Midnight Bounties 4 - Chapter 17

My Deeproot chimed like a fairy in heat. I only managed to glance at my ever-growing experience bar as I hacked through the bastard legions of the Dhozen Fires. Blood rained down from the sky as winged abominations circled the field of war. I couldn’t tell who was killing what, so I stuck my sword into the mouth of whoever opened theirs wide enough.

I rode Wolf through a line of human-sized demons with white shields and spears as fireballs and bone spikes flew past me. Some I dodged, some I took down with my swords, others ricochet harmlessly against my new armor.

Wolf trampled the lesser demons in the dozens, shield and all. The tentacles spurting from his side whipped across them, bashing in ugly faces, splitting some in half or flinging them into the sky.

The air was hot and charged with the symphony of Hell at war, the thundering of thousands of hooves and blaring horns, screeching and roaring legions of unholy creatures. The ground was soft and drenched in the blood of their kin, in the blood I spilled by the buckets.

It was everything I thought it would be and more. I was entirely lost in the carnage, Traitor and Mercy sowing through their ranks with a constant rhythm when I heard a beast-like voice roar from the east.

“Get him off that deviltail!” it bellowed.

I looked to my left and saw a ten-foot winged commander trample through his own ranks. He was carrying a massive black cleaver that glistened in the red-purple of Hell’s battlefield.

“Wolf! Get him!” I ordered and jumped off the saddle, then pointed my swords downwards to impale a fat-looking bulbous thing through its eyes. I pulled my blades out together with much of the demon’s brain matter and somersaulted backwards on the ground.

“Here, you big ugly fuck! I got off myself! Come and get me!” I roared, beckoning the horse-faced giant as he lumbered towards me. Suffice to say, that angered him even more.

The smaller hellspawn made room for their boss to pass through less he squashed them beneath his giant hooves.

“I will be your end, Spellmonger! They will chant my name!” he bellowed, bringing that massive obsidian cleaver down.

I dodged to the side as the blade tore into the earth, causing a fissure to erupt tossing up rock, shards, and body parts.

“Ambitious, are we?” I grinned.

A small circle formed around us and many of the demons focused on dying by my sword decided they’d rather continue fighting their own kind or cheer on their big brother.

I charged the big fellow half-heartedly. I wanted to test my strength and his rather than do any kind of serious damage. He brought the cleaver down on me and I parried it with both my swords then pushed his weapon aside and lunged forward, kicking him. The demon stumbled backwards; shock plastered all over its face.

He recuperated surprisingly quickly and managed to punch me in the face with his big, hard red fist. The impact shook my jaw pretty hard, causing my head to buzz for a moment. Good. So he was a threat after all.

“Iktor! Iktor!” some of the lesser demons around us began to cheer as the large fucker enjoyed the fame.

“You, you, and you, will die,” I said, pointing Mercy at the cheering demons behind Iktor. The enthusiasm on their misbegotten faces seemed to lessen with that.

“And also you and—you know what? Let’s just round it up to all of you dying.”

Iktor laughed for a brief moment, very brief to be precise. I used (Rift Walk) to appear in Iktor’s face, the upgraded effect of the spell sent a blastwave of dark energies pushing him back, and some of the demons behind him off their feet, then activated (Waltz of Death).

I leaped forward, putting my full power behind it then turned into a storm of blades, the powers of the Everdark replicating every swing of my swords four times. I blasted through Iktor so quickly his hooves remained standing while the rest of his body was cut into countless pieces, arms, horns and horse-face flying every which way. Before his audience could comprehend what was going on, I was already in their ranks and slicing through demon skin, armor, shields, spears, and bones.

I heard the chime of a new level just as I grinded to a halt, pulling Traitor and Mercy out of a demon mount half the size of Wolf. The rider dropped to the ground as the fiery horse whined and died. I stomped on its face and stuck Mercy down in its guts. When I looked up, it seemed as though both armies had stopped warring and were just watching me in utter horror. I spat on the ground.

“What?” I roared. “Something wrong?” First there was only silence, then the clatter and demonic screeching as Wolf stampeded toward, me tossing around whoever was dumb enough to stand in his path. I climbed my mount and rolled my shoulders, enjoying myself more than I probably should.

“What? Are you just going to watch or something? Suits me just fine, you ugly bastards!” Just as I was about to spur Wolf on to continue the carnage, another horn blared, a different one this time.

The armies from the left roared in unison, then charged with a newfound vigor. But instead of attacking me, they came charging in a wide column around me. I looked to the east and realized the other army was retreating.

I saw several demon commanders in the back of it glaring at me, then turning away and riding their giant beast-mounts away from the battle. Some flapped their giant white wings and took to the skies. I halted my assault for a moment, curious to see what was happening.

Finally, coming between the ranks of the attacking army, a massive musclebound demon with four arms the size of small trees came slowly lumbering my way. His face was a mess of stitched-together parts, with five eyes, a twisted mouth, and a hole instead of a nose. It was probably the ugliest thing I had ever seen. My hands twitched. It was my duty, for the sake of aesthetics if nothing else, to destroy that giant.

“Spellmonger,” it said as if speaking from the bottom of a well. “It is an honor.”

The mountain of disfigured meat dropped to a knee, and I cursed inwardly. Would it be considered bad manners if I still killed it?

“My name is Hingur the Hopeless. We have been awaiting your arrival.”

“Uh-huh,” I muttered, watching the lesser demons run past me to give chase to the other army. The sounds of slaughter continued in the back, slowly fading in the distance.

“Dread General Arstemion desires to meet you. If you’d be so kind to follow me.”

“Arstemion,” I repeated, remembering the conversation I had with Garret about the generals of Hell. He was the first to give name to the voice I had been hearing for years. The voice that grew nice and quiet lately though replaced by the screaming of a thousand others.

“Take me to him,” I said.

Hingur nodded and motioned me to follow through the advancing troops of Morgefah’s legions. A small host of bat-winged creatures circled us as we moved toward the back of the lines. Hingur splattered one of them like a fly when it came too close. I checked on my Deeproot as I rode behind him.

[CONGRATULATIONS, YOU HAVE LEVELED UP!]

[SPELLMONGER LEVEL: 66]

[SPELLMONGER CLASS EXPERIENCE: 2,200/41,000]

[You have gained +2 STAMINA stat]

[You have gained +2 STRENGTH stat]

[You have gained +2 AGILITY stat]

[You have gained +2 INTELLECT stat]

BASIC INFORMATION

NAME

Frank Midnight

RACE

Human

CLASS

Spellmonger

LEVEL

65

STATUS INFORMATION

STRENGTH

91

STAMINA

87

AGILITY

85

INTELLECT

94

“No new stuff, huh?” I muttered. Hingur turned around with a questioning look. “Never mind. Lead the way.”

I had no idea how many I killed but one thing was certain, demons in Hell dropped a lot of experience.

I saw several greater demons in the back of the army who gave me suspicious, even hateful looks. It seemed that I wasn’t as popular with all of Morgefah’s underlings. Fair enough. They weren’t my kind of people either.

Hingur led us a to a circle of large bones surrounded by hooded figures chanting something I couldn’t understand. On closer look, I realized they were chained to each other and to the bones around them. The stench of foul magic surrounded the spot but it seemed it was exactly that place Hingur the Hopeless wanted us to visit. He pointed a disfigured finger at the center.

“This will teleport you to the Dread General, Spellmonger. May you reach our Master healthy and whole.”

“You’re not coming, Hingur?”

 He shook his head, and a piece of rotten meat disconnected from his jaw and dropped to the ground. I grimaced instinctively.

“The battle isn’t over, and it won’t be for a long time. Duty calls, Spellmonger.”

A soldier’s mindset on that one. Despite his gruesome appearance, there was something knightly about Hingur. More so than in my own commanders back in the day.

“Alright then,” I said and rode Wolf into the circle, careful not to squash any of the hooded chanters then looked his way. “Now what?” I asked, turning to Hingur but he was already gone and so were the chanters. I realized I wasn’t outside anymore, instead I was staring at tall crumbling walls of grey-black stone. I looked up and saw there was no ceiling, just the same lightning-webbed sky of Hell. It looked like I was in a ruined temple of sorts, the cacophony of battle still present but very distant and faint.

A soft rumble outside followed by a hissing sound caught my attention, so I spurred Wolf on toward the destroyed entrance of the temple. There was no sign of Arstemion and I didn’t want to get caught in a confined space. Just as we were about to ride through, several tentacles came slithering down the opening to block our exit.

A large orange eye set within a small round purple body and surrounded by countless thick tentacles looked back at me, hanging from above. At first it seemed it had no mouth, but as if opening a wound from inside, a slit appeared, stretching into a bloody grin. I spat on the ground in disgust.

“Gods damn it, demon. You almost made me barf.”

At first it didn’t answer and just stared at me with that big burning eye while I was trying to decide which skill to use to tear it apart.

“Arstemion sends me,” it finally said still grinning. “He isn’t pleased with your performance.”

“Yeah? I’m so very sorry. Not. Now either lead me to him or get out of the way.”

“He doesn’t want to meet you. He has given up on the idea of you, Spellmonger.”

My Deeproot chimed as he spoke the words. It was a persuasion attempt, interestingly enough. But with the help of the Listener, the bracelet Snowdog gave me, not even greater demons could lie to me. I decided to play along, however.

“Well, that’s disappointing, demon. What now?”

“There is still a way. If you lay down your weapons and kneel before me, N’goth his second in command, you still have a chance of redemption. Arstemion cherishes humility, you see?”

“N’goth,” I repeated. I remembered the name. Nasthran had mentioned it. This was the archdemon who sent the imp my way. My ugly little familiar called him the Deceiver.

“Yes.”

“Well, if that’s what it takes,” I said, jumping off Wolf. I took a few slow steps toward the demon whose grin widened into a satisfied smile. Obviously, there was no way in hell I’d kneel before the thing. I just wanted to get close enough to charge through that big ugly eye and pop it like a zit.

“Yes, yes, come. Kneel, Spellmonger and all will be forgiv—”

Something pulled the archdemon back and it squealed like a terrified pig. A big, scaly hand grabbed one of the tentacles then swung N’goth away and slammed him against the hard rock. The thud made the ruins shake and dust and stone cascade down the walls. N’goth bounced off the ground, then skittered away in terror making his way down a steep cliff.

I walked through the gate because I couldn’t take in the entirety of the creature who handled the archdemon like an unruly child. Red scales covered it in its entirety, reinforced by black obsidian bone protruding from his arms, legs and face. A long black mane ran down between two giant folded black wings and to the tip of its tail. I had seen this demon before, I had heard it many times, its words etched into my mind.

“Arstemion,” I said, looking at the visage of a creature whose face had been painted more times than that of kings. He truly was the thing one imagined when the word demon was uttered. It was this face, this body that hung in Morgefah’s temple misrepresenting the Dark God himself. How it came that Arstemion became ubiquitous with Morgefah was beyond me or anyone. Perhaps there was a time when someone managed to escape Hell, perhaps it was a previous spellmonger who painted him after a dream. It was impossible to tell.

“Frank,” it replied.

He was the first demon who called me by my name. Wolf made his way to my side; he seemed unusually shy and tame in the presence of Hell’s general. After all this time, it felt surreal to finally see him in person. It still felt like a dream, a vision that I would suddenly wake up from again. Except this time I didn’t feel helpless. I didn’t feel stuck and paralyzed, no, quite the contrary. I felt as if the powers within me had been amplified by his very presence. By the proximity of Morgefah and his general.

“You called,” I said.

“I have and you’ve answered as all spellmongers do,” he almost sounded bored if not disappointed. “You’ve done well on the battlefield. Better than many of your peers.” His words filled the air with the smell of brimstone.

“Yeah, I did alright. To be fair, your kin dies quiet easily.”

“We never truly die,” he said with a note of sadness.

He looked over the cliff down to the valley where the battle was slowly ending. The other army was almost entirely slaughtered, even some of the greater demons had been felled by Arstemion’s forces.

“What’s the point of your wars then?”

“Attrition. We die and are reborn in the Dhozen Fires.”

“You mean in Hell?”

“No, I don’t. Your kind wrongly equates those terms. The Dhozen Fires are the pools of rebirth from which our kind respawns.”

“Huh, interesting.”

Arstemion said nothing, he only motioned me to follow and I saddled Wolf, patted him on the back, and spurred him on gently. We walked along the cliff and rounded a large rock formation. I looked at the valley of Hell where thousands of demons did whatever demons did. I saw simple housing made of black stone, and pools of bubbling blood in which they bathed. Some danced around large bonfires, others worked in strange, burning forges through which magma flowed.

The rattle of Hell was eerily similar to that of the tane or duergar cities, except that it was hotter, larger, and lacked the ritual sacrifices. I guessed there was no point in sacrificing people for the Dark God since, you know, we were in Hell already.

Giant worms slithered between the rocks and disappeared in the ground. Lumbering four-legged giants covered in twisted metals and packed with tiny imps slowly waded their way among the other legions of hellspawn. Everything seemed to be in preparation for war. As if reading my mind, Arstemion spoke,

“Hell is endless war, Spellmonger. We are born, we war, we die and are reborn again.”

“War is Hell, soldiers always said. Say, where are all the people? You know, like murderers, thieves, traitors and the like? Aren’t you supposed to be torturing them eternally?”

“It would be a nice change of pace, indeed. But Hell is not a place where your kind goes after death.”

“You’re shitting me?”

Arstemion blew hot black smoke through his large nostrils.

“So all that fearmongering and threats from the priests was pointless? All the killers go unpunished?”

“Are you not a killer yourself? One of the greatest ones at that?”

“Well, I…you know, I kill when I have to, it’s not the same.”

“Hell and morality have nothing to do with each other. We do not punish mortals, we don’t even care about your doings.”

“But what was all that stuff you were feeding me all those years? Go kill that, steal this, spit on that guy? You told me to kill Jerry at one point!”

Arstemion stopped and at that moment lightning struck just next to him almost blinding me. He turned around facing me with his red, burning eyes.

“I thought,” he said with a voice as deep as the Redmaw’s rumble. “It was funny.”

“Funny!”

“Endless war, Frank. It bores me. Spellmongers are the few creatures that I communicate with who aren’t demons. It’s my only connection to something outside this place.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but then closed it then opened it again, but no words would follow. He beckoned me and we turned up a slope that led to the top of the mountain.

“Don’t act so shocked,” he spoke as I rode after him. “We have been here for uncountable eons, constantly defending against Alevia’s forces. You think we are just mindless beasts with burning rage as our only motivation? We too want to live, but we are bound to him.”

He nodded onward and the image I saw in my dream appeared before me. Hanging weirdly suspended in the air was a monstrous rock the size of a small mountain. It was somehow anchored by giant chains to the mountain range to its north and south and shrouded in white and purple clouds. I could see the outlines of a fortress built on top of it. A gigantic structure the size of several Catan Palaces from Sankta Varath.

“Morgefah’s Prison,” I said.

“As long as we obey him, the Dhozen Fires will rebirth us. The price for our immortality is eternal slavery, Spellmonger.”

“Shit,” I blurted out. I never imagined demons wanting anything else but to…you know, do demon things: Kill, burn, torture and such. Though Hell was very much how I envisioned it, it wasn’t nearly as simple as the image I had in my mind.

My eyes wandered down to the valley beneath the floating prison. It narrowed into a canyon with steep walls between which a giant destroyed citadel lay. Behind it, there seemed to once have been a city of sorts, but it was abandoned and ruined now.

“What’s that down there?” I asked.

“The Steel Bastion,” Arstemion said. “We didn’t always war against Alevia. There was a time of balance between the Gods, a time long lost and forgotten by most. There the Varian race stood against our forces eternally. Shieldmothers and Shieldfathers defending your realm against Morgefah’s forces.”

“Really? To what end? Were you trying to escape Hell?”

“We were trying to swarm your kingdoms, yes.”

“Why?”

Arstemion breathed out, his shoulders heaving. He shook his head.

“Because he wanted it so,” he looked to the east. “Now all he worries about is Alevia and you. The only reason we exist is to protect him long enough for your arrival. But once you free him, we will be free too.”

It felt like the demon general had spoken those words a hundred times. There was no enthusiasm in any of it. He seemed resigned to his fate. Not that I was surprised a demon sounded pessimistic, but still, considering everything he said I’d thought he’d at least want me to succeed.

“So if I free him, I free you?”

“Yes.”

“So, what does that mean? I unleash a million demons on my homeland? Why would I do that, pal?”

“You would free us from this war, from his chains. That is Morgefah’s promise to our race. He will use his powers once unleashed to destroy Alevia and gift Hell to us to do with as we please. We have no interest in your realm.”

“And why should I believe this?”

Arstemion looked down at me, studying me with a patience that only a near immortal creature could have.

“The Dhozen Fires, Spellmonger,” he said as if that explained everything. He continued, almost unwillingly to explain further. “We are not reborn as we have died. The birthing pools are becoming exhausted after all these eons. We are reborn after we die, yes, but we are less every time. You have seen Hingur? He was once a creature not entirely unlike me. A great commander, a tireless warrior, but he has died too many times. He is now malformed, weak, and only a shadow of what he once was. We do not wish to die anymore, Spellmonger.”

“Huh,” I muttered then looked up at him. “But you haven’t died much, have you?”

“I will not entertain your question.”

“Fair enough, so what now?”

“Alevia knows you have arrived. He will intensify his efforts, no doubt. We will stand against him while you make your way through Morgefah’s Prison. Pray that we still have the strength to stop him. His powers have grown with the Quinta’s conquest. Their constant sacrifices have fed him well while you people ignored Morgefah.”

“So it’s our fault?”

“Yes. You have prayed to the wrong Gods.”

“You mean Allfah?”

Arstemion’s snort turned into a chuckle. More black smoke escaped his nostrils.

“Who do you think is Allfah, Frank?”

“The…uhm, good God or something?”

“It’s just another name for Alevia. You’ve been feeding your enemy’s God with ritual and sacrifice this entire time. You idiots think that using light magic to heal each other doesn’t tap into the same pool of power as the Quinta do. Your priests and scholars have failed you, they have failed everyone.”

“Shit,” I mumbled, thinking back on the days I prayed to Allfah myself. Not that there were many, but still.

“We fucked up, didn’t we?”

Arstemion stopped and turned to face me. A flock of those disgusting winged bastards circled us for a moment then dove down towards the valley.

“I have no words to express the hatred I feel for what you have done, mortals, but I will try. It was a burning, destroying hatred at first, then a brooding poisoning one that filled my days with pure suffering. Now it’s a lingering kind of hatred, like an old wound that doesn’t want to close and perhaps never will.”

“We didn’t know,” I said seriously and truly.

Arstemion shook his head and breathed out slowly like a father would hearing his child say something stupid.

“Follow me, we’re almost there,” he turned away and took to a set of stairs carved into the mountain. I shrugged to nobody in particular. We didn’t know, how could we? These demons were emotional people, but what could you do?