Chapter 87 (Patreon)

Chapter 87

Riven stormed through the sewers to where the rungs leading up the tunnel were within reach.  Grabbing onto them: Athela followed closely behind.  The clothes they’d gathered were strung up in large sturdy bags they’d procured from a back room in the clothing store, and they were dragged up along the tunnel’s side too.

The hatch unlocked and swung open to let in the firelight of the lanterns.  Riven continued up and out of the tunnel – not bothering to wait for the others and furiously whipped out of the room to see what Jake had told him about.

There in the hallway was one of the male nurses, an african-american young man who’d been severely injured with a clearly broken leg that Dr. Brass was wrapping up with the help of another female nurse and Dr. Waters.  Senna and Ethel, the elves, were crying on the floor outside of room 7 – obviously still injured themselves but with a few new bruises that hadn’t been there before.  There was another shirtless bald man on the floor who was obviously dead, having a huge set of claw marks gouged out of his chest, and there was a screaming family throwing out profanities at everyone else as they sat back in the far corner of the waiting room.  They were being backed into that corner by Azmoth, who was obviously not having any of their shit and bored out of his mind as he stood there with folded arms waiting for Riven to arrive.

The dead man on the floor was none other than the guy who’d been with the latina woman’s family - the same latina woman that’d called Riven a monster when he’d first arrived and had wanted to get out as soon as they could.  The guy had been wearing no shirt then and carrying a baseball bat, looking rather thuggish at the time.  Now his lack of a shirt did very little to hide his innards from the rest of the room.  The screaming woman’s husband, a heavily tattooed man whose friend was dead on the floor, was waving that same baseball bat around trying to intimidate the large, simmering, armored demon ahead of him.  “YOU FUCKER!  YOU KILLED MY BROTHER!”

The man’s son, a little boy around the age of 6, screamed and cried at the top of his lungs while clinging to his mother who was throwing whatever she could get her hands on at the demon as each item bounced harmlessly off the bored creature.  The other small families, nurses, and other randoms who were present just watched on in silence or muttering – though none of them seemed to be at all afraid of Azmoth.  Rather they cast judgmental looks at the small family of three instead.

Riven glowered at them a moment, then knelt down next to the male nurse and clapped him on the shoulder.  “You ok man?  Looks like you’ve got a gimp leg now.”

Dr. Brass snorted and adjusted his glasses.  “He’ll live.”

The nurse scowled at the old man, causing the middle-aged brunette woman: Dr. Waters, to chuckle.  “No!  I’m dying god damn it!  DYING!  I’m not meant for this kind of abuse!”

“He’s certainly not dying.” Dr. Waters said with a grin Riven’s way, gripping onto the young man’s leg to hold it down.  “Tyson is just… over exaggerating.  He loves drama.”

“I DO NOT!”

“We’ll put a splint on it soon, we just did an evacuation of the hematoma.  He’ll walk with a limp for a while and should walk normally as long as the break heals properly.”

“DYING!” The young man named Tyson insisted, running his good hand across his dreadlocks and groaning in pain, leaning back into the floor and closing his eyes when Dr. Brass was a little too rough in his handling of the younger man’s leg.

Riven nodded once, upon further inspection noting a huge swelling bruise right under Tyson’s hairline, then let out a sigh over the yelling and ruckus of the family.  “I heard you were rather heroic.  According to Jake over there, you stopped that guy from assaulting the elves.”

Riven hiked a thumb in the direction of the blonde teenage boy, who gave them all a wave from where he sat next to his equally blonde mom and dad on the couch again.

“And his brother!” Jake called out over the yelling.  “The man with the bat was trying to strip them down before Tyson intervened.  Your demon Azmoth only left him alive because he backed off, and they’ve tried to escape a couple times now.”

Riven nodded to Azmoth in approval when he caught a glance.  He got up, passing the nurse with the broken leg while he glared daggers at the dead man on the floor and then over to the still enraged and screaming family in the corner.

He came to a stop next to the elf Ethel, kneeling next to her as she remained slumped against a wall and cried – trying to hide her face from him with her bandaged bicep that was missing half her arm.  She had bruise marks around her neck, a black eye, and scratches along her torso.

Meanwhile the other elf Senna had numerous bruises along her rib cage, left cheek, and a swollen lip.  She too was tearing up, some of her clothes were ripped, though unlike Ethel she was able to look him in the eye and brushed her silver hair out of her face to get a better look at him.  “We want to go home.”

Riven took a look at their still-festering wounds, frowned, but then nodded his agreement.  “Alright.  Where is your home?”

Senna’s lips trembled as she glanced over at the bloodied, torn corpse of the man who’d tried to assault her.  “Maybe 40 miles south from here further into the forest at the base of the mountains.”

He nodded again, inwardly raging about the situation but keeping his composure outwardly.  “Alright.  We’ll escort you back home tomorrow.”

Senna sniffled and wiped away a tear.  “Thank you.”

She went back to comforting Ethel, and Riven stood up.  Inhaling deeply, he whirled and quietly walked with intent towards the muscular, tattooed man with the baseball bat.

“YOU FUCKERS!” the muscular, tattooed man screamed as he swung again at the demon with the bat easily bouncing off Azmoth’s armored torso.  His eyes narrowed upon Riven’s approach, and with a roar he stepped up to swing at Riven – focusing all of his rage at losing his kin into that strike.

The wooden bat landed right on target – or it would have, but Riven’s left hand shot left and caught the weapon as it struck.

The man’s eyes widened at the speed and strength Riven possessed, then stumbled back as the wood splintered and shattered in Riven’s grasp.

The vampire sneered, and drawing one hand up to his right – he formed a single, large disc of blood magic over an open palm.

Riven’s fingers snapped and the projectile blurred forward, cutting cleanly through the entirety of the man’s right arm.  The man screamed and panicked, stumbling back just as Riven’s foot nailed the side of the man’s left knee – felling him to the ground with the loss of stability.

The man’s screams of anger immediately turned into those of horror and pain.  And as Riven stood over him, anger and bloodlust flushed through his mind.  He raised his free left hand, red magic rippling across his skin to condense ahead of his outstretched hand as a slender, crimson spike.  “Say goodbye.”

He abruptly grimaced in surprise when he felt a sharp pain in his side, and slowly turning his gaze downwards he saw that the man’s wife had stabbed him with a small blade.  It was a minor wound considering his enhanced body, and he’d taken far worse over his time in Negrada, but it was still painful.  She was screaming at him in Spanish, and he had no idea what she was saying, but the look of revulsion and terror on her face was unmistakable.  Her child in the background was sobbing on the floor, hiding his face as he rocked back and forth, and even despite the things this man had done… Riven suddenly couldn’t bring himself to kill the would-be rapist.

His mind briefly went blank with incomprehension.  Why was it that without law and order, people who had once been civil became absolute animals?  Why was this such a common theme ever since the system ended?  This was not the first time he’d seen this scenario play out.  He’d also seen slavers, looters, his best friend had been murdered, the entire city had gone up in flames with infighting even despite monsters roaming the streets… it was all so infuriating.

Gritting his teeth and sneering, Riven knocked the woman backwards.  She tripped over her own feet and fell to the ground as he drew the knife out of his side and casually tossed it away, and he went back to staring down the man on the ground.

Taking in a deep sigh, he clenched and unclenched his free hand repeatedly while trying to calm his nerves as the entirety of the basement’s occupants had eyes on him.  “You’re banished from this side of the city.  Go North to the holy crusaders, you’ll fit right in.  Or perhaps the city prison, that group of slavers seems to think a lot like you and you should get along.  I’ll have one of the docs save your pathetic life because you have a family, but if I ever see you around here again I’ll assume you’re trying to take revenge and kill you on the spot.  Remember that.”

Without warning or waiting for a reply, Riven slammed his foot into the man’s face – breaking his nose with a crunch and knocking him out cold.  “Dumb son of a bitch.”

Everyone in the room was silent now, save Athela – who was chuckling loudly in the background.  “Riven, you ruthless bastard!”

Riven ignored the looks he was getting from the small crowd and walked back over to Dr. Brass.  “Sorry to inconvenience you, but do you mind patching that guy’s arm up with a basic bandage?  We’re kicking him out as soon as he wakes up.”

Dr. Brass huffed in irritation, brushed off his white coat, and stood up.  “God damn it, I really didn’t sign up for this.  Fine, but you owe me.”

The vampire smiled slightly.

“I already do.” Riven replied, giving the old man a pat on the back and heading back towards the elves.  “Come on ladies, let’s get you back in bed.  I’ll dim the lights so you can get some rest before the return home tomorrow.”

***

Riven finished updating his sister through the communication bauble about his decision to escort the elves home, and that he’d be leaving the city in the morning.  Allie hadn’t liked it, but she’d expected something like this and just told him to keep her updated as he progressed.  The crusaders were continuing to gather their forces, cannibalizing other human groups while using a carrot and stick method.  They were giving holy powers away through the relic Prophet had to their new followers, and using the threat of the undead as a common enemy.  People were terrified that the undead were real, and the slowly morphing tower in the center of the city was very ominous.  This in turn meant Allie’s forces were fortifying their home base, setting up traps or ambushes, and attempting to assassinate higher ranking enemies to wreak havoc; but they didn’t expect a full blown attack for at least another month or two due to sheer lack of organization on Prophet’s part.  The current plan was to let the enemies come to them, so that the undead could find on their own terms and in their own territory.

Riven closed the communication and let out a frustrated sigh, leaning back against the stone wall and mulling over the many things swirling about his mind.  This ‘war’ between the humans and undead was a really sad outcome in his opinion.

He took a look at the corpse of the dead man Azmoth had killed, now drained of blood to satiate his appetite.  That was another thing that needed to be addressed, he needed a more permanent source of blood.  He couldn’t keep finding or creating corpses to feed on… well, he could, but that’s not how he wanted to go about it.  He needed something reliable.

Then there were the elves he needed to escort home when morning came.  And he needed to figure out what to do with all these people who - although they were scared of him - looked to him for protection.  They’d stayed here this entire time, in the basement of the hospital, waiting for his return because they were more afraid of the monsters outside than they were of him.  Jake had kept them all updated on the mulling activities of the dream creatures still above, and they’d set up a god damned nest in the building overhead while feeding on local wildlife, other monsters, or people.

And that was yet ANOTHER problem, he couldn’t just let a swarm of hive-mind dream creatures continue to populate in the middle of Brightsville to devour everyone on this side of the city.  He needed to annihilate those fuckers to the last one.

After all that, there was the rat-man Snagger who he’d met in the cellars.  He had a scheduled appointment with him so he could venture into the underdark and explore.  There was the guild hall he needed to find a place for too, and figuring out who Chalgathi was or what his god damned amulet did, the list just kept going.

“You look stressed.” Azmoth muttered in a deep grunt, slamming down onto the floor beside him and shaking the room slightly under his weight.  His tail flipped back and forth, drawing Riven’s eyes while the vampire leaned his head back against the stone wall.

“He’s had a rough couple days.”  Athela said, coming to sit on the opposite side of Riven and leaning into him, resting her head on his shoulder.  Then she began peeling off the plastic wrapping of a straw, inserted it into a juicebox, and began to suck the sugary liquid out with loud slurping sounds that were definitely intentional.

Riven glanced her way, then chuckled at the obnoxious demoness while running his hands through his hair.  “It’s just a lot.  I wish things were simpler.”

“Yeah… me too.” Senna stated softly while sitting on her hospital bed across the room from them.  She lowered her eyes when she noticed Riven had heard, but then shrugged and began to examine her injuries in more thorough detail.  “I miss my old world.”

The other elf, Ethel, nodded in silent agreement and continued to stare at her missing limb - cut off at the forearm where a goblin had chopped it off.

*SLUUURRRRPPP*

Riven’s crimson eyes slowly shifted over to Athela who was making an overly dramatic attempt to garner his attention, and he swat the empty juicebox out from her grasp with an amused smile.  “You don’t need those, save those for the humans here.”

“Hey!” Athela protested, shifting back into her spider form and jabbing his thigh with one foot.  “Don’t be a jerk!”

“Your mother is a jerk.”

“DON’T YOU TALK ABOUT MY MAMA, YOU PLEBIAN DOG!”

“I do what I want, you can’t tell me how to live my life.”

Athela’s eyes narrowed dangerously.  “I am a PRINCESS!  You will do what I say, OR YOU SHALL SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES!!!”

She lunged, screeching and barreling into Riven to knock him over onto Azmoth while rapidly swatting at him with all twelve of her legs at intervals.  Laughing and wrestling the spider to the ground with rapid swats of his own to the top of her head (which only egged her on even more), Riven and the spider battled on the floor for supremacy.

“TAKE THAT!  AND THAT!”

“You little shit!  Hey-HEY!  DON’T YOU-”

“AND THAT!”

“DON’T SPRAY THE FACE, THAT’S CHEATING!”

“CALL ME KUNG-FU SPIDER BITCH!”

*SMACK-SWAT-SLAP*

“Ow!”

The two elves stared at the battling duo for a solid ten seconds before bursting into laughter, and Athela’s screeching drew the attention of Dr. Brass and a few other curious onlookers.  Seeing that Riven was cackling while he duked it out with his minion, the humans quickly lost interest and returned to discussing their potential options with one another.  They knew of Riven’s departure in the morning, and he’d asked them to brainstorm amongst themselves while he did the same.  They couldn’t just stay here, they had to leave, but what options did they have?

*WHAM*

Riven pinned Athela to the floor, using his vampiric strength and superior body weight to weigh her down while she flopped like a fish underneath him.  “Well, well, well… Looks like I have to put you in spider time out!”

“THERE’S NO SUCH THING!  SPIDER TIME OUT IS A MYTH!”

“Spider-princess time out?!”

“EVEN LESS OF A THING!”

Riven’s chuckle and the banter between the two caused the wary elves to smile, and they outright laughed again when Riven’s blood magic quickly condensed and formed a half-block of crimson ice around the majority of Athela’s body.  Her twelve legs stuck out straight where they’d been frozen in place, and only her head was left out of the block when Riven sat the ridiculous, snarling spider down in her new time-out container with a thud.

“LET ME GO PLEBIAN!”

Riven smacked his hands together as if to dust them off, and nodded to himself while wickedly smiling at his demonic spider minion as Azmoth laughed.  “No, no - this is spider-princess time out.  Just like I said.”

Athela’s red eyes bulged, and she raised her mandibles into the air with an ear-piercing, rather dramatic wail.  “AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!”

“Oh shut your tantrum down and be a good girl.  You WERE the one to start this after all.  Tut-tut.”  Riven patted the screaming spider’s head like he would a dog.  “Good girl.”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!”

Azmoth was finding this absolutely hilarious and his laughter was rising in pitch to joint the elves.  He then pointed to the iced spider with one of his four arms.  “Obnoxious spider girl looks like brick.”

“She does look like a brick.  Doesn’t she?  A rectangular, red brick of spider-ice.”

“CURSED, FOUL-SMELLING PEASANTS!  UNLEEEEEASH ME SO I MAY UNVEIL MY TRUE FORM AND WRATH!”  Athela tried wriggling her legs, but they were frozen absolutely still and it only made her arachnid features tense in concentration like she was trying to figure out a hard math problem.

Riven blinked, then turned to the elves who were the only other occupants in the room.  “Sorry for how ridiculous she can be.  But may I ask, why are you two still up?  Aren’t you supposed to be getting sleep for tomorrow’s journey?  You’re both still rather sick and injured.”

Ethel let on a slight chuckle, then gestured to the wailing spider in the middle of the room.  “I doubt we’d be able to sleep with that dramatic creature causing such a ruckus.  That aside, we tried… Or at least I tried.  I can feel the exhaustion beginning to overtake me, but it’ll probably be some time before I find the willpower to rest again.  What happened earlier today… it was traumatizing.”

Riven solemnly acknowledged her words.  “Understandable.”

“AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!”

Riven rolled his eyes and snapped his fingers, unleashing his arachnid partner and shattered the crimson ice that shimmered and disappeared.

Athela shook herself off, glaring up at the vampire with a dramatic humph, then strut out of the dimly lit operating room with her head held high.  She only stopped briefly to give him the stink-eye before departing, and called back over her shoulder.  “I’m off to get another juicebox, as my previous one was so rudely thrown away."

“Ridiculous.  Truly, that spider has a knack for melodrama.”  Riven stated, unable to wipe the amused smile from his face despite trying, and watching Athela leave out the O.R. window to go on her treasure hunt.  Then he went back to his original position next to Azmoth, but kicked his legs out and laid down instead of sitting.  “Alright, well I’m off to sleep.  Goodnight ladies, goodnight Azmoth.  And tell Athela not to fuck with me this time, if I have any mustaches on my face I’m going to throw a hissy fit.”

“That will encourage Athela more.”  Azmoth stated blandly.

“Then smack her if she tries.  You don’t sleep, right?  Guard me.”

“What I get?”

“What do you MEAN what do you get!?  You’re my minion, damn it!  Do what I say!”

The demon looked skeptical, but managed to mutter a response.  "Fine."

***

*CRASH*

Riven jolted from his slumber, bolting upright with a huge red mustache drawn onto his face when the basement shook.  “The fuck was that!?”

Screams echoed from beyond the operating room he’d set up in, and both injured elves were wide eyed in alarm when Dr. Brass burst through the door.  The doctor was a disheveled mess, and he shakily pointed back out of the room towards the waiting area.  “There’s a crack in the ceiling over the waiting area!  Something’s trying to break in!”

People were rushing through the hallway, trying to get into the empty OR rooms that were further away from the crack in the ceiling.  Jake quickly pulled up his 3D map too, and it showed that an absolutely enormous nightmare creature was furiously clawing out chunks of pipe now, right over the waiting room where it’d been pinned down in a net of red webbing.  Other nightmare creatures waited behind it by the dozens, hundreds even, and Riven had to rub the sleepiness from his eyes with clenched fists.

Ugh.

“Alright I guess we’re going all out.  Athela, Azmoth, get ready.”

Both demons were already up and waiting for orders.  Athela had taken her humanoid form with all six of her blade-like arachnid limbs at the ready, and Azmoth was beginning to burn hot with embers as a large, obsidian smile with rows of teeth devoured the front of his face in anticipation.

“We’ll take care of it, and if we don’t – you can all take the tunnel out” Riven said to the old man Dr. Brass, pushing him aside as he, Athela and Azmoth walked out to the front.

Riven stretched and yawned.  The unconscious man whose arm Riven had cut off had been bandaged, a tourniquet was applied, and he was being dragged by his sobbing wife off to the side.  Everyone else had already run from the waiting room to hide elsewhere.

Riven felt a little guilty in that moment, seeing how distraught she was, but then thought about how Ethel and Senna had been beaten and nearly assaulted.  The pity for the man immediately disappeared.

He felt a nudge at his shoulder, paused, and turned to see Dr. Brass.

“Hey…” The old man muttered under his breath while screams and the crying of children became louder with every successive crunch from the ceiling above.  He looked down at a his pistol in his left hand.  “I’ve never fought a monster before.  But can I help?”

Riven eyed the man and his gun, setting the butt of his staff onto the tiled floor.  “Just blast through your bullets as fast as you can.  Maybe you’ll even get some levels for helping kill these things.  Have you ever killed a monster yet since the system arrived?”

Slowly, Dr. Brass shook his head no.

“Well here’s your first chance.  Grow some levels, it’s going to be a good opportunity for experience.”

The old man hesitantly nodded, adjusting the glasses on his face and shaking only slightly.  “Yeah… will do.”

The old man didn’t look too confident, but he held his ground anyway and stood with Riven in the waiting area along with the two demons on either side.  He was the only one to do so, everyone else was clustered together in the hall or operating rooms further back.

The ceiling shook, rattling with every strike as the tiles overhead cracked further down the center.  Already there was a large fissure in the ceiling about five yards across and half a foot wide, though dust, tile and pieces of metal pipe were coming out of it and there wasn’t any sight of the monster just yet.

Riven yawned again, covering his mouth and grumbling to himself.  “And just when I was getting some good sleep…”

Out of all of them, Azmoth was the only one who was excited.  Flames began to flicker and rise off of the monstrous creature, and it began to utter a deep growl in anticipation of the fight to come with claws flexed on all four of his arms.

Athela meanwhile scrambled up the wall, onto the ceiling, and paused overhead - watching the fissure widen with every earth-shaking strike from above.  “Let’s give it hell, ladies!”

*Thud.

*THUD.

*THUD.

The continued battering of the ceiling gave Riven a building headache, and he briefly asked himself whether or not the people behind him should just make a run for it through the sewers.  But there was no way the others would get out in time with a single exit and so many people, and it was probably safer to barricade themselves in the rooms anyways while Riven used the hall as a chokepoint.  Because knowing what creatures lived down there in the sewers, these people would likely die down there without an escort.  He’d already spoken of this to them, and some of them had even watched his first battle through Jake’s mapping skill.  They were all very aware that they were caught between a rock and a hard place right now.

“I’ll engage first.  Azmoth, Athela, wait for my initial barrage before you head in.  Azmoth tanks, Athela you’re on crowd control making sure they don’t get near me or past me.  We hold the choke point here.” Riven said groggily, listening to the overhead beating continue.  “Dr. Brass, once you’re out of bullets you need to go back with the others.  That clip should gain you at least a few levels after I take out the big bastard we saw in Jake’s video feed.”

His talking came to an abrupt end when an unearthly screech echoed from above.  It was harsh, guttural, and filled with rage; and a final blow against the ceiling from above sent a creature falling through with a wave of dust and debris.  Slamming hard into the floor below with a flow of old electrical wires, metal pipes and rock, the creature was momentarily stunned.  That didn’t take away from its ominous aura though, and fear began to flow through the braver onlookers behind Riven that hadn’t hidden in the rooms the moment this creature hit the ground.

It was about fifteen feet tall if Riven had to guess.  The clown face wore a wide-set grin that literally split the head from ear to ear with rows of crooked, sharp teeth.  Swaths of writhing appendages from its back, ending in mouths, screeched and grasped at the air with gnashing teeth.  Large bloodshot eyes flicked back and forth in different directions, not in conjunction with one another – but rather as if they had minds of their own.  Maggots riddled its muscular, stitched-together body from the head down to its large clawed feet.  Its gray skin flexed and ripped with each movement it made while it tried to push itself up out of the rubble, but the gaze swerved right and locked onto Dr. Brass immediately as it saw the man.

Cold, humid air escaped its mouth as it opened up its jaws to outwardly gasp in excitement.  The words it spoke next were predatory, hungry, and wet with salivation as it started to drool.  “Precious little meatling!  I am glad you stayed to play!!!”