Chapter 81 (Patreon)

Chapter 81

*CRASH*

The tunnel echoed as yet another one of the larger creatures had made itself known.  A good thirty feet in length and coming down from a side-passage, it ripped around the corner at breakneck speed with pincers gnashing and chitin plates scraping loudly along the stone walls.  Gunk and sewage splashed like it was in the middle of a tsunami, and a horde of the smaller wyrms followed in its path - some of them even being crushed under the mad rush of the bigger one.

But that supplied Riven with the environmental resources he needed to excel.

Riven’s hand shot out and the crushed corpses of the smaller wyrms went up in a light show, bathing the entire underground tunnel system in an ominous red glow as crimson ice ripped from their bodies and rocked the huge creature with dozens of spikes; right before Athela’s figure blurred forward.  Leaving huge lacerations along the underbelly of the monster, Athela swung around the beast with one of her webs and pulled to vault back down.  With an audible crunch, all three of her remaining arachnoid legs buried deep in the beast's skull like spears.  It twitched a couple times, causing the muck to splash about it, but eventually settled down in death while Athela dodged goblets of acidic bile being spat at her from further down the tunnel.

Dozens of coin pouches dropped into the water just seconds later, each of them marking the site of death of the beasts they’d killed, yet the fight was still not yet won.

Earlier he hadn’t been able to pick up the heartbeats of these creatures until they were very close by.  Perhaps they had much smaller hearts than what most creatures did, but something behind him from beyond the battle was quickly picking up tempo and approaching him with its heartbeat ticking up in speed as it closed the distance.

This was something new.

Riven turned to see what was rushing him, temporarily leaving Athela to deal with the wyrms, and cursed when he saw a gigantic rat-like ogre barreling down on him with the speed of a freight train.

The brown-furred creature was semi-humanoid, had large yellow eyes, a scar running down its face, and large, sharpened front teeth.  It wore spiked metal knuckles almost akin to gauntlet, and wore a leather armor chest piece with a belt and pack strapped at its side.  Its huge, muscular arms reminded him of a gorilla, and the beast roared in excitement about twenty yards out.

To Riven’s confusion though, its large ears perked up upon seeing him and it actually hopped to the other side of the tunnel to avoid running him over.  It clearly gave him a quizzical look, even stopping in its tracks and started participating in a short staring contest, then rushed further in to begin helping Athela kill the swarms of wyrms that she was battling not far off.

Riven blinked.  This was a friendly monster?  He quickly tried to identify it, and raised his eyebrows in surprise.

[Rat Man]

Huh.  How interesting.

Getting up onto his feet, he flung another spiraling arc of black lightning that blasted through a number of the swarming wyrms.  Then summoning a batch of bloody razors that bloomed in the air about him, he sent over a dozen of the blades spinning through the air - utilizing their minor lock on features to twist around Athela and their new ally before ripping through a number of the still incoming swarm.

The large rat man and Athela were going ballistic, tearing through one after another of the endless tide of these creatures while Riven supported them with a barrage of magic.  Athela was quick and nimble, easily dodging most of the acidic goblets the smaller creatures aimed at her and using her claws, blades and sharp elongating tongue to rip wyrms apart.  Meanwhile the rat man smashed everything in sight and just took the acidic goblets head on without any real effect.

Riven was curious just what the rat man was made out of if that acid that’d eaten through stone didn’t put any damage on him, but he was just glad it wasn’t another enemy to contend with.

It had become an all out battlezone.

Spike wyrmlings died by the dozens as they clashed with Athela and the rat man.  Even more died as wave after wave of bloody razors flew threw the tunnel over the heads of Riven’s allies to crash into the oncoming waves of enemies - though Riven occasionally had to wait inbetween casting times to let his mana recharge with the help of his staff and he found himself occasionally smashing his weapon into some of the wyrms who’d made it past the two frontline fighters with explosions of on-hit shadow magic.  More of the larger spiked wyrmlings joined the fight as well over the course of the battle, and Riven quickly found himself yearning for his new tier 3 Blood Nova spell - but the mandatory 8 hour cooldown was kind of a bummer.  Just one of those spells would have torn through the entire tunnel and wiped out the swarm in a single go.  Occasionally he was able to use environmental blood for a cascade of ice spikes and take out another large section of enemies, but corpses and their fluids could only be drained once before the blood magic started to dissipate into something less energy dense.

However he couldn’t really blame himself for using blood nova prematurely.  He didn’t even know he could use the spell until now and had no real explanation for how he’d learned it.  Had that dream been a dao vision?  Or had it been some kind of vampiric lineage thing where he’d come up with the memories of an ancestor?  He had no idea.

Regardless, he was just happy this unknown rat man had arrived - as he was quite the fighter himself and was keeping up with Athela in kills.  The rat man’s arms or gauntleted fists would occasionally light up in a dull green, empowering his physical strikes and his skin often found itself coated in a similarly colored light to deflect attacks or repair wounds.  Riven briefly thought about summoning Azmoth down here, but thought better of it when he was more certain they had a handle on things.

[You have gained 1 combat level.  Please visit your status page to assign stat points.]

[You have gained 1 combat level.  Please visit your status page to assign stat points.]

Twenty minutes later the tunnel was littered with corpses.  The huge rat man was covered in small wounds, huffing in pain and pulling himself to sit up next to one of the walls.  Meanwhile Athela was sprawled out atop a pile of the small corpses.

Riven likely would have been able to handle the battle between himself and Athela, but he was still appreciative that this creature had come to his aid.  He gave the unknown rat man a thumbs up and a headnod of thanks from a wary distance.  “Appreciate the help.”

The muscular ratman just nodded in silence, remaining panting along one side of the wall to catch his breath.

The next few minutes were spent collecting the pouches of coins that’d dropped into the muck of the sewer or what he could find anyways.  The pouches always disappeared shortly after obtaining the coins, leaving him with mostly clean elysium coins of bronze, silver and gold to add to his backpack’s collection.  Reviewing his status sheet he also saw that he had collected over 3000 of the coins just from this one fight alone, and on top of that he’d also grown 2 levels.  It was likely the best single haul for a fight other than the prize he’d gotten from Dungeon Negrada’s bet with Chalgathi.

Riven applied his remaining stat points and focused more than he’d normally do into Willpower upon reviewing his status page as he’d been ignoring that stat compared to intelligence.  Azmoth and Athela needed them for future evolutions, and he would likely be obtaining a third minion soon.  That, and he applied a couple points to luck.  He wasn’t sure what luck did exactly, other than brief explanations from the system or Athela on how it was able to sway events in marginally small degrees, but 1 luck was the bare minimum.  It certainly wouldn’t hurt to occasionally dump a point into it here or there considering it was his lowest stat.

[Riven Thane’s Status Page:

• Level 29
• Pillar Orientations:] Unholy Foundation, Blood Specialty, Infernal, Shadow
• Core of Original Sin - Gluttony:] (Under Construction)(???)
• Traits:] Race: Pureblooded Vampire (Extreme Darkness Regeneration)(Sunlight Decay)(Extreme Weakness to Silver weapons, Sun pillar, and Light pillar attacks), Class: Warlock Adept, Adrenaline Junky (Blood)(+15% to Agility)
• Abilities:] Blessing of the Crow (Unholy), Wretched Snare (Unholy), Bloody Razors (Blood), Crimson Ice (Blood), Blood Lance (Blood)(Tier 2), Hell’s Armor (Infernal)
• Stats:] 61 Strength, 120 Sturdiness, 295 Intelligence, 142 Agility, 5 Luck, -341 Charisma,              166 Vampiric Perception, 105 Willpower, 9 Faith
• Minions:] Athela, Level 25 Arshakai [36 Willpower Requirement].  Azmoth, Level 24 Hellscape Brutalisk [27 Willpower Requirement].
• Equipped Items:] Crude Cultist’s Robes (1 def), Black Redemption (74 shadow dmg, 68% mana regen, shadow dmg +27%, Black Lightning), Chalgathi Cultist Amulet (???), Leather Boots (1 def), Backpack of Supplies (Guild Hall: Stone Manor), Witch’s Ring of Grand Casting (+26 Intelligence), Cloak of the Tundra (22 def, +56 bonus def vs frost), Breath of Valgeshia (48 def, +13 dmg & +9% mana output dmg for blood dmg, 6% mana regen)]

Other than needing the Willpower for Athela and Azmoth, he wasn’t entirely throwing out the idea of acquiring a thrall either.  Honestly he hated the idea of slavery, but if he could find someone able to do it of their own free will then he’d be all for the idea.  Athela said some people did it for the power boost they got by being a thrall, so he was holding out hope.  He was already working on ways of selling the idea off to potential ‘mortals’ that he could use as a frequent food source, as he was deathly afraid of going berserk and killing someone else like he’d done to that poor sod in dungeon Negrada when he first turned.  His vampiric body back then had been completely devoid of mortal blood, and it’d ended up getting someone killed without Riven even realizing what he was doing until after the fact.

Coming out of this thoughtful trance, Riven couldn’t help but give a strained laugh upon seeing how filthy both he and Athela were.  His body ached everywhere after pushing so much magic through it, but his new intelligence stat points due to recent gains had enabled him to pour out power far beyond what he’d have normally been able to do.  He also had numerous small wounds and one large laceration along his right shoulder, but it was healing rather fast - even to the naked eye.  He looked down to evaluate the mending body, seeing his flesh heal so rapidly that he could witness the skin grow over just a minute later after having taken a pincer entirely through that shoulder.

So this is what vampiric regeneration was like.  Given he was inside a dark tunnel, and wasn’t so sure it’d work like this out in broad daylight given the key words ‘in dark places’ concerning his regeneration listed on his status page.

Athela on the other hand was in worse shape.  She was panting, grimacing and there was a large wound along her thigh along with the spot on her back where her spider leg had been ripped off.  That first monster they’d fought had been the biggest of the bunch though, even compared to the other larger wyrms, so thankfully she hadn’t lost any more limbs after that.  She gave him a weak smile and limped over to him to meet him halfway as he waded through the muck towards her, ankle deep in sewage.  Putting her head on his chest and wrapping her arms around him, she gave him a weak hug.  “You made me worried there, Riven.  Glad you’re ok.”

Riven grinned, hugging her back and examining her for any other serious wounds he hadn’t seen initially.  “Just glad you’re ok.  Are you needing to go back to the nether realms for a bit?  You look rough.”

She nodded solemnly, then let go and gave a backwards glance at the rat man.  “I’ll go recover, but if you need me I’ll be ready to hop right back here.  Or you can take Azmoth with you.  Talk to you later.”

A portal appeared in the tunnel to swallow Athela whole, leaving Riven and the rat man staring at each other in silence for almost an entire minute before Riven made a move to get closer to the large creature.  It was still heaving from the exertion of fighting so much, occasionally glancing over at the mountain of corpses they’d made.  However, as Riven got back up onto the walkway along the tunnel’s side - he definitely recognized intelligence in the rat man’s eyes and the creature’s ears perked up when Riven sat down a couple feet away.

“Again, thanks for the help.” Riven stated, removing his mask to reveal his face and placing it on the blood covered stone next to him.  His staff was leaned up against the wall while he crossed his legs for comfort’s sake.  “Can you understand me?”

The rat man blinked twice, then coughed and spat out something like a hairball.  Its scarred features quickly turned back to Riven however, and its hairless tail flitted back and forth while it removed its bloodied, spiked gauntlets.  “I can-can.”