(Second Book Complete!) Runeblade: A Delving & Skill Merging LitRPG

Wakefulness came slowly, punctuated by the cold splash of a drip hitting the tip of his nose. He was leaning on something hard, a polished wood grain warped by his bleary eyes. Whisper frowned, struggling to fight through the haze that held him tight. Had he fallen asleep at his desk? That wasn’t like him — too much risk in that habit, he much preferred his sleeping places unknown and warded to the high heavens.

A dull ache radiated through his shoulders, reaching up the back of his neck. He must have slept on his desk — the few times he’d done that in the past he’d woken feeling like his guard had used him as a training dummy overnight.

Whisper yawned, sitting up as he went to stretch his hands over his head…

And found them stuck fast, bound at the wrists in front of him.

Every scrap of fatigue fled, panic as effective as a winter plunge. Snapping his eyes open he found himself sitting at a plain table, in a room made of hewn masonry blocks. Two figures sat across from him.

A woman, staring at him like she wished she could rip out his spleen with her eyes alone. Middling height, with the ashen blonde and golden skin of a northern Hiwiann. Dressed in simple clothes woven out of what immediately recognised as the unbreaking silk of tuantun moths, her hand fluttered to the bastard sword belted at her hip — toying with its pommel.

Whisper gulped, and flicked to his other captor.

He looked more bear than man, with blocky features and hard brown eyes that could shatter stone. Leaning on a great warhammer that must have weighed as much as he did, the man stared at him silently.

Both of them screamed strength. In their quiet confidence, and the simple pressure that exuded from their every pore like all who had crossed the boundary of the first tier.

He knew them. He knew them well. It was his job to know them.

Rieker. Ro.

Whisper swallowed, his mouth suddenly as dry as parchment.

How? Why? He couldn’t think of a single op he’d had even a passing involvement in that would have pitted him against the Guild. No one did that — it was suicide! Most importantly, how the fuck had they grabbed him?! He was under guard and ward at all times. His office was supposed to be impenetrable.

Sweat rolled down his brow. It didn’t matter why. It didn’t even matter that the guild was operating extra-legally, he was no fool — even if they had no legal right to hold him, that wouldn’t protect him. Hells, he wasn’t even under a Resource lock — he didn’t need to be. Both of the people across from him could kill him as soon as he tried to influence them, or learn more than he should.

They had him, and they wanted something.

“Hello, Whisper,” Ro said quietly, sharp as a barred knife.

Whisper had few cards, and none that were good, but he had to try. A cell in the keep wasn’t his idea of a holiday, but by the dead earth of this good city, it was predictable. Safe. He had levers he could pull — networks he could leverage. He’d spend a month or two in lockup, but without any evidence, he’d go free.

“I…” he stammered, “I request you release me to the custody of the guard — you have no right to hold me for questioning under criminal suspicion.”

Rieker smiled; it peeled him apart — picked at him layer by layer until he squirmed. A terrible thing.

“That’s where you’re wrong.” Every word was gravelly, a deep frustration and anger radiating through Whisper’s ribs to throttle him from the inside.

In some ways, the blatant fury brought him relief, in others it terrified him. He was an infobroker — it was his job to know things. What he did know was that there was nothing he was involved in that could inspire this particularly personal fury. He also knew that someone in the city had fucked up — fucked up bad.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t the faintest clue who, or how. A dangerous position to be in, considering he was trussed up like a prized swine.

Rieker reached into his pocket and slapped a folded leaf of parchment on the table. Opening it, the guild master turned it and slid it in front of him.

Whisper scanned the page, paling. A writ of authority, signed by Governor Hanrick himself. The real deal, with a glow of mana still emanating from the heavy wax steal imprinted with the signet of his office stuck to the bottom of the page.

This was even worse than he thought — someone had roused the Wardog. There would be blood before this business was done. He needed to go to ground, should have gone to ground, he realised.

With the evidence staring him in the face, it was easy for Whisper to start connecting the dots between the string of disappearances that had been spreading through the enforcers and low-level thugs of the slagheap. Gods’ scorn, he’d thought it was a gangwar! A reshuffle as some up and comer tried to take advantage of the instability that had followed the integration moving to its next stage.

He’d been wrong, and some rotten bastard had dobbed him in.

Whisper swallowed again, mouth still dry, and looked at Ro. The man at her right was many things, but this kind of subtle work wasn’t his style.

“Who sold me out?”

The left-hand woman of the guildmaster didn’t so much as twitch. “No one; I followed someone to the Coal House.”

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That was all he was going to get, he knew that much — and his second favourite office had been burned. Whisper sighed.

“I’m guessing by the fact that I still have all of my limbs —” he was not so stupid as to think legal propriety would protect him from harm in the face of the Guild’s fury” — that you already know I am not directly involved in whatever this is?”

“We think that is likely.” Rieker’s expression was perfectly schooled, giving his Skills nothing to work off.

Whisper suppressed a grunt of frustration — if only he could read them. He was much more comfortable when he was the one with all of the information.

“Then what do you want to know? I am not so stupid as to face off against the Guild, not like whoever has so clearly pissed you off.”

His captors smiled — hungry things that sent a chill down his spine.

“Good,” Ro replied. “First, your position. You help us, and you go to an isolated lock up in the keep until we’ve finished our investigation. I’ll even make sure you get guard rations, access to reading materials, and a few extra blankets.”

That was…not the worst offer. At the very least, he would be insulated from whatever shitshow was about to happen in the slagheap.

Ro leaned in with a flat stare.

“If you try to obstruct us — hide something — I will see you exiled. Alone.”

And the woman would most likely spread his description to any and every settlement she could reach within a week. A death sentence, then, considering he lacked a combat class.

He’d never thought himself a rat, but whoever had invited this retribution could only blame themselves. The fools — who in the forsaken hells fucked with the Guild!

“I think you’ll find that won’t be necessary, I’m no fool.”

Rieker leaned on the table, wood creaking under his weight. “Good. Members of ours have been taken, likely by someone at the peak of Deadacre’s underworld — someone who likely has ties to the Onyx. However, we doubt he acted alone. Someone leaked, and unless shit has gotten a lot worse in my house than I thought, I doubt the leaker had direct access to someone like that.”

Whisper froze. The Onyx? Fuck. Old Yon, you avaricious bastard, what fresh hell have you brought down on yourself?

A confrontation between the Guild and the Onyx? That was bad, very very bad! If word got out that he’d given them the lead, he was dead.

His dread only grew as he caught Ro’s smile at his reaction. By Ellantyr’s great tits, he’d given himself away. Dead if he did, dead if he didn’t. His only grace was that the Onyx was more of an association of loosely networked heavy hitters than a true guild. If…if the delvers cut the head off the snake, then there would be little that could be traced back to him.

Besides, every whisper he had heard both here and in Grandbrook said that Old Yon wasn’t exactly liked — he doubted a man like that would be satisfied with staying in Deadacre if he had connections to call on.

That might be enough to head off reprisal — but not if he ended up in a keep cell. There were too many ways for one of Old Yon’s men to start connecting up dots and timelines.

He had to be decisive! The guildmaster was right about one thing, Old Yon rarely moved himself — and there was no way he would touch a job like this unless it was valuable. Priceless, in the way that only information could be.

Whisper leaned back, wracking his brains.

There had to be someone — something like this wasn’t a small job. Whoever brought in the lead would have been…rewarded, but they would have to be enough of an idiot to ignore the heavy strings attached, and how suicidal it was to move against someone the guild had taken a vested interest in. Yet, they still needed the resources and network that the leak would end up in their hands in the first place.

That was…a rather small group of people.

Oh. Oh.

Whisper lurched forwards, realisation blooming within him. He smiled, just barely restraining a laugh.

Pretentious wanker? Check. Self aggrandising with an over inflated sense of self confidence? Check. Fucking moron? Check. Notable change in behaviour that had quickly swung from unbearably smug to paranoid and anxious in a matter of months? Fucking. Check.

Someone he’d love to see dead and buried? Gods’ scorn, yes!

This might be just the best damn thing that had happened to him all year.

“I’ll talk. I’ll talk a whole bloody lot.” Whisper grinned, ignoring the mild looks of puzzlement on the guild officials faces. “But only if you switch that month in solitary to eighteen in a locked room under the guild, with nice amenities, and a promise towards my anonymity.”

Rieker paused, evaluating him for a long moment. He huffed.

“Only if what you have to say is worthwhile.”

Oh it was, he was sure of it.

“Your ultimate target is Old Yon, who has his fingers in just about every pie in the city. I don’t know all that much about him, because I’ve made an effort not to know — he’s a dangerous bastard with more bodies buried under him than I can count. He’s the only one with the network, and balls, to pull off a job against the guild — and I have it on good authority that he has some ties to the Onyx, though I don’t know how strong considering he’s based here. I know he has Silver’s in his employ, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was one himself.”

The guild administrators frowned, clearly displeased with his lack of insight into their targets movements. He waved them off.

“I’m not finished. While I’m not so suicidal as to move against Old Yon, I’m almost certain I know who sold out your men to him — too many things line up for it to be anyone else.”

“Oh?” Ro’s voice had a hard edge to it — exactly like a heavy-hitter who was evaluating whether a working man was worth more to them alive or dead.

He was gonna dream of what she was going to do to that waste of good air.

“The most gutless, feckless, and utterly unpleasant fop of a man I have ever had the displeasure of talking to. Grave-eye. Otherwise known as Rondal, disgraced and wayward scion of Silverwing — though the idiot thinks that he’s hidden that well.”

Whisper paused, soaking in the focused intensity of his captors.

“Oh Grave-eye, I hope you enjoy what’s coming — it’ll only be a quarter of what you deserve.”

“I can point out where he lives on a map, if you’d like?”