Chapter 47 (Patreon)

Chapter 47

She gave him a chittering nudge while walking by and began to stride ahead with Azmoth in tow.  “Nicely done.  As expected of my warlock slave!”

Riven snorted and downed another vial of Sinner’s Blood, replenishing his mana to full and wiping the red liquid from his lips on his sleeve.  “Warlock slave?!  Hold on here…”

“Royal Jester, Warlock Slave, Servant to the Princess… All acceptable titles for a plebian such as yourself.” Athela stated with a dismissive wave of her spider paw while continuing down the hallway and bypassing larger chambers on her left that were illuminated with dull red light.  “Whichever suits you best, little man.  Just me know and it shall be so!”

“Little man!?  I’m three times your size, you little runt!”

“DO NOT SPEAK TO THE PRINCESS WITH SUCH A FOUL DEMEANOR, PLEBIAN!”  The arachnid spun on him and launched herself at Riven with a screech, landing on his face and backhanding him as he stumbled back.  “TAKE THAT!  AND THAT!  AND TAKE THAT AS WELL YOU FOUL, STINKY CREATURE!”

Azmoth looked blankly at the two as Riven started cursing and smacking her back with his hands, trying to peel her off of him as she hissed and continued to rapidly swat his face with four of her own.  The large muscular predator had grown accustomed to their shenanigans in the two weeks he’d been brought to work for Riven under contract, and he just shook his large, armored head with a deep sigh as he wondered if this was a normal Warlock-to-demon relationship he was seeing here.  He couldn’t say he didn’t like the other two, in fact he liked them a lot and was very pleased with his choice in a new master, but they were very… odd.

“I’VE STOMPED BABIES STURDIER THAN YOU!”

“GOD DAMN IT ATHELA!”

Thankfully: fifteen minutes later Riven had admitted defeat, with Athela having tied him up and hung him upside down from the ceiling until he apologized.  She’d even made him address her as ‘Super Cute Princess’ while doing it.  He certainly could have ordered her through the contract’s compulsions to untie him, but it was all in good fun and he didn’t like the idea of forcing her to do things that way.  They then continued through their trek towards the river of blood for their daily meal, with Riven muttering to himself about how arachnids were stupid and Athela doing that strange thorax-bobbing swagger-walk she did whenever she won an argument or a battle.

The three of them had been doing very well in choosing their battles over the course of their time here.  Low level monsters were eagerly picked off in order to grind levels and increase their stats, while higher level monsters or large groups of them were generally avoided.  The exception was situations like this, where they were able to funnel larger groups of low level monsters into a tight space with Azmoth as the front line if they needed him to be.  It was incredibly likely Azmoth could have handled all of these low level ghouls by himself without much hassle if needed - or that Riven could kill multiple enemies with a single strike of his blood lance spell if they were lined up correctly.

At the very least, they were all improving at a steady rate.  Quite a fast one at that, if Riven had to guess.  According to Athela, they were all likely to get level-assigned abilities soon because none of them had experienced that just yet.  Riven had been lucky enough to find ways to acquire Blessing of the Crow and Blood Lance, but that’d been external and not an internal source of acquisition.  It was all random as to when someone would get a new ability, yes, but the longer one went on without getting one - the more likely they were to get one the next time they leveled up.

Or at the very least, they’d get a trait or upgrade or some sort.  Athela had to correct herself and explain that one to Riven thoroughly, but long-story-short a level up might actually give other types of bonuses instead of spells or abilities.  Better classes and longer periods of time between skill gains or upgrades often presented better options, but it wasn’t an absolute.  Even then it was still random to a great extent.

On the way through the ruins, Riven picked up an old bronze coin he saw laying around and pocketed it with a smile, but otherwise stepped over the corpses and chuckled at Azmoth when the four-armed demon dragged one of the corpses along to eat as he went.  The crunching of bone, snapping of ligaments and shredding of flesh that had once made Riven sick to hear… now it was welcome.  It meant Azmoth was in a good mood, and he was really beginning to like the big guy.

“Hey Azmoth-” Riven began with a genuine smile, skipping ahead to walk alongside Athela as they turned the corner and continued down their regular path through the dark,  ruined building towards the river of blood.  “I want to say thanks.  Thanks for saving my life the day we met, and thanks for cooking all our meals.  Cooked harpy isn’t all that bad.”

“A little like chicken!” Athela chimed in happily.

“You’ve never been out of the nether realms prior to becoming my minion.  Have you ever eaten chicken before?  For real though.”

“No…  But I plan to!”

“Didn’t think so.”

Azmoth displayed his rows of glistening black teeth and smiled back Riven’s way, letting out a deep and hissing laugh that’d become characteristic of the lumbering demon over the couple weeks they’d known him.  “Tehehe.  Harpies big chickens, yes.  You like chickens.  Right Athela?”

Both Riven and Athela stopped in their tracks, looked at each other, and then gawked back at Azmoth.

“Did you just talk?” Riven stated, bewildered.  “Or is this my mind playing tricks on me?”

“I think he just talked.” Athela confirmed with a quick double-nod.  “Hurry Azmoth, slap him to make sure he’s not hallucinating!”

Athela jumped up and aggressively smacked Riven across the face again to bring him back to reality.  “HURRY AZMOTH, HURRY!"

Riven scowled down at the arachnid and roughly kicked the spider into a wall with his foot.  “Do NOT slap me Azmoth, I’d likely die.”

Athela bounced off the side of the hall, laughed and glanced back over her shoulder as they passed by another window filtering crimson dungeon light into the narrow passage, and she gave Azmoth the widest, most genuine spider smile she could muster.  “When we get out, I’ll show you what REAL chickens are like!”

“Yes, yes.”  Azmoth stated, as if pondering the meaning of it.  “Can you draw chicken for Azmoth?  I want see.”

Athela leapt at the opportunity.  “Of course I can!  When we get back, I’ll draw you ALL THE CHICKENS!”

“Uh…” Riven shook his head and nudged Azmoth as they walked.  “She doesn’t know what a chicken looks like either, mark my words.  She’ll draw you something more like a dinosaur.”

“What’s a dinosaur?” Azmoth asked in a deep rumbling voice.

Riven just grunted.  “Nevermind, but it’s good to hear you talking.  I didn’t even know you could.”

Azmoth just chortled again, flames flickering in the back of his throat through rows of black, sharp teeth.  “Tehehe.”

Athela covered her mouth with her paw, hiding her arachnid smile as she scurried up along the side of the wall.  “Alrighty, let’s get a move on!  We’re almost to the river, and I want to be back before nightfall.  All the scaries come out at night!”

Riven paused, shortening his step for a second as he thought about it with furrowed brows.  “Actually, yeah.  Most of the scariest creatures do come out at night.”

An hour later they exited the series of closely knit buildings through a pseudo-tunnel to a spot they liked to frequent for visiting the river.  Looming archways and spires of a cathedral to their left stood ominously, casting shadows over a bend in the blood river that snaked into a recess between two mountains of rubble before exiting back into the inner city again.  Across the river were ancient stone aqueducts spanning the length of many miles, and underneath these dried up aqueducts were some of the only fields of plants that the group had encountered since getting here.  Instead of grass or green foliage though, these plants were black… and grew about a foot in length while occasionally flowering a bright white.  There were also a couple scattered black trees, each with translucent leaves that gave off a strange illuminating mist whenever night fell.

It was at this recess within the mountains of rubble that their tunnel exited next to a large bridge, and as usual Athela sighed with desire at the flowers across the river of blood while sporting a pouty frown.  “I really wish we could go pick some.”

“Uh huh.”  Riven snorted and put his hands on his hips to stretch, obviously not willing to take that chance.  He gave the spider a sidelong look.  “Ask yourself this, Athela: Why is there an untouched field of flowers across that river?  Why in all of the dungeon we’ve explored thus far does this one area seem pristine and beautiful?  Why are there no monsters over there, trampling the plants?  Why have we not even one time seen a creature venture that way in the weeks we’ve been coming here?”

He gave her a knowing look with a raised eyebrow underneath the hood of his brown, fur-lined cloak.  “It’s absolutely fishy and I’m willing to bet that those plants are dangerous.  What does a demonic spider want with flowers anyways?”

She animatedly waved her front spider legs around in the air.  “I’M A PRINCESS, RIVEN!  I NEED PRETTY THINGS!”

“Right.”

Athela glared at him, and with a humph she started trotting towards the river’s edge to start filling herself up.

Riven rolled his eyes at Athela’s fervent desire to go pick them just because the flowers were pretty.  In some ways he understood - this place was anything but beautiful, so even he enjoyed the small diamond in the rough that was this field of plants.  However, if the past couple weeks had taught him anything - it was that nothing here survived unless it could kill.

He grimaced, thinking of all the time they’d spent trying to find a way out.  It was getting discouraging to say the least.  They hadn’t found any inkling of a clue as to how to leave this place, but his hope was still alive.

What had happened to Hakim?  What had happened to Tanya and her two kids, Tim and Julie?  Were they alright?  Had they made it through their tutorial and passed into Elysium’s main stage?  What of his Sister and his friend Jose?  Were they still alive?  He hoped so, but he couldn’t dwell on things like that lest he go insane with worry.

Walking down to the River’s edge, he waited for Athela and Azmoth to finish drinking before he went in for a drink himself.  The disgust he’d originally felt in days past was long since gone.  He remembered the first couple times, when the warm runny liquid had dribbled down his throat - he’d thought it distasteful.  But now after removing his mask, as his lips sent ripples across the smooth crimson surface of the blood river, the thirst-quenching sustenance was eagerly gulped down while Athela took her own watch to make sure they were safe.

It felt good… tasted good… and even the smell had turned into something savory.

A couple of mouthfuls later and Riven let out a long exhale of contentment, wiping his chin on his sleeve and sitting back in a kneeling position.  A gust of unusually cold wind rushed them by, sending the usual patches of hellscape mist along with it.

“Do you think we’re going to die here?” Athela asked hesitantly.  The arachnid gazed across the slow-flowing river at the pasture of white flowers, and seemed to deflate as errant thoughts overcame her.

Riven frowned, placing his mask back on his face and internally sighing with pleasure at how much better breathing became whenever he had this mask on.  “Athela, you can’t truly die.  If we die, I’m the only one that’ll go forever.  You’ll be able to live on and find a new warlock to bond with.”

The words came before he’d had time to think about him, but as they left his lips… he regretted it.  Not that he’d said anything wrong… but that scenario made him very, very sad.  To think that Athela would be able to move on and find another man or woman to go about adventuring with or saying crazy things to…

“That makes me sad.” Athela said sourly, her ruby eyes becoming downcast as she stared at the ground.

Riven didn’t immediately respond.  They’d spent many long nights going over what they would do when they left this place… but saying and doing were two different things.  “We’ll get out.  I’m sure of it.”

The weight of those words burdened him more than she knew.

“Promise?” Athela asked, a little childishly but nevertheless wanting to hear it.  “You did, after all, say you would take me fishing.”

Riven repeatedly coughed after breathing some spit into the wrong pipe, beat his chest a few times to clear it further and stood.  He’d never said anything of the sort, but he’d be more than happy to do it and caught a hint of amusement in the arachnid’s features.  Turning to his minion, he gave her thorax a pet and nodded.  “I promise, and I’ll even take you fishing too.  Now let’s fill those vials so we can get out of here.”

“Oh!  I’d almost forgotten!”

With an enthusiastic twist of her hips, Athela reached into Riven’s backpack and pulled out the six empty vials.  Then she handed them to Riven one at a time between her arachnid paws.

Popping the corks off one by one, Riven glanced up at the cathedral to their left.  The ominous, foreboding structure towered above even the other large ruins around them as an ancient monolith.  Figurines of gargoyles and angels battling one another decorated its spires, and the central tower had a large bell at the top that’d no doubt stood motionless over the past millennia.  The gothic architecture beckoned him towards it, making him want to explore it far more than any other ruin they’d come across thus far.

“The goat man lives there.” Athela reminded him with a stark glare as she sat motionless on a nearby rock.  “We’re not checking that one out.  We already agreed.”

Riven glanced down to the slow-moving river of blood and nodded, pushing his own vials into the warm liquid that streamed around his wrists until he pulled them back out.  He capped his own, put one of his vials into his bag of holding - and then the other into a pocket for quick access.  “Yes, I know.”

The goat man… that was what they both called it anyways.  They didn’t really know what it was as they’d been unable to identify the creature due to what was likely a large level difference or far distance, but they occasionally saw the creature wandering in and out of the entrance while feeding on corpses of other denizens of the hellscape.

It was frankly enormous, putting even Azmoth’s size to shame and standing at least 14 feet tall with tree-trunk sized limbs.  It had a goat’s face with two curling ram horns along either side, two sets of six human fingers, bulging yellow and black eyes, two hooved feet, a goat’s tail, and it usually wielded a large spiked club.

It definitely wasn’t a minotaur though.  They’d seen minotaurs before, being rather brutish and roughly the same size, but instead of a bull - this creature was distinctly goatish.  They also weren’t sure whether or not this creature was a demon, an undead, or something else entirely…  Although its body was filled in most places, the abdominal cavity was almost entirely cleared out to the exposed spine.  Strings of flesh connected the top of its ribs and bottom of its pelvis, and a glowing purple gemstone pulsed regularly from within the confinement of the ribcage.

Regardless, the creature wasn’t here now… but they’d no doubt see it sometime soon if they continued visiting this regular spot.

Riven put his hands on his hips and straightened up, then turned about one more time to make sure the coast was clear and they weren’t being watched before getting a good grip on his staff.  Back in the day when watching action movies, daydreaming of fantasy lands, or playing videogames, he’d often thought that dual wielding swords would have been his choice of preference.  Dual wielding simply looked cooler and the idea of dealing damage faster was appealing, but in real life… at least thus far in this new reality of theirs… he was glad he usually didn’t need to fight up close.  He much preferred to hit enemies from afar with magic.  He’d rather send his minions in to do the dirty work as they could come back to life through the power of his contracts, even if it was rather costly should they die.

“Ready to go?” Riven asked while looking Azmoth up and down - the cindering flesh of the demon sizzling against droplets of red liquid that trickled down from his grinning mouth.

“Indeed!” Athela exclaimed.  She jostled over to Riven’s position and started vigorously shadow boxing at him while standing up on only four feet, lightly punching him in the gut with her forward four arms to get his attention after he blatantly began to ignore her.

Riven casually smacked her along the back of her head and nearly sent her into the river, but he flailed right and caught her right before she took the plunge.  Laughing and pulling her back up as she gave him a hiss and a death glare, he shook his head and swatted her again - this time not as forcefully.  “Don’t make me kick your ass again in front of Azmoth here.”

“AGAIN!?  I JUST WON!  I’d take your man card this time!  It’d be like taking candy from a blind and deaf cripple.  Don’t doubt it!”

He laughed and gave Athela a push in the direction of the tunnel, just when a crash abruptly broke through the silence of the surrounding area.

Riven abruptly stopped and his head twisted in the direction of the temple, eyes trying to pierce the dark interior underneath the arches but failing miserably in his attempt.  The crash was then followed up by a number of echoing screams and pleas that sounded oddly human, and then there was another crash - followed by a blaring sound…

“Is that a car horn?” Riven asked, dumbfounded.  “That’s definitely a car’s horn.  Like the ones from my world that I was telling you about yesterday…  Hey!  Athela, damn it!  Where are you going!?  HADN’T YOU JUST SAID NOT TO GO THERE!?  Fucking hell… and she tells ME not to make stupid decisions.  Azmoth, remind me to kick her ass with a real whooping later!”

“Yesssss Riven.”