Demon Core - Chapter 4: I'm coming back to you, no matter where you hide

Chapter 4: I’m coming back to you, no matter where you hide

~ [Abydos] ~

Human, Male, Painter LOCATION: A small town, far outside of the city LEVEL: 05

Herbal smoke drifts around from the inside of the old parlor, rising up through the broken hole in the ceiling as he stands there. He’s on top of the roof, next to the hole, staring towards the stars above the place that he is renting. It’s a small town, far away from the city.

His eyes are wide and reverent, as his hand runs the wispy brush over the filling canvas, in what amounts to a foolish mortal’s attempt at capturing the heavens’ impossible iridescence, on a medium as simple as a canvas, with tools as primitive as paints and a single brush.

— He only has one brush. He had to choose between buying more colors or more brushes. He chose the colors.

Abydos’ fingers accidentally graze the damp stroke that he leaves behind, smearing it a nudge to the side, in a distorted swirl and he, in response, simply lifts the brush back over the fresh mark and spins it around, deepening the swirl, the imperfection.

That’s what life is all about, isn’t it? Making the most out of what you have.

His eyes wander back towards the freshly broken ceiling down at his feet and then down through the hole, towards the rubble lying down in the room below. A curled up rope and noose lie there, beneath the structural debris of a broken beam that simply wasn’t strong enough to hold his weight up aloft in the air for more than a few seconds.

He doesn’t weigh much. However, the material that the building is made out of is simply very, very old and brittle. It’s the only place that he could afford to stay.

Being an artist is hardly lucrative.

Abydos rubs the sore mark on his neck and returns to his painting.

From that bad thing, came a good thing. That’s life.

He, after his failed attempt at finding an artist’s peace, had seen the stars through the roof and decided to climb up with his materials to be just a little closer to them.

He hates it, the… limitations of this world. His heart longs for something it can never have, its beats drift aimlessly through existence, like the vapors or incense that rise up from his room below.

The human condition is as limiting to his desire to capture the essence of starlight as is the medium of paint and fabric. But it’s the closest that he can manage to get. It’s the closest to it that anyone can manage to get.

His eyes wander up towards the sky, which begins to darken. The stars begin to hide behind heavy clouds that roll in with surprising speed. Abydos sighs, ruffling his unwashed hair as he watches it all change, as if the model body that he was sketching had decided to simply get up and walk away in the middle of the session.

The rain begins to fall, striking heavily down all at once.

You are suffering from: [DEMON-SICKNESS {01}] ! [Corruption] ||[{Minor} Nausea] || [{Minor} Disorientation]

[DEMON-SICKNESS]

You are within the befouling presence of the Demon-King. The longer you stay here, the stronger this effect will continue to stack, until reaching either the point of minimum DARK resistance or death.

With each increasing stage, the symptoms will become more severe, possibly becoming permanent.

Duration Remaining: 23:59:59

His eyes go wide, his skin stinging as the corrupted rain strikes him, burning off a piece of his cheek.

He screams, but not in pain for his physical body. The painter dives to the side, throwing himself over the freshly painted canvas like a warding mother, protecting her young. Its ink seeps into his shirt, imprinting the image of the starlit sky onto his breast as the demon-sickness takes his body and soul. More yells come from around the small town, the peace of the night having been disturbed.

Abydos rolls, falling not off of the roof, but instead down into the hole that he himself had made.

Clutching the painting against his chest with both arms, his back cracks as he lands over the broken beam. A gasp escaping his mouth as he stares up through the gap one last time, seeing a tiny sliver of starlight twinkling through the dark clouds.

Rain falls into his mouth.

~ [The Demon-King] ~

Level Up! ~ [The Demon-King] ~

You are now level {59}! Level: 59↗ Experience: 1088/45500 Attribute: DARK Soul-Points: 118/118↗ Presence: 11.5 km ↗ Obols: 000

~ [Achievement Unlocked] ~ ‘Twinkle, Tinkle’ Unlocked By: Killing a member of the common races with acid rain Reward: All SLIME-type monsters gain an additional level of acidity

Heavy rain cascades down around the carriage, striking against the roof of the thing. It sounds much like the tapping fingers of scared children, trapped outside in a howling storm, knocking to be let back into their warm homes. The thunder roars, howling as if it were the monster in the darkness, nipping at their little heels.

Beauty…

Swain stares out through the open side wall of the carriage that Cartouche had lowered down into a stage of sorts. The caravan has stopped in the middle of the road, in a large section of forest. His eyes wander up towards the sky, dark, staring at both the rain and the night.

— It’s such an abstract, difficult thing to grasp — Beauty.

The demon-king lifts a hand, watching the rain strike against its massive, bulky girth. His many eyes observe carefully as steaming droplets run down along his long fingers, evaporating from the heat. Behind the silhouette of his hand, gruesome undead with melted faces and burnt hair and clothes stand outside of the carriages, entirely motionless. The large, bi-pedal birds that pull the carriages are much the same. They all stay in the rain, frozen in place like beautiful statues, hewn of bone and meat, sculpted by the chisels of misfortune.

The water, falling down around them all, sizzles, causing the air itself to hiss.

Here, where they are, within his presence, the rain is far lighter than it is outside of the radius of the horrific demon-sickness. Most of it is evaporating from the intense heat that it collects on the way down from the sky, before ever even reaching the ground.

And yet, here still, the rain is heavy.

Outside of his territorial radius, it must be an incredible torrential downpour; a true storm.

Swain finds it oddly befitting that such a thing would come now in his departure from the only place he has ever known. It feels as if it were a theatricality, sent by the graces of nature itself to offer its assistance as a stagehand to his opening act of creation.

The demon-king looks back behind himself, staring into the painted, colorful old carriage. The wood is old and weathered and the paint is plastered on in vivid, overly colorful tones, likely in order to hide the dead, rotting dreams that reside inside of the rickety construction. It’s akin to a child’s open grave, dotted with colorful, but ugly flowers.

The chairs, the small table in the corner, the mirror in which Cartouche had been getting dressed up before, trying to find some jewelry that hasn’t melted, are all still there. But now there is one difference regarding the curtain in the back of it.

— He pulls it to the side, staring at what lies beyond.

An impossibly long, dark hole, full of the damp vapors released from horrific faces comes to greet his thousand gazes. The cylindrical shaft, leading down into the depths of the world, has an inner walkway along its sides, connecting to rooms and chambers that diverge off into cave systems or into ornate arenas.

The dungeon.

It’s as if someone had taken a great needle and pressed it down into the world, but then pulled it out and left behind a hole where there ought to be sturdy rock and damp soil.

Despite there being nothing on the other side of the carriage, despite there being not a single hole down beneath its wooden floors, here-in lies the entrance to the demon-king’s castle.

He finds it fitting, in a way. There’s a sense of humor in it. The carnival is a place where people go to find tidbits of token joy and bodily pleasures at the expense of the dreams of the others who are trapped to work here, in a place ironically unbefitting of a deeply joyful soul.

“Should we stop here?” asks Cartouche, looking over her shoulder, adjusting a fake, golden earring. “We’re still pretty close to the city.”

Swain turns to look back at the dancer, silhouetted by the heavy rain for a moment. Hundreds of eyes glow in the darkness beyond.

“We can stop long enough to prepare the act,” replies the demon-king as he wanders through the curtain and down into the dungeon, down towards the real throne-room.

They’ve bought a lot of time. But there is a lot of work to do. He will need a few more helping hands.

The demon-king uses one of his many still unused ability points to take a new ability.

NEW – (DEMON KING) ABILITY

[Greater Undeath](Passive)

Undead are simple entities for the most part, but the spark of life remains nonetheless, imprinted on their core.

Effect: Allows all of your RANK F, E and D UNDEAD type minions mental capacities, as well as abilities, corresponding to double their innate INTELLIGENCE and WISDOM values

The undead all around the carnival set to motion, beginning their work outside in the howling, hissing rain that doesn’t bother them in the least. Their glowing, orange eyes float vacantly in the darkness, like a drifting swarm of fireflies, lost in the storm.

~ [Achievement Unlocked] ~ ‘I Used to do Some Stuff’ Unlocked By: Helping someone raise their INT by three points. Reward: All INT boosting buffs you can apply will gain an additional 03% bonus

~ [Achievement Unlocked] ~ ‘Been Around the Block’ Unlocked By: Helping someone raise their INT by six points. Reward: All INT boosting buffs you can apply will gain an additional 06% bonus

~ [The Demon-King] ~

NEW – (DUNGEON CORE) ABILITY

[Traps](Passive)

Dungeons are more than just walls and monsters. There are many intricate, deadly mechanisms at play.

Effect: Allows you to design and set traps within your dungeon.

NEW – (DEMON KING) ABILITY

[Spatial Room Refactoring](Passive)

The rooms of a dungeon are often simple, primitive constructs. However, a true designer knows how to push the boundries of the obvious.

Effect: Allows you to design your dungeon’s floors in a much higher level of complexity, through separation of spaces with walls, mechanics and other barriers.

Swain sits on his throne at the very bottom of the dungeon, the throne-room having the same design as the last one. He swipes through his abilities, taking the ones that he thinks will be useful to him immediately.

He then turns his gaze, looking at the map of the layout of his dungeon.

The dungeon, the castle, goes deeper into the ground with every further segment that a person moves through. Some floors share the same height, others are deeper down. But they are all connected to each other via hallways, corridors or stairwells and primarily, via the main path that is along the inside of the hollow shaft — At least in the places where it isn’t broken and destroyed, forcing anyone to walk through a predetermined separate route.

There’s a bit of a game to it all, dungeon design, which is fine. It is a carnival, after all. Isn’t life about having a little fun?

Swain reaches into his gut, pressing his massive fist through one of the mouths on his side. The eyes on his body around it bulge, squirming around as if he were choking them with his penetration.

His fingers grab hold of something that feels right.

It feels squirmy and soft, yet rough. It feels like a burlap sack, wrapped around a drowned infant.

The demon-king closes his eyes to speak with the soul, to offer it another chance at the game of life.

(Swain) has used: [Summon Worker {01}] SOUL: 114/118

~ [Abydos] ~

Human, Male, Painter LOCATION: ??? LEVEL: 05

He swims, floating through the void that is dotted with so many glowing lights, as if he too, were one of them.

Abydos drifts around the endless ocean that he finds himself inside of and moves towards the hundreds of pinprick lights all around the void. Souls, hundreds of them, glow, as would stars in the night sky.

He wishes that he had a brush and some paint.

But no matter how far he swims, how hard he kicks and pulls and moves with this new, strange body of his that seems to be a spiritual form, rather than a physical one, he never gets any closer to any of the others here.

— He never gets any closer.

Abydos stops, floating there for a time as he looks down at his hands. He can’t tell if his body is sinking or not as he stops kicking, or if he’s just floating, drifting through the emptiness now, just as he had done in life.

He lifts his fingers up above himself, framing an image of a hundred lights that are all collecting together, trying to save it in his memory for when…

– For when what?

He’s dead.

Abydos lifts his arm to his mouth and sinks his teeth into it, ripping the threads that make up his new body apart. He pulls and tears on them, until a piece comes off, a strand of his soul. The painter begins fraying the ends of it, making a brush’s head out of a piece of himself.

But no matter how hard he works, trying to pry the ends of the gnawed off thing apart, it just… he just…

— He just never gets any closer.

Frustrated, he throws the piece of himself away, screaming. His voice is the only thing that echoes out around the darkness, carrying on for what might be forever, as it vanishes into the looming emptiness.

He hangs his head, lowering his eyes so that he doesn’t have to look at the thing of beauty that he can see, that he can sense, but that he can just quite never manage to touch, in any sense of the word.

It’s quiet.

“You’re looking in the wrong place,” says a voice, a sudden voice. It rumbles, roaring through the water like a land-born tremor, carrying across the ocean. Abydos opens his eyes, but always stares down. “The ink, the soul, the essence of the thing that you’re trying to capture… it’s not possible with hands like yours, with a body like yours,” it rumbles. “— In a world, like yours.”

Abydos lingers for a while and then lifts his head, only a little, looking at the tear that has opened itself up in the nothingness of eternity. “So… what do I do?” asks the painter, not sure if he’s speaking to god or to his own delusions or to anything else in between. But he doesn’t care. Whoever it is, whatever it is, if it can tell him anything, give him anything, so that he doesn’t have to go empty handed out of this world… “What do I do?!” yells Abydos, swimming for the single glow that he can see nearby. It is the glow of a thing greater and larger and more significant than any of the other thousands of floating stars around himself. It’s as if he were drifting towards the sun, rather than to the pittances of the other presences in the sky.

His fingers reach for it, grazing its exterior as he feels the texture of something separate from himself for the first time since his death. Just… touching something, anything, it feels good.

“Find beauty,” replies the voice, as something grabs his hand.

“Beauty…” mutters the painter, his eyes drifting across the void as he considers the name of the beast that he had sought for all of his days. “But how… where is it?”

“— Somewhere else,” replies the voice that rumbles in his ears.

Abydos is yanked out through the gaping hole in the void.

~ [The Demon-King] ~

The painter flops out onto the stones, covered in wet afterbirth. His body, his eyes, his hair are all changed, as had been the case for Cartouche as well, who is standing next to the throne. It is simply a part of the process of change, perhaps fueled by the digestive elements of the interim state of such revived souls.

The lanky man, thin as a whisper, hacks out mouthfuls of bile on to the floor.

Swain reaches back inside of himself, pulling out a second piece of the man, one that had become separate from him. He had torn it off of his own soul.

The demon-king looks at the little thing, the strand of spiritual energy, frayed and tattered like the head of a painter’s brush.

— How fitting.

NEW – (DEMON KING) ABILITY

[Soul-Crafting](Passive)

Souls can be molded and shaped into a variety of things, some more tangible than others.

Effect: Allows you to use the souls of the damned in order to create physical, tangible objects.

(Swain) has used: [Soul-Crafting {Demon Painter’s Brush}]

The colorful, vibrant piece of wet fabric-like essence in his hands stiffens, straightening up into a single, hard piece of rounded wood with many thick bristles at its end.

{Unique}[Demon Painter’s Brush]

An extremely high quality painter’s brush, made from a piece of a soul. It has the ability to change its bristles, stiffness and length depending on what the artist needs most at the moment. However, one must be mindful, as it has an odd tendency to make all paints somewhat darker when applied. Weight: ??? Value: ???

~ [Gallu]{Demon Painter} ~

– Worker Entity –

The Demon Painter is a powerfully gifted Gallu, able to channel the essence of souls into his brush in order to create anything and everything that his heart desires.

Class: MINIONElement: DARK Type: WorkerCategory: DEMON* Rank: A Level: 59 [Painter] || [Red-Water {04}] || [Wild-Hunter] || [Lamashtu] HP: 118/118SOUL: 118/118 *A demon’s stats are based on the LEVEL of the demon-king. Its affinities are based on its past life.

[Corrupted Muse]: The MUSE that this person had once possessed has been converted to DARK.

All PAINTER abilities will shift, adapting to the powers of creation possessed by the demon-king.

The painter rises up to his feet, holding his sleeved arm over his mouth, his wet hair obscuring half of his face as he looks towards the demon-king, who holds out a hand with the brush towards him.

He takes it, holding onto its other end and nods.

Swain nods back.

~ [Dungeon] ~ Reestablished Area Graveyard {Level 01} A desecrated, unholy graveyard that has been befouled by the horrid taint of the demon-king.

Level {01} Effect: Summons {01} [Imp] for every {08} slain combatants buried here.

The graveyard is in and of itself, perhaps somewhat redundant, given that the mass of physical bodies have been outside of the dungeon thus far. But this is bound to change sooner, rather than later.

The new graveyard is established at the very bottom of the shaft, in the center of it.

Swain finds that he rather likes the imagery. Not only is it a practical place, because anyone who dies will likely fall down, landing down right into it. But also, there’s… something to the idea that he enjoys, taking the dead with him as they burrow to the underworld.

The artist stands next to him and looks at the room, lined with crude headstones and lifts his fingers, framing the space.

A moment later, he paints, swiping the brush across a headstone.

(Abydos) has used: [Demon Painting]

The graveyard shifts and changes, stones moving around and new ones rising up out of the dirt, made out of far cleaner and more intricate craftsmanship than the ones before. Plants of many colors, all muted, grow along and around the area.

~ [Dungeon] ~ Upgraded Area! Graveyard {Level 02} ↗ A beautiful, unholy graveyard that has been befouled by the horrid taint of the demon-king. Flowers of sorrowful shades grow along weaves of ivy. Moss covers the stone paths, running between the many unmarked sites of rest.

Level {01} Effect: Summons {01} [Imp] for every {08} slain combatants buried here.

Level {02} Effect: Summons {01} [Shadow-Person] for every {12} slain combatants buried here.

The painter looks at the changed graveyard and then back down to his hands, covered in the ink of souls.

Cartouche nods to him and then lifts a hand. Ghosts crawl out of the gaps beneath rocks and from the crevices in the thick, scream-muffling walls of the dungeon. They ooze towards her, like slime as the song of her dance begins to play and the dungeon starts to change.

The graveyard continues to change, shifting and morphing into something now far more distant from its original design. Strong, straight walls sprout up in the area, morphing from gravestones into barriers that line the way. The ivy, growing atop the tombs, snakes and winds its way along the construction, pushing through fresh veins, growing in a newly developing body of a gestation in a womb.

The flowers bloom, sitting on the walls, vague, ethereal glows releasing from the opening blossoms, together with a fine, golden particulate that drifts through the dark air, filling it with pin pricks of light.

~ [Dungeon] ~ Upgraded Area! Graveyard {Level 03} ↗ Hidden within the heavy walls of the labyrinth lies a forgotten graveyard, full of the bodies of those who have been swallowed by the world. Blossoming flowers adorn the graves and the walls of the maze and wild moss grows over the floors, making them slippery to the unprepared.

Level {01} Effect: Summons {01} [Imp] for every {08} slain combatants buried here.

Level {02} Effect: Summons {01} [Shadow-Person] for every {12} slain combatants buried here.

Level {03} Effect: Summons one [Corpse-Collector]

~ [Achievement Unlocked] ~ ‘Home is Where the Heart is {01}’ Unlocked By: Upgrading your first room to level 03 Reward: All floors of the dungeon gain a passive self-repairing functionality, restoring any damage caused by outsiders at a slow rate without any further intervention.

~ [Corpse-Collector] ~

– Manifested Entity –

A being made entirely out of winding shadows, the corpse-collector is a crawling, creeping presence that moves only when people aren’t watching it. It sneaks out of dark holes and wet graves at night, in order to steal the unguarded corpses that it can find, in order to drag them back to its graveyard.

The corpse-collector will never fight. Instead, it will go out by itself to collect any and all bodies within the territorial radius of the demon-king.

Class: MONSTERElement: DARK Type: CreepCategory: LURKER* Rank: C+ Level: 59 *LURKERS will never engage in direct combat

[Leaking Shadow]: The corpse-collector can meld into any existing shadow and move freely between them. But it can never traverse a bright area.

In order to obtain a corpse, it will crawl into the shadow of the body and then crawl into the lightlessness inside of its hollow, fleshy shell, in order to possess it to movement and guide it back to the graveyard.

The demon-king watches as a large, rail-thin shadow rises up out of the labyrinth. The eyeless, faceless entity with a spindly body and long, sharp, skittering arms and legs, lowers itself in a bow of sorts.

— It then vanishes, pulling away into the darkness to begin with its task of filling the graveyard.

This isn’t a bad development. After all, there are plenty of corpses out there. It would be a shame to let them go to waste.

Swain lifts his gaze, looking up the spire, towards the distant pinprick of light that is the entrance to the dungeon. They’re six floors down, which is hardly deep in the grand scheme of things. He feels that in his pursuit of this thing that he’s chasing, they’re going to be working much harder, they’ll be needing a much stronger force of security, in order to stay safe long enough.

He may be powerful, but there are other powerful forces and people in the world too.

Besides the point, it’s a long way to walk up and down every time.

NEW – (DEMON KING) ABILITY

[Active Dominion](Active)

The exchanging flow of energies between a dungeon and its core are as intertwined as the movement of blood is bound between veins and the heart.

Effect: Once a minute, allows you to teleport anywhere within your own dungeon — As long as there is currently no hostile presence there or in the way of your movement.

(The Demon-King) has used: [Active Dominion] to teleport to [Floor One]{Empty}

Swain lands, the stones crunching together beneath his feet as he arrives back up on floor one in an instant.

In the ‘fake’ dungeon, he had left the design fairly simple, because of the matter of time. Those were rudimentary, empty boxes, full of monsters and nothing more than that.

But this…

The demon-king runs a massive clawed hand over the surface of the wall.

— This is much, much more.

Opening a finger, he runs a claw against the wall, ripping it apart and carving his words into the crumbling stone surface.

Marching forward unto tomorrow,

Move the boots of men abound,

Across the soil that holds the bones with their mothers’ marrows,

Deep down beneath the cold and distant ground,

Never forget the faces of the dead,

For they live on, always in the back of your head,

– Whispering.

The room rumbles, brick shifting and moving as the dungeon constructs itself according to his wishes. The sides of the room break apart, crumbling to fall down a slanted edge into the distant shaft of the core dungeon. The entrance to the dungeon is now a single, straight bridge with a deadly drop on either side of itself. Massive archways rise up from the sides, enclosing themselves around it like the wrapping of greedy fingers around a prize.

Odd, gnarled trees and ferns sprout out of the ceiling above, dangling red, seeded, pomegranate fruits above the bridge.

~ [Dungeon] ~

[Section 01 – Lust] [Floor 01] {The Gate to the Underworld}

Howling cries rise up from the deep darkness below, together with the sweltering heat of the demon-core. Nothing but despair awaits any living person who might enter beyond this point.

Room Effects: Gate to the Underworld — Anyone who enters here will be tormented by the spirits of the wailing dead, disturbed from the depths of true sleep.

Underworld Fruit — Partaking of any food or drink while within the underworld will bind your spirit to it forever.

SOULS COST PER MONSTER: F-Rank: 01 E-Rank: 02 D-Rank: 04 C-Rank: 08 B-Rank: 16 A-Rank: 32 S-Rank: 64 SS-Rank: 128 SSS-Rank: 256

The words that he had carved into the wall with his claw vanish, fading away as the dungeon begins to repair itself.

(DEMON-KING) has used: [Horrific Regurgitation] Cost: {1024} COLLECTED SOULS

~ [Underworld Spirit] ~

Underworld spirits are an advanced form of ghost, taking on the visage of any person that someone holds in the back of their minds and hearts, they do this to lure them into the darkness.

If foiled in their attempts to get an intruder to eat or drink from the bounties of the underworld, they will turn extremely violent.

Class: MONSTERElement: UNDEAD Type: ILLUSIONISTCategory: GHOST* Rank: A Level: 40 [Red-Water {04}] || [Wild-Hunter] || [Lamashtu] HP: 54/54SOUL: 54/54 *Ghost’s are immune to PHYSICAL damage

[A Face I Once Knew]: The ghost, akin to a mimic, will transform itself into the image of any lost person inside of a person’s heart.

Swain lifts his gaze, watching as hundreds of spirits rise out of the depths, wailing as they rise to the trees. One of them flies past his face and he swipes it away, the illusion breaking into a shower of feathers as he walks through the cloud to continue on with his work.

Just as a poem needs stanzas or as a story needs chapters, the dungeon, too, will be broken into different pieces of design. Each section of the dungeon will contain several different floors and each of these sections will be themed to an overarching element. The themes will be based on cardinal sins.

The demon-king thinks that this is fitting, in a way.

There’s a deeper beauty to it, to the way such concepts align now and then in life.

The intricacies of such ideas flows onward through the days of the living, like the water of a never ending river.

~ [Ruhr, the River-Sorceress] ~

Human-Half-Elf, Female, Sorceress LOCATION: The Graveyard, The Demon-King’s Dungeon LEVEL: 92 Rank: SSS

— Something thuds.

Ruhr lays on her back, her hands held up past the sides of the man whose back she’s lying beneath.

Her eyes are shut in a grimace, her face scrunched together as she pushes everything she has out through her hands. Warily opening one of them, she peeks through, looking at the raging serpent that has shot out of her arms. It’s made entirely out of water, its body the size of a ship of war. The high pressure blast crashes against the rubble above their heads, boring through the stonework.

She doesn’t know how long she can keep this spell going.

They’re pinned beneath the rubble. She can’t get up and she can’t see anyone else, the rocks and the dirt are all around her, pressing against them, their backs flooding with dripping water, as the spell drips back down towards them, drowning them in their own grave.

Zacarias holds the heavy, thick shield of royal metal up, catching all of the smaller rocks that fall down their way.

“Hold tight,” says Zacarias.

“Huh?!” yells Ruhr, looking past the broken arm that juts out the rubble towards her face, to yell into his ear. “What do you think I’m doing?!” She winces, not sure which part of her body is hurting and which part isn’t. It’s all sort of blending together.

“I’m gonna give you some juice.”

“You’re gonna what?”

(Zacarias) used: [Royal Prerogative] Transfered 25% of MAX-SOUL to (Ruhr) for 4 hours

“Wow. Thanks,” yells Ruhr, rolling her eyes. Water is starting to collect around her ears. But she can’t float with the man on top of herself, but he has rocks on top of him. “I’ll just keep going until we drown, then.” She tsks, turning her head. How could she have been so stupid, to let a dungeon trick her? “You’re heavy as fuck, you know?” shouts Ruhr into his ear, trying to overtone the roar of raging water.

Sure. It’s the demon-king and not just some dungeon, so it’s a little different. But still.

“Don’t thank me yet,” shouts Zacarias. He rolls his head, looking over his shoulder to try to look down at her. “Aim that spell the other way!”

“Oh, you want me to drown us faster?” she asks. “Sure. I can do that! Hold tight.”

Ruhr awkwardly pulls one hand back in, maintaining the spell with the other hand. She places the palm of it down below herself. “You have a plan… right?” she asks.

“If I say yes, will you just do it anyway?” shouts Zacarias.

“There’s about a tower’s worth of dirt and rock above our heads,” says Ruhr, trying to get as much water as she can to collect back up into the spell that’s burrowing towards the surface. But more and more of it keeps leaking down back to them, as her soul-points are beginning to burn through. She gets the spell ready in her second hand. “So I don’t know what you want to do, but you better do it now!” she yells, pushing the last bit of magic she has into casting the same spell, but now in the other direction, down just below herself.

(Ruhr) has used: [Aquatic Dragon]

She feels Zacarias spinning around beneath his shield on top of them. Her body shoots upward from the force of the spell, pushing both of them upward immediately, through the hollowed out shaft the spell had been digging through.

(Zacarias) used: [Noble Barrier]

A prismatic sphere of holy, magical energies radiates around them, taking up the shape of a glassy, translucent wall that absorbs the cascade of crashing water and rubble that falls down over their heads as they rise upwards.

The shaft below fills with water, turning into a well filled with bones and with people who she can only hope are really dead, before the creeping water that seeps through the stones can get to their pinned bodies far down below.

Zacarias yells something into her ear, but she can’t hear it over the sound of the roaring dragon, made up entirely out of water, that charges upwards from the depths back towards them, having run out of space to grow.

— The two of them fly out of an open grave and land on the mushy soil of the graveyard, rolling to strike themselves against a headstone.

The aquatic dragon shoots out of the grave and into the sky, mixing in and vanishing within the howling rain of the storm that rages out here, as if it were returning to its own kind.

The barrier remains active around them, hissing as the droplets from above strike against it.

Ruhr pushes Zacarias off of herself.

“That was a good idea,” says Ruhr, looking down at her robe.

“Right?” asks Zacarias, rolling onto his back with his arms out at his sides as he breathes and stares at the sky. “It’s my job to babysit spoiled noble’s daughters, so I’m used to stuff like this,” he explains. “You’d be surprised at how complicated and common kidnappings can get.”

“Huh? I wasn’t talking about you,” she replies. A boot plants itself down onto his breastplate and he turns his head to look at the blue haired woman standing above him, her hands on her hips as she stands with straight posture and looks down towards him with a smugness, fit for the demon-king himself. “You can feel free to thank me, for saving us -”

“Huh?”

She laughs a coy laugh, that is perhaps more theatrical than real. “- Ruhr! The River-Sorceress!”

“…Huh?” he asks, blinking.

He thinks he’s laying on some woman’s grave. But the soil has collapsed in, as if it were empty.

~ [The Demon-King] ~

What was her name?

Swain wanders the halls of the castle, working his way through it to fill it with creatures and machinations of his heart’s design.

Her name.

…Her…

The demon-king stops where he stands in the darkness, watching as a thing slides by past his feet, a shadow, tugging on a bloated corpse, dragging it down to the graveyard.

His clawed hand rises up to his face, the mouths on his body leaking fluid into the open eyes all around them that scan the area around him, as if they could see the answer there.

But none of his eyes, in his mind or his head, can picture her.

But he can still taste her. He can taste the dust of her bones, he can taste the smell of wildflowers — both sweet and cold on lips.

She wasn’t the first one that left him, he remembers… His mother, she had left too.

Swain holds his head, his eyes darting around the room.

The leaving of people is a constant theme, the transitionality of moving from one place to the next, even if that means leaving something or someone else behind.

He turns his head to the side, looking at a wall, smooth.

The demon-king lifts a hand, placing it against it.

~ [TRAP] {Enchanted Mirror} ~

An enchanted looking-glass that allows people to see what their life could be, should they choose to live free of pretenses and go after their true heart’s wish.

Trap: When looking too closely, the monster in the looking-glass will reach out and drag the victim inside, switching places with them in the real world.

Whatever this person’s true desire was, the reflection will then pursue it with relentless effort.

Swain stares into the mirror.

It’s a good trap. It fits to the design and what he wants for the dungeon, for the castle.

But his reflection just doesn’t make any sense.

It must be an oddity of the dungeon-magic, of his power as the demon-king. The trap’s spell must simply not work on him.

The demon-king shrugs and walks off to continue his work.

The humans will recover from their failure. They’re resilient creatures, they’ll be here soon. He has to be ready. The carnival is an excellent idea for safety, but he needs time to recover his powers, which he can’t do if they’re on the move. The castle takes an incredible amount of magic to sustain by itself.

— His eyes wander back over the reflection of a boy holding a goose.

The demon-king shakes his head, walking off into the darkness, his steps thundering out around himself.

~ [Cartouche] ~

Gallu, Female, Dancer LOCATION: The Demon-King’s Castle LEVEL: 59

Cartouche looks at her body, examining it in the reflections of the waters that collect down at the bottom of the dungeon.

It’s dark, there isn’t much light, apart from the glow of the flowers atop the graveyard. But she can see perfectly well, despite all of that.

The dancer looks at her fingers, that have healed from their mars and burns. She looks at her forearms, which have healed from the scars around her wrists. Her skin has changed, from the darker, redder tone it had once carried to something… softly blueish gray, like silver moonlight. Her eyes are a vivid yellow.

She feels stronger, more in tune with herself than she ever has before. She feels like every move of every dance she had never been able to master would be a triviality for her now, at least to attempt.

The dancer picks at her ears. They’re not round, like a human’s. They’re sharper, but shorter than an elf’s.

‘A world in which she can find beauty, true beauty’.

— A shiver runs up her spine at the thought, her bracelets jangling in the darkness. Her heart, still, feels as if it were racing like wild.

She’ll do anything for that.

She sees it too, the sheer, overwhelming ugliness of life. After all, how couldn’t she? She was confronted by it every day. Ugliness tossed coins at her as if she were being stoned in a public square. It grabbed her wrists and yanked her from the stage. It made her sit in the carriage behind the curtain and reapply her makeup between every one of her dozens of daily dances because she cried it off after every performance ended.

What’s happening now to the world outside is anything but ugly.

It’s necessary. It’s the slimy, damp bursting of an old cocoon in order to release the true thing of beauty that is trapped so deeply inside of it.

Cartouche holds her hands clenched above her heart, her head held down low as she’s trying to figure out what feels odd in her body, in her cheeks. There’s a pulling sensation. It feels warm and good.

The demon looks up towards her reflection again, bare, and spins once before the water as she sees the thing that is new.

— A smile on her face.

~ [Ruhr, the River-Sorceress] ~

Human-Half-Elf, Female, Sorceress LOCATION: The City, Front Gate LEVEL: 92 Rank: SSS

“Ow!” hisses Ruhr. “Knock it off!” she snaps, turning her head his way.

Zacarias sighs. “See?” he asks. “Told you. Standard spoiled brat kidnapping procedure,” he explains. “This happens every odd few times.”

Ruhr crosses her arms, rolling her eyes. “I can’t help it,” she says. “If you hadn’t landed on me, I’d be perfectly fine,” says the woman, looking down past his arms, carrying her in front of himself, at her ankle. It had sufficed to get up and out of the hole and then even to stand on him for a while. But after they started walking a few steps, it just gave out.

“They make us take very specific classes on this, actually,” he explains.

“What…? Carrying people?” asks Ruhr.

“Carrying nobles’ daughters,” he explains. “It’s a whole thing,” he says. “Two weeks of nothing but carrying sacks shaped like people in very expensive dresses.”

Ruhr rolls her eyes as they step into the city. It’s a war-zone. Buildings are collapsed, fires are still smoldering here and there and the dead are being collected in the streets.

“Why the hell?” asks Ruhr.

“Apparently, rescuing someone with noble blood in an undignified manner is bad for their image,” explains Zacarias. “Don’t ask me,” he says, feeling her look. “But that’s how it is in noble-society. They have very specific social rules about a lot of things.”

He steps over a corpse, making his way back to the cathedral.

“We’re going to get back and report that we failed,” says Zacarias.

A finger flickers his nose from below. “Are you stupid?” she asks. “You moon-brain,” says the woman. “How the hell do you think that will look for my brand?”

“Your what?”

Ruhr shakes her head. “Ruhr! The river-sorceress doesn’t fail her missions,” says the woman. She leans back, holding her hands behind her head, as if lounging around and crosses a leg, her gaze wandering towards the sky. Zacarias fights to keep his balance with her fidgeting. A sly grin grows over Ruhr’s face. “— We succeeded.”

“What?” asks Zacarias.

Ruhr pokes a finger against his chest. “You and I are the only survivors of the successful destruction of the demon-king’s castle,” says Ruhr. “Sadly, he escaped before we got to him, using some obscure demon-magic.”

He blinks, looking at her and stops. “We can’t lie to the bishop,” says Zacarias. “I won’t.”

“It’s not a lie,” says Ruhr. “It’s just a little more marketable,” explains Ruhr. She looks around and then leans in up towards him. “Nobody needs to know what really happened, okay?” she asks. “The facts add up the same way. It’s just a retelling of the same story.”

Zacarias groans, walking on through the city. “I don’t know…”

— A gust of wind hits his face as she purses her lips and blows at him. He blinks, scrunching his eyes for a moment.

“Have I let you down yet?” asks Ruhr, holding her hands in front of her face “Trust me, I’m a professional, okay?” She tilts her head.

Zacarias sighs. “I won’t lie,” says the man. Ruhr frowns. “- But I will let you tell the story.”

Ruhr beams in gleeful delight, her eyes lighting up. “We’re gonna make a good team, Zaccy.”

He frowns. “Don’t call me that. It’s Zacarias.”

“Zariri?” she asks.

“No. Zacarias”

Ruhr frowns. “How about just Zac?”

“Zacarias,” replies the royal-guardsman. “Don’t get too comfortable,” he warns. “I’m sure that we’ll be out on a new assault before tomorrow is over.”

Ruhr stretches herself out, making a show out of yawning as she fidgets around. “Then I’ll make the most of it now,” says the woman, pulling the brim of her hat down over her face and closing her eyes.

~ [The Demon-King] ~

Level Up! ~ [The Demon-King] ~

You are now level {60}! You are now level {61}! You are now level {62}! Level: 62 ↗ Experience: 1088/67250 Attribute: DARK Soul-Points: 124/124↗ Presence: 12.1 km ↗ Obols: 000

Swain carves his poem into the rock, creating the next room. The dungeon rumbles, taking shape to his wishes.

~ [Dungeon] ~

[Section 01 – Lust] [Floor 02] {The Final Precipice}

Hope treads with a person, striding alongside the beats of their hearts. But here, at the edge of the world, where the underworld begins, the resilience of such concepts are put to the test.

A half-moon platform that looms over the abyss. The inner walkway that leads down through the core shaft begins here.

Noxious gasses spout from crevices and cracks in the walls, filling the air with vapors that rise together from the sweltering heat of the demon-core.

Room Effects: [The Entrance to Hell]: TOXIC fumes affect anyone with a WIS lower than {20}, causing them to hallucinate multiple stairways down that do not actually exist.

SOULS COST PER MONSTER: F-Rank: 01 E-Rank: 02 D-Rank: 04 C-Rank: 08 B-Rank: 16 A-Rank: 32 S-Rank: 64 SS-Rank: 128 SSS-Rank: 256

Tomorrow, the humans will be here again. But he will be recovered and the carriage will be able to move onward, down the road. So now, in the quiet hour before sunrise, is his chance to truly prepare for the incursions into the castle.

Beauty is an ephemeral concept that must be chased by active, busy hands. Idle hands that hold no work, no love and no yearning passion are truly ugly things.

The painter is off down in the depths, coming to his understanding of his new life and mission.

Swain looks to the side, down off of the ledge, where Cartouche is practicing her art.

— The dungeon rumbles, as more and more of it grows.

– [Dungeon] – New Areas

Floor {07} Floor {08} Floor {09} Floor {10}

The demon-king stands, watching the darkness expand all around himself, the creeping shadows growing deeper and deeper, leaving him standing there as a monstrosity bathed in void.