by S. R. Witt
5…
Pro tip, part two: Healing potions do not instantly fix all of your hurty spots here in the wild world of Invernoth.
The aryx darted forward and lashed out at Bastion, who just managed to deflect her hooked sword before it ripped his guts out.
His counterattack sliced through the smoke with a whistling hum but missed his foe by inches. The smoke made it hard for anyone to get a good visual on their enemies.
4…
My health bar flashed once more and then filled to the brim with glorious red light. Every ache and pain I had receded like I’d just received a combination emergency medical treatment and deep tissue massage. Just like that, I was back in the fight, standing shoulder to shoulder with my brother.
I made a hostile gesture with the stilettos I’d scooped off the floor on my way back to the fray. Corvus didn’t seem too concerned about my contribution to this battle.
“Out of our way,” I choked through a mouthful of smoke. Putting on a brave face and trying to bluff our way out of this seemed like a preferable alternative to being trapped between poison crow lady and her allies upstairs.
The ogre, Yark I could see from the nameplate over his head, watched us from the top of the stairs, unsure of how to proceed. If he jumped down the stairs and tried to smash us, there was a good chance he’d catch his little aryx buddy with that club of his. His piggy eyes swiveled from side to side, just visible through his helmet’s slit visor.
He was psyching himself up to attack when something smashed into the front of the house. We all jumped at the sudden noise, but no one took advantage of the surprise to launch an attack. We were all exhausted, and I just wanted to go home and get some rest.
“Sounds like the guards found a battering ram to take down that front door,” Bastion chuckled. “They’re going to love to see you freaks.”
That seemed like a much more effective bluff than mine. On the other hand, Bastion’s threat terrified me, too. If the guards caught me in here, I might be revealed as a thief. If that happened, none of this meant anything. They’d stick a bounty on my head, and every adventurer in town would try to claim it. Eventually, someone would get lucky enough to be the end of me. I couldn’t afford to lose this character, not after I’d gone through so much.
We needed to get the hell out of this house.
The aryx chuckled. It was a high-pitched, grating noise. “I’ll take my chances. I’m not leaving without the Codex. How about you?”
This was taking too long. We needed to get out of here before the guards busted down the door and came pouring in on top of us. I hoped my brother was ready to fight.
A billowing cloud of smoke gushed into the hallway as the front door cracked and allowed in a breath of fresh air. I shifted my vision to my Thief’s Eyes, and everyone stood out in stark relief. Bastion glowed bright blue, Corvus vivid scarlet. Apparently, that trick was good for a lot more than spotting traps or treasure to steal.
Blinded by the thick smoke, Corvus never saw me coming. My stiletto punched through her cloak and sank deep into her unarmored torso with a meaty thunk. Blood, hot and sticky, splattered over my gloves and onto my bare wrist.
SNEAK ATTACK (X3 DAMAGE)
Critical hit!
Opponent bleeding, 5/round
Opponent stunned
BRACERS OF THE STRIKING SERPENT ACTIVATED!
Successful strike impales foe!
The crow went down, blood dripping from her beak. Corvus’ feathered fingers spasmed and her poisoned blade clattered to the floor.
She was on death’s door. One quick thrust would finish her.
Unfortunately, that’s when the cavalry arrived. Shouting guards burst through the front door with winter’s wind howling at their backs.
“Freeze! Everyone down!” One of them shouted, and the rest hollered some variation of the same words again and again.
Distracted by the home invasion, I was too slow to stop Corvus from making her move. She plucked something from the pouch on her hip and sent a globe of shockingly bright white light at my head with a deft flick of her wrist. My eyes burned, and the world went dark.
Blinded, the best I could do was stumble back and hold my stiletto up in what I hoped was a defensive posture. I didn’t dare wave it around for fear of stabbing my brother, and I really hoped he had the presence of mind to show me the same consideration.
“Upstairs!” The flash must have alerted the guards to our location.
Great. Not only had I gotten sucker punched by the aryx, but now the guards knew where to look for me.
I blinked away the motes of light swirling across my vision like a psychedelic laser show. Bastion’s blazing sword cut through my scattered vision, which was the only thing that kept me from stabbing him when he grabbed me by the shoulder.
“Down!” I shouted and dragged Bastion toward the front door.
The smoke was too thick to see through, and it was choking the life out of us. Taking my chances with the guards was a safer, smarter alternative to asphyxiating in a house fire or going against that ogre when I couldn’t see.
Bastion and I stumbled forward, our feet tangling together as we leaned against each other and staggered toward the stairs. Smoke clawed at our noses and throats, tears poured from our eyes.
But the air was clearing, and I could make out the guards ahead of us. Maybe we’d survive this.
Something jerked me off my feet. The straps of my backpack cut into my shoulders, and I lost my grip on Bastion.
To his credit, my brother whirled around the instant we lost contact. The flaming sword came up and around, then plunged down at my attacker.
The pressure disappeared from my shoulders and Bastion snatched me off the floor with his free hand. He pulled me toward the stairs, but we had to freeze halfway down.
“Hands up!” A guard shouted from within the billowing smoke.
We complied, holding our hands high overhead and praying they wouldn’t pincushion us before we could surrender.
The guards couldn’t see us through the smoke any better than we could see them, so it turned into a shadow dance as we tried to look harmless and they tried to make sure we weren’t going to stab anyone. It was awkward and stupid and, for more than a few moments, ridiculous.
“We’re not the bad guys,” I choked through the smoke. “There are monsters in here.”
“We’ll decide who the villains are,” the guard growled.
His rough hands hooked around my wrists, and he dragged me forward. A gauntlet of armed men kept Bastion and me moving until we were outside the house, gasping for air on the street.
“What business did you have in there?” A guard with a bigger hat and shinier buttons than his fellows asked. He had an alcoholic’s ruddy nose, and a walrus-like mustache drooped over his lip and dangled down either side of his mouth.
“Monsters,” I gasped, trying to take the attention away from me and my shady garb. If they spent too much time looking at me, they were going to figure out what I’d been up to in the house.
“There are no monsters,” the guard sneered. “At least not here. You’re safe inside the walls of Frosthold. No evil would dare step foot on these streets.”
“Well, I’m —”
The guard’s eyes went wide, giving me just enough time to react. There was no room to jump, nowhere to dodge. My legs folded up underneath me and I collapsed onto the pavement hard enough to rattle my teeth in their sockets.
I lashed out at Bastion’s legs, sweeping them out from underneath him with a single kick.
Just in time, too. The ogre’s massive club swept through where we’d been standing and plowed into the guards. Their commander went down with the side of his head caved in and brains bubbling out of his mouth. The sweeping attack caught another guard across the chin, removing his jaw with a wet ripping sound. A third guard was lucky enough to get his hand up, which resulted in three of his five fingers being torn away, but at least he kept his head.
The ogre roared with rage and kicked another guard in the chest. The poor guy’s ribs and sternum crumbled like a fistful of crushed saltines. His body smashed into the side of the Wenderly estate and flopped onto the cobblestone street like a discarded rag doll.
Just like that, Bastion and I were alone on the road with the ogre.
“Run!” Bastion shouted.
I didn’t hesitate. If there was one thing I was good at, it was running from a fight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Bastion and I stumbled through the snow-swept streets of Frosthold with our heads down and our weapons sheathed. My injured foot ached like a rotten tooth, despite the health the potion had recovered, but the cold helped to blunt the worst of the pain. Given enough time, it would heal. Until then, I’d just have to deal with the pain.
Guards rushed toward the Wenderly place, torches blazing, voices raised in alarm, and weapons brandished. None of them paid us any mind. They had bigger fish to fry and my brother, and I looked no more threatening than a pair of weary travelers returning from the field.
Bastion nudged me as we neared the tavern. “Think we should’ve stayed?”
His sudden need to do the “right thing” was getting on my nerves. I didn’t think paladins second-guessed themselves. You weren’t one of the good guys if you had to think about what a hero would have done after you’d already split.
I shook my head. “And get killed along with the rest of the guards? No way. We did what we came to do, and hanging around wasn’t going to help us any.”
He brooded for the rest of the walk and kept glancing over his shoulder back the way we’d come. His desire to become a paladin was actually turning my brother into a decent human being.
Sometimes I think maybe we should’ve stayed and helped those guards. With a little luck, maybe we could have killed those monsters and saved ourselves a lot of trouble down the road.
Or maybe not. That’s the problem with looking back, you can see things a lot more clearly in the rear view than you can when the shit is going down.
Despite the late hour, there were still plenty of adventurers in the tavern. We found an empty table after a short search, and flopped down in the seats around it before a group of rowdy gnomes could claim it.
The little guys glared at us, their pointed ears twitching. Gnomes are small, but they’ve got terrible tempers.
For a handful of seconds, I thought they were going to pick a fight. Their leader swayed in front of us, so drunk he could barely stand, hand on his short sword’s pommel. Then he flipped us off, and the tiny thugs staggered away in search of seats to call their own.
I never got the point of getting hammered in-Game, but I was in the minority. Tween’s and teens, especially, loved to get sloshed during their stays in Invernoth.
The simulated inebriation lived in a legal gray area. No one was actually being served alcohol, and the effects vanished as soon as the CIN came off, so legislators hadn’t figured out how to deal with the virtual high. Like everything, the legal eagles lag behind the rest of the world when it comes to technology and its uses.
Bastion crooked his finger at me as we took our seats. “Can I see the book?”
I leaned in close over the table. “Are you kidding me? Did you forget a bunch of monsters were ready to kill us to get their hands on this book? I’m not waving it around in here where anyone could see it.”
My brother’s eyes almost rolled out of his head. “Do you see any monsters in here? What'll it hurt to take a peek?”
He wasn’t going to let it go, and, if I kept resisting, I was sure he’d make a scene. That would attract more attention than I wanted, and our night would end with a bunch of Hoaldites storming in here and beating me senseless. “Fine.”
I shrugged out of my backpack and saw just how close I’d come to losing the Burning Codex. Whoever had grabbed me when we were leaving the blazing house had cut a hole in the leather on the left side of my pack. If Bastion hadn’t driven them off with a swinging sword, they would’ve snatched it right off me.
When it wasn’t red hot, the Burning Codex wasn’t very impressive. It was a slim volume, about the size of my hand. It didn’t hold many pages and was just a little thicker than my index finger including the scaled covers. A broken figure eight was branded into the cover, and something about that symbol tickled a vague memory. I couldn’t place it, but I’d seen it somewhere.
Bastion reached for the book, but I pulled it away before he could snatch it out of my hand. “Easy,” I cautioned. “This isn’t for you.”
With a sigh, he motioned for a server across the busy tavern. “Let me guess, you’re taking it to the Shadows.”
It was my turn to roll my eyes. “That’s who gave me the quest to retrieve the stupid thing. Of course, I’m bringing it to them. What else would I do with it?”
The serving girl navigated the crowds to our table and took Bastion’s order for two mugs of ale. He said he’d blown all our cash on a failed bribe, so where was he getting the money to waste on drinks?
After the server had left, he leaned forward and clasped his hands on the table. “Well, you said a lot of people were looking for it. I’d assume those people want it just as badly as that old man. Maybe more.”
I did not like where this conversation was headed and cut it off before my brother could go hopping down any dangerous bunny trails. “No. Whatever plots you’re hatching over there, forget them.”
“We’re here to make money, right? So let’s find the highest bidder and dump this thing.”
His words stung because they were true. The Hoaldites would probably hand over a big chest full of gold for this thing. Not to me, of course, because if I showed up with the Burning Codex, they’d take it and murder me.
But, Bastion could turn it into them for a healthy reward, and it would probably boost his faction with those assholes enough to secure his paladinhood. It was a win-win, for him.
The same couldn’t be said for me. I did have a significant reward waiting for returning the Codex to the Shadows, but it was more than just the money. As much as I hated to admit it, I was caught up in the mystery of the whole thing. Why were there monsters in Frosthold? What were the Shadows really up to?
And how much would the Hoaldites hate it if I screwed up their plans?
“I’ll get plenty of money for turning this in. Trust me.”
I hoped.
The serving girl returned with our drinks and slopped the leather tankards down on the table. Bastion dug a few coins from his belt pouch and dropped them into her hand with a wink. “A little something extra in there for you.”
She sashayed away, holding her empty tray above her head and deftly avoiding groping hands on her way back to the bar. Like getting wasted, acting like a skeeve was a favorite pastime in-Game. The serving girl and other townsfolk were just AI-controlled NPCs, not real people, so many players felt like it was okay to get a little grabby with the objects of their desire.
The problem was, how could you tell who was an NPC and who was another player?
It was another area for the lawmakers to ponder in between rounds of passing bills to screw over the rest of us. Half of them were probably gross in-Game, too, which meant it was never going to change. Sexual assaults in VR weren’t real, legally speaking.
Not that I agreed with that. Predators were predators, no matter which world they lived in.
Bastion and I drank our ale in silence, waiting for our health bars to fill. It’d been a close fight, and we’d both beaten to hell, but it didn’t take more than a half hour of resting and drinking for our injuries to disappear.
The slight buzz made the whole world a little fuzzy, and I blame that for what happened next.
Bastion gestured at the book on the tabletop between us. “You could at least read it. See what all the fuss is about.”
I guess it couldn’t hurt, I thought and flipped the Burning Codex open to the first page.
The Burn
ing Codex is a SOULBOUND item. Equipping the Burning Codex will bind it to this character. Do you wish to continue reading?
In my slightly inebriated state, I just confirmed my choice to continue reading. I wasn’t going to equip it, just take a little peek, for crying out loud.
Apparently, that is not how things work. As soon as I focused my attention on the words on the Codex’s pages, a new message flashed into view.
The Burning Codex is now bound to you. It cannot be sold, traded, or otherwise removed from your person.
You have earned the title, Master of the Codex.
REPUTATION ADJUSTMENT:
+15 with the Dragon Web faction
-20 with the Sisters of Corruption faction
REWARD: 1000 XP
QUEST FAILURE: SECURE THE CODEX
You can no longer return the Burning Codex to the Grandfather of Shadows.
Quest Penalty: -50 Shadow faction
CONGRATULATIONS! You have ascended to Level 3!
CHARACTER INFORMATION
Saint, Human Thief, Level 3
ABILITY SCORES: Strength: 10, Dexterity: 15, Endurance: 11, Intelligence: 13, Wisdom: 10, Charisma: 10
HEALTH (Strength + Endurance + (Level x10)): 51
MANA (Charisma + Wisdom + (Level x10)): 50
SPEED (Intelligence + Dexterity + (Level x10)): 58
TRAITS: Fast Learner, Adaptable, and Favored Class