‘Ah,’ I said, drenched in blood.

‘Ah,’ Val echoed, also drenched in blood.

We looked from the disintegrated body, up to one another, and then at the room around us. Which was… well, you know, also drenched in blood.

I found myself frozen to the spot, unable to move. This crime scene was horrific on a scale to rival the tragedy of Plainside, if a little more of the victim’s making. Still, that didn’t seem to matter too much to my brain, which was at the time screaming something along the lines of, ‘Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!’

‘We…’ I started.

‘Should get out of here,’ Val finished.

‘Before more cultists arrive?’

Val shook her head. ‘Before the boardmistress sees what we’ve done to her room. She scares me.’

‘Agreed.’ I paced toward the door, and found that my feet squelched with every step. ‘We should…’ I started, gesturing to the pail of water in the corner of the room, next to a rusty old mirror.

‘Yes.’

Silently, Val and I shared the small bucket of water, washing the worst of the red from our faces, hair, and arms, only to soon realise that it was going to take a lot more doing than one bucket. We looked to one another, shrugged, and then faced the door once more.

‘Ready?’ Val asked.

‘Ready.’

We bolted through the door, squelched our way down the stairs, ran from the inn and never looked back.

* * *

We camped, instead, under the stars.

We’d found a nice spot next to a shallow river, just far enough away from the town of Tath that we wouldn’t be tracked down and told to pay a cleaning fee, while not so far that we were exhausted before we got there. Our skin stained as red as it was, we were lucky we didn’t encounter anyone on the roads at this late hour, as someone might take one look at us and think we were wearing the blood of an entire army. It really was something, how much blood could fit in one person.

As soon as we reached the riverbank, both of us began to strip down to our undergarments, neither of us apparently worried about the other seeing. For me—and likely Val as well—I would have paid any price to wash, at this point. We both hopped in, squealing and gasping as we plunged into the cold water, and set about scrubbing ourselves from head to toe.

Only once we were done did we turn in the water to make eye contact, at which point there was a brief, awkward pause, before Val splashed water over me. ‘I’m getting out. No looking.’

I held my hands up in the air to protest my innocence, to say that I had no intention of doing so, but I suspected that a woman as arrogant as Val wouldn’t believe me. Instead, I only ground my teeth together, bearing the cold a moment longer, and turned to face away.

Behind me, I heard an “urgh”, then a couple of snaps of wood, and then a soft orange light washed over me. At this cue, I turned to find a dressed Val huddling by a fire.

‘Were you gonna tell me you were done?’ I asked through shivering teeth.

Val shrugged. ‘It looked like you were enjoying yourself. Who am I to get in the way of that?’

I shook my head. ‘No looking.’

‘You aren’t the boss of me,’ came the reply.

‘But you just… You just said—’

‘Calm down, drippy boy. I won’t look. I have better things to look at than your wet arse.’

There really was no winning with women, sometimes. I pulled myself out of the water, hurried back to my clothes, and sat opposite Val at the fire. There was an almost unnatural warmth to it, one that didn’t seem to fit a fire of this fairly pathetic size, but I wasn’t exactly going to complain. Here, still in the foothills of the Bladerocks, the breeze had a mighty bite to it; any warmth would have done just fine.

‘Sleep,’ I eventually said, as my skin and clothes grew dry enough to not be grossly uncomfortable.

‘Yes.’

‘Who’s on first watch?’

The sorcerer looked across at me with a raised eyebrow. ‘...Neither of us?’

‘We’re in the middle of the woods, Val. What if we get attacked? Wolves and such?’

Val smiled. ‘Trust me. With me around, your days of worrying about wolves nibbling your toes while you sleep are long behind you.’

‘They don’t “nibble toes”, they—’

‘Eat faces, yes. Can we sleep now?’

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I shook my head to myself—a habit I’d learned quickly in the few days since meeting Val—and looked around for a flat patch of ground. ‘Where’d you learn this stuff, anyway? Were you one of them fancy academy students?’

‘For a time, sure,’ Val replied, and the answer caught me by surprise; this was the first real time she’d volunteered me anything about herself. ‘I was at Managlass Academy. But I had some abilities under my belt already, at that point.’

‘I’m not sure I can imagine you at an academy.’

‘And why not?’ the question had a snap to it, but I suspected Val was toying with me.

‘Did they have you wearing uniform robes? Doing morning prayers? Writing spells over and over on chalkboards? None of this really screams “Val” to me.’

‘Oh, and you know me so well, already, do you?’ Val retorted, but this time a small smile broke through. ‘No, you’re right. Me and the academics… we didn’t get on all that much.’

‘Why? Too fusty for you?’

‘Too theoretical.’

‘Ah.’

‘Yeah. I suppose I wanted to prove them all wrong about me, about what they suspected I was.’

I suppressed a laugh. ‘What did they think you were? A rogue? A cheat?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Why’d you leave, then?’

The small smile on Val’s face faded; something about this particular question brought forth painful memory. ‘A story for another time, maybe.’ Before I could get a word in, she continued, ‘What about you, knifeboy? How did you get into your line of work?’

‘Procurement?’

‘Sure, if you want to call it that. Most people call it “theft”, though.’

I raised my eyebrows; I’d been caught out. Yet Val didn’t seem all that worried about what I’d really been doing with my life. ‘Same as all of us crooks, really, I think. Came from a poor background. Didn’t have much education, many skills. Society didn’t seem like it had a place for me, so I… fell into it, I suppose?’

‘And just who did you “fall into it” with? A friend? A brother?’

‘My father. It’s what he’d done as long as I could remember. I was better at it than him, though. In my prime. By which I mean…’

‘Before your death.’

I nodded.

‘Do you still see him?’ Val asked.

‘My dad? Nah. He’s dead. Spent his last moments surrounded by dozens of his old acquaintances.’

‘Comforting him?’

‘Stabbing him.’

Val raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh.’

‘I suppose that’s the fate that most in my line of work meet. Me included.’

‘What about your mother? Is she around, still?’

I shook my head. ‘Never met her. From what Dad always told me, it was only one night. She passed through town, they… you know, did that thing that people don’t want to talk about their parents doing, and then she left on her next adventure. Came back nine months later and dropped a child on his doorstep.’

‘Thief blood and adventurer blood in you. We might make a player slayer of you yet.’

I tried a smile in response, but nothing came. All this talk of parents—or lack thereof—had formed a pit in my stomach. I tried to shift the conversation along. ‘What about you?’

‘My parents?’

‘Yeah.’

Val shrugged. ‘Don’t have any, either.’

‘They’ve passed? I’m sorry, I—’

‘No, they’re not dead,’ she responded. ‘At least, not as far as I know. They just… didn’t want me. Didn’t like how I turned out.’

‘Oh, that’s… that’s worse. I’m sorry. When did you last… see them?’

‘When I was seven. When I first…’ Val trailed off, her eyes fixed intensely on the fire. ‘Do you mind if we don’t talk about this?’

I paused. ‘Of course. Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. I just—’

‘No, it’s not that. It’s just… a sore spot, for me. That’s all. You weren’t to know.’ She offered me a sad smile—one that I returned in kind.

This vulnerability didn’t seem to fit with the Val I knew, it didn’t seem her style at all. But maybe all this ego and humour was just a—

‘I think it’s time I go to sleep, now,’ Val said, interrupting my pattern of thought. ‘Night.’ She laid down where she was, turning away from me and the fire.

I spent the next few minutes staring into the fire, thinking of my father. It had been a few years since he’d passed, and these days I didn’t think of him all that much. I wondered what that said about me—whether I’ve moved on, and whether this was the sort of thing you should move on from.

As Val drifted off to sleep, as announced by triumphant snores, I brought up my notifications once more—the one good thing that had happened as a result of the cultist assaulting us.

Knifework increased to level 8!

Base Points gained — +3 DEX, +3 STR, +6 Free Points (VIT/DEX/STR)

With my current Knifework abilities, Stab and Slice, both levelling with Strength, the choice was obvious, and I put all six of my free points into this base stat. In future, as I gained new abilities, both in Knifework and otherwise, this choice might not be so clear cut. For now, however, it was simple, and I took some kind of pleasure in that.

"Styk"

Level 5 Peasant

Base Stats:

Vitality — 2

Intelligence — 5

Dexterity — 11

Strength — 22

Wisdom — 8

Charisma — 0

Skills:

Knifework — Level 8

Identification — Level 4

Stealth — Level 1

Abilities:

Slice (Knifework) — Slice the enemy for physical damage worth weapon’s base damage and additional damage scaling on [STR].

Stab (Knifework) — Put your weight behind your wielded blade and force the tip through tougher hinds and armour. Damage scales on [STR].

Basic Stealth Attack (Stealth) — Passive. 10% boost to damage when unnoticed by enemy.

Basic Identification (Identification) — Discover basic attributes for a particular object or person. Ability scales with [WIS] + [INT].

Active Effects:

Legacy of Sisyphus:

XP gain increased by +400%