Hive Knight: A Dark Fantasy LitRPG (Trinity of the Hive Book 1) by Grayson Sinclair (black authors fiction txt) 📕

When I fought the would-be assassin, he told me that someone was coming for us and that we wouldn’t be able to stop them.”

Everyone paused for a moment, letting what I’d said sink in.

”That…is disconcerting news,” Wilson mused. “If not the Compass Kingdom, that means it’s someone new. We should’ve had forewarning regardless. It seems like we are being kept out of the loop.”

He’s got a point. We should have had some warning about this. We paid a lot of money to be kept abreast of any important news. Either our contacts hadn’t heard anything, or they were being paid off to keep us in the dark. Neither option a good one.

I turned to Wilson and asked him, “Do you think you could talk to any of your old Thieves Guild members, see if they heard anything?”

He ran his fingers through his beard, stroking his well-groomed silver hairs in thought. “I could try, but I doubt I’d get much from them, and since I’m unable to enter the city anymore, it would be a costly venture to try and arrange a meeting.”

I wracked my brain, trying to come up with a solution. “Evelyn, do you think any of your networks could be of use here?”

She looked up from her interface to answer me. “Oh, absolutely, though like Shadow, I can’t exactly go strolling through Compass Kingdom right now.”

“Shit, I forgot the Assassins Guild still has that hit out on you.”

“Indeed, though I’m not worried about my safety. They’ve tried to kill me dozens of times now, but anyone seen with me would be a target, and most of my contacts are cowards who wouldn’t risk it.”

At this point, Eris piped up. ”You all seem to make friends well.”

Everyone laughed, and Makenna spoke. “We all have bounties on our heads. It’s just a way of life for us,” she said softly.

I was always surprised by Makenna. With her long red hair tied in pigtails and a swatch of freckles dotting her cheeks, she looked like everyone’s favorite kid sister. But she was one of the deadliest assassins on Nexus. She flashed her emerald eyes to Eris for a second before turning back to the thick leather-bound tome in her hands.

“You’re all criminals?” Eris’s eyes looked to each member of the guild before finally looking up at me.

“Hey, don’t lump me in with the rest of this rabble, I’m no criminal.”

Levi snapped back at my words. “Oh, yeah? What about when you pretended to join the Church of the Penitent Whisper, to become a paladin?” he asked me.

“Hey, technically, I didn’t commit any crimes,” I told the big brute.

Wilson, of course, took the opportunity to add his two cents. “Well, you did pledge an oath of service to the church and the Alliance, only to immediately ditch after you got your hands on the paladin class,” he said.

“That would make me an oath breaker, not a criminal,” I replied to him.

“Well, what about that guard you knocked unconscious, trying to escape, hm?” he said with a smug nod of his head.

"One assault charge, c’mon that doesn’t count. The bounty was like, what, three hundred gold? That’s peanuts.” I said, clearly in denial.

Everyone started chuckling at me. Levi and Wilson held up their hands in mock surrender. “Okay, fine, you win,” Wilson said, “Though my point was that out of all the members here, you have the best chance of walking through the five kingdoms unmolested. As long as you stay out of Cardinal Square, that is,” he said with a laugh.

It looks like I have no choice in the matter. “Okay, fine. I’ll go and check things out in the capital. See what I can dig up,” I told everyone. “I’ll head out first thing in the morning. I shouldn’t be gone more than a day or two.”

Eris tugged on my sleeve and gave me a look that said in no uncertain terms would I be leaving without her.

“Sorry, what I meant to say was that we will be leaving first thing in the morning. We have the spare teleportation scrolls on hand right, Wilson?” I asked the stony-faced guild treasurer.

“Of course, we do, but D….” he said, then trailed off.

I just stared at him. “Yeah. What?” I asked, confused.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

I didn’t comprehend what he was asking me. What have I forgotten? Eris shifted in my lap, and the movement made me glance at her. The realization hit me like a ton of bricks.

“Oh, son of a bitch,” I lamented.

“Ah, there goes the little hamster wheel turning,” Adam quipped.

Gil and Levi fell over laughing at that. Even Makenna and Yumiko chuckled at my expense.

“Eris is an NPC."

“Indeed, she is. Albeit, like one I’ve never seen before, but an NPC regardless,” Wilson stated.

I sighed into my hands. “NPCs can’t use teleportation,” I groaned, “Which means that if Eris is coming with me, we have to travel by mounts.”

“What’s an NPC?” Eris asked.

“Well, the technical term is non-player character, but that won’t mean anything to you. NPCs are most of the people here. Most of the humans and every single one of the other races. Anyone other than one of us players.”

“Oh,” she said and leaned against my chest. “I knew that, then. I had just never heard the term before.”

Wait, does she know she isn’t real? No, that’s impossible; NPCs have never shown any sign of self-awareness before. “Eris, could you explain how you know the difference between us?”

“Um, I can try, though it’s strange. I don’t know how I know that we’re different, but I do. And it’s not just in species, but I recognize that you were summoned from a different world by the gods of this world, even though no one has ever told me. I just know it.”