studiobondurri Chapter 3: A rising tide comes to wash away all evil
Chapter 3: A rising tide comes to wash away all evil
Chapter 3: A rising tide comes to wash away all evil
~ [Shaushka] ~
Elf, Female, Classless LOCATION: The City LEVEL: 04
Empty head. Full eyes.
Shaushka sits where she always sits, down on the ground in the back alley, just behind the big bakery, across from the park, as she does what she always does Quietly observe.
Its not that she can afford to buy anything here at the bakery. To say that she doesnt have enough money isnt wrong in and of itself, however it implies that she has any money to begin with. But thats why she doesnt go inside of the bakery and bother the people there. Instead, she sits just outside of it, just next to it, in the alley.
Here, she can smell the baking of hot cakes and fresh breads for free, when the baker starts his work so early in the morning. She can immerse herself in it entirely, in the aromas and the warmth of the oven on the other side of the wall, all without ever paying a single coin.
While doing so, however, she doesnt imagine anything. Her head is simply empty. She doesnt imagine the delightful image of herself nibbling on a steaming bun or breaking off a crunchy corner of a fluffy pastry, full of sweet fillings, which was left in the oven long enough to get a deep browning on its exterior.
She just smells the smells and looks at the park across the street with eyes that are fuller than her thoughts.
Shausuka stares blankly towards the distance.
Quietly, motionlessly, strangely perhaps, as she has often been told, she simply sits there on the stones of the ground and gazes towards the sky that sits atop the distant horizon, which she can barely see towards. Her lower lip hangs open somewhat, just barely touching the upper, as she, with wide eyes and an empty head, watches the world.
Ah.
It is different today though.
The baker isnt baking. There is a smell of burnt things in the air.
The park, once green, is dead and gray and desolate.
The elf blinks, a droplet of water striking the tip of her nose.
Oh.
It looks like its going to rain today.
Huh.
She crosses her legs, only one of them covered by her old, torn robe that is essentially missing the whole lower left quarter of itself. It had been torn off a long time ago.
It is a very soft robe. She likes wearing it. She likes touching it. She likes looking at it.
All of these things are ideal, as it's her only one anyway.
The elf blinks, still gazing vacantly towards the park, over the dead bodies that lay in the middle of the street. Something is different today.
The rain, beginning to fall, rains down on them too.
Huh
Empty head. Full eyes.
Shaushka sits there, not really sure why the world is different today.
Is the baker sick?
She hopes not. The baker makes the world smell nice. People like him are important.
A shadow looms over her head.
With full eyes, Shaushka looks up at the thing, the mass, that creeps and crawls down the alleyway that shes sitting in, having climbed over her head, holding itself aloft between the two walls of the houses on either side.
Ten-thousand hands, dripping with blood and rot, hang suspended above her head, wiggling and rustling like a disturbed nest of hissing spiders.
Shaushka slowly blinks.
The horrific entity, observing her for a moment, then simply creeps and crawls onward, ignoring her entirely as it moves out into the street, covering and coating the hundreds of dead corpses. It steals their fingers, leaving most of the rest of the carcasses behind as it travels through the carnage, growing larger and larger with every passing moment.
Huh
Shauska watches it vanish down the way, fresh screams filling the air.
Her eyes, full, her head, empty, return back to the sight of the park down across the street.
It looks different today, doesnt it?
Shaushka, her mouth open just a tiny sliver, stares and waits for the baker to show up today.
But he never comes.
Eyes full. Head empty.
~ [The Demon-King] ~
A pair of heavy, decorative doors of incredible weight, which are as massive as strong, proud towers, swing open wide as he presses against them, his large arms moving them ajar with ease. The demon-king enters into the room at the very end of the new dungeon, an ornate, darkened chamber with a single throne placed at the end of itself, on which nobody yet resides. There is one, single, straight corridor of flat stonework that leads towards the throne from here, where he now stands.
As for the sides of the room, on either side of this path
Did I make this? asks a voice from behind himself as Swain steps inside, examining the throne-room.
Both sides of the room, separate from the main path, are entirely covered in statues that meld down into the floor. Near the entrance, their screaming heads, their kicking legs, their writhing torsos are submerged, as if they were ripping themselves out of a body of water. The further that one goes into the room towards the throne, the higher the statues that make up every bit of terrain appear to have managed to pull themselves out of the floor. All of them claw and tear towards the focal point of the room.
The humans will be here soon.
The terror that he summoned will keep them busy for a while. But he doesnt have that many soul-points, the primary resource for his magical casting, left, and with him almost defenseless like this, when they get here, the strong ones who survived the initial surge of his power, the game will be over before it even starts.
Imagination is a powerful thing, replies Swain, looking at the dancer as he sits down on the throne and stares around at the harrowed stone faces, which scramble and claw his way with expressions of fear, hunger and longing desire in their eyes. - Cartouche.
Did you mean it? she asks, stepping forward towards him. The dozens of eyes on his body shift her way, looking at her. What you told me? Is it really something thats She looks down at her hands, pulling her fingers inward as if she were holding something in them. The mouths on the side of the demon-kings body open themselves.
- I dont lie, states the demon-king. Cartouche looks back up towards him, staring at his hands that tensely grip the edge of the throne, crumbling off a piece of the stonework. Lies are an ugly thing.
She looks at him quietly and then nods.
Swain exhales, sitting back down. The eyes on his body all lose their tense glares and begin drifting around the room again. The humans will be here in an hour, maybe. They need to buy some more time.
Its an odd thought, isnt it? The humans?
It wasnt that long ago, minutes, that he himself was one and yet, somehow everything has changed so quickly. His mind, his body, his demeanor. Everything from the first breath of his longing heart to the last whisper of desire in his essence have led to something entirely new.
The demon-kings eyes rise back up towards the dancer, wearing the scraps of her half-burnt clothes, standing before his throne. She blinks, feeling herself being stared at and then looks around the empty throne-room to see if shes the thing being watched. Observing her, Swain gets his idea for their survival.
Dance a little more, would you? asks the demon-king, resting his head on his elbow to watch her.
She nods. Uh, I mean, sure, she says, raising her arms to stretch herself out. Itd be easier if I had music. But Im a professional, states Cartouche.
Swains gaze drifts to the side. He uses one of his free ability points. He has a lot of those to spend, but now isnt the time to sit here and browse through his ten thousand potential choices for new abilities.
The game being played, the beauty of the art of this new complot, it takes priority.
NEW - (DEMON KING) ABILITY
[Regurgitation](Active)
Cost: {01} COLLECTED SOUL EACH
Souls are as versatile as they are many. While delectably consumable, they also offer a wide array of applications connected to their previous lives.
Effect: Regurgitates a consumed soul and places it into a spiritual essence, taking the form of a ghost.
Ghosts are much weaker than summoned demons and are only capable of fulfilling rudimentary tasks, making them unsuitable as advanced worker or fighter minions.
Swain reaches into one of the mouths on his body, pulling out a series of wiggling, wormy essences that had once belonged to people of a familiar disposition as himself Musicians.
(DEMON-KING) has used: [Regurgitation] x 4
Cost: {04} COLLECTED SOULS
~ [Ghost] ~
A ghost.
Spirits of the wailing dead that have been prevented from moving on to the other side of existence by some internal or external power, ghosts remain as will-less spirits that are bound to the emotions that bind them to the mortal plane.
Class: MINIONElement: DARK Type: PresenceCategory: SPIRIT* Rank: D- Level: 30 [Red-Water {05}] || [Wild-Hunter] || [Lamashtu] HP: 00/00SOUL: 20/20 *Ghosts, as spirits, do not have HEALTH-POINTS. Instead, all damage will be calculated via SOUL-POINTS instead. Ghosts are immune to PHYSICAL damage.
[Corrupted Muse]: The MUSE that this person had once possessed has been converted to DARK.
The souls drift down towards the floor, oozing out of his hands like a piece of half-digested meat, dripping with bile, as they splash against the cold stones.
A moment later, they pull themselves together into an amalgamation of cool, sickly blue-tinged shapes that resembles a group of four people, carrying instruments.
Swain rests his head back idly on his hand, leaning against the throne, as the musicians start to play and as the dancer starts to dance, beginning the second act of todays play.
The dungeon rumbles, the ground quaking violently and as it does so, the shaking of his many eyes makes it look like the statues that fill the room join in on the haunting waltz.
~ [Ruhr, the River-Sorceress] ~
Half-Elf, Female, Sorceress Rank: SS- LOCATION: The City, Central Adventurer's Guild LEVEL: 87
Ruhr stands, leaning back against the wall as the voices collect around her inside of the adventurers guild. Bodies lay strewn over tables, spread across the floor. All of the low-level adventurers just died. Goo and viscera drips out of melted eye-sockets.
Being quick thinkers that they are, some of the mid-level adventurers had made a magical barrier of sorts to keep a few people safe from the corrupting spell.
Ruhr looks down at the mug she was drinking from. The contents have evaporated, leaving only hot metal behind. She looks at the container curiously. It reminds her of a mimic that she had once seen in a dungeon, pretending to be an old water bottle.
The demon-king
She looks back up towards the group of panicked low-level adventurers, standing inside of the small, magical shield that a couple of mid-level priests are holding together by the skin of their teeth. But theyre almost out of soul-points.
Thats the difference between mid and high-level adventurers. A mid-level adventurer has the reaction times to keep themselves and those around them alive in rapidly changing situations.
A high-level adventurer knows that just because you can, that it doesn't necessarily have a point.
She sets the mug down, walking away as the shield begins to flicker, the priests running out of magic. The people inside of it beg desperately them to keep it up.
She supposes that they havent realized theres a protective spell around the city now.
Ruhr closes the door behind herself as she leaves the adventurers guild and looks around the city.
Guardsmen are already at work, carrying the dead to the sides of the road, in order to clear the ways. Fires rage, gnawing through hundreds of houses, born from unattended stoves and the heating effects of the demon-kings magic around sensitive alchemical materials.
A group of soldiers run past her, down the way she wants to go, pulling a cart full of water behind them to try and control some of the flames.
One of them sees her, stopping. Ruhr! says the man, pulling his colleague on the shoulder. Look! he says excitedly, the other man looking over in confused annoyance until he also recognizes her.
Ruhr sighs, her head drooping. Being a high-level adventurer is one thing. But ranking up at the guild to a very prominent rank, such as she has, comes with a sort of pseudo-celebrity status that is more annoying than helpful, unless youre looking for a house to buy in an exclusive neighborhood.
The woman lifts a leg, planting her boot on a small crate outside of the guild and points at herself with her thumb. Thats Ruhr, the river-sorceress! she barks, somewhat theatrically, while looking at them. Nobody ever gets that right. Titles are important. She needs to establish a brand if she's going to get a new rank any time soon.
Please! Help us get these fires under c-
Ruhr holds her left palm open, running the fingers of her other hand over it as if she were flicking off a few droplets of water.
(Ruhr) used: [Wild-River Cascade]
The two guards duck to the side as a shadow of a wave rises out immediately over the tops of the houses, easily three to four stories in height. It crashes down the road, breaking foundations and crushing damp bodies together into heaps in the gutters. Roofs, damaged by the smoldering, tear off and come apart.
Ruhr stands there, smiling a proud smile as she watches the water die down, together with the hundred flames that had lined the street.
Sure, the street is mostly gone too, all of the stormwater drains blocked by debris and corpses, but the fires are out.
Theres no need to thank me, says Ruhr, swiping a strand of her azure blue hair out of her face. She looks smugly down towards the fearful guardsmen, who have perhaps gotten more than they were expecting. All in a days work for RUHR! She points to herself, holding her head high to look towards the sky. THE RIVER-SOR-
- Ruhr stops, opening her eyes and staring at the dark cloud above their heads.
It skitters.
A mass hangs there, looking at them, twitching, squirming. A mass of squirming hands and fingers, all crawling and reaching in excitement in greedy hunger.
(Ruhr) used: [Serpentine Flow]
The monster, the thing, looming above the three of them falls down.
A serpent made entirely out of wild, raging water sprouts out of her arm and sinks its teeth back into herself, throwing her far away, causing her to gracelessly tumble and roll down the wet, destroyed road and out of the monster's reach.
Ruhr, coming to a stop at the end of the street, watches in disgusted horror as the two guards vanish into the mass, their bodies held against it as thousands of fingers reach into their ears and open, screaming mouths, pulling them back against the horrific body, as it rips off their hands. Like an octopus, eating its struggling prey alive, piece by piece.
It takes their hands and their heads and leaves the bodies behind, before then working its way down the street towards her, consuming and gorging itself full on corpses. Hands skitter and break open doors and windows as it eats any survivors in the area.
Screams come from inside of the adventurers guild.
Ruhr rises to her feet.
More high-level guardsmen and adventurers make their way forward towards her, running in from the distant cathedral square.
She looks around herself at the others here, before turning back to the monster that now has them in focus.
Shes been working her whole life in order to buy a nice house in this city so that she can retire and now The woman tsks, grabbing the collar of the royal-guardsman next to her. You. Youre with me now. Get your men.Read latest chapters at novelhall.com Only
H- huh? asks the man.
She doesnt have the rank or station to ask, let alone demand anything like this. Even as a high-tier adventurer, shes clearly below anyone with noble bloodlines on the societal ladder.
The monstrosity, having finished gorging itself on what it could reach back there, tumbles and rolls and skitters towards them.
Ruhr looks at him with an annoyed side-glance. Were going to kill the demon-king.
She pushes him away and then turns around to walk away, leaving the soldiers and others here to deal with this particular problem present here.
After a moment of confused yelling, many heavy boots run after her, unable to decide which place is perhaps worse for them to be.
~ [The Demon-King] ~
- [Dungeon] - New Areas
Floor {01} Floor {02} Floor {03} Floor {04} Floor {05} Floor {06} Floors two to six of the dungeon. SOULS COST PER MONSTER: F-Rank: 01 E-Rank: 02 D-Rank: 04 C-Rank: 08 B-Rank: 16 A-Rank: 32 S-Rank: 64 SS-Rank: 128 SSS-Rank: 256
~ [Achievement Unlocked] ~ 'My First Dungeon' Unlocked By: Having at least five floors in your dungeon. Reward: Resources in your [Stockpile] can be accessed at any time by either yourself or any worker-entities.
Swain rises to his feet, clapping as he walks down the steps of the throne. Its time to make some more concrete preparations.
Cartouche flourishes, lowering herself in a half bow, with her hands at her sides. The ghosts quiver, their spiritual bodies rippling like disturbed water as he walks past them.
An excellent performance, says the demon-king, walking to the door of the throne-room. The eyes on his body look her way. In a way, hes envious of her. Not because of the grace that she possesses that he had never had, but because she, through the medium of dance and development of her personality, was and is able to share her art with the world.
His poetry had always been for himself, always, except for once.
Swain stares out into the emptiness that lies beyond the throne room. Large, grand chambers and complicated, labyrinth-like hallways now span the area from where he is to the top of the dungeon, near the graveyard.
- But thats okay.
For now, he has so many other things to share with the world.
Using one of his ability-points, he takes a new ability to advance his capacity to summon monsters for the dungeon.
NEW - (DEMON KING) ABILITY
[Horrific Regurgitation](Active)
[Regurgitation]{2} Cost: {01} COLLECTED SOUL EACH
While souls can be used for specialized tasks, they can also be used as building blocks for grander, more independent constructs.
Effect: Violently Expels a mass of human and animal souls from the demon-kings body, condensing and compressing them together into horrific amalgamations of flesh and bone and sinew; monsters.
(DEMON-KING) has used: [Horrific Regurgitation] Cost: {5000} COLLECTED SOULS
The mouths all around the demon-king's body dribble and then release a spew of spectral ooze out around him, violently vomiting out a mass of souls that all fly, screaming down into the darkness of the dungeon. The souls all collect and press themselves together in predetermined shapes. They take the shapes of slimes, of minotaurs, of dragons, of zombies and skeletons and giant serpents, with teeth the size of men. The souls come together, forming into shambling ghouls and screaming harpies that sit high on the rafters, below the tall ceilings of the dungeon floors. They turn into treasure-chests, lined with fanged teeth and into screaming spirits and into shrieking banshees.
Hundreds of monsters of hundreds of species, all with varying ranks, elements and attributes, rise all around and inside of the dungeon, filling its halls with horrific shrieks, moans and cries.
~ [Achievement Unlocked] ~ 'The Bigg'un' Unlocked By: Summoning your first RANK S tier-monster Reward: Your attraction of wild-monsters will now extend to capable S-Tier monsters as well.
~ [Achievement Unlocked] ~ 'The Bigg'uner' Unlocked By: Summoning your first RANK SS tier-monster Reward: Your attraction of wild-monsters will now extend to capable SS-Tier monsters as well.
! [Critical System Notification] ! THE ONE-HUNDRED YEAR CRISIS - THE AGE OF DEMONS The demon-king has returned once again, fully intent to destroy the world in its entirety. You must reach and defeat him before it is too late. Difficulty: IMPOSSIBLE Priority: HIGHEST Souls Remaining Until Failure: 904,824/ 1,000,000 Demon-Kings Castle: 0.42 KM south-east of your location
She nods. Hes set up shop at the edge of the city.
What rotten luck, she says. That hed be right here.
No, replies the bishop, shaking his head. It is most fortunate for us, he says, walking back to the cathedral. Sensing her curious gaze, he lifts his eyes to the barrier around the city. Its starting to wane. I need to return to the cathedral to hold the spell up. Hurry, Ruhr, the river-sorceress. There isnt much time left.
Ruhr nods and then elbows Zacarias, walking off down the road. The guardsman rounds up several other elite soldiers and they march out of the city, towards the south-east.
The location of the demon-king's castle isnt hard to find.
~ [The Demon-King] ~
NEW - (DEMON KING) ABILITY
[Vivid Nightmares](Active)
Present in the screams of every man and the wail of every howling woman, the demon-king is inside every moment of darkness and despair, always creeping through the hearts of the living.
Effect: Allows the eyes all over your body to watch and observe distant things, but only ever within areas marked by your corruption.
The ground around them shakes as Cartouche continues her work, accompanied by the haunting orchestra.
Demon-Magic is incredibly powerful.
Swain recalls seeing casters in his old life, adventurers, walking back and forth to the dungeon every single day of their lives in order to earn scraps of money, scraps of power, scraps of hope. Theyd invest their sweat, blood and tears and at the end of many days, come out empty-handed.
But on some, they would have a token prize in their fingers.
This was often enough to alleviate the pain for a day, perhaps two. But then the money would run out and people would return. Theyd return to the drink, like his father had. Theyd return to the cruelty, like the woman that replaced his mother had done, theyd return to the dungeon, like so many other people had done every single day of their lives.
The ugliness of it is that these things were all truly escapable. They were static threats, poisons, that the sufferers returned to over and over, because it was the only way forward that they saw.
The man scratches with the pen against the paper.
It is good that they are all dead now. They didn't have the vision required to move the world to a better place. That's why it turned out this way.
Because in this new world, in this era of the demon-king, the threats to the living are no longer static, stationary, simple things.
He crosses out a line on the page and throws it over his shoulder. It was wrong.
A ghost hands him a new sheet.
~ [Ruhr, the River-Sorceress] ~
Half-Elf, Female, Sorceress Rank: SSS LOCATION: City Graveyard, The Demon-King's Castle LEVEL: 89
(Ruhr) has used: [Purified Cascade]
Holy-water violently crashes down through the tunnels, visible beneath the gravesite. She hasnt even stepped into the dungeon itself and she can tell with her seasoned eyes that this is a bad one.
The noises, the smells, the sensation of the hairs on her neck standing up on end, electrified All of these things signal to the primitive lizard brain in her mind that this is a bad place. This is a place that swallows people and makes them its own.
But the dungeon itself, as a physical construct, is new, in comparison with the older, established dungeons of the world.
Its still lacking defenses. Its lacking traps and complicated mechanisms. Its lacking an intricate internal and external design that comes only with organic growth and time. Its lacking a magical instancing mechanism, that would separate each individual group of humans into separate dimensional versions of the dungeon, making a large-scale raid very difficult.
They caught it early. The demon-king hasnt had time to prepare yet.
She holds her hands down to the hole, flooding it a second time, which the hundreds of soldiers gathered here really dont seem to mind her doing.
(Ruhr) has used: [Purified Cascade]
Hundreds of experience-point windows appear all at once, as just as many disgusting, crawling, jaggedly toothed creatures perish in the pure waters that she's flooding the underground with.
This new augmentation of hers, this purity sub-element is interesting. Its mixing in with her core water specialization, giving her a rather unique holy-water blend of magic, for a lack of a better phrase. It couldn't be a more useful tool to attack a place like this.
Ruhr nods to Zacarias. The man hoists up his shield and heads down first, many of his men following after him before she walks down too, in their midst and they fight their way towards the throne-room of the demon-king.
~ [The Demon-King] ~
Swain watches them from afar, using his new ability.
Theyve entered the dungeon, hundreds of them. Theyve easily cleared the first floors without even stepping into them.
The world around them rattles, shaking from some movement. His pen, disturbed, breaks its smooth flow and creates an ugly smear across the page.
The demon-king lets out an annoyed exhalation, throwing the paper over his shoulder. He takes a new one, as the ball of paper strikes the wall and rolls back past his feet.
He lifts his gaze, watching the dancer dance. She never seems to lose her enthusiasm for it, despite him being the only member of the audience.
A true artist.
~ [Ruhr, the River-Sorceress] ~
Half-Elf, Female, Sorceress Rank: SSS LOCATION: City Graveyard, The Demon-King's Castle LEVEL: 91
Ruhr chugs down another soul-potion, shattering the empty bottle against the stone floors as she marches on forward.
(Ruhr) has drunk (Normal)[Major Soul-Potion] and recovered {100}% SOUL-POINTS.
These are high-tier monsters. This dungeon cant be so long, but for it to field monsters of this grade already, on these early entrance floors, is truly a sign of the frightening power of the demon-king.
She wipes her wet forehead with her yellow scarf, adjusting her hat, as she walks on forward.
Usually, monsters of such ranks as A or any of the S and above tiers are reserved for the strongest dungeons of the world and still then only down on the deeper floors, such as past floor forty, which is a significant depth.
But here they are on floor three or four and already
A fetid, rotting maw, the size of a carriage, peaks around the bend, poison leaking from its fleshless lips.
Zacarias pulls up his shield, stopping the attack.
(Zacarias) used: [Royal Barrier]
Status: [LETHAL POISON] has been absorbed!
The poison mist, stemming from the undead dragon's breath disperses all around them. Ruhr lifts her hands over his head, getting ready for her next spell.
It cant be far now.
He cant be far now.
~ [The Demon-King] ~
Swain writes, pleased with his flow. With twenty-five percent of his soul-points remaining, he could summon a level twenty-five terror at best, if he uses all of them. But that would be unwise, because hed be defenseless until they regenerate.
Instead, hes writing his poem not to summon something, but instead because its fun.
The demon-king watches the dancer dance her heart out for the sake of it, and he writes, doing the same with his pen, its sway perfectly following her movements across the small floorspace as if they were both working on the same exact metaphysical canvas together.
~ [Ruhr, the River-Sorceress] ~
Half-Elf, Female, Sorceress Rank: SSS LOCATION: City Graveyard, The Demon-King's Castle LEVEL: 92
A grand, massive door stands before them, blocking the way. Hundreds, thousands of bodies lie behind them, torn apart and mutilated. Melted and broken and gnashed and gnawed, both humans and monsters. All of the screams, all of the terrible cries have become silent, leaving only about half of those who entered here remaining alive. It was a rough, but fast fight through.
Ruhr and Zacarias look at each other.
Heave! orders Zacarias, looking back to his men.
Two dozen soldiers, having fastened a long chain to the left chamber door, the size of several castle walls, all pull together in strained unison. It barely budges. Heave! A second try. It moves an inch, creaking loudly, water dripping off of its surface. Heave! The soldiers pull a third time, moving the gigantic door open a few feet, just wide enough for men in armor to walk through.
A lingering essence of despair leaks out of the sealed chamber like putrid mist. Several of the soldiers, having made it this far down, seem to lose their resolve now, letting go of the chain and backing only far enough away that they dont stray from the mass of protective swords and shields, lest there be anything else left creeping in the darkness behind them all.
Ruhr shakes herself out, cracking her neck as she adjusts her hat and steps inside of the demon-kings throne-room as the first one in. Zacarias walks in behind her, readying his shield.
The two of them warily eye the area as they step inside.
Thousands of screaming, horrified statues fill the room, all of them clasping their faces in shrieking horror.
The soldiers enter after them.
Ruhr lifts her gaze to the end of the room that theyre walking towards, towards the ornate, horrible throne upon which sits a being of pure, writhing darkness. It has the shape of a man, but it isnt a man. It watches them approach.
The demon-ki-
Ruhr stops, grabbing Zacarias.
The entity on the throne doesnt move to greet them, to attack them, to do anything.
Everyone stands there in tense silence for a moment, as if waiting for the pin to drop to signal the start of what can only be a true nightmare.
The demon-king giggles.
Ruhr narrows her eyes. She knows that sound.
The woman cautiously steps forward, her hands ready to cast a spell in an instant.
The shadowy entity on the throne, the armor, rattles in a quiver of odd joviality as she moves towards it, the soldiers backing her up with their shields and lances at the ready.
She holds out a hand with her palm facing upward and runs her fingers across it, flicking off several droplets of nervous sweat.
(Ruhr) used: [Serpentine Flow]
An embodiment of water in the shape of a serpentine maw lashes forward and bites the demon-king in the neck.
(Ruhr) has struck [Mimic] for {22} damage with her [Serpentine Flow]!
~ [Mimic] ~
A mimic.
Mimics are shy, extremely nervous monsters that love nothing more than to hide in obvious places while pretending to be something that they are not. While extremely shy and passive, they become extremely aggressive the moment anyone moves too close to them.
Mimics can take on any empty container as their home to hide inside of and can often switch containers, moving from one shell to the next.
Class: MONSTERElement: DARK Type: TricksterCategory: Shape-shifter* Rank: B- Level: 46 [Red-Water {05}] || [Wild-Hunter] || [Lamashtu] HP: 58/80SOUL: 41/41 *Shape-shifters can take on a variety of shapes
A long, squirmy, protruding neck shoots out of the body and cries in pain, the fake shell of a body rattling in surprise.
Ruhr spins around, running back towards Zacarias as the dungeon begins to quiver, shaking violently. SHIELD! she yells at him, scrambling as stones begin to fall around them from above. - SHIELD! screams Ruhr, sprinting for her life.
The dungeon collapses.
~ [The Demon-King] ~
- [DUNGEON] - You have self-destructed your DUNGEON! Your DUNGEON has been destroyed!
! [CRITICAL SYSTEM WARNING] !
WITHOUT A DUNGEON, THE DEMON-CORE IS EXTREMELY VULNERABLE. REBUILD YOUR DUNGEON IMMEDIATELY.
Level Up! ~ [The Demon-King] ~
You are now level {56}! You are now level {57}! You are now level {58}! Level: 58 Experience: 4041/37500 Attribute: DARK Soul-Points: 116/116 Presence: 11.3 km Obols: 000
You have {26} free Ability Points to spend!
Swain looks down away from the menu and at the poem in his hands instead. He feels happy with this one.
It sounds right.
Rainy days wet the thirsty soil, collapsing it down to bones of marrow-not, beneath below,
Pulling the stones of old graves and sinking them down unto the rocks,
As worms do dance in vivid joy and birds do sing out aloud,
As wheels of carriages, roll noisily round and about,
So too, is the nature of a poem to always stay in constant motion,
As do these things aforementioned just now,
To stagnate in one space,
Where it can be caught and it can be bound,
- Movement is freedom,
To stagnate, is to die underground.
Swain smiles, as do his hundred mouths, as he looks at the poem and then towards Cartouche, who stands down on the other side of the wooden wagon, belonging once to the traveling fair that she had worked at. The bodies of the animals that pull them, as well as the corpses of the fair-workers, have been crudely reanimated by him.
The wagon shakes as they roll over a bump in the road.
The show must go on, as these people here would have said.
Cartouche. If you please, asks Swain, sitting on an old, wooden chair that has seen many generations of men and women sitting on it before him. Show me one more time.
Cartouche flourishes with her arm and begins her dance anew, the dancer seemingly never growing tired of performing her act for someone asking to see it.
The dungeon reconstructs itself, attaching itself in an entirely impossible manner to the exterior of the wagon that rolls down the way, pulled on by the undead, down through a fallow forest.
- But a little creativity makes the impossible possible.
Thats what art is for, after all.
- [Dungeon] - Moved from [Graveyard] to [Travelling Fair] New Areas
Floor {01} Floor {02} Floor {03} Floor {04} Floor {05} Floor {06} Floors one to six of the dungeon. SOULS COST PER MONSTER: F-Rank: 01 E-Rank: 02 D-Rank: 04 C-Rank: 08 B-Rank: 16 A-Rank: 32 S-Rank: 64 SS-Rank: 128 SSS-Rank: 256
~ [Achievement Unlocked] ~ 'Its Not That Easy' Unlocked By: Surviving a dungeon-raid to your core area. Reward: You will be notified during any upcoming incursions into your inner-sanctum
~ [Shaushka] ~
Elf, Female, Classless LOCATION: The City LEVEL: 04
Shaushka lays down sideways in the storm-ditch that she had been washed into by the oppressive wave.
That was a while ago.
But she is still laying here.
She doesnt think that shes hurt.
The elf looks down at herself for the first time, wiggling her bits and bobs. Everything still works.
Thats good.
Slowly lifting her eyes back upward, she looks at the old leaf that had led her here. Its stuck, crumpled up and washed against a stone just next to her.
A strong breeze comes and tears it away.
Ah!
Shaushka sits upright, watching the leaf vanish into distant eternity, where it will never be seen again.
With an empty head and full eyes, she stares after it.
What an odd day.
But it was beautiful. There have been so many things to see.
The wet elf sits there for a while down in the full ditch, before then rising back up to her feet.
She wanders back towards the bakery and towards her alley, aimlessly stepping over a headless corpse, wondering if the baker has returned to his work yet?