An Unexpected Reunion
You follow the sound of the humming. Though the melody echoing off the corridor’s weathered walls is light and sweet, there is a hint of sadness permeating the tone. You wonder who the voice belongs to. As you travel along the narrow passage, you notice that the shadows are not as deep as you would expect. They shift when you move – as if you were radiating a circle of light. Strange. You do not remember casting Orb of Light. The humming stops, interrupted by a loud splash of water.
Casting nervous glances all around – it reminds you of the time you inadvertently sprung the trap of the luminescent man-eating worms deep within the tunnels of Acbar, and how they got the jump on you from above, and how Rurik calmly shot them all off with his bow – you suddenly recognize that the light seems to move along with your head. Almost as if…
You reach up. There it is. A strange, flat, disc-like shape – no, it is a ring, you realize, as your fingers close around the edges – hovering above your head. It budges slightly when you pull at it, but no more. What a strange thing. Since it does not seem to be doing you any harm; at least, nothing you can sense, you decide to leave it be for the moment. Just then, the humming starts up again, and you decide to press on.
Reaching the end of the passage, you see a larger clearing identical to the one you awakened in – this is perhaps five or maybe six times the size of that room. There is a waterfall streaming in from an opening at the top, and a pool has formed underneath it. A girl is there, washing herself at the center of the pool.
You recognize the beautifully slender yet enticingly curved body that any human woman would sell their soul for. And the silver hair, of course. It is the demon princess.
Unfortunately, you can’t quite exactly see everything from your current position. Before you can move in closer, she glances up. Her golden eyes narrow, focusing on the passage you are lurking in. She seems to have sensed your presence. The invisibility spell that you have cast shortly before arriving at the corridor’s end, out of instinct from your previous experience in such operations, melts away before her gaze.
She lets out a little squeal of surprise when she confirms your identity. Leaping from the water, her bat wings wrap themselves around her body hastily. They dissolve into seething shadow and are reformed into a black armor similar to the one you destroyed, along with an axe even larger than before.
“Definitely S-rank,” you mutter. The difficulty of peeping on her without her knowledge is definitely rated S, a rare ranking you reserve only for the toughest of opponents.
“The Hero!” the girl growls angrily. “I will get revenge for my father’s death!” She shouts a battle cry, unleashing a mighty swing from her axe that produces a shockwave, tearing apart the corridor you are standing in from a distance. You narrowly tumble out of the way and crash into the pool, but the demon princess is upon you before you can stand. You realize, too late, that the wings are weighing you down and you are yet unaccustomed to having two large, cumbersome extra appendages in battle.
“These are… wings?” You hear her wonder at the sight of your new body parts, but it does not stop her from chopping down on you with the gigantic axe.
You try to roll away. You make it, but you had forgotten to compensate for your wings yet again. The axe tears through one of your new wings excruciatingly – the left one – and slams into the pool, throwing up a large spray of water. A large fissure opens up in the ground, the waterfall now spilling into the new chasm unhindered. You grit your teeth in pain. Thankfully, the thoughtless attack has temporarily obscured your location from the angry demon princess. You have less than a second to act. From the power of her strikes, which you well understand from fighting her in the Demon Lord’s castle, Forceshield would be useless, and Displacement would be less effective thanks to the area effected by the destructive force generated through her swings. Resorting to Gigadyne is an option, but perhaps you do not need to go that far. Thinking quickly, you make your move.
As the mist dies down, the water draining to a lower level, the first thing she sees is you charging at her, fire blazing from your fingers.
“Did you think I would fall for a doppleganger?” shouts the demon, seeing through your ruse in an instant. She blocks the fire easily and spins around, whirling her battle-axe to cleave everything around her into two. Doing that, it would not matter if you were using the doppleganger to flank her.
From protection to destruction; let magic’s lifesblood burn in dazzling fury. Right before her axe connects with the clone, you finish the chant: “Spell Maximize: Mana Destruction.” You cast the spell on your own doppleganger, detonating the magic used to create it. The resulting explosion of mana rocks the entire area, blowing a good portion of the ruins apart. Irreparable damage to a national historical preservation site, most likely – you are certain that Rennock would have chewed your head off over your disregard for collateral damage, noble paladin that he was – but as a caster in wartime you had developed a tendency towards flashy spells that deal a lot of damage to a lot of people in very little time. Much easier that way, you’d found; plus such shows of force tend to make a statement and scare trouble off. Now, if you are lucky…
The smoke clears, and to your utter lack of surprise, the demon princess is still standing. The black armor is scuffed and smoking but otherwise unscathed. It was never going to be so easy, was it? You can tell that she is somehow stronger than before. Her intense wrath permeates the air, manifesting itself as a visible red aura wreathing her armor. She takes a step forward, and the earth shudders. Perhaps you will have to use your trump card after all.
“Is that the best you can do, huh? Hero? Why don’t you try that lightning spell you were so proud of again? Or do you have nothing left in your ballsack to toss at me?” She speaks in a rough and crude manner, tossing you a gleeful challenge. “You are a-“ She stops. “Y-you…” The aura of wrath wavers. “You are naked. Why?” It looks like she has only just noticed it. Her voice, even though distorted by the menacing helm, is genuinely perplexed at your state of nakedness.
“I’m about to toss whatever’s in my ballsack at you, that’s why,” you holler back.
Before she can retort, the both of you sense the arrival of something else. As one, you look towards one of the collapsed walls, where a strange creature is peeping from behind a fallen tree. It looks like a goblin of some sort, but whereas the ones in service to the Demon Lord were hairless and wrinkled, this one was furry, with large floppy ears. It looks, in fact, slightly similar to a squat, bipedal cat… and you suddenly realize that the goblins you used to slaughter by the hundreds did resemble ugly, hairless felines.
***
A. A slight and unbidden pang of guilt runs your heart through for an instant – but only for an instant. You have always been a cat guy, after all.
B. You do not really care about cats. Dogs are where it is at.
***
It looks harmless, and if it is as strong as the goblins you know, it is harmless to you – though not so much to helpless villagers – but you cannot be certain it is on that level of strength. It could be some horrible monster surpassing the Demon Lord for all you know. The furry goblin chitters in some unknown language. More and more of the critters appear, numbering in the dozens. Most of them are wielding crudely-made spears and axes, and a lucky few appear to have shields; nothing more than a plank of wood, but it would stop arrows. This grants you a bit more confidence that they are not that strong… but you have seen Layla once beat off a giant serpent with only a branch, so you are taking nothing for granted.
The lead goblin – the one you had seen first – barks out something fearfully.
The demon princess tilts her head. Then, tentatively, in a stilted manner, she replies to the goblin. It cowers, shaking its head but making no move to retreat. “Interesting. Their speech is… interesting. It closely resembles a more archaic form of my language, but it is not quite the same,” she explains absent-mindedly without your prompting. Though you are unable to see her expression behind that helm, her body language tells you that she appears to be fascinated by these creatures.
“What do they want, then?” you ask carefully and quietly.
After listening to your question, she asks the lead goblin something in that strange language. It nods desperately and replies with a long, fast chattering, at times dragging the other goblins in to pantomime actions you do not comprehend in the least.
“Something about… I’m not too sure how to pronounce that name… the lord of this land being angry if he is awoken from his slumber, and that if he does, their apologies, but we would have to become food to appease his anger because if we do not, he would eat three dozen of them, so would we powerful ones kindly leave and take our fight elsewhere before the lord wakes up. That’s what they want.” After pausing for a while, she adds, “Probably.”
“Probably?”
“It could also mean that they are planning to have an… an o-orgy at this place and we are in the way. I’m not sure, it’s been a few decades since I last had Ancient Language studies!”
There is a guttural roar from the bottom of the hole that you and the demon princess created. It echoes upwards, causing the goblins to squeal and prostrate in fear.
“I think your former interpretation is correct,” you say.
The ground begins to tremble. Something massive is moving in the chasm’s depths. It is climbing upwards, and at a rather rapid speed. As you jump back, the monster appears: a giant with the head of a bull. Its horns are long and sharp enough to impale a man, and its oiled body ripples with a terrifying amount of muscle. The bull-headed monster clambers out of the hole – it is at least twice a man's height, if not more – and bellows. It is angry. Very much so.
***
A. You take the new monster on. It may be a good test to help figure out just where in the hierarchy of strength you fit in at the moment:
1. You face it head on in a physical match, fist to fist, chest to chest, one-winged man to bull-headed man.
2. You try a mid-level spell to gauge the results: Fireball. It may look strong, but perhaps its bark is worse than its bite? You can always escalate if it is insufficient.
3. You play it safe and open with a Lightning Spear, one of your most powerful attack spells. Hopefully that spell will be all you need to put this monster down: if not, you may be in for a long fight.
4. It looks like your previous statement was not strongly worded enough to scare trouble away. You will have to make a bigger one: to the demon princess, to the goblins, and to this beast. You cast a full-strength Gigadyne right at the limits of what your magical power can achieve.
B. You stay back. You’ll let the goblins or the demon princess handle this one: it is not your fight, nor do you want it to be.
C. You are not staying here a moment longer. You cast teleport and flee: it's time to go home.