The Merchant of Tiqpa: The Bathrobe Knight's Sequel Read online

  “That’s not fair,” she grumbled.

  “Fine, fine, I’ll cut you some slack,” he said apologetically and resigned himself to giving up the best teasing material he had ever gotten on someone so shortly after meeting them. “You were helping me out, so I’ll cut you a break. Do you wanna go to the market with me while I get some supplies, or do you want me to pick something up for you while I’m there so you don’t chance running into any of them?” Locke offered.

  “Ummm . . . here,” she said, handing him back the bag of gold she had accumulated while they were hustling people in town. “See if you can find me a better axe than what I’m using now. I could also use anything you can find to increase my Power or Vitality stats.”

  “Will do, I’ll meet you at the tavern in fifteen minutes,” Locke called out as he took off.

  -----

  The whole trip was mostly unproductive. He found himself a one-handed sword that barely did +35 damage and only offered a meager +5 to Vitality, but he figured it was better than the basic, starter sword that he had been using so far. He really hoped that he wouldn’t have to use it anytime soon, but if he caught another wild hair like he had in the swamp, he wanted to be as prepared as possible.

  He was actually able to get a great deal on both an axe and a Minotaur-exclusive helmet from a random merchant in town named Ben for Sampson. The two-handed axe added +65 points to Damage with an additional +10 to Power, and it was too tempting for him to walk away from. Sampson had been his witting pawn, and he wanted to keep good on his word to try and find her something better than what she had been using. The only problem was that the salesman was a bit odd, to say the least, and he insisted on giving Locke a dozen meat buns with each purchase he made. Locke tried to tell him that he didn’t need the meat buns, that he’d just prefer a lower price on the gear if possible, but the man insisted that ‘meat buns are love’ and that if Locke didn’t take them, he wouldn’t do business with Locke. The exact words he used were ‘I can’t see myself helping out a man who doesn’t even have the taste to recognize that there is no better food than meat buns.’

  The haggling with the meat bun maniac took so long that Locke was worried he would be the last one to the table when he finally made it to the Wench’s Best Bubbly Head. When he opened the double doors into the establishment, however, he only found Sampson, Tubal and Sparky there waiting for him. That’s odd. I thought they’d all be back and waiting around impatiently to leave again with how long I took.

  “Hey!” Tubal, who was positioned with his back against the wall with a clear view of both exits to the tavern, waved Locke over as soon as he walked in.

  The tavern wasn’t at all like the ones he had been forced to wait in while he was still finding leveling groups to leach off of in the original Human starter towns. Those had been simple bars with wooden tables and wooden walls, but this one had a completely different style and felt more like an office than an actual bar. Each of the tables that filled the room were tall, circular and made from glass; yet, strangely, other than the mirrors and the bar top, that was it as far as glass went. Given how the rest of the city had been designed, he had been expecting the tavern to be constructed with the same glass-crazy flair as everything else. Indeed, he had even expected to find marble-backed chairs. The only problem was that there weren’t any. Instead, there were tall stools situated on black frames with thin, white, circular seats on top. The walls of the bar were also devoid of the overly-used marble and glass, and the only decorations were three giant, horizontal stripes of black, white and red stones that circled around the entire establishment.

  Since Tubal was camped out in the back corner of the room, Locke was forced to weave between the cramped tables to make it to him. They were close enough together to make maneuvering through the place uncomfortable, and he almost tripped over a few of the long, snake-like Naga tails that slithered around absentmindedly on the floor underneath their prospective owners.

  “I bring goodies,” Locke declared when he finally managed to make it to them. He pulled up a stool and dropped the meat buns, which were wrapped in a large square bundle, in the middle of the table before handing Sampson her new axe, the helmet and the change he had left over from the amount she had given him to find them. “I hope you all haven’t ordered anything to eat.”

  “We . . . hadn’t . . . but . . . meat buns?” Tubal looked at them skeptically and poked one or two with a finger before inching back away from them. “You couldn’t bring kebabs or anything?”

  Well, I kind of had to buy them, so you’re gonna have to deal with that. He noticed that Sampson also gave the meat buns a suspicious frown and neglected to reach for one. Thankfully, as the other two sat staring at them hesitantly, Sparky reached out and grabbed four, two in each hand, and stuffed her face so fast that her cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk’s. Sampson, are you sure Sparky is a girl? Locke raised an eyebrow at her antics, but couldn’t stop himself from laughing anyway, the other two joining in as well with Sampson looking confused.

  “What?” Sparky asked, her voice muffled by the still-present giant quantity of food she had stuffed in her mouth.

  “Nothing . . . nothing at all.” Tubal chuckled, then added, “You really will eat anything, won’t you?”

  After a few minutes of a chewing, and several attempts at swallowing with the whole table watching her, Sparky wiped away her mouth and responded, “Even righteous fury needs fuel to burn, lest it consume both heart and body.”

  “Alright, puffy cheeks,” Tubal teased, still chuckling at Sparky as she tried again to wipe her face off with an arm fully covered in armor. “Just remember that there is no honor in gluttony or something.” He started to lecture her, but it was already too late. As soon as Sparky had finished wiping her mouth clean with one arm, the other had already reached out and grabbed another two meat buns to refill the hole.

  “Man, this axe is really nice,” Sampson said, caressing the edge of one of the long blades the hefty, two-handed weapon sported. “The helmet is good, but this axe is amazing.”

  “You should try thanking your master, then, for being so generous,” Tubal said, causing Sparky to burst into such intense laughter that a piece of the meat bun she was chewing ended up being ejected out and onto the plate in front of her.

  “And that’s why you don’t eat so much at once.” Tubal shook his head while Sparky calmed down.

  Sampson turned redder than a bull fighter’s muleta and shot Tubal a ‘go die’ look. “You two were there?”

  “Yeah, we watched the whole thing. We were going to come up and say hello when we saw you, but with the crowd around you, we figured we’d wait,” Tubal explained. “When you started calling Shy your master, well, poor Sparky couldn’t stop laughing. We just didn’t know that you were into all that crazy roleplaying stuff.”

  “If Reggie finds out, I’m killing you both.” Sampson slammed her new axe into the floor, drawing quite a few stares from the patrons around them.

  “Relax, no one is going to say anything,” Tubal said while finally reaching out and grabbing one of the meat buns too. “I wouldn’t want to give him any more fodder than usual,” he continued before popping the meat bun in his mouth.

  Some movement across the room caught his attention, and Locke turned to find someone staring at him as if he had kicked a puppy in front of them. Is that . . . Locke ran through the list of descriptions that Eliza had left him and quickly compared them to the person watching him. That’s him. It has to be, he thought, moving his head side to side to see if the man’s eyes would follow. The man was, without a doubt, a Fire-Walker. His skin was as black as onyx and streaked with bright, glowing, red lines that looked like fresh lava trickling across an inky stone surface as they made a jagged ascent around the man’s body. At first glance, the pattern looked random, like streaks of red lightning had split his chest, but as Locke studied it, he realized that they came together to make the rough shape of a dragon, wings spread and spewing
fire.

  So, that’s why there isn’t a single building made from wood in this entire city, Locke thought as he noticed the man’s burning feet. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen a Fire-Walker before, but he had never really paid attention to any of them. There weren’t more than two or three that he had seen in the entire Holy-Alliance, and Locke had always been too busy trying to fill orders in order keep up with demand or negotiating deals to really stop and take note of them. Whelp, here goes nothing, Locke thought, standing up to go meet the guy.

  “Hey, I’m gonna go grab a beer and talk to a friend of mine for a few minutes. I’ll be back,” Locke told the group. “You guys going to want one too?”

  “Yeah, I’ll take one,” Tubal and Sampson both said in unison.

  “I’m touched. The master that is the servant,” Sparky chimed in, nodding. “You’re a very kind and caring young master, Shy. Sampson’s blessed not to have a cruel slave driver in charge of her.”

  “That is . . .!” Sampson jumped up as if she were going to protest, but gave up just as quickly as she had started and sighed. “Whatever, just bring me back a beer, too, if you don’t mind.”

  “Sure thing.” Locke nodded his head and then made his way across the room toward the Fire-Walker. It’s definitely him, Locke thought, noting that the Fire-Walker had stood up as soon as he saw Locke coming. The Fire-Walker signaled with a slight jerk of his head toward a hallway when he approached, and the pair moved off in that direction. The man disappeared around a corner of the hallway, and Locke quickly realized where they were heading. Wait, are we really going to conduct a clandestine meeting in a bathroom? The man was waiting on him when he arrived, giving Locke an evil stare that edged its way under his skin and unnerved him in a way that neither the Bishopotamus nor creepy Piranha-Priests ever had.

  “Go inside,” he commanded and pointed at the wall. The Fire-Walker’s voice was both thunderous and deep yet quiet at the same time.

  Go inside the wall? How exactly is that going to happen? This man must be crazy, Locke thought. But no sooner had the question of how he was supposed to get inside a wall appeared than the wall silently shifted and slid aside to reveal a hidden entrance with a set of winding stairs descending behind it. Oh.

  Locke blinked in surprise as he stepped inside and started down the stairs. He heard the wall close up behind him, and a small chill ran up his spine. Even without a single torch anywhere in sight, the light from the Fire-Walker’s flaming feet kept the entire stairway well lit. That’s incredibly handy, Locke thought, taking a deep breath. He had done a few sketchy trades in his past, especially during his college days, but they never got any easier. Experience had taught him that he should always be nervous as soon as any negotiation or trade moved from the light to the dark, from out in the open to behind closed walls and into chambers to which no one even knew there were doors.

  The stairs leveled out about two flights under the bar and revealed a long hallway that stretched off to his left and right. It was both wide and tall enough to fit a small wagon drawn by two horses through it, but probably not comfortably.

  “Which way?” Locke asked, the man glaring at him in return. “And do you have a name? I’m Shy,” he extended his hand, still feeling rather uneasy about the whole situation. He knew he had a habit of talking when things were going bad, but that was because it always helped. The more human he was, the more real, the less likely the other person was to do him harm; or, at least, that’s what he had heard from a few different crime procedurals on TV, and he believed them like a sucker.

  The man grabbed Locke’s arm instead of his hand, and firmly held onto it. “You’re not going anywhere, you filthy assassin,” he spat. The hand he was using to hold Locke’s arm erupted into flames, scorching Locke, as his other fist slammed into Locke’s face with enough force to dislodge him from the grip and send him tumbling face-first onto the ground.

  Locke, wracked with pain and wanting to scream from how much his charred arm hurt, tried to get back up only to be punted by a flaming foot into the wall where he bounced off it like a rag doll. Dangit! Locke cursed, Why does the pain have to be so realistic? What the heck, Eliza? If you wanted me dead, why didn’t you just kill me yourself?

  “You think I wouldn’t find out? You reek of poison, and the guards have already spread the news about you being sent into town by a Demon,” the man said before throwing a fireball at Locke.

  Locke felt like he was hanging on with only about 45% of his health bar remaining and knew that he wouldn’t be able to dodge the attack. He barely raised his arm in time to mitigate the damage as the ball of flames scorched his already burned limb and knocked another chunk of his health bar away. “I’m not an assassin,” he coughed, doing his best to stand up as quickly as he could while the Fire-Walker approached.

  The Fire-Walker’s hands exploded into two more fireballs after only a few steps, and he promptly threw another punch at Locke. This time, however, Locke actually managed to evade the blow. “Don’t lie to me,” the fiery assailant said coldly. “I know a rat when I see one. We extend an olive branch, tell you we can help your cause, and you do what? Come to kill me? To put the mad dog down? Well, let me show you that this mad dog has teeth!” he shouted, throwing another three blistering fireballs in Locke’s direction.

  Locke was doing everything that he could to dodge and run backward at the same time, and he soon found himself struggling to catch his breath as the smoke from the explosions began to fill his lungs. The attacks themselves were fairly small and compact, but both the blast and the residue they left behind were far from it.

  Wait, that’s it! An idea struck Locke like a lightning bolt, and he pulled out a bottle of poison with his still unscorched left hand.

  “There it is!” The man howled as he saw Locke ready the green bottle. “I knew I could smell it on you! You reek of sickly death!”

  How can you smell anything when you’re always on fire? Does the smoke not clog your sense of smell? Locke was still edging backward, but he was moving much more slowly as he waited for an opportunity.

  “Come on, then, assassin! You need to earn your pay. Don’t tell me that Demon couldn’t even afford to send a decent killer,” the man mocked.

  What the hell were you thinking, Eliza, sending me here to die? Locke cursed her again with the Fire-Walker’s words. Did you really think I could kill this guy? He dodged another fireball, and it soared past him. He felt a wave of heat ripple toward him from behind him as the ball blasted into the ground just past where he had previously been standing. When the smoldering attacker threw another fireball, Locke hurled his poison at it. Unfortunately, his aim was off since he wasn’t left handed, and the poison slipped out and shattered against the wall, creating a harmless green puddle where it landed. Uggh. Locke groaned in frustration and exhaled a breath he didn’t know he had been holding as he readied another poison.

  “Your aim is almost as bad as your constitution. Have you considered a career switch?”

  His assailant laughed as he threw another ball of flame that landed squarely on Locke’s ribcage, forcing Locke to grit his teeth against the searing pain.

  Locke choked down the scream that threatened to burst from his lungs and instead yelled, “I’m not an assassin! I’m a merchant!” He cringed in pain as he evaded the second and third fireballs, getting more and more frustrated after each one. After the last clean hit from the Fire-Walker, he was now down to only 19% of his health bar, and if he took another good hit or two, it would be his death. After the Dryad seemed to recognize him in the market place, he was even more scared of dying than ever. He had no idea if he would respawn in the Holy Alliance camp, but if he did, there was a good chance that someone else would recognize him immediately--and that would be the end of it.

  “Just die already!” A fourth, fifth and sixth projectile were flung at Locke in rapid succession.

  Locke threw his poison bottle and two more after it at the incoming attacks. This time,
he hit two of the flames dead on, and the liquid exploded into a giant, green cloud of vapor that expanded between them. One of the attacks still made it through and blackened Locke’s leg as it burned him, leaving him with less than 3% of his health bar remaining.

  The Fire-Walker seemed to sense his advantage and threw another attack toward Locke. But it never reached him. Instead, it ignited part of the cloud and erupted into an explosion that tossed the Fire-Walker back five feet into the air and dumped him onto his rear. “Clever, clever boy,” he laughed, popping his neck as he stood up. He approached the green wall of gas and stared at Locke through it.

  The cloud hung so thickly in the air that Locke couldn’t easily discern more than a green-tinted shadow on the other side.

  “But this will fade in time, and when it does, I’m still going to finish you off,” the Fire-Walker threatened.

  Locke, who didn’t have much time and could feel his life force waning with the seconds, quickly pulled out the ingredients he needed and started making one health potion after the other, gulping them down as quickly as he made them.

  “What in the world are you doing?” the man asked as he watched, perplexed by Locke’s action.

  “I’m trying to” --Locke drank another potion-- “not die from these burns,” he said as he went back to focusing on making the healing elixirs. None of them were particularly strong, only healing ten hit points with each potion, but the Fire-Walker was right. The poison would fade soon, and he would be dead if he took another hit from that mad man. “I’m not cut out for fighting.”