Chapter 226

“This feels very much like a vacation.”

The comment gained him some curiously amused looks from Jarla and her non-combatant fellows from the other group, but none of them said a word. How could they, when everything had gone so smoothly so far? Battle after battle, time after time, not a single one of the forward group had been seriously wounded - with Athela and the strange cultist-looking people having intervened twice to save someone from any real harm.

Riven munched on one of Tanya’s standard sandwiches, going through the dozens of different ingredients, notes, and diagrams sprawled out around him on a large disc of solidified crimson ice he was now sitting on. It floated down a hallway at a leisurely pace under the orange and yellow torches lighting the dungeon at intervals, keeping in range but not too close to the sounds and shouts of battle further into the dungeon hall. His ability to see in the dark also helped, because if he’d been a normal human it would have only been every dozen or so feet that he’d actually be able to see clearly with all the patches of shadow.

“This one.” Azmoth said, pointing to the tiny rodent skull Riven was looking for while maintaining a cross-legged position next to him on the disc.

“Oh! Thanks man.”

Riven picked it up and added it next to the square block of wood he was going to change into his first-ever fully fledged totem. The ones he’d made in the tutorial all that time ago hadn’t actually been complete, lacking souls or soul shards to control them, but now that Riven had the Death Subpillar he wouldn’t have much of an issue getting said soul.

Genua and Tanya watched him curiously, sitting in their own spots on the floating disc while the skinwalkers kept a closer watch on the fighters in front.

“You said you’ve done this before?” Genua asked curiously, staring down at one of the diagrams before entering another patch of darkness. “You create runes and plant them into an object? Isn’t that the same thing as runecrafting?”

“It is very similar, yes.” Riven stated warmly, growing excited as the mysticism behind magic once again set in. It’d been a while since he’d been able to truly relax, and was finding this setup of arts-and-crafts for adults rather enjoyable. “Last time I created two small cylindrical blood totems that shot out damaging blood magic! But I’ve been able to buy a bunch of crafting manuals from the Elysium Altar we have at ridiculous prices, it isn’t anything intricate but it is enough to give me the basics on how to approach this given my lack of real experience.”

He picked up the square piece of wood, then held up a finger while Tanya watched under furrowed brows as a thin wisp of blood mana lasered itself into the wood - cutting off the top of the cube and then hollowing it out entirely. Riven took another look at two diagrams set out before him, carved another sigil into the rodent skull, placed the rodent skull into the cube, and then slit his wrist - getting a gasp from Tanya when his own blood started pouring into the cube’s interior.

“Riven! Why did you…” Tanya’s voice trailed off, and she sighed in relief when Riven’s skin quickly began repairing itself over the course of seconds. “Don’t do that! You’re going to scare Len!”

“I’m not scared!” Len replied with a giggle, watching Riven put an odd-looking red herb into the wooden cube before sealing it shut again with crimson ice. “Riven didn’t even cry! I would have cried, but he’s big and strong. I don’t think he ever cries. One of my friends from camp said boys don’t cry or they’re girly.”

Riven nearly choked in amusement at the look Genua shot her daughter. “Everyone is allowed to cry sometimes, Len. Even boys. I cried just yesterday actually.”

“WHAT!?” Len gasped with an open mouth, hands raised up in shock to either side. “Oh my goodness! What made you cry though!? Did you get hurt!? Did someone hurt your feelings?”

Riven tilted his head to the side, pondering what he was going to say and then slowly turning his blue eyes to where Azmoth sat in his barbarian visage. “Azy beat me up.”

“Really!? But Azy is so nice!”

“Really.”

“Azy! How could you!?” Len gasped again, utterly shocked and making her mother chuckle while facepalming. Len pointed an accusing finger at the demon with a stern scowl. “You leave Riv alone! You don’t want him to turn into a crybaby!”

“Too late for that.” Azmoth grunted. “Sorry Len. He big baby, but we work on it. His character develops slow, but growing up is hard.”

“HEY!?” Riven protested, landing a hand on his chest. “That’s hurtful! You goddamn jerk!”

Len held up her hands to hide a smile, giggling again and leaning into her mom to put her head on Genua’s lap and looking down the hallway. “Thanks for letting me come Rive- Riv! This is exciting!”

“No problem kiddo. No problem at all.”

Turning the cube around, he started using his blood mana to cut into the wooden cube’s faces one by one - carving sigils that matched some of the basic inscriptions on the papers when he felt Gluttony’s presence enter the area.

He glanced left, seeing his soul clone in the form of Gluttony’s maw watching from where it’d appeared in the air above them and to the right - but it quickly vanished after only staying for a few seconds.

Huh.

Funny that. Riven wasn’t even fazed by the presence of the sin anymore, something that’d cause other people and creatures to cower in absolute terror was now just a passing partner of his. He knew the ramifications of partnering with Gluttony would be tremendous, but in what ways or if it was to be a good thing or not were yet to be determined.

It would PROBABLY be good?

Bleh. Who knows. What he DID know is that Gluttony had already saved his life multiple times. The first time being in Negrada when he fell into that pit of blood and the tentacle monster tried to eat him, and the last time being when Elysium’s tribulation tried to strike him down for using Malignant Prophecy one too many times. The least he could do was to give Gluttony a chance, as weird as that was to think about considering it was supposed to be an evil entity of extreme proportions.

Finishing his inscriptions on each cube face, he took a vial of thick gray powder and dusted it into the crevices - receiving a flash of energy on each of the rather sinister, gothic runes.

Clicking his tongue and curiously having some time for introspection, specifically concerning his Death Subpillar, he then began to channel small amounts of mana into it - shifting his gaze into the void…

Into the void to look for a soul.

Or better yet, souls - plural.

Fuck it, even soul shards would do. He just needed to make these totems work, and without at least a shard - he wouldn’t be able to complete his creations.

Even if they were rather basic copies of the ‘Totems for Dummies’ equivalent book he’d bought out of the Elysium general store.

***

Fay was a curse specialist, though one wouldn’t know it by the complete lack of expression every time she cast one of them. Curses often had a negative tradeoff for casting them, in Fay’s case this was pain and physical anguish the more and more she cast. She’d become rather good at hiding the self-inflicted agony through trial and practice, and in turn they were usually more powerful than their counterpart spells that only used mana. Back when she’d fought with the orcs of Gurth’Rok’s tribe in attempting to save the elves of Greenstalk Village, these curses had blown through dozens of enemies with curse traps, confused them with illusions using Curse of the Dreamwalker, and had melted away their flesh in black clouds using Curse of Rot. But she hadn’t grown much since then, and it was painfully obvious by the way she was struggling here in the dungeon beside Hakim, Luke, and the other more capable people in this combatant group that she’d been left far, far behind Riven and his other two minions.

Sure, she had her ‘Charm’ ability that infatuated enemies who were close by - and she had the ‘Dark Pact’ curse which was her newest acquisition - which healed all allies nearby while simultaneously slowing enemies. It was a Tier 3 curse, was pretty potent, and it built up over time in both how much it healed as well as how much it slowed enemies. The problem was the self-inflicted harm mentioned in the description - which was supposed to be a given since the ability was actually a curse. If it specifically mentioned self-harm in the display window… that did not bode well for the caster.

But she’d never had the chance to use that last ability with a team, and she was determined to try and use it here after getting back into the swing of things concerning her more offensive spells first.

*SPLAT*

*CRASH*

Fay torpedoed past a series of heavily armored rats bearing down on their party with metal-tipped fangs, setting up curse trap after curse trap in flashes of green runes in front and behind the huge rodents while they swarmed down the domed room.

Explosions of unholy might lit up the dark interior of the dome, sending waves of green energy blasting through metal, bone and flesh in sprays of shrapnel. Each explosion detonating gave Fay a sharp pain randomly across her body, but she kept pushing herself farther and farther - setting down more and more traps as fast as she could conjure them as the roars of incoming enemies.

And behind those rats were hulking, fleshy, humanoid mutants with purple goo for flesh - spurring the rodents on while laughing at the massacre of their own pets that just kept on coming. Bright orange eyes, hulking muscles, no necks with heads connected straight to a torso of dripping slime.

Was it slime?

She couldn’t tell - but utilizing Riven’s armor through the master-minion bond, she was able to get basic details.

[Petrus Mutant, Level 31, Beast Tamer]

[Petrus Mutant, Level 19, Sludge Warrior]

[Petrus Mutant, Level 40, Sludge Warrior]

*WHAM*

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Fay felt something hard impact her gut mid flight, and she gasped before being slammed into the far wall with an audible crunch of bone when one wing gave out.

“Gods damn it!” She wheezed, coughing blood and staggering to her feet only to see Athela begin to move in to intercept the hulking sludge warrior sprinting her way. “DO NOT INTERFERE ATHELA! I NEED THIS!”

The archdemon was hidden to most, and to people outside of Riven’s contracts the arachnid woman was pretty much invisible. So the sludge warrior didn’t see who or what Fay was yelling at, only giving a passive half-second glance at the dark ceiling above while continuing to barrel ahead with large bulky fists raising above its head.

Still, Athela slowed - doing as asked to let Fay handle this by herself.

Because Fay was tired of being the weak link here. She was going to push herself, even if it meant being banished over and over again in temporary death - she was going to rise.

Pushing herself forward with one broken wing, Fay’s feathered boots propelled her forward to meet the charging brute twice her size.

She dodged left and flung up a dreamwalker zone, narrowly avoiding an incoming vertical swing of both its arms when it perceived her to go left when she really went right - and a black mist of Curse of Rot was blasted directly into the monster’s face.

Its purple skin began to sizzle and necrose as the purple sludge-like creature screamed and hit the ground with its knees, clawing at its skin only for a rune to flash green right in front of where it knelt.

Next thing it knew, Fay’s boot crashed into the back of its head - sending the monster directly into the rune that’d just flickered out into invisibility. But that didn’t mean it still wasn’t there.

The monster’s skull exploded upon impact with the invisible trap rune, and Fay was sent stumbling back - cursing that she couldn’t just light up a rune inside a living creature which would have made things so much easier. Withdrawing her wings entirely because they were now slowing her down, she turned back to the fight where Julie was busy focus-healing two armored warriors and Hakim.

“You ok!?” Tim called out, huffing and tearing out of the shadows with his hands on his knees to catch his breath. “You took a real hit there!”

Fay gave him a polite smile, though internally she was furious at her own lack of performance. She was supposed to be better than this, and she mentally moved her dreamwalker zone to hover over the majority of her party - causing enemies to see the world at a slant, to see swings that weren’t there, or to see new enemies that simply didn’t exist. “I’m ok, thanks for asking!”

She watched as Hakim’s downward axe created craters through the dungeon floor, splitting open numerous armored rats in a single go when he followed up with a shockwave stomp similar if not identical to the one Azmoth had. She watched as the lightning mage in Jarla’s group hurled sparks and chain lightnings, killing two or three rats at a time from the backlines while archers and men with rifles activated martial arts to empower their projectiles in flashes of green and blue.

Why couldn’t she have offensive abilities like that?

Had she chosen the wrong path to power?

Fay felt so useless.

She watched as Luke, being the lowest level of them all and quickly gaining ground to catch up to even her throughout the short time they’d been in here, wipe out two sludge monsters ten levels of his own paltry level 19 with muttered incantations - creating miracles that sent whirlwinds that ripped creatures asunder with a maddening howl of noise.

Even Julie, who’d been a level 22 Healer Priestess Initiate, was able to gain three levels since arriving in Dungeon Petrus.

Yet despite all that she’d tried, Fay hadn’t even grown a single level yet - and had only managed to kill the weaker creatures of the dungeon even if it was a good number of them.

But she would not be left behind despite the sinking feeling in her chest. She would NOT allow herself to take up one of Riven’s slots, only to be useless baggage when he could have someone better.

Determination filled her, raging against despair, and the sound of shuddering weight pounding against stone made her head shift right. Through the darkness and behind a slowly grating gate at the end of a tunnel, the solid black eyes of a bus-sized beetle glittered back at her.

Just like the rats, this creature was covered in spiked metal plates. Huge pincers that could crush a man in a single go flared out to either side, and when it opened its maw - a swarm of smaller beetles just like it flew out towards them like a silver tide of carnivorous rage.

[Petrus Beetle Queen, Level 62]

[Petrus Beetle Drone, Level 12]

[Petrus Beetle Drone, Level 8]

[Petrus Beetle Drone, Level 16]

This was her chance to prove herself!

Immediately she began setting up dozens upon dozens of flashing green runes through the end of the tunnel and into the mouth of the dome room the rest of her party now fought in. Each time she did, another prickling sting or ache assaulted her body; another jab at her conscience tried to sway her away from the cursed path she’d chosen. However she kept pressing on.

“Shift! Shift damn you!”

Her dreamwalker zone did just as she asked, shifting away from where the battle behind her raged across the room and into the other tunnels. It moved, placing itself directly in front of her where the swarm of drones and the larger queen beetle were racing down the hall towards the flashes of combat.

She closed her eyes, focusing on what she wanted them to see - and bought herself time when hallucinations took on the incoming swarm.

The cloud of beetles and the queen itself went into a rage, fighting invisible enemies and killing one another off when they began to think of each other as the enemy before they’d even reached her magical landmines. One by one they splattered, buzzed, sent sparks of electricity at one another, and died.

Until the beetle queen let out an angry roar that shook the hall and reverberated off the stones with some kind of martial art - pulsing with gray waves of power that caused Fay to immediately vomit.

The hallucinations shattered.

The unholy landmines all shattered.

And her entire party all crumpled together in a mass-effect attack of violent puking and hurling. Even some of the skinwalkers started looking queasy, with two of the disguised demons immediately gagging.

[You have been afflicted with the debuff: Extreme Nausea.]

She wretched, only to scream aloud when two beatles each the size of her fist clamped down onto her right leg and began to tear at her soft blue skin.

Fay immediately reeled backwards and exploded with a black cloud of rot, showering the oncoming beetle swarm and rebuffing them from joining their counterparts in the rats and sludge men. Insects died by the dozens and then hundreds, smoldering in black pockets of necrosis that ate them away at rapid pace. Snarling and stomping down onto one of the two beetles that'd been blown off and half-eaten by the sheer force of her black cloud of rot - she puked a third time before getting dizzy.

“Ugh…”

*CRACK*

A giant insectoid limb clipped her shoulder through the black cloud and tore a huge bloody gash through her flesh, smashing into the ground in a spray of stone with a force that’d no doubt have killed her outright should she have been hit full on.

Fay hit the ground, rolling and reeling in agony while trying desperately to get ahold of her senses. She rapidly blinked, using a pillar in the domed room for support to try and stabilize herself - only to see Riven looking her way with a worried expression from the backline. And when she saw him move to help, she held up a threatening finger his way.

“DON’T YOU DARE! THIS IS MY FIGHT!”

She whirled around again, trying not to get upset with herself for the embarrassing display she was putting on - then almost took a face-full of purple goop to the head that’d exploded across the room. Thankfully she managed to dodge most of it, but little spots of acidic sludge she hadn't managed to duck began eating away at her skin while she let out a scream.

Then, she felt a searing golden energy flood across her body - burning the purple acid away but simultaneously causing her entire body to shake in rigid pain like she was burning from the inside out while she gasped. Then she profusely vomited as random spots of wounds started to rip across her sky-blue skin with holy light.

Fay stared down at Julie who was on her knees in front of her in a praying posture - golden wisps and rays of brilliance shooting up from cracks in the ground that her miracle was tearing into. Julie had attempted to heal Fay while not realizing that Holy magics had an opposite effect on demons, and Fay quickly shook the other woman while tripping over her own feat and vomiting yet again. "UGH! JULIE! STOP HEALING ME!"

A ritual circle encircled Julie while her eyes glowed gold before she realized in horror what was happening, and another burst of radiance lit up the room - healing everyone EXCEPT the demons in their party before her eyes rolled back into her head and she passed out.

Fay let out a sigh of relief as the golden and white lights across her skin faded, but she was in very bad shape.

And the fight still wasn’t done. Over half of their combat team had been taken out of commission and onto the sidelines by the stronger spectators of the supervising group, in other words - they would have died in a real, non-supervised scenario. Julie was out for the count, Tim was out, Hakim was out, even Luke was out.

There were only eight of them left, including herself and a bunch of randoms from the local squad.

Taking a deep, calming breath, Fay spread her wounded patchwork wings and launching herself towards the ceiling. She turned, taking in the oncoming swarms of vermin and beetles - the latter all chittering and buzzing to rush her way. Two dozen unholy sigils flashed and evaporated around her in a protective reverse dome, a black cloud swirled and roared about her body for a secondary layer of protection, and she began to chant the rites of Dark Pact for the very first time.

[Dark Pact (Unholy)(Tier 3) – Create a cursed zone of healing for allies while simultaneously slowing the thoughts and movements of your enemies. The more mana used to create the zone, and the smaller the zone is, the higher the potency of the hallucination effects. The longer you use this zone and the higher potency you use it at, the more anguish you personally experience until it hits a threshold. When the threshold is reached, you begin to take rapidly escalating physical damage.]

Her hands blew through the motions, arcing up and around her - twisting and turning in the lock-and-key mechanisms needed to summon this particular curse. In her mind’s eye, she identified who was enemy and who was ally in a single abrupt thought - while her mouth uttered the words needed to go along with the dance her body was performing.

“Bluvetsa rucnav etlespronumas krakemi thor!”

The room around her seemed to freeze as a pulse of black and green rippled across the air, or at least it did for all of the dungeon monsters. It was like watching a movie in slow motion: the beetles flapped their wings more slowly, the downward swing of a mutant’s club fell far slower, even a nearby rat fell to the earth in its dive at almost a third of the speed that it would have otherwise done. All of this happened under a blazing pentagram of crimson light that created itself over Fay’s head and near the ceiling above, unholy sigils swirling around to create an ominous feel to the very air around them.

Meanwhile the rest of her remaining party surged with vitality as the same spell poured healing mana into them, while Fay’s mind went blank with torturous pain.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!”

Blood poured from her eyes and it felt like hot irons were tearing into her brain. Her ears started to ring from the sensation while channeling the zone while enemies down below her died, and she felt more than heard the defensive runes she’d created underneath her hovering position go off with explosion after explosion while beetles attempted to get to her.

It was unlike any pain she’d ever experienced before, a curse on an entirely different level - and she absolutely hated it. But as her mind gave out and her mind broke under the pressure of the torture, what she didn’t hate were the brief notifications she saw filter across her vision when she finally released the cursed zone to the ether.

[You have gained 1 level. Congratulations! Be sure to visit your status page to apply points.]

[You have gained 1 level. Congratulations! Be sure to visit your status page to apply points.]

[You have gained 1 level. Congratulations! Be sure to visit your status page to apply points.]

Her body limply dropped through the air like a sack of potatoes, but despite her vision going dark - she let on a smile. Elysium had recognized her efforts even despite her role as a support, and she had to remind herself that even despite not having a lot of direct firepower - it was still possible to catch up to her friends.

Fay’s body landed in a soft bed of flowing blood, where she was gently transferred into the arms of Riven who smiled down at her.

“I’m not sure I like your skillset all that much, even if it is useful.” Riven stated with a concerned grin, giving her kiss on the forehead between her two small horns. “But I won’t take away your moment of glory. Good job Fay, I’m proud of you.”

Ah.

Yes.

He had called her useful.

He still thought she was useful.

That was exactly what she’d been wanting to hear, even if she hadn’t specifically admitted to the need aloud. Her body relaxed, and with a content hum, she let herself doze while the rest of the remaining combatant squad continued their best to try and cull what was left of the oncoming swarms.

Unfortunately, she’d pushed herself to the point that she didn’t even realize what she’d done. She’d pushed herself hard, to prove to herself and to everyone else that she was still worthy. That she could still be something, mean something, and provide something to the group - when she’d let her personal hallucinations slip. When she’d used her demonic wings to fly. When she’d accidentally lost Gaia’s amulet due to a sludge-ball to the face and had gone all out. She was too exhausted to notice how many of the people were now looking at them. At how her body had changed from that of a blonde, tanned supermodel into a similar but also very different visage of a blue-skinned, white-haired, winged succubus.

A very famous succubus at that, at least on Panu.

She didn’t see the dropped jaws, the unhinged stares, or the looks of shock and awe from Jarla or her companions before she let herself drift off into the very warm and cozy embrace of her lover and master. And honestly, even if she had seen it, she probably wouldn’t have cared all that much.

Because Riven had said she was still useful.

She was in a good place.