Eventually, we had to sleep.

I don’t want you, reader, to think we all just made a token effort on the search of the witchfinders’ village before calling it a night; it was the early hours before we finally decided that we might have better luck with rested and functioning brains. We’d even been spurred on by a stray murmur from Lore—that “whatever happened before might happen again”, not a comforting thought—but even then, we’d had to rest eventually.

Or, we’d had to try to rest, in my case.

Everyone else was asleep on their bedrolls in the main hallway of the main building, as this was the only space large enough to comfortably sleep the lot of us, and nobody was keen on the idea of splitting up in the current circumstances. The light was low, the one lit torch dying a slow death at my side, and I fiddled with needle, thread and cloth in the gentle glow.

Since I’d woken from the lightest sleep of my life drenched in sweat, I’d tossed and turned—resulting in a half-asleep grunt of annoyance from Val, who was nearest me—until I’d finally realised that dreams just weren’t going to take me tonight. Instead, I’d retrieved my crafting materials and sewn, in an effort to make full use of all my waking hours in terms of gathering experience. I’d levelled up Needlework to level 8, but progress was slow. I needed new materials if I was going to take full advantage of my recently unlocked Basic Cloth Armour ability, which I could only assume would get me levelling up faster.

When I could take sewing no more, I gathered my energy—and my courage, I’m afraid to say—and rose from my bedroll to explore the village some more. I knew that splitting up from the rest of the team was a foolish idea, considering all the disembodied screaming we’d heard, but I could stay in that room no longer. Besides, I had my trusty borrowed Ranger’s Blade on me, and I had my shiny new Execution ability to go along with it. I moved slow and silently, just in case I had to use it.

Floorboards creaked beneath my feet, and the wind rustling through the trees made an eerie whistling sound, but both of these noises were—in regular circumstances—completely normal. It was just the environment, the absence of people in manmade structures, that had made us feel that something wasn’t right. It was only the silence that made the few penetrating noises seem terrifying.

Except… I was starting to come around to the idea that this wasn’t entirely true. The presence of the hag was real enough, and Val seemed to think that something had drawn it here. And then there was the witchfinders, who so many of my friends seemed to think were still here, at least in some capacity—and Corminar was not the type to scare easily.

I adjusted my grip on my blade, held out in front of me, as I stepped onwards through the building. I didn’t quite know what I’d been looking for, but my feet had taken me back towards the study I’d been in earlier—where I’d found the letters about the monster hunter being reassigned. Perhaps, subconsciously, I thought this was the place best suited to finding answers. As I turned the corner into the room, I nearly jumped out of my skin—one of our party was already in there, standing over the desk.

I couldn’t make out their face in the shadows, but from their size I thought it must have been Corminar, Val or Aiwin. Whoever it was, they had their hands on the top of the desk, and were staring down, tensed, as if frustrated by our lack of progress—a feeling I shared. ‘Find anything?’ I asked them.

The figure didn’t move, and I wondered if any among us had the ability to fall asleep standing up, as knackered as we were.

‘I scoured the room pretty thoroughly before,’ I continued, ‘but didn’t find anything else.’ I stepped closer, into the room, not ten feet from my shrouded friend, but still I couldn’t see who it was.

‘Who’s there, anyway? Gets so dark in these buildings at night that—’ I cut myself off when I noticed the shape of the figure’s coat, of all things. It was long, a straight cut, and completely unlike any of the clothes any of my party wore. What it did remind me of, however, was the supposed traditional uniform of the…

‘Witchfinder,’ I breathed.

The figure snapped its head up at this word, and though I couldn’t see its eyes, I knew with utter certainty that it was staring straight at me.

I took an unconscious step backwards. ‘So they were right,’ I said, forcing my voice to be steady. ‘You are still here. Where are you hiding? Where are you—’

The figure took a single step around the desk, as if to mirror mine, and I realised that it wasn’t cloaked in shadow. It was shadow.

A being formed of… of nothing. Of the absence of light. Of an absence of reality, its shape defined only by the lack of anything else.

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‘Witchfinder…’ a breathy voice, so quiet it was almost silent, said—a delayed echo of my earlier realisation.

I stepped back, and the shape took another pace forward, towards me. I held my blade high. Would I even be able to attack such a being? Would my knife hit flesh? Would my blade, too, fade from reality?

The figure’s mouth opened wide in a silence scream.

I whipped my hand to my mouth, to stop myself from compulsively echoing this noise of fear.

The witchfinder slowly raised its arm, stretching towards me as I stumbled backwards, hitting wall rather than doorway. I whipped my hands behind me, searching frantically for the edge of the door, its located lost in my fright, in the room starting to spin, in the horror of the sight in front of me, the figure reaching forward, forward, forward, almost touching flesh, almost unleashing its—

The figure faded.

Its form disintegrated, billowing away like a cloud of smoke, there one moment and then gone then next, leaving no sign that it had ever been there but for my rapidly beating heart.

There was only one thing to do next. I turned, shouted for help, and ran.

I passed through the doorway, out of the study, charging down a long hallway back towards the chamber we’d been sleeping in. I reached the end, turning the corner, and—

Halfway down the corridor, illuminated only by the low, flickering light of a dying torch around the corner, was another figure. Another figure of shadow, and one that, this time, I was quick to identify as an enemy. It stood, staring me down, and my feet seemed to stop working, planting me on the spot.

I reached both hands forward, my blade in one, preparation of a portal in the other, and I waited for it to move. To attack. But it only stood, staring me down, its outline a threshold between reality and the unreality. And that outline was not firm.

At its shoulders, and at its elbows, wisps of nothing-smoke drifted into the hallway around it, bleeding slowly into reality. It spread, slowly at first, but growing faster with each second that the unreality was allowed to fester. The hallway around it faded away, replacing itself with the ghostly, dark outline of a cobbled courtyard—one that could not have been part of the witchfinder’s village. One that had architecture of some faraway land, unknown to me.

There was no time to take it in, though, because the figure started to move.

It took a step forward, then another, then another, its mouth opening in a wide scream that I never heard, and before long it was charging at me, the border of reality between the building and the courtyard following just behind.

I flicked my hand to open a portal behind it, meaning to ger my blade on its throat before it could turn, but the portal… never materialised. This shadow land that it had summoned was impenetrable to my magicks, a place that I could not portal to. I searched for another plan of attack, panicking like I’d never panicked before, raising my blade to Stab the creature, if nothing else, and it drew closer, closer, five feet away, two feet away, and… faded away again, a cloud of smoke of the unreal passing over me, completely without scent.

I regained control of my feet—though whether this was an ability of the witchfinder, or my own fear, I didn’t know—and I turned on the spot. Again, I ran, and if you judge me for this, just remember that you weren’t there, and you didn’t see what I’d seen. You, too, would have fled.

I charged back down the corridor, around the corner, and I collided, heavily, with firm flesh.

"Styk"

Level 12 Bladespinner

Base Stats:

Vitality — 28

Intelligence — 115

Dexterity — 50

Strength — 54

Wisdom — 32

Charisma — 16

Skills:

Worldbending — Level 27

Knifework — Level 23

Identification — Level 10

Stealth — Level 9

Needlework — Level 8

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%.

Execution II — Attack a target while undetected for +200% damage.

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%