I didn’t need Lore to say it twice. If he had a plan—whatever it might be—then that was better than anyone else could say. With the flick of my unshattered wrist, I sent one of my portal relays soaring towards him, giving him the ability to easily give commands.

Whatever his plan, I assumed it had something to do with those glowing yellow eyes. His Divination powers were active, and he could foresee the battle to come, at least in some sense. Of course, these magicks were always inevitably flawed, but flawed or not, they were powerful. Maybe something good would come of Niamh’s curse after all.

‘Arzak, charge!’ the barbarian shouted.

The orc did so without hesitation. I didn’t know whether this was because she shared my understanding of the situation, or if she simply trusted Lore with her life, but I supposed it didn’t matter. He’d told her to charge, and charge she did.

‘Left!’ Lore cried.

Arzak shifted one foot to the left just as the Councilman turned, ghostly chain flailing towards her. The weapon missed by perhaps a foot, though would have struck true if Lore hadn’t seen this coming.

‘Duck!’

Arzak ducked. The next flail of the enemy’s chain whipped over her head. She drew closer to the enemy, and raised her still-flaming sword. It was at this moment that everyone else—me, Val, and the dozen or so cultists—realised we should press the attack while the Councilman was distracted. Many of the cultists peppered the enemy with attacks, though I suspected only the one capable of summoning fireballs was able to deal any damage. Val and I, however, knew enough about the spread of corruption that we looked instead to the person that the Councilman had put his hands upon—and turned into a monster.

The ex-cultists skin was paling fast, their once bright pink irises turning black. How much time did we have until the corruption took over their mind? How long did we have while they were still themselves?

And did it make sense to kill them before it took hold?

‘Val,’ I said, and the witch met my eyes. She nodded.

I portaled us over to the corrupted woman’s side in an instant, and we wasted no time in striking. Val sent waves of lightning magicks coursing through the woman’s body, pausing only to let me in for a closed reach stab. Even in my left hand, my blade dealt significant damage to the robed woman. We were early enough; the corruption hadn’t taken hold so much yet that only fire would kill her. But that meant we’d killed woman, not monster.

Town planner defeated!

Knifework — +1,500xp

Worldbending — +300xp

I pushed the notifications aside immediately, not needing the reminder of the innocence of the woman we’d just killed. From the glum expression on Val’s face, she felt the same. We switched our attention back to the Councilman, on whom Arzak was landing attack after attack with her flaming blade. And with Lore to instruct her—to foresee the enemy’s attacks—she avoided getting corrupted in the process.

‘Now, Styk!’ Lore shouted through the relay.

I was moving before I really knew of it, opening a portal at my side and blinking into the space next to the enemy. I had no fire magicks at my disposal, but that didn’t mean I was useless; I could still draw the enemy’s wrath.

I sheathed my trusty blade, instead grabbing a discarded knife from the ground—I say “discarded” when I really mean “fallen from a dead cultist’s hand”—and made first use of the ability I’d gained while chasing Yusef across the desert. It was an ability I’d made plenty of use of in my first life, despite being a simple one. Sometimes it was those simple abilities that were most versatile. I threw it.

The blade was slightly rusty, and not as sharp as it could have been, but still it was enough. As I released, the knife tumbled through the air, soaring towards the enemy’s shoulder. I was crouching, scrambling for the next projectile even before the thrown blade wedged itself deep in the Councilman’s shoulder. As the enemy hissed, I threw once more, but this time I aimed to do more than just draw this monster’s attention.

I knew only fire could deal damage to someone touched by corruption, but that didn’t mean my Knifework was useless. I could still use it to turn the tide. I threw this second blade towards not shoulder, but eye. Even thrown from my left hand, activating an ability made the knife hit true. I heard a squelch as the bladepoint pierced eyeball.

The Councilman roared, clutching at his now-missing eye, then charged at me.

‘Time to run, Styk!’ Lore said, though I didn’t need the gift of Divination for that one. I opened a portal behind me, falling through it clumsily. As I stepped out the other side and let the portals close, I stumbled into a fallen cultist and tumbled towards the ground. Out of instinct, I put out both hands to break my fall, and immense pain shot through my right arm when I landed on my crumpled hand.

‘Styk!’ Val shouted, but she wasn’t fool enough to rush to my aid.

As the half-blinded Councilman turned to my new position to charge at my once more, I splayed my left hand against the ground and used it to open a portal back into Alenna’s surgery, and out of sight.

I just needed a moment to gather myself.

I looked around at the interior of the building, as though I might find the solution to our inevitable defeat, when the front brick wall crumbled. Debris and dust washed over me, knocking me from my feet once more, and though this time I didn’t have time to put out my hands, I still landed on my injury. The roof creaked above me as part of its support had been taken away, but I had arguably bigger things to worry about—like the ghostly chain shooting towards me once more, through the hole in the wall.

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I tumbled through portal once more and back outside, and shouting, ‘Could have warned me!’

But across the dusty, body-littered street, I saw Lore blinking. I saw the yellow-white glow in his eyes flickering. He’d made enough use of the power that it was waning on him, in need of time to recharge. If he had a plan to finish this, we’d need it sooner rather than later.

‘Lore?’ I shouted, prodding him into action.

‘I…’ he started. ‘I think I see… Duck!’

But it was a moment too late. The Councilman whipped his ghostly chain at me, knocking me from my feet yet again, and following the attack through enough to hit four of the remaining cultists. All five of us soared through the air, though I only saw—felt—where I landed. I hit my head against something hard as I came to an abrupt stop, and in the initial seconds after the impact, that was what I focused on. But then I saw the splintered wood piercing through my left calf, and the pain followed soon after.

The Councilman wasn’t one to leave it there and call it a day. He moved with the momentum of his pointed ghostly chain, whipping it around him and back at me once more. I tried to scramble back to my feet, but my left leg wasn’t strong enough to support my weight. I tried instead to open a portal, to fall backwards through it, but I was a fraction of a second too late. The chain soared towards me, its sharp point shooting towards my chest, and—

Roots burst up from the ground in front of me, knocking the enemy’s weapon from its path of attack at the very last moment. Again, the Councilman roared in frustration—these Players couldn’t deal with anything not going their way—and this block was enough to turn the enemy’s attention onto Val.

And Val couldn’t escape his attacks so easily.

The weapon soared back around for a third attack, once again leading with its sharp point. Val saw it coming, diving out the way, but the Councilman had expected it. His weapon diverted at the last moment, its point burying itself in Val’s side.

She howled, and my stomach lurched.

Suddenly, the pain in my leg didn’t seem so bad any more. Nothing seemed as bad any more. I had only one thought in my head: this man needed to die. Now. I pushed myself back to my feet, my left leg shaking beneath me, ignored by my mind.

The Councilman warped his chain back into axe once more, and moved as if to stand over Val. As if to finish her off.

‘Pathetic,’ I spat, half-conscious that my saliva was red, not white.

The enemy’s head snapped towards me. He shot daggers with his remaining eye, his injured one healing, but healing slowly—and entirely black with the ooze of corruption.

I tried not to look at Val, to keep my eyes squarely on the Councilman. But I saw it—the pool of blood appearing around her. She was alive, for now, but wouldn’t be for much longer. And she was our only Healer.

It was now or never.

I opened a portal beneath me, dropping through it and out above the enemy, pointing my blade down and activating stab, just as I had done against the pyroknight all those moons ago. I knew it wouldn’t kill him. I knew it was just a distraction. But I’d seen Arzak charging in for the attack at the same time. Maybe my distraction would be enough. Maybe it would give Arzak the opening she needed.

The ghostly axe warped into chain once more.

It snatched me from the air, grabbing me by the ankle.

The Councilman hung me upside down in front of his smiling face.

‘Revenge,’ 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%