Rita watched as her mother worked. Dianna was hard at work, chanting in some ancient tongue, unknown to her. Rita, unlike her mother, did not possess the ‘warlock’ class or it’s related ‘demonology’, ‘ritual summoning’ or ‘ritual tongues’ skills. Or any of the many other related skills her mother possessed.
She watched as her mother continued to chant in the inhuman language, aided by her skills. The room was a circular underground chamber with a single entrance that led upwards into the stables above ground. The walls, roof and floor were built out of dark and smooth stones, without any apparent support beams holding the roof up. This was of course due to the fact that they were magically reinforced.
The stone was obsidian. An expensive type of rock formed by a combination of tremendously high heats and extremely mana rich environments. The most common source of such a thing was volcanic type dungeons, naturally. They were however also one of the most dangerous types of dungeon and almost all of the known ones were extremely high level.
Obsidian was also no good for most products, like armours or swords, save for extremely specialised weaponry, usually in the form of arrows, bolts or spear heads. While obsidian was rather hard as far as materials go, it was also quite heavy and a bit brittle. This made it a bit unpopular as a material. It’s one saving grace and its purpose in this rooms construction, was its complete ability to block mana.
Any mana contained inside this room was not going anywhere. No one would be able to detect it magically and you could slowly build up the amount of mana in the room without it escaping, which at the moment, was quite a lot.
The room had runic carvings all over the walls and all over the floor. Some of them Rita understood thanks to lessons from her mother. Some she recognised as having to do with pulling mana out of the earth, via a couple of rods near the circumference of the room and some others had to do with demon summoning and binding.
Dianna carried on chanting with even more fervour, arms reaching out upwards as if begging for favour from dark gods unseen. She clutched her ritual dagger in one hand performing sweeping motions as she chanted. All the while wearing a black cloak with a pointed hood draped over her head, and a silver patterned decorative lining, making her look every inch the cultist.
Scattered about the room, where several things all to do with the ritual. There was a pedestal in the center of the room, with an amulet placed on top, ‘the vessel’. Candle stands were placed throughout the room and provided an incredibly sinister light to the room as they bounced off the reflective black walls.
There was a knee-high basin with a funnel that poured out into a groove on the floor. This channel warped around the floor in many places, making up a couple of the runes. The purpose of the setup was to drain the ‘sacrifice’ of blood and let it flow through the runic shaped channels.
The last item in the room was a newish addition and one that had given Rita great pause. A simple table with leather straps affixed to it and a small accompanying table bearing an ensemble of tools. Torture tools.
It had started a long time ago. Dianna had this chamber commissioned and originally summoned small demons and familiars, binding them to objects, for a price. There was nothing particularly illegal about that, many warlocks offered it as a service to those who could afford such things.
Dianna had originally used small animals as sacrifices. But she soon turned to using slaves in order to summon more powerful demons to satisfy the growing demand for her services. Rita had been bothered by the change, but she had comforted herself with the knowledge that ‘most’ slaves were captured criminals given a choice between slavery or death.
The demand for Dianna’s summoning services however, kept growing and Rita had figured out at some point that the sacrifices her mother was bringing in were not always slaves as she claimed them to be. There are many unscrupulous people out there that would happily pay for a more powerful demon at their bidding. And as luck would have it, more powerful demons could be summoned by using more good natured people, or at least not hardened criminals.
At some point Dianna had dropped the pretence all together and no longer hid the fact that she was abducting people for her rituals, from Rita. It seems a person can get used to just about anything, even evil and despicable deeds.
Well maybe not anything.
Dianna’s last client paid a small fortune and wanted an especially powerful demon at his beck and call. The solution to accomplishing this however, was apparently to use a young abducted girl, strap her to the table and torture her for hours before draining her blood.
Rita will never forget her screams. Never. She has had nightmares about them every single night since. Even now, just remembering them was enough to make her feel nauseous and light headed. She wished she didn’t have to be here, but most rituals required at least one assistant.
It’s not like Thomas could help out, he was way to clumsy and simple minded. Rita was well aware he was under some kind of compulsion. He had been that way for as long as she could remember, ever since Dianna took her in.
Rita glanced at the ‘table’ once again, nervously. The way her mother had prepared it and the tools thereon, Rita was convinced Dianna was going to make full use of it again this time. Rita tried to shut out the thought, she didn’t want to think about it.
Why was her mother so greedy, why did she need to go so far. Rita had of course pleaded with her more than once to stop, but her pleas had naturally fallen on deaf ears.
Not to mention that the boy that was about to endure such a horrible fate was nice. She had never spoken so extensively to one of the prisoners before and she ended up liking him. That just made the whole thing even worse this time around.
“Aaaaaaaeeeehhh!” Rita was pulled out of her pity party, by the sound of her mother screaming.
It took Rita a moment to comprehend what she was seeing. There was a hatchet sticking out of her mothers back. There was an arm attached to the hatchet. There was a boy attached to the arm.
Aaron!
Aaron ripped the axe out of Dianna’s back, sending a small spray of blood with it, causing Dianna to grunt in pain as she fell down to one knee. She was no weak woman though, she quickly regained the grip on her ceremonial dagger and took a swing in Aaron’s direction before he had another chance to wind up for another strike.
Aaron was forced to do a quick backstep, lest he be sliced by the dagger. It was at this point that he suddenly froze. His gaze it seemed, had settled on Rita. The look on his face suggested that he had not expected to see her here.
All of a sudden, despite the fact that he was trying to axe-murder her mother just a moment ago, she felt incredibly guilty under his gaze.
Dianna on the other hand had not been idle, and had conjured a fireball in her left hand, one she now attempted to lob in Aaron’s direction. Aaron noticed the raging ball of inferno heading his way and dove to the side, hitting the ground hard. He managed to dodge the fireball, in no small part thanks to Dianna’s lack of experience with the combat related side of her warlock class. He did not however escape the splash damage when the fireball hit the obsidian wall behind him and broke apart, thanks to its special properties.
Aaron hissed in pain as he received multiple burns on his right leg.
Rita was like a statue while all this was playing out. She was thoroughly confused, many questions, thoughts and emotions swimming in her head.
Why was Aaron awake? She was certain her mother had drugged his meal in preparation for this. How was he out of his cell? Thomas was sent to fetch him, there was no way he could have overpowered Thomas. Why was here? If he had managed to escape then why did he simply not run away?
Was he here to get revenge and kill her mother. Was he going to kill her next?
Dianna clearly did not fancy her chance in close combat, she had already prepared another fireball and was about to lob it at Aaron again. Aaron on the other hand apparently did not fancy his chance of evading the next fireball with his damaged leg and opted instead for something a little more reckless.
Dianna watched in shock as a hatched came spinning, flying through the air in her direction. She tried to twist out of the way of the incoming projectiles path and only half succeeded. The axe gashed her right shoulder deeply as it passed her, causing her to drop her dagger, interrupting her spell and sending her reeling to the ground.
The axe had continued through the air, impacted the obsidian wall behind Dianna and simply fell to the ground, right next to Rita. A few inches to the left and she herself would have been skewered.
While Rita was still standing there uncertain of what to do, Aaron had taken the initiative and charged Dianna before she could recover. Well... limped quickly, that is. He had pulled out some kind of rope and was holding onto both ends of it, pulling it against her mother's throat, choking her.
Dianna was on her knees, clawing at the rope, trying to get Aaron off. Her efforts were so far in vain, as she continued to gag.
This did not carry on for very long though. Dianna had somehow found her lost dagger and wasted no time in jamming it into Aaron’s side. Aaron immediately pulled away and hit the ground, clutching his bleeding wound.
Dianna clambered to her feet unsteady from the blood and oxygen losses she’d endured so far. She raised the dagger, intent on finishing Aaron off while he was still writhing on the ground.
Before she could strike however, an axe embedded itself in her left shoulder, even trespassing into the side of her neck a bit. A fatal wound to be sure. Dianna didn’t even scream, simply too shocked by the turn of events. She dropped the dagger and just barely managing to turn around without falling over.
She was now face to face with her adoptive daughter.
The axe still embedded in her shoulder, Dianna had a look of astonishment on her face. Rita’s hands were shaking as she backed away slowly, she couldn’t help but mumble incoherently. Her voice was shaking, “I’m sorry mama. I’m sor-”. What had she done? Why did she do that? Nothing made sense at the moment, her head was spinning.
“You ungrateful bitch!” Dianna practically spat the words out through her clenched teeth, clearly in a great deal of pain. “I should’ve killed you back then, along with your mother!”
This was in fact no surprise to Rita. She had actually long since figured out that DIanna was likely the one that had killed her birth parents. It actually hadn’t mattered all that much to her. Dianna was the only mother she had ever known. She had raised Rita like her own. Rita also had almost no memories of her parents to begin with, she had simply been too young.
Dianna was forming a spell in her right hand. Not a fireball this time, something much- darker. She was clearly overcome with rage, no doubt fueled by her sense of betrayal. Her adoptive daughter had after all tried to kill her.
Rita had backed up all the way to the entrance already, but she knew even if she turned right now and ran, she would not be able to escape that spell in time. As her mother released the spell at her, she simply closed her eyes and waited for the end. A painful death was likely a fate that was fitting for her.
She felt a strong, powerful hand pulling on her shoulder. It was big, It spun her around. Suddenly she was enveloped in thick arms, being held tightly against a giants body. Her eyes flung open in time to see Thomas in front of her, shielding her and being struck by a powerful dark magic spell.
He convulsed as the spell seemed to absorb into his body and began spreading a powerful curse through his veins, visibly darkening them as it travelled. His eyes became sunken and his skin drained of color, turning very pale, as he collapsed to his knees.
Rita too collapsed, the weight of it all getting to her. She landed on her ass, propping herself up with one hand.
Thomas had shielded her. Why? She couldn’t understand.
She only barely registered the end of the battle taking place in the background.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Aaron had ripped the axe from Dianna’s shoulder after she had already fallen to her knees, having finally started succumbing to her wounds and her fatigue. Aaron had landed the decisive blow at that point, burying the hatchet deep into the top of her head. She dropped like a stone after that, as dead as they get.
Rita didn’t feel anything though, even just having watched her mother ‘fall’. It’s like she was completely detached from it all, like all of her energy had been spent and there was nothing left inside of her anymore. She also couldn’t believe that that women was actually dead. Her mama.
After staring at Dianna’s lifeless body for a while, to make sure she was really dead, Aaron turned around to the sound of Thomas coughing.
Thomas was coughing up some kind of thick black substance, clearly on his death throes. He propped himself up off the ground on his left elbow and looked straight up into Rita’s eyes. Rita noticed that there was something very different about them, they were no longer vacant, but instead- gentle.
Rita caught a fright for a moment when Thomas clenched his right hand into a fist and brought it up to her face. But instead of punching, mauling or strangling her, he simply pressed his thumb against her forehead and dragged it down across the bridge of her nose. He ran out of strength mid-way and collapsed to the ground, leaving a streak of blood and black mucus across her face.
Rita’s eyes went wide with realisation and they soon began to fill with water.
Now she cried.
The small girl collapsed on top the giants dead body and gripped it with all her remaining strength. She wailed loud enough to stir the gods.
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Aaron clambered over to the nearest wall, not far from where Rita was crying, hugging Thomas’ dead body. He leaned heavily against the wall and slid down it. Leaving a large blood smear on the smooth stone surface, finally coming to a rest in a sitting position.
He had turned just in time to witness Thomas’ dying act, the implication of which had not been lost on him. He felt truly sorry for Rita.
As sorry as he could feel at the moment. Admittedly, he could not feel much of anything in his current state. His thoughts were foggy, he had lost a fair amount of blood, was bruised and battered, lost a lot of his HP, had both a bleed and burn status effect, and was emotionally exhausted. He had rather mixed feelings about what had all transpired.
He needed help, but he did not yet want to disturb Rita. So to take his mind of things, he quickly poured through his notifications, filtering out the less important ones like HP loss incidents, etc. and taking heed of only the most important ones.
You have been afflicted with the status effect: Burn
Health regeneration disabled
You have been afflicted with the status effect: Bleed
0.8 Health loss per minute
Congratulations, you have slain: Dianna - level 15 Warlock
Shit. In hindsight it hadn’t even occurred to him why he had not received a notification after supposedly strangling Thomas to death. He was not nearly as dead as Aaron had believed. Shows you what he knows about strangling people.
Congratulations, skill book: Haremest has reached level 2
Skill book: Haremest now has 1 point available.
Congratulations, Aaron - Haremest, has reached level 2
Aaron - Haremest, now has 2 points available
So leveling up your skill book gives you 1 point for purchasing skills and this in turn gives you two points to use on attributes. According to Dianna’s information, you can only put these attribute points into Strength, Agility or Intelligence.
Next he checked his ‘status’.
Status: Name: Aaron Species: Human Sex: Male Age: 16 Level: 2 Perks: 'Chosen One' Titles: None Points Left: 1 Attributes: Strength: 4 Dexterity: 5 Intelligence: 6 Charisma: 3 Luck: 4 Faith: 3 Destiny: 7 Energies: Energy Current Max Regen / minute Health 14 40 0.4 Mana 50 50 0.5 Stamina 9 45 0.45 Status effects: Classes: Effect Duration Class Level Burn N/A Haremest 2 Bleed N/A
So he was likely to bleed to death in less than twenty minutes.
“Rita”
Rita looked up from her dad slowly, her face a red mess with swollen eyes.
“So… I don’t know if you want to like- kill me or something right now, but if not, I kind of need your help here.”
Rita just stared at him for a moment, before her mind finally caught up. Her eyes passed over his various wounds before she finally rubbed her tears away and spoke.
“How much time do you have left?”
“About fifteen minutes.”
“What’s your maximum Health?”
“Forty.”
“Alright. Just wait here a moment.”
With that, Rita simply got up and left the room. Aaron was quite surprised by her decisive actions, considering all she had just endured.
While he waited for Rita he decided to pump both his attribute points into ‘strength’, in the hopes it would raise his health and buy him a little more time. It did not help however, only raising his maximum health to fifty and leaving his current health as is.
Next he inspected his Haremest skill book.
Skill book: Haremest (lvl 2) Skill points left: 1 Skills Owned: Skills Available: Skill Level Skill Cost Plot armour 1 Cliche tropes 1 Charm 1 Alpha 1 Last stand 1
‘Last stand’
Skill: Last stand Type: Buff Element: Divine Cost: 40 mana Duration: 30 seconds Cooldown: 24 hours Description:
There comes a time, when against all odds, a hero must push past the pain and stand his ground. Effect:
Reduces the effectiveness of all debuffs by 50%
Grants 50% pain resistance
Doubles stamina regeneration
Another powerful skill. He could imagine that if some combat focused class person saw this skill their eyes would be popping out of their heads. In spite of this however, Aaron resisted the urge to sink his skill point into it. He had already reaped the benefits of patience once and received a critical skill at an equally critical time. Any powerful passives aside, he would probably get in the habit of spending his ‘points’ only when he truly needed to.
When Rita returned, she made him hold some kind of poultice against his stab wound, a most painful endeavour, due to the angle. She also gently applied some kind of paste onto the burn wounds on his leg. Aaron soon got the relevant notifications.
Status effect: Bleed, neutralised
Status effect: Burn, neutralised
After confirming the aforementioned effects, she then gave him a bitter tasting vial of red liquid to drink.
Health potion consumed
+0.5 health / second
Duration: 3 minutes
Aaron finally relaxed, greatly fatigued by this point.
“Thanx”, he smiled weakly at Rita. “And sorry about Dianna. Sorry about your dad.”
She gave him a difficult smile back, “Don’t worry about such things right now. Can you move?”
“I think so”
“Come up to the house then. You should rest.” Aaron looked at her, then at Dianna’s body, but Rita immediately reassured him, “Don’t worry about that now. I will bury them as soon as I have the strength. Come now.”
She helped him up and gave him a shoulder to lean on. They made their way up the ladder to the stables, very slowly and with great difficulty, and then over to the cottage. Rita led him upstairs and to a bedroom.
Aaron lay down on the bed, still covered in blood. He fell asleep almost immediately.
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Waking up, the sun was spilling out between the gaps in the bedrooms shutters quite powerfully. It was rather hot and shining directly in Aaron’s face.
He immediately noticed a notification about the healing potions expiry. Checking his status, he found that everything was right as rain once more. He also felt a hell of a lot better than before he fell asleep. Checking on his burns and stab wound, they were all healed up, as if by magic. He also realised how stupid that expression was when used in this world. The only evidence that he had even been injured at all, was his scorched pants and blood stained shirt.
Aaron lifted himself to his feet and went downstairs.
Rita was in the kitchen busy preparing some food. She gave him a quick glance and then carried on with what she was doing. She looked, for lack of a better word, tired.
“How are you doing?” Aaron cringed even as he spoke the words, realising what a stupid question such a thing was.
Rita glanced his way again briefly, but did not respond.
“Look. I’m really sorry about Dianna, I didn’t mean to-” He couldn’t even finish the sentence. It was only now dawning on him that he had actually killed someone. A living person.
“If it’s okay with you, I don’t really want to talk about it right now.” Rita finally replied.
Aaron just nodded. He actually hadn’t even meant to kill Dianna initially. I mean, he had gone down there hatchet in hand to do ‘something’. He did not of course know at that time what form that ‘something’ would take. When he saw the ritual room and the torture table however, it had dawned on him the fate that had awaited him and Dianna’s back turned to him was more invitation than he could pass up at that moment.
He tried to console himself with the fact that Dianna was a truly evil woman who had done things like this probably many times already and would have likely many more. It was essentially self defence. Although even to Aaron’s own ears, that excuse sounded flimsy at best.
He wondered if perhaps Rita hated him now.
Rita was apparently done preparing the food, as she began laying it out on the table.
“Come, eat.” She beckoned to Aaron. I guess not that angry?
“It’s not drugged this time right?”
Rita gave him a soft pained smile, that sat in contrast to a faint look of guilt on the rest of her face.
They both ate in silence.
Once finished, Rita led Aaron to a chest in one of the bedrooms upstairs. It was filled with clothes and a few other items fit for people of all ages, genders and sizes. Apparently all from past victims. Aaron was able to pick out a few items that he could wear as outfits, he even managed to find some shoes and some sandals.
After getting changed they discussed briefly what would happen next, Rita was understandably not very talkative. She wanted to journey to the city of Zetsuna and apply to a guild there to carry on with her path as a professional herbalist. Aaron still suffering from ‘amnesia’ had no better plan than to tag along.
Rita had wanted to bury both Dianna and Thomas but they soon found out that would be an impossible task. The two of them together did not have the strength to carry the bodies up the ladder out of the ritual chamber that was several meters below the ground. Rita had to instead settle for arranging their bodies and covering them in sheets and some hand picked flowers.
Rita and Aaron, under her direction, loaded up the wagon with all manner of food and goods. Bedding, food, clothes, crockery and anything else of value was taken. Once finished, she instructed Aaron on how to handle the horse that would be pulling the wagon.
By her request, he helped her spread some bales of hay about the house. Once finished, she lit both the stables and the house on fire. Aaron was not sure why she did that, but while watching the flames soar and envelope the structure, she had a look of determination in her eyes.
Rita mounted the second horse, that had already been saddled and slowly trotted ahead, never once looking back. Aaron followed her managing the horse that was pulling the wagon. ‘He’ did however look back. He watched as thick columns of black smoke rose high into the air.
Congratulations, skill unlocked: Harem
For a moment Aaron was angry at the skill, there could be nothing more insensitive at the moment. He mentally sighed however realising it was just a ‘system’ and the skill probably had some stupid requirement like ‘start your harem by having at least one female companion’ or something like that.
‘Harem’
Skill: Harem Type: Passive Element: Divine Cost: N/A Description:
The harem protagonist has the difficult job of keeping multiple female partners happy and out of each others hair, no small feat to be sure. Effect:
Affects the females in your harem, making them ‘more okay’ with ‘sharing’ and less aggressive towards each other.
The strength of this effect is directly proportional to the level of this skill.