The message had been simple and to the point: We should talk. Name a place and time. Neutral ground, of course. Best, Kaiser Wrecker.
Ogorr had recommended a couple of meeting places that were public and well-guarded enough to pre-empt any dirty tricks. He hadn’t warned Hawke against meeting the Herders’ leader, nor recommended doing so, but instead had waited quietly for Hawke to make his decision. He had. There he was, waiting at an open air restaurant located on Legion Plaza, right outside the Prefect’s Citadel, whose walls could have surrounded all of Orom with room to spare. The sight reminded Hawke that his Domain was a tiny place, kept safe mainly by the fact that it was surrounded by dangerous wilderness regions. If Akila’s rulers decided to conquer the Sunset Valley, Hawke doubted he could stop them. He had one card he could play, but only once, and the risks involved were considerable.
Does it talk, too? Maybe we can all have a teleconference together.
Hawke spotted the bodyguards first. Death-Dealer was first, wearing high-quality plate armor and a two-handed sword. The last time he’d seen the Canadian Eternal was when a party of Herders got slaughtered by a demon in the Gates to Tartarus. The Warrior walked into the plaza, headed straight for the table where Hawke was sitting by himself, and paused when he noticed Grognard, Tava and Lady Pew-Pew on a nearby table. After nodding a greeting at Hawke, he took a position near the tables and waited. There had to be other Herders around, but they probably were Rogue types in stealth mode. Naruto the wannabe Anime character was probably one of them. There was a way to find out, of course.
Hawke activated Advanced Mana Sight and, sure enough, he soon spotted two hidden figures who had entered the plaza and were lurking by the corners of two nearby buildings. One of them was Naruto; the other was some Spy that Hawke hadn’t met before, by the name of Spectre. All of them were level eighteen, except for Naruto, who had hit nineteen. They’d been grinding experience hard, apparently. Or maybe killing a bunch of wizards from the Council of the Wise had earned them a level or two.
And there he is, Hawke thought, turning his enhanced senses on the Nerf Herders’ leader.
Kaiser Wrecker, Human (Eternal)
Level 20 Warrior, Mage, Ekes Mortis
Health 4,604 Mana 2,110 Endurance 3,131
Are you effing kidding me?
The stats were nasty; the bastard’s Strength and Constitution must be up in the hundred-plus range. And the guy’s Mana channels were a cesspool of Undeath and Chaos energies. The only consolation was that Kaiser hadn’t developed any sort of control over his internal energies: his Chakras were all firmly closed, and the way Undeath-attuned Mana clogged all his pathways, he probably would never be able to open them. Selling your soul came with a price. That wasn’t all, though: something was riding inside Kaiser like the proverbial back monkey, a malevolent force with its own mind and awareness.
Hawke shut off his Advanced Mana Sight after one quick glance at Kaiser’s sword. Its hilt and guard were made of an alloy of black mithril and infernium. He couldn’t see the blade, but the weapon reeked with Undeath. Like Saturnyx, it had a name: Sanginaris, the blood-spiller. It wasn’t alive, but it was linked directly to the entity living inside Kaiser. The guy had turned into a monster in every sense of the word.
To his regular eyes, he looked like a tall guy in a Legendary Quality suit of articulated plate armor. His third class – Ekes Mortis, which loosely translated to Knight of Undeath – was hidden from casual view, much like Hawke’s Twilight Templar status. There probably was an ordinance against that sort of specialty. Hawke wondered if the rest of the Nerf Herders knew that their boss was a necromantic warrior. Many wouldn’t care, of course, or might even think it was cool.
Kaiser Wrecker sent his helmet to his inventory, revealing his face. Nothing much had changed in the months since their last meeting, except that his eyes seemed to be a little more sunken in his head, and there were crows’ eyes that Hawke hadn’t noticed before. It might be good to be the leader of the guild, but it was also stressful. Hawke could sympathize. Making pacts with dark forces probably hadn’t helped, either; he had no sympathy for that.
“Hawke Lightseeker,” Kaiser said, the friendly grin he had during their first meeting back on his face. “You wouldn’t believe how many times I have taken your name in vain.”
“Is that why my ears were itching?” Hawke replied. “Step into my office and let’s talk.”
Kaiser sat across the table from him. “Glad you chose to try a peaceful resolution instead of acting like a barbarian.”
“I figured it couldn’t hurt to listen to what you had to say. At least not here, where you can’t have Naruto backstab me. Or your other guy, Spectre is his name, isn’t it?”
The grin disappeared for a moment. “You keep surprising me, Hawke. It’s not a good thing. I don’t like surprises.”
“Keeps life from getting boring, doesn’t it?”
“I like making surprises go away.”
“You tried that once already. Didn’t work out for you that well. Or for the Shadow Assassin you sent after me.”
“I’d been wondering what happened to her. What did you do with Girl?”
It was Hawke’s turn to grin. “She won’t be hurting any innocents again, that’s for sure.”
Which was the truth, for as long as the oath she had sworn remained in place. Hawke’s smile widened when Kaiser made the natural assumption about what his words meant and assumed Girl was dead.
“Live and learn,” Kaiser replied, shrugging. “She was only one of my assets. I have thirty-six fighting Eternals in my Guild. Your band of NPCs and odds and ends can’t take us.”
“Won’t know until we try. You might be surprised.”
Kaiser shrugged. “Small talk is a waste of time, and we’re both busy men. Here’s my proposal. Don’t make waves in Akila. Finish your shopping trip and whatever recruiting you’re here to do, and go back to your little town. Orom. We won’t bother you if you don’t bother us. You have my word.”
Yeah, right.
Still, Hawke was tempted by the offer. He had so much to do in the Sunset Valley that he couldn’t wait to return. Going back with all his wagons – and a few extra ones that he planned to buy – filled with things his people needed, along with dozens, maybe even a hundred artisans and Arcane Crafters, would be wonderful. Going to war with the Herders put everything at risk.
The guild’s attack on the wizards’ council was an open secret in the city, and nobody seemed to be willing to do anything about it. Not the Prefect, not the surviving Councilors, who were quietly looking into rebuilding their tower without making any accusations, and not the priesthoods, either, who were having problems of their own. What he had heard during his meeting with the Stern thane hadn’t been very promising. Taking on the Herders risked not only his life – okay, lives – but also his friends’. And he had expected to have the Drakofoxes along for their firepower, a part of his plan the city’s wards had ruined. If nobody else was going to do the job, why should it be him?
Because I swore an oath, he told himself. Saturnyx stayed quiet but he felt approval radiating from the sword.
“Here is my counteroffer,” he told Kaiser. “Release all the players you are keeping against their will, and any other Eternal who wants to leave your Guild. Pack up all your crap, and leave Akila. You do that, and I won’t come gunning for you until we meet again in the higher Realms.”
“Amazing,” Kaiser said.
“Did I surprise you again?”
“In a way. I’ve never watched someone commit suicide with such confidence.”
“Bring it. I’d be happy to duel you. Anytime, anywhere.”
“I know that you aren’t a fourteenth level Paladin, Hawke, but I don’t think you can take
me in a fair fight. Which doesn’t matter. This isn’t a movie. I’m not going to fight you. I’m just going to crush you, your Guild, and everything near and dear to you.”
“I think you’re in for a few more surprises.”
“We’ll see. We’re done here.”
Hawke tensed up as Kaiser stood up and stalked off, Death-Dealer following in his wake. He turned his Advanced Mana Sight back on and saw that Kaiser’s pet ninjas were also slinking away, still invisible. Their stealth magic was so good that people unconsciously got out of their way, allowing the unseen assassins to move through the crowd without anyone noticing. Nice to know that things like his Twilight Shroud could do that sort of thing; he’d only used those spells in mostly empty areas.
I’ll keep that in mind. Do you think this was a waste of time?
He’d be stupid to murder someone in broad daylight. Too many people want an excuse to go after his guild.
At least, that was what he thought, right until the moment he was murdered in broad daylight.
Thirteen
During his first visit to Akila, Hawke had only gotten a good look at a few of the city’s many districts; the Warriors’ Quarter, the Crafter’s Market, and a couple of (fairly rough) neighborhoods between the two. The western section of the city was different from the places he’d visited. Canals diverting water from the Corax River turned the area between Dwarven Hills and the central part of the city into something that looked like Venice. Bridges connected city blocks that were islands surrounded on all sides by waterways. Hawke, Grognard, Tava and Lady Pew-Pew walked through the area on their way back to the Dwarven settlement.
“He is far worse than Prefect Felix or even the Necromancer,” Tava said. “The gleam in his eyes gave him away. He is hungry for power, and men like him are never satisfied.”
“That was my first impression of him, too, and he’s gotten worse, if anything. He’s gotten mixed up with something nasty. Probably the same enemies we met during our last dungeon crawl.”
“He did not seem to be corrupted with Undeath, though.”
“No, this is more like a pact rather than possession. Kaiser figures he can bargain with the dark powers and come out ahead. Big mistake.”
“Did you think his offer was on the up and up?” Grognard asked from his rearguard position. They weren’t expecting trouble but were moving in a loose formation through the streets, just in case. Hawke had most of his auras up as well.
“No,” he told the veteran. “My guess is that he would have ambushed us on the way back, well away from the city or any witnesses. Probably is still planning to do that, if he can’t take us out in some other way.”
“What should we..?” Tava began to say when the whole world skipped a beat.
Hawke was on his hands and knees. His head was ringing, so loudly that he couldn’t hear anything else. There was blood in his mouth, and running down the side of his head, inside his helmet. Tava was leaning over him, her eyes wide, until Grognard tackled her to the ground.
What..?
Something slammed into him with impossible force and everything went dark.
* * *
He sat up, gasping for breath.
Tava was there, waiting for him. “You are in the chapel of Gaon, darling. You have Reincarnated.”
When Thane Stern had taken them in, Hawke had all the Eternals in the party move their respawning point to a chapel of the Dwarven Earth god, located deep beneath the thane’s fortified manor. He hadn’t been expecting to be using it so soon. Or at all.
They had killed him. Right in the middle of a busy street – just after he’d crossed a main bridge, as a matter of fact. “How did they do it?”
“Gun,” Grognard said. He and a worried-looking Korgam were in the room as well.
“Gun? A freaking gun?”
“Sniper rifle,” the former soldier added. “Two of them, I think. They weren’t using gunpowder, I don’t think. All we heard were the cracks from supersonic bullets.”
“Jesus.”
He’d always figured that Kaiser’s quest to bring guns to the Realms was a fool’s errand. Showed how much he knew.
“They fired three shots,” Grognard said. “Two hit you almost at the same time. First round spent itself on your shields. The other punched through your helmet and cracked your head open. Third one got you in the back of the head, about four seconds later.” The veteran looked down. “My fault. I thought you were out of the line of fire and I knocked Tava down, but one of the shooters still had an angle on you and nailed you the third time. That’s the one that did you in.”
Three shots. The first two hadn’t killed him because he had cast In Extremis on himself, and was wearing his Cloak of Salvation. The spell and the enchanted item both healed him before he could die. But the third one had been the charm.
“You did the right thing. If it comes between me and Tava, always choose her.”
Nobody argued the point. Grognard took something from his inventory and showed it to Hawke. A deformed chunk of metal, about two inches long. It was flattened by the impact and no longer ended in a sharp point, but the shape of a rifle bullet was unmistakable. Copper-jacketed, even, although he could see other alloys underneath.
“Fifty caliber, or just about,” Grognard said. “Made by someone who knew what they were doing. It’s heavier than a normal round, though. And it’s enchanted to hell and back.”
“Where did you find it?”
“That’s the first round that hit you. It kinda bounced off your helmet, and had lost almost all of its momentum, or it wouldn’t have landed anywhere near you. It dropped to the ground after hitting your shields. The second one went through the armor, sort of skimmed around your skull – or through it; hard to tell – and exploded out the other end.”
Hawke’s Battle-Mage helmet had returned to his inventory when he’d died, like all soul-bound items did. He summoned the helmet and saw that it had been perforated three times; the last bullet had gone right through his head. The first shot hadn’t penetrated, but the damage had been extensive enough to wipe out his Mana Shield and trigger In Extremis. The other two had done a lot worse to him.
You could tell the entry and exit holes apart by the way the black mithril of the armor was bent around the point of impact. One had come in from the right side, right above his ear; the second had hit him from the left, and hit the top of his skull. The one that had killed him had hit the base of his neck, and from the looks of it had come out of his mouth. There weren’t any bloodstains or bits of brain and bone on the broken helmet; the inventory system was neat like that, taking back only the stuff that belonged to you, cleaner than if you’d had it detailed. The durability of the helmet was down to 33 from its normal 250. Those three hits had nearly destroyed it; repairing it was going to be a pain in the ass.
He sent the helmet back to the inventory, realized that his hands were shaking a little, and clenched them into fists. Playing CSI investigator for his own death was bothering him more than he’d realized. So did the haunted look in Tava’s face. It must have been a mess back there. He gave her hand a squeeze.
Don’t worry, he told her through Saturnyx. They got me this time, but they won’t get to do it twice.
“Did anyone see any of them?”
“I did,” Lady Pew-Pew said. “The bullets left behind a glowing trail, nearly invisible in daylight, but I was able to make it out. I saw the third shooting. Two men in stealth – good enough to fool most people, but I saw their outlines – were on the roof of a four-story building overlooking the main canal and its bridges. They were seven hundred feet away. One of them – it was Kaiser Wrecker himself, the sumbitch –
had the gun; the other didn’t.”
“Shooter and spotter,” Grognard said. “By the book, pretty much. “Kaiser must have headed for the sniper’s nest after the meeting was over and waited for his shot. I didn’t see a damn thing, of course,” he added ruefully. “There were probably two sniper teams. Two rifles, three shots total. Overlooking the bridges, which they knew we’d be using to get back.”
“You don’t have a Perception stat in the high forties like Lady does, or her gear and abilities,” Hawke told him. The Ranger’s weapons and armor favored Dexterity and Perception. Tava’s senses were even sharper, but she hadn’t known what to look for.
“I have the name of the other one,” Lady said, her voice cold. “Glorificus, a Ranger.”
“I’ve met him once before,” Hawke commented in a deceptively calm voice. He was doing his damnedest to keep himself from screaming and breaking things. “Kaiser might have even leveled up from taking that shot; that was seven-thousand XP he earned by capping my ass.”
Hawke, on the other hand, had lost all his Experience; reaching level twenty would now require him to earn a hundred thousand XP; he’d been short less than thirty thousand. Getting killed so close to a level milestone was about the worst thing that could happen to an Eternal. His Identity had gone down to 22, adding insult to injury. It could have been worse, but not by a lot. All he wanted to do was to find Kaiser Wrecker and take him apart with his bare hands, but losing his temper would not help. In fact, Kaiser was probably counting on it. Anger made you stupid.
Guilds at War: The LitRPG Saga Continues Page 10