‘Any thoughts?’ I asked the two other Slayers who were standing at my side in the midst of this huge crowd.
‘I assume a well-placed arrow in this moment is out of the question?’ the ranger replied.
I shook my head. ‘Not unless you can guarantee that you could kill him in one hit.’ Corminar opened his mouth, inevitably to say that he could, so I quickly continued, ‘And not unless you can guarantee there aren’t wards around to block the hit. I don’t want hundreds of Soldiers chasing us down; even with my portals, I don’t know if I’d be able to get us out of that one.’
The ranger sighed. ‘Then we must scout. Monitor his habits. Discover where and when he is alone.’
I nodded. ‘Agreed. Lore, anything to add?’
The barbarian blinked at us. ‘Sorry, I got distracted. What we saying?’
‘We’re gonna follow him.’
‘Works for me!’
We looked back at the Player, huge grin on his face as he continued to speak enthusiastically to the woman who had handed him the oversized “key to the city”. He was saying something about the great and important work he’d done, how he was Westbara’s saviour, blah blah blah… I wasn’t really listening.
‘He’s… not moving any time soon, is he?’ Lore asked.
‘No,’ Corminar replied.
‘Tavern?’ I asked, nodding to one on the edge of the town square.
‘Tavern,’ both the ranger and the barbarian agreed.
We pushed through the crowd towards the tavern, taking care to weave around any soldiers in gold uniform who might recognise us. At the edge of the crowd, I looked around for any more guards, but the only ones in sight were busy kicking a man who was already on the ground. At least… they were distracted?
I hurried across the open space to the tavern door, Corminar close behind me, and then we turned to find that Lore had stopped. His eyes were on a shop next door, one that catered towards people organising fetes and fairs. ‘Are you coming?’ I asked.
‘Get me a beer, I’ll be there in a pop.’
Corminar and I looked to each other and shrugged, then entered the tavern. This close to the city centre, the taverns were busy, so when I spotted a free table I hurried over to grab it. ‘This round on you?’ I asked Corminar.
He looked as though he was about to refuse, but then he shrugged and disappeared to join the mass at the bar.
While I waited, I sat and looked around at the big city folk in the tavern, those with fancy—and clean!—outfits, freshly trimmed hair, and the occasional ornate weapon. We could have lived like that if we’d wanted to, admittedly—Val seemed to have a never-ending supply of coin—but we had a more important purpose.
My heart dropped as I thought of Val again. I’d known she wouldn’t take the news about my Player ancestry well, but I’d thought she of all people would understand that you were more than your blood. I’d thought maybe she’d be in a huff for a few days, or we’d have an argument. I didn’t think she would disappear entirely. I almost felt… angry that she’d had this reaction? Like I deserved more. I may not have ended up being one of the heroes who saved Sunalor—because, well, nobody saved Sunalor—but we’d still done plenty of good in the world. We’d taken down two evil Players. We were heroes. So why wasn’t that more important than where I’d come from?
Lore arrived at the table first, and when he did so, he was wearing a pointy paper hat, tied by a string under his chin.
‘What… are you wearing?’ I asked.
He blinked back at me. ‘A party hat.’
‘OK. Why are you wearing a party hat?’
‘It’s my birthday.’
It was my turn to blink with surprise. ‘Oh. Why didn’t you say anything? We’ll get a few beers in, celebrate properly.’
Lore shrugged. ‘Didn’t wanna make a big deal out of it. And we’ve got other stuff on our plates, haven’t we?’
I nodded in agreement, though I felt a little guilty about it. Maybe I should have bought him a present or something. Could I afford to lose more friends?
When Corminar returned, grasping a triangle of glasses between two hands, we had to have the same conversation again.
‘Your hat…’ he said, placing the beers down. ‘Is it…?’
‘It’s a party hat,’ I replied.
Corminar didn’t take his eyes off the hat. ‘And, may I ask, why—’
‘It’s his birthday,’ I said, at the same time that Lore said, ‘It’s my birthday.’
The elf paused for a moment. ‘I see. Perhaps after we deal with this so-called Councilman, I will purchase a cake.’
Damn. I should have offered that.
We sipped our beers, one of us occasionally peering outside to see when the Councilman was finished. The crowd was slowly evaporating, but from what we could tell, the Councilman himself was taking a lot of joy from giving a long, long speech.
‘Probably shouldn’t have another, should we?’ I asked as I drank the last of the beer. ‘Want to have clear heads when we—’
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
‘He’s moving,’ Lore suddenly noticed.
We rose from the table and hurried out of the tavern, spilling onto the street—one of us still wearing a silly hat.
‘Should probably take that off,’ I told Lore. ‘Makes you stand out to the guards.’
‘No, I’ve thought about this, it’s a disguise, see? If they start looking for a guy with a party hat on, I just… take it off. Then I’ll be invisible to them.’
I considered this for a moment, and then shrugged; I couldn’t find any flaw in that logic.
We waited for the Councilman to finally finish his speech, in awe of his ability to ignore just how much the crowd was dwindling. Finally, bowed deeply, long and drawn-out, and the ceremony was finally over. When the Councilman departed, he was flanked by a half dozen rather large soldiers in the golden uniform of the empire, and so we kept our distance; now that there were only three of us, we wouldn’t be able to handle so many.
The Councilman traversed the city streets with these soldiers at his side, and I’d expected him to keep to the inner city, where the rich and the powerful lived. But instead, he tore off to the west, towards the… well, “slums” might not be the right word, but it wasn’t the wrong word either.
Out here, the number of weapons we saw grew greater, and none of them, now, were ornate. But still, people knew better than to mess with the soldiers of the empire; even if they were to pick a fight and win, they’d then have to deal with the whole of the city watch coming down on them.
That didn’t stop people eyeing up us, though, and it took Lore growling at a couple of people—even with the party hat, yes—to warn them off. Eventually, the Councilman turned down a dark alley, and we approached the end of it, peering around the corner, to see what he was up to.
In the alley, facing down the weedy Councilman and his much broader entourage, were three people: a young half-tiefling, half-human woman with a smirk on her face; a large warrior man who would have put us to shame if we didn’t have Lore with us; and a very tall woman with a metal contraption on her forearm. It was to the half-tiefling woman that the Councilman spoke, though we couldn’t quite make out what he was saying. Not for the first time, I regretted picking Enhanced Portals over Portal Relay when we’d defeated Niamh, though admittedly the former had come in handy too.
‘What are they saying?’ I asked.
‘Dunno, can’t hear,’ Lore replied. ‘Cor?’
‘You two talking is not helping matters,’ the ranger replied. ‘I believe they are speaking of… a deal? Though it is not clear if they are making or resolving said deal.’
The Councilman turned away, his guards doing the same, and we yanked our heads back around the corner. I searched around us for a spot to hide, and finally saw another shallow alley over the road. I portalled us over and out of sight just before the Councilman and guards turned the corner.
‘What do we think, keep following?’ I asked.
Corminar nodded his agreement, and we turned the corner back out onto the street a few seconds after our targets passed. We kept slow, increasing the gap between us and the Councilman so we wouldn’t be spotted, and—
A metal dart—for lack of a better word—shot out from the original alley and landed squarely in the centre of Lore’s party hat, pinning it to the wall of a nearby building. He struggled with the string as he tried to whip it off before it strangled him.
I snapped my head towards the source of the dart, and spotted the tall woman, who had raised the metal contraption on her arm. She was flanked by the two others we’d seen in the alley.
‘Why are you spying on us?’ the metal-arm woman asked. ‘The Councilman may not have noticed, but we sure as well do.’
‘And why are you wearing that, anyway?’ the half-tiefling asked, nodding to the party hat nailed into the wall.
‘It’s his birthday,’ Corminar and I explained simultaneously.
‘Happy birthday. Why’re you spending it eavesdropping? Or is this how you boys like to celebrate?’ She clicked her fingers, and with that, a familiar purple glow burst into life beneath her feet. The woman fell deftly through it, landing at my side, and then whispered into my ear. ‘If you’re looking for a fight, you’ve got one.’
Before I could react, the woman kicked my leg behind my knee, dropping me to the floor. I spun around with my dagger, but it hit only air—the woman had disappeared through a portal once more.
Another metal dart shot out of the tall woman’s device, clipping Lore in the shoulder with enough force that he staggered backwards, and Corminar drew his bow on the other stranger, now charging at him.
It looked as though we had a fight on our hands.
"Styk"
Level 18 Bladespinner
Base Stats:
Vitality — 50
Intelligence — 192
Dexterity — 109
Strength — 76
Wisdom — 70
Charisma — 41
Skills:
Worldbending — Level 51
Knifework — Level 39
Stealth — Level 22
Identification — Level 18
Needlework — Level 16
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].
Enhanced Portals — Create a portal to another location within current range of sight or within a thirty yard radius. Support up to two pairs of portals at once. Uses mana to open portals only.
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.
Silence III — Create a bubble of 20 yard radius in which sound is eradicated. Uses mana to cast, zero mana to maintain. You may only have one bubble active at any one time.
Stealth Attack III — Passive. 200% 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].
Improved Cloth Armour — Craft a cloth armour of significantly higher quality, dependent on materials, time and skill level.
Active Effects:
Legacy of Sisyphus:
XP gain increased by +1,400%