The Hunter's Guide to Monsters

There were three deities whose temples offered the kind of spirit-binding Krow needed. Luckily, most towns had at least one.

Nyurajke had all three.

Krow hadn't expected Nyurajke to be a large town, but there were at least a dozen towers in the upper reach, and another dozen in the lower reach. Then there were seven windmills that marked workshop towers in the windiest area of the community.

Like Gremut, it was a high place, a plateau surrounded by steep cliffs and soaring peaks.

It was a cacophony of a hundred different sounds, the creak of carriages, the calls of caged animals and draft animals, the shouts of street hawkers, and the conversations between people. The ground was hard stone, and the clop-clop-clop of hoofed animals in the streets was a constant underlying white noise.

This was the town closest to the draculkar capital city of Velkenbragg. It probably took most of the players just out of the starting villages before quests or travels took them to the capital.

The streets bustled.

Traders and travelers and shoppers, all mixing together with vehicles and beasts.

The players were more conspicuous here, running around in mismatched armor, toting the particular weapons of the fifteen battleclasses.

Some towns banned duels in public streets, so there were challenge battles in taverns, on roofs, on large balconies, any place that could allow a decent amount of footwork.

The crowd he'd glimpsed in the park beside in the secondary plaza below was probably an impromptu dueling ground.

The purposely built dueling arenas hadn't reached the towns yet.

Krow kept to the main street.

He'd left Sein to follow with Einel. Temples didn't require quests to enter, but you never knew.

Thanks to the condorowl quest, he had necessary ingredients for the spirit-binding ritual in Telanweth Temple.

The Temple of Telanweth was built between the town plaza and the towers of the merchants' quarter, a spiral ziggurat three levels high – miniscule compared to the hundred-meter domination of the town's main administrative spire.

Telanweth was the deity of material things, mediation, and magic.

It looked empty.

The contrast of its quietness to the lively Temple of Grenod built right across the street was startling.

Telanweth was a Temple for scholars, diplomats, and merchants, often negatively associated with greed and power and mystery. Grenod was a deity of pledges and contracts, so the common people trusted Grenod more, despite many who used the Temple services being merchants and noblemen too.

The hall of Telanweth Temple had an odd echoing sadness.

In the middle of the Hall, a golden statue of Telanweth glared, regally sitting on a cloud-covered throne, the sweeping black crown on their head looking like it absorbed the light of the surroundings. The black crown cast a shadowy veil over Telanweth's face. In their hands, they carried a lute like it was a weapon, and from their belt hung a wine jar and a wreath of flowers.

On a pedestal beside the altar, a lute plucked a lonely melody, playing itself.

Krow frowned, looking around.

"Welcome to the Temple," a siren entered the hall from behind the altar, clad in cream and red-orange. "I am the priest. May I…assist?"

Krow carefully didn't react. "I need the use of a ritual room."

"Yes, welcome. This way."

Krow looked back, to where he could see the crowds of the Grenod Temple.

Maybe he should just wait for the others there? He did tell Sein to check Telanweth first, then the other two temples.

He sighed.

No.

Grenod Temple spirit-binding Chants were long complicated things. Even he wasn't quite sure he remembered correctly. And he never learned the Chants for the Kamathor Temple.

He wanted to come early to bind a few things he didn't want Einel to see. Finding two starweave cloth packs was semi-believable, he could have gained the data from the craftmaster forums. But all his starting gear, plus the Starseeker Coat and the Boots?

That was data that hadn't been discovered yet.

The Temples weren't as complicated as the artificial intelligences governing the NPCs. A ritual was formulaic, a simple if-then proposition. If the correct items were gathered, the result would always be a success.

His spirit-bindings would be lost as a speck of dust in the mountain of data that Redlands generated every minute.

But now this?

The siren seemed the only inhabitant of the Temple. Resigned, Krow hooked his arm around the robed siren's throat and squeezed.

There was, in fact, a system assist for martial arts. Krow needed five bullets to down a Lvl 3 monster; the same amount of stunrounds for a Lvl 4.

For a player that was at least Lvl 5?

No dice.

This way, he was putting to use his college self-defense classes.

The choking siren went limp.

[You've defeated a Lvl 6 player and gained three (3) silver serpens!]

[Unconscious: 0:00:04:59:32]

Five minutes.

Better than expected.

He dragged the siren into a ritual room, tied his hands and feet together, then locked the door as he left.

[The Temple of Telanweth is being robbed! Defeat the burglars, let justice prevail over those who would commit atrocious crimes!]

A bit over the top but, more importantly, the fact that it didn't specify how many enemies there were said he was going against players.

The hall was clear, he'd already looked.

In fact, the situation had been clear the moment he'd been greeted.

Telanweth didn't have priests.

On Earth, it is common to rob banks. In Redlands, there was more money in temples.

It looked like some players decided to gather Infamy by theft.

A bit of Infamy was actually useful in Redlands; it broadened the amount of quests that was offered to a player.

But it was still a little iffy stealing from a temple.

Especially Telanweth.

Telanweth was a patron in the underground, a deity representing greed. Being greedy was good, very motivating, but there was such a thing as too greedy.

Robbing what might become your patron deity?

Was that seven years of bad luck? Hah, more like seven hundred.

Say goodbye to your dreams of becoming crimelords.

It's not like there weren't a lot of rich merchants around town. Or hidden nobles. There were probably a lot of hidden nobles in town who would gladly pillory a player's reputation into the mud.

He unholstered his revolver, ghosted along the edges of the Temple nave, cautiously peeking into ritual rooms.

Nothing.

A curtain hung behind the altar. The siren had come from there. Krow lifted the curtain.

There was a room behind the altar. Some kind of office.

The wardrobe door was crooked, and creaked as it opened.

Krow stilled.

Nothing happened.

But behind the cream and sunset-red robes, there was an entrance.

He put away the gun and slowly eased into the hole at the back of the wardrobe.

It led to a small alcove, with a stairwell going down. The walls were stone, old and smooth. The reliefs of monkeys on the walls and the pillars that were carved with stories of Telanweth told Krow this was a deliberate part of the Temple, but not meant to be seen by outsiders.

Really, someone put a vault behind the altar, under the church floors, behind a secret wall?

If there were catacombs with bones and candle-holding skulls inside wall-holes somewhere, his respect for Telanweth's taste in architects would plummet.

He stopped when he heard the first sounds apart from the occasional scratching from behind the walls and the faint chittering of insects. Or was it rats?

Moving downward, the air grew cooler, the shadows flickering a bit more.

He re-armed himself.

The cold was an air vent somewhere, likely.

Definitely not ghosts.

He breathed in relief at the brush of air across his cheeks. He hadn't been lying when he said he didn't like confined spaces.

Creeping lower, the voices grew more distinct.

"…only be opened by an officer of the capital Temple!"

"You're lying." The voice was male, calm and indifferent, certain of his words.

Krow slid behind a pillar and peered past. There were two draculkar before a stone pedestal. One was an older male, likely the head of the Temple, the Docent. The other was a swordsbearer.

"Why would I lie?" the first man asked, a tone of pleading exasperation in his mellifluous voice. "We are mediators, not monks or priests. We speak no vows, not even as warriors do. Telanweth does not ask loyalty of us, only that we do our work well in service. You have threatened my life; have proved that it is not idle boast. I ask, why would I lie?"

The swordsbearer considered the docent's words. He glanced toward the stairwell.

Krow stilled.

But the man hadn't seen him.

"Tique, what was the quest again?"

A woman answered. "Find the vault, find the key."

Krow's heart jumped – the second player was too close to the stairwell. Then the same heart dropped to his stomach.

Oh no.

There were two of them.

He closed his eyes, thinking.

"Nothing about a scavenger hunt around the capital, hm?"

"No."

The swordsbearer smiled at the docent. It was a cold, empty smile. "Still saying the key's not here?"

"The docent of the capital Temple would have one." The older draculkar was still calm.

"Well, I guess you're useless then."

Shkav!

Krow burst out of the stairwell, tossing a Mist Vial into the shocked face of the woman, revolver already barking at the swordbearer.

A choking thud sounded behind him, but the swordbearer jumped away.

Krow took advantage of his Acrobat subclass and leaped up a pillar. He crouched on a ledge, dislodging the lamp there.

The opponent was nowhere to be seen.

"Drop your weapons! This is the Guard!" he roared.

There was a small silence as he swapped cylinders.

What, they didn't even have the guts to react?!

Then the face of the robber draculkar was right in front of him, sword already swinging.

Weeping graves, he already had a movement Spell?!

Krow tipped forward, falling into the space between the sword and the man's body. He flipped, hanging off the ledge with one arm. The opponents boot ground into Krow's hand as he reversed momentum.

Batard!

Five stunrounds emptied as he fell, all hit.

They dropped.

The sword came at him again, relentless.

He landed on his haunches and leaped backward, loading his last cylinder.

The other followed. Fast! Krow jerked his head back, the sword point nicking his brow instead of slicing through his neck.

Another attack.

Dodge. Three bullets gone.

Krow noticed something.

Huh, the other draculkar was using the system assist. A swordbearer, under Lvl 10.

How well he knew those moves.

A small grin split Krow's face.

The other's brow ticked, but he charged again.

There were twelve basic starting movements for a swordsbearer. Most learn to add variations or lower the system assist by Lvl 15, but this guy wasn't there yet.

That meant, for Krow, his opponent's moves were somewhat predictable. How many hours had Krow spent practicing those starting movements… if he didn't know them, he'd better give up all this, sell his equipment, and buy a ticket to Mars.

The movement spell wasn't mastered too. Maybe Sidewinder Leap?

Since he was just as slow as Krow now, he'd spent all his MP on the first attack.

Hehe.

A corner of the man's mouth tipped up.

Oh no.

Krow viciously kicked the opponent's knee in. In this instance, do unto others before they do unto you. That smile probably was the guy's MP recovering.

The other's starting movement faltered and the last two the bullets crashed into him.

Then Krow slammed the butt of his gun into the other's head. Once. Twice. Thr-

The would-be robber dropped.

[You've defeated a Lvl 7 player and gained four (4) silver serpens!]

Krow panted, his heart pumping hard.

That was too close.

He nearly got sliced into little pieces. Even with Acrobat, he couldn't win against a movement Spell.

He nearly died again, not 24 hours after the last time.

He glared at the unconscious player. [Unconscious: 0:00:02:59:13]

Who was this? The Sidewinder Leap was a rank-two movement Spell. One hundred MP shouldn't have been recovered that fast. It meant, he had MP recovery items too?!

A rich player?

The armor he had on didn't look like rags.

Krow sighed. Too bad only a dead player could be looted.

But if you knock them unconscious, you only get coins.

Also killing a player would give them the killer's name in notifications.

Wars in Redlands could be started by simple revenge PK.

As Krow was not going to be part of a guild, or even a pure battler, he would always be at disadvantage. Also, the would-be robber had a petty look to him. Who wanted that drama?

A sound had him whirling.

The docent stood beside the female draculkar. There was a suspicious bump on the woman's head, and the lamp that had fallen from the ledge close by.

Krow chose not to comment.

The docent lifted his hands. "Guardsman, are you well?"

Krow coughed, lowering his gun. The again, now useless gun. He needed more cylinders for his revolver, as soon as possible. And better bullets. "Sorry, docent, not really a guard."

"Ah, I thought so."

"Are you hurt?" Krow took out a couple of Low Heals, giving one to the docent. He swiped blood away from the cut on his brow, feeling it tingle as the Low Heal worked.

"I am fine. Fine, I…"

Heavy boots clattered down the stairwell, echoing. "Great-uncle! Great-uncle, are you there?"

"Guardsman!" came a yell muffled by stone. "What do you think you're doing?! Come back here!"

A draculkar burst into the vault room.

He took in the scene, gaped.

Then his expression firmed. "Put down your weapons! This is the Guard!"

Krow holstered his gun and laughed.