The great, hulking creature—one with a figure that put even Lore’s to shame—remained oddly still at the edge of the darkness, only their silhouette and golden eyes illuminated by the low light of the remnant fires.

‘Of all nasty creatures in nasty place…’ the figure said, ‘I do not expect find you here.’

The creature stepped into the light, revealing themselves as a tall, ageing orc with a wide smile on her face, just below a pair of very thick spectacles.

‘Arzak!’ Lore cried out, immediately dropping his sword to the floor with an almighty clatter and running to embrace the woman we’d been searching for.

Arzak returned the hug slightly less enthusiastically, but with a good-natured smile nonetheless. ‘It is good see you too, old friend.’ Her accent was notably orcish, but clearly tempered somewhat by spending lots of time amongst elves and humans. She wore on her back not one but two swords, each long and thin, and—to my naked eye—seemingly sharp enough to cut through solid wood with ease.

‘What all doing here?’ she asked. ‘Taking mercenary work without me?’

‘Looking for you!’ Lore said, having released Arzak from his hug but clearly wishing he hadn’t.

‘And why is this?’ Arzak asked, and then her face mellowed some as she came to the obvious conclusion. ‘Do not tell me…’

Val nodded. ‘Another one.’

‘Where?’

‘Plainside,’ I said, and the orc looked at me for the first time, considering me.

‘That was Player?’

I nodded.

Val pointed to me. ‘He was there. He saw it first-hand.’

The orc raised an eyebrow, pausing for a moment, clearly to identify me. ‘And how is this? Must be only one who escape.’

‘I—’ I started, but Tokas interrupted.

‘Perhaps a story for later? We are, after all, in the middle of a dungeon, and there is an elderbeest hanging about.’

Arzak furrowed her brow. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘More than one. They said baby beest. We told that it easy job and—’

‘“We?”’ Corminar repeated.

‘They all dead,’ Arzak replied. ‘I almost dead too. I lucky, like new friend here.’ She nodded to me. ‘But…’ She pulled the swords from her back, and one of them was notably shorter than the other. It took me a moment in the low light to realise that the shorter one had been snapped in half.

No, I realised after another moment. It wasn’t snapped in half; those were teeth marks at the end.

‘I stop bite with sword. Half of sword bitten from reality.’

I nodded. ‘Right. And the reason we haven’t got out of here yet is…?’

‘I take quest? I finish quest.’

Val stepped forwards to Arzak. ‘If you think we’re helping you, you got another thing coming. We’re not here to get killed. Or… erased, or whatever those things do to you. Leave the elderbeests here—they’ll only be feeding on the bad types who still use this place—and come join us. There’s bigger fish to fry.’

Lore’s stomach rumbled at the mention of frying fish.

Arzak looked nervously behind her. ‘I did wonder how one woman kill four elderbeests.’

‘Four?’ both Val and I immediately repeated.

‘At least,’ came Arzak’s reply. ‘And I think—’

The noises that erupted down the tunnel behind Arzak were monstrous, loud, and clearly came from a creature that had never once worried about stealthy.

‘Well, there is one,’ Arzak said, then turned back to us.

Tokas moved first, bolting back the way we’d came with me hot on her heels. I didn’t hang around to see if the other four were hurrying this way too, but from the sounds of footsteps at my rear, it seemed like at least some of them were.

A few moments later, this very question was answered by Lore calling out, ‘Arzak! Corminar! You ain’t gonna handle it by yourself!’

The pairs of footsteps fading behind me caused me to turn, and I could see Val and Lore looking on, horrified, as Corminar and Arzak stood their ground against the creature.

After a second more, the giant deer-like creature charged into the chamber, slowing only slightly at the sight of the fire remaining from the earlier fight. It was a monstrous being, but not because it possessed long claws or sharp teeth, or any of the useful sorts of things that said “avoid me if you want to live”. No, there was a far more bone-chillingly terrifying vibe to it. Its eyes seemed hollow, the blackest of blacks with a small dot of bright light in the centres. As it roared, I saw behind its jaw, and at the great nothingness that laid within it. Not black, not empty—simply… nothing.

‘Arzak!’ Lore cried out. ‘Cor!’

But the pair of them didn’t pay him any heed, instead running and launching themselves towards the creature.

I thought quickly once again, which isn’t to say I thought well, but in this case it was about as good as I could do. Flinging one hand forwards and one hand back down the corridor behind me, I cast a local portal that Arzak and Corminar couldn’t help but tumble through, bringing them far away from the creature and causing Tokas to hop around them as she fled.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Val made an approving shape with her mouth, and on her signal, the three of us began to charge from the elderbeest once more.

Up ahead, down the dark, dingy corridor, we could see two figures that definitely weren’t fleeing.

‘Run, you idiots!’ Val cried at Arzak and Corminar, and for a moment I took comfort in the fact that Val was calling someone else an idiot for once.

‘We can slay this foul creature if we—’ Corminar started, but Val interrupted as we charged past them, the elderbeest worryingly close behind us.

‘It can slay you, maybe. Don’t make me make him portal you again!’

‘I’m not a dog, you can’t just order me to…’ I protested, but trailed off when I realised I absolutely was going to have to portal them again. With the same outstretched arms as before, I opened another portal below Arzak and Corminar, and another one in the chamber ahead of us. They fell through it just before the elderbeest could snap its jaws around Arzak.

‘Any reason you’re not using the portals for us?’ Val asked.

‘Yes, panic,’ I replied, then was about to create another pair of portals for Val, Lore and I, when I caught sight of my mana reserves. ‘Also, I’m nearly out of mana. You want me using it all up?’

‘No,’ Val grumbled, and the three of us pressed through a slightly-too-small doorframe into the next chamber, all of us stumbling on one another and then toppling to the ground.

As we picked ourselves up off the ground, Arzak, ahead of us, muttered loudly, ‘Close one,’ and then grabbed at Corminar as he tried to charge back into the fight. ‘Maybe fight is too much. We leave now, handsome one.’

Corminar tripped over his tongue in apparent indecision between complaining about having to leave and gloating about being called handsome, and instead settled for trying to pull himself loose of Arzak’s strong grip. In this, he was unsuccessful.

Now that we were all running in the correct direction, I was a little less worried about my dwindling mana reserves—now about a quarter remaining—and so when the elderbeest came upon Val, Lore and I, I was already ready with the portal. We tumbled through, Val somehow landing in Arzak’s available arm while Lore and I fell to the floor once more.

This time, the pair of us were quick to pull ourselves back up to our feet, and it was a good thing too, because the elderbeest seemed to be continuing to accelerate, moving faster than I would have thought possible of a creature that size. ‘It’s gonna catch us!’ I cried.

Everyone continued to run, but Corminar shot an arrow from his position under Arzak’s right arm—one that seemed not to irritate the elderbeest even a smidgen, judging by the lack of complaint. Under the orc’s other arm, Val brushed her hands to one side to build up a gust of wind that would catch the ample amount of dust and temporarily blind the elderbeest.

I didn’t turn to look at its reaction, but from the sounds of the loud thunk that followed us passing out through the main entrance, it was blinded enough to hit its head on the doorframe.

But that only delayed the inevitable; it wouldn’t stop it.

The six of us charged out into the open, with Tokas way ahead, passing through the gate.

‘Don’t suppose elderbeests don’t like sunlight?’ I called out.

‘No luck such as this,’ Arzak growled in response. ‘Ideas, now.’

Nobody could give Arzak the answer she was looking for, and each of us remained quiet but for our increasingly loud breaths.

‘Through gate,’ the orc bellowed. ‘There we fight.’

‘Fight?’ Val protested. ‘I thought you’d come around to—’

‘It is fight or it catch us. What choice?’

To this, Val again had no answer, and we pressed on. Lore and I, at the back of the group, kept our eyes fixed firmly on the gate ahead of us, and not the strange high-pitched whining sound that seemed to emanate from the monstrous beast behind us—a sound that grew louder with every moment that passed.

As we passed through the archway, it was time. Time for one of those trademark Styk quick-thinking strategies—maybe, I realised, we wouldn’t have to fight, after all.

The moment I was clear of the archway, I jumped to the floor, facing upwards, rushing my hands into the air. Each hand I pointed at a different corner of the archway, and in the blink of an eye, I poured all of my remaining mana into a portal slice.

At first, the stone archway only cracked, both in its top-left and its top-right corners, and I thought I’d royally screwed up with the whole “throwing myself to the floor” bit. But Lore—not someone who I was coming to think of as a quick thinker—saw what I was doing, and he responded in kind.

The great barbarian took his sword by the hilt, and as throwing a javelin, launched it into the stone at the top of the archway.

As it hit, the stones began to crumble, and the top of the arch—and the remnants of wall atop it—came tumbling down just in front of the charging elderbeest. It roared with frustration, and both me and the five Slayers waited with bated breath for any sign that the elderbeest had given up the attack.

Due to the resulting notifications, myself, Corminar, and Arzak—those who had attacked the beast in some way—breathed a sigh of relief.

Level 28 elderbeest defeated!

Worldbending — +2,800xp

Worldbending increased to level 13!

Worldbending increased to level 14!

Base Points gained — +4 INT, +4 Free Points (INT/WIS/CHA)

That was a lot of experience considering we didn’t even slay the beast, only instead narrowly avoiding getting eaten by it. I quickly placed all my free points into Intelligence—as was tradition, these days—hoping it would replace my mana bar somewhat, and then moved to stand up, thrusting my hands into the air. ‘We did it!’ I cried out, exhilarating washing over me.

Then the world grew faint and suddenly I was falling, exhausted, to the ground.

"Styk"

Level 8 Novice Bladespinner

Base Stats:

Vitality — 14

Intelligence — 59

Dexterity — 22

Strength — 35

Wisdom — 22

Charisma — 0

Skills:

Worldbending — Level 14

Knifework — Level 14

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%