Infinite Assassins: Daggerland Online Novel 2 A LITRPG Adventure

by Peter Meredith

  “Give me that!” Roan said, snatching the bag away from him. “I should cut you in two. Here I save you and what’s my reward? You turn me in.”

  “They were beating me up because of you,” Rollup shot back. “So, it’s not like you were doing me any favors to begin with.”

  Roan lowered his sword. “How did they track me here?”

  The halfling shrugged. “Magic probably. You can learn anything through magic. Hell, you can do anything through magic.”

  “Magic…crap. I should have been a magic user. It’s so much better.” Three days as a skulking thief had soured him on the class. His time as a magic user had seemed infinitely better. “Speaking of learning things, tell me where Cricket’s mom is or I’ll tell these guys we were in this together.”

  “In what together?”

  He was trying to act innocent but Roan saw that he was trying to gain any edge he could. “Where is she?” Roan growled, lifting the sword again.

  Rollup sighed and said, “Hansen the Heretic’s place in the Shadow Cat territory. Do me a favor and go there now and stay out of my hair.” The halfling wiped his hands together as if brushing off dust before turning and walking away. Just then there came a shout from above.

  Some of the K Street Killers were shouting to someone on the street and pointing Roan’s way. Others were coming. He could hear the slap of running feet. A moment later, an entire platoon of the Killers rounded the corner. Roan waited until they were ten feet away before he shot straight up into the air.

  The birds-eye view turned out to be even more frightening than the ground view. Thugs were racing in from everywhere, looking to trap him. They even had men stationed on top of the buildings acting as look outs. They were almost always working alone and that made them easy picking as long as the potion lasted.

  Roan shot to the nearest, pulling his sword.

  Chapter 21

  K Street Territory

  Twelve of the Killers died before the potion wore off. It had lasted an hour and during the last five minutes, his flying became slow and hitching as if he were flying an old Chevy that had thrown a rod.

  Needless to say, that part of the city was in an uproar by then. The Killers had been expecting trouble and there seemed to be no end to them. Roan needed to get out of sight to let things cool down and renting a room in an inn seemed like the easiest way to do so. There were dozens to choose from and he went mid-priced. Two gold pieces got him a decent meal and a clean bed.

  There was only one topic of conversation in the dining room and that was the current “war” going on. It was considered conventional wisdom on the part of the drunker patrons at the bar that a turf war had sprung up and the K Street Killers were losing.

  Roan kept to himself and only listened as the arguments grew heated. He was too busy trying to figure out whose puppet he really was. Tarranon had him by the short and curlies, but who had started the entire fight?

  He kept coming back to “the game.” Sariah or any of the programs running the game could have impersonated Apollo and set the entire affair in motion. Then again it could have been one of the other crime lords, or one of the weird gods who frequently stuck their nose in people’s business. “Does it even matter?” Roan muttered in aggravation when he decided that his answers were extremely weak. “The real question should be how do I take advantage of the situation?”

  The answers to that eluded him as well. “For now.” He had to remind himself that this was a case just like any other. All he needed was one clue, one little thread that could unravel the entire case. Hoping the clue was waiting for him on the other side, he clocked out right there in the booth.

  The moment he opened his eyes he knew something was wrong—a cell phone was ringing. In one slick move that was almost too fast for the eye to follow, he snatched up his Glock and had it pointed…it was pointed at his own phone. “What the hell?” It took a moment for him to realize he’d forgotten to take the batteries from it.

  Jumping up, his gun still in his hand, he grabbed the phone and saw that it was Amanda. “Hey,” he said. “Are you alright?”

  “Now I am,” she answered, a relieved note in her voice. “Where have you been? I’ve been calling and calling. I was a nervous wreck.”

  “Sorry about that, but I had the remains of a potion of flying in me and I didn’t want to waste it.”

  “Was it fun?”

  He had used the power of flight to help him kill seventeen men and women, something that he would hardly call fun. At the same time he knew that a “flying” date with Amanda would be the most memorable experience of his life. “Yes, it was fun, sorta.”

  She was quiet for so long that he was about to ask her what was wrong when she asked, “How did they do it, Roan?”

  “Do you mean how did they find Charlie Martin and his friends in the real world? Come on, Nerd Girl you know it was probably through the forums. I bet they get alerts whenever The Infinite One is mentioned. Or maybe one of them bragged about how they took out a temple in Oberast. Try not to worry. We should be safe as long as we keep moving.”

  Despite his assurances, he was uneasy and feeling jumpy. His paranoia was stoked by the sound of a floorboard creaking in the hall. It was probably nothing, he told himself and yet, he said in a hushed tone, “Can I call you right back? I have to use the bathroom.”

  They both hung up and Roan indeed went to the bathroom, backing slowly onto the tile, his gun pointed at the door, his backpack across one shoulder.

  Yes, he’d been a fool to leave the batteries in his phone; yes, it meant he could have been tracked but one creaking board didn’t mean anything. He was sure he was being paranoid right up until he heard a soft scrape of metal coming from the door. It was the sound of a key sliding into a lock.

  A flash of fear and adrenaline hit him and he had to fight against both his instinct and his training which demanded that he crouch inside the dark bathroom and line up an easy kill shot. Chances were that he’d be killing an innocent person whose body was being controlled, and though he was in an evil mood, he knew it would be wrong. Running away would save two lives.

  The window to the bathroom was awkwardly high on the wall and Roan couldn’t exactly slip through it as easily as his thief character could have back in Daggerland. His shoes scraped against the tile making more noise than he wished and yet whoever was coming in through the front door probably couldn’t hear the light sound since he had just discovered that the door was blocked and was throwing his weight against it, trying to thrust back the piled furniture.

  Roan got his torso out of the window, but paused before going any further, afraid that he would find a second or third assassin waiting for him outside. There was no one except a couple heading into a room across the parking lot. The woman saw him and snorted a laugh.

  “Was she that ugly?” she joked.

  Roan thrust his pack and himself out into the dark evening, falling into a heap. When he straightened, he still had his gun in hand; he pointed it at the couple, hissing, “Get inside and lock your door.”

  They hurried in while he raced around the corner of the motel and ducked behind a dinged and rusted pickup truck, staring from behind a tire like a child peeking out from behind a mother’s dress. Seconds later a young man came rushing from the motel, a pistol in his hands. He was skinny to the point of being frail, his jeans hanging loose, his hoodie billowing around him. The only things threatening about him were the gun in his hands and the cold look in his dark eyes.

  He paused, staring around the parking lot before running off around the building, going in a full circle. When he returned out of breath, he pulled out a cellphone. “H-he took off before I-I got here. I might have just missed him. Run the trace again.”

  With frantic, fumbling fingers, Roan popped off the back of his phone and pulled out the battery. This would make his phone untraceable once more. After a long, tense minute, the man cursed into the phone. He walked around the building a second time befo
re getting into a Nissan Sentra with a magnetized dealer plate over the original license plate.

  When he peeled out of there, Roan sagged in relief, running his sleeve across his forehead where sweat was shining in the glow of a street light. Knowing he couldn’t just sit there, he jogged behind the motel, climbed a fence and went looking for a ride. Since he was so close to the airport, a cab was easy to find and only when he was safely away did he call Amanda back. “Sorry about that,” he told her, trying to sound relaxed although his heart was going a mile a minute. “I just wanted to get moving again.”

  “Me too.” He could hear the sound of an engine in the background. “Do me a favor, don’t go back online tonight and keep off the phone if at all possible. I’ll call you in the morning.”

  They hung up and Roan watched the lights of the city pass by once more as he headed deep into Brooklyn. Supposedly, he had eleven days until Arching’s appeal, but his close call had him wondering if he would make it that long. Another mistake and he would be dead. His luck couldn’t hold out forever.

  “Maybe I should take a vacation.” It was such an appealing idea that he was mulling over whether he should go to the Poconos or Key West, when he saw he had a text message from Lorrie Covington that read: Check your email.

  Just then, it was pretty much the last thing he wanted to do. Still, he opened his email and saw that she had tracked down Charlie Martin. Roan read about a man who had been as innocent as he was unlucky. He had worked in the oil fields in Denver City Texas until he’d been diagnosed with degenerative spinal disease and severe male osteoporosis. Since then he’d been practically confined to a wheelchair.

  Roan was sure that it was why Charlie played the game. In Daggerland he could run and jump. He could be as he used to be—and now he was dead. Roan’s fist slammed the back of the cabbie’s seat.

  2—

  There would be no vacation for Roan. After checking into a raunchy motel where rooms could be rented by the hour if you rented a girl along with it, he went back to Daggerland in fiery mood, an evil mood. He had twenty-five more thugs to kill and if he happened to accidentally murder any of Arching’s assassins, well that would be the cherry on top of a Sunday.

  He was just stepping from the inn when it struck him that he was wrong. “Dead wrong,” he whispered. “Killing the assassins would only bring more and they’ll likely have magic users among them and perhaps seers.” Seers would be able to find him, which would kill his plans.

  No, as disgusting as it sounded, he had to appear to be on Arching’s side. “And what better way to do that than to slay his enemies?”

  Although he still had so much work to do, he turned towards the Temple of Apollo, passing gangs of K Street Killers and not paying them the least attention. They will get theirs, he thought to himself.

  The same two guards were outside the temple. They barred his way with their spears. “I have an urgent message from the Archbishop. Tell whoever’s in charge and be quick about it.” As an FBI agent, Roan was used to wielding authority and with his bonuses in his bluff skill, they believed him. One of the fighters jogged off while the other locked the gates behind her.

  Roan appraised the woman, her armor, her weapon, the way she stood. She was a mid level warrior, strong enough to take on Roan in a fair fight. He didn’t plan on fighting fair.

  “Tell me, how much is an adequate offering to the Sun God?” he asked, pulling out a handful of gold coins and “accidentally” letting a few drop. They clinked around their feet. Roan immediately started scrounging. When she didn’t drop down to help, he was forced to drop a few more, these, right at her feet.

  “Sorry,” he said, standing just as she knelt. Out swept the Doom blade. It came down on her outstretched neck and it was a wonder she didn’t die in that one shot because he put everything he had into the strike and with his triple damage sneak attack he must have slashed thirty hit points from her.

  He even got an extra attack as she tried to stand and although it wasn’t triple damage, it still did another ten. She came up with her spear ripping in at his innards and managed to give him a good jab(Damage -6HP). As she pulled back the spear, he went in with it and got lucky and hit for a third straight time, pinning the woman to the gates with his Doom blade(XP +350).

  People around him saw the fight and all of them looked away as he frisked her, found the keys and dragged her inside.

  Now Roan had time to set up the perfect ambush. It was simple with the lush grounds and he choose a spot close to the gates where the sound of battle would be dimmed. He fully expected the guard to come back alone. If whoever was in charge of the temple wanted to hear his message, he’d want to hear it away from prying ears. If he didn’t want to hear it, he’d simply tell the warrior to tell Roan to go away.

  The way the fighter gripped her spear, Roan guessed that he was going to be told to “shove off” as it were. With the dark, his black cloak pulled around him hiding his Doom blade, and his bonus of +8 to hiding in the shadows, the woman did not see him until it was too late. He struck hard, fast and as silently as a grave. The sword tore through her back, forcing a gasp of shock from her.

  By the time she turned, he had another shot lined up and this one took off her head. It bounced and, evil or not, Roan turned up a lip as it rolled down the path to fetch up against the gates(XP +250).

  When it came to gold and treasure, the two women did not have much that Roan could use. They both carried magic spears; he could feel them pulse in his hands. Unfortunately, he was on a mission and he couldn’t haul around spears if he wanted to remain undetected. On the plus side, he picked up fifty-three in gold and four healing potions, one of which he drank to bring him up to his full forty-one points.

  Now that he was on the grounds, he had to get into the temple, and either slip past or kill whatever guards were posted on the inside. It made sense to take out the head priest before attempting to slay the rest.

  Step one was to reconnoiter the temple. The grounds were lit in a manner that stressed ambiance over illumination. There were plenty of shadows for him to maneuver through, but there was little to see. Attacking temples was an exceedingly dangerous undertaking. Even if one lived through the attack, it was common knowledge that gods were vengeful and their followers fanatical.

  Roan could expect to be hunted, perhaps even by his girlfriend, which would make for an interesting date the next time they got together. He wasn’t worried, however. He was killing for the greater good—an idea that brought an evil smile to his face.

  Although there was a backdoor, Roan saw that the vines crawling up the side of the building looked practically like a ladder to his thief’s eye. Up he went to the second floor and slipped from window to window, peeking into each. By then it was after eight and it seemed that the followers of Apollo lived in tune with the cycle of the sun. They were all asleep. He climbed half the length of the building before finding a room that was empty—a pristine bathroom that was marble from the tiles to the toilet.

  The window was locked with a little catch. Roan’s thieves’ tools had just the item to take care of that: a simple flat length of tin that easily jimmied the latch back. Once inside, he paused to listen and heard someone snoring in the room next door.

  Then he heard a long yawn coming from just outside in the hall. Quick as a cat, Roan slipped behind the door, his hand on the hilt of his magic dagger. Because of the glow it gave off, he couldn’t draw it yet. He put his eye to the crack and saw a robed acolyte with a sword hanging from his waist running a finger along the wall as he walked his rounds.

  Roan knew the young man would have to die first and he would have to die without making a sound. Had he been a real assassin, he might have used a blow gun tipped with Iocane Powder or whatever the Daggerland equivalent was. All he had was sword and dagger and these would make too much noise in a building as dead silent as the temple.

  Unless, that is, he could kill in a room with thick marble walls that would absorb and ins
ulate the sound. Roan tapped the wall and found it solid. It was perfect. Since he couldn’t just sit in the bathroom waiting until the guard had to urinate, Roan had to lure him in without arousing his suspicions.

  Three silver coins did the trick. One went on the ground next to the toilet, another by the bathtub and the third Roan placed just outside the door after the guard passed by. Ten minutes later when he came around again, Roan tensed ready to deliver the killing strike, only the guard wandered along without seeing the coin.

  “Moron,” Roan hissed and settled in to wait for his return. In a stew of anger, he waited another ten minutes only to have the man miss the very obvious coin a second time! He checked to see if it was properly visible and to him it was annoyingly obvious.

  He decided to give the coin one more try and settled down to wait on the edge of the bathtub next to the door. Now, the bathroom was dark and yet, Roan knew that his black attire stood out against the white marble. He was just as obvious as the coin, but somehow the person who came into the bathroom, walking on padding feet, missed both.

  She was a young woman, though with her bald head and loose robes, Roan didn’t know that until after he had slit her throat(XP +25). Not that it would have mattered. With only a shrug, he pulled her body into the tub, cut off a section of her robes and used it to quickly clean up the mess. He had cut her carotid and the arterial spray had been impressive, leaving a ragged red arc across the wall.

  A minute after he finished he heard the guard coming along, sighing every few seconds as if it was a labor to breathe. Roan fixed that problem for him moments later when he came into the bathroom, his eyes fixed on the ground searching for more coins. Once more his backstab was perfect and the guard’s death was silent if not bloody(XP +25).