by Sam Ferguson
He clambered up the crates then scurried up the wall, just barely grabbing the window ledge above him. Pulling himself up, he used the iron bars defending the window from intruders as a sort of makeshift ladder.
“Don’t let him get away!” one of the muggers shouted. The sound of heavy footsteps sprinting toward him urged Brian up the wall faster. He found just enough purchase with his right hand to pull himself to the eaves. His left hand grabbed onto the roof and then his right. He sailed up and over the lip of the roof with ease.
Too bad real pull ups aren’t as easy, Brian thought as he scrambled to his feet and drew his longsword. He had to wait for about ten seconds—which felt like several minutes as he kept his eyes glued to the edge of the roof—before the first mugger made it up. Brian rushed forward and stabbed the man before he could stand. The mugger’s HP bar drained entirely, and he fell over backward to splat onto the ground below.
[+25 XP]
Two more muggers crested over the roof at the same time. Brian lunged at the first, hitting him with a slash in the chest. The mugger staggered backward, flailed his arms, and then toppled over the edge to land on his head. Whatever was left of his HP disappeared upon contact.
[+25 XP]
The third mugger rushed Brian from behind, but Brian somersaulted away just in time for the mugger to take himself over the roof. Like his comrade before him, he failed to survive the fall.
[+25 XP]
The fourth mugger came up over the roof’s edge and whipped out a hand crossbow. A bolt flew at Brian before he could react. It struck him in the abdomen. His HP dropped, but only by about five percent.
Brian didn’t have any arrows, but he did have his feathersteel dagger. He equipped it as the man reloaded the crossbow, and then he threw it. It whistled through the air and then stabbed the mugger in the chest. The mugger’s HP dropped by a third, but he answered the assault by firing his crossbow again. This time Brian sidestepped the bolt in time to avoid more damage. He equipped his sword once more and charged. The miscreant struggled to reload his crossbow again, but he wasn’t fast enough to beat Brian. He cut the man down, letting the corpse slap onto the roof tiles and then slide slowly toward the edge. At first it looked like the body would stop before the edge, but then the mugger’s leg went over and tipped the body’s balance. The corpse pivoted as the legs dragged it over and down to the alley below.
[+25 XP]
Lousy XP on those. Hardly worth the climb. Brian shook his head and climbed down to loot the bodies. He made sure to get his feathersteel dagger back, and then he collected twenty gold, a hand crossbow with twenty-five bolts, and three iron daggers.
Loot isn’t that great either.
He continued on his way, following the marker until he came to what appeared to be an abandoned house with boarded windows and doors. Walking around the back, he found a cellar door. Sitting atop the door was an elderly woman. Her white hair was stringy, several bald patches along her scalp. Her left hand was crippled, bent into a painful-looking position with some fingers hooked inward and her pinky jutting out to the side. She looked up with one blue eye and one clouded white eye.
“A child of death,” she said as her mouth stretched out into a toothless smile. “Come on inside and warm your bones, child.” The old woman stood and shuffled out of the way. Brian opened the hatch and descended the stairs to a stone room roughly ten feet wide and twice as long. Inside stood a single guard dressed in Morr’Tai attire. He wore a pair of daggers at his belt and rested the blade of a claymore over his right shoulder.
“My sword is bigger than yours,” the assassin said with a smug grin.
Brian glanced to the longsword hanging from his hip and then shrugged before walking past the guard and to the door in the back of the room. Opening it, he found another set of stairs going deeper underground. He followed them as they went down and then curved to the west. At the bottom of the stairs was a new room roughly thirty feet wide and probably three times as long. There were beds near the back of the room, a training ring in the middle of the room, and a job board next to a save point off to the left.
A tall woman with a spiked helmet approached him. “The Master said you’d come.”
Brian gave a nod. “And here I am,” he said.
“Come, he wishes to speak with you.”
Brian followed her to the right side of the room where a door stood in the stone wall. She gave two knocks at the door and a familiar voice beckoned for her to enter. She opened the door and then stepped back, gesturing with her arm for Brian to go inside.
The room was lit with four sconces, one near each corner. In the center of the room was a desk covered with parchments and a couple of books. In front of the desk was a single wooden chair. To the left was a corpse—a Morr’Tai assassin by the looks of the attire. A silvery knife handle protruded from the corpse’s back. Behind the desk sat the same creepy, scarlet-hooded assassin from Fezhik.
“I overheard the Greencap commander in Fezhik send you to Bohotes,” he said. “I wanted to get here before you and see what state the guild was in.”
Brian nodded. “And what have you found?”
The high elf smiled and leaned back in the chair. “I have found more disorder.” He pointed a bony finger toward the corpse. “This one was not fit to lead. He was not... strong enough.”
“I see,” Brian said.
“There were others of the guild that had to be removed as well, but there was one that managed to escape.” The assassin leaned forward and slid a folded parchment across the desk.
Brian picked it up and read it.
A Morr’Tai assassin known as Lord Prin can be found in the main keep of Bohotes. He is captain of the town guard. We cannot allow him to serve two masters. Find him and kill him. Speak to no one of this mission.
Brian frowned. Two masters? Were assassins not allowed to work a second job? Or was it simply that this particular target was letting his Morr’Tai duties lapse? Brian would have thought that having a guard captain would be advantageous for the Morr’Tai. Then again, the order was going through a coup, and he was helping to reshape it.
“Have you finished reading it?”
Brian nodded. “I have.”
“Burn it,” the high elf said, pointing to a nearby sconce. “And do not speak of it to anyone. Return when it is done.”
Brian walked to the sconce and set the paper into the flame. Strange that he wouldn’t just tell me himself. Or was someone possibly listening to them? Brian scanned the walls for peepholes but didn’t see any. Magic perhaps? There was no way to know for sure.
The paper was turned to ash within seconds. The elf rose to his feet. “Move swiftly.”
Brian nodded and left the room, closing the door behind him. He crossed the room, noting the tall woman’s eyes upon him as he walked over to the job board. May as well get a second job while I’m here. He looked at the board and found the perfect assignment. He took the posted note with the job description.
[QUEST ADDED: HORSE RACE]
Brian opened the quest description from his user interface.
Troubled by the Greencaps’ ever-growing hold on territories that once belonged to the native inhabitants of Prirodha, a centaur captain is holding a secret meeting to enlist support for an attack on Bohotes. Find the centaur captain and kill him. Be sure to slay him in private, or else his death might become a martyrdom, thus making him more dangerous to Bohotes in death than in life.
Brian closed the interface and smiled. That sounded fun! He then realized that no new quest message had popped up for the quest to kill Lord Prin. Perhaps it was just another glitch? Or maybe it was because of its secret nature? No, that didn’t make sense. All the assassin missions were secret and illicit by nature. Lord Prin’s quest wouldn’t be any different.
[Hey, Meredith. In Bohotes there is an assassin quest that doesn’t show up after it’s accepted. Something about killing Lord Prin.]
There, now she could deal with i
t. Still, in order to investigate the glitch, Brian figured he should target Lord Prin first and see what happened. Maybe it would still give the end message and the experience. Either way, Meredith would want the quest tested thoroughly.
Brian turned to approach the save point, but found it was broken just as the one in the Fezhik Morr’Tai lair was. “Ugh,” Brian said.
He typed another DM for Meredith. [The save point in the Bohotes Morr’Tai lair is also broken. Same features as the one in Fezhik. The pillar is split open and the statue is discombobulated.]
“I said to move swiftly.”
Brian turned around and saw the creepy high elf staring at him. The tall woman was standing right behind him, eyeing Brian angrily.
“One should obey The Master exactly,” she said.
“Sorry,” Brian said. “I’ll go now.” He turned and started to walk away.
“Does it give you power?” the high elf asked.
“What?” Brian said, turning back around.
The high elf pointed to the broken save point. “Does this give you power?”
Brian shrugged. “Sure, I guess.” Why would an NPC care about a save point? Was this some sort of experimental AI? “It’s how I save my progress,” Brian said, not sure how to answer the NPC. “And it helps me travel.”
“Ah,” the high elf replied with a nod. He turned then and gave Brian a sly smile. “Be swift, and do not fail. Remember the promise I have given you.”
Brian nodded and turned around to jog out of the room. Strange quest lines. The Morr’Tai had always been the more eccentric of the assassin guilds, but it felt like the developers had gone a bit too far this time. Not that it was a big deal. Realistically, if he didn’t get better assassin armor after this, he’d probably abandon the quest lines and just work his way up through the fighter guilds, or maybe build up House Bob and get some fun stat bonuses. Meredith would probably appreciate that anyway, as it would likely lead to faster completion of the main quest line.
In any case, he decided to head for the centaur mission first. He activated it and started heading for the eastern gate. When he got there, the portcullis was closed and a guard called out to him saying, “This won’t open again until morning. If you have business outside the city, then you will need to use the north gate or south gate to the docks.”
Yeah, no. Not wasting the time walking around the city again. Brian went up a set of stairs to the battlements and then looked around at the outward face of the wall. It looked like there were enough handholds to scale downward. Over the parapet he went. It was easier than he would have expected, actually, and took him just a few seconds to reach the bottom as he dropped a few feet at a time to catch handholds on the way down. It never would have been possible in the real world of course, but the game mechanics allowed it.
[Acrobatics level 50 reached]
[+10% defense against melee damage]
“Very nice,” Brian said as he turned away from the wall. “I guess all of that jumping around had paid off. “Thanks, Mike,” he said, knowing he was much too far away to hear him. The forest to the east of Bohotes was much denser than the rest of the territory Brian had explored so far. It took him a while to pick his path up and down a few hills and then through twisted oaks and tall ponderosas. Above him owls hooted softly while deer slept in small clearings of grass between the trees. He kept his eye on the map marker in the distance. It was another few miles away, but it wouldn’t take him long to arrive at the destination.
After about a mile, he found a herd of sleeping steggo creatures. The largest buck was standing off to the side of the herd, sniffing the air and pawing at the ground a couple times. Knowing that these things could put up a fight against a beast much, much larger, Brian wasn’t eager to accidentally spook them and end up on the wrong side of their spiked tails.
He circled wide around them, slowing when he came to a campfire.
A pair of human males sat with their backs to him. They wore leather armor, one had a sword and the other a bow, but they didn’t have green caps. Off to the left of their fire was a cage with a strange-looking bird in it. It appeared to be like an oversized dodo, standing maybe nine feet tall. To the right was a single tent, and a treasure chest sat outside.
Brian moved into sneak mode and crept up closer to see if he could hear the NPCs.
“I should have listened to my father,” the bowman said. “He wanted me to go to Salisbury. They have a great university there. He always said I could make something special of myself.”
“Bah,” the second spat. “You need money to go to university, and then you need to know the right people to ever become anything special. Much better to take the money from the special people as they pass on the roads!”
They both laughed.
That’s all I needed. Brian thought. Now that he knew they were bandits, he pulled his feathersteel knife and went in silently, carefully picking his way around bushes and stepping over small twigs and branches on the ground.
The swordsman on the right got up from the log he was sitting on and moved to the fire, adding another log to it and stirring the embers up.
This was Brian’s chance. He went for the bowman, slitting the man’s neck easily and dragging him backward off the log.
[+100 XP]
He then slipped over the log and crept up to the swordsman, silently thrusting his dagger into the man’s spine and twisting as he brought that body down to the ground as well.
[+100 XP]
[Sneaking level 50 reached]
[+10% sneak]
Brian smiled and then quickly looted the two bandits.
[+2 minor health potion]
[+150 GP]
[+1 iron longbow]
[+50 steel arrows]
[+1 iron longsword]
He also took their leather armor to sell, and then he moved to the chest and opened it. Inside he found another fifty steel arrows, a small emerald, and several alchemical ingredients. He also obtained a scroll of chain lightning.
“Oh nice!” He opened his user interface and moved to the spell book.
[LEARN CHAIN LIGHTNING?]
Brian affirmed that he wanted to learn it.
[YOU ARE UNABLE TO LEARN CHAIN LIGHTNING]
“Ugh,” he lamented. He was starting to wish he hadn’t discarded magic ability at the beginning of the game in favor of increased health and stamina. He had hoped that a spell book would give him the ability to cast it even without natural in-game abilities, but he wasn’t terribly surprised when it didn’t work. “Another gift for Mike then,” he said.
Checking the tent, he found a small book inside.
[Gained Walker’s Guide to Prirodhan Women]
Brian laughed and opened the book.
[+2 charisma]
He perused just the first page of the book itself.
It is a well-established fact that women in Prirodha crave adventurous, handsome, heroic men. I am Walker, Estovan Walker, and I will be your guide to learning everything you need to know about the various women found on Prirodha so you too can find the most suitable companion.
By way of introduction, assuming you don’t already know who I am, since most people do, I am a nobleman. Not by birth, but through charm. I have wooed ladies of the courts, danced with elves in the wood under the moonlight, and have even romanced my way into a centaur’s heart. Follow my advice, and though surely you will never match my level of allure, you are guaranteed to achieve much success in your pursuits.
Brian shook his head and closed the book. The charisma bonus might help him a bit in the shops, but that was probably all it would do. As for the story of Estovan Walker... that wasn’t really Brian’s style. Besides, even without the charisma bonus, he had already seemed to manage creating a relationship with Freya just fine. He thought back to her and wondered if he would have time to see her again. Perhaps he could use training as a pretext, or purchasing a better weapon. He would have to go back to House Bob anyway, why not make a s
mall detour?
Brian closed his user interface and continued on his way to the marker. The rest of the journey was quiet. He reached a small encampment situated in a clearing beside a wide, shallow stream. A pair of centaur guards stood watch, but there was no wall around the camp, just a few large canopies hung by tall poles to cover the other half dozen centaurs as they slept. There was a central platform, and a couple of racks with swords and glaives leaning against them, but that was it.
Not much of an army. But then again, the centaur was still in the process of raising troops. Maybe this was simply the group for now. Unless there were others on their way from some other location.
A large, heavily muscled centaur emerged from the camp and approached the two guards.
“I am headed to the shrine to pray, see that I am not disturbed. I will be back by morning,” the centaur said.
The two guards saluted him and bowed their heads obediently.
The centaur started heading south along the stream. Brian stayed on his side of the stream, far enough away not to draw attention to himself, following parallel with the target. After about four hundred yards, the centaur came to a small grove of aspen trees where a wooden totem stood.
The centaur approached the totem, leaving his glaive several yards behind him, and then bowed his head as he began to hum a soft melody.
Brian studied the centaur and realized he had two problems. The first was that the creature was too large for a sneak attack, and the second problem was that an arrow would not be enough to bring him down. Brian then glanced to the trees and noted that a tall oak had a long, thick limb stretching out across the stream and over the praying centaur.
