“Give me the necklace!” the warlock growled to her master. The animated body parts were rushing forward, almost upon them.
Lord Percival hesitated. His eyes were wide with fear, and his hands trembled around the necklace between his fingers. Giving the warlock her phylactery meant she instantly became mortal, but it also allowed her to push more and more magic into her spells, chipping off pieces of her soul to consume as fuel.
The darkest legends of Agglor told of warlocks who became so powerful that even being in the same room as their phylacteries—such enigmatic sources of energy—brought about destruction upon everything around them. Many warlocks chose to imprison their souls in phylacteries specifically to tone down their own abilities, letting them cast the strongest spells in all Agglor without fear of annihilation. To give a phylactery back to the physical body was an immense risk—one that could easily mean the death of everyone in Assir.
“Run!” the warlock cried. She still faced the centipede, but everyone else understood the message had been meant for them.
Kadorax, Brinna, and Percival scrambled up the ruins back to the second floor of the building they had come from. They made slow progress on the crumbling stones and shattered wooden planks. At the top, Syzak struggled to heft them over the last bit of wall. With the building in such a state of destruction, there wasn’t anywhere to hide.
They ran for the stairs, hoping to put something between themselves and whatever the Grim Sleeper was about to unleash, however insubstantial the walls were. Lord Percival was last down the staircase—and he was too slow.
A spell ripped out from the warlock with incredible force. Between her and the fallen windmill, all the buildings caught in the spell’s path crumbled to the ground. A tremor emanated outward from her feet, followed by two quick aftershocks, and then a blast of heat strong enough to curl the centipede’s chitinous segments rolled across Assir.
The building Kadorax was running through fell apart. The heat was too much for the already unstable structure to handle, and the beams tenuously holding up the second floor began falling.
Lord Percival’s back and legs blocked most of the fire from getting down the staircase and engulfing the others. He screamed, and Brinna grabbed him by the collar to drag him along. The group emerged in the next street just as the building behind them completely collapsed on itself. Again, Percival caught the brunt of the destruction. Two big crossbeams, one of which was on fire, slammed into the back of his legs on their quick journey to the ground, eliciting further screams from the unfortunate captain.
Brinna pulled him just far enough from the wreckage of the building so that he wouldn’t get hit by any more falling debris, then used her body to smother the lingering flames on his clothes. “He’s hurt badly,” she said frantically, though there was no need.
With a wave of his hand, Syzak cast Cure Minor Ailments on the man’s legs. The spell didn’t fix the majority of the captain’s wounds, but it did manage to knit together most of the small gashes, scrapes, and burns.
Brinna opened her potion and held it to his lips, tilting his head to get it to flow down his throat. When the healing potion had run its course, Percival’s legs were still clearly broken. His femurs had cracked just above his knees—it would have taken several high-level healing potions to mend that kind of wound.
“I don’t know if he’ll make it,” Brinna said.
Syzak fumbled with the healing potion on his own belt, but Kadorax stopped him.
“Don’t waste it,” the bastion said. “We don’t know if the fight’s over. We might need the last potion for ourselves, and it won’t help him much anyway.”
Hesitating for a moment with his scaled hand hovering over the potion, he finally left it where it was on his belt. On the ground, Percival writhed in pain. “We should make a stretcher,” the snake-man said.
Kadorax, missing both his whip and his short sword, grabbed a piece of splintered wood and stepped forward to make sure none of the swarming bits of dead humans were coming their way. As far as he could tell, their street was devoid of threats. He couldn’t see over to the other street where the Grim Sleeper and centipede were, and the lack of knowledge made him quiver with fear.
“Stay here,” Kadorax commanded. “If anything happens… just leave him and run for it. He’ll respawn somewhere else.”
He didn’t wait for the others to acknowledge what he’d said. Kadorax dashed into another building, hoping it would have an exit on the opposite street so he could figure out what had happened. Immediately upon opening the door, he felt a wave of heat pushing him back. He turned a corner and saw fire climbing up the main interior wall, licking at the floor above.
There wasn’t a door leading to the next street, but the wall was weak enough around one of the small windows for Kadorax to force himself through. A thick blanket of smoke and dust blinded him on the other side. He could only see a few feet in front of him, and the particulate in the air stung his throat and eyes. Slowly, Kadorax made his way through the soupy air, testing each step before taking it.
The noise of the battle was gone. In its place, all Kadorax could hear was the sound of fires burning all over Assir, occasionally accented by the distinct rumble of a building’s collapse.
He reached a gaping, blackened hole in the street that was far larger than the magical depression Syzak had made with his Spike Trap. Scattered all over the hole were pieces of burnt, pungent centipede. Some of the legs still twitched, making Kadorax fear the creature’s potential reconstitution. He saw his whip and sword not far away. The blade reflected one of the nearby fires, making it easier to find.
Only a few feet from his weapons, Kadorax saw the charred remnants of a robe clinging to the jagged, broken ground. The warlock’s body, reduced to a withered and blackened collection of old bones, poked through the shredded fabric at odd angles. As Kadorax moved closer, the stench became nearly unbearable. Using his boot to move some of the fabric to the side, he searched for any sign of the phylactery that might have meant the woman’s spirit had survived. All he found was death.
Behind him, the building he had come through succumbed to the flames eating at its base, and it joined its neighbors as it tumbled onto the ground like a handful of bricks dropped by a giant.
Kadorax didn’t feel like waiting to see what else the rotten wasteland of Assir had to offer. He scanned the street as best he could through the thick haze in the air, moved several plots closer to the windmill’s ruins, then found an alleyway that connected him back to his party.
“They’re both dead,” he said quickly, rejoining the group. “Let’s get out of here.”
Syzak and Brinna had Percival, now unconscious, balanced on a crudely made litter between them. They lifted the captain from the ground, shifted him in their grip a few times, and then the trio started to move, leaving Assir behind them as quickly as they could manage.
About half a mile away from the epicenter of the destruction, Kadorax finally saw a notification of experience points flash in front of his vision. “The battle is over,” he told himself. Though it wasn’t much relief, he made a conscious effort to let down his guard and relax his muscles, trying to get his heart rate to return to a normal pace.
The group made for the hunting lodges outside the village. They arrived just before dusk, moving painfully slow on account of the captain weighing them down. Luckily, no undead abominations followed them out of the village.
Sitting around a meager campfire with a box of seafarer’s rations open on a roughly hewn log, the three conscious people took a moment to silently collect their thoughts and take stock of what had happened.
Kadorax’s entire body ached. His shoulders had been hit by falling debris more times than he had originally thought. A circle of dark bruises had bloomed across the top of his back, and his neck flashed with pain every time he looked too far to his left. Eyeing the sleeping captain, he considered his own injuries basically trivial. At least he could walk and move—ev
en run if the situation called for it. On his stat sheet, he scrolled to the bottom to see the new possibilities available to him as a level six bastion of chaos incarnate. The centipede had yielded a monstrous amount of experience, but it had been split between five of them, presumably indicating that the Grim Sleeper had perished after the undead had been destroyed and not a moment before.
Level six didn’t afford him many new talent options:
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 2 - The bastion is faster and stronger while wielding a light blade. Rank 2 allows the bastion to learn complex techniques through combat and training. Passive.
Chaos Shock: Rank 2 - The bastion pulls two slivers of chaotic energy into the world and thrusts them forward, creating a random magical effect augmented by a second impact quickly following the first. Effect: minor. Cooldown: 28 minutes.
The prospect of being able to learn new techniques without spending valuable talents selecting them with each level made Blade Training an easy choice. Kadorax focused on the talent, unlocked it, and then decided he was going to need a better sword. Sadly, not having Santo’s body as proof of the elf’s demise meant there would be no reward, and a new sword would have to wait until another day.
Across from him, Syzak increased his Cure Minor Ailments ability to the second rank.
To Kadorax’s right, Brinna made her selection as well. She had a choice between increasing her Sneak by a rank or getting a new defensive talent that allowed her block incoming ranged and magical attacks when wielding two weapons. She thought over the two choices for only a moment before settling on Dual Wielding Block: Rank 1.
Kadorax had to wonder what level the Grim Sleeper had been and where the woman had learned such dark magic. With an ally like her, he would have been a few steps closer to assembling the right party to slay the Gar’kesh. Now, with the Grim Sleeper obliterated, he needed to find the Priorate Knights and the Blackened Blades if he was going to be strong enough to exact his revenge.
Lord Percival groaned as his eyes fluttered open. Brinna, the closest one to him, tried to comfort the man as he wallowed in pain, but it was no use. Two broken legs was more than the captain had ever experienced before, and he didn’t possess the mental fortitude needed to stave off his own screams.
“Anything lurking out here won’t take long to find us,” Kadorax said grimly. He thought about slitting the man’s throat to put him out of his misery, but shook the notion from his mind. He needed the ship back in Coldport, and ships needed their captains.
“Let’s wait until morning, and then we need to head back to Coldport as quickly as we can,” Syzak said. “We can put him in one of the huts and try to muffle his screams, I guess.”
With a grim nod, Kadorax and Brinna set about making the injured man as comfortable and quiet as possible.
Chapter 7
It took two days for the group to drag and carry Lord Percival back to Coldport. The man’s injuries had thankfully not festered, probably due to the potion’s effects at sealing the wounds. They had set both of his legs with scavenged wooden planks and a few bits of rope. Kadorax knew that if Lord Percival didn’t get to a proper healer, a cleric with seriously high-level talents, the captain would never walk again, assuming he lived at all.
Coldport was too small to have a powerful cleric, so the group didn’t even bother stopping in the town for more than enough time to catch their breath. Sailors from the Grim Sleeper came out to the docks to help their captain up the gangway. The galley chef and one of the crewmen took him to the bunk room where they could help keep him stable, as the ship was bound to rock back and forth when it got underway. To that end, the first mate cast off from Coldport as soon as everyone was on board. The Grim Sleeper headed south once more, keeping to the very center of the river to avoid the ice along the edges and setting their sights on Oscine City.
Only a few other ships were in the harbor when the Grim Sleeper arrived a day later. Some of the ice flowing from the high elevations of the Boneridge Mountains had made it to Oscine City’s port, and most of the smaller ships had sailed for warmer destinations to avoid being potentially trapped when the deepest cold of winter set in, whenever that would be. The Grim Sleeper moored at one of the nicer, more protected wharves along the city’s western coastline, paying a bit more for the slip than if they’d docked elsewhere simply to have an easier time unloading the captain to take him to one of the temples.
Kadorax, Brinna, and Syzak watched from the railing as the crew used an actual stretcher to move Percival into the harbormaster’s office. The crewmen planned to wait there while two others found a suitable cleric and paid a sizeable amount for a few spells, giving the adventurers a day or two on their own.
“There’s a branch of the Priorate Knights here in Oscine City,” Syzak began. “We should find them and see what we can do to join their effort.”
Killing whatever it was the jackals had summoned would take a coordinated group, especially if the thing was rampaging through the countryside and getting stronger and stronger with every day that passed. Though he was loath to do anything alongside the knights, he understood their usefulness. “Lead on, my friend. Let’s see what the Knights have to offer.”
“Are we even strong enough to join the Priorate Knights?” Brinna asked. As a rogue, she’d never be accepted into the order anyways, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t consider hiring her for the covert kind of work they could not complete on their own.
“You’re right,” Kadorax answered. “The Knights won’t take anyone below level ten. I’m not hoping to join them outright. We need information, and if we can help procure some resources or track down something that will help the effort, we have to try.”
Unlike Kingsgate, Oscine City was low and flat, hugging the coastline and rarely jutting inward. It was idyllic in almost every regard, from the paved, well-maintained streets to the polished and painted spires of the towering cathedrals lining the waterfront—everything was dripping in opulence. The headquarters of the Priorate Knights two miles from the Grim Sleeper was no exception. The building was seven stories tall, made from huge marble blocks, and it overlooked the rolling ocean waves from a perch on a crag some hundred feet over the shore.
The climb to the veritable castle was an exhausting one. No road led to the Knights’ doorstep—not in a traditional sense. The only guidance given to those wishing to ascend from below was a series of unlit torches hammered into the side of the rocks. The group never had to climb, but several places along the trail were so steep that they couldn’t help but wonder if climbing had been the original intention.
Covered in sweat but standing triumphantly at the top, the group marveled in front of the Priorate Knights’ doorway. The arched entry was made from bleached driftwood, and it towered over their heads, gilded in bronze and banded with iron all the way to the top. The Knights’ banners, deep blue strips of cloth touting painted golden eagle heads, cascaded down either side of the door. No one stood guard outside the building, and as far as Kadorax knew, there hadn’t even been a need. The Priorate Knights certainly had their fair share of sworn enemies, the Blackened Blades chief among them, but not even those rogues and assassins were brazen enough to attempt an assault on the chapter headquarters in Oscine City.
“Didn’t the Priorate Knights put a bounty on your head once?” Syzak remembered.
Kadorax stopped just short of knocking on the driftwood door. “You know, they actually did. I wonder if anyone would remember it?” he mused. Without giving the issue another thought, he knocked on the door and took a step back.
A few short moments later, the driftwood swung inward. “Yes?” a young knight wearing the telltale blue and gold tabard of the priory asked.
“I’m—”
> “Kadorax,” the young knight interrupted. “The Lord of Darkarrow, leader of the Blackened Blades. You’ve come to turn yourself in? Or are these two here for the bounty themselves?”
“Well, they remember the bounty,” Kadorax laughed. He looked the knight up and down. The younger man couldn’t have been older than sixteen, which meant he shouldn’t have even known who Kadorax was, much less have heard of his importance. “We’ve come to offer our services, actually. May we speak with the prior?”
The knight stood in the doorway and blocked their passage. “A dangerous criminal like you wants to join the Priorate Knights?” he scoffed.
Kadorax ensured that his character sheet wasn’t being hidden. “We’re level six,” he explained. “We aren’t here to raid you or start anything. I’m no longer affiliated with the Blackened Blades. Check my sheet. I’m not even the Lord of Darkarrow anymore.”
The knight read his stats, gave the other two a condescending sneer, then reluctantly stepped aside to allow them entry. “Wait here,” he commanded. “I’ll summon an escort. The prior wouldn’t want you traipsing around the priory unwatched.”
Kadorax shrugged. He didn’t really care if a bunch of a self-absorbed knights wanted to babysit him. As long as he was able to see the prior, he was confident he could get what he wanted. Like the outside of the huge building, the interior was beautifully appointed and altogether not a bad place to spend a few minutes waiting. Everything was white marble, dressed in blue and gold, and the center of the foyer was dominated by a huge sculpture of an eagle with its talons and wings outstretched, fiercely positioned against any who entered.
Several moments after the young knight left, a troop of lightly armored soldiers came pounding their way up a staircase to the right of the foyer, spears and swords at the ready.
“That’s a bit much, don’t you think?” Kadorax asked.
Killstreak Book One Page 13
