A sea of orange stretched before us.

The crowd that had been dwindling before was now a thousand strong, two thousand strong, worshippers having flocked from all around the lands to be here. Yusef stood on a stage near the steps that led up to Coldharbour’s governing building, facing the plaza at large. It was a shame he wasn’t on the steps; a little further back and he would have been just where my saved portal location was. Oh well, you can’t have everything.

The Player was preaching already, but at this distance—us on a balcony at the other side of the square—I couldn’t make out a word he was saying. Part of me wished I’d taken that Worldbending ability that let sound travel through my portals, as it’d have been nice to know what we were dealing with.

At my side stood Raelas, Lore and Corminar, as well as the homeowner that we’d bribed for access. The old woman must have assumed we were fellow devouts, based on our pale orange robes, and couldn’t have known she was about to be accessory to an assassination.

‘What’s that he say?’ the homeowner asked.

‘Not sure,’ Carle mumbled back to her. ‘Can’t hear him.’

The old woman shrugged. ‘No refunds.’ She shuffled off back into her apartment proper.

‘Think we can aim our portals well enough from here?’ Raelas asked. That was the plan; she would make a portal to drop her and Carle over the Player’s head, while I’d do the same for myself and Lore. We’d considered dropping the others in too, but figured that the process would be too slow. Much better was it that Corminar, Lambkin and Ama entered the crowds hours earlier, and schmoozed, bribed and intimidated their way to the front. They’d be ready to strike at a moment’s notice, the signal being the purple glow of Raelas’s portal. They were out there amongst the thousands right this second.

‘It’s not that I’m worried about,’ I replied. ‘It’s getting back out again.’

‘Agreed,’ Carle murmured, drawing in a deep breath. ‘Perhaps we should rethink our fee, Rae. I’m not sure we account for this much peril.’

‘Now’s not the time,’ the tiefling replied. ‘Besides, we’ve got…’ She trailed off for a moment. ‘We’ve got good reason for being here.’

Carle didn’t react.

‘How much longer should we give em?’ Lore asked. ‘Should be in there by now, shouldn’t—’

A scream cut him off, and the four of us wrenched our upper bodies over the edge of the balcony. The cry had come from the streets down below us, just off to our left.

My heart skipped a beat, and for good reason; the last couple of times we’d heard screaming in the city streets, it had announced the presence of mala. And from what Tokas had said, there’d been more sightings in the last day, handled by the guards—but not without loss of life. This time was no different.

There amidst shouting, fleeing locals was a small black blob—the most powerful monster anyone could possibly expect to see in their lives, except maybe for elderbeest or depth raiders.

I cast my eyes back to the distant Player, the man we were here to kill. Many of his crowd, mostly those towards the rear, were becoming aware of the creature’s presence, and panic was rippling through them like a wave. I had a choice, now: begin the assassination attempt amidst the chaos, or… do what’s right, and try to stop it before innocent lives were lost.

I sighed before I opened a portal just off the edge of the balcony. ‘Guess we’ve got some work to do first,’ I said to the other three as I leaped the low wall and fell through my purple magicks. I dropped nimbly to the dusty cobbled street a good distance away from the mala and straightened up once more as the others fell one by one to my side.

‘Let’s be quick,’ I told the others. ‘Raelas, you’re with me. Portals. Lore, Carle, find something to catch it in.’ They nodded, and I took a step closer to the mala.

It was funny. In my first life, I wouldn’t have dreamed of willingly approaching one of these monsters like this. And back then, I’d been a higher level than I was now. I felt stronger, this time around, my build being more efficient, having more synergy, being tall rather than wide. To look at me, I was only level 19, but I was confident I could beat someone as high as level 28 or so in a fair one-on-one fight. A mala was more powerful than a level 28 person, admittedly, but I wasn’t alone; I had friends at my side.

I opened a portal beneath the creature, dropping it into the sky high above, where it began to fall. I knew from experience though that these monsters adapted quickly; I wouldn’t get many more portals before it started stretching to avoid falling through them.

‘Got one!’ Lore shouted. I glanced to my left to see him raising an open crate, a bunch of oranges falling out of it onto the ground. He winced, then apologised to a nearby stall owner, who seemed more interested in fleeing the mala than any damage to his produce. Lore threw the open crate to the ground, open end pointing upwards.

‘Good!’ I shouted, then opened another portal beneath the enemy to throw it into the empty crate.

Immediately, the monster had adapted, stretching out in midair to grow too wide to fit through the portal, wrapping its black tendrils around the side of the ring. I opened another pair of portals to one side, and began throwing things at the creature.

Raelas, seeing where I was going with this, followed suit, and soon there were two portals raining heavy market furniture down on the creature. The creature squealed as the larger objects hit it, but didn’t budge.

‘Rae!’ Carle shouted, and I glanced over to him to see him lifting an anvil off the ground. Yes, a literal anvil; even Lore’s eyes bulged.

The tiefling nodded, then opened a portal in front of him. Carle heaved the anvil until it was placed perfectly above the mala, then dropped it.

I closed the portal immediately, the monster only partway through, because I didn’t want the anvil slipping through too and potentially demolishing the wooden crate.

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Lore slammed the lid of the crate shut immediately, using a hammer and nails to reinforce the opening, and the anvil cracked the cobblestones as it smashed to the ground.

Level ? corruption defeated!

Worldbending — +1,700xp

I breathed a sigh of relief. It was done. We had a much more dangerous battle ahead of us, but we’d managed this without anyone getting hurt and without draining our reserves too much, so I was gonna chalk this up as a victory.

Carle approached the crate, wrapping his hands around it. ‘I will leave to dispose of the creature,’ he said.

‘You’ll what?’ I replied. ‘No, the guards can deal with that. We need you for Yusef.’

‘I—’ the warrior man began to protest, but was interrupted by Lore shouting out for guards’ help. A couple of them finally turned the corner, eyes on Lore.

Not a great response time, I thought, but perhaps they’d been there the whole time and afraid to face down a mala. If that’s what Carle was going through—fear of the inevitable fight—then I couldn’t blame him.

Once satisfied the guards knew how to dispose of the mala, we turned our attention back to that sea of orange robes.

* * *

We reached the same balcony using portals, figuring that we’d already drawn attention to the magicks when we’d used them to fight the mala. From there, we looked on at Yusef’s thousand followers, who had settled back into the same position as before, now that the mala incursion was dealt with. Visibly, those at the rear were more on edge now, but hopefully that hadn’t set in closer to Yusef—we needed them as relaxed, and as slow to react, as possible.

‘I guess there’s no time delaying any longer,’ I said, and with one last sigh, I pulled my dagger from the sheath, and raised one hand to the air above Yusef’s stage. At my side, Raelas did the same. ‘Everyone ready?’ I asked.

Lore and Carle adjusted their grips on their weapons. They knew they were going through first, to take the brunt of any retaliation, but Raelas and I would be through soon after.

‘Then let’s… do it.’

I activated my portal. Though mine was Tamed, and therefore didn’t glow brightly in the air, Raelas didn’t have that passive ability, so hers did. Lore and Carle leaped through the two portals, and Raelas and I didn’t have time to watch them fall from the other side before tumbling through ourselves. I activated all my relevant abilities—Stab, Execution, and my Stealth Attack passive that was already working in my favour—and I slammed towards the ground, and Yusef. It was a move that reminded me of my final attack on the pyroknight, all that time ago.

But at that distance, I’d aimed poorly, and Yusef was just out of reach. So instead I landed, pushed myself into a sprint, and charged at him. Lore, Carle and Raelas did the same, having emerged from the portals, while the others pushed forth from the crowd.

It was, of course, too easy.

A hand snapped out to grab my wrist, knocking the belt holding the bracers to it. The armour slipped from its binding, flying through the air and slamming into the shoulder one of the nearby cultists. Around me, the others met the same response, those cultists closest to Yusef reaching out and moving to block their attacks. Lambkin’s knocked bow fired an arrow high into the sky, while a familiar orc leaped to grab Ama’s metal arrows from the air. Lillya.

‘Hello again, spawn,’ the orc worshipper said.

I wrenched against the hands holding me back, desperately trying to free myself, and a glance at the others showed me that they’d suffered the same fate. We’d been fools to think that striking fast would be enough, that blending in, avoiding his notice would mean he wouldn’t see out future; this was a man with a far higher Divination skill than we could have possibly expected. He’d known we were coming.

‘Here at last,’ Yusef said, dark brown eyes sweeping over the team. Behind him and around us, people in orange robes roared and shouted and tried to burst forth to attack us, but a hand held up by the Player instructed them to stand back.

Yusef strolled over first to Corminar, then to Lore, and then finally to me. My heart dropped when I realised what it meant that he’d picked out the three of us.

‘The Slayers,’ he said. ‘We meet at last.’

"Styk"

Level 19 Bladespinner

Base Stats:

Vitality — 50

Intelligence — 212

Dexterity — 125

Strength — 78

Wisdom — 74

Charisma — 49

Skills:

Worldbending — Level 57

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%