“Ok lead the way statue me. I get that I don’t have much of a choice here.” Deacon said.
The statue waived its hand at a section of the hedge wall, branches began to unwind and separate revealing a golden cobblestone path. Then all four statues crumbled to dust along with the platforms that held them up. Deacon snickered internally at the thought of an actual golden path. Then he thought about it from a financial standpoint leaning down to work one from the ground. The indent of a frowning face appeared on it, so he decided to let it be. He started down the path only to stop short feeling a sharp pain from his abdomen. There was the long shaft of a spear sticking out of him with the head buried in the stones. Checking his health bar he could see he was down to sixty percent. Ignoring the red notifications from his slate, Deacon began to dig into his satchel when a voice came from behind him.
“You there, hairless monkey. You’re the cause of all this. My plans lay in ruins due to your low-level interference. I assume my brood brother is dead since the path up to the city was blocked. Now I am trapped in this violent garden as my beast chariot is eaten by a giant plant. You will pay Champion of Cheshire, yes, I know who you are, the old dirt eater wouldn’t shut up about how dangerous you were. Past tense. You die here and now. Just as soon as you tell me how to escape this pocket dimension. Now look into my eyes.” Said the Vasilly Lord wrapping itself around the spot Deacon was nailed to. This one was in full armor with one hand covered in rings all glowing with a soft golden light. There was even a line of golden energy scattered into the distance leading back to the rings. As it got closer to Deacon’s face it grabbed him by the chin and forced him to look up. It was shocked to see the same eyes looking back at him.
“What is this? Some kind of half-breed nonsense?” said the shocked ruling class.
“No motherfucker, they’re your brothers eyes!” Deacon said snapping the shaft of the spear in front of him as the Steel Solvent potion finished eating through it. He then smashed what was left into the breastplate of the snake man before him earning a hiss of disapproval. It slithered its way back a few paces inspecting its armor. This gave Deacon a chance to pull the rest of the spear out of his back noting his health was hitting forty five percent. There wasn’t enough time for him to pull a healing potion, so he used his aura to freeze the open wounds with Nether Ice. This was incredibly painful, and he fell to his knees. As the armor started to crack and flake off of the Vasilly Lord it grew furious and wrapped around Deacon like an anaconda.
“I will burst your insides and watch your juices fountain out of your mouth, savage.” Screeched the Lord.
Now that the armor was useless Deacon could finally fight back. Punching or kicking that well crafted armor would have done more damage to Deacon than his attacker. With it disintegrating around the snake, he could make some real progress with Ice Sickles. Deacon was struggling for air as he consumed thirty percent of his soul energy conjuring six Ice Sickles around his body and began spinning them furiously. That along with his Blood River title gave the Vasilly Lord the fountain he was looking for. Six blades meant at least three of them caused the bleeding condition. Gouts of blood ran from within the loops of the snakes tail. It tried to disengage but the sickles were embedded in its flesh and carving their way out.
“We are a species of the second tier. Release me. You can’t to do this!” Screamed the snake man.
“Fuck you and the cockroach you rode in on.” Deacon said as he pushed the Ice Sickles in six different directions dicing the monster up. He just lay there for a few minutes trying to breathe. That prick was definitely dead, and Deacon believed he earned a breather. Looking to his right he found its hand with the rings on it. The golden tendril was still coming off of the rings. He picked them up and looked at item message.
New Item Found- Slave Masters Lash- Set Item, when all the rings are worn on one hand it connects to all slave collars made from the same metal vein. With them you can control the collars over great distances to give commands, cause pain directly to the slaves, or to open and close the collar.
“No time like the present.” Deacon said as he affixed all the rings to his hand and willed all the collars open. Hopefully that would end the issue of a thousand slave soldiers fighting somewhere. Once he was done the rings went immediately into his bag hoping they would never see the light of day again before he could figure out how to destroy them. Deacon now had a permanent hatred for the Vasilly Empire, it was one thing to be a dick but another to be evil. This fell right in the evil category. His health needed to be addressed so he pulled out a healing potion, downing it and tossing the empty vial. His health came back up to seventy percent and that would have to do. Getting to his feet he began limping down the rest of the golden path hoping there were fewer turns or surprises ahead of him.
After about an hour of walking Deacon encountered two skeleton warriors. Their gear was old and decrepit. He dispatched them with a few kicks and was almost disappointed by how easy it was. The city still loomed above him in the distance and he could still hear fighting. He hoped everyone was alright. Coming to a T intersection, Deacon noticed the gold path went left and the path on the right was just dark grey. Taking the left path it wasn’t long before he found himself looking at a wooden shack. The roof came to a sharp point and the door had a half moon carved into it.
“You’re kidding right?” Deacon asked the maze. The only response he got was an arrow grown out of branches in the nearest hedge wall pointing forward.
“But it’s a shitter.” Deacon said stalking forward losing his patients with this place. When he opened the door all he saw was a hole in the ground wide enough around for one person.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“You want me to go down there?” Deacon asked getting the image of a finger being held up to a pair of lips from one of the plants. He then focused on soul sight peering into the hole and was shocked to see currents of soul energy all around him pouring into this hole. The thing that bothered him most was he couldn’t actually touch the energy. His hand just passed through it. Down the hole he went.
Deacon landed on top of a glass structure with a resounding bong. So much for being quiet he thought. Eyes fixated on the soul energy; all those currents were pouring into this glass structure. The structure was solid enough, but he couldn’t touch the energy. He looked for a way to scrabble down the side. Like any time he tried to climb he fell flat on his ass on the ground. Looking up he could see the structure was an hourglass that was filling with soul energy. There must be some arcane power at work that keeps the soul energy from his grasp. Getting to his feet he heard a shuffling from the darkness.
“Who would enter Philo’s chambers?” said a figure dressed in robes with fading whisps of white hair poking out from around a crown of finger bones barely hanging off of one pointed ear. Deacon spun around to take in the figure completely. It looked way past the ability to move but it still shuffled forward. Whatever it used to wear on its feet had rotted away long ago.
“I’m Deacon, I’m looking for Philo.” He said regretting it immediately.
“You have found him. Now be gone.” Philo said releasing a lance of red energy straight into Deacons chest with no effect.
“Wow! So we can’t even talk for a second, straight into throwing magic?” Deacon asked preparing himself for the next spell.
“Do you know how many times my maze has sent someone to kill me?” Philo asked flicking a spiked ball of water at Deacon that narrowly missed smashing into the back wall.
“Let me guess, four?” Deacon said hiding around the hourglass. If he could just get him monologuing maybe, he could find some clue to what the hell is going on here.
“Ha ha ha, try fifteen thousand.” Philo laughed but it was more like a dry wheezing.
“That’s too many. Tell it to stop or something. It’s your maze.” Deacon said hiding behind a rack of test tubes and strange creatures in jars just as a lightning bolt slammed into the shelving unit. He popped up and fired a Nether Beam at Philo who held up one hand, a multicolored shield sprang to life that looked like a kaleidoscope complete with individual spinning segments of arcane lettering. The part the beam hit redirected it at the wall.
“You know something you are right. That is too many. But it will never stop. This isn’t my tomb its my prison. I’ve been down here for thousands of years. I’ve made magical discoveries that could change the world, but it won’t let me out.” Philo said making the ground explode around Deacon causing him to fall to a lower level.
“Still alive down there?” Philo asked as he levitated down to the new level.
“Why won’t it let you out?” Deacon asked as he plunged an Ice Sickle into Philo’s back.
“I actually felt that. Holy damage? Are you some kind of priest?”, Philo asked as four whisps of magic leapt from his hand striking Deacon in the face, chest, and both testicles still doing no damage, “Now that’s just infuriating, why won’t you die? I’ve sent enough spells at you to kill a man ten times over. At my level, my bonus damage alone should have killed you. You are only level twelve.” Philo began to stamp his feet over and over again like a petulant child. Then he abruptly stopped and began casting something only he could see.
“Champion of Cheshire, human… no wait some stage beyond human, curiouser, ah here it is Null Magic. That explains it. Rare but a good one for a Champion. Can’t even use your body to escape at least not without some major alterations. You know I’ve made some impressive breakthroughs with the last three champions that came here. I know how to untether you from your patron.” Philo said as he shot over a wall slammed his hand on a runic circle. Immediately the room lit up with rune script covering all walls.
Deacon didn’t feel any different and yet he could feel his connection with Cheshire fading. Now that the room was lit up, he could see a large two-handed sword hanging on the wall above an armored husk, a corpse lay near him with a staff over its lap and strapped to a table was an old woman’s body with a lantern sprouting from her stomach.
“Don’t worry about them, they’ve been dead a long time now. About you, what abilities do you no longer have from Cheshire I wonder. Can you still keep up?” Philo asked as the ground around Deacon raised up into a fist clasping around him. Deacon was shocked as he struggled to get free.
“You see young man; you are protected from projected magic, but this spell is being cast on the floor.” Philo sneered as he dragged Deacon closer to his face. That’s when Deacon looked him right in the eye and said, “Tell me how to defeat you.”
“Simple you take that bottle of wine upstairs and smash it. That will break the enchantment I put on my soul tethering me to the mortal realm.”, Philo said with shock and horror on his face, “How did you do that? You do not have the power of an Arcane Psychic! If that is an ability from Cheshire, you shouldn’t have access to it down here.” Philo said flailing his arms about clearly unhinged. He lost control of his spell and Deacon used that opportunity to climb up on the remnants of the now crumbling earth hand jump to the level above.
He could hear Philo ranting and raving below him. The walls were crumbling and random things in the basement like room were falling off of shelves. Deacon looked frantically for this bottle and didn’t see it. Philo started to float up through the hole he made. The floor began undulating like a bed sheet flapping in the wind. Deacon fell flat on his face but that was when he saw it. A box under a table with the neck of one bottle of wine sticking up above the wooden frame. He scrambled over to it pulling it free from the box. Rolling over onto his back he found Philo right in front of him.
“Go ahead, smash it. See if I care.” Philo said leaning above him. Deacon began furiously banging the bottle on the ground. Thud, thud, thud, and nothing happened.
“You dummy. Why would I put something so precious in a container that anyone could smash? Only I can break it. Now let’s get back down…Uhck.” Philo’s sentence ended in a gagging muffle as Deacon shoved the bottle into his toothy mouth and brought his knee up to smash into his chin. The bottle shattered and Deacon could see soul energy flooding into Philo. His hair started to grow back, and his skin turned to a healthier pink. He began touching his face while spitting out glass. Philo stumbled back on feet that could feel the ground beneath him. Tears started to fall from eyes as a slash in space opened up behind him widening into a solid black oval with a six-foot radius came into being. Within the portal was a pair of all red eyes. Instantly a skeletal hand the size of a man shot out and grabbed Philo turning him toward the portal. Philo screamed and looked back at Deacon who had a black halo orbiting clockwise behind him. The last thing Deacon heard before falling unconscious was Philo’s screams of terror, “Not The Black, anything but The Black.”