Fugitive Status: Part 6 - Lone Wolf

POG stands for 'people other than grunts', if you were wondering. The usually-humorous derisive term infantrymen use for everyone else. Treadheads are tank operators - or in Baldr's case, powered armor.

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The deadfall trap went off at around 0600 hours. The sound of the log smashing inside of the hut shook me awake: I had my weapon in my hand and was moving before I was even fully conscious.

Not for the first time, I wish I had my old rifle instead of a spear as I scrambled up a ladder to the hay storage floor of the barn, crawling over to a gap in the wall to look over at the dilapidated house. There were no quazi, no mercenaries... just one unfamiliar man now struggling to throw off the log that had smashed into his neck and chest. He was tall, a bit over six foot, and gym fit. Dark short hair, dark short goatee. His armor was close-fitting and good quality, chainmail and leather, and he carried two swords: one over his back and one at his belt. I zoomed my vision in to get a good picture of him - and to my surprise, noticed his identification HUD had a blue ring around it. He was Starborn. Another player. There was a symbol I'd never seen before next to his HP ring - a pair of crossed daggers in red. I had no idea what it meant, but I didn't like it.

I quietly vaulted back down to join the girls. Cutthroat was on her feet, rumbling like a thunderstorm. Karalti pressed against one of her hind legs, half concealed in the floofy pantaloon of feathers there.

"C'mere, Tidbit. Up into the rafters." I scooped the little dragon up, and before she could protest, hurled her up into the air. She squeaked with dismay, but reflexively beat her wings to keep from falling. "If you see me die out there, you fly east and hide away from other humans. You read me?"

"No! Hector no die!" Karalti caught one of the rafters with her foreclaws and wings, hugging onto it. “Not allowed!”

“Sorry, girl. It’s how it’s gotta be. I’ll respawn and find you if this goes badly.” I only had a limited time to act. Before I could second-guess myself, I slipped out of the barn doors, making a beeline for the other player with deadly intent.

The man cursed to himself, nursing what looked like a badly broken collarbone. He was in enough pain that he didn't notice me - right up to the second where the point of the Spear was wedged between the fourth and fifth vertebrae in his neck. He froze, an empty healing potion bottle in his hand, the other twitching down toward the hilt of his weapon.

"Back off the sword." I pushed the blade in a little deeper. "Eyes forward, hands up. One more move, and I’ll wax you so hard you’d think you were in Brazil."

He let out a tense, throaty laugh. "None of my NPC marks ever managed to set up a trap that actually got me before. Count me impressed." He eased his sword hand back, and held it up - but the tension in his body told me that he was thinking fast about how to get out of his predicament. "You realize I'm five levels up on you, right?"

"Thanks to extensive training and Archemi's mortal blow system, Level 12 spinal cords sever as easily as Level 7 ones." I squared my feet. "I don't know who you are or how the fuck you found us, but send my regards to Baldr Hyland. And tell him I didn't come this far to let some fucking treadhead POG wreck my day."

The man went still, and I braced for him to try and lunge to his feet. Instead, he dropped the potion bottle and spread his fingers in a gesture of submission. "Wait a sec: you're a veteran? From the war?"

"Yeah. Corporal Park. Served in the 72nd for five tours." He was trying to buy time. Every instinct in me screamed to kill this guy and be done with it, but just as I tensed to drive the Spear down, he spoke again.

"Then, look... I'll be straight with you, okay? I'm a bounty hunter, name of Thorne. I like money, but there's no way I'm going to try and hunt a Vet. You guys fought and died for us… I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for you." Thorne groaned, forcing himself to ease down. "So I'll take the hit and get an easy ride back to my spawn point. But before you do it, you mind if I ask a question?"

"Depends on the question."

He let out a strained laugh. "I want to know what the hell a Level 7 player did to earn a half million gold bounty from the Church of Kyrie."

I blinked a couple times. "That's a lot of fucking gold."

"It sure fucking is. Why do you think I followed your marker out here to this godforsaken swamp?" Thorne groaned. "I won't be the last one, either. I can’t be the only Bounty Hunter in Ilia."

"Wait... what marker?" My eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, my 'marker'?"

"Uh…basically, if a bigshot quest giver, like a King or the Warden or the Primera, issues a bounty on a player, Bounty Hunter and Assassin Advanced Paths can track you," Thorne said. "Takes the right level of Skills and shit but... you've got the Fugitive Status set on you inside of Ilia right now. Every time you interact with an NPC or a quest or something, anyone tracking you gets a ping on their HUD."

My heart sunk. So THAT was how the Mata Argis had found us. But why was the Church of... oh. Wait. The Eyrie was affiliated with the Church of Kyrie, because their priestesses administered the Rite of Marantha. Baldr had probably worked Skyr Arnaud, who had worked the Primera.

"Well shit," I said.

"I wouldn't want to be you, man," Thorne said. "But seriously, with all due respect, what the fuck did you do? You steal the Primera's panties out of her drawer or something?"

"I pissed off a power-hungry asshole by doing the right thing." Every fiber of my body felt taut with rage now. "And that's all I'm willing to say."

My instincts were telling me that despite his words, Thorne was about to try and buck the spear point currently jammed against his neck and try something... but before either of us could move, the doors to the barn flew burst open. Cutthroat surged forward, roaring as she slapped one of the rotted wooden doors entirely off its hinges.

" Karalti protect Hector!" Karalti shrilled with determination. She clung to the frothing hookwing's back, wings spread, Cutthroat's reins clamped in her jaws. "Go away, bad man!"

"What the FUCK-!?" Thorne made to scramble away. I drove the Spear forward, but he was faster than I expected. He took a glancing blow, and without looking back, he charged into the swamp - only to be overtaken and crushed down into the water as Cutthroat surged after him and tackled him with her chest and hook arms. It was all I could do to watch helplessly from the shore as Cutthroat took Thorne down like a bayou alligator, roaring as she slashed, stabbed, drowned, squashed and otherwise went berserk on the man struggling in the water.

"Guys... guys I think he just..." I winced as a garbled scream cut through the air. "I... think he was just gonna run away."

"Bad man! Karalti murder first!" Karalti launched herself from Cutthroat to zoom around them both, hissing and kicking at Thorne's hand as it flailed up from out of the water. "Protect Hector and mama!"

I pushed my hand up under the edge of my helmet, wincing as Cutthroat plunged her head under the surface, and reared up with a mud-covered head and part of a spinal cord dangling from her jaws. She paused, snorting water from her nostrils, then turned to look back at me with an expression somewhere between satisfaction and dumb confusion.

[You have slain Bounty Hunter Thorne Germanica! You gain 121 EXP!]

[Congratulations! Karalti is Level 1! Cutthroat is Level 9!]

[Your bonded mount has new abilities available.]

[You have gained a Player Killer tag. This tag will persist for 48 hours.]

"Yeah!" Karalti zoomed back over to me. I might have been hallucinating, but her voice sounded ever so slightly more mature: more like ten years old than six. She landed on my shoulders, wrapping herself bodily around my face, and let a tiny gout of brilliant white fire into the air. "Karalti saves the day! Murder bad man first!"

"Good... good job, girls." I sighed, trying - and mostly failing - to peel the wiggling dragon off my head. "Mission accomplished. Now let's get out of here, before more of them show up. I have a bad feeling that Thorne was the nicest man between here, aaand…" I trailed off to bring up my map of Ilia, looking for the nearest port city. “Bryos.”

“What’s Bryos?” Karalti clambered up onto my head, watching as Cutthroat dragged Thorne’s corpse from the swamp and began to eat it.

“The nearest city with a skyport.” I placed a marker and closed the map, turning to try and ignore the crunching and snarfing going on behind me. “And the place we are going to catch an airship, so we can get the fuck out of this hellhole.”