The Merchant of Tiqpa: The Bathrobe Knight's Sequel

by Charles Dean

  He charged into one of the White-Wings near the edge of the cloud, knocking the bird off his feet in the process, and the Blue Phoenix Brigade members practically trampled him as they stampeded away from the tavern.

  “Get them!” Someone managed to yell after them through a coughing fit, but by then, it was too late. Everyone in the group had already managed to gain a sizable lead on the aggressive party. To make matters worse for the members of the Holy Alliance, Locke had led the group straight to a guard station. The few people who had given chase slowed as they approached the guards’ barracks and ceased their approach altogether, clearly not wanting to confront anyone when the law was right beside them.

  “Hey, you!” the first guard who saw them called out. “You people just came from there. Do you know what that weird green stuff is?” the guard asked, pointing at the cloud.

  Locke looked back at the deadly miasma that was now creeping into the air and spreading out behind them and the Holy Alliance members who were huffing toward them. “It was a fart, sir,” he declared, rather amused with himself. He wouldn’t normally be so tactless, but the rush he felt after escaping from the clutches of the Holy Alliance’s goon squad and finally getting to tell someone off had left him in high spirits. It had put him in such a good mood that he just lost his restraint and said the first thing that came to mind.

  “A fart? Boy, are you messing with me?” He looked at Locke, then the cloud behind Locke, then back at Locke.

  “It was an earth-shattering fart, sir. The reason we’re running is that we need to get home so he can check his pants.” Locke fingered Sampson as the culprit, and to Sampson’s credit, she didn’t flip out and protest. In fact, Locke was impressed that no one in the group even cracked a smile as Locke made such a ridiculous accusation.

  “What in the heck did you eat?” the guard questioned Sampson this time. “I’ve heard Minotaur farts are bad, but that’s ridiculous,” the guard said, seeming to be actually buying into the story.

  “It was meat buns from the market, sir,” Sampson answered, her poker face too perfect. “I should never have trusted the street vendor selling it. I think he put a lot of peppers in it, too,” Sampson complained, adding a little extra flavor to the narrative. “There was definitely a lot of fire involved in its creation, sir.”

  The guard shook his head. “You need to eat healthier! Proper fruits and vegetables next time! And don’t be trusting the meat buns from random strangers!”

  “Yes, sir. But, sir, can we go? I need to get going before another one sneaks out!” Sampson’s voice inferred an extra sense of urgency as she pleaded with him.

  “Well, just hold it! Didn’t your dad ever tell you not to trust a fart?”

  The guard’s stone-serious expression as he said these comical lines almost caused Locke to lose it. He was going crazy on the inside, doing everything he could not to fall over in a fit of laughter.

  “I’m trying to, sir, but the situation is really reaching critical mass. May I please go?” Sampson once more begged of the guard.

  “Alright, get out of here,” the guard answered, finally waving them away as he shooed her and the others along.

  The second they got out of earshot, Sampson smacked Locke on the back of the head. “What the heck? A fart? I can’t believe you made me go through that.”

  “Yeah, a Minotaur with such a bad fart--total BS, right?” Locke snickered at his own joke.

  “That’s enough! I just can’t believe they accused us of taking sides like that. After all we’ve done for them, they were that quick to turn their backs on us?” Tubal griped, his jovial smile from laughing at the childish humor dampening into a frown pretty quickly.

  “What do you expect? That’s just the way they are . . .” Locke looked down and found something interesting to study on the ground as he walked. He felt slightly guilty because he had essentially created the conflict, but he wasn’t wrong. He probably had more experience with the Holy Alliance than most, despite the fact that the Blue Phoenix Brigade had worked for them before, and he had seen them at their worst. This wasn’t the first time that he had been on the receiving end of their over-zealous accusations.

  “There is no honor in their kind. A man must do his duty to protect others, not expect others to pay for protection. It makes no sense that they would throw away their dignity and behave in such a fashion,” Sparky complained, almost starting off with another round of maxims before Locke chimed in.

  “So that’s why you picked a male avatar.” Locke nodded to himself as if he had suddenly realized something. Since he had so much fun teasing Sampson, he figured that he might as well poke at one of the others to make it even. “Makes sense. You wanted to protect people, but it’s only a man’s duty to protect others. Thanks for explaining that, Sparky. It all makes sense now.”

  “Your kind . . . merchants . . . they are good at twisting words, aren’t they, Shy?” Sparky looked over at Locke and studied him for a moment. “I’m good at twisting things, too.” She didn’t bother saying anything else. She just took her sword and ran it across the edge of her shield, twisting the blade as she did. “

  Locke cringed. I think get the picture. If I keep teasing you, you’re going to twist that sword into me? He made a mental note not to try and mess with Sparky in the future.

  “It still isn’t cool,” Reginald said, steering the conversation back on topic and being next in line to take issue with the Holy Alliance’s behavior. “You’d think that you would be on good terms if you work with someone, not mortal enemies. Right? Where would they get the idea that we were working for the Demons? That’s stupid. They’re just being plain idiots,” he vented.

  Locke found himself in an odd spot as they continued toward the city gates. He had specifically told Sampson that he didn’t want to trade with the Holy Alliance, though he never explained his reasons why, but did she know that his traveling companion had been a Demon during his trip back to town? It certainly seemed like the news had spread throughout the city and reached the Holy Alliance rather quickly, so who else already knew? Should he be more honest and forthcoming that he had agreed to do a favor for the Demon? Or would that jeopardize the entire trip?

  If I don’t say anything, the antipathy between them and the Holy Alliance will grow, and that will bring me that much closer to getting them to help the Demon Host without any issues. But if I do speak up and correct them, tell them that the Holy Alliance wasn’t actually that far away from the truth, it might set me all the way back to square one. How am I supposed to tell them that I really did approach the bridge with a Demon, was questioned about it by a guard whom I lied to about it and that I did a job for a Demon? That we’re actually on our way to do another one right now . . . How does this end up with them supporting me rather than preferring to take contracts with my enemies?

  The conflicted feelings welled up in him as he struggled over the moral dilemma. It would have been much easier to say nothing if he didn’t like the group, but because he liked them, he had even more incentive just to keep his mouth shut not to say anything.

  “Did you actually do it?” Katherine asked. She didn’t specify whom she was asking or what they might have actually done, but Locke knew it was for him. “They said you came into town with a Demon. Did you?” She put him on the spot before he had come to a solution about what to say--or not say.

  No, no, I didn’t. His instinct to just lie his way out of the problem was the first to spark up, but the answer sat in his throat unsaid as the group walked in silence for a dozen or so seconds. “Yeah, I did,” he answered, even as his instincts screamed at him to deny it.

  “I see,” Katherine said, and the group returned to silence.

  “It wasn’t the same one that killed us, was it?” Sparky asked this time. “Were you really consorting with the enemy?”

  “She walked me all the way to town,” Locke explained, coming clean about part of what had happened. As they approached the outer walls and the bri
dge leading out of town came into view, he felt a strange sense of calm. Even though this might very well end up bringing him way more trouble than remaining silent would, and despite the fact that every inclination he had was to lie his way out of it, he wanted to get it out in the open. “Not that she didn’t want to kill me, of course, but she just needed me to do something for her . . . to pass along a message. I didn’t realize that she couldn’t personally enter the town, so I’m guessing that was why she had me do it for her. Although, to be honest, I think she would have killed me on the spot otherwise.”

  “So you didn’t have a choice in the matter if you wanted to live?” Tubal fed him a question he could finally reply to without looking even worse.

  Well, technically, I’m not lying when I answer honestly. “Pretty much, and I’ll admit I abhor the idea of dying. I know it’s just a game, but my death in this game . . . that would feel real to me.”

  “You haven’t died yet?” Katherine asked, she and everyone else swiveling their heads to look at him in shock. “You made it all the way to the main island at level one without dying?”

  “Yep. I haven't ever experienced the big K.O. in Tiqpa yet. I’ve heard that it feels really close to what most people imagine dying feels like in real life, and I’m just afraid to bite the bullet.”

  “Wow, that’s impressive. Either way, don’t worry about coming to town with the Demon. There were clearly extenuating circumstances,” Tubal assured him. “We still got your back. It’s not like you two were partners.”

  We weren’t when we met, but . . . Locke repressed the urge to be any more forthcoming. He had already been honest enough to avoid the awful fate that happened on most TV shows when one member of a superhero group discovers another’s dark secret. ‘Oh no, the guy who literally wears a mask and does illegal vigilante stuff all the time didn’t tell one of his friends every tiny detail! Find out what happens next time on Drama Quest!’ Locke chuckled at the thought, but he was pretty guilty of behaving the same way at the moment. Cause I’m secretly a superhero, too! Captain Coward!

  “Yeah, and it’s not like Sampson is going to betray her master,” Reginald added before a swift strike of justice was once more delivered to the back of his head. “Hey! Cut it out, Sparky!”

  “It’s getting old. Stop teasing her about that,” Tubal said, even though he had been guilty of doing the exact same thing only a short time earlier in the bar.

  “Wait, this has been bugging me for a while. Is your name actually Sparky?” Locke asked the Dragon-Wing knight.

  “No,” she answered without elaborating at all.

  Locke wanted to push for more details, but he could see they had more pressing matters. In front of them, at the end of the bridge leading out of town, there was a band of people from the Holy Alliance group that they had just managed to evade outside of the Wench’s Best Bubbly Head. This group wasn’t nearly as large as the first, only consisting of roughly nine people, but given that their weapons were all drawn, and they were waiting outside the city limits in an area where everyone knew the guards would watch you die before lifting a hand to help, it was clear what their intentions were.

  “So last chance to hand me over to the dogs,” Locke offered, pulling out another bottle of poison.

  “Oh, don’t even act like you think we’d do that,” Sparky replied sarcastically as she pulled out her sword. “A knight will always protect a damsel in distress,” she added, drawing a laugh from the others at Locke’s expense.

  “You wanna try the same ‘poison cloud and run’ tactic?” Locke offered as a suggestion.

  “No, they’ll see it coming. It may have worked before, but they will be watching for it this time. Just give us some poison and take a back seat,” Tubal ordered. His tone of voice was more serious than Locke was used to hearing from him, and it was clear that he didn’t expect to be argued with. He readied a few more arrows and said, “We’ve been involved in PVP before, and I can tell just from looking at them . . . they’re green. Stephen could have helped them. He is a good fighter, but these are the type that spend all day mouthing off and no real time working. They’ll crumple once we push them against the ropes.”

  “You don’t want to try to talk your way out of the fight?” Locke once again tried to offer another suggestion to get away from the conflict, yet no one was taking it.

  Even as he asked, they were all busy applying the poison from the batch of bottles that he had given them earlier. Without so much as a warning and never even saying a single word, Sparky just charged in, directly attacking the waiting group. Reginald began casting something, Sampson rushed off behind Sparky, and all headed toward the enemies. Before Sparky was able to go more than twenty feet, Bianca and Katherine took to the skies. Tubal fired off a series of arrows at one of the Nymphs standing toward the backside of the group. Notch, fire. Notch, fire. His actions were smooth, and it was clear that it was a motion he had repeated countless times.

  “KB!” Tubal shouted, “You two pull up the left one. Sparky, you slam the one in the middle. Shy, you . . .” He let his sentence hang as he fired off another series of arrows.

  The opposing group, clearly not expecting the fight to break out so quickly, was a bit taken aback but still managed to respond almost as soon as it started. They had their own archers who responded with arrows aimed at Bianca and Katherine, who twisted and turned through the air to dodge them. They managed to evade most of the whizzing barbs, but one lucky shot clipped Bianca’s left wing and sent her spiraling toward the ground. Fortunately, she wasn’t close enough to any of the enemies for anyone to engage her on the ground, and she hadn’t gotten far enough in the air for the fall to do much damage.

  Well, that is their usual formation, Locke noted. He was trying to study their patterns to see if there was any way he could help them out or fit into it himself in the future. He didn’t mind picking flowers all the time, but if the fight with the Bishopotamus taught him anything, it was that there were going to be times when more than simple horticultural habits would be needed.

  “Crap, Locke, go get her back up on her feet!” Tubal shouted and nodded his head toward Bianca as it was already clear whom he was talking about. “We can’t spare Reginald for healing.”

  How do you know that I can heal? You realize how much this is going to cost me?! The thoughts whizzed through his head, but they didn’t slow him down as he jumped forward to assist the fallen Black-Wing.

  “Got it!” he yelled back as he pulled out a handful of spare potions and darted forward toward where Bianca had been downed. He was careful to keep an eye on Katherine as she zig-zagged by, whirling and twirling through the air in what looked like nothing less than a miracle, avoiding the hail of arrows from the opposing group’s two archers.

  Sparky and Sampson finally closed the gap. Right before they reached their respective targets, one of Reginald’s yellow shields appeared in front of Sparky, blocking two incoming sword attacks. Sparky slammed into the Dryad in front of her shield-first, knocking him sprawling off to the side.

  Sampson took the opportunity to pass by Sparky on her right, and she dropped her axe, flames and all, on an unprepared Nymph who had been standing just behind the fallen Dryad. The archer futilely tried to block the attack with her bow but was knocked off her feet and flat onto the ground in the process. Tendrils of fire left behind from Sampson’s blow ignited the wooden creature’s clothing for a moment, leaving behind smoldering embers. The first blow didn’t kill the Nymph, but Sampson wasn’t about to back off. The powerful Minotaur landed a solid kick into the Nymph’s chest as she tried to scramble to her feet, once again sending her back to the ground, and slammed down her axe down into her foe’s skull in brutal spectacle.

  Sparky sprang to life, warding off attacks from the side with the help of the yellow defensive spell and her own shield, and it didn’t take more than a moment for a few hard blows from Sampson to leave the Nymph well beyond dead. Sparky expertly maneuvered around Sampson,
rapidly throwing her sword and shield in the way of incoming blows as she defended against three melee attackers.

  The fight looked to be going smoothly from Locke’s perspective. Things had only just started, and the enemy had already lost one member. Bianca finished gulping down his red, would-be pots of potential gold, and her wing was almost completely healed up. After only a moment, she was ready to get back into the skirmish, returning their numbers to full force. Locke was beginning to think that this would be a cakewalk until, out of nowhere, aggressive roots the size of a small oak tree’s trunk shot out of the ground and stabbed toward Tubal.

  Tubal panicked, freezing on the spot for an instant, before dodging out of the way. “Crap, who is their caster?!” he asked, just as a fireball launched toward him.

  Locked followed the flaming projectile back to its source and found a White-Wing hovering in the air. He must have taken flight when the battle began and managed to remain unnoticed until now. Without even thinking, Locke intercepted the blast by throwing one of his poison bottles into its path, saving Tubal from a scorching hit. A poisonous cloud burst from the shattered bottle and hovered in the air above Tubal, Locke and Bianca, but it began dissipating as quickly as it was created.

  Locke scrutinized the enemy’s lines in an attempt try and see if he couldn’t spot who the root casting mage was. They have three Nymph archers, one of which is already dead. They have two Dryads and a Minotaur trying to kill Sampson and Sparky in a brutal melee, so it isn’t them. That White Wing in the air is clearly a fire-based caster, so he’s not the root user . . . That means it has to be one of the two people remaining. Both of their Humans are holding swords and shields . . . but they’re not fighting? Crap! They’re both casters! Locke realized. “It’s the Humans with shields!” he shouted to his team, not caring if the enemy overheard. “They’re both casters!” he explained. “They’re just holding that type of gear to distract you!”