Curselock

Chapter 4: Sticks and Stones

A rush of wind expelled from Leland’s grimoire as it opened automatically to the second page. The spell fracture came to his mind as he extended his hand. Knowledge and knowhow flooded his mind, his Lord’s Legacy entered the spotlight. Purple budded at the tip of his middle finger and thumb, the color sparking with lifeforce and mana.

“Fracture,” Leland whispered, snapping his fingers at the recovering wolf.

Nothing happened.

Jude and the partially invisible form of Glenny stared at him. From behind, Leland heard meticulous cackling from the guard. The man almost fell over while attempting to slap his knee.

Leland reddened, retying the spell. Purple appeared on his fingertips yet again, however this time the wolf appeared to notice. It stalked in a circle, eyeing Leland and Jude.

“Any time now, Leals,” the Berserker Lord Legacy spoke.

Power compounded, sparks of mana blazed. “Fracture,” Leland whispered.

A mangled cry escaped the wolf’s maw, it limped a few steps and turned in confusion. Nothing was around it, not even the camouflaged Chameleon Lord Legacy.

“Uh,” Glenny hummed. “That wasn’t me.”

“Fracture,”

“Fracture,”

“Fracture,”

Leland huffed in lungful after lungful, droplets of sweat falling to the ground below. He tried to control his breathing, just like his parents had taught. But he couldn’t exercise harder than usual. Focusing internally on a proper meditation simply didn’t come, his mind wanted to look and learn.

The wolf was crying in between snarls. It took a few steps, sat its butt and hindlegs down, then took another few steps. The beast was locked in invisible pain while searching high and low for the attacker.

Through bated breath, Leland spoke, “I’ve got one more in me, but I’m saving it for an emergency. Four broken bones. One in its back right leg. Up to you guys now.”

Jude’s face elongated into a sinister smile. He donned his Legacy weapon, shifting it to his shoulder and began walking nonchalantly to the monster. Movement stirred through the underbrush, no doubt Glenny moving to a flank position.

“That’s some interesting spell you’ve got there,” the guard said, stepping up beside the rookie. “Don’t think I’ve seen that particular one before, nor that type of tome.”

Leland nodded, watching the wolf cower away. It backtracked towards the forest, never removing its eyes off the muscley Jude. A somewhat transparent shimmer slammed down, creating a deep red streak across the beast’s flank. It cried in pain, turning and swiping at the empty air.

Jude let out a battle cry, running straight into the distracted wolf. With a great overhead chop, he executed the monster with the full weight of his Lord’s strength. The wolf’s head rolled, blood and stringy bits of flesh flooding the patch of grass.

“Yeah,” Leland said, giving Jude and the now opaque Glenny a thumbs up. “It's technically a curse, not a spell.”

“Ah,” the guard replied. “Makes sense. Don’t mind me asking what your Lord is? Can’t hurt us guards knowing too much, you know?”

A few dozen paces away, Jude dipped his fingers into the wolf’s blood. He marked down his forehead and the bridge of his nose before adding a four finger streak down both cheeks. He then let out a mighty yell.

“Calm down man,” Glenny tried. “Battle’s over.”

A gusto laugh escaped Jude’s lips. “The battle is never over!” he charged his friend, forgoing his sharpened weapon and instead using the blood of his enemies.

Glenny yelped in surprise, activating his partial invisibility and running away. Jude didn’t have a hard time following, the sound of giggling more than enough to easily track the rogue. Despite the irritated glare from nearby guards and adventurers, they ran all around the town’s outer reaches.

“I’d rather not say,” Leland said to the guard. “If people don’t know what the symbol is, I could potentially use that to my advantage.”

The guard eyed him. “I guess I just have to wait for the bard retellings of your future adventures, right? Surely by then your Lord will be in the song.”

Leland laughed at that. “It’s a few years away, I’m afraid.” They both looked out to the blood game of tag. “I don’t think it is going to be anytime soon that we start to have songs written about us.”

The guard smiled at that and walked off back to the town. As he went, he waved goodbye and added, “Make sure your friend does a good job with the pelt. That’s where the money’s at.”

Letting the others run around, Leland took the moment to look over his grimoire. On the first page, below his name and rank, was a new entry.

You have assisted in killing a Trihoof Wolf. An appropriate reward has been added to your Legacy.

Fracture has increased to rank 2.

A new rank in his only spell wasn’t all that surprising, after all he had cast it six times. The early ranks were always the easiest, he knew. But the thrill of progressing in magic made him smile. He reviewed the spell on page two.

Fracture:

Type: Curse

Rank: 2 (C)

Call upon the Lord of Bone to shatter those in your way.

60% chance to break a random bone in a single target.

Ah, a five percent increase, Leland thought. That’s good.

Idly he tried to turn the page but found them still stuck together. He shrugged, popping the grimoire back into his hand. The tattoo of the crow flapped a little as he did so, like it was trying to give him a thumbs up.

Uhh, are they supposed to do that? He asked himself.

Yelling pulled his attention away, however. “Aww come on dude. Washing leather sucks.”

Leland recognized the voice of Glenny despite his hidden appearance. Jude was struggling against the invisible rogue, pulling him along in a bear hug. Streaks of red washed down the person he was holding, illuminating the torso of their friend.

“Mission accomplished,” Jude said, setting down Glenny.

Glenny ended his ability, revealing his annoyed expression. “That wasn’t very nice man.”

“That’s what you get for not going for a kill shot. Always go for the—”

“Kill shot, yeah, yeah. I know. My dad hammered that into me already. I was just letting you have some fun.”

Jude laughed, turning his attention to Leland. “Any rewards?”

“New rank in my curse,” he replied. “Nothing else.”

“A shame,” Glenny added, then patted the mage’s back and spoke in a patronizing voice. “You’ll get there.”

Leland narrowed his eyes, “Uh huh. Don’t you have something to do right now?” He motioned to the dead wolf. “Get to skinnin.”

“Aw man… You two have to help me carry the parts back. I’m not the only one who’s going to be covered in blood.”

Jude shrugged. “I already am.”

This time Glenny narrowed his eyes looking between his soiled armor and his similarly soiled friend before him. “Right… Thanks for that by the way.”

The Berserker gave him a toothy smile.

“Man, I wished I’d unlock my second spell by now. Didn’t you get yours from jumping in place like ten times?” Leland asked Jude.

“Uh, it was like a thousand times. And it’s an ability not a spell.”

“Same difference, just spell for mages and ability for non-mages. We both know what I’m talking about.”

Jude only shrugged. “We can go out into the forest and look for a deer or something.”

Leland grimaced. “I don’t think I want to rank myself up by torturing a defenseless deer. You saw what my spell did to that wolf. It was obviously in a lot of pain, I can’t do that to something so helpless.”

“That good on ya, then,” Glenny said. “My father was never one to pass up easy ranking, so… yeah…”

Both Leland and Jude gave him a knowing look.

Leland was first to break the awkward silence. “What about you two? Any ranks?”

“Oh! Didn’t even check.” Jude said, pulling at his tattoo and unleashing his axe back into the material world.

He squinted at the blood on the weapon, obviously seeing words in the helpless stain. Leland and Glenny looked on with odd expressions, the blood looking like nothing more than a faded red dye to them.

“Says here… Oh! My expertise in axes ranked up. Now I can do… this!”

He jumped back, sailing a few yards away. With a dire shout, Jude hoisted his weapon and slashed it in a horizontal arc towards the forest. A red blade of power whipped from the axe, cutting in a straight line for about a yard before fading.

“Heh, awesome,” Jude said, trying again.

This time he crouched, angling the axe head with the ground. The same red line appeared, this time hurtling through the tall grass like a lawn mower. A gradual taper lacerated the grass, the further away from Jude, the less cut the grass actually was. At the final exertion of the attack, the blades of grass were nothing more than pushed over.

Jude returned and looked to Glenny expectantly.

The dagger wielder sighed, pulling at his tattoo. A handled mirror appeared in his hand, reflecting his hesitant gaze. To Leland and Jude the mirror looked like a mundane mirror, but to Glenny the reflective material was fogged over with finger drawn words shining through.

“Uh,” Glenny mumbled. “Nothing for me. I must be getting pretty close to rank six of my camouflage. Soon I’ll truly be invisible and you two won’t be able to make fun of me.”

Jude laid a heavy hand on his friend's shoulder. “We don’t make fun of you.”

“Yes! Yes you do!”

Jude simply shook his head. “You make fun of yourself.”

Leland laughed as Glenny rolled his eyes.

“So,” Leland said. “Lunch?”