Killstreak Book One

by Stuart Thaman

  The candle didn’t help much, but the cellar was also somewhat small, and Kadorax could see most of it from where he stood at the bottom of the stairs. Everything was just as he had expected it to be. There were no overt signs of a werewolf: no bloody paw prints, no tufts of hair wedged in the sides of boxes, and no carcasses from recent feedings. Still, Kadorax moved slowly between the rows of dry goods, taking his time to inspect everything. When he reached the end of the cellar, he looked around for some sort of hidden door or magically concealed alcove cut into the wall. Without any perception talents, he knew he’d never find the evidence he sought if it had been hidden with anything other than mundane efforts.

  As Kadorax was about to head back for the stairs, a new idea sank through his mind to settle in the bottom of his thoughts: if Brinna was the lycanthrope, the basement was the last place he wanted to be. She could have tricked him, played him for a fool, and separated the two adventurers to make Syzak easier to kill, and he’d be trapped in an underground room with a single exit. Stupid, he silently chastised himself. With a higher Spirit score, he would have never been so careless.

  Kadorax ran toward the staircase, throwing the candle down on the shelf where he had found it, hesitating for only the briefest moment to see that it had extinguished. Nothing unusual could be heard from the top of the stairs. Kadorax pushed open the door and left the cellar behind, searching the next room for the upper floor. He half expected to hear his companion’s screams coming from somewhere overhead, but again, nothing besides silence greeted his ears.

  It didn’t take more than another half minute to find the staircase. Kadorax had no idea where anyone else in the estate was, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was charging headlong into a trap, or perhaps a grisly scene involving his best friend being torn apart by wolf claws.

  The stairs only ascended a single floor, and they creaked under Kadorax’s new boots, groaning from his weight. Whatever awaited him at the top, it would certainly be well aware that he was coming. Somewhere down below, he thought he heard Lady Brinn’s voice, though he couldn’t be sure. If she’s still down below, he thought, maybe nothing has happened.

  On the landing, Kadorax faced a narrow hallway with two doors on his right and only one on his left. Three options. The door on the left was open, so he went there first. It was a bedroom, sparsely appointed for such a nice estate, and no one was inside. Turning back to the hallway, Kadorax finally heard a yelp from a voice he recognized. Syzak was in trouble.

  “Wha—” the snake-man’s voice sounded before it was quickly cut off.

  Kadorax burst through the door farthest from the stairs.

  Syzak and Brinna both turned to regard him with bewildered expressions on their faces. “What’s wrong?” the shaman immediately asked. His muscles tensed, and his tongue flicked out to taste the air.

  As far as Kadorax could tell, no one in the room was injured or in any way distressed. “What happened?” he asked, shutting the room’s door behind him.

  Syzak still looked confused. “We found something behind the bureau.” He held up a clump of hair from a torn pelt. It looked like it had once been an animal, and bits of sinew still hung from the edges. “What’s going on?”

  “Shit,” Kadorax spat with a stomp of his foot. “Well she knows I’m here, at least. I wasn’t exactly quiet.”

  “Brinna?” the old woman called from the first floor.

  There was a thin locking bar on the door, and Kadorax slid it quickly into place. “This could end poorly,” he said under his breath. “If she’s really a lycanthrope, she’ll smell us in here.”

  Footsteps made their way down the hall, and then a knock sounded on the door. “Brinna? What are you doing in my room?”

  The young woman’s face was a mask of sheer panic. Despite having a fairly decent amount of combat experience for someone living in a remote part of Agglor, she clearly did not have the nerve of a seasoned warrior. And beyond that, she wasn’t wearing any weapons at her sides.

  “Yes, Mother,” she called, stalling for time. “Just… one moment.”

  Another knock, louder than the first, sounded against the door. “Open the door!” The woman was done asking—the tone of her voice made that quite clear.

  Brinna shot the two adventurers a worried glance, then slid the locking bar back to the open position and pulled in the door. “Yes?” she asked, her soft voice quaking just enough to give away her fear.

  Lady Brinn’s eyes scanned the room, and they settled on the shredded carcass still dangling from Syzak’s fingertips. “Oh,” she stated flatly.

  “Ma’am—”

  The older woman cut him off. “I suppose you adventurers are here about a quest, then, yes?” she announced.

  Kadorax figured it was useless to lie. His Charisma score was still low, and it would take a legendary amount of the stat to talk his way out of the situation. Clearly, the lycanthrope had read his intentions without issue. “We’re bringing you in,” Kadorax said with as much confidence as he could.

  The woman’s flesh began to shift and stretch. It peeled away at her wrists, giving air to her more sinister lupine form. “You will? Is that right?” she cooed. The skin around her neck and face began to transform as well, and then her shoulder jutted upward, adding at least two feet to her height all at once.

  Back on Earth, Kadorax had known all the standard werewolf stories. He had watched them transform in movies and howl at the full moon dozens of times, usually only a moment or so before they were cut down by some badass gun-wielding hero. On Agglor, werewolves were a little different. They didn’t need the full moon—not even night or dusk—to transform, and they were closer to Mister Hyde or the Hulk than anything from the softer movies.

  “Spike Trap!” Syzak called, channeling the spell through his staff. A circular pit appeared directly beneath the werewolf, but there wasn’t enough wooden flooring between the first and second floors of the estate for the trap to fully form. Instead, the floor simply vanished, and the spikes all clattered harmlessly down into the foyer below.

  “Shit,” Kadorax muttered as he drew his whip. With enough distance, perhaps it would be useful. As he brought his arm back and prepared to use Torment, the werewolf leapt across the hole in floor.

  Lady Brinn landed next to Kadorax with a fierce roar. Her claws, each digit at least half a foot in length, swiped at the man’s chest with enough force to rend him in two.

  Kadorax dodged backward, his shirt torn to ribbons, and barely escaped a quick and painful death. The claws had still hit him, though, and he spun from the momentum.

  “Mother! No!” Brinna screamed. She had her back pressed tightly against the far wall, her palms flat as though if she only pushed hard enough it would give and release her from the estate.

  Now standing on top of the room’s bed and ducking to not bash his head on the ceiling, Syzak cast Cure Minor Ailments with his staff aimed at Kadorax’s bloodied chest. The spell was quick and landed without issue, knitting back most of the flesh the werewolf had torn.

  Using the heightened Agility from his boots, Kadorax sidestepped the flailing lycanthrope and drew his stolen bandit sword from his hip. “Torment!” he yelled, bringing the blade down hard on the creature’s exposed back. He got lucky, but not lucky enough. The blade only scored a glancing hit, and then Kadorax was out of talents. He would have to wait half an hour to use Torment again, and the fight would be long concluded by then, of that he had no doubt.

  Still, Torment was a powerful ability. The werewolf staggered, her ferocious roaring culled to a momentary whimper, and she stepped away from the three.

  “Summon Rain!” Syzak called, casting from the bed. An almost comically small rain cloud suddenly formed in the room, centered directly on the beast’s beady black eyes.

  Kadorax didn’t waste any time. He lowered his shoulder and charged forward, keeping his sword held close to his side so he wouldn’t have to waste time swinging it. The combination worked, an
d the rain-slicked, confused werewolf stumbled backward another step where she lost her footing beyond the gap in the floor. One final shove, and Kadorax sent the creature tumbling to the floor below only an instant before the Spike Trap faded and made the floor whole once again. With the werewolf below, Kadorax, Syzak, and Brinna were alone, almost safe, though none of them felt like heading for the stairs.

  “Blood Fury!” came a husky, animalistic voice from below, muffled by the floorboards and mixed with the sound of something heavy hitting the floor.

  “That can’t be good,” Syzak stated flatly.

  Hands on his thighs and doubled over to recover his breath, Kadorax agreed. “If her Blood Fury is above rank one, we’re all dead. The talent will drain her life force, but she’ll be so much stronger it won’t matter. We have to run.”

  Syzak had completely drained his entire stock of spells, and his eyes showed his weariness.

  “I don’t get it,” Brinna said to no one in particular. “She… she’s a… a werewolf?”

  “Figure it out later,” Kadorax told her, grabbing her roughly by the shoulder.

  “But she’s my own mother…”

  “Right now, all that matters is getting out of here,” the bastion yelled. He dragged Brinna toward the door, Syzak pulling up the rear of the sorry-looking trio.

  Another crash sounded down below, far larger than the first one. “Rend!” the monster shouted, but another voice overlapped it at the end.

  “Pyre!”

  Kadorax’s heart leapt in his chest. For a split second, he thought the werewolf had somehow summoned enemies, magic-wielding enemies, and was about to raze the estate.

  Then he remembered the Grim Sleeper stationed outside in the cold and the wind.

  The Grim Sleeper cast another spell as the three rounded a corner to enter the foyer, but the words were so horridly pronounced that none of them had any idea what it was. In front of them, right inside the estate’s main entrance, was a gruesome scene. The werewolf bled profusely from its leg, probably from one of Syzak’s ill-fated spikes, and the creature was on all fours.

  The Grim Sleeper towered above Lady Brinn. Her mouth was open, unhinged, and a dark stream of thick, purple magic rolled out of it. The lavender vomit enveloped the werewolf’s torso, and everywhere it touched began to smolder, filling the room with an indescribably acrid stench. The werewolf convulsed, sending sickening pops and cracks through its own spine, and then it was fully engulfed in flame.

  Brinna wailed at the top of her lungs. Kadorax held her back, but that was all he could do. The Grim Sleeper’s work was complete, and the only thing left was to watch the werewolf slowly turn to blackened ash.

  “Don’t look,” Kadorax whispered, turning the woman’s head into his chest. In all reality he didn’t want to see it, either, but he couldn’t look away. As the lycanthrope burned and her screams subsided, the Grim Sleeper remained motionless.

  “What is it?” Syzak wondered aloud, his own mouth agape.

  Kadorax shook his head. “Just be glad she’s on our side,” he replied.

  When the spell finally concluded a minute or two later, there wasn’t much left of Lady Brinn—but that didn’t stop the warlock from immediately kneeling down with a small knife to claim her prize.

  Ignoring his substantial experience gain, Kadorax led the shaken woman outside to the street. Brinna sobbed into the man’s chest, her hands in small fists, but all the fight and terror had left her—replaced by nothing but horror. Assuming her mind survived the ordeal, grief would come later.

  “Come with us,” Kadorax told her. “We have a ship, and we can see what’s been holding up that cure you need in Assir. Just put everything out of your mind.” He knew he was terrible when it came to women—always had been—but at least he had the wisdom to leave out the part where Brinna’s mother’s killer would be staying on the same ship.

  Though she barely calmed, the woman allowed herself to be led away. Kadorax and Syzak hurried her along toward the docks, both grateful to be as far from the Grim Sleeper as possible.

  Chapter 5

  Back aboard the ship in Coldport’s small, icy harbor, Lord Percival had shown enough mercy to make the Grim Sleeper retreat below decks as Brinna attempted to recover up above by the wheelhouse. The woman had refused to go below to the bunks, preferring the open space and bright sunshine to the dank and cramped crew quarters.

  “Well,” Syzak said, the word sounding a bit muddled from his serpentine mouth. “That was the kind of quest we had been after, right?”

  Kadorax nodded. He felt horrible and more than a little sick to his stomach when he thought of the damage done to Brinna’s mind, but he couldn’t deny the huge amount of experience points he had scooped up for his part in the fight. Based on his own gain, he guessed the werewolf had been at least level ten, maybe twelve, and he shuddered to think what level he would see if he ever got a glance at the Grim Sleeper’s stats. The warlock was nothing compared to the assassin he had formerly been, but those days were behind him. Kadorax was just glad he was firmly in the captain’s good graces.

  “You’re level five now?” Kadorax asked his companion.

  The snake-man happily nodded. His dark eyes were a thousand miles away, scanning page after page of options on his character sheet.

  Kadorax had also reached level five, though perhaps the most profound result of the battle had been the loss of a single rank of Bond, bringing his total in that category to nine.

  The rest of his stats hadn’t changed, though he had gotten the customary level five boost to two selections:

  Strength: 16

  Agility: 15 (+2; Steady Boots)

  Fate: 20

  Spirit: 13

  Charisma: 14

  Bond: 9

  Kadorax didn’t like seeing his Bond in the single digits. With no prior knowledge of the stat’s existence, he had no clue what to really expect. Thankfully, his Encroaching Insanity debuff hadn’t gotten worse—it was still in the first rank.

  When he had memorized his new stats and taken a moment to relish in the advancement, Kadorax finally began to scroll through the various talents and passives available to him as a level five bastion of chaos incarnate.

  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.

  Blade Training (Light): Rank 1 - Showing affinity for the short sword, the bastion unlocks the ability to earn several fighter talents related to one-handed swords, daggers, and knives. Blade Training (Light): Rank 1 also grants Riposte: Rank 1. Passive.

  Conjure Darkness: Rank 1 - A sphere of utter darkness escapes the chaos and seeps into reality, blocking all mundane forms of vision. Effect: minor. Cooldown: 15 minutes.

  Chaos Shock: Rank 1 - The bastion pulls a sliver of chaotic energy into the world and thrusts it forward, creating a random magical effect. Effect: minor. Cooldown: 30 minutes.

  Bringer of Pain: Rank 1 - Sacrificing some of the bastion’s own health, the user creates a small portal at the target location to siphon pain directly from the chaos into the physical realm. Effect: moderate. Cooldown: 1 day.

  Cage of Chaos: Rank 1 - The bastion is surrounded by a subtle layer of swirling elements emanating from the soul rod. The armor reacts violently to several strikes, especially elementally imbued attacks, before dissipating, requiring a day to regenerate. Passive.

  Fleet Footed: Rank 1 - A burst of speed carries the bastion to a target location in a blur. Early ranks of Fleet Footed have a chance of unusual side effects. Effect: minor. Cooldown: 30 minutes.

  Silver Tongue: Rank 1 - The bastion’s ability to converse is enhanced by an element of unpredictability, raising Spirit and Charisma each by 1. Passive.

  Sleight of Hand: Rank 1 - Hiding objects comes naturally to one possessed by chaos. The bastion can use misdirection and minor sleights
to conceal small objects from view. Higher ranks allow more complex sleights and for larger, louder objects to also be hidden. Passive.

  Kadorax had three selections awaiting him, one for level four and two for level five. All things considered, he was progressing through levels faster than he would have thought possible, though at great risk to his own body, of course. The fight with the werewolf could have easily gone downhill, and Kadorax had to laugh when he considered the very real chance that he and Syzak could have woken up in a tavern in a different village again instead of Lord Percival’s ship.

  His first instinct led Kadorax toward Cage of Chaos, as he often favored passive abilities that couldn’t miss or be deflected. Investing in attacks with long cooldowns meant there was always a chance the target would be unaffected for some reason or another, and the entire talent would be a waste. Without giving it much thought, Kadorax focused his vision on Cage of Chaos and unlocked the talent. He felt the effects of the talent begin at once, and the new sensation made his skin crawl. Little bits of what felt like metal shavings wormed over his skin beneath his torn shirt. They circled in a continuous pattern from right to left. Kadorax knew it would take some time to get used to.

  With two more selections remaining, Kadorax wasn’t exactly sure what he needed. “What are you getting for level five?” he asked, breaking Syzak’s own concentration for a moment.

  The snake-man’s eyes were glazed over. He blinked away his contemplation, and a smile spread across his scaled mouth. “I get three new talent options,” he said happily. “I’ve never gotten so much all at once before. Kind of overwhelming, in a way.”

  “Yeah, I agree,” Kadorax replied.

  “I already took Silent Casting,” the shaman stated. “That’s still the best passive any spell caster can take. Honestly, it should be a requirement in every adventurer’s build as soon as they hit level five.”

  Kadorax couldn’t agree more. Though he did wonder if playing a bastion would frequently require the use of stealth since the trainer had mentioned heavy armor. He knew he wouldn’t do nearly as much skullduggery as when he had been an assassin, but still, not having to announce a spell was invaluable. Should they be captured, Syzak would still be able to cast even when gagged, assuming the captors didn’t prevent his magic through other means.