Page 49 of Killer of the Bells
My sneakiness meant that none of those markers meant jack shit to me.
Once inside, I only had to contend with a few hard-core townies and magic users.
We always got some tourists, but almost none of them ever made it inside the actual tower. The violence and chaos sent ninety-nine percent of them running. If one did make it inside, they never made it out again, and no one remembered they were ever there.
Except me, of course. Somehow, I always remembered.
The levels inside the tower did matter to me. I had to utilize traps over sneakiness because the space was small and the fighting was intense. The levels were the lobby with the tiny gift shop, the spiral stairs, and the bell room. I didn’t make it past the lobby much, and I’d only ever glimpsed the bell room once.
When I reached the churchyard and got a look at the scene before me, I sighed with relief. No one had breached the tower yet.
The only way in was through the massive wooden door, and it was closed tight. No one could fly into the arched holes in the top of the tower, and no one could climb it from the outside. After dark, the only way to the bells was by going inside and climbing the stairs.
The townies and tourists thought there was a force field or something stopping people or drones from entering through the top where the bells were, but I could see the magic humming in the air.
There were layers of spells overhead. I didn’t know shit about magic, but I could see and feel the different colors and vibrations denoting each spell, all aimed at keeping anyone from getting higher than eight feet up the tower outside. Some spells were non-lethal, but some would fry you to a crispy critter.
People learned early on that it wasn’t worth it to try.
I don’t know how we came up with our self-imposed, unspoken rules and traditions, but every year, there seemed to be something new we all agreed would be what we did. I heard that the no-climb/no-fly zone was created when some asshole flew a drone up to the bells and disabled them in minutes while the minmaxers—or magic users; I use them interchangeably—were busy duking it out.
I don’t know for certain because I wasn’t there.
It wasn’t a solid rule that would lose you the game if you broke it. If someone managed to make it to the bells from the outside and disable them, then they’d win the hunt. But the magic users would probably throw up even more spells to keep it from happening again.
From what I heard, the magic users got incredibly butthurt when the drone took out the bells. They actually worked together to decide who would do what to keep it from happening again, which was a miracle. All minmaxers were notoriously bad at working together for the hunt.
I only had a few seconds to get a lay of the land—it was downright dangerous to stand still for long in the churchyard during the hunt. You were just begging to get picked off.
I could see that several of my traps had been triggered the night before, and three of them currently held unwilling victims in their grasp. I was also pretty certain the hopefully unconscious person near my dart trap had been subject to the homemade sleep sap I’d decided to test out this year.
What? I couldn’t test it on myself, could I? If I accidentally offed myself before winning the bell hunt while prepping for it, that would be the dumbest thing ever.
No, I was saving myself for death-by-hot-guy, thank you very much.
The plant toxins I’d used for the blend were mostly harmless anyway, so whoever triggered the trap was probably fine.
I saw an area where a series of my traps still lay undisturbed in the cemetery portion of the church grounds, so I made a beeline for them. The safest place for me to stand was in the midst of my traps since I knew where they were, but no one else did.
I picked my way to the tower door, staying low among the headstones. A lot of people didn’t like going near the headstones, but I considered them fair game. The people in the graves were dead, and their troubles were over. Why on earth would they stick around to haunt people if they didn’t have to?
There was a cluster of hunters right at the door, some minmaxers, some townies with homemade tech. I loved the latter. Their gear was often truly ingenious, and I was delightedwhen I got a chance to examine it as closely as I dared. Sometimes, their gear failed so badly that it took out half my opposition, so I was a huge fan of that too.
The minmaxers were tricky. Sometimes their magic worked on me, and sometimes it didn’t. I had no way of knowing when I’d be safe, so I always played it super cautious.
I decided to try and sneak past the group at the door by distracting them with my only flashbang. I didn’t have many traps inside and had no way of knowing if the ones I’d set up were still functional, but fortune favored the brave, and I was only going to win if I chose to be brave.
What was the worst that could happen? I’d die in pursuit of my only goal in life? I’d heard worse offers, though I was still hanging on to the slim hope I could get Vale to do me in.
I was about to toss my flashbang when someone grabbed my arm.
Shit. The glowing ball in their hand marked them as a minmaxer. Letting one of those get so close to me was almost always game over. My mind flicked to thoughts of Vale, and instead of wishing he was the one who might be about to kill me, I found myself thinking it was a shame I wouldn’t get a chance to apologize for being a dick to him earlier.
Somehow, I thought he’d be sad when he found out I’d died.
It was that thought alone that spurred me to twist free of the minmaxer’s grasp rather than letting fate take its course.
I didn’t want to give Vale another reason to be sad. I didn’t know what had happened in his life, but I refused to add to his burdens.
