“So she was your girlfriend?” I ask.
“We never established an agreed-upon definition of our relationship.”
I glance to Deathdale, who now has her hand on Wolf’s head and is scratching him behind the ear. As she does, he sits and thumps his back leg against the ground.
“I also have questions about your Tagvornin Wolf, but logic dictates that we should begin with my first question,” Lothar says, “as it has been troubling me and it is the reason I was sitting here, the reason we have crossed paths, which taken into the whole scheme of things is unique in and of itself.”
“You are pretty hard to miss,” I remind the red-haired giant.
“My size is something I’ve long since come to terms with, so if you are saying that to get a response from me, well, I’ve give you that response. Now this letter … a Player Killer from up there would surely know what this letter means.”
He’s a scholar, I remind myself as I approach him, and only NPC scholars, RPCs and of course, PCs, understand the existential nature of Player Character diving to an online Proxima world such as Unigaea.
“Let me take a look at it,” I say as he flattens the letter, which is about the size of a tablecloth, on the ground. Written in a bubbly, feminine handwriting, the letter reads:
Lothar Shane,
I’ve been waiting for five years for you to finish your trials and become a scholar, and I am incredibly proud that you have done so. That said, you returned to Tael and immediately got to work on a post-scholar thesis. I’ve been patient, and I’m sorry it has come to this.
Goodbye,
Gadsaa Malin
“It’s a breakup letter,” I tell him almost immediately.
“Breakup? Why would we breakup? What would Gadsaa and I have to breakup from? We’ve been together for a very long time.”
I stare at Lothar incredulously for a moment. “It says right here why she’s breaking up with you. ‘I’ve been patient, and I’m sorry it has come to this. Goodbye.’ It’s pretty clear.” I turn to Deathdale for support and she nods. “See, even the generally silent Solar Mage gets it!”
“This is just a departing letter. I do not understand why she’d want to end our relationship right as I set off for Solidus. It seems illogical.”
I shake my head up at him. “You’re not reading between the lines, Lothar. This letter basically says you didn’t pay enough attention to her, she waited, and now she’s ending it. Plain and simple.”
“I see.” He sits back for a moment and runs his hand along his beard stubble. “Well, that’s fine then. Your interpretation is likely correct. I couldn’t figure out what she could be apologizing for, and figured it was because she didn’t understand my explanation of my post-scholar thesis.”
I reread the letter with the giant’s interpretation in mind. “Okay, I can see how, if you lived in a vacuum like most scholars do, you’d misinterpret this. Sorry, giant friend, this is a breakup letter. You need to get a new girlfriend.”
He sighs deeply. “That’s too bad. I am disappointed in her lack of patience, even though she claims to be patient in this letter. But what can I do? The source code bomb has arrived. There are more important things to do than procreate.”
“So you know about it?” I ask.
He takes a deep breath and nods. “It’s why I was heading south to Solidus, to see how I can be of assistance in researching it.”
“But the bomb struck up north.”
“Yes, starting in Lucre, in the Rune Lands.”
“Which is where we are heading,” I tell the giant. “By way of Drachma.”
“Why Drachma?” he asks.
I glance to Deathdale, not sure how to interpret the look on her face. “We have our reasons.”
“Revenge,” she says firmly.
“Intriguing. So you are going to Drachma for revenge and then heading north. May I ask why you are heading to the Rune Lands?”
“I’ve made it my personal mission to put a stop to the source code bomb, whatever that entails. The Obelisk recently gave me her support.” I touch my chest, even though Lothar can’t see the mark through my armor.
There’s a twinkle in his eyes as he says, “If the Obelisk wills it, then I will join you. Not for your petty revenge, as I am a pacifist, but I will accompany you to the north. I’ve heard how much Governor Talonas has helped the south fight back against the Tagvornins, and while I don’t quite understand why the Stater symbols on your armor have been removed, I am well aware that you must have his blessing as well. Normal soldiers aren’t given that type of armor.”
“How do you know I didn’t kill someone for it?”
“Did you?”
I shake my head.
“Now I know.”
“And another thing, you aren’t a pacifist,” I tell him. “That’s bullshit. No one in Unigaea is a pacifist. Everyone here fights for one thing or another, and sometimes that ‘one thing’ is simply survival. All scholars have to go through combat trials; I know, I was a scholar at the Solidus School of Topography, several avatars ago.”
“Ah, topography! A subject I’d love to know more about.”
“I’ve forgotten most of it. But back to Stater and Governor Talonas. There’s a lot more to that story than you may be aware of.”
It takes me a moment to catch him up. Once I finish, the redheaded giant clasps his hands over his chest and sits back, contemplating what I’ve said.
“A false flag to spread Stater hegemony,” he says finally. “Well, I wouldn’t worry much about it. There will be no difference between Stater and Solidus rule of the south, and that’s if the source code bomb can even be stopped. Stater and Solidus aren’t even two sides of the same coin; they are a coin with matching images on both sides. Stater has ruled in the past before, several hundred years ago, and if they take the south again, Solidus will rule again in the future.”
“My anger at the situation is not as much about the politics as it is about being tricked, and the fact that Stater soldiers disguised as Tags attacked me twice. They killed a friend of mine, Sam Raid, just like I told you. They killed people I’ve come to care for in Tangka.”
He waves my concern away. “They’ll be reborn, if they so choose. Shall we get on the road, then? You said you were heading to Drachma, correct?”
“To Metica first, to recruit mercenaries to join us for our excursion to Drachma.”
Deathdale nods.
“Then let us go.” He stands and, true to his nature, the first step Lothar takes shakes the ground a bit.
Quest update!
Lothar Shane, a giant scholar from Tael, has joined you in your quest to stop the source code bomb.
“Sorry,” he says as he adjusts his oval glasses, “I’ll try to tread as lightly as possible.”
Chapter Twelve: Electric Shield
“I believe in a branch of realism that I’ve labeled, for thesis purposes, Non-NPC,” the giant says as he drags his meditations box behind him. He’s lucky one side has wheels. Wolf and I trot next to Lothar, and Deathdale scoots along a little ahead of us, propelled by her solar power.
“Everything exists outside the mind, yet NPCs such as myself have complete access to mind-dependent reality. We exist in a shared space sutured together by a neuronal algorithm, a space that should transcend class and wealth yet, ironically, akin to your world, is entirely defined by it. This makes us different from you, yet uncannily equal. Same-same but different, in a sense. If a tree falls in the woods and nobody's around, nobody in your world hears it. If a tree falls here, regardless of the conditions that have caused its felling, it is in some way controlled by an algorithm.”
“Uh-huh,” I tell the studious giant, who is taking just about the longest way possible to talk to me about revenge. Our conversation, which started thirty minutes ago, was originally about my desire to kill the Drachma Killers. It has now moved on to digital existentialism, which is clearly Lothar’s favorite subject.
“All
this, all I’ve said, is a roundabout way – well, I suppose it is an academically direct way, but that’s semantics – for me to question your personal quest for revenge.”
“Ever heard of Ducat?” I call up to him.
He stops and runs his hand along his chin. From there, he takes his glasses and wipes them, his exertions causing them to fog up a little. “It was a city to the southwest of Drachma, to the east of the Eastern Splits, yes?”
“I founded that village. The Drachma Killers, the guild of Player Killers we’re after, destroyed it. All I worked for, they destroyed in one terrible night.”
“Funny, I can’t picture you as a bureaucrat.”
An image of who I was before flashes across my mind’s eye. I see myself in the mirror, a different face but the same eyes, in the penguin-tuxedo-like suit I had made for Ducat’s first fall harvest ball.
Seeing myself like this is a first for me.
I had dressed nice in my various roles before, especially as a scholar, but never had I worn such an elaborate outfit, never had I looked quite so professional.
It was then, even after I had already formed the city and helped build it from the ground up, that I knew I had stepped into a different role entirely, one of government service and public appearance, a life that shouldn’t have ended in suicide as the Drachma Killers beat at my door.
“And you, Deathdale,” Lothar says, interrupting my thought. “What is your reason for revenge?”
Deathdale ignores the curious giant as she continues forward.
“Is she always this reticent?”
“It takes her some time to warm up to you, no pun intended. I’ve gotten her to say two or three words at a time – one five-word sentence, which I consider a personal triumph.”
“Well, then I say to both of you, revenge is a dish best not served at all.”
“The people we plan to kill are evil,” I grit.
“And you yourself have become evil to better kill them, have you not? This is why you’re a Player Killer, is it not? What about the greater good? What about your sense of morality?”
I nod, my eyes focused on the rolling hills ahead of us. No one likes to have their personal philosophy shot full of holes. “That’s why I, we, are traveling to investigate the Red Plague, the bomb.”
“Ha! And this will be your redemption? Olivas, the great jewelry smith – ”
“I know who he is; I have one of his necklaces.” Wolf stops and sniffs the ground for a moment. “Not now,” I tell him quietly, scratching him behind the ear.
“Olivas once said, ‘A world rid of evil is a world rid of good.’ Now before you pick that apart on its surface, I’ll have you know I wrote my upper pupil thesis on this phrase – the full phrase, mind you, not just the section most quoted by others.”
“So they are one in the same, huh? Evil and good?”
He chuckles. “No, no, nothing like that. The phrase only points out their connectedness. He goes on to say that ‘all we can hope to do is combat evil and spread good, as good is much harder to cultivate than evil, and good dies much more quickly than its counterpart.’ I don’t agree with the first part of his phrase – a world rid of evil is not necessarily rid of good – and I’d add, if I may be so bold, that a world cannot be rid of evil, nor can it be rid of good, and the spread of one leads naturally to the spread of the other, in an opposite direction yet aimed at the same horizon.”
Fwwip!
An arrow strikes Lothar in his bicep and he drops his meditations box. His face full of shock, he looks down at it, goes to pull it out and stops. Due to his size, the arrow is small, as if someone tossed a dart at a normal-sized person.
“That’s what it feels like,” he whispers.
By this point, Deathdale has already zipped off to the right, returning fire by pulling thick stalagmites of light all around us.
Fwwip!
Arrows hit her magic and fizzle off before they reach us.
“Get down, Lothar!” I shout over my shoulder at the giant. Wolf tears around Deathdale’s attack as our enemies loom into view, eight in total, all Player Characters, all with the red icons over their heads signaling they’re Player Killers.
I grin. It’s going to be a bloodbath.
I leap off Wolf, allowing him to tear through the tall grass. I roll and come up, the arrows whizzing overhead, my focus only on Wolf as he makes it out of the line of fire.
It only takes the Tagvornin beast another moment to slam into his target.
“Argh!” One of the archers goes down as the other two quickly load their crossbows. Meanwhile, the men armed with swords go for Deathdale, who now has two jagged blades of light attached to her forearms as she advances towards them.
Wolf crashes into another archer as I fling one my throwing knives at the third, who is just raising his weapon to meet Wolf.
-89 HP!
The throwing knife tears through his cheek and out the other side. He falls, completely in shock as Wolf starts mauling him. Running at full speed, faster than I’ve ever run in my life, I unsheathe my Splintered Sword and drive it into the back of the first downed archer.
Instakill!
Infamy +1!
I move to the other and perform the same move, spritzing the air with blood.
Instakill!
Infamy +1!
“I’ll kill you!” The biggest, maddest, baddest bearded merc breaks from the others engaging Deathdale and charges at me, shield in one hand and longsword in the other.
[Mercenary leader, Level 18]
I swing my Splintered Sword at him and he goes to meet my attack with his shield.
Bzzzzz!
“Fuck!” The electric charge from his shield tosses me backwards.
A shield with elemental properties … I bring myself to my feet just in time to avoid an attack from his longsword.
He brings his blade down and I catch it in the groove of my weapon.
As we push back and forth, I’m broadsided again by his charged shield.
Bzzzzz!
I hit the ground and flop like a fish for a moment, get hold of myself, and with my vision pane flashing, I roll again to avoid a direct strike from his weapon.
Wolf slams into the bearded man’s shielded side.
“No!”
He yelps loudly as electricity courses through his veins. Wolf flies to the ground, his body twitching. The man swings his longsword at the downed Tagvornin canine and …
“Wolf!” I cry, overcome with adrenaline.
Wolf scurries out of the way just in time, taking off with his tail tucked between his legs. I hop to my feet, my muscles tensing as rage pulses through me.
“No!” I scream at myself, not certain if this is the time I’d like to use my once-daily rage ability.
Focus, Oric, focus! a voice screams inside my head. Not now! There’s no telling what you’ll encounter later!
I collapse to the ground and the merc, seeing an opportunity, smashes his charged shield down on top of me. I cry out in pain as my insides fry, as my muscles spasm, and flashes of red zip across my viewing pane.
The bearded man gets on top of me and pulls out a big knife that was sheathed to the front of his arm. “Say goodnight, Player Killer!”
And taking the time to say his dumbass closing line turns out to be the biggest mistake he’ll make this avatar around.
The earth shakes beneath me and suddenly, a huge foot punts my would-be murderer off my body. My vision steadies on Lothar, whose shadow completely covers my body. He’s peering down at me, the small arrow still sticking out of his bicep.
“Are you okay?” He lowers his big hand to me and scoops me onto my feet.
“I thought you were a pacifist!” I say as blood dribbles out my mouth.
“He would have killed you.”
“Aware. Wolf!” I shout and he approaches moments later, his muscles shaky.
“I find it interesting how much you care for an NPC Wolf.”
“C
an it, Lothar. You all right, boy?” I sit up and press my head to Wolf’s, looking him in the eyes.
Damn if his big blue-green eyes don’t mesmerize me for a moment. Every time I look at him this close, I get the sense he isn’t an animal at all; rather, he’s a human trapped in an animal’s body, which sounds so stupid.
Why do we humanize everything?
“You’ve got to be careful,” I whisper, my hand naturally moving behind his ear to give him a quick scratch. “You’re all I’ve got.”
I turn towards the bearded man, who is completely unconscious and lying on his side. Limping over to him, my muscles still fried from the electricity of his shield, I roll him to his back and bring the grooves of my Splintered Sword to his throat.
I’m pretty sure Wolf left me one of the archers, and since he isn’t far off, I turn to the third and final archer, whose armor leaves quite a big opening over his stomach.
“No!” the archer cries as I use both hands to drive my jagged blade into his stomach and twist up his guts.
Instakill!
Infamy + 1!
I return to the bearded merc, who is just now blinking his eyes awake. The ground rumbles a bit as Lothar approaches. Behind my back now, I hear the final man shriek as Deathdale kills him.
“What are you going to do?” Lothar asks.
“I’m going to kill him. What the hell does it look like I’m going to do?”
“Wouldn’t it be better to find out why he attacked us?”
“He’s a fucking bandit, that’s why.”
Lothar considers this for a moment as he scratches his head. “Do bandits normally have shields charged with elemental powers?”
I glance to the man’s shield, something I totally intend to pocket. “Dammit, Lothar, it is totally possible for a bandit to have that kind of shield. Fuck!” I lower my weapon and give the man a solid kick.
Lothar clears his throat. “It may be helpful to see what he has to say before you kill him. Or, dare I suggest, let him live.”
The Drachma Killers (The Last Warrior of Unigaea Book 2) Page 11
