Okay, maybe sending a message was a bit of an understatement. It was more accurate to say that Thozronnath was planning on systematically exterminating a group of people that had stood against him. No message to send when no one was left alive. So in the middle of the night he led his new pet street thug back to the cheap Inn room he’d been provided after a day of classes. Thoz kept a single loose chain around one of Adam’s ankles in case he tried to flee, but truthfully it wouldn’t be hard to track him down again.

When they arrived it wasn’t much of a stop as a pass through, Thoz merely crept up to the door of his room and collected his minions with a nod and silent signal. The group of monsters was incredibly intimidating to Adam, having seen Thoz shapeshift made him doubt Prisaela all the more, and a backpack that clearly shifted on its own was another weight to tip the scales. Uzdaax couldn’t be seen for a number of reasons, but he was taking great joy in whispering to Adam at unexpected moments and keeping the human on edge.

“Now. You lead us to your boss, or we kill you in the street like a dog. Right?” Thoz questioned his unwilling servant.

Adam, still wearing his earlier soiled pants, scrambled to appease the monster quite literally holding his life on a string and began leading them towards the eastern edge of the city. Close to where the wall met the piers. This was supposedly where their base of operations was, as well as where the syndicate smuggled goods in and out of the city. It would not be for much longer.

Thoz would have a chance to completely and utterly remove a threat from the table, unless Varekoth was actually there. If a massive pit fiend general was present it was a toss up if the four convened monsters could actually defeat him, but by the sound of things he was never directly in his employees lives. Thus, not only could Varekoth be dealt an indirect blow, but several humans could be slaughtered for their delicious levels, all while Thoz got to test out his sword of sin for the first time in a real fight.

Of course, it was still unclear where the sword actually came from and whom the mysterious “Vz” in the system message was, but it didn’t seem immediately dangerous to Thoz or his minions so there was no real need to worry about it. Recently, between bouts of hunting humans for sport information, Thoz had taken a look over the various forms his sword could take when summoned. The powers granted to it by Lust, Sloth, or Greed seemed fairly standardized and did not change noticeably when the form of the sword changed. However, that sword could come in any shape he wanted truthfully. He’d only tried a few, Longswords, Greatswords, even more specialized forms like a Scimitar or Khopesh didn’t seem off limits. It was versatile.

That same versatility would be the death of his enemies. Especially if Thoz figured out how to hot swap the form of his sword mid combat. The worst types of enemies to face were the unpredictable ones, and if his opponents were constantly worried about his range or speed changing, then it would give him an edge.

There was no time for ponderous thoughts though, while his mind had wandered the group had already arrived at the ramshackle hut serving as a base of operations. Adam assured Thoz that there was an extensive basement network below it.

“Uzdaax. Confirm layout, don’t get noticed. Full Incorporeal.” The devil murmured in a brief command. The only response he got was a gently whispered sigh of resignation. Uz had gotten several days off of any form of work other than ‘watch the slime’ over the past two weeks so he was frankly in no place to complain, but the sin of sloth would find any measure of work detestable without promised rest afterwards.

The group waited for a tense moment with no signs of Uzdaax until he eventually reported in, not making himself visible in the process.

“Maassster. He’ss right, lotss of Bassementss” the wispy voice of the ghost echoed to the gathered monsters. That was all Thoz needed to hear though.

“Good. Uz, You’ve got recon. I want to know what’s ahead of us before we turn corners and open doors. Keep moving too, nothing sneaks up on us. Understood?” Thoz began issuing orders.

“Yess Ssir..” Uzdaax lazily responded.

Proficiency Gained!

Congratulations! You’ve unlocked the Strategy Skill at level 1.

Hmm. That was a new one. Unlocking skills just from taking specific actions was not something Thoz had ever heard of. Sure, he’d gained a few loose stat points from physical effort and exertion, but he felt like he’d done some strategizing before this right? Perhaps it was merely a compiled amount of experience, perhaps it was him perceiving a potential (major) threat for the first time. No use thinking about it outside an enemy base.

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He barked a few quick orders to the rest of the group, keeping things fairly simple. Prisaela was handed the spear Thoz normally carried since he would likely be relying on his chains and sword of sin anyway. She didn’t have the strength to make a massive difference by wielding it, but it could perhaps be a deterrent. She was the midline. Thoz, making a few practice swings with [Sword of Sin] in a shorter mode, made sure he was ready to fight in potentially confined spaces as the front line. All while informing Adam that if he got in the way he would be killed like everyone else.

That just left Zildoxoxi. Zild was the rear guard. Sure, Uzdaax could inform them if they were being ambushed from behind, maybe even take out a few enemies as they charged. Zild though? Zild had wide area corrosion and powerful natural weapons when he undid his new [Compression] skill. The ooze could single handedly (tentacledly?) hold a hallway rather easily. He would protect their way out, but he was dumb. So his orders were simplified.

“Kill anything that comes up behind us that isn’t one of the four of us okay?” Thoz offered, receiving only mild wiggles in response. Fuck, that ooze really needed a communication skill.

Thozronnath’s first attempt at commanding all of his minions simultaneously even paid immediate dividends to the devil.

Proficiency Gained!

Congratulations! You’ve unlocked the Leadership skill at level 1.

Of course, he’d given them orders in the past, but few things had ever required the full attention of his little ‘army’ and this was the first time commanding all three at once. It was a nice feeling getting a new skill too, almost like warm blood cascading over him (devil sensibilities). Unfortunately, he had literally no idea what either of the skills he’d just gotten could actually do.

He took a moment to reach out with his mind and attempt activating the skills like he did for most others and found no response, all but confirming them as passive increase skills.

No time to figure those out. It was time to get to work.

“Let’s go.” Thoz insisted curtly, opening the door to the small building they’d camped out in front of. The structure itself would look more at home in the slums, while the two inhabitants seemed to belong more in an army of some kind.

Flanking either side of a locked trap door presumably leading down into the basement network were two armed thugs. If it weren’t for their size, then the Lamellar scales they were clad in would make a good set of armor for Thoz. A fact he mentalyl cursed about at the same moment he charged forward.

Neither of the guards had seemed to expect this sudden assault, and as a result were still drawing their swords by the time Thozronnath had crossed the threshold inside. This gave Thozronnath a minor advantage since he didn’t have to draw a weapon, in fact he’d already conjured the shortsword he planned on using some time ago with his skill [Sword of Sin].

Admittedly, having it tuned to the sin of sloth didn’t give him a ton of lethality, that was the sin he was least familiar with but at the same time the one he was most interested in testing. Gluttony and Lust were such predominant themes that he had a pretty clear idea on the kind of things that those swords would do. A sword of being lazy though? Not really sure what that would do.

Thoz struck first. His sword piercing his enemy and glancing off the armor and then collar bone. Velocity significantly reduced.

Fuck. Missed the windpipe. Not Instantly lethal, but several major blood vessels had been destroyed. Lethal by blood loss within minutes, maybe less.

Congratulations!

Your sword has leached your enemies' motivation.

Your enemy suffers a temporary -2 to their dexterity for the next 5 minutes.

You benefit from a temporary +2 to your own dexterity for the next 5 minutes.

Oh. OH.

This will do nicely.

With a flick of his wrist, Thoz dispatched the sputtering human fool that had been unluckily beset upon first, and in doing so confirmed that the dexterity leaching did in fact stack with itself.

He could make his enemies slower and himself faster.

Wonderful.

Taking stock of the situation, he turned his head to catch a glimpse of Prizaela and Uzdaax working together to fight the other guard. Neither seemed in particular danger, so Thoz was more than happy to just watch.

The specter did a wonderful job of harassing the guard and keeping him distracted while Prisaela landed several shallow blows. Neither of them was an amazing offensive power so it would have to be a death by a thousand cuts on an enemy that seemed to have a level advantage.

Or had.

Zildoxoxi shambled on over and furthered the numbers advantage while simultaneously dissolving the guard’s armor, making the entire fight much easier.

Hopefully these guards were some of the stronger fighters, if they ran into many more high level humans like this it wouldn’t be as easy as Thoz originally thought.

It’d still be easy, they hadn’t been injured at all yet, but it was an unfortunately long amount of time to handle two humans they outnumbered twice over. Thoz was beginning to fear he’d be doing most of the heavy lifting this time round.