Even Lore was quiet as we followed Lambkin through the streets of Coldharbour towards where Tokas, the woman who had betrayed us, was staying. I couldn’t quite work out how the tiefling—not exactly the most charming woman I’d ever met—had convinced Lambkin to work with her, but maybe the latter had got tired of the quiet life, particularly if Sae wasn’t living it with him.

I cast my mind back to the moment of realisation, when we’d fled Jacob the pyroknight after our first, doomed attempt to kill him. We’d been cowering in a cave when it had all come together, and I’d reached out to take Tokas’s obscurem from her. When I’d shattered it, I’d seen her true face—that of the pyroknight healer, who had been there during the devastation of Plainside. She’d been involved in a deed so evil that there was surely no forgiveness.

Lambkin finally came to a halt in front of an unassuming door near the edge of town, the faded blue-green paint peeling from the woodwork, dust lining on the windows. He gestured for us to enter, but… none of us did.

‘You can go in,’ he said. ‘This has been our base of operations for the past few weeks. It’s safe.’

‘It’s not that,’ Lore said. ‘It’s…’

He didn’t need to say it; I was right there with him. And from the expression on Corminar’s face, the elf agreed too: we were not in a rush to see Tokas again. But we all knew we had to, that we had to make sure Lambkin had been telling the truth, and that we had to find out what she knew. We each drew in one last, deep breath before following the Tundran archer into the house.

As we stepped inside onto a narrow hallway, the floor consisting of a mosaic of tiles so common in this area, our shoes against the ceramic announced our arrival. And at the end of the hallway, turning around from a stove placed in front of a large window, we saw the silhouette of a tiefling. A familiar tiefling.

‘Hi, Tokas,’ Lore said.

There was a moment of silence that could have been anything from a second to a full minute before the tiefling replied. ‘Hi, Lore.’

Two children with worryingly loud footsteps—steps that seemed to make the very ground shake—rushed out into the hallway to see who had arrived. Tokas’s kids, Punnas and Lopas, emerged smiling, blissfully unaware of their mother’s past crimes. As they should be; they were too young, still, to hear such things.

‘Woah!’ Lore said enthusiastically, putting it on a bit as he crouched down to meet them at their eye level. ‘Haven’t you two grown! You gotta be, what, ten feet tall by now?’

‘Nooo!’ Punnas replied, chuckling. ‘Not ten feet!’

‘Well you two look it to me,’ the barbarian said, then glanced up at Corminar and Tokas. ‘Why don’t we go play in the other room, let the grown-ups talk?’

‘But you’re a grown-up!’ the other child protested.

‘You don’t have to become grown up if you don’t wanna,’ Lore said. ‘That’s the secret they don’t tell you.’ He continued nattering on about something or another as he led the two children up the staircase and out of earshot. I met the barbarian’s knowing gaze for just a second and nodded my thanks. Not for the first time I took a moment to note that the big man was smarter than he looked—something that I often forgot.

‘So,’ Tokas finally said, holding Corminar’s gaze. ‘They told you I was here, did they?’

Both the elf and I narrowed our eyes, but it was Lambkin who answered first, shaking his head. ‘We ran afoul of each other. Chance, nothing more. They weren’t searching for you.’

If I wasn’t mistaken, this answer caused a little sadness to emerge behind the tiefling’s eyes; she wanted us to have been looking for her. She wanted us to want her. It was a feeling I could empathise with—I’d spent a lot of time alone in the past.

‘You brought them with you? The kids?’ I asked, trying my best to move Tokas’s thoughts along. For all her past transgressions, it was hard to see her as sad as she was.

Tokas shrugged, then looked to the ex-captain. ‘Lambkin has explained to me that I was over-relying on my father’s kindness and offers for child care. Besides, it is important they see and understand my work, for once they learn what I did…’ The tiefling’s voice cracked, just for a moment. ‘They won’t think me all bad. They will understand that there is good and bad in everyone, their mother included. Though I suppose all children learn that at some point.’

Corminar and I nodded glumly, while Lambkin didn’t react. Clearly his childhood had been healthier than that of everyone else in the room.

‘And just what, may I ask, is it that you are here for?’ Corminar asked. When Lambkin moved like he was about to speak, the elf whipped a hand up to demand his silence; we had to make sure that the stories aligned.

‘Lambkin told you about the malae trade?’

‘We knew already,’ I replied. ‘We just didn’t expect to find him a part of it. So you came here to take it down?’

Tokas shook her head. ‘Not initially. We’re here to take down Players.’

Corminar gulped.

‘You’re continuing the work?’ I asked. ‘You’re back slaying again?’

‘I never stopped. Lambkin and I, we’ve already taken down one together—a man named Sandar, if you really have to know—and when we heard about Yusef from merchants travelling across the Coldwater, we knew he was our next target.’

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I nodded. ‘The same man we’re here for. Do you know his location? Or his weaknesses, how we can kill him?’

The tiefling shook her head. ‘No, you’re not understanding me. We’re not here to kill anyone. We’re here to take them down. Expose them.’ Tokas turned to look out the dusty window and down onto the street below, clearly preferring it to forcing herself to meet our gazes. ‘You remember the Tundran invasion?’

‘Kinda hard to forget,’ I replied.

Tokas nodded. ‘The dukes, the barons, the leaders… they only allowed Amira’s forces to help them because Amira had a Player speaking for them. And we know what most people think of Players—that they’re heroes, that they can do no wrong, and so on. But really, they’re just people, like the rest of us. Some of us… make mistakes. And some of us are evil. That’s true of them too.’

‘You’re here to demonstrate that,’ Corminar said. ‘How?’

‘That’s about as far as we got. We suspected that Yusef was involved in the malae trade, and so we began to infiltrate. If we could get undeniable proof from the inside that he was involved… we could spread it. We could show people that Players aren’t to be lauded. That some are manipulative, evil, and able to force you to do terrible things.’

This was the third time, by my count, that Tokas had referenced her crime of teaming up with the pyroknight. It was as though she wanted to talk about it. But it was up to Corminar, not me, to decide if he was ready to.

He wasn’t. ‘I am on board with such a plan,’ he said. ‘Styk?’

I nodded. ‘Works for me. As you say, if people knew what Players were really like, the Tundras would never have been invaded. And the Dawnwood…’ I trailed off; we could all fill in the blanks here and it didn’t help Corminar to keep spelling it out. I looked to the elf for guidance here, as it seemed like if we wanted the same thing as Tokas, then it would make sense to work with her. And yet… after what I saw the pyroknight do in Plainside, back when this all began, and with her at his side… Well, I didn’t know if I could deal with her travelling with us.

But Corminar seemed to be on the same page. ‘Good. Then we will share information in our efforts. We will continue our investigations, and if we learn of anything significant, we will share this with you.’ He nodded to the tiefling. ‘Tokas,’ he said, like he was breaking off this interaction, then turned and did the same to the other ranger. ‘Lambkin.’

I nodded a timid goodbye too, and we shifted towards the door just for a second before the tiefling spoke again.

‘If you do see them,’ she said, voice now definitely shaking, her eyes fixed on the floor, ‘will you tell her I’m sorry?’

‘Who?’

Only then did Tokas glance up at us, any sadness behind those eyes replaced by confusion. ‘Arzak. You’re here with them, aren’t you? In the Armada?’

My heart dropped.

‘Arzak and Val are in the Beached Armada?’ Corminar asked, with a much more level tone of voice than I would have managed.

‘You didn’t know.’

‘No,’ I said, surprised to find my voice come out as little more than a breath.

Tokas furrowed her brow. ‘Then it seems I am not the only one to have hurt them.’

I opened my mouth to speak, but Corminar grabbed my arm and turned me away; this was a can of siltworms he didn’t want to open.

‘If we learn any more of the Player, we will tell you,’ the elf said to Tokas and Lambkin. ‘You will have our cooperation.’

Corminar left out the end of that sentence, which was, to my mind, “...and nothing more.”

As we left the building, I was sure I heard a voice whisper behind us.

‘I’m sorry,’ it said.

"Styk"

Level 19 Bladespinner

Base Stats:

Vitality — 50

Intelligence — 204

Dexterity — 114

Strength — 77

Wisdom — 70

Charisma — 49

Skills:

Worldbending — Level 55

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.

Saved Portals II — Select a location to “save” for future portals. Until your save point is moved, you may always open a portal here, even if it is beyond your current Local Portal range. Mana is used only upon opening the portal.

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%