‘I’m not gloating, I’m just reiterating that I was right,’ I said.

‘Styk?’ Val said, her eyes on the three women with fireballs hovering over their upturned palms.

‘Well, I was!’

‘Styk!’ she shouted.

‘What?’

‘Duck!’

She jumped to the floor just as the first fireball came shooting our way, and I followed suit with just enough delay to have the ends of my hairs singed. ‘You know, you really are a pain sometimes,’ Val muttered, scowling over at me from her position on the floor.

‘OK,’ I replied, as the other two fireballs soared overhead. ‘Any ideas how to deal with this?’

She shrugged. ‘One.’

Val leapt to her feet once more, just as the three Ascendant Fire Cultists were whipping up new fireballs, and with the twist of her right hand and lower arm, she summoned a billowing gust of wind that twirled around her wrist. ‘Honestly, I’m probably the worst person to throw fireballs at.’ With this, she released the wind, sending it billowing in the direction of the cultists, blowing the flames into their summoner’s faces.

The cultists screamed with pain, clutching their cheeks where the conjured fire had burned them, and then—with clenched teeth—turned their attention back to Val. As the three of them switched strategies, this time conjuring a ring of fire around Val and I, Corminar stepped out from around the corner.

The elven ranger released an arrow that caught one of the cultists squarely in the neck, causing them to break from their magicks and instead clutch at their wound—one which was loosing… quite a lot of blood. The circle of fire around me and Val became less intense, but still roared high enough that we stood little chance of getting out.

Lore stepped out next, but instead of coming out swinging, as I might have assumed he would, he came out with his hands raised. ‘Alright!’ he bellowed. ‘Alright, enough! We don’t need to fight each other.’

‘You dare interrupt our ritual?’ the closest of the cultists shouted.

‘Ritual?’ Val asked. ‘We don’t care about any stinking ritual. We’re just looking for our friend.’

‘Yeah,’ I added, ‘what’s this ritual for, anyhow?’

The same cultist responded. ‘Only by burning this world to ashes can we ascend to the heaven from which the Players have travelled!’

‘Did you hear that, Val?’ I said to her, doing my best to suppress a smirk, but failing miserably. ‘Not just evil—crazy, too!’

As it turned out, this was not the right thing to say, as it caused the cultist on the left to roar with anger and then loose enough fireball at us. Val wasn’t quick enough with her wind spell to catch it, but the cultist breaking from the circle of flames spell did mean that the fire was weak enough now to hop across—which both Val and I did.

Free of the circle, I readied myself to portal, thinking to use it to pull one of the cultists in reach of Lore, to be dealt with by means of massive sword. But, still new to the world of magicks as I was, I didn’t move fast enough. Two of the cultists worked together to try a new tack: a wall of fire that came charging towards us.

As Val tried to whip up a gust to blow it back at them—something that even I could have told her would have been fruitless—the bulky Lore charged across the room and tackled the pair of us back to the ground.

‘I only just got up!’ I complained, and in answer Lore blinked at me, confused.

As flames caught an old, dusty curtain behind us, I couldn’t help but for a moment flash back to Plainside, and the destruction courtesy of the pyroknight which had set me upon this quest to begin with.

‘Anyone got an idea?’ Lore asked as the flames continued to billow overhead.

‘I already told Styk: just the one, and I already tried it.’ Val directed her attention at me. ‘Can’t Mr. Portals figure something out?’

‘My surname is—’ I started to correct her, but Val reached out and patted me on the head.

‘Very good, but maybe not the time.’

I stuck my tongue out at her, even though she was right; my focus should probably have been on dealing with the three mad cultists rather than on bickering. As the three of us cowered behind a long table—one that was made of notable burning material [wood], I noticed—I craned my neck up to look at the three cultists. Each of them seemed not at all worried about their mana reserves, because their stream of flames was constant, a wall of fire crackling above us.

‘Well? Any ideas?’ Val asked, echoing my earlier question.

‘Three,’ I replied.

‘Show-off.’

With that, I pointed my hand towards where I wanted one of the portals to be—up above the fire cultists. I couldn’t see that spot, of course—not from where we were cowering behind cover—but with enough concentration I was sure I could get the portal where I wanted it. After all, since the upgrade to Local Portal II, I should have been able to create a portal within a 10 foot radius, even without eyes on it.

As the familiar warmth of a brewing portal spread within me, I prepared the other “end” of the portal. And I did it within the waves of fire crackling over head.

Screams erupted near instantly from the other end of the chamber, as the wall of fire entered my portal and came out billowing down onto its creators.

‘For fire sorcerers,’ Lore said, ‘They ain’t exactly specced much into fire resistance, have they?’

‘OK, hotshot,’ Val said, ‘What now?’

I answered her question by moving the closest portal end from the air above us to the ground below us, and the three of us started tumbling towards our aggressors.

Lore was already prepared to strike, this time bringing his massive sword down and towards the closest of the cultists. Val wasn’t prepared, but mostly because she seemed to prefer glaring at me, presumably for opening a portal underneath her without any warning. I should have been more prepared, but honestly I was approaching this fight one thing as a time.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

As I fell, rolling across the hard floor into one of the cultists legs, I pulled my Ranger’s Blade free. Without too much thought applied, I struck it at the nearest body part, which happened to be the cultist’s ankle. At least I buried it deep.

If the screaming had been fading since the cultists slowly extinguished the fire that encompassed them, it grew loud once more—as my knife met flesh and, more importantly, Lore’s Bane Sword cleaved one of the cultists in two.

Level 20 Ascendant Fire Cultist defeated!

Worldbending — +1,000xp

Worldbending increased to level 11!

Base Points gained — +2 INT, +2 Free Points (INT/WIS/CHA)

That was a good sign; that I’d been given so much experience despite Lore delivering the final blow meant that returning the fire to senders had dealt a lot of damage. This meant that the remaining two were surely weak. If also… red with anger.

I carried on slicing haphazardly at the nearest cultist’s ankle, until she glared down at me, snarling, and raised her hand in the air as though about to prepare another spell.

‘Uh-oh,’ I said, and then portalled myself out of there and back behind cover. It really was a useful skill when I remembered to use it.

Just as I was about to let the portal close behind me, Val cried out, ‘St-yy-k…’ I looked up at the portal and saw Val on the precipice at the other side, flailing her hands in the air to keep her balance. It was a confusing sight from this side due to the placement of the portals—it looked from my point of view like she was in danger of falling sideways.

I kept the portal open, my mana reserves draining considerably, and was almost immediately glad that I did, because Val lost her fight against gravity. I allowed the portal to close just as Val finished falling through it, and only in part released my mental efforts at the spell because she managed to land on me.

‘You need to warn us when you—’ Val said, and was interrupted by a wall of fire erupting overhead once more.

‘Lore?’ I called out.

‘Busy!’

‘Corminar?’ I tried instead.

But it was Tokas, not the ranger, who suddenly came bolting out of the corridor. I’d been starting to wonder where she’d got to—if she was even interested in helping us at all—and so the sight of the newest member of the team was welcome, even if she didn’t seem to like me all that much.

As she stepped into the room, she flicked her hands out at her sides. Despite there being no telltale red-tinged glow of illusion magicks—presumably Val had set her on to obscurems—within the blink of an eye there were two Tokases. She flicked her hands again, and then there were four. And then eight.

The cultist that Lore wasn’t currently tussling with staggered backwards, eyes wide, breaking the spell for a moment as she didn’t quite know where to direct it.

Amongst the flames, a new face stepped into the skirmish. The Player’s. The pyroknight’s, his tiefling bodyguard at his side.

I froze.

My heart seemed to beat louder than ever.

I—

‘Styk?’ Val said, clutching me by the shoulders. ‘Styk? Are you OK?’

‘I…’ I started, blinking her into focus. ‘The Player. He’s…’ I pointed to where the pyroknight had just entered the room, but standing there, in his place, was Corminar.

Val, hunched over me, looked over at Corminar, then blinked back at me. ‘You’re seeing things.’

‘I’m not seeing things, he was there!’ I shouted.

Val glanced around at Corminar, Tokas and Lore, who seemed to be turning the tide on the remaining two cultists. Satisfied that we were winning, she turned back to me. ‘If he was there, one of us would have seen him. It’s the fire, Styk. It’s reminding you of Plainside, and what you… what you saw there. You’re traumati—’

‘I’m not bloody traumatised!’ I said. I wasn’t. I really wasn’t. ‘I saw him. Him and the tiefling. They were here. They were…’ The logical part of my mind caught up with me; Val was right, if they’d been here, someone else would have seen them.

Val didn’t say anything more on the subject, but looked on at me for a few moments. ‘Come on,’ she said, pulling me back to my feet. ‘Let’s finish this.’

I nodded.

Saving the rest of my mana reserves, I opted instead to accompany Val in leaping the table and running—on my own two legs!—towards the enemy. While Corminar and Val focused on helping out Lore, I fixed my attention on the cultist that was dealing with the great many Tokases.

It wasn’t hard, finishing this fight. I wish I was now able to say that it was my trademark quick thinking and problem solving that allowed me to bury my knife in the woman’s neck, but it wasn’t. No, the answer here was simple: having a team was valuable.

While the real Tokas stepped suddenly out of the swirling copycat crowd, and punched the cultist in the nose, I simply walked up behind her and activated my stab ability. Both of the remaining enemies went down at almost the same moment.

Level 21 Ascendant Fire Cultist defeated!

Level 25 Ascendant Fire Cultist defeated!

Worldbending — +1,500xp

Worldbending increased to level 12!

Base Points gained — +2 INT, +2 Free Points (INT/WIS/CHA)

Knifework — +700xp

The five of us collapsed in relief that the battle was done, hands being placed on knees, arses being placed on disintegrating old chairs. When one such item of furniture collapsed under Corminar’s weight, none of us had the energy to mock him for it. We rested in this way until we finally all regained our breath, and then Lore was the first person to speak.

‘Anyone hungry?’ he asked.

Val made an exaggerated retching sound.

‘Lore, are you serious?’ Tokas asked.

The barbarian held up his hands in the air. ‘What? It was hard work!’

‘Nobody’s saying it—’ I started, but then approaching footsteps made a chill crawl down my spine.

Our heads snapped to the source of the noise—a figure cloaked in darkness, growing slowly closer, and with each step revealing themselves to be taller and taller, until they were near looming over us.

‘How are we all doing for mana and stamina?’ I asked.

"Styk"

Level 8 Novice Bladespinner

Base Stats:

Vitality — 14

Intelligence — 51

Dexterity — 22

Strength — 35

Wisdom — 22

Charisma — 0

Skills:

Knifework — Level 14

Worldbending — Level 12

Identification — Level 7

Stealth — Level 5

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.

Portal Slice — Passive. Portals can now be spawned within non-sentient objects. Doing so slices through all objects that are not reinforced by magic.

Stealth Attack — Passive. 50% 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%