Part VII: The Red Thorn

Arzak clearly had the sense that something was horrifically, game-changingly, world-shatteringly wrong, but she also had the good sense not to pry. If she had, I wouldn’t have told her, and I’d toyed with the odd lie to get her off my case—that I had a stomach bug, or some sort of disease of the groin perhaps; anything that wouldn’t invite any follow-up questions. But she didn’t ask again after the first time, only keeping a close eye on me in our travel back to Lore’s farm.

I still didn’t know if I believed it myself. The idea that I might have the blood of Players in me—the people who’d I’d learned to hate with a passion over these past few months—I couldn’t quite cope with. Part of me was in denial, the other part screaming. Silently, of course; I didn’t want to give Arzak any more suspicions than she already had.

Even once we arrived back on Lore’s farm, I knew I was being oddly quiet. Mostly because Val kept telling me so. I realised I had to act more like my normal self, once I was back around her. While Arzak had the good sense to not interrogate me on what was the matter, Val… Well, it wasn’t often that the phrases “Val” and “good sense” were used in the same sentence without “doesn’t have” in between them.

And so I’d thrown myself into training up, alongside her. When I say “training up”, I meant the Worldbending and Knifework skill trees, really—the idea that I’d tell Val about my new Needlework skill was about as unlikely that I’d tell her about my Player ancestry.

While I eked out experience in my main combat skills—even with the Sisyphus bonus, there was only so much experience I could get without an enemy to fight—Val worked on her Healing. In the past, she’d only used it to battle hangovers, but now that Tokas had betrayed us, there was a very substantial demand for a healer in the party once more.

‘A broken bone?’ Val suggested.

‘What?’ I replied, concentrating on flicking a portal between two locations as quickly as possible—something I still hadn’t quite got the knack for.

‘If you let me injure you, I can heal it,’ the sorcerer said. ‘How am I supposed to get Healing experience if I have nothing to bloody heal?’

‘And your opening suggestion was that you snap one of my bones, was it?’

Val shrugged. ‘I thought we’d haggle.’

‘I’m not haggling.’

‘OK, what about a flesh wound? Nothing mortal, just-’

‘You’re not injuring me, Val,’ I interrupted.

The sorcerer tossed her head back, rolling her eyes. ‘Come on, you’ve got to give me something to heal.’

‘No.’

‘Anything, please. Or do you want to face the next Player alongside a healer whose ability stretches, at best, to fixing an upset tummy?’

I sighed, closing my pair of portals; this was clearly a conversation that Val wasn’t giving up on any time soon. ‘Why don’t you injure one of Lore’s sheep instead of your friend?’ I suggested.

Val blinked at me. ‘Hurt one of them?’ she asked, looking over at the surrounding field full of what Lore affectionately called his “babies”.

‘You know, there was a time not long ago that you suggested I tried cutting a sheep in two.’

‘Well that was before I got to know them, wasn’t it?’ The sorcerer grabbed one of the sheep as they passed by and rubbing it affectionately on the head. It didn’t seem to notice. ‘And besides, I think Lore would kill me if I did. Or, try to.’

‘Either way, you’d have something to heal,’ I said.

‘I’m not hurting Lore’s babies,’ Val said, metaphorically putting her foot down.

I sighed again. I’d never been one for sighing, all that much, but that was before I’d met Val. ‘You can slap me.’

‘Slap you?’ Val repeated. ‘That’s it?’

‘Either that or you get me drunk. Again.’

‘I think we’ve already drunk Lore’s supplies dry.’

I gestured a thumb towards the dirt road. ‘I could pop into town? Get some more?’

Val’s eyes lit up. ‘Ooh, maybe more of that ruby ale that—’ She caught herself. ‘No, wait, stop. I’m not fixing any more hangovers. Do you know how much experience I get for those? It’s double digits.’

In the distance, someone shouted. My head snapped to face them, though I notice Val didn’t have the same reaction; clearly one of us held more anxiety than the other.

Across the field, Seld—Lore’s farmhand—grabbed his behind as though pained. Nearby, a sheep munched on grass almost too casually. ‘Lore!’ Seld shouted. ‘They’re doing it again! They’re headbutting me!’

The owner of the farm popped his head out of the farmhouse. ‘Who is?’

Seld pointed at the nearby sheep. ‘She is.’

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Lore looked at the sheep, peacefully chewing grass. ‘Are you sure?’

‘I’ve told you, they only do it when nobody’s looking!’

I glanced to Val, who shrugged. It wasn’t that neither of us believed Seld, but neither of us had actually seen it happen. In fact, nobody had; if these sheep really were bullying the farmhand, they were doing a good job of doing it subtly.

On the porch of the farmhouse, Arzak and Corminar watched on. From the looks on their faces, neither of them had seen the incident unfold either, though that was likely because they were hard at work.

The orc, who had been so delighted that I’d liked her gifted purple scarf so much, was working unashamedly on her own Needlework to produce me a purple sweater which I didn’t have the heart to tell her was a bit too much purple. Val didn’t make anything of Arzak taking up Needlework, but I didn’t trust the sorcerer to treat my new crafting skill the same way. She’d probably use the different specialism—sewing versus knitting—as a reason to insult me but not Arzak.

At the orc’s side, Corminar sat with furrowed brow, an array of flowers, roots, and monster parts in front of him. I’d asked him a few days ago where the monster parts had come from, and he’d stopped what he was doing, looked up at me, and with a raised eyebrow had replied, ‘They are from monsters, Styk.’ I hadn’t pushed the matter further.

The elf selected three particular ingredients—without access to the Alchemy skill tree, I had no idea how this process worked—and placed them into a small stone mortar. He picked up the pestle, and then paused, just before beginning to crush, and looked up at me. ‘Would it matter if your mana potions made your vision blurry?’

‘I’m sorry?’ I asked, confused.

‘Please, don’t be. I ask only because I could provide you with a potion that both increases your mana and your maximum mana, if only you were not too attached to your vision.’

‘I’d like to see, Corminar, if possible.’

Val opened her mouth, and I immediately knew something annoying was about to come out of it. ‘You’d like to see Corminar?’

‘So many would,’ the elf agreed, unconsciously fiddling with his long, lush hair.

‘No,’ I replied, voice strained, ‘I’d like to see, Corminar. I’d like to see, comma, Corminar.’

‘I quite like seeing Corminar,’ Lore shouted out from somewhere inside the house, clearly having missed much of the sub-text—and, indeed, text—of the conversation.

‘Perhaps I shall create you a handful of these such potions. We shall see how much you get on with them.’

‘How blind are they going to make me?’ I asked. ‘And for how long?’

‘Your eyes will be just a little blurry, that is all,’ Corminar replied.

I waited for the answer to the other question. It became soon apparent that it wasn’t coming. ‘And for how long, Corminar?’

The ranger mumbled something I couldn’t quite hear.

‘What’s that?’

‘Five.’

‘Five what?’ I asked. ‘It better not be years.’

‘...Days.’

I met the elf’s gaze and held it.

‘I shall create the normal potions, shall I?’ Corminar asked, picking out one of the three ingredients from his mortar.

‘Yes. Please.’ I turned back to Val and was surprised by a slap in the face. Staggering backwards, I cradled my check with my hand. ‘And what in the hells was that for?’

Val furrowed her brow. ‘Healing? You said I could?’

‘I thought you’d give me some warning!’

‘Well, then, specify that, next time,’ the sorcerer replied, then touched one of her soft hands to my cheek. As the warmth of her healing magicks healed what little injury had done to me, I looked up at Val, and she suddenly seemed unable to meet my gaze.

‘And did you… err… get lots of experience from that?’ I asked her.

Val whipped her hand away from my cheek with more speed than was perhaps necessary. ‘No.’

I sighed. Again! And then pulled my Ranger’s Blade from my side. ‘Alright,’ I said, holding the blade over the back of my arm, ‘If you really need a flesh wound, then I guess I can give you—’

An almighty noise erupted across the farm, making me almost drop my knife in my scramble to cover my ears. Sheep scattered, running as far as the fencing would allow, while Seld did his best to avoid the charging animals.

It took me a moment to recognise the intense din that was in danger of making my ears bleed. It was the shriek of a banshee—a truly unsettling, bone-chillingly awful sound that, admittedly, I was responsible for. The latest of my Worldbending abilities, my shrill perimeter, was alerting us that trouble had crossed its boundary.

I’d only been able to place one of these perimeters, I’d discovered, and the radius wasn’t all that great. So I’d placed it on the dirt road into Lore’s farm, rather than on the neighbours’ fields or at the treeline to the north, hoping that whoever brought trouble would approach us directly. It looked at though that gamble had paid off.

Danger had found us once more.

What a relief.

"Styk"

Level 11 Bladespinner

Base Stats:

Vitality — 26

Intelligence — 103

Dexterity — 38

Strength — 50

Wisdom — 26

Charisma — 8

Skills:

Worldbending — Level 24

Knifework — Level 23

Identification — Level 10

Stealth — Level 6

Needlework — Level 4

Abilities:

Slice — Slice the enemy for physical damage worth weapon’s base damage and additional damage scaling on [STR].

Stab II — Put your weight behind your wielded blade and force the tip through tougher hides and armour. Damage scales on [STR], increased by an additional 20%.

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.

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.

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.

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

Stitch — Create a basic stitch in common fabrics. Ability scales on [CHA].

Active Effects:

Legacy of Sisyphus:

XP gain increased by +900%