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

  “I’ll just consider that as an added bonus for now,” Eliza answered calmly. A small grin appeared on her face, but it never reached her eyes. She took a number of small steps away from them, dragging the tip of one of her swords across the stone ground as she did and creating an awful scratching sound. “Perhaps I just wanted a way to keep you indebted to me.”

  “Is that so? Plan on keeping me around awhile then?” Locke asked. “Well, if anything, this puts us just about even. Your contact did his best to murder me as soon as I met him. He didn’t seem to trust you all that much yet. He thought you double-crossed him and sent an assassin: me. I lost a good shirt and came very close to losing my life just so you know.”

  Eliza raised an eyebrow, and her smile grew. “If Red Dragon tried to kill you, I’m sure you deserved it. He struck me as being quite the honorable man,” she replied. “And for someone who prides himself on being such an outstanding merchant, your math is horrible. I spared you once, and I saved your life again just now. Unless, of course, you’re suggesting that your life is only worth as much as a shirt.”

  “Red Dragon? Who the heck is Red Dragon?” Tubal interjected as he started walking toward Locke and Sampson. “What is going on?”

  “I’d like to know the same thing,” Reginald added, pulling the dagger out of his chest and stashing it away in his inventory.

  “You didn’t tell them?” Eliza asked, finally stopping her slow, pacing walk and the annoying noise that came with it.

  “I . . .” Locke’s face turned red as embarrassment hit him. He was caught in a tough situation, and he was kind of ashamed he hadn’t trusted Tubal, Sampson and the others. “I didn’t fill them in on any details, no.” He may have come clean with them about traveling to town with Eliza earlier, but given the looks that the others gave him, it didn’t seem to matter. “I was going to, but considering the fact that Red Dragon did try to murder me, and you did attack them back in the swamp, I really wasn’t sure what would happen the next time we met,” he blurted out, trying to weave an excuse.

  Or I just didn’t trust them to let me stay with them if I confessed. Why didn’t I trust them? He lamented the choice that he had made not to tell them everything, but some part of him already knew why he didn’t: He didn’t want to lose the group. He could have likely hired another --it wasn’t like mercenaries were in short supply, and he had plenty of money after selling all those potions in town-- but he liked this one in particular.

  “So you don't trust them?” she asked, the smile immediately disappearing from her face. “I assumed that, since this was the second time you had left with them, they were friends of yours. If we should be having this conversation in private . . .” She trailed off, lazily slicing both of her swords through the air in what somehow managed to come across in only a half-heartedly threatening manner.

  “Yeah, should you?” Tubal glared at him, and the hurt was evident in his voice.

  “You really didn’t trust us enough to tell us what was going on?” Sampson looked wounded.

  “He’s only known us a day,” Reginald said, actually coming to Locke’s defense. “I mean, would you trust people you’ve only known for half a day on a game? People you had to pay just to be in the group with?”

  “That’s . . . That’s not it,” Locke stammered. “It was . . . It was just . . . I was worried you might have been working with them.”

  “With them?” Tubal asked. “With who?”

  “With the Holy Alliance. My enemy,” Locke clarified.

  Eliza may have been on the other side of the chamber, but she closed the gap in about half a second. She had been a safe distance away in one moment, and in the next, she was right in front of Locke with one sword pressed against Tubal’s throat and the other against Sampson’s. “I don’t have time for this,” she said impatiently. “Do you trust them or not?”

  No sooner had she lifted her sword at Tubal than Sparky swung into motion, slamming the blade with her shield so fast that it literally caused sparks to fly as she shot into place between Tubal and Eliza. The sword at Sampson’s throat was lifted as Eliza took a step back and readjusted her weapons so that both of them were aimed at Tubal and Sparky.

  Reginald didn’t hesitate to get with the program as well, beginning to cast his defensive spells as soon as the tension began to boil.

  “You raise your hand against my brother, I’ll chop it off,” Sparky spat, her shield lifting even higher. “I don’t mind that you and Shy have a history. I’ve let it slide that he didn’t mention it. People have their reasons. But I don’t need any excuse other than you lifting your weapon toward Tubal to kill you where you stand.”

  “Sis, ju-just . . .” Tubal put a hand on Sparky’s back. He looked like he wanted to say something, but nothing came out. His initial stuttering faded into the awkward silence that already hung between Eliza and Sparky and added to the tension as they stared each other down.

  “There’s no reason to say anything.” Sparky’s entire suit of armor started glowing, seemingly igniting along with her anger in a way that Locke had never witnessed in any of the earlier fights. “I’ve seen her kind before,” she continued. “They’re hitters. I’ve seen first-hand how they push and shove others around until they get their way, not caring who gets hurt.”

  “How presumptuous,” Eliza taunted smugly. “You assume you have it all figured out and already know me so well, but you know nothing about me, what I’ve been forced to endure, or what I hope to accomplish. How foolish and naive.”

  “Hmph. You think that justifies your actions? Save your sob stories and your anger. There is nothing honorable about your kind. What gives you the right to take from others? To force your will on them? To harm another with violence?” Sparky continued to berate Eliza, blindly ignoring her argument.

  Eliza’s gaze grew harder and colder with each and every word that Sparky spoke. What had been a dispassionate glare before quickly ramped up into a seething hatred. “You know nothing about me or my kind, newcomer,” she hissed. “You have no idea what I have suffered, and you have no idea what is in my past. You know nothing of my people or what they have been through. You know nothing of loss or sacrifice or honor. No one can ever truly take anything from you because you have nothing worth losing. Even if I take your life again, here and now, we both know that you’ll be back alive and well in mere moments as if nothing ever happened.”

  “Stop it!” Locke shouted. He was starting to panic as he watched the situation continue to escalate. “This feud needs to end, now! You two wanna be mad at someone? Be mad at me. I’m the one who hasn’t been forthcoming, and I’m the one who put you all in this situation, but don’t even think of starting a fight!” He threw himself between Sparky’s shield and Eliza’s blade.

  “She’s a bully, Shy,” Sparky answered, and the ire in her voice dripped through with every word she spoke. “This has nothing to do with your willful omission of truth. Her kind need to be taught a lesson. They need to be taught they can’t just hit whoever they want, whenever they want, just because it makes them feel good.”

  “She’s not a player. You won’t be teaching her a lesson. You’ll be killing her,” Locke protested, doing his best to still stay between the two as Sparky and Eliza both rotated to try and get a better angle to strike with. “And you!” Locke, furious with himself for allowing this to even happen, turned to Eliza. “Do you not understand what’s going on? Do you really think you can take on the world by yourself? You need us. You need me as much as I need you,” he almost shouted at her. He wanted to be even angrier at her reckless stupidity, her lack of empathy and willful disregard of their common endgame. She was one of those people who didn’t know how to play the game at all, who insisted she could do everything alone and didn’t need help from anyone, and he hated it. Not just because it was absurd and got in the way of his help, but because that was who he was too.

  Having spent every month’s paycheck trying to solve all his and his sister’s pro
blems on his own, pridefully refusing help from relatives at his father and mother’s funeral who reached out, he knew how fruitless and isolating that feeling could be. “I’ve already told you, I’m on your side,” he continued to Eliza, “but these are my friends, and this is probably going to be my guild. If you’ve been tailing us like I am guessing you have, you already know how much they’ve been helping me. So, what do you really think you’re accomplishing with this tough guy act?”

  Eliza shot Locke a glowering stare from the corner of her eye without turning away from the two in front of her or lowering her swords. “If you met with my contact like you were supposed to, you know what I hope to accomplish. You know what is at stake and that I will do whatever it takes to see it through to the end. I’m going to ask you one last time: Do you trust them or not? Or are you just wasting my time? If you’ve betrayed me to the Holy Alliance, I swear, I’ll be more than happy to finish what I started before in the swamps.”

  “I certainly trust them more than I do you right now.” Locke threw his hands down in defeat and sighed. Maybe I should just let Sparky and the others try to kill her. She might just be too unhinged to work with. He took a deep breath as he tried to weigh the scales of whether or not all this effort to break up a fight was worth it. “Can’t you tell that they aren’t with the Holy Alliance after you’ve clearly watched us fight to the death with them twice?” He was frustrated with the entire situation, and his shock and indignation came out in his voice. He was only guessing that she had seen the first fight outside of town, but he was almost positive that she had.

  Eliza narrowed her eyes until they were nothing more than a red-tinged glower and shook her head slowly. “You act like this is just some game where I’m just acting out and throwing a tantrum. You want to pretend like I’m the bully and that you people are saints far-removed from any wrongdoing. But you’re not. And this isn’t. I know exactly what you newcomers are, and you want me to trust that they aren’t working with the Holy Alliance when he’s wearing that bathrobe.” She pointed to Tubal with one of her blades without ever taking her gaze off of Locke.

  “The only place he could have gotten that is from a Demon: from someone’s dead friend, brother, sister, mother or father.” Eliza held her stare for a moment longer, as if she were silently trying to judge whether or not he was telling her the truth. Then, in one swift movement, she lowered her swords and turned away, walking back to the other side of the cavern.

  Locke didn’t know what was going on in Tubal’s head, or Sparky’s, but he could hear an audible gulp and a release of breath from one of them behind him as he watched Eliza’s figure disappear. That’s right, only an NPC can be looted for his armor. Only the NPC Demons can be robbed of their bathrobes. That means that the only way Tubal could be wearing one is if he really did kill someone. If he ended their life for good. Locke’s features twisted into a scowl as the realization occurred to him. Her rage when they first met immediately crystallized into something more rational. She wasn’t just raving, running off at the mouth. She had a legitimate and tangible reason to hate the group--a target sign Tubal conveniently wore for her to slash at with her swords.

  Silence hung thick in the air for a long moment before someone finally dared to break it. “Whelp,” Reginald began, “this is starting to get more awkward than that time I tried to buy my high school biology teacher a drink at the bar before I realized who she was.” He laughed at his own joke, but his awkward humor did little to crack the ice. Even Sparky had lowered her shield to reveal a somber expression.

  We’re gonna have to fix this sooner or later. Locke clenched his eyes closed a moment and rubbed them. For all the grief that he had given his tedious job of blacksmithing, at least he had never had to deal with this much of an interpersonal nightmare. So, we’d like to welcome Eliza to the team,’ he imagined one of the overly friendly HR people starting off, ‘and just to let you know, your current boss murdered either one of her friends or family members. Hope you all have fun!’ He saw the HR person putting on a jolly Mr. Roger’s face in his imaginary introduction.

  “Eliza, hold up,” Locke called out to her before she exited earshot. “Look . . . Just wait a minute. We’re all enemies of the Holy Alliance, and at this moment, we’re all people they want to kill on sight.”

  “Thanks to you, Shy. It would have been nice to know you had made the decision for us though.” Tubal’s tone was less angry than it was discontent. It sounded like he had stepped in a puddle that was an inch or two deeper than he anticipated, and now he was forced to walk to work with a soaking-wet sock.

  “Yeah, not cool, man,” Reginald seconded the thought.

  “That’s not the point. It’s not about how we got here. It’s about the fact we are here.” Locke looked around at the dungeon. “Look, Eliza, you want to know what Red Dragon said? You guys want to know what’s going on? Well, the short of it is that Eliza and I are trying to undermine and destroy the Holy Alliance. Red Dragon had an offer, but it requires us killing a few of the White-Wing leaders in Sine Nomine. I would have just hired you guys to help out . . . From the intel I received, the head honcho is someone that Eliza might not be able to finish off on her own, but someone like her would at least have a chance. So, regardless, I needed to get her into town. That’s actually why we’re here . . .” Locke pointed across the cavern and toward the room that most likely contained the boss. “We have to get Eliza into the town so that she can do her job, but with the new blockades and everyone on the lookout for Demons, there’s no way that they’re going to let someone with red eyes through the gate.”

  “You wanted to get the eye-changing item for her? So that she could get through the gate?” Tubal said. “I’m assuming that, after she changed her eye color, you would have hired us? You were just waiting to see if the plan could be done?”

  “Pretty much,” Locke answered with a shrug.

  “I get the feeling that there’s a little bit more to the story,” Eliza said warily, “but it can wait until later. Do you really think that something as simple as changing my eyes is going to fool the town guards? Or all the newcomers that have gathered there?”

  “Think? I’m certain. We might have to change your hair color as well, but a simple hat can hide that,” Locke said. “With all the new people coming in and out of the town, they don’t check any credentials. They let me in without even second guessing my name.”

  Eliza studied him for a moment and shook her head. “It’s just stupid enough that it might actually work. The simplest plans are usually the most successful.” She sounded more annoyed with the plan than anything, but she added, “A lady does not wear a hat.”

  “Shy, if you’re one of the Demons, how come your eyes aren’t a different color?” Sampson asked. “You look like just a Human.”

  “And how come you aren’t all pasty white?” Reginald added hastily, finishing Sampson’s line of questioning for her. “And your hair isn’t black?”

  “That’s because I’m not a Demon. I’m just a Human,” Locke answered.

  “Then why are you on their side? Why are Humans joining the Demons?” Tubal asked. His question wasn’t pressing or accusatory. It was just curious, which made it easier to have the dialogue. It would have been a perfectly calm conversation for Locke if it weren’t for the fact that Eliza’s presence still kept the tension in the air.

  “Why wouldn’t I be? Have you seen how their enemies treat people? That display outside the bar . . . I got ten times worse than that from this guy, Anthony, one of the Holy Alliance leaders.” Locke regretted mentioning Anthony by name as soon as it escaped his lips. He knew that Ash was watching, and she might take that as him confessing his story and undermining the silence she had forced upon them for mutual safety. “But that’s neither here nor there.”

  “How do you plan on changing my eye color?” Eliza asked, ignoring everything else.

  “At the end of this hallway, there should be a very large, yet easy-to-kill creat
ure. When he dies, he’ll drop the things we need to change your eye color. The change should last only as long as you choose for it to last or rather as long as it takes to get the job done. That is, if you guys are okay helping us out.” Locke made his best attempt at a puppy dog face as he looked at Sampson, Tubal and Sparky, who had seemed to soften and lose their earlier aggression.

  “To undo the order of villains and the schemes of crooks--that noble duty of maintaining the order of society is one that all knights must aide,” Sparky said resolutely. “But I need to do one thing first.”

  “What’s tha--” Locke stopped and clenched his eyes closed as Sparky’s fist shot toward his face. He was expecting to get knocked back and flung across the room, but it never happened. When he finally opened his eyes, Sparky’s hand was an inch from his face, and her fingers extended to flick Locke hard on the forehead. It was far from hard enough to send him sprawling like the punch would have, but it stung enough to elicit an ‘ow!’

  “Don’t ever assume I’m okay with watching a comrade die again. I thought I already told you: I carry the shield,” Sparky admonished him, chastising Locke in an unusually out-of-character moment.

  “Yeah, not okay with that,” Sampson added, nodding. “Oh, and I’m in too.”

  “I’ll help,” Tubal said. “Can’t let our newest guildmate take on a Tiqpa-changing quest without us.”

  “You know how cool it’ll be to do something that could change the face of Tiqpa?” Reginald asked in awe, apparently agreeing as well. “I mean, they’ll be writing about this on the boards for months. With her help and a good strategy, we will roll over our competition! They’ll be talking about the handsome Reginald and his band of merry men for years to come!”