Chapter 041: Consequences
It was… a bit underwhelming. The fight with Bloodlust was much more emotionally satisfying. Then again, we weren’t exactly supposed to fight Red Mist. We were supposed to destroy the crystal. And we did. The rest…
… well, hobbits didn’t fight Sauron directly, right?
The explosion of the crystal swallowed Kovacs, Red Mist, and most of bodies, changing them into a massive puddle of blood. There was nothing to find there. But there were doors down there. One I was going to go through and search the rest of the cultist base properly.
I contacted the rest of the party via Nexus. It seemed that the system forbad them from respawning until the fight was over, when it showed them information that the mission was over and they should choose one of the respawn points regardless of this. They kinda divided themselves between the surface and Erstval. I’ll join them soon. Or simply kill myself and resurrect in the Hold.
Finally, a time for rewards!
***
After almost an hour of search I found: a lot of magic books belonging to the cult, Red Mist alchemical ingredient storage, a little vault filled with money and jewelry that the cult stole, and a whole packet of magic scrolls.
That stuff was rare. Most of them were Transcendentals written in such form by a past Chosen Ones. But I had not a single clue about what sort of spells and hexes they included, since that required an extensive research. Not exactly useful for now, but could be useful one day.
Obviously I stole everything that wasn’t nailed to the wall. Fit just barely, I had to drop some potions, but it more than made up for it.
“Interesting.” A sudden voice coming from behind me. I almost jumped. I turned back and…
Oh my God.
it was Red Mist. But she… she was more powerful. Much more powerful. I could feel it. It almost made my heart stop.
She stood there, looking at me with a mocking smirk on her face.
Red Mist
Category: Eldritch/Pentagram
Type: Mortal
Threat Grade: Platinum I
An insane, depraved magician that used to lead local part of the Baptism of Blood cult. Once she was a loyal vassal of the Red King, scheming to unleash the Bloodletter Plague upon the world.
After her defeat at the hands of adventurers she died. But before that happened, she was summoned before the nightmarish throne of Malice, and assumed the mantle of his Chosen One. Now she is a full-blown Archmagician… and even greater threat.
Oh. My. God.
“I must thank you.” She smiled even wider. “Because of my failure and death I was remade. I met my God. And learned a lot. I know what you are.” She chuckled. “Killing you will be easy, but… less permanent than I wish.” She knows?! Malice told her?! He made her a Nameless One/Chosen One?! Despite her failure?! “I could make it enjoyable. Torture you. You’d scream for long before death would finally come. I could even whisper the truth about this world, the truth about Robinson, but… what fun would it be?”
SHE KNOWS ABOUT ROBINSON?!
“That’s why I’m not going to kill you.” She smiled. “I’m going to destroy you. I’m going to do everything I can to make your life so miserable that you will kill yourself. I’m also going to kill Ambryxis and present entire Aevaria to my lord. But for now… I guess you require a little… gift for making me meet him.”
I barely noticed what happened.
YOU DIED!
Cause of death was a po4n3ou6094h
What?!
Warning!
Due to NOT being a part of Adventure, your standard respawn mechanics are YES disabled. You YES will have to choose a checkpoint where you will be YES resurrected.
There is NOT a penalty for dying, however.
Ehm, it’s obviously glitched. What the actual…
Penalty
The progress of the BLOODLETTER PLAGUE has been LET ME IN increased.
Approximate number of respawns left before the disease robs you of ability to continue your Adventure: 999999999999999999999999999999999999
Available Checkpoints:
Village of Iktin - Chapel
Village of Erstval - Chapel
Theta Research Station - Chapel
Surface
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Gaoeibugoiebrgilb
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… you know what, fuck it. I’m just going to go to Iktin before this fucking thing breaks completely.
***
Unsurprisingly most of our group picked the Surface option. Only Syna and Leria decided to check out Erstval before officially finishing this terrifying parody of adventure.
Made me wonder what happened to Kovacs.
“So, you won? What happened?” The priest seemed shocked by me suddenly appearing in front of him in his chapel… and by the the sick people starting to wake up.
I explained. In short. Soon I reach the end.
“Chosen of Malice?!” He looked at me with shock. Well, unlike our group, he was less… used to things like that happening. For him, Chosen Ones were something from legends. “I hate to say that, but I think the Council should know. If they stay ignorant, this mage will have it much easier to manipulate it or destroy the city..”
He was right. Though warning them without getting silenced to avoid causing panic was going to be… troublesome.
“I guess… we’ll pay the witch-hunters a visit.” I decided. “After we get our shit together and contact Kovacs.” If they were in neither villages, the only option left was that since they were already considered ‘out’ of Adventure when it happened, they were forcefully ejected from its mechanics and respawned in their flat.
Now that I think about…
Avhar Khan [P]: You there?
Ytar Vakhyl [N]: Yes boss what is it
Yes, despite his talent to magic, learning how to write properly seemed to be troublesome to him. Welp.
Avhar Khan [P]: Are you in the Kovacs group flat? Did they return?
Ytar Vakhyl [N]: yes
Aaand… now I know everything.
‘Alright, I have confirmation that Kovacs group returned safely to the surface.” I said. “And now…” I turned towards priest. “We need to talk business.”
***
After Syna and Leria returned from Erstval… they weren’t alone. They brought in a young male low elf. In a robe.
He introduced himself as Rythin Varyvil (another name I was going to forget, uh). He was a sort of apprentice of the khardic priestess that ruled over the village. Leria decided to ‘borrow’ him, and after proving to said priestess that she was a Chosen One of Overtyrant… let’s just say she wasn’t going to protest.
Well, I wasn’t exactly about to start worshipping Overtyrant - though I did owe him a bit - and we had only two adherents of this religion in the Hold, but… he would be useful. He knew a lot about khardic lore, learned a lot about khardic magic (especially because the priestess lended him several books she had about it), and could exorcise corruption from things and people.
Well, one another useful side character I guess.
***
Several hours later I knocked on the door of the Kovacs flat.
The reception was… quite happy. It bordered on a feast, really. The human girl we encountered earlier seemed like she was on the verge of crying, but this time of happiness and relief. Furry catgirl and hobgoblin kept bickering. The rest was relieved.
“So, now that this ‘Adventure’ is in the past, I’d like to talk business.” I said to Kovacs after the drinking moved over to another room.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“I imagined you’d like to. Let me guess, you want to recruit us?” Well, at least he went straight to business.
“Yes. You are competent, you proved this by getting that far into that place.” Nothing better than a good - but tasteful - compliment to begin the negotiations. “And I need competent people.”
“Even with our… fame?” I nodded in response.
“I’m totally fine with that. In fact, that’s why I decided to contact you.” I smiled. “Dragonspine Mountains are a place ripe with opportunities. Even for the people that prefer to bully slavers than slaves.”
“So… Spades?” Oh, he knows that name? In WR that’s how the group of former glorastian Players called themselves. The whole group was dedicated to making the Empire fall. Their tale wasn’t exactly happy and nice, and they were almost wiped out, but they made a significant contribution to the fall of Glorastian Empire.
So, a former player. Interesting.
“Maybe without the frequent deaths and getting reduced to level one part.” I answered. “But yeah, that’s the idea. The fact that according to information we got, something threatens the wellbeing of every living creature in the Aevaria and we might be in a position to prevent it is a thing as well.” He looked at me quite weird.
“So, taking down Doomplace AND saving the world? Quite admirable.” He shrugged. “Well, I’m totally fine with that. I have no idea why I ended up here to be honest. I went with ‘ask the questions’ options and Administrator threw me here, the asshole. I’ll have to talk with the rest but none of them really likes the place. Just in case, what would be our job?”
“Adventuring, of course.” I answered. Let’s be straight there. “As far as we know, we are the highest leveled party among the local Players. Pushing deep into anomalies and this sort of stuff should probably be done by us. But if we really want to establish a guild we need to have additional parties for slightly more boring while less difficult things. Like getting resources, earning money, this sort of stuff.”
“Well…” He sighed. “I guess that our group has had enough of hardcore raids. In the world where suffering a fate worse than death seems to be a thing I’d gladly limit myself to doing stuff like that. But I’ll have to talk it through the group.” I nodded. “For now let’s invite each other on Nexus, I’ll write to you when we decide.”
***
We decided to pay a visit to the witch-hunters the next day, mostly because the party got slightly larger. I decided to go alone. But Simea decided to accompany me. So I didn’t really have a choice.
We went straight for the official witch-hunters headquarters (I was almost sure they had at least one another headquarters, well hidden from eyes of the public). The insides (at least the part available to outsiders coming with petitions and delations) were similar to adventurer guild. Or any office in our world.
We waited in the queque. After we finally reached the clerk, I told her to either go fetch her superiors or tell them we knew what happened in the sewers beneath that district and we wanted to talk about it.
She seemed to think we were some sort of crazies, but she decided to go and tell this to people higher in the ladder. Unsurprisingly it wasn’t long before we were led into an interrogation room.
Oh, they probably had proper torture rooms in the basement, this one was for different sort of interrogations. It looked like an office, but with a large table in the middle. There was a small crystal. Sense Magic warned me that there was a spell anchored on it - one that detected lies. Huh. Useful.
We were told to sit down and soon enough two witch-hunters came.
One was a human female in a robe, with a symbol of witch-hunters (a sword and a thunder) on the chest. She looked like some low ranked member. After she sat beside the crystal I decided that she was simply responsible for operating the lie detector.
The other one was a tall high elf. Wearing a robe that was… well, much more colorful. The witch-hunter symbol was smaller and moved to the upper right part of her chest. There was a much bigger crest of the city (and duchy) of Ambryxis taking most of the place.
Also, her robe was cut so that we could see both glimpses of her cleavage… and that she wore rather high net stockings. Gah. I could read from her expression that she was a top bitch of this brothel.
Looks like someone really important. Probably the one responsible for this mess in the sewers. That explained much.
“So, I was informed that you have some informations about what happened in the sewers.” She said to me right after sitting.
“Yes. I know everything.” I said, giving her my earnest (and slightly exaggerated) smile. “I know how much you people screwed up. I know how you let the cultists of the Baptism of Blood almost bring the Bloodletter Plague into the city. By letting them fool you with fake maps.” I chuckled. She obviously didn’t expect that. In your face, bitch. “I also know that Red Mist would have succeeded with wiping out the city if we didn’t manage to find her true hideout and put an end to her operations.”
“That’s… an interesting statement.” She was obviously shaken, but not enough to break. “If any of that was truth.”
I laughed. Loudly. “Not going to admit you screwed up and had adventurers save your ass? Not very nice. Well, suit yourself.” We didn’t come here to inform the witch-hunters how much they screwed their job. “At first I thought that we were going to remain a silent saviour of the city. Judging from your approach to this matter you probably have a brilliant plan of silencing us after this talk. Which is totally stupid, but I guess that’s something typical for you.” She was angry. Oh, how much she was angry. The technician was shocked, while Simea seemed to internally laugh from the witch hunter boss (Avrila Somewhat… WHAT?! Level 56. Wow.) face.
“So, what made you change your idea?” I could feel every word squeezing through her teeth. Oh, how wonderful.
“Well…let’s see…” I pretended (in a rather mocking manner) to think deeply for a while. Finally I decided to go for the kill.” I guess it was seeing the Red Mist suddenly healed from her mortal wounds and armed in a sudden surge of supernatural power, while claiming to become a Chosen One of Malice.”
Awww. Like a bomb exploding in the room. Sudden silence, and two sets of jaws falling almost to the ground.
“Also, she quite vocally informed me that she wants to kill Ambryxis. Which, in some undisclosed way, was going to cause the end of a significant part of Aevaria.” I decided to finish them with a vocal version of Destroyer Bolt.
Avrila looked at the technician. She looked at the device, between raising her face and nodding slightly. Signifying that the device said that it was a truth.
I think they could hear her gulp on the other side of the building.
***
What followed was an intensive interrogation. Every single bit of information we had about Red Mist was extracted. Including her portrait sketch.
I managed to avoid mentioning things I’d like them to remain ignorant about. Such as the fact that we could respawn. Curiously, ‘suffered heavy wounds and was unable to keep fighting’ worked like a good expy of ‘died and was respawned somewhere far away’. Good enough for the lie detector to not trigger.
To say that there was a panic in the room would be an understatement of the century. Chosen One of Pentagram was… far beyond what they normally had to face. If she managed to fool them completely even before her Revelation… well, they were in for a lot of problems. But now they were at least aware of that.
Personally I thought that seeing them all die would make my day better, but Pentagram obviously was an even worse option. Best case scenario they’ll cause enough troubles to each other that it will make our mission easier.
And then we kill the side that wins.
“Well…” The witch-hunters said after three hours of interrogation. “I guess that’ll be enough.” Suddenly a slight smile showed on her face. “The next part is going to be rather unfortunate to you.
So, she still on to the ‘silence them’ part. Disgusting.
A single look at her face, her acting, her everything, told me all I needed to know about her. She cared about Ambryxis only because she was afraid of losing her high standing. She enjoyed having power. She probably rarely (if ever) showed mercy to the suspects.
For no other reason than for self-enjoyment.
I knew that too well. I was similar in World’s Requiem. Well, I wasn’t going to kill her (not today), but I could at least put her where she should belong.
“No.” I said loudly.” You will not do that.”
That surprised her.
“What?”
“You will not kill us. There will be no silencing victims for your own twisted enjoyment. We aren’t planning to shout THERE IS A CHOSEN ONE OF MALICE IN THE CITY on the streets… but that probably won’t persuade you. Since you already made a decision.” This time her smile was quite open. “But I refuse to waste time on your useless antics, Avrila.” She didn’t introduce herself. So there was a slight shock when I proved to know her name. “We are going to leave this room unmolested. And before that happens, you are going to apologise to me… and kiss my boot.” She laughed loudly.
“You must be delusional. Well, it doesn’t matter. You won’t leave this place alive. You saw too much. You saw…”
“... your mistake, you incompetent cretin.” I interrupted her, with a calm look on my face. “They send you here because you were responsible for the mess in the sewers, wasn’t you?” Her jaw dropped again. She wasn’t used to people telling her things like that.
“You… you…” She rose from her chair.
“Very eloquent.” I praised her. “But you won’t do anything. Not to me. Not to a newest Chosen One of Deviation.” I could see her eyes drifting to the technician. Once again the answer was a nod. “Of course I just left the sewers so my boots probably stink. But that shouldn’t be a problem.” I smiled. “Do it. Before I decide that you should lick them clean.”
***
“Well, that was… weird.” Simea said after we left the witch-hunters headquarters. “I can’t say she didn’t deserve that, though.”
“Well, I did it mostly for my little enjoyment… but yeah.” I sighed. Doing this was my own weird alternative of staring at a pretty girl’s boobies. Not enough to give you erection on itself, but definitely something that you enjoyed on a rather sexual level. Ugh. “That bitch probably tortured a lot of innocent people in the name of Ambryxis. We are totally going to kill her sooner or later.”
The knowledge of my assumption of a mantle wasn’t going to be divulged too far. Or anywhere at all. I made it crystal clear that it would mean my great displeasure. And I was going to get angry.
No sane person wants to anger a Chosen One. Even level 50 witch-hunter with a right to have me executed on her single word. She might have been able to kill me, but that would mean angering Deviation. And that could mean troubles.
It was doubtful that any god would be willing to cover her ass after doing something like that. Killing a Chosen One of Pentagram was one thing, killing a Chosen One of accepted major deity only because you liked to kill people and wanted the public to remain ignorant of your stupidity was something else. Even the Black Pantheon would be pissed off.
Of course I would immediately resurrect in the Hold, but she couldn’t know that. And so she obediently kneeled before me, apologized for offending me, and kissed my boot. While crying from shame.
I also had them prepare a proper payment for saving the city. No idea how they managed to organize ten thousand ambries at a moment’s notice, but I wasn’t going to complain.
I might have made a mortal enemy today, but damn. It was enjoyable.
Istvan Kovacs [P]: Hi.
Istvan Kovacs [P]: We talked it over. We are in. But we want to talk about few details, come to our flat when you have a while.
I think I’ve had the first really damn good days in a while. Yesterday and today were… enjoyable. It seems that I really needed to finally accomplish something.
“What is it? You’re smiling.” Simea shook me out of my thoughts.
“Kovacs group decided to join us. We can move over to my next ingenious masterplan.” I informed her.
“Now you’re scaring me.” She chuckled. “What is it?”
“Great orgy with at least eighteen black prostitutes and a tamed armadillo.” I answered and grinned. I could feel Simea internal sigh. “Now, for real. I’m planning a foray into the second level of the Hold. With whole Kovacs group bolstering our forces it should be possible.”
“What should be possible?” She seemed to be very curious.
“I’m planning to have us capture a significant part of the place. At least two or three times as big as the level one.” I answered. “ We are going to push as deep as possible, clean the Devoured from the area and find some solid defendable position. Or simply another collapsed corridor. Worst case scenario, we’ll collapse it ourselves.”
“You already have a plan for this place, right?” Someone is really excited, isn’t it? “Tell me! I’m curious.”
“Of course, of course.” I smiled. “We just saved two whole villages full of worshippers of gods that consider the Ambryxis abominable. And I’m not sure about you, but I certainly think that the Hold seems to be a better place to live than sewers.” She didn’t expect that. Can’t blame her, until now we were rather picky about inviting people in. First Kovacs group, now around two hundred people… significant change.
“Wait, isn’t it dangerous?!” She decided to vocalize her surprise.
“Everything is dangerous. But this... It’s hard to find a more suitable people that are also less possible to betray us.” I shrugged. “We will have to be careful, but with a single way out, making sure none of them betrays us to the city should be quite easy. And think about our gains.” I smiled. “Production of magically tainted moss that we could sell for a nice penny. People we could teach basic combat skills to defend the Hold while we are away. Maybe we could muster additional adventuring parties to gather resources.“ My smile turned into a grin.
It was going to be troublesome. But everything was troublesome. This, however, could also mean catapulting ourselves high enough to catch up to Crimson Blades. To prepare ourselves for the eventual war.
Everything we did was hard. Dangerous. And required a lot of luck and skills. But there was progress.
Who knows, maybe we will actually win?