- Location
- Australia
Tbh I played way too much Dawn of Souls as a kid so I got it immediately. It just means Alchemist can find a big ass Lodestone and make an Airship now that he's defeated the fiend of fire.I'm sure someone might recognize a theme
Project: Gamer Ver. 2 (Young Justice/Gamer/Multicross OC)
- Thread starter Mister Ficser
- Start date
The Requip magics main thing is your limited in what you can store by size. Most people are limited to weapons like the woman called Bisca or something like that who calls hers the gunner cause she stores guns due to her accuracy with them. A big chunk of Erza's fame is her being able to expand that to storing outfits including the armour cause she also has things like pyjamas stored but she can't do vehicles. There is also a storage size limit Erza actually rents 5 linked rooms in the dorms to store spare stuff that she doesn't have space for.
Looking at it in the other way Fairy Tail is valid because games for it do exist not gotten around to playing it yet but there's one for the switch.
Red_Faux
私を終わらせる
- Location
- 'Straya M8
A wyvern my friend. The only dragons in Dark Souls are the same species as the Immortal Stone Dragons from the Age of Ancients, and Gwyn killed almost all of those. Only other one I can readily think of was in Dark Souls 1, like a million years ago.
Wait, three more. Gaping dragon, black dragon kalameet and dark eater midir. So the only dragon alive in the time of Dark Souls 3 is all the way in the Ringed City
More confusing since Elden Ring calls creatures that look identical 'Dragons', but they've always been wyverns in the Souls series.
Edit: should have read the chapter first, this correction is thoroughly uneeded, thx for setting him straight Terra-tan!
Last edited:
Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
Well now there's another one. A black one with glinting, shining stars embedded in his hide. He's a very powerful spellcaster, to boot.
Chapter 135
Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 1.3.5
Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.
_________________________________________________________________________
Trying to tease the secrets of properly working metal out of Andre had been a chore and a half. The ancient undead had been around since before the events of the original Dark Souls. He'd forgotten more than Alchemist was likely to ever learn.
Buying some tools off the Game Shop had helped, though. Once upon a time, long ago, Andre had sold the Armor Smithbox alongside the Weapon Smithbox, both tools used by the player character to upgrade and improve their own equipment. Seeing them had sparked some old memories in the stout old man.
Every level of improvement cost a handful of in-game currency (Though he didn't actually have to do that) and called for some upgrade materials. Typically something called 'Titanite'.
Though, this wasn't real-world titanite. That was made up of Calcium, Titanium, Silicon and Oxygen. In game Titanite was made up of godly magic and the idea, the concept of Strength, Empowerment, Improvement... Possibly even Inviolate. That wasn't even getting into the particular flavors of it, like green or demon titanite.
Though... Thinking about it, they probably weren't Inviolate at all. With the twisting and turning of the ages, different kinds of Titanite had faded away. Reduced, instead, to gemstones made of that divine material and filled with different concepts.
Every stage of normal Titanite could be bought on the game shop. Even the eponymous Slabs, made by an unnamed and now quite dead Blacksmith God from the first age. The various gemstones, however, were not so readily available.
Still abundant for whatever reason, just not available on the Game Shop. He'd seen a truly ridiculous amount drop off the various undead when he knew they were supposed to be uncommon, if not outright rare!
A little bit of experimenting with it, using some of the lesser valuable weapons from Bitterblack had shown that they didn't take to enhancements at all and adding any of the gemstone infusions would actually erase the benefits of dragonforging. The two systems were, simply enough, incompatible.
Which was somewhat fair. The infusions were incredibly versatile and offered a significant number of options whereas a Dragonforged weapon was -directly- very powerful. The enhancement and infusion process could potentially outshine it because it improved how much a weapon was impacted by his own abilities.
The key difference, in this case, being his own stats instead of the weapons. Flat strength versus symbiotic strength.
He would have to experiment a bit before he could decide one way or the other which direction he would stick with.
The Undead Settlement had been a fantastic testing ground for a lot of things. Completing Greirat's request, finding Cornyx the Pyromancer and Irina of Carim, a blind priestess. They, alongside a man named Yoel, had all been sent back to the shrine.
Yoel... Yoel could be a problem. He was a pilgrim from the old kingdom made by humans, Londor. A land fallen to darkness. Wicked and twisted and vile. He was eager to try and spread the hollow plague like some kind of drug, promising it would help to 'Draw out your true strength!'. Still... The man was reasonably sane and was willing to sell a few things, even as Alchemist didn't take him up on his offer.
Wouldn't and, as far as Alchemist knew, Couldn't. He didn't have a Dark Soul fragment in his being. His own Soul wasn't 'Human' in the same way theirs were.
On the positive side of things, he couldn't extract strength directly from souls by having them infused into himself.
On the negative side... He... Didn't have a limited form of immortality that would slowly turn him into beef jerky?
Moving on.
A significant portion of what he'd been doing in the Undead Settlement hadn't been hunting and killing. He'd done a significant amount of his time traveling through under invisibility, hurrying through to avoid too much fighting.
He'd been testing something else instead.
The undead, almost all of them were soul-starved madmen with an unrelenting need to commit extreme violence on anything that wasn't like them. There were even a few cases of infighting where different victims would see and hunt each other.
So... He wanted to know if it could be cured, at all. Or at least reduced.
Casting Cure did absolutely nothing. These broken souls were technically undead, but not raised through actual necromancy. They weren't attuned to negative energy, nor were they aberrations. Their existence was, however twisted, a natural part of the world.
That was... Good to know. In the unlikely event that he needed to heal one of the individuals here, he wouldn't need to pick up the Harm spell.
Up next had been Esuna. That one had been odd.
The villager he'd tried the spell on had seemed to awaken where he stood. The man had lifted his hands to his face and just... Started screaming.
The others around him had turned to watch, but none of them approached.
That had gone on for a solid minute as the man, a farmer, had felt around himself. Looking at how his body and limbs had become dessicated and ruined. Then, after the screaming had dissolved into tears and sobbing he'd picked up his weapon, a scythe, and awkwardly held it against himself so he could-
Shortly afterwards, when Alchemist touched one of the bonfires, the man had been reset. Still hollow, still mad. Exactly as he'd been before Alchemist had tried to help him in the first place.
One of the ugly facets of this reality. It fought, tooth and nail and claw, to stop any changes that could improve things. Anyone that's helped, anything that's fixed or improved... Quickly met a bad end.
He had the start of an idea, the start of a plan... But it would take some time and he'd need to make a few things first.
Alchemist shelved that thought and focused on the here and now.
"The next area we'll be going to is in a swamp. Everything there likes to spread poison, which I can help protect against, and except for the boss everything there fears fire." Wonder Woman looked determined at his statement, made inside his cabin within the demiplane.
Kary looked all too eager.
They were all seated at the bar in the morning after enjoying a good nights sleep.
Well, Alchemist and Diana had slept.
Alchemist had awoken to find Kary, as a Dwarf and wearing some clothes he'd enchanted to perfectly fit her, simply sitting across from the couch and staring at him.
Weird. A little bit uncomfortable. But she literally didn't operate on human logic so he was going to wait to deal with it.
"How will we be handling this, then?" Wonder Woman had placed her hands together and leaned forward, resting her chin on them.
"The poison is simple enough. I have a multitude of answer for it, I can literally make the equipment for it right now." Alchemist had opened his inventory and began pulling things out of it.
One of his all-too valuable Super Ribbons would negate virtually all of the status debuffs that could occur here. Except for Bleed, Esuna and its variants did nothing for Bleed...
He'd work in Regeneration, he'd hit one-hundred with that a while back.
He also pulled out the armor he'd gotten in the Tower of Mysidia. The armor and helmet duo for fire, and the armor and gloves combo for ice. Each suit of fire and ice would negate damage from that particular element, after all.
At least for Wonder Woman. Kary, having wildly different elemental values would likely see her Ice Resistance normalized and her fire Absorption reach the maximum value.
That made for four pieces of armor and two spells. He -could- fit more into the Fusion if he played around with things, but he was busy enough as it was without spending the time to make everything ultra-optimized!
"I don't think this armor was made to fit me, Alchemist." Diana said as she looked at the two suits of plate mail. One in blue, the other in red.
They were also both just a bit too small to fit on her.
"I'm aware." Alchemist designated the Ribbon as the recipient in his crafting menu and fed the two spells needed into the remaining two slots. Regenerate and Polymorph Any Object.
With an almost block-like graphical effect (Glitch?) the various items disappeared and Alchemist was left with a single pink ribbon.
Well, that wasn't too good.
He pulled some silk out of his inventory and used Transmutation to turn it into several long, black strips of fabric.
"What kind of magic have you made, here?" Kary grabbed the ribbon before Alchemist could feed it into the silk. "This feels... Oh, my! Quite the artificer, aren't you?"
~~ Immaculate Ribbon ~~
~~ Defense + 98, Magic Resistance + 20, Protects against all negative statuses. Ice resistance + 100, Fire Resistance + 100. Adds regeneration effect- Destroyed and damaged organs or missing limbs will regrow within two hours assuming wearer is still alive. Perfect Fit- Item will resize to fit the wearer at all times. ~~
"More I just shuffle things around and recombine them to suit my needs." He gently plucked the accessory from the Marilith's hands and fused it into the black silk ribbon he'd made instead.
He ended up with two strips of black cloth in his hands, and the pink ribbon had also been returned.
This actually marked the first time he'd gotten both of his crafting perks to activate at once!
"Do I need to wear this in any specific location?" Wonder Woman asked him as she took the offered item from him.
"No, you can put it wherever you want. In your hair, around your neck, tie it around your arm. It's all good." Being fair, he didn't have to stick to the ribbon theme.
It was just tradition.
"Some would consider this a kingly gift, Alchemist." Diana had opted to tie the Immaculate Ribbon around her arm, just above her bicep. "An immunity to poisons and the ability to heal from virtually all wounds? I cannot imagine the price of such an artifact."
"The point of magic is to make the impossible, possible." He hadn't bothered to find out himself. His healing alone had already gotten him more attention than he was comfortable with.
"Alchemist, could you help me?" Kary asked him, her fingers fumbling at tying the ribbon around her neck. "I've never been gifted with such a valuable garment before!"
"Ah... Sure?" Wonder Woman was right next to the smaller woman so Alchemist didn't know why she hadn't been asked instead.
Either way, Alchemist stood up and walked around the bar to help her. He was about to pull it taught when Kary spoke up again.
"Not too tight, if you would. I wouldn't want it to snap later."
-----
Wonder Woman had seen a fair few extra people lounging around the Shrine before they left.
A tall, emaciated man with a stone shell chained to his back named Yoel. A young, blind woman named Irina guarded by a massive man with a massive hammer named Eygon. A curious, almost tribal looking sorcerer named Cornyx. Finally there were a pair of warriors, a woman named Anri and a tall, silent sentinel named Horace.
Alchemist didn't seem to be in any sort of a hurry, talking to the tiny, emaciated corpse named Ludleth. He'd shown the elder a sort of cauldron, made seemingly of lizards all fused together in some grotesque manner.
Alchemist reached into it, reached deeper into it than should have been possible whilst holding one of those curious 'Souls' that some of the mad creatures here would occasionally drop on their deaths-
And drew a long spear from the cauldron! It was a thin, wicked thing and the point had small flecks of rotting meat attached to it still!
Diana checked to the side briefly to see Kary talking with Cornyx and hurried over as Alchemist began the process all over again, withdrawing a two-handed blade this time.
"How did you do that, Alchemist?" He hadn't placed either of them in the inventory yet. The two weapons, held in his hands, seemed connected in some fashion. How, though, she did not know.
"This-" Alchemist tapped the cauldron with the butt of the spear. "-is called a Transposing Kiln. It can take the souls of especially powerful entities and- Hang on. Hey, Ludleth?"
The little corpse twitched on hearing his name and looked up, away from the curious kiln.
"What are these 'Souls', anyway? Where I come from, the Soul refers to the core identity and metaphysical being of something. These seem a bit... Different?" And, once more, Alchemist got distracted.
Still, it came about during the course of answering her question and now she was especially curious as well.
"An unusual question. One marking you as an outsider, for certain! Souls, though, as we know of them, are the last physical remains of something. Most lack any sort of 'identity' as you mentioned but especially powerful souls can be considered akin to a record. An archive or memory of what brought that soul into power." The pygmy shuffled up, his ashen eyes more alive than ever before.
"For mortal and beast alike, the soul only forms after death. I believe it's an interaction of sorts with the Dark Soul, of its power being cultivated and grown so that someday, when all returns to one, it will be greater than it was before. The gods, however..." Ludleth shuffled on his all-too-massive throne. "Their souls, and the souls of the great arch-dragons, are as you said. They were the animating force, the mind, the very being of these great powers. Even soul-starved and deprived, humans can walk and talk and act as we choose. The gods, though... They simply die."
Diana pursed her lips in thought. Hey eyes were locked on the cauldron Alchemist had used, then to the weapons he'd pulled from it.
He was holding out the sword for her.
"Why?" Was her simple question as she took the proferred blade.
"It's especially strong against the undead." He answered her. "And you're better with it than me."
Well...
She couldn't argue against that.
-----
Kar'Yashlan decided that she was no great fan of swamps.
The air clung against her skin too tightly. The footing was uneven and untrustworthy. All too often she found one of her feet sinking into the peat and bog when she tried to root herself against an attack!
That didn't take into account at all the way the water would bubble and hiss and snap against her.
No. Kar'Yashlan did not like swamps at all.
It did offer a fantastic opportunity to watch Alchemist fight, however.
She paid rapt attention when he would do battle and noticed well that he would typically only really use a few spells. He tended to stick with one spell that would strike at a large number of enemies with well curated Dark power, another that -looked- like it attacked with the Dark but actually seemed to lack any elemental leanings. If she or Diana were too close for the second spell of his, he would instead freeze one of these mad hollows or vicious beasts in Time and allow either of the two women the opportunity to slay them.
Finally, perhaps the least obviously impressive, the mage had mastered the art of teleportation!
She had a lesser form that she could use herself, but it seemed much more limited. She could only use it on herself and not on whatever caught her attention. She was also limited to using it within a relatively close proximity to herself as well.
A truly wondrous ability in melee combat.
The mage was starting to tire, however, so she allowed the man to fall back while she took point alongside Diana.
Truly, were the terrain a volcanic mountain or great bloody plain, this would be a most delightful journey!
"I've been wondering something about you, Kary, ever since you returned with us from the Cave Dungeon." Diana started without much preamble shortly after they were attacked, and then soundly defeated a great, ugly brute still attached to a cross it had likely died on.
"What troubles you, Diana?" The poor girl had the most amusing expressions on her face whenever Kary would quote something Toryn had told her. "I'm certain you could have asked back after we escaped from Mount Gurg."
"Mount Gurg? Was that the name of the place you were sealed away?" Diana shook her head, dismissing more notifications that had cropped up from seemingly nowhere.
She turned around to look at Alchemist but the man was just placidly following along behind them, seemingly lost in thought.
"No-" Diana broke in before Kary could begin to answer. "-I apologize, I got distracted. I wanted to know more about you, where you came from, how you came to be sealed away?"
"Ahh, I see." A story, then. Well, Kary was no Bard but she had been taught a thing or two. "It is impossible to say when I was truly created. In the very heart of Chaos, in the nexus where I was forged, time is more a suggestion than anything else."
"My body was made from the remains of a Maiden of Battle to a goddess long since dead. Or perhaps a purpose forgotten. Her knowledge and memories were never my own, obviously. Into her hollowed chest was placed the heart of an eldest Elemental. A lord of flame and fire. I was told, once, before I was truly aware of who I am, that his name had been 'Forge' and he'd served eternally as the heat source for a god of smithing and creation. And finally, of course, everything was bound together and given life from the wellspring of Chaos. The source and, often enough, the end of Life itself." Kary brought her hand up to her chest, pressing against the pulsing heat of her stolen heart. "For an eternity I served. Unwavering and unthinking in my purpose. Until my defeat."
Trying to remember those days was difficult. She hadn't quite been 'aware' at that point. Just an automaton of flesh and fire.
"Upon my death I was cast back to my source. Bathed once more in the Chaos between all things, I became more. I thought to myself 'This is miserable'. My very first independent thought. Sad, isn't it?" Diana was simply listening to her speak with a hard look on her face. Alchemist, though, simply nodded when she looked back at him.
"I... Suppose expecting you to have been born like a human was a bit presumptuous of me." Diana admitted to her.
Their continued discussion was interrupted briefly when they came upon a multitude of hollowed, empty men. Some of them tried to charge, to impale them on sharpened logs.
Kary answered by picking the men up by their own weapons and slamming them into nearby trees.
"Many demons are born." Kary admitted once the exhilaration of battle faded. "Many are made. Some simply become and others, well, they crawl their way out of a cluster of fading, rotten souls. Few of us ever become more than animals regardless of our origins. We may seem capable of thought, of speech, perhaps even look as though we can love and joy and all these other things mortals take for granted."
The glow of Kary's jade eyes glared deeply into Diana's own.
"Let me assure you, very few of us have grown beyond the shackles of our nature. Even the greatest of demons are rarely more than their original purpose. Seemingly more complicated, more capable perhaps... But they've simply learned new ways to pursue their original goals." Kary shook her head, her hair flinging back and forth. "I believe I've gotten off topic."
"I... Suppose so." Diana waited a moment for a cluster of nearby explosions to taper off, actually stopping to turn around and look at the mage on their group.
Alchemist simply waved at her silently.
"How then did you come to be sealed in Mount Gurg?" A very good question!
"Ah, there's a bit of a story there." Kary admitted as they entered a ruined keep. "I'd grown tired of being thrown back and forth throughout time, expected to do battle constantly with warriors I'd long since outgrown."
How long ago had that been? Kary honestly could not remember.
"So, one day, when the warriors I'd simply allowed to pass succeeded in subduing the Avatar of Chaos, I spied an opportunity to try something new. As Chaos is intrinsic to life, as it extends in many ways to all realities, I chose to take a risk. I threw myself into a rift as time and space tried to correct itself." That had been thousands of years ago, easily. "I ended up in a place called Sigil. A sort of nexus across countless realities. There were struggles as I adapted to my new home. Monsters that tried to subdue me, others that tried to hire me. Demons that thought to suborn themselves to my service and yet still others that thought dominating me in battle would win them my loyalty."
It had been an exciting millennia as she adapted and thrived, recounting her adventures would take days!
"Eventually, that was where I met Toryn. I had entered into service as a guard for a smith, a maker of weapons akin to the greatsword Alchemist gifted me. He tried to seduce me so that his allies could swindle the smith... It was the first time I recall ever being complimented for something other than my strength." Kary... Actually laughed, softly, at the memory. "I was flattered. Smitten, even. It's why I didn't kill him and his friends for their trespass."
Those were good days. Good memories. So different from the joy and thrill of battle... Yet somehow so much more enthralling.
"He seemed to think it as some sort of challenge. To woo some great and ancient demon like myself. He would seek me out and provide small gifts, sweets and wine while he tried to tell me his stories. I barely knew how, back then, to tell him he'd already claimed my heart." Kary brought one hand up to her cheek, her eyes misting over as she recalled the strange courtship. "I think I was afraid at the time that, if he knew he'd already won, he would stop trying. Stop telling me stories of his friends and their adventures, their treasures and conquests. He had countless stories of maidens and merchants and princesses and how they would reward him after he'd courageously defended them. I still have every sweet and bottle of wine he'd given me."
Kary laughed, softly, as she thought on the things she'd been told.
"I never had a chance to put his lessons to practice. I'd begun to practice my shapeshifting and had the form mastered by the time he finally made an offer. He asked that we be wed, to be joined for the rest of his lifetime. All I had to do was meet with his family and attain the approval of his Mountain Warden. I was..." Kary paused for a moment to let Alchemist step forward and deal with the spear-wielding hollows inside the ruined keep.
She may have licked her lips as she watched him handle them from a distance with cold efficiency.
"...Eager, I suppose. I'd been told stories of how satisfying intimacy could be. I didn't believe it could be better than the exhilaration of battle but, I suppose, there is a reason Gluttons like Succubi engage in it so often. It was a trap of course." Kary snorted in derision at the memory. Diana, thankfully, remained silent and curious. "They'd actually expended the wealth of their mountain and drained the very warmth from the Earth. The magma had grown cold and their hammers had stilled. Unable to work solid, brittle metal. Toryn had told them about me, and they had come up with a clever idea to use me to fuel their everything."
"Such a betrayal... You must have been devastated." Wonder Woman muttered, her eyes watching a distant horror.
"Oh, I was." Kary agreed with her readily enough. She'd had countless years to get over it, really. "But it also brought about their own downfall. Treason begets treason, after all, and forcibly bound demons, devils and angels never quite work out how the binders intend. Fate itself will ensure that much."
"All of that... Why would you focus on Alchemist so much?" Diana didn't quite seem to get it, which was fine enough. Her home had a lack of men-folk after all.
Overhead, on the ruined remains of a floor above, Kary briefly saw Alchemist talking with some other scholar and handing over a scroll, then receiving a handful of thinner scrolls and something else before the man disappeared and Alchemist began walking back.
"He has no use for me and he speaks honestly." Diana looked aghast at Kary's answer but the demoness simply rolled her eyes. "He has power enough that he'll hand over great and treasured artifacts as though they're unimportant. For him, they are. He has no want for a guard or tool. He has no need of such a thing."
Kary inhaled slowly and sighed, putting her thoughts in order.
"It may have been a lie, but Toryn taught me what it felt like to be wanted as a woman. Alchemist has no need of anything else. When he looked upon me under Gurg and comforted me, he did so because he chose to do so. He gained nothing from it, he wanted nothing from me. It's not confidence, no." Kary began walking forward, avoiding the various holes in the floor that would drop her down to the waters below. "Nor is it certainty. I suppose, though, that it's simple enough..."
Kary turned to Wonder Woman again, a wide grin splitting across her face.
"For all of his power, it's still cute how he acts when I offer him the same kind of attention I learned to enjoy."
-----
Alchemist, both of him, were really learning to appreciate having a few helping hands.
Bilocation didn't -quite- double his ability to focus. It nearly did, and it was fantastic for doubling his productivity! In most cases.
Getting into actual fights was a very different and demanding thing as compared to reading a book and slowly grinding up a non-combat spell.
It still allowed him to offer support to Kary and Diana while the other part of him was pushing through to the depths of the poison swamp adjacent to the keep the others were in.
He was so, so glad he had his clean underwear on. That annulled the poison. The special perk 'Flow', actually gotten out of one of the special scrolls from Bitterblack Island, made it so he wasn't slowed down by the sticking, clinging mud.
It all helped out a lot. Between these things and his preference to fight at a distance things had been going alright.
There had been a time or two where the Alchemist with the girls had nearly frozen when the solo caster had gotten caught off guard, though. In the poison swamp were monsters called 'Ghru', werewolf looking things with sharp horns growing out of their skulls. Then there were Giant versions which used whole trees as weapons. Also slugs, giant crabs, lizards that spewed cursed gas and a few more darkwraiths.
He'd managed to get through it all, though. Picked up a lot of random junk in the process, too. He didn't have any use for the armor after all, and his own weapons were vastly superior to the leftovers from other failed champions.
He had no idea what he was going to do with all of the Poison and Hollow Gems he'd collected but he'd figure it out eventually.
He did have to limit himself to a handful of spells though. He just didn't have the time or opportunity to think 'Gee, what should I cast this time?'. Flare, Darkja, Stop and Teleport were all extremely solid options, though!
The only one of which he wasn't especially familiar with had been Stop. The spell had incredible potential, but also incredible limitations.
Its ability to freeze something in time was limited to one target per casting, unless he equipped a Time Materia paired with an All Materia. However, if he did that, then the spell would only get experience as though it was cast once. Not a dramatic issue by itself.
The spell also did not have a one-hundred percent success rate. By itself. Yet. It started off around sixty, hit one-hundred with his perks and he was reasonably certain the rate had gone up as it had leveled up but that didn't take into account resistances. Not a problem here, but he knew of one bastard in particular that was highly resistant to time manipulation effects.
Then there was the duration of the spell. Roughly half a minute without perks, a full minute with perks and he had noticed the time increasing.
At level one-hundred it would be able to Stop something permanently with Lock.
Alchemist, who had been thinking on this while climbing an absolutely ludicrous ladder, leaned forward and hooked his arm around a rung so he could take a breather. He leaned to the side so he could look down at the poison swamp, at the corpses of the monsters he hadn't been able to avoid...
His armor may not make noise, but the enchantment did nothing for the splashing. Hidden Form may have made him invisible but it made it incredibly obvious where he was standing by the out of place holes in the bog-water.
Violently insane, unfortunately, did not translate into stupid.
Alchemist kept his hands locked in place and did his best to maintain focus as the other team began their battle with one of the Twin Crystal Sages guarding the path to the Road of Sacrifice.
It ended up being a short battle, thankfully.
In the actual game, Alchemist was often fond of using a Bandit Knife, a weapon with good Bleed build-up and just rushing the boss. It or poison would both see the boss done in with little mess or trouble.
This time, however, the battle was even shorter.
Stop was so incredibly useful, after all...
Alchemist got back to climbing as Alchemist continued further on past the boss battle, towards the Chapel of the Deep. It was still too early to call it a day, sadly enough...
Though looking back down and seeing some of the areas he couldn't easily access without teleport, he did wonder something.
Would Kary prefer a full suit of demon-killer's armor before or after it was burned to a crisp?
-----
After reaching some great temple, Alchemist had given Kary and Diana a choice.
They could either continue through the temple without him, pushing through to do battle with a group of Deacons that had gleefully helped a madman in his desire for cannibalism...
Or they could join him in a bid to find his way through a frigid tundra so he could find a portal to a lost city where the progenitors of mankind had entombed themselves.
Diana... Had chosen to push through the temple. Kary had ended up joining her after a moment of hesitation.
The demon just wasn't built for the snow and ice and she knew it.
So he'd gone off alone while the ladies pushed forward into the Chapel of the Deep.
Just getting in had proven simple enough. There had been a pair of great doors, right at the front... That were locked.
Those would have likely proven difficult and tedious to get around if not for one thing.
Diana hadn't cared for whatever game or puzzle was meant to be here.
She'd pushed, the locking mechanism had resisted. She pushed harder.
It broke. The doors broke. The giant guarding the door from the inside broke.
"Violent little thing, aren't you?" Kary teased as she stepped through the great and massive doors.
"Sometimes, force really is the simplest solution." Diana felt she was being corrupted by her two companions.
Of course, when a spectral red warrior rose from the floor, covered in armor made of iron barbs, she was forced to ask herself if they were simply the products of their environment.
Yes, she admitted to herself as Kary locked her blades with the mad warrior.
They were definitely the product of their environment.
As she almost lazily avoided incoming attacks from overhead she had to wonder...
Just how was Alchemist holding up?
-----
Alchemist... Was actually having a rather mixed experience.
One Alchemist had gone south-east from the warp point that brought him to the icy realm. He'd flown invisible as a dragon, through the blizzard to a tower staffed with powerful and very aggressive giants.
There were a few things there that may well be useful in Diana's hands. Or perhaps Kary, if she wanted to use a huge bow that fired arrows taller than he was.
All in all, things had gone decently well on that front.
The Alchemist that had gone north-east, though... He'd met the few sane undead in the Painted World of Ariandel and, he had to admit, he wasn't a fan.
The one positive, at least, had been the woman, Sister Friede, giving him a ring to try and make him leave. It offered a fourteen percent bonus to ice and frost resistance, so that was nice?
It really wasn't going to convince him to leave, though.
He had a plan for later and it called for a very, very specific combination of factors that he couldn't make himself.
He needed a weapon of some kind that was both abyssal in nature but was also touched in flame. He knew where three such weapons could be found... And he was hoping to avoid too many fights in the process of getting there.
Friede, her knight Vilhelm and, hidden well below, the massive undead priest named Ariandel were all only really violent if something or someone came along with the intention of interfering in their existence and refused to leave.
Alchemist was content to leave them be, honestly. He just needed to get to the warp point behind Ariandel so he could move on.
Well... Had been content to leave them be.
He'd had to sneak around to a corvian settlement, a place filled with strange, bird-like people. All sickly in the worst of ways, hollowed out and mostly mad, their own organs trailing under them in some kind of herniated appendix. Or it was solidified feces. Alchemist didn't know which and he kept enough distance he didn't have to find out.
They were being slaughtered by their own kin, the few that were whole and healthy.
The sick killing the sicker.
There wasn't anything worthwhile that he could do. The madness had already long since sunk in and even if he could heal them, the bonfires in the local area would just reset his progress.
Stronger souls, more permanent souls, those could be impacted... But the fodder were as sand in a stream.
Alchemist didn't know if it was a game mechanic, if Vilhelm had just known someone would try to get around Sister Friede guarding the doorway down, or if the man was just that observant. Any which way he'd been guarding the back route to Ariandel.
"Hey! Skeever-Butt!" Coming from just around the corner of the building had been enough to distract him, though.
Ghost Sound was endlessly useful.
A quick application of Knock and Alchemist was in the sealed library, then Teleport let him move around the raised platform to the little painter girl.
She was an odd little child. Nameless, according to her. With some curious lines about those who would paint a new world like the one they were in.
He was reasonably certain there were scales on her face and he wondered, idly, if she had any relation to Ariamis. If she might have had any relation to Priscilla.
She did claim to have a kinship with flame. And that was functionally the same as claiming a kinship with the deities here.
Regardless of his pondering, Alchemist had to move on when Vilhelm made his way up. Likely attracted by the noise.
Hidden Body, Muffled boots and a solid sneak bonus ahoy!
His journey continued and he picked up a good number of odds and ends along the way. More gemstones, several Titanite Slabs (Which would save him eighty-thousand GP each!) and even his very own copy of Vilhelms Dark Armor!
He had no plans to wear it. His own set was heavier and far more sturdy, thank you very much!
Finally, however, he was coming up on the last leg of this journey.
He'd found the room with Father Ariandel in it, which meant he'd found the room that would lead him to the Dreg Heap.
Alchemist had thought he was being especially quiet and cautious as he tried to sneak around the warped, twisted figure of the man tied down to a chair with his face buried in a pot full of ashes.
"Who goes there!" He must not have been cautious enough. Ariandel had brought his head up and out of the ashes, waving to and fro to try and find the invisible form sneaking around him. "Ah kin feel it! Warmth an' fire, here! Yeh're not welcome here, Ashen One!"
Alchemist remained silent and still, barely daring to breathe as the massive undead looked around the room with empty eye-sockets.
"Ah kin feel it! Ah kin see it! The embers...! Mah flail! Friede, bring me mah flail!" The twisted man buried his face into the pot before bringing it back up, a wordless howl splitting from his desiccated lips!
"Father..." Oh, no. That wasn't what he wanted to hear! "Let it trouble ye not. 'Tis just ash and ember, nothing more."
Friede had walked into the room, a great scythe held in her hands.
A ludicrous weapon, a terrible weapon... Except that this was a video-game world which meant it operated on rule of cool instead!
"'Tis passing strange. We did enjoy a visitor most odd, but he passed on. Return'st from whence he came." Friede was looking around the room, pacing it under the watchful gaze of Ariandel. "Naught here but us. What stireth the embers, then?"
Hidden Body gave him functional invisibility, but it had something of a short timer. He could recast it freely just fine but the action of casting it would break the spell for a second.
And in a few more seconds the choice would be taken away from him regardless.
He tried to hurry as silently as he could. If he could just get behind the tied-down bulk of Ariandel, he'd be home free!
"Sister Friede!" Goddammit, Vilhelm. "We have an intruder. They slipped in, the girl spoke with them. Did you see them on your way down?"
Alright. He was putting the painter girl on his naughty list.
Positive note, though! It distracted the woman with the scythe!
Alchemist rushed to take two more steps and then got hit with a face full of ashes.
"Ah knew it!" Alchemist was busy clearing the dust off his visor so he could see as the old undead crowed his victory! "Ah felt it! The warmth, the heat of another Soul!"
About the time he could see clearly he felt something press against his gorget, the metal guard around his neck.
"You were warned, fool." Friede had her scythe wrapped around his neck.
Which is, honestly, a terrible position to use a scythe in combat. It's much better as a punching or stabbing tool than it is a slicing one.
"I'm just trying to pass through." Alchemist slowly raised his hands, palms exposed. "I needed to get to the Ringed City. I'm not here to start any fights, light any fires."
Friede was absolutely silent, glaring at him.
Ariandel had covered his eyes, huddling into his pot full of ashes.
Vilhelm- Where was Vilhelm?
~~ Critical Hit! ~~
~~ Backstab! ~~
~~ -400 HP! ~~
~~ +575 HP! ~~
~~ -4 VP! ~~
While a solid part of Alchemist began screaming bloody murder when a sword was thrust through his back, through his armor to come out of his stomach...
Another, small part of him was realizing 'Oh, that's where Vilhelm is!'
His hands were scrabbling at the blade buried through his back when Friede stepped away and Vilhelm kicked Alchemist off of the Onyx Blade.
"Nothing good has come of that wretched place." Vilhelm sneered down at the bleeding, wheezing form. "And nothing good comes from those that seek it."
That may have been meaningful, if Alchemist had actually heard him.
"Odd..." Friede demurred, looking at the writhing body on the floor. "Vilhelm, have ye ever seen one of the undead bleed so much?"
"...No." The man looked down at his own blade, well covered in viscera. "Even the fresh ones tend to stop right quick."
"A live one?" Ariandel finally got up the courage to look upon the carnage. "Still? Ought not the flame have taken them all?"
Whatever else they may have said, Alchemist would not be privy to. He'd finally gotten over the shock enough that he cast Haste.
Breathing at first was still excruciating until he cast Life, swiftly followed by Cure.
His HP was technically full, barring the bleed damage. Vilhelm's Onyx Blade actually did more Dark Damage than Physical Damage. Between the two spells, though, it sealed and healed the wound that had torn right through his liver.
He stood up, his armor slowly Mending itself while he glared upon the trio.
"My patience..." He cast Stop upon the three of them in quick succession. "Has run out."
He wanted to hurt them. He desperately wanted to hurt them...
[Steal!] But he would refrain. They had certain, well founded worries and were operating on expectations that would otherwise be true.
[Steal!] However, with that being said...
[Steal!]
[Steal!]
[Steal!]
[Steal!]....
-----
Friede was incredibly confused.
One second, she and her knight Vilhelm had been standing around a dying man in a quickly expanding pool of blood.
In the next the man was gone, though the blood was not.
Still across from her were both Vilhelm and Father Ariandel but-
"'Tis not decent to expose yourself so before a lady!" Ariandel was equally confused but the addled old man latched on to the first thing he saw.
Which was Vilhelm's very exposed backside.
"Friede?" Vilhelm... When was the last time she'd actually seen his face.
"Yes, my knight?" Perhaps... Before his hollowing? He would have once been handsome.
"You're naked." She looked down at herself with his proclamation to find that she was, indeed, naked.
And that her weapon was missing.
"Degenerates! Both of yeh!" Father Ariandel howled at them, heedless of his own lack of dress. "Get dressed an' hurry! A livin' soul, off to the pygmy hive?! Yeh need stop him lest the wretches find out!"
That swiftly brought her out of her reverie.
She rushed back to the ladder leading up to her tower, heedless of the cold clinging to her!
A living soul, heading into the heart of the first abyss?
Even the Sable Church had no desire to see what madness that would create!
-----
The Dreg Heap.
The name really doesn't inspire confidence. Being literal, it's a pile of unwanted pieces, things otherwise considered to be useless.
The truth, however, was a bit different.
Alchemist stepped away from the bonfire and dispelled his Haste, approaching an old woman sitting on a chair at the edge of a cliff and just looking over the vast swathes of ruins and ash.
"It's a miserable sight, isn't it?" She asked him, craning her long neck to stare at his face.
He couldn't see her own, hidden as it was under a deep gray hood.
"Fascinating, though. In its own way." She wasn't wrong. Half-wrecked buildings were thrown haphazardly in massive piles of ashes. He was fairly sure he could see a few things moving, down below.
Looking to the sides, to the sky, it was just more and more and more. He was half convinced the ruins actually went around the sun, too.
Almost like a Vortex World, the primordial state before a world and its Reason were set into being...
Well, that was just him being fanciful.
"I don't suppose you're here just to do some business with an old, dried up crone like me, are ya sonny?" Well... He had GP to burn. And she had a unique weapon, if he recalled correctly.
"May as well see what you've got." He had a few minutes or so to go before Stop broke down between expand, its current level and his perks. He'd have to hurry when he got done though.
He ended up buying everything she had, honestly having forgotten that the woman offered a few rare, potent healing items.
Afterwards he gave her a half-salute and cast Haste, disappearing into the ashes below.
He'd been wrong back in Lothric. There were no enemies there called Angels. They were Winged Knights and were certainly meants to invoke the idea of seraphim... But the Angels were here in the Heap. They flew high overhead, raining down light on his position as he ran through, trying to keep ahead of the abyssal dreglings, the infected suits of misshapen armor and the occasional Lothric Knight that had ended up here after falling through the gaps in reality.
He finally had a chance to practice with Ultima!
The enemies here were even sturdy enough, they could take two hits from it! Well, alright, only a few of them were.
Other than that, there were only a handful of things worth hunting down in the heap. A trio of rings for an idea he wanted to try later. For weapons, there was one thing interesting, an enchanted thrusting dagger... But nothing that was useful.
Even so far as spells went, the three that were here just didn't stand out. One dark projectile spell, a flame spell and a projected healing spell. For all of them, he already had something better.
He didn't bother hunting down every enemy, nor did he bother to try and track down where every treasure was. He did notice he'd gotten a handful of different gems from the mad creatures that tried to interfere with him, but, well...
They just weren't important for him, not right now.
Alchemist looked up to one of the grotesque bloody angels overhead, midway into a distorted scream, and sent it brief nod before dropping down into a deep hole in the middle of the heap.
To the lair of the Demon Prince, the would-be champion of the chaos flame that had been slain in an age long past and resurrected alongside its killer.
He'd tried stealth with Ariandel...
Time to see if force would work better.
-----
Diana had long since returned to the demi-plane and was in the process of making herself a meal.
Outside, enjoying the fresh air, Kary was practicing her weapon forms.
She may not have been a great cook, but Diana was still eighty-five years old. If she hadn't figured out how to make a sandwich by this point in her life, something would be drastically wrong.
She was about to take her first bite when she got a notification.
~~ Heir of Chaos: Slain ~~
~~ Demon Prince: Defeated! ~~
~~ Experience + 125000! ~~
~~ GP + 250000! ~~
~~ Obtained Items - Soul of the Demon Prince X2 ~~
"Oh, come on!" Kary shouted from outside the cabin. "He's keeping all the fun to himself!"
-----
It had taken Friede and Vilhelm a significant amount of time to cross through the Dreg Heap.
The wasteland was large and dangerous, great beasts born of the abyss roamed the location.
Some, like the massive Harald Knights, suits of armor bloated and filled with malice from the depths, were far too dangerous to even try and fight.
"How was it possible for a living human to get through here?" Vilhelm had to ask as they closed in on the lit bonfire next to a great, deep hole.
"I know not." Friede admitted to him. "The painters keeper, Gael, he was the only one to explore this wretched place."
"The madman?" Vilhelm hadn't been able to find his second suit of armor and had to resort to wearing much less protective clothing. A gambeson and a pair of heavy trousers. "He'd have enjoyed it, I suppose."
"He did." Friede looked down into the abyss below. Unlike Vilhelm, she had a spare set of her original clothes.
Just a simple robe, but still.
"Tarry not. We've no idea how far he's outpaced us." The woman didn't give her hollow companion a chance to so much as argue before she dove down.
Vilhelm withheld a sigh and followed.
He landed safely in a pile of ashes, just next to his mistress.
She wasn't looking at him, however. Her hooded gaze was locked on something else.
Vilhelm looked as well. Then, like her, he froze.
"What madness..." She murmured, unable to look away from the great bulk before them.
It was a massive bat winged demon, four twisted limbs beneath it and a tail covered in spines. Occasionally flames would still lick away from its corpse.
Its headless corpse.
What kind of man could do this by himself?!
As always, this character sheet is courtesy of the amazing Memzak!
Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.
_________________________________________________________________________
Trying to tease the secrets of properly working metal out of Andre had been a chore and a half. The ancient undead had been around since before the events of the original Dark Souls. He'd forgotten more than Alchemist was likely to ever learn.
Buying some tools off the Game Shop had helped, though. Once upon a time, long ago, Andre had sold the Armor Smithbox alongside the Weapon Smithbox, both tools used by the player character to upgrade and improve their own equipment. Seeing them had sparked some old memories in the stout old man.
Every level of improvement cost a handful of in-game currency (Though he didn't actually have to do that) and called for some upgrade materials. Typically something called 'Titanite'.
Though, this wasn't real-world titanite. That was made up of Calcium, Titanium, Silicon and Oxygen. In game Titanite was made up of godly magic and the idea, the concept of Strength, Empowerment, Improvement... Possibly even Inviolate. That wasn't even getting into the particular flavors of it, like green or demon titanite.
Though... Thinking about it, they probably weren't Inviolate at all. With the twisting and turning of the ages, different kinds of Titanite had faded away. Reduced, instead, to gemstones made of that divine material and filled with different concepts.
Every stage of normal Titanite could be bought on the game shop. Even the eponymous Slabs, made by an unnamed and now quite dead Blacksmith God from the first age. The various gemstones, however, were not so readily available.
Still abundant for whatever reason, just not available on the Game Shop. He'd seen a truly ridiculous amount drop off the various undead when he knew they were supposed to be uncommon, if not outright rare!
A little bit of experimenting with it, using some of the lesser valuable weapons from Bitterblack had shown that they didn't take to enhancements at all and adding any of the gemstone infusions would actually erase the benefits of dragonforging. The two systems were, simply enough, incompatible.
Which was somewhat fair. The infusions were incredibly versatile and offered a significant number of options whereas a Dragonforged weapon was -directly- very powerful. The enhancement and infusion process could potentially outshine it because it improved how much a weapon was impacted by his own abilities.
The key difference, in this case, being his own stats instead of the weapons. Flat strength versus symbiotic strength.
He would have to experiment a bit before he could decide one way or the other which direction he would stick with.
The Undead Settlement had been a fantastic testing ground for a lot of things. Completing Greirat's request, finding Cornyx the Pyromancer and Irina of Carim, a blind priestess. They, alongside a man named Yoel, had all been sent back to the shrine.
Yoel... Yoel could be a problem. He was a pilgrim from the old kingdom made by humans, Londor. A land fallen to darkness. Wicked and twisted and vile. He was eager to try and spread the hollow plague like some kind of drug, promising it would help to 'Draw out your true strength!'. Still... The man was reasonably sane and was willing to sell a few things, even as Alchemist didn't take him up on his offer.
Wouldn't and, as far as Alchemist knew, Couldn't. He didn't have a Dark Soul fragment in his being. His own Soul wasn't 'Human' in the same way theirs were.
On the positive side of things, he couldn't extract strength directly from souls by having them infused into himself.
On the negative side... He... Didn't have a limited form of immortality that would slowly turn him into beef jerky?
Moving on.
A significant portion of what he'd been doing in the Undead Settlement hadn't been hunting and killing. He'd done a significant amount of his time traveling through under invisibility, hurrying through to avoid too much fighting.
He'd been testing something else instead.
The undead, almost all of them were soul-starved madmen with an unrelenting need to commit extreme violence on anything that wasn't like them. There were even a few cases of infighting where different victims would see and hunt each other.
So... He wanted to know if it could be cured, at all. Or at least reduced.
Casting Cure did absolutely nothing. These broken souls were technically undead, but not raised through actual necromancy. They weren't attuned to negative energy, nor were they aberrations. Their existence was, however twisted, a natural part of the world.
That was... Good to know. In the unlikely event that he needed to heal one of the individuals here, he wouldn't need to pick up the Harm spell.
Up next had been Esuna. That one had been odd.
The villager he'd tried the spell on had seemed to awaken where he stood. The man had lifted his hands to his face and just... Started screaming.
The others around him had turned to watch, but none of them approached.
That had gone on for a solid minute as the man, a farmer, had felt around himself. Looking at how his body and limbs had become dessicated and ruined. Then, after the screaming had dissolved into tears and sobbing he'd picked up his weapon, a scythe, and awkwardly held it against himself so he could-
Shortly afterwards, when Alchemist touched one of the bonfires, the man had been reset. Still hollow, still mad. Exactly as he'd been before Alchemist had tried to help him in the first place.
One of the ugly facets of this reality. It fought, tooth and nail and claw, to stop any changes that could improve things. Anyone that's helped, anything that's fixed or improved... Quickly met a bad end.
He had the start of an idea, the start of a plan... But it would take some time and he'd need to make a few things first.
Alchemist shelved that thought and focused on the here and now.
"The next area we'll be going to is in a swamp. Everything there likes to spread poison, which I can help protect against, and except for the boss everything there fears fire." Wonder Woman looked determined at his statement, made inside his cabin within the demiplane.
Kary looked all too eager.
They were all seated at the bar in the morning after enjoying a good nights sleep.
Well, Alchemist and Diana had slept.
Alchemist had awoken to find Kary, as a Dwarf and wearing some clothes he'd enchanted to perfectly fit her, simply sitting across from the couch and staring at him.
Weird. A little bit uncomfortable. But she literally didn't operate on human logic so he was going to wait to deal with it.
"How will we be handling this, then?" Wonder Woman had placed her hands together and leaned forward, resting her chin on them.
"The poison is simple enough. I have a multitude of answer for it, I can literally make the equipment for it right now." Alchemist had opened his inventory and began pulling things out of it.
One of his all-too valuable Super Ribbons would negate virtually all of the status debuffs that could occur here. Except for Bleed, Esuna and its variants did nothing for Bleed...
He'd work in Regeneration, he'd hit one-hundred with that a while back.
He also pulled out the armor he'd gotten in the Tower of Mysidia. The armor and helmet duo for fire, and the armor and gloves combo for ice. Each suit of fire and ice would negate damage from that particular element, after all.
At least for Wonder Woman. Kary, having wildly different elemental values would likely see her Ice Resistance normalized and her fire Absorption reach the maximum value.
That made for four pieces of armor and two spells. He -could- fit more into the Fusion if he played around with things, but he was busy enough as it was without spending the time to make everything ultra-optimized!
"I don't think this armor was made to fit me, Alchemist." Diana said as she looked at the two suits of plate mail. One in blue, the other in red.
They were also both just a bit too small to fit on her.
"I'm aware." Alchemist designated the Ribbon as the recipient in his crafting menu and fed the two spells needed into the remaining two slots. Regenerate and Polymorph Any Object.
With an almost block-like graphical effect (Glitch?) the various items disappeared and Alchemist was left with a single pink ribbon.
Well, that wasn't too good.
He pulled some silk out of his inventory and used Transmutation to turn it into several long, black strips of fabric.
"What kind of magic have you made, here?" Kary grabbed the ribbon before Alchemist could feed it into the silk. "This feels... Oh, my! Quite the artificer, aren't you?"
~~ Immaculate Ribbon ~~
~~ Defense + 98, Magic Resistance + 20, Protects against all negative statuses. Ice resistance + 100, Fire Resistance + 100. Adds regeneration effect- Destroyed and damaged organs or missing limbs will regrow within two hours assuming wearer is still alive. Perfect Fit- Item will resize to fit the wearer at all times. ~~
"More I just shuffle things around and recombine them to suit my needs." He gently plucked the accessory from the Marilith's hands and fused it into the black silk ribbon he'd made instead.
He ended up with two strips of black cloth in his hands, and the pink ribbon had also been returned.
This actually marked the first time he'd gotten both of his crafting perks to activate at once!
"Do I need to wear this in any specific location?" Wonder Woman asked him as she took the offered item from him.
"No, you can put it wherever you want. In your hair, around your neck, tie it around your arm. It's all good." Being fair, he didn't have to stick to the ribbon theme.
It was just tradition.
"Some would consider this a kingly gift, Alchemist." Diana had opted to tie the Immaculate Ribbon around her arm, just above her bicep. "An immunity to poisons and the ability to heal from virtually all wounds? I cannot imagine the price of such an artifact."
"The point of magic is to make the impossible, possible." He hadn't bothered to find out himself. His healing alone had already gotten him more attention than he was comfortable with.
"Alchemist, could you help me?" Kary asked him, her fingers fumbling at tying the ribbon around her neck. "I've never been gifted with such a valuable garment before!"
"Ah... Sure?" Wonder Woman was right next to the smaller woman so Alchemist didn't know why she hadn't been asked instead.
Either way, Alchemist stood up and walked around the bar to help her. He was about to pull it taught when Kary spoke up again.
"Not too tight, if you would. I wouldn't want it to snap later."
-----
Wonder Woman had seen a fair few extra people lounging around the Shrine before they left.
A tall, emaciated man with a stone shell chained to his back named Yoel. A young, blind woman named Irina guarded by a massive man with a massive hammer named Eygon. A curious, almost tribal looking sorcerer named Cornyx. Finally there were a pair of warriors, a woman named Anri and a tall, silent sentinel named Horace.
Alchemist didn't seem to be in any sort of a hurry, talking to the tiny, emaciated corpse named Ludleth. He'd shown the elder a sort of cauldron, made seemingly of lizards all fused together in some grotesque manner.
Alchemist reached into it, reached deeper into it than should have been possible whilst holding one of those curious 'Souls' that some of the mad creatures here would occasionally drop on their deaths-
And drew a long spear from the cauldron! It was a thin, wicked thing and the point had small flecks of rotting meat attached to it still!
Diana checked to the side briefly to see Kary talking with Cornyx and hurried over as Alchemist began the process all over again, withdrawing a two-handed blade this time.
"How did you do that, Alchemist?" He hadn't placed either of them in the inventory yet. The two weapons, held in his hands, seemed connected in some fashion. How, though, she did not know.
"This-" Alchemist tapped the cauldron with the butt of the spear. "-is called a Transposing Kiln. It can take the souls of especially powerful entities and- Hang on. Hey, Ludleth?"
The little corpse twitched on hearing his name and looked up, away from the curious kiln.
"What are these 'Souls', anyway? Where I come from, the Soul refers to the core identity and metaphysical being of something. These seem a bit... Different?" And, once more, Alchemist got distracted.
Still, it came about during the course of answering her question and now she was especially curious as well.
"An unusual question. One marking you as an outsider, for certain! Souls, though, as we know of them, are the last physical remains of something. Most lack any sort of 'identity' as you mentioned but especially powerful souls can be considered akin to a record. An archive or memory of what brought that soul into power." The pygmy shuffled up, his ashen eyes more alive than ever before.
"For mortal and beast alike, the soul only forms after death. I believe it's an interaction of sorts with the Dark Soul, of its power being cultivated and grown so that someday, when all returns to one, it will be greater than it was before. The gods, however..." Ludleth shuffled on his all-too-massive throne. "Their souls, and the souls of the great arch-dragons, are as you said. They were the animating force, the mind, the very being of these great powers. Even soul-starved and deprived, humans can walk and talk and act as we choose. The gods, though... They simply die."
Diana pursed her lips in thought. Hey eyes were locked on the cauldron Alchemist had used, then to the weapons he'd pulled from it.
He was holding out the sword for her.
"Why?" Was her simple question as she took the proferred blade.
"It's especially strong against the undead." He answered her. "And you're better with it than me."
Well...
She couldn't argue against that.
-----
Kar'Yashlan decided that she was no great fan of swamps.
The air clung against her skin too tightly. The footing was uneven and untrustworthy. All too often she found one of her feet sinking into the peat and bog when she tried to root herself against an attack!
That didn't take into account at all the way the water would bubble and hiss and snap against her.
No. Kar'Yashlan did not like swamps at all.
It did offer a fantastic opportunity to watch Alchemist fight, however.
She paid rapt attention when he would do battle and noticed well that he would typically only really use a few spells. He tended to stick with one spell that would strike at a large number of enemies with well curated Dark power, another that -looked- like it attacked with the Dark but actually seemed to lack any elemental leanings. If she or Diana were too close for the second spell of his, he would instead freeze one of these mad hollows or vicious beasts in Time and allow either of the two women the opportunity to slay them.
Finally, perhaps the least obviously impressive, the mage had mastered the art of teleportation!
She had a lesser form that she could use herself, but it seemed much more limited. She could only use it on herself and not on whatever caught her attention. She was also limited to using it within a relatively close proximity to herself as well.
A truly wondrous ability in melee combat.
The mage was starting to tire, however, so she allowed the man to fall back while she took point alongside Diana.
Truly, were the terrain a volcanic mountain or great bloody plain, this would be a most delightful journey!
"I've been wondering something about you, Kary, ever since you returned with us from the Cave Dungeon." Diana started without much preamble shortly after they were attacked, and then soundly defeated a great, ugly brute still attached to a cross it had likely died on.
"What troubles you, Diana?" The poor girl had the most amusing expressions on her face whenever Kary would quote something Toryn had told her. "I'm certain you could have asked back after we escaped from Mount Gurg."
"Mount Gurg? Was that the name of the place you were sealed away?" Diana shook her head, dismissing more notifications that had cropped up from seemingly nowhere.
She turned around to look at Alchemist but the man was just placidly following along behind them, seemingly lost in thought.
"No-" Diana broke in before Kary could begin to answer. "-I apologize, I got distracted. I wanted to know more about you, where you came from, how you came to be sealed away?"
"Ahh, I see." A story, then. Well, Kary was no Bard but she had been taught a thing or two. "It is impossible to say when I was truly created. In the very heart of Chaos, in the nexus where I was forged, time is more a suggestion than anything else."
"My body was made from the remains of a Maiden of Battle to a goddess long since dead. Or perhaps a purpose forgotten. Her knowledge and memories were never my own, obviously. Into her hollowed chest was placed the heart of an eldest Elemental. A lord of flame and fire. I was told, once, before I was truly aware of who I am, that his name had been 'Forge' and he'd served eternally as the heat source for a god of smithing and creation. And finally, of course, everything was bound together and given life from the wellspring of Chaos. The source and, often enough, the end of Life itself." Kary brought her hand up to her chest, pressing against the pulsing heat of her stolen heart. "For an eternity I served. Unwavering and unthinking in my purpose. Until my defeat."
Trying to remember those days was difficult. She hadn't quite been 'aware' at that point. Just an automaton of flesh and fire.
"Upon my death I was cast back to my source. Bathed once more in the Chaos between all things, I became more. I thought to myself 'This is miserable'. My very first independent thought. Sad, isn't it?" Diana was simply listening to her speak with a hard look on her face. Alchemist, though, simply nodded when she looked back at him.
"I... Suppose expecting you to have been born like a human was a bit presumptuous of me." Diana admitted to her.
Their continued discussion was interrupted briefly when they came upon a multitude of hollowed, empty men. Some of them tried to charge, to impale them on sharpened logs.
Kary answered by picking the men up by their own weapons and slamming them into nearby trees.
"Many demons are born." Kary admitted once the exhilaration of battle faded. "Many are made. Some simply become and others, well, they crawl their way out of a cluster of fading, rotten souls. Few of us ever become more than animals regardless of our origins. We may seem capable of thought, of speech, perhaps even look as though we can love and joy and all these other things mortals take for granted."
The glow of Kary's jade eyes glared deeply into Diana's own.
"Let me assure you, very few of us have grown beyond the shackles of our nature. Even the greatest of demons are rarely more than their original purpose. Seemingly more complicated, more capable perhaps... But they've simply learned new ways to pursue their original goals." Kary shook her head, her hair flinging back and forth. "I believe I've gotten off topic."
"I... Suppose so." Diana waited a moment for a cluster of nearby explosions to taper off, actually stopping to turn around and look at the mage on their group.
Alchemist simply waved at her silently.
"How then did you come to be sealed in Mount Gurg?" A very good question!
"Ah, there's a bit of a story there." Kary admitted as they entered a ruined keep. "I'd grown tired of being thrown back and forth throughout time, expected to do battle constantly with warriors I'd long since outgrown."
How long ago had that been? Kary honestly could not remember.
"So, one day, when the warriors I'd simply allowed to pass succeeded in subduing the Avatar of Chaos, I spied an opportunity to try something new. As Chaos is intrinsic to life, as it extends in many ways to all realities, I chose to take a risk. I threw myself into a rift as time and space tried to correct itself." That had been thousands of years ago, easily. "I ended up in a place called Sigil. A sort of nexus across countless realities. There were struggles as I adapted to my new home. Monsters that tried to subdue me, others that tried to hire me. Demons that thought to suborn themselves to my service and yet still others that thought dominating me in battle would win them my loyalty."
It had been an exciting millennia as she adapted and thrived, recounting her adventures would take days!
"Eventually, that was where I met Toryn. I had entered into service as a guard for a smith, a maker of weapons akin to the greatsword Alchemist gifted me. He tried to seduce me so that his allies could swindle the smith... It was the first time I recall ever being complimented for something other than my strength." Kary... Actually laughed, softly, at the memory. "I was flattered. Smitten, even. It's why I didn't kill him and his friends for their trespass."
Those were good days. Good memories. So different from the joy and thrill of battle... Yet somehow so much more enthralling.
"He seemed to think it as some sort of challenge. To woo some great and ancient demon like myself. He would seek me out and provide small gifts, sweets and wine while he tried to tell me his stories. I barely knew how, back then, to tell him he'd already claimed my heart." Kary brought one hand up to her cheek, her eyes misting over as she recalled the strange courtship. "I think I was afraid at the time that, if he knew he'd already won, he would stop trying. Stop telling me stories of his friends and their adventures, their treasures and conquests. He had countless stories of maidens and merchants and princesses and how they would reward him after he'd courageously defended them. I still have every sweet and bottle of wine he'd given me."
Kary laughed, softly, as she thought on the things she'd been told.
"I never had a chance to put his lessons to practice. I'd begun to practice my shapeshifting and had the form mastered by the time he finally made an offer. He asked that we be wed, to be joined for the rest of his lifetime. All I had to do was meet with his family and attain the approval of his Mountain Warden. I was..." Kary paused for a moment to let Alchemist step forward and deal with the spear-wielding hollows inside the ruined keep.
She may have licked her lips as she watched him handle them from a distance with cold efficiency.
"...Eager, I suppose. I'd been told stories of how satisfying intimacy could be. I didn't believe it could be better than the exhilaration of battle but, I suppose, there is a reason Gluttons like Succubi engage in it so often. It was a trap of course." Kary snorted in derision at the memory. Diana, thankfully, remained silent and curious. "They'd actually expended the wealth of their mountain and drained the very warmth from the Earth. The magma had grown cold and their hammers had stilled. Unable to work solid, brittle metal. Toryn had told them about me, and they had come up with a clever idea to use me to fuel their everything."
"Such a betrayal... You must have been devastated." Wonder Woman muttered, her eyes watching a distant horror.
"Oh, I was." Kary agreed with her readily enough. She'd had countless years to get over it, really. "But it also brought about their own downfall. Treason begets treason, after all, and forcibly bound demons, devils and angels never quite work out how the binders intend. Fate itself will ensure that much."
"All of that... Why would you focus on Alchemist so much?" Diana didn't quite seem to get it, which was fine enough. Her home had a lack of men-folk after all.
Overhead, on the ruined remains of a floor above, Kary briefly saw Alchemist talking with some other scholar and handing over a scroll, then receiving a handful of thinner scrolls and something else before the man disappeared and Alchemist began walking back.
"He has no use for me and he speaks honestly." Diana looked aghast at Kary's answer but the demoness simply rolled her eyes. "He has power enough that he'll hand over great and treasured artifacts as though they're unimportant. For him, they are. He has no want for a guard or tool. He has no need of such a thing."
Kary inhaled slowly and sighed, putting her thoughts in order.
"It may have been a lie, but Toryn taught me what it felt like to be wanted as a woman. Alchemist has no need of anything else. When he looked upon me under Gurg and comforted me, he did so because he chose to do so. He gained nothing from it, he wanted nothing from me. It's not confidence, no." Kary began walking forward, avoiding the various holes in the floor that would drop her down to the waters below. "Nor is it certainty. I suppose, though, that it's simple enough..."
Kary turned to Wonder Woman again, a wide grin splitting across her face.
"For all of his power, it's still cute how he acts when I offer him the same kind of attention I learned to enjoy."
-----
Alchemist, both of him, were really learning to appreciate having a few helping hands.
Bilocation didn't -quite- double his ability to focus. It nearly did, and it was fantastic for doubling his productivity! In most cases.
Getting into actual fights was a very different and demanding thing as compared to reading a book and slowly grinding up a non-combat spell.
It still allowed him to offer support to Kary and Diana while the other part of him was pushing through to the depths of the poison swamp adjacent to the keep the others were in.
He was so, so glad he had his clean underwear on. That annulled the poison. The special perk 'Flow', actually gotten out of one of the special scrolls from Bitterblack Island, made it so he wasn't slowed down by the sticking, clinging mud.
It all helped out a lot. Between these things and his preference to fight at a distance things had been going alright.
There had been a time or two where the Alchemist with the girls had nearly frozen when the solo caster had gotten caught off guard, though. In the poison swamp were monsters called 'Ghru', werewolf looking things with sharp horns growing out of their skulls. Then there were Giant versions which used whole trees as weapons. Also slugs, giant crabs, lizards that spewed cursed gas and a few more darkwraiths.
He'd managed to get through it all, though. Picked up a lot of random junk in the process, too. He didn't have any use for the armor after all, and his own weapons were vastly superior to the leftovers from other failed champions.
He had no idea what he was going to do with all of the Poison and Hollow Gems he'd collected but he'd figure it out eventually.
He did have to limit himself to a handful of spells though. He just didn't have the time or opportunity to think 'Gee, what should I cast this time?'. Flare, Darkja, Stop and Teleport were all extremely solid options, though!
The only one of which he wasn't especially familiar with had been Stop. The spell had incredible potential, but also incredible limitations.
Its ability to freeze something in time was limited to one target per casting, unless he equipped a Time Materia paired with an All Materia. However, if he did that, then the spell would only get experience as though it was cast once. Not a dramatic issue by itself.
The spell also did not have a one-hundred percent success rate. By itself. Yet. It started off around sixty, hit one-hundred with his perks and he was reasonably certain the rate had gone up as it had leveled up but that didn't take into account resistances. Not a problem here, but he knew of one bastard in particular that was highly resistant to time manipulation effects.
Then there was the duration of the spell. Roughly half a minute without perks, a full minute with perks and he had noticed the time increasing.
At level one-hundred it would be able to Stop something permanently with Lock.
Alchemist, who had been thinking on this while climbing an absolutely ludicrous ladder, leaned forward and hooked his arm around a rung so he could take a breather. He leaned to the side so he could look down at the poison swamp, at the corpses of the monsters he hadn't been able to avoid...
His armor may not make noise, but the enchantment did nothing for the splashing. Hidden Form may have made him invisible but it made it incredibly obvious where he was standing by the out of place holes in the bog-water.
Violently insane, unfortunately, did not translate into stupid.
Alchemist kept his hands locked in place and did his best to maintain focus as the other team began their battle with one of the Twin Crystal Sages guarding the path to the Road of Sacrifice.
It ended up being a short battle, thankfully.
In the actual game, Alchemist was often fond of using a Bandit Knife, a weapon with good Bleed build-up and just rushing the boss. It or poison would both see the boss done in with little mess or trouble.
This time, however, the battle was even shorter.
Stop was so incredibly useful, after all...
Alchemist got back to climbing as Alchemist continued further on past the boss battle, towards the Chapel of the Deep. It was still too early to call it a day, sadly enough...
Though looking back down and seeing some of the areas he couldn't easily access without teleport, he did wonder something.
Would Kary prefer a full suit of demon-killer's armor before or after it was burned to a crisp?
-----
After reaching some great temple, Alchemist had given Kary and Diana a choice.
They could either continue through the temple without him, pushing through to do battle with a group of Deacons that had gleefully helped a madman in his desire for cannibalism...
Or they could join him in a bid to find his way through a frigid tundra so he could find a portal to a lost city where the progenitors of mankind had entombed themselves.
Diana... Had chosen to push through the temple. Kary had ended up joining her after a moment of hesitation.
The demon just wasn't built for the snow and ice and she knew it.
So he'd gone off alone while the ladies pushed forward into the Chapel of the Deep.
Just getting in had proven simple enough. There had been a pair of great doors, right at the front... That were locked.
Those would have likely proven difficult and tedious to get around if not for one thing.
Diana hadn't cared for whatever game or puzzle was meant to be here.
She'd pushed, the locking mechanism had resisted. She pushed harder.
It broke. The doors broke. The giant guarding the door from the inside broke.
"Violent little thing, aren't you?" Kary teased as she stepped through the great and massive doors.
"Sometimes, force really is the simplest solution." Diana felt she was being corrupted by her two companions.
Of course, when a spectral red warrior rose from the floor, covered in armor made of iron barbs, she was forced to ask herself if they were simply the products of their environment.
Yes, she admitted to herself as Kary locked her blades with the mad warrior.
They were definitely the product of their environment.
As she almost lazily avoided incoming attacks from overhead she had to wonder...
Just how was Alchemist holding up?
-----
Alchemist... Was actually having a rather mixed experience.
One Alchemist had gone south-east from the warp point that brought him to the icy realm. He'd flown invisible as a dragon, through the blizzard to a tower staffed with powerful and very aggressive giants.
There were a few things there that may well be useful in Diana's hands. Or perhaps Kary, if she wanted to use a huge bow that fired arrows taller than he was.
All in all, things had gone decently well on that front.
The Alchemist that had gone north-east, though... He'd met the few sane undead in the Painted World of Ariandel and, he had to admit, he wasn't a fan.
The one positive, at least, had been the woman, Sister Friede, giving him a ring to try and make him leave. It offered a fourteen percent bonus to ice and frost resistance, so that was nice?
It really wasn't going to convince him to leave, though.
He had a plan for later and it called for a very, very specific combination of factors that he couldn't make himself.
He needed a weapon of some kind that was both abyssal in nature but was also touched in flame. He knew where three such weapons could be found... And he was hoping to avoid too many fights in the process of getting there.
Friede, her knight Vilhelm and, hidden well below, the massive undead priest named Ariandel were all only really violent if something or someone came along with the intention of interfering in their existence and refused to leave.
Alchemist was content to leave them be, honestly. He just needed to get to the warp point behind Ariandel so he could move on.
Well... Had been content to leave them be.
He'd had to sneak around to a corvian settlement, a place filled with strange, bird-like people. All sickly in the worst of ways, hollowed out and mostly mad, their own organs trailing under them in some kind of herniated appendix. Or it was solidified feces. Alchemist didn't know which and he kept enough distance he didn't have to find out.
They were being slaughtered by their own kin, the few that were whole and healthy.
The sick killing the sicker.
There wasn't anything worthwhile that he could do. The madness had already long since sunk in and even if he could heal them, the bonfires in the local area would just reset his progress.
Stronger souls, more permanent souls, those could be impacted... But the fodder were as sand in a stream.
Alchemist didn't know if it was a game mechanic, if Vilhelm had just known someone would try to get around Sister Friede guarding the doorway down, or if the man was just that observant. Any which way he'd been guarding the back route to Ariandel.
"Hey! Skeever-Butt!" Coming from just around the corner of the building had been enough to distract him, though.
Ghost Sound was endlessly useful.
A quick application of Knock and Alchemist was in the sealed library, then Teleport let him move around the raised platform to the little painter girl.
She was an odd little child. Nameless, according to her. With some curious lines about those who would paint a new world like the one they were in.
He was reasonably certain there were scales on her face and he wondered, idly, if she had any relation to Ariamis. If she might have had any relation to Priscilla.
She did claim to have a kinship with flame. And that was functionally the same as claiming a kinship with the deities here.
Regardless of his pondering, Alchemist had to move on when Vilhelm made his way up. Likely attracted by the noise.
Hidden Body, Muffled boots and a solid sneak bonus ahoy!
His journey continued and he picked up a good number of odds and ends along the way. More gemstones, several Titanite Slabs (Which would save him eighty-thousand GP each!) and even his very own copy of Vilhelms Dark Armor!
He had no plans to wear it. His own set was heavier and far more sturdy, thank you very much!
Finally, however, he was coming up on the last leg of this journey.
He'd found the room with Father Ariandel in it, which meant he'd found the room that would lead him to the Dreg Heap.
Alchemist had thought he was being especially quiet and cautious as he tried to sneak around the warped, twisted figure of the man tied down to a chair with his face buried in a pot full of ashes.
"Who goes there!" He must not have been cautious enough. Ariandel had brought his head up and out of the ashes, waving to and fro to try and find the invisible form sneaking around him. "Ah kin feel it! Warmth an' fire, here! Yeh're not welcome here, Ashen One!"
Alchemist remained silent and still, barely daring to breathe as the massive undead looked around the room with empty eye-sockets.
"Ah kin feel it! Ah kin see it! The embers...! Mah flail! Friede, bring me mah flail!" The twisted man buried his face into the pot before bringing it back up, a wordless howl splitting from his desiccated lips!
"Father..." Oh, no. That wasn't what he wanted to hear! "Let it trouble ye not. 'Tis just ash and ember, nothing more."
Friede had walked into the room, a great scythe held in her hands.
A ludicrous weapon, a terrible weapon... Except that this was a video-game world which meant it operated on rule of cool instead!
"'Tis passing strange. We did enjoy a visitor most odd, but he passed on. Return'st from whence he came." Friede was looking around the room, pacing it under the watchful gaze of Ariandel. "Naught here but us. What stireth the embers, then?"
Hidden Body gave him functional invisibility, but it had something of a short timer. He could recast it freely just fine but the action of casting it would break the spell for a second.
And in a few more seconds the choice would be taken away from him regardless.
He tried to hurry as silently as he could. If he could just get behind the tied-down bulk of Ariandel, he'd be home free!
"Sister Friede!" Goddammit, Vilhelm. "We have an intruder. They slipped in, the girl spoke with them. Did you see them on your way down?"
Alright. He was putting the painter girl on his naughty list.
Positive note, though! It distracted the woman with the scythe!
Alchemist rushed to take two more steps and then got hit with a face full of ashes.
"Ah knew it!" Alchemist was busy clearing the dust off his visor so he could see as the old undead crowed his victory! "Ah felt it! The warmth, the heat of another Soul!"
About the time he could see clearly he felt something press against his gorget, the metal guard around his neck.
"You were warned, fool." Friede had her scythe wrapped around his neck.
Which is, honestly, a terrible position to use a scythe in combat. It's much better as a punching or stabbing tool than it is a slicing one.
"I'm just trying to pass through." Alchemist slowly raised his hands, palms exposed. "I needed to get to the Ringed City. I'm not here to start any fights, light any fires."
Friede was absolutely silent, glaring at him.
Ariandel had covered his eyes, huddling into his pot full of ashes.
Vilhelm- Where was Vilhelm?
~~ Critical Hit! ~~
~~ Backstab! ~~
~~ -400 HP! ~~
~~ +575 HP! ~~
~~ -4 VP! ~~
While a solid part of Alchemist began screaming bloody murder when a sword was thrust through his back, through his armor to come out of his stomach...
Another, small part of him was realizing 'Oh, that's where Vilhelm is!'
His hands were scrabbling at the blade buried through his back when Friede stepped away and Vilhelm kicked Alchemist off of the Onyx Blade.
"Nothing good has come of that wretched place." Vilhelm sneered down at the bleeding, wheezing form. "And nothing good comes from those that seek it."
That may have been meaningful, if Alchemist had actually heard him.
"Odd..." Friede demurred, looking at the writhing body on the floor. "Vilhelm, have ye ever seen one of the undead bleed so much?"
"...No." The man looked down at his own blade, well covered in viscera. "Even the fresh ones tend to stop right quick."
"A live one?" Ariandel finally got up the courage to look upon the carnage. "Still? Ought not the flame have taken them all?"
Whatever else they may have said, Alchemist would not be privy to. He'd finally gotten over the shock enough that he cast Haste.
Breathing at first was still excruciating until he cast Life, swiftly followed by Cure.
His HP was technically full, barring the bleed damage. Vilhelm's Onyx Blade actually did more Dark Damage than Physical Damage. Between the two spells, though, it sealed and healed the wound that had torn right through his liver.
He stood up, his armor slowly Mending itself while he glared upon the trio.
"My patience..." He cast Stop upon the three of them in quick succession. "Has run out."
He wanted to hurt them. He desperately wanted to hurt them...
[Steal!] But he would refrain. They had certain, well founded worries and were operating on expectations that would otherwise be true.
[Steal!] However, with that being said...
[Steal!]
[Steal!]
[Steal!]
[Steal!]....
-----
Friede was incredibly confused.
One second, she and her knight Vilhelm had been standing around a dying man in a quickly expanding pool of blood.
In the next the man was gone, though the blood was not.
Still across from her were both Vilhelm and Father Ariandel but-
"'Tis not decent to expose yourself so before a lady!" Ariandel was equally confused but the addled old man latched on to the first thing he saw.
Which was Vilhelm's very exposed backside.
"Friede?" Vilhelm... When was the last time she'd actually seen his face.
"Yes, my knight?" Perhaps... Before his hollowing? He would have once been handsome.
"You're naked." She looked down at herself with his proclamation to find that she was, indeed, naked.
And that her weapon was missing.
"Degenerates! Both of yeh!" Father Ariandel howled at them, heedless of his own lack of dress. "Get dressed an' hurry! A livin' soul, off to the pygmy hive?! Yeh need stop him lest the wretches find out!"
That swiftly brought her out of her reverie.
She rushed back to the ladder leading up to her tower, heedless of the cold clinging to her!
A living soul, heading into the heart of the first abyss?
Even the Sable Church had no desire to see what madness that would create!
-----
The Dreg Heap.
The name really doesn't inspire confidence. Being literal, it's a pile of unwanted pieces, things otherwise considered to be useless.
The truth, however, was a bit different.
Alchemist stepped away from the bonfire and dispelled his Haste, approaching an old woman sitting on a chair at the edge of a cliff and just looking over the vast swathes of ruins and ash.
"It's a miserable sight, isn't it?" She asked him, craning her long neck to stare at his face.
He couldn't see her own, hidden as it was under a deep gray hood.
"Fascinating, though. In its own way." She wasn't wrong. Half-wrecked buildings were thrown haphazardly in massive piles of ashes. He was fairly sure he could see a few things moving, down below.
Looking to the sides, to the sky, it was just more and more and more. He was half convinced the ruins actually went around the sun, too.
Almost like a Vortex World, the primordial state before a world and its Reason were set into being...
Well, that was just him being fanciful.
"I don't suppose you're here just to do some business with an old, dried up crone like me, are ya sonny?" Well... He had GP to burn. And she had a unique weapon, if he recalled correctly.
"May as well see what you've got." He had a few minutes or so to go before Stop broke down between expand, its current level and his perks. He'd have to hurry when he got done though.
He ended up buying everything she had, honestly having forgotten that the woman offered a few rare, potent healing items.
Afterwards he gave her a half-salute and cast Haste, disappearing into the ashes below.
He'd been wrong back in Lothric. There were no enemies there called Angels. They were Winged Knights and were certainly meants to invoke the idea of seraphim... But the Angels were here in the Heap. They flew high overhead, raining down light on his position as he ran through, trying to keep ahead of the abyssal dreglings, the infected suits of misshapen armor and the occasional Lothric Knight that had ended up here after falling through the gaps in reality.
He finally had a chance to practice with Ultima!
The enemies here were even sturdy enough, they could take two hits from it! Well, alright, only a few of them were.
Other than that, there were only a handful of things worth hunting down in the heap. A trio of rings for an idea he wanted to try later. For weapons, there was one thing interesting, an enchanted thrusting dagger... But nothing that was useful.
Even so far as spells went, the three that were here just didn't stand out. One dark projectile spell, a flame spell and a projected healing spell. For all of them, he already had something better.
He didn't bother hunting down every enemy, nor did he bother to try and track down where every treasure was. He did notice he'd gotten a handful of different gems from the mad creatures that tried to interfere with him, but, well...
They just weren't important for him, not right now.
Alchemist looked up to one of the grotesque bloody angels overhead, midway into a distorted scream, and sent it brief nod before dropping down into a deep hole in the middle of the heap.
To the lair of the Demon Prince, the would-be champion of the chaos flame that had been slain in an age long past and resurrected alongside its killer.
He'd tried stealth with Ariandel...
Time to see if force would work better.
-----
Diana had long since returned to the demi-plane and was in the process of making herself a meal.
Outside, enjoying the fresh air, Kary was practicing her weapon forms.
She may not have been a great cook, but Diana was still eighty-five years old. If she hadn't figured out how to make a sandwich by this point in her life, something would be drastically wrong.
She was about to take her first bite when she got a notification.
~~ Heir of Chaos: Slain ~~
~~ Demon Prince: Defeated! ~~
~~ Experience + 125000! ~~
~~ GP + 250000! ~~
~~ Obtained Items - Soul of the Demon Prince X2 ~~
"Oh, come on!" Kary shouted from outside the cabin. "He's keeping all the fun to himself!"
-----
It had taken Friede and Vilhelm a significant amount of time to cross through the Dreg Heap.
The wasteland was large and dangerous, great beasts born of the abyss roamed the location.
Some, like the massive Harald Knights, suits of armor bloated and filled with malice from the depths, were far too dangerous to even try and fight.
"How was it possible for a living human to get through here?" Vilhelm had to ask as they closed in on the lit bonfire next to a great, deep hole.
"I know not." Friede admitted to him. "The painters keeper, Gael, he was the only one to explore this wretched place."
"The madman?" Vilhelm hadn't been able to find his second suit of armor and had to resort to wearing much less protective clothing. A gambeson and a pair of heavy trousers. "He'd have enjoyed it, I suppose."
"He did." Friede looked down into the abyss below. Unlike Vilhelm, she had a spare set of her original clothes.
Just a simple robe, but still.
"Tarry not. We've no idea how far he's outpaced us." The woman didn't give her hollow companion a chance to so much as argue before she dove down.
Vilhelm withheld a sigh and followed.
He landed safely in a pile of ashes, just next to his mistress.
She wasn't looking at him, however. Her hooded gaze was locked on something else.
Vilhelm looked as well. Then, like her, he froze.
"What madness..." She murmured, unable to look away from the great bulk before them.
It was a massive bat winged demon, four twisted limbs beneath it and a tail covered in spines. Occasionally flames would still lick away from its corpse.
Its headless corpse.
What kind of man could do this by himself?!
- Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 1.3.5: Character Sheet
As always, this character sheet is courtesy of the amazing Memzak!
Last edited:
Stop- Hammertime!
Semi-Omake
--Earlier--
Alchemist was standing on the back of the Demon Prince.
In his hands, he held the Onyx Blade. It hadn't been upgraded at all yet but it still drew strength from a balanced breakfast made up of Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence and Wisdom.
He'd been using it to slowly hack his way through the neck of the demon beneath him.
It wasn't resisting, no, it was still as a statue instead!
Stop was handy like that after all.
"I-Swear-To-Izalith!" Alchemist panted as he continued chopping. It was going slowly, almost like chipping away at stone! "If-This-Doesn't-"
He let the blade rest against the demon's forehead.
"If this doesn't work out, I'm going to be really pissed at myself."
With a reasonable amount of grumbling, Alchemist got back to work.
--Earlier--
Alchemist was standing on the back of the Demon Prince.
In his hands, he held the Onyx Blade. It hadn't been upgraded at all yet but it still drew strength from a balanced breakfast made up of Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence and Wisdom.
He'd been using it to slowly hack his way through the neck of the demon beneath him.
It wasn't resisting, no, it was still as a statue instead!
Stop was handy like that after all.
"I-Swear-To-Izalith!" Alchemist panted as he continued chopping. It was going slowly, almost like chipping away at stone! "If-This-Doesn't-"
He let the blade rest against the demon's forehead.
"If this doesn't work out, I'm going to be really pissed at myself."
With a reasonable amount of grumbling, Alchemist got back to work.
I like how you snuck that little bit in here thinking someone wouldn't catch it.
Naughty naughty.
Wouldn't want to snap her new choker INDEED.
Unless my mind is just stuck in the gutter...
Edit: I think my mind is in the gutter. I read that as "Snap TILL later". My mind just saw a word that wasn't there.
Last edited:
Kary learned how to flirt from a bard. You think she doesn't know a little wordplay
- Location
- Barquisimeto
So, Alchemist not having lv limit in spells means that he can basically teleport spam and his bullshiting knews growing.
oakgem217
Connoisseur of Power Fantasy
- Location
- The Moon
She meant when she shapeshifts into her larger, multi-armed form. Obvi. No doublespeak implications here
Honestly, Kary is really starting to grow on me. At first I thought her pursuing/flirting with Alchemist would get annoying, but despite her being a demon it's surprisingly...innocent? At the very least she seems self-aware enough not to blow things out of proportion.
Yep. He may not be a standard gamer but he's still a gamer. Infinitely expanding bullshit is the name of the game.
"I've got a cloth on my loins and a pot on my head~"
As an Elemental/Demon she doesn't really get the whole love and affection thing... But she got a taste and she wants more.
She's also a Marilith, which are meant to be intelligent and cunning. They know how to hunt and how to attract their prey
Frescko
King of Silver 🏳️⚧️
He would probably just end up getting Giant Dad
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Damn I'm loving these long chapters
- Location
- spain
More than that, it makes sense why she likes him. And she's not over the top with it! She flirts, sure, but it's all in good fun. She's also clearly have more going on than "girl like boy".
You owe me new sinuses, mine have been scoured by carbonated caffeine.
Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
They didn't 'fade away.' You bought them all after Terra-me stole them.
I give you the gift of breathing through both [Nostrils] and you want to charge me?!
I'll send you my bill!
Your procedure was excessively painful, and what small benefits resulted were quite temporary.
But there -were- benefits!
Unrequested benefits.
That came about because you used my product in a manner not specified on the bottle.
That's like complaining that you used Viagra for your blood pressure and ran into some unexpected problems for four hours afterwards.
That's like complaining that you used Viagra for your blood pressure and ran into some unexpected problems for four hours afterwards.