The Bathrobe Knight (38 page)

He clinched his eyes closed and tried to wrest control of his thoughts, but they had all faded, and he was left with an empty hunger that drove him towards the Hydra as it would a starving infant towards its mother’s breast. The Hydra, regarding him as a fly, swatted its tail at him. He dodged right without missing a beat, but the Hydra, seeing him dodge, pulled its tail back and swiped at him in a long wide sweep.
Just like a Minotaur
he thought, remembering how much they loved their long Axe sweeps as he jumped up and landed on the passing tail. Its width wasn’t more than a two or three feet wide, but it was flat enough for him to run on. The most troubling part was that the speed it was moving at forced him to use the Swords to keep his balance, stabbing into the Hydra with each step.

Three of the Hydra heads watched his climb for a moment, then one of the three watching shot out at its own tail with an open mouth. Darwin jumped and pushed both his blades out, catching the incoming Hydra head right in the nose. He almost lost his grip as the impact with the head threatened to throw him back several feet if he didn’t hold on tight, but he managed to keep his footing. The impacting head was now caught with its teeth sinking into its own tail and its nose skewered by two blades.

Darwin grunted, pulling himself on top of the snout and ripping his Swords out of the nostril. His heart was beating even faster, and the thumping had gone from just being in his chest to pounding through his head as he dragged his blades across the thick scales covering its snout and pulled back just long enough to stab one in each of the beast’s eyes. He then pulled another Sword out of his inventory, a common iron one, and put it in the right eye’s open wound before using his foot to jam it all the way through.  

The other Hydra heads did nothing, just watching the spectacle. Then, the closest head to him opened its mouth and did the exact same thing.
Rinse and repeat
. Darwin thought, following through the motions again. Everything went the same, except instead of the head being stuck chewing on a tail, it was stuck mid-bite on another head, its teeth sinking into the dead head’s face.

As Darwin kicked the Sword through the right eye of the second head, not even having to switch up the strategy at all, he noticed the others weren’t brave enough to try to chomp him like their two predecessors. They watched wide-eyed for a moment, and then lunged full speed at one of the cave’s walls. Darwin pulled out his two original Swords and used them to carve a way down the eight feet of Hydra neck without falling off. When he landed on the beast’s back he crawled towards the middle, doing his best not to fall off as the beast’s charge smashed into the wall. The Hydra, struggling to free its tail with the other heads not brave enough to go for a bite, started throwing its weight side to side.

Darwin saw what they were doing. They were trying to roll over but the elephant legs were spread too wide to do it normally. As the body finally tipped he scurried to climb around the beast in time, barely avoiding being flattened. The problem for the Hydra now was that it couldn’t turn back over. He then walked over to the center of its chest, where he knelt down and ripped off a scale.

He took his Swords and began hacking at it over and over again. At first it was bone, but bone gave way and flesh became visible. The five remaining heads did their best to try to roll back over, screaming and howling as he tore through their sternum and into the chest. It was more butchery than battle at that point. One of the remaining heads grabbed rocks with its teeth and tried to throw them at him, but he dodged them easily enough and went back to his hack-and-slash work.

“Darwin . . .” he barely heard Kass say from a distance over the sounds of the five heads screaming in agony, but he couldn’t see her face.

This is it
, he thought, finally having dug far enough into the chest to reach the heart. He took three Turtle-Wolf spears and shoved them into the massive beating thing, silencing the tormented cries of the remaining heads. When it was finally dead, he fell back onto his butt and hands, catching his breath atop the stomach of the fallen Hydra.

“Darwin . . .” Kass said again, standing at the door. “What was that?”

“It was a Hydra,” he answered, not understanding how she could ask such an obvious question.

“That’s not what I meant . . . Actually, you know what, nevermind. We did it! The crossing guard is dead and the rest of the trip should be easy, right?” she said, wearing a smile that Darwin could tell was fake from ten feet away.

“Yeah, we did,” he agreed, not caring to dig out whatever was bothering her. She was right: it was a reason to celebrate. “And no one died.”

“You could have . . .” she mumbled under her breath so quietly Darwin was surprised he could even hear it.

“Lord Darwin,” Alex said, standing with Fuzzy Wuzzy and a few Guards. “We only made it in time to watch.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to kill it without you,” Darwin remembered his promise to the Guards to let them take part in the struggle.

“Apology accepted, milord. I understand the glory fighting such a fiend alone would bring a man. It would be rude to deny you that,” Alex answered, Blake and the others nodding.

Glory? Had I done it for glory? No, it wasn’t glory,
Darwin thought, remembering the feeling that pulled him into the battle against his own sanity. “Thank you for understanding,” he said, deciding not to correct them.

“Darwin . . .” Kass said yet again, frowning.

“Yes?” Darwin answered, trying to figure out what was bothering her, why her eyes somehow managed to look sad.

“Let’s fight with the group for the rest of the trip,” she said.

So first she complains about there not being enough grinding, and now she wants to stick with the group? What’s with her?
Darwin thought, a lopsided frown splitting across his face. “Sure, we can do that,” he said, deciding not to question her intentions further.

“Good, now let’s get to that harbor safely,” Kass said as the group walked further through the mountain. They had beaten the crossing guard, so the only thing left for them to do was sneak into the White-Horn harbor unnoticed with a ton of red-eyed Demons and somehow procure enough transportation to get to the mainland.
That shouldn’t be too hard, right?
Darwin thought, knowing better than to truly believe  there actually wouldn’t be any complications.

Maddock
:

Maddock strode purposefully through the canopy of trees no longer bothering to feign any ignorance about the direction he was heading. The direction of the harbor and the ocean was unmistakable--a great thundering cacophony of noise in the distance that grew louder with every passing step. The sun had finally won out the fight over the fog that seemed to have permeated the region over the last day and quickly wrested control over the skies, searing away the last remnants of the white vapor that clung to life now only in the darkest parts of the forest he and his band were now leaving behind them.    

After interrogating the White-Wing scout, it had taken only seconds for his mind to capitalize upon the direction he and his guild were going to take. He had never really been wrestling with the decision before, but he also knew that in order to lead, one must be willing to find out all available information before making any decision. That was why it had been so imperative for Maddock to find out why the White-Wing scouts had been moving throughout the region for the last few days. He had surmised that there was no logical reason other than war for the White-Wings to be there--and he had been right. Maddock was wise enough to spot an opportunity when it presented itself to him; and, if nothing else, he favored himself as being bold enough to take advantage of it. If he was right, the White-Wings would be moving en masse with a massive army towards the coast he and his men were now moving towards themselves.

The logistics of such a campaign were slightly boggling. The amount of bodies, supplies, and resources that were necessary was already fairly staggering.  Moving them across the ocean in order to wage any significant form of war further compounded the situation. Sure, the White-Wings were more than capable of making the flight alone. If they did that, however, there was no guarantee that they would arrive at any preset rendezvous point together. If they were spread out or became lost, it would provide more than ample warning to any of the White-Horns or Black-Wing scouts that would have surely been patrolling the coast. If Maddock and his men had been fortunate enough to notice the presence of  White-Wing scouts on a starter island other than their own, he was more than sure that someone else would have as well.

A few random players were easy enough to explain away and likely wouldn't be noticed or questioned. A mere group or squadron of NPCs, however, was something else entirely:   inevitably, the White-Wings would raise the same suspicions that had been set off within Maddock's own mind. No, if they were going to set up any form of extended campaign within these lands, they would have to move their entire army as a cohesive unit. Doing so would allow them to set up a base camp, most likely somewhere along the coast, and then push out and attack from there once the position was solidified. That left the White-Wings with only a single option: moving the legions by sea, and that meant boats--much like the one that Maddock was now more than ever eagerly awaiting.

The edge of the forest broke suddenly. Whether it was by design or a stroke of randomly-generated happenstance, the trees thinned out over the course of several dozen yards, their large trunks spread further and further apart, until they abruptly stopped all together.  Emerging from the forest was like walking from a softly-lit room into a bright dance studio. The glare from the sun bounced off the ocean in the distance, and Maddock was forced to momentarily look down towards the ground as his vision adjusted. The ground, he noticed, had changed as abruptly as the forest had ended. Whereas before the forest floor had been covered with a soft carpet of needles, it was now quickly becoming bare rock. As his eyes became used to the light, he momentarily lapsed into thinking about  how realistic the world of Tipqa really was. It appeared as if the coastline had been there forever, weather beaten and worn away by the constant pounding of the waves breaking against the coast. He could even imagine he felt the sun beating down on him, quickly heating up the metal Armor he wore.

Maddock quickly broke himself out of his reverie as his vision finished adjusting, and he could clearly see where he was heading. About a hundred yards ahead of him, the rocky coast ended in a stone pathway that lead down to a small wooden dock and boat house. By anyone's standards it was a pathetic excuse for a harbor. Indeed, it was really only a harbor in name and not in effect. It offered none of the usual protections from weather or storms that a harbor would have provided in the real world. t more closely resembled an abandoned fisherman's hut on some forlorn coast; but, like so many other things within the gaming world, it wasn't how it looked, only what it would do. In this case, it would do exactly what Maddock wanted--summon the boat that he and the others had been waiting on.

His purposeful stride quickly closed the distance to the narrow pathway that lead down to the wooden dock and the others fell in behind him, trailing down single file and filling up the dock behind him. As he passed along the dock towards the small shack, he once again took a mental note of how realistic the world around him was. He could actually feel the tremor of the waves as they broke against the wooden dock and the resulting spray of water that spattered up into the air. The constant ebbing of the waves occasionally pushed water up and over the edge of the planks, and he could imagine that if he were wearing anything other than boots, he would also feel the wet chill of the water as well. Standing at the end of the dock, outside the shack, was a solitary figure facing towards the ocean with its back towards Maddock. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and her head was tilted slightly back as if she were basking in the warmth from the sun.

"How long do we have?" Maddock raised his voice above the sound of the waves.

The woman tilted her head back towards Maddock and answered in turn without ever opening her eyes, "Oh, about now I would say. I've really just been waiting on you guys to show up. I didn't want to risk finishing the process and then not having enough people around to protect the boat. You would skin me alive if I actually managed to summon the stupid thing and then had some random group of kids show up just in time to steal it away from us."

"Likely chance of that, Ku. You and I both know you can actually use a hammer for more than just crafting if you would ever bother to do it anymore. Remember the campaign in Kaldra?  Those were some good days back then." Maddock was referring to another time they had run together a few years back in a different game.