With the freeing of her supply lines, Shahrazad’s coup d'état was slated to take place in a mere two days. Our task, the drive explained, was to begin before dawn on the second day, removing the rooks from their roosts immediately prior to the invasion of Shahrazad’s army so as to prevent the King from finding security replacements.
Once the rooks were wiped out, we were to wait until the castle had been conquered, after which Shahrazad would contact us and hand over her fragment as promised. Eliza and Sinbad’s faces were pulled tight with tension. Neither of them appeared happy with the amount of information provided, or lack thereof, but neither of them protested.
Such division of labor and information in order to protect their comrades was nothing new to them.
How we defeated the rooks was left to us. The roost locations of six rooks were marked with large ‘x’s, scattered around the castle grounds and in key areas of the surrounding town. Sitting at the table next to me, Cove sighed as he ran a hand through his hair, tearing his eyes away from the map. His lips were quirked up in a small smile that stayed even as he met my eyes.
“Did you ever discover why the creators of Zenith Online called them rooks instead of using the traditional spelling for the mythological ‘rocs’?”
I shrugged. It hadn’t crossed my mind. “I thought they were simply larger rooks?”
Cove was already shaking his head, his eyes sparkling with mirth. “Rooks have white on their face. Zenith Online’s rooks don’t. Besides, in many of the translated versions of A Thousand and One Nights, Sinbad battles the traditional roc.”
My curiosity was piqued. Cove leaned forward, placing his elbow on the table and leaning into his hand as Sinbad and Eliza pinched and pulled through the map, breaking out in the occasional discussion in the background.
“It’s after the chess piece. They’re all roosting in small towers,” he explained, interrupting Eliza and Sinbad to point out the different marker locations.
That sounded about right, given what I’d discovered of the Zenith Online writers. I wished for a moment that they were in front of me so I could inform them they weren’t as clever as they seemed to think. Crabgators, rooks, Dark Ravens, Spinning Wheels, and bad apples? Horrible names. It was shameful even to think that writers such as this were breathing the same air as Tolkien once had, much less were writing in the same category.
Because Mount Doom is so much better, I thought, in a voice that sounded suspiciously like Ember. I silenced the voice along with the part of me that remembered enjoying the game, tuning back into Sinbad and Eliza’s discussions.
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The fastest method of wiping out all the rooks would be to lure them to us and destroy them in one fell swoop, but that plan came with the risk of exposing the entire plan to the Mad King. Of course, slipping into the six different towers was equally risky and involved spreading Sinbad’s crew thin.
The good mood that had fallen over the table with Cove’s revelation died, leaving a churning storm of frustration and impatience in its place.
“Pirates,” Eliza said, staring into the holographic map.
We all glanced at her, questioning, as she stared back at us as if she were confused that we were confused.
“...we pretend to be ‘em,” she suggested, speaking slowly and condescendingly as she was speaking to small children.
On principle, I wanted to refute. However, the idea had merit. It would deflect the blame away from Shahrazad if we were caught.
Lucky for us, pirates in Zenith Online were easy to differentiate. For the most part, they always dressed in the more ‘traditional’ pirate garb seen in movies, with the occasional added false arm or magic staff. By the next evening, we’d financed and obtained the materials needed to give a good impression of pirates under the light. It wasn’t quite authentic, more of a hodgepodge of similar-looking clothes we’d managed to collect and distribute, but in a video game where only pirates dressed like, well, pirates, it would do the trick.
Sinbad divided his crew into teams, each set to accomplish a specific part of our mission. One group, consisting of nearly the entire crew, was sent ahead to create the distraction, making a ruckus in the late evening hour and luring out both the rooks and the guards with as little injury or property damage as ‘reasonable.’ Others were scouts sent ahead to observe and alert us of the rooks movements. Cove, Sinbad, Eliza, and I, as well as a few other gunslinger members of the crew, meanwhile, separated from the rest of the crew, stalking through the city and climbing or teleporting up to key positions on top of roofs. These positions we’d chosen would give us clear shots at the rooks as they converged on the crew, as well as allow us to keep track of the movements of the city’s population and guards.
At the stroke of midnight, our attack would begin, giving us five hours to wipe out the rooks before Shaharazad’s army descended on the castle.
I recast vanish and master of disguise on myself before switching to the doctor class and casting master of disguise and vanish. Next, I switched to the gunslinger class, pulling the bow Sinbad had found me out of my inventory and clutching one of the black feathered arrows Cove had distributed to us in my right hand.
The bow and arrows we’d found in the dungeon, per the usual dungeon logic, were specially designed for killing rooks. Although the arrow alone wasn’t as powerful or damaging as the combination of the black bow and black feathered arrows Cove had, we were banking on the specially designed arrows being effective on their own.
We’d discover how true that was quickly.
The tiny text out of the corner of my eye changed ever closer to midnight. I alternated between watching the people and players go about their business below and glancing warily at the sky as I waited patiently for the clock to change,