Labyrinth to Tartarus: A LitRPG Saga (The Eternal Journey Book 3)
Page 25
The blue-haired Herder produced a potion but froze when she saw Hawke – still pretending to be a human Paladin – looming over her, a Hammer of Light glowing and ready in his right hand. He had sent Saturnyx to his Inventory, just in case the Herder recognized the hilt of the Legendary weapon.
“What do you want?” she said in Vulgate.
“Give me the Rune.”
“What? How do you know...?”
“Give me the Rune or die.”
“Screw you,” she said, leveling her staff at him.
His spell was quicker. Off she went, to wherever her Reincarnation site was. Damn.
For Slaying Your Foes, you have earned 1,780 XP (220 diverted towards Leadership; 220 diverted towards Node Mastery).
Congratulations! You have become a Level Six Node Master. New abilities available.
Current XP/Next Level: 46,283/50,000. Leadership XP/Next Level: 32,666/35,000
Current Node Mastery XP/Next Level: 12,206/15,00. Current Guild XP/Next Level: 2,0239/2,500
Dejected, Hawke went through the loot bags the demon and the one Eternal he had killed had left behind. When looting Eternals, you got some cash – which got subtracted from the Eternal’s cash holdings, if any – and possibly some random drops as well, but none of their soul-bound or Inventory stuff. For his troubles, he found sixty-three gold (mostly from the demon), two regular potions, two Major ones, a level 15 Enchanted dagger that someone might use – and a flat silver device with a complex symbol carved on its surface: the Rune of Order.
You have found: Rune of Order
Rune of Order (This Item Offers a Quest)
QUEST: Tip the Balance
The Archon Assiah was the Celestial founder of the Hierarchs of Order. This angelic being from created this device to be used in times of need by the Hierarchs. The wielder of the Rune can unleash its power at a major Infernal, Undead or Chaotic nexus, flooding an area with Order energies. Such nexuses include Mana Nodes; Fortress, Settlement or Proving Ground Cores; or Seats of Power. The power of the Rune is determined by the level of its wielder. Once used, the Rune will cease to exist.
Quest Objective: Use the Rune at a power nexus aligned to the enemies of Order.
Quest Rewards: 3,000 Experience. Unlock Order Magic (must be level 15 or higher). +200 Reputation with Beings of Order.
Warning: Death forfeits possession of the Rune. If you die, the Rune will be released and can be taken by anyone who happens to find it.
“This is all a little to convenient, don’t you think?” Hawke asked Saturnyx. “At the same time a team of Nerf Herders finds this Rune, I’m using a teleport device, and Super-Clown sends me here. And I just happen to run into a pack of Herders with a doodad that is just the thing I could use to help me purify the Dungeon Core I’m supposed to take care of.”
“If you say so. I picked a direction at random. How did Clown-Face know I would run into them.”
Hawke snarled at the idea a Demiurge could make him do things so easily, but making things and people was kind of in their name, wasn’t it? They couldn’t control his every action, could they? He dismissed the idea. If they could do that, they wouldn’t need him.
“Why would he help me destroy the Undeath hybrids?”
“Maker versus Maker. And the Arbiters, the gods, and my own dumb ass are all pieces on the board. I don’t like it, Saturnyx. This whole situation makes me want to knock the board over and refuse to play the game.”
“Yes,” Hawke said, looking at the spots where six Nerf Herders had stood a few moments before. They would get better, except maybe for that Gerrod guy, but a lot of other people wouldn’t.
“All right, I guess I’m playing a few more sessions.”
Thirty-Nine
Hawke went back into stealth and walked in the direction the Nerf Herders had been headed. He couldn’t think of something better to do. Wandering around the seemingly-endless plain until somebody spotted him didn’t sound like a plan. Maybe the gate Amelia had mentioned would take him somewhere. He found a mithril deposit and another imbued iron one, increasing his total ore count to six mithril and twelve imbued iron units, and raising his Arcane Mining to level six.
Half an hour after his last ore extraction, Hawke noticed movement off to his side and spotted a second Infernal Noble. Its stats were identical to Nyurgal’s, but its name was Zumaz. From the looks of it, another Damned Soul had earned its wings – its leathery, demonic wings. The monster rushed past Hawke, not noticing him; it wasn’t running, but its long strides were faster than his own walking pace. And it was headed roughly in the same direction. Very roughly. Figuring the local critter might know the way better than him, he decided to follow it.
Keeping up with the Infernal entity wasn’t difficult for someone with Hawke’s inhuman physique, but doing so without making too much noise was tough. The chase through the dark flatlands was a tightrope act between stealth and speed. Even with his improved Stealth skill, when he increased his pace enough to catch up, the demon paused and started looking around. He slowed down again and Zumaz sort of shrugged and kept going, increasing its lead on Hawke.
Luckily, he remembered the Amulet of Stealth that he had found in his first Lair run, and used it for the first time since he had dangled from his neck, where it currently shared space with his Necklace of Mana Storage. The amulet was a lowly level five item, but it worked as advertised, greatly reducing the noise Hawke made for thirty minutes. He was finally able to move at full speed, easily keeping up with the demon as it made its way toward… what? The haze kept making it impossible to see far ahead, but eventually a tall structure came into view.
The tower was made of the same metal alloy as the spikes; it leaned drunkenly at an angle, sort of like the famous one in Italy, except this one had dozens of monstrous gargoyles perched on platforms on each of its dozen or so stories, and had a glowing red flame on its top level. It might not be the Eye of Sauron, but it resembled the one from the movies closely enough to make Hawke nervous. As he got closer, he also noticed that the gargoyles weren’t decorations, either. Every once in a while, one of them would unfurl its bat-like wings and stretch them before going back to being perfectly, unnaturally still. The tower was crawling with dozens of sixteenth- and seventeenth-level flying demons. Great.
Zumaz headed straight for the building and entered through an arched doorway at the bottom, apparently unconcerned by the fact the structure wasn’t properly balanced. Hawke followed it in and saw a glowing portal, looking much like the one that had dropped him here. The newborn demon went through it.
Hawke hesitated. He had no idea where that portal would take him. The Nerf Herders had been headed this way – unless he’d screwed up and followed the demon to a completely different gate. He didn’t know what to do.
Screw it, Hawke thought, and stepped through the portal.
Warning! Passing through this portal will place your Reincarnation site on the Ninth Circle’s entrance. You will lose 3 Identity points every time you die while inside the Labyrinth. Confirm? Y/N
He confirmed his choice. The ninth floor would be closer to the surface. When it came to hell, up was definitely the way to go. The transport went off without a hitch, with no interference from any higher power. A moment later, he found himself in a large room with five alcoves, three of them with glowing portals. He had arrived at one of those alcoves. Zumaz was a few feet away – and turning around as it noticed the portal’s activation and Hawke’s a
rrival.
Hawke didn’t see anybody else in the chamber, so he dropped his stealth and went for the demon. He fired off a Hammer of Light with all the fixings right into the Noble’s face, scoring a critical hit. Without missing a beat, he stepped forward, thrust Saturnyx’s point into its chest, and followed that with an Order-charged bash from his shield. At the same time, he released Bulwark of Light from his Ring of Spell Storage. The surprise attacks staggered the demon and dropped its Health by over a third. Hawke didn’t give it a chance to recover. He fired off Burning Light and kept up the offensive, using his sword and shield while he buffed himself. Even with his instant casting abilities, it took him three to four seconds to bring on all his enhancing effects. During that time, his sword work kept the demon busy. It managed to fire off his Hellfire combustion attack, but his defenses blocked off most of the damage and the rest depleted his Bulwark of Light, which he replaced a second later.
By then, his offensive spells were ready to be cast again. A lot of the anti-Undead stuff was off the menu, but he could add Death magic to the mix. Death Stare was good for another 400 points of damage, although Death Cyclone only inflicted a disappointing 220. They were nowhere near as good as his Light spells against the Infernal creature, but it let him whittle down the monster’s Health while he waited for the better ones to come off cooldown. And all the while, he kept cutting and stabbing away at the monster, working off some of his frustrations on it. He was sick and tired of being manipulated by so-called higher beings, and he did to Zumaz what he wished he could do to them.
The monster didn’t go down easy, though. After the initial shock of finding itself in a fight to the death with a champion of Light, the demon fought back with brutal speed and power. Its staff parried several attacks and countered them with a swirling wall of hellfire that drove Hawke back and burned him badly enough that his In Extremis kicked off. But he countered the roaring flames with another full spell rotation, and the demon lacked healing magic, other than a regeneration ability that just couldn’t keep up with the massive amount of damage Hawke was inflicting.
Just as it was about to cast its combustion spell again, Hawke pulled his old teleport-backstab trick on the monster, getting a critical hit that chopped through the demon’s spine and generated a huge red ‘1,220’ damage result. Hawke had grown fond of the floating damage indicators. They made him feel like he was back in a game instead of desperately trying to survive, and sometimes he needed that comforting illusion to avoid falling prey to panic.
Zumaz went down and a loot bag popped up. Twenty-four hundred XP, sixteen gold, and a handful of Major Potions. He earned more experience by fighting the critter alone than when the Nerf Herders had gotten a piece of the other. And maybe the damned souls that had been turned into demons would find peace now. Or go to the real Hell. Hawke shrugged. Either way, they weren’t his problem anymore.
Hawke considered trying out one of the other three portals, but the sounds of fighting caught his attention. He hadn’t noticed them while he was chopping up his late buddy Zumaz, but the became obvious when things quieted down in the portal room. I should check that out, he told himself. He went into stealth mode again, removing the visible auras and also taking the time to cast Bulwark of Light back into his Ring of Spell Storing. Nobody came in while he took care of business, although the battle – there had to be dozens or hundreds of critters involved to produce the continuous roaring and clanging coming from outside the room – was still raging on.
He emerged into a corridor, with a set of walls with arrow slits overlooking a courtyard forty feet below. Through one of the slits, Hawke saw demons busily fighting Undead demons in a scene straight out of a lunatic’s nightmare.
The Revenant was invading the Labyrinth.
Hawke had been in a few large-scale fights before, but nothing like this. The courtyard below was much larger than the one in his Stronghold – at least three hundred feet long and wide – and it was surrounded by tall walls, including the one he was looking out from. All the space below him was boiling with fighting figures. Claws tore into burning or icy flesh. Spells and spell-like effects detonated spectacularly, sending Chaos, Infernal and Undeath energies everywhere. He recognized the swirling purple shapes of Death Cyclones and the bright red flames of Hellish Fireballs. The Revenant’s army had seized the main gate and the walls around it, but Tartarus’ warriors were pouring into the courtyard from every other structure, trying to retake the entrance.
Gargoyles flew overhead, casting spells until enemy magic or leaping Undead hybrids brought them down. Brute Flayers clashed with Brutes and Flayers; the originals were smaller than the hideous nailed-together Undead version, and unlike them they had no access to Chaos-infused attacks, but they made up for that with numbers. The Undead-Infernal foot soldiers, Soul Burners, were doing a number on the Imps and Hellhounds being deployed against them. The minions of the Labyrinth were more numerous, but Hawke grunted in shock when he saw that any demon the hybrids killed rose a few seconds later, turned into another Undead servitor. It was like a zombie movie, except with the characters being played by monsters. And it wasn’t hard to guess who was going to win the fight.
He didn’t know what to do. Demons were evil, but all the higher-order beings who’d dragged him around had insisted that the hybrids were worse.
“Oh, they are,” a voice said behind him. “And that is why you are going to help us.”
Hawke turned around and found himself facing an Archdemon of Tartarus.
Forty
Magoth (Master Infernal)
Level ?? Archdemon
Health 20,000 Mana 30,000 Endurance 20,000
Magoth was six foot three, and, compared to the Infernal Nobles Hawke had been carving up recently, looked downright ordinary. Sure, his skin was beet red and he had a pair of black horns perched above his eyebrows, along with a black goatee that made Hawke want to point and laugh despite the gravity of the situation, but other than that he was the most human-looking devil he had met so far. The Archdemon’s smile seemed sincere, although his teeth all ended in points. He was wearing a simple black tunic over loose trousers, in a cut that felt Asian in design, embroidered with a variety of Inscriptions. If he tried anything, he would get blasted into oblivion before he was done casting his first spell.
“Doesn’t look like you need my help,” he said.
The instincts he had inherited from his Hawke ‘character’ were screaming at him to draw Saturnyx and go for the kill, and damn the consequences. The Archdemons of Tartarus were master torturers, with kill counts that only the most brutal dictators from Earth’s history could match. And unlike those dictators, the greater demons had committed their murders up close and personal and continued to torment their victims after death. Even though Magoth was trying to be friendly, Hawke could sense hatred and contempt behind the friendly shark-toothed smile. The demon could never be anything but an enemy.
“Listen to your pet Fury, Templar,” Magoth said. “She knows that the fact that I haven’t taken her from you and devoured her soul is proof that I come here in peace. It takes a lot of self-restraint not to destroy a Demons-Bane on sight, you know. Their very presence makes me feel sick with rage.”
Feeling’s mutual, Hawke thought.
Magoth’s smile widened. “Of course. Once a Paladin, always a Paladin, I suppose. We can fight, if you want, and then resume our conversation after your Reincarnation, or we can speak instead. Time is in short supply, however.”
“I’m listening,” Hawke forced himself to say.
“I cannot intervene directly, for the same reasons that the Death God Akaton could not. Laryn – the entity that once was named Laryn – is under the protection of Vazalak Zombi. You, on the other hand, are a mere demi-immortal, and one who enjoys the favor of no fewer than three other Demi
urges, among other Powers and Principalities.” His carnivorous smile grew even bigger, inhumanly so, just like Girl’s ‘mask’ had. “Perhaps after this is over one of the Powers I serve will also take an interest in you.”
That’s going to be a big nope, dog, Hawke thought.
Magoth’s grin vanished. “Never say never, ‘dog.’ But no matter. Another member of your company has all but given herself to us. She will serve us soon enough.”
“Leave her alone.”
“Oh, we will. She is doing all the necessary work on her own, freely and of her own free will. Even now, she is considering how to remain true to the letter of her binding oath while betraying its spirit.”
“She’ll out-level that demonic gear sooner or later, and then she’ll throw it to the curb. It’s not as if she cares one way or another about it.”
“We shall see. But enough of that. As I said, time grows short.”
Hawke glanced back at the battle. The Revenant’s forces were growing in number. Dead Imps turned into Soul Burners. Higher-level monsters transformed into things that Hawke hadn’t seen before, some sort of super-mummies that could cast a whole bunch of spells and were also strong enough to tear Infernal Centurions apart with their bare hands. The bad guys were winning over the slightly less-bad guys.
“The Chaotic power that enabled the creation of those hybrids threatens the foundations of the Realms themselves,” Magoth went on. “While many hate the Lords of Tartarus, we serve a purpose. Those maggots serve nothing but destruction. Unchecked, they will doom us all.”