Chapter 113: 6.17 – Between the Lines

Robin flexed his hands through [Lesser Phantasm] and conjured a twist of smoke to conceal himself. Then he followed that immediately with a [Visual Phantasm] of himself appearing in a similar puff of smoke a couple dozen feet away, in a parallel aisle.

As parallel as one could manage in this place, anyway.

Robin quickly followed by dipping into his spell points and conjuring an [Invisible Servant], mentally directing it to keep pace with the illusion of himself. That would give things a bit more verisimilitude. He added a command for it to occasionally rap on the shelving units, to make some convincing noise.

And between Dag and Clara it was two to his one. He should even those odds a bit. And since Rerebos couldn’t find Clara, that meant his best target to slow things down a bit would be Dag.

Robin sent a query of emotion to Rerebos. A mix of fear and danger and a sense of questioning. Danger-where?

He got a sense, a faint tugging in his mind. Robin followed it, finding a small niche to conceal himself in, wrapped in a [Lesser Phantasm] of shadow and dust. His eyes peered through the gaps in the shelving units, past the books and enchanted bric-a-brac, untll he caught movement.

There.

Robin tracked the motion until he was sure. Yup. That was Dag, headed in his general direction. And he had line of sight for now, so he’d best take advantage of it.

The big man had terrorised enough people—Robin included— and now it was time for him to get a taste of his own medicine. Robin unleashed a quick [Lesser Nightmare Curse], waiting just long enough to see if it froze Dag in place.

It did.

Robin immediately followed with a [Whispers from Beyond]. Terror upon terror sank into the man’s mind, unveiling subconscious fears lurking in the shadows of the collective unconscious and letting them scratch and tap-tap-tap at the windows of Dag’s (questionable) sanity.

It was just an illusion, but things that weren’t real hurt people all the time. The law. Heartbreak.

A scream tore itself from Dag’s throat and the man went running away into the stacks, heedless of his quest for Robin’s head and the absolute danger he was charging in to.

Some of those tomes were dangerous. If Robin was lucky, Dag would knock the wrong one off the shelf.

Maybe he’d get eaten by a nice tome of the malevolent arts.

Not that Robin’s luck was that good.

A flare of alarm was all the warning he got. The feeling blazed along his connection with Rerebos and he ducked, instinctively.

A dagger embedded itself in the wood above his head. A woman swore.

Clara.

Robin’s eyes searched frantically even as he blanketed the area in the illusion of mist using [Visual Phantasm]. There was a chance it would keep Clara from seeing him, and what she couldn’t see she couldn’t hit.

Well, not as easily. The woman’s hearing was unfairly good.

Robin, able to see easily though his own illusion, fired off another [Whispers from Beyond]. He needed some distance, some time to get away. Clara was too close and too deadly at this range.

No luck. The woman shrugged off his spell like it was nothing.

Clara answered his spell with another flung dagger.

Robin’s shoulder exploded in a bright burst of pain. Fuck! His arm fell lip to his side. That was going to make spellcasting a lot more  difficult if he didn’t take care of it.

He ducked around the end of the aisle, putting a physical shelving unit between himself and Clara, before yanking the dagger out of his shoulder with his free hand and whispering a [Healing Word] to close  the wound. It didn’t fully fix the problem, but he had full use of his arm again.

A dagger clattered against the shelving unit behind him. Saved by his [Visual Phantasm]! And his position.

‘Come out and fight like a man!’ Clara’s voice was bitter, full of hate. ‘Come out and pay for sending us down there with that trick map.’

‘Robin flicked his hands through [Lesser Phantasm] to reply. Like he was going to give his position up again if he could help it.

‘You steals the goods, you takes your chances,’ his illusory voice called out mockingly.

Sure enough, another dagger thunked into the shelf. Where did she carry them all? Or did she have some peculiarity that conjured them? That would be handy.

Robin needed to wrap this up, and quickly. That spell would wear off soon enough and Dag would return. Then he’d be back to facing two on one odds.

The pain at his wrists flared again and another dagger sailed through the mists toward him. This one came much closer.

He needed to deal with Clara and the curse. Robin glanced at the marks again, praying his [Bardic Lore] would turn up something. And for once, his prayer was answered! There were a few stories that came to mind, featuring the curses of Urkhan.

Easiest way to break it? Overthrow the tyrant that currently holds power over you. Dag certainly qualified. Maybe Clara too. It was a good enough bet that defeating both of them would free him of the curse as well, so Robin would do just that.

A roar of rage darting through the stacks alerted him to the fact that Dag was on his way back. Robin would need to think and act fast.

Why did this library not have security? With so many valuable books you’d think there’d be some security as well. Golems, maybe? Or contingency spells to stop this sort of bloodshed from happening in the aisles? He refused to believe this kind of situation had never come up before.

Maybe they didn’t because some of the books like fresh blood. It was not a mystery Robin would be solving any time soon.

The curse flared on his wrists.

Or maybe that had something to do with it.

Whatever the case, the solution to Robin’s problem wasn’t in running, and it was in taking out both Dag and Clara, permanently. They had it in for him, had been touched by the Deity of Tyranny, and there was no way he was getting any peace as long as either of them were left alive.

His stomach clenched uncomfortably at the thought, but the realities of the world he was living in were slowly eroding his aversion to violence. He still didn’t like it, but it was becoming easier and easier to do what he had to.

Especially if magic was involved.

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Still, if he could have a little less blood on his hands that would be nice, and that gave him an idea.

What if he could get Dag and Clara to do for each other? Or at least trick one into taking out the other? There was a definite appeal to that.

Now he just needed to make it work.

He needed a better vantage.

As quietly as he could, Robin ascended the shelves, using each one as a rung on an improvised ladder. [Lesser Phantasm], properly timed, sent distracting noises all around, keeping Clara from pinpointing him in the phantasmagorical fog.

The curse would draw Dag here. Robin just needed to make sure Clara stayed in the right spot relative to the other Broken Knucklebone.

He checked with Rerebos. Yup. Dag was coming in at a decent angle. Now, to rile them both up until they were so mad they were practically popping with it.

‘Too bad your knives aren’t as sharp as your nose, instead of dull as your wits!’ Robin lent the insult a measure of magical force with [Cutting Words].

From Clara’s sputter of rage, the words had more than found their mark.

And there. Dag was just in view from his lofty position.

‘And you,’ Robin called, pitching his voice to carry, ‘you’re not much better. Thinking you can extort a bard and get away with it? Broken Knucklebones? More like Broken Knuckleheads! Idiot.’

‘I will kill you!’ Dag screamed.

They were to either side of him, using the curse to hone in on his position, seeking through the illusory fog for some sign of him. Hopefully his elevated perch would keep him out of harm’s way.

Robin’s eyes flicked back and forth.

Come on. Just a bit further. Closer. Closer.

Robin willed the fog to billow as in an unseen wind. He needed a nice bit of undulation and movement. He sent a directive to his current [Invisible Servant] and used one of his precious spell points’ worth of magical energy to conjure a second.

He set both of them to rapping and tapping inside vaguely human-sized whirls of fog. He tossed off a couple more [Cutting Words] and had the servants toss some innocuous balls of parchment mockingly at Dag and Clara.

‘Come out and face me, bard!’ Clara shouted.

‘We’re going to cut payment out of your tripes for the way you set us up!’ Dag added.

Robin watched as they manoeuvred into place. Neither Clara nor Dag could see one another through the illusory fog. Both, however, could sense Robin between them, due to the curse. And Robin made sure there was enough movement in his illusion and resistance from his servants to keep their attention focused right in the direction he wanted it.

Wait for it.

Dag moved closer. Clara shifted position.

Wait for it.

The woman with all the pointy knives cocked her head as Dag tread heavily on a floorboard.

Now!

Robin sent a ripple of change through his [Visual Phantasm]. The fog remained, but there was a swirl, and a humanoid outline that looked very much like his Marq persona appeared, directly between Clara and Dag.

The woman did not disappoint. Almost before he could blink she had whipped out a dagger and cast it though the fog, directly at what would have been Marq’s throat.

Robin had judged the placement of his illusion well. The dagger sailed through the illusory figure, through the fog, and lodged itself hilt-deep into Dag’s left eye.

The former leader of the Broken Knucklebones swayed for the briefest of moments before hitting the ground with a thud.

Robin let the mist part for a moment, revealing to Clara precisely what she had done.

The impact was somewhat lost as she did not, at first, believe him.

‘Enough of your tricks, bard! I’ve seen enough of your illusions.’

‘Not yet you haven’t!’ Robin called back, again using [Lesser Phantasm] to keep her from pinpointing his location via sound.

He wrapped the area in fog and shadows once more and began a tactical sniping at Clara from his position, raining down [Lesser Witchbolts] and [Cutting Words] until the woman was a motionless heap on the floor near to her former leader.

One on one, with Robin controlling the battlefield, she hadn’t stood a chance. Dag was the real tyrant and without him Clara’s ability to use the curse to locate Robin was negligible.

The marks faded from Robin’s wrist as Clara’s last breath faded from the airs around her unmoving body.

Robin directed his [Invisible Servant]s to stage the bodies in such a way that it looked like the two had done one another in.

No reason to invite more trouble. As it was he was on shaky ground in this library. Hopefully their position, combined with the fact that they were only here using a stolen pass would be enough for the authorities to not look into the matter too closely.

The Head Librarian would likely be motivated to cover things up as well, considering that Dag might very well have been here for revenge on the man that had shattered his gang and pilfered his ill-gotten gains.

As Robin snuck out of the library, using yet another borrowed face, he flicked through the notifications he’d been too busy to read during the battle. The content brought his feet to a standstill on the steps of the Great Library.

That last encounter had been enough to level him to Tier 2!

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