The black mist was not stopped by the door. As soon as it hit the iron surface, he could no longer see it, but he was sure it was passing through to the other side.
He heard a slight groan from the gravelly voice. “Unhhh…”
“Open the door,” Eric said.
Seconds later, a heavy metal lock unbolted and the door screeched open. The orc on the other side stood there glassy-eyed and blank.
Success! The guard has granted you entry to the Dark Market.
Achievement unlocked – you have completed your first successful possession of a living being with a Class One demon!
Mana: +2
Asshole, Eric thought, feeling drained of power. I think I’ll let that demon hang out inside you for a while.
With that, he walked past the orc and entered the marketplace.
35
The Dark Market was not quite what he had been expecting.
For one, it was set in a series of catacombs with low ceilings and narrow hallways. After the high ceiling and open spaces of Merridack’s den, he was a little surprised that the area was so cramped.
The vendors sold their wares in small rooms under stone arches, in spaces that probably once contained dead bodies. In fact, some of them still did. He spotted a number of mummified corpses and body parts stacked in the rear of some of the ‘shops.’
The shopkeepers themselves were very strange. Male humans with massive scarring and missing hands or eyes. Elves with disfigured faces and rotting teeth. Goblins and trolls by the dozen. Several races Eric had never seen in the streets of Blackstone – a slick-skinned creature with eyes but no mouth, nose, or ears. An insectoid creature with segmented fingers and praying mantis eyes. And a figure that looked like a mass of writhing white snakes underneath its cowl.
All of them had wooden tables stacked with objects both beautiful and loathsome. Golden goblets, rune stones with arcane symbols, carved wands… and shrunken heads, desiccated hands with prune-like skin, strange insects, and jars of eyeballs with strands of flesh still attached.
As he walked by the stalls, text boxes with mana scores or spell indexes appeared over many objects – although not all of them. He figured the ones that were blank were duds.
He stopped in front of one shop and picked up a six-inch crystal with some sort of dark shape pulsing inside it, like black mercury. As soon as he touched it, he could feel the power thrumming inside.
The text box confirmed it:
+ 25 Dark Mana
“How much?” Eric asked.
“Three gold pieces,” the frog-faced shopkeeper croaked.
“Three?!” Eric exclaimed, then put it back.
“This is high quality merchandise,” the frogman insisted. “All my merchandise is high quality.”
There were a number of objects with no text boxes above them at all, so Eric highly doubted that.
He started to move on to the next stall –
“Two gold and five silver,” the frog croaked.
“One gold,” Eric said. He had no idea if he was still offering too much, but he figured it was only a third of the original asking price, so…
“Two gold, three silver.”
Eric was pissed. “Eight silver.”
“You’re going the wrong direction,” the frog said in an irritated voice.
“Seven silver,” Eric snapped.
The frog crossed his arms obstinately.
Eric turned to go –
“Fine, one gold piece, two silver,” the frog croaked angrily. “Final offer.”
Eric fished the coins out of his pocket and laid them down, then took the crystal.
Suddenly a text box appeared:
New Skill: Bargaining
This skill increases your ability to bargain with NPCs and thus expend less of your monetary resources.
Points Awarded: +1
Effect: Every point increases 1% ability to bargain, plus 1% for each point of Persuasion skill level.
Hmm…
“I have more,” the frog said, splaying his webbed fingers over his merchandise.
“Maybe later,” Eric said, and moved off through the market.
Now how do I absorb the mana? he wondered, then decided, If learning the Demonomicon was so easy, then this shouldn’t be that hard. It IS a game, after all.
He closed his eyes, clutched the crystal in his palm, and relaxed –
Suddenly he felt a coldness enter his veins like a drug administered through an I.V. tube. Within seconds he felt energized, pumped up, alive.
He opened his eyes and looked down at the crystal. The black shape no longer swirled in its crystalline prison, and there was no text box hovering over it anymore.
He moved his wrist in the air and checked his stats.
He was still regenerating his mana from having summoned the spectral demon a few minutes ago – but his overall total had increased to 130. 100 to start with, 5 for leveling up earlier with Cythera, and 25 from the crystal.
He smiled, and one single thought formed in his mind:
I want MORE.
He discarded the crystal and made his way quickly through the market, finding objects with the highest mana ratings and trying to bargain the shopkeepers down as much as he could. Within ten minutes he had exhausted all his gold coins, so he switched to paying with diamonds and emeralds and purchasing as many objects at one time as he could.
That turned out to be the right approach. His shopping spree in the market sparked a lot of interest and started something of a bidding war amongst the shopkeepers. They began calling to him from nearby booths, promising a far better deal than whoever he was talking to.
In addition, the more he bargained, the more his skill level went up – and the easier it was to get more for less.
Thirty minutes later he had used up all his money and gone through a pile of mystical objects, but he’d increased his mana to 735. He had no idea how high it could go, but 735 wasn’t bad considering he’d received just 5 points for learning how to summon demons. Plus he’d basically gotten the other 625 points for free. After all, the coins and jewels had all been stolen.
And I still have more…
He thought about going back for the rest of the purse’s contents.
No, I can’t do that to Daniel. He really wants to do the quest, and we need the rest to pay for everything.
Reluctantly he set off for Cythera’s to learn the basics of maging.
36
There was a bit of a wrinkle along the way, though.
The city gates were closed. There was only a tiny doorway open where he would have to pass the close scrutiny of a dozen blue-caped guards.
There was a chance that one of them might have glimpsed him last night when he was running away from the mansion. A small chance, but a chance nonetheless, and he didn’t want to risk it.
The only other options, though, were to wait until morning…
…or go through the sewers.
If he went through the sewers, he might run into Merridack and his men.
If they found him alive after not coming back from Cythera’s, they might decide they wanted to kill him.
Versus the guards who would absolutely kill him if they recognized him.
He weighed the two options and finally decided on the sewers.
He figured with Merridack it could go one of two ways: he could either talk his way out of it, or he could attack them with a demon.
If he attacked them with a demon, there were only a dozen or so thieves in Merridack’s crew – and they rarely all ventured out together. If five or six showed up, he could probably take them down with black magic.
There were a dozen soldiers at the city gates, and God knows how many more just waiting to spring into action.
Screw it, I’ll take my chances.
He went back to the Dark Market, got a lit torch from one of the merchants he’d spent several diamonds with, and left. Then he found a sewer grate, opened it, and slipped in
side.
He wound his way through the underground tunnels, trying to find the path to the river outside. Things were going well until he heard –
“Halt!”
Shit…
Eric turned around. Twenty feet away stood one of the thieves from Merridack’s den – the same burly, bearded asshole who’d caught him when he was coming back from the temple.
Davil, I think his name was.
But Davil was alone.
The thief saw who it was and scowled. “You little shit – why didn’t you come back from the witch’s?”
The ‘little shit’ part sparked Eric’s temper. He remembered how the thief had wrenched and twisted his arm sadistically as he dragged him back to the den.
Belittled him.
Humiliated him.
Anger flared inside Eric, and suddenly he had a plan.
He just had to make sure of something first.
“I’m coming back now,” Eric said. “Where’s Merridack and the rest?”
“You ran out on us,” the thief accused him. “You were going to sell everything for yourself.”
“No, that’s not true – where’s Merridack and the others? I’ll explain it to them face to face.”
The thief drew his knife and advanced. “They’re all back sleeping – but Merridack’ll be plenty glad to see you. Gut you like a fish, most likely.”
That was all the information Eric needed.
“Ixotinak Asotidal!” he hissed, and suddenly black flame exploded from his fingertips.
The sewer water exploded as a squat, vicious shape leapt through the air.
“WHAT IN AZTHRAK’S – ” the thief roared, but that was as far as he got.
The demon clamped its jaws over the guy’s face, buried its fangs in his skull –
And tore his head off.
There was a wet, cracking, ripping sound –
Then a gout of blood from the stump of the thief’s neck sprayed all over the sewer walls like a high-pressure hose.
The body splashed into the river of sewage and floated there, the limbs thrashing for a moment… then were still.
The demon whipped its head – and the head in its mouth – back and forth like a rabid dog with a chew toy.
And the best part was, Eric barely felt the strain of summoning the creature. Just a slight diminishment of power.
He checked his stats – 652 and rising.
Amazing.
The demon-dog lay down on its belly, let go of the thief’s head – which by now looked like a hunk of raw beef doused in red paint – and looked up at Eric, its eyes glinting evilly in the torchlight.
“Good boy,” Eric chuckled.
He cast the spell to return it to wherever it came from, then turned and headed deeper into the sewers.
37
He got to Cythera’s hut 20 minutes later. He was about to knock on the makeshift door when he heard her voice, low and husky.
“Come in.”
He entered. There she was, sitting by the fire, the light even dimmer than before.
“I thought you might be sleeping,” Eric said.
“I was… but then I was awoken. I felt a surge of power from deep within the castle walls… dark power,” she murmured.
She stood up and walked over to him. He noticed uncomfortably that she was dressed in a ragged black robe and only that. In the ‘v’ at her neck, he could see her right shoulder and the upper part of her chest, both horribly scarred. He tried not to look at it.
She traced the fingers of her unburned hand lightly over his face. “Amazing… I can feel it in you…”
“Look, I came here because – ”
“You want more power,” she said, placing her hand on his chest.
“Yes, but – ”
“The book… touch the book now,” she whispered seductively.
Eric looked over at the rough wooden table.
There lay the Demonomicon, the cover latched again, stacked on top of the other dark tomes.
He had to admit, he was insanely curious what would happen now that he was seven times more powerful.
He walked over to the book and placed his hand on the cover.
Immediately the voices came back, but they were no longer whispers. They were a whole chorus now – some gravelly and choked, some gorgeous like a beautiful woman’s.
“Choose me…”
“Master, I will serve you well…”
“Use me for thy bidding…”
“I will do whatever you command…”
“Only summon me forth, and I will do ANYTHING for you…”
The dial turned and the latch clicked open.
He had to open the book.
The desire was so intense, he had no choice.
The same number of pages had visible text as earlier, when he’d left the witch’s hut – but now he could see the light shadows of words, the outlines of drawings, on dozens and dozens of pages more. They weren’t legible, but they were there.
“Come,” Cythera whispered, and led him out of the hut into the clearing. “Now… put your hand upon the book and let its power fill you.”
He placed his palm on the page.
There was the uncomfortable, squirmy feeling of plunging his hand into a bucket of worms –
And then so much ink flowed up his arm, it was like his skin was tattooed black.
He gasped at the sudden onslaught of knowledge.
He knew now.
He knew so much more.
“Vatid conotrix!” he hissed, flinging out his arm.
Black smoke and fire burst out of his fingers and congealed into an eyeless, two-legged thing that looked like a miniature velociraptor with squid tentacles for a head.
“Hstero myklexinot!” he said, a little louder.
A gangly figure ten feet tall appeared amidst the dark energy, hunched over, its arms ending in scythe-like claws.
“Blamok natorus!” he roared, completely uninhibited.
Something large and bat-like flew out of the cloud, but with a head full of teeth as long as a man’s fingers.
As an added bonus, with every new creature he summoned, a text box would appear:
Level up: Beginner Level 7
Mana: +5
Again and again he shouted out words, conjuring creature after obscene creature – and it was only after the eighth that he began to feel depleted, his energy dropping to a level that left him cold and weak.
Meanwhile, he was surrounded by eight creatures that never should have existed, eight abominations from the worst nightmares of H. R. Giger and Hieronymus Bosch.
When he felt he could do no more, he stood there, looking at the horrors he had conjured – and he grinned in amazement.
“Are they all dangerous?” he asked Cythera.
“They are all deadly, in their own despicable ways,” she whispered. “And this is only the beginning.”
Eric looked down at the book in his hands.
The text was clear and legible for almost a fifth of the book now.
He looked up at the walls of the city, just barely visible through the treetops, glowing white in the moonlight.
“I need more,” he whispered.
The hunger inside him could not be denied.
He would go back and get the remainder of what was in the purse – who knew how much power he would have after that!
Suddenly, a text box appeared in his field of vision.
You have a message from Daniel.
“Rrrrrr,” he growled in frustration, and tapped the words. Cythera did not seem in the slightest bit surprised by him stabbing the air with his fingers.
Hey, you about finished? It’s getting late…
Eric swept his hand to the side, flinging the text message out of view.
Then hideous ancient words spewed from his lips in a torrent of guttural sounds.
All the demons vanished instantly in a haze of smoke.
“What’s wrong?” Cythera asked
, alarmed.
“I have to go to sleep, just for a little while,” he said. “You mind if I lie down in your place for a couple of hours?”
She brushed her fingers across his skin seductively. “You can stay as long as you like.”
He winced, but forced himself to smile. “Thanks. This shouldn’t take too long.”
38
Daniel was waiting for him when he logged out of the game.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to rush you – ” Daniel began.
Of course you did, Eric thought bitterly.
“ – it’s just getting pretty late.”
“No, it’s cool,” Eric answered, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice. “I’m glad you texted me – I might have lost track of time otherwise.”
“Did you learn a lot?” Daniel asked.
Crap.
He’d totally forgotten to get any basic training in spells.
“Uh… the basics. It’s kind of tough.”
Daniel shrugged. “Eh, we’ll all be learning as we go.”
“Yeah.”
“Alright, man, you ready to crash? We’ve got a big day tomorrow.”
“Sure. Can I take the couch downstairs?”
Daniel laughed. “You can take the bed right here! It’s not just for lying down during the game, you know.”
Oh yeah… Eric realized.
Perfect.
This was going to be even easier than he thought.
39
Eric waited an hour until after he was sure Daniel was asleep, then put back on the helmet and reentered the Shattered Lands exactly where he had left it: Cythera’s hut.
The witch was sitting next to the fire, apparently watching him the entire time he slept.
SUPER creepy…
“I need more mana,” Eric said.
She smiled darkly. “Attaining the power of months of study in one night wasn’t enough for you, hmm?”
He ignored her. “The stuff at the Dark Market is fine, but it’s a bunch of items with just a little bit of mana in each. Isn’t there a way to get a lot of it at one time?”
Shattered Lands: A LitRPG Series Page 17