Part XIII: The Battle For Sunalor

Two Goldmarch ships were anchored at the canal.

For what it’s worth, the Great Golden Canal Project was something to behold. I’d never been to this stretch of coastline on the southeast of the Iron Sea before, but I imagined it once looked like every other near-deserted bit of coastline in this part of the world, so close to the Badlands. But now there were two walls of shining white rock, imported from some faraway land, that seemed to part the land itself. Between these two massive walls was a giant metal gate, ornately designed. I supposed that this project was supposed to look like a diplomatic effort, and so no expense could be spared on such important things as aesthetics.

And there, before this great metal gate, were two imperial warships, like those we’d commandeered and were at this very moment sailing aboard.

‘Wish my portals were bigger,’ I mumbled.

‘What, you wanna stuff those ship in a pocket world?’ Val asked, standing at my side at the prow of the ship.

‘That or just portal our fleet past them. That’d be handy, wouldn’t it?’

Val looked around at the six other ships, eyebrows raised. ‘Handy, sure. A little overpowered to be possible, though, don’t you think?’

I shrugged. ‘With the artifact, who knows how strong I’ll get?’ I left out the part where I hadn’t necessarily agreed to let Val kill Niamh—I did want that experience boost, after all.

‘Besides, what about the rest of the Thorn ships that are coming? Best we fight and clear the path.’

I sighed; I knew there was a lot of fighting in my near-future, and I hadn’t anticipated it starting here and now. ‘Guess so.’

Val turned to Elandor, still aboard our ship—and not letting Corminar out of his sight for a second—and nodding him over. He joined us at the front of the ship, along with the rest of the Slayers. ‘Any thoughts?’

‘Two ships?’ Elandor asked, eyebrow raised. ‘This is hardly enough to be concerned. We shall surely triumph.’

‘Well, yeah, but any thoughts on how we do it without losing anyone?’ the witch asked.

Corminar opened his mouth to back Val up. ‘We will require every last soldier if we are to turn the tide of war.’

Elandor remained quiet, his eyes fixed on the enemy ships that we were rapidly approaching. As I followed his gaze, a thought occurred to me.

‘I do have… one idea,’ I said.

* * *

The Red Thorn ships furled their sails, slowing down their pace, while our ship—once again hosting only the Slayers, Elandor this time allowing Corminar out of his sight—approached the enemy. With only five people aboard, there was reduced chances of significant losses. The flip side, however, was that there was an increase change of losing the five people still aboard—which included me. So I had a pretty vested interest in my plan working out.

‘You ready, bud?’ Lore asked.

‘Yeah, are they “in sight” enough for you yet?’ Val smirked, and from her expression I took that she was just teasing; she didn’t really have any doubts.

I studied the ships we were rapidly approaching, and nodded. ‘Get ready to raise the sails.’ Val and Lore hurried off to join Arzak and Corminar at the ropes, and I raised my hands.

‘Do it!’ I shouted, and immediately the team began to slow the ship, while I set about executing my plan. I stretched a hand towards the hull of the nearest enemy vessel, and I activated portal slice.

…Nothing happened.

‘Is it working?’ Val cried out. ‘I don’t see any holes in the hulls.’

‘Yes, I know.’ I tried again; maybe I’d missed.

‘Still nothing!’

‘Thanks for the update.’ I’d failed to consider something, clearly. My portal slice ability only worked on objects that weren’t reinforced by magic. But if the hulls were enchanted to withstand damage… this ability wouldn’t work. ‘Stop raising the sails!’ I shouted.

‘If we not raise sails now, we move in attack range,’ Arzak pointed out.

‘That’s the idea.’

‘That not good idea,’ the orc added.

‘The hulls are reinforced. I can’t slice them. But if we get within ten yards…’ I let the rest of the team fill in the gap. Three of the Slayers nodded knowingly.

‘If we get within ten yards, what?’ Lore asked.

I blinked at him. ‘...Then I can open a portal beneath the deck. Pour the water in. Like we did with the pyroknight.’

‘Oh, right. Yeah.’

Once again, I regretted not upgrading Local Portal II when I had the chance. It would have been really nice not to need to be ten yards away, right about now. The team began to raise the sails when we were much, much closer, until the momentum threatened to cause us to crash. I shouldn’t have been worried, though, because our ship stopped quickly—but these two enemy vessels wouldn’t be very good guards if they didn’t come to attack. And that’s exactly what they did.

‘Ready? Again?’

‘Yes, Val.’

The other members of the Slayers raised their weapons to attack, and I stretched a hand towards the bottom deck of the enemy ship. ‘Got it!’ I shouted, as I opened one portal in the ship and one in the Iron Sea.

None of the Goldmarch soldiers aboard noticed, because they were distracted by the other four members of the Slayers hopping onto their ship. With a great leap—and really wishing that I could use my portals to get across—I joined them. All we needed to do was distract them long enough that their ship was sunk, and at the rate that I knew water came through my portals… that wasn’t going to be very long.

‘How dare you—’ the captain started, eyes bulging, before Corminar released an arrow that landed squarely in the middle of his forehead.

And then twenty soldiers of the Goldmarch—fortunately a small contingent—were upon us. Lore and Arzak stood at the forefront of our group, defending us against the worst of the attacks, while Val sent powerful gusts of wind blasting the encroaching soldiers backwards and Corminar loosed arrow after arrow, slowing or felling the enemies.

I stood at the back with my knife, and concentrated on keeping the portal open; if I got hurt, I could lose my focus, and the portals would close.

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At the far side of the ship, I saw a man, paling, stagger up onto the deck, into the midst of a fight.

‘Err… boss?’ said the soldier who’d just come up.

‘Boss dead,’ an orcish soldier grunted back.

‘OK, well… we’re sinking. Pretty fast.’

I glanced back to our ship, but found that it had drifted away; we weren’t getting back aboard without my portals, and I couldn’t close the current ones until the job was done. But the other enemy ship was approaching, and that one, we might just be able to reach.

‘Lore, Arzak!’ I shouted. ‘The mast!’ I pointed to the approaching ship, and they nodded their understanding. The barbarian swung his Bane Sword hard into the side of the mast, chipping away at it with every strike, until he stepped back. Corminar and Val stepped up their attacks for just a moment to fend off the enemies while the largest two Slayers ran at the mast, hitting it with their shoulders. The remaining wood splintered, and the mast began to fall, towards the enemy ship, sail ropes snapping from the weight and flying towards enemy soldiers, who ducked to avoid them. All of the ropes snapped except for one—which held the mast tantalisingly close to falling on the other ship.

Corminar reacted first. He swung his bow upwards, pointing it towards the rope, and one arrow later, the mast fell—squarely onto the other enemy ship.

‘Go!’ I shouted, and we jumped onto the fallen mast, sprinting delicately across it to the other ship, where twenty more soldiers were waiting for us.

Arzak, first onto the mast, leaped off with a roar, bringing her two swords down into the deck, sending splinters of wood into the soldiers around her. This helped clear a spot for the rest of us aboard this ship—and not the sinking one—but this time around we didn’t have the advantage of surprise.

The enemy were organised, and their captain barked strict orders to the sailors, which they followed without question. This put their strongest fighters at the front, with the archers delivering arrows in waves, making it harder for us to block.

‘Any time now, Styk!’ Val cried out, voice a bit shaky.

‘I haven’t got portals yet! They’re not—’

15x Goldmarch sailors defeated!

Worldbending — +2,800xp

Worldbending increased to level 44!

Base Points gained — +2 INT, +2 Free Points (INT/WIS/CHA)

It was a disappointingly small amount of experience, considering how many enemies I’d “defeated”. But of course that was because I’d thrown them into the water—killing them would have been worth a lot more. I still got another Worldbending level out of it, and in this moment—with another ship to sink—I could be happy with that.

‘OK, scratch that!’ I shouted, and I shifted the portals from the first ship to the second. Based on how quickly the first ship had gone down—and this one being built to the same specifications—we just needed to last around three minutes. That, surely, we could do.

Arzak and Lore were forced backward by the encroaching enemies, unable to fend them all off at once. Between Corminar, Val and myself, I was the next most able to manage being hit—what with my Warped Shield ability—and so I could see exactly what needed to happen next. I stepped forward, towards my two larger friends, and kept part of my focus on the portal filling up the hold with water.

‘Styk, what are you…’ It was almost touching to hear the note of concern in Val’s voice.

‘Buying some time!’ I stepped between Arzak and Lore, weapon raised, and I activated a newly acquired skill that I hadn’t had the opportunity to use yet—Knifestorm. Was this really why I was throwing myself into trouble? I didn’t know, and there wasn’t exactly time to give it much thought, all things considered.

I threw myself towards the nearest two enemies as I activated the ability, spinning on the spot and lashing out at the soldiers, landing hit after hit after hit after—

Another, third, soldier caught my arm and stopped me turning, the other two writhing on the floor from their many wounds.

‘Uh-oh. Lore?’

The barbarian swung his blade into the soldier who had just grabbed me, leaving only an arm with its fingers wrapped around me. I shook it off and tried to ignore the rising nausea and the Knifework experience notification.

‘How long?’ Arzak asked, her voice strained with the energy of—just about—fending off the attacks of three Goldmarch sailors at once.

‘Should be nearly there!’ I replied, retreating back to behind the meat shield that was Lore. Not that he was only that, obviously.

‘And yet not a one of them seems to have noticed?’ Corminar said.

‘True,’ the orc replied, then turned back to the soldiers she was fighting off. ‘You should look down in ship.’

Only one of the soldiers hesitated. ‘...Why?’

‘New cargo. Very wet.’

‘Did you not notice how low we are in the water?’ Val added.

More soldiers hesitated at this, enough that Lore and Arzak were able to stop retreating and still be able to fend off the attack. Which was pretty handy considering we were running out of space to retreat to.

‘Ship’s pretty far…’ Lore said.

I could, of course, portal us back to it, but that would mean close the current pair of portals, and the ship wasn’t quite sunk. But we couldn’t hold out much longer…

‘Styk?’ Lore asked. ‘You got anything?’

‘Yeah,’ I replied. ‘Catch me.’ At that, I closed the current portals and opened a new one beneath Val and Corminar’s feet, sending them tumbling back to the deck of our ship. Then I turned to do the same to Arzak and Lore and myself. ‘Bye!’ I said, with a wave, to the Goldmarch soldiers, before leaving them on their mostly sunk ship.

They weren’t going to go anywhere fast, of course, but there were enough rangers on board to potentially hurt anyone who came close—including us, right in that moment. It was far better to sink the ship entirely.

I opened a portal in the air above the top deck, that being the best I could do without being within ten yards of the lower decks, and I positioned the portals to blast down the open stairwell. Even as the many soldiers rushed to collect buckets and bail the water from their ship, it was too late.

23x Goldmarch sailors defeated!

Worldbending — +4,500xp

Worldbending increased to level 45!

Base Points gained — +2 INT, +2 Free Points (INT/WIS/CHA)

Ability selection unlocked

Select an ability from the list below:

…

Now, we were talking.

"Styk"

Level 16 Bladespinner

Base Stats:

Vitality — 44

Intelligence — 158

Dexterity — 101

Strength — 73

Wisdom — 57

Charisma — 33

Skills:

Worldbending — Level 45

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%