‘Ow, ow, ow,’ I complained, as Val pushed her low-level healing magicks into my knee. She’d removed the arrow head… not delicately, per se, but with slightly more consideration than I’d maybe expected. Though her magicks weren’t powerful enough to close the wound, Corminar had already bandaged it, and Val was at least able to numb the pain.

‘What do we do with this guy?’ the huge Lore said. Val and Corminar had told me he was tall, but “tall” was underselling it. Lore nudged the unconscious Lambkin with the tip of his foot.

‘Kill him,’ Val suggested.

‘I don’t kill people for doing their jobs,’ the man holding a baby sheep over his shoulder said. ‘You said you have a bounty on you.’

‘One based on a lie.’

‘A big lie,’ I added, testing my knee. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was going to have to do. Already my health bar was starting to very slowly recover.

‘So what? He don’t know that, does he?’ Lore replied.

‘If we do not eliminate the man, he will return,’ Corminar said. ‘There is too much at stake for us to allow such a man to go unchecked.’

‘I ain’t killing him,’ Lore said, nudging the man again. ‘If he ain’t dead already. I don’t hit that hard, do I?’

‘You do,’ Val said.

Corminar nodded. ‘Very hard indeed.’

‘Oh,’ the man said. ‘Well, I still ain’t killing him.’

‘Then what would you suggest?’

Lore stared down at the man, eyes seeming to be glazed over, before all of a sudden placing the sheep down on the floor at his side. He crouched down to look into the creature’s eyes, held out his index finger, and commanded, ‘Stay.’

‘Baa,’ the sheep replied.

‘Good.’ With that, Lore hurried off around the corner.

Val, Corminar and I turned our attention to the lamb, who blinked back mutely.

‘It’s staying,’ Val said, surprised.

‘Perhaps Lore hits his flock, too,’ Corminar suggested.

‘You’re saying you reckon he intimidates his sheep?’ I asked.

‘I do not believe they would be the most difficult animal to intimidate. If you think you would have trouble, then—’

‘I didn’t say that, I just meant—’ I started, but was cut off by Val.

‘He’s coming back,’ she said, nodding to the corner around which he’d disappeared.

Emerging down the road was a horse-drawn cart, an old farmer holding the reins, the massive Lore sitting by his side and causing the cart to tilt to one side. In the back, there was… a giant stack of manure.

‘What you doing with the poo, big guy?’ Val called out to him.

Lore clapped the cart driver around the shoulder, causing him to flinch. ‘My new friend, here, he’s heading north. Up to the farms in the Reaches, up near Thistle.’

We stared blankly on at him.

‘I’m saying we dump him in the back.’

‘Ahh,’ I said, at the same moment that Val said, ‘Ohh,’ and Corminar muttered, ‘A surprising yet rather fitting solution to our problem.’

The three Slayers—I didn’t get involved due to my healing knee—picked up the unconscious ex-captain and dumped him in the back, and the four of us watched him drift away into the distance.

‘So,’ Lore said, ‘I’m guessing you wanna see the farm, yeah?’

* * *

Lore’s farm was a good fifteen minute walk out of town, along a winding path—not quite a road—which went through a patch of lush woodland. On the other side, a small thatch-roofed hut stood in the centre of the farm, with a patch of wheat on one side tended to by a young dwarven man, and a fenced-off area containing sheep in the other. It was in the latter that Lore placed down his carried lamb, though the lamb craned its head the other way, snapping its jaw towards the wheat, desperate for a bite. Lore and I introduced ourselves to each other properly, and then the shepherd gave us a guided tour of his plot of land. Val, Corminar and I asked polite questions, but all three of us were clearly itching to get to the heart of the matter—why we were here.

It was Val who broke first. ‘There’s another one, Lore.’

Lore stopped mid-step, and the smile—which had seemed to be endless up until this point—faded from his face. ‘You want me to come with you.’

‘Why else would we be here?’ Corminar asked.

The shepherd’s face warped into a frown, the sparkle disappearing from his eyes. ‘Thought you might be checking up on an old friend.’

Val shot Corminar a dirty look. ‘We would, Lore, we would. I’d been meaning to for a while, I’d just been caught up in… Well, stuff. But it’s happened, Lore.’

‘How many?’ the shepherd asked, staring out onto his flock.

‘How many? Just the one, but—’

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‘No,’ Lore interrupted. ‘How many have they killed?’

‘...Ah,’ Val said, then looked to me for an answer.

‘Dozens. Hundreds, maybe,’ I said. ‘There wasn’t a huge amount of them left, so I don’t know for sure.’

Lore sighed, his inner conflict clear on his face; this wasn’t a man who worried about hiding his feelings. ‘Val, Cor, I… I got babies, now. I can’t just pack up and—’

‘You have babies?’ Val suddenly cried out excitedly. ‘Lore, why didn’t you lead with that? Where are they? I have to see them, where are they?’

Lore turned and frowned at the sorcerer. ‘They’re…’ he started. ‘They’re in front of you.’

Val and Corminar looked around, scanning over the fields in front of them, before turning on the spot to look behind them.

‘I don’t…’ Val started.

‘You mean to say you adopted the young dwarf?’ Corminar asked.

It was Lore’s turn to look puzzled. For old friends, they really were on completely different pages most of the time.

I leant in between Val and Corminar. ‘He means the sheep,’ I whispered helpfully.

‘No, he—’ Val started, and then met the ranger’s eyes. ‘Oh, gods, he does, doesn’t he?’

The seven foot tall, scarred barbarian blinked down at them, glancing from old friend to his woolly flock. ‘Yeah,’ he said, as though this should’ve been obvious. ‘They’re my babies.’

Corminar sighed. ‘Your reason not to join us on a quest of vengeance against the invaders from the ascended world is… sheep?’

‘My babies,’ Lore corrected him.

‘They’re sheep, though,’ Val added.

‘My babies are sheep, yes.’

‘You know,’ I cut in, ‘I think we’ve kinda got to the heart of the matter here, guys. No need to hammer the point home any further.’

‘Can’t…’ Val started, turning towards the farmhand in the wheat field. ‘Can’t he look after them?’ Before Lore could answer, she put her hands to her mouth and shouted, ‘Oi, you! What’s your name?’

The farmhand looked up at Val. ‘Seld!’ he cried back.

‘You reckon you can look after some sheep?’

‘Yeah!’

Val turned back to Lore. ‘See? Seld’s got it covered. We need you.’

Lore sighed. ‘No you don’t. I ain’t ever added much to the team, have I? What do I do that none of you do?’

‘You have a massive sword,’ Val said.

Corminar raised his eyebrows suggestively, and Val pulled a face in response.

‘Arzak has two!’ the shepherd protested. ‘Not as big, but they do the same job. And she’s smarter. And she hasn’t got the… the…’ he gestured to the scar on his face.

‘Lore, she’d tell you yourself she’s not nearly as strong as you,’ Val said. ‘You’re the muscle. The armour. The one who soaks up the damage. Without you, we don’t stand a chance.’

Lore looked from Val to me. ‘You were the one there?’

I nodded.

‘Were they really that bad?’

‘Pyroknight,’ I said. ‘Level 42. Burned a town alive.’

Lore raised his eyebrows. ‘I’d need to get my armour enchanted.’

‘That can be arranged,’ Corminar said.

‘Does that mean you’re in?’ Val asked, and I couldn’t help but notice she seemed a lot more excited at this prospect than at the prospect of Corminar joining them.

Lore held up his index finger. ‘One Player,’ he said. Lore sighed once more, as though he resented having to make this decision. He heaved his giant, wide sword onto his shoulder, and turned to the field in which his flock was grazing. ‘First, I will do what has to be done.’

Me and the two Slayers watched the man tread slowly but deliberately into the field, his weapon resting on his shoulder.

‘Is he going to…’ I began to ask.

‘I thought he described them as his “babies”,’ Corminar said.

‘Guess he’s gotta harvest the meat?’ Val said as Lore raised the blade into the air.

‘Mmm, lovely baby meat,’ I said.

‘Lamb baby meat. It’s weird when you don’t say that bit.’

Lore plunged the blade forward, hitting not animal but earth, thrusting sword firmly into it until it stood on its own. ‘On my sword, I will return,’ the shepherd said solemnly to his flock, who sporadically looked up from munching on grass, with expressions of very little curiosity. ‘Seld will take care of you while I’m gone. Good care of you.’

Lore knelt down in front of one of the lambs—the one he’d carried back from the town—and looked into its eyes. The lamb didn’t seem to mind Lore’s intimidating stature, the scar across his face, the deep booming to his voice.

He kissed the lamb on the forehead. ‘You’ll be good for him, won’t you?’ Lore asked the sheep. ‘You’ll behave yourselves?’

The lamb responded by chewing its mouthful of grass.

‘And no more headbutting him, OK?’

‘Baa,’ the sheep said, unconvincingly.

Lore kissed the lamb on the head once more. ‘There’s a good girl.’

The other three of us watched, each with at least one eyebrow raised, as the shepherd returned to us.

‘What?’ Lore said, with a shrug. ‘I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to my—’

‘Babies,’ Val and Corminar said in unison.

‘Exactly.’

I suppressed a smirk, but Val caught sight of it, and was forced to suppress one of her own in kind.

‘Alright,’ the sorcerer said. ‘Two recruits down, two to go. We go get Arzak and Tokas, then we go kill this Jake guy. Sound like a plan?’

Corminar nodded thoughtfully, while Lore pushed a smile to his face and gave the plan a big thumbs up.

‘How do you know he’s called Jake?’ I asked.

‘Oh,’ Val said, waving the question down as though I should’ve known the answer. ‘They always are.’

Corminar and Lore mumbled their agreement.

"Styk"

Level 6 Novice Bladespinner

Base Stats:

Vitality — 10

Intelligence — 29

Dexterity — 15

Strength — 27

Wisdom — 11

Charisma — 0

Skills:

Knifework — Level 12

Identification — Level 6

Worldbending — Level 5

Stealth — Level 2

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 II — Create a portal to another location within current range of sight or within a ten yard radius. Uses mana/second.

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%