Chapter 14.2 - Summoner
The opponent was a wolf creature that stood to be larger than a grizzly bear. It had short black fur with a yellow stripe down its snout and back, and it was devouring another one of the monkeys’ corpses. It threw up the corpse into the air, ignoring the blast of fire that grazed its shoulder and quickly snatched the corpse back, only to swallow the thing whole. Blood was strewn across the cavern floor, and one other of the great beasts lay dead near the center of the large cavern room. Green moss illuminated the scene with a multitude, potentially twenty or more, of dead hairless monkey-like creatures littering the ground. Their corpses were torn to shreds, with limbs or heads missing to lay in pools of their own fluids.
“STOP!” shrieked the monkey as it scrambled up the side of a wall and tried to fit itself into a small crevice. The wolf creature eyed its prey and snarled, its yellow eyes menacing. Blood dripped from its jaws and it slowly inched its way forward to pounce.
A chaos ball exploding into the brute’s musculature and Trey sent the giant wolf flying back to slam into a nearby cave wall. The impact caused it to yelp, and pieces of the wall broke off to fall onto it from the explosion. As it got up from the rubble, it glared at its new opponent with large fangs bared to growl and its right side completely shredded.
Trey’s fangs drew back to smile from ear to ear in response and he let out a low growl too. The wolf seemed confused at first, but it snapped out of it and soon charged the man with a howl. When it was within twenty feet, Trey brought his arm back and threw his sword as hard as he could to spin with a vertical motion and slam into the chest of the great beast, felling it to the ground.
It was time to see what his primary skill for the new ‘Aspect of the Devil: Mask’ could do. He’d noticed it described when he’d first acquired the evolution, but hadn’t been able to put it to the test just yet and had only used the attribute as either armor or a means to consume things faster.
Trey’s chest puffed out, streaks of cinder climbing from his chest up to his neck. He opened his mouth, and with his ‘Aspect of the Devil: Mask’ he let out a torrent of hellfire to bathe the charging animal in blood-red flames. The attack lasted for a couple seconds before Trey was forced to stop with a new cooldown timer appearing, and upon ending the attack he saw he had entirely burned the wolf to a crisp. It lay charred against the glowing red stone underneath and heat rose into the air to shimmer in waves. He raised an eyebrow, rather impressed with himself at the feat and having used his new ability for the first time and noticed that no mana had been consumed during the attack. The cave immediately behind the corpse was much the same. Trey walked forward and eyed his sword which was also glowing a hot red. He pursed his lips and wagged a finger at it.
“Yeah… remind me to be careful using that ability from now on.”
“You have gained XP.”
Trey turned and gave a hard stare towards the creature stuck in the crevice above him. It was struggling to get free, and had wedged itself into too tight of a space. It was also becoming frantic while he approached and the efforts were doubled when he got near.
“You need some help?” asked Trey as he walked over to get a better look at the thing. It stopped wiggling around and looked back at him quizzically. It definitely wasn’t a monkey when he studied it up close like this, but he had never seen anything like it. Upon further examination he assumed the tiny thing was actually a small demon of some sort. It had two slits in its tiny black face for nostrils but no nose, pointy ears upon its bald shiny head, no fingernails but it did have pointy ends to its fingers that were similar to Trey’s own claws - only smaller. White glowing eyes with no pupils reminded Trey of the gargoyle from back at Drahst Pillar. The rest of its body was wedged between the rocks. Trying to identify it, Trey got the following prompt:
Name: Oblivion Imp
Race: Oblivion Imp, Lesser Demon
Class: N/A
Level: 3
HP: 89/94
MP: 28/130
SP: 41/66
DP: ???
“You you speak demon? How ugly human speak demon?” the sleek little black creature spouted.
“Hey!” exclaimed Trey as he pointed a finger at the creature. “The fuck is that!? I just saved your life, you puny little shit!”
“Me had it worked out and me win. No human help.” The tiny demon struggled to free itself again and huffed as it did. It was quite a sight to see and Trey could tell that Sithis was very amused.
Another five minutes passed where Trey stood with folded arms, staring up at the little shit a couple feet above him. “You sure you don’t want help?”
The demon huffed loudly and gave another few attempts at pulling itself out of the crevice before squealing in rage and pounding the rock with its tiny fists. Eventually it gave up and slumped over to look down at the man. “Why you help me me?”
Trey shrugged and smiled, closed his eyes and looked down to shake his head before looking back up. “Well, I don’t know, I guess. You seemed like you needed help, so I helped. Pretty simple.”
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The demon looked back at Trey quizzically. “Imps are are not liked. We we don’t have friends. You friend friend? Why. Me no powerful. Hellhounds eat us.” The Imp looked over at his comrades’ corpses. “Other imps gone. Me know not what do.”
Trey gave a sad smile. He reached up, being careful not to scare the imp, and with a reassuring smile pulled on the torso of the small creature. He could feel the tiny creature’s heartbeat pick up but the imp didn’t move to stop him. Eventually with a good amount of slow monotonous effort, Trey was able to dislodge it. Afterwards he slowly placed the creature on the ground in front of him.
The imp stood to its full height and was slightly larger than Trey had thought it to be at first, it was still the size of a house cat but maybe a very large one. The imp had a long black tail that was the length of the rest of its body, and was humanoid in form. It had no genitalia so Trey couldn’t tell if it was male or female.
The pitch-black little imp tilted its head and looked up to Trey before quickly scurrying up Trey’s leg to eventually sit on his shoulder, and stared him in the face. Trey let the imp do so without moving aside, looking back at the small creature.
It was kind of cute.
“What’s your name?” asked Trey curiously.
The imp scratched its head before putting its hand on Trey’s hair to feel it. “Me is me. No name.”
Trey pushed his lips to one side in thought. “What should I call you then?”
The imp didn’t respond but continued to play with Trey’s hair. Eventually it stopped and scurried down to reach the floor again and sit in front of him. “What you mean human?”
Trey bent down and sat on the floor in front of the creature. “Well, you said you don’t know what to do with the other imps being dead. I was thinking you could come with us if you’d like. And if you do, you’d need a name. It’d be easier to communicate with you that way.”
The imp seemed startled, and soon began running around in small circles as if pacing back and forth while trying to solve a problem. It eventually stopped back in its original position and patted the floor a couple of times. “Why why?”
The two looked at each other intently while Trey tried to figure out how the tiny thing could live in a place like this cave, but shaking his head while at a loss and figuring that this place was likely more livable than the outside world... he came back to reality.
“I mean… You don’t have a family right? Maybe we can be friends?” Trey smiled widely, leaning back on his arms and kicking his feet out to watch the smoldering corpse of the hellhound not far off. His sword was still over there, glowing a dull red and it would likely take time for it to cool down enough that he could touch it again.
The imp paused for a time and considered things again. It looked him over suspiciously and darted a glance at the corpses of his old comrades. For a brief second the imp looked seriously upset, then reached out a hand towards Trey as if to shake. “You you save me. Me grateful you. You take me me. Me show you great treasure if you be summoner, and you has ability. Treasure says so.”
Trey’s eyebrows raised at the word ‘treasure’ but he continued to sit silently until the little imp came up to Trey and lightly touched Trey’s hand with its own. Out of the air a prompt screen appeared.
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“Oblivion Imp wishes to make a pact with you, but requires the Warlock or Infernal Summoner class to do so. Based upon your actions and recent events, you have just qualified for the Infernal Summoner class: this class is a rare casting class that emphasizes the domination of demonic, fallen, and enslaved minions. The Infernal Summoner class is very smilar to the Warlock class, but lacks the personal damage bonuses in favor of multiple minions. Please see the following for maximum caps on abilities:
- Infernal Summoner
o 20 spells
o 1 sacred art
o 1 miracle
o Enables demonic, fallen, and enslaved class minions
Other classes previously offered are still available. If you wish to accept any of these classes please refer to your status page, select the class, and press ‘accept.’ Choosing a class will unlock skill trees that would otherwise be unavailable, and add additional stats or traits correlating with your choice. Otherwise you may remain as you are and choose at another time. Be warned, though classes are not permanent choices if you switch off your original class to pick another one it results in a reduction of total levels by half and results in a 1 month wait period prior to choosing the new class. So choose wisely.”
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Trey’s eyebrows raised at the prompt and he rubbed his chin, pleased with the new information. He looked at the imp and smirked as it waited expectantly for him to continue. Quickly pulling up his status page he scrolled over it. Coming down to the ‘classes’ section, he saw the following:
Class: None
* Available Class Options: Dark Paladin, Warlock, Infernal Summoner
The basic details were repeated when he focused on each of the options again and the general gist of it all was that the Dark Paladin class would open up magics and skill trees related primarily to defense and buffs, the Warlock would focus primarily on damage output, while the infernal summoner was a focused pet class. It didn’t tell him anything beyond that and he wasn’t sure if picking Infernal Summoner would distract from damage output that he could dish out himself.
He put some serious thought into this and was certainly tempted by the most recent offer. But the more he went on with this experience beyond Earth, the more he was coming to believe this actually was some sort of fucked up death game just as the ‘All Spirit’ had announced. He’d played games on Earth that had summoner classes and usually the minions were rather weak, easily killed off by assassins and the like. Though the more he looked at this little guy the more his heart tugged at the strings.
Would taking the Warlock job benefit him more? He could still have the imp as a minion with that class too, and it stated that the Warlock job was heavily focused on personal damage output. However, the Infernal Summoner class would allow for many minions instead of just one.
He didn’t know which was better, but the idea of having minions was seriously appealing as he thought about it longer. So what if the games from back home had seriously weak versions of summoner classes? This wasn't anything like those games, so the comparison was ridiculous. It was settled, he wanted minions. He wanted an army of monsters at his beck and call. That was that. This meant that Dark Paladin was out, and Trey took a random uninformed chance on which of the two other magic-based classes was the better option.
“I accept the class and the pact.” He dismissed his misgivings and promptly selected ‘Infernal Summoner’ from the list.
Hopefully he hadn't chosen wrong, but even if he had - he'd still be able to change classes later.