Beastborne- Mark of the Founder

by James T Callum

  Looking both ways down the hallway, Hal quickly set about using his 10 points. He already knew his first goal should be getting his stats to a baseline of 5, so he continued with that. 3 points were placed into STR, 4 in AGI, and the remaining 3 into DEX.

  He remembered how many times he nearly fell on the rooftops and was not keen on a repeat performance. Not with his freedom at stake. As he filled out his stats, his body became sturdier and healthier with solid muscle tone. The kind that he didn’t even have back on Earth.

  The chains that weighed so heavily on him were as light as a feather now. After picking them off the ground to test out his new strength, he decided to keep them.

  His increases to AGI and DEX were a bit harder to discern. He definitely felt his stores of Stamina deepen and the way he moved felt fluid and graceful. Not at all like his usual shambling gait.

  Pulling up his stats, Hal started at the large increase 4 points of AGI gave his SP and regeneration rates.

  [Status]

  Hal Williams

  Level: 3

  Next Level: 300/760

  Classes

  Novice: 3

  Resources

  HP: 40/40

  SP: 60/60

  MP: 40/40

  Attributes

  STR: 5

  VIT: 1

  DEX: 4

  AGI: 5

  INT: 5

  MND: 1

  CHR: 1

  Regeneration

  HP/hr: 8.2

  SP/hr: 12.3

  MP/hr: 8.5

  Resistances

  Fire: 0

  Ice: 0

  Wind: 0

  Earth: 0

  Lightning: 0

  Water: 0

  Light: 0

  Dark: 0

  Defensive Properties

  DEF: 0

  MDEF: 0

  Insulation: 4

  Class Affinity

  Thief: 15%

  Survival Skills

  Perception: 1

  Combat Skills

  Improvised Weaponry: 1

  Magic Skills

  Crafting Skills

  Social Skills

  Persuasion: 1

  His wrists were scabbed with dried blood where the metal had cut into them. When he rubbed at his wrists the blood flaked off, revealing no further trace of the damage. Hal found himself oddly attached to the chains.

  Worst case scenario if I don’t run into anybody down here, I can at least partially defend myself.

  They had a considerable length to them, so he doubled them up and grabbed the chains just below both manacles and held them at his side. Something that would have been impossible with just one hand before.

  You obtain [Iron Manacles].

  A few test swings showed him how massive of an improvement those 3 points of STR were. The motion was surprisingly effortless.

  I could get used to having a gym body without ever stepping foot inside one, Hal thought with a wry grin despite his dire situation.

  Taking “Clarabell” had never been an option. Aside from the splatters of dried blood, the club was somehow more unwieldy than the chains. While it would have been a single-handed club for the guard, Hal needed both hands even with his increased STR.

  And he had never been a fan of two-handed weapons. There was so much lost utility.

  “H-Hello?” rasped a voice from the cell to his right, pulling him from his thoughts. All the doors were heavy and strapped with rusting iron without any bars or windows. But there was no way anybody would have missed the ruckus Hal had just kicked up.

  Hal went to the door, chains hefted in one hand, the ring of keys in the other. “What’re you in for?” he tried to ask gruffly but his voice cracked a little, spoiling the effect he was going for.

  I guess not everybody can pull off Batman's voice.

  “I’m a political prisoner. I dared to question the Founder’s wisdom in banning all people who had not grown up in Sanctum-Fallwreath.”

  It was highly unlikely that he’d be able to get out on his own and every minute he wasn’t marched out the front door to whatever execution they had set up for him was time for them to grow suspicious and come looking for him.

  Or worse, lock down the city and prevent him from escaping. That was going to be hard enough with the size and scope of the place. His only hope was that a single no-name prisoner wouldn’t be worth the effort.

  So long as nobody saw his mark, he thought he had a decent shot.

  While he needed the distraction and manpower a prison escape might provide, he didn’t have the time to vet each and every prisoner. Who knew how many people were down here?

  “I’m going to free you,” Hal said, unlocking the door and shouldering it open. The reek of human sweat and filth nearly knocked him over. He pulled the keys out of the door and cast around in the dark until he saw the figure.

  Light spilled out of the door behind him and silhouetted Hal as an ethereal luminous figure. The man crawled forward on hands and knees. “What manner of savior are you?” He placed a hand up to shield his eyes from the intensity of the light.

  Hal remembered that pain well. He slid his forearm through the large key ring and offered his free hand to the man, hauling him to his feet. “No savior, just a man. Let’s get you out of here, friend.”

  8

  Most of the people Hal freed weren’t even chained up. They marched through the lower levels of the dungeons without challenge, arming themselves with a variety of makeshift weapons from table legs and torches to bent and rusted blades found gathering dust in the corner of the strangely empty guardrooms.

  All but one.

  Somehow, Hal found himself at their head despite his plans to slip out in the exact opposite direction. So when they rounded on what Hal thought to be another empty guard station, everybody was surprised to find it manned.

  Though Hal doubted anybody was more surprised than the guard.

  Reflexes pulled the guard to his feet, some semblance of long-ago training. He pulled out a falchion from the sheath on his hip but it appeared that was where his training had ceased.

  The guard stood there, staring drunkenly at Hal and then at his own sword as if surprised to find it in his hand. Nobody moved.

  Without a sword of his own Hal made the only play he had. He took two quick steps forward, enough to let the chamber flood with prisoners and he whipped out with his chain. It swung through the air and wrapped around the blade just above the hilt.

  The only person more surprised than the guard was Hal who had been aiming for the man’s head, not his arm.

  Wasting no time to press his advantage, Hal yanked with all his might and pulled the sword free from the man. He was swarmed before Hal ever managed to untangle the chain from the blade.

  For a brief moment, Hal wondered if he should stop them from killing the man. But that option was quickly taken away from him by the prompt that flitted across his vision.

  You defeat the [Dungeon Guard].

  You gain 225 Experience Points.

  You obtain a [Deserter’s Falchion].

  The falchion simply appeared in his free hand as if it had always been there. It startled him at first and he looked at it distrustfully. Okay, that’s new. If I’m operating on the notion that this world operates on video game logic, then shouldn’t it have gone into my inventory?

  Thinking the word brought up a shimmering gray glass screen. Nobody else in the room reacted to it, so Hal assumed he was the only one who could see it. Good thing too, he wouldn’t want somebody peeping on all the items he had if he was in a busy city.

  [Inventory]

  0/0

  Well, that explains it. I have no inventory room. At least I can hold things or stuff them in my pockets if they’ll fit.

  He shook his head and left that puzzle for another time. Maybe he needed a pouch or something from this world. It was as good a hypothesis as any.

  Hal had the passing notion to shed the heavy chain in favor o
f the surprisingly sturdy falchion. Even though it felt awkward in his hand compared to the chains, he always had the fantasy of being an expert sword-wielder like most kids his age.

  The only difference was, Hal had never fully grown out of it.

  A quick glance at the sword allowed him to examine his current loadout.

  [Equipment]

  Deserter’s Falchion

  [Sword] (Uncommon)

  Item Level: 3

  DMG: 4

  AGI +1

  DUR: 87/100

  Lv.2 All Classes

  Manacle Chains

  [Improvised] (Common)

  Item Level: 1

  DMG: 2

  DUR: 171/220

  Lv.1 All Classes

  Simple Cloak

  [Cloak] (Common)

  Item Level: 1

  DEF: 0

  Insulation +4

  DUR: 22/45

  Lv.0 All Classes

  Interesting.

  Holding the falchion, Hal felt a little quicker on his feet. The extra point made AGI his highest stat, at 6 points.

  Whether they wanted to admit it or not, everybody yearned to be able to quantify themselves in such a way. To sum up their stats and see how they grew.

  It was everything Hal ever wanted and he had to remind himself that he was a single wrong turn from death to wipe the stupid grin that spread across his face.

  The dungeons, it turned out, were far larger than he had first thought. Four levels of cells packed with all sorts of people. It didn’t matter their crime, so long as they sowed enough chaos for him to get out. The only prisoners he hadn’t freed were those that had tried to kill him as soon as he made his offer.

  And the obviously insane ones. Not that there were many of them.

  With a pep in his step from the [Deserter’s Falchion], Hal found himself moving briskly through the levels of the dungeon on his way to freedom.

  With dozens of angry, crudely armed prisoners at his back, Hal burst out of the dungeon into an inner courtyard. The collective roar of mistreatment and directed anger was swallowed by the gonging of alarm bells. Distant explosions rocked the smoke-filled courtyard.

  Guards were screaming, moving about like ghosts amid the shroud of smoke and debris. Now he understood why the guardrooms below were so empty. Something up above was drawing all their attention.

  Hal turned away from the carnage as the majority of the prisoners took to looting the dead guardsmen nearby. Properly armed, they disappeared into the chaos of the smoke to join the fight.

  It was time to make his escape.

  While the bloodlust had taken its hold on the group, Hal snuck off to the side and found a door to slip through.

  But he wasn’t alone. The first man he had rescued followed him, a bright and odd expression on his face whenever he looked at Hal.

  Sword and chains in hands, Hal and the nameless prisoner walked right into the mess hall for the guardsmen. Luckily, the hall was empty except for a lone young man wearing a simple tunic. He was mopping up a spill just as Hal and the other prisoner approached.

  Before Hal could say anything, the other man brandished a rusted sword and roughly grabbed the young guardsman. Placing the blunted blade to the guardsman’s throat, he looked at Hal with a wild and crazy light in his eyes.

  “We can take him hostage,” he said. “He’s a trainee by the looks of it. They won’t want his blood on their hands. It’d hurt their recruitment numbers.” His pale lilac eyes flashed to the chaos of the courtyard outside. “And I’m expecting they’re going to need quite a few new men.”

  “Please, no! I’m just a recruit, I ain’t one of them. If you just go out that way.” The trainee tried to point at one of the many doors that exited the room but the prisoner wouldn’t release him enough to move his arm freely. “The way out’s that way. I-I won’t tell a soul.”

  The prisoner looked to Hal for some sign. “Your call, but a hostage could be mighty useful.”

  Hal was shaking his head and would have put his weapon away if he had anywhere to stow it. “No,” he said with finality. “I’m sure this young man wants nothing but to clean up the floor and be rid of us. He looks to have a good head on his shoulders. I expect he knows he’ll be able to keep it there if he stays quiet.”

  “Yessir,” the trainee squeaked.

  With a shrug, the prisoner released him. “Show us the way out then.” He followed the trainee’s progress, shadowing his every step. “Count yourself lucky,” he said to the young man as he stepped up to the door indicated. “If it were up to me, I would have slit your throat and saved myself the headache of wondering if you still had some honor left.”

  To Hal, the trainee said, “Follow this hall straight and take the first left you can. That’ll take you to the street. I-I won’t tell anybody I saw anything. On my word.”

  Hal and the prisoner made their way deeper into the castle, navigating the straight corridor and sprinting past startled servants. Paintings of the same man kept popping up framed in gold. A little gray at the temples of his black hair but otherwise a handsome man with kind brown eyes.

  Hardly the sort of person who would order Hal’s death just because he wasn’t known.

  Something in the back of his mind recognized the man but he couldn’t pinpoint where or how. He was just… familiar. Like seeing an old classmate he wasn’t particularly close to after a decade or two.

  The recognition was faint but it was there. He filed that away for another day when he wasn’t running for his life. So far, there had been few days where he wasn’t.

  Running along the hall side-by-side with the prisoner, they pulled up short at the next intersection. The sound of voices down the left hall gave them both pause.

  The prisoner crouched down low to the stone floor and peeked around. He pulled back and stood in front of Hal, lowering his voice to say, “A group of heavily armored guards. There’s no way we’ll get past them but they aren’t looking this way, we could probably dart by.”

  With a little help from his [Deserter’s Falchion], Hal sprinted across the intersection with ease. His footfalls thankfully masked by the padded burgundy carpet that ran down the center of the hall.

  Before the pair could turn down the next hall, they heard more heavy footfalls of armored feet.

  Hal looked around, found a promising door in the hall, and bolted into it, dragging the prisoner along with him. The room turned out to be a small storage area with dusty crates and cobwebbed furniture.

  Together, with the prisoner, Hal went to the back of the room and hid behind a pile of chairs draped in white canvas until the sound of marching vanished into a distant part of the castle.

  Hiding side by side for so long gave the two some time to talk in hushed voices and explore the dim room.

  “My name’s Altres,” said the prisoner, offering his hand to Hal.

  “Mine is Hal,” he replied, taking his hand and shaking it. “You sure you want to follow me?”

  “Figure somebody going through all this effort to get out is probably more likely to get out than those bloodthirsty idiots,” Altres said with a shrug of his slender shoulders.

  Hal suddenly felt more than a little guilty at how quickly he abandoned the men and women he freed.

  Altres’ sharp eyes picked up the flicker of emotion and he reached out to put a hand on Hal’s shoulder. “You did more than enough for that lot. They could have followed you as I did. Yet they chose not to. Their fate is not yours to control.”

  Hal nodded, letting it go at that. They had more pressing concerns besides, like finding a way out.

  After an exhaustive search, something caught Hal’s eye beneath a crate off in the far corner. A small hatch, almost entirely concealed.

  You have unlocked Investigation (Level 0).

  By analyzing your surroundings and using inductive reasoning, you are able to piece together evidence into a plausible conclusion, locate hidden items, traps, and make connections others would mi
ss. Heavily influenced by INT.

  Your Investigation has risen to Level 1.

  +1% Investigation speed (+1%).

  +2% Investigation success (+2%).

  It took the better part of ten minutes for Altres and Hal to move everything aside and open the trap door. Every few minutes voices would echo in the hallway and they would have to pause to wait for them to pass.

  A ladder descended down about a dozen feet before it hit a dusty floor. Hal took it immediately, closing the trapdoor as he went. As soon as his feet hit the floor torchlight appeared in the distance. One by one the torches on the wall of the narrow passage sparked to life from some unseen magic and lit the way for the pair.

  Hal took the tunnel at a steady jog, mindful of his pitifully low Stamina until he made it to another ladder. He could only imagine how much harder it would have been if he hadn’t put those points into AGI already.

  Altres easily paced him the entire way and when Hal stopped to wheeze and catch his breath, he stood beside him. Hal climbed the ladder expecting another trap door but it emptied out onto a short walkway with a door at the end.

  “Please be unlocked,” he whispered. He had left the ring of keys with another prisoner so they could free more people, never thinking they would be useful outside of the dungeon.

  Hal tried to open the door and found that it wouldn’t budge.

  “Locked?” Altres asked, his lilac eyes dancing with mirth. “All this way to be defeated by a simple door. Quite ironic. If you had a set of tools I could get this open but… alas.”

  The locking mechanism seemed simple enough. The keyhole was large enough that he could stick his pinky through. Placing his hand on the metal plate surrounding the lock, he shut his eyes and focused.

  “What’re you-”

  “Shh,” Hal hissed. “I need to concentrate.”