A Demon’s Blessing

Even though the deep echoing voice seemed to be coming from everywhere at once, the elf and fox both turned towards the decapitated head that had rolled halfway across the floor. The voice wasn’t coming from the head, but it had started to rise up into the air.

Azalon cursed and quickly reloaded the crossbow, but Ravingari gently placed his hand on the stock and shook his head. “Wait… I don’t think we want to anger this one.”

The floating head suddenly burst into flame. The monster’s shrunken flesh melted under the intense heat until nothing remained but a grinning blackened skull. The thunderous voice shook Azalon’s very bones when it spoke, “Puny creature. There are none who may avoid my wrath. However… though it would please me greatly to watch your flesh slowly peeled away from your bones, you have defeated my servant. I am now bound to grant you a boon.”

The elf and fox shared a look before the voice roared, “Speak! I will not be made to wait on mortal timidity!”

Given the elf’s baffled look, Azalon decided that he had better speak up, “Great one! My companions and I seek entry to Rakenhold, great city of the mighty Rhysh empire. We ask for the sashes, worn by the empire’s citizens, in order to be allowed access.”

The flaming skull turned in his direction and screamed, “Do you think the Black Flame of Desire is a fool! There is no empire. There is only its corpse, which you seek to devour like all the other grave worms before you.”

Azalon cried out in pain as the dangling tortured bodies decorating the tomb around them were all suddenly set ablaze. He collapsed on the ground in agony from the reflected pain as the flames consumed the last two tormented humans. His anguish was thankfully short. The fires were hot enough that the creatures were quickly incinerated, their smoldering bones raining down into the flaming trenches below.

“Nevertheless, you have proven your strength. Take my blessing and go forth. When you have proven yourself worthy to my three brothers you will be granted that which you seek.”

The presence that had possessed the skull abruptly departed. The tomb grew dim as its fire was quenched and the skull clattered on the ground in front of them. Azalon coughed as he got back up onto his knee. He and the elf were silent for a long moment, waiting to see if it was truly over.

Finally the fox managed to croak out, “What the fuck was that?”

Looking a little unsteady, Ravingari slowly got back to his feet, “A demon. Fortunately it wasn’t that interested in us. It was bound to this tomb somehow, but once it fulfilled its obligation, it left.”

Azalon felt the fairy land on his shoulder as he stood. She was looking a bit sullen, having enjoyed that experience as much as they did. The fox’s voice was still sounding pained as he spoke, “Demons? I’m sorry, but we should not be fucking around with demons.”

The elf gave him an unworried shrug as he adjusted his clothing, “Well… it probably wasn’t a real demon. Just the dungeon manifesting as one. This is clearly some sort of trial it’s come up with.”

He considered that for a moment before nodding, “I see. So… we somehow need to ‘prove ourselves worthy’ three more times then.”

“Right. I wouldn’t want to say that dungeons are predictable, but they do seem to fall into certain patterns. Fighting four guardians to get four keys isn’t unusual.”

Azalon picked the blackened skull up off the ground, noting that it was glowing with a throbbing magical aura. “And I’m guessing that this is one of our keys then.”

The elf leaned down, giving the skull an appraising look. “Hmm, good eye. Hold onto that for us will you? Oh, and thanks for the save back there. It’s good to see you can actually cast a spell now and then.”

Azalon nodded and tucked the skull into his inventory. “I’m just glad I could help. What were those things anyway?”

Ravingari looked down at the headless corpse at his feet, “Well, the big guy was clearly a revenant. They might look like zombies, but they’re a completely different kind of creature. With a zombie you start with a corpse, and animate it with magic right? They’re essentially a type of golem, just made from a body rather than clay or metal. A revenant though is a person who’s become undead. They can think, they have their memories, and all the skills they had when they were alive. You never really know what you’re going to be getting into when you’re fighting one, because they’re just as dangerous as they were when they were alive. Usually more so.”

Azalon nodded. He’d heard of revenants before, but it was one of those words people used interchangeably with zombie. Only adventurers really cared about important distinctions like, will my spells work against this? However it wasn’t really the revenant he had been wondering about, “And the other ones?”

The elf shook his head, “No idea. I’ve never heard of anything like them. They might be unique to this dungeon. I’ve seen pain reflection used as a skill before, so I don’t think they’re that unusual. Maybe some kind of cursed revenant?”

Azalon frowned at the blackened bones scattered across the fire pits, all that remained of whatever those tormented creatures had been. Keeping his Mana Sight active he noticed a glowing object scattered among the bones. “I suppose we should take a look around, see what else we can learn here.”

Ravingari nodded and walked over to the back of the tomb where the revenant had his throne, or more accurately, to the small metal box that was placed next to it. If there was treasure here, that seemed like the likely place for it. He noticed that the elf was walking normally. He must not have been as injured as Azalon had feared.

The glow he had spotted earlier was emanating from one of the branding irons buried deep in the glowing coals. He looked at it with some trepidation. It was tempting of course to just grab everything magical that one found in a dungeon, but as an appraiser he knew how common cursed items were. And, given the setting, this was exactly the sort of thing he would expect to be deeply cursed. On reflection, so were those nipple rings he had found, but then jewelry usually had to be worn for a curse to take hold. With the branding iron, picking it up might be all that it took.

He pondered it for a moment before the solution was suddenly obvious. The Arcanum of Secrets had the Identify skill, he’d just never unlocked it. It was fairly expensive, but after all the fighting he’d already done today he should have enough mana for it.

His eyes grew wide as he opened his Akasha. He had more than enough. That revenant must have been worth close to three thousand, meaning he had enough for Identify and a couple of other things besides.

After unlocking the skill he looked over the complex web of other spells and their requirements. It was going to be a while before he could make anyone’s head explode, and the spells he did have access to didn’t seem much better than what he already had. He’d eventually need spells like Numb and Deafen to open a path to the higher order spells like Oubliette of Sensation, but for now they were a bit of a waste.

Instead, he decided to put as much mana as he could into his fundamentals. Unlike the encapsulated knowledge of the arcanum that were part of his archetype, the fundamentals were the same for everyone. He had already increased his spell power and mana regeneration past the point he could afford right now. His strength and endurance though were both low enough that they’d be fairly inexpensive to enhance.

He pushed the mana into his body’s natural pathways, feeling a slight tingling sensation filling him as it encouraged his muscles to grow. It wasn’t an instant improvement of course, and nothing that regular exercise wouldn’t do anyway. It was a lot faster though, and with workouts like the ones he’d been getting over the last few days it would be an incredibly effective boost to his body’s natural growth.

Feeling unnaturally energetic, he turned his attention back to the branding iron that had captured his interest in the first place. Careful not to touch the thing, he held his hand a few inches away from the handle. Identify was similar to its prerequisite Mana Sight. Azalon could already see the lattice of mana coursing through the evil looking thing. With Identify though he could see what the individual threads were all doing and how they interacted with each other.

Deciphering it all took some time though, especially if you wanted to make sure the object didn’t hide any nasty surprises.

When it was clear Azalon had finished, the elf spoke from behind him, “So what do we have here then?”

“Well, it’s not cursed, at least not technically. I’d say it’s pretty evil though. There are two enchantments on it. The first does what you’d expect. It heats the tip to the point where iron begins to glow red, while leaving the shaft and handle cool to the touch. The other… is a healing effect.”

The elf tilted his head at the fox, “Healing?”

Azalon nodded, “Right. Any physical harm the thing does, burns, scars, even bludgeoning damage, is healed.”

“Oh my. That is evil. So… a useful tool for asking questions.”

Ravingari lifted the brand out of the coals. It had remained buried while Azalon was identifying it, so he hadn’t seen the thing’s tip. He saw now that it ended in a simple sharp point rather than any kind of symbol. So then it wasn’t a branding iron. It couldn’t leave scars after all, not physical ones at least.

“Although,” the elf continued, “I don’t think its previous owner was the type to ask many questions. This was more about his… hobby.”

Azalon nodded, feeling slightly sickened by the thought. The assassin didn’t seem too bothered by the implication as he stored the evil thing away in his inventory.

“So,” the fox eventually said, “Did you manage to find anything?”

The elf shrugged, “A few bars, and his spear was decent. Too heavy for my taste though.”

Azalon nodded, noticing that even though he wasn’t planning on using it the elf had still stashed it way in his inventory. Not that he would have been able to use it either. “I see. So where does that leave us?”

“I suppose we just crack another one open then.”

The fox sighed, “All right. But this time, let’s try to pick one that’s a bit lower on the murder torture scale.”

Ravingari gave him a bit of a smirk, “They’re all going to be rather dangerous you know.”

Azalon held his gaze, still a little put out that the elf had chosen this particular one, “Maybe we can pick one that isn’t obviously the most dangerous one we can find?”

“We may not have much of a choice there.”

The fox frowned, “What do you mean?”

“Do you remember what the demon said? That we needed the blessings of his three brothers.”

Azalon had thought that he had simply meant three other demons. But, now that he thought about it, Ravingari was probably correct. They didn’t need the blessings of any three demons, they needed to find this one’s brothers. “Shit.”

“Right. So first we need to figure out who the Black Flame of Desire is, then who his brothers were, and finally how we find them in all this mess.”

The fox nodded thoughtfully, trying to think back on what the demon had said, “Okay that… might not be that difficult.”

“Oh? You’ve heard of him?”

“Not exactly, but I am a scholar. My specialty is ancient Rhysh history, and there are only seventy-two demons in the Rhysh pantheon. Considering everything we know about him, it shouldn’t be too difficult to narrow it down.”

It took Azalon a few moments to find the volume he was looking for, but then with a wave of his hand a slightly transparent copy of the book appeared, hovering in the air in front of him. He didn’t have to make it appear like that just to read it of course, but sometimes it was useful to let people know what you were reading.

Willowing hovered over his shoulder, looking down at the book as he flipped through the pages. She wouldn’t normally be interested, but this book had pictures. Nothing like a vast collection of highly detailed illustrations of demon genitalia to get people interested in reading.

Titles were common among demons, and most had at least a few. “The Black Flame of Desire” was a new one though. He’d never heard of it, and neither had the authors of this book apparently. However, the title did help to define his domain a little better. If he narrowed his search to demons with lust, fire, and pain as part of their domains that left him with four possibilities, and of them only one had three brothers.

“Shit,” he said looking down at the page.

Ravingari, reading over his shoulder as well, nodded grimly, “Astaroth. Well, that makes sense. He’s one of their major gods isn’t he?”

Azalon nodded. The religions of the ancient humans was a well understood topic. Demon worship was common among all the humans, not just within the empire. The practice had died out along with the humans themselves, but ruins of their shrines and temples could still be found all over the world.

The fox read a little further, “That answers one question at least. Two actually. His brothers are Abbadon, Bucephalus, and Leviathan.”

Ravingari chuckled, “Jolly fellows all around then.”

The four demons were notorious enough that Azalon didn’t feel the need to explain that they were up against some steep odds. The fox dispelled the book with another wave of his hand. Behind him, Ravingari had already started walking towards the shattered doorway, “Let’s get going. We should be able to finish one, or possibly two more tombs, before we need to make camp.”