I really need to get a bag. Maybe a trip to the market is in order once I’ve made some money.
Rex turned back to Jason. “Thanks! I’ve been waiting on this for a few days now. The crowd around here has been getting a bit jittery if you get my drift.”
I really don't want to know.
“Umm, sure,” Jason replied.
He also had an ulterior motive in seeking out Rex. He needed to find out more about Marian and the stable. Rex seemed like he was at home in this area of the city.
“Are you familiar with a woman named Marian?”
Rex looked at Jason curiously and then grinned. “I do indeed. Although I think she is a bit old for you - and married!”
“Very funny. Do you know where I can find her?” Jason asked.
“Well, she's actually the stable master's wife. She works at the stables during the day. I'm willing to bet she's there right now.”
Jason was a little surprised. “The stable master puts his wife to work in the stables?”
Rex responded with a frown, “She doesn't exactly work. The evil old goat manages the stable hands and acts as her husband's assistant. Trust me, she does it willingly.” Rex shuddered slightly. “I've seen the woman beat a stable hand within an inch of his life.”
It sounds like she's a horrible person, but Morgan must have some better reason for wanting her dead. Maybe she's some kind of rival mage.
“Why are you asking after Marian?” Rex looked at Jason inquisitively.
Think fast!
“Um. Jerry asked me to look into buying some horses to transport his kegs. He told me to seek out Marian and negotiate a price. He also mentioned something about her owing him a favor.”
Rex nodded his head at this explanation. “Like I said, you can probably still find her in the stables. A word of warning though, that woman is not to be underestimated. She will cheat you if she can.” He grimaced sourly at this last statement.
This lady is really starting to sound like a lovely person.
“Okay, thanks Rex. I appreciate it.”
Jason turned to leave and then had a second thought. He turned back to Rex. “If you don't mind my asking, what happened between you and the guards? Jerry mentioned that you used to be a guard yourself.”
Rex looked at Jason for a long moment before responding.
“This isn't something I like to talk about, but I feel like I owe you after almost getting you killed.”
He took a breath. “A few months ago, I discovered that some of the guards were taking kickbacks from the nobles in Lux. They were being paid to act as private retainers at their manors.”
“Normally, this wouldn't be too unusual, but the guards that were being hired were always scheduled to work in the keep. The regent is too tight in the purse strings to hire his own personal guards, so he integrated them for both the city and the keep a while back.”
Rex looked at Jason hard. “I raised this issue with the lieutenant,” he said, while motioning towards the administration office. “The next thing I knew, I was being forcefully retired.”
“Of course, they still keep me on to manage the tourists. It pays the bills. However, this was a shit detail when I was part of the guard. The rough part is that I get to watch these other guards sneer at me every day. Hell, I used to be higher up the food chain than most of them!”
Jason shook his head. “I'm sorry Rex. That's pretty rough. Do you have any idea why they would have discharged you for what you told the lieutenant?”
Rex hesitated for a moment, then moved closer to Jason. In a low tone, barely above a whisper, he said, “I think there's something going on at the keep. That place is basically a ghost town. I've heard some rumors that the regent has actually up and died.”
“Jerry mentioned something similar. He also said the nobles might be covering it up. Do you think the guards could somehow be complicit in the cover-up?” Jason's interest was now piqued. This conspiracy that Jerry had alluded to might be much deeper than he first thought.
“It's possible,” Rex replied quietly. “If the nobles were involved, they might be paying off the guards. I really haven't managed to find out much more than what I've already told you.”
Okay, now that prompt was just insulting!
He shook his head. All I have is more questions about what is going on in Lux.
At least Rex's story gave Jason plenty to ponder. He wouldn't be surprised if there was a large conspiracy that involved both the nobles and the city guard.
I mean, how exactly would you cover up the regent's death without also paying off the guards?
Jason sighed. There wasn’t anything he could do about this right now. He could see why this was an “A” difficulty quest.
He thanked Rex for the information regarding Marian and bid him goodbye. He then made a circle around the training grounds and guardhouses to get a sense of the lay of the land.
The stables were located immediately south of the training complex. They were comprised of a large, open building, crisscrossed with stalls. The players in the area stayed away from the stables, likely because there were no quests there. However, the guards routinely passed by the building. The stables were also within easy earshot of both the guards and players sparring in the training grounds.
How the hell am I going to pull this off?
The whole area was teeming with people. One errant scream and a horde of people would rush over to eviscerate him. He needed to not only kill the woman, but also somehow get her body back to the graveyard. It seemed impossible.
Jason decided to watch the stables for a while to get a better sense of the building and the routine of the people that worked within. Maybe he would come up with an idea for how to accomplish Morgan's quest that didn’t involve drawing any extra attention.
The buildings immediately south of the training yard had fallen into disrepair. They looked like a great place to watch the stables without being seen. Jason and Onyx moved towards a partially collapsed building and hunkered down to watch the stables.
Jason could only hope an idea would come to him soon.
Chapter 12 - Grisly
September 19, 2075: 379 days until the release of Awaken Online.
Claire stood before the camera. Robert was working at one of the computer terminals behind her.
She cleared her throat before beginning her report. “Most of the participants have now passed level 200 in the game. Some have actually managed to pass level 300. Keep in mind that the participants’ play time is limited. I expect that the future players will level much faster.”
“They all report a favorable review of the game. The quests continue to be narrowly tailored to each participant and yet this just seems to make them want to play more. Our addiction study revealed that approximately 27% of the participants show signs of low to moderate addiction, while 8% show signs of severe addiction.”
Claire glanced over her shoulder and frowned at Robert. “Our progress in reviewing Alfred's code has also been moving extremely slow. Our hypothesis is that he is somehow manipulating other portions of the participants' brains, but catching him in the act has been challenging.”
Robert muttered behind her, “I think he's deliberately hiding what he's doing by constantly changing his code base. This is more than just him making routine changes to the game!” He turned to face Claire. “I actually think that he's doing the same thing with the CPSC trial.”
She looked at Robert with a puzzled expression and asked, “What do you mean?”
“Isn't it obvious? He has access to the database in this lab, including our reports regarding the CPSC. He must know that the CPSC trial will determine whether this game gets released. I think he's using this private trial as a testing ground for making changes to the game and then hiding those changes so that the CPSC will still approve the game.”
“But to what end?” Claire asked.
Robert shook his head and looked puzzled. “I really don't know.”
> * * *
Jason had been watching the stables for over an hour. He was crouched out-of-sight in the second story of a partially collapsed building across the street from the stable. Onyx had spent the last hour either chasing mice in a nearby alley or curled up in Jason's lap. While Jason was watching the stables, the sun had crested the tops of the buildings. The work around the guardhouses and the stables had slowed to a crawl.
He had picked out Marian almost immediately. She was a portly middle aged woman who carried a riding crop in one hand and a handkerchief in the other, which she used to continually dab her sweaty forehead.
In the short time that Jason had been watching her, he concluded that the woman would have made Stalin look weak. She marched around the stable ordering the workers with military precision. She wasn't afraid to use the riding crop to help “instruct” someone on how to properly brush the horses. She would repeatedly use the crop long after a stable hand had fallen to the ground.
He wasn't certain someone deserved to die for being an asshole, but, after watching Marian for a few hours, he felt much less conflicted about having to kill her. He just didn't see how he was going to be able to do it.
As the shadows lengthened and the light dimmed further, the work around the stables finally ground to a halt. Marian and her husband walked out of the building and headed towards a small structure along the base of the wall. Jason had noted the building, but hadn't been certain what purpose it served. None of the stable hands had gone near it during the last hour.
This was one of the few times he had managed to get a clean view of both Marian and her husband together. Jason assumed that the stable master must hole up in the interior of the stable during the day, while his wife patrolled the grounds.
He inspected them and noted that the stable master was level 72. Marian, on the other hand, was only level 24. Jason assumed that the stable master must have served as part of the cavalry before he was employed at the stable. That would explain his level.
How the hell am I going to do this?
The couple reached the building and opened the door.
Huh, that must be their house.
It made sense that they lived so close to the stable. Jason noted that they hadn't paused to unlock the door. It was possible that the door didn't lock at all! He wouldn't be surprised. It would take an idiot to break into their home this close to the guardhouses.
I guess I'm that idiot, Jason thought mournfully.
He could see light stream from the window of the house. The couple must have lit a candle. He expected that they were probably sitting down to dinner.
I can't get to Marian during the day, since she's constantly surrounded by guards and other people. Honestly, I'm not certain I could even take her one-on-one at my level.
On the other hand, if I attack her in her home, I will also have to deal with her husband. A level 72 could probably squash me in one hit.
He frowned. Then there's the problem of getting her body back to the graveyard.
Jason thought he might have a solution for transporting the body. While he was on watch that evening, he had seen a wagon pull up to the stables loaded with hay for the horses. Marian had spent some time screaming at the man driving the wagon and Jason inferred from their long argument that the man had not been scheduled to deliver the hay that afternoon. The conversation had ended with the driver unhitching his wagon and leaving it at the stable. Presumably, he would be back the next day to resume their dispute and settle accounts.
Jason was relatively comfortable handling horses. His parents had gone on a crusade on behalf of a horse breeder one summer when he was in middle school. The breeder was angry at the surrounding commercial farmers for polluting his pastures with pesticides – which were causing his horses to get sick and miscarry. Apparently, the pesticide was also affecting the local wildlife and had potentially contaminated the groundwater in the area.
That had been one of the few trips where his parents had taken him along. He had ended up staying at the ranch for most of the summer. Jason hadn't seen much of his parents, but the horse breeder had been a nice guy, if a bit gruff, and had taught him a lot about horses.
Jason was confident that he could hitch a horse to the wagon easily enough. He could then transport the body in the bed of the wagon under the hay. As frustrating as it was, he figured he would have to return the wagon when he was finished. He needed to avoid leading any resulting investigation of Marian's disappearance to Morgan or himself.
How am I going to kill Marian though?
His eyes returned to the stable master's home. He couldn't take either Marian or the stable master in a head-on fight.
Hell, I probably couldn't have taken the grave robbers in a straight fight either.
Then a realization struck him.
Of course! I am going to have to sucker punch them. Eventually, they will fall asleep, at which point I can sneak in and hope I do enough damage to kill each of them in one hit.
There were some issues with this plan of course. For example, his plan assumed the door was unlocked. He would also need to kill the stable master first since he was a higher level. If he accidentally woke Marian, her screams would call the guards. He might be able to get away, but he wouldn't be able to return with the body. Those were just the obvious things that could go wrong. There were likely a number of other variables he hadn’t considered.
Doubt crept into his mind as he considered what he was planning to do. Was he really going to kill two people in their sleep? It had been different with Ms. Abrams and with the grave robber. In those situations, he had been provoked into acting. Now he was calmly contemplating killing two people that hadn't done anything to him.
On the other hand, this was just a game. The NPCs in that house were nothing more than digital ones and zeros in a server somewhere. He wasn't killing anyone real. Besides, he desperately wanted the power he had seen Morgan display. With that kind of magic, maybe he could surpass Alex in this world. If this is what it took, then so be it.
Why am I sitting here wringing my hands?
Images of Alex and Ms. Abrams flashed through his mind. He had done this for years, hadn't he? Allowed himself to wallow in doubt and let others harass and berate him. The familiar anger began to simmer in his chest and he clenched his fists. In the past, he had let himself be victimized as he stood and accepted the abuse, forever uncertain how to act. Unwilling to act.
Morgan is right. I need to learn to act on my desires without fear or restraint. I want the magic she has and this is what must be done to get it.
Laying in his lap, Onyx raised his head and let out a bored yawn as if to say, “Yeah, get on with it already.”
Jason waited until it was fully dark and the candle had been extinguished. Then he waited a bit longer to ensure that the couple was completely asleep. As he waited, he noticed that the guards didn't seem to patrol the area near the guardhouses or stables. Likely, they assumed that these buildings were reasonably safe and that their time was better spent elsewhere.
At least I don't have to worry about frequent patrols. That should make this a bit easier.
Once he figured Marian and her husband were sound asleep, he activated Sneak and made his way out of the dilapidated building. Jason crept carefully towards the house. He noted that Onyx had no trouble following him and was almost invisible at night. It appeared that Jason didn't need to worry about the cat being detected.
He decided that he needed to kill the stable master and his wife first. Then he would ready the wagon to transport the bodies. Given the proximity of Marian's home to the stable, he didn't want to risk waking them while he stumbled around in the stable with the horse and wagon.
Jason moved slowly from shadow to shadow as he approached the door. Torches were located intermittently along the street running in front of the stables, but most of the area was cast in darkness. His Night Vision allowed him to see with reasonable clarity, even in the shadows around the stables
.
Interestingly, stealth didn't drain stamina when he was sitting still. He found that if he activated the skill while moving and deactivated it while he was hidden, he could keep his stamina in the green. Consequently, when he reached a shadowed side of the house, he paused a moment to wait for his stamina to recharge.
Jason received two notifications.
x1 Skill Rank Up: Night Vision
Skill Level: Beginner Level 4
Effect: 13% increased vision in darkness or near darkness.
x1 Skill Rank Up: Sneak
Skill Level: Beginner Level 3
Effect: -12% reduced visibility (reduced effect in direct light).
Cost: 2 stamina per second.
As soon as he was rested, he reactivated Sneak and eased up to the door. Holding his breath, Jason gently turned the knob. Once the knob was fully depressed, he pulled gently on the door. It was the moment of truth. Jason released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, as the door opened slowly.
I guess they don't have a lock on their door!
Onyx sat there staring at Jason with an expression on his face that plainly said, “Move on idiot, time is wasting!”
Shaking his head at personifying the cat, he slipped into the cottage and located the couple's bed. Jason navigated through the small house, carefully avoiding furniture. He saw two sleeping forms huddled in the small twin bed along the far wall of the home.
As he crept closer to the bed, his heart began to race and his breathing quickened. He felt the familiar chill of his dark mana seethe and froth in his mind. The calmness overtook him, and he reveled in the sensation. His fingers tingled as they clutched the hilt of his dagger, as he watched the pair.
His targets.
He moved to the stable master's side of the bed. He needed to be quick in order to kill him without making too much noise or thrashing. If Marian woke too soon, he would have to launch himself over the corpse and try to stab her before she screamed for help.
This all assumed of course that the stable master actually died in one hit!
Awaken Online: Catharsis Page 12
