CHAPTER 9 – SPIN THE BOTTLE
The Labyrinth of the Shade – The Bastion
***
The Grand Inquisitor had been sitting upon his makeshift dais, throne, for several days, unmoving besides taking part in some food and drink with his Wife. He knew she and Blessed F’Lorin were both beasts on an ever weakening chain to unleash the Sanctum’s judgment on their foes, especially after the losses and humiliation they had already suffered but he did not make rash choices or decisions. Rational well thought out stratagems were his providence. His against the grain persona as far as the usual fare of the Sanctum had seen him rise and it had been his Wife’s wisdom to direct it that had pushed the boundaries of his ceiling.
He knew she would wait as long as needed for him to decide their direction and action. He felt tied currently. over half their force already gone. At the very least the System’s decision to decorprealize all bodies within ten minutes of them dying did take off the table the need to rid themselves of rotting corpses though it also took with it all their equipment. Blessed F’Lorin had even attempted to take the storage rings off his compatriots and it proved impossible as if everything was an active Soul-Bound item. As per usual the System was not known for its generosity regardless of its empty idioms.
The quandary here was the cause of the beasts attack? He in no way thought it coincidence and leaned heavily towards the answer being the quarry they were here for. The intel packets provided by the System had mentioned he was an Umbral Scion and the subterfuge inherent in luring a pack of Barghests to their door spoke heavily to the tactical acumen of one from the Shadow Pillar. The Grand Inquisitor acknowledged it as a salient and intelligent move within the game. When facing overwhelming adversity doing what one could to level the playing field would be the first action he himself would take. It told him their quarry was intelligent and had at least a modicum of tactical awareness and skill.
Irregardless of the affirmation at least in his own mind as to who the perpetrator was it did little to expand his options. Choices were limited as to almost be non-existent. Blessed F’Lorin was a formidable melee fighter that could do a lot of damage quickly and owned a few limited range AOE’s which were useful but ostensibly he bottomed out as just an offensive tool without much utility. and his wife, while stupendous in almost every way one looked, was an immovable object in a conflict, a premier and elite Tank but like the Blessed already mentioned, not much utility. Most of her Blessings were limited to herself, making her Body as strong as Sunsteel, increasing her own healing or increasing her own offensive abilities the longer she was in combat.
Her best Ability to him was called [The Eternal Knight] and gave her an almost limitless amount of Stamina for a few minutes though the downside being it depleted heavily once it wore off but for those few minutes she could endlessly utilize her other Abilities making her almost unbeatable against other melee focused combatants.
Both would be immeasurably serviceable in such endeavors as Dungeons or most battlefields for that matter but for them to be best utilized they required a support caster at the very least. That had been the Priestess of Light who was now a forlorn memory.
Any decision he made would require him to be their sole source of magical support and attack. Support was not really the focus of his Class. He wasn’t sure what they would face and without the two Blessed who had Abilities suited towards gathering intel, it was a guessing game which was not a game the Grand Inquisitor ever played.
I’Sari entered with a gaze that said nothing but everything. She knew when he needed a bit of a push even if she would never lower herself to say such. She’d used some of the water they had stored to clean off the blood and flesh off her armor, shield and weapon. She looked ready to show on the field of honor standing proudly front and center before their God himself.
One of the many things he loved about her. Details, always details with her. In this case he didn’t require her silent prodding as there was only one solution in a rigged field. It required them to push out and kill anything that got in their way or at the very least that would be the Code the Sanctum would follow in such a situation, the well documented Eldarin arrogance to the fore.
It would require him to utilize his wife as a shield which wasn’t the first time but something he usually attempted to avoid. Ambition came with costs however one attempted to look at it. Pretty it up and all things still required killing to climb under the System. It was a blood thirsty Lord, always.
Though as was his mien he would keep something hidden within his sleeve, an option, not one his Wife and the Sanctum as a whole would approve of or like but the Grand Inquisitor would always do what he thought was the correct course.
Anyone that disagreed too heavily would end up as a corpse at his feet which was purely within the realm of Sanctum approval and advocation.
***
The Labyrinth of the Shade – The Lagoon
***
War Captain Osiena’s question hung in the air just like the last few times she’d thrown the same query.
“Can we kill them now?”
Lack of courage had never been a weight her War Captain carried but prudence and patience were constant holes in her personality.
“As I have said numerous times War Captain. We waste lives and energy with these Demons. They are not our target and with their focus on flames they dare not enter our realm of water where they would be easy prey.”
The War Queen held tight to her trident as she took pause. She’d already made these arguments to both her War Captains while her Son just stood to her side knowing his place and keeping quiet. It helped that he’d been beaten badly, a good lesson for him that loosened the preening ego he’d developed over the last few years, partly her own fault for the favor she showered upon him as a lowly male.
It wasn’t optimal being penned in to their own base but at the same time it also penned the demons as well in the act of cordoning them off. There was nothing more she would rather do then silence the big oaf of a demon with the spear like weapon and shield who kept throwing insults from the cave entrance. She’d already imagined a hundred ways of putting her trident through his skull but such was the weight of leadership. The monotony of the scene was broken when War Captain Putrari came through the entrance her bearded axe to claw and a gleam in her eyes. She went to one knee, head down as was proper.
“My Queen. One of the smaller demons has been gone for three spins of the shell and I begin to see worry in the remaining Demon’s postures.”
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Osiena’s response was immediate and against tradition.
“We outnumber them my Queen. We should strike!!!”
She felt the blood rising in her Son next to her, his hand motioning as if he wanted to pull the scimitar off his back. She sent a hiss in his direction and he froze, then dropped to both knees, head to the ground. She turned to her friend and War Captain giving her a hard glare and Osiena realized how far she’d overstepped, also dropping to a knee, head bowed but Sleshra still noted the barely restrained bloodlust bubbling in her jaw and the grinding of her shark teeth. Unfortunately for Osiena where she saw a chance to strike her War Queen saw a chance for something else. She stood and with a wave of her webbed claw bid the others to join her.
“It is time to push the game of the Holy System to the next wave and focus on our real target. Follow and do not raise a weapon unless I order you to do so on threat of my Trident finding your throat.”
A few disgruntled hisses answered her orders but she let them go. It was time to roll the runic bones and see if she could begin the true hunt.
***
Labyrinth of the Shade – Siege
***
Lord Gulrok seethed as another disaster spun itself upon the hellish pits. For the hundredth time he wished the Party interface was functional within this place. Having zero ability to communicate with his people beyond face to face was a hindrance to not only efficiency but overall strategy. He’d reluctantly sent Talze to find him a back door to these fish lizards and he was long overdue. The Demon had his faults, many of them, drinking too much, spending too much time fucking Linka but in the end he was a professional and reliable so being this late on his return was tantamount to carving the stone beneath his clawed with his own eulogy.
This entire Quest and mission had been Hell’s own inferno from the get go. He was down to half his beginning combat strength, had no mage, lost his best melee combatant next to himself and Vord and had no way to get these damn fish lizards out of their hidey hole.
Just when everything that could screw the Hell Hound, did, his remaining scout who was showing an impressive control with the obvious truth that her lover wasn’t returning, whistled the code for enemies approaching.
His eyes swerved towards the lake and saw what he had to assume was the entire combat force the lizards could muster led by a huge female that almost matched his own size, a gleaming trident in her hand. She was backed by two other females, one of which was frothing at the mouth at the sight of him. He recognized her as the one that threw the net at him with her two pronged spear and the young male pup who was also trying to give a violent gaze but couldn’t pull off the fear on his scales.
His first instinct had been to order an attack and Vord was certainly edging that way even without the order but he recognized no overt threatening action on the part of the lizard leader, her hand loosely gripped on her trident as she strode closer. Linka had her massive horn bow ready to be raised and fired from behind him, arrow knocked. He stepped forward and put a heavy restraining hand on Vord’s shoulder.
“Not yet Old friend. I want to hear what the Bitch has to say.”
A growl poured out of Vord’s mouth but he slowly and disagreeably nodded his head. That was about as good as he would get he knew. Just in case he stepped in front of his friend holding his spiked mace on his shoulder with two of his claws. They were out-manned currently but he still had confidence they could win a tussle. They had a ranged option and she had an Ability that could reposition herself quickly and he knew Vord was better than the female he’d almost killed earlier. That would leave him with at the very least, the young male and their Leader. Doable. He wasn’t sure of the Bitch’s capabilities but with the way she held her weapon he would say melee was where she liked to sit, which was his domain.
Primal Soul-Borns were a handful in melee with their multitude of self-buffs but they usually lacked any exterior offensive capabilities like hellish flames. Infernal didn’t usually have quite as big an arsenal in the buff department but it excelled past most in offensive magics even within the Martial Class territory. It was why the Abyss was one of the top tier Factions. Very few wanted an army of Infernal Soul-Born at their doorstep incinerating everything and anything. The Female War Chief or whatever they called such stopped a good ten feet away. Her voice was a heavy croak.
“We waste energy and lives fighting one another while the only one that gains is our prey. In fact I would hazard to guess he is laughing watching us do his work for him.”
Well the Bitch wasn’t wrong by any means but that didn’t stop the gut wrenching sensation of wanting to rip her throat out with his teeth. Now that he had a close up look at these Troglodytes while not being in the midst of attempting to kill them, he had to admit, they were not only ugly tcreatures but reminded him much more of fish than actual lizards, and a far cry from the dragons rumor said they wanted to be. Their eyes look like they were peeled off a fish and the shape of their jaws more like deep ocean predator fishies then lizards. Musing aside there was one major fault with her plan.
“The System isn’t known for sharing. Fight now, fight later, either way, there will be a fight. Only one of us gets the prize.”
A hiss came out of the female he’d wiped across the floor earlier. He imagined a hiss as some form of threatening posture from the fishies. Another hiss came from the Leader towards the other that her quieting up. So she had her very own Vord. He inwardly smiled. There was some sympathy with that. She croaked some more words.
“Then let the prize go to the best hunters. Killing each other only makes all of us losers and puts us a step into the precipice of early graves with no prize for any, and the prey, the victor.”
Hmm. There was a certain challenge to her words, the best hunters. Even with diminished numbers he would put coins on him and his to be the better hunters than the fishies who were more at home in the water than the passageways of an underground labyrinth.
He was about to agree when he saw the reaction of the male next to her whose hand went to the large sword on his back but whose eyes looked past their position to further back into the passage. Words sounded out behind him, a cultured measured tone with the sing song sound of an Elf. Vord whirled at the sound, growling.
“I was about to propose the same. It is good that there are logical creatures within even the Infernal and Primal Pillars. Shocking but in this instance, beneficial to all involved.”
As he turned he saw it was much worse than Elves, Eldarin, bigger more pompous Elves. Then his eyes caught the coloring of their armor and than the symbol on the woman’s shield. He spat on the ground and lifted his mace off his shoulder, letting it drop into both sets of his left claws. The Sanctum were worse than the Eldarin themselves. Their self-righteous fanaticism made the Abyss look like simps.
They murdered everything and anything that wasn’t of the Celestial. Vord stepped to his side then past him looking ready to charge the bastards but once again he had to be the bigger Demon, at least for now, caught between two opposing forces.
“Hold Vord.”
He looked back as if in shock and disbelief. The Sanctum were the universal enemy to almost every other major Faction, kill on sight the standing order before they killed you, doubly so for Infernals who they had a particular erection for with their whole angels against demons motif.
Still, this entire thing was as far from ordinary as he’d ever experienced, which held untold stories within the statement. He was a Silver Ranked Lord of a Fortress City who grew up on the War Front. He’d seen a lot and had even done a couple tours off planet along the wider edges of the Abyss Empire. It was actually how, with the help of Vord, he’d won his Lordship.
“Say your piece Elf without the condescending tone.”
Eldarin hated when you called them an Elf. Petty, yes, but enjoyable to watch the hatred cross the control freak’s face. It looked like every group of hunters had experienced mishaps as he was only seeing three of the fanatics.
The one speaking, their leader, wore the robes of a Priest, so Spiritual Class, and then two melee types, a female who was a poster child for the Faction with long blade and shield in plate and another one who looked ready to charge them at any moment, a naked two-hander blade in his hands swirling with a reddish orange flame along the metal, so Angelic or Sun Soul-Pillar at a guess.
Tensions were high to say the least. Then before the haughty Eldarin could answer him, two throwing blades whizzed out from behind the Sanctum shit stains eliciting a hiss from one of the fishies and some colorful cussing from Linka.
Before he could say a word or stop the inevitable, a roar blasted out from behind him.
“Treachery!!!!!””
And Vord shot past him pike aimed for blood and heads his entire body covered in the hellish flames of his go-to Ability, aptly named [Hell’s Rage]. Bashek cussed under his breath before charging after his oldest friend. He’d always known they would live and die together.