Lore and I stood with our backs against the prison’s outer wall, pipes in hand. Lore puffed away happily, but I—with alcohol always being my vice of choice—struggled with resisting the urge to cough.
‘Did we really need to be smoking for this to work?’ I asked Lore.
The man shrugged, and between puffs said, ‘Smoking always makes you look more casual.’
‘What, so you’re saying if we were stood up against this wall without anything in our hands, people would be suspicious, but because we’re smoking, nobody cares?’
Lore gestured to the people passing by, two of them wearing the gold—well, mustard really—surcoats of Goldmarch soldiers. None of them gave us a second look.
I tried puffing again. ‘Well, I still don’t like it.’
The barbarian didn’t comment, instead nodding down the road to our right, where Arzak and Corminar had their wrists bound together, and were being led towards the prison entrance by a Goldmarch soldier.
Not the real Goldmarch soldier, of course. No, she was currently unconscious, bound and gagged in the plush armchair of Aiwin’s elderly housemate. If she regained consciousness, it was unlikely to be for very long, considering the very specific type of poison that Corminar had left the old man with.
But this left Val free to take the soldier’s place, without rousing any suspicions, and I couldn’t help but remind her that she should be making use of her changeling abilities more often—an idea that caused her to stick her tongue out at me.
‘You ready?’ Lore asked, as I pressed one hand flat against the wall behind me.
‘Are we sure we’re standing next to the supply closet? I don’t wanna end up standing in the middle of… of… I dunno, a training yard or something.’
The barbarian shrugged. ‘Old guy said so. He seemed to know what he was all about, though, didn’t he?’
I wasn’t sure I was quite as convinced by Aiwin’s friend as Lore was, but the disguised Val and her two “prisoners” had now reached the arch. Val was talking their way inside—new intake, by order of the captain—and so we were already committed to our plan.
‘As soon as they go through…’ Lore said.
‘I remember the plan, Lore.’
The barbarian held up his hands in surrender. ‘Sorry, just checking!’
I placed my other hand on the stone outer wall of the prison.
‘Ready…’ Lore said, and I prepared myself to activate the spell. ‘...Go!’
In a flash, I opened one half of the portal ten yards behind me—as far as I could open a portal without the aid of sight—and another underneath our feet. As soon as our heads passed through it, I closed it again, and hoped nobody on the street we’d left behind had noticed my magicks.
Lore and I stood, as the old man had said, in a large supply closet, one filled with buckets and mops and various other contraptions that I didn’t quite understand. Most importantly, we stood in this supply closet alone.
Neither of us breathed, trying to be as stealthy as possible, one of us more adept than the other. And considering I was the more adept at stealth, being at level 6, this really wasn’t that stealthy on the whole. But it was the best we had.
As far as we could tell, this side of the thick outer wall, nobody on the street had seen us—at least, there was no shouting, no metal armour clinking as guards rushed towards our position. The first part of the plan was complete.
‘One wall down…’ I said.
‘...one to go,’ Lore finished, though it hadn’t been necessary. ‘You got any thoughts on how exactly we’re gonna deactivate this cube thing?’
Like the last time he’d asked me, I shrugged. ‘I’ll think of something. This is what I do.’ It was what I had done, at least, though admittedly that had been with a whole different build.
Keeping low, Lore and I approached the exit to the supply closet, and opened the door a crack, me poking my head through the gap low, and Lore poking through high. We saw that this would take us onto the open space between walls, illuminated by pole lanterns every five paces. This wasn’t necessarily a problem—I could portal us across fairly easily—but unless we remained hidden, one of the dozens of guards could still see us.
‘You think the others have found Aiwin yet?’ Lore asked, a bit too loudly.
‘Lore, keep quiet.’
‘Sorry.’
I closed the door gently. ‘They might have done, sure. I imagine they’re being taken to the same cells. But that doesn’t help anyone if we don’t deactivate this artifact first, so…’
Lore mimed himself zipping his lips shut, then immediately said, ‘Got it.’
I looked across the gap between the walls, scanning for signs of trouble. There were a few guards atop the inner wall, but if we portalled to the base of that wall quickly enough, they wouldn’t notice. It was those roaming the grounds between the walls that were going to cause trouble. They patrolled in pairs, moving slowly but deliberately, spaced apart but not so much that any part of the ground was out of sight at any one time. If we were going to reach the base of the inner wall, and then open another pair of portals to get us inside, then we were going to need a distraction.
‘Distraction,’ I said to Lore. ‘Any ideas?’
‘I could juggle!’ the man replied.
‘Any ideas that don’t get you spotted and captured?’
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Lore bit his lip. ‘Oh, right, yes. Sorry, I just never get to juggle with a captive audience.’
I blinked at the man; sometimes it was hard to know whether he was joking or not. ‘If we had Corminar here, he could distract the guards with his arrows somehow. But—’
‘I could throw something. I got a good arm.’
I waited for the final part of this thought, knowing exactly what was coming.
‘...From all the juggling.’
‘Not from swinging a massive sword around?’
Lore considered this. ‘Maybe a little of both.’
I nodded, as Lore disappeared back into the closet proper. ‘Right. There’s an armour stand next to that empty training area to our right. If we can hit it, making enough noise, or maybe even knock it over, then—’
Lore suddenly reappeared at my side, heavy wooden brush in hand. ‘Throw brush at armour, yeah?’
Before I could respond, he shoved the door open enough to get his arm out, then lobbed the brush towards the stand of armour. It crashed to the ground. Turning back to face me, Lore asked, ‘Wait, you were ready, right?’
I responded by opening a portal beneath us, pairing it with one at the base of the inner wall. We fell through it, and before I could so much as worry that we’d been spotted, I placed my hands on the wall behind me. Opening another portal ten yards back, and one on the wall behind us, we fell through it and out of sight.
Well… not quite out of sight.
As Lore and I turned to take in our new surroundings, we found ourselves in very close proximity to a woman in a gold surcoat, her mouth open, a sandwich in a hand that had frozen on its way to her face.
Lore and I stood deathly still, as though if we didn’t move, then the guard wouldn’t see us—despite the fact that we were standing no more than two feet directly in front of her.
‘I can…’ I started, ‘explain?’
The guard narrowed her eyes.
I prepared to reach for my blade.
Lore hit her with the butt of his sword.
In just one hit, the woman fell to the ground unconscious, and I turned to blink up at Lore in surprise.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘How’d you do that?’
The barbarian shrugged. ‘Special ability. Two-handed ain’t just killing people.’
‘Not the way you do it, perhaps,’ I said, which I supposed I meant as an insult, but judging by Lore’s smile, he understood it as a great compliment.
‘We should…’ he gestured to the unconscious body.
‘Yeah.’ I looked around for a place to stuff her, and saw in the corner of the room a low cupboard that might just hold her if we pushed her in just right. I nodded to it, and between Lore and I we managed to succeed in the spatial awareness puzzle put before us.
‘That was the hardest part of thing whole thing,’ Lore said.
‘The hardest part so far,’ I corrected him, ever the optimist.
With this, we made our way to the door of the room, and slowly inched it open. The door gave way to reveal a corridor—one which, we had been told, would led to the innermost chamber, above the dungeons and cells, and where the binding artifact would be located.
‘You know,’ I whispered to Lore, ‘did you ever wonder how that old guy knew all this?’
Lore shrugged. ‘Figured it was cos he was a soldier.’
I posed a question to him with a raised eyebrow.
‘What?’ the barbarian replied. ‘You didn’t notice the tattoo on his hand? It’s an army one.’
‘...Huh.’ Even having known Lore for a few months at this point, I still didn’t quite know what to make of him. One moment you could think he was the dumbest—if kindest—soul you’d ever met, and the next he’d completely outsmart you.
We crept down the corridor to the wooden door at the end, and Lore readied his sword. There was a reason it couldn’t just be me sneaking in, of course—at this point, reaching the warden’s chamber, we could well run into trouble. And I fancied my chances much more with Lore at my side.
I took in a deep breath, nodded to Lore, and flung the door open.
The room was empty.
‘...Oh,’ Lore said, as we pressed inside and I closed the door behind us.
‘Problem?’
‘No problem! Just thought that’d be harder.’
I laughed. ‘Well, it’s not over yet.’
Stealth — +1,300xp
Stealth increased to level 7!
Stealth increased to level 8!
Base Points gained — +2 DEX, +2 WIS, +4 Free Points (DEX/WIS)
‘Nice,’ I muttered, already excited for my next ability choice, which would be in just two more levels. For now, though, there was another priority.
In front of us, a square stone pillar rose from the ground in the centre of the room. In the very middle, the stone gave way to a brass-like frame, and in the centre of that, floated a giant purple gem.
‘Alright, Styk,’ Lore said, ‘do your thing.’
I had no idea quite what “my thing” was going to be, but there was a single focusing factor. Right now, Corminar and Arzak would be in the cells—likely alongside Aiwin, yes, but with belts of their own in place. If I failed here, they were doomed. They’d never be able to escape.
I took a deep breath, and I got to work.
"Styk"
Level 11 Bladespinner
Base Stats:
Vitality — 26
Intelligence — 107
Dexterity — 42
Strength — 50
Wisdom — 30
Charisma — 8
Skills:
Worldbending — Level 25
Knifework — Level 23
Identification — Level 10
Stealth — Level 8
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.
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.
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%