lucas hated the fact that he was struggling to keep his breath while chasing her. Even Eri seemed to be doing just fine. I really need some points in Athletics, he grumbled. As they made it through the marketplace, he noticed that there were players hanging around certain corners. They were farming enemies, engaged in battles, or generally working on farming Reputation with their factions. He knew to expect this, but it still put him on edge just a bit. He was worried that one of them might give up the fight with whomever he was facing off against and turn his attention to Lucas. Being shot in the back was a very real concern for him at the moment since he had a bounty on his head, but Lilith seemed able to navigate the area with ease. She steered them past the small groups of players, random guards on patrol, and even the crowds in the safe zones where people wouldn’t fight for fear of losing their ability to sell the merchandise and drops they got from farming in the region.
Finally, they made it to a clearing in the middle of the square where a small Alfar in a French maid’s uniform with twenty soldiers in four groups of five surrounding her was haggling with a fruit vendor. She was chewing out the Human in the middle of an Imperium town as if she were the highest-class person in existence, and Lucas was actually relieved to see that she was safe. He couldn’t see Linnaeus flying above them, but a glance at the ground told Lucas the monster was somewhere up in the sky. Even if he couldn’t see where the beast was thanks to the near-perfect light-blue, sky-colored camouflage, the massive shadow gave it away.
“Come on down!” Lucas called up to the sky. “I can see you!”
“Of course, you can, brother! If you, the sworn brother of the great and noble Linnaeus, first master of the sky and last of his kind, could not spot me, then who could? None!” The creature shouted back as he swooped down. As he came closer, his sky-hued frame contrasted against the multi-colored wood-hewn upper floors of buildings that littered the marketplace skies, making him all too obvious.
“I’m surprised you didn’t come and find me sooner,” Lucas said as Linnaeus approached. “When you first got here.”
“You have no home yet, no territory to call your own. How could I deign to disgrace and embarrass my brother by visiting him when he is homeless?” Linnaeus asked, putting a hand over his beak and holding his head in what Lucas could only assume was shame.
“Don’t let him fool you,” Hanna said without turning away from whatever she was haggling over. “He’s been flying through the skies peeping on women and then describing them to the soldiers down below. For such a self-proclaimed noble beast, he has a very ignoble hobby.”
“I-I NEVER!” Linnaeus shouted in indignation. He folded all six of his arms over his chest, rocked back high on his legs, planted his tails on the ground for balance, and spread his wings to make him look more magnificent in comparison to his surroundings. “I am of the most noble and pure breed of . . .” Linnaeus trailed off, and one of his six hands reached up to scratch his head. It was amusing, but Lucas already knew that Linnaeus didn’t have a monster type like many of the others. Unlike the Grobendisses that evolved into monsters, he simply was. “I am a noble spirit who would not dare defile my reputation with such debaucherous actions!”
“You’re saying the word ‘noble’ a lot for someone who got caught peeping by a teenage girl,” Lucas teased. “But don’t worry. I’ll keep your secret if you can help me out.”
“What do you need?” Linnaeus asked. “Anything for my great brother. Our bonds are thicker than blood and circumstance!”
“That’s good to hear because what I need will test those bonds. I need you all to help me rescue Viola and Bonnie. They’ve been captured, and I am worried that I’ll be outnumbered,” Lucas explained.
“Ah, yes. Rushing into the fire for a comrade? How predictable of you. You truly are self-sacrificing, always valuing others before yourself,” Linnaeus said while nodding. “Alright. I’ll do what I can, but there is a problem.”
“What is it?” Lucas asked, causing Linnaeus to look to the side uncomfortably.
“He wants to help, but our contracts are clear,” one of the soldiers explained. “When you bound us to the oaths, it was to help you defend your dungeons from all those whom you deem an enemy. If it’s outside of your dungeon, our hands are tied.”
“What? Seriously?” Lucas winced. So, the game really is going to prevent them from helping me. He looked down at Eri, who didn’t seem bothered by these restrictions at all. Is it because we didn’t sign a contract? Is it because she’s just my pet that I raised myself? Does that give her advantages over other monsters? Despite his curiosity, Lucas pushed the questions out of his mind for the moment. “Well, a dungeon is just any place I own that has five rooms,” Lucas thought out loud, realizing there was a very easy solution.
“Then you just need to own the place we’re fighting in,” Lilith said, voicing Lucas’s thoughts on the matter.
Lucas nodded. “Right. So, let’s go play real estate mogul and buy up some buildings.”
“Do you have the money? I imagine they’re rather expensive in this part of town,” Lilith said, causing Lucas to chuckle.
Money? You might as well call me flying mammal-man because money is my one superpower. It was the reason he’d been able to recruit Nick and Bonnie to begin with. He had such a large fortune in real life that he could easily convert loads into game currency whenever he felt like it.
“Master Lucas, the rightful Baron of Hesse, has stolen the fortunes of every adventurer within his lands. He has murdered a thousand adventurers and reaped all the rewards of hard work the poor fools gained over the course of their feeble lives. His fortune is vast,” Hanna explained without Lucas having to say anything.
Lilith grinned from ear to ear, clearly amused by something. “Then one small building shouldn’t be a problem. Let’s go! I can’t wait to have some fun and see how the vile and wicked Lucas, the Villain of Hesse, shall handle one of his own being kidnapped.”
The title sh
e gave him wasn't upsetting, and Lucas knew that it was actually one of the nicer ones that had been given to him by the players and NPCs in Hesse. That said, it prompted everyone within earshot in the market to turn and glare at him as if she had just uttered the most horrendous slur.
“It is Master Lucas, the rightful Baron of Hesse,” Hanna insisted.
“Of course, it is, to us,” Lilith said. “He’s a hero to us, but not to them. We’re about to take away their everything, so to them, he will be a villain.”
Hanna kept glaring at Lilith, but her anger seemed to subside, the soldiers seemed to relax, and Linnaeus even seemed jolly. “That’s right! Let’s go to battle. We must win so beautifully that everyone who dares stand against us shall call us a villain!” He reached out with two sets of his arms and grabbed both Lucas and Lilith at the same time. “OFF WE GO!” he shouted as he took to the air.
Lucas was forced into the sky like a rag doll being snatched by an eagle. “Wait!” Lucas insisted. “We have to tell them where to go!”
“Oh, right.” Linnaeus paused and glided back down to the ground. “Where are the enemies? I forgot to ask, too.”
“Guys, meet outside of the building that has the Force Shields above it,” Lucas said, pointing over to the magical smoke signal he and Lilith had been following. “It’s where Bonnie and Viola are likely being held hostage.”
“Wonderfully delivered message. Now, to battle!” Linnaeus pushed off the ground yet again, sending a gust in all directions as he propelled into the sky and toward the Force Shields. It didn’t even take a full minute before Linnaeus was resting on top of a Force Shield that was 300 feet above the top floor of a giant hotel painted in black, red, and blue. The average building seemed to occupy at most a quarter of a block, but this particular structure covered an entire block on its own. Additions had been added onto each floor, constantly pushing the building wider and wider. They were far more reaching than its base, and Lucas could only imagine that they would have practically blotted out the sun for anyone in the street looking up. The effect very much made the five-story building look like a layered cake turned upside down and slapped haphazardly across the ground. The only good thing to be said about the building was that it had great windows. They were framed like beautiful and ornate pictures, and their frames had been designed to look like dueling dragons, griffins, or ferrets.
