Chapter 233 (Patreon)

Chapter 233

The room beyond the trapped door was something to be seen.  Dim light reflected off thousands upon thousands of coins and jewels from a glow-stone embedded in the ceiling.  A pile of weapons and armor with lesser enchantments were also stuff into a corner on the right hand side of the square room, while trinkets, baubles and low-grade artifacts were piled in the very front.  It was the smaller pile to his left that caught his attention most, as it was the pile that was supposed to be things he’d be interested in having for himself or for his minions.

“How much is this?” Riven waved around at the piles of bronze, silver, gold and platinum Elysium Coins higher than he was.

“Uh…” Athela held out both hands to either side.  “No idea.  Put them in a storage bag and find out?”

Riven rubbed his temple with two fingers.  “Rat boy, come hither.”

The dungeon avatar popped into existence next to him with a scowl and folding its arms.  “What is it now, vampire!?  Is it not enough that you’re already robbing me?!  Do you seriously expect me to-”

“Yes.”  Riven glared down at the avatar with a flare of his aura, holding out his bag of holding that Negrada had given him.  “And do it now.  Those two piles over there as well.”

Grumbling to himself and raising a hand, the dungeon avatar quickly made a series of gestures that saw the flood of coins rocket towards Riven’s outstretched bag.  Like a river of money and jewels, the bag guzzled it all down over the course of five minutes until the last of the coins was swallowed into the spatial abyss of Riven’s item.

“Now get lost, you’ve already ruined my day and I have lots to do.”  The dungeon avatar humphed and vanished in another flash of light, leaving the demons and Riven to stand only in front of only a single, very small pile of stuff that he was quite keen on inspecting soon.

Looking at his bag, he nodded in approval at the stacking numbers of coins that’d appeared there with the monetary value added up.  “I had less than 63 million after spending some millions on keeping the population fed, but now I’m back up to 82 million in Elysium Coin value.  A couple dozen low grade artifacts, weapons and armor - along with a few spell scrolls and tomes in both the Fae Foundational Pillar and… The Zodiac Sub-Pillar of the Harmony Foundation?  I haven’t seen that one yet.  Interesting, but not applicable to any of us.  Maybe some of the people in the other room will want these.”

A splashing sound from Riven’s left sounded, and when he turned to look - Athela was gone.  Instead, only bloodstain remained.

He furrowed his brows at Azmoth, who just shrugged, and then at Fay who also shrugged.

“What?” Fay asked innocently, blinking twice underneath her purple flat-brimmed witch’s hat.

“Where did Athela go?”

“I don’t know.”

“She was right there.”

Fay giggled.  “She was, but now she’s not.”

…

…

…

“I see.”  His eyelids half lowered, and his head swiveled back to the bloodstain on the floor.  He saw it move slightly in his direction, and he reached out feelers to get a grasp on the inborn mana.  That mana was not accessible to him, and he lifted an eyebrow.

Intentionally ignoring the slowly moving blood puddle and guessing that this was very likely one of the two new martial arts she’d been wanting to show him, he tried to hide his smile and pretended not to make the connection.  “Very well, I’m sure she’ll  come back to us in time.  I’d probably smell her foul stench before she actually got close anyways.  Now let’s take a look at these gadgets.”

He walked over to the small pile of stuff set out for him, internally chuckling when he noticed the puddle abruptly freeze at his words as if grievously offended, and got into a cross-legged sitting position on the floor.

One item was a pair of flaming antlers stuck onto a ring of light, giving off an orange-yellow glow.  The next item of interest was a large black grimoire, its pages yellowed, with a green viper set onto the front of the thick leather front.  After that was a huge belt with a metal boar’s head slightly protruding from the belt buckle, created from thick metal rings.  There was a set of bone-made boots as well, plate armor with death mana that oozed out of them at a slow but steady rate.  Then, lastly, there was a set of two red katanas that were rather long and slender for their make.

“Care to join me?”

His minions did as asked, both of them sitting down next to each other and across from him on the other side of the pile.  Meanwhile, the puddle of blood remained sitting there without doing much otherwise.

“So first things first,” Riven began, picking up the two red katanas and handing them to Azmoth.  “These were going to go to Athela, but I figure they can go to you since she’s not here to claim them.”

“UNHAND THOSE SWORDS, VAGABOND!” Athela launched herself from the puddle of blood on the floor - or more accurately, warped her figure into her humanoid version and swiped the katanas out of Riven’s hands while humphing loudly.  “And I do not smell!  You snore when you sleep, ingrate.”

“I love you too Athela.”  Riven gave her a wink, and she immediately blushed before clearing her throat to sit down next to him.

Glancing his way just once and then averting her eyes again, she scooted in closer, twice, and gave him an embarrassed peck on the cheek.  “Love you too.”

Fay looked a bit jealous, but otherwise didn’t comment.

“These are what dungeon say best for us.” Azmoth commented, ignoring the interaction completely and pointing a clawed finger at the allotment of items in front of them.  “I not use your armor to identify yet, I wanted to wait.  Like… Like Christmas presents.  We open!”

“Your wish is my command!” Riven bowed from his seated position.  “And just who told you about Christmas?  Was it Allie?  Anyways I have a vague idea of what they are so far after a quick chat with the dungeon to make sure the deal was right, but let’s get the nitty gritty details shall we?”

He picked up the burning antlers first, along with the ring of light they were attached to, and displayed the status page.

[Ragar’s Burning Antlers (Infernal Headgear): 82 average damage on strike.  +143 additional defense to the outermost layer of your entire body once equipped, including but not limited to armor.   +7% mana regeneration.  +2% stamina regeneration.  +3% to the Infernal Sub-Pillar’s Affinity.  Equipping this item fuses it to the wielder’s head, and will not come off unless intentionally taken off by the wielder.  Requires the Infernal Sub-Pillar Affiliation to use.

• Flame Skin: Applies a passive flame shield to skin that activates on violent contact, with defense equal to one third of your total sturdiness.  Resets every 5 minutes.
• Set Piece: 1 of 3.  This Item is part of the Ragar’s Hellsteed Set.  Acquire 3 items of the Ragar’s Hellsteed Set for additional bonuses.]

Riven smiled and passed Azmoth the flaming horns.  “The mana regeneration won’t help much, but everything else is rather good.  ESPECIALLY that affinity boost!  Never seen one of those before.”

Azmoth grunted his appreciation and lifted the horns, allowing the circle of light connecting them to hover over his head before he placed it down.  The horns shuddered slightly, and the circle of light they were attached to disappeared when the antlers fused to Azmoth’s forehead a second later.  They grew slightly, enlarging to fit Azmoth’s proportions, and a shimmering barrier of cinder lit up across Azmoth’s body as an additional layer of protection before fading away again across obsidian plates.

“That’s badass.” Athela said bluntly.  “Really, really badass.  Azmoth, you look like a stud.  I bet you’ll have all the brutalisk women chasing after you before long!”

Azmoth’s clawed fingers tapped on the horns gently, then gave them a good tug to make sure they were secure.  The obsidian teeth of his smile clicked together and he gave Athela a nod.  “Thank you, Athela.  For being nice.”

“No prob bud!”  Ahtela swat him on the back.  “Maybe we can find some of those other set items sometime.  We’ll probably have to buy them from an offworld vendor but you never know, maybe Negrada has other matching pieces or even duplicates of the one you have.”

“If it does have duplicates, I’m sure it’s rather expensive.” Fay muttered, kicking out her long blue legs and tapping her feathered boots together.  “Set items are always pricey, even in the F grade, because you can’t just make them.  They’re all system-spawned.”

*THUD*

“Oof!”  Fay grunted when the large black book with the green serpent on its front landed in her lap.  Sticking her tongue out at a snickering Athela, then glared to Riven who’d actually tossed the book her way.  “Is this one for me?”

Riven nodded.  “It is indeed.  It’s probably the best item here, I think you’ll be impressed.  Take a look.”

[Viper Grimoire of Curses and Schemes (Unholy Specialization Grimoire, Unique): +129% mana regeneration when held.  +9% damage to all curses when held.  Binding this grimoire and adding a single one of your curses to its pages, you will decrease the cooldown time on your chosen curse by 10% while simultaneously allowing for spontaneous evolution options of that curse with insights drawn from the Unholy Foundational Pillar and its related sub-pillars.  Spontaneous evolutions will occur as the grimoire actively writes out different variations of the curse across its pages with random trial and error experiments in an internal, limited plane.  Evolution options will occur in the form of insights once a breakthrough is made.]

Blankly, Fay stared at the description of the Viper Grimoire in her lap.  Then her jaw began to slowly drop to the floor, and she let out an audible gasp as her eyes went wide.  “Riven!  Riven this is - this is incredible!  And it’s a UNIQUE item!  Riven, do you know what this means!?”

She continued staring down at the black and green book in her hands, still utterly shocked.  “This item is going to single-handedly improve my cultivation by… by…”

She couldn’t find the words.

“By a fucking lot.  It’s certainly not a normal grimoire in the way I learned them to be.”  Riven nodded in agreement.  “If you look at its pages, they’re actually all blank and don’t even have spells in them like most other grimoires do - because it’s waiting for you to put in a spell yourself so it can start re-writing it in attempts to evolve your chosen curse.  Very niche item as it only works with curses but it’s perfect for you.  Spontaneous evolution options?  I can’t think of a better prize to get from a dungeon like this.  Not to mention the mana regen.  Which curse are you going to bind to the grimoire first?”

Fay’s eyes lifted from the book, suddenly very distant.  “I honestly don’t know.  I’ll have to talk to my mother about this.  Thank you so much, Riven.”

Riven beamed.  “Glad you like it.  Now, for the others.”

The large metal belt with a carved boar’s head as the belt buckle was handed to Azmoth next.  It wasn't anything special, but it did give some specs to Azmoth’s strength - which was a small boon and certainly not unwanted.

[The Tusken Rager (Heavy Armor, Belt): +266 defense.  +58 Strength, +13% Strength.]

After that were the bone-made boots, layers of thick ivory overlapping one another, which Riventook for himself.  They were better than the ones he already had, and to boot they also changed the plate-leggings he had on - absorbing the ivory-painted steel without much issue until coming into contact with Messenger.  When the boots met Messenger, they visibly retracted upon trying to absorb the Gluttonous armor as Messenger hissed a threat.

Still, the boots rather easily upgraded his current lower-body armor and settled down into a new form when his plate-armor leggings simply became a part of the whole.  The steel turned into a truly bone plate-mail too, not just painted, and it felt both heavier and sturdier after the change had taken hold.  It wasn’t anything near as good as Messenger’s 1858 defense to plated areas, or even the 965 defense of bloodsilk inbetween the plates, but this was still far better armor than most things on Panu right now; or the 257 defense his plate leggins had prior to the merge.

[Lich-Kin Boots and Leggings of the Cannibal (Death-Attuned Heavy Bone Armor): +788 Defense.  Absorbs and nullifies up to 60% of any death attuned attacks.  Requires the Death Sub-Pillar Affinity and 198 Strength to wield.

• Cannibalize Armor: Absorbs adjacent armor pieces of the wearer and enhances them up to the quality of the original Lich-Kin Boots.]

Yup, it was a significant upgrade.

Lastly were Athela’s two red katanas, each of the blades magnificent in their own rights and likely taking a solid 2nd place behind Fay’s grimoire in terms of prize value, and that was only because inherent dao visions built into an item was outright absurd.  Carvings of birds in flight decorated each blade in their entirety all the way down to the hilts.  Riven could already see Athela admiring the weapons while she held them, the quality of them evident, and the whispers coming from each of the blades even now permeating the air as she held them in her grip.  He hadn’t even been sure she’d switch from using her clawed hands, but if anything was going to change her mind - these weapons would be the key.  And frankly he didn’t blame her, they weren’t far behind Jackal in terms of quality.  Jackal had actually started out at 894 damage before increasing to 1390 over time due to its ‘Sacrificial Kill’ trait which absorbed damage stat based on strong enemies killed, so in fact these weapons were stronger than Jackal’s original form when only comparing base attack damage averages.

[The Twin Red Doves (Awakened Weapons, Dual-Wielding Set.  Blood Artifacts.  Twin Katanas.): 899 average damage on strike with each physical strike on flesh adding a guaranteed stack of the ‘Bleed’ debuff for damage over time.  Hidden strikes that land before an opponent is aware cause additional guaranteed damage of +5%.  If the strike is a critical hit, deal an additional x2 critical modifier.  These items, when bound to a wielder, may be stored in the heart of the wielder and withdrawn at will.  These items are nearly indestructible while the bound wielder is still alive.  Requires a Blood Affinity of over 51% to wield.

• Whispers of Agony: From time to time, these blades will whisper to you.  The stronger your bond, the louder they whisper, and the louder they whisper, the more pain your strikes inflict regardless of damage.
• The Red Tide: Unleash stamina, mana, or divinity into these blades via your Blood Sub-Pillar to charge ranged sweeping attacks in the form of a red crescent.  Damage and range depends on the amount of energy infused.]

Athela gave a giddy laugh as the whispers rose in pitch, and it didn’t take very long for blood to begin pooling out of the blades and onto Athela’s skin while she held them - merging with her flesh only momentarily before floating in the air before her.

“They've already accepted me.”  Athela stated fondly, puffing out her chest and watching the two weapons shift into a stream of blood that slammed into where her heart should be - disappearing entirely in the next instant.  A look of shock overcame her then, and she blinked curiously while scratching her head.  “Neat!  These things don’t really talk, but I can tell what the twin doves are thinking when they’re inside my chest!”

“And what’s that?” Riven asked.

“They want to kill stuff.”

“I shouldn’t have even asked.”  He shook his head, facepalming.  “What else would blood-attuned katanas want?  Are you going to use them?”

“Of course I’m going to use them!”

“Then you might want to start training at The Blood Moon Requiem’s enclave for practice.  You haven’t had sword training back in the nether realms before in illusory bodies, have you?”

Athela grimaced.  “Eh… yes, but not much.  When anticipating our change into humanoid forms of our arachnid bodies, future arshakai are given lessons.  I’d focused more on daggers and claws back then, or the blades from my back when using illusory versions of what I would likely become.  Not a lot in swords unfortunately.”

“Would you mother and other kin of your demonic clan train you then?”

“Probably.  It’d also be easier to visit them than visit the vampiric enclave, so I’ll probably just do that in my spare time whenever you’re sleeping.”

Riven nodded in approval and got up, happy to see that each of his demons had their own upgrades even aside from his bone-crafted boots and leg armor.  Azmoth had the boar’s-head belt and flaming antlers, Fay got the grimoire that’d no doubt help her catch up to his other two demons - which was exactly what she needed right now, and Athela’s new weapons were no joke either.  It was a great haul, and it made him ask himself why he hadn’t done more dungeon diving like this in the past.

Then again, would the prizes have been as good if those asshole invaders hadn’t shown up?

He could only guess at that one.

Speaking of which, it was probably time to check on Genua.  He could feel her heartbeat in the next room begin to quicken, and although her transformation into thrallhood wasn’t quite done - it was approaching the terminal.

So getting up and motioning for the others to follow him out of the treasury room, he began to head for the new thrall he’d acquired - excited to see just what class she’d choose and how it would turn out when she was finally able to bind to the Blood God’s Markings.

***

Aksilias Bloodmare and his two sons, Rufus Bloodmare and Jakromi Bloodmare, had been rather relieved when Allie had told the native vampires of Panu that she’d come see their city as requested.  When she’d agreed to speak to their coven’s patriarch and matriarch to learn more about this vampiric elder-god world quest.  They’d left with smiles on their faces and apologies on their lips for the poor interaction they’d had with Riven’s thrall-to-be Genua as guests, and they’d hurried off into the underdark after supplying Allie with a map to their underground city of Bernzee - self proclaimed home of ‘The Hundred Covens.’

What Allie had note expected to find, therefore, were the hundred covens all gone.

Or better said, they’d all been killed.

Towering spires of blood-covered rock, shattered walls, and burning homes giving off plumes of smoke for sprawling miles in a vast underground cavern.  Piles of rubble and scattered pieces of half-devoured corpses.  This is what she found in their stead.

Allie’s footsteps echoed through a ruined city of the underdark that was devoid of any sound aside from the crackling of flames and the splash of her steps in pools of crimson fluids.  Her red eyes scanned the tens of thousands of dead she passed by, building by building, street by street, in what was nothing less than an absolute genocide of the populace here.  What was even weirder was that her vampiric senses couldn’t pick up any heartbeats at all, meaning that not only could she not SEE anyone living - but it was very likely there wasn’t anyone hiding here either.

Weirder yet was that the blood mana that should be here, given the absolute carnage and splattered crimson streaks or pools of blood pretty much everywhere, was absolutely gone.  There wasn’t a hint of blood mana to be found, and she certainly wasn’t the savant of the Blood Sub-Pillar like her brother was - nor did she even have the sub-pillar - but she was still a pureblooded vampire and she should have been able to identify it in any normal circumstances.

Add another layer of oddity to it, and the ghosts, souls and wraiths that usually kept her company in the beyond had scattered - sensing the presence of something that she could not.  Even when reaching out to them for answers they did not agree on what it was or how they knew it was dangerous, only sending her vague signals that she should not be here.

That none of them should be here.

This was not a place for the living or the dead, they whispered to her.  This was not a place that she should remain.

“Finding anything?” Allie asked in a low tone, scanning their surroundings when they came to a crossroads filled with more of the same.

Mara shook her head from underneath her black cowl,  and the necromancers behind them all stood out at intervals with eyes seeking just as much as their scattered minions were.  “My shadow ravens aren’t seeing any movement from above.  It appears that the covens here have been completely wiped out, along with all of their slaves and all of their thralls.  Be it vampire or mortal - it did not matter to whatever or whoever did this.  Not a single ounce of life, even to my soul sense, is detectable.  My skeletal assassins also report no movement as they go house to house, and I am at a loss for what could have caused this amount of carnage in what appears to be a very short amount of time given the way they all failed to escape.”

"There were no bodies out in the tunnels leading here, so it must have happened fast."  Nin nodded his agreement, stepping through the afterlife to appear next to Allie with the sound of a breath.  “This is wrong.  There is a distinct lack of blood mana here where there should be just as much as the death mana permeating this city.  I cannot fathom why that is, or where it would have gone in such quantities.”

Allie frowned underneath her skull mask.  “You sensed it too then?  I was thinking the same thing.”

Then she realized: Why were there no bodies other than the populace?  The creatures that’d done this were monsters, without a doubt, because of the claw and teeth marks left in the innumerable corpses.  Where were the bodies of these beasts?

And why had the citizens all died in their homes?  Had they not heard the carnage before it’d happened?  Not just once, but dozens of times now she’d seen the bodies of children next to dolls and toys, or the corpses of their parents at tables attending to untouched dishes of food now gone cold.

Gritting her teeth and taking another look down at the map, she decided on the only course of action she could take that may provide answers for her.  “We head to the Bloodmare estate.  If Aksilias and his sons, or their clan, are all dead… then we search it for clues.  I have a feeling this butchery is related to the world quest and the fallen elder god, things just line up too perfectly for it to be otherwise.  Something is very, very wrong here… and I intend to find out what that is.”