NOVEL SIMPLE
Chapter 126
Chapter 126
[Azmoth has the class ‘Infernal Crusader Initiate.’ Due to genetic
makeup, class title benefits have integrated with species traits.]
Riven stumbled and nearly fell over before being caught mid-stride walking through the garden at the back side of the manor. The neon-teal leaves of the tree overhead shuddered and quaked, and he found himself needing to catch himself yet again on Jose’s tombstone when a pulsing wave of heat rippled across the black, red and silver flowers that decorated the walkways.
And then all went still again, and Riven shared a curious glance with Athela before hurriedly walking over to where the heat wave had come from.
The old stone chapel that Azmoth now was making his own home was only a couple dozen yards away, across the garden and behind the manor where Riven now lived. It was a far bigger room than the smaller ones in the manor could offer such a large demon, and Azmoth had volunteered to stay there after scoping out potential places to call his own. fr𝒐m freewebnσvel.cøm.
Coming around the side of the old ruined building and entering through a wide archway without a door, Riven froze when he saw Azmoth inspecting one of his arms.
Though Azmoth had undergone a significant change.
Azmoth’s body was generally the same shape and composed of the same materials, but he was slightly bigger and meaner-looking. Just previous to selecting the class before the class title ‘integrated’ with the species traits Azmoth had, the thick black iron plates covering Azmoth’s body had left large gaps inbetween them to expose red and sinewy muscle that lacked skin. Here, however, those gaps had significantly decreased and had mostly been replaced with more of the black metal. More spikes had also been added along the ridge of his neck and head to boot.
The effect made Azmoth look like a titanic, demonic black knight of sorts - with a tail, four arms, no eyes, and two eel-like maws made of black metal that gnashed their teeth and flickered with cinders. Only small slits of red muscular flesh were now seen between the plates, and Azmoth’s body had become something of a living set of armor.
His movements were still fluid however, and he turned his sightless gaze upon Riven with a grin to expose the usual rows of obsidian teeth while picking up his gigantic stone maul. Resting it on a shoulder, he waved with his two free hands. “Class count body as armor and give more bonus. We go now?”
Riven looked the large demon and his exterior metallic exoskeleton up and down with newfound appreciation. “You really look the part of a doomsday knight my friend. Congratulations on picking a class! And yes, we’re going. Fay’s staying behind with her brother unless I need to summon her, she’s having… family issues. Anyways have you had a chance ot try out your new ability yet?”
“Dome of Flames?” Azmoth muttered, looking down to a notification that appeared before his face - and he shook his head. “Try later. I burn down house if stay here. Let go.”
***
Walking down the cement road towards the remnants of the half-destroyed hospital, Riven saw a couple decaying bodies of humans that hadn’t been there prior to the last time he’d been here. Some of them were being fed upon by birds like roadkill, but they all had obvious gunshot wounds - indicating that they’d been killed by other humans instead of from monsters, goblins or anything else.
He avoided the remnant bodies of the men and women who’d been killed by the nightmare creature too, frowning at the memory of these creatures rampaging through the crowds.
He kicked open the hole they’d patched in the floor leading to the basement, shoved some rubble and remnants of Athela’s webbing that was still there, and dropped down into the dark.
The stench hit his nostrils immediately, and he nearly gagged at the putrification that the clown-like dream creature was undergoing at this very moment. He stood in a puddle of the necrotic ooze leaking out from the massive beast, along with some of the smaller bodies of other dream creatures, and he kicked the clown monster’s corpse for good measure while walking by in a spiteful act of retribution for the headache it’d given him back then. There were no signs of anyone having ever returned after the mass exodus when the creature had attacked, the basement being completely devoid of any life, and he alongside his two minions found the sewer entrance in the back room without incident. freēwēbηovel.c૦m
He dropped down yet again, feet landing on the hard stone of the sewer’s walkway while his eyes immediately adjusted to the deep black of the tunnels beneath Brightsville.
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“Which way?” Azmoth asked after his huge body slammed against the floor with a loud, thudding boom. The newly formed black armor was so fucking sick, and Riven could only shake his head with a large smile of approval while looking at his unholy paladin that flickered with smoldering flames here or there at random. The huge stone maul Azmoth wielded was very similar, and it too simmered with heat while the demon stood to his full height to tower over the others.
Athela waved away the dust that Azmoth had kicked up, giving the bigger demon a grimace, and pointed left. “That way.”
Riven nodded in affirmation, holding out his staff to confirm Athela’s gesture and stepped ahead. “Let’s go.”
The tunnels were devoid of any heartbeats other than the small rodents and amphibians that somehow lived down here in the muck without getting herpa-ghona-syphil-aids, but that wasn’t reason to be without caution. The armored wyrm creatures that’d attacked him last time down here came as a swarm, they were ambush predators and Riven hadn’t picked up any heartbeats from them last time either. The battle between Riven, Athela, Snagger, and the swarm of wyrms had left huge numbers of the creatures dead - but that didn’t mean there weren’t more.
The tunnels turned and twisted a couple times and then led down further into the ground where it connected with a large cave system that spanned many hundreds of yards out in any direction, no doubt attached there by the system on purpose when fusing the three worlds together. It had many stalagmites and stalactites, a couple pools of water far cleaner than the sewage pockets from up above, and a couple patches of bioluminescent moss. This was the real entrance into the Underdark, and Riven had been instructed to meet Snagger here.
Riven was not disappointed.
Already standing in the middle of the cave was Snagger, accompanied by three more ratmen each quite a bit smaller than Snagger was. Snagger looked the same - a scarred, brown-furred, muscular ratman that stood up on two legs like a human to be a little taller than Riven was. He wore the same spiked knuckle pieces he’d used to bash the wyrms with when Riven’d first met him, and had the same worn leather chest piece across his front as well.
Unlike Snagger, who looked like he’d eaten roids for breakfast for the past 9 years, were the three other scrawny ratment nearby. Each of them only stood to be somewhere between four and five feet tall. Two of them were colored gray, while the other had white fur instead, but all of them had long bare tails and large ears like Snagger did. Riven couldn’t tell if any of them were male or female because of the rags and cloaks they wore around their upper and lower bodies, but one of the gray colored rats carried a caster’s staff and the other two carried daggers and slings. They all perked up upon Riven’s entrance, chittering in hushed tones to one another while Snagger stepped forward and came to greet the vampire himself.
“It is happy-good that you-we meet here!” Snagger chittered in the same raspy voice Riven remembered. “We-I am excited to show-introduce you to my nest-brood. Come-come, I will show-tell the name-signs of my kin-brood!”
The ratman was obviously excited to have Riven there, and Riven couldn’t help but feel the same way. Despite everything else that was going on in the world, he was here meeting creatures akin to aliens and going likely where no man from Earth had ever gone before - into the Underdark. This was the kind of stuff books were written about.
“Good to see you too, Snagger. I’d love to meet your friends. By the way, this is Azmoth - I know he wasn’t there with us last time but he’s another of my demonic servants.”
The ratmen were already evaluating Azmoth with wary eyes, or at least the newcomers were. Azmoth’s foot was enough to crush them to dust, and the huge demon’s form-fitting obsidian plates were a testament to the enormous strength underneath.
“A strong minion-demon-slave, yes-yes. You are certainly-truly powerful-strong!”
Snagger nodded enthusiastically and raced over to the other ratment on all fours, being just slightly faster than he’d have been on two legs and showing Riven that Snagger and his species likely could run or walk either way depending on what suited them at a given moment.
Snagger motioned to the white-furred rat first as Riven approached. “This is Mesha-kin, my cousin-kin.”
He then motioned to the gray-furred rat with the staff, and the other gray-furred rat with the twin daggers. “Cheshish-kin and Bort-kin. They help-fight with me-me and Mesha-kin. We take jobs-fights for the brood-nest and mother-queen, we explore the surface-city and upper-higher Underdark, try-find helpers and ally-friends.”
Mesha, the white rat and apparently Snagger’s cousin, bowed low and offered her two daggers out hilt-first towards Riven. Her voice was far squeakier and higher-pitched than Snagger’s, and she kept her eyes low upon her own introduction. “I-we heard-listened to story-tales about you, great vampire mageling. I thought you summoned-kept only one demon slave-servant, but you acquired-have two? Much impressed-awe, not an easy-flimsy thing-item to do.”
“I actually have three. One of them is on personal business.” Riven silently snickered at the way Athela was giving the rat people a dirty look at the mention of ‘slaves’ when referencing his two demonic minions, but kept his humor underneath his mask. “Alrighty then. I believe you were going to show me around your nest? Is it like a city, or… What should I be expecting here? Either way, I’m rather excited to find out. I’ve never been to a settlement created by your people before.”
“You-you have not?” Cheshish, the gray-furred caster rat asked curiously, adjusting the leathers he wore so that they weren’t too tightly bound.
It was a conversation he’d already had with Snagger, but he was patient. Riven shook his head. “Nope. On my world, Earth, your people don’t even exist there. Or they didn’t, Earth isn’t around anymore as it was incorporated into Panu.”
Mesha cut into the conversation with wide eyes, stepping over to evaluate him in more detail. “Interesting-fascinating. Maybe why your eyes are red-bright, and not red-dull like other bat-vampire friends we-we have. We come-travel from Zazir world-planet, but we will show-see you to our nest-city. It is very akin-like to other nest-cities in the underdark, and you will be welcome-friended there! Travel-follow me-me!”
“Zazir huh? I don’t think I’ve met anyone from the third planet. Everyone I’ve seen so far is either from Earth or Zazir…"
And that was when Riven heard it. The rapidly increasing heartbeats from further down they tunnel. His eyes narrowed, and he peered further ahead until he focused in on what looked like a helmet…
Yup. That was definitely a helmet, a set of eyes, and a long brown beard on a face peering out at him from around a ledge further back. The clicking of bolts being loaded into crossbows was vaguely heard, and then a shout-squeak of alarm went up from Snagger as a flurry of incoming missiles launched themselves through the tunnel towards their position.