As the first light of dawn crawled its way across the deserts outside Zelas, we watched two horses kicking up dust into the air. These were two of the fastest steeds that money—or, in this case, power—could buy. After the discussion I’d had with Lore last night, I had no doubt that he was one of them, and Yusef the other. He’d succeeded. He’d separated Yusef from the cult.

But we now had rides of our own.

* * *

‘And where in hells have been?’ Arzak demanded when I’d returned to camp in the dead of night. Tokas and I’s watch had ended while I’d been gone, and the tiefling had clearly had no choice but to wake the next watchers, Arzak and Corminar.

‘I went to see Lore,’ I replied.

‘Alone?’ demanded Val, sitting up from the mess of blankets in my tent.

‘Oh, you’re awake too.’

‘You could have been hurt,’ Arzak said. The foot tapping hadn’t stopped, or even slowed, as far as I could see. ‘We say we not split up. Why you go?’

‘Cos he’s our friend. And we owed him a way out, if he wanted one, especially after…’ I trailed off, but my meaning—I hoped—was obvious; after Corminar and I had overlooked how much he’d been struggling with the burden of prophecy.

‘He not here.’

‘No. He’s staying. He says if he leaves, Alenna dies. I don’t blame him for choosing his friend’s life over killing Yusef.’

Val opened her mouth as if about to say “I do”, but nothing came out.

‘So pointless then,’ Arzak said. ‘You risk life for nothing.’

I shook my head. ‘Oh, I didn’t say that.’ I turned to Val. ‘It’s good you’re up; I need you. We’re going to need to steal some horses.’

* * *

As Lore and Yusef fled across the desert sands, we hopped up onto steeds of our own. We’d stolen eight—one apiece, plus one for carried items that I couldn’t fit in my pocket world. This would keep us quick, if not quick enough to catch up Yusef on a horse like that. But sooner or later, he would grow tired of running, and then the battle would begin.

There would be no fragile truce this time. Yusef could no longer threaten us with visions of the future that we now knew were false. This time, when we caught him, it would end one of only two ways—we’d kill him, or he’d kill us. Just how much of a chance did he stand without his cult behind him, and with only Illusion magicks at his disposal?

Lore being forced to his side had really been a blessing in disguise. Yusef, perhaps considering himself some master manipulator, had thought he was strengthening himself and weakening us by bringing Lore to his side. But Lore, accidentally charismatic as he was, had got under the man’s skin. He’d been able to do as I’d suggested. He’d played on the man’s paranoia, on his fear, enough that Yusef would seek to flee fast enough that the cult couldn’t follow.

Not that they weren’t trying; even as Zelas disappeared behind us, we saw the familiar shade of pale orange as his worshippers took chase. We would have to finish this fight before the cultists could catch up, but what with their relatively slow pace, the longer that Yusef fled, the longer we’d have to do so. We settled in for the long haul.

Nobody spoke until the hot rays of the midday sun were upon us. We’d slowed our horses’ paces so as not to wear them out, and stopped momentarily at a water hole to refill our tankards. From the tracks in the sand, Yusef and Lore had stopped here too, and not so long ago that the desert winds had hidden those imprints.

I hurried us all back onto our horses the moment we’d stocked up on water, as we couldn’t linger. Not if we wanted to catch him.

We rode once more, the road fading fast beneath our horses’ hooves. This was a part of the world not well served by merchants or travellers; there was little need for established paths. If the road grew soft, it would slow us, but it would slow Yusef, too.

‘You all know where he’s going, right?’ Tokas shouted. In the din of the galloping horses, it was no easy thing for us all to respond, so she added, ‘He’s heading to Elassos.’

I brought my horse over to her side, finding it difficult; my experience with horseriding was very limited, considering that I wasn’t filthy rich. But eventually I got there, almost as if my horse knew what I was getting at and was being considerate, even though I was pushing him hard. ‘Tell me,’ I shouted over the noise, ‘Why Elassos? What’s there? I thought it was abandoned?’

‘It is,’ Tokas cried back. ‘Except for bandits, perhaps. He won’t find help there.’

‘Then what will he find? Why go there at all?’

‘It was built back during the invasion,’ Tokas said. ‘And being a sea people, the tieflings had never really encountered fortresses like we’d seen here. But the tiefling way is to turn an enemy’s strength against them, and so they established their foothold in this region by building a fortress to put all to shame, except perhaps Great Hearth. It’ll have defences, it’ll have enchantments.’

I nodded. ‘So he’s setting traps for us again? He has no other tricks up his sleeve?’

‘I believe we were weak enough only a year ago that these traps would have finished us,’ Corminar pitched in. ‘That we’ve survived so many speaks to how far we’ve come. Perhaps Yusef has not ever before needed another “trick up his sleeve”.’

There was that. If Jacob the pyroknight had been smart enough—or less blinded by rage—then any traps he’d left for us could well have been the end for us. We were stronger, now. I was stronger now. I touched the artifact dangling from my neck. Maybe we shouldn’t feel fear when we rode to meet our enemy. Maybe this was what the future of the Slayers looked like—still working toward the same purpose, but no longer terrified for our lives when we did it. I, for one, could go for that.

The sun was lower in the sky, casting great shadows from the mountain range, when Elassos finally appeared over the horizon. As Tokas had promised, it really was a sight to behold. It stood atop one of the lower hills in the outer mountain range, yet with its great height, it still seemed to tower above us. The structure itself had small balconies that ran around its square floor plan on every level, punctuated occasionally by great platforms that protruded from one side or another. These platforms, supported by metal beams but surely magicks too, paid host to building, and I got the impression that these had once been training grounds for the tiefling troops stationed there.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

As we grew closer still, I saw more signs of life. There were footprints on the road—not Yusef’s or Lore’s, who were surely still on horseback—and there were signs of campsites. Slowly, strange shapes at the bottom of the fortress came into focus, and I saw that they were tents. Tokas hadn’t been wrong; bandits really did use this fortress as a refuge. We’d just have to hope they didn’t get in our way.

Faces appeared from these tents as the fortress loomed in our vision, faces attached to bodies holding curved swords and spears and preparing magicks in case of attack. But we made no effort to move for our weapons—we had bigger fish to fry—and slowly these bandits became more relaxed.

Arzak asked one of them the obvious question with her eyes, and the bandit replied in kind—looking upwards to the heights of the fortress. They’d gone up there.

And where they went, we followed. We rode up the ramps leading to Elassos’s main entryway—an archway larger than most taverns, with its two huge wooden doors rotting away and fire-scarred. Inside, Elassos was large enough that we didn’t need to dismount. We could ride the horses up the gentle ramps that took us upwards into this eerily empty, ornate fortress. Their speed was slowed, of course, but this only gave us time to inspect the glowing lines that seemed to stretch from ground floor to spire. Whatever these magicks were, I did not know, and their ever-changing colour gave no indication even which specialty they related to. All we knew was that the tieflings had once thought them important in protecting this fortress, and I prayed that Yusef didn’t know more than this either.

The horses were moving very slowly when we reached the higher floors, and Arzak—whose horse was, predictably, the most tired of all—made the decision to dismount. We all did the same, Raelas and Lambkin tying the reins to an arched pole on the wall that I could only assume had been made for this very purpose.

And then, still not a word shared, we proceeded to the topmost storey.

Two men stood on the platform protruding eastwards from Elassos, the sun now low enough in the sky that the spire cast them in shadow. The edges of this wooden platform were raised, but only perhaps a foot from the floor—the tiefling weren’t massively concerned with safety, it seemed. Beyond that, the only object of note on this platform was, for lack of a better word, an altar—and where all of the glowing lines came together. It worried me that Yusef had chosen there, of all places, to let us catch up.

‘Do you never stop?’ the Player asked, saliva splattering the floor in front of him as he spoke with such disdain.

I held his eyes as I spoke to him. ‘We won’t stop chasing you. We need you to realise that. So why don’t we end this now, one way or another?’

Yusef’s eyes darted to Lore. He was no fool. He knew that his grasp he had on Lore was dependent on keeping his friends alive. He’d set traps on the road, but none of them had been successful. If they had been, he’d have needed to kill Lore, and lose the gentle giant’s grasp of Divination. That would have been no problem with the hordes of his cult around him, but now, if he lost Lore, he was alone.

But he would have known that. He was smart enough to anticipate that, even if he was as paranoid as Lore had said. And yet he’d come here anyway. My eyes darted to the glowing altar once more.

‘One way, perhaps,’ Yusef replied, holding our gaze.

We stared back.

‘The… way where you die?’ Val suggested.

Yusef shook his head to himself, but said nothing, instead turning to the altar.

‘What?’ I goaded him. ‘That’s it? No great speech? No threats? Just… that?’

‘Yes,’ Yusef replied, and he placed his hands on the altar. ‘Just that.’ The glowing lines that stemmed out from the altar turned red in a blink, Yusef’s Illusion magicks flowing from the altar so fast you might missed it.

And then the tower, my friends, even Yusef himself disappeared from my sight. This was an illusion to surpass even those he’d left for us on the road, in some way using the innate powers of this fortress. There was the answer to the question. Why had he come here, even without his cult to defend him?

The answer was simple: because here was a trap that we couldn’t hope to survive.

"Styk"

Level 20 Bladespinner

Base Stats:

Vitality — 52

Intelligence — 227

Dexterity — 137

Strength — 82

Wisdom — 76

Charisma — 50

Skills:

Worldbending — Level 61

Knifework — Level 45

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].

Throw III — Throw blades at great speed towards your enemy. Deal considerable damage to armourless area, with addition damage scaling with [DEX] and [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.

Portal Relay II - Up to ten small-scale portals can now be positioned stationary to an entity, and used to communicate sound. In addition, your standard portals may be used to communicate sound.

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%