Sang drew her bow and pointed it at the stand. “I see you!” she lied. “Come out and I won’t kill you!”
“Aw, man, a dragon?” replied a voice from the merchant stall. “I can’t fight one of those! I surrender.” A short man wielding two daggers emerged from the stall and dropped his weapons.
Sang grinned as she released an arrow right into his chest, killing him immediately. “That’s what you get for stealing from innocent players!” she shouted as she quickly looted him before running toward the screeching bagpipe.
“Bad?” the dragon said as it scampered alongside her.
“Yeah, really bad! He wanted to steal my stuff!”
“Surrender?” the dragon asked.
“Oh, uh, yeah. I don’t really take prisoners…” Sang said, before realizing the dragon was just repeating a word it had heard. She knew Van wouldn’t like her method of dealing with problems, but the last thing she wanted to worry about was taking prisoners who would probably just shiv her in the kidney later.
“No prisoners!” Jet cheerfully said.
“Perfect battle cry!” Sang replied as she scooped Jet up and put him back in her bag. He was turning out to be a handy little asset. While, officially, he didn’t seem to have any kind of level or stats, he had a strong sense of smell. That would come in handy on plenty of occasions.
She reached the edge of the murky town to see that Van was tied to a tree and had been stripped down to his underwear. One of the bandits was trying to play the bagpipe and was somehow playing it better than Van could. Captain McKenzie and another bandit were busy laughing at Van’s predicament.
“Come on, let me go! I already told you, I have no idea where she went! We aren’t even friends—I was actually her slave. You guys rescued me!” Van said.
“I highly doubt that,” McKenzie replied as she took out her cutlass and placed it against Van’s cheek. “Now, you better start talking before I cut that pretty little face of yours.”
“Joke’s on you, this face is nowhere close to pretty! My charisma score’s so low that you’d probably improve it by scarring me!” Van taunted her.
“We just want what is due to us,” the captain said, oblivious to the fact that Sang was slowly advancing towards them. The bagpipes were giving Sang a surroundings bonus of +15% to her Stealth, due to the noise. It was high enough of a bonus to where none of the bandits would be able to see her, meaning she could probably kill two of the lower level ones quickly. McKenzie herself was Level 14, but was still a rogue, meaning that she wouldn’t do that well in open combat against a ranger.
“Well, I’ll tell you what,” Van said, “I’ll make you a deal. If you give me ten million gold pieces, I’ll tell you where she is.”
Before McKenzie could respond, Sang fired two volleys into the bandit bagpiper and his companion, killing them immediately.
“Ah, crap!” McKenzie shouted as she spun around, holding her cutlass high. “How did you escape my crew?”
“I hid from them, and then I progressively hunted them down,” Sang said, “killing them one by one. And the best part was? I even killed the ones who surrendered!”
“Well, that’s just great,” McKenzie said, glancing around. It was clear that she was looking for some means of escape.
“Don’t be thinking about running, Captain,” Sang instructed as she aimed her bow at the woman. “You’ve got a lot to answer for.”
“Oh, and for what? I tried to rob you, boo-hoo. At least me and my team kept this place free of all the other bandits. Now, without a good crew, this place will be swarming with undesirables who will just murder anyone they see.”
“Wow, you make a really good case for why I shouldn’t shoot you. You were just providing a community service by robbing us!” Sang growled. She felt the jumpiness in her fingers, too; it wouldn’t be that hard to kill the woman, but maybe there would be some kind of advantage in letting her live. “Give me a good reason why I shouldn’t kill you?”
“Okay, uh, how about this? I give you all of my stuff and the key to my private quarters? There’s plenty of treasure in there! You let me go, and I’ll skip town.”
Sang frowned. It seemed like an odd deal, for the captain to give away all of her stuff. If she died, she would lose everything anyway, so it hardly seemed like a bargain. “If I kill you, I get all of your stuff anyway.”
“Not my key!” she replied. “My key is a personal object, meaning you can only have it if I gift it to you!”
“Eh, I dunno. Thoughts, Van?”
“Let’s take it!” Van said. “She’s probably got a ton of treasure in her hideout. And hopefully a better pair of boots, because these are seriously two sizes too small. I don’t even understand how I managed to jam my feet into these things.”
“Alright, deal,” Sang said. “Hand me the key and then get out of here.”
“Thank you!” McKenzie said, “oh, thank you!” She threw her key to Sang, dropped her entire inventory on the ground, and then darted off into the lagoon.
“Nice work, Sang! I see my clever plan of getting tied to a tree and tortured worked just as intended!” Van said as she began to cut him free.
“Yeah, definitely worked according to plan,” she mumbled. “Why was McKenzie so freaked out about dying? I mean, giving up her private stash just to avoid a few days’ worth of skill point loss?”
“Actually, after gaining a certain amount of player kills, bandits become Marked for Death,” Van said. “Meaning that, when they are killed by another player, they can’t respawn. Essentially, they lose their favorite character.”
“Oh wow; that does suck,” Sang said, realizing that she had completely eradicated five characters that day.
“Well, at least we’re safe. And we’ve gotten the key to her treasure hut! This could not have gone any better,” Van said as he began picking up all of the items that had been dropped. There were dozens of potions, weapons, and jewels scattered about the ground.
“Yeah, quite a wonderful and almost unnecessary adventure,” Sang said as she glared at Van. “Do you want to tell me why you dragged us both into this hellhole for a worthless piece of jewelry now?”
“Tell you? Nah! I’ll show you! Grab all this treasure and let’s get moving! There isn’t much time before the moon comes out,” Van said as he scooped up a few more items and began to run into the watery swamplands.
“Again with the crazy running?” Sang called after him as she followed. They ran through the thick waters until eventually they reached a large body of water in an alcove.
“Are you ready to observe the awesome?” Van asked as he pulled out the seemingly worthless amethyst necklace.
“Sure, whatever,” Sang said as she took a seat on a nearby tree stump. She was growing weary, and didn’t have the energy to put up with whatever he was up to.
“Ahem, ladies of the lake! I beseech you! I have an offering, one of worth and value! Again, I say! Come forth!” Van bellowed into the water. There was a stirring in the waters as three female faces emerged from the surface.
“Hellooooo,” said one of the women, giggling a little as she splashed a bit.
“What a pretty necklace that is!” said one of the women, who had red hair.
“Van, what is this?” Sang asked.
“Mermaids! I’m gonna trade them this fine necklace in exchange for lessons on how to sing,” Van replied as he walked closer to the waters.
“Dearie, what do you want to learn?” asked the one in the middle, this one wearing a wreath of seaweed atop her head.
“Teach me to bewitch and enchant people!” Van said as he dangled the jewelry above the water. All three of the Mermaids swam close together and pointed at the necklace.