by S. R. Witt
Nevertheless, once again, all the heavy lifting fell on my narrow shoulders. “I count six guards in there. And those are just the ones I’ve seen go in. What if there are more on the second floor? What if they call for help?”
Mercy bumped shoulders with me. “Why are you so gloomy? This is what you’re good at. Sneak in there. Steal the map. Bring it back. There are only three parts to this very simple mission. You can handle that, right?”
I bumped her back, hard enough to knock her into Indira and push Indira into Bastion. “Of course it seems simple to you. You three are going to be sitting over here watching me risk my ass. If something goes wrong, you’ll all walk back to the tavern for a drink.”
Indira chuckled. “It’s not like you have a choice. You can stand here and whine about it, or you can go do your damned job.”
“What is it with you people?” I growled. “Look, I’m not going in there by myself without a plan. So, let’s put our heads together and come up with something a little better than, ‘Oh, Saint will do it.”
We watched the guardhouse for a while longer, exchanged some notes on how to approach this, and then came up with a plan that was basically, “Oh, Saint will do it.”
Being a thief is way harder than it should be.
I left the others behind and circled around to the street that circumnavigated Frosthold just inside the wall. From there, it was going to get a lot trickier.
The wall itself was barely 10 feet tall, and it was nothing but wooden stakes tied together with thick ropes. Sneaking along the top of it and jumping onto the guard shack roof was out of the question.
But, the wall would provide me with some cover from anyone wandering around outside the village, including the guards who patrolled there. Small blessings, I guess.
The tough part was getting into the guardhouse. The only door was the front one, which was out of the question for obvious reasons. That didn’t leave me with many options.
The building next to the guardhouse was only a single story tall, and it did have a back door, for all the good that did me. I glued my ear to the flimsy wood and listened for sounds of movement inside. Nothing, and even better I picked up another point in the Listen skill. Nice.
I scrambled up the side of the building (yay, another Climb Walls skill point!) and flattened myself against the steeply-sloped roof on the side opposite the guardhouse. If one of the guards was doing his job and saw me scuttling around like a spider, the jig was definitely up.
I hoped our shitty plan worked.
If it didn’t, I’d be the one with my neck in the noose.
I waved across the street to the rest of the party I was still alive, then hunkered down to watch the show.
Bastion and Indira crossed the street right on cue. They argued, shouting at one another with increasing volume as they drew close to the guard shack. Their raised voices grated on my ears even at this distance, which meant the guards inside the shack wouldn’t be able to miss the fracas.
Good.
Soon enough, the building’s door banged open, and a guard stomped out onto the street. He opened his mouth to say something, but the argument continued unabated.
I couldn’t hear what Bastion and Indira were pretending to argue about, but it seemed annoying and convincing. The slender elf jabbed her finger into Bastion’s broad, armored chest with increasing ferocity, rocking him back on his heels. He leaned over and shouted in her face with enough volume and vehemence to blow her hair back, which caused her to redouble her efforts and raise her voice. She sounded like a cat being scalded, and my brother like a bear getting kicked in the balls.
The first guard realized he’d need some backup to deal with this mess. He stuck his head back into the guardhouse and hollered for reinforcements. Soon enough, there were two guards, then three. The newcomer took one look and shouted back into the building for more backup.
Right on time, Mercy scrambled up the roof and crouched down next to me. “Which window?”
I pointed out the one nearest to us, and she nodded. “Piece of pie.”
Before I could correct her odd turn of phrase, she pulled an arrow from her quiver and knotted a scrawny rope to it.
It did not look like a very strong rope or a very sturdy arrow.
“Is that going to be strong enough to hold me?” I asked.
Mercy let me feel the rope. It was thin and light but didn’t stretch when I yanked on it with both hands.
“Spider silk,” she said. “That’s what they call it, anyway, but it’s probably more like giant spider silk. The arrow may not look like much, but it’s dragonoak. Won’t burn, won’t break. It’ll hold you.”
The argument on the street below reached a fever pitch, and Bastion shouted so loud we couldn’t hear anyone else over his bellowing.
Which is when Mercy fired the arrow into the guardhouse. The arrow zipped across the gap between buildings and buried itself in the wood just above the window I’d pointed out.
“All yours,” she said.
Of course it was, because who else was going to do the stupid part?
“Tie that thing off. I don’t want you to drop me.”
“I’m stronger than you,” Mercy said, but did her part to appease me. She backed up to the house’s chimney and looped the rope around it. She tied two knots to secure it, and then added a third when I shook my head.
The taut rope didn’t give me much to stand on, but I had great balance. I took one step out onto it, then another. Bastion and Indira were losing steam, which meant I was running out of time. I really hoped there weren’t more guards waiting inside.
I scampered along the rope until I reached the guard shack. Then I crouched down, opened the shutters, and slipped inside.
Only to realize I wasn’t alone.
The second floor was one big room. On the far end of that room was a desk. And at that desk was a guard, muttering to himself and shuffling papers.
The map I needed to steal was downstairs. To get downstairs, I had to walk right by the desk. There was no way to get from where I was to where I needed to be without strolling right by the guard.
I considered crawling back out the window and trying to get into the building from the roof of the house on the other side of the building, but that approach would also put me in the guard’s line of sight. There weren’t any good options.
So I took the bad one.
I put on my sneaking shoes and crept across the floor. The guard was intent on his work, and the sound of the argument outside help mask my already very quiet footfalls. I didn’t want to walk in front of him, but there wasn’t enough space between his back and the wall to slip between the two. I briefly considered trying to spider my way across the ceiling, but even my badass climbing skills weren’t up to that task.
The argument outside was louder now than before, but that was because the guards had raised their voices. Soon, Bastion and Indira would either have to let the bluff go, or push it even further and risk getting arrested or starting a fight.
It was time for drastic action.
I picked a copper coin from my belt pouch and tossed it in a high arc up and over the guard at the desk. It landed in the corner of the room, rattling across the wooden floor like a die in a cup.
His head turned toward the noise, and I took my chance.
I sprinted the last couple of feet and dropped into a slide. My soft leather armor was slick and offered little resistance for the wood to slow me down. I held my breath as I shot past the desk and skidded to a stop just inside the stairwell.
“What the hell was that?” The guard barked.
There was no time to see if he was on to me, or if he was only reacting to the noise. The guards from downstairs were outside, but they wouldn’t stay there for long.
I jumped down the stairs and broke my fall with a shoulder roll that ended in a crouch to the right of the building’s front door.
Bastion and Indira’s argument had ended, and the guards were on
their way back into the building.
I scuttled beneath the window next to the map and ripped the vellum off the wall. Three of the tacks holding the map in place tore through the sheet’s corners without a sound, but the fourth popped free of the wall.
The falling tack was a thick brass spike with a fat head, and if it hit the wooden floor, it would make a terrible racket. The damned thing was also falling right in front of the door, which would put it in the guard’s line of sight as soon as he opened it.
I sprinted for the window, knocked the shutters aside with my free hand, and dove through the opening.
Behind me, the tack hit the floor and rattled around in a loopy circle.
And then the guards raised the alarm.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
I rolled the map up as I ran, hurling the ragged vellum into a neat cylinder that I shoved into my inventory. The grabbing the map part of the plan was over, now came the escaping before I got killed part.
Two of the guard shouted for me to halt, which only made me run faster.
The other guards were screaming at Bastion and Indira who were screaming right back. If the guards figured out my friends were working with me, they’d arrest them and our plan would be just as screwed as if I hadn’t retrieved the map at all.
Which meant it was time for me to play hero again, and get all the heat aimed in my direction.
This was turning into a great trip.
Mercy ran along the rooftops above me. I rounded a corner that put me out of sight of the pursuing guards for half a second, and called up to her, “Catch!”
With a quick flick of the wrist, I yanked the vellum cylinder out of my inventory and tossed it straight up. I didn’t have time to see if Mercy caught it because hanging around for another second or two would get me nabbed by the guards on my tail.
Plus, if I was the most agile and dexterous of the group, Mercy was a very close second. I had to trust she could get the map safely away from the guards.
I slowed down to let the guards get close enough to see me, then went back to running.
Being sneaky was no longer the objective. I needed the guards to forget about Bastion and Indira and come after me. With the guards only feet away, I ducked hard to the left. They followed me around that corner, then another corner, and then a quick jog to the right.
We burst out onto the main street, and I shoved through the crowd, shouting for the idiots on the street to make a path. They didn’t, of course, but the packed street was more of a hindrance for the clumsy guards than it was for me. If I hadn’t been in the middle of it, the slow-motion foot chase would have been hilarious to watch.
The pursuit passed in front of the guardhouse, drawing the attention of the other guards. The pair on my tail shouted for their friends to stop me, and they left Bastion and Indira standing in front of the guardhouse so they could wade into the crowd to cut off my escape.
You’re welcome.
The crowd clogging the street kept the guards from closing in on me, but it also prevented me from making a clean getaway. We were all pushing and shoving through a sea of annoying adventurers and peasants, which kept us separated from one another, but far too close for comfort. If I wanted to get away from these bozos, I needed to get off the street.
The guards followed me down an alley. I almost lost them there, until some nearby bootlicking adventurers shouted and pointed them in my direction.
You’re on the list, assholes, I thought as I huffed and puffed my way toward freedom. I couldn’t believe some vagabond wannabe heroes would be so eager to turn a stranger into the guard.
It gave me serious doubts about saving these people from the monsters.
A pair of tall buildings up ahead offered me my best chance to escape. I rounded the corner and threw myself to the left, then used that building as a springboard to propel me back to the right. I bounced back and forth between them like a rubber ball tossed by an angry child. I ended my impromptu parkour routine with a stumbling landing on the roof of the taller building.
The guards spilled into the alley below me and stopped when they realized I wasn’t ahead of them. They milled around for a little bit, sounding confused and irritated, then gave up.
Thank God for limited AI.
I held my breath and waited for another handful of heartbeats to make sure they weren’t hanging around for me to show myself, then removed my cloak, turned it inside out to change its color, and dropped off the far side of the building to the street below.
A small yellow tag blinked at the edge of my vision, and I took a quick look at what the Game had to say.
VERBOSE ACROBATICS SKILL CHECK: UNTRAINED
1/2 Dexterity (8) + d100 (49) = 57
vs
Basic Difficulty: 50
Skill Check Result = 7
Degree of Success = 1
SUCCESS! You have learned the rudiments of the Acrobatics skill. (Rank 1)
SUCCESS! You have improved your mastery of the Climb Walls skill. (Rank 5)
I patted myself on the back for picking up new skills like a champ, then made the uneventful trip back to the tavern to rendezvous with my fellow miscreants.
Mercy grinned and pointed at the map unrolled on the table in front of her. “Nice throw.”
“Nice catch,” I responded, flopping down in the empty seat. “Someone owes me a drink.”
As if on cue, the serving girl appeared. Indira dug into her belt pouch and produced a few coins. “Mead for my friend here,” she ordered.
Friend? Well, that was a nice change of pace.
The map I’d stolen didn’t look much like the one we’d copied from the Burning Throne. It had a bunch of very helpful illustrations of trees, mountains, that kind of thing.
“Is this the right map?” I asked.
Mercy and Bastion both chuckled and smoothed the vellum map between them. They took turns dripping wax onto the map’s tattered corners to hold it in place.
“Let me show you something,” She pointed to the symbols arranged equidistantly from the edges of the map. Faint lines led from each symbol onto the map proper, where they formed complex arcs and curves in addition to their straight segments. “If Bastion hadn’t remembered this map, I don’t think we’d have ever figured it out.”
“Nice work,” I complimented my brother. “How did you remember this thing? I don’t think I’d have even noticed.”
Bastion blushed and took a long drink from his mug. “It was the only map I’d remembered seeing in the game.”
Indira snickered. “We were lucky, in other words. But these symbols are runes of power. If the Burning Throne sits on the lines of power running through Invernoth, then this makes sense.”
I pulled the charcoal map from my backpack and held it up so everyone could see. “We just need to match some of these up.”
It was like doing a jigsaw puzzle when you couldn’t see all the pieces. The map we’d taken from the Burning Throne’s chamber was only a section of this larger map, and it had no geographic features on it at all. The map we’d stolen from the guard shack, on the other hand, was mostly geographic features with only some of the power lines visible.
It took us a couple of hours to figure it out, but we were finally confident we’d located the next stop on our quest.
“The Crumbling Temple. That sounds inviting.” I said, pointing to a crude drawing of a church.
Indira peered at the map, then crab walked her fingers across it, counting under her breath. “Oh. That’s no good.”
We all stared at her. She kept us in suspense for a moment, before saying, “Do you know how far away that is?”
For the first time, I noticed the scale bar in the lower left-hand corner of the stolen map. “10 miles? We can do that in a day if we push.”
Indira shook her head. “This map is scaled in leagues. That temple is more than 30 miles from Frosthold. And look at the terrain. It’s rough, there aren’t many real roads between here and there. Plus, all th
e snow. If we did 8 miles a day, we’d be lucky.”
“Horses.” Bastion said. “We’ll get horses.”
“Maybe,” Indira said. “We’re still going to have to coordinate World time with in-Game time. I have work, and I bet I’m not the only one.”
She shot me a meaningful glance when she said that, which hurt more than I’d like to admit. I wondered if she’d ever stop resenting me for playing the Game as a job.
“Me, too,” Mercy said. “So, eight miles per day if we’re on foot. If we get horses, we can do 12, maybe. Depending on the weather.”
We hashed out the logistical nightmare before us, and I really, really hoped the nightspawn hadn’t grabbed some horses and beaten us there already.
Before we finished for the day, Indira had one more lovely little tidbit to drop on us.
“We’re going to need a priest.” Indira scowled at my surprise. “Unless you think none of us are going to get hurt on this trip?
Bastion and I both spoke at the same time, “We don’t know any priests.”
Mercy flicked the air with her forked tongue and scratched her chin. “I do.”
“Then you better introduce us,” Indira said.”
“I will,” Mercy said. “But I don’t think he’s going to like the rest of you.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Mercy led us off the beaten path and into Frosthold’s seedier side. There were no businesses, just crooked little buildings that looked like drunken toddlers had designed them. The sounds of the city were distant, little more than a hushed murmur, but the stench of garbage and other, less pleasant aromas, was overwhelming.
Indira wrinkled her nose as we passed yet another reeking chamber pot someone had left outside their front door, and asked Mercy, “Where are we?”
The hunter wrinkled her nose and grimaced. “It’s not the nicest part of town, but this is the only area for player-owned housing. If you have the gold or want to pay for it in actual dollars, you can buy yourself a crappy little house. I guess you could fix it up, but our guy isn’t rolling in the dough.”