————
Now that I think about it, in most of those novels about immortals I've read in the before, people would often go into closed door cultivation and disappear for days or even years. –I can see how that can happen now, so easy to lose track of time in such state.
*Sigh, I'm unable to hold that one inside while looking up to the gray ceiling of the tower, and going over the memory that wormed itself into my mind during this meditation session. –Starting to see a pattern there.
"It's been almost three weeks and still no word from the idiot." I only shake my head at that, since there is nothing we can do about it as things currently are.
> You suffer from Backlash, all attributes temporarily reduced by 66%. Time remaining: 22days.
-Took me even longer this time, ugh.
> Consumed essence: Arachnida (5), Lesser Aragohma (3)
>
> Perception +2
>
> Dexterity +2
>
> Magic +1
With an immortal body that doesn't need rest, time becomes this baffling thing that you don't notice passing - and especially when meditating inside a sealed off room in a realm without anything like a day-night cycle. Not to mention underground, buried under tons of sand. Yet even down here in hell, it doesn't seem to stop if the countdown in my status is anything to go by.
—Maybe something is preventing Circa from performing the ritual? They really might be with the church's people right now... That is where I would go to find help after waking up some ancient undead abominations and almost getting killed by a crazy Cambion; one that led the party inside a sealed tomb to find a scary relict that might, or may not be related to hell.
Well, I would, were I not a demon myself. —Sebby seemed to have figured something out from the reliefs carved on the wall inside that cave, so he should know what to do. Might even have a better idea of what is actually going on than me.
I take the artifact out of my pocket space, to take a closer look at it now that I'm not feeling like my body is breaking apart. I would say my mana pool is now around a quarter full. The damned bug chasing us through the tunnels set us back a fair amount – it's so hard to fill it back when you are stuck in hell.
"What do you think of this thing Rose?" I ask aloud since there are no demons around and it should be safe - hoping to change my focus, away from the other possible explanations of why they still wouldn't contact me.
-She likes it, her roots and vines sprout out from my arms to fiddle with the item in my hands, probing it curiously. They look almost like veins when under my skin - the smaller ones, at least. There's absolutely no discomfort when they emerge but I can feel them coiled inside; since we are both magic-spirit bodies tangled together in some sort of union that doesn't come as a surprise. She submitted to me, but I like to think of this as partnership.
Now that I don't have to worry about having another bad trip after consuming too much taint, the prospects for the future look so much better — unfortunately it still feels disgusting even just touching it.
Being able to gather essence without most of it spoiling during my trips to the mountain, and even getting to refill my mana without tasting the black shit sure is nice. -Yes, not having to travel across the wasteland every time just to remove the contamination from my kills is another great improvement to the quality of life in hell. All we need now is a proper base.
I suspect the Vampiric Embrace ability of the symbiote would be able get us more magic juice if I didn't try to assimilate all the essence from those two demonic beasts using my method... But it's not like we don't have a huge supply of weak demons and taint down in the sewers to refill. And we need to wait until the backlash ends anyway, so spending time 'cultivating' should be fine. The dexterity Attribute the spider-like demons provide is also a big plus in favor of continuing with how I've been doing things — when time is not an issue, that is.
—Speaking of, we need to get rid of the big fucker crawling down below. I just hope there isn't many of them around or this could be more then we can chew. I have few Ideas about how to go about it, though there may be some risks involved.
Mhmm? "What are you trying to pull Rose?" She is really fixated on the gem, almost trying to pry if off from the socket. -Yea, that's not going to happen. I gently move the roots aside and away from the shiny thing with my fingers. I could just take control of them myself but don't feel the need for that.
Instead I point out how the enchantments on the crown keep it together and protect it from being damaged while tracing the complex runic formation inscribed on it with my nail. This thing is beyond us to break or fully understand right now, so intricate and advanced.
"See these runes on the inside? They make the inner circlet part into a one tough piece of a magic item." I turn it around to check the underside. "The gem and the ring are basically fused together to become whole and inseparable, I can't even tell what powers them... Hmm, we could maybe attempt to remove the extra bits someone added later, but the core piece is—" She switches the target of her woe onto the decorative parts, rearing her thorns ready to rip and tear.
"Woah! Hold down girl." I rise it up and away but since Rose is part of my body that was utterly pointless of me, so I instead *sigh and put it back into my 'inventory'. "Not right now, let's get our full power back and prepare first – in case there are some nasty surprised hidden in the mesh of this enchantment to deter any would be vandals from messing with it." She's not happy but seems to understand me and settles down.
"Right, what do you say we instead get our revenge on the oversized bug bastard?" I smile wide as the thorn covered vines sway seemingly in agreement. I can feel some bloodlust over our link. —Yup, I didn't like having to run like this while slipping on shit either. If the tower is my new lair now, that makes the sewers our territory. And there is no room for some demonic metro to pass through in it.
It won't see it coming.
——
Back in the tunnels I'm scouting the area around the entrance to the tower, carefully keeping my distance from where we found that strange nest. Don't want to mess with the centipedes just yet, not until we check the perimeter for any other surprises this labyrinth has to offer.
Avoiding it was pointless, as the whole place is infested with this vermin. Mostly low level creeps are crawling all over the floors and walls like they were some fucking ants, ruthlessly killing everything weaker that has less legs than them ―What the hell? The traffic around here is much more intensive then before.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
They sometimes get caught in webs of a rare spider demon - but if they menage to rise an alarm with their screech before dying... Yeah, like the one I'm watching right now while staying hidden by an illusion; soon the silk will get torn to shreds by incoming reinforcements drawn by the call, as more of them swarm the passage and rip the 8 to 13 legged offenders apart if they didn't relocate with their catch to a different tunnel.
―A thirteen legged spider... Why?
The odd thing had an extra long leg at the back, armed with a bladed tip and pretending to be a scorpion with it. This guy holds the current record for the number of legs on a spider-like demon —Just... whatever.
Preparing a proper door for the tower took us some time; it's now been a whole day since my meditative session ended. The armory locker we broke into was laid over the hole after removing the back side. Fusing it with the floor and attempting to fix at least some of the destroyed enchantments created a somewhat serviceable entrance to the maze below. Runes and patterns used on it were very old and I haven't seen anything similar before, except for maybe those in the Undead dungeon Circa and the gang brought me to...
My Enchanting skill was struggling to provide assistance with the task, but I was somehow able to make it open for my mana signature only.
—Back to what I was doing now. Need to focus, we don't want the situation from a week ago to repeat itself because I didn't lay attention.
Just like with that one roach-thing I've spotted the last time we were sneaking around here, the ant-wannabe creepy-crawlers are also capturing and carrying off the Lemures occasionally spawning from the Taint filled canals. I would bet they are bringing them to the nest, to share their victims together with those staying inside. -Such a strange thing to do, aren't we demons supposed to be selfish?
I stop near one of those hell-maggots after seeing it emerge from the black ooze. The thing then starts climbing the wall; they also seem to follow the theme of this place, and actually have more than a single pair of hands that the ones on the surface sport. -Odd. I'm not an expert but I've hunted my share of them, and never noticed that to be a thing back in the wasteland. Must be something in the air.
Checking just to be sure.
> Lemure. (1)
-Yea, it's the same as always. This place is just weird.
I move out of the way of a groups of centipedes now returning home with more captives. While we are hidden by my skills they don't notice our presence, their bad perception is a good sign that my plan might work.
I don't know who build this place before the desert took over, or how it survived that nuke going off somewhere above it. Seeing the state of the wasteland and the Rim I would have expected those ruins to turn to dust and join the sands above. ―We can't be that deep right? What do I know, not like it matters right now.
I leave the little guy on the wall where I've noticed it just started scrapping the black ooze, a centipede then soon comes to abduct the creature.
We keep moving through one of the smaller passages while I'm marking our path with a dagger. I've left the sword I took a liking to back in the tower - don't want it to slow me down, we could use the bonuses it provides but the thought of losing it makes me hesitant to carry it without a proper sheath. Besides I have something else in mind.
There are narrow pipes - likely leading outside, all over the smaller tunnels. If these are sewers, does that mean there is a city above? Or at least what's left of it. Most of them seem blocked from the lack of maintenance, clogged with dirt.
Reaching a junction with a bigger corridor that has a double canal running in the floor I spot another service entrance nearby. After making my way there we find an almost exactly same looking room as at the previous one. The difference is the doors here are open. Careful to not make any noise - even if I can't feel any presence, we make our way up the stairs and inside a partially collapsed... Building?
Half of the room is buried under some hardened dark mud and destroyed stone bricks. -Guess you could call it a cave-in. Not sure what this place used to be, not much left in here, likely ransacked in the past just like the tower. Another set of open doors leads to another area. There are pipes stacked under one of the walls; now sticking out half embed into the dirt that turned to stone at this point. Nothing with magic was left here either. A big broken frame lays on the ground among other debris. —If this was some sort of office for the sewer service I was hoping to maybe find a map of the canals, unless they kept paintings here this could have been it. No luck here, but I should check other similar sites.
This implies some intelligent demons went over the ruins, and I don't like it. Are they still lurking around?
Surprisingly in the backroom there are few broken crates, and inside one of them I find some old tools. There's no water in hell as far as I know, I'm unsure what even makes the air here, so no rust destroyed them over the years. They were blackened though, black taint turning the metal fragile. A pair of pliers breaks in my hands after I try them out.
—This is odd. All the black metal scrap I've found while scavenging in the wasteland was strong even after the years since the cataclysm, and even kept some of the magic that was imbued into it. Maybe this stuff here is just very ancient.
——
Getting a better look of the ruins, I can now tell that the bug theme is a thing here. Except for one shapeless abomination, all the demons take a form of some kind of vermin - at least in this section. And the centipedes dominate the underground.
The abomination was level 11 so I've left it alone for now as it just roamed the tunnels soaking up the taint. This is more like what I'm used to seeing up on the Rim, but it also had an overabundance of limbs — although these type of demons were much more numerous early after the Rim was formed, and not many of them were left there these days. The goat clans hunted them for sport.
Making my way back towards the tower I can see another collapsed tunnel blocking my way. This one is a bit different, there is a gap at the top, near the ceiling. The mass of hard mud that spilled in now forms a ramp leading up to the surface - if you can even call it that since we are pretty deep under the desert. Making my way there I can barely notice the trap in time.
Webs cover the landslide, and this silk appears to be on a whole different level compared to what we've dealt with before. I already have plans so I'll just mark the location for latter, especially since I can't sense the owner. Yet my spider sense is tingling that something is up there. —Wonder how many legs it has.
——
Deep under the dark gray sands of a new desert, stretches a maze of old tunnels. They used to be a real marvel back it the the days of their constructions, the best an ancient civilization had to offer. Many residents even took pride in it.
Best materials, best engineers and mages worked on them for many years, as the people there knew their city needed the strongest foundation possible if it were to stand the test of time.
Yet now a big part of it lays in ruin, entire sections collapsed. Drainpipes clogged with black mud and stone fragments, enchantments fried or their magic spent unable to keep up. Even the best system requires a regular maintenance to function.
Inside those decrepit pathways and wide corridors a red blur sprints at great speed. After dropping on all four like a beast the little red devil runs for its life, jumping over obstacles and oddly placed stone blocks — chased by a real monster.
As the massive creature's many legs propel it forward along the bends and many tight corners, they leave deep grooves in the ancient masonry that was able to resist the heavy burden laid upon it for all these years — and now the fine stonework is being ground to dust, as the giant struggles to keep up with its target at the junctions; slamming into walls with great momentum when the prey takes sharp turns digging in short claws into the spaces between stone. Red menace is using black thorny vines growing from around small wings that grab at the corners to help keep its breakneck dash.
*Wrreee!
With fury and loud screech that shakes the earth, the beast filling almost the entire tunnel's width still gains more distance over the Imp that invaded its territory, even when there isn't enough space for it to run properly - at least until another boulder gets in the way.
The passage is narrow but this predator is familiar with the layout of the maze. Soon the path will widen, and then prey won't be able to escape when the brood guardian is able to stretch its legs fully. Using a skill the enormous demon Charges forward.
The red intruder jumps and somersaults in the air avoiding some obstacle that the guardian can't see - but it doesn't matter. Rock is nothing in front of its mighty armor and—
*Crack
*SCREEEEEEEEE! —The pain!
Sparks and pieces of the exoskeleton fly as the Giant Centipede's carapace breaks, and sharp metal pierces deep inside its body. Thick blood makes the ground even more slippery then it already was, making it hard to stop. There is magic in those edges that the creature didn't notice earlier. With all the weight of the massive body after charging at great speed it rakes through the obstacle— but unlike the feeble spikes of stone that the prey created before, this barrier is solid and holds almost till the end.
One shaft after the other, the black spears snap and curved blades warp or break under the pressure... But the damage was done, they were embedded into the tunnel at a very nasty angle. Broken off blades still cause it a lot of pain as they lodged themselves inside the soft body usually protected under the armor, each flex of the powerful muscles is a torture as sharp shards cut the vulnerable and important bits.
*Shrieeek of agony escapes the maw that was split in half by one of the blades, together with a deluge of blood and broken fangs.
-The giant finally stopped, losing all its momentum. Only one of the four eyes survived the collision with a wall of steel, now filled with pain and hatred it glares at the red Imp covered in thorns that also halted not far ahead, It stares back with its black eyes narrowed.
"Shit!" Slowly at first, it starts coming closer while raising its clawed palms towards the demonic centipede's head, but soon the Imp is stomping angrily, face morphing into a snarl. "Motherfucker broke most of them." Blue light blinds the dying monster. —So cold.
...
————