I pulled the cork free from the vial Corminar had handed me, and the resulting pop was echoed by the five other pops of the Slayers doing the same. I gulped the liquid down without letting it touch the sides of my mouth—I knew from experience that potions rarely tasted good—and forced myself to ignore the heat that erupted in my throat.

Active Effect: +50% Resistance To Fire Sorcery

Minutes remaining: 59 / 60

When I was finished, I tossed the vial aside—right then was not the time to worry about littering—and looked to the rest of the team, signalling that I was ready with a nod.

‘Here?’ Tokas asked, gesturing to the dirt road. ‘Is this really the best we can do?’

The twist of Val’s hand—if no magical glow due to her obscure—told me she was doing some sort of magick.

‘Have better suggestion?’ Arzak asked. ‘If no sea, then—’

‘Northwest,’ Val suddenly interrupted.

‘What?’

‘Northwest,’ the sorcerer said again, nodding to the edge of the treeline at the side of the road. ‘There’s a pond there.’

‘How could you possibly…’ I started, but the rustling of bushes just where Val had been nodding went some way to answering that question. If I wasn’t yet going completely insane, I was sure I had seen a hare staring at us.

‘Trust me,’ Val said. ‘It’s not the Iron Sea, sure, but… Maybe it’ll be enough.’

We ran into the cover of the treeline, taking little care to hide our tracks—there wasn’t time, not when the Player was this close.

‘This way!’ Val shouted, pointing to a clearing ahead, the light of the afternoon sun illuminating our destination.

We burst out into the open, Lore stumbling at the edge of the small, green pond—one healthy and jam-packed with local wildlife. Val hadn’t been lying when she described it as a “pond”; there really wasn’t a huge amount of water to play with here. I kept my doubts to myself.

‘Positions,’ Arzak said, and her and Lore turned back to face the way we had come, each of them planting their feet firmly into the dry mud.

Val and Tokas took positions on opposite sides of the pond, a good few yards behind the two brawniest members of the team.

This left Corminar, who took my arm and led me—thankfully—to the far side of the pond. ‘Prepare your portals,’ he said, pulling his bow from his shoulder. He pulled a vial from his jacket that contained a vivid green liquid, and dipped all his arrows into it in turn. The elf flashed me a knowing look.

My head snapped forwards as Arzak and Lore adjusted their grip on their swords, and soon I too could hear the rustling rapidly approaching through the trees. I held my hands up in front of me, one pointing towards the pond, the other towards the edge of the clearing. Corminar knocked an arrow in his bow.

Two figures stepped out from amongst the trees. One human. One orc.

The Player and Lev stopped at the edge of the clearing when they saw us, and their two pairs of eyes scanned across each one of us. Their gaze lingered on Tokas for a moment before settling, finally, on me.

‘How?’ the Player asked, matching my gaze. ‘How did you use it? How did you survive?’

I didn’t answer, my every ounce of concentration fixed on the rest of my team, preparing myself to move as soon as they did.

‘No, you know what? Never mind. I don’t care.’ The pyroknight held out his hand. ‘Just give it back.’

This time, I answered. ‘It’s spent. You know that. It’s useless.’

A wide smile crossed the Player’s face. ‘Ah! Yes. I thought so too. But then you, of all people, led me to an expert in Birrow. An old man who gave me some answers. Some answers that I am only now realising that he didn’t give ot you. I suppose that’s the difference between having a friendly conversation and… well, torture.’

Lev nodded solemnly.

I gulped, my eyes flicking to Val, to Arzak, to Lore, willing them to move. I wasn’t sure how much more of this I could take; the pressure was getting too much. ‘What?’ I finally asked. ‘What did he tell you?’

The pyroknight shook his head. ‘No… no, you can get your own information. Well, you could if you were walking away from here. In fact…’ The Player looked at each of the Slayers in turn. ‘All the rest of you can still walk away from this, if you so choose. Any one of you.’ The man’s eyes lingered on Tokas once again, who admittedly looked closest to accepting this offer, being that her arms were shaking.

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Nobody spoke, and six pairs of eyes stared down two.

‘No?’ the Player prompted us. ‘Are you—’

Lore snapped first.

The barbarian charged forwards, swinging his Bane Sword overhead as he roared.

The pyroknight reacted near instantly, summoning a wall of fire in front of himself, and with the flick of a wrist, sent it billowing towards Lore.

I hissed through my teeth with fear just as Lore jumped to one side, narrowly avoiding the flames. Ah, not so much, I quickly corrected myself, seeing the skin of his left arm singe.

I snapped to it, sticking to the plan and concentrating on the pond—and trying to ignore the fact that the wall of fire had caught one of the nearby trees. Swinging my other hand towards the Player, I opened a portal, emptying the bulk of the pond’s contents—both water and wildlife—onto the enemy, drenching him.

The pyroknight roared with frustration, immediately forgetting about Lore and setting his eyes upon me.

‘Uh oh,’ I said. The drenching had been part of the plan, but the drawing his attention… hadn’t.

Meanwhile, Arzak had been charging forward at the left hand side of the pond—or, damp dip, as it was now—and she swung her dual blades forth in a complex attack. Lev ran between her and Player, blocking the two swords with a new axe of his own, then using his free hand to grab Arzak by the throat.

Corminar released arrow after arrow after arrow, each of them finding their target—the Player’s chest. But the pyroknight, for his part, simply didn’t seem to care; it was just like my ricocheting knives at Plainside all over again. That almost seemed like a lifetime ago, by this point.

‘I thought they were poisoned!’ I shouted, while Val ran forward to summon roots around Lev’s limbs, preventing him from strangling Arzak, but not getting enough purchase to fully restrain him.

‘They most certainly are!’ the elf ranger replied.

Oh. That’s really not good, then.

Tokas sent healing magicks Lore’s way, accompanied by a brilliant yellow-white light, as her obscurem was apparently geared towards hiding her illusion magicks. The burnt skin of Lore’s right arm healed back to its former self within instants—but there was a limit to how much Tokas could heal, both in terms of time and mana reserves.

Healed, Lore pressed forth once more, swinging his sword in another long arc—an arc long enough that it gave the Player a moment to react. Again, the pyroknight sent fire magicks the way of our barbarian, and again he narrowly almost avoided getting hit. This time, though, the fire magicks were dampened by the layer of water I’d poured over the enemy. The pyroknight was still using as much mana, but his attacks would do less damage.

Tokas had to heal Lore once more, but this wasn’t the end of the world. We needed the Player to use up all his mana, after all, and if Lore could learn to start doing that without getting burned in the process, we might stand a chance. Already the emptied pond was starting to help.

Val managed to get some purchase with one of her summoned roots, what with Lev being distracted by Arzak’s incessant attacks. She yanked his axe arm backwards with these tendrils, giving Arzak an opening. She pressed the attack with her blades, cutting through the other orc’s thick armour and drawing the tiniest amount of blood. But it wasn’t long until Val’s roots snapped, and the enemy orc had his guard up once more.

The Player fought his way past Lore, using his weakened fire magicks to repel my brawny friend. The pyroknight’s eyes never left mine, and I reached for the ranger’s blade—a weapon that wouldn’t kill the Player unless the rest of the team had done a lot of damage to him already.

‘Drop him!’ Val shouted. ‘Styk, drop him!’

‘On it!’

I reached one hand to the heavens, opening a portal as high as I could manage, and then, still staring the Player down, dropped him.

He fell instantly, and in the split second I thought I’d bested him, I noticed one hand gripping on the side of the portal.

No. Of course it wouldn’t be that simple.

"Styk"

Level 8 Novice Bladespinner

Base Stats:

Vitality — 16

Intelligence — 69

Dexterity — 23

Strength — 36

Wisdom — 23

Charisma — 0

Skills:

Worldbending — Level 16

Knifework — Level 15

Identification — Level 8

Stealth — Level 5

Abilities:

Slice — Slice the enemy for physical damage worth weapon’s base damage and additional damage scaling on [STR].

Stab II — Put your weight behind your wielded blade and force the tip through tougher hides and armour. Damage scales on [STR], increased by an additional 20%.

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.

Ash Husk — Convert your flesh to ash, strengthening it against flame for ten minutes. Gain 50% resistance to fire attacks.

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%