Val and Corminar were shocked to find out just how much mercenary work Arzak had been taking, as the pair of them leafed through the stolen records. Lore, Tokas and I sat back, beers in hand, as the two of them pored over each and every job. I contented myself to look again at my choice of new abilities, as afforded me by my growing of Stealth to level 5.

As always, low levels meant that the ability selections weren’t very exciting, especially without any hidden conditions met, which… spoiler alert: there weren’t any. This meant that I only had two abilities to pick from, and one of them was even just an upgrade on my existing ability; I’d had far better selections in my old life.

Ability selection unlocked

Select an ability from the list below:

Option 1: Stealth Attack (Stealth) — Passive. 50% boost to damage when unnoticed by enemy.

There was the upgrade: a boost to the damage dealt if I hadn’t been noticed by the enemy in question. It was a good increase, don’t get me wrong—up from 10% to 50%—and I supposed it was just having been spoiled by all these Worldbending abilities choices that had me reluctant to take it.

Option 2: Danger-Sense (Stealth) — Passive. Your senses grow keener; you are 30% more likely to notice traps and ambushes.

This wouldn’t have been a bad one to pick if I was still in my old line of work. In fact, I think I had owned this ability at once point, but it had evolved into Identify Traps, which was much more effective at locating them—as long as you actually activated the ability.

With my line of work apparently having changed from theft to slaying—at least for the foreseeable future—there was only one good option. Perhaps I’d get another shot at Danger-Sense at level 10, anyway.

Ability unlocked — Stealth Attack

Stealth Attack (Stealth) — Passive. 50% boost to damage when unnoticed by enemy.

I nodded, forcing myself to be excited about this ability choice, and found myself coming up a little empty. Oh well, I told myself. It’s early days; if I keep levelling up as quickly as I am, I’ll be selecting from ridiculous or overpowered abilities before I know it.

I looked back up at the two members of the team standing over the table, parchment fanned out in front of them.

‘I don’t believe this,’ Val was saying. ‘She handled a rockrat infestation in Colrosz…’

‘A pair of malae, by herself,’ Corminar called out, holding up a piece of paper.

‘...Not one, not two, but three ogres up in the Bladerocks…’

‘A cat from a tree,’ Corminar said. ‘Though perhaps that one is not quite so impressive.’

‘Look here,’ Val continued, ‘in this one, she’s got a new team!’

‘We do not know that she is still working with them, Val. Perhaps she—’

‘It’s marked four days ago,’ the sorcerer added.

Corminar considered this. ‘Then perhaps she is still working with them. It does not mean she has replaced us.’

‘And why wouldn’t she? If you’ll remember, she was the only one who wanted to continue. While the rest of us…’ Val trailed off.

‘Thought we knew what we wanted out of life?’ Lore suggested. ‘Wanted to, like, grow as people? Or not, I dunno.’

Val and Corminar each raised one eyebrow at the barbarian, who shrugged and went back to his beer.

‘Where is it?’ Tokas asked. ‘The latest quest. Nearby, I assume?’

‘Some place called…’ Val squinted at the paper, but not because she couldn’t read it—I knew her eyesight wasn’t bad. ‘Castle Carn? Anyone know it?’

Corminar and I shook our heads.

‘Nuh-uh,’ said Lore.

‘The seat of the once-queen of the Tundras, back when they were called the Kingdom of Avalon, fallen into disrepair since the kingdom fell and host to many a disreputable faction over the decades since. Located a few miles to the north-northwest of Ironview, though on a clear day it is said you can see Ironview from its tallest tower,’ said Tokas.

Val, Corminar, Lore and I all turned to look at Tokas, and this time eight eyebrows were raised.

‘What?’ Tokas asked. ‘Do none of you read the history books?’

‘They turn that into books?’ Lore asked.

‘They turn lots of subjects into books, dear,’ Corminar said. ‘Though I do share your tastes.’ The pair of them shared a look that I made a mental note to get to the bottom of, at some point.

Now was not the time, however, because Val opened her mouth with a vital, and worrying, piece of information. ‘It says here… it says she never came back from it. Missing, presumed…’ Val trailed off, and the rest of the group began to hurriedly pack up their belongings.

‘Right,’ I said to nobody in particular. ‘I suppose we’re off, then.’

* * *

You know those stories? The ones you tell kids… what are they called? Fairytales. There’s so often the gallant knight, who is quested to retrieve an attractive member of a royal family from some evil-doer’s tower. Maybe there’s a dragon guarding it, or an orge on the bridge, or some other obvious manifestation of supposed evil. The tower itself is dark, crumbling, dead vines creep up it, and more often than not there is a black cloud hovering over it, just in case you didn’t get the message that this is a bad place. I suppose these authors have to be heavy-handed with the imagery; kids aren’t usually the quickest to pick up on sub-text.

Anyway, I bring this up because I want to paint you a picture of Castle Carn. Imagine that fairytale tower, housing the attractive royal, and all of its obvious “evil” characteristics. And then make it ten times more foreboding.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

There you go, you have it—a rough approximation of Castle Carn.

The five of us stood atop a crest, looking at the immense fortress known as Castle Carn nested against the foothills before us. It possessed not one of those evil fairytale towers, but seven. The walls were cracked in places, crumbled in others, and pristine just about nowhere. The only signs of life therein were a couple of bats, each of which roughly the size of a neereagle. And if you’ve never seen a neereagle before, imagine me stretching my hands out as wide as I can manage, and saying “They’re this big”.

‘And we wanna go in there, do we?’ I found myself saying, immediately outing myself as currently the most scared of the lot of us.

‘We go in, we find Arzak, we get out,’ Val said, without tearing her eyes from the castle.

‘And the other members of her team?’ I asked.

‘Not interested.’

‘Perhaps we might complete the quest?’ Corminar suggested. ‘After all, there was quite the bounty on—’

‘The quest?’ Tokas asked. ‘What was the quest, anyway?’

‘An elderbeest. In the dungeons.’

Tokas held up a hand. ‘I vote just Arzak.’

Lore hurriedly also raised his hand.

‘What’s a… what’s an elderbeest?’ I asked, apparently the only one of us in the dark about this particular creature.

‘A bloody huge deer—’ Val started.

‘Oh, that’s not so bad.’

‘—that is filled with the infinite nothingness of the Time Before Creation.’

‘Oh, that’s quite bad.’

Lore leaned forward to add helpfully, ‘Even one bite can tear you from reality.’

‘Oh, that’s very bad.’ I thrusted my hand into the air. ‘Another vote for just Arzak. That’s three votes now, we win. Just Arzak. No elderbeest.’

Val raised an eyebrow.

‘What? I’m level 8!’

‘No, it’s not that, it’s just that I don’t think any of us were going to suggest we take on an elderbeest, Styk.’

‘Well, I…’ Corminar started, and then looked around, reading the metaphorical room, ‘...wasn’t. I wasn’t going to suggest that.’

With five deep breaths—three of them coming from me—we stepped forth and began our journey across a narrow plain and towards the looming Castle Carn. Even with the outer wall so crumbling in places, there was really only one way in—through the main gate which had survived all these years. At least, the archway that had held the gate had survived; there was only the barest hint of wooden plank scattered around the inside, as though something had once burst in. I didn’t know my history well enough to decide if this detail was significant.

The grounds were eerily quiet as we pressed inside, and that we were apprehensive enough not to speak did little to shatter this silence. As the heavy wooden door squeaked closed behind us, a wave of terror washed over me, and I grit my teeth, willing myself on. Tokas used her illusion magicks to create an orb of light that floated above us, illuminating the otherwise bone-chillingly dark castle interior. Here, in the centre of the building, there were not even the small arrow slits by which to navigate, only the remnants of old, empty sconces.

In the middle of the castle’s entrance chamber was a large, wide stone plinth—one which Tokas’s ball of light hovered over, seemingly of its own will. As I stared upon it, a worrying realisation dawned on me.

‘Someone’s been here,’ I said. ‘Recently. Look at the dust; someone’s swept part of it.’

‘Arzak?’ Lore asked, his eyes now darting around the shadows at the perimeter of the room.

‘Could be,’ Val said.

‘Could not be,’ Corminar added, ever the optimist.

Silence swept over us once more as each of us considered just which one of these options this might be. We moved further into the castle, through a central passageway at the centre of this grand atrium.

‘Arzak?’ Lore called out. ‘It’s—’

He didn’t get the chance to finish that thought because Val had put her hand over his mouth.

When Val had removed it, a confused-looking Lore asked, ‘What?’

‘We’re trying to find her,’ Val said. ‘If there’s really anything else in here, we don’t want it to find us.’

Lore nodded. ‘Oh, yeah. Good point.’

The chamber we found ourselves in next had little to distinguish it from the previous, particularly in the low light of Tokas’s illusion magicks. Tapestries that had perhaps once been grand hung from the ceiling, now faded. A fireplace—now blocked—had indents within it that suggested it had once held jewels, but that these had since been stolen.

‘Should we split up?’ Lore suggested.

‘Split up?’ both Val and I repeated back at him, aghast. ‘That’s a sure way to get us all picked off,’ I added.

Val nodded. ‘Yeah. We stick together or we don’t do this at—’

A noise from down one of the adjacent corridors cut Val off, and our heads all snapped to the source of it.

‘Something’s moving,’ Lore said.

‘But friend or foe?’ Tokas asked.

We remained still in the almost-darkness, listening for more sounds—but none came.

Corminar stepped towards where the noise had come from. ‘I suppose, as the adage goes, “there is only one way to find out”.’

We followed Corminar deeper into the castle, and I couldn’t help but think he probably considered himself the bravest of us, though in truth he was probably just the most arrogant about his own strength. As we got further down the corridor, the noises sounded out again, louder with every step.

It was people—that was a good sign—but the noises themselves seemed to be… chanting. ‘Not such a good sign,’ I muttered to myself, causing Tokas to flash me a look.

At the other end of the corridor, we pressed ourselves against the wall, keeping out of sight, and with a flick of her wrist, Tokas made the light disappear. After all, there was already the flickering light of fire in the room beyond. The chanting was in a language I didn’t understand, but—judging by the expressions of the rest of the party—it wasn’t likely to be Arzak speaking.

Val crouched, poking her head around the corner, and then she scuttled into the room.

‘Val!’ I whispered. ‘What are you—’

Her head poked back around the corner. ‘I’m checking, alright? It might be they’re friendly. They might know where—’

‘They’re chanting, Val. When have you ever known groups of chanting people to be anything but evil?’

‘I was part of a meditation class that once…’ Lore started, but Val spoke over him.

‘I’m gonna look, and then I’ll be back. Alright?’

‘No, not alright,’ I said, reaching out to grab at Val’s arm, but missing. I spilled into the room behind her.

‘You don’t have to worry about—’

‘Who’s there?’ a new voice called out.

Val and I spun our heads to the woman who’d spoken.

‘...Arzak?’ I tried.

The woman looked confused. As did her two friends, all of whom were wearing a robe with a familiar symbol emblazoned on the back—a golden sun with a line breaking through it. The symbol of the Cult of Ascendancy.

‘Arzak’s an orc, idiot,’ Val said, whacking me around the back of the head. ‘Whereas this lot are…’

Level 25 Ascendant Fire Cultist

Race: Elf

‘...evil,’ I finished, as the woman closest to us summoned a ball of fire.

‘Don’t gloat,’ Val said, and prepared herself to fight.

"Styk"

Level 8 Novice Bladespinner

Base Stats:

Vitality — 14

Intelligence — 43

Dexterity — 22

Strength — 35

Wisdom — 22

Charisma — 0

Skills:

Knifework — Level 14

Worldbending — Level 10

Identification — Level 7

Stealth — Level 5

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.

Stealth Attack — Passive. 50% 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%