Imperious, Chapter 012 - Flight in the Dark (Patreon)

Anna let out a hard breath and spit out a gob of blood from her mouth. That particular boar had been far more tenacious than the last one. She’d learned a few more things from the fight, though. Minor things, but still useful. It hadn’t really occurred to her exactly what the purpose of a bludgeoning weapon was beyond causing surface injuries or blows to the head. Fact of the matter was, it just wasn’t something she’d ever stopped and thought about in her day to day life. Internal injuries, damage to the bones and organs. 

While it hadn’t felt like she’d done any damage when she struck the boar in the sides and on the back, the damage had actually really built up. She stared down at the boar as its breathing slowed towards stopping before regarding her cudgel. A transference of force, she mused and rubbed her side where the boar had slammed into her at one point during the fight. My injuries are building up, I need to find a place to hide and rest, recover. 

A notification pinged into her vision.

You have slain, Starving Forest Boar, Level 2
Bonus Experience Gained
2 Iron Credits Gained

Slay 100 Creatures. (3/100)

I’m so close, I can feel it, she thought absently. It wasn’t anything she could quantify, but she could just tell that she was on the verge of a level up. Hell of a lot of work just to get one level, what kind of monster game is this? She huffed and nudged the boar with her foot. Nothing but fodder for someone else’s level up, what a shitty-

Would you like to convert slain beast into loot? Yes / No

She stared at the notification, stress rising up in her chest before it exploded out in an exclamation of outrage, “Are you fucking kidding me?” She groaned and brought her palm up to her face with a small slap, “Come on!” She sighed and threw her head back, “Why didn’t I think to do that sooner?” She complained and indicated ‘yes’ with a thought. Immediately the boar began to dissolve, its body first beginning to grow pale, then bubble, then finally dissolve into dust that spread across the ground. All that remained was a small glass ball about the size of a ping pong ball.

She picked it up and used identify.

Inferior Mundane Monster Core (Common-Grade)
The concentrated essence of a non-sentient mundane entity. Can be used by a variety of professions or consumed for experience.

She wrinkled her nose, You can eat this? She questioned, turning the shimmering thing over between her fingers. Essence? She rubbed her neck uncomfortably. She had no idea what that was. The spell book hadn't mentioned the term. She shrugged and went over to the bushes she had originally hid in before the first boar fight, grabbing her bag and tossing it in. Yeah I’m not eating that. She did the same with the other boar, getting the same kind of core and storing it. 

She glanced around, Now where was that bobcat?

It took her nearly a half hour of retracing her steps in slow-moving silence to find the body that had already been picked apart by scavengers. When she tried to loot it, nothing happened. Disappointed but unsurprised, she made her way back into the foliage and settled in for a little while. A quick bite to eat and a few bottles of water later she moved on to another spot, leaving her cans behind. Sorry for littering mom, but I'm not drawing more attention to myself than I have to. She thought before glancing down at herself and the dried blood of the bobcat on her robes and chestplate.

Oh, right, I guess it’s probably not a good idea to sleep on the ground is it? She reasoned as she considered what to do next. It was surprisingly easy to see despite the complete lack of sunlight. She squinted up at the sky and saw the moon looming above. Is it just me or is it bigger than it used to be? She thought, Guess I shouldn’t be surprised if Earth was now the size of old Jupiter. She rubbed her neck again, rolling it left and right and loosening up her shoulders. She didn’t feel like she needed to sleep anytime soon. Was it because her stamina regenerated passively? She certainly could go for a nap, but it really wasn’t necessary the more she thought about it.

Go further in or double back? She thought, turning her head and peering off through the trees towards where the edge of the forest began. Guess it doesn’t make sense to stick around with the house so close, I should-

Voices.

She froze and dropped low, double checking to make sure her presence was dialed all the way down. She tilted her head and strained to listen, catching a few words here and there. She didn’t know what any of them meant, but she recognized the language. It was Vaygaren, the language of the Devils that had come to check out her house. Her eyes narrowed and she tried to catch a peek, craning her neck as much as she could while still staying within the protective cover of the bushes. Identify told her that the two voices were the two females who had accompanied the big guy earlier.

Fuck, they’re coming this way. She groused and looked over her shoulder before looking back at them. Huh? She squinted through the dim light of the moon and the shadows of the trees. Somebody else? Several people, she frowned. The other silhouettes didn’t seem nearly as tall or distinct as the two devils. They looked hunched over and… she used identify.

Shattered Aelf Slave, Level 3 (16)

Shattered Human Slave, Level 2 (14)

Shattered Human Slave, Level 3 (18)

She stopped using identify. The Chain-guy mentioned livestock or cattle or something. I figured he was being literal. She paused and felt her lips thin into a line. I suppose he was being literal from his perspective. Her jaw set as she shifted backwards, watching as the two females stopped at the edge of the forest and gestured inside. The small crowd of slaves wandered in, their haggard faces scanning the bushes and trees before stopping on occasion to reach down and grab something. They’re having them harvest something. Something I can’t see?

 She shifted back another step as she caught the eyes of one of the slaves, a female with pointed ears. Aelf? What’s the difference between an Aelf and an Elf? The woman’s eyes were dim, her posture broken, she seemed so spiritless. Anna felt the blood in her veins heat up and a nausea rise up her throat. She realized what it was, disgust. She closed her eyes and looked away, unsure how to reconcile her instinctive pity for the person with the way her heritage made her feel. Both seemed right.

They’re getting closer, she rationalized, I need to get away.

She shifted back another step and slowly rose from her crouch, getting ready to run into the forest. Her path home was blocked, for now anyway. She took another step backwards, glancing down to make sure she didn’t make the stupid mistake of stepping on a twig. It was that same attention to detail that ended up screwing her over, though. She looked up to check their progress and saw the woman staring at her, wide eyed. Fucking shit fuck! 

The woman pointed and let out a cry of alarm.

Anna turned and ran, all pretenses of stealth tossed aside.

She heard a shout behind her, one of the devil women, but she didn’t stop to check. She kept running, darting right and left through the trees and focusing on the path in front of her, clinging to the bag bouncing off of her hip for dear life. If she had to hide, it was all the food she had. Something whistled past her and she jolted to the left, a sharp pain welling up in her ear. A second later she ran past an arrow digging several inches into a nearby tree. Why did it go so fucking deep? She complained, That would have gone straight through my head!

She darted a new direction, angling to the left and trying to shake her pursuer. More arrows flew by, inches behind her. She checked her presence and saw that it was still pulled all the way in. Fat lot of good it does if they have eyes and have already seen me! Though she figured at the very least the strangeness was throwing off her pursuers' aim a little bit. It would have to do. She came up on a clump of trees and darted to the right, running further and further into the forest before spotting something large resting against a tree ahead of her. She could hear whomever it was gaining, They’re faster than me.

She raised her cudgel and swung it hard at the tree, right above a sleeping boar. The noisy crack echoed around her as she kept running past it followed by a squeal of rage and confusion. Move move move! She jumped over a raised root and darted around another tree as the sounds of squealing turned guttural and violent. There was a loud twanging sound followed by a gurgling croak that carried just loud enough to reach her ears. One hit? You gotta be joking. She groaned.

You assisted in slaying Starving Forest Boar, Level 2
Reduced Experience Gained

Level up! You have reached Level 2.
+1 Int, +2 Wil, +3 Pre, +1 Ins, +1 Awa, +9 Free Points

Oh fuck you, she grumbled and broke off into a run once again. She didn’t have time to check her stats or distribute any points. She heard yet another twang and felt something graze against her thigh accompanied with the sound of metal on metal. A hot line of pain screamed across her skin and she winced, nearly stumbling before forcing herself to keep going. That metal sound, the armor enchantment, does that mean the arrow would have done far more damage without it? She realized just as the sound of another twang drove the air out of her. She gasped and looked down to see something shiny poking out of her waist.

Oh.

She stumbled forward, her legs suddenly feeling wobbly. She screwed up her face and willed herself to stay standing even as her run turned into more of a limping hobble. Every movement hurt like hell. Her vision blurred, the world spun and before she realized what she was doing she slammed into something hard. She felt a buzzing in the back of her head as she collapsed against the hard thing, turning around and squinting into the trees. She coughed and tasted a bit of copper in her mouth. Damn it. A notification appeared and she tried to push it aside, she could barely read in her state. Fuck off already, she grumbled at the system even as the buzzing intensified, demanding that she pay attention.

A twig snapping drew her eyes up to the trees just as the red-skinned woman stepped out, her orange glowing eyes the first thing that Anna saw, contrasting hard on black sclera. She stood way taller than Anna had originally estimated, probably a head taller than Anna herself. She wore leather armor and carried a metallic bow in her hands. When she fully stepped into the light, Anna saw her face. Haughty, proud, and a gaze filled with disdain. The female said something but Anna couldn’t understand it and she doubted the woman could understand her either.

So Anna spoke in the universal language of hand gestures.

The woman scowled and drew her bow only to hesitate and grin. The bow just disappeared from her hand and in its place was something far worse, a collar. Anna’s blood went cold and then hot in an instant. She tilted her head forward and leveled her gaze on the woman, throwing her presence all the way up to maximum and letting out an animal snarl. There was no way in hell she was going to lower herself to be like those wretched things she saw picking berries. She bore her teeth as fresh clarity came over her, the inferno in her veins clearing up her sight for a moment. The female hesitated and stepped back, her eyes wide with shock and an emotion that Anna couldn’t quite pin down.

Anna ignored her because her head was clear enough to finally read the notification that was floating in her face.

You have discovered a solo resource dungeon, The Lumbering Mines.
Suggested level, 7+
Entering this dungeon will lock it to you until you die or the dungeon is completed. Warning: Your level is significantly lower than the expected level. Would you like to attempt The Lumbering Mines dungeon? Yes / No

Anna read the words and looked up at the devil, a grin stretching across her features. She knew she looked like she was in a pathetic state, an arrow through her gut, bleeding and bruised, but the woman still seemed hesitant to get close. So she spoke, she didn’t care if the woman didn’t understand her, hopefully the message would get across anyway. “When I get back, I’ll make you wear that collar before I kill you,” She snarled and before the woman could react, she indicated ‘yes’.

Anna felt something tug at her, a sensation of falling, and then her world went black.

–

Caustia stared at the marker stone and the blood staining it, her eyes still unfocused. Her heart was pounding in her chest, the momentary terror that the human had instilled in her finally starting to wear off. She’d never felt anything like it before, no, that was wrong, she had felt something like it before. From merely looking upon an Archdevil during a parade back home in the Great Hells. Her fingers felt numb around the cold metal collar as she finally caught her breath.

That was a human, right? Not something else?

Identify had said it had been a level one, no, level two human. No parentheses indicating its true level. That was impossible, no faction would send a child as part of an integration team. She swallowed hard and looked down at her trembling fingers. The human hadn’t understood her, clearly, it didn’t possess the innate translation skill of most of the races of the multiverse. Was it really a native? How did it not get sent to the tutorial? There were so many questions on Caustia’s mind but the only thing that held her was the human’s parting words.

While the human hadn’t understood her, she had understood it more than well enough.

That human swore to return and when it did, it would collar her before putting her down like an animal. It was a promise backed by that presence that made her feel so small she wanted to curl up right then and there. She strode forward and touched the marker stone and it rebuffed her with a notification.

The solo resource dungeon, Lumbering Mines, is currently locked. Please return at another time.

She pulled her hand away, I need to inform the Chainmaster. We need to be here when that thing gets back. We cannot allow it to live.