“Covington here.”
“It’s Roan. What do you have on that phone number? It’s to a burner cell, right?” She paused and that was all the answer he needed. For the moment, at least, the number was a dead end. Without access to the Bureau’s tracking systems, Roan wasn’t about to call it. It was, without a doubt, a trap. Of course, the same was possibly true for the email address as well.
Still, they were leads and he was desperate. “I have an email address I need you to look into. Supposedly, it’ll lead to my victim. You know, the guy I’m supposed to kill in the real world.”
“I’ll have an agent in the White Plains office run it down,” Covington said. “I finally have some good news for you. Because of the special circumstances, the judge hearing the appeal has allowed for you to have your testimony and cross examination done at a location outside of the courthouse. It’ll be taped ahead of time and presented at trial as part of the case.”
This was good news…as long as the venue remained completely secret. “Where will it be held?”
“That’s something I’m not telling anyone. Just be ready to go Monday morning at nine sharp.”
Roan had no idea what day it was and had to pull the phone back to see that it was Friday. A surge of excitement swept him. All he had to do was stay alive for three more days…really, just two and a half. He thanked her and hung up, feeling so excited he could barely contain himself.
He called Amanda again straight away, but she was still in Daggerland. Perhaps because it had been a full twenty-four hours since he had seen or spoken to her, he felt let down and his paranoia started to creep back in. Taking the battery out of his phone and grabbing his backpack, he left the hotel as only a thief would, slinking down the hall with his hand under his jacket, holding the grip of his gun.
New York was loud even at night. In some ways it was a lot like Oberast: the sordid smells, the edge of constant danger, the shadows that could and frequently did hold killers in their depths. For the first time, Roan felt as though he fit right in. Here, he wasn’t a nervous man hiding behind a thin motel room door, he was a man in his element. He even began sizing people up: easy marks, little fish, whales, barbies who were running trick-rolls, zips who ran numbers, and hoods who thought they were street kings when really they were no better than the thugs in the Ghak territory.
It was the game getting inside his mind.
And that was okay. He walked through the underbelly of the city, feeling at home. The people around him thought so as well. A few sent looks his way, sizing him up, but no one was considered testing him and it was a good thing. In Daggerland he was a middling thief who needed guile and magic to survive. Here he was deadly.
He found a hotel, but didn’t go in right away. Instead he sat at a bar across the street and drank whiskey and for the first time in a long time, he didn’t think about Arching or the assassins. Strangely, he thought about picking the pocket of the drunk sitting next to him. The man was a sad sack with the thick arms of a welder, the gut of a professional drinker and the thin legs of a twelve-year-old.
When he bumped into Roan as he stood, his wallet, a thick fold of peeling leather that had more pictures in it than bills, was suddenly in Roan’s hand. Stealing it would have taught him to hide the thing better, or so Roan rationalized as the wallet went into his own back pocket.
The lift was so natural and slick that Roan had to force himself to do what felt unnatural. “Hey, buddy, you dropped this.”
The drunk, spewing out a cloud of gin breath, thanked him profusely and Roan almost took his watch while he did. Instead he patted the man on the back and pushed him towards the door. Remembering his law enforcement status, he asked, “You’re not driving, are you?”
“Just a few blocks. I’ll be fine, you can ask Bill. He’ll vouch for me.” He pointed at Bill the bartender who looked away from the television long enough to shrug.
Roan took out his badge and felt an evil twinge of glee as he watched the drunk go pale and begin to sweat. “From now on, you walk. And Bill will make sure you do or it’ll be his ass on the line as well.” Now Bill was more interested in the proceedings and he nodded with enthusiasm.
“Good,” Roan said and pointed the drunk to the door. The drunk went out onto the street, glanced once at a dented-up Chevrolet and started stumbling up the street. From the door of the bar, Roan watched him for a block before he too left—without having paid his tab.
The hotel was five stories of graffitied brick, mildew-smelling carpet and smoke-stained ceilings. The bathroom held an odor of bleach that was sharp enough to make the hair in his nose curl. Still, in a place as ratty as this, it was a reassuring stench. It meant someone had cleaned something.
With the whiskey drooping his eyes, Roan decided to actually sleep in the hotel room instead of just using it as a place to store his body. That didn’t mean he was going to take his precautions any lighter. As he was on the fourth floor, he didn’t worry about trying to block the window since it didn’t open at all. He pushed the dresser in front of the door and then laid down.
As this was yet another strange bed in a strange part of the city, he thought he would have trouble sleeping. In this he was wrong. He was out before he knew it.
In the morning, he woke with a slight headache and an anxious feeling sweeping over him. He knew it was because he hadn’t heard from Amanda and right away he called—she didn’t answer, and she hadn’t called him either. She hadn’t called him now for a full day. The ramifications of this were frightening.
If she had been in Daggerland that entire time, her body in the real world would be suffering from dehydration and she would only have a day or two left before she died of thirst.
Roan grabbed his coupler, shoved it onto his head and clocked back. He found himself right where he had left the virtual world: in Rinely’s Cafe, sitting at the same table, looking like he was Corvo. It was early morning and the city was only just beginning to wake up. Roan didn’t notice. In front of him on the table was a picture, drawn in charcoal of an elvish woman sleeping on a bed.
It was Amanda.
Written at the bottom in what was undoubtedly blood: You are now my puppet.
Chapter 33
Ghak Territory, Oberast
He stared at the picture as his heart began to race frantically in his chest. The year before, Arching had put Amanda’s game body in a magical slumber that was so much like a coma that she had been trapped in the game. At least then he’d had her real world body. Now, she was in hiding and the danger was ten times as great. If Roan didn’t give in to whatever demands the assassins had for him, she could wither away in a matter of days.
As much as he wished to, Roan did not immediately leap up from the table and brandish his Doom blade. It would have been a waste of energy.
Instead, he sat very still and let his mind reach out. He tried to feel for the assassin who was, more than likely, nearby. Concentrating with all of his powers of detection, as well as the +9 in his Spot skill, he searched for the least shimmer, the slightest scent of sweat, the lightest whisper of breath. He came up empty.
If there was anyone around, they were too well hidden. They were unlikely to be around now. He had been tracked to the cafe, but had been on the other side for nearly ten hours. Even a top-notch assassin would get tired of waiting that long. Besides, they had Roan right where they wanted him.
He would never do anything to endanger Amanda. The first thing he had to do was try and find her in the real world. In a blink he was back in the hotel and grabbing his phone.
Covington answered on the first ring this time. “I just had a picture of Amanda emailed to me,” she said right off the bat. “It’s hand drawn and makes her look weird, sort of elf-like. After what I read about the last case, I knew it was trouble.”
“It is” he said, speaking so quickly his words ran together. “We need to find her in this world. The last time I saw her or heard from her was over a day ago which means we don
’t have long; two days at the most. I need you to book me a flight to California. I’m near JFK but can get to LaGuardia or Newark in an hour…”
“Stop,” she snapped. “There’s no way I’m putting you on a plane. Your name will be flagged in seconds and I’d put money on one of Arching’s useful idiots trying to blow it up. You can help best by giving me a hint where she might have gone. You knew her the best.”
Roan didn’t have a clue. She had been a vault when it came to her location just as he had been. And as for knowing her the best, he hadn’t known her human/ American side for a year. She hadn’t liked San Diego and had spent almost all of her free time in Daggerland with him.
The best he could suggest was to check out her case load and maybe the routes she had taken to and from work. “Perhaps there are hotels along the way.” He felt utterly useless and demanded a second time to be allowed to fly to California.
“No. And don’t even think of driving. It’ll take you two days. Maybe you should go back to Daggerland and use some sort of magic to find her there.”
At first he was furious. It sounded like she was being condescending and was treating him like a child. However, when he thought over the suggestion, he knew she was right. He would have the best chance of rescuing her in Daggerland. He hung up without saying goodbye and clocked back into a world of make believe.
His sword was out of its scabbard before his mind was fully in sync. He nearly took off Rinely’s head. The man had been glancing down at the picture of Amanda. He screeched and fell back into another table as Roan stopped the sword an inch from his face.
“Who put the picture on the table?” Roan demanded, the sword unwavering. “It wasn’t here last night when I left.”
“It w-was a man in a b-b-black cloak,” Rinely spat out. “He gave me a g-gold piece not to let anyone move it. I never saw his face, milord Corvo. I swear.”
Roan touched his face, remembering that he was in the guise of the local mob lieutenant. “Leave me,” Roan snapped, reaching down and taking the picture. He figured he would need it if he was going to get one of the local seers to help him find Amanda.
Yes, they would be afraid to help him because of the threat of the assassins, but just then he was much more of a threat than any assassin. He was quite ready to kill the first person to cross him. His only problem: the fat gnome was the only seer he knew of.
“Where’s the nearest seer?” he bellowed at Rinely.
“Werzel the Gnome is the…”
Roan pointed his sword at him again. “He’s dead.”
Rinely backed away. “I don’t know any others, milord. I’m sorry. Perhaps Lasannerre would know. She frequents seers all the time.” Lasannerre was the “lady” who ran the pawn shop two blocks down. It was there that he had first met Corvo.
Turning on his heel, he walked straight down the street towards the pawn shop, his sword still in his hands. People scurried out of his way, even a few soldiers and adventurers were smart enough not to test him. The pawn shop was closed, however when he began hammering on the door with the butt of his sword, he heard someone stomping through the store.
“Whoever is smashing my door had better…milord Corvo,” Lasannerre said, stepping back and trying to pat down the dirty mass of hair that was shooting in every direction from the roots of her skull.
He pushed past her and into the store. She had an odd look in her one eye and he decided to do some “business” with her before he brought up the question of the seer. “I need to unload a few items and I’m going to need some healing potions, maybe a lot of them.” He pulled out one of the +1 daggers, the four unknown potions, the +2 short sword and the dagger that Gairafel the Wizard had almost killed him with.
“You wake me up for this?” she asked, her one eye roving over the merchandise. “Why didn’t you break it out last night?”
Roan answered with a surly, “Because, I didn’t. Come on. We’re cleaning out C Street and I want to be maxed out.”
“Fine,” she grumbled and picked up the potions. “Four Potions of Insight, fifty each. A +1 dagger, a thousand. The short sword is worth two and let’s see about this. Ah, a Basilisk blade, I’m surprised you’d want to part with this. Let’s see, I can give eight for it. That’s eleven thousand, two hundred.”
Lasannerre started pulling the items towards her but he slapped her hand down. “Hold on. Back up a second. Eight thousand for a Basilisk blade? No way. Try fourteen.”
“I don’t got fourteen.”
“Then you don’t got the blade.” Gold in the game meant nothing to him just then, however now that the dagger had been named he knew he could see what it did: in his mind’s eye he scrolled to his items list and brought up the description of the Basilisk Blade: This +3 dagger will paralyze an opponent for three melee rounds on a successful strike. Fortitude Save of 24 will negate the paralysis.
It was a dagger that he wouldn’t want to part with. “Just the rest,” he told her. “And let me have four Potions of Extra Healing.” She grumbled as she pulled the weapons and potions towards her. By a game default, she had the healing potions as well as his gold down to the last copper ready to go on a shelf under the counter.
When he had scooped up his gold and potions, he asked, in as casual a manner as he could contrive, “Now that the gnome is dead, who do you think is the best seer in the city?”
“Werzel was never the best in the city. That’s Magenlune in the slums. Everyone knows that, but who would want to pay what she asks? Since you can’t use her, I’d say the Drunk Friar is your best bet. Why? What do you need discovering?”
“That’s my business,” he stated flatly before turning for the door. He had heard only rumors of the “slums.” It was one of the five partitioned areas of the city run by crime lords and Roan could not imagine what sort of hell it was. He had thought the Ghak area was slummy, but a place called “the slums” had to be disgusting.
Although the Slums were east of Ghak territory, he turned west just in case Lasannerre was watching. When he turned the corner, he also changed his look, becoming a destitute-looking fisherman with a cane pole and three stunted sunnies dangling from a hook.
No one bothered him as he hurried east towards the slums. They were not hard to find, all he had to was follow the growing smell of decay. By the time he found the bridge separating the two territories, his head was swimming from the stench—and it only got worse as he glanced down at “the river” below the bridge.
Had it not been for the bridge, he would not have thought there was a river at all. It looked more like a long, heaping garbage dump. An entire city’s worth of refuse and excrement was dumped in that one terrible river on a daily basis. Roan stared in utter disgust. Unbelievably it was actually flowing. Slowly, like sludge, the piles of trash moved beneath him.
Suddenly, the guise of a fisherman seemed out of place. Who in their right mind would eat anything that came from the river? Still, he was out in the open so he couldn’t exactly change to another look.
Breathing through his mouth, he crossed the bridge and found himself in the Slums and they were indeed slums, even compared to the impoverished streets in Ghak territory.
The buildings were burnt-out shells of brick or stone. The few wooden structures looked as though a light wind would send them crashing down. The windows were without glass, screens or shutters. Some had been boarded over, though most were simple squares cut out of the crumbling walls. Doors were rather hit or miss. Sometimes they were huge, iron and wood, sometimes they were flimsy and rotted, hanging on crooked hinges, and many times there was nothing but a tattered curtain.
The streets might have been cobblestone at one point, however the stones had been pulled up long before and now Roan was treading on trash; layers and layers of it.
Unlike in the rest of the city, there weren’t ordinary businesses with store fronts and signs. Everything was hidden away. In fact, the slums seemed, at first glance, abandoned. The streets were trashed but comp
letely empty, and Roan could hear his footfalls echo as he walked.
There were people, however. He felt their eyes on him and every once in a while he caught glimpses of them: dirty and evil with pinched, narrow, rat-like faces. They must have been utterly destitute since they leered at his pole and his fish and even the simple vest he wore.
When he looked hard at them, the faces disappeared into the depths of the unlit buildings, but they never went far. They were watching him and they were gathering. All around him came scurrying sounds, hissing whispers and faint chuckles. There was also the scrape of weapons. He knew they were going to attack seconds before they came at him, rushing him from six directions at once.
2—
Roan had his Doom blade out in a flash of white light and in one swift move slit a throat in a sideways cut. He struck with a +12 to hit for his first attack every round and a +7 for his second, meaning he almost couldn’t miss against these low level bandits(XP +22) (XP +22).
On the other hand, they were going against his armor class of 21. Four of them slashed with rusting and jagged swords and either because of his quickness, his magic ring or the toughness of his studded leather, they all missed.
They wouldn’t miss forever, especially if they wised up and gang rushed him with the intent of tackling him and pinning him to the ground. All the magic in the world wouldn’t save him then. To keep that from happening, he put his back to a wall and lashed out with his sword as fast as he could, dropping any that dared to come within range of his blade. Three more died before the rest fled back into the old buildings(XP +22)(XP +22)(XP +22). He didn’t bother picking through the bodies.
Infinite Assassins: Daggerland Online Novel 2 A LITRPG Adventure Page 31
