by Dante King
The imp’s mouth dropped to a gaping hole. “Truly?”
“Uh-huh.” I thought about telling the imp that I’d shared saliva with the demon goddess, but I’d always stuck by the motto, never kiss and tell. Besides, this imp was already stunned I’d even met Lilith; if I told him I’d kissed her, he might have a seizure. Also, I needed Bertha to stay focused, and couldn’t afford to take the time to explain that she might have to share me a little.
Any of the creatures I’d run into who took Lilith seriously—at this point, only Bertha and this little flying magic bastard—had served me well. I had another slot for a second champion, and this creature might even have useful evolutions. For all of the perks and apparent combat power of my avatar, I could only use it for an hour a day presently. The more loyal creatures I had watching my back, the stronger I could become.
The imp was no massive troll, but I’d already witnessed the offensive capabilities of his kind. Flight, the ability to communicate across huge distances through MindSpeak, and the orbs of Infernal magic were a set of skills I couldn’t turn down.
Alright. Time to capture this guy.
“Look into my eyes,” I said to the imp, and he turned his slitted eyes to mine.
Charm test . . . Success!
Puck the Infernal Imp successfully Captured!
Infernal Imp
Name: Puck
Core: Infernal
Rarity: Common
Possible Evolutions: 2 (Shade, Lava Demon)
“So, your name’s Puck?” I asked my new minion.
“Yes, Master,” he replied. His tone sounded much more subservient than before, so he must have been telling the truth about how easily he could be charmed. That, or bowing and scraping were pretty standard with new captures.
“And you’re an Infernal Imp? What’s the difference between you and those other imps we fought? There were only two of the Infernals.”
“They are lesser imps. Ordinary creatures of less-than-ordinary intelligence. The Infernal Imps rule over them. At least they did. Before you killed Squallish and Oltop.”
“They were the last of the Infernals?”
“Yes, Master. The last that existed in the Black Sands, at least.”
“Hmm . . .” If the Infernals ruled over the lesser imps, then maybe Puck would be far more useful than I had thought. It was a topic I’d need to follow up later, so I banked the thought. “I need to get to the top of the mountain. As much as I love kicking ass with you, I don’t really want to be here when Gavin comes. I’ve done enough essence farming for today. It’s time I started building my dungeon.”
Increased strength, two minions, and an ocean of Infernal Essence later, and today was shaping up to be quite productive. But I still had to get to the top of the mountain. At least now I had Bertha and Puck for bodyguards, and with them under my control, I could have them carry my jewel.
Bertha didn’t look in a condition to do much fighting, but her injuries were only skin-deep. Her eyes were clear, and she bore herself with a new kind of pride I hadn’t seen before, even while she was doing her damn best to break her bed with me. The gashes and bruises could wait; once my dungeon took form, I’d find a way to heal her. Either I’d do it by having Puck go for supplies, or by finding a way to infuse her with Infernal Essence and repair the surface damage.
My avatar timer’s seconds ticked down to fewer than thirty.
“Bertha, you’ll carry my jewel. Puck, you scout ahead. Watch for any potential dangers and inform me if you see anything.”
“Say no more, Master,” the imp said.
I looked down at the hands of my elf. My time was done here, but hell, had it been an hour well-spent! Two champions, a cavern full of corpses, and lessons learned. I was stronger now. I could fight, maul, and wrestle with the best of them. I could rip things to pieces and drink them dry to restore my strength.
My Tainted Elf was quick, but the power I’d gained from Bertha gave me the ferocity and strength of a Hell Troll.
I returned my consciousness to my jewel, to the strangely comforting darkness of the pouch. I took a moment to reacquaint myself with the feeling of shorter-ranged senses, and then I dissolved Von Dominus and absorbed his essence. I felt Bertha move and shift before I was bouncing off her thighs as she exited the grotto.
“We’re heading to the mountaintop,” I said. “Anything we can’t kill, we’ll try to avoid. Let’s get there in one piece.”
With my two minions as an escort, I began the ascent to Shadow Crag’s peak.
My army was small, that was true, but it was the beginning of an empire.
Chapter Eleven
Bertha and Puck climbed the road toward the peak with my core safely tucked inside the half-troll’s pouch. Aside from the odd bump against her thigh, or Puck trying to make wisecracks, it was uneventful.
We encountered only a few monsters on the journey, and they were easily driven away by a snarl and a swipe from Bertha. Garbled sounds, the beat of the troll’s heart, and the constant thumping of my jewel inside her pouch didn’t give me any indication of what the creatures looked like. I could have extended my senses and examined them more closely, but my mind was elsewhere.
Right now, my priority was to finally set down my gem somewhere permanent. I aimed to dissuade creatures like the trolls or imps from taking my gem by consolidating both my essence and my power. If the creatures on our path were that easily scared away, they weren’t a direct threat or immediately useful. The threat of Gavin, however, wasn’t far behind. If Bertha’s way of speaking about him was any indication, he’d be a far more difficult fight than even Jeff.
When I’d finished outlining my plans, I turned my attention outward. My senses were getting a little stronger, and it seemed like I could actually use the bodies of my minions to get a better understanding of my surroundings. The vibrations of Bertha’s footfalls told me the pathway was much as it had been when my elf had climbed the mountain trail; it was loose slate, crumbling stone, and dust. When Puck drew closer, the manic beating of his furious wings made Bertha flinch slightly. This close to her body, I could feel every movement and slight shift, despite not being able to see through the fragmented, fractal-like vision of my gem’s surface.
We arrived at the mountaintop, and Bertha pulled me free of the pouch at my direction. I focused on the area to behold the top of the mountain. My vision was still short-ranged, but I could at least gaze across its peak while Bertha held me in her palm and panned across the landscape. It was a mostly flat section of obsidian with a smattering of other minerals in unnatural formations.
The beginning of my empire. The beginning of my bastion. All in honor of Lilith.
Well, at least until I found some way to conquer her and gain her powers for myself, but that was long-term.
As much as I enjoyed the sight of the mountain’s zenith, I felt distracted. In the half-troll’s hand, the Infernal Essence swirling inside her body was potent and powerful, not like the jagged and broken terrain composing the mountain.
I couldn’t really make out the details of the Infernal Essence living inside her. It seemed ephemeral, almost resisting closer inspection, but I focused further, and my magical sense enhanced the image. The Infernal Essence was distinct from the rest of the troll’s body, almost like a symbiote had latched onto her molecular makeup.
The essences carried a distinct marker, too, as though their creator had stamped a signature upon their atoms. I wasn’t sure how I knew, yet I could tell these foreign minerals were sprouted from another core, a long time ago.
When I pointed my attention beyond Bertha, I realized a similar substance existed on the mountaintop. It had merged with the very mountain itself, turning into a mingling of obsidian and something very different. Something unnatural. Something magical.
“This is a hallowed place,” Puck commented, and I guessed he also possessed some kind of arcane sense allowing him to see the substance.
“I feel it, too,” I t
ransmitted to him, slipping again into our almost-comfortable form of telepathy for the first time in hours. “Did something else used to be here?”
“Possibly,” Bertha replied. “It has been a very long time since anyone wished to step foot on Zagorath’s peak. It is said to be cursed.”
“Cursed?” the imp questioned. “It is a place of power. Who would say it’s cursed?”
“Someone who doesn’t want anyone coming here,” I said, my silent words cutting through the ether. Lilith had wanted me to start my dungeon on top of this mountain, and I wondered what she knew that my champions and I didn’t.
Something rushed above me, and I extended my senses upward. I could detect a collection of large monsters flying in the air while their wings disturbed and pushed the air downward. Indistinct, dark shapes flickered at the edge of my vision, somehow tethered to the top of the mountain.
“Tell me what you see,” I willed my minions.
“Chained Varidus,” Bertha answered. “Their nest sits just behind the peak, but they won’t be any trouble unless antagonized. They cannot reach us because of the bonds tying them to their nest.”
I couldn’t tell whether the bonds were organic or if someone had fastened them there intentionally. They were almost like anti-aircraft weapons, defending the top of the mountain from any kind of threat. I briefly entertained a vision of dragons bearing down on the mountaintop with adventurers upon their backs while a horde of howling bat-demons attacked the riders.
Maybe a vision of a future event? I could certainly appreciate such a demonic horde slaying my dragon-riding foes.
Or—perhaps these varidus could be co-opted as defenses for my own dungeon?
They might prove useful should anyone try and assault my dungeon after I planted it. I wasn’t sure how I’d convince them to side with me, other than enthralling the entire nest. Depending on the creatures’ desires, I might even be seen as an interloper, and fighting off a horde of flying monsters would just delay my dungeon-building.
“They may prove an inconvenience when I plant my roots here,” my mind relayed, quashing the uneasiness that suddenly flooded the sharp-edged container of my consciousness.
“Not at all, Master. Monsters enjoy living near dungeon cores since the residual magic slowly makes them stronger.”
All evidence was to the contrary. Every creature, with the exception of my two champions, had wanted to take my core and use it for their own ends. Or, at the very least, they’d sought to kill my avatar. Then again, all I seemed to run into were sentient creatures. It made sense to assume there were Infernal monsters with a more animalistic, instinctual intelligence, rather than the ability to think in sentient terms.
Planting Zagorath here would have long-lasting implications, if what I’d discovered so far remained consistent. The sentient monsters—Puck, for instance—still worshipped Lilith as a deity and had come to the sensible conclusion to side with her Viceroy. A more instinctual creature—the Chained Varidus seemed to be a case of this—would simply flock toward whatever made them stronger, helping them breed, feed, and flourish.
Besides the sound of the varidus’ wings beating against the air, I could hear little else. The mountain was obviously devoid of life and creatures, and the minimal number of monsters we encountered on the twelve-hour journey attested to that. The presence of my dungeon would bring abundance to Shadow Crag’s monster population. It would also bring with it dungeon divers, who’d pose a bit of a problem to the natives.
I didn’t know the extent of an adventurer’s powers, but surely there were some mages or priests who could harvest a monster’s Infernal Essence for their own ends? Or was it only dungeons and their avatars who could acquire this powerful substance? Even if that were the case, the monsters could still be used for their pelts, bones, and meats. This wasn’t Earth; this was a primitive world where an animal’s carcass was utilized right down to the last bone.
So, adventurers profited from monsters, but what did monsters have to gain from those who hunted them? I knew my dungeon could somehow grow stronger by brutalizing adventurers; Lilith had told me that much, but I didn’t know exactly how.
There was a whole lot of shit I’d have to figure out, and I felt I was only scratching the surface.
Done with musing, I returned to the task at hand.
“Place me in the center of the mountaintop,” I willed Bertha.
She carried me tenderly, as though I was just one small bump away from fracturing. We approached a wicked spike of obsidian, the half-troll placing me on a small shelf in the stone.
I recalled how my dungeon heart had started to eat the minerals inside Ma’s Grotto, so I extended my phantom tendrils of consciousness. Obsidian was a familiar composition of jagged, sharp, and brittle stone I hungrily feasted upon. I drew its essence toward myself, and the stone dissolved like a tablet in a glass of water.
The substance floated toward me and filled my gem’s center. My stone heart flickered with satisfaction, but I wanted yet more. I pulled at it again, discovering something else this time. Another mineral vein raced through the small spike of volcanic material. Its form was different from obsidian—harder, less crystalline, and firmer.
My consciousness swirled around the new material and examined it in more detail, all the way down to its molecular composition. Firmer and more rigid, sure, but once I found the smaller, thinner fault lines in the material, it fell to the pressure of my hunger and the power of my will. It was strangely pleasing, as if it was the food for my gem form. Volcanic rock had a spicy ash-ness to it, whereas the harder and more prevalent stone was more akin to freshly-baked bread.
I had no better name for it than bread-rock, so that’s what it became. The name was a little too similar to bedrock, but at that moment, I didn’t care. My hunger was too strong, and the more I consumed, the more I wanted.
I was almost lost in the ecstasy of this geo-feast, and I had to force myself to slow down. I figured all dungeon realms could consume earth in this manner to carve out their dungeons, but would they all have this insatiable hunger? My Tainted Elf had a preternatural thirst for chaos and blood; was my own dungeon the same? We were both created by the Infernal Goddess, so it made sense. Like the monsters of this realm I had met so far, we consumed, destroyed, and took what we wanted. We drove the dark tendrils of our power into others.
Damn, I loved being an Infernal Dungeon core.
By now, my dungeon had only extended about half a foot downward. The obsidian spire had already collapsed inside of itself and turned to pure physical essence. My core had absorbed every last speck, my many sides now glowing.
Zagorath Harvested Essence
+10 Physical Essence
The air stirred above my tiny dungeon and carried with it an aroma of delicious ash and a hint of sulfur or brimstone. I felt a vibration as my jewelled form fell into the hole I’d excavated.
Something had changed. Sensations lingered now; it wasn’t simply centered around my gem. Now, the feelings were where the stone had been a moment before, the square hole I’d excavated now coming to form a part of my consciousness. I could feel it, as if it were some kind of limb. Somehow, after making a decision to finally be placed somewhere—rather than just being thrown around on the whims of fate—I’d taken on something else. A new sense.
I had finally become a dungeon, rather than just a core.
I dug into the ground with gusto, mentally grinning to myself. This was the same as any kind of building game I’d ever played back home. Gathering resources and adding to my own power. There was no inventory, just the sensation of stuffing myself with nutrients. I would carve out a mountain, make space for a dungeon of my own design, and increase my power.
The Physical Essence circled inside my refractive scarlet faces alongside the Infernal Essence I’d purloined from the corpses of the imps. The two substances never merged or collided but simply pursued the other as though they were playing a game of tag. I then perceived a third
substance inside my core. It was very similar to the Infernal Essence, which is why I hadn’t noticed it at first. It seemed incredibly familiar, and upon closer inspection, I saw a hint of silver. It was a familiar color, one I had seen marking Von Dominus’ irises.
Was this form of Infernal Essence my avatar?
I banked the question for later as my hunger to consume the mountain returned, and I gave into the desire anew.
I already had a blueprint for my dungeon’s first room in my mind, and I set about carving it out of the mountaintop. As I moved, the more I consumed, the further my senses expanded. My range of mind-sense seemed to grow the further I burrowed down into the mountain’s peak. I could perceive the obsidian—the firmer, less igneous stone—and how it crossed in and around itself. It was like some kind of massed, knotted fist of minerals jutting out from the earth itself.
I carved out a forty-five-degree incline into the top of the mountain, but just as I was starting on the antechamber to Zagorath, my consciousness restricted. My shining gem dulled, and I tried to push out further. My mental tendrils found nothing there but fog, and my jewel clouded further.
I couldn’t consume any more Physical Essence now; as much as I tried to reach out for the delicious rocks that contained it, my jewel drew a blank.
It took me a moment to realize I was full. Whatever I’d thought I could do, even my Infernal Dungeon core had limits. I couldn’t just eat the entire mountain in twenty seconds.
Fuck. Something else to add to the list: make my core able to eat more.
The tunnel I’d eked out of the ground was completely a part of me, and I could feel it as easily as it if were an arm. It dropped 20 feet to a rectangular room 30 feet high, almost 100 feet long, and 50 feet wide. It was a relatively small room, but it was my very first dungeon floor.
