It was morning.

We’d slept as best we could, considering each of us knew what the morrow would hold. To maximise our chances of killing the Player, we had to strike before he picked up any new allies. Before he replaced Lev, really. This meant that the attack would begin the moment the pyroknight stepped out the tavern. All of us knew this, but some of us—Arzak and Corminar—were dealing with it better than others. I’d tossed and turned all night, getting some sleep, but only fleetingly. The little sleep I’d had was plagued by dream of Val and Lore getting burnt, or—worse—me getting burnt.

We ate breakfast—a selection of increasingly stale breads, and the last of Lambkin’s stores—in near silence, sat around a small clearing in the forest while one member of our team kept an eye on the tavern. It was early still, as we hadn’t wanted to risk missing the Player. It turned out there was no danger of that; the pyroknight was a late riser.

The last of the breads making its way into my stomach, I fiddled with the vial that Corminar had given me. It was a strong mana potion—at least for my level of Intelligence—and would keep me opening portals far into the battle. I didn’t know if that was a good thing, the battle potentially lasting a while. Would that mean we were chipping away at the Player’s mana, or that we weren’t finishing it quickly enough?

I stilled this line of thought when Lore poked his head through the trees. ‘He’s out,’ the barbarian said glumly.

Arzak and I nodded, and Val sighed loudly.

‘You alright changing twice in two days?’ I asked again.

She shrugged. ‘It’s not… ideal. Costs a lot of mana after the first time. But I guess that’s what the potions are for.’ She held up a glass vial which was glowing, notably, a hell of a lot more than mine.

I pulled myself to my feet, a hand drifting to my belt, checking that my Ranger’s Blade was still there. I knew it would be; this was just a nervous habit.

‘Ready?’ Arzak asked, making a pointed effort to look at each of us in turn, even Lambkin. One by one, we nodded. ‘Then we go kill Player.’

With another sigh, Val closed her eyes and willed her skin to change. Her flesh rippled, bulged, and green-ed as she took on the form of the orc who had fled. It would allow her to get close, and it might just allow her to use Lore’s secret weapon.

‘OK, I’m—’ she started, spluttering. ‘These tusks are h-hard to talk around, arent they?’

Arzak nodded. ‘They mouthful. So orcish not use many words. Efficient and good grammar, in orc language. But means when speak common, people think we dumb. Unfair stereotype.’

‘We know you’re not dumb, Arzak,’ Lore offered with a reluctant smile. The reluctance was probably more about the task ahead of us than anything else.

Arzak nodded her reply, then turned back to Val. ‘Remember: not talk much. Few words. OK?’

‘OK. I won’t t—’ Val spluttered again. ‘Not talk much.’

‘Good.’

Val, in her new form, picked up Lev’s axe from where he’d dropped it, and heaved it over her shoulder with a grunt. ‘Heavy,’ she said.

‘That is idea,’ Arzak replied.

We looked out of the cover of the trees at the Player, staring around town with a furrowed brow and a hand shielding his eyes from the son.

‘Alright,’ Val said.

‘This is it, then,’ I added.

‘Do or die,’ Corminar said, this being about the coolest thing he’d ever said.

Val took one last deep breath, and then stepped from the cover of the treeline. She waited a good while before calling out for the Player, so as not to draw his attention to us in our hiding place.

The five of us watched her go, hands on weapons, ready to strike at the first time of trouble.

‘Any reason we didn’t try and attack him while he was sleeping?’ I asked.

‘Would you like be stuck in wooden building when fighting pyroknight?’ Arzak replied.

‘Fair point.’

We remained quiet as the pyroknight set his eyes on Val—thinking her Lev—and then asked, very loudly, ‘And where the hell have you been?’

“Lev” shrugged, and then held out a hand, a small blue object held within. ‘Shopping,’ she said. ‘Want sweet?’

* * *

‘There is one other thing, which might be useful,’ Lore said, holding out something in his hand.

The five of us stepped closer, and of the lot of us, only Val and I recognised what he was holding—a small blue sweet, courtesy of that utter pain in the arse merchant Ted. ‘Huh,’ I said. ‘That could work.’

‘Will it still be enchanted?’ Lore asked, his eyes on Val.

‘No reason it wouldn’t be. This kinda thing… it’s there until activated. In this case, it activates when you eat it.’

‘What is it?’ Lambkin asked. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Cursed sweet,’ I said. ‘Summons water into your stomach.’

The ex-captain raised his eyebrows. ‘OK. Of course it is.’

‘How do you even have it?’ Val asked Lore.

The barbarian shrugged. ‘When you bought them, I was full. But I didn’t want to miss out. So I snuck one out of the bag while you and Styk were bickering. You two bicker a lot, you know that?’

Val pulled a face that suggested she didn’t think that was true, while Corminar and Arzak nodded knowingly.

‘She bickers a lot with everyone,’ I said.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

‘Forgot I even had it until a couple of days ago,’ Lore said. ‘The sweet, I mean. And then I thought… maybe it’d come in handy?’

‘Oh yes, Lore,’ Val said. ‘I think it just might.’

* * *

‘A… sweet?’ the Player asked. ‘You left me unprotected while I slept so that you could… buy sweets? What has gotten into you, Lev?’

Val shrugged. ‘They good sweets.’ She stepped forward, unwrapping it and pushing it towards the Player’s mouth.

‘I don’t want you…’ The pyroknight staggered backwards, shaking his head in disbelief at the orc’s actions.

‘Eat sweet,’ “Lev” said again. ‘Trust me. Is good.’

The pyroknight stared at Val for a moment. ‘Maybe… later?’

‘No, now.’

‘I’m not—’ the Player started, but was interrupted by Val trying to push the sweet into his mouth once more. ‘Gods damn it, Lev, stop this!’ He grabbed Val by the wrist, preventing her from pushing the sweet any closer to his mouth.

‘No!’ Val said through gritted teeth, her arm pushing against the Player’s. ‘Eat!’

The pyroknight blinked at “Lev”’s arm. ‘Why are you so weak this morning?’

‘Uh-oh,’ Lore said, at my side.

‘It’s not gonna work, is it?’ I asked.

‘Is not.’

Alright, new plan. I stepped out of the cover of the forest, thrust both hands forwards, and created a pair of portals. They were as small a portal as I could manage, each just a couple of inches across. One of them was just under where Val was gripping the sweet. The other… was just in front of the Player’s agape mouth.

Val, more familiar with my portals, reacted first. She dropped the sweet into the portal, and it dropped into the Player’s mouth.

The pyroknight released Val, staggering backwards to grab at his throat, the sweet clearly already partway down it.

‘Make him swallow!’ I shouted, charging forth from the trees. ‘Make him swallow!’

The wide-eyed Val looked from me to the Player, and then flung herself forwards, slamming the butt of her hand into the man’s throat.

He gulped.

‘What in the…’ he started, turning to face me. ‘Blueberry?’ His eyes settled on me, widened some, then flicked behind me, and widened some more. Just from this expression, I knew that the rest of the team were charging from cover behind me.

Two arrows shot over my head, narrowly missing my ears—I didn’t like to think about what sort of damage they’d have done to me if they’d hit my ears—and buried themselves in the Player’s chest.

Val cricked her neck and her disguise rippled away.

‘Where is he?’ the Player spat. ‘Where’s Lev?’

‘Ran off crying,’ Val said. It was only mostly a lie. Then she whipped her hands to the ground and summoned roots which climbed the Player’s legs.

The pyroknight had little trouble freeing himself from them, but they slowed him down, and Val was relentless in her summonings.

‘Styk! The sea! The sea!’ she shouted, like that wasn’t exactly where I was headed and like that wasn’t going to give the game away to the enemy.

The pyroknight spun to launch a ball of fire my way, so I summoned a portal in front of me, the other landing me on top of the thatched roof of the tavern. From here, I had a key advantage: a vantage point on both the Player and the edge of the great Iron Sea.

As I saw Lore and Arzak grow close to the enemy, I summoned a portal behind him, the other high above the sea. ‘Now!’ I shouted.

Of the close-quarters attackers, only Arzak wielded her weapon, which was perhaps the Player’s first clue. He sent retaliatory fireballs at Arzak, seeing her as the greater threat due to the pair of swords she grasped, and worried less about Lore.

But when Lore grew close enough, he pounced, leaping at the Player and pushing him towards the open portal behind him.

Instead of responding with an attack, the pyroknight snapped his hands out as his sides, grabbing the side of the portal just as Lore reached him.

Lore bounced off the enemy, but pushed against him once more, trying with all his might to just… push… him… through.

In one of the Player’s outstretched hands, a flame flickered, one unlike the rest. It wasn’t a fireball, or a wall of flame, or anything we’d seen before. This fire slowly took shape. Before our eyes, it took the shape of a sword.

I closed the portal just as the Player moved to strike Lore with his flaming weapon, saving Lore from the worst of the burns.

Instead, I turned the strategy on its head, opening a portal above the pair of them and another in the shallows of the Iron Sea itself.

There was a crash as water poured through the portal and collided with ground and man below. The pyroknight’s flaming sword hissed, struggling to retain its intensity against the contents of the Iron Sea.

The Player turned his attention to me, correctly identifying me as the source of this water, and began to charge free of the portal’s torrent. He dived to dry ground, rolled, and when he was upright again sent a fireball hurtling towards me.

No, not me, I realised as I moved to shield myself. The pyroknight wasn’t looking to burn me. He was looking to burn the building.

The thatch roof, untouched by my torrent of water, caught light instantly. I stumbled backwards, trying to avoid the flames while keeping my footing on the slanted surface.

‘There’s people in there!’ Val shouted.

‘On it!’ I shouted. I let the original pair of portals closed, and opened a new pair, this one battling the rapidly growing blaze on the tavern. Below, people screamed as they fled from the building, and I took some solace in that this surely meant people weren’t in danger of sleeping through it. Some people I knew—Lore, really—I absolutely could envision sleeping through an act of arson.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Arzak and Lore charge once more, this time both of them holding their weapons. The Player reacted by flinging his hands to his sides and conjuring a protective ring of fire around him—a strategy that I was expected to counter with my water-assisted portals.

‘Styk!’ Val shouted.

‘I can save these people, or I can do that,’ I cried back at her, voice strained. ‘Which is it gonna be?’

‘No it’s not that, it’s…’

I chanced another glance away from my portal-based firefighting to look at the Player. He was choking on something. Or, rather, he looked like he was going to be sick.

I knew that look. I’d suffered this once before.

Ted’s cursed sweet was kicking in.

"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%