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

by Harmon Cooper

  Feeling like going a bit further, I strip down and toss my armor onto the beach.

  Wolf barks as I wade my naked ass out into the cool water and dip myself in. With my eyes closed, my new ability goes to work. I take a deep breath underwater, allowing the mud and possibly some blood to wash away from my body.

  I sit underwater like this for five minutes, cross-legged, and then surface only to assure Wolf I’m fine.

  The sea is wonderful, cathartic. I go back under again and come up, whipping my long hair back and smoothing it over with my hand. I can taste salt in the corners of my lips, a nice touch in a digital world. As I move back to the beach, my other hand naturally comes to the scar tattoo on my chest.

  I run my fingers along it, then move my hand down to my abs.

  This gets me thinking what it would be like to be this muscular in real life.

  Before I decided to permalog in, I was nearly six feet tall and pushing two hundred pounds. Not fat enough to get an FDA Monitor and I watched what I ate, but I never had the body I now have as Oric Rune.

  A smirk spreads across my face. It’s a fantasy, I remind myself as I drum my fingers along my rock-hard abs. But it’s my fantasy and I’ve chosen this fantasy to be my life, so it’s my life.

  Circular reasoning should be a condition in Dictionary of Psychology, a condition for which there is no cure.

  Shut up, MIND.

  I take a deep breath and organize my last hour or so of musing into a single sentence, skipping the pseudo-philosophical bullshit: Governor Talonas is trying to consolidate power by using his own soldiers disguised as Tags to attack the south and then rush to the south’s defense, becoming the hero everyone needs in an effort to extend hegemony over the southern cities.

  “And the meteors?” I look to Wolf, who tilts his head at me in curiosity.

  “You’ve seen me naked before.” I laugh and he tilts his head even more. “And I agree with you, I’d bet good lira that Talonas also arranged the meteor attack on Solidus.” The grin on my face all but disappears. “And he killed Sam, which means … ”

  I flop down onto the sand and bring my knees to my chest. I stare out at the waves, accented by the dark crimson sky.

  “We’ll need to pay the governor a visit.”

  Chapter Eight: IED

  I awake to the squawks of a pair of seagulls. I blink my eyes open, yawn, and roll to my side. Wolf sits on his haunches, tracking the seagulls.

  Quest update!

  You have discovered that Stater soldiers are parading around as Tagvornin warriors. Get to Tin Ingot and meet with Deathdale. Once you’ve done so, you can decide what to do next.

  “Thanks for the permission.”

  Wolf barks at one of the seagulls and licks his lips.

  “Somebody’s hungry,” I say as I sit up. “Go on then, get one, like you did that fat one back on Karuna Island.”

  He quickly glances from me back to the two seagulls.

  “I’ll buy you something to eat in Tin Ingot. I promise.” After I stretch my arms over my head, I pull up my dashboard to quickly check the map. We’re not far from Tin Ingot, in about the place I expected us to be, so it shouldn’t take very long for us to get there.

  “I don’t know how I’ll find Deathdale when we get there,” I tell Wolf as I pull my sea dragon boot up. I wiggle my toes, pushing my foot all the way to the toe of the boot.

  Wolf barks at the seagulls again and does a little circle.

  “They’re too far away for me to get with my crossbow pistol,” I say. “I promise we’ll eat. We can get something outside the city gates.”

  He whines for a moment, paces, and finally turns to me.

  “No jerky. We have to conserve what little jerky we have left. Also, we should really start eating something other than jerky. It feels like we eat jerky for every meal.”

  Wolf sighs deeply.

  “I agree,” I tell him as I pet him on the head, “jerky is good, but there’s other stuff we could eat. Nuts, vegetables, fruit – um, what am I missing? Doritos; I’m missing Doritos. Ever had them?” I ask as I put my Stater armor on.

  Sure, I’d like to be wearing something else, especially under the circumstances, but the Stater armor is the best armor I’ve got.

  “Well, trust me, you’d like Doritos. Cheetos too. You’d love those, especially the spicy ones. There’s a lot of stuff you’d like in my world, but your stomach wouldn’t like it after you ate it. People food, dog food, different stuff ... Mexican food. Fuck, I’d like some Mexican food. I’ll stop rambling now.” I drop a little and look him in the eye. “Just a little further and I’ll buy you the meatiest thing I can afford.”

  His big blue-green eyes scan me for a moment.

  “I’m serious. Hey!” I push him away as he starts slobbering on my face.

  Once I have my armor on, I mount Wolf and we move towards Tin Ingot, keeping to the coastline to hopefully avoid running into enemies.

  We move along at a good clip.

  I see a few fishing boats out at sea and I wonder briefly whatever happened to Walrus Man and Scar Cheek, the two fishermen who provided my passage to Stater. This gets me thinking of coincidence and circumstance, and what Governor Talonas would have done if I hadn’t shown up to do his dirty work.

  There’s no telling.

  “Faster, Wolf!” I shout as Sam Raid’s image comes to me. My heart tells me I’ll see her again, but my brain knows that my heart, like that of most humans, is easy to sway under the right conditions.

  Maybe I won’t see her; maybe our one night together was the final thrill of our relationship.

  Who knows?

  Some burn bush catches my eye and I tell Wolf to slow down. I take one of my throwing knives out and cut at the bush, stacking it until I have several bundles’ worth.

  This gives me an idea. I pull up my herb inventory and give it a quick scroll:

  Mandrake Flower (6)

  Sunset Root (1)

  Jatla Root (1)

  Wizardous (1)

  Karuna Seaweed (11)

  Yellow Bonnet (4)

  Cinnamon Flower (3)

  Aramis Weed (3)

  Burn Bush (3)

  I place the Aramis weed on the ground next to the burn bush and equip one of the magnolia-pine-cone smoke bombs I made a few days back.

  Using my knife, I cut a slit into the burn bush I’ve already wrapped around the pine cone and from there, I cut into the center of the pine cone, boring out a small hole.

  I take some of the Aramis weed and stuff it in the hole, then rewrap the entire cone with more burn bush. I make sure to leave a six-inch fuse sticking out the end so I have something to light, and once it’s ready, I turn to the east.

  “Stay back,” I tell Wolf.

  He moves away from me and keeps sniffing at the ground until he finds a good place to piss. I light the fuse with my fire-starter kit and once it’s going, I throw the wrapped pine cone as far as I can and run back a little, my fingers in my ears.

  I wait, Wolf looks at me funny, and I wait some more.

  When I’m just about convinced the Aramis weed isn’t as explosive as the merchant led me to believe, a loud explosion sends debris into the air.

  “Shit!”

  Wolf yelps. We both feel the concussion in our chest, and even though the explosion is over, I hit the deck.

  Sand and rocks rain onto the soil as a large cloud of smoke moves from us towards the water.

  Subclass level up!

  You are now a level 4 Herbalist. Your knowledge of the plants of Unigaea and their properties have improved. Your ability to improvise and create new combinations has grown, and will grow even faster if you seek out a mentor or take an herbalist course at one of the many academies across the continent.

  “Fuck yeah!” I grin at Wolf. The look on his face is a lot less enthusiastic than I hoped it would be. “Trust me, boy, explosives are a good thing to have around.”

  While I wait for the blast site
to clear, I crouch in front of the other two pine-cone smoke bombs I have and hollow them out as well. I stuff even more Aramis weed inside and this time, I look around for sharp rocks to add to the outer layer.

  Once I’ve found some rocks, I place them as best I can into the burn bush already wrapped around the pine cone, just to hold them in place. I then wrap the entire thing in fresh burn bush, and give them each a long fuse.

  “That’ll do.” I throw my new magnolia pine cone IEDs into my list and move over to the blast site.

  Never thought of myself as a ballistics guy, but something tells me these will come in handy, and I’d be stupid not to make more. Maybe I can find some bigger pine cones, or maybe I can make an IED with two pine cones and pieces of metal inside.

  The sky’s the limit when it comes to humans finding clever ways to kill each other.

  “Ready to go?” I ask Wolf as I approach him.

  After about forty or fifty minutes of riding north, we ride in front of a makeshift fishery and I know Tin Ingot won’t be far off.

  A man in a big apron covered in fish guts and a bandana pulled tightly around his head eyes us warily as we pass.

  While we may be “heroes” in the south, whatever the hell that means in context of what I witnessed yesterday, news of what the Player Killer and his big, bad wolf did hasn’t reached Tin Ingot. This is evident in the faces of the family we pass, who have brought along a picnic basket for a day at the beach.

  The kids gawk and the father steers them away; the mother, the boldest of the bunch, gives me a dirty look and practically hisses as we pass. Wolf stops, turns his head to her, and lowers his ears.

  “Keep moving,” I tell him as we approach a cluster of merchants outside the southern entrance to the city. Not wanting to pay city taxes to set up shop in Tin Ingot proper, merchants from all over Unigaea have shops just outside the city gates.

  As one would imagine, it’s a free-for-all regarding quality and the rarity of the items sold there. There are also food stands set up for the same reason. No one likes paying taxes.

  Wolf stops, sniffs the air, and licks his lips repeatedly.

  “I see him too,” I say as I dismount. We walk over to a guy with a roadside rotisserie chicken stand called Kenny’s. The man cowers when he sees me and quickly changes his tune when I pull out a bit of lira.

  Shit, I think as I hand the lira over, I should have checked Sam’s pants for cash. This thought triggers another, of how angry she would be if she found out I looted her corpse. So maybe I did the right thing.

  “Fuck if I know,” I mumble.

  “What was that?” the chicken man asks.

  “Private conversation with a friend of mine I like to call Eric. No need to put that second chicken on a tray. Just toss it to him.”

  The man starts to say something but thinks otherwise when I lower my eyebrows at him. “Is there a problem?”

  “No.” He tosses Wolf’s chicken to the ground. Wolf grabs it and greedily runs off.

  “Thanks.” I take my tray and move to the seating area, which consists of a single picnic table, the wood surface of which has been so stained with oily chicken fat it looks like it’s wet. A burly NPC twice my size with beardtails sits across from me, eating noisily.

  The big man takes one look at me, curls his lips, and spits a bone onto his plate. “No funny business,” he growls.

  “Shut the fuck up and eat your fucking chicken. If I wanted to kill you, I would have done so when I approached you from behind. Eat your chicken, let me eat mine, and keep your slobber to your side of the table. We clear?”

  He harrumphs.

  “Well?”

  “You’re a Player Killer.”

  “And you probably find it difficult to write your own name. Look, we all have problems.” I set my tray down and sit across from him. “Now…” I nod to the condiments on the table. “Pass me the pepper.”

  (^_^)

  No telling how difficult it’ll be to get into Tin Ingot, especially after my botched kidnapping of the Rial Resort Town’s governor. Then again, my Stater armor may help me, but if the last few interactions with the locals are any indication, it may not give me the pass I need to go through without any trouble.

  Cloak it is, I think as I approach a jovial merchant in head-to-toe purple leather. The sides of his head are shaved and his long black hair on top has been braided and tucked into the collar of his purple leather jacket.

  “How can I help you, Player Killer?” he asks.

  Wolf is beside me now, still licking his teeth with the hope of getting any leftover bits of chicken out.

  “The name is Lavender, by the way,” he says with a bow.

  “Hi, Lavender.”

  “What will it be, then? Or are you looking for information?” He darts his eyes left and right and I sense a quest coming on.

  “Nope, I’m well-informed – too well-informed, actually. I’m looking for a cloak.”

  He claps his hands together and Wolf jumps back. “Then you’ve come to the right place! I just got a shipment in.” He grabs a wooden crate from under a table, sets it on the table before him, and starts taking out folded cloaks.

  “What size, what size … ?” he mumbles as he works.

  “Do you have another color?” I ask once he’s unloaded the entire crate. Sitting before me are no less than a dozen lavender cloaks of varying size and length.

  His smile shatters. “Is there something wrong with lavender?”

  “As a scent, no. As a color, not really, but, um … ”

  “Too much of a tough guy to wear lavender, eh?” He thumbs the front of his purple leather vest. “Are you suggesting I’m not so good looking in this color?”

  “No, I was just hoping for another color.”

  “I’m the only guy out here with cloaks, so it’s lavender or it’s the highway.” He raises his nose at me.

  “Fine, I’ll take lavender. And don’t you say anything,” I tell Wolf, who now carries a comical grin on his face. “What’ll it cost?”

  “Two thousand lira,” he says with a grin.

  Wolf growls and we both look to him.

  The purple-clad merchant gasps. “He … he understands me?”

  “Yep, and if you don’t give me the cloak at a reasonable price, he’ll understand when I tell him to rip your fucking arm off.”

  Wolf snaps his teeth and the merchant jumps back.

  “Okay, five hundred; that’s the cloak at cost.” I hand him the lira and he quickly tosses me the cloak. “Now beat it,” he says, “before I call the guards.”

  Chapter Nine: Know Thy Customer

  Wolf and I stick to the cover of the horse-drawn merchant carts heading towards the Tin Ingot Flea Market. The guards at the city gate, both clad in Samurai-ish armor that looks incredibly bulky, assume we are part of the group of merchants and wave us through with the carts.

  Each large city in Unigaea has its own characteristics and rules governing who can come in and what they can come in on. Some cities, like Solidus, have a strict ban on large animals, which everyone knows means Tagvornin wolves and Shire Horses.

  Others, like Tin Ingot, let just about anyone they can into the city, mostly for financial reasons. After all, marauders need somewhere to spend their hard-stolen lira, and with all the city guards, they know better than to cause trouble.

  I keep my head down, the hood of my lavender cloak casting a shadow on my face.

  “Look at the fag boy!” a burly man with a cane calls out to me. “Lavender brings out the pussy in you, mate!”

  I shake him off and continue. I really have no idea why people jeer at others in public places. If I had wanted to, I could have taken the man’s head off with a single gesture.

  Hell, I could have just sicced Wolf on him.

  “Low profile,” I remind myself, which is laughable considering how much I stand out. I’m not a giant, but I am pretty muscled up. This with the pony-sized wolf moving next to me is already an att
ention grabber, never mind the lavender cloak.

  Maybe I should have gotten Wolf a matching one …

  I take the stone stairs and think about stopping at the apothecary for a moment to grab some potions. A fat man selling metal toy soldiers in front of an armor shop catches my eye. The little soldiers, each about an inch high, would make great shrapnel for my pine-cone IEDs.

  “How much for a sack?” I ask the fat man.

  “I’ll give you a sack!” he chortles. “Just playing, Player Killer. Like your cloak, by the way. Damn, if lavender isn’t in season this year. My wife is into high fashion, you know, all that shit they sell in Solidus that’s the same as the shit in other cities but twice the price. It’s all bullshit if you ask me. Anyway, yeah, that color, it’s definitely on trend.”

  “Um, thanks.”

  “So, you want some soldiers, huh?” he asks as he picks up one of the little metal guys with his sausage fingers. “These are made of scraps from the local blacksmiths. No one soldier is alike.”

  Wolf snaps his jaw at a passing fly and for once, he catches it. This surprises him some. His eyes go wide as he swallows the fly down.

  The fat man chortles. “That was funny! He’s a cute Taggy, yes he is. Can I pet him?”

  I glance from the man’s pudgy hand to Wolf’s snout. “Better not.”

  He gulps. “Very well. Okay, so a bag of soldiers. Here’s what I have.” With the wave of his hand, he drops three small leather bags onto the table. “The big one is 1,000 lira and it has between 50 and 60 soldiers inside; the medium is 500 and it has about 25 to 30; the small one is 100 and it has 10.”

  “Give me the big one.”

  “I’ll give you the big one!” he chortles again. “Never mind, I’ve got a sick mind. Need to get laid more often. What can I say? You know, people say all sorts of sexual-laced things every day. I think it’s great. We don’t use the word ‘salacious’ enough in Unigaea, go figure.”

  Once we’ve exchanged lira, Wolf and I continue along to the Tin Ingot Flea Market. People go wide to avoid Wolf, even though there isn’t a lot of walking space. A few city guards give us the hairy eyeball, but we keep a low enough profile and soon, we arrive at the entrance to the flea market.