Royal Blood : Chapter 11 (Patreon)

Chapter 11: In the Blood

“So what’s your quest?” I asked.

We’d finished the food, and the sun was high overhead. The bridge was in a quieter part of town, so I’d given Nezza a bit of time to look over her new class options. Of course, there was one question I wanted to know the answer to.

Nezza frowned, eyes flicking down to the canal below. “It says…I need ta ‘reclaim my pride’.” She shrugged, ragged cloak fluttering around her shoulders. “Then I’ll get m’demon blood back?”

I nodded, crossing my arms. “Do you know what that means?”

“Yah.” She nodded glumly. “Says it here…”

I looked over again, waving a hand, but Nezza didn’t say anything. After a moment I shrugged. “Well, it’s your quest. If you don’t want to talk about it—”

“No!” Her hand snapped out, grabbing my wrist. “I—” She shook her head. “Come wif me.”

I tilted my head, but I mean, c’mon. There was only one answer here, right? “Sure. Lead the way.” We hopped off the railing.

Usually, we spent time near the market districts. Boss’s house was in the upscale neighborhood nearby, and there were lots of little nooks and crannies for us to use for training. I would have invited Nezza to stay with me at the house, except the last thing I wanted was for her and the boss to meet. Who knew what that psycho would do.

So far, she’d refused to show me where she spent her nights, so I couldn’t help her there either. Just had to make sure she got fed every day.

This time, though, we went towards the edge of the city, where there were hundreds, or maybe even thousands of houses and tenements crammed up against the walls. This was where most people lived, and while it wasn’t a slum per se…

It wasn’t far off, either.

Honestly, it felt familiar. When I was growing up—the first time around—I lived in places like this.

In my new life, my entire family would sooner burn the place to the ground than set foot on the crooked, unpaved roads of the south side.

Nezza led me through the streets with the experience born of long practice. More than that, she knew when to get out of the way and when to bluster her way past rough-looking guys loitering in the front of pubs and opium dens.

I frowned at those. I’d been surprised to learn that the drug trade was alive and well in the Empire, but I guess no one in power really cared about Moon Tears, Dreampowder, and the other opiates of the masses.

They were something to keep people complacent, bought cheaply from the southern continent.

We came to a stop in a cramped side street, peering out towards a small house that was built into the side of a pub. The house honestly looked like it had seen better days. The paint was chipped, and one of the windows was broken with the shutters closed.

For all that, I quickly noticed that people gave the place a wide berth. The beer hall next to it was in much better condition. It almost looked upscale.

I looked over at Nezza, but she was just staring at the house with an intense look of concentration on her face.

“Nezz.”

She jolted, then shook her head. “That use’ta be my house,” she said after a second.

I looked back over towards the building. “…What happened?”

Nezza ducked her head, shrugging. “Da died. Ma and I moved to the city to find work. Course, people didn’ like that she had a demon brat with her.”

“Ah.” My lip pulled into a frown. “So people started making life hard for you, debt collectors too?”

Nezza nodded. “We was okay fer a bit. Then ma lost her job. A few weeks later, buncha guys came and threw us out. In tha middle’a winter.”

I winced. While spring and summer were nice, the winters in Norvusk could be brutally cold. Iduneth itself was close enough to the coast that it was buried in snow each winter, but far enough away that the ocean didn’t help keep things warm.

“Ma didn’t make it. I did.” Nezza straightened up, glaring back at the building again. “Fell in with a street crew, but y’saw how that worked out.”

I patted her on the shoulder. Nezza glared, before ducking her head to look back at the ground.

“We had ta pay ‘im.” Nezz bit her lip. “I had ta pay ‘im. The man tha’ killed ma…”

“So this is where you lost your pride, huh?” Nezza just nodded at my words. I put on a confident grin. “Well, guess that means we have to kill him.”

Her eyes snapped up at me.

I shrugged. “What, did I guess wrong? Were you supposed to just like…let go of your earthly attachments?” I waved at the house. “That doesn’t really sound like a demon thing.”

She shook her head. “No. I…gotta kill him. Th’ quest say so.” She gave me a suspicious look. “I jus’ didn’ think you’d be so on board.”

I hummed, turning back to the house. “You know, I haven’t told you yet, but I’m actually training to become an assassin.” Nezz blinked. “So really, I should be thanking you. This sounds like a great way to get some experience.”

“Ah, uh.” She raised a hand meekly. “Actually, I hafta kill ‘im.”

“What? Oh?” I laughed. “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean experience for my class. I mean, you know. Like on-the-job experience.”

She tilted her head. “Did’ya get a quest too?”

I raised a finger, before realizing that I was probably just talking over her head. Heck, I don’t think I’d heard anyone use ‘experience’ in that way. Made sense, I guess. “Nevermind. So, let’s plan.” I pulled her back, away from the crossroads. “So, I guess the bar is his too?”

Nezza nodded. “S’why he wanted the house.”

“Right.” Bet that would be a nice gig for a petty gang lord. I looked over the house. He couldn’t be too important if he was still living in a place like that. “Do you know who’s usually…around?”

This time, she shook her head. “One’a the boys usually gave tha take.”

Probably so they could skim off the top too. I shook my head. That wasn’t important; those two were dead, and the person who put Nezza in that situation would be soon as well. I felt a smile coming over my face.

It was funny, right? I should almost thank him for putting Nezz into my path.

“Okay.” I nodded once. There would be time to think about life’s little ironies after. “Let’s get to it, then. Here’s what we’re going to do.”

~*~*~*~*~

We didn’t do anything that day. Something like this took resources, information, and time to plan. Plus, we couldn’t get caught snooping around. Nezza had a pretty distinctive appearance, you know.

Fortunately, I was as non-descript as they came. I gathered information, figuring out who was usually in the bar and who was usually around the house. It netted me a few levels of Sneak, and then we figured out what we needed to know.

The boss was level twenty-five.

Really, it was almost a shame that I was letting that juicy bit of experience slip past me, but I pushed the thought off. I wasn’t so far gone that I just saw people as numbers, to push mine higher.

Plus, it would fail Nezza’s quest.

The man—I never even learned his name—was living it up. Or at least, best he could in a rundown part of town like this. He was a big guy, heavy, really let himself go. That was the only reason I thought we stood a decent chance.

The man spent the nights drinking in the pub, glad-handing people, reliving the glory days or whatever. Then he’d stumble home and sleep late, wake up in the afternoon and collect his cut of money for people operating on his ‘turf’.

He had people to manage the money and to run the bar. Even had a few guards around when he drank or when he did business.

Bet he used to be a real somebody, but now he was just a has-been, drinking away the rest of his days in the rundown corner of the city. The man didn’t even have a pinky in the market district. Nezz and the idiots had been striking out on their own, trying to get enough money to ‘move up’ in the pecking order.

Well, what’s the best way to advance when you’re stuck at the bottom?

Flip the board.

At first glance, you’d think the man would be hard to get to. He spent most of his time around other people that were way higher level than us. He was higher level than both of us too, and probably had a few nasty skills to go along with the mix.

But I realized right away that in the mornings, after a long night of drinking, he didn’t want to be bothered by anyone.

From that point, it just became about finding the best way into the house without anyone noticing. It’s not like there weren’t guards, but really, who expects two street rat looking kids to have the Sneak skill unlocked?

A week after Nezza got her quest, we climbed into the place through a back window.

Prying off the back boards wasn’t hard with my Strength stat reaching what it was. Nezza stood lookout until I worked two loose, more than enough space for us to squeeze through. Once on the inside, I quickly latched the old shutters; no one would notice the hole.

“Well.” I brushed myself off quietly. It was the middle of the night, and right now the party next door was going full swing. “Those demon eyes of yours have night vision? We need to find a place to hide.”

No reply.

I looked over, casting a hand out until I found Nezza’s elbow. “Nezz? What’s wrong?”

In the darkness I couldn’t make out her features. Outside there were magelights, but within, not a single candle was lit. All I could go by was the tenseness of her muscles under my grip. I tugged her slightly.

“It…looks different.”

Ah, of course, this used to be her house. “That’s why we’re here, remember? To take it back?” Her arm jerked slightly in my grip. “Now, c’mon. We need to find a spot.”

“Right.”

She started walking, dragging me along by the arm. I rolled my eyes. “Nezz—I can’t see.”

“Huh?” She turned in my grip. “Oh, uh. There’re candles right…” She shifted, paused. “There use’ta be candles here.” I heard a soft tap as she placed her hand against the far wall of the corridor. “Ma kept a little basket here, fer if she needed ta get up at night.”

“Not for you, huh?” I asked. “You’ve always been able to see at night, then?”

Nezza nodded.

I bit my lip for a second, thinking. “Well. Lead the way.” I took a step forward, half-pushing her with my hand. “We’ve got places to go.”

“Mmm…” After a moment, Nezza started walking again, a bit slower this time to make up for my lack of dark vision. You’d think that Assassin would have a few skills to help with that, but I’d discovered that skills were much harder to unlock in this world than most games usually depicted. The classes you had didn’t provide skills: instead, they just provided access to different skills if you managed to unlock them yourself.

A class like Prince had access to all kinds of skills from my research, but so far I hadn’t had the opportunity to unlock them. After all, a kid running around doing things to unlock all kinds of skills would have just drawn attention to me. That was the last thing we needed right now.

I had taken backstab, and we each had sharp knives.

“Here.”

There was a creak and a brush of air as Nezza opened a door. I saw a vague outline move, like a curtain across my sight. Nezza pulled me into the room, and I groped around for a second before closing the door behind me.

She paused, stock still, looking at what I couldn’t see. “Nezz? Where are we?”

Before she could reply, the door clicked open, and a beam of light spilled into the room.

Nezza froze. I saw shock on her tanned features as my own sight returned.

I was already moving when the first man stepped into the room.

“Eh? The fuck’s a kid doing here, you—” He caught sight of me a second too late, swiping at me with the lantern in his hand.

I ducked, grabbing his wrist with my off hand as I leapt. I punched my stiletto into his throat twice in quick succession. He staggered, and I pulled him further off balance, slamming my weapon into the side of his neck. Boss said go for the ear, but I didn’t have that kind of accuracy yet.

He choked on the blood in his throat, and I stabbed him once more, yanking the blade out the front of his neck, and he finally went down.

You have slain Rogar (lvl: 19)

8400 exp awarded!

You have reached level 8!

I pushed the rest of the notifications aside with a quick flex of will before dragging the body into the room. His lantern had clattered to the floor and was leaking oil from the side. I shoved the thug to the side and swept up the light source before the whole house could go up.

When I turned, Nezza was still standing frozen in the middle of the room.

“Move!” I hissed. She jumped in surprise, eyes darting from me to the body at my feet. “Nezz! Now!”

“Roggie?” A voice called through the door. “Did you trip you fuckin’ idiot?”

Nezza’s eyes grew even wider at the voice, a full body shiver running down her form. Gotta be the gang boss, then. I could hear his heavy tread coming towards the door.

I shoved my dagger back into its sheath and grabbed Nezza by the hand. I had just enough time to press the stiletto into her trembling fingers and shutter the lantern before the door swung open.

“Rogar!” The light from the hallway itself was dimmer, but it did enough to illuminate the big man who tramped through while we crouched on the other side of the door. “The fuck did you get off to?”

The door thumped quietly into Rogar’s unmoving thigh. I stepped forward just as the man started to turn, dragging Nezza behind me.

This wasn’t what we’d fucking planned at all, butI wasn’t going to let Nezza fail her own damn quest.

“Hey fuck face!”

His eyes snapped down just in time for me to smash the shuttered lantern into it. This time, the rest of the oil went everywhere/ It lit.

He screamed.

“Now!”

Behind us, I could already hear other shouts rising up, but there was no time for that. I shoved Nezza forward, dagger in hand as the man batted at his face. Her crimson eyes were wide and wild, but they latched on to the figure who threw her out of her home easily enough.

With a guttural scream, all of her rage broke loose at once. She threw herself forward, stabbing the stiletto into his stomach. The man bellowed, smacking Nezz with a meaty fist, but she didn’t seem to feel it.

Instead, she reached over, biting into his fingers with her sharp teeth, even as the dagger came down again and again on his torso.

“His neck!” I shouted. I could hear the pounding of feet now in earnest; the noise of the bar hadn’t been enough to cover up all the screaming.

Still, Nezz heard me as well. Her next blow struck true. She stabbed him twice more, red eyes flashing in the light. Then, with a shuddering twitch, the man fell still. She stood silently over his corpse, chest heaving, even as her eyes flicked back and forth as her system read off her quest rewards.

All well and good, but there’d be time for that later.

“We gotta go, Nezz!”

I took two steps forward, just in time to hear her say, “I accept”, before I caught her hand and pulled.

Then I staggered as she vanished in a flash of light. With a grunt, I rolled, coming back to my feet against the opposite wall. I ducked into the far corridor just in time to hear someone crash into the room behind me.

At first I thought Nezza had vanished entirely, but then I realized that I was holding an ornate blade in my hand. Almost long enough to be called a short sword, the blade itself was bone white, and it sat comfortably in my hand despite its size.

Even as I raced down the hall and pressed my back around the corner, I couldn’t help but stare at it. My eyes were drawn to the red, eye-like gem set into its surface.

The gem flashed.

Congratulations! Your Daemon companion has selected you as her bond partner. Would you like to accept?

And below that.

Warning! Nezza’s Bite is a soulbound weapon. Only a bond partner can wield a soulbound weapon.

There was the drumming of more than a few footsteps coming down the hall behind me, robbing me of choice.

“I accept.”

At once, I felt something rush through me like a tidal wave. I swore I saw the gem, no, Nezza’s eye, wink at me from the pommel.

Then we were out of time.

I jumped, spinning in the air blade first. Either by luck or fate, it found the first man’s eye, punching deep into his skull and cutting through bone like butter.

At once, he fell like his strings were cut. Clearly the dagger was something special.

You have slain—

I didn’t have time for that now, instead falling back on the instincts drilled into me from long hours of practice in the yard. I heard two voices cry out as the first man fell.

I stepped around the corner, taking stock of the other two men, swords both drawn. At my height, it would be suicide to try and get through their reach. Instead, I threw.

The blade arced in the air, almost as if it followed my will. It buried itself up to the hilt in the second man’s chest. He gurgled.

At that point, my plan was to scoop up a sword and take my life into my own hands, but then there was a flash of light and Nezza was perched on the second man’s chest. She still had my bloody dagger clutched in her hands, and this time she didn’t hesitate before plunging it into the last man’s throat.

Just like the bone white dagger, it went right in, doing far more damage that it had previously. She must have unlocked some other skill to go along with whatever ridiculous damage that soulbound weapon clearly had.

Too bad there was no time to ask questions. Instead, I took two steps forward, holding out my hand. Nezza knew what I wanted immediately, she finished off the gurgling man at her feat with a quick swipe. Then she jumped, and halfway to me there was a flash of light.

Nezza’s Bite slapped into my open palm like I’d been born with it in hand.

I was back out the window in a breath, running as fast as my little legs could carry me.

Turning back at the first bend in the alley, I saw that the oil from the lantern had spread, catching the entire building on fire and spreading to the beer hall as well.

I hadn’t even noticed.

“Well.” I flicked up my hood. “That went…better than expected.”

Intro quests, man.