by Eric Nylund
—and finally,
Congratulations!
You may now effectively use tier-4 mounts in combat.
Bingo!
I clutched the spear tighter and tapped the butt end to Auntie Brown’s flank
“Flatten ’em,” I yelled to her. “Flatten them all!”
CHAPTER 40
Auntie Brown gruffed and stomped, seeming to understand, if not my actual words, then at least my bloodthirsty tone.
The herd shook their heads and snorted agreements—then kicked and slashed their horns back-and-forth with new abandon.
The assassins backed off.
As if hearing a silent starting gun, the buffalo collectively scrabbled and sprang into motion: more than thirty tons of lean muscle that tore up the floorboards.
The acceleration whiplashed my head back.
Wait. Where was Morgana? And Elmac? They’d be stomped into paste.
None of the beasts would be looking out for one snake or dwarf among the wreckage and piles of broken furniture and bodies. Even with my improved Ride expertise, I wouldn’t be able to stop their combat run now. We were committed.
The eleven buffalo plowed a swath through our enemies. Nothing stopped them.
I spotted Elmac smack in our path.
His eyes widened as death raced toward him. He stepped left, right—unsure which way, or if there was a way, to escape.
I squeezed Auntie Brown’s flank with one knee, urging her a bit to the left.
She obliged.
I tossed my spear at an assassin near Elmac.
The assassin dodged—directly in front of the buffalo on my flank—and fell under her hooves with a brief succession of snaps and pops.
I clutched Auntie Brown’s ruff with one hand, leaned over, and reached for Elmac.
He jumped.
I caught him and swung him up.
He landed behind me (albeit facing backward).
“Morgana be outside,” he yelled.
Had she known the scale of carnage she’d unleash when she’d cast her druidical call-for-help spell?
I looked up—just in time to see the western wall dead ahead.
The buffalo didn’t blink or miss a step as they plunged straight at it.
I ducked.
Correction: they didn’t plunge at the wall. They went through it.
They might as well have passed through layers of cardboard—timbers and boards and stucco blasted out—and we were then galloping into the night.
I signaled my mount to halt, but unlike the stampede’s sudden start, hitting the brakes took a good hundred and fifty feet.
The herd followed my lead, though, slowed to a trot, and we wheeled about.
The Waypoint Inn creaked, listed to one side… then the other.
Two of the building’s walls had been smashed to smithereens.
I spotted some of the Silent Syndicate assassins inside. A few helped their wounded comrades; others made a hasty exit into the grasslands; but most of them stood, dazed… not quite grasping what had just hit them.
Apparently, even die-hard professional killers hadn’t trained to fight a herd of charging buffalo inside a bar.
The second and third floors of the inn were partially collapsed and shifted as I watched. I swore I spotted a figure there, a silhouette of ebon black against the ordinary dark of the night.
Yamina? Or my imagination?
I caught a glimpse of two indigo eyes that narrowed at me with smoldering hatred.
I returned the sentiment… but she was already gone.
I heard rustling in the tall grass.
I tensed, readied Shé liàn, and nudged Elmac.
Auntie Brown took note of the sound, ears flicking forward, but she merely sighed.
The rustling ceased. The shadows in the grass compressed… stood… and Morgana vaulted onto the back of Mother next to me.
“Brilliant,” she said, straightening the collar of her leather armor. She patted Mother’s neck and murmured reassuring noises to the beast. “Glad you made it out all right.”
Elmac cleared his throat. “What ’bout the other folk, the staff, cooks and such?”
“I looked,” she whispered. “The Syndicate, what they did to all of them…” Morgana couldn’t finish and shook her head.
“Maybe not all of them,” I said.
Yamina had told me she’d kept Sadie and a few others alive. I wasn’t sure I believed that, though.
Professional assassins. They were nothing more than butchers.
The adrenaline raging in my blood cooled and distilled to a refined desire to show these murderers exactly what killing was all about.
I nudged Auntie Brown to head back toward the inn.
She tossed her head—maybe thinking the same thing I was: When you wounded a pack of hyenas, you finished the job so they couldn’t come back.
Auntie started to trot.
The other buffalo snorted and pawed the earth, and then followed her, building speed, heads and horns lowered.
Elmac gripped me with one hand, and in the other appeared his battle axe. “Aye, let’s be sending these devils to hell.”
Morgana atop Mother galloped alongside me.
I leaned forward.
Auntie Brown went faster still, tearing up yards of sod with each stride, leading the herd in a wide arc… as we lined up and charged toward the inn’s intact northern wall.
Elmac screamed directly into my ear: “Waaaaghhh!”
I flattened.
Held tight.
And we hit.
The wall didn’t stand a chance.
Board and beam shattered into toothpicks—exploding inwards, sending wood shrapnel into what was left of the Silent Syndicate assassins.
I heard but a split-second of screaming—but that was then drowned out by the crashing of hooves and rolling destruction that washed over the villains.
To their credit, some of the assassins did react in time and raised weapons, but it made no difference as the First Grassland Cavalry slammed into them.
It took less than two jackhammer heartbeats to crash and churn through the wreckage and then we faced the last untouched wall.
Once more came the gunshot retort of demolished wood, the grinding rumble of hearthstones and chimney—and we were running once more in the cool night air.
The buffalo bellowed with bloodlust and rage and grief for their fallen comrade.
I managed to slow Auntie Brown, and then turned to behold our violent handiwork.
The Wayfar Waypoint Inn stood still, its four corners intact… but the remainder of the first floor had been leveled. Not a single window of the three stories was unbroken.
The staircase and half the second floor collapsed.
The whole building then swayed
…and in slow motion twisted.
Cries arose inside from the few assassins who had miraculously survived.
The inn collapsed and crushed them all.
Huh. That was more satisfying than I thought it’d be. Apparently revenge, regardless of how it played out in the movies, was highly underrated.
It was, however, far from enough to balance the evil done this evening.
I was sure Yamina had gotten away. The smartest rats were the first to leave a sinking ship.
And who else was to blame for this? Who had led these killers to the Waypoint Inn in the first place?
Yours truly.
I’d been so cavalier to think I could lose the pack of assassins tracking us and just ignore the sanction on my head as if it were only a game quest.
We trotted back, wary for any enemy who dared to try their luck again.
Nothing.
Where the kitchen had been, lumber smoldered, caught fire and flames tinged the night with the color of blood.
Déjà vu all over again. How many bars were we going to destroy before this was over?
“This was my fault,” I whispered to no one in particular.
Mo
rgana maneuvered Mother next to Auntie Brown. “That may very well be, Hektor,” she said, “but don’t you dare wallow. Not until we’ve snuffed every one of the blighters.” Her tone was cutting. “We’ve got to keep our heads on one thing, the extermination of the bloody Syndicate.”
I blinked at her words.
Then the magnitude of what she was saying sunk in. We weren’t up against just this bunch of assassins and Yamina. If they weren’t before, the entire Silent Syndicate would be coming for us now.
The only way to survive would be to wipe them all out, the whole Assassins Guild… before they could do the same to us.
CHAPTER 41
I wanted to say something appropriately heroic, like “We shouldn’t be afraid, Morgana, they should,” but a blast of French horns and shower of sparks left me speechless.
Congratulations!
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED!
“KILLER OF KILLERS”
You have killed more than ten assassins in under ten seconds.
NOTE: New Party HIGH SCORE for this achievement. This badge, therefore, will be displayed in PURE GOLD.
Hovering near the alert window was the achievement icon. In it, a silhouetted figure crouched in the classic sneaky “backstab” pose. Behind this assassin, stood a guy with a huge smile—stabbing the backstabber. As promised, the whole thing was gold surrounded by a halo of spattered blood.
Cute. In a universal-symbol-for-carnage sort of way.
I thought, however, the buffalo deserved this more than we did.
“Be putting this in my title,” Elmac declared. “Let ’em see what they be dealing with.” He swiped the icon onto his placard.
I was going to tell Elmac it might not be smart to advertise that we were “Killers of Killers,” but then again, why not? It wasn’t like we could hide our placards. Any player in the Silent Syndicate would see our names and know who we were anyway.
So, I displayed the achievement as well. Felt a little better for it, too.
Come at us villains, blaggards, and scoundrels. We Heroes of Thera fear you not.
Pendric would have been able to say those words with the proper bravado. I hoped wherever he was, he was safe.
Morgana nodded at the now half-burning wreckage of the inn. “Oi, let’s take a quick look-see while we can. I might have missed someone in there.” She shifted into her wolf form and started sniffing.
We each took a different section, moving timbers, listening, searching as quickly and efficiently as we could as the fire spread. Alas, the only civilians I discovered were murdered, their features frozen in rictus grins from poison. As for the assassins I found, all were dead from combat wounds or cyanide capsules.
I’d seen carnage like this after suicide bombings, artillery barrages hitting villages… I’d never gotten used to it.
I turned and looked across the compound. I saw no movement. The front gates had been battered down, likely from our buffalo charging to the rescue.
Wait. There was one more place there might be survivors: the tower by the front gate.
I sprinted there and broke down the iron-bound door.
Inside were many guards. All dead.
To my relief, though, seven people, including Sadie, were there, bound and gagged, terrified out of their wits, but alive.
Elmac caught up to me and together we freed them, explained as best we could that the inn had been attacked and destroyed… and they were the only survivors.
They staggered outside and stood stunned at the sight of the burning inn. Some wept, others held each other, most collapsed onto the grass.
Sadie sat and cried and hugged herself. I wanted to go and try and comfort her but didn’t dare. Just being near me could put her life in danger.
The best way to help her… was to leave.
Elmac whispered, “We need to be getting back to look for any… you know, before the whole thing be one big bonfire.”
I nodded and we returned to the scene of the crime.
Morgana was searching inside the fire and dragged out more corpses. She must have cast Endure Flames on herself because she had not a single singed hair.
“No mana to cast another spell,” she told us, out of breath. “Going back in before this one wears off. You two take a look.” She gestured at the smoking bodies.
I focused on one.
Priest of the Phonoi, LEVEL 3
Not the first or second-level flunkies we’d fought in High Hill. And just who were these death-spirt Phonoi they worshipped? I had some homework to do.
In his loot window were a few coins, weapons, vials of poison, and such. No notes or other obvious clues.
Morgana pulled four more bodies from the wreckage.
She sat next to us, exhausted. “Guess we know if we can ignore a quest and hope it goes away,” she remarked.
I bristled. I wasn’t sure if she’d meant that as a dig at me, but it sure did feel like it. “Would we have done anything different if we’d known?”
She exhaled. “Suppose not, mate. Sorry.”
“Aye,” Elmac said. “If you could game the Game that way, ’twould be cheating. And that be wrong.”
One had to admire Elmac’s simplistic moral take on this.
But everyone was cheating.
The Game Master had admitted he did. Master Cho suspected the gods cheated too. Heck, I suppose even players took advantage wherever and whenever possible.
Cheating was, in my opinion, a bad long-term strategy. It caught up to you. I’d found it better to win by skill and honest cunning in the games I’d played rather than to fake it.
In a universe of cheaters, though… was cheating back the only way to win?
I wasn’t sure.
And where exactly did my actions fall? Not cheating per se. Something between “creative innovation” and a slight bending of the rules?
“We might as well take that assassin quest now,” I said. “Must have already completed at least one part.”
“Right.” Morgana then stared at nothing as she accessed her interface. “Might get a pointer on what to do next too.”
The original quest we had never accepted nor declined appeared before me, still waiting for a response.
ALERT!
Morgana Nox would like to share the following quest with you:
“SOMETHING ROTTEN IN THE DUCHY OF SENDON”
The Silent Syndicate has sanctioned innocent people for elimination.
Investigate and get out of High Hill before you too are murdered.
Rewards: Tier-IV (or better) treasure, political secrets.
Suggested Level: You and anyone else you can convince to help.
Accept? YES / NO
I accepted and this appeared:
QUEST ALERT!
“SOMETHING ROTTEN IN THE DUCHY OF SENDON”— PART I
COMPLETED
You have escaped the Silent Syndicate assassins of High Hill (for now).
Reward(s): Tier-IV treasure (or better).
Odd. I hadn’t seen any “Tier-IV or better treasure.” Or did our shopping spree at Lordren’s count? That didn’t seem fair, having to buy our own rewards.
Before I could ponder this further, two new alerts popped:
QUEST UNLOCKED:
“SOMETHING ROTTEN IN THE DUCHY OF SENDON”—PART II
(“MURDER MOST FOUL”)
Within the next 24 hours, solve 1-3 of these mysteries:
WHO has been targeted for murder,
WHY they have been targeted, and
WHO ordered the hit.
Reward(s): Bonus Experience, extra time to avoid the Silent Syndicate.
and
QUEST ALERT!
“SOMETHING ROTTEN IN THE DUCHY OF SENDON”—PART II
(“MURDER MOST FOUL”)
COMPLETED
ONE mystery solved: You have decoded the Syndicate’s hit list and discovered WHO has been targeted for murder.
Reward(s): Bonus Experience.
“One �
��o three clues?” Elmac tugged on his beard. “Suppose there still be a bit ’o brain sweat to work up.”
“Apparently,” I murmured, “we missed a lot.”
“More skullduggery or not,” Morgana said and chewed her lower lip, “I’ll take the ruddy experience points. Just a smidgen away from leveling my thief class.”
Ah yes, leveling. No fireworks, though, heralded me making another level. I’d been 80% of the way there before this evening.
I checked. Just a few points to go.
I better start thinking now how I was going to advance.
I still had to deal with the same problem I’d had before, however. Adding new skills and abilities meant more memories shoved into my brain… memories that were becoming as vivid and familiar as my real ones… while my Hector-of-Earth memories were fading, at times seeming made up.
Would it be such a bad thing to leave my old existence behind?
No.
Yes—I had to keep the things that made me, me. Didn’t I? Shouldn’t I?
I had better put serious thought into this and come up with some guidelines. If that is, there was anything I could do about it. All players might be fated to eventually become their fictional characters.
Before I could indulge in more of this psychological analysis, this appeared:
QUEST UNLOCKED:
“SOMETHING ROTTEN IN THE DUCHY OF SENDON”—PART III
(“THE NIGHT OF BLOOD”)
Avoid Syndicate assassins and/or survive the evening in the Grasslands.
Optional: Solve these remaining mysteries:
WHO ordered the murders, and
WHY it was ordered.
Reward: Bonus Experience.
“Would have rather taken the ‘or survive the evening in the Grasslands’ option,” Elmac muttered.
I stared at the pile of blazing timbers. No argument there.
Morgana scratched her head. “You still think your Lords of the Abyss are behind this?”
“They’re not my Lords of the Abyss,” I told her. “But yes, they’re the only group I can think of that’d want all the people on that list erased.”