FMH: Everything ~ Thirteen

- Luke-

The Murderhobo was escorted to his room, and as promised, it was a well-appointed, luxurious suite. The Royal Guardsman who had escorted him drew a line with his finger at the threshold of the room, “By the King's orders, you're under house arrest. Under no circumstances are you to step outside of your room.”

Luke merely stood where he was, staring at the Guardsman with dead, hollow eyes widened as far as he could open them. He had found the expression to be unnerving to people who weren’t confident in their own capabilities, and this Ascender was no outlier. Only letting the awkwardness stretch for a single nervous swallow, the man turned and hurried away without looking back. Luke remained where he was, not bothering to stroll about the apartment, let alone sample the food on the counter that was almost assuredly poisoned-

His head jerked to the side to stare at the bowl of fresh fruits on the counter. As soon as he considered that perhaps it was poisoned, he hurried over and scarfed down as much of it as possible. There was a chance, however minor, that he would be able to find a poison strong enough to increase the rank of his Skill ‘You Need To Stop’. The instances were few and far between when Andre would help him out by putting together a concoction of various deadly plants, as the Druid had no particular interest in pursuing noxious lines of cross-pollination and plant breeding.

In other words, his friend had been a dead end for boosting his Skill. Unfortunately, it appeared that this fruit was also useless to him. “Not even a lightly caustic acid? *Tsk*. Fine, whatever, but why else would they put this in here?”

He focused on that problem for a few hours, but the answer was not forthcoming. A light knocking stirred him from his puzzled reverie, and he blinked owlishly in the room that seemed to have suddenly gone from full natural light to nearly dark. He stomped over, pulling open the door gently—for him.

On the other side waited his sister, standing just a few feet away, just far enough that he would need to step out of the room if he wanted to grab her, flanked by a duo of guards. He wondered, distractedly, if that was an intentional choice, if she didn't trust him as much as she had seemed to in the throne room. That made him wonder in turn what lies were being fed into her ears, now that the king knew who he was in relation to her.

“Hello, Luke.” Her voice was less timid, seemingly filled with steel as she spoke to him. “It's been extremely interesting to hear of all of the issues you have created, the laws that you have broken, and the people you have hurt. I only came here to let you know that I will be requesting that Vir does not assign you as my guard., You can go be a feral animal somewhere else, and I… and I can try to keep the image I had of you in my mind. Not… not what you have become.”

She turned away, heaving a few deep breaths that sounded suspiciously like stifled sobs. Luke didn't stop her. He most certainly didn't have the Charisma to convince her away from her selected path, and it was clear that she had already chosen her side. She turned back after collecting herself, meeting his eyes in grim challenge. “If Andre will not hand over his artifacts willingly, they are going to use you to go in and take them. I want you to comply without fighting them on this issue. There are so many incentives lined up if you'll do it willingly, and so many punishments for refusing. If you’re not… even if you're not who I had hoped you would be, you at least deserve to live a good life.”

Luke nodded at her, eyeing the pendant that she still wore on the necklace he had given her. He wanted to ask if she knew that it was changing her fate, but being so blatant about it, in such a public area, would almost assuredly guarantee her death. He would have to wait and hope that another opportunity presented itself. He reached for the door handle, starting to close the barrier between them once again.

Only to stop himself as the partially-closed door blocked a splash of blood from spraying across his body. Behind his sister, a strange man had suddenly appeared. To Luke's senses, this man was one of the most real people he had ever run into, second only to his own small party. The blood had come from the guards, both of whom had died in a single *chomp* from the strange beasts that were clearly under the control of this hound-masked figure.

A hand closed over Cindy's mouth just before she could scream, and another swiftly wrapped around her waist. Luke lurched forward, only for his Sigil to burn with an intensity only matched by lightning. The searing heat brought him to the ground and forced his muscles to relax. He roared in impotent fury as the invader chuckled lightly. The unfamiliar voice was distorted by the mask, but the words themselves were still clear. “How sad. I don't even keep my most poorly-trained pups on such a tight leash. Ta-ta!”

With that simple declaration, the man swept Cindy around and hopped onto the larger of the two dogs. The hulking canine raced down the corridor, smashing through a window at the end of the hall and vanishing below Luke’s line of sight. The Murderhobo managed to regain his footing and shouted for the guards, for anyone. Over and over, he threw himself against the magical impediment, failing to overcome the Sigil time and time again.

Apparently, the Murderhobo raging against his capture was an expected outcome, and no one bothered to inspect the situation, no matter how much noise he made. Not until the following morning, nearly seven hours after his sister had been taken. By then, he knew she could be hundreds of miles and literal worlds away. Even so, he fought against his restrictions the entire time.

Finally, someone came into range, but not due to his ranting and raving. A guard ran into the hallway, ordered him to be quiet, and asked him if he had seen the queen-to-be. If Luke could have gotten his hands on the other man, the Berserker would have crushed his head between them. “Yes, I know where she was! Why do you think I have been shouting ‘the Dynasty of Dogs took my sister’? To give you a sleepless night?”

“That seems implausible,” the guard sneered with a half-smile as he rolled his eyes. “You are under my care. I order you to tell me the truth. Where is Her Royal Highness?”

“Cindy, my sister, who is supposed to marry that fool of a King, was captured last night by an invader. Have you not noticed those two headless bodies that are literally right there?”

That was enough to elicit a reaction, and upon seeing the corpses, the guard’s eyes went wide. He pulled a whistle from his pocket and blew into it, sending out a pulse of magic instead of a high-pitched sound. Within minutes, the hallway was crawling with guardsmen, and Luke's statement was taken over and over as they tried to figure out what kind of mess they were in. Finally, one of the guards, specifically the man that had escorted Luke to his room the night before, made the mistake of stepping too close and shouting at Luke, “Why didn't you do anything to stop the Queen from being taken captive?”

The Murderhobo reacted with a lightning-fast backhand that sent half a dozen teeth shooting out of the man's mouth as he flopped across the room to land on the floor. “Because some nitwit ordered me not to leave my room under any circumstances!”

His point thoroughly made, the guards ensured that they remained out of reach until the order finally came for him to be hauled before the king. Luke went willingly, finally having something to say and a cause that he was willing to fight for. To his minor surprise, when he arrived in the throne room, his friends were already waiting for him. Andre seemed concerned at Luke's seething rage, which was barely contained to bubbling under the surface. The Druid instinctively recognized that the slightest provocation could cause the battle-scarred Berserker to boil over, and start indiscriminately attacking. “Something happened overnight, Luke. Do you have any idea what is going on?”

“An invader from the Dynasty of Dogs kidnapped my sister last night, right in front of me.” Luke scowled darkly at the king, grinding his teeth as he snarled, “I was ordered by the guards not to do anything to help her.”

“Your Majesty, pay no heed to his claims; we have already ascertained what the actual instructions were,” a man that was clearly a Captain of the Royal Guard called out. “This… Murderhobo… was informed that he was under house arrest and given the exact same instructions that any other person in his situation would have been given.”

“Captain.” The king's fingers were tapping loudly against the arm of his throne. “Do you think I give one single speck of fecal matter what his instructions were? My queen is gone. Without her, I feel like my mind is going to break.”

“That would probably be the addiction,” Luke rumbled quietly to himself, realizing that the King actually did look like someone who was going through the first stage of withdrawals. On one hand, it was nice to know that he wasn’t the only person that wanted Skill Pearls more than any other item in this world or any other. On the other hand, going through withdrawals tended to make people do erratic things, oftentimes even engaging in behaviors that were not beneficial to themselves.

He could use that.

“Murderhobo.” The king's words snapped Luke out of his internal dialogue and brought his attention to the man himself. “You and your team are officially tasked with finding my queen and returning her to me unharmed.”

Quest gained: My Queen is in Another Castle! The bride-to-be of King Vir of the Hollow Kingdom has been kidnapped by a neighboring superpower. Find her and return her to the king, ensuring that she is unharmed in the process.

“That sounds dangerous,” Luke called out in an ice-cold tone. “There’d better be a hefty reward, a guaranteed reward, or I'm going to fight this quest every step of the way. I will make sure that it is far too late to bring her back to you.”

The room became so quiet that Luke could hear the gossip taking place in the kitchen a floor away. The King clenched and unclenched his hands, looking for all the world like he was about to hop out of his throne and attack the Murderhobo himself. Finally, he regained some semblance of mental stability and leaned forward, his eyes locked with Luke's.

“I know what you want, you beast of a human,” the king managed to grind out. “Using your own sister as a bargaining chip… despicable. You go out there, you do anything, everything you deem necessary to bring her back to me unharmed, and I swear I will allow you to return to your personal world once a week, if you so desire. I hereby swear an oath that if you return with my queen, I’ll give you cushy positions and land… only calling upon you to protect us in times of trouble and danger. I swear it.”

He paused, and his expression sank, shifting from agonized to murderous. “Also, if you fail this quest that I'm granting you, my people will hunt your little group of friends until every single one of you is removed from this world. This I swear, by my power as The King.”

Quest updated!

Vir said a few things to the rest of his team, likely promising them equivalent unparalleled rewards. Luke didn't pay much attention. He was satisfied with what he had been offered. One hand stroked Cookie’s length, and he nodded slowly. “Soon, Cookie. Soon we are going to figure out what is waiting for us in Zone fifty. I know you're just as excited as I am. What's that? You’re more excited than me? Fun. It's nice to have goals.”