Grasping Val’s hand tightly, I sprinted back down the row of bookshelves, opening a portal with my free hand to shorten the distance. I had one eye on my active effects—already our Lightfoot had worn off, as evidenced by the footsteps echoing around the chamber. In a few moments, Eyeslide would wear off too, and then it would be the big one.

  At the door, the guard—the so-called Knight Of The Realm, as Val had said—began to turn, eyebrow raised, looking for the source of the noise. As the Eyeglide active effect ran out of time, my witch friend thought quickly, summoning a great gust of wind to blow a couple of dozen of boxes off the nearby shelf. The knight ran to investigate, shifting away from the door, and I opened another portal behind him.

  And then Invisibility, too, faded away, and I saw Val’s pale face, her eye makeup having run down her cheeks. My stomach lurched when I noticed the dried tears, and I hesitated just for a moment before swinging the door open.

  ‘Arzak,’ I said, leading Val through. ‘Time to—’

  ‘Stop there!’ the knight roared. ‘Stop right there, on the order of—’

  I didn’t hear the rest of that sentence because I slammed the door shut behind me.

  ‘Goodbye,’ Arzak said to the civil servant, whose eyes were wide at the sight of Val and I leaving the records office, and together we moved for the exterior door.

  ‘Wait,’ Val protested, tugging on my hand.

  ‘Val, now’s not the—’ I started, releasing her grasp when I realised there was no need for it; we weren’t invisible any more.

  ‘Wait!’ she said again, and grasped the handle of the door to the record’s office, imbuing it with lightning magicks. ‘This oughta slow them down a little.’

  As we ran out of the shop, I heard the crash of a door slammed off its frame, and I realised that Val’s lightning magic had, in this case, not been of much help.

  ‘OK, keep running!’ I cried. Portals really should have been good in situations such as these, that is, running away from people, but there were a couple of problems with that. Firstly, I could only portal far away if I could actually see the intended location, which was tricky when buildings were crammed in close to one another. Secondly, and much more importantly, the orcish civil servant had just charged out from behind her desk and cast a strange spell upon me—one that resulting in a glowing sigil on my chest and resulting in a not-so-fun new active effect.

  Active Effect: Mana-Halted

  Minutes remaining: 59 / 60

  Prevents marked person from using their own magick abilities.

  ‘Styk?’ Val asked. ‘What you waiting for?’

  ‘I… can’t…’ I said.

  ‘Seriously, Styk, now is not the time to not be able to perform.’

  ‘I can think of worse times.’ We charged down the main street, Arzak leading the way, and if I wasn’t mistaken she was leading us to the nearest gate in the palace walls. What we’d do about all the guards when we got there was something I wasn’t yet clued in on.

  ‘Any ideas?’ I asked Val, who was at my side.

  She shook her head and very wisely focused on running. Behind us, I could hear the heavy footsteps of the giant-like knight of the realm gaining on us, and my instinct again was to open up portals to get away from him. That this was still my instinct meant that I was probably over-relying on my Worldbending magicks in fights; I wasn’t exactly a well-rounded combatant without it. What with my recent growths in Knifework and Stealth, among other things, I was at least working on it, but that didn’t exactly help me in this moment.

  We rounded a corner and saw the gate up ahead. I scoured my mind for a plan, desperate, but came up short of anything that didn’t involve opening a bloody portal. But Arzak, it seemed, had at least part of a plan. She ran up to the guards ahead of us, not trying to stay out of sight, but instead doing the exact opposite. She waved her hands in the air to get their attention, and cried out, ‘Guards! Guards!’ The Goldmarch soldiers all turned, alarmed, apparently expecting any danger to come from outside the palace grounds. ‘Dragon! Dragon in palace!’ As Arzak grew closer, Val and I hot on her heels, she pulled at her singed dress. ‘It already got pretty dress! Might next get me! Or you!’

  A particularly alarmed soldier began pulling the great wooden gates open, allowing us—as fleeing, well-respected citizens—a way out. But amongst the crowd of soldiers, one or two weren’t distracted by Arzak enough to miss the knight of the realm, running after us, shouting, ‘Arrest them!’ while—presumably—pointing at us.

  ‘Close the gate!’ a quick-thinking guard cried out, but the three of us were already close to squeezing through. A well-placed blast of air from Val knocked one of the soldiers at the gate to his arse, and we were able to slip through the remaining gap.

  But that didn’t mean it was over, of course. We still needed to lose them.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Arzak faltered at this point, and I took the lead in our running. I directed us back the way we’d come, partially out of habit and partially because it was at least an area of the city we’d seen before, and had some knowledge of. I risked a glance over my shoulder at this point, to get an idea for the number of soldiers that were following us, and I wish I hadn’t. To our three, there were seven soldiers following—more than two for every one of us, and one of them was that huge Knight of the Realm fellow.

  At least I, then, had an idea. ‘Maybe Ted can help us,’ I said aloud, and Val nodded frantically as we charged down the street. I pulled the paper bag of enchanted confectionary from my pocket, and scrambled around as best I could while running. One of the sweets fell out as I thrust my hand into the bag, and I prayed I hadn’t just lost the one I was looking for.

  Val took the lead in the running, as I was slowly just a smidgen by my frantic search for the white sweet with two red band around it—the rhubarb drop of copycat. As I unwrapped it, Val suddenly veered left—into a familiar building.

  The queue outside Ted’s Confectionary Emporium still stretched down the road, though it had at least shrunk slightly. Part of this was down to the security guard no longer being at his post, I suspected—a few people had “snuck” in, in much the same way that Val, Arzak and I had just done. That is, we’d just run in with no regard for social decency.

  ‘What are we doing in here?’ I shouted to Val over the din of the crowded shop, customer browsing the many display stand chock full of non-enchanted sweets.

  ‘I thought you said maybe Ted could—’

  I pushed the unwrapped rhubarb drop in her face. ‘I meant the sweets!’

  ‘No time for bicker!’ Arzak shouted, and grabbed both Val and I under her arms and pushed through the crowd towards the rear of the shop.

  Even from this position, hanging from Arzak’s arms, Val managed to stick her tongue out at me. I ignored her and instead pushed the sweet into my mouth, sucking enough of the—admittedly very pleasantly flavoured; good work Ted—candy that I’d get some of its active effect. I could only hope that my Mana-Halted magick-prevention wouldn’t prevent me from using Ted’s magick, too. The answer to this doubt came quickly, just as Arzak turned a corner, and hit my dangling head into someone’s arse.

  Active Effect: Copycat

  Minutes remaining: 19 / 20

  Creates formless copies of the user that distract and confuse any opposition.

  I spat the sweet back out into my palm, and handed it to Val. ‘You know the drill.’

  ‘I’m using the sweet first next time,’ the witch replied, but didn’t give me any more sass than that. While she sucked, I looked around for signs of my copies, but couldn’t see any of them—that I was hanging upside-down in a very crowded place probably had a lot to do with that, though.

  ‘Arzak?’ Val said.

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘Let us down.’

  We were in the storage room where we’d been earlier when Val and I were finally allowed back on our feet, but Ted wasn’t in sight. Presumably he was elsewhere, making a hard sale on his confectionary.

  ‘Arzak,’ Val said, handing her a particularly soggy sweet.

  The orc raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Just eat it,’ Val said.

  Outside, I could see copies of both me and Val dotted around the shop, seemingly browsing the stock, apparently copying what the people around them were doing. On closer inspection, I realised these illusions were copying a little too precisely—unnaturally so, if you gave them a proper look.

  ‘Do you think they followed?’ Val asked. ‘Do you think—’

  Her question was answered by the booming voice of the knight of the realm roaring, ‘Would all customers please freeze. We have criminals to arrest.’

  ‘...Great,’ Val said.

  

  Quill & Still, a once Royal Road story which has just come out as a full novel over on Amazon (inc. Kindle Unlimited!)? It's an immensely charming slice-of-life alchemy litRPG with lots to love about it. Check it out or take a look at the blurb below!

  A new world can be a new start. All that's needed is to reach out and take the hand it offers.

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