The Bathrobe Knight: Volume 3

by Charles Dean

“You won’t know until you try though?”

  “I’m pretty sure I already have.”

  “Come now, don’t say that. Haven’t your parents ever taught you? Every person is unique. Why wouldn’t their flavor be too?”

  “Sadly, I hope it’s not the case. The last one didn’t actually taste bad . . .”

  “In real life, you’re not a therapist or a fan of chianti, are you?”

  “No, why?”

  “No reason, but I’m still going to avoid your dinner parties. Either way, you should probably just go with the skill that’s stronger.”

  “This coming from a guy who hasn’t picked a single skill yet so that the game would be harder?”

  “Well, that’s different. I’m not the leader of a guild that’s counting on me to win every fight so their morale doesn’t shake,” Kitchens responded with a shrug. “If I were, well, I probably would have made the decision a long time ago. Or if they had a class that allowed for the production of infinite sake and tea . . .”

  “Your priorities are pretty set in stone, aren’t they?”

  “As long as family is first, I shouldn’t be judged for what comes second, should I?” he mused, pulling a bottle out of his inventory as he said it. “Think we have time for just one glass while we travel?”

  “I don’t think so.” Darwin pointed at a wall in the distance. It wasn’t too close, but it was still clearly visible. “I think we’re already here.”

  “I see. Then you should probably stop lollygagging and pick a skill already,” Kitchens said, putting the bottle up. The disappointment in his eyes was clear.

  “Alright,” Darwin agreed. Tiqpa, I pick the skill Cheap Dining and Quick Eats. The skill glowed for a minute as the other option turned gray and then both of them floated back to their respective places on the large skill tree.

  When they finally reached the town, Darwin stopped and asked Kitchens, “So, how do you expect we get in? Do you just wanna climb the wall and hope a sentry doesn’t notice us?”

  “We could wait for a caravan to go through and hop in the back. I’ve heard that works pretty well in some movies.” Kitchens pointed to the gate where merchants were bringing their goods in and out.

  “You sure you don’t just want to climb the wall? I still think our odds might be better.” Darwin wasn’t even suggesting it out of stubbornness. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t find a densely populated section on the ramparts. He was actually very confident the two of them could sneak over unnoticed, perhaps due to a shortage of troops after the Panda King’s disappearance.

  “If you’re asking me if I’d rather sit in a nice comfortable wagon and sip my sake while someone drives me through the gate unnoticed by the sleeping guards or spend the better part of half an hour struggling to sneak over a wall unnoticed like we were playing a console stealth game that forgot to add the oddly well-placed stack of cardboard boxes to hide behind, then I’m going to have to go with the cart.” Kitchens shook his head as he chuckled at Darwin.

  “You really have given up that need for a challenge today, haven’t you?” Darwin said resignedly. Kitchens was right, but the plan was mostly hinged on the driver neither minding the extra passengers nor recognizing their faces. If he even started to put up a protest, Darwin would have to stab him where he stood just to be on the safe side, and the idea of needlessly killing an NPC just didn’t sit well with him.

  “Just stay quiet and follow me,” Kitchens said as they got closer to the road.

  Darwin crouched down and did his best to mimic Kitchens’ movements. He almost hugged the ground as he mimicked the other man, moving in and out among the trees without making a sound. It was all rather graceful, but for Darwin, who was a lumbering oaf due to his size and weight, Kitchens’ sneakiness was almost impossible to duplicate.

  As they finally found themselves only a dozen feet at most from the road, Kitchens stood still and waited as one wagon or carriage after the other passed. Finally, without giving any prompt or notification, he stood up and walked in front of one of the vehicles. “Good sir, my friend and I are rather tired from walking all day. Do you mind allowing us a lift on the back of your wagon?”

  “Not at all! Hop on in!” The driver, an old Feline man, didn’t even look the slightest bit agitated as he waved the two into the wagon.

  “Thank you so much. We’ll be happy to pay you for the trouble. You’re a real lifesaver.” Kitchens lightly bowed his head, as did Darwin, and the two hopped in the back. As soon as they were comfortably seated, Kitchens pulled out his sake. “See? No problems at all,” he said as he took a sip.

  “How did you know he’d say yes? Or that the other ones wouldn’t?”

  “He’s a Feline, so he’s more likely to be friendly to me in this game with the way racism is built into this beast city. Not to mention, his load was non-existent, so he’s on the return trip after selling everything off. He has to be in a good mood. Lastly, he wasn't wearing a ring, so no wife. It might not seem like an important detail, but a man without a wife to return home to isn’t going to be in as big a rush.” Kitchens nodded in agreement with his own logic and then took another sip of sake. “Also, he just seemed like a nice guy.”

  Darwin had to admit he was rather impressed with the line of reasoning. “You’ve done this type of thing before?”

  “A few times.” Kitchens didn’t offer any more details than that, but he did pull out another bottle of sake and offer it to Darwin.

  Once they actually made it into the town, it didn’t take more than ten minutes of wandering around the city for Darwin to find the right place. Despite the difficulty of looking around while wearing the painfully obvious brown hoodie he had made quickly out of a sleeping merchant’s mat, he was still able to spot the brown door from what felt like a mile away.

  “So this is the place?” Darwin stopped at the wooden door.

  “It would seem so,” said Kitchens and turned his head a few times, “but I still can’t shake that feeling that we’ve been followed.”

  “Just a feeling though, right?” Darwin knew that worries like this were sometimes driven from overlapping experiences--like wondering if you left the door unlocked today or if it was yesterday that you forgot to protect the entry way. The memory of forgetting was real, but when it happened wasn’t, and that had often made Darwin triple and quadruple check his front door. Sometimes, he would even turn around, go back home and check one more time just to make sure that the door was secure. This is why he felt that Kitchens, someone who had clearly experienced war, might just be acting paranoid when he said that he thought they were being followed. Then again, Kitchens hadn’t said that during any of their previous journeys. So maybe he’s not just being paranoid. Darwin glanced at him. But I haven’t seen or heard anything since we left.

  “Just a gut feeling . . . and one I can’t shake at that.” Kitchens’ eyes darted side to side again, his head swiveling as he checked one more time for someone who might be trailing them. Seemingly satisfied, he placed his hand firmly on the door, ready to push it open. “Are you ready for this?” he said as he looked over his shoulder at Darwin.

  “You mean, ‘Do I have enough control over myself to not rip one of the guys trying to kill my people in half before solving my problem?’” Darwin asked, already familiar with the lecture. ‘Don’t kill people in the city if you can help it. You’ll get us found out, stir up more trouble than good, and it might spark even more quests to kill us,’ Kitchens had warned. But the warning was so I wouldn’t stir up trouble with the city. If I can kill this person without getting caught . . . The thought curled Darwin’s lips upwards into a fiendish smirk. No, don’t think like that. We’re just here to stop the quest, he checked himself.

  “Something like that, yes. Let’s go.” Kitchens pushed open the door to reveal an entirely wooden room. Every surface was plain brown and lacked any sign of the ornate designs that littered the walls of the surrounding buildings. Then, smack dab in the middle of th
e room, he saw a dark-haired woman sitting and holding a tall glass of wine.

  “Sister . . .” Darwin’s lips moved in unison with his brain, the shock breaking the filter between the two.

  “That’s your sister?” Kitchens said in a hushed aside to Darwin.

  “What are you doing here?” Darwin finished the thought, quickly coming to grips with her betrayal. “It’s you, isn’t it? It’s you that assigned the quest to kill my people. Why? Why would you kill what you set me on the path to save and create?”

  Eve’s mouth hung half-open as she stared at Darwin. A long moment passed between the two in silence. Darwin probably would have felt upset, angry, or even properly emotional about the topic if he had known her in any capacity. She was his sister, after all, but those were just words to him. Even her husband, his brother-in-law Charles, wasn’t more than an acquaintance at the moment.

  “Other people’s family reunions aren’t something one goes to by choice, so I’ll be right outside.” Kitchens turned around, opened the door and left the way they came in. “Give me a shout if you need me,” he said quietly right before the door shut behind him.

  “You stink of that woman,” Eve finally said, taking a gulp of her wine. “Her smell is all over you.”

  “That woman? You mean Stephanie? My girlfriend?” Darwin hadn’t exactly slept around, so the number of options were small, but the disdainful comment still may have referred to one of his party members. Darwin remembered vividly how much Eve had disliked Kass.

  Eve’s rigid face cracked into a loud cackle. “Your girlfriend?” She managed to spit out the words with obvious vitriol between the breaths of her overdone bursts of laughter. “Your girlfriend . . . That’s rich.”

  “What’s wrong with that? Wasn’t it you who told me where to find her?” Darwin walked up and took the seat opposite to Eve. “Didn’t you send me to her for a favor?”

  “Send you to her?” Her gigglish cackle never ceased. “I sent you to kill the medusa boss of a dungeon, not to meet with that backstabbing traitor.”

  “You’re calling her a backstabber, but, last I checked, she didn’t put together a quest that encouraged players to kill my people and destroy my home.” Darwin must have hit a note because, as soon as he said that, Eve’s face twisted back into the mouth-half-open expression of shock he had seen when he first walked in.

  “I tried to give you the happy ending, Darwin, to let you have a people and to let you spend the rest of your days in this world worry free. You would have had an eternity to play games with your niece--a wonderful happy-ever-after for you. Stephanie is the one who forced my hand.” Her words seemed half-filled with regret, half-filled with anger. “If that portal gets destroyed, then I’ll even stop anything from killing that guild of yours myself. If not, don’t worry too much. After a century, the death of people today will seem like nothing more than a few whispers in a wind. You’ll only regret that they died without even being able to remember their faces or who they were. Trust me on this.”

  “What kind of offer is this? You want me to destroy my way home and live the rest of my existence in a game? Just because a sister I’ve met once in my entire life said so?” Darwin couldn’t believe the woman’s gall.

  “I want you to do it because I know you care about humanity. You’re not like her. You don’t want to see every man on earth killed or turned into one of us, cursed with the endless cycle of bloodshed that stains our people’s past.” Eve’s words may have been spoken calmly, but her narrowed eyes and the gritted teeth let Darwin know exactly how riled up she was.

  If she’s asking me to do it, then that means she can’t do it herself, Darwin thought to himself with a grin. She needs me to betray my people because she can’t touch them. I have the upper hand as long as I say no. He felt rather confident in his conclusion. “You mean the insanity? Charles is solving it. I’ve been controlling it with his help.” Darwin knew what her concern was--he felt it every time Hunger drove him mad--but it wasn’t something he couldn’t handle alone anymore. He needed to call Kitchens in and kill her if she wouldn’t cooperate, but trying to persuade her to call off her quest wouldn’t hurt. Obviously, if she were Charles’s wife, she probably would have already talked with Charles before him, and that clearly hadn’t worked.

  “Have you? Have you actually managed to control it? The horns, your size . . . How many times have you completely lost control? Ten? Twenty? Those few demons we know who lived long enough to grow horns barely managed half of what yours are. You stand on virgin ground, going through one metamorphosis after the other triggered by the madness, and yet you’re still telling me that you have it under control?” Eve’s voice was dripping with disdain, and she practically spat the words out at him.

  “I am.” Darwin could feel his brows furrowing downwards into his eyes. “Or else I’d have tried to kill you already. Things never would have made it to the point of talking after what you did.”

  “What I did? Darwin, you’re trying to go back to the real world with a disease that will result in countless deaths. She’s using you to make more demons, more people to kill humans. Can’t you even see? You’re being played like a puppet, and you blame me for trying to take you out of the game?” Eve’s voice trembled with anger.

  “Out of the game? This isn’t a game. This is my life we’re talking about. Were you even going to tell me it didn’t matter if I died or not? Were you going to let me rot in here, worrying every moment of my existence over when my death would come? So what if she played me? At least she freed me from your prison.” Whatever tiny piece of control Darwin had over his anger when he had entered the bar was gone now. The only thing stopping him from reaching across the table and choking his sister to death where she sat was the irresistible compulsion to win the argument. Is this what Internet trolls feel like? he paused momentarily to wonder when he realized this. Wait, why don’t I just try to kill her? he began to ask himself, but the first inklings of an answer quickly coalesced into the perfect reason. Because if she’s like me, she can just respawn. So it will accomplish nothing, huh? he lamented.

  “She only freed you so that she could use you.” Eve’s face had long lost its pale white color and was turning a darker red by the minute. “Why can’t you see that what I’m doing is for the good of humanity?! How can you not care about the billions who might die from your recklessness?”

  “Because I’m not a human!” Darwin’s words raged out of his mouth as his feet planted in the ground. He stood up so fast that a shocked and wide-eyed Eve was pushed back as the table slammed into her. The words came out before he even realized what they truly meant. He hadn’t been aware of how he felt until the words actually left his mouth. Because I am not a human. The line echoed in his head, giving him a feeling he didn’t quite understand. They would have kept bouncing around if it weren’t for a sound coming from the corner of the room that broke his train of thought--the sound of someone slowly clapping.

  “I couldn’t have said it better myself, darling!” Stephanie, unbeknownst to either of them, had stacked a chair on top of a table and was watching from a short distance across the room. She was wearing a new outfit, a set of knight’s armor made of burnished steel that glimmered under the light of the few, sparse candles that illuminated the establishment. After she finished her applause, she stood up and walked down off the table, using a second chair placed in front of it. Her casual manner made it appear as if she were descending a small series of steps down from her throne. “You’re absolutely right, honey. You aren’t human. You’re not one of those filthy, greed-ridden philistines that drove us to this state.”

  “Stephanie!” Eve, who sat pinned between her chair and the table that Darwin had shoved into her when he had stood up, threw both the table and her own chair to the floor as she shot to her feet and backed up in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

  “You know what I love to do? Watch a little television while I play my video games. It’s just fun, isn’t
it? You get all the drama and plot of a good story from whatever show you’re watching, and all the mindless fun and entertainment of a nice button-mashing game. See, one of the reasons it works is because you can always rewind the show if you miss anything from being too into your game,” Stephanie rambled, ignoring Eve’s question. “The problem with real life is that you just can’t do that. I can’t record one show and watch it after another one is over. Well . . . maybe I could, but it’d be such a big hassle. That’s why I was disappointed that this little nuisance of a conversation had to occur at the same time one of Eve’s precious groups of questers attacked Darwin’s home. I can’t just record one event and go back to watch it later.”

  “Another group is . . .” The words slipped out as Darwin suddenly realized what Stephanie was hinting at.

  “Oh, stop worrying, Darwin,” Stephanie interjected, intercepting his concerns before he could voice them. “There is another player Demon who is there to take care of things for the moment. By the time that moment is over, I’ll be back to make sure nothing bad happens to your guildmates. I’ll keep them safe for you, dear Dar Dar.” Stephanie finished walking up to Darwin, gave him a kiss on the cheek and then snuggled onto his left arm.

  “Another player Demon . . . You got it to . . .?” Eve started. Her mouth, which had opened to speak, didn’t shut again, giving Eve the most cliché look of stupefaction possible. The look was, nevertheless, entirely genuine.

  “Got it to work? Of course I did. Now, even if you did manage to seal Dar Dar here, it’s useless. Tiqpa has worked stunningly. You should see her too, poor little girl. She was a cripple who was actually laughed and mocked! In this day and age, who would think that there are still some humans who make fun of crippled people. It just shows how pathetic the race really is.” Stephanie chuckled a little bit. “It’s no surprise she was the first to start the transformation.”

  “You . . . You . . . You . . .” Eve stammered, her eyes opening wider than her mouth as she stumbled backwards.