by S. R. Witt
“Oh? And what’s to keep me from taking it after I kill you, anyway?” Osmark withdrew the dagger and pointed it at the blazing stockade. “Besides, something tells me all of your bargaining chips just burned up in a tragic accident.”
“Cut me down, Imperial,” he begged, words brimming with panic. “Cut me down, and I’ll show you where it’s hidden. The best stuff was never inside the stockade—only a shadow-blighted moron would keep the real treasure there, surrounded by a bunch of thieves and cutthroats. It’s out in the woods, but you’ll never find it without me to guide you. Never.”
Osmark weighed his options.
The chief could be lying. No, he probably was lying. Scum like him would lie to their mothers if they thought it would give them even a temporary advantage. Faced with execution, they could spin the most fantastical tales to add a few more minutes to their scheming lives. On the other hand, the chief could be telling the truth. His explanation made a certain sort of sense. Releasing the chief was a calculated risk, the kind Osmark had taken many times while building his business empire.
And, in the grand scheme, this was a small gamble, substantially outweighed by the potential reward.
He spun on one heel, his dagger slashing through the falling rain to sever the rope holding the man off the ground. The Risi fell like a bag of wet concrete, landing on his skull with a meaty splat. He groaned, flopping over into the mud, clutching his injured leg with both hands, then cautiously examining his groin. After a long beat, the pitiful fat outlaw pulled himself into a sitting position, propping himself up with his arms, his legs sprawled out in front of him.
“Tie his hands,” Osmark commanded Horan.
The mercenary responded instantly. He seized the Risi’s belt and flipped him facedown on the muddy path, adding insult to injury, and dropped a knee into the chief’s back to hold him in place. Then, with practiced ease, Horan wrenched the Risi’s hands back and lashed them together with loops of coarse rope, quickly tying a complicated knot, which he tested with a firm tug. The grizzled mercenary grunted and nodded in satisfaction with his handiwork, then dragged the bandit up onto his feet and presented him to Osmark with a flourish. “Your prisoner, sir.”
The Risi glared at Osmark. Under all the fat and blood, Robert recognized a fierce warrior who’d killed dozens, if not hundreds, of innocent men and women. If the Empire had thousands of enemies like this to contend with, Osmark had a serious challenge ahead of him.
The Risi tried to hold Robert’s gaze, but the hardened crook didn’t have the strength of will to match the human before him. His yellow eyes shied away from Robert’s pitiless stare.
Osmark inched up to the chief and pressed the tip of his dagger under his double chin just hard enough to pierce the skin. “You’re going to lead us to this treasure. If you’re lying, if you try to run, if you look at me the wrong way, my friend here is going to hold you down, and I will use this knife I took from one of your dead men to empty your guts out. Do we understand each other?”
The chieftain gulped and bobbed his head. “It’s this way,” he said, eyes downcast and dazed as he waved toward the tree line.
The rebel staggered into motion, one uncertain step at a time. His bad leg sagged and buckled whenever he tried to put too much weight on it, but the Risi never fell, thanks in part to Horan’s steadying hand. Still, Osmark had to give it to the chief—he was hard as nails even with the Grim Reaper watching over his shoulder. A trait Robert could respect.
They wound their way through the forest, around a clump of spruce, then through a patch of young pine, before finally stopping at an enormous blackened oak tree. Its bark was charred and splintered, but not by the fire Osmark had set. Sometime in the distant past, a lightning bolt had carved the oak almost in half, leaving its destructive mark like a planted flag. But the ancient tree had refused to die despite the damage, and over the years, it had healed the worst of the wound and had grown ever taller.
“There,” the Risi said, nodding at the base of the tree. “That’s where I buried it.”
Osmark pulled a short shovel from his inventory and thrust it toward Horan. “I’ll keep an eye on our friend while you dig.”
With a sigh, the mercenary sheathed his sword and took the shovel. “I didn’t sign on for manual labor, you know.”
“I’ll add it to your bonus,” Osmark shot back with a grin, then offered him a move-it-along gesture with one hand. Though Robert didn’t say more, he was secretly relieved the mercenary was following orders. Leading was an art, and Osmark hoped to perfect it as his forces grew. It wouldn’t do to have his first follower pushing back against his orders.
Horan grumbled under his breath but set to work, hunching forward and shoving the steel shovel blade into the leaf-covered ground. The earth was moist with fallen rain, and there was a pocket at the base of the tree where no roots had grown. The mercenary threw shovel after shovel of wet earth over his shoulder, and the hole grew ever deeper.
Osmark didn’t watch the NPC dig. He watched the Risi, who fidgeted with his bound wrists and shifted the weight from his wounded leg to his good one, then back, every few seconds, his piggish eyes sliding side to side as if searching for an escape route.
“If you’re lying,” Osmark said, “you’re dead.”
The Risi snorted. “I’m dead anyway. What you burned back there was what I owed my fence in Tomestide. When I don’t show up with the next shipment, he’s likely to hire a necromancer to raise my corpse just to kill me again. The Resistance might be fighting the Empire, but it’s also a business—and you just cost ’em a whole lot of coin.”
Before Osmark could pursue the line of questioning about Tomestide, Horan shouted. “By the gods, the bastard wasn’t lying!”
Horan tossed the shovel into the dirt next to the hole, crouched over, and dragged what he’d found from its resting place beneath the earth. The bundle thumped down on the ground with a sound loud enough to pique Osmark’s interest. Robert stepped to the chieftain’s side but kept the dagger pressed to the Risi’s throat. He wanted a better look at the find, but not at the expense of losing the strategic advantage over his enemy. Priorities were important.
Still, he easily spotted a long heavy bundle wrapped in a waterproof canvas tarp, secured with thick ropes, which wound from one end of the package to the other.
Horan sliced through the dirt-caked ropes holding the bundle together with a short dagger, and the tarp’s edges flopped open to reveal sacks of coins, a gleaming black breastplate, a trio of long swords wrapped in coils of braided black leather, and an assortment of other miscellaneous items. Osmark had to admit the treasure was more than he’d believed the Risi had to his name. How many had to die so this piggish thief could be rich?
“That’s it?” Osmark asked, jabbing the dagger upward, drawing another drop of blood. He wanted to be sure the bandit wasn’t holding out on him. “If so, I’m not impressed.”
“Open that black bag,” the Risi said, jerking his head toward the bundle despite the knife tucked beneath his chin. “The little one, tied to the swords.”
Horan looked to Osmark for confirmation, and Robert nodded.
The NPC freed the small sack from the bundle of blades, pulled its mouth open, and upended the bag over his outstretched hand. A single pearlescent orb the size of a tennis ball dropped into his open palm. “A pearl? That’s your big prize?”
“No,” the Risi explained. “That’s no pearl. It’s a port-stone.”
Osmark’s eyes widened in genuine surprise.
During V.G.O.’s development, there’d been some heated discussions about just how realistic they wanted to make things. The virtual world was huge, roughly the size of Texas—a state larger than many European countries—which made travel a constant topic of conversation and point of contention. Some developers wanted to keep the sense of scope and wonder by making players travel everywhere through mundane means. That camp imagined players hiking, riding horses, and taking boats wh
erever they needed to go. Osmark understood the appeal in that.
Eventually, though, he sided with the opposing camp that wanted the players to be able to see more of the world they’d created.
For Osmark, fast travel was simply an issue of pragmatism. After all, V.G.O. had originally been designed as a video game, not a life-saving escape pod. In the end, he knew gamers would be discontent with having to spend weeks in travel to accomplish quest objectives. And that led to the creation of summoning scrolls, magical gates, and a few other supernatural means of quickly getting from one point in V.G.O. to another. But the development team had intentionally made these magical travel modes expensive to use, disposable, or rather inconvenient.
A port-stone, however, wasn’t any of those three things, which made it a shockingly valuable prize.
“You’re lying,” Osmark said flatly. “A single port-stone is worth more than your whole pack of thieves.”
“Aye,” the Risi replied solemnly. “Which is why my fence is going to be so pissed when he learns I’ve lost it. He acquired it for me, to make it easier for me to move back and forth from our camp to Tomestide. Now, a deal’s a deal. It’s time to cut me loose, I think.”
“You’re right,” Osmark said. “You’re free.”
The gutting blade sliced across the chieftain’s throat with a faint hiss. A curtain of blood burbled from the wound and cascaded down the Risi’s chest. The man’s legs crumpled, and his HP bar flashed vibrant red and plunged as he fell to his knees, gasping like a fish out of water. He stared at Osmark, his lips forming a single question. “Why?”
Osmark didn’t bother answering.
Instead, he lifted his boot and planted a harsh kick into the Risi’s chest, pushing the dying man onto his side.
Horan stepped around the puddle of spreading blood and handed the stone to Osmark. “You think he’s telling the truth?”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Osmark said. “Grab the rest of the loot. We’re taking a trip.”
ELEVEN:
Tomestide
Horan shouted in surprise, then collapsed to his knees next to an enormous bush studded with bright red berries. He groaned and clutched his stomach, which unleashed a series of alarming burbles. “By the gods,” he choked through a rattling belch, “you’ve turned me inside out, I swear to my father you have.”
Osmark chuckled weakly, then raised a hand to his mouth, stifling a wave of terrible nausea. It felt as if someone had reached down his throat, grabbed a fistful of his guts, pulled them out of his mouth, and then spun him around for a good hour. Meanwhile, flashes of rainbow light danced behind his eyes, his brain throbbed like a rotten tooth, and the world wobbled unsteadily beneath him. Travel by port-stone was instantaneous and convenient, but also thoroughly unpleasant. “Let’s not do that again for a while,” he agreed.
Robert held onto the fist-sized pearl and glanced at the description, just to give himself something to focus on other than his reeling senses and protesting belly.
<<<>>>
Port-stone
Activation allows instantaneous travel between the user’s current location and a predetermined location (the port anchor).
The anchor may be changed to the user’s current location by willing the update.
Cooldown: The port-stone requires a cooldown period of 1 hour after each use.
Current Anchor: Tomestide
<<<>>>
“I guess the Risi wasn’t lying,” Robert said as he carefully tucked the priceless item into his belt pouch. “We made it to Tomestide, and in record time.” Or at least, he hoped they had.
Osmark and Horan were standing in the middle of a copse of leafy apple trees ringed by a thick hedge of carefully manicured raspberry bushes. The aroma of ripe apples, loitering heavy in the air like perfume, made Osmark’s stomach grumble again, this time from hunger. No, he wasn’t just hungry, he was famished. He snatched one of the red fruits from the tree branches above and tossed it to Horan with a flick of his wrist.
“You know what they say, an apple a day keeps the doctor away,” Osmark said. He grabbed another for himself and took a hearty bite. The skin was crisp under his teeth, but not tough or fibrous, and the flesh was firm and juicy. The tart taste calmed his stomach even before he swallowed.
Horan devoured half his apple in two bites. Juice spilled from the corners of his mouth and ran down his chin in twin rivulets, sluicing away the dried blood and dirt to reveal lines of tanned skin. “I don’t know much about doctors,” he offered, his mouth full, “but this is a damned fine apple.”
From the other side of the raspberry bushes, a voice called out, “And whose apples do you think you’re eating, eh?”
Before Osmark or Horan could react, gauntleted hands parted one of the bushes, and a pair of hard gray eyes peered at them through the foliage. A moment later, a stoop-shouldered [Legionary] with a doleful face and segmented lorica armor pushed his way into the clearing.
Horan’s hand shot toward the hilt of his sword, but Osmark caught his wrist before he could draw the weapon. “We’re just travelers,” Robert said to the guard, raising his hands to show he was unarmed. “Travelers looking for a place to stay for the night.”
The man frowned then adjusted his leather skullcap. “Travelers, you say? Well, I suppose the mayor won’t miss an apple or two,” he finally grunted. “He pays me to guard the gate, not keep a few apples out of the bellies of road-weary Imperial travelers. The pair of you look quite a fright, though. Thought maybe you were highwaymen or the like. You’re welcome to stay here, in the orchard, but you might be more comfortable under the inn’s roof. Assuming you have the coin to rent a room in our village, of course.”
Osmark plucked a pair of silver coins from the pouch hanging from the left side of his belt and rubbed them together for the guard’s benefit. The silver flashed in the moonlight. “We have a few bits to rub together, no thanks to the bandits we faced on the road here.”
The man shook his head and sighed sadly. “That’s a crying shame, friends. Truly. The roads used to be safe, but the rebels have made a right fine mess of things lately. Used to be, they’d target Imperial troops and armed patrols, but these days they’ve turned their attention to softer targets. Merchants. Imperial caravans. That sorta thing. A crying shame,” he said again, slouching in weary defeat. “Well, let’s not dwell on that, eh? Let me show you to the gates. Best to get cleaned up and settled before someone mistakes you for the bandits you’ve escaped.”
The guard turned smartly on his heel, forcing Horan and Robert to push their way through the raspberry bushes and hurry to catch up. The effort left Osmark’s lungs aching for air while his muscles burned—he needed to rest, and he needed to do it soon. His Stamina recovered at a glacial pace, and if he didn’t find somewhere to lay his head, he’d be passed out on the grass like a hobo.
Tomestide didn’t look like much to Osmark’s discerning eye: a little one-horse, layover village of maybe five hundred people. The kind of place that offered a handful of low-level quests for new players looking to kill rats for minuscule amounts of experience. Idyllic, beautiful, but not much more than a blip on the map.
A rough stone wall encircled the village, providing a token protective shield against roaming monsters and lazy brigands. It wouldn’t stand up to an actual army, but Osmark had picked this village as a likely base of operations because it wasn’t likely to face such a threat anytime soon. Its unassuming appearance was its real strength. Tomestide was far enough off the main travel routes to afford Osmark the privacy he needed to pursue his agenda. Simultaneously, it was also near enough to other major trading posts that Osmark would be able to get the supplies he needed without too much travel.
Not to mention, his Artificer class trainer just so happened to reside here as well.
After planning his visit to the village for so long, it was startling to arrive. Osmark slowed his steps to absorb it all. It was very much as he’d pictured, but there
were enough differences to assure him this wasn’t all in his head. Tomestide was as real a place as New York or Los Angeles. He started when the Legionary banged the butt of his spear against the wooden gate and called out to the watchman inside, “Open up, Bingley, I found a pair of wanderers in need of rooms for the night.”
A moment later, the gate swung open on well-oiled hinges to reveal another watchman, this one shorter than the first and significantly stouter around the middle. “What’ve we got here, then?” he asked suspiciously, eyeing Osmark and Horan in turn.
“Are you daft, Bingley?” their escort interjected. “I just told you. Good Imperial visitors in need of a place to sleep. Don’t be a right sod. Just let ’em in, eh?”
Bingley eyed them for a second longer, cataloging their weapons and gear, studying the lines of their faces. “Alright, then,” he conceded eventually. “Welcome to Tomestide. Don’t cause no trouble, there won’t be no trouble. Understand? You’ll find the Saddler’s Rest straight down this road on the left. Rooms and food at reasonable prices. Might even convince ol’ Murly to draw you a bath if you’ve got the coin to burn.” He sniffed as though to say, by the look of you, I very much doubt you have the coin to burn.
“Thank you,” Osmark said, tossing a silver coin to each of the guards. “There’s more where that came from if you hear any interesting rumors or see any strange folks skulking around. My man and I will be staying here for the next few days, and I’m always willing to pay for interesting news.”
Robert sketched a hasty salute to the sentries, then he and Horan made their way down a gray cobblestone street. The gate banged closed, and the gentle sounds of a village at night rose up to greet them. From the outskirts, Osmark heard cows lowing and the contented clucks of hens in their roosts for the evening. Stone and wood-framed houses with peaked roofs lined the street; from beyond glowing windows came the sounds of cooking fires crackling beneath bubbling pots of thick stew. The voices of families gathered around their tables for dinner reminded Osmark of the burbling of a gentle stream.
