Deserts Of Naroosh

by Bradford Bates

  It took a fraction of a second for him to unequip his boots. It left his feet vulnerable, but it also made him as silent as a person could be. He thought about ditching the robe to cut down on the rustling noises, but being called the naked assassin wasn’t one of the things he wanted to discuss with people when he finally left The Etheric Coast.

  The man didn’t move as Tim pressed his dagger against his neck. He ran the blade through, making sure to go deep enough to hit the bone. It took more effort than he’d remembered, but at least he didn’t screw it up.

  Tim wasn’t exactly proud of himself at the moment, but he also wasn’t worried about this guy waking up and joining the fight later. If he wanted to get out of here and back to the oasis, he would have to be methodical but move with a speed that would leave Agent 47’s head spinning.

  The best thing to do would be to check the other rooms with the lights off, then venture into more complicated territory. That plan only worked if he checked the other rooms quickly. Tim dropped back into stealth and moved into the hallway. Two rooms with lights on sandwiched the next room with the light off. Thankfully the walls weren’t paper-thin or see-through, so he shouldn’t have to worry about anyone seeing him unless the rooms were connected internally.

  He moved to the door and stepped inside. The second room was empty.

  Tim quickly double-checked the space to make sure he hadn’t missed anything and exited. The sounds coming from the lit rooms were slowly losing vivacity, but the music was still jubilant enough to cover any stray sounds he might make. Without further delay, he moved into the hallway and toward the last entrance without a light on.

  As he reached for the handle, the door opened.

  Tim didn’t look at who was in front of him. He put his free hand over their mouth and stabbed them repeatedly with his dagger as he pushed them back into the room. They hit the far wall with a thud, and Tim drove his knife home a few more times as the body slid down the wall and slumped on the floor.

  The music hadn’t skipped a beat so maybe he wasn’t as loud as he thought. Every one of his senses was a jangled mess of information. His ears strained to pick up any sound, while his eyes watched the light coming in from the hallway for any signs of trouble. Tim tried to take a deep breath and realized he’d been holding his this entire time. He exhaled and then slowly backed away from the body.

  While killing had become easier it turned out he still didn’t enjoy it nearly as much when it was a person as he had to kill instead of a boss. Tim re-equipped his boots, and headed back out into the hallway. Dropping into stealth wasn’t going to be much of a bonus for him, but he might get some extra damage in so it was worth a try. Any little bonus to his DPS was worth it right now.

  He moved to the lit room directly across from him, and opened the door.

  As soon as Tim walked into the room, he immediately wished he hadn’t. Why was it whenever he walked in on people having sex it was always the worst two people in the world? Just once, he’d love to walk into a room and find two super sexy people throwing down. It just never worked out that way. Still, killing people while they were having sex was about as easy to do as when they were sleeping.

  Not even bothering to try and hide, Tim rushed forward and stabbed the man on the bottom. Jabari’s bribed healer looked at him with stunned eyes while Tim turned his to the woman on top of him.

  After pulling a gold coin from his inventory, he handed it to her. “Stay quiet. This will all be over soon.”

  The woman nodded in shocked silence. She hadn’t moved from where she straddled the man. If someone died on a person mid-coitus, did that make them a necrophiliac or merely someone with extremely bad luck? If that ever happened to him, he’d probably never have sex again. The last thing he wanted was for death to ruin sex for him. It was already hard enough to deal with.

  Two rooms, two vacancies.

  Since his good friend Norman wasn’t here to help him create a few extra vacancies, it was time to make them himself. He had a woman to get back to and a nap to take. So he’d hit the last two rooms in order and get the hell out of Dodge.

  Tim rushed into the next room, not wanting to stand in the doorway watching any more ugly hanky-panky and almost blundered into a woman. She squealed and dove to the floor, where she lay quivering in silence. The man on the bed looked from the woman back to Tim, his manhood going limp as he realized fun time was over.

  “What is the meaning of this!” the healer shouted.

  Tim ran across the room, clearing the distance before the asshole could do more than try and cover his shriveled cock. His knife found its way into the man’s throat and ripped free.

  “Silence is golden.”

  That one would give JaKobi a run for his money. What could he say? When the line fit, it just fit. Now they needed Cassie to up her game. The last one she used was pretty good, but he was starting to wonder if she liked yelling weird shit at people.

  The man dropped dead, and the woman screamed.

  So much for silence.

  He’d been so close to being able to stealth his way through the building, but that was over now. Tim had to get to the last room and find out if it was empty before someone could escape and raise the alarm. He tossed a gold coin to the screaming woman, which shut her up instantly.

  They said money couldn’t buy happiness.

  Tim darted back into the hallway, only this time he wasn’t alone. A beast of a man ran toward him. As the man barreled into him all Tim could think was, at least he had the decency to put on pants.

  Tim’s back collided with the wall, and he heard something snap. He hoped it was the wall, but his adrenaline was pumping so hard it could as easily have been his ribs. His back hurt, but Tim had one advantage over the other healer. He had a knife. It didn’t take much effort to drive the blade down into the healer’s back, and that got his attention pretty quick.

  The bastard let Tim go and tried to grab the knife. He always wondered why people did that. It was as though they forgot that pulling the knife out might be what killed them. In this case, it was the distraction he needed to attack. As the man in front of him tried to pull the knife from his back, Tim stabbed him in the guts four times with his other blade before spinning around the dying man and plucking his other blade free. He didn’t even break stride as he sheathed the daggers and stepped out into the sun.

  Is this what ShadowLily feels like all the time?

  Tim did the inventory trick to clean off his gear. The last thing he wanted was for the people outside to see him covered in blood. It felt good to have been able to handle this quest on his own after all. Maybe he was a little more resourceful than he gave himself credit for. ShadowLily would be so proud of him.

  Now if he could track down that camel, he could get the hell out there.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The only thing JaKobi was missing was some phat beats.

  That was the one thing he missed in The Etheric Coast. Music would have set the mood while he was doing research in the library. Sure, he could go somewhere where they had music playing, but it wasn’t exactly easy to concentrate inside a tavern. Plus, then he’d have to be around a bunch of people, and his potential for getting anything accomplished with others around greatly diminished.

  Instead of music, he swayed gently from side to side as his camel kept them moving toward their destination. The others might have hated these long rides across the empty desert, but he loved them. It was the perfect place to get some work done. His mom worked on her commute for years. No reason to waste her good example by being lazy.

  Not that he was having any luck figuring out this latest spell. When the mage trainer handed him the book with a smirk, he thought it was just a “you’re going to have to work hard for this” kind of thing, but it was more of a “you’ll never solve this and your days of increasing your skills as a mage are over” kind of problem. Fucking puzzles. They were great—right up until they weren’t.

  JaKobi too
k one last look at symbols in the book and put it away. Staring at the pages and hoping something clicked wasn’t going to do him any good. A quick thought brought up a map of the area, and the little dot he was heading toward was close enough he should probably crack open Khalid’s quest and figure out what was in store for him.

  Quest Received: Burning the Resources

  Normally the resistance would prefer to capture the enemy's resources and use them, but the time for such tactics has ended. The battle must now be won in other ways, and the fewer resources Jabari’s men have access to, the better. Go to the location on the map and make sure that none of the supplies are usable.

  Reward: Ten gold coins

  “Well, this should be easy. Burning is what I do.” JaKobi whistled a little tune to himself as the camel continued slowly onward.

  This would have been the perfect time for a line from his favorite book. The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed. The only thing missing to make this little moment perfect was the man in black, because JaKobi was clearly the gunslinger. Ever since he’d read the book he wanted to make a kill shot and scream, “I kill with my heart, MOTHERFUCKER!” There probably wasn’t a character more badass than Roland Deschain, and the fact that Wizard and Glass wasn’t made into a standalone movie was simply ridiculous.

  JaKobi loved the heroes from his favorite stories and was starting to think of himself as one of them.

  Honorable. Well, of course, he was. Anyone would say so. Loyal. Only to his friends and family, which was an admittedly small list. Respect. He was probably a little too respectful, but the fire inside him wanted to burn, and he couldn’t let it out for any little thing. Friendship. For the first time in his life, JaKobi had actual friends who cared about him, not just people that used him to get better grades in class.

  And Cassie was the most amazing woman on the planet.

  Sure, she hit him a little more often than he’d like, but she also made it up to him in ways he never experienced before. It was an amazing feeling to be with a woman who cared about him. Being with Cassie was all he’d ever wanted out of a relationship, and the best part was she also made him happy.

  Head over heels, stupid in love, happy.

  It was as if he didn’t know what love was until it fell in his lap. While having time to work on his quest for a new spell was nice, he was ready to get back to Cassie. These quests were building to something, and their alone time together might become limited once the ass-kicking started.

  It made sense, but he didn’t have to like it.

  JaKobi’s camel decided that was the right time to spit. The sound made him look up and realize he was almost to his destination. He’d pretty much played it by ear since the beginning of this quest, and he was going to keep winging it. Tim probably would have a stroke if he knew JaKobi didn’t plan out his fights at all.

  He liked to let the battle come to him. It was the kind of thing he couldn’t explain. Once the fighting started he just kind of felt the flow. There wasn’t much to think about when the answer to the problem could be solved by throwing giant balls of fire at it.

  “If you wanted to be a secret agent man, you gotta roll like a secret agent man,” JaKobi whispered, trying to psych himself up for whatever came next.

  If he told himself the truth, he'd much rather be doing this with his group, but sometimes a person had to find a way to succeed on their own. He reached deep, found the courage he had buried there, and rode his camel toward the fort’s doors as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  “Halt!” The two guards at the gate cried in unison.

  JaKobi slowed his camel to a walk, then a stop. He studied the two men with an appraising eye. Both of them looked supremely confident. A scan of the ramparts above showed they didn’t have much in the way of backup.

  Did he look so meek that they weren’t worried? Maybe he could use that to his advantage. He thought about it for a moment and tossed the idea away. This was his time away from the group, a time where he could cut loose.

  “I say, my good fellows, you wouldn’t happen to know where we are, would you?” JaKobi hopped off the camel and walked forward.

  The two guards lowered their spears but seeing JaKobi unarmed gave them pause. They should have attacked him. It wasn’t as if Jabari wanted everyone to know where his secret storage warehouse was. Just seeing this place should have been a death sentence so why they even hesitated was beyond him.

  He wasn’t going to make the same mistake.

  JaKobi clapped his hands over his head, sending a burning Phoenix in between the guards and into the gate. The wooden gate burst into flames, and both men scrambled away from the heat, forgetting their spears in their haste not to catch on fire. He had something that could remedy that problem for them.

  With a thought, he cast Flame Spear.

  It always amazed him when a spear made of solid flames appeared in his hand and didn't burn him. Something about seeing the shock on someone's face right before he threw it at them was immensely satisfying. The two guards were no exception. The first one went down with a single spear. The second guard dodged fast enough to take only a glancing blow to the leg.

  Then he disappeared as a fireball turned him to ash.

  JaKobi was starting to feel it now. There was so much wood here, so many things to burn. He sent a fireball through the gate’s wreckage before stepping into the fort itself. This would have made a fantastic scene in a movie, the hero blowing the gate up and walking through the fire to face the stunned soldier beyond. As much as he hated to admit it, he felt like a pretty big badass right now.

  The soldiers inside must have thought so too because they fired arrows at him as soon as they saw him. A wall of flames took care of the projectiles. Then it was merely a matter of picking them off one at a time with controlled bursts of fire as they tried to reload. That was going a little too smoothly, and he was starting to feel like something big was about to happen.

  Or maybe Jabari was spread so thin that he couldn’t do any better?

  The last soldier met his end, and JaKobi spun in a slow circle, taking in the fort's entirety and trying to decide what to burn next. It didn’t matter since this was like a clearance sale at Crazy Mike’s—everything must go. When it came to making things disappear, was there ever a better choice than fire?

  Hot, beautiful, amazing FIRE.

  While JaKobi couldn’t melt through stone with any of his spells yet, he could burn most of the fort to ashes. Other than the walls and one building at the far end of the courtyard, everything was wood. Including the doors to the storerooms. The dry materials inside wouldn’t take much persuasion to ignite so he only needed to pick a building and get started. Never one to waste time, he chose a door and cast a fireball.

  The ball of fire disappeared halfway to its target as a woman’s laughter filled the air.

  “You arrived while I was indisposed. Kind of rude, don’t you think?” The nameplate under the woman's feet labeled her as Vizerene.

  This was when he got to play bad guy to the actual bad guy. How fucking cool was that? “Oh, I don’t know. Kind of feels like I showed up at the right time.”

  “Maybe to kill some worthless filth, but not to deal with me.” Water rippled down Vizerene’s arms.

  A water mage.

  That explained her confidence. At best, their spells would even each other out. At worst, he might be at a slight disadvantage. The thing JaKobi needed to remember was he didn’t need to kill her. All he had to do was burn the place to the ground. That put Vizerene at a distinct disadvantage because she couldn’t just fight him. She also had to protect the fort’s supplies.

  If he could get her mad, JaKobi might be able to throw her off her game plan. “You can’t be worth much to Jabari if he stationed you out here in the ass-end of nowhere.”

  It was kind of fun playing the villain. “And I have some dinner plans I can’t miss.”

  Vizerene loosed a blast of wa
ter with a scream of rage. It was easy enough for JaKobi to throw up a wall of fire and use her distraction to ignite another of the storage rooms. Only three more and he could get out of here.

  The same trick worked again to bring the remaining storage rooms down to two, but now she was onto his tactics and blocked all his attacks. They were at a stalemate for now, so maybe he would have to kill her anyway. He had a few tricks up his sleeve no one had seen yet, and it would sound so much cooler if he could say that no one alive had seen them yet.

  It only then occurred to him that Vizerene might be trying to stall him until backup could arrive. She didn’t have to beat him in a straight-up fight either to win. All she had to do was stop him from destroying the last two storage rooms. If she stalled him long enough, more of Jabari’s soldiers would show up, and he’d be overwhelmed.

  Something had to give. JaKobi needed to break the stalemate before he lost due to inaction. When in doubt, he took a strategy straight from George W. Shock and Awe. This fight needed an offensive explosion to get things moving along. While he didn’t have any special bombs like he’d used against the werewolves in Tristholm, he did have a few jars of oil he’d been saving for the right occasion.

  JaKobi loved spending time thinking of ways to expand his capabilities without magic. It never hurt to tinker a little, and the last thing he wanted was to become so reliant on his spells he forgot to think outside of the box. Having a non-magical way to spread his fire and make it last longer was something he’d been working on, but it was their fight against the Daughters that gave him his newest idea.

  Adding a few jars of accelerant to his inventory felt like a natural evolution of the process. Instead of trying to match Vizerene spell for spell and hoping to get off a lucky hit that would bring her down, JaKobi changed tactics completely.

  He used his Flame Shield to block her attacks as he slowly worked his way around the courtyard. Each time he moved to a new location, he tossed one of the jars on the ground behind himself and waited for the contents to spread before moving on. He tried to look desperate the entire time, as though he was running out of strength, and his shield was the only thing keeping him alive.