Andrik’s pale eyes glittered with rage. “I host you rabble in my home, and what does my spy report? Not only were you were seen entering a known hideout for the Nightstalkers - the organization associated with these terrorist acts - but you were seen laughing and fraternizing with them, shortly before you detonating explosives in the Main Square. Then you and THAT-” he pointed down at Rin, “-began slaughtering my people, in broad daylight.
“I have a name!” Rin replied hotly.
“You are the Slayer’s accomplice.” Andrik rose to his feet, the sword in hand. It was slightly too long for him, and the tip of the blade scraped the marble floor as he took a step forward. “And you, all of you, were working with her. Hiding her. Conspiring against me.”
“Mate, you’ve lost your fuckin’ mind.” Suri’s voice was thick and stuffy. They’d broken her nose.
“You mean to tell me that the series of convenient escapes that have occurred since he arrived are coincidences?” He pointed the sword at me, and I leaned back. “That you and this fugitive dragon thief didn’t warn this Mercurion to escape her home? I know you Starborn are capable of communicating with each other over distances. How did Kanzo set up explosives at the auction house? How is he moving around the city? I’ll tell you - he is aided and abetted by terrorists and foreigners, and YOU!”
The ‘you’ was clearly directed at Suri and I. And in that moment, I made my choice.
“Well, you caught me.” I jerked my head and sniffed. “She had nothing to do with it though. It was me.”
Suri turned her head sharply. So did Rin.
“Yup. Guilty as charged. I’ve been sucking the mana out of Kanzo’s cock all this time.” I pumped a fist as enthusiastically as the chains allowed for. “Fuck the police! Screw monarchy! This is Vlachia, son! Guns, gloryholes and freedom - yeehaw!”
“Oh - so you admit you are complicit? That was unexpected.” Andrik’s eyes narrowed as he turned toward me. “You see, I had a discussion with someone from Ilia, someone whose opinion I greatly respect. They warned me not to trust anything you said, but to expect you to deny and defer blame. Do you think being honesty will bring you mercy?”
“I think it should help you lay blame where blame’s due.” I shrugged. “Suri didn’t know half the shit I was up to.”
She scowled. “Hector-”
“I did message Rin behind Suri’s back. I let her off the hook, twice.” I held up my hands. “I did fight Kanzo, and let him escape. I didn’t kill Red on the spot at the party, and I did go to Cat Alley and speak to Mister King.”
Andrik was looking increasingly smug.
“But you know what I didn’t do?” I continued. “I didn’t frame my older brother as a furry-loving pervert so that I could usurp his throne for myself, and then try and hire someone to kill him when he came back from exile as the ironically named ‘King of Cats’ to kick your ass.”
Before I’d finished speaking, the Mark of Matir flared with a sharp pain, and in the corner of my eye, a violet and black ‘X’ icon appeared. The vow of secrecy I had taken had been broken. Now, I was a marked man.
Andrik had affected amusement right up until the assassination conspiracy part, and then his expression froze into a hard, cold, calculating mask.
“Yeah, that oath you put me under? Fuck it.” I said, shrugging off one of the guards as he tried to cuff me across the ear. “You made me, the Herald of Matir, swear under the Kara Bukat Talom-”
“Silence him!” Andrik snapped at the guards behind me.
“-and you offered money for me to kill Ignas Corvinus the Second!” I spat, nearly shouting his brother’s name in his face as I struggled against the soldiers, trying to avoid being knocked out.
“Your Majesty? Does he speak the truth?” Voivoide Janos Lanz stepped forward. the new Forgemaster had turned ashen.
“What? Of course not. It’s desperate nonsense.” Andrik, barely holding his calm, waved it off.
Suri bared her teeth. “Oh no, it’s true alright. Ignas is alive. The King of Cats is Ignas.”
I was hit in the head enough times that I lost track of up and down. They must have knocked me out - because I blinked, and in that second, I went from being up on one knee to lying on my face on the floor.
“He’s not lying!” Rin exclaimed. “I met him as well. He’s blackmailing Kanzo so that he will take revenge on Andrik for-”
“SHUT UP!” Andrik turned away from me and lunged toward Rin, the sword raised. “SHUT UP, YOU SIMULACRA BITCH!”
“No! Sire! Her blood-!” Ur Garen charged forward to intercept his king.
Before he got there in time, Andrik struck Rin across the face with the flat of the blade, pitching her to the ground. She fell with a short scream, and kept screaming as he began to kick her, over and over again. Chained as she was, she was defenseless.
“Lay off her, you rat-bastard!” I pushed myself up, only to be taken down again. Oof: I only had 15 HP left.
“Stay back, Garen! And give me that!” Andrik wrenched a spear from the hands of one of the attending soldiers. Suri and I shouted and struggled as more soldiers came in to back up the ones holding us, while the Voivode, the priest, and everyone else watched on in mute horror as Andrik began to beat Rin with the haft of the spear. She hadn’t been high on health to start with: each blow took off a sliver of her HP.
[Rin is in critical condition!]
“RIN!” I felt Matir’s power surge in my body, prickling up from the Mark as I prepared to use Life for Life. It would give me enough energy to get these fuckers off me, and then... then...
“No! Just find me!” Pinned under three soldiers, I couldn’t see Rin - just hear her, as her voice weakened and cracked. “Don’t... here... just... fi-!”
There was a horrible dull crack as Andrik broke the spear haft over Rin’s body.
[Rin Lu has died.]
“You fucker!” I didn’t want to listen to what she’d said. I snarled aloud as a surge of feral, furious strength rolled through me... strength that froze me as the guards hauled me upright, and I saw Andrik throw the broken spear away. He had the point of his sword pressed to the back of Suri’s neck. “You-!”
“She’s next if you BOTH DON’T SHUT UP!” Panting, red-faced, he punctuated each word by pushing with the blade. “I want that Mercurion bitch staked out over the gate leading into the Tanners' District. NOW.”
Even with a greathelm obscuring Garen’s face, I could see him hesitate. “Sire, she’s-”
“STAKE HER OVER THE BLOODY GATE!” Andrik screamed back at him.
“... Yes, sire.” Garen stiffly bowed his head, cutting around us to approach Rin’s body, but no sooner had he bent down to pick her up than her corpse pixelated and vanished, leaving only her gear behind. “Uhh...”
Suri grunted against the floor, flinching as the point of the sword dug in at the base of her skull. “She’s Starborn, you idiot.”
Andrik’s cheeks flushed a red so dark it was nearly purple.
“We must speak to this King of Cats.” The new Forgemaster had a deep voice, thick with concern - and disgust. “If there is no truth to what this man - who is branded with the Mark of one of the Nine - has said...”
“There is no truth to it! My cat-fucking sodomite of a brother is dead!” Andrik turned on him, teeth bared. “I am your king! I am a descendant of Khors himself!”
The Voivode’s face was wooden, his mouth a grim slash in his face. “I must concur with the High Forgemaster. There must be an appearance, and when the truth is satisfied, an execution.”
“Yes. Execution.” Andrik’s cheeks were still burning. Breathing heavily, sweat running down from under the silver band of his crown, he took the sword away from Suri’s neck. I let out a breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding. “Though there are worse things than death for a Starborn, aren’t there? Hector, I am giving you one final ultimatum.”
The Volod withdrew back to his throne, and plopped down. He took his crown from his head, and
with his fingers, popped out one of the rubies from its setting. Several people around us gasped.
“This ruby.” He wrapped a fist around it, nostrils trembling. “Will contain a message from me to this self-styled king of filth. If he is Ignas, he will be able to receive the message, and he will know where to come to face me. We will wait in the appointed place. You will have two hours to deliver this ruby and return. And if you can’t, I am sending your dragon back to Ilia, to her rightful owners. If you fail in your mission, or if you run, you will never see her again.”
Karalti bugled behind me, a shrill cry of distress that Andrik ignored as he whispered against his fist and concentrated. There was a soft flare of red light between his fingers... and then he threw the gem at me. It hit me in the chest and clattered to the floor.
Quest Update: The Slayer of Taltos/Stalkers in the Night
You have 120 minutes to find Ignas and deliver his brother’s message. Run.
Chapter 40
“Rin! Are you alive? Where the hell did you respawn?!” I P.M’d Rin as I raced Cutthroat down the road from Vulkan Keep at full speed, holding onto her saddle with my knees like a jockey as we churned up dirt on the way down to the city gate.
“I’m okay! I’m sure that hurt, but yay for terminal amnesia! V(^__^)v” She texted back.
“Listen: I have two hours to deliver a Corvinus Ruby with a message to Ignas and get back to the castle. Andrik is summoning him to the Keep. I just spent fifteen getting the fuck out of Vulkan Keep, and I’m a good fifteen to twenty minutes from Cat Alley. I’m on the fastest hookwing I know-”
“You can’t go straight to the International District! (O_O)! It has to be a trap!” Rin replied. “Not to mention, wherever you met Ignas, he’s not going to be there anymore.”
I’d had a horrible gnawing feeling about that as well. Ignas wasn’t the sort of guy to take risks - like waiting in the same place where agents of his crazypants brother had visited earlier in the day. “Shitballs. Any idea where he might have gone?”
“No, I don’t... but I know someone who can help.” There was a pause, then a second message. “You’re not going to like it... (>_>);”
“It’s fucking Kanzo, isn’t it?” I steered Cutthroat out of the way of incoming traffic, belting past them toward the open gate.
“Yeah... I respawned in his location. After the bomb went off, the King of Cats contacted him and told him to get to a meeting to get his ‘daughter’ back. They said they were going to release her. He’s still here... I bet the two of us could convince him to take us to the handover.”
“When’s this handover?”
“In about thirty minutes, down in an old underground ossuary. But you can’t go straight to me - Andrik has spies everywhere. Head for the University District and go to the morgue.”
“The morgue?”
“Trust me. I’ll guide you once you’re there (^c^).”
The University District, in the north, was much closer to Vulkan Keep than the International DIstrict - less than a ten-minute ride between the city gate and the target. I still had 55 minutes on the timer. Cutthroat heaved for breath as I vaulted to the ground, squawking in confusion when I abandoned her without tying her to anything and ran for the morgue.
I clattered down the stairs, pushing past a startled doctor and his assistants. “Okay, I’m here. What do I do?”
“Go down the main stairwell and turn right. At the end of the hall, you’ll see a pair of copper double doors with a bas relief of Saint Minos on them. That’s the entry to the chapel. Run through the chapel and take the last door you see on your left. Don’t panic - remember, Archemi is a game. OUROS doesn’t give quests that players can’t possibly accomplish.”
“You’re assuming OUROS gave this quest. Ororgael gave me the Spear of Nine Spheres quest, remember?”
“Yeah, but Michael isn’t here.”
Panting, I cut down the right-hand corridor. It wasn’t long, and I saw the doors Rin had described. “I think Andrik is part of the Cult of the Architect. I think that’s why and how he’s king. It’s how he’s getting away with shit like staking key NPCs and beating players to death.”
“What?! Why?”
I pushed the doors open into a simple, rectangular stone chapel, where a startled priest in blue robes was holding a service for a very dead old lady and her grieving family. They stared at me in open-mouthed shock as I ran by them, checking over my shoulder to see if I had a tail. Sure enough, there was a long shadow quickly approaching down the hall – a shadow cast by someone or something I couldn’t see. “In a minute. Door on the left: what next?”
“Ummmm, go in the door furthest from the chapel on the left. That’s the embalming room. There are two doors there - you need the one to the right. Then you go down some stairs. There should be a metal door - you want to go in there. It’s the crematorium.”
“Why the fuck am I going to the crematorium?”
“Because my map says there’s a trapdoor there that leads into the Lethos Cellars,” she replied. “Tell me about Andrik?”
“When we met Ignas, he told us Andrik betrayed him after he learned that his little brother was in some cult.” I cut through the door, pushing past a trolley with a sheet covered body, and took the door to the right. This one was able to be locked from my side - I slammed the bar down, and kept running. “He didn’t know what cult, because he couldn’t remember anything about it: the symbols he saw, the shrine Andrik had to his ‘god’… they were wiped from his memory. All Ignas remembers is that he was disturbed by it. And have you seen the Taltos city entry bug?”
“The screwy NPC code? Yeah. NUMFETCH errors aren’t too uncommon. Those happen when an NPC… umm… oh.”
“When an NPC umm-whats?”
“Well… NPCs are generated via the radiant AI system, right? Sometimes, ATHENA creates a non-viable NPC, so it’s, umm, digested and replaced. The NUMFETCH error happens when the system tries to replace an NPC with a copy, but the original NPC hasn’t been deleted properly. I guess… that could also happen if an NPC was hacked and partially replaced, and the system wasn’t sure how to handle it?”
“Oh. Fantastic.” I felt a thrill of fear, because I was a fucking ‘NUMFETCH error’. And that begged the question – who might have hacked me? “So, not only is there something screwy about Andrik, but Karalti and I were attacked by a big ambush of Ilian mercenaries - well, sort of mercenaries. They were fanatics. We pinned a guy to interrogate him, and he killed himself rather than talk.”
“Oh my god (@__@)!”
“He was carrying a brooch,” I said, pulling up in front of the metal door. “The Ryuko company logo, kind of. My guess is that this is Ororgael’s little ‘Cult of the Architect’ joke at Ryuko’s expense.”
“Oh no. That’s not good.”
“No, it’s not. Andrik is probably sucking Baldr-and-or-Ororgael’s cock as we speak.” I wrenched the door open, and a blast of heat engulfed me from inside. “I’m not sure OUROS has as much to do with this as it should.”
“Right. Okay - are you in the crematorium?”
“Yes ma’am.” There was a woman in a leather capelet and plague mask there, and she stared at me dumbly as I slammed the door behind me and dropped the crossbrace to lock it.
“The trapdoor is... umm... drat... where did I see it…?”
Frantically searching the room, I spotted it - a thin seam, visible by the reddish light of the roaring furnace where the city of Taltos burned its dead. “Found it.”
There was a booming rapport on the front of the door. “Open up! We have an emergency! A fugitive is on the loose in the morgue!”
I Shadow Danced past the bewildered morgue worker and felt around the crack for the entry into the trapdoor. I found it, and just as I was hauling it up, I saw the NPC run to the door and start to lift the crossbrace.
Common sense told me to rush over and kill her before she let my pursuers inside. My conscience told me that if I did, I was no bette
r than Andrik, Kanzo or Baldr. As usual, my conscience won out.
I raised my voice. “Hey! Stop that! Back off from the door, now!”
The Morgue Worker looked back uncertainly. The people - or whatever those shadows had been - banged a second time.
“I work for the King. Trust me - don’t let anyone inside. They’re monsters.” I saluted to her, opened the hatch, and dropped inside.
It was perfectly black in the musty basement below. I fumbled a torch from my Inventory and lit it, revealing a basement cluttered with pipes, old mortuary equipment, parts for the crematoria roaring overhead, and stacks and stacks of compressed charcoal. “Okay - I’m in. Where to now?”
“Great! Head north: you should find a grate that leads down into the undercity ruins. Cut back, then follow the left-hand tunnel down and then head toward my marker. We’re going to keep moving toward the ossuary.”
I checked my map. “I don’t see a marker.”
Oh - wait a second. Let me turn tracking back on /(.__.)|”
“Wait? You can turn player tracking on and off?”
“Sure you can. Just think ‘player tracking off’ when you’re in your HUD. Sorry - I thought you knew (=^__^=).”
Dammit - that would have been useful any number of times in the last month. Annoyed, I called my mini-map and waited until Rin’s golden arrow pin appeared. The passages were mapped out for me. “What’s an ossuary, anyway? Some kind of bird?”
“It’s a mausoleum where the bones of the dead are interred. Don’t worry, though: just follow my marker. Be careful to announce yourself when you get close. I haven’t told Kanzo you’re coming.”
Upstairs, I heard the squeal of metal and raised, angry voices - male and female.
“Fuck.” I hissed through my teeth, and followed her directions, the torch in one hand, my spear in the other. There was now only 45 minutes left on the clock. “Hold on, Karalti.”
Rin’s marker was moving. I found the grate she was talking about, kicked it out, and extinguished my torch before sliding inside. It was a tight fit, armor scraping against the sides of the mossy drain. As I neared the end, a familiar damp, cold, stale smell wafted to my nostrils - the smell the of the Lethos Cellars.
Trial by Fire: A LitRPG Dragonrider Adventure (Archemi Online Chronicles Book 2) Page 35