I reworked how hp and mp regen worked right before this chapter. Once the current leveling plateaus and things are solid, I'll update with stat blocks.
With his purse softly clinking as it was now filled with various ‘liberated’ currency, Thozronnath stalked the underground hallways of the basement complex in search of his enemies. His various minions had fallen into position admirably, and were now keeping pace with their master as he moved under the blanket of his [Stealth] skill.
Occasionally, Uzdaax would chime in to alert them to a fork in the metaphorical road, signs of activity, or some other kind of small information, but as a whole they continued deeper at a steady pace.
The few weaklings that had chosen to cower and hide amongst the various smuggled goods had already been flushed out and unceremoniously slain, the sheer number of human lives providing a great deal of levels to Thoz and minions alike.
There was a small portion of Thoz’s hunger for power that whispered for him to pause and undertake the evolutions so he could best destroy the humans, but his growing intellect informed him that this was a major risk. No need to make himself vulnerable for any period of time.
Eventually, his small squadron reached a point where the various torches and lanterns left behind by the crime syndicate to light their base had stopped appearing. Either taken or snuffed out, perhaps destroyed. Only his [Eyes of Hell] skill allowed him to maintain any pace in the darkness.
A brief wind and a soft whisper were the only warning he received before Uzdaax spoke in his ear.
“Masster, the hallss end in a large chamber up aahead. There aare multiple trapss and sseveral barricades. Many humanss inside, probably their bossss too”
Thoz nodded in confirmation to the spirit and gave one last glance about his status. This confrontation was do or die, literally, and the first in a long time that Thoz felt truly scared of.
“Alright, traps first, then barricade, then murder” He ordered to the group, opting not to get too specific in his instructions, though truthfully he couldn’t think of a way to do this safely at all and was hoping he came across more confident. He did not.
The hallway was indeed rife with traps, and while Uzdaax could find them with relative ease by floating around in his incorporeal form, he couldn’t exert enough weight or presence to trigger them even when he was in his corporeal form.
Thus, it was necessary for Zildoxoxi in all his slimy glory to squiggle forth first. The ooze’s immense weight and variable surface area allowed him to trigger multiple traps simultaneously and more or less stay out of the way. The gluttonous creature made it through darts, crashing mallets, sprays of poison, and just about every trap the humans had laid with minimal injury.
It allowed the rest of the group to approach the final line of criminal defense in complete safety. A far more sturdy barricade blocking their way now, and re-armed humans standing behind it. The three familiar faces from before on full lookout, with several others joining them.
The moment the monsters showed so much as a hair around the corner of the hallway a hail of arrows was unleashed in their direction as covering fire.
This would not be as easy an approach as originally thought.
All the same, progress still had to be made.
“Zild. You’re in the front. You’ve got more hit points than anyone else here by a large margin and you do a decent job at avoiding being hit in the first place. Everyone else will fall in behind me, once Zild and I break the barricade I want us to fan out. Kill as many of them as quickly as possible and keep moving. Once we find their boss we want to make sure we have the numbers advantage” Thoz explained to his troops as they squatted together in a makeshift huddle just around the corner of the final choke point the humans had set up.
“No questions. If there’s a problem, handle it.” Was his final word on the matter, which prompted another system message before the final confrontation.
Proficiency gained!
Leadership is now level 2!
With a wordless signal from Thozronnath, the party of killers sprang into action. Then their plan almost immediately fell apart.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
Zild was much slower than the other members of the party, perhaps as a result of his low dexterity stat or lack of functioning legs. As Thoz and his other two minions fell in step behind the slime, they were literally moving through the hallway at a crawl. Zildoxoxi’s massive body provides the only cover from a literal rain of arrows on their position. The slime had a lot of hitpoints, sure, but they weren’t infinite. It was an unsustainable pace.
The group only managed to push another few feet into the hallway before Thozronnaths’s frustration reached its fever pitch.
“Fuck. Fine, we’ll do this the hard way!” The devil shouted as he made a standing leap over his gelatinous vanguard.
With his sword in hand and a fury in his eyes, the devil charged forward. The first three arrows that struck him very quickly overcame the health he had regenerated while stalking the halls earlier that evening.
Thoz could regain his entire health pool if left unassailed for roughly ten minutes, this meant that so long as he wasn’t engaging in active constant combat he was more or less fine. In the midst of a battle like this though, where his enemies could rain damage faster than water, the regeneration made little to no difference.
Already back to a wounded state, Thoz felt the chill of desperation creep down his spine. A mistake here could mean he’d finally face the one thing he couldn’t heal back from. True Soul Death.
So with a fire in his stomach fueled by the will to live, Thoz charged forward. This time it was his turn to rush the barricade like a wave. His enemies had built it much deeper this time instead of tall, a stop-gap measure to combat the rushing tide of slime represented in Zild. Distance was no hurdle for Thoz. If he could fit over the barricade height wise, his sixty plus strength stat would carry him the distance if he really lept for it. And lept he did..
As the devil sailed over the makeshift fortifications, he was struck by two arrows and a smattering of small stones hurled in desperate defense. All of the damage was compiled into a single message.
You have suffered a major injury. -128 HP
If he stopped to address the problem he was as good as dead though, and now surrounded by enemies he had a good way out.
“Zild! Bring down this barricade and get in here!” Thoz screamed at the top of his lungs, both to convey orders and intimidate his enemies.
Congratulations!
Proficiency Gained! Battlecry is now level 1.
The newly acquired skill prompted another scream of fury before he began slashing recklessly with his gluttony attuned [Sword of Sin] and began cleaving through humans.
The level margins among humans held true, and only a handful among the dozen or so in Thoz’s immediate surroundings could offer any marginal form of resistance. None of them compared to the three that held the line earlier.
His sword condensed the consumed energies of all the slain humans into one message as well, preventing overstimulation or battlefield distraction.
Congratulations!
Your sword has consumed your enemies’ vitality.
Your enemies suffer a temporary -24 to their resilience for the next 5 minutes.
You benefit from a temporary +120 HP for the next 5 minutes.
Bonus from slaying an enemy: +60 HP for 5 minutes.
The flood of energy was nearly enough to knock Thoz off his feet, and he hoped no one else could notice his excitement.
The slain humanoids didn’t need their resilience stat, they wouldn’t be regenerating health in the first place, but being able to slow enemy regeneration was amazing. Combine the temporary Hp buff with an enemy debuff and this sword was downright villainous.
Now with a chunk of HP higher than he could sustain with his normal maximum, Thoz was striding forward confidently. In the time it took him to kill the worthless peons and faceless masses that had been thrown at him, he noticed the three earlier combatants fleeing through a door.
He assumed them to be ranking officers, and their boss was presumably through that door. They were either mounting a defense, or making a last ditch escape attempt. Neither endeavor was something Thoz felt keen on lending time too. So he left his minions to their own devices regarding the obstacles in their way, and rushed the door with a twisted smile on his face.
The bar across the door and the mound of boxes reinforcing it gave the devil pause for only a brief few moments before he managed to hack it off its hinges and bring it crumbling down. Stepping through the splinters and the dust, he found himself in a small office complete with bookshelves, a tasteful rug, and well upholstered chairs. All of it dimly lit by a few flickering lanterns.
Across from him near the opposite wall, the dwarf, half-elf, and human from earlier stood ready with their weapons drawn, but they did not attack. They were forming a crude half-circle around an elderly Half-Orc, clad in well maintained armor, each individual metal splint sparkling in the low light. Thoz wanted that armor.
The Half-Orc paused amidst his struggle to unlock a door behind a partially ajar bookshelf now haphazard to the wall. He raised his hands and turned to face Thoz’s drawn sword with a nervous shake to his shoulders but a devious look to his eyes.
“I heard you screaming out there friend, I know you’re capable of speech. Surely we can be reasonable and talk about this?” The half-orc chuckled anxiously.
Mirroring his crooked grin from the scuffle outside, Thoz replied.
“Sure. Let's talk.”