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

by Dan Sugralinov

  “Thanks,” I answered, shaking my head and beating my fist into my palm. The gesture took a couple of seconds thanks to Sloth’s Blessing. “No.”

  I started to stretch out my hand to take the necklace. The idiotic debuff made the motion painfully slow, and Meister, still holding the necklace, urged me on in annoyance:

  “Come on, Scyth, you can be more decisive than that!”

  “I think he’s being as decisive as he can be,” Bloomer chuckled. “Don’t forget, Scyth has a new patron saint! The sloth!”

  I finally took the epic from Meister’s hands and studied its properties. It was called Demonic Necklace of Hatred and it added on average at least fifty points to strength, stamina, agility and perception, and a little to attack speed and critical strike chance. In big Dis, Crawler would have sent a find like this to the auction house or given it to one of the mining foremen, but here and now the necklace really was a treasure.

  I put it on, noticing with satisfaction that my health tripled, and only then did I see the previously hidden side-effect:

  Enemy of the Inferno

  You are wearing a Demonic-class item, created with a soulshard from a higher demon. For all creatures of the Inferno, you will always be the most hated target. Removing this item does not remove the mark.

  “Now you’re a tank who can hold perfect aggro,” Meister laughed, studying my reaction.

  “You knew?” I asked, not particularly upset.

  “This is my sixth time in the Games, young man. I learned the recipe back in the first. Of course I knew. You don’t mind, do you?”

  Remembering my surprise for Meister, who didn’t yet suspect that he would have to pray to the Sleeping Gods and lose the blessing of the other gods, I laughed:

  “Not at all…”

  Equipping the gifted armor, I missed the moment when the sounds from outside began to mix in with the diverse hubbub of the hundred or so voices from my allies: portals snapped open, tearing through space, magical attacks flared up, there were screams and groans.

  “The Desters are here!” the engineer Joker shouted. It took me a moment to realized he was referring to Destiny’s raid.

  The gnome, who was set up not far away, started to rotate his turret, but wasn’t fast enough. Riker the rogue appeared behind him and sliced his back into bloody ribbons. Smoothie appeared out of Invisibility in front of me.

  “Did you think it was all over, boy?” The question came at the same time as a cast web. “We’re only just getting started!”

  Reflexively flying away, I realized what she meant: Smoothie had left a beacon, and now warriors were coming out of it from three portals, not just Destiny’s, but Marcus’s too. That was what they were talking about yesterday! Our enemies were fewer in number than Meister’s people, but far superior in strength and combat capabilities.

  The thought flashed up and disappeared, leaving only adrenaline coursing through the veins of my real body. My allies hid me from the main bulk of enemies, but I had to deal with the ones nearby: Smoothie, Riker and four more rogues, attacking us from behind. They hurried to finish off their targets instead of me, and I realized why when one was about to move toward me, and another, the saboteur Enigma, reminded him:

  “Don’t touch him! Save him for Des!”

  The damn slow from Sloth’s Blessing made me an easy target, but left an ace up my sleeve. A weak one, but no less unpleasant for Smoothie. In the time since the battle, I had restored enough spirit points for the self-guiding spiderweb to hit me only after I reached the mage girl to deliver a single blow. Thanks to my equipment, my strength was multiplied severalfold, and my Crushing Hammerfist killed Smoothie in one. The mage girl lost her second level that morning. My battle was only just starting.

  A gap appeared in the crowd of contestants and Marcus the bruiser rolled through it like a huge boulder. Bloomer moved to block his path. The poet waved two curved sabers, but the orc sent him back to the graveyard with one monstrous strike.

  “Get the net off him!” Roman the troll curser roared, gesturing at me, but his words went unheard.

  He managed to fire some curse off at Marcus, but the bruiser withstood it, swayed and just waved his huge stone club. That simple movement hammered the troll into the soil like a nail. The minotaur’s hoof finished off the writhing curser.

  Behind Marcus’s back, his raid, united with Destiny’s players, were crushing the craftspeople and artists of Meister’s group. They were resisting, of course, but they had no chance.

  “Scyth is mine!” the silver ranger shouted when she saw me.

  Her arrow pierced Meister’s chest as he bravely attacked one of the rogues. The gnome dropped to his back, but survived. Michelle managed to hit us both with a Healing Wave before two rogues at once tore her to shreds. My view was blocked, but I could make out several of Meister’s people dogging Destiny, raining strikes down on her…

  Who-oo-osh! Something rustled in my inventory. In the heat of battle, I didn’t notice right away that I’d gotten a curse from who knows where:

  Overburdened

  Your bags are filled with enchanted iron ore. It can’t be used or pulled out. The ore will disappear when the curse ends.

  Duration: 30 minute.

  “Aiaiaiaaaa!” screamed the fairy chef Laurie as she desperately attacked Marcus.

  The orc bruiser swung his club like a baseball bat and sent the breathless fairy flying. A bloody cloud hung at the point of contact.

  Marcus cast a glance at me, saw I was still caught in the web, chuckled and attacked Lordmance. That quiet boy with a permanent sleepy expression on his face had apparently answered Roman’s call and was sat on my back, trying to remove Smoothie’s web. His class of mystic allowed him to summon astral beasts by smoking a magical pipe. He managed to materialize one, weak and too small to tear the web, but it disappeared anyway after a sickening crunch and squelch that left only a wet mark of the mystic. The bruiser hit slowly, but every strike dealt colossal damage!

  Marcus spat, looked behind him for another target, snarled. Then he walked around me; holding his club to the earth with one hand, he grabbed me from behind by the neck and started tightening his fingers. I struck randomly behind me a few times, but wasn’t fast enough.

  “This is the end, Threat.” Foul breath drifted down to me. “Des is going to kill you, and I gotta tell ya, the right to do it cost her a lot. But she won’t lose anything, and the Windsors can afford it…”

  “Quetzal and Hellfish are here!” came a cry from the edge of the clearing.

  My heart quickened. Was help really here? Hellfish’s appearance cheered me up — Kerry must have gotten my message across, and the Traveler had made a rational decision. But I wasn’t the only one surprised by the arrival of Quetzal’s raid.

  Marcus looked to the side and frowned. He shouted and swore, giving out commands:

  “Back in formation! Tanks to the front! Rangers, to me! Des, finish off the kid!” I felt fingers closing around my neck, breathed in brokenly, but the orc wasn’t letting go.

  “With pleasure,” Destiny wheezed, breathing heavily.

  The silver ranger headed toward me from twenty paces away, unslinging her bow as she went. Bloody from head to toe, with half her health gone, she smiled. The way killers in films smile when they finally corner their victim.

  What a shame my four-times slower Ghastly Howl wouldn’t work! I still fired one off all the same — instead of a terrifying howl, what came out of my mouth sounded like a dying cow screaming its last.

  Destiny deftly drew back her bowstring…

  Chapter 19. Escape Pentagram

  …BUT DIDN’T HAVE TIME to fire before she froze like a stone statue. Only then did I hear the wail. The sound was like fingernails on a chalkboard amplified a thousand times over. My ears blocked up and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I didn’t bother trying to figure out what it was, just concentrated on my lucky break.

  The web had already finished by t
hen. Thanks to the new gear from Meister, I was still at over two-thirds health! Marcus still had his hand around my throat, although his grip had weakened. I twisted, failed to get free, but managed to turn round to face him, then fired off Storm Fists.

  Transformed into an immobile mannequin, the bruiser just bared his teeth and twitched, unable to overcome the paralysis. He had a minute-long Deathly Terror debuff, the cause of the petrification.

  Boom! Boom! Boom! Marcus withstood a dozen Hammerfists before he finally died. His fingers uncurled.

  Now I had a chance to look around. I tried to take off, but fell back down again instantly — I could forget about flying with the Overburdened debuff.

  Slow as a snail, I moved toward Destiny to kill her before the debuff ended. As I walked, I looked across the glade. It was littered with the corpses of Meister’s people.

  Our enemies were frozen as living statues, becoming defenseless targets for Quetzal and Hellfish’s united group. The two raids of allies numbered a little over twenty, and they feverishly cut down the motionless Markers and Desters, as the players had come to call the members of the two groups.

  The fact that they had become allies was clear by the titan destroyer, who put down Destiny’s people in droves, the rider Dave, cutting through the battlefield on his ghostly horse — the little hobbit wielded a narrow blade, slicing his enemies into cabbage, — and Tissa and Infect. The priestess of light imprinted Hand of Nergal on the enemies, and the bard inspired his allies and maligned the enemy with guitar riffs. Arioch the bogatyr, around the same height as a titan, broke spellcaster Youlang in half with one mighty blow from above. A careful and tentative, but joyful thought rose up inside me: Tissa had saved me with her reward, Banshee Queen’s Cry! What was this? Help from a friend, or an order from her leader Quetzal after he decided to protect me again?

  The allies worked as a cohesive group: Berstan and Filex the rogues attacked our enemies in the back; Kara the mage, Olaf the warlock, Yen the archer, and the hunters Koba and Perant shot their targets like fish in a barrel. Shemshur the tamer, aka Theodor Novak, who I shared a table with on day one, was armed with throwing axes.

  “Thirty seconds!” shouted templar Alison, now nothing like the girl I’d seen drunk to the point of unconsciousness at the Boom Boom club. She fought with focus, her cheekbones scarlet and her eyes burning.

  “Let’s speed it up, people!” barked Hellfish, who couldn’t have put two words together last night. “Don’t spread your damage, focus fire!”

  Quetzal gave the same command, and then, noticing that I was approaching Destiny, he shouted to the sniper:

  “Fish, help the kid with Des, she has shields, I can’t take her alone!”

  “On my way!”

  The two leaders launched into Destiny, whose eyes whirled furiously. The werewolf sniper shot the silver ranger in the back. Quetzal immediately put himself between me and the elf girl, then smashed both her legs at the knee with a single ferocious strike. The ranger fell down, but survived and withstood a range of other attacks and hits from Hellfish before she stopped twitching and her eyes glazed over.

  “Three seconds!” Anna shouted. Miss Commonwealth was furiously jabbing her spear into Geyserix, a henchman of Marcus, but she wasn’t going to finish him off in time. “Help me!”

  “Step on it, guys!” Hellfish shouted furiously.

  But they weren’t fast enough.

  When the Banshee Queen’s Cry effect ended, the remaining Markers and Desters came back to life and returned to the fray with renewed fury. They were clearly in the minority, and leaderless. Expecting no danger, I almost decided to stay and see how it all ended, but my common sense won out — I still only had one life left. Shame I can’t fly off! I thought, stepping back to the edge of the glade and hoping my allies would finish off my enemies so I could wait for Overburdened to end and take off into the sky.

  The slow pace was infuriating — running, running, but not getting anywhere, like in a dream. I’d managed to walk around fifteen feet when one of the Markers died in the center of the clearing, the light priest Inchito. The instant before his death, he cried out a prayer to Nergal. No god came to his aid, of course, but a shining silhouette split off from Inchito’s corpse, spread huge wings, took off into the air and hovered.

  Quetzal was the quickest on the uptake:

  “Scyth, fly away!”

  “I-I-I-I ca-a-a-a-aan’t…” came my drawn-out answer. The gladiator widened his eyes, looked at my debuffs, saw I couldn’t escape.

  “All to me! Cover Scyth!” Quetzal shouted. Leaving their unfinished foes, his people began to retreat. “Hellfish, get your guys here!”

  “Raid, everyone to the Threat!” Hellfish commanded as he ran. “Sixth defensive formation! Rogues into stealth! Focus on the squishies!”

  Orders streamed in from both leaders. The contestants on the battlefield leaped chaotically into action. Only once I was boxed in by the members of both raids did I understand from their chatter what was about to happen.

  “Shit! Inch managed to get it after all…” Kara swore in surprise. The ice mage stood before me, her arms cast wide, ready to drop a Snowstorm on the heads of reviving foes. “Mass combat revive. Even more imba than Scyth’s tricks! Where did Inchito get that?”

  “It’s a perk,” Quetzal answered. “He got it not long before the Games.”

  “What do you expect from the strongest light priest in the world?” Equilibrium muttered. “Look, it’s starting!”

  Sunlight filled the glade, triumphant organ music began to play as if from the air all around. Columns of light descended, lancing into the bodies of Marcus and Destiny’s people. With the sound of breaking glass, the gleaming columns dispersed and fired down again into the land around Inchito. Disappearing again, this time they left behind players, revived and rising. Marcus stood and shook himself off; Destiny smiled wickedly as she proudly straightened herself.

  Once they had all revived, the shining winged silhouette of Inchito disappeared into thin air.

  “That’s it now, Inch won’t revive until tomorrow,” Blondiecat the paladin said, nervously biting her lip.

  Apart from her and Equilibrium, Quetzal and Hellfish had put another paladin next to me, Yermak, who I’d thrown into the chasm on the second day. Judging by his friendly slap on the back, he didn’t hold grudges. All three of the leaders gave orders to cover me and throw shields on me if necessary.

  The four strongest raids of the Demonic Games stood opposite each other, each side waiting and sizing up the other. The fifth, and largest in number, was busy reviving at the graveyard. The lull after the shattering sound deepened into dead silence, as if the usual sounds had been sucked out of the world — the birds of the Chasm stopped singing, the grasshoppers paused. The trees emitted a barely audible creak and stretched their branches toward the corpses. The grass around the bodies writhed and filled with red, like a mass of leeches feeding on blood.

  Suddenly, aggressive guitar chords beat against my ears. Infect stood next to Tissa, playing rousing hard rock. The enemies answered with the flash of combat buffs spreading across the raid.

  “If it gets close, I’ll put you in Iceblock,” Kara whispered to me. “But…”

  The battle began before he could finish. The air crackled with lightning and fireballs, roots and puddles of acid grew beneath our feet, arrows, bolts and bullets shattered against shields.

  Twenty of Hellfish and Quetzal’s people stood against almost a hundred of Marcus and Destiny’s. I had enough time to see that we had no chance, and decided not to hide, but instead to try and take at least a couple of them down with me.

  The enemy melee fighters and a few pets and minions started rushing toward us. Running up and gaining speed, a massive stone golem rammed into our ranks, tossing the tanks in all directions. Behind him came a gigantic praying mantis, its scythe-like arms snapping back and forth. A three-foot-long dragonfly that reminded me a little of Iggy hovered above the glade
and began to spit clumps of poison at us.

  Quetzal took on Marcus, and when those two gladiators collided, the whole clearing shook. I watched as the titan destroyer parried a mighty strike from Marcus’s club on his arm, reeled back, but stayed standing. Then my view was blocked.

  Destiny came under attack from Naiterio the druid, who had transformed into an invisible panther. I grimaced as he was ground into the dirt, watched in horror as our rogues got waylaid on their way to the healers and mages, dying uselessly.

  The almost fivefold advantage in numbers of our equal-level enemies reared its ugly head in the first seconds of the battle. A couple of minutes later Equilibrium cast a bubble on me as he tried to fight off three foes, shouted for me to get away. I gladly would have done, but I couldn’t go far at a turtle’s pace. Kara didn’t have time to fulfill his promise of enclosing me in Iceblock; the mage was interrupted, then attacked, pushed away. He tried to Blink to the edge of the battlefield, but didn’t make it.