Know Your Roll Page 7

  Warwick nodded absently, caught up in pulling a slim lockbox from his pocket and securing the note. “Interesting…”

  I didn’t want him pursuing that line of questioning, which meant that it was time to end this. If I didn’t derail him, the situation would soon unravel far beyond my ability to influence it.

  “Listen,” I told him, lowering my voice and making a show of glancing around to make sure we weren’t overheard, “how about I make you a sweetheart of a deal? Let me go, then come in to Illgott’s for a visit tomorrow morning. There’s thousands of extra rat tails in the storeroom, and you can have them all.”

  He scoffed. “I already turned that quest in three months ago.”

  “Of course you did, wise Hero that you are. But one of the best-kept secrets of Hallow is that the ‘Vermin Sermon’ questline is repeatable. I should know, since I run it. Sadly, the experience gain is only available the first time. That wouldn’t be very useful to you at your current level, anyway. What I’m offering you is closer to what you desire, Paladin. Reputation.”

  “You think I’m so easily bought?”

  He didn’t have a poker face, and his avarice made his eyes shine. I had him. I just had to reel him in. “Firstly, this isn’t easy and secondly, yes I do. You see, the reputation rewards aren’t capped. Think of the life you could soon lead, Sir Warwick. Improved standing on the Council. Cheaper prices with every merchant in the city. Early access to housing upgrades, which’d let you move out of the barracks and into a place of your own.”

  He grunted in appreciation. “Go on.”

  Apparently I was going to have to spell it all out for him. “You’re a volunteer right now, at the bottom of a very tall ladder. But with that many tails, you could grind your way to a position on Sanguine’s Hallowed Guard by the middle of the afternoon.”

  He smiled. “I like the sound of that, Raze.”

  “The grinding?”

  He smirked. “Perhaps.”

  I nodded happily. If the Paladin was going to let me get away with talking about Commandant Sanguine like that without reprimanding me, the deal was basically done. “Who knows, Warwick. Perhaps I’m talking to the future Knight Commander.”

  As far as I knew the position was ceremonial, but he seemed to like the idea just the same.

  “That’s more like it,” he breathed, his imagination carrying him out of this laneway and into a mythical future. His guard was lowered. If I’d had a blade and the ability to attack entities Level 1 or above I could’ve given him a few vicious perforations, but that wasn’t an option and he knew it.

  “So, are we square, then?” I asked. “My freedom in exchange for your advancement?”

  “We are,” he said. “Though this will only be the beginning. I want rat tails every time I come in, without fail. And if you ever back out of the bargain, I’ll personally see to it that they string both you and the girl up once the Reenactment’s over.”

  It was the go-to threat with these guys, simple but effective. “I’d expect nothing less from you.”

  Warwick patted me on the head, and I would’ve given anything to be able to reach up and rip his arm off. “That’s a good little Dreg. Now run along.”

  I backed away from him, and when I was finally out of reach I darted off down the bright street in the direction of ‘Neath. Necessity had made me quick on my feet and given me the stamina required to run for my life.

  Nobody bothered me as I sprinted away, and eventually I slowed to a jog. By the time I got to ‘Neath it was almost dawn.

  Hopefully Patch was already safe in bed, though once I lay down in my own den I found sleep to be elusive. Every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was her dream fluttering through the air before being snatched away by that damn Hero.

  Chapter 5

  I must’ve slept eventually. Alexa’s alarm blared at me, trying in vain to get me to roll off of my stolen pallet and greet the morning.

  “I’m up,” I told her, stretching. The one good thing about having no more than a handful of hit points was that I always started the day back at full health.

  Here we go again. No rest for the wicked…

  I hadn’t negotiated the personal assistant’s silence correctly, so she kept up her annoying trill, getting louder every loop.

  “Alexa, stop.”

  She didn’t.

  The thing was a possessed demon, and I kept a cup of suitable liquid nearby to threaten her with when she quit listening. “Alexa, I’ll dunk you in holy water if you don’t quit it!”

  “Sure. I’ve Added ‘Harry Potter: Collectible Quidditch Set’ to your Amazon Cart. Review and check out your Amazon Cart in the Amazon App.”

  Crap. The shipping on that would cost a fortune, especially since we couldn’t subscribe to Amazon Prime in ‘Neath. “Alexa, cancel my cart.”

  “Your last Amazon order cannot be canceled. For details, go to Your Orders on Amazon.”

  “I hate you,” I told her.

  “You can always send feedback through the Help and Feedback section of the Alexa app.”

  I threw an empty soda can at her and crawled out of bed. I only tolerated her because she’d been a present from Patch. Under other circumstances I’d have taken her for a long drop and a fast stop somewhere, but I guess she’d served her purpose and woken me up.

  There was a yellow Post-it note stuck to the bed frame, and I peeled it off and saw that Patch had scrawled ‘Glad you’re safe. Thanks for looking out for me’ on it.

  The events of a few hours ago started slowly trickling back through my brain. She and I’d had a narrow escape, and I was going to be paying rat tails through the nose in order to make up for it. It was better than the alternative, but I’d have to talk Illgott around to be okay with it.

  Speaking of which, I’d be late for work if I didn’t leave now.

  I spit on my fingers and ran them through my hair before wandering out of the warrens. Part cave, part shanty town and all Dreg, ‘Neath lay like a drunk sleeping it off in the shadow of the mountain. The inhabitants would have to lie lower than usual in a couple of days when the Reenactment happened, since every time the Heroes went through the motions of breaking down the stronghold’s three hundred-foot metal doors and pretending to storm the lair within, something went wrong.

  At best it was the singular most anticlimactic spectacle I’d ever seen. At worst, people died when the magic went sideways. The only time they’d ever been able to successfully open the mountain had been the first one, during the Smash that had left the Rift behind.

  Even though I needed to hurry, I couldn’t walk along the hills that bordered the forest without leaning against my usual tree and staring at the impressive walls of the archaic bulwark that stretch to the sky.

  Nobody reliable had ever seen fit to share with me what was in there. The few that should know, like Mother Mayeye herself, refused to answer questions about it. The Heroes had countless lies and piles of half-truths about the contents, but even in my short life I’d noticed how wildly the myth was being embellished.

  There could be anything in there. Peace. Safety. Rocket launchers…

  “They say the secret to everything is behind those doors,” I whispered under my breath. “Which probably means there’s nothing inside but a moldy ham sandwich and a Rick Astley video playing on repeat.”

  “That’s one of my favorite songs!” Patch said from behind me, offended.

  “Don’t do that,” I said, turning around to face her. She was wearing a different shirt, but it was still tight, still had a jolly roger on it, and still showed off her navel. I ogled her, but when I caught the twinkle in her exposed eye I stopped. She was up to something

  “Do what?” she asked, cheeky as ever. “Sneak up on you?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “That’s never happened before, has it?” I knew she was driving at something. Whenever she got like this I’d learned it was best to pay attention, since there was often a quiz later. “Thin
k about it, Raze. When was the last time I out rolled you on a stealth check?”

  “We don’t get rolls, damn it.”

  “Not even against each other?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Here we go, a Dreg philosopher! You should talk to Mother, with crazy questions like that.”

  “Good idea.”

  I shook my head. The amount of dirt that old woman had on me was immense, and I didn’t need the two of them swapping Raze stories. “You’ve never snuck up on me before, how about that?”

  She nodded. “And have you already forgotten that I crit you last night? Sorry about the black eye, by the way.”

  Hurt, hunger, and humiliation had made it easy to ignore the critical attack that I still didn’t think should’ve been able to happen. Now that she brought it up though, I couldn’t hide from it any longer. “You just got lucky.”

  “Whatever you say. If you really believe that, then scrap with me.” She put up her dukes and bounced around me in a little circle on the balls of her feet, shadow boxing. “Come on, let’s throw down.”

  I thought about cheapshotting her when she danced too close, but something stopped me. Was I worried about missing? “Enough, Patch. Somehow you’re managing to be even more annoying than that Alexa you gave me. Congratulations.”

  “Stop changing the subject. You’ve never backed down from a spar, especially not with me.” When she worked out that I wasn’t going to play, she dropped her hands and stuck her tongue out at me. “Were you daydreaming about the cool stuff in the mountain, again?”

  I didn’t answer. As far as I was concerned, the topic of dreams was off limits.

  She pointed toward town. “Want me to walk you in to Hallow, then? Assuming you’re going to work, that is.”

  I sighed. “I have to.” As we strolled along I let her know what’d happened last night with Warwick. It was a quick story, since necessity had made even Patch intimately familiar with the mechanisms of blackmail and extortion.

  The only thing I left out was that I’d gotten her paper confiscated. Telling her wouldn’t change it, and the way Warwick had acted when he saw it told me that it was dangerous.

  “The rat tail deal sucks,” she said. “And it’s my fault. If I’d run when you told me to, we both would’ve gotten away.”

  “Woulda, coulda, shoulda. No point worrying about it now. Hey, did you open the capsule after all of that?”

  “Nope.” She took a deep breath, and I glanced over to see her staring at me. “Raze?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Did you have a dream last night?”

  She wasn’t any closer to dropping the delusion. Since she clearly had no issues flaunting her heresy, it was up to me to nip this in the bud. If I didn’t, how long would it be until she started asking Illgott or Zazzer or Hrath down at the Lost and Foundry if they’d ever dreamt? Once that started, one of them would either rat her out or she’d be overheard.

  Either way, the result would be the same. Dreams were for Heroes, without exception.

  “Patch, you have to cut it out.”

  “Sure,” she said, rolling her eye at me. “It’s only a miracle. I should totally hide it…”

  “Great! I knew you’d understand.”

  She stopped in her tracks, confused. That gave me a chance to powerwalk ahead while she stood there trying to work out if I was being serious or not.

  Too bad. If a guilt trip was the only weapon I had left in my arsenal, I was more than happy to use it.

  Hallow’s intelligence network probably didn’t have ears out here, but you could never be too careful. Their spies were renowned for being lackluster at best, since that’s what happens when you run the world unchallenged for hundreds of years.

  The Heroes had everything, and all they did with it was sit on their posteriors and rake in the benefits previous generations had ‘earned’.

  Patch grabbed my wrist and wouldn’t let go. “Are you mad at me?”

  “I’m just worried, I guess. Look, you need to know your place. So what if we can’t dream? How great can it be if the Heroes do it?”

  “But I dreamt. By your own logic that makes me a-”

  “Don’t even say it,” I told her, trying to clap my hand across her mouth, a move that she surprised me by batting aside with ease.

  “How come I can sneak up on you now, then? Or critically hit you, or block your moves when you don’t want me to? You said it yourself. Only Heroes dream, and I dreamt. End of story.”

  She let me go and walked off toward the Fraternity’s temple. We were only 100 feet or so from the edge of the trees, and I could just make out the structure’s stone wall.

  If I was going to catch her, I had to hurry.

  Patch’s crazy talk had gotten her cute little ass kicked a couple of times when I wasn’t around, but it’d never slowed her down. She was more stubborn than me, and that was saying something.

  One day, she’ll thank me for this. Even if she doesn’t, it’s better than watching them drag her off to Sanguine’s dungeon, I thought to myself, picking up a stout branch lying beside the path.

  Patch was ahead of me on the trail with her back turned, oblivious to my intentions. My makeshift club was a tad longer than I would’ve liked, but I’d make it work. Heroes weren’t the only ones with experience ambushing the weaker.

  I engaged stealth mode and silently fell into step behind her, raising the branch over my head and bringing it down on top of hers.

  At least that was the plan, right up until Patch sidestepped and whirled around on me at the same time. The momentum of my swing’s follow-through took me off balance, and she pinned the branch to the ground with her foot and smiled sweetly at me.

  And then punched me square in the other eye.

  Damage: 1

  Damage Type: Physical (Blunt Force)

  Ongoing Effect: You’ll Shoot Your (Other) Eye Out - This blow has hindered your vision. Again. All rolls for the next hour that rely on optical input will be made at a penalty of -1. Maybe it’s time to learn to duck?

  Resistance: N/A

  Hit Point Loss: 1

  Hit Points Remaining: 4

  “You rolled a 17, by the way,” Patch said. “That should’ve been plenty, don’t you think?”

  “How do you keep doing that,” I sputtered, dropping to my knees with my hands over my face. This shot didn’t hurt as bad as the last one had, but it got my other eye throbbing again in sympathy.

  “Try it again and I’ll show you,” she beamed, as chipper as ever.

  “No thanks,” I groaned and got back to my feet, my vision blurry. My right eye was weeping badly from the punch and my left was doing so in memory of last night’s attack. I wiped the tears away, but by the time I could see the path clearly enough to follow it she was already at the end of it.

  Fine, I thought, be that way. Just don’t come crying to me when the VC arrest you.

  Right on cue I heard Adrius’ voice ring out from his spot beside the temple. He was the Fraternity’s questgiver, one of the few Heroes who’d volunteered for the thankless job. “Who goes there?” he called, and I felt a little ashamed of the wicked grin that split my face as I scrambled through the undergrowth to watch.

  Patch was about to get a heaping helping of humble pie, and I wanted to be there when it was served.

  “‘Tis me,” she shouted back, and I rounded a curve in the trail just in time to see her step into the clearing beside the derelict temple. She was doing her best impersonation of the booming, authoritarian voices the protagonists could adopt at will. It wasn’t a bad effort, but it was obvious that she couldn’t pull it off.

  Adrius furrowed his brow and leaned forward. “And who is ‘me’, pray tell.”

  “Oh, right. Sorry. ‘Tis I. Patch.” She giggled and smacked her bare thigh. “And I just said ‘eyepatch’, too. I’m hilarious.”

  “Hail and well met, Hero,” Adrius responded. “I see that you are new to our humble Hallow. I have need of your service
s, for the temple of the Significant Fraternity has been overrun by vermin!”

  My jaw hit the ground so hard that it was a wonder I didn’t trip on it as I sprinted over, bursting from the tree line to her left. “Hail to thee,” I yelled at him. “I’ll help you fight this scourge as well!”

  Adrius looked straight through me, his expression going from one of polite subservience to that of a man who’d felt a passing bird deposit something warm and slick on his shoulder. “Raze, I’ve no time for games and neither, I assume, does this brave woman. The angle of the sun tells me that you are late for work yet again, and I’ve half a mind to let Illgott know that the reason is your lollygagging. Now good day, and leave us to our business.”

  Not on your life. “Aren’t you going to be all ‘stay awhile, and listen’ for me, too?”

  “I said good day, Gearblin.”

  I pointed at Patch. “But she’s a Gearblin too!”

  Adrius gave her the merest of glances before turning back to me. “She is a Hero, which means that she can’t be a Gearblin. Now off with you, or I shall see to it that the Vigilance Committee has a reason to renew your acquaintance.”

  I was speechless, which was probably the only reason I didn’t keep running my mouth. Patch was blinking at me forcefully with her unconcealed eye. It’d taken me a week to work out that was supposed to be a wink and not just a nervous tic. “Don’t get your feelings hurt, Gearblin,” she said. “When I have need of tinkering and mischief, I shall seek you out.”

  “As you wish,” I said, in my best Princess Bride. Even though I suspected she was trying to give me a graceful exit, being dismissed by her didn’t feel good.

  I heard another pair of Heroes headed down the path from the direction of the Platform, and from the look of them they wouldn’t mind starting the day off with a refreshing game of Kick the Dreg.

  Instead of letting them see me I slowly retreated into Hallow, pausing only long enough to make sure that they didn’t attack Patch on sight.

  They were as accepting of her presence as Adrius had been. Once it looked like she was going to fluke her way through whatever was going on, I turned and scuffed off toward Illgott ‘N’ Games alone.