The creature with Ama’s face launched the metal coated in corruption.

Of the two of us Worldbenders, only I opened a portal to avoid the oncoming strike, with Raelas too rattled by the recent loss of her friend. Corminar and I fell through the portal, landing nimbly on our feet, while Arzak moved quickly enough to swipe Raelas out of the way. Carle and Val, meanwhile, prepared to strike.

‘Fire!’ I shouted, but the witch was already yanking something from a new apothecary bag.

Corminar’s eyes lit up when he saw what she had—a small, faintly glowing glass vial. What with his Alchemy skill, it was only natural he’d know what it was. He responded not with words but with action, shooting an arrow to Val’s feet.

The witch pulled the stopper from her vial, then yanked the arrow from the ground. As she dipped its head in the liquid, it immediately caught alight. ‘We knew there were mala around,’ she explained. ‘So we came prepared.’

There wasn’t time for me to wonder if that was a cutting remark about our lack of preparedness, so I tried not to.

With the twist of her wrist, the creature that was once Ama brought the metal drainpipe careening back through the air towards us. ‘Heads!’ I shouted, ducking to the ground just in time to avoid the corruption touching me—and my hair too, this time.

But it was only a matter of time until someone did get touched by the corruption, considering that Ama had such a fine control over it. We’d need to strike before then, and we were going to need more than one flaming arrow.

‘Raelas!’ I shouted, and when she didn’t reply, Arzak grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her my way. ‘How do these metal magicks work? Moving something that heavy has got to be draining her mana pretty quickly, right?’ This question was more based on hope than any particular evidence.

‘She…’ Raelas started, voice quiet at first. ‘She should be out already? She uses small fragments, normally, cos that’s a lot less of a drain. I… don’t know how she’s still going.’

I suspected that I did know how. Alenna had told us that these corrupted people were stronger, and maybe this was why—they had higher power reserves than the person they’d once been. Maybe even infinite… I thought, before silencing that despairing part of my brain. That wasn’t helpful right now.

As the metal mage brought the corrupted metal back towards us once more, I opened a portal to block it. The drainpipe was far too wide to fit through—at least lengthways—but I wasn’t trying to magick it anywhere else. I was trying to keep it in place. It was a use for these magicks that I’d never need, or even thought of, before.

The drainpipe smashed against the sides of the portal, reverberating backwards. I thanked my lucky stars that the corruption was considered an enchantment, otherwise my Portal Slice ability might have cut the drainpipe into three. And then we’d have three corrupted projectiles to avoid.

Corminar and Val made good use of the few seconds I’d bought them, having lit aflame a few more arrow heads, but also a few chunks of wood that Arzak had ripped from a nearby market stall. Still, if they were going to do any good then we needed to get closer.

With a snarl that was almost typical of Ama, the creature wearing her face gestured the corrupted metal around the portal. She sent the drainpipe soaring towards the three of us with the fire, recognising them as the greatest threat.

Val, Arzak and Corminar were too busy with their task to react in time, but fortunately I was solely focused on our enemy. I whipped my hands forward to open another portal in front of my friends, doing so just in time to prevent the metal from hitting them. It hit the edges of the portal and bounced backwards again. This time, the metal had momentum enough that it bounced down into the cobbled street, scratching a line in the rock that oozed with the same black corruption.

I hoped the monster hadn’t spotted that.

The corrupted tiefling flicked her hands once more, and with it, began scrawling corruption into the road, creating a perimeter around us.

‘Back!’ Val shouted to the onlookers, gesturing them away with sweeps of her hands. ‘Back! Run for your bloody lives, idiots!’

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Ama had crafted a perimeter of corruption that arched in a semi-circle around the lot of us, the monster herself standing in the centre of the open end. The beast snarled, like it had us surrounded, but we could step over the perimeter unscathed if we were careful enough, and had portals otherwise. Still, it contained the action and made movement just a little more difficult—which is exactly what Ama needed in this moment.

‘Styk!’ Val shouted, and I whipped my head back to her, Arzak and Corminar to see that they were ready to strike.

I opened a portal in front of Val and Arzak, allowing them to appear behind the enemy armed with fire, while Corminar shot flaming arrows from where he stood. I knew from our previous encounter with corrupted tieflings that this wouldn’t be enough to kill it, but it would maybe weaken it. And it would buy us more time.

Ama shrieked as Arzak’s wielded flaming plank hit against her grey flesh, the oozing corruption recoiling at the touch. Immediately, the metal mage turned her attention to Arzak and Val, bringing the corrupted pipe soaring back towards them.

I moved again to open a portal in the way to block the attack, but the corrupted tiefling had learned. Ama flicked her wrist around, and as it rotated, so too did the metal. It whipped around to be perpendicular to the portal, then dipped under it, still moving quickly towards the two women.

‘Val!’ I shouted, at the same moment that I opened a portal beneath them. Arzak and Val fell through, but as had happened before, the corruption just about caught a strand of long hair. I charged to Val’s side, pushed her to the ground, and then sliced the corruption free.

The witch blinked up at me. ‘You cut my hair?’

‘I saved your—’

‘You cut my hair?’

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

‘Not now,’ Arzak grunted, then burnt the corrupted strands of hair with her makeshift weapon.

Meanwhile, Carle charged. He grabbed two arrows from Corminar’s quiver, lit them on the arrow already nocked in the elf’s bow, and then ran at Ama. He howled as he sprinted, gripping the arrows close to their heads.

‘Careful!’ I shouted. ‘Don’t let her touch you!’

But the warrior seemed to pay no heed. He ran in as carelessly as he’d attack any other enemy, stabbing her with his flaming arrowheads and roaring all the while. There was a pain in his roar, as though something rooted deep within him was screaming for him to not attack the woman he’d known for so many years. Not that she was that woman anymore.

Carle stabbed and he stabbed, and I had to tear him away with a portal underfoot. The warrior fell through, hopefully before the corruption could touch him, and stumbled to his feet at my side. To his credit, Ama looked solidly weakened, but he’d done so at such a risk to himself that—

The warrior charged again.

‘Carle, what are you doing?’ I shouted.

‘What must be done!’ came the reply.

At this point, Raelas snapped back to reality. In hindsight, I think it was her watching another of her friends charging towards almost certain death that did it. Some deep-rooted part of her knew she couldn’t handle losing both of them in one day.

‘Not you too!’ I cried as Raelas slipped through a portal, coming out at her friend’s side.

The tiefling crouched to the ground, placing her palms against it, and moments later the stone around Ama morphed into frost—an evolution of Raelas’s Frost Husk ability, presumably. The creature turned and snarled towards her once-friend, but as it—she? it? I wasn’t sure anymore—tried to lift a foot to close on Raelas, it found that it was stuck to the ground. At least for a moment.

‘Arzak!’ I shouted to my orc friend, lifting an open hand in the air. The orc threw me a flaming piece of wood, assuming that I knew what I was doing. I didn’t, but I was working on it.

Carle attacked again with his flaming arrowheads, able to dodge the monster’s mad swipes only because its feet were now frozen to the floor. Shrieking from the pain, the creature turned to snarl at Raelas, recognising her as the source of the trap, and it swipes now at her instead.

And the frost began to crack.

Raelas’s eyes widened with fear moments before the creature lunged, her own feet frozen to the spot through more figurative means. But Carle saw it coming too.

The gentleman warrior launched himself at the corrupted woman, tackling her to the ground next to a nearby building with no regards for his own safety.

Arzak, Val and I gasped.

Carle was on top of his corrupted friend, pressed against her. There was no way he could have avoided the corruption. He’d sacrificed himself.

Before any of us could react, the figure once called Ama roared, and pushed herself back to her feet with her corruption-enhanced strength. She shrieked, pushing both hands forward and then yanking them backwards. As Carle stood once more, the corrupted metal drainpipe shot towards him.

He had just enough time to grab the monster and wrench her to one side. Into the path of the soaring metal fragment.

The sharp end of the broken pipe pierced the creature’s flesh, going straight through before wedging itself in the wall behind her. Carle, miraculously, saved himself from being hit… but that didn’t mean he was saved. Anything but.

The gentleman warrior gestured for me to throw the flaming plank, and I did so. As the creature with Ama’s face shrieked from the subsequent pain—a shriek that grew quieter with every second that passed—I looked at Carle’s hands. I looked at the black ooze dripping from them. And his arms. And his chest.

There was no cutting that corruption away.

Level ? corruption defeated!

Worldbending — +2,300xp

Worldbending increased to level 60!

Base Points gained — +2 INT, +2 Free Points (INT/WIS/CHA)

Ability selection unlocked

Select an ability from the list below…

…

‘You… you let yourself get corrupted?’ Raelas asked her remaining friend, half-shouting, half-crying. ‘You—’

But Carle shook his head. ‘I was already corrupted. Before I opened that door, before any of you knew Alenna had failed to heal Ama. She corrupted me over an hour ago. All this? I’ve just been… treading water.’

As the rest of us looked on in dumbfounded silence, the gentleman warrior threw the flaming torch to Corminar.

‘Do what must be done,’ he said.

"Styk"

Level 20 Bladespinner

Base Stats:

Vitality — 50

Intelligence — 224

Dexterity — 130

Strength — 79

Wisdom — 76

Charisma — 49

Skills:

Worldbending — Level 60

Knifework — Level 42

Stealth — Level 26

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%