‘Alright, you be bad guard, I’ll be good guard,’ Val whispered, now that Lev was safely bound by roots and vines in the other room, with no hope of escape.
‘What if I don’t wanna be bad guard?’ I asked.
‘Fine, you be good guard. I’m easy.’
‘Well I didn’t say—’
Val glared at me, and I stopped complaining. ‘You ready?’
I nodded, and led us back into the room for the interrogation to begin. ‘Alright,’ I said, taking first crack at the orc. ‘I think we can work all this out so that nobody needs to get hurt. But my friend, here, she’s going to want some answers to some questions if she’s—’
‘You not want answers?’ Lev asked me.
‘Well, yes, I want them too, but I’m not—’
‘Then why try to say this her fault?’
‘I—’ I started, then sighed. I turned to Val. ‘You want to have a go at this?’
Val stormed up to Lev and slapped him across the face. Hard. ‘Alright, big guy. Time to start telling us what you know.’
‘Or what?’ the orc spat.
‘Or we find out just how far up your insides I can get my vines to grow.’
Lev’s eyes widened. ‘...OK. This good reason. What is it you want know?’
I pulled the Sisyphus Artifact from my jacket pocket, placing it upon a table in front of the orc. If his eyes were wide before, they were now bulging, and Val’s were doing much the same.
‘Styk, I didn’t…’ she started, but trailed off, shaking her head.
‘Why did your boss want this so badly?’
‘You have…’ Lev started. ‘You are… I know you. You are knife man. We… kill you. So, how is—’
Val held her index finger up to me. ‘Don’t answer that.’ Then to Lev, she said, ‘We’re the ones asking the questions here.’
‘It is you. You used this last charge. But… how? Is not possible.’
‘What did the Player want it for?’ I asked, speaking over the orc.
‘Is not obvious? Immortality! Do we not all want this?’
Val glanced to me.
‘No,’ I said.
‘No?’ Val asked.
‘No, there’s got to be more to it than that. You killed dozens.’
‘Hundreds,’ Lev spat.
‘You killed hundreds to get this artifact. There’s got to be more to it than immortality. The Players are gods! What death do they have to fear?’
Lev shrugged as best he could within his tight bindings. ‘He not tell me this. But I have suspicions. The Ascended World not what it was once. The Ascended World… destroyed. I think Players have no home. I think heaven is gone.’
Val shot me another glance, her brow furrowed surely as much as mine was; none of this made any sense, after all. We all knew the Players, the descendents of the great Architects themselves, only blessed us with their presence when they left their immortal plane. But this immortal plane… surely it was untouchable? Surely nothing could destroy the land of the gods.
I nodded towards the back room. ‘A moment,’ I said. When we were out of ear shot, I semi-whispered to Val, ‘Are you buying any of this?’
‘It’d be a bloody weird lie, wouldn’t it?’
‘It’d be a bloody weird truth too, though.’
Val shrugged. ‘Fair point.’ She cast her head back into the other room, to check on our prisoner. Apparently he was still bound, because she just waved smugly to him before shifting her attention back to me. ‘Let’s follow the logic through; what do we know?’
‘We know the Player wanted the Sisyphus Artifact.’
‘And we know that it has the power to bring its owner back to life.’
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‘And a boost to experience points, don’t forget,’ I added.
‘But only to those who die, right? And why would a Player need the boost? They’re already stronger than most. So I think…’
I could see where she was going with this. ‘You don’t think it’s the experience point boost.’
‘I don’t.’
‘But if it’s the other thing—if it’s the respawn that the Player wanted—then… why? They’re strong, sure, and I suppose they could die despite that, but could it really be that simple?’
Val weighed the thought, tilting her head side to side. She opened her mouth to speak, then seemed to think better of it.
‘No,’ I encouraged her. ‘Go on. What are you thinking?’
‘Maybe the gods are as mortal as the rest of us.’
I raised an eyebrow. ‘You know to say such a thing is heresy, in pretty much every land in Alterra.’
‘The funny thing about ideas explicitly deemed heretical?’ she responded. ‘They’re quite often true.’
I drew in a deep breath. ‘So… no grand plan, then? No monstrous plan on the part of the big bad? Just… a want to go on living?’
‘Sometimes the simplest motivations are the best.’
‘The Player has gotta be paranoid if he’s already thinking about his death.’
Val shrugged. ‘Some people just don’t deal well with their mortality.’
‘Alright,’ I said. ‘Fine. What’s next, then? We gotta apply the screws to Lev, try and find out the Player’s weaknesses, right?’
Val’s face lit up, and she punched me playfully on the arm. ‘See, I knew you’d get it! You’re taking to this like you were—’
A suspicious noise in the other room caused the sorcerer to trail off suddenly. We looked at one another, narrowed our eyes, and then poked our heads back into the other room.
Lev’s date stood at his side, frozen to the spot as though not moving would stop us from seeing him, his hands around a knife.
‘Hurry!’ the orc cried, shaking against his bindings. ‘Cut now! Cut now!’
The date began cutting frantically, and Val and I both charged across the room.
‘Arm!’ Lev shouted, still struggling against the vines.
‘No!’ Val and I cried out simultaneously, reaching towards him.
But we were too late; the date sliced through the roots binding the orc’s left hand, and Lev shoved his hand into his pocket, pulling forth a small purple gemstone. He reached out and smashed it against the wall behind him, and for a moment, the wall… disappeared. But it wasn’t the exteriors of Carn looming behind him, so much as the grand, high-walled architecture of somewhere I’d never before been.
But Val had. ‘Auricia,’ she breathed.
Lev fell through the portal, still bound, and it closed behind him just in time to have Val collide with the wall.
‘Hera’s blade,’ Val spat, having bounced off the solid wall and fallen to the ground.
My head, and Val’s, turned to the other man, who took a step backward and raised his hands in the air. ‘Now, wait a minute…’ he said, and then before either of us could say a word to him, he turned and bolted away once more.
I held out a hand to help Val up from the floor. ‘Auricia?’ I asked. ‘The capital of the Goldmarch?
Val nodded. ‘It’s where the Player is, I’d guess. Figure Lev’s off reporting what just happened.’
‘That’s… how can they be there already?’
The sorcerer screwed up her face. ‘I mean… even if you hadn’t just witnessed portal magic, there are such a thing as boats, you know.’
I shrugged; fair enough, it was a dumb question.
Val gestured to the artifact I’d left on the table. ‘Why do you still have this, anyway?’
‘Kept me alive, didn’t it? Thought it’d be a good keepsake.’
The sorcerer sighed. ‘It makes you a target, Styk. You realise that, right? Whatever the deal is with that artifact, it’s gonna come back to bite you. Or do you not think the Player is arming himself right now to come after you?’
‘It’s empty, though. He knows that. What could he—’
‘Sure, it’s empty. But now he knows you have the last charge in you. Didn’t you get the impression that he’d wanna know how that happened?’
I gulped. ‘Well, we handled Lev once. I’m sure we can—’
‘It won’t just be Lev, this time, Styk.’ Val’s eyes were wide, fearful; it wasn’t often I saw her like this, and it made me take notice. ‘He’s gonna come back with the Player at his side. Maybe the tiefling, too. You and me… we can’t handle that, even with me being as good as I am.’
The house seemed suddenly eerily quiet.
‘What’ll we do?’ I finally asked.
Val drew in a deep breath. ‘I hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but… We’re gonna need to put a team together. Specialists; people who’ve handled this type of thing before.’ She drew her hands down her face, pulling gently at her cheeks. ‘It’s time we reunited the Player Slayers.’
"Styk"
Level 5 Novice Bladespinner
Base Stats:
Vitality — 4
Intelligence — 9
Dexterity — 12
Strength — 25
Wisdom — 9
Charisma — 0
Skills:
Knifework — Level 12
Identification — Level 5
Worldbending — Level 1
Stealth — Level 1
Abilities:
Slice — Slice the enemy for physical damage worth weapon’s base damage and additional damage scaling on [STR].
Stab — Put your weight behind your wielded blade and force the tip through tougher hides and armour. Damage scales on [STR].
Closed Reach — Bend reality to narrow the gap between blade and target by up to 8 inches. Uses mana.
Local Portal — ???
Basic Stealth Attack — Passive. 10% boost to damage when unnoticed by enemy.
Basic Identification — Discover basic attributes for a particular object or person. Ability scales with [WIS] + [INT].
Active Effects:
Legacy of Sisyphus:
XP gain increased by +400%