Asher looked down and away from me, as if he were ashamed. It surprised me then when Theo spoke, “Your little friend tells me you’ve been ensnared by Purgatory. Lusting after treasures even through you don’t need it.”
I was even more confused. “But it’s treasure. It’s what pays for my armor and my proficiencies. The food I eat and the training I get daily from the different weapons masters.”
Theo nodded. “That’s true, but do you need as much as you’ve got?”
I still didn’t understand. “Of course, I need it. And I need a lot more. If I spend a few months farming this floor, I should be able to make enough to last me until I get through to the end of Purgatory.”
“Just a few months?” Theo asked. “How long have you been, as you put it, farming this floor?”
I furrowed my brow. That was a strange question. I shrugged, “I don’t know, a few weeks, maybe a month.”
“It’s been seven months since we last celebrated you finishing the second floor,” Theo said.
“That can’t be right,” I said, shaking my head. “Asher . . . Theo, is this a prank? Did Asher put you up to this?”
Theo shook his head. “Not a prank my friend. It’s really been seven months.”
That couldn’t be right, could it? I mean, yeah, I supposed I had twenty unused points of body, and eleven unused points of soul, but that was just hard work meeting success. I could have done that in a few weeks . . . couldn’t I? And so, what? Who cares if it had been seven months? The returns on my invested time were worth it, weren’t they? And what business was it of his? Why did he care what I spent my time doing?
“If it really has been so long, then I suppose I let time get away from me,” I said.
Asher perked up, “Then you’ll stop? You’ll clear the floor and move on?”
I shook my head. “Why would I do that?” I asked. “Asher, we’re cleaning up inside. Sure, the experience doesn’t go as far, but the crystals . . . we’re getting rich in there. Isn’t that worth it? Isn’t that worth grinding it out just a little while longer?”
I looked past them to the entrance of Purgatory. It was like I could feel it calling to me. There were untold treasures just waiting on me. And then there was pain.
“Ow!” I shouted, holding my hand to my face. While I was looking at the entrance, Theo walked up and socked me in the mouth. “What was that for?” I demanded.
“You’re enthralled!” Theo shouted, punching me again. “I’m going to keep punching you in the mouth until you no longer want to go inside.”
“I’m not enthralled,” I protested, my eyes wandering from the Viking back to the entrance.
Theo clocked me again.
“Would you stop that? This is none of your business,” I snapped, getting extremely angry.
Theo shook his head. “Not until you snap out of it. From the way Asher tells it, you’re not on the lust floor. You’re on a greed floor or a combination of the two.”
“It’s lust, the mostly naked succubae trying to entice me is proof enough of that,” I protested, starting to get angry, even as my eyes were drawn to the entrance again. I really wanted . . . needed to be in there. And then I took another punch in the face, this one to my nose, blinding me with pain for a moment.
“That’s greed, my friend. You want nothing more than to go in there and get more treasures. Tell me, have you ever been tempted by those succubae? Ever felt even the slightest pull to them?” Theo asked.
“No, but we raised my resistance to make sure it wouldn’t be an issue,” I protested angrily.
Theo nodded, “Oh, increased your resistance, did you? Was that before you went in on this floor for the first time? Or after?”
“Why does that matter?” I asked.
“It matters, now answer the question,” Theo insisted.
I groaned in irritation. Why hadn’t I hit him back yet? Why was he standing between the treasure and me? “Before. Now will you please get out of the way. You’re wasting time I could be spending grinding.”
Theo shook his head. “Alright, I’ll let you pass, but on one condition.”
I growled in irritation. “What? What condition? What do you want from me?”
“Boost your demonic resistance again, for me, just a few points,” Theo said, crossing his arms.
I grumbled. “Fine, fine . . . you know . . . just . . . fine,” I said, opening my inventory and pulling out my scroll. There were several gasps around me, and I snapped, “Mind your own business!”
I unfurled the scroll.
Name: Victor Goodspeed
Highest Floor Cleared: 2
Experience Earned: 0
Hierarchy: 4th
Rank: 12th
Title: Sinner
HP: 340/340
EP: 170/170
SE: 150/150
Body
Experience to Next Point: 4,353,835
Unused Points: 20
Strength:
17
Reflex:
17
Constitution:
34
Recovery:
20
Soul
Experience to Next Point: 1,202,977
Unused Points: 11
Faith:
15
Spirituality:
15
Righteousness:
20
Fortune:
15
Applied Statistics
Health Regeneration:
34
Energy Regeneration:
20
Spirit Regeneration:
20
Attack Power:
34
Divine Power:
30
Speed:
8
Accuracy:
51.70%
Perception:
7.50
Block:
31.70%
Block Absorption:
17
Critical Strike Chance:
0.70%
Demonic Resistance:
15
Luck:
0.15%
I had plenty of unused points, I dumped ten into righteousness, making my resistance jump all the way to twenty-two. “There, done, happy?” I asked, showing Theo my scroll.
Theo nodded. “Now put it away and be quick about it. Someone less scrupulous might try to take it from you.”
I made a big show of rolling up the scroll and sticking it into my inventory. “There, done. Happy now?” And that was when a wave of dizziness struck me, and I fell to the ground. I think I vomited, couldn’t be sure about that.
I was pretty sure someone picked me up off the ground, but I don’t remember much after that. At least, not until I woke up laying in a booth at the bar. I found that everything hurt, but especially my head. It was like I was drunk and hungover at the same time. It was supremely unpleasant.
“Oh, my head,” I groaned, trying to move my hands to rub at my temples but finding they were bound
I saw Theo’s ugly mug come into view over me. With a cheery drunken grin, he said, “Welcome back. Feeling better, are we?”
Every word from him was like a hammer ringing off an anvil, and my head was the anvil. The only response I could give was to close my eyes and groan in pain.
I heard Rebecca’s soft, nervous voice nearby asking, “Is he going to be alright?”
I would have said ‘yeah, am I going to be alright’ but I was afraid it would hurt too much.
I felt something pressed to my lips and heard Theo saying, “Here, drink up.” I thought it was water, so I gratefully drank. Then the alcoholic burn caught in my mouth and throat, like I was on fire, so I spat out the liquid and started coughing.
I was in a miserable state. Choking on alcohol, head throbbing in pain, and somehow, I felt . . . violated and a little . . . hollowed out. I didn’t exactly comprehend what was happening to me.
Theo’s laughing wasn’t helping.
Finally, I groan
ed and dared to speak, despite knowing it was going to hurt. “What happened to me?”
“Greed,” Theo answered. “Your Purgatory is an insidious one. Your little guide has been telling me a bit about the demons you’ve been made to face.”
At the mention of Greed, I vaguely remembered an argument with Theo and Asher just outside of the entrance of Purgatory. It was all hazy. Then I remembered Theo saying it had been seven months since I last completed a floor and sat bolt upright only the wince and feel nauseous all over again.
“Easy there,” Theo said, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Take your time. You’ve been under the greed’s thrall for a long time.”
I didn’t want to believe him, but I knew it was true.
Thankfully, Theo continued to explain. “One thing you learn as you go along through Purgatory is to never invest unused points before entering a new floor. Purgatory is a crafty hell that each of us makes for ourselves. It knows your stats every time you enter, so it knows when your stats are different. Usually, it adjusts your loot drops, right? Well, what you don’t know is that it also sets its baseline according to your stats the first time you enter a floor. It uses those stats to set the difficulty. In other words, it set that aura of greed that enraptured you so completely, based on your resistance when you entered this floor the very first time.”
That left me feeling angrier than I can ever remember feeling.
Theo smiled kindly, which was odd on the Vikings face. “Your Purgatory is rather devious. It presented one thing to you while being something entirely different. Asher told me how none of the demons in there ever enthralled you.”
“Except that they did, didn’t they?” I muttered bitterly, ignoring how much it hurt my head to say even that much.
“Purgatory comes after us all in different ways,” Rebecca added sullenly. “I regularly get confronted by demons that take the form of people I stole from. Other times . . . it’s their victims.”
“For me, it’s the innocents,” Theo said solemnly. “I told you. I did plenty of bad with my raiding party. My one good deed doesn’t erase all the bad. I cannot say for certain I deserve even this chance in Purgatory.”
Finally, I looked around for Asher, finding him hiding under the table. “You, okay?”
“Fine,” Asher said, glancing at me nervously. “I’m . . . I’m sorry I went behind your back to Theo. I just . . . I didn’t know what else to do.”
I smiled at him. “I’m the one that should be sorry. You were trying to tell me all that time, weren’t you?”
Asher bobbed. “I still should have known about the way Purgatory sets each floor. Some guide I turned out to be.”
I shook my head. “Asher, you can’t know everything. But now we both know about this. We both can be better prepared in the future. Now, stop sulking and let’s have a few drinks. Then tomorrow, we get a little payback.”
Asher grinned at that. “Then tonight, we put those unused points to work. I don’t just want payback. I want to wreck that place.”
I nodded my agreement. Eventually, my head stopped hurting, that or I just had enough alcohol that I stopped feeling any pain. Either way, I woke up the next morning with a headache, though a much lesser headache than the previous night.
I started my morning with a lot of water, a little breakfast, and training. Over the seven-month period, I had been a very busy boy. My mace proficiency had grown . . . a lot.
Blunt Weapon: Mace - Beginner
Level: 45
Experience to Next Level: 20,101
Damage: 45-90 Blunt
Accuracy: +4.50%
Proficiency to use a mace in combat.
And my shield proficiency wasn’t far behind it.
Shield: Heater - Beginner
Level: 42
Experience to Next Level: 71,441
Block Absorption: +42-84 Physical
Block: +4.20%
Proficiency to use a shield in combat.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t put any experience into heavy armor, so it remained at level 15, which also happened to be where my bow proficiency was sitting as well. In my greed induced haze, I had completely stopped training with it.
Bow: Recurve - Beginner
Level: 15
Experience to Next Level: 1,202
Range Damage: 15-45 Piercing
Accuracy: +11.50%
Proficiency to use a recurve bow in combat.
I planned to focus on the bow for a while and see if it was even possible to get it caught up with my other proficiencies.
Asher and I discussed it and decided that after I got the last nine unused points in Soul, it was time to start investing in my proficiencies like quick strike, heavy armor, my calls, my one blessing and finally in the blunt instrument proficiency. The later of those I had yet to learn, but once I invested my Body points, I would add it to my Scroll of Body and Soul.
Following my morning training, I stopped into the proficiency dealers. I was going to have an open Body proficiency slot after I allocated my unused points and I wanted to be sure I had something ready to go. There was a basic proficiency I had identified the first time I entered the dealers that Asher and I agreed was going to be useful for me, and more importantly, it was inexpensive.
I returned to my room with Asher, it was time to put my unused points to work.
Body
Experience to Next Point: 4,353,835
Unused Points: 20
Strength:
17
Reflex:
17
Constitution:
34
Recovery:
20
Three points went into strength and reflex each and six points into constitution. I liked my nice round numbers. Twelve points used, eight to go. This was where things got a little risky. We decided it was time I equipped my full armor set. To do that, I needed speed, and the formula for speed was two points of reflex to one point of strength. That was eight more points in reflex and my speed jumped to fourteen. It wouldn’t completely compensate for the heaviness of the armor, but it was a start. In time, I would continue growing stronger and faster. Eventually, the day would come that I would be able to don plate armor, though I had a feeling that day was a long way off.
With my points distributed, I laid out the waiting proficiency and added it to my scroll. There was the expected flash of light, and I now had a new page to review.
Blunt Instrument
Level: 1
Experience to Next Level: 1,000
Blunt Damage: +1%
Blunt Energy Cost: -0.5%
You are a blunt instrument capable of efficiently dealing increased blunt damage and blunting incoming damage.
It was a lot like heavy armor, though this increased blunt damage and reduced the energy cost, more than that, based on the description, the bonus to blunt damage was also a bonus to blunting damage. It was small to start, as most of my proficiencies were, but it would grow very powerful over time. It seemed everything was about time. I knew I had almost unlimited time in Purgatory to grow stronger, but I didn’t want to lose my sense of urgency. I needed to get through Purgatory. I needed to be done with this place. What I would do after Purgatory . . . I just wasn’t sure yet.
That left me with my last Body proficiency slot and the proficiency I purchased to fill it. Another flash of light filled the room and I had one more proficiency on my list that would require spending some experience on.
Shield Slam
Level: 1
Experience to Next Level: 100
EP Cost: 5
Damage: 5-10 Blunt
Stun Duration: 10-Seconds
Deliver a stunning blow with your shield to a single target.
I smiled. It was an actual stun. I could hit demons with my mace and shield and sometimes I’d get lucky and daze them for a few seconds. Sometimes, I could even knock them to the ground. But an actual stun that would take a target out of the fight for ten seconds, ten whole secon
ds, could be a game changer, and one I was looking forward to putting into action.
Asher bobbed approvingly. “I think I can officially say, you’ve become a rather well-rounded fighter. Now, let’s go crush this floor. Theo will be expecting us to celebrate with him tonight.”
Chapter 27 – Greed
I was angry when I re-entered purgatory. So very angry. I did my best to not allow that anger to cloud my judgment, but I failed spectacularly, and the succubae were made to suffer the consequences. It was messy . . . so very, very, very messy. I think I may have disturbed Asher a little with the brutality of it all.
I had always thought greed was going to be my worst sin. And I would even agree that it was . . . until that moment I broke free of it. Wrath and I had suddenly gotten a lot closer.
“Hidden door on the right,” Asher said.
I snarled at the door in question. “Ignore it. We’re hunting the floor boss.”
“What if it’s behind the hidden door?” Asher asked.
I growled. I found the hidden lever to open the door. There was a succubus behind the door. She died. They all died. I even ignored the paltry offering of crystals left behind. I wanted nothing else to do with greed. It was a very slippery slope. If it wouldn’t have been epically stupid on my part, I might have given away all the crystals I’d earned over the last seven months, but only an idiot would give away almost two hundred thousand of the things. No, I was saving those crystals for a rainy day.
Purgatory: The Devil's Game Page 29