Killstreak Book One Read online

  “Yes, my lord,” Kadorax accepted. The drastic reduction, as opposed to going into debt to acquire the clothing, meant he and Syzak would be able to keep their upfront payment even if they didn’t complete the quest, though failure in Agglor often meant death anyways.

  “My estate is south along the river,” Brinn explained. “Go there, and my bondsman will see to it that you are properly clothed for the journey.”

  The lady gave them directions to the estate and a map to the meeting point with the emissary, and then Kadorax and Syzak set off toward the river.

  “Been a long time since we’ve done an escort quest, hasn’t it?” Kadorax casually asked on the walk.

  “Well, there was that dragon egg we guarded through the swamp not long ago,” Syzak reminded him. “But I suppose it doesn’t count since we killed the owner once he paid us.”

  Kadorax laughed at the memory. He hadn’t been evil in his previous life, not exactly, but he had been far from what most would have considered to be good. Simply put, Kadorax followed no code. There were others who worshipped the gods of Agglor and were voluntarily bound by various creeds or oaths—and Kadorax viewed them all as weak. Any limitation was to be avoided. Still, Kadorax didn’t think of himself as an amoral person. He didn’t go from village to village wantonly slaughtering. Instead, the former assassin had only killed when it was advantageous—usually in hopes of a huge payoff.

  Walking next to him down the street in the center of Coldport, Syzak was of a different mind altogether. The snake-man was loyal only to his former owner, and he understood little of human ethical dilemmas, even after so many years spent in Agglor. Typically, Kadorax had to keep Syzak’s propensity to kill somewhat in check, though the shaman at least understood when taking prisoners was in order.

  Lady Brinn’s estate wasn’t nearly as large as the two adventurers had envisioned, but it still towered over the houses nearby. Kadorax knocked on the door with the bottom of his fist. After a few moments, a smartly dressed man open the door and ushered them inside. As was the norm for many quests, Kadorax and Syzak had been expected, so the bondsman took them directly to a parlor room where a large amount of clothing and other equipment had been laid out.

  “No dagger or short sword,” the bastion said after a quick inspection of the gear. “But having an actual pair of boots will be nice.”

  Syzak found the heaviest garment present, a thick traveling cloak made of wool and interlocking patches of leather, and wrapped his cold body greedily within its folds. “There we go,” he hissed with pleasure.

  “You got a staff to cast spells from your training,” Kadorax lamented. “I have no idea how to use a whip.” He found a pair of leather boots that were pretty close to a decent fit and slipped them on. There were gloves, as well as a knee-length coat, and the whole ensemble made him look more like a street beggar than an adventurer about to set out on a quest.

  “If it snows, you’ll need a hat,” the snake-man said.

  Kadorax rummaged through the rest of the clothes and gear, but he didn’t find one. “I need some XP even more than a hat,” he remarked. “Once we start getting a few survival talents, we won’t have to worry about the cold.”

  “Even a basic escort quest should get us at least one level.”

  “Yeah, I hope so,” Kadorax said. “Let’s hit the road. The sooner we get to the emissary, the better. Maybe we can get this all wrapped up before nightfall.”

  Outside, the wind was relentless. It blew in from the river, carrying crystals of frost and snow that clung to Kadorax’s skin wherever it was exposed.

  Their map led them north along a road that quickly turned into nothing more than frozen dirt winding through gentle hills and rocky outcroppings. “There should be an outpost a little ways into the foothills,” Kadorax said. They found a marker hammered into the road at an intersection, and their map instructed them to take the eastern path, keeping the distant mountains in front of them.

  Then, after several uneventful hours of trudging forward and bemoaning the cold, they saw a plume of smoke rising up from a chimney that marked the outpost’s location. In the wilderness, the small places were used by anyone who could find them and gather enough fuel to take advantage of the hearth. Travelers of means, or those too slow to make their trips in a single day, often stayed overnight at the various outposts dotting the landscape of Agglor, and that made them prime targets for both low-level adventurers and bandits in search of a quick sack of loot.

  “Should be a simple enough quest,” Kadorax announced. The two were standing on a low ridge of jagged rock overlooking the outpost. There were several horses and a single wagon, and one man in armor roamed aimlessly around in front of the door. “Looks like the emissary already has guards, and no high-level bandits would bother with such a small caravan. Not unless they’re profoundly stupid. It isn’t worth the cold.”

  “Let’s not waste any time,” Syzak said, moving toward the outpost without hesitation. He kept his eyes on the smoke, clearly eager to be inside, and made sure his staff wasn’t visible from under his cloak so he didn’t accidentally raise an alarm. Some people were unnerved by snake-men, and Kadorax never knew what reactions they would get, especially when approaching unannounced. He laughed to himself when he realized how little had changed since the shaman had arrived in Agglor and grown legs. Back on Earth, he had elicited even more fearful responses whenever he had escaped his cage.

  The guard patrolling the front hailed the two when they were near enough for the wind to not steal their words.

  “We’re here about the emissary headed to Coldport,” Syzak replied with a friendly wave.

  “Don’t mention our levels or let him see your character sheet,” Kadorax added under his breath. “Though I doubt it will matter anyways.”

  The armored man pushed open the outpost’s only door to show them the way inside. The interior room was small, made entirely of stone, and the top reached three stories into the sky with a ladder leading to the uppermost battlements. On the ground floor, a middle-aged woman sat next to the fire with a distant look in her eyes. Across from her, a sickly looking child rocked back and forth on his heels, his arms wrapped tightly around his knees.

  “You’re the emissary?” Kadorax asked, stepping to the side of the door and shutting it behind him.

  The woman looked up momentarily, then glanced back to the fire. “Lady Brinn is my mother,” she began. “I am the mayor of Assir, a town not far to the northeast at the edge of the Boneridge Mountains. I’m en route to Coldport to get on a boat bound for the capital. I suspect my personal guard, Kel, is more than capable of looking after my son and I, but my mother likes to worry. She’s always been rather high strung.” The woman’s hair was long, falling roughly to her elbow in tight brown curls. For a mayor, her appearance was rather disheveled, like she hadn’t slept in days.

  Kadorax summoned her character sheet to his vision. Not everyone in Agglor even had a sheet; some, especially lifelong farmers and others who lived in the peaceful countryside, did not complete their training. The emissary’s sheet took Kadorax a bit by surprise.

  Brinna of Assir, Human, Mayor of Assir Village

  Rogue - Level Five

  Strength: 13

  Agility: 17

  Fate: 10

  Spirit: 11

  Charisma: 9

  Active Conditions: Wasting Sickness: Rank 1 - Brinna has been afflicted with a magical disease, and her organs are beginning to suffer. Without treatment, ranks will increase. At rank 4, Brinna will likely perish. Penalties to Strength, Fate, and Charisma increase with each rank.

  The emissary’s sheet had a moderate list of rogue abilities under the Wasting Sickness, but Kadorax knew them all by heart. Rogues and assassins were very much alike, and many of their talents and abilities were identical. Glancing at the list sent a bit of melancholy through Kadorax’s mind. He could recognize every ability on the list, and he knew he had been able to use some of them in the past, but
the specific memories of how they worked were lost.

  “You’re sick,” Kadorax stated without any tact whatsoever. “Your son looks even worse.”

  Brinna stared at the man, her eyes hollow. “He has Wasting Sickness: Rank 3,” she explained. “That’s why I’m going to the capital. They were supposed to send a cure, but it never arrived. So, for the next few weeks, I have set aside my duties as mayor and taken up the mantle of an emissary on behalf of the people. It is not just my village which suffers. Everyone who lives in the western foothills of the Boneridge Mountains will be afflicted before long. We can’t contain the plague.”

  Despite his heavy clothes and proximity to the fire, the boy shivered. A bit of drool escaped the corner of his mouth.

  “You should get moving at once,” Kel said. His voice was just a bit too loud to be comfortable in the small outpost.

  “You aren’t joining us?” Syzak asked.

  The man shook his head. “I must return to Assir and care for those that remain. With everyone so sick, the villagers are ripe for an attack. It is only a matter of time before a bandit lord or even a pack of wolves overruns the streets.”

  Kadorax began to wonder if the Wasting Sickness was contagious, and he took a small step backward. “Then let’s hit the road, Lady Brinna,” he said quickly. “No use staying here.”

  The woman stood, and Kadorax realized how tall she was. Her body looked toned, though the muscle of her arms and legs was only barely visible beneath the leather and fur she wore, and Kadorax knew she would cut an imposing image as a both a mayor and a rogue when healthy.

  Brinna lifted her sickly son from the floor of the outpost, then used her boot to push a pile of sand onto the fire in the hearth.

  Outside and in the cold once more, Brinna offered her guard a weak farewell before turning south. “Several hours of daylight remain. We should not waste it,” she said.

  Kadorax took a minute to introduce himself and Syzak, and then the four began back toward Coldport, though Brinna could not move quickly with her son bound up in her arms.

  “You’ve seen some combat, then?” the bastion asked. A level five rogue was an odd candidate for a mayor, though Kadorax had known of dozens of government officials back on Earth who he would have described by the same moniker.

  Brinna nodded. “My twin sister was the mayor of Assir before me, a bard like most government types, and I ran our ragtag village guard. There wasn’t much crime, just the usual drunken ruffians every now and then, but I did see some action against a band of jackals harrying our farmers last year.”

  “Damned dogheads,” Kadorax muttered. “Filthy beasts can’t leave us humans alone, can they?”

  “Ha, they aren’t so bad when they stick to their caves and their dens,” the mayor said.

  The four trekked slowly through the rocky foothills, stopping frequently to allow Brinna to rest her arms from the weight of her son. Sometime before nightfall, Kadorax caught the scent of a charcoal fire lingering in the air. “Someone was nearby recently,” he said, holding up his hand to stop the group.

  Syzak’s tongue flicked to either side of his mouth. “They’re still here,” the snake-man said in a low whisper. “There was a campfire, cooked meat, and humans.”

  Kadorax’s right arm drifted near to the whip at his belt, but he had yet to try and practice with it, so he knew he wouldn’t have the slightest idea what to do with it in his hands. “Do you know which direction?” he whispered.

  Clutching her son tightly to her chest, Brinna fell back a few steps to crouch next to a boulder that was almost large enough to offer adequate cover. “We should just keep going. There isn’t much time,” she urged.

  “You’re right,” Kadorax said after a moment of consideration. He took a few steps forward, and then he saw a flicker of firelight reflected off a nearby patch of stone that caught his eye.

  Syzak hushed the mayor with a scaly finger held to his mouth, but the woman did not need encouragement to remain silent. Under normal circumstances, she looked like she would not have shied from a fight. As she hid with her sick son, Brinna’s hand drifted down to one of the daggers in her boots. Carefully, she set her son down—his head lolling awkwardly to the side—and watched the two adventurers.

  “Let’s go,” Kadorax whispered. He brought up his character sheet and scrolled through the abilities he had available to him as a level two bastion. He focused on the Nimble Feet talent, keeping it visible while the rest of his sheet vanished, just in case he needed to purchase it quickly.

  The two crept along the side of the barely visible path toward the fire. Ahead, perhaps a hundred feet from the trail toward Coldport, three humanoid figures sat around a dwindling fire, the smell of poorly prepared meat lingering heavily in the air. Behind the three figures, far enough from the cookfire to not benefit from its heat, was a bearded human with his hands tied behind his back.

  “The blacksmith?” Syzak wondered under his breath.

  Kadorax nodded. “Two quests at once?” He felt a wave of adrenaline enter his bloodstream at the prospect of a battle.

  “I don’t know,” Syzak quietly hissed. “Three against two, and I don’t think I need to remind you what levels we are.”

  Kadorax barely processed his companion’s words. “You have Spike Trap, right?” he asked.

  Staff in hand, Syzak had started to scamper forward when Kadorax caught him by the forearm. “I’ll get their attention, then you’ll need to make the trap at their feet,” the human said.

  “It’s only rank 1, so—”

  Kadorax unhooked his whip and stepped a few paces toward the campfire. He threw his arm through the air in what he thought would produce a huge crack from the unorthodox weapon, then frowned when the end quietly thudded into the ground at his feet. “Well…” He tossed the whip aside and picked up a rock, hurling it as hard as he could toward the figures.

  Luckily, the rock achieved the intended result.

  “Hey!” called one of the men seated around the fire. All three of them stood. Behind the trio, the bound captive’s eyes went wide in surprise.

  “We’ve come to rescue him!” Kadorax shouted, pointing a finger toward the prisoner. Without a proper weapon, he didn’t feel intimidating at all, but the bandits weren’t particularly difficult to goad.

  They charged right toward Kadorax and Syzak, rusty and dented swords in their hands. The ground between the two groups wasn’t terribly expansive, and most of it was strewn with uneven patches of exposed rock breaking through the topsoil, causing one of the bandits to trip over his own feet and be left behind by his companions.

  “Spike Trap!” Syzak yelled, moving his staff to cast the spell. At once, a small, radial pit no more than three feet deep appeared right in the path of the oncoming brigands. The bottom of the pit was lined with wooden spikes, though they weren’t particularly secure or terribly sharp. Still, falling three feet onto spikes certainly had a very specific effect on the charging bandits, and their screams soon filled the air. One of them was badly hurt, perhaps even mortally wounded. The second had used the first as a squishy bit of cushion and had emerged from the pit almost entirely unscathed. A ragged cut oozing blood through the man’s right pant leg appeared to be his only injury.

  The third bandit, slowed by the uneven ground, easily avoided the Spike Trap altogether.

  “That didn’t go quite as well as planned,” Kadorax said under his breath. He had enough of his own knowledge left from his previous life to be able to read the movements of the bandits and determined that they were relatively untrained, but the information wasn’t helpful. He had no weapon, no easy route of escape, and no chance of negotiation.

  Time to pick a talent, he thought, quickly calling up his available skills.

  Nimble Feet would mean abandoning the emissary and her son to die. He pushed it aside to view Torment, then quickly selected it and rolled backward to recover his whip from the ground.

  “Torment!” he yelled, striking t
oward the bandit. A tendril of darkness wrapped itself around the whip, and the weapon rocketed forward with magical guidance. It slashed down the side of the nearest bandit’s neck, leaving an angry streak of blood in its wake.

  Throwing down his sword, the bandit reached up to his neck with a look of horror plastered to his face. Kadorax knew he hadn’t inflicted much damage—the whip hadn’t done more than scratch the surface of the man’s skin. Still, the man’s advance came to a halt.

  He had no way of knowing what was going on inside the bandit’s head, but Kadorax could tell it was extreme. The man’s eyes darted from side to side. His mouth was frozen in a soundless scream, and his hands trembled as he gripped his neck.

  Not wasting any time, Kadorax pounced on the bandit’s discarded weapon and came up in a roll. He slashed to his right, and the pitted steel bit into the man’s thigh, rewarding him with a gout of warm blood. The bandit fell backward, fully engulfed in his own screaming, and then there was only one.

  The bandit hesitated, squaring his feet and preparing for battle. His sword was almost identical to the one in Kadorax’s hands, but looked stronger and more fit for combat. Kadorax pegged him for level three or higher.

  “There’s two of us,” the bastion stated, summoning all the confidence he could find. He pointed to Syzak, and the snake-man bared his rows of jagged teeth.

  “Take your wounded,” Syzak hissed, “and run. Save yourself while you can.”

  Kadorax swung his stolen sword casually by his side like he was some renowned fighter able to kill scores of men without breaking a sweat. In reality, he was terrified. He knew he didn’t have the skills he needed, and his base stats were pathetic.

  Syzak took two steps forward and began chanting as though he was going to cast a high-level spell, exuding confidence.

  “Sweeping Strike!” the bandit yelled, slashing horizontally for Kadorax’s chest.

  Kadorax skipped backward, and the front of his shirt was caught in the blade’s path. The material parted easily under the magical attack, and then the bandit was rolling through the swing with impossible speed to where Syzak stood. Luckily, the shaman had his staff on his left, and the bandit’s weapon crashed into it with a loud crack. Kadorax dashed forward, stolen blade held low and tight to his body. He didn’t dare to try anything fancy, especially because he could already feel the effects of so much combat at such a low level, and he didn’t have any endurance talents. Regardless of Kadorax’s exhaustion, the bandit couldn’t possibly attend to the half-snake shaman in front of him and the human behind, and he was skewered where he stood.