by Oliver Mayes
It took thirty seconds, but he didn’t need to call a second time. Noigel landed in front of him, his horns already completely receded.
“Find the way forward.”
While Noigel and the minions panned out, Damien took stock. He had four imps and a succubus. He still had 4 souls left but was in no rush to use them until he knew what he’d need. He waited for Noigel to scout the way forward. After a minute, Noigel flew back to him, shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders.
Damien stood on top of a boulder and looked around. There was no doorway besides that which he’d entered by, which was now open. He looked up and around. He circled the entire chamber. There was nothing there. The only way was back. Confused, Damien made his way through the doors and they closed behind him, then locked. He placed a hand on them, just to be certain. They were inert and would no longer open for him.
What was going on? It was only as he stepped away that a new chest shimmered into view in the center of the antechamber. This one was far more ornate than usual: gold trim, carvings, varnished finish. If it was a trap, it was the meanest one Damien had ever seen.
He had the imps open it, just to be sure. When nothing terrible happened to them, Damien peered inside. He recognized the weapon immediately. The two blades looked a lot heftier than they had in the light show preceding the Path of Deceit. He inspected it.
Shirai-Ryu Chain Kunai x 2
Description: A pair of melee/throwing weapons granted to Bartholomew as a customized gift from a like-minded specter of the Netherrealm. They brought him closer to his goals and his goals closer to him, one corpse at a time.
Special Ability: When thrown, the chains linking these weapons extends. Pulling on the chain draws you to the target, the target to you or both, depending on the forces acting on both parties. Twisting the chain disengages the weapon.
Demon-Spear: Mana:1,000. When a target is pierced at range with both kunai simultaneously, flipping the chains pushes a wave of black fire along them. If both flames reach the target they are ignited, reducing armor by 50% and inflicting half your agility as direct damage per second for 5 seconds. Cooldown: 2 minutes.
Level Requirement: 45
Durability: 100/100
Damage: 300 + (Agility x 1)
Stats: +100 Agility
This was an incredible piece. It was a two-handed weapon, of sorts, with one blade for each hand. The damage and stats more than justified taking up both of his weapon slots. 100 agility! A 1:1 ratio on damage, with 300 damage for the base calculation! He knew his old gear was severely outdated, but this was insane.
Then there were the special abilities. The first was a way of getting into range quickly without relying on his imps for Demon Gates. The second granted Circle of Hell’s damage over time and armor reduction without the need for a succubus, although it cost a whole lot of mana and would only be applied to a single target.
He considered the level requirement. Why was this gear only level 45 when the rest of the gear in this dungeon was level 50? Whatever the reason, it meant Damien wouldn’t have to wait. He put his daggers away and equipped the kunai. The chains wrapped around his forearms, passing behind his back to connect to each other and through his hands to the blades, which dangled below his wrists. He pulled on the chains and they slickly ran backward through his grip, the blades snapping into his waiting palms.
He could get used to this. It was worlds beyond any weapon he’d ever seen in this game. Why had it been given it to him here, rather than presenting it to him in Mordred’s boss chamber as a reward? He remembered the unopened chest in the corner of the previous room, the block of wood above it with the distinctive ‘X’ carved into the center, and formed a hypothesis.
He took a throwing knife in each hand and passed them to Noigel.
“That’s your quota of knives. Maintain order here while I scout. Same as before, keep everyone quiet.”
Noigel tipped a knife to Damien in a modified salute and motioned at the table with the other. The imps immediately piled in, shushing each other as they jostled for space. Noigel had made staying quiet part of his game. Smart imp. The succubus stood to the side with her arms folded, looking bored by the whole affair. All as it should be.
Damien crouched down and returned to the silent room. He tossed a rock overhead and assessed how many urchins were left. Many on the far side had already been culled but this side was still rife with them. The urchins reentered stealth and the chest he’d previously left behind became visible, taunting him.
He looked from the chest to the wooden beam above it with the ‘X’ in the middle. Here we go. He double-checked the description of his newly acquired weapon’s special skill. Right. Seemed a bit insane, in a logical way. As logical as anything else he’d done in this room. The wooden beam was about two meters long and one wide, tucked right into the corner. The chest was very slightly in front of it with a small gap behind. That’s where he would drop down, if he went through with this.
Would throwing a weapon at a block of wood qualify as an attack made with intent? Would he become visible and get perforated? Why risk it? Damien reequipped his new weapon, drawing one blade into his hand and taking a rock with the other. He flicked the rock into the air and the moment all the urchins fired, flung the kunai at the beam as hard as he could. The kunai had a great deal more heft in it than the throwing knives and took a fair bit more stamina to throw. It didn’t seem likely, but he hoped he wouldn’t break the beam by mistake. More importantly, if his Shadow Walker was deactivated, he’d have to make a very hasty exit.
While the weapon looked very different, it worked exactly the same way as the throwing knives. The chain unraveled from his arm seamlessly and soundlessly, without requiring any additional effort. The kunai sank into the wood with a satisfying thunk. It had been loud, yet he was still in Shadow Walker. Attacks on inanimate objects with no health bars didn’t break stealth. Probably. He’d have to try it without throwing a rock first to be sure but didn’t feel like doing so in his present company.
Damien pulled on the chain. He was drawn through the air, over the urchins, until his hand was back around the weapon. He was still in Shadow Walker. A twist of the wrist and the kunai disengaged. He dropped to the floor, behind the chest. Okay. He was now trapped behind a chest with urchins on the other side. This was familiar. He’d rather secure his way out before he started rooting around in the chest.
Damien positioned himself so only one urchin had line of sight to him and flung a kunai at it. The kunai struck the urchin in the middle and it was immediately destroyed. His damage was much higher now. He pulled on the chain, intending to bring the kunai back, only to find it was still embedded in the urchin corpse.
He’d been certain twisting to release wouldn’t be necessary if he’d killed the target. So certain it hadn’t even occurred to him to do so. Damien had been attacked by plenty of corpses, never an unanimated one. He twisted his wrist and the kunai disengaged, snapping back into his hand empty. That didn’t do anything to slow down the upward trajectory of what it had been attached to. He was lucky urchins immediately dried up on death, shedding their spikes and most of their weight, although when it hit him in the head his first thought was not how lucky he was.
He set his back to the chest, grumbling and rubbing his forehead. The weapon was great, but the mechanics behind it provided endless opportunities for stupid deaths if he wasn’t careful. He’d have to practice more. He took his time with the remaining four urchins, killing each of them with a stealth critical strike over the next minute. They were only providing one soul each. At least it was a good chance to get accustomed to his weapon mechanics. Throw, twist, pull.
With them gone, Damien was comfortable enough to open the chest. He braced his arms as the lid was struck with spikes from further afield, then sidled round to withdraw the item before retreating behind the chest to examine it.
The Last Grasp
Description: A pair of demon-hide bracers once
worn by the Sunset Emperor: Bartholomew, Scourge of the World. The more holdings he seized, the more of himself he lost. At the exact moment he held the entire world in his grasp, he lost everything.
Level Requirement: 50
Stat Requirement: 200 Agility
Stats: +30 Agility, +30 Wisdom
Set Bonus: Sunset Emperor – +30 Agility, +30 Constitution, +30 Endurance, +30 Wisdom (1/5 pieces): Shadow Walker functions in broad daylight
Three set pieces down, two to go. The only question was where to head next. If it wasn’t through Mordred’s room it had to be somewhere around here. Giving him the weapon after he’d returned here was signposting. It was because using it would open new ways forward, as it had done already with these bracers. If the way forward was only accessible with this new weapon, it likely lay overhead. He examined the ceiling and found only one thing out of place: there was a square hole right in the middle of it. He pulled up the screenshot Noigel had taken of the floor and found a matching gap in the center of the room, void of urchins. He’d have to go there to see upward clearly.
There were now a lot less urchins in the room than when he’d started. His level was also high enough to see them from a reasonable distance. Reasonable not to walk headfirst into them anyway. He made it to the middle without throwing any rocks and looked directly up. There it was. Another wooden beam above the opening, this one without an ‘X’ through the middle of it. The gap was just wide enough for a person. The problem was Damien also had his minions to consider.
There was no way his imps and succubus were getting through that room and into the opening before becoming pincushions. It required a great deal of self-control for Damien not to groan, which would’ve killed him in his present company. More busywork, more waste. He returned to the antechamber and dismissed all his minions, picking up 2 souls and leaving the rest behind.
Throwing the kunai at the block of wood hadn’t disrupted his Shadow Walker before, although it had definitely made a noise when it connected. So long as he had a rock in his inventory, or even an item he regarded as less valuable than his own life, there was no way he’d take that for granted. He tossed the rock, threw the kunai up and was pulled through the gap before there was any chance of a second volley coming.
He had a quick look around. No sign of any enemies or anything else of interest, save for the wooden beam stretching over the narrow passageway he’d passed through. A rock hurled into the air confirmed he was safe. Then he looked up and took in the latest obstacle.
This room was bigger than all the rest of them put together, only upward. If Damien wasn’t mistaken, it represented the interior of the tower he’d seen from the outside. It was mostly empty, save for a multitude of wooden beams crisscrossing the room all the way to the top. They always cut directly across the room, all of them overlapping in the middle, yet looking up Damien could not see the exit from any point at his own level. There were hundreds of them, extending far into the distance.
Damien summoned ten imps as he sized up the weird environment above him. He could send an imp up as high as he could see and Demon Gate to it, but with the cooldown that would still take a long time. It clearly wasn’t what this room was asking for: it wanted him to practice with his new weapon. Damien was game. He’d keep the imps on standby and have Demon Gate for insurance. He threw a kunai at the first beam and pulled the chain, drawing himself underneath it. Then he awkwardly clambered around and pulled himself over the edge.
This didn’t seem right. Doing it this way would barely be faster than Demon Gating and took a lot more effort. Damien eyed up the next beam and took his experiment a step further. He threw a kunai, then swung out on the chain into the air. It was cool for a moment, but then he reached the end of the arc and began to swing back. Whatever he was supposed to be doing, this wasn’t it. He pulled on the chain to reset so he could try again.
That was when the problems started. He’d assumed pulling the chain would take him in a straight line to his destination. It did not. His swing was amplified as the chain grew shorter, dragging him over the top of it. If he didn’t disengage he’d be smashed into the beam at high speed. He twisted the chain and the kunai was immediately withdrawn. Without a tether, Damien flew upward and backward. He hurtled past one beam, then another, until his ascent was brought to a halt upon colliding with a third.
He’d lost most of his momentum before he hit it anyway, so he didn’t take too much damage. Now he was falling, which was a lot more consistent in the damage department. He threw a kunai in midair at a beam as he passed it, then the chain went taut as he dropped below it. He flew around it in a spiral, the chain shortening as it wrapped around the beam continually. Each rotation brought him one step closer to bashing his brains out. He twisted the chain again on the upswing, and so the cycle continued.
He could build bigger swings now. Dandy. What he needed to know was how to make it stop, please. As he started to slow, he aimed for a beam above him rather than below. As soon as the blade landed, while he was hovering perfectly between rising and falling, he tugged on the chain and was brought to it in a straight line. The moment the blade entered the palm of his hand, all his momentum was canceled out. He hung out there for a while, unwilling to move, until the imps caught up with him. The one sniggering had to be Noigel.
This would work, he just had to control it. He’d been working with just one chain, he hadn’t tried with two yet. It might give him twice as much control or it might take twice as much control to master. Probably somewhere in between. Or both. He jumped out and threw a kunai, pulling to fly upward. It was much better this time, since he knew what was coming and was facing the direction he was moving in. As he passed that beam, he threw at the next one with his free hand and released the former. The chain went taut and he circled upward again. This was manageable, provided he didn’t miss. He soon found that even missing was okay. He just circled the beam he was on and took another shot on the next rotation.
All he needed now was practice. He’d have plenty of that, seeing as how this tower went on forever. He swung out again, his eyes acclimatizing to seeking out the next target earlier and earlier. He’d passed ten beams before he realized he had it down. It was all natural now: he was looking four beams ahead to plan his movements in advance without even thinking about it. Everything had become real smooth. Right up until he heard a familiar noise.
‘Plin-’
Damien went into full panic mode, his hand twisting. It changed his direction in time to avoid the needle, although recalibrating at such short notice was tricky. He had to find the urchin. If he left it, at least one of his minions would be killed when they flew through. Damien swung around again, passing through the same space to provoke another response. It came and Damien disconnected on the loop.
As the needle flew over his shoulder, he followed the trajectory back to the source. Now he had to figure out his next anchor point and fire on the urchin at the same time. Anchoring was the priority. He could take a few urchin needles, but he wouldn’t survive a bad fall. He anchored and hit the urchin with his second throw, making sure to twist as soon as it landed so he wouldn’t fly into it or pull it into himself. It took a few rotations and there were a couple of misses while he worked the angles but the urchin died on the second hit. He was clear.
He kept working his way up, the number of urchins increasing steadily but surely. He’d been at it for half an hour when a mass of five urchins spanning two beams appeared. In other circumstances he’d have considered passing them by, even if he lost his minions for it. However, these circumstances included a chest, placed at the very center of the beam. He took a few hits while he was swinging around, and even had to retreat downward to drink a potion at one point, before he picked the wrong route to come in and didn’t release fast enough.
It was a steep learning curve with a lot of literal steep curves. After he’d dealt with one, the whole thing became much easier. Each urchin he dispatched after that made it easier
still. He finished them off and landed right next to the chest, utterly full of himself. He was even more pleased when he retrieved the fourth of five pieces of Bartholomew’s set.
Kusazuri of Imminent Misery
Description: A demon-hide protective skirt once worn by the Sunset Emperor: Bartholomew, Scourge of the World. Bartholomew always assumed the imminent misery referenced those who acted against his interests. He was right. What he failed to recognize was his place as first among them.
Level Requirement: 50
Stat Requirement: 200 Agility
Stats: +30 Constitution, +30 Endurance
Set Bonus: Sunset Emperor – +30 Agility, +30 Stamina, +30 Endurance, +30 Wisdom (1/5 pieces): Shadow Walker functions in broad daylight
Four down, one to go. He could see the faintest glimmer of light filtering down from above, although he could only guess how much further he had to go. Maybe this was the halfway point, if he was lucky. He hadn’t realized this would be a marathon.
The urchins he’d killed on the way were starting to accumulate. His experience bar was filling up and he’d accustomed himself to the bizarre environment. The further he went, the more comfortable he became. What had once required conscious effort was now second nature, both in and out of combat.
It was something of a surprise when the number of urchins began to ramp up. Soon there were at least three urchins for every ten beams. Damien adapted to the pattern after the first two rounds, changing his movement to deal with what he knew would be coming. He calculated his trajectory from below, timed his releases when he was above and removed himself from combat immediately after his attacks by retreating to the lower levels he’d already cleared.
He’d been accumulating new minions the whole while, leaving them in Noigel’s care to keep them from harm as he dealt with the threats himself. It was tricky, since the souls would drift down and he had to try and catch them before they fell too far. He had a full group worth 30 souls again. He was limited to picking minions who could handle the ‘terrain’: imps, succubi and wraiths. None of which would be very useful for this. He’d settled on sixteen imps and two succubi. That was a long time ago.