by Jamey Sultan
“Suit yourself.” Nidra said. “Arik and I will be a team. Let’s go.”
When she looked up, a dark orange light burned in her eyes as pent-up Mana swirled through her body.
Someone was going to burn tonight.
Chapter 25
After they split up, James stopped for a second and looked around. He couldn’t help feeling like he was missing something. He patted at his waist and felt the familiar weight of his sword. Luckily, it had been inside his pouch.
He patted the sheath on his calf. His dagger was still there. What else could he be missing? He mentally counted the slavers.
Yep. Two left. What else?
All the former slaves had been freed, so that couldn’t be it.
Wait, was that right?
James couldn’t remember if Lucien had been at the talk. Actually, he was having trouble remembering the last time he had seen Lucien.
Probably in the cage with the rest of them.
James found Lucien still sitting in the cart. The teenager sat quietly, staring into the distance. His eyes were hollow, as if he hadn’t really seen what had gone on around him. It was an expression that James had seen many times in people experiencing shock.
James opened his mouth to reassure the teenager, then closed it. He wasn’t good at this. He glanced around, looking for help, but realized he was it.
James gently put his hand on Lucien’s shoulder, and the teenager jumped.
“Sorry,” James said, pulling his hand back. “You okay?”
The teenager looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes. “It was my fault.”
“No, it wasn’t,” James said firmly. “Vegar killed him.”
“It wasn’t that,” Lucien said, voice breaking. “I… I was the one who convinced him to—”
The snap of branches interrupted Lucien, who looked up in fear. James couldn’t see anything through the dense fog.
“Hang tight, I’ll be right back,” James promised, heading into the fog.
James tried to pinpoint any noises that might clue him in to his enemies’ position, but he couldn’t hear a thing. He dropped into stealth and crept towards where he had last heard the noise, drawing his sword. Finding his sword had been a relief, because even though the dagger was enchanted and crafted from a high-grade material, James didn’t really know how to use it well. Chasing down a high-leveled enemy didn’t seem like a great time to learn.
A gust of wind blew in, dissipating some of the fog and giving James a slightly better line of sight as he crept through the forest, keeping his eyes and ears open. A twig snapped in the distance and James crept towards it, keeping stealth active as he moved. A fox ran by, startling him and breaking his stealth. That was all it took.
Suddenly an arrow hit him in the shoulder. He let out a yelp of pain and threw himself to the ground as another arrow sped over him, which made a loud thwack as it struck the tree behind him.
Without stopping to think, James rolled over as another arrow slammed into the ground where he had been. He didn’t know what to do. He needed a second to think. He executed the first thought that came to mind and Shadow Stepped behind a nearby tree.
Quickly, he dropped back into stealth and peered around the tree, looking for whoever had shot him. That small movement sent a jolt of pain through his shoulder, which still had the arrow stuck in it. James knew better than to pull out an impaled object. Instead, he snapped the shaft so that it wasn’t sticking out of his back.
James thought about where he would hide if he were attacking from range with a bow and realized he’d been searching in the wrong place. He had been looking for opponents on the ground, when the most likely place to find an archer would be in the treetops.
He scanned the trees, looking for the archer.
There!
A shadow moved between the trees above. Once he focused, the darkness faded away, leaving Mandra exposed. She was crouched in the branches of a tree not too far from James. Her body was still as a statue and her head swiveled like an owl. He never would have noticed her if she hadn’t changed positions.
James considered calling for help, but her stealth ability was insane. If he lost sight of her in the forest, he would never find her again. For all he knew, she could go back into stealth while he was watching her.
His best course of action was to stay silent and not let her know that she’d been exposed. Now all he needed to do was figure out the best way to get to her.
Climbing the tree was out. James was used to climbing trees, but he was pretty sure that she would notice. He wasn’t exactly a master of silence.
Maybe I could attack from above. Climbing another tree would be too noisy, but maybe he could Shadow Step. He checked his mana—190 left after the first cast. That was enough to cast Shadow Step three more times, which would get him fifteen meters.
He glanced up at Mandra. The woman was up there. Shadow Step probably wouldn’t get him as high as he wanted to go, but sneaking up on her would be incredibly difficult without it. That meant he should probably save one of his three casts to make sure that he could get in range before she noticed him.
James looked at the trees. Their branches were closer together towards the top, but narrower. He could make this work if he were careful.
James closed his eyes and whispered a quick prayer. Not that he was religious, but if someone were watching over him, now would be the time to help.
He cast Shadow Step and landed in a large cluster of branches about 5 meters off the ground.
Your spell Shadow Step has ranked up!
Shadow Step (Spell Rank 2):
Teleports the caster to a nearby shadow.
Range: 10 Meters
Cast time: Instant
Cooldown: None
Cost: 60 Mana
When James saw the extra range, he almost cheered. James had been wondering when the spell was going to level up. It looked like spells leveled slower than skills did. As far as James could tell, abilities didn’t level at all without assigning points.
He looked around for branches. His plan was to climb as high as possible to conserve mana. Luckily, there were a few well-positioned branches in reach.
James climbed up the tree at a sloth’s pace, careful not to break any branches. After another minute, he had managed five more meters. He felt like a superhuman climbing with his boosted stats. There were no other branches in reach, so he cast Shadow Step again. That left one cast, with enough extra Mana to cast Knife in the Dark if he wanted to.
After that last cast, James stopped, pressing his palm to his forehead. An unexpected side effect of using almost all of his Mana so quickly was a splitting headache. He hadn’t realized that casting would create so many issues for him.
But he was close. Very close. Five trees away, and roughly her height. Up high, he could see much clearer than down on the ground where the fog clung to everything. Praying she didn’t turn and see him, he crawled along branches from tree to tree until he was about 10 meters away. Once he was in range, he cast his final Shadow Step.
He landed silently in the branches directly behind Mandra. For a second, everything seemed like it would work out perfectly.
With a resounding crack, the branch snapped under their combined weight.
For a second, time stood still as James watched Mandra’s expression turn from shock to fear.
Then time sped up again and James reacted, his prior tree-climbing experience coming into play. As he fell, he dropped his sword and whipped out his dagger, slamming it into the side of the tree with all his Strength. With his Strength and the increased penetrating power of the blade, it sunk deep into the wood. His shoulder wrenched as he jolted to a stop, breathing hard. Branches snapped below him as Mandra plummeted to the ground.
With a groan, James grabbed a nearby branch and pulled himself up until he was sitting. His right arm hung limply at his side, and any movement sent agonizing pain into his shoulder.
Yeah, that’s dislocated.
James sighed. He wouldn’t be able to get down without two hands. He knew what he had to do, but every fiber of his being strongly suggested he didn’t.
Reducing a bone wasn’t usually something paramedics did, but he had watched a few doctors reduce shoulder dislocations in his clinical shifts, and had even helped in one. This was going to suck.
It was also going to be extremely difficult. Dislocations could cause the muscles around the injured area to tighten up, making it almost impossible to reduce without a liberal dose of muscle relaxers.
James wished he hadn’t given all the Deadnettle seeds to the wolves. Its anesthetic properties would have been helpful right then.
With his left hand, he grabbed his right wrist and pulled the dislocated arm forward, positioning it in front of him. James’ vision darkened and he let out a loud scream as, with the grinding of bone on bone, his arm popped back into socket.
James collapsed onto the branch, sighing with the immediate relief.
He wanted to give his body time to relax. He hadn’t received any notifications.
Mandra was still alive.
Carefully, he used his iron dagger and the orichalcum dagger to climb down the tree.
He found her laying on the ground not far from the base. Her body was broken, with her arms and legs pointing in unnatural directions.
James stared at her for a second before sighing, bending down, and slitting her throat.
You have killed Mandra Salien (Level 23 Orc Beast Tamer).
+ 181 experience points
James retrieved and sheathed his sword, then looked around cautiously. Their fight had made a lot of noise and was bound to attract attention he didn’t want. Carefully, he dragged Mandra’s corpse deeper into the woods.
A quick frisk produced a few useful items.
A small carved wooden whistle that was useless to him but probably useful to someone who had a beast tamer class.
Beast Tamer’s Whistle:
Rank: Unusual
Blow into this whistle and all bonded creatures within 5 kilometers will hear it
A small copper band that gave one dexterity.
Ring of Dexterity:
Rank: Common
+ 1 Dexterity
It’s a ring. And it gives +1 dexterity. Not much to say about this one.
James was pretty happy about this find, because he didn’t have any rings other than the strange one he’d spawned with. He equipped it and smiled when it resized automatically to fit his finger. That was probably one of the coolest features of items in this world. James loved watching them resize.
The final item was a green and brown patchwork cloak that gave him a small boost to stealth while in a forest. Again, probably not a game changer, but it was nice. He’d been a little cold lately, so the cloak would be nice to warm him up.
Cloak of the Forest:
Rank: Unusual
+ 5 Skill Ranks in stealth when in a forest.
This cloak has been woven in a pattern designed to hide the wearer in forested areas.
James dumped the rest of her possessions into his pouch, including a tinder box and some rope.
Now for the fun part.
He studied her anatomy, testing the bones and joints for weak points. What he found was interesting. The front of the Orc’s skull was thick, but the back was much more fragile.
You have gained 1 Skill Rank in Anatomy.
You are now Skill Rank 10.
You know, this doesn’t make you dragging a dead woman’s body into the forest to study it any less creepy.
James ignored the notification and continued his examination until he heard voices calling his name, moving towards him. Quickly he moved away from the body and called out to them, leading them towards the camp and away from the corpse. He was sure “for science!” was not going to fly if they questioned him about the corpse.
Chapter 26
Back at the destroyed camp, James started a campfire to drive away the chill of the fog. Then he got started cooking up five large pieces of Star Mole Meat. He was lucky he’d harvested so many. He only had five left. He was also lucky that food placed in his pouch didn’t spoil because none of them had been fed anything near a full meal since they’d been captured.
You have gained 1 Skill Rank in Cooking.
You are now Skill Rank 5
As James cooked, Lucien moved closer to the fire and sat down, saying nothing as he stared into the crackling flames.
Eventually the rest of the group made it back. Arik was limping, but Nidra and Orrel seemed unharmed.
When James asked Arik what happened, he winked. “I’ve had worse. Big brute put up a fight, but we got him.”
Nidra leaned in and whispered in James’ ear. “Don’t listen to him, he tripped on the walk back.”
James laughed. “So what happened?”
Arik grabbed a hunk of meat and bit into it, moaning in pleasure. Through a mouthful of food he started to regale James and Lucien with the tale of their fight with Butcher. James noticed Lucien watching Arik talk with rapt attention and smiled. Maybe there was hope for him.
Later that night, after everyone had gone to sleep, James leaned against a tree keeping watch, when a tap on his shoulder startled him. His hand went to his sword before realizing that it was Orrel. The Beastkin stood in front of him, almost indistinguishable from the darkness of the night except for his large, shining pupils. James wondered how he’d gotten so close without breaking stealth.
“Human.” Orrel inclined his head to James.
“Orrel,” James replied. He had only heard the Beastkin speak once, so he was curious to hear what Orrel had to say that couldn’t be said around everyone else.
“Thank you for saving me from a fate worse than death,” the Beastkin said. “Aeris vitro et-tu. I owe you my life. If you ever need anything, come find me.” He grabbed James’ hand with one paw and pressed something hard and metallic into James’ palm.
Orrel Fleetfoot has formally pronounced that he owes you a life debt.
James looked up, confused, to ask Orrel what the prompt meant, but by the time he had finished reading it the Beastkin had disappeared into the darkness as silently as he had come.
James shrugged and looked down at the object in his hand—a blue coin about the size of a half dollar. A paw print was carved into one side and a spear on the other.
Token of the Panther:
Rank: Rare
Symbolizes a great deed in service of the Panther tribe.
James slipped the token into his pouch before settling in for a long night of watching. While he watched, he decided to start going through the items and pick out what he wanted. Everything that Audun, Vegar, and Sinew owned technically belonged to him because he was the one who killed them, but he also didn’t want to fill his pouch up with random junk. When James played video games, he liked to keep a minimalistic inventory, and the same was true here.
He walked over to Vegar’s corpse. The slaver wore a rough leather tunic that glowed a soft brown. There was no visible core on the tunic, which was interesting, but James realized that his Ring of Dexterity didn’t have a core either. He would need to ask an enchanter why some items had a core and others didn’t.
Leather Tunic of Toughness:
Rank: Unusual
This leather tunic is enchanted to enhance its toughness and durability.
James put on the tunic and it shrunk to fit him perfectly. He moved on to the belt.
Slick Goblin Skin Belt:
Rank: Rare
Not only will you look slick wearing this belt, you’ll be slick. Grants the spell Slick Skin, which causes you to excrete an oily substance from your pores.
James shuddered, but put the belt on anyway. Maybe it would come in handy.
You have gained the spell: Slick Skin
Slick Skin (n/a):
Causes the user to excrete an oily substance from their pores. (WARNING: Flammable)
Range: Sel
f
Cast time: Instant
Cooldown: 5 minutes
Cost: 35 Mana
The only other item that James was remotely interested in was the bracelet Vegar had taken from the Shaman. It still gave off a dull orange glow that James had never seen before. On closer examination, he realized why.
It was a unique item.
Bracelet of Last Breath:
Rank: Unique
Grants the user the unique ability: Dying Will. Each time the ability is triggered, this bracelet has a chance of being destroyed.
Classless (item)
Dying Will:
Leaves you alive with one health left when an attack would otherwise kill you. Be warned, any damage you receive at one health will kill you. This includes damage over time effects such as bleeding, burning, drowning…
That was an amazing ability. No wonder Vegar had survived the storm. James immediately equipped the amulet before moving on.
Next moved on to Audun’s corpse.
He wore one of the other rings that the slavers had gotten from the Shaman. It looked like it had been crafted from darksteel, and it was set with a deep blue gemstone that housed a pulsating red light set in its center.
Cursed Ring of Flowing Thought: