Chapter 117 (let me know if it's a bit much) (Patreon)

Chapter 117

Riven’s staff channeled sparks of dark lightning up the fleshy, whip-like tendril attached to its embedded blade.  Deep inside the drake’s brain, the large monster spasmed and twitched - and eventually settled down into death while Azmoth ripped a large hole and stepped out of its smoking throat.

“Nice job big guy!”  Riven gave the demon a fistbump and withdrew the fleshy tendril, the sinister blade of his sorcerer’s staff snapping back into place.  “You did some real work there, even if you were a crazy motherfucker climbing inside that thing.”

CONGRATULATIONS

CONGRATULATIONS

CONGRATULATIONS

YOU HAVE DEFEATED THE DUNGEON’S PRIMARY BOSS: BLUE DRAKE.  DUNGEON CAPTIUS HAS LOST, AND AS PRIMARY CONTRIBUTING PARTICIPANT IN THIS DUNGEON RAID YOU - RIVEN THANE - ARE THE ONE WHO DECIDES WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.

[Now that Dungeon Captius has been defeated, you may choose to either take the dungeon’s bribe - or may choose to destroy its core.  Taking the dungeon’s bribe allows it to offer you treasures otherwise hidden inside the dungeon’s realm.  Taking the bribe allows the dungeon to either relocate entirely, or allows it to enter a hibernation mode where the Elysium Administrator guarantees its protection and gives it time to rebuild.  Choosing to destroy the core will kill the dungeon permanently, preventing monster spawns out of it, but you must find the core first to do so.]

[You have 1 hour to collect your winnings before ‘Heroic Intervention’ sends you back home.  If you wish to leave earlier, just inform Elysium of your will to leave and it shall be so.]

[You have gained 3 levels. Congratulations!]

[Your minions have received their XP and level ups as well. Congratulations!]

[You have acquired a new title.  Please see your status page for more information.]

“Hmmm.  This is a lot different from when I beat Negrada’s miniboss.”  Riven scratched his chin and smiled at Fay when the succubus landed beside him to rest an elbow on his shoulder - looking down at his notification with interest.  “What are your thoughts?”

Fay shrugged, then motioned over to where stone was beginning to form a figure of a lizardman only a few feet away from their position.  “Depends on what Dungeon Captius has to offer.  By the way, did you ever assign those points from the last time you leveled up?”

“When I killed the elves back at greenstalk? Yeah.”

“Alright!  Just making sure.”  Fay gave him a playful nudge and adjusted her crop-top.  “You are quite forgetful, you know.”

Riven furrowed his brows and opened his mouth for a rebuttal, somewhat confused, but slowly closed it as the succubus winked his way and walked off with an obviously intentional sway to her hips.  He wasn’t sure whether or not she was using her charm ability on him just to fuck around or not, but he doubted she even could - as that would be a breach of contract.  He wouldn’t have been surprised otherwise though, because god damn did she look good.  He’d always had a thing for athletic-looking women, and Fay had all the right curves to compliment it.

“Bad, bad, bad.” Azmoth said with a sour growl.  He put a claws hand on Riven’s shoulder, and avidly shook Riven’s smaller body back and forth.  “Succubus evil Riven, don’t look.  Don’t be simp boy!”

“Oh knock it off!” Riven said with a laugh and a slight blush, pushing his large demon away - but he swiped another quick glance when Azmoth turned around.  “Jesus.”

“Mama didn’t raise simp, Riven.  That what said.”

“I KNOW, I know… I know what I said Azmoth.”

“Just make sure.”

“I KNOW!  I’m a straight, single, lonely young man ok!?  Give me a break!  It was only looking, I promised myself I wouldn’t go down that road.”

Riven grumbled to himself and Azmoth gave a sagely nod before the vampire turned his head to address the creature he’d identified as Dungeon Captius.

[Avatar of Dungeon Captius]

It was about half his height, a miniature lizardman, with no weapons whatsoever.  It looked up at him with an expression of fear, intermixed with irritation, and slowly it began to rise up as a stone platform underneath let it hover in place.

“Greetings, vampire…” Dungeon Captius said with a hesitant bow.  “I am hoping to beg for my life… as dictated by the rules of Elysium.  You have slain the primary guardian of my realm, and my fate lies in your hands.  May I present the bribe I have prepared for you?”

Riven slowly nodded, looking around at the devastation caused in the rubble of the ruined underground complex.  “Yeah I would like to see the bribe you’ve prepared… I’d hate to have to go looking for that core of yours just to shatter it.  Then again, killing you would keep the local people out of harm’s way wouldn’t it…”

Riven put on a savage smile, taking off his mask and exposing his fangs to the avatar.  “And there is a treasury room not far off.  I have no doubt I’ll get something out of this either way.”

If Dungeon Captius could have paled, it would have, and it gave a hesitant nod.  “I assure you there are more treasury rooms than just the one you’ve found, and they’re all hidden - as is my core.  It is in both of our best interests to undergo the bribe, as you will likely not find all of my treasures otherwise - and I do not want to risk dying should you actually find the core now that my greatest defenders are gone.”

“Well, go ahead and convince me then.  And is there any way you could package this stuff for me?  I have to leave soon.”

“Package…?”

“Like, in chests or some kind of spatial holding thing.  If you have those.  Lastly I’ll be claiming that treasury room anyways, this bribe has to be stuff you don’t already have there.  If it isn’t good enough I’ll obviously be declining.  Capeesh?”

The avatar’s shoulders slumped in relief, realizing that Riven was more likely to take the bribe than he’d thought.  “Oh… Yes, I can come up with something.  Here, take a look at the bribe and tell me what you think.”

***

Riven strut across the last stretch of rubble and jumped off a building, landing beside Azmoth to do a superhero pose before straightening himself and wiping the dust off his newly acquired bling.

He wore a large golden crown adorned with jewels and mithril etchings, one that radiated some kind of magic he wasn’t familiar with.  He sported a gold-trimmed robe that had diamonds sewn into the back to create the image of a rose - an item that was far too flamboyant for anybody who wasn’t out of their mind.  In his off hand he carried a purple satin sack of extremely good quality, and underneath his right armpit he held a flamboyant royal scepter also made of gold and jewels that had a single large rune flickering inside the fist-sized diamond of the scepter’s head.

Beyond that, Riven also wore a pair of very fluffy green slippers, a couple enchanted amulets of gaudy design, a pair of poofy yellow silk pants and a massive two-handed bone sword way too big for him to use that radiated neon-teal death mana and had numerous spikes along the serrated blade.

The bone sword along his back dragged along the stone, scraping along the floor to make his approach very noticeable to the small crowd that was comprised of Riven's two female demons as well as Julie, Hakim, Tim and the man Riven didn’t know yet.

Athela was in spider form, originally shifting to prove it was her, and was animatedly talking to Julie who was laugh-crying as she, Tim and Hakim were all in incredibly good spirits.  Athela was telling them of her adventures with Riven since they last parted, while Caleb was just trying to take all this in - and the two floating orbs of other ‘strong’ people Hakim had met were still watching in a state of mute shock at what’d just happened.

Hakim turned, a huge smile on his face and tears from laughing so hard at Athela’s stories being wiped away while he chuckled.  His eyebrows raised at Riven’s gaudy attire, and now that the mask was gone he could clearly see it was his friend from the tutorial after all.  “Riven?!  It really is you!  I hear you’re a vampire now.”

Fay glanced backwards along with some of the others and immediately began to laugh, while Riven stopped dead and struck a pose with Azmoth at his back.  “No good sir, I have evolved into ‘Pimp Riven,’ and that is how I shall be addressed.  Have you met my three hoes yet?  Their names are Athela, Azmoth and Fay.”

“Me no hoe, I am Azmoth!” The titanic demon folded his arms with a disapproving shake of his head.

“Fine!  Just them then.”  Riven gestured to two female demons, both of them quickly scowling as Athela screeched and launched herself at her master before being swatted out of the air with the large satin back Riven carried.  “DOWN FOUL WENCH!”

“I am a PRINCESS you blood sucking buffoon!” Athela quipped, bouncing off the stone floor only to be pinned by Riven’s foot at the base of her neck.  She glowered up at him, but it was obvious neither he nor she were actually putting true effort into the scuffle.  “Humph!  This is NOT how I should be treated!  How horribly insulting!”

Fay rolled her eyes at the two of them as Riven kept Athela pinned underneath one foot, and she folded her wings behind her while simultaneously folding her arms.  “You better watch yourself Riven, you’re rather cute sometimes but don’t push your luck.  You wouldn’t want to get on my bad side.”

The succubus grinned at him to make sure he knew she was kidding, and he let out a laugh - letting Athela go as she morphed into a humanoid variant.

“Who’s the big guy?” Hakim asked, staring the smoldering, muscular form of Azmoth down with an impressed nod of approval.  “They’re all your demons? You’ve really come a long way since we last met… You’re incredibly powerful now, even if you do wear fuzzy slippers and your fashion is lacking.”

“Very lacking!” Julie snorted a laugh and covered up her smile.  She was supporting Tim, who’d lost a leg in the dungeon earlier that day, but both siblings couldn’t be happier just to be alive and he certainly wasn’t complaining.

If anything, he just waved and smiled widely.

Riven pointed a finger in mock warning at the three of them, waggling it back and forth as his crown slipped over one eye - being slightly too big for his head.  “Don’t you judge my fashion sense!  I’ll have you know these slippers are enchanted with a speed enhancement that gives me 300 points to agility!”

Tim gawked.  “Seriously?”

“No, I am absolutely lying.  I just thought they looked funny so I had them included in the bribe deal.”

Riven grinned to match the others and then head nodded over to where Caleb was staring blankly his way.  “Who’s the new guy?”

“Caleb!”  The brunette man in jeans with the empty rifle slung across his back warily reached out a hand, obviously nervous and sweating slightly; but when he looked over to the others of his guild he got nods of assurance and straightened his posture.  “Thanks so much for saving us.  We’d be dead without you.  I… Uhm, you’re very intimidating.  Even being around you while just standing here feels dangerous somehow.”

“Probably my negative charisma at play again.”  Riven rolled his glowing crimson eyes and shook his head.  Then he jingled the satin bag in his hand and tossed it to Athela.  “Yo, take a look at that shit.  It’s a bag of holding and we hit it big, but we have to leave the dungeon here soon or we’ll be teleported out.  That goes for everyone.”

Athela caught the bag, inspecting it as a notification of its contents popped up, and she gawked with a high-pitched squeal of laughter.  “OH MUR GAWD RIVEN!  Can I have that tiara?  It’d fit my princess status perfectly!”

“Only if you earn it.”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN ONLY IF I EARN IT!?”

Riven booped Athela’s forehead with his royal scepter and scowled.  “Don’t talk back to your pimp that way, or you shall feel my unholy wrath of- OW - OOF - HEY!!!!”

Athela jabbed him in the rib cage and Fay swatted him along the back of his head, only to be followed up by more blows as the two women viciously attacked his weak spots and he fell to the ground in surrender.

“I’ll be taking this!” Athela announced proudly, pulling out a shimmering tiara made from ebony metal and inlaid with rubies.  When she placed it on her head, the demoness shuddered and her red eyes went wide.  “Oh… Oh that’s very nice.  Is this enchanted?”

Riven took Azmoth’s helping hand, but was pushed back down by Fay’s foot and then sat on.

He looked up at the smirking succubus, raised an eyebrow when he glanced down where her tail was slowly wagging back and forth, and then looked over to Athela.  “Yes.  Did you look at the status info yet?”

“No, I just saw it was a tiara.”

“Well it was specifically made for you.  In fact part of the deal was that each of my summons got a unique item hand-crafted by the dungeon to fit your needs, and that’s yours.”

Athela slowly turned to him, jaw dropping and hands cupping over her mouth as he smiled up at her.  “You seriously had them custom made?!  That’s so nice!”

“Wait, what are ours then?” Fay asked curiously, turning over from a sitting position to lay completely on top of him while kicking her legs out and grinning deviously.

“NO, NO, NO!  BAD, BAD, BAD!”  Azmoth grabbed the startled succubus by her hair and without warning launched her across the room, sending the screaming woman packing as she soared into the distance.

The large demon dusted his hands off and humphed with approval.  “Riven need chastity belt.  Too easy for evil succubus to trick.”

Athela gawked, unsure of what to think as her friend soared across the vast chasm, and Riven cackled while finally taking another helping hand from the large demon to pull himself up.

“God these slippers are ridiculous.  Anyways we’ll get to reading off the status of all your personal items later when we’re sent back, we have other things to deal with right now.”

Riven turned around to where a new arrival was digging through the piles of money and treasures not far off.  He was bald, middle aged, wearing armor and piling as much of the stuff as he could into a bag of holding very similar to the one Riven had just acquired.  What he put in disappeared, and Riven stalked over to the man in silence while the others watched.

“AHEM!”

The man casually turned around, showing himself to be the same man that’d watched with his friends and taken bets on who was going to die first when Heroic Intervention had initially activated.  He was one of the 5 most powerful people Hakim had met up until this point, and he snapped his bag shut to address the slightly smaller caster who’d approached.

“What is it?” The armored knight asked, tilting his head to look at the demons and other members of Hakim’s party.  “Can I help you?”

“Can you help me?” Riven repeated, his voice dropping to a flat cold tone and the playfulness now utterly gone.  The scepter underneath his arm clattered to the floor, he stepped out of his fuzzy slippers and tossed the crown haphazardly to the side with a clatter of metal on stone.

The knight took a step back when Riven entered his personal space and he put a hand on the large sword at his side, sizing Riven up.  “I wouldn’t take another step if I were you.  Back off.”

Riven paused, then smiled widely with fangs extended and began to laugh in the man’s face.  His laugh was genuine but also malicious, climbing higher and higher until he clutched his sides.  The mood grew dark, and Hakim backpedaled and motioned for the others to do the same - while the one remaining orb of multicolored light showing the blonde storm mage still hovered there as she too watched the scene unfold.

Riven calmed down, and the man remained unmoving with one hand on his sword in a defensive stance.  The vampire's features brightened, and red flickers of blood mana started creeping up his right arm.  “Fucking unreal!  You stay back, watching in amusement while thinking Hakim is going to die, until you realize that he’s NOT going to die and you come to claim the treasure?  At the very last moment when Hakim’s artifact is about to expire the event?  Get fucked.  Drop that sack before I start cutting off your skin to wear it like a cape.”

Riven’s eyes flared, and trickles of bright red started crawling across his face from his eyes along his veins.  His aura exploded into a dense, writhing, palpable force of will that crashed down onto the entire area around them.  The air shimmered in red hues.  Crimson frost started collecting on everything - the walls, the ceiling, the floor, and even the treasure or people’s clothes; and bloody snowflakes started drifting in the air as they popped into existence one by one.

The man hesitated, the first sign of nervousness crossing his features when sweat started collecting along his forehead despite the temperature drop.  “We were both in the top five most powerful Hakim has yet to meet, I am no pushover.  Do you want to take that risk with your life?  There is more than enough treasure to go around, and no way for you to collect all of this before you leave.  Why not share?”

“I have more than enough space to take all this back.” Riven lied.  His spatial sack was already completely full, full to the brim.  He’d made sure of that when the bribe had come through, but he wasn’t about to let this assclown take treasure back home after he’d decided to let Hakim die and make a sporting event out of it.  “And don’t even think of comparing yourself to me, you pathetic, weak insect of a man.  I am leagues above you, I can feel it in your very presence, in the way your heartbeat is racing as we speak.  You are afraid, we both know it, and I’m playing nice by even giving you the opportunity to give up and head home like the scared little bitch you are.  Be true to your nature and run, little piggy… You have five seconds to drop it, otherwise I follow through with my promise to cut off your skin - and I’ll even use you as my next meal.”

Riven’s staff lit up with arcs of crackling black electricity, his aura pulsed to even greater heights, and the blood mana condensing along his arm flared over the right side of his body to enormous proportions of silky red that dwarfed the size of his entire body three times over.  The amount of unleashed mana was so palpable that Hakim and his three guildmates had to backpedal in order to not take passive damage, and his growing smile of sinister intent spread beyond what a human could do with regular facial muscles.

Red frost began collecting along the man’s skin while he stared down the fangs bared his way.  His eyes shifted to the three demons closing in around him, and then to Hakim who nervously watched from behind.

“2 seconds.” Riven said, with neither man moving.

A portal similar to the one Riven had arrived in abruptly flared open behind the knight and he jumped backwards, trying to make an escape with the loot he’d already obtained - only to be ripped back from the portal with a scream when a wretched snare latched onto his armor.

Riven’s arm, shrouded in a dense cloud of flicking blood mana, slammed into and through the heavy iron armor and pierced out the other side - sending the man into a horrified wail of pain.

The man thrashed for a moment, skills and defensive rings along his fingers lighting up - only to be shattered when they came into contact with Riven’s own power.  The convulsing, greed-stricken man belched blood, and then his upper body abruptly exploded upwards onto the ceiling when Riven discharged the energy he’d been storing.

“Pathetic.”

The thick aura abruptly faded, and the frost accumulated around the room began to recede.  Riven glanced up at the plastered remains stuck to the ceiling, then casually shook his hand to get the remnants of the lower body off.  To his left the other orb showing the storm mage Zerfi displayed her shocked expression only for a moment, before she covered her mouth with both hands and just continued to look.

“Wana try?” Riven asked the blonde woman, who only stared back.  “Good.  Pimp Riven has been known to smack a hoe on occasion, case and point: this asshole on the ceiling.”

He snorted, put his fuzzy green slippers back on, put his crown back on at an awkward angle, picked up the large gaudy scepter he’d found, and smiled back with a toothy grin at Julie, Tim, Caleb and Hakim.  “These were really the best you’ve met so far?  Jesus.  What a bunch of fucking wimps.  Anyways now that problem is sorted out, so let’s get on to business.  See all this shit here?”

He gestured back at the piles of treasure as the four guildmates nodded.  “This is all for you.  Whatever you can take anyways.  Maybe take asswipe’s spatial bag and that’ll help carry a lot of this stuff, but we’ve got a time limit before the system closes this dungeon off.  Whatever you can’t carry in his bag or in your arms, I’ll get my demons to try and carry with me back home.”

Riven picked up the dead knight’s spatial bag and inspected it, before frowning.  “Well there’s no way we’ll get it all but we can at least try.  This thing is a lot smaller than mine.”

He tossed the bag over to Hakim, who caught it and looked down at the blood covering the fabric.

“Riven…” Hakim said awkwardly, sharing glances with his guildmates while Julie stared open-mouthed and simultaneously supported her brother’s stance.  “This… Is a lot to take in.  You’ve changed a lot…”

Riven raised an eyebrow.  “In a bad way?”

Hakim considered the question, then evaluated the man plastered to the ceiling, and shook his head.  “Well I hope you really don’t eat people, but other than that?  No, not necessarily… you’re just pretty brutal man.  But then again when we first met you did kill all those people who were attacking Julie and her family… So maybe not so much.  I just didn’t expect you to murder him.”

“He would have left you to die.” Riven stated simply, uncaringly, and smiled when he got nods of approval from Athela.  He didn’t answer the part about eating people, not wanting to address it after accidentally having killed that poor sod in Negrada.  “Tough shit.  If he wanted the treasure he should have come to help, what he shouldn’t have done is try to steal from me afterwards.  Fuck that guy.”

“Agreed.” Athela stated proudly, ruffling Riven’s hair from underneath his hood and crown and glancing at the large, shimmering bone sword on his back.  “You’re growing up!  I’m so happy for you!”

“Shut it.”

“I’m being serious!”

Riven rolled his eyes, and then started walking up the pulse of money to where other enchanted items were halfway buried.  “Anyways, there shouldn’t be any unholy related stuff as I already took it all from the dungeon coffers - but a lot of this stuff should help you guys out.  There’s an enchanted axe, some healing scrolls over there, an imbue enchantment card for projectiles… and I made sure it was all pre-identified by the dungeon avatar so you know what you’re looking at.  Hurry it up!  We don’t have all day!”