The Merchant of Tiqpa: The Bathrobe Knight's Sequel

by Charles Dean

  Sampson recovered from his fumbled attempt at cleaving the player in half and moved in closer for another attempt, but unfortunately, each of his swings missed. Even when Sampson used his special attacks, and he swung his fiery axe in wide arcs that looked like they would burn the horizon, the player still managed to avoid them by weaving back and forth, ducking and jumping. “I can’t get a clear shot with you in the way!” Tubal called out, his bow readied and aimed at the dark-haired killer.

  Is that a girl? In a bathrobe? Locke slowed down and stopped as the RPK finally came into view. He couldn’t help but stare at the dancing swordswoman in wonder, marveling at how she moved effortlessly as she evaded every attempt by Sampson to strike her. She was so nimble that she made the usually-on-point warrior look like a clumsy buffoon swinging a mop at a fly. Locke couldn’t help but walk forward in a trance as he watched her, now finished with Bianca, slice Sampson over and over again like he was a cow at a butcher’s shop. Each evasion was followed with another thrust and another cry from Sampson. The towering bull’s movements grew slower and slower until finally they stopped stiff and the Minotaur collapsed dead.

  Tubal started hyperventilating. He had been holding his bow at the ready during the entire fight, but he had never released a single arrow. She always managed to keep the Minotaur between the two of them, Locke realized. She never gave him a clear shot.

  “You wear that? You dare wear that in front of me?” The woman shouted at Tubal and charged at the Human, who stood shaking in his boots.

  What are you doing? Locke snapped back to reality when he realized that Tubal wasn’t going to react. Do something! We’re going to die! Panic flooded through him with the realization. If half of his party couldn’t kill her, how was he supposed to do it alone?

  “They’re . . . They’re all dead,” Tubal said quietly, his voice quivering.

  Crap. Locke’s eyes darted between Tubal and the incoming disaster that signaled instant death. I don’t have time to die here. Not trusting Tubal to break out of his cowardly shaking, Locke turned around and sprinted in the opposite direction of the incoming player. We’re both Humans, so maybe I’ll be able to outrun her, he thought, readying potions in case he needed to clear any Sushi-Priests as he ran. I can’t die here. I can’t die. “I can’t die,” he said aloud, the barrier between his thought and speech shattering with the terror of the situation. “We’re not teens trying to hook up in the woods, so what’s with this horror film scenario?” Locke asked himself out loud. He didn’t even bother to look back when he heard Tubal’s scream and a splash that was likely his body falling into water.

  “You never had the right to wear it, you filthy brute!” the woman yelled. A quiet pause passed, no longer than a few seconds, and then Locke heard the splashes made by her footsteps as she approached him at breakneck speed.

  “Curse you snotty kids! Curse you entitled brats and your spoiled attitudes!” He started yelling complaints about Anthony, not to any particular person, but just in general as he ran. He knew that impending death was about to hit him like a freight train and leave his corpse buried in the mud just like his three dead allies behind him. “I don’t care if I die today, Anthony. I will kill you and your stupid Holy Alliance if it’s the last thing I do!” he shouted, expecting to be turned into human shish-kabob by the swords behind him any moment.

  But then it stopped. The splashes behind him ceased and a voice called out, “Stop!”

  For some reason, he did. “What?” he asked, slowly turning around. He didn’t want to make any type of sudden movement or gesture that might be seen as aggressive and prompt her to finish him off. He was dismayed to find out that she was much closer to him than he had anticipated. “Who is Anthony?” she demanded, leveling her sword directly in front of him.

  At this point, Locke’s fear was pushed out by other urges as his eyes traced her bathrobe-clad body. She didn’t look like anything he would have expected from a murderer. She was just over five and a half feet tall and had a body that most women could only ever hope to see on the cover a magazine. The jet-black hair he had noticed earlier was tied back, though coming loose in some places. It would have ended somewhere below her shoulders if it were worn down. She had delicate features, a small nose and mouth, and despite her ruby-red eyes, she looked like she would have been better suited to playing the part of the damsel in distress rather than the butcher of the swamp. She edged the sword closer by a few inches when Locke didn’t immediately respond. “Talk! Who is Anthony?! What do you know about the Holy Alliance?!”

  Locke looked from the bathrobe, to her red eyes, and her black hair. She’s a Demon, locked realized. She’s here to earn points for her rank within the Demon Host or something. I’ve heard stories about how the only way they can climb through the ranks is by killing enough people. If I just say that I’m with the Demons, she’ll kill me. I need to convince her that I’m not part of the Holy Alliance and not let on that I know who she is working for. He thought back to his tricks and said, “Don’t act like someone from the Holy Alliance wouldn’t know. He’s the leader and the man I want to kill most. I can tell by your bathrobe that you must be one of his lackeys, killing the Demons and now hunting me down just because your boss hates me.” He gulped audibly after summoning the courage to fake this part. “Go ahead, kill me! But I will find a way to finish off that bastard.” Please don’t actually kill me. Please don’t actually kill me, he prayed silently, hoping his bluff would work.

  “You must think I’m an idiot,” she responded flatly, and her gaze grew colder. “Answer me truthfully!”

  “Answer what? You really think you’re fooling me? I know what you’re here for. Just kill me already.” Locke could feel sweat beading out all over his body as he worked his bluff, and he had to consciously stop his hands from twitching nervously. It might have been just a game, but the pain of injuries, though significantly dulled in the game, were still part of the Tiqpa experience, and Locke was concerned about respawning in the middle of Holy Alliance Territory to boot. “I saw those bathrobes the last time I had to deal with those Holy Alliance scum bags. They wear them like trophies, the sickos. The only other people who wear them are Demons, and the Demons don’t come this far out of Mt. Lawlheima by themselves. Plus, everyone knows they always travel in groups.” Locke really began regretting the fact that he never spent any time in one of those thespian classes. A few acting lessons would have gone a long way about now. How was I supposed to know that ‘Join the Drama Club’ might actually translate into ‘Save yourself from a violent and gruesome end at the hands of a psychopathic murderer?’

  She reached forward until the point of her blade was resting against Locke’s chest. “You don't know what you’re talking about, newcomer. If you aren’t willing to answer my questions, you aren't of any use to me. Just remember, I gave you a chance.”

  “Fine!” Locke backed up, his hands held up in protest on each side of the blade. “I’ll play your stupid game. He’s their boss, the right-hand man of their leader. He’s the one who leads the troops into battle, and he’s the bane of my existence.” Come on, keep the play going. If the curtains close too early, it’s lights out.

  “Explain. How do you know this?” she demanded.

  “How wouldn’t I?” Locke thought for a moment about lying again. There were any number of stories he could use to cover his tracks, make himself seem like he was more on her side, but each one felt harder to swallow than the next. The easiest story to tell is the one that’s true, right? It was a motto he had lived by, since even his flimsiest facades were built on at least half-truths. “Who doesn’t know the man who took everything from him? We were partners of a sort before he tried to get me to join his stupid alliance. He offered me a deal, money and a collar, and when I turned him down, he stabbed me in the back. Now, I’m just trying to recover what I lost. I’m trying to get my revenge for what he took from me.”

  “Then you admit to working with him,” she said quietly. �
��You admit to working with the Holy Alliance--the people who ruin lives and destroy everything.”

  Locke could feel his heart beating in his chest faster than a professional snare drummer on a speed test. “He took everything from me because I wouldn’t join the Holy Alliance.” A truth, but only by a technicality. “Do you know what that’s like? A man you had considered your friend, stabbing you in the back because you don’t take his side? Because you won’t do things you morally can’t agree to? I didn’t join the Holy Alliance. I would never join the Holy Alliance.”

  “Friends,” she hissed, “aren’t people you don’t agree with. You aren’t friends with someone whom you disagree with on a moral level. You can’t be friends with a monster.”

  Locke sighed. It was worth a shot. There aren’t any cards left to play, and if I have to die, I’m done begging. I didn’t beg Anthony, and I’m not going to beg some self-righteous woman in a swamp. “Just do it. If you think I’m lying, if you’ve made up your mind about me, then that’s that. Nothing I can say will help, so you might as well get it over with. I’ve got enough pride not to plead with a stranger to believe something she’s always going to think is a lie.” He turned his back and started picking flowers again, pretending to ignore her as he waited for one of her swords to sink into him from behind.

  There was a brief pause as Locke worked on gathering the ingredients closest to him. After what seemed like an eternity of waiting, she asked, “Why are you gathering those?”

  “These?” Locke looked at the red and orange petals as he picked another stem from the swamp water. “These little guys are how I gain strength in this world. If I’m ever going to get my revenge, I’ll need a lot of these florets. Here, check out the final product.” He pulled a Journeyman’s Deadly Poison from his inventory and tossed it over to the psychotic Demon.

  She caught the vial with her free hand and inspected it for a brief moment without ever lowering the weapon in her other. Her eyes grew wide, and Locke could tell that there was a glimmer of recognition there. She jerked her hand to the side and sent the potion flying off into the swamp without ever taking her eyes off of him. “Poison is the tool of cowards and assassins,” she said coldly. “I wonder, what would an ex-friend of the leader of the Holy Alliance want with poison?” It was clear from her tone of voice that the question was rhetorical and that she already knew the answer.

  Locke laughed. “The tool of cowards and assassins?” He thought for a minute and said, “I’m probably more the first than the second. I don’t want to die. I was just a shopkeeper before the betrayal, not a fighter. You . . . You’ve probably gone through hell on the battlefield . . . But me? Until today, I’ve never even drawn blood,” he answered honestly, thinking about the Bishopotamus. “That’s why I need these poisons, these cowardly tools, if I’m ever going to find a way to destroy that awful alliance that the loathsome lying fiend calls his own. If I can make enough of these, I can trade them for mercenaries, I can supply them with weapons and I can buy everything I need to satisfy my grudge.”

  “So you’re the kind of man that would rather hide behind the strength of others and pull the strings, huh? Doesn’t sound to me like you’re much different than your friend Anthony.”

  “I think the difference is that I want to kill a monster, and he wants to be a monster.” Locke went back harvesting. “Is there anything wrong with not wanting to die? Maybe I want to have a family one day. Maybe I want to raise kids, teach them an honest craft, and not watch people die.” Locke was about to continue with his life ambitions when he realized he actually had a way to turn this conversation against her. “But what about you? You butchered three people you never met, and you’re threatening to butcher me. Why? Because of some imagined slight? Perhaps it’s not me who shares the most in common with him. Last I checked, I’m not the one with blood all over my hands. The only thing I’ve ever killed was trying to eat me.”

  “Did you ever stop to ask yourself why it was trying to kill you? Did you ever bother wondering what you did that prompted it to attack you? You newcomers are all the same. The only thing you ever consider is yourself and what you want. You don’t ever bother giving two thoughts to anything else. We welcomed you into our homes, we fed you, and we gave you the tools to fight with. And what do we get in return? You abused our people, you burned our homes, and you stole everything that wasn’t given freely. That’s why I killed them. Because of what they are.”

  “Did they steal? I haven’t.” Locke was almost infuriated by this type of thinking. That’s the same thing Anthony would say. She’s just lumping people together in groups and assuming that they’re all the same based on her experiences with only a few. “Did they burn people’s homes? I know I haven’t. You’re making assumptions, don’t lop us all in the same category. I was out here picking some of the vegetation, harmlessly, and things literally tried to eat me. Are you telling me that I shouldn’t have fought back? That I should have died because traveling is wrong, exploring is awful, and making potions is bad? How dare you say we’re all the same. Should I just assume that every Human that travels outside of his own home is the same? That they share the same ill intentions?”

  “So I didn’t see you fighting with that group of people? You’re claiming that you didn’t hack and slash your way into the middle of the swamp? That the bodies I stepped over tracking you weren't left by you and your group? You think I didn’t watch and listen to you as you rallied to their cause as they killed that creature? That the Minotaur didn’t turn and scream to you when I attacked him? That I didn’t watch you traveling in the company of a man wearing a bathrobe? You claim to be different, but you’re working with a man who has killed my brethren.” She paused, and a sly smile crept across her small face. “And in case you haven’t noticed,” she answered coyly, “I’m not Human.”

  “Of course you’re not. You’re a Demon. Living in Mt. Lawlheima, right?” Locke dodged her attempt to push the blame back on him. If he stayed on the defensive in an argument, he’d always lose. “You live in a place that was once occupied by Blue-Drakes, and you kill thousands a day just so you can keep that home yours, right? How dare you point a finger and pretend like killing a walking, talking person is the same as a wild animal. Or are you honestly going to tell me you’ve never eaten meat once in your life? That you’ve never once gone out into the wild and used their flesh to survive? Maybe even killed one or two in self-defense like I have.”

  Locke knew he should be worried about his life, that he shouldn’t be so aggressive with his points, but for some reason, just yelling common sense at this woman felt like it was the best stress relief he had had in days. Every single time he talked to someone, he had to ignore their errors, be polite, maintain a customer relationship. But not with her. She was probably going to hack him apart at any minute like she had the others, but at least he could vent his frustrations and blow off some steam.

  She actually laughed at him when he was finished. “Your naiveté is astounding. You may know a few things about how the Demons live, but I would guess that it’s all hearsay. You’ve actually managed to get more wrong than you have right.”

  “Hearsay? I’ve talked to Demons about this many times before. What hearsay?” Granted, the only Demons he had talked to were the ones trying to put in orders for weapons over the dark forums, but he had still chatted with them. “I’ve even seen a good portion of your home. I was just a humble shopkeeper in a past life. You know, the one you bloodthirsty barbarians always ignore? That’s probably why you don’t think it’s possible that a few of us have found our way to peddle our goods with your people.”

  He felt a little guilty for lying a bit. If she was an NPC, as he suspected from her talk of ‘newcomers,’ then telling her that he had eagerly watched clips on the G.O.R.N. news station might get him in trouble, so he needed a reasonable excuse for telling her he knew where her home was. The fact that Demons had offered to pay him to deliver weapons wasn’t a lie. “Maybe, if I was o
ut killing innocent people, you would have noticed me. You might have remembered me if I massacred a town or burned some homes since that seems to be the only thing you can ever recall a Human doing. Lord forbid if one of us wretched, morally corrupt ‘Humans’ likes making things to heal people.” Locke had to catch himself from saying swords. He wasn’t a Blacksmith anymore: He was an Alchemist, and Alchemists didn’t make swords. It would destroy his story if he said that.

  “But that isn’t you, is it, craven? You could never pick up your own sword and kill anyone. By your own admission, your ambition is to have others do the work for you. You are too cowardly to ever do your own work or a deed worth remembering. And last I recalled, poison isn’t used for healing. You claim to be helpless, but casually ignore the fact that I have stepped over the trails of your dead.”

  Locke stood up, turned around, and stared at the woman. Want to see a healing potion? Fine! He grumbled, not saying anything and leaving the conversation hanging as he found a quick floral combination near him that could make the currently unleveled healing potion. He managed to make three as she watched him, staring down at him like a bird watching a worm struggle out of its hole in the ground. Finally, having finished making a them, he tossed her one and pocketed the remaining two into his inventory. “Poison isn’t all I can make, but poison is what I need. Don’t you want to win one day? Wouldn’t you do anything to save that which you love? Or, in my case, to get vengeance for it? I can’t fight, I’m not good at swinging a sword, and I’m definitely not going to take on a thousand men. Heck, even you can’t do it. If you could, the Holy Alliance would already be dead. Instead, they’re growing stronger and you’re out here picking on a gardening chemist.”