Then he blinked and Danella was gone. Once again Zyra lay on the floor before him, still as death. This was what she would end up like if she came with him: emptied and cast aside like the poison bottle she’d dropped when she’d fallen.
It didn’t matter that she wasn’t really dead. Roark couldn’t let her wind up like this. Wouldn’t.
He glared down at the poison in his fist. He wished she would’ve talked through this insane plan with him; now it was too late. She hadn’t trusted him with her plan, which ironically was forcing him to trust her.
Through the thick, gray-green wall of ice, Roark could see movement. Legionnaires were coming running. He cursed under his breath. He could cry unfair later. If they survived this.
“Drink it,” he ordered the other two, opening his bottle and gulping down the ichor.
It tasted like smoke from a crematorium mixed with rancid swamp mud, and it clogged his throat. He swallowed and swallowed, trying to force it to move faster. As soon as he woke up, he would have to drink a whole tavern’s worth of ale to wash the taste from his mouth.
Roark could see Kaz and Variok drinking down their poisons as well. Then the world around him blurred and darkened until he could hardly make out anything. The cold wind from the Freezer faded to the background, surpassed by a warm fuzz filling his limbs.
Far away, he felt his body crumple and hit something solid. Roark von Graf didn’t die.
But it looked to all the world exactly as if he had.
Co-Conspirator
RANDY SHOEMAKER STARED in disbelief as the Trolls and elf fell to the icy floor of Chillend’s notorious Freezer. They certainly looked dead, but when he checked their statuses on his admin screen, all four showed Death Sleep, Alive.
What even was this? Players and mobs couldn’t create new poisons just because they experimented with different ingredients. If they brewed together three or more ingredients that didn’t fall under the combinations for one of the eighty-nine prewritten potions, they were supposed to get a Potion Failed! notification, not a previously unknown potion.
And now the Troll girl even had a specialty sub-class that didn’t exist before? Randy had been following the modder this whole time. Roark hadn’t logged out or gone inactive once to create the new class. It didn’t make any sense at all. And her going completely off-script, making that logical leap that she could use her new poison in their jailbreak? What in the name of Alan Mathison Turing?
How was Roark doing it? Randy could see no logical explanation at all.
There was a sound like a refrigerator door opening behind him as the OLO Legionnaires who guarded Chillend popped open the Freezer’s door with their Hoarfrost Rings of Sealing.
As they rushed in, Randy slipped to the other side of the vault and pressed his back against the wall. His admin privileges made him invisible, but not incorporeal. They could still bump into him if he was in the way.
“What in the name of reason happened here?” snapped the olm in the lead, an Overwatcher named Grevath. “They weren’t in here long enough to freeze to death. Frostbite should’ve taken at least an hour before it got them.”
The other, a Lower Guard without a name, kicked at the Troll girl’s hand. The Sleeping Death bottle rolled across the floor with that empty glass sound.
“Poison,” she said. Under normal circumstances, a Lower Guard like her would be the ideal way to complete the jailbreak quest. A player with midlevel Pickpocketing could steal a Lower Guard’s Ring of Sealing and use it to escape. “Murder-suicide?”
Grevath’s smooth brow ridges lowered. “Or they’re having us on.” He reared back and planted a plated boot in Roark’s side. The Jotnar lay still as death. Grevath leaned in close and squinted at Roark’s empty Health bar. “Nope. Dead as a tomb.”
For a moment, the pair of olms stared down at the seeming corpses quietly, grave frowns on their humanoid salamander faces. Randy knew they were programmed to be uncomfortable about NPC death. It was really uncommon in Hearthworld, even in the pockets where it was possible like Chillend. But it still felt as if he had stumbled upon a pair of real people discovering a group suicide.
A shiver ran down Randy’s spine at the thought.
“I’ll call the Head of Body Disposal to dump them,” the Lower Guard said after a moment, her voice subdued.
Overwatcher Grevath gave a sharp nod.
In a few minutes, the Lower Guard was back with a cheerful olm in obsidian-accented plate mail. From what Randy remembered of the prison wiki’s Trivia section, the Body Disposal staff were the only Legionnaires in the OLO who wore black-trimmed plate mail. Every other Legionnaire wore perfectly spotless, shining silver plate, covered by the pristine tabards marking out their order and rank.
“Bring out your dead,” the Head of Body Disposal joked, elbowing the lesser guard far more playfully than the situation warranted.
Randy snorted. He’d always been fond of that reference. And in this case, Roark’s little band wasn’t really dead yet, either.
“What was that?” Grevath’s head snapped around in Randy’s direction. Whoops.
But the Head of Body Disposal misunderstood. “Just a little joke. In my line of work, it would be illogical to shun a sense of humor.”
“You hardly do any work.” Grevath sneered, superiority in the rounded contours of his amphibian face. “This is the first NPC death we’ve had at the prison in over a year.”
The Head of Body Disposal ignored the Overwatcher’s sniping; he lifted both hands, palms out, and muttered a quick spell, unleashing Telekinesis to lift the corpses onto the cart. Without the spell, it would have taken at least four people to lift the Knight Thursr alone. Straining a little to keep the cart under control, the olm wheeled it down the soft decline to the body hole.
Randy followed at a safe distance, his mind still turning over the how of Roark’s modifications to the class specialties and scripts. It was mind-boggling. Simply baffling, actually. If Randy managed to find out who this Roark was, there was some small part that thought Mr. Silva, the CEO, would be smart to offer the man a job. Randy had never seen a programmer or software engineer accomplish what this modder was, and Randy worked for Hearthworld—the single most advanced, groundbreaking, boundary-pushing VRMMO on the market.
The Head of Body Disposal pressed his Hoarfrost Ring of Sealing to the disposal hole, triggering a hatch to swing open. One by one, he used the Telekinesis spell to drop Roark, his Knight Thursr and Reaver companions, and the elf merchant through to the waiting sea below.
The sea! Randy winced. He’d been so caught up in trying to puzzle out how the Griefer had accomplished all this without ever logging out or going inactive that he hadn’t taken into account what would happen to their party once they were dropped unconscious into the ocean. They didn’t seem to have thought that through, either, maybe because of the stress or the cold. Chances were, they would simply die and respawn. As far as he knew, forever-death was only written into the prison, but he couldn’t remember exactly where the boundaries of the prison had been coded to end. Was it the exterior surface of the compound? Fifty feet around the compound? A little bit of the sea below the compound? He wasn’t positive, and if he wasn’t positive, then that meant there was at least some chance they would perish, never to respawn.
And that, Randy suddenly decided, that was intolerable.
For one, if this Roark really did die, all Randy’s work and sleuthing would be undone. There was also the fact that he hated to see them drown right after the Troll girl had come up with such an otherwise elegant solution to escape. He knew he was going a little native empathizing with the bad guy, but he had to admit he was also super impressed at Roark’s abilities in spite of the dirty way he was applying them to wreck the game. He was also curious to see this Troll Marketplace that Roark seemed so intent on setting up, and that wouldn’t happen either if Roark and his cadre were wiped.
So no. This wouldn’t be the end to Roark or his little party. Not
if Randy had a say—and he did have a say.
The Body Disposal olm was about to close the hatch.
Before he could think too much about what he was doing, Randy equipped his Waterwalking Boots and jumped through the hole in the ice.
As soon as he hit the frozen open air, he spread his Arboreal Herald’s pale gray wings and glided down to the surface of the water, landing lightly. His Waterwalking Boots held him up as if he were standing on a trampoline. He bobbed slightly, but didn’t sink.
At his feet, the corpses of the Trolls and elf were drifting apart, Roark and the merchant facedown in the waves. Worse yet, the Knight Thursr had already started to sink.
Randy tried to isolate each of their code and transport them, but his admin powers wouldn’t allow him to affect the prime anomaly or any of the NPCs he’d infected with his rogue code. Looked like he would have to rescue them the hard way.
Randy found a rope in his Inventory, then went through the unconscious forms, tying Roark’s claw-tipped hand securely to the Mighty Gourmet’s, which, in turn, he tied to both the merchant and the Troll girl. Then Randy wrapped the end around his own palm a few times to make sure he had a tight hold.
Flapping his wings with all his might, Randy pushed off the water and flew.
He grunted under the strain of lifting all four from the choppy, white-capped waves. It was a hard trip. Usually, while he was in the air, the game showed him thermals as updrafts and downdrafts, the ups with cycling bright red arrows pointing up, and the downs with blue flowing downward. But out here on the Wareling Deeps, Randy was encountering only downdrafts. He had to flap constantly, his arms, shoulders, and wings burning from the effort while sweat leaked down his face.
Arboreal Heralds weren’t made for strength, they were made for speed. Only his absurdly high character level made it possible to drag so much weight while keeping himself aloft. Twice he even had to land and walk. Without his Waterwalking boots, he would’ve been, well severely disadvantaged to say the least. Even with them, his stamina was utterly drained by the time he made it to the ice-chip-piled shores of Frostrime and dragged his haul onto land.
Randy wheezed and puffed as he untied the modder and NPCs from one another. It took Randy a while to realize that even though he was physically exhausted, he was grinning. It was fun being the big strong guy who saved everyone. Even having them unconscious and unable to see that they owed their survival to him was kind of like being a superhero. They would never know his name, just that they had survived.
“Who was that caped crusader?” Randy chuckled to himself. It was a good thing he thought his jokes were funny, because he didn’t have any friends to appreciate them.
In that way, he kind of understood what the modder might be doing, creating an army of Trolls and gathering NPCs who would serve him. When you had no friends or anybody who cared about you at all, minions were better than nothing.
Finished with his heroic deed, Randy stored his rope and vanished from sight once more, then found a mound of snow to sit on while he waited for them to wake up.
A Bargain Struck
ROARK SHIVERED ON THE hard dirt of some back alleyway. He grabbed for the lapels of his threadbare jerkin to pull his head down inside and tried to scoot farther back against one of the buildings to escape the cutting fingers of wind. But he didn’t meet the cold, hard wall of a building. There was nothing around him.
He blinked, then shut his eyes against the blinding glare. Was that the wind he heard? It sounded more... rhythmic. Like waves? But that made no sense, considering he had never lived on the streets of a city near the sea.
With a groan, Roark pushed himself upright, leaning back on ice-chilled palms. He squinted and shielded his eyes from the sun with one hand while he took in his surroundings. Not far off, ice-capped waves rolled up the frozen beach. Just up the sand, a lighthouse jutted up from a stretch of treacherous-looking rocks. Beside his foot lay a midnight blue hand and an arm with glowing azure tattoos of power.
Zyra. When he turned around, he found Variok behind him, and Kaz just beyond that.
They had all made it out of Chillend, then. How in the seven hells they had washed up in the same place, he couldn’t say, but he was certainly grateful they had.
The elf’s pointed ears were beginning to twitch and his face contorted now and again as he fought to awaken from the strange poison Zyra had fed them. Variok seemed to be no worse for the wear.
But when Roark looked again, he realized Kaz was lying on his back, staring up at the sky. Roark held his breath. Kaz couldn’t be dead. Not if they had escaped the prison alive.
Finally, the Mighty Gourmet gave a sluggish blink. Roark let his breath out in a rush, his shoulders relaxing.
“Do you need a healing potion, mate?” Roark asked, groggy, his words slightly slurred as though he’d spent the night drinking hard.
Kaz rolled his head toward Roark, then looked up at the sky again.
“Does that cloud look like stew meat cooking to Roark, too?” he asked.
Roark followed Kaz’s gaze. To him, the cloud looked like the crumbled ruins of a tyrant’s castle.
“Definitely,” he said, the fog in his skull clearing a little more with every second.
Kaz nodded, satisfied. “While Kaz was in the Sleeping Death, he thought he saw a Malaika carrying them to safety. Very big, with soft, feathery gray wings. Does Roark think a Malaika returned to Hearthworld to help them?”
Roark scratched his jaw. “I think it’s more likely that Zyra’s potion has some hallucinatory side effects. I woke up thinking I was a child again, trying to sleep in an alley.”
“No!” Variok’s shout startled them both. “You are not my friend! Variok will never sell to—” The elf lurched up to a seated position, one hand clutching his chest. After a moment, he seemed to shake free of the dream and squinted at the frozen sand and crashing surf. “Ah, what relief! My friends, we have survived! Variok will not forget what you have done for him this day.”
A page of text appeared in Roark’s vision, obscuring the merchant’s toothy grin.
[Congratulations! You have completed the quest Prison Break and earned Variok’s loyalty! Variok’s loyalty includes a 10% increase to all sale prices when selling to Variok and 10% decrease to all purchase prices when buying from Variok.
Warning: Variok’s loyalty depends on your treatment of the elvish merchant. Keep him happy by offering him first crack at the weapons and armor you wish to sell or by checking his store first when you wish to buy. But remember, buying or selling to other weapons and armor merchants before consulting Variok will upset him. Do this too many times, and Variok will take his loyalty elsewhere!]
He blinked the page away.
“All that you have done for Variok!” The merchant slapped Roark on the back. “How can I ever repay you, my friend?”
“We didn’t come for entirely selfless reasons,” Roark said. “We have a grand enterprise in mind and think you might be just the man to help us get it off the ground. We’re trying to found a mob settlement, and we need a merchant. If you’re interested in setting up shop with us, you’ll keep whatever you make on your sales plus a share of the gold we take from griefing.
“You’ll also have your own shop building and living quarters, plus access to untold treasures from monsters all across the face of Hearthworld. And no more dealing with rude heroes that don’t value your business acumen. What’s more, as the only proper merchant in this settlement—the only mob settlement in all of Hearthworld, let me remind you—you’ll be able to command the best prices.” He shot the merchant a wink. “Barring me and my inner circle, of course.”
Variok considered this, rubbing thoughtfully at his chin. “This is a most intriguing offer. Yes, my friends, Variok could see the benefits of such an arrangement. Yet, humble man that I am, I have a few requests. Before I was arrested, I spoke to a cook from the Cruel Citadel—a beautiful lady named Mai—about joining. So Variok told her that he lik
es comfort and luxury in all things, that he would not join unless he was assured of the finest foods and softest beds. Prison was no place for a cultured elf, and so before I agree, I must make certain that I am not trading one hell for another, less captive hell.” The merchant leaned in close, his face a study in gravity. “Tell me, Roark the Griefer, do you truly have a gourmet on staff?”
“Variok,” Roark said, gesturing to the Knight Thursr behind him, “meet the Mighty Gourmet.”
That toothy grin spread across Variok’s face and he let out a boisterous laugh.
“Then we are in business together, my friend! If you found a settlement, Variok is your merchant!”
[Congratulations! Variok the Elvish Merchant has agreed to join your settlement! To learn more about founding a settlement, see Settlements of Hearthworld or Growing Your Guild.]
Roark dismissed this notice as well. Gaining Variok’s allegiance was a step closer to founding their settlement, but it also reminded Roark that they had been forced to leave a valuable skill trainer behind in Chillend. He cursed silently and opened the mystic grimoire to his active quests.
Odd. Yevin’s quest wasn’t listed as Failed yet. Roark read through it once more.
╠═╦╬╧╪
Double Down?
Yevin the Arcane Paragon has offered to join your settlement as the local skill trainer if you can free him from Chillend Prison.
Objective: Free Yevin from Chillend Prison and return him alive to the mainland.
Reward: Yevin’s loyalty, 5,000 Experience, and Unlock a Special Magical Skill
Failure: Fail to free Yevin from Chillend
Or let Yevin die in the process of being freed
Penalty: Lose Yevin’s loyalty, Training with Yevin permanently locked
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