by A. J. Markam
“Well, that was a colossal waste of time,” I muttered. “And I do mean colossal.”
“Sorry, honey,” Alaria said as she brushed back my hair.
“Yeah, sorry, boss,” Stig said, then added, “Where’s my booze?”
“Soon,” I growled.
“At least you removed the kraken from our shores,” Oceana said sweetly. “It seems to have found a new home.”
I looked behind me to see the kraken rolling around like a puppy on the seafloor outside the ruined walls of the city, as Zali swam above it and ‘teeckled’ its belly.
“…yeah,” I muttered. “Great.”
“What should we do now?” Oceana asked.
“I’m going back to land and tackle those other dungeons,” I said. “If you don’t mind, could you take me back?”
“Of course.”
“Is there anything that would make you feel better in the meantime?” Alaria asked.
I thought for a second.
“Another tittyfuck orgy wouldn’t hurt,” I said.
“YAAAAAY!” all the mermaids cheered.
“Ah, fuck me,” Stig griped.
“Alright,” Oceana said.
“NO!” he yelled, and scampered away across the battlefield.
“Where are you going?!” I yelled after him.
“To find some BOOZE!”
“Stig – ” Alaria called angrily.
“No, let him go,” I told her. “I promised him something to drink and I can’t deliver, so… just let him go find some on his own.”
“But we need to go back to shore,” Alaria pointed out.
“Not necessarily,” I said with a smile as I pulled the dungeon core out of my bag.
I hastily set up a building big enough to house me, Alaria, and 30 mermaids comfortably.
Tittyfuck Palace, you might say.
I felt better very soon thereafter.
30
After Alaria and the mermaids got their fill, I went out to find Stig. He had somehow found a bottle of rum again.
“Where did you get that?” I asked, more Ho hum than usual. I mean, this was about the fifth time he’d done it. It would have been more unusual if he hadn’t found booze. Apparently Fathmos had free alcohol dispensaries for needy imps.
“Nice people,” he scowled at me as he took another swig.
I didn’t say anything else and let him keep drinking as we went back to the mermaids. After all, I still owed him, and I hadn’t made good on my debt yet.
We spent the night inside Tittyfuck Palace. More naughtiness ensued, but I used the dungeon core to build Stig his own little wing far away from the action. He was so drunk when I tucked him into bed that I doubt he heard anything that happened afterwards.
The next morning, after one last orgy, I broke down Tittyfuck Palace using the dungeon core. The mermaids swam us back to shore, and we all said our goodbyes. I summoned my horse Balrog, and then Stig, Alaria, and I set off for the Pit of Kakaroth.
It took us the rest of the day to reach the seaside town of Vixil, an odd little village where all the homes and shops were carved into mountainous stone cliffs. The Pit was about a mile away and it was getting dark, so we decided to save it for tomorrow.
We found an inn and stocked up on supplies – including lots of alcohol so Stig didn’t have to keep accepting handouts from strangers. After letting him suck down three bottles of wine during dinner as a reward for taking on the kraken, we holed up for the night and awoke bright and early to tackle Kakaroth.
The Pit was a half-mile-wide hole in the rocky cliffs, with a single dirt path that spiraled down into the depths of the earth. Imagine Dante’s Inferno and the Nine Circles of Hell, but without the flames or people swimming in poop (yes, that’s a real thing – Dante was fucked up).
But just like the Inferno, there were monsters.
Lots and lots of monsters.
I grinded the dungeon four or five times with different groups of adventurers. Sadly, no hot lesbians who were DTF.
But I got a lot out of it. First, the stuff I kept:
Cowl of Darkness: +20 Armor, +20 Intellect, +10 Stamina, +5 Critical Strike, +5 Haste
Enchanted Silk Shirt: +10 Armor, +10 Intellect
Cloak of the Pit: +15 Armor, +20 Intellect, +15 Critical Strike, +10 Haste
Wand of the Dark Spiral: +70 Intellect, +50 Stamina, +10 Critical Strike, +10 Haste
The Hood and the Wand were the best. Even though most of my cloaks had hoods in them, the Cowl was the first true head armor I’d found, and I got a corresponding bump in protection because of it. It worked well with the Cloak of the Pit – the Cowl just sort of magically attached itself to the Cloak and formed one seamless piece of clothing.
The Wand was even better. After the Scepter of the Servant, I’d won the Wand of the Dead back at the Tomb of Tharos. Then I’d gotten the Staff of the Abyss, which would have given me a boost to Intellect and Stamina – but only if I sacrificed my Critical Strike stats.
The Wand of the Dark Spiral solved all of that. Extra Intellect, extra Stamina, and both Critical Strike and Haste at the same time.
I got some other stuff, too, but none of it had stats better than what I’d gotten in the Great Abyss, so I just sold it outside the dungeon.
When you factored in the sales plus the 91 gold I’d gotten in loot, I’d made over 125 gold in one day.
Fuckin’ A.
It almost made me wonder if maybe I should put off killing Zali for a while, grind dungeons, and try to make back the money I owed Varkus Gark, the goblin mob boss I was in debt to.
The original amount had only been 4000 gold. Unfortunately, the last I’d heard, I owed him 13,000 gold in penalties and interest. That had been back in the city of Vos when I’d fought the bounty hunters Zoran, Sketterex, and Cirra.
That had been weeks ago. God only knows how much I owed now.
If you have no morals and want to get into a very lucrative business, become a goblin loan shark in OtherWorld. You’ll clean up.
Besides the money, another nice thing happened: I leveled up to 30.
Now, normally at Levels that are multiples of 5, I get a new demon.
(Don’t get excited. The story doesn’t have a happy ending. At least for me, anyway.)
I’d gotten Stig when I’d started out, Alaria at 5, Dorp at 10, Blutus at 15, and Fugly at 25. At Level 20 I’d bought my horse, Balrog. When you get a new mount every 20 levels, you don’t get a demon.
Other than Alaria and Stig, my track record with demons was middling at best.
I’d been a complete asshole to Dorp when Alaria dumped me, and trying to apologize to him later hadn’t repaired our relationship. He’d walked away and never looked back. I couldn’t blame him for that.
Blutus left to go take watercolor classes or get into musical theater or something. And Fugly had flown off after a school of flying fish, never to be seen again.
That’s the chance you take when you free your demons.
I missed having all those guys around. Well, at least their abilities. I’d never really bonded with them the way I had with Stig and Alaria. But with Dorp’s illusions, Blutus’s brute strength, and Fugly’s acid attacks, I would have been one powerful mofo by now. Might’ve even been able to beat Zali.
So I was looking forward to my next demon for sure.
When the You can now summon a new demon! window popped up, I waited until we were out of the dungeon. Then I went out on the seaside cliffs, pulled out my Warlock grimoire, and cast the spell to create the collar.
I was a little taken aback when I got two collars joined by a leather strap. Really wicked-looking thing with sharp metal spikes.
Two collars?
Did that mean two heads?
What kind of monstrosity was I going to get this time?
I did the summoning. When the purplish-black energy dissipated and the smoke cleared, there stood…
…a two-headed dog.
Except it was a ske
leton.
And it was on fire.
“…okay…” I muttered.
The computer window notified me that it was a Hellhound.
Sure looked the part. No eyes, no skin, no internal organs – just a bunch of moving, walking bones on fire.
Because it seemed to be a fire-based demon, it probably wouldn’t be much good underwater against Zali – but I was betting it would be pretty formidable on land, though.
“AR-RAR-RAR-RAARRRRRR!” one head barked.
“GA-ROOOOOO!” the other one howled.
“Ohhhh, he’s so cute!” Alaria squealed.
I raised an eyebrow. “‘Cute’? Seriously?”
“He reminds me of my dog when I was little.”
“O-kaaaay…”
She had grown up in one of the Seven Hells (at least according to the backstory Westek’s game developers had given her). I guess childhood pets were different there.
Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought the two heads were scowling at me when I looked back at them. Like they understood that I’d been dissing them.
Nah.
Impossible.
It was a skeleton dog, for god’s sake.
“Should I free it?” I asked.
“Don’t tell me we’re back to this again,” Alaria said in irritation. “I thought after Soraiya we agreed that you were going to free all your demons from now on.”
“But – ”
“Yeah, boss, don’t be a dick,” Stig burped.
I shot him a look. “It’s a DOG.”
“It’s a Hellhound,” Alaria said. “They’re highly intelligent.”
“What, for a dog?” I asked condescendingly.
Again, I could have sworn the dog heads gave me some stink-eye. It was a little hard to tell, though, since they were just skeletons. Can’t really narrow your eyes when all you’ve got is bone.
“No, not just ‘for a dog.’ Their intelligence is roughly equivalent to a human’s,” Alaria informed me.
“WHAT?!”
“That ain’t sayin’ much,” Stig muttered.
I glared at him again, then shook my head in disbelief. “Give me a break – how intelligent can they really – ”
I was interrupted by the sound of somebody peeing.
At first I thought Stig might be taking a leak –
But nobody peed in OtherWorld. It wasn’t part of the game programming.
And there Stig was, anyway, looking up at me. No pee.
I turned around to see the Hellhound with one leg hiked up, an arc of flaming liquid shooting out from between its legs and onto my foot.
Basically, the Hellhound was piddling fire on me out of an invisible ghost dick.
“AAAAAH! BAD DOG, BAD DOG!” I yelled as I stomped my foot in the dust, trying to put out the fire.
“HH-HH-HH-HHHHH,” the dog wheezed with laughter.
I finally got the fire out and scowled at my newest demon.
“How smart are they?” Alaria asked rhetorically, barely suppressing a smile. “Apparently intelligent enough to feel insulted.”
“FINE,” I snapped, then pointed at Boney Lassie. “I’m going to free you – so DON’T do that again, got it?”
“AR-RAR-RAR-RAARRRRRR!” one head barked.
“GA-ROOOOOO!” the other one howled.
I reached down gingerly and touched the collar, which came loose in my hand. Luckily my new eel-skin gloves protected me completely from the fire on its neck.
As soon as I removed the collar, the Hellhound howled with joy and began chasing its skeletal tail.
“Okay, okay, simmer down,” I said. “Now we’re going to – ”
And then the dog tore off across the cliffs, fast as it could.
“HEY!” I yelled. “WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING?!”
The Hellhound disappeared into the hills. I caught one more glimpse of the flames dancing up from its spine, and then it was gone.
“Motherfucker…” I muttered in irritation.
“Oh well,” Alaria said, and patted me on the shoulder. “He’s free now for the first time. You did the right thing.”
“Yeah, let’s just hope he doesn’t go peeing on a bunch of scrub brush,” I sighed.
Other than getting a new demon and immediately losing it, though, I’d gained a hell of a lot over the last few hours.
Level 30
Health 4410
Mana 4100
Intellect 348
Stamina 289
Armor 137
Necklace of Ra’nath: +40 Intellect, +20 Stamina
Cowl of Darkness: +20 Armor, +20 Intellect, +10 Stamina, +5 Critical Strike, +5 Haste
Fish-Scale Shoulderpads: +10 Armor, + 5 Intellect
Cloak of the Pit: +20 Armor, +20 Intellect, +10 Stamina, +15 Critical Strike, +10 Haste
Enchanted Silk Shirt: +10 Armor, +10 Intellect
Eel-Skin Vest: +15 Armor, +6 Stamina
Whale-Bone Bracers: +12 Armor, + 3 Intellect, +5 Stamina
Eel-Skin Pants: +10 Armor, +2 Intellect, +2 Stamina
Captain Darrow’s Belt: +10 Armor, +7 Intellect, +7 Stamina
Shark-Skin Boots: +20 Armor, +10 Intellect, +25 Stamina
Eel-Skin Gloves: +10 Armor, +5 Intellect
Rings: Ring of Balos: Ability to breathe underwater
Ring of Tharos: +60 Intellect, +40 Stamina, +20 Haste
Trinkets: Galatan Trinket of Speed – Underwater Locomotion
Talisman of the Sea Goddess +5% Health
Wand of the Dark Spiral
+70 Intellect
+50 Stamina
+20 Critical Strike
+20 Haste
Critical Strike: 8.6%
Haste: 9.9%
For one, my hit points had gone up significantly, aided by my new Level and the Talisman of the Sea Goddess.
Between all the cool stuff I’d gotten in the Great Abyss and the Pit of Kakaroth, my armor had more than doubled. Which meant I could absorb a lot more punishment in a fight.
And I’d actually increased my Critical Strike and Haste. I could cast spells almost 10% faster – and every 11 spells, I would cast one with twice as much damage.
Despite all that, though, the most important thing that happened to me wasn’t the dungeon, or hitting Level 30, or the fire-peeing demon dog.
It was the man who showed up twelve hours later.
31
The next morning we did one last run on the Pit. By the end I was confident I’d gotten all the good loot and that it was time to move on. If I stayed around to grind the dungeon, all I would pick up would be duplicates of wands that I would just end up selling to local merchants.
Not bad if my goal was to pay off Varkus – but we had a warlock to kill, and I for one was looking forward to leveling up and getting a new spell.
I said goodbye to the last group of players we’d gone in with and prepared to depart. The Mount Nihilus dungeon was another 40 miles away, so Alaria, Stig, and I had a long ride ahead of us.
I’d just summoned Balrog when a cheery voice called out, “Ho, good fellow – can you tell me, are you Ian Hertzfelder?”
I turned to see a man in black robes coming over a slight rise in the cliffs. He wore a silver chain around his neck and carried an ivory staff ringed with a couple of iron bands. He had dark hair, a close-cropped beard, and a black eye-patch.
I hesitated. Although the guy’s voice was friendly enough, there was something off about him.
Eyepatches are rarely an indicator of good guys in OtherWorld.
“Who are you?” I asked.
The man chuckled as he walked closer. He was about 40 feet away now. “It’s an easy enough question, my friend! Are you or aren’t you Ian Hertzfelder?”
The tone of voice was still cheerful, but the words were pretty damn dickish.
I selected him to check out his stats.
Storn
Umbra Priest
Level 37
Health: 16,000
Level 37 was seven higher than me. Not good if he challenged me to a fight, but not overwhelmingly bad. He only had 16,000 hit points, after all. Almost four times as many as me, yeah – but with Alaria and Stig to help me, I stood a good chance against him.
It was the ‘Umbra Priest’ designation that gave me pause.
Normally priests in OtherWorld were Healers. Not always, but that was the reason the majority of players chose them. Priests were always in high demand for dungeons.
But there were also Umbra Priests – ‘shadow’ priests in Latin. They usually served malevolent gods, and whatever healing abilities they had they used only on themselves. All their other powers were offensive rather than defensive, and usually tended towards curses, disease, and pain.
Then Alaria got me even more concerned.
“Ian,” she whispered frantically.
“What?” I whispered, not taking my eyes off the guy.
“That symbol around his neck – he’s a priest of Razak, God of Pain.”
I glanced at his silver necklace and saw the symbol hanging at the center: a three-pronged wheel of spikes. It looked like somebody had taken a swastika, cut off one of its legs, and rearranged the angles a bit.
Not to mention that, as he got closer, I began to make out a few more details about him.
Like the bleached finger bones affixed to the necklace.
And the fact that the staff wasn’t made of ivory, but three human femurs bound together by bands of iron.
So basically creepy as fuck.
The Umbra Priest smiled. “Well, if you won’t tell me, I’ll just find out for myself.”
He lifted his staff, and the knobby head glowed with black energy.
Suddenly my right hand hurt like somebody had slashed me with a hot knife.
“OW!” I yelled, and pulled off my eel-skin glove to see what the fuck had happened.
A golden circle glowed briefly on my skin, then faded from view. The pain disappeared with it.
It was the seal that Varkus had slapped on me when I’d gone into debt to him… and it was how his bounty hunters tracked me.