The Bloodbirds
Time: 1 year (real world) prior to the “Defense of Attica”
Corbeau (Corvus) in Royal Road, Ivaldi City.
“Come on Merlin!” I called as I left the workshops for the first time in a week, squinting at the sunlight and stretching. It was originally my plan to try and learn some more rune magic today, but I decided I’d rather spend the day wondering the city, since I’d only seen a fountain, a street, an alley, and the hellish slave-driving Sindri’s workshop; in addition, it looked like even Sindri took a break every now and then. Still, I’d gained a bunch of stats, was well on my way to learning the rune-smithing skills I’d need in the game to design advanced weapons, and as bad as Sindri was, some of my earlier trainers, especially the self defense ones, made him look like a girl scout, so as I left I was feeling pretty jaunty.
I wandered around for a while, Merlin floating over my shoulder, just looking at the dwarves, the houses and shops, the food, the marketplace stalls, everything really. Eventually I was feeling hungry so I walked into a pub near the docks called the Dancing Mermaid, for some food and drink. They had a pretty excellent fish pie, and a really nice light ale which I was enjoying until a handful of thugs tromped in and started causing a scene. I hadn’t noticed previously, but these thugs all had a red feather on their shoulders, same as the ones I’d fought in the alley.
“Oy, Inkeeper!” their apparent leader shouted, “ ‘Ave you rethought your position vice-a-vis our proposed insurance plan? I’d ‘ate for something to happen to this place. Fire, burglars, even vandals might come in, and where’d you be without us an’ our fine company? Eh?” he said with his thick docklands accent while laughing, as the four other thugs with him loafed about looking menacing.
“I won’t allow this in my shop! We’re a decent establishment, and don’t want none of you lot in here. Get out!” the publican said. “Get out or I’ll call the guard.”
“See ‘ere innkeeper, you call the guard, there might be a ruckus, and who knows who’d be caught up in it, eh? Wouldn’t want your lovely daughter hurt now would we?” While the other customers looked on, thing were escalating quickly, from insinuated violence against the pub to violence against the owner’s daughter.
The pub owner, a middle aged dwarf with a beer belly, turned totally purple in rage at this, and reached below the bar, pulling out and quickly loading a crossbow.
“I spent four years in the army, out on the east end of Ivaldi fighting undead, you little shits. I was ranked “expert crossbowman”. You think I’ll miss your heads at this range? I see you again, I’ll be shitting in the hole I leave in your skull. Now fuck off, and tell your boss the next Bloodbird I see’ll be dead!”
“Alright, alright, no need to get angry, we were just passing a friendly message, eh?” the leader of the thugs said, looking nervous. “We’ll leave, alright? No problems.” With that, the thugs left, backing out with hands raised. As soon as they were out the door, the customer burst into cheers.
I went to see the owner and said: “You know they’ll be back, right?”
“What? I told them next time I’d…”
“You’d kill them, ya. But you see, a couple things. One, they’re gonna realize that as a crossbowman, you can get one, maybe two of them before they take you down. Two, the whole way a protection racket works is, everyone has to pay. If they let you get away with not paying, it’ll be a mass rebellion. No, they’ll be back. The only question is when, which depends on the people running the operation. You have any idea who that is?” The publican is looking rather worried now.
“No,” he says, “I don’t have a clue.”
“Shit. Well, they don’t seem to be too clever at any rate. I came across a trio of muggers last week, they weren’t much smarter than these guys. Which, considering they were morons, isn’t saying much. See, the thing is, if they’re dumb and angry, they’ll come tonight. They’ll see the challenge as something to crush immediately. If they’re a little smart and vicious, they’ll come tomorrow night, assuming either you’ll spend tonight waiting for them, then give up when they don’t come or be really tired the second night, or, if you don’t wait for them at all, then you won’t be ready; either way, they win. If they’re totally cold blooded, they’ll wait till the forth night; even if you’re prepared the first, second, third nights, by then you’ll assume they aren’t coming, so they can surprise you. Now, if they are scarily evil, they’ll wait a week, maybe 10 days, until the first of the others inspired by your example rebel too. Then, one night, before you can organize, they’ll move against all of you, taking out anyone who might rebel in the future.” By now he’s blanching and beginning to sweat, so I decide to try and calm him down a little by distracting him with some social niceties.
“My name’s Corbeau, by the way, apprentice Rune-Smith to Master Sindri. Nice to meet you,” I introduced myself.
“Ah, a Rune-Smith apprenticed to Sindri! Very impressive. I’m glad you’re kind enough to be interested in my troubles. My name’s Kabin. What do you think I should do?”
“Well. I don’t think they’re too smart; in fact, I’m willing to bet they’ll attack tonight. So, you have two options: One: Ambush them tonight, then try and hit their base before they can try again, or, Two: Grab one of them now, interrogate him, and go after the base immediately, trying to stay inside the decision cycle. I’m willing to help either way, and would advise option two.”
“Thank you so much! Let’s try that then.”
Quest Notice:
Your actions have begun a quest: Exterminating Birds, Difficulty D/E.
Quest: Exterminating Birds:
The Bloodbirds, a gang located in Ivaldi City, are making a nuisance of themselves. Protect Kabin by destroying the gang. It may be difficult to find their location.
Relationship with Kabin Improved.
“Alright,” I said, “let’s start planning how we can do this. First off, do you have any friends from your army days we can ask for help?”
“Sure, there are half a dozen guys from my squad are living in the neighborhood: three swordsmen, another crossbowman, a priest and an earth mage.”
“Okay, send your daughter to get three, and run and grab the other three yourself. I’ll wait here, if that’s alright. Meanwhile, Merlin, would you mind finding a couple likely looking sources of information?”
“Sure, now you need me. It’s never “Merlin, would you like some beer? Or how about a vacation?” Instead, it’s “Merlin, fly all over town looking for some smelly thugs.” Sure. Fine, be happy to” he grouched while flying off. I hid my grin until he left, then got back to eating the pie and drinking some juice. I’d need my strength for later.
About half an hour later everyone returned, and introduced themselves. The swordsmen turned out to be brothers with particularly unimaginative parents; they were named, oldest to youngest: Bazil, Chazil and Dazil. The only thing to tell them apart was that the oldest was slightly larger than the middle who was in turn larger than the youngest. The priest was Ajak, apparently a priest of a dwarven beer-god, while the mage was called Tsende or the Trencher, apparently for his ability to build trenches. I’m told it sounds more impressive in dwarvish, which is of course automatically translated to English for me. The second crossbowman, specializing in guerilla strikes and assassination, was called Teach, apparently since he’d been an elementary teacher and said that he wished he could teach his prior students the same way he did the undead. They varied in level between 47 (Dazzle) and 84 (Tsende), were all veterans of the unceasing undead wars in the East of the Island, and had their service issue chainmail and weapons, apparently in case they ever needed to be called up from the reserves. Tsende, by virtue of level and experience, was their squad corporal; apparently the sergeant lives in some small village away from the city. Still, if I could kill a pair of thugs when I was level one, we should, between us, be able to take care of business. I asked for a bottle of concentrated ink, and promised an explanation later. After explaining the mission to them: find a thug, capture and interrogate, locate base and kill the leadership, we all waited a couple minutes for Merlin to streak through the window and tell us where to go.
“Merlin, would you form an information overlay, please?” I asked.
“Sure. Follow the arrow to the enemy,” he replied while forming a visor to project a heads up display for me. We followed the directions for a dozen minutes before arriving at the destination: a dead-end alley with a trio of young Bloodbirds smoking, drinking and playing cards.
“Remember, we need one alive,” I said quietly. “Tsende, I want you to immobilize them; bury their legs in stone. Teach and Kabin, take the ones on the left and right respectively. Headshots, please. I’ll take the one in the middle. Ready? Take positions. On three. One. Two. Three.”
At the count, we rushed the Bloodbirds. With a roar of stone, the thugs were buried, unable to stand up. I ran down the center of the alley, ducking into a roll as Teach shouted “Down!” Crossbow bolts thudded into the heads of the left and right most thugs, while the one in the middle gaped.
“GET DOWN!” I screamed as one long, drawn-out word, activating the Kiai and slowing the survivor until I could tackle him. The other swordsmen piled on, and once we had him restrained I told the others “You’ve done a good job. Unfortunately, it isn’t over yet. We need to find out where to hit these guys, and that may get a little messy. And noisy. I wouldn’t want to expose you fine dwarves to such things; would you mind guarding the road leading to the alley?” Really, it’s that I didn’t want them to see what I was about to do. I still have nightmares about what happened in Nigeria when I was on a peace keeping mission with my Knights Corvi after the latest round of religious civil war. One of our men went missing while out fraternizing, and we didn’t have the luxury of waiting for intelligence. At least this time it would be adults, and computer characters rather than real teenagers looking to score some points with their local warlord.
The seven veterans, looking a little doubtful, left the alley and took up positions.
“Merlin, can you stop the air and especially any sound from leaving his mouth if necessary? I wouldn’t want to disturb our allies.”
“Of course, Corbeau.” As Merlin disengaged his display mode, the thug looked terrified. He understood that the only reason we’d need to gag him would be if he would be screaming.
Now, I spoke pretty nicely to the thug: “Alright lad, what’s your name?”
“Brick, sir, please don’t hurt me, I’ll tell you whatever you want to hear, honest!”
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“I’m sure you will Brick, I’m sure you will. And as long as you answer honestly, we won’t have any trouble. Just a nice conversation, then we’ll let you go on your way. Doesn’t sound too bad, does it? So you can be nice and calm. Now, what city are we in, Brick?”
“No, not too bad guv. Ivaldi.”
“And what season is it.”
“Summer”
“You’re getting this, right Merlin? And running a baseline?”
“Sure, but I don’t know if it works with NPCs,” Merlin replied
“I think it does. I remember someone brought the topic up; whether players would see real tells when NPC’s lie. They’re meant to be based off of real human faces from court trials,” I said. “Alright then Brick, now, here’s a big one. Who’s your boss? The head honcho of the Bloodbirds?”
“I’m not sure what his name is, we just call him the Eagle. That’s all I know, honest.”
“He’s lying. Not about the Eagle, but about only knowing that,” Merlin told me.
“Oh Brick. Why’d you lie, mate? Do you not want to be alright? Fuck, I’m sorry for this I really am. Merlin, block is mouth.” I grabbed his hair to immobilize the head, then pinched his nose and started counting in my head. When I reached 50, he was looking pretty desperate and wide around the eyes, so I decided that’d be a good starting point and let go before slapping him a few times to get his attention on what I was saying.
“Alright Brick, that was 50 seconds without air. Every time you lie, that goes up ten seconds. Alright? It’s okay if you’re catching your breath. Nod if you understand. Good. You know that strangulation, lack of air, is one of the worst ways to go, right? You start convulsing as you get really low on air, and you’ll void yourself just before you die. You don’t want your body found like that, do you? No, didn’t think so. Now, what do you know about this Eagle?”
“Look, don’t fucking kill me, I’ll talk! Eagle, he’s some kind of low rank blood wizard, works for some necromancer called Serpentshead out east. He’s a fucking terror: tortured a Bloodbird who wanted to quit, go straight to be with a girl, to death. He killed the girl, too. Preserved their bodies and put them up next to each other in our headquarters. Please, guv, he can’t know I talked, alright?”
“Sure Brick sure. All you’ve got to do now is tell us where he is.”
“You’ll kill him, right? Promise you’ll kill him and I’ll tell you where he is.”
“Nah Brick, we’re killing his men and having this chat so we can sell him some cookies. Course we’re going to kill him. Now, before I lose my patience, where is he?”
“You got a map? I’ll mark it. It this abandoned warehouse right here. There’s a pair of guards outside the door, but no other traps or anything. We had them for a while, but Bloodbirds kept setting them off by accident.”
“Alright Brick, you’ve done a great job. Now, like I said, you can go on your way. Let me just cut this cord around your hands.” Moving behind him, I took my knife and cut his throat.
Level Up
He’d made his decision, broken the law and justice, and I couldn’t have him warning this Eagle, after all, could I? Plus, never go into battle with an untested weapon. I needed to know what this knife did. Judging from the smell of ozone and the lines of ice, I was guessing that Sindri’s Knife had extra freeze and shock effects, helping slow and stun the enemies while increasing damage. Nice. Taking a few golds from the corpses as well as a blackjack and their cards, I put the points into dexterity as I left the alley.
“Alright, guys, I’ve got the location,” I said. “Let’s head over and have a look.”
“The prisoner?” Ajak asked.
“Taken care of,” I replied.
“Good,” Ajak grinned. “Can’t stand these Bloodbird shits.”
“OK,” he said, “pay attention. There are two guards outside, and it looks like they’ve been drinking. There are half a dozen thugs and gangsters inside, as well as four of their girls who may be enemies but may turn into hostages. Eagle is located in this room, and appears to be asleep.”
“Is there outside entry into Eagle’s room?” I asked.
“None,” said Merlin. “And while the rest of the base seems trap free, his room has three mundane and two magical traps that I could see. There may be more.”
“Tsende, could you take the whole building down? I’m just asking, in case it’s necessary.”
“Maybe, but it would probably take a while. I’d have to bring down at a bunch of supports, and don’t have great control when I can’t see what I’m spelling. I’d also prefer not to kill any innocents,” he replied.
“Alright. Hmm… Back entrance, maybe? We can have Kabin take out one of the guards from a distance. The other runs in and says they’re under attack. The mage checks, sees it’s just Kabin, Tsende, Ajak, Bazil and Chazil, so he’ll sortie with his troops thinking he has the advantage. Anyone left inside is a noncombatant. Meanwhile as they leave the building, Teach and I go in through the back and hit Eagle from behind, since he should be towards the rear of his men. How does that sound?” Once everyone agreed, Teach led me on a sneak around to the back of the warehouse.
Leadership +4
Small Unit Commander Added
Helps a player lead small units. +5 Leadership and +5% Leadership for the first 4 soldiers you are leading. Troops are 50% more likely to go along with your plans.
Sneak Skill Added
Helps a player hide his presence and blend into the surroundings.
The grandmaster sneak is even able to hide himself in plain sight.
Level 1 effect: You are 5% harder to detect.
Once we were in position, we had Merlin fly over and start a 30 count before they hit the exterior guards. We could faintly hear a thrum as the crossbow fired, followed almost immediately by a crunch as it buried itself into the thug’s skull. The other guard began screaming for help and ran inside. Moments later Merlin flew out and turned into visor-projection mode in front of my eyes.
“Eagle woke up and is rushing to the front door. Take position by the back and enter in estimated 15 seconds,” he said. Teach and I moved up to the rear entrance, and Merlin gave a three count: “1, 2, 3.” On three, Teach and I kicked the door as hard as we could. As it crashed open, we ran past screeching gang-girls, and out the front door where we could see the squad fighting the thugs. Bazil, Chazil and Dazil had their square, legionnaire style shields up and were stopping the advance of four thugs armed with short swords. Two thugs were keeping Ajak and Kabin’s heads down by threatening them with crossbow rounds, while Tsende was furiously engaging Eagle in a magical standoff.
Teach brought the crossbow up to his shoulder and loosed a bolt at Eagle, but it was deflected by a magical shield and barely scratched him. Still, it split Eagle’s attention and distracted him long enough for one of Tsende’s magically propelled stones to get through, further weakening the shield. I sprinted forward, covering the dozen paces to Eagle in a couple seconds, while focusing on Eihwaz and slashing with my knife, trying to break through Eagle’s shield. The level difference was just too much though, and again the attack was deflected, though the shield was weakened. Snarling, Eagle flung up his arm at me, shouting an arcane blood-word. I leapt and rolled, dodging, but Teach, standing just behind me, flew backwards, slamming headfirst into the wall before falling, unconscious or dead. Reaching into my inventory bag, I took out the ink and poured it onto my hand. I pressed up against the shield, and focusing as strong as I could, finger-painted Eihwaz reversed on it. While Eihwaz works to strengthen, Eihwaz reversed weakens. Another of Tsende’s projectiles slammed into the shield, and finally broke through the shield, smashing into the back of Eagle’s head.
As he instinctively turned towards Tsende, I screamed “Ei-HWAZ!” activating Kiai at the same time and slamming the knife into Eagle’s kidney for a critical hit as he screamed. Ripping it out, I buried the knife into Eagle’s other kidney, again screaming “Ei-HWAZ!” I pulled the knife free one last time and, grabbing Eagle’s hair, yanked his head back, exposing his neck. I stabbed the knife in sideways, glancing of the spine, the slashed out, cutting Eagle’s windpipe and half the blood vessels in his neck. As his blood sprayed forwards, I saw the announcement:
You have killed Eagle.
Quest Notice: Exterminating Birds Quest Completed:
Speak to Kabin for your reward
Level Up
Level Up
Level Up
Level Up
Without Eagle to contend with, Tsende and I helped mop up the rest of the Bloodbirds in moments. Laughing and shaking with excess adrenaline as soon as the fight was over, we searched the bodies, not finding much. Going inside, one of the treasure chests was empty, taken by the girls most likely. In Eagle’s room we hit the jackpot, finding a book on blood-magic and blood-runes, which I took, as well as a decent chain mail hauberk which was only long enough to be a chain mail tunic for me, though I was sure I’d be able to make better after another week or two working with Sindri. I got a sword with a malevolent aura too, but couldn’t identify it. We also found a series of letters between Eagle and Serpentshead, describing some plan to raise an undead legion strengthened with blood-runes and launch an assault against the eastern border forts. According to the letters, the legion was meant to be raised in two months; the assault would begin during the start of winter in three months; snow is perfect weather for the undead. As soon as I read it, I received a new quest:
Quest Notice:
Your Actions have begun a quest, difficulty E.
Quest: Inform the Authorities about Serpentshead
Serpentshead is planning a devastating attack on the Eastern region of Ivaldi. Inform a city Elder so appropriate measures can be taken. Failure to inform an Elder may result in the destruction of Ivaldi.