Lore gave the malae-locator stone to Corminar to monitor as we roamed the city, suggesting that he trusted Corminar to use it better than he trusted himself. But as we weaved through the narrow streets of Coldharbour, I began to think it was for another reason: so he could concentrate on looking around the city he’d grew up in.

He took us into the odd shop here and there, for food, for drink, sometimes just to have a look around—mostly it was for food—and enthusiastically explained who had owned each business, how long they had been there, and a handful of supposedly amusing anecdotes from his childhood. After a while, it felt like he’d forgotten why we were here in the first place.

So I reminded him. ‘Lore, you know we’re hunting malae, not… shopping?’

The big man’s smile faltered. ‘...Yes?’

From the way he’d said it, I could tell this was a lie; he wasn’t exactly the best liar in the world.

‘Just one more stop,’ Lore said.

‘We really—’ Corminar started, but the barbarian interrupted him.

‘You’ll like this one. I promise.’

And so, reluctantly—and with no shortage of sighs on the elf’s part—we followed Corminar towards the centre of town. Here, in the heart of the city, the buildings stood stall and were crammed close together, every square foot of real estate built upon over the course of the years. Lore led us between these tall buildings, and I was grateful for the shade from the mid-afternoon sun, then came to a stop. He closed his eyes, and drew in a deep breath.

While he… did whatever we was doing, I looked at the sprawling market in front of us. It was wedged between the tall buildings, stalls and stores crammed into every nook and cranny, continuing in the distance through arches and tunnels under buildings. The stalls here sold vibrant cloths, aromatic spices, and no shortage of the curved blades that the tieflings of the Beached Armada so preferred. It was a feast for the sense, and I understood why Lore had brought us here.

‘The Coldharbour market!’ Lore proclaimed, almost shouting—but there was enough of a din from the throngs of customers that few seemed to even notice. ‘Isn’t it great?’

‘I’m assuming they sell snacks here,’ I replied.

‘Ahem,’ Corminar coughed pointedly, clearly keen to be getting on. I, however, could see the appeal of this place, and what harm was there really in letting Lore relive a few childhood memories?

‘Lots!’ Lore replied. ‘Buncakes and spit-veg and roca and—’

‘Ahem,’ Corminar repeated.

I turned to him. ‘Yes, we’ll be getting—’ And then I saw that he was looking down at the magical device that Alenna, the Doctor, had given us. ‘Ah.’

‘What’s…’ Lore started, and then he caught up with what was going on—there was a mala nearby. ‘Oh. How close?’

Corminar looked up, straight ahead of him, following the indication on the locator stone. He stared at a woman who froze abruptly to the spot, fabric disguising her face and clutching something in her hand that was covered by a bright magenta cloth. She was hiding the creature in plain sight. ‘Oh, not far,’ he said.

We burst into a sprint towards the woman, and she at the same moment turned to flee into the dense market. The three of us immediately hit the wall that was the milling crowd, none of them in any rush to get out of our ways and much more interested in browsing wares at their own pace. It was Lore that had the least trouble with the crowd, which was surprising considering that he was by far the largest of us—but I supposed if you saw him barrelling towards you, you’d get out of his way in a hurry too.

I glimpsed our target fleeing into the distance, weaving amongst the market stalls, able to move faster than us even with a large disguised crate in one hand—she was from the city, and seemed to know innately how it moved.

‘She’s getting away!’ I shouted to the other two, and then caught myself. ‘Wait, what am I doing?’

I first reached forward to open a portal in front of our target, but I couldn’t aim properly through such a dense, ever-shifting crowd. So instead I aimed roughly above her and opened a portal for me to fall through to catch her up. As I leaped through the portal on my side, I saw Corminar leaping through to join me. He’d really got his head around all this portal stuff at last.

We fell out the other side and tumbled down into the crowd—me landing on top of a young couple who were holding tails and Corminar onto the roof of a market stall. If he had been Lore, he would have crushed it and put someone out of business, but instead he bounced off the top and fell nimbly to his feet.

The two of us—and Lore, not so far behind—continued to charge after the woman, winding through the stalls and around a sharp corner. We stumbled to a halt when we didn’t initially see her, but then Corminar threw his hand forward, gesturing to some reams of cloth swaying in the wind—where the target had just run through.

I opened more portals to close the gap some, bringing us to the cloth merchants, and we burst through the same wall of fabric that our target presumably had. I saw nobody the other side, but Corminar’s sharper elven senses had him running to the right, down a narrow alley that stretched away from the marketplace and into thick shadow.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

I charged after him, hearing Lore approaching—and apologising to people he pushed through—at my rear. The alley grew narrow as it steered off to the left, not wide enough for two people to pass through side by side, and maybe even not wide enough for Lore to get through without sucking his stomach in.

The alley turned again, sharply, putting Corminar out of sight, and I charged down it. It suddenly opened up into a courtyard, and I collided with Corminar’s back, as the elf had stumbled to a halt. I was about to insult him for stopping so abruptly when I looked around to see the reason why.

Here, there wasn’t just one person with cloth covering her lower face. There were a dozen. Our target had fled for the support of her allies—and now, we were greatly outnumbered.

‘Err… hi?’ I said, waving timidly. ‘Nice to meet you all.’

Lore charged into the courtyard and collided with both me and Corminar, sending us falling forwards to the dirt. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled as the elf and I jumped quickly back to our feet, anticipating the fight that was to come.

‘I think we’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere,’ I said, edging backwards, my ranger friend following suit. ‘We’ll just be—’

One of the disguised enemies, an archer looming over us on a balcony at our left, loosed two shots in quick succession. One landing just where I’d been about to place my foot, and the other landing just where Corminar had been about to step.

‘Impressive…’ the elf murmured. He appreciated good archery when he saw it.

Back down on our level, one of the enemies stepped forward, out of the shadows of one of the buildings.

‘Ooh, very good,’ Lore said. ‘Very dramatic.’

The man who’d just stepped into the light glared at the barbarian like he was being sarcastic, but I knew him well enough to realise he’d been sincere. Still, it probably wasn’t worth calling that out right about now. ‘Why do you harass my employees?’ he asked, staring at Lore with bright red eyes.

‘I promise you, he’s not harassed anyone in his life,’ I replied. ‘Besides, I think we should be the ones asking the questions here. Questions like… why are you carrying malae around? And who are you selling them to?’

A few of the enemies drew their blades at the mention of the malae, but the man in charge waved them down. For now.

I kept one hand behind my back, ready to portal us out of here if the inevitable battle turned out to be one-sided—and not one-sided in our favour.

‘I don’t think that’s any of your concern,’ the mysterious stranger replied. ‘That’s our business. Not yours.’

‘It’s everyone’s business when those malae you’re trading in are out there killing people. That canyon, to the southwest—is that your doing too?’

The man’s eyes gave no answer, but he did at least hesitate. Was this canyon news to him? And did that mean that it was unrelated to this particular piece of enterprise? Maybe he just headed up the trade in Coldharbour, rather than the Armada as a whole. This man would surely have a boss, wouldn’t he?

‘You must know,’ Corminar said, ‘we cannot leave here until we exterminate your stock.’

I lowered my portal-ready hand; Corminar was right. We’d need to give this our all, not have one foot out the door. Those dead from corruption deserved that.

‘And you must know,’ the stranger replied. ‘We cannot let you leave.’

I sighed, raised my blade, and readied myself to fight.

"Styk"

Level 19 Bladespinner

Base Stats:

Vitality — 50

Intelligence — 198

Dexterity — 114

Strength — 77

Wisdom — 70

Charisma — 47

Skills:

Worldbending — Level 53

Knifework — Level 40

Stealth — Level 22

Identification — Level 18

Needlework — Level 18

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 III — Attack a target while undetected for +300% 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%