“Is that a bug in there?” Cricket asked.
Roan jerked, almost dropping the gem. “No. I think it’s a demon.” Her sea-grey eyes went wide. “Yeah, pretty scary. So, who’s hungry?” He was suddenly in a very good mood and it was no wonder. He had a lot to be happy about. Leveling up always brought a smile on his face, and he had completed Cricket’s quest. On top of that he had reunited mother and daughter, and he had a way into the temple of The Infinite One that he hoped would put him one step closer to meeting with the assassins.
The only negative was Amanda. He hated the idea of her hiding out in some crappy motel two thousand miles away and he hated that he couldn’t see her in Daggerland.
“But I just did,” he said, under his breath. She had saved his life, there was no doubt about that, but she had endangered her own life in the process and likely would again. What he needed was for her to be occupied for the next few days until he could infiltrate the assassins’ organization. But doing what?
Cricket had her hand up. When he glanced at her she said, “I’m hungry.” She patted her tummy which was basically nonexistent.
“Good,” Roan said, absently, forgetting that he had just asked them if they would like to eat. An idea was forming in his mind. “How would you two like to go to the Pelinores? It’s very nice there. They have knights and princesses and friendly elves. I hear they even have unicorns.”
Clareleth looked uncertain. “Thanks but no thanks. I don’t want to be rude, but it sounds like you’re running a scam to me.”
Roan pulled out one of the golden wheels from his pouch and gave it to her. “It’s not a scam. I just want Cricket safe.”
Chapter 27
Ghak Territory, Oberast
Claiming a need to use the bathroom before they left, Roan clocked back to the real world and called Amanda. “I need a favor,” he said and then explained how he really, really needed her to escort Cricket and Clareleth to the Pelinores.
“You’re trying to get rid of me,” she said, stating the obvious. “But what if you need me again? You couldn’t have taken on Hansen’s crew without me. You know that, right?”
It was true, but only if Roan had tried to take them on the way she had, which is something he never would have done. Swallowing his pride, he told her, “Yes, that goes without saying, but…” She actually growled. “Sorry, it’s an important but. I might be getting close and you stand out. I can’t have you saving me only to give me away. Do you know how many golden-haired elves are running around Oberast? It’s only you.”
“I could wear a hat,” she joked.
Roan gave a curtesy chuckle but then was back to being all business. “Please escort Cricket and her mother to the Pelinores. It’s important.” He had to beg her before she agreed and after she did, a sad silence came over them as they each struggled to find more to say. Oddly, they were in the middle of not one but two long distance relationships, both with each other and both with that same crumbling sensation.
“It’ll just be for a few more days,” he told her. A few more days were all they had, well nine and a half to be exact until Arching had his appeal at which point he would either show up and, more than likely, be shot or blown up or poisoned, or he would stay in hiding and be hunted for the rest of his life.
She wanted to leave first thing in the morning and he suggested Rinely’s Cafe as a place to meet. “I’ll be close keeping an eye on things.”
When they had said their goodbyes, Roan took Cricket and her mother to a tavern to eat. It was an uncomfortable meal since Roan and Clareleth didn’t know what to say to each other and the normally talkative Cricket spent the meal stuffing her mouth with roast duck and staring at her mother with wide eyes.
“You’re so young,” she said at one point between mouthfuls.
“Not really. I’m twenty-one.”
Roan had to hold in a groan at the admission. If she was twenty-one, she’d been pregnant with Cricket at the age of twelve, which was sick in his book.
Cricket went back to staring at her—and eating. Her stomach was beginning to bulge beneath the stained blouse she wore. Roan ate quickly and pulled them out of there before Cricket ordered a third plate of food. The three were quiet during the walk back to the apartment. Roan kept his eyes moving and his head on a swivel. He had a strange feeling of being watched and he probably was. He had made implacable enemies and questionable friends.
Taking to the footbridges where the chance of being followed was less, he circled in toward the apartment. It was empty. Stacking furniture against the door and setting homemade alarms around the windows helped his paranoia. Wearing the very same nervous expression, both mother and daughter watched him without saying a word.
The silence grew slightly maddening. “Have you figured out what you want to do when you get to the Pelinores?” he asked when it stretched out even too long for him.
“Do they have happy girls there?”
Roan slammed a fist against the wall. “You’re not going to be a happy girl anymore. A thousand gold can set you up in all sorts of ways. You could be a farmer of some sort or you could open a bed and breakfast. You can cook, right?” When she shrugged, he felt the heat of his inherent evil boiling up. “You’re going to have to figure it out. Cricket, help your mother figure out what she should be doing with her life. I’m going to bed!”
He went to his room muttering, “Damned happy girl.” Two hours later, a struggle at the door had him flying from his bed with the Doom sword in his hand—it was only Beckwen home from work and looking alarmed.
“What did I say about guests?” she demanded when she got her composure back. In answer Roan flipped her a gold piece and went back to bed. As he shut the door, he heard Beckwen say, “I have room in my bed for two more. After all, a gold one should rate guests a bed. That’s only proper.”
He woke up the next morning and the first thing out of his mouth was, “Nine days left.” Slipping back to the real world, he washed up, checked his door and window and then put the battery back into his phone, hoping for a message from anyone. There was nothing. He called Amanda only to have the phone ring endlessly into his ear.
This made him frantic and when he clocked back he rushed out into the main room, yelling, “Everyone up! Let’s go! The Pelinors are waiting. Chop-chop.” Despite the urgency bursting inside of him, he took another circular route to the cafe. From one of the footbridges he saw one of the servants was just setting up the tables facing the street. Amanda stood across the street trying to blend in with the morning shadows and failing miserably.
Roan crossed the bridge and another before coming down to street level almost directly behind her. He moved like a ghost, however the two girls kicked pebbles and Amanda started to look back. “Don’t turn around.” He moved up behind her. “Close your eyes,” he said. “Close them hard.” When she did, he slid in front of her and kissed her.
“I’m going to miss you,” she said when he let her up for air. She guarded against looking at him by putting a hand across her eyes. “Promise me you’ll be careful.”
He lied to her. “Of course. Take care of these two and here, this is for the travel expense and whatever else you need.” He gave her one of the gold wheels. “Buy yourself something pretty.” She snorted laughter behind her hand.
“One more kiss.” It almost sounded as though she were begging.
“One kiss for now, but there will be more.”
2—
When they left, heading to the stables to buy a horse and cart, Roan followed after, lurking, always close enough to come to Amanda’s aid if needed, but not so close that she ever had a clue.
They stopped first to outfit for a journey. Cricket came out of the shop, swinging a dagger around as if it were a sword. Her mother said nothing and it was up to Amanda to correct the girl. Amanda then turned and lectured Clareleth on the basics of motherhood.
Roan smiled at this. Amanda would make a good mom. Too bad Roan didn’t think he wou
ld make a good father. He probably would have given Cricket a spank by now, and Clareleth, too for that matter. “It might be the evil in me,” he said, but couldn’t know for certain.
The cart was purchased in minutes and then they were gone, trundling through the gate and out along the Swamp Road. Roan had to resist the urge to buy a horse and follow after. Instead he turned to the city with its stinking haze. His future was in Oberast but whether it was a short future or a long one there was no way to know.
To increase his chances of extending his future, he needed to be as prepared as possible. In his possession, he had eleven unknown potions and three scrolls. There were only two ways to figure out what the potions were: one was to drink them, which would waste them, and the other was to take them to a sage.
Since the Ghak did not issue a Yellow Pages, Roan had to ask four different people before he was directed to the “most trusted” sage in Oberast, which was a little like being directed to the “skinniest” cannibal in the jungle. To Roan the title meant nothing and he went into the shop expecting a wheeling dealing used car salesman type who would try to rook him.
Instead he found a gnome who was so portly that his belly hung almost down to his knobby knees. The gnome was named Werzel and he was friendly enough. Because his twig-like legs were so short and bowed, his belly so plump and the couch so large he looked like an ugly throw pillow.
“Sit, sit, sit,” it squeaked at Roan, patting a place beside him on the couch. Roan did not jump at the invitation. Werzel’s place of business was a converted first floor apartment in one of the thousands of grey buildings. And although there were potions and scrolls and odd ingredients and all sorts of nicknacks of a magical nature crammed on shelves and spilling from drawers, the shop had neither lock nor bolt on the door and the windows were without shutters or bars.
All in all, the place felt like an elaborate trap.
Taking slow, deliberate steps, Roan walked around the couch twice before sitting down one full cushion away from the gnome. Werzel was not upset at the display of caution, though he did misread it.
“It’s always the least trustworthy who are the most untrusting,” he said, wearing a bemused smile.
Roan glared. “Don’t believe everything you read in a fortune cookie.” Werzel giggled at this, holding his belly as if it might jump right off his lap and roll around on the ground. “You know what a fortune cookie is?” Roan asked.
“Of course.” The gnome laughed again. It was a laugh that, had it come from a dark basement, would have sent Roan running. “I am a sage. A sage’s entire point of being is to know. I know much more than what I don’t know, which is all that can be asked.”
“Do you know the Infinite Assassins?” Roan asked, sliding closer on the couch, his hazel eyes alight with sudden possibilities. “Do you know where they are?”
The laughter dried up in an instant. “There are some things that are not profitable to know and are deadly to ask. If that is what you are here for, I would leave if I were you.”
“No, sorry. I have some potions and I don’t know what they’re for. I was hoping you could tell me.” He brought them out one by one. Werzel took the first, but did not take his eyes off of Roan for a long time. “It’s always the least trustworthy who are the most untrusting,” Roan said to the gnome.
Werzel didn’t laugh, though he did bob his head slightly as if to say: Good one. He then lifted each potion, took a single look and explained what they were. Two were Remove Poison, two were Potions of the Cricket, which Roan found strangely reassuring even though all they did was temporarily increase his Jump skill by +10 for ten minutes. Three were Potions of the Ogre which gave him a +3 to his strength for a limited time. One was Remove Curse and another was Remove Disease and the last two were Potions of the Owl which gave him night vision.
Roan asked about the scrolls and were told they were illusion spells. It was the oddest thing. The moment he said this, Roan could suddenly decipher the fanciful script on the rolled parchment.
“That’ll be one hundred in gold,” the gnome stated.
A string of spluttered curses poured from Roan’s mouth before he was able to check his astonishment and outrage. “Are you kidding me? A hundred gold for two minutes worth of work?” When the gnome only remained utterly calm, Roan groused, “Fine.” He stood to pull out the gold and when he did, he felt the extra Asari Ring of Defense sitting in with his spare change; he had already switched out the better one.
“What can I get for this?”
Werzel didn’t hesitate. “A thousand. Or rather a thousand off the price of what you really need.”
“And what do I really need?”
“You need to be someone you are not. Anyone who asks about the Infinite Assassins should definitely be someone else when they do so. In the back room is a shelf and on the shelf is a green shoebox. Fetch it for me.” When Roan didn’t hurry to do the gnome’s bidding, Werzel said, “I could get it, but it’ll take me ten minutes to get off the couch.”
He wasn’t wrong. Roan made his way through the cluttered shop to the back room, which was even more cluttered with suits of armor, robes of all colors, hats, girdles and books by the hundreds. The green box was in among other boxes of similar size but in a rainbow of colors.
It was high up and Roan had to wonder how the gnome had placed it there in the first place. Without opening it, he brought it back to Werzel saying, “I have a reaching fee. It’s pretty steep.”
Werzel chortled. “I’ll knock a copper from the price. Here lay this on your shoulders.” What he pulled from the box was a white shawl with a gold clasp in front. Roan appreciated magic. What he didn’t appreciate was dressing like a woman. Still, he placed the shawl over his shoulder.
“What’s supposed to hap…” He stopped, staring at his hands. They were not his hands at all. They were thin and withered, the frail bones riding just beneath skin as thin as a bat’s wing. “Wh-What the hell did you do to me?”
“Of course, nothing. You have on a Shawl of Disguise and it picks up the thoughts of the wearer, though why you were thinking of an old woman is your business. A man’s fetishes should be his…” Roan’s glare had the gnome chortling again. “Ha! You look like my Nan when she’d catch me with my hand in her pies!”
Roan tried to change back by picturing himself, but his hands remained withered. With a growing panic he undid the clasp and saw his hands blur back to his own. Clasping it again, he pictured Werzel the gnome.
This stopped Werzel’s laughter. Staring at Roan, Werzel patted his stomach. “I’ve really let myself go, haven’t I? Maybe I’ll begin an exercise program…on Monday. So, what do you think? Six thousand more and it’ll be yours.”
Roan considered it. He had spent eight skill points trying to increase his ability to disguise himself, but since he was so strapping, he could never pull off a gnome or an old woman, or much else, for that matter.
“I’ll take it,” he said, pulling out six of the golden wheels. “And some healing potions as well.”
3—
Roan put the shawl to work right away. He left the gnome’s establishment, looking just like Corvo, right down to the honker of a nose, the thin mustache and the insolent smirk he always wore. He walked the length of the city as the Ghak lieutenant and received endless salutations, nervous looks and a number of frowns from pretty girls, one of whom asked: “You said you were going to move me out of my place. What happened?”
“Sorry, busy,” Roan said, trying to give his voice a slightly raspy sound. The shawl was illusion-based and worked on the eyes and not the ears.
He left the girl and hurried back to Beckwen’s apartment, assuming her form on the way. Now, the illusion worked in the opposite manner, she was almost completely ignored. Roan, appearing as a middle-aged woman in a frumpy dress that went down to stout ankles, faded into the background. It was the perfect disguise.
“Better not wear it inside,” he said to himself. If Beckwen saw herself, he
didn’t know how she would react. Even Werzel had not been entirely happy to see himself, and at least he knew what was happening.
Beckwen wasn’t home when he returned. Roan walked around the small, barren apartment not knowing what to do with himself. Eventually, he clocked back to the real world. This didn’t help his antsy-ness. His ability to help with the investigation was basically nil.
After checking his email and his voice messages, he went for a run, sprinting through Brooklyn like a madman. When he was done, he realized that he would either have to do laundry or buy new clothes. As he had the FBI credit card, he opted for the latter and went on a time killing shopping spree.
When he got back to the motel, he still hadn’t received any messages and he had to fight against the tremendous urge to take a taxi across to Manhattan and stop by the field office in person.
“What good would it do?” He groaned, realizing he had two days to kill before he made the drop for Tarranon at the temple. Two days of sitting around doing nothing as the clock ticked away and Arching’s men solidified their gains and prepared traps and assassinations.
“I need to be doing something and since I can’t do any good here, I should go back. I need to level up.” Roan could begin his life as an assassin once he leveled up. He’d be an eighth level roguefirst level assassin.
With his vague but sound plan firm in his mind, he clocked back. To gain levels he needed to kill, and he had just the right man in mind to begin with. “Well, maybe not a man, exactly. More like a halfling.”
Rollup had set him up and Rollup would pay.
Chapter 28
K Street Killers Territory, Oberast
It was particularly interesting walking down K Street as a pregnant whore. Most of the men she passed ignored her completely, while more than half the women raised an eyebrow. They knew what she was and were disgusted by it.
Infinite Assassins: Daggerland Online Novel 2 A LITRPG Adventure Page 26
