by Eric Nylund
Morgana shot back her own sly wink. “You’re paying for the drinks. My advice isn’t free.”
“It be a date then.”
I had to be misreading Elmac’s… what… banter? The way he leaned toward her, though, seemed like flirting too. So maybe I had been right, and he did have a crush on her. This wasn’t going to end well.
Elmac sat straighter and was suddenly serious. His finger stabbed the vial of gas—just before it rolled off the edge of the table.
I hadn’t noticed it was moving.
In fact, a few seconds ago, the thing had been perfectly still.
Elmac kept his finger on it and lowered his gaze level with the container. He squinted. “Toxic gas, I’ll wager. Or some vapor beastie locked inside. Had to have been a weapon ’o last resort.”
I focused on the vial and its description window popped. Most of the words were redacted with black bars, except:
ALERT!
Description UNAVAILABLE
Item is magically CLOAKED
I relayed this to Morgana and Elmac.
Morgana knelt next to Elmac and squinted at the vial too.
Inside, purple smoke boiled, and I could see something deeper swimming around and around. Like a lion pacing in its cage.
“Cloaked?” she breathed. “Haven’t seen that before.” She undulated her fingers and whispered what I assumed were magical words, “De occulta philosophia revelata.”
From the vial came a whispered reply—shrill and strident.
Morgana’s eyes widened. She snorted and stood, hands on her hips. “Same to you,” she told the thing in the vial. “‘Beastie’ is right. I cast a Nature’s Insight spell on it… and well, never mind what it said. Blimey. A lady can’t repeat that.”
“Sounds like whatever’s in there isn’t happy about it.” I plucked up the vial. “Let’s save figuring out what it is for later. Like when we’re not locked in an air-tight room?” It went back into my inventory. “Maybe we’ll have more luck with the note?”
I dragged the square of parchment out of my inventory.
“Morgana?” I asked. “Mind checking for traps? If those assassins had suicide capsules, who knows what kind of toxic powder or other surprises could be inside.”
“Right.” She produced a leather bundle and unrolled it. Within were dental picks, tiny pry bars, wires, and other assorted tools for the fine trade of burglary. She lifted a fold of the parchment and inserted a wire probe. She then withdrew it and smelled the tip.
I hadn’t noticed before how long and slender her fingers were, the kind you’d see on a violin player. Or a safecracker.
A few more pokes and prods and she announced, “No traps or poisons detected.” She pushed the paper square to me. “Should be safe to open.”
This was a classic thief maneuver: check for traps but then let someone else open the thing.
I unfolded the paper and braced.
No puff of toxic powder. No explosion.
The paper was, surprise—a note. The writing on it, however, looked like Sumerian cuneiform executed by a preschooler. There were several lines of the erratic script followed by a list with thirteen entries.
Elmac peered at it. “That be Sabbah, the Silent Syndicate’s secret code.”
“So you were right,” Morgana whispered. “It was the Assassins Guild.”
“Don’t worry,” I told them, “I can handle this Sabbah-code stuff.”
Elmac stared at me. In a cold flat tone, he asked, “And how do you be knowing Sabbah?”
“I don’t, but being a player has its advantages. I’ve got three freebie starting languages still unassigned. That’s how I learned Jal’Tek the other day in the Duke’s court.”
“Right,” Morgana said, “but you can’t—”
“Just a sec,” I told her and tabbed over to the SKILLS & ABILITIES section of my interface.
She rolled her eyes. “Suit yourself.” She tilted her chair back and propped her boots on the table.
I perused the list of available languages. Sabbah was right there between Saba-Leippya (nature spirit of rice paddies) and Sac (one-legged primordial dwarf).
Sabbah, however, was grayed out and un-selectable.
I turned to Morgana and made a “well?” gesture.
“Ready to listen now, are you?” She pretended to buff her chipped and split fingernails.
I waited.
Thirty seconds.
“Well then,” she said, sitting up. “Sabbah is an assassin only skill, you twonk.”
I scoffed and tried to check the un-selectable skill.
A tiny pop-up declared:
This is an ASSASSIN-class only skill.
There was a way around this. I could multiclass as an Assassin/Spirit Warrior. Heck, there was a specialization path for my class called “Master of Death” that would probably work great with assassin skills.
But not really an option for me.
Despite Elmac’s earlier claim that assassins were an integral part of civilized society—I had no intention of becoming a cold-blooded killer. I preferred my killing to be justified, self-defense, noble even, if I could swing it. After all, I was a “Hero of Thera” not a “Justified Murderer of Thera.”
Also, when I’d added skills before, memories had been spliced into my brain to account for the update to my character. I could now recall, for example, being lost in the mountains, half dead, then rescued by the monks at the Domicile of the Sleeping Dragon.
This was a real memory. Just not mine.
It was no big deal, as long as I kept straight which memories belonged to Hector with a “c,” and which belonged to Hektor with a “k.”
The long-term effects of these implanted recollections, however, might get… tricky.
Case in point: my brother. Sure, he’d been evil (maybe insane) before he’d come to Thera and become an anti-paladin. I bet, though, the backstory of his character’s villainous origin hadn’t helped Bill’s moral compass point in the right direction.
“Hey—hello? Hektor?” Elmac waved a hand in front of my face.
“Sorry. Thinking about something else.” I blinked. “Is there any way to decipher the note without being an assassin?”
Elmac turned the parchment around. “Seen enough ’o this stuff over the years. Sometimes you get lucky if you guess a few symbols right.” He tugged at his beard as his gaze darted over the odd code. “Colonel Delacroix is better at this, but asking her would add, uh, political complications.”
Delacroix was a powerful solar sorceress and head of the city’s secret police. She was smarter than the three of us put together. She and I, however, weren’t exactly friends. She suspected me of some illicit involvement with the demonic invasion last week. In fact, she’d wanted to debrief (interrogate) me about it.
“Hang on,” Morgana said. “You really believe these low-level assassins were dumb enough to carry a coded message? Just waiting for their enemies to snatch it and get a handy clue?”
It did seem a little convenient.
“A plot coupon?” I wondered out loud.
“Or a deliberate plant of mis-information,” she replied.
“Plot coupon? What be that?” Elmac asked.
“Sorry,” I said. “It’s a game term. They’re the crumbs in a trail of breadcrumbs. Like you track down a wandering hermit who then sends you to an enchanted frog, and once you dispel the frog’s curse, he gives you a secret map, that then leads you to the sleeping princess you were looking for all along.”
“Lazy storytelling, if you ask me,” Morgana said.
Elmac grabbed a pencil, licked the end, and scribbled notes on a pad of paper. “Be it one of these coupons, the Great Scarlet Herring herself, or a genuine clue, might as well see what my old noggin can do with it.”
Morgana stared at me, her eyes narrowed, and she pursed her lips. “Crikey. You haven’t leveled up yet?”
“I’m still calculating my optimal progression path. Hey—wait. How do you
know I haven’t leveled up?”
“Your player tag.” She waved over my head to the name, clan affiliation, and level placard that only other players could see. “‘Hero of Thera,’” she read. “‘Hektor Saint-Savage.’ But the ‘Spirit Warrior/4th level’ part’s dull. It goes all sterling silver when you commit and actually assign points.”
“Look,” I told her, a defensive tone sharpening my voice, “I’m trying to do this right, not like my first three levels when I’d been forced to make snap decisions.”
That came out a bit more cutting than I’d meant. Morgana had touched a sore spot, though.
“Sorry,” I said without meeting her eyes.
“It’s okay, mate. But use your loaf.” She scooted closer. “Better skills and more health might have come in handy tonight, yeah?”
“Yeah…”
This was the problem with being a borderline obsessive-compulsive min-maxing player. We were always holding out for that perfect combination of stats, skills, and class abilities. I thought it made me a good player… but yes, I acknowledge now it was also pretty dumb to sit on a pile of unspent points.
Elmac cleared his throat and jabbed his paper with a stubby pencil. “If you be interested, I got three on this list—the easy guesses. The rest’ll take more brain sweat than I got. Maybe after I get a few more drinks in me…”
He turned the page for Morgana and me to read.
In precise block lettering next to the indecipherable Sabbah, Elmac had written:
Padre John Adam-Smith
Dame Rose Beckonsail
Niblen Chatters
“This supposed to be a hit list?” Morgana whispered.
“Doesn’t make any sense if ’tis,” Elmac replied. “Padre John is a lovable old priest with the Three Sisters. Dame Beckonsail be the most honored sky captain in the Duke’s gryphon cavalry. And Niblen? A court scribe, if I remember right.”
“Is there a connection between them?” I asked.
Elmac shrugged.
A new interface window materialized from the shadows and I jolted with surprise.
“What?” Elmac said, his hand reaching for his axe.
“Next quest,” Morgana said, her irises constricting to cat slits as she examined the text.
I read it out loud so Elmac could follow.
NEW QUEST UNLOCKED:
“SOMETHING ROTTEN IN THE DUCHY OF SENDON”
The Silent Syndicate has sanctioned innocent people for elimination. Investigate and get out of High Hill before you too are murdered.
Rewards: Tier-IV (or better) treasure, political secrets.
Suggested Level: You and anyone else you can convince to help.
Accept? YES / NO
Did I detect sarcasm in the “Suggested Level”? Or a hint that this quest might be over our pay grade?
Morgana reached toward her interface. “Plot coupon or not, looks like it’s our next step.”
“Wait,” I said. “Don’t accept.”
She fixed me with a stare. “That’s what we’re supposed to do, innit?”
“Exactly,” I told her. “But two things have seriously bugged me since we got here. First, what type of game is the Game?”
She shook her head.
“I mean, is it a bunch of linear plot threads we’re obliged to follow? Or more sandboxy?”
“I understood the words you be using, lad,” Elmac muttered and crossed his arms, “but not what they all mean together. A sandbox?”
“So to speak,” Morgana replied. “A sandbox world is one where players are free to explore and find their own way through the game.”
“The other extreme is a linear, predetermined world,” I told him. “Players are led from quest to quest. Right now I could make a case for either possibility in the Game. It sure seems like we’re making our own choices, but considering how neatly my first few quests lined up…” I shrugged. “I could’ve been herded down a particular path and not even known it.”
The Game Master had told me he’d set it up so I’d collect the two evil artifact gloves he wanted out of the Game (that were still rattling around in my inventory, by the way). How much more was due to his influence?
“It be the standard free will versus determinism debate,” Elmac said, stroking his beard.
Morgana arched an eyebrow. “You know your Plato?”
“And ’bout the ‘animal’ and ‘rational’ parts of our nature, aye,” he said.
Morgana turned back to me. “That’s all toss, Hektor. Assassins are trying to off these innocent people all the same. That Padre whats-his-nose, and Dame Lady whoever. We’ve got to save them if we can.”
“I’m not saying we don’t. But if this quest turns out to be as hard as stopping a demonic invasion, there may be smarter ways to do it.”
She slowly shook her head and examined me. “Yeah? Like what?”
“Okay, say the Game is a sandbox type. Couldn’t we knock out a few easier quests, level up—then come back and do the assassin quest better prepared for it? In fact, I have the perfect little quest that’ll get us out of town for a few days.”
She stared off into space. “Assuming that everyone the assassins are after don’t have their throats slit in the meantime… and if quests don’t scale with our level… yeah, that could be better.”
Elmac opened his mouth to ask.
“Scaling,” I told him, “means the higher level you are, the harder the quests get. I don’t think they do.”
“What makes you say that?” Morgana asked.
“Well, that’s the other thing that’s been bugging me. We’ve accepted quests that no low level had any business attempting. Fighting off an army of demons? A shadow demigod? I think it’s on us to determine what quests are a fair challenge and which are suicide—regardless what the ‘Suggested Level’ says in the quest description.”
I could see the wheels turning in Morgana’s head. She still didn’t look convinced.
“One more thing…” I said. “I really hate quests with assassins. They have nasty twists like—hey, surprise, your dearest friend is actually a killer disguised as your pal.”
“That’s barmy,” Morgana said and went on in an increasingly strained tone. “And so is believing all those murderers will just forget about us while we flounce about because of some game mechanic like us not accepting the quest.”
“Either way it’s a risk worth taking. Think about it: the quest text said ‘get out of High Hill before you too are murdered.’ Sounds like if we stay here under the current circumstances, it goes bad for us. On the other hand, if we level up and then take the quest, maybe, just maybe, we have a chance of actually helping those people.”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “We’re gambling with people’s lives…”
We were silent a moment as we considered the weight of that statement.
“Shouldn’t we let Colonel Delacroix in on this?” Morgana asked. “She seems the type to take charge and do something about it.”
“Aye, she is,” Elmac muttered. “If it be a legal sanction, though, there be little she can do.” He paused, glanced up, and then nodded in agreement to whatever he was thinking. “Still, I’d bet my last bottle of Casa Del Oro Ladrillo sipping tequila that she’d make the Syndicate wait while she double-checked the bureaucratic details, and meanwhile see to it that those folk ’bout to be murdered got far, far away.”
“Good idea,” I said. “We’ll send her a note—then hightail it.”
I took a moment to bask in the satisfaction of a plan well formed.
Morgana glowered and ruined my moment as she said, “Sure, all makes bloody perfect sense. Just one thing. Given what happened earlier tonight, how do we get out of High Hill with a legion of assassins—quest accepted or not—already hunting us?”
CHAPTER 4
“So…” I said, “we should go while it’s still dark, shouldn’t we?”
This air-tight vault felt more like a shrinking coffin every second.
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“Easy, lad,” Elmac said. “We best wait a wee bit.”
I took a deep breath and forced my heart to slow.
I’d have to be dumb to not hear Elmac out. This was his home turf. His tactical analysis on this subject, sober or not, was light-years better than mine.
So, I grabbed his bottle of Fallen Star brandy and took a swig.
It was molten gold going down and left my vision a blurry glow. I exhaled vapors of honey-tinged smoke, swayed… and now had more control of the fight-or-flight instinct building inside me.
“I’m listening.”
“If we go now in the middle ’o the night,” Elmac went on, “Morgana can be using her skills and shifting her form to slink away, but you and I’ll be standing out like dung trolls at the Royal Equinox Cotillion. Wait ’til morning, though, when the market opens and all the Heartland melons be rolling in, then the streets’ll be jammed with folk wanting to get the pick of the season.”
“And you two will be lost in the crowds,” Morgana said, tapping her lower lip.
I shrugged. “Guess that makes sense.”
“Good.” Elmac made a “gimme” gesture for his brandy, so I passed it to him. “While we wait” —he took a pull from the bottle— “ahhh. I’ll give that note another crack.”
Morgana closed her eyes. “I’ll just meditate and refill my mana then.” She opened one eye and fixed me with a cat-about-to-pounce stare. “Suppose we all got constructive things to be about.”
I got her meaning: Level your character, idiot.
So, ignoring my premonition of ninjas surrounding the Bloody Rooster while us sitting ducks just, well, sat here—I opened my game interface.
Really, what was so hard about leveling up? Besides me making up my mind?
It boiled down to three options.
First, I could level up as a plain Spirit Warrior and improve my existing base skills—attractive, as I knew, more or less, what I’d get.
My second option: graduate to a specialized Spirit Warrior sub-class. The catch was when I picked up such a specialization, I’d stop progressing as an ordinary Spirit Warrior and could never again improve my basic combat skills.