Chapter 2: Permadeath

As the high-caliber, armor-piercing round of a military-grade HC-58 rifle bounced harmlessly off his forehead, Varsh Gellor, fourth in command of the Royal Roses, grinned and clapped his hands together in mockery of the men firing upon him. So did his guild-mates, who fanned out around him and snickered at the futile attempt. Less than twenty yards ahead of them, a small grouping of men in green camo uniforms opened up in a relentless stream of fire, pausing only to reload.

“I can’t believe our luck,” Seraphina said. She stood directly to Varsh’s right. She was a young, attractive, green-haired chick with the lips of an angel but the eyes of a devil. Of all the members of the Royal Roses, few could rival her sadism or appetite for violence and murder. She wore nothing but a pair of tight-fitting, shiny black leather trousers and a sports bra. At her side was a rapier, which shined an unnatural purple color.

Varsh looked at her, his grin widening. “The enemy must be weak to have nothing but a bunch of pathetic ‘Ones’ guarding this place. The boss is going to be happy: very, very happy.”

The two of them shared a laugh, even as a hail of bullets showered them. In truth, Varsh could barely feel it; at the most, it felt like someone gently throwing little strips of paper at him. Why did they even bother? These silly little Ones, who were no different from any other ordinary human.

Varsh’s orders had been simple: depart with Seraphina and four other members to an outpost belonging to the Guild of Gentlemen, then kill anything that moved, loot any equipment found in storage, and finally burn it to the ground. That last order would be a real shame, though, because this place was nothing short of beautiful. It was also unusual for a guild to attack another guild's outposts directly, but recently, the rules of war had been changing in ways not seen for a very long time.

The “outpost,” as it was called, was in fact a five-story manor built on a field of grass surrounded on three sides by a white fence, beyond which lay gardens filled with pointed, multi-colored flowers that were rare enough to be called endangered. Fountains in the shape of various mythical beasts dotted the landscape, broken up by more flowers and the occasional bench for sitting and enjoying the sights. Far into the distance, Varsh was impressed by the site of a range of snow-topped mountains; on the tallest, a mountain known as Dragon Squire, it was said that, in seventeen more years, a legendary dragon not seen for centuries would at last respawn and whoever killed it would be rewarded with a sword of unimaginable power.

Heh, wouldn’t mind something like that. Even if I can’t make use of it myself.

“Varsh,” Seraphina said. “Why’re you gawking? I’m bored. I want to kill.”

He waved a hand at her dismissively. “Yeah, yeah. Go on, go on.”

Seraphina stepped forward then drew her rapier, the blade of which glowed an even brighter purple. “I’ll take those charging up from the left.”

Varsh looked where she indicated and saw ten more of the camo-uniformed Ones charging in their direction, stomping on and flattening many of the beautiful flowers in the process. The sight of it angered Varsh, which was strange even to him, since he knew he’d be burning all of this down before long.

“You four,” he said to his guild-mates. All glanced eagerly at him. “Stay behind me. You’re still low enough that a lucky bullet might nick ya.”

Varsh had arrived wearing the robes that had been gifted to him by their boss, the leader of the Royal Roses. It was midnight-black everywhere except on the right breast, where a glowing symbol of a rose glowed a dimly lit red color. Merely by wrapping this soft, lightweight cloth around his body, his intelligence was increased by 55, and his constitution by 20. Hell, 20 constitution alone was enough to prevent any known bullet from even so much as scratching his flesh. It only made these Ones all the more stupid for not turning and fleeing.

Level-1 trash, he thought with a chuckle. To even attack us is an insult.

Reaching into a holster strapped to his back, Varsh removed an oaken staff, which he then held in both hands. With a shout, he slammed the base of the staff into the concrete road where he stood at the entrance to the manor. There was a brief flash of orange light, and then the sound of screams erupted around him as all the men firing at him were lit aflame. They howled in agony, running in wild, random directions as they tried to roll or jump or otherwise beg the flames away. It would do them no good. The sound of their screams died only when they did.

“Follow me,” he ordered.

Without even looking over his shoulder to see if his men obeyed, he marched forward through the single, gravel path towards the large, faded wooden doors of the five-story manor. To his left, he heard moans of glee as Seraphina slit open throats with her rapier, causing sprays of dark red blood to splatter on the brown-colored bricks outside the manor.

Once inside, ten men and two women were waiting behind a makeshift barricade just in front of a grand spiral staircase that led up to the second and third floors. Varsh shook his head. “Do you really think this is going to work against me? You guys should’ve just run. Now I’m going to have to—”

Although he continued to speak, his words were drowned out by the roar of gunfire that relentlessly assaulted him. He raised his hand to signal the four behind him to wait, then turned his head when he heard the sound of a shout and a gurgle.

One of the four—a younger fellow likely no older than 20 years of age—grabbed his throat, his eyes wide with fear. Blood poured out of the open wound as he fell to his knees, rolled over on his side, and then twitched a few times before lying still.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Shouldn’t have brought him, Varsh thought. He’s only level 4. Should’ve seen this coming. Oh well.

Two of the three men still standing also seemed to sustain some damage, but given that they were levels 5 and 7 respectively—and had been lucky enough to receive points into constitution on their level-ups—the bullets only managed to inflict moderately deep wounds which could easily be patched up with either healing magic or the conventional use of stitches, antibiotic ointment, and bandages.

Varsh glanced at his oaken staff, which he held in both hands. It was plain and ordinary looking; sometimes, very powerful pieces of equipment looked the part—but other times, they were unremarkable to the casual observer. Unlike his robes, with the dim, glowing rose and the flowing black cloth, his staff looked like trash left in the corner of a room somewhere. And yet, contained within it was the power to ignite his enemies in one fell swoop. Unfortunately, it was an ability that could only be used every ten minutes, which meant, at the risk of allowing more harm to befall his guild mates, he would have to deal with the remaining vermin one at a time.

Dashing forward, he threw out his palm, then released a ball of fire that struck the soldier closest to the stairwell right between the chest, causing him to lift off the ground and sail several feet back in the air before colliding with the middle-most step leading up to the second-floor. With a gasp, he began to roll back down. Even before he hit the rug at the base of the steps, Varsh was already swinging around his staff, bludgeoning a second man to death.

“Don’t just stand there, you idiots!” he shouted. “Fight!”

This caused his three foolish guild-members to snap into action. Two drew swords from scabbards at their sides and charged, while a third folded his hands beneath his chest, lowered his eyes to the floor, and began chanting.

By the time another three of the rifle-wielding, camo-uniformed troops had perished, a pinkish, oblong-shaped mass of pulsating energy was sailing across the foyer and heading straight for a younger-looking fellow, who dropped his rifle, turned around in the direction of the stairs, and began to flee—but he was far too slow.

The pink mass of energy struck him in his back, and upon contact, it began to spin: faster and faster and faster. It drilled into him, causing skin, blood, tissue, and strips of the man’s innards to shoot all across the room as though blown by a powerful fan. He screamed as he died, and so did the remaining survivors, who quickly dropped their rifles, got on their knees, and raised their arms in surrender. This was good. It would make it easier to kill them.

With a nod to the three incompetent idiots, Varsh took a seat on the bottom-most step next to the charred remains of the camo-uniformed solider he’d killed, then hummed an old song his father had taught him while he waited for his guild-members to finish cleaning up. They took way too long to get the job done: Varsh almost got up and lent them a hand, but he decided they needed the experience. Not experience points, mind you, as there were no experience points to be gained from killing non-mobs. But they needed a different kind of experience: the kind that only life-and-death battles could provide.

When the last of their enemies lay still and unmoving, he crooked a finger at the three of them, who were now stained red with blood. Panting and breathing heavily, all three moved to join him. At the same time, Seraphina skipped and danced her way into the foyer, clearly having enjoyed herself. She sheathed her rapier and then smiled. “I’m back!”

“Let’s keep moving.”

Varsh led the five of them up two flights of stairs to the third floor, then walked quickly across the red-and-gold carpeted floor to another stairwell, which led them up to the fifth. At the end of the hall, beyond four doors, Varsh spotted a painting of a handsome man with dark blue eyes wearing a crown. Even an idiot would recognize him: he was King Peter the IV. He was also a reminder of just how powerful the Guild of Gentlemen used to be before King Peter’s tyranny caused even rival guilds to unite together against him.

Look at how far they’ve fallen. They don’t even have any leveled defenders to spare defending this place.

To the right of the painting was a door leading to Varsh’s destination. He knew from a spy he’d tortured that this was where they kept their spare equipment. As expected, it was locked. “Seraphina?” he asked.

She laughed and nodded. She approached the door, took a step back, and then kicked. With a bang, the door flew inwards, sailed across the room, and then with a crack, crashed through one of the large, wide glass windows that ran nearly from the floor to the ceiling. It disappeared out of sight, likely landing in one of the gardens outside below.

The room inside was mostly empty. There was little in the way of furniture—or anything. There were no chests, no weapon racks, no armor stands: nothing. On the floor, however, were scratch marks in the wood that looked fresh, indicating that something—or many things—had recently been moved.

“Gods above, damn this!” he shouted. “Where is the equipment?”

Seraphina made her way further into the room, her lips puckered innocently. Then, with a sweet, almost child-like voice that was at odds with her bloodthirsty demeanor, she said, “Maybe they don’t have anything, Varsh.”

He shook his head. “No, they have—or at least they had. It looks like whatever they were keeping around here was moved recently.”

“So maybe we just need to search the place, meh-heh-heh!”

He shrugged, then sighed. “I mean, we could try, but I doubt we’ll find it here. They either knew or suspected we were coming. They probably took it somewhere they could defend it more readily. Honestly, given how light the resistance here actually was, it seems like they more or less abandoned this place, leaving nothing more than a skeleton crew of Ones to guard the manor.”

“So…mission failed?” she asked with a moan. “Rats! I wanted to see what they were storing. Oh well.” She sheathed her rapier. “At least we got to kill. I love that.”

She’s sick in the head, Varsh thought. I mean, I enjoy it too, but she loves it way too much.

“We’re not quite done,” he announced, causing Seraphina and his other three guild-mates to turn their heads his way with an expectant gleam in their eyes.

“We’re not?” she asked.

“No. I know of another outpost pretty far from here, but it's nothing if we travel by DEHV.”

“Where at?”

“I don’t know the exact location, but I know it’s hidden somewhere in that nasty, oversized city: Whispery Woods.”

“Eww! I don’t wanna go there.”

Varsh shrugged. “Well, suck it up. Because that’s where we’re going. If they moved their equipment, it would likely be there. And even if not, I’ve been meaning to hit up the outpost there anyway, because there will be other good equipment for us to steal.”

Seraphina pouted. “I feel dirty just thinking about going there.” Varsh rolled his eyes at her. She was being ridiculous. How could that make her feel dirty? It was just such an odd thing to say given that the young woman was drenched from head to toe in blood, guts, soil, and a few flower petals.

“We’ll take another look around here to be sure, but then after that, we’re torching this place and making our way to Whispery Woods. Now get moving. I don’t want to be here all day.”