by A. J. Markam
“Damn straight,” Slothfart said proudly. “I only regret that I have but five beers to drink for my country.”
“I’m not even American, and I’m down for the lulz!” Russell cheered.
I looked at Arkova. “See?”
She shook her head. “It’s too dangerous to involve civilians.”
“The Shadow Bank’s not going to go after 60 or 70 guys. Especially not when they start figuring out that the guys were all drunk hooligans pulling a prank. They know there’s no way they can go after people in the real world for something like that and stay anonymous. Plus, why would they bother? Our trash mob’s not actually going to do any real damage – they’re just going to rush a bunch of Level 50 players, be a pain in the ass for five minutes, and then get wiped out. That’s it. Is the Shadow Bank really going to order a mass assassination for that?”
“We still can’t expose them to the danger.”
“What if they look completely different when they attack?”
Arkova frowned. “What you mean?”
I’d already anticipated that Arkova wouldn’t like this part of the plan – so I’d come up with an alternative, inspired by a certain black-clad death cultist.
I turned to Jen. “That costume you were wearing when you came in here – where did you get it? Can we buy more, and can we get anything we want?”
70
Monday Afternoon
Costume Shop
The costume shop was in the Trade Quarter, and was crammed with racks full of dresses, ball gowns, aristocratic robes, knights’ armor, masks, full monster skins from head to foot, and a thousand other forms of disguise.
Jen and I stood across the counter from an old female goblin wearing some kind of sparkly blue ball gown. Her short, scraggly white hair was combed straight up into a big tuft on the top of her skull. It was like looking at an avocado with a cotton ball glued to the top, stuffed inside a sequined coin purse.
“Let me get this straight,” I said. “Your costumes are actually just spells that you cast on yourself?”
“Mm-hm,” the old goblin lady grunted.
“So all these costumes,” I said as I swept my arm around the shop, “are basically just physical representations of what you’d look like when you use the spell?”
“Mm-hm.”
“How long do the spells last?”
“Twelve hours, or till you take them off.”
“What if you die with the costume on?”
“Still takes 12 hours or till you take it off.”
“Perfect. How many spells for each costume do you have?”
She shrugged. “Depends. The more popular ones we can’t keep in stock. Some I got two or three. Some I got four or five.”
“We need as many costumes of one type as you have. And they have to completely cover the person from head to foot. No part of them that anybody could recognize can be exposed.”
She picked her teeth with a long, thin bone sharpened down to a needlelike point. “We have gnolls.”
“Gnolls?” I asked, confused.
“Hyena-like creatures,” Jen explained. “Think of that Tunneller guy we met, except a hyena instead of a rat.”
“We got a whole shipment in of gnoll spells last summer for the Solstice Faire. But nobody wants to be a gnoll.”
“How many have you got?” I asked.
“Two, three hundred.”
“How much?”
Jen had already told me her costume cost one gold.
The old goblin lady shrugged. “Nobody likes gnolls, so… ten silver apiece.”
“We’ll take them all.”
74
Monday Morning
Morningstar Inn
“All right,” Arkova conceded, “if they can stay costumed until they die, and there’s no way for the Shadow Bank to know who they are… then I’ll go along with that part. But when you have Level 10s up against a Level 50, they’re going to get killed within two hits. The guards will wipe out the entire crowd within sixty seconds.”
“Not if we have healers helping them,” I said, and gestured to Richard. “Especially if we have five or ten of them.”
Richard looked reluctant. “I’m not exactly the most charismatic person to help recruit your pranksters.”
“Don’t worry, they’ll do it,” I said, gesturing to Slothfart and Russell. “With our secret weapon: alcohol.”
“Then as long as I don’t have to recruit anyone, convince anyone, or basically talk to anyone… I can do that.”
“Thanks for your sacrifice,” Arkova said sarcastically.
“Happy to do my part,” Richard said, deadpan as deadpan could be.
“You know, you’re a healer too,” I said to the FBI agent.
She looked at me in surprise. “What? No. Unh-unh.”
“And you’re a Level what – 42? If you’re there helping Richard and the other healers, our flash mob is going to last a lot longer.”
“I thought I was dropping bombs.”
“That will be over an hour before the diversion starts. You’ll have plenty of time to get back to help.”
“…fine,” Arkova groaned.
“Thank you for your sacrifice,” Richard said, again in a deadpan voice.
Arkova glared at him, but didn’t answer. Instead she asked me, “So when does this grand plan of yours start?”
75
Thursday Morning - 11:59AM
The Sewers Under Sillomar
I stood in the sewers under Sillomar with Joe the Rat and the Earth Mage.
The second hand on my timepiece was slowly clicking around the watch face.
10:59 AM and 30 seconds… 35 seconds… 40 seconds… 45 seconds…
Somewhere far above us, a massive explosion rumbled through the ground.
“First bomb,” I announced to the others.
Two seconds later, another explosion shook the earth, reverberating through the walls and causing the sewer water to ripple.
“Second bomb.”
The third bomb hit right at 11 AM.
One final explosion hit, vibrating through the ground.
“That’s it. Can you feel the probe yet?” I asked the Earth Mage.
“Yes, it just cleared the magical boundary beneath the bank. It’s over this way,” he said, and took off splashing through the waters of the sewer. Joe and I followed.
Now, I had paced out the distance from the sewer grate to the bank, then duplicated the process underground. I figured we might be off by 10 or 20 feet – 30 at most.
Turns out it was 100 feet off.
The Earth Mage stopped ahead of us, closed his eyes, and then pointed up at about a 60 degree angle. Second by second, he let his arm drop slowly, tracing the route of the probe as it burrowed deeper underground. “That’s it. It’s coming through the rock right now.”
“I gotta admit, he was totally worth the money,” I said to Joe.
“Don’t tell him how much you’re paying me,” the Rat whispered.
“Why? How much are you paying him?”
“Never you mind,” the Rat muttered as we approached the Earth Mage.
“It’s getting closer…” the Mage said.
I could hear it now. A low, buzzing vibration inside the walls of the sewers. I had no idea how close or far away it was in relation to us, but I could definitely hear it.
The Mage’s arm suddenly dropped completely horizontal. “It’s passing by right now!”
Joe pressed a button on the remote, and suddenly the rumbling started getting louder and louder.
“It’s heading right this way,” the Earth Mage confirmed. “Fifteen feet… ten feet…”
The rumbling had become a screeching whir just behind the bricks of the sewer wall.
“Five feet – here it comes – ”
Suddenly the probe ripped through the slimy bricks, sending chunks of stone spitting everywhere. The probe was a silver blur, like the circular blades of a farm combine sped up ten times faster than norma
l.
“Look out!” Joe the Rat yelled as he leapt back.
The probe cleared the wall, popped out into the air, and landed with a splash in the sewer water.
Unfortunately, it didn’t turn off.
Dirty water shot up like a sprinkler system, covering everything around it in a ten foot radius.
I was far enough away to not get sprayed, but Joe and the Earth Mage weren’t.
“Turn it off!” the Earth Mage yelled. “Turn it off!”
“Dammit!” Joe yelled, and finally hit the ‘Off’ button on the remote.
The blades and drill bits slowed down, stopped, and retracted, and everything collapsed once again into a solid metal sphere.
“Gross,” the Earth Mage scowled, looking down in disgust at his ruined robes.
Joe didn’t seem to mind too much. He had more important things on his mind.
He looked up at me. “I get to keep it, right?”
“NO, I paid for it.” I made a face as I pulled the thing out of the water and dropped it in my bag. I really hope it didn’t get sewage water all over the other contents.
“I’ll buy it off ya for 25K.”
I had no idea what I was going to do with the boring device, but I didn’t really care to give the rat yet another bonus. “No – give me the remote. How long do you think it will take for you to dig out the rest of the hole?”
The rat begrudgingly handed over the remote. “Not long. I can actually slip through that hole no problem – I just need to widen it out for you, that’s all. Thirty minutes at most.”
“And you can help him?” I asked the Earth Mage.
“Yes. I’ll be softening up the rock so he can dig it out easier.”
“Great.” I turned to the Tunneller. “Be careful when you get to the top – there’s a possibility somebody might have heard the probe and come to investigate. Don’t climb out of the hole and into the safe room unless you’re absolutely sure the coast is clear.”
“Yeah, yeah. I ain’t no amateur,” the Rat said, then started clawing at the edge of the hole. His hands and claws moved in a blur, almost as fast as the gnomish boring device, and bits of rock and brick begin to fly out like scraps from a wood chipper.
“I’ll be back,” I said. “I need to check on everything else.”
Then I went into Stealth and ran through the sewer towards the surface.
76
Thursday Morning - 11:05AM
I climbed out of a grate down the street from the Shadow Bank, which was in utter chaos. Sections of the wall surrounding the building’s roof had fallen off into the square around the bank. There was smoke drifting up from the top of the roof, but no fire. It looked like at least two of the bombs been direct hits on the building itself, maybe even three. There was a single large crater in the street, about six feet across, over by the left wing of the building.
Good aim, Arkova, I thought. Three out of four ain’t bad.
Guards were standing around surveying the damage, and the elf bank manager was angrily gesticulating at the damage to the roof. I figured Arkova must have killed some of the rooftop snipers in the explosions – although they would probably resurrect and be back to work within ten minutes, so it wouldn’t really help us out with the plan.
But the attack had thrown the Bank into chaos, and that was going to help us no matter what.
I raced down the street, back towards the Morningstar Inn, and entered the bar. Apparently the bombing was a big topic of conversation – and my buddies were using it to our benefit.
“Screw those guys!” Slothfart said. “I hear they’re rich assholes who bilked a whole bunch of poor people out of their money. Like, mortgage fraud, penny stock pump ‘n dumps, that sort of shit. Bartender – another round!”
“Yeah!” Russell yelled from the top of a barstool, which he stood on like a pedestal. “Those guys are real prats! I heard if you want to get in their guild, you have to own a Ferrari or a Lamborghini! I heard they go out ganking Level 10s for fun! Bartender – more shots!”
“Yeah, those guys are real assholes!” Slothfart shouted.
“But why blow them up?” a nerdy British voice asked from the back of the bar. “That seems excessive.”
I was surprised to see the speaker was Richard.
“Dude, this is a videogame!” Slothfart sneered. “Nobody really got hurt – they’re all getting resurrected over at the graveyard right now! Don’t get so butt-hurt about it! You’d think you never played a videogame before! Mama’s boy…”
Almost everybody else in the bar laughed and jeered at the lone voice of dissent.
“Bartender – a round of shots for my buds!” Slothfart called out.
There were probably 50 or 60 players standing around totally dazed, their eyes glazed over as they chugged beers and slammed shots. More of them started yelling out things like “Yeah!” and “Screw those guys!” the more Slothfart and Russell talked.
Richard was over in the corner standing awkwardly by himself, drinking a frou-frou pink drink from a martini glass.
I came out of Stealth and edged up close to him. “Are you trying to sabotage the operation?” I asked in irritation.
“Oh – hello, James. No, I’m the whinging voice of reason – the foil to Seth and Russell’s frat boy hijinks and macho male aggression. No one wants to be associated with me, so they naturally gravitate more strongly towards them. I’m like a paid heckler the comedian gets to shut down and look good doing it.”
“That’s… kind of brilliant,” I marveled.
“It appears to be working.”
I looked closer at his drink. “Is that a Cosmopolitan?”
“Shirley Temple. I don’t like to drink before large-scale assaults and mass mayhem. But the pink coloring tends to drive the crowd away from me even faster.”
“What happens when you need to lead the healers?”
“Seth and Russell said not to worry, they would handle it.”
“How long have they been at this?” I asked him.
“Two hours. If they choose to leave the tech industry, I’d say they have a brilliant future in propaganda and sedition.”
Over by the bar, Slothfart yelled out, “We should totally prank those guys!”
“Yeah! We should go eff them up some more!” Russell shouted.
“We should go bum-rush them while they’re standing around like assholes, looking at what happened to their stupid Guild – which they totally deserved, by the way!”
“‘Bum-rush’ means forcible ejection from an establishment,” Richard called out. “You can’t exactly bum-rush them. It’s an inappropriate use of the word.”
“What are you, a grammar Nazi? Shut the hell up!” Slothfart yelled.
The entire crowd laughed.
“Actually,” Richard confided quietly to me, “to bum-rush someone or something is to charge towards it with explosive force, whereas to give someone the bum’s rush is to forcibly eject them. But I don’t think our drinking compatriots are that keen on the finer distinctions of modern slang. They have other priorities.”
“Free nudie bar lap dances for everybody afterwards!” Russell shouted.
The entire crowd roared their approval.
“As you can see,” Richard finished.
“This appears to be going very well,” I said.
“Swimmingly, if what you want to do is incite a violent mob.” Richard suddenly made a face and sniffed. “What’s that smell?”
“My boots. I’ve been standing around in a sewer for the last hour.”
“I hope you have something else to wear, because otherwise the bank guards will smell you coming a mile away.”
“I’ve got different shoes to wear as soon as I get inside.”
I had already planned that out long before. I had learned my lesson when Oktar told me he could smell the alcohol on me in the Thieves Market – even though I knew he also had a device that let him see me while in Stealth.
Slothfart
and Russell came over to us wearing huge grins.
“Dude, we really got them riled up!” Slothfart raved.
“Sorry, Jimmy, had to promise ‘em the nudie bars to put ‘em over the top,” Russell said.
“No problem, just as long as you don’t let any of them slip off before the diversion. Noon exactly – got it?”
“You got it.”
“And you’re going to lead the healers?” I asked Richard.
He sighed as he looked around the rowdy crowd in the bar. “As long as Seth and Russell rehabilitate my reputation with them so I don’t get a giant wedgie before the attack.”
“No problem, dude,” Slothfart snorted. “You’re gonna come around to our point of view and buy everybody in the bar a shot – it’ll be great. They’ll love you.”
“Will they?” Richard asked doubtfully.
“They’re drunk, dude, and they’re loving us. They’ll follow our lead, and we’re gonna say you’re our new best friend. Trust me.”
“Ah, theater,” Richard mused.
“You got the costumes?” I asked.
Slothfart patted the bags dangling from his belt. “Right here, dude.”
I turned to Richard. “Arkova won’t be right next to you, but she’s supposed to be doing group heals from nearby when you start the assault.”
“That’s fine. I’ll concentrate on individuals.”
“Do you have the amulets?”
The amulets had been a last-minute addition to the plan. I had never considered that in a world full of teleportation, invisibility, and magic, there might be the equivalent of a two-way walkie-talkie. There was: enchanted amulets where the speakers could talk to each other. It was a lot simpler than using the chat rooms, especially in battle.
“Yes,” all three of them said, and held up golden chains with small pendants attached.
The amulets had set us back 5000 gold apiece – but in comparison to the rest of the plan (including the soaring bar tab), that was cheap.