The road between the coastal city of Verdanport and the dungeon town of Hockenfiel was beautiful at this time of year. The well worn, dusty ground was littered with fallen leaves in vivid shades of yellow, orange, and red, slender branches arced overhead, and the rush of running water filtered between the young trunks from the nearby river.
The horses’ hooves provided a rhythmic pounding that was just slightly out of sync with the regular creaking of the carriage wheels. The two chocolate brown animals trotted along at a merry pace, following the other carriages further up ahead.
Glancing back from the driver’s seat, Dorian met Stephen’s gaze. His young financial adviser looked rather uncomfortable, which wasn’t unexpected. Despite the cushions, long carriage rides took some getting used to.
Dorian returned his attention to the road ahead. The shopkeeper’s supply cart was the last vehicle in the convoy of three. Warden rode with Katie and Tyler in the front — the latter of which had elected to come in order to keep his apprenticeship on schedule — and Marian, James, and Kyle rode in the middle.
Gareth was mounted on his own steed somewhere behind.
There was also a final passenger, one whom only Dorian and Stephen were aware of. The old necromancer Tyraleus was wrapped up in a tarp in the trunk of the shopkeeper’s carriage. The lich king had insisted on accompanying his fellow cultists on their temporary relocation — logistical issues be damned.
It was fortunate that the skeleton experienced neither claustrophobia nor a need to breathe.
A sudden clopping of hooves coming from his left alerted the alchemist to Gareth’s passage. Slowing his mount back to a leisurely trot, the spellsword pulled up beside the carriage, positioning himself right over Dorian so that he could adequately loom.
“I see you’ve brought your bookkeeper.” He paused. “I suppose somebody has to keep records while other people go out and do the dirty work.”
Dorian didn’t even try not to roll his eyes. The spellsword’s remark was clearly targeted at him and not Stephen — but the shopkeeper was barely offended. Such words meant little coming from a man like Gareth. No, the real offense was Gareth being granted such a dignified position in the current party.
Having failed to provoke a reaction, Gareth kicked his heels and sped up in order to fully overtake the supply carriage. Dorian shook his head in disdain.
“What’s the deal with that guy?” Stephen asked once the rider was out of earshot. “He’s been nothing but rude to me since this morning, and neither you nor Lady Zarya seem particularly pleased.”
Shaking his head again, Dorian sighed. “He was always a major asshole,” he began, “but we both used to tolerate him. We worked together as a primary adventuring party for quite a few years.”
“Huh, I didn’t know that. I thought the three of you just fought the dragon together.”
Dorian nodded. “Yes, we worked together long before that. But it was right after that things fell apart.”
He was silent for a moment, and Stephen spoke up again. “What happened?”
“Marian and I both wanted to take a break.” Moving his reins to one hand, the shopkeeper scratched the side of his head. “We felt that we needed a little down time — but Gareth felt differently. He wanted to keep the party together, but he also wasn’t content on taking a hiatus — even a short one.”
Dorian shrugged. “Long story short, he tried to manipulate and coerce us, and when he didn’t get his way, he threw a tantrum — rather publicly, I might add.”
They continued in silence for a moment, and when it became clear that Stephen wasn’t going to say anything, the shopkeeper decided to reveal what else he knew.
Making sure that the rest of the group was far enough ahead to be out of earshot, he leaned as far back as he could and spoke softly, just barely above a whisper. “I think you ought to know, he recently became an infernal cultist.”
Dorian leaned forward again as Stephen raised an eyebrow. “Huh. You never told us that.”
Dorian shrugged. “I never thought it was important until now.”
A raspy voice whispered from behind, considerably muffled by layers of cloth and wood. “You must be cautious when handling such kinds. Rash though they may be, never underestimate their ability to drag others down with them.
Dorian leaned back again and thumped the back of the carriage. “Quiet.”
He thought he heard a grumble, but it may have just been his imagination.
Returning his attention to the road, the shopkeeper realized that the other carriages had stopped ahead. Frowning, he pulled the reins, bringing his own horses to a halt. “Hey!” he called up to the front, “what’s going on up there?”
“Fallen log!” Marian called back.
Dorian’s frown deepened. The road was regularly cleared, and any dead trees should have already been marked and culled. Stepping down from the carriage, he motioned for Stephen to come with him, and the young man obliged.
The pair were halfway to the other carts when five darkly cloaked men stepped out from between the trees. Coming to a stop, Dorian resisted the urge to groan. The roads had become increasingly safe in the past decade, but incidents weren’t completely unheard of.
But of all the times for this to happen, why did it have to be now?
Everyone remained motionless for several seconds until one of the cloaked figures finally spoke. “Everyone stay calm,” he commanded. “Stay where you are, and no one gets hurt.”
Dorian slowly glanced between the five bandits. None of them had visible weapons, but that didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous — at least to their young companions. The shopkeeper doubted that the bandits would be much trouble for either him, Warden, Marian, or even Gareth — but they couldn’t assume they would be able to handle them without taking collateral damage.
Warden finally broke the silence. “Okay.” The branch leader spoke calmly and confidently. “What do you want?”
“We’re going to search your carts.”
Dorian silently cursed and shared a worried glance with Stephen. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t be particularly concerned, even in a situation like this — but he had a skeletal lich in the trunk of his carriage.
The carriage that they wanted to search.
As Warden relented — likely making the same calculus in regards to collateral damage that Dorian had — the shopkeeper began trying to come up with a plan for how to avoid discovery.
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He licked his lips as two of the cloaked men began rummaging around in the first cart while their leader watched. Or at least, Dorian presumed the one who had spoken was the leader. Several minutes passed — the men collected a few small valuables, and the shopkeeper’s mind continued to race.
He furrowed his brow. Unfortunately, nothing workable was coming to mind. The only course of action he could see that had a chance of averting disaster was to simply let them search the cart and hope that they somehow didn’t find Tyraleus.
It wasn’t a very good plan.
The men moved on to the middle carriage and Dorian resisted the impulse to tap his foot. A bead of sweat ran down his brow.
Perhaps he could strike first — if he could kill one or two, the risk of collateral could go down considerably. Of course, he would then have to explain to the others why he had attacked, which itself was a whole problem of its own.
The two bandits finally left the middle cart, briefly returning to the woods to stuff the assorted items they had collected into sacks. So far, their spoils weren’t worth much at all — certainly not worth the risk and danger associated with their chosen profession.
However, there were far more valuable items in the supply cart.
As the two cloaked men returned, Dorian decided to speak. “The trunk to my carriage is locked,” he lied, “it’s enchanted such that only I can activate it.”
The men stopped, and one of them glanced back to their leader, who flicked his shaded eyes back and forth between Dorian, the carriage, and the remainder of the group. “Go ahead then,” he said after a moment, “but no funny business. You two. Go on and watch him.”
Taking in a steadying breath, the shopkeeper slowly walked back around the carriage with his arms raised. The two bandits followed him at a slight distance. Upon reaching the trunk, he pretended to fumble with the latch before gently raising the lid and taking a respectful step back.
The two men approached and began digging through the assorted supplies. They had brought the sacks with them this time, and Dorian silently glared as they carelessly dumped potions, enchanted items, and miscellaneous materials into their bags.
He almost laughed as they greedily stole a nugget of fools gold and ignored the powdered deep sea corals — the latter of which were incredibly expensive due to the difficulty sailors had in acquiring them from the kraken infested waters.
One of the men stood back. “I think that’s enough. Remember — we do have to carry all of this.”
Dorian shut his eyes and silently sighed in relief.
“Wait just a minute, I want to see what’s under this big tarp.” The shopkeeper’s eye’s snapped open. The other bandit leaned forward and dug in the bag of the trunk — soon coming face to face with the ghastly visage of the long thought destroyed Dread Lich King Tyraleus.
The necromancer tilted his skull. “Boo.”
Leaping back in fright, the bandit screamed.
Heaving an exasperated sigh, Dorian linked [Summon Elements] with [Chill], [Cold Support], and [Overdrive]. A moment later, he skewered the man through his back with a jagged icicle.
Staggering for a moment, the cloaked bandit collapsed backward. The debuff from {Chill] rapidly took effect as frost grew across his body, and he took his last icy breath before he had even fully collapsed to the dusty ground.
The other bandit gaped for a second — regaining his sense just in time to dodge another deadly icicle.
“Help!” He shouted as loud as he could while simultaneously sprinting off towards where Stephen stood in the open between the two carriages.
The entire scene abruptly erupted into chaos, and the shopkeeper cursed under his breath while running after the second bandit. The man had almost made it to Stephen’s position, and Dorian understood exactly what his intent was.
He wanted a hostage — but the shopkeeper wouldn’t let him have it. Unfortunately, he couldn’t simply fire another icicle — the risk of hitting Stephen was too high.
A quick glance showed that no one else was looking their way. Good. For the first time in actual combat, Dorian activated one of his Abyssal Cultist skills.
[Lashing Tentacles].
A trio of ethereal violet tentacles materialized from behind the fleeing bandit, coiling around his legs with frightening speed and dragging him to the ground. In the time it took for the man to roll over and free himself, Dorian had closed the distance.
His first action was to shove Stephen out of the way. His second was to activate [Elemental Pulse].
A concentrated blast of freezing energy exploded around the shopkeeper, turning the world around him to ice. Midway through rising to his knees, the nearest bandit collapsed back to the ground, his skin and clothing torn and frozen with a layer of crusted snow.
Dorian didn’t give him time to recover. An [Elemental Bolt] crackled down from above, the icy discharge striking the fallen enemy right between the eyes.
Giving the corpse a quick kick, Dorian was satisfied by the way the frozen chunks of flesh crumbled.
As the shopkeeper sprinted towards the others, he watched as Gareth impaled a third bandit through the ribs. A surge of magic pulsed through his sword, and the man immediately combusted, flames erupting from every orifice.
Dorian made it to the middle wagon at the same time as the last bandit charged at Marian — only for Warden to grab him by the arm. Pulling his hapless foe to face him, the titanic adventurer gripped the man’s head in one colossal hand and bashed it against his chest.
Dorian grimaced as the now mostly headless corpse dropped to the ground. Glancing around the impromptu battlefield, he relaxed somewhat. It seemed that no one on their side was hurt. All in all, it had been a rather easy fight — while the four bandits were likely not weak by absolute standards, they were clearly no match for the senior adventurers.
But something was bothering the shopkeeper. Scanning the area once more, he counted four corpses. Four. But hadn’t there been five men originally?
As the other’s relaxed as well, Dorian began to grow increasingly uneasy. Looking around for their younger passengers, he saw that Kyle and James were still in their carriage, while Tyler was standing off to the side. Where was Katie?
“Nobody move.”
The leader’s voice came from the other side of the carriages, opposite from the direction the bandits had originally approached from. Whipping his head around, the shopkeeper’s heart sank.
The cloaked man was standing between the trees at the very edge of the road — and his arms were wrapped around the young woman, binding her tightly. To make matters worse, ethereal violet tentacles coiled around her waist, and one held a knife up to her throat.
Dorian glanced between his fellow instructors. Warden’s expression was stone cold as always, Marian furrowed her brow, and Gareth licked his lips.
The shopkeeper mentally cursed. He recognized the tentacles, of course — it was the same skill he had used moments earlier.
The bandit leader was an abyssal cultist.
“Nobody move,” the hooded man repeated, “and maybe she lives.”
Flicking his eyes between Katie, the bandit, and the other instructors, Dorian tried to formulate a plan. Back when he was still an adventurer, hostage situations were his absolute least favorite challenge to deal with.
Katie made their decision for them. Swinging one leg forward, she then kicked backward, hitting the man with all her might in the shin. The man twitched, and the knife slipped across her throat.
Dorian immediately sprang forward as the man cursed and dropped the young worldwalker to the ground. Gareth reached the bandit leader first. Several tentacles lashed out towards him, but a fiery slash of his sword severed them, slicing through them like they were empty air.
The shopkeeper had already prepared his own skills — and the bandit was too occupied with Gareth to dodge the jagged icicle headed in his direction. The frozen spear penetrated straight through his neck, instantly decapitating him.
As his head and body collapsed to the ground, Marian rushed over to Katie’s fallen form. “Fucking hell,” she cursed, “I did not expect that.”
“Can you heal her?” Warden demanded as he caught up to the others.
“Yes, this isn’t actually too bad,” the healer replied as she activated her skills. “I think she’ll be fine. Physically, at least.”
“I’ll get some potions,” Dorian interjected, before running off back to his own supply carriage. In truth, if Marian proclaimed that Katie would be fine, there was likely little need for any alchemical products. The real reason was that he wanted to ensure that Tyraleus would remain undercover.
Upon circling back around the carriage to the trunk, he saw that the lich was still out in plain sight. Hurriedly rushing over, he stuffed the skeleton back under his tarp, ignoring the old necromancer’s muffled complaints. Next, he retrieved three small vials — one crimson, one clear, and one a bright, vivid yellowish green.
A life potion, a sedative, and an energy potion.
Returning to the others, he crouched down beside the healer — making sure to still give her plenty of space. Katie appeared to be in a daze, but she was breathing and her throat was completely healed over.
“Give me those,” Marian snapped, and the alchemist hastily handed her the vials.
“Is this a sedative?” Dorian confirmed that it was. “I only need the energy potion then,” the healer replied, handing the other two vials back. “She’s at full life and I doubt there’s any pain anymore. Drugging her up would be less than helpful.”
Nodding, Dorian slipped the two small vials into one of his coat pockets. Standing up, he met the branch leader’s stone hard gaze. Beckoning the shopkeeper to follow, the giant of a man took several paces away from the scene before stopping.
He crossed his arms. “So. Care to tell me just what the hell just happened there?”