Hell to Pay (Ascend Online Book 2)

by Luke Chmilenko

  Molly: No, I just made it out of the water and she’s gone. There are burn marks everywhere here. I have no idea how she managed to cast such a powerful spell, but I’m not hanging around in case she returns. I’m going to start making my way out of here and back towards the Guild.

  Lazarus: Before you go, any chance my crossbow or sword survived the explosion? I didn’t respawn with them.

  There was a short pause while I assumed Molly looked around the area.

  Molly: Found your crossbow and it’s in good shape, if a bit singed. Your sword on the other hand, I can’t find anywhere. I have no idea if it was thrown into the water or if it’s buried under the statue.

  Lazarus: Damn. Don’t worry about it. I can craft a replacement or go and buy a new one tomorrow. Quick heads-up for when you get here, Isabella will likely want to meet with you. She put Goner on watching the bind point. I’m going to fill her in about what happened to Fairfax.

  Molly: Good luck. Maybe we can finally find out what’s going on. See you when I get there, hopefully in an hour or so.

  Sending a quick goodbye to Molly, I continued down the short hallway and entered the guild’s common room, causing more than four dozen heads to turn in my direction the second I turned the corner. Seated around a number of tables and chairs in the room was nearly half of the entire guild. I barely had a chance to take in all of the faces looking at me before a rush of voices shouted out at once.

  “Lazarus! You got merc’d?” a voice called out with surprise. “What happened?!”

  “What did you see out there? Is it true that people are rioting in the streets?” another called out.

  “The Orcs have come back, haven’t they?! Are we under siege again?” This time from an older thief.

  I raised my hands at the onslaught of questions, taking a step back at the sudden explosion of noise.

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” I shouted back to the crowd, realizing that everyone had likely spent the last day in hiding after receiving Isabella’s orders to disappear. Being cut off from the rest of the world for a day without any explanation was more than enough time for crazy rumors and imaginations to take hold. “But we’re not under attack by Orcs, and there’s no rioting in the streets!”

  Hoping to have pacified the nervous crowd, my response only served to incite more follow-up questions, everyone shouting over one another as they demanded answers that I didn’t have.

  Or at least none that I wanted to say out loud at the moment. Blurting out Fairfax’s death in the middle of a crowd like this would only serve to drive everyone even crazier.

  “I need to go see Isabella,” I told the group of thieves while pushing my way through the crowd, the noise eventually dying down as I crossed the common room. Spotting Goner waiting impatiently at the far side of the room, I angled myself towards him.

  “Hurry up, Lazarus.” He beckoned me to follow him and continued moving at his quick pace. “Everyone here has gotten a little stir crazy, as Isabella calls it. Something’s worrying her, so she’s locked the place down.”

  “Did she say why?” I asked while following the over-caffeinated boy through our hideout.

  “Nah,” Goner replied with a shake of his head. “Not to me, at least.”

  Hmmm, while it’s not surprising that Goner is out of the loop, it is a little strange that Isabella hasn’t told the rest of the guild what is going on, I thought to myself as Goner led me towards Isabella’s office on the other end of the headquarters, all the while feeling a sense of dread grow in the pit of my stomach.

  “Lead on, little man,” I told the boy as my thoughts began to swirl. “I’m right behind you.”

  W

  Set underneath a massive warehouse on the northern fringes of the Market District, the entirety of the Grim Shadows headquarters was underground. Built from the existing ruins left behind by the Nafarr, who once inhabited the city, the guild headquarters was a sprawling network of tunnels and chambers that connected to the underground sewers that ran through the entirety of the city. The setup allowed easy access both into and out of the guild without being seen.

  Unfortunately, that also meant that it took a fairly long time to walk from one end of the headquarters to the other, as there was rarely a direct route, forcing us to take a circular one, moving from one chamber to the next. After a few minutes of walking the winding path of tunnels and chambers, we finally arrived in a well-appointed room that had been portioned off from the others. A trio of cutthroats stood watch, guarding a heavy wooden door within the room, each giving Goner and myself a brief appraising look before realizing who we were and waving us through.

  “Isabella! Lazarus just came back!” Goner practically shouted as he knocked wildly on the guild lieutenant’s door. “Well, he died and came back…but he’s here now!”

  “Lazarus?” I heard Isabella’s voice echo from the other side, as a heavy lock along with several bolts were pulled back, causing the door to swing open and revealing an exhausted-looking half-elf.

  Dressed in worn brown leathers, Isabella looked like she hadn’t slept in days, with heavy lines of stress running down her face. Peering out at me with green eyes, the pale-skinned woman glanced between me and Goner, taking a moment to reply.

  “Thank you, Goner.” She managed a tight smile as she nodded at the overenthusiastic boy. “I need to speak with Lazarus for a moment; maybe it’s time you went to bed?”

  “But I’m not tired!” Goner complained, doing his best to stifle an untimely yawn. “I can still help out!”

  “I’ll need your help in the morning,” Isabella replied smoothly, knowing how the game was played. “If you’re too tired to help…I’ll have to find someone else.”

  “No! You don’t need to do that!” Goner answered, backing away from the door. “I’ll go right now!”

  Without another word, Goner spun on his heel and ran back the way we had just come, disappearing as he turned around the corner. Saying nothing, Isabella looked back at me and shook her head, causing her blonde shoulder-length hair to sway side to side. Motioning me inside the office, she closed the door behind her, sliding the lock and bolts back into place.

  Looking out at Isabella’s office and all the papers piled on her desk, I completely understood her paranoia. Her role had her responsible for running the intelligence arm of the guild, and keeping tabs on everything that happened in the city. For a guild the size of the Grim Shadows, the information kept in this room was effectively priceless, and any breach of this room could spell disaster.

  “Please sit, we can talk safely here,” Isabella told me in a steady voice, walking away from the door and taking a seat at her desk. “This room is warded with the strongest protections we know of.”

  Suddenly feeling nervous about the news I was about to share, I took a seat at a chair set in front of the desk. In my short tenure with the Grim Shadows, I had only met the blonde spymistress a handful of times and had found her to be completely inscrutable. The only person I had ever seen crack her tough exterior was Goner, his childlike innocence somehow slipping through her guard.

  “You look like you’ve had a rough night,” Isabella broke the silence as she motioned towards my damaged armor, which was ripped, torn, and covered in blood. “What happened?”

  Exhaling deeply, I felt myself at a loss for words. How do I tell someone their friend is dead?

  “Yeah…” I croaked out after a moment, leaning forward in my chair, feeling a wave of emotions bubble inside me. “Rough is an understatement.”

  “Is everything okay, Lazarus?” Isabella’s voice was tinged with concern.

  “No…it’s not okay.” I felt the words slowly claw their way out of me. “Fairfax is dead.”

  Isabella froze, watching me with a stunned expression as her mouth worked soundlessly.

  “W-what?” she finally managed to whisper, the news causing her voice to crack.

  “Someone…something killed him,” I started to explain to Isabell
a, slowly outlining everything that had happened since I had woken up in the Undertaker torture chamber. I saw her expression harden as I described what I had done to Cayden, then grow cold once I revealed Edith’s involvement and how she had summoned devils to aid her.

  “Did Fairfax join us on the heist?” I asked once my explanation was finished. “My memory of everything over the last day is still missing…but if my job went bad and he ended up in the same place as me…”

  “No, Fairfax…was called to another task that should have taken him far from the Arcaneum or the New District,” Isabella replied slowly, looking at the strange coin that I had recovered from the Thief Lord’s body. “He was supposed to be at the palace.”

  “The palace?” I echoed with surprise. “Why the hell would he go there? Hasn’t the king sealed the place off to visitors?”

  “Fairfax felt he was forced to uphold an old agreement,” Isabella replied evasively, anger blooming on her face. “One that I repeatedly told him was no longer valid, but he felt he had to at least try, to be sure.”

  “Hold on.” I felt slightly off balance from where the conversation had gone, and I was struggling to catch up. “What sort of agreement could have compelled Fairfax to go to the palace? The whole Royal District is off limits to everyone in the Underworld, on pain of death or exile!”

  “How much do you know about the history of the Thieves Guilds?” Isabella asked, changing the topic. “Why we came to be in the first place?”

  “Not a lot, to be honest,” I replied hesitantly, feeling a little guilty that I didn’t know more about my organization’s history. “Just that the guilds were formed to keep the street gangs in line and to ensure that they didn’t cause the guard to go on a purge.”

  “That is the most commonly held story, and not entirely inaccurate,” Isabella said with a nod. “However, the truth is much more complex.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “The Thieves Guilds were created by the order of King Cyril,” Isabella stated, watching me carefully. “What?!” I blurted, feeling my heart quiver in my chest. “The king formed the Thieves Guilds?! Why would he have done that?”

  “In the early days of Eberia, things were hardly organized,” Isabella began, holding up a hand at my question. “Tens of thousands of people had fled across the ocean and landed in the ruins of a city that had been ravaged by time. Resources were scarce, luxuries even more so. It did not take long for the first gangs to form, even if all they stole at first was food, firewood, or a spare blanket to survive the cold.”

  “Eventually, as Eberia grew and found its feet, so did the gangs, evolving as the kingdom did,” she continued. “But it wasn’t until The War started when the gangs finally came into their own.”

  “They formed a black market,” I whispered, remembering the stories I had learned about as a child involving Britain during World War II. “The kingdom began rationing food and supplies, didn’t it?”

  “The kingdom began rationing everything as it desperately tried to stockpile,” Isabella told me, a sad expression crossing her face. “I didn’t taste sugar until I was twelve, and it took until I was nearly twenty before I was able to buy a fresh apple. But yes, the black market allowed the gangs to rise to power, eventually forming themselves into guilds as their influence grew.”

  I didn’t know how to reply to Isabella’s statement as she paused for a moment, lost in her memories. Based on her appearance, I had thought her too young to have lived through the entirety of The War, but as I saw her pointed ears, I remembered that she was half elf. Forty years for her kind didn’t mean the same as it did to a full-blooded human.

  Clearing her throat, Isabella shook her head before looking back at me. “As The War intensified, the demand for supplies only increased. Eventually, the guild’s reach grew powerful enough to extend deep into the military ranks, as corrupt officers skimmed off supplies marked for the frontlines.”

  “Once this started to affect the war effort, the king took action,” Isabella said. “Over time, he collected a loyal cadre of officers and men that were free of the gang’s influence, then conducted a brutal purge of the ranks.”

  “Everyone caught in the smuggling rings was charged with high treason, and summarily executed, which bought the king no favors, considering that the majority of the officers involved belonged to the Noble Houses.” Isabella mimed a cutting motion with her hand as she spoke. “But in order to ensure that the situation never repeated itself, the king didn’t just stop with purging the military; he continued his crusade into the heart of the Underworld.”

  “After a sufficiently large example was made of all the criminals in Eberia, King Cyril demanded an audience with the leaders of the five remaining Thieves Guilds and made them an offer they couldn’t refuse: kneel or die.”

  “He forced them all to swear fealty to him,” I gasped as the realization dawned upon me.

  “Precisely,” Isabella stated with a curt nod. “But given the nature of our kind, the king was not satisfied with a simple oath given under duress. He forced each of the leaders to submit to a Geas to compel their loyalty.”

  “Damn,” I said slowly. A form of magical compulsion, a Geas would make resisting the king’s orders all but impossible and would cripple, if not kill, the subject of the spell if they dared break its terms.

  “Without his actions, Eberia certainly would have fallen to the Orc Tribes due to its own greed,” Isabella replied. “But as much as the king wanted to stop the flow of smuggled goods and corruption in the ranks, his motivation for bending the guilds to his will was a political one.”

  “A political one?” I frowned, unsure of what Isabella meant. “It sounds to me like the early guilds were out of control. Stopping them should have been enough.”

  “In any other kingdom, it might have been, but at the time, the king was desperately seeking allies, willing or not, to counterbalance the Nobility, who were becoming more and more fractious,” Isabella revealed. “Despite the war raging all around us, the king lived in constant fear of assassination at the hands of a rival faction. Bending the Thieves Guilds to his will was his only choice.

  “And so, over the last thirty years, the guilds have been responsible for keeping the Nobility at one another’s throats and away from the king’s, serving as his eyes and ears in the shadows,” Isabella told me. “Any time a new Thief Lord replaced the old, he was forced to submit to the Geas anew, which ensured their guild’s obedience. At least until both King Cyril and Prince Rainier died one after another.”

  “Their deaths broke the Geas,” I guessed.

  “Well…” The spymistress hesitated, her confidence faltering for a moment. “We thought it did.”

  “Fairfax told me that when he submitted to the Geas, the terms of the binding only included King Cyril and Prince Rainier. Swain had not yet been brought into the fold,” Isabella explained. “And ever since Swain has come to power, we have heard nothing from the palace. No demands, no information, and our arranged dead drops have been completely ignored.”

  “So you think that Swain never had a chance to learn about the Thieves Guilds,” I stated, remembering that both the king and prince had died long before the game had started.

  “That was what Fairfax wanted to find out for certain.” Isabella nodded. “Not only were the consequences for breaking the Geas severe, but the Geas on the other Thief Lords would have compelled them to seek out and kill any of the others who broke it.”

  “Ruthless, but effective,” I noted, feeling a slight twinge of respect for King Cyril. Ruling a kingdom of desperate survivors with clashing ideologies was far from easy, but doing so while managing an all-consuming war was a feat few could match. “But why would he go now? Swain hasn’t exactly been present since the Call to Arms ceremony we all had to suffer through.”

  “That was another part of the reason why Fairfax felt he had to go,” Isabella told me with a sigh. “You’re aware that the king has recently begun cou
rting a commoner and has invited her to live in the palace with him?”

  “Yeah, Molly told me.” I nodded, remembering her describing the outrage amongst the nobles who couldn’t believe that none of their daughters had been able to attract the king’s attention.

  Though considering what kind of person the king is, they might secretly be rejoicing the fact none of them had to give up a daughter to him.

  “Well, two days ago, we discovered that the military attempted to remove the king’s paramour and her retinue from the palace, forcefully.” Isabella cocked an eyebrow at me as she spoke. “Outraged, the king then ordered the Royal Guard to intervene, and eventually the military backed down. The moment we found out, I sent out a warning to the guild to lay low until we could learn more about what happened. The last thing we need is to be caught in a feud between the Royal House and the military.”

  “What the hell were they thinking?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The military had been the single stabilizing force that had kept Eberia together over the decades, and they were fanatically loyal to the king. To have them interfere meant that they thought there was something seriously wrong. “Who is this woman? Why would the military even care?”

  “I’m afraid we’ve been able to turn up little of Lady Corentine, save that she appeared during the formal gala after the Call to Arms ceremony and caught Swain’s attention.” Isabella’s face shifted into a worried expression as she spoke. “The only thing we’ve been able to find is her outspoken faith in Nil, the God of Vengeance. Supposedly she is an ardent devotee to his cause.”

  “Nil?” I echoed, trying to recall all of the different gods that I had heard of since I’d started playing Ascend Online. “He’s not a popular god, at least not compared to the Dawnfather, or any of the others. Even Azmus has a larger following, and he is rather obscure.”

  “Unfortunately, due to the old agreements the guilds were forced to abide by, we’ve never had contacts within the palace, so we have no way of knowing what actually happened,” Isabella said with frustration. “But Fairfax feared that something had gone wrong and the king was in danger. He was also worried that knowing something was wrong and not doing anything would trigger the Geas…”