We sat in silence, watching the man as he slowly came to. Our plan already discussed, his fate somewhat decided. I even had a speaking part in the play - the group allowed it, seeing as just talking shouldn’t melt my brain away.
“Ow,” he said, wincing as the nice bump I gave him throbbed in pain. I assumed, anyway. “That was unexpected.”
“You did just try to assassinate me,” I replied, and tilted my head.
His eyes went between each of us, taking us all in. “Ah, yeah. Sorry about that - I thought you might be Crimson Shadow.”
I exchanged a glance with Ren, who took over the lead on this investigation. “Why would you think that of a group of strangers, and attack first rather than find out or leave?”
“A brief moment of insanity. Where I hoped to gain notoriety by killing one of the bastards plaguing this land?”
My brow furrowed as I started to tune him out. The words weren’t really important, anyway. There were a few things I truly cared to know. If he was alone or had a group waiting in the wings. Tanya’s idol would detect anyone else approaching from the same direction he had.
If he was alone, either he was sent here to try to kill me off, or was scouting on us. First option had failed spectacularly, and the latter was more worrying. Then the question would be if he was planning to escape with information on us… or was already relaying our position or worse as we sat here talking.
Strangely enough, I could feel some of the truth out already.
I tuned back in to the conversation and butted in. “Why don’t you all go level again, and I’ll sit and chat with our friend here?”
They all turned to me with apprehension on their faces, the newcomer included.
“Are you sure?” Ren raised an eyebrow.
“Always.”
None of them seemed happy with my decision, but they reluctantly went along with it. I produced a chair near mine while the others packed away their things to prepare to go fight.
“Missed your name, pal.” I gave the spare seat a pat.
“Dorian.”
“That is a name,” I said diplomatically, as he awkwardly got up and hopped over - we had not removed his bindings. “You’ll have to forgive our caution, as we are on edge a lot.”
“I can imagine. With the Crimson Shadow around… and random people firing off arrows at you.”
“True.” I gave him a smile before I looked over and watched Wolf power up before engaging the next group of enemies.
Dorian was silent for a moment as he also watched them fight. “Ah, I don’t suppose you have anything for a headache. Not sure what even hit me.”
“It was me,” I replied, idly. “And no, I don’t.”
“Ah.”
What I did have, however, was a pain in my arm. Something gentle, in a way - more like a tesla orb spreading purple lighting back and forth from my bone to the inside of my skin. Electric, but it didn’t fill me with energy. Enough knowledge to start sketching out the rough picture… and see if it resembled a chalk outline.
“Where is your creator at, puppet?”
His brow furrowed. “What? I’m not sure what you mean.”
I gave him a tired gesture with my head, and he craned his head back to behind us. Up against the back of his chair, the wide-bore muzzle of my demonic cannon. Already loaded, and willing to play bad-cop.
“You’re pretty realistic,” I continued. “That doesn’t seem like something a normal Class would have. I’m going to guess… Guardian slayer?”
Dorian licked his lips and looked nervous. “You’re talking nonsense. Let me converse with one of the more reasonable members of your Party.”
Was I being a little crazy? No, surely not. I was calm and hadn’t laid a hand on the man so far. Nonsense would be if I had started to cut parts of him off to see truly how detailed this puppet was.
“Request denied.” I spun up a pair of mundane cards into my hand and placed them together, face-to-face. “Let’s play a game. You try to guess if my card is higher or lower than yours. Winner gets to ask a question that must be answered truthfully.”
“I don’t want to play games-”
I held the covered cards up to him, and slowly pushed one of them up, so that I could see one of the faces, and he got a peek at the other.
“Lower,” he said.
The truth was, I knew what both of the cards were without even looking. Something innate to me now - some kind of parlor trick sixth sense. Not only that, but I could switch them at will. I turned them around to reveal he had the Ten of Clubs, but I had the King of Hearts. Of course, he wasn’t going to answer honestly, anyway.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“What is your question?” He looked as though he had his improv skills burning a hole through his head, ready to repeat that he knew nothing.
“Who will mourn you when you die?”
He blinked. “Huh?”
I maintained an impassive glare while his brain tried to change tact. Should be an easy enough thing to answer - I had been the biggest loner in my previous lives, yet I had a handful of new friends that would definitely miss me. Even Fiona might shed a tear. For a Player to spend a few months here at least, and not make and meaningful connections was suspicious. It was the nature of adventuring to gather around others.
He didn’t seem to think so. “I don’t understand your line of questioning… I’m not here to play games.”
“Then why are you here?”
Dorian’s mouth opened and closed. “Just adventuring, passing through.”
“To go where? What level are you? What is your Class type? What was the last meal you ate?”
“I’m… I refuse to speak with you any further.” He shuffled in the chair before remembering the cannon pressed up against his back. “You need to let me go.”
“Need to? Explain why?”
He didn’t respond to this, but continued to shift in his bindings. I’d worn out what little information he would give me willingly. I stood from my chair and approached him. Before he had the chance to do more than lean away from me, I had a gag around his mouth, swiftly followed by a sack over his head again.
The inability to speak, see, use skills, and move was the best I could do. If his originator could use his senses or communicate through other means, then that should dampen the information he was able to transfer. That was a good thing to check, actually…
I tried to add him as a friend and send my Chat details over.
The System wouldn’t allow it.
His coffin had enough final nails in already, but I had just added a few more. I stepped over to Tanya, and she shot a glance back at our captive.
“Not trustworthy, then?”
I shook my head and watched Ren fire off a couple of arrows in quick succession. “Couldn’t add him as a friend or send him messages. Wouldn’t answer basic questions and flustered under the pressure of having to think of more abstract probing. He seems more of a scout than an assassin, but I’m unsure to what end.”
She sucked at her teeth. “Undecided on killing him outright?”
Would be pragmatic, maybe. Puts the chance of him communicating with anyone to almost zero. There was something, though…
“No. I’ll keep him alive.” I looked back at the man and unsummoned my cannon. “My intuition is telling me something isn’t right about this.”
“Just your intuition?” She held out her hand and cast a spell at the fresh pair of Hyenids Wolf had gathered.
I nodded before giving up the truth. Would do me no benefit to hold secrets at this stage. “My arm is reacting to his presence. I believe he has been created by the one with the second Guardian's power.”
“Oh.” Her brow furrowed. “All the more reason to kill him?”
“All the more reason he put himself in a position where he could be killed.” I shrugged and turned back to walk over to Dorian. It was a clever ploy that I’d almost fallen for. The trouble with the Crimson Shadow was that even when they were being devious for a change, their thoughts were still two-dimensional.
They knew by now how powerful and proficient we were. Sure, spying on us to learn our location would be helpful… but at this stage, they didn’t have the option of chasing us down. That was the reason I chose a Quest location opposite to the direction of Candlekeep. With no blood, they’d need to fall back to the Lady and be more conservative.
Sending a single figure with a bow wasn’t likely to even scuff our armor. Capture or death was pretty much guaranteed. I was not a betting man, but I was willing to put down all this useless gold I’d earned on the fact that Dorian would do something once killed.
Especially if anyone had seen how we’d dealt with captives before. A quick knife while we were all gathered around - and he’d become a detonated bomb, bioweapon, or transform into another eldritch horror. I stood before him and brought up my Map.
[Max: Any chance I could borrow Quinn?]
The group finished up the current pack and walked back over to me. We’d need to move our little base camp up soon. We were getting further away and respawns might be due in the near future.
“What manner of lunacy are you now proposing?” Ren crossed her arms and frowned at me.
“Just taking our guest for a stroll.” I smiled and sent her across some co-ordinates.
She read them and turned sharply towards the fixer. “You’re in charge of Max. If he gets hurt in any way, I will murder you.”
“Ah?” Quinn physically recoiled, unsure what he was even signed up for.
“Grab his legs, bud.” I rubbed my chin, unable to shake the manic smile. I’d need to steal something with wheels at some point.
----------------------------------------
A handful of grunts and slow minutes later, and we had arrived at our destination. We dropped the man to the rocky ground to his muffled complaints. I allowed Quinn to peer over the edge, lest I tempt fate a little too hard.
“If the drop doesn’t do it, the water will take him out to sea.” He stepped away from the precipice.
“Perfect.” I rolled my neck out. “Say, Quinn. If we ever fix the world and can settle down here, what do you think you’d get up to?”
He raised an eyebrow and considered the question. “Honestly, I’d like to explore more. Without the pressure of constant conflict, I’d want to see every corner of this world. Assuming I haven’t died in your stead, anyway. How about you?”
Before I had the chance to answer, he held up his hand. “Except for being a magician.”
“Ah, got me there.” I grinned. “I’m not sure then… maybe an artist?”
He tilted his head. “Really? I did not know you were much for drawing.”
“Oh, I’m not.” With a shrug, I opened up my Inventory. “Pretty terrible really. You should see the horse I drew in my diary. The one that almost killed me.”
I withdrew it at an odd angle, my Trauma-bound mind having it appear slightly too close to the fixer rather than into my own hand. It bounced from his forearm as he fumbled it, and then we both watched it tumble close to the edge of the ravine before plunging out of sight.
We continued staring in silence for a handful of seconds.
“Quinn.” I turned a tired gaze toward him. “You are duty bound to never mention this to Ren, ever.”
“You have my word.”
I honestly didn’t know what to think. There was humor in there somewhere, I was sure of it. Probably a relief to have such a dour tome out of my possession. I’d just have to retain the good memories in my fragile skull, and let the bad ones go.
“Alright, let’s do the deed. I’ll need to swipe the Cuff at the last second. He heard me say that, so he might prepare to use a skill immediately after.” Couldn’t stop grinning.
Quinn nodded, but was slightly put off by my expression. “I assume you have a perfectly reasonable and safe way of doing that, then?”
My continuous grin didn’t convince him, but what choice did he have? We propped Dorian up onto his feet, neither of which cared to keep him upright. His muffled pleas for mercy or something fell on deaf ears. Closer to the edge now and I saw the bottom for myself.
A split of the river long eroded away at the rock to take it to the sea - I hadn’t realized how high up from sea level we currently were. Nothing but a couple seconds of drop, but the degree of fatality was almost guaranteed.
With a nod to Quinn, I leaned forward. My skull, desperate to be opened up, fell down into the ravine as I didn’t let up my grip on the puppet.