‘Styk?’ Lore asked, while I stood in front of the pillar in which the binding artifact was embedded.

‘Yeah?’ I answered, my hands hovering in the air at my sides, as though about to spring into action.

‘Is this it? Are you doing your thing?’

‘Yes,’ I replied.

‘Nice.’

Still, I didn’t move. Staring at the gem in front of me, I had nothing. All I could think of was brute force—ripping the gem from the pillar. But I knew from the experience of a past life that such simple solutions were often doomed to fail. There would be a trap or an enchantment or an enchanted trap that stopped us from doing so. Without a better plan, though…

‘Help me with this thing, will you?’ I asked Lore.

Together, we reached out and put our hands on the gem—no ill effects so far, that’s good—and began trying to wrench it free of its frame. By myself, I might not have expected to pull it out, but Lore was about the strongest man I’d ever met. Even with him helping, however, the gem didn’t budge. Not an inch.

‘I don’t think it’s gonna work,’ said the barbarian, helpfully.

With a sigh, I released the gem and went back to scratching my head. ‘Nope.’ At that moment, another idea occurred to me, and I tried to portal slice my way through the brass frame. Again… nothing doing. The frame itself was enchanted, then, and likely why we couldn’t wrench the gem free with hands alone.

‘Alright, OK, OK,’ I said, wondering if my deficiency in this situation was more down to no longer having thievery-based abilities or having an audience for the first time ever. ‘Could you go keep watch?’ I asked Lore, and found myself relieved when he smiled, nodded, and left me to it.

1. What do I know?

I knew that brute force wasn’t going to pull the gem from its frame, and I knew that, likewise, I wasn’t going to be able to pull the frame from the pillar, considering that it was enchanted. More and more, it seemed like removing the binding gem wasn’t an option—nobody said prison break was going to be easy, after all.

A vision of Corminar and Arzak, sitting in the cells, belts around them, flashed through my mind. Where before, a botch thievery attempt would just cost me a payday, it would now cost my friends their lives. This really wasn’t the time to come up short.

I couldn’t remove the gem, then. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t destroy it.

‘Lore,’ I said, and the barbarian peered around from his position at the door. ‘I don’t expect this is going to work, but just in case… could you attack it?’

‘Attack what?’

‘The gem.’

Lore nodded furiously. ‘Right, yes.’

I took a few steps back—knowing better than to get between Bane Sword and its target—and watched as Lore swung his weapon through the air with almighty force. The blade clattered against the gem and reverberated away from it, not leaving even a scratch.

‘You were right,’ Lore said, inspecting the gem, ‘that didn’t work.’

‘Worth trying, I guess. But I think we’re gonna need something even stronger than your sword if we’re going to destroy it.’

Lore raised his eyebrows. ‘You got something in mind? What we gonna find in the middle of a prison that’s gonna be more powerful?’

I couldn’t help but smile at my idea—there was a simple elegance to it, using the prison’s own magicks against them. ‘We’re gonna check out these belts.’

‘Great!’ Lore replied, and then, ‘...where are they?’

‘No idea. Want to go find out?’

We crept out of the central chamber, blades—Lore’s big, mine small—at the ready, and kept our breathing quiet. This central chamber was much less protected than the outer walls, which made a certain sort of sense, I supposed—anyone trying to get out of the prison would head, you know, out. At least, unless they knew what their fancy new belts did.

We tried room after room after room—three rooms, yes—looking for these belts, but we found nothing. One was a meeting room, with flies buzzing around half-eaten pastries. One was a storage closet, which contained—in addition to the usual—a scented candle, a limp rose, and the suggestion that two of the guards had recently been a tad naughty in there. And the last of the rooms was a plain old corridor, which Lore and I crept along, the big man in front.

Stealth — +1,300xp

Stealth increased to level 9!

Base Points gained — +1 DEX, +1 WIS, +2 Free Points (DEX/WIS)

I blinked. That I was gathering experience for Stealth was no surprise—we were after all… sneaking. But I didn’t typically get Stealth experience until the stealthing was over. Which meant—

A black belt suddenly swept over my head.

‘Lore!’ I cried, at the same moment that I sank to the floor, trying to avoid being caught by the belt. As I sank, I turned, and saw a woman in a freshly pressed golden surcoat standing over me, her eyes wide. She pressed the belt down towards me, and I held up my hands to try to force it back. It was already over my neck by this point, though.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

‘Her mouth!’ I shouted to Lore. ‘Don’t let her shout!’

Lore did exactly as I suggested, and I mean exactly. He jumped along the corridor, his hand shooting for the woman’s mouth, and for some reason dropped his sword in the process.

I scrambled for my Ranger’s Blade, allowing the prison belt to droop over my shoulder for just a second, and readied myself to stab. The guard cried—the noise muffled by Lore’s hand—as blade plunged into her flesh.

‘You’ll survive this,’ I told her. ‘If you’re quiet, you’ll survive. If you make noise.. Well, I’ll have to stab you some more, won’t I?’

The woman frantically nodded her understanding, reaching a hand into her pocket.

‘Lore, you’ll have to knock her out. We’ll cover the wound and—’

The guard pulled a small purple crystal from her pocket.

I glanced at it. ‘What’s—’ I started, and then realised at the same moment that the woman crushed it in her hand. The nearby belt—the one currently slumped over my right shoulder and left arm—hummed for a second, and I made the incredibly quick decision to open a portal beneath me.

I tumbled through it, pushing the belt away from me in the same moment, and it snapped from belt into disc in a flash. If I’d still had it over me, I would have been in two distinct pieces. I didn’t suspect my Health bar could handle that.

Lore glanced down the other end of the corridor to where I’d landed, made sure I was OK, and then nodded for his Bane Sword. I portaled it over to him, the man snatched it out of the air, and then before the woman could make another play, he hit her square in the forehead with the butt of the sword.

Level 18 guard defeated!

Worldbending — +400xp

Worldbending increased to level 26!

Base Points gained — +2 INT, +2 Free Points (INT/WIS/CHA)

Knifework — +1,850xp

‘We’ll go find another cupboard?’ the barbarian asked, standing over the body.

‘Yes,’ I said, and then, ‘Wait—first of all…’ I hurried over to the unconscious woman’s side, and I rummaged through her pockets until I found what I was looking for—two more purple gems. They had to be linked to the central gem, that much was obvious, and if I could use one of them to close a belt, then… All I needed was the belt.

The answer to this part of the situation came quickly. As we located another room in which to stuff our unconscious attacker, we found spare uniforms. And part of spare uniforms, it turned out, was a spare belt. There was a logic to this—if a belt ever went wrong, or their wearers managed to find a way to overcome the binding spell and removed them, the guards would want a fresh one on hand. And it explained why the guard we’d encountered a moment ago had been ready with one.

Belt in one hand, tiny purple gems in the other, I hurried back to the central chamber, Lore following at my heels and ready to strike at any more guards who came across us. Fortunately, we encountered none—the woman earlier had been our only obstacle.

Wasting no time at all, I plunged the gems into my pocket for a moment and unclasped the belt, wrapping it around the pillar and the central gem therein. As soon as I touched the two ends of the belt together, it fused, becoming one solid circle that shrunk gently to the size of the object it was holding.

In this case, that was the pillar.

‘You ready?’ I asked Lore. ‘I’m about to “do my thing”.’

‘Exciting!’

I pulled one of the purple gems from my pocket and smashed it against the pillar.

Nothing happened at first, or at least nothing seemed to. There was a faint straining sound, like leather stretched too far, as the belt tried its best to contract against the magically reinforced brass frame. It was the proverbial unstoppable force against the proverbial immovable objective.

I considered checking with Lore if I was using the word “proverbial” correctly, before deciding he probably didn’t know.

And then… it happened. The brass frame buckled under the pressure of the closing belt, and once that had gone, the purple gem followed soon after.

As the crystal disintegrated, so too did the belt. This belt, yes, but also every other belt that was magically linked to this pillar. Lore and I’s part of the job was done, and all we needed to do now was—

A noise erupted around us. No, multiple noises. From all around the prison complex.

Of course, we’d known we were releasing the belts on every single prisoner. I, personally, had thought them cruel—they were already prisoners, there was no need for such a barbaric device on them. What hadn’t occurred to me was the real impact of releasing all belts at once. It was, to the prisoners, an opportunity.

Guards shouted and screamed, magick attacks screeched, and footsteps belonging to both guard and prisoner alike began to echo around the prison.

The prisoners knew full well what those belts did, then. And they knew full well that this was their one and only chance to be without them.

It wasn’t just Corminar, Arzak and Aiwin trying to escape.

It was everyone.

"Styk"

Level 12 Bladespinner

Base Stats:

Vitality — 26

Intelligence — 111

Dexterity — 44

Strength — 50

Wisdom — 32

Charisma — 8

Skills:

Worldbending — Level 26

Knifework — Level 23

Identification — Level 10

Stealth — Level 9

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%