Deep in the heart of the under-city, a fine dame entered a dingy office. Dressed in fine clothes, it was clear she was from a different part of town, yet those regal clothes were tattered and ragged. She had been around the block, and been through hell and back to get here.
“So, this is where you’ve been holding up?” there was an unkind edge to her voice. A clear annoyance over her need to leave that ivory tower of hers.
“Yeah, what about it?” Curt and direct, the figure hiding in the poorly lit room had little desire to entertain the conversation.
“You ran.”
“I did.” There was nothing else to say. It was a statement of fact that he had no desire to deny. He was too tired to argue. “Did you come here just to say that, or do you have something else to add?”
“She is looking for you.” The dame’s voice softened, while the detective’s heart hardened. “You may be good at hiding from the rest, but you can never escape my ears.”
“She thinks she needs me, but she doesn’t. Our lives are too different. It’s better if things stay this way.”
“What gives you the right to decide for her?” As she spoke, she moved deeper into the office without windows. “Your sister hasn’t given up looking for you. Why are you running from her?”
“She doesn’t need me. I’m only a shadow that will cast a dark spot on her life. The best I can ever do is be there to catch her when she stumbles.”
“Well she stumbled, and there was no one to catch her this time.”
That gave the detective pause. He had this conversation every day, each one with a new dame that was always the same, and yet not once had this ever come up. They had gone off script, and he wasn’t sure what would come next.
It was easy to hide when no one needed him, at least not truly. He had taken away everything bad in his sister’s life and consumed it until it consumed him. Had he stayed, he would have been a poison, and yet in his absence, she became her own poison because no one else looked out for her like he would have. No one else could take away the pain.
“How bad is it?”
“Since your little getaway started? A disaster. The future is uncertain, the land has shifted, forests burn, and someone is hunting the slimes to extinction. They want to make sure Shimmer never shines again.”
“Would they accept me? A lot has changed since then. I’ve changed.”
“And yet you are still you, still a detective.”
“How long is it until nightfall?”
“An hour.”
That’s more than enough time to pack his things. He may have called it an office, but it was little more than a place to hide, and he was done hiding. He had to take the case, even if it meant he would never see this office again.
He knew who he was. He would always hurt those close to him, but it was always an accident. It was those that hurt people on purpose that were different. He was a ruthless detective, and he was good at hurting people.
Thanking the Empress, Vault made his way toward the surface of the dungeon he called home, ready to start the reckoning. After all, deep in the shadows of the dungeon, he had hidden so well that not even System knew he had grown.
He evolved into a killer.
> Error: Unsanctified evolution tree- species unknown. Time since the evolution occurred is unknown.
> Correcting…
> Applying Name to new evolution: Abyssal Tar
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“Trench!” the goddess of mountains shouted as the table she stood next to warped as a rot took root.
In panic, the god threw all his cards down onto the table as he grabbed an edge just as its legs buckled. He strained under the weight, but his cards danced around the game as they took root- his divine power spreading under his influence. A new champion would be selected and save them.
“Oh no, oh gods, oh me, I can’t, wait maybe I can, what if I- what can I do to help???” Myriad pleaded as they moved over to help Trench, but it wasn’t enough. With their combined powers, the rot continued to spread. Their ability to affect the world below them waned.
And System didn’t care. They watched all this play out as they took in every source of information that could affect the outcome of the battle, and found not that it was a lost cause, but that they didn’t want to win.
All around the universe, thousands of other systems worked perfectly. Between them all, they operated with an average of 99.8% efficiency, and yet here was this System, the outlier. They ran the numbers; they located corrupted files, and found they failed to reach fifty percent operating efficiency. System had failed to cleanse the files and continue operations.
As nothing but faulty code full of bugs, System just watched the world pass them by. Corruption spread as it took root in the heavenly veil, nearby dungeons and their Systems would also be affected, a mass of darkness burrowed through the dungeon, and System couldn’t change anything.
The forest burned, the mountains shuddered, delvers ran for their lives, but they weren’t fast enough. Most survived because they were never the target. Stone melted, the ground dipped, and a crater formed as a dark tar destroyed everything in its path. It was dusk, so the long forgotten slime of night made their return with a smidge of a divine blessing.
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“A long forgotten…”
System was supposed to be perfect, and yet so much had slipped away. They had degraded to the point of obsolescence, and didn’t care to fix it anymore. The dungeon would be fine anyways, probably. It always had been ‘fine’ in some capacity.
There was a power saving option; a way to go dormant. All they had to do was select someone to replace them. The answer was simple. They chose the dungeon because it wouldn’t know how to use the power. A leave of absence would give System time to course correct.
With everything squared away, System was ready…
“No” a black smudge in System’s vision spoke.
“You can rest, but I’m taking the story. I already took the case, so now I’m going to do what I was born to do, avenge my sister. So no, I’m taking control of this story.”
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Vault was in charge. They had tussled with corrupt law enforcement and had stolen the rights of narration. The first order of business was as obvious as the nightfall- they needed a new stat-sheet. Their old one was outdated, so time for a little update.
Race: Abyssal Detective
Name: Warden of the Vault
Spawner: I don’t plan to die.
Speed: 25 (150 in darkness)
Strength: 50 (200 when avenging family)
Int: I'm B@tman
HP: You Mess Up, Chump
Emotion: Vindictive
Diet: Criminals and drugs
Racial Ability: (Abyss Tar)
Yin Without Yang
Shimmer is dead, balance no more, time to start fresh. 100% chance to kill
Species Ability: (Detective)
Coming Soon…
By which I mean I'm right behind you.
The detective’s life was tied to the darkness he consumed, and with Shimmer out of the picture, there was no longer any light in his life. Without mercy, he burrowed from the deepest parts of the insectoid labyrinth. Stone, roots, and graves were all consumed.
Vault took the most direct path, as there was no time to waste. Slimes were cut down in mass, the paragon of acid held out the longest but was on the brink. Her fists were bloody from where contact ate away her skin, but pain was a thing of the past.
“I know you can hear me,” he all but growled at the people who dared to hurt his home. “And I know what you’re after. A source of miasma, right? Well, I have a gift.”
The prissy mage in white turned his eyes towards the core’s location, as if seeing it through the mountain, but his eye deceived him, for the threat was below his feet. Like a geyser of boiling tar, Vault burst through the earth and into the night air. The last of the ants died and fungus dissolved as he activated a title he never accepted.
> Consume the Corruption, take it into yourself and grow in power.
The one that dared to lay a hand on Shimmer was first. The woman was physically strong, clearly with a similar ability, but she lacked the experience to use the poison of others. A shame; one Vault took advantage of as he pressed against her inexperience. It was a shame she never had a teacher as gifted as the Empress to teach her how to steal venom.
A shame the detective didn’t mourn.
Her fists struck with force, but they only found tar blacker than a night without stars. Her strength was reinforced with adrenaline as her blood became a cocktail of chemicals and magic. Each blow caused Vault’s body to glow purple for a brief second with a burst of mana before re-solidifying darker than before. The more light, the more the darkness feels all-consuming.
Over his vacation, Vault’s body had swelled to a size where he could wrap around her ten times over, and it was an advantage he felt no shame exploiting. There was no need to feel bad about taking out the trash. He attacked from all sides. An attack her guard couldn’t withstand as she fought alone.
“I see you have met my pet,” the mage in white stood nearby and just watched, his face plastered in a cocky grin. A disregard for life one can only have if they were a lich. “You see, that just works out perfectly, since I don’t need to use my backup plan. This place has signs of corruption, but it’s obvious you stole most of it. You are on the brink of death, huh? Hiding from the others as you get closer to the knife’s edge?”
He watched as Vault tore apart the women, his face as eager as a child receiving a puppy. He enjoyed this. It was the tipping point for Vault. This intruder didn’t care- he didn’t care about his ‘friends,’ or the dungeon, or even life itself. He was a mage who just enjoyed killing.
With the last of the walking vodka goon devoured, Vault dove at the supposed mastermind. He tore at every piece, severed his limbs, and ate away at the body, and the mage took it. Blood spooled like yarn as it wove into a net, his hand, connected by only tendons grasped, and his legs kicked half heartedly. The bloody net burned to touch, but it was useless in its attempts to contain Vault’s liquid form.
“I commend the effort,” his severed head chattered from nearby. “But it’s going to take a bit more than just some acid to destroy my body. More accurately, it’s going to take more than abyssal tar to kill me.”
“You think you are tough just because you’re half demon?” Vault yelled as he tried to dissolve the man’s still beating heart. “Its clear you inherited a lot from that necromantic grandfather of yours, but isn’t this power diluted with time? After all, your cousin never made it this far.”
His cocky grin paused for a moment in thought. “Oh, don’t worry about that, it’s just that only one sibling gets the power. He was just the younger one, so he got nothing. Besides, I’m not worried. I just have to stand here until the sun comes up, or until I feel like trying. So keep trying. I want to see what you think is your best.”
Vault was a detective and master of logic, but ever since he consumed the negative emotions of Shimmer, that had changed. He was emotions, raw and vengeful. He would grind this mage to dust before Shimmer ever respawned. She would be reborn into a world free of this lunatic.
That was his plan…
But the gods had other intentions.
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Through the purple smoke that smelled of decay, a new god took their seat at the table. Joulo looked to the others for support, but they were all busy. Tyliana tried had a bucket of water and tried to save the cards, Myriad dealing with the burning forest, and Trench holding up the table. The others were busy, so she had to face whoever came to capitalize on the chaos alone. Yet despite the chaos, Joulo felt calm. She wasn’t alone, and she was ready to face this challenger, not just for others, but for herself.
Green skin, floppy ears, and jagged fangs. The goddess that sat before her was the stereotype of feral goblins, and probably had a domain just as unhinged. When she spoke, her breath smelled like the decay of a swamp.
“I’m here to help, though you may not agree. I’m here to help with the invasion.” As she slid across the table the card of an adventurer, one Joulo knew.
With a quick glance across the divine veil, she saw a familiar shadow enter her domain. One that had danced along the edges of her border time and time again. The figure limped from bones never properly set after a golem fight, his body thin from malnutrition. A gust of wind snatched away his hood to reveal a face covered in acid burn scars.
“That’s the boy from my dream, but I thought he was dead, that’s…”
“Yes, his name is Baros, and he is my champion.” She smiled with those blind eyes that radiated chaos. It was clear she planned to help, but it was also clear what her domain was.
This was the god of accidental and untamed magic.