Chapter 82: The Conspiracy

The figure in front of me looked like one of our merfolk guests. Or, more accurately, he looked like several of them. Same build, same semi-scaly appearance, same general color. There was no denying the similarity.

As firelight flickered off him, I got a sinking feeling of dread in my stomach. Had we really given this guy room and board for the past several nights? Had he enjoyed free cocktails as an honored guest?

“What? No! He doesn’t look anything like our guests,” Wynnie said.

Immediately, the tension building in my shoulders relaxed. Maybe all merfolk looked a little alike to me. I’d only seen a handful, after all. Plus it was dark, rainy, and drunk out.

I blinked hard, trying to screw up a bit of focus into my eyes. It worked, sort of. In brief flashes of blooming orange, I could see the differences. It was minor stuff, like how his facial structure was wide and bony, or how the color of his scales was darker than that of the fishing crew. 

“Honest mistake,” I admitted. I surveyed the scene, taking it all in. My sound assessment came unbidden, but with the honest potency of a moment of clarity. “Still, though. We’re fucked.”

That wasn’t about the merman, specifically. No, it was the whole scene in front of us, of which the merman was just one confusing aspect.

The fire raged higher. A few more people trickled out of The Good Inn, coughing, gagging, and swatting embers off their clothes. A few flopped down on the wet ground and let the rain wash over their burns. More staggered away, fleeing as best they could. Some bumped into us, looking beseechingly at Lady Talia. She waved them on to safety before anyone could make a plea.

“How come that merfolk guy looks so, uh, evil?” Shivai whispered.

“I think it’s the hood,” I said, unhelpfully. “Very dark wizardy.”

Shivai gasped. “You think so? It is a very sassy dress…”

“That’s not a dress. That’s a zomun—a traditional garb worn by the warriors of the noble houses in merfolk society.” Lady Talia’s voice came out more annoyed than usual, probably because we were being both useless and disrespectfully wrong. “But—and I can’t believe I’m saying this—in legend, a good many of their warriors were evil wizards.”

“Is it too much to ask that he accidentally blow himself up with a fireball?” Wynnie asked.

“Yes. They’re water mages. And not particularly good ones, at that,” Lady Talia said. “See? It looks like he’s trying to cast something now.”

Wide, sweeping arcs traced wet slaves through the air as the merman’s arms flowed like a tai chi master in fast-forward. A swirl of haunting rain droplets spun together in the air, morphing into something almost solid. Slowly, something long and thin formed. A pole, but with three sharp tips.

I groaned. “A trident?”

“Is that bad?” Wynnie wondered.

“I mean, kind of? Inasmuch as it’s super cliche.”

“It’s a traditional weapon used by the warriors of the noble houses in merfolk society,” Lady Talia sighed.

“Even more cliche.”

Nevertheless, he cut a menacing figure. Despite the size of the goliath and the looks of unhinged glee on the goblins, it was the merman who put me most on edge. Something about him wasn’t sitting right with me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

More importantly, did his presence change anything for us? We still needed to put out the fire and ensure the safety of the town. Maybe we could do that without a direct confrontation, but I was starting to think some kind of run-in was inevitable.

“Stay back, lawbringer!” The Goliath’s voice boomed above the roar of rain and fire. “We’re on official Black Ship business. The sooner we find the backwater keep, the sooner we’ll leave your miserable port to the gulls!”

The merman’s voice rumbled afterwards, dangerous and deep like thunder. “Or you could give up the killer you’ve been hiding. This can all be over soon!”

Lady Talia’s voice was icier than Wynnie’s mana. “Never.”

“Then watch your miserable hamlet burn!”

The goliath nodded to a goblin. The little man snickered as he lit a wick on something small, knobbled, and round-ish. Goblin grenade, probably. He yipped as he hucked it into the flaming building. A deafening blast came from within, and more guests came rushing out, terrified and coughing.

Meanwhile, The Dreaded Pirate Robertson crossed his arms over his chest. The Black Ship Raiders watched from a safe distance, casual and bored, like they’d just turned on a twelve-hour video of a fireplace in 4K on YouTube.

This had to end.

I stepped forward, but Wynnie and Shivai both reached out like bros trying to hold me back from a bar fight. They knew what I was thinking. That turning myself in could save Seaport a lot of trouble. It could even save lives.

"Stay back,” growled Lady Talia. “Don’t try to be a hero.”

Had she not heard? Being a hero was my destiny. Reborn, et cetera. And being heroes was precisely why we’d rushed up here in the first place!

But I got her meaning. Don’t go rogue.

Fine. It was time to carry out my plan.I leaned in and motioned for the girls to do the same. "Here's what we're going to do." The four of us huddled together in the rain. "Wynnie, your job is the most important. You need to direct as much freezing rain as you can at The Good Inn. Can you do that?"

She bobbed her head vigorously. "I should be able to guide the water as it falls. I can basically turn the sky into a funnel of ice. At least that way it won't all evaporate before it hits the wood."

It was as good as I could've hoped for. Whether she could stop the burn entirely or merely slow it didn't matter. She just needed to buy the people still inside some time.

"Shivai, your job is to catch them off guard. Can you slip around behind them and attack at my signal?"

She shrugged. "I can try. What's your signal?"

I reached for a classic.

"Fireball."

"Like, you're going to say it? Or you're going to, I don't know, actually do it?"

"Either one. We'll see."

She gave me a look and immediately slipped off into the shadows. Finally, I turned to Lady Talia.

"You and I are going to walk right up to them. We're going to see if we can have a conversation. If that conversation doesn't go the way we want, we're going to try to take them out."

She looked at me skeptically. "You flatter me as a teacher. I appreciate that you’ve grown confident. I must caution you, however, that the line between confidence and foolhardiness is rather thin. Especially for someone still apprentice-level with the blade."

"You can leave that worry to me. I think we have it in hand."

The pirates stood a mere forty paces from us. The merman kept a wary eye in our direction, but the goliath and two goblins had turned their attention back to the conflagration. Based on what we’d discerned in our investigation, I was fairly confident that no other villains lay about unseen.

It was four of us versus four of them, and we had more magic. 

"I hope you know what you're doing, Drew. I'm placing a lot of trust in you right now." Lady Talia spoke under her breath as the two of us moved slowly toward the pirates.

I hoped so too. Admittedly, I was way out of my league. I just hoped that all the skills I'd never actually trained while playing tabletop RPGs were somehow easier to execute in real life. Or that the difficulty class was lower than my dungeon master Dan usually set them. I was about to roleplay my way through a series of speech checks where the consequence was death… and I was never a great roleplayer.

And here, I had no tricky game mechanics to turn things in my favor. I couldn’t even fudge a dice roll. I could barely talk my way out of a speeding ticket, let alone convince a bunch of angry pirates to stop terrorizing a small fantasy village.

Yet forward we walked, legs shaky from nerves. When we were about halfway to them, the merman nudged the Dreaded Pirate Robertson. He pointed.

Bursting from the flaming wreckage, a young man collapsed to his knees. His pained gasp for air cut ragged through the night. It also made him a target.

The merman jerked his head toward the guy. “Question him. If he doesn’t answer, make an example of him!”

The blond, bearded guy raised his hand to ward off the Dreaded Pirate Robinson. It was useless, of course. The pirate nodded, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck. His arm reached behind his back. The steely flash of metal reflected firelight, and a colossal Zweihänder appeared in his hands.

Lady Talia halted in front of me, and I almost ran into her. “Great medusa!” she hissed. “That thing is huge!”

“But he can’t use it effectively because, um.” I searched for her reasoning behind not giving me a two-hander on the beach. “Because it’s slow and heavy?”

“Not that slow. Not that heavy. And on a guy his size, not that impractical to carry around, either.”

Oh, yeah. That was it.

“But it’s not the most nimble blade, right? So we can feint and show off superior swordplay.”

The constable fixed me with a concerned glance. “Just how much did you drink?”

“Plenty. Why?”

“Because we don’t want to swordfight with him. His range is way bigger, for one. And for two, can you imagine trying to parry that thing with your sabre?” She scoffed, driving her point home with derision. “We’d be better off with a slingshot.”

The Dreaded Pirate Robertson pointed at the young man, whom I now recognized as Frederick, their bartender. He was a nice enough guy, and quick to overfill a mug. Soot stained his glasses, and his clothes were tattered and burnt.

“Come here, kid,” growled the Dreaded Pirate Robertson.

"No! No, wait!" The bartender scrambled forward, crawling aimlessly for safety.

The massive Goliath took two steps and closed the distance, landing within sword's reach of the bartender.

Lady Talia and I veered in his direction, but we could only cover so much ground. This guy had size and speed. Every advantage Lady Talia had taught me to watch for, the dreaded Pirate Robertson had in spades. He even knew he was in a fight already.

There was only one thing I had that he didn't. Unearned confidence fueled by one too many drinks.

Couple that with my strong sense of right and wrong, my history of playing chaotic good characters, and the growing belief that I was somehow the protagonist in a world that repeatedly reminded me I was just an NPC, and I was working with an unhealthy set of expectations about my ability to be a hero here.

All I could do was hope the girls would forgive me for what I was about to do.

At least it wasn’t swordplay.

I shouted, getting his attention. "Stop! You've got the wrong guy."

The dreaded Pirate Robertson ignored me. He also ignored the instructions of the merman, skipping right past questioning in favor of making an example of him. He took a wild swing. The sword cut through the air, missing Frederick by inches.

The Goliath took another step forward. His sword never stopped moving, and it arced around in a wide, dangerous sweep. The blade moved much faster than I’d anticipated, and it covered a huge swath of territory. It didn’t look like a precision swing, but precision wasn’t necessary here. One swing led to the next in a fluid continuation of motion.

Finally, I understood what Lady Talia meant by area denial. I was going to need a different tactic—both to get his attention and to fight him.

So, might as well start with the threats. "Hey! Dickhead! I already killed your buddies. Don't make me kill you too."

"Huh?" The Goliath paused mid-overhead-chop and looked at me. He cocked a brow as if asking me to go on.

So I did. "I stabbed both your orc buddies for acting out of line. And now you're acting out of line, too."

Chills. Literal chills ran down my spine.

How had I managed to sound so cool? Was it all the combat training? Having two hot girlfriends? Did I run out of fucks somewhere on the run up the hill, and all I had left were lines that deserved a place in an action flick?

Or maybe I was drunk and overestimating my ability to quip.

“Who’re you?” The goliath eyed me like I was a black fly in his Chardonnay.

“I’m the Reborn who killed Strider.”

“Drew! Shut up!” Wynnie paused her freezing rain feat to try to talk sense into me. She yelled past me. “He’s kidding! He’s totally not that guy.”

“He’s a local drunk,” Lady Talia added, not really missing the mark.

“I’m the local drunk who killed Strider,” I said, doubling down. “And your reign of terror ends here, pirate.”

To my surprise, the Dreaded Pirate Robertson didn’t immediately attack. If anything, he looked confused. Rain pelted against his face, sliding down his bald head, and making the markings on his cheeks and around his eyes run black. It looked like streaking mascara, but somehow even scarier.

His gaze looked between me, Frederick, and the merman. Abruptly, I realized he was looking for instructions on what to do next. Shivai was right. These guys were aggressive and impulsive, but they were followers to their core.

The merman shrugged. "Either you’re bluffing and incredibly stupid, or you're telling the truth…" His eyes reflected the orange glow of the fire as he let the words hang. "And you're monumentally, unthinkably stupid."

"Stupid, but noble. And I have the power of friendship on my side.” I winced. Now that anxiety had sobered me enough to hear myself, it was clear that my quips weren’t that great. “And my friends can beat up your friends.”

Ugh. Yikes.

“You think this pipsqueak can beat me up?” grunted the goliath, jerking his thumb at Frederick.

“No, but he’s not my friend. Sorry, Frederick.”

"It's fine, Drew. I get it." His voice cracked with fear. "We haven’t really hung out."

Lady Talia kept her hand on her sword, tense and ready. Her eyes swept wildly around, ready to fly into action at a moment's notice.

Rain lashed down, picking up intensity. I was soaked. Even the heat of the bonfire couldn't steam it off fast enough. All of us standing around were lit by dwindling firelight, outlined in a hazy glow of quickly evaporating rain.

From the side, Wynnie had resumed her big gyrations. Exertion was clear on her face as she concentrated on bending the water to her will. Sheets of ice funneled into the burning building. She may have looked like a real-life wacky inflatable arm-flailing tube man, but her efforts were paying off. She was a one-woman fire hose, sending concentrated torrents of ice shards directly into the structure fire.

Some of the townsfolk who had escaped the blaze tentatively looked back. Now that it was growing safer, they appeared ready to re-enter and rescue any remaining survivors. I wished I could help. Unfortunately, I had more important business to attend to.

We were only a handful of paces from the dreaded Pirate Robertson and the merman. The goblins hung back a dozen or so paces behind. They appeared to still be digesting the new information. Frederick smartly used the opportunity to crawl a few steps further away.

The merfolk warrior turned his attention to me and let out a weary sigh. "Judging by your confrontational entrance, I'm guessing you won't come quietly?"

"I'd rather make you earn it." What were the chances he'd do the traditional villain thing and monologue, I wondered. "Any particular reason why you’re wasting your time with a bunch of lowlife pirates?”

"The Tidebringer has plans. Big plans."

Well, duh. That's what I was trying to learn about, obviously.

But the confirmation was useful. The deep metal we’d found on one of the orcs wasn’t a coincidence. And whoever this merman was, he was a warrior connected to a long-gone merfolk noble house.

Freya would want to know. Or, failing that, she’d need to know. After all, she was a princess. Whether she liked it or not, the politics of the Deeps would drag her in, I was sure.

I just had to see how much else I could get them to share.

I asked a question before I could think of a better one. It was stupid, but I wanted to keep him talking while he had momentum.

“Let me guess. You’re trying to claim a long-abandoned throne of the merfolk empire, and you’re using pirates as your mercenary force?”

A pregnant pause followed. Then, the goliath scratched his chin. “Are you really the town drunk?”

“No,” I said, hoping it was true. A rush came to my face and chest. I felt like a conspiracy theorist on the scent of something real. “Was I right?”

“Weren’t too far off,” he admitted, shrugging.

“But you won’t live long enough to hear the truth!” The merfolk warrior strode forward, brandishing his swirling trident formed from water. “Now, you must all die. There can be no witnesses to our plot!”

I nudged Lady Talia, who bristled rigidly next to me. "Get a load of this guy, huh? He coulda just denied everything!"

But she responded with a paladin’s fervor. "We can't let him get away with this. We have to stop him."

"You think we can do it?"

"We have to try."

Now there was the dragonkin I'd grown to respect. There was the fire that had been waiting to burn, held dormant for so long after years of feeling powerless. It was time to unleash her on the world.

"I don't suppose there's any chance we could talk you out of this?" I had to give it one last shot. Do my due diligence as a makeshift bard. Then again, I'd always been a chaotic good wizard at heart. "If you all just walk away, we can call it even and forget about this big evil plan of yours?"

“Sorry, but no. Dreaded Pirate Robertson, why don't you finish this nuisance off?” The merman said it like it was an invitation to eat the last slice of cake. Like it was a favor to let him kill us. “I’ll start taking care of the other witnesses.”

The giant Goliath squared off against us. He held his massive sword without effort. The man was positively burly. Yoked beyond compare. The Zweihander had to weigh at least ten pounds, yet he was wielding it like I wield a kitchen knife.

Wynnie was busy saving lives. Lady Talia was by my side, looking more determined than I’d ever seen her. I felt ready to show these ne’er-do-wells what a tenured TTRPG hero could do with a bit of moonshine and prep time.

And then there was Shivai. Maybe she was an emotional sweetheart, but she’d grown up on the streets and could handle a blade like a pro. She’d slipped away undetected, giving the pirates the impression that they had us outnumbered.

They were about to find out what happens when the rogue went first in the initiative order. The subtle glint of two glowing purple eyes flashed behind the goblins. The glint of steel shone a second later, angling toward their backs.

The Black Ship Raiders had messed with the wrong town. They were about to see what people in the service industry were really capable of when it was time to lock in. I grinned, taking a giant swig of moonshine, letting just a little cascade down my throat. The sweet burn made me feel truly alive.

Only then did I realize my mistake. I couldn't give the signal if my mouth was full.

So I did the next best thing.

As the Dreaded Pirate Robertson grinned a tusky grin and advanced, I cast fireball.

Figuratively, at least.