Black Hat (Afterlife Online Book 2) Read online

  No more rafters for us. We were in a large cavern now. Deep and damp, but well lit by wall sconces. Finally, we'd made it into the dungeon proper.

  "Piece of cake," I coughed.

  Proficiency improved: Expert Searcher

  You are extremely well versed with hiding techniques and will execute searches at a high level.

  My blurring vision took in the ample space. A large figure, seven feet tall, sat on a throne made from the husk of a burnt tree. He was lean and bare chested, with ragged leather pants and boots. On his head and over his face sat a stag skull with broad antlers.

  "Welcome, welcome to the heart of the Black Keep," spoke the wild king.

  0540 King of the Monsters

  Amazingly, given our grievous intrusion, the ruler didn't rise. I remained on my hands and knees, wary of making a threatening motion before I was ready. As long as the wild king was content to rest, so was I.

  The man was fully at ease in his chamber, leaning sideways on his throne. His muscles were sinewy and appeared well used. As my vision came into focus, what I'd assumed to be dirt on his chest proved to be a tattoo of a deer skull, wide antlers extending to wide shoulders. It matched exactly the mask he wore. More precisely, the crown.

  "Thou art uninvited," he proclaimed.

  [Theoderic - Wild King]

  Ruler of the Blackwood

  800 Health

  I stood as I received the health notification, a sure sign that an enemy had aggroed. Despite that, the king continued sitting.

  Rafter wreckage littered the floor. A huge chandelier crafted from the bone of twenty stags and the wood of twenty trees hung askew, three of its support cables snapped. It didn't appear to have radiated light in ages so we made do with the flickering wall sconces. The flames created grotesque shadows on the floor as they washed over the bodies of the wildkins who had plunged to their deaths. Feathers from panicked birds wafted through the air like snow.

  Kyle had taken a bad tumble and was struggling to get up. If he was suffering from some sort of crippling affliction, either time or a health potion would do him good. Izzy had managed to hang onto the rope. She stood sideways against the wall, thirty feet up.

  I brushed myself off and looked into the skull of the wild king.

  "So many dead," he lamented. "My people, whose only wish was to protect their king, lie broken." Mask or not, his visage was haggard. I avoided meeting the dead eyes of his kin on the ground. "I shall reward them for dutiful service upon their respawn."

  My eye twitched. NPCs and mobs didn't usually break the fourth wall like that. They didn't talk about respawning and experience points and leveling, not unless it was necessary to communicate to a resident of Haven.

  His lamentation now complete, the wild king took a curious turn at studying me, just as I was him. He smiled beneath his mask.

  "Reveal, reveal thy intent," he instructed.

  Harried cries came from the great hall leading to this chamber. I twirled the dragonspear in my hand. Theoderic tightened his knuckles on the armrests of his throne.

  "So be it, human."

  Dark figures raced into the room. Two. Four. A mixed band of men and goblins holding lengths of chain, they wore black hoods over their faces, most unnerving due to the absence of eyeholes.

  Blackwood Prisoner

  85 Health

  "Oh crap," said Izzy. "I should use my legendary power."

  "Don't waste it," I urged. I activated my dash skill and fired towards the doorway, right past the newcomers. More of them sprinted toward us. I kicked loose a block holding a crank in place and the large portcullis hovering over the entry wound down. The protective steel gate railed into the ground just before the second wave of reinforcements entered.

  The wild king leaned forward in his chair.

  "Covering fire!" barked Kyle. His double-crossbow slung glass bolts that popped on a pair of enemies. The vials injected corrosive into their bloodstreams.

  [Kyle] dealt 28 damage to [Blackwood Prisoner]

  DoT: 15 dmg/10 secs

  [Kyle] dealt 26 damage to [Blackwood Prisoner]

  DoT: 15 dmg/10 secs

  All four converged on me. I crouched between them, waited, and activated tornado spin. I whirled several revolutions, slashing and bashing with both ends of the spear.

  You dealt 44 damage to [Blackwood Prisoner]

  You dealt 44 damage to [Blackwood Prisoner]

  You dealt 44 damage to [Blackwood Prisoner]

  You dealt 42 damage to [Blackwood Prisoner]

  [Blackwood Prisoner] is defeated

  [Blackwood Prisoner] is defeated

  240 XP awarded

  Blue fire rushed over Kyle as he leveled. Suddenly he was perfectly fine. He jumped to his feet and reloaded his double crossbow.

  I muttered under my breath. Tornado spin had been nerfed with the last patch. No more spin to win. It totally wrecked yellow enemies, and did decent damage against oranges like these prisoners, but it had been converted into more of an emergency move granting clearance rather than a destructive force. Coupled with its high spirit cost, it just wasn't a game breaker anymore.

  The final two hooded enemies buckled under a barrage of ice daggers from above.

  "Welcome to level 9, slacker," called out Izzy from above. "How's it feel?"

  Kyle shrugged. "Pretty good, actually." He trained his crossbow on the wild king. "Now it's time for the main event."

  The ruler sighed behind his mask. "Indeed, indeed. Is it thee, then, who wishest to usurp my kingdom? I accept thy challenge to solitary combat."

  "Huh?" said Kyle. He looked around and scoffed. "I'm not sure if you've heard of Seal Team Six, but these days we do things in elite groups."

  "A coward then." The skull swiveled to me. "Is it thee who hast come for me?"

  Wildkins batted at the closed portcullis. I stepped ahead cautiously. "Nothing personal, and all that. After the pagan attack on Stronghold, we can't be too careful. We're clearing the countryside of your kin, and this is the countryside."

  "Keep thy kingdom," he said. "Leave me mine."

  I snorted. "A little late for that."

  He canted his head. "The later the hour, the sooner the dawn. I politick not with the errant folk. I am neither a founder nor destroyer of cities. I am the wild. I am the land and the animals and the hunt."

  "And a pagan," pointed out Kyle.

  The king rose to his feet. "I do not call myself thus. Thou doth."

  "Stay still," warned Izzy from above. "Unless you want to get really cold really fast." She gripped the rope with one hand and pointed her new legendary staff at him with another. A blade of ice glimmered at its head. She really wanted to use her legendary power. "Everyone calls the wildkins pagans," she noted.

  "And I am their king and speak otherwise. Did I partake in the folly of the errant folk? Did I summon my band to raid thy town?" He grunted. "I desire not the white city."

  "Bro," laughed Kyle, "are you serious right now? This is just a stupid quest. We might be the first to make it here, but you better get used to burglars, bonehead."

  "The quests, the quests," he mused thoughtfully. "I wonder who writes them?"

  Okay, something was off with this guy. He was acting meta aware of the simulation.

  I ground my teeth. What kind of MMO made players feel guilty for simple raids? "I'm not here for your kingdom," I said boldly. "I'm not even here for your life. You know what I want."

  "And thou knowest what I shan't freely give."

  "Your words," said Kyle as he ripped loose an arrow.

  The wild king raised his forearm. The bolt plunked deep and cranked him full of juice. He just stood there and took it, arrow in arm, as solid as the tree that made up his throne.

  When the ruler spoke now, his voice was edged with anger.

  "Folly, folly, melancholy. We broke away from the madness of the errant folk. We will not be subjugated or drafted, adventurers. We will not kneel. And we will never bow down t
o the likes of thee. I wear the mantle of Ruler of the Blackwood. The wildkins stand on their own."

  A booming footstep shook the ground, followed by another, and another. We looked around nervously for their source.

  "And my people will not stand idly by while ye destroy our unity, respawning or not."

  We turned to the portcullis. A huge figure in shadow, standing even taller than the wild king himself, reached the gate. Like the Blackwood prisoners he, too, wore a hood over his head. His was fashioned with holes to accommodate glowing white eyes. The giant upturned a broad axe and rammed it into the gate. The portcullis shook on its mounts.

  [Hood]

  0 Health

  Our faces twisted at the notification. This eight-foot ogre was a force of nature. How was it that he didn't need health to... well, to do anything? His axe hit the gate again and rattled the walls of the throne room.

  Light steps patted the dirt. I turned and readied my spear as Theoderic swung a fist. I activated crossblock and sank to the ground as his blow was deflected.

  34 damage

  Ugh. I'd encountered this before. Despite upgrading my combat skills, the king hit so hard it was better to dodge than to block.

  Kyle and Izzy both attacked at the same time. The wildkin jumped backward as an arrow whizzed past his face. Izzy, however, had fired her icicle at the ceiling. It ripped through the last support holding the gargantuan chandelier to the ceiling.

  "Talon, get out of there!"

  I didn't need to be told twice. I triggered dash and moved clear of the falling object. The wild king wasn't as fast. Two tons of jagged wood and bone crashed down onto him. The warden outside the gate howled.

  As the dust and feathers cleared, I approached the wreckage. The king lay on his back, impaled straight through the chest, essentially stapled to the floor. I carefully inched close and lifted his crown into my hands.

  Quest Update: Dethrone the Wild King

  Quest Type: Fetch

  Reward: Unknown

  You've recovered the crown of the pagan wild king. Now it is time to destroy it.

  1,000 XP awarded

  The trapped ruler huffed raggedly. "Heed, heed my warning, adventurer. That crown carries a price. The cost for this desecration shall be thy eternal soul."

  I pulled away from him. That sounded metal as fuck.

  "Come on," yelled Izzy. "It's time to get out of here!"

  She was right. We could stay and play mop-up. Kill the king, the warden, and a veritable army of underlings. But the quest chain had advanced. If we died here the crown would be force dropped and we'd have to start over. And something about this king told me he wouldn't be so easily intruded upon next time.

  We'd attained our objective and didn't have to kill anymore wildkins. Win-win, in my book. I hurried to the rope. Kyle was already clambering up the wall. Behind us, the portcullis creaked under the relentless axe of the warden.

  Besides, how do you kill something with zero hit points?

  0550 Defender of the Crown

  The sun glared overhead as we scurried down the roof of the Black Keep. Rickety wood planks filled the gaps between ancient stonework and damp ground.

  "Uh, Talon," started Kyle, nearly out of breath, "you never said anything about us needing to climb down on the way out."

  That much was true. As far as plans went, I hadn't thought about much beyond acquiring the crown. I guess I figured we would just walk out the front door. But that was the problem with skipping dungeons completely: all the mobs were still active.

  "At least we don't have an army after us," I returned, hopping over a particularly precarious wood beam.

  Still, he had a point. Kyle would never be able to cover the same ground I had on the way up. I perched on a mossy rooftop and scanned the countryside.

  It wasn't pretty. The Blackwood was aptly named. The entire forest sat in a basin between mountain peaks, farther south than any of us had ever traveled. The towering trees were nothing more than blackened fossils for most of their length, only opening up to foliage in a patchwork canopy. Long ago the forest must've been nearly burned down. It had never recovered.

  Why the wildkins would make this their home was beyond me. The decrepit castle had a sort of spooky charm, but something the wild king had said was grating on me. The wildkins had broken away from the errant folk. They were no friends of the goblins.

  Maybe the reason they lived in BFE was simply to be left alone.

  "I actually think they're letting us leave," pointed out Izzy.

  I scanned behind us. Not a wildkin in sight. A small miracle that did little to settle me. The Blackwood creeped me out. I wanted to get out of here as fast as humanly possible.

  Flanking half of the valley was a dam that kept the basin from flooding. It ran perpendicular to the direction home, but the path was less treacherous.

  "This way," I said. I flanked a series of abandoned huts, skirted a brickwork fire pit, and dropped to the top of the dam. I helped Kyle down. Izzy hopped by herself.

  "What was that back there?" she asked.

  "What?"

  "The royal screwjob you almost pulled."

  "What are you talking about? We did it. We're good."

  "No, Talon. You're off your game. You kept hesitating back there, unable to take the kill shot, almost being ambushed."

  I hissed and broke off into a sprint along the dam.

  At one time, the structure must have been impressive. Numerous blocks of stone carefully coordinated to keep a river at bay. It was a symbol of man conquering nature, but time conquered even man. The rock was worn by the water and the wind. It had crumbled in places and was patched with logs and debris not unlike a beaver dam. While the bulk of the water had been held off, it trickled through the wall at a constant clip. Moss grew over the stone and wood alike, making the whole thing a slippery mess. We picked our way down a section of logs piled all the way to the ground. Finally, we reached the bottom of the basin.

  "I'm not letting you off the hook that easily," chided Izzy.

  "You're gonna question my leadership now?"

  "No one ever appointed you leader."

  "What?" I paused. "You guys know I'm the leader of this party, right?"

  "Self-appointed," she said, digging her staff into moist soil. I swear, ever since she'd found the damn thing in Dragonperch she thought she was the chosen one. Maybe she wanted to take over. "The truth is, any of us are qualified to be a leader."

  We both paused and turned to Kyle, who was standing there picking his teeth with a glass crossbow bolt filled with poison. He shrugged. "I'm a follower. I admit it."

  I started down the path through the Blackwood. Bandit waited by a set of mossy steps. "Hey, girl," I said, giving her chin a rough scrubbing.

  I couldn't tell if Izzy was just giving me a hard time or was actually questioning my abilities. After last week's siege of Stronghold, the whole city had banded together to rebuild. We put questing aside to put our homes back together, player and NPC alike. But revenge wasn't all holding hands and singing "Kumbaya" and living well. No. Once we'd become whole again, we began clearing the countryside of pagans.

  At first it was just the stragglers. Then the stalwart holdouts. Small bands of goblins and kobolds who'd refused to retreat. Some of them had taken hold in the noob dungeons north of town. General Azzyrk had been so bold as to order follow-up raids against small groups of travelers. That was when the questing started. Trafford and other questkeepers had piles of them on offer. Killing pagans was suddenly the latest fad.

  Izzy, Kyle, and I? We weren't interested in grinding alongside everyone else. I pumped Trafford for the coolest quest that was the farthest away from town to eliminate all competition.

  My quest, my idea, my leadership. Right?

  "I'm just saying—" started Izzy.

  I whirled around and produced the crown from my inventory. "Look at it," I snapped. "We made it." As I waved the stag skull in my hand, Bandit snorted and ga
ve me a sideways look. "Why don't we call a success a success and—"

  The main gates of the Black Keep groaned open. As in, the ones on the ground close to us. As in, the ones we'd meticulously planned on avoiding. From the darkness within, the mismatched armor and black hood of the warden stomped outside. Straps of black leather hung away from him like loose rope. Chains dragged at his feet. In his left hand he carried a sharpened axe meant for beheadings.

  The entire Blackwood forest drained of all movement. No birds or scurrying rodents. Even the breeze stopped.

  "Grrrr..."

  We all took a step backward. We'd fought bigger things before, but something about Hood warned us off. It was probably the whole zero-health thing.

  From the passage behind him, tens of hooded flunkies rushed us.

  Izzy gripped her winter staff. "I'm thinking..."

  "Yes," I said quickly. "Use it now."

  She took center stage and spun her staff in a loop. As she did, the icy curve on the end thrummed purple, blue, and white. Blue runes traced into the ground and encapsulated us. I waved Bandit forward and she hurried to join us, squeezing together in safety.

  The Blackwood prisoners started toward us at top speed, but they never made it. Izzy's staff exploded and a sheet of rain and snow poured over them. The flunkies turned blue and chunked into icicles. They crumbled down the stairs and blew away in the growing gale.

  Izzy's winter staff is a true relic. While foraging in our new tower, she'd unlocked a secret compartment and discovered it. It was such perfect loot for a frost mage we'd all figured it more or less found her. Besides impressive attribute bonuses, it conferred a legendary power: sleet storm. Legendary powers are the ninja magic buttons of Haven, but they're expensive to use. They cost 50% of a user's max spirit and are only usable once per day.