During a Rapture, some lucky Scourge crews get to control an avatar of the Perisher we call a destroyer. It opens this hole to the abyss and crawls out all cool with a bunch of locusts flying around everywhere. Oh, it’s so much fun commanding it to attack large groups of mortals in cities.
The Sortilege destroyer is a lot smaller and not nearly as fun since it doesn’t accept our commands, but it was one of the best Sortileges we could get for the area. It can’t really be known if the destroyer was Bob’s Sortilege or mine, but I like to think it was mine.
Bob’s Sortilege spawned a byca. Those things are vicious murderers. It has four really long and thin legs ending in a small bulbous body that’s mostly a giant maw with a few eyes. This was also one of the best Sortileges we could hope for.
Bycas are super-fast and hard to hit. With the current grade of Dan’s Speed and Reaction Stats, and the few points in each, Dan wouldn’t even be able to see the thing as it moved.
Both the destroyer and byca were low Jade. The Crucible area is for Jade and Silver tier, level 41 to 80.
The lowest level infernal that can spawn on Hell difficulty for this area is level 51. Sortilege works differently. When the area and participant’s level are too disparate, Sortilege gets a little wonky.
Dan didn’t have much mana in his core. He had wasted a ton dismissing and summoning his infernal after the boneguard fight. He also wasted some attacking me like a fool.
He probably didn’t have the mana to invoke Molten Armor. Even if he did, the 9% damage return and 12% damage mitigation wouldn’t be much help at all.
How would Dan get his big stupid fat ass out of this one? There was…
[I do wish you’d stop calling him fat. He wasn’t.]
Huh? Are you serious? What kind of nonsensical prudery is this? What’s the point of being a demon of Hell if I can’t call anyone I want to a fat? Even if they’re barely a fat, it still counts.
What’s the point of even living now? The other side has somehow conquered Hell without even trying. They lost every battle but somehow won the war. We have become completely infected with sissy prudery.
Calling people mean and hurtful things is a core tenet of Ace Blacky’s. It’s core to who he is. He needs it. Don’t do this to him. Don’t clip his wings. Let him spread them gloriously. Please. Please!
[Wow. Okay. As you were. Carry on.]
Thank you! I really appreciate it, Boss. As I was saying, that big fat piece of lard fat-ass dumb shit was in some real trouble, especially because he was such a huge fatty fat. A real fatso. And a stupid. A tiny-penised stupid.
His fat core was running on fumes too. Scratch that, saying he has a fat core sounds like cool lingo kids would use as a compliment.
His core was running on fumes. Since he was nearby where the Sortileges spawn next to the Crucible of Agares in the center of the area, the hole to the abyss appeared only like 20 meters away from him.
So did the byca. As soon as it appeared, it charged right at Dan. He was one dead fatty fatso.
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Shit, thought Dan. He was distracted enough that he forgot to order his summons to stay away from the abaddon. He was too focused on the flasher.
It was impossible for him to land a hit on a flasher as he currently was. They were just too fast.
As soon as the flasher started moving, Dan invoked Lava Stomp. He could only hope he’d get it. It moved too quickly to see with his current Reaction and Speed.
Dan would’ve sighed in relief if he had the time to. It worked. The creature was caught in Lava Stomp’s area of effect.
The flasher’s giant mouth was inches from Dan’s face. He rolled into its legs while its feet were still covered in lava. The feet ripped off as the creature was knocked over.
With the flasher’s legs injured, Dan knew he could kill it with little issue. A locust from the abaddon bit him, and it burned fiercely. He didn’t have much time. He dove at the flasher’s head and stabbed it rapidly with lava-daggers until it stopped screeching as he took a few more bites from the early arriving locusts.
Dan rolled backwards away from the flasher’s corpse and looked towards the abaddon. It was almost as dark as the hole to the abyss it was crawling out of.
It was hard to make out details on it. It had the general shape of a man but was about fifteen feet tall. Its eyes glowed light blue and when it opened its mouth, fangs could be seen. It wore locusts like a cloak and an endless stream of those giant insects flew out of the abyss, attacking whatever it sicced them on.
And the abaddon was siccing them all on Dan. There was a big swarm almost on him. He commanded his summons to back away, but there was no time. Only half of the abaddon was out of the hole. It raised its arms and smashed them down on the infernal. That was enough to turn the summons into a smoking pile of rubble in a crater.
Dan’s core was low. Really low. He would have to make what he had left count. He didn’t have enough to invoke Molten Armor. He finagled his mana and forced it to cover his whole body in a thin layer a split second before the swarm arrived. He didn’t know if it would protect him enough.
It did. Not one bite got through, and the locusts landing on him burst into flames. Thousands of them. Inevitability of Magma started filling his core. This time, since he now had the time to, he did sigh in relief. And not just over his trick working and saving him from the locusts.
Only two Sortileges were used. That meant his brother and the others were safe. He had been extremely worried about that. The rules stated there could be no more than one demon tech per five participants, and there were only nine participants in his tutorial area including himself.
Technically, that meant there could only be one tech assigned to his tutorial’s group, but the demons always twisted and bent the rules. He wouldn’t put it past them to have three assigned even if that was getting into clear-cut rule-breaking territory.
Two Sortileges had been used in the tutorial area. He had prayed it was safe to leave everyone there unguarded. Since two Sortileges were used in this area, he took that as proof there were only two demon techs assigned to them.
A big source of worry melted away from Dan’s already too heavy burden.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Now he just had to kill the abaddon, a creature notoriously hard to kill. A creature that could kill him with one hit considering Dan’s current tier and Attributes.
The abaddon continued to pull itself out of its hole, sending more and more locusts at Dan as it did so. He appreciated that. His core was almost full again. As he ran towards the monster, his right-hand dagger extended out into a long whip of lava. He held his left-hand dagger out and invoked STORM.
Lava Stomp couldn’t be used on certain hard to kill monsters. Abaddons were one of them. Dan believed they all had a better version of a Trait he’d love to get himself called Unstoppable. When anything with that Trait suffered a movement impairing effect such as a stun, hold, or root, they’d get a regeneration effect healing a percentage of damage every second for 12 seconds.
It didn’t really matter when most enemies had that Trait as they could still be burnt down quickly enough, but it would take Dan a lot of effort to injure the abaddon, and all that effort would disappear in 12 seconds if he used Lava Stomp.
Dan lashed the beast in the face. It roared in anger. He kept lashing.
Once the monster was fully out of its hole, it gave chase, and Dan switched to hit and run tactics. His only chance was whittling the abaddon down. Chipping away at it little by little.
Lash, lash, run. Invoke STORM when it was off cooldown. That was his strategy. On his second loop around, the exit to the Court area was tempting him fiercely, but someone had entered the Castle area ahead of him.
It wasn’t impossible whoever that was would make it to the Crucible before the abaddon despawned. He wouldn’t leave this thing for someone else to deal with.
He would shoulder as much of the load as he could. Until he couldn’t. Then he wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore. Or anything at all.
The abaddon bellowed in rage as it was lashed twice in the face again.
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Covering his body with a thin layer of lava was an impressive show of an advanced mana technique. Maybe the fats really are just as capable as the normals.
It’s probably clear by now, but without a demon giving it commands, destroyers are idiots. It kept sending its locusts at Dan. It was even worse than with the stupid undead in the Trial of the Scouring. I could see his core filling. And that dumb as shit destroyer just kept sending them and kept sending them.
Dan played it smart. He kept his distance, taking no risks. He’d use STORM when it was off cooldown, get a few lashes in with his lava-whip, and retreat to do the same again. I was praying he’d use Lava Stomp, but he kept not doing that.
About a half hour into the fight, Gabrodyl finally replied back to us. She wrote, “KILL HIM!” in all caps.
Az’ga hit her Sortilege. She got a low Jade babau. Not a good one for Dan. They’re semi-sapient, but slow and not very durable.
It leisurely moseyed over to where the battle was and screeched out, “I will take your children.” That’s usually a great threat. Since Dan only had one child, and she was dead, it wasn’t a great threat for him. But that’s always the babau’s go to threat, and it had no way of knowing Dan’s specific situation.
Dan charged his new opponent. He stopped about a couple meters away to Lava Stomp. As soon as he was done invoking, he lashed his whip around its neck and yanked it off its feet. Then he jumped on it, stabbed it a bunch, you know the deal.
My only hope was that Dan would collapse from exhaustion and the destroyer would destroy him when he did. I couldn’t tell if he was sweating as much as usual since he was constantly covered in that layer of lava, but he had been wheezing and sucking air since, like, two minutes into the fight.
By this point, he truly sounded like he could drop dead from lack of oxygen at any second. I wish I had a recording of what he sounded like when he was really out of breath. Listening to it was somehow simultaneously hilarious and heart wrenching. Poor fat slob.
We asked Gabrodyl if Hector could come up to the Crucible so his tech could use another Sortilege. If not, if he could ambush Dan once he went back down to the Castle. She said Hector couldn’t get into the fifth area and wasn’t ready for Dan yet anyway. They had other plans for him.
She also told us not to use our Sortileges in the Court or the Castle areas until ordered to do so.
It was going slow, but Dan was winning. He looked a lot more nervous after the babau. He must’ve realized my team consisted of three techs and what that meant.
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Dan couldn’t kill the abaddon fast enough. He was filled with worry. There were three techs. That was way against the rules.
If Nick’s dead…if they’re all dead because I was impatient…, Dan couldn’t even finish the thought. He couldn’t bear being responsible for more people dying.
He was rushing his fight with the abaddon. His worry was causing him to lose focus. One mistake and he’d be dead. He forced his mind to concentrate on the matter at hand.
Too long later, the abaddon roared and fell to its knees. Dan started laying into it hard. He lashed and lashed it over and over until it was dead.
Dan needed to rest. He needed to catch his breath. He couldn’t afford to.
Anxiety drove him to leave the Orbment Fragments and other drops. He didn’t have time. He couldn’t spare the 20 seconds to summon a new infernal either. He wanted to apply the Orbment-Effect Charm to that Orbment anyway.
He grabbed his backpack and ran south. He killed all the spawns in each area as quickly as he could and continued running as fast as he could. Halfway through the Boneyard, he collapsed to his knees. He needed air. He couldn’t keep going. He puked until there was nothing in his stomach.
Suck it up. Almost there. Stop being a little bitch and get up. Nick’s counting on you. They’re all counting on you. No more failing.
Dan forced himself back to his feet. He forced his body to continue running. He entered back into the tutorial and ran to the Core Trial. No one was there. But no dead bodies were there either.
He ran to the Agility Trial and collapsed on the ground as soon as he saw the fire and the guards. He couldn’t help it. There was nothing in his stomach, but he still dry-heaved painfully between ragged gulps of air.
When he recovered enough to pay attention, he saw Becky in front of him with her finger in Austin’s face, whisper-yelling, “If you say it, I swear, you’re in big trouble! You watch your mouth and behave or…”
Becky noticed Dan was looking at her and smiled. “You doing okay now, Dan? Everything okay? You know you’re naked?”
“Thanks for leaving us all to die,” said Austin. “We were all almost killed as soon as you left, dickface. Don’t pretend you care if you’re just going to abandon us.”
Becky quietly screamed, “Austin! Ew, you’re going to get it, boy! Get to the other side of camp. And keep quiet. Don’t wake no one up. Now get!”
Once Austin moped away, Becky smiled at Dan again. “Don’t pay him no mind. We did get attacked but we…it was like giant, mutated versions of those goblins from the first day. My husband would be so proud if he seen me in action. Luke’s head was on fire, and I put it out with my hoodie. I didn’t hesitate or nothing. Then we stabbed the shit out of all of them sons of bitches.
“Pardon the language but Bonnie’s sleeping and Austin cusses more than the rest of us combined. The fight went fine. We won. Austin’s just...he’s got issues. I don’t think he’s got a very good home life neither. He won’t really talk about it though. Chet and Luke both got injured, but they’re fine and they’ll live. How’re you? That fight you had was nuts! There was, like, a million things, and we were, like...”
“I’m fine,” interrupted Dan.
Dan turned on the ground, stood, and covered his urination-organ with the backpack before facing Becky again. For mortals, showing their urinator is very taboo. For some reason, it’s more acceptable for the males to be topless, but the females cover their penis when not fornicating.
Did you know most mortals fornicate in private like sissy prudes? Oh, I should tell you…
[Back to Dan.]
Right.
Dan said, “I’m just a little out of breath, is all. Glad all y’all are alive. Sorry you done got attacked when I left. And sorry I’m naked.”
“It’s fine you’re naked,” said Becky. “I was married for almost two years, and I seen my daddy naked a bunch of times when I was a kid. Wait…that don’t sound right. My daddy isn’t a creep or nothing. Sometimes kids just see their parents naked. That’s all I meant. It just came out wrong. How I said it like that.”
“Austin’s right,” said Dan. “I messed up. There’s only supposed to be one tech for every five participants, so we're not supposed to have more than one. Two's pushing it. They have three on us. That's just egregious.”
“I don’t know what that means, but I believe you,” said Becky. “You didn’t have none of those big scars you got now when I stitched you up the other day. You okay?”
“Yeah. Just got them today,” replied Dan. “They’ll go away in time.”
“Oh. I see. Well, that’s a lie. I don’t. I’ll just take your word for it. You hungry or need anything? Clothes? You do need some clothes. I’ll see what I can whip up. I don’t see no injuries needing tending. I can…”
“Sorry to interrupt again but I’m short on time. I just had to check and see if y’all were okay. I’ll be back soon. I’ll have indestructible clothes when I get back. Thank you, miss…I mean Becky.”
Becky smiled and said, “See? My name ain’t so hard to say. I hope you don’t think my daddy is some sort of creep by me saying what I did. He isn’t. I promise. It just came out wrong, is all. Well, good luck, Dan. We’re all pulling for you. Whatever it is you’re doing out there.”