I stumbled forward in the artificial darkness, my dagger raised.

Yusef was in front of me. Or, at least, he should have been in front of me. But as I arrived where he should have been, I found nothing but the glowing red altar. He’d fled within the darkness, and I was going to have to move quickly to find him again.

I heard a muffled scream off to my right—somewhere deep in the fog-not-fog. Raelas. I charged towards her, moving as fast as I could without risking running into the point of Yusef’s own knife. I crossed the glowing red lines that stemmed from the altar, and then my vision misted for a moment. I ignored it, pushing forward, until—

The platform disappeared beneath my foot.

I fell forwards, opening a portal in front of me to stop me plummeting to my doom, and opened its partner somewhere back above where the platform was. I hit the wooden platform again hard, and I hoped that Raelas’s scream from a moment ago hadn’t been her doing the same—the platform, and its edge, was still here, whether we could see it or not.

‘Are you alright, my child?’ a voice came through the darkness. A familiar voice, one that pulled forth emotions of joy… and despair. I whipped my head around once more and approached the voice, this time taking care with every step.

A figure loomed in the darkness.

‘...Val?’ I asked, though I knew deep down it wasn’t. In hindsight, I realised I already knew who it was at this point, but I was deep in denial at the time.

‘Come to me,’ the same voice replied. Definitely not Val.

I took another step forward, expecting the altar to appear in front of me once more, but it didn’t. I’d lost my sense of direction in the thick fog. Instead, a familiar face appeared—one that made my heart skip a beat, but not lower my weapon.

‘Mum?’ I asked.

‘My child.’ Her familiar face beamed back at me, having not aged a day since the portrait my father had treasured, or since I’d seen her image in Empress Amira’s files. She held her arms out at her sides, as though encouraging me to embrace her.

‘No, you… you’re not here,’ I said. ‘You left. And you’re not coming back.’

‘Yes,’ the image of my mother agreed, gazing upon me with eyes I recognised. Eyes I’d seen so many times in the mirror. ‘I left. I was the first of many to leave you, wasn’t I? Then your father, snatched by his enemies. Then Gwin, infected by the corruption. Then Val, who left on her own accord. Yet you are so quick to forgive them.’

‘You’re saying I should forgive you, too,’ I replied, then caught myself. I was arguing with an illusion. I had to remember that, or Yusef would… what? End me here? Trap me here forever? I didn’t quite know his plan just yet.

‘I’m asking a question, is all. I’m asking whether you forgave them so that you might find the courage to forgive me.’

‘I’m not scared, I—’

‘Not scared of me, no,’ the woman said. ‘Scared of absence. If you forgive me, then you let me go. And if you let me go, then I may never return. That’s it, isn’t it?’

I realised then that I’d taken a few unconscious steps closer to the woman with outstretched arms. How had she done that? Or had she even done anything at all? I forced myself to a stop.

‘Cleo, no,’ I said.

‘Cleo, now, is it?’ the woman replied. ‘What happened to Mum?’ Still, she kept her arms wide open.

I forced myself to step backwards, away from her. ‘You’re not real.’

‘No? Then how do I know so much about you?’

I held my blade higher, ready to defend myself. ‘Because that’s how he works. Yusef. His illusions are personal. Your greatest fears made to seem real. He did it to Arzak, with Tokas prophesied to kill her, and he did it with Lore by threatening the lives of his friends. That’s what this is. That’s what you are. A trick.’

The woman’s smile faded. ‘Very well.’ With that, she charged, her dagger arching through the air. Instinctively I defended myself with my own blade, but then realised… this was an illusion. My mother, here, couldn’t possibly hurt me, because she was just in my—

My dagger smashed against hers, and we rebounded.

In that moment, I saw that Cleo didn’t have the same eyes as me. She had Yusef’s eyes, now.

I charged, pressing the attack, activating Knifestorm to increase the damage dealt. But my mother—or the image of my mother—disappeared into the darkness, and my attack hit only air.

I heard another muffled cry from somewhere else nearby. Nearby on the platform; I must remember we’re on a platform. This one I recognised—Val’s. I hurried to her side as carefully as I could, wishing I didn’t have the Tamed Portals passive as their glow might have helped cut through this darkness.

And I stumbled over a child. Well, I would have stumbled over a child if I hadn’t instead walked straight through them like they weren’t even there. This was an illusion, and it was one that Yusef wasn’t inhabiting. I wouldn’t have given them a second look, but then the child whimpered.

I stopped, then, and I looked down at her. It was only then that I realised this was a vision of Val. The child held up a small mouse, which lay limp in her cupped, upturned hands. ‘I didn’t mean to,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt it.’ The sincere distress in her voice almost broke my heart.

‘It’s OK,’ I started to say, recognising in that moment that I was talking to an illusion, ‘you didn’t mean to—’

‘Oh, Equivalence,’ a voice said, emerging from the darkness. A short woman arrived at the young girl’s side and cradled her. ‘It’s OK. It’s OK.’ The woman looked around, and in that moment I caught a glimpse of her face. Niamh’s face. The Player we’d killed in the Bay of Roots. So she had not always been an enemy to Val. From the looks of it, she’d once been a friend.

I stepped backwards carefully, away from the vision. I didn’t know what game Yusef was playing with this, but I didn’t want to stick around to find out. I kept the vision of the child and the Player in my sight as I edged away, expecting a trap, expecting—

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

I stumbled into something solid, and I whipped around, blade out, nearly catching Val in the stomach. ‘Val?’

Her eyes were fixed on the vision of her younger self.

‘Is this… real?’ I asked.

The witch hesitated before nodding.

‘You never told me…’ I trailed off, not quite sure how to phrase this question. ‘You didn’t tell me you knew her like this.’

Before Val—the adult Val—could give any reply, the vision changed. The child version of herself was older now, perhaps ten or eleven. She poked her head through a door, into some kind of village hall. There, Niamh sat again, at the head of an ornate dining table laden with food. But the real Val’s eyes weren’t on her—they were on a timid-looking couple sat at Niamh’s right.

‘Mum,’ she said, ‘Dad.’

More parents. Yusef really needed more imagination. Though, I wasn’t sure we could withstand any more imaginative traumas. ‘They knew her? They knew Niamh?’

‘They became friends. Niamh wasn’t always… what you saw. For a while—for many years—she was a friend to our town. She fought back the terrok infestation, dealt with the rockrats, even took down a neereagle. She encouraged my changeling abilities, supported me with them. She popped in on birthdays, brought me gifts.’

A growl echoed around the fog, followed by the sound of a falling tree.

‘But then we both came to understand what was happening to me. We both realised what my powers were. And she turned. She poisoned the minds of my parents, making them hate me. She destroyed my friendships. Made me an outcast. And never told me why. Why did she hate witches so much? What possible threat could I have been to her?’

Something clicked in my mind, then. I’d already come to forgive her—Yusef’s vision of my mother was right about that, and probably about the reasons why, too—but now I understood her. I understood why she was so scared of me changing. She was scared of me turning on her like that. Taking everything from her that she held dear—including the Player that she’d come to love.

‘Val,’ I said.

‘Yeah?’

I nodded to the vision of Niamh. ‘I think it’s time you got some revenge.’

‘She’s not real.’

‘So what?’

Val blinked up at me for a moment, then nodded. Her attacks wouldn’t hit anything, but there was maybe still a catharsis in taking down even an echo of the woman who betrayed her. The witch raised her hands, summoning her lightning magicks, and launched the attack down the table. The crackling power passed over everyone at that imaginary table without hurting them.

Everyone, but one.

A diminutive man at the closest end of the table shrieked with pain, then snapped his head towards us.

‘What the…’ Val mumbled, at the same moment that I said, ‘Yusef!’

As the man charged, I was tempted to open a portal underneath myself and Val to remove us from trouble. But what with this platform having an edge somewhere, I couldn’t risk it; if Val fell and I couldn’t see her, then she was as good as dead. Instead, I’d have to rely on my other skills for once.

I activated Knifestorm once more, as this ability was a more effective defence than simply trying to meet blade with blade. My dagger slashed against Yusef’s curved sword, knocking him backwards. But a Player—someone of Yusef’s level—shouldn’t have been staggered so easily. Just what was going on here?

Val pressed her own attack, relying on her lightning magicks as we were so far from nature up here. The attack made Yusef’s body convulse, and I wasted no time in jumping in to stab, stab and stab again. The man croaked as his last breath escaped his body, and then fell to the floor.

The witch arrived at my side. ‘That… was Yusef?’

I shook my head. ‘Can’t be. He would have—’

Swordsman of the Desert Sons defeated!

Knifework — +1,900xp

The vision faded from the dead man, revealing him for what he truly was; one of the bandits who had been camped outside the fortress. We’d thought they’d simply wanted no trouble when they’d let us by, but the truth was darker. Yusef had already enchanted them. They were part of his trap.

Whispers erupted around us, amongst the fog. Then screams, and shouts. But were these real, or part of Yusef’s trap? And just how many of our friends were still alive, within the mist? Val and I looked at one another, and nodded. We had friends to save, visions to shatter, and a Player to kill.

We stepped forward, and got to work.

"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%