Our borrowed Goldmarch armour now on, we set about marching across the new shipyards, doing our best to look as though we were striding with purpose. We hadn’t bothered to clear up our mess in the barracks; chances were that the alarm would get raised soon enough anyway, when we took on Niamh. Once that alarm was raised, we just had to hope we finished her off quickly enough that I could portal us out of harm’s way before the remaining soldiers swarmed us.

Admittedly, there weren’t all that many Goldmarch soldiers left here. It seemed that most of Niamh’s army had become her navy, taking positions on the ships built from Tundran timber. That explained why our earlier fight hadn’t attracted any further attention, then.

We strided along the shipyards, the few remaining Goldmarch soldiers we passed nodding in our direction, or saluting to me. We hadn’t realised when we picked out uniforms that fit us that I’d picked up a major’s uniform—and all the respect I was now commanding was really getting on Val’s nerves.

So it was then that when we reached the tallest building in the new shipyards—Niamh’s apparent makeshift fort—I nodded to the soldiers standing guard to give us access. And they stood aside in a hurry; I could really get used to this “commanding respect” business.

We walked through the corridors of the building, still doing our best to look like we knew where we were going, and soon we found the stairs. Val’s logic had been that Niamh would be using the highest point of this building as her command centre. It gave her the best view of her fleet, and why else would she build a fort so high if not to be at the top of it?

We climbed the staircase to the top level, and found that the top floor was all one room. In the centre of the room was a wooden table, intricately carved with a map of the western continents—everywhere from the Beached Armada to the Dawnwoods—and on this table were small models of ships, just off the coast near where we were. And standing just across the table, staring at us… was an orc.

‘Where is she?’ Val spat. ‘Where’s Niamh?’

The orc—the one I only at this moment placed as Niamh’s assistant—looked up with a smirk on her face. ‘Not here,’ she replied.

‘Not here, in this room?’ Lore asked. ‘Or not here, at these shipyards?’

‘Make no odds to you.’

Val took another step forward, but the orc—Sulla, if I remembered her name correctly—held up an index finger.

‘No. No, not come closer.’

‘And why the hells not?’ Val asked.

‘Niamh is trapper, yes? Physical traps, strategy traps, yes. But also magick traps. You step closer and I activate.’

The room went silent. Five Slayers stared down one Player’s assistant.

‘So…’ Lore finally said, breaking the silence. ‘What’s this trap do then?’

‘You not want find out.’

Again, the room went silent. At least, until Arzak stepped forward.

‘Woah, what are you doing?’ Lore asked.

The friendly orc shrugged. ‘Maybe she lie. Maybe not. But trap or not, we do same thing? We attack and interrogate?’

Val thought about this for a moment, and then nodded. ‘Yep, fair enough.’ Her and Arzak turned and launched themselves across the table, and in the same moment, Sulla slapped a hand down atop the carved wooden table.

A sigil glowed into life.

Something—some magical force—grabbed at my heart. It choked me, just for a moment, and from the look of the rest of the team, it was doing the same to them, too. And then…

Active Effect: Class Swap

Minutes remaining: 4 / 5

Your class and progression is temporarily swapped with another of target [5] entities.

Arzak and Val, choked by the trap, fell to the floor hard at Sulla’s feet, and she smiled down at them before giving Val a good kick.

Snarling, I instinctively reached forward, meaning to open a portal beneath the enemy’s feet that would stop her kicking Val again. But… nothing came.

‘Err…’ I said.

Corminar shot an arrow from his bow, and managed to launch it into his own foot.

‘What going—’ Lore began, and then suddenly accidentally opened a portal beneath his feet. He fell through it, then tumbled out of its partner, on the ceiling above him. Then he fell back into it, and… Well, you can see where this was going.

I ran over to the edge of the portal, reaching out to catch him, but already he was moving too fast for me to have any chance of stopping him alone.

I stopped him. Alone.

As Lore clung on to my outstretched arms, I stared down at them. I was… lifting him? Lifting Lore? About the largest human I’d ever encountered?

Sulla kicked Val in the stomach once more, and she spat out blood. Val clutched at her chest, desperately trying to heal it, but nothing came.

Alright. I’m starting to understand what’s happened here.

‘Who’s the witch?’ I cried out as Sulla strolled slowly to the other side of the room to draw an axe from atop a nearby table. ‘Who’s the damned witch?’

I looked to Arzak, who scrambled over to Val’s side, meaning to heal her, but she shook her head—nothing came. I reached within myself, searching for one of Val’s powers, and tried to summon a wolf. But if I was doing it right—and I had no idea if I was, admittedly—nothing came. I looked instead to Corminar, whose eyes began to glow green.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

‘Oh, I do not approve of this at all,’ he said. Still, he leaped into the air and charged to the injured Val’s side to heal her.

Sulla, meanwhile, approached the fallen Arzak with her great axe in hand. Arzak raised her dual blades to block the inevitable swing of the axe, but I knew already how that would end. She wasn’t a warrior anymore. Someone else was.

‘No!’ I shouted to Arzak, reaching forward to open a portal that I knew wouldn’t come.

But it did.

Arzak fell through the portal on the floor and came out of one above Lore’s head, crushing him. From the once-barbarian’s hand, glowing purple, I realised he’d been quick to act; he’d been paying attention all these months.

‘Oopsie,’ he said, as Arzak pulled herself off him.

Sulla grunted, then turned his attention back to the injured Val, and the elf leaning over her, trying to work out how her Healing magicks worked. ‘I require assistance!’ Corminar shouted, sensing Sulla’s approach without looking up. ‘Who among you is the ranger?’

Arzak and I looked to each other, then shrugged at the same time. ‘Could be Val,’ I said.

Val roared with pain as she wrenched Corminar’s bow off him and tried to fire it. She fumbled the arrow as she tried to nock it, tearing a gash in her palm in the process.

‘It is not Val!’ Corminar confirmed, then took the bow back off her and chucked it and his quiver towards Arzak and me. Arzak, being substantially taller, snatched the items out of the air first, and in a flash she nocked the arrow and fired it at Sulla. It hit the enemy squarely in the shoulder.

‘I think it might be Arzak,’ Lore pointed out.

I’d started to put it all together by this point. Arzak had temporarily become a ranger, Corminar had become a witch, and Lore had become a worldbender. Which meant that Val and I were either a warrior or a barbarian. Having never experienced either of those skill trees, I didn’t quite understand what the difference in those two classes was, but I knew the gist of it: get a big weapon and swing it.

Arzak tossed me her two swords, and I snatched them nimbly out of the air. They felt… they just felt right in my hands. It was her class that I’d adopted.

‘I have it!’ Corminar suddenly cried, yellow-white healing magicks pouring into Val’s stomach. For his troubles, Sulla swung her axe his way, and the elf had just enough time to throw himself across Val—but not without suffering a deep gash wound in his back.

I charged in towards Sulla to prevent her landing another attack, jumping across the wooden table with more strength and athletic ability than I’d ever before experienced. I brought my borrowed swords down towards the enemy, and Sulla swung her axe up to block me, its metal handle able to hold off even my strong attacks.

‘Dual swipe!’ Arzak called from behind me as I pushed against Sulla’s axe, gritting my teeth with the strain.

‘I don’t know what that is!’ I cried back. Just like Corminar had found, the swapped abilities weren’t coming naturally to me, and it was for this reason that Sulla stood a very good chance of winning this fight. It was a stroke of genius, really; most magick-based traps would do damage to everyone in the room, friendly or otherwise. But this? This was more targeted—or at least Sulla, and likely Niamh, were excluded from it—and it weakened the enemies through means of making sure they had absolutely no idea what they were doing.

As if to punctuate this thought, Lore yelped as he accidentally fell through a portal again, though this time at least he was able to close them again before it got out of control. Meanwhile, Arzak loosed another arrow, narrowly avoiding hitting me but successfully catching Sulla in the chest.

This damage weakened the orc’s attack for a moment, and I was able to press forward, knocking her to the ground. ‘Dual swipe!’ I cried, trying my best to activate this ability.

‘You only moving one sword,’ Arzak noted.

Sulla released one hand from her axe and, rising, caught me hard in the throat. I stumbled backwards, choking, my attack called off. The enemy rose back from her knees to her to her feet and pressed her own attack, swiping at me again and again with an axe that I was only just about quick enough to block.

‘A little help here?’ I cried out.

‘Unless you want me to bleed on her, or Corminar to summon some wolves, it’s gonna have to be from the others,’ Val replied, her voice weak from the damage she’d suffered.

Lore stumbled forward, and out of the corner of my eye I could see his brow furrowing like it did when he was really concentrating. He pressed one hand forward towards me and Sulla, and with the flick of his wrist…

…opened up a portal behind us. Corminar fell through it, and came out tumbling towards Sulla. The movement of her axe once again narrowly caught him, dealing some damage but not enough to put him out of action.

Lore winced. ‘Sorry!’

‘Lore, you’ve got to—’ I started, but doing so distracted me just enough for Sulla to find an advantage. She knocked the bottom of her axe into my stomach, sending me falling backwards towards the floor, and she raised her weapon high in the air.

As she stared down at me, she growled, and even Arzak burying another arrow in the enemy’s leather armour wasn’t enough to stop her.

She brought the axe down.

"Styk"

Level 16 Bladespinner

Base Stats:

Vitality — 42

Intelligence — 151

Dexterity — 96

Strength — 71

Wisdom — 57

Charisma — 33

Skills:

Worldbending — Level 41

Knifework — Level 36

Stealth — Level 19

Needlework — Level 12

Identification — Level 11

Abilities:

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.

Knifestorm — Lash out at all surrounding enemies in a tornado of blades, using either one or two daggers. All enemies with arm’s reach receive physical damage worth weapon’s base damage and additional damage scaling on [STR].

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.

Pocket Worlds — Open and access pocket dimensions. Storage capacity of summoned pocket worlds scales with [INT] of creator.

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%