The Merchant of Tiqpa: The Bathrobe Knight's Sequel Page 30

  “So, you want to turn them into . . .?” Tubal left the question hanging, and Locke thought it would have been obvious.

  “Meat, man,” Reginald answered for him. “Guy wants us to scorch them so they’ll be counted as food.” Reginald definitely wasn’t as dumb as he pretended to be.

  “I will not sully the honor of my foes by turning them into meat for dogs,” Spark said flatly.

  “They weren’t your foes, Spark. They were hers.” Locke gestured to Eliza and then added, “Also, do you know many cultures used to consider it a great honor and tribute to eat the hearts of their victims?”

  Eliza stared at Locke with a thinly-veiled mixture of shock and horror. “If this is how you newcomers treat the dead, you’re far more disgusting than I ever could have imagined. Even the filthy White-Horns have never resorted to eating the dead, and those stinking beasts are still primitive enough to live in holes in the ground.”

  “I’m with crazy-eyes,” Sampson said. If she had been insulted by anything Eliza had said, she didn’t show it. “This is so gross, Shy. And just plain wrong.” Sampson held up a hand in front of her mouth as she visibly gagged.

  Locke put down his blade and sighed. As soon as he realized what he had done, he instinctively flinched, expecting a slap on the back of the head from Bianca, but receiving none, he addressed the issue at hand, saying, “Look, we only have a few options here: We can try to hide the bodies and hope that no one finds them, we can leave them here and pray no one notices them and surrounds the place immediately, or we can go with my ‘sick’ and ‘gross’ idea. But, either way, whatever you people decide, you need to keep in mind that our time is limited.”

  “Shy, has anyone ever told you that sometimes you’re too smart for your own good?” Katherine admonished. “Try acting dumb. The most Reginald ever suffers is a few hits on the head, and those can’t really make his situation any worse.”

  Tubal pulled out a few arrows and set them on fire. “It might be gross, and you might hate him for it, but he’s right.”

  “There has to be a better option,” Sampson said pleadingly from behind the hand that still covered her mouth.

  “Can’t think of one.” Tubal shot the cut-up pieces of flesh with fiery arrows, quickly turning them into charred, crispy pieces of meat that smelled far too much like burnt bacon for Locke’s personal preference.

  “I should have given you a hand,” Reginald said as he stared at the quickly-burning corpses. “I’d make a really poor medical student if this grossed me out.”

  “So do we have a game plan for when we get in there?” Reginald asked Locke. “Or are we just gonna wing it?”

  “Hmm . . .” Locke honestly hadn’t given too much thought to what he was going to do beyond this point. It was unusual for him since he had a penchant for methodically plotting out everything as far down as the smallest detail possible, but all the things that had happened over the past day seemed to just keep falling in line. He had been moving from one scenario to another so quickly that he hadn’t actually had time to sit back and have a good think about what was going on. In truth, the last time he had actually had any ‘down’ time was in the bar when he shared some beers with everyone else. Even then, though he had enjoyed himself, he had been somewhat preoccupied with Eliza and everything that had been going on with her. He would never admit it, especially to Tubal, but he had been more or less winging it ever since he first met them.

  His lack of proper planning aside, he did know that they had to take care of the White-Wing leaders for the Fire-Walkers and that Anthony was still somewhere around pulling the strings on everything that was going on. He just had absolutely no idea what to expect once they actually made it inside the building. For all he knew, there could be an entire regiment of soldiers camped out inside, sitting around having tea and cookies. Aside from all the times he had met up with Anthony to sell either him or his soldiers gear, he really didn’t know too much about him or how the Holy Alliance operated behind closed doors.

  “I, uh . . .” He remembered all the gear that he had sold to them in the past and trailed off mid-sentence as an idea occurred to him. “Yeah, I got a plan, and we’re going to definitely need her,” he pointed a finger directly at Eliza, “to pull it off.”

  “We already know that she’s one of the key pieces here,” Tubal answered. “That’s not really a plan. We already know she’s both our ticket to get close to Anthony and one of the key reasons that we’re able to pull this off at all. As much as I hate to admit it, she’s also the best option we have to take care of the White-Wing leaders.”

  “I mean, for a part other than fighting.” Locke couldn’t stop himself from grinning. He was a little unsure if his plan was going to work, but now that he had seen Eliza make mincemeat out of the three guards at the front of the building, he had more than enough confidence in his partner to think that she could pull it off.

  “Done!” Reginald, who had started the clean up last, brushed his hands off as he stood up first. Locke had started long before him, and he was impressed with how fast the Satyr had completed his work. What the heck? With hands like that, he better be going into surgery.

  After they finished disposing of the bodies, the group hurried down the block and moved into the building. The entrance hall was larger than anyone had anticipated, and it felt more like the lobby of a large hotel than an actual enemy headquarters. There was a sitting area, empty likely because everyone was off helping in the fight, and a concierge sitting behind a desk who was dispatched so fast Locke didn’t even get a chance to see his face clearly before Tubal’s arrows turned him into a pincushion.

  “So do we know which way Anthony is?” Locke glanced at the concierge’s dead body and then turned to assess the rest of the room. “I mean, I think this was the guy that would normally tell us that stuff.”

  “What?” Tubal asked defensively. “If we didn’t kill him, he could have also sounded the alarm. They always have those buttons under the desks to warn people.”

  “Tubal . . .” Locke facepalmed. “Tubal, how would they have things like that inside of Tiqpa? There aren’t even toasters, and you expect them to have that type of gadget?”

  “Huh?” A look of guilt passed over Tubal’s face as he realized that Locke was probably right. “They could have had a magic one. There is a magic everything here. I mean, this part of the city is floating after all.” He looked to the others for reassurance as he jumped over the desk. He made a motion as if he were going to burn this body as well, but Locked stopped him before he could even get started.

  “No need,” Locke sighed. “They can’t see under the desk. Just leave it.”

  The entryway to the building alone was massive, and there was no telling exactly how big the rest of the building would be. If it was half as large as Locke suspected, they were going to have to come up with some way of figuring out the direction they should be headed in. To make things worse, there was so much uniformity that it was hard to tell one way from another just by looking. The walls were all solid white with golden lights strung across them, and everywhere Locke looked, it was just more of the same. Divining which direction they were supposed to go was definitely going to be a headache.

  “You want to split up? Eavesdrop on some of the doors and see if we can learn anything?” Katherine suggested.

  It wasn’t a hard decision to make, and there really weren’t any other options that Locke could think of at the moment. The only problem now was that there were three different directions they could go. There was a set of stairs directly across from the entrance to the building, a door to the right and a door to the left.

  “That’s one way of doing it,” Sampson said. “How would we normally find the boss if we were in a dungeon?” She looked back and forth between the doors and then at the stairs.

  “You usually follow the trail of corpses. That’s literally how I’ve found the boss in every single game,” Reginald said. A quick glance in every direction, howe
ver, proved that his fool-proof strategy wasn’t going work again here.

  “Let’s go up the stairs,” Locke said as he came to a decision. While the others had been talking, he had been preparing a few ‘worst case scenario’ contingencies for the fight. “These are White-Wings, and this building is far more corporate than any other I’ve seen since I’ve been in Tiqpa.”

  “So you think they will be on the highest floor?” Sampson asked, following along with Locke’s logic.

  “Of course. Where else would they be?” Where else would you find a big wig? Or a bird? They’re both always perched at the top so that they can crap all over the commoners below. “Keep in mind, these guys are probably going to be tougher than anything else we’ve fought so far. They’re the leaders of the White-Wing faction, so we need to make our preparations now,” Locke answered and shuddered at the same time. Just thinking about the way most executives treated their employees reminded him of Anthony for some reason. It seemed fitting that the two would go hand-in-hand, and neither was a pleasant thought.

  After the long trek up, another set of stairs was the last thing that any of them wanted to tackle, and to his dismay, Locke soon realized that they were going to have a much longer climb than he had anticipated. Rather quickly, he realized that there was no second or third floor of the tower. In fact, after ascending what he guessed would have been about six flights of stairs, he actually started to get a little worried. He hadn’t exactly looked up to see how high the buildings were from the outside, but he had been pretty sure there was no way that the building could be so incredibly tall.

  If he’s not at the top, we’ll have just climbed all these stairs for nothing, Locke grumbled. What would the other two rooms have offered?

  “Finally,” Reginald proclaimed somewhere around the eleventh floor. He had managed to stay ahead of Locke for the duration of the ascent, and Locke briefly wondered if his choice of footwear had anything to do it. “I swear, if my apartment was like this back home, I’d be in perfect shape just from going back and forth to the garage.”

  “No kidding,” Sampson said. “You could train for a triathlon just turning around to check if you left the stove on. I can’t wait to see a Tiqpa elevator.”

  “Do you remember MMOs before the VR part came into play?” Tubal asked as he and the rest of the group walked into the hallway at the top of the stairs. “Everyone used to spend half of their time jumping up and down while running through town aimlessly. I probably spent the good part of a year watching a character jump for no reason. Can you imagine what it would be like if everyone jumped around everywhere in real life? No need for stairs at all.”

  “Yeah, that’s true,” Reginald agreed. “But at least we weren’t just wandering around picking flowers.” He nudged Locke with an elbow as he threw the verbal jab in the alchemist’s direction. “So what’s the plan again?” They had reached the end of the hallway and were standing around in a cluster outside of it. “Should we just go back outside and burn the building down? Hope they all die in the fire?”

  “If only it were that easy. They’re White-Wings, remember? If they managed to fly out before they died in the blaze, we wouldn’t have any way to reach them.” Locke glanced over at Bianca and Katherine. “Well, most of us wouldn’t be able to,” he said. “The plan is simple: We just use the girl again. Eliza will go in and request that Anthony come out,” he explained, turning to her. “Say that it’s an emergency and that Portia sent you personally. He shouldn’t recognize you, and, hopefully, he will be too distracted to think about the issue further. When he gets out in the hallway, that’s when we restrain him.”

  “You mean kill him.” Eliza corrected him, and Locke could tell that she wasn’t keen on the idea of taking prisoners just from the way she said it.

  “No, if we kill him, the Holy Alliance will know what we’re up to within the minute. We need to stall it out, keep him busy while we finish our task. I want to kill him as much as anyone.” Believe me. Locke almost salivated at the idea of tasting revenge, but it was going to have to wait if they were going to be successful. “If we do this wrong, there won’t be a way out. We don’t know how many troops they’re holding back around here, and there’s a good chance that they might even be able to send reinforcements before we even finish the fight. And there’s no way that we can let that happen,” Locke said, logic winning out against his desires.

  “That doesn’t sound fun at all,” Reginald groaned. “How are we supposed to keep him busy? Just tie him up?”

  “Well, you can’t logout in combat, can you?” Locke asked. He tried to recall all the details that he had heard about keeping the enemy from being able to log out or send messages. He wasn’t exactly well-versed in interrogation tactics, but he had heard more than enough banter about it from other players. There was a trick to holding someone hostage without letting them have access to the forums via the in-game console or messaging anyone to tell them what was going on.

  “Hmm . . . I think you can,” Tubal began slowly. “But your account will be locked on a timer for a while if you do?”

  “What’s the timer? Three? Four minutes?” Locke honestly didn’t know. He had never had any need to log out during combat before, so it wasn’t something he knew off the top of his head.

  “It’s actually ten minutes,” Reginald said with an air of confidence. Locke was left with the sneaking suspicion that he was speaking from personal experience, probably having done it before. “Not sure why it’s that long, but it’s probably to discourage people from just logging out whenever something goes wrong. The game’s creators really seemed to take the whole immersion thing seriously.”

  “How does it know if you’re in combat, though?” Tubal asked, clearly starting to see Locke’s plan.

  “You just have to do damage to them every so often,” Reginald continued, filling in the missing pieces of information necessary to the scheme.

  So, we just have to hurt Anthony, keep him from dying, and then restrain him. Locke took in a deep breath, closed his eyes and counted to five. He knew it probably looked weird to the others, but he needed to settle everything in his head. If this failed, he didn’t know what they were going to do. Honestly, no one besides him or Eliza probably cared too much. After all, they could just up and leave town whenever they wanted. Heck, other than Eliza, the rest of them can just call it a day and find a new town in the worst-case scenario. I’m not gambling anyone’s fate but mine. And hers. He glanced over at Eliza warily as he tried to reassured himself that his plan was going to work and that there wouldn’t be a massive backlash if they failed, but it did little to lessen the pressure.

  “You gonna be okay?” Sampson asked, putting one of her big Minotaur hands on Locke’s shoulder.

  “Yeah, I’m just nervous,” Locke answered honestly. Truthfully, it was hard not to be. He had been on a rollercoaster ride all day long, moving from one task to another without pause. He had done fairly well at keeping his nerves in check, but for all intents and purposes, this was a boss fight. One slip, one screw up, would cost him the revenge he so desperately craved. There was also a good chance that he wouldn’t ever have the opportunity again.

  “Well, don’t be. We got your back.” Reginald answered reassuringly and beamed him a huge smile.

  “I will assist in restraining him, but I will not tolerate any of you torturing him,” Sparky proclaimed. She glared at Locke with an evil eye as she said it.

  “Can we beat him to the point of death? Cripple him so that he can’t put up a fight?” Locke asked.

  Sparky seemed to consider this for a moment, then answered, “Yes. Yes, that does seem necessary and appropriate. Just don’t be too long in doing it.”

  “Fair enough.” Locke nodded his agreement to do as she asked. “Everyone knows their part then. We’ll hide behind the doors. Eliza, you drag Anthony out here. Reginald, can you cast the snare so that, even if he spots us, he can’t run away?”

  “Sure thing, Shy,�
� Reginald answered and started casting the spell almost immediately.

  Eliza stepped in front of the door and waited for a few moments while Reginald worked his magic and everyone else moved into position. Locke held his breath as they slid behind the door, hoping that they hadn’t somehow given themselves away while they had been plotting. When Eliza saw that the trap was laid, she opened the door and stepped inside.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Anthony bellowed almost as soon as the door was open. Locke could hear him bark at Eliza before she even made it two steps inside the room.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t mean to disturb you, but I was instructed to come here immediately by Lady Portia. She said that she needs to meet with you on the ground floor right away. I’m so sorry to disturb you.” Eliza played the part of the submissive messenger perfectly. From just her tone alone, Locke felt like he could make out the points in her apology where she was bowing her head and pleading for understanding.

  “What? Portia sent for me?” Anthony’s voice sounded shaken.

  “Is something the matter?” a voice Locke didn’t recognize asked.

  “I trust that this is nothing related to the town that’s under attack?” another voice chimed in.” You have promised us success multiple times. That’s the only reason we’re here discussing terms and not on the battlefield with our men.”

  “Can it. The last time you volunteered for the front lines, I was still learning how to fly,” the first voice said, and at least two of them had a laugh.