I winced as Sulla’s axe came tumbling down towards me. In that fraction of a second, there wasn’t enough time to block. There wasn’t enough time to do much of anything, except wait for the inevitable. I could only hope I’d inherited enough Vitality from Arzak that I was going to survive the hit—even without armour.
I closed my eyes, preparing myself for the pain, and—
I fell.
Opening my eyes, I saw Lore’s outstretched arms rushing up to meet me as I fell towards the floor. He caught me, found me too heavy, and then dropped me to the floor after all. I didn’t like what this said about the number of Strength points he’d inherited from me.
‘That’s more like it, buddy,’ I said, looking up at him from the floor, and he responded with a thumbs up and a goofy grin.
‘Watch out!’ Val shouted, and I rolled to the right just in time to avoid Sulla’s flailing axe.
I raised my hands, and… realised I’d dropped the swords when I’d fallen through the portal. Sulla approached, crazed eyes fixed on me, arrow after arrow hitting her in the back, swinging her axe closer and closer with every second. I retreated backwards, towards the wall, my every instinct being to activate a portal to get me out of this mess, but of course… that wasn’t possible. I flashed Lore a meaningful, wide-eyed look, and he tried to activate a portal beneath me, but lightning didn’t strike twice—unpracticed at magicks, he missed again.
He’d saved me once, but very quickly I found myself pinned down again, this time with my back against a wall. I needed to think quickly. I needed to find some ability that Arzak had that I could use to get out of this. I needed—
Active Effect: Class Swap
Minutes remaining: 0 / 0
Effect removed!
—portals.
I smiled, and fear flashed through Sulla’s eyes. She’d realised what had happened. She realised she’s messed up, wasting time, not pressing the attack quickly enough.
Her advantage was gone.
Just as her swinging axe was about to meet my face, I opened a portal beneath us, and we both fell through, landing at Lore’s feet. Arzak, moving quickly, reached for the Bane Sword and tossed it the way of the barbarian, who swung it down, holding it still only a fraction of an inch from the enemy’s neck.
Level 18 council advisor defeated!
Worldbending — +750xp
Worldbending increased to level 43!
Base Points gained — +2 INT, +2 Free Points (INT/WIS/CHA)
A shame; that was a pitiful amount of experience points. Though I realised I couldn’t exactly get experience for my two-handed attacks if I didn’t have that skill tree unlocked any more. At least it had been enough for a level-up.
I turned my attention to Sulla, who was now totally restrained by means of three swords pointing at her head. ‘Drop the axe.’
She did so without needing to be asked twice.
I saw the yellow-white glow of Healing magicks out of the corner of my eye, followed by Val bringing herself to her feet. She hadn’t suffered that much damage then, just more than Corminar had been able to figure out how to fix. Val turned her attention next to the big wound in the ranger’s back.
‘I’ll ask you again: where is she?’ I demanded of Sulla.
‘I tell you: not here,’ Sulla spat back at me. She’d surrendered, then, but she wasn’t going to give up any information that easily.
I sighed. ‘You know, I don’t think that trap was all that good. You had all these threats at first, and you were all intimidating and such, and now… well, I just don’t think you followed through on those promises.’
Sulla spat upwards at me, but at my height it didn’t reach me.
‘Unless… you didn’t know what it did?’ I suggested. ‘You just knew that Niamh had set a trap there, but she’d never told you what it did? Does she often keep stuff from you?’
This time, the orc didn’t react. Though she didn’t show it on her face, I suspected she was considering my words carefully.
‘Was it intentional, do you think? Did she mean to leave you in the dark? Or did she simply not bother to tell you?’
‘Not sure which worse,’ Arzak added, nodding along. ‘Must be hard not be trusted.’ She understood what was going on here, then. I was playing the bad guard, while she—a fellow orc—would play the good. Someone that Sulla might open up to.
‘Do you even know where she is, your boss?’ I asked. ‘Or did she not bother to tell you that, either?’
‘I know where she is!’ Sulla insisted.
I shook my head. ‘She doesn’t know,’ I said, directing this over my shoulder at Val. ‘See, I told you she—’
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
‘I know!’ the enemy orc said again.
‘You not convince unless you say,’ Arzak offered. ‘She here, yes?’
‘Pfft. Why this?’
‘Because she would need to control her operations in the Tundras from somewhere, wouldn’t she?’ I said. ‘And I don’t exactly think a ship is the best place to do it.’
At this, the orc on the floor tipped her head back and laughed. I could almost see tears forming in her eyes. ‘She did say you stupid. You Lore, yes?’
‘Hey!’ Lore exclaimed.
‘...Oh,’ Sulla said. ‘You are Styk then?’ Sulla didn’t wait for me to confirm. ‘She say you stupid, but I not believe it. Nobody can be this stupid, I say. But she right! You think all this is about Tundras still? This never about Tundras. Tundras just have wood we need.’
I narrowed my eyes. If I hadn’t heard the way Sulla had said this, I’d have thought she was lying. But this woman spoke like she had nothing to lose, like we were so far from the mark that she risked nothing by speaking the truth. ‘What do you mean, this isn’t about the Tundras? You just wanted the wood?’
‘You not see our ships? Big Goldmarch fleet. No fleet of this size seen for ages.’
‘We saw the fleet. It was about control of the Tundras—interrupting food transport links, starving us into submission.’
Sulla laughed again—a bold move for someone with so many sword points to her neck. ‘Nobody care about Tundras. Nobody invade Tundras for generations, and know why? Because no point. Nothing to gain.’
‘You gained something.’
‘True. We gain wood. For ships.’
‘And the ships are for…?’ I asked, but I could sense I was losing her. I’d lost my advantage; she thought all of us fools now.
Sulla stared up at me, and smiled. I found this infuriating.
‘Tell me what the ships are for, or we’ll turn your neck into a bloody hedgehog.’ When Sulla looked up at me, confused, I clarified, ‘...Cos it’ll be spiky. Cos of the swords in it.’
The orc nodded. ‘Right.’
‘Still not telling us?’
Sulla stared up at me again, and at this, Arzak suddenly decided to smash her in the head with the pommel of her sword.
I blinked at her. ‘What… did you just do?’
‘Knock her out,’ the orc said. ‘I learn it from Lore.’
Lore nodded knowingly.
‘And so what is it that you suppose we do next?’ Corminar asked, staring on at the unconscious orc.
Arzak shrugged. ‘She not speaking.’
‘Well of course she’s not now!’ Val cried.
‘Not before, not now. But now nobody annoying me.’ Arzak gestured around the room. ‘We in command centre. We look around.’
I sighed; the whole point of interrogating this woman had been to avoid having to actually look around. After all, someone could stumble inside at any moment and raise the alarm. But I supposed there was no other option now.
I shifted to the side of the carved wooden table, staring down at the little models of ships with markers for the sailors standing upon them. They were sailing east, just as we’d seen them do in real life. Between them, there was enough to disrupt trade all across the Iron Sea, to hold the Gentle Tundras in Niamh’s grasp.
Of course, Sulla had claimed they had no interest in the Tundras any more.
Behind me, the rest of the team ruffled through paperwork. Lore tossed a big pile onto the floor. When everyone looked at him, eyebrow raised, he explained, ‘Tax returns.’
I stared back down at the ships, the vessels with such power that they were driving creatures like cephalopods out of the water. Surely Sulla was just lying to us, trying to throw us off the scent. Because what was the alternative? What else could this fleet do?
A chill ran down my spine when I noticed a model under my right hand, in the south-east.
The Great Golden Canal Project. The canal network that connected the Iron Sea to the Sea of Roots, enabling trade all the way from the Tundras to the Dawnwoods—a project sponsored by Queen Amira herself, in a display of gratitude to her supposed future allies.
Only, there was another way of looking at it, wasn’t there?
You could send trade ships through the Goldmarch-controlled canals, yes. But you could also send warships. And when your shipyards were so far north, how could anyone at or beyond the canals expect the oncoming sea force?
This was an invasion, yes, but it really wasn’t the Tundras that Amira wanted.
It was the Dawnwoods.
‘Guys,’ I said. ‘I think we’ve messed up.’
"Styk"
Level 16 Bladespinner
Base Stats:
Vitality — 44
Intelligence — 154
Dexterity — 101
Strength — 73
Wisdom — 57
Charisma — 33
Skills:
Worldbending — Level 43
Knifework — Level 36
Stealth — Level 19
Needlework — Level 12
Identification — Level 11
Abilities:
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.
Knifestorm — Lash out at all surrounding enemies in a tornado of blades, using either one or two daggers. All enemies with arm’s reach receive physical damage worth weapon’s base damage and additional damage scaling on [STR].
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%