by Oliver Mayes
“First, we’re moving to the courtyard. No need to box me in this time.”
Damien had a good opportunity to get a view of the castle’s interior, which he did not take. He was focused on how he’d be spending the rest of that day. And more immediately, how her Queen’s Guard squad would be spending the next ten minutes.
They made it into the courtyard and Damien waited for Matthew to pipe up again. It took a few seconds of standing around doing nothing but Matthew did not disappoint.
“And what would you have us do now, Daemien the Low?”
“You first. Sixty push-ups. Every push-up you don’t manage is two for all your squad. We’ll do the same again every time someone calls me ‘Low’. That means now.”
28
Hearts and Minds
Damien had a great time for the next five minutes, setting increasingly impossible goals for his rude hosts. It was all in the guise of punishment while also testing their abilities at length. They were impressive, to say the least.
The priest might not have managed sixty push-ups but the warriors could do them almost indefinitely, even clad in heavy armor. Damien sat on one of their backs for a full minute without any recognizable effect on his subject’s speed or stamina. The rangers were nearly as fast at jump-stepping as he was. He knew, because he set the pace for them and was surprised when they kept it up for two minutes.
Matthew got off pretty light after the initial corporeal punishment. Damien ordered him to divulge his abilities, most of which required damage to accurately ascertain. The best of them was a resurrection ability, which he could use exclusively on members of his squad. Not testable without potentially provoking a war, unfortunately. It had a remarkably short cooldown of thirty seconds, if Matthew was to be believed. Provided the priest was alive and had mana, the squad was a self-sufficient closed unit.
This lot were far more reliable than his own summons. And to think, he could’ve had far better minions if he’d decided to run Camelot rather than playing as an occultist. Darn. Missed opportunity. When he was satisfied Matthew wouldn’t give him any more lip, Damien had himself escorted through Camelot’s streets. He went through the inner, middle and outer quadrants in turn, each dingier than the last, before he reached the front gate. They’d gone much faster now his escort wasn’t penning him in like cattle, but he had time to look around and give a few extremely perturbed players a wave. There’s nothing quite like feeding your ego.
Once he got to the front gate he ordered Matthew back to the castle, crouched and made his own way to a safe distance. As he started the short jog back to Bart’s, he made a mental checklist of everything he needed to do that day.
He needed to test his activated ‘Sin of Pride’ ability. Rebuild and upgrade his base structures. Bring his Soul Summon Limit to full. Visit Antonio’s internet cafe and talk to Gian in person. Talk with the occultists in the Council of Nine, convincing them to join the fight against Magnitude. Edit his own footage of the Dark Tower and put it on his page, along with his own call to arms. Test his newest demon, the consumer. Avoid thinking about Lucifer, at all costs. Buy groceries.
It was a good thing his mom had forced him up that morning. He had a lot of tasks to do and little time to do them in. About seven hours, give or take. He rearranged them in his head as he went, putting them into some sort of priority order. They were all necessary. His main problem was his complete lack of resources. Much of his base-building would require a volume of raw materials he couldn’t realistically farm in one day.
He’d had plenty of these materials stockpiled in his old base, but had given them all up to get past Archimonde and to the Dark Tower. Hindsight is 2020. It must’ve been a pretty terrible year to have a colloquialism dedicated to it.
He couldn’t murder Empire players to get his hands on their armor for scrap and their souls for summons. Lillian had made it very clear she wouldn’t take kindly to him slaying Empire players in advance of the fight against Magnitude. But he couldn’t fathom where else he was supposed to get the resources from. Building a new Gateway with only Noigel, a few imps and a succubus would take time he didn’t have.
As Damien shuffled his options around, deciding what to attempt first, a logical order presented itself. If it worked out, he’d exponentially increase his productivity. The problem was, it relied on the most nutty group of people he knew: the Council of Nine. He had other business with them anyway, so it made sense to start from there and see how many of his other problems he could eliminate.
He reached the top of the Downward Spiral, soaking up the memories as always as he summoned an imp from his 4 outstanding soul energy to assist him on his journey downward. He could still hear Noigel faintly warbling from the bottom. Damien Demon Gated to the lowest level, picked his way around the aspiring occultists killing each other there, tipped his fingers to a very unamused-looking Bartholomew and made his way into his base.
Noigel was grooming his succubus, lapping her hooves. He stopped what he was doing to shriek into the air. Damien coughed mid-shriek and Noigel sat upright, the horns rapidly receding back into his skull. Damien pretended not to notice as he positioned a Gateway blueprint in the same place his old one used to be.
“I’m upgrading the base. You do you, I’ll be out of here in a little while.”
He summoned three more imps one by one, each of them setting to work on the Gateway as they arrived. While he pointed at the floor and summoned them with one hand, he navigated to the Council of Nine page with the other. There’d been a lot of activity while he was gone. The page increasingly looked like a shrine to him, alternating between videos of his run through the Dark Tower and replays of the raids they’d conducted on Empire players.
Oh boy. If this got out, it would look really, really bad. Damien was doubly glad he’d assigned this first priority. He addressed his followers in the manner to which he was accustomed.
Daemien: Hello. (3:1)
No response. Huh. He knew occultists weren’t stereotypically morning people, but he’d expected at least a couple of them to be online. The group was larger than it had been at the beginning of the week: there were now seventy-four players in there. Damien checked the discussion group and found they’d had one of their ‘Low Priest’ events yesterday, running ’til the early hours of the morning. Horded up, killed a bunch of players and got Daemiaemiaemien up to level 23. If he understood the timing correctly, they’d set out shortly after his broadcast ended.
They were active, which was definitely good news, but were still heavily engaged in mass Empire player-killing sprees on their Friday nights. Right. What Lillian said about Damien being naive was coming into focus a bit. On the other hand, that meant they should have a fresh supply of raw materials he could ‘borrow’.
Daemien: I want to upgrade everyone’s structures, in exchange for a proposition: I’ll be fighting Magnitude this evening and want to see if anyone here will team up with me. I lost my base and need help getting ready as soon as possible. PM me your locations if you decide I can visit. (3:2)
While he typed, his minions had been working hard. The Gateway would take hours to complete, even if Noigel and the succubus were assisting. Although his imps’ stats had improved with Damien’s level, four of them were not the mighty workforce he needed.
With so much to do in so little time, he couldn’t afford to sit in base watching over construction. The problem was, the construction was also important. That’s what Noigel was for, ideally, but he’d promised Noigel a reward. He surely wouldn’t take this well. Damien tried it on anyway.
“Noigel, I’m heading into the real world, I need you to do a bit of work while I’m gone.”
Noigel couldn’t speak properly since Damien didn’t have ten imps, but Noigel had always been just as adept at showing as he was at telling. In this case, showing consisted of an expedient mooning, accompanied by a long slew of demonic curses that would make flowers wilt. Damien couldn’t say he blamed him. He circled the Soul
Well Noigel was balancing on until he wasn’t in the line of moon-fire.
“Noigel, you’ve done a really awesome job. If I had it my way, you’d be in a fully stocked base with four succubi. That’s not your fault. I hope you can see it’s not really my fault either. You’ll get everything I promised as soon as I can make it possible.”
Noigel shuffled around with his head between his knees, aiming between his legs to put Damien back in his sights. Damien squeezed his temples between thumb and middle finger, simultaneously relieving pressure and covering his eyes to avoid Noigel’s show. Today was all about multitasking.
“If I don’t have an active Gateway, I can’t cast Portal. If I don’t have a Tier II Gateway, I can’t Portal back to the one I built near the Dark Tower. I’m level 51, Noigel. I can’t get any soul energy around here. Which means I can’t summon the succubi you want. Or rebuild the rest of my base. Or do anything, really.”
Noigel had stopped tracking Damien’s movement. The imp was holding his pose but already looking quite defeated. Surly, but defeated nonetheless. Damien decided to give him the smallest mercy.
“I’ll be back in half an hour or so. Do you want me to leave you with the succubus until I get back, or do you want me to leave you with the imps so you can front-load the work?”
Noigel’s head flicked upward and he clung to the succubus. Of course. Front-loading his pleasure. How very familiar.
“Alright, then that’s what you’ll get. But when I come back it’ll be building time. I won’t forget the reward you’re due. Keep reminding me, so you know I haven’t forgotten. See you in a bit.”
Damien logged out, two of the four building imps leaving with him since there was no space for them on the Soul Well, and ran for the shower. Ten minutes later he was out of the house. Five minutes after that he was standing outside the internet cafe. With any luck he’d find Gian inside rather than Antonio or his son; he’d sent Antonio the credits to pay off Gian’s fine a few days ago, hopefully he’d be back on his day shift.
He was on his way in, his eyes adjusting to the light, but he stopped dead in the doorway. The pods were gone. His first thought was that CU had returned and impounded them. A quick glance around showed the reality was worse. They were still there, they’d just been moved up against the back wall. Where they should’ve been all along. That wasn’t the only change. The red tape binding them shut had been removed.
Confusion gave way to disbelief, which gave way to Antonio’s threatening voice from behind the counter.
“You’re still not welcome here, get out of my shop.”
There was a chance he’d misread this. Small, but possible. It had more to do with hope than reality at that point. Surely Antonio hadn’t done what the evidence said he had.
“Where’s Gian? Did you pay—”
“I said get out!”
There. Now Damien was 100% sure. Why he’d bothered waiting on the last percentile was already beyond him.
“I gave you the credits to pay Gian’s fine. I made that very clear. Why did you spend it on the pods?”
“You’re a child, I don’t need to explain myself to you. Once you gave me the credits they were mine to do whatever I wanted with.”
“That wasn’t—”
“Not interested. Get out.”
Damien had wanted to support Antonio’s business to make amends. Damien was flexible. He wasn’t averse to doing the same thing to show he was the better person.
“You’re welcome. I’ll be back later today.”
“I didn’t thank you. If I see you again, I’ll physically remove you from my property.”
“It won’t be yours much longer without my help. Unless another child bails out your business before I do.”
Antonio, his face visibly red even in the half light, jumped out of his chair and circled the desk. Damien was halfway down the street before his charity case was halfway to the door. Not all Saga Online skills translated into real life, but Damien’s risk assessment was definitely improving. Once the adrenaline had worn off, he fumed the rest of the way home.
To think he’d given credits out of his own pocket. While he didn’t much care for Antonio, he was compelled to do right by Gian. How could those two be related? His thoughts circled the drainpipe all the way home. It was only as the door slammed behind him he realized he’d forgotten to buy groceries. Quest stacking sure is complicated, especially when you’re attempting it between parallel realities and you’re running into resistance in both of them. So the private message from the Council of Nine page owner was a welcome surprise.
Vargus: We’re sending someone to the Downward Spiral to pick you up.
Daemien: How do you know I’m in the Downward Spiral?
Vargus: There was a video of you arguing with Bartholomew this morning from a new occultist called StabbyMcFace, remember him? He recorded the whole conversation. You looked bigger, very cool, what’s the deal? PB.
Great. The longer he talked to Vargus, the further behind he felt and the further behind he was still falling. Far too much was happening at once. All the more reason to get a move on.
Daemien: Who’s coming to get me? How long until they get there?
Vargus: He’s there already. Aren’t you?
Which was when a separate chat box popped up. He shouldn’t have been surprised.
Scorepeeus63: I’m outside your base. Your Noigel got angry and yelled at me. It looked like he and a succubus were fighting on your Soul Well. Wtf, man? Control yo ho, no offense. PB. Where you at?
Damien jumped up and ran for his headset. The last thing he needed was a horny Noigel picking a fight with an oblivious nine-year-old kill-happy occultist, or the other way round. He was back in under half a minute. Noigel didn’t quite hiss at him when he arrived, but it was a close-run thing. A quick glare from Damien cut it off before it began.
“You know the score, Noigel. I order you to complete construction on the Gateway. When it’s done, you’ll be one step closer to your full reward.”
He set the imps to work, swapping the succubus into his own Soul Summon Limit before escorting her outside. Scorepeeus63 was waiting for him, leaning against a wall with Bartholomew just barely tolerating his presence. As Damien approached quietly through the struggling occultist sign-ups, the mouths of both players dropped. It was hard to say who was more shocked by the appearance of the other.
While Damien’s improvement was impressive, Scorepeeus63’s was not far off: he was level 42. Four levels higher than when Damien had last seen him. He was also wearing new gear: a bizarre mix of mismatched equipment, evidence of the players he’d presumably murdered to get to that point.
The gear was serving a purpose. His Soul Summon Limit had hit 30, judging by the long line of minions standing unnaturally straight up against the wall. Bartholomew was glaring at each of them in turn, daring them to interfere with his initiates’ ongoing trial. The vampire still made time to stare at Damien, the fury and weight of a minute’s silent judgment packed into a half second, before he returned his gaze to Scorepeeus63’s unruly minion horde. Scorepeeus63 proved himself more unruly than any of them.
“Woah! You look gnarly, my dude! Show me some skin! Like your new threads, yo. So tight!”
There was a gargled scream as a distracted initiate was stabbed through the throat with a rat femur, about ten feet away. Bartholomew’s disdain was palpable. Scorepeeus63’s gear and abilities were not in question, but his conversational ability made Damien feel like a socialite. Some things take longer to learn than others, he supposed. Damien reluctantly returned his mega-fan’s fist bump, feeling a little dirty while he did it.
“Yes. Yo. Indeed. I hear you’re escorting me to the H—”
“Shhhhhh! First rule of the Hub: we don’t talk about the Hub!”
If anyone else had yelled such a contradictory statement, Damien would’ve assumed they were being “ironic”. To Scorepeeus63, he attributed the outburst to being nine years old. It seemed mean
to point it out, as annoying as it was. Scorepeeus63 had gone out of his way to help him before and was now doing so again. Damien could think of better ways to repay him than defining a logical fallacy.
His young guide motioned to Damien’s base and the two of them picked their way back across. The two occultists moved quietly enough, but Scorepeeus63’s demons thoroughly disturbed the initiates, who were having a very unique trial.
They entered the base, where Scorepeeus63 was better received with Damien by his side and Noigel working on the Gateway. At least insofar as being ignored constituted ‘received’ and kicking other imps constituted ‘working’. Scorepeeus63 performed a familiar gesture and ten seconds later a portal appeared. It was strange to see the skill used by someone else.
“After you, Dark Lord.”
Cringe. Considering where the portal led, he’d better get used to it. Damien ushered his succubus through and followed on after them, swapping one dark environment for another. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected until his expectation was not met.
With a name like the Hub, Damien had subconsciously believed it would be a big space with the individual occultist structures arrayed around it, like a market square. The cramped dead end he was standing in, with demons pressed up against the walls and occupying every square inch of the structures, was not quite as glamorous as he’d expected.
“Welcome to mah crib, dawg.”
The portal had closed after Scorepeeus63 passed through it and he was now throwing gang signs. All his minions were throwing gang signs in response, which meant Damien was receiving a great deal of sharp elbows at waist height, the worst place to receive sharp elbows. For all his talent using occultist abilities, it appeared Scorepeeus63 was more suggestible than his own imps.
Still, Damien couldn’t deny that the structures were in good nick: everything was fully upgraded in line with Scorepeeus63’s level. Since Damien had hit level 50 he could upgrade the Gateways and Demon Forges to the third tier.
