Imagine, dear reader, that you sit upon a hard wooden stool, a small, rickety, flimsy desk in front of you. You hold a chewed pencil in hand, and upon the documents on the desk you doodle—perhaps flowers, perhaps dragons, perhaps rough impressions of male genitals. I ask you to imagine all of this because I am about to take you back to school.
The Gentle Tundras only received this name after the old kings fell. These were a cruel, tyrannical bunch, but I won’t go into any more detail on these people because they don’t deserve your time, and this isn't about them. What I want to talk to you about is what happened after the kingdoms fell. Some of this I knew already, and some of this I learned over the next few days from Yua, who—by virtue of her privileged position in society—had far better education than I’d had the opportunity to receive. She was generous in sharing it.
After the old kingdoms fell, there was talk of the orcs in the north, or the Goldmarch in the south—already established by this point—sweeping in to take over management of the region. But, of course, this never happened, and it happened because the new leaders—champions of the uprising—understood the Tundras like the kings never could.
They knew that the Tundras could survive based on one resource alone: the ample, strong timber that grew in the region. They collectively set up trade routes with their neighbours to the north and south, and even with the elves, two seas away. They would trade this timber for the one thing they’d never be able to produce enough of: food. The soil simply didn’t support wheat and other staple crops in the same way that it could support the old, established forests. Through these trade routes, the people of the broken kingdoms were able to support themselves. More than that: thanks to the food imports, they even flourished, at least for a few decades.
It was these very same food imports that we now attacked.
Over the past few weeks, we—that is, the Slayers, the dryads and the few soldiers that Yua had already recruited—had been involved in skirmishes all across the southwestern Tundras. We’d fought Goldmarch soldiers, all of whom had been marching east, though in the last few days we’d barely encountered any. It had been good to not be outnumbered, for once, and so the battles had been fairly one-sided, and I’d been able to level up Worldbending and Knifework once each as a result.
When we’d finally arrived at the outskirts of Aptleed, Yua—the only ex-leader with us, who had insisted on travelling with us for recruitment purposes—had instructed us to scout out the city for a while. In particular, she wanted us to scout out any trade going in or out of the walled city. She was satisfied when Orjkan’s soldiers reported “the usual” in terms of imports, which meant that Niamh had relied on Duke Cambelny’s old methods of keeping the people fed.
If we interrupted that, then… well, Yua was pretty sure that the people of Aptleed would no longer be able to bear their new leader, and the revolution might have a chance of seizing one of the major cities back to their cause. From there, they could raise an army. But it would take time.
We crouched now in a wheat field, half of us either side of the main road, awaiting our target. A few carts had passed us already, but they’d been heading out from the city rather than in, and besides, they’d carried timber rather than food. But if the scouts borrowed from Chancellor Orjkan were correct, one of the major trains of carts would be passing by shortly.
I looked to Arzak and Corminar at my side. We had orcish soldiers here too—Val and the dryads being on the other side of the road—but I was less interested in talking to them being that we’d found absolutely nothing in common. ‘Anyone else’s thighs starting to ache?’ I asked.
‘It has been a long while since I crouched for so long,’ Corminar agreed. ‘It almost takes me back to my days in the Dawnwoods. To the days of war.’ This was quite a change from the normal Corminar; he’d never mentioned the war before Aiwin and the elven diplomats had dragged it out of him, and now he seemed willing to bring up the subject of his own accord.
‘Less talk,’ Arzak whispered. ‘More concentrate.’
And she was right to call us out, because in the distance I heard wheels rumbling along the rocky road. Lots of them. This was it.
‘Wait until Val give signal,’ Arzak reminded us, though I was pleased to see that she was addressing the trained, disciplining soldiers as much as she was the two men complaining about crouching.
The rumbling wheels grew louder and closer, and I couldn’t help myself but open a portal next to me and in the sky above the convoy, so that I might get a look at what we were dealing with.
It was a good job that I did.
The food carts were just as expected—one or two drivers on each, a half dozen horses at their head, a full cart of vegetables and grains behind them. And enough of them, too, that it would affect Aptleed if they lost this batch. What we hadn’t anticipated was the Goldmarch soldiers riding at the front and rear of the pack.
‘Hm,’ Arzak grunted softly at my side, looking through the portal.
‘They hadn’t been protected before, right?’
‘They had not,’ Corminar agreed. ‘Perhaps we must retreat and regroup?’
‘No time for this. Too close. And plan must go ahead anyway.’
I closed the portal. The soldiers were getting close, now, and I didn’t want anything tipping them off to our presence. ‘Niamh,’ I said. ‘She must have anticipated this attack. Maybe she got reports of our presence, and figured this was the obvious weakness in her position? Cambelny and Yua did say she was smart.’
Arzak said her eyebrows in agreement, but kept her eyes fixed on the road. As she said, it changed nothing; we still had a job to do.
The convoy grew closer, and I gripped my knife with one hand. At my side, Corminar nocked an arrow in his bow.
It grew closer still, and Arzak and the orcish soldiers rose ever so slightly from their crouches.
And before long, it was upon us. On the other side of the road, Val stood up, shouting for us to attack, and Corminar released the first shot. As it hit the first soldier square in the chest, a soldier riding the first merchant carriage pushed a glowing stone into the air, and then something exploded.
* * *
Val dragged me back into the cover of the wheat, desperately healing my wounds. I could barely make her out, my vision blurry and black, the ringing in my ears drowning out whatever she was saying. I blinked down at my stomach, finding it covered in red, and it took me a moment to realise I was covered in blood. My blood.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
‘Hold still, idiot!’ I just about made out, and I did as Val instructed, going limp against a low stone wall.
‘What… happened?’
‘Niamh was ready for us,’ Val said, a yellow-white glow flowing from her hands and into my body, making me feel all tingly. ‘Set a trap. They…’
I realised then that the fight was still going. I could hear the cries of soldiers and the clink of blade against blade. ‘Is everyone else…?’
‘Last I checked, they’re fine. Left Lore lying somewhere in the field, but he was alive, and stable. Arzak and Corminar… they’re still out there.’
I moved to stand. ‘We should help.’
‘Woah, no. I’m going to make sure you don’t die or anything, but you’re not going to be fighting until we can get one of Corminar’s health potions in you.’
Val moved to leave, but I reached out to grab her arm. ‘Styk, I can’t stay here to coddle—’
‘No. Not that. Just…’ I shook my head. ‘Go. I’ll do it myself.’ As Val rushed off into the fray once more, I tried to pull myself up onto the low stone wall that demarcated the wheat field. As soon as I did so, a soaring pain erupted in my stomach and side, and I realised that it wasn’t going to be possible.
So instead I did what I always do, and resorted to portals.
I placed a hand on the ground below me, and fell through the resulting portal onto the top of the wall, where I landed with enough force that I felt the soaring pain once more, if only for a moment. Up from my new position, I had a view of the battlefield that lay before me.
On the left-hand side of the road, Arzak, Corminar and the remaining orcish solders faced down Goldmarch soldiers, while the dryads continued to attack from the right. All of them looked worse for wear, and it was only that we were outflanking our enemy that meant we even stood a chance, it seemed.
To turn the tide of the fight some more, I opened a portal below one of the soldiers, launching her into the air, and I turned away to avoid seeing the resulting splat. I flicked my hand around to the next, but these soldiers were clearly highly trained, because they’d seen what had just happened from their colleague and learned from it. The soldier I’d aimed at swiftly repositioned his body to grab at the nearest cart, stopping him from falling through and instead swinging himself atop the cart to avoid the portal completely.
Alright, then. Time to switch it up.
I opened another portal, but this time positioned it underneath one of the food transport carts, aiming to dump the cart on top of the soldiers. But of course… my portals weren’t that big. All I managed was to put the back wheels halfway through the portal, sloping the back of the cart down, all its carried cabbages rolling to one side. I closed the portal again, portal slicing through the wheels—that cart wouldn’t be going anywhere fast, at least—and one of the two wheel segments fell on top of one of the soldier’s heads. This distraction allowed the dryads to overwhelm them with their petal attacks, and they screamed as they were sliced.
Right then, looking at the tilted carriage, I had an idea. ‘Corminar!’ I shouted. ‘Corminar!’ But he couldn’t hear me over the noise of the fight. I opened up a portal at my side instead, paired with one near Corminar, and shouted through it. ‘Corminar! The hinges on the back of the cart. For unloading. You think you can hit them?’
‘May I ask your plan?’ Corminar replied.
‘Cabbages. Get the soldiers ready to charge.’
‘When?’ the ranger asked, loosing an arrow into the carriage hinge.
‘Now!’ I closed the portals between us and instead opened another—at the back of the tilted carriage, just below where all the cabbages were rolling out of the cart. With the opening of another portal, I rained down cabbages upon the enemy.
Corminar and the orcs charged into battle, seizing the advantage of the enemies being pelted by heavy vegetable rain, and it wasn’t long until the Tundran Resistance had its first meaningful victory.
9 x Goldmarch soldiers defeated!
Worldbending — +4,600xp
Worldbending increased to level 41!
Base Points gained — +2 INT, +2 Free Points (INT/WIS/CHA)
Knifework — +3,750xp
Knifework increased to level 32!
Base Points Gained — +1 DEX, +1 STR, +2 Free Points (VIT/DEX/STR)
Level up!
You increased to level 15!
Cheers erupted around the street, the merchant—neutral in this—wondering what we might do to them. But there wasn’t time to celebrate too much; there was still a lot of work to be done.
"Styk"
Level 15 Bladespinner
Base Stats:
Vitality — 34
Intelligence — 145
Dexterity — 84
Strength — 67
Wisdom — 48
Charisma — 33
Skills:
Worldbending — Level 41
Knifework — Level 32
Stealth — Level 15
Needlework — Level 12
Identification — Level 10
Abilities:
Slice — Slice the enemy for physical damage worth weapon’s base damage and additional damage scaling on [STR].
Stab III — Put your weight behind your wielded blade and force the tip through tougher hides and armour. Damage scales on [STR], increased by an additional 50%.
Execution II — Attack a target while undetected for +200% damage.
Closed Reach — Bend reality to narrow the gap between blade and target by up to 8 inches. Uses mana.
Mana-Fuelled — Passive. Optionally, use mana in place of stamina to activate Knifework abilities.
Local Portal II — Create a portal to another location within current range of sight or within a ten yard radius. Uses mana/second.
Portal Slice — Passive. Portals can now be spawned within non-sentient objects. Doing so slices through all objects that are not reinforced by magic.
Tamed Portals — Passive. Increased efficiency of portal magicks means that your portal glow is reduced by 50%, making them less likely to be detected by enemies.
Ash Husk — Convert your flesh to ash, strengthening it against flame for ten minutes. Gain 50% resistance to fire attacks.
Shrill Perimeter — Create a perimeter wall of 20 foot radius, invisible to all but those adept in magicks. If an enemy crosses this perimeter, this spell releases the shriek of a banshee.
Warped Shield — Passive. If an enemy strikes you with a low-level melee weapon, Warp Shield automatically activates to open a portal that deflects this attack. You must not have any portals currently active. Uses mana on activation.
Pocket Worlds — Open and access pocket dimensions. Storage capacity of summoned pocket worlds scales with [INT] of creator.
Stealth Attack II — Passive. 80% boost to damage when unnoticed by enemy.
In Plain Sight — When activated, you have a heightened abilitiy to hide in plain sight, and are able to spot opportunities to break from combat at a higher rate. Scales on [WIS].
Stitch — Create a basic stitch in common fabrics. Ability scales on [CHA].
Cloth Armour — Craft a cloth armour of higher quality, dependent on materials, time and skill level.
Active Effects:
Legacy of Sisyphus:
XP gain increased by +900%