Chapter Two:

Hag, Spy and Ranger

I came to in a house. It took me a few moments to recognize the house I was in. I had been here only once before... My heart sunk with dread. Somehow, I had been saved from the noobs, but now I was inside the house belonging to Nora T. Hagg, the fanatical Zamorak worshiper, dangerous experiment maker and ball-stealer. And there was the hag herself, standing at her window and staring out.

She turned as I stirred, and I fully expected to be zapped or fed to her new experiments or something. But no. She just turned back to the window and said, "you're friend is acting a leetle strange."

My head swum as I rose. I walked to the window and... "Oh god no." Kryarn was wandering around aimlessly outside. Head down. I didn't even have to check his forehead to realize what had happened.

"Whats ah wanna know," Nora T. Hagg spoke, "is how come they had ya twice and didn't write n on ya forehead?" Dam, another good question. Why did noobs have cannon? Why was the mysterious old man on their side? Why didn't they brand me properly when they had the chance? Why? What? How? When? Questions circled around my head.

"War!" Nora's high cackle brought me fully back to real life. "What...wait...war?" I said sluggishly. "YES!" She cackled gleefully. "A war! They gots a cannon and powerful magics and they're undefeatable! But we will get them YES! It's what my Lord wants! We win and defeat the noobs!" God she's so happy about it all. "It's gonna be a WAR!"

"We are in war!" Said Nora, calming down now slightly. "They have an army... and no real weakness that the old man they gots can't fill. We need to find the old man's power... and break it! And then we break the rest of them easy as boneless corpses!"

By old man I got that was meaning the mysterious old man that put people in a trance. But Nora T. Hagg was still mumbling, talking to herself more than me now. I caught words like "strategy", "claws" and "commander." I jumped when she pointed a finger at me and shrieked,

"Black burthorpe army isn't only friends we got eh? Your friend out there! He got useful other friends? You have other useful friends?" I checked my friends. All were off, except for Kryarn and Alkir, who wasn't replying when I messaged him. I didn't wanna think about why... But Kryarn might very well have helpful friends.

I left Nora's house, and walked over to where he was standing. As expected, he didn't respond to me whatsoever. I went through his pockets, and found his friends list. I checked it, and discovered that he had five friends online and one of them was me. I went back into Nora's house, and contacted Kryarn's friends. I hoped that some of them at least would be able to help.

First guy on Kryarn's list was Kysin. I contacted him, inwardly hoping that he would be more rational and helpful than Kryarn.

"Um, hey, Kysin, u don't know me but I'm one of Kryarn's friends. Kryarn has been...entranced by a wise old man that's helping noobs take over Runescape. We need help to stop them."

The reply took a few minutes in coming. When it did reply, the voice was very strange. It was soft, and deep sounding. I distrusted it instantly.

"So...this concerns me how."

I explained more of the problem.

"There's this huge army of noobs and they're taking over Runescape and they've gotta cannon to help them and a wise old man that can put people into listless trances so they loose their minds. We need help to defeat them."

Again, the reply was slow in coming.

"I will ask you again... how does this concern me?"

omg...

By now I was starting to get frustrated. I tried once more to get him to join us.

"If you don't help us, noobs will take over everything! They'll knock down shops, houses, churches, castles, pubs..."

The fast, loud reply caught me off guard, especially as I was thinking Kysin was a very slow, drawling person.

"PUBS?"

"Um...oh yeah, pubs. The noobs will knock down the pubs! Meet at Nora T. Hagg's house if you wanna help us stop them."

It seemed that Kysin had recovered from the shocking idea of noobs destroying pubs now, and he took his normal few minutes to reply a quiet, calm two words:

"I'm in."

Ok, I now have two more of Kryarn's friends to contact and persuade. I just hoped that they were more... normal than Kysin. I contacted Parrea and began to explain the problem.

"Parrea, the noobs have formed a huge army and th..."

She cut me off.

"I know damit! I've been watching from the wizard's tower since they blew up Lumbridge!"

The wizard's tower?

"Are the wizards safe?" I asked.

"No. The cannon got them too. I'm on entrana now. No noobs here."

So entrana was safe, but the wizards were not. I just hoped that the noobs hadn't been smart enough to force the wizards to make them splitbark amour. I explained our war effort. Her reply was not long in coming:

"You're at Nora's? Good...good. I'll be on top of white wolf mountain. If the noobs are in Burthorpe, I'll get them better from there."

"But, wait...White Wolf Mountain? How are you gonna do much damage to noobs from all the way up there?" I voiced my thoughts.

From the sound of her voice, I could tell she was smiling.

"I'm a ranger."

'And a pretty good one too, if you can reach noobs from the top of the mountain'I thought.

Two down...one more to go. I was staring out the window, listening to the raging sounds of battle coming from the north, from Burthorpe, when a dark figure slipped in through the window. He was so fast, if I had blinked at the wrong time, I would've missed him.

I whirled around to face the dark figure. He was now leaning back in a chair, his feet planted on Nora's table. He didn't seem at all disturbed that he had just entered without invitation.

He was a small, wiry figure, dressed in black trousers and shirt, and his skin was darker brown than the native Karamjirans. He was holding a poisoned black dagger, and a range of poisoned black darts.

"Who in Guthix's name are you?" I asked, impolitely. He lifted one eyebrow at me, and took an apple from the fruitbowl in the centre of the table. He started eating the apple. After a few minutes he replied, "I could tell you my name but would that be who I am? I could tell you my skills, my professions, my friends... Define 'who am I.'"

I recognized his voice immediately. It was Kysin.

"So... how do you make money normally?" I asked him in an effort to start a conversation. After his normal, infuriating few minutes of silence, he replied:

"I'm a merchant, though many other merchants would be ashamed to have me in their profession. I obtain most my goods through thieving and eavesdropping. The trade in information is almost as high as the trade in goods." He smiled. I mumbled an excuse and walked outside to contact the last person on Kryarn's list. There was something about Kysin that made me feel uneasy.

The last person on the list was named Morak. I explained the situation, our plans and asked if he could help. His voice when he replied was harsh, grating like wet stone on rock. "If your enemy penetrates my master's domain, I will speed their deaths closer. I won't travel anywhere to help anyone that doesn't concern me. Like white druids don't concern me. And I will never, definitely not help foolish fat saradomin-loving monks." I heard him spit on the word 'saradomin'. I tried again.

"But... wait... we gotta stop them now or else they will attack your place and kill everything around it." His reply was fast and blunt.

"If you don't leave me alone, I will come, and crush you along with you're pitiful army." Ok...so I guessed he wasn't going to help much. God Kryarn has some weird friends...

"Ha! You spy! Thief! Unseen killarrr!" The excited screech of Nora brought me running back inside. I arrived to see Kysin sitting on the window sill looking calm as usual, which said a lot for his self-control because he had Nora shrieking at him, loud.

I expected Nora to be angry and force Kysin out of her house immediately like she did when I last trespassed. But no. "You will fit the strategy yes!" she screamed. Then she noticed me.

"You're friends? Anyone's friends? Where are them? How many goblin armies, dragons and cannons did they bring?"

Um...well actually...

"Kysin and a female ranger called Parrea are they only people that are going to help. And there's no dragons or armies or anything coming." She stopped, and I could see her absorbing the information. Her face fell.

"Wha...no armies? No banners or numbers for Runescape? Just...just you and him," she gestured towards Kysin, "and the girl ranger? And me? Is that all?"

"um, yeah, that's it I guess." Wow, she's actually right. We've only got four people that are definitely on our side that's still alive or unentranced or anything. Kysin was looking at both of us, his blank expression made it impossible to tell what he was thinking. I turned towards Nora.

Her face became slightly happier, more determined looking. "That's fine! Then we won't have a war! Not enough of us for a war. But we are all worth many many noobs each, and once dark assassin kills the old man we charge and fight and die with glory!"

There was a momentary silence. It was interrupted by Kysin slipping out of the half-open window. From outside the window, he looked in and said, "I'll be back before dawn." Then he left.

I went to window where he had been only seconds ago, and peered out. Kysin was gone. Gone where? I was about to ask this question to Nora when she cackled quietly and said, "Yesss. The unseen killer has been released... Once he returns, we will attack." Zanathir looked out the window for a moment then put his hands to his neck to feel the familiar weight of Lord Iowerth's pendant. "Hey!" he exclaimed. "My pendant! It's gone!"