Baraad was bored.

Being an elite bodyguard with five Breaks didn’t mean every assignment was in the middle of a war-torn battlefield.

Nope.

Sometimes, you and your squad get assigned to secretly guard the princess from having too much fun and getting knocked up. The likelihood of anything else in the village she occasionally visited being a threat was a non-starter.

Still, they took their business seriously, watching for any sign of a threat, from these villagers or anyone else. When the kids lined up at the starting line, they had already gone deep into the woods, ghosting ahead of them without a single villager seeing them move.

They scoured the forest for any obvious threats, and then fell back to the Princess, forming a tight circle around her as she and her friend ran through the woods, looking for a boar Baraad already knew they wouldn’t find.

When Baraad saw Kala trip and cut herself on an exposed stone, he didn’t intervene. Hardships built character.

When he watched her chew on a mushroom that the two girls had found, snickering conspiratorially with each other, he didn’t intervene. He knew the plant, and aside from mind-bending hallucinations, it was harmless. Bad trips and secrets among friends built character.

When Baraad’s naked wife stepped out of the woods and approached the princess, he shot her in the heart and changed his hiding spot fractions of a second before a volley of arrows riddled it with holes.

Baraad and his team gave up their Stealth, fading into the visual spectrum in a tight circle around Kala.

“Baraad, what-“ Kala said, dropping the mushroom. “Who was tha-“

“Princess, you’re under attack,” Baraad said, glancing back at his team. Three of them hadn’t reacted fast enough to the mnemonic illusion of a loved one and hung from the trees, pierced with dozens of arrows.

Damn. Down a quarter of my men before the fight even started. How the hell did they get so close to us?

It was cold, but the safest place for the guards to be now was in front of the princess. If this was a kidnapping and not an assassination, then the enemy would avoid ranged attacks while they stood directly in front of her.

If it was an assassination, things would get complicated.

“Baraad,” a voice called from the woods, and a heavyset swordsman with large sideburns with streaks of grey stepped out from behind a wavering curtain of light. The curtain fell further to reveal no less than twenty Gadvera Veterans, and an Ilethian Light-weaver.

This was going to be a tough fight.

“Surrender, and be spared.” The man said “Men such as you have their own value, after all.”

“Am I tripping already?” Kala said. “Or is my second cousin once removed attacking us?”

“No, I don’t think you’re tripping,” Jinnei said, dragging Kala behind her.

“You’ll have to forgive me,” Baraad said. “If I don’t make this easy for you.” His eyes darted to Suala, who had stayed hidden.

The slender woman had the greatest Stealth of all of them, and had managed to flank their formation without being spotted. She leapt on the illusionist and put a dagger through the Ilethian woman’s spinal column. The magician was the greatest impediment to their fight, and with her out of the picture they stood a chance.

The Light-weaver dissolved into motes of light under Suala’s dagger, and before she could react, a knife held by a pale disembodied hand lodged itself into her ribcage. The Light-weaver was a trap! Not entirely unexpected, with them. It was damn brave of Suala to lure them out, and Baraad couldn’t afford to let it go to waste.

In a flash of motion Baraad drew two knives and threw them.

“Deadeye”

Baraad named the ability aloud for the enemy’s benefit, as one went toward Kala’s cousin, Lumentrias, and the other went toward the illusionist.

The Veterans knew the consequences for killing a royal, but they couldn’t risk him having lost his mind, so they blocked the knife heading toward the middle aged man with greater alacrity than the one zipping toward empty air.

A single sword tried to deflect it, and the blade slid harmlessly through, ignoring obstacles and burying itself past the handle in…something.

The illusion flickered out, and the light-weaver appeared beside Suala, a piece of steel buried in her brain. Most illusionists neglected the Triple fake-out.

Ice settled in Buraad’s stomach as the Veterans reacted quickly, charging toward Baraad’s injured teammate. The knife in her ribs made her a fraction of a second too slow to dodge and Suala fell to the ground, bubbling blood from a deep cut in her throat.

“You’ve only got eight left, Baraad, be reasonable.”

Baraad buried the white-hot rage under decades of training, and drew his sword, holding it out in front of him. He had a job to do.

He flicked the switch in the handle.

***Calvin***

“Where’s your sister?” Karen asked, eyes narrowed as she glanced out into the woods. It was almost time for the feast and the two girls still hadn’t come back.

“Probably getting eaten by a Norlock,” Cal said. It came across more flippant than he’d intended, disguising the hint of worry in the back of his mind.

“Psssh,” Karen scoffed. “She’s as safe with Kala as she would be at the center of Fort Holm. They’re probably just braiding each other’s hair and talking about boys.”

“Is that a euphemism for something?” Cal asked, glancing up at her.

His foster mother gave him a wide grin, her bloody hands on her hips.

“You’re just gonna leave me hanging, huh?”

“She’ll be fine, We’ll save a place for – “

A bright red light caught their attention as a firework launched itself into the sky from deep in the woods, hanging in midair.

“What does that-“ Cal began to ask, but Karen was already running, disappearing into the woods that looked far more ominous now that they were lit by a strange red tint. The firework must have been magical, because it settled above the forest like a crimson sun, attracting attention for miles around.

“Wait there!” he heard Karen’s voice echo back to him as the rest of the villagers gawked.

Cal jumped out of his seat and started chasing her, heading toward the light at his top speed, which was admittedly much slower than Karen’s.

To the hells with waiting. Waiting is for plants and animals.

So maybe he had a tendency to get lost in the woods. Wouldn’t be hard navigating to the giant glowing ball in the sky.

Cal ran for a good ten minutes, ducking under branches and hopping over bushes, reminding himself of a jackrabbit as he sailed through the woods. The extra point of Body had played its part. That and the intense training from Karen that had raised his physical sub-stats.

Body and Mind dictated the maximum any sub stat could be raised to, and a sub stat could be raise through diligent training. In theory, Bekvah hadn’t needed to spend Warp on Calvin’s Intuition, but training it was rather difficult, requiring tense dinner parties filled with deception, veiled threats and double meanings, which wasn’t exactly a staple of the podunk village of Deinos.

Cal had lost himself in thought when a fist as big as his head came out of nowhere and caught his shirt, lifting him off his feet.

“What are you doing here?” Karen demanded quietly.

“Umm….”

“Shut up. You’re damn lucky they’re too busy to hear your crashing. In a few seconds I’m going to go in there. You’re going to squeeze out every ounce of stealth you can manage, and get your sister to safety if at all possible, understood? Just your sister, Kala will be fine.”

She lifted him up to her eye level, allowing him to see six men stripping corpses and congratulating each other while shoving Jinnei and Kala to the side, shackles on their arms.

Cal nodded.

“And I swear to all the gods if either of you dies, I’ll find whichever hell you’re in and murder you. I swore an oath to my best friend – the woman who brought you both into this world – that when I see her again, I’ll be able to say the last I saw, you two you were happy and healthy. If you make me break my oath…”

She held up a fist below Cal’s nose. “You will not be happy or healthy.”

“I get it, I get it,” Cal whispered.

“Good. Go that way.”

She let Calvin to the ground and he began crawling through the woods, paying close attention to where he stepped, trying to ooze between the trees and shrubs that gave him cover from the clearing where the battle had occurred.

In the back of his mind, he wondered what had caused all of this, but the vast majority of his focus was on being just a little quieter, just a little more out of sight. His heart slamming in his chest made it difficult to tell if he was actually being quiet or not.

Avoid root.

Line of sight.

Quiet Grass.

Crunchy leaves bad.

Cal achieved a kind of flow state, taking in the Bad Guys positioning and line of sight, moving with the ebb and flow of their chatter, keeping his noise to the absolute minimum he could manage.

Stealth has reached Level 5!

+1 to Intuition

Level 5: 25% correction.

Please choose an ability from the list oʩʫ---

….

Please choose an ability or mutation from the list of compatible ones.

Words began scrolling through Cal’s mind so quickly that he misplaced his foot and almost fell, silently catching himself on the bark of a nearby tree.

I’ll deal with it later, shut up.

The scrolling thankfully stopped, fading into the back of his mind.

Alright, now I just gotta-

Karen happened.

One second the six Veterans were stacking corpses, and the next, Karen was halfway to them, a thick tree branch over her shoulder.

The nearest fighter spotted Karen and chuckled, drawing his sword and settling into a stance.

A tiny bit of backstory is required for the full context of what happened next.

The Gadveran fighting style was about precision and skill, they prided themselves on their fast blades and deadly, precise strikes. They tended to wear light armor and rarely came within biting distance of each other.

Whatever style Karen used…not so much.

Karen screamed loud enough to draw the attention of everyone present, raising her makeshift club above her head.

The Gadveran went for a precise thrust to her jugular, followed by an artful dodge.

Karen caught the blade on her club, faked the man out with her footwork and pulled his blade to the side as she crashed into him with a shoulder check, delivering every ounce of her body weight and sending the lightly armored man sprawling to the ground.

“Wai-“ he managed to say before the club blew his mind.

She’s a lot faster than in practice. Cal had the dim realization that she’d been toying with him from the beginning. He also had the realization that he needed to move, now.

Cal made it to the side of the clearing where Jinnei and Kala were watching the fight. When he stepped from the woods, the Warp pressed in against his skin, nearly making him take a step back. It made the amount from the Griks feel like nothing at all.

Cal shook off the sensation and crept toward where Jinnei and Kala were watching the fight unfold.

Kala was rocking back and forth and whispering to herself, and Jinnei was glancing between her own hand and Karen skewering a man with his own sword.

“Jinnei,” Cal whispered as he arrived beside her. “Let’s get you out of here.” He tried to tug Jinnei to a stand, but her chains seemed to be attached to both Kala’s and a spike in the ground. It didn’t seem like it would move anytime soon, either.

He glanced around frantically and spotted a key hanging from the belt of the alarmed looking middle-aged fellow.

Worth a shot.

Cal reached out and copied the key, allowing the duplicate to fall into his hands.

Dupdomancy has reached Level 2!

Level 2: 4 pound, 10 minutes.

Bent 1/7 remaining.

Why is everything going up so quickly? Cal thought as he struggled to get Jinnei’s hand in the right angle.

Extreme stress boosts Warped Skill growth.

Did the Status screen just respond?

Any thoughts Calvin had about testing it were blown away as Jinnei yanked her hand away, chuckling like she was being tickled.

“Damn it, hold still,” Calvin whispered, yanking her arm back.

“Calvin, Calvin,” she said, looking at her hand. “Karen is so big, and my hands are so small. Like, on a cosmic scale. I should be able to slip them right out of these manacles.” She yanked on the manacles again.

“Nope, the manacles are small too.”

“Are you high?” Calvin nearly shouted, but that would defeat the point so he fumed, silently turning her wrist sideways to expose the keyhole.

Gods I hope this works.

Cal jammed the key into the lock and twisted, the manacles sprang open, and one of Jinnei’s hands were free.

Yes! Thank the gods for lucky breaks.

“Calvin,” Jinnei said, finally looking away from her hands as he grabbed her other wrist. “You’re really ugly, bro. Like, on a cosmic scale. How come I never noticed before?”

“Because you’re high.” Cal said, freeing her other hand.

“Yeah, that’d do it.”

Luckily the fight was still going, and the guy with the keyring was watching, every bit as distracted as Jinnei and Kala, who had been drugged to quiescency by these villains.

All Cass had to do was free Kala, and he could lead them away with no one the wiser.

Cal crept forward and grabbed Kala’s hand with the intention of freeing her when he noticed the bandaged cut on her hand.

These people hurt Kala! I’ll extract sweet vengeance from each and every one of them! I’ll feed them their own families and sup on their bitter tears!

Kala stopped rocking in place and glanced over at him as he jostled her arm, and they locked eyes for a moment.

“Kala, I’m gonna get you-“

Her eyes widened beyond what Cal had thought possible, almost bulging with fear as he mouth dropped open, teeth bared in an animalistic rictus of terror.

“AAAAIIIIII!” A primal shriek washed over Cal and Jinnei as Kala began scooting away from him as quickly as she could, only stopping when the chains connected to her wrists literally prevented her from getting any further away.

Oh right, she’s high too.

“Someone’s with the princess! Kill him!” The heavyset fellow said, drawing his long blade and pointing at Calvin.