Tinker, Tailor, Giant, Dwarf ( LitRPG Series): Difficulty:Legendary Book 2 Page 8

  “What was it you wanted to show me?” said a voice.

  I moved away and into the corner, and then I watched as the brigands entered the room. Dracol walked in first, and he paced around the dining table.

  “Picture this,” he said to Red Leroy, who watched him. “We get rid of the table and the rest of the crap in here. Connect a few chains to the wall. Then, when we start kidnapping Halons, we can bring them here. We soundproof the walls and then voila, we have hostages who can scream all they like and nobody will hear them.”

  “It’s a stupid plan. Supposing the guild amasses its army and comes to kill us?”

  “One, they won’t know where we are. Two, they wouldn’t do that. Not for just two or three guild members. They’d rather pay us off than go to the trouble of marching an army across the map.”

  I didn’t like being so close to them. Dracol stood just feet away from me, but it was clear he hadn’t noticed me. I had already planted all the stun bombs that I had with me, and I needed to leave before they knew I was here. Then I would skirt around the fortress, let the potion wear off, and walk back in through the front gate as if I had never been here before.

  As I sat in the shadows, I stretched my arm out in front of me. From my bicep and all the down to my wrist, my arm still seemed made of mist. My hand, however, was all too fleshy. The potion was wearing off.

  If I stayed in the corner they’d see me. The only option I had was to try and move, and with that was the chance that I would break my sneak and reveal myself to them. I had no choice. I stood up. Keeping my head low, I walked as quietly as I could across the room. Dracol was mere feet away from me now, but he didn’t even glance in my direction.

  I was so close to him that I could smell the sweat on his skin and the leather of his armour. Edging slowly away, I almost made it out of the room. Just as I reached the door, Red Leroy stepped in front of me.

  “Did you honestly think I hadn’t seen you?” he said.

  I looked around me. Dracol stared at me now. He unsheathed his sword and gripped it in both hands.

  “Your potion wore off a few minutes ago,” he said. “I thought I’d see how long I could pretend you weren’t there.”

  With that, both men started laughing. Taking advantage of their lack of focus, I sprinted out of the room and into the corridor. I ran down to the end, and this time I could hear the sound of my feet crunching on stone. At the end of the corridor I bent down, lit one of the stun bombs I had placed, and then covered it with rubble.

  Dracol was the first to enter the corridor. As he charged toward me, I held my hand up.

  “I’m not going to fight,” I said. “You’ve got me.”

  Dracol held me in place while Leroy strode down the corridor. When he reached me, he held his hands out. A green ball started to take shape between his palms. At first, it looked like a ball of light, but then I saw that green liquid dripped from the edges.

  “I’d like to say this won’t hurt,” he said. “But I’m told that it hurts a lot. Don’t worry, though, we’ll still get our CR. We’ll take it from your corpse.”

  “Where are your friends?” said Dracol, looking around.

  “I’ve got one right here,” I said.

  I kicked the rubble next to my feet to reveal the bomb. The flame sparkled down the fuse and before Dracol could do anything, it reached the end. The explosion echoed through the corridor and dislodged some of the stone wall, which crashed onto the floor. A pale blue energy covered Dracol and spread over his skin, freezing him as he lifted his sword.

  I drew my dagger. The stun had worked, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

  “Clever tinker,” said Leroy, across from me. “You’ve grown stronger since I last saw you.”

  “You’re not stunned,” I said.

  Leroy lifted his bony fingers to his throat and grasped an amulet that hung around his neck.

  “This little beauty resists shocks, paralysis and stuns. Quite a handy thing to have.”

  Leroy held his hands out in front of him. A fireball took shape, and just as he launched it in my direction, I ducked out of the way and then ran through the corridor. I followed the stone passageway until it opened up into a large room. This one had stained-glass windows lining the walls, and the arched ceiling was thirty feet above me.

  From deeper in the fortress, I heard the sound of Leroy’s footsteps as he came for me. I opened my inventory and made some hastily-crafted screw bombs. They looked like crap, but as long as they exploded, I didn’t care. There was a wooden pew across from me, so I ducked behind it and lined the bombs next to me, ready to light and launch them as soon as I saw my pursuer.

  A door opened to my left. It was a set of wooden double doors with spirals carved into the stained oak. They creaked as though they hadn’t been opened properly in years. I lit a bomb and held it high, waiting for the fuse to burn.

  Red Leroy didn’t step through the doors. Instead, it was Smoglar and Brian. Brian stepped in the room and walked a few paces. He looked up at the ceiling and saw how high up it was.

  “Now this is my kind of place,” he said. “I don’t know why more buildings don’t have ceilings as high as this.”

  “Are we all set?” said Smoglar.

  I shook my head. “Things didn’t go exactly to plan.”

  A fireball shot through the room and exploded on the pew in front of me, sending a spray of splinters into my face. I backed away, feeling my skin sting from where the shards of wood had stabbed me. Red Leroy stood in the other doorway of the room.

  I held my bomb and then launched it at the shaman. It landed next to him, exploded, and drained a small chunk of his health.

  “It’s going to take more than that,” he said, before blasting another fireball. This one shot low across the room, hitting Brian in the shins and sending the giant to the floor.

  Leroy was too powerful for us, and I doubted I could make enough bombs to finish him. I reached into my inventory and pulled out the axe that I had found in the dining room. I threw it across the room, where it landed at Smoglar’s feet.

  The dwarf picked up the weapon and hefted it in his hands. His eyes grew wide, like a kid who had just woken up to find it was Christmas.

  “Identify it for me, will you?” he said.

  I focussed. With my increased intelligence and level 2 Appraiser skill, I was able to identify the weapon quicker than I expected.

  The Axe of Dhoruth

  Damage: 209

  Effects:

  - Critical strike chance increased to 33%

  - Greed: Intelligence drops when in the presence of high-value jewels

  Smoglar laughed and then gripped the axe tight in both hands. “It’s a little heavy, but I think I’m in love already.”

  The dwarf rushed at Leroy, who had a fireball the size of a melon between his palms. I grabbed a bomb and cut the fuse in half so that it detonated quicker. I lit the end and then launched it at the Shaman, where it exploded next to his shoulder. It didn’t cause him much damage, but it was enough to spoil his concentration and ruin his fireball.

  Smoglar reached him and lifted his axe in the air. He gave a shout that echoed up to the rafters, and then struck Leroy with all his might. There was a blinding red flash, and then I heard Leroy scream in agony. The next thing we heard was the sound of his dead body hitting the ground.

  Brian crossed the room. He bent down near a wall, and then a second later dragged a wooden crate across the stone floor. Smoglar turned and looked at him, then smiled.

  “It must be my birthday. First I get this beauty of an axe, then I level up, and then I get my stash back.”

  I stood above the crate and looked in it. To my dismay, I saw nothing but weapons far too strong for me to handle.

  “You guys tool up,” I said. “You’re welcome to it all.”

  “I promised there’d be something for you, and I always keep my promises,” said Smoglar.

  He walked to the crate and rummaged aroun
d in it, before finally pulling out a metal breast piece. The metal was grey and faded, and there was the outline of a book carved into the centre of it.

  “Get dressed, tinker,” he said.

  Item received: The Scholar’s Chest plate

  Item class: Unusual

  Defence Points: 25

  +10 to intelligence

  + 4 to charisma

  I took off my leather armour and squeezed into the chest plate. The fit was snug and the metal felt cold against my skin, and for a few seconds I found it hard to adjust to the sudden change in weight. Soon though, I felt my stats increase.

  I heard the sound of footsteps pounding down a corridor. I turned to see Dracol running through the doorway with an enraged look on his face and his sword lifted high above his head. He looked at our faces in turn, no doubt wondering who to expend his wrath on.

  The warrior barely had time to make his decision, when a tremendous cracking sound filled the room. The floor beneath us started to fragment like the fault line of an earthquake. The walls around us vibrated, and I moved to the side as the floor split beneath me.

  Gradually the lines widened until they became a hole, and the hole turned into a gulf. Arms reached up out of the darkness and clung onto the edges of the floor. Soon there were dozens of hands reaching up. As the first of the figures heaved itself up out of the gap, I found myself looking into the face of an undead warrior. I didn’t know how long they had been waiting, buried underneath the stone, but it seemed they weren’t happy.

  They climbed out of the hole in droves. Despite their skeletal frames, they still seemed to have great strength. They held rusted weapons in their hands, and they looked at us - the living - and screwed their faces up in disgust.

  One of them crossed the room and seized Dracol. Without giving the warrior chance to fight back, it gripped him and then tossed him across the floor. The brigand was unable to stop himself, and he rolled into the hole and disappeared into the darkness below.

  Had I been feeling in a jokey mood I might have thanked the undead warriors, but I knew they hadn’t done it to help us. With Dracol gone, they focussed their attention our way. Brian, Smoglar and I backed away as the undead approached.

  “This is a pretty good axe,” said Smoglar, “But it’s not that good. We need to do something.”

  I walked over to the doorway and kneeled by Leroy’s corpse. I opened his inventory bag and looked inside. It was full of healing and mana potions. There was a staff and his robes, but they were specific to his class. I took them, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to wear them. Maybe I could sell them later.

  Now, though, I needed something else. I threw the bag to one side. Clipped against Leeroy’s waist was a smaller bag. I opened it and found something I knew I could use.

  Item Received: Spell of Bless

  Remembering the story of Lastor Bombraid and how he had combined a spell of Bless with a bomb and used it to wipe out the undead, I did the same. I opened a casing and tipped a pile of gunpowder into it. I unravelled the scroll, careful not to rip the paper.

  “Hurry, Janus,” said Brian, launching a screw bomb into the path of the advancing undead.

  When I had finished reading the scroll, a yellow light flooded from my hands and into the bomb, mixing with the black gunpowder. I closed the casing and lit the fuse.

  As the army of the undead rattled toward us, I threw the bomb. I stood back as it exploded, and a flash of blinding light filled the room. When the glow faded and the noise settled, I looked on to see that we were alone.

  Level Up to level 12!

  Exp to next level: 175

  Chapter Nine

  I felt lighter once Red Leroy’s map marker was lifted from me. That was strange, since I now sported metal armour and an inventory full of the dead Shaman’s belongs. If anything, I carried more weight. Now that the brigands had been dealt with, it was time to focus on other quests. We needed to find someone who could destroy the Old Serpent’s Sting. Not only that, but I had to send some CR back to my parents.

  The fortress was miles behind us now. As we travelled across the map I marvelled at the landscape. In the distance and miles away a castle stood on top of a hill, and it had a dome that glittered when the sunlight hit it. We crossed a bridge that ran over a stream where blood-red fish swam aggressively, barging each other as they navigated the current.

  “You did well, Janus,” said Brian.

  “Thanks.”

  “I mean it. Back at the fort, your plan might not have worked to the letter-”

  “You can say that again,” said Smoglar.

  “But it still turned out okay.”

  The giant sported a new full armour set that was made of dark leather. The stitching was gold, though Brian told me it was just an effect rather than the real thing. If it had actually been gold, he would have sold the armour rather than have risked ruining it in combat. I had come to realise that above all else, Brian was a practical giant.

  “So where now, lads?” said Smoglar. He slung his axe over his shoulder. Every so often he stroked it, as if to reassure himself that his new weapon wasn’t just a figment of his imagination.

  “We need to find out where the Greyes live,” said Brian. “And then the Greye leader can destroy the dagger.”

  “Why didn’t you just say so?” said Smoglar. “I happen to have their address written down.”

  Brian shook his head. “You joke, but I’m sure there’s a way to find them.”

  “Tell us then, oh wise one,” said the dwarf.

  Ignoring his friend’s sarcasm, the giant continued. “There’s a town called Iskarg not too far north. It should take us a week to get there at most. Do you know anything of Iskarg, Janus?”

  I thought about it. The name seemed familiar to me, but I didn’t know where from. I had probably read about it back in the library in Dry Gulch.

  “It used to be where all the great scholars resided,” said Brian. “It’s been years since a great scholar lived in Re:Fuze, but their library in Iskarg is still there. If anything holds the key to where the Greyes live, it will be in their books.”

  Quest Updated – Destroy the Dagger

  You are to travel to Iskarg to find the Grand Library. Brian thinks the key to finding the Greye’s homeland is there. The giant is a pretty clever fella, so it’s worth a try.

  We spent the rest of the day and the one that followed walking north. A river ran next to us, and as long as we followed it, we knew we were on track. As we journeyed on, we fought any creatures that crossed our path. The further we went the more of them we saw, until soon we all ached with tiredness that not even the thrill of exp could cure.

  Brian stopped walking ahead of me and held his hand in the air. “Wait,” he said.

  It was night time now, and the stars glittered in the black sky above. Two moons hung side by side. One moon was full, and the other showed only a quarter of its shape.

  Ahead of us was a building. The face of it was covered in ivy, and lamps glowed in the windows. A wooden pole stood outside it, from which hung a sign which swung in the wind. ‘The Sick Boar,’ it read.

  “Time for a beer,” said Smoglar, his face lighting up.

  Brian shook his head. “Oh, no. Not a chance. You know as well as I do that we don’t visit strange taverns.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Taverns are popular amongst thieves, bounty hunters, and people who just love to kill. You can’t trust anybody in a tavern.”

  “Just one night,” said Smoglar. “I’m not going to be much use to you if my stamina doesn’t fill, and right now it’s only reaching three-quarters. You know why that is?”

  “Because you never sell your old items and your inventory is always full, you hoarder,” I said.

  “No. It’s because I haven’t had a good night’s sleep. Let’s spend one evening here, and then carry on.”

  “Fine, but keep yourself to yourself and don’t speak to anybody,” said Brian.
<
br />   It was strange sometimes how Brian would agree to Smoglar’s fancies. I got the impression that the two of them had travelled together for years. During that time they’d managed to find a fine balance that made their partnership work.

  As soon as we opened the door to the tavern I felt the glow of the fire on my face. I had expected everyone to drop their glasses and turn to stare at us when we entered, but nobody paid any attention. At one table a group of warriors played a card game. Most people sat by themselves with glasses in front of them. One man, tall and with grey whiskers sprouting from his face, read a book. Over in the corner, in a place where the light of the fire didn’t reach, a figure sat with a hood drawn over their face.