Chapter Fourteen: Price of Thievery

FOURTEEN

POOR SKELETAL MONSTROSITY

LEVEL GUARDIAN

100 CREDITS

“That’s it?” The words hung about in the full room as eyes tracked to him. Roan had landed the killing blow and the boss had only yielded a hundred credits for the effort it had taken to cut it down. Nearly twenty people hacking and chopping it down for a hundred credits? Roan wanted to scream in rage at the injustice of it, the spendthrift nature of the tower.

“We all got something.” Darren’s voice was flat, hard, hints of anger in it as Roan looked over and stared at the injured and dead.

“Bad timing.” Roan chided himself as he threw his new warhammer over his shoulder and walked over to the coffin the level guardian had been sleeping in. He hoped to find something to gather, but it was as empty as all the others had been.

“Everyone re-group. Taoya, are you okay?” Darren asked as he finally got his coughing fit under control.

“Darren! We need to take Harris into the safe-room. We’re going to need more healing supplies!” Moira said as she worked on wrapping a tourniquet around Harris’ leg. Darren quickly had four others go and help Moira, dragging Harris away and into the portal.

Roan sat off to the side and checked his pockets, making sure his two potions were intact. While the little bottles seemed to have been fragile, they had managed to survive the fight without incident.

“I wonder if we all got the same amount for that Level Guardian? Or was it by contribution? Taoya would have a much larger stake, I would have gotten nothing if I hadn’t dropped the finishing blow.” Roan was lost in his own thoughts that he didn’t notice the two approaching figures until they were standing in front of him.

“Give us Shelly’s hammer,” the lead boy said. Roan blinked and looked at them. Both were dressed in casual clothes, not the matching uniforms, so that made them independents like he was. And Shelly had been.

“You her family? Boyfriends?” Roan asked casually. He kept the hammer slung over his shoulder. The lead boy flushed, his pale cheeks filling with red as he shuffled from foot to foot. He didn’t have a weapon in his hand, which Roan thought was stupid. If you were going to rob someone, you should have a weapon ready.

“Listen, you have plenty of help and powerful teammates. We need the weapon. Shelly would have wanted it that way,” he said.

“Yeah, no. Fuck off or I’ll use the hammer on you,” Roan said. He kept his voice flat, making sure there was no emotion as he squared himself off and made sure his balance was good. Neither of the boys looked anything special, but a hidden bloodline would see his skull spattered across the crypt.

“Listen,” the lead boy started again, his dirty blonde hair fell in his eyes and he wiped it away even as he stuck a finger at Roan.

“Craig, chill,” the other boy said, reaching to pull his friend back; but his other hand was behind his back. Roan grabbed Craig’s finger and snapped it.

It was a loud sound in the quiet crypt. They’d all spent the last day hearing bones break as they fought their way through the skeletal horde and it was an unmistakable sound. Craig’s scream of shock and pain a moment later ensured every eye was on Roan as he shoved the boy backward to clear space.

The dagger swiped out a second later, plunging for Roan’s side. It met the haft of the hammer as he brought it down, blocking the rusted edge as his attacker’s eyes widened in shock.

“Bush-league shit. Back alley thugs, not trained at all, or at least poorly.” Roan analyzed them for what they were even as he whipped the hammer around and brought it on his attacker’s foot. Bone and flesh mingled together in a paste, held together by the tough leather. This one’s scream was much louder and shriller than Craig’s had been.

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Roan kicked him, his heel impacting the boy’s gut as he started to bend over. The two wannabe thugs fell in a tangled rolling mess of sobbing and cries of pain, the attacking dagger sliding away and across the room.

Roan looked toward the others and judged them quickly. The sect members had been thinned when Darren had ordered Haris away. They were fairly outnumbered by the independents and Taoya, their best fighter, was obviously exhausted. Darren did the math as well and started to tighten up their formation.

“If you want to be a thief, be a good one at least. For the rest of you,” Roan looked at the small line of independents. Of the eight independents who had entered, one was dead, and two were out of the fight. Darren had come with the larger party, but five of them had dragged Harris back into the safe-room and Taoya was out of the fight. It was just Darren and two others who looked ready to fight.