The two turned and both pointed across the street. “Around the corner is an alley,” the pleasanter of the two answered. “There’ll be women there, but I wouldn’t waste my time with them silver skanks. Keep going down the alley until you come to the next street. Hang a left and go up to Rollup’s and tell them Meeker sent you. That’s me.”
“Thank you,” Roan said, feeling idiotic. He crossed the street and went into the alley, where he was accosted by, well, by the skankiest women he’d seen in his life. It was a troop of fifty-year-old whores and they made Roan sad. Although they tried, there wasn’t enough paint, rouge, and lipstick to cover the years of abuse the women had suffered. Even a silver seemed way too much to spend contracting some sort of virtual disease.
“No, thank you. No, thank you,” he kept repeating.
There wasn’t a pimp in sight, which was good because Roan would have attacked him without thought. He was sad for the women but furious at their treatment. He left them behind and turned the corner at the next street. Rollup’s was a seven story building that had been recently painted yellow. It was an eye sore in an already ugly city.
“Whoever did that deserves to die,” he whispered, walking up the flight of steps leading to the one set of doors. They were open and inviting, as was the young woman lounging on a couch just to left as he entered. She wore a man’s buttoned-up shirt that wasn’t buttoned up. With some reluctance, Roan turned from her and went to a yellow painted cage that dominated the foyer.
Inside it was a halfling that looked as though he’d been caged there for the last twenty years. He had grey in his curly hair and laugh lines that had turned into deep crags. He also had flinty eyes that saw right into Roan. “Okay, newbie what’s your fantasy?” When Roan hesitated, the halfling snorted. “Don’t be shy. Rollup knows why you’re here. You’re looking for fun that you can’t get on the other side.”
“You’re Rollup?” Roan passed a hand across his face. He hadn’t expected a halfling as a pimp. “I-I’m sorry. Meeker sent me.”
“That’s nice, now tell me what you’re into or get out.”
Roan glanced at the mostly naked girl sitting with her legs spread, and said, “Um, uh.” He then looked down the hall where doors sprouted left and right and the sound of over-the-top passion came to him in an unsettling cacophony.
All he could think was that this was where Cricket was destined. “Oh, hey, I am looking for a woman. She’s somewhere between twenty-one and twenty-eight. She had a baby about eight years ago. The kid’s called Cricket and works over in Ghak territory and…” Roan broke off as Rollup just sat there staring at him with bored expression.
“You’re one of those, I see,” Rollup said, with a sigh. “I wouldn’t have figured you for the white knight type. Either way, you’re out of luck. I know the girl, but I don’t have her, sorry. But for twenty gold, I’ll let you know where she is.”
Roan countered, “Five,” but Rollup held firm at twenty. Roan shrugged. “I don’t even know why I’m asking. What about her? How much is she?”
“A gold for the hour but only two for the entire night. That my friend is a steal. She’s a good one. Darlia!” he snapped. She was up like a shot and kneeling in front of Roan, her hands clasped just beneath her breasts. “You see how well trained she is. Like a dog.”
A twitch began to work under Roan’s right eye. This was getting him nowhere and he was wasting time. He wanted to kill Rollup, but that wouldn’t have helped him in any way. “Thanks, but no,” he said, turning around and heading for the door.
“Seven and fifteen,” Rollup called after him. “You’ll not get a better deal than that.”
“I want to know where that girl is and I’m not paying more than five.”
“Then you must not want it that badly.”
Roan kept walking, saying, “You’re right, I don’t.” He didn’t know why he had asked in the first place. Cricket’s mom had sold her into slavery. It was disgusting. She deserved to be slapped, not saved.
“That’s more like it,” Roan said as he felt the anger building in him. “Give into your feelings. Let the hate run through you.” He’d been whispering but still a woman passing heard. She began to walk faster and he forced out an evil laugh. It sounded ridiculous and now he was angry at himself.
“I’m wasting more time. I just have to do this.”
Ahead of him were three K Street Killers sitting on a stoop and chatting. They eyed him as he walked towards them. Only then did he realize that he had his rapier half out of its sheath. Pulling his hand away he gave them a smile.
“I’m looking for drugs,” he said, feeling once again like an imposter. He had no idea what people on this side called the various drugs they dealt, but guessed that these men weren’t sitting on this particular stoop without cause. “Do you know where I can score some…meth?”
“Don’t you know where you are?” one of them asked. “This is K Street, my friend. We got the shiniest crystal you ever saw. How much you looking to buy?”
“Maybe ten grams worth, depending on how pure it is.”
The man stood up and put a skinny arm around Roan’s shoulders and turned him around. “We got all levels of purity depending on your budget. We even have rooms to rent if you’re going to make a night of it.” He started marching Roan up the stairs they’d been sitting on. “You will need to surrender your weapons. That’s pretty standard.”
He led Roan into the building to a little, windowless room. In front of them was a blank steel door. Next to it was a drawer. “Arms go in the drawer. You’ll be given a tag. Keep hold of it so you can get your stuff out again.” He smiled at Roan and gestured to the drawer.
“Right.” Roan pulled his crossbow from his back. He then fumbled his dagger from its sheath, letting it drop. “Damn,” he said, almost dropping the crossbow as well.
“Be cool with that thing,” the thief said. “I’ll get it.” He reached down for the dagger and Roan shot him in the back of the neck with the bow. For all of a second, the man’s entire body went rigid, then, like a rag-doll, he fell face first at Roan’s feet (XP +55). As quickly as he could, expecting an attack at any second, Roan readied the crossbow. But no one attacked.
Dropping to his knee, Roan frisked the thug, taking an unknown potion and twenty-seven in gold from his pouch. He then used his dagger to hack off his thumbs. The sound of the blade cutting the cartilage and tendons was enough for Roan’s stomach to turn, but with his face cinched into a downturned mask he kept going.
When the two thumbs were bleeding at the bottom of the thug’s pouch, Roan stashed it in his pack and shoved the body to the side. With a deep breath, he walked outside and down the stairs as if hacking thumbs from a body was perfectly natural.
The two thugs at the bottom of the stairs seemed surprised to see him. “Where’s Treynor? You know, that guy who was with you?” one of them asked.
Although Roan had a lie ready, it came out in a broken, “H-he went inside. He s-said something about having to take a dump.”
“Man, what’s with Tre and his bathroom breaks?” the other said. He then gave Roan a suspicious look. “You’re out awful quick.”
Roan swallowed loudly. “I didn’t like the idea of giving up my weapons. It seemed a little sketchy. Have a good night.” He hurried along the block, feeling the sweat of guilt trickle down his back. He had finally done something truly evil and now he was racked with remorse over what he’d done and a fear that he’d be caught gripped him.
His chest was heaving by the time he came to a very narrow alley on his right. It stank of urine and what could only be a decomposing body, but that didn’t stop him from turning into it. Putting his back to a brick wall that was charred from a recent fire, Roan gasped for air and for the hundredth time he tried to tell himself, “It’s just a damn game.”
But it felt so damned real; every palpitation, every last quiver in his hands, every guilty pang.
“Get a hold of yourself,” he seethed
, forcing the heels of his hands into his eyes. “This is what you wanted. No, this is what you needed. You needed a way to gain levels as a thief without hurting innocent lives and that’s what you’re doing.”
He wasn’t wrong. The building he was leaning against was chock full of evil and he would be a fool to walk away when he had nineteen more sets of thumbs to acquire.
2—
Roan went down the foul-smelling alley until he came to a door set into the brick. Listening at it, he heard voices inside. He went on to the next and the next. At the fourth, there was no sound, so he brought out his picks and went at the lock. He was close to popping it open when he heard a shout from around the corner.
There was no time to finish. Stowing the picks away, he stood and planted his back to the door, hiding where the shadows were deepest, his black cloak blending in. Only people with low-light vision had any chance of seeing him.
Clutching his crossbow, he waited, listening to slap of feet. One of the thugs he’d left at the front came racing down the alley. Roan kept perfectly still as the man shot past.
At the same time, he heard someone coming from behind him through the door. He stepped aside just as it banged open. For a brief second, he was hidden by the door.
“You see him?” the man just on the other side of the door yelled.
“He went down this way. Dorgah is going around the other side of the building!” The sound of the thug’s voice gradually drew away while at the same time, the door swung shut until there was nothing between Roan and the closer thug but three feet of empty air.
Roan lifted the crossbow and shot the man in the back. Again, his surprise nullified the dexterity bonus that would have gone to his enemy’s armor class. The bolt sunk home, causing the man to gasp in pain and shock, but he was a tough one and didn’t go down.
He whirled around, quicker than Roan had expected, his short sword hidden by the shield he carried until, at the last possible moment, it slashed out, cutting a line through the flesh of Roan’s chest(Damage -5HP).
Making a hissing sound from the searing pain, Roan pulled his rapier and lunged in one move. The tip was swatted away by the thug before he lunged as well. Roan’s fifteen armor class was too much and the man’s sword hit nothing but air as Roan dodged.
But he couldn’t dodge forever. The thug who had run past was just turning at the sound of their fight. Roan had to kill this man before he faced two on one odds. Unfortunately they were pretty well matched and they both made passes before Roan managed to skewer his enemy on the end of his rapier(XP +55).
“He’s over here!” the thug up the alley screamed, racing towards Roan. Afraid that he’d be caught in the narrow alley by converging enemies, Roan tried the door and found that it had shut but hadn’t locked. He ran through and turned the lock behind him; two seconds later, the door shook from a blow and the knob rattled.
Roan turned away from it and found himself in a dark staircase. He seemed to be midway between the first floor and some dark horror that lay beneath the building—it felt as though something was looking at him from down below.
“He’s inside!” a muffled voice from the other side of the door cried. “Dago and Pillboy, watch this door.”
“Son of a bitch,” Roan whispered. He had managed to trap himself. There were thugs behind him, while in front of him the building was alive with the sound of boots stomping and orders being bellowed. It was as though he had kicked over a beehive. And of course, there was something terrible in the basement.
Just looking down there frankly gave Roan the willies. It made him want to run, screaming like a child. Somehow, he held his fear in check and, dropping to one knee, he cranked back on the crossbow’s winch. So far, he owed his life to the bow and he wasn’t going anywhere without it at the ready. Fifteen seconds later it was locked and loaded.
There was no question as to which way he was headed. Given the choice between the basement with whatever evil lurked there and a hundred thugs looking to kill him, he chose the thugs.
“Up it is,” he said and then ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Behind him he left a blood trail that was clear as day.
The first floor was bedlam with scarecrow drug addicts in rags going in all directions, while among them K Street Killers tried to push through, heading in Roan’s direction. With the air filled with the smoke from dozens of bowls, hookahs, cigarettes and possibly someone’s hair, judging by the stench, Roan didn’t think he was seen as he charged up to the second floor.
He might not have been seen, but his blood trail was. “He’s going up!” someone cried from down below and suddenly it seemed as if there was a platoon rushing up the stairs behind him.
Roan cursed and ran faster, but not fast enough as two thugs broke onto the stairs from the third floor just a landing above him. “He went up!” Roan yelled. In his studded leather armor and with his black cloak, he looked like a rogue, in other words, a lot like everyone else. The two thugs didn’t take a moment to question who was saying what. With so many people going up, they assumed that their foe was ahead of them not a few steps behind them.
The idea of an escort appealed to Roan. He figured that he’d blend in and no one would notice, but then he heard someone say, “He’s bleeding! Follow the blood trail!”
“I don’t see any blood,” the man just ahead of Roan said. The observation doomed him. Roan stabbed him in the back with his rapier. The thin blade skidded off his vertebra, went through the lower portion of his heart and through his diaphragm, instantly paralyzing his lungs(XP +35).
The thug in front of him missed the swift action. He was too busy staring down, trying to find the blood that was currently dripping from Roan’s chest. He was easy prey to yet another sneak attack from Roan(XP +35). Roan stepped over the two bodies and kept running, knowing that he was leaving behind, not just treasure, but also the thumbs he desperately needed.
It would mean more killing, if he lived long enough, that is. The entire building seemed alive and the noise of running feet vibrated through the walls, while the stairs he was racing along shook from the number of people charging up them. He had no choice but to keep going up until he made it to the roof where he ran out of options.
Once more, Roan was trapped.
Chapter 13
K Street, The Free City of Oberast
Roan threw his back against the door and looked around for something to brace the door shut with—the roof was utterly empty. “Of course! Why would there be anything to help me?”
The only thing on the roof wasn’t exactly on it, but it was attached: the fire escape! Without a moment’s hesitation he ran to it, but when he got to it he saw four men climbing up towards him.
“So much for that.”
He was eight stories up, surrounded, running out of time and in need of a miracle. “Sariah!” he yelled. “I need help!” The game’s avatar did not show herself. “What about one of those teleportation rings or a potion of fly…” He suddenly remembered he had taken a potion from the first of the K Street Killers. Pulling it out of his pouch, he squinted at it. In the dark it looked more or less clear—which meant nothing to Roan.
As he hadn’t added a single skill point to Knowledge, he had no idea what a potion of flying looked like, or smelled like, or even tasted like. He couldn’t tell the difference between a potion of flying and a potion of Ex-Lax. And there was no time to find out as just then the stairwell door suddenly burst open.
Stuffing the potion away into his pouch, Roan decided to make his own miracle. With his gear and his weapon shifting and bouncing, he sprinted towards the edge of the building where there was a gulf of some fourteen feet between it and the next building. “Just don’t look down,” he hissed to himself as he went at the edge as fast as he could. Had he been ten feet off the ground, he could have made the jump nine times out of ten.
It would all depend on whether or not he got his jumping foot down cleanly. If he was too close or too far from the edge
, or if there was some loose gravel underfoot, he was looking at an eighty foot fall—he didn’t want to think about it, but he couldn’t help it and he didn’t want to look down as he jumped but he couldn’t help that either.
In midair he saw that he was going to both make the jump and not make the jump. He wouldn’t land on his feet when he got to the next building and he wasn’t going to be clinging by his fingers, either. He managed to hit in a terribly awkward fashion(Damage -1HP). The brick hit him across the midsection, knocking the wind out of him and bending him in half.
Groaning, he tried to crawl further onto the building when a dagger thrown from behind him stuck in the back of his leg(Damage -2 HP). “Son of a bitch! Do you mind?” he yelled and dragged himself on. Another dagger missed, bouncing off the roof tile next to his right hand. Getting up, he turned back in time to dodge a third dagger that whistled at him.
There were ten men lined up at the edge taunting him and calling him a coward among other names. “Coward? You try making that jump and we’ll see who’s a coward.”
“Does this look like the face of a coward?” one of them yelled. In answer, Roan unslung his crossbow. An evil grin spread across his face as the ten men suddenly started backing away. Many of them had dropped their shields during the chase and now they ducked behind one another. Roan fired and although the bolt pierced a shield, he missed the man hiding behind it.
As he reloaded, some of the men took to taunting him again, while others started yelling down to street level, “He’s over there on the roof.”
“Great,” Roan said, heading for the door that led down into the building. “All of this for one lousy pair of thumbs.” The door was locked. “Can this night get any better?” He limped to the side of building and saw that he’d have an even further jump if he wanted to get across.
He wouldn’t be able to make it with a bum leg, a broken rib and a blood-dripping laceration across his chest. Pulling out one of his potions of healing, he chugged it and discovered that the night could get worse (Healed +4 HP). The potion had been diluted and was at least half water!
Infinite Assassins: Daggerland Online Novel 2 A LITRPG Adventure Page 12