‘Cor!’ Val shouted, hand reaching towards the fallen elf.

‘Concentrate,’ Arzak replied, voice strained. She couldn’t have known that Corminar was still alive, just downed, but I supposed the instruction applied either way—we needed to finish this if we were to survive.

Val ignored the orc’s suggestion, however, and instead of focusing on attacking the Player, she rushed across the road to Corminar’s side, beginning to use her rather pitiful healing magicks to keep him on this side of the mortal fold. Getting him back on his feet was beyond her, but keeping him alive? That might just have been achievable.

With the lack of poison arrows, and the impact of the cursed sweet beginning to fade, the Player was growing stronger once more. But Arzak and Lore kept up their attacks—they knew as well as I do that right now was the weakest that the Player was going to get. Swords clashed against flaming blades, Arzak and Lore doing their best to use their superior number of weapons to their advantage, and every now and then they landed a glancing hit.

But Lore, too, took damage. The enemy was a master with his flame-summoned sword—I was beginning to think there was nothing he couldn’t do, though perhaps that was just the level differential at play—and even outnumbered, he manoeuvred himself past Lore’s parries every now and then. From the closing wounds, I knew that the potion supplied by Lambkin was hard at work, and there was only a matter of time before it would run out of power. We needed to end this now.

‘Lore!’ I shouted. ‘I’m going to drop you!’

‘Do it!’ came the reply, the barbarian having been the quickest to trust me and my portal magicks.

Wasting not a moment, I opened a portal directly behind Lore’s feet, and another on the other side of the Player. Lore parried one of the pyroknight’s attacks and then allowed himself to fall backwards, through the portal. He rotated as he fell, bringing his blade around preemptively in an attack on our enemy. The Bane Sword caught the Player in the back before he could do much to respond—a deep slash that ripped blood from flesh, an amount that looked substantial even from my obscured point of view.

‘Another!’ Lore cried.

I whipped hands forward to do the same again, opening a portal behind Lore’s feet and back on the other side of the Player. But where this had worked before, we had no such luck on the second time around. The enemy was a quick learner, and even before Lore had started falling backwards into the portal, the pyroknight had thrusted a hand out to summon a fireball into the other side of the portal.

Fire magicks met the barbarian’s flesh with a hiss, and Lore roared with pain. But he was not the sort of man to let pain stop him. Lore continued on with the attack, slicing the weapon towards the pyroknight’s chest, but was blocked once more.

We needed to try something new.

I looked at the Player, at the rapidly fading green patches where the poison arrows had hit, at the wounds which seemed fewer and farther between than I had expected, and at the tired way in which he swung his flaming weapon.

Maybe we didn’t need to try something new, I realised. Maybe the situation had changed. Maybe an old tactic might come good this time around.

‘Lore?’ I said.

‘Yes?’ came the response from the man, his voice trembling.

‘Push!’

I snapped one hand back to the sky far above, and the other to the space behind the Player.

Lore dropped his sword, it clattering to the floor, and he put his whole weight into a tackle on the enemy.

The pyroknight instinctively snapped his hands out to the side of the portal, finding some purchase on that strange otherworldly glowing ring, but… It wasn’t purchase enough. The full weight of the burly Lore—no longer burdened by giant sword—was enough. The Player’s hands slipped away from the portal ring, and instead… Snatched at Lore.

They fell through together.

I snapped my head up to the other end of the portal, where two figures fell through, and time seemed to slow.

If we could get the Player to hit the ground from that height, then we’d surely deal very substantial damage to him, though there was no guarantee he’d be eliminated. There was never that guarantee with him, it seemed. But if Lore hit the ground from that height, he’d definitely die. That was no question. And that, obviously, needed to be avoided at any cost.

My hand, still outstretched to the heavens, prepared to summon a portal that would save Lore from the fall, but they tumbled together, the Player keeping a firm grip on the barbarian as they plummeted towards the ground. There was no way of getting between them. No way of saving one without the other.

For a moment, I’m very sorry to say, I almost entertained the idea of letting them both fall, but then my good senses got the better of me. How could I live with one of the Slayers dying to save me? I knew I couldn’t.

So, with a pit in my stomach, I opened a portal beneath the falling pair, and another facing upwards at the ground. When the two plummeted through it, the direction of gravity suddenly changed on them, and—much slower—they fell back through the portal once more.

But I’d moved the other side—a handy trick that I really needed to make more use of—and this led to the pair of them falling into the Iron Sea.

The pyroknight’s summoned sword hissed as it was finally extinguished, an act that caused its wielder to snarl at me. Both he and Lore began to swim for the shallows, while Arzak and I charged to meet them at the coast.

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The Player threw fireballs at Lore as they swam, the latter doing his best to avoid them by taking dips underwater, but still getting singed on the top of his head.

When Arzak reached the water, she came to an abrupt halt.

‘Problem?’ I asked, standing next to her in the shallows.

‘Hard to swing sword in sea,’ she said.

Another fireball hit Lore as he stumbled out of the water, catching him squarely in the back. His drenched clothes did a lot to limit the damage, but it was enough to stumble him.

No, I quickly realised, it did more than that. This hit—the most recent of many—did damage that didn’t quickly fade. It didn’t fix itself. The potion was exhausted.

‘Arzak…’ I started.

‘What?’

‘Lore’s out of healing.’

The orc grimaced, raised her two swords in preparation to strike, and nodded.

‘Lore!’ I shouted. ‘Get—’ And then I realised that there was something better I could do than warning him. I opened up a portal beneath him, pulling him from the water to dump him on the beach near his discarded sword. Further from his attacker, he was safer. He’d need to stay out of trouble, now.

‘Why’d you—’ He started, and then blinked. ‘I’m not healing.’

‘No.’

‘I see.’ Lore turned and ran for the Bane Sword, plucking it from the ground like it was a tiny thing rather than something I struggled to lift at the best of times. I’d tried while he was sleeping.

The pyroknight didn’t summon a new flaming sword, instead opting to switch back to the fire magicks more consistently. I could only assume his stamina reserves were not anywhere near as large as his mana—he had one weakness after all. As soon as the Player was in shallow enough water to stand, he launched one, then another, at Arzak.

The orc parried one away before getting struck in the shoulder by the other, though still she ploughed onwards towards the enemy.

As the Player prepared another spell, I readied myself to create a portal, and caught one of the next attacks, sending the fireball soaring back at its caster.

Arzak continued wading on, and the Player did the same, apparently not at all perturbed by the sight of the orc rapidly advancing upon him. His hands flicked with more speed than ever before, producing more balls of fire—some of which I portaled away, some of which Arzak parried—and then a flaming wall before him. This spell moved as he did, pushing forwards at the same pace, and forcing Arzak to start stumbling backwards.

I opened a portal in the depth of the sea as far as I could, opening the other end above the flaming wall to extinguish it.

But I was too slow. Arzak was unable to run when she was thigh high in water, and so the attack had caught up with her fast. The flames had engulfed her before I could put them out, and I stared for signs that the healing potion had given up. The burns healed fast, and for a moment I thought we’d lucked out. This dream was shattered when Arzak shouted, ‘Active effect gone!’

Any more hits on any of us could be the difference between life and death.

Arzak continued staggering backwards towards Lore and I on the beach, regrouping.

‘Any thoughts?’ I asked.

‘Nothing we not do already. Styk? Portal us.’

I stared on at the approaching enemy. ‘Are you sure?’

Footsteps behind us announced Val rejoining the battle, apparently—or hopefully—having kept Corminar from death.

‘The potions being out changes nothing,’ Lore said. ‘We still have to hit him hard and fast.’

The enemy stepped onto the sand.

‘Alright,’ I said. ‘If you’re sure…’ I opened a portal above the pyroknight, the other end at our sides, and Lore and Arzak leaped through. As they tumbled towards the enemy, they struck down with their blades, meaning to slice.

But the Player was starting to get wise to my tricks. With the flick of his fingers, he created another wall of fire, this one above him. Arzak and Lore passed through it as they attacked, the flames engulfing them. Though all three of their swords struck true, sending the Player stumbling backwards and grabbing at his open wounds, they took untold damage in the process.

I quickly flipped open a portal under them, sending the pair into the shallows to extinguish the flames. Of the two of them, only Arzak pulled herself to her feet. She grabbed Lore by the collar, wrenching him from the water. His body was limp.

‘Not dead,’ she explained. ‘Just—’

But she didn’t get to finish that sentence, because a ball of fire caught her in the head. Arzak gritted her teeth together, growled an unconvincing growl, and then tried to raise her swords.

‘Arzak, no!’ Val cried out. ‘No, no, no…’

The orc’s two blades fell into the sand, one landing point first. The orc, trembling, looked at her fallen weapons, and then she joined them.

I looked to the Player, who fixed his gaze on me.

‘It’s up to the two of us, then,’ I said to the sorcerer at my side.

Val glanced back at me, her deep, brown eyes wide with fear, and then she gulped. ‘Just like this whole thing started,’ she replied.

There was no point saving mana, now; if we didn’t end this in the next minute or two, we’d be dead. I drained a good part of my mana reserves activating Ash Husk, my skin rippling as it changed, and I searched my mind desperately for an idea.

Nothing came.

‘We’re dead, aren’t we?’ Val asked.

‘Looks like it.’

‘Great.’

"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%