Chapter 047: Such blockages are unsurprising

First thing I did was cast Inhuman Resilience on myself. Better safe than sorry. Bend Reality wouldn’t be as useful, as if something fishy was truly happening, I could be attacked from any direction.

I walked down the stairs. Suddenly, noises again.

Hmph. It seems to be coming from the house of the innkeeper. He built it right beside the inn, so that he could go to and from work without getting caught in a rain. The door behind the counter led to both the kitchen and the house.

Both doors - the one behind the counter and the one leading to the house - were open.

That noise… what is it? I can’t really describe it. Just… noise.

Weird. Should I really take a look?

Well, fuck it. If nothing is wrong I’ll just say I thought that there was a thief.

Let’s just take a look behind the door, right?

Oh fuck.

The innkeeper was lying on the floor. I could see a puddle of blood surrounding him. Someone was sitting on him, leaning above his head and with the back towards me. The silhouette seemed feminine. The attacker was wearing a black coat with a hood, and seemed to be busy doing something to the innkeeper.

Appraisal!

Overkill

Category: ???

Type: ???

Threat Grade: Gold V

A half-mythical hunter that hunts serial killers and murderers throughout Ambryxis.

NEW QUEST!

Type: Secondary Quest

Name: No Kill Like Overkill

Difficulty: Gold V

You’ve met the infamous Overkill, a serial murderer that targets other serial murderers and kills them - often in most sadistic ways imaginable. What is the Overkill’s secret?

WHAT?! I thought he was supposed to… don’t exist?

Is it possible that the common myth materialized a daemon? The wild daemons were created by common believes, and if enough people believed in one, it began existing. But here, the Overkill was obviously a common joke! That should steal enough of his credence to make him unable to manifest!

So, no demon. But what else?

It straightened up suddenly. And turned its head towards me.

Ugh. It noticed me. Then it leaped at me, within a second making me fall on my back. The Overkill landed on me. A dagger went for my eye, but it stopped right before it.

“You…” Yes, the voice was definitely female. The Overkill had a mask on its face, one that started right above her mouth. A lot of intricate writings covered it, one without a doubt of magical meaning. What was beneath it was mostly smeared with blood. “What are you?”

“I…” I mean, what the heck do you answer to people asking you this in such a situation?! I was still trying to figure it out, when the Overkill continued.

“Key. On his belt. Kitchen. Hidden door. The keyhole is beneath the sink.” Then he… she… it leaped off me, leaving the room through the window.

Wow, that was… unexpected.

Innkeeper was dead. It wasn’t an easy death. There were teeth marks on its face. Overkill partially ate it. Judging from the bloodstains, she started doing it while the guy was still alive.

Jesus Christ, she might be making the world a bit better by wiping out murderers (the innkeeper was a murderer?!) but that’s seriously too much. It would make even a fairly radical khardism adherent go all YUCK.

I changed my mind after I saw the hidden room behind the inn’s kitchen. My God. Having his face eaten alive wasn’t enough.

There was a partially butchered human body hanging from the hook on the ceiling. The innkeeper must have been responsible for the ‘disappearances’ in the nearby area. He kidnapped people, butchered them, then partially ate and…

… I think he also added them to the dishes he served to his guests. The word ‘sick’ doesn’t begin to describe that.

***

City militia reacted quickly. I reported the crime to the nearest patrol. The bodies were promptly taken care off, and the guests were interrogated. I was interrogated as well, and I told everything truthfully (with exception of the fact that the killer’s killer was the infamous Overkill, since I had no idea how to explain the source of this knowledge). They asked me to keep the details of the case a secret.

Probably to avoid panic and mass vomits after former guests discover that they were fed human meat. Not like cannibalism was explicitly forbidden, but it was still enough to make the overwhelming majority of people nauseous.

I think I narrowly avoided becoming an involuntary cannibal. If I didn’t engorge myself on sweets with Simea… and if I had space left for the dinner… I don’t want to think about this. It’s too squicky.

Very soon we returned to the Hold. With new things to wonder about.

Who was Overkill? What was Overkill (he was clearly marked as a mob/daemon… certainly not a mortal)? What was that weird mask he wore (that I managed to snap a photo of with Nexus while he is busy communicating)? Why no one seemed aware that there was a killer’s killer on the loose? Why does the customer service in local inns suck so much?

***

We returned to the Hold with a feeling that we accidentally ran into two great secrets. First was the matter of Overkill, a mysterious killer of killers that seemed to stalk the city without anyone noticing a thing. Second was the identity of Grandma - namely that she obviously was no simple elf.

Simple elves - especially ones from the slums - don’t decode ancient scrolls. Who was she? Why was she living in a slum? Where did she get her knowledge from? Why is Simea side-jabing me so strong?

Curiously, this time we didn’t have to wait for so long to get an answer. Or at least a hint.

Leria was adamant about showing the picture of Overkill’s mask to our resident priest. I decided to comply - it couldn’t make anything worse to be honest. And murdering murderers seemed like khardics modus operandi.

I understood we managed to uncover something the second he looked at the writings. Rather than quick ‘no’ there was a deep interest and focus. Only after ten seconds or so he finally spoke.

“This… is most certainly an archaic form of thaumaturgic vasyrrian.” He said, confirming my suspicions. “At least judging from an alphabet and general word form. But I lack knowledge to decipher it. I doubt there are many people around who could read it.”

“Weird.” I commented. “But understandable. This place must be a prime hunting ground for any devoted khardic. It doesn’t matter where you will throw a rock, it is practically guaranteed to hit an unrepentant sinner.”

“I don’t think that’s the case.” Huh? “You see this rune?” He pointed at the weird concentration of lines that looked roughly like… something. “It changed a bit, but it is used almost exclusively in curses. Powerful ones.”

“So, instead of some answers, I get even more mindfuck.” Maybe I should find a way of showing it to Grandma? She seems to possess a rather uncanny knowledge about things.

The most obvious explanation would be a person cursed by an enchanted mask to kill killers. But khardics didn’t work like that. Redemption had to be done willingly, otherwise it would be a fake one. Departing to fight evil was admirable, forcing people to fight evil was wrong. It was never about destroying evil, it was about fighting it.

Weird.

I should seriously show it to Grandma. I’m beginning to suspect she might be a well hidden mage. That could explain the knowledge. If she proves to know a thaumaturgical language of Vasyrria as well… I’ll be almost sure about that.

Now that I think about it, I also snapped a photo of the weird magical symbols found in the Anchoring Station. One dating back to times before the Dawn War. Might be a bit crazy, but… maybe I should show it to her as well?

Making the whole apartment block of her immigrate here would be probably too much, though.

***

A day of training and… Kovacs group returned from their first raid as a members of Ardent Flame. It was pretty much an average, successful raid conducted by people without the weird affliction that made them stumble upon powerful entities and quests.

They went in, spent a whole day inside, then retreat to a camp outside and after resting for a night go back to base. Normally you would have prolonged the stay by several days and several rests inside the anomaly, but it was a raid done only to kill time before the penalties weaken and to mine some ore in the meantime.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

The group turned out to be very competent in terms of mining. Warforged orc was… useful, to say the least. Especially when one required pure muscle power.

Menara, our great smith, looked most pleased with the fact that her smithy started gathering a small reserve of metals. That was the lifeline of her trade. She must have felt almost naked without them. There was slow but steady progress on every front I guess.

Finally it was the time for the final push into the second part of the Tyrant’s Hold lower level. The mission to reconquer the Graveyard. This would ensure that our takeover of the first cave was a more permanent one. Sure, the place got locked and remained like that for who-knows-how-long, and the symphsteel was almost idiotically useful in sealing Beyond-aligned creatures…

...But I’d have to be an idiot to leave something like that unfinished and at least potentially dangerous. It just begged to kick our asses when we least expected it. We weren’t going to be around permanently, and if we moved civilians here only for the door to the Graveyard suddenly opening…

“So, is everyone prepared?” Two combined groups of adventurers nodded, as if synchronized. “Alright. Leria, open up. And may God have mercy on us all.” I added quietly, so that only Simea could hear it.

I could her loud sigh even through the sound of the door opening.

Surprisingly, there was no unending tide of horrifying enemies. There was only silence and the darkness on the other side. The magical lighting slowly switched on, showing us a long but empty corridor with some doors on the right side.

Interesting. But I think I’d prefer a rush of creatures. This silence is ominous. What’s the chance that there was no daemon to move into this place for few hundred years? Abandon a village for a year and something scary will probably move in.

We entered the corridor. Warriors first, then casters. Of course, right after the door the corridor split There was another one going left.

Wonderful, now we will have to split and…

I looked around me to discover that I was standing alone. The others were all missing.

Ugh. This is going to be a pain. Honestly, a rush of screaming assholes would be a better option than this. I think I know where this is going.

I turned my back to see that the way out disappeared as well. There is a stone wall where a passage was few seconds earlier. I touched it and there was a solid mass behind it. Huh. There are two possible explanations. Either an illusion so advanced that it can fool all senses… or a spatial manipulation.

Might have been weird, but the latter was a better option. A being capable of conjuring such a convincing illusion was bound to be powerful. On the other hand, the spatial manipulation was much harder and the chances for a Reality Warper-type entity to be overwhelmingly strong was close to nil. And when they weren’t like that, they were bound to rules, ones that I knew. And could exploit.

Well, for now let’s walk forward and see where this leads me.

I managed to make few steps before there was a voice. One thundering but easily understood. One that seemed to go from all directions at once.

“THERE IS NOWHERE TO GO. NOWHERE TO ESCAPE. YOU ARE NOW…”

“Could you stop it?” Ugh, this was seriously awkward. “I know who you are, I know what are you trying to do, it won’t work.”

Fallen Angel. Curiously, stereotypical angels (winged humanoids of supernatural origin) were daemons of Shimmer. She gave them great power - combined with quite wide amount of outlooks on life and free will practically on the level of mortals. She probably used it to weed out those unworthy of being in her ranks. Her servile daemons were kinda meritocratic.

There were a shitload of Angel variants in at least several other divine domains. Lust Angels of Deviation, Shadow Angels of Shadow, Brass Angels of Rage and so on. Fallen Angels were angels that fell into becoming a lackeys of Pentagram.

Inri’s daemons were called Shepherds, instead of Angels. And had vastly different looks. Though, curiously, there were some angels that actually converted and served Inri. Even Overtyrant had a small retinue.

Fallen Angels were mostly aligned to Malice. And were a sort of evil-worshipping manipulative bastards with a kink for reality bending and brainwashing that made them a perfect archenemies of… “late-early game” quests dedicated to Pentagram. We were already on that stage in terms of power, so we should be able to face it. More or less. Depends on circumstances.

“Interesting.” The angel abandoned the pretenses. “As expected of a Chosen One. One of Deviation. Weird. What are you searching for in the temple of Anathema?”

Pentagram’s lackeys - and all sapient creatures of Beyond - called the monotheistic gods ‘Anathema’. There were Gods of everything and rulers of Reality, Unreality and generally everything. There was no place for unknowing and uncertainty in ‘their’ universes, since they were all-encompassing. And they created the world for mortals. Just how could something impossible to understand by mortals exist in a world literally made FOR THEM? There was no place for Aberrants in such a world.

It is said that Inri’s crucifixion banished all Beyond-aligned daemons continent-wide, and destroyed dozens of eldritch locations (including entire anomalies). At least several Grand Aberrants essentially went comatose, with their personal dimensions (if they were unfortunate enough to be anchored to Reality somewhere close to mount Golgotha near the now holy city of Aktaab) collapsing on themselves. That’s how much they couldn’t stand their absolute antithesis.

Overtyrant worked similarly, though his partially Aberrant nature weakened it to a point. The Prophetess supposedly scorched old gods of the beastmen with her sheer presence though (or to be exact the Overtyrant’s influence she served as a beacon for). The angel couldn’t even pronounce his name. He would probably burn or something if he did.

“Who knows, maybe I just like… THE OVERTYRANT.” The entire Reality around me shifted for a split second, when the angel’s control over it almost break. He managed to hold it, though. “You certainly aren’t the strongest angel I ever encountered.”

“This isn’t for you to judge, Chosen One.” I could feel the venom in his voice. Oh, how furious he was! Or she. The voice was a bit androgynous. “You might know a lot about my ilk, but I’m strong. Stronger than them. THE STRONGEST. And you are in my power.”

Of course, pride. Find me a single Fallen Angel that doesn’t think that he is the strongest, the most powerful and generally the best among his kind. They were a direct reflection of Malice, A God so insane to literally lead an eternal revolution to subvert everything that all other gods ever managed to create and twist it into something insane. While starting out as a splinter elements of Shimmer personality - and she was a bit egotistic as well.

“Yes, yes. I’m in your power.” I sighed and began walking forward. “Only that your control over this place is severely limited. By nearby symphsteel and by the fact that this is a place where the most devout worshippers of OVERTYRANT…” Another brief shift. “...where lied to rest. And a possible place when we will make worshippers of INRI…” Oh boy, pissing him off was enjoyable. “...settle. You can’t change the logic of the place. It started as a graveyard, and it has to remain a graveyard. It started as corridors leading to you… and it still had to lead to you. That’s how far your Reality-bending powers go.”

I jumped over an invisible pit that he conjured before me.

“Also, I’m an amalthian with my magical senses pushed into permanent overdrive.” I informed him. “I can sense invisible, because you have to use magic to make changes to the Real World.”

To be honest I was the absolutely worst opponent that he could run into. Okay, besides Leria. Made me wonder where she was. The angel probably diverged the Reality into several simultaneously existing “Here”, trapping… well, it was either each of us on its own, or he simply tried to isolate me and Leria, due to us being its most dangerous opponents.

“I see. My long streak of bad luck seems to continue unbroken.” Yes, it was obviously luck. Nothing more. Nothing less. “How about a deal?”

Like I’m stupid enough to make any sort of deal with a daemon that already betrayed his creator (oh boy, Shimmer simply loved it when the Fallen got punched in the face, great occasion to get some favour above) and now served Malice. God of Madness. Who was essentially an aborted fetus of pure madness and evil that continued making world miserable despite this.

“No way. You’d cheat your way out of any deal and I’d probably end up screaming eternally in Pandaemonium. With you floating around me and jabing me with a burning stick just for fun.”

I mean, seriously. Just how stupid did one have to be to go into deals with a being like that? Five year olds might be too smart to do that (especially if their parents warned them to not talk with strangers).

Makes you wonder if the Pentagram didn’t do the world a favour by wiping out the dumbest idiots around. Too bad the collateral damage was so great.

“I see. Too bad. Well, then I guess I’ll have to do it differently. You have a woman amongst the rest? You don’t have to answer, you’ll tell me on your own sooner or later.” A moment of pause. ” I’m going to fuck her right before your eyes. And you know what? After I finish with you, you are going to thank me, and she is going to thank me for blessing her with my seed. She will love…”

Aaand… there it goes.

Pentagram daemons - especially those of Malice - were both insane and evil. Why was that? Because pure evil, one did solely for evil, was insane on its basic level. People did evil for a reason. Even Nazis murdered millions for a reason. They weren’t simply evil. Hitler didn’t wake up one day with a thought ‘hey, let’s just murder all Jews! Oh, and slavic subhumans like Poles or Russians, although we will leave few for a slave work’.

There were reasons for their deeds. We disagreed with them, because they were too far from what we considered good. All actions of a sane person had reasons for it, reasons that were understandable and made sense.

This didn’t mean that there was no good and evil as some idiots said. Good and evil existed and were objective. Our approach to them was far from being rational and objective, though.

Daemons like this angel were insane… because they were evil. No redeeming quality, no sensible reason. Evil because of evil. Murder because of murder. Rape because of rape. Incomprehensible. Insane. It wasn’t even done ‘for the lulz’, for there was no visible ‘lulz’. Ironically, there was even no malice in his voice. The insane angel simply stated what he wanted to do and what he considered normal… after pretending to be more similar to me for his own gain.

“Wonderful, but rather unoriginal.” I interrupted him. “You Malice daemons seem to recycle the same rant over and over again. It’s always the ‘I’ll break your loved ones and make you watch’, always with some creative sexual part. Seriously people, get some new ideas.”

Mocking him probably wasn’t the best idea, but… it was better than him continuing his nightmare-inducing rant. Besides, hearing him talk about Simea made me internally furious.

Seriously, fuck you.

“You are surprisingly talkative… and calm.” Angel said. “Completely unlike mortals I faced so far.”

Yes, that was a greatest trump card of Players, one that Robinson simply couldn’t take away from us. For even the most smart creatures of both the World’s Requiem and the Gates of Eternity we were enemies completely outside of context. With exception of gods, apparently.

Think about it. Angel’s rant would probably shock any NPC. It was a terrible threat and one that could be realized. Bot for us? I knew I couldn’t die for real and the brainwashing part was heavily unlikely as well. Not because it was impossible - I wasn’t crazy enough to believe that DFI didn’t allow this - but because it was improbable.

If I died, I’d just resurrect outside of his sphere of influence. Even if he turned out to be really powerful, we could just abandon the place and flee somewhere else. I would not hesitate to commit suicide, which he was probably at least slightly afraid of (as he couldn’t toy with me anymore if I did). Not to mention that a stupid internet wikipedia about this universe (I used to read it so often that I almost memorized some articles) included a knowledge worth thousand lifetimes of the locals.

Not many people met a Fallen Angel and managed to escape while still being able to form coherent sentences. There were rare and intelligent enough to avoid contact with truly powerful people. They showed themselves only when it was sure they could win or they were cornered.

In the world where there were always NPCs (not to mention the local bestiary) massively more powerful than even the strongest Players, one had to learn how to cheat.

The corridor bend. I could see more doors to burial chambers. Hmph. At the far end of it I could see another bend. Was this place essentially a rectangle corridor surrounded by burial chambers?

I walked forward regardless. I could the power of angel everywhere and it grow stronger with every step. Obviously he had to be somewhere, and if just walk forward, I should eventually run into him.

“I guess I’ll have to use another tactic. This will obviously not work.” Angel said. Captain Obvious it seems. Ugh. ”Well, all I need to do is stall the two of you until my minions deal with the rest.”

Sigh. So either it’s only Leria and me here, or he is just attempting to mindfuck me.

“Fine. Give me a call when any of them dies and tell me how. I need a good laugh.” There was a period of silence while the poor angel tried to comprehend how it’s possible for a mortal - one that wore an object that obviously was marked by Overtyrant - to be so heartless and cruel… like a Pentagram worshipper.

As I said, an enemy outside of context. Only now it went into full effect, but it was more or less a constant theme earlier. Especially with my supernatural knowledge.

He tried to hide the doors. One that lead towards the inside of the rectangle. His power was the strongest there. I touched the doorknob.

Time for the fight.