Entities Consumed: 3 Entity 1: Winter Half-Demon (Avian), male, 1030 years old. Jobs:
Species: Half-Demon (Avian) 50, Gandaberunda Lord 50,
Main: Gandaberunda Slave Lord 10
Career: Faustian 100
Side/Other: Occult Alchemist 75, Artificer 55
Skills
Half-Avian Half-Avian: Corvid Physiology, Armored Carapace, Claws, Swift Passage 2, Hydra 2 (Serpentine), Myriad Limbs 2 (Dexterous Feathers), Rank Up: Gandaberunda, Ice Affinity, Hearth and Home, Glacier Lord, Land Reflects Lord, Rank Up: Gandaberunda Lord Gandaberunda Lord
Territorial Lich, Ice Heart, Unnatural Vitality, Slave Shaping (Rank Up: Slave Lord), Slaves: Their Master's Approval, Slaves: Self-Actualization, Slaves: A Matter Of Time To Break, Creature From Myth, Predator Vision, Rank Up: Gandberunda Slave Lord
Gandaberunda Slave Lord
Slaves: Manipulate Emotions, Slaves: Experience Boost, Slaves: See Their Potential
Corruption Skills
Swift Passage, Hydra, Myriad Limbs, Monstrous Maw (Beak), Mortal Shape
Faustian
SOL Reserve, Patterns on the Weave, Infernal Alchemy, Sorcerer's Soul, Mutation Selection (Blasphemous), Rank Up: Practical Faustian, Intuitive Learning, Corruption Manipulation (Blasphemous), A Point Illustrated, Focus Class, Rank Up: Professor of Goetic Science, Summoning Mastery, Binding Mastery, Swift Chant, Sorcerous Theory, Rank Up: Doctor of Goetic Science, Blasphemous Miracles, An Eye for Students, No Student Left Behind, From Demon to Human, Capstone: Original Patterns
Cannibalism Empowerment: 10% of highest stat (SOL), 1 AFF, 1 Skill from each Species, Main, and Career Job categories, 0 from Side Jobs, 3 fields of memories, Memories: Choice between Affinity, Contracts, or slaves' Status.
Lawrence glanced up. The giant carried the cage toward a cacophony of light and sound. Lawrence had a bad feeling about what was coming. He skimmed the Skill lists for the most useful things. Winter’s list focused first on his biology. He got all the Skills required for his Rank Up into a mythical creature, after which his arcane Prowess received a large boost. Following his ice powers, Winter had chosen territory Skills combining his fief with his ice.
Which meant his fief turned into an arctic wasteland he could control. Following his rank up into a lord, he’d chosen many skills relating to the subjugation of slaves. Some of them were scary. He had one that broke a slave’s mind to his will, turning them into an obedient servant, and another that shaped their bodies likewise. Lawrence inferred it meant the slave would choose Skills Winter wanted them to have.
Affinity Stat unlocked Affinity +1. Affinities available: Ice, Territory, Goetia Status eaten: 90 SOL added to base total Species Job Skill selected Unnatural Vitality - Lvl. 1 (+5 VIG) Description: Increases the demon's health, but also increases their desire to live no matter how vile or agonized their life becomes. Effect: Vigor multiplier doubled (HP = VIG*20 + PWR).
For Species, the choice was easy. There were few Lawrence could use. Most of Winter's base species Skills enhanced his current body parts or unlocked new ones. Claws enlarged his talons. Hydra gave him two heads. As a bird and a mage, Winter’s health would have been doubly low to compensate for increased agility and magic power. The Armor Skill would be best, but Lawrence would inherit it later. Unnatural Vitality was the best option. It would have compensated for Winter's low defense, as it would now for Lawrence.
Skill selected Mutation Selection (Blasphemous) - Lvl. MAX Description By means most foul and not well understood, the demon becomes able to choose which mutations they gain. Effect When a Mutation Skill would be Random, it is instead Chosen. Each time this happens, user gains 10,000 Infernal Corruption points. Requirements: Be a level 25+ Faustian and a member of either Order of Merlin or House of Magnus
Faustian had many wonderful Skills, like Sorcerer’s Soul. It would increase his Soul Unit regeneration to two units a day. Or Soul Unit Reserve, which would double his SL when his Stats recalculated. Or Swift Chant, which halved the amount of time his rituals required. Corruption Manipulation would allow him to temporarily raise or lower his COR by spending SOL, which was priceless for acquiring more power.
A cursory overview of how mutations worked revealed a high level demon’s build must be planned around powerful but Random, biology-altering Skills. For the build Lawrence wanted, he needed to choose his mutations, and he needed the Skill as early as possible. It was also the last time he’d likely see it, given the membership requirement. He had no idea how to find or join the Order of Merlin or House of Magnus, or even what they were. Based on context, coalitions of like-minded faustians, he thought.
Lawrence had an option to take a third skill from Winter’s most recent Job. He chose not to because the best option was Slaves: Manipulate Emotions, and he had no slaves. A perverted mind might consider Lily, Kyri, and all the rest of the Parade slaves, but Lawrence knew managing a harem was an exercise in misery. He did not know much about the Bible, but everyone knew the story of Jacob and his four wives. When threatened, women turned catty.
Entity 2: unknown alien's head Sex: female. Species: True Mer. Age: uknown. Jobs Sex Slave 1 Cannibalism Empowerment: 10% of highest Stat (FCE), 1 Skill from Sex Slave Job Status eaten: 10 FCE, Skill: Disarming Looks (+2 FCE) - Lvl. 1 Description: Some people are capable of lessening another's anger or hostility with a nice smile. Effect: Your physical appearance can fool others into ignoring your Stats, Skills, or faults. Horror Hunger 2: Satisfied +10 PWR, +25 HP, +25 TAB
Lawrence skimmed the mermaid’s skill list. She had one Job. He could infer any number of things. He supposed she’d either disappointed someone or outlived her usefulness. No doubt Gulosus had a hundred slaves like her. Lawrence took one precious moment to mourn the poor girl. Outside the cage, the lumbering giant exited the tunnel. Lawrence saw a narrow alley with bone walls to either side. The top of the walls had been carved into steps, the side of which looked rather like bleachers. Ahead of the giant sat a colossal gate, barred.
Entity 3: Gulosus Male, Manager, 2417 years old Jobs: Species: Manager 95, Other: Gourmand (Company) 60 Skills Drone Natural Weapon: Bite, Deflect Responsibility, Motivate, Have a Meeting, Out of Office, Rank Up: Supervisor, Performance Review, Delegate, Steal Credit, Monstrous Maw, Morning Meeting, Mandate Overtime, Rank Up: Management, Christmas Bonus, Out of Touch, Skilled Liar, Embezzle, Found a Company, Stock Options, Bureaucracy > Efficiency Gourmand Gross Flesh, Metabolism Control, Excess Growth, Insatiable Hunger, Gourmand's Hunger, Devour Others, Devour Their Face, Devour Their Mind, Gender, Touch of Agony, Feed on Suffering, Drive the Dogs Onward, Hammer of Your Betters Cannibalism Empowerment 10% of highest stat (VIG), 1 Skill from Species and Other Jobs, memories: Contracts, Company Estates, or slave' Status Status consumed: +100 VIG, Cannibalism Empowerment: +10 VIG, +50 HP, +50 TAB
All of Gulosus’ Skills focused on managing employees or biting things. His drone species focused entirely on work. His Company skills halved between enhancing his mouth as a weapon or managing his slaves, like Winter but using mind-affecting auras. Lawrence recalled too well how he’d given in to food-lust and nudity so close to the demon. Like with Winter, Gulosus had no good options to choose.
Species Skill: Natural Weapon (Bite) - Lvl. 1 (+2 PWR) Description: Animals and monsters are known for being born with deadly weapons. This Skill increases one's damage with their primary mouth. Effect: Increases Bite Damage by 1% per level of this Skill. Career Skill Monstrous Maw - Lvl. 1 (+3 PWR) Description: Some demons choose Savage method of dispatching their enemies. Only the most uncouth and brutal of demons go out of their way to prioritize it when things like machine guns exist. Effect: The demon's mouth and teeth get bigger. Increases Bite Damage by 20%. Skill Consolidation: Monstrous Maw 1 + Monstrous Maw (Gaping Bite + Rending Teeth) = Monstrous Maw 2: Swallow Anything (+6 PWR) Description Not only do you have the table manners of Jabba and the teeth of a ghoul, but now you've chosen to combine them. You've gained the ability to digest anything. Effect: May swallow any substance without harm. Wood, stone, glass, etc. The acid of the demon's stomach becomes potent enough to dissolve the swallowed item. It takes 1 hour per point of Hardness to dissolve an object, but 1 SOL spent will reduce the time by 30 minutes. Any amount of SOL may be spent. The demon becomes immune to digested poisons. Bite Damage +40%.
The giant staggered past a gateway. The ground here was slimy with stomach acid, though dirt and rocks had been imported. Several immense bone outgrowths rose from the floor or descended from the ceiling, which Lawrence supposed must grind up food. Makeshift barricades had been erected on and around them.
A line of lightly armed humans stood in a loose semicircle. They all carried rectangular shields and Roman armor, which consisted of a steel chestplate, bracers, an armored skirt, shinguards, and a helmet.
Huge ivory gates stood at either end of the stomach. Encircling the arena was a high wall which none could climb. It rose taller than the giant carrying Lawrence, taller than even Doofy. Behind it saw rows of carousing demons. There were no lords or ladies here. Arcane lanterns illuminated the space. This was an execution arena for the masses. Cheap entertainment.
The giant lowered the cage to the ground before the group. It snapped off the lock and opened the door. It shook the cage without speaking. Lawrence took the hint. He scrambled out. The demon swiped at him anyway. Lawrence dashed out of reach.
“Ice Dart,” Lawrence intoned. An arrowhead of ice shot from his finger. It sailed toward the demon’s face. His aim was off. He hit the beast in its thick neck. The shard shattered and did no visible damage. “Drat.”
“Attending demons of Dalheim,” the announcer spoke. The giant turned to leave, but the gate slammed shut. The giant made a noise of alarm. It charged toward the iron bars. Its tremendous weight left a sizable dent, but the gate held. The demons controlling the mechanism pointed and laughed. The giant raised its arms. It made some pathetic attempts to plead for its life, but the fiends laughed.
Lawrence tuned out the speech. He skimmed his recalculated Status. It seemed the Program took his upgraded Skills and applied the new gains to past levels. His hit points were now over 2,100.
Adjusted Resources HP 2168/2168 (21.68 per minute) MP 198/198 (1.8 per minute) Stamina 60/60 (0.6 per minute) Soul 100/100 (1 a day) Hunger Full (1.5x HP regen) Defenses Sanity 85/100 Spell Resistance 10% Endurance 1 Armor 1
Lawrence readied his weapons. He had one magazine for his sidearm. His backup revolver still had all its rounds, but he wouldn’t dip into it if he could avoid it. He joined the group of slaves standing in the middle.
“Who’re you?” a squint-eyed man demanded.
“I’m nobody,” Lawrence replied. He pushed back his hood.
“Stay out of our way, or you’ll end up dead.”
“Copy.”
The gates cranked open. A boar emerged. Lawrence had never seen a real boar. He’d assumed ‘wild pig’ meant something fat with splotchy pink skin and a spade-like nose, maybe a curly tail. This thing was how boars looked in reality. It was the size of a car. Its leathery hide was thick, resistant to small arms fire. It had a nose for digging, yes, but also a pair of tusks growing from its upper jaw.
Wild boars were as intelligent as any pig, which meant they were smarter than most animals. When attacked and wounded, they tended to charge their enemy and gut or hamstring them, then turn around and stomp them to death. Their attitude was not ‘I-am-afraid-I’m-going-to-die-please-God-someone-help-me.’ Their’s was ‘If-I-get-a-papercut-I’m-sure-as-hell-taking-you-with-me.’
They normally traveled in packs. A single adult female could have three to four litters a year, with twelve infants in each litter. A sounder of boars would dig up any and all plants in their path for food. They were a scourge on wildlife. They had few predators. A full grown adult could weigh eighteen hundred pounds.
This one had clearly been infected with a strain of rabies. Multiple lines of drool ran from its mouth. It charged the defenders.
“Come together,” one of the gladiators shouted. “Come together. Shield wall. Make a—”
The boar hit the line of men line a bowling ball smashing pins. Humans and aliens went flying. Some threw spears. One or two pierced the boar’s hide. It turned and charged straight for them. One of the men dove out of the way. The pig swung its head and ripped the guy’s calf from the back of his leg. The guy screamed. The pig reared, ready to bring both feet crashing onto the guy’s back.
“Ice dart,” Lawrence murmured. A shard of ice hit the boar’s head. A chip flew into the animal’s eye, throwing it off course. It twisted, squeezed its eye shut. The guy rolled away. The boar bucked. It locked onto Lawrence with its good eye.
Lawrence picked up a spear. He braced the butt of the spear in the dirt. The boar charged. Two thousand pounds of angry swine bore down on him. The boar saw the spear and dodged it.
“Ice Dart.” Lawrence sent another shard at its head. His aim was off, and the dart shattered, but he’d planned for it, and he succeeded in at least temporarily blinding the creature. When it came at him this time it ran itself onto the spear.
The boar’s titanic weight ripped the spear out of the ground. Lawrence jumped out of the way. His poncho flew. The boar twisted at the worst possible moment. Its tusks swiped across his chest.
HP -967
The bottom dropped out of Lawrence’s stomach. The boar followed him and caught him again on the back-swing.
HP -478
Lawrence fell. His single point of armor would have stopped him from feeling a few bumps, but it did nothing to protect him from being trampled.
HP -718
The boar ran him over. Iron-shod hooves hammered him into the ground. His health dropped down to five little points. The boar ran toward the group of guys. They spread out to throw more spears. Lawrence concentrated. He made four SOL usable.
“Fast Healing,” he groaned. He raised his head enough to see where the boar was. He felt the ground shaking with its steps.
HP +215
He concentrated. He was still drained from generating iliaster fighting inside Lord Gulosus. It was orders of magnitude more difficult to generate usable soul units, even though he had a much larger supply. The difficulty would not reset for a day. Lawrence could generate a few more times, but he doubted he’d be able to make full use of his new reserve. It was like trying to lift weights when one’s muscles are exhausted.
Worse, the regeneration rate had not improved. Making his new reserve last was the most optimal path, until he got Sorcerer’s Soul. He’d forgotten to factor the Skill into his theoretical builds. Whatever happened, he was running out of options.
“Fast Healing.”
HP +161
Translation. He could generate four units at a time. Fast Healing would regenerate about 10% per four units used, which came out to 2.5% of max HP per unit. Lawrence groaned. Feeding on the boar was the better option, but he didn’t know how efficient it would be.
The boar killed three people before it went down, and grievously injured a half-dozen more. Lawrence stayed motionless. He played dead. He rested his chin on a patch of dirt so he could watch, but otherwise he did not move. He pretended the boar had killed him and he did it without shame.
‘Randy lay there like a slug. It was his only defense,’ he thought with a chuckle. A minute passed. He regenerated some hit points. The slave-gladiators raised their spears. The crowd roared its approval. The announcer took his platform to speak. He or it raised their three hands for silence.
“Gladiators of Thug Swarm. You have fought gallantly. As promised, you will be rewarded with freedom and jobs as warriors in our company. Unfortunately, we do not have enough space for all of you. We can only take five. The last five of you to remain standing will be accepted into our ranks.”
A chorus of raucous laughter met these words. The spectators hooted. The gladiators looked at each other in horror. Some of them possessed sharper instincts. They immediately drove their spears into whichever person they liked the least. Lawrence tensed, but none of them came toward him.
“Fast Healing.”
HP +161 HP +161 HP +107 HP +107
The gladiators died one by one. It was short, swift, and violent. Brutal. Spears were discarded. They went to work with machetes or swords or knives or kukris. Blood splattered the ground. One guy fell on a molar. Another molar descended from the ceiling without warning, with all the force of a pile driver, crushing him to a red smear. The ceiling molar retracted.
“Fast Healing.”
HP +54 ERROR: Cannot generate additional SOL. SOL 80/100.
Twenty days to recharge, unless he could steal some from the gladiators. Or the demons. Maybe the dead boar? Animals had to possess a soul, didn’t they? Even one unit was enough.
Anyway, some horrible guy kicked a gladiator in the back, sending him sprawling onto the red smear. He screamed even before the ceiling moved. Then it did move. Lawrence wanted to close his eyes, but he couldn’t. He heard a crunch.
When it was over, five bloody and bruised men stood in a wide circle. They panted. They raised their swords in unison.
“Come forward,” the announcer roared. “You who would declare yourselves equal with us.”
The gladiators walked over the bodies of the fallen. They went to the side of the arena to stand before the announcer. As soon as their backs turned, Lawrence began army-crawling to the boar.
“Congratulations, slaves,” the announcer said over the din. “Your bravery in the face of impossible odds reflects well on the servants of Thug Swarm.”
Lawrence dragged himself over a body. He touched someone’s leg. It felt like skin. It was still warm. It had a layer of hair. It made Lawrence’s skin crawl to think it had been alive a few moments ago. Lawrence kept moving.
“While we are pleased to welcome you into our ranks, we must first note our desire to see your skills in serving the hellkin’s appetites. Generate enough iliaster for one meal, and you will progress to the final challenge.”
Lawrence turned his head. The gladiators looked at each other in some confusion. Lawrence pressed his hand against the boar’s hide. The mouth on his palm opened. Teeth bit into tough flesh. Lawrence felt a whip-like tongue extend from his palm, like a parasitic worm writhing. The sensation made his skin crawl. He wanted to grab the tongue and rip it out of him. Instead he forced himself to tolerate it.
Nearby, the dead bodies began convulsing. Sternums broke. Pale, incorporeal fingers pushed aside flesh and metal as the souls emerged from the corpses like wingless, slimy butterflies. They wore no clothes, but their bodies possessed doll-like anatomy. As these were the freshly-dead, they still had identifiable faces. They looked around in some distress before picking up their discarded weapons.
“Hey kid,” said a squint-eyed ghost. “You all right?”
HP +300. HP +300. SOL +1
With his free hand, Lawrence gave him a thumbs up.
“What’s happening now?” a soul asked.
Lawrence pointed. A dozen heads swiveled toward the still-alive gladiators. Even the mashed-up guys had appeared. They both looked at the stains with some sadness. Their gear was mangled and broken. They stepped onto the molar to retrieve their swords. The ceiling molar plunged. The souls slammed into the ivory ground, crushed flat in a flash. The molar retracted, but the souls were already pulped. In their places lay a smear of yellow slime, the precious pain-produced iliaster demons ate to avoid dissolution, and a lake of pale soul-stuff.
The pools of pancaked ectoplasm screamed. The face of one began rising, reforming out of nothing, when the molar plunged again. Its pain manifested as a yellow-green, pus-like slime. The demons wrinkled their noses.
“Thus the iliaster we require to survive,” the announcer called. “See how the giant of giants slurps the stuff. Feed the giant the remaining iliaster from your dead compatriots, or you will take their place. Whichever of you is left standing may leave.”
“None of us are going to leave, are they?” the squint-eyed slave asked.
“Nope,” Lawrence said. He raised his head. He’d vacuumed up a good part of the boar’s insides.
HP +350
“They’re gonna keep doing this until no one’s left," Lawrence said. "Demons despise mortals. Normally they just shell us and torture us. To a demon, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to keep a live human around unless we have a special skill they need. Even then,” Lawrence shook his head. “I wouldn’t call the experience living.”
“We’re already dead, and we can’t escape. Is there nothing we can do?” the squint-eyed man readied his weapon. The other dead souls assumed a turtle formation. Opposite them, the still-living souls realized they were outnumbered. Their chances of survival dwindled.
“Maybe.” Lawrence pressed both hands to the floor. He sank them into a layer of acid, which caused a burning sensation. He willed his palms to open. He felt the mouths begin eating. “Maybe not.”
There was no reaction at first. With this many demons inside the giant, it had to ignore small amounts of damage everywhere. But Lawrence had an endless appetite, and he was so hungry. Indeed, his hunger seemed to grow the more he tried to satisfy it. He took a deep breath and concentrated on vacuuming flesh. A depression began forming under him.
“Hey boy, what you doing?”
“Escaping.”
“Can we come?”
“Might as well.” From the depression, a hole grew. Pieces of flesh tore away. A hole appeared. Lawrence saw a tunnel underneath. He chewed the sides of the hole, enlarging it.
“What is it?” one of the souls peered over his shoulder.
“A way out.” Lawrence dropped through the hole. He fell ten feet and slammed into the floor. The ground was spongey. Glowing grass-like growths grew in clumps here and there. They looked like they oozed poison or perhaps acid, but they provided enough light to see.
+10 PWR, +50 HP, +50 TAB
The souls dropped through the hole one by one. All of them made it through. They all looked unhappy to be dead, with drooping expressions and sagging shoulders.
“Where to now?” someone asked.
“Can we escape?”
“I don’t know where the exit is.”
“Hey boy,” the squint-eyed man yelled at Lawrence. “Do you know where you’re going?”
“I know where I’m not.” Lawrence looked up. He knelt on the squishy ground. There wasn’t much acid here, but plenty of bone. He pressed his palm to the floor. It was gross, but he felt a rhythmic thumping. “I know the demons are going to be hot on our tails. We’re prolly not gonna get far. Let’s find the heart and kill this thing.”
“Kill the giant of giants, then cut our way out,” the squint-eyed man said.
“When it feels the pain, maybe it’ll swallow all the demons and kill them.," Lawrence said. "Either way, it’ll piss them off.”
“You think that’s a good idea?” the guy asked.
Lawrence shrugged. “Gonna end up in a torture palace eventually. Might as well do it with style.”
“Let’s do it,” somebody shouted.
They ran into the tunnel. Slime dripped from the ceiling. The passage twisted. Lawrence opened his Status and went over the giant’s Skill list. The demon had once been a normal giant, much like Doofy. Time, levels, and lots of food turned it into a powerhouse. It was an example of a demon who followed the Size Increase and Living Fortress lines to their logical conclusion.
Stolen novel; please report.
If Lawrence was a tank, hoo boy. But he wanted to be a mage. He narrowed the best options to Unnatural Vitality, which would upgrade his existing Skill, Armored Carapace 1, which would stack with his Corruption Skill when it manifested, or Living Weapons. Living Weapons would transform one of his existing limbs to a weapon, like a bladed or clubbed arm, but he could also put it on Prehensile Tail when it manifested.
Lawrence really did not want a tail. He could not begin to describe how much he did not want a tail, let alone having to learn how to use one.
And the giant possessed Monstrous Maw ranks. Duh, to enable its many armored stomachs.
Well, his tail and armor hadn’t manifested yet. Lawrence wanted an armor Skill, but he wanted something other than Armored Carapace. Therefore, it would not do to gain a stacked buff in it. Thus, either the third Monstrous Maw, or an upgraded Vitality.
The next Maw Skill was a choice. Lawrence could Distend his jaw, greatly increasing damage at the cost of SOL, or Swallow Anything. For a giant, it meant the demon could swallow smaller demons and digest them, dead or not. Neither appealed. Lawrence still was not comfortable with becoming a powerful Eater. The thought of eating more humans made his stomach somersault.
“Ugh, it stinks in here,” one of the souls complained.
“Why does it smell like rotten eggs and feces?” somebody asked.
“These must be the intestines,” the squint-eyed man said. “I’ll bet the air is poisonous.”
“Run.” The souls charged ahead on stronger, longer legs. Lawrence followed the glow of their bodies through the haze. Green and black smog filled the narrow tunnels. He kept his mouth shut and tried to take shallow breaths. He lifted his shirt over his face. He charged.
“This is the end,” a soul shouted. “Hurry, cut through the wall.”
Weapons lifted. The souls diverted from continuing to the waste receptacle to hack through the soft flesh. They cut a narrow hole in the side. Lawrence pushed his way through the slimy, bloody tunnel. He emerged in a zone with cleanish air. The tunnels here had uneven floors with bony ceilings.
“What is this place?”
“The sternum, looks like,” the squint-eyed man said. Lawrence began to think of him as a sergeant. A rhythmic pounding travelled along the surfaces. “The heart is close.”
The souls jogged down the tunnel. Lawrence’s stamina slowly decreased. He tried to tell himself jogging built his endurance. He hated running. He followed the souls in silence. The tunnel twisted and turned, going up and down and around. The souls could have passed through the walls of flesh straight to their target; they weren’t much different from ghosts. Lawrence saw no reason to inform them. He relied on the light from their glowing bodies to see.
“The tempo is louder. On the other side of this wall.” The squint-eyed man pointed. He drove his sword in. The wall parted.
Lawrence felt the floor shift. It meant the giant stirred. He ducked under the ragged hole in the wall. Beyond was a wide, somewhat circular room. An opening on the opposite side led deeper into the giant. The one thing of note in the middle was the enormous, pulsing heart. Two huge fleshy tubes connected to it. One hung from the ceiling and contained a veritable river of blood gushing upward. The other rose from the floor, and it was less a single tube than a mass of hundreds of tiny veins compressing together.
“Gentlemen,” Lawrence said. “May I do the honors?”
Heads turned. The damned traded looks.
“Sorry kid, this one’s on us. Killing it is our right.” One of the souls set to swinging his battleaxe at the veins, like chopping a redwood tree with a too-small axe. Three more began sawing the base of the vast artery.
Lawrence stared into the pulsing red flesh of the heart. He was disturbed to learn he thought it looked delicious. As this was the literal heart of the giant, Lawrence had a unique opportunity. He unhinged his jaw.
Running his tongue over his teeth, he felt their sharpness. His jaw opened sideways as well as down. His cheeks split like a Glasgow smile, almost to his ears. He felt air in places he didn’t know he could feel, and he knew it was wrong. He smelled coppery blood oozing from the veins and gushing from the artery, and he knew he should feel sickened, but he felt the way people associate smelling hot bacon, scrambled eggs, and orange juice after going all day and night without food. It was less about being hungry and more of an intense, unquenchable need.
Lawrence pressed his teeth against the soft, gooey surface of the heart. He heard several sounds of horror or disgust, but he ignored them. He was lost in his own little world. He sank his teeth down in one huge bite. He bit through powerful, muscular flesh and tasted hot red blood. He pulled away from the jagged gash in the heart. He closed his lips to chew. He swallowed a pint of blood. The heart-meat still beat.
The heart began pumping faster. Lawrence took his time chewing. He bent his head for another bite. Blood pooled around his ankles. It rained from above. The artery sprayed around the room like a hose with too much pressure. Blood rained in sheets.
“He’s not a kid,” one of the souls shouted. “He’s a monster. Let’s get out of here.”
“Wait,” someone cried. “Do you hear that?”
It was true. A rhythmic pounding reverberated throughout the space. The now-disabled heart tumbled from its perch, interrupting Lawrence. It ceased beating, but the rhythm increased.
“Another heart,” the squint-eyed man rasped. “Down the tunnel. Let’s go.”
Lawrence let them get a head start. He had no desire to eat the souls. He thought if he followed they might attack, and he knew he could not win. Thus, it was best to trail. Lawrence waded out of the growing pond into the tunnel. He wiped as much of the blood off his poncho as he could.
Sanity -1, ELD +1 +10 PWR, +50 HP, +50 TAB
He gained Skill proficiency, though it seemed the experience gain was not notable enough to warrant a notification. In any case, the creature still lived. Lawrence followed the glow of a dozen damned charging through the tunnels. The glow faded as they outpaced him.
Lawrence drew his lantern and lit it. Having one was so useful. He rushed to the next heart, but he didn’t go at a breakneck pace. He reviewed more of his Status.
Horror Class: Savage Cursed Eater - Lvl. 3 (+2 VIG, +2 PWR) Description User is a cannibal willing to eat any available sentient and suffers from a Curse. User gains EXP by committing the actions that led to this class. Drawback As a Horror Class, for every level one gains in it, one loses several levels in their regular Jobs. With this loss of levels comes loss of Skills. Furthermore, the Curse can only be undone by a special action from Holy Jobs. Curse: Ghoulification As one levels, turns the Bearer's body into something more like a ghoul. Curse Lvl. 1 (Status)
Lawrence felt disturbed by this information. On the other hand, the beating heart had tasted super-delish. Perhaps the class ‘n conditions wasn’t so bad, after all?
He felt a chill run down his spine. To an extent, people were shaped by their Jobs. It was why martial classes grew muscular and mage classes often became more pretentious. Or why rogues became introverted. The effect was, perhaps, more easily measured with rogues. An extrovert who became a rogue would see their personality warp, becoming quieter and more reserved. It did not always happen, people’s Will played a part in their resistance to the Program’s effects, but the fact the effect was measurable at all was concerning.
The effect cut both ways. Lawrence’s new Horror Class would shape him to become more monster-like. More like Hannibal without the pretensions of class or culture. Lawrence shuddered. Unless he found a way to cancel the curse and remove the Class, he’d turn into a living horror. He had the Access he so desperately wanted, but it was at the cost of this. Was it worth it?
No. No it was not. He couldn’t ever go home again. He couldn’t let Mom and Dad see him like this. Becoming demon was acceptable, Mom was one, but becoming Horror was a step too far. The knowledge it was his bio-dad’s legacy did not assuage his feelings. Mom was right. Knowing the guy’s identity was not something he wanted.
Gah. It was too complicated. Know who he was and slowly grind his way toward a Job. Or he could not know and live forever on the outside. It was a real problem, and try as he might he could not see a way around it. The only option was to push forward and hope he could get Frost or maybe a priest to undo the curse. He’d have to go home… Maybe he could get Claret to do it? The guy wanted to save him anyway. Yes, it might work. What mattered now was the timing of it all.
“Hurry up. Cut the arteries.”
“Why are there two of them this time?”
“Who cares? Just keep cutting.”
“Uh, guys? He’s back.”
“Oh no. Hey, you.”
Lawrence pointed at himself.
“Yeah, you. You stay over there, or else we’re going to kill you. You’re not human anymore. You’re turning into one of them.”
Lawrence stood on the room’s perimeter. He studied the floor plan. The second heart hung from two enormous arteries. A hundred thousand veins propped it up. It pulsed like the beat of a drum. Hearing the sound reverberate off the walls filled Lawrence with a strange sense of calm. He rather liked it. The regular movement of the large, juicy, luscious, pulsing organ did not hurt.
The first artery tore. A deluge of blood sprayed. The heart swung. The other artery drew taut with the added weight.
“Veins all cut.” A soul wriggled from under the mass. “Cut the artery.”
The big guy swung his battle-axe into the tube. He rent a horrible hole. Blood spewed like a waterfall. He kept hacking until the heart slammed into the ground. The souls cheered. They climbed the ramp nearby to the next tunnel.
“Are we getting out of here?”
A rhythmic thumping answered him, increasing ever more.
“Aw not again.”
“Come on,” the squint-eyed man shouted. “Almost done.” The souls dove into the tunnel.
“Rule of three,” Lawrence said to himself. He approached the heart. He waded through the growing pond. He sank his teeth into the biggest part still open to the air. He chewed off a few mouthfuls. He chewed some more. The blood rose up to his hips. He re-wrapped his poncho around his shoulders. He skirted the two waterfalls falling from the arteries. He climbed the incline to the next tunnel. He raised his lantern high.
Natural Weapon Mastery (Bite) - Lvl. 2 (+2 PWR, +2 VIG) +10 PWR, +50 HP, +50 TAB Monstrous Maw 2 - lvl. 2 (+6 PWR)
And now for the Drawbacks. Lawrence disliked having them, and having so many. He supposed it made a twisted sort of sense. The entire Horror Class program existed to provide consequences to horrible actions. The existence of such dark things would help ensure no one did them, lest they be labeled as monsters by the world itself.
It was different from an ogre or a mimic gaining a monster class or Job. Those by design enabled monsters to benefit from the Program, thus helping equalize things or at least allow weaker creatures to Rank Up into something powerful.
Drawbacks The Shakes User gains a low-power, near-constant trembling. May manifest as shivering. A cosmetic effect, though the Bearer will notice reduced ability to use tools requiring dexterity. It is common knowledge all Savages, Eaters, and cannibals get The Shakes. Body of the Ghoul Also known as the Ghoul Aspect or one of the many kinds of Curses, this will turn the Bearer's body into a ghoul over time. Can only be removed by special action from a Holy Job. Fear Aura Other people become afraid of this person's presence, going out of their way to keep their distance. Even when cloaked or disguised, the victim's species will feel disturbed or unusually wary.
Lawrence stared at the Drawbacks for a long time. He’d have to abandon Lily. Parasol Parade… he had mixed feelings. He would not feel too bad if he had to forget about them. But Lily? Well, she wasn’t family. He did not trust her. But she was the closest thing to a friend he had.
He could never go home again, and he could never see her again. For some reason the realization sent a stabbing pain deep into a space between his shoulders. It hurt, enough he clutched his chest, enough he screwed up his eyes, enough the sharp stabbing pain turned achy.
Why did it hurt? Why did it make him feel? Lawrence had never felt anything for anyone outside of his family. Why would some near-complete strangers make him feel this way?
The negative feelings settled on his shoulders like a weighted backpack. Lawrence wanted nothing more than to sit down and take a nap. However, he knew it was a bad idea. The demon neared death, the souls would be leaving, and Lawrence would be alone. He didn’t mind being alone, but there was a vast different in being alone by one’s choice and being alone because the Program intentionally isolated.
Lawrence entered the final chamber. The car-sized organ sat on a pillar of veins and tissue. Four colossal arteries sat around it. One of them was a gaping hole, the tube in question pumping an unending river onto the floor. A lake rose to Lawrence’s ankles.
“Come on, come on.”
The second artery tore. The souls succeeded. Some of them tried chopping at the trunk of veins, but most of them focused on the arteries. The third was about to go any second. The blood rose up to Lawrence’s knees.
“We got to hurry or we gon’ drown,” one of the souls yelled.
Lawrence surveyed the chamber. There were no exits. He felt like swallowing his tongue. Damned could not drown.
The souls severed the third artery. Battle-axe guy raised his weapon. He delivered powerful overhead swings to the final one. He chopped through it. Four rivers of blood poured into the chamber. It rose to Lawrence’s hips. He began wading toward the heart.
“It’s done,” the souls crowed. “Demon is dead. Let’s cut our way out of here before we drown.”
They all jumped and swam through the blood, splashing each other. Lawrence scooped handfuls around himself. He made it to the heart just as the men made it to the other side.
“Come on, guys,” squint-eye pressed. “Let’s do this. One more push. Straight on through.”
All of them drove their mostly-dull weapons straight into the giant of giant’s side.
Meanwhile, Lawrence kept his head above the surface. The lake covered the heart. He had to swim. Taking a deep breath, he held his glasses with one hand and ducked his head under the surface. He dared not open his eyes. He felt around with his free hand. He found the still-pulsing shape under him. He sank his teeth into it once, twice, three times.
He felt its beating cease. He sank his teeth into the most muscular part of the heart, which was the part generating the pumping motion. He felt it slowly stop. Notifications flashed.
Lawrence swam up. He broke the surface and shook his head. He put his glasses back on. The far wall had a bunch of dull weapons stuck in it, but the souls had vanished.
“They must have figured out they can walk through walls.” Lawrence fished his glasses case out of his bag of holding. Too late, he thought, but oh well. He folded his glasses and put them away, then slipped the case into his pocket. The world turned into a dark red blue. His lantern chose that moment to go out. Blood had gotten inside the case and soaked the wick.
For a long moment, Lawrence treaded water in a lake of blood in utter darkness, at serious risk of drowning. The entire cavern shook, but not from the heart. It was the giant thrashing as it died. Lawrence swam in the general direction of the weapons. He got lost in the darkness and ended up somewhere else. It did not matter much. He drew his knife and plunged it into the flesh over his head. He hung in place for a moment, preparing for the task.
When he was as ready as he could be he pulled the knife free. He rewound his poncho as much as he could with it soaking wet. He knew he was stalling. The blood rose. Lawrence kicked to keep himself above it. He bumped his head against the ceiling. Oh crap. This was it. He tipped his head back.
He took a few deep breaths to steady his racing heart. Then he opened his Monstrous Maw as wide as it could go and took the deepest breath of his life. He sank beneath the surface a bare moment before running out of air. He closed his mouth. The air in his lungs buoyed him. He plunged his knife into the wall to keep himself steady. He opened his mouth again for the last time. Then he began eating.
-
Savage Cursed Eater Lvl. 4 (+3 VIG, +3 PWR) Weapon Proficiency (Bite) Lvl. 2 (+2 PWR, +2 VIG) Monstrous Maw Lvl. 2 (+6 PWR) Unnatural Vitality Lvl. 2 (+10 VIG) Horror Hunger Full Resources: Full +10 PWR, +50 HP, +50 TAB
Lawrence ripped another huge bite. He pulled himself through the tunnel of meat with his fingers. Hot blood filled the entire space. His lungs were full to bursting. He was blind, suffocating, roasting from the giant’s intense heat. He let a little air escape, which was mostly carbon dioxide. He let a little more. Spots appeared in his vision.
He swallowed another mouthful of meat and blood. He couldn’t see. He hoped he was going in the right direction. The giant’s hide was thick and tough. Lawrence felt the texture change. He grabbed with his fingers and came up against a stone wall. He sank his teeth into it and bit down with all his might.
Lawrence ripped a jagged hole in the demon’s side. A river of blood expelled him outside. Lawrence gasped for air. He shut his mouth right away as a waterfall of blood covered him. A bloodfall, he thought. He crawled away. Once he put a little distance between himself and the deluge, he coughed.
“This is wrong,” he said between heaves. “I’m coughing up blood that isn’t mine.”
He shook his head. He wiped his face. He lay in the steaming blood for a long time. The turtle had levered itself up out of its hole and rampaged across the frostlands. Lawrence supposed the pain it felt while having its three hearts cut out drove it insane. He did not know where he was. He did not see where the souls went.
No tracks dotted the snow. Lawrence thought for certain he saw some pale shades silhouetted against the horizon, but the Morningstar’s passing cloaked the land in freezing mist. Lawrence tried to enjoy the stealth it gave him for a minute. No doubt the demons approached. Lone humans made juicy targets, even if they had some Horror Skills.
Lawrence crawled back to the turtle. He sank his teeth into the soft flesh under the thick armor. It tasted awful, but the blood had drained.
+10 PWR, +50 HP, +50 TAB
Lawrence sat with his back to the turtle. An actual river of blood poured across the ice. Under the deluge, the iceworms danced. A few demons got close to the turtle, but the worms ate them.
For his part, Lawrence sat still. The turtle sat on the open ice fields, meaning Lawrence was vulnerable. After a long time passed, the worms began feasting on the turtle’s flesh.
+10 PWR, +50HP, +50 TAB
Lawrence joined them. He was careful about moving, but the worms seemed to ignore him. For now, at least. He needed a new plan. He couldn’t walk across the ice. There was no snow walk he could use to mimic the patterns of snow shifting across the ice. Vibration ruled everything. Any amount was too much.
+10 PWR, +50 HP, +50 TAB
But he would be remiss not to partake of this feast. He disliked his new cannibal Skills. They made him sick to his stomach. But the gamer in him knew the value of grinding. No doubt he’d lose most of the stats when he finally got baptized or “saved” by whomever. It therefore felt right he was grinding. Not as good as if it were mage stats, but Power and Vigor complemented.
Lawrence dipped a finger in the blood. He drew an oval around himself. Then he drew some geometric symbols. The blood took a long time to dry, but Lawrence had time. Once the wards were complete, he drew a small circle adjacent to his.
A worm erupted out of the ground, less than thirty feet away. Pallid flesh layered with black chitin plates, a massive red-hot triangular horn, steam rising from the tip, the worm opened its flower mouth and roared. It reared back like a snake, plunged forward, stabbed its horn into a spider creeping along the ice, almost invisible in the mist. The spider blurred sideways, dodging the strike with a Skill. Frustrated, the ice worm screamed.
It was no Earth-originating spider, nor even a giant alien spider. This creature resembled a crab-walking human, nude and no sexual characteristics, with its head twisted around, and several extra pairs of arms and legs arranged in a circle around the hips and torso. Each arm and leg ended in a human-like hand or foot, except the flesh rippled with corruption like mushrooms spreading across a dead tree. Black and red pustules marred the healthy skin, from which oozed a pale, sticky fluid, whether silk, semen, or something else.
Pockmark craters in the spider’s face were filled with white sacs. One of the sacs popped, spilling not fluid, but a dozen tiny scuttling forms—baby spiders. The parent or host spider demon ignored the babies. Its over-sized, bulging eyes were not arranged in neat rows or columns. They sat in random places on its face and bald head, looking less like eyes than tumors threatening to break the skin like overripe pimples.
The spider sprinted toward Lawrence. He drew his gun. The sight of the shiny weapon—though bloodsoaked—made the monster slow. Its form shimmered as if ready to dodge. A flaming spike descended from the sky, piercing the spider straight through its torso. The demon squealed, arms and legs flailing. The ice worm pulled its head up with a snap, launching the demon skyward off the horn. The worm leaned back and opened its mouth.
It reminded Lawrence of a man throwing a piece of popcorn up and catching it.
The spider disintegrated into a thousand little spiders. The swarm broke apart in the air. Some fell down the ice worm’s throat, but more fell on its blind, eyeless face, biting and clawing. The vast majority fell on the ice, where the demon slowly reformed.
Lawrence concentrated. He shaped his will into a fist and hurtled it at the demon. He was too tired to make lightning. Instead the air deformed as a fist-shaped mass slammed into the demon’s face. The demon recoiled as if struck. It whipped its head around. Its mouth opened to snarl. Two black chelicerae, mandibles, protruded from the roof of its mouth. A drop of black saliva dripped.
Where the drool landed, the snow sizzled. Not spit then, venom, Lawrence realized. He reshaped his will again. The demon turned itself around without moving forward. Once it had itself lined up, it shot forward with the speed of a man sprinting.
Lawrence sent his will out again, this time with his thumb extended. The demon did not bother dodging. Lawrence will slammed into its face. It flinched, but the real damage was his will’s thumb jamming into the demon’s biggest eye. The creature howled. It slipped on the ice, sliding.
The worm attacked. It made a diving motion, spearing through the demon and into the ground. The ice rumbled as the worm escaped. Again, the demon disintegrated on impact, but this time it did not reform. A few spiders scurried over to Lawrence. They ran into an invisible wall trying to cross the wards, fizzling and popping like mosquitoes hitting an electrified screen. Lawrence's shoulders sagged.
Too close. He believed his wards would have held, but the specimen had been strong. A dodge skill and the Swarm skill, in addition to breed. Level fifteen at least, but the Swarm skill had been at the rank allowing for shapeshifting, or swarm-shifting. Swarm-shift was a later rank, indicating the demon had been high-level.
Lawrence shook his head. He added another layer of wards to his oval. He had four layers, enough to stop a demigod or perhaps an angel, but for how long, he did not know. His resources were full, but his mind was spent.
He spent an hour casting the Greater Preparation ritual, then he used Sending. He received an error message in the air for his trouble. He wasted two hours on a failed message to Mom, sitting in the cold, as the ice leeched the heat from him. In the end, he looked up, or rather ‘out.’ Chartreuse clouds covered the sky at the top of Hell.
They came from boiling waters of the river Lethe. Immersion in it erased memories. It was a sad fact that all fallen angels and most damned had no idea of their past lives. Humans who kept their memories after traveling to Hell did so because went in a Hellgout, or they went in a sealed container protecting them from the toxic air. A practical side effect of the clouds is they blocked mortals and Outsiders from scrying Hell, and vice versa. They blocked communications.
Lawrence’s phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Kid?” Captain Ferg’s worried voice came through the speaker. “Are you still alive? Where are you?”
“I killed the turtle-thing. Now I’m outside it on the ice. Ice worms everywhere. Look for the river of blood.”
“How did you kill the giant?”
Lawrence gave her an abbreviated version. He left out the new mouth skills.
“Oh wow.” Captain Ferg sounded somewhat impressed, or perhaps it was just his imagination. Women were good at faking emotions to manipulate men, he knew. Another reason he did not trust Lily. Or Ferg. “Stay where you are, we’ll try to find you. If you don’t hear from us in a day, there’s a dungeon nearby everyone’s attempting. You’ll know it when you see it. If not, well, when we open it the worms will leave.”
“Isn’t someone gonna come try to kill me?” Lawrence lay back on the ice. He closed his eyes with the phone held up to his ear. “I did kill a pretty big dude, and there were a lot of important people in there.”
“They saw the damned run; they assume the damned did it. They don’t know your part. Between you and me, let’s keep it that way. This dungeon? There’s a faustian setting up wards all around our base camp. Some low-level goat thing. We’d really like if you could find us. That’s the reason Parade wants you. Wards. They—I—need someone who can make defenses. It’s like digging a moat around your camp or putting up a minefield. It stops enemy movement.”
“Got it. Anything else I should know?”
“Don’t hesitate to kill.” Her tone suggested a joke. She paused after a second and laughed. Lawrence remained silent. Captain Ferg stopped laughing and grew serious. “How is your corruption?”
Lawrence examined his fingers. “One of my mom’s skills manifested. My teeth are bigger. It means my COR is at 50. Escaping Hell is going to be hard. Going forward, it may not be possible. If my other mutations manifest…”
“You have a purify ritual, though, don’t you? You can take corruption points off.”
“It is neither efficient, nor powerful.” Lawrence thought back to his lessons. Mom had drilled the ritual knowledge into him. Memorization was the key. He wouldn’t always have his spellbook with him, nor his tools. But a true Faustian needed neither. True sorcerers did not need a list of their knowledge. They remembered. “Um, the casting time is about an hour. The cost is something like one hundred COR points for one unit of SOL, or iliaster.”
“That doesn’t sound inefficient.”
“If you’re level one, no. Just swap corruption for experience and you’ll understand. At COR level 50, you need something like a hundred thousand points to get to COR 51. So, to take it from fifty to forty-nine, you’d need to go in reverse. Four hundred and ninety thousand experience points, divided by one hundred.
“Therefore, four-hundred and ninety SOL units, assuming the ritual is a success, because not all of them are, but they still cost SOL. It could be 500 SOL down the drain; a successful ritual depends on more than just chanting for an hour. You need a higher Skill than the thing you’re trying to do. You need willpower. If you don’t have the SOL, you can abstain from any kind of sins for like a month, maybe longer, then your COR lowers. A Sin Rating of 10 is like ten thousand points. The equivalent sin is premeditated murder. Even protracted torture—like to make SOL for demons’ daily consumption—is an SR 9, or seventy-two hundred points.”
“So it’s really inefficient.”
“Oh yeah.”
“Uh huh. Thanks for explaining it. As long as I’ve been here, I’m getting close to hitting fifty. That’s when my first mutation ‘manifests,’ right?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Is there any way to control it?”
“It’s well-known that fortresses have an inherent sin rating in the air, usually plus-two to whatever the sin rating of the Ring is. For Tempest, I think it’s four. Thus the turtle-fortress would have been a six. Just standing in it was equivalent to committing, a, uh, rape.”
“Standing in the turtle was like committing a rape?” Ferg’s voice belied disbelief.
“The Sin Rating was the same. The act is different, duh, but the way corruption works…” Lawrence swallowed. He closed his eyes to visualize the notes Mom made him memorize. “You could say it was a Sin Rating of sixty. It’s either sixty or thirty, I forget.”
“You forget?” Ferg snapped.
“Mom stole this magic history book when she left Hell. It was a damned soul who had been soulshaped into a book. Back then, Maelstrom was known by a different name. It was all based around a system of twenties. The Maelstrom today uses the metric system. But converting is kind of a pain. I usually just go by whatever my COR is and try not to be a douchebag.”
“Hrmph. Well, that’s… kind of good, I guess. All right kid, back to corruption. What else do you know?”
“It’s also well-known that powerful demons exude corruption, and somehow will use it to shape their mortal servants a certain way. In other words, yeah, they can control your mutations to an extent, but they’re still random. Somewhat. The Fruits of Corruption ritual forcibly turns COR levels into mutations. One level equals one mutation. Um.”
Lawrence squeezed his eyes shut. He visualized the flashcards. “The Fruits of Corruption ritual has a casting time of twelve hours. You need eight cups of demon blood—those are consumed by the ritual like wood in a fireplace. The cost is three SOL per level of the target. The difficulty is ten plus the target’s Species Job level.” He paused.
“Uh, this spell forces the soul’s corruption to manifest in the body. It converts Corruption Levels into Chosen mutations at a one-to-one ration. Target must have a Corruption of 55 or more. You might get multiple mutations if you do the spell at every COR level, instead of one random mutation every ten points the world gives. I dunno.”
“How do you not know?” Ferg demanded.
“I’ve never actually cast it before,” Lawrence admitted. “There’s also binding rituals you can use that let you steal mutations from demons.”
“Woah, really?” Ferg sounded alarmed. “Doesn’t that piss the demon off?”
“Oh yeah, but it’s usually killed anyway. Doesn’t make much sense to steal something the demon finds precious and then let it run away to plot about killing you. Better to just kill it and be done with the whole thing. The thing is though, when you steal the parts, you also get part of its brain. It can influence you. Steal too much, it might go for a possession attempt. Those are Psychic Damage. Difficult to resist unless you have a strong will. Even if you do, the demon’s reserve of SOL units usually overcomes it.”
“Any other ways? There’s one mutation I want, but I only want that specific one. I don’t know if I can get it through levelling up.
“Supposedly the Scribe Job, high-level Administrative Scribes, gain Job- and Skill-editing Skills. It’s just hard to find someone who has those. Scribe takes forever to level up, usually half as fast as a regular crafting job, or literally anything else. Scribe doesn’t make much sense anymore since most people are Typists or Clerks, now.”
“Is that all?”
“Pretty much. I gained a special Company-restricted Skill a while ago. Mutation Selection, but I think it only applies to me. It’s frickin’ strong, but I gain ten-kay core points each time I use it.”
Two seconds of silence pass.
“Okay,” Ferg’s voice settles back to neutral. “Since compasses don’t work here we’ll do something different. The worms are sensitive to vibrations. If there’s blasting going on or something with seismic shock waves, they’ll be driven far away. When we open the dungeon, we’re not sure what’s going to happen.”
“What d’you need me to do?”
“Keep an eye out for the big boom. Then go toward it. The worms should ignore you. If you survive, look for us in the dungeon. We’ll set up a base camp in the first room we find.”
“What if I can’t find it?”
“I’ll send the Cheshire Cat to guide you.”
“The what?”
“The Cheshire Cat,” Ferg repeated. “I’ll send it to come find you.”
“Uhhh, okay.”
“Right. I gotta go.”
“Okay bye—” the line went dead. Lawrence put his phone down. He sighed. “And I never got to ask my question.” He looked across the ice.
The Morningstar’s false-light refracted off the ice in a million colors. Mist covered the ground like a wet blanket. Spider demons scurried up and down the slopes, pursued by hungry worms. Above the horizon, the First Ring, Emptiness, stretched. A chasm yawned between Emptiness and Tempest, in which were thundering storm clouds over a bottomless pit.
From the other side of Emptiness rose a vast cliff, miles high. It seemed to go on forever, into and through the Lethe clouds. As Lawrence watched, a speck of burning light fell from the clouds. It was the size of a dust mote, but it grew in size as it moved. It arced over Emptiness, into Tempest.
It grew larger and larger, seeming to fall straight for Lawrence. It was an optical illusion, of course, the falling thing had no interest in him. Perhaps it was a rock, but Lawrence knew better. Mom had spoken often of the falling souls. Newcomers to Hell.
The speck of light blossomed to a oval, falling with a corona of light like a comet trailing flecks of ice. As it passed near the Morningstar, the comet’s trail grew.
It fell over the mountains. By some miracle, it landed down in the valleys far away from the city, and not too far from where Lawrence lay. He heard the distant thud as it hit the ground. If it was a soul, they were already dead. If they weren’t the worms would get them. Besides, Lawrence did not want the responsibility of explaining the rules to another newcomer.
He rewound his poncho around his shoulders. He curled up on the ice. Sleep called his name.
A deafening roar of thunder swamped the ice field. Lawrence closed his eyes. The thunder did not relent, but continued to pound. He recognized explosions when he heard them. He ignored the cacophony until he felt the ground rumble.
He raised his head. Worms and spider demons raced across the ice in opposite directions. The worms away from the explosion, drawing great furrows in the ice, the spiders toward the chaos, human-like arms and legs slipping. Lawrence sighed.
He waited until the demons left before moving. He walked over the wards. He took another bite out of the dead giant before leaving. As he chewed, he checked his Status. Because he'd eaten the giant and then killed it, Cannibalism Empowerment applied.
+10 PWR, +50 HP, +25 TAB Entity cannibalized: Agg Species: Ascended Giant 120, Main Job: Sapient Building 30 Skills Giant Rage, Size Increase, ARM +100, Size Increase 2, Tireless Rage, Armored Carapace, Armored Carapace 2 (Stone Armor, +160 ARM), Armored Carapace 3 (Towers and Battlements, +160 ARM), Armored Carapace 4 (Fortress Nature), Armored Carapace 5 (Size Increase, ARM +160), Armored Carapace 6 (Fortress Transformation, ARM +160), Implanted Weapons (stealthy), Implanted Weapons 2 (gore cannons), Implanted Weapons 3 (siege units), Monstrous Maw 1, Monstrous Maw 2, Monstrous Maw 3 (Iron Stomach Prison), Monstrous Maw 4 (Gravity Well Belly), Unnatural Vitality 1, Rank Up: Ascended Giant, Unnatural Vitality 2 (Improved Fortitude), Unnatural Vitality 3 (VIG multiplier x30), Unnatural Vitality 4 (Ghastly Vitality), Unnatural Vitality 5 (Refusal to Die), Unnatural Vitality 6 (Vigor multiplier x50), Living Fortress The Devil Is In The Walls, Iron Body, Tireless Engine, Biomechanical Empathy, Biomechanical Possession, Rank Up: Sapient Building, Biomechanical Conversion, General Skills Second Brain, Somewhat Mobile Building, Hard To Argue Cannibalism Empowerment 1 Skill from Species, 1 from Main Job, +10% to highest level Stat (VIG), Memory choice: Build optimization, defeated foes, Secrets of Leveling Status cannibalized ARM stat unlocked. Armored Carapace 1 (+10 ARM), +100 VIG, Memories: Secrets of Leveling
The giant was an example of a demon who chose to rank up existing Skills instead of acquire new ones. Did he have a long list of abilities? Yes, he did. But most of them were passive. Demons tended to specialize anyway. Lawrence was lucky he'd been able to eat such powerful creatures instead of trash like Caster. Heck, living in the mortal world in some generic fantasy town, he'd have been hard-pressed to grow so fast. Surviving battle would be easier now, but he still needed methods to attack. Pure health was not tanking, just taking longer to die.
If Lawrence was a tank, hoo boy. But he wanted to be a mage. He narrowed the best option to Armored Carapace. It would stack with his heritage, giving him an early rank 2 and thus allowing him to specialize in a specific kind of armor. Several existed, with separate paths. The second rank for Unnatural Vitality just gave him improved fortitude. While being able to get over the common cold faster was nice, the armor skill was better.
He could have taken Implanted Weapons. He'd have been able to put a sharp spike or club on his tail when it manifested. Those would be useful, in addition to the tail's balance bonuses. But he did not have it. Monstrous Maw 3 would have been useful; the line had a pair of mutually exclusive Skills available at rank 3. But Lawrence did not want any more mouth abilities than he had. He still had not been in combat. He did not know which Skills he should focus. Claws, perhaps.
He set off across the ice, not toward the dungeon, which the spiders oh so helpfully marked with their tracks, and which the worms assisted with their panicked ice cracks. Lawrence jumped over the cracks. His target was the fallen creature. He hoped it was a damned. If it was a damned it would be easy. He could leave.
If it was a mortal, it was a problem. It wasn’t much of a problem, because Lawrence doubted he’d be able to keep him or her alive. Above all else, Hell society was an extreme meritocracy. If the mortal did not harden and start working or killing, they’d be dead in an hour. The first demon they met would shell them and hurt their soul for food. Lawrence doubted it was a mortal.
He crossed the ice field to the other side. He climbed a hill for more visibility. He saw a crater on the other side, a few miles away. To his left sat several airships, also a few miles away. He supposed the dungeon must be that way.
He descended the hill. He walked across the ice. He kept his weapon out just in case, but no demon attacked. Lawrence almost wanted something to jump at him, just to break the tension. He supposed the demons would be fighting the spiders, but the air around him was silent.
The cold air of Tempest hung heavy on the ground. Lawrence felt he was being watched. He looked over his shoulder, but saw nothing. No spider creeping up, no stalker hunting. Still, they would not be far. He must hurry.
Lawrence reached the edge of the crater. He saw a humanoid at the bottom under what looked like a wedding dress or curtains. A robe, maybe? A mage? Dread settled in his gut. He climbed down the crater. The sides were slippery. The alien must have melted some of the ice when it hit.
Lawrence reached the bottom. He saw what he took to be fancy schmancy clothing was, in fact, feathers. Snow-white feathers layered on each other. Dread settled in his gut like a lead weight. He put his weapon away. He collapsed on a rock and let his shoulders droop. He wore the expression of a man who has just received some bad news he has been expecting.
It was an angel.
----------------------------------------