Chapter 94 (Patreon)

Chapter 94

When he woke up, he was filled in by Dr. Brass on what had happened with the other humans during the fight while Senna snored softly as she curled up next to Ethel under a blanket.

Dr. Waters had been adamant that Dr. Brass leave with her, calling him a fool when she and all of the nurses had taken the long hike down the underground sewers to find a way out.  When asked why Dr. Brass hadn’t left to begin with, he’d just said that he’d taken a liking to Riven and Athela in the short time he’d known them.  He didn’t have any family and was too old to be scared of dying, so he’d bet his chips on their success in the fight with the dream creatures as the others had fled.

Senna and Ethel hadn’t had much of a choice of whether or not to stay given their injuries inhibiting them from traveling far, though it was obvious that they were incredibly relieved that their side had won.  Both elves had watched the entire fight from start to finish, and they were often caught staring at Riven and the demons who’d fought the monster with curious, fixated gazes.

As for planting the rod?  He was likely going to use it near Allie’s tower as a gift, and that was also likely where he’d be putting his guild hall too.  Though those things would have to wait until later.

They took turns sleeping with the exception of Azmoth who didn’t sleep at all.  Athela and Fay ended up coming back shortly after that with a giddy look on Fay’s face after she’d been allowed out of the nether realms for so long, and the succubus was incredibly polite in her interactions with everyone thus far.  Even the elves, who Athela had been very hot or cold with ever since meeting them.  Even Dr. Brass, who oggled the succubus regularly despite his poor attempts to hide it, was treated with a kind and brilliant smile whenever he spoke to Fay - which was often.

So all in all: Riven, Fay, Athela, Azmoth, Dr. Brass, Senna, and Ethel made for a total of 7 that joked and laughed with one another through the remainder of the night between naps.  With the promise Riven had made to Senna and Ethel to take them home that morning.  The dream creatures were dead, Riven had found Allie safe and sound with an army surrounding her to keep her safe, and all seemed right with the world now that no immediate threats were present.

In fact the mood was so good that most of them didn’t get much sleep at all despite that being the goal.

Riven was actually taking a break from all the banter, relieving himself in a bucket within an adjacent room when Athela whipped around the corner in spider-form and swatted him on the head a couple times with one hand

“Ello chap!”

Riven glared at the demoness and grumbled something about privacy being ignored, pulled up his pants, and adjusted the new belt he’d taken from that clothing store.  “What is it?  And isn’t your leg broken?  You never rested in the nether realms after that fight, you shouldn’t be walking around on it like that.  I can’t believe you went exploring alongside Fay without healing first.”

“It’s fine, see!?”  Athela flexed and extended her knee, but failed to hide her grimace when an audible snap was heard.  “Bleh.  I’ll be fine for now, and I was able to get around using my arachnid limbs.  I’ll head back to the nether realm soon.  Are you excited about your elysium altar rod!?  It looks so neat!”

Riven nodded, picked up the bucket, and took it over to the room’s corner to set it down under a tarp of sorts.  It wasn’t like they were going to stay much longer anyways, with only Ethel capitalizing on the rest they likely all needed.  Her stump forearm was bothering her a lot, and sleep helped the pain.  “Yeah, it’s pretty cool that we’ll be able to utilize the system store.  Now we just have to find a place to set camp, so to speak.  Somewhere safer if possible.”

“Agreed.”

He glanced over his shoulder.  “So, how’s Fay doing?  Did you get a chance to talk to her much?”

Athela’s smile widened, and she knocked her knuckles against the door absentmindedly while leaning against the wall.  “I really, really like her… She’s very nice.  Very different from most of the succubi I’ve met in the nether realms, but in a good way.  I think you’re going to like her too.”

“That’s great to hear.  In the meantime…” Riven paused, folding his arms and tapping his foot thoughtfully.  “How big is that Elysium Altar going to be when we set it up?  It needed 3 square miles designated to plant the rod, didn’t it?”

Athela held up hands out to either side, supporting most of her weight on her arachnid limbs coming out of her back to relieve some of the stress on her broken human leg.  “Elysium altars are usually placed at random along the span of the newly integrated worlds.  They’ll be difficult to find at first, but as you’ll find out when you plant that rod - they’re usually pretty large and hard to hide.  They’re built like huge open-air temples actually, or large monoliths.  Once you know a general location, it’ll be easy to see it and that’s also why you need 3 square miles of space.  It’s pretty big and will gain a lot of attention when you put it down.”

The sound of a heartbeat growing closer and then a knock at the door alerted Riven to someone’s presence.  Removing himself from the room and coming out into the hallway, he saw Dr. Brass waiting for him on the other side.

“Hey.  What’s up?”

The old graying man stood leaning against the wall cleaning his glasses, and adjusted them to put them back on hurriedly when Riven walked out of the room. “Oh, hey there.  Are you busy?  May we talk?”

“Does it look like I’m busy?” Riven replied with amusement as a small upturn at the corners of his lips began to curl.  “Can I help you with something?”

The old man mulled over his thoughts while staring at the ground, then noticed the blood stains on his white coat and grimaced.  “Well… How do I approach this.”

The doctor clicked his tongue, then motioned to his body and tugged at his wrinkling skin.  “I’m pretty old.”

Riven stared blankly back at him with Athela coming around to take a look too, and laughed as he didn’t know what the doctor was getting at.  “Yeah, I suppose it’s kinda obvious.”

“Do vampires age?”

Oh.

So that’s what this was about.

This is probably why Dr. Brass had stayed to begin with.

Riven shoved his hands into his pockets and thought about the prospect for a moment, then shook his head.  “At the very least, my status page says I won’t die of old age.  So I’m assuming the body kinda resorts to a certain stage of adulthood.”

“I see.  And… Would you be willing to turn me?  I heard you had a quest to grow and form a coven.  I’d like to be part of it.  This new world… It's brutal, but it’s also magical.  There’s so much out there to explore, like an entirely new frontier.  Like Star Trek!  Go where no man has gone before kinda thing…  And I want to be at the forefront of that exploration.  The problem is, I won’t last another two decades.  I might not last even one more decade.”

It’d been a while since Riven looked at his quests.  He still had 3 active at the bottom of his status page, one being a notification that he’d actually been targeted by said quest and two of them being guiding quests from the administrator.

[You have been made a target by a regional quest: Crusade Against the Undead - Benjamin, otherwise known as ‘Prophet’ by many of his followers, has declared a holy war for the control of the city of Brightsville.  Enacting a holy ritual and with his request being backed by a minor god, all humans within Brightsville will receive additional Elysium Coins, XP towards leveling, and other undisclosed prizes based on performance when culling the undead in this area.]

[You have been offered a guiding system quest from the administrator: Covens – Either find a coven to join, or grow your own coven to a minimum number of 5 vampires including yourself.  To create new vampires, you must inject vampiric essence into your target via your fangs.  Be wary of doing this too fast, as if you do not recharge your vampiric essence inbetween attempts to turn others - you will become sick and in a worst case scenario: die.  Rewards: 1 portal ticket for an attempt to acquire another piece of Valgeshia’s Item Set.]

[You have been offered a guiding system quest from the administrator: Acquire Cattle and Create a Thrall – As a newly born vampire, you will need to acquire cattle, or in other terms - people to regularly feed on.  It does not matter if you do this through persuasion or force.  Then after this select one of these cattle to create a thrall.  Thralls are mortals bent to a vampire’s will and are essentially more subservient and powerful ‘cattle’ as many vampires like to say.  Though they do retain their intelligence, personality, and to some extent their own free will - their desires are instinctively and heavily oriented to align with your own.  This places them in the minion category of your status page when acquired successfully.  Thralls also acquire some vampiric strengths, while they are able to retain their own pillars and abilities outside of the vampiric influence.  However: retained pillars and abilities will be corrupted - sometimes modifying them slightly for better or worse.  Lastly, thralls are able to provide greater amounts of nourishing blood than normal mortal cattle do; and their bloodlines may be modified over time to evolve to your liking.  To create a thrall, you must feed on them regularly for an extended period of time and they must in turn feed on your blood numerous times throughout their initial evolutionary cycle.  Reward upon acquiring thrall: 1 combat level, a stable food source, and a new avenue to acquire minions.]

Riven frowned at that last quest.  He’d been feeding off the corpse of a dead nurse for the past day now, but he still needed a solid source of blood so he wouldn’t go crazy.  He looked up and met the man’s hopeful eyes, and could see that Dr. Brass was nervously fidgeting with a pen between his hands.  His gaze softened and he put a hand on the doctor’s shoulder.

“I have no reason to say no.  But let’s wait a while, I still need to figure out the feeding situation for myself.  Having another vampire around would only amplify that problem.  Just so you know, the transformation can be painful and the notification talks about how some people may die in the process.  I doubt that’s a common phenomenon from what Athela has told me in our discussions on the subject, but she’s a demon - not a vampire.  She doesn’t quite know for sure herself.”

The doctor let out an audible sigh of relief and his features brightened immediately.  He stopped his nervous fidgeting, and put his pen into a side pocket on his stained white coat.  The man even looked happy.  “Thank you, son.  It quite literally means the world to me.  I’ll take the risk… and I’ll leave the two of you to talk.”

***

The elves were eager to get back home, and their excitement grew as the time approached.  Neither of them got much sleep that night and stayed up late animatedly talking to Fay and Athela after Athela made it back from a break in the nether realms to heal.  They talked about the merging of worlds, the Elysium system, Riven’s sister and her horde of undead, as well as various backstories on their lives.

Ethel’s left arm wound where it’s been cut off a couple inches above the wrist hadn’t entirely healed yet and one of her ankles was black and blue from a sprain, but the arm was doing far better and the infection was gone.  Senna’s collarbone was still touchy and likely would be for some time after this, and her infection was still present in the leg where that goblin had bitten her, but they were both doing significantly better and Dr. Brass had given the elf some oral antibiotics to take with her in a little bottle along with verbal instructions on how often to take them.

Regardless, the girls were happy to actually be going home and were excited to see their families again.  Riven and the other men, Azmoth and Dr. Brass, eventually let them have their privacy through the end of that night and got to sleeping; and in the morning light of sunrise they set off.

Azmoth was tasked with carrying the large tub of coins and supplies they took with them, the tub had wheels though and was really an old hospital laundry bin - so it was able to be pushed around with minimal effort whenever they were on flat ground.  They had an especially easy time hauling it on the roads leading out of the decimated city, and though they saw a few groups of other survivors - the humans in large part either ran or hid from the intimidating party at a moment's glanc.  Riven didn’t dare leave the stash behind in case someone stole it while they were gone, and soon enough they reached the edge of the city and took to the plains.  When they reached the forests not long after that, the trek became a bitter harder.

Their pace was a bit slower than Riven would have liked and he had to keep his hood pulled down so the sun didn’t bother him.  The two elves couldn’t walk properly, having been wounded by the goblins and in the assault by the men in the hospital basement.  Fortunately for the two elves they were either carried by Riven or sat in the bin Azmoth pushed and carried.  Currently Riven was designated to carrying Ethel while his unique weapon floated along behind him with occasional twists or turns as if it was curiously observing their environment.  Which… it was, Riven came to find out.  His newly staff still had ‘memories’ of some sort relating to the old items he’d created it from.  Both halves, the dagger and the staff, had essentially been locked in Dungeon Negrada’s hellscape for millenia - making the experience of walking across the fields west of the city and into the forests in the foothills beneath the mountain a rather scenic thing even for a semi-sentient weapon.  He could literally feel the intent of the staff, and its eagerness to explore was palpable.  The flickering shadows flared once in a while along its black wood, the blood and flesh integrated into the wood pulsed whenever it got excited, and occasionally the blade at the tip would whip out to examine a flower or beetle as if it had eyes there.

Very curious.

[Vampire’s Escort (Vampiric)(Unique Soul-Fused Weapon, Sorcerer’s Staff): 104 average damage on strike with each physical strike dealing minor shadow-explosion knockback.  Mana regeneration is increased by 102%.  All Shadow and Blood spells cost 9% less mana while dealing 22% additional damage.  This item has an abnormally high endurance and is hard to destroy.  Requires Vampiric Heritage to wield.

• Sacrificial Kill:  Killing strong opponents has a chance to imbue this weapon with additional attributes, stats, or bonuses.
• Scorpion’s Sting: The blade at the tip of this staff can extend through flesh molding to cut down enemies.  Enemies hit with the blade portion of this weapon do not experience shadow-explosion knockback like the rest of this staff, rather the blade portion of this weapon will imbue stacking bleeding damage to all biological enemies.
• Black Lightning: This staff can passively build up charges of black lightning.  Power of black lightning depends on the amount of charge emitted.
• Portal Master: This weapon can sync to any stabilized portal you permission to use by the maker and master.  Current locations available for access:  Dungeon Negrada.]

Dr. Brass was also a lot slower than the others due to his age, and his mortal body still held him back.  So it was something of a stroll, with Riven wondering if he should become nocturnal from time to time.  He was continually adjusting his clothes, keeping himself cloaked and hooded to avoid the sun - while Fay flew overhead to spread her wings with chiming laughter due to the freedom she finally had.  The succubus seemed genuinely happy, and this in turn solidified the mood of their trip even further despite the slow pace.

Hours passed, and Riven found that the closer they got to their destination - the more animated Ethel and Senna became.  They began to laugh more, tell stories of their homes or families, make jokes and interacted with everyone else in good spirits.  Leaves crunched underfoot and the oak trees of the forest grew in number, their shade giving Riven relief from the sunlight as the hours crept into afternoon.

“My mother always said I should practice alchemy and herbology, but I’d always wanted to be a hunter or scout instead.”  Ethel held up her bandaged stumpy arm and wiggled it, trying to make the best out of a bad situation as she heartily laughed at her own misfortune.  “Looks like I’ll be going back to alchemy after all!”

Senna snorted a laugh of her own from her position in the loot bin that Azmoth was carrying.  “You could always get married to have some strapping lad take care of you!  Elder Preen wants your hand in marriage, you’ll just have to make sure it’s your RIGHT hand he wants and not your left!”

“HEY! That guy is gross!”  Ethel shot her friend a glare amidst the surrounding laughter, then grumpily scowled at the ground as Riven princess-carried her across the forest.  “Well at last I can say that I’m alive.  Thank you Riven, for saving us that day.”

Riven silently nodded, continuing to trot  alongside Azmoth in front of the others while Athela still scouted ahead for potential dangers.  Jose, Allie and Dr. Brass took up the rear, injecting their own comments or questions about elvish culture along the way.

“There are many different cultures for elves, just like there are with humans.” Ethel replied to a question from Dr. Brass.  “There are a few dominant ones though.  There are the high elves, like my people.  We stay in touch with nature and try to grow the forests, we worship the Forest Pillar - a subpillar of the Fae Foundational Pillar - and some of the related gods or greater spirits.  Before the integration, we still knew of the pillars - we just didn’t have a leveling system yet.  It was impossible to level up until now actually.  Aside from the woodland variant of high elves, there are other high elves from our old world which often are distinguished by their mindset rather than by race.  They believe themselves to be the ‘true’ high elves, which is why they’re usually what we refer to when speaking of ‘high elves’ rather than us ‘woodland elves.’  They have abandoned the old ways and think themselves better than us woodland elves, usually worshiping the arcane powers due to their lineages granting many of their people affinity for such things.  They think of themselves as…”

“As overly sophisticated.” Senna called out from where she was being cradled by Azmoth.

Ethel nodded in agreement.  “Yes, they think they’re sophisticated.  We don’t get along most of the time because, well, our people can be rather pompous too!”

Senna giggled in agreement.

From overhead, Fay landed gracefully beside Riven and kept pace while observing the small rodents and other wildlife around them.  “This is all so pretty… I’m glad you chose me Riven.  I know I said it before, but thank you.”

She glanced over at him, folding her wings behind her back, and used her tail to tap the amulet of the dragon around his neck.  “I can’t get a read on that necklace you have, but I can tell it is cursed.  What does it do?”

Riven blinked, shooting a look down at the one piece of jewelry he wore, and looked back up.  “Cursed?  Seriously?”

“That doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing!” The blue-skinned succubus quickly stated, raising her hands to keep him from worrying.  “Curses are a subset of enchanting and can be very good for the wearer.  They’re just a specific type of magic.  Enchantments are rather straight and narrow in their amplifications, while curses are more… complex.  Usually there’s a drawback to them when applied to items, but this can bring in better bonuses.”

Riven raised an eyebrow while continuing to carry the blonde young woman in his arms.  “Really.  So, does using your curses outside of applying them to items cause any drawbacks?  You use three curses, don’t you?”

The succubus quickly nodded, stepping over a large tree root in the process and withdrawing her tail from where it’d been toying with the dragon amulet.  “Oh, definitely.  Every time I use my curses I experience pain.  That’s how most curses work actually, the caster has to set down a sacrifice in order to use them.  It’s intrinsic to anything the system calls a curse, but what is paid depends on the caster.  I could sacrifice many other things to use them instead, but pain is the one I choose regularly.”

Riven nearly tripped.  “Uh… and that’s ok with you?  Didn’t you complain to me about how your last master tortured you?  Seems kind of… rough, to have abilities like that.”

Fay shrugged with a small grin.  “A little bit of pain is actually pleasurable to me, believe it or not.  The kind of pain that my old master dished out?  That was another level entirely, that was torture.  I can handle the abilities without any problems the way they are.”

Riven took a moment to mull over this.  “So what do you think the drawbacks of this amulet would be?  How would I find out?”

“You’d need an identifier for that, or someone who is more in tune with curses than I am.  I’m starting to specialize with curses now, but I have a long ways to go.  I’m still only a beginner.  All I can tell you is that whatever the curse is, its origin is the Unholy Foundational Pillar.”

He internally cursed.

Fay laughed at the irritation plastered across Riven’s features.  “Don’t worry about it, if you’ve been wearing it for a sustained amount of time I’m sure the curse can’t be that bad.  If it was, you’d likely have noticed already.  Keep wearing it, the bonuses you get are likely better than the drawbacks.  That’s how they usually work.”

The singsong ring of birds chirping in the canopy intermixed with a slow-moving river to their right, and Riven fell back a bit to let Azmoth’s larger frame push through the underbrush to create a path for him and the others while he began to use his two additional maws to carry the bin on his back.  For a long while they trudged on in silence, enjoying the scenery around them and keeping it slow so that Dr. Brass was able to keep up.  There was still no sign of Athela coming back to warn them of potential monsters, but they did occasionally pass by warg carcasses and even a warped version of a grizzly bear with two heads that'd been mutilated by the demoness.  Fay was content humming to herself while she walked beside him, his staff occasionally whipped from place to place as it inspected mushrooms or leaves, and Senna was beginning to fall asleep in her position in the bin.

Riven eventually cleared his throat to break the silence shortly after crossing a small stream.  “So what are the other types of elvish cultures?”

Ethel yawned, having temporarily forgotten she’d been telling a story, but jumped at the opportunity to make conversation again.  She still seemed slightly uneasy around Riven or the demons, but talking certainly helped her alleviate those remnant fears and she was quickly warming up to them.  “Oh yes, sorry.  I got caught up in what Fay was saying.  There are also blood elves, who originally started out as high elves but devoted themselves to the Unholy Foundational Pillar.  The pillar warped their souls over the course of centuries, and they’re often marked with unholy blood sigils that naturally grow on their bodies.  They looked like red enchantments, and different bloodlines have different inherent blood sigils that give the elves who own them power.  They also have black eyes like Fay does, and they’re shunned by the rest of the high elves that used to be their brethren many generations ago.  Lastly there are the drow, but we don’t really associate with them at all.  The dark elves abandoned the surface elves long, long ago and are almost an entirely separate species now - they are also incredibly bloodthirsty, and they tend to lean towards the Unholy Foundational Pillar like the blood elves do and live in the underdark.”

“And what exactly does your culture as a woodland elf entail?  Do you have holidays you celebrate?  What kinds of foods do you eat?  Are there any weird customs that you have?”

Ethel let out a pure and sing-song laugh with a smile that reached her ears.  “Well there’s definitely one weird custom that even I think is rather lame!  It’s actually not a woodland elf tradition though, rather it is a tradition to our village.  Every year at the summer solstice we dress up the two most troublesome elders and have them race one another.  The one who loses gets pelted with food by the children while doing a ridiculous dance.  Don’t ask me how it got started, I don’t really know.”

Senna’s voice carried over from where she was in the lead with Azmoth.  “We celebrate a couple holidays!  The most important one is the Ceremonies of Life, and it’s my favorite.  It’s where we give thanks for ten days to the Fae Mothers for creating their pillar, as well as have light shows from elemental mages and parades or games revolving around nature.  Lots of us get engaged during this time, it’s kind of expected for at least a couple every year.  We have lots of food too!  We do eat meat, but not a lot of it.  We consider life sacred and only take it if needed to feed ourselves, otherwise we are primarily vegetarian.”

“The opposite of you.” Ethel said with a crooked smile.

Riven snorted in discomfort at the truth of that and then caught Ethel’s expression next.  Was she smirking at him?  He felt a small smile coming on as he began to realize that Ethel was actually trying to tease him.

“I’m a sensitive new age vampire, I only suck juice out of carrots now.”

“Is that so?”

“It is.  I’m a trend-setter.”

She rolled her eyes with a silently laughing expression and gave him a ‘tisk tisk’, along with a waggle of her fingers on her remaining right hand.  “I don’t believe it.”

He opened his mouth to reject her statement, but didn’t get to start the sentence as he heard an uptick in a nearby heartbeat.  He turned, barely looking in time to see a shadow passing through his peripheral vision.  It immediately made him duck and whirl, and it was a very good thing he had..  An enormous axe connected to an arm nearly as thick as his waist blurred past, barely missing him and making the forest floor shudder in a spray of dirt as Riven stumbled back amidst Ethel’s shriek of fright.

“AZMOTH!” Senna screamed just while she was thrown from the bin that the large demon had been carrying.  Coins sprayed all over the forest floor.  The injured elf bounced off the ground with a shriek, and watched as the demon who’d been carrying her fall to the ground with his head completely cleaved off his body at a point where his natural armor had been weakest.  The others looked on, dumbfounded at the sight of one of their best fighters dead so instantaneously and without warning.

[Your minion Azmoth has died.  He will be returned to you 24 hours after you pay the blood price for your minion.  To resurrect your level 30 infant hellscape brutalisk, you will be required to pay Elysium directly with a sum of 30,000 Elysium coins.  Simply will this transaction to happen and make sure you have the required payment to further this agenda.]