022: The darkness below

I told the rest what happened. Leria especially took it badly. Not only was it the Pentagram - who, to top it all, attacked the place she considered belonging to Overtyrant - but also her ward was in danger.

I thought that her maternal instincts were working. She seemed to treat the girl like her daughter. Huh. Good for her.

We hurried towards the secret passage outside the city. It was still much faster than going all the way back to the main gate.

When we reached a destination - a ruin of a building, with only parts of the walls intact - we discovered that several armed people guarded it, some of them of a much higher level than us. They looked scary, but after we used password provided to us by Vasyr and paid the price (thirty ambries per head) they lost interest.

One of them gave us a quick lecture about the rules.

One - take nothing connected to Pentagram with us, or they will kill us. No idea how they would detect we had something like that, it was probably a safety measure to avoid being targeted by witch-hunters. I doubted that they invested in magical detection.

Second - don't pick a fight with people in the tunnel, or they will kill us. Doing it outside the entrance was fine, they didn't care about it as long as it wasn’t done in their line of sight. They didn’t care enough to go to check every sounds of battle in the vicinity. This rule was added so that no idiot could collapse the tunnel, and to avoid bandits preying on their clients.

Three - the tunnel intersects with an entrance to some old, long forgotten catacombs. If we try to go there, we will disappear like everyone who tried that. The city was regularly decimated and rebuilt - Featherclad was only the last major attacker. They were old things buried beneath it. From time to time someone unearthed some of them while building something. Sometimes they found a treasure. Sometimes they found death.

***

We emerged from the other side of the tunnel twenty minutes later. It wasn't long. It ended in a small forest, maybe a hundred meters from the wall. There were few more guards on that side, but after we proved to knew the password (which meant we were allowed in by the guards inside by the city) they ignored us.

We went towards the road that led to the area nearby the Hold. It was the fastest route even if we head to go across country. Obviously there were no road leading to the entrance to the secret tunnel.

We marched for maybe ten minutes before we ran into troubles.

We encountered a group of people. Five of them armed. Dark elf rogue level 6, crystalling warrior level 8, low elf rogue level 7, human warrior level 6, and another human warrior level 11 that looked like their boss. All of them looked like ruffians. Dark but roughly looking attires, a lot of tattoos and the unfriendly faces.

They also had a slave.

Menara Sikharim

PLAYER

Gender: Female

Species: Ogre

Level: 2

Class: Blacksmith

Property of: Syman Minareth

Active Effects: N/A

Known Spells and Techniques:

???

Oh no, you don’t.

She didn’t look too happy with her captivity. She also wasn’t too obedient judging from the amount of restraints. She had her arms bound behind her head, she was gagged and blindfolded. Two warriors stood beside her and made her walk in right direction.

Of course. Ogr. More deadly cousins of elves. The same ancient civilization made them - Xylian Dominion in World’s Requiem - as stormtroopers for an ancient war against another powerful ancient civilization - Kivanthian Doctrinate. They were tall, resilient and had a lot of stamina. Ideal warriors, if they weren’t also simple-minded. While they almost overwhelmed Kivanthians during the first offensive push, most of them soon deserted or joined the Doctrinate. They felt no attachment to their creators and when their enemy offered them better food and better accomodation, they went after it.

Judging from their natural strength, even a level two should be a pain to hold still. Aura was more like a multiplier. Aura Conductivity 15 will make taller and more bulky person much stronger than scrawny guy of an identical level. As a level two she might have lower multiplier, but she had a much higher base level than Leria.

Slavery in Ambryxis was abhorrent. Player slavery in Ambryxis (involuntary) was doubly abhorrent. Besides, blacksmith? That would be a most useful asset.

“You have a nice slave.” I said loudly. “How about a deal? You’ll give her up, and we won‘t kill you.” The rest of my team appraised the slave already. Vaera was an enigma, but Simea and Leria seemed pissed.

The ruffians laughed loudly before their leader spoke. “What a funny coincidence. We planned to rob you as well.” So, fight is unavoidable. Four against five, but we had two sorcerers on our side... huh.

We could fight it the typical way, using our cooperation to slowly overwhelm them and take them out, but... it would be boring. And it seems a perfect way to do something I decided to do a long while ago.

Let’s make it more interesting.

“Leria, kill them all. Alone." She took her eyes off them and looked at me. “Use your magic, but don’t touch Hymn of Slaughter or Mark Target. I’ll finish those of them that will run.” Bandits laughed even louder.

“W…wha…” She sighed. “I trust you.” She drew her sword and walked towards the opponents.

It was time for her to understand her own significance as a Chosen One. To understand her own strength when facing her natural opponent. To understand how powerful she already was.

“Hah, that was good.” Ruffian boss spoke. “Eric, Vanar, slice her. If you can, keep her alive. We can sell them all as slaves.” A level 8 warrior crystalling and low elf rogue of level 7 moved forward. The first one had a round wooden shield and a nasty-looking chopper, plus wore a rusted chainmail. The other had a long dagger. Overall, they might have won against Leria before she assumed the mantle of a Chosen One, even though it was far from granted. That was a terrible weakness NPCs had when compared to players and their sidekicks - they had no appraisal and underestimating their opponents happen often. On lower levels only, but still.

When they got close, Leria raised her left arm and pointed her finger on a rogue. Then she cast Fervent Accusation.

The rogue screamed when the hex made him suffer all evil he ever committed against others. He felt himself raped, felt the pain as his victims died, felt the fear of those he robbed, felt the pain suffered by those he betrayed or broke their trust. As a level one it was a foretaste of what the true Fervent Accusation could show him. A brief recapitulation of his wrongdoings. But it was enough to break him. His dagger fell on the ground, and right after he collapsed there as well, curling up in a fetal position, crying.

The Warrior had enough brains to leap forward, trying to engage her in close combat. His assumption wasn‘t stupid, it could work if she was a powerful sorcerer in a warrior’s disguise. It was worse than stupid - it was wrong. She repelled his strike with her shield. Seeing an opening, she moved closer and slashed him vertically from above. His attempts to block the sword with his shield turned out to be meaningless. She used Smite Evil on her sword, making it immaterial. It went through the body of the dumbfounded warrior.

Fire exploded from his mouth and eyes. A second later he was covered in raging flames, screaming. He dropped his sword and tried to put out the flames. Meaningless. He was dead the moment Overtyrant’s magic overwhelmed him. It wasn‘t a real fire, it was a representation on what happened to him on a deeper, metaphysical level. The flames slowly purged him of everything even remotely evil. His thoughts. His memories. His habits. His beliefs. It was his mind that was on fire. Pain was just a side effect.

There was a quest in World‘s Requiem about an ancient archdaemon. Some cultists wanted to summon him. According to a lore, he was commiting all sorts of evil until a young Chosen One of Overtyrant challenged him... and won. His last strike - a Smite Evil - enveloped the daemon right before the banishment into the Dark. The cultist called him the Burningman, because the flames kept fighting against his regeneration for eternity, long ago driving him insane. If you stopped them, nothing happened. If they summoned him, they only discovered a broken husk of an archdaemon, long ago driven catatonic by the flames that devoured his mind. Most people let them succeed if they tried to summon him, only to charge and slaughter the dumbfounded and broken cultists.

A mere bandit was nowhere near the level of the Burningman. After a few seconds of struggle he went silent and stopped moving. Something broke in him. Shock and stress does that to people. His heart gave up, probably. His soul was still attached to the body for a few more minutes, and so the flames remained, devouring what remained in his brain.

The other warrior screamed. The rogue thought faster and tried to run for it. Unfortunately for him, we couldn‘t afford to leave any witnesses. I pointed my staff towards him. “DESTROYER LANCE!” I shouted, losing a significant part of mana pool. The bolt - a meter long and looking like a javelin - caught up to him.

He stopped. He stood there for a short while. Then his head bent backward. For a second he looked like he was staring at the sky above him. Then his spine snapped. Despite this, the hex kept bending him until he broke into two pieces around his waist, scattering blood and intestines around, raining red blood on remaining bandits and their slave. Only then it allowed his remains to collapse.

Jesus Christ. Note to self - using Destruction Magic against weak and unprepared opponents is a bad idea. In World’s Requiem it made them explode or ripped their arm or head off. With even such things gently censored.

Everything that was already terrible in WR was made thrice so in Gates of Eternity, it seems. I was too terrified to think about truly powerful hexes of Destruction Magic and their effects.

The slave used the occasion and the fact that her only surviving guard was paralyzed with fear, his scream betraying his position. She jumped at his back, strangling him. The bandit leader was too shocked to react to that. He tried to walk away from the massacre, but he tripped, falling on his butt.

“Wh…what are you?!” He almost cried, while trying to get back. The warrior that struggled with the slave went limp after she managed to broke his neck.

Leria dropped her sword and shield, activating Rip and Tear, and came closer to him. I turned my eyes away the moment she grabbed his head, and I saw her thumbs approaching his eyes. There was a loud, agonizing scream, before he went silent.

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“What are you, people?" Ytar uttered, unconsciously repeating the last words of the bandit leader.

“I guess you could call us good guys.” I chuckled. I had a fit of gallows humor. I barely kept the contents of my stomach where they should be (unlike Simea, that vomited behind me), and yet I was laughing. “Our methods are weird, though.”

***

The battle had ended. Even quicker than I expected.

There was also more gore and shocked people than I expected. Sigh. I could be counted among those shocked, I guess.

“Wh... what just happened?” Leria, the main cause of the massacre, seemed equally shocked. She had too much on her head to look around during the fight, and only now, when the Rip and Tear wore off, she had a capability to do so.

“You discovered your true strength as a Chosen One.” I commented. Vaera, the most unfazed person in the group, used a dagger to finish the only surviving rogue, broken by the Fervent Accusation. “Transcendentals are scary, period."

“Trans…” She began, but I interrupted her.

“An unofficial nickname for theurgies dedicated to be used by Chosen Ones.” I shrugged. “Essentially, hyper-powerful spells and hexes that only people that went through Revelation can use. All your hexes are Transcendentals. Simea, you feel better?” She managed to rise and nodded, still looking faint. I hope she gets used to it, it will happen each time we end up fighting against evil. Such are the ways of Overtyrant. “Could you free their slave? You aren’t covered in blood, you can use aura if she is unfriendly, and you are good in searching for stuff and unlocking things. “I had hoped that they had a key on them. Probably their boss had them.

She nodded again.

***

It turned out that their boss had the keys on himself.

Simea began by removing blindfold and gag, both filled with magic to prevent them from being removed without using the right magic key. I guess magic had many uses apart from combat. I wasn‘t sure if using it on a gadget taken straight out of BDSM was a good idea, but no one asked me about my opinion on that matter. Unfortunately.

“So… they are all dead.” Menara grinned widely. “Too bad, I hoped to do it myself. At least it was a painful end, judging from the screams.”

She looked... well, like an ogre. Two-meter tall humanoids, looking similar to humans or elves, even if rather curvy. They had pointed ears - a characteristic added by Xyls to all their creations, to help them differentiate between changed and unchanged slaves. Slightly reddish skin. Two horns on the forehead. She looked like an eastern oni if you excluded the fact that they rivalled elves in prettiness. Especially females.

Seriously, what the heck was with Xyls and pretty females? According to World’s Requiem lore they propagated by division. Aesthetics then? DFI never explained it. I was too scared to dig after that information in Gates of Eternity.

“Too bad that we finished the last one then.” I chuckled. “He wouldn‘t be an enjoyable kill though. The hex kinda broke him.”

I decided to avoid thinking about the fact that I killed someone. A computer program, perhaps. A murderer, perhaps. But it still made me feel... weird. I wasn‘t sure what to think about this.

Of course, it was my second kill. The first one was that pedophile smith. But… it was worse now. Why? I wasn’t sure. Maybe because now I was more persuaded to the idea that NPCs were no different than humans?

Simea took down her collar. The ogre sighed with relief.

“It seems you are the good guys. To resign from having a slave.”

“What’s your story?” Simea was the one to ask, curiously.

“Well…” Ogre scratched her head. “I joined the game right before Robinson made his announcement. I started as a blacksmith from a village near the imperial border, taken captive by a sudden raid of slavers from Dragonspine Mountains. I think that a detachment of imperial soldiers was supposed to free me, but those bandits took me and fled during the skirmish. Judging from what I saw before they blindfolded me, they were the only survivors from the whole raid. Imperials were slaughtering them pretty nicely."

Uff. What a relief. If she turned out to be a willing inhabitant of Dragonspine Mountains whose life went under, we would be in a lot of troubles. In the worst scenario we would have to enslave her to keep her from talking. Let’s avoid asking her... potentially triggering question about the way she was... treated.

“Uhm, sorry for asking you that, but... did they do something to you?" SIMEA, DAMNIT.

“Wh... no, they did nothing, I scared them too much for them to… Wait a second, you mean they could do something?!” She was shocked. Oh, well, she was level two, they probably travelled with her almost since the beginning of game, and since they were too scared to touch her...

The fact that no one answered her seemed to tell her everything. Oh dear, she really lost a lot. On the other hand she wouldn‘t be able to act so defiant if she knew what threatened her, and that could mean them actually raping her. And probably more than once.

“Well, we are in a dire need of a blacksmith.” I said. It was time for the recruitment attempt. “Would be nice to have someone like you. We were all screwed by the opening sequence of the game as well... or by the game as a whole, in the case of our native companions." I decided to avoid calling locals NPCs. It sounded derogative. “And, just for your information, what they did to you and what they could do to you is legal around her. It‘s not... uhm... a nice place to live in. Especially alone."

She nodded, still in shock.

Blacksmith - check. One less thing to worry about.

***

We pillaged the bodies. Aside from the one I killed. Noone wanted to get close to that one.

We found money. Not much though, it summed up to two hundred ambries. Nothing interesting beside this. I guess finding interesting letters that could start a quest to kill more like them would be too much. At least we got back the money invested in buying the passage out of the city.

We resumed our march towards the Hold. Leria remained silent, still trying to contemplate what she learned about her power. Vaera took down his hijab (both Ytar and Menara were shocked by how he looked, doubly so when they learned of his gender). Simea seemed to get over the scene of carnage she saw. For me it was more troublesome, I was too busy contemplating whether I was a murderer now. In the end, however, Simea, Vaera, Menara and, to a point, Ytar, spent the whole time talking.

I hit the nail with my assertions about Menara. Judging from what I heard she was a normal person. She was from a small town where her parents worked in artistic metalwork. She liked it and planned to inherit their workshop. She considered the metalworking her hobby, so when she heard that she could work with many supernatural metals, creating things that couldn‘t exist in the real world, she jumped for the occasion. It wasn‘t her first experience with full dive mmorpg‘s, she also played World‘s Requiem, where she was a blacksmith as well.

She sounded like a typical member of the most common type of mmo players these days. Average people that played them to fight stress, perfectly happy with being average. When you had a hard day in work, spending the evening using blunt weapons to pummel moving things could work wonders. According to scientists, spending an hour daily playing VR could prolong your life by four to five years. It worked exactly the opposite for those addicted to it that spend many hours daily though.

When she heard the full story of how the Dragonspine Mountains looked like, she almost tripped. The sheer look of shock and disgust on her face told me everything about her.

Ytar had his own share of revelations to swallow. I wasn‘t sure how he liked our... approach to changing the abusive society of Dragonspine Mountains. But he opened up after Simea mentioned local slums. I couldn‘t agree more with his opinion that no people should live like that. Who would have thought that even slums of a Doomplace could produce an idealist? He might have been a kid, but kids there grow faster. Hm.

This meant that we had to pay for at least a basic metalworking equipment much faster than I expected. Wonderful. Just wonderful.

***

We reached Tyrant’s Hold right before the nightfall. It was a relief, really. This visit in Ambryxis was much longer and more tiring than I expected. I want to rest. To sleep in my bed. Drink wine. Read a book. Perhaps visit an anomaly to relieve my stress on daemons. Seeing the slums and the massacre we committed was a little too much.

We entered the room with Gore Altar only to see Kytar, Vila and a cat (big, fluffy and black) waiting for us near the entrance.

“Finally, you are back!" Kytar almost shouted. “They are attacking, you have to help Lena!”

NEW QUEST!

Type: Location Quest

Name: Ardent Flame

Difficulty: Platinum X

Tyrant’s Hold is under attack by creatures of Pentagram. You have to repel the attack.

Oh, for fuck’s sake… “Ytar and Menara, stay here. The rest with me.” I didn‘t have to ask where should I head. There was only a single corridor left to excavate. To the right from the entrance, between old living quarters and mess hall.

Platinum X, I won't even comment that at this point.

***

When we entered the corridor, the fight was almost over. Lena fought well, but they drowned her with numbers. She kept retreating, using her spear to keep enemies at bay, hoping to buy time. I could guess from her movements that she was exhausted and beaten up.

Devoured Worker

Category: Eldritch/Pentagram

Type: Beast/Husk

Threat Grade: Copper VII

A body, once belonging to a worker or craftsman working for the Ardent Flame. Now, a husk of a person, moved only by the will of the Pentagram.

They were a Crowd. Twenty or thirty people wearing tattered rags and armed in a variety of tools - pickaxes, chopping axes, blacksmith hammers, knives and so on. Their unnatural movements and eerie silence in which they marched betrayed their supernatural nature. But the worst part were their heads. There was nothing but blackness in their eyes, and their heads seemed... bloated. Not much, but there was something unnatural in the shapes of their heads.

“HAVOC BOLT!” I shouted, using my staff to increase my control. A projectile looked a bit like a spermatozoon. It flew above Lena’s head and exploded, scattering bits of itself throughout the nearest Workers.

Each of those tiny bits - no bigger than a snowflake - destroyed all organic matter around it, making holes by the size of a man‘s fist. Those enemies that were closest to it weren‘t killed - they were obliterated. Instantly turned into dispersing clouds of blood and flesh. I got at least seven, a few more lost significant parts of their body. It was a costly hex, though, and one that wouldn‘t be half as useful against tougher enemies. But since they were a Crowd…

Lena froze. Then she turned her head towards us, her face blooming with relief. Maybe a second later Leria and Simea passed by her, charging the workers now pushed into defensive. Empowered by Vaera‘s Dragon Might and my own Ominous Chant - that manifested itself as an ominous latin-sounding chanting from the background, no less - they began the slaughter. Leria was like a human version of a chainsaw, slaughtering everyone close to her. Simea kept behind her, making sure that no one would stab her from behind while putting her dagger in the faces of those who tried to hit her from the side.

Sure, Aura Armour was a blessing, but there were things - sometimes quite inconspicuous - that could pass through it. The best way of defending yourself was to not let the enemy hit you. Having armor (both aural and physical) to save you from hits you failed to avoid was even better.

That was official now - Chosen Ones were scary. And she only used Smite Evil. There was no fire though, it worked differently for beings that weren‘t mortals. There were no impurities to be burned, no sins to be wiped out. They were mindless bodies animated by some evil beings. That their manipulators were evil - almost elementally evil - made them vulnerable to the Smite Evil. Instead of burning them, her sword sliced through everything. EVERYTHING. When one of them tried to block her with an axe, she cut through the axe and his body from right shoulder to left hip. Like there was nothing.

Of course, sufficiently strong evil beings would survive even being hit with Smite Evil. Benevolent gods were omnipotent and omniscient but so were their enemies. Their Transcendentals were overpowered as well. Shearazhyra probably wouldn’t notice getting hit by Smite Evil in the face. Of course, if Leria trained her powers properly, got more powers, more powerful blessings from her god (or God, as beings of these power level were named), the situation would be completely different.

But here? They were Copper grade Crowd. It was a massacre of apocalyptic proportions. They didn‘t even manage to slow our aura manipulators down before they reached the end of the room. The fact that I fired two more Havoc Bolts against the back lines made it even faster and more one-sided.

QUEST PROGRESSION

Type: Location Quest

Name: Ardent Flame

Difficulty: Platinum X

You’ve managed to repel the attack on Tyrant’s Hold, but the road to the tunnels below is now opened. Descend there and discover the source of attack, before more enemies come.

Soon the fight was over and I could check up on Lena’s wounds. She was fine, her Aura Armour held, but she was beaten up and exhausted. She held the line for an hour and lost ground only after she ran out of stamina. Crowd in a corridor - against a spearman, no less - weren‘t so dangerous. In an open area, with some buffers or stronger friends to beat people busy avoiding the cannonfodder, the situations was different. Even those thirty could swarm Leria and cause her some damage if they got here in an open room.

I decided to avoid telling the rest the obvious thing. This group wasn‘t an accident. It was a reconaisance. Whatever was down there, it was trying to test our defense. It noticed the disappearance of those servants close to the collapsed stairway. It sent thirty... how was it? Devoured Workers? To test us. It threw them away like they were worth nothing.

Just what was waiting for us down there?