Kadorax drove the blade into the man’s lower torso until the handguard hit cloth, and then he ripped it out, dropping the dead bandit to the ground like a heap of discarded bricks. Not far off, the wounded and terrified bandit cried into his hands on the ground, though Kadorax suspected the effect of his Torment ability had long since worn off.
“We’re lucky these idiots weren’t too bright,” Kadorax said, flicking some of the gore from the sword in his hand as he moved to the last bandit.
“Just finish him quickly—I can’t stand when they scream like that,” Syzak added. He panted from the effort of the Spike Trap he had cast. Being only level one, the spell had consumed a huge amount of his energy for the day.
Kadorax leveled his blade above the wounded bandit’s neck, then leaned on the hilt to drive it home. The man’s screams quickly died in his ruined throat. “You there,” he called to the captive, “you’re the kidnapped blacksmith from Coldport, yes?”
The burly man, bound at the wrists and gagged, nodded.
When he was freed, he took a few moments to stretch and walk a bit before introducing himself. “I’m Ayers,” he said, his voice gruff with age. “Thanks for coming to my rescue.”
Syzak was busy rooting through the dead men’s belongings, stacking a neat pile of useful items next to one of the bodies. When the Spike Trap had run out of sustaining magic, the bloodied spikes had vanished altogether, leaving nothing but a torn bandit on the flat ground.
“I’m glad we found you, Ayers,” Kadorax said. In the bottom right corner of his vision, three numbers flashed by in bright colors. They showed his experience, and he was surprised to find that he had gained enough to reach level three, though killing three bandits of higher level certainly warranted a high reward.
“Are you on the road back to—”
A deep wail interrupted the blacksmith’s sentence, and all three of them turned back toward the rocks with a start. “What was that?” Ayers asked.
“Brinna,” Kadorax solemnly stated. In the heat of the battle, he had forgotten her. Pushing aside his next tier of available talents, he darted back to the road, but Brinna did not appear in trouble. She was hunched over her son near a large boulder, and her sobs told everyone that the boy had died.
“What happened?” Syzak asked. He tried to sound gentle, that much was obvious, but his serpentine head and jaw made his soft words sound more sinister than anything else.
The woman looked briefly over her shoulder, then turned her gaze back to the body in her arms. “There,” she said, pointing down the road.
There was a fourth bandit, lying face down on the stone and dirt. One of Brinna’s daggers protruded from the top of his spine.
“He came from the other direction… just after you two charged in like idiots,” the woman explained between sobs.
Kadorax lifted her off the ground with an arm. She let the boy fall from her grasp, and his lifeless body strangely did not show any signs of physical harm.
“He doesn’t look injured,” Kadorax said quietly after a few moments of letting Brinna exhaust her emotions. “How did it happen?”
She shook her head against his chest. “It was just the fright,” she wept. “He was too weak, and his heart couldn’t take the stress.”
For some reason, that made Kadorax feel at least a little better about the situation, though he couldn’t help but attach the majority of the blame to himself. Attacking the bandits had been reckless. There wasn’t any way to really justify it other than to say Kadorax was typically reckless at a low level. After all, he and Syzak would respawn if they died. It wouldn’t be ideal, but it wouldn’t mean the absolute end for them. The boy, less than twenty years of age, was not afforded the same luxury. His death would be permanent.
“I’m so sorry,” was all Kadorax could think to say. He had been in his early twenties when he had arrived in Agglor, and he had been to a handful of funerals back on Earth. Back then, just the same as now, he had no idea what to say. There was nothing that would bring the boy back short of finding a powerful necromancer to reanimate his corpse, but that wouldn’t restore his mind anyways.
“He was going to die soon, I know that,” Brinna stated, brushing some of the tears from her face and regaining a measure of composure. “The cure would come too late for him. I just… I didn’t want it to end this way. Not here. Not like this.”
“We’ll bury him, if it makes you feel better,” Kadorax added. “Or we can bring the body to Coldport for a proper funeral.”
Brinna turned to look once more at her dead son. “There are enough rocks. We can make a cairn, and then we should leave. I can come back later on my return trip to the villages. If there’s time then, I can give him a proper burial.”
Leaning against the rock where her son had died, Brinna watched the other three place stones on top of her son’s body. There wasn’t any great place for the cairn to be constructed, so they made their rock pile near the bandits’ campfire, as that was at least a decent ways from the road.
When the four were finally underway once more toward Coldport, the sky was dark with night. The blacksmith didn’t say much beyond offering his thanks, and the two adventurers let Brinna walk in silence amongst her thoughts.
Level three, Kadorax thought to himself with half a smile. Taking risks meant advancing quickly, and he was more than eager to be strong enough to face the Gar’kesh once more. Before he got to his newly available talents, he had three stat points to distribute, and those were a relatively easy decision. Especially in the beginning, he preferred a balanced build, especially until he could figure out exactly what it was he was supposed to do as a bastion. At level three, his sheet read:
Strength: 15
Agility: 14
Fate: 20
Spirit: 14
Charisma: 14
Bond: 10
Satisfied with his decision to raise Agility, Spirit, and Fate, he expanded the available talents to take up the majority of his vision, trusting Syzak in front of him to warn of any oncoming treacherous footing.
Torment: Rank 2 - The bastion’s weapon magically extends to a second target beyond the first, and Torment inflicts slightly more damage than rank 1. Torment has an increased effect when used with a whip. Effect: moderate. Cooldown: 28 minutes.
Improved Perception: Rank 1 - The bastion sees more in the distance, especially foes and dangerous traps. Improved Perception allows the bastion to see magically hidden objects at rank 6. Passive.
Bastion Weapon Proficiency: Rank 1 - Chaos bring fluidity, and the bastion becomes proficient in all weapon types, allowing weapon-specific talents for those types to be earned. Passive.
Fortune Teller (Fate: 20): Rank 1 - The bastion can mold Chaos itself into visions of the future, sometimes predicting events yet to come. Effect: minor. Cooldown: 1 day.
Immediately, Kadorax liked the look of Bastion Weapon Proficiency and the rather mysterious Fortune Teller talent. He had never heard of anyone else being able to accurately predict the future, but he also had no idea how useful it would. He imagined a bright yellow warning flashing up in his vision the split second before he was impaled on some minotaur’s spear or eaten by a dragon. It probably wouldn’t be useful without higher ranks, and that would mean forgoing a lot of other talents that were certain to be equally as interesting.
Thinking of the stolen bandit sword tucked into his belt and hitting his thigh with every step, he focused on Bastion Weapon Proficiency and locked in his choice. As far as he knew, every class in Agglor had a similar talent that unlocked all sorts of weapon choices, but he hadn’t thought any classes other than warriors and fighters were able to gain access to all weapon types. As an assassin, he had taken a similar talent, though that one had only applied to unorthodox implements such as wire of all varieties, shuriken, razors, caltrops, certain types of gas bombs, and blowguns. Having proficiency with the short sword meant he could use his whip to initiate combat if he needed to, and then he could revert to
something more familiar and still earn relevant experience points and talents.
“Hey, Syzak, did you level from that fight?” he asked his companion.
The snake-man nodded in the darkness. “Yeah, level two. I took Improved Traps: Rank 1,” he said. “It increases the size of Spike Trap and any other traps I learn later on. My other options were a new healing spell or a weird passive that would let me interact better with animals.”
“Ha, a snake going full beastmaster would be cool, though!” Kadorax replied.
“As one who used to live in a small glass cage, I don’t think I would feel right keeping wild animals as my slaves,” Syzak said, only half joking.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Kadorax said. “I think Improved Traps was the right choice. That Spike Trap was really effective.”
Syzak had one of the bandits’ swords on his own belt as well, though he’d probably never need to use it—at least not before getting something of higher quality. In his past life, the snake-man had wielded a staff to cast his spells and had a pair of short sickles for anything that wandered too close, though they had been more objects of appearance in the long run. The way the two worked so well in tandem, not much ever got close enough to Syzak to engage him in melee combat.
“We’ll have plenty of iron when we get our reward, any idea what you’ll want?” Kadorax asked. Iron ingots were a staple among low-level quests, as everyone needed gear, and small villages often operated more on bartering than currency anyways.
“I wouldn’t mind iron-shod boots,” he answered.
“Good idea,” Kadorax agreed. “Walking on dirt and gravel is terrible in cloth.”
Chapter 4
The four traveling companions reached Coldport a few hours after dawn. They were quite hungry, tired, and more than a little cold. Brinna still hadn’t spoken a word since they had built a cairn for her son.
At Lady Brinn’s estate, they were treated to a warm welcome complete with a warm meal. Kadorax and Syzak collected their reward of iron bars on a small wooden cart. As mother and daughter took some time to reconnect after breakfast, Kadorax and Syzak went to visit their new friend at the forge.
“Good to see you again,” Ayers beamed when the two walked through the door of his forge. “I have your reward, even though you didn’t formally accept the quest that was posted.”
The man brought out an oilcloth and unrolled it on a wooden desk a few feet away from his anvil. Inside were two proper belts and scabbards. “Carrying those swords out in the open has to be a pain. These should help,” he said.
Kadorax and Syzak both accepted their reward without complaint. Sword belts weren’t expensive by any means, but they were certainly useful.
“We need some boots,” Kadorax said once his new belt was secured around his waist. He guessed his midsection had at least four inches of fat that hadn’t been there in his previous life. He hated feeling so soft.
Ayers wheeled the little cart full of iron to the other side of his furnace. “A good pair of leather for the both of you?” he asked.
“Iron-shod leather, if you can,” Syzak corrected.
The blacksmith looked over the ingots once more and counted them. “They won’t be the prettiest boots in Agglor, but I can make them,” he said. “Good leather is expensive, you know?”
Kadorax extended his hand to finalize the agreement. “Can you have them ready tomorrow?”
“Aye,” he answered with a smile. “Since you saved my life, anything you need I’ll work on right away, whenever you want. Just keep bringing me more materials.”
The two thanked Ayers and then left, heading back in the direction of the town hall. “Well, we’ve got ourselves a blacksmith now,” Kadorax said. “Lady Brinn will let us stay one night at her estate, so we’ll need to do something for whoever runs the inn to secure food and a room. After that, all we’ll have left to do is establish a fiefdom for some steady tax income.”
Syzak laughed and slapped him on the back. “You can’t seriously be planning a fiefdom already, can you? You’re at least ten or twelve levels from completing a quest with that kind of reward,” he said.
“Ah, but a man can dream, can he not?” Kadorax sighed.
“I still have no idea what that means,” the snake-man replied. “I’m not even sure I believe that these dreams you speak of are real. It sounds insane.”
“It really is all darkness when you sleep?” Kadorax asked. When the two had first arrived in Agglor, Kadorax’s dreams had been relentless, like his body had taken to dreaming as a way of coping with the sudden change in everything else. He had dreamt of Earth, of all the things he had loved to do, but as he had advanced through Agglor, the dreams had slowed. For whatever reason, Syzak did not experience any dreams whatsoever, and he had no memories of experiencing them on Earth, either.
“Yes,” the snake-man answered. “Perhaps animals do not dream at all. Or perhaps you’ve been putting me on for twenty years as some elaborate joke only you will find humorous.”
Kadorax shook his head. “But the dog dreamed all the time, right? At least it looked like she did. Animals have to dream.”
“And yet I do not.”
“Whatever,” Kadorax concluded. “Let’s get another quest so we can figure out where we’ll get to eat and sleep in Coldport, shall we?”
Bustling as ever, the town hall was loud and noisy. Several groups of petitioners were anxiously awaiting their turn before the mayor, and a group of well-dressed nobles were conducting a tea ceremony of sorts in one of the more lavishly appointed rooms.
Kadorax and Syzak went straight for the quest board. A dozen or so leaflets were tacked to the board in no particular order.
“Here’s one that might be our level,” Syzak pointed out. “Undead have been seen in the local copper mine, and the foreman wants help exterminating them.”
“What’s the pay?” Kadorax asked.
“Only ten iron ingots, but five copper ones as well,” answered the shaman.
Kadorax thought it over for a moment. “Not bad, but experience from killing undead is always pathetic. We need to power level if we’re going to have a chance at killing the Gar’kesh.”
Syzak looked them over again, but he didn’t see anything terribly promising. “Coldport is too small to have really lucrative quests,” he said. The most efficient way to acquire experience in Agglor was through grouping together to take down larger enemies, and those types of quests were typically found at military outposts, large mercenary encampments, and other official locations, not backwoods villages along frozen rivers.
“New quest incoming! Make way at the board!” a voice called from the town hall’s door. A man in a green tabard bearing an unfamiliar crest marched toward the board, a scroll in his hands. Whenever someone posted a job, there was always a bit of formalism surrounding the event—as though it was something far grander than a man nailing a piece of paper to a piece of wood.
“Adventurers wanted for lycanthrope removal,” Kadorax read aloud as the man posted the notice. “Contact Lord Percival by the docks for more information.”
“A lycan? That would give a ton of experience,” Syzak noted with a serpentine smile.
The two shared a knowing look, each fully aware of the other’s thoughts regarding boss-style quests—and lycanthropes in general. “That’s our quest,” Kadorax stated.
They left the town hall quickly, heading toward the chilly river that gave Coldport its name. “And what about food and a place to stay?” Syzak asked, remembering their original intention.
“We’ll make plenty,” Kadorax told him. “The reward was in gold, not raw materials. We can just buy a room.”
Coldport’s docks were small by comparison to just about any other city or village in all of Agglor, and there were only a couple modest warehouses. A single-room structure that housed the harbormaster’s offices stood in front of them all, and that was where Kadorax and Syzak began their search.
“We’re looki
ng for Lord Percival,” the man began when they had entered and approached the large desk that dominated the space.
The attendant glanced up from a ledger where he was transcribing numbers from one piece of parchment to another. “Second wharf. By the red ship,” the man said without much enthusiasm.
Kadorax thanked the attendant, and the two went back outside, easily spotting the red ship since it was the only one in port. The vessel was somewhat large, perhaps a bit too large for the size of the river in which it sat, and there were a handful of sailors moving about on its top deck. Curiously, the ship’s figurehead was not the typical mermaid or seafaring god that most sailors of Agglor preferred, but instead the wooden sculpture was of a shackled child—probably a boy, though the details of the features had been worn smooth by the ocean—with a twisted expression full of pain, and a blade sticking out of his chest.
“That’s a pretty messed-up ship,” Kadorax remarked, leading the way down the wharf.
Syzak nodded in agreement. “Makes me wonder what Lord Percival is going to be like,” he said.
As it turned out, Lord Percival was quite easy to spot. The captain was resplendently dressed, pacing back and forth on the dock next to a ramp, and shouting orders to his crew all around. They were hard at work unloading crates onto the pier, and several muscled dockhands strained under the weight of each crate as they moved them toward one of the nearby warehouses. A gaudy feather bounced to and fro as the captain gestured.
Killstreak Book One Page 5