Hell's Glitch (LitRPG): Into a Dark Adventure (26 page)

“That’s all of them,” Sam said hungrily taking in air.

“Not quite, but it was an impressive showing.”  Sam was
chilled by Rondo’s voice, especially since he couldn’t see him.  “You’ve proven
that my subordinates are no much for either of you, but I already knew that.”

The darkly clad assassin stepped forward out of the dark
forest with a triumphant grin plastered across his face.  His russet eyes
seemed to shine with a mix of hunger and horror.  Behind himself, Sam could
hear the faint clinking of armor.  He turned to see Caesar approaching from the
path below.  The king’s gaze hung heavily on Rondo with an intensity that Sam
couldn’t even fathom.  It was hard not to see the king as a real person when he
cast such powerful emotions and had such a strong presence.  Rondo kept his
eyes on Herke as well, as a deer would watch a wolf.  Rondo inclined his head
ever so slightly to Sam, never breaking his staring match with the king.

“Well, you’ve done it again, fool.  You’ve played the
perfect predictable little lamb leading us to our real prey.  I honestly cannot
thank you enough,” said Rondo, humor in his tone.

Caesar approached then stopped a few yards from the pair. 
He was on one side and Rondo the other.  Sam kept his shield up and focused on
Caesar since the king was currently focusing on Rondo.

We’re going to have to trade partners, king
, Sam
thought.  He couldn’t say it aloud and give away the strategy.  It might’ve
been the only advantage they held.

“You see, my bloodthirsty friend, I was right!  He led us
right to him,” Rondo yelled to Caesar.  Caesar inclined his head in the king’s
direction and seemed to be studying him.

“So that’s the Mad King of tales so old?  Is he really the
same king of Aschelund, Herke the bold?  He could be a doppelganger based on
appearance alone,” asked Caesar in a singsong tone.

“I have to agree, he looks just like the old fuddy duddy, at
least as much as my memory serves,” said Rondo.

“I’ll know for sure by the way he wields his sword.  No one
could duplicate the king of Aschelund’s strong sword style.  I live to test my
mettle against the true royal style,” said Caesar, eagerness in his voice.

“Ahh, you do know your combat styles.  I’m glad to hear that
you know so much about the old king here.  Hopefully you’ll find killing him
satisfying.  You can even take his Quintessence.  Consider it a reward for
parting his head from his body.”

There was a silence and Caesar’s posture shifted.  He stood
up straight, almost rigid and placed his mailed fist against his head.

“I have no interest in killing him or taking his
Quintessence.  I am looking forward to challenging him, however.”

“That’s good enough.  Just make sure to weaken him enough so
that I may do the job myself.  That is satisfactory, is it not?  If you won’t
take his Quintessence, then I will to rid myself of his persistent nuisance.”

“It goes the same for me.  I’ll have your Quintessence and
your head, child killer, wife killer.  But it’ll be a long hard path to that
point, degenerate.  I’ll kill you, repeatedly.  You’ll die and revive and die
again for all of the jobs you’ve cashed in on and all of those you’ve murdered
for coin.  I keep a list of your crimes on me at all times.  There was a record
of your kills and I procured it.  That’s thirty deaths you must suffer.  Then I’ll
kill you twice for my wife and twice for my son.  That’s thirty-four deaths. 
Only once I have taken your life thirty-four times will I finally take your
Quintessence and leave you to live the rest of your miserable existence as a
mindless revenant.  The only suitable fate for scum like you,” explained Herke
menacingly.

“Your anger is misdirected, old fool.  It was the nobles who
set you and your kin up to die.  I am only the knife that they hired.  I have
no more connection to your family than I do to the fool helping you.  I was
told, by them, that my duty was for the good of the realm.  I also had ears of
my own that had heard from those same nobles that your family was cursed.  Your
first heir went mad and killed your first queen.  That was a secret, but him
being cursed was a truth known to the whole kingdom.  Even as you shipped him
off to these accursed lands, the whispers started that your whole brood was
cursed.  And since you’re here now, it proves them right.  They protected the
kingdom from your cursed bloodline.  I couldn’t care less either way as long as
I had gold in hand, but that is the truth of it,” explained Rondo.

“Truth?  My wife and child were not cursed.  They did not
rise up after you killed them.  Those nobles with their cowardice, should be
glad to have stayed dead.  If any of them should ever find themselves here then
they will face a much harsher punishment than you.  We won’t be playing games
of blame.  Your dagger bleeds the blood of the innocent and you will face
punishment.  Get out your sword and face your fate.”

Herke stomped towards Rondo with murderous intent.

“Caesar!” yelled Rondo.

Sam had briefly taken his eyes off of the blood knight to
look back at the commotion behind him.  Caesar quickly bypassed him and made a
beeline for King Herke.

“King!” Sam yelled.

“Keep him distracted, I’ll kill the upstart,” said Rondo as
he darted towards Sam.

28
End of the King’s Quest

“Who the hell are you calling upstart!” Sam yelled as he
readied to cross blades with Rondo.

King Herke tried to cut the villainous Cutthroat off, but
was met by Caesar and his greatsword.  The king steadied his own greatsword and
the pair of them clashed.  Rondo quickly closed the distance between him and
Sam, looking at him with a murderous gleam in his eye.

“I’m referring to the idiot fool who’s in over his head,”
hissed Rondo.

He brandished his ornate short sword in one hand and his
black dagger in the other.  His attacks were swift and unrelenting.  Sam held
his shield out and blocked all of the incoming attacks.  He grew anxious when
he saw his stamina bar quickly winding down with each new blow.  He had to
move.

He rolled away to recover some stamina, but found that Rondo
was right back in his face again.  Sam lifted his shield again to block, but
had lost his footing soon after.  The shock of falling down had blinded him to
what caused his fall.  It had all happened so fast and Rondo quickly took
advantage of Sam’s disorientation.  Rondo hit Sam with a slash as he was rising
and followed up with a thrusting attack.  Sam had quickly lost half of his
health along with having massive buildup to his bleedout gauge.

“Did you just kick me?” he yelled then quickly rolled away
nearer to the cabin.

The king and Caesar were fighting intensely to his right,
both going blow for blow and canceling out each other’s heavy slashes.  Sam
listened to their swords clash and boots kick up dirt so that he had an idea of
where they were compared to where he was.  His eyes were strictly on Rondo, who
was proving to be a tricky opponent.

“This can’t be all you’ve got?  Let’s give you a test,”
Rondo said to Sam.

When Sam moved too far out of his range, Rondo threw a knife
at him.  Sam blocked it with his shield and continued to backpedal.  He was
getting discouraged about the fact that he didn’t have an opening to retreat
and heal.

“I think it’s time to show you my more advanced killing
artes.  It’s a one time show.  Make sure to take it all in,” said Rondo.

Rondo held his hands out to the side and splayed his fingers
out like a magician would do.  He then did some kind of hand flourish and
produced a handful of throwing knives.  In seemingly one smooth motion, Rondo
tossed a succession of three of the knives at Sam.  Sam blocked all three
knives, but doing so locked him in place and drained his stamina.

As expected, Rondo approached soon after and struck Sam’s
shield with his shortsword.  Sam was pushed backwards and decided to roll in
that same direction.  Pain shot through his shoulder as a well-timed throwing
knife tore through his flesh.  He hurriedly rolled again to dodge the other two
incoming knives.

How is he doing that
? he thought.

As Rondo approached, Sam charged a Fireball and tossed it. 
Rondo first rolled backwards then to the side to avoid the Fireball as it
collided with the ground and exploded.  It gave Sam the spacing he needed to
safely drink from his Soul Fire or so he thought.

As he drank, he felt all three knives pierce his chest.  The
third knife knocked him down once it hit.  Once the Soul Fire’s healing effect
was done, he was left with half of his maximum HP.  His poisoned and bleeding
gauges had also built up halfway, leading Sam to believe that each of the
knives had a different status effect placed on them.

Sam began to shake.  Rondo hadn’t given him much room for
error.  He hadn’t expected him to give him so much trouble from a range, but those
knives were as powerful as any of his close range attacks.  When he finally got
to his feet, he was suddenly shocked to see Rondo once again in his vicinity.

Rondo quickly stabbed him in the shoulder thanks to a poor
last minute evasion of Sam’s and followed up with an upward slash with his
shortsword that was first aimed at Sam’s ribs.  Sam saw the origin of that particular
attack and was able to parry it.  He pushed Rondo’s sword hand aside,
surprising the Cutthroat, and thrust his Rapier into his heart for the opening blow.

Rondo folded and Sam pushed him off of his blade where he
then fell to the ground in a heap.  Surprisingly, Rondo still had a little over
half of his HP.  Sam scoffed.  Only in a video game were you able to get stabbed
in the heart then get up and dust yourself off right after.  Sam’s own heart
was beating a mile a minute, after getting the desperate parry.  He used the
time to heal up to max with his Soul Fire and ate a Stim Plant as well.

He briefly looked over to see Herke and Caesar still engaged
in intense combat.  The king’s slash had grazed Caesar’s skull helm and chipped
it.  Caesar was unperturbed and continued forward pressing the king with big
overhead slashes.  King Herke blocked each blow with his sword.  Sam couldn’t
help but notice a similarity in their overwhelming sword styles, though
Caesar’s fighting style seemed much more vicious and reckless.  The king fought
smarter and hopefully it would be enough to give him the edge against Caesar.

Sam turned his attention back to his own problematic
opponent.  He felt a lot better now that his health was at full and Rondo’s was
near half.  Rondo attempted to circle around Sam, but Sam stayed on him
maintaining eye contact and proper spacing.  Rondo then threw his three
knives.  Sam rolled to the side to avoid them this time.  He dodged the first
two knives, but was stabbed and knocked down by the third which had curved to
hit him.  It had some sort of tracking effect on it.

Sam frantically looked around for Rondo as he scrambled to
his feet.  This time the Cutthroat wasn’t in his face.  He was at a distance,
chugging from a similar silver container as the one Sam had frequently used. 
When he was done, he looked at Sam and chuckled.

“This little gem here has saved my hide more times than I
can count.  I pilfered it from some undead hero long ago.  It has quite the
revitalizing effect.  Funny, I’ve heard it said that these things are reserved
for some kind of chosen one.  Hehehe, looks like I chose myself, hehehe,” Rondo
explained, unable to control his laughter.

“Seems like you’re more of a thief than anything.  It
explains where you got all that stuff for your store,” Sam accused.

“I am whatever I need to be to survive.  Roles are as
interchangeable as clothes and there are enough fools out there for me to live
a long and prosperous life.  The role I’ll play next is that of executioner,”
Rondo replied, grinning at each pause.

Rondo put his shortsword away and pulled out another
dagger.  The second dagger was as brightly silver as his other blade was deeply
black.  Rondo spun both of the blades around in his hands then pointed the
silver one right at Sam.  This time, with his left hand he threw the three
knives.

Sam was again forced to block as the blades crashed against
his shield.  Rondo had closed the distance much quicker than before and broke
Sam’s defenses by kicking his shield and pushing him away.  He stabbed Sam’s
shoulder once and nicked the side of his neck before Sam was able to recover
and block again.  One of the daggers was building up his bleedout gauge like
mad.

Sam was forced to use an ability he hadn’t often used before
by stabbing from behind his shield.  He stabbed Rondo twice as the Cutthroat
stabbed at his shield.  Each of Rondo’s attacks with his silver dagger had done
a tiny portion of damage even though it only struck Sam’s shield.  There had to
be some sort of magic effect behind it.  When he looked closer he saw that the
blade had sparked each time it struck the shield.

Lightning
, he thought as he struck out with a heavy
thrust.  The Rapier’s blade went right through Rondo, dazing him and Sam was
able to follow up with charged thrust.  Rondo lost over a third of his HP from
all the combined attacks Sam had inflicted.  Every one of those blows had found
their mark.  Sam had lost a fourth of his health from one clean hit, a small
nick, and a few blocked blows.  Rondo clearly had the DPS (damage per second)
and HP advantages in this contest.

I’ll need to play smarter
, he thought.

Rondo threw his three knives again.  This time Sam waited
until the first knife nearly collided with his face to dodge out of the way. 
He managed to avoid all three knives and was even ready to meet Rondo when he
approached.  Rondo slashed out with his silver dagger once and was blocked. 
Sam took the lightning damage and continued to block when Rondo tried to stab
him with the black dagger.  There was a sharp clang when metal struck metal
then Sam was again pushed back by the force of Rondo’s boot kicking his shield. 
Rondo followed up with two clean dagger strikes that took Sam down to below a
fourth of his maximum HP.

Shit
, he thought as his brain scrambled to create
something resembling an effective strategy.  He raised his shield and backpedaled. 
All his brain kept telling him was to get the hell out of there.

Rondo advanced on him with his super quick dagger strikes. 
His blows rained down so fast that Sam wasn’t able to ascertain the origin
point of either strike.  He didn’t think he could parry either of Rondo’s
daggers.  Sam anticipated Rondo going for the kick, so he rolled away.

He raised his shield again and struck from behind it doing
very small damage, but he valued his safety more than he valued doing oodles of
damage at the moment.  Sam was able to see the origin of the kicking attack and
was able to avoid it when Rondo immediately attempted it when he approached. 
He stabbed Rondo twice again before repeating the same tactic.

This time when Rondo approached, Sam stabbed only once then
surprised his opponent with a kick of his own.  Instead of following up with an
attack on his stunned opponent, Sam opted to heal to full before rejoining the
fight.  He felt comfortable again now that he had the HP advantage.  It didn’t
deter Rondo though.

Rondo again tossed out his knives.  Sam had the timing, so
he dodged again.  When Rondo came near, Sam stabbed him twice from behind his
shield again.  Instead of attacking like he usually did, Rondo appeared at
Sam’s side.  It almost looked like he came out of the very shadows.  Sam had
barely seen him move from behind his shield.

“How in the hel—”

Rondo stabbed Sam right in the chest.  Sam coughed,
spluttering blood as he lifted his shield and deflected the second dagger.  He
rolled away, nearly collapsing as he did.  Rondo’s attack wasn’t a critical
strike, but it was very damaging.  Sam had lost over a third of his HP.  Sam
retaliated with a throwing knife of his own.  Rondo faded into shadow and
effortlessly dodged to the side of the blade.

“What the hell was that?” Sam involuntarily asked aloud.

“I am a master of my profession.  These last hundred years
or so has allowed me to hone my skills to perfection.  These are true shadow
skills and they are the difference between you and me, upstart.”

“Is that so?  Well Rondo, I’ll give you props on having some
cool abilities, but I don’t need gimmicks to beat you.  I am Sarem the
Sanguine, an oddity among Cutthroats.  You may be the master of assassins in
this place, but I am a prodigy amongst my peers.  You are not in my league,
lowly old man.”

Sam didn’t know what he was saying.  He only knew that it
felt good to say it.  When he saw the bubbling anger in Rondo’s face, he
couldn’t contain his giddiness.  He threw his head back and laughed at his
opponent.  It was a poor idea, but something was causing him to simply not
care.  Was it the adrenaline?

“What, did I piss you off?  I suppose a guy that hides and
plays different roles would be mad at something as inconvenient as the truth. 
But that’s the least of your issues buddy.  You see, I’m going to kill you and
take that which you hold dear, your precious Quintessence.  A low life like you
has no need for it.  It’s much better in my possession.  I might even do
something special with it, like feed it to a demon or something.  I can’t think
of anything else YOUR rotten Quintessence would be good for.  Good riddance,
right?” Sam said while laughing.

“You impertinent bastard.  I can’t wait to see what Caesar
will do to you once I give him your worthless corpse.  You better pray someone
takes your Quintessence.  It won’t be me.  I’d rather watch you helplessly rot
away as you lose your wits at an agonizing rate.  You’re nothing to me but a
bloodstain on my sword and once I’ve killed you, you’ll be a distant memory!”

Rondo dashed at Sam and tried slashing him with his black
dagger.  Sam stabbed at Rondo from behind his shield and missed when Rondo
again faded away into a shadowy form and appeared at his side.  Sam rolled to
the other side to avoid a close range attack, but was at a disadvantage when he
recovered.  Rondo was able to stab him in his upper arm.  Before Sam could
retaliate with a light blade thrust of his own.  Rondo then countered with a
vicious combo.  The first two slashes cut Sam cleanly, but by rolling away he
was able to avoid the spinning twin bladed lateral slashes that Rondo used to
end the combo.  He thanked his lucky stars that the first two attacks hadn’t
stunned him.  His evasion had left Rondo open.  Sam held his Rapier in both
hands and stabbed right through him with a heavy thrust.  Rondo reeled
backwards briefly stunned and Sam saw his opening.  He was on a steep enough
incline that his next attack should hit all the way.  He built up the power
needed for it then unleashed the Skyward Thrust on a stunned Rondo.  Rondo’s
body jerked and reeled with each of the rapid thrusts and he was knocked back
unto the ground by the final one, but he still wasn’t dead.

“Dammit.  You persistent asshole!  Just die already!”

Rondo had but a sliver of HP left.  Sam threw another knife at
him when he got up, but Rondo managed to evade it.  Sam pressed his advantage
and tried poking at him as he retreated.  Rondo’s quick knife throwing caught
Sam off guard and locked him into place in a block.  He waited for all three
knives to collide before moving forward again.