Once more I awoke in the dark landscape. Around me the ball of light hovered in the air without moving. My body felt strange, the familiar feeling of my claws and fangs where gone. I looked down on my body and instead of the now familiar red skin was pink skin. Human skin. Surprised I inspected my body. It felt wierd. I knew I had once been human, but i felt strangely more familiar in my fiendish body now. The absence of claws disturbed me. After having claws I wondered how humans ever defended themselves without weapons. When I looked back at my body I saw that my skin had started to change and after a few moments the body that had previously belonged to a human was now my fiendish body.
With the changes to my body over I started approaching the ball of light. However as I tried to get closer the ball slowly drifted away from me. Even as I ran the ball still avoided me. Truly I must have looked pathetic running after the ball for god knows how long. Still I realized after some time that it was useless. As long as the ball of light avoided me I would be unable to get close to it. But I didn't feel like giving up. I tried to stealthly approach it. I failed. I tried luring it into a trap. That also failed.
I had been defeated by a ball of light. Not even my intelligence was enough to catch it. My only option was to wait for it to approach me. I waited for what felt like years. I spent my time in eternal darkness as I waited for the ball to approach me. Then it happened. Out of the ball of light a smaller ball formed and slwoly headed towards me. As I reached out to touch it my mind blanked as light enveloped me.
As the light faded the world around me changed. I looked out on a forest where a young man trained with a wooden sword. Not that you could call it training it felt more like aimless swinging to me. It was unrefined and amateurish. Still there was a passion in the boys face as he swung the sword again and again. After some time he stopped and went away but I knew I couldn't follow. How I knew it I didn't know but once I realized I tried moving and found myslef unable to move. However just as the boy left he appeared again and started training.
This continued for years as I watched the boy grow up and his swordmanship becoming more graceful and refined instead of the brutish attempt it had been in the begining. From a young boy to a grown man I had watched him grow up and become a man. I felt strange looking at him. Had I once been the same? Filled with a desire to become a swordsman. I didn't think so. While the young mans swordsmanship truly was refined and graceful it didn't appeal to me. As I finished the thought light once more enveloped me and the vision before me vanished.
I woke up and found myself where I had lost consciousness and looked around. The Harbinger was long gone but the damage it had dealt still remained to a degree. My back hurt and it felt like my right arm was broken. Still it would heal eventually as my injuries had a tendancy to do. Still I healed better after killing some Imps so I decided to go out and hunt some.
As I left my hiding spot I looked around for the Harbinger but found it nowhere in sight so I left before it could return. It did however take me some time before I saw my first Imp. It was heavily injured and if not for the Harbinger hunting it I would have attacked it. Still I had learned that one does not simply attack a Harbinger so I decided to get as far away as I could leaving the Imp to its fate. But lady luck smiled upon me as I soon found another Imp wandering in the distance. It was larger than any Imp I had seen before but I had a feeling I could easily take it. After firing 3 Dark Bolts it turned out I was right and the Imp collapsed dead on the ground. Still it had taken me three hits to kill it while normally one was enough to incapacitate an Imp. However killing it still only gained me one attribute point which I saved but my broken arm started healing at an outrageous pace and soon it was completely healed. The pain in my back had also disappeared.
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With my immediate problems dealt with I had to figure out a way to get stronger if I wanted to kill a Harbinger. My bolt did basically nothing to it and one hit was enough to send my flying. Yet Imps no longer gained me enough attribute points to be worth hunting them unless I needed to heal. The only other living creatures left around here was the Hellhounds but I didn't know if I could take them. Sure I had killed one before and I had magic now but some of them had starting grouping up and I didn't feel confident in taking on a group of them. My only remaining alternative would be to leave the area and search for something new but that felt even more dangerous than trying to hunt Hellhounds as I would have no idea what to expect. My only alternative was to hope I could find an alone Hellhound or at least a small group that was wounded.
I would like to think the hunt went well. I had killed 12 Imps while searching for an Hellhound until I finally found one. But just as I was about to attack it a creature flew down from nowhere and grabbed the Hellhound only to moments later shredd the Hellhound with its claws. My mind was sending me danger signals as I watched the creature. It looked like a vulture only bigger and with wings made of fire and talons made of steel. Its beak contained multiple sharp teeth as it ripped the corpse to shreds as it was feeding.
"Inspect" I muttered as i watched the creature eating. I wanted to know what this was as i had never seen it before.
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Race: Demonic Firebird
Level: 34/50
HP: 642/763
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[Demonic Firebird: A Demonic Firebird is the pinnacle of existence on the lower levels of avernus and preys on any creature native to the plane. Even creatures such as Young Harbingers fear this creature and flee whenever it is spotted. It is the only low level fiend that is regarded as a rank D danger on its own.]
As soon as the information on the bird was displayed I ran as fast as I could away from it. A harbinger was something I could not best at my current level. Infact I barely managed to hurt the one I had faught. But this. This was something else. Its presence was enough to make me tremble in fear and the information I had received was enough to make me fear for my life. If it decided to hunt me I would die no questions asked.
I ran for what felt like an hour before I stopped and decided to continue my search for an alone Hellhound. As far away from the bird as possible of course. This time my hunt was a little more fruitful as I killed 5 Imps before finding to Hellhounds attacking a lone Imp. As the Hellhounds delivered the final blow to the Imp it managed to claw and one of the Hellhounds eyes and while the injury would have healed with time I was ready to take advantage of its temporary weakness. With a grin on my face I prepared to ambush the two Hellhounds