Purgatory: The Devil's Game

by M. A. Carlson

  I nodded again. I looked to where I’d last seen the short man, but he was gone. I guessed that he and his companions had probably moved on to their own table. Or so I thought, until he and his companions were suddenly standing in front of my table, each of them with a drink in hand. A mug of beer in the hand of the man I met. A rambler of golden liquid, not unlike my own in the hand of the robe wearing man. The woman carried a tall cocktail glass with something pink and fruity looking in it.

  The man stated excitedly, “Finally! Decided to come for a drink, did you?”

  It was embarrassing, but I couldn’t remember his name. “Uh, yeah. I decided to finally take you up on that offer for a drink,” I said. “I don’t know if you remember, but I’m Victor, Victor Goodspeed,” I finished, offering him my hand.

  “I remember,” he replied, shaking the offered hand. “And I’m Theo, Theo Skjoldung. This is Rebecca West and Gunther Barlo.”

  I shook each of their hands in turn. “Would you like to join me?” I offered, motioning to the open seats.

  “Don’t mind if we do,” Theo replied, sliding into the booth next to me while Gunther and Rebecca slid in across from us. “So, what changed your mind about joining my friends and me for a drink?”

  “I decided I needed some friends to watch my back,” I replied, then added, “Billy wasn’t done with me. I got lucky today, but I don’t want to be in that situation again.”

  Theo nodded, “I did warn you. That man is dangerous, more than a few men have vanished after making deals with him.”

  That didn’t surprise me.

  “So, what are you in for?” Theo asked, confusing me.

  Rebecca snorted at the question. It was the first time I’d seen or heard anything from the girl. She was lithe as I remembered. Her skin was dark as was her hair, which was styled in a short cut afro. She had dark brown eyes that seem to sparkle with mischief.

  It was more of a surprise that Gunther was the one to elaborate. He sounded much older than he looked. Each word spoken clearly and deliberately. “He means to ask, why are you in Purgatory?” He was tall and carried himself like an old man. His hair was black and slicked back against his skull, showing a deep widows peak. It made him look a bit like Dracula from one of those old black and white movies my dad made me watch as a kid. That he was also pale kind of emphasized that.

  “I don’t completely know,” I answered honestly. “From what Petra, uh, the woman at the gates told me, I did something honorable when I died that kept me out of the other place. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite enough to go to the good place.”

  Gunther nodded.

  “I was a hacker,” Rebecca volunteer. “Becsbest was my handle. I was a white knight hacker. I stole a lot of wealth and redistributed it as I saw fit. I wasn’t even thirty when I bit it. They told me stealing was bad, but helping people was good. Sort of balanced the scales enough to give me a chance at Purgatory.”

  Theo laughed. “I always get a laugh at her stories. Those computer things sound like pure magic to me. The things man has come up with since I died,” Theo said, shaking his head and laughing again. “I was a warrior of the Skjoldung clan. I became a Christian when my raiding party came across a monastery. My raiding party and I figured, why not spare it. If Valhalla wouldn’t take us, a backup plan never hurt. Apparently, one of the Saints . . . uh, a favored of God, came from that monastery. Sparing his life gave me a chance here, allowing me to battle demons every day and then revel in it during the evenings. Best afterlife anyone could ever ask for . . . well, almost the best. I still think Valhalla would have been better.”

  A Viking. I was having drinks with an actual Viking. That was so cool.

  “Did you ever think that’s why you’re still here?” Rebecca asked, then took a sip from her pink drink.

  Theo looked at her funny, “Why would I want to be anywhere else?”

  Rebecca rolled her eyes. “You do know there is an entire army fighting a war with demons if you can ever get past Purgatory.”

  “Aye, and they’ll still be there if Purgatory ever gets boring,” Theo replied, making me laugh a little. It seemed the Viking was something of a battle maniac.

  I looked at Gunther, hoping to get his story but he ignored the look and chose to sip at his drink. Whatever it was, it was served neat. The golden brown was more like a brandy or bourbon.

  “Don’t mind Gunther, he hasn’t even told us his story,” Theo said, noticing where my gaze was. “Becs and I have a bet going on what he used to do. I say he was a hoity-toity nobleman.”

  “And I say he was a librarian,” Rebecca interjected before Theo could.

  Gunther just sighed and gave the two a withering look apiece before sipping at his drink again. He looked at me and said, “I do hope you have a little more decorum than these two children.” A statement that just reinforced my belief that he was an old man.

  “Bah, old fuddy-duddy,” Theo complained. “Don’t mind him. He acts that way, but he still casts his magic on us daily before we go into Purgatory. And you don’t do that if you don’t like the people you choose to spend your time with.”

  “Magic?” I asked curiously.

  “Does the word ‘buffs’ mean anything to you?” Rebecca asked.

  “Ah, I see,” I said. That was rather kind of the old man and did speak to him liking the other two.

  “Just my penance,” Gunther said softly, his eyes looking downcast for a moment before he focused back in on his drink.

  “Gunther is a real wizard,” Theo said. “I know it’s not the black arts, but it seems close enough. Still, I appreciate his sacrifice. Makes killing the demons considerably easier.”

  That was an interesting idea. I hadn’t given any thought to raising my soul, and if I did, I hadn’t given any thought to what I would want to learn. Maybe some kind of buff would serve me well. Something to boost my demonic resistance. That would make a heck of a difference in dealing with the sloth demons’ influence on me.

  “I’m an archer, if you hadn’t already guessed,” Rebecca volunteered. She seemed to be trying hard to be relevant to the conversation. Something she would need to be careful of in the future.

  Theo spoke up next, “I’ll be a warrior until the day I die . . . again. And you?”

  “Pretty much a warrior,” I said, at least that was the way my stats skewed from the start. I supposed if I had unlimited time to build myself up, I could focus more on the Soul. That was such a strange thought to have. I mean, what was my soul, really? Before I let myself fall down that rabbit hole of curiosity, I said, “I’m still new . . . at pretty much everything. I’m really just getting started.”

  “Well, if you want any advice, warrior to warrior,” Theo started, “Then I’m the Viking to give it to you. First, I need to teach you some proper war cries. You’ve got to be able to send the demons running for the hills. Second, always have a back up to your main weapon and a secondary weapon. Once you have those both up to a decent level, you can see about picking up your third and fourth weapon proficiencies.”

  I laughed at that. It sounded ridiculous. I asked, “Does that actually work?”

  Theo laughed. “The war cries, not yet, but it will . . . some day. The weapons proficiencies, oh yeah.”

  Gunther cleared his throat. “Theo may jest but if you really do seek advice, he has been here long enough to offer quite a bit of insight into the different weapons and weapon trainers. Last I checked, he has a proficiency with every weapon in history.”

  “But not guns,” Rebecca added. “No guns up here . . . down here? Whatever. No guns in Purgatory.”

  I assumed that was the case. Still, I was interested in the fact that Theo was a weapon master in his own right. How had he gained so many proficiencies? And if that was true, that meant he was strong. Extraordinarily strong. And if he hadn’t left Purgatory . . . been able to leave Purgatory, what chance did the rest of us have.

  Gunther continued, ignoring Rebecca’s interruption, but not
without giving her another withering look that made the girl shrink back, “If you wish knowledge of the divine and the soul, I may be willing to part with some knowledge. However, I do not know everything, I have only been here for . . . a hundred years. Has it really been so long?” The man frowned then added, “After a while, you tend to lose count.”

  I couldn’t imagine being in Purgatory for a hundred years. That sounded awful. Looking to the young woman, I asked, “What about you Rebecca? How long have you been here?”

  “First, call me Becs, everyone else does. And I think . . . fifteen . . . twenty years, I haven’t exactly kept count.”

  “Is that . . . normal?” I asked, then quickly elaborated, “I mean, being in Purgatory so long. Is that normal?”

  Becs shrugged, then looked to the Viking next to me and asked him, “Is that normal?”

  Theo shrugged. “No such thing as normal. I’ve seen some come and go in a few days. I know two who have been here almost as long as I have. Most though . . . I’d say fifty or sixty years.”

  That made me curious about Gunther, but I felt it would be in bad form to ask him at this point. I wanted to ask Asher what the norm was but thought better of it, given my audience. I didn’t need these people thinking I was talking to myself.

  “It’s different for everyone,” Theo said, then lifted his drink and began gulping it down, sloshing beer around the sides of the mug and soaking his beard with it. He slammed the beer down and belched loudly. “Time for another,” he said, then sauntered back toward the bar.

  “Such a barbarian,” Gunther complained with a roll of his eyes.

  “Indeed,” Asher said, with his typical bobbing nod.

  Chapter 11 – Too Many Demons

  Another day and another grind. I entered, slaughtered the first room, moved on to the balcony and started to leave to reset when Asher surprised me. “You should see what the library has available to offer.”

  I grinned excitedly, I spent the better part of two weeks grinding it out on the balcony, killing sloth leeches and building up a nice little nest egg of both unused points and crystals. A new challenge was just what I needed. Doing the same thing over, and over again, had become very monotonous. Just as I did the first time I went up to the balcony, I checked every stair going down into the library. At the bottom of the stairs was a small circular area devoid of any bookshelves, or other furniture. Immediately outside of that small circle of safety were bookshelves, chairs, couches, tables, and benches. I was sure I missed a few of the different pieces of furniture but it didn’t really matter. I knew well enough, the longer I stared at any of it, the more I risked being eaten.

  There were several options to start but seeing as I had a lot of practice recently with the bookshelves, I started there. I lined up my shot, stepped in and swung. My mace tore through the targeted shelf, splattering a few of the sloth leeches and sending another ten into a frenzy.

  I moved quickly back to the staircase to await my prey. But the leeches didn’t come . . . at least, not directly. They leaped in different directions from the bookshelf, hitting into surrounding bookshelves and furniture. Suddenly, there were three dozen sloth leeches and four large lesser sloth demons.

  Swallowing nervously and licking my lips, I tried to settle into my choke point. The sloth leeches came first. I used my shield and mace as best I could to stem the tide but there were so many of them. I smashed them with my mace, smashed them with my shield. I even stomped them under foot. I killed two dozen before the first of the much larger lesser sloth demons finally reached me. The choke point proved to be a disaster against them. A clawed limb shot forward, impacting my shield, knocking me back just enough that I tripped. Once I was on my back, it was all over. The leeches were everywhere, not that it stopped one of the big demons from adding on their own punishment.

  I sat up gasping. I was once again on one of the morgue tables. Thinking of the stone slabs as morgue tables made it really click for me, this room was a morgue. It was ghoulish but accurate.

  “That was horrible,” I said, shivering as I remember the little leeches crawling all over my skin.

  Asher bobbed. “Back to it.”

  I glared at the little fireball. He wasn’t wrong that I needed to get back to the grind, but he could have given me a few minutes to recover mentally, if not physically.

  I cleared the balcony again and once again, I turned to leave only for Asher to stop me. “You should try again.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked. The last time did not go well.

  Asher bobbed.

  “Any suggestions?” I asked.

  “The choke point isn’t going to work if you have multiple lesser sloth demons like that,” Asher answered. “You need to stay mobile.”

  “But then the leeches will overwhelm me,” I countered.

  Asher bobbed. “Maybe they will, but I say again, you need to develop a new strategy.”

  “Isn’t that why I have you?” I asked.

  Asher frowned. “I could tell you what to do. What steps to take and when to take them. But how much would you learn from that? I’ll tell you how much. Almost nothing. I can help you grow your body and soul, sure, but that does not guarantee a ticket to the Silver City. No. If you want to succeed, you also need to develop your mind and ability to think. It’s not enough to have a strong body and soul if your mind isn’t strong enough to use it.”

  I hated when he made a good point. I especially hated that he was so smug about it.

  “Now, try again,” Asher ordered.

  I cracked my neck from side to side and rolled my shoulders. I breathed out quickly and steeled myself. “Once more into the breach.”

  “Unto,” Asher said, making me pause.

  “What?” I asked, confused.

  “Your quote. It’s ‘once more unto the breach’. Not ‘into the breach’,” Asher explained. “Now, stop misquoting Shakespeare and get to killing demons.”

  I glared at the flame. “Is this really the time to be correcting me?”

  “It’s always time to correct you. That’s what I’m here for,” Asher replied smugly.

  I groaned. Once again, I cracked my neck side to side and rolled my shoulders. It was time to smash some demons.

  Down the stairs I went. I attacked one of the chairs first. I hoped that it wouldn’t disturb anything around it. Unfortunately, it did. Its arms swung out wide, knocking over furniture and bookshelves, sending the leeches into a frenzy.

  I tried to ignore the leeches, instead focusing on finishing the lesser sloth demon. Two more hits and it was dead . . . and so was I. I learned the leeches could not be ignored.

  “Will the third time be the charm?” Asher asked me as I tried to psych myself up for it again. “Somehow, I doubt it.”

  I didn’t spare Asher a glance as I moved down the stairway. I smashed one shelf of a bookshelf then quickly reversed my swing and took out part of another shelf. Despite not wiping the shelf clean, I did manage to take out a few more sloth leeches.

  After last time, I knew the leeches needed to die first or they would simply overwhelm me . . . again. But I couldn’t ignore the lesser sloth demons either. Instead, I used the lesser sloth demons to help me kill the leeches. The thing about the big ones was their speed, or rather their lack of speed. Their attacks were fast . . . if they were facing you. Turning around was a slow, arduous task for them. That and they were kind of clumsy, they never really looked where they were stepping. Hence, any leeches’ unfortunate enough to be caught under their feet, were going to meet a quick ending.

  I thought I finally figured it out. The leeches were dying, sure a few of them still reached me, but it was nothing compared to the way they swarmed me before. Then I took note of my EP. I had spent so much time trying to move quickly and dance around the demons that I hadn’t been paying attention to how quickly I was burning through my energy.

  I finished the last of the leeches and that was it . . . again. With my EP empty, the lesser slot
h demons obliterated me.

  “Again,” Asher said as I looked at the stairway down, feeling more than a little trepidation.

  “Are you sure?” I asked. We were wasting a lot of time with this.

  Asher bobbed.

  I sighed. I knew how to deal with the leeches now, I just needed to make sure I conserved more EP. Psyching myself up again, I went down for another round.

  Thud-crack! My mace impacted with the ribs of a lesser sloth demon, caving in its chest cavity, and killing it. I breathed in great gasps of breath as I looked at my EP bar, ‘2/100’. I finally got past the leeches and even manage to kill a couple of the lesser sloth demons. It was great progress as far as I was concerned. Seeing the attack coming and knowing I couldn’t move fast enough to get behind the demon before the attack came, I tried to raise my shield to block the claw swinging toward me. Sadly, I just didn’t have the energy to lift my shield.

  Despite the painful death driving toward my face, I was elated. I had sort of figured out how to fight a group of the demons. Yes, I took a little more damage from the swarming sloth leeches, but once they were defeated, I was mostly free to move and slowly whittle down their much larger friends, the lesser sloth demons. Unfortunately, I over did it with the one I just killed. I rushed it. I could have continued moving into the demons’ blind spots, letting my EP regenerate. Instead, I was about to die.

  Then my EP ticked up, ‘10/100’.

  I grinned. I might yet survive this fight. I moved my shield as fast as I could, placing it between the demon and me. The strike impacted and I saw a flash of red. My HP dropped again, ‘14/100’. I grimaced. One more hit and I was going back for respawn. I moved with a purpose, getting under the still extended claw, and circling around behind the beast. If I could manage to stay behind it, I could win. It would be the longest and most boring fight in history, but a victory was a victory.

  I moved with the demon, always keeping my EP in mind. Waiting for it to tick up as it slowly drained down. Every other tick up, I could attack. I slammed my mace into the monster’s kidneys . . . or where the kidneys would be on a human. I moved again, waiting for my next opportunity to strike. Two minutes later, my opportunity came. Ten minutes later, I was alive, and it was dead.