Wreathed in smoke and fire, the tank of a mob careered toward me, and the earth shook beneath its feet. Tongues of flame shot from its two mouths filled with rows of sharp teeth.
The monster was running very fast, and I braced for his entire weight to hit me. But the animal suddenly stopped instantly, apparently immune to inertia – he stood stock still, sniffing the air. The growths on his head raised, turning into two pairs of horns, which bore five yellow and one white star. The inraug burst into a roar, then, with a screech and kicking up sparks, he crouched back on his bony paws and jumped!
I let him attack first deliberately. Equanimity activated and my body was pinned to the ground. Both mouths of the boss bit into me and pulled in different directions, but failed to rip my body in two. Reflection kicked in, the monster growled, jumped back, shook its heads and snorted out acrid black smoke that blurred my vision.
Once he realized I wasn’t dying from the smoke, the inraug gave a roar that paralyzed me, then started to rip at me with its claws – apparently with the memory of a goldfish. This time he didn’t back off, but took the reflected damage and enraged, attacking again with redoubled strength, covering me with liquid fire, tearing with fang and claw, causing himself ever more pain and ever more fury. But I waited patiently, watching my invulnerability timer count down.
A hundred and twenty seconds passed like an age, but it was still a friendly pat on the back in comparison to a Living Sieve. The pain seemed dulled, the monster’s fangs not breaking through my skin, the streams of liquid flame sliding down me harmlessly. I felt like the bone in a battle between two dogs.
After another flash of Reflection, the inraug threw me up into the air and kicked me away with both feet. With a furious roar, it attacked again.
I waited out two minutes in Equanimity and then another, losing health but gaining certainty that I could take on the locals. The alpha and possessor of five yellow stars, equal to sixty white ones, had only taken a fraction of a percent of health from me in all this time. I would have withstood for longer, but my enemy died. Reflection had done its job, killing the local boss. I didn’t hit him once.
I rose, chewed-up but whole. The bodies of the inraugs had all floated away, leaving small handfuls of chao behind. Hakkar left those crumbs. The boss had left a little mound the size of my fist. I reached out for it first, to figure out how much chao I could get for mobs relative to their level… And pulled my hand back. Wait! If there was a lot of chao there, my tiefling would get a star, or even several! How would I explain that? No, I didn’t want to blow my cover.
Digging around in the settings, I found the standard action for picking up chao. I changed ‘Absorb’ to ‘Place in inventory,’ and only then looted it.
Chao particles received: 6.6 mil.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. On the one hand, that was an incredible amount, six white stars at once! In a town where the head honcho had earned only two yellow stars in a hundred years of service for the glory of the Dominion, I could just kill a few more bosses like this and become lieutenant to a god… or at least to Prince Belial. On the other hand, if I understood the game mechanics correctly, the inraug alpha must have had sixty-six million particles, maybe a little more, but only a tenth of that had dropped from him.
Where was the rest? I wandered around in confusion, absentmindedly looted the chao from the other inraugs, kicked a stone of frozen lava and then suddenly calmed down. Of course! Whether stars or experience, the system was the same – when I killed Crusher, I didn’t get all the experience he’d earned. It made sense that it was the same way here. I calculated that ninety percent of the chao disappeared on death. That must be why it was so hard for the demons to save up. And it cost them chao just to live! Mortals only needed air, water and food; demons needed chao too, to maintain their immortality and give them strength.
About nine million chao in total dropped from the ordinary inraugs – an even lower conversion rate, around three percent. I had collected roughly sixteen million in total, which was one yellow and three white stars!
Kerass the demon had been ready to kill Teland and Hakkar for twenty particles? And let them live for a thousand?
Well, I’d give him what he wanted. Today.
But tomorrow, he’d get a big surprise…
Chapter 14. The Great Exodus
NEWS OF MY RETURN spread like wildfire as soon as I walked back into town. All the townspeople had already heard about my conflict with the elder’s son and wanted to see how it ended.
They all gathered to watch Kerass finish me and Teland off – devils, imps, succubi, demons and even one informal, like a gigantic green flame given life and flesh. The infernal walked like a mechatank and looked fearsome, towering three feet above the rest, but was just as starless as everyone else, so harmless. I had seen others like him in the battles in the desert – they were among the favorite minions of warlocks.
Judging by the conversations of the town demons, nobody liked what was happening, and someone in the crowd suggested that they all donate to pay the ransom for me and Hakkar’s father, but the idea met no enthusiasm. A bowed devil with a broken horn sighed heavily: “Will anyone share at least a particle with me? I’ve been dry for six days!”
They walked behind me, and their eyes were sad. It seemed they’d already mentally buried me and Teland… Well, that is, assumed that we would be disincarnated.
I managed to find my way to the Elder Shverk’s house without getting lost, only just. Kerass, already notified, was waiting for me at the threshold, frowning, his arms crossed. I think he was sure I’d failed his task, and now he was regretting that he’d have to kill me after all. From what I could gather of the local politics, the townsfolk wouldn’t like it; they knew that any one of them might have stood in my place.
“Look at that,” Kerass snorted. “You’re back. Thought you’d go and hide until I left, stinkling. I guess honesty or idiocy brought you back. Either sin earns you death.”
“A thousand chao, just like I promised,” I said, stretching out a hand.
The crowd behind me began to buzz in surprise.
“Little Hakk got a bunch of chao?!” someone bleated behind me. “Impossible! How did he do it?”
“Maybe there’s more to old man Teland than meets the eye. Has he been saving it up and hiding it for a rainy day?”
Kerass’s eyes moved from the dust in my hand to me and back again, as if not believing and unable to reconcile that the weak ‘stinkling’ had won such riches.
“If anyone in the Nest had any chao in supply, I would have thought you stole it, Hakkar,” the demon growled in surprise. “But my father collected every last particle this past year.”
“I’m no thief, Master Kerass. I was lucky enough to find a vilespring. Small, barely enough for me to keep my promise,” I answered. “Now go get my father and let him go…” Thinking for a moment, I decided not to break character and added: “Please. Glory to the Dominion!”
Kerass placed his giant hand atop mine, absorbed the chao, but kept the hand there, gripping mine tightly and asking quietly:
“A vilespring? Are you sure you gave me all of it? Or did you keep some back for yourself? Drop everything you have! Let’s see!”
Keeping my eyes on the fury dancing in his pupils, I said firmly:
“I owed you a thousand, Master Kerass. You’ve taken that. I don’t owe you any more.”
“So the vilespring gave you more!” the demon snarled, grabbing me by the throat. He lifted me up, tightened his fingers. “Drop it, tiefling! If you don’t drop it, I’ll take it myself after you disincarnate!”
The crowd started to murmur unhappily. I wheezed. Equanimity prevented any damage, but Imitation did its job – my face reddened, my legs started twitching. I made as if trying to pry his strong and narrow fingers open, but really I was just touching them.
“Have mercy, Master Kerass, I’ll give you all of it!”
“Do it!” he snapped.
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Opening my inventory, I counted out another thousand chao and change, putting in the last three digits at random for the look of it.
“Here, this is all of it!”
The demon absorbed the chao and tossed me away. Laughing, he said:
“Who were you trying to fool, you piece of cockroach shit?”
I stayed down on all fours, holding my throat and coughing while casting glances at the townsfolk. The crowd didn’t dare come closer, but the back rows were pushing in, and in the hubbub I heard cries of complaint:
“Not fair! The tiefling had the right to keep the rest!”
“What will Master Shverk say? His son’s behavior dishonors his house!”
Kerass cast a fearsome glance at them. The cries stopped, the crowd surged backwards.
“If any of you dislike it, feel free to challenge me! Everything I do, I do for the Dominion!”
“For the Dominion!” the devils, demons and imps shouted.
A succubus emerged from the ranks, pushing aside the infernal smoldering with green fire. She approached, swaying her hips and smiling. She ran her tongue along her lips, touched my face with the tip of her tail, then wrapped it around the demon’s neck and purred.
“Kerass, little Hakk held up his end of the deal! Let him go! Free his father!”
The demon shrugged and chuckled:
“A deal is a deal. Take your father, tiefling, and get gone before I change my mind!”
Turning away, he put his arm around the succubus’s waist and led her into the house. The door slammed shut behind them.
A group of devils went with me to pick up old Teland. Apart from astonished whispers about my luck, I also heard confusion over Zeonar, who was always inclined to bunk off work, but now was nowhere to be found at all.
“Bet he’s coolin’ his heels with his little buddy Tarbas somewhere!” complained an old hunchbacked devil with graying fur.
“We oughta kick him out of the work crew!” someone else bleated to a chorus of agreement.
They all kept asking where I’d found the chao vilespring, in and amongst complaining about the injustice of Kerass and of their lot in life: that the strong always take chao from the weak.
A quarter of an hour later, Teland and I were sitting down at the table back at the house, drinking a cold brew of unknown herbs. It was so acrid and bitter that I nearly retched, but apparently my full imitation allowed me to stomach demonic food and drink, normally fatal to any mortal. A dissolving stomach and burnt intestines wouldn’t be the worst of it.
Hakkar’s father was overjoyed and couldn’t believe our luck. He kept glancing back at the door as if afraid that Kerass might change his mind.
“What luck!” he said. “What luck! Running into a chao vilespring just when your fate depended on it, Hakk! The Great Prince himself must be watching over you! Almighty Chaos, how is it possible?!”
Our horns scraped the ceiling of the dark hovel. The only source of light was the lava splashing in the hearth. Jumping up, Teland pulled a small, nearly empty bag out of the pantry and poured a little out into a bowl. The contents looked like some kind of cereal. Then he took out a jar full of teeming insects and threw a few into the bowl of cereal. The sight alone made me want to be sick. Before they could escape, he poured in something that looked like swampwater, took up a pestle and started to grind it all into a smooth mixture. A wisp of smoke rose from it.
“Let’s eat, Hakk, then you can get started on the book,” he said, still grinding the muck. “You haven’t forgotten to read, I hope?”
“I don’t know. Where’s the book? I’ll check.”
Teland reached under the table and pulled out a huge leatherbound tome.
“‘The Great Exodus.’ This sacred book contains the history of our people, son. Read it and don’t forget it again!”
I looked askance at the book. It had to be at least five thousand pages long – it would take more than a month to read. I took it in hand and saw the same symbols that had appeared to me when I first arrived in the Inferno. Or other squiggles like them, at least. I narrowed my eyes, hoping they would turn into normal letters, but I saw a word instead. The symbols stayed just as they were, but now I could understand what they meant: ‘The Great Exodus, or the History of the Demons Before, During and After the Signing of the Demonic Pact.’
I sighed in relief when I opened the tome. There weren’t many pages, they were just thick. Each was made of fine leather with huge symbols burnt in. They worked like logograms: each symbol represented a word, meaning or whole sentence. And I understood all of them.
“Read,” Teland whispered. “Go on and light the torch. I’m going to sleep. That was a long day, to say the least! Oh, I was at my wit’s end. I kept remembering your mother and brothers, thinking about my life’s path and how I was ending it…”
The one-legged tiefling closed the shutters and limped over to the bench he’d been sitting on, gulped down the sickening crunched-up mass of worms, cereal and cockroaches, then covered himself up with some rags and fell silent.
I shoved his bowl of food away and delved into reading by the flickering torchlight.
The annals of the demons were a huge seam in the history of Disgardium. They weren’t a separate race, but a multitude of races united under the leadership of a triumvirate of Old Gods. Their names then didn’t strike fear into hearts the way they do now. Back then, they were just three among hundreds of others: Diablo, Belial and Azmodan. The first protected adventurers, travelers and bandits. The second – merchants, traders, crafters and inventors. The third united all that made a living from warfare, but also helped farmers and hunters.
The trio made friends, then bent a third of Latteria and a quarter of Shad’Erung beneath their leadership. Back then, the Thunder Strait hadn’t yet split the northern parts of those continents, and the community there thrived, with humans, gnomes, dwarfs, goblins, orcs, minotaurs, trolls, ogres and any number of smaller tribes all rubbing shoulders and thriving. The protector gods lived among the sentients and ruled wisely and justly.
Wild southern tribesmen launched raids against the border settlements of Andara, the largest country of the age in Disgardium. However, under the leadership of Azmodan, the legions successfully repelled the barbarian assaults, and after some time the wild tribesmen merged into Andara and disappeared into its multicultural motley.
The country’s trio of founding gods began to get bored. Diablo decided to experiment with other dimensions and try to tear the Sleepers from their dream, for which Behemoth rewarded him with a thousand years of banishment to the great nothing. Belial, in his careful attempts to test the boundaries of the Celestial Arbitration’s capabilities, nearly lost his divinity, but managed to beg forgiveness from Tiamat. Azmodan, who had already nearly touched Chaos, immediately ceased his investigations. Even the strongest gods feared the Sleepers in those days.
Three thousand years later, the New Gods came to Disgardium. Their messengers flooded the world, promising incredible power and riches to their followers. To its detriment, Andara failed to react at all to what was happening at the edge of the world. The New Gods gained strength, and the Old were remembered less and less, as were the Sleepers.
More and more of the Old Gods’ temples were torn down, and in their place the mortals erected sanctuaries to the New. Since light and the sun symbolized life for all sentients, most of the Faith, and therefore most of the power, went to Nergal the Radiant. He was the first to gain enough courage to call on the mortals to crusade against heathen Andara. That happened after the strongest Old Gods, such as Odin, Morena, Zeus and Reaper, were banished either beyond the Barrier or to infertile lands. Nergal was joined by Marduk, Huracan, Veles, Shesmu and the rest. They had fewer followers, but together they tripled the Radiant God’s army..
Hordes of wildlings, who would become the people of the Commonwealth, Empire and League thousands of years later, crashed down on Andara, tearing away chunks of fertile land, razing de
fensive walls and villages. Diablo, Azmodan and Belial shrouded themselves in armor of celestial metal and led their legions against the army of the New Gods.
Every killed legionary took down a dozen wildlings with him, but to the New Gods, that exchange rate was just fine. From the most distant southern lands of Latteria and Shad’Erung, from Bakabba, from the isles of the archipelago – barbarians streamed in from all directions to answer the call of the generous New Gods.
Losing city after city, the three future Great Princes of the Inferno did the unthinkable – they turned to Chaos, the eternal enemy of all Order, so mighty and unpredictable that even the Sleeping Gods were wary to do business with it.
Chaos, indifferent to the affairs of mortals and gods alike but ever seeking to expand its territory, poured out through spatial rifts opened by Diablo, Belial and Azmodan, and corrupted the people of Andara forever. He took their souls, but granted them eternal life and tenfold their prior power. The mortal races turned into demons. Elves became satyrs and succubi, orcs became devils, gnomes and dwarfs became imps. From what I understood from the book, the lines originally weren’t so clearly drawn; at first, Chaos so disfigured the body that it was impossible to say who was who. The final demonic races formed only after thousands of years of evolution, and not without interbreeding.
Enemy of the Inferno (Disgardium Book #8): LitRPG Series Page 27