Chapter 91 (Patreon)

Chapter 91

[These 4 demons have been following your progress and are interested in obtaining you as a partner.  Click on each for further details concerning the potential minion and their contracts.

• Beholder, Unholy, Level 27 - a buffer and siege type demon predominantly with high cooldown long range attacks, and shielding abilities.  This particular beholder is very good with identifying enemies or objects.  [25 Willpower required]
• Blood Fiend, Blood, Level 3 - a close-range brawler with passive regeneration, this demon often uses its teeth, claws, and stinger to inflict stacking ‘Bloodbite’ afflictions that do damage over time.  [11 Willpower Required]
• Succubus, Unholy / Depravity, Level 21 - caster demon, good crowd control and debuffs, moderate damage.  This particular succubus specializes in curses. [29 Willpower required]
• Abyssal Wyrm, Chaos, Level 12 - a massive tanking type demon, very stupid, prone to experiencing uncontrollable rampages.  Feels little to no pain or fear.  [30 Willpower required]]

“Is 4 demons a good number?” Riven asked as he shared the screen with his two demonic familiars when Athela climbed up Azmoth’s back to sit on his shoulder again.

“I not sure.” Azmoth stated.

But Athela was more happy about it.  “Definitely!  You did GREAT!  The variety is rather good as well, most contract applications only come in 1 or 2 at a time.  Let’s take a little bit to go through the list.  Something to keep in mind is that the levels matter, but they don’t matter nearly as much as the traits they give you and the contracts that they try to throw at you.  We can always power level them by killing random monsters in the wild.  Some demons will try to trick you into giving them various benefits or loopholes without you noticing, such as time off to do whatever they want or an easy out of the contract if you say a certain word.  Doesn’t happen often, but it definitely happens so watch for it.”

Riven raised an eyebrow, folding his arms thoughtfully.  “So… Why does this Succubus have Unholy and Depravity pillars listed?  When I saw the succubus offered as an option previously - back when I ended up choosing you in Chalgathi’s Trials, it had only been listed as Unholy.  The description here is also a bit different than the first… Does this mean that this succubus is special, somehow?”

“No.  It just means that this succubus has acquired both those pillars and is probably transitioning to create her own specialty pillar with Depravity.  Depravity is pretty common with Succubi, an easy-to-acquire pillar for them for obvious reasons.  As for why there’s a unique description, that’s because they’ve acquired levels and the system is evaluating them at a more in-depth level than the level 1 demons who’ve never been in combat.”  Athela clicked the first item on the list and started reading, and Riven began to do the same.

• Beholder, Unholy, Level 27 - a buffer and siege type demon predominantly with high cooldown long range attacks, and shielding abilities.  This particular beholder is very good with identifying enemies or objects.  [25 Willpower required]

The level 27 beholder was a giant, floating, central eye above a large maw of sharp teeth.  It had purple skin and multiple other eyes at the ends of long tendril-like appendages.  The details were described in further detail with a click of the option.  The trait it gave was called ‘Observer,’ which allowed itself and the bonded warlock to see stealthed opponents at a much farther range and far quicker.  It also came with a description concerning identifying enemies or objects, which Riven desperately needed in his opinion as this creature would fill a massive hole in the party he was building between himself and his minions.  Not being able to see enemy identification information was a serious problem, and he remembered how nice it was to get that information back in Negrada when he was still under system tutorial parameters.

• Blood Fiend, Blood, Level 3 - a close-range brawler with passive regeneration, this demon often uses its teeth, claws, and stinger to inflict stacking ‘Bloodbite’ afflictions that do damage over time.  [11 Willpower Required]

Next was the level 3 Blood fiend.  This creature’s body was unsurprisingly created from bright red flesh.  It had two thin, abnormally long arms with similar but shorter legs across a white, spiked torso - while all of its extremities were clawed and covered in sharp jagged spikes.  A long tail twice the length of its body with a stinger attached to the end.  Its face was that of a crocodilian nature, and it had two pale white eyes on either side of its face before a long snout full of teeth.  The trait it gave was called ‘Marine’, and it would have allowed Riven to swim at high speed and breath underwater at a very, very small cost of mana over time.  Other than also calling the creature a ‘newborn’ in expanded details when the option was clicked there wasn’t much said about it.

• Succubus, Unholy / Depravity, Level 21 - caster demon, good crowd control and debuffs, moderate damage.  This particular succubus specializes in curses. [29 Willpower required]

Then there was the level 21 succubi.  The description of these demons was the same as it’d been before when he’d first entered Chalgathi’s pre-tutorial starting quest, describing them as ‘caster demons, good crowd control and debuffs, moderate damage’ - but this time it had a little bit more detail as well concerning the ‘specializing in curses’ part.  When clicking the option it gave even more details and talked about their ability to fly.  The system even talked about how they were often used as nothing more than sexual playthings for their masters, and had a historical habit of being abused or pimped out to wealthy men over the centuries due to their natural beauty.

Riven felt a little bit bad about reading that, thinking it was something of a shame that they’d been treated so poorly… and he determined that IF he was going to choose the succubus that he was going to make an extra effort not to let her feel like an object, but rather like a person.  Unsurprisingly she was also incredibly pretty when the picture was displayed.  Her skin was a light-blue complexion.  She had black bat-like wings attached to her back, a long and slender black tail, white hair that came down to her back, black eyes, and short black horns sticking out of her forehead.  The trait the succubus came with was called ‘Silvertongue’, a very high mana cost trait that was able to increase her persuasion abilities drastically.  This trait only worked on people with significantly less Willpower than the user, would transfer to Riven as an ‘Unholy’ spell similar to what had happened with Azmoth, and it only worked for a short period of time depending on the amount of mana spent.  Considering he had negative charisma this could be utilized well when interacting with humans.

• Abyssal Wyrm, Chaos, Level 12 - a massive tanking type demon, very stupid, prone to experiencing uncontrollable rampages.  Feels little to no pain or fear.  [30 Willpower required]

Lastly there was the level 12 Abyssal Wyrm.  This chaos-type demon was essentially an armored, titanic tank of a demon that looked very similar to the wyrms he was familiar with in fantasy lore back on Earth.  As a low leveled youngster, this one was only the size of a small school bus - but Athela promised they could get much bigger.  It was black, red and gray, and covered in jagged plate armor all around its body before the circular, toothy maw at the front end.  The in-depth description talked about how it could burrow into the ground or break through walls with minimal effort, and was used for ‘siege breaking’ in many of the histories across the multiverse.  The system talked about how these creatures were basically mindless killing machines and were rather hard to control even under contract, but if one did manage to control it well enough - that it’d be a great asset as a front line disaster to enemy forces.  The trait was pretty good considering it stacked onto his defense, as it was called ‘Sturdy’ – and applied a flat +40 to the sturdiness stat, along with an additional passive effect that would negate 2% of all damage taken.

Frankly, each of the traits was pretty damn good.  The only problem was that none of them were based in healing… Though the beholder and succubus were technically more support type demons than the other two front liners.  It was a little disappointing not having an option for a healer, as that’d been what he was really looking for when building up his team.  He could still definitely work with these options though, and given that he had massive amounts of passive regeneration in the dark it wasn’t something he needed to worry about immediately.  More than anything, he was concerned about the day he ran up against enemies with silver-imbued weapons or sun and light affinities.  Those… would be a real pain in the ass to deal with.  A potentially deadly pain in the ass for a vampire like him.

[Would you like to interview your contract applicants?  Yes?  No?]

Riven looked around the room at his two minions, Dr. Brass, and the elves.  They didn’t say much but merely watched him in silence, and he selected yes.  Time seemed to slow before he abruptly found himself standing in an ethereal room seemingly created from purple mists.  Azmoth and Athela were standing to his right and left, and in front of him were the four demons that’d applied to receive his level 35 contract.  All of them were in the same state of an ethereal, semi-translucent state just as he was too.

“Ah…” Athela said as she turned around to look at the vast expanse of purple mists.  “Back to the nether realms I see.”

Azmoth gave a nod, but kept his gaze fixed on the four demons present in front of them.

The pictures had been rather skewed in terms of the size of Riven’s applicants.  The Succubus was the size of a regular woman - but taller than average, probably about 5’10 and shorter than he was.  The beholder was a little bit smaller than her, maybe 3 feet in diameter for its main body with numerous eyeball appendages making it seem a little larger than it actually was.  The blood fiend however was significantly larger than its picture – being about twice the size of the succubus, and the abyssal wyrm was about the size of a small bus at this point in its life cycle.

Still, each of the demons – though they were moving about restlessly, did not appear to see him.

[Touch each of the demons individually for your designated interview time.  Your own perceived notion of time has been sped up drastically while you complete your transaction.  The hells and nether realms send their regards, and hope that you find your new partner up to satisfaction.]

Riven scratched his head as Azmoth and Athela just waited patiently for him to continue, and he approached the large wyrm first.  Moving closer was the equivalent to shifting his body’s position at a though when he blipped ahead, disorienting himself momentarily while he adjusted to this realm’s odd set of rules, and reached out a translucent hand to touch the abyssal wyrm.

Immediately all of the other demons disappeared, including Athela and Azmoth, and he stood alone underneath the creature’s towering figure on a vast landscape of ice and snow.  A blizzard encircled them, crashing down onto Riven’s head… but he did not feel cold as the snowflakes pelted his skin.  He subconsciously knew, somehow, that this was a visage given to him by the wyrm itself… and that this was its ideal habitat that it conjured while remaining here in the nether realms.

In person the monster was even more intimidating than he’d originally anticipated.  It coiled up around itself like a snake, deep rumbling sounds vibrating the ground underneath his feet, and it sparked with crimson lightning similar to how Riven’s own ‘Blessing of the Crow’ worked.

Riven backed up to get a better look at the monster as the wyrm uncoiled, and it silently watched him silently move.

Neither spoke.

Frowning slightly, Riven raised a hand.  “Nice to meet you… do you talk?”