The Drachma Killers (The Last Warrior of Unigaea Book 2)

by Harmon Cooper

  This isn’t counting the handful of bandits I slayed in the hut.

  I raise my hand to wipe my hair out of my face and notice it is caked with blood, the wrinkles of my finger creating peach crease marks in the red.

  My life as a Player Killer is an existence embroiled in revenge; it began as such, and if things continue the way they’re going, it very well may end this way.

  I consider this as I slowly make my way towards the hut, getting my footing under control with each step. I slept poorly, but I’d expect nothing else from a night spent sleeping atop a pile of the dead.

  The crick in my neck forces a smirk across my face. Little details in Unigaea still continue to amaze me, even after I’ve been permalogged in for a year.

  The smirk shatters upon entering the hut and seeing Sam’s bloodied body bundled in the stained blanket on the floor. I no longer get sick when I see dead bodies in Unigaea, but seeing Sam is different – it triggers something deep inside me, and suddenly I can hardly contain the urge to vomit.

  “Fuck,” I say as I step out and do the deed. Not two dry heaves later, Sam’s piroshki comes up. “Get away,” I tell Wolf as he approaches me. “I said GET!”

  He backpedals and sits on his haunches, angling his head at me in a curious way.

  I wipe my lips with my dirty forearm and shake my head at the way he’s looking at me. He gets that he’s being cute, and does a little jig as he hops back up to his feet. He drops down onto his front paws like he wants to play.

  “Of all the times to want to play … ” I mumble as I look at the bodies and weapons in utter disarray. “Now is not the time, boy. Later. I promise,” I tell him as I wipe my mouth again.

  He sits and cocks his head at me.

  “Later. I want to bury Sam.” I shake my head, my throat on fire.

  No shovel in my list; I knew I was missing something. I drive my heel against the ground to test its firmness.

  It will be difficult to break ground here, and it’s not quite the best use for my sword.

  “Think we’ll ever come back here?” I ask Wolf. He barks, drops his head, and shakes it. “Yeah, that’s how I’m feeling.”

  I wipe my lips again, noticing a twitch in my stomach.

  Hunger is a real thing in Unigaea, and to quell mine and cover the vomit taste in my mouth, I snarf down two hunks of jerky. Of course, this doesn’t go as planned, as one doesn’t simply snarf jerky. So I end up with more than I can chew, trying to do my best Wolf impression since he has no problem swallowing a slice of jerky whole.

  Once I’m through eating and I’ve fed Wolf, I again steel myself and enter the hut.

  Death is in every corner of the room, the shattered glass on the floor adding a sparkle to the bloody loss of life.

  I choke back a sob as I take in the horrible sight of the arrow through Sam’s skull and the broken arrow jutting from her neck. Rigor mortis has already set in, evident in the stiffness of her face.

  Lifting her and placing her into the bed, I use the end of the sheet to wipe the blood that has dried on her cheeks.

  I bend and kiss her forehead. “This won’t be the last time we meet.”

  Truth be told, as long as she logs in again and tries to find me, it won’t be difficult for us to reunite. My guess is she’ll look in Tin Ingot, assuming that I won’t want to stick around here.

  I can wait for her there.

  Sam will have a new avatar and she’ll need to level, but I owe it to her to wait and see what she prefers to do, if she prefers to continue north.

  Once I’ve placed her in the bed, I start loading the Tagvornins into the hut, checking each of them for loot. Aside from their weapons, all of which are lower quality than mine – even the commander's – the only thing I can find is some dried Stater sea fruit. Half the soldiers have the stuff, which is known to increase adrenaline when dried and seasoned in a certain way.

  I eat the dried fruit and feel no effect on my adrenaline.

  As I eat, I examine one of the dead bodies again. The other thing that is strange about this particular group of Tags is their skin color. They’re all much tanner than a typical person from the Rune Lands. These Tags have been getting some sun, or they’ve been in the south longer than they’re letting on.

  Strange.

  How did they know this was where I’d be?

  This has me most troubled, now that I’m able to temporarily get over the fact that Sam is dead (she’ll be back, I can feel it, but this thought doesn’t stop the anguish I continue to feel when I think of her dying on top of me).

  Were we followed?

  I try to recall mentioning the location of the bandits’ hut to anyone. Word probably got out amongst the bandits living in this area, I conclude, another reason to get the hell out. Sure, it’s a new day, and I’ll be able to rage again, but I wasn’t expecting to pass out after raging, something the Obelisk didn’t mention.

  I’ll need to be more careful in the future.

  Bodies, bodies, bodies. It isn’t a pleasant job, but someone has to do it.

  The commander is the last to go into the small wooden hut. Once he’s in and I’ve checked the property for any stray weapons or body parts, I grab some of the hay stacked at the back of the hut and begin arranging it.

  As the sun rises higher into the sky, and as beads of sweat form and trickle down my face, I finish arranging the hay. I pour out what’s left of the alcohol onto the outer corners of the hut and equip my fire-starter kit.

  It’s not long before the hay is smoking at the back two corners of the hut. I light the front and whistle for Wolf, who won’t come any closer.

  “Smart dog,” I say as I approach him.

  The hut is blazing fifteen minutes later, the bodies inside fuel for the fire.

  (^_^)

  I watch the fire for a good thirty minutes, wishing I could stay longer but also knowing the big plume of black smoke will attract attention. Something about the flames, something about the metaphorical implications of fire and the cathartic cleansing it’s known for fails to reach me.

  All I can think about is the moment just before Sam’s death, how if we were in any other position, those arrows might have reached me. Or hell, they would have missed her completely, something I could also live with.

  “Goodbye, Sam,” I say to the dancing flames.

  Wolf and I set off to the northwest, in the direction of Tin Ingot.

  The smell of smoke is heavy in his coat as we travel. I try not to think of the fact that some of that smell is Sam’s avatar, that her body’s burning along with a dozen or so Tags and a handful of bandits. A damned funeral pyre if there ever was one.

  Rather than try to navigate the bramble, we move further to the west, towards the scree that fills a large swath of land between the brush and the mountains that make the outer shell of Mohar.

  It would be nice to go to Mohar, but the cliffside city is difficult to reach from this side of the continent and the enemies up there rival the fierceness of the enemies in the Eastern and Western Splits.

  A breeze picks up from the east, moving down the slopes of the mountains in the distance and putting the smoking hut further and further into my past.

  “Sam isn’t going to be happy we burned her,” I tell Wolf, “but she’ll get over it. I never pictured us as immolators, but I also never pictured us neologists, so there’s that.”

  Neologists? I shake my head at the word.

  Maybe if I put more points in MIND, I’ll be able to understand quantum entanglement and how a Proxima dream world such as Unigaea actually works, or how Copenhagen’s Interpretation is a fundamental principle in comprehending the Orthogonal Matrix Inverse Base, the OMIB, the space that binds all Proxima worlds together yet exists behind the scenes of each world independently.

  “What the fuck are you thinking about?” I whisper as Wolf slows, trying to avoid sharp rocks.

  Where did I get the concept of the OMIB? Did Sam mention it to me? I want to be snarky
and quick-witted, not smart enough that my own genius confuses me!

  “Damn you, MIND!” I shout, laughing bitterly. Bitter laughter is the only thing I can muster on a day like today. Wolf takes my statement to mean I want him to travel faster so he speeds up, his tongue flapping out the side of his mouth as he kicks up dust and debris.

  “Whoa!” I shout as I hold on for dear life, my legs tightening around his body.

  Any false calculation on his part will send me flying over his head and face-planting in a cringeworthy, TwitchTube-Red-video sort of way. A saddle would help, but no one rides wolves with saddles in Unigaea and I don’t want to be the first one to offer the handicap or look like an assclown.

  What can I say? Male pride is another word for sheer stupidity, but I am what I eat, which means I should be turning into a pretty big hunk of jerky in the near future.

  It’s thoughts like these that remind me why I really, really liked having Sam around. Someone to talk to, someone to joke with, to flirt with, to tease – I don’t think I’ll get the same company from Deathdale, but that remains to be seen.

  Maybe she’ll talk this time.

  She might not even be there, and I don’t know how long I should wait around in Tin Ingot for Sam. Part of me wants to wait until she comes, even if that wait sees the Red Plague descending upon the bustling seaside town.

  That’s called a morose thought, Oric.

  “Slow down a second.” I pat Wolf on the side and he skids to a halt. Once I hop off, he finds the nearest rock, lifts his leg, and lets everyone know he’s been there.

  I crouch and take a big whiff of the cinnamon flowers, enjoying the fragrance.

  The flowers grow in the cracks of rocks and only bloom in the morning. I’m surprised they haven’t closed up. They’re known for their smell, which should be self-explanatory, but they are also good for upset stomachs and probably for something else, but I have no idea what this “something else” may be.

  Which is why I need a mentor to teach me the fine arts of herbalism.

  I start hacking away at the flowers and once I have a bundle, I add it to my list.

  [Cinnamon flower x 3]

  “You ready, boy?”

  Wolf flips around and snaps his teeth as a rock moves. It’s only after looking at it closely that I see this is no rock at all.

  [Stone Man, Level 8]

  Native to this region, stone men have a sickness that hardens their outer flesh, turning it to a thick, porous rock layer. They can still move, slowly, and it is said that these men can live for weeks and weeks without eating or drinking. To do so, they sit and wait for something to get close enough to catch, the Venus Fly Traps of fantasy petrology.

  I brandish my Splintered Sword just as the stone man comes down with both fists, trying to smash me outright. I parry left and swipe my Splintered Sword against his forearm.

  -2 HP!

  Only two?

  The wound bleeds green as I roll to my feet and pivot around, ready for his next attack. Wolf is on the side of the stone man now, growling and dipping in to snap his teeth at the angry bruiser.

  The stone man’s face, crusted with rock, is a permanent visage of fury, his eyebrows arching and his eyes black as he releases a throaty shout.

  He throws his fist forward and I quickly dodge. I try to come back up for another swing and while it connects, my attack, again, only takes a handful of HP.

  -4 HP!

  “Shit … ” I mumble to myself as another stone man appears, this one too at level eight. He charges down a steep incline and just barely manages to keep his footing as he meets us. Rather than attack me, he swings at the other stone man, knocking him out cold.

  -221 HP! Critical hit!

  What the fuck?

  Wolf loops behind me and I grab on. We take off, putting some distance between the two warring stone men as the second one drops on top of the first and brings both fists down onto his chest.

  Again and again until he’s dead, the second stone man lays into him with his jagged knuckles.

  He stands, his chest moving up and down as he breathes in gulps of air. He lifts one finger, points at me, and points to the northwest.

  “You don’t have to tell me twice,” I say as Wolf starts to trot. Once he’s clear of the sharp little rocks, he brings his movement up to a full sprint.

  What was that all about? I think as the wind whips through my hair.

  The thought is like a brick to the face – The Obelisk intervened. I shake my head, ashamed it took me that long to figure it out.

  “Looks like we have a fairy godmother,” I tell Wolf. He grunts, his tongue flapping out the right side of his mouth as he continues along a path cut into the soil.

  Why did the NVA Seed of Unigaea feel it was necessary to intervene?

  Maybe she knew something you didn’t.

  “Clearly,” I tell the voice in my head, fully aware I’m talking to myself. “You keep great company, by the way.”

  I wait for Wolf to snort, only to realize he’s too busy running to pay any attention to my inner ramblings.

  (^_^)

  The reason we’ve stuck to this particular path becomes apparent when I see an overturned cart about a quarter of the mile down the way, in a wide valley, the northern side of which is covered in tiny white flowers. Sitting outside the cart on a large rock is a man with his arms crossed over his chest.

  It takes just a few minutes to reach the man, and as we approach he brandishes a short sword, his hand trembling as he points it at me. “I don’t want any trouble!” he says in a hickish voice. “Keep on ridin’, Player Killer.”

  “Guilty as charged.” Wolf slows and I raise both hands into the air. “What happened here?”

  “I’m not afraid to use my sword!” he shouts, his hand tightening on the grip.

  “If I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead,” I say. “Hell, if I wanted to kill you, I would have stood back there…” – I point over my shoulder – “and I would have sent him to kill you.”

  “Fuck you and the dog you rode in on!”

  “Relax,” I tell him, annoyed now. “We aren’t going to do anything to you.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” he says with his weapon still at the ready. “It ain’t often you see a Player Killer in Stater armor.” The man is an NPC, his head completely shaved aside from a braided rat tail that hangs from a spot behind his ear. He has a single eyebrow and a shiny nose ring, which are at odds with his tattered tunic.

  “Not often you see a man with a shaved eyebrow and a nose ring.”

  “Not often you see an asshole that looks like a muscular barmaid riding a Tagvornin wolf.”

  “Are we going to keep this up?”

  “I guess not.” He lowers his weapon fully. “I was robbed, dammit. If you want to know what happened here, that’s what happened.”

  “By bandits?”

  He snorts. “Bandits? Pfft! If it had been bandits, you would have found a few dead bodies on your ride over here. Ain’t no goddamn bandit gonna get shit off me. Fuck. I eat bandits for breakfast!”

  “You’re a cannibal?”

  “What? Hell no. Who would eat a person?”

  I look to Wolf who, luckily for him, doesn’t have to deal with randoms he encounters in the mountains of Unigaea. I can sense a quest in the making, so I take the bait. “If it wasn’t bandits, what was it?” I ask in a voice that screams, Please, get on with it.

  “It was a fucking mountain rhino, that’s what it was. Look at the damn hole he tore in my cart! I was sleeping in there and this big piece of shit comes running up with his horn and drives it into the cart. Damn near killed my sorry ass! Luckily, I sleep on my back and it only tore the canvas. But that ain’t all. He destroyed half my shit and ate all my jerky! All my fucking jerky!”

  “You hear that, Wolf?”

  Wolf nods.

  “Jerky theft is a crime where we’re from.”

  “Are you mocking me?”

 
; I shake my head. “Actually, no, we eat a shitton of jerky. If anyone stole our jerky, I’d wring their neck.”

  He nods in agreement. “See this tree?” He points up at the tree looming over us, the only tree in the meadow from what I can tell. “I ran my happy little ass up the tree – shit, and believe you me, I’m good at climbing trees.” He puffs his chest out. “I’ve got a certificate from Jay the tree climber saying such. Know the guy?”

  “Can’t say the name rings a bell,” I lie, remembering the guy I saw fall from a tree at the Tangka militia camp. I don’t know why this guy keeps coming up in my narrative. Maybe there was a quest I was supposed to take but missed somehow.

  “Well that’s where I was, in that there damn tree. And the bastard rhino ripped all my stuff to shreds and ate his weight in jerky. These rhinos up here eat meat, just in case you don’t get out much. By the looks of it, I’d say you never get out, but that’s just me. I’m a good judge of character.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Maybe you were dropped on your head as a baby. If that’s the case, sorry to hear that. Bad parenting is rampant in these parts. It’s a real tragedy. Anyway, the fucking rhino ate all the jerky and thrashed my items. You can follow the trail.”

  I see a few discarded items, and one in particular catches my eye. It is a sword, but the hilt is the handle of a gun. It’s been smashed to pieces, but whatever it is, it’s definitely not world appropriate. “So you sell jerky and rare items.”

  “You bet your player killing ass I sell jerky and rare items. Fucking good jerky too. Comes from Grope the shed guy.”

  I raise an eyebrow at him. Wolf sits, and starts scratching the side of his body with his hind leg. “Grope the shed guy?”

  “My brother-in-law. Yeah, Grope makes his jerky in a shed outside Tangka. Heard of the guy?”

  I nod my head. “I helped him rebuild his shed a few days back. Someone, um, hacked through the door and stole all his jerky.”

  “Ha! Grope’s a charity case now?” He laughs so hard he nearly falls over. “Hate to break it to you, but Grope definitely pulled the wool over your eyes. He has a shed closer to the city for looters that he only fills with his worst shit. His real shit is hidden in the bramble about two miles outside the city limits. You wouldn’t find it, trust me. So you rebuilt a dummy shed.”