5.27

“What do you mean the Revenant King was assassinated!? And by some random group of five adolescents no less!” - The Revenant King’s most loyal Second in Command, Lieutenant Traitorous, upon learning of her lord’s demise.

Corvian kicked open the door to his shop, hurriedly rifling through drawers before he found it, a health potion. Pressing the bottle to Noam’s lips, he gently caressed it down the tiefling’s throat.

“Hurry and wake you fool,” he muttered in hurry and desperation.

Noam gagged, coughing up the red liquid as his eyes fluttered open.

‘I have an idea what Breathless really does. Bloodloss shouldn’t affect you at all, so bring them all back.’

“Declan,” he murmured breathlessly.

“Are you-”

Noam pushed past the gnome, his legs wobbling for a moment before he fell to the ground again. Shit. “Corvian, I need you to bring me out.”

“You’ve lost a lot of-”

“Blood, yeah I know,” he cut in, “I can still speak, so I can still do what I’m best at.”

“And that’s?” Corvian asked as he slung one of Noam’s arms around his shoulder.

The tiefling smiled, vicious and mischievous, “Inciting a hate mob.”

As Corvian dragged him out, he caught a glimpse of the orphanage. The silver bell was still ringing as yellow and green spores covered the entire building. Half-hidden shapes of serpents danced in them as Dustin kept the entire beast occupied.

Another reason why they needed to leave, to not be caught up in friendly fire.

“We’re bringing everyone back?”

“He told you that as well huh,” Noam replied.

“Do you think it’ll work?” Corvian asked, his voice still slightly doubtful.

“It will,” Noam answered, his voice frank and determined, “it will because Dust’s the only one who’s dealt a blow that stuck.”

Of course, he didn’t deign to tell either of them how it was done. That stupid thing where he thought five steps ahead and was surprised when his own teammates can’t catch up.

Under Noam’s direction, they neared the edge of the town, towards where he first dragged that… disturbingly small crowd that was the remainder of the town’s population. Some of them were already heading back, their faces confused and misty.

He rolled his shoulders, feeling the slightest bit of strength returning. Losing blood wasn’t nearly the death sentence it should’ve been, thanks to Breathless.

Breathless was a very simple ability. He didn’t need to breathe, but the specifics of it made it powerful. How it worked was that every single one of his cells got the maximum required oxygen to function at maximum capacity. Not just removing the requirement to breathe, but also the need for red blood cells to transport oxygen.

Granted that blood still needed to transport nutrients and waste, but the end result wasn’t just the fact he didn’t need to breathe.

With every single cell juiced up with oxygen, the ability left him in a state very similar to blood doping. Every single cell was operating at maximum aerobic respiration, giving him far higher than normal energy, which resulted in a 10% increase in all his stats.

It sounded small, but it was utterly broken for the simple reason no stat existed apart from the other. All these 10% buffs stacked multiplicatively.

For example, his ability to dodge something wasn’t just increased by a 10% increase to his agility, a 10% increase in perception also allowed him to see attacks faster and another 10% increase in intelligence increased his ability to react to attacks, just by those three, his ability to dodge an attack increases by 33%. Not to mention, his constitution increase meant he was 10% more durable, and a vitality increase meant he healed 10% faster.

When he dodged 33% more attacks, was 10% more durable and healed 10% faster, it overall meant he was 61% better at taking damage.

The ability also made him high.

Every action had multiple different stats in play at once, there were countless ways to calculate how they would function at any given moment. Still, Noam knew the moment he first turned on the passive that it was an absolutely fucking broken ability.

Which was why he almost never used it.

He could breeze through every single fight with just this one ability. ‘And where’s the fun in that?’

But it was a shame to waste it, so he put three conditions and if one were met, he would use it.

One, if using the ability, made the fight fair. Not an easy victory or a complete defeat, but only when using Breathless allowed him to fight at an even footing with an opponent.

Two, when using it with Catch these Hands because that buff completely overshadowed Breathless anyways.

And third, if Decs needed him to.

Strangely, when he put in place these conditions and followed them even when it would be detrimental to him, he realised that Breathless actually became stronger.

It relieved fatigue, it activated faster, he felt the rush even quicker. The stats were about the same, but it seemed to work even better. As if he added a bunch of quality of life features.

And he couldn’t help but remember something, ‘Limitations matter more than strengths.’

Oddly, or perhaps characteristically, with Breathless, he only needed to breathe when he needed to speak. To give air for his vocal cords to work.

Thus, it would be rather accurate to say that Noam only breathed to shit talk people.

And he took a deep breath.

“Hello hello!” he yelled, drawing the attention of the small crowd that was returning. “You may remember my comments about your turtle *BLEEPING* nature…”

“Holy fried biscuits!” Corvian yelled as he carried the laughing Noam like a sack. “Was that really necessary?”

The tiefling simply laughed harder as sticks, stones, words, and a bit of everything was thrown at them.

“I didn’t even know hamsters did that!” Corvian continued to yell, his voice a mixture of betrayal and shock, “And what you said about John and his dog, how could you?”

“Because it’s *BLEEPING* hilarious!” Noam yelled in reply.

“Stop swearing!” the recently ordained priest of Tilt yelled. They turned a street, the mob nipping at their tails. Ahead, a small figure was thrown out of the spore mist, bouncing off the neighbouring street much like a basketball.

Dustin rolled to a stop, quickly bringing himself up, he was battered and bleeding, but still, his mouth crept into a smile as he saw them come.

The Accumulation of White Lies burst out of the yellow smoke at that exact moment.

The numerous faces all turned to them, half in shock and surprise, and they all froze.

The stampede behind them slowed to a stop, as more and more heads came, more and more townsfolk returned.

More and more faces met each other.

For a brief moment, there was only silence. As dozens of people looking at the feast of faces arrayed before them. Each trying to recognise what was forgotten and hidden. Each trying to pierce the lie that draped over their mind like a veil.

Until it clicked.

“Mom? Dad?” a young girl, barely a teen. Her eyes filled with tears and her voice weak and crumbling. The innkeeper, who held the fort alone.

Two faces broke, the necks that supported them disintegrating into mist.

And one by one, the stolen faces shattered as memories returned.

Dustin walked forward, back towards the centre of the beast as the necks cracked and fell beside him.

Every bit of lasting damage he dealt to the monster happened when he was directly looking at one of its faces.

Here with so many people looking at it, it wasn’t the bombastic display of Paths spoken and knowledge grasped from the shadow of falsehood, but a slow crumbling, the stone that made this lie was being chipped by a dozen smaller chisels until it finally fell apart.

Dustin entered the orphanage, Noam and Corvian by his side. Now when they stood in the mess hall, they saw Tai helping Utoqa up as the stomach that held them broke into nothing.

The sun shone through the hole in which the Accumulation once let out all its numerous heads, he was already casting the Fix-Up Fungus. Tai was only inside for a few moments but her skin was burned just as well.

He stepped on something that felt like a pebble, but when he looked down he saw the First Face cracking on the ground and an eye so blue it looked to be made of lapis lazuli was all that was left as it broke. He picked it up, completing his set. It was anticlimactic. He half-expected the Accumulation of White Lies to pull out another trick, to fight them further, to have a second boss phase.

But nothing happened.

Celine was still unconscious on the ground, but Utoqa looked up at him, his spine exposed and only now just healing from the Fix-Up Fungus he threw down.

“Getting eaten hurt.”

And Dustin chuckled.

The day was won.

On an abandoned field where the ruins of a train lay, a single hand punched through the dirt.

Dragging himself out was a man whose features were indescribable. He was covered in dirt and grime. Rubbing his eyes, he took a deep breath, “Ah… It’s been a while since I was cremated.”

Getting burned to ash really did wonders for the body. All the knots in his muscle and creaky bones were all fixed and he could really feel his spleen working wondrously better than it once was.

Humming a tune as he dragged himself out, he surveyed the area, “Oh the cute gobbos killed me this time huh? Didn’t get everyone, they wouldn’t have cremated me.”

Goblins had a very environmentally friendly zero-waste policy, and regenerating from excrement took a while but was a pretty comfy experience.

The strange man soon found his belongings, a cart of various bits and bobs, with a stack of coins held together by a string.

“Wait a moment,” he muttered as he realised a distinct lack of something. “My potion of happiness is gone!” he screamed.

That won’t do, highway robbery he could appreciate, but a train robbery? Absolute madness, he would have to rectify this. He would get that alcohol back even if he had slit the stomach of whoever stole it! Granted there was a chance it would be digested by then so… flesh! He’ll just take a pound of flesh! Genius!

He put on the colourful clothes that were only slightly dirty. Humming a tune as he did another once over of his worldly possessions.

“Won’t be needing this,” he muttered as he tossed the ten coins held together by red string.

He only took one step before his neck was severed.

A golem of dirt and metal had formed out of the tossed symbol. Ringing its brow was a wreath of those very coins weaved with red string. A Servant of Ethelinda, the Merchant Goddess, come to punish the fool who would desecrate her branding.

Instead, the still severed head laughed, “Oh wondrous! As expected of the Merchant! Express delivery of karmic punishment! Such reliability!”

The golem took a step back, its glaive held hesitantly at guard.

The body picked up the laughing head, casually plopping it back onto the stump, “I would’ve loved to really follow you, but I’m sorry, my heart pines for another!” he orated, dramatically flourishing his hands.

Just as a clock materialised in it, a clock that showed the incorrect time.

“But worshipping you would be worshipping coin. And to worship coin is madness,” the strange man smiled, “I much prefer to skip the middleman and just worship madness.”

Two minutes later, on a grassy field lay the servant of a god, rended and broken. And a smiling man who cannot be described went on to retrieve what was stolen from him.