“Lovely. In the meantime, I’m going to try dodging the weapon of Armageddon and try to save my city. The dark church members in the inn?”
“Yes. They’re in their room. I’m afraid I must go, though, and I won’t be able to help for a time. Part of my job is to maintain the core, and right now, that’ll take most of my attention and concentration. I’m sorry, my king. I’ll make this up to you, I swear it.”
Ryker managed to make it to the inn without a problem.
Not waiting, he went to their room and knocked on the door twice.
“Who is it?” called someone from inside.
“Your benefactor. A champion of the light just arrived. We need to get you out. Now,” Ryker said. He didn’t have to time to dilly-dally, or to mess around.
He wanted them up and moving immediately.
“What?”
“That can’t be.”
“No!”
Each voice was different and they all seemed concerned, to say the least.
“Yep. Get your asses in gear, time to go. Hurry the fuck up,” Ryker said, trying to open the door but finding it locked. “Forget your fucking stuff and let’s go. That or tell me this life and death information so I can tell it to Lauren through a normal courier while that champion of light is skull fucking you.”
The door swung inward and Ryker saw three cloaked individuals.
“Fuck me, you three look like you were worshiping at the altar of darkness itself. Drop all that and put on some normal clothes,” Ryker said. “Actually, screw that. Strip to your underclothes. It’s rather warm out so that’d fly better than the black stuff.”
Ryker flicked a hand at them and went for the back entrance. Pausing only to snatch someone’s cloak off a peg, he pulled it on and pulled the hood up over his head.
He heard thumping as the three seemingly scrambled to do what he said. There was no time to wait though. Playing babysitter and tour guide wasn’t in his job description.
None of this shit is.
Stepping out into the small field at the back of the inn, he folded his arms in front of himself. Waiting impatiently, he tapped his foot.
He had half a mind to simply kill them and sort through their memories to find out what they had.
That might take too long, though, depending on the information. There was also no guarantee he’d know the information even if he found it.
It was a crap-shoot he wasn’t willing to make a wager on.
Which left him sitting here waiting for three idiots while a champion of the light was probably ruining his city already.
Two men and a woman stumbled out of the inn and immediately looked to him.
They looked lightly dressed, but not like they were all part of a cult.
“Great. Let’s go. We need to get out of the city quick, before that champion decides he’s better off leveling the whole place just to find you three. Better that he thinks you escaped and chases you off into where-the-fuck-ever, so long as it isn’t in Dungeon.”
Damn idiots brining trouble to my city. Trouble to my home. This is the last thing I need right now.
Grumbling to himself, Ryker peeked around the corner to see if the champion was on the road. He spotted the man immediately, and ducked back around the corner. The champion was heading for the inn.
“Well fuck. Alright… I guess we wait until he’s likely to be inside then bolt?” Ryker asked no one.
“That’s your plan?” asked the woman.
“My plan? My plan was to not deal with this shit. At all. You’re not in my plans in any way, shape or form. I only give a flying fuck about you for Lauren’s sake,” Ryker said acidly. “So yeah, my plan is to throw your asses over the wall and pretend you don’t exist. Got a better one?”
Falling silent, the woman said nothing else for a few moments.
“Fine. You, third, go in the other direction and head for the wall by yourself. You, second, remain here and try to slip away after the champion arrives. Split up, do your best to draw it away from me if that’s all you can do,” said the woman to the two men.
“Here we go,” Ryker said. He’d heard the champion shouting from what sounded like the inside of the inn.
Not waiting for the woman, Ryker entered the road and set off at a fairly swift walk. The woman fell in beside him, her pace matching his.
Ryker snatched her hand and enfolded his fingers into hers, and pulled her close to his side.
“What the hell—”
“Shut up and act like an interested woman. They’re looking for church members, not a man and a woman out for a walk,” Ryker growled out. “Unless you want to stick out more? Maybe they’ll think you’re a whore and I’m taking you home. That’d be best.”
“I—you’re insufferable,” the woman said, pressing in close to his side. She shifted his arm around until she pressed her chest into his forearm.
“I hear that a lot.”
They were a long distance from the inner checkpoint, and even further from the outer palisade extension. There wasn’t going to be a good way to get her through either checkpoint.
Lately the church had been stationing their own soldiers along with the city guard and causing problems.
Edwin had told him that it wasn’t going to be long before they had to give up the checkpoints to the church, simply due to the fact that they probably couldn’t win a fight with them anyways.
His city was falling faster and faster to the damned church.
Damn them.
A distant rumble started up behind them, that rapidly built into an explosion. Casting a look over his shoulder Ryker caught what looked like fragments of building flying through the air.
Whatever had happened back there had been explosive.
“Damn me,” Ryker muttered.
“Champions are powerful. Powerful and merciless,” said the woman from the dark church. “That was the one I told to remain at the inn.”
The inn? He blew up my inn? What in the hells!
Ryker turned his eyes forward again and moved as quick as he could without raising suspicion.
Or that was the idea.
He couldn’t really stop and check and there wasn’t really a way for him to slow down without feeling as if the champion would be landing on his spine.
“How exactly do you plan on getting me past the checkpoint?” asked the woman.
“Dunno yet. Not really a concern till we get there though, is it?”
Pulling at her hand, he yanked her through an open market, and into a building. Dashing through it at a sprint he pulled her along into an alleyway.
Unceasing in his mad dash, she seemingly flew behind him. Practically a banner really as he dragged her through several abandoned buildings and a bakery.
A number of people yelled at him, but he paid them no heed.
Right now the biggest danger lay in the crazy person who was blowing up buildings in his city.
There would be no stopping unless he had to.
“Can he track you somehow?” Ryker asked.
“No. If I don’t use any magic, or come in direct contact with him, there’s no way he could find me,” she said immediately.
“Well, that’s one thing in my gods damned favor at least,” Ryker grumbled.
He paused briefly at an intersection, checked the signs, and tried to settle into a more mundane walk, strolling towards the checkpoint as if it were an everyday occurrence.
Then again, how often do people leave Dungeon randomly. Need some type of cover story, don’t we?
Shit, shit.
I’m no good at this cloak and dagger crap. Give me a person to turn into a flambé, a bed to fuck on, or something to solve.
“You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?” asked the dark church member.
“Not a damn clue, really.”
“I’m going to die.”
“Well, not if I can help it? It’d be against the whole point of this. I’m open to ideas though.”
Up ahead at the end of the street, Ryker could see the checkpoint. It was manned by only the city guard.
Maybe I’ll get lucky and the damn temple guards went to investigate?
“I don’t know… the only thing that popped into my mind is smuggling your mistress out of the city. Like your wife is beginning to suspect you and you want me gone before I can cause problems.”
Uh… what? That’s… I mean, that’d be something that a count would do, I suppose, but it’d put me in jeopardy.
Wouldn’t it?
“Outside of that… I don’t really have any ideas. I mean… they’re your guards, can’t you just tell them to let me go?”
“I can, but that’d be the answer people went to anyways, even if I didn’t say it. Ugh. There’s really no easy way out of this, is there. And getting past this checkpoint just leaves me having to repeat the story, or the same command, to the second set of guards at the palisade.”
There really wasn’t a clear or easy answer here.
A single loud detonation made Ryker’s head spin around.
It was followed by several more in rapid succession. Then a column of light came down from the sky, and fire erupted upward afterward.
What the shit…
“I think… I think that was the person I sent to the other gate… I… if they were caught as they went, we might have a chance. If he went to the gate though…”
She let the statement hang. It was more or less what he’d been thinking as well.
If he was going to each gate to check, he could just show up. Or not at all. Even after they’d passed.
There really wasn’t a guarantee on their safety at all in going to a gate.
“Mistress it is,” Ryker said.
Holding tightly to the woman’s hand, Ryker moved quickly to the guard on duty. There was only one here right now as the number of ingoing and outgoing people from the north had fallen off steeply.
There were no temple soldiers anywhere nearby. This was his chance, and he’d be a fool to squander it.
Coming in close to the guard, Ryker pulled two gold coins from a purse on the inside of his tunic.
“Could you do me a favor and let her slip by for a small price?” Ryker asked, holding his hand out to shake the guard’s.
“I’m sorry, sir, I can’t do that. I’m loyal to the count. I couldn’t—”
“What if I told you, I’m the count you’re loyal to? And this is so I don’t incur some personal shame,” Ryker said, committing to the plan.
“Sir…?” the guard said, peering into the hood.
“Forgive me, I’ve made mistakes, and I’m going to pay for them. I’d rather they not fall on the head of someone who doesn’t deserve it.”
The guard blinked, and then nodded his head with a grim, and somewhat sad, smile.
“I can certainly understand that one, sir. You’ll need to make the checkpoint at the palisade aware in the same way if you want to get her by.”
“I understand. Thank you. Both for your loyalty, your understanding, and your discretion.”
Ryker turned and led the servant of the dark pantheon to the next checkpoint, repeating the same process.
No sooner had she got out of sight of the gate, than Ryker turned and hurried back into Dungeon.
He was hopeful they’d keep their mouths shut about the entire ordeal.
And that the champion of light never found out.
Though truth be told, he feared more what Adele or Diane would do if the story got back to them.
The champion could only kill him once, after all.
Chapter 34- Sucker Punch -
Ryker hadn’t made it two steps back inside the city proper before he was forced to a standstill.
Mostly to try and hear what someone was shouting at the top of their lungs. He couldn’t make it out. Not enough to understand it.
Breaking into a trot, Ryker went towards the voice.
It wasn’t until he was practically atop the temple battleground that he realized it was the champion of light.
Shouting at Robyn, to be exact.
For her part, the former paladin stood in the center of the battleground.
Motionless.
She stared straight ahead, unmoving.
Held at her side was her big two-handed sword. Slicked and covered in blood, it was a gruesome looking thing.
All around her were the bodies of the most recent attack from the church.
The champion stood on the outer limit of the temple grounds. Unwilling to cross it to challenge her.
“Don’t you see what you’ve become?” asked the champion. “You’re an abomination!”
Need to remember to reward her for just being here. This is probably the very reason I didn’t have to deal with the champion heading back my way.
“A living abomination in the eyes of our Lord!”
The champion finally took a step onto the once holy ground, magic materializing in his hand.
Robyn’s head snapped towards him, her eyes flicking open.
There was nothing there but rage.
Her left hand came up in front of her, the gauntleted hand closing into a fist. A shield of light materialized in front of her. Incredibly thick and bright in its grandeur.
“The filth of the church will be baptized with fire!” Robyn shouted at the champion, her voice boisterous and full of pain. “And in that cleansing agony, it shall be reborn anew!”
Stepping back immediately without attacking, the champion stared at Robyn. He looked to be at a loss, and didn’t know quite how to proceed.
Damn, if he just attacked her, she’d be allowed to engage him completely.
Before the champion could assess the situation any further, a black bolt of what felt like evil materialized stabbed through the air.
As if he had all the time in the world to react, the champion of light lazily knocked it out of midair in front of him with a swipe of his hand.
“You dare show your face here?!” the champion called towards an alleyway.
“I’ll show my face anywhere you are. So I can grind you down into the grit and gravel,” called a voice from the shadows.
“Come out and play then, champion of evil.”
“No, I’ll be seeing you tonight. Sleep tight.”
The champion of light flashed towards the alley.
An explosion of brick and stones went in every direction as the man blew through a building to get at what Ryker assumed was the champion of the dark pantheon.
Shielding himself, Ryker ducked away, bits of and chunks of the building pelting him from head to foot.
“Gods damn you all,” Ryker cursed, taking flight before he could get caught up in this latest situation.
With a minor use of his mana pool, he opened up a spell into the space of the dungeon.
“There is another champion in the city,” said Charlotte helpfully.
“I noticed! Anything you can do?”
“No. We’re protecting your wives with our limited resources. We can’t break the formation without risking them. Your familiar is with Diane as well.”
“Well fine then. Do that. But I’m starting to wonder—”
There was a massive explosion and Ryker was thrown to the ground. Dust and fine grit billowed over him, whipping his clothes and hair from side to side.
When it finally stopped, Ryker got to his feet with all the grace of a drunk.
His ears were ringing, and his head felt heavy.
“What…” he said, turning around slowly.
He managed to get himself stable at the same time a large building came toppling down. It had been a larger structure in Dungeon, six stories tall and having been built for a lookout post. Crashing down it smashed into several buildings beneath it. Screams filled the air in fear and pain.
Ryker got himself turned back towards the mansion and started to stumble on again.
This is done. This is all done. Need to get Adele and Diane.
&nbs
p; Maybe Claire.
Everything is going to get wrecked. They’ve turned my city into a battlefield. There won’t be much left. Gotta… gotta get out. Get to safety.
Get into the dungeon.
The dungeon, yes. Dungeon is safe. Cannot enter the dungeon without being an enemy.
Ryker nodded his head, agreeing with his own thoughts.
That was the plan.
It was the driving thought in his mind.
Which was knocked clean out of his head when a church guard ran up to him and smashed him in the face with the hilt of his sword.
His knees went out, and Ryker couldn’t stop himself from going down in a heap.
A second later and he was staring upward, into the faces of a number of church soldiers as they began crowding around him.
Shit. I guess they were waiting for an opportunity like this to kill me.
This’d be it, wouldn’t it?
Damn.
There was a sudden shout, screams, and then it was all drowned out by a deafening roar.
Intense bright light swept out over everything. Washing over all.
It was a blinding and furious light, that enveloped all in its dazzling brilliance.
***
Ryker wasn’t sure how long he was out.
One moment he couldn’t comprehend anything, and the next all he could see was blurry images and fuzzy shapes.
The world started to come back into focus slowly. Painfully bright afterimages were at the edges of his vision and spots floated across his view.
Sitting up, he looked around without lifting his head, which right now didn’t feel like it was attached particularly well to his neck.
Burnt and smoldering corpses were all around him, their arms and armor cherry red and smoking.
Uncomprehending, Ryker got to his feet.
Tottering to and fro, he felt as if he were on the tail end of a particularly bad two day bender. After a few seconds he found a neutral position that felt like his head wasn’t bobbling around on a stick.
Slowly, carefully, he looked around again.
Beyond the smoking corpses there was nothing. Everyone had fled the area.
The only person nearby was Robyn, who was staring at him.
Seemingly satisfied once he looked at her, she nodded her head once, and then went back to her earlier pose.
Dungeon Deposed Page 36
