We’d originally had a different plan, but after my test earlier with the hobgoblin dynamite, we’d had to rethink how we were going to proceed.
“Here we go,” I said to Donut. “Get ready.”
“Wait, I have to remember my lines,” said Donut. She shook her paw and cleared her throat.
I sighed and pulled the Mysterious Letter from my inventory.
It was Mordecai who’d figured out what the Mysterious Letter really was. We’d found it within GumGum’s inventory after she’d been killed. We figured it was something she’d pulled off the dead body of a prostitute. It turns out it was likely planted there on purpose in the hopes it would be picked up by whomever was in charge of investigating the deaths.
Earlier this morning, as we’d stood outside of the Narwhal staring at the dead corpse with the words, “No you won’t” carved into her body, which had been in response to me saying we’d hunt down and kill whoever was responsible, I had been horrified.
“Whoever this is, is listening to us talk. He can hear and see us,” I’d said to Mordecai.
“That’s unlikely. You were in a safe room.”
“Yet, here we are,” I said. “He’d done it fast, too. She’d dropped just a few moments after I’d spoken.”
“Tell me exactly what you were doing at the time when they dropped this girl on the building.”
It was only then I realized I’d been clutching onto the mysterious letter as I’d told Donut that we’d get revenge for GumGum.
“I should have realized,” Mordecai said after thinking on it for a moment. “Don’t take it out. It won’t work while it’s in your inventory. It’s a necroscript scroll all right, but it’s also covered in blood. I thought that was from the dead body it was found on. But I think it’s actually the blood of the caster. The scroll has already been used. Scrolls usually disappear once used, but not always.”
“Well, what is it?” I asked.
“Suppurating Eye,” he said. “A common lich spell. It’s usually not in scroll form, but it’s not unheard of. The caster reads the spell then leaks a bodily fluid onto a surface. The caster can then see and hear anything happening near the spilled fluid. It’s like placing a spy camera. He spilled it directly on the scroll, which he knew would be picked up. As long as it’s out of your inventory, he’ll know where you are and can hear you talk. You probably won’t be able to sell it to anybody, so you should get rid of it.”
“Or we can use it!” Donut said. “We can talk to him and tell him what a jerk he is, get him mad enough to come to us.”
“That’s actually a great idea,” I said.
“Of course it’s a great idea, Carl. I always come up with great ideas.”
I now gingerly placed the scroll on the roof tiles.
“I still don’t know what this is,” I whispered. “When we’re done here, we need to sell it.”
“Do you think there’ll be more scrolls in there?” Donut asked. She was overacting, but it was too late now. “It looks valuable. We should find one without blood on it.”
“After we finish looting that filing cabinet in the reception area, we can look through the office for more scrolls.”
I added, “We should probably steal all of those stuffed animals on Miss Quill’s desk, too. Especially those ones on the top shelf in the little cases. I bet those are worth something to somebody. And if they’re not, we can always use them to light campfires.”
“Good idea. Plus, Mongo needs a chew toy.”
“Okay, we’re going to wait another minute to make sure nothing is flying around above us, then we’ll zap over to the roof, hammer our way through the ceiling, and drop into that office. The key to that door has to be in there somewhere.”
“It’s a fool-proof plan,” Donut said.
I put the letter back into my inventory.
“There!” Donut said, pointing into the sky. A group of four krasue emerged, coming from underneath the building. It appeared they’d been on the first, unoccupied floor, waiting for us. They emerged now, heading toward our position on the roof.
“Go,” I whispered.
Donut zapped Mongo back onto the roof. Before the dinosaur could screech, she hissed, “Quiet!”
The dinosaur grunted angrily, then realized he was on an angled roof and started scrambling. Donut quickly cast Clockwork Triplicate on the dinosaur and then pulled the original Mongo back into his carrier. We’d need him again in a minute, but not right now.
The two clockwork Mongos both squeaked with disappointment as Mongo disappeared. I pulled the lit Hobgoblin smoke curtain into my xistera and tossed it onto the opposite roof. I then lit a second one and wedged it into a roof tile at our feet.
Donut gave a quick set of instructions to the two dinosaurs, and they both howled as the heavy smoke started to billow into the night air. I quickly pulled the mysterious letter out.
“We’re jumping onto the roof now,” I said. I crumpled up the letter and tossed it up in the air. One of the Mongos grabbed it and swallowed it whole. They then turned and leaped from the roof to the top of the magistrate building, soaring up through the air and landing easily. One of them howled, the sound carrying heavily into the night.
“Holy shit,” I whispered. They’d leaped across the alley and up an entire full story. “You were right. I didn’t think they’d be able to jump that far.”
“Mongo has the same pounce ability as I do,” Donut said. “And he’s a lot bigger.”
“Maybe I should ride him instead of letting you have all the fun,” I said as the smoke completely filled the night air. Pustule had been correct. These things were much better than the traditional goblin smoke bombs. It was like a heavy fog had filled the entire area. The two pets disappeared from view.
The swarm of red dots indicating the krasue turned back toward the roof of the building. The dinos had jumped before the fog had completely filled the area, and the floating women heads had seen the motion. I hadn’t been certain the fog would work on ghosts. Mordecai said it wouldn’t on most kinds of non-corporeal ghost entities, but it would on these guys because they had a physical presence. I still didn’t know how he kept all these rules in his head.
My attention moved to the map. “Okay, the clockwork Mongos are on the roof right over the Magistrate’s office.” If the guy was listening in, hopefully he’d been fooled into thinking we were now on the roof, and his crew had moved to the office to intercept. “Get down.” We moved to the back of the roof, crouching down. We should be plenty far away at this distance, but every time I said that, I was proven wrong.
“I feel bad about ruining Miss Quill’s collection,” Donut said. “She really loves those things.”
“Something tells me she’s not going to care anymore.”
I pulled the hobgoblin pus out and jammed on the detonator. A clockwork Mongo howl filled the air in the moment before night turned to day.
22
“Nice,” I said, examining the gaping hole in the building.
Below, the entire town had been jarred awake by the explosion. Lights turned on throughout the village. Cries and shouts rose. The dark shadows of skyfowl burst into the air all around us, but most stayed back from the destruction. The magistrate’s quarters burned. We’d blown up half of the building. But not all of it.
Admin Notice. A new tab is available in your interface.
Admin Notice. Your title has changed. This change will revert upon collapse of this floor.
A wall of notifications scrolled by, surprising me. I jumped up two levels to 21. Donut also jumped two levels to 19.
“Well that was easy,” Donut said as she cast her Torch spell, filling the rooftop with brilliant light. The smoke bomb sputtered to a stop, and the light reflected off the remnants, pulsing. It reminded me of the dance floor of the Desperado Club.