‘Oh, now the tavern’s on fire,’ Lore said. ‘Cool, cool.’ His eyes were wide, flicking towards something in the corner of the room that wasn’t there; the Malae’s fear magicks had got to him like they had me.

The two monsters shloped towards me, slow and steady, never ceasing. They’d escaped the fire—the only thing that could potentially kill them. But the fire was spreading fast, and the fight wasn’t over yet. ‘Raelas!’ I shouted. ‘You got Portal Slice?’

‘Got what?’

‘I’ll take that as a “no”.’ Styk raised a hand to the wooden beams above. ‘Gonna need your portals—watch what I do!’

Corminar fired an arrow at the approaching Malae to slow them down, but he was too busy being distracted by vision of Witchcraft-imbued demon bees to aim well.

I opened a portal that dumped some of my burning Needlework supplies onto the wooden beams above. The fight took a moment to spread, but the beams caught before the cloth could fall back to the floor once more.

Good. Now we have more to play with.

I Portal Sliced through a small section of the beams, dropping flaming blocks of wood to the ground. I tried opening a portal during its fall that would land it on the enemies, but I wasn’t fast enough—the wooden block landed at their side.

‘I think I see where you’re heading with this,’ Raelas said, appearing close at my side. ‘Again.’

The others—soldiers and non-soldier alike—formed a wall in front of us, doing their best to slow the Malae movements with makeshift shields. Their efforts were minimal, however, because they all knew that they couldn’t risk letting the creatures touch them.

I sliced through the wooden beams once more, and Raelas whipped her hands around to catch the flaming debris with a portal. The flaming chunks appeared out the other half of the pair and smashed into one of the Malae, the void-like flesh extinguishing the flames. It squealed with pain, its flesh rippling and burning, but it wasn’t enough to kill it. Not yet, at least.

‘Again!’ Raelas shouted.

I dropped another section of recently lit beam down, and Raelas again moved to catch it. Even as the wood fell, I could tell that her aim wasn’t quite so good this time, but her portals gave me enough time to move to correct it. I opened another portal in front of Raelas’s and redirected it back toward the same creature. It hit square and true, and if I wasn’t mistaken, the Mala was looking a little smaller, as though some of it had burned away.

‘Feels like we’re a pretty good match, huh?’ Raelas said.

Corminar glanced over at me. ‘You have a type.’

‘I don’t think now’s the time,’ I snapped back at him, and then dropped another chunk of flaming wood for Raelas to throw at the enemy. She opened a portal, and—

‘You dare turn your back on me?’ a voice boomed behind us.

Both Raelas and I hesitated, then turned to see the Councilman standing in the tavern’s doorway, furious. ‘There was…’ I started.

‘Do you not know who I am? I am a Player! I am the spawn of the great Architects themselves! And you think you can challenge me then turn away?’

‘We’re kinda in the middle of something, darling?’ Raelas said.

‘Yeah, can’t you see the…’ I gestured to the two remaining Malae. We turned back to attack them once more.

‘I don’t care that you—’

‘After,’ I told him.

The Councilman spluttered with fury behind me, and I let him do so—but not without someone to keep an eye on him. ‘Lore?’ I asked, gesturing to the Player.

The barbarian nodded, and then circled around us to stand between us and the Councilman.

We continued, smashing a couple more pieces of flaming wood to the same Mala until it hissed away into nothing. Raelas was right about one thing; we did work well together.

Level ? corruption defeated!

Worldbending — +1,200xp

And then, there was just one left.

As the flames spread, one of the supporting wooden pillars began to crack, and part of the balcony on the floor above began to buckle. I flicked my eyes down to Ama, who was standing under it, and opened a portal beneath her for her to fall through just before the flaming balcony above could crush her.

She spilled out at my side and brushed her legs as she stood. ‘You could’ve warned me.’

‘Usually people just say “thank you”.’ I moved my hands back to dump more flaming beams onto the enemy, and was about to do so when Lore yelped.

I whipped around, to see Lore tangling with the Councilman’s ghostly axe, the aura flickering into his flesh and singeing it. Lore shouldn’t have had any problem with this skirmish, but his eyes were darting—the Mala had its teeth in him, inflicting fear in someone it deemed powerful. From the looks of the Player, he wasn’t having quite as much trouble with fear—but was that due to weakness or the strength to ignore his fears?

As I glanced over, the Councilman parried Lore’s bane sword away and pushed past him, apparently fixating instead on me—presumably for having infuriated him.

‘Corminar!’ I called out, and the elf tore away from the shield wall while I kept my attention on attacking the last of the Malae.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

He spun around in a graceful manoeuvre as he drew an arrow into his bow, and then shot it at the charging Councilman. Except, at the last moment, something buzzed in his vision, putting him off at the last second. The resulting arrow shot over the sprinting Player’s shoulder. Corminar hurried to fire another arrow, and this one hit the Councilman in the shoulder.

This was enough, apparently, for the Player to retrain his focus on the elf, rather than me.

‘Nobody attacks a Player and lives to tell the tale!’ the Councilman shouted. I had plenty of evidence to the contrary, however. The Player charged through the spreading flames, and swung his axe through the air at Corminar.

The elf leaped back, retreating deeper into the tavern, to avoid the hit and managed to loose another arrow into the Councilman’s chest at the same time. As I knew full well, the Malae’s visions of fear came and went—he could fight undistracted for now, at least.

I sliced another major chunk of beam free, and as it hit the ground where Raelas dumped it, it made the building shake. More of the flaming balcony dropped to the floor, right where Corminar had been moments earlier—the rest of us were separated from his fight with a Player.

‘Oi, handsome!’ Raelas nudged me, drawing my attention back to the Mala. ‘More fire, please.’

I was about to loose more of the wood, when I heard Corminar cry out with pain. I looked back over to my friend, through the flames, and saw the Councilman standing, axe raised, over the fallen elf.

‘I may be in need of assistance!’ the ranger shouted.

I threw my hands forward to open a portal, but only a purple glow fizzled forth.

‘Damn Mana reserves,’ I mumbled. My newer Enhanced Portals ability only required mana to open the portals, rather than sustain them, but there was still a hefty mana cost to conjuring them at all—and I hadn’t been keeping an eye on it. I might not have had enough mana for any more portals, but I did still have enough for another Worldbending ability. My skin rippled and changed as I used almost the last of my mana to activate my Ash Husk ability. With this new fire resistance, I charged through the flames, and even with this ability, the heat was enough to hurt.

I gasped as I emerged from the other side, but I didn’t slow down, instead throwing myself into a tackle that pushed the Councilman to the ground. The Player should have had enough time to kill the elf, and yet my friend was still breathing. Still, that didn’t change what I had to do.

I drew my knife and swung it around towards the enemy’s neck.

But in that same moment, his ghostly axe changed form, morphing into a long, sharp, chain-like object. It moved seemingly of their own accord, and wrapped itself around my wrist before I could land the attack.

The enemy’s weapon wrenched me sideways, to the ground, and the Councilman stood over me, silhouetted by the raging inferno.

‘And now,’ he said, his voice croaking, ‘I must…’ The Councilman swung his axe, and his ghostly chain darted at me.

But then, he hesitated.

The chain came to a stop just before my neck.

And he… gulped.

‘What’s… going on?’ I asked.

The Councilman shook his head.

‘Have you never killed someone before?’

‘Your friend seems awfully chipper about the prospect of dying,’ Carle shouted over the raging battle.

‘Yeah, usually dying’s not a big deal for him!’ Lore shouted back. And he was right—this one wouldn’t take either, considering my Sisyphus Artifact currently had a charge in it.

‘I’m… gonna stand up now?’ I said, and couldn’t help but frame this sentence as a question. I slowly retreated from the points of the enemy’s ghostly weapon, and clambered back to my feet. ‘You’ve really never killed someone before, have you?’

‘I’m trying!’ the Councilman insisted. ‘It’s just… it’s just…’

He didn’t get to finish that sentence, because at that moment, Corminar reappeared and dumped a heavy bar stool onto his head, knocking him unconscious.

The elf and I made eye contact.

‘Probably the easiest Player yet, right?’

‘Indeed.’

We turned our attention back to the last remaining Mala, and I saw Raelas trying to throw flaming items of furniture onto it. There was no need for Portal Slicing anymore, considering half of the tavern was now alight.

‘Little help?’ she shouted across the room to me.

But she couldn’t see that the battle was already won. The building was disintegrating, more and more flaming debris collapsing inwards. Soon enough, the Mala would be surrounded—all we needed to do was let it happen.

‘Time to go!’ I shouted.

‘But the—’

‘It’ll be dead in a minute anyway. And if we hang around here, we will be too.’ I turned around, grabbed the unconscious Player by the scruff of his tunic, and opened a portal to dump us outside—and out of trouble.

It was time to find out what this pathetic excuse for a Player had to do with Tana’s grand plan.

"Styk"

Level 18 Bladespinner

Base Stats:

Vitality — 50

Intelligence — 196

Dexterity — 109

Strength — 76

Wisdom — 70

Charisma — 41

Skills:

Worldbending — Level 52

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%