Chapter 34

Chapter 34

Riven took a moment to realize just what was being said here. Now that the initial shock of the new notifications had worn off, he pushed away the many unanswered questions to focus on only one.

This was a question of morality.

His sight shifted back to the girl being held in demonic claws at his left. Through the crack in the door he could tell that she was utterly terrified, and his heart truly hurt for her. How scared she must be, knowing she was mere moments from being eaten alive.

The question was, if he did sway fate in her favor, would she really go back to acquire more sacrifices? Would she uphold her end of the promise to this creature after it’d burned her face away? Or was she lying?

On one hand, he didn’t know what the situation had been prior to getting here. She might have been in league with the demons the entire time, only for them to betray her. On the other hand, there was a very good chance she was outright spewing bullshit just to save herself, desperately thinking up ways to keep on living in the face of certain doom.

There was yet another question: Would she even be able to hold up her end of the bargain? He didn’t know enough about demonic summonings, despite being a novice warlock, to know whether or not she could safely reach this destination again. Did she have some means of summoning them to her world? Did she create a portal to get here? Did she know about the exits out of here? Or did she enter the dungeon in a similar way he’d been thrown in?

If she knew the exits out, that was a reason alone to save her. He desperately wanted to skedaddle out of here as fast as humanly fucking possible, but then again the silver-haired man in Athela’s cage might know just as much as she did.

Then there was the question of what reward he would get for saving her.

[Optional Quest: Save the Prisoners. You have stumbled across a small cult of demons sacrificing people to their master. If you are able to save either of the remaining prisoners aside from Athela and stay out of harm’s way for eight consecutive hours, you will be rewarded. Time remaining: Unknown.]

Hmm. Saving both humans alongside Athela would be preferable for the quest alone; he had no idea what he’d get, but he was sure the reward would at least double in value if he saved two instead of one. Right?

Yet there was another thing to consider. He’d be putting this new Malignant Prophecy on a significant cooldown by using it to sway fate. Why it was called malignant was unknown to him, but any power that could literally change fate was fucking badass, and putting such an ability on cooldown for someone he didn’t know was...

Ugh. Allie would have him save the girl.

The thought stung like an annoying splinter in his side. How was he supposed to look Allie in the eyes and tell her about this if he didn’t save her? Truth be told, he was pretty convinced this “priestess” was just blabbering in order to get out of being killed, and he probably would have lied through his teeth, too, if he was in her situation. He would be selfish not to help.

He sighed internally, then peered back at the quest prompt and grudgingly accepted the action. At least he’d be getting an increased reward for it, so there was that.

He watched her abruptly nod and catapult off the stone platform, sprinting as fast as she possibly could with eyes darting left and right until she disappeared into the darkness of the hellscape. He cursed his luck; she hadn’t even attempted to stay around and see if the huge demon changed his mind. Which Riven understood, but Riven couldn’t leave himself until he got at least Athela out.

After the demons watched the girl vanish around another tower, one of the lurker’s large hand searched behind it and pulled up another headless corpse. Beginning to feed and suck on this new body, it made content gurgling sounds while it lapped up bodily fluids.

There was a long pause after that.

“Ahem.” One of the Jabob demons cleared his raspy, hissing throat and tapped his misshapen wooden staff onto the stone floor. He nervously stroked his long white beard and glanced around. “I believe it is time. We’ve finally acquired the necessary tools and souls needed for summoning your future partner, and it has been a very long road in obtaining the means to acquire such a creature. I may be hasty in asking...but may we proceed?”

All the cultist got in response was a brief nod from the lurker before it turned back to sucking on its meal.

“Very well.” The Jabob speaking, obviously the superior of the other two hooded cultists, began to walk ahead. He then whispered something that Riven couldn’t hear and motioned for them to spread out. As the other two did as he asked, the short demon raised a bony, red, three-fingered hand out in front of him and closed his eyes. “Abtala Rhukshash Ver Klonsik Azmoth.”

Meanwhile, Riven was scouring the place for any signs of a key, anything he could use as a lockpick, or some way to get Athela out of her cage.

Riven didn’t understand the gibberish of the summoning nearby, but soon a spark of black and red mana flared to life underneath the demon’s small, outstretched hand—and a circled pentagram of crimson light began carving itself into the stone floor below. The other two hooded cultists raised their own hands out in front of them as the first had done and began muttering the exact same words. One by one, they threw materials into the center of the pentagram from sacks at their sides: a scalp of thick black hair, a couple eyeballs, a myriad of different types of teeth, a couple differently colored crystals, two fingers, and a runic stone that glowed green. All these things dissolved and were absorbed into the mass of black and red mana accumulated a few feet in the air—and soon, shrill screams of the dead began to echo throughout the platform as wisps of light shot out from their outstretched palms toward the mana as well.

Were those the souls that demon was talking about? Holy shit...

“Abtala Rhukshash Ver Klonsik Azmoth.”

“Abtala Rhukshash Ver Klonsik Azmoth.”

“Abtala Rhukshash Ver Klonsik Azmoth.”

Riven watched, fascinated, until he realized that this could be his moment to act. He didn’t know when he’d get a better chance. While they were summoning whatever it was they had in mind, all but the lurker had their eyes closed...and he mentally prepared himself over the next few seconds to make a sneaky break for Athela. At the very least he could inspect the cage and see if there was a way to open it from the outside, and if not—he would improvise.

He had to. He had no other choice.