by Sarah Lin
With that, Bloodwraith headed away from the Guild, though he couldn't put the incident behind him. After being honest with Kantan the entire conversation, he had lied at the end. Because the reason he had turned Gharavi down wasn't Danniah, or even the fact that he refused to be ruled by his baser lusts.
It was the fact that he had become an expert on pretending to be stupid, and he was sure that she was doing the same thing.
Though he struggled to pin the intuition down to the exact facts, he was nearly certain of it. Her speech had been brutish, but he didn't believe that it was actually the product of a brutish mind. He also didn't believe the idea that she randomly wanted to sleep with him, not for a moment. No, she had some reason to pretend to be someone she wasn't, and some reason to target him.
Both of those were troubling thoughts, but he wasn't sure how to move beyond them. Something was immensely suspicious about her, but he saw no way to investigate further for now. It might not even be a critical issue, at least not compared to other concerns. Above all, if there was some way to avoid getting involved with anything complicated, he would take it.
Setting the matter aside for the time being, Bloodwraith headed to the central square where he'd agreed to meet Danniah. He was surprised when he didn't see her, since he'd expected her to make good time. Yet he'd barely stood waiting for a short time before he felt someone step beside him.
"Hey." Danniah stood beside him, wearing a rough cloak that covered her entirely. "It's nice to see you but, well... I'm pretty sure I'm being followed."
Pretending to ignore her, Bloodwraith began to walk in the direction of their inn and spoke in a low voice. "Did something go wrong on your quest?"
"No, that was fine. The other adventurers cooperated pretty well and I don't think I was ever in any real danger. But sometime after I came back in through the gates, I started getting suspicious. And if they were waiting for me, maybe they were following me before that, too."
"Do you have any idea why?"
"I haven't even picked up the reward from the Adventurers Guild yet. I don't know what it could be about, but it's making me really nervous." Danniah shifted closer to him, grasping his arm with one hand. "Would it be dangerous to go back to Meara? Or is it more dangerous to confront them?"
"They might not know where we're staying, so better to avoid leading them there. Let's take care of this now." Though he hadn't noticed anyone yet, he assumed that Danniah wouldn't be this troubled for no reason. Instead he took them away from the main streets, into a part of Manascas that looked much poorer.
Once he no longer spotted any guards and the streets were mostly empty, he began to catch signs of their pursuers. They had blended in with the crowds easily enough, but now he could tell that someone was following them from a distance, staying around corners.
Danniah let go of his arm and instead took up her shield and mace, which was a sensible precaution. When he gestured at her head, she winced and put on her new helm, disappearing behind the ominous visor. Since it would be too obvious if he drew his own weapon, Bloodwraith just prepared himself for a potential ambush. As it turned out, there was no need for that.
When they neared a dark alley, several men emerged from it. Most of them looked like simple hired thugs, but Bloodwraith recognized their leader: Baratak's partner from the match. He was no longer wearing just a loincloth, but he still wore light clothing that would fit under armor and the silver sphere glinted in his belt.
Behind them, several more thugs appeared, hemming them in. That made six plus the leader, all of them armed. Danniah edged closer to his back, the tension in her body obvious. He tried to ignore that and focus on the best way out of the situation.
"You made Baratak look like a fool." His partner shook his head with a mocking smile. "And he really does not like being made to look a fool. We've come to deliver a message: you're going to lose to him in the next tournament."
"We cheated, he cheated, but we got luckier." Bloodwraith raised his hands as if to show he meant no harm, though it put his hand closer to the hilt of his sword. "We don't have any problem with you or Baratak. We don't even need to participate in the next tournament."
"Seems like you don't understand. That won't be good enough, and that's not why we're here. We're going to beat the lesson into you."
"You can't do that!" Danniah stiffened and gestured with her mace. "The guards will arrest us!"
"In this part of town? I don't think so." The man smiled down at her smugly. "Everybody around us has already closed their windows. They won't even check on your bodies until we're long gone, much less call the guards, and you can forget about getting any help. But they will talk. The city will hear that you didn't stay smug for long."
Bloodwraith took a step closer to him, doing his best to sound weak. "Look, we don't want any trouble. If you want us to apologize publicly, we will. Just please..."
"Oh, stop. I expected better of you, but I guess you're not big enough to fill that suit of armor." Baratak's partner reached down to the sphere on his belt. "I look forward to stripping it off your broken bod-"
At that moment, Bloodwraith lunged forward, grabbing his wrist and squeezing hard enough to crush bone. The man gave a cry of pain that was cut short when Bloodwraith's other hand grabbed his sword and unhooked it in a swinging arc that plunged deep into his target's neck. He groaned, blood bubbled on his lips, and then he dropped.
It was a radical answer, but Bloodwraith thought it was the right one: just as the man had said, all the windows around them were closed. The hired thugs looked shocked, though they weren't running. What mattered was that this would send a clear message to leave them alone.
Or the guards might investigate and get them into serious trouble. Bloodwraith shoved those doubts aside and focused on the current fight.
The thugs were nervous at first, but they didn't make the basic mistake of attacking individually. Once one of them started to close in, the rest all joined him, attacking in one group. Against less experienced warriors, it might have been effective.
But those who came at their back met Danniah's shield and the rest met Bloodwraith's sword. Two fell in their initial rush and they tried to retreat, which was exactly the wrong decision. Cutting through one of the thugs with only one hand on his sword, Bloodwraith raised the other and sent out a burst of force to smash another man against the nearest wall.
From the corner of his eyes, he saw Danniah defending against their wild slashes with her shield high, then she lashed out underneath it and broke one of the thug's kneecaps. Bloodwraith joined her to cut down the other thug, while she silenced the man who fell to the ground clutching his knee.
It wasn't difficult to finish them off at all. The heavily armored man would have been a serious challenge, but he had gained his strength via many artificial battles. If he'd had better combat instinct, there was no way Bloodwraith could have stopped him from summoning his armor, but that was the problem with warriors who used equipment they hadn't earned.
Speaking of that, Bloodwraith bent down to take the sphere from the man's belt. It would probably take significant magical work to tune it to new armor. That would be beyond him, which presented a second problem: taking this to a mage would probably implicate them in the crime. Their only hope was to disappear and leave no incriminating evidence, so it might be difficult. Still, it would make a good gift for Danniah.
When he looked up, however, he realized that she was not in the mood for it. "Oh no, oh no..." Danniah was clutching the sides of her helm, sometimes struggling to remove it and sometimes just massaging her head. "This is so bad."
"Calm down, Danniah."
"No, you haven't heard! Manascas takes these things really seriously, so the guards wil-"
"I just heard about it. But that just means we need to cover our tracks well." Bloodwraith accessed his inventory and then pulled Izilthor's skull from his bag. The skull blinked its glowing eyes at him, then clattered its jaw cheerfully. "Izilthor,
clean up the bodies."
He set down the skull, which eagerly began tearing into them. Danniah looked away, and though he couldn't see her face through the slit in her helm, she moved as if she was anxious. "Are you sure, Bloodwraith? We can't clean it all up... won't they catch us? Should we run?"
"Don't worry. Like he said, this is a bad part of town. And remember that we're just two people in armor. That makes it hard for them to prove it was really us - hard enough that the guard probably won't bother. Especially if there are no witnesses and it's all just rumor."
"I... okay, I'll try to think about it that way. Umm... wait, weren't there six of them?"
Quickly checking the bodies, Bloodwraith realized that she was right. He traced an unusual line of blood and saw that the man who had struck his head against the stone had survived. Now he was creeping away, getting ready to run.
Bloodwraith readied his greatsword and whispered to Danniah. "Take anything of value from the bodies, pick up Izilthor, then hide. I'll bring back the last one."
She nodded wordlessly, so he leapt after the last thug. Unfortunately, the man heard him and broke into a sprint. Though his head was still bleeding, the injury didn't seem to slow him down, and he knew the streets better than Bloodwraith. Even with his superior speed, Bloodwraith had to pound after him for a while before he caught the man.
As his gauntlet closed around the back of the man's head, he considered interrogating him. But what could he actually learn? It was more likely that the man would shout and bring the guards, or otherwise cause problems. So Bloodwraith simply covered his mouth and then ran him through.
[Victory! You received 2883 EXP.]
That victory left him with a body to dispose of. Though Bloodwraith considered simply dumping it, he thought that leaving the crime difficult to pin down was essential to avoiding investigation from the guards. So instead he dismembered the man's body and shoved the individual pieces into his Extra-dimensional Bag. They appeared in his inventory, which even declared [Set Complete] when he pushed them all inside, but he had no time for box god nonsense.
After cleaning off his sword, Bloodwraith hastened back to Danniah. Before he got close, he realized that something was wrong. People were beginning to peer from their windows now and a few people were in the streets. For once, they paid no attention to him, instead looking toward the site of the battle with horrified expressions.
He followed and felt a surge of horror as well, for different reasons: Danniah stood alone in the center of the street, surrounded by shredded flesh. Izilthor must have only been able to partially eat the bodies, because there were fragments of them everywhere, bones scattered and entrails oozing.
There was no sign of the skull itself - the last thing he needed was for the guards to investigate necromancy as well. The entire thing was a mystery, but the solution was not. When Danniah turned slightly, the crowd flinched away from her and made themselves scarce. From the shadows, Bloodwraith gestured at her to go.
She didn't nod, but turned away with more purpose. Bloodwraith realized how she must look to everyone else: a mysterious figure wearing an ominous helm, covered in blood and surrounded by dismembered bodies. People would definitely hear about this, the question was just whether or not the guards would have enough to investigate.
He met Danniah in a narrow street several blocks away. She'd had the sense to wipe away the gore and take off her helm, but she still looked nervous. As soon as she saw him, she rushed up and hugged his waist.
"It went wrong, Bloodwraith! Somebody was walking down the street and they screamed and then people started looking and... oh, gods, now the guards will be hunting me down..."
"Calm down, Danniah. It will be alright." Bloodwraith gently took her hands and caught her gaze with his own. "The fact that you hadn't used your helm before will work in our favor. Now the only thing anyone can recognize is your suit of armor, and we can replace that. Besides, it was a bad part of town and we didn't leave proof. If Baratak thought he could get away with beating us half to death, the guards probably won't look too closely at this, either."
Though he wasn't confident it would be that simple, Danniah seemed to believe him and some of the fear left her face. "I hope so. Did, uh, did you get the last one? I guess if you did, there are no witnesses who know who we were."
"That's right, it will just be a mysterious incident. Baratak might be able to guess what happened, but he won't know for sure, and that will send a strong message." But now that Danniah was calm, he had a more important question. "Where is Izilthor?"
"Oh! He's in here!" Danniah reached inside her cloak and produced the skull, eyes watching silently. "When the scream happened, he started trying to hide before people even started looking, so I scooped him up into my cloak. So don't worry, I'm sure nobody saw that part!"
"Hmm. Impressive." Bloodwraith picked up Izilthor, who bounced happily in his hand. This was a good confirmation that he had been correct in choosing the most perceptive and intelligent of the undead he had been able to create. "But you need to hide in the bag now."
Instead, Izilthor hopped up his arm and shoulder, then rubbed against the side of his head. Bloodwraith sighed.
"Into the bag, Izilthor." After rubbing against him again, Izilthor hopped back down. When he held the Extra-dimensional Bag open wide, it dropped inside without requiring any further prompting.
To his surprise, Danniah had the first hint of a smile on her face since the incident. "I think he wants to be outside. He seems curious about the world. Would that be so bad? He's good at keeping hidden."
Normally he would have snapped that simple undead could not be curious, but he realized that he might be wrong in this case. "Perhaps if the incident passes and there is no search for necromancy, we can consider it. But for now, we need to get into hiding and lie low."
"Okay." Danniah sniffed loudly and wiped her nose. "And once we're in hiding, maybe we can take a long bath? I feel all icky."
"Of course."
Bloodwraith took her by the shoulder and guided her back toward their inn by an extended route. It seemed that no one was following them, and he didn't think there was anyone who could positively identify them, but he remained nervous.
Clearly, living in Manascas would not be as simple as he'd hoped.
Chapter 13
After a fitful night, the next morning they stayed in their room and waited for news. Danniah was pacing back and forth, running her hands through her hair. It irritated Bloodwraith and only increased his anxiety, but he suspected that it helped her, and she needed the help more at the moment. He tried to ignore her and focused on his work.
He sat cross-legged on their bed, staring down at Izilthor. The skull sat in a pile of armor, clothes, and other random items, curiously chewing on them. It occasionally looked up at him, but he wasn't focused on the skull itself, instead focused on the boxes.
Izilthor currently had 31 Necromancy Points, which was a reasonable number. The question was how best to spend those, considering their needs in the near future would be unknown. Though he was tempted to increase the skull's base statistics, leaving Izilthor as a skull would prevent it from ever being a true ally. He seriously considered several different bodies that could be purchased with the points, but any of them would make it impossible to hide the undead so easily.
While he was still reading through boxes and boxes of potential traits, Danniah spoke up again. "Do you think it's been too long? Should we be concerned about Meara?"
"Even if the authorities are looking for us, there's no way they would be searching for her."
"But Baratak knows she's with us! He might have told someone..."
"Baratak can't be certain what happened, and we just sent a strong message. Besides, Meara is very good at remaining hidden and avoiding notice. She'll be just part of the crowd."
"Maybe, but it's been so long..."
Seeing that Danniah was deep into her nervousness, Bloodwraith decided to distract her in a
different way. He didn't want to make any major investments now, but he thought one of the traits was good value for its low cost.
[Ally Coordination
Cost: 3 NP
The Undead Companion will gain the ability to understand and follow commands from designated allies. Commands from the user will override commands from allies and the command designation can be revoked at any time. Taking this trait requires at least 10 Intellect and will grant a bonus Intellect +1 unless Intellect is above 20.
NOTE: Though the Undead Companion will remain essentially loyal, this trait will increase independence and perfect obedience will no longer be possible. It is recommended to use this trait only cautiously and to grant command designation only to trusted allies to prevent unwanted consequences.]
Bloodwraith focused on the box to purchase the trait, deciding that it was worth it for the increase in Intellect alone. Izilthor perked up as soon as the mana began running through it, then bounced closer, rolling onto his leg and hopping up and down. The movements distracted Danniah for a moment and Bloodwraith continued with that.
"I was thinking that Izilthor should obey you and Meara in case there are any more complex situations like the one yesterday. Go on, give it a command."
"I'm commanding undead now?" Danniah gave an awkward smile, then focused on the skull. "Uh... Izilthor, would you come over here, please?"
The skull hopped from his leg, fell off the bed, and began bouncing against Danniah's legs. She looked uncomfortable for a moment before she reached down to pick up the skull. It quickly ran up her arm, bounced a bit and began biting her hair playfully. Danniah released a surprised laugh.
"Oh, he's so playful!" She reached up to touch the skull and it pushed into her hand. "It really is almost like having a pet..."
Though Bloodwraith wasn't exactly happy with that comparison, he was glad to see Danniah happy again. And though Izilthor currently was acting more like a pet than a Great Devourer of Flesh, having strong connections to their group wasn't a bad thing. Even normal undead could turn against their masters, and one with a strong ability to think was an even greater threat. It was essential that Izilthor's intelligence developed with unshakable loyalty to them.