Otherlife Dreams: The Selfless Hero Trilogy (28 page)

“And that’s the end of my inventory. Have a nice day,” Runner nodded his head at the young man before him.

Recognizing the face of one of Bullard’s party members Runner turned from the large doors and faced Katarina. He’d spotted him talking to a merchant at a distance of maybe fifty feet. Contemplating the exit strategies he had available to him he found many would take him too close the very person he wanted to avoid.

“Hey, these are soulbound. I can’t resell the third one, how’d you trade them?” the man demanded.

Blinking Runner looked over his shoulder at the man and shook his head with a shrug.

“You must have equipped the third one on accident. Clearly you’re wearing the other two. Sorry mate. Better luck next time, no refunds, caveat emptor, and all that. See ya.”

Grabbing Katarina by the hand he hustled her into the gate and up into an alleyway. Dodging through a couple people he made his way to the back of the side street. Entering an adjacent alley he ducked into a doorway. Grabbing Katarina by the shoulders he pushed her bodily up against a door. Wedging her into the frame he pressed himself into her side.

Digging his fingers into her hand to keep her quiet he watched the mouth of the back street, fearful his would be pursuer managed to spot them and track their movement. Waiting there, unwilling to risk anything for fear of discovery, he tried to keep himself perfectly still, hoping Katarina would understand without him speaking.

He could feel her watching him as he held her in place. Glancing into her face he was thankful for her understated intelligence and returned his gaze to the entrance.

After several minutes passed Runner took a few steps backwards. Pulling Katarina by the hand with him as he went. Halfway down the alley he glanced backwards and confirmed no one was behind them. No sooner than they’d made it to the next cross street he guided them into the foot traffic. Keeping Katarina’s hand firmly in his he let himself get lost with the flow. As they neared the inn they were staying at he eased himself and Katarina out of the street. Smoothly making their way into the front door he pulled her along until they were in their shared room. Once the door was shut he let her go and dropped into a chair.

Katarina stood in the center of the room, arms folded across her chest, regarding him with an unreadable expression.

“Yes, yes, I know, explanation needed. Uh, ok, so, remember when I said Mr. Personality was probably behind us? I saw one of his toadies out there. On top of that, we had that little ninny getting upset about Soulbound items. If that conversation continued he might have gotten attention we didn’t want. Though it does raise an interesting question for me.”

Runner paused and puffed out his cheeks in thought, swishing the air from one side to the other. Finally he let it out and continued.

“Any item that is utilized, or equipped by a person, becomes soulbound to that person and cannot be resold or traded to someone else. It didn’t list it as soulbound when I had it and I didn’t think anything of it. Here, an example. Look at your sword’s information window, should say soulbound, yes?”

Frowning Katarina reluctantly let her arms uncross and she went through the motions of pulling up a window. After a moment she looked up at him and nodded.

“Ok, see, that sword cannot be given to anyone because of that. It’ll fail in the trade with an error message of, ‘soulbound blah blah blah’ or some such. I dunno.”

Tapping her fingers at the invisible interface Katarina made the offer to trade her sword to him. The same sword he’d given her at the start.

“See, it shouldn’t won’t work because it’s soulbound,” explained Runner as he accepted the trade. The window closed and the item appeared in his inventory.

Confused, he tapped the window for the unwanted sword. It was not listed as soulbound but now that he looked, it didn’t list any type of binding in any way shape or form. It wasn’t bind on equip, no trade, no drop, nothing. It was bereft of ownership rules.

Unwilling to say anything further Runner attempted to trade the sword back to her. After a brief delay to call up the window she accepted the trade and the sword went back to her.

“I don’t know. I have no idea why I can do that. Uhm. Maybe-” Runner thought hard on it before finally smacking his forehead with his palm. “It’s because I’m a GM. I don’t hold to ownership rules. It’s so a GM can reset items, redistribute them if it was looted on accident, like in a raid or some such. Huh, it’ll certainly come in handy.”

“I want you to make a new sword for me. Use this one since you can take it back,” Katarina suddenly commanded him. Once again the trade window was open with the sword spinning in the viewing box.

“Uh, not really sure what I can do with it. It’s a fully made sword and it wasn’t crafted.”

Katarina said nothing, her eyes boring into him, almost pleading in a way.

“I’ll see what I can do, alright Kitten? No promises. Maybe I can melt it down and reuse the metal or break it apart. You just want me to use this to make a new one, right?”

“Yes. So long as you use that one I’ll be satisfied. For now.”

Sighing he accepted the trade. It seemed his employees knew just how to manipulate him into getting what they wanted.

“Wait, what about Mr. Personality’s minion, you don’t care?”

“Not really. He didn’t see us, and we now know he’s here. We’ll tell Thana.”

Shrugging his shoulders Runner couldn’t really disagree. Grumbling about nothing in particular he set the sword down on the table in front of him. They had time until the others got back.

Casting Stonehands on himself Runner settled into his task of trying to disassemble the weapon. Worst case scenario he’d try to melt the damn thing.

Chapter 14 - Deception -

7:20am Sovereign Earth time

10/11/43

Dropping the coins into the window Runner accepted the purchase agreement from the proprietor once again. He’d already purchased time in the arena every day since they arrived. Up until this point it had been formation training, working through the seven classical maneuvers drilled into every officer cadet, and ability practice. He’d given himself a quick refresher through the officer library before they began.

With a light chime the window closed and a timer began counting down from eight hours in the corner of his HUD. Looking back to his party he smiled and held out his arm to the adjacent steel door.

“Right then. Let’s go everyone. I’d say five days of nothing but the basics is done. Maybe today we get in some actual combat experience and duel each other?”

Katarina, as indomitable as ever, marched through the doorway. Nadine and Hannah followed her out of the building interior while Thana hung back.

“Kat, after you get Nadine set up, would you go a round or two with me? I’m tired of being permanently stealthed. Need to fucking unwind.”

“Mm, sure.”

As the trio moved out Runner looked to Thana. Looking askance at her he could only assume she wanted to discuss something.

Motioning her to his side Runner entered the arena.

“It’s set to private just like every time before. No one can see us. I figure we’re better safe than sorry at this point,” he began, eying the vast and open arena. It was a standard affair, a few wooden walls scattered about to provide obstacles, sand, circular enclosure, seats for viewing if it was a public event. Confirming it to be empty he looked to Thana. Catching her eyes with his own he smiled and continued.

“No one knows I can utilize any class ability or skill. Nor does anyone know that you, forgive me here, as NPCs have grown in level, learned all abilities available to your class, and are actively creating new ones. To be honest the truth about how far you’ve all come may be more universe shattering than you realize. Most NPCs only have one or two, a boss might have three. But all? Never. We don’t even know the extent of what you’re all capable of. Better to fight each other and have wounded pride and ego than lose a comrade in the heat of battle. That and we still need to keep Hanners a secret. We’ve been lucky, they haven’t noticed her, seen her, or even realized she’s here. If we can keep that up, that’d be fantastic.”

Thana caught her lower lip between her pointed teeth and worried at it. She had all the precursors lined up for when she was about to argue with him. Furrowing her brow she crossed her arms as she processed it. Runner let the subject drop to give her a moment to think it over as they continued to walk towards the center.

Near the center of the arena Katarina was assisting Nadine with the full crossbow they’d picked up for her. Up till this point she’d been using a much smaller crossbow to get herself comfortable with it. She was getting pretty acclimated to her abilities and her confidence went up every day.

They had been able to move her into an Archer class with a few coins. She’d technically been unclassed previously so there was no penalty and nothing to unlearn. A merchant with no combat experience or abilities in any way. She’d become a level one Archer that they baby stepped through all the starter quests to get her some experience. It’d served a dual purpose in granting everyone the faction and reputation points, and increased Nadine’s level up rapidly.

“I acknowledge your point,” Thana’s voice pulled him back into reality just as he was starting to space out. “I suppose in fact it’s completely valid. I’ve been reading through your vessels forum though. At times it reads like the worst lot you’d find at a seaside inn. Or a brothel, deep in the night. I don’t believe they’d find us as valuable as you claim.”

“Yeah, not surprising there,” agreed Runner. Katarina was now squaring off against Hannah. Nadine was off by herself near a wooden partition, firing her bolts into a circle marked in chalk. “My government is a Stratocracy, with a council of generals at the top. The Sovereign Seven. Recruitment ain’t what it used to be.”

“Yes, someone mentioned that,” Thana put her back to him and began walking. She then pulled her staff free from the catch on her back and rested it on her shoulder. “Unrelated, yet related, they’ve taken to capturing natives and using them as one would a slave. Combat or otherwise. There are no reports of any of them awakening, or at least any hints of it. That seems to be a situation unique to you at this time,” she explained. There had been a slight emphasis in her voice around the word, “Native”. It was a term she was attempting to introduce to replace NPC.

Facing him she held her staff out horizontally in front of herself as a Dueling Challenge appeared on his screen. Nodding his head in acceptance of her challenge Runner drew his sword. She’d also given him a mild rebuke for calling her an NPC. He’d have to try hard to remember to use that term. Tapping the Accept button on the Duel Request he felt the jitters settle in. Flicking the tip of the sword with his fingers he cast Fireblast into the metal and gave it a swing.

He really hadn’t been looking forward to this but he knew it was necessary. Truth be told, Runner wasn’t confident in his own combat competency. Every single one of his companions would be stronger than him in their own sphere of power. Only through planning, building strategies, and abusing the hell out of the system, could he push his odds well into the ninety percentile range.

“As to me. What can I say, I’m a game changer, world bender, and rule breaker,” Runner grinned, his free hand pulling up his preprogrammed hotbars for combat with a caster. His buttons changed over to new macros he had set up specifically for magical combat. They took the place of the old generalized ones for normal situations and hunting. Ticking down from thirty seconds the Duel timer continued.

“I’ve noticed. Speaking of game changing. As your chancellor, I would ask that you take the time to re-craft everyones gear as you did Katarina’s weapon. Though I think most will not care if you use new materials. In fact, partner with Nadine when I’m finished with you. She can make the purchases and you get can to work on modifications. She’s the book keeper of your household after all.”

Grunting Runner could only shake his head. They’d discussed his newfound ability to trade any item on the way over. Katarina hadn’t gone more than a minute before she began talking about her newly refashioned weapon. This of course brought the entire subject up. From leader to errand boy. It seemed somewhere along the line he’d given up full ownership of the group.
C’est la vie, I’d be a fool to not utilize people for their strengths.

“Let’s see who finishes who, hm? Care for a wager?”

“Ah, so confident? I shall shatter that self conceited belief. Done. If I win, you start supplying me with beetles as you have the others. I admit I’m curious. That and those two treat it like currency, so it would be handy to have.”

“Oh ho? Been losing a bit too often lately? How’s teaching Kitten manners by the way? Hah. Right then. Granted. If I win, you take my cooking duties over for an entire week. Nadine can’t step in for you either. You’ve managed to wheedle and coerce the others into cooking for you so far, I’m curious to see if there’s a reason.”

Grimly pressing her lips together Thana nodded then launched a flurry of foot long rods of ice at him just as the timer concluded. Caught off guard Runner stumbled to one side, dodging part of the attack but nowhere near even half of it. Planting his right foot he rolled to the left as he cast Distract to her left side. Activating Stealth in mid roll he immediately turned back the way he just came from and hunkered down low.