Chapter 65 (Patreon)

Chapter 65

Athela watched her master curiously… watched him sink his fangs into the dying goblin’s arteries.  Watched him give in to the hunger he’d been feeling over the past day.  Then, letting out a long sigh of acceptance, she turned and bolted through the trees to kill the last of the little green creatures.  Catching up to them over the next twenty seconds of sprinting, she nearly tripped over a tree root – but collected herself with an eyeroll and drew back her head.  Stopping and suddenly lurching forward, Athela’s long, slender tongue ripped through the air like a black viper - striking accurately within the creature’s cervical spine with a thud and dropping it to the ground after a brief gasp.

She could probably find them faster if she transitioned back into her normal spider form, but she was very opposed to doing that any time soon.  She needed the experience in this new body, needed to hone her ability to manipulate it beyond the practice runs she’d done in the nether realms in a false body, and she was very much enjoying the new sensations she got from it.

In the distance, the sounds of other small green creatures quickly hustling through the trees met her ears, but she could tell that the monsters were running in the opposite direction in a flight for their lives.  There’d been a lot more than the ones battling here, though they may have been reinforcements or they may have just been circling around to get the drop on the elves - who knew.  She shrugged indifferently at the thought and yanked back her bloodied tongue - licking her lips to evaluate the taste of the short green-skinned man and turning her more demonic features back into that of a beautiful, slender young woman again.  Her unhinged jaw clicked back into place, her elongated, sharpened teeth shrank down into normal sized human variants, and her abnormally hypertrophied muscles softened.  Thinking about it and glancing over her shoulder to where the two elvish girls were, she paused and then withdrew her arachnid limbs back into her body as well - standing completely naked in the midday forest with blood dripping down her mixed white, gray and pitch-black skin.  Her claws retracted next, and she brushed her long dark hair out as the droplets of goblin fluids seemed to roll off her silky, straight locks like rainwater off a windshield.

She giggled at the good fortune she’d had, bending over and crossing her legs to pick up the bag of elysium coins that’d dropped in the form of a pouch on the goblin she’d just killed.  A good master to serve, a newly integrating world, and boundless opportunities.  “This is going to be so fun!  I can’t wait to tell mother about what goblin tastes like… Auntie was right!”

***

Riven hadn’t moved from his initial spot.  He’d gorged himself on the lifeblood of the broken goblin, taking in deep breathfuls of air between bouts of slurping down the warm, red liquid.  He continued to do this, ignoring Athela completely until she walked up next to him and jabbed her toe into his side.

Snarling reflexively and baring his fangs, Riven jerked back and got to his feet.  Blood dripped down his face and he looked like a rabid dog until recognition sparked across his features.  Slowly looking down at his recent mealtime plaything, and then back up to Athela, he furled his hands into fists in front of his chest… concern very evident.

“You do realize that they’re bleeding out and dying, right?” Athela said with a casual snort.

She pointed to the blonde elf who’d had her hand cut off on the dirt trail to their right.  She was quivering, shaking and trying to stall the blood from flowing freely from her stump with a makeshift tourniquet.  She was failing miserably in shakily tying it, but nevertheless she was trying while giving the vampire and his minion anxiety-filled glances.

Riven shook his head to rid himself of the urges he’d fallen prey to and picked up his staff before placing his mask back on.  “I need to get ahold of myself.”

The man who’d been holding onto life by a thread, the one with the broken limbs who was battered to a swollen pulp, well… he had finally stopped breathing before Riven even approached.  Faltering, then sinking down to his knees and feeling for a pulse along the man’s neck, Riven frowned.

“Dead.” Riven pronounced to the general area before hurrying over to the blonde woman, and glancing over at the silver-haired girl briefly to make sure she was ok as well.  The woman with silver hair had an obviously broken hand, a broken clavicle, a shredded leg that was profusely bleeding, but she was in far better shape than her sole remaining comrade and was staring dumbfounded at him as he pulled off his belt.

Kneeling down beside the woman with the stump, she shrieked and began begging while weakly trying to push herself away.  Even aside from the loss of limb, she was in very bad shape.  She’d been battered, beaten, and had numerous cuts all along her body – and even though she was utterly terrified at Riven’s approach, he couldn’t help but stop and recognize how pretty she and her friend were.  In fact, now that the battle was over and his adrenaline was down, he nearly did a double take before glancing over his shoulder to compare to the silver-haired woman.

God damn.

“Please d-don’t eat me-ee…..” the young woman sobbed, shaking even harder as blood continued gushing out of her left arm.  “P-pleasee-eeee…  I-I want to g-go home…”

Tears streamed down her face and her nostrils flared, her eyes squinted shut tight for the violence that was sure to come.

Riven gave Athela a look of bemusement, then snorted a sad laugh.  “Calm down.  I need to stop the bleeding before you die of blood loss.  Here-”

He reached for her stump arm, and she screamed like it was the worst pain she’d ever felt before.  It was mostly out of fear, as she flailed weakly on the ground, trying to push herself back along the dirt by her bare feet, but the elf was already in terrible shape and too weak to resist.

Was this his negative charisma at work?  He could only assume so.

“Use this.”  Athela held out a belt in one hand, and Riven’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.

Taking the belt and curiously examining it, he looked back up to his demonic companion.  “Where the hell did you get this?  This is Earth-made.”

The demoness hiked a thumb back into the woods and smiled sweetly.  “One of the green midgets had it!”

Riven thought on that a moment, not thinking anything good could have been interpreted from such news, then pushed it out of his mind.

Ignoring the elf’s strained cries and thinking her actions a bit absurd, Riven grabbed her stump again and quickly wrapped the belt around the wound.  When she wouldn’t stop flailing, he pushed her back down and knelt on what was left of the bicep in order to keep her there while he made sure the belt remained tight.  This only amplified her horrified screams, but it was for her own good… otherwise she’d likely bleed out and die in the next few minutes.

He pulled it tight and snapped the belt into a secure position, cutting off the blood flow by over 90% when he felt a rock slam into the back of his head.  Dazed and immediately irritated, he clutched the back of his skull and hissed – fangs reflexively extending as he whirled.

There, barely able to stand and supporting herself against a tree, was the other living elf.  She took in deep, ragged breaths and quivered fearfully with another rock in her hand – her knife having been thrown a good ways away by goblins so that she couldn’t reach it.  Regardless, she took in deep breaths despite the pain in her clavicle and lung – snarling at him to try and hide her fear while her silver hair whipped about in a gust of wind.  “GET OFF OF HER!”

Athela was initially in shock that the silver haired woman had attacked her master, but watching the elf throw that stone sent her into a rage.  Her arachnoid legs ripped out of her back again, sharpened, and all six pointed menacingly towards the girl.  “You little BITCH!”

The elf who’d thrown the rock paled as she saw the demon getting ready to pounce, and her bravery faltered in the lines of her face just as Riven shot forward to grasp Athela’s wrist.

He stood there, not saying anything, staring his demonic servant down with a firm and unwavering gaze until a stream of sunlight momentarily broke through the treetops and lit up his face.  He winced, turning his face away from the uncomfortable morning light when it managed to penetrate underneath his hood, but he didn’t let go of Athela’s wrist until the four arachnid legs withdrew into her back again.

“But… But she hurt you…” Athela whimpered, for the first time in a long time being anything but the usual ridiculous spider-demon that encompassed her usual persona.  She took in two deep breaths, looked over at the elf she’d nearly just killed, and then back to Riven.  “She hurt you…”

Riven took in a deep breath, smiled that Athela obviously cared so much, and pulled her in for a hug that she hesitantly accepted and embraced.  He relaxed his muscles and let the cool morning winds brush against his skin to calm his nerves with a light chuckle.  “Keep your urges to kill in your pants, ok?  Also, sorry for getting angry at you earlier.  I was just on edge.”

Athela stood there in shock for about 5 seconds, not knowing what to say, but then jabbed him playfully in the side of his ribs.  It caused him to yelp and let go as he fell over to the ground before laughing at the expression on Athela’s face.

“If anyone gets to hurt you Riven, IT’S ME DAMN IT!  REMEMBER THAT! At least I do it lovingly to build character!  Hmph!”

The demoness crossed her arms and straightened her posture while turning her back on him, but he didn’t notice the mild amount of moisture she wiped away from underneath her eyelids.  Facing the terrified elf who’d thrown the rock, Athela slightly bowed and folded her hands in front of her with a widening and malicious smile.  “Hey… I’m sorry.  It’s just that when you attacked my master, I got defensive and I wasn’t thinking… Maybe it’s because I realized that since I hadn’t been paying attention, you could have really hurt him.  So… I’ll forgive you.  But do it again and I eviscerate you.  Got it, slut?”

The silver haired elf just sat there quivering, pale faced as razor sharp teeth began to glisten one by one as they replaced Athela’s more human set of pearly whites.

“And for the record…” Riven interrupted with folded arms as he came to stand ahead of Athela – glaring the scantily clad elf down.  “I was putting a tourniquet on your friend to save her life.  You’re welcome.”

Athela frowned over at the blonde who was still clutching weakly at her arm below them.  Then, stepping over a dead trio of goblins and another elf body, she made her way forward.  Lightly touching the woman’s stump arm where Riven’s belt was wrapped tightly around, she shushed the abruptly protesting girl when the elf instinctively jerked back with a yelp.  “Quit your whining!”

Gripping the stump arm with one hand and causing the blonde girl to scream, Athela rolled her red eyes and slapped the girl three times with quick successive strikes to silence her.  “I DO NOT HAVE PATIENCE FOR THIS MORTAL!  BE STILL!”

Shocked, physically stunned and not entirely all there due to blood loss - the second elf glared daggers up at Athela while the demoness used her free hand to spin out bloody threads from fingertips.  Slowly the threads began to drift down onto the open wound of the stump arm she was holding, and the threads began to mend the flesh little by little.

Slowly, the blonde girl widened her eyes in shock as the skin along her amputation site began scabbing over.  It wasn’t completely healed, but it was nevertheless not bleeding out after Athela had finished with it.  Then Athela got up, snorted in disgust at the girl beneath her, and took a step back.

Riven was really impressed. He knew that abilities and skills could be utilized in ways the system hadn’t described in the detailed notes concerning his own status page - an example of this was utilizing Wretched Snare as a net to slingshot the satyr warlord’s club back at the demon in Negrada.  However he hadn’t expected Athela to be able to partially heal someone utilizing her threads, it hadn’t ever even occurred to him as a possibility.

Meanwhile: fear was still evident in the creases of the elf’s face and the rapid heartbeat that Riven could quite loudly hear.  The stunned girl looked to her stump arm with a mixture of emotions, then gingerly sat up from where she lay bloodied on the ground.  “Are you truly not going to eat us?”

Riven gave an awkward glance to the goblin’s body, the one he’d fed on, and scratched the bag of his head.  “Uhm… No, we’re not going to eat you.  Sorry if I gave off that impression.”

*WHAM*

*CRASH*

“WHERE THEY GOOO!!??”

Azmoth tore through the underbrush and collided with a large tree, toppling it completely over and sending wood chips scattering about the large demon who was obviously enraged.  In one hand was the corpse of yet another goblin who’d been unfortunate enough to run into him while trying to get away from Riven and Athela, and Azmoth promptly slammed the body into the soft earth before splattering its brains all along the dirt with a clawed foot.  “WHERE THEY GOOO!?!?!?”

The two elf women promptly let out terrified screams at the sight of Azmoth, the one standing falling over her own feet and scooting backwards across the dirt.

Athela gave Riven a smirk and then rolled her eyes with a long, drawn out sigh directed at the less intelligent of Riven’s minions.  “A little late to the party, idiot.  While you were out and about playing sasquatch, Riven and I already dealt with them.  Try to put some points into agility next time you level so you can begin to keep up.”