Jace watched Esther lead the way into the throne room, a vacant look in her eye. Her trance-like state made sense when Paltine walked in after her, still holding her in a command spell. Abhid came next, leading his two monks, with Delly struggling between them. Paltine had needed Ahbid’s women to escort the barbarian as his magic couldn’t contain her. The orc looked over at the rest of the waiting crowd. Pok, Ferrick, Tenesta, and Kelrick had been able to effectively subdue Delly before, but now that they had advanced in level under the tutelage of Vulder and Paltine, Jace guessed their strength was just as tied to the dark magic as their superiors. If he could free Delly somehow . . .
“Ah, the barbarian queen has arrived,” Vulder said, rising from his throne. The monks read his intention and maneuvered the Grappled young woman into the center of the room before the throne. They forced her to her knees. “Excellent.” Ahbid stood a dozen feet away, watching his companions closely. Vulder turned to him. “Your partner has brought you up to speed?”
Ahbid looked over at Jaheed and nodded. Jace guessed they shared an operator. “And now I need to bring you important information,” he said as reverently as possible, bowing before the ruler. “I think you are making a mistake, Lord Vulder. Jace Thorne is not who he says he is. You should not let an outsider perform this task. He works for a government agency in his realm, and his true purpose here cares nothing for your rule or Delilah Sorek.”
While they talked, Paltine released Esther and walked to stand beside the throne. Pok stepped up to him, holding the obsidian staff in which they would attempt to trap the land’s life-giving power. There was no way the necromancer would be able to manage the spell, so he handed the magical device to Paltine and stepped back.
Ahbid went on at length about the CIA and Jace’s assumed mission to attack specific individuals like Odalga, Chago, and himself. The other players found this new information extremely interesting, and they cast nervous glances at Jace. Vulder, on the other hand, grew bored quickly. Jace tried to ignore it and focused on Esther.
She approached Jace but drew back at the last second when she saw Snowy. “What is . . .” After one look into the snake’s frosty eyes, she knew who it was. “What is going on?” she whispered.
“Are you okay?” Jace asked first. The woman nodded. Then Jace explained as little as he needed to bring the woman up to speed. Her eyes saw Delly kneeling before the ruler and understood. Currently, the Prime Regent was laughing at Ahbid’s request.
“You can’t be serious,” he said. “You think you should be the one to kill her. As an undead paladin, opposed to the forces of death, the power would be drawn to you like a vortex. No, you can not do this.”
“I will do it!” Odalga and Chago said at once.
“Silence, imbeciles! I am not a fool. With this power, any of you could defeat me. Stand aside, or you shall experience a fate worse than the wolf.” The players bowed their heads, and Ahbid took several steps back.
Vulder turned his eyes to Jace. “Come now, orc, or CIA agent, or government official, or whatever you wish to be called. I care not for what happens outside this realm. I care only about your purpose in this one. Step up and execute your function.”
Jace crossed his arms. “I can not do this thing.”
Beside him, Esther smiled at her leader’s refusal.
“What?” Vulder asked.
“I said,” Jace repeated, “I can not . . .” His mouth froze as Paltine cast a spell on him.
“I am not a child!” Vulder raged. “I do not question the words you spoke but the meaning behind them. Do not think we can’t command you to walk off the edge of this room to fall to your death. I will not tolerate your insulance!”
Jace felt his jaw slacken as the brief spell expired and cleared his throat. “I am an Honest, Ordered, Traditional Stone Shaman. If anyone in the room can absorb life-giving energy from the earth, it is I. I will not have you read my intentions at the last moment and kill me. Besides, if I were to do this, my god would abandon me.”
He paused to let that sink in before continuing. “I offer you an alternative.” He pushed Esther away from him and toward the middle of the room. “Esther Xerxes will kill Delilah Sorek.”
“I will . . . what?!” Esther cried, her smile from earlier evaporating.
“She is a vampire,” Jace explained, “unable to channel life-giving magic. Though she has death within her, it is not of this land, and she will not be prevented from killing Delly as you are. She has the skill to execute the job with one clean blow, and the power will be yours to entrap.”
“Excellent proposal,” Vulder said, appreciating the irony of the arrangement.
“I will not!” Esther said. She drew her weapons but turned away from Delly with killing intent on her leader.
{You do not want to know what just happened to your relationship score with her,} Gracie advised. {I’m guessing you don’t actually intend to kill Delly, but at this point, you don’t have the authority over Esther to force her to do it, even if you wanted to.}
It looked like Esther might attack him, and Jace waved his hands to stop her. “Please, Esther, listen to me.”
“Don’t wave your hands in my face, you rotten orc.”
{Waving your hands?} Gracie asked. {Is that a signal for me? Of course, you can’t talk to me without them noticing.} Paltine and Pok expected trickery and had their magical powers focused on Jace.
“Esther,” Psycho intruded. “This is Jace; trust him.”
That took a little steam out of her sails.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“Yes, please,” Draya said. “He once traded me as a slave for a few crates of fruit, and it all worked out.”
“Not helping,” Gropmhy said, kicking the mage in the shin.
“Please, Esther,” Jace said, trying to ignore the antics of his other companions. “Dispel your fear and doubt.” He hoped Gracie was paying as much attention as Esther.
“But . . . but . . .” Esther said, her rage turning to sorrow. “It’s Delly. We came here to save her.”
“Don’t get choked up,” he said. “We will save her.”
{I think I got it, boss,} Gracie said, picking up on the carefully placed words that didn’t fit with the way Jace normally talked. {But how? No one has been able to do it yet.}
“She is stuck now,” Jace said. “We can’t fight these characters. They are too strong. Remember, we had to kill Psycho to free him from his quest.”
“Will . . . will Delly respawn?” Esther asked.
Jace nodded. “She will respawn, and everything will be chill.”
{Got it,} Gracie said. {Great plan. I’ll tell her.}
“But, will she remember us?” Esther asked, and then her head cocked to the side as Gracie explained the plan through her earrings.
Jace worried the other players might notice it, so he spoke quickly. “I’m sure she will. Her quest was always to find you and your sisters. When we are done here, we can go back into the city, and she will be sitting at her favorite tavern waiting for us. It is the only way out of this mess she is in.” The speech was full of lies, and Jace guessed at least three of the other characters detected them. Hopefully, that would distract them from Esther’s flinch.
Gracie and Jace finished their instructions at the same time, and Esther nodded, displaying an effective poker face. “Okay, Jace, I will do it. But you better not be lying to me.” Jace hugged her and gently turned her around so she faced Vulder and Delly. Ahbid still voiced his concerns with this arrangement, and Paltine silenced him. The paladin nodded humbly and took a few more steps back to give Esther a straight line toward the front of the throne and Delly’s prone body. Esther approached, sheathing Char so she only held her frost blade.
“Esther,” Delly said, looking up at her friend from a kneeling position. “You don’t need to do this. This isn’t what I expected when you said Jace was . . .”
“Can you render her Helpless?” Esther asked with a coldness that made her rapier seem warm by comparison.
The two monks nodded, tightening their grip on the woman, and Delly lost her ability to speak.
“Make her face the floor,” Esther instructed, and the women complied. The rogue stepped back from her friend, ensuring the light from the chandelier above didn’t illuminate the floor between them too much. She cast a spell, and everyone in the room tensed, but it was True Strike on her weapon.
Jace watched intently, hoping he wasn’t making a big mistake. He looked around at the crowd and their positions, trying to devise a battle strategy if this plan didn’t work. Heck, he was going to need a strategy if it did work. After Ahbid’s revelation about him working for the CIA, Jace didn’t need to guess on which side the human trafficker and money launderer would come down. No one returned his looks as everyone focused on the executioner in the middle of the room.
Esther took one more calming breath and tugged on the brim of her hat, sending her into complete darkness. Ferrick, Dreller, and Tenesta flinched, readying their weapons, sensing foul play, but the rest understood the magical spell and the intent behind it. A few seconds later, Esther leaped from the shadows, Chill arching down toward the back of Delly’s exposed neck, leaving a trail of frost in its wake.
Esther’s attack skill with her rapier was at 52. She got +10 from True Strike and another +10 from a Surprise Attack since a Helpless character was always surprised. It was a Sneak Attack from the shadows, and she added her full Stealth skill of 49. Since she wasn’t in combat mode before the attack and took the time to Concentrate, she rolled a perfect 20. That was an attack value of 141. Delly’s armor class was at 0 currently since she was prone without armor. That gave Esther 14 critical successes plus one more for rolling a 20. She could multiply her weapon’s 51 damage by 15 and vaporize her friend, but Gracie had communicated a better plan. Instead, she only let the base damage of 51 flow into the barbarian and spent the 15 criticals on the weapon's secondary ability: Dispel. The rogue also dumped 300+ mana into the level 12 rapier, adding another 60 points to the 150 from the criticals, which was just enough to defeat the 200-point difficulty of the level 30 choker. Any priest trying to dispel the device would also have to account for the high level but spells cast into weapons ignored the level as long as you hit your target.
The razor edge of Chill bit slightly into Delly’s neck, and the magical choker unclasped and fell to the floor.
Then the room shook.
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Delly felt the pain from the attack, but that quickly washed away as a rush of power swelled within her. With her hands and knees against the floor, she felt a strong connection with the ground below, even though it was over a hundred feet away. The earth’s rage flowed through the maze of wood, stone, and metal supports connecting the throne room to the desert sand. The power didn’t heal her, but the rage inflated her base hit points, so the damage she had incurred over the past hour felt like only a scratch by comparison.
Delly’s muscles tightened and flexed as she was released from her Helpless condition, the monks’ skill no longer capable of holding her. The barbarian rose from the floor, shrieking in rage, and threw the two smaller women off her like a dog spraying water. One monk flew toward Pok and Kelrick while the other caught an arrow from Tenesta, who fired on reflex before the orange-clad woman collided with her.
“No!” Vulder’s voice rang out. “Kill her! I don’t care who. Just kill her!”
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Jace smiled at the result of his plan, happy the game mechanics could be counted on, even in a unique situation like this. Psycho and Draya readied their weapons beside him, but he raised a hand to hold them off. He expected the collected players and NPCs would all be against him if he gave them a reason to attack. Right now, they were focused on Delly, and she looked capable of taking a hit or two . . . or twenty. He wanted a chance to observe his potential combatants first, knowing they would probably loose their most potent attacks and spells at the barbarian. She could take a few for the team before Jace’s crew got involved.
However, in the few seconds immediately after Delly’s rebirth, only Ahbid had the presence of mind to react. He was the most eager to please the Vice Regent and had never trusted Jace to go through with the kill. Even before Vulder called for her death, the paladin had drawn his mace and charged at the barbarian.
Jace observed the attack with interest.
Only after she had shed her two grapplers did Delly register Ahbid’s approach. He had closed to within 20 feet. The former escort activated her Quick Change ability, and she went from a vulnerable-looking woman in skimpy attire to a battle-hardened warrior holding an axe, shield, and covered in magical items. She still wore only a halter top and skirt, as barbarians received penalties for wearing armor, so that was expected.
Ahbid hesitated at the change and chose to raise his shield instead of attacking. It was the correct choice, though it increased his survivability only slightly. Delly would have to roll a 1 in attack. She didn’t. The barbarian’s axe swept in from her right, hitting the silver shield and slicing through it like wet cardboard. Jace hadn’t known shields could fail like that and continued to watch in amazement as the axe blade swept over Ahbid’s shoulders and severed his head without slowing down.
The rest of the room had been slow to react, and now they all stood in horror as the level 22 player stood decapitated, wavering slightly on his feet before toppling forward, spraying blood on the woman before him. Jace had his gore settings turned down, so he only saw a splattering of red on Delly’s dark skin, though he imagined the rest of the room saw her covered in a fountain of blood. The sight of her rage-filled eyes turning on Vulder was enough to haunt anyone’s dreams.
The room exploded into madness.