With the Player Slayers having split up, the atmosphere was much quieter. Almost too quiet, in fact, even with Val’s incessant commentary about absolute rubbish. I was happy that Val and I had been joined by Lore—he was the member of the Slayers who I’d meshed with the best over these past couple of weeks, though I suspected he got on with absolutely everyone.

We were heading for the town of Birrow, along the northern coast of the Iron Sea, based on a tip that Arzak had given us. There—if our orc friend was to be believed—was an expert in magical artifacts, who could take one look at the metal octahedron that had brought me back to life and give us a full account of its history. Again, I stress, that’s only what we’d been told; I was of the opinion that I’d believe that when I heard it.

We travelled at a reasonable pace, as we needed to meet back with the rest of the team at the inn we’d been staying at in a little over a week, and it would take most of that time to get to Birrow and back again.

As we walked, we made idle conversation, and it wasn’t long until the giant, intimidating barbarian was being very complimentary about my newly acquired abilities.

‘So cool,’ Lore said. ‘I love those portals so much. And proper powerful, if you use them in the right way, I reckon.’

‘Are you saying he hasn’t been using them in the right way?’ Val asked, gently teasing, but this teasing element going completely over Lore’s head.

‘No, no!’ Lore hurriedly added. ‘I loved that stuff with the water. That was a lot of fun.’

I let the barbarian off the hook by changing the subject. ‘You’ve never told me what your abilities are. I mean, I’ve seen you slash at stuff, but what’s the mechanic behind all that?’

‘Mechanic? You mean how does it all work?’

I nodded. ‘...Yeah.’

‘Oh, right, well…’ Lore shrugged, his cheeks reddening some. He was almost bashful about this topic of conversation. ‘Well, they ain’t as exciting as you two’s abilities. None of them magic, or anything. I get Strength bonuses on my attacks—stabbing, slicing and the like…’

‘Ah, yeah, I got similar ones for my knife.’ I pulled my ranger’s blade out to reinforce the point, and then immediately thought that maybe this came across like comparing sizes—a competition that I would definitely lose. I hurriedly put the knife away again, not completely able to ignore the resulting smirk from Val.

Lore nodded encouragingly. ‘Yeah, there’s a lot of overlap. But you get more Dexterity bonuses than I do. For me, it’s all strength. And then I got some other stuff—Heavy Armour, which mean I don’t tire as much, and I can keep it quiet. Oh! And I got some low level Smithing.’

‘Smithing?’ I repeated.

The barbarian shrugged. ‘I was into it as a teenager. Though I was gonna be a blacksmith when I grew up. Guess fate had different plans for me, eh?’

‘It has its way with all of us, Lore,’ Val said.

Lore looked thoughtful for a moment, before eventually nodding his agreement. ‘Yeah, s’pose it does.’

‘You ever thought about progressing Smithing some more?’ I asked.

‘Yeah. Yeah, I’d like to. I thought about getting a setup back on the farm, but I never got around to it. Maybe once this Player is killed, though…’ Lore smiled at the thought. ‘I could make armour for my sheep!’

Val clapped his friend encouragingly on the back. ‘You think there’s a broad market for that, do you?’

‘Probably!’ From the light in Lore’s eyes, the sarcasm was lost on him.

Once again, I found myself saving Lore from his own kindness. ‘What about you, Val? Feels like you’re always pulling out new tricks. You got anything you’ve not told me about?’

‘Nope!’ she said hurriedly.

‘What, just controlling the wind? Controlling nature?’

‘Just roots and branches,’ she corrected me. ‘Though I suppose I’ve got that summoning spell.’

‘Summoning spell?’ I asked.

Val kept her gaze fixed in the direction of travel. ‘Don’t worry about it; I never use it.’

‘She’s a good healer, too!’ Lore added helpfully.

‘I can cure a hangover. If that’s your definition of “good”, then—’

‘It is,’ I said, and Lore nodded his agreement.

‘—I guess I am, but nothing like Tokas, of course. How’s that knee injury I fixed?’

I glanced down at it—the spot where Lambkin had got me with one of his arrows. ‘It clicks when I walk.’

‘Exactly—maybe not a good healer.’

On the road up ahead, I spotted a group of people dressed in black. I put my hand instinctively to my knife, as I’d come to expect trouble on the roads, based on my experience of late. As the strangers approached, though, they passed without any trouble, and based on their teary expressions I realised that the black outfits were due to mourning.

‘You got your changeling abilities as well, at least,’ I said. ‘Not that you seem to use them ever.’

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

‘There’s a hard limit on them; I’m only a quarter changeling, aren’t I? Got to use it sparingly.’

A thought occurred to me. ‘Hey, speaking of magicks, do you think this magic expert could get me one of those gems you have?’

‘Gems?’

‘The thing that stops people seeing the glow of your magicks.’

‘It’s an obscurem, Sty, not a gem.’

I blew a raspberry at her, and then caught myself. Was this really who I was, these days? Someone who stuck their tongue out at people? Val really was a bad influence. ‘Looks like a gem to me.’

Val removed the gem from her pocket. It was just plain black for now, not glowing with the green hue of Val’s magicks, as she wasn’t currently using any abilities. ‘You act like these things are so rare.’

‘Well, I’ve never seen anyone else who has one.’

‘Magic users don’t tend to rub them in others’ faces; the whole point is to hide the magic. If you know someone has one, then you’re automatically suspicious of them.’

‘You have no idea how rare they are, do you?’ I asked.

Val sighed. ‘Literally Tokas has one. The only other magic user in our party. Look, we’ll get you one, but maybe let’s focus on killing this Player—’

‘Can I have yours, then?’

Val stared at me with hooded, unimpressed, eyes. ‘No.’

‘But you said they’re common!’

‘I didn’t say I didn’t need it, though, did I?’

I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at her, this time. Instead, I looked back at Lore, who was taking in this conversation with his eyebrows raised.

Conversation moved on, into the mundane and—at times—the obscene, though Lore was largely responsible for the former, and Val the latter. It was nice to be travelling with other people, not just because the roads had grown so dangerous these days, but because… I was learning to enjoy the conversation. And, yes, I was even including Val’s irritating digs at me in this.

Eventually, the conversation drifted around to something I’d been meaning to ask for some time now: how they’d come to realise that the Players weren’t all they were cracked up to be.

Val was reiterating the story like it was one she’d told a hundred times. ‘There was this Player, back home in the Goldmarch, who’d been given this quest that everyone had been talking about for weeks. Huge payout. Came from a relative of the queen herself. But the mission? To hunt a changeling.

‘Now, I know what you’re thinking: I didn’t stick myself in the middle of it, some noble pursuit to save one of my grandfather’s kind. No, the changeling in question was a no-good murderous vermin; she deserved to die.’

‘Who are you to—’ I started to ask.

‘Oh, shh, Styk,’ Val said. ‘Anyway, this Player, she didn’t track down the changeling in question. No, instead she tracked down me. It didn’t matter to her that I wasn’t the one the hunt was for—she just wanted her payout. So she tracked me down, forced me into the wilderness, and she hunted me like a wild animal. But she didn’t know that the wilderness is where I’m strongest.’

‘So you killed her? By yourself? Just you against a Player?’

‘What did I say about shhing? No, I didn’t kill her. I was lucky to escape alive, in fact. Remember that summoning spell I mentioned earlier? The one I don’t use?’

Val paused, and I kept quiet, having taken on board the instruction to “shh”.

‘You can answer the question,’ the sorcerer clarified.

‘Yes, I remember. I could’ve just nodded. You know, with all this shhing it really seems like you just like me doing whatever you—’

‘So I used that spell,’ Val continued. ‘It was the last time that I did, in fact. Reason is, I can summon the bogspawn perfectly fine, but I can’t… control it. Whether it attacked me or attacked the Player was just the roll of a dice, and I… was lucky. Nothing more.

‘The Player survived, as far as I know, but must have thought me too much trouble, because she didn’t come after me again. Maybe she thought I did control the bogspawn, who knows?’

‘I don’t,’ Lore pitched in, and Val notably did not “shh” him.

‘But my whole worldview was upended. I’d believed in the Players, just like anyone else. I’d been that naive young woman myself. So I dedicated my life to telling others what the Players are capable of. Few listened, though, in the end. Just a select few…’ She gestured to Lore, and by extension the whole of the Player Slayers.

‘Can I speak now?’ I asked.

‘Speak, applaud, whatever you like,’ Val replied.

‘I choose “speak”. What happened to that Player? If you didn’t kill her, is she still alive?’

‘I don’t think so. I never saw the body, but I heard she was eaten by an elderbeest. That’s why we don’t screw around with them.’

‘We managed alright with ours, I thought.’

‘Ours was a weak one,’ Val said.

Lore nodded his agreement.

‘What about you, big guy?’ I asked, turning my attention to the barbarian.

The smile faded from his face instantly. ‘I had a family. I don’t any more.’

I nodded, and a pang of guilt erupted in the pit of my stomach. Val glared at me, and behind Lore’s back I mouthed “What? You didn’t say!” in response.

The journey was quieter after that, with Lore retreating into himself for the next day or two, and he only perked up once more when he smelt the fragrant aromas of delicious food coming from the many stalls of a market town—one strategically positioned to be on the route of anyone travelling around the edge of the Iron Sea. While Lore hurried off in search of food, shouting excitedly, I cast my gaze over the rest of the market.

‘Oh, no,’ someone nearby said. ‘Oh, no. Not you.’

Remember that trouble I mentioned earlier? Here’s where it started.

"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%