by Ryan Rimmel
Then I heard the booming voice again.
“WHERE IS HE?!”
My trek down the stairs was performed at a suddenly breakneck pace. Literally. I fell. However, when one has no stats, one can take no damage. This staircase was longer, and despite the lack of a handrail, I managed to stay on them for the entire path down. Bouncing down the stairs on my face was probably quite a bit faster than running, I rationalized. Standing up revealed I was correct in my assessment of damage; I was none the worse for wear.
Suddenly I felt like someone was staring right at my back.
“Did he leave already?” came the husky voice.
“I’m looking at his sheet now,” replied the nasal voice, “No, he’s still there. Jim? What kind of name is Jim?”
“He named himself,” called out the husky voice, now far more annoyed than before
“Ash and fire, I had the memory wipe option off,” replied the nasal voice.
Then there was a pause, which I used to look around my current room. There was a way to put the stairs up, so I pushed that. The staircase slowly slipped back into the roof of the room.
“YOU DID WHAT!?,” screamed the husky voice.
“Well, I just re-rolled three other characters. None of them needed memory wipes so I just … turned it off.”
“You are an idiot.” replied the husky voice, “We have to find him. How can he hide? There is just the one room.”
“The staircase leading to the middle is down,” squeaked the nasal voice.
It was then that I realized that, while I repositioned the last staircase I used, I left the first set of stairs completely exposed. It was like a big blazing arrow pointing directly to me.
“ASH AND FIRE!”
So, I scooted. I needed to get out of there quickly and, well, this wasn’t the time for careful consideration. There were three statues here and one gateway. The first one was a Sage. It had ultimate control over magic. The second was an Arch Angel, who had fundamentally impressive control over the universe, as well as what amounted to super powers. The third was a Chosen One, who by divine providence was set to lead the world into the next age.
All three sounded great. But you see, there was this green orb. Also, the stairwell from above was opening again. I mean I could have selected any of the statues and headed out the single doorway but… green orb.
“I’m qualified! Let me down.” I said in a rush, as I grasped the emerald orb.
“This is true. The path to ultimate power lies beneath.”
I dove down the stairwell just as the room I was in began to glow an ominous red. This light, as if from the orangish red fires of hell, cast flickering shadows from some impending terror. A terror that was annoyed with me. I was going to jump down the stairs, pick the first statue I could, and run out the door while hoping whatever doom was on my tail could not follow.
This floor was different from the others. Previously, the rooms had been made of stone and set in a void. This room was crystal and looked down over the world from very high above. It was amazingly beautiful. I had all of a quarter of a second to take in my surroundings while I was running like a man being chased by an angry demon down the stairs.
There were exactly two problems with that strategy.
The first problem was time or, more specifically, a serious lack of it.
When I rushed into the final level, the statue was right by the stairwell. I touched it, the Godling, and started to feel a rush of power as the class abilities began to flow through me. It was a feeling that was quickly stopped when my character sheet appeared.
You receive 5 stat bumps from picking a god tier character, please select which stats you want to apply your stat bumps to.
I didn’t know what that meant. I understood in the basic sense of assigning points, but I didn’t know how to assign points right off hand. As it turned out, I didn’t have time to even select the class; the statue exploded as a spike of green fire passed through it, utterly obliterating it. The prompt, the bumps, the class all vanished. In its place, the biggest, fattest, angriest demon I ever expected to see in my life stood before me. At that point, I decided running was the best option.
The second problem was that there was no door out.
See, I didn’t have stats, so I wasn’t very quick. The demon did, and whatever they were, his Speed and Agility were both WAY higher than nothing. He had me in his beefy clawed hand in less than a second and was holding me high in the air like I weighed nothing.
I might have. I don’t know. I certainly would have been pissing myself if that was an option, however it wasn’t. So instead, I was just suspended by his claw overtop the crystal floor, quietly realizing that while I couldn’t feel much of anything else, I could still feel some degree of terror.
“You MORON!” screamed the big, fat, ugly, terrifying, husky demon.
“Me?” I wheezed, because I am apparently a moron. The demon glared at me an instant and then slammed me into the crystal floor of the final room with the force of a semi-truck. Scratch that, I’d had some experience with that and this was worse.
“I’m sorry,” replied the much thinner, nasal voice, weenie of a demon. I mean seriously, even embedded in the floor, this demon screamed dork.
We know our own.
“ANY CLASS, ANY POWER,” growled the husky one, “but you forgot to do a mind wipe, so we have to delete him.”
“Maybe we could let him decide,” replied my dorky savior.
“I’m with him,” I groaned.
The husky demon, who had anger issues, lifted me back into the air and slammed me back into the crystal floor again, harder than last time. Thirty percent harder, I realized, because that was something I just knew now. I was definitely about to die again.
“No! He knows too much; you’ll never be able to control him,” stated the angry demon angrily.
“I’ll do whatever you tell me to.” I groaned, so he slammed me into the ground 3 more times in rapid succession. The crystal floor under me was developing an interesting cracked pattern as my body was being driven into it repeatedly. Now that my head was on backwards, I could see the indents my body was making.
Oh, that’s why Rumiko did it.
“What if we directly bound ourselves to him,” stated the dork.
The angry demon paused, his hand still firmly attached to my throat, which was in turn firmly implanted into the crystal floor with the rest of my body. He was polite enough to grab my head and snap it back in line with the rest of my body. So, there was that.
“Perhaps,” he said after a moment, the anger in his voice cooling, “But with his abilities, I’m not sure if we could actually control him. After all, if either of us were to actually go down to the mortal plane, we’d have to do so in our least forms.”
“We could get injured or even die. However, if we overwrote him, we could just edit a few key portions of his mind and then set him loose. It would be almost as good! We could do it here, in the great chamber, before I pick his class. I’d also be able to change his name.”
“That is a stupid name,” stated the husky demon.
Getting my mind rewritten wasn’t anything I actually wanted. I tried to squirm, but the demonic claw might as well have been steel vice wrapped around my windpipe. They continued discussing what they could still change on my sheet after they took me to the great chamber and I’d had about enough of it. I could stand dying, but not getting my mind rewritten by these assholes.
“Hey, Fatty,” I stated to the angry demon, who had unfortunately calmed down.
“I forgot you could talk instead of making mewling noises with your mouth. However, you are incorrect if you think your petty human insults have any bearing at all on one such as myself. I will enjoy modifying your mind.”
“You have terrible breath,” I croaked.
“Thank you!” he chuckled.
“Your mother stinks of elderberries and your uncle’s cum.”
“You fail to disparage my
uncle-dad” he stated.
“Your horns are crooked.”
“MY HORNS ARE FINE!”
The cooked horned demon was sensitive about that, it turned out, and so he slammed me into the crater again. I figured this one would kill me; it was at least 5 trucks worth of force. It failed, however, to end my life. Instead, the floor shattered and the three of us were sucked out into whatever passed for space in this place.
Chapter 1: An Uninteresting Grassy Field
I came to in the middle of a grassy field, naked, and sore as hell. I was aware of two things. I had to go to the bathroom and my neck hurt.
That came as a shock so I stood up, looking around the area. It was a grassy field, with beautiful flowers in all directions. Various herbs and plants were scattered throughout the areas, breaking up the line of the simple field. It was very picturesque except for the crater where I had landed. That was still smoking slightly.
I was seeing yellow, so I found a nearby tree and relieved myself right there. It was satisfying, but now instead of seeing yellow, I had a small yellow blip in the side of my vision. It was that prompt again. I was surprised, to say the least, but before I could react to it, I heard a gargling scream.
“What are you doing?” came the squeaky response.
I looked down half expecting to see a mouse, but instead was greeted by the image of a small, rotund little demon with crooked horns. I aimed at his face. It had been awhile. It splattered all over him, but the demon had changed significantly. When I’d last seen him, the demon had been massive, at least 30 feet tall, and was enormously powerfully built.
This demon was about a foot tall and just about as far around. His head was larger in proportion to his body than even a baby’s, but his arms and legs were comically small. He couldn’t have even put his hands on top of his head and his attempted dodgings demonstrated that walking was going to be a serious challenge for him. His skin was still red, but it was a darker red now and his glowing eyes had been replaced by more cat like ones. He had dropped down on the threatening meter from “it’s going to kill me” to “I don’t know what this is but I’m going to stomp it until it’s not a threat anymore”.
“I will kill you for this, I’m a powerful demon giant,” gargled the demon. I presume that’s what he was saying, at any rate. Afterwards, he began first wiping the urine off his face and then using a leaf to attempt, unsuccessfully, to sop up the rest.
“And I am Jim.”
The demon’s eyes suddenly went wide in horror, which is an expression I’ll always treasure. It, well obviously he, jumped up and tried to fly with his wings which now were not well suited for him and he barely managed to hover briefly.
“Well, I don’t care what you want to call yourself; we need to find a demon door and return to the citadel.”
“So, I can be reprogrammed,” I replied, “Not gonna happen.”
Suddenly, my head flared in pain, deep agonizing pain that drove me right to my knees. In my vision, a red prompt flickered to the side, creating a sudden awareness that I’d been bound to a demon.
“I don’t see that you have much of a choice, human,” the demon chuckled. “As long as I am bound to you, I can use this power to ‘advise’ you into doing whatever I want.”
As I stood up to calmly discuss this with him, the demon turned on the juice full force, driving me back to the ground. It was like the worst migraine you’ve ever imagined, but with cymbals crashing at the same time. I started dry heaving.
He relented after an eternity.
“You can do that whenever you want?” I croaked.
“Yes, as long as I can see you,” he grinned. “Now, you will call me Master and I will call you…”
“My name is Jim,” I stated, standing back up brandishing a largish tree branch. The demon examined the stick for a moment before laughing.
“You are going to defy me with a stick,” he laughed, “You would need a mighty tree the size of my body to even stand a chance.”
I had played baseball in college and I’d like to think he realized at the last moment that the tree branch was every bit as large as he was and I was swinging with as much force behind it as possible. It was actually less than I expected as the stick was not very well balanced and I was having trouble getting it just right, but the demon was too busy laughing at me to dodge.
It impacted with a meaty thud and the demon went flying, slamming into a nearby tree. Instead of bouncing off, however, he stuck there with a mighty thunk. I walked over to look, hoping he was dead, but no such luck. His horns had pierced the bark and he was almost skull deep into the tough wood.
The demon came to a moment later and the pain flared in my head dropping me to the ground. “You will pay for this!” was the last thing I heard before I passed out, again.
...
I don’t know how many hours I was asleep, but it was more than a few. I was aware of a few new icons in my field of vision, even though my eyes were closed and I wanted to die, so that was nice. Opening my eyes, I examined the demon, still firmly stuck in the tree.
I sat up and groaned. The echoes of pain were still there, but it was mostly gone. I decided to review my icons while I tried to figure out what to do with the demon. There was the demon’s icon, which looked like blood on a black circle which I figured was a very bad thing. Another icon was that of a golden star coin. A third looked like a Bronze triangle. Also, and I had to be paying attention for this one there was a small exclamation mark.
Since those were unknowns, I started off by looking at my character sheet.
Name: Jim
Class: Undefined
Awaiting Level Up Warrior!
Strength: Average
Dexterity: Average
Endurance: Average
Willpower: Average
Spirit: Average
Charisma: Average
Skills:
None
Demon Lore (1SP) Unskilled
Awaiting Rank Up!
Simple Weapons (10SP)
I’d earned a few XP and SP when I’d hit the demon with the stick. That was nice. I wondered what the little bastard was worth. I clicked on the exclamation point next. It turned out to be a notification for my combat log, which dutifully reported my victories in battle. The thought of all of my accomplishments being noted for posterity was not a good one.
As if I wasn’t self-conscious about farting already.
You have defeated an ELDER DEMON through immobilization by causing 5 points of damage
You have gained 999,999,999,999,999 XP and gained one class level in Warrior, additional experience points over level maximum are wasted”
You have gained 999,999,999,999,999 SP and gained amateur rank in simple weapons, additional skill points over maximum are wasted.”
WHAT? He was worth … a trillion XP? Fuck. But experience through over level was wasted. That was good to know, I suppose. Also fuck. Also, I was in a world where there were experience points. Finally FUCK. That honestly bothered me more than the icons I could always see out of the corner of my vision. And a trillion XP gone. FUCK.
Inhale, exhale, maybe it's easy to earn a trillion xp.
It's not going to be easy.
Simple weapons 1 was the bronze triangle. It popped up and showed me I was now at amateur skill level with simple weapons. I could see a whole string of abilities behind it that I couldn’t select. Storing that question for later, I went to the next icon.
The golden star coin flashed before me and I was prompted with:
Level UP, Warrior 1
You have selected the Warrior Class, please choose two stat buffs for yourself at first level!
You have gained the skills light and medium armor, as well as all simple weapons.
You already have skill with simple weapons, please choose another skill or one will be chosen for you.
Your Hit point Total is increased by 10. Your Stamina is increased by 10.
I considered for a mom
ent and instantly knew I had 30 hit points and 30 Stamina as well as 20 mana. I don’t recall ever being able to quantify my exact health before, so this was new. I resolved to consider this at a later date, as well. My to do list was becoming rather extensive.
You are bound to a Demon
You and the demon are Tightly Bound
You have not accepted him as your Master
He has not accepted you as his Master.
He has not granted you any boons
He can apply punishments to you as he sees fit
Your demon’s rank is 999. Elder Demon
Update: Your demon has been defeated in combat and has had his power level reduced until he returns to the Citadel. His current power is Rank 1.
Your bond level is Tight, which allows the more powerful of the two to exert direct force over the weaker member of the pair if neither is Master.
Well ain't that karma.
“What is a rank one Demon,” I said cautiously, walking up behind the newly minted Rank one demon.
“It is the weakest kind of demon, barely a threat to anyone, an annoying mewing cur,” he grumbled, trying to push himself free of the tree and failing. He had hit the tree horns first, I knew that, but in his current form his arms were too short to actually reach above his head. Also, his neck was mostly solid, so he didn’t have the movement a human would have.
Basically, with his tiny arms and legs, he was never going to pull himself free of the tree.
