Hell to Pay (Ascend Online Book 2)

by Luke Chmilenko

  “We had a running fight halfway through the city,” I continued, remembering the chase. “Ended up with me taking a dive off of a building to get away.”

  “Hang on, that was the ledger mission.” Molly looked at me with a curious expression. “Wasn’t that also the day when you crushed that produce vendor’s stall and came back all covered in…juices?”

  “Uh, yeah.” I coughed with embarrassment, remembering both Fairfax’s and Molly’s reaction when I had returned from the mission. “It was the softest thing I could find to land on.”

  Molly couldn’t help but giggle as she shook her head. “You never said anything about being chased by a Bounty Hunter!”

  “I figured Fairfax would have excused clumsiness more than he would have getting a Hunter’s attention,” I answered with a sigh.

  “He didn’t.” Molly laughed again.

  “No.” I shook my head, remembering the grueling training regimen that he had assigned to me afterwards to cure me of my made-up clumsiness. “But it sure did help me with my fear of heights.”

  “We really need to sit down one day and trade stories.” Quinn let out a soft laugh beside me as we continued our descent into the guild’s lower levels. “I thought I had an interesting run with the odd burgle here or there, but it seems to me I might be the most boring one here.”

  “Lazarus likes to live life on the edge,” Molly said somewhat mockingly. “Or maybe he doesn’t, seeing how he’s died six times already.

  “That’s nearly a death every three days since the game came out…” Quinn observed, doing the mental math.

  “They weren’t all my fault,” I replied defensively, motioning a hand towards Molly. “And I did save you from the statue, after all.”

  “That’s right,” Molly admitted, conceding the point. “Thanks again for that, by the way.”

  Chatting amongst ourselves as we finished the trek, we found our way into the guild common room, finding it nearly deserted as we entered the room with only Bart and Goner sitting at a table together.

  “Lazarus, Molly!” Goner’s voice called from the other side of the room as he waved towards us. “You’re back! How did everything go?”

  “Not as good as we would have liked, but not as bad as it could have been,” I answered with a sigh, seeing Bart’s weathered eye look us over, noting the singed and ragged parts of our armor.

  “Looks like you three had trouble,” Bart said slowly. “That or you decided to take a tumble in a fireplace with razors in your hands.”

  “Ha!” Quinn snorted. “Had a problem with Hunters on our way back.”

  Bart’s eyes rose in surprise. “Hunters? Do tell.”

  “You were right earlier today about someone being angry about last night, though we are pretty sure Edith was behind it. She’s put a fat enough bounty on my head that Sawyer caught wind of it and he tried to collect,” I told the old thief. “Things got a bit rough, but they didn’t put up much of a fight. I think I may have convinced Sawyer to leave us alone for a time, too.”

  “I warned ya,” Bart replied as he shook his head. “Heard enough complaints today while we were walking our route about the city being turned upside down. Surprised none of the gangs took a swing at you out of spite.”

  “Me too,” Molly agreed. “The streets felt wrong today, especially the few nobles and merchants we saw walking around. They all had guards with them and looked like they were ready to bolt if the wind changed.”

  “About sums up what we saw too,” Bart agreed, looking over to the young thief listening to us intently. “What do you think, boy?”

  “Everyone is scared, and fewer people are buying or selling at the markets,” Goner replied while trying to look at all of us at once. “A bunch of the drops we were supposed to pick up were empty today, too, at least half of them.”

  “Everyone who was out buying today was looking for food,” Bart told us while nodding at the young thief-in-training. “Prices have already gone up at least by half compared to yesterday.”

  “People always buy and store food when they think something is going to go wrong,” Quinn said. “It’s no different if there’s a snowstorm or a hurricane warning.”

  “Wish I could say that all of this would pass as quickly a bad storm,” Bart stated with a sigh. “I have a feeling we’ve only begun to see what is in store for us.”

  “You think there’s going to be a war?” Goner asked, nervousness clearly evident in his voice.

  “I don’t know, Goner,” Bart replied as he looked at the boy. “But the military doesn’t leave the city just to stretch its legs.”

  “I know,” the boy said. “I used to watch the soldiers when we were still fighting the Orcs. Every day, I’d see them going towards The Bulwark, and every day, I’d see the hurt ones coming back. Ma and Da just told me that’s the way things were, that the war had gone on for longer than they were alive and they were sad about that. But when the war ended, everyone was so happy. If it starts again…”

  The older thief was silent for a moment as thoughts raced around in his mind. “I should see if we can get you somewhere safer than in the den here, Goner.”

  “Wait, what? I don’t want to leave here!” Goner practically shouted as panic crossed his face. “This is my home!”

  “You deserve a safer home than this, Goner,” Bart said, looking towards us for support. “At least until you’re older and can protect yourself.”

  “I’m Eberian,” the boy hissed. “I was born knowing how to protect myself! The guild took me in when Ma and Da didn’t come back; it’s only fair I find a way to help it back! I’m not going to abandon it, not when you’re all finally giving me jobs to do!”

  “You’re right, Goner,” I cut in, happy that this opportunity had arisen. “But there is more than one way to help, and what the guild needs the most isn’t a boy who knows how to swing a sword or pick someone’s pocket.”

  “What do you mean?” Goner looked at me suspiciously. “That’s what the guild does; we steal what we want, and we fight if we need to.”

  “There is a lot more to the guild than that,” Molly added, seeing Bart’s slow nod of approval. “Can you read? Can you write? If you want to really help the guild, you need to know how to do that.”

  “I can read!” Goner exclaimed defensively before he started to deflate. “Not very well, though…”

  “And that’s okay,” Molly told the boy soothingly. “You have plenty of time to learn.”

  “But I don’t want to leave here to do that!” Goner whined, his voice taking on a desperate tone. “This is the only family I have left!”

  “Leaving here won’t change anything, Goner,” I said, remembering Fairfax’s wake last night. “You’re one of us, no matter where you go, but if you want to find out the best way to help the guild, you’re going to have to go out and learn.”

  “Oh yeah?” Goner looked up at me from the table. “Where am I going to do that? That takes money, and I don’t have any.”

  “Well,” I started with a smile. “Quinn happens to know a man that needs help managing his…library, and has offered to teach you a few things if you’re willing to help him out.”

  “Lazarus is right,” Quinn confirmed, nodding at the young boy. “William may be old, but he’s also a mage. He might be able to teach you a few things.”

  “You mean I can learn magic?!” Goner asked, jumping to the one thing all young children fantasized about.

  “You might be able to,” Quinn replied. “That depends if you have the gift, and if you work hard enough.”

  “It would really help the guild out a lot, Goner,” Bart added, his eyes twinkling as he looked at us. “We need to have guild members that can read and write, but if you can learn how to do magic…now that would be something.”

  “Well, that may not be so bad, then,” Goner admitted. “I can learn what I need to learn, then I can come back and be helpful!”

  “You would have to study very hard,” Quin
n warned, waving a finger at the boy. “William is really old and doesn’t have a lot of time; you’d have to make sure to pay attention to what he says.”

  “I can do that!” Goner stated enthusiastically. “I won’t let the guild down!”

  “We will have to check with Isabella before any of this can happen.” I looked towards Bart, who winced before nodding in agreement.

  “I’m sure Bella would have no problem in letting Goner go study with the man,” the older thief began somberly. “But there’s been some more bad news coming down since you lot left. Perhaps it’d be best to ask her in a day or two when she’s got her head on straight.”

  “What happened?” Molly asked, the three of us freezing at Bart’s grave tone.

  “You’d be best to get it from her, to be honest,” he replied, motioning towards the far side of the common room where Isabella had set up her office this morning. “I don’t know if it’s free to be spread just yet, though if she doesn’t soon, word’s likely to get out on its own anyway.”

  “Shit,” I heard Quinn curse. “What else could go wrong?”

  Bart looked at us with a sad expression. “What couldn’t?”

  W

  Taking a moment to collect ourselves after the older thief’s warning, the three of us hesitantly made our way across the common room and towards Isabella’s temporary office. Finding the door closed as we approached, I knocked on the door while exchanging worried glances with Molly and Quinn.

  “Isabella, it’s us,” I called through the door. “We’re back from seeing Quinn’s contact.”

  There was a moment of silence before Isabella replied, “Enter.”

  Pushing open the door, the three of us walked into the office and closed the door behind us, spotting Isabella sitting alone at a paper-covered desk on the far side of the room, her hair disheveled and eyes red.

  “Isabella, are you okay?” Molly was the first to ask, as she saw the stress on our Thief Lord’s face.

  “No,” she replied quietly, looking up at us in shock. “No, I am not.”

  “What happened?” I asked, seeing her glazed-over eyes as they stared blankly towards us.

  Staring blankly, it took a few moments for my voice to reach through her stupor and her eyes finally focused.

  “Crawridge’s heir was just killed by Amberwain’s heir in the New District a couple of hours ago,” Isabella whispered, her eyes shifting across each of us as she spoke. “Wynbrandt’s heir was apparently there as well and was seriously injured; she’s not expected to live out the day. There are over two dozen dead in total, when you include retainers, guards, and other bystanders. The three Houses are furious at one another, and from the little that I’ve heard so far, they’re on the verge of breaking out into open warfare.”

  The three of us just stared at Isabella blankly as we absorbed her statement, our mouths having fallen open as we stared on in disbelief, trying to understand how three of the five major Noble Houses had gotten themselves in a brawl.

  “But that’s not all,” Isabella continued as she shook her head. “According to the witness, it seems that there were devils involved.”

  “Devils?” I asked, feeling the bottom of my stomach fall out as I heard the word from Isabella. “How?”

  “Exactly how you told me it happened to you,” Isabella explained. “A pair of retainers, possibly three if the rumors are true, transformed and burst into flames without warning…twisting them into unholy creatures.”

  “How did all three Houses even get involved?” Molly asked, processing everything Isabella had told us much faster than Quinn and I. “Amberwain hates both Wynbrandt and Crawridge; they wouldn’t want to be in the same district as them, let alone close enough to fight.”

  “From what I’ve been able to discover so far, they were each invited to an early-morning soirée at a new banquet hall,” Isabella told us as she clasped her hands together to keep them from trembling. “How they arranged the timing of it all to keep them from seeing one another, I do not know, but everything happened once they were all led into the dining hall…”

  “That’s when the retainers transformed…” Quinn guessed. “They all must have thought it was treachery from the other side.”

  “Edith did this,” Molly stated bitterly, her voice turning to anger. “She organized this and trapped all of them there.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, echoing Molly’s tone. “But why? What would she gain from killing off the two heirs and effectively framing another?”

  “Inciting conflict?” Quinn offered. “Seem obvious to me.”

  “But to what end?” I questioned. “I can’t even imagine what she or anyone else would stand to gain from this.”

  “Has the king done or said anything?” Molly asked Isabella, watching the woman shake her head.

  “If he has, it hasn’t reached my ears yet, though at this point, the attack isn’t common knowledge on the street yet, either,” the woman told us as she cast her eyes downward. “Though I expect him to do exactly what he’s done since the Call to Arms ceremony. Nothing.”

  “The king is useless,” I said out of reflex as a thought occurred to me. “Wait, why were only three of the Houses involved?”

  “What do you mean?” Isabella asked as she looked up at me. “This disaster was bad enough; we’re lucky enough only three were involved.”

  “No, not that, I think Lazarus is onto something,” Quinn interjected. “Both House Phineas and Denarius weren’t involved in this. Though in the case of House Denarius, I can understand, they’re pretty insular as a whole.”

  “Phineas definitely isn’t, though,” Molly said. “They’re renowned for being socialites. Why were they excluded?”

  “You have a point,” Isabella admitted. “We’ll have to investigate both Houses and determine why neither was present.”

  Letting out a deep sigh as she composed herself, Isabella looked up at the three us with a hopeful look in her eye. “With all we have going on, please tell me that you’ve learned something useful from Quinn’s contact.”

  “We’ve learned quite a bit from William,” I started while collecting my thoughts. “Though I’m not sure how much of it is useful. He wasn’t able to shed much light on how Edith was controlling or summoning the devils with the strange talismans that I saw before,” I explained. “Save that it would be a reasonably time-consuming process to create them, and would involve a great deal of knowledge and access to rare crafting materials.”

  “Which pretty much confirms what we thought before,” Molly added. “Edith isn’t working alone and has to have a fair bit of financial backing.”

  “Given the size of the bounty that was placed on Lazarus’s head, I think that’s pretty evident, too,” Quinn chimed in, seeing a surprised look cross Isabella’s face as he spoke.

  “You ran into Hunters?” Her eyes dropped down to our armor for the first time, seeing the scratches and burns from the battle.

  “We ran into Sawyer and his crew looking to collect,” I replied as I waved my hand dismissively at Isabella’s concern. “But after taking the time to listen to me, Sawyer decided that his energies would be better spent looking for Edith instead of me. If he finds her, he’s promised to send word.”

  “And you trust this Hunter to fulfill this promise?” Isabella looked at me with disbelief.

  “I trust him to try,” I stated, meeting Isabella’s eye as I spoke. “We’ve agreed on a temporary truce until she’s caught.”

  “I don’t share your optimism,” Isabella told me as she shook her head. “But we have so few options available to us that I’m willing to grasp at straws if it allows us even a moment to catch our breath. It was the whole reason why I posted the bounty in Edith in the first place.

  “What of the sigil?” Isabella prompted. “Is this something that we need to be concerned about as well?”

  “That…I don’t know either,” I admitted as I began to explain everything that had happened with William once he ha
d seen the sigil. “Without knowing how exactly I got the sigil in the first place, William wasn’t able to tell me much else, other than it being a clean sigil, without any controlling influences from the Ascendant Empire that he saw before The Fall.”

  “I have far too much on my mind to even consider what I would do if your will was not your own, so I will count it as a blessing that it is not the case,” Isabella breathed softly as she shook her head at my explanation.

  “Unfortunately, past that, William wasn’t able to add in anything more concrete without knowing exactly what sort of artifact was stolen from the Arcaneum,” Quinn told Isabella. “We can only guess at what Edith has planned at this point.”

  “Which makes it all the more important that we find her before she can put her plan into motion,” Isabella replied with a curt nod at the mage as she unclasped her hands and pushed herself up from her seat. “I will take pains to explicitly stress that point at the meeting with the Thief Lords tonight. If the four other guilds can combine with our resources and the Hunters, am I confident we can drive her out of hiding. Short of leaving the city, no one can hide from the Eberian Underworld forever.”

  “We can’t forget about Ransom, either,” Molly added, remembering the other party member that had joined us on our heist. “He’s been missing this entire time, but given the fact that he’s a Warlock and that there are devils involved…we should probably be looking for him, too.”

  “A good idea,” Isabella agreed with a nod as she walked around her desk and stopped before us, looking at each of us in the eye in turn. “I’ve long prided myself on knowing everything that happens in Eberia, keeping tabs on what each faction is doing and how the guild could best exploit it. The last two days have humbled me in a way that I have never been before.

  “First with Fairfax’s death…” Isabella swallowed hard as she spoke, pausing for a moment before continuing. “Then again with the military suddenly leaving, and now with the slaughter of the noble heirs.

  “It has become readily apparently that I need more help in order to manage all of the guild’s affairs, and I want to extend my thanks for the work each of you has done so far,” Isabella continued. “Things are changing faster than I could have ever imagined since you Adventurers have joined us, and I for one am glad to have you three on my side.”