Arzak whipped up her swords to slice at the hag’s outstretched claws, and the creature disappeared from the material plane in the second before blade met flesh. An arrow, released by Corminar, soared through the air where it had been standing, and then buried itself in the exterior wall of a nearby building.
I pulled my Ranger’s Blade free of its sheath and each of us slowly edged around, looking for where the hag would next reappear.
‘You seem to understand these hags, Valerie,’ Aiwin said. ‘Perhaps you can tell us how to fight it?’
‘Her name is not Valerie,’ Corminar replied.
‘I don’t think that’s really what we need to discuss right about—’ Val started, but I cut her off.
‘What? Val isn’t short for Valerie? What’s it short for, then?’
Val gestured to a nearby building. ‘I think it’s over there.’
‘Equivalence,’ Corminar said, answering my question.
‘Equivalence?’ I repeated. ‘Equivalence?’
‘After her changeling grandmother, I believe.’
‘Can we concentrate on the thing trying to kill us, please?’ Val said, glaring at Corminar, clearly not wanting to get into this conversation.
For whatever reason, I took enough pity on her to mumble, ‘My real name wasn’t Styk, either,’ which resulted in raised eyebrows from many members of the group.
‘Insult Val later. Fight now,’ Arzak said, just as the hag reappeared.
As before, the creature rematerialised in the throes of an attack, wrapping its clawed hands around Lore’s neck. The barbarian, choking and with the beginnings of blood dripping down his shoulder blades, tried to attack it with his great sword, but failed to get an angle.
Being closest, I charged first, jumping atop the hag’s back with my blade drawn, stabbing it towards the creature’s own neck. But again, just before the knife met the creature’s flesh, it faded away from existence and I collapsed into the injured Lore’s back.
‘Equivalence, heal him,’ I said, pointing to Lore.
Val screwed up her face. ‘Don’t do that, “Styk”.’
‘May I enquire just what “Styk” is short for, then?’ Corminar asked.
‘It’s not short for anything, it’s just—’
A screech announced the hag taking form once more, this time at my side—apparently reacting to my attempted stab. I fell backwards through a portal to avoid the hag’s attacks, using the gravity of my fall to land back on my feet on the other side. I appeared, by design, at Val’s side.
‘This is annoying,’ she said as the hag disappeared once more.
‘You’ve gotta know a way to stop it, surely, Equivalence.’
‘How soon before that gets old, do you think?’
‘Three or four years,’ I replied.
‘Great.’ Val whipped her head around to look for signs of the hag, but like me, she saw nothing.
‘How stop it?’ Arzak repeated, having heard my earlier question.
Val furrowed her brow. ‘Witchfinder tactics. Iron, spilled with the blood of…’ She trailed off, her eyes darting anywhere but at Aiwin. ‘Magic user’s blood. It won’t be as powerful as one of their clasps, but it might just stop the hag from using its witchcraft for long enough that we can kill it. Corminar?’
‘Iron-headed,’ the elven ranger said, throwing Val an arrow.
The hag, apparently more intelligent than we’d given it credit for, appeared in the space between them, snatching the arrow out of the air. With a glance at Val, it disappeared from this plane once more, the arrow going with it.
I held up my blade—the one I’d borrowed from Corminar all those months ago. ‘Iron, right?’
‘Styk, I swear to all the gods, if you stab me, then I’ll…’ Val said.
I flipped the blade in my hand, taking it by the pointy end and handing it to Val. ‘Do what you gotta do, Equivalence.’
Val took the blade. ‘And just what is your real name, Styk?’
I mumbled the answer under my breath.
‘What?’ Val replied. Even her, closest to me, hadn’t heard what I’d said.
I changed tack. ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s the name I was born with, not the one I chose. That man doesn’t exist any more.’
Val said nothing, staring back at me completely unimpressed.
‘Besides,’ I added, ‘it was still better than “Equivalence”.’
Lore, still with small streams of blood flowing down the sides of his neck, laughed at this.
Val blinked at him. ‘And what’s the deal with you, then? Or do we all think his real name is Lore?’ She sliced at the back of her arm, drawing blood onto my blade, and I noticed the obscurem around her neck glow a subtle green colour.
The hag appeared in the blink of an eye, standing over Val. I dove at her, flinging her and myself to the ground, opening a portal beneath us that would save us from the hag’s attacks. As I fell through, I felt something wrap around my ankle.
‘Err, Styk?’ Val said from beneath me, looking down at my feet.
‘Don’t tell me,’ I replied, just before the hag’s bony hand started dragging me back through the not-quite-closed portal. I turned, kicking against the scraggly arm with my free foot, but it didn’t seem to bother the creature.
An arrow, released quickly by the ever opportunistic Corminar, buried itself in the hag’s side, causing it to screech. But it didn’t let go, and it didn’t dematerialised; it was set on seeing this attack through.
Arzak charged, twin blades held out at her side, but she was too far away—she wouldn’t get here in the next few moments. I needed to act fast; my health reserves were forever low, and I didn’t trust that the hag’s claws would qualify as the “low-level melee weapon” that my Warped Shield ability would repel. I turned back, meaning to open a portal in front of Arzak to help close the distance, but as I did so, Val made a sudden move. She threw the dagger to me, and the blade arced through the air the few feet towards me.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
I snatched it by the wrong end. ‘Ouch.’
‘Sorry,’ Val said, cringing slightly.
I flicked the blade around in my hand, ignoring the stinging pain of the deep flesh wound and the drain to my health reserves, and I swung around to stab at the hag. Once again, with my blade just half an inch away, the creature disappeared into the ether, releasing me.
‘How does it know?’ I cried.
‘It is,’ Lore said.
‘What?’
‘Lore. It is my real name.’
‘Seriously?’ Val asked.
Lore smiled. ‘Lore. Yes. Seriously!’
‘So it’s your last name that sucks, is it?’
The barbarian shrugged. ‘Yeah, it sucks.’
‘Aha!’ Val cried out in victory, in the same moment that the hag reappeared at Corminar’s side, digging its claws into his skin. The elf cried out in pain as the hag tore its arms away from Corminar’s shoulder, a horrific amount of flesh coming with it. The ranger fell to the ground at once, and Aiwin rushed to his side, clutching at his wounds.
Where before the hag had seemed like a nuisance, like a small problem to solve, now I realised that even with claws alone, it posed a real danger. What’s more, short of Corminar’s one arrow, we hadn’t been able to deal it any damage; it seemed to sense strikes before we could hit them. So if I needed to strike it with my blade in order to stop it shifting to the ethereal plane, and it shifted to the ethereal plane in advance of being hit, then… We were caught in a cycle.
The hag appeared at my side, and I moved to strike it before it could strike me. Again, as soon as my arcing blade was a fraction of an inch away from hitting the beast’s flesh, it was gone again.
‘Styk,’ Arzak said. ‘You need hit it.’
‘I’m trying!’
As I spun on the spot, the hag appeared in front of me once more, and a hurrying Lore released an uncharacteristically inaccurate attack—his thrown great sword not landing anywhere near the hag and almost slicing off my leg in the process. There wasn’t time to complain though, and I dummied a strike with my blade, dropping the knife mid-attack and catching it with my other hand. The hag didn’t disappear; it seemed to know somehow that it wouldn’t be struck, or had some kind of witchcraft ability that automatically activated, like my Warped Shield. I prayed to gods I’d lost faith in that it would think my second strike—with my left hand—was a fake out too, and I pushed almost all of my stamina into a powerful stab.
My blood-stained blade met air.
‘Gods, damn it!’ I cried, as Arzak arrived at my side swinging her swords a moment too late.
‘It move fast,’ she noted, though it really hadn’t needed to be said. This was just how the orc expressed frustration—through a frank and reasoned accounting of events.
At least this fight stretching on—and my dwindling stamina reserves—gave me a chance to try out an ability I’d unlocked over the past few weeks. One that I hadn’t had any excuse to use just yet: Mana-Fuelled.
As the hag appeared once more, I struck with my knife once more, this time pulling on my mana reserves to slice at the creature. Not that this made much difference, my blade still meeting air, but it at least kept me useful for longer.
‘I fear this creature means to exhaust us,’ Corminar said, his voice strained as he and Aiwin clutched at his wound.
‘Val,’ Arzak said, nodding to the elf’s injury.
‘On it,’ the witch replied, and hurried over to Corminar and Aiwin’s side.
‘We can’t keep doing this. We can’t—’ I started, and then cut myself off when the solution finally occurred to me. It was an old ability—one I hadn’t found much use of recently—and the very first Worldbending-adjacent ability that I’d unlocked.
‘Styk?’ Lore asked, clutching at his wounds as he made his way over to his tossed Bane Sword. ‘Have you…’
I nodded.
The hag next materialised next to Arzak, its clawed hands wrapping themselves around the orc’s wrists, squeezing tight enough that she was forced to drop her blades to the floor, grunting with pain as she did so.
But I didn’t waste any time, jumping into a sprint and closing the distance between the hag and me even further with the use of a pair of portals. Before the hag could disappear once more, I made to stab at its torso, but ceased the movement a mere three inches away from its flesh. As I hadn’t got any closer, the hag remained present, and screeched as it further tightened its grip on Arzak’s wrists.
And then I activated Closed Reach.
As reality bended on itself, the blood-stained blade pierced the beast’s flesh instantly, not giving the hag a chance to disappear. I’d landed a blow. I’d temporarily extinguished the creature’s witchcraft abilities. But we needed to strike fast.
‘Lore!’ I shouted, throwing the injured barbarian through a portal to land at the side of his discarded blade. ‘Throw!’
Lore, ever the good soldier, picked up his blade without a moment’s hesitation, and he threw it. He had the power, but again, not the accuracy—but that didn’t matter. I opened a portal in front of the soaring great sword, redirecting it squarely towards the hag’s chest.
The Bane Sword buried itself deeply.
Level 17 forest hag defeated!
Worldbending — +1,000xp
Knifework — +3,600xp
Knifework increased to level 24!
Knifework increased to level 25!
Base Points Gained — +2 DEX, +2 STR, +4 Free Points (VIT/DEX/STR)
Ability selection unlocked
…
In the aftermath of the fight, after Val had successfully healed him—levelling up pretty substantially in the process, according to her—Lore approached my side.
‘Thunder,’ he mumbled to me.
‘Sorry?’
‘Thunder. That’s my last name.’
‘Your name is Lore… Thunder?’ I replied.
The barbarian nodded.
‘Gods that’s cool.’
Lore’s forever-grin grew wider. ‘I know!’
As the barbarian strolled away happily, I turned my attention to my notifications; it was ability-unlocking time.
"Styk"
Level 12 Bladespinner
Base Stats:
Vitality — 28
Intelligence — 115
Dexterity — 49
Strength — 54
Wisdom — 32
Charisma — 14
Skills:
Worldbending — Level 27
Knifework — Level 23
Identification — Level 10
Stealth — Level 9
Needlework — Level 7
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.
Mana-Fuelled — Passive. Optionally, use mana in place of stamina to activate Knifework abilities.
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.
Shrill Perimeter — Create a perimeter wall of 20 foot radius, invisible to all but those adept in magicks. If an enemy crosses this perimeter, this spell releases the shriek of a banshee.
Warped Shield — Passive. If an enemy strikes you with a low-level melee weapon, Warp Shield automatically activates to open a portal that deflects this attack. You must not have any portals currently active. Uses mana on activation.
Stealth Attack — Passive. 50% boost to damage when unnoticed by enemy.
Stitch — Create a basic stitch in common fabrics. Ability scales on [CHA].
Basic Cloth Armour — Craft basic cloth armour, quality dependent on materials, time and skill level.
Active Effects:
Legacy of Sisyphus:
XP gain increased by +900%