by Sarah Lin
But he was Bloodwraith, Corrupter of Worlds. He wouldn't let himself be bogged down in melodrama. Instead he developed a new vision for the future: slay the box gods, build an impenetrable fortress from their ethereal corpses, then bring Meara and Danniah to the heart of it to live with him. Instead of becoming undead again, he could find some other way to perfect this body and live out his days with the best of both worlds.
Buoyed by such thoughts, Bloodwraith managed to endure the party until all the guests became substantially more drunk. He'd been drinking as well, but he weighed so much more than most of the guests that it was barely having any effect on him.
When Herena tugged at his belt, pulling him toward one of the side hallways, he saw his chance. He had to endure kissing her for a time, but as she drank more she needed to relieve herself. The instant she stepped away, he rushed to the hall of armor.
Good, almost no one there. Bloodwraith flicked his arm sharply, sending the Extra-dimensional Bag flipping out into his hand. He carefully lifted the Helm of the Tyrant from its stand and slipped it into the bag... and then pulled out the duplicate Haral had made. Physically it was an exact copy, though naturally it had none of the enchantments that really mattered.
Making the switch, Bloodwraith shoved the bag back into his sleeve and went to wait on Herena again. She emerged not long after, much paler.
"Everyone is getting too drunk," Bloodwraith said. "Shall I escort you home?"
"Yes, we might as well." She slurred a little and leaned on him heavily as they left the party and walked past the estate's high walls.. "This... this was nice, Raigar."
"Yes, I enjoyed it." He didn't need to fake the warmth and enthusiasm in his voice, because the box that appeared in front of him took care of that.
[Quest Complete!
Find a way into the noble's estate to acquire the helm.
Alignment: Evil +20
EXP +1500]
The EXP reward was quite impressive for a simple party, almost making all his suffering worth it. Apparently the theft had given him "Evil" points, which was actually puzzling since no one was aware of it, at least if all went well. Not that it mattered, since his reputation could be fixed with a handful of trivial quests.
"Raigar... can we do this again soon?"
"I'm not sure. There might be more trouble with Daek the Knife."
"Oh, him." Herena glowered and pulled back from him a little. "My father spoke to him and got reassurances that he wouldn't bother any other adventurers. But I don't want to talk about him. He's been acting unwell lately, doing things... well, it's not a topic for polite conversation."
He very much wanted to know more, but Herena clearly didn't want to discuss it and information obtained from her while she was this drunk might not be reliable. Instead he escorted her back to her estate, kissed her one more time at the gate, then headed out as fast as he could.
It was very late when he got back to the Adventurers Guild, but he found the two of them waiting for him. Danniah had slumped forward onto the table and was snoring softly, while Meara stared at nothing in her usual fashion. When he sat down nearby she returned to the real world, raising an eyebrow at him.
"Back so soon? You didn't fuck Herena?"
"Why would I?"
Her lips twitched. "You know you could have. I'm quite certain that amulet of yours could have made it happen. You're terrible at being a bad person, Bloodwraith."
"I'm a bad person!" Bloodwraith growled indignantly. "That isn't synonymous with having no impulse control and no standards."
"Mm, yes, the unbridled hedonism of chivalrous monogamy."
"Silence, harlot!" He found himself smiling, though. A moment later, he felt Danniah's arms wrap around his side.
"I'm glad you didn't," she said softly. "If it had been the only way, I guess it would have... well, I'm glad it wasn't."
She embraced him tighter and he put an arm around her shoulders. After a whole night being with Herena, he braced himself for a box to appear, but none did. Ever since they'd first had sex, there had been no announcements about Danniah's "Affection" at all. As far as he was concerned, that was a significant side benefit.
"I felt like Herena always went out of her way to make me feel ugly. It feels a little silly now, but... sometimes you need some reassurance, you know?"
Meara rolled her eyes and stood up. "Okay, I can see where this conversation is going. You two have fun. Tomorrow we'll be doing something that involves a little more rampant slaughter and looting."
That sounded like a welcome relief, but it wasn't going to stop him from enjoying the rest of the night.
Chapter 25
For the next several days, in addition to his normal questing tasks, Bloodwraith had to deal with Herena contacting him. He even stayed out of the Adventurers Guild to avoid her, but there was only so much he could do. Strangely, though he expressed as much disinterest as he could without burning bridges, this only seemed to make her more interested in him.
The fact that she was trying to talk to him made him more paranoid, and at several points he would have sworn that he was being followed. Many times he wished for proper spells that could determine objectively whether or not she or anyone else was trailing him, but instead all he had was a vague warrior's instinct. He acted more cautiously and took quests closer to the city, just in case.
That was simple, since he had more training than usual. After some practice, he'd figured out that his "Shout of Rage" ability was good at holding off groups. More draining than his other skills, and harder to practice effectively, but he'd grown used to it.
For the moment, it was time to meet up with Meara again. He found her in conversation with several adventurers, cheerful and yet oddly flat. When one finished buying potions and moved off, she turned to the next. "Hello, welcome to my shop! What can I do for you?"
Bloodwraith lurked in the shadows until she was done with her queue, then stepped forward. Meara pivoted to him with the same smile on her face.
"Hello, welcome to my shop! What can I do for you?"
"Are you in some sort of automated mode, or are you mocking me?"
"Some of the former, but I'm definitely mocking you." The real Meara returned with a smirk. "Is it that time already? Alright, let's head somewhere more private."
Meara closed up her shop, swept all her inventory into her cloak, and they headed down an alley. Bloodwraith pulled ahead and led them into a small restaurant that Danniah had recommended. Allegedly the soup was good, and in any case it was quiet and out of the way.
When he ordered, however, Meara just shook her head. He didn't contradict her in front of the shop owner, but once he moved away, Bloodwraith looked at her.
"I don't think I need to eat. I haven't drank a drop of water in three days and I feel fine."
"Huh." It reminded Bloodwraith of the undead and he decided to keep to himself how much he liked that idea. "Are you sure it wouldn't have consequences down the line? I don't want anything happening to you."
"I'll go back to eating if I feel strange. Stranger than normal, anyway. But I actually feel a little more in touch with the systems around us since I stopped, so I think it's worth exploring."
"I'll leave that to your judgment, then. But you could still eat for the pleasure of it."
"Concerned about me, are you? How sweet."
"Bah! Don't try to force me into emotional statements. I spend my allotment of that on Danniah."
"Very efficient use of resources." Meara nodded with mock seriousness, then the real thing emerged. "But yes, we need to discuss our current trajectory. I've been gathering rumors, and many think that Daek might try to do something dramatic, like take over the city guard. To do that, he'd have to build his forces. If so, we might have something like 30-40 days to prepare."
"We should assume the lower number." Bloodwraith sat back and closed his eyes, rolling through the boxes in his head. "My EXP has only increased to 14,576. It's rising by an average of about
400 per day, but that number is decreasing as we massacre the local monster populations."
"I wish I could do more for you, but there's only so much available. Plus, I'm spending a lot of time trying to pinpoint the last piece of armor. It feels like it's not connected to another quest or anything the boxes care about, so it's more difficult to locate."
"That's fine, the armor is higher priority. But how is the shop doing?"
As the soup was served, they continued talking about the exact numbers. Meara's shop made a consistent 15 silvers per day in profit, largely thanks to her unnatural supply of ingredients. Questing income was less regular, but averaged about 18 silvers per day. That meant in a little over a month, they'd make a full 10 gold pieces. Once more, being an adventurer became much like being a shopkeeper.
"So..." Meara sat back and toyed with a piece of silverware. "Combined with the four and a half gold pieces we currently have-"
"Four and 26 silvers."
"-we could reach 15 gold pieces in 33 days. That's short of the deadline, assuming Daek decides to move against the city sooner rather than later."
"That's assuming we have no larger expenses, such as armor repair. And it completely prevents us from buying other valuable pieces of equipment." He'd deducted costs of room and board from their daily profits, because otherwise he would have grown even more irritated. Still, the numbers didn't lie. "That's too slow. We need something more dramatic."
"I feel like I might be able to help you with repairing your armor, if I spent time with it, but I've had to focus too much on quests lately. But I do have something else that will help a bit." Meara smiled and pulled a sheet of paper from her cloak, sliding it across the table. "I doubt this can come together fast enough to solve our monetary problems, but it should provide some immediate power for you."
Bloodwraith read over the sheet and discovered that it was a request from a group of healers who wanted to establish a way-station outside the city to defend travelers. They needed a sanctified location and adventurers to help defend it - something exactly like the elven pool, in other words. A box appeared saying much the same things, so he ignored it.
"You're thinking they could use the pool? Wouldn't the elves object?"
"They might, but the request is just to take them to an appropriate location. This will be an easy quest, and for some reason I feel like it will be worth a little more than the others. In the neighborhood of 500 points, perhaps."
"It will be easy to combine with other quests regardless. Good work." Bloodwraith accepted it, putting more thought into Meara's words. Her perception was improving, but he wondered-
[Quest Complete!
Exterminate the bugbears.
Reward: 250 EXP]
That would be Danniah's work, putting them ahead of schedule for that day. It didn't change the overall outlook of their situation, though, because the boxes clearly liked to reward risks and experimentation. Bloodwraith dismissed the box without thinking much about it, but he noticed Meara staring - not in the direction of the box, but toward him.
"What? Just another quest from Danniah."
"Oh, I know. I was just watching the power, trying to figure out if it actually flowed from her direction."
Bloodwraith sat forward, eyes narrowing. "Watching the power? You mean these 'experience points' the boxes talk about? I had always assumed they were an arbitrary measurement, since the real power only comes in increments."
"It might in a practical sense, but there's definitely something there. And it feels like something from our world, not from beyond." Meara gave an apologetic shrug. "Sorry that I can't be more precise than that. But I think these EXP aren't imaginary numbers the box gods dream up - they represent something real and concrete, if not something physical."
"Curious. I'm not sure I know of any magic that would work in discrete stages like this."
"I definitely have no idea. I'll keep looking into it. And into everything else." Meara sat back and smiled at him. "It was nice talking to you, mighty adventurer, but we both have work to be doing."
He felt exactly the same way but didn't need to say it. Leaving Meara to blankly repeat phrases to her customers, Bloodwraith headed across the city to the Adventurers Guild. There might be time to choose another request from the board, or depending on the timing of variables, he might simply train with Danniah.
While completing a few petty quests near Cresthaven, he ran into Danniah as she returned, a bit battered but smiling. She helped him finish and then they headed back to the Adventurers Guild. Now that security had increased, it was a fairly safe place to be, just by virtue of the number of dangerous people lounging around within. He was certain that the greencloaks were watching the place closely, however.
"I finished that bugbear quest, but I suppose you already know that," Danniah was saying. "Do the boxes tell you anything about how it went?"
"No, just the reward and the barest description."
"Well! Most of my day might have been pretty boring, but that part was worth talking about..."
Though he and Danniah talked about strategy sometimes, she usually left that to Meara and just focused on working. That left their conversations lighter, which he didn't mind. He knew it would be a mistake to say this, but her chattiness had ceased to be annoying since drinking the intelligence potions. She still enjoyed talking, but her selection of topics was much improved.
As usual, they were the only people in the training ground this late in the day. Bloodwraith had taken many tips from Danniah on effective strength training, since without the benefit of points, she needed to work both smart and hard. Once he'd gotten used to her suggestions, he did see the percentages increase slightly faster, though he was still just on the edge of increasing any statistics.
They'd stripped off their armor to train, and he wasn't sure if that was actually necessary, or if Danniah just wanted to stare at him while they worked. He didn't mind how as she sweated, her light clothes started to cling to her. In the past he might have averted his gaze and wasted time and mental energy on ignoring it - now he just enjoyed the sight and moved on. Just having sex instead of prolonging sexual tension had been one of his best decisions since coming to Cresthaven.
Danniah distracted him from watching the percentages slowly increase, and they chose that moment to finally slide over the edge. Every muscle in his body twitched at once and his practice sword hacked through the training dummy he had been striking. The force of it sent a rush of air across the training ground, hard enough that Danniah had to brace herself against it.
[Two-Handed Weapons skill reached level 10!
Damage dealt with all two-handed weapons is increased by 10%!
Development of physical stats boosted!]
That raised a great many questions the boxes refused to answer. Clearly, the box gods liked round numbers, and so this was some sort of reward for fulfilling that arbitrary condition. But what did it actually mean? If his attributes measured his strength and his skills measured his ability with the greatsword, then how could damage dealt simply increase aside from that? Might it be just a description of the progress he had made so far? All that seemed clear was that the final line meant that the percentages on his Might, Vitality, and Quickness jumped sharply, enough to grant him another point in the first two.
There were no answers to such questions, but he was prevented from wasting too much time contemplating them by Danniah. She was staring at him, eyes wide, and took a step closer. "Did you just get stronger? I know that's how the boxes work, but I'd swear I actually saw it this time..."
"This one was bigger than normal improvements." Bloodwraith glanced down at himself but couldn't see the difference - he'd just looked like a musclebound adventurer to himself ever since his Might had neared 20 points. "The box gods were very happy about the number 10, it seems. Hopefully they'll feel the same way about overall levels."
"Hopefully." Danniah wasn't really listening, though. She reached out and ran her fin
gers over the lines of the muscles in his abdomen. They'd always looked foolish to Bloodwraith, but Danniah clearly disagreed. When she saw him watching she blushed and pulled back, then realized she was being foolish and put her hand back on his chest. "Were those the thresholds you were aiming for? Because I don't feel like training anymore."
"That's good enough for tonight. Do you want to clean up in the saunas?"
"We can start there, anyway." Danniah collected her things hurriedly, still staring at him over her shoulder.
Though he was looking forward to relaxing with her, in more ways than one, this time Bloodwraith found his thoughts turning darker. They needed to take these moments together when they could, because he wasn't sure how much longer they had.
Chapter 26
"So, how does it actually work?" Danniah peered up at Meara as they walked. "Wait, am I bothering you? I won't ask questions if you need to concentrate."
"No, it's fine." Meara still had her eyes closed, yet kept pace with them without difficulty. "But it's difficult to explain. I know we're getting closer to the breastplate, but I'm uncertain about its exact location."
"I've always imagined it's like you have a special compass inside your head that points toward important things."
"That would be easier, but it's nothing like that. I couldn't tell you which direction it is. Every time we shift in a new direction, I get a little more information, but I'm still uncertain if we're going in the right direction. Though speaking of that, let's head west next."
Danniah nodded and shifted to lead from that direction. "Then is it like that children's game, the one where you tell them whether they're getting closer or further from the goal?"
"Not quite like that either. Maybe... more like I'm looking at something through a tiny pinhole. The more I see of it, the closer I come to knowing what it actually is. But right now, it's just random pieces that I can't put together, not a whole object."
Bloodwraith said nothing and let the two of them talk, since they seemed to be enjoying it and they were covering interesting information. Apparently Meara had been more open with Danniah about her nature than he'd thought, though he was also fairly certain that she'd held back some of the details. Regardless, the three of them had agreed they wouldn't let the day end without getting their hands on the Breastplate of the Tyrant.