The cave was silent.

Arzak, Val, Lore, Tokas and I had made it out together, fleeing through the burning forest until we outran the Player and his flames, the illusions of us keeping our enemy occupied.

All of us were hurt to some degree, from Tokas and I who’d escaped most hits, to Arzak who had significant slices and other sword wounds in her flesh, to Val and Lore, who had received the worst of the fire damage. It was these last two that Tokas silently tended to, though she couldn’t heal them entirely; she’d had only two mana potions on her person, and Corminar had disappeared with the rest of them.

‘Do you think he’s alive?’ I asked, shattering the silence.

‘He alive,’ Arzak replied instantly. From her snappy tone, there was no room for argument in this matter.

Movement outside the cave, in the depths of the forest, made Val and me flinch. A moment later we saw its source. A deer. A simple, basic, deer.

‘He’ll find us,’ Val said, her voice breathy as she tried to talk through the pain. ‘He’s a good tracker. The best of us.’

‘Better than the Player?’ I asked.

‘Don’t do this now,’ Tokas said, concentrating on her healing, presumably making it as efficient as possible.

‘Well of course you would say that,’ I replied. ‘You don’t wanna talk about it? I bet.’

‘What this mean?’ Arzak asked.

‘She had the opening! We had the opening! We could have finished this!’ After a moment, I realised that not only was I shouting, but tears of anger were dotted on my face.

Tokas remained quiet, apparently focused on the task at hand. But even Val’s expression suggested that the rest of the team, too, wanted answers.

‘There was no guarantee,’ Tokas said. ‘Think what he’d have done if he survived.’

‘Surely nothing worse than he was bloody doing already! Did you not see the attacks Lore took? Do you not see the burned flesh you’re working on right this bloody moment?’

Tokas didn’t reply, and infuriated, I brought myself to my feet. Before I realised it, I was advancing on her with my knife drawn.

Arzak’s hand snapped out to stop me. ‘No. We not do this.’

‘He’s a Player,’ Lore said, glumly, still cradling his arm. After this, I suspected, there would be more than just the one scar on his face, especially if Tokas wasn’t able to heal it any time soon. ‘We never know if we’re gonna beat them. And we didn’t exactly have much time to plan. Normally we have a trap, we have more advantages.’

‘This time we were on the run,’ Val added.

Lore nodded. ‘And for both of the others, we—’

My heart skipped a beat when I realised what I’d just heard. ‘“Both”?’ I repeated. ‘What in the hells do you mean, “both”?’

Lore’s face paled. ‘Did we not tell—’

‘Just how many Players have you killed?’ I demanded.

Nobody responded.

‘How many? How bloody many?’

‘Two,’ Arzak finally answered.

I opened my mouth, but for a moment no words came out. ‘...Two? Two? All this time I’ve been following you, I’ve been thinking that you’re all some kind of experts in taking these people down. But you’ve only killed… You’ve only killed two?’

‘They’re powerful!’ Val replied. ‘And we’ve killed a good few other people who needed to go, too. Just not always… Players…’

I shook my head erratically, blinking, hoping that this was some kind of joke. ‘So?! How can you call yourselves The Player Slayers when…’ I trailed off for a moment, my mouth moving but again no sounds coming out. ‘Two?’

‘That’s more than anyone else on this gods-forsaken world has killed!’

Still, the head-shaking continued. ‘I’m screwed. I’m totally and utterly screwed. This Player, he’s not gonna stop coming for me, you know. He’s not gonna stop until I’m dead.’

‘He won’t stop until all us dead, now,’ Arzak said.

I closed my mouth, thinking this piece of information through. ‘Then… why? Why do all this? Why get in the middle of it?’

A moment of silence followed, and I didn’t recognise it as being one of confusion until Val finally gave me my answer.

‘Because it was… Cos it’s the right thing to do,’ she said.

* * *

I awoke with the morning light, alerted by footsteps approaching the mouth of the cave. My instinct was to reach for my blade, to do something, to do anything to protect us from what was surely the Player, here to finish what he started.

But it was a very welcome face that stepped out of the trees instead.

‘Cor!’ Val shouted, then immediately regretted making so much noise, putting a hand to her mouth.

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‘Is everyone…’ the ranger said. ‘Did everyone make it?’

‘You were the last,’ Val said, and threw her injured arms around our elf friend.

Corminar’s eyes bulged at the sight of her injuries. ‘You’re still hurt. Didn’t Tokas…’

Val shook her head. ‘Out of mana. I need your potions.’

When Corminar entered the cover of the cave, the rest of the Slayers stirred, and each were equally happy to see that they hadn’t lost a member of their party over the course of the evening.

‘Lambkin escaped too,’ Corminar said once all of the hugging was over. ‘I saw his tracks while I was tracking you.’

‘And the Player’s?’ I asked.

The ranger shook his head. ‘I didn’t see them. But I would advise against staying here much longer; the more distance we put between us and him…’

‘...The more chance of survival?’ I finished.

Corminar nodded.

‘We need plan,’ Arzak said. ‘We should heal first. Then we must find way of overcoming Player.’

‘Then we need a few days,’ Tokas added. ‘I’ll heal what I can, but these wounds run deep. We need rest. We’ll need to buy ourselves some time.’

‘OK. What we have? What we use to buy time?’

‘I would be able to disguise our tracks,’ Corminar said. ‘It would not fool a more advanced tracker, but I do not believe either of them to be so adept.’

‘OK,’ Arzak said. ‘Good. What else?’

‘We could plant some lies in villages?’ Lore suggested. ‘Talk about people who look like us heading in other directions.’

‘And how might we do that if we are the ones planting such rumours?’ Corminar asked.

‘Someone here can hide their face, though, can’t they?’ Lore said, nodding to Val. ‘She can…’

But I didn’t hear the rest of this conversation.

Lore’s words, about hiding faces, triggered a sudden and horrifying chain of thoughts, each more horrifying than the last. Hiding faces. Yes. But it wasn’t just one of us who could do that. It wasn’t just Val’s changeling ancestry. Tokas had illusion magicks too, didn’t she?

The seed of a thought planted itself in my brain, and though I searched for evidence that it couldn’t possibly be true, everything I unearthed seemed to be evidence in the thought’s favour.

The very first thing I’d seen when I’d walked into Tokas’s apartment above that shop was a flash of red light. A flash of illusion magicks, that meant, really. Of course, she hadn’t had her obscurem equipped in the comfort of her own home, so I would have seen that spell’s glow. Ever since then, though, Tokas had an obscurem on her person. Something about my presence had had Tokas need to cast an illusion spell.

But how could that have been if she didn’t know me?

A memory flashed in my head. The very first thing Tokas had said directly to me.

‘Styk. Have we met before? You seem familiar.’

I’d thought at the time that was just an idle question, a kind of introductory small talk. But I’d learned since then that Tokas wasn’t exactly the sort of person to put much stock in such things. So was that question rather… a test? A test to see if I recognised her?

More thoughts came pouring in, each more horrifying than the last, sending a chill down my spine.

She hadn’t killed the Player. She’d had an opportunity to kill him, and she hadn’t. She’s justified it as fear, essentially, but… what if that wasn’t true?

And how had she known so much about them? She’d told us, just before the attack, that the Players didn’t have a world to return to, that the Ascended World was dead. Putting aside the questions of how that could be possible, how could Tokas… know that? How could she know that without spending time with Players?

Castle Carn.

The visions of the scene played before me once more. Amongst the flames, I saw the Player. I thought I did, at least. And I thought I saw the Player’s tiefling accomplice. Val had told me I was traumatised, but… what if I really hadn’t been?

I pulled my knife from my belt and I stuck it under Tokas’s chin.

‘Woah!’ Lore cried out.

‘What’s—’

‘Show me your obscurem,’ I demanded of her, the tip of the knife causing a little blood to trickle down the tiefling’s throat.

The Players all looked at me like I was insane.

‘Give it,’ I said, my knife hand shaking not with fear but with anger. ‘Give it, now.’

‘Styk, what are you—’ Val started.

‘You say these obscurem things are common? We’ll replace it. I’ll pay, even.’ I turned back to Tokas. ‘But you’re giving it to me. Now.’

‘Styk, whatever this is…’

‘Let him have it,’ Lore said.

‘Lore, not you—’

Lore shook his head, that simple act interrupting Val, then said, ‘Styk has a point more than you lot think. If he wants this, and all it’ll cost us is an obscurem, then, you know, let’s just hand it over, keep everyone happy, and minimise any bloodshed.’

‘Give it,’ I snapped again, eyes fixed on Tokas.

Arzak moved her hands slowly towards her swords.

‘Don’t,’ Lore said, his eyes on Arzak, his hand moving to his own weapon. ‘Don’t. We don’t need to spill blood here.’

‘Tokas, I think you better hand it over,’ Val said, her eyes suggesting she still didn’t understand what this was all about.

The tiefling, finally, reached a trembling hand into her pocket, and pulled from it a gem. A gem that was glowing red even in this moment. She had an illusion spell active.

At that moment, I knew I was right.

I reached forwards, snatched the obscurem from Tokas’s hands and threw it to the ground. ‘Lore, destroy it.’

The barbarian swung his sword high, then crashed it down onto the obscurem. As the gem shattered, the glow faded, and the spell attached to it dispelled.

With the illusion gone, I saw Tokas’s real face.

I saw the tiefling from Plainside.

"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%