‘Are we all clear on the plan?’ Val asked, her voice raised even though we could all hear her perfectly fine—perhaps in an effort to rally us.

We stood outside the main building of the witchfinders’ village, our eyes on the door and the shadows that lurked inside. Dawn was just beginning to break on the other side of the building, silhouetting it, illuminating the dewdrops on the grass beneath our feet.

‘Fight,’ Arzak summarised. ‘Get you to basement.’

‘And then what do you do, Val?’ Lore asked.

‘You just let me worry about that,’ the witch replied. It was refreshing to think of her as a witch, rather than having to pretend to myself that I still thought she was a sorcerer, in case my tongue slipped. Though when there were other—less open-minded—people around, I would still need to be careful. ‘Styk?’ she prompted me.

‘I’m all mana-ed up,’ I said, raising the empty potion vial to Corminar in toast. ‘Will portal you all the way. As much as I can, at least.’

Val nodded, turning her attention back to the building.

‘What do you think?’ I asked her, and everyone, really. ‘Doing the heroic thing? Makes you feel good, doesn’t it?’

‘I’m doing this because I don’t want my world to slowly fade away, Styk. Not cos I’m a hero.’

I shrugged. ‘Still, though.’

‘Ready?’ Arzak asked.

Four heads nodded.

‘Alright…’ Val started. ‘Go.’

We charged into the building in our usual formation: Arzak and Lore at the front, their great health reserves meaning they were able to take the brunt of any damage; then Val and I, offering support and healing where necessary; and finally, Corminar, who was able to pick enemies off with his bow from afar. We stumbled into the building, into the shadows, and…

‘Nothing here,’ Arzak said.

‘Do we think it fixed itself?’ Lore asked. ‘Maybe we can just go back to finding that clasp and then get out of here.’

‘These things,’ the orc said, shaking her head, ‘they not fix selves. They get worse.’

Lore tilted his head to one side in acknowledgement of this. ‘Had to ask, though. Just in case we—’ Movement up ahead caught my eye, and from the sudden pause, Lore’s too.

‘They’re still here,’ I said.

Val snorted. ‘Surprised?’

‘I guess Lore had me hoping. He’s an optimistic guy.’ I saw Lore smile at this, though I wasn’t sure I’d intended it wholly as a compliment. ‘Better get moving.’

Arzak nodded, and began walking down the corridor towards the kitchen at the rear of the building, her dual swords held high. Lore followed close behind, creeping, but I had a suspicion that the shadows already knew we were there. I followed close after, keeping Val close, but I didn’t hear Corminar behind us.

‘Erm…’ the elf said, and I turned to see a hand, reached out of the floor, grabbing him by the ankle.

‘Yes?’ Val said as she turned, then her eyes bulged.

‘Run,’ Corminar said. While he nocked and fired an arrow towards the clasping hand, I took Val by the arm and threw her into a portal, narrowly avoiding the shapes that suddenly sprang out the walls. We landed at Arzak’s side, Lore at our rear.

‘Didn’t you hear him?’ I shouted. ‘Run!’

Arzak began to chop at the hands, arms, heads and shoulders that were forming from the walls, their shapes an absence of reality. Her blades passed right through them, but as we know from our earlier encounter, it stopped the shadows taking form enough to grab us. It wouldn’t work forever, but it might just work for long enough to get Val into the basement.

I spun, flinging another hand forward and down the next hallway, opening a portal within the kitchen at the other end. I hopped through first, followed by Val, followed by Arzak. It took me poking a head back through the portal to realise that Lore wasn’t following because there were five ghostly hands gripping him tightly, holding him to the wall.

‘Go!’ he shouted. ‘Quickly, though!’ He slammed the butt of his blade towards one of the hands, but it passed through. The shadow regained form in a second—they were getting faster at reshaping every time we attacked.

I turned back to the kitchen to see Arzak and Val standing at the trap door, standing next to the pitch black basement. ‘What are you waiting for?’ I cried. ‘We gotta move quick! Get a torch down there!’

‘There is,’ Arzak replied.

‘What?’

‘There is a torch down there,’ Val said.

‘Ah.’ I realised then why the pair of women were so hesitant to step down. ‘...We gotta go anyway, haven’t we?’

Arzak looked at me, nodded, and then jumped down the length of the staircase in one stride. She should’ve handed heavily at the bottom, but I heard nothing.

‘Arzak?’ Val called into the darkness.

‘Is… on the… need to…’ Arzak words came and went, fading into and out of reality. It didn’t take a genius to work out what that meant.

I looked up at Val. ‘What if, when you destroy the devices, someone gets trapped on the other side?’

‘We’ll have to make sure that doesn’t happen.’

‘OK, but how? How are we going to—’

Val leaped into the darkness, and I had no choice but to follow after her.

I landed on grass. Looking down at my feet, I could just about make them out through the shadows, which were so thick here that they made me feel a bit claustrophobic. I stood upon grass—not the grass of our reality, but the other—but this grass was grey. For a moment I thought this was just the usual grass colour of this new world, but when I looked up at a farmhouse in the distance, I could see that it, and the mountain scenery all existed in a shade of grey. Perhaps I simply wasn’t enough a part of this world to see it for what it truly was.

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‘Styk?’ a familiar voice shouted, and for whatever reason it took me a second to place it as Val’s. I made towards it, stumbling through the sometimes patchy, sometimes intense shadows, doing my best to find any sign of the basement that I really should still have been in.

I collided with Val after a few paces, and I hadn’t been able to see her until I was completely upon her, which caused me to step on her foot. Though I couldn’t make out her expression in the shadows, I knew she’d be scowling at me.

‘I can’t find them,’ she said. ‘I can’t find the towers. Can’t see them, can’t—’

She suddenly shot towards the ground, and I instinctively reached down to grab at her. I gripped tightly onto her arms as something in the shadows sought to tear her away. The opposing force grew stronger with every passing second, and soon it was all I could do just to keep Val’s arms in my hands.

‘Can you portal?’ she asked, voice straining.

‘I can try, but I’d need to let you go.’

For a moment, the shadows gave way enough for me to see her face, and one of sheer terror stared back at me. ‘OK,’ she said, voice quiet. ‘Let me try something.’

I gave it as long as I could before prompting her. ‘Are you doing it?’

‘I’m trying. My magicks seem to be struggling, I…’ she paused for a moment. ‘Wait.’ Val screwed up her face, then suddenly ripped her hands from my grasp. She thrust them towards the shadows that were pulling at her, and she shouted as she released a gust of her wind magicks. It was enough to make the shadows all drop form at once, and she wriggled free. Not only that, but she clear a line of sight between us and one of the strange devices. ‘There!’

‘I got it!’ I said, and even as I was speaking did I open a portal below us. Val and I dropped through, both of us slamming against the device in mid-air before tumbling to the floor. There hadn’t been time to aim properly.

Val pushed herself to her feet using the device for support, then placed one hand on the device before pushing the other down her shirt—revealing her obscurem, which was already glowing a vivid green as she drew upon her Witchcraft magicks.

A lightning formed around both her and the devices, the other two of the latter illuminating in the distance. Val’s hand on the device began to tremble as the power surged through her, her body slowly lifting off the ground, the obscurem glowing brighter and brighter.

A hand wrapped itself around my right foot, then another hand around the other, and suddenly I was hurtling through the darkness away from my friend. ‘Val!’ I shouted, stretching out a hand in desperation. But she was already too far into the process; all I could do was try to survive long enough for her to fix reality.

I whipped a hand down towards my knife, but another shadow—this one fully formed—stepped out of the darkness and grabbed my arm, stopping me from arming myself. I tried the other hand, but that too was snatched by those trapped between realities. ‘Val!’ I shouted. ‘Val, hurry!’

I wrenched my head upwards to see Val floating, the lightning turning green around her, the obscurem glowing so bright that it pierced even the thick darkness.

The shadows pulled on each of my four limbs, stretching me in different directions, the joints beginning to crack, the muscles beginning to strain, my health reserves beginning to drain.

‘Val!’ I shouted again. ‘Val, hur—’

The witch screamed, and the obscurem exploded. A great wave of green lightning blasted out from each of the devices, passing over me without harm, but wiping the shadows away like extinguishing flames. There was a second of silence, before the same wave of lightning returned again, back to the devices that had returned it.

Val dropped to the floor.

Level 24 witchfinder private defeated!

Level 26 witchfinder private defeated!

Level 29 witchfinder sergeant defeated!

Level 32 witchfinder colonel defeated!

…

The list went on, every person who had been trapped between realities considered now defeated—because we’d broken free of combat.

Worldbending — +7,100xp

Worldbending increased to level 28!

Worldbending increased to level 29!

Worldbending increased to level 30!

Base Points gained — +6 INT, +6 Free Points (INT/WIS/CHA)

Ability selection unlocked

…

‘Woah,’ I heard Val say, her form becoming clear once more as the intensity of the darkness softened.

‘You OK?’

‘More than. Just levelled up Witchcraft, and let me tell you: these ability choices are incredible.’

‘Don’t you think we should check on the others before doing that?’

‘Is OK,’ Arzak said, stumbling weakly to her feet, and brushing the dust off her shoulders. ‘I here.’ She turned and cupped a hand to her mouth. ‘Other friends? You alive?’

Lore popped his smiling head down. ‘I’m alive. You did it?’

‘No, Lore, it just ended by itself, as if by magick,’ Val replied.

‘Well, it was by magick, wasn’t it?’

‘Is Corminar still with us?’ I asked him.

As if in answer, Corminar’s elven hand waved his bow through the trapdoor. ‘This bow is completely inadequate. I must insist that we replace this “borrowed” bow with one of my usual calibre at the earliest opportunity.’

‘So you’re unhurt, then,’ I replied.

Val snorted, and in the silence that followed, all five of us found our breaths.

‘Right, then,’ I said. ‘Heroic work done. How about we go find what we came here for?’

"Styk"

Level 12 Bladespinner

Base Stats:

Vitality — 28

Intelligence — 124

Dexterity — 50

Strength — 54

Wisdom — 32

Charisma — 19

Skills:

Worldbending — Level 30

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.

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

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%