‘Save them?’ one of Orjkan’s personal guard repeated. ‘They try kill us!’
‘Did they? Or were they just trying to defend themselves?’ Val replied. ‘They find themselves a home, a place where they can escape their attackers, and—’
‘We not their attackers!’ the orcish soldier cried. ‘We not Goldmarch soldiers!’
‘Do you think they know that? Do you think they see the difference in our kind? Or do you think they were lacking that nuance, just like you were?’
The soldier stared back at her, dumbfounded.
‘Cos you saw them and immediately assumed they were monsters to be slain, didn’t you? You didn’t stop to ask yourself not just whether you should, but whether you had to.’
‘Guys…’ Lore said, he and Arzak still frantically slashing at the forest spirits’ petal attacks, which weren’t slowing. If anything, the attacks seemed to be growing more frantic.
‘Styk,’ Val said, ignoring the barbarian to look to me. ‘Portal.’
I nodded, then ran over to the arrow slit so I could see the ground below, and I opened a portal down there that paired with one in the room.
‘In,’ Val ordered the orcish soldiers. ‘Now.’
‘But this—’
‘Now,’ the witch said again, and she did so with such force, and such a glare, that three orcs more than twice her size slumped their soldiers and did what she instructed.
Once the three soldiers were out of the way, I closed the portal behind them, to conserve mana. Even with all the points I’d put into Intelligence these past few months, I still only had so much mana to use—and all the more recently acquired Worldbending abilities used more mana than the basic ones.
‘You think you can get the dryads to stop attacking us?’ Lore asked, sweat dripping down his forehead and chin.
‘Maybe if those other soldiers stop attacking them!’ Val turned to me. ‘Think you can portal us around until we find them?’
‘I think if we can break off this attack then we might not need to search—will be able to hear them?’
‘Mm,’ Arzak agreed. ‘Attacking or screaming.’
I hurried over to the other side of the tower, the arrow slits over here looking down onto the main courtyard of Fort Tanil, as well as onto the walls. I spied two of the soldiers down below, fighting off petal attacks in much the same way as Arzak and Lore were. The difference was that these soldiers were outnumbered. ‘I see two,’ I said. ‘Get ready to portal. At Lore and Arzak’s side.’
Corminar nodded, and he and Val ran behind the other two members of the party, standing just behind them and shielding themselves from any attacks. I opened a portal on top of a wall below, and its partner just below the rest of the team’s feet. They fell through, and suddenly dozens of petals turned towards me instead.
‘Oh, right, yep,’ I said, then closed the portal and opened another pair, through which I fell to the walltop below.
The rest of the team were already fixing their attention on the battle below, doing their best to draw the attacks of the forest spirits so that the orcish soldiers wouldn’t be so overwhelmed. But they could only defend against the dryad attacks, not wishing to do damage of their own.
‘Styk? You gonna hurry up or what?’
‘Hold your bloody horses,’ I replied to Val, and crept over to the edge of the wall to get a look on the soldiers below. Petal attacks rose up to meet my face, and I cowered backwards just in time to avoid having my cheeks slice.
Arzak swept in to deal with the rising attacks, dual blades sweeping rapidly through the air. ‘I say when clear,’ she said.
‘But Val said—’
‘No time for bicker,’ the orc interrupted, then added, ‘now, go!’
Trusting in my party member, I peered again over the edge of the wall, one hand reaching forward. The two soldiers had become separated as the dryad attacks overwhelmed them, so I was forced to open a portal below one and throw him into the air above the other. The moment the soldier appeared, falling, through the other side of the portal, I opened up another pair below the both of them to bring them up to the wall with us. They tumbled to the stone, clutching their heads and their wounds, and then one of the two soldiers vomited.
‘I get Worldbending sickness,’ she explained.
‘OK,’ I replied, not really sure what to do with this information.
‘Where are the others?’ Val demanded of the soldier that wasn’t throwing up.
Looking up at her in a daze, dozens of cuts on his skin that were in dire need of Healing, the soldier pointed back to the tower. ‘In there. At ground.’
Val looked up to me, and I nodded once more. I stepped back from the two orcish soldiers to give my portal space and then sent the pair of them tumbling—and vomiting, probably—once more, landing them outside of the fort and out of trouble.
‘Styk…’ Lore said, nervously, as the petal attacks—now focused entirely on us—threatened to overwhelm him and Arzak.
One of the forest spirits, larger than the rest, with eyes glowing not just green, but blue too, suddenly pressed its arms into the ground. The moment its body touched dirt, new roots suddenly shot through the ground, erupting from it, in a line that rushed towards the wall.
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‘Time to go, I think!’ Lore cried, as the roots shot towards him at a frightening pace.
‘Jump!’ I shouted, and the whole team did as I’d suggested, leaping from the top of the wall. We fell through the air just before the dryad’s attack reached where Arzak and Lore had been standing moments earlier, shattering the wall, and I reached down to open a portal beneath us.
The five of us fell out the portal at the other side, at the base of the tower, tumbling across the ground. Arzak—so often the most agile, surprisingly—was on her feet first, running for the doors and presumably about to tear them open to grant us entrance to the—
Arzak charged through the old, rotting doors, splitting them from their frames.
Or that. That works too.
The other four of us followed inside, bursting in on a fight between the last two soldiers of Orjkan’s personal guard. But where the previous soldiers had been outnumbered, this time it was the orcs overwhelming a single dryad. A dryad on the verge of dying, it looked like.
Rotting petals littered the floor as a weakened forest spirit laid on the floor, raising a shaking arm in a pointless attempt to block the swinging blade of one of the orcish soldiers. I wasn’t quick enough with my portals to stop him, but Val, fortunately, was.
She roared as she lit up with a green glow, and roots shot forth from the ground in much the same way as the dryad’s had outside, a moment earlier. The roots burst towards the soldier’s sword arm, wrapping themselves around it in mid-swing, and stopping the blade before it could reach the dryad.
The soldier turned his head to Val, eyes wide. ‘They enemy! Not us!’
‘No they bloody aren’t!’ she cried.
The other soldier, seeking to end this fight even despite the team’s involvement, charged towards the fallen dryad, great sword arching through the air. Val shot her hand forward to summon more roots, but they snapped against the soldier’s running feet, unable to get purchase.
Corminar whipped an arrow from his quiver and shot it towards the charging soldier’s foot, and… missed. Or, at least, that’s what I initially thought. The arrow buried itself in the ground just ahead of the soldier’s leading foot, doing no damage. But within a split second, the orc moved that foot again in his sprint towards the “enemy”, and the arrow was so deeply embedded in the ground that he tripped on it, falling to the floor.
‘They’re not your bloody enemies!’ Val shouted, summoning more roots that this time found purchase on the fallen orc, binding him to the ground. Only when it was clear that he wasn’t getting out of his own accord did Val sigh.
‘Err… guys?’ Lore said, standing at the door and peering out. ‘It’s good that you saved that one, but what about this lot?’
I turned to look outside, and saw the other forest spirits floating menacingly towards us. Fast. ‘If you’re gonna get them to stop attacking, Val, now might be a good time to do it.’
The witch nodded, and touched her hands to the ground once more. This was something she did a lot, I noticed, and I was starting to wonder if this wasn’t about getting more in touch with nature—the heart of Witchcraft abilities. She glowed green once more as she activated her magicks, and veins of magical energy shot through the ground towards the strange creatures, but then… They faded.
‘Doesn’t look like it’s working,’ I said.
‘Yes, thank you,’ Val replied. She furrowed her brow, thinking deeply, and then turned back to me. ‘Styk—get me on top of them. The largest one. With the blue and green eyes.’
I knew better than to argue—well, I didn’t, but I decided not to on this particular occasion—and I opened a portal in front of Val, its partner in the space just above the space between the door and the dryads. ‘Get ready…’ I waited until the largest spirits was directly under the portal. ‘Now!’
Val leaped through, appearing in the air above the creatures, and tumbled down onto the dryad. She grabbed at its shoulders and neck, steadying herself, and tried to climb onto its shoulders as it twisted and turned, trying to rid itself of this new attacker. The witch hanged on for dear life, slowly getting to a point where she had her hands positioned on either side of the creature’s head. When she activated her powers this time, both her eyes and the largest dryad’s glowed a bright green.
Within a second, the dryad’s advancement came to a halt.
‘Did it work? Did you—’ I started to ask.
8 x forest spirits defeated!
Worldbending — +4,900xp
Worldbending increased to level 39!
Worldbending increased to level 40!
Base Points gained — +4 INT, +4 Free Points (INT/WIS/CHA)
Ability selection unlocked
...
Yes, then. It absolutely did work.
"Styk"
Level 14 Bladespinner
Base Stats:
Vitality — 32
Intelligence — 140
Dexterity — 83
Strength — 67
Wisdom — 48
Charisma — 33
Skills:
Worldbending — Level 40
Knifework — Level 31
Stealth — Level 15
Needlework — Level 12
Identification — Level 10
Abilities:
Slice — Slice the enemy for physical damage worth weapon’s base damage and additional damage scaling on [STR].
Stab III — Put your weight behind your wielded blade and force the tip through tougher hides and armour. Damage scales on [STR], increased by an additional 50%.
Execution II — Attack a target while undetected for +200% damage.
Closed Reach — Bend reality to narrow the gap between blade and target by up to 8 inches. Uses mana.
Mana-Fuelled — Passive. Optionally, use mana in place of stamina to activate Knifework abilities.
Local Portal II — Create a portal to another location within current range of sight or within a ten yard radius. Uses mana/second.
Portal Slice — Passive. Portals can now be spawned within non-sentient objects. Doing so slices through all objects that are not reinforced by magic.
Tamed Portals — Passive. Increased efficiency of portal magicks means that your portal glow is reduced by 50%, making them less likely to be detected by enemies.
Ash Husk — Convert your flesh to ash, strengthening it against flame for ten minutes. Gain 50% resistance to fire attacks.
Shrill Perimeter — Create a perimeter wall of 20 foot radius, invisible to all but those adept in magicks. If an enemy crosses this perimeter, this spell releases the shriek of a banshee.
Warped Shield — Passive. If an enemy strikes you with a low-level melee weapon, Warp Shield automatically activates to open a portal that deflects this attack. You must not have any portals currently active. Uses mana on activation.
Cloth Storage III — Open a portal to an inventory space, wherein you can store up to 30 distinct Needlework supplies.
Stealth Attack II — Passive. 80% boost to damage when unnoticed by enemy.
In Plain Sight — When activated, you have a heightened abilitiy to hide in plain sight, and are able to spot opportunities to break from combat at a higher rate. Scales on [WIS].
Stitch — Create a basic stitch in common fabrics. Ability scales on [CHA].
Cloth Armour — Craft a cloth armour of higher quality, dependent on materials, time and skill level.
Active Effects:
Legacy of Sisyphus:
XP gain increased by +900%