Chapter 26: DD2 Chapter 020 – Harder

The bard stared into the cold, pitiless eyes of the predator. Its reflective irises shone yellow in the dim light of the late morning, warning her that it was past time for her to arise and face the coming day. The beast, clay rank and with the aggression to match, bared its prodigious fangs at her and meowed. Her cat’s claws prickled the exposed skin of her arm with increasing urgency as Thanatos repeatedly alerted her to his desire to be fed.

Eliza hadn’t slept. Her fear and paranoia had run rampant all through the night as she tossed and turned in her bed. Her thin cotton sheets had once again failed to provide her with the warmth or solace that she required in order for sleep to finally claim her, while the cold, wintery breeze that habitually blew through her home had joined forces with her own anxious mind and managed to thoroughly quash her best attempts at rest. 

Countless times over the past few years she had sworn to herself that she would invest in a thicker blanket, or replace the rickety wooden shutters that lined the windows of her apartment, but life’s constant expenditures always managed to get in the way. Whatever leftover coin she was able to scrounge together had a tendency of being splurged on one of the many vices or pleasures that Eliza indulged in on a semi-regular basis. The bard was usually more than happy to take any and all substances on offer to better distract herself from the reality of her grim situation. 

Until now.

Riyoul is going to murder me.

She had always known it to be true. From long before Adriann had ever told her about her replacement, Eliza had known deep in her bones that Riyoul was eventually going to kill her. She had been around for too long, she knew where too many bodies were buried—or at least, she knew the names of the missing—the people who the rogue had murdered for fun or profit, and now it was finally her turn. She had thought that she would have more time, another decade at least, maybe more if she played her cards right, but now that the day of her execution was fast approaching her well-honed skills of self-destruction and self-distraction simply weren’t cutting it anymore.

She wanted to mope about with her cat, and wait for the end while her class wanted her to spin it into a song, one last ‘fuck you’ to Riyoul, to out him as the monster that he was before she was gone, but she knew it was for nought. Even if she had the courage to oppose him so brazenly, that nagging itch in the back of her head told her that wasn’t the song that she should sing.

There was once a brave rogue known as the Smiling Knife,

He was a founding member of the Shining Swords,

Handsome, predictably heroic and more than just good in a fight,

Now listen close while I tell you how I snuffed out his life...

The words came to her freely, four lines on repeat that her mind had wandered too close to and now refused to let it go. The truth of what she knew she had to do, but could not accomplish, was crystal clear to her. She was more certain of it than she was of her own name.

She had to kill Riyoul.

But how? She would hardly be the first to try, and how could she succeed where so many other villainous classers and terrifying monsters had already failed? She was just a bard, barely even a combat classer, and with a stat distribution far more suited for looking pretty than swinging any kind of a sword. Riyoul was one of the most dangerous men alive, and before Rhelea had filled up with Dragonhunters, Inquisitors and gods know what else, he had easily been one of the hardest people to kill.

Eliza knew a lot about The Smiling Knife; she alone had done more of the legwork to forge the legend that had grown up around the man than anyone else. She probably knew him better than she did herself. She had dedicated decades of her life to keeping him happy, to providing him with words of advice to soothe the anxious worries of his ever growing harem, or to dissuade prying eyes from looking too closely at the cuts and scars that decorated the older members of his exclusive club. Although now of course, she wished more than anything else that she hadn’t, that she could face her looming end with a clear conscience. 

As she lay back on her bed and stared up at the ceiling, Eliza could remember the names and faces of every woman who had passed through Riyoul’s clutches only to disappear never to be seen again. Every woman who had put up with the powerful man’s fumbling attempts at seduction, their ages growing ever younger as the grey had steadily creeped into the corners around Riyoul’s temples. 

And then it hit her.

The Smiling Knife grew older whilst I learned to be bolder,

Complacency, familiarity and a little dose of unhealthy vanity,

These were the weapons that I chose to wield in the dark,

His blade against mine, there could be no surrender...

She could do it. 

Riyoul’s stats were obscene, as was appropriate for a high iron rogue, but she knew that his vitality still remained in the realms of mere mortals like her. The man appeared to have prioritised speed, strength and charm at the expense of his health. The fact that she had seen him age at all, despite their massive level-gap, all but confirmed it. The rogue had been relatively old when she had first met him, even if the lines were only then just starting to appear on his skin whereas now they were deeply etched around his eyes. Over the past few years his hair was even dyed too dark, a shade of black as he overcompensated in the face of his growing mortality.

Which was something that she could use.

Smiling for the first time in days, Eliza got out of bed, intent on first feeding Thanatos and then maybe herself, as she worked through the parade of half-formed ideas spinning around her head. She opened her bedroom door all the way, and Thanatos hissed while she had to stifle a scream when she saw Riyoul sitting at her kitchen table, slowly eating a modest meal of bread and cheese. 

For a moment she was certain that he was there to kill her. He had to know that she was plotting something. How could he not? He was iron-rank after all; surely he had a danger sense skill or something comparable to warn him of her traitorous thoughts. She braced herself for the knife’s kiss, the cut that would prematurely end her murderous plot, but it never came. The bard calmed her racing heart, pushed stamina through her skills as she regained her composure and plastered her vacant come-fuck-me-look firmly on her face.

“Good. You’re up. You really should wake up earlier, it’s cruel to let your cat wait so long for breakfast," Riyoul said calmly, not bothering to look her way as he continued on uninterrupted with his meal.

Eliza glanced down at Thanatos, her cat, whilst grumpy, was still obnoxiously fat, and far more offended at Riyoul’s intrusion into his territory than he was at the delay for his breakfast. A suitably cutting retort came to her lips as quickly as she let it go, knowing full well the consequences of talking back to her persistent tormentor.

“I didn’t expect to see you here. I can make you something far better than bread and cheese," she offered, silently begging the gods to give her just a little more time. The fear that he could still be here to kill her was all too real as she struggled to maintain the smile on her face even with her skills keeping her tone calm and even.

“I’m only here for a brief visit. Don’t worry, I won't be staying long. I just came here to check in on what you learned.”

“Learned?”

“About Typh,” he clarified, the rogue’s jovial tone tinged with annoyance.

Riyoul was already in a dangerous mood.

Eliza had survived him for so long that she could read him like a book, and so she quickly busied herself with clearing a space at the table so that he wouldn’t see her flinch. The mindless activity gave her time to think while she deftly tossed a chunk of dried meat to her cat. Riyoul was in a bad mood, which made him more dangerous than usual—if such a thing was possible. The realisation that she knew frighteningly little about the mage in question to soothe his anger spurred her on in her almost frantic decluttering as she tried to stay calm and collected, even while her mind screamed at her to run.

“There’s not much to say. Typh’s been away from Rhelea for a while and came back to try and win back her ex,” she sighed, stalling for time as she tried to pad out what little she knew with irrelevant details. “Arilla, the ex, is a mid-pewter warrior. A nice girl, if a bit naive; nicer than Typh anyway. I don’t know what that warrior sees in the little mageling besides her tits, but it must have been something special as the two of them left town together a few days after reuniting."

“That's it?” he asked, sounding unimpressed.

“Yes," Eliza confirmed whilst trying not to drown beneath a wave of icy-terror. “Listen, I tried. I gave it my all, but Typh just wasn’t interested. It was a bloody miracle I got that much out of her, and when I pushed, she got violent. The mad little mage very nearly knocked my teeth out!”

“She fought you? Physically, I mean?”

“Yeah, she has a surprisingly good left hook," the bard explained, rubbing her jaw absentmindedly as the memory of the bruise briefly reasserted itself.

“How good?” Riyoul asked slowly, startling her with his sudden intensity.

“I’m sorry?”

Quick as he was, she should have seen it coming. Riyoul hit her in the face. Hard. His knuckles moved far faster than her eyes could follow and impacted her squarely in the jaw. The blow sent her crashing down to the ground amidst the loud clattering of old dishes and dirty laundry that she had gathered from the surface of her table.

“Harder than that, or softer?” Riyoul asked, his tone light like he was asking about her favourite colour. As usual, the rogue gave no outward indication in either his posture or tone that he had just assaulted her.

Eliza wanted to scream, to cry murder, to go for one of the knives at his belt and to stab him through his vindictive little eyes, but instead she pulled on her skill, steadying her voice as she answered. 

“Harder.”

Riyoul raised his eyebrows maybe half an inch in surprise before he struck her again. This time she thought that she caught a flicker of movement before his fist met her jaw. She felt her teeth loosen and the bone groan as she very nearly blacked out.

When the room finally stopped spinning, Riyoul was looking down at her expectantly. She knew implicitly what he wanted to know, and a part of her hated herself for not even trying to stop him. She hated herself for that almost as much as she hated herself for not trying to save any one of the countless women that he had killed. She hated herself for who she had become, a sad little bard who numbed herself with drugs and booze having failed to break free from the monster who stood before her with her blood on his knuckles.

“Harder,” she said again, a small part of her relishing the coming pain as if it would expunge her guilt. Erase her complicity in Riyoul’s many crimes. A just punishment from an unjust man.

True to his namesake, the Smiling Knife smiled widely before he hit her again. 

The process repeated itself for more rounds than Eliza could count until her face felt more like a giant bruise than anything else. The coppery taste of her own blood filled her mouth as she swallowed back red and swore to the gods that this was the last time that he would ever hurt her like this.

When Riyoul was done, he seemed satisfied, mumbling something or another about strength and vitality scores in the high forties or low fifties, but she paid him no bother. Any doubts that she may have had about attempting to kill him had been thoroughly expunged from her mind by this most recent show of force.

For a time she just lay there on the floor beside her table surrounded by old dishes and dirty clothes while she willed herself to keep breathing through her nose. Her mouth was far too painful and swollen to even contemplate letting the cold air of the room rush past. When she was finally ready, Eliza slowly crawled to her feet, realising then that Riyoul had appeared to have left her home. A single gold talent had been placed on the centre of her table, presumably to pay for a healer, if not her hard work. The more discreet ones tended to charge far more than those at the temple who would want to know who had abused her so. 

Torturously slow, she worked her way up from her knees and to her feet before she staggered over to the jug of cold water sitting beside the coin. She swirled the fluid around her mouth, wincing all the while before she spat a mouthful of blood and half a tooth out onto her floor. Thanatos blessedly had the decency to avoid licking that messy puddle as he instead rubbed himself up affectionately against her unsteady legs.

She looked down at her cat and then back up at the sparsely furnished apartment that was her home. It had been grand to her once, even if her expectations had been so very low at the time. The thin walls and creaking floorboards that made up the two rooms of her flat had sheltered her well over the years, bearing witness to her lowest lows and so very few of her highs.

“Time for a change of scene,” she managed to get out, her skill [Troubadour’s Voice] working overtime to make herself audible to her own ears while her tongue had the hardest time navigating the swollen confines of her still bleeding mouth.

Without a second thought, she bent down to pick up her cat and the coin, stopping only long enough to throw on some warmer clothes and collect her violin before leaving, unsure if she ever intended to return.

The Royal Alchemists Guild headquarters was one of the most impressive buildings in central Rhelea, but with all the new construction that was going on in what was soon to be the ‘new’ inner city that statement was unlikely to last for much longer. Those few lucky professionals with high-level building-related classes were being paid in gold talents by the day to erect grand edifices in frighteningly short periods of time. Already Rhelea’s skyline had changed dramatically since the first snows of winter, with the interior walls now being twice as thick as they had been and all manner of new structures rising above the old where the less-than-desirable premises had already been demolished.

Of course when Eliza walked in through the front door with Thanatos tucked securely under one arm, this did not weigh on her mind in the slightest. Her feline friend was more than a little bit cantankerous from being so roughly manhandled as she carried him out into the cold of Rhelea’s streets on her short journey through the city, but he was quick to calm down once he was inside the relative warmth of the grand old building. 

She placed her hissing companion down on the ground and handed him some grilled meat that she had purchased on her way to the guild in order to soothe his justifiable anger. While Thanatos emitted several delighted purrs as he tucked into his feast, the bard herself walked up to the secretary on duty who was practically buried beneath a mountain of paperwork. In the spur of the moment, Eliza decided to crack a smile, something that must have been truly gruesome given the attractive—if a little bookish—woman's reaction and how her own face painfully protested at the motion.

“Gods, you look like shit.” 

“Well thanks, Pirria, you don’t look too fresh yourself," Eliza commented, her skill still doing the vast majority of the talking for her. 

“Eliza, what are you doing here? You know we are not supposed to meet," she said in a hushed tone, before leaning forwards conspiratorially. “It isn’t safe.”

“Relax, he’s not here," Eliza claimed, well aware that the statement was based more in hopefulness than it was in certainty, but she had a perception skill and Pirria did not, and she had found over the years that the woman was far more likely to calm down if the bard over-exaggerated her ability to detect Riyoul.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes," she lied, only feeling a little bit guilty as her charisma score helped her to easily sell the lie. “We need to talk, do you have a minute?”

“Not really. It’s absolute chaos here. Things were bad enough when Azoth died, but his replacement from the capital and the investigators that came with him all ‘disappeared’ a few weeks ago,” Pirria winced. “The guild is keeping it quiet—as usual—but everyone in the know is shitting their pants at how the local leadership keeps getting murdered.”

“Haven’t the Alchemic Guards helped? I counted six of them; aren’t they super-high up in your guild’s hierarchy?”

“How do you know they’re here? No, don’t answer that. Of course you know about them; he probably had you spying again, didn’t he?" she said in a huff. “The Alchemical Guards are honestly part of the problem. Rather than bringing about some semblance of order, they just keep demanding the oddest reagents from our stores. Things that have nothing to do with their maintenance, and with the adventurers guild currently up in arms, fulfilling their orders has already blown the quarterly budget and then some. Without a master alchemist to take the reins, journeymen from every two-bit alchemy lab are trying to throw their weight around, hoping to be named interim branch manager or something.”

“So you don’t have a minute?” Eliza asked.

“I thought I just made myself pretty clear.” 

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“Pirria. Please.”

“Fine, but only because you look like you just went ten rounds with an irate minotaur," she sighed, looking increasingly flustered as she stepped away from behind her desk. The secretary then produced a set of brass keys from beneath her desk’s drawer. “Come on, you know the way," she continued as she led Eliza and Thanatos away from the reception desk and down a hall before using her keys to unlock a door leading down into the basement.

“Seriously Eliza, what the fuck happened to you?" Pirria asked as soon as they were behind the thick layers of security wards that lined the guild’s basement. Her standoffish attitude quickly evaporated as she rushed forwards to embrace Eliza in an affectionate hug. The bookish woman clearly trusted the runework that was designed to protect the Alchemists Guild’s more valuable reagents to also ensure their privacy. It was a decision that Eliza privately scoffed at, but currently she had no choice but to accept the risk as she silently prayed that Riyoul had better things to do than spy on either of them. 

“It’s nothing really, Riyoul wanted to know the strength score of a mage he’s interested in. For a kill I suspect, not the harem," she said dismissively, returning the hug which she had only just realised quite how badly she needed.

“It’s not nothing Eliza. He’s never hurt you like that. With knives maybe, but never his hands,” Pirria said aghast.

“I know," she agreed. “It’s why I’m here. I’ve heard he’s power-leveling a new bard. That I'm going to be... replaced.”

“Gods, I’m so sorry."

“I’m not here for your pity, I need your help," the bard explained, taking a moment to produce the thick gold talent. 

“A healing salve?” the secretary questioned.

“Poison.”

“I won’t help you kill yourself Eliza.”

“It’s not for me. I’m going to kill him.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I am, but I need your help. I need something strong enough to kill an iron-rank rogue, something his skills won't detect.”

“We don’t even know his skills," Pirria said flatly.

“I don’t, but you do,” Eliza accused.

“I don’t," the woman said indignantly, too indignantly for Eliza’s skill enhanced ears to believe.

“Pirria, he’s been coming to you for years for salves and potions. Do you honestly expect me to believe you haven’t sounded out exactly what he can and cannot detect,” the bard began, levelling the other woman with a hard stare. “I know you.”

“I would never—”

“I would. In a heartbeat I would. He kills us, Pirria. He takes vulnerable women and offers them levels and wealth. He installs us where he needs us, so he has people ready to do his twisted little bidding whenever he wants it and has the gall to call us his harem to anyone who asks. When we disagree he hurts us, and when we disobey we disappear, and we both know what that really means.”

“...Maybe I know something," Pirria admitted after a long pause.

“Tell me.”

“As far as I can tell, he can detect all conventional poisons and toxins even at initially safe doses… I may have tried microdosing him once a few years back. Let's just say that I have no desire to revisit those memories. The scars are enough," she explained. “But six months ago there was a bad batch of potions from some improperly stored Gorgon’s blood, it’s really quite fascinating really the seal on the vials—”

“You’re rambling,” Eliza interrupted.

“Right, so I am. Sorry,” Pirria apologised. “Nerves.”

“I understand, I do, but you were getting at something.”

“I was. The stoneskin potions were bad, really bad; a few adventurers died, and the guild had to shell out a lot of money to keep it quiet. The potions still worked, but they adversely impacted the consumers dexterity scores by quite a lot. The thing is, Riyoul couldn’t tell; he drank one and suffered the consequences just like everyone else.”

“What are you getting at?”

“From my… subsequent testing…” she admitted with a defiant glint in her eyes. “I have deduced that Riyoul cannot detect the adverse side-effects of alchemical substances provided the numerical benefits outweigh the detrimental costs. Which leaves quite a lot of substances on the table which can technically be lethal under certain exacting circumstances.”

“Do you have any? Please tell me you have something that can kill him,” Eliza implored.

“I might, but…”

“But what?”

“You’re not the first,” she began, speaking softly and pausing as a look of uncertainty passed across her pale face. “I source his potions, Eliza, everyone knows that, and more often than not when a girl senses their time is approaching, they come to me asking for a poison.”

“Pirria, I—”

“Let me finish,” she said, her eyes scrunched tight, and the bard realised what it was the other woman was about to say. Pirria had her own guilty conscience that she needed to excise. Eliza wasn’t the only one Riyoul had made complicit in his crimes. No doubt he did it to all of them in some way or another. 

“I’m supposed to give you something that doesn’t work and pass along what you asked for to him. If he’s training a replacement then he’ll be on his guard for just such a thing, and if you fail, if he finds out that I helped you, he’ll come after me too,” she continued.

“Then why are you telling me this? Why are you helping me at all?” Eliza asked.

“Because you’re right. He kills us. He’ll kill me too someday if no-one stops him, and this might actually work. You’re my friend, Eliza. I know we don’t get to talk much, but your visits, infrequent though they are, they matter to me. I don’t know if I could do this on my own.”

“You don’t have to go through this alone. I can do it; I know that I can kill him with your help.”

“Maybe you can, but only If you can dose him, and no offence but he’ll see you coming from a mile away.”

“It’s okay, I have a plan for that.”

“I won’t ask, just don’t fail. For all our sakes, don’t fail.”

“I won’t. Just tell me how it works.”

“It’s simple in theory although a lot harder in practice. With the Alchemic Guards in Rhelea demanding what they currently are, there are a lot of true exotics that I can lift for you. What I have in mind can only be absorbed through the skin; it’s part of the treatment we use to maintain their powers. It boosts the recipient's effective strength and dexterity scores at a fairly considerable cost to their vitality. There's a secondary tonic to alleviate the loss, but when prepared incorrectly it only exacerbates the problem for a commensurate increase to the two other stats.”

“So what, you know a lotion and a tonic that will kill him if I can expose him to both, but it will only make him even more of an efficient killer in the meantime?”

“Yes. A substantially more lethal one. There's also some emotional instability associated with the treatment. There's an additional tonic for that, but I can’t get a hold of it, and even if I could it would be too much to sneak into him.”

“And people really volunteer to join the Alchemic Guard?” Eliza asked, shocked at the brief window into the myriad of treatments that they were subjected to.

“I’m told it’s quite the honour. Now do you want them or not?” the secretary responded.

“I want them. Will the gold talent cover the costs? I don’t want you getting in trouble with the guild as well.”

“A talent doesn’t even come close, but keep your money and actually go see a healer. You really do look like shit. With how badly the guild is being run right now, no one will notice the loss—you should really see some of the things going missing from inventory—but you need to remember these aren’t poisons, he’ll need a large dose and it might take a long time to come into full effect.”

“How long are we talking about?”

“I really don’t know,” she shrugged. “The Alchemic Guards practically bathe in the stuff for hours at a time, but then their class is vitality and strength heavy. If Riyoul dumped his like we think he has, then a smaller dose should produce the same effect.”

“Should?”

“We’re trying to kill an iron-rank by skirting around the edges of alchemy to avoid tripping his poison sense. If it was easy to kill him like this everyone would do it. I can’t say that it will work, the dose might not be large enough, or it might not last for a long enough time to kill him, but if my math is right the negative vitality and his own age should kill him.”

“But it might not?” Eliza asked.

“But it might not,” Pirria repeated by way of confirmation.

“Thank you, Pirria.”

“Good luck, Eliza.”

They hugged again, and to the bard it felt like a goodbye, not least because she knew that it probably was. Her plan was still working itself out, and while it was getting clearer in her head with every passing second, it still required that a lot of things had to go exactly her way. 

Too many things to count on.

As Eliza held Pirria in her arms, she made sure to squeeze her close, her old friend smelling strongly of the alchemical scents that permeated the large basement. Thanatos looked up at them from the corner of the room, his predatory eyes reflecting yellow in the dim-lighting.

“Pirria, will you take care of my cat for a few days?”

It wasn’t a question, although in many ways it did feel like a dying woman’s last request.

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