Begin combat log:
[You have been awarded 4,625 Experience for slaying Level 14 Aquawood Naga Pikeman]
End combat log.
The final Aquawood Naga Pikeman stopped in its tracks near the entrance upon seeing it was alone. It looked on at the Party, weapon in hand, frozen in place - Garath hadn't seen any sign to that point that they were dealing with intelligent monsters here in the dungeon but in that moment he saw the fierce-eyed Naga make a decision. A decision that could spell disaster.
“Sharon, root it!” he shouted.
As the words left his lips, the Pikeman dropped its weapon and whirled around, making a mad dash for the single exit. Sharon's response time wasn't fast enough and the Naga turned the corner and was beyond her line of sight before the thorny roots made it out of the stone floor.
Athios disappeared into a white disk below her feet as Warrion slipped into Stealth and Garath gave chase to the Naga, hoping to catch up and kill it before the brute brought back buddies. Seconds later, a confused, unarmed Naga fell unceremoniously from a silver disk to land between three enemies. The Dimensionalist came running back into the starting cave and barred the way out while Warrion, Sharon, Garath, and the Flayer quickly dispatched the final hostile.
The Party waited, silent, listening for any sign of more enemies approaching.
"Well fuck," said Garath, apparently satisfied that they were alone. His improved sense of smell had registered the scent of Naga when the group of them entered the cave and, though the cave beyond reeked of their fishy aroma, the Necrologist couldn't sense any nearby. "I feel like that went well."
"More like flawless victory," Warrion corrected. The Assassin unequipped his daggers and crouched to inspect one of the downed Naga.
"What did you do before we got here to make them so damned mad?" Sharon accused, shaking her finger at the Necrologist. "...and don't pout, you look like a child."
"I'm not pouting," Garath pouted. He was looking down disappointedly at the corpses of the slain Naga, each with a teal orb floating motionless above it. "I was just hoping looting would be less... messy."
"Ha," Warrion forced a laugh with an uncomfortable expression. "You don't think we have to, like, rifle through their shit, do you?"
"Yeah. For the gear at least, I think we do. I was really hoping for some kind of easy loot system,” said Garath as he approached one of the floating teal orbs hopefully. He reached out one hand and touched it. As soon as the tips of his fingers made contact with the strangely warm orb, it split into four equally sized, smaller balls of the same color. One entered his chest, passing through the cloth t-shirt and his skin as if they weren't even there while the other three zipped across the cave, one entering the chest of each Party member in turn.
You have received .25 Mana Crystal(s). Mana Crystals will be stored in your Items panel until spent, traded, or until you die.
Garath read then reread the prompt.
“Mana Crystals,” Garath said aloud. “Spent, traded, or until you die.”
“Does that mean one of those will come out of us when we die now? Where can we spend or trade them? And what for?” Warrion asked in rapid succession, his mind was full of the same questions Garath found himself wondering.
“Spend or trade,” said Sharon, one arm bent at the elbow, hand under her chin. She looked sharply at Garath. “Currency?”
“That's what it sounds like,” he agreed. “I'll do a forum search later. Let's loot these and keep going.”
The gangly Assassin walked to each orb in turn, tapping them with one finger. The Mana Crystals dispersed evenly to the Party, providing each with 1.25 Crystals.
“You may have to convince your imp first," Athios observed. The little demon had approached the Party, apparently interested in the corpses as well. "Oh, gross! G, are you just going to let it do that?" she asked incredulously as the Flayer savagely started ripping flesh from the chest of a slain Naga.
Garath watched wide-eyed, appalled, but also curious to see what would happen next. The Flayer ripped the blue skin from the Naga's chest, hurling oozing hunks of skin and muscle to the side until its sternum and ribcage were completely visible.
Only when it was unable to easily break through the bone did the little demon notice the four humans watching it with disgust. With the same foul glare on its hideous face and gobbets of bloody flesh dangling from its claws, the Flayer cocked its head questioningly.
"Dude. Make it stop, it's fucking gross. This is some Animal Planet out-take shit," said Warrion - his face crinkled in disgust.
"You don't have to watch," said Garath defensively. He nodded his approval to the Flayer and shrugged. "He isn't hurting anybody..."
The lower demon seemed to understand and returned to scratching wildly at the exposed bones of the Naga lying dead on the tunnel's floor. Garath watched, wondering what it could be after until it dawned on him. He nodded gravely and bent to scoop a Naga pike from the floor. As his fingers made contact with the smooth, sapphire shaft, his Inspect Ability triggered.
Aquawood Trident of Defense
Attack Damage: 19-26 (Physical)
Attack Speed: 2.625
DPS (damage per second): 8.571
Durability: 29/30
Item Score: 18
Two-handed weapon
Type: Polearm
Quality: Above Average
Rarity: Uncommon
Traits:
Grants the Skill ‘Aquawood Defense’
***Aquawood Defense provides the caster +10% to their maximum Health for 6 hours - Cooldown: 24 hours
Item Requirements:
Level: 12
Strength: 8
"I guess that explains the blue lights before they came in..." Garath thought aloud.
"What?" asked Athios.
"Oh, these Tridents come with a Skill that boosts HP," he explained. Athios covered her eyes as Garath lifted the trident with both hands and mentally communicated with the Flayer to, *move.*
The summoned creature backed away as its summoner brought the golden tip of the trident down on the Naga’s chest, splitting the sternum just above the heart and sliding easily through the organs, muscle, and flesh beneath before contacting the stone floor – resulting in a loud, ‘PING!’. Garath lifted the trident a second time and brought it down on the sternum again, this time just below the heart – PING! As he backed away, the Flayer eagerly approached and wrapped its spiny fingers around the rib bone protruding from each side of the loosened hunk of sternum and yanked the bone fragments free.
What came next, Warrion, Sharon, and Athios couldn’t watch – Garath was feeling… different. He craved the blissful feeling of power rushing into his body and sniffed at the air to fill his nostrils with the fishy scent of his prey. Though he personally wouldn't gain any power from the Flayer increasing in strength, it was directly under his command and if it gained strength from...whatever it was about to do, he would gain that strength in turn. Like when he shifted to cat form, he felt the experience points from the slain foes in ecstasy. Unlike his house cat form though, that had gradually grown in its lust for power, this change was noticed immediately. Maybe his improved awareness and decision making from the Concentrated Crystillium had made the difference, or maybe receiving the Tainted Soul debuff in his human form was the difference – whatever it may be, Garath knew he would have to make an effort to keep himself under control.
He watched as his summoned demon ripped the still, blue heart of the Naga from the arteries that connected it to the corpse and held it almost reverently in front of its open mouth. Garath raised an eyebrow when the Flayer stopped, looked at him sourly, then reluctantly held the dripping blue organ out toward him in offering.
*All yours,* he told it.
With a look that could almost be described as grateful, if the face making it hadn’t been hideously transformed by hatred, the Flayer unhinged its jaw and used both hands to stuff the entire organ down its throat. Garath yacked in his m
outh a bit as the demon struggled to swallow the too-large heart, choking and spewing wet gurgling sounds to force it down. As the Flayer fought its lunch all the way down its throat, Garath opened his Items panel and placed the trident inside. He gathered another three of the tridents strewn across the cave and placed each of them in turn into his Items panel.
Once finished with its meal, the bloated little demon sat on the stone floor looking content and, more or less, stoned out of its demonic little mind. Before Garath’s eyes, the Flayer grew in size – not dramatically, but its tiny little muscles tightened and the horns topping its head extended and darkened. Garath thought about one of the first Skills he had received as a Necrologist, Blood Ties. He remembered that it would permanently bind the Flayer to this plain and reduce the chance of mutiny against him. Not remembering the exact details, he pulled up his Skills panel and read the text again.
Blood Ties
Active
Cost: 552 Mana (.85x base Mana)
1 Meter Range
5 Second Cast
*Additional Cost: Tainted Soul*
Effect: Binds targeted Summoned Creature to your realm, and to you personally.
Note: When binding a Demonic creature to this realm, the lifeblood of the caster and that of the Summoned Creature are also bound - slightly altering the characteristics of each.
*Tainted Soul: the form containing your soul is soiled.
“Hey,” said Sharon, interrupting Garath's train of thought. “Garath. Shall we press on?”
“Yeah, give me just a second.”
Warrion rolled his eyes and moaned. “I’m gonna go scout ahead then.”
Athios bent to pick up and store the last trident in her Items panel while Sharon tiptoed after Warrion, craning her neck around the bend leading out of the staging area.
Garath nodded absently, walking to lean against the blue stone wall with his Skills panel open in front of him. He knew shifting into his House Cat form before performing the binding spell that would taint his soul was in his best interest – cats don’t have souls anyways, he figured. As the tingling sensation of shape shifting began to prick at the back of his neck, a prompt appeared.
Warning: You are attempting to BeastScape while a summoned creature is active. Shape shifting will dismiss all summoned creatures.
Do you wish to shift into House Cat form and dismiss all summoned creatures?
Yes or No
Taken aback, he chose not to. He knew he could just summon another Flayer once in Cat form, but something gave him pause. Garath felt some kind of attachment to the ugly little monster now snoring, cuddled into the puss-filled chest cavity of the Naga whose heart it had eaten. He couldn’t explain it, even looking at the creature disgusted him. But Garath knew that the nasty little monster had gotten stronger when it had eaten the heart, and the growing need for more power convinced the Necrologist to throw caution to the wind and bind it to Earth while still in his human form. He closed his eyes as the neurons in his brain made their first connection with a new Skill.
Pitch-black energy that sucked in and blacked all surrounding light shot up from the ground and encircled both the Necrologist and his summoned Flayer, forming a globe of darkness around each of them. Electricity seemed to spark and pop along the inside of the globe containing Garath and he felt it lift him effortlessly into the air. A part of himself, a part that he never knew was there, felt distant from him, detached. The two black globes met in mid-air, the larger swallowing the smaller until they became one. He felt the demon enter his body, his mind, his soul – his own will dominating that of the Flayer completely. The single black globe hovering a few feet off the ground in the blue stone cave shimmered, then vanished and only the Necrologist stood in the space it had been. Garath retrieved the Mana Potion from his Items panel and downed it to recuperate before placing it back in the anomalous grid-space.
Though the Flayer was nowhere in sight, Garath felt its presence in his mind. A place that it would live, waiting to be called in to action. Instinctively, he raised one arm with his palm down and pulled the Flayer from the corner of his mind, forcing it out into the cavernous dungeon. The demon emerged from an invisible tear in space just below his outstretched hand, like the Items panel or Athios’ Dimensionalist Skills, but with no disk to visually denote the tear. Just as easily, he brought his palm down to dismiss the Flayer back into his mind and it vanished from view.
‘Sick!’ Garath thought to himself. He focused on pulling the demon from his mind again, this time trying to make it appear elsewhere. After a few minutes of playing with his new toy, Garath found he was able to will the Flayer into existence anywhere within about a ten-foot radius of his person. He was playfully willing the, increasingly pissed off, little demon into and out of existence around the starting cave when Warrion returned with a scouting report.
“The rest of this tunnel is empty,” he reported. “That’s the good news. The bad news is that it opens up to a cove a little ways ahead. The cove has pats trolling everywhere."
“Pats? Trolls? There are trolls in here, too?” Sharon demanded to know.
“He means patrols, usually a group of dungeon monsters that walk back and forth on a predetermined path to scout for intruders,” Athios explained efficiently.
Warrion nodded and equipped his daggers, then turned to Garath. “You done dicking around?”
Garath thought about it for a moment. He wanted to see the layout of the cove and try to time a strategy for pulling the patrol groups one by one back into the tunnel to wipe them out without alerting the others. That would be the ideal scenario of course and, so far, the dungeon appeared to be following a typical RPG dungeon format – but for some reason, the Necrologist felt that there were surprises ahead. He yearned for the precious Exp points he would gain in the cove ahead and his mouth actually watered at the thought. He wanted more power, needed more power, and so very much of it was waiting patiently for him through the tunnel ahead.
“Almost," he decided.
A pale green summoning circle appeared at the Necrologist’s feet and the gargoyle shaped Fel Hound emerged, wagging its stumpy tail excitedly. The German Shepherd sized dog-demon sat at attention, awaiting orders. Garath once again cast Demonic Bond and went through the same process of being encapsulated by sparking, black energy before emerging with a new presence inside of his mind, completely dominated by his will. The flood of power filled him even further and he grinned wickedly, but something felt off. His lips felt wrong somehow as they lifted over his teeth. He hurriedly opened his Profile panel to look at himself.
He looked at the holographic representation of his Character closely. His cheekbones seemed to protrude even more than they had before, and his canines had elongated. Paired with his ominously glowing eyes, Garath’s appearance even frightened himself little. He ran his hands along his face as he looked at the villainous avatar standing motionless on the holographic panel. As his fingers reached his forehead, he felt a small bump growing a few inches above his eyebrows. His thoughts of wondering what he was becoming didn’t last long, he liked the new look and the power it came with. He closed his Profile panel and nodded.
As the Party moved out of the starting area and down the tunnel toward the cove, they each received a private message.
Private Message from Gary to Sharon#142; Garath; Athios; Warrion - 00/00/06 @ 07:17:
Come back as soon as possible. Everyone infected with Plague. Hoping Sharon can cure it. Two dead already.
Gary
Chapter 30
Plague
The golden summer sunlight pouring in through the windows and the heat of the fire in the main hall of BOTH HQ had long since dried Daisy's tears as she lay on the couch with her head in Gran's lap, her little arms wrapped around the lifeless body of the only relative she had ever known. The tiny Elementalist had only ever had Gran to look after her. The two of them had been together for as long as Daisy could remember.
Gary looked on from
behind the couch at the heart broken little girl. He felt deeply for her and didn't have the heart to pull her away from her beloved Gran, so he just watched with folded arms and dampened eyes. The bearded man finally worked himself up and placed his hand on her shoulder, she didn't look up.
"Go away, Gary."
"Daisy," he said gently, taking a seat beside her on the couch before the fire. "We can't just let her stay there. We'll give her a proper burial soon but for now I need to move her bo..." he couldn't finish. He couldn't refer to the corpse in front of him as just a body when it was obviously so much more to the little girl still clinging to it.
"Body?" she finished for him.
"Yeah."
"I won't let you!" she shouted, fresh tears cascading down her porcelain face.
The Culling of Man: A litrpg adventure (Peril's Prodigy Book 1) Page 26