The Demonic Games (Disgardium Book #7): LitRPG Series

by Dan Sugralinov

  The voice, which had almost seemed to be taking on emotion, cut off, then turned wooden again:

  “Attention! Starting in three… two… one… Good luck and have fun, contestant!”

  Chapter 6. Against The Rest

  I MATERIALIZED at a great height, standing in place, and then the earth began to rush up to meet me. My heart in my real body skipped a few beats.

  You’re not supposed to look down at times like those, but I lowered my eyes: below me was an isle of land floating in the impenetrable mist. As the land zoomed up, grew larger, I began to make out a village. To its side lay a massive hole in the land with square edges. The village was surrounded on its other sides by a forest whose edges simply disappeared into the great nothing. I judged the Cursed Chasm to be around six miles wide by nine long. I didn’t know why the Games needed so much space; the whole zone apart from the Pitfall was peaceful and mob-free.

  Suddenly, the interface appeared: bars for my health, mana and spirit (although what good would that be if I didn’t have any skills?) and a half-filled experience bar. That was so my first death wouldn’t be final. The penalties for death here were like in the Nether — die at level zero and you’re out of the running.

  I looked around and saw the others — almost four hundred contestants in free fall. Like paratroopers over a theater of war! Magic replaced the parachutes — just before I hit the surface, I was suddenly slowed and dropped gently on my feet.

  The locals stared at us open-mouthed. I saw them not long before I landed, and then I found myself in a crowd — the magical landing had bunched the contestants shoulder to shoulder on a rutted tract of land. An orc standing with his back to me turned, jerking his elbow and hitting me in the nose. He did me no damage, but it hurt.

  “Hey!” I cried out. Careful!”

  I blinked away tears, saw that it was a young orc woman. Her eyes were wide. Opening her fang-filled mouth, she shouted and pointed at me:

  “The Threat! Scyth’s here!”

  “Scyth’s here! Everyone this way!” came shouts from all around. “The Threat!”

  I had no chance with the Cursed Cripple debuff. I was surrounded and put down. I resisted, of course, but there was nothing I could do! My hits dealt no damage. They grabbed me by the arms and legs, started carrying me off somewhere. It seemed a raid was forming not against the boss of floor one, but against the Threat. Rare unity…

  “Throw the bastard into the Pitfall!”

  The face of a titan loomed over me, a label flashing above him: Quetzal, Titan, level 1 Summoned Destroyer. He laughed and pointed to his name.

  “You wanted to know my nickname, small fry? You’ll remember it, I promise!”

  “Of course I will,” I said. “You won’t mind me paying you a visit after the Games, right?”

  Quetzal spat and disappeared into the crowd. I forgot him about him right away; I had more pressing concerns. It was obvious I was about to die, but what then? Where was the respawn point? Would Cursed Cripple persist through death? Where would I run afterwards? I’d spent a long time lying awake the previous night, thinking about my strategy for the Games, but no matter how you plan, life always has a way of going awry. Sure, I’d expected something like this, but not right away! The village was a peaceful zone! I thought they’d ambush me or gank me inside the Pitfall…

  I was dragged out of the village, and apart from the ones holding me, all I could see was an eternally dusky sky, empty of sun and stars. I couldn’t tell where the zone’s light came from.

  Someone spat right in my face. The brown-skinned orc Marcus gripped my arm tightly.

  “Tail between your legs now, huh?” he laughed. “And you were so brave before, ha-ha! What now, buddy? Out of gas, huh?”

  “He never had any to begin with!” the spellcaster Youlang answered. “What do you think, Marcus, should we feed him to the boss after all? We can make him break the seal and throw him inside…”

  “Nah! No need to complicate things, we throw him off and that’s that! He’ll die, no doubt about it!”

  “Are you sure it’ll work?” Tissa said, appearing nearby. “He’ll definitely die?”

  “Of course,” Meister the gnome answered affably, his quavering voice easily recognizable. “I’ve fallen down before. The pathway down over there is ve-e-ery narrow! Some moron pushed me over the edge once! You fall for a long time and it seems slow, but the end is the same no matter how high your level. Nobody can survive that fall. Game mechanics!”

  I couldn’t see the jeweler, but I could clearly imagine him raising his index finger.

  “Can’t we just carry him outside the village and kill him there?” Infect asked.

  I couldn’t see the bard, which was a shame — I would have tried to stare a hole in him.

  “C’mon, kid, are you new?” Meister answered. “The whole Cursed Chasm is a peaceful zone on the first day. But the Pitfall is another matter entirely. Like night and day!”

  “What if you die? Where do we respawn?”

  Damn, he never shut up! That said, Infect’s questions were to my benefit.

  “The same place we all end our fleeting journey, kid! The graveyard. But that won’t help Scyth, we’ll just grab him and throw him off again. And then that’s that, the end of our little Threat, hee-hee-hee!”

  The others added to Joseph’s high-pitched laughter, and judging by the number of voices, at least half the contestants were part of the procession. Maybe all of them — I doubted the mob would let anyone start grinding while the rest were solving a problem for the whole group.

  I listened to the people and tried to make out the village, but I couldn’t see anything through the mass of players around me. Only once did I see a local through the crowd: Ogden, Tavern Owner.

  Finally, the procession stopped. The earth turned blackened, ash-covered. I caught the scent of cinders, felt heat rolling over me in waves — the Pitfall was near.

  “Cast him off! Cast him off!” the crowd started to chant.

  The noise of the crowd grew, but Quetzal’s roar cut them off:

  “Hold here! Everyone shut up!” He waited for silence and then spoke again, addressing everyone at once: “Due to the new rules and Amnesia, the old plan won’t work! We need to discuss this.”

  The titan destroyer and a few other leaders of the conspirators moved off to one side. While they discussed what to do, the rest shared their impressions. Loran, the shapeshifter Messiah, pushed his way through to me. He was in human form and looked similar to his real-world self. After seeming so friendly before, now he leaned over me and whispered:

  “Sorry in advance, Scyth. Last night’s agreement is canceled. I can’t go against the crowd. No hard feelings, right? Nothing personal, you’re cool. I’ll be happy to hang out after the Games…”

  “Quiet! Hey!” shouted Frankie the dwarf, one of my neighbors at the opening ceremony. He kept on shouting until he had the crowd’s attention. The cacophony slowly subsided. “You do know that Scyth can fly, right?” the jockey asked. “He’ll just fly away after he resurrects! Have you thought of that?”

  “Of course!” said a familiar voice from off to the side.

  Quetzal pushed his way through the crowd, stood next to me and turned to the others.

  “Here’s how it’s going to go, people! Stay calm, we figured all this out yesterday. All Scyth’s abilities are learned! The only thing we have to worry about is his ability to fly. We don’t know how much mana he’ll need for that, or whether he’ll have enough in the first place, but we’d better make sure.”

  “What about his teleportation?”

  “That won’t help him!” Infect shouted. “It’s useless at level one, and has a long cast time…”

  I ground my teeth. You bastard, Malik. You’ll regret this!

  “Alright,” Quetzal said, satisfied. “Destiny’s group will throw the Threat…”

  “With pleasure!” a woman interrupted him, her voice smoky and luxurious. The elf gir
l’s face appeared before me, Destiny the silver ranger. She pushed her way through to me, leaned down and hissed: “Hello to you from our whole clan, you piece of trash. The Children of Kratos always pay their debts!” Her slap brought tears to my eyes, made my head ring. “That’s for my friends Defiler and Taranis. Remember them?” Another slap and a triumphant smile on the elf girl’s face.

  Defiler and Taranis? I remembered them both well. The first was the reason for the short life of MonkeyWrench at Kinema, and the second had recorded my message to the world after the destruction of the portal in Vermillion.

  “I remember them both,” I said, spitting out blood. “And now I’ll remember you too, Destiny, and your pretty little face.”

  The ranger pulled her arm back for a third slap, but the gladiator caught her hand.

  “Enough!” Quetzal snapped. “He can’t fight back.”

  “Since when have you been so noble?” Destiny huffed. “Putting on a nice face for the public, huh? Maybe you need reminding of some things. Joshua…”

  “Enough bullshit!” Quetzal roared again. I was starting to get the impression that the gladiator didn’t know how to speak calmly. “You can settle scores later, Des! How many in your group, twenty? More than enough. The rest of you surround the graveyard and wait.”

  “Where are you going?” Tissa asked.

  “Forty people are going with me to the first boss. We’ll open the gates, get the Memory Scrolls and come back. We need those to remember our crowd-control abilities. Then we’ll surround the graveyard, and…” He turned to the silver ranger: “Throw Scyth off at my signal, no sooner! Or else he’ll fly away and we’ll have to scour the whole Cursed Chasm for him.”

  Quetzal’s raid moved toward the descent. Destiny’s group stayed with me. From what I could tell, this was an alliance made in advance, consisting of three Children and fifteen representatives of allied clans. Messiah was one of them. The others spread out through the village or headed for the graveyard.

  Ten minutes passed in complete silence. A shout from Messiah interrupted it:

  “Hey, Des, look!”

  “Those sneaky devils!” Destiny laughed. “Blacklist them all! We’ll take them out once we’re rid of Scyth.”

  “What is it?” Urkish the lopher asked, holding me by a leg. The elephant man spoke little and even asked the question lazily, as if he didn’t care.

  “Ten players leveled up to two. They broke the seal and went inside,” Destiny answered. “Damn, we had an agreement that there’d be no leveling until the Threat was dealt with!”

  “Who is it?”

  “Who do you think? Berstan, Kara, Hellfish… You know, the traitors: Modus, Travelers and some other losers,” the elf girl answered dismissively. “We’ll deal with them later. Oh, Quetzal’s group is out. Messiah, ask how they’re doing.”

  The shapeshifter came back five minutes later and reported:

  “All’s well, they’re headed for the graveyard. We wait for the signal.”

  Even I saw the promised signal — a gnomish rocket launched into the air with a whistle and exploded in a shower of sparks.

  “Take him to the Pitfall, boys!” Destiny commanded. They pulled me to the edge and then started swinging me back and forth: “On the count of three! One! Two! Three!”

  For a second I soared, then plummeted into the abyss.

  Chapter 7. Rindzin’s Ghostly Talon

  I FELL FOR SO LONG that I had time to examine the black walls of the Pitfall, speckled with fiery veins that belched fumes. Enormous gates flashed by like floors behind an elevator’s glass door, their numbers burning above and their seals glimmering.

  The deeper I fell, the less light there was. Now I could no longer see the walls, but I could tell by the fact that the gate seals were getting further away that the Pitfall was widening like the bottom half of an hourglass. It got hotter with every second, but the heat wasn’t damaging me yet.

  After a while, I found myself in total darkness that even the shining light of the seals and the burning numbers on the gates couldn’t pierce. When I landed, I felt only a flash of pain and saw a message:

  You are dead.

  Remaining time to respawn 9… 8… 7…

  A timer began to count down in the darkness, and once the time ran out, it was as if I rose from the bottom and soared above the Cursed Chasm. Once again, everything fell into darkness. Letters flashed up in fire:

  You have touched the astral plane and recalled your lost skills!

  But your new body is weak, so you will have to train your abilities anew.

  And I appeared at Cursed Chasm Churchyard. Interesting resurrection process.

  Freezing, I looked around.

  The world looked sepia, monotone. The interface was transparent, my experience bar was at zero. Another death would be my last. I couldn’t even see my own body, but I felt it.

  The graveyard was already surrounded. Quetzal’s raid formed the front line, all of them now at level two. I saw them, but I heard nothing apart from the white noise of the spirit world. The mouths of the challengers opened; the players were probably wondering why it was taking me so long to revive. Never mind. They could wait. The important thing right then was not to hurry, to think things over carefully.

  Opening my profile, I studied my recovered skills. The first thing I noticed was that I had none of my divine skills or perks, but my learned and class skills remained. Standard weapon abilities and Unarmed Combat, handy Stealth and Night Vision, the currently useless Cartography, Riding, Swimming, Persuasion, and…

  Meditation, level 1

  By meditating, you speed up your spirit restoration by 10%. Long hours of meditation lead to strengthening your spirit.

  Resilience, level 1

  Resistance to all types of damage increased by 1%. Pain sensation reduced by 1%.

  Only Hammerfist remained of the battle moves I wanted, and it was the ordinary version. That said, it would be enough.

  I moved on to my special abilities and swore under my breath. Depths Teleportation was gone. The skill wasn’t divine, but was clearly tailored for the Sleepers. Alright, what did I have..?

  Spirit Shackles

  Creates a 30-yard zone in which the souls of defeated players are pulled in and held for an hour. The owner of Spirit Shackles can choose: revive souls in place, send them to their respawn point or hold them in place until the timer runs out.

  Ghastly Howl, level 1

  You howl, filling your enemies with fear. The blood turns to ice in their veins, their soul sinks into their boots, their hair stands on end and they run away in panic.

  Duration: 10 seconds.

  Range: 10 yards.

  Flight

  You can fly without limits!

  Does not require mana.

  Clarity

  A special state within which your speed increases many times, and you can foresee the movements of enemies. Damage dealt with air techniques while in Clarity is doubled.

  Cost to use: 100 to activate and an additional 100 spirit for every second spent in Clarity.

  Not bad. Shame they took away teleportation, but the four remaining imba skills left me room to maneuver.

  Class skills: Imitation, Cloak Essence, Lethargy and Liberation. The first would be useful if I could fully level it up to completely copy someone else’s appearance. I didn’t need the second skill here at all. But crowd-control and anti-crowd-control would definitely come in handy. It was a shame Lethargy had a day-long cooldown. I’d have to use it as often as I could to level it up. It could come in very handy in the late stage of the Games… Although I still had to survive day one first.

  I moved to the list of perks. They were all still there apart from the divine ones! Obviously Snow Wanderer and Polar Explorer wouldn’t be much good here, but the others…

  Mightiest Punisher

  +25% damage against other players.

  Surprise

  When you attack first, you’re guaranteed
to sweep your opponent off their feet!

  Second Life

  After death, you revive in the same spot with full health.

  Dungeon Hero

  +25% damage and movement speed in instances.

  Strong Back

  +50% carrying capacity.

  Pioneer

  +300 feet to view radius, +10% to mounted movement speed.