While he did, the snake wasn’t sitting idly by waiting to get shot. Even though there was only about fourteen inches between the ladder and the vent, the serpent began to climb the ladder by corkscrewing up it, somehow managing to thrust its huge head and thick body into and out of the gap. Roan was both amazed and horrified, thinking that if the snake did manage to eat him, it would be stuck, wrapped around the ladder, unable to go up or down, until Roan’s bones had turned to mush inside it.
He fired again and again as the snake came closer, always aiming for its one remaining eye. Even though he missed that exact mark every time, he hit the snake five times before it got too close and he fled through the fan blades. At the lip of the tunnel, where it ran up against the vertical section of the shaft, he didn’t pause for a second to consider which way to go.
Fear of the giant snake falling on him had him climbing up the rope. With his back pressed against one wall and his feet on the other, he hauled himself up and up, while behind him he could hear the snake bashing at the fan with its head. Its strength lay in its constriction not in its ability to ram and it took a good thirty seconds to get through.
Roan needed every second as he climbed to the roof. When he got there, he began working the crossbow as fast as he could while at the same time he saw the shadow of the serpent awkwardly trying to contort itself to fit up into the shaft. He was able to shoot it twice before he had to throw down the crossbow and yank out his magic dagger.
He would go for the eye. It was his only chance.
Seconds later, the head appeared. Roan had ducked to the side of the vent so that he’d be able to deliver a sneak attack and now he leapt onto the snake just behind the head to stab with all his strength. The magic dagger punctured the eye and drove deep. Beneath him, the snake went spastic and he only kept his perch because most of the creature’s body was confined in the ventilation shaft. Gripping with his thighs, Roan reared up and stabbed it again, this time going for its tiny reptilian brain.
The dagger penetrated deep, pricking something vital, but Roan needed more than a prick. He needed to kill it now before the thing slithered back down the shaft. With the dagger already deep, he began to rock the blade back and forth as blood gushed up, soaking his hands. The snake thrashed beneath him, its body twisting and writhing, but the head remained positioned.
Roan used the foot-long dagger to anchor the head. When the beast tried to spin one way, he shoved the dagger hard in the opposite way, using the reptile’s strength to open the wound more and more until, with a great shudder, the creature died.
Marveling that he had lived, Roan slid from the snake and saw to his relief, (XP +2000). Congratulations! You are now a Level Six Rogue.
Chapter 23
K Street Territory
Exhausted, Roan leaned against the snake’s unmoving head and read, You are now a Level Six Rogue and have gained the following bonuses:
Increased Hit Points(+7)
Attack +1
All Saving Throws +1
Lucky Roll +2
You have 11 skill points to allocate
“Cool,” he said, and stepped back from the dead snake, breathing heavily. For some time, he could only stare at it wondering how old it had been. He guessed that it would have taken decades to get that big. “And now it’s dead.” A sigh escaped him as he stuck his bloody dagger in its sheath and then pulled up his character sheet:
Character Name: Ratchet
Class & Level: Rogue - Level 6
Race: Human
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Experience Points: 10100 XP To Next Level: 14000
Strength – Dexterity – Constitution
S: 16(+3) D: 16(+3) C: 17(+3)
Intelligence – Wisdom – Charisma
I: 16(+3) W: 16(+3) C: 16(+3)
_______________________
Armor: 15(18) Hit Points: 48/48
Initiative: +3Speed: 13
SAVING THROWS: Will: 5 Fortitude: 5 Reflex: 7
_______________________
GOLD: 3084.4
_______________________
-EQUIPMENT-
Weapons
Doom Sword +3
Dagger +1
Heavy Crossbow
Armor
Studded Leather
Magic
Potion(Unknown) x7
Potions of Flying x1 * Water Breathing x1
Healing Potion x6 * +3 Extra-Planar Doom Sword
Magic Rings x1 * Scrolls X3
Asari Ring of Defense +2 * Inferno wand
Misc
Quiver * Bolts x14
Backpack * Cloak
Matches * Waterskin
Pouches x3 * 50’ Rope
Thieves Tools * Grappling Hook
_______________________
† Spells Known †
Cantrips:
Tier 1 Spells:
Tier 2 Spells:
† Spells Prepared †
Cantrips:
Tier 1 Spells:
Tier 2 Spells:
_______________________
Attacks
Name - Bonus – Damage
Doom Sword +9 1-8 +6
Dagger +8 1-6 +4
Heavy Crossbow +7 1-10
Abilities
Locate Traps
Lucky Roll +2
Sneak Attack Triple Damage
Trap Awareness
Spirit Dodge
Skills
Skills: Balancing +7, Bluff +4, Climb Walls +8, Enable/Disable Traps +8, Disguise Self +8, Hide in Shadow +8, Jump +8, Move Silently +8, Pick Lock +8, Search +8, Sleight of Hand +5, Spot +6, Use Magic Item +7
He grunted at the character sheet, sighed again and then began assigning skill points, adding one to Bluff, Climb Walls, Enable/Disable Traps, Disguise Self, Hide in Shadow, Jump, Move Silently, Pick Lock, Search, Spot, and Use Magic Item.
When he had assigned the last point, he just stared at his character, realizing something quite shocking. He hated playing a thief; they were weak fighters, they lacked courage, nobility and just simple dignity. There was nothing about them that was at all honorable.
And yet, it couldn’t be doubted that had he been any other fifth level character the snake would have killed him. When he’d been a wizard, he had been almost frail until he was a higher level. As a fighter, he wouldn’t have been able to jump as high, climb so fast or move so quickly. He would have been forced to go toe-to-toe with a five-thousand pound serpent that could have crushed plate armor with a single squeeze.
In a sign of respect, he patted the snake’s head and then gave it a shove. It didn’t budge. The shaft was blocked, but there were two others and once more, being a rogue paid off as he went down the closest shaft without a rope, his fingers finding tiny ledges or crevices.
The first thing he did when he reached the floor of the mill was to look for his Doom blade. Using it to light his way, he went in search of the serpent’s lair, figuring that such a beast must have accumulated a vast treasure. In this he was wrong. Against one wall he found an open gate that led down a foul-smelling tunnel. Walking in a crouch, he came to an open chamber that was littered with bones, some of which were human; the rest looked to be goat or dog.
There wasn’t a single copper piece in the pile, not that he looked all that closely. He toed a few bones away, realizing that just because it had been a big snake didn’t make it a dragon. Cursing under his breath, he went back to the ground floor of the mill and gazed around, looking for an office, hoping to find a little treasure for his efforts.
A box of a room with barred windows sat on a platform off to his right. He was sure this was where the supervisors “worked.” A ladder led to the room, which was locked up tight. Roan’s +9 lock pick skill had him inside quickly. Ignoring the desks and filing cabinets, Roan went to the back, where there was a second, much thicker door.
The lock here was better and took him four tries to open. Behind the door was the owner’s office, or so he gues
sed by the expensive furniture, the artwork and over-sized desk. If there was treasure it would be here—and it was. Behind one of the framed pictures was a wall safe that opened only after Roan had spent an aggravating hour working his picks back and forth and up and down.
“Finally!” he said as the door of the safe came open. His work was rewarded. Inside were five of the fat golden wheels, a pouch of gold and silver coins, a small velvet bag with diamonds and rubies within it, and two potions, one marked “Invisibility” and the other “Dragon Breath.”
Grinning, he stowed the treasure and went out onto the floor of the mill. He had come here for a reason and it wasn’t to fight giant snakes. He was there to set a trap. The place was a giant fire hazard to begin with, so he figured it wouldn’t take much.
Using a bin with wheels, he went to each of the exits and blocked them with bolts of cloth. All save the smallest of the doors.
His victims would have to get in somehow. In, but not out. To this end, he piled a mound of cloth next to the door. He then set down layers of cotton and cloth on the floor so that it was like a thick carpet. Next, he set up three different ignition points using precariously situated lanterns and tripwires…or in this case, trip threads.
It was a very simple trap. Now all he had to do was get twenty-five thugs to chase him into the building.
2—
Getting twenty-five thugs to chase him was not the problem. The problem was the hundred and twenty-five thugs chasing him. Whoever was the leader of the K Street Killers had pulled out all the stops and had mobilized an army of thieves, slave traders, pimps, cutthroats, and mob enforcers. Added to those numbers were bounty hunters in the form of adventurers from all over Daggerland.
The bounty on Roan’s head was now over twenty thousand in gold. It was a sum that had imaginations running wild.
Roan planned both a start point as well as two routes to the textile mill. Nothing went as planned. At two in the morning, when the streets should have been growing quiet and vacant, there seemed to be a carnival type atmosphere hanging over K Street. Something was going to happen. It was inescapable and Roan thought that even if he walked away, there would still be a Battle Royale. Someone would say the wrong thing or look at someone with dark eyes, and then: bam!
But he couldn’t wait for that to happen on its own. He crept from a dark alley with his crossbow in hand, took aim at a thug on the next corner and let the bolt fly. With a +7 against an unaware opponent, he couldn’t miss(XP +25).
From that moment on, K Street went crazy. There was a cry and a shout. In seconds there were feet running from every direction. He had expected a response however, he was shocked how quickly the streets swarmed with people. His plan was to run up into the building he had scouted, only from it came a dozen men and women all of whom were armed to the hilt.
None of his plans considered him being trapped in the first minute! He turned and ran down the alley—straight at another group. On either side of the alley were apartment buildings that reared up eight stories overhead and there wasn’t a fire escape in sight.
Luckily, there were open windows, a few on the second floor, twelve feet up. Roan launched himself at one and only because of the +9 in his jump skill was he able to make it. As he scrambled through the window, an arrow flew past his ear and thudded into a wall just above the head of a man who had just sat up in bed.
“Get out of here!” he demanded, reaching for club that sat against the wall.
“I’m trying!” Roan shouted, rolling into the room. “Which way’s out?” The man pointed at the open window just as another arrow came flying in. The man screeched while Roan ran past him and out into a front room where six people were sleeping on the floor.
He tripped over one. “Sorry,” he said as he righted himself and sped for the door. He worked the lock and jumped out into the hall, which he knew would be filling with people in all of fifteen seconds. Going upwards would only lead to him getting trapped on the roof and going down was suicide. Any exits to his left and right would be blocked before he got to them.
That left only one choice.
Across the hall was another door. There was no time to pick locks, so he threw himself against it, aiming to bash it down with his shoulder. The door held against his two-hundred and twenty pounds, but it did give slightly. One more hit was enough to snap the hinges and it fell on him as he pushed into the apartment.
In the dark, someone screamed and someone else shouted. He drew his sword just as a man and a woman rushed at him. In the harsh light they both screamed and fled. Now that he could see, he ran for a hallway. A door opened on his right and a girl of about twelve, wearing a white flowing sleeping gown, froze in it.
“Excuse me,” he said, pushing by. Her window was shut. He flung it open and was about to jump out when he remembered the door he had broken. “Here. Give this to your parents. He tossed a handful of coins toward her. As they rattled on the floor, he sheathed the sword, jumped from the window and nearly turned an ankle landing on the cobblestone street below.
Limping, he jogged up the street, just as people started coming around the corner. They couldn’t have known who he was. It was impossible but when he got close, someone held a lantern up and cried: “It’s him!”
Roan turned on his heel and ran with a small crowd chasing him. By the time he got to the end of the block, the crowd had multiplied until it had reached mob status. And what he saw ahead of him made his heart skip a beat: A slim teenage girl on a white horse racing at him. All around her was a pack of wolves with red eyes.
“What the hell?” he hissed, charging through the next doorway he came to without even looking to see what sort of establishment it was. The wolves were shockingly fast. They ate up the distance so quickly that Roan had only just shut the door when the first slammed into it.
He put his back to it and saw that he was in a rundown tavern. The mirror behind the bar was held together by tape, the wood floor was warped and stained from bleach, beer and blood, and the clientele were bleary-eyed and drunk—as was the bartender.
“Who said you c-could close my door?” he demanded, knocking over a bottle in his indignation.
Roan ignored the question. “Do you have rooms upstairs?”
“That’s Miss Balrinda’s juris-juris-diction.” He pointed in the general direction of a woman who had so much make-up on that she might have been a troll beneath it all. She was a big woman who sat planted in a cushioned chair that was set in front of a door marked No Admittance Without Payment. Folds and rolls of her spilled from the sides of the chair—like an anchor, there’d be no moving her.
But Roan didn’t need to move her, he just needed to get around her and there was just enough room to. “It’s locked,” she drawled as he tested the knob.
Once more, he didn’t have time for lock picking. Unfortunately, the door had been crafted from heavy timbers. It couldn’t be shouldered in as easily as the last door.
“Buy yourself one of my honies and I’ll…Hey!”
He had startled her by shoving his hand down the canyon of her cleavage where a gold chain disappeared. On the end of it was the key to the door. He snapped the chain as she screamed. For a moment he thought she was screaming at him, but then out of the corner of his eye he saw the wolves crashing into the bar.
The rear door opened two seconds before the first wolf leapt over the still screaming Miss Balrinda. Roan slammed the wolf between the door and the jam, but it seemed unhurt as it snapped and growled. Letting go of the door, Roan drew the Doom blade and brought it down on the wolf’s head, splitting it in two. He was more than a little disappointed when he didn’t gain any experience from the kill.
When the next wolf jumped over its dead brother, Roan caught it on his blade and it died as well; again there wasn’t any experience given.
Confused, he took a moment to look around. He was in the middle of a hallway where he could go left or right, while behind him was a staircase. Backing towards it, h
e was faced with yet another wolf. Although the wolves were huge and vicious they fell before his Doom blade with seeming ease and it was a moment before he realized they had been “summoned” probably by the girl on the horse.
Against the wolves, the sword was unstoppable, and yet the act of hacking them to pieces was taking time he didn’t have as the tavern filled with the wolves, thugs and adventurers in overwhelming numbers. He was just about to pull out his Potion of Flying, something he didn’t want to do since he needed the thugs to follow him.
The potion was in his off hand when, to his amazement, he saw that an honest-to-goodness bar fight had broken out. In their eagerness to string him up by the neck, the people in and creatures in the bar were killing each other. The amazement was short-lived. He turned to the left and then the right—thugs were piling into the hall in both directions.
“Jeeze!” he cried and raced up the stairs. He had no idea if this building had any footbridges and nor did he know how far the next building was. With the thugs closing so quickly, he wouldn’t have time to gauge the distance. It would mean jumping blind, something he wouldn’t do without the potion in him.
His mind was spinning, trying to figure out his next move, when he burst out onto the roof. The textile mill was to the south by three blocks and he was just heading in that direction when the door to the roof slammed shut.
Roan spun around and found himself face to face with the young woman who had summoned the wolves. She was standing with one hand on the door and up close, he saw that she was even younger than he had first supposed.
A swirl of green and blue light emanated from the hand she had on the door, washing over the door. A second later, as the thugs reached the roof level, the door knob rattled back and forth, and then shook from blows. The girl’s magic held the door fast; she turned her attention to Roan.
Infinite Assassins: Daggerland Online Novel 2 A LITRPG Adventure Page 22