Author's Note: As you've all probably noticed, my writing style has changed a few times over the chapters I've done. I plan to eventually go back and correct them after I've settled down on a style, but this time I've decided to try writing it first-person view. Sorry if it's distracting!
In addition, sorry for taking a while to post this. I had almost finished writing it, then the window got closed and I lost it all. I had to rewrite it all, nearly lost it all again, before finally finishing it. Anyways, my rate of posting these right has slowed down a bit, I got a lot happening.
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Hooded Men
As soon as the wagon came to a halt, a bunch of people hurried over, though most went to keep the crowds back.
"They've arrived!"
"Take them to the basement."
"Hurry, before the crowd catches up!"
My cage suddenly lurched and floated, hovering above the ground along with a few others. Several peoples in robes waved their hands and the floating cages obediently followed them as they rushed back towards entering the arena though a large tunnel, as lines of people chained together got off of wagons that were ahead of mine. Apparently, I had missed seeing them, as they had arrived ahead of me. It looked like my wagon had been the last.
Meanwhile, I sat cross legged like an odd furry guru as the cage drifted through the tunnel behind the wizards. I had been instructed that I behave like a robot around many people, as emotion could easily become weakness for anyone wanting to be a lawyer. That had kicked in as soon I saw the crowds, thanks to my parents.
My parents. Wow, it's been a while since I thought of them. Weeks, no, a month! That was in game though, in reality that meant was a week or two. I had been so focused on leveling up ad training that I had forgotten all about them. Which I felt like I should feel really guilty about, but I didn't. Their deaths felt like those of distant relatives, not people whose flesh and blood and sweat had made me. It was like I barely knew them, like their death was that of some neighbor's family. You could feel sorry for their loss and all, but you didn't really feel that sad.
Meanwhile, as my mind drifted, we came to a halt. It was in a long rectangular torch-lit room, with dry stone walls and cells and cages embedded in the walls on the left. To the the right there was a tunnel with sunlight coming in, brightening the room immensely. I could hear cheers coming from that one, so it must lead to the arena. and the far side wall had a few cages.
The cages that had followed the mages began to stack themselves like crates against the wall, the creatures in them squabbling as the cages moved, but the cages looked as if they had been purposely made to prevent the captives from harming one another. They had very wide bases and tops, with the bars a foot within the edges of them, like an exaggerated double capital I. I was fit into the far right, near the arena, but thanks to the fact that the sun shone into the room, I had a spot in the dark.
Time passed and some monsters would be taken from the cages by guards and forced up the tunnel into the arena. Some came back wounded, some came back untouched, and others didn't come back at all. Apparently the guards were very confident as none of them guarded us, preferring to watch the fights. I was surprised that I wasn't taken to the arena, but I soon got bored and started manipulating the dirt on the floor into patterns, then wiping it clean and starting again. It passed the time, but soon I got bored of doing that and decided to try looking around using Plant Ears and Eyes. I couldn't find anything with a good view of the arena, so I focused on the room.
Looking around, I noticed some bags near the tunnel I had entered through. With a combo of the Plant Eyes to look in them and Earth Manipulation to make an earth tendril to maneuver the bags and the stuff within, I managed to go through them, but it was difficult. Not only did it suck up my mana like you wound't believe, but with the earthen tendril I made to go through them, it was like using another person's arm and watching through another person's eyes at the same time. It was disconcerting. Nonetheless, I found several coins and even my gear! It made sense though if you think about it, you buy merchandise you get what came with it.
I waited for my mana to regen entirely and then dragged the gear and the money over, underground. I made an air bubble in the ground with my manipulation, put the gear in it, and dragged it over. Whenever I started to run low on mana, I made the earth around the air bubble harden, so it was like a tiny cave. When my mana had regenerated enough, I brought it the rest of the way. By doing so, I got two windows.
-ding-
Earth Manipulation has leveled up!
However, with all the earth manipulation to pass the time, night time had fallen and the guards had left for the night, leaving all of the monsters and me locked up. I slept for several hours sitting up, leaning my back against the bars, when the ground started rumbling. Part of the wall, next to the tunnel leading into the arena and within 3 meters of me, opened up. There was now a second tunnel going down, lit by torches.
Hooded men started to emerge, about 5, and the beasts started going crazy at the sign of them. Some lunged at them from inside their cage, others pressed against the back of their cage and looked like they to disappear, and a few of them remained absolutely still. Personally, I was surprised as hell, but again, thanks to my parents that didn't show.
"Couple of them seem pretty calm, compared to the others" one of the hooded figures commented, as he looked at all of the cages. He sounded like a young man.
He was right, the hound was watching everything keenly with its one eye. I glanced around wondering which were the other ones he had spoken about, but it wasn't that hard to tell.
Beside the hound, there was a wyvern, a large scorpion, and a ball of fur. Literally, it looked like a ball of fur, until I noticed a pair of eyes in the midst of it.
"There's a couple like that in every shipment, those are the ones to watch out for. I saw a man reach in to pet a cougar that looked like it was calm enough to be a damn priest, only to have the arm ripped off, the idiot." a stooped hooded figure replied. That fellow sounded like an older man, old enough to pass as a grandpa.
At this, every hooded person in the room paused for a second, their glances flying at me for that moment. I could tell by the way their hoods tilted. Apparently I was considered the oddest monster and I decided to reply to the insulting comment with nonchalance and innocence.
"It's not like I could rip off a man's arm. It's the hound you should watch out for, that dog is nuts."
For a split second, they froze. I could only imagine the expressions on their faces as they were hidden by the hoods.
The next second, however, had every one of them about to hurl a spell at me.
"What the fuck!"
"It spoke! It spoke!"
"What is that thing!"
"I'm not a thing. Why are you guys so surprised, it's not like I hid that I could speak."
"You're all supposed to be simply monsters! Maybe a rare creature, but not able to speak!" the hooded man from before exclaimed, staring at me
"I'm not a creature. I am a Vulpine." I corrected, my eyes on their spells. It was really at times like that the way my parents had dealt with me kicked in.
"Vulpines are extinct! They died out a long time ago!" the man cried out again, jabbing his finger at me
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I stared at him and raised an eyebrow. I couldn't help it, my debate training that my parents had made me take had kicked in by now.
"Going by the fact that I am alive, I have to tell you that you are wrong." I replied, succinctly
"This is great! He'll be our star of the arena! We'll bring in thousands if the people hear we've a real live Vulpine on our hands!" the old hooded man from before cackled, dancing around my cage with agility that defied his apparent age
That didn't sound to bad. If I was making them money, they'd probably treat me well, they wouldn't want to risk loosing me.
"We just needed to sacrificed him first! Get the knives and the goat's blood ready! Bring that hound too, it might be something strange like him!"
That was not the reaction I had been expecting. Suddenly those hooded figures, which I had assumed were simply to keep their identities hidden, suddenly looked a lot more sinister. They started rushing around, before heading further down the dungeon, as my cage the the hound's extracted themselves from the stack.
"No thanks. I'd rather not be sacrificed." I said, as my cage chased after them
They ignored me of course. As I watched, they set up a circle with blood, set up candles, and got ready to take the hound out. By now, the hound was snarling and growling up a storm, watching them prepare. I don't know how much that he understood what was happening, but he definitely knew that it wouldn't be good and wasn't going to behave. Sure enough, the hooded people open the cage and the hound leaped forward, his jaws shutting on one of their arms.
-CHOMP-
The hooded figure, a man, screamed and started beating on him, trying to get him off, to no avail. Determined, the hound began to move and I heard chewing sounds. He was gnawing on the man's arm. I started feeling certain the man was going to loose his arm and the hound would go after someone else, when the old man took hand.
"Paralyze!"
The hound froze and the chewing sound stopped. Moving quickly, the other hooded figures seized the hound and bound him with rope, with magic around its muzzle and paws by the old man. Moments after they did so, the hound moved again, wiggling and growling. Ignoring this, he was dragged into the circle, where the bitten man gave the hound a kick in the ribs before stepping back to stand outside the circle. The old man stood next to the circle of blood, with the hound in the middle of it, holding the knife I had seen earlier and started chanting. Flashes of magic began to swirl around the circle, the hound reappearing and disappearing in the midst of it.
"Oh, demons of the deep, of the Abyss, and the dark... we call upon you and offer this vessel for your use!" the old man cried out, finishing his chanting, before stabbing the knife into the circle.
The hound howled, long and high, before a sudden silence. Everyone was silent and the hound still hidden in the mist of magic. What emerged in its place, was a shadow.
-ding-
You have been have gained the status effect Extreme Fear:
-20% damage dealt
-20% movement speed
20% chance of being immobilized
What the heck! What was this! This was a huge debuff! What exactly had they done to him! As I watched, the shadow started to emerge from the mist, stepping past the old man without a single glance, before standing still.
It was the hound. Or at least it looked like the hound. He was pitch black, as if the the odd black patches on the hound's body from earlier has spread across him, and the red in his eyes had grown deeper by several shades. When the hound moved, where the glowing eyes had been there was a hint of red, like a prolonged exposure on a camera, before it faded away. He paused before the wounded man from before, the one that kicked him, and I could've sworn he smirked at the trembling men before pouncing on him, disappearing into mist with him.
Screams. Wails. Shrieks. The man all sorts of noises.
Before it cut off suddenly.
What was this?! This was supposed to be a game! Yes, it felt real, looked real, appeared real, but it was still a game!
So how the hell was I suddenly in this horror-movie!
The hooded figures didn't move, not a single one of them. A minute passed, before the hound emerged from the mist and lopped off, in the direction that I vaguely remembered entering from, before I realized my situation.
This might be a game, but it'd suck if something happened to my avatar. I began to make my plans while the hooded figures recovered, ignoring the missing man the hound had dragged away earlier.
"A Hellhound!"
"We finally did it!"
"That was great!"
"Thta thing is magnificent!"
"Imagine what we could do with the Vulpine!"
At that last bit, I could almost hear everyone's neck whip to look at me. They converged around my cage, looking at me with bright eyes. Creeps, the lot of them. From all that I'd seen, I was fairly sure they were cultists, or wannabe's who just succeeded in becoming cultists.
That settled my plan. As soon as they opened the cage, I'd use Earth Manipulate to drop myself into the ground, then run off. If I couldn't sneak off, I could do what I did before with my gear, and create a bubble to hide in while underground for a while. I readied myself as they went to open my cage.
"Paralyze!"
-ding-
You have been paralyzed for 3 seconds
DAMN IT! The old man had apparently learned from the hound earlier and decided not to risk me running loose. I decided to take a risk and log out, there was no way I was going through what ever that hound had.
"Log out!"
-ding-
You can not log out in combat!
Apparently, being paralyzed counted. Frantically, I tried to cast spells any spells as they dragged me out, bound me like the hound had been earlier, and tossed me in the circle. Instead, I kept getting windows saying I couldn't cast the spells. They were moving much faster than they had for the hound, the old man already chanting in his eagerness, ignoring the other hooded people. I wasn't going to be able to cast any of my spells in time.
"Oh, demons of the deep, of the Abyss, and the dark... we call upon you and offer this vessel for your use!"
Suddenly, immense pain. Nothing but pain. Wasn't the pain factor supposed to be reduced! But everything had become pain. And in the midst of that pain, I heard that ding. That oh-so-annoying ding.
-ding-
You have been possessed.
Excuse me?
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