From what I could tell, as I stood amongst the busy central plaza outside Coldharbour’s house of government surrounded by a stack of weapons and armour, the Player had not yet arrived. People were still going about their day to day business as though nothing had changed, and I saw only one or two orange robes of the Ascendancy Cult amongst the crowds. It was because everything was still normal that there was a guard on the steps of the plaza very curious about my stack of items.

‘Trouble here, sir?’ he said. The tiefling’s eyes weren’t on me but the pile of weapons and armour around my feet.

‘Nope. No trouble!’

This didn’t seem to satisfy the guard. ‘You sure?’

‘I just… dropped all my weapons.’

‘Your bag of holding go wrong?’ he asked.

‘Err… sure.’

‘That’s a lot of weapons for one person.’

This guy really wasn’t giving up any time soon. ‘I like to be prepared for all eventualities.’

‘Oh yeah? Well, piece of advice: you drop hundreds of coins’ worth of weapons around here, expect to be robbed. I’d get moving, if I were you.’

‘I’ll get right on that.’ With no way of holding all the items, I opened a portal to my pocket world and started tossing objects inside. The guard stood there watching me, so I gave him a big thumbs up to signal that everything was fine. He soon lost interest.

I quickly got to the point where my pocket world couldn’t hold any more items, and I still had a lot of stuff around me that was starting to draw unnecessary attention. I was just choosing between some Shoes of Minor Waterwalking—I didn’t know how this could be “minor”, surely you walked on water or you didn’t—and a spellbook that detailed how to put out fires with a breath when a familiar face arrived.

‘I thought I’d find you here,’ Raelas said.

I looked over her shoulder to see if the rest of the Trio was with her, but she was alone. ‘How’d you…’

The tiefling shrugged. ‘When the mercenaries gave up chasing me, I knew they’d go back to camp. So you’d need to get out of there fast, with the goods if possible. And you did say this was where you’d saved your portal location to for now. You get anything good?’ She picked up a short sword from the ground.

‘There’s something I should probably tell you,’ I said.

Raelas’s smile faltered just for a second. ‘What?’

‘I had to knock Ama out.’

‘You what?’

‘She was killing the mercenaries. You know, the one thing I explicitly said we shouldn’t do; they hadn’t done anything wrong.’

Raelas considered me for a moment, then sighed. ‘Fine. Alright. If you had to do it, then I guess I believe you. You have trustworthy eyes.’

Just this once, to keep her on my side, I didn’t rebuff her attentions. ‘Don’t suppose you can give me a hand with what’s left?’

* * *

Ama, now conscious once more, stormed at me as I entered Tokas and Lambkin’s rented house—which seemed to have become our centre of operations.

‘Woah, woah, woah,’ I said, putting my hands up.

A clothes iron flew from a bookcase as Ama flicked her wrist, soaring towards my head. Raelas stepped in front of me, and the lump of metal came to an abrupt halt, though I got the impression that it was going to regardless of whether or not the tiefling was in the way; Ama wasn’t interested in killing me, only intimidating me.

‘Ama, stop,’ Raelas said, flinging the armful of weapons down onto the floor. I followed suit.

But the metal mage didn’t stop glowering, and the clothes iron didn’t fall from the air. ‘He knocked me out!’

‘Sounds like you gave him no choice.’

At this, the mage’s expression faltered. ‘This again? You promised men weren’t going to get between us anymore.’

‘This isn’t that,’ the other worldbender insisted. ‘It doesn’t matter that he’s handsome; you were in the wrong.’

‘Last I checked, we were mercenaries. Killing other mercenaries is sometimes part of the job.’

‘Last I checked, mercenaries follow the orders of those paying us. And you weren’t following orders!’

With a grimace, Ama threw the clothes iron into the wall. The plaster buckled beneath the force.

‘I guess we’re not getting our deposit back,’ Lambkin grumbled, staring glumly at the damage.

‘They’re the ones paying us,’ Raelas pressed on. ‘So they’re the ones we take orders from. Understand?’

Ama looked to Carle for backup, but after a moment of hesitation, the big guy shook his head. ‘Fine,’ the metal mage said with a scoff. From the glare she was still giving me, I had a sneaking suspicion it wasn’t fine, but we had other things to deal with right now.

Corminar approached the pile of weapons and armour on the floor and nudged it with the tip of his boot. ‘Is this all? I thought—’

I opened a portal to my pocket world above the pile, and the other eighty percent of the weaponry poured out with a crash. The noise summoned Punnas and Lopas, and the two half-tiefling watched from the doorway, their heads poking around the frame.

‘...Ah,’ Corminar said.

‘Ah is right,’ I replied. ‘There’s a lot to sort through. I figured some of us could stay behind and do that while the rest of us steal these disguises?’

Ama and Carle volunteered immediately, and I couldn’t help but assume that it was to get away from me. I wasn’t going to argue that point though, as they definitely needed some time to cool off. Lambkin and Tokas too said they’d stay behind and help.

Stolen story; please report.

‘I will earmark any useless items to sell, too,’ the ex-captain said. ‘I know someone who will buy them; any extra coin can go towards hiring more mercenaries.’

I nodded. ‘Good. Raelas, Corminar, Lore, you’re coming with me. Should be enough to sneak into the local sect, steal some robes, and start sowing dissent amongst the cultists.’

‘Him?’ Ama asked. I followed her line of sight to Lore.

‘What’s wrong with that?’ I asked. Probably Ama was just in the mood to pick a fight over anything I said. ‘He knows the city; he’s probably the best one of us to help convince people that the Player isn’t the man they think he is.’

‘He’s not just good for hitting things, then?’

Lore seemed taken aback, and fair enough, really; there was no reason he should be taking stray shots from this brewing resentment. ‘No?’ he replied, then pulled a rock out of his pocket. ‘I got this rock charm too, see?’

From the glint of mischief in his eye, I could see he was messing with her, so I played along. ‘Oh yeah? What’s it do?’

‘It’s a… banishing rock.’

‘Nice. Where’d you get it?’

Lore nodded. ‘I picked it up earlier. Thought it looked pretty.’

‘Are you two going to stand around talking rubbish or are we going to get to work before the Player arrives?’ Ama asked.

‘Could do a bit more rubbish?’ Lore suggested.

I almost played along with him to mess with Ama some more, but she was right; time was precious. Instead, I gathered Lore, Corminar and Raelas, and we traversed the city to the nearest temple of Ascendancy.

It was a pretty humble affair, all things considered. I’d really expected a temple to the “great” Players and Architects to be something elaborate and colourful, perhaps with stained glass and tall spires. Instead, it was just… a hall. The building was formed on plain sandstone, and the interior—as we soon discovered—was bare. We stepped into a lobby where a woman smiled up at us from behind a desk, and at her rear I could see two open double doors through which there was the temple’s main chamber.

‘Church of Ascendancy,’ the woman behind the desk said. ‘How may we be of service?’ Of course, the cultists never called it the cult of Ascendancy; that’d be a bit too on the nose.

I peered behind her. Only two other cultists were in the building at that particular moment; we could take them. ‘Ready, team?’ I asked.

Corminar drew his bow. ‘Ready.’

The cultist’s hands shot immediately into the air. ‘There’s no need for violence! We’ll give you whatever you want!’

‘Oh. Really?’ I asked.

‘What is it you’re after?’ the woman asked, voice shaky. ‘Coin?’

‘We want… your robes?’ Lore replied.

The cultist slowly lowered her hands. ‘You mean you want to… sign up?’

‘Wait, is that an option?’ I asked. ‘You just let anyone join?’

‘Of course! What would make you think otherwise?’

I took a minute to work out my answer. ‘I don’t know? I don’t have any experience with organised religion.’

‘Well, allow me to assure you: there is no need for violence. Were you going to fight me for the robes?’ the cultist asked.

‘I… err…’ I stuttered, trying to think of the correct answer here. We’d really started on the wrong foot.

‘I admire your conviction. It is an honour to welcome such passionate new initiates to the fold,’ the woman said, sliding a box of orange fabric across her desk. She then pointed to a doorway coming off the lobby. ‘You can get changed in there.’

With a polite smile, I took the case of robes off the cultist and nodded for the rest of the team to follow me into the room—which, as it turned out, was a storage room. Only when the door was closed behind me, I told the team.

‘Remember: we need to get spares for the rest of them. Lore, get a spare for Carle. I’ll cover Lambkin. Corminar, you do Tokas and Ama.’

‘Do you mean to say I have a feminine build?’ the ranger asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Good.’

We ruffled through the crate of Ascendancy Cult robes until we found a size that would fit us, then pulled them on over our other clothes.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘So next thing we do; get out there into the temple and start convincing people that the Player isn’t someone to worship. Be subtle, though; saying it outright isn’t gonna convince anyone. But the more people we have disillusioned, the fewer allies he’ll have at his side when it comes time to kill him.’ I turned to Raelas. ‘Can you do subtle?’

‘When I have to,’ the other worldbender replied with a smile. ‘Why? Would that work on you?’

Someone coughed in the doorway, and we all immediately froze before turning to see who had walked in on us. A young man in an orange robe—one of the cultists—blinked back at us.

‘...How long were you standing there?’ I asked him.

‘Long enough to hear you say you wanted to kill a—’

Lore launched his so-called “rock charm” at the cultist, hitting them in the head and knocking them, unconscious, to the floor. ‘See? Banished.’

‘Bet you wish Ama was here for that punchline, huh?’

‘Yep,’ the barbarian replied, then shrugged. ‘Can’t have everything, though.’

I nodded. ‘Right. Ready to say some insulting things about a Player?’

‘Always,’ Corminar said.

"Styk"

Level 19 Bladespinner

Base Stats:

Vitality — 50

Intelligence — 208

Dexterity — 125

Strength — 78

Wisdom — 74

Charisma — 49

Skills:

Worldbending — Level 56

Knifework — Level 41

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].

Gentle Step — Passive. Your footsteps are dampened on even the hardest of surfaces. Reduce noise of movement by 80%.

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%