‘Hi,’ I said to the librarian who’d spotted us, and in that same moment shouting erupted from the other side of the building. Corminar, Lore, Carle and Ama had understood exactly what had happened and had thrown themselves into the fight I’d hoped to avoid—though I couldn’t see them because rows of tall, heavy bookcases stood in the way.

The old librarian swung his hands up and together, and a blast of crackling blue energy shot towards us. Raelas shifted in front of me, catching the worse of the blast to the chest and sending her soaring backwards into a bookcase. The unit wobbled but didn’t tumble, and Raelas fell, winded, to the floor.

As the librarian moved to blast again, I dived to the left, behind the cover of the bookshelves that I knew the staff here wouldn’t risk damaging.

…And the spell passed right through it without harming the books.

Lightning magicks caught me in the arm, burning the skin and making my muscles tense enough that I dropped the dagger I’d just drawn. I groaned as I spun to the floor, and I whipped a hand out just in time to stop myself colliding with the wood nose-first. Using a quick portal, I collected my dagger from where it had fallen on the floor and tossed it through another portal above me before snatching it from the air. Quickly rearming myself was a use case for portals that I’d only recently come to properly appreciate.

Having experience with these librarians of the Estat Order already, I knew how to fight them. Reaching up, I yanked a handful of heavy hardback tomes from the nearest shelf and I tossed them towards the floor. After peering back around the corner at the charging librarian, I waited for him to attack again before countering with an attack of my own. As the librarian pushed his hands together, I opened a portal beneath the books on the floor and dumped them just in front of the enemy. The heavy books collided with the librarian’s head and distracted him enough from the attack, just as a handful of metal spikes shot down the gap between the bookcases.

From another glance, I realised these were part of one of Ama’s spells, and hadn’t been aimed this way. She’d been fighting a librarian of her own, but had missed. It was a wonder she hadn’t hit me in the process.

With the nearest librarian still staggered by my whole “dumping books on top of him” attack, I pressed the advantage. I charged towards him, dagger arching through the air.

But the librarian recovered as I approached, flinging another lightning attack at me. I veered to one side, avoiding the worst of the attack, but a groan behind me announced that I’d moved aside just to let Raelas get hit by it again.

‘Oops! Sorry!’ I called out.

Raelas responded with another groan.

Suddenly, Carle and Ama cried out, and I glimpsed them soaring backwards through the next aisle between the bookshelves, apparently having been caught by another librarian’s spell.

‘Going alright over there?’ I shouted to them.

‘Yes,’ they groaned in unison.

As I shot forth once more, the librarian responded with another spell, and I regretted that I didn’t have a Throwing Knife ability, which would have been perfect in this scenario. Instead I settled for opening a portal beneath me and falling through it to avoid this latest attack, emerging from the portal’s partner above the enemy. As I fell, I activated Knifestorm, spinning towards the ground and lashing out with my blades as I did so.

The old man cast a ward, but not before I’d slashed up his left shoulder some. As I bounced off it, the librarian nursed his fresh wounds, and I thought I glimpsed fear in his eyes.

‘Artur!’ the librarian shouted, presumably to one of his colleagues. ‘Activate the—’ But neither another member of staff nor I heard the rest of this instruction, because I’d thought quickly enough to activate a spell of Silence around him.

I charged into this sphere of silence roaring, which of course was abruptly cut off as I entered the area of the spell’s influence, and I arched my blade through the air towards the enemy.

The librarian responded by pushing his two hands forward, fingers splayed, and he summoned a magical ball between us. As this glowing blue sphere expanded, we were both blasted backwards, outside of the Silence area.

I ran immediately back into and through it, pushing my knife forward into a Stab, with all my weight behind it. I was just about to pierce flesh with knifepoint when—

‘Stop!’ the librarian said holding his hands up in the air. ‘Stop! Stop.’

I paused mid-stab, not quite sure what to do with this. I wasn’t used to being asked to stop mid-fight. ‘What?’ The others—friend and foe alike—also seemed to stop fighting, as evidenced by a break in the shouting, grunting, and fizzling noise of spellwork.

‘Everything alright?’ Lore called out from somewhere across the library.

Still with his hands in the air, the librarian continued, ‘It’s clear you’re stronger than me. Please, this doesn’t need to end in blood.’

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‘Stronger? I’m level 19.’ Though I’d said this, I was admittedly pretty pleased that someone considered me strong; it had been a while since that had happened.

‘Do you think us librarians are really so blind?’ the old man croaked. ‘We read, perhaps more than anyone else in the western continents. We know our history. We know that there are things more important than levels, than strong vs weak, than citizens vs Architects. We see what is happening out there, both far abroad and on our doorsteps. If there is a reason you need a book—a good reason, one that helps people—then we can bend the rules. We can make an exception.’

I lowered my blade slowly, allowing my hand to fall to my side. Across the library, I saw another of the staff lowering their weapon too.

‘Well?’ the librarian prompted me. ‘Is it? Is it for good reason?’

‘It’s to help people.’

‘Tell me,’ the man said. ‘Which book?’

‘Elgar’s Meditations on Cosmic Barrier,’ I replied, and then got ahead of the next question by adding, ‘No, I don’t know what it’s about, either.’

The old librarian held my gaze for a moment, then retreated backwards down between the bookshelves. Last time I was in one of these libraries, the fight had ended with me pushing over these bookshelves in a domino-like effect; if this man really was going to help me, then I’d make sure that didn’t happen again. The librarian reached behind him and took a book from the shelf without looking, familiar enough with the layout of this dense library to have known exactly where the book in question would be.

He held it in his hands and made no attempt to approach. ‘Promise me.’

‘Huh?’

‘You say you want to do good with this book. There’s no way you can provide any evidence that this is true. So I’ll have to ask for the next best thing: a promise. Promise me that you will use the knowledge I give freely for good, not evil.’

‘It’s for good,’ I said. ‘I promise. It’s for a doctor. Someone who is trying to find a cure for the malae corruption. She thinks… she thinks that book holds the key. That’s all.’

Still, the librarian didn’t approach, but Lore and Corminar shuffled over from across the library, nobody making any attempt to attack them.

‘Do you know why we are forced to kill those who do not return these books?’ the old man asked. ‘We take no joy in it. It seems almost absurd a policy, doesn’t it?’

‘Yep,’ Lore murmured.

‘We kill because we have to. The books in here—many of them, at least—they contain knowledge which defies the laws of the System. Knowledge that, with prolonged exposure, can turn the strongest of us mad.’ He tapped the cover of the leatherbound book in his hands. ‘This one I catalogued, and so I know a little of its contents. It refers to the creation of wards—wards powerful enough to withstand practically anything. But they take their power from the soul. Elgar, who wrote the book? They disappeared after publishing, never to be seen again, though they left behind a house with messages scrawled on the walls. Messages scrawled in blood. You say you want to cure malae corruption, but I can’t understand how this knowledge gets you there. So, I ask again: do you promise?’

The librarian held out the book in front of his as he repeated this question, anddI placed my hand on the book as I held his gaze.

‘I promise,’ I said.

"Styk"

Level 19 Bladespinner

Base Stats:

Vitality — 50

Intelligence — 204

Dexterity — 122

Strength — 77

Wisdom — 74

Charisma — 49

Skills:

Worldbending — Level 55

Knifework — Level 40

Stealth — Level 25

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%