‘I don’t think anyone has ever hated their mother-in-law as much as I hate mine,’ Val said as she crouched over Zoi, working her magicks.

  Our new tiefling friend was down. In the moments after my mother had decided to join the fight, she’d disappeared from sight. My gut had dropped immediately, thinking that she sought to attack my friends—if not me and Val—and so I’d done my best to put myself between her and the team, to block her attacks with my body. This was something easier said than done, particularly when the attacker was invisible to the naked eye.

  But, as it turned out, her priority had been freeing Arit.

  It had taken me a moment to notice the slices appearing through the summoned roots, and I had just enough time to say, ‘Lore! Watch out!’ before Arit was free once more. The worldbender crossed the battlefield in a flash by stepping through one of his portals, but it wasn’t him I was worried about.

  Lore avoided my mother’s attack only by chance, having spun on the spot to track down Arit. As he’d turned, he’d whipped his huge sword around, and its side had caught my mother’s shoulder. I could see her location now based on the blood flowing from her wound, but it was still hard to spot.

  I thrust my hands forward to open a portal beneath Lore, who was perfectly happy to fall through it and out of immediate trouble. But my mother had been smart enough to avoid pressing the attack on him, instead using her near-invisibility to lend to the chaos. Instead, she’d turned to the rest of the team and charged.

  Zoi had thought quickly, and she pressed both hand in front of her to conjure forth a wide wave of fire that swept over the landscape. A gap in its coverage announced the location of my mother, who was strong enough to resist the flames somewhat, but almost certainly was suffering damage from them. It was this quick thinking from the tiefling that drew my mother’s ire.

  I ran to place myself in front of Zoi, to protect her with my own body, as I knew my mother would not spill my blood. Yet I arrived there a second too late, and when I lashed out wildly with my blade in a knifestorm attack, my mother had already inflicted a glancing slash on the tiefling’s chest.

  When you were as strong as a Player, a glancing attack was all you needed. Zoi collapsed to the floor, clutching her wound, and Val ran to our side, having realised that her roots advantage was over anyway—it was an easy attack to avoid when you knew it was coming. As she set about desperately healing Zoi’s wound, she didn’t look over at me to say, ‘I don’t think anyone has ever…’ and so on.

  There, you’re all caught up.

  I turned, looking for that trickle of blood that would mark my mother’s position. Across the valley, Lore, Arzak and Corminar clashed with Arit, blades arching through the air but never hitting, the worldbender being too quick with portals to be caught undefended. That didn’t stop him landing attacks on my friends, however, though at least none had dealt significant damage. Yet.

  This left the injured Zoi, Val, and me to deal with my mother. This maybe wasn’t the best setup. The tiefling wasn’t going to attack anyone anytime soon, with Val’s healing being so slow. And I knew my mother wasn’t going to hurt Val or me, because she wouldn’t spill her own blood. Which meant…

  I caught sight of the wound out of the corner of my eye, droplets of blood becoming visible as they dripped from my mother’s flesh. She wasn’t attacking us. She was attacking—

  ‘Lore!’ I shouted.

  Instinctively, he ducked.

  Unfortunately, this did nothing to save himself from my mother’s attack. Her invisible blade carved a wound deep in my friend’s arm, an attack that dealt enough damage—enough pain—to cause him to drop his weapon. The Bane Sword clattered on the ground.

  Arzak and Corminar moved swiftly. The elf released a torrent of arrows towards Arit’s head, snapping to re-aim whenever the enemy stepped through a portal. Corminar would have known just as well as I did that he would not hit Arit, and so his intention was clearly to occupy the enemy while Arzak shifted her focus.

  The orc, for her part, flailed her contraption-supported arm towards where my mother had attacked Lore. From the thud that followed, her swipe met the mark.

  ‘Elf! Mark her!’ Arzak shouted, pointing to the space where she’d just hit.

  Corminar swivelled on the spot and released an arrow just where the orc had been pointing. The arrow seemed to stop in mid-air, its front half going invisible as it became buried in my mother’s body. ‘Elf?’ he repeated, eyebrow raised.

  But Arzak didn’t reply. She had that look in her eyes. That look that said she had a plan.

  I couldn’t ask what it was—not with two Players around to hear—but I could keep my mother distracted while Arzak enacted this scheme. I hopped through a portal, leaving Val torn between rejoining the fight and healing Zoi some more, and I activated knifestorm once more. Even with the arrow marking her position, only one of the many frantic slices of my blades actually met my target, and even that dealt only a light wound.

  But it gave Arzak her opening.

  She brought her enhanced blade around and lunged at my mother. One attack wouldn’t be the difference between victory and defeat, but… that wasn’t what Arzak was trying to achieve. When her sword met my mother’s flesh, she activated its enchantment, drawing the magicks out of whatever it touched. In the case of my mother, it drew from her the invisibility.

  My mother blinked as her arms came back into view, and then again as Arzak’s blade disappeared from sight.

  While Corminar and the injured Lore continued to keep Arit occupied, I pressed the attack on my mother. I knew, deep down, that—like her—I would struggle to kill someone of my own blood. Arzak could kill my mother, but she would need me to split her attention, and wouldn’t that make me just as complicit in her death?

  ‘Whatever it is that you intend,’ Corminar cried out, voice shaking, ‘please do it soon.’

  He was right. We didn’t have time for this. We were facing not one but two Players, and our lives depended on us killing one sooner rather than later. I would have to do it. I would have to draw my mother’s attention, for the sakes of my friends.

  I roared, half-performatively, as I rushed in with my dagger, bringing it around over-arm to stab.

  My mother turned more than quickly enough, bringing her own dagger up to meet mine with such precision that they locked against each other despite their small blades. She didn’t look at the locked daggers, however; her eyes were trained on mine. ‘Your… blood… is meant for more,’ she spat. She pushed blade against blade, sending me stumbling backward, and turned just in time to avoid Arzak’s attack.

  Then her eyes flicked to Lore. The injured Lore. She knew exactly what she was doing.

  I opened a portal beneath my feet to drop in front of Lore, abandoning Arzak for a moment. I saw my mother slow in her approach, eyes narrowing, when she saw what I was up to. I knew she wouldn’t hurt me, and she knew that I knew that. And I knew that she knew that… You know what? You get the idea. The only question that remained was: how did that change the dynamic of the fight?

  My mother sped forward, towards us, and I shifted to block her. She spun to the right, knife raised, urging it past me, but I blocked her with an opening portal. She placed a hand on my shoulder, then pushed off the ground to somersault over me, but I opened a portal beneath me to fall through, so she couldn’t use my shoulder as leverage. A second later, I was back at Lore’s side.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  ‘We need to focus on one!’ the big guy cried out, midway through an attack on Arit. With the injury, he wouldn’t have been able to land it without Corminar occupying some of the worldbender’s attention.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Which one?’

  I met my mother’s eyes as she charged us once more. ‘I can keep her away. You lot—’

  I didn’t get a chance to finish this suggestion, as an enemy portal opened beneath one of Lore’s feet. The portal caused Lore to fall sideway, and in the same moment, the enemy brought their sword up. I could see it about to happen, the blade about to come up to meet Lore’s exposed abdomen. In that split-second, I could think of no ability that would save him, so I reacted just as I’d been doing during the fight so far—I put myself between my friend and my enemy.

  But, unlike my mother, Arit had no qualms about hurting me. The sword continued on its trajectory, coming up, up, up, and… the metal sliced into my side. I’d already been fighting through the pain of having half a spear poking out my shoulder, but now, the pain was unbearable. I screamed.

  Arit yanked his sword’s pommel back, pulling me with it. He snarled as he looked into my eyes, apparently savouring the kill. I trembled at the pain, but tried to raise my dagger nonetheless. When the enemy saw that I was still trying to attack, he threw his head back and laughed, before knocking my blade aside with his free hand.

  I caught sight of one of my friends behind him, or at least, I saw a familiar silhouette—I could not focus beyond that. ‘C… Cor…’ I breathed.

  My elven friend released an arrow that sped towards the enemy’s head, but despite Arit’s lust for the kill, he was ready for this. The Player worldbender opened a portal behind him that caught the arrow, and—judging by the resulting scream—instead found its way to hitting Val.

  ‘No,’ I tried to say, but no sound came out.

  Was this it? Was it over just like this? Had we come so far, only to fail? I had a handful of charges left in my Sisyphus Artifact, but it would take time for me to come back to life, and if the situation didn’t change then I’d just be killed all over again. I needed the rest of the team to alter the flow of battle. I needed… In the immense pain, I lost my path of thought.

  Lore hadn’t attacked Arit, and Arzak was nowhere that I could see, which meant that my mother—even visible—was more than enough to occupy them both. If I was going to survive this, I was going to have to save myself. But with no blade, and without the presence of mind to perform complex magicks, I was out of options. Wasn’t I?

  I mustered up the last of my strength, and I grabbed the spear point that was protruding from my shoulder.

  ‘What are you…?’

  When I pulled, my vision went black, but I had just enough energy left within me to finish my plan. I activated my low-level Closed Reach ability, and I stabbed forward with my makeshift weapon.

  As I struggled to maintain consciousness, Arit gasped.

  And that was it.

  He didn’t drop the sword that had sliced partway through my side. He didn’t recoil. He didn’t so much as cry out in pain. What I’d done wasn’t enough. I was about to give in, to let the dark take me. I readied myself to jump back into battle through the power of the Sisyphus Artifact, though I knew it would be in vain.

  But then I saw another shape behind Arit. A woman whose name had slipped my muddied mind approached the Player from behind. The woman… my mother… Arit wasn’t concerned about her nearby presence. She wasn’t the enemy to him.

  My mother trained her eyes on me, and in a fleeting moment of focus, I saw pain in those eyes. I saw that she truly was capable of such a thing. My vision faded nearly to black, then, but I could still hear. I was still present, if just about.

  ‘It’s time for an act of good faith,’ my mother said.

  ‘Oh?’ Arit asked.

  As it turned out, these would be his final words. I heard the gasp of pain that I wanted before. I felt the pressure of the protruding sword relent. I felt myself collapse to the ground, unsupported. I even sensed the notifications coming in, the signs that the enemy was gone.

  ‘Can you hear me, son?’ the woman asked.

  I tried to move my head, to nod, but I can’t say for sure that I was successful.

  ‘We have another worldbender for the ritual; Arit was always redundant. But maybe this proves that we can find common ground, you and me. Maybe this proves that you can accept my—’

  I passed out.