Warsinger

by James Osiris Baldwin

  “Come on, lancer boy! I thought you could jump?” Giggling with delight, Karalti bounded from the edge of the scaffolding like a cat. She leaped to the ledge, looking back at me with an expression of wild, unadulterated lust, just before she vanished into the darkness of the tower.

  I growled, following my nose when my eyes failed me. My boot slipped on the ledge, but I stumbled forward and, on pure instinct, vaulted into the first open window and followed the flick of Karalti’s hair around the corner. She bowled past a shocked patrolman, who flattened himself against the wall as I shoved by and dashed forward into a Shadow Dance that put me right behind her naked back. I reached for her as we ran into a junction, catching her shoulder with my fingertips. There was a push of magic, and then Karalti split into mirror images of herself that fled in opposite directions.

  “Hey! That’s cheating!” I swung right, but the scent wasn't strong enough. I pivoted with another snarl of frustration, but then realized where we were. We were in the Donjon, the highest tower in the Inner Keep, on the floor that contained the Ducal Suite. There was a discreet door that led into the countess's bedrooms from the opposing corridor – the one Karalti was headed for.

  Teeth bared, I ran straight up the hall instead of trying to follow her, flung open the door to my apartment, barreled through it to the Lady's Chambers and rolled over the bed to the door. I flung it open right into Karalti's face.

  “Eeek!” She skidded to a halt, and as her feet slid from under her, I caught her around the waist and lifted her off the floor. She shrieked, half-laughter, half-raw throated excitement, kicking out with all four limbs as I dragged her into the bedroom and slammed the door behind us. Her skin was burning hot to touch, slick with something sweeter and headier than sweat. She fought tooth and nail, but her excitement and lust and need pounded through the Bond like a bass drum as I bore her down onto the bed. Karalti wanted this. I had to trust Suri when she told me what she wanted, but with Karalti, I knew. She needed to be chased, she needed to be caught, she needed to be fought. She wanted to be overpowered, pinned down and taken and loved and bitten. She needed it like she needed air.

  Karalti kicked along the sheets as I pinned her beneath my weight, crushing my mouth against hers. She let out a muffled cry and arched against me in a way that made me relax for a second – a second too long, because she got an arm free and slugged me across the side of the face as hard as she could. The blow cleaned my clock. I reeled aside, only to be flipped over onto my back.

  “No more lectures.” Heaving for breath, she seized the front of my shirt and tore it open, her eyes glowing bright and wild in the darkness of the room. Her hair fell over me like an ebony curtain, spilling over my throbbing face. “You’re fine with it, Suri’s fine with it. No lectures. No stopping.”

  “Karalti...?” I half mumbled, half-moaned her name, confused as to how we'd even gotten here. Her nude, me about to get nude, not even an hour after I'd finished up my date with Suri. But she bent down to bite my neck, and her perfume engulfed me in a sweet cloud that caused something deep in my hips to tighten and squeeze. “We can't-”

  “No. Don't.” She was panting, drenched in sweet sweat as she fumbled at, and then tore the lacing on my pants. “Make me feel the way you felt before. Do it, do it, please, please, Hector please don't stop-”

  Karalti lowered her face to lick a long hot line up my belly, and I stopped fighting her as she pulled the fly of my pants apart and breathed in against my skin through nose and mouth, moaning as she rubbed her lips and face against me. Without thinking, I caught her under the arm, hauled her up, and pulled her up on top of my hips.

  “Ahh! Good! It’s good!” She bucked back, as inexpert as she was enthusiastic, and slid along instead of over. I could feel her right there, wet and hot and confused and mad with need, and I was about to cave when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye.

  Any person with normal human eyes wouldn't have seen the shadow slip out from behind the curtain, angled in such a way to avoid being seen until the last second. I hurled Karalti off me, pitching her to the floor in a squawking heap, and scrambled up with an outflung hand. The darkness of the room warped, solidified, then lashed out as a shadowy noose that snapped around the man’s throat. It took him by surprise: he nearly dropped his sword - a bizarre, jagged-looking thing that fuzzed like old television static. I couldn't see his face through the leather owl mask he wore, but he clutched his neck a moment before vanishing into smoke and reappearing behind Karalti as she struggled up to her knees.

  “Behind you!” I screamed.

  Even in human form, Karalti had incredible reflexes. She flung herself to the side as the assassin struck and drove his weird blade down. It passed into the floor like it wasn't there. He chased her as she scrambled backwards, barely dodging his swipes and stabs. I speed-equipped my armor, called the Spear to my hand and charged in with a shout of rage and a blast of dark fire that ripped the drapes of the four-poster bed to shreds. But the assassin was fast: He evaded the thrust, spun around, and used his momentum to expertly catch onto and jerk the weapon from my hands. He was about to throw his sword when Karalti tackled him from behind. He dropped the Spear as he staggered forward and threw her over his shoulder in one disturbingly smooth motion, sending her sprawling. She hit the wall and tumbled to the floor, and he went straight after her with the sword.

  “No!” I summoned the Spear and threw it at him. The blow took him by surprise, and he danced aside a second too late. It struck him in the face hard enough to knock his mask off. It didn't hurt him, but it stunned him long enough for Karalti to plant her foot between his legs.

  “Hua'takh!” The Fireblooded man - small, lithe, with a hard, pinched face and four days of stubble - snarled the word at her like a curse, teleporting across the room.

  Karalti flipped to her feet and equipped her armor. I did the same thing as the Spear vanished from the floor and reappeared in my clenched fist. The Assassin seemed unfazed: he made a gesture with his hands, and I smelled mana as time dilated in a rush around us.

  [Assassin casts Slow!]

  He moved at normal speed, but Karalti and I no longer could. I watched in agonizing stillness as he turned and ran at her in stop-motion, the sword raised. Karalti's eyes were no longer silver - they were wide and violet and terrified.

  I cast Dancing Fly, boosting my speed, and did the only thing I could: I dashed forward, half the speed of the assassin about to strike, and threw myself between her and the descending sword blade.

  The Assassin didn't flinch, didn't pull back. He plunged the weapon right into the meat of my shoulder, face contorting viciously as he twisted it in.

  [Heartstrike deals 2163???? drrr-aaaaaaahhh- damage!]

  [You are immune to Corruption!]

  The blow should have knocked me on my ass, but for some reason, I didn't feel a thing as it sunk effortlessly through my armor, and everything but a sliver of my HP evaporated: just an intense burst of cold that turned my blood to ice. The assassin's golden eyes, so much like Suri's, widened in shock as I slammed the heel of my other palm up under his nose. Blood blossomed in slow-motion, then rained down at normal speed as the spell effect snapped and I suddenly found myself wrestling the man on the floor. His weapon hadn't killed me, but it had taken me down to 22 HP and I could feel every muscle in my torso trying to seize and freeze around the almost-mortal injury. Karalti ran to the door, shouting for help as we rolled across the ground. The man was smaller than me, but he was just as strong and still had most of his hit points. I clawed at his face as he struggled to bring the sword down a second time, his smokey breath billowing against my cheeks. Inch by inch, he gained... my fingers slipped in his blood and sweat.

  It was the smell of the blood that reminded me.

  I was a motherfucking vampire.

  “Look sharp!” Like needles from a blow gun, my dark-tipped fingers distended into long points and shot forward - right into the Assassin's eyes.

  The
man dropped his sword with a screech, hands flying up to my wrist as his eyeball burst like a broken egg cracked across my knuckles. I rammed my fingers deeper, and before I could stop it, the hypodermic nails began to draw his blood into my veins in a dizzying, pleasurable rush. Gasping, I fumbled over for his sword... and just as the Assassin came to his senses and pulled his head back, I plunged the weapon into his chest. The sword went through his armor just as easily as it had mine - and as it penetrated, he let out a blood-curdling wail.

  “Fuck!” I pushed away as the Assassin thrashed back and forth, his spine bending in ways no human back should ever bend. He screamed incessantly, piteously, contorting around the blade as it seemed to suck him in toward it like a black hole. His bones popped with wet smacking sounds; I watched on in horror as everything in him twisted, smattered with the same television snow effect the blade had. When it finally ended, all that was left was a contorted mass of flesh, glitching pixels, and leather armor. The screams grew muffled, but they hadn’t stopped.

  “WHAT'S HAPPEN- oh my God.” Suri, dressed in her armor and clutching an axe, mantled protectively in front of Karalti by the door. There was shouting in the hallway. A young castle guard burst into the room from the apartment's hallway on the other side, and when he saw the mewling thing on the floor, he turned his head and barfed right there on the rug.

  “Kill it! Before it spreads!” Karalti shouted telepathically to the room.

  Spreads? I called the Spear with a thought, and when I saw what Karalti meant, my stomach knotted. The small visual glitches where the sword had entered were expanding, affecting more and more of the assassin's body as the seconds ticked by. The carpet around him was starting to do the same thing.

  My mind was a humming blank as I raised my weapon over the assassin's exposed, mutated heart, and plunged it down with Shattering Darkness. Black icicles burst out from the writhing mass of flesh, which cracked and squeaked as it froze solid and then collapsed into bloodless chunks that scattered and bounced across the floor.

  [You have killed Assassin!]

  [You gain 1598 EXP!]

  [You gain a new badge: Attempted assassination is the highest form of flattery.]

  I gasped, sinking to one knee, and threw the sword away from me. I went to my hands as I ransacked my Inventory for healing potions and came up short. I’d used them all to defeat the motherfucking poop golem. “Fuck.”

  Karalti's entire body suffused with light, and the marbled seams of color under her pale skin bloomed over her body. When they passed, they left her slightly taller, more toned, and subtly more regal as she ran over to me and skidded to her knees on the floor.

  “Hector!” Karalti looked back to the others in the hall. “Suri, help me take him to Masha! He got hit by that sword!”

  She still smelled like sex on legs, but the drug-like quality had diminished... not enough that I didn't notice it, but enough that it didn't compel me to jump her bones on top of the Stranged, frozen corpse of our would-be assassin in front of God and everyone. Drooling blood, I gently pushed her aside and wobbled back up to sit. “I’m okay. I’m okay, Tidbit.”

  “Come on, my lord. She’s right. We have to get you to the hospital.” Istvan joined Karalti, and helped her lift me up to my feet.

  “Do you have any of your potions?” Karalti asked.

  “I... no. We used them all in the... you know, the thing.” My head was fuzzy. The shoulder where the assassin had stabbed me was completely numb. It was the same shoulder that had the blacked-out glitched piece carved out of it. “Doesn’t even hurt, to be honest.”

  “Holy shit.” Suri had been poking around the room instead of crowding the space around me. She stood up from beside the bed with the owl mask I’d knocked from the assassin’s face. “This guy was a fuckin’ White Owl.”

  “Whuzzat?” I slurred.

  “The White Owls are the best assassins’ guild in Dakhdir,” she said grimly. “They’re mad expensive, but if you want someone dead, they’ll get the job done. And this…”

  She gingerly picked up the sword.

  “An abomination.” Istvan shuddered.

  “Right?” Suri frowned, turning it over to look down the length of the blade. “Oh, it’s got an I.D tag. Uhh… ‘Nethershard Sword TEMP – Admin Spawn only?’”

  “What the fuck?” I reeled a little. “That’s… that’s definitely not fair.”

  “No, it definitely isn’t. It’s got a timer on it, too.” Suri frowned. “Item description doesn’t say anything, but it apparently expires in five hours.”

  “It must have been Baldr,” Istvan said, steering me toward the door. “There’s no one in Dakhdir who wants to kill Hector or Karalti, surely.”

  I wasn’t losing any more HP, but at 22 points, blue-balled and sleep deprived, I was beginning to feel pretty gnarly. “Yeah. Must be. Ignas is going to be pissed.”

  “Not least because the White Owls are Dakhari,” Suri said. She was following us ahead of the guards. “Did this guy say anything?”

  “Just one word. Sounded like… Hoo-attack.”

  “Hua'takh,” she corrected. “Weird.”

  “What does it mean?” Istvan asked.

  “‘Pretender’.” Suri got around us and opened the doors ahead as we clattered down the stairs. “Not the usual battle cry of your average assassin.”

  Chapter 32

  Twenty minutes later, I was recovering in the hospital on the bed beside Vash’s. Masha was gingerly palpitating the enlarged black void on my shoulder. The triangular patch of dead pixels had been an unchanging bit of weirdness since my first week in Archemi, the place where a piece of wood had glitched through my shoulder. Now it looked more like a starburst, and was about the size of an apple. The surface of it was solid, but not in the same way as skin. It wasn’t metallic, either. It literally didn’t feel like anything, but you couldn’t push your fingers through it and wiggle them out the other side.

  “Well, I must admit I am stumped,” she said, delicately probing it with a needle. “My first thought was that it was necrotized flesh, like the stuff we scraped off your lovely Baru friend, but it doesn’t appear to be flesh at all. It is like part of your body has become something else entirely. Do you feel that?”

  “Nope.” I looked down to see she’d sunk about a quarter inch of needle into it. “Not a damn thing.”

  “You must be careful. Whatever it is, it acts somewhat like a cancer.” She drew the needle out and examined the end for blood. There was none.

  Cancer. Now there was an un-fun word I never expected to encounter in a videogame. “Do you know what a ‘Corruption’ status is? Status, debuff… not actually sure what it is.”

  “I have some notion,” Vash said from behind us. “And I’ll tell you, if you do me a favor.”

  We looked over. He was sitting up by himself, and was pale, rumpled, but less sweaty and definitely less sick. The stump of his shoulder was bound up in bandages, clean and uninfected. His fever had broken, and he was back to 60% maximum HP. Given he was the highest-level NPC here other than Masha, that put him about even with me in terms of HP and Stats.

  “Hit me,” I said.

  His eyes tracked down to my shoulder. “My lovely Masterhealer, this is a rather sensitive subject. It is yasak, taboo knowledge. Would you be so kind as to leave us to speak?”

  Masha looked down, quickly touched her fingers to her forehead and lips, and then stood. “Of course, Brother. Did you know this rogue never told me he was a favorite of the Black God? If I’d known, I might not have charged him to apprentice to me.”

  “Me?” I pointed at my chin.

  “Yes, you. Obviously not Brother Dorha.” Masha’s characteristic peevishness returned. “I will be back in when you are done. Try not to fall on anything sharp.”

  Vash waited until Masha closed the door. He sat cross-legged, his remaining hand resting in his lap. With the bandages across his chest and the blanket over his knees, he almost looked like an actual mon
k. Kind of.

  “You can do my favor while we talk,” he said. “Get on the bed and sit behind me. I need you to play hairdresser. I’d do it myself, but even I am not dexterous enough to manage this great big mop with one hand. Istvan has many talents, but the patient art of braiding is not one of them.”

  His hair had definitely taken a beating these last several weeks. All Tuun men, self included, used their hair to indicate their social status. Having it shaved on the sides, then styled into braids or cornrows worn past the belt was pretty typical for warriors. Miners and laborers wore it shorter; farmers tended to wear it loose and pulled back. For a Baru like Vash, part of their vows included never cutting their hair, which was a living memorial to the work they did for the Tuun community.

  “What are all these different kinds of beads for?” I asked. Being Tuun, I’d had the cultural knowledge of how to create hairstyles like these uploaded during creation. Just as well, because I’d kept short military cuts for my entire life and wouldn’t have known where to start IRL.

  He grunted. “The bone beads and rings were given to me by the families of the dead I have tended. The amber beads are for children born and lives saved: flies for children, beetles for recovered patients. The bronze prayer rings are given by the abbots on attainment of certain skills. The onyx are gifts from my master.”

  “Your master? Like, your martial arts teacher?”

  “Among other things,” he replied. “Master Gorten is the reason I’m not dead, a drunken idiot roiling with syphilis in a gutter somewhere, or both. The first set of onyx beads are given to a novice when they are accepted for teaching, and braided high up in the hair. The second set is given when training is completed.”

  “Huh.” I unpicked one thin braid at a time, setting the beads aside in order. I could do this kind of thing with near-supernatural speed and relatively little energy – and after what happened with Karalti and the assassin, it was oddly soothing. “And the red beads?”