Chapter 20.2 - Some New Teammates
Negaizer was still cleaned out, though signs of others having been there was evident since he’d freed the prisoners. The corpses left there had been piled together and burned or simply just weren’t there at all.
Luckily there had been an oversight. He took time to take some bloodied clothes off one of the culn corpses in the first set of rooms that had been missed in the cleanup, the pants and vest were way too big for him but he cut it down to size the best he could and went to wash them off in the river. He scrubbed for a good while to get the smell of death off and Napoleon helped him out, chatting about Trey’s old life with numerous questions from the imp that kept Trey preoccupied.
Then they continued on the way he had gone the first time. Through the tunnels they went. The store rooms were completely emptied and the jail cells were now empty too.
“Ghost town.” Trey murmured to himself, with his footsteps echoing across the large room where he’d fought for his life days before. He felt a slight tug at the disgusting pants he wore and he turned to look at the little black imp that he’d become rather fond of recently. He then raised his eyebrows expectantly.
“What we do now now?” Napoleon asked curiously, looking around the huge room and then into gates of the prison.
Trey didn’t really have an answer to that. He glanced about and pursed his lips, suddenly feeling very alone even despite Napoleon, Sithis and Talsh’Noc’Un all being there to keep him company.
‘We should move back to the gate. Farthom mentioned it was over the mountains before he died.’ Sithis interjected from infernal jaws before Trey’s thoughts wandered off too far.
The jaws disappeared to leave Trey’s facial features human again and Trey nodded slowly after thinking about the suggestion. He didn’t have any better plans… but then the look of those culn soldiers gloating over him before they killed him came to mind. His fists clenched and he felt himself burning with a now familiar anger.
Trey shook his head. “Actually… no. We will get to the gate in time… but for now, we hunt.”
He exchanged a look with the imp. They knew what he meant, and the greatsword across his back gave a low hiss of approval while Napoleon whimpered slightly.
“But but they strong!” objected Napoleon with a tiny hands outstretched. “They kill us! They kill us again! Me don’t like be killed!”
‘I agree with the imp.’ the harsh infernal rasp of Sithis’ voice rang out. ‘We don’t know where they live, it would be a blind hunt and a waste of time for unneeded vengeance. Our priority should be survival and escaping this place to somewhere more suitable. We don’t know how long we have until our permanence runs out and a death would be… forever. It could even be tomorrow.’
“Oh, come on! Some ‘predator symbiote’ you are Sithis. They deserve to be killed after what they did!” Trey frowned in disappointment at the lackluster response from his companions, excluding Talsh’Noc’Un. He folded his arms and brought the greatsword around to look at it. “Well it’s two vs. two. How do we decide a tiebreaker?”
The sword chuckled lightly and the crimson crescent rune along the base of the blade began a soft glow. The great blade righted itself in a vertical stance to hover in the air and turned as if to face him head on.
“You… are the master… you decide where we go… But if you are… concerned… you can summon another…” Talsh’Noc’Un paused, considering the words it was about to say and a shimmer of light flashed across its surface. Then to everyone else’s surprise, a 2x2 window appeared that very much resembled the status page Trey had at first glance. However, when Trey walked up to read what was written there, it wasn’t a status page at all. It was just a teal screen with a list:
Captured Creatures in Storage: 5/5 grand soul stones filled
* Infernal Crusher, Archdemon
* Ifrit, Greater Demon
* Dark Djinn, Fallen
* Taurun, Greater Demon
* Angelic Dread Berserker, Fallen Archangel
Trey studied the information on the list and his brows furrowed in confusion. He looked to the sword and raised a hand questioningly while placing the other on his side.
“What’s this supposed to be?” Trey asked hesitantly.
There was a pause of silence, and then a long audible sigh from the sword. Trey got the feeling from the way it let out the sight that it thought him to be stupid. The feeling was solidified when Talsh’Noc’Un began to speak even more slowly than it usually did in that unnerving phantasmal voice, as if he were a small child.
“I am built with five soul stones… embedded inside my blade… One of the abilities I possess… is to capture creatures with potential… after besting them in battle… to use as… backups... for when your… other minions die… or when you come into… more minion slots…”
Talsh’Noc’Un stopped speaking and gave Trey time to think, but continued when Trey didn’t reply. “It is unlikely… that any of these creatures… will bind to you… as you are far… below any of them… and not a worthy… master… but it wouldn’t hurt… to try…”
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"Yeah and let myself get torn to pieces again?" Trey gave the sword a frown and folded his arms. "I'd rather not. Not with those creature types, no way."
A deep, sinister chuckle rang out from the weapon. "Worst case scenario… they kill you… and you respawn… Why not try…?"
"Because that’s like throwing away potential recruits that I could use for the future. I’m almost definitely not strong enough to forcibly bind these things. I’d have to try and convince them to join me, to serve willingly. That doesn’t seem likely.”
"There will always… be more demons… to bind…”
Trey kept his frown, tapped his foot and thought about it some more. "I suppose you’re right… I could always find demons in other ways. Still, these ones seem pretty rare by their titles.”
There was a long pause, before the sword beamed a sinister glow from its crescent rune. "Of course… You are correct… but the possible benefits of success… outweigh the downsides of failure…"
The sword stopped speaking again. Trey pondered the words with furrowed brows and fingers tapping away at his chin. The sword was right. Worst case scenario he’d be killed and lose some levels or lose some potential recruits that he could use in the future, but best case scenario he’d be able to gain valuable allies that could help him out in the present. Why not use the All Spirit’s temporary immortality perk to capitalize on this? He’d be in a lot more danger if he tried this kind of thing many months down the road when his permanence left and he was able to die for real. At the very least, he could probably try with just one or two of them - and if those failed, he’d save the others for later when he was stronger.
“These were the backups for your old master? They weren’t his primary minions?” Trey asked to clarify.
The sword let out another long sigh. “Many hundreds… of years ago… yes… With the exception of the angel... who has an individually unique story...”
Whoever the summoner was that the sword had served in the past, he must have been a downright badass. It occurred to him suddenly though that it was very possible that person didn’t even really exist, as according to the All Spirit this was a game of life and death. But… then again, he didn’t know how long this game had been going on for. That other A.I. had mentioned something about interdimensional travel, so it was very possible that this ‘game’ had been going on for… god knows how long.
Sithis stirred in the back of Trey’s mind, mulling over the information himself and Trey briefly connected with the symbiote to ascertain what he thought. The conclusion from Sithis was the same as his own: if they could get one or more of these creatures to his side… it would mean a significantly easier time traversing through the territories here.
‘You may as well attempt it.’ Sithis said gradually. Their eyes shifted to Napoleon. ‘But let the imp rest in the meantime. He looks tired.’
Trey acknowledged Sithis’ words once he spotted Napoleon yawning and rubbing his eyes. He wasn’t sure how Napoleon was tired already, but he shrugged it off with a smirk. Giving Napoleon a pat on the head he waved to the little guy before using the spell ‘minion’s call’ to dismiss him.
“Alright!” Trey exclaimed excitedly after Napoleon had left. He looked at the sword expectantly and folded his arms, tail swinging back and forth in excitement. “Let’s get started with the Infernal Crusher! Sounds badass. How do I do it?”
A low hum emanated from the sword and it swung around his body to latch onto his back. “You’ll need… to be outside… for this particular creature... but once you are there… I can summon it… with my own powers…”
That’s what Trey wanted to hear. He could use some new teammates! Trey felt nervous trying his hand at talking to them, but he wouldn't be in any real danger yet.
Trey began to head towards the stone stairway leading up and out of Negaizer with the entrance open to the air above. Leaping and bounding up the miles of steps with a bit of effort, he quickly made it into the connecting cave and then outside just as Talsh’Noc’Un had told him to do. Then the sword prompted him to go further into the barren wastelands just outside the cave and into a wide-open area.
He did as he was told, and Trey eventually came to a spot in the middle of the open where Talsh’Noc’Un deemed it appropriate to summon the creature.
“You are sure… you want… the infernal crusher… first…?” the sword asked.
“Yup! Hit me!” Trey said excitedly. He had no idea what the hell that thing was but it sounded cool as hell.
The sword acknowledged his wish and promptly came around to float in the air again directly in front of where Trey stood. Within seconds, crackles of chaos began to course across the blade and the crescent rune began glowing again.
A high pitched crack of sound caused Trey to jump as a burst of black lightning shot skywards from the sword, then another and another, and with each crack of lightning it began to build a dark orb of power that floated about fifty feet above where Trey stood. It continued to build, and build, and build... until the ball of energy was the size of a bus.
Then, in an explosion of power, the black bubble of energy burst.
Trey was knocked onto his back as the magic radiated outwards and sent debris flying in all directions. He covered his eyes and squinted, trying to block incoming pebbles and dirt as it blew against his body until he was forced to completely shut his eyes and cover his mouth. Fortunately though, it all only lasted a couple seconds, and when it ended there was a deathly silence to follow.
Trey began to open his eyes when he felt another gust of wind and he shielded them again, but was caught off guard by the heat of the air this time.
That’s... when he heard a low rumble.
He finally looked up, removing his hands and arms, only to let his jaw drop slightly in sheer amazement. In front of him and standing on four legs each the size of a small tower, with a body the size of a navy battleship, was a hulking monstrosity. Its entire body looked like it was built from solid burgundy rock with pointed ends at the top of its four legs that came out to all four corners. The bottoms of the feet were flat however, and the central body was ovoid with no mouth. A dozen, staring, translucent orbs for eyes were also scattered across its front.
Those eyes were all focused on him.
Trey let out a whistle and slowly clapped his hands together with an expression of wonder. The creature was many thousands of times larger than he was and he was certain it could blast through any building or take a huge amount of damage before it would go down. If he got ahold of this bad boy… wow, would he be able to-
His thought process was cut off as the Infernal Crusher moved. The movement was so fast Trey couldn’t even follow it.
Thankfully, Sithis reacted in time to keep Trey alive.
The ground shook and smashed, stone blasting from the spot he’d been in not even a second ago when Trey found himself having shadowstepped backwards into the large stone stairway leading out of the culn dwellings.
His heart was pounding, and he kept very silent while the monster slowly looked around.
“It appears the creature does not want to play nice…” Sithis muttered in the back of Trey’s head, but Trey didn’t dare speak and internally cursed the foul beast for not even giving him an opportunity to address it before it attacked.
A minute later and the hulking monstrosity turned around, lumbering away with earth-shaking steps. Off into the realms of Oblivion it went without a second thought - leaving Trey behind to rethink his approach and ponder on what he should do next.