Alright, three on three. We can do this.

It seemed we had already paired off, based on how the enemies had attacked us; Lore was facing down the woman with the metal magicks, while Corminar released his first shot into the Lore lookalike. This left me to face down the other worldbender.

I looked at the street around me, watching people hurry away from the danger, and slam doors and window shutters behind them. I found the worldbender in the distance, down the alley, making a show of inspecting her long nails, and I couldn’t help but be irritated by this—even though I knew that was the exact reaction she was looking for. I opened a portal beneath my feet and dropped through it, projecting myself across the alley with my dagger swinging.

The other worldbender opened her eyes in surprise—she hadn’t expected to be faced with her own magicks—and hesitated, but not long enough that I could make contact with my knife. She opened another portal beneath her, and I pushed myself through it, using my body to stop it closing.

‘Hmm,’ the worldbender said as I pushed myself through the portal, and then she kicked me in the chest to try to force me back out of it again.

‘Yeah, annoying when people do this, isn’t it?’ I replied.

She replied with another kick, harder this time, and I stumbled back out the portal. After orienting myself once more, I spotted her down the alley, but this time she wasn’t making a show of escaping—recognising now that I did actually pose a threat.

I charged towards her, opening a portal in front of me once more, and I leaped through it. But this time, I opened the portal’s partner in the air above her, and I fell down towards her.

The worldbender saw me coming—she must have tried this trick before—and she whipped her hands upwards to open a portal. I expected it to open between me and her, but instead she opened it at my side, managing to catch my knife arm. The impact disarmed me, sending the knife clattering to the ground down the alley, and I began to spin through the air.

As I spun, I saw the woman open a portal beneath her once more, and this time I focused on getting through it before it could close. As I was falling at speed, this was no problem, and I managed to stop myself spinning in the air by holding out my hand and colliding it with the enemy.

I grabbed on to her, not much worrying where my hands went.

The woman gasped. ‘Oi! Mind yourself!’

I spun us around so that we’d hit the ground enemy-first, but the worldbender saw through my plan. She whipped her hands back and opened a portal on the ground, which we fell through and then came out another one that was launching us directly upwards.

Now, I was on the bottom.

As we reached the apex of our launching into the air, I realised the woman would have closed the portal beneath us, so I opened one again.

‘Oh, really?’ she complained. ‘Carle? Ama? Any help here? Think we’re just gonna go around in circles otherwise.’

We fell together through the portals, and now I was on top once more. When no answer came from the woman’s colleagues, she grumbled to herself, ‘Alright, well we’ll try this then, won’t we?’

Her skin began to ripple, and I thought I was about to see the burning texture of Ash Husk come forth, but instead her skin grew… cold? ‘Frost husk?’ I asked.

‘Yeah. Pretty cool, yeah?’

‘Yeah, pretty cool. But not as cool as…’ I activated my Ash Husk ability, and my ashen skin began to cause the woman’s to sizzle.

The other worldbender yelped, trying to pull herself away, but I held on tight, hoping to distract her long enough that we’d collide with the ground once more. We plummeted fast.

‘Raelas!’ the woman with the metal magicks cried out, and a large ball of metal suddenly shot towards me. It hit me in the side, spinning me around until I was on the bottom again.

There was just enough time to open a portal, but not enough time to position it well. The woman, Raelas, and I fell through the portal in the ground, both of us hitting an elbow on the side of the portal and sending us spinning once more.

‘I’m starting to see why others find portal magicks annoying,’ the woman said.

‘Yeah, right?’ I agreed.

We flew out of the other portal, flying diagonally across the air and over our allies. Lore was now locked in a tussle with the other large man—Carle, presumably—and Corminar was using his agility to avoid the metal mage’s attacks while loosing the odd arrow. Switching enemies had probably been a good idea.

‘Need help?’ I called out as the other worldbender and I soared over them.

‘Yes!’ both Corminar and Lore complained.

I opened a portal beneath both of the other two enemies, dropping them onto their heads and giving my friends an advantage, before closing them again and opening another portal to catch me. This portal I paired with one horizontal to the ground, and Raelas and I came tumbling to a stop on the dusty street.

‘You can do two sets?’ the other worldbender exclaimed.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

‘Yep.’

‘Any chance we can call the portal magicks a wash, and like, not use them? Might make this quicker.’

I shrugged. ‘Sure.’

‘Really?’

With the flick of my wrist, I opened a portal below her. ‘No.’

Raelas fell tumbling through, and I opened another portal beneath her which I paired with one directly above. One thing I’d realised since my portal magick upgrade was that having two pairs made it easy to trap someone in an unending loop. While Raelas fell, over and over and over, I turned my attention to the others. Corminar seemed to be the one having the most trouble.

I opened a portal beneath my discarded dagger, dropped it into my hands, and then leaped into the air. Using my magicks, I was in the blink of an eye above the metal mage—who hadn’t yet realised I was no longer occupied. I fell, knife pointing down, and I was just about to land the tip of my dagger in her flesh when Corminar made the mistake of glancing at me.

Ama realised I was there in an instant, and she ripped some of the liquid metal from her sleeve and cast it above her—making a solid sheet between me and her. My dagger bounced off the sheet, the impact knocking it from my hand, and my wrist cried out in pain.

‘Think I broke something!’ I shouted.

‘Not your dagger, I hope?’ Corminar asked.

‘No, my wrist.’

‘Good.’

At that moment, the other burly man swept Lore’s leg, knocking him to the ground. I whipped my good hand over to them, opening a portal to save Lore before Carle could bring his sword down into him, and Lore tumbled out at my side.

‘Concentrate on the mage!’ I shouted. ‘We gotta thin their ranks!’

At that moment, I saw a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye—one which was followed up by a punch to the nose. ‘Broke something else!’ I shouted, stumbling backwards.

Raelas stood before me, having broken out of my infinite fall trap. I cursed myself; of course she’d have had no problem with that, she had portal magicks to use.

Lore put himself between me and the other worldbender, and tried to punch her right back, but she used her portal magicks to be out of reach in a flash. ‘This lot are ruining my birthday,’ he grumbled.

‘That’s your fault for taking jobs on your birthday then, isn’t it, big boy?’ Raelas shouted.

All three of us hesitated. ‘What do you mean, “taking jobs”?’ I asked.

Now it was Raelas’s turn to hesitate. ‘I mean… you took the bounty on us, right? The Councilman sent you to tie up loose ends?’

All efforts at attacks were starting to fade.

I blinked at the half-tiefling woman. ‘What? We didn’t take any bounty.’

‘Then why were you here?’

‘Spying on him!’

Raelas’s eyes narrowed. ‘Not on us?’

‘My dear, we do not know who in all the hells of creation you are,’ Corminar replied.

The worldbender glanced at him and then back to me, apparently thinking I was going to be easier to deal with. And maybe I was, these days. ‘We’re… well, we don’t have any official name, but people call us the Trio.’

‘It sounds like you’re just called the Trio, then,’ I replied.

‘No, people just call us that,’ the worldbender insisted. ‘So you’ve heard of us?’

‘No.’

Raelas looked to Ama, then shrugged. ‘Who are you lot, then?’

‘The Slayers. Maybe you’ve—’

‘No,’ Raelas immediately cut me off. ‘Though perhaps I should have done, one of you being so handsome and all…’

Both Corminar and Lore beamed.

‘Stop smiling!’ I snapped at them. ‘They tried to kill us!’

‘Oh, right,’ Lore mumbled.

I turned back to Raelas. ‘One thing I don’t understand. You were making a deal with him, weren’t you? The Councilman? Why would he want to kill you?’

Raelas smiled. ‘Because that big job he did? The one that saved Westbara, and got him the key to the city? He didn’t do it.

‘We did.’

"Styk"

Level 18 Bladespinner

Base Stats:

Vitality — 50

Intelligence — 192

Dexterity — 109

Strength — 76

Wisdom — 70

Charisma — 41

Skills:

Worldbending — Level 51

Knifework — Level 39

Stealth — Level 22

Identification — Level 18

Needlework — Level 16

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].

Enhanced Portals — Create a portal to another location within current range of sight or within a thirty yard radius. Support up to two pairs of portals at once. Uses mana to open portals only.

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.

Silence III — Create a bubble of 20 yard radius in which sound is eradicated. Uses mana to cast, zero mana to maintain. You may only have one bubble active at any one time.

Stealth Attack III — Passive. 200% 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].

Improved Cloth Armour — Craft a cloth armour of significantly higher quality, dependent on materials, time and skill level.

Active Effects:

Legacy of Sisyphus:

XP gain increased by +1,400%