Chapter 153

Chapter 153

Huffing and slamming back down onto the ground with a thump, Riven began to rest. His undersuit of red, silky blood-skin supplied by the mask ‘Fallen Apostle’ kept his body cool even while wearing a cloak and heavy metal armor underneath a desert sun - but that didn’t mean Luke couldn’t still work him like a dog. The old man had become something of a drill instructor for him, and over the past three months Riven could safely say he’d easily be able to kick his own ass from three months prior if his current self and past self had it out.

Learning close combat tactics had been a longtime coming, and it’d been needed, as Riven had often found himself at a serious disadvantage whenever enemies closed in. Sure, his magic was great and would still be his primary source of damage output - but that didn’t mean it was unwise to commit to learning some close quarters fighting styles when closed in on. Already there’d been a couple assassins that nearly offed him, two prominent ones being the orc from Greenstalk’s village battle and the woman who’d tried to take his Chalgathi artifact in the basement of the ruined hospital.

“You’re certainly getting better.” Luke smiled down at the heavily breathing warlock. “I’m impressed with your performance. I only wish that I was in peak physical condition myself so it wasn’t just you going at it with shadows, or at my comparatively slower pace.”

“Thanks!” Riven gasped, the weapon in his hands vanishing and whisking away to create a jackal beside him that started sniffing at his armor. “How does your new body feel?”

The dog glanced his way, nodded once in approval, then began to trot towards the river where Athela was sunbathing.

“Not much of a talker then.” Riven mused, only to look up as he saw Fay’s incoming form descending from the sky.

She landed a moment later, her feathered boots gracefully touching down as the wind blew her purple miniskirt about with a strong gust. Smiling and pulling the brim of the witch’s hat down across her eyes to shield her from the blowing sands, she dusted herself off a moment after the wind went away and walked forward.

“How is it that you keep that hat on the entire time you’re flying?” Riven asked curiously, pulling himself up when Azmoth walked over to give him a hand. “And did you find a caravan yet? We need cover to make it into the city.”

Fay nodded and whipped her black tail out behind her to smack the ground with a *TWHAP* before pointing . “Yes sir! Another incoming caravan will be passing now where the two rivers meet in about a day. We should be able to make it there beforehand by an easy margin.”

“And you’ll be able to disguise us as we go? How many minds can you effectively warp with your hallucinations? I know your spell is internally contrived within the minds you want to move, and not externally built like an illusion so there’s gotta be a limit.”

“Somewhere over three thousand weaker minds, more than enough. Perhaps even four thousand, and the hallucinations work on status reads too, but the hallucinations get weaker and less convincing the more people I target. Stronger targets also take more effort.”

“Alright. My mask can also help, it stops other people from being able to identify me very well unless they have a true class - but I didn’t want to bank on people recognizing me for what I am. Or at all, given how I look.” Riven motioned to his very unique outfit that’d been circulating the world forums. Not many people in the top 1000 had much public footage out there, only a handful really and Riven had only glanced at it once in a while to make sure. What he’d seen was that though he was only rank 60 and not even in the top 10 most powerful people on the planet, albeit a few steps up from where he was at rank 72 a couple months ago, his battle for Chicago had gotten a very hyped amount of attention. Specifically from other vampires on the planet, and from the people of Earth. He could safely say he was somewhat famous. “Anyways let’s get packed up. Athela, put on some clothes - it’s time to move out. We’ve got a caravan to catch.”

***

Riven stood disguised as an old wrinkled man, still cloaked but with human features and a slight hunch while using a staff for support. Behind him the hulking, tattooed, maul-wielding barbarian was the most intimidating of their group as there was no way disguising Azmoth’s movements realistically without keeping him at least similar to the same size. Athela’s outfit was the same, a dark gray cloak with a black tiara underneath its hood and very recently added handheld crossbow strapped beside a quiver at her thigh that she’d more than anything just been playing with rather than using seriously. Athela’s skin was a dark brown instead of her regular pitch black with scattered white though. Meanwhile Fay’s wings, tail, horns and black eyes had disappeared along with her white hair - revealing a still rather attractive blonde, blue eyed witch. Lastly Riven’s thrall, Luke, looked exactly the same as before but without the redness to his eye.

Before them and on the path leading alongside the river, a caravan could be seen cresting a far hill. It’d no doubt take them a half hour or so to reach the spot where Riven and his crew stood, but Riven had time to burn as they waited while the members of his group chatted with one another or passed flasks of water.

Pulling up his status page, he had a level’s worth of points to apply after his recent battle with those bandits he’d killed.

[Riven Thane’s Status Page:

Level 83

Pillar Orientations:] Unholy Foundation, Blood Specialty: Profane Cyclone (Tier 1 of The Path of Red and Black), Infernal, Shadow (Subserviently linked to Blood Specialty Pillar)

Core of Original Sin - Gluttony:] (Under Construction)(???)

Traits:] Race: Pureblooded Vampire (Extreme Darkness Regeneration)(Sunlight Decay)(Extreme Weakness to Silver weapons, Sun pillar, and Light pillar attacks), Class: Warlock Adept, Adrenaline Junky (Blood)(+15% to Agility), Accomplishment Title: Bloodthirsty 1 (+5% increased blood mana from corpses, +1% dmg for blood magic)

Abilities:] Blessing of the Crow (Unholy), Wretched Snare (Unholy), Silvertongue (Unholy), Bloody Razors (Blood), Crimson Ice (Blood), Blood Lance (Blood)(Tier 2), Blood Nova (Blood)(Tier 3), Hell’s Armor (Infernal), Blaze of Profane Glory (Infernal)(Tier 3), Riftwalk (Shadow), Ping Chalgathi Artifacts (Unique)

Stats:] 113 Strength, 308 Sturdiness, 772 Intelligence, 350 Agility, 10 Luck, -497 Charisma, 227 Vampiric Perception, 209 Willpower, 9 Faith

Free Stat Points: 7

Minions:] Athela, Level 60 Arshakai [42 Willpower Requirement]. Azmoth, Level 71 Hellscape Brutalisk (Infernal Crusader Initiate) [58 Willpower Requirement]. Fay, Level 39 Succubus [29 Willpower Required]. Luke Blissfallen , Level 8 High Elf Thrall (Stormrazor Battle Priest)(Warning: 73% soul decay detected)[10 Willpower Requirement].

Equipped Items:] Basic Caster’s Cloak (5 def, 3% mana regen), Jackal (894 dmg, 305% mana regen, 8% stamina regen, shadow and blood dmg +36% with 10% decreased ability cost, Black Lightning, Gluttony’s Riptide, Jackal’s Lunge), Chalgathi Cultist Amulet - The Great Maw (Devour, ???), Chalgathi Cultist Pauldrons - Twin Cannibals (1290 def, +10% all stats, +60 Sturdiness, Blood in the Eyes, ???), Chalgathi Cultist Mask - Fallen Apostle (900 face def, 325 def with bloodskin, negates sunlight, all senses +40%, Identifier’s Clause), Steel Boots (98 def), Modified Steel Breastplate (120 Def), Steel Greaves (104 def), Steel Gauntlets (91 def), Steel Arm Guards (90 def), Witch’s Ring of Grand Casting (+26 Intelligence), Negrada’s Modified Bag of Holding]

Riven glanced over his stats, realizing just how far he’d come since the beginning. Back when he’d fought that necromancer start-up in Chalgathi’s trials and Athela had just been summoned for the first time, he’d thought casting his first spells were awe inspiring. In some ways, it still was - but on an escalated scale. Now, if he’d been pitted against that man - or even against other opponents who’d given him problems in the past; like the fallen satyr warlord in Negrada’s hellscape or the hive mind, clown dream creature, he’d utterly crush them into paste with a flick of his wrist. The power gap between them and who he was then, versus who he was now was astonishing - and even the drake he’d killed in the dungeon would have a much, much harder time putting any shots on him after his ascendancy into power.

Even so he could tell that there were weak points in his build. Namely, his close combat abilities were severely lacking. He had the great boon of being able to take a lot of hits due to vampirism, especially for a mage, and he was even dawning heavy armor now that protected him even further beyond what his vampiric regeneration alone could do. However, there were other very powerful people in the world out there and in his past experiences it’d been a very specific type of opponent that was most dangerous to him.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Those kinds of opponents were agility based. Be it the female orc rogue at the battle of Greenstalk, the assassin who’d nearly killed him after ambush in the basement of Brightsville’s hospital, and most recently - Richard, whose most serious threat to Riven had not been his hard hitting attacks but rather the speed at which he chased Riven down.

That being said Riven’s agility was pretty decent, as was his sturdiness. He also had a defensive spell in the form of Hell’s Armor, and two movement spells with Blessing of the Crow and Riftwalk. So he usually didn’t have much of a problem avoiding people or blocking attacks… but when he DID have that problem it was a serious one.

Looking back on his fights he’d rather floundered with close range physical attacks, attempting to block or dish out any damage aside from his magic. He simply hadn’t been trained in it, and he’d rightfully been focusing on magic as a dominant aspect to his build. But now that he had a true tutor in Luke, his thrall, a man that could guide him with how to fight using a stave, spear, or the weapon he now had in the form of Jackal - it would probably be wise to start investing more points in Strength. His Strength stat was also one of his lowest, barely being over 100 points, and aside from the 10 Luck and 9 Faith which he was completely ignoring - his Strength was relatively pathetic compared to his other stats. Charisma was negative, sure, but that could be a good thing if dealing with the right time of race.

Nevertheless he decided to put all 7 of his points into Strength for the very first time today. The feeling was miniscule, but he did feel his muscles tense and expand just ever so slightly after the points were added. He never intended to be an absolute full-frontal fighter, but having some umph to his physical attacks would probably be a good thing in the long run.

A pulse of hunger radiated from his soul apparatus, from the core of Gluttony that was still under construction. A visage of the great maw over a sea of corpses, rivers of blood flowing into the sky, and a blood moon in the background imbedded itself in Riven’s consciousness as his body went rigid - and a compulsion of extreme hunger rapidly came and went.

Athela’s hand gently rested on Riven’s shoulder. “Are you ok?”

Riven hesitated, realizing he’d visibly stiffened and had let out a long gasp with all four of his minions looking his way. “Yeah… Yeah I’m fine.”

“It happened again, didn’t it? The compulsion?” Athela stated with a frown. “That’s becoming more and more frequent.”

“It’s likely only going to increase.” Fay added with a sigh. “Especially when your core is finished, but it also may be influenced by your new items. Your weapon, and three of your Chalgathi artifacts are all touched by Gluttony. Did you ever talk to Kathrine about your Sin Core? I asked my clan in the nether realms about it, but they got very hush-hush when I brought it up.”

Riven snorted. “Absolutely not. I don’t feel like going around telling people I have a piece of original sin stuck inside of me is a good idea, at least for now. What if the other vampires want to dissect me and rip it out?”

“Very possible.”

“Yup.”

“But unlikely. You are a prince of their empire.”

“Not entirely off the charts though. One of them already tried to assassinate me, remember?”

Fay scrunched up her nose with a rather cute expression, but nodded in acknowledgement. “I suppose you’re right.”

From the front of the caravan, a lone man on horseback broke away from the main group and started towards them at a fast gallop. It was unusually fast for a horse, and flickers of some kind of energy radiated from the hooves of the beast as it got closer.

Two minutes of silence later and the man finally came to a halt and pulled on the reins, stopping about twenty feet away from the five companions while eyeing them suspiciously. He was a tall man with a masked cowl covering most of his face - likely to shield it from the sands. He wore a scimitar at his side that was decorated with gold, but lacked any enchantments that Riven could see. He rode upon a white stallion with a golden mane, and oddly enough its eyes shone a similar gold - as did the hooves, which actually let off a yellow-gold light.

The creature was truly beautiful.

[Sunblessed Sand-Stallion, Level 19]

Interesting breed of horse.

“State your names and your business.” The man called out, warily circling at a slow trot to get a better look at the five and gazing more intensely at Fay than the others. “You are obviously foreigners here by the make of your garments.”

Riven snorted, eyes shifting from the caravan back to the man as he played the role of an old and weary traveler. He even changed his voice slightly just to sound the part. “Aren’t we all foreigners in these lands now? The worlds we once lived in have changed, and not for the better. Where do we call home, when our homes have all been taken from us and the system has thrust us into such odd places such as this?”

The horseman’s eyes narrowed as they focused on Riven, and he briefly went over the rest of the party once before settling back on the group leader. “Yes… I will not disagree with you, traveler. However I must be honest, you feel very wrong to me. Even looking at you causes my skin to go on edge, and I do not think myself a coward. The smell of evil permeates the ground you stand on. Part of me wishes to flee even now, and I cannot for the life of me understand why.”

It was both a statement and a question, to which Riven didn’t have an answer. It could be one of three things: the first being his shard of gluttony. The second option was that this man could somehow sense pillar orientations. The third and most likely of the situations, was that Riven’s negative charisma was at work yet again.

Thankfully, Riven had a pseudo-fix to this problem that he’d already utilized a few times before his travels and had used even moreso while hunting the other Chalgathi participants. It wasn’t a permanent thing, and it wasn’t often noticeable as long as he didn’t make big changes or force the target to completely obey a command. Small things like persuading someone who was already on the edge of a decision were usually easy enough to do as long as their willpower was lower than his. The risk came with the knowledge that if someone’s willpower was equal to or higher than his own, or even close to his own but not quite there yet - it was possible that they’d be notified he was trying to use this spell and could potentially spell disaster. Thankfully, this man in front of Riven was not of a high willpower - and entering the caravan would be beneficial both in blending in, and collecting information.

“We’re of no threat to you, and can even help make the trip safer. Let me be blunt and to the point: Would you mind it if we traveled alongside you? Assuming you are a trade caravan? We are on a long journey and wish some company along dangerous roads.” Riven stated, infusing words into his Silvertongue spell that he’d received after binding Fay as a minion. Immediately the frown on the horseman’s face flattened out into a slightly dumb expression and his eyes faded out of focus - but then he quickly shook himself like he’d just woken up and nodded. “Yes, of course. We can bring you along with us, shouldn’t be a problem after I’ve told the others I vetted you. However, which city is it that you’re intending to travel to? Our caravan is headed towards Daskus, City of Canyons, Watcher of the Cube Labyrinth. If you were hoping to go towards Jerildine, you’d be out of luck.”

Riven grinned when he got a playful nudge of congratulations from Fay, even despite the huff of annoyance from Athela. “Daskus is the way we want to go if it’s in that direction.”

Riven pinged the Chalgathi artifacts, sensing two of them in close proximity to one another far off in the distance where cliffs could barely be seen across the sand dunes - and where the river now led.

The horseman looked over, nodded once, and turned his horse around. “That would be the path to Daskus. The city is actually built into the cliff faces on either side.”

“Mind telling me what the Cube Labyrinth is?”

The man gave Riven another confused look, but rephrasing the question with another influx of mana via Silvertongue caused him to not prod too much into exactly why Riven didn’t know this already when wanting to travel to the city. “The Cube Labyrinth is a new feature the Elysium Administrator placed within the canyon after integration as a prize for the city’s king after he completed a quest. It is a permanent fixture and a reusable maze of sorts. It can be quite dangerous, but completing its puzzles and finding your way through it is very rewarding and has brought a lot of wealth to our lands. A person can only use it 3 times, each time the cube has harder problems, puzzles, monsters and mazes to solve. After all 3 times of completing the cube, you can no longer enter it again - but you get a new trait dependent on what pillars you’re oriented to and how well you completed the three trials.”

Riven’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “Really… Are people able to enter the cube together?”

The horseman nodded. “Yes, you can complete it as a group - but each group can only be up to 10 people and has their own instanced area. That means that a different pocket of unique space is created for each group and they cannot be entered by others during that time. The exception is that if someone goes in with a group numbering less than 10, others can enter the cube’s maze to fill in the spots and share in the reward. However that can be rather dangerous to do without permission, because you might be killed for it - as you get a reduced reward if you have more group members and crimes committed in the cube are not crimes at all by decree of the king. It’s every man or woman for themself in there.”

Huh.

Riven pondered this for a time, but the horseman was getting impatient.

“I’m off to the Caravan. I’ll let them know you’ll be joining us, but no trouble on the road to Daskus. If there is any trouble, we won’t have any problems putting you down. Do you understand?”

“Sure. I understand.” Riven smiled and waved at the departing rider, only to turn fully around and face the distant cliffs. “This should be interesting. I did find it odd that we had two different Chalgathi participants in the same area for so long… At first I’d thought they’d teamed up. Do you think they’re inside the maze?”

“Probably.” Athela irritatedly stated with a sideways glare at Fay, who was pressing up against Riven’s shoulder on the opposite side. “Maybe we can throw the succubus into the cube to find out for us while we wait outside. I think that sounds like a great plan.”