“More like a Djinn, I’d say,” Chase offered. “Down to the point where you have to be careful what you say around him.”
“Yes! That’s a good comparison,” Speranza’s smile was back. Then it dropped into a frown. “Except when I spoke to him, he was far more expressive than any bot I’d ever interacted with before. I think... I think the patch did something.”
“The patch?” Chase blinked. “Oh wait, the event. Yes.”
“Yes, that. I think that it tried to lock down his player consciousness and didn’t find one. So instead it built him an NPC consciousness.”
“And made him a whole new person,” Chase breathed. The custodian’s story of the market sellers came back to her. “Oh my gods. They’re like players, but they’re blameless.”
“Blameless?” Speranza said. “That’s an odd choice of words.”
“No, really,” Chase hopped down, waving her hands. “They’re innocent. Truly innocent. But the Inquisition had at least one of them anyway. I wonder if they know?”
“They know, trust me, they know,” Speranza said bitterly. “We told them everything. Eventually.” The woman tilted her head. “Well, I didn’t tell them about bots. I didn’t know that was a— a thing.” she said, and Chase blinked. The woman’s tone had shifted. Something there... what was it?
It was worry. It was fear.
PER+1
“Bots worry you somehow?” Chase asked. “Why?”
Speranza was silent for a long moment. And when she spoke, her voice was barely audible. “I can’t feel pain from an online game. It’s impossible. There are no neural connections in our Echoes to do that. But I do feel pain. But what... but what if it’s not me feeling pain?”
Another long, quiet moment. Chase kept her mouth shut, and the cold, dry air whistled through the cracks in the walls.
And finally, Speranza spoke. “What if all I am is the memory of myself? What if the real me is out of the game, and the me right here, right now, is just the computer-constructed personality that the system built? Just like it built one for Yubai?”
Chase kept silent, but the minutes stretched on, and the Bard spoke no more.
“You’re people,” Chase said, finally realizing that this silent void would take them nowhere good. She moved forward and gave Speranza’s arm a squeeze. “Whatever the truth of it is, you’re people, and we’ll help you. That’s what matters.”
“I... yes. Yes,’ Speranza said, looking down at her. “Thank you.”
Noise from the stairs, and they both looked back to see Cagna descending, tucking her shirt into her pants. “Carmina’s back,” the dog beastkin said, simply. “We strike at midnight.”
CHAPTER 21: REUNION
The dragon cult knew of Chase. They had prepared themselves against divinations.
It was also quite likely that they knew about Renny. As such, they’d probably prepared themselves against illusions.
Cagna? Not so likely, there. Speranza? Probably no preparation against her. And The Muscle Wizaard’s curse guaranteed he’d be an unknown.
But Chase was absolutely certain that there was no way in heck they were prepared for a Burglar.
Not too long ago they’d had time to case an Inquisition stronghold, learn everything they could about their processes and security and forces. They’d taken a month to prepare, gotten a perfect insertion, then...
...then it had still gone off-plan, and they’d nearly failed.
So, this time?
This time she didn’t bother to overthink it. There wasn’t enough time for that, wasn’t enough leeway to over prepare.
There was only success or failure. Chase kicked caution to the wind, and they went in with what they had.
Which meant that for the first few minutes she was stuck back inside a damned lootbag, staring at the others she’d talked into joining this very dangerous endeavor.
“It’s got its flaws,” Cagna said, in the cloth-lined dimness. “Air is an issue. Too long and we’ll run out. And it can be ripped... if it is, then we all spill out in a heap.”
“We tried ripping it when we got caught last time,” Renny pointed out.
“How far did you get?” Cagna asked.
“Through a layer, but there was more cloth underneath.”
“If you’d kept going you would have gotten out,” the dog-woman said.
“Ah, that’s my mistake then,” Chase said, drumming her fingers on her knees. Sorry.”
“You were tired, and it worked out okay anyways,” Renny said.
“Thanks, but I really need to—”
A flash of silver.
A ripping noise that seemed to fill the world.
And then Chase was tumbling, bouncing off her friends as they spilled out in a heap.
“Help!” Carmina yelled, and there were men shouting, torchlights flaring in the darkness, and metal-shod feet pounding against stone.
Chase felt her anger rise again. “You are the worst Burglar in the world!” she screamed as she hurried to her feet, seeing at least ten green-armored warriors rushing at them from across the courtyard. “Renny! Duplicate!”
“I told you it’s just a side job!” Carmina howled as she backflipped away from the group, somehow producing a crossbow from gods knew where. With a clack and a twang, one of the men rushing them dropped.
“Phantasm!” Renny cried out...
...and then the courtyard was full of dozens of Rennys.
The warriors slowed down, hacking as they went, but behind them someone called “It’s a trick! Ignore the foxes!”
“Yes, ignore the foxes!” The Rennys chorused as one.
And Chase saw an image snap into place around her. Her legs were overlaid with a translucent version of Renny, and the rest of her faded. A glance around showed the same thing happening to her friends, to some degree.
The Muscle Wizaard got one Renny illusion per leg, she was amused to see.
“It’s the halven! Get the hostage!” someone yelled.
“Oh no you don’t!” Chase had had quite enough. “Get them!”
And covered by an illusionary wave of foxes, her friends rolled into and over the slowly advancing warriors.
“Takedown!” she heard The Muscle Wizaard yell, and there was a crunch that made her flinch.
“Stand Down!” Cagna barked, and a halberd clattered to the ground.
And a guitar broke over the clamor, sending valiant, defiant chords bouncing off the walls as Speranza began her work.
Speranza’s Heartening Song buffs your Strength by 30!
“Renny! With me!” Chase called, whipping around to take in the fight from a safe distance. Doors were slamming open, and people were shouting from the buildings around them, but she was looking for something specific.
And she found it.
PER+1
A single figure was fleeing the fight, heading toward the building that she’d seen Greta emerge from.
“Get the hostage, huh?” Chase muttered as she picked up her skirts hurried that way. “Works for me!”
The small group had figured there were perhaps a hundred to a hundred and thirty people in the dragon cult.
Between Carmina and Cagna, they’d seen about eighty people leave the compound, all told.
They’d been discovered because their Burglar was so very, very bad at her job, but that was okay. They still had surprise, and all she had to do was reach her sister. That was their victory condition. Everything else would fall into place if she could do that.
She caught up to the green-armored man as he let his halberd fall to the ground and started fumbling for keys.
Waiting patiently, hiding behind a rainbarrel, she rolled her eyes as he fumbled them out, and started trying them on the multiple locks on the door. Behind her The Muscle Wizaard bellowed his challenge, asking if they could taste the magic.
The thuds that followed rather suggested that they were tasting the courtyard instead. But Chase was pretty sure that was close
enough to magic for her purposes, so it counted.
“Want me to make him barf?” Renny whispered from beside her, and she almost broke cover.
“No! No,” she whispered again. “Can you even do that while you’re keeping the illusions going?”
“They have a Wizard, and he’s dispelling my stuff!” Renny pointed back, and she looked over to see a man half-dressed in a green horned headdress and a set of pajamas frantically waving his hands, and casting bolts of magical energy down. He was standing on the ramparts of the outer wall, and below him Bastien and Cagna were diving for cover.
Chase winced as Cagna was a little too slow, and the dog-woman’s yelp of pain stung the halven’s heart.
“Bad Fortune, Bad Fortune, Bad Fortune,” Chase whispered, pointing at the Wizard.
You have inflicted 70 points of fortune damage on Signore Sorcerio!
Your Bad Fortune skill is now level 16!
You have inflicted 71 points of fortune damage on Signore Sorcerio!
CHA+1
Your Bad Fortune skill is now level 17!
You have inflicted 32 points of fortune damage on Signore Sorcerio!
The Wizard looked around frantically, and as he did so his headdress wobbled, one horn getting caught on a torch sconce. He jumped exactly the wrong way and tilted the brazier full of flaming coals straight onto his cloak which caught alight. Just as he was managing to beat it out, a crossbow bolt caught the back of his knee and it buckled, as he fell screaming to the cobblestoned courtyard below.
“Careful!” Renny cautioned. “Don’t use all your energy so early! The inside will be harder!”
“You leave that to me,” Chase whispered back, checking the guard at the door. He’d finally managed to undo the last lock, and she rose to her feet. “Give us invisibility please!”
“Okay, but if they’ve got wards up, it won’t last long.”
“It doesn’t have to,” Chase said, rushing in before the guard could shut the door behind him.
The guard turned, hearing something, but his eyes were far above Chase’s head. Which was good, because at this range the invisibility illusion wasn’t very effective.
But it didn’t matter.
He grunted as Chase’s hand punched his crotch, and chainmail rattled. He stared down, and Chase glared up, raising her other hand.
She was holding a jar of earthworms.
Very, very still earthworms.
“Absorb Condition, Transfer Condition,” Chase told him.
You have been afflicted with Drugged!
You have afflicted Vincenzo Gondolfi with Drugged!
You are no longer Drugged.
The guard’s eyes rolled up out of view of his helmet’s eyeslits, and he crumpled. Chase stepped around him as he fell, tucking the jar back into her pocket.
Then it was through another door, past some unmanned arrow slits in the walls, and into a long marble corridor filled with frescoes and lit by glowing stones set in the ceiling.
Renny whistled at that sight. “Glowstones! That many, too. That’s a small fortune, there.”
“That’s nice,” Chase muttered, listening to the sounds of footsteps running through the building. “Now let’s find my sister, please!”
It took them precious minutes to find someone to follow.
That had been the plan, really. The building was huge and halvens were small. There was no telling where Greta was in here. The best bet was to wait until someone went to get her and follow them to her.
If Carmina had been undetected, then they could have searched at their leisure. But Chase had gambled that she wouldn’t be, and prepared everyone (except Carmina,) to do what they were doing now.
She’d gambled and won.
You are now a level 6 Gambler!
LUCK+5
PER+5
Chase skidded to a halt, eyes wide. “It’s that easy? Really?”
“Sshhh!” Renny cautioned, as the guard they were following stopped cold and whipped around.
But they were invisible, and the green-armored woman shook her head, and resumed unlocking the steel door they’d come to.
“Party Status,” Chase whispered as she waited. The HP numbers made her wince... then they jumped back up.
Speranza was still singing. She’d switched to a healing song, by the looks of it. But still, they were up against hard odds. The sooner Chase could grab Greta and get out, the better.
They followed the guard up in silence, up to the top floor, and the corridors got grimier and showed fewer and fewer signs of life. Drop cloths covered glass cases here, and the frescoes got more sinister. They showed leering adventurers slaughtering families, burning towns, and looting treasures from crying merchants. All manner of crimes and depravities were shown, and Chase blushed as a few more carnal ones came into view... and passed them by gratefully, as the guard hurried faster now.
BONG.
Chase winced. The bell!
It clanged a few more times, audible even through the heavy stone of the building. They’d seen the bell atop its steeple during the initial surveillance. They’d planned to glue the clapper to the side of it once they’d snuck in, but well, that plan had gone up in smoke.
“Trouble,” Cagna whispered in Chase’s ear. The halven stumbled, before running on. “Get out here as fast as you can.”
Chase couldn’t reply, which was just as well. Her side hurt, her lungs were heaving, and her legs felt like they’d crumple at any moment. She was tired, so tired, but this was her sister’s life on the line and the halven would not let her down.
WILL+1
Through the pain, through the pounding of blood in her ears, Chase heard the guard speaking at the last door.
“Pesce spada,” the woman spoke through an open viewing slot.
This was the first slot-equipped door that Chase had seen. She slowed, caught her breath.
The door opened from the other side, revealing a cell and three more guards beyond it. Two of them grabbed the arms of a struggling figure and jerked her upright. The fourth put a long knife to the figure’s throat, and together they all marched out to join the guard who had fetched them.
Runes flared along the doorframe as they went, and Chase nodded in satisfaction. Wards, like the sort Renny had been worried about. Rendered pointless, since her foes had done her work for them.
Chase’s eyes teared up, as she saw Greta scowling around at her captors, cursing them. It WAS Greta. Her sister, brought here by inscrutable means, brought into this fight for no other reason than to be a bargaining chip.
“Chase,” Renny whispered. “How do we do this? I could use barf gas—”
“No,” Chase whispered. “They’re all high enough level it wouldn’t set them back for long. Go back, Renny. Go back. I’ve got this.”
“But...”
“Around the corner. That should be out of range. Go!”
That last word was a little too loud, for one of the guards called a warning. The one with the knife at her sister’s throat pulled it closer, and a trickle of blood stained Greta’s white, white blouse.
And Chase stepped forward, the illusion of invisibility still cloaking her.
It wouldn’t last for long, not with their perception.
But it didn’t need to.
Four words, she mouthed. Four words she mouthed over and over, as the first two guards turned, catching something amiss, some slight movement of air or some uneasy feeling. Then their eyes widened as they saw the words appear in front of their faces.
But it was far, far too late to save them at that point.
“Silent Activation, Ante Up,” Chase said over and over again, and their fortune fell, and fell, and fell.
And so did Greta’s, but the second Chase was sure that they were down, sure the skill had done its job, she switched her chant.
“Good Fortune, Good Fortune, Good Fortune!” she yelled, running straight at her sister.
The guard holding her snarled and twisted h
is knife...
...and froze, as foam sprayed from his mouth. He fell to the ground choking, the knife falling from limp fingers.
The first guard Chase passed tried to grab her, and ran straight into the other one, who had chosen that exact moment to try the same thing. Their helmets locked together, and the third guard’s hastily swung halberd rebounded from them, the blade flying free of its haft to take the third guard right in the chest with its spike. She choked and fell, blood pattering on the floor.
But Chase was beyond that. Beyond all of that as she tackled Greta to the ground, crying, ignoring the messages about skills going up and winning fortune from her calculated risk, beyond all but sobbing and holding her sister close.
Behind her, a tornado whirled down the hallway, taking the guards with it as Renny stepped out from around the corner and pointed. One by one the storm-made-minion picked up the goons and chucked them into the cell before following them inside. Renny slammed the door shut behind it, leaving the literally luckless cultists trapped inside fifty square feet of cell with twenty-five square feet of air elemental.
But it was only when the stolen fortune ebbed from Chase, and was replaced by the familiar thrill of leveling up that Chase opened her eyes, and peered over her sister’s blonde braid and own heaving shoulder to see what she’d gained.
You are now a level 7 Gambler!
LUCK+5
PER+5
You are now a level 14 Grifter!
CHA+3
DEX+3
LUCK+3
You are now a level 12 Halven!
AGL+4
CHA+4
CON+2
DEX+4
INT+2
LUCK+4
PER+2
STR+2
WILL+2
WIS+4
COOL +5
MENTAL FORTITUDE+5
She gasped as she felt her mind reshape itself, found her resolution growing within her as everything sharpened.
“I just gained a halven level and I don’t know why,” Greta sobbed, her arms still tight around Chase... but nowhere near as tight as they had once been.
“I don’t either,” Chase said and hugged her back. Chase was strong now. Stronger than Greta for the first time of her life.
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