Chapter 134: Chapter 133

Chapter 133

[The Apocalypse Beasts, Chalgathi, Quest Update: Brenna Landish has fallen in battle to Tao Zhang. Tao Zhang has acquired 2 of 5 set pieces for Chalgathi’s Inheritance. A new Chalgathi’s Chosen will be picked within 1 hour from now as a replacement for Brenna Landish.]

[The Apocalypse Beasts, Chalgathi, Quest Update: Venice Garcia has fallen in battle to Fred Talons. Fred Talons has acquired 2 of 5 set pieces for Chalgathi’s Inheritance. A new Chalgathi’s Chosen will be picked within 1 hour from now as a replacement for Venice Garcia.]

***

Snagger snapped the small booklet shut, then looked up from where he’d been reading. His rodent ears were pinned against his head in shame and sadness, and he shook his large rat head in regret. “I-me sorry friend, did not know-aware of plot-schemes you were caught in. I shall show-enlighten brood-mother of this. Thank you, Riven-kin.”

The rat-kin extended a hand, and Riven shook it with a nod. “Not a problem at all, it wasn’t your fault. Perhaps after our own problems are sorted, we can help each other out. Until then, I wish you and your people the best of luck.”

“Well-wishes to you bat-kin friend. Come visit-seek me at your leisure-chance, or if find self able-willing to help us-kin. Dwarf-devils ever eager to kill-maim rat-kin of Deepnest.” The muscular rat-kin bowed, clasping his gauntleted hands together in front of him while Mesha did the same at his side. Then they started to walk back, through the sewers and towards the tunnels leading deeper into the underdark.

“Nice to meet-find you, Riven Thane!” Mesha’s squeaky voice echoed through the tunnels, her small pawed hands waving at them before the two rat-kin of Deepnest vanished out of sight. “Keep safe-sound!”

Riven smiled, pushing his hands into his pockets while his staff floated in the air beside him. “It’s nice to see that not everyone is an absolute prick out to get me. Maybe you’re right Athela.”

“Of course I’m right!” Athela playfully smacked him across the back of the head with one of her spider limbs. “Now let’s go! We have a royal vampire to meet so we can ask about your malignant prophecy. What was her name again?”

“Kathrine Vonsilla Crushada, something or other of the eldest house 102nd in line for the throne.”

“I think you got that wrong but let’s go with it for now until we meet her again.”

Riven smirked and began climbing up the ladder into the basement of the hospital. Pulling himself up and huffing, he glanced around the basement where he’d battled the horde of dream creatures. Their bodies were still rotting here or there, the ones that hadn’t been ripped apart in torrents of blood mana, and he’d already told Allie she needed to come collect them at least for the bones. Materials for undead in the Thane Necropolis were in growing demand, with more and more undead traveling from other worlds through the bone garden or being created there atop the tower from souls drawn in out of the void.

“Come on Athela, lets-”

A nearby heartbeat quickened.

Riven’s body lit up with red lightning, drastically enhancing his speed as he sidestepped a blurring projectile that nearly took his head clean off.

*CRACK-BOOM*

The room shattered around him, and something akin to a missile that’d shot past him exploded on impact on the far wall. His body was scorched and he barely had time to summon hell’s armor to avoid the majority of the blast when a shadowy figure launched itself out of the adjacent hallway with glistening blades extended.

Riven’s red eyes went wide, and he simultaneously tore a rift through space while creating a myriad of spinning blades around his original position.

The assassin missed their strike, blades slicing through nothing but air when the portal winked out and the bloody razors erupted after an influx of mana.

An unfamiliar feminine scream echoed out, and Athela tore up through the hole in the floor to launch herself at the new assailant just when the figure vanished - leaving Riven to evaluate his surroundings in more thorough detail.

“Fuck.” Riven muttered, seeing nothing but not letting his guard down while black lightning crackled along Vampire’s Escort. “Who the hell was that?”

***

Astrid’s body went rigid when she saw the notification appear, and she continued to quickly limp-run down a long street in the dead of night while unnatural mists permeated the surroundings.

[Due to proximity, you have been notified of the following: Your Chalgathi Cultist Mask has been pinged by the unique ability: ‘Ping Chalgathi Artifacts’. This ability pings the locations of other Chalgathi Inheritance Set artifacts - only identifying pieces you do not already have, and may be used at any time without any mana requirement. This ability only locates artifacts that you are missing from the set. Due to proximity, this ability only gives an area destination of 50 square meters and not an exact location.]

“Shit!”

She picked up the pace, using her own ability to keep track of her pursuer as he closed in. Just who the fuck was that guy!? She’d had the drop on him, she knew she’d been completely stealthed up until the very last second because her bloodline had told her so, and yet he’d somehow had the reflexes to dodge one of her best high-speed martial art abilities. Then he dodged her dual viper-strikes while teleporting out and figuratively backhanding her with magical mines of some kind - all as a MAGE!?

Weren’t mages supposed to lack that kind of awareness and speed!?

Her mind raced and blood from her wounds dripped onto the pavement behind her. Despite her injuries she was traveling fast and passing down broken houses with eerie bat-like creatures staring down at her from their perches, or cats that'd been mutated into ghost-like figures who glared at her passing.

She was still ahead of him by a good margin too, but despite this he wasn’t injured - and he was slowly closing in. Every time she pinged his amulet, the one she’d seen right in front of her face but had been unable to obtain, his position relative to her became shorter and shorter.

Astrid paused after turning a corner and coming face to face with some kind of skeletal zombie wolf that was eating a large pig-sized rat. It growled at her warningly, and she backed away only to use the next alley over and dart down the thin passage between buildings into the next suburban road.

[Due to proximity, you have been notified of the following: Your Chalgathi Cultist Mask has been pinged by the unique ability: ‘Ping Chalgathi Artifacts’. This ability pings the locations of other Chalgathi Inheritance Set artifacts - only identifying pieces you do not already have, and may be used at any time without any mana requirement. This ability only locates artifacts that you are missing from the set. Due to proximity, this ability only gives an area destination of 50 square meters and not an exact location.

]

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She cursed again, her body warping with the shadows around her and only producing a thin veil of black as she passed. This was not how it was supposed to be. She couldn’t lose her only artifact now, she’d paid so much of her time and blood over the years to get here - especially when it was just some nobody that wasn’t even part of the cult!

Another shadow, not one of her own, grazed the edge of her peripheral vision - and Astrid froze while blending into the darkness between a tree and an old dumpster that smelled like rot. Her body twisted and shifted, molding into a crevice underneath the dumpster as her heart started pounding wildly.

She knew something was there, just across the street from her and sitting on a windowsill - but the figure was just as black as she was and Astrid could only barely make out the many blades protruding from its back through the unnatural, unholy-tainted mists of this cursed place.

A winged woman, a demon of some sort landed on an old abandoned gas station at an intersection to Astrid’s right - obviously looking for her, and a flash of black produced a rift in space just ahead of Astrid’s position. The man she’d tried to kill stepped out, crimson eyes scanning the surroundings, with his staff of black wood and muscular flesh writhing with flowing blood and crackling black lightning.

Upon exiting the portal in the middle of the road he abruptly stopped, cocking his head to one side as if hearing something, and Astrid tried to remain as quiet and still as she could while her heartbeat frantically pounded in her warped chest, waiting for an opportune moment to assassinate him when his back was turned.

[Due to proximity, you have been notified of the following: Your Chalgathi Cultist Mask has been pinged by the unique ability: ‘Ping Chalgathi Artifacts’. This ability pings the locations of other Chalgathi Inheritance Set artifacts - only identifying pieces you do not already have, and may be used at any time without any mana requirement. This ability only locates artifacts that you are missing from the set. Due to proximity, this ability only gives an area destination of 50 square meters and not an exact location.]

“She’s here… Somewhere…” The caster muttered, glowing eyes combing the dark and settling on the exact spot where Astrid hid in the crevice of the dumpster. “Right… there…”

Her shadow-formed eyes widened and she froze in shock for only a moment while her mind went into overdrive. He shouldn’t be able to see her, he should only be able to ping a general area, so how was he able to know she was there!?

Like a lightning strike his staff lifted and a torrent of crackling black energy intermixed with a lance of blood - exploding towards her position.

Using one of her escape martial arts, Astrid barely managed to get away and nearly vomited in fear when the position she’d been in only a half second ago was devastated - turned into a smoldering pile of rubble and a cloud of debris.

The other dark figure on the opposite rooftop screeched and launched itself over the street, clearing the entire road and landing on another nearby rooftop to give chase as Astrid glided like water over the tiles - hopping from house to house in a frantic and high speed chase.

She dodged left, avoiding a claw swipe and turning to launch four throwing knives at the figure pursuing her. Eyes went wide and she narrowly avoided a long, black tongue that crashed through the rooftop she stood on - coming face to face with nothing other than some kind of demon.

The throwing knives made contact and punched into the demon’s gut, but the monster kept coming through the pain and Astrid whipped out her dual combat daggers to engage the monster.

That was a bad idea.

A blur of exchanging blades saw Astrid’s left hand fly off of her body in a spray of blood, eliciting a scream of horror and making her backpedal - shadowstepping off the roof and landing on the ground before sprinting ahead through the mists again in an attempt to lose her pursuers.

Then she got the ping notification yet again, and she let out a frustrated scream when necrotic poison began visibly climbing up her severed forearm. “GOD FUCKING DAMN IT!”

Realizing she was going to die here unless she was able to lose her trackers, and knowing the artifact wasn’t worth her life, she tore it off. Flinging the mask to the side through an open door that remained unhinged after some monster had broken into a nearby one-story suburban house, she vanished into the haunted city like a ghost to figure out her next move and treat her injuries.

***

Riven bent down, picking up the sinister mask with a small smile creeping across his lips. There weren’t any heartbeats nearby, the assassin obviously having left it to throw him off her trail, and he flipped it over to wipe off the blood she’d left behind.

[Chalgathi Cultist Mask: ???]

So they’d finally come.

The mask itself was very intricate, with numerous carvings that shifted and roiled under his touch - but to his surprise the mask actually began to change while he grasped it. From roiling shadow-like textures, it evolved into something else entirely. Smooth, white porcelain replaced the shadow texture - until it became a very plain but sleek-looking full-face mask without any identifying features at all. There weren’t any holes for the eyes or mouth either. The only other thing notable about it was that the back side, the one that was supposed to fit onto his face, shimmered with red wisps now that trailed along his skin and pulled - almost as if it was trying to latch onto him. It was completely different from the item it’d been only a minute ago.

“How odd.”

He set off another ping, finding out that there weren’t any other participants in Chalgathi’s trials nearby for hundreds of miles… but then quickly corrected himself. Not only was this unknown woman still here, somewhere, and she could track him while he couldn’t track her - but it was certainly possible there were others of Chalgathi’s Chosen and he just couldn’t ping them. The ability only worked to identify those with artifacts he didn’t have, and now he had two of the set.

[The Apocalypse Beasts, Chalgathi, Quest Update: Astrid Fested has been defeated in battle by Riven Thane, but has escaped pursuit with her life intact. Riven Thane has acquired 2 of 5 set pieces for Chalgathi’s Inheritance.]

Within only seconds of having acquired the notification, the communication bauble started pulsing and he picked it up to answer Allie’s call. “Heyo.”

“Riven!” Allie’s voice echoed through the mists and deserted streets of the Brigthsville suburbs. “Were you attacked!? Are you ok!? What happened! I had no idea they were that close to us! Where are you now!?”

“Calm down, I'm fine. Almost got assassinated by some bitch because I was off my guard, I’d been pinging their locations but she’d somehow cleared nearly 80 miles in less than a day and it threw me off. She must have some kind of traveling or movement ability aside from the ones I saw.”

“Which were?”

“She’s a stealth type, uses something akin to my rift-walk via the shadow pillar and can blend into dark areas or mold her body to fit into tight spots. She has a couple escape abilities and I’m not entirely sure how they work, but she’s very mobile. Be careful, she’s still around here somewhere but I managed to cut off a hand. So unless she has some kind of means to heal herself, she’ll be maimed.”

“Well at least that’s a plus. But where are you? Are you back from the underdark already?”

“Yeah. Visited Snagger’s city of rat-kin, was neat to see. I’ll tell you about it more in detail later, I’m in Brightsville now and headed towards the altar to get some answers on malignancy points. I also need to identify these Chalgathi artifacts.”

“Oh… I probably need to do that too. I have the pauldrons, but I haven’t been using them because I wasn’t sure what they did and they gave me odd tingly sensations whenever I put them on.”

Riven snickered in amusement. “Odd tingly sensations? They’re artifacts for a world quest, surely they can’t be bad.”

“You never know! Don’t laugh at me! And I already have these legendary tier soul-woven pauldrons built into my outfit - ok!? I went with what I knew!”

“Well at least it doesn’t make you a target. Where are you keeping the Chalgathi pauldrons?”

“In a guarded vault in the tower. Tell you what, I’ll have Mara grab them for you and meet you at the altar. Have the Blood Moon Requiem identify them for me too, and since I already have a pair of pauldrons with the soul-woven outfit - you can have the Chalgathi set. It’s probably better if we combine ours anyway, gives us a better chance of doing this stupid quest and getting to the next Chalgathi quest update before other people do. It’ll also allow me to monitor more people involved with the questline, because I won’t have any of the items. One more thing - do you mind helping Mara clear the prison sometime in the next day or two? I told her I’d be back to lead the attack but I’ve been busy killing elves the past two days.”

Riven’s eyebrows raised. “Killing elves? I hope you’re not talking about my slaves. They’re supposed to be treated well, Allie.”

“No! Idiot. Dawn’s northernmost town, Bradshire, is under siege. Or it had just begun until I arrived, I’m routing these pointy eared pricks now, adding to my legions with their bodies, and am going to discuss terms with some of Dawn’s ambassadors so I’m kind of busy.”

“Just be careful about the things we talked about, Allie.”

“I have an army of undead with me, along with Vin and Nin. I’ll be fine. Talk to you later!”

Allie’s voice cut out, and Riven hummed in discontentment.

“She’s in the S-Tier of natives on this planet too, you know.” Fay stated from behind, adjusting her crop-top and clearing her throat to fold her large black wings behind her. “She’ll be ok!”

“It’s not her that I’m worried about.” Riven said, putting the newly acquired Chalgathi artifact into his satin bag of holding. “We have rules about engaging any truly strong opponents, if we think there’s a chance at losing we’re to retreat and group up. It’s just that Allie can be… a little bit kill-happy.”