The tendrils of mana joined to form a vortex amid the ring of dead foblins, and another notification popped open.
Touch of Decrepitude completed.
Total months drained: 132 (base 88 + 50% death bonus)
Flexing my will, I guided the vortex into the chalice. It made the green flames soar as they hungrily consumed the plundered life force. Then I moved my attention to the open book in front of me.
I put my hand on the book and willed it to activate. My mind instantly filled with the sounds of tortured screams, and I felt a terrible and malignant consciousness, almost as terrible as my own deity, brush against mine.
It chuckled evilly, the voice coming from the unholy chalice. “Yes, let me loose, goblin. I will destroy all your enemies.”
I could feel the incredible malice in the creature’s tone and took another long, steadying breath. “Who are you?”
“Since you didn’t specify a name during the ritual, I am the one who answered your summons,” the being replied. “Now let us proceed with our pact. I demand the tribute you’ve prepared, along with half the souls of those who serve you. Then, I will be let loose and vanquish your enemies.”
“No thank you,” I said. “I think I’ll try my luck with someone a little more agreeable.”
“You impertinent fool!” the voice hissed. “You have not uttered another’s name. Ours are shrouded in darkness from mere mortals. I was the one who heeded your call, so—”
“Sorry, you might not have heard, but darkness is kinda my thing. Hanging up now.”
“You impudent—”
The demon started but I cut him off by clearly uttering a single word. “Kusitesh.”
The raging voice disappeared and a new one emerged. “My, my, what a pleasure to speak with you again, my love,” the demoness said, practically moaning.
“Hello again.”
“I knew you’d find me again, my love,” she purred. “I felt your passion when we bonded.”
“Save it,” I said. “Your charms won’t work on me through the summoning ritual. I’m here to offer you a deal.”
Kusitesh was the beautiful succubus demon who’d taken over Ogre Fort before I vanquished her and assumed control of the settlement. She was a dangerous foe, but I preferred working with someone I knew over some random being of evil.
“I hunger for your touch.” Her voice was like liquid honey. “Simply call me to your side, and I will fulfill your every desire.”
“I need you to kill a force of a thousand bouldites. Can you do it?” I asked, holding the chalice that was filled to the brim with the extracted souls over the vile book.
“Hmm … perhaps,” she purred. “Your offering pleases me, and once your enemies are vanquished, we can join our bodies in eternal pleasure—”
“No. Take my offering. Kill the bouldites, then go back to hell. Deal?”
“Maybe just a parting kiss?”
“No. Deal?”
“Deal,” she sighed.
I nodded. “Deal.”
The fires of the chalice brimmed higher, and the torrent of stolen life energy poured out of it and into the book. The pages started flipping madly and sulfuric mists erupted out of it. I moved away as purple lightning and more sulfuric gases poured out, and I was finally able to see the horde of approaching bouldites. They were already charging.
The ground shook and started to sink as if pressed down by a tremendous weight. A crater formed and shapes poured out of the gas, howling madly, climbing up the now steep walls of the craters in a mad dash for blood.
There were Ogre-sized demons with horns, serpentine Pyrolith demons, and Stalker demons, skittering on their many spearlike legs. They poured out of the crater in waves and charged headlong at the approaching bouldite force.
I continued backing away as the demons slammed into the first rank of my enemies, and the two sides started hacking each other apart. The battle was brutal; demons were smashed to the ground and pelted with giant boulders, but the fight was anything but one-sided. The demons seemed stronger than those I’d fought in the past, and they systematically butchered the bouldites, ignoring their own fatalities.
“They’re stronger than before,” I murmured.
“Of course they are, my love,” a tantalizing voice whispered in my ear, and I felt cool hands sliding down my shoulders and wrapping around my chest.
“Kusitesh,” I said, not daring to look behind me to view her amazing, will-crushing body.
“Yes, my love?” she murmured, pressing herself harder against my back, sending shivers of delight down my spine despite the alarm bells ringing through my mind. Her hands continued to caress my chest, somehow reaching my skin beneath my armor. Her touch was intoxicating, and I had to fight down a shiver of pleasure. Even without gazing on her otherworldly, and apparently naked, body, the seductress was incredibly hard to resist. I kept my eyes focused on the battle and forced myself to ignore her touch. She couldn’t harm me; not unless I gave in to her attempt.
“You were saying something about your demons being stronger than before?”
“Yes, my love.” Her whispers tingled my ear. “When we first met, I had only the fraction of a pathetic Ogre’s soul to draw on. The feast you had prepared for me is much more … succulent.” She shivered against me in pleasure. “Though my power would grow tenfold if you’d simply turn to face my eager mouth.”
The alarm bells were ringing madly inside my mind now. I recognized it as the Danger Sense ability I’d gained when I reached the Apprentice rank of the Lucky Bastard skill. It was screaming in my mind not to surrender to the demoness’s wishes.
I continued watching the battle. The bouldites were smashing the front ranks of the Stalker demons, but the creatures’ sharp spearlike limbs pierced their bodies as they did so. A battalion of greater Pyrolith demons let loose a cloud of fireballs, covering half the enemy forces, burning away their health. The giant horned demons who led the charge were bigger even than the bouldites, and they wielded long scythes that sheared off limbs and breathed superheated ash that incinerated anything it touched.
But the fight was far from being decided.
A battalion of hurlers returned the Pyroliths’ volleys with their own, and the mass of stone pulverized scaled bodies and turned hordes of Stalkers into shards of broken spears.
Bouldites were being killed by the score, but so were the demons, and no new ones were coming out of the sulfuric cloud. My mana was at 60 percent and still regenerating from the immense drain of the spell, but I was too far away from the fight to hurl any of my spells. And it looked like I was going to need to.
“This is not enough,” I said, realizing the tide had turned and the bouldites would win out, with nearly half their forces remaining, albeit wounded.
“Alas, no,” Kusitesh breathed, somehow making even these words sound seductive. “But if you give yourself to me … your enemies will die, and you and I will know eternal pleasure.”
It was getting hard to fight the compulsion now. I knew all I had to do was turn around and accept her offer, and I would have my victory. But I also knew the price I’d have to pay would be too much. “No.”
The last pockets of demons were quickly dwindling as the bouldites surrounded them.
“You will lose otherwise.”
“No!” I shouted. I could still feel the pulsing dimensional breach, hungry for more souls. I directed my mana at it, latching onto it with my will, feeding it my mana, forcing it to widen.
“Oh yes, good …” th
e demoness sighed behind me. “Give me everything you have, my love.”
I clenched my will as mana poured out of me in vast surges, slipping into the rift, feeding its unending hunger.
More demons poured from the crater, charging out en masse as they hurled themselves against the bouldites.
I started to shake from exhaustion as my mana nearly bottomed out, but I knew it was still not enough. I forced myself to concentrate, putting more of myself into the raging spell. My legs buckled, but the warm arms around me were like steel, holding me in place, tightening around my chest.
“More,” she begged. “Give me more.”
My mana bottomed out, but the waves of energy coming out of me didn’t stop. Dark billows of mana were replaced by red mists as my very lifeblood poured into the rift, giving birth to even more monsters.
“Ohh, yes,” she groaned. “Yes, give me more!”
My head was spinning. I couldn’t focus. My health was running out, but I couldn’t stop. It was like I’d broken a dam and there was no way to fix it.
The last thing I saw before the haze took me over were the hordes of demons eviscerating the last of the bouldites. Then there was only darkness.
***
You have died!
Based on your level and boss tier, your resurrection will occur in 10 days. (Dying without triggering Nihilator’s Sanction has reduced the original duration of 50 days by 80%.)
“What the hell?” I stared at the notification. “I actually died?”
“Yeah, ‘hell’ would be the operative word here. They should put on a warning sign: ‘Deals with demons may lead to death,’” Vic said, appearing next to me in his goblin shape. “Welcome to the deathscape, Boss. It’s kind of a new thing – one of Shiva’s tweaks. Cheer up, could’ve been worse if not for your cheating sanction ability.”
“But why didn’t it stop me from dying in the first place?”
Vic shrugged. “Conflicting conditions. The ability kicks in when you take enough damage to hit zero health, but you didn’t simply take damage. You poured your soul into the summoning ritual, and, well … you ran out. Instant death kinda deal. Sort of like the loophole you used to insta-kill that invulnerable mayor of Akzar.”
“Hold on, I lost my soul?”
“Yeah, but don’t worry, it’s not such a big deal. Remember we talked about this once? Souls in NEO are just another type of resource. Though mining them can get a little morbid. You’ll get a new one when you respawn, though there might be some penalties involved.”
Right, this was just a game. It was hard to remember sometimes. “So I have to wait here for ten days before I’ll get back into the game?”
“Yep. Boss death timers are the worst. Dead Guy, I think I might actually die of boredom.” Vic chuckled. “Bored-doom.”
I shook my head at my companion’s antics. “Is that why you tried to stop me back there?”
“Well, naturally. I knew what would happen if you got us thrown in here. Trust me, it’s much worse for us VIs. We can feel. Every. Agonizing. Second.”
“So they put their all-powerful deliverer into a time-out?”
“Don’t make a big deal out of it, Boss. Knowing you, I calculated a four percent chance of you doing something monumentally stupid while being here, so I decided to tag along.”
“I don’t know what you thought I could do while being stuck at—” I started saying, running a hand over my head, only for my fingers to go through it as if they were made of air. “Huh.” I looked at my dissipating arm. “I guess I’ll see you in ten days, Vic.”
“What? No!” Real dread was etched on the VI’s face. “Don’t leave me alone in here, Boss, or I’ll go in—”
But I didn’t catch the rest of the sentence. The game had evaporated around me and a familiar soothing voice spoke in my mind.
“Logging you out in 3 … 2… 1 …”
20 - Downtrodden
“Morning, bro.” Tal’s grinning face welcomed me as I opened my eyes, still inside the FIVR capsule.
“Hey, Tal.” I squinted at the bright light as a lab technician moved to disengage my straps. “What time is it? I didn’t expect to be logged out yet.”
“It’s late in the evening,” my friend said. “And yeah, you were scheduled to come out at midnight, but Jim told the technicians to bring you out now.”
“Oh?” A bit of dread crawled into my heart. This couldn’t be good news.
“Yeah.” Tal winced. “I’m not sure what happened. One second he was worried about your readings, then he relaxed and said you’d entered a prolonged REM state and could be safely logged out.”
“That must have been due to being dead,” I said, stepping out from the immersion rig. “It’s actually good that you’ve taken me out; I wasn’t looking forward to spending ten days of time-out.”
Tal whistled “Ten days? That’s harsh.”
“Yeah …” I frowned. “The war isn’t going well, I should be in there, helping the others.”
Tal shrugged. “Nothing we can do about it. You have a little over eight hours here before ten days will pass in the game, so you might as well take advantage of it. Eat, rest – hell, maybe the two of us can go out for drinks. It’s been ages since we’ve done that.”
“I guess, you’re right …” I hated to waste time. Eight hours was a large portion of the two days deadline the company had imposed on me, and I couldn’t rely on Jim not counting this time against my limit. But it wasn’t like I had a choice in the matter.
“Great!” Tal brightened. “Come on, let’s get you to your room. Jim asked you to come by and see him in half an hour, so he has time to go over the logs. You might as well get dressed up while you’re at it. We’ll head out after the two of you have spoken.”
Tal accompanied me to the room the company had assigned for me, and we decided to meet in the lobby after my conversation with Jim.
As was my custom, I took a quick shower, feeling the water wash away some of my worries. I stood with a towel around my waist and stared at the mirror for a long moment. I almost didn’t recognize the man staring back at me. I knew it was me, but it felt like I was looking through another person’s eyes. A person who was wearing an Oren-shaped skin costume. The eyes that looked back at me were blue, not red. I shuddered at the disturbing notion. “I’m myself,” I whispered to my reflection, watching his mouth repeat the words. “I’m not a goblin.” Not while out here. The thought came unbidden.
I stared down at my palm. For a second, I thought I saw sharp goblin nails, but it was only my fingers, clutching the towel.
I got out of the shower and dressed up, slipping on new jeans, a T-shirt, and my favorite brown coat, which someone – probably Tal – had taken the time to bring in from my apartment.
I stepped out of the room and walked down the corridor toward the office of the head technician.
“Come in,” Jim’s voice answered when I rapped my knuckles against the door.
I opened the door and found the man sitting behind his desk, his expression grave as he looked at me. “Hello, Oren. Please have a seat.”
“Uh oh,” I said, trying to sound jovial as I sat down. “I’d say that’s the tone you usually take to tell me things aren’t looking good for me.”
He grimaced. “And you’d be right.” He pointed at a graph displayed on the wall monitor. The graph seemed to spread evenly except toward the end. A giant spike was easily discernible as it came out of the graph’s borders.
I shrank in my seat a little. “So it’s not good.”
“No.” Jim shook his head. “It’s actually very bad. It’s like all your synapses flared at once. It’s even worse than when you were tortured. What happened?”
I knew what had happened, but I wasn’t proud to reveal I’d blatantly disregarded the man’s advice to stay relaxed. “I … sort of … had to make a deal with … ahem … the devil.” Saying it out loud sounded ridiculous to my ears.
Jim raised an eyebrow at me.
“I had to do something. The VIs are now actively directing monster mobs against us. If I didn’t make that deal, they’d have obliterated our forces, probably crippling us enough to keep us from ever regaining a foothold in their territory.”
Jim shook his head. “There’s more to it than that.”
“I sort of had to sell my soul.” I cringed. “It wasn’t pleasant.”
Jim sighed. “Whatever it was, it placed your brain under immense strain. I see a notable decline in your cerebral activity from that point on. Whatever you did, it hit you badly and left some lingering damage. I’m afraid it would be reckless of me to authorize your return into NEO, Oren. I’m sorry.”
“You can’t do that!” I said, feeling my heart rate picking up. “I’m so close. I can free the other players – I know I can!”
“Oren,” Jim said empathically. “You are killing yourself. I can’t in good conscience support—”
“You promised me two days. I still have over a day left.”
The head technician shook his head. “That would be too dangerous now. Even a few hours might—”
“Then give me a few hours.” I fought down the rage that started boiling in my stomach. I wasn’t ready to never see my friends or family again. “Think about it, in a few hours, everyone in the game can be set free. Will you be the one to condemn thousands to remain stuck in there?”
Jim gave me a long, steady look. “You can’t make that promise.”
I didn’t answer. I’d presented the argument; anything beyond that would diminish my position. I simply returned his gaze. The next one of us to speak would lose.
Jim thinned his lips. “You have …” he looked at a ticking countdown, “seven hours and 52 minutes before your character’s resurrection.”
I nodded, waiting for him to continue.
“I’ll allow you to log in, one last time,” he said. “But until then, I want you to use the time you have to relax and rest. I’ll run some calculations to determine how much time I can safely give you when you return.”
Life Reset: Salvation (Life Reset - Neo Book 6) Page 37