‘So this is it then?’ I asked the Councilman. ‘Your big moment? You make some big speech about how we embarrassed you, pushed you into becoming this monster? That now you’re out to seek vengeance?’

‘Well, I—’ the Player started, but I cut him off.

‘I think it’s clear to all of us what’s happened here. Alenna made you like this, right?’ I gestured to his body, oozing and grey. ‘You heard that it could make you stronger? Strong enough maybe to even stop us making a fool out of you?’

‘I—’

‘Cos let me tell you, mate; we’re still gonna make a fool out of you. And this time, we’re not gonna let you go.’

I reactivated my Titan Husk ability, my skin beginning to ripple and warp, and I charged. In the moments before I hit him, the Councilman only laughed. What did he think was about to happen except that he’d corrupt me, that he’d add me to his horde? He thought his vengeance was going to be simple.

I was about to prove that it was not.

My blade pointing straight forward, I used the momentum of my tackle to add strength to the stab. The enemy didn’t even bother blocking me. My knifepoint went straight into his flesh, almost like a knife through butter, but much more gross. And my momentum had me crashing into the man’s abdomen.

He’d counted on this, I think. Why avoid a single attack when you were strong enough to withstand it, and it would spell an end to your attacker? Not just an end, even, but extra strength for your own personal army, as created by his spreaded corruption. But of course I did not get corrupted so easily, not anymore.

I twisted the knife in the man’s flesh, then put all my weight onto it to cut downwards. The man didn’t so much as flinch, and the pallid grey flesh seemed to close up behind my cut, the ooze working its magicks. I recoiled from the monster, taking my knife with me, and the enemy’s eyes widened.

‘You’re… you’re not…’

I heard Lore stumbling to his feet behind me, Val still presumably at his side. The Councilman’s eyes darted to each of them. It was all very well him getting close to me, but he couldn’t touch them. If he did, they’d be lost forever. So it was worth keeping his gaze on me.

‘I told you,’ I replied. ‘I’m here to make a fool out of you.’

The enemy’s eyes snapped back to me.

This time, it was his turn to charge.

I opened a portal behind me and stepped through it, leaving it open for the Councilman to follow. In the close proximity of Alenna’s surgery, Lore and Val were in danger, but out here there was a little more room to play with. I appeared out of the portal just as Arzak and the cultists were finishing off the latest monster, but they still needed just a few more seconds.

‘See?’ I told the Councilman as he appeared charging through the portal, and I opened another pair to dart out of his way. ‘Whatever you do to yourself, we’ll be stronger. We’ll still resist you. And you’re not getting away this time.’

The Councilman charged at me once more, roaring with fury, and I stepped through another portal. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Arzak’s sword blazing with the power of absorbed fire magicks. Finally, she put in the final, killing blow on the other enemy. I’d bought them enough time.

I appeared out of another portal behind the charging enemy, this time slashing once more. I knew it could do no good without fire to back it up—my attempt at an attack earlier proved that once and for all—but it was enough to anger him. It kept his focus on me—the one man he could not corrupt.

As the Councilman turned, I slipped through a portal and out of his reach, ready to—

An oozing chain snapped through the portal just as I let it close, wrapping itself around the wrist of my knife arm. A second later, it crushed it.

I fell to the ground, seeing black and overwhelmed by pain. My knife had long since fallen. Where, I could not see. All I could think about was the pain shooting up my right arm and that my fingers would not move. ‘Styk!’ I heard someone shout, but in my daze I couldn’t tell who.

A figure loomed over me. I blinked up at it, trying to bring them into focus, but my eyes wouldn’t behave—whether that was tears or the overwhelming pain, I didn’t know. No. I knew who it was. I knew who it must have been.

‘Cultists,’ I mumbled, meaning to give an order, but found my voice escaping me.

Flaming dots peppered the man looming over me, glowing orange orbs that try as I might, I still couldn’t bring into focus. But I knew what they were. They were the same flaming arrows that I’d seen the cultists fire at a half dozen corruptions by now. Sometimes, they’d been enough to bring the enemy to their knees. For a creation like the Councilman, however—a creation that Alenna had worked on directly—I knew it wouldn’t be enough to fell him.

As it turned out, it wasn’t even enough to distract him from me.

The blurry figure moved, and a moment later I felt a fresh pain erupt in my jaw. My head hit the dusty ground hard. With the sky spinning above me, I put out a hand to try to steady myself, to try to push myself back to my feet. But the moment I did so, another force bludgeoned me, sending me back to the ground.

I spat the blood from my mouth, pressed my hand against the dirt, and opened a portal. I didn’t care where I opened the other side; as long as it was away from here, it didn’t matter. But as I tumbled through, the oozing metal chain reached for me once more, this time snatching me by the neck. I dangled in the air as this metal snake wrapped itself tighter around my neck. It could have snapped it in an instant—even in my current state, I knew this—but I was saved by the Councilman wanting to saviour the kill.

I forced my vision back into focus just in time to see the battlefield thirty yards below me. The Councilman held his snakelike weapon through the open portal, and two dozen cultists fired their flaming arrows on him once more.

But then, there was Val.

A huge web of roots burst from the dusty ground, spreading in the blink of an eye. A moment later, it was as though the root structure of an ancient tree had grown around the Councilman, trapping him, but also—

The cultists fired their flaming arrows once more, and Arzak brought her flaming sword down upon the roots. They caught fire instantly. Whatever plant Val had chosen to summon, it was dry and highly flammable—just what we needed in this situation.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

I heard the Councilman scream in the same moment that the snaking chain weapon released me, and I lashed out to grab at the edge of my open portal, steadying myself for a moment so that I could work out what to do next. My right hand didn’t cooperate, having been crushed by the chain, and so I hung there for a moment by my left hand alone. The edge of the portal felt strange against my flesh, and almost tingling sensation to it, one that made my fingers grow numb. If I hung for much longer, then my fingers might grow so numb that I lost my grip entirely.

Looking down, I saw the monster use his immense strength to rip himself free of the burning roots. His skin hissed as it touched flame, but other than that, this damage barely seemed enough to even slow him. This corruption was stronger than any we’d seen before—any Alenna had created before—and so we’d need a lot more fire than that. I scoured my brain for possibilities.

Before, I’d dumped the burning contents of my pocket world on these creatures. There were two problems there: my pocket world was currently completely devoid of any Needlework supplies, and I wasn’t sure that would be enough to kill the Councilman anyway. Our other success had come from dropping burning buildings on these corruptions, but… this was going to be easier said than done, with an enemy as powerful as the Player below me. Still, it was our best bet, and there wasn’t enough time to give it any more thought, because the Councilman now turned on my friends.

I released the edge of the portal, allowing it to close as I plummeted, then opened another beneath me that had me fall on top of the enemy. I grabbed him around the neck with my bad hand, then tried to bury my knife in him with my left. It was… not my most successful attack ever. The point of my blade barely broke flesh, but then again, that wasn’t my intention. I attacked him only to get his attention back on me. And on that point…

…I was also unsuccessful.

The Councilman span, his snakelike weapon flailing out at those that surrounded him. Arzak leaped to the ground just in time for the weapon to skim overhead, but others weren’t so lucky. The weapon clipped three of those in orange robes, hitting them hard enough to knock them from their feet and have them sailing through the air. Two of them hit a stone wall, hard, while the other tumbled along the street, picking up scrapes and broken bones as she went.

I reached for the metal chain, knowing already that I wasn’t strong enough to disarm this enemy, but I could at least restrict his movements. As I grabbed the weapon near the man’s hand, I hung upon it, weighing it down—and even the Councilman could use it as a flail no longer.

But he could still change its shape. The chain warped beneath me, shrinking in length and growing in width, and I released it just in time to avoid being sliced by the sharp edges of the newly formed axe. The Councilman swung it at me faster than I’d anticipated, and though I staggered backwards, the axe caught me on the chest, striking a deep gash through the centre. If I kept taking hits like this, I’d be useless. Unless Val could somehow find the time to heal me.

I kept stepping backwards, my eyes darting around for something—anything—we could use against him, and I tried my best to ignore the pain blossoming in my torso. There was no time for pain, now. If I embraced pain, it was over. If I let myself feel the pain, there would be so much more to come.

The Councilman’s attention was now well and truly split. Even my recent attacks hadn’t been enough to keep him focused on me. I opened my mouth to let loose some more cutting remarks, but before anything could come out, the enemy snapped their attention to the nearest of the cultists.

The woman in orange met the enemy’s gaze, and then—very understandably—turned to flee. But it was a losing battle. This creation was stronger, faster than any of us could ever hope to be. The Councilman closed the gap on the cultist fast, then leaped into the air and came down upon her. When he landed, he grabbed the woman by the head, and for a moment I thought he was about to twist. Instead, however, he let his oozing corruption bleed into her. This was how the corruption had spread through Coldharbour, how he’d drawn us back here. But it was also yet another weapon in his already great arsenal.

‘We keep on like this, and it’s only a matter of time until we lose!’ Val shouted from across the dusty street.

‘I know!’ I shouted back at her, frozen, unsure what to do next.

‘Any ideas?’

I scoured my mind once more, desperate, thinking through every possible permutation of not just my abilities, but Arzak’s, but Val’s. And I came up with… nothing.

But then I saw the large silhouette of Lore, standing in the doorway of Alenna’s surgery, his eyes glowing more brightly than ever with the surging magicks of Divination.

‘I have one,’ he said.

"Styk"

Level 20 Bladespinner

Base Stats:

Vitality — 54

Intelligence — 251

Dexterity — 144

Strength — 89

Wisdom — 76

Charisma — 50

Skills:

Worldbending — Level 67

Knifework — Level 49

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.

Titan Husk — Warp your flesh to withstand all physical damage effects, including fire, frost, lightning, poison, and corruption.

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%