by Dante King
The old man’s eyes widened as a swirl of black energy seeped out from Puck’s palm and covered the Sage’s head. The foul smell emanating from the substance almost caused Ralph to gag, and he turned away from it. The demonic tendrils seeped into the Sage’s wounds as he thrashed and strangled grunts burst from his throat.
“He’ll still be able to make a sigil, right?” Ralph peered down at the main writing on the floor and wondered whether he’d even be able to lift a hand, let alone keep his hand steady while carving the intricate symbols of an adventurer’s sigil.
“It’s likely,” Puck answered.
“You’re not sure? Why take the risk?”
“Because I wanted to test my new powers. I’ve only been a Shade for less than a week, you know.”
“No more!” the Sage cried out. “I’ll do anything you ask. Just don’t hurt me.”
“An Adventurer Sigil,” Puck reiterated. “For my friend here.”
“Friend?” Ralph asked.
“I suppose that might be too strong of a word.” The Shade shrugged as the Sage grabbed his tools.
Ralph removed his armor as he stared at the old man, his sword never far from reach. He wasn’t entirely sure whether he believed that the Sage’s mind could be so warped by potential pain that he would readily obey, but that seemed to be the case.
The Sage approached with a scalpel drenched in a glowing green substance, and Ralph unbuttoned his tunic and bared his chest. Hardened muscle glistened in the low torchlight as Ralph held back a gasp of surprise. He was a completely different person than the one who’d left Cothslar, in mind and body.
And now he was about to have a second Adventurer Sigil.
“Why didn’t you just do this before?” Ralph asked Puck. “Simply force the old man to do our bidding.”
“I didn’t know I could. I only got the idea after remembering the things a Shade could do. I have a feeling it won’t work on true adventurers, only those who are weak of will.”
The Sage’s eyes darted fearfully to Puck, who made an encouraging gesture with his clawed hand. Ralph kept his face expressionless as the Sage reached up and the blade touched his chest before effortlessly slicing into the skin. Muscle tightened reflexively, but Ralph didn’t so much as flinch as the old man made small, quick, remarkably shallow cuts in flesh. The Sage’s hands had steadied somewhat, and as he worked, he spoke.
“What manner of travelers are you?”
Another sphere of shadows suddenly boiled around Puck’s fist. “I’m sure your natural curiosity serves you well in your line of work counting beans, scholar, but let me warn you: ask another question, and I’ll put you in such pain that you’ll curl into a ball and bite off your own manhood.”
The Sage didn’t ask any more questions.
He took two more minutes finishing the sigil; each new cut forced Ralph to dig deeper into himself to find some kind of willpower.
The pain was one thing. Ralph could deal with the pain. But standing there at the whim of a man they’d threatened to kill? That was intolerable. The Sage set down his scalpel and pulled out the stopper on the small glass vial. He poured it over the bleeding mass of deliberate scores in Ralph’s flesh, and the young adventurer snarled a curse as the bright green liquid burned its way into his skin.
Then, it went deeper.
Ralph stumbled back as the substance raced through his entire body and opened strange new pathways that didn’t belong. His sword fell from suddenly powerless fingers, and his heart threatened to burst from the agony of the newly forged sigil. He gritted his teeth as a new pathway to power forged its way through his soul.
“Kraus!” Puck snarled suddenly.
Ralph looked up just as shadows smothered the desk. The Sage lunged forward, with a triumphant gleam of insanity in his eyes and a scalpel in his hand. The guild’s clerk had finally plucked up the courage to stare death in the face. Ralph kicked out at the Sage’s knee, and the old man stumbled straight into a second kick to the gut.
The Sage shot into Puck’s waiting claws as they ripped across his face. He screamed as his eyes were taken, and he swung blindly with the tiny blade. Ralph’s blood flicked off the weapon as the guild clerk staggered around the desk.
Ralph rolled to the left, put the desk between himself and the blinded old man, and forced himself to his feet. Then, the young adventurer leaped over the desk, swept under the man’s flailing arm, and caught hold of it. The scalpel fell to the floor with a quick wrench and a grisly crack. Black magic crashed against the man’s back and seeped into the wound on his neck. The scholar screamed again with a deafening wail.
It was enough to wake the entire village.
Ralph caught the man around the neck. His hand found the old man’s screaming jaw, and the Sage lashed against Ralph while trying to gouge out his eyes.
But an entire lifetime of living in cushy houses and offices didn’t give one the strength required to best Zagorath’s adventurer.
Ralph could have strangled the Sage but hesitated. “Do we need him alive?” he asked Puck as his captive tried fruitlessly to bite off one of his fingers.
“We have what we came for. Kill him!”
Puck didn’t have to tell Ralph twice. The young man kicked out one of the Sage’s legs and dragged him to the floor. Ralph wrapped an arm around his throat, clasped his hands together and twisted. Strangled grunts babbled from the Sage’s mouth as he made to scream for help. His eyes bulged as he frantically tried to escape and claw for something on the floor.
But Ralph’s grip held true.
The Infernal adventurer used every ounce of power that he had in him.
One visceral crunch later, and the Sage was no more.
Ralph shoved away the still-warm corpse and scooped up his blade from the floor.
“We need to leave,” he muttered.
“As always, you’ve a firm grasp of priorities,” Puck replied.
“I need this armor on—.”
The door of the study exploded in a shower of splinters, and Ralph lunged away from the desk as Quinn, Bolnir, and Elohin raced through the doorway.
Each of them were armed but not armored. They wore lighter clothing that suggested they’d been roused by the screaming of their Sage. Ralph braced himself against the wall and dipped into his reserves of Infernal Essence. Puck flared his wings and prepared himself to attack.
Then, the dwarf spoke. “Well, this is a right fuck-up, isn’t it?” He lowered his weapon a little, as though he was more intent on talking than fighting.
“He attacked us first,” Ralph objected as he read the dwarf’s intentions.
“Yes, I’m sure he gored out his eyes, slashed his throat, and broke his own neck in his valiant attempts to slay you.” Elohin’s velvety tones were cold, and he lifted his pale glaive before leveling it at Puck. “You, abomination; what vile hole do you crawl from?”
“Probably the same that gifted your whole spawn their pointy ears,” Puck answered. “We came for one reason, adventurers. And we intend to leave. If you stand in our way—”
“You’re not from here, are you?” the dwarf interrupted before he nudged the elf. “Oi, Elohin, cool your bellows. Let’s talk to these interlopers.”
“They’ve killed one of our own,” the elf hissed. “You know what the penalties are if we allow this to stand.”
Bolnir scratched his beard as he looked down at the corpse of the Sage. “Well, Turner’s not exactly one of us, is he? He’s just some cracked toff from the higher ups, sent here to take our hard-earned spoils.” The dwarf chuckled. “Or, at least, he was.”
Ralph stared at the elf and waited for the twitch that would indicate his first movement.
“I take it you didn’t have a lot of love for this. . . ahem. . . until-recently breathing Sage, then?” Puck spoke again with a softer and more reasonable tone.
Ralph tried not to snort. Trust the conniving little bastard to talk to the people who wanted to paint the floor with their blood.
“Our feelings about the man matter not,” Elohin said. “You’re murderers.”
“It was self-defence,” Puck pointed out. “Why aren’t you listening to your dwarvish friend there? And why aren’t you decorating this fine study with our entrails right now?”
The elf didn’t answer. He merely glared at the two of Zagorath’s agents with the kind of otherworldly hate that could shatter stones. Ralph met his gaze without so much as a flinch and decided to trust Puck’s intuition. The Shade hadn’t led them astray the entire night.
“To answer your question, little feller, no. He’s a thief and a liar.” Bolnir leaned forward on his axe and examined the intruders with interest.
“So, we’ve done you a service,” Puck said. “Let us free.”
“Why did you make him mark you?” Quinn asked.
Ralph took his eyes off the coiled elf to spare the human adventurer a glance. Quinn was a raw youth, barely older than 16. He carried a simple straight sword in his hand, and corded arms of muscle marked him as a local woodcutter or some other simple laborer.
“That much is easy,” Bolnir said. “They came looking to take essence from our realm. From what realm do you hail, strangers?”
Puck didn’t hesitate. “Lilith’s.”
Elohin’s knuckles whitened around his glaive as he took a step forward. “Then, you both must be destroyed. Her essence is an abomination. Even more so than you, Demon.”
Bolnir’s eyes widened. “Lilith’s? My, she is being cheeky these days. I’d heard rumors, but it’s a kick in the nads to see it for myself.”
The dwarf chewed his mustache in thought for a long moment as his gaze drifted down to the corpse of the Sage. The other two didn’t move. Ralph wondered if Bolnir was now the head of the guild in Turner’s absence.
Puck spoke again. “Perhaps we can come to an agreement?”
“Oh, I’m already considering the terms, Shade.” Bolnir smiled from beneath his beard. “You, adventurer; what’s your name?”
Ralph glanced at the Shade, and Puck nodded in encouragement.
“Ralph Kraus.”
“Ralph, eh?” He nudged Elohin again. “Tell me; what would you prefer? Having Turner breathing down our necks, robbing us blind just to fill lords’ pockets. ‘Disciplining’ us like cubs? Or to be friendly with another adventurer who now wears the same sigil as us?”
“This is a mistake. You’ll bring damnation and destruction upon all of us, dwarf.” Elohin seemed to have to force himself to lower his glaive. “The Sap Lords will not let this stand. They will destroy our settlement and kill us all.”
“Who are the Sap Lords?” Ralph asked.
“They control the Deadeye Guild,” the dwarf replied. “We answer to them, unfortunately. They number 12. Half are rarely seen, and the other half are seen too often. The latter are led by a mage knight. He’s powerful, and he’s also a right bastard.”
“Enough granting these cretins information!” Elohin snapped.
“I’m brokering a deal,” Bolnir said before he turned to Zagorath’s champions again. “So, you managed to get the Sage to give you a Nature Sigil. You planning on prancing off alone into a dungeon?”
“We’re not alone,” Puck said. “We both serve one far greater than either of us. He wishes to know the Nature Realm more intimately.”
Elohin raised an eyebrow. “An Infernal Guild is forbidden. Not merely in this realm but in all the Sinarius Realms. Nothing about any of this has been ordained by the gods.”
“If they’re as monstrous as some say,” Quinn said thoughtfully, “they could’ve killed us all in our sleep. Set fire to the houses. Called in hordes of demons. Done anything to us. But all they did was come here, get a tattoo, and kill Turner. Can’t say I’m sorry for that, either. He was a fucking prick.”
There was a long silence in the study.
“Well, it’s decided,” Bolnir said as he clapped his hands together. “If you’ll swear on your goddess not to bring harm to any of us, and you bring your master here to keep the Sap Lords off our backs, then we’ll bear you no ill-will. Hell, we’ll even let you join us, if ya like. Bring your master to Elderwood House.”
“That’s the name of this place?” Ralph asked.
“Aye,” the dwarf replied. “Tell your master not to worry about the rest of the Deadeye Guild. They’re off adventuring and left us three behind.”
“Our master fears no one,” Puck said.
“It’s true,” Ralph added. “He is fear incarnate.”
Quinn shivered a little, and he looked to Bolnir, who smiled all the more.
“What’s your master’s name?” Bolnir asked.
“Von Dominus,” Ralph answered. “He is Lord of Zagorath.”
“He sounds like a cretin.” Elohin glowered.
“Watch your tongue, elf.” Puck’s shadow expanded around him until it came within an inch of the elf’s feet.
“Hey, easy.” Bolnir raised a hand. “We’re all friends now. And I wouldn’t mind meeting a few more of you lot. You look like a bunch of fun.” The dwarf placed a hand over his mouth as if to whisper but didn’t lower his voice. “And you seem to get under Elohin’s skin, and I love seeing him squirm.”
Ralph looked at the grinning dwarf in confusion. “You cannot truly trust us.”
“Oh, I don’t,” he said. “That’s why you’ll swear on your goddess. But, in all honesty? The shadow demon by your side makes a point. We can help each other. And while pointy-ears over here may think otherwise, we need help.”
“Then, I shall return to my master.” Ralph could barely breathe for all the pride he now felt. He lived to serve the dungeon known as Zagorath, and his master would be exceedingly pleased with this news.
Chapter Eight
“Enough,” I said after Abby and Bertha had farmed exactly 1,000 Storm Essence. “It’s time.”
My two champions gathered in the Antechamber and faced the hidden room where the soul forge lay. Now, I had the required essence for my new project—merging Hellbats and sprites together. I wasn’t sure whether it would work, but I had to try.
The soul forge glowed as I fed it Storm and Infernal Essence, but the combination I was seeking seemed to fizzle out before dissolving into mental sand between the fingers of my consciousness.
It seemed the Hellbats were too simple of an organism, or they lacked any kind of ability to channel essence. Storm Sprites could do it effortlessly. Could the Lesser Imps also channel essence?
I recalled the imps I’d encountered in Shadow Crag. There’d been two kinds: the Infernal Imps, like Puck, who’d been capable of summoning shadow-spheres, and the weaker creatures known as Lesser Imps. If the weaker forms were distant, less-evolved cousins of the Infernal Imps, then maybe there was some kind of evolutionary proclivity toward channeling essence within the imp race.
Hell, I had to try, right?
I inspected the Storm Sprite blueprint in further detail. A small core of essence in the center of the creature’s abdomen seemed to stretch out through vein-like structures to its insect-like jaws and into each of its spindly legs. The Lesser Imp was larger, but there seemed to be a similar, if dormant, pathway sketched into it.
I maintained my grasp on the essence-channeling aspects of the sprite, pulled it toward the mental form of the Lesser Imp, and pressed the two together. As if I was fitting the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, something clicked. A new notification appeared before my core.
Zagorath gained spawnable minions!
Lightning Imp
Core: Infernal/Storm
Rarity: Epic
Essence Cost per minion: 25 (Infernal), 20 (Storm)
The walls of Zagorath seemed to tremble as I laughed in sheer delight. Everything was coming together beautifully.
Making the imps fly through from the soul forge alcove to the First Floor’s vents and into the Chasm was too much legwork. I wanted a more efficient pipeline for my minions, especially if I needed to spawn them in a hu
rry.
I carved a new tunnel, beside the others that led into the Antechamber, Pretzel, and First Floor. This one slid straight underneath the First Floor, and I split the end of the new vent into six smaller tunnels. I kept the width of the new minion pipeline wide, making it simpler to summon a horde of the Lightning Imps and move them quickly. Then, I lengthened each of the six smaller pipes around the Chasm and positioned them so that I could quickly summon creatures to the different walkways.
I channeled my reserves of Storm and Infernal Essence into the soul forge and created 20 of these new creatures.
Zagorath Summoned Lighting Imps (x20)
Consumed 500 Infernal Essence, 500 Storm Essence
The Lightning Imps looked surprisingly different to what I’d been expecting. Rather than pudgy bowling balls on wings, they were more like footlong club sandwiches. Instead of two clawed hands, they possessed six, and their wings were a hybrid of leather and insect chitin. Shifting carapace plates surrounded their bodies, protecting them from damage, and red lightning sparked from the gaps in their natural armor.
Their minds were filled with predatory cunning and basic instinct as they obeyed my command to enter the new pipelines. They erupted into the Chasm, swept around it in loops, and filled it with crackling red energy from their bodies.
I watched them with a mixture of triumph and amazement. Lilith truly had given me power beyond imagining.
“What are those?” Abby asked in astonishment, her voice interrupting my moment of appreciation of my own power and genius.
“Lightning Imps,” I answered.
“You know what? I don’t know why I’m surprised.” Her mind flickered over my new structure. “Remind me never to call you idle, Dom.”
“I will. If you need reminding.”
Bertha moved with measured agility, paused by the doors to my new Throne Room, and looked up with astonishment at the Lightning Imps hovering through the enormous pit.
“You know what we need?” I asked. “We need—”