Heralds- The Proving Grounds, page 29
Jen stared at Sam with narrowed eyes but Sam had no idea. She’d never looked up from the map table.
Anna cleared her throat. “So hit them now, then?”
Sam nodded. “Yup. We should try to avoid unnecessary fighting. We don’t want our immortality exposed and racking up collateral damage would just give them reason to come after us. Right now there’s all sorts of blue in the area. We’ll have a hard time spotting the right one in all this… but once we do, we hit him and then bail.”
Jen turned her eyes back to the map. There were no green dots, so no Heralds. Whatever Hank was to them, the game didn’t consider him to be one of them. “You’re sure he’s one of these people?”
“No. He may not have a representative dot, I don’t know how it works for GMs.” Sam shrugged. “But his location most likely puts him somewhere in those groups.”
“I suppose that’s all the confirmation we’ll get without using our eyes.” Jen held her hand out over the table. She’d want to appear somewhere that wasn’t likely to be watched, but close enough they could get in there in a timely fashion, and without a lot of people noticing them.
Sam grabbed Jen’s hand. “Nope. Not you.”
“Excuse me?” Jen glared at Sam. “I’m not good enough?”
Sam rolled her eyes. “You’re wearing a Kingsmen guild tag. Idiot.”
Jen blinked a few times. “Oh.” That detail had slipped her mind.
Anna chuckled. “We’ll get it done… but we could probably use some friendly eyes.”
Sam nodded. “What she said. You can go, but you’re an observer. You see something important, you let us know. We need a way out, you find us something. The tag gives you freedom we won’t have.”
Jen scrunched up her nose. “You’re ditching me. Again.”
Anna shook her head and waved her hands. “No, no. It’s not like that at all.”
Sam looked up at Jen. “Except that it is because you suck at fighting other players.”
Anna sighed and slumped her shoulders. “You don’t need to say it like that.”
“What? The truth will set you free.”
Jen rolled her eyes. “Certainly set me free.”
Though… her sword hadn’t hurt the Seven Eyes woman fighting Anna the night before. She would swear she had hit her…
Maybe not being involved in the fight itself was best. It might keep her relic off the radar, too. So far only Jesse had recognized it. Jen still wasn’t sure Sam wouldn’t kill her for it, a bit of emotional progress made the night before or not.
“Okay. Fine.” She shrugged. “But we need to get going. He could move at any time. And if he’s mobilizing an army, that many eyes is going to make this harder.”
“You worry too much.” Sam shrugged.
He was raising an army. There were at least forty members of the Kingsmen Reserve Corps milling about while “Taragon,” their leader, looked over a table covered with maps. He was inside a cloth tent. It was identical to several others about the area. Most had their… er… doors tied open. It was raining softly but the tops were all that was important.
Jen turned a blank stare to Sam, who was kneeling beside her in the bushes. Sam ignored her.
Anna leaned back a bit so she could see Jen around Sam. She shrugged.
“Right, so…” Sam narrowed her eyes a bit. “I can run in and knife him. I’d die nobly for king and country in the process, as Jen would have me do…”
Jen rolled her eyes.
“Or, we can distract them. Pull some away…”
Anna raised an eyebrow. “Alert them to our presence? Including Taragon himself, who we know is a GM parading around as a player? You think that’s wise?”
“No.” Sam shrugged. “But as it stands, I don’t see us getting in there. Just too thick with bodies. To many eyes.”
Anna nodded. “And you are supposed to be dead.”
“Also true.”
Jen rubbed at her temples. It took some doing with the bulky gloves and the headset. This is what passed for planning? “We find a concealed location and make a noise to draw a few of them off. Something innocuous they won’t think twice about checking, but still feel compelled to check out. One of us feigns twisting our ankle or something. Those guys don’t report back because of medical complications from numerous stab wounds, so more are sent to look for them. The sound of those ones fighting draws more. By the time they figure out they’re under attack by a force of immortals, we’ve thinned the ranks enough that you guys can charge in and hit him without significant interference. Sucks for the people that die, but the event isn’t long for this world anyway and made shorter by our actions.”
The other two were staring at Jen when she looked back up.
“Huh.” Sam tilted her head a bit.
“Yeah, that might work.” Anna nodded to herself.
Jen rolled her eyes. “How hard was that? Yeesh.”
Sam shrugged. “Okay, so we need to scout out a place we can break line of sight, and then we…”
Movement picked up in the camp. They were shoving things into bags and getting their weapons and armor ready to go. The tents were left where they stood, they just snatched important things out of them.
Hank nodded a bit as he watched them scramble and form up. “Alright, break time is over. You’ve been given your coordinates. Delta search pattern for now. I’ll let you know if anything changes.”
The members saluted as they passed him on their way out of the camp.
Anna frowned. “That doesn’t sound like him. Are you sure about this?”
“We’re sure.” Sam narrowed her eyes at Hank.
Jen nodded. “He has a program altering his voice. He used recordings of the guy talking to get it running. I don’t think these people spent enough time around the real Taragon to tell the difference. His guild was made pretty recently. They might have spent more time under Hank’s thumb than not.”
“Ugh.” Anna shook her head. “That’s messed up.”
Sam twirled her daggers. Green trails followed them. “Hence operation stab him till he’s dead.”
Anna sighed. “We’re not really calling it that, are we?”
The camp emptied in short order. They broke into smaller groups and scattered to the winds. Jen, Sam, and Anna had to duck into thicker foliage when two different groups wandered close by. Hiding their bodies was one thing, hiding their silly nameplates was something else. It was why everyone was so keen on that hood Tobin’s friend Tim used to wear.
A few minutes later Hank and a handful of people breaking down the camp where all that was left.
“You’re district seven.” Hank picked up the maps lying on the table and tucked them away as he glanced around what was left of the camp. “I’ll catch up before long. I need to report in.”
Sam swore.
Anna drew her sword. “Sounds like it’s go time.”
Jen laid a hand on her own sword, but Sam placed a hand over hers. “You’re not involved, remember? Besides, we’re not lighting the beacons for Rohan here. Keep that silly paladin nonsense of yours doused for now. We’re trying not to be seen.”
Jen opened her mouth to argue but Sam took off at a fast trot. Her footfalls were all but silent.
Anna was already gone when Jen turned back around.
She just narrowed her eyes. “Fine. Be that way. I didn’t want to help anyway.” She mumbled to herself as she leaned to watch around the tree. “Jerks.”
The last of the Reserve Corps, the fine scouts of District Seven apparently, were headed east while Hank started north.
Morblina was north of here but he didn’t really have to walk it. He was keeping up appearances, just like the Heralds.
“Ugh.” He stopped and shook his head. “The hell was I thinking?” He reached a hand behind his back, digging in his inventory. A few moments later he took out a whistle.
Oh, damn. Taragon had a horse.
As far a she knew, Sam and Anna did not. If he managed to get moving that fast they would be hard pressed to catch him. Trying to teleport around here and there to get a few steps ahead, maybe, and…
Knives were buried in his spine before Jen could even complete her train of thought. Sam had her dark ninja mask on. It might have made her harder to see, but it didn’t hide her name plate. She’d probably pay a kings ransom for one of those hoods.
The poison kept Hank from moving as he collapsed face first into the dirt. The blades that had kept him from moving dug into him again and again. Jen targeted him and watched as his health bar drained away.
Cries rose from the east. Jen swept her eyes around and ducked down into the thicker foliage again.
Anna was sprinting north west, hopping underbrush and swinging her sword ahead of her to clear a few leaves now and then. Probably more to make noise. Make sure they could still see her. Red dripped from the sword.
Her name plate was yellow.
Angry voices followed. The District Seven team was close on her heels.
Right. Witnesses.
Sam gave a curt whistle. Anna adjusted her path a bit. The heavy footfalls and cries made all attempts at stealth seem pointless. Anna managed to get layers of leaves between her and her pursuers. She broke through the underbrush into the street Hank lay on. Sam was still crouched on his back.
His health bar was still red, but only by a sliver. All of the noise, crashing, and thrashing had only taken a few seconds. He hadn’t had time to bleed out yet.
Sam gave Anna a nod and jabbed her dagger into Hank’s back one last time. And twisted it. Surely no lasting resentment there…
She picked up the fallen whistle and shoved it into her pocket as Anna ran by her. She turned and followed, only a step behind.
They were both a few yards back into the trees before the first of the District Seven team cleared the other side of the road and landed in the street. He stumbled a bit… and stopped dead when he saw Hank. His eyes went wide.
“Holy shit.”
The others barreling into the street almost knocked him over. Two of them barely slowed before charging on after Anna. They probably didn’t even know Sam was out there.
But the rest stopped.
“Fuck.”
“What do we do now?”
“How did this happen? She wasn’t that far ahead.”
“Someone else?”
“I didn’t see anyone else.”
The voices kept on for awhile. They bickered about what to do next, who was in charge now, how they could have allowed this to happen… no one stood up to take any blame, though.
“I’ll take the report to Morblina.” The man who had found Hank ducked down. “We should stick to the plan. Head for district seven. We still need reliable experience if we’re going to win this thing.”
There was some grumbling, but no one disagreed.
The other two returned, trudging through the greenery. “No one out there. No trail.”
“Damn it.” The kneeling man sighed. “Two down and nothing to show for it. Assholes. What purpose does this serve? Just trying to fuck things up for us.” He shook his head as he stood back up. “I’ll let the guild know what happened. No one goes off on their own anymore. No one.”
Anna and Sam had probably ducked back to the island. Not a bad idea. She opened her menu but had to duck down again as the District Seven team passed by. They seemed a lot less gung-ho about their job now.
The new messenger headed north with one of the others in lock step. Smart. Pairing up had already started. If they did need to pull this move again, it would be more difficult. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. This sort of thing was… distasteful.
“Well…” A voice behind her caused Jen to turn her eyes back to the road where Targaon had gone down. She stayed as low as she could.
Hank, the little old man with the long beard, was standing over the fallen form of Taragon, master of the Kingsmen Reserve Corps. He tilted his head slightly.
“You know, I may be having second thoughts about these PVP rules.” He chuckled to himself. “Oh well. No reason to keep up appearances anymore.” He glanced aside at something Jen couldn’t see. “Eighty four percent. I’ve got time. Plenty of time.” He swung his eyes about the trees.
Jen was practically on the ground. She tried not to breathe.
It was a few moments before she dared to look again…
Hank was gone.
29
The calm beach greeted Jen with soft wind and gentle waves. As ever. It was always good for that. It helped calm her nerves a bit.
Sam and Anna were already back in the map room discussing where they should go to finish their level grind. Sam favored her old haunt in the sand covered ruins where Jen had found Soulshine, but Anna argued the level of mobs there would be beneath them, as they were well ahead of the curve that area used to assign levels.
She wasn’t exactly wrong. On the other hand, Sam argued that the deeper you got the higher the mob level climbed, until they hit the cap. Theoretically.
Anna favored finding a place they wouldn’t have to waste time fighting their way into. It was a back and forth Jen had heard both sides of before she ever darkened the doorway.
She was just glad Hank hadn’t come back here after he died. By every scrap of evidence they were going to get, he didn’t know it was them that had orchestrated his demise. She could only assume there would have been some serious levels of righteous vengeance delivered upon them if he even suspected.
Jen leaned against the door jamb and waited. She didn’t really have anything to add, and didn’t have a horse in this race.
“The island is always so much louder when Samara is about.”
Jen glanced back over her shoulder to see Kail standing a few steps outside the door. He really didn’t look very different than he had the day they started all this. His robes were a bit nicer and more visually complex, but her own gear had evolved from a pile of rust to shining interlocking masterwork plates. He didn’t look like he had changed at all comparatively. Then again monks were supposed to progress in their own way, more advancing their body and gaining abilities rather than just piling up new gear. He was probably eighty percent effective with no gear at all.
Jen would be about ten percent effective without her stuff. Sort of made monks look a lot nicer, especially given the difficulty in finding proper gear quickly at the moment.
She gave him a nod. “The decibel level always jumps around Sam, regardless of location.”
“Hey!” Sam’s voice practically echoed off the walls from inside. “Rude.”
Kail chuckled. “Seems there’s some disagreement as to where to venture. If I may?” He held up a hand toward the door.
Jen stepped aside with a bow. “If it will end the discussion, then by all means.”
Sam eyed him suspiciously as he walked by Jen. Fortunately that was how she looked at everyone and he didn’t seem to notice. Or at least he didn’t take any offense. But he had always seemed pretty laid back in general.
Anna managed to keep a more neutral look. She had spent more time around Kail. Times when Jen and Sam were off getting into trouble, which usually ended with Sam dying, Anna had often spent around Kail.
It was a good amount of time. Sam was getting pretty good at dying.
The monk bowed his head by way of greeting. “I stumbled across some rather powerful mobs earlier on the south eastern plains. I made a note of it in case one of you showed up and could be called upon to help. I’m sure they can provide for all of us to finish the level grind, given our experience bonus.” He held a hand over the map, but didn’t touch it. He looked at Sam and waited politely.
She stood from the table and pointed at it. “Go nuts.”
He laid his fingers upon the surface, moving the face of the world downward and left. The terrain became lighter and more yellow. Green patches of vegetation spread further apart and grew smaller. It looked to be a rather barren stretch of the world. Not strange to find stronger mobs there as people tended to hang out in the green parts. No people meant mobs left to their own devices would grow stronger. Given time people would find their way there, clear them out, and the mobs would start up somewhere new.
At least that was the working theory. Maybe she could ask Jesse about it…
“In this area,” he stopped the map and pointed without touching it, “I have personally observed mobs in the top range for leveling. Forty five through fifty. A bit further south and you are getting into purely level capped territory. We should have no trouble as a group, and I doubt it will even take long. A few hours at most. I didn’t see another soul in the area.”
Anna tilted her head as she looked at the map. “What kind of mobs are we talking about?”
“Primarily gnolls and variations thereof. Some of them quite large.”
Sam scoffed. “Dog people. Great.”
Anna shrugged. “Hyena people, actually. Hence the terrain.”
“Whatever.” Sam rolled her eyes. “As if hyenas are not dogs.”
Kail lifted one finger high. “Actually, they’re not. Phylogenetically they are actually closer to cats and mongooses. Though their behavior and morphology is similar to canines. Interestingly, they share many traits…” His voice trailed off under Sam’s blank stare. “And you don’t care.”
“Not one bit.” Sam nodded.
“I see. Well, regardless…” Kail shrugged and pointed to the map. “Hyena people, bad.”
“Right, fine. Better to get to work sooner rather than fight our way through useless junk to get there.” Sam moved the map around a bit. “And you’re right. Not a soul. Good.” She double tapped the map and vanished.
Kail followed her without hesitation.
Anna looked aside at Jen. “What do you think?” Her face was a blank slate.
“I… don’t know. He hasn’t done anything hostile. Though we haven’t really floated any of this by him.”
“Bulorn might be right. He has always come across as loyal to Hank and the mission. What if Hank knows what we did and this is some sort of trap? I mean, given what we know…”
“What we think we know.” Jen shook her head. “We acted on it because not doing so might have been worse, but we could still be wrong.”
