At some point over the next few days I did some maths.
I know, I wouldn’t have expected it of me, either; it wasn’t exactly in my wheelhouse. I’m going to cut a long story short: I used up a lot of paper and a lot of charcoal doing some sums, and on three of the five times I did them I got the same end result. That result? Based on the fact that I levelled up Worldbending to level 9 when I unleashed the Iron Sea on those bandits, combined with the amount of leftover experience, I wasn’t that far off getting Worldbending to level 10. And of course, as we all know, level 10 is one of those levels where you get to pick a new ability.
I mention this now for one very important reason: the five of us were currently hanging upside-down, trapped inside a magically reinforced net trap, and my skills were about to have a lot to do with how we got out of it.
Let me rewind a few days.
I suppose this all started when we were on the road to—
No, wait. Now that I’m thinking this through, I guess it started a little earlier. The five of us were in a traveller’s inn, and Val had convinced Corminar to partake in a beer or two. This had the secondary effect of getting him drunk, which had the—what’s the word?—tertiary effect of getting him to loosen his purse strings and buy us all a few more drinks.
Even Tokas, who’d been broody and quiet since we’d picked her up—Val assured me she wasn’t normally like this—cheered up a little. In fact, the only one of the five of us who didn’t seem very drunk was Lore, but I suppose even he with his large build was a bit merry.
As a result, we may have been a bit loud with our conversation. We didn’t say anything about killing Players—even drunk, we weren’t that stupid—but we did mouth off about looking for Arzak and still not having a clue where she’d got to since the team dispersed. What we’d find out later is that an associate of Captain Lambkin had overheard this conversation, and so began the makings of the trap we were soon caught in.
A good few days later—I can’t say exactly how many—we were approached on the road by a messenger. Someone with a letter addressed to me, weirdly; I was not the sort of person who often received correspondence. Val obviously had figured that out for herself, because she furrowed her brow at this news, though maybe she was just jealous that someone else was currently more popular than her.
Any shrewd readers among you might have some idea what was in this letter, and indeed it was the supposed location of the final member of the Slayers, Arzak Blorg. If the letter was to be believed—and, yeah, we did believe it—then Arzak was in a small town a few miles south of Thistle Fort. That made sense, we reckoned; Thistle was an orcish city, and Arzak, after all, was an orc. So that’s why we didn’t question the note, but I concede now that doing so might have been a mistake.
As we grew close to the town in question, we found ourselves travelling through dense evergreen forest. The trees were tall, the branches many, and even on the narrow road we could not see a great distance ahead, behind, or to the side of us. This was where Lambkin sprung his trap, and so I’ll jump back into the narrative at this point, though please be aware that it begins with the assorted noises of five people suddenly finding themselves hoisted upwards by a net.
‘Aah!’
‘Whaa—’
‘Uh…’
And so on. You get the idea.
Of the five of us, only Corminar apparently had any suspicions that something like this was coming. He’d had his bow drawn for a good half hour, and as the net hoisted him up into the air, he released a nocked arrow at a man stepping out from between the trees.
‘A-ha!’ a smug Lambkin said, then followed it up with, ‘Oh, balls,’ as an arrow buried itself in his arm.
Fortunately for the ex-captain, there wasn’t the room inside the net for Corminar to draw another arrow, or he might next have received one to the head.
‘Lambkin…’ I muttered, my voice strained by both my hanging upside down and Val’s knee’s proximity to my groin.
‘You really thought you could cart me off in a truckload of dung and I wouldn’t come looking for you?’ Lambkin asked. ‘I was looking for you anyway! That was hardly gonna change things, was it? And now you’ve walked straight into my—’
‘You’re monologuing,’ Val pointed out.
‘Yeah, only villains monologue,’ I added.
Lambkin furrowed his brow. ‘I’m not monologuing, I’m explaining. Do you never talk at length with each other at all?’
‘No, we mostly interrupt each other,’ Tokas offered timidly.
‘Well, I’m not monologuing, OK? I'm definitely explaining.’
Corminar gave up trying to fire another arrow. ‘It shares much of its framework with monologuing.’
The ex-captain ground his teeth together, snarling. ‘I’m not going to say it again: I’m not monologuing, and—’ Lambkin looked down at his wound. ‘Wow, this is really bleeding. Did you use some kind of poison to make me bleed more?’
‘Yes,’ Corminar replied. ‘A bleed poison.’
‘Oh. It’s just called that, is it?’
‘Alchemists are not an imaginative bunch,’ Corminar said.
‘OK, look,’ Lambkin said. ‘I’m going to go and find someone to tend to this. So, I’m just going to leave you here. You have your archer to thank for that.’
Lore piped up, ‘Are you not worried about us escaping?’ though the last word of that was slightly drown out by the sounds of me and Val shh-ing him.
Lambkin smiled—or, at least, gave a rough approximation of it; the pain from Corminar’s poison was clearly overwhelming him. ‘Please. For this trap I spared no expense. I hired the most creative trap-maker in the Tundras. I’ll go, I’ll get myself an antidote, and I’ll be back before you know it. Maybe… tomorrow morning? That’ll give you plenty of time to… hang out.’
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On that note, the captain turned away, clearly thinking he’d done some clever wordplay with that last sentence. The five of us watched him go, from various heights and angles, and only once Lambkin was out of sight did Val start giggling.
‘And what are you laughing about?’ I asked.
‘Didn’t you hear the wording? The “most creative trap-maker”. Not “the best”.’
‘I really don’t see how that’s important.’
Val smiled. ‘It’s important because Steve got sued for false advertising. And “most creative”? That’s how he brands himself since it was proven in a court of law that he was not the best. And if it’s a Steve trap, then…’
‘There’s gonna be a way to break out of it.’
‘Exactly,’ Val said.
Armed with this information, I found renewed vigour to figure out a way out. While Corminar and Lore wrestled with the Bane Sword, which was currently pressing against its owner’s chiselled chest, Val and Tokas tried some sort of magic which seemed to require them to hold hands and chant. This left me not needed by anyone else, and at this point I circled back to the maths I’d done over the last few days.
‘Corminar, I need some—’
‘I am rather busy at the moment, Styk.’
I rolled my eyes and instead plunged my hand into the man’s pocket, which was conveniently placed considering we were all hanging upside down in a tangle. I pulled from it a surprising number of potions—was this pocket enchanted to be larger on the inside?—and returned all but two glowing blue ones.
Mana potions.
I tried, first of all, opening a portal within the trap itself, but had no luck; there simply wasn’t any room what with all of us in the way, and with a few limbs poking through the net at odd angles. So instead I returned to levelling it up, opening and closing portals in the area around us, and slowly accumulating more Worldbending experience.
Val was first to notice. ‘Oh, look, Styk’s gone completely insane.’
I ignored her and carried on with my approach, until…
Worldbending increased to level 10!
Base Points gained — +2 INT, +2 Free Points (INT/WIS/CHA)
‘Styk,’ Val said, ‘I really don’t think now is the time for—’
‘Shh,’ I replied, ‘I’m trying something.’
Val stuck her tongue out at me and went back to her chanting, like that was such a better use of time.
Ability selection unlocked
Select an ability from the list below:
Option 1: Weaken Metal (Worldbending) — Your magicks find flaws within non-enchanted metalwork, and enhanced them, leading to objects becoming immediately weaker.
I craned my head around Lore’s arm to look up at the clasp that was holding us. It was definitely metal, but there were two potential obstacles. First of all, Steve’s involvement meant that the clasp was almost certainly enchanted. And the other issue? Even if it wasn’t, all that weakening it would do was send us crashing to the floor, still trapped within the net. And, based on where Lore’s greatsword was pointing, I didn’t think this would end well for at least one of us.
Option 2: Skinsmith II (Worldbending) — Toughen skin to act as natural armour. Strength of armour scales on [WIS]. Uses less mana/second.
Well, that one was no help at all. I couldn’t think of any application for this skill that would get me out of this particular mess. Not that I should really have been thinking so short-term, of course. I still had, at least, another option…
Hidden condition met! Alternative ability choice unlocked.
Option 3: Portal Slice (Knifework) [Requires: Knifework skill unlocked] — Passive. Portals can now be spawned within non-sentient objects. Doing so slices through all objects that are not reinforced by magic.
It was as though the Architects themselves were smiling down upon me; this was perfect. I supposed that Worldbending and Knifework skill had some good synergy between them, because this was the second time that having both skills had proven useful—after getting access to Closed Reach the first time around.
Ability unlocked — Portal Slice
Portal Slice (Knifework) — Passive. Portals can now be spawned within non-sentient objects. Doing so slices through all objects that are not reinforced by magic.
Downing the second of Corminar’s mana potions to replenish that particular power bar, I squeezed my hand upwards, pointing at the spot just below the clasp that held the net trap together.
With the other hand, I pointed elsewhere—it didn’t seem like it mattered where the other end of the portal was for this, only that it existed. And, within a second, the net came crashing down. I only thought at the last moment to kick the end of Lore’s sword out from under his head.
The five of us spilled out onto the ground, the net trap unfolding around us, and I—admittedly—was the one who complained the most about the subsequent bruises.
‘You know, Val,’ Lore said, after we’d all picked ourselves off the ground and dusted ourselves down, ‘I ain’t think Styk’s gone insane, I think he was actually being very clever.’
Val opened her mouth to argue the point, and then walked off, grumbling.
‘So,’ the barbarian continued, ‘Thistle Fort is out, is it?’
"Styk"
Level 7 Novice Bladespinner
Base Stats:
Vitality — 14
Intelligence — 41
Dexterity — 16
Strength — 35
Wisdom — 15
Charisma — 0
Skills:
Knifework — Level 14
Worldbending — Level 10
Identification — Level 7
Stealth — Level 2
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.
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.
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%