“Not that I’ve seen yet,” Roark admitted.
“That’d be the way to do it,” the old man continued, staring off into the middle distance. “In the arena, if I was up against somethin’ too big to defeat alone, I’d get an opponent to team up. At least ’til we killed the bigger threat. Then we’d go back to choppin’ one another in half when it was dead.”
The first opponents to come to Roark’s mind were the Trolls of the lower floors. But outside of them accepting the Feet of Clay quest, there was no way to use them against Azibek. Really, could they even be considered his opponents? Some of them might be loyal to the Dungeon Lord, but for the most part they were just following orders because they were expected to. No, a true opponent was someone who could think for themselves. Someone who wouldn’t give up after one failed assassination attempt—or a dozen.
Someone like PwnrBwner_OG.
Roark grinned.
“Griff, you’re a bloody genius. I should’ve asked you the day you joined the citadel, but would you consider becoming my Greater Vassal? There aren’t many inherent benefits, but I’ll double your share of what’s looted and forge you—”
“I’m a simple man, Griefer. I got a roof over my head, three square meals a day, all the fights my old bones can handle, and more gold comin’ in than a simple man knows what to do with. But I can tell you what I don’t have.”
“Name it,” Roark said. “If it’s within my power, I’ll get it for you.” The Lyuko traveler in his blood railed at the idea of leaving an offer so open-ended, but he needed Griff on his side.
“A day’s gonna come when you’re done here, when you decide it’s time to pick up and leave,” Griff said. “And I want to come with you. See what else there is.”
Roark hesitated. “I don’t know if that’s something I’ll be able to do. The magick that got me here is finicky and dangerous. And even if I could bring you along, where I’m going, every death is forever-death.”
“At my age, death and danger ain’t that much of a deterrent. The only thing that looks really bad once all your old friends and light-o’-loves are gone is livin’ forever. Remember what I said about the price of bein’ alone?”
“When I do go back to my home world, it will be to do the same thing I’ve been doing here,” Roark said. “Fighting a war to kill a tyrant.”
Griff shrugged. “I’ve fought for gold and fame and glory. Freein’ the oppressed seems as good a reason as any of those. Better even.”
Roark shook his head. He had to disabuse the grizzled trainer of any notions he might have of altruistic motives.
“I’m not in this for noble reasons,” he said. “It’s entirely self-centered. I want to see a tyrant pay for what he’s done, but more than that, for the things he took from me. If I live long enough to do that, I don’t have any illusions about his underlings letting me survive. It’s not something I want to drag anyone else into.”
Griff sheathed his repaired short sword and rested one hand on the hilt.
“You said to name my price, and I named it,” the old man said stubbornly. “You’re welcome to argue as long as you feel like, but I won’t change my mind and I won’t negotiate. If you promise to do everything within your power to take me along when you go, then I’ll be happy to become your Greater Vassal.”
The arena veteran held out a calloused hand crisscrossed with old scars to seal the agreement.
“Fine,” Roark said. He took it. “I promise.”
“Then I accept your offer,” Griff said.
Through the leather armor on Roark’s chest, the World Stone pendant turned ice-cold. Tawny light flared from the stone and from inside his palm. When he let go of Griff’s hand, the glowing imprint of his hand remained for several seconds before disappearing.
“That’s it?” Griff asked, looking down at himself skeptically. “I don’t feel any different.”
“Maybe you will after your first act as a Greater Vassal,” Roark said. “I need you to get all the floor Overseers together. I have a plan to kill Azibek, but we need to act fast.”
THIRTY-EIGHT:
Death Wish
When Kaz respawned, Roark and Zyra were waiting for him in the kitchen, both because they knew it was the first place the Brute Thursr would go and to fill the growling holes in their stomachs.
As soon as Kaz saw Roark, his blocky face broke out in a huge grin, and he raced across the room. In his Defiler form, Roark was the same height as the Brute Thursr, but Kaz was as wide as a barn, every inch of it muscle, and he had no trouble at all scooping the leaner Roark up into a rib-cracking, wing-crushing hug.
“Roark survived! He showed those Azibek loyalists the futility of attacking the future Dungeon Lord,” he said ecstatically. “Kaz was worried that stopping the ice javelin wouldn’t be enough.”
“No, mate, you saved the day again.” Roark slapped Kaz on his beefy shoulder as the Behemoth Thursr set him back on the floor. “I don’t know how I would ever get any leveling done without you.”
Kaz beamed like the sun at noonday.
“Best sit down.” Mai bustled over with a bowl of stew and plopped it on the rough-hewn table in front of Kaz. “You’re like to be exhausted what with respawning and all. I’ll just get you a loaf of bread to go with.”
“Kaz would never say no to Mai’s bread.” The Behemoth Thursr winked one eye so visibly that his whole head moved. “Kaz would have six or seven loaves a day if he could.”
Mai’s cheeks flushed and she giggled as if he’d said something exceptionally funny.
“Well, now, be careful what you wish for,” she said, tweaking his nose. “I just so happen to know a few herbs that can help with that, I do.”
Now Kaz was the one laughing, his big shoulders shaking as he watched the buxom cook wander off to get that bread.
From the corner of his eye, Roark caught Zyra pretending to vomit. He bit back a smirk, but only just.
“Listen, Kaz,” he said, turning on the bench to face his friend. “While you were gone, I picked up a couple new books for you. Skill tomes to level up your Cartography.”
Roark dropped the pair of them onto the table.
“Why Cartography?” Kaz asked, cocking his huge head to the side. “Could Roark not find any cookbooks? Kaz loves reading cookbooks, and one of them might have contained the secrets of chocolate orchid bean pods.”
“Bean pods aren’t vital to taking down Azibek.” Roark pushed the books closer to Kaz. “I need you to read these and level up your mapmaking. I’ve got an important mission that only you can carry out for us. Whether we win or lose this war is about to depend in large part on your Cartography Trade Skill.”
“What will Kaz do?” he asked.
“Read first, then I’ll let you in on it.”
Kaz frowned, fat fingers drumming on the tabletop. “Fine.”
Roark had plenty of time to help himself to a second bowl of stew while the Brute Thursr pored over the Cartography tomes. Kaz fidgeted quite a bit while he read, shaking his tree-trunk-sized leg under the table, flicking the page corners, and taking deep breaths only to sigh them out again moments later.
The smallest noises served as excuses for the Behemoth Thursr to look away from the text. If Mai set a jar of sugar down or one of the Troll apprentice chefs scraped the side of the pot while stirring, Kaz had to find the source of the noise and go inspect it. Roark and Zyra took turns dragging him back to his seat. And more than once, Kaz happened to glance up at just the right time to see Mai glancing his way. Though he didn’t leave his seat those times, getting the Behemoth refocused after those saccharine eyelash-batting contests was almost enough to shatter Roark’s patience. Eventually, he had to ask the apprentices and the young widow if they could leave the kitchens for a bit and stationed Zyra at the door to keep any would-be passersby out.
Finally, Kaz slammed the last book shut. “Kaz is finished, and he leveled up his Cartography two times!”
“Excellent job, mate,” Roark said, coming b
ack to the table and dropping into the seat beside the Troll. “Now that you’ve raised your Cartography to level 3, I need you to go down and have a look at Azibek’s floors. You’re going to make a map of every shortcut and back door. When Zyra took us down to meet Azibek after I became the first-floor Overseer, there was a secret passage that let us bypass the bulk of Azibek’s Keep and let out directly into his throne room. I’m sure he’s moved it, so I need you to find where he’s put the new one.”
Kaz’s onyx eyes widened to twice their regular size. “But every Troll in the citadel must know that Kaz is loyal only to Roark.”
“We’re going to change their minds about that by taking a page from the Dungeon Lord’s book,” Roark said. “Kaz, I need you to kill me.”
The Behemoth Thursr stood up so hard and fast that the oak bench flipped over backward. Only Jotnar-fast reflexes saved Roark from spilling unceremoniously onto the floor.
“Never!” Kaz thundered, his deep voice booming off the walls of the kitchen. “Kaz would never!”
“You have to, mate. If you kill me, you’ll complete Azibek’s Momento Mori quest, gaining Experience, gold, and his Lingering Blessing—”
“Blood rewards!” Kaz spat as if the words burnt his tongue. “Kaz doesn’t want them! Kaz wouldn’t touch them!”
“It’s the only way,” Roark insisted. “I need those maps to defeat him, Kaz, and you need the quest complete to get down there and back without getting killed. I’m counting on you.”
“But why Kaz?” the softhearted Brute whined, wringing his hands. “Why not Zyra? Zyra loves killing things.”
“True as that is, an assassin is the first Troll they’d suspect of deceit,” Zyra said. “We spend our whole existence perfecting the art of treachery. No one would ever suspect you, though, big guy. You’re too …”
Roark glared at her.
“I was going to say open,” she said. She reached inside her hood, cupping her chin. “Though good or honest both seem apt as well. You’re not paranoid enough to watch the allied troops for signs of skullduggery while Roark’s respawning. Or heartless enough to punish the ones you catch as harshly as they deserve.”
Roark turned back to Kaz.
“Even if you were and we could send Zyra, she doesn’t have the Cartography skill. It’s got to be you.”
“But even if Kaz kills Roark, they will not believe. They will know it is a ruse. What will Kaz tell them when they ask about such terrible treachery?”
“Easy,” Roark shot back. He’d known this objection would come up and had already thought of an excuse. “When they ask why you turned coat, you can tell them it’s because I passed you over and gave the first-floor Overseer position to someone else. You felt slighted. That is a motivation any Troll could understand.”
Kaz let out a low whimper and grabbed his face with both hands. Beneath the coarse hair covering his indigo skin, he looked ashen.
“Come on,” Roark said. “We’ll do it down in the tunnels during the next attack Azibek sends up, that way you’ll have plenty of witnesses to defection.”
“But—but—but Roark is Kaz’s best friend!”
Roark lowered his voice and leaned closer to the Brute. “That’s why I’m asking you, Kaz. I can’t trust anybody else with this.”
Zyra stepped up beside Kaz and rested a hand on his broad arm. “If it makes you feel any better, big guy, I can poison him before you start so he’ll die faster.”
Roark smiled thanks at her from just outside Kaz’s vision.
“I’ll respawn in no time, Kaz. You’ll see.”
The Behemoth Thursr trembled and spluttered, but finally his expansive shoulders slumped and he hung his massive head in defeat. Fat tears spilled from his black eyes and rolled down his cheeks.
“Fine. Kaz will do it.” His voice was ragged as broken glass. He scrubbed at his cheek with the back of one huge hand and sniffled. “Kaz will kill his best friend.”
THIRTY-NINE:
Dreams and Nightmares
Roark spent the next few hours in the maze of tunnels closest to the fifth floor, waiting for the next attack from below. He could hardly drag a word out of Kaz now that the Behemoth had agreed to go along with the plan. Zyra, on the other hand, seemed a little too cheerful. Roark couldn’t decide whether this was because the Dread Reaver liked the idea of turning Azibek’s strategy around on him or because she was excited to watch Roark get murdered. Mac was nowhere to be seen. Roark had specifically sent the Turtle Dragon up to the third floor with Grozka, knowing the bloodthirsty beast wouldn’t hold back if he saw Roark attacked.
Finally, the whoomph of a fiery explosion and shouts of pain let them know that an enemy Troll had found the pressure plate just ahead. In a moment, Azibek’s supporters would round the corner and be right on top of them.
“Shall we?” Zyra said, fiddling with the leather wrappings around her hands and wrists. Roark knew she was exposing the stickdeath needles in the palm of her hand, readying them to administer the poison to Roark before Kaz turned on him.
Roark snuck a glance at the sick-looking Behemoth Thursr at his side. Kaz’s hands shook as he pulled out his Obsidian Natagamas of the Rage Blackout and turned to face Roark.
The Enchanted blades shimmered with a fiery red not reflected from any light source in the tunnels. Respawn or not, Roark’s heart sped up at the thought of being chopped to death beneath those curved blades. The smith in him knew that they had been perfectly built to provide all the force of an axe swing at only half the weight. In addition to cleaving his muscle, they would crack the bone beneath. Which was to say nothing of the additional burning and freezing damage he’d imbued them with.
Azibek’s troops rushed around the corner, giving a floor-shaking battle cry when they saw Roark, Kaz, and Zyra ahead.
Roark pulled his rapier and dagger, setting himself into a modified seconda guard, a defensive stance, as if there were nothing on his mind but repelling the enemy forces. If any of those enemy forces took the time to look closer, however, Roark hoped they would take the tension in his shoulders to be fear of the battle rather than anticipation of a scythe to the back.
A spring-loaded spear trap slowed a few of them down, but the rest fought their way through.
“Now or never,” Roark said to Zyra.
The hooded Dread Reaver nodded, then raked her palm down Roark’s forearm, giving his hand a squeeze before crouching and disappearing into a puff of inky black smoke. Roark couldn’t tell whether the sudden warmth he felt was an effect of the poison or Zyra’s silent gesture of reassurance.
His filigreed Health vial flashed green.
[You have been Poisoned!
Initial Damage: -50% Health
Damage Over Time: -16 HP/sec for 2 minutes
Drink an Antidote to stop the effects.]
Time seemed to slow. Sweat broke out across Roark’s forehead and dripped into his eyes. The tearing and prickling of a million tiny thorns ripped through his veins as the poison spread in time with the stuttering of his heart.
Just ahead, Zyra laid into the leading Troll, a Thursr Knight, dancing in and out of puffs of smoke and slowing their charge.
“Now, Kaz,” Roark hissed without looking back at his friend.
The barest hint of a whimper escaped Kaz’s throat, almost lost in the chaos of the battle raging around them.
“Come on,” Roark said. His muscles felt tight enough to snap. “Before Zyra dies, too. She’s counting on you, Kaz. We both are.”
A scream equal parts anguish and fury tore free of Kaz. The sound made the hairs on the back of Roark’s neck stand up. He tried not to brace himself for the blow, but couldn’t help it.
The first natagama landed like a meat cleaver in a hog leg. Roark’s knees buckled and his left arm dropped to his side, limp, as the blade sheared through his left wing with pitiful ease, cracked his shoulder blade, and snapped his clavicle. White-hot agony radiated out from the wound, and a generous portion of the poiso
ned green liquid in his Health vial drained away. A notice that he couldn’t use his left hand for two-handed spells or weapons appeared, but Roark dismissed it without reading.
Thankfully now that Kaz was committed to this course of action, the Behemoth Thursr didn’t falter. The second blow chopped into the back of Roark’s neck, followed in quick succession by a third, fourth, and fifth. The pain was enormous, narrowing Roark’s vision down to a claustrophobic shaft of blurry images, but he forced himself to turn around as if to fight back. This was vital to convincing Azibek’s troops that the assassination was real.
Roark lunged inside Kaz’s measure, swinging his rapier in his favored dalla spalla attacks, all from the shoulder. One of the slices landed—Roark felt the resistance of flesh—but Kaz avoided the rest and continued to carve away at Roark with his dual natagamas.
As the strikes drank up his Health, Roark watched the blood fly from Kaz’s curved blades with detached fascination. Soon, his filigreed vial was flashing out a warning. Roark spun into a clumsy version of the Off-Hand Combo, nearly tripping over his own numb feet. Somehow, he managed to plant his Kaiken Dagger in Kaz’s thigh as he fell.
With a huge overhand arc, Kaz’s curved blade chopped into Roark’s skull just over his right ear. Roark felt himself tumble across the floor, his arms and legs flailing in an undignified flouting of basic physics, then blackness closed in. As he died, it occurred to him that he’d lost count of how many times this made.
Unknown ages later, Roark heard the driving war music of a Hearthworld death swell around him. Then suddenly, it wavered and faded into nothingness.
Light and heat flooded his senses, but instead of the usual Infernali and Malaika battling through the skies above the volcano, he found himself staring into a burning city. Flames consumed the brightly colored houses and shop fronts as heavily armored Ustars swept through the streets, putting to bloody death the panicked citizens.
Korvo.
His home was burning. His people were being butchered. And all he could do was look on as they died, without a physical form to fight back or even a voice to scream in frustration.
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