‘What in all the hells of the underworlds below is—’ Lambkin started, and as the pyroknight started flinging another fireball in the man’s direction, I reached up and yanked him to the ground.

It was funny how things go. I was never massively keen on killing another person, but after all the stuff that Lambkin had put us through over the past few weeks, if someone had to die, then… Well, suffice to say it was better him than me. But now, things had changed in an instant. Lambkin now saw the truth for himself—that a Player really was behind the devastation of Plainside—and that meant one very specific thing in my eyes: he could be an ally.

‘It’s him!’ I shouted as I pulled Lambkin for the cover of the trees. ‘You see now, right? You see? He’s the one who did that at Plainside. Him!’

Lambkin, dazed, took a moment to nod his acknowledgement.

‘We need to kill him, alright?’ I shouted over the crash of fireball on the other side of the tree we were cowering behind.

‘Kill a… Player?’ Lambkin repeated.

‘Kill a monster,’ I replied.

This sobered Lambkin some, and after a gulp, some colour returned to his otherwise pallid face. He drew his bow once more, stepped out into the space between the trees, and was immediately caught in the chest by a flaming ball. It knocked him back across the woodlands, landing with a crash.

I poked my head around the tree, risking a fireball to the face, to get the lay of the land. Tokas pulled a screaming Val—gods, that sound hurt me—up to her feet, one hand emitting glowing yellow-white light as it closed up her burns. Lore stood once more—could nothing stop this man?—despite the clearly horrific wounds he’d suffered in the same strike that had set Val screaming.

While the pyroknight was distracted by the charging Lore, Lambkin pushed himself up to his feet. The ex-captain had clearly invested in Vitaly considering he was able to do so after such a direct hit from fire magicks, and without a fire resistance potion in him, at that. He joined Corminar in firing a torrent of arrows at the target, most of them hitting flesh, but still doing little more than irritating the man. Surely the damage dealt would add up at some point, though.

The Player instinctively moved to attack me once more—I was his target, after all—before hesitating. He turned on the spot, now facing towards where Tokas was rapidly healing the injured Val.

I saw immediately what he was thinking.

This battle had become a stalemate; the ever-impressive Arzak was a match for Lev, and the rest of us seemed like almost a match for the Player. At least, it was close enough for the pyroknight to be uncomfortable about it. If the battle was to turn in the enemies’ favour, they’d need to start eliminating us. And who better to start with than the woman screaming in pain?

‘Lore!’ I screamed.

The barbarian’s eyes snapped to me for just a second.

‘He’s going for Val! He’s starting to pick us off!’

Lore’s eyes widened further, and with a possibly unintentional roar, he rushed the Player once more. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result was madness, so it was said. But Lore’s abilities were geared towards one type of attack only: up close and personal.

The pyroknight put up a wall of fire in Lore’s direction as the barbarian grew close, and I flung my hand forwards to open up a portal between them for just a second. I closed it around the fire wall, ridding it from Lore’s path, and giving the barbarian an opening.

This was the first time that I saw the Player panic, doing a double-take at the charging Lore but not reacting fast enough to block the man’s sword. Lore swept his Bane Sword in a wide arc, powerful enough to cleave through the Player’s leather armour, and bury itself in his side.

The pyroknight roared.

All around the clearing, the rapidly growing flames froze for a moment, and then darted towards each of their commander’s enemies. A tendril flicked at Val, causing the screaming to evolve into crying. One smacked Lore’s side, causing him to lose his grip on his family’s sword. More still hit the two archers, and though I couldn’t see them through the raging flames, I could tell it had done them decent damage because the torrent of arrows stopped.

As for me, I saw the tendril of flame coming, and I resorted to my most robust ability, opening a portal in front of me just in time for the flames to move through it. Their other end licked at the Player’s face, but didn’t deal any decent damage to him, as far as I could see. I couldn’t have everything.

All this had to have drained the Player’s mana a good some; it was the first time I’d seen him use this ability, and there was only one decent reason not to use an ability as powerful as this—it cost too much mana. We were getting there. We were draining him.

Still the Players pushed on, Lore gritting his teeth through the pain and charging for his disarmed sword. The arrows resumed their arcs through the air, though more and more missed their target as the two archers struggled with their injuries.

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‘We’re not gonna…’ Val gasped through the screams. ‘We’re not gonna make it!’

Lore dove at the sword just as the Player shot a fireball in the discarded weapon’s direction, sending the Bane Sword skittering across the hot earth.

Tokas, still healing Val, eyed the sword, which had come to a halt not seven feet away from where she was crouched.

‘Styk!’ Corminar cried out, his eyes on the Player advancing on our screaming friend. ‘A portal. Small. In front of his face.’

The pyroknight couldn’t hear the elf’s instructions over the sound of the crackling fire—now near enough encompassing the clearing—because he didn’t react. This gave me sufficient time to do as Corminar instructed, opening a small portal just in front of him…

The elf raised his bow, aiming for the portal.

…And another right in front of the advancing Player’s face.

Corminar shot.

The arrow flashed through the air, slipping through a portal that was closing even as it passed through it, and hit the Player’s face.

No, I realised when the Player roared once more. Not his face. His eye.

This was enough to distract the roaring Player from Val, making him turn to the archer. He flung his arm up and sent flames flying towards Corminar before he could do much to move out of the way. The ranger took flames to one side, and rolled on the hot earth to extinguish them.

Through the flames, I stared at the pyroknight as he clutched the area around his eye, as though massaging it. Despite the fact that it had been hit by an arrow, it seemed in fairly good condition still, little more than bruised. The Player’s Vitality was through the roof if he could make it through a hit to such a vulnerable place with this level of damage.

But he was taking damage, I noticed.

Whereas before he’d been ignoring the arrows that had hit him—he looked almost like a porcupine, at this point—now our attacks were truly hurting him. The wound in his side, too, had enraged and slowed him, though it was looking not as bad—or good, from my perspective—as I had initially thought.

Behind the pyroknight, Tokas stood from the no longer screaming Val, her eyes still on Lore’s fallen Bane Sword.

I made myself not look—the Player had his eyes on me, and I didn’t want to give him any signal of what was coming.

Tokas stepped towards the sword, not moving quite as fast as I would have liked, her hands shaking.

As the Player began to cast his eyes over his shoulder, Lore charged forth once more, this time unarmed. It was enough, at least, to stop the pyroknight in his turn, distracted by thoughts of sending fireballs Lore’s way—which he did, blowing Lore to the ground.

Tokas pulled the Bane Sword from the floor, dragging it with an unease that said she didn’t have the skill experience to use it properly, and she grimaced as she reached the Player’s rear.

It wasn’t enough, I realised. It wasn’t enough, but I had an ability that might just turn the tide,

I used almost the last of my dwindling mana reserves to fall through the earth, reappearing just above where Tokas was holding the blade. As I fell towards the hilt, I prepared myself to activate Closed Reach; neither me nor Tokas had the One-Handed ability, so our damage dealt would be minimal. That was, unless the tip of the blade was suddenly folded into the enemy’s flesh.

The world seemed to slow as I fell that last two feet.

The Player turned to look where I’d got to. Tokas’s eyes widened. The pyroknight growled, preparing to strike. I reached forward for the sword in Tokas’s hands, and…

She dropped it.

‘No!’ I screamed.

Tokas stumbled backwards, suddenly flinging her hands out at her sides. ‘Lore,’ she said. ‘Carry me.’

The moment these words left her mouth, obscurem-hidden illusion magicks shot from her hands, forming shapes all throughout the clearing before Tokas fell, drained, to the ground. They were familiar shapes, I realised. Our shapes. A hundred or more Slayers appeared amongst the flames, no substance to any but the real ones, but enough of a distraction to…

‘Retreat!’ Lore shouted, picking up Tokas from the ground and cradling her in his arms. ‘Retreat!’

In the confusion that followed, the six of us withdrew from a battle we seemed now destined to lose, leaving the Player to furiously roar as he threw fire at the illusions of us.

Trees, aflame, fell behind us as we ran.

"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%