by A. J. Markam
SUCCUBUS 5
Hardcore Dungeon Core
A.J. Markam
A LitRPG Series
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Copyright © 2018 by A.J. Markam
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Also by A.J. Markam
Succubus
(Kindle and audiobook)
Succubus 2: Hell To Pay
(Kindle and audiobook)
Succubus 3:
The Good, The Bad, And The Crazy Stupid Hot
Succubus 4:
Gnome Place Like Home
Dead Man Gaming
Zodiac: Operation Zodiac
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Also by A.J. Markam
Recommended
1
In an instant, I lost it all.
The woman I loved more than anyone else ever was dead.
I had feared for her safety for days. I’d tried to protect her… and failed.
In the seconds leading up to her death, my fear became overwhelming terror.
When I realized she was gone, terror became shock.
Shock turned into a tsunami of grief.
Grief looked around for who was to blame…
…and then became hate-filled, world-shattering, murderous rage.
2
We had gone to kill Alaria’s ex-master, a gnomish Warlock named Orlo. Before we could, though, he trapped her soul in a metallic body.
Normally I was able to heal my demons through spells, but it didn’t work on her robotic form. Any damage she took was as good as permanent unless she was physically repaired, which we never even had time to try.
In our final climactic battle against Orlo and a vicious bounty hunter named Shyvock, Alaria fell into a volcano. Orlo’s backstabbing, double-crossing succubus Soraiya saved Alaria at the last minute, but had only been able to retrieve her head.
That was enough. Alaria’s soul held on. She was still alive.
After Orlo’s death, we returned to his lab, where Soraiya claimed she could restore Alaria’s consciousness to her flesh-and-blood body. Soraiya had even sworn a supposedly unbreakable Oath of the Seven Hells that she would do it.
She had failed.
Maybe intentionally.
Now I stood there in Orlo’s lab, looking at the ruined face of the love of my life.
Black smoke poured from the empty eye sockets of her charred metal face, her mouth open in a silent scream.
At first I couldn’t believe she was gone.
I kept looking over at her crimson body just ten feet away, expecting any second for it to sit up. For her face to light up in laughter. For her to get down off that table and run over and passionately kiss me.
Instead, she just lay there on the slab, motionless.
Dead.
To think I hadn’t wanted anyone to call the table a ‘slab’ because it sounded too much like she was in a morgue.
I’d foreshadowed her death myself without knowing it.
Maybe I’d even jinxed her.
I wished I’d died instead of her.
I wanted to die.
It certainly felt like I was going to any second.
I touched Alaria’s face – her scorched metal cheek – and burst into tears.
In my grief, all I could think of was, She was in agony! She died in pain, screaming my name!
I was vaguely aware of my imp Stig just a few feet away, a shell-shocked look on his face.
Grung – the demon we had befriended when his soul was trapped inside a war machine – stood nearby, his hands covering his mouth in horror.
I intentionally ignored them. Blocked them out. I could see the proof of her death written on their faces, and what I didn’t want was proof.
I didn’t want to believe it. I kept looking over at her real body, praying for it all to be okay. I indulged in magical thinking, insisting it was all a mistake, hoping that any second she would come back to me.
But if the evidence of my eyes wasn’t enough, the computer window that had appeared certainly was.
YOUR SUCCUBUS ALARIA HAS PERMANENTLY DIED.
DO YOU WISH TO SUMMON ANOTHER?
Not ‘died’ like in a videogame, where you have endless lives and can resurrect an infinite number of times.
‘Died’ like real life. Where you never come back, and there’s a hole in the hearts of everyone who loved you.
I didn’t understand. None of this made any sense.
Soraiya had said –
SORAIYA.
I turned around, my face twisted into a mask of hatred.
The plum-colored succubus looked absolutely panicked.
She was also retreating step by quiet step.
As soon as she saw the look on my face, she began babbling, “I didn’t do anything, I swear to Goddess – it just happened, it was an accident – ”
“LIAR!” I roared as I cast Soul Suck at her, blue lightning blasting through the air into her chest. “YOU KILLED HER!”
“Stop!” she screamed as the spell jolted through her. “I didn’t, you know I didn’t, I took the Oath!”
“AND YOU BROKE IT!”
As soon as Soul Suck finished, I hit her with Darkfire. Black tongues of flame raced over her purple skin, and she grimaced in pain.
“I can’t break the Oath – you know that!” Soraiya shrieked. “It’s not possible!”
“Like it’s not possible to attack your own master?!” I sneered. “Not possible like that?!”
During the fight at the volcano, Soraiya had conspired with Shyvock and betrayed her master by slamming three explosive arrows into Orlo’s back. More than anything, that single act of treachery had sealed the gnome’s doom.
Sort of like letting her near the laboratory controls had sealed Alaria’s.
“Orlo never explicitly forbade me to attack him!” she yelled as one of my Darkbolts slammed her against the wall. “He thought I was too timid, too weak to oppose him!”
“Like I thought I could trust you with Alaria’s life?!”
“I saved her at the volcano! Why would I kill her?!”
“MAYBE JUST TO TWIST THE FUCKING KNIFE, YOU LYING BITCH!”
I cast spell after spell at her. Darkbolt, Doomsday, Unho
ly Quartet –
The problem was, she was still a Level 90 demon. Even after Orlo’s death, she had maintained her ranking – and she had Level 90 hit points to match. Though nowhere near as powerful or invulnerable as her dead master, she was more than strong enough to weather my little Level 25 attacks.
But she wasn’t fighting back.
Which was odd.
“I swear to you, I didn’t do anything!” she shrieked. “Stop it!”
I ignored her and cast Hellstorm. A swarm of tiny, black-winged demons appeared like bats and rained down flaming sulfur on her, searing her skin, leaving her face and arms pockmarked with ugly burns.
I guess that was the last straw. If you’re going to mess with a succubus, the one thing you do not want to do is fuck with her appearance.
“TO HELL WITH YOU!” she screamed, and launched a fireball at me.
It slammed into my shoulder and knocked me backwards. The flames scorched my clothes and blistered my skin – but I didn’t give a damn.
I was going to kill that bitch no matter how much damage she inflicted.
Unfortunately, she could inflict a lot.
She thrust out her arm, and a burning whip made of fire materialized in her hand. She CRACKED it in the air, and I felt the end lash my cheek like a red-hot razor blade.
Two inches higher and it would have put out my eye.
Like Alaria’s eyes – gone, just sockets pouring out smoke –
I screamed – not in pain, but in fury – and hit her with Soul Suck again.
“Stig, get her!” I screamed.
My imp’s terrified face lit up in the blue light of my spell. “Boss, I think she’s telling the truth – ”
“KILL HER!”
He had no collar on him to compel him to act, but he did. Out of personal loyalty to me. Although I could see from his face that his heart wasn’t in it.
Because I was being attacked, it was like he was, too – and so his Teleportation ability kicked in.
He disappeared in a cloud of black smoke and reappeared right next to Soraiya’s face.
Stig threw a fireball that exploded across her cheek.
“AAAAAAAGH!” she screamed.
She swiped at him with claw-like fingers, but missed as he disappeared in a burst of smoke.
Again and again he appeared around her, peppering her with fireballs, all as I hit her with my spells.
Then Soraiya’s whip evaporated into sparks, and she summoned a flaming pitchfork.
She spun it around like a kung fu master with a six-foot staff, whirling it in a pinwheel through the air, angling it here and there at random.
Stig teleported right next to her –
And she smacked him square in the face with the staff, sending him slamming into the nearest wall.
Then she turned towards me.
I could see the hatred in her eyes. I knew she was going to rush me and stab me with her pitchfork, so I steeled myself for her attack –
Instead, she ran.
Behind her was the secret passageway that Orlo had escaped through days before. It had initially been covered with a movable panel of electrical readouts, but Alaria in her robot form had ripped it apart so we could give chase.
That was the dark passageway that Soraiya slipped into, running as fast as she could.
“NO!” I screamed in anger, and cast Soul Suck – but within seconds she was out of my spellcasting range. The blue lightning petered out as the light of her pitchfork was swallowed by the darkness.
FUCK her.
You can run, bitch, but you can’t hide.
I started after her –
When Grung leapt into my path.
“Stop!” he cried out plaintively, his arms held up in the air.
“Get out of my way, Grung!”
The purple demon fell to his knees. “I do not think she killed Alaria!”
“I don’t CARE what you think!” I shouted as I threw him aside and started for the passageway. “Come on, Stig!”
“…no.”
I looked around in surprise.
My imp was squatting on the ground with a sad expression on his face.
“What do you mean, ‘no’?!” I thundered.
“I don’t think she killed her, boss.”
“YOU’RE WRONG!” I screamed. “YOU’RE BOTH WRONG! NOW COME ON!”
“…no.”
I scowled at Stig with almost as much hatred as I felt for Soraiya. “Well then FUCK YOU!”
He just flinched and cowered under my wrath.
I turned back to the passageway.
I could maybe catch up with Soraiya in the tunnels, but it would be close. And if she made it to the hangar and then the outside world, she could take flight and I would never see her again.
Since my imp was worthless, what I needed was some backup.
Some backup that could fly.
The computer window still hovered in my field of view:
YOUR SUCCUBUS ALARIA HAS PERMANENTLY DIED.
DO YOU WISH TO SUMMON ANOTHER?
ACCEPT/DECLINE
I jabbed the ‘Accept’ button impatiently.
That window was immediately replaced with a second one.
CHOOSE ONE OF THE FOLLOWING OPTIONS:
SELECT THE SUCCUBUS ALREADY BOUND TO YOU
SELECT FROM A LIST
RANDOM SELECTION
What?!
What succubus already bound to –
My eyes widened in shock.
Holy shit.
An evil smile crept across my face.
I had freed Soraiya from Orlo’s collar after his death. Her icon had appeared on my Action Bar, just like every other demon I had freed aboard the pirate ship Revenge.
Because I had freed her, she was now ‘bound’ to me, though she wasn’t my slave.
Although apparently that was something I could change.
I selected ‘A.’
Suddenly shadows in the room lifted into the air like smoke and began to spin around, coalescing into a circular shape. Dark purple sparks crackled along its surface. There was a flash of black light, and an object fell to the ground. Wisps of smoke wafted up from its surface and into the air.
I stepped closer to it to confirm what it was, though I already knew.
A collar.
A black leather collar with a tiny silver demon’s face dangling from the front like a pendant.
Savage, murderous joy filling my heart.
SOMEBODY’S going to pay.
Another window appeared:
BIND THE SUCCUBUS SORAIYA?
ACCEPT / DECLINE
I greedily hit ‘Accept.’
Normally I would have had to pull out my Warlock grimoire and read an incantation to create the collar and summon a demon. I guessed when you were redoing a summoning you’d already completed, you didn’t have to go through the theatrics.
A distant voice screamed inside the secret passageway. It was faint at first, but it was getting closer and closer.
“…no… please, Goddess no! No, I didn’t DO anything – please, STOP!”
Shadows swirled out of the hole in the wall and carried Soraiya along with them like giant talons. The darkness slammed her down onto her knees in front of me, lifted the collar up in the air, unlatched it – and guided it to her neck.
“NO, PLEASE, NOOOO!” she screamed, tears streaming down her cheeks.
No matter how much I hated her, it was hard to watch her terror as she lost her freedom.
It was harder still to listen to her screams.
But I did… and the agony of hearing them turned into a dull, sickening pleasure, like picking at an infected wound just to feel the pain.
The collar latched around her neck like a small black python and lifted her a couple of inches into the air. Her knees were still on the ground, but now she was ramrod straight instead of slumped over.
She clutched at the collar like it was choking her. Her eyes bulged out in terror.
The numeral ‘90’ above her head suddenly began to roll back like a timer: 89, 88, 87, going faster and faster until it was a blur –
And then slowed down at 35. It still kept decreasing, more and more slowly, 30, 29, 28… 27… 26…
Until, like a roulette wheel, it finally settled on the number 25.
I had enslaved her, and she had been reduced to my level of power.
The collar stopped levitating, and she dropped onto all fours and crumpled into a heap at my feet.
“…Goddess damn you…” she wept.
I squatted down, grabbed her chin, and forced her to look up at me. Her yellow glowing eyes shimmered with tears.
“Should’ve thought about that before you killed her,” I snarled.
“I didn’t… I swear to the Seven Hells, I didn’t!”
I smiled bitterly. “I don’t believe you. You better hope that after a couple of days of torturing you, I start to.”
Tears spilled down her cheeks. She was just about to plead with me again when Stig spoke up.
“Uh, boss… what’s that say?”
I looked up to see him pointing at a screen amongst the panels of machinery.
The readout was like some crappy monitor from the 1970’s, with pixelated green letters against a black background.
DUNGEON CORE SOUL TRANSFER COMPLETE. 100% SUCCESS.