Infinite Assassins: Daggerland Online Novel 2 A LITRPG Adventure

by Peter Meredith

  In the real world, Roan was simultaneously rested and restless, and didn’t know what to do with himself. He knew he had to sleep at some point, so he laid down and stared at the ceiling for half an hour.

  Eventually, he decided to go for a run. Getting his heart pounding and his lungs burning was the only think that made sense to him just then. It was the only thing that made him feel alive in the real world.

  Chapter 25

  Shadow Cat Territory

  Eventually the run had to end and Roan was back to sitting in his motel room as the sun began to rise over the grey city. It was depressing and yet, clocking back into the foul and stinking city of Oberast wasn’t any better.

  What he needed was sleep. Before he climbed down from the building, he allocated his skill points: Balancing +7, Bluff +6, Climb Walls +10, Enable/Disable Traps +10, Disguise Self +10, Hide in Shadow +10, Jump +10, Move Silently +10, Pick Lock +10, Search +10, Sleight of Hand +5, Spot +8, Use Magic Item +9.

  With a +10 in Climbing Walls, getting down to street level was almost as easy as navigating a ladder.

  Around him, the filth and squalor only added to his dour mood.

  The Shadow Cats ran their part of the city in a much different manner than the Ghak. To begin with, Roan didn’t see any of them. There were a few local toughs and some dark figures lurking in the shadows of the decrepit buildings, but they were for the most part, solitary individuals. There was nothing about them that suggested they were part of a gang.

  Although the Shadow Cats themselves weren’t obvious, their handiwork was plain to see. Roan walked past a number of fly-speckled corpses, each with their faces slashed—four diagonal cuts. He stopped at the first and inspected the wounds. The man had died from a single blow to the back of the head, while the cuts had been made postmortem and were clearly symbolic.

  The local shopkeepers watched him, their faces straining to hold smiles in place. They were afraid of him and he guessed it was because they didn’t know whether he was one of the Shadow Cats.

  “Interesting,” he said to himself. By not advertising who was and who wasn’t one of the gang members, it played upon the natural fear of the unknown and added to their power and mystique.

  Roan liked the strategy. In contrast, the Ghak and the K Street Killers constantly strutted their thugs about, advertising both their strengths and their weaknesses; since both lived in a constant state of guerrilla warfare, it wasn’t smart.

  Given more of an opportunity, Roan would have liked to have studied the methods of the Shadow Cats, only he was too tired for anything that sounded so mentally strenuous. Finding a local inn with a view of the Heretic’s brothel, he rented the nicest room available. With over ten-thousand in gold weighing him down, he felt he could afford the outlay.

  Although the room was one of the nicer ones he’d been in, he took more precautions against being robbed, molested, or assassinated in his sleep than ever before. Furniture was slid against the locked door; the window was double checked and then strung with empty potion bottles that clinked together at the slightest movement; the walls and floor were searched for secret doors and finally, he broke the cover to the lamp and strew the pieces all over the floor.

  Anyone walking on the floor would have to crunch, crunch, crunch their way through it all.

  With every precaution taken and his exhaustion weighing down his eyelids, falling asleep was easy. Seven hours later, he came awake fully charged and ready to go. He had no idea what he was going to do about Cricket’s mother and just then it wasn’t his biggest concern. Amanda was on his mind and the first thing he did was pop back to the real world and call her.

  This time she answered, though it wasn’t in her usual sweet voice. “Why? Why did you do it?”

  For just a moment he had forgotten about the killings at the Temple of Apollo. “Oh that,” he said settling down on the bed, the springs groaning under his mass.

  “Yes, oh that! Roan, I can’t believe you killed all those people. Remember what I told you? That you would start to become…worse.” He could tell that she had wanted to use the word evil, but couldn’t bring herself to. Roan tried to explain himself, finishing with his usual: “just a game” rationalization.

  To his astonishment, she agreed. “It is a game, one that I won’t be able to play anymore, which means I won’t be able to help you on the other side.”

  “You can still play, just remember what’s at stake. And it’s not just my life I’m trying to save. The assassins are going to take out everyone who stands in the way of Arching and eventually, once I’m gone, that will include you.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” she said softening. “I’m not afraid of Arching either here or there. The reason I can’t go back is because of the Archbishop. He was so angry with what you did that he put a geas spell on me. Do you know what one of those are?”

  He was still so much of a noob that a slow, “Uhhh,” was all he could answer.

  “It’s a spell that forces a person to do something against their will. In this case I’m being forced to kill you the next time I lay my eyes on you.”

  “What?” Roan cried, hopping up from the bed so quickly that one of the legs gave out and the entire thing took on a slant. “And you worry about me being evil! He knows about us! Oh, I get it, he thinks I’m going to knuckle under, doesn’t he? You know I can’t. I have to…”

  She sighed, stopping his outrage as if there was magic in the breath. “I know what you have to do is important. That’s why I’m not going back. I could never fight you, not even in a make believe world.”

  Roan was both furious and relieved. He didn’t want her anywhere near Daggerland, at the same, it burned him up that someone had butted into his business. The two were quiet for well over a minute, each deep in their thoughts. Unfortunately, Roan’s thoughts were borderline evil and they were only borderline because he rationalized that revenge wasn’t completely evil.

  Amanda seemed to read his thoughts. “What are you planning?”

  “Nothing bad, exactly.” This wasn’t a complete lie. Yes, people would die, but they weren’t real people and it was for a good cause and it would be especially good if the archbishop was one of those who died. “Did I tell you about this little girl named Cricket? It’s nothing, she’s just a slave over in the Ghak district and I saved her. I can’t take care of her, so I was just thinking how I could rescue her mother. She’s the property of this guy named Hansen the Heretic. I was going to sneak over to the Shadow Cat territory this afternoon and spring her.”

  “What do you know about this Hansen the Heretic?” she asked. “Is he tough?”

  The only thing Roan knew about Hansen was that he was undoubtedly ready to spring an ambush the moment Roan walked through his doors. “Probably a little tough, but it’s his goons that I have to be careful of. Either way don’t worry about me. I’m getting stronger. It shouldn’t be a problem.” There, he thought, the hook had been baited. She would not him let go against Hansen alone and since she couldn’t go, she would turn to the Archbishop, the only person she knew in the city.

  He didn’t like the idea of her begging the archbishop, but it did give him a happy smile to imagine the old man springing the trap that was meant for him. It was Roan’s hope that the meddling dink would either take care of The Heretic’s goons for him or die trying. Either one would be a win.

  Feeling smug, he made an excuse about having a lot of things to do and said his good byes. Clocking back into Daggerland, he opened his backpack and went through his belongings, shifting almost all of it into the Dimension Bag. The bag was small and light, even with so much in it. It was small enough that he folded it up and put it into the inner pocket of his cloak.

  “So much better,” he said. Without the backpack, he felt light and quick. The only thing he carried was his Doom blade, a pouch holding his potions and his magic dagger.

  Needing to kill some time, he bathed, spot cleaned his clothes and had some food brought up. An
d all the while he watched the brothel, expecting to see the Archbishop and a phalanx of white robed priests. Instead, an hour later, a flash of light glinting from shining metal caught his eye.

  An elf with long, blonde hair spilling from her cowl, sparkling mithral armor and a blazing sword walked straight up to the brothel, paused for a moment beneath the demon’s head and then strode in. It was Special Agent Amanda Waterfall!

  2—

  “Crap!” Roan cried, rushing for the door. “What the hell is she thinking?” He ran through the halls of the inn, down the stairs and out into the street, sprinting for the brothel, his heart in his throat.

  Who knew what sort of buzzsaw she was blithely walking into? His imagination worked against him as he pictured tiny, barely five-foot tall Amanda surrounded by a dozen club-wielding goons with hairy knuckles. It took him a full minute to reach the doors of the brothel and when he dashed inside, he saw that his imagination had been spot on except that the goons weren’t armed with clubs, but with swords.

  “Aman…” was all he managed to yell before he saw her cut down one of the goons. When he fell, blood and intestines spilling from his stomach, the goon landed next to the bodies of three others.

  Amanda was kicking ass. It took Roan a moment to remember that in Daggerland she was the tough one. She was a force to be reckoned with. Moving with precision and amazing skill, she tore through men twice her size, leaving a trail of bodies in her wake.

  To add to her already high armor class, there was a magical glow about her. It was a spell that repelled blades and it allowed her to fight her way deep into the smoky brothel. Her sword was a gleaming masterpiece of death. Everything it touched died, screaming and crying.

  The goons fled before her and her sword until Amanda came to a wide barroom where people lurked in alcoves, watching.

  “I am looking for a prostitute,” Amanda explained, fearlessly coming to stand in the middle of the room. “One with a daughter named Cricket, who lives in Ghak territory.”

  “She’s no thief,” someone hissed from one of the alcoves. “It was supposed to be a thief.”

  Amanda, her chin down, her legs taut and ready to spring, glanced over at the alcove. “Someone lied to you. And now, if you don’t want to die, hand over the woman.”

  There was a murmur from the alcove and then someone clapped their hands once. Five people emerged from around the room. They were hardened adventurers: a wizard in green robes, two fighters in dull platemail, a cleric with what looked like a spear with a bloody human head impaled on it, and a female rogue who was already slipping into the shadows.

  “You are testing my patience,” Amanda said. “Give me the woman now, or I will get angry and you don’t want me to get angry. Trust me.”

  “I will take her armor,” a voice called from the alcove. “You may have the rest. Try not to make too much of a mess.”

  Amanda saw that the time for talk and negotiation was over. She spoke the words to a spell just as the fighters charged and the evil cleric raised his spear and the wizard dug for a scroll. The rogue did not attack at once. She angled for a sneak attack that would have crippled Amanda. There was one thing about sneak attacks: it took such concentration that it left one vulnerable.

  The thief’s path crossed Roan’s and as every eye in the room watched Amanda conjure a creature of light. Roan darted forward and planted the Doom sword in the back of the thief’s throat. She died, gagging on metal and blood(XP +750). As quickly as Roan struck, he stowed the sword away again and began moving to his right looking to take out the wizard.

  He could not be nearly as relaxed in his approach as the rogue he had just killed. Amanda was fighting against terrific odds and there was little time for subtly. Not that it was needed. The wizard had conjured its own creature—some sort of grey troll that was decked out in armor and carried a club that was nearly as tall as Roan.

  The troll was battling the being that Amanda had called. It was impossible to tell exactly what it was since it was bathed in radiant light that caused the eyes to water if one looked directly at it.

  The wizard worked a spell and shot what looked like a negative light beam at Amanda’s creature. The beam was black and seemed to suck light into it. When the beam struck the creature of light, it made a long sad noise, “Uhhhhhh.” The longer the beam was on it, the more the creature seemed to shrink.

  With the troll bashing it with its club, the creature would very likely have died had Roan not struck. There was a chess-like quality among characters in Daggerland. The wizard with his many spells was the strongest of characters and yet when a rogue had position, it only took a second to demonstrate that the wizard was also the weakest of characters.

  For armor, the wizard had a Ring of Defense and a Leather-Skin spell. With a total of +10 Roan’s sword went right through it. The dark light fizzled as the wizard let out a scream. Roan was a bit shocked when the wizard wasn’t killed by his first attack. Still he was faster than his opponent and brought down the sword in an arc that almost cut off the wizard the nose.

  In response, the wizard blasted Roan with a stream of fire. Now it was the wizard’s turn to be surprised. The fire washed right over Roan without hurting him. “What the…” Roan cut the wizard off with a blow that nearly took off his head(XP +980).

  With the death of the wizard, the troll disappeared and the creature of light was free to attack one of the fighters. This left the cleric and the second fighter battling Amanda, who was a bloody mess.

  Roan would have preferred to take on the cleric, however it was the fighter that turned on him. He was a beast of a man with long black hair running from beneath his helmet, and when he gave a tremendous battle cry it lifted the hairs on the back of Roan’s neck.

  It was an impressive display of lung power designed to frighten and overawe, however it did not scare Roan in the slightest. Outwardly, he made a great show of fear. He even went so far as to run away. Turning on his heel he headed to the far end of the bar with the fighter right behind him. Roan sped to the bar and ran behind it with the bull of a man chasing after. Roan had been jogging to keep the man close; now he turned on the jets, sprinted the length of the bar and leapt over it.

  In his bulky platemail, the fighter struggled over the bar and by the time he had, Roan had come up behind the cleric who was battling Amanda. The Doom blade, dealing quadruple damage, cracked open the cleric’s helmet and split his head in two(XP +300). The cleric fell into Amanda, who shoved him off. While she was doing this, Roan was running again, evading the lumbering fighter. He turned away to attack Amanda, but she saw him coming and used another spell.

  He stumbled to a halt right in front of her outstretched hand, his eyes locked on a glowing disc she held there. Amanda’s power was shocking and there was an edge of your seat feeling as she held the fighter, a man, many times her size and weight, spellbound.

  She handed him a dagger and commanded, “Slit your throat.”

  Roan gasped along with the rest of them when the fighter drew a red line across his throat. Blood gushed down his armor in rivers and all the while he stared at the glowing disc. It wasn’t until he was as white as a sheet that his eyes broke the connection with the disc. By then he was mostly dead and two swings later, he fell, leaving only the one fighter left to deal with.

  Amanda’s conjured creature had been destroyed seconds earlier in a flash of blinding light, which Roan used to disappear back into the shadows of the alcoves where whores and Johns leaned away from him. Of all the participants in the fight, Roan was the only one unbloodied. He was fresh and looked eager to kill.

  The lone fighter backed away from Amanda, his eyes twitching from side to side as he tried to find Roan who had stopped behind a pillar where he blended with the dark shadows. Roan wasn’t in a good position for a sneak attack; there was too much open ground between him and the fighter.

  But it turned out he wouldn’t need a sneak attack. The fighter turned and fled, leaving Roan and Amanda to
face thirty or forty people, none of whom stepped up.

  With a wave of her hand, a blossoming of blue light curled around her, healing her. She then turned to the alcoves. “I will take the woman now. Do not test me again. And if that’s you, Roan. Don’t let me see you. I will not be liable for my actions.”

  After what he had just witnessed he slunk back and almost tripped over the thief he had killed. With a smirk, he reached into the man’s pouches and filched four different potions and a gold wheel. Without looking at any of it, he tucked them away and then moved onto the body of the wizard, who had an Asari Ring of Defense that interested him.

  Twisting the ring back and forth, he watched as the thin veiled curtains of an alcove were drawn aside and a man stepped through. This was undoubtedly Hansen the Heretic. His face had been burned horribly so that he no longer had a nose, lips or ears. The only unmarked flesh was on his forehead and the unburned area formed a cross.

  Hansen snapped his fingers and a woman with the same sea-grey eyes as Cricket was pushed forward. She wore little but a silk toga that sat very high up on her thigh. Roan was taken aback by how young she was. If she was even twenty-one he would have been shocked. “Take her and go,” Hansen snarled.

  Roan wasn’t quite done, but he saw Amanda give him a look out of the corner of her eye which suggested that she was losing patience and wasn’t going to stand there forever. Letting out a sigh, he snatched the wizard’s money purse and stood. “Let’s go,” he said to the young woman.

  Keeping his hand on the hilt of his Doom blade, he left with the woman, stopping just outside the doors, he pulled her to the side and waited until Amanda left the building, her face covered by the cowl of her cloak.

  “Hey,” Roan whispered.

  She stopped and drew the cowl tighter. “Hey.” She stood there, a stiff figure, unsure of herself now that the battle was over. Fighting could be so much easier sometimes. There were bad guys and good guys, and usually it was easy to tell them apart.