“I thank you, heroes! Now and forever more, the Moongrove will be pleased to welcome you as guests! And if anyone wishes to make a home here, the highborn will gladly share the forest with them! Tomorrow I will pay a visit to Auldforge, where the leaders of the Commonwealth, the Empire and the neutral peoples will gather, and I will tell them of your deed! King Bastian the First and Emperor Kragosh may wish to meet with you personally! I have no doubt that Lisenta, First among the dryads, will wish to reward young Michelle separately…”
While Eynyon listed off the other leaders of mythical peoples, like the elected chief of the gnomes Realcool, who couldn’t wait to give an audience to gnomes Joker and Meister, I studied the achievement rewards. The notifications had only just appeared:
Unlocked legendary achievement First Kill: Abaddon the Destroyer!
You are the first in the world to kill the final boss of the Demonic Games! You faced Abaddon the Destroyer, higher demon and general in the army of Belial, Prince of the Inferno. You destroyed the general’s incarnation in the Cursed Chasm, and Abaddon has been cast back to the Inferno.
Reward: active ability Spirit Trap.
Unlocked legendary achievement True Champion of the Demonic Games!
You defeated Abaddon, level 666 Gate Guardian and final boss of the Demonic Games.
Reward: legendary cloak Windracer.
Unlocked legendary achievement First Ever: True Champion of the Demonic Games!
You have earned the True Champion of the Demonic Games achievement for the first time in the history of Disgardium!
Reward: divine artifact Skin of the Primordial Beast.
Awoken clan level increased: +4! Current level: 10.
Rewards:
– Here and Now! (a clan member with access to the clan vault can use it from anywhere in Disgardium).
– Give Us A Boost! (every clan member gets 0.001% the amount of experience earned by fellow clan members; there are limitations).
– Maximum Gold Flow (when any member of the clan picks up money from a corpse, an extra 10% of it is created and goes to the clan treasury).
– Maximum Experience Stream (increases experience gained for killing monsters and completing quests by 25%).
“…is over!” the elvish voice sang, pulling me from my reading.
“What about the achievement rewards?” Bloomer asked. “Seems like they’re different. I got a couple that are only good for poets.”
“I got Deadly Rain for Abaddon,” Destiny shared.
“I got Eternal Plenty,” Nobu the chef said. “And for True Champion, I got the divine Minjoon’s Ladle!”
I noticed that my allies didn’t mention what their new abilities did, but everyone had different rewards, which meant their abilities were different too. I was about to open my profile inventory to look at what I had, but someone touched me on the shoulder.
It was the gnome jeweler. Meister nodded questioningly at me, tipped his head toward Bloomer, Niceguy, Michelle, Joker and Nobu standing off in a separate group. Apparently, he was asking about my promise to the raid of crafters. There were three temples now; I could consecrate the one on Terrastera to the Sleepers, and then take my roughly hundred former allies in as followers.
“If all goes to plan, I’ll be fulfilling my obligations within the next few days.”
“Great!” Meister said, brightening up and walking away.
As soon as I opened my profile, someone else shouted to me, this time Quetzal:
“Alex! We’re all taking a walk around Moongrove. It’s not an easy place to get to, you know, especially if you’re from the Empire, like Hellfish. We’re going to have a stroll and then head to a restaurant for a drink. You coming?”
“Come on, Scyth!” Niceguy the orc alchemist said, pulling me by the arm. “I heard this is the only place you can try the very best elvish wine!”
“Sorry, guys, I need to get back. Things are piling up…”
“Shame,” Destiny said, looking away. “Alright, then go through the portal. It’s special – it’ll take you anywhere you want. Just think about where you want to go.”
“The Inferno?” I smiled.
“No, only conquered lands,” she said, missing the joke.
I took a step, looked back. My fourteen allies looked at me, practically family now.
“I knew he’d want a goodbye hug!” Hellfish roared and walked toward me.
I walked through the portal three minutes later, rumpled and thoroughly kissed.
Chapter 3. Inner Demons
AFTER JUMPING TO KHARINZA, I found myself staring into an ogre’s bemused face. He reeled back and I saw a second face, this one excitedly surprised. The ogre had two heads. I immediately recalled Mano’Hano, who had helped me alongside Lil’ Star in the Ordeal.
“Hey!” the surprised head said. “How’s it going, Scyth?”
“You shoulda warned us!” the bemused one grumbled. “Why did the Inexorable One even choose you?”
“Sorry,” I said, looking at his profile. The ogre was of Morena’s cultists and had the double-barreled name Rip’Per. “How’s it going?”
“We need to report to Dekotra,” Per said to Rip, the surprised head.
“Yep,” Rip nodded and grinned at me: “You’ve been away a long time, Scyth! Our people are saying you ended up at a trial of the gods, and fought in the Demonic Games. What was it like? And why…”
While they talked, advancing incredible theories about the Ordeal and the Games, I looked around. The circular street around the fortress was the main street, with such a variety of different peoples wandering, running and strolling along it that it was like I’d accidentally jumped to Kinema.
“Sorry, Rip, I’m in a hurry. Next time?” I raised my head: something shimmered above us like the surface of a soap bubble, with emerald flashes running across it. And it wasn’t in the sky, but right over us, just above the roofs of the houses and the domes of the castle. “Woah, what’s that?”
Both of the ogre’s heads looked up and dropped back down again synchronously.
“The Sleeping God put up a Veil of Distortion,” Rip said.
“Yeah, a mirage,” Per added. “To hide Kharinza from unkind eyes. From outside it, nobody can see the island until they set foot on it. A lot changed here while you were off having a good time.”
“Look there!” Rip pointed to the slender spire of a turret rising above the other structures. “Mr. Crawler has started building his Magic Tower in the south. The second floor is done and they’ve started the third.”
“I don’t see any construction work there,” I noted.
“Chosen of the Inexorable One and the Sleepers, with all respect, it is magic!” both heads cried. “Each floor is built separately and then – bam! – it just appears under the spire!”
“Thanks for the info, Rip’Per,” I said. “Where are Crawler and Bomber? You seen them around?”
“Yeah,” the heads said in unison, then Rip continued: “We have had the honor of seeing Mr. Crawler eighty-four times, and Mr. Bomber – fifty-one times.”
“Hmm… What about today?”
“Today we saw them once,” Rip reported. Per added: “Both at once, on the first floor of the castle. They were heading for Mr. Olivier’s tavern.”
Thanking the ogre again, I opened my destination list for Depths Teleportation. The officer’s mess in the castle was already called Olivier’s – after our chef and Grand Master of Cooking. I was about to jump there, but stopped and chose my room instead, ‘Scyth’s Place,’ to check out my rewards for the Demonic Games before I did anything else.
Zip!
“I’m home!” I shouted, spreading my arms and beholding my luxurious domain.
I couldn’t resist it – I jumped on the bed, stretched out and started examining my rewards lying on my back, starting with the first ability:
Spirit Trap
Captures any creature and binds them to their current point in space for between 1 second and
1 hour depending on the target’s level.
Attention! Skill can be applied to any target, but the higher your target’s level above yours, the shorter the trap’s duration.
Cooldown: 1 hour.
Next I pulled the cloak out of my inventory – light and almost transparent, but flowing with matt black tones.
Windracer
Legendary cloak.
Unique item.
Armor: 3600.
+360 agility.
+360 endurance.
+30% attack speed.
+30% ability cast speed.
+30% movement speed.
+30% mounted speed.
On activation: +300% movement speed for 5 seconds.
Sale price: 12,900 gold coins.
Chance of loss after death lowered by 100%.
Durability: indestructible.
I saved for last the artifact with the bright-red name that pulled at me like a tractor beam. It was a huge black skin, twenty by twenty feet, its luster and color still intact. The little soft hairs felt warm to the touch and gave off prickly sparks.
Skin of the Primordial Beast
Divine artifact.
Unique item.
Athena herself killed the Primordial Cave Bear and took its skin.
This interior decor item can be used only in your own home. Hanging the skin on a wall makes that wall indestructible. Placing it on the floor grants invulnerability to its owner when standing on it.
Chance of loss after death lowered by 100%.
Durability: indestructible.
The cloak was awesome, and it fit perfectly with Cold-Blooded Punisher. Spirit Trap made my day too – it expanded my arsenal of crowd-control abilities. But what could I do with the skin? What was the point of it if nobody could enter my private room anyway? Maybe it’d come in handy for defending the castle, as long as the rug worked in the corridors…
I decided to head to the cafeteria on foot – show my face before the people here forgot who Scyth was. After all, Rip’Per had seen ‘Mr.’ Crawler and Bomber dozens of times, but me only two or three.
“Scyth! My boy!” Patrick O’Grady shouted to me, hurrying toward me.
The old drunk dog of war was unrecognizable – his step was sure, his back straight, his face clean shaven and his hair carefully parted. He even seemed taller. Patrick reached me and threw his arms around me in a bear hug:
“Congratulations, champion! Demon Fighter!”
“Hey, Patrick!”
Thoughts of Patrick’s role in my life stirred my heart. We separated and he started showering me with questions, but before even waiting for an answer, he told me some important news:
“We’re having a wedding, Scyth! Stephanie and I are getting married!”
An NPC marrying an undying woman? A player marrying an NPC? Unlike in the ancient games before the age of total immersion, a wedding in virtuality now meant just as much as in real life! Go Aunt Stephanie! I wondered what her older brother Gyula thought of it. I didn’t voice those thoughts to Patrick, of course.
“I’m happy for you, Patrick! And for Stephanie too!”
“Imagine how happy I am, Scyth!”
While we talked, the system flashed up a notification:
Quest Become a Man completed!
Patrick O’Grady, First Priest of the Sleeping Gods, fell in love with Stephanie Katon, proprietress of the Pig and Whistle tavern on the isle of Kharinza. You helped him to Become a Man again, returning his former reputation and standing in society, and Patrick managed to conquer Stephanie’s heart.
Experience: +2 mil.
Experience at current level (581): 54.1 bil / 992 bil.
Your reputation with Patrick O’Grady has increased: +500.
Current reputation: respect.
Patrick O’Grady, one-time happy honorary citizen of Tristad and now clan manager of the Awoken, led me to the officers’ cafeteria, excitedly talking all the way about the preparations for the wedding. The main thing I learned was that Behemoth himself would conduct the ceremony!
Four needlers hovered beneath the ceiling by the entrance, chittering. Alien, Watchamacallit and Little Trunk I’d seen plenty, but the fourth, Prickler, reminded me of the sandbox. I noticed it was female, just like its owner – Tissa. My mood dropped like a rock. Judging by Little Trunk, Infect was here too. It seemed the boys had decided to solve all our problems at a single clan council meeting.
I felt sick to my stomach, not from the realization that I wouldn’t be happy no matter what decision I made, and not because I still held any grudges. The pain came from the fact that I couldn’t bring back the time when all this was only just starting, when we were a team, when we supported each other. Could I bring it back? I doubted it.
“Hey, Iggy,” I said, summoning my needler. “Talk to your brothers and sisters. They must have missed you…”
Iggy, paying no attention to his brethren, chittered something unpleasant at me in a fury. Shame Anf the insectoid guardian wasn’t there to translate… Or maybe it was better that way – I doubted Iggy was saying anything particularly nice about his long confinement in the great nothing. After emitting what I was sure was a furious tirade, the needler fell silent. Then the other overgrown flies surrounded their brother, and Iggy forgot all about me.
At the entrance to the tavern, with the letters Olivier’s gently flashing in red and white, two mercenary guards stood, each at level 380. I didn’t see any weapons on them, and they wore civilian gear, but the titans’ powerful frames on their own were better deterrents than any sword.
“Welcome, Mr. Scyth!” one of them rumbled. “Welcome, Mr. Patrick!”
The guards stepped aside to let us pass. Why were they even there? Patrick and I crossed the threshold.
“Mr. Scyth!” the chef himself shouted, scurrying over to me from the depths of the hall, barking orders at shapely elf serving girls as he went. “What an honor! What are you standing there for? Allow me to escort you!”
“What the hell’s going on, Olivier?” I asked, frowning and nodding toward the guards. “Why are they there?”
“Oh, forgive me, forgive me, they were hired at my request…” Olivier began to babble.
From his machine-gun speech, I learned that the sewer troggs and kobolds had started to descend on the restaurant in droves. The two tribes were simple peoples, so they weren’t squeamish about eating the scraps that the tender-hearted waitresses would feed them when they thought nobody was watching. As a result, the prestigious restaurant turned into a dump, and Olivier asked the amenable ‘Mr. Crawler’ for guards, although he turned down the request at first.
“Savages,” Patrick shook his head. “Guards are the right decision, Scyth. Stephanie’s tavern is always packed to the rafters now. At least here we can sit and eat in peace.”
Crawler and Bomber walked over to us, the warrior chewing something and holding a mug of ale.
“Mr. Crawler will explain how the troggs nearly destroyed this restaurant of ours!” Olivier said.
“Yeah, those sewer kids really got out of hand,” the gnome mage muttered. “The kobold cubs got up to all kinds of mischief in here. We couldn’t hear ourselves think, let alone eat.”
“Ah, the hell with it,” the titan warrior rumbled. “The kraken is waiting for me, boys, it’s nearly feeding time, and we have lots of swimming to do! We’re in the center of the ocean now, and I can’t jump there through the depths. Orthokon has to come back to get me on a little island – a day’s travel wasted… Let’s hurry up and get this over and done with.”
“Where are the others?” I asked, looking at the chef as he offered me a menu. “Thanks, Mr. Olivier, I’m not hungry.”
“They’re all here, in the restaurant’s private room…” A shadow crossed Crawler’s face, he shook his head, grimaced. “But we’d better move to the command center. Hard to concentrate with Olivier around, and anyway… We don’t need any public scandals.”
“Alright, I’ll jump th
ere with Patrick, you bring the others.”
Minutes later, all the Awoken officers, as far as I knew, including Tissa and Infect, were assembled in the council hall in the command center. While I’d been gone, Crawler had redone the whole place, and now the room looked no worse than Pecheneg’s. Even the very latest Torches of True Flame adorned the walls.
Enemy of the Inferno (Disgardium Book #8): LitRPG Series Page 9