Part VI: Fighting Fire

‘Perhaps it has escaped your notice, but we have lost our healer,’ Corminar said. ‘What possible chance could we have?’

It had been another day of hiding in the forests north of the Iron Sea since Lambkin had joined us. The ex-captain had been surprisingly able in terms of foraging, and what with the nuts and berries he had provided, along with the food stolen from local inns, I was feeling full for the first time in a few days. For a moment, I could almost forget about my inevitable destiny: a scorching, painful death.

‘Val can heal,’ Lore pointed out, gesturing to the woman in question.

‘Yeah, a headache, maybe,’ I said. At Val’s irritable expression, I added, ‘What? It’s true.’

‘We rely on the Lamb Kin’s potions,’ Arzak said.

‘Lambkin,’ the ex-captain tried to correct her for the third time. It didn’t take.

‘It’s not enough,’ Val said with a sigh.

‘It’ll have to be,’ I replied. ‘We all know where this is headed. Unless you want to spend the rest of your lives running from this man, hiding in forests… We have to face him at some point.’

‘You have to face him,’ Val said. ‘He told the rest of us we could go.’

‘I’m pretty sure that was before you all tried to kill him.’

The sorcerer pulled a face. ‘Might be a risk worth taking. Figure that’s better odds than if we were to face him again.’

‘Then let change odds,’ Arzak said. ‘We not prepared, last time. We panic. With preparation, we do better.’

‘I don’t know what kind of preparation will let us defeat that,’ Val said. ‘You saw what he did to us? What he did to me? What he did to Lore? The only way we survived that is because we had Tok—’ She caught herself at having spoken the tiefling’s name. ‘Because we had a healer on hand.’

‘Then move faster,’ Arzak suggested. ‘Me and Lore take potion. Take hits.’

‘It’s not an… insurmountable problem,’ Corminar agreed. ‘If we were to stick to ranged attacks, at least. There is no reason for any of us—with the exception of Arzak and Lore—to be fighting at close range.’

‘You’re talking like you’re actually considering this,’ Val said.

‘Val,’ I started, ‘if I remember correctly, you were the one who kicked this whole thing off. Killing this Player was your idea. It’s too—’

‘That was before he burned half my stomach off. I can’t… I don’t want that to happen again.’

‘We won’t let it, Val.’

‘You can’t guarantee that.’

I shrugged. ‘It’ll happen eventually anyway. This Player’s just going to keep following us. What did you think he’d do when he finds us? It’s going to involve fire.’

Val said nothing; clearly she could see that I was right, but the idea of facing the pyroknight down again—very understandably—was one that she struggled with.

‘You don’t have to come,’ I finally said.

At this, the sorcerer baulked. ‘What, and let the rest of you do it without me? You lot wouldn’t stand a chance.’ She allowed herself a reluctant smile—one that I returned in kind.

‘We didn’t have time to properly prepare last time,’ I said, hoping to reassure her. ‘We do, this time. This time, we can bait him into a trap.’

‘Bait?’ Arzak asked. ‘What bait?’

I shrugged again. ‘The same thing he’s wanted all along. Me. We drop some carefully placed rumours along the way, and the Player will come running, I reckon.’

The orc considered this, and then nodded. She looked to Val, prompting her with raised eyebrows.

‘...Alright,’ Val said with a sigh. ‘Say we do this, we’re gonna need to give ourselves all the advantages we can. What do we have?’

‘The potions,’ Lore suggested.

‘Yes, I was taking that one for granted. What else?’

‘Well, speaking of things I brought with me,’ Lambkin said. ‘There are the arrowheads.’ He turned to Corminar. ‘Perhaps we could split them? Between my arrows and your poison, that’s some pretty decent damage we could be dealing.’

‘Why?’ Arzak asked. ‘What so special about arrowheads?’

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‘They offer a boost to poison effectiveness,’ Corminar answered. ‘I concede that they are valuable, though I do not see this as being the difference between victory and ending up a pile of ashes.’

Val winced at this thought, but went on nonetheless. ‘That’s OK. We’re not looking for that, we’re just looking for lots of little advantages. Maybe none of them alone would help us win, but maybe all of them put together… Maybe that’s enough.’

The group went silent, and for a moment I thought that might be the extent of our advantages. In order to keep the ideas coming, I offered, ‘If I open a portal beneath him, maybe one of you—Arzak or Lore—could push him through?’

‘You don’t think he’d survive falling to the ground?’ Val asked. ‘We’ve seen how much health he has. It’s off the charts. Honestly, I don’t know how he’s managed to spec so much into both Intelligence and Vitality—the maths just don’t add up.’

‘He might survive, yeah, but we’re just talking about things that might help, right?’

Lore nodded. ‘Give me a signal, and I’ll push him through.’

‘Sure. What kind of signal?’

‘Oh, err…’ the barbarian scratched at the back of his head. ‘A bird call?’

‘I can’t do bird calls.’

Val rolled her eyes. ‘How’s this? The signal can be you shouting: “Lore, push him through the portal, you big bloody idiot!”’

Lore didn’t seem very impressed by this, but he let it slide. We were letting a lot of stuff slide, as of late.

‘And if we keep moving south, we can fight him on the coast,’ I said. ‘That was always the plan, wasn’t it? Open the Iron Sea on him. We saw how much even that small pond dampened his powers—even I survived a glancing blow, though maybe my Ash Husk has a lot to do with that—so just think what’d happen if we dumped the whole bloody sea on him.’

Val stood up, and—judging by her body language—was clearly energised by this brainstorming session. ‘Slow down there, portal boy. You can only dump so much water on him; your mana will run out before long. And we don’t want you fainting on us, do we?’

‘Again,’ Corminar added, but there wasn’t any malice to it.

‘I was being hyperbolic,’ I replied.

‘Big word for a portal boy.’

‘Please stop calling me “portal boy”.’

‘OK, knife boy,’ Val replied.

I tossed my head back in irritation.

‘There one other thing,’ Arzak said. ‘This other orc. He strong. I not able to fight him alone.’

‘I will assist you,’ Lambkin offered, but Arzak shook her head.

‘This not what I get at. What if we not have to fight Lev?’

Val leant in. ‘I’m listening.’

‘What if we get him first?’ the orc posed. ‘Would need separate him from Player. I don’t know how—’

‘I do,’ I said. I turned to Val. ‘Remember back in Carn? Lev had a—’

‘His boyfriend,’ the sorcerer said. ‘I was thinking the same.’

‘We’d need to draw him away from the Player still. Maybe at night, when he sleeps?’ I hesitated for a moment. ‘Players… they do sleep, don’t they?’

‘Val should impersonate him,’ Lore suggested. ‘Draw Lev away. And when he’s far enough from the Player, we jump him.’

‘Do we not believe that such commotion would stir the Player from his slumber?’ Corminar asked. ‘How far do you reasonably expect to be able to draw him?’

Val shook her head. ‘No idea. I’ve got no clue what the man is even like; I could say the wrong thing at any moment, and my cover would be blown. It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve adopted that disguise, after all.’

‘Then I’ll portal you,’ I said. ‘We’ll find cover down the road, in amongst the trees. I can open a portal as far as I can see, so as long as you draw him into the open…’

The sorcerer nodded, and then a small smile started to cross her face. ‘Are we… are we doing this? This feels like it could work. Are we doing this?’

‘I believe we are,’ Corminar confirmed.

Arzak stood up suddenly. ‘Any reason we not start now?’

‘Better now than later,’ Val added.

With that, we stood from the dwindling camp fire, and we stepped towards the door. We would need to track down the Player before he could track down us, but how hard could that have been? You couldn’t shut people up about the news that a Player—a spawn of the Architects!—had passed through their town.

‘Hey, guys?’ Lore said.

We—the whole group but the barbarian—turned back to see him still standing by the fire.

‘There is one other thing, which might be useful.’ He stuck out his hand. Whatever he was holding, we couldn’t see it from this distance.

The five of us stepped forwards to get a better look at the small blue object in his hand.

‘Huh,’ I said, once I realised what it was. ‘That could work.’

"Styk"

Level 9 Novice Bladespinner

Base Stats:

Vitality — 20

Intelligence — 77

Dexterity — 26

Strength — 38

Wisdom — 25

Charisma — 0

Skills:

Worldbending — Level 18

Knifework — Level 17

Identification — Level 8

Stealth — Level 6

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%