Artos Dunford (government name Josh D’Angelo) had a feeling that life had it in for him. The events at the Eagle’s Bath only served to convince him of it.
Case in point: minutes before his third demise, he found himself holding pocket deuces, looked at the big shit-eating grin on Master Blaster as he raised, and folded, sacrificing the twenty silvers he was in for. The monetary loss wasn’t a big deal, but Artos/Josh was getting tired of losing. He’d been doing that a lot, both before and after he’d downloaded Eternal Journey Online and made the fateful mouse click that had gotten him to the Realms.
Losing at cards wasn’t a big deal. What was a big deal was having to give up the level 25 Masterwork sword – a Spellcaster’s Blade – that he’d gotten as his reward for clearing the Iron Hall of the Malleum Mallum. He’d spent a lot of blood and sweat to conquer that level, even died once during the damn dungeon crawl, and all he’d gotten out of it had been some gold, a pat on the head, and a ‘sorry, but the sword is too good for you, so you have to contribute it to the guild.’ Life sucked.
It was about to suck a lot worse, but he didn’t know that yet.
Artos still hoped things would improve. The Nerf Herders had invented guns, after all. As soon as they could make enough of them, they would get set for life. He’d never fired a gun in his life, but had undergone some training under the supervision of K-Bar, the nasty ex-Marine Kaiser had put in charge of the Equalizer Program. Each six-man sniper team currently hunting Hawke Lightseeker had two of the new guns; a Dragunov Mark One long rifle, and a Roland Assault Weapon.
The guns – they had made ten so far, five of each type – didn’t shoot very fast, but they had helped the Herders kill a bunch of high-level wizards during the operation that had brought down the Council’s Tower. Nobody in this giant Ren Faire could handle someone who could shoot farther than most spells available in the lowbie zone, a.k.a. the Common Realm. Things would probably get tougher when the guild moved on to more advanced areas, though.
Artos didn’t want to go to other Realms. His plan after Kaiser conquered the Ruby Empire was to earn himself an admin position in the new Empire and help run things for the Herders. Playing a rogue-wizard in a game was one thing. Watching someone kick feebly and call for his mother as his guts spilled out of a gruesome wound – well, that was something else altogether. And the stuff some of the Herders were into made his stomach churn. They weren’t freaking barbarians, they were Americans! But they behaved worse than gangsters. Kaiser was the worst one, of course. Artos hadn’t signed up to be the bad guy. He wanted out, but his only choice was to go along until something turned up. His bad luck couldn’t last forever.
A sudden buzzing sound in his head warned him and the rest of the team that the roof sensors had been activated. The magical triggers were attuned to only one person, and Artos felt a shiver run down his back at the thought they might be facing the weird Paladin. The guy who had defied Kaiser and killed Girl-Has No-Name, who was the scariest person he had met. A moment later one of the traps attached to the trigger went off, and he felt a bit relieved. The trap’s attached spell delivered an enhanced Sleep spell that would knock out any target under 25th level. He’d helped set it up, and if it’d been activated, that meant that Hawke was down.
“Buff up, everyone!” Gorat barked as he grabbed the Roland. The ugly half-orc was the team leader, and he wasn’t taking any chances. “Shade, get up there. Glorificus and I will back you up. The rest of you, stay alert. He might have brought friends along.”
Artos drew his paired swords as he made sure that Mana Shield was up and his spell rotation (Sleep, Stun, Major Lightning Bolt and Shackles of Thunder) was ready to go. If the bastard or his friends tried to teleport into the room, the traps they’d set up on the ground would hit him with another high-power knock-out spell. Orders were to take him alive. Too bad for him.
Shade went up the ladder leading to the roof trapdoor, opened it – and dropped limply to the ground, landing on top of Gorat. He’d been hit with the Sleep trap. But how?
Darkness filled the room. It didn’t blind any of them – they all had devices that let them see without any light – but it meant the Paladin was trying something. Artos backed up against a wall, waiting for the bastard to teleport in and get zapped.
A shadowy figure popped in right next to the table where they’d been playing cards; Artos could see it but the gloom made it hard to tell what it was wearing or any other details. The traps flared up and the greenish glow of Sleep spells enveloped the target, and in that light he saw a bizarre humanoid creature seemingly made of some kind of grayish smoke. That wasn’t Hawke. Some sort of summoned creature?
Tulpa (Mana Construct)
Level 20 Minion
Health 600 Mana n/a Endurance n/a
Gorat shot the creature, working the reloading lever fast as he could. One shot was more than enough to kill the wimpy critter, but Gorat capped it three times before it disappeared. A moment later, however, tendrils of solid darkness sprang out from the floor, wrapping around everyone’s legs. Artos cursed; the grasping tentacles didn’t do any damage, but they immobilized him. He readied the Sleep spell and looked for a target.
A new figure teleported in. The traps had already been triggered, but the five Herders let it have with everything they had. Nobody could get into melee range while they struggled against the grasping shadow tentacles, but they all had ranged attacks. Artos struck with his prepped spells, and grunted in shock when it didn’t work. It wasn’t Hawke, yet again, but another summoned monster, a Darkness Elemental. The humanoid figure was a lot tougher; it survived the first flurry of attacks, although its Health was down in the low hundreds when Hawke finally showed his face.
A giant in monstrous jet-black plate armor teleported right next to Gorat; before the Half-Orc could react, the newcomer’s glowing sword struck, a massive critical hit. Artos gasped as he saw a red 1,846 emerge out of the point of impact. Gorat didn’t drop dead – he had over three thousand Health – but he staggered from the hit. He began to bring the Roland-1 to bear – and froze when Hawke looked into his eyes and triggered a Chaos-infused Death spell. Gorat’s head exploded from the inside out, splashing through his helmet.
Artos panicked and his Sleep spell fizzled out. A throwing knife and a crossbow bolt bounced off a glowing energy shield around Hawke. Fraggo managed to land a Flame Spear on the armored figure, but the high-power attack did nothing but lower the Paladin’s blue energy pool a little; the bastard had a Mana Shield!
Hawke Lightseeker, Lord of the Dead (Half-Elf, Eternal)
Level 19 Paladin and Monster Handler
Health 1,666 Mana 2,611/3,760 Endurance 1,290/1,375
A tornado of Death and Chaos energies filled the room, sucking the life out everyone. Artos screamed in agony. It felt as if every wound he had ever suffered had opened up again. The AOE inflicted well over eight hundred damage to everyone in the room, despite their protections. Artos’ Mana Shield spared his life, but his Mana pool was almost completely drained. He summoned a potion from his inventory while the watched the dark Paladin behead Fraggo with a single slashing blow, and follow up with a flying hammer made of Light energy that nailed Glorificus, who had managed to maneuver the cumbersome Dragunov and shoot Hawke, for all the good it did him.
The Darkness elemental, who had survived when Hawke arrived and everyone had to deal with the new threat, noticed Artos and sent a bolt of shadow energy that smashed the Mana Potion before Artos could drink it. Bastard! Artos burned all but fifteen of his Mana on a Lightning Bolt that finished off the summoned monster. Now, where was...?
He looked up just in time to see the inhuman shape of Hawke’s helmet looming over him. His bladder let go just as the glowing sword flashed towards him, moving impossibly fast.
That was the last thing Artos saw until he respawned at the Herders’ compound.
* * *
“I think I know how he did it,” Spectre said, walking Kaiser through the c
rime scene.
They’d all heard the story from the six idiots after they’d respawned, hours after Hawke had killed them. None of them had been zeroed out, although they deserved nothing less. They’d gotten bored, kept only two people on watch instead of three like they were supposed to, and the other four had been playing cards instead of resting when Hawke walked in and slaughtered them to a man, despite all the spells and traps they had set to prevent just that eventuality. Then the first two Herders to arrive at the scene of the crime had stepped on a trap Hawke had set and gotten blasted into oblivion by a Death Cyclone. Having eight people lose one of their lives on the same day was something of a record, and not one Kaiser had wanted to break.
Kaiser wanted to feed them all to the Whisperer, but he might need them moving forward. Instead, he made a mental note to eventually give them what they deserved and listened to Spectre’s recount of the events.
“He disarmed some traps, used the same design to ambush the first person that got into the roof, and sent these ‘Tulpas’ in to trigger the ones he hadn’t touched.”
“The traps were designed for Hawke himself. We had enough of his blood from the fight at my office to individualize them.”
Spectre nodded. “Whatever these Tulpas are, they can mimic his energy signature, so to speak. The traps reacted as if it was him.”
“We need to research this.”
“Nobody in the Guild seems to know what Tulpas are. I’ll send people to the City Library. Unfortunately, the best source in Akila for that sort of information was the Council’s Tower.”
Kaiser suppressed a snarl at the implied criticism. The strike team had stolen some books, but they had gone primarily for scrolls and spell books, not encyclopedias. There were limits to even Bonded Vaults and time had been of the essence. The worst part was that they hadn’t managed to wipe the Council, either. Some might say Kaiser might have made a mistake there, but the truth was, his people had let him down. They should have provided him with enough information to make the right decision. He was surrounded by incompetents.
“Hawke then teleported into the staircase rather than the room, avoiding the traps there, and sent another Tulpa and a different summon – some kind of Darkness Elemental – after Shade was knocked out on his way to the roof. He used a Darkness spell to immobilize everyone, teleported in, and killed them all with a combination of fancy swordplay and magic. Lots of Death and Undeath magic, to be precise, enhanced with Chaos energy. Kind of odd for a Paladin of Light, but the combat logs don’t lie. He even had a necromantic title: Lord of the Dead.
Lord of the Dead. Titles didn’t get handed over by the Arbiters except for great achievements. Kaiser clenched his teeth. Hawke kept pissing him off.
“We knew he wasn’t an ordinary Paladin,” Kaiser said. “We had anti-stealth systems in place, for that very reason.”
“He spotted the team before it detected him. Probably using another summoned creature. He is a Monster Handler, after all, in addition to whatever other class he is.”
“Even for an Eternal, knowing so many tricks is ridiculous. Where did he learn them?”
“As a Paladin, he has access to the gods. Maybe they intervened?”
“Paladin of Light. That makes him a follower of Lumina or Bel around these parts, and neither of them teaches Darkness or Death magic to their followers.”
“Maybe that’s part of his fake identity and he follows Hades or Tenebra instead.”
Kaiser grunted and shrugged. His policy – suggested to him by the Whisperer – of not dealing with the gods of the Realms had caused some troubles. Priest and Paladin Eternals were given the choice to forsake their class and become something else – the option was possible at low levels, although it required a quest and a lengthy ritual to achieve – or to be dealt with summarily. He had no intention of letting the so-called higher powers get involved in his affairs, and thanks to the Whisperer he didn’t have to fear their wrath, at least not directly. The priesthoods could be troublesome enough, however, and maybe Hawke was a tool of the gods, one aimed at Kaiser. The necromantic abilities the so-called Paladin had displayed were worrisome. What if he wasn’t so much a nemesis as… competition for the same role Kaiser was playing? Was Hawke another disciple of the Whisperer?
Deep in thought, he simply nodded as Spectre ran through the brief but murderous fight in the room. The bastard was good; Kaiser had to give him that. Even considering that he’d had the element of surprise, and that the cramped quarters had been a major disadvantage for a group dominated by ranged specialists, the way he’d carved his way through them was impressive. Shooting him might have been a mistake. Never do an enemy a small injury. Next time Kaiser killed Hawke – he had fired the last headshot himself, and damned if it hadn’t felt great – he would make sure there would be no coming back.
Spectre stopped by the table in the center of the room, a worried look in his face. Kaiser turned his focus on his surroundings again and realized that Hawke had carved a message for him on the wooden surface. He almost lost his shit right then and there. He wasn’t used to being mocked so openly:
NOW I HAVE A MACHINE GUN
HO-HO-HO
“What does that mean?” Spectre asked. “He stole a rifle and a carbine, not a machine gun.”
“It’s a movie quote,” Kaiser said through clenched teeth; his jaw was beginning to hurt. “Hawke apparently appreciates the classics. Too bad he never grew out of the illusion that the world belongs to the McClanes rather than the Grubers.”
Spectre nodded but he clearly had no idea what Kaiser was talking about. Perhaps that was for the best. People familiar with the movie might appreciate Hawke’s humor a little too much, and remember the fate of the mastermind of the story.
“Break the table into pieces and throw it out. And don’t mention the message to anybody.”
“Death-Dealer and Naruto found it. Death-Dealer burst into laughter and said something about Christmas.”
“Never mind that.”
The mocking message was a minor irritant. Losing the two guns and their ammo was something else. Since they only had a grand total of ten models of each type, they couldn’t Soul Bind them to one user, which would have removed the weapons after their owners’ death. Instead, they had trapped and warded them so that the firearms could only be used by a Nerf Herder. If anyone else tried to operate them, the weapon would self-destruct, with likely fatal consequences. Maybe the joke would be on Hawke after all, but Kaiser doubted it. It might take him a while, but after he disarmed the traps, the Herders would lose the monopoly on guns – well, gun-like weapons – that they had enjoyed for a whole four weeks.
It could have been worse. The contraptions were extremely expensive and hard to make. Mass-producing them would be impossible, at least in the Common Realm, and unless Hawke had a stable of crafters at his disposal, he wouldn’t be able to replicate them. Kaiser put the setback aside and concentrated on his next move. Hawke was impulsive; the attack on the sniper team had been an improvised move. There must be a way to use that against the alleged Paladin. For example, he might decide to try the same trick twice.
“Pull out the sniper teams,” he ordered. “We’ll have them cover the compound for now. Replace them with snatch teams. Add extra layers of traps. For all the good that will do, if he can create these Tulpas that can fool them.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And make sure the people in charge keep their teams on their toes. This isn’t a goddamn game.”
He didn’t have high hopes, but it was his best chance to lure Hawke into an ambush without risking any more of his precious guns. And from what the Whisperer had told him, other events were in motion. Soon, Hawke would have other things to worry about.
“What about the guys in the team?” the spy said with a gesture encompassing the room.
“They’ll pay the cost of those guns, for starters. When the crisis is over, they’re going back to the M & M and grind levels. All the loot a
nd materials they find will go into the Guild coffers until the debt is paid. After that, I’ll think of some other suitable punishment.”
Give them to me, the cold voice that had become as familiar as his own said inside his head.
How? Kaiser asked.
He didn’t argue. That sort of sacrifice was rewarded with power. Maybe enough to deal with Hawke by himself. But if he was asked to perform a ritual sacrifice in front of the rest of the Guild, that could be troublesome. He’d managed to hide his patron from everyone so far; if they learned the truth, things might go south in a hurry. The oaths he’d made everyone take protected him from outright mutiny, but he didn’t want his enforcers and door-kickers to have second thoughts about following him. He couldn’t supervise everyone.
Send them to the sewers in the Lowers, he Whisperer told him.
A set of coordinates appeared in Kaiser’s personal map. Coming up with an excuse to send them there wouldn’t be a problem, and nobody would know what was waiting for them there. Kaiser himself didn’t, although he was certain it would be a fitting punishment for those idiots.
When?
Tomorrow will be soon enough. They will help accelerate what is to come. This city will not serve your needs, Kaiser. Its days are coming to an end.
Kaiser was no coward, but found it hard to repress a shudder. Something major was about to happen, and all his plans might well turn into nothing, like a child’s sandcastle meeting the rising tide. The thing he hated most was not being in control, but somehow when the Whisperer told him to do things, he didn’t mind. It was as if the entity was a part of him rather than an outside force.
Whatever happened to the rest of Akila, the Nerf Herders – except the six fools he would deliver to the Whisperer and anybody he deemed to be dead weight – would be around to pick up the pieces.
The raid on the Council of the Wise had netted them one item that he could use to take over the city: a Rod of Rulership that could temporarily nullify the enchantments and defenses of a city. It wasn’t enough by itself, but under the right circumstances – in the midst of a crisis, for example – it could put him on top. Those plans might no longer be practical, but the Rod might still allow him to take over a different place. The town of Orom, perhaps. The thought made him smile. Maybe he would take everything Hawke cared for before finishing him off.
Guilds at War: The LitRPG Saga Continues Page 13
