“Are you sure? Because-”
“Apparently ‘no’ wasn’t strong enough. So let’s try ‘go fuck yourself’.” I jerked to a stop, ready to call my spear to hand. The garden was less crowded than it had been earlier. Strangers were glancing at us, probably mistaking our hushed, tense conversation for a lover’s spat. “There’s no such thing as the ‘lesser evil’ when you’re talking about treason and social unrest, and Suri is going to tell you the exact same thing. I don’t know who you are, but the only thing that’s going to stop this insanity is Kanzo’s head.”
Red flinched slightly at the name. It had surprised her?
“As you say,” she replied stiffly, hopping onto a marble bench. “Then you had best attend the auction, hadn’t you?”
“After I hand your ass over to the Volod.” I hadn’t finished speaking before I lunged forward, my spear appearing in my hands.
Red jumped backwards into the air - springing up ten feet or more - and landed silently in the branches of the oak in the center of the courtyard. She jumped easily, almost lazily, and tilted her head before vanishing completely. There was a rustle of leaves... then nothing.
“Shit!” I swore loudly, turning heads. Two guards had advanced a couple of steps from their posts, looking around in surprise. The few drunken guests who had noticed the argument were doing that dumb cow stare that groups of people did when they were confused. I looked around, but whatever Red had used to vanish masked her completely. No sound, no smell, no trace of her presence. She had quite possibly teleported.
“You motherfucking, goat-sucking...!” I slung my spear back over my shoulder and stormed off back into the main building, picking up into a jog. I nearly slammed into a waiter carrying a tray of empties. The sound of breaking crystal followed me as I stormed forward into the glittering cocktail throng, searching desperately for Kirov, Andrik, or Suri.
“Suri - where the hell are you?” I messaged her.
I got my answer as I squeezed between an irate dowager and her pimply teenage boy-toy. The doors to the main auction hall were open, though they were still roped off. Beyond the ropes were round tables with place settings. Standing right in front of the ropes, about to be admitted in, were Andrik and Suri. As I pushed toward them, they and a few other select guests went inside. Behind me, a bell tinkled, silencing the room.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” the doorman called. “Please form a line at the door and prepare to take your seats! Your invitation contains your seat number, which we will collect at the door...”
I spotted Kirov hanging back, talking with his buddy Ur Pavel, the thin, buggy-eyed knight from the morgue. Their heads jerked up as I balled up on them.
“Guys, there’s a problem,” I said, trying to keep my voice down. “I think something’s about to go down at the auction.”
“What? Why?” The smile wiped from Kirov’s face. Same with Pavel.
“Some woman just tried to buy me off and get me to leave,” I said. “She called herself ‘Red’.”
“Who does she claim to represent?” Pavel asked.
“She didn’t tell me. But she had a serious assassin or spy vibe.” I gestured urgently to the guests pouring into the auction hall. “This is nuts. We have to call this off.”
Kirov shook his head stubbornly. “No, we cannot. The Volod hoped to lure out the Slayer’s comrades, and that is what is happening.”
I leaned toward him. “Kirov, listen to me. They’re going to try to kill Andrik.”
The Knight’s dark eyes glinted with concern. “Of course they are. We have mages and snipers on the rooftops, guards on the grounds, and every tenth guest here is either a knight of my order, or one of our soldiers. His Majesty has armor on under his clothing, and his cloak offers good protection against magic, poison, and other effects. Believe me, rytier... We were expecting this.”
“There’re tables everywhere,” I fretted. “And glass. Even if one in every ten is a soldier, that still means ninety percent of people in that room are civilians.”
“Fear not. We are the King’s swords and shields,” Pavel said. He clapped me on the back. “Now go. You and the Voivode are at a table near the door. We have not seated all the important guests together.”
Nearly everyone was inside now, and Suri had still not replied to my P.M. I sighed, resisted the urge to spit in annoyed disgust, and tromped in after them. I’d played enough games to know a set-up when I saw one.
The auction hall was the old ballroom of the manor, set out with rows of round wooden tables. Tiered plates tottered with little open-faced sandwiches, baklava, Turkish delight, macarons and cream puffs. I was at the Voivode’s table. I sat to his left, and the Captain of the Vulkan Keep garrison sat to his right.
“Why did they put us all the way back here?” The Voivode muttered, arms folded against his chest. “This is a disgrace.”
“For your safety, my lord,” the captain replied for the hundredth time. He also had his arms crossed, but unlike the noble couple, he was watching the room like a hawk.
“It means you’re closer to the door in the event of an emergency. The King and His High Forginess are near exits, too,” I added. I’d made a sweep of the crowd myself, but was now watching Suri at the back of the room. She was seated next to Andrik at a table near another entry to the ballroom. Thanks to the Trial of Marantha, I could see everything going on there. Their expressions, where Andrik was putting his hands - or almost putting his hands - and I could even read their lips.
“It remains a serious breach of protocol. You do not seat your vassals at the back of the room,” the Voivode said, with a sniff.
I chewed morosely on a pistachio macaron. It was good, a cookie with the perfect combination of chewy, crunchy, and creamy. I sighed with relief when the Auctioneer emerged from behind a curtain, and the room – and the Voivode – fell silent.
“Holgyem et Arain. Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for attending Kobayaz Estate tonight,” he said, in a high, reedy voice. He was sharply dressed but round as a plum. “I am your host, Ephraim Terer, and I shall explain how tonight’s event will proceed…”
He began reading out the rules for the auction - signs only, no shouting, all proceeds go to the widows and orphans left behind by the murders. While no one was looking, I shoveled the entire plate of macarons into my Inventory, gaining [Assorted Macarons x 10]. They’d be perfect for mopey binge-eating later in the night.
“And now, High Forgemaster Agoston Toth would like to say a few words.” The Auctioneer stepped aside as Toth took his place in front of the podium.
“Holgyem et Arain. I would like to thank you all for your interest and generosity toward us, the Church of Khors the Maker, and the faithful and good people of Vlachia,” he rumbled, raising his voice to be heard over the room. The burly lion of a priest was in the same ceremonial robes he’d been wearing when we’d met him at the church. “We have lost a number of our finest brethren to the Slayer of Taltos - doctors, smiths, teachers, the founder of our largest orphanage, and so tonight the Volod himself, His Majesty Andrik Corvinus the Third, has put forth some of his family treasures to raise funds for those left behind...”
I tuned him out, looking around the hall for anything suspicious. If Suri and I were right and the priests had been murdered according to the virtues of their church, then what was left? We’d had Wisdom, Honor, Hospitality and Courage so far... that left Self-Reliance, Discipline, and Honesty. Of the two, Self-Reliance seemed like the more difficult one to stage. And Toth - or the Volod himself - were the only feasible targets. I watched Toth intently, and jumped when my HUD beeped.
“Sorry I didn’t reply before,” Suri messaged. “Andrik has been taking up all of my time.”
“I noticed.” I sent it off, and immediately regretted how curt I sounded. “Listen, something’s up. Get ready to drag him out of here by his goatee. If he dies, we fail our quest and this country will go downhill, fast.”
Toth finished his speech with a pray
er, holding up a hammer and using it to bless the auction table and the assembled people. I definitely tuned that part out, and tried one of the sandwiches. Chicken and asparagus, cream cheese, soft rye bread... not bad. I arched an eyebrow when Toth kissed the hammer and laid it down on the auction table.
“The very first item of the night is, in fact, this holy relic that the High Forgemaster created especially for this auction,” the Auctionmaster said, once Toth had started back for his seat. “It is made of Mithril and Titanium, and was forged using the ground scales of a dragon which were given freely to the Church some two hundred years ago. We will start the bidding at 250 olbia...”
Tense, I watched Toth move back to his table, which was ringed by guards from the Church. Most of the other ‘guests’ who sat at the tables to either side of him had the tense, wary look of warriors. Kirov was seated at that table, and so was Matthias, who watched the proceedings with the glazed expression of a man who was bored to tears.
“How does it look from your angle?” I asked Suri.
“Looks fine so far.”
Suri’s P.M. was pushed aside by Karalti’s telepathic voice. “Hey, so, I still hate you and everything, but some bad people just snuck into the grounds.”
I drew a sharp breath. “Sitrep?”
“Six, tall, they got weapons. I think they’re Meewfolk. They’re coming from the north and heading for the house... Uh-oh...”
“Get them if you can. Be careful.” I leaned in towards the Captain, who glanced at me in consternation. I kept my voice to a hissing whisper. “Sir, we’ve got a situation. My dragon just spotted six intruders coming over the north wall. She’s going to engage.”
The Captain paled. He nodded, rose quickly, and exited the room. Once he was outside, I heard him bark orders at the guards outside.
The waiters were still circulating. I noticed that they were avoiding the Volod’s table, and that neither he nor the High Priest were letting the waiters serve them drinks. One caught my eye as he passed by Toth’s table, carrying a single bottle with an unusual color on a tray. The opaque glass, usually green, had a weird red tint. A non-mutant probably wouldn’t have noticed, but I sat up straight, trying to get a proper look.
“Five hundred! We have five hundred rubles over here!” The Auctioneer was warming up now, brandishing his gavel. “Five hundred and twenty! Five hundred and forty!”
The waiter passed too close to one of the church guards, who caught him by the arm and quietly rebuked him. The man - human, pale, bald, sweating like a pig - nodded and bowed, withdrawing from the table and bumbling straight into the chair of the next guest.
I saw his expression – calm, resigned, even serene - and lunged up to my feet as the bottle toppled and fell to the floor. “Get back!”
Three things happened all at once. The bottle smashed, releasing a cloud of gas into the air; Father Matthias threw himself from his chair and tackled the waiter to the ground; and the assassin exploded.
Chapter 30
The suicide bomber took out the floor, the ceiling above Toth’s table, and the tables around it. I saw Suri throw herself over Andrik just before the shockwave engulfed me and flung me to the ground.
[You are Deafened!]
[You take 25 bludgeoning damage!]
[Party Member Suri is gravely injured!]
People - and parts of people - and tables showered everyone and everything. Groaning, I rolled over on the ground, armor crunching over bits of broken wood and stone. I could feel the gravel shifting underneath me, but I couldn’t hear it. In my HUD, an icon of a musical note with an X through it had appeared, along with a 30 minute-long debuff bar.
“Suri!” I scrambled up and forward, barely noticing the red flashing warning in my HUD as people shoved past me, stampeding for the doors. There were at least twenty bodies on the ground, and all around me, people were going to their knees, clawing at their skin as seams of light crawled on and through their flesh. The stench of blood and mana was all around us.
I couldn’t see her, but Suri’s name and player halo were highlighted in among the smoking mess, and they were flashing red with warning. Her HP was draining away second by second, down to a sliver by the time I waded through the wreckage and pulled the splintered remains of a table off her body.
She had put herself between the blast and the Volod. He was okay - unconscious, but alive, and his NPC halo was stable. Suri was not. She was sprawled in the wreckage of several chairs. Her beautiful dress was torn to shreds... and her left arm was gone. She was bleeding out from the stump of her elbow. The game had not been merciful enough to knock her out. She stared at the ragged end of her limb with bewilderment. Her lips and the skin around her eyes were pale with shock.
“Fucking fuckity fuck-” I continued to curse. I pulled a Moss Tincture from thin air and poured it onto the wound. Suri flinched, lips moving, but I couldn’t hear her. I shook my head and put the Moss Tincture flask to her lips. “Drink! You’re going to be okay!”
She swallowed, eyes rolling to look up at my face, until her gaze slipped past me. I dumped a second potion on her, healing her another 70 HP. The status updates continued to narrate to me telepathically as I worked to save her.
[Suri has a critical injury: severed arm. Her Max HP has been reduced to 180!]
[Suri is stable! Current HP: 148/180]
Suri stiffened and flinched as I took out a healing poultice to make up the 32 point gap. She yelled something, shoving me back a step.
“I can’t hear you!” I bellowed, probably far too loudly. “I’m deaf!”
“TURN THE FUCK AROUND!” she shot back by P.M.
I jumped and spun back to face the main room. “Oh, shit.”
The bodies of the dead and dying had Stranged - but instead of an army of ghouls, they were sliding across the floor, drawn toward a nexus of magical gravity that smashed them into one another and merged the corpses into a tottering tower of flesh and sharp bone. A [Gibbering Flesh Amalgamation]. One that contained the remains of the High Forgemaster... and Matthias.
“Get Andrik and any other survivors out of here!” I spun my spear around and fell into stance.
“I can fight-”
“Don’t give me this Black Knight ‘tis but a scratch’ bullshit! The Volod will die if you don’t get him the fuck out of this room!” I felt cold energy swirl through my body and condense in my limbs, winding them taut. “Go!”
And with that, I Jumped right into the fray.
The Flesh Amalgamation undulated from side to side, and as I sailed through the air toward it, half a dozen eyes erupted on the surface of its body. It lashed out with a pseudopod, but the clumsy strike missed as I twisted in midair and drove the spear down with my full weight behind it. The blade sunk into the slithering mess like butter, and blood sprayed from the wound. I carried the maneuver through and bounced away, wrenching the weapon free from the thing. I felt a dim wail that rattled the floor and shook dust from the ceiling.
[x3 damage! You hit Amalgamation for 401 HP!]
[HP remaining: 4599/5000]
[Amalgamation uses Hideous Screech! You are immune!]
[Suri is Stunned!]
[Suri shrugs off Stun with Battle Fury!]
I landed and skidded over the blood-covered floorboards, keeping an eye on my adrenaline level as I ran back in. Long, ropy tentacles sprung out of the Amalgamation’s body, lashing out in all directions. Some were at head height, some were intended to sweep my feet out from under me. I skipped over them and then executed my new Blood Sprint chain. The first two moves were familiar: Blood Sprint’s dash carried me in close enough to stab the monster deep in its side. I tore the blade free, landing several bleeding cuts in quick succession, and then triggered the Death by a Thousand Cuts finale.
“You gonna die!” A shadowy nimbus pulsed along the weapon, ruffling my skin with an unpleasant sensation that churned my guts like an icy claw. The curse seemed to suck the light out of the space around the Abomination,
marking it with a stain of darkness. It cringed back as its attack power diminished, and I drew a deep breath as the sliver of power flowed back into me.
[Flesh Amalgamation is Cursed! -2% Attack power!]
[You gain +2% Attack power and +5% damage reduction from your opponent’s attacks!]
[You deal 617 damage to the enemy!]
The thing punched me with a meaty ‘fist’ the size of a small cow before I’d even had a chance to recover my balance. The blow sent me tumbling, then crashing into the surviving tables. Little crustless sandwiches and fancy cookies went everywhere as I skidded through shattered crockery on my back and sprawled onto the floor.
[You take 221 bludgeoning damage! HP 338/559.]
[Gibbering Flesh Amalgamation uses Horrid Screech! You are immune!]
“Fucking bullshit-!” Ranting under my breath was surreal when I couldn’t hear anything except the ringing of my own punctured eardrums. I scrambled up and away, trying to keep moving. Not being able to hear the monster meant it couldn’t paralyze me with its screeching, but I lost the advantage of being able to hear it telegraphing its moves. In the dust and smoke and haze, that could be fatal, and almost was when another gelatinous tentacle - as thick as a tree trunk and studded with sharp, broken bones and chair legs - slammed down across a table I was using for cover. It smashed the solid oak into kindling.
I slammed a couple of Bonebreak Poultices, healing a hundred HP as I circled and ran back in. I sprung up like a cricket, flipping midair, and Jumped onto the monster as I had the first time. The thing twisted and flailed, but it missed the agile strike and tore the ceiling open instead. It clipped my leg as I followed the Jump through and leaped away, sending me careening off course midair.
As I fell, Leap of Faith kicked in - time slowed enough that I could right myself in the air. I spun around to land with knees bent and weapon ready.
[x3 damage! Critical hit!]
[Flesh Amalgamation is immune to critical hits! 401 Damage!]
[You take a glancing blow! HP: 412/559]
Archemi Online Chronicles Boxset Page 62