Delvers LLC: Adventure Capital

by Blaise Corvin

  It moved, not alive, but responsive, an extension of Aodh’s will. His mind fractured and he felt incredible pain. The experience might have killed him if not for the amazing reserves of life he still carried, healing his body and his mind almost immediately. Aodh drew even more deeply on his magic, and the world swelled with possibilities. His instinct that he’d been running on before focused, becoming sharper.

  Aodh guided the serpentine demon forward, and its head lashed out, fangs punching through the throat of an avian, bipedal demon to one side. The young, wild-eyed adventurer, obscured by a cloud of inky darkness, lashed out with dagger and spear, his strikes finding weak points, his attacks lethal almost every time.

  USE ME! screamed the dagger in his head, the weapon throbbing in his hand. Aodh slammed his spear into the scaly hide of a large, lizard-like demon with two heads. As the life began trickling into his body, he cut the creature with his dagger, sucking in its power all at once. Then like before, he filled the body with death.

  What did Henry and Jason call creatures like this? Zombies? He would call them zombies, too. Aodh directed the newly formed zombie to begin tearing into the true-demons around it and it complied with great gusto.

  Suddenly, Aodh had a strange feeling, and working on instinct as he was, he immediately heeded the premonition. He rode his snake demon forward, moving around groups of demons while his large, second zombie followed behind, damaging the enemies in his wake. Through all the confusion and chaos, he saw Vitaliya ahead of him, throwing waves of fire before her, frying the eyes and limbs of entire groups of true-demons.

  Behind his cousin, Aodh noticed a tall demon, a crazy hybrid of bird and giraffe about to ambush his cousin. “No!” Aod yelled. His snake mount put on a burst of speed, colliding with the attacking enemy. The young adventurer screamed as he jumped forward, pounding his weapons through the resistance of the demon’s thick hide. The creature died instantly, and Aodh raised another zombie.

  His legs had broken when he’d jumped, but the life filling him almost immediately straightened and healed his limbs. He got up, and came face to face with Vitaliya, her eyes wide and unbelieving. “Aodh?” she whispered in wonder. “Little Aodh? What have you become?” The red-haired girl reached forward, questioningly, and the raging battle around them served as a bizarre, surreal background for the awkward moment.

  Aodh stepped back out of his cousin’s reach. He knew she probably couldn’t see him very well through the roiling cloud of death surrounding him, so he grimaced without reservation. We don’t have time for this. “We can talk later, Vitaliya,” he muttered.

  The former farm hand turned and absently killed another demon before commanding his snake zombie to raise him up higher. The elevation improved his sight radius. In the distance, he could see a large group of huge, terrifying demons approaching. He also saw Mareen still fighting against the largest, fiercest demon within sight. If that monstrosity had been free to act, all the Delvers would probably already be dead.

  Hell, the gargantuan true-demon was even larger than the rock wyrm had been. Aodh’s eyes widened as a truly wild idea occurred to him, and his magic gave him a push. Continuing to follow his winning strategy, Aodh let his magic keep tearing apart his stomach and followed the whims of instinct through the battlefield.

  …

  Henry triggered another round of golden grapeshot through a crowd of demons and cursed. The old Battlewagon weapons were still effective, but he missed the weapons clusters on the Mosquito. The dayslers in particular would have been useful on a Halloween-themed planet crawling with fucked up, demonic killing machines.

  Mindless, hungry enemies just kept coming, and merely surviving was obviously going to be a losing strategy. The team had gotten lucky, and Henry didn’t explore the niggling thought that perhaps Tony’s power had created that circumstance. Were they all still alive because of Aodh, or were they fighting in hell because of Aodh? Thinking about Tony’s magic would drive him bonkers. But standing in the turret, Henry could see that it was only a matter of time until the bigger, slower, more powerful demons began arriving to the fray.

  He still had plenty of ammunition, but that state of affairs wouldn’t last forever, either. His frantic, artillery-level fire from the Battlewagon had definitely thinned out the demons around the Delvers’ position, though. It was time to move.

  His objective was still to rescue Mareen, and he knew where she was, now. Sure, she didn’t look like Mareen very much anymore. She also wasn’t exactly a helpless victim, fighting some kind of fucked up kaiju thing that could probably take apart Olympia all by itself.

  Mareen needed him, and that was all that mattered. She was his wife, and he loved her. Plus, ever since Jason had sucker punched him while they were captured in Mirana, Henry had stopped wallowing in self-pity. He had power, and he had a responsibility to use it for something positive. In this case, he got the added benefit of rescuing the woman he loved, too.

  Henry gathered darksteel on his back and launched himself into the air with a solid push, then transformed the material into glider wings. He formed an exogun of darksteel on the steelskin of his arm in time to kill a flying demon as he flashed past.

  He had no idea what he was going to do when he got to Mareen. The true-demon she was fighting looked like it could crush him like a bug, and his wife didn’t seem to be in her right mind, either. She was covered in blood, guts, and bone. It honestly wasn’t a good look.

  The Asian adventurer didn’t have a plan, but in this case, he didn’t think he needed one. Henry knew Mareen was strong. Honestly, she was probably stronger than he was. She’d never needed her best friend to knock sense into her before she wanted to help people. As long as he could get to his wife, everything would be okay.

  In the midst of flashing lightning, surrounded by demons on a hell world, demigods fighting in the sky, his friends battling for their lives nearby, Henry had to have faith. Objectively, they were all probably well and truly fucked, but Jason had already taught him how that way of thinking led to a dead end.

  Henry believed, and as he glided towards his wife, he underscored his convictions by blowing the brains out of true-demons with high velocity, twenty-four karat bullets of justice.

  ***

  Mareen could remember being a woman. Thinking about the past was difficult sometimes, but she had had a lot of time to spend on random thoughts while fighting. The combined experiences and body parts of the demons she’d absorbed could actually handle all of her combat functions for her, which was a curious sensation. It was almost like she had multiple minds working at once.

  The sheer power she was wielding was nice. It really was.

  She’d almost met her end before, when she’d first come to this place. After she’d been pulled through the helldoor and had been surrounded by demons, she’d accepted that she was about to die. However, the consciousness riding in the back of her mind had extended her a lifeline. The Deepwater Rose hadn’t exactly given her more power, it’d just jump started her ability to learn magic faster while she used it. Doing so had just cost shutting down other parts of her mind, though.

  However, Mareen healed fast now, really fast. She’d been able to repair all the damage the Rose had done, but recognized that her survival depended on the changes it had made. So she’d decided to take a back seat with her upper brain activities, separated through a layer of emotional detachment from some of the things her body continued to do.

  Remembering her mental state before she’d effectively fractured and rebuilt her mind was a bit worrying. She knew she couldn’t indefinitely maintain her identity the way it was, but she’d have lost herself even faster if she’d continued evolving into rage and bloodlust incarnate. Mareen watched herself reach down and tear a small, impish demon in half before absorbing its bodily fluids and launching a wave of blood spikes at the enormous beast she still fought.

  Blood magic was brutal. No wonder the power was taboo. Now that Mareen had experienced both ex
tremes of blood magic, she thought she understood it a lot better. Most blood mages would probably get lost in the power and even kill their friends and families around them. Luckily, the once-beautiful daughter of Thato Jacobs didn’t have any family or friends around anymore to worry about harming.

  She dodged another fast, powerful strike from a huge tentacle on the back of her demonic opponent and retaliated, but her strike wasn’t very effective. Even backed with all of her current strength, the huge blood blade on her hammer barely penetrated the creature’s hide. The giant true-demon’s toughness was impressive. Impressive and annoying.

  Mareen knew she didn’t have much of a future anymore, but spending the rest of her existence endlessly fighting a towering monster while her body stayed on autopilot and her mind explored random subjects was not her idea of a fulfilling existence. She just wished she could have seen Henry one last time before fate had punched her in the nose.

  Suddenly, a dark figure glided down from the sky some distance away, touched down, and began running towards her. Mareen didn’t know what to think of it, and watched with curiosity as her body reacted, launching hardened spikes of blood at the strange looking demon.

  The demon was covered head to food in a dark, smoky-looking armor. It leapt to one side, avoiding most of her attack. A couple spikes that had hit it harmlessly glanced away. Something about the way this new demon moved picked at her memory, but she couldn’t figure out what it was.

  Oh well. Not much on this world so far could stand up to her power. She drifted down to tear apart the new demon and maybe another one nearby. The lumbering, near-invincible foe she’d been constantly fighting bore down on her again, and she needed more blood reserves. However, when she got close enough to rip the creature’s blood from its body...it resisted.

  This is new, she thought. Her body reacted predictably, rushing down to mutilate the man-sized demon tooth and claw, but the armor on one of its arms unexpectedly reformed into a limb of sorts, snaking out and catching one of her ankles. Then it whipped her to one side, slamming her to the ground before she could actually attack.

  This new demon was incredibly powerful! Mareen knew if she let her body maintain control, the unusual enemy would eventually die, though...just like all the others. However, as she hit the ground and rolled, springing to her feet, she noticed the demon’s limb snap back, creating a multi-barreled gun. The figure shook its head, and the gun melted away, becoming armor again.

  Now that got her attention. Even through a haze of non-emotion, fractured memories, and distant bloodlust, Mareen recognized an exogun. When the figure’s helmet armor flowed down, revealing Henry’s face, it wasn’t entirely a surprise.

  “Come on, Baby. We’re all here! Come back to me!” Henry pleaded. To one side, the huge, unstoppable creature Mareen had been dueling with got closer.

  Mareen’s body tensed, and she knew she was about to try killing her husband again. That was unacceptable. Totally unacceptable. The idea that Henry had come to save her in this state was laughable, but as he stood there, surrounded by monsters, literally having come to another world for her...somehow, Mareen felt the ghost of an emotion. Love. She didn’t know how any of this was possible, but she knew what it meant.

  This was loyalty, and the pain in Henry’s eyes as he obviously searched for any sign of the woman she had been before made it echo further through the separation of her various minds.

  In moments that seemed to span eternity, Mareen pondered what to do. She could still feel the Deepwater Rose back there, watching. It didn’t seem to be interfering, though. Apparently, the ancient trickster just wanted Mareen to survive and probably get back to Ludus. Thinking of the ancient monster reminded her of what she’d said to it, her threat to kill herself while she’d been suspended in Rose Lake.

  Inwardly, Mareen slowly smiled at the memory. She was still a body mage, after all, and a somewhat powerful one, now. Before her body could take two more steps towards her husband, primed for violence, it was relatively simple for Mareen to shut herself down.

  She observed as her body crumpled to the ground, trusting Henry to handle the rest. Well, either that or they’d die together. Her last conscious thought before her mind went to a truly strange place of intellect and possibilities was, Now I can try putting myself back together again. Good luck, my love. I hope we can meet again in this lifetime, and greet you as myself.

  Mareen’s heartsong swelled, bursting through her emotional disconnect before everything went black.

  ***

  Henry watched with dread as Mareen stalked towards him. He formed an exogun, but then thought better of it and turned the darksteel back into armor. I’m not here to kill my wife.

  But getting killed by his wife was a real possibility, it seemed. Henry knew he was pretty powerful these days, at least he thought so, but in a few seconds of fighting whatever Mareen was now, he’d been floored by how much power she was throwing around. Her body was almost as large as the V-death, and sheer malice surrounded her like a powerful aura.

  Her attack before had almost turned him to hamburger, and he had the impression that she hadn’t even been trying hard. She still carried the old hammer that Henry had made for her, but now its entire length had been transformed into some sort of nightmarish, biomechanical, pulsing meat weapon.

  Henry braced himself to avoid death again. He took the risk of removing his darksteel helmet to try talking Mareen down, but he wasn’t really optimistic about it. But then with no reason, no warning, Mareen crumpled to the ground. Some of the bone and hardened blood portions of her new body or exoskeleton immediately began to blacken and fall off. Henry goggled and muttered, “What the—” He looked up as the footsteps from the huge thing his wife had been fighting got closer.

  The enormous true-demon, one Uluula had called an ‘infernal-destroyer’ was only a few paces away. The thing looked like what would happen if a T-rex and a centaur had an unholy love child, which then mated with a squid. Its front half was reptilian, with a huge, tooth-filled dinosaur head, and giant, lobster-like pincers for arms. Then its body extended, its rear legs were scaly, but otherwise equine-looking. Its tail was long and prehensile, with a stinger, and it had four huge tentacles on its back.

  One gigantic pincer opened, revealing a mouth inside. The horror of the approaching infernal-destroyer galvanized Henry into action. He hefted Mareen’s giant, crumbling form onto his shoulder, pushing his enhanced strength to the limits. I’m not going to be able to get away, not from that thing, he thought sadly. Oh well, at least he had given it his best, and he’d die with his wife, the woman who had been putting him emotionally back together again through sheer honesty and decency.

  Henry didn’t try to run. He faced the inevitable head-on, so he was actually watching when Tony suddenly broke through a distant line of demons, near the foot of the infernal-destroyer. The dark cloud that surrounded the young man was roiling, thicker than usual, but the flashes of red lightning in the sky showed Tony’s silhouette with a kind of strobe effect. Henry blinked when he realized that the young man was...riding a demon. “What the fuck?” he whispered.

  Tony dashed full tilt towards the infernal-destroyer, right up to its massive foot. The slithering demon he rode reared up as high as it could go, and flung the young man onto the top of the huge foot. Then Henry watched with wide eyes as Tony worked his spear under a scale like a shovel before slamming down his dagger into the foot. The scene would have been comical if not for the immediate bellow of fear and agony from the infernal-destroyer, the sound so loud it shook the ground and temporarily deafened Henry.

  Henry felt a shock, but he had seen Tony kill the rock wyrm before. He knew that Tony had probably just somehow killed the enormous true-demon and he expected the huge beast to collapse. It would probably kill a lot of things in the process of falling, maybe some demons, maybe even some Delvers. The gigantic beast slumped and stood still for a moment. However, instead of toppling over, it suddenly began lashi
ng out all around itself with the long, powerful tentacles on its back, effortlessly tearing apart the smaller demons nearby.

  The former EMT was stunned at the unexpected display of power, and his jaw dropped as he caught Tony’s manic grin. The cloud of darkness that normally surrounded the young adventurer when he wielded his mysterious dagger was almost gone, or at least noticeably less dense.

  Henry’s scalp went numb in surprise when a huge tentacle reached down and gently scooped Mareen’s body up from his shoulder. What the fuck is Tony doing? But Henry was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially on a hell planet. He suppressed his confusion and rushed forward to join his young friend. He’d gotten this far by trusting Tony, it would be stupid to change things up when the kid had just done something impossible and saved his ass yet again.

  Remuneration

  Frelda stood respectfully with her arms at her sides, schooling her facial features. She wanted to scream. Her spine was stiff and terror coursed up and down her body, using her nerves like a ladder, but she had to maintain appearances. The strange thing was, she knew both ancient beings before her could probably tell exactly what her mental state truly was. However, she also knew that if she didn’t try to hide her fear, she’d be considered rude.

  She didn’t want to be considered rude...that would be bad.

  Working as a researcher for over a hundred years on Ludus had been boring. In the past, getting promotions, acquiring more responsibility had seemed like a good idea. However, now that she was functioning as a site host, standing in the same room with two of the most powerful, selfish beings in the universe, Frelda was frightened from her head down to her painted Areva toenails.

  Dolos sat on his throne with one leg thrown over an armrest. He and Asag had been staring at each other for some time. Suddenly Asag spoke - the terrible, hideous being’s speech cracking out like breaking bone, like slurping guts, the sound so disturbing it actually caused Frelda physical discomfort. “This meeting is coming to nothing. If you will not peacefully give this planet to me, then I will leave.”