《Mini-Bosses: the Assassin NPCs.》


 Prologue.

    The bandit village was burning around him and Marvin Winston¡¯s white paladin armor gleaned with the flickering flames. It was night. He was soloing. And he knew for a fact that this village, families, pets, bandits and all, were stained with the blood count of raids on passing caravans. These facts were essential.


    Marvin was a level 50 paladin, the first of his class to reach this level. That, too, was essential.


    Marvin had a dull life outside of the game. He was a database engineer. The databases were largely finance related but the numbers themselves meant nothing to him; he just kept the monster running and kept it¡¯s A.I. from getting confused from bad inputs. Like most jobs, it was non-essential, median pay and four days a week. He spent a lot of time pretending to work when he was physically in the office. When he wasn¡¯t, he just interacted enough with the A.I. so that if it did a productivity report, he¡¯d show up in the findings.


    His life was lonely. And it was meaningless. Because, outside of politicians, pop stars, celebrities, life itself was largely meaningless.


    Most people in the civilized world didn¡¯t starve or go homeless: 3D printing ensured that. Unemployment was almost unheard of- although most work was make-work. The service industry was largely self-serve or robotics, unless you were a service specialist. Humans were just¡­ another component in a world run by the artificial.


    That was Marvin¡¯s reality. He thought about it a lot. He raged against it as a teen. He got training for positions that would give him substantially more than the federal stipend.


    But in the game, in *this* game, Nemesis Realms, Marvin had achievement: Levels in one of the hardest classes in the game. The highest level paladin was a beacon to other players and to NPCs alike. His healing aura alone made him an essential to large scale King-level raids. And he was well known to be a guildless freelancer, available to anyone friendly.


    It wasn¡¯t easy having 20 levels as a Paladin, much less 50. The trick with the Paladin is that not only must they kill monsters, they have to do with so a handicap: a moral code. Most players didn¡¯t have the patience for that kind of endless yet selective grind.


    Marvin¡­ Kaizer, in-game¡­ hefted his five-foot-long great sword over the shoulder of his seven-foot-tall frame and cast a glance towards one of the unburned buildings. He hoped to find survivors there. Good survivors, that is. Innocents. Survivors who a Paladin would never kill. His hope was waning.


    Kaizer still himself and cast his Saintly Sight spell, giving the world a golden gauze. Out of the corner of his sight, he saw movement. Red movement. From a half-wrecked hovel he thought he¡¯d cleared.


    Kaizer¡¯s boots crunched as he marched towards the building. He didn¡¯t bother trying to sneak; his was a class not known for subtlety. Somewhere in that barely standing shack was the red glow of someone who carried evil in them¡­. Paladin of light as he was, the player admitted he loved dispatching evil. Zealously.


    ¡°Knock knock,¡± Kaizer called softly while thrusting his great sword, one-handed, through what was left of the door and shattering it to pieces.


    Someone cried out from inside. Kaizer looked in but instead of the red glow, he saw a glow of white, barely radiating from behind an overturned table. He cast a glance across the rest of the door, taking in a broken bed, a pile of rags and a long dead body that seemed to have crawled there to take its last breath. The body was female and unarmored. As his Paladin blessings were still intact, he assumed she was as guilty as the rest of the camp.


    He looked back to the overturned table and, carefully, barely fitting as he was, stepped outside to put place his great sword onto his back and remove his helmet (which conveniently blinked away into his inventory). Beneath the helmet, Kaizer had a solid chin, golden blonde hair and arrestingly severe black eyebrows. Marvin looked nothing like him.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°Hello there. My name is Kaizer. I am a Paladin. And I see you are innocent of the heinous crimes¡­ ah, why am I role-playing¡­ I¡¯m Kaizer. Come out here, please.¡±


    It took a moment but a skinny child made his way out, holding his injured right arm. He stared up at the massive Paladin in awe and fear.


    Kaizer smiled at the glow of innocence in his vision, breaking it a moment to glance at his mana reserve to see how long the spell would hold. Long enough, it looked like.


    ¡°What¡¯s your name, boy?¡±


    The boy said nothing. He stood, shaking.


    ¡°Okay, let¡¯s try a different track. Did you live here? In this village?¡±


    The boy nodded.


    ¡°And your parents?¡±


    The boy glanced back at the shack. The body, Kaizer presumed. He continued to smile.


    ¡°You, little friend, are a Light in the Darkness. Is there anyone other survivors here, bad or good? No? Well, then, you are very special my little friend. You know that?¡±


    The boy shook his head.


    Kaizer nodded. ¡°Very special. And I want you¡­ ¡° Kaizer said, materializing his helmet from his inventory and handing it to the boy, ¡°to hold this.¡± The boy¡¯s eyes somehow widened even further. Kaizer smiled. NPCs thought inventories were more magical than actual magic.


    While the boy held the helmet, Kaizer pulled his sword from his back harness and searched the ground for a clear space.


    Once finding enough room, he dragged the blade along the dirt, creating a great circle that he made further designed into; designs that, once completed, glowed site a brief moment before the light dimmed back to the ambiance of flickering flames and dying embers.


    Kaizer nodded in satisfaction and let out a long breath. Then he turned to the boy and waved him over.


    The boy came, hesitant to break the circle at first but willing once Kaizer gave him an encouraging nod.


    ¡°Good,¡± Kaizer said, ruffling the kids hair. ¡°Now, the helmet.¡±


    The child offered up the helmet and Kaizer put it on. His full Paladin armor on, his Saintly Sight still active, Kaizer looked at the child¡¯s white glow and glanced a gauntlet on his head. He cast a largely useless luck blessing from the Lady of Light then cast a third spell, the Healing Aura, nearly draining his mana completely but giving him just enough time to drive his great sword through the boy¡¯s body, shoving its tip into the center of the circle.


    Kaizer¡¯s Saintly Sight broke like shattered glass and a scream echoed in his ear: the howling outrage of the Lady of Light¡¯s holy sacraments defiled.


    For a moment, Kaizer saw only black; he couldn¡¯t even see the embers of the bandit village he¡¯d just sacked. From that blackness melted the half form of a shrouded woman, the edges of her black cape translucent like morning mists. Her mouth was pale, full-lipped and beautiful but above the bridge of her nose was a rotting face whose eyes were gaping holes that wept foulness.


    ¡°Lady of Darkness, I honor you by spitting in your sister¡¯s face. I am strong. I have fouled my vows. And¡­¡± Kaizer paused, brought up notepad in his vision and continued reading, ¡°I dedicate myself to Power, Darkness and the Strength of the Hosts of Darkness. Do you accept my sacrifice?¡±


    The Lady of Darkness did not so much as glance with its empty eyes towards what lay at the end of Kaizer¡¯s sword before floating to him, lifting away his helmet and planting a slow, deep kiss on his lips. As her lips lingered, Kaizer¡¯s armor dimmed into a black that matched the darkness of the lady¡¯s shroud. Kaizer watched his eyes gauntlets change rather than seeing the disgusting half face directly in front of him.


    The Lady abruptly broke away from the kiss and vanished, bringing the world back to dim reality.


    ¡°Fuck. Yes!¡± Kaizer shouted, throwing a fist into the sky. ¡°I¡¯m a Dark Paladin! I¡¯m the fucking first! I¡¯m a fucking God!¡±


    Kaizer did the robot, then broke into gyrating hip dance the kids were calling ¡®The Dim Sum¡¯ for some reason, then vanished as he fast-traveled back to the Safe Zone city of Heroesport. There he would be allowed to log out safely and brag to the net of his World¡¯s First achievement. No clips, of course. He didn¡¯t need anyone else figuring out how to do it.


    All the while, Kaizer had not noticed the body at the end of his sword slowly dying, feeling the last dredges of the Healing Aura as his corruption grew, blackening its power into a torturous aura of Fear. But someone else did. Well hidden beneath a body, in a pile of rags, another child watched through a broken open door as her brother died a long, slow and horrific death.


    If Kaizer had not given up the blessing of the Lady of Light, his Saintly Sight would have shown that he had killed the last innocent in that village¡­ and that the child who crawled out from those rags when he was long gone still glowed a faint red.


    She crept to the boy and touched his cold cheek, the light having long since left his eyes.


    Then she touched the Paladin¡¯s great sword... and it shattered beneath her fingertips and disappeared, dropping the boy¡¯s body with a wet thump.


    She felt nothing.


    She felt cold.


    Then she felt a rush that struck her chest and sent her to her knees, gasping.


    And then, the little girl, still gasping for breath, crawled in the dark, away from her home village and into the woods surrounding it.

 Chapter 1.

    The city of Heroesport was filled with immortals. Rotten with them, like a grinning child hopping with lice.


    Valince entered the city at night, through a side gate covered in ivy that took a hefty bribe to guards who kept careful eye on the sorts of people who passed through under their watch. People, real people, came through that gate, mostly; or the kinds of immortals that wanted not to be seen. From what she understood, they paid double. Immortals never bartered. They just paid. It was one of the many little ways to tell them apart from real people.


    She¡¯d come cloaked against the weather, having spent the last few months in the rough, sleeping in dirt or on straw as she traveled, and keeping her face hidden away the way a goose kept its eggs: with much hissing and spitting.


    Heroesport was something of an upgrade for her, an announcement of the next step in her ascension from bandit to¡­ something else. She wasn¡¯t sure what the something was but it was someone with a Skill. And Skill meant value. She, then, was valuable¡­ or would be.


    Through the ivy gate, she was let out into a section of the city where the eyes of the poor were either empty or avaricious. She passed old women scurrying and young women flaunting, ducked by the watchful strut of gangs of street toughs and bypassed the occasional passed out drunk, their coin purse conspicuously in plain sight.


    Old Micha had told her that city rogues were different from bandits, were a harder kind of vicious that knew nothing of community, but the tension, to Valince, was all the same as the bandit camps. She held herself the same way as they did: watchful, performatively at ease while she white-knuckle gripped the two daggers hidden beneath her cloak. She¡¯d repeated the directions to her destination in a memory-sing-song, left-of-gate and pace through two, alleys way and spin towards center, look for Magic Beast of Blue and Knock Thrice-once-and-Thrice to enter, as she wound her way through the slums.


    The walk took longer that she would have liked. She could feel gazes follow her as she went. A bandit always had her people at her back but Valince wasn¡¯t a bandit anymore. She was alone. And city rogues sniffed out lone wolves like Griffins on the hunt.


    As she was closing on what looked to be her destination, matching the description she¡¯d had-- worn down, unkept but with a well-built door that could take a bull¡¯s rush¡­ and there, at the knocker, the face of a snake whose tongue hung and split into two smaller snakes. A Hydra. Magical beast.


    Just beneath the door, blocking the way, was a little¡­ man, she¡¯d guess, but small enough to be a child if it weren¡¯t for the peak of scraggly black beard from beneath his hood¡­ seemingly passed out drunk. Ah, yet another trap for the unwary.


    Valince approached the door and coughed. The little man swayed a moment, his head back but his eyes unseen as he took her in from beneath his hood then let his head droop once more.


    ¡°Move, beggar.¡±


    The little man belched.


    Valince sighed, casting a glance over her shoulder to watch for a trap; there were three men across the way, watching, leaned up against a wall but none of them approached.


    ¡°I¡¯m not stepping over you. Move or be moved,¡± Valince said. Then, as if she were talking to a stray, she made shooing motions with her dagger hilts. Receiving no response, she slipped her hands back into the cloak, motioned away one of her daggers and the reached for him with a free hand.


    The little man abruptly rose, staggered into her at near waist-height and ran off into the night.


    Valince sighed, shaking her head and watched him go.


    Then she knocked on the door as instructed with the end of her dagger while weighing the little man¡¯s coin purse in her free hand.


    The door opened slowly, spilling out dim light. Valince tied the purse to a hidden neck sash, motioned back her dagger and sheathed the both before entering.


    The tavern, called Cindy¡¯s, had a sparse scattering of tables mostly held by lone men staring alternatively into their clay mugs or up at the new comer. The door closed itself behind her. Valince tried not to look impressed.


    The man at the tap at the far end of the tavern was large, pot-bellied and goblin-ugly. He was mostly bald but where he did have hair it was shockingly orange. Approaching, she could see much of his hair came from his ears or out his nostrils.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    The man grunted in greeting.


    He did not look like a Cindy.


    He put his meaty hands on the wooden bar top and leaned over. She could smell his breath.


    ¡°Dark Ale, Hard wine or if you¡¯ve got the coin the blackest of brown liquors.¡±


    Valince steadied herself with a breath, lifted her chin and shook her head.


    ¡°No. I want the veal.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t serve veal. I don¡¯t serve food. I aint serving you.¡±


    ¡°Veal with a side of your finest wine and just a dash of spit.¡±


    The man sucked a tooth and looked Valince over.


    ¡°Uh huh. On whose tab?¡±


    ¡°Micha, the old man of the Virtuous Bastards.¡±


    ¡°Micha?¡± the man said, nodding. ¡°Good man. Good bandit. Alright,¡± he drawled, turning towards a small door around the other side of the bar top, ¡°come round to the dining room and-¡°


    Just as the bar keep was finishing his sentence, a rhythmic thumping sounded out the door and, before the door could quite open, in swept two men and a woman, clean-faced and wearing all manner of ridiculously ornate and colorful garb. One of the men was short but burly, wearing full plate armor. The second was skinnier and dressed like a court minstrel. The last, the woman, was clearly a mage of some sort: her long, sky blue gown glowed with a subtle glittering light. She looked like a ditch fairy glamouring a blue jay for its eggs.


    The bar keep jerked his chin towards Valince and she turned away, pulling up her hood and abruptly sitting at a table with another patron who didn¡¯t bother to acknowledge her.


    ¡°Alright, secret Tavern! Awesome!¡± The squat man in the plate armor said, removing and motioning away his helmet.


    ¡°Welcome to Cindy¡¯s,¡± the bar keep growled as the man approached.


    ¡°You have ale? Damn shame I can¡¯t get drunk. Age restriction.¡±


    ¡°Stuff tastes like shit anyway,¡± the minstrel said. ¡°Trees are healthier.¡±


    The woman didn¡¯t bother with the bar; she immediately found a table where a man stared into mug attentively as she started bombarding him with questions.


    ¡°Do you have a quest? Need something found? Lost your wife or daughter or something? Why are you drinking, are you depressed? Cursed? No?¡± She gave up and went to the next table, immediately falling into the same line of questioning. When she reached the third table, the man there just kept repeating ¡°Go away, I¡¯m drinking¡± until she gave up.


    ¡°Ho, Bar Keep. Are you Cindy?¡±


    ¡°Aye,¡± said the bar keep. ¡°On account of the hair. Do you want ale?¡±


    ¡°No, but I heard you had food. I¡¯d like a meal.¡±


    ¡°And where did you hear that from?¡±


    ¡°A forum,¡± the minstrel said, lazily leaning on the counter. ¡°We¡¯d like the veal and some wine.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t serve food, sir. Sorry, you heard wrong.¡±


    ¡°I said,¡± the minstrel repeated slowly, ¡°I would like the veal and some wine, please.¡±


    ¡°And I said,¡± Cindy ground out between gritted teeth. ¡°I don¡¯t serve food here. Ale or nothing.¡±


    The squat man in the armor blinked, glanced at the minstrel, then leaned in as well. ¡°Veal and white wine? Veal and sparkling wine?¡±


    ¡°No wine. No veal. Just ale.¡±


    ¡°Fuck,¡± the minstrel snapped. ¡°I knew it was bullshit. This place is a dump.¡±


    ¡°Ah damn, Cindy. Don¡¯t you even have a quest or something? Do you need something done?¡±


    Cindy grinned. ¡°Well, the floors could use a good mopping. And the tables need wiping.¡±


    The squat man stared at Cindy a moment before turning and throwing an arm around the minstrel, whispering together. Valince could faintly overhear them and glanced over her shoulder to catch a glimpse of Cindy breaking into a forehead sweat.


    ¡°Think it leads to something? Clean the place and maybe he knows something bigger?¡±


    ¡°Nah, Realms doesn¡¯t seem to work like that. They¡¯re all advanced as fuck. Multi-step fetch quests are 2D as fuck.¡±


    ¡°Trash the place and kill everyone, then? I¡¯m bored.¡±


    ¡°I could go for a trolling, sure¡­.¡±


    The woman broke the two men apart with a slap to the back of their heads.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be dumb, we¡¯re still in a safe zone. Magic Guards, OP as fuck and we will NOT be getting our gear back if we die that way.¡±


    ¡°Fuck, you¡¯re right,¡± the squat man said.


    ¡°Screw it,¡± the minstrel said, throwing up his hands. ¡°Let¡¯s head out, pop by a shop for a mana crystal or two¡­¡±


    ¡°We can afford exactly one,¡± the woman said.


    ¡°One crystal and a camp stone, then¡­ let¡¯s go grind some gobbies.¡±


    ¡°The cave? Again?¡± the woman moaned.


    ¡°Nah,¡± the squat man broke in, ¡°there¡¯s a better spot I heard, if you follow the stream up north into that lake valley. It¡¯s new! The fucking things migrate!¡±


    ¡°God, this place is so smart,¡± the woman said, heading towards the door. ¡°It¡¯s amazing!¡±


    When all three had left, all the tension seemed to leave the room. Even as unfriendly as the patrons had been before the immortals had shown up, the man across from Valince smiled and nodded at her as she rose to head back to the bar.


    ¡°Fuck those immortal monsters,¡± Valince said, approaching Cindy.


    The barkeep shrugged and gestured to the little door behind him. ¡°Like rats, fleas and fairies, pests are part of life. Dining room is that way.¡±


    ¡°Thanks,¡± she said, heading around the bar top and past him.


    She was tall for a woman but the door would have made almost anyone duck to go through so Valince was caught surprised when she entered a fairly large and more boisterous dining room, with tables that sat and held five people. She was even more surprised to see a man twice her size standing directly to the side of the door, guarding in such a way he could have killed her before she would have glanced his direction.


    The giant man, muscled with long and dirty looking hair but a clean-shaved chin, did not acknowledge her as she went further into the room while the door closed itself behind her.


    There was a thin man in fine dress tuning a lute at a table of his own; a table covered in papers held down by a heavy cross-bow. Valince approached his table and the man looked up.


    His face was long, with a sharp chin that held a well-kept and oiled beard. He had a long but thin mustache that pointed like spikes at the end. His eyes were oddly¡­ warm¡­ as he looked her over and smiled.


    ¡°Ho there, bandit. Looking for city work, are you?¡±


    Valince shook her head.


    ¡°I¡¯m not a bandit. My name is Valince. I¡¯m here to kill Immortals.¡±