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

  “What? Huh?” Sampson looked confused.

  “Just do it and follow my lead. Trust me. Locke isn’t going to show up and refute me by saying that Anthony didn’t ban him from the town for selling to non-Holy Alliance members.” Locke was rather confident about that. If a Locke did try to contradict him, it would definitely leave him way more than simply confused.

  “Okay, I’ll try, but I really don’t like public speaking. Why do you keep doing this to me?” Sampson grumbled as Locke weaved between people until he was at Katherine, Bianca and Tubal’s table.

  “It wasn’t just them. It was me too,” Locke said after taking one last deep breath and counting to three. “If you want people to come forward, well, I’m coming forward,” Locke called as he climbed up on the table, raising his voice so that everyone could hear him clearly.

  “Did they kill you when you tried to leave town too?” Tubal asked, tightening his throat and giving him a look that seemed to ask Locke ‘Why are you here? We have this.’

  “No, they told me I couldn’t sell to commoners,” Locke said. “I don't know if anyone was here in the market this afternoon” --he turned to the crowd-- “but I’m the one who posted about the poisons that were being sold today.”

  There was a look of general confusion on everyone’s face that seemed to wash over the crowd until they saw Locke pull out a few green bottles of Deadly Poison.

  “Wait, that’s the Alchemist! He’s the Alchemist!” one of them called out as soon as he saw the bottle.

  “Yeah! He was selling them on the forum earlier today! There was a huge demand!” another one called out. “Hey! What are you talking about? You sold a bunch today. What did they block you from?”

  “Yeah, I did sell a lot of them,” Locke nodded. “I was making some good money and kept the price low, but do you guys know Anthony? The guy who claims he runs the Holy Alliance?” Most nodded that they did, but some others shook their heads. “Well, he’s one of the higher ups at the Holy Alliance, and he got mad that I wouldn’t cancel the orders I made on the forum. He said that, since they wanted to pay more than anyone else could, they should have first rights to my wares. I didn’t mind them paying more, but as a merchant, I have to fulfil my orders, you know?” Locke paused and looked at Tubal with as much feigned helplessness as his fake forlorn face could muster.

  “Well, surely he was fine with that. What man would ask someone to break his word and back out on a deal?” Tubal said, quickly jumped in to play along.

  “He did. And what’s worse, he told me that if I didn’t sell to the Holy Alliance, he’d kick me out of town for good. He said that he’d make sure I never bought or sold anything in Sine Nomine ever again. Anthony straight up said he’d ban me for good.”

  “That’s ridiculous. There is no way someone from the Holy Alliance--or any guild for that matter--would block a player from using a city or selling to other players,” one of the members of the audience challenged him out loud, likely voicing a doubt present in the minds of many in the crowd.

  “Yeah, that does sound stupid. You’ve got to be pulling our chain!” another one said, piling on to the general skepticism.

  Instead of answering, Locke looked Sampson straight in the eyes. Come on, it’s your turn, he urged silently.

  Almost as if she could read his mind, she came forward. “It’s not just him,” Sampson shouted. “You all remember Locke, the pride of blacksmiths?

  “Yeah, who wouldn’t know him?!” one of the Minotaurs said. “He made me this sword. He’s amazing!”

  “Yeah, I’ve been using the weapon he made me for almost eight levels now, and I still can’t find anything better,” one of Naga added.

  Why, thank you. Locke had to suppress a smile. If he responded with grins at the compliments, his cover might be burnt, and his act would be shot.

  “Well, he was banned recently, too. Anthony stopped him from ever selling in our streets again,” Sampson continued shouting over the crowd. With the Minotaur’s natural height and her booming voice, she didn’t even have to think about climbing on a table: She could address everyone right from where she stood.

  Locke was worried for a minute that Eliza’s presence would kill the ruse, but luckily enough, Eliza, whether embarrassed or clever, had hid her face and subsequently her eyes as soon as Locke had made the stage.

  “What they say can’t be wrong. My buddy in the Holy Alliance said that the last time he saw Locke was when he went into Anthony’s private tent . . . And no one has seen him since,” a member of the tavern crowd, one of the two vocal skeptics, said.

  “That can’t be right,” someone else called out. “Why would they stop players from selling to other players?”

  “I don’t know, but when I said ‘no,’ they threatened me with ruin!” Locke tried to harness the audience’s self-interest. “But you know what? Forget them! I’m going to sell to whomever I please!” Locke took out a few bottles and started passing them out to some of the closest people in the crowd. My precious sister’s education fund! he mentally cried as he gave away a few poisons to very eager players closest to the table. “In fact, I’m going to just give them away for free! And what are they going to do about it?!”

  “Who cares! Give me one!” An eager Naga on the front row grabbed at the poisons Locke was handing out for free.

  “Me too!” another one said.

  “Wait,” Tubal stopped Locke. “You know that they’re going to ban you permanently as soon as they finish taking over the town, right? Don’t be rash, man.” Tubal sounded like he was trying to be the concerned voice of reason, and he was playing his part well.

  “Yeah, if they find out that you've been just handing these out to random people, they’re going to be furious with you,” Bianca said. “You don't have to do this for our sake. They're going to give you a good price for the merchandise. Just . . . Just . . . don't do something rash.”

  “No, do something rash!” The next person in line for the poisons looked rather livid at the two stopping Locke.

  “You’re right. You’re right. There is no way they’re not going to take the city . . .” Locke slumped his shoulders forward and looked down while he sighed, doing his best to look defeated in front of everyone.

  “Yeah, they already have the power to kill players like us right outside of the town.” Bianca shared a sigh with Locke and patted him on the shoulder consolingly, but she made the gesture extra hard --hard enough that it would have left a bruise in real life-- and he knew that it was compensation for not being able to pop him in the back of the head. “There is nothing we can do about it.”

  “Like hell there isn’t!” Reginald yelled from next to Sampson. “Give me one of those poisons! I’m going to kill them right now! They’re not taking my town! No way, no how!”

  Locke tossed a Deadly Poison to Reginald. Thank you so much, you little troll. “You’re really going to do this on my behalf?”

  “This is not on your behalf.” Sparky stepped forward and extended her hand for a Deadly Poison. “This is on behalf of dignity, honor and doing the right thing. I won’t be able to sleep at night knowing that I allowed such an oppressive atrocity to occur in the very place I call home. Honor demands that I act!” She perfectly voiced the creed of every chivalry-obsessed, medieval-loving geek in the room, and it caught on like wildfire taking to dry kindling.

  “Yeah, what he said!” a Naga stepped forward as well, holding his hands out just like Sparky and Reginald had done. “Give me one of those poisons, and I’ll make sure to kill some of those Holy Alliance bastards for you!”

  As soon as one spoke up, a little tiny wave of relief washed over Locke. I’m so glad that these people don’t realize we are in the same party. Locke thanked his lucky stars that no one paid attention to the details when they were caught in a mob mentality. With three people speaking up with the same plan in mind, and now another that wasn’t even related to the group, Locke couldn't help but see his gamble as a success. Once a f
ew pitchforks were brought out, the whole mob would go hunting for the monster with vengeance in their heart. They just needed other people to step forward first and start them moving in the right direction.

  One after another, more and more people started repeating the thoughts of Sampson, Reginald and the Naga. Locke could even see as people began accessing the forums from the in-game console that it wasn’t just the people in the tavern. They were spreading word across the boards of the awful things that Anthony had done.

  Locke pulled up his own menu to see what the reaction was, and he was happily surprised to be greeted with more people than he ever expected calling for ‘Groups to go stop the Holy Alliance.’

  Well, even if we can’t fend off the Holy Alliance’s victory, at least I’ll have some minor revenge against Anthony. From what I overheard from Sol and Sal, it seemed like Portia was really mad at him for not succeeding in cutting a deal with me. If that’s the case, when word about this circulates the forums and gets back to Portia, she’ll definitely think that Anthony was lying, and he won’t be able to talk to me to prove otherwise. Locke smiled at the thought as he finished handing out poisons to the people in the Wench’s Best Bubbly Head.

  Chapter 8

  Locke was floating on cloud nine, overly satisfied with how he had made some progress in his personal vendetta. Sure, it cost him a lot of potential earnings from all the lost sales the free poisons amounted to, but he wasn’t handing out a lot. He tried to only give out one to each person, and he planned to sell them in batches of a hundred if he could once he had the time. He was just about to let a smile crack through his distraught facade when a message popped up and snapped him back into reality.

  Hey again! It’s your friendly neighborhood Ash! How is my free-labor intern doing with his promotions gig? I see that you’re handing out poisons --poisons that I know you hate parting with-- which makes me happy. But then you go and mention Locke, your other I.D. Now, how do you think that makes me feel? I’m very depressed now. Sure, Locke is you, but for some reason, you have me feeling like you’re talking about an ex-girlfriend on our first date. I’m pretty sure that bringing up Locke is a no-no. We did discuss that, right? I’m positive we did! So, what I’m going to do now is, I’m going to go watch the system log and see if anyone from the Holy Alliance like, say, Anthony, puts two and two together and realizes you’re Locke and files a complaint. If one goes through, I’m going to ban you and pretend like I don’t know what happened.

  How does that sound? That sounds great, right? You know why it sounds great? Because, like an intern in charge of a twitter feed, when something goes wrong, the boss won’t have to deal with any of the responsibility. Have a nice day! =D

  Have a nice day? You’re a witch! An evil witch! Locke cursed her silently but remembered that she seemed to have some uncanny ability to read his thoughts. Just in case, he quickly retracted his statement. I mean, you’re a wonderful, amazing, gracious and generous GM.

  Players began splitting off from the crowd and forming up into parties. It wasn’t long before they all spilled out of the tavern and took to the town, ready and willing to slaughter all the White-Wings and Holy Alliance members they came across.

  Tubal approached Locke from behind as the room began to clear out. “Hey, do we still need to defend the Fire-Walkers?” he asked, watching the armed and angry crowd as they began to filter out an into the streets.

  “No, I think we’ve got a little breathing room. There is no guarantee that our angry villagers won’t be cleared away quicker than snow in the summer heat; but, even if they don’t manage to maintain their momentum, it will still take a while for the Holy Alliance to figure out what’s going on and rally a defense against them. At the least, they’ll force the Holy Alliance to further divide their attention between what’s going on here and the fight that’s going on against the Demon Host. These players are pretty fired up, so they should at least buy us some time by fighting a few battles too. There’s also a good chance that they’ll probably kill a few people and thin out the ranks of the White-Wings a bit,” Locke responded as he looked at the crowd.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought, too,” Tubal agreed with a nod. “That’s exactly why I’m wondering if we should take advantage of it.”

  “You mean try to sneak through their line while their whole force is tied up with these people?” Locke asked. He was doing his best to assess the usefulness of the makeshift army that was forming in front of him. It was a good start, and there were a ton more players who said that they’d join on the forums, but there was no way to predict how many of them were actually going to join the fight.

  “Well, we could wait for everyone to be licking their wounds in the towers on defense if you think that would be smarter.”

  Tubal might not have put it the same way he would have, but Locke had already been thinking something incredibly similar. There probably wasn’t going to be a better chance than this to go out and kill the White-Wing leaders. The Holy Alliance had already split its forces, and they weren’t going to be looking for someone to come and knock down the walls of their stronghold. If the whole of the Holy Alliance was actually enforcing this ‘martial law’ of sorts, locking the players out and assisting the White-Wings, then there is no way they’d be able to even consider anything but defense. In fact, it’d be a losing fight from the get-go. But now, with the army split and with this makeshift militia assisting, they had a chance. The Holy Alliance and their White-Wing allies might eventually be able to shore up their defenses in the city, but there wasn’t going to be a better opportunity than this to take the attack to them because now there was something Locke and the Blue Phoenix Brigade didn’t have before: time.

  It was a risky strategy, and Locke knew it. If they weren’t successful, there probably wasn’t going to be another chance to assassinate the White-Wing leaders. The Holy Alliance would be tipped off to their plans, and everyone would know exactly where their loyalties lay. To make matters worse, there was a very good chance that the Fire-Walkers were going to take a hit from the player-led rebellion alongside the White-Wings. Locke and his friends may have been able to distinguish between the various factions that coexisted within the city, but he very much doubted that anyone else would. If the voracious mob of players ever gained any momentum, they probably wouldn’t take the time to distinguish who they were killing just so long as they killed someone. Red-Dragon and others might very well die while they were handling the task, and that would be a huge blow to the rebellion. Despite all the obvious risks, an assassination attempt on the White-Wing top brass was a gamble worth taking.

  Actually, it was some pretty amazing timing on the Demon Host’s part, attacking at the perfect moment . . . Sine Nomine is a bit of a reach for them, but they could have easily set up siege on this city and probably won over time . . . Why did they move on an outpost and not here? Locke glanced over at Eliza and silently contemplated what it meant as he reached his decision. Now, if only . . .

  “Did we loot any of the NPCs when we were fighting White-Wings in the tunnel?” Locke asked, changing the topic to an important question.

  “Yeah, Sparky pretty much auto-loots everything whenever an NPC dies. We got some items, but not a whole lot. Why?” Tubal asked.

  “Were there any insignias? Anything that could serve as some kind of identification marker like the one we got from the Fire-Walkers?” Locke asked, pulling out his armband and holding it up.

  “Actually, one of them had a dozen on him. They weren’t nearly as good as the Fire-Walker ones, only +5 to Vitality, so I didn’t feel like it was worth mentioning them until we had time to split up the loot as a group, but . . . Wait, are you thinking . . .?” Tubal left the question hanging expectantly.

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m thinking,” Locke answered, and his grin reached from ear to ear.

  “And here I thought I was the cunning one in the group,” Bianca interjected.

  “My dearest Bianca, that ro
le will always be mine. Get your own job,” Katherine cooed with a coquettish laugh at Bianca’s comment.

  “What’s going on?” Reginald had been chatting back and forth with Sampson while Locke and Tubal spoke, and he finally decided that it was about time for him to get in on the conversation.

  “The role of idiot is also already taken, I see,” Eliza said coldly, but while her expression remained static, everyone else had a good chuckle at Reginald’s expense.

  “Hey! I just didn’t hear the start. Cut me some slack,” Reginald protested, but the group was still laughing.

  “Well, we are still going to need Eliza to change the color of her eyes” --Locke glanced to the Demon as he began explaining his plan-- “and we’re going to need to get away from the mobs, but there may be a way to speed up this assault. My guess is that they won’t be able to keep up with all the new people, given the influx of Holy Alliance members. Even the Fire-Walkers couldn’t tell who was on their side and who wasn’t, and there are far fewer players for them to keep up with. Both the Fire-Walkers and the White-Wings are extremely zealous religious organizations, so they might not have even considered the fact that someone would lie about which side of the aisle they were on. Even if they have, we still stand a really good chance of being able to get past most of the guards. There’s no way that every single one of the guards knows every single face that is assisting them in their bid for the city.”