Chapter 78 (Patreon)

Chapter 78

“No Riven, this is typical of your species.” Athela had stated flatly with an uncaring yawn as she watched unspeakable things done to various victims across the city through Jake’s vision.  “You people call us demons bad, but really there are a lot of humans out there who are easily comparable to the worst of demonkind given the opportunity to obtain power.”

Marketplaces had all been looted by this point, and as the dragonflies scouted further into the city – they found more and more anarchy following suit.  The police were gone, either disbanded completely or having hunkered up somewhere further east, but more than a few cop cars were seen flipped over and set ablaze.  There were still a couple patches of city blocks where people and their families holed up and tried to wait it out, but more often than not this was no longer the case.  People were becoming frantic, desperate to scramble and fight with one another over the last resources of the old world instead of turning to try and make something from the new.

They also learned that monsters, though they were certainly appearing in small packs or at random, were usually rather weak in this area.  There were a few stronger ones such as the hive-mind dream creatures that’d made their new nest in the recesses of the hospital, but even they were individually weak for the most part.  And the scouting they did revealed only a handful of these stronger creatures were noted.  Some of the monsters were also somewhere inbetween, like that six-legged tiger-cat that’d tried pouncing on Riven – but even those weren’t very common.  They’d seen more wargs, a couple large birds with blade-tipped wings, some semi-translucent mana-wisps that were more passive than other creatures and only attacked if provoked, a large ugly looking troll, and even some more packs of goblins that raided along the outskirts of the city in small war parties.

Despite all this searching though, they didn’t see any sign of Jose or Allie.  Riven was anxious to get out and up above ground so he could better evaluate where the glowing lights indicated their locations to be - rather than be stuck down here in the basement when the next brief interlude of the system’s quest happened again.

Riven spent another three hours exploring the surrounding area while using one of Jake’s fireflies.  Meanwhile: Ethel – the blonde elf who’d lost part of one arm, had come around.  She’d woken up in a state of panic and had taken a lot of time talking to Senna in order to calm down.  By the end of their talks however, both elves were on uneasy speaking terms with Athela – who they’d taken a hesitant liking to.

The feeling was not entirely mutual, but Athela did her best to put on a face, keep them company and answer any questions since Riven had gone out of his way to save them.  Even if they were disgusting elves.

Food distribution was also going poorly very fast.  Rations were already scarce as they were evenly distributed amidst the people here, because most of the food in the hospital had been left upstairs before being sealed off – and the lack of a sun made the place feel rather gloomy despite the candle light of the lanterns that had to be continually re-lit.  Groups had already started to form in the basement: the handful of nurses with Dr. Brass and Dr. Waters, the few families who’d been here with family members undergoing surgery around the time of the hospital’s attack, and a number of people who had just been down here to seek refuge and find an out-of-the-way place because the rest of the hospital had been too packed.  This didn’t include Riven, his demons or the two elves of course.  These groups generally kept to themselves except when Dr. Brass came to talk to Riven or Athela about various things on magic or to take some of the food rations out to the others, but there was a definite sense of fear whenever other people looked Riven’s way.  It was the same fear that both elves had expressed when they’d first set eyes on the duo before their lives had been saved.

“I wouldn’t take it personally…” Senna bravely stated by the end of the day through a forced smile, speaking to Riven directly for the first time since waking up as the tattooed husband of the woman who’d called Riven a monster walked by with a stout glare Riven’s way.  “You’re just a threat to them, and your charisma… it’s a bit jarring to look at you.  Even now.  But charisma is always worst with first impressions, and the longer you know someone the less their charisma stat affects you...”

Well that was good to know.  Nevertheless Riven was standing, leaning against a wall with a dull look in his eyes.  He didn’t like the way people were looking at him.  They were scared, almost all of them, and other than Dr. Brass and Dr. Waters none of them wanted anything to do with him.

It probably hadn’t helped that they’d taken the corpse of the nurse who’d died to feed on… but Riven had been seriously hungry.  He wouldn’t have lasted much longer that day – given the severe stomach cramps and bloodthirsty way he looked at the people around him until he gave in and sank his fangs into the dead woman’s neck.  They’d tried to keep it on the down-low, but word had spread like wildfire anyways – and Riven had determined that his silent experiment concerning how long he could go without feeding on blood had concluded that the time was rather short indeed.

At least, it was short in terms of serious hunger cravings.  He didn’t know how long he’d last in terms of insanity kicking in.

Even the elves had been scared to death of him when they’d first laid eyes on him, terrified of when he was going to eat them.  So when Senna finally managed to muster the courage to finally talk that day, both eyebrows shot sky-high and he did a double-take to his right.  “Are you talking to me?”

Senna’s confident features faltered as his gaze shifted to her, but with an encouraging touch from Athela who sat on a metal chair next to the bed the elves were still recovering on – she hardened her resolve.  “Yes.  I also wanted to personally apologize for my rudeness.  Our rudeness-”

Senna corrected herself by motioning to her friend Ethel on her right, and her friend quickly nodded with wide, green eyes.  “We both wanted to apologize.  You and your demons have been nothing but kind to us.  We are sorry for ignoring you, it’s just…”

“You’re intimidating.” Ethel stated bluntly, then she flushed a deep red and tried to cover her face with her hands – only to sadly whimper when she realized she was still missing one of them.  She dropped her head, long blonde hair falling over her face in a look of utter defeat while trying to push the image of her lost hand out of her mind.

Riven gave them both a warm smile and slowly came over to stand beside the bed, looking down on them.  “Thank you both.  It means more to me than you realize, I’ve never been great at making friends.  I was worried that becoming what I am now would seriously damper my efforts.”

He glanced down at the stump of an arm that Ethel was tearfully staring at, sighing lightly as the beautiful elf never took her eyes off of it.  The wound was bandaged up nicely, but it had to be changed out every day to keep it clean.  Underneath there was exposed bone, muscle, and granular tissue starting to fill in.   Even after Athela’s original efforts to seal it up with her webbing.

“Are two you doing ok?”

Ethel sniffed, wiped her eyes and nose on the blankets, and adjusted the scant fur top she’d put on the day before.  “I’ll be ok eventually.  Probably not soon, but I know I can overcome this.”

Senna gave her friend a sad smile.  “You’ll be ok, Ethel.  Thank you for asking Riven.  As for me, my leg is recovering… The infection is under control from what your Dr. Brass has told me.  He said it might take a couple weeks to heal completely though…”

She frowned, wringing her fingers together and suddenly lost in her thoughts.

“Worried about your family again?” Athela asked curiously.  “That’s the look you get whenever you talk about them.”

Senna immediately gave a dry chuckle and nodded.  “Yes.  They likely think we’re both dead.  If they’ve found the other bodies by now, then they think the goblins took us to eat.”

“Or worse…” mumbled Ethel blandly.

Senna nodded and wiped at some of the dirt on her face.  “Or worse.  My kind has been at war with goblins for as long as I can remember… They are the mortal enemies of woodland elves.  They breed at rates far beyond my own people, so although one elf warrior may take down many before he or she dies – they just keep coming.  They are stupid, greedy, ugly, evil little creatures that eat and kill everything they can.  The world would be a better place without them.”

She grumbled, swinging her legs over the bed and gingerly putting weight on her good leg – only to cringe and shrink back when she moved her upper body in a way that put pressure on her broken clavicle.  “By the gods I am going to kill those little green men by the scores when I leave this place.”

“As am I.” Ethel muttered under her breath.

The obvious hate for goblins was only emphasized by the anger visibly showing upon both elves’ features.  They truly meant it when they said they were going to go kill the little green men, Riven had no doubt about that.

He raised a hand to get their attention and posed a question.  “Do you have any means of regrowing that arm?”

Both elves looked at him blankly, then Ethel burst into melodic laughter as Senna sputtered.

“Magic to regrow limbs?” Senna repeated as if to make sure she’d heard him right.  “Not in our village.”

“Didn’t your people have magic before the apocalypse?” Riven pressed curiously despite the continued laughter.

Ethel held up her remaining right hand, calming herself and wiping a tear away.  Still smiling and genuinely amused even despite the partial loss of her left arm, she waved her stump around at him.  “The shamans have some basic nature magic in the village, but nothing like what you’re talking about.  That was funny though, I needed the laugh. Thanks for that.  You know, for a vampire… you’re quite nice.  Athela is great too, even if she tries to come off as uncaring!”

She beamed up at him, a little shyly at first but growing more confident quite quickly.  “I’ll get used to not having my hand, I’m sure.  I’m just happy that I’m alive.  It’s more than we can say for our friends, and I know our families will be happy beyond belief when they realize that Senna and I are still with them.”

Riven felt himself flush at her beaming expression and cleared his throat when he caught himself staring – averting his gaze to Athela who remained narrow-eyed and scowling his way.  “Right.  I’m glad I made enough of a fool of myself to be amusing then!”

Azmoth was sipping on a juice box with a poorly hidden smirk through obsidian daggers for teeth, which frankly looked ridiculous.  But as Riven walked by to exit the room – he nudged the vampiric man and whispered so Athela couldn’t hear.  “Quite the lady killer.”

Riven just flushed even harder, and Azmoth laughed as they both exited.

“I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of replying to that Azmoth, but I’ve gotta admit your speech is coming along nicely.”

“Thank you Riven, I’ve been learning fast after listening to all of you interact.  It’s almost entirely what I’ve been focusing recently.  I still make mistakes here or there, but Athela always quick to correct me.  She’s good teacher.”

Coming down the hall and then to the closet that Athela and Jake had showed him earlier, Riven opened the door and nodded approvingly at the latch in the center of the floor.  It was made of steel, the padlock had already been ripped off, and was big enough for him to easily fit through.

It was time to go exploring.

“This is entrance to sewer systems?” Azmoth asked curiously.

Riven nodded.  “Indeed.  Funny that a building like this would have it, but I don’t think this was always a hospital.”

He bent down, gripping the ledge and flinging it up to reveal a dark path into the ground.  The tunnel was a straight shot down, measuring around 6 feet across in diameter.  Rungs had been added on two sides, allowing two different people to go up and down at one time.

Athela had followed along right behind the others, and with a nudge she prodded Riven down the hole.  “It’s now or never, just like we talked about!  Let’s go find your sister!”

Azmoth waved down at them, his armored limb slowly moving back and forth in the light of the cinders across his body.  He was to stay behind and keep the others safe long enough for them to escape down into the sewers themselves if those dream creatures somehow found a way inside the hospital basement, and if Riven really needed him the vampire could always portal him to Riven’s given location.  “Be safe.”

Riven gave the demon a friendly grin and a thumbs up.  “Will do man!  Make sure you look after Ethel and Senna, they’ll need you to fetch their juice boxes like a good little peasant!”

“I am a C-class demon, you runt!  Not a peasant!” Azmoth said with a laugh.

“Yeah well I’m still not sure what an C-class is really, does that stand for ‘sissy’!?”

Athela loudly laughed at Azmoth’s expression and hiked a thumb Riven’s way – pausing her descent.  “If he gets us killed down here, just know that I died valiantly trying to save his useless ass as he screamed like a sissy!”

Riven scowled back at her over his shoulder and Azmoth laughed even harder.

“You shut your dirty, whore mouth Athela!”

“I am a VIRGIN!  I’ve never had the opportunity to be a whore!”