The darkness didn’t last long before I found myself in a candlelit room. The bare stone floors and walls gave it a cold feeling. In one corner was a simple flight of stairs, making me believe I was in a basement somewhere. Drawn on the floor was a large pentagram, with what seemed to be a magic circle drawn in the middle. And in the middle of that circle, I stood. At each point on the pentagram was a chanting hooded figure, and toward the front was a sixth person in a fancier robe than the others.
Guessing at the situation, I suspect these six people must have summoned me, and judging by their choice of location to perform the summoning, they were probably not doing so with the blessing of most of society. My guess is that this was a small group of cultist who decided to summon a demon for some nefarious purpose, and ended up bringing me to the world. As if to confirm this, a window popped up in front of me.
Quest: Summoned
You have been summoned by an unknown cult. Following the summoning, the next stage is an enslavement ritual that binds the demons will to that of the summoners.
* You have 15 minutes to interrupt the ritual before it is complete.
Objectives:
* Escape the magic circle holding you
* Defeat the cultists and escape from the ritual site
Note: Failure will forfeit this character and return you to character creation.
A quest right off, and a rather nasty one at that. Completely losing the character was a rough penalty, especially since I would almost certainly not get a rare race again. I wonder if everyone’s start is this bad, or if it was just because of my race. I’d have to ask around later. For now, I needed to get to escaping.
First I tried reaching out my hand toward one of the cultists. As expected, I encountered an invisible wall blocking me from moving out of the circle. I activated Sharpen Nails and tried to take a swipe at the barrier, but as expected it didn’t have any noticeable effect.
Usually in stories where a demon escapes at the summoning, it’s because someone erases a portion of the magic circle containing them. I took a close look at the circle surrounding me for any mistakes. There was one section where it is not perfectly drawn, but no complete breaks in the circle to take advantage of. The messed up part was still done well enough that the barrier held me back in that direction, but I guessed it might have been weakened enough for me to cast a spell through. I obviously couldn’t touch the circle, so I needed to get someone else to do it for me. Using the charm spell might alert the other cultists to what I was doing, and I want to delay that as long as possible so I decided to use my abilities instead. I would need to make eye contact with the cultist by the flawed portion of the circle and use Seduce and Enthrall, though.
All six cultists are currently kneeling on the floor with their heads down chanting, so eye contact wasn’t something I would be coming by easily. I needed to do something to get the cultist’s attention enough that he would look up long enough to trigger my ability. Deciding on my course of action, I stepped back to the far side of the circle then charged straight at the barrier right in front of the cultist I’d selected to become my new servant.
I slammed into the barrier with a shout, surprising the cultists and causing the one in front of me to glance up for a moment. Seizing that instant, I locked eyes with him and triggered Seduce causing him to stop before he could look away. My energy dropped to 55 because I’m still maintaining Sharpen Nails, but that was enough to carry out my plan. The cultist remained kneeling on the ground staring blankly at me awaiting orders. I glanced around quickly to see if the others had noticed yet, but they were looking down again like they had been before and continuing to chant.
Quest: Summoned
A cultist has stopped performing the ritual. Timer has been extended by 5 minutes.
At this point I noticed a small countdown in the corner of my vision showing the remaining time until the limit. Currently it’s at 17:23, meaning I had used roughly two and a half minutes already. Still, I had what I needed at this point, a willing servant to be my accomplice and help me escape. Well, maybe willing isn’t the right word when I’m mind controlling him to do it. Close enough.
Now to plan my next move. I could just turn this cultist on his allies immediately, but if he was defeated I’d need to get a new servant, and I couldn’t expect that trick to work twice. The better course of action would be to escape the circle immediately. That should at least remove the time limit. Things would turn into an all out brawl at that point, though. Two on four isn’t very good odds, but hopefully I’ll be able to Charm one of them to at least take them out of the fight temporarily.
I focused my mind on the cultist and mentally ordered him to erase the circle in front of him, hoping that would be a simple enough command that he could do it without me resorting to Enthralling him yet. Mentally issuing orders is one of the things I found I could do with Seduced and Enthralled victims while experimenting with the straw dummy earlier. While verbal commands were needed when I used the Charm spell, I could think commands to victims of my racial abilities. As for why I’ was delaying using Enthrall as long as possible, it was because there is going to be a fight after I get out, and I wanted to have a mind controlled ally for as long as possible, so I was waiting till the last minute to start that duration. Even a few seconds might have proved to make a difference.
While never looking away from my face, my new servant reached his robed hand out toward the circle in front of him and wiped away a large portion of it. The instant the circle was broken, a sound like glass breaking filled the room. If seducing him hadn’t gotten the others attention, this definitely did.
Quest: Summoned
Objective Complete: Escape the magic circle holding you
Due to erasing a portion of the circle while the ritual was ongoing, everyone currently performing the ritual has been stunned for 4 seconds.
Well, that worked out better than I had expected. I decided it was time for a change of plans. New plan was to try to kill as many of the cultists as possible before the stun wore off. I activated enthrall and ordered the thrall to attack the cultist to his right, while I went after the one kneeling on his left. I was down to 30 energy now, but I wouldn’t need much more anyway, so it wasn’t a large issue. It would have time to recover a bit before I was Seducing another target anyway.
With my sharp nails, I reached around the still kneeling cultists throat. Digging them into one side I rapidly ripped them across, slitting his throat 4 times instantly. I cringed slightly as he fell to the ground, clutching his bleeding throat in a vain attempt to keep himself from bleeding out. I had killed humanoid NPCs in melee before in other games, but it still wasn’t something enjoyed often. That’s why I preferred ranged and magic classes. The feeling is a lot less visceral.
The cultist’s health had instantly dropped to under 10% by my sudden onslaught, and continued to drain rapidly due to the bleeding debuff. At that rate, he would die in less than 2 seconds, so I kicked him out of the way and dashed at the second cultist while glancing to see how my thrall was performing.
The thrall had about the same luck I had with his first target, a female cultist. He pulled a dagger out from under his robes and shoved it straight into her throat. Not finished there, he then twisted it a few times before pulling it out killing her instantly and turning to his next target. I can’t help but wonder if he was always that vicious, or if it was a result of the enthrallment. It could be that any discomfort he might have had was erased by my mind control, something to keep in mind later.
About the time I reached my second target, the stun wore off and the remaining cultists leapt to their feet to defend themselves. The leader and one of the cultists charged at my thrall while the other turned to face me. Still, three on two was a whole lot better than five on two, so now I was considerably confident in my chances at winning. Plus, I still had a few tricks I could play and a full mana bar. I raised my hand toward the cultist in front of me, hoping this would work.
“
Low level spells only require the spell name as the chant, allowing them to be cast quickly in a fight. Apparently more powerful spells would require a more drawn out chant before they can be used, making them harder to fire off in mid combat without a party to protect you.
My luck held and the cultist in front of me lowered his dagger and looked around the room in confusion. Unfortunately for him, I wasn’t about to let that opening go, and slashed at his face and neck with my nails. The wounds, while substantial, weren’t nearly as deep as with the first cultist, and the sudden attack broke the charm spell on him.
As the cultist slashed out at me with his dagger, I flapped my wings and jumped backward in an effort to avoid the blade. Unfortunately due to the nature of my nails, I had to be very close to get a hit in, and was unable to completely avoid the blow. I raised my left arm to intercept the blade, taking roughly 5% of my health in damage. I again accelerating my movement with my wings I dashed straight in at the cultist again. This time instead of slashing at the enemy, I dug into his throat with the nails of my right hand. He let out a rather disgusting gurgling sound and slumped down as he died. I pulled my claws out of his throat and turned toward the remaining enemies.
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
My thrall had clearly been doing pretty well. I wonder if the others were hesitant because he had been one of their companions, because he had definitely inflicted more damage than he took from the two of them. The leader was down to around three quarters of his health, while the other cultist was at around 10% and seemed to be bleeding as his health was steadily decreasing. The thrall was also low on health, however. He would probably not last beyond a couple more hits. I didn’t really mind that too much, as the enthrallment would probably wear off soon anyway, so it would be better for them to drop him before he turned on me. Still, best to inflict as much damage as we can while there’s two of us.
I flapped my wings again sending myself darting across the room with a yell. Both of the remaining enemies turned in surprise at the sound, an opening my thrall was not going to miss. He rammed his dagger into the chest of the bleeding cultist, ending his life. However, the blade stuck in his target, leaving him exposed as the cult leader swung his own blade in a ferocious arc and killed the thrall before he could react. He then turned towards me, eyes filled with rage.
“You! You’ve ruined everything! My followers are dead, the ritual was interrupted! All the time and resources that went into preparing for this, lost! At the very least, I can kill you and sell your body to recuperate some of the losses. Alchemists will pay a good bit of money for demon parts.”
The ensuing grand duel to the death… didn’t happen. I’m not the type of character to stand and fight fairly, after all. I’m a demon that specializing in messing with the enemy's mind, using trickery and deceit to defeat my foes. Plus, this cult leader guy was staring right at me this whole time. He made it almost too easy.
I grinned slightly at the leader’s ranting at me, then triggered Seduce. During the fight, my energy had recovered to about 60, so I had more than enough for Seduce, and with this the fight would be over anyway so there was no need to enthrall him. He immediately dropped his dagger and stood at attention.
“Come kneel over here beside me.”
He was a tall man, with a well featured face and dark hair. He immediately knelt on one knee beside me. I bent down and placed a hand on either side of his face touched my forehead to his, and activated life drain. His health immediately started dropping as my satiety increased. Judging my the consumption of my energy at this point, he would die just about the time I ran out of energy. Well, if not I can still finish him off with my nails.
“Now then, I want you to answer my questions. First, what was your objective in summoning me?”
“We sought a powerful demon with which we could cause panic and mayhem in the streets. We wished to show the crown and nobles that they aren’t the only power in this land. If things went well, it was also possible that we could incite the citizens to revolt.”
So, cultists and terrorists. That’s a combination you never want, doubly so in worlds where magic rituals actually do something.
“Next question. Where are we now?”
“This is the basement of a house in the slums of Eridell, the capital city of the Kingdom of Astoenn.”
Hmm, those names mean basically nothing to me, but at least I have a name for the place I’m in now. I can finally respond to an annoying little message indicator that popped up around the time I was bearing down on my second cultist earlier. As expected, the sender was Joseph.
Hey, just got word from Ashley. She started as desert nomad, so I’m going to need to go east to the Great Central Desert to meet up with her. It’s going to be a little while, because I need to get stronger before I can make the trip. My name is Horvath, and Ashley’s is Simona. Add us to your friend list.
I considered responding right away, but before I could, I felt the Life Drain cut off and another window appeared in front of me.
Quest: Summoned
You have successfully escaped from the cultists that summoned you to this world. You are now free to act as you see fit.
OH, he died. Well then, I guess now it’s just to walk out the door. I checked my satiety to try to get an idea how much health I need to drain to fill myself, but the bar was full so I guess I overate this time. Hopefully I won’t gain weight or anything. I don’t see fat succubi being all that popular.
Finally done with my starting quest, I cancelled my Sharpen Nails and sent a message to Joseph. I’ve got time to kill anyway, as my energy was down to 10. I need at least 60 for Hide Nature before I leave this basement.
I’m in the capital city of Astoenn, Eridell. Not sure much about the area yet, as I haven’t started exploring beyond my start. Character name is Lilith. You should both be getting the friend request momentarily.
After that, I opened up my friends menu and added Horvath and Simona. I couldn’t actually communicate with them until they accepted, but at least my side of things was done. Now, onward to the loot!
There wasn’t much on the cultists beyond their daggers, the robes they were wearing, and a few coins I found in their pockets. The fancy robe from the leader did increase my intelligence stat slightly, so I decided to wear that. Equipping armor was done through the inventory menu in this game, and armors were automatically adjusted to fit the character wearing them. In my case, this meant that the fancy black robe became more of a fancy black gown on me. First, there was a frilly black collar around my neck. From that extended two straps that outlined my shoulders and held the rest of the gown up. The back was left open for my wings and tail, while the front accentuated my chest rather nicely, then tightly followed my body line to my waist. From there, the gown extended to just above the ground, with a slit on one side extending to just past the knee. Overall, it was a highly enticing outfit, but still more tasteful than I was expecting. Much better than succubi often end up wearing in fantasy settings. I had been a little worried I would end up wearing little more than a cloth bikini, so this was a pleasant turn of events. Still, I should probably get used to wearing the revealing outfits typical of female fantasy armor. Even if the game didn’t usually go that route, as a succubus my character probably would.
Having changed, I equipped one of the daggers and took a closer look around the room. The only thing of interest I found was a simple pedestal in the corner with a heavy book on it. Glancing through it showed that it was a grimoire on the summoning of demons. It seems that the ritual these cultists were performing is very rarely done, mostly because the resources needed to perform it are incredibly expensive. That explains the complaints of the leader about needing to recuperate the costs. I guess that means there probably won’t be many other demons in the world, players or otherwise.
It also two other interesting things about the ritual. First was that there was no way to specify what type of demon you get. You summon a demon at random, and have to just accept whatever shows up. Secondly, the enslavement process would permanently erase the demons will. They would unquestioningly serve their master. If a case where the master died without transferring ownership of the demon to someone else, the demon would go berserk. So basically, that short period between summoning and enslavement is the only chance a demon has to become free like I did.
I decided that it was best I hang on to this book for the time being. As I was transferring the book to my inventory, my chat icon lit up showing I had incoming messages. Opening it up showed it was an invite to a group discussion.
Lilith has entered the chat.
Horvath: Really man, a female character again? And “Lilith”?
Lilith: I wasn’t really given a choice. The randomization picked it for me. And Lilith is actually very fitting. Besides, you can’t say anything about my name “Horvath”. If I recall correctly, this is the fourth Horvath I’ve met now…
Horvath: Whatever, just try to hold back the flirting with random people this time. It gets uncomfortable to have to explain to random guys that we’re not a couple and while yes you are single, they really don’t have a shot.
Lilith: Actually, that might get even worse this time. Sorry.
Horvath: I’m sort of afraid to ask why. I’ll save it for now, Ashley should be joining the chat soon. Then we can discuss plans from here out.
Lilith: Sounds good. We’ll save the explanation for when we meet up.
Minimizing the chat I sat on the stairs and looked at my energy bar. I was already up to 55, so I should be able to head out after making plans with Horvath and Simona.
Simona has entered the chat.
Simona: Hello guys.
Lilith: Hey, it’s been a while.
Simona: Yeah, it really has been. When are you coming back to town to visit?
Lilith: No idea. I haven’t really made any plans. For now, we’ll just have to see each other in game.
Horvath: Sorry, got sidetracked by something here. Anyway, I managed to find a map. It looks like I’m west of that city Lilith is in, which is west of the Great Central Desert where Simona is. So I’m thinking once I’ve levelled enough to make the trip I’ll head to the city, then together we’ll head to the desert. Sound good?
Simona: That should work well. The Caravan is currently on the eastern side of the desert and headed west, so it should be a little while before we get to that side.
Lilith: Fine with me. I can stick around the city for a while. There’s probably plenty to do since it is the capital of the kingdom.
Horvath: Alright. Also, what type of characters are you playing? I’m intending to run a tank again.
Lilith: No surprise there. Of course, none here, either. I’ll be some sort of mage.
Simona: Um… I’m using swords.
Horvath: So a tank and 2 DPS. Lilith, any chance you can come up with a healer. Maybe an offtank as well.
Lilith: I’ll see what I can find, but I make no promises.
Joseph usually leaves getting party members to me. This is partially because he doesn’t like to deal with strangers if he can help it, but also because he trusts me to pick people who will work well with our group. Also, we aren’t leaving it to Ashley because she doesn’t have much experience with this type of thing, so she won’t really understand what we’re looking for.
Horvath: alright, I’m gonna go start working on levelling. I’ll let you know when I start headed your way.
Lilith: Sounds good. I’ll keep you posted if I find some new friends for us.
Simona: Bye. See you soon
Horvath has left the chat.
Simona has left the chat.
Alright, plans made. I had two goals for now. First, gain some experience and hopefully get my class before Horvath started heading this way. Second, I needed to try to find some party members. My energy had just hit 100, so I was ready to head out into the city.