Hell to Pay (Ascend Online Book 2)

by Luke Chmilenko

  Hardening my heart at what I had just witnessed, I didn’t hesitate in jumping after the falling woman, despite knowing full well that there was nothing I could do to save her. I had only one shot to try and kill the Gnasher from within, and based on how much health I had remaining, I couldn’t risk taking a detour.

  No matter how much it pained me.

  Sailing over the edge of the Gnasher’s throat, a wave of rot swept over me as I plunged down the creature’s gullet, emanating from the stomach below. Gripping my sword tightly in my hands, I thrust the razor-sharp glass-steel blade into the Gnasher’s throat, using it as a brake to control my fall.

  The dormant relic easily sliced through the Gnasher’s soft innards, rending a massive line down its throat and causing a thick, goopy ichor to burst from the wound. Pushing my legs against the sides of the throat, I stopped my descent as the Gnasher began to thrash in pain. Feeling my balance shift as muscles around me began to contract in an attempt to dislodge me, I thrust my sword deeper into the slimy wall, earning a savage roar as the beast howled in pain.

  Pushing myself forward, I thrust my body into the wound I had opened and clawed forward as I looked to escape the Gnasher’s digestive tract. Hot black ichor continued to gush all around me as I blindly cut through layers of flesh and muscle, forcing me to hold my breath, lest I breathe in the rancid substance.

  With a final slice, I felt my blade carve through the last layer of flesh and I found myself falling downwards as I slid into a cavity deep inside the Gnasher. Scrambling to shift my body around, a thunderous pounding sound filled my ears as the creature’s heart echoed all around me. Getting my feet under me, I planted a hand against a squishy organ I couldn’t identify to help find my balance, only to find myself tumbling once more as the Gnasher rolled in pain.

  Stop moving, you fucker! I cursed mentally as the little my enhanced eyesight could see inside the total darkness of the creature’s body spun wildly as I lost my balance and landed on my back. Thrusting my sword into the flesh around me to serve as an anchor point, I scrambled onto my knees and I searched around for the creature’s heart. I can hear it, but where is it?!

  Casting about wildly, I gripped my sword as hard as I could, the Gnasher continuing to thrash in desperation. Focusing on the near deafening sound of the creature’s heart, I fought my way through the creature’s body and towards the noise, using my sword as a cane to keep my balance. Staggering through the gloom, a wave of dizziness passed over me as my lungs slowly began to burn from a lack of air. An alert popped up in the corner of my vision, warning me that my air was quickly running out.

  It has to be in here. The hazy thought floated through my oxygen starved brain as my hand landed on a thick cage of flesh that pulsed with a rapid beat, the vibrations traveling straight up my arm.

  Moving mechanically, I swung my sword in a shallow arc, barely having any space to wield my blade as I carved a slice into the protective covering of flesh around the heart. Parting a layer of flesh with every swing I took, I worked the glass-steel blade as I forced it deeper and began to saw. Cutting through the final layer of membrane, I was rewarded with a gush of fluid as I breached the creature’s pericardium and rent it apart as I savagely twisted my blade.

  Ripping free a dangling chunk of flesh with my hand, I spotted the Gnasher’s gargantuan heart, rapidly thundering before me as existential panic gripped the Gnasher’s mind. Wasting no time, I lifted my weapon up high, looking to finally put an end to the monstrosity that Dorian had twisted with his foul magic. But as I thrust forward, the Gnasher thrashed one last time, sending me staggering off balance. Reflexively letting go of my sword as I lost my footing, I panicked and fell forward, catching myself on a throbbing mountain of flesh as I grabbed on to the creature’s very heart.

  Fuck! I cursed to myself as I struggled to maintain my grip on the panicked heart, watching my sword tumble out of reach. Digging my fingers deep into the tough muscle of the heart, I felt my vision begin to dim as my lungs reached their final limits. No…I’m so close, I can’t fail now. I won’t fail now!

  Feeling a sudden burst of adrenaline course through my body, I fought against my dimming vision and tightened my grip on the Gnasher’s heart. If I can’t cut this thing apart with my sword…I’ll just have to tear it apart with my bare hands!

  Heaving against Gnasher’s heart, I pulled myself closer to the beating muscle and reached out for one of the massive arteries that ran that ran from the creature’s heart. Closing my hand on the massive vein, I felt a torrent of blood pulse under my hand before I clenched the artery tight and sharply twisted. Not designed to withstand being crushed and pulled, I easily tore through the rubbery artery in a torrential spray of blood and gore.

  With blood spurting wildly all around me, I closed my eyes tightly as I shook the chunk of flesh from my hand and blindly reached out for a second artery. Grasping another vein, I repeated the process, sending yet another downpour of blood down onto me. Feeling the heart tear free of its position as I tore through the second vein, I gripped the now weakly beating muscle with both my hands.

  Sensing my temporary burst of strength begin to wane as I used up the final bit of my reserves, I dug my feet into the Gnasher’s side and embraced the creature’s heart before twisting sharply to one side. I felt the one remaining artery stretch, the vein stubbornly refusing to let go as I pulled downwards. Inch by inch, it stretched, until it finally gave up with a sudden snap, sending a gush of blood over my body as I tore the Hellborn Gnasher’s heart completely free of its body.

  Splashing into the pool of blood that was rapidly filling the inner cavity of the Gnasher, I felt my mind give up its tenuous hold on consciousness as I faded away into blackness, barely registering the notices that danced across my vision.

  You have slain a [Hellborn Gnasher]!

  You have gained Experience!

  Congratulations! You have reached Level 13!

  Chapter 17

  I awoke on my back to a gentle shaking motion after what seemed like hours later, the raw smell of the sewer filtering into my lungs slowly telling my brain that I was still inside the massive sewer hub, having somehow survived the Gnasher’s death. Opening my eyes slowly, I found myself staring up into Molly’s concerned face as she knelt over me.

  “Hey,” I said weakly. “Did we win?”

  “Gavin,” Molly breathed, using my real name as she broke into a wide smile as I opened my eyes, shaking her head incredulously. “What did you do? We all saw you dive right into the Gnasher’s mouth…”

  “Nothing we were doing was hurting it,” I replied slowly as I motioned Molly to help me sit up. “Not until Quinn pointed out that its mouth was its only weak spot. I figured I could do more damage from the inside. Thankfully I gained a level when I killed it and I healed…”

  “I thought—we all thought that you died!” Molly scolded me with a harsh expression on her face as she helped pull me up, but after a moment of staring into my eyes, she relented. “But I don’t have any better ideas on what we could have done. We were slowly being picked off one by one…”

  Molly paused as she nodded her head towards the rest of the platform around me, giving me a chance to witness the damage that the Gnasher had caused.

  The once immaculate metal platform was now badly deformed, the creature’s tentacles having left massive dents in it from its repeated impacts, as well as countless scars from its burning spit. Blinking through my tired eyes, I couldn’t help but make out the remains the other Thief Lords’ retainers, some having been crushed to a pulp, others partially consumed by fire.

  “We don’t think Kiera made it,” Molly continued, my eyes landing on the two remaining Smiling Jades standing at the far edge of the platform with a pair of surviving Crimson Rats as they looked out into the basin below us. “She never came up from the water after falling in.”

  “The basin is full of Otyugh,” I said, remembering my harrowing experience when I had fallen in. “I barely made
it out myself. If she fell in first and attracted the majority of them…”

  I felt a shiver cross my spine as I remembered the Otyugh that had pulled me under after I had fallen into the water. If I had had to deal with more than one, I had no idea what I would have done.

  Probably drowned, I told myself morbidly.

  “Did you hear everything that Dorian said?” Molly whispered to me in disbelief. “He knew he was in trouble the moment we stepped in here.”

  “Yet he had enough time to prepare for…whatever he did to the Gnasher, even if the transformation didn’t completely affect it,” I replied as Stroud, Isabella, and Quinn walked back up the far end of the platform, their eyes focusing on Molly and me.

  With a sense of relief, I spotted Isabella and felt the tension fade from my muscles, happy to see that she had survived the battle. Judging by the amount of exposed skin I saw across her chest as she walked towards us, I guessed that she had been caught by a glancing blow from the Gnasher’s tentacles.

  “I think the Gnasher was a contingency, something he didn’t plan on using,” Molly told me as she followed my glance and saw the group walking towards us. “Any sign?”

  Shaking his head, the half-giant warrior growled out a single word in frustration. “No.”

  Standing up with Molly’s help, I got my feet under me as everyone approached and noticed Stroud’s eyes shifting over to me.

  “Well done with the beast,” Stroud stated with a tinge of respect in his voice as he inclined his head towards me in a nod.

  “I did the best I could,” I replied, trying not to think about the bodies that were littered around the platform and how big of a loss it was for all of the remaining Thieves Guilds to lose their most experienced members, or in the Crimson Rats’ case, their Thief Lord. “I just wish I did it sooner.”

  “Hindsight is a burden the survivor must always bear,” Stroud told me philosophically. “Do not let it consume you.”

  “I’ll try,” I told the man, remembering the panicked expression the unmasked Smiling Jade had given me before falling down the Gnasher’s throat. Swallowing hard, I exhaled sharply, hoping that the game would work its eerie magic and gradually smooth out the memories of what I had just experienced.

  “I lost him in all the fighting,” Isabella began, looking towards me, “but what happened to Dorian? I saw you fighting with him briefly, before that…creature rose from the basin.”

  “He escaped,” I answered with another sigh as both of the Smiling Jades and the two surviving Crimson Rat retainers walked over towards us. “I saw him run down the walkway after I got knocked off the platform.”

  “He will have to be brought to account,” Stroud stated as he looked over towards the two Faceless Ones. “Are either of you the true Smiling Jade, or do we now have three vacancies among the Council?”

  “I am still alive,” Smiling Jade replied as the other copy of herself bowed slightly and took a step backwards.

  Taking a look at the enigmatic Thief Lord dressed in the hooded orange robe and jade mask, I had no way of knowing if this truly was the same woman that had spoken to me earlier, but at this point I found myself too tired to care.

  “Good, then on to business,” Stroud grunted, clearly sharing the same opinion as me as he then looked over towards Isabella. “First things first, given the light of Dorian’s betrayal and his murder of Kiera, I have no reason to not to recognize you as the Thief Lord of the Grim Shadows.”

  “I concur,” Smiling Jade replied.

  “Thank you.” Isabella nodded curtly as Stroud continued talking.

  “Second,” Stroud stated, turning towards the two Crimson Rats that were standing nearby. “Your Thief Lord has been killed and the Key to the Council of Thieves lost with her body. In normal circumstances, this would result in the loss of your guild’s membership in the Council; however, these are not normal times.

  “Your guild will retain its full membership, and instead this place will no longer be used,” Stroud continued. “Given the magnitude of Dorian’s betrayal, this place is no longer safe, and it would be a foolish to continue meeting here.”

  “Instead, the Crimson Rats will elect another leader and make them known to us,” Smiling Jade added, seamlessly picking up where Stroud had left off. “And they will be recognized as a Thief Lord.”

  “T-thank you,” one of the still shocked Crimson Rats stuttered, not yet having fully recovered from everything that had just happened. “We’ll make sure the entire guild knows what Dorian did here today.”

  “We’ll make sure the entire Underworld knows what Dorian did here today,” Isabella corrected bitterly as she glanced over to the two other Thief Lords. “He murdered Kiera, and his Adventurer—whom I was not told about, by the way—is implicated in the death of two noble heirs, in addition to Fairfax’s death. War is the only appropriate response we have to his actions.”

  “I agree,” Stroud said as he looked over to Smiling Jade with an unreadable expression on his face. “The Damned will need to be purged, root and branch, if we are to have a chance at escaping notice from the nobility. If they hear even the slightest rumor that one of the Thieves Guilds orchestrated the death of their heirs, their wrath will be turned upon all of us.”

  “Do either you have any idea why I wasn’t told that another Adventurer had been brought into the Council?” Isabella asked Smiling Jade and Stroud pointedly, venom dripping from her voice. “Fairfax said nothing. Had I known who Edith was from the beginning, we could have avoided all of this!”

  “Fairfax was excluded from the meeting where she and the other Adventurer were introduced.” Smiling Jade shifted her faceless gaze towards Stroud, who nodded at her once before turning his attention back towards Isabella. “Not all of us were happy with Fairfax’s decision to bring Adventurers into one of the Thieves Guilds so quickly. We feared that it would disrupt the relative balance between the guilds and allow the Grim Shadows to become ascendant, leaving the rest of us behind.”

  “Edith and the other Adventurer, Ransom, were meant to be a hidden counterbalance to you two, in case you needed to be contained,” Stroud explained bluntly as he motioned between Molly and me. “Adventurers are already known to be extremely power hungry and greedy when confined by the law. We were concerned how two Adventurers without that restraint would behave.”

  There was a moment of deathly silence as the four of us stared incredulously at Stroud and Smiling Jade, our mouths hanging open at what we had just heard.

  “You did what?!” Isabella started to grind out between clenched teeth before I interrupted her.

  “You fucking idiots brought Ransom into this, too?!” I shouted at the two Thief Lords as a spike of rage pulsed from the sigil on my chest and sent my heart racing.

  “Lazarus!” Isabella barked as her head snapped towards me. “This is not—”

  “His anger is justified, Isabella,” Stroud replied contritely as he nodded towards me in apology. “We were fools to trust what Dorian presented us, but let us not pretend that you would have not acted in your own best interests should have the tables have been turned.”

  “We told you we recruited two Adventurers,” Isabela spoke in clipped tones as anger simmered in her voice. “We even told you we were entertaining recruiting a third after Lazarus and Molly proved to be such useful assets. Fairfax and I were completely open about our decision making. You not only betrayed our trust, but you got Fairfax killed!”

  “We understand the scope of our failure and recognize that we are indirectly responsible for both Fairfax’s and Kiera’s death,” Smiling Jade acknowledged with a tinge of regret in her voice. “However, this isn’t a time for recrimination; we must move quickly to counteract whatever plan Dorian has in place. Once we have dealt with him, we can discuss whatever…reparations are appropriate for our lapse in judgement.”

  “That’s it?!” I asked, not quite believing what I was hearing and feeling another spike of anger shoot through me. “You j
ust say that it’s your fault and offer us a pile of cash to smooth over hurt feelings?! And you call us Adventurers fucking greedy!”

  “Lazarus, that’s enough!” Isabella spat as the two other Thief Lords flinched at my anger. “Come with me. Molly and Quinn as well.”

  Grabbing me by the forearm, Isabella had no illusions of her ability to force me anywhere I didn’t want to go, but when she looked up into my eyes, I saw a spark of anger that made me pause and let her pull me away. Leading the three of us a short distance away from the other two Thief Lords, Isabella didn’t waste any time berating me in hushed tones.

  “Your behavior right now is unacceptable, Lazarus, regardless of how you may feel at the moment!”

  “This is bullshit, Isabella,” I hissed back, looking her straight in the eye. “They fucking lied to us. Worse, they went behind our back and caused all of this!”

  “You don’t think I know that?!” Isabella growled at the two of us. “This is how the Underworld works, or did you think you were signing up for a world filled with saints and paladins?!

  “No, this is a world of thieves, cutthroats, and murderers,” Isabella continued while thrusting out a finger towards me. “I know they fucked up, they know they fucked up, and they’re going to pay us a giant fucking pile of gold to make us forget about it. Then we’re going to do exactly that: move on and forget about it.”

  “So that’s it, then, we just forget about Fairfax?” I retorted bitterly. “Maybe we can cast a golden statue out of the money that they give us and tell it we’re sorry?”

  “Lazarus!” I heard Quinn gasp.

  “You fucking bastard!” Isabella hissed back as she stepped closer to me and stared straight up into my eyes. “You’ve been a member the Underworld for barely twenty days. I’ve been a member of this guild for twenty-five years! I came up through the ranks with Fairfax, and I’ve shared more with him than you could ever know. This is simply the way things are, so either you’re going to have to accept that, or you’re going to have to get the hell out of the Underworld entirely.”