Janus and The Prince: A LitRPG Saga (The Nightmares of Alamir Book 2)

by Noam Oswin

  I had grown several inches with this evolution. I was somewhere close to about seven-feet-three-inches tall. My Mask of Janus was slightly modified to fit my new face, but the increase in height should not have been enough to cause such a reaction. Unless somehow, they remembered my previous arrival? Remembered the previous timeline in which I had invaded with my tungsten golem army?

  I disregarded the thought. It wasn’t possible. There was no way anyone should be able to remember the timeline differences but me. So, if that was not the cause of their newfound terror… then what was?

  “Do you mind, darling?”

  Erzili arrived. Along with Onna, Wunder, Slim and Arol. The full force of the Commander and Lieutenants of Fort Zyvar approached me all at once. None of them seemed eager. All of them seemed serious. Arol was visibly nervous. Wunder was grim-faced. Slim was unreadable as ever, and Onna, Onna looked as if she were trying to turn me to ice with her glare.

  Erzili took a different form again. A woman, once more, with chocolate skin and auburn hair. Enchanting blue eyes, petite features, and a lithe form, and she was, unsurprisingly, not garbed in any clothes.

  “Not at all,” I jested. “Pleasure to meet you again, Erzili.”

  Erzili’s brow rose. “Erzili does not believe we’ve had the pleasure of meeting.”

  So… she doesn’t remember at all, does she?

  “Would you kindly explain,” Erzili said, face stern. “How it is that Erzili awoke suddenly no longer the owner of Erzili’s domain, and somehow your minion?”

  I blinked. I could blink in surprise again, and I blinked at her words. What? As I was wearing a mask, my surprise and confusion were not properly conveyed. Instead, I muttered a single word underneath my breath. “Minions.”

  Minions

  You have (1) minion.

  Minion(s) Available: Erzili

  Would you like to view More Information on the Minion [Erzili]?

  [Yes]

  [No]

  Erzili was still my minion? How? I hadn’t made her my minion in this timeline. Is this… duality working?

  Epithet Skill: [Duality] Lv. Max

  Details: A skill unique to the bearer of the name [Janus]. This skill enables the user to experience the road not taken. Whenever making a decision, the user may split their perception of reality into two – [Path A] and [Path B], enabling them to know the possibilities a decision taken or not taken may have.

  The user experiences both realities and may choose which reality they prefer to follow by committing to it and turning it into the [True Path]. The user retains any knowledge, skills, abilities, and experience points gotten from both realities, but none of the negative effects persist.

  I retained knowledge, skills, abilities and experience points – but it never said anything about retaining objects, which I could do, and certainly made no mention of apparently retaining minions across realities.

  “Is that…” Erzili’s eyes shone. “The Nightscripts? You – you have the nightscripts? You can read them?”

  “How… interesting…” Slim rasped. “Does that mean… a Demiurge has graced himself before us?”

  Mutters and whispers rapidly cut across the nightmares of the fort. Excitement, caution, disbelief, awe – the full range of emotions were visible from face to face, being to being. “Perhaps, this will help?”

  I reached for Erzili’s severed finger, the one she’d given me in the previous timeline. Casually, I lobbed it in this Erzili’s direction. She caught the object, staring at it for several seconds. “…Erzili does not remember making this. But…”

  The finger morphed into a dark, liquid slime, before merging into Erzili’s body. Several tense seconds of silence passed, and Erzili’s eyes re-opened, with a somewhat familiar glint to them.

  “My, my, Lord Janus. You tricked me. Your power isn’t going back in time… is it?”

  “You remember.”

  “Leader Erzili…” said Onna. “I do not understand. Who is this masked being?”

  Erzili’s hands went up, open and wide. “Darlings!” she announced. “Erzili wishes to introduce you to Erzili’s own darling Master! Bow before the one before you, before Lord Janus! The Demiurge who Erzili has deemed worthy of following, worthy of crowning the King of Nightmares!”

  There was no hesitation. There was no deliberation. Erzili’s announcement came with an order, and all followed that order. The Nightmares of Fort Zyvar did not question. They did not doubt. As one, the rendered themselves upon one knee and gestured their heads down. As one, the entirety of Fort Zyvar bowed.

  “All Hail the King!”

  “All Hail Lord Janus!”

  The chants grew. The praise, continued. Increasing. Nightmares stamped their feet upon the floor in beat and rhythm. Others made roars and cries in my honor.

  “Tonight!” roared Erzili. “We feast!”

  Cries of jubilation rang throughout Fort Zyvar. My lips, against their own will, found themselves turning upward into a grin behind my mask, as I thrust my fist up into the air, and the crowds went utterly wild.

  /∞/

  After the celebratory greeting with the nightmares of Fort Zyvar, I found myself once more in Erzili’s Quarters. The Slithercreep sat casually across the bed as I raided her bookshelf, gathering all the books I could find on Alamir’s myth and lore, and placing them flat over her table.

  Finally –

  It felt like eons since I had been to Alamir. Since I’d been a worm. Since I’d found myself, finally here, finally ready, to start making sense of this world through my own eyes and my own understanding. The first book I picked was filled with yellowed pages and frayed along the edges, but it was still with tender gentleness that I opened it and began to read.

  Then, it was with a bit of annoyance that I discovered another hurdle. “I can’t understand a word of this.”

  “It’s Alhamisi,” Erzili said. “The language of the humans of Alhamis.”

  I picked up another book with different, squiggly looking lines. “And this?”

  “Marién. The language of the Marisian people.”

  I held up another one. One that looked like it was written in cursive script. The words seemed to almost resemble Latin if Latin somehow had a bastardized offspring with Egyptian hieroglyphs. “How about this?”

  “Qe’al Sos. A dialect of Qe’al Mot – the Elvani spoken tongue.” She pointed at the rest of the books. “That one is Qe’Valer, another Elvani dialect. That one is Qe’Sa Dus, another dialect. Then there is Khel, the language of the Saba’in Tribe. Golos, the language of the Gaban Dynasty. Leporima, the language of Leporinians, and Jezik, the tongue of the Midwarfs. Unfortunately Erzili doesn’t have much on the Druids… as they are an oral culture that never cared much for writing. There also exists Takumian literature… but Erzili has never been able to attain any.”

  “Quite the collection.” I placed the book down on the table.

  “Would you like Erzili to teach you?”

  “Teach?”

  “To read.” She said. “Erzili has tried attempting to teach some of her darlings, but none of Erzili’s darlings quite took an interest in it.”

  Learning how to read. I traced my gauntleted hand down the spine of the books. Nostalgia bubbled up from the sensation. “A part of me never believed I would reach this point,” I breathed. “Being able to have the luxury of a bed and a book. Talking with someone, who shares a love of literature. I felt it would be ages… an eternity, before I could have such minor comforts.”

  I pressed my lips tightly against each other. “I’d love to learn, but perhaps another time. There are a lot of more urgent matters that need to be addressed.”

  Erzili acquiesced, shrugging her shoulders. “You’ve changed since when last we met.”

  The Slithercreep followed me closely with her eyes. Her enchanting eyes. I swallowed the uncomfortable build-up of saliva at the back of my throat. I reminded myself, surely, that the beauty to which I saw in Erzili was
nothing more than a façade. A transformation. Behind the enchanting eyes and gorgeous, tempting lips, was a squiggly, gelatinous monster.

  “Have I?”

  She rose, approaching me with slow, trailing steps. “Your power.” She whispered. “It radiates now. Shines. As if you became a thousand times stronger.”

  I tried to avoid averting my gaze. She was not wrong. Numerous levels and an evolution was enough for me to be, easily, a thousand times stronger than I was before. Erzili’s eyes lit up in a smile of innocence that had something jerking at my chest. I was glad for my mask that hid my face, glad that it hid my eyes from being seen, prevented my expressions from being read.

  “But more than your power… there’s something different, about you. Something has changed.”

  I focused my attention on anywhere but her. On the cauldron. The map, pinned to the wall. The shelves, lined with bottles. The closer she got to me, the more desperately I searched for change in topic. “How did you manage to keep your memories across separate timelines?”

  Her eyes swirled with amusement. Her right brow rose, as if to ask, are you truly trying to change the topic?

  “Well?”

  “Each part of Erzili that is severed possesses limited sentience.” She explained, raising her hand into the air. “They hold memories. Information. Once Erzili cut off that finger and gave it to you, it contained the information of everything that happened up until that moment. Erzili reunited with it in a parallel world and the memories followed.”

  That was useful. Useful, and at the same time, worrying. Erzili possessed an effective counter against my [Duality].

  “It was conflicting, at first,” Erzili admitted. “Possessing two different memories of events occurring. One in which the day proceeded as usual, and one in which you arrived, killed all my darlings, and Erzili chose to serve you.”

  Erzili stepped forward, blue eyes searching me. “You lied, to Erzili, about your Epithet Skill.”

  “…a necessary precaution.”

  “You do not trust Erzili.”

  “A necessary precaution.”

  “Erzili understands. Trust is something one earns after all. You must keep your secrets, to ensure you are not betrayed. So, then, Erzili must simply earn your trust.”

  Her hand stretched out, a reminder that ‘her’ form was anything ‘she’ chose it to be. It reached for a book across the room, grabbing it, and then returning it to her lap. “You understand the Mothertongue, and you possess the Nightscripts, thus, the universe is yours to command. You may bend the words of fate and records of existence to your whim.”

  She tore a page from the book in her lap, and then morphed her hand into an inky quill, before stretching it over to me. “Try, attempting, to write upon this parchment, a desire to learn what it means for me to be your devoted servant.”

  I took Erzili’s quill-hand, giving the Slithercreep an odd look, I wrote, slowly, in English, unto the parchment:

  PROVIDE MORE INFORMATION ON MINIONS

  If what I suspected was true, the Antediluvian Hieroglyphs were command console codes for Alamir. It explained why the denizens of the world were terrified to death to see it, and why they could go insane from reading it. I couldn’t use it to remove my skills or do anything insane with it, but if I input a basic command like asking for more information…

  [Recognizing Command Prompt…]

  [Analyzing…]

  [Checking Authorization Level…]

  [Authorization Granted!]

  [Hints and Notes have been enabled for the Minion menu and Minion Information submenu.]

  Erzili took one look at the words I’d written, and shuddered with excitement. Or, perhaps, terror. I could not tell which was which.

  [From displaying knowledge of the Antediluvian Hieroglyphs, your Minion’s Loyalty to you has gone up!]

  [From displaying knowledge of the Antediluvian Hieroglyphs, your Minion’s fear of you has gone up!]

  I remembered now, that I could see Erzili’s loyalty and fear of me in the Minion menu in numerical values. I was not entirely sure how accurate the numerical values were but I would be using them as a benchmark.

  “Now, try using your Nightscripts again.”

  “Minions.”

  Notes on Minions:

  Minions are enforcers of a powerful Monster’s will. They are typically lower-tier monsters that willingly or unwillingly serve superior monsters in a pseudo-symbiotic relationship. Minions gain a 120% increase in EXP Gain when serving underneath a Monster of a higher or equal Tier, and in turn, the Monster gains a 60% share of all EXP accumulated by his minions, along with all their beneficial Titles, Skills and Parameter Points.

  My eyes almost bulged out of my skull. I snapped my head to Erzili, and then back to the note, and then back to Erzili once more. I gain all of the titles and skills of my minions?

  “I can use your skills?”

  She gave me a coy look. A mischievous expression, as if to say ‘do you understand now?’

  “Go on,” she said. “I am yours to command.”

  I closed my eyes. Thinking of Erzili’s skill – [Morph]. The skill that enabled Erzili to shapeshift. To change forms. My body contorted underneath my control, becoming moldable, pliable, ready and willing to change into any form or matter I desired it to be. Then, with sudden trepidation, I realized something.

  I don’t remember what I’m supposed to look like –

  I didn’t remember my appearance in my previous life. My hair, my height, my face, the color of my skin – nothing. I could not recall any of it. Whatever I transformed into, whatever I turned into, it would not be me. That me was gone. There was no bringing him back.

  So… what should I make myself look like?

  So far, no one, not even Erzili, had seen my face. No one knew my race, or what sort of monster I was supposed to be. Nothing was stopping me, from pretending to be an entirely different type of monster than the one I was to throw people off. To hide my weaknesses, or perhaps, make myself more feared and revered.

  A human appearance would not do me much good in a fort of monsters that heralded me as their King. With that in mind, I chose a supernatural creature that was close enough to possess a human appearance, and should, at the very least, exist in Alamir.

  Fangs, pale skin, red-eyes, bewitching face, tall, broad-chested, swimmer-body muscle definition, midnight-black hair, pointed ears, long nails –

  With zest, I finished my transformation. Erzili couldn’t transform or create clothes, so I could not either. I took off my Mask of Janus for the first time and allowed Erzili’s eyes to widen at the features I’d chosen.

  Conjuring a mirror from sand with my right hand, I admired my features within it. Ironic, considering that if I were to go by the lore of the monster I’d chosen as my cover, I shouldn’t have a reflection at all.

  “This will do quite nicely, don’t you think?”

  “Do you desire to break the hearts of young maidens so quickly?”

  My lips twitched. “It has been a while.”

  I slipped on my Mask of Janus for the main time. It would be suspicious, after all, if I suddenly chose to forgo the mask altogether. Also, I did not want to lose the benefits of the flanking immunity buff it provided.

  Extra Notes:

  Minions forcibly enslaved will gain an additional 80% increase in EXP Gain, will be capable of utilizing one of their Master’s skills, and their Master will gain a full 100% share of their EXP gained. Hence, enslaving or forcefully conscripting minions is the most effective way to attain the full benefits from the Minion system. However, you may only enslave Minions after defeating them and forcibly enslaved minions may disobey your commands or attempt to flee if their Loyalty or Fear is considerably low, whereas willingly enslaved minions are far less likely to be recalcitrant.

  So, I earn more experience from my minions if they don’t become my minions on their own free will… but the chances of them wanting to escape or being trouble
some is higher? That might end up being problematic.

  Additional Notes:

  Master Commands are enabled for Masters which grant an array of hidden bonuses in and out of combat situations. The Default commands are the [Meat Shield] command, in which a Minion can be summoned as a shield to protect the master, or the [Damage Transfer] command, which enables the Master to transfer damage received from attacks unto his Minion to bear. Increasing or decreasing the level of a Minion’s Loyalty and/or Fear will unlock different Master Commands with varying effects.

  Kindly make full use of the Minion System!

  “I can directly transfer damage from myself to you.”

  “Do you understand, now, Janus?” Erzili asked. “I have submitted myself, to you, in all earnestness as my Lord. My King. My Master.”

  Her hand trailed down my armor. “My god.”

  I grabbed her hand. “I’m not a god.”

  Erzili laughed. “Not yet.” Her blue eyes sparkled. “Not yet.”

  Questline Unlocked: The Dreams of Nightmares

  You have become the Master of Erzili the Slithercreep. Erzili has seen your worth as a Demiurge and recognized you as a chosen candidate to become the King of Nightmares. To accomplish this, you must raise your Influence, gather allies, strengthen your forces, develop your base of operations and expand your territory.

  Tasks:

  Improve Fort Zyvar:

  Strengthen the Lieutenants – [Incomplete]

  Increase the Fort’s Defenses – [Incomplete]

  Increase the Fort’s Offensive Capability – [Incomplete]

  Solve the Fort’s Food Crisis – [Incomplete]

  Increase the Fort’s Morale – [Incomplete]

  Attain Full Control of the Fort – [Incomplete]

  Conquer the Domains of the Hlahan:

  Conquer Fort Zyvar – [Complete!]

  Conquer Fort Sobaka – [Incomplete]

  Conquer Masakh Mountain – [Incomplete]

  Conquer Krvavi Lagoon – [Incomplete]

  Conquer Du Sang Castle – [Incomplete]

  Conquer The Two Pillars – [Incomplete]

  Quest Giver: [Erzili the Slithercreep]