After three days of slaying monsters, pinging new challenges, and guarding the doors of the tree challenge, Seth was almost certain that his trap was successful.
He strolled back into the small clearing where a large grey tree with vibrant red leaves sat unperturbed. After the first day, he had set up a bit of camouflage around the entrance in order to make sure no other participants would stumble upon the challenge and try to wait out the trio he was already hunting. Of course, it was still quite hard to camouflage a huge tree with red leaves, so in reality it was just a measure to make Seth feel better.
For the umpteenth time, he checked to make sure the glowing orange myths were no longer changing, then he crept around the perimeter of the silver tree, looking for any signs of damage or holes that might have been used for escape. He even spread out his search into the near wilderness around the clearing, just in case they might have dug a hole farther out to try and escape him. After a half hour of searching, Seth let out a satisfied sigh when he failed to find any escape routes.
Makes sense right, they’re royalty, why would any of them have an ability to dig holes?
He grinned despite himself. It looked like none of the challenges were designed to have any other exit except the one they walked through. It was truly a cheap move, a coward’s way out, some would say.
“Too bad I don’t give a shit.” He claimed aloud.
The plan wasn’t exactly full proof, but it was still brutally effective if Seth’s hypothesis was correct, and the doors were the only exit. It also depended on the abilities of the trio as well as their belongings. For all Seth knew, they might have a teleportation ability, or perhaps a phasing one. Or, maybe they had some sort of powerful item at their disposal. What really mattered in the whole plan was whether or not the royal trio had planned for such a contingency. Because if not, Seth was quite sure that because most of the participants are ‘also royals’ as Lord Dick liked to put it, that means that none of them would be expecting such a lowly trap.
So in reality, this was his first test of many in order to decide just how experienced the other participants really were. The fact it was these three that had to be experimented on first was just a plus.
If I could do this to all the participants, then I would be able to do however many challenges I wanted without interruption!
The thought of all the possible tempering rewards made Seth drool.
Depending on how many challenges are in each event dimension, I might be able to hit tier three before moving to the next one!
With a renewed sense of vigor, Seth took a quick water break before heading to the nearest challenge he had scouted days before. The next challenge was in a particularly smelly section of the swamp. Although all of it was disgusting, this spot definitely took the cake. Swarms of dismembered corpses floated in a green-purple pond that formulated a sort of moat around a small island in its center. The corpses were Seth’s doing, as he had found that the colored liquid of the pond was quite acidic to the touch. He had constantly brought any monsters in the area over to the pond in order to try and form a pseudo-bridge out of their surprisingly resilient hide.
He initially tried to build an actual bridge out of fallen trees, but for some reason, they would just sink while only the bodies would float. What was more odd was the fact that he had killed a rather large grey boar-like creature that was bigger than some of the trees, yet it did not sink at all. Regardless of the odd properties of the pond, he was certain that entering the liquid would be his demise, so although gruesome, he continued to build the corpse bridge diligently. Because he had been working on it for a couple days before, it only took a few more hours of hunting to complete the ugly walkway.
While attempting to shake off some of the smelly remains, Seth tested the bridge with a similarly weighted log he cut off from a nearby tree. In expert granny throw form, he lobbed the log onto one of the smaller corpses and found that the body sunk a couple centimeters before holding its position above the water line. In silent celebration, he quickly mounted the bridge and made his way to the island. The short journey ended with Seth safely landing on the island in the center, where a trapdoor made of familiar silver metal sat closed.
“Come to Papa,” he murmured before pulling eagerly on the handle.
With a satisfying groan, the trapdoor smoothly opened to reveal a ladder leading farther down into the darkness. He was just about to dive in when a horrid stench even worse than the rotting corpses outside began to assault his nostrils.
“Bleurgh!” Seth retched for a moment before taking a spare piece of tanned Xtrey Wolf hide from his cache.
He quickly wrapped it around his head a few times before securing it with a few pins he had bought back in Ethin. They were originally meant to be used to secure a curtain for a makeshift shelter he purchased on instinct, but they worked for this situation as well. With only a slit left open for his eyes, and an elementary defense against the atrocious stench, he finally began his descent into the pit.
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After one minute of climbing, Seth was patient and excited.
After five minutes, he was mildly curious about how deep the hole was.
After a half hour, he was ready to jump.
There was nothing very interesting about the descent. It was incredibly dark, it smelled like death, and the steel ladder was the only thing that he could see. He impatiently activated True Sight in an effort to see the bottom, but no matter how hard he tried, a black pit was the only thing that met his gaze. He huffed in annoyance before inspecting the walls around him. Or, he tried to, but darkness surrounded him on all sides.
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A full hour passed by, and he finally found the end of his patience. He quickly stopped humming “I Get Around” by the Beach Boys and summoned Anar from his hand. Next, he let go of the ladder and began a freefall while watching under himself with True Sight. Air ripped at his makeshift mask as he continued his silent fall. Soon enough, a small purple outline started to grow beneath him.
Seth’s stomach did a quick somersault before he slammed Anar into the space between two rungs on the ladder. Anar bent almost ninety degrees, while Seth’s arms and shoulders screamed with pain and exertion. Luckily, his trusty weapon didn’t break by the show of force, and he swiftly wrapped himself around the ladder before dismissing his glaive. His left arm hung limply at his side while his right creaked horribly in its place on a rung. With a grimace, Seth used a lower classed recovery crystal and sat in anguish while his muscles regrew and stitched themselves back together. His shoulders painfully slammed themselves back in place and the bones of his left arm cracked loudly while they were demolished and rebuilt in a few seconds.
“Why couldn’t they make these damn things painless?” Seth mumbled to himself before resuming his tireless climb while drenched in sweat from the humid stench and exhaustion.
On the bright side, his fall had brought him roughly a few hundred meters from the ground, so he slid the rest of the way down while using a few pieces of snakeskin to stop the ladder from burning his hands. When he finally reached the ground, he almost went to kiss it before he noticed that it consisted of a mushy, green and purple sludge. He tested its depth and contents with his glaive and found that it was only a couple inches deep and non-caustic, so he dropped down with a sickening thwoop. Thankfully, his boots were rather high on his ankles, so the liquid didn’t directly touch his skin.
Seth casually rubbed the calluses on his palms before glancing around the new area for any signs of the challenge. Within a few seconds, he saw a small purple-pink pile of something in the distance. Summoning forth Anar and a shadowy clone, he advanced on the distant mass. As he got closer, he found that the pile was actually a large monster, lying on its side like a corpse. Although the creature looked like it had been rather formidable before, now it looked like only a husk of its previous might. Pulsing blisters littered the surface of a thin pelt of fur. The dark skin underneath looked as if it was thinner than paper, showing bones and withering muscles.
The monster was as large as a semi, with six sleek limbs stretching from a broad chest. What must have been numerous clawed fingers now looked to be wet socks covered in pus and blood. A familiar green and purple sludge excreted from pores all over the beast, including the ram-like head and a spiked, long tail that mostly sat submerged under the sludge.
With a fright, Seth realized the thing was still breathing, as he saw the slight rise and fall of a diseased chest. He waded over to the creature’s head and saw four milky white eyes slowly roll over to gaze at his figure. Real fear thrummed through Seth as he felt an echo of an ancient and strong power emit from the beast’s sightless eyes.
In its hay day, this thing might have been a tier seven, maybe even higher!
With renewed caution, Seth slowly etched away from the dying monster. Regardless of how bad it looked, he was unsure even an incapacitated eldritch horror like this thing could be beaten by a tier two like Seth. With a shaky thought, he activated Perceive and discovered a crimson silhouette of what could only be described as a nightmare staring back at him with a clear hunger in its eyes. It was like the creature was back at its peak, standing over its own disease-ridden corpse like nothing was wrong.
Terror clawed its way up his throat as Seth froze in place while the creature’s anima slowly withdrew back into the body of the dying corpse. With its milky eyes still on him, the rotting maw of the body opened to reveal a mouth full of maggots and receding gums. Slowly, its lips began to move as if it were trying to speak with Seth.
Instead of words, his ears were assaulted by a series of moans and whimpers, an unexpected sound given that the thing’s anima had such a horrifying presence just seconds before.
The creature’s moans did not cease as Seth stood unmoving in the disgusting bog of the creature’s fluids. Unsure of what to do, he just watched with obvious ignorance as the beast continued to try an speak. Finally, the monster gave a heavy sigh that rattled through its body like sandpaper before a wave of the disgusting sludge shot toward Seth at an inconceivable speed. Regardless of his superhuman senses, Seth was unable to react before tendrils of the sludge found purchase in his nostrils and mouth, quickly overwhelming his makeshift mask and choking him out.
Muffled screams sought to find their way out as he wildly swung at the tendrils with Anar, trying to stop the ceaseless onslaught of disgusting fluid. Then, as quickly as they had arrived, they fell back lifelessly into the pool below.
Seth fell onto all fours as he pulled off the mask and loudly retched out all of the fluid that remained in his mouth and throat. Tears stung his eyes at the horrid stench that now burrowed into his nostrils and wafted through his lungs. Still hacking from the sludge, he turned and weakly pointed his glaive at the motionless beast in a poor defensive stance. Again, the creature’s lips started to move and a small crimson myth began to burn weakly in the air between them.
“Can you understand me now brat?” a throaty and masculine voice asked him.
Seth stood dumbfounded while the creature seemed to sense his understanding.
“I thought all of you pitiful slaves had the ability to understand every tongue? Whatever, I do not care. It is time you fulfill your part of the contract; I have been here for much too long. No participants even come down here, how am I supposed to perish if none of them ever come to me? Remember me? It’s Rulik! It has been over thirty thousand cycles past the limit we agreed on! Kill me NOW!”
The last demand seemed to overtax the creature, as he erupted into a fit of disgusting wheezes and hacks that overshadowed Seth’s own. Still totally unaware of what was going on, Seth slowly responded to ‘Rulik’s’ outburst. “Um, I think you have me confused with someone else… I am one of the participants.” Rulik’s milky eyes narrowed at his proclamation,
“Don’t try to fib you little brat, I might not have my eyesight, but I can tell by the taste of your blood that you are a fiend. All participants are royal twits of high to divine classed races, no member of dark lineage would have access to such a prestigious event! But… wait a moment… no… I can barely feel your power at all. One so weak wouldn’t be able to be a member of their organization. Hmmm… perhaps you are a participant. Either that or the organization has truly fallen so far they would need to recruit a tier two of all things.”
He finished with a disgusted moan. Seth sat quietly and tried not to be offended while the creature worked through its thoughts. He was becoming weirdly accustomed to accommodating temperamental ancient beings. Finally, Rulik finished thinking about whatever he was working through and turned his attention back to Seth.
“It matters not if you are a participant or a member, just slay me so I can be done with this suffering. I am already well past due of my contract as no one ever enters my domain for Nic knows what reason. Kill me and claim your little reward brat.”
Rulik coughed with clear relief in his tone. Seth honestly wanted nothing to do with whatever contract the beast was going on about, but killing a monster that wouldn’t fight back and getting rewarded for it sounded like an incredibly easy challenge to him. Hefting Anar, he moved forward to strike the killing blow and fulfill the wishes of the suffering being. Right before bringing down his weapon, a rather sinister thought occurred to Seth.
What else could I get out of him?