B5 C47: The Knight

Directly abutting the demonic region sat a wide swath of land entirely forged from sharp and glossy black rocks. The various pathways throug

Directly abutting the demonic region sat a wide swath of land entirely forged from sharp and glossy black rocks. The various pathways through the region were often narrow and treacherous, filled with jagged protrusions that threatened to cut into any unwary travelers. And indeed, if one were to look closely, they might find a trail of blood-coated stones, clear evidence of the presence of interlopers. The trail snaked its way from the very edge of the region, all the way inwards until it reached the very center.

There, at the base of a great pit that punched deep into the earth, over a dozen demons clashed with the denizens of the dungeon. And while the battle certainly tested the strength and mettle of each of the demonic fighters, even more so, it attempted to overwhelm their senses.

The scent of iron hung heavy in the air as thick blood streamed down the sides of the bestial drudges, coating their hides and forming viscous puddles on the ground. The dim light, already barely enough to see in, bounced off the glossy obsidian surroundings, every kaleidoscopic movement cast onto countless different surfaces. 

Worse yet was the noise. With each passing second, hundreds of loud crunches and cracks joined the subtler scrapings of stone against hardened hides, nearly drowned out by the heavy thuds of drudges stomping about. And yet, rather than trying to tune out the all-encompassing din, a single figure reveled in it, joining her own voice to the surrounding clamor. 

With a titanic, bellowing shout, Cezerra cried out: “Weak!” Her fist barreled into a mass of animated obsidian before her, smashing into it as if it were no more than chalk. True, she was fighting against a dungeon boss, but compared to her, the golem-like monstrosity was inadequate in every way.

Even if her opponent’s defenses weren’t up to snuff, that didn’t mean it lacked any tricks, of course. As the shards and chunks of its obsidian body flew off, they began to take on a mind of their own. Some transformed into projectiles that peppered Cezerra from the side, while others shot off to harass her drudges.

For all that the omnidirectional barrage was hard to defend against, it didn’t matter. As sharp as the obsidian was, it left only the barest of scratches on her skin, more akin to papercuts than anything else. Each wound only had time to release the barest trickle of blood before her ungodly regeneration sealed it shut, whereas the once proud dungeon boss before her was rapidly being ground down into dust.

With every punch, her victory crept closer. It was a shame, in a way, that her opponent wasn’t sentient, as it couldn’t even understand the slew of taunts and insults that poured from her mouth. For once, however, Cezerra couldn’t bring herself to care. She was so close to seizing the first drop of the power that had been denied to her for so long.

When at last she burrowed through the boss’s bulky exterior and grasped its inner core, she was practically drooling. 

Crushing her hands together, Cezerra gasped as a wave of power swept through her.

You have defeated…

Cezerra ignored the various unimportant messages. There’d been a quest. She’d failed it. Not even spending a second of her time exploring the surrounding region, Cezerra had pushed her drudges straight to the boss before engaging it. If that had made the fight harder for her in some way, she hadn’t cared then, and she didn’t care now.

No, the only thing that mattered was…

You and your troops have prevailed over a worthy foe. You have earned progress towards your next rank.

A detailed breakdown followed, grading her performance and calculating just how much she’d been awarded, some of the lines causing her to grimace. As the heat of battle died down, she belatedly realized the fight wasn’t as clean of a victory as she’d imagined.

Four of her original fifteen drudges had died. A quick scan revealed that two had impaled themselves on angled spears of obsidian that grew from the ground. Judging by the host of chipped and broken teeth, another had been foolish enough to try biting through its opponents, the inside of its mouth offering much easier access to its more vulnerable innards. 

The last had died a death by a thousand cuts. Normally, that was impossible given the drudges’ rapid regeneration, but the past few days had been tough on all of them. Deprived of demonic mana for so long, even she was feeling fairly ragged, and she was hardly looking forward to the time it would take to march back home.

But, without a doubt, it had been worth it. Clean victory or not, the surge of power running through her attested to that.

Congratulations! You have earned a rank upgrade.

Knight (Middle Ranked) -> Knight (Upper Ranked)

Your demonic aura of command intensifies. You may now control up to 25 drudges. You exert a minor suppressive effect on lesser demons and Knights of lower rank.

Your Strength, Endurance, and Constitution are further enhanced while wielding demonic mana.

+25 Prestige

After so long with no progress… For over a century now, she’d been stalled right at the cusp of the rank-up. Unfortunately, the demonic system was strict in its requirements, and solo feats could only take her so far. To bridge the gap from middle rank to upper rank, a Knight needed to prove their leadership, a task which she’d had no way of completing until now.

And with just a few more victories, I’ll finally do it.

As big of a victory as this was for her, it was still nothing compared to her true goal. As strong as she was, Cezerra knew that Knights were at the very bottom of the actual food chain, with their lives spent freely on the endless battlefields of the hells.

No. One more rank, and then I’ll have it. A true noble title.

Compared to what she had now, the bonuses for becoming a Baroness were night and day. And better yet, the rank up would permanently alter her mana core, allowing her to produce a small supply of her own demonic mana. It was hardly much, but she’d be able to invade the other regions far more freely and for far longer after that. Better yet, she’d be able to permanently claim a portion of the lands she conquered, letting them slowly fill up with demonic mana.

Yes, it would take some time, but one day, the entire dungeon would be hers.

As long as I can keep the human in line, at least. Thinking of the girl she captured brought a savage grin to Cezerra’s lips. Not only did she have four drudges to replace, but she had a full ten extra drudges she could control now! Cezerra would have to get the girl summoning the extras right away.

So with that cheery thought, Cezerra collected her bruised and bloodied troops, and she began the long journey home.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As one particular demon began her triumphant journey home, a single region away, one less enthusiastic human was finishing up a more onerous trek. In a far fouler mood than she’d been in since her recovery, the Lady Verin’Sylus traveled through the demonic region, constantly tripping over herself every few minutes.

“Are we certain this is quite necessary?” Though she didn’t view herself as a whiner, without Etiquette to guide her tongue or temper her rising frustration, Verin found herself being far more straightforward than usual: “I hate this.” 

“Honestly? Probably not.” A familiar voice came from somewhere to her side, though Verin couldn’t spot the speaker. For once, that had nothing to do with any invisibility skill, either. “But you agreed that this made the most sense, even if it’s overkill. Plus, cheer up. We’re almost there.”

That did cheer Verin up, although only a little bit. The past few days had been unpleasant, to say the least. She’d known they would be ever since Cal had come back just over two weeks prior to explain the plan.

First, the two of them had ridden Tal’Ket into the fire biome, traveling by foot to the very edge of the demonic region. Second, Cal had abandoned Verin, going invisible to run ahead and spy on this ‘Cezerra’ character. Only once the demon was leaving the region did Cal return with the go-ahead.

The real issue, though, was how quickly Cezerra had discovered the three of them the first time they’d entered the region together. To make sure it hadn’t been dumb luck, Cal had entered the region without Apex Shroud a month back, and sure enough, Cezerra had eventually flown in to investigate.

A perception ability that potent would normally mean that Verin would have to stay home for this operation of theirs, but thankfully, Tess had suggested a workaround to Cal during one of their earlier meetings. All it required was one simple treasure that Tess had looted from the boss of the darkness region so very long ago -- a treasure that up till now had been sitting in part of their garden to help grow dark-aspected plants. Verin hadn’t even seen the object before, given that it was always covered in darkness, and she’d assumed all this time that it was a gardening-related treasure.

But no. The creased, spherical black gem she presently held was far stronger than she’d ever realized.

The Sightless Eye 

An unseeing eye of a being warped by powerful darkness magic. When activated, creates a zone of potent darkness mana which weakens light magic and blocks all forms of external perception and scrying. Can possibly be worked into various manners of obfuscation and darkness-enhancing equipment.

It was great. Wonderful. A godsend. Hells, Cal had even verified it worked by walking into the region with it activated a while back. Unlike in her earlier test, Cezerra had never shown up, proving that it blocked whatever ability she had.

Unfortunately, while it kept others from seeing in, it also kept her from seeing out. Cal kept her aimed in the right direction whenever she started to veer off, but for the umpteenth time, Verin tripped on her own feet as she was forced to traverse the region while locked in total darkness.

And the worst part was, they weren’t even sure if Cezerra’s perception ability worked while she was outside the region. For all they knew, Verin could have walked in completely normally, only activating it once Cezerra returned.

So when Cal called out that the end was in sight, Verin nearly wept tears of joy. Only a short walk later, she was led into a temple, and soon thereafter, she again nearly wept when she heard Tess’s voice. Truly, it had been too long. The darkness did nothing to inhibit the hug that followed, nor did it keep her from fretting over her companion and her wellbeing.

Admittedly, when Tess pulled out one of her home cooked meals from storage, the darkness did make eating a bit challenging, but Verin could hardly complain. As decent as her own cooking had grown as of late, it was a joy to eat Tess’s cooking again.

Once the various pleasantries were out of the way, however, it was time for a more serious discussion.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All right. Game plan time. As the three of them sat in the strange demonic ritual room, Cal surveyed her companions. Or, at least she surveyed Tess. Verin still had the Sightless Eye activated, plunging half the room into darkness. Knowing that the noble couldn’t see her, Cal clapped her hands to grab everyone’s attention.

“Cool! Now that Verin’s here, I’m going to run off and find Cezerra. I can go invisible and follow her back, and then I’ll run ahead once she gets close to give us all an advance warning. Once she gets here, I’ll do my best to surprise her with a big attack right out of Apex Shroud, but if she’s as durable as Tess says she is, we shouldn’t expect me to take her out with one hit.”

She was truly hoping it would be easy, but when was it ever? It would save her all sorts of problems if she could manage it, though.

“After that, just remember that time is on our side. The longer we can keep her inside Verin’s Glacial Aura, the lower her frost resistance goes and the slower she gets. On top of that, I’ll have time for all my class skills to ramp up. That’s why I want you guys to avoid killing the drudges if you can. I’d rather use them to stack up my class skills instead of having to get in range of Cezerra’s fists.”

Deception has reached level 36!

Cal had to forcefully keep herself from arching her brows as the notification rolled in. That one’s not even class-aligned anymore. It should barely be leveling.

Well, whatever. It was barely even a lie, anyway. And with any luck, the other two would never find out. If everything went according to plan, Cal wouldn’t have to take any drastic measures.

They spent some time going over the fine details of where they’d fight and how to respond to various contingencies, but eventually they’d said all they could, and the time for words gave way to the time for actions. Saying her farewells, Cal slunk away in the general direction of the obsidian region.

It wasn’t particularly hard to find her quarry. The demonic region wasn’t overly hilly, and the procession of demons was neither small nor trying to hide. Cal was happy to note that Cezerra looked a touch worse for wear, a sure sign that her extended withdrawal from demonic mana was affecting her. She was less happy to see a full four of the drudges had died, but then again, hopefully that wouldn’t matter.

At no point did Cezerra show any signs of suspicion, and as best as Cal could tell, Verin’s Sightless Eye was working as intended. And so, when the group at last neared the temple, Cal rushed ahead of her. Finding the other two almost exactly where she’d left them, Cal only bothered to utter two words.

“She’s coming.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Stretching her arms wide, Cezerra took a deep breath as she inhaled the mana-rich air of her home region. Despite her hulking stature, she felt as though she was gliding as the demonic mana filtered into her core, empowering her. It would take some time to undo the damage from spending so many days away, but already, she could feel her improved rank going to work. In a matter of days, she’d be even stronger than before.

Maybe I can see if the human has any way to speed things up. Not that standard healing magic would work, but the strange girl had far more magic than Cezerra did. Who knew?

Thinking about Tess, Cezerra wondered how the girl had fared during her absence. Did she run? In a weird way, Cezerra almost hoped she had. She was itching to test out her new strength once she healed, and hunting the girl down would be a nice diversion.

Cezerra pulsed her awareness over the region, feeling a headache form as she did so. It was a strange ability, and given her lacking Perception and Intelligence, she wasn’t built for it. Nonetheless, once the dungeon had officially designated her as the “boss” of this region, it had parceled out a few minor abilities, including a vague sense of the souls within her domain.

Just one, and it’s at the temple. Bah. Guess she stayed put. Then again, that didn’t mean Cezerra couldn’t beat her up a little under the guise of sparring. Their mock battles had always been a bit boring given the level difference, but Cezerra could use the exercise either way.

She was half tempted to fly over, dramatically cutting down her travel time, but even with her new rank, she only had a limited range in which she could control her drudges. One or two of them had even leveled from the battle, and she was loath to leave them behind, even if the human could summon more.

And so, the demon walked on, her nature preventing her requiring sustenance or slumber, and her stamina keeping her going without pause. Eventually, the humble temple came into view, along with the sole other ensouled resident of the region.

Strange. She’s usually inside. Why is she waiting out here? The girl lazily lay by the entrance of the temple, not seeming to sense Cezerra’s presence yet. Only when the ground started to vibrate from the heavy steps of her remaining drudges did the girl look up, pulling herself to her feet.

As she met her captive by the temple’s entrance, Cezerra couldn’t help but boast.

“Hope you weren’t waiting on me to perish out there. We return victorious! Got lots of new summoning for you to-”

Caught up in her own words, Cezerra barely even noticed the attack until it was already cutting into her skin.

Strong. The very moment she sensed the attack, she could feel the sheer power contained within it. Enough to shear through her bones? She wasn’t sure.

And yet, in that brief instant, she didn’t feel fear. No. Even as the blade pierced her skin and began to slide through her flesh, Cezerra felt a feral grin stretching across her face.

Good! Perhaps she’d get that exercise she wanted after all.