by Charles Dean
Lee was a bit slower in making a move for his weapon, but it didn’t matter. The fight was already over as far as he was concerned. It had been done with the moment Miller arrived with reinforcements. He grabbed ahold of his sword and turned back to the mentally-unsound captain just as a spear ripped through her right knee, causing her to scream out in pain.
Just like he promised, Lee thought, remembering the second and third pages of the letter that Miller had written. Lee turned to survey the rest of the fight, a privilege he hadn’t had when he was focused on staying alive earlier, only to see that his small band of Humans had managed to hold. There was only one dead redshirt, and almost everyone else was sporting one wound or another. The blacksmith was cut up really badly, his hand covered in blood and the glass sword Lee had issued him shattered about his feet--but he was still alive for the moment. He was desperately trying to stop a Firbolg from crossing the barricade, and in such horrible shape, it was obviously a losing battle.
Lee panicked over the prospect of losing someone so valuable, and he was in motion even before his brain caught up with what his body was doing. But he didn’t even make it to the man before a series of arrow rained down into the Firbolg. Ling’s work was fast, her aim was accurate, and the aggressing Firbolg died before he even knew what happened.
Your party has killed Adham. Your party has been awarded 20 silver, 40 copper, a high-quality leather belt and 789 Experience. Your share of this is 5 silver, 10 copper and 197 Experience.
Ling, Amber and three archers began to finish off the rest of the guards, and Lee turned back to the captain. She was in screaming pain as she tried to claw her way toward the prison across the ground. A spear had ripped a hole in her knee so large that everything on that leg from her shin down was only held in place by the skin around the hole.
“Miller, why aren’t you using drunken shout?” Lee asked, feeling a little sick as he watched the sight. Just die already! Lee walked over to her with his sword in hand, ready to finish the job before Miller could torture her anymore.
“No! She needs to feel it all! She tried to break my family. She tried to take those I care about! She needs to feel every single bit of this!” Miller yelled. He closed the distance with a large leap over three corpses and then, without even missing a beat, he took a new spear and stabbed it hard and deep into her remaining knee before stepping on her shin, twisting the spear around and severing her leg at the joint.
“Miller, we’ve won. You don’t need to do this. It isn’t justice. It’s vengeance.”
“Justice is vengeance,” Miller said flatly as looked back at Lee. “Those who commit evil, those who do wrong for selfish reasons or aid in the vile and wicked actions of others, cannot be tolerated. We must teach them. We must teach them to their very bones!” Miller paused, lifted his spear and then shouted as he stabbed down and into her lower spinal column, somewhere around the middle of her lumbar area. “This is Lady Justice. This is her vengeance meant to educate anyone who watches about what will happen to all those who dare defile her name!”
Lee had been elated to see his friend only moments ago, but he now felt a ball of indescribable discomfort make its way down his throat and into his stomach. “Miller, finish the job. We need to be out of here.”
Miller shot Lee a look that, even after spending nearly all day with the man for a week, he had never seen before. He thought that Miller was going to put up an argument, but the Firbolg just grunted before taking out a sword and kicking her in the side with so much force that she was flipped over onto her back. Even if the previously-tough commander had been the worst person Lee had met in all of Kirshtein, her agonized screams were tough to bear as Miller cut her open from sternum to waist.
“No,” Miller said, stopping Lee as he readied his own sword for a quick finishing blow. “This won’t take more than a second.”
How many hit points does she have left? Lee watched as Miller planted a foot against her upper chest, bent over, and shoved his arm into the cavity he had just created. He retracted his blood-soaked hand a moment later, her heart clenched in his fist.
“Done,” Miller said emotionlessly. “We can go now.”
Your party has killed Delilah, Captain of the Kirshtein Guard. Your party has been awarded 5 gold, 20 silver, 88 copper, a high-quality crossbow, 9 crossbow bolts, a studded leather collar and 1800 Experience. Your share of this is 1 gold, 5 silver, 22 copper and 450 Experience.
Lee wanted to leave, and he wanted to talk to Miller about what was simply just right or wrong and what taking something too far meant, but he knew he couldn’t leave things as they were. One glance at this scene and anyone who had previously been on his side in the colosseum would change their tune. Crushed limbs, opened intestines, arrows pierced through skulls and pools of blood--it was a public relations nightmare.
Your party has killed Llewelyn. Your party has been awarded 15 silver, 42 copper, a good-quality spear and 721 Experience. Your share of this is 4 silver, 11 copper and 180 Experience.
Your party has killed Meaghan. Your party has been awarded 17 silver, 16 copper, well-polished iron greaves and 775 Experience. Your share of this is 4 silver, 22 copper and 194 Experience.
The death notifications kept flooding in. Amber and Ling had each finished off a half-dozen stragglers, adding to the carnage. “No, now we can’t,” Lee said, shaking his head. “Grab the bodies. All of them. We might have to kill the guard at the gate, but we can’t leave these here.” If someone sees this in the morning, we’ll go from the heroes of the colosseum, the magic men of yesterday, to the haunting horrors of tomorrow.
Dave just looked at the scene and nodded. “That’s probably for the best,” he said, grabbing three bodies in one quick motion and tossing them over his shoulder. “Just lead the way.”
Lee didn’t want to have to deal with any further corpse desecration from his buddy, so he grabbed the captain’s body and tossed it over his own shoulder before starting to head out of town. While Lee had been preoccupied that day with leveling and crafting, his golems had been in touch with Connacht’s man. One of the letters that the prince had sent during the most recent of the clandestine hand-offs to Little Ethan included a small map with a meeting location, so he didn’t have to worry about where they were going. When they reached the gate where Connacht had told them to meet, he found the prince along with fifty soldiers there waiting for him, each holding a crossbow pointed at Lee’s group.
“Sorry about my people here, my friend,” the prince said as he raised a hand, signaling for the crossbowmen to stand down. “I have to take precautions. I’m sure you understand.”
Lee blinked. Is this a betrayal? “Did you fulfill your side of the deal?” Not knowing whether he would be turned into a pincushion before a fight broke out, Lee decided to act under the assumption that the prince was just being paranoid. After all, with Miller’s group included, there were over thirty trained killers in front of Connacht, and several were very highly-skilled people from a separate faction.
“Indeed. Everything has been completed perfectly, and you will find my preparations quite satisfactory,” Connacht said, inspecting the men behind Lee with so much concentration that it was obvious the prince was studying them in detail.
Lee felt relief wash over him. That’s not the look of a man sizing up his enemy. No, it’s the look of a man unboxing a new toy. He’s trying to see what he bought. Lee didn’t know how he was able to tell that subtle difference, as he normally couldn’t read a person’s face if it were spelled out in size forty-two font and he was ten inches away before his first venture into this realm, but now he could. Perhaps it’s the Intelligence or the Charisma or just the continued use of my Deceit stat. All of those either require me to read a person’s face or give me a bigger brain to do so.
Connacht’s smile grew as he pulled out two scrolls and handed them to Lee. “If this is the end of our transaction, I suggest you get moving. If your plan is to go well, then you don’t have much
time to waste. I’ll take care of these men for you. You don’t need to wait around and see to it.”
Lee turned back to the trusty crew that had gotten him this far. “Brothers,” Lee said, pausing for a moment to collect his thoughts, “it’s been fun. Stay safe, and if you ever need to, make a trip to Satterfield to drink with us after the war.”
“The war?” one of the crossbowmen asked, and then his eyes widened with fear. It was clear from that look that Connacht’s men were disciplined and that speaking out of turn wasn’t allowed.
The prince looked over at him, giving the man a dead-eyed stare for a moment, before turning back to Lee. “Godspeed, my friend. Godspeed.”
Lee nodded and then took off through the exit the prince had prepared along with the people from Satterfield, Dave and Pelham. He could see Connacht’s displeasure the second Dave and Pelham moved to join Lee as they passed by, but he chose not to comment since he already knew the conversation would bear no fruit. Sometimes, it really is just better to ignore the problem. Lee laughed to himself, drawing a look of confusion from Amber and Ling. Especially when the conversation would end up treating talent like tools right in front of said talent.
The group didn’t make it more than twenty feet past being out of eyeshot before Lee was struck in the back by a tackling hug that sent him flying forward. He hadn’t been anticipating the embrace at all, so when it hit him as hard as it did, he could do little other than reach out and hope to catch himself.
“What in the heck?” Lee asked, peering through a golem’s eyes to find out who had attacked him. He had expected it to be Amber, but it was actually Ling.
“You big freaking idiot!” she scolded from atop his back. “How could you let yourself be captured so easily? And why would you stay in there so long? Don’t worry me like that!” She squeezed him tightly as Lee used his stat-enhanced strength to push away from the ground push-up-style and avoid eating a face full of gravel.
“I didn’t really have--”
“Don’t you try that! I know you! You could have figured something out. You could have seen it coming. You were stupid! You were incompetent! You were careless! You were . . . Just don’t do that again!” Ling exclaimed, still hugging onto Lee’s back. Lee looked over with his head to see Amber just staring at him, her eyes watering.
Yeah, I guess it was difficult for them. After everything they went through in Satterfield, they had to watch as someone they cared about was taken away again. Lee slowly stood up, his Ling hug add-on still installed. He didn’t know why, but he was slightly disappointed that it wasn’t Amber. He shook the feeling off as soon as it manifested and looked over at Miller, but the Firbolg remained silent. He seemed to still be mad. His face was so flushed with blood it matched Lee’s hair, and he seemed to be oblivious to the entire world as he stared ahead, ignoring the horseplay right next to him.
Amber blinked a few times when Lee looked over at her, and she pursed her lips as if she was considering saying something, but she remained silent.
“You okay?” Lee asked, ignoring the angrily huffing Firbolg between them.
“Yeah,” Amber answered, swallowing hard. “I knew you’d be back. I knew you’d be okay. I knew you’d be safe. I knew it even if the others worried because . . . because you had to be. You couldn't leave. You’re the one who will keep us all safe, so you’d have to come back to do it. That’s why I didn’t cry then, and I won’t act relieved now.”
Huh? Lee blinked in confusion. He had no idea what she was talking about or why that was the answer to a simple question. “I just meant that your eyes are watering, and I thought you might have had something in them.”
“I don’t. They aren’t,” Amber said tersely, turning her head away and then doing the most awkward and awful hide-the-tear wipe Lee had seen since his friend Wolfe got dumped in middle school by his first crush right before class started.
“It’s fine. I was pretty torn up and worried about you guys too,” Lee said, walking over and putting an arm around Amber as he talked. “You people are my family, and it was really hard to spend a night without you--especially with the beds they have in prison.”
“I said I was fine!” Amber let out the weakest-willed and softest-voiced shout Lee had heard as a protest. “I said I was fine,” she repeated, even softer than before. “I didn’t . . . I didn’t cry. I didn’t break down. I held it together until you got back. I kept everything you gave me safe. I knew you’d be back.”
“She’s lying. She cried,” Ling said, snitching on their mutual friend as she hopped off Lee’s back and dusted herself off.
“Hey, it’s okay. You don’t have to be tough. I’m here for you again.” Lee gave Amber a half-hearted smile as the left side of his mouth hooked up slightly. “I’m just so happy to see you again,” he said, reaching out to hug her. She shrank away at first, pulling away from him, but then quickly reversed direction and pressed into him and hooked onto his clothes as she started sobbing.
Miller turned and gave Lee and Amber a look of disgruntled frustration.
Lee wrapped her up in his arms like a snug, miniature burrito, and covered as much of her back as he could while holding her tightly against him and allowing her to cry into his chest. He didn’t understand her reaction at first, but then it slowly dawned on him. She was used to people being taken away from her. Friends and family had been ripped away with no hope of her ever seeing them again. That was the cold truth about her time in captivity and her life in Satterfield before Lee showed up. Her instinct was to put her head down, pretend like nothing was wrong and tolerate or adapt. That way of life in response to the unthinkable had probably been beaten into her harder than Lee could imagine.
“There’s nothing wrong or weak with being sad when someone is taken from you,” Lee said gently, running one of his arms up her back to pat her head as he held her. “It’s natural, and it’s good to get this off your chest. It’s okay,” he said, patting her head again. “It’s okay.”
Amber didn’t say much in return. She just sobbed for a few minutes with Ling standing behind her and then, after collecting herself, she straightened up, dried off her eyes and nose on Lee’s chest armor and then took Lee’s hand in her own.
Yeah, I can see her going a little crazy. Lee glanced over at Ling, remembering what she had said about Amber in her letters. She must have kept all of her emotions bottled up and stacked them all aside for later. Other than tackling him with a hug that lasted longer than the normal friendship hugs allowed, Ling was the only one of the three people in his inner circle who seemed to be collected. Miller was outwardly composed, not bothering to say anything or give anyone a hard time, but it was evident from the expression on his face and his actions earlier that he hadn’t taken Lee’s capture that well either.
Lee felt touched. He had friends in the real world who would show up at the hospital when he got hurt, but none of them had shed tears for him. His family hadn’t even really cried when he had been stabbed and was close to death. With those things in mind, he was saddened by what he had to do. He turned to look back at the other members from Satterfield that had come to the fight, and he couldn’t help but feel a sinking pit in his stomach. They had each shown more emotion than his own family, and they had known him for such a short time.
They actually care about me. They care about me in a way that I haven’t really known before in the other world. Sure, my mom loves me, and my dad loves me, but they don’t even call or visit much, and we barely speak to each other. I went two days without seeing these bastards, and they’re killing me with the emotions. What the hell? They should be used to losing people, so why do they have to do this to me? Lee sighed heavily as he swallowed down the ball of regret.
He knew what he was going to do, and he knew the consequences it would bring. He looked at the group of people who honestly and openly cared about him, and it made him want to call off his plan. He wanted to pack up his bags and go home. His actions and the plan that he had put
together and used Connacht’s info to verify would inevitably lead to at least one death. He could lose half or even all of them. Other people would be the ones to deliver the blows, and other people would be the ones to take their lives, but he was the one setting it all in motion. Each step he took toward a potential victory would, without fail, guarantee death. He was the one pulling the proverbial trigger, and everyone else was just the hopeless bullets leaving the gun’s chamber.
Chapter 10
Name: Lee
Race: Human
Class: Herald - None
Level: 23
Health: 330/330
EXP: 5281/25500
Primary Stats:
Power 33 (34)
Toughness 33 (34)
Spirit 33 (34)
Secondary Stats:
Charisma 20
Courage 20
Deceit 19
Intelligence 152 (159)
Honor 5
Faith 787
Personal Faith 245
Skills:
Unarmed Combat Initiate Level 7
Swordplay Novice Level 7
Sneak Journeyman Level 1
Cooking Initiate Level 7
Trap Detection Initiate Level 6
Knife Combat Initiate Level 8
Mental Fortitude Initiate Level 1
Sleight of Hand Initiate Level 3
Blood Shield Initiate Level 2
Glass Smithing Initiate Level 6
Divine Skills:
Golem Sculpting Journeyman Level 1
Appreciative Drunk Novice Level 8
Nectar of the Gods Initiate Level 2
Spirit Smithing Initiate Level 3
Faith Healing
Divinity Powers:
Life in Death
Titles:
Cheat Code Fighter
The group managed to make it fifteen miles before the sun cracked across the sky in the morning. They started in the middle of the night, and while their trip was slowed down by constant fights as they hacked up every monster, creature and critter they came across for EXP, but the pace at which they moved between skirmishes was fast enough to make up that difference. The EXP was split in half since the reserves, Miller’s First Order of Lee, would take on half of what was available while Miller, Lee, Amber and Ling took on the other.