“Hey! I found something!” Karalti said from behind me.
“What?” Swallowing my grief, I stashed the pipe and turned to face her.
Karalti trotted over, and spat something into the palm of my hand. It was a ring with a grinning cat’s face, just like the one we’d found on the rogue outside of Kanzo’s laboratory.
“Well, what do you know,” I muttered, turning it around. “It’s our old friend, the King of Cats.”
Chapter 31
“I am truly sorry I did not take you seriously. I have failed my nation, my king, and Father Matthias.” Kirov was slumped in a chair, with his sword resting over his knees and his helmet by his feet. He looked like he’d been gutshot.
Kirov, Suri, and I were all bunkered in Suri’s quarters - a suite that had clearly been lived in longer than the one Karalti and I currently occupied. My dragon was out hunting.
“The guy had the explosives stitched up into him. There’s no way anyone could have known.” I wrung out a cloth, and wiped it over Suri’s face. She was in bed, covered up and mostly well, though she was still passed out. A check of the wiki had revealed that the Berserk Rage ability inflicted a fatigue penalty equal to the amount of Adrenaline used to power the ability. In Suri’s case, that was nearly all of it - which meant she’d be out until we did something about her arm and her health and stamina could start to regen normally.
“That bottle of mana and reagent was probably smuggled in days ago. I should have believed you in your entirety,” Kirov replied miserably. “You are the guardian of a sacred draak, and you have proven yourself to be a mighty warrior, as is Suri. I admit, I had my doubts about her...”
“About Suri?”
He nodded. “The Volod, well... He is something of, how should I put it? He can be something of a cad, and she is fair of face and form. I’d wondered if he hired her because of that.”
“What you just said is more insulting to Suri than it is to the Volod.” I dropped the cloth back in the bucket of warm mineral water beside the bed, then reached out and felt Suri’s temperature. Her forehead was hot. I was worried about that arm - blood poisoning was a feature of this VR.
“What I mean to say is that His Majesty is inordinately fond of the company of beautiful women, and that, well… He’s done it before.”
I snorted. “Call it like it is, then. He’s a fuckboy.”
Kirov’s tattooed face twitched. “That is... vulgar.”
“So is assuming shit about people based on optics.” I pulled my pack around, and began to withdraw items from my Inventory: my alchemy set and some of the herbs I’d bought. I settled a mortar and pestle in my lap, threw in some Holy Basil and Green Moss, and then added some powdered Birch Bark as a binder before starting to grind. The three ingredients formed the basis for a simple Blood Cleansing potion that helped ward off the Infection debuff. Like real blood poisoning, the debuff could kill a player if you didn’t head it off.
“You are once more correct.” The lines around Kirov’s mouth deepened, and he sagged even more deeply into his chair. “I am a disgrace.”
“No offense, but if you want some bread to go with your whine, I’m not the man to talk to.” I scowled as I beat the potion ingredients together, then added [Pure Alcohol] to the mixture. “Look, shit happens. We both lost a friend, but we’ve got terrorists to catch and a murderer to put down. Matthias threw himself on that bomber to save people’s lives. We owe him our best until the job is done.”
Kirov hunched. “I know what you speak is the truth. Perhaps I just needed to hear it from someone outside my own head.”
“That’s usually how it goes.” I mashed the plant matter into the alcohol. The mixture turned a bright lime-green color as the plant matter broke up into the potion. Not particularly realistic, but satisfying.
[You have made 2 x Sweet Basil Tinctures]
I took two of my empty flasks out, and bottled the liquid. One went in my Inventory for later, and one went to Suri. I wet a new rag with it, and applied it to the stump of her arm.
Just as I was doing that, the door opened. A small, wizened old woman with her hair wrapped up in a scarf came bustling in. She had piercing dark eyes and a bounce in her step. She carried a brown leather doctor’s bag in one hand. “A-ha! If it isn’t Ur Kirov!”
“Elder Mashka.” Kirov stood up and bowed respectfully. “Elder, this is-”
“I know who the dragonrider is, boy. Don’t you think everyone in Vlachia does by now? Bozye mada.” The old woman rolled her eyes, but her expression softened when she lit on Suri in her bed. She bustled over.
“Rytier Hector, this is Mashka Kali,” Kirov said weakly. “She is the Palace Alchemist.”
“AND the Field Medic for the Knights of the Red Star,” Mashka added crisply. “AND the Senior Medical Instructor of the Vulkan Garrison.”
I smiled ruefully as the old woman pushed in, bumping me aside with her hip. “I never would have guessed.”
“Let me see... hmmm...” Mashka pursed her wrinkled lips as she checked Suri’s vitals, then her arm. “I have a Limb Restoration decoction, but it will make her ill.”
“Alchemical?” I asked.
The woman gave me a waspish - but curious - look. Then her gaze fell on the mortar, with its bright green potion. “A student of the art, are you?”
“I’m muddling along,” I replied. “Only had some really basic training from some village herbalists. The rest is self-taught.”
She grunted. “Yes, the Limb Regrowth potion is alchemical. She’s Fireblooded, which means she isn’t likely to transform into some nasty beastie, but she will be unwell. The limb regeneration takes four hours, and the illness will last twelve.”
I rubbed my chin in thought. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to share the recipe?”
“At a glance, I can tell your Alchemy skill is not high enough for you to craft it, though we could fix that.” Masha turned back to Suri. “For now, study its effects.”
Masha rummaged through her bag, and took out a small, oddly shaped vial that contained a small amount of bright yellow liquid. Visually, the main difference between alchemical and herbal potions was that alchemical potions always glowed, as this one did.
“She will not Strange?” Kirov’s eyebrows furrowed.
“There is always a small chance the cure acts as a poison. In her case, it is unlikely. A fever and the sweats is the worst she can expect, and that’s a small price to pay for the cost of a limb.” The old woman tipped Suri’s head up, set the uncorked potion to her lips, and slowly let it trickle in. She followed it up with a plain herbal [Stamina Potion].
Suri’s face scrunched in pain, and then she groaned under her breath.
“Don’t let her push herself. Probably a difficult job with this particular woman, but she can’t afford to exert herself for the next four hours. It is best that she sleep all through the night and into tomorrow.” Masha nodded, and snapped her bag closed.
“We’ll do our best to keep her down,” I said. “Did I hear you make an offer to teach me Alchemy, ma’am?”
“I’ll consider it, though you must pay for tuition.” The brisk little woman turned to face me. “People never seem to value the wisdom they are given for free.”
“Deal,” I said. “But not until she’s okay.”
Masha smiled, then gave us a tiny nod and hastened off the way she’d come.
“I ought to leave too. I must face my Brothers and the Volod, and determine what the future holds for me and my family.” Kirov rose, the round plates of his armor clinking like coins.
I cocked my head. “You have a family? I didn’t know that.”
He smiled faintly. “A wife and a little daughter, yes. Good luck, and thank you. Believe me, rytier, the story of you and Suri’s battle against the foul creature that killed so many will be spread around the city come morn.”
“Mama always told me I’d be famous.” I flashed him a big sloppy grin, which lasted until he closed the door behind him. Then i
t abruptly fell away. I slumped back with a sigh of relief, and looked down at Suri. When I saw her looking back, I jumped about a foot inside of my own skin.
I straightened up in my seat. “Oh, shit, Suri! Hi! You’re looking very...”
“Stumpy?” she croaked.
“I was going say you looked well-pruned,” I replied. “You know, like a rose bush. You cut it back for the winter so that it grows out in the spring. That means when your arm grows back, there’ll be like... four of them.”
“Three more fists to punch you in the face with.” She groaned, shifting around on the bed. “You got me a limb regrowth brew?”
“Sure did. Masha - the Healer - said you’d feel like a gaping crusty ass for about twelve hours.” I folded my arms, resigned to remaining on duty.
Suri sighed. “That’d be right. So, you saved my ass, huh?”
“You saved mine,” I replied. “You and Karalti. I have to say, for someone who doesn’t like to respawn, you came running back in like a suicidal maniac.”
“It’s my job.”
“You didn’t even think to equip your armor, though?”
“Primal Rage only works without armor. It’s a last resort. Got a debuff from that, too.” Suri was beginning to look quite flushed and hot. Her cheeks were reddening, and her hair was damp and sticking to her brow.
I wrung out the rag from the bucket, and dabbed her forehead with it. Her lips parted, as if she were about to say something, but then she seemed to think better of it and relaxed back against the pillows.
“You need some water?” I asked.
Suri nodded, eyes closed. I got up, and went to the dresser to pour her a cup from pitcher.
“Thanks,” she said. “For not letting me die.”
“Well, I remember you telling me that you never wanted to.” I shrugged. “I get it. I have phobias too. For me, it’s bugs. Not like…big bugs. Little bugs that get under your clothes and bite you and shit. Ticks, scorpions, shit like that. I fucking hate ticks.”
“I’m not afraid to die,” Suri said. “I’m scared of where I end up when I come back.”
I turned back around, and found Suri looking away from me toward the window. “What do you mean?”
For close to a minute, she said nothing.
“I was born in a prison, a place called Al-Asad. Or… I think I was born there,” she said, haltingly. “Al-Asad is a labyrinth that was turned into a dungeon out in the Bashar Desert. It’s about a week’s ride out of Dalim, the capital of Dakhdir. The Sultir – our Emperor – imprisons the worst of his enemies out there.”
“You... were born in a prison?” I came back with the cup and sat down beside the bed again. “What do you mean by ‘I think’?”
“Because my first memory is from when I was about twelve or thirteen years old.” Suri’s eyes were closed, tracks of perspiration running down her face and neck. “I don’t remember my parents, or of even having parents. I don’t know even what their crimes were. Point being, though, I died all the time in there. I’ve probably died about twenty, thirty times.”
I held the cup out, and helped her drink some water. “That’s not good.”
“There’s worse things than death.” Suri sprawled back. “The Starborn I told you about… they had golden halos, like Rin’s. It started with just the two of them, but they brought friends now and then. Those fuckers treated me like garbage.”
My ears started to ring. I had to fight down the urge to stand up and pace. “You remember their names?”
“No, never saw them. It was like their names were masked. The main two… one was a Mage and the other was some kind of Warrior-path guy.” Suri sighed. “These guys told me I was in Al-Asad because I was a war criminal. They called me names, like ‘Comrade’ and ‘Australian’ and suchlike… And they’re the only other people besides you who ever talked about this ‘Total War’ and ‘Pacific Alliance’ stuff. I figured it was like… some kind of schizo delusion, you know? I’d never been in a war. I’d never left the prison.”
The implications of what Suri was telling me settled like a lead blanket over my shoulders. There were a couple of possibilities. One was that Suri was a real human, like me, but a Pacific Alliance citizen who had been uploaded during the military GNOSIS/OUROS project and somehow ended up here, in the fun civilian game program. Option B was that she’d been constructed out of multiple datasets by a couple of sick-minded Devs. The end result was the same either way.
“Fuck,” I said. “That is so fucked up. How did you escape?”
Suri frowned, the muscles of her face twitching. “If you’re imprisoned in Al-Asad, you can’t gain any levels or take a Path. The only things I could increase were my stats. So I trained whenever and however I could. Punching straw, fighting for scraps, fighting for the fun of it... I got my ass kicked, and died and respawned all the time. About a month ago, something weird happened. I remember that I’d managed to get myself this old piece of injera and some locusts and had cooked it all up. I was sitting down to eat when the world blacked and I passed out. When I woke up, I didn’t realize anything had changed. But later that night, some guy tried to pick on me for some you-know-what. I killed him before he had his cock out, and I got a pop-up message telling me I’d gotten EXP. I gained a level from killing that bastard. Then I got all these messages telling me I could choose a Path. I opened up my menu, and there were all these new options and shit. So I took Warrior, and began to train up as hard as I could. I never saw the golden-ring guys after that, either.”
The server reset. I sat back, cradling the cup in my lap. My fingers felt numb, ringing like my ears. “Yeah. That was about a month ago.”
“Some of the other guys in the hole were able to start taking levels too, of course,” she said, shifting restlessly under the blankets. “But they didn’t come back to life if they died. I did. I got revenge on all the ones who’d fucked with me, and teamed up with some of the better men. We decided we’d try and break out. The prison was next to these moldy ruins, and we ended up digging our way through to them. I almost made it that first time, but this fucking monster came out of nowhere and nailed me.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.” Suri grimaced, swallowing. “But the worst part? When I died, I woke up in my cell. If I die, that’s where I go. Straight back to prison.”
I frowned. “You should be able to set new spawn points. All Starborn can do that.”
“I can’t.” She shifted again, pushing the covers down her chest. “Menu... says I should be able to. But it’s grayed out and shit, and-”
“Hey, shh. Calm down a bit. You need to stay warm.” I pulled the covers back up over her chest. “Drink more. Can you hold this yourself?”
By way of reply, Suri took the cup in her hand. It shook as she brought it to her mouth and began to drink with needy, shuddering gulps.
I watched her in numb silence, emotions swirling through my mind like a storm. So many things had clicked into place with that abbreviated, almost sterile version of all of the horrors that had happened to her, and nearly all of those revelations made me want to go back into the real world so that I could go to Ryuko HQ and blow it up a second time. Me and Rin were going to have a talk.
“Thank you,” I said.
“For what?”
“For trusting me. That’s some heavy shit.”
“Too heavy for most people. Like I said, some things are better off left buried.” Breathing hard, Suri dropped the empty cup. She cracked her eyes open and looked up at me. “I figured you’d be like those Gold Rings and their mates when I first met you, you know. You started going on about the war and everything, but I’m okay with being proven wrong. You’re alright, Hector.”
On impulse, I reached out and clasped her hand between mine and squeezed. Suri smiled faintly, and squeezed back.
“You’re literally the toughest person I’ve ever met,” I told her. “You’re brave, and smart, and smoking hot, even when you don’t have a fever.”
/>
She chuckled, grimacing with discomfort. The fever was in full swing, but her severed arm had started to grow back, if the shape under the loose bandages was anything to go by. “Lay it on... uhhn... too much thicker and I’ll throw up all over you.”
“I’m serious.” I let go and stood up. “After this, when you’re feeling better and this whole Slayer thing is sorted out, let me take you out to dinner.”
“Dinner, huh?” The woman smiled faintly. “I’ll think about it once I no longer feel like puking. How’s that sound?”
“It’s not a ‘no’.” I smiled back.
“It’s not a ‘no’,” she replied. “I just feel really crook, and if I think about food for more than a second, it’ll definitely become a ‘no’.”
I squinted. “Crook? I’m sorry, but I don’t speak Austrababble.”
“Sick, you idiot.” She flopped back against her pillows in exasperation. But not just exasperation - she looked disheveled and exhausted.
“You need to sleep, Suri. But speaking of crooks, though - I found another one of those cat-face rings at the scene,” I pulled it out from a pocket. “Well, Karalti did.”
“Nightstalkers,” Suri muttered. “Hold onto it... and when I’m awake, we’ll... we’ll talk about the Stalkers. Go pay them a visit.”
“No worries. Get some sleep.” I looked down at Suri, and swallowed the urge to lean down and kiss her on the forehead. Instead, I flipped the ring in my hand, and headed for the door.
It was time to check in with His Majesty. And then I had some training to do.
Chapter 32
Even though it was late, I had a feeling the Volod would be awake. I found Andrik in the hidden parlor to the side of his throne room, the same place where we’d had our first audience.
Andrik was rumpled, sprawled in his fine red velvet armchair with a glass of wine and a sullen expression. He stared at the fire, while the Captain of the Kingsguard, Garen, sat patiently in the corner. He had his sword over his knees, a shield by his other hand, and appraised me warily as I walked up and stood at ease beside the Volod.
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