It was another two days before the gates of Carn rose before us—magnificent things made from the local ruby pines that these parts were so known for. At least, they were known for them before a wildfire had wiped most of them out, nearly a decade ago. That didn’t stop them from flying a red flag with a tree emblazoned upon it as their city’s sigil, though.
Val and I passed through the gates between two guards who were very clearly hungover, judging by their pallid skin and droopy eyes, and I wondered if we might have time to head to a local inn before we tracked down our orc “friend”. We wouldn’t, of course—only the gods knew if he was even still here—but that didn’t stop me licking my lips in anticipation of good ale.
‘Thirsty?’ Val asked me, eyebrow raised.
I shrugged. ‘If our man’s not here, let’s get us a drink, shall we?’
‘You don’t need to convince me.’
We proceeded on down the narrow streets of this harbour town, the distinct smell of fish filling my nostrils, and—should my mouth open—making me taste it on my tongue, too. Not what you want, really. Trying not to think about the smell, I gestured towards the first tavern I saw. ‘Shall we ask around in there?’
Val, who I noticed was also wrinkling her nose, responded with a thumbs up.
We stepped inside, finding it quite busy at this late hour, and we squeezed through the crowd for the bar.
‘You start asking around, I’ll get us a drink in?’
I nodded my agreement, and turned to the man next to me, figuring that was as good a place as any to start.
‘Scuse me,’ I said, ‘Sorry to interrupt. Was just wondering if you’d seen an orc named Lev pass through here? Big guy, got a battleaxe. Looks the sort to slaughter an entire town?’
The man gestured over his shoulder with his thumb, pointing at an orc just at the other end of the bar. ‘That him?’
I sighed; like it was gonna be that easy, like we were gonna find Lev in the very first place we—
My heart skipped a beat. Yep. That was him.
‘...yes,’ I replied, and then instinctively ducked behind the counter.
‘What are you doing?’ Val hissed down at me. ‘I’m not gonna take you in places like these if you’re going to act this way.’
‘He’s here,’ I whispered.
‘What?’
‘He’s here,’ I said again, nodding in the direction of the Player’s orcish accomplice.
Val glanced at Lev, widened her eyes, and then ducked down with me. ‘You know,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure crouching down in the middle of a tavern is the best way to avoid notice.’
‘Good point,’ I said, and we both rose once more.
When our pints were in front of us, and the innkeeper paid, Val and I snuck off to some distant corner of the bar, from where we could watch Lev unnoticed.
‘Quite good luck, getting an answer from the first person you meet. Is that something to do with your artifact?’
‘Good luck?’ I responded. ‘He almost saw us! And now we only get to have one pint. What sort of “good luck” is that?’
Val shrugged, then gulped down some of her beer. ‘Fair point.’
We fixed our attention back on the orc we were here to hunt down, and I identified him.
Identification — +500xp
Identification increased to level 5!
Base Points gained — +1 WIS, +1 INT, +1 Free Point (WIS/INT)
I quickly added the free point to INT—on the basis that I was going down the magic route, and would need all the associated mana I could get—and minimised the notifications.
Level 27 Barbarian
Race: Orc
‘How come I can see his class and not yours?’ I asked. ‘You’re the same level.’
‘Shh,’ Val said, and directed my attention back to Lev with a nod. ‘Look.’
Nothing, to my eye, had changed. Lev was still there with his drinking companion, though they’d grown a little closer over the past few minutes.
‘Yeah? What?’
‘Look at them,’ she said. ‘He’s not here with a mate, he’s on a date.’
‘And so I repeat: yeah?’
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Val rolled her eyes at me. ‘What happens after a date? If it goes well, you go back to their place. And you might…’
‘Get a little bit distracted,’ I finished for her. ‘Right. Got it. So if they were leaving together right now, we should probably follow them, yeah?’
Val blinked, then registered the question and turned back to Lev’s empty bar stool.
* * *
We loitered in the shadows across the street from Lev’s date’s place. It was a detached house with a rooftop balcony that surely looked over most of the town; Lev didn’t have half-bad taste in men, apparently. Even better, it had a tavern across the road, from which Val had bought us a couple of top-up pints.
I tried a sip. ‘Elven pale ale?’ I asked. ‘Really?’
Val shrugged. ‘Craft beer place. You know they love those elven hops.’
I frowned, but sipped at the top of the flat beer nonetheless.
‘So, is there a plan?’ Val asked, between gulps of beer. I suspected she enjoyed EPA more than she was letting on.
‘Why do I have to come up with the plan?’
‘I got the beer, you do the planning. I thought that was… I thought that was what we decided, wasn’t it?’
‘You decided that maybe. And then didn’t tell me that you had. But, as it happens, I reckon I do have a plan, yeah.’ I nodded to the rooftop balcony, on which Lev and his date were sipping at wine.
‘Go on, then.’
I pointed to the side of the house—a tall, flat wall, featureless but for a window on the first floor. ‘There,’ I said.
‘Your plan is to scale an unclimbable wall?’
‘No, my plan is to climb the vines on it.’
Val raised an eyebrow, nodding to my beer. ‘Is that ale stronger than I thought? There aren’t any vines on it.’
‘Well, I figured that was where you come in. You can summon them from the earth, right? You have the ability? How quickly could you do it?’
Val turned back to the house across the street, and tilted her head from side to side. ‘Twenty seconds, maybe?’
I nodded. ‘Good. I reckon that’ll be quick enough. Once we have the vines, we climb, then we have the element of surprise.’
‘And you think the “element of surprise” will be enough, do you? Lev’s a barbarian—they do serious damage. And it isn’t like either of us are built to take a hit. What’s your health bar cap out at, at the mo?’
‘Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to,’ I replied. ‘Fine. If that plan isn’t enough, then we wait, we hang from the balcony until the date progresses to a point where they’re… distracted. And then we jump in, make them surrender before they even have a chance to deal any damage.’ I paused. ‘How’s that?’
Val shrugged, gulped down nearly a full pint of ale, then rose. ‘Good enough for me,’ she said.
I had barely enough time to slurp down half the pint before Val arrived at the side of our target’s building, beginning her—suspiciously unmarked by light—magicks and causing vines to shoot forth from the ground. I abandoned what was left of my beer to hurry across the street.
‘Val,’ I said, ‘are you sure that—’
‘It was your plan!’ she whispered back.
I watched as the vines grew taller, licking at the white wall and winding their way ever closer to the top. They strengthened as they grew, turning from tiny sprouts to a plant that might have been there years, all in a matter of seconds.
‘Right,’ Val said, and stepped forward to test the vines with her hand. ‘Seems strong enough.’ She pushed me aside. ‘Ladies first.’
We climbed slowly and deliberately, testing the rustle of the vines before shifting our weight from foothold to foothold and handhold to handhold. But in no time, we were at the top of the vines, and shifting to hold onto the rim of the balcony instead.
‘Is he distracted?’ Val whispered.
I pulled myself up ever so slowly—this was far harder than it looked, though I supposed I was yet to invest all that much into Strength. Peeping my eyes over the rim of the balcony, I looked on at the orc as he held his date in his arms, their faces growing closer and closer together.
I sunk back down. ‘They’re making googly eyes. Is that good enough?’
‘It’s good enough for me.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘On three. One…’
Val heaved herself over the edge of the balcony, and I was forced to follow suit. We charged across the broad rooftop balcony, me raising my knives, Val raising her hands, and the two men blinked at us.
‘What in gods’ names is…’ Lev started, his eyes widening, and then he pushed his date away from him and to the floor, in an apparent attempt to save him. The date stumbled towards the floor, steadying himself against the side of the balcony, and began putting as much space between himself and the rest of us as possible.
While Val concentrated on Lev, brushing dust up into his eyes and beginning to bind him, I focused my attention on the other man. I held my knives high, ready to slash. It wasn’t that I wanted to hurt him—as far as we knew, he was an innocent in all of this—so much as… well, I couldn’t leave him hanging about here, could I? Not when we had some interrogating of Lev to do.
As I cornered the wide-eyed, cowering man, it occurred to me that there might be another way to handle this.
‘Ahh!’ I tried, raising my hands in the air, one of them wrapped around the cooking knife. ‘Scary!’ OK, maybe not my best effort at being intimidating, but I was thinking on my feet.
The man screamed.
I started, not quite realising that what I’d been up to had actually, you know, worked, but then pressed the matter further. ‘Gonna… gonna slice you!’ I said. I waved the knife a bit for good measure.
Lev’s date turned and fled, and with that, I was free to help Val deal with an orc many times my level.
I knew my Stealth was still a low level, but I was counting on Val occupying Lev’s attention enough that it wouldn’t matter as I crouched and began to sneak up on him. I hopped back over the balcony, hands on its rim, and slowly edged along it—all the while trying not to think about the long drop below me and the lack of vines, this side, to catch a hold on.
On the other side, Lev struggled against vines growing around his legs, but he seemed to be able to kick them away before they could get a proper purchase; he was strong enough that he could break them in their earlier stages.
And in that moment, as I edged around the balcony behind him, I prepared myself to strike.
"Styk"
Level 5 Novice Bladespinner
Base Stats:
Vitality — 4
Intelligence — 7
Dexterity — 12
Strength — 25
Wisdom — 9
Charisma — 0
Skills:
Knifework — Level 10
Identification — Level 5
Stealth — Level 1
Abilities:
Slice — Slice the enemy for physical damage worth weapon’s base damage and additional damage scaling on [STR].
Stab — Put your weight behind your wielded blade and force the tip through tougher hides and armour. Damage scales on [STR].
Closed Reach — Bend reality to narrow the gap between blade and target by up to 8 inches. Uses mana.
Basic Stealth Attack — Passive. 10% boost to damage when unnoticed by enemy.
Basic 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%