Killstreak Book One

by Stuart Thaman

  “What are you thinking for the other two?” Kadorax asked.

  Syzak mulled it over for a moment. “There’s another rank of Improved Traps which feels pretty useful, but I need another trap first before the passive will actually make it worth it. There are some really cool ones. Frost Rune might combo well with Summon Rain, and Poison Cloud Trap could be really useful.”

  “Do you have any defensive options? If we’re going to be taking on quests way beyond our level range, we need to make sure we at least survive,” Kadorax said.

  “I have some choices from being a snake,” Syzak explained. “Paralytic Envenomation, Two-Claw Defense, and Hardened Scales. What do you think?”

  Kadorax accessed his friend’s character sheet to read the details of each. “They all look good,” he said after a moment. “Maybe hold off on Two-Claw Defense since you might get some cool staff defenses later. I’d take Hardened Scales for sure.”

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Syzak said. He focused on Hardened Scales, and then his shimmering green body took on a slightly deeper hue, and his Strength increased by one. He then unlocked Paralytic Envenomation: Rank 1 as well before scrolling back to the offensive talents.

  “Definitely get another trap when you can,” Kadorax told him.

  “Hopefully I’ll get some more trap options in the next level or two,” he said. “Now we just need better gear. Some gloves would be excellent. We should at least be wearing decent armor by level five, right?”

  “Yeah, we need to talk to Ayers. And we still haven’t gotten our reward from Percival, either. Let me get my next two talents, then we’ll go see about some gear.” Kadorax ran through his available choices once more. Blade Training certainly appealed to him, but some of the other talents were simply too interesting to pass by. Since he didn’t know anything about a bastion’s talent progression, he had no clue if the skills he passed by would ever come around again. Finally, he settled on Blade Training (Light): Rank 1 and Chaos Shock: Rank 1 to round out his limited offensive abilities.

  After he had learned his talents, another choice appeared before his vision, one he hadn’t quite expected. Sometimes certain abilities led to others, though the new options didn’t usually appear until the next level was attained. Underneath Blade Training (Light): Rank 1, Kadorax had to decide between two different skill paths:

  Bloodletting: Rank 1 - The bastion deals extra damage while wielding any blade with a fuller. Higher ranks of Bloodletting allow various poisons and barbs to be applied to the fuller. Passive.

  Torture: Rank 1 - Using a light blade for torture rather than killing, the bastion becomes more proficient at targeting specific organs to inflict the most pain possible. Higher ranks of Torture allow for more advanced techniques. Passive.

  It didn’t take long for Kadorax to focus on Bloodletting and unlock it. He had never considered himself a ‘hero’ or even a stereotypical ‘good guy,’ but he didn’t want to be plucking out eyeballs and slicing off ears in a fight. He preferred his combat to be as quick as possible, giving him the least amount of time in which to be killed.

  Before he closed his sheet, he read the details on the new Riposte ability he had learned as a result of taking Blade Training:

  Riposte: Rank 1 - If the bastion’s Agility score is higher than an attacker’s, the bastion may attempt to riposte the opponent. Effect: moderate. Cooldown: 1 day.

  Overall, Kadorax was more than pleased with his progress. He had completed only three quests since respawning in Coldport, and he reckoned he and Syzak were already the two strongest people in the town… if the Grim Sleeper didn’t figure into the calculation.

  “Alright, ready to get some new gear?” Kadorax asked. He gave Brinna one last glance, but the woman only stared out to the water like she was waiting for something to come into the harbor, her eyes a thousand miles from the present. For a moment, Kadorax thought about inviting the woman along, but he shook the notion out of his head. She would be better off if she had some time to grieve by herself.

  Lord Percival was easy enough to find with his outlandish clothing and ostentatious hat waving about the cold breeze. The crew of the Grim Sleeper had more or less finished their tasks from the day before, so the captain didn’t have much to do in the way of leadership. Instead, he stood at the bow smoking a carved wooden pipe and looking longingly out at the town.

  “We’ll depart from Coldport soon,” the captain said without turning to greet the two adventurers. “I have a bounty to collect in the capital, and there are more rumors—more monsters—left to track down all over Agglor. A pair like the two of you, I could put you to good work, you know. Though I’m sure you have other pressing matters to attend to here in Coldport.”

  Kadorax had to stifle a laugh. “No, sir. We’re just as eager to leave Coldport behind as you. If you’ll have us, we’d love to stay aboard your ship, at least until you reach the capital.”

  Finally, the captain turned. He leaned against the railing behind him, his pipe dangling precariously from the corner of his mouth. With a quick flourish, Lord Percival produced a small leather bag full of coins. He opened the top and took a single golden disc from the rest, then tossed the bag to Kadorax. “I’ll keep one coin as payment for your room and meals aboard the Grim Sleeper,” he said happily. “Though the accommodations aren’t the most spacious or forgiving, especially during rough seas, you’re both welcome here anytime you like.”

  “Perfect!” Kadorax replied. He handed the bag of coins to Syzak for safe keeping. Perhaps it had something to do with the shaman’s former life on Earth as a pet snake—for he was always a bit of a miser—but no one ever attempted to pickpocket him, even in large cities and crowds, making him the natural choice to carry the coin purse.

  “If you have any pressing business in town, I suggest you attend to it at once,” the captain said after taking a drag on his pipe. “I intend to leave by nightfall, perhaps sooner if my crew is agreeable.”

  Kadorax and Syzak both thanked the captain and turned for the gangplank.

  “Let’s get what we can from Ayers, then be off,” Syzak said.

  “Yeah,” Kadorax agreed. “The capital isn’t far from Darkarrow. I wouldn’t mind paying my old fief a visit, either. Lady Astrella should hold it now. I hope she isn’t making a mess of things. I fully intend to reclaim my seat as Lord of Darkarrow at some point, and I’d hate to come back to ruins.”

  The snake-man laughed in his weird, serpentine way. “Yes, I had a few magical pendants stowed away in my room as well. If anything, they would fetch a fair price to buy us some different gear.”

  As they made their way back through the streets of Coldport, Kadorax and Syzak noticed more than a handful of guarded whispers aimed their way. Apparently, word had gotten out that they had killed a noblewoman in her own estate, and the citizens weren’t terribly happy about it.

  They reached Ayers’ shop without any of the commoners saying a single word directly to them, which made Kadorax think his reputation in Coldport had also grown a few notches. “How many coins do we have?” he asked.

  Syzak counted them without removing the money from its pouch. “Twelve gold,” he answered. “Not too bad.”

  “Let’s see what Ayers has in stock.”

  They opened the door, and a wash of heat came at them from the fires of the forge. The blacksmith was busy hammering a length of steel against one of his anvils.

  “Ayers!” Kadorax called between hammer strikes, catching the man’s attention.

  “Welcome!” he called back. The smith took a few more swings at whatever he was making, inspected it for a moment, then set down his tools to approach the counter. “What can I do for you?”

  “We’re heading out of Coldport, probably for good, and we could use some new gear,” Kadorax told him.

  The smith rubbed his chin, an inquisitive look on his face. “You two were behind that werewolf business, weren’t you?” he asked. He didn’t sound afraid or accusatory,
just curious.

  “She had been preying on villagers for some time,” the snake-man said proudly. “We put an end to it.”

  “I take it you’ll be leaving on that ship?” the smith asked.

  Kadorax nodded. “By tonight.”

  “A group like you two,” Ayers went on, “could use a blacksmith to mend your armor and fashion new implements. I’m not a fighter, never have been, and one monster living in Coldport means there will probably be more that no one knows of yet. I’d like to come along, if you’d have me.”

  “Well, I can’t lift your anvil, and a forge on a wooden boat feels like a bad idea…”

  Ayers waved away the concerns. “Ah, a boat that size is bound to have something on board already. They’d need a place to mend their chains, fix the rudders, and reinforce the mast after a battle, don’t you think? If I lined the room with a bit of wax sealant and made sure the chimney was properly secure, I could have a floating forge up and running in no time. Of course, all that would take a bit of money, and there’s the matter of paying the captain for my stay…”

  Kadorax saw the whole thing coming together nicely in his head. Having his own blacksmith aboard a floating headquarters guarded by a warlock powerful enough to solo a werewolf without taking so much as a scratch—that was almost as good as having his own fiefdom, maybe even better.

  “Would ten gold get you set up with plenty of materials and tools for the foreseeable future?” he asked.

  The smith nodded at once. “I’m in,” he beamed.

  “Good to have you along!” Kadorax said. He motioned for Syzak to give the man the promised gold, then moved his gaze to the finished products behind the counter. There wasn’t much that would be useful for adventuring, sadly. “Can you be at the ship by dusk?”

  Ayers agreed. The man was already moving quickly through the small shop as he packaged various tools and components into several wooden crates.

  “And do you have any chest armor? I’m plenty warm in cloth, but I’m tired of nearly getting gutted in every fight,” the bastion said. He poked a finger through one of the tears in his clothing.

  Ayers rooted through a short barrel next to his anvil and pulled out a few scraps of leather that looked large enough for rudimentary armor. “If I have the time, I’ll put together two chest pieces before I come down to the docks,” he said.

  Kadorax and Syzak let him take a few quick measurements before departing for the harbor, eager to get out of the town before any of the glowering villagers gave them trouble.

  Back in sight of the Grim Sleeper towering over the pier, they knew at once that something had happened. The upper deck was awash with activity.

  The two adventurers ran up the gangplank, and they found Lord Percival kneeling over a humanoid shape in a pool of cold water. They couldn’t tell if the captain had been injured, or if anyone had been injured, but they saw two crew members rush up from below with a cloth stretcher stacked with blankets between them. Not far off, the Grim Sleeper prowled back and forth with her dark cowl pulled low over her eyes to block the sun.

  “What happened?” Kadorax asked. He got a little closer, and he saw Brinna lying on the deck, her clothes soaked, her body shivering but otherwise still. At least shivering meant she was still alive.

  “She jumped overboard by my guess,” Lord Percival announced. “My crew didn’t see her do it. One of them just saw her down in the water bumping up against the hull. There’s no telling how long she had been under.”

  The captain worked quickly over her still form, ensuring the woman’s mouth was fully opened, but nothing came out, water or air.

  “I can bring her back,” the strange warlock said after another round of pacing. “She isn’t lost entirely.”

  All eyes on the deck turned to the Grim Sleeper.

  “And turn her into… what?” Lord Percival asked. It was clear from his voice that he was just as terrified as everyone else.

  Kadorax wondered if the woman had taken an even darker path as a multiclass option. If she began raising an army of the dead onboard the ship, things were going to get a lot more complicated.

  The Grim Sleeper shook her head. “Not turned, just brought back,” she said. “I’m not a necromancer.” Her last words sounded vile, like the mere act of explaining herself was a grave inconvenience.

  Lord Percival and several of the others on the top deck turned to look expectantly at Kadorax. “You don’t need my permission,” the man said, backing away from the still body.

  Finally, the captain nodded to his warlock slave, and the spellcasting began.

  “Capture Essence!” she called into the frosty air with a screech. At once, Brinna’s soul—or at least that was what Kadorax thought it was—materialized in the air just inches above her flesh. It shimmered, reflecting the light in unusual patterns, and waited. The Grim Sleeper then began moving her hands like she was pulling an invisible rope. Ever so slowly, the soul drifted toward the warlock, and all the sailors scattered to the railings in fear.

  Kadorax wasn’t sure if the warlock was about to devour the soul or help it. Both possibilities terrified him.

  When the soul reached its destination—the outstretched, rotted fingertips of the Grim Sleeper—it crumpled in on itself into the shape of a ball. The woman then whispered incomprehensibly into the soul before throwing it back in the direction whence it came. Lazily, the balled-up soul drifted through the air. It landed on Brinna’s forehead, and there it perched seemingly forever, like a single raindrop caught suspended in a cloud.

  “Banish!”

  And the soul was gone.

  Kadorax thought that he should have screamed. A thousand thoughts raced through his mind, but not a single one was strong enough to break through the wall of fear that had risen between his brain and his tongue.

  “What—” the captain started. His words died in his throat.

  Brinna’s body stirred, and her lung function seemed to return as she coughed and coughed, her hands slowly drifting toward her own neck.

  “Is she alive?” Syzak wondered with a whisper quickly stolen by the wind.

  Percival rushed to Brinna’s side and propped up her head, angling her mouth away right as she began to push the water from her body. A few tense moments later, it became apparent that Brinna would survive, though everyone on the deck worried for her sanity.

  “How do you feel?” Kadorax finally asked when he found the words to speak.

  Brinna shook her head. Her eyes were still closed, and they moved like a drunk only half-awake from last night’s blackout. “I… W-where am I?” she stammered.

  Bond minus 1.

  Bond: 8

  Kadorax blinked the message away from his visual field. He would deal with that later.

  “You took a tumble from my ship,” the captain gently explained.

  “I remember that, I think… What happened after?”

  Percival looked over his shoulder to ask the Grim Sleeper to explain it herself, but the strange warlock was nowhere in sight. “My associate brought you back. For a second there, we thought you’d died!” Kadorax wasn’t sure if levity was the right choice, but the statement had been made.

  “That thing?” the woman’s eyes opened and darted around, panicked. “You let that thing touch me?”

  “Well,” Lord Percival said with a sigh, “no, not exactly. She did not touch you. She merely helped with a bit of magic.”

  Brinna got to her knees, coughed up another glob of phlegm mixed with river water, and met Kadorax’s gaze. “What did she do to me?”

  Kadorax put his hands up as though the woman might take to her feet and charge him. “Honestly, I have no idea,” he told her. “She cast a spell, and then you woke up. I don’t really understand what I saw.”

  The response was enough to at least temporarily placate Brinna, so she crossed her arms and sat back on her ankles, seemingly trying to collect her scattered thoughts. “I’m… I’m hungry,” she stated.

  �
��Is that so?” Percival asked, clearly surprised by the sentiment. “There’s food below deck, if you’d like. Is there something you might prefer?”

  The woman shook her head, then made for the nearby trapdoor on very shaky legs.

  Still more confused than anything, Kadorax asked Syzak for a gold coin, then handed it to the captain. “That’s for saving her and letting her stay on board,” he said. “And we also have a blacksmith joining us, if there’s room.”

  Silently, Percival nodded as he slipped the coin into a pocket. His eyes wide, he never took his gaze from the hatch where Brinna had disappeared.

  Ayers arrived on the Grim Sleeper an hour or so before sunset, and then it took the crew only a few more minutes to make the ship ready for departure. Despite the hours that had passed, Brinna hadn’t spoken much. She sat in the dark of the bunk room by herself. As they started to move away from Coldport, away from everything and everyone the woman had ever known in her entire life, Kadorax tried to figure out if the warlock’s spell had actually damaged her mind.

  “How do you feel?” he asked, taking a seat on the swaying hammock next to her. A single candle burned on a low table nearby. The flickering light added an eerie glow to the room that only made the woman’s melancholy more palpable.

  Brinna met his eyes with a vacant stare. “Everyone is dead,” she whispered.

  Kadorax wasn’t sure if he should try to put his arm around her once again to let her cry or not. He decided that less contact would probably be best. “We’ll get the cure from Kingsgate,” he reassured her. “We’ll be able to save Assir in time.”

  “If the cure even exists,” she answered.

  Kadorax looked again at her character sheet and found the Wasting Sickness was still only in the first rank. “If one exists, we’ll find it in the capital. Kingsgate has the best mages and researchers in Agglor.”