* * *
Later that night, he and Tava met with the Drakofoxes.
They’d made the twelve-mile trip on foot, and would have to make it back the same way. The caravan hadn’t brought riding horses along, and they had been relying on their fur babies for fast transportation. In any case, they didn’t need horses; they made the run in about twenty minutes, thanks to their Attributes. Tava had to down an Endurance potion to get there, since intense physical exertion prevented that pool from regenerating, but Hawke simply used Transference to replace the lost Endurance with Mana. They still worked up a sweat by the time they reached their adopted children’s hiding place.
Luna said from behind a tree.
“And we don’t,” Hawke admitted. Unless he turned his Mana Vision on, he wouldn’t have found the hidden forms of the Drakofoxes. Luna giggled before becoming visible and guiding them to her brother.
“How are you?” Hawke asked Blaze as they reached the ravine where the fuzzies had taken refuge.
“Yeah, the ward was nasty. And the worst part is, it’s still up.”
He hadn’t expected that Akila would have anti-dragon measures in place. From everything he had heard, dragons had been all but extinct in the Common Realm; only minor dragon-blooded critters like fire lizards or drakes could be found, and only in desolate wilderness or inside Proving Grounds. But it seemed that they were coming back, and the stories about their return had been credible enough to warrant raising the wards. They had worried about anti-Fae measures, but they had found that the Drakofoxes weren’t pure-blooded enough to trigger them, much like Elves or Half-Elves.
Tava shook her head. “The wards surround the city and the lands around it.”
“We will be back as soon as possible,” Hawke told them. It was crazy, but he actually felt upset. Like he was leaving his children behind for the first time.
Blaze said.
“Me too. But by tomorrow, we will be too far away to mind-chat.”
They had experimented with their telepathic bond and found it stopped working if they were more than twenty miles away, give or take. The wards around Akila had a thirty-five mile radius. And they didn’t want the Drakofoxes to stay near the city, anyway. That patrol was not likely to be the only one, and the local authorities appeared to have a no-tolerance policy toward dragons.
Hawke had all but forgotten about the Monster Trainer ability. It would require a hefty Mana sacrifice and he had decided to wait until the Drakofox was old enough to decide if it was something he wanted to do. He supposed the furry monster was mature enough to make the decision.
“Are you sure?”
“All right.”
Hawke was presented with the usual notifications and warnings, accepted them, and lost thirty-three Mana permanently. That added up to almost seventy Mana that he had lost in a variety of ways. His pool was still in the four-thousand range, however, so he could live with it. He felt the energy leave his body and create a link between him and Blaze that was stronger and deeper than what they already had. The effects of the bond varied, depending on the nature of the participants. Considering the parties involved were an Ethereal Drakofox and an Eternal Fae-blooded Half-Elf, the results were impressive.
You have forged a Greater Bond with Blaze (Level fourteen Drakofox).
You have acquired the following abilities:
Telepathy: The Bonded pair can mentally communicate with each other. The range of this ability is equal to ten miles for each of your combined levels (currently 330 miles).
Shared Mana: The Bonded pair can tap on the other’s Mana pool. The range of this ability is one hundred feet.
Shared Abilities: The Bonded pair can share some Abilities with each other. The sharing requires them to be within 10 feet per combined level of the pair. Currently, the following Abilities can be shared:
* Mana Channeling I
* Advanced Mana Sight
* Mind-Fire Breath Weapon
Holy crap! “I can breathe fire now?”
Saturnyx suggested. The sword had been uncharacteristically quiet until now.
“Well, sure,” he said as images of his helmet filling with lethal psychic flames flashed through his mind. “I’ll check the ability description before I do anything.”
Mind-Fire (Breath Weapon)
You can project a jet of energy that inflicts 1-20 points of Mind damage per level, with a range of 500 feet, at the cost of 25 Mana. Additionally, the target may be stunned for several seconds. The percentage chance to resist is equal to the target’s Willpower Attribute plus 1% per level, and increased by 1% for every second after being struck.
The flame jet does not have to originate in the user’s mouth, but can be created within five inches of it. Mindfire can be fired continuously by spending Mana every second. Damage can be increased by spending 25 additional Mana per 100% increase. Unlike spells, using this ability requires a Skill: Breath Weapon. Current Breath Weapon Skill level: 1.
“Okay, so I don’t have to take off my helmet,” he said, glancing at the canopy over them. A bright flash of light would be extremely conspicuous in the dead of night. There was good cover all around, however, so he decided to risk it. The City Watch patrol had returned to Akila; they had seen them flying back that afternoon. He looked at a dead tree and activated the ability.
There was the familiar feeling of Mana leaving his body, but even without Mana Sight he could tell it was ‘flavored’ with Mind energies. A bright ring of light appeared a few inches outside his helmet: a torrent of silver-white fire poured out of it.
And missed the log he had been aiming at by a good two feet, despite the fact that the target was stationary and he was a mere thirty feet away. The jet of psychic fire struck a pile of dead leaves. They didn’t ignite; the Mind effect only looked like fire but didn’t work like it. Hawke was going to need to practice a lot to raise his skill level. He wasn’t complaining, though. Now he and Blaze could rain psychic fire on enemies from five hundred feet, at least for as long as they had the Mana to spend. He wouldn’t be able to practice during the trip, since he and Blaze would be separated, but in the future, they were going to be a force to be reckoned with.
I know.
Meanwhile, Blaze’s eyes were all but bugging out of his head as he examined the world with Advanced Mana Sight. Hawke figured that the Drakofox would soon learn those abilities permanently, without needing to be near him.
he said, his mental voice full of wonder.
Luna said.
“When I learn it, I will teach you, little one,” Tava said. “I have a bonding ability of my own, although it is not as powerful as Hawke’s.”
“And we will continue our lessons, of course,” he told his fiancée. Using Communion to teach her his abilities had speeded up things considerably, but finding the time to teach her remained a problem. They would have two days of relative peace before reaching Akila. Maybe they could make some progress then.
“Go back to Orom, or to Gosto’s Grove if you’d prefer,” Hawke decided. “We’ll be able to talk – it’s a lot less than three hundred miles from there to Akila – and you can pester Kinto o
r Gosto for all the food you want. They’ll take it from my account.”
Hawke sighed and reached into his inventory for a few twenty-pound hams.
Interlude: A Warm Welcome
Kaiser looked at Spectre and idly wondered what it would be like to pummel the man to death with his bare hands.
He didn’t, of course – if you went after the bearers of bad news, you’d soon found yourself surrounded by flunkies that fed you comfortable lies. Instead, he did his best to keep his thoughts concealed behind a neutral expression.
“The name and class match,” the spymaster said. “Hawke Lightseeker stayed at a tavern by the Legion’s Highway. He’s leading a wagon train, so he won’t arrive at Akila the day after tomorrow. He could be here by now if he went on alone, but none of the people we have at the gates have seen him yet.”
“He managed to get out of the city unnoticed, last time,” Kaiser noted.
Spectre nodded. “True, but he does not seem to be hiding this time. He and twenty-four people are traveling together, including ten Adventurers; some of them are Eternals.”
“How did your agents tell Eternals from regular Adventurers?”
Without high-level magic, only Eternals could recognize each other, and Spectre’s agents were regular NPCs. Kaiser sometimes regretted having made the Eternal status of his guild public, but at the time they needed every edge they could find, and letting potential enemies know of their quasi-immortal abilities had been a useful deterrent.
“Their names,” Spectre said, allowing himself a small grin. “Lady Pew-Pew, Grognard, and Boris Imdoomed were dead giveaways.”
“Ah. Hawke found a cluster of Eternals and taken it over.”
“Very likely. We knew of at least two Eternals who might have left with him during his first trip here, although neither of them was with this group.” Spectre handed Kaiser a paper scroll. “My agent was able to read the nameplates of every Adventurer in the caravan. I have a full list.”
Kaiser speed-read through it. “The Sterns are an important clan in Dwarven Hills. And it confirms that Girl’s lead was on the money. He’s been in Orom all this time. What do we know about that burgh?”
“Not much to know. Small town, little more than a walled village. Used to be a lot larger when mining was a thing in the region. The Sterns’ involvement suggests that mining is about to resume.”
“Who owns it?”
“It is nominally part of the Ruby Empire but it does not belong to Akila’s district. Or to any district, for that matter. Akila could make a case for incorporating it into its borders. It is the largest city nearby. The closest other candidate is Alpinia, but it is farther away and it barely pays lip service to the Empire.”
“A prosperous independent town sounds like a promising venue, should we need to relocate,” Kaiser mused.
If things hadn’t taken a left turn in Akila, he might have convinced the Prefect to officially annex the town. Gold mines were a powerful incentive, and what better way to deal with Hawke than having the local authorities take over his territory? But now, Akila might turn inhospitable for the Nerf Herders, and they might need a new place to consolidate. A wealthy burgh far enough from Akila to ignore might be just the place to go.
“What should we do about Hawke?” Spectre asked.
“Can’t attack a caravan on its home stretch to the city, can we? And we sent our best assassin his way and he took her out, so that option is a no-go. Keep him under observation. Coming in openly is a message to us. Maybe he wants to cut a deal, now that he has a power base of his own.”
“Would we? Want to cut a deal, I mean.”
Kaiser shook his head. “We’ll listen to what he has to say, but he has to go. Too dangerous. He’s gotten to level fourteen – assuming he can’t hide his actual level the way Naruto or Girl can – and now has a guild of his own. At our current advancement rate, we’d need another four to six months to be strong enough to migrate to a higher Realm, and we can’t afford to have him around, possibly mucking up the works.”
He let some of his anger show, and grinned when Spectre visible paled. “Hawke Lightseeker will not leave Akila alive.”
* * *
Anton Bastardes endured a rough life and a rougher death.
Life as a professional beggar in the streets of Akila was harsh and full of dangers. He had been at it since his early twenties, when his love for distilled drinks had kept him from any kind of steady employment. The fourth son of an Arcane Weaver, lacking the aptitude or dedication to join in the family’s business, he had soon been disowned and cast out, and after many misadventures ended up in Akila. His only ambition in life was to get one of the prized begging licenses the city offered for a hefty fee. Only licensed beggars were allowed in the Crafter’s Market, the Eastern Plaza Bazaar, and the choicest spot, the Temple District, where high-heeled worshipers were wont to show off their charity and even a grim-faced follower of Woden might give a beggar some coins, especially those with an eye-patch, since the Northern god was reputed to wander around in such guises.
Unfortunately, the cost for such a license was six hundred silver denars, and Anton never seemed to be able to save even fifty denars before he found a better use for the money, namely drinking himself into a stupor. Instead, he plied his trade in the Lowers, the smelly districts downwind from where sewer canals carried off the waste from better-off neighborhoods to end up in the swamps to the southeast. One got used to the smell in the Lowers; Anton hardly noticed it anymore.
What he had noticed lately was of far greater concern. People were going missing, and he was afraid that he would be next.
First, Horacos the Blind stopped showing up at the Iron Cauldron, the open-air eatery where a gigantic stewpot was kept filled with leftovers from nearly inns and taverns, as well as stale bread and whatever else the owners could find, catch, or pay a few coppers for. It was nobody’s idea of a good meal, but the constant low boil usually kept the stew from outright poisoning the customers, and the price was right. Horacos, like Anton and their other colleagues, frequented the Cauldron, and was enough of a regular there that it only took a few days for his absence to become noticeable. Anton had shrugged; Horacos was getting on in years, his eyesight becoming bad enough that faking his blindness was hardly a chore; perhaps his time had come.
Others followed suit, however. Beggars like Horacos. Then back alley women went missing, and, scarily enough, the pimps who were supposed to protect them. Street urchins, which worried Anton the most, for the young bastards were nimble and alert, or they wouldn’t have lived beyond their first handful of years. One by one, or in pairs or even small groups, they vanished. In one case, a rat catcher had been plucked from the streets and the perpetrator had left behind a string of five fat rodents, no doubt headed for the Iron Cauldron.
When a monk from a healing order had disappeared, the Town Watch had finally gotten involved, but they had done little other than round up the usual suspects – dagger-men, leg-breakers, and other violent lowlifes – and beat them, eliciting numerous confessions but no real information. Word had gotten around: moving around at night, never a safe activity in the best of times, was now considered suicidal. Anton had often feigned fits of madness to present a half-pitiful, half-threatening front to passers-by, but he wasn’t crazy. He had been using his meager cash reserves to sleep in one of the common rooms at the low-rent dives that would offer hospitality to his kind, allowing him and twenty of his closest acquaintances to make themselves comfortable in a drafty storehouse for two coppers a night.
Anton was headed there when his turn came.
The streets in the Lowers were narrow and twisted, little more than dirt trails between buildings that spread out from the main thoroughfare like random rivulets from a spilled wine cup, following the contours of the hilly terrain or the whims of the builders of the ramshackle
wooden structures that comprised most of the homes and businesses in the district. Years of living there allowed Anton to navigate the labyrinthine mess as well as anybody. He knew, for example, that the alley to his left led to a dead end and a sewer grate that you could lift if you needed to take a shortcut or find a hidey hole among the underground tunnels. The two shadowy figures that came out of said alley must have emerged from the sewers.
Anton’s situational awareness when he was sober was as good as a trained soldier’s; he spotted the sudden movement almost instantly, and reacted with reflexes bred by years of narrow escapes and painful beatings. He dashed away from the hooded, hunched pair, strangely draped in heavy cloaks despite the fact that it was late Juno and the afternoon had turned sweltering hot. His attackers moved with inhuman swiftness, but he managed to keep his distance – until he slammed into a third lurker, who had been hiding in the shadows of another alley.
“Horacos?” Anton said as he recognized the man who was holding him in an unbreakable grip. The face of the beggar was familiar, but the thin purple film over his eyes was not. Neither was the unnatural pallor of Horacos’ skin, or the cold, almost icy feel of his hands.
A swift blow to the side of his head was his only answer. Anton felt something crunch under the impact, and agony dissolved into darkness.
He woke up somewhere dark under the ground. Horacos and another cold-handed man were dragging him through unfamiliar, dark streets surrounded by looming structures he had never seen in Akila. Anton caught glimpses of dozens of figures, lining the sides of the curving streets in unnaturally still poses. That was all he could see; every step his captors took sent spikes of agony through his skull. The pain had a numbing effect on him, dulling the terror he should have felt.
Guilds at War: The LitRPG Saga Continues Page 8