36 – The Inn

  Andy yanked his spear from the giant rat’s twitching corpse, sending a spray of hot, dark blood splattering over the cobbles. He was mid-thrust, aiming for the next squealing, snarling foe, when he realized there weren’t any more. He glanced left and right, saw Bella and Omar were similarly dispatching their last assailants, then he whirled, glancing up the stone steps toward Lucy and Bea—they were fine.

  ***Scarag Heights – Optional Quest: Reduce the Baron’s Forces, Stage One: 232/400.***

  “Progress,” Bella gasped between heaving breaths.

  “Yeah.” Andy turned his gaze toward the alley mouth, ensuring another horde wasn’t en route. They’d been making slow but steady progress into the city, but this was the third horde of vermin they’d had to stop to defend against. Despite that, there was no way they’d killed 232 rats and ratmen. Their number was probably closer to half that, which only solidified his suspicion that there was another group—or two—fighting against the vermin in Scarag Heights.

  “Anyone level?” Lucy called down.

  Andy shook his head. “No, it’s like the regular vermin don’t really give much experience anymore.”

  “Yep. We need another pack of blitz-rats!” Bella wiped the blood off her sword with a scrap of cloth.

  “Well, I got a level—thirteen now,” Omar said.

  Andy clapped him on the shoulder. “Makes sense. The rest of us are closer to twenty.” Somehow, he’d caught up level-wise with Bea and Lucy; they were all at nineteen.

  “Not me!” Bella cried. “I’m still level five!”

  “Yeah, but you’re basically a level twenty fighter by now. Your new class—”

  “Oh, who are you to talk?” Bella groused, interrupting. “Aren’t you on your third class?”

  Andy shrugged; she had a point. “Yeah, I don’t know how it all works.”

  “We should keep moving,” Bea interjected, pointing her staff toward the sky. “I think it’s going to be night soon. Do we want to keep going in the dark? Without any rest?”

  “You’re right; let me scout again,” Andy replied. “You all should wait here. It’s a solid position to defend…just in case.”

  “How long?” Lucy called from atop the stoop.

  “Um, ten minutes tops.”

  Bella nodded. “So we’ll come looking for you if you’re not back by then.”

  Andy paused, looking up the alley toward the distant cobbled road. “Maybe make it fifteen. I might have to wait for patrols to pass or something.”

  “Ten, fifteen”—Omar chuckled—“what’s the difference? None of us has a watch.”

  Andy sighed, nodding. “Good point. Do your best.”

  With that, he turned, and with his gore-covered spear in hand, jogged toward the alley opening. As he went, he checked his mana: 432/550. He slowed his steps, giving it a little more time to regenerate, but when he was five paces or so from the street, he cast Cloak of Shifting Smoke. At the corner, he looked left and right, and all he saw were two- and three-story buildings built practically on top of each other.

  He knew there were rats and rat-people inside those buildings, but he also knew from experience that, for some reason, they didn’t tend to come out to fight, even if they saw him and his friends going by. The hordes they’d fought had resulted from encountering wandering packs, though some rats from nearby buildings had joined in. Andy turned left—the general direction of the keep they’d seen from the rooftop—and jogged ahead, his steps muffled by his magical smoke.

  He passed several alleys, down two of which he saw rat packs scurrying about, but none were close enough to the street to cause concern. When he reached another street, he paused at a rough, gray-stone wall—granite according to Bea—and peered around the corner. He paused, narrowing his eyes, when he saw a market square of some kind in that direction. The remains of carts and stands littered the square, clearly overturned and ransacked by the vermin invaders. On the far side of the square, he saw a broad, gabled roof adorned with red-slate tiles. As soon as his eyes fell on it, the System hit him with a message:

  ***Scarag Heights – Optional Quest: Liberate the Clover Bear Inn. Rescue the defenders from the cellars and secure it as a base of operations.***

  Andy took another minute to survey the square, looking for enemies, but nothing jumped out at him, so he turned and jogged back to the others. When he approached, he was impressed to see Lucy lift her bow and turn her sharp eyes in his direction. He slowed, canceled his cloaking spell, and waved. “You saw me?”

  “Hunter’s Senses. It didn’t feel like a threat exactly, but I knew something was coming.”

  “Pretty great.” Andy stepped between the two stacks of rat corpses to better face his party. “Did you all get a System message?” When blank expressions met his gaze, he shrugged. “You will when I show it to you.”

  “Show what to us?” Bea asked, screwing the cap onto one of her little flasks.

  “There’s a square not too far from here and an inn. The System gave me a bonus quest to rescue the people in the cellar and, um, secure the inn as a base of operations.” He shrugged. “Figure it would be good to do before dark.”

  “Hell yes!” Bella said, leaping to her feet. She slapped Andy on the shoulder. “A noble quest! Let’s save the villagers!”

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  “I mean, I agree, but isn’t kind of weird? I can understand the System making pocket dimensions and filling them with monsters, but what about the people? Do you guys think they’re real?”

  Lucy came down the steps, nodding. “It’s pretty strange, isn’t it? Do you think this was a real place? Do you think the System just snatched it up out of some world and made it into a dungeon?”

  “You guys might be looking at this wrong,” Omar said, holding up a finger. “What if the System sees this as a way to help the survivors? What if it took this town and made it a dungeon, but it did it so people like us would come in here and kill the rats?”

  “I like the way you think, Omar,” Bea said, coming to stand beside Bella. “Maybe if we can solve this dungeon, it will put this town back where it belongs—minus the vermin horde.”

  “So, we’re in agreement?” Bella prodded. “Rescue the townsfolk?”

  “Yep.” Andy nodded toward the alley mouth. “Ready?”

  Ten minutes later, they were all hunkered in the shadows of a tall building looking out at the ransacked town square. Everyone else had gotten the quest offer as soon as they laid eyes on the inn’s roof. Andy pointed to a cluster of empty shop stalls at the center of the square. “Let’s get there, and then I can scout ahead a little.”

  Nobody argued, so he led the way, padding softly over the cobbles, bypassing overturned carts, broken barrels, and crates. Of course, he also had to hop over the occasional giant-sized pile of rat droppings. When he reached the grouping of empty stalls, his steady forward progress came to an end. He just barely caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye before, with a rustle of feathers, a huge, orange and green rooster leaped out from between two stalls, dagger-sized talons extended for his throat.

  The rooster-like monster was fast, but so was Andy. Not only had improving his speed attribute made his muscles and tendons quick, it had granted his brain the ability to process quick movement. He reacted out of reflex with a lightning-fast spin and a thrust of his spear. The tip bit into the bird’s colorfully feathered breast and spread its shadowy flames into the creature. It squawked a terrible, pain-filled sound as its momentum carried it onto the spear, but its wild eyes narrowed with spite, and it slammed its huge hooked beak forward, burying it into Andy’s shoulder.

  The crunching, bone-deep pain stunned Andy, and the weight of the bird was too much. He stumbled back, gasping as the giant damn bird continued to peck and tear at his flesh. Luckily, the butt of his spear hit the cobbles, wedged in place, and halted the bird’s downward momentum. It saved Andy’s neck from that snapping, razor-edged beak by inches. He abandoned his spear, rolling to the side, out from under the clawing talons with only a few deep gashes to show for it.

  Meanwhile, the others finally reacted to the sudden attack. Omar and Bella fell on the bird, hacking and stabbing, and Lucy sidestepped, getting out from behind them, to plant an arrow in the giant bird’s head. The arrow pierced it through, just behind the beak, and it worked just like an off-switch; the bird fell still, only twitching occasionally as it fell to the side, revealing Andy’s gore-covered spear.

  Andy scrambled to his feet, favoring his right arm; it wouldn’t bear any weight. Bea hurried over, already extending one of her little potions toward his lips. “I got it,” Andy said, taking it from her. “Thanks.”

  “The hell is this thing?” Bella asked, huffing for breath. “A cockatrice?”

  Andy shook his head, gulping down the potion. “Wouldn’t it have a snake tail or something?”

  “Oh, right.” Bella frowned, then she shrugged and looked at Lucy. “Nice shot!”

  ***Congratulations, Andy! Your party has slain an Elite monster. You’ve gained enough experience to advance to level 20. This is a milestone level for your Brimstone Stalker class. The next time you rest, class refinements will be available. To view the refinements, simply examine the class description on your status sheet. Good luck!***

  “Anything coming?” Omar asked, turning in a slow circle. They were mostly obscured from the streets around the square by the empty merchant stalls, but they weren’t exactly well-hidden.

  Lucy shook her head. “I don’t sense anything.” She also turned in a slow circle, arrow nocked.

  “Did anyone else just level?” Bella asked. “I got two.”

  “I did,” Bea responded before Andy could. “Level twenty, and it says I’ll be able to refine my class after resting.”

  “Same,” Andy grunted, rotating his shoulder as the warmth of her potion spread into it. He looked at Lucy, and she shook her head, shrugging.

  “Still nineteen.”

  “I got one,” Omar replied. “No Improvement Points or anything.”

  “Gimme a minute,” Bella said, her eyes unfocused. “I have options to strengthen my bond.”

  “Feeling better?” Bea asked Andy. She pulled his zipper down and pulled his coat to the side, gently prodding his shoulder. “I should put some directly on the wound, but I think James’s armor might have saved you from a much worse injury.”

  Andy looked at his shoulder and saw what she meant. The bird had pecked into his plastic scales, ripping one loose and badly gouging several others. He shook his head as he rotated his arm again. “It hurts, but it’s nothing bad. Let’s save your water ’til we get a chance to rest.”

  Meanwhile, Lucy asked Bella, “What do you mean by strengthening your bond?”

  Bella spoke in a slow monotone as her eyes darted over things the rest of them couldn’t see. “It’s letting me choose an affinity for my bonded creature—war, trickery, or sorcery.”

  Andy looked up sharply. “What? A sorcerer rat?”

  “Sorceress, Andy,” Bella said, finally blinking and turning to look at the rest of them. A slow smile spread across her face. “Of course I picked that one.”

  “That’s so cool!” Lucy said, her eyes drifting toward the bulging satchel at Bella’s hip.

  “Hey,” Omar whispered hoarsely, trying to yell without yelling. When Andy looked, Omar pointed to a gap between stalls. “That damn chicken had a nest. Eggs.”

  Andy’s eyes widened. “It wasn’t a rooster?” He and the others moved closer and, sure enough, Andy saw the pile of woven grass, branches, and leaves on the ground. Three grapefruit-sized eggs sat right in the center. “Go ahead and collect them if you want,” he said. “I’m going to check out the inn.”

  Lucy followed behind, and when he glanced at her, eyebrow raised, she shrugged. “I’m going to cover you. Might be more chickens.”

  He nodded, leading the way to the last row of stalls. Crouching behind one, he peered around the corner. The inn was ahead, just about twenty yards or so. The front door was broken off the hinges, and the big bay window to the left of it was also shattered. Something big moved behind the broken glass, but it was dim and there were things in the way—broken furniture, mostly. “Watch my back,” he whispered. “I’m going to go see if I can get a closer look.”

  Lucy nodded, squatting with her bow, arrow nocked. Andy cast Cloak of Shifting Smoke, and slipped between the stalls, silently darting across the street, past a carriage, listing to the side on a broken wheel. When he reached the brick-paved sidewalk, he crouched to the side of the door and peered through the bay window.

  Immediately, he recognized the burly, armor-clad figures of three blitz-rats sitting at a table. To their right, at a bar, sat an even bigger rat, one with a cast-iron crown of spikes on its shaggy head. It had to be another lieutenant like Jarqar the Butcher. Andy counted a few more blitz-rats further in and was about to go report what he saw, when a tall, stooped ratman wearing feather-adorned gray robes appeared behind the bar. It and the lieutenant began speaking in a guttural, growling language that Andy couldn’t make sense of.

  None of them were exactly ratman cultural experts, but the attire of that ratman made Andy think wizard or shaman, and it made him nervous hiding that close to it. He figured he’d seen enough, anyway—the fight wouldn’t be easy, but he figured it ought to be doable. It all depended on how many more blitz-rats were hiding upstairs or in the kitchens.

  Squatting low, careful not to drag his spear on any of the cobbles, he turned and hurried back to his party. It was time to make a plan.