by G. Akella
The receptionist, who reminded me of that bartender from the movie The Shining with Jack Nicholson, bowed politely. He passed his hand over my tag and Donut's, gave me the keys to my room, and told Donut that his wife had collected his keys and was now waiting in the next room in the company of an overly extravagant ryhn. It turned out that the Order of the Impending Dawn had taken all four of us on board, fully paid, for two weeks. Everything would be decided within two weeks, in the meantime, we would be eating on the government's tab, and I didn't mind that. And I doubted the Order's wallet would mind.
We collected the three amulets from the porter the mage pointed us to, and entered a neighboring room, just as deserted as the lobby, for the first time seeing the "extravagant ryhn" sitting by the window, reading some book next to Masyanya. I saw the table packed with delicacies and two crystal decanters filled with amber liquid and thought to myself that perhaps I had been wrong, and that the Order's wallet would suffer from our stay. Oh well, they had brought it on themselves.
Bonbon lounged on a leather sofa with a massive chalice in his left hand, waving his right hand about as if conducting some invisible ensemble.
"You guys are feeling right at home, huh?" Donut said with a smirk as he took in all the luxury.
"We're celebrating your asses being here in one piece. Well, several pieces," laughed the bald man drunkenly. He drained what remained in his vessel and sat up.
"No idea what kind of brandy these things are holding," he announced with a nod at the decanters, "but that balding fellow said it was the best stuff in the place. And I think he's trustworthy, don't you?" He got up, shook hands with us one at a time, and then gestured broadly towards some armchairs.
"Take a seat, friends, and we'll drink together. I'm tired of drinking alone with this schoolgirl!"
"Jerk," replied Masyanya, smiling and placing her book down. "So they let an alcoholic into an all-expenses-paid resort, can you imagine that?"
The girl rose to her feet, nodded to me, kissed Donut on the cheek—and only then noticed the nickname levitating over his head.
"Master Ito?" She stuck out her chin. "So you're a master now. Master of what, of drink? Where the heck did you already find a bottle? You haven't been here for more than—"
"Eh, well, we were just drinking a few gulps of church wine in honor of the local god," Donut said, pointing to the ceiling reflexively. "Grand Champion Sebastian told us we had to have a few glasses as we chatted. As for the master part, pretty sure my sisters would agree I'm a master of cloth..."
"Of having to get someone with a cloth in to clean up after you, maybe!" Bonbon poured us glasses of brandy.
Masyanya placed her hands akimbo, attempting a serious look. "Give me my Donut back!" But she could not keep from laughing. "All right, look, just tell me everything that happened. I'm dying of curiosity here."
"That's no way for a woman to act, Masyanya!" Bonbon said with a sigh and a shake of the head. "These people just got in, after a long, hard journey. They're hungry and thirsty. Let them eat! I'll talk with you while they do."
"Just stop confusing me, all right?" She refused to sit with Donut until he changed his nickname back.
I had just taken a seat myself. Listening to their banter, I accepted the glass the bald man stretched out to me. The brandy was spectacular. We drank, had a bite to eat, and briefly told the story of how our adventures had gone. Well, not so briefly, when it came to Donut. He described every last scene, from the gambling house brawl to running across rough terrain to our meeting with a companion of the God of Thieves. But how could he not tell that last story to anyone and everyone? He had dreamed of such a meeting for years. Masyanya took all of this without much surprise. Either she was good at guessing, or she had gotten the quick version from Max earlier.
"Listen, Masyanya..." The rogue lowered his eyes, his stories finished. "Why don't you go to bed now? I have to visit my sisters, and I can only do that at night. That ugly old corpse hinted that they were with him. But I doubt it. He would have taken the emerald from them..."
"Why did you drink so much if you were planning an adventure like that?"
"I just had a little," he replied with a shrug. "Come on, it's just an evening stroll. Nothing to worry about."
"Nothing to worry about!?"
"I'll go with him," I said to reassure her. "I can make any adventure safer. And I barely had anything to drink."
"Well, go ahead, then," Masyanya relented with a shrug. "And thanks, Roman."
"I'm going, too," mumbled an inebriated Bonbon.
"Yes, my friend, you're also going off to bed, like Masya here," Donut redirected him. "We can't have anyone making noise, and that's all you'd be good at in this state."
"You guys go on, then," the bald man allowed with a wave. "I'll stay here. This place is great! Did you see those fountains of pure gold? Man! I just wish they had sit-down toilets," he daydreamed. "I'd just sit and sit, for days on end..."
The girl smiled. "So you wouldn't come with us to see your wife in the morning? 'Where is my husband?' 'Snoring on the toilet.'"
"Hey, that whole thing would go much better with a proper sit-down toilet to take advantage of the night before, you know what I'm saying?"
"Just be careful, guys, all right?" sighed Masyanya.
"Don't worry, we'll be fine." Donut kissed her cheek and followed me out.
We stepped out of the hotel, left the square, and walked towards the city's port. It was already well after midnight, so few people were out on the streets.
The farther we traveled from the center of town, the poorer the area and the sparser the shops, but there was still nightlife, even out here. All kinds of music and laughter poured out of the windows of inns and taverns. Twice we were stopped by patrols, but upon checking our tags they apologized and continued on their way. As we we drew close to the port—judging by the river breeze—four shady characters blocked our way. But Donut had changed the nickname above his head again. He made some kind of meaningful gesture with his left hand, and the underworldlings silently melted into the shadows of the trees lining the road.
"No sense spilling more blood than necessary, right?" he shrugged, stopping and pulling a suspiciously familiar crystal bottle from his bag. "Want a swig? Man, places like this just fill me with nostalgia. Makes me want to cry!"
He gulped nearly a quarter of the liter-sized decanter, sniffed, and offered me a drink.
I grinned. "A swig, eh? Why did you steal that, anyway? We could have just bought some on the way."
I took a couple of sips, passed the decanter back, and reached for my pipe.
"What, you have a hundred extra gold, eh?" The assassin smiled and imbibed a few more sips, leaving the bottle three-quarters empty. "Plus, we can't have our merchant friend getting drunk all the time, so I did him a favor by not giving him extra drinking money."
"Can't have you getting drunk all the time, either," I said with a shake of my head. "And he'll have plenty of drinking money without your donation, trust me. Wait—a hundred gold?"
"C-cavelian Br-br-brandy," Donut struggled to say. "Not easy stuff to get your hands on. Only sold in the shops serving the royal court."
"Tell me where these sisters of yours are before you're dead drunk, or we'll end up wandering these slums till next winter."
"No, no, I won't drink any more!" The assassin shook his head and put his bottle back in his inventory. "All right, then, Diana and Erika. Well, Arkym, the guy whose well we climbed through, if you remember, sent his son to place a note in a secluded location. So, they should be waiting for me. Finish your pipe and let's go before we’re too late."
"Wait a moment. While I'm finishing this up, tell me the real story about this emerald."
"Eh, it's nothing serious," Donut shrugged. "My sisters and I borrowed it from this traveling merchant. Then we offered it to Falk." He spat at the name. "He refused, so in the end we sold it to Blackmaster, one of the Blades, for three hundred gold. But Blac
kmaster was too much of a show off, and soon it was stolen from him. The next day, the patch happened. That's the story in a nutshell."
"Sounds like this emerald is cursed," I chuckled, placing my pipe back in my bag. We moved on.
Not long had passed by the time Donut directed me into an industrial part of town. I could hear the river rushing and the sailors cursing at the moored ships. There were no more residential buildings out here, just warehouses and other port buildings on both sides of the street, half-sheltered by crooked fences. We stopped at the entrance to a wide lane illuminated by a single lantern shaking in the wind. Donut uttered a strange croaking sound, like a drunken frog. He shrugged, got his bottle out, sipped from it, and offered it to me. I figured he had had enough and didn't give the bottle back, instead standing there, taking small sips.
We stood there for about ten minutes. The weather turned sour, the temperate colder. The riverwind blew a cloudy cloak over the moon, darkening the world. My demon vision allowed me to see well, down to the darkest alleys and up to the rooftops of houses farther away poking out from behind the roofs of those near. But I had no inclination to hang around in the port all night. So, one more sip from the bottle, I walked down the alley and leaned on a tree, frowning at the rogue, who looked a little embarrassed.
I strained my voice to outbark the strengthening gusts of wind. "So where are these sisters of yours?"
His head drooped. "I know about as much of that as I do of why Falk suddenly needed the damn emerald," he sighed. "I think..."
At that moment, the faint gray shadow of an assassin charged at me from the next tree over. Goddamn it, here? Now?
"Donut, battle!" I screamed in our chat channel. Still holding the bottle, I slammed it into my attacker's chest.
The glass shattered, and the bandit rolled along the pavement, more than a third of his HP gone. But his dagger had sliced my hand, and it was beginning to go numb. Poison?
Infernal Rage! At that second, another attacker landed on top of me. But I was in combat form now, and his blade struck my rapidly growing horns instead of my unprotected throat. The other slammed into my shoulders, wiping out a full quarter of my HP.
"Get out of here, Leo!" the wounded warrior screamed, rising to her feet and charging me, her daggers glinting in the light of the lantern.
Pushing the fallen attacker aside, I stood to face the charging one, drawing my sword from its sheath and...
"Roman! Noooo!" Donut screamed. "Stop!"
Damn it! Somehow, despite the two dagger strikes to my chest, the human side in me defeated the demon one. I tossed the fallen assailant into the running one, knocking both to the ground. In an instant, Donut was between the three of us.
"Idiots, he's a friend!" He screamed so loudly I had no doubt the crews on ships that had left that morning could hear him. "The hell has gotten into you?"
"A friend? Well, sorry about that," one of the girls said in a low, pleasing voice, grabbing a vial from her belt and smashing it on the side of the sister lying on the ground. "So, whatever led to you being 'friends' with this monster, little brother?"
I couldn't see the faces behind their hoods, and both had red nicknames. Viper and Erika. They were level 180. Good thing, too—without such a big level difference, I wouldn't have noticed the stealthed rogue rushing at me. Even with the gap, I missed five attacks and lost almost a third of my HP. Great job, Roman. I changed back to normal form, healed myself, reactivated my camouflage, and leaned back up against the tree.
Annoyed, Donut sat down on the ground with his sisters. "Why did you go at him like that?"
"He barked at you, you mentioned Falk, and your voice sounded like you were drugged or something. Firo is a mentalist. Could be controlling you from a distance."
"Naw, it was just this damn Cavellian brandy," I said with a snort, pulling out my own bottle. "So, I take it you're Leo?"
"Yeah," Donut nodded. He turned back to his sister. "Firo is gone," he said with a sigh. "Ort, too. And three others that were with him. We took them out at Khung's den. Why are the two of you red?"
His sister grinned. "It hasn't been fifteen minutes since the attack. We haven't killed anybody for a long time now, little brother. Just put the house out for rent and went down into the catacombs to grind."
His other sister woke up, then. Erika. The girl drank, threw back her hood, and embraced her brother.
"Leo!"
"Hey there, sis." She gave her a reassuring shove. "Turns out we almost killed one of the good guys."
"Just the opposite, actually," Erika muttered before standing and giving me the most awkward curtsy I had yet seen. "Apologies. We'll try not to do it again."
"Yeah, uh, sorry," replied Viper, with the same gesture as her sister. "Won't happen again."
At that, Donut smiled and hugged both of them.
I stood up straight, downed some of the brandy, smoked my pipe, and thought about how the day hadn't been a waste after all. Donut had found his siblings at last. My sister and I had found each other much earlier, by comparison. These three needed time to talk now. The first moments of a reunion are always the most vivid, the most emotional, the most memorable. I didn't listen in to what they were saying, glad that my control over my hearing allowed me to avoid eavesdropping.
The wind died down at last, and the moon joined the party, illuminating the high fence across the alley, the triangular roofs, and the three siblings sitting on the pavement. The picturesque scene lasted about five minutes. Then, the sound of a mob of steel-studded boots abruptly knocked at our ears. It sound like at least half of the mob were wearing chainmail. Another patrol?
"Port guards," said Viper, jumping to her feet. "Let's get out of here!"
"Add them to the party, Roman, quick!" Donut screamed into the channel.
I invited the girls immediately, put my pipe bag away in my bag, and stepped out into the middle of the road.
"Look at these bonuses!" The younger sister gasped as she joined the party. "How the hell did you get that pumped?"
"Let's get out of here!" Viper tugged her brother's sleeve. "They're port guards, remember?"
"Run away from soldiers? Are you joking?" I grinned and put my princely title in the air over my head, then stepped further out into the road, towards the approaching noise.
About fifteen seconds later, a dozen soldiers emerged. When they noticed us, they quickly fanned out. Four took aim with crossbows, behind the rest. Five wielded naked blades, and their captain, named Chemer, wore a half-visor. The soldiers were level 200; the commander, fifty levels higher. Hunter marks hit us all as soon as they saw us.
"Damn, we're done for! What did I tell you?" Viper screamed into the channel. "No fleeing the bastards now!"
The captain, a six-foot-tall man with slanted eyes and a hard face, took a step forward, looked at the three behind me, and gave a lascivious grin.
"A vile elf and his two elfbitch sisters? Good find today, boys! On your knees, beasts! Don't even think of pulling a weapon or you'll get a bolt to the skull!"
For a few moments, I fought with the cognitive dissonance. A dozen neutral soldiers simply shouldn't be behaving this way. But rage soon took me, and I responded.
"Don't you see who I am, soldier?" I spat through clenched teeth, struggling to hold back my fury.
"On your knees, bastard!" Chemer barked back. That was the last straw.
Infernal Rage! Ruination whirled out of its sheath, as Ice Blade took part of the captain's head off—after taking off his hand, which he had been raising as a signal. The hand and the sword it had been holding clattered to the roadway. I grabbed the slain man by his left arm and used his body as cover from the crossbowmen. At the same instant the sword rang out against the cobblestones, two thwacking sounds in the captain's body told me that two of the crossbowmen had let loose. A third arrow struck me in the shoulder, and a fourth whizzed past me.
We heard the sound of hooves then, from the direction of the port. A soldier leap
ed at me, from my left. I hurled the commander's corpse straight at him and pulled my shield off my back, using it to block the next soldier's attack.
"It's a demon! Kill him!" screamed one of the crossbowmen, drawing a short sword.
I hit back with Tongue of Flame. The man's shield split in two as I attacked, and the soldier slowly fell onto the pavement, more than half of his HP gone. I heard a furious Lion's Roar behind me, and the soldiers rushing us fell to their knees, heads held tightly in their hands. Then, something incredible happened. Three of the crossbowmen were knocked clean to the ground by a monstrous knight that appeared behind them, riding a black-a-midnight steed no less monstrous, barely smaller than even my Gloom. The knight rode thirty more feet towards me and stopped, holding his steed at ease.
"Stop fighting," I gave the order in our chat channel as I saw the name of this unexpected guest. Nodding at the corpse of the former captain, I announced, loudly and clearly: "This reprobate managed to insult two nobles at once! Have the laws in Vaedarr changed since yesterday?"
At level 450, height of at least seven feet, and a billion HP, the man made for an impressive sight. Brother Tukkard, Knight-Commander of the Order of Impending Dawn. The champion did say he would find us by our tags, if needed.
His jaw was massive, his beard neatly trimmed. There was so little emotion on his face, you would think he wasn't looking at a horned humanoid but an overly thick lamppost. We stared at each other for a good ten seconds. Then the surviving guards began to get up from the pavement, groaning as they did.
The behemoth was seemingly satisfied. He pointed a finger at one of the guards, bent his wrist, and drew a silent line through the air.
"Yes, my earl!" The patrolman nodded. "Everyone form up on me! Quickly now!"
"What's going on?" Donut asked cautiously, in our party channel.
"Your guess is as good as mine," I said with a shrug. "Except that this must be the guy Sebastian sent to help us."
