Spectres & Skin: Exodus

by RJ Creed

  At that moment Ryken’s dagger lunged straight for my stomach, in what would be a pretty staggering slice, which meant that either the kid had been waiting on an opportunity to gut me ever since we’d met, or he was inadvertently letting his instinct in battle take over a little.

  Either way … I knew that this meant I had to step my game up. It would take more than some feeble blade-spanking to level my dagger skill to 5.

  I moved my weight back and then used the momentum to slam both of my heels into his core, winding him and sending him back just as the blade pierced my armour, and then the very tip pierced my skin, sending my HP back almost 5%.

  “Hey!” I cried out, looking down at the hole in my armour. He recovered from the blow and shrugged.

  “You’re about to replace it anyway,” he said, panting.

  “You can talk. Still in your dumb, mismatched…” I trailed off as I jerked my arm towards him in a surprise Triple Strike, aiming all three at his upper arm to avoid any fatal areas. He cried out and his eyes darkened.

  “That fucking hurt,” he yelled, and then sliced at the air threateningly with his blade. I ducked and weaved, not that they were really going to hit me anyway. “Fuckin’ ass.” I spotted that his HP had actually gone down to 70% — each jab of my Triple Strike on a non-lethal area of his skin was doing 10% damage? That wasn’t bad at all for such a quick attack, although my stamina had gone down to 60% already from my dodging and ability usage.

  I still hadn’t properly stood up yet when he went for my arm in the exact place I had stabbed him, tearing the skin and causing me to suck in air through my teeth. He was absolutely destroying the integrity of this leather armour. “Christ,” I said, and smacked his dagger away with my blade. He immediately recovered his grip on it, though, and slammed it back towards me with bared teeth. I blocked his arm with mine and quickly concentrated on the new ability I’d learned, twisting his wrist and punching him backwards with a grunt. I managed to wrestle the stiletto out of his hands and jump to my feet.

  He stood opposite me like the human embodiment of a big cat, all liquid movement and flashing eyes. Why did I feel like this sparring match had suddenly gotten so serious? He jabbed at me with his hands really fast, and I blocked with my forearm and jabbed back with first my dagger, then his. He jumped back and avoided it.

  “Fuck, I know it hurts but you have to let me at least hit your armour or we’ll be here for hours.”

  Ryken let out a weird hissing noise through his teeth but he didn’t drop his defensive stance. “Just hit me,” he growled. He lurched forward to try to intimidate me. “Hit me!”

  I cried out in frustration and slashed at him with both daggers at the same time. Clumsy as anything. They both caught on his leather jack at the same time and sliced in opposite directions, but didn’t pierce through.

  Congratulations! Snickersnee has reached Level 5!

  You have gained a point in Dexterity.

  You have discovered a hidden skill!

  Dual-Wielding: A wise man looks at his two hands and sees the opportunity for equilibrium. Not you, though.

  Related Attribute: DEX

  I shrank back and waved away the text just as he leapt across at me again.

  “Hey, hey, it’s over. It happened.” I handed back his stiletto and he snatched and sheathed it, a look of cold irritation unmoving on his face.

  With one eye still on him as he struggled to come down from the adrenaline high of our mini match, I opened up my character sheet and moved my only AP into Dexterity. Now I had 14. With a +3 whenever I was using Excision, too. I was feeling pretty spry, to be honest.

  “Right, now I just need the money to actually afford this,” I said, picking up the leather again. I turned to Roark, who had finished serving his other customer and had strolled up to us with a frown. “How much is this set?”

  “The Swansong?” he asked, rubbing at his chin with a pained look on his face. “I’d give it to you for a round 3,000 gold. I can’t go any lower than that.”

  “Shit,” I muttered.

  “How much do you have?” Ryken asked.

  I checked my pouch. “144,” I said.

  Ryken scratched the back of his head. “You don’t mean thousand, do you?” I shook my head. “Didn’t think so. How do you have so little?”

  I eyed him, waiting for criticism. “Dunno.”

  “C’mere.” He nodded me over to the side and I stepped away from Roark, who didn’t seem to mind. “Listen, you don’t want to steal from the White Suns, I get that.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But do you think they’ll know what this is?” He pulled out the tiny figurine that I had totally forgotten about; the one that went with the map I still had somewhere in my pack. I stared at it for a moment, and then pulled out the matching map.

  “Xanthe has it on good authority that this is very valuable,” I said. “In fact, just before she was taken, she tried to sell it.”

  “I think it might be one of the rumoured treasures of the gods.” He twisted the statue around in his hand. “This feels expensive to me.”

  I waved Roark over, who happily joined us. “Everything alright, boys?”

  “We found something pretty interesting in the Collective’s storerooms,” I told him. “Do you think the White Suns will be interested in this?” I showed him the map, and Ryken flashed the matching figurine.

  “You think those two are connected?” he asked, and then traced a simple doodle of the statue of the Ivy Lady in the corner of the map, which I hadn’t noticed. “Mm, I think they are.” The corners of his mouth turned up. “This is ancient writing, here, did you see it?” He pointed at some scribbles in the bottom right corner. Like someone had been testing their quill to check it worked.

  “That’s writing?” I asked.

  “Yes, it’s ancient Ilyrian. Human, from a very long time ago. This does look pretty valuable, after all.” He squinted, and held it up to the light. “That’s really interesting. Do you see this symbol here? It means ‘god’.” He pointed to a scratchy squiggle. “Not ‘goddess’, mind you — but ‘god’. I think this map is pointing to…” His eyes widened and he pulled in a sharp breath.

  Ryken and I waited, silent, and tense.

  “My … friends will be interested in taking this off your hands,” he confirmed. “Name your price.”

  “This set of—”

  Ryken nudged me and I shut up. “How much are your friends willing to part with?”

  Roark thought about it, a thumb on his lower lip as he scoured the map for more details. “If this is real, and I think it is, then I’ll give you 5,000 for it.”

  “Wow, I—”

  Ryken nudged me harder. “For this? If it’s worth 5,000 to you, it’s worth 10,000,” he said.

  Roark’s eyebrow twitched. “I suppose I see your logic,” he said, a little bitterly. I saw no logic there. “And how much for the figurine? I think it’ll be some sort of a key, since it’s drawn on the map.” He tapped it.

  Again, I opened my mouth, but Ryken beat me to it. “It’s not for sale.”

  I turned to him. “What?”

  “What?” Roark agreed. “Then the map is worthless; why bring it to my attention?”

  “It’s not worthless.” Ryken tossed it up and caught it with a smirk. “It just means we’ll have to come with you.”

  “What’s the treasure there, you think?” I asked.

  Roark looked at me like he’d forgotten I was there — and I didn’t blame him. “Well, it’s something powerful, to do with No One. I’m going to guess that the Collective stole this map from the Falchion.”

  “If it’s No One’s treasure, why the statue of Titania?” Ryken pointed out.

  “Because she’ll have been the one to seal it away,” Roark said. “Therefore there’ll have been a slight … squabble, I imagine, over which faction the treasure, whatever it is, belongs to.”

  “I see,” I said. Then I bit my lip. “I think maybe we mi
ght need to keep this.”

  Roark’s face fell. Ryken’s face fell. “Why?”

  “We need to use it to exchange for Xanthe,” I said. “If it’s true, and the Falchion want it too. She could be in danger, and there’s nothing I can do about it. It could be … it could be that they thought she had it on her, and that they took her. For this map.”

  “She’s missed her Initiation by now,” Ryken said quietly. “Can you locate her?”

  I concentrated for a moment and was met by that same dull sunset glow over to the east. “She’s in the same place,” I guessed. She was no closer and no further away, anyway.

  “So she’s still alive.”

  “Yeah, well, it’d help me out if she did die. Then she’d just wake up in the spire.” I reached up and rubbed at the back of my head. “I think we should use the map to get her back.”

  “And how do we contact them, exactly?” Ryken asked through gritted teeth, but he still managed to keep hold of his tongue, and not bitch me out. Admirable.

  “I have a Falchion contact,” Roark pointed out. “Are you sure you want to do this? The treasure could be incredibly valuable. And, if they get it, it could power them up considerably.”

  “No, it won’t,” I said. “We’re going to exchange the map for the girl, and then we’re going to go get the treasure before they have the chance to, with the real map.” I looked up, expecting argument, but seeing none. “We’ll do it quickly, so Xanthe gives them no information that will help Incendia take Dawnspire.” They looked separately thoughtful, and then Roark held out his hand.

  “Sounds good to me,” he said. I shook it.

  “In exchange for a third of whatever we find,” I said, “will you give me this armour set?” I held it up, sure to smile as charismatically as I could.

  He paused, and then nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Take it, before I change my mind. You’d better hope we find some good stuff, though.” He grinned, and I returned it.

  “That good with you, Ryken?” I asked the kid.

  There was a longer silence than was exactly comfortable, but then he nodded as well. “Yeah, that sounds fine to me. Let’s get this done. Lead us to your contact in the Falchion, and then we’ll move out.”

  “Hang on,” I said. “Before we go, there’s one more thing I need from the White Suns.”

  Roark furrowed his brow. “In exchange for the treasures? This is becoming a little steep now — I don’t know if it’ll be worth it.”

  “I need your guild members to spread a rumour. Spread the rumour that the Falchion are still within the city walls, and they’re everywhere, and the Collective has no idea.”

  He looked a little perplexed. “We can do that easily, but why?”

  There had to still be some way to complete that quest, but I wasn’t ready to tell Roark the exact reason. With a casual glance in Ryken’s direction, I replied, “Imagine the kind of low-level trouble that would cause in Dawnspire. The people would lose faith in their authorities for letting something like that happen. It’d pave the way for the White Suns to gain more power down the line.”

  He listened and then gave a nod. “Fine. I’ll do it. Is that all or shall we go?” He sounded impatient but his face still had his trademark smile plastered on it. It was then that I wondered for the first time what Roark’s Charisma score may have been. After all, everything he said, and the way he said it, tended to make me feel pretty agreeable and at ease. I would have listened to and done a fair few things for the guy. I imagined his Charisma was pretty high.

  “We can go,” I said. “Let’s hurry this up.” I concentrated briefly on Xanthe as we walked. Was it my imagination or was the sunset glow in her direction throbbing a little? What did that mean? Her HP was still greyed out, which meant she was too far away for me to actually see her stats, but a link was still very much there and I felt like I could feel her pain.

  I wished I could let her know that I had a plan. I was going to help her. I had never been in the habit of letting women I’d slept with get tortured, and I sure as hell had no plans to start now.

  14

  Pale Light

  Name: Matthew Blake — Level: 6 — Progression: 6%

  Race: Human — Specialization: None

  Faction: Dawnspire Collective — Rank: Initiate

  STR: 14

  DEX: 14 (+3)

  INT: 8 (+2)

  WIS: 5

  FORT: 10

  CHA: 9 (+4)

  Atk: 7 (+8) — Def: 5 (+15)

  Alliances:

  Dawnspire Collective — Very Friendly

  Top Skills:

  Snickersnee (Level 5 — 0%)

  Speech (Level 4 — 90%)

  Dodge (Level 3 — 10%)

  Stealth (Level 2 — 15%)

  Deception (Level 2 — 25%)

  Once the three of us reached an alleyway a couple of streets away, Roark turned quickly, and we almost smacked straight into his chest.

  “Before we go further, boys, I have to know that you aren’t going to reveal this location to anyone — under any circumstances. Do you understand?”

  “We do,” I said firmly, hoping that my own Charisma skill did make me a little easier to trust. I nudged Ryken in the ribs.

  “We do,” he said. “Let’s do this. I can’t wait any longer; I have itchy feet.”

  “They make a cream for that,” Roark said brightly, and Ryken used his entire face to roll his eyes as we followed him through the alley. In my pack I had hoarded away the brand new leather armour set, and after we wound around a few side streets, I paused everyone for a moment to pull off my armour and replace it with the deliciously silky smooth and perfectly-fitted black armour.

  Attention:

  You are wearing a full armor set: Swansong.

  As long as you have every piece of this set equipped, you will receive a (+3) bonus to Fortitude.

  I felt incredible in this set of leather. I smoothed my hands over the blue sheen and grinned, looking up. “You’re a talented man,” I told Roark, who winked at me in return.

  Then I turned to Ryken. “I have the feeling you’re not going to like this — but if you’re coming into the dungeon you’ve got to have some armour, too.”

  “I’m fine like this. I like to be able to move,” he said with a frown.

  “I’m not having you die,” I said sternly, feeling like the world’s worst babysitter. “You’re going to wear the rest of the set I just took off. Altogether it’ll add maybe 8 to your defence score, which is not nothing. Just put it on.”

  “I don’t want to wear your hand-me-downs,” he whined. “Probably got pit stains.”

  “Well, you don’t have to wear the jerkin, since you already have your torso covered,” I said. “Just get the gloves and shoes on, at least. And the helmet won’t hurt.”

  “I don’t wanna wear a leather helmet,” he said, taking a step away.

  “Kid,” Roark said, that same easy smile on his face, but his eyes flashing with something threatening for the first time since I’d met him. “We’re not having you die in there. I’m not really happy with you coming at all, but you deserve to since you found the map, right? So just put on the leather, OK?”

  Ryken looked at him for a while, discomfort clear in his face. “But—”

  “Kid,” Roark said, simply.

  “Fine.” I heard Ryken mutter ‘fuck’ a few times as he slid my old pants, shoes and gloves on, and then with a full-on sneer latched the helmet to his head. The armour mysteriously fit his body completely perfectly. “You better not have fucking lice, Matt.”

  “I actually have a brand new breed of lice,” I told him. “Super lice, some are calling them.”

  “Fuck’s sake,” Ryken mumbled and I saw him surreptitiously scratch at his skin as we stood in front of a cellar door by some kind of inn. We were obscured from the main street by a large wheeled cart, and Roark motioned for us to be silent. He crouched and rapped rhythmically a few times.

  There was a
silence that lasted a few seconds, and I couldn’t help but momentarily wonder if Roark had the knock wrong, but then there was a soft click, and he gestured for us to help him lift the wooden doors and follow us as he descended through the steps. He closed the doors and carefully locked them behind us, and we were doused in darkness.

  “Anyone got a torch?” Ryken whispered.

  “Moro, hurry in here.”

  The wolf slipped through the wood and diligently stepped in front of us, and led the way down the stone steps with her soft ethereal glow. The stone walls on either side of us were lit by a cold white-blue light until we came to the bottom, and another door. Roark carefully knocked again, a different pattern this time. Again there was a pause, and then an echoing click.

  “Welcome to The Pale Light,” Roark said low, and then we were through the door and into a bustling underground tavern. “Discretion is key, OK? Try to be cool.”

  I would perhaps have been offended if I didn’t have such a track record of being me.

  We strolled in and I realised that I had kind of forgotten how to walk without looking like a puppet. I looked around, nervous, as everyone in there eyed me, and then eyed Moro. Someone looked me right in the eye and spat on the floor. I swallowed, uncomfortable, and moved away, hoping to stick as close to Roark as I could.

  But he motioned for us to stay at the bar while he went to speak to someone, and then he disappeared through a crowd of giggling women wearing tight corsets. My eyes trailed up and down the women in their differently coloured dresses, their skirts sweeping the floor and their hair up in loose, free styles.

  Ryken didn’t give the women a second glance, but hailed the barman and ordered an ale. The barman laughed uproariously and shook his head, and Ryken stood up and swore at him. I smacked him on the back of the head and told him to sit down.

  I wouldn’t have minded an ale for myself, but I knew that I needed to keep my head down in here. Ryken stared daggers into the side of my face, but I continued to look around the dingy pub and ignored him as best I could.