Val, Arzak and I stood leaning against the exterior of the palace walls, smoking a pipe as though we were simply enjoying the dazzling afternoon sun. In reality, Val was looking left, and Arzak was looking right, searching for the moment that nobody was looking this way.
‘Clear left,’ Val finally said.
‘Wait,’ the orc replied. ‘Wait…’
‘Still clear.’
‘OK, we go.’
I opened a portal on the wall behind us, and we toppled through it. I’d positioned the other side of the portal behind us, in the palace grounds, at the perfect angle that we would fall back into a standing position once more. As I closed the portal—now with 50% less glow!—we each looked around for signs that anyone had spotted us. We’d been quick enough, though, that nobody seemed to have noticed.
And now we were just three rich folk, in their fancy clothes, taking a stroll about the palace grounds. Val took my arm while Arzak walked ahead, and we made a conscious decision to stroll at the pace of the rich. That is, painfully slowly, like we had nowhere better to be. Val made a show of pointing at the flowers, talking about them and stopping to sniff them—but if anyone had listened to her commentary on them, they’d have realised she had absolutely no idea what she was on about. Fortunately, nobody seemed to be to worried about getting too close to what appeared to be a young couple having a simple stroll.
Even the guards barely looked at us, though perhaps that had more to do with the surprising number of merchants, dignitaries and the like allowed inside the palace grounds. We were just three of many, and blended in just enough that we didn’t appear to require any special attention.
‘OK, cool it with the flowers,’ I said, ‘Queen’s back tomorrow, and at this rate we’ll still be sniffing roses.’
Val kept a relaxed smile on her face and replied, ‘Chill out, will you?’ Still, she pulled on my arm a tad harder from there on, and we got moving more quickly.
As we exited one of the palace’s many gardens, coming onto one of the inner city’s few roads, I caught one guard keeping an eye on us. It was just one—nothing, necessarily, to worry about—but he’d definitely seen something that he knew was wrong, on some level.
‘Guard by the tower,’ I muttered, still smiling. ‘Got an eye on us.’ I glanced at Arzak up ahead; she’d evaded notice.
‘Probably you having a go at me about the flowers that did it.’
‘I imagine we’re not the first “couple” to have a little tiff in the gardens, Val,’ I replied, then lifted her hand from my arm.
‘Where are you…’ she started, while I made straight for the guard, my eyes fixed on his.
The man moved a hand towards the hilt of his sword, but didn’t yet draw it.
‘Excuse me, sir?’ I asked.
At this question, the man relaxed once more. ‘Yes?’
‘Might you point me towards the records office? My wife and I… we have an appointment.’
The guard cast his eyes towards Val, and they lingered for a moment. ‘Straight up this road, and it’s on the corner at the end. But you’ll need a guard to accompany you; it’s policy.’ He cast his eyes to Val once more, who was approaching slowly. ‘I could do so, if you—’
‘We’ll be fine, thank you.’ I turned away, and accepted Val’s hand on my arm once more.
‘What was all that about? He could’ve seen right through you. You don’t exactly hold up to scrutiny up—’
‘The best way to avoid suspicion, in my experience, is to walk straight up to it. Why would someone who shouldn’t be here talk to a guard?’
‘This is the thief in you talking, is it?’ Val asked.
‘Do you disapprove?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
Arzak, up ahead, paused to apparently stare at a bird in a tree, but I knew she was allowing Val and I to take the lead, having noticed me talking to a guard. I led her towards the record office, at the end of the road, but on our way I noticed something more useful: a barracks.
I pulled Val to a halt. ‘Fancy being a guard?’
‘I feel that’s all we use my changeling abilities for—impersonating guards.’
‘I’m going to take that as a yes.’
I turned, signalled to Arzak with a nod of my head, and we disappeared off the road around the back of the barracks. There was no entry at the back of the building, but with my portal abilities, this didn’t exactly matter.
‘What it?’ Arzak asked when she appeared around the corner in this dusty back alley.
‘We need a guard to get into the records office,’ I said. ‘Gonna get—’
Arzak pointed to Val.
‘Is this all that you think I’m good for?’ the witch asked.
Arzak, like me, ignored her. ‘OK. Sneaky inside?’
‘Sneaky inside,’ I agreed with a nod, thinking that we were on the same page, then, that Arzak would need to stay outside. I took a deep breath, opened a portal to get us through the wall, and moved to step through it.
But so did Arzak.
I closed the portal and looked at her. ‘What’re you doing?’
‘I can be stealthy,’ Arzak proclaimed. ‘I work on it. Level 3 now.’
I looked to Val, who shrugged, then ultimately decided that this wasn’t a fight I could be bothered to pick. I opened the portal inside once more, and we all hurried through. As before, there had been nobody around to spot my only semi-glowing portal.
At least, nobody awake.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Val, Arzak and I found ourselves in the sleeping quarters, about a third of the beds currently occupied by dozing soldiers. Hanging above the bunks were fresh uniforms, the mustard-gold surcoats and the thin leather armour.
‘This easy,’ Arzak said, and I hushed her.
‘Stealthy!’ I whispered, then turned to Val. ‘Quick, pick one.’
Val took a quick look around, then creeped over to a bed about halfway down the room. A woman was sleeping there—one with roughly the same build as Val. The size didn’t matter, of course—Val’s changeling abilities would see to that—but I suspected she didn’t want to be caught out by the armour if she was forced to change back for any reason.
The witch picked up the armour, began to strip, and then hesitated. She cast a glance in our direction. ‘Turn around,’ she hissed.
I held my hands up to protest my innocence, but turned away alongside Arzak, finding ourselves staring at a large wooden wardrobe.
‘Why they need wardrobe if uniforms out?’ Arzak murmured.
I hushed her again.
‘I quiet.’
A bell chimed through the building, making the floor itself seem to shake. No, not a bell, I realised—a gong.
Arzak and I snapped our heads to face each other, and then, thinking quickly, we jumped inside the wardrobe, pushing aside unmarked brown and black armours. Just as I pulled the doors closed behind us, the soldiers in the beds began to stir, and Val—with her new face—hurried over to the corner of the room, busying herself by studying a bookcase.
Stealth — +1,300xp
Stealth increased to level 10!
Base Points gained — +1 DEX, +1 WIS, +2 Free Points (DEX/WIS)
Ability selection unlocked
…
‘Cosy,’ Arzak whispered, and slowly adjusted her legs so they weren’t quite as uncomfortably close to my crotch.
I poked my eye up to the wardrobe’s empty keyhole, to see the soldiers stretch as they awoke, grumbling as they pulled off their pyjamas—any semblance of not wanting to be naked in front of their colleague notable missing—and begin to wrench on their uniforms. One of them, the woman who Val was copying, cried out, ‘Alright! Who took it? Who took my bloody armour again?’
‘Maybe servants forget?’ an orc guard suggested with a shrug.
The woman grumbled something unintelligible—though I suspected it contained a lot of swearing—and hurried from the room in her pyjamas, causing the rest of the soldiers to laugh.
While the soldiers changed, I considered trying to portal Arzak and I outside again, but the wardrobe was simply too small. Even with the Tamed Portals passive, someone was sure to notice the purple glow, and the last thing I wanted to do was to alert them to trouble. So I contented myself to take a look at my Stealth ability options instead.
There were only two, this time.
Ability selection unlocked
Select an ability from the list below:
Option 1: Danger-Sense II (Stealth) — Passive. Your senses grow keener; you are 50% more likely to notice traps and ambushes.
I knew this ability choice from a past life—well, two lives ago, now—and so I wasn’t in too much of a rush to pick it. It wasn’t that it wasn’t useful, because it definitely was. My hesitation came only from the knowledge that this particular skill had several levels, and so I would likely have lots of opportunities to pick it, or an upgraded version, at a later level.
The other choice, however, was a little rarer.
Option 2: In Plain Sight (Stealth) — When activated, you have a heightened ability to hide in plain sight, and are able to spot opportunities to break from combat at a higher rate. Scales with WIS.
I could see so many situations where this one was handy, and it was only making poor choices that meant I hadn’t selected this in the previous life—a matter that I’d, on occasion, come to regret.
I took another look through the key hole, at the two dozen or so soldiers preparing themselves for the day ahead, then decided my instinct was correct.
Ability unlocked — In Plain Sight
In Plain Sight (Stealth) — When activated, you have a heightened ability to hide in plain sight, and are able to spot opportunities to break from combat at a higher rate. Scales with WIS.
I put my free points from the level up into Wisdom, and made a mental note: between this and Identification, there was value in upgrading this particular base stat.
Outside Arzak and my’s cosy hiding spot, footsteps announced the departure—at last—of the soldiers. I poked my eye to the hole once more to get a look, and saw everyone but Val moving towards the door. The witch adjusted her hair to cover her face, and continued to pretend to study the bookcase.
But the last two guards hesitated at the threshold of the room, spotting Val still in the corner.
‘You’ll be late for breakfast, mate! Don’t wanna get stuck with Cook’s porridge, do ya?’ one of them cried to her.
When Val didn’t reply, the soldier left his colleague at the door and walked back towards Val.
‘Oi, didn’t you hear me?’
Val, realising she had no choice, slowly turned away from the bookcase, putting on her best innocent face.
It wasn’t very good.
"Styk"
Level 12 Bladespinner
Base Stats:
Vitality — 28
Intelligence — 124
Dexterity — 52
Strength — 54
Wisdom — 35
Charisma — 21
Skills:
Worldbending — Level 30
Knifework — Level 23
Identification — Level 10
Stealth — Level 10
Needlework — Level 9
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%.
Execution II — Attack a target while undetected for +200% damage.
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.
Execution II — Attack a target while undetected for +200% damage.
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.
Tamed Portals — Passive. Increased efficiency of portal magicks means that your portal glow is reduced by 50%, making them less likely to be detected by enemies.
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.
In Plain Sight — When activated, you have a heightened abilitiy to hide in plain sight, and are able to spot opportunities to break from combat at a higher rate. Scales on [WIS].
Stitch — Create a basic stitch in common fabrics. Ability scales on [CHA].
Basic Cloth Armour — Craft basic cloth armour, quality dependent on materials, time and skill level.
Active Effects:
Legacy of Sisyphus:
XP gain increased by +900%