Chapter 29
A Child No More.
I’m a better man with my children around. The demonic part of me has no time for kindness or compassion, but my love for them and my wish to see them happy allow me to exhibit my more human characteristics. It makes it easier for me to do what’s right. It makes it easier for me not to use people as tools. It makes it easier for me to be the man I was.
Without my children around, I’m a little more monster and a little less man. It’s rarely an advantage, except on days like today, when everything is on the line and the threat of death and destruction looms.
The first and last leg of our return journey to the chamber where we separated from the survivors required my familiars and I to pass down tunnels we’d originally travelled through. These were the same tunnels we’d baited the ancient vampires to hunt us through. Encountering them there was a death sentence for us, so my demonic instincts pushed me to send Angelica and Davina through the tunnels alone while I travelled through the Deadlands.
Speed was our only ally. Speed to get off the path and into hiding before the predators began their chase. Without me there to slow my familiars down, their chances of survival improved. It was cold, calculated logic that made me send them off alone, and it was the same cold, calculating logic that would have seen me abandon them if they ran into the threat I risked my children's lives to save them from.
Thankfully for them, that never came to pass.
I stood in an intersection, staring down tunnels devoid of colour, looking past undead spectres crawling over living monsters searching for life force that would be realised in death, to where my familiars would soon appear and stepped out of the deadlands. The sounds of predator and prey filled the air as scents rushed through my nostrils. The smell of monsters and death permeated the tunnel as the local second-floor monsters noticed my presence. This was the tunnel the survivors had fled through when we left them behind. This was where we had to go to find them.
I categorised every scent, searching for any trace of vampires, but only found frightened people and the aroma of the Abyss. It was safe to continue, safe to try to save the survivors, safe to live up to my daughter's expectations.
So I waited.
It was several minutes before Angelica and Davina came sprinting down the tunnel. Speed was still their only protection. The only way they might survive my kind. So, I’d left them with no alternative but to run as fast as they could. They both skidded to a stop before me, fighting for breath and reeking of hunger and exhaustion.
Angelica yanked open her storage pouch and pulled out a canteen, before prying open her visor. Her face and armour was covered in vomit, but she ignored both fighting to drink between gasped breaths. The shortness of breath was an early sign of mana sickness. Angelica’s attributes were distributed to prevent her for reaching this state.
Beside her, Davina heaved for breath as she gathered a ball of dense death magic in her palm and swallowed it. The colour drained from her face, but her breathing slowed as the undead aspects of her unqiue constitution reduced her need for air. Then she went for her canteen, guzzling water as fast as Angelica.
I threw out a few spells to keep the local monsters in check. After being on the fourth floor, the second was almost a joke. Each spell caused a death and each death cause a distraction, detouring predators so nothing bothered us.
Angelica lowered her canteen. “Your fucking command made me sprint so hard I vomited.”
“Language.”
“Fuck you! I was wearing my helmet!” Angelica’s fist tightened on her staff as she stepped forward and glared up at me. “You slowed me down.”
Her aggression and willingness to get in my face were new. It meant that on an unconscious level, Angelica now understood she was stronger than me. The demonic part of me told me to leash her. To bind her so tight, she wouldn’t be a threat.
Davina put her hand on Angelica’s shoulder to gently calming her emotions. “She has a point, your Dark Eminence. We can’t run blind.”
I glanced at the soiled gap in her visor, picturing her vomiting while running, and her inability to slow to clear it because of the command I’d given.
She had a right to be angry. “Angelica, this next command superseeds all future commands. If you are ever about to vomit and you think it is tactically necessary for you to lift your visor or unobstruct your face to do so, do so.”
The demonic part of me wanted me to continue giving her commands, to strip her of her freedom, and leave a tool in her place. The demon wanted my monster, but it couldn’t have her.
She was mine.
Angelica scowled as she undid her strap and pulled her helmet free. She dropped her helmet as she pulled out a bar of soap while conjuring water. The spell gathered water from the air to create an effect similar to a cold shower.
She began scrubbing her face and hair with soap. “Do you have any idea how bad it smelled in there?”
“Yes. I can smell it from here.”
“But can you taste it?”
“I can when you’re this close.”
She smirked through the soapsuds. “Good.”
When she was done with her face and hair, she scrubbed out her helmet. She was tired, aggitated and upset. The selfcare was having a soothing effect on her, so I let her continue. She stepped away from the shower she’d created and poured the water from her helmet, before burning away the remaining water by making her armour release deathfire.
She then shoved the helmet back onto her head, while it was still hot, causing her wet hair to release steam through the gap in her visor.
“I may have not thought this through,” she said, as she tied her strap.
Davina giggled. “You look like a teapot.”
I placed my hand on her helmet, releasing death magic to accelerate the loss of heat through the outside of her armour. The steam vanished as the heat was expelled.
Angelica stared at me through the steamless gap in her visor. “Did you kill heat?”
“Yes.”
She glanced at Davina. “Did you know he could do that?”
Davina was staring at me with an open mouth.
“I’ll take that as a no.”
I raised my hand and shot a finger of destruction toward a monster that was getting too close. “Do either of you need to eat or recover?”
They both nodded.
“Then eat.”
They began grabbing rations, while I dealt with the monsters rushing towards us.
“Gorgath’s spell seems to have spooked the vampires as much as I thought it would. There’s no trace of them here or along the path you just took. Once you’ve recovered, we’re pushing forward until we catch up to the survivors. Do you need anything else while we wait?”
“Mana,” Angelica said with her mouth full.
I transferred mana to her core. “Anything else?”
They shook their heads as they continued to eat.
“When we catch up to the survivors, they’re either going to be traveling or in a defensive formation. If they’re traveling, we’re going to join the rear guard and assess their situation. If they’ve had to stop and form a defensive formation, Davina will join the healers and Angelica will reinforce the front line.”
“Why would they stop?” Angelica asked spitting out crumbs.
“We’re heading toward ant territory and Gorgath says they can’t pass through it without me.”
***
Sending my children to safety didn’t come without a cost. Without us to shepard the suvivors through the Abyss, each mile they crossed cost more lives than it otherwise woul have. I kept track of deaths by whose scent was missing from the convoy each time I exited the Deadlands to point Angelica and Davina in the right direction. The deceased were faculty, students, Carolyn’s guards, Davina’s people, and strangers from the town, but no one I knew.
I’d been told, Heroes have an protective effect. Where they vanquished evil, it doesn’t return.
I’d never been certain if that applied to me, but every cursed student had made it out of Darksmith. Everyone of Gregory’s people was still alive. It was evidence that despite everything that had happened to me, I was still a hero and I was still able to do lasting good.
It didn’t mean they would survive this experience. It just meant they would be the last to fall.
The survivors had blocked entrance to a second-floor chamber with a hundred foot high wall of giant ant corpses. Their vibrant red, Gorgath-sized, exoskeletons looking like polished ruby as they caught the light of magical flashes from the ongoing battle.
Gorgath stood in the middle of the wall, striking ants with his staff, releasing electrical discharges each time he did. Exhausted sorcerers were spread along the wall either side, unleashing their most powerful spells, against the giant ant that were trying to kill Gorgath.
Gregory and his men, remained out front engaging the smaller ants. They were the size of a minivan and dangerous in their own right, because their numbers seemed endless. The mobile palace and flying carpets sat above the battle, providing air support, and killing the ants that tried to enter the tunnel by crawling across the ceiling.
From to the top of the wall inside the Deadlands, I surveyed th battlefield. The fighting didn’t look desperate. It didn’t look hopeless. Everything I saw suggested a tactical action to wear down the giant ants, before they made a push through the chamber to the next tunnel.
The problem was the giant ants. There were hundreds of them and they were a serious threat to Gorgath.
I exited the Deadland near Gregory and snapped my fingers in the direction of the giant ant Gorgath was fighting. It was as strong as a first floor boss. The destruction spell I released, disintergrated its more narrow neck, causing its head to fall. I turned to the next closest threat and wove the same spell before snapping my fingers. Another head fell off.
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
Snap.
Snap.
Snap.
The frontline of giant ants collapsed as I began on the secondline.
Gregory sensed my presence and disengaged from the frontline where he was fighting the smaller ants and then blurred to my side. “I didn’t expect to see you again Boss.”
I kept killing, as I ignored his comment. “Update me. What’s happening here?”
He steathed his Kilij and turned pointing to the centre of the chamber. “The ants are trying to establish a new nest. The small ones we’re fighting are worker ants. The big ones you’re killing are hunter ants. The workers take what the hunters kill and drag it back to the feeder ants over there in the middle of the chamber, beside the big one. The big ones the queen. You can ignore them for now. Our problem is the hunters.”
“You can’t push through this chamber without them killing Gorgath and suffering significant casualties.”
“Exactly, softening the enemy up is the only way to ensure him and the townsfolk survive.”
The ants didn’t seem to be intelligent or have a sense of self preservation. Every time I killed a hunter another moved forward to take its place. During our brief conversation, I killed more than twenty and they hadn’t even flinched.
Gregory glanced at me as I kept killing, before turning away and gazing off into the distance to access his interface. “You might want to slow down there, Boss. I know your children are safe, so you don’t care who knows you’re a vampire, but these people are scared. Their liable to turn on us if they find out what you are.”
“They die anyway if we move too slow.”
Gregory aura swelled as he spent his attributes from leveling and grew stronger. “Will we get a chance to catch our breath before pushing forward? My men have attributes to distribute and skill levels to acquire.”
I swept my gaze across the chamber. The hunters were as strong as first floor bosses and there were hundreds of them. The feeder ant were just as strong. And the queen was a second floor boss. These ants were a easiest source of experience I’d seen outside the forth-floor and leaving them alive would be a waste.
“You have until I’ve killed the nest.”
***
Gorgath tore through the queen’s corpse, searching for his prize, as the worker ants ran away from his aura. Without the queen or hunters auras to keep them calm, they were overwhelmed by fear. Gorgath grinned as he pried an organ from her thorax and shoved it in his mouth, chewing furiously.
The organ was prized by the Gor because it gave control over which bloodlines were passed onto offspring. Gorgath hoped eating it would allow him to reproduce the organ within himself, so he could gain the same control over the bloodlines he passed onto his offspring.
Gorgath swallowed his mouthful, wiped his bloody hand on the carcass, and turned to head back to survivors. They were recovering from the battle while keeping the workers in check. He took a step towards them.
Giving him the organ meant nothing to me and it got us alone so I could ask him an important question. “Wait a moment, please.”
Gorgath paused and turned to look down at me. I was standing by his ankles, so he loomed over me.
“When did you become an elemental sorcerer?”
The kid suddenly found the everything except me required his attention, turning his head to search for imaginary threats that I’d failed to miss. “Gorgath must hurry back to protect Darksmith.”
The amount of blood and death around us said that wasn’t necessary. “They’re perfectly safe. Now answer my question.”
He still didn’t look at me. “Gorgath hoped you wouldn’t notice.”
“I noticed. Now, how did this happen?”
“Gorgath asked Arro to borrow a mobile class stone for him to see if he could gain the sorcerer class. Gorgath is a student and students are allowed to borrow the mobile class stones. Gorgath did nothing wrong.”
The kid having a class explained what I’d seen when he unleashed his spell at the fortress and why he was progressing so quickly. “Your teachers might have cared if they found out you have a class. I don’t. I just want to know what happened. This could make it easier to pass through the ant’s territory.”
Gorgath lowered his gaze and grinned, excited to share, now that he knew he wasn’t in trouble. “Arro gave Gorgath the class stone and Gorgath became an elemental sorcerer, like a human would.”
“When?”
“Before Gorgath joined the dungeonologist club.”
That was months ago. He’d been sitting on this secret for a while. “Does everything work correctly?”
He nodded. “Gorgath can see the sorcerer interface, his skill and attritubes. Arro has been tracking Gorgath’s progress in developing his skills. It is similar to ancestral memories, but not the same. Gorgath finds it very helpful.”
I wasn’t surprised that he’d tried to become a sorcerer. I was just surprised that it worked. I was also surprised that I couldn’t sense any changes in him, but then I might not be able to.
“Have you distributed your attributes?.”
Gorgath shook his head. “Arro says my attributes do not make sense, so I should not use them yet.”
“Why don’t they make sense?”
“They are too high and they change.”
That was too vague for me to get an accurate understanding of what I was dealing with. With us going into ant territory, we were going to need every advantage we had to get the survivors through.
“Let’s find Arro before we continue this discussion.”
Arro had been sleeping in the dungeonologist club room when the attack happen, so she was one of the people who Davina had to resurrect. She was tougher than most of the students at Darksmith, so she was on one of the smaller flying carpets aiding in the defence, rather than hiding on the mobile palace.
She had the pilot drop her off beside me on Gorgath’s shoulder after Gorgath approached the convoy that was getting ready to leave and called her name. Like me, she was perfectly comfortable with the large gorilla child, grabbing his fur to keep herself steady beside me.
Gorgath signalled the convoy and then turned and broke into a ran, expecting them to follow. Sir Trent and his people moved rushed away from the wall to catch up as Gregory and his people waited for the convoy to pass, so they could defend the rear.
As Arro held onto his fur to remain steady, she gave me a pensive look, like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar. “I take it you’ve found out.”
“Yes.”
She turned to Gorgath’s ear. “I told you not to use your elemental strikes where people could see them.”
“Too many hunters ants,” Gorgath muttered back.
“Why did you do it?” I asked.
She turned back. “This is the way.”
I raised an eyebrow.
She blushed. “He told me it’s how his people show support before outsiders when someone does the right thing. It’s rather poetic, don’t you think?”
I almost chuckled as I nodded my agreement. “What have you learned?”
Arro turned to Gorgath again as he crossed the champer crushing worker ants under foot.
Gorgath glanced at his shoulder, before returning this attention to watching our path. “Tell him.”
Arro nodded and turned back. “Gorgath has a larger variety of attributes than humans do, but his attributes are absurdly high and growing each day.”
“What do you mean by absurdly high?”
She reached into her storage pouch and handed me a notebook with his attributes and skills. I flicked through. She’d recorded his attributes every day since she’d helped him gain his class and every day his attributes had grown. I finished on her most recent entry for him.
Race: Gor
Class: Elemental Sorcerer
Level: 160
Strength: 11,842
Dexterity: 4,372
Agility: 2,139
Endurance: 9,352
Constitution: 19,832
Perception: 7,342
Recovery: 6,826
Mana Regeneration: 1,854
Some of the attributes had five digits. It was easy to see they didn’t correspond to human numbers, which meant they couldn’t be treated the same way as human attributes. If a human had over nine thousand strength, they would be Goku, capable of shattering a mountain with a punch. Gorgath was strong, but he wasn’t that strong.
I turned to Arro. “I see you tested increasing his attributes. Why didn’t you record the result?”
She took a step back. “How did you read that so quicky?”
I showed her my fangs. “I’m an ancient vampire, now kindly answer my question.”
Gorgath didn’t bother turning his head. “Professor Vincent will not harm you Arro.”
She swallowed. “We only increased each attribute by five. There was no noticable difference.”
With these numbers there wouldn’t be. I flipped back several dozen pages. “What causes this sudden jump in his mana regeneration?”
Arro glanced at her notes. “That was when he absorbed the mana crab bloodline. His growth rate has been different since he absorbed it.”
She clearly couldn’t see the pattern I could. I needed to test a theory. “Gorgath. Look at your mana regeneration attribute and then spend two of your attributes points increasing it. Tell me how much it increases by.”
“Please don’t waste his attributes,” Arrow said, taking another step back. “We can study this further without wasting them.”
Gorgath glanced at his shoulder. “Gorgath’s mana regeneration increase by five when he invest two.”
Arro turned to him. “What?”
It was as I suspected. “Gorgath, do your people grow stronger from eating other creatures in the Abyss, even if you don’t absorb their bloodline?”
Gorgath nodded.
“You’ve been growing stronger faster since eating the acid worms right? It allows you to take more of their strength along with spitting acid?”
Gorgath nodded again. “It is a very good first bloodline, even in a poor territory like Gorgaths.”
Arro turned to me. “You understand what’s happening to him.”
I nodded. “His mana regeneration growth rate hasn’t changed. The mana crab bloodline acts as a modifier. He’s multiplied the underlying mana regeneration and the growth rate by 2.73. The reason you couldn’t understand his attribute growth rate is his acid worm bloodline has made his attribute growth erradic, giving him a little bit extra here and there depending on what he eats. A Gor without that bloodline would have more consistent growth.”
She took a step forward, academic curiosity overcoming fear. “How did you figure that out?”
I flipped through her notes, showing her different pages. “The dates for these slightly bigger increases all coincide with when I brought my guards down here to hunt first and second-floor bosses.”
Arro turned to Gorgath. “You said you ate well. You didn’t tell me you were eating first and second floor bosses.”
“Gorgath fed the most valuable pieces to his mana crabs and troop, only taking small bites for himself. Feasting on a single first boss had a greater effect on attributes, so Gorgath did not want to confuse your data by informing you he ate them.”
Arro sighed. “Is there anything else you haven’t told me? I can’t figure this out without knowing everything.”
“You don’t need to,” I said. “Gorgath did you level today?”
He nodded. “Gorgath reached level 240 when he descended to the second floor.”
“Okay put all your attribute points into mana regeneration. Fully upgrade the magic, mediation, mana manipulation, multicasting, quick casting, and concentration skills in that order. If you continue to level, upgrade the reinforcement, overcharge, and then each of your elemental magic skills.”
Grogath raise his hand slowing the convoy behind us and held out his staff. “Gorgath likes it when his staff hits with fire.”
“I’m sure you do, but you’re a sorcerer not a warrior. Stop scowling at me. Increasing your mana regeneration and upgrading all these skills will increase your elemental strikes without you needing to upgrade them.”
“Gorgath does not get tired when he uses his elemental strikes. It is most useful.”
“I understand that, but you don’t have the same restrictions humans have. You’ll level up enough to upgrade them before you reach the ninth floor.”
“That is not what Arro said.”
“You’re friend did her best to help you, but she doesn’t know anywhere near as much about classes and levels as I do. Now do you want to become the most powerful sorcerer ever or not?”
Gorgath immediately stopped arguing and his eyes went unfocused as he accessed his character sheet.
Arro frowned. “Why are you having him put everything into mana regeneration instead of agility?”
“His people aren’t natural magic users, yet it's one of their main weapons as they descend. The fact that his mana renegeration is still lower than his agility after he absorbed the mana crabs bloodline should tell you that is where he needs to focus his attention.”
“But he could double his agility.”
I motioned to the chamber we were in. “While travelling through the Abyss? Do you know how dangerous that is?”
“Then wait instead of wasting this opportunity.”
I held up her notes. “This is his agility when he started and this is his agility now. It’s increased by 23%, and yet he’s still a first-floor boss and no faster than he was before. That should tell you something?”
Her frown grew. “His agility doesn’t work they way ours does.”
“Wrong. His consitution doesn’t work like yours.”
“What?”
“The human body grows tougher as consitution increases. Gorgath’s body grows bigger when his consitution increases. His people’s strength doesn’t keep up with their weight, so the effects of his agility are greatly reduced along with any benefits for increasing it.”
“Attributes don’t work that way.”
She wasn’t wrong. “Not for us, but they do for him.”
“How can you be sure?”
I showed her my fangs again. “I have an infitity symbol next to my endurance, constitution, and recovery, because my ancient vampiric nature means those attributes cannot be accurately measured by my class. Gorgath is similar. His class like mine is trying to provide the benefits that it’s supposed to even though its interacting with something that it wasn’t designed to interact with.”
“Then giving him a class isn’t going to help him survive down here?”
She was concerned for his safety.
I felt Gorgath’s aura begin to grow as his body absorbed more mana. He dropped his staff and beat his chest, hooting at the top of his lungs, as he sensed the changes taking place.
“You should know that skills make a much bigger difference than attributes do. Gorgath has nothing to fear as he descends thanks to you.”
Arro held onto his fur as she was thrown about. “What’s he doing?”
“He’s warning the Abyss that he’s coming.”