Xavori
Xavori the Assassin
'Twas to have been a peaceful night of training my pupils and
exploring new islands, but alas, the life of a rogue who, unlike
most of Sosaria's nobles, is not a cowardly, brainless fop is
rarely truly peaceful.
I was in Vesper depositing gold and jewels that had been
sitting in my house. There seemed to be a plague of termites
lately, and although I wouldn't mind losing the house or the
large amounts of equipment inside, I really didn't want to lose
absolutetly everything. As I was talking to the banker about the
poor service and large crowds at the bank, a couple of young
heroes in death robes came running by.
"PK's on the road by the graveyard!" one of them
screamed.
This of course was not really news to anyone since it seemed
to be a favorite haunting place of murderers and thugs. And you
would think that eventually people would learn to either be very
careful in that part of town, or simply use the bridges instead
of the road to get from one part of Vesper to the other. I sighed
at the foolishness of my fellow Sosarians. Then, feeling
unusually noble and figuring the murderers were prolly cutting
into my profits, I decided to remove them.
First, I checked my pack to make sure I had plenty of supplies
and nothing of too great a value in case anything went wrong,
then I strolled across the bridge to the northern end of the
road. A master mage was standing there.
"Careful, there's a mage down the road killing everyone
who ventures by," he warned.
I was impressed that anyone would care to warn his fellow man
given the current lack of trust and comraderie in Sosarie (which
I actively support and encourage), so I thanked him and told him
I would try and be careful.
I started down alongside the road, using the trees to keep
myself out of the open. I listened carefully for the sounds of
movement and watched for the piles of bodies one usually sees
when you come upon a murder-mage. Almost directly in front of the
gates to the graveyard, I found him. I hid underneath a tree and
waited.
I watched the mage for several minutes. He was a master mage
and seemed to be trying to find a good place to ambush people. I
wondered why he didn't simply cast invisibilty on himself since
he obviously was not skilled at hiding and hadn't thought to hide
behind the house that was nearby. Finally, I spotted someone
coming up the road and prepared my ambush. 'Twas unfortunate I
knew I was going to let this person die, but if he was incapable
of defending himself, perhaps it would be for the best. As soon
as the mage saw him, he paralyzed him, and called down lightning.
The poor soul was dead so fast, he prolly never even realized
what had happened. I started counting to myself hoping the mage
would start looting the body before his mana could fully
recharge. He did. As soon as he moved over to the body and
started digging through packs, I attacked.
With a quick motion, I threw a pair of purple potions at his
feet, he didn't notice them, but he most certainly noticed the
explosions a moment later.
"What the f***" he screamed.
I stepped out from behind the tree and bowed. "Well met,
milord."
"You stupid b****" he screamed. Then he went through
the motions of calling lightning down, prolly figuring on
capitalizing on my plate armor do increase the damage of his
final spell. I laughed as he dropped to the ground dead, having
just killed himself by reflecting lightning off a spell of my
own. I strolled over and grabbed all of his equipment, figuring
that it would at least slow him down for a little while whilst he
reequipped.
As I wandered to my forest hideout, I thought about how truly
easy that had been and wondered why it took a rogue to remove a
murderer. Perhaps I had been more right than I could have guessed
when I decided Sosaria's people and especially her nobles had
become soft under the rule of the tyrant, British. Perhaps people
relied to much on the powers that be to protect them rather than
protecting themselves. Perhaps I, and others like me, should
become the spark the rekindles the fire inside their hearts...
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