“So, he is basically immortal, right?” Sally shrugged as they neared Bordertown once more. “That doesn’t seem fair for a Unique Monster?”
“I imagine there are some caveats,” Humphrey sighed, “like with Bella.” He looked out in the direction of the first area again, the darkened barrier of the swamp on the horizon.
“Do you know, Lucius?” She prodded a finger towards the demon.
The crimson circles beneath the shade of his hood looked between the zombie and Death Knight. “I do not. Humphrey is right, however. There is something that keeps Edward coming back.”
“Other than him being Inevitable,” Sally sighed and narrowed her eyes at the town. She half expected the toll collector to be there already, awaiting them with the golem again. “We need to level so we don’t get stuck with a problem we can’t chew.”
They continued on in silence as they entered the outskirts of Bordertown. The dark wooden buildings seemed just as empty and devoid of life as earlier in the day. It felt a little odd to Sally that even her Guild members hadn’t hung around - but then again, there wasn’t anything to do here other than sleep. Not much use in the middle of the day.
Dried blood from where Theo had maimed the demon previously still remained but was quickly being turned into dust from the constant heat.
“I swear the sun hasn’t moved at all,” she grumbled to the empty street.
“It hasn’t.” Humphrey glared into the sky.
Part of the reason it was so dry and devoid of life, no doubt. It was still hard to believe it could rend the spawns from the world and change the things that the System usually worked on keeping together. Even with the recent demise of the Architect, they had said the Wastes had been like this for weeks.
“Was this the inn we were in?” Sally exhaled again, reaching the maximum amount she was able to deflate without collapsing to the floor in a pile of sad undead.
“Yes.” The Death Knight moved ahead of her and into the building.
“Cheer up, Sally,” Lucius tilted his head to meet her gaze, “I bet we will find your friends in no time and get back on track.”
“Ugh, I don’t believe in miracles,” she slunk in behind Humphrey and headed towards the stairs.
She continued to pout into his red cloak as she slowly followed him up the stairs, avoiding the splinters of wood spraying into the air as the large plates of his armor scraped along the walls.
Humphrey pushed the bedroom door open as he squeezed through the door frame. “Oh.”
Sally squished beside him, trying to push him out of the way of the door.
Atop the coffin sat Archie.
“Hi, Sally and Humphrey,” he beamed. “And a demon.”
“What demon? Let me out.”
Sally frowned. “Is that Theo in the coffin?”
Beneath the cat, the wooden casket shook as the vampire tried to extract himself. Archie nodded. “Yes, he will say he is feeling fine and wants to get out, but we can’t let him. He is very ill.”
“I’m not ill… I feel fine. Just let me out… damn.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Sally moved over to them and put her hand softly atop the wooden lid. “Will he be okay?”
“Perhaps.” Archie wagged his tail back and forth.
“What is stopping him from getting out himself?” Humphrey narrowed his eyes.
The ginger cat stood to stretch out and yawn. “Is magic a good enough answer?”
“Let me out! The number is going down!”
Sally turned and sat down on the coffin. She rubbed her eyes and tried to decide if she wanted to enquire further on what that meant or what even was going on. “Give us the facts, Arch. I’ve had enough of today already.”
“Theo has been cursed with something. My assumption is when he struck the Toad, something transferred from his blades. It causes him to be exhausted but be unable to sleep.”
“Ah.” Sally scrunched her eyes closed. That all made sense and was particularly bad. Not only did his grip on reality slip the less sleep he had, but they also didn’t have a healer in the group. “How do we get rid of it?"
“It’s something we’ll have to wait out.” Archie hopped down and waltzed over to the new demon to give him a sniff. “Eventually, it will pass… but he’ll need to stay imprisoned. He doesn’t want to hurt us.”
“Silly ass,” Sally sighed and knocked atop the lid. “Join the Party, jerkface. Take a break from being edgy for five minutes.”
“I’m… yes, boss…”
[Theo has joined the Party]
“There we go!” She hopped back to her feet. “Just like that, the miserable cloud has shifted from over me, and we are back at a full Party.” Sally beamed at the group before the wide grin sagged a little in seeing Lucius. “You really have no combat abilities?”
“Ah, not really,” the demon scratched the back of his hood as a sweat drop emoji appeared beside him.
“You can’t see this, Theo - which is a real shame. You’d love it. But we have a fifth member, who is a demon, and he can make emotes appear.” She raised her eyebrows and looked down at the coffin in expectation of his response.
“Uh-huh… I must kill all demons.”
“Good chat, Eric Redd.” She rolled her eyes.
“Who’s that?”
“What? So you know Goreblaster, but not… listen, it doesn’t matter. You’re not killing all the demons, and you’re not getting out of the box.” Sally waved her hands and sighed. “Line… Humps?”
“You want to know where we can go level up the quickest.” The Death Knight moved to pick up the coffin.
“Exactly!” The smile returned to her face. “Lucius, where can we go and grind the quickest?”
The demon thought for a second, accompanied by floating ellipses, before coming up with a decent answer. “There is one place… but it’s pretty dangerous.”
“Danger is our middle name,” she smirked, “I’m pretty sure I put that out into the world this morning. It’s basically canon.”
“Okay.” Lucius stretched out his shoulders. “There’s a demon portal that has a bugged spawn rate; it’s almost instant - or so I’ve heard. Naturally, it’s not the sort of place I would hang out.”
“The sort of place you hang out is the rooftops of derelict buildings,” Humphrey interjected.
Lucius shrugged. “Yeah, away from any danger.”
Danger was more than their middle name. Sally wrinkled up her nose as she watched the Death Knight lift the coffin and lumber towards the door. Archie scooted in the way between his plated legs, almost tripping him. Danger was also their headline. That’s what it should say instead of Wanted atop their posters. She made a mental note to write that down for something later on.
They clambered down the staircase after Humphrey, the coffin scraping the ceiling all the way down and causing loose dust to cover the rest of the Party. With Theo back in the group, his Auras helped with her wound recovery. They saved a ton of money on not having to buy healing items, assuming they had enough downtime between fights. Thankfully, they were usually short affairs, and they could recover on their own time.
As they reached the lobby of the inn, she knocked on the back of the coffin.
“We fought Edward again. He had a Golem that I couldn’t even scratch.”
“Sounds like something I could have dealt with.”
She narrowed her eyes. Although she was well aware his snappy attitude was due to the curse, it still ruffled her feathers when he was rude. “Perhaps… we didn’t give him any of our gold, and Humphrey cut him in half.”
“…where’d you get gold from?”
“Eating barbarians. I got some chance boxes. Did you want me to open them and tell you what I get?”
There was a few seconds of silence.
Sally grinned. “I can hear your eyes twitching in there, pup.”
Archie trotted up beside her. “It’s not a good idea to antagonise him, Sally. He is not in a good state.”
She pursed her lips but didn’t press the vampire further. He must really be in tough shape if she couldn’t even wind him up a little bit like usual. Theo was a lot more useful outside of the coffin than in it, but if he thought that he would be a danger to them… she would take that seriously. He may be a dork, but he was always competent enough when fighting. Could she one vs one him?
Perhaps not a good thought to entertain. If he were able to get out of his prison and had lost control, then they would really be in trouble. That would be a bloodied bridge to cross if it came to it.
“How far away is this place, Lucius?” Many miles or kilometres, no doubt, depending on how you like to count.
“Oh, it’s right here in Bordertown.”
“What…?” The group stopped, and all eyes turned to the demon.
“Not exactly - uh!” Sweatdrop emoji. “There’s a portal here that takes us to the underground part that has the bugged portal to hell.”
“Portal to hell,” Sally repeated quietly.
“So I can kill all demons.”
Humphrey sighed. “It’s not literal. You can’t go through that portal into Hell. That’s just a spawning point for demons.”
Sally shrugged. “Well, lead the way then, Lucius.” Farming demons to get a couple of levels sounded like a reasonable plan. She would feel a little safer if they had an easy escape - but it didn’t look like Bordertown would be able to offer up any [Portal Scrolls] with no System-created sellers around.
Ah, well. Danger was their collective names and titles, anyway.
As the demon set off, she brought up her STAR and Inventory and withdrew the Chance Boxes from earlier. This was fun; it had been a while since she had bothered to make a big deal about the suspense of getting random items.
She spun the locks of two Uncommon Weapon boxes and the Rare Armour box with eyes aglow.
“So, he is basically immortal, right?” Sally shrugged as they neared Bordertown once more. “That doesn’t seem fair for a Unique Monster?”
“I imagine there are some caveats,” Humphrey sighed, “like with Bella.” He looked out in the direction of the first area again, the darkened barrier of the swamp on the horizon.
“Do you know, Lucius?” She prodded a finger towards the demon.
The crimson circles beneath the shade of his hood looked between the zombie and Death Knight. “I do not. Humphrey is right, however. There is something that keeps Edward coming back.”
“Other than him being Inevitable,” Sally sighed and narrowed her eyes at the town. She half expected the toll collector to be there already, awaiting them with the golem again. “We need to level so we don’t get stuck with a problem we can’t chew.”
They continued on in silence as they entered the outskirts of Bordertown. The dark wooden buildings seemed just as empty and devoid of life as earlier in the day. It felt a little odd to Sally that even her Guild members hadn’t hung around - but then again, there wasn’t anything to do here other than sleep. Not much use in the middle of the day.
Dried blood from where Theo had maimed the demon previously still remained but was quickly being turned into dust from the constant heat.
“I swear the sun hasn’t moved at all,” she grumbled to the empty street.
“It hasn’t.” Humphrey glared into the sky.
Part of the reason it was so dry and devoid of life, no doubt. It was still hard to believe it could rend the spawns from the world and change the things that the System usually worked on keeping together. Even with the recent demise of the Architect, they had said the Wastes had been like this for weeks.
“Was this the inn we were in?” Sally exhaled again, reaching the maximum amount she was able to deflate without collapsing to the floor in a pile of sad undead.
“Yes.” The Death Knight moved ahead of her and into the building.
“Cheer up, Sally,” Lucius tilted his head to meet her gaze, “I bet we will find your friends in no time and get back on track.”
“Ugh, I don’t believe in miracles,” she slunk in behind Humphrey and headed towards the stairs.
She continued to pout into his red cloak as she slowly followed him up the stairs, avoiding the splinters of wood spraying into the air as the large plates of his armor scraped along the walls.
Humphrey pushed the bedroom door open as he squeezed through the door frame. “Oh.”
Sally squished beside him, trying to push him out of the way of the door.
Atop the coffin sat Archie.
“Hi, Sally and Humphrey,” he beamed. “And a demon.”
“What demon? Let me out.”
Sally frowned. “Is that Theo in the coffin?”
Beneath the cat, the wooden casket shook as the vampire tried to extract himself. Archie nodded. “Yes, he will say he is feeling fine and wants to get out, but we can’t let him. He is very ill.”
“I’m not ill… I feel fine. Just let me out… damn.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Sally moved over to them and put her hand softly atop the wooden lid. “Will he be okay?”
“Perhaps.” Archie wagged his tail back and forth.
“What is stopping him from getting out himself?” Humphrey narrowed his eyes.
The ginger cat stood to stretch out and yawn. “Is magic a good enough answer?”
“Let me out! The number is going down!”
Sally turned and sat down on the coffin. She rubbed her eyes and tried to decide if she wanted to enquire further on what that meant or what even was going on. “Give us the facts, Arch. I’ve had enough of today already.”
“Theo has been cursed with something. My assumption is when he struck the Toad, something transferred from his blades. It causes him to be exhausted but be unable to sleep.”
“Ah.” Sally scrunched her eyes closed. That all made sense and was particularly bad. Not only did his grip on reality slip the less sleep he had, but they also didn’t have a healer in the group. “How do we get rid of it?"
“It’s something we’ll have to wait out.” Archie hopped down and waltzed over to the new demon to give him a sniff. “Eventually, it will pass… but he’ll need to stay imprisoned. He doesn’t want to hurt us.”
“Silly ass,” Sally sighed and knocked atop the lid. “Join the Party, jerkface. Take a break from being edgy for five minutes.”
“I’m… yes, boss…”
[Theo has joined the Party]
“There we go!” She hopped back to her feet. “Just like that, the miserable cloud has shifted from over me, and we are back at a full Party.” Sally beamed at the group before the wide grin sagged a little in seeing Lucius. “You really have no combat abilities?”
“Ah, not really,” the demon scratched the back of his hood as a sweat drop emoji appeared beside him.
“You can’t see this, Theo - which is a real shame. You’d love it. But we have a fifth member, who is a demon, and he can make emotes appear.” She raised her eyebrows and looked down at the coffin in expectation of his response.
“Uh-huh… I must kill all demons.”
“Good chat, Eric Redd.” She rolled her eyes.
“Who’s that?”
“What? So you know Goreblaster, but not… listen, it doesn’t matter. You’re not killing all the demons, and you’re not getting out of the box.” Sally waved her hands and sighed. “Line… Humps?”
“You want to know where we can go level up the quickest.” The Death Knight moved to pick up the coffin.
“Exactly!” The smile returned to her face. “Lucius, where can we go and grind the quickest?”
The demon thought for a second, accompanied by floating ellipses, before coming up with a decent answer. “There is one place… but it’s pretty dangerous.”
“Danger is our middle name,” she smirked, “I’m pretty sure I put that out into the world this morning. It’s basically canon.”
“Okay.” Lucius stretched out his shoulders. “There’s a demon portal that has a bugged spawn rate; it’s almost instant - or so I’ve heard. Naturally, it’s not the sort of place I would hang out.”
“The sort of place you hang out is the rooftops of derelict buildings,” Humphrey interjected.
Lucius shrugged. “Yeah, away from any danger.”
Danger was more than their middle name. Sally wrinkled up her nose as she watched the Death Knight lift the coffin and lumber towards the door. Archie scooted in the way between his plated legs, almost tripping him. Danger was also their headline. That’s what it should say instead of Wanted atop their posters. She made a mental note to write that down for something later on.
They clambered down the staircase after Humphrey, the coffin scraping the ceiling all the way down and causing loose dust to cover the rest of the Party. With Theo back in the group, his Auras helped with her wound recovery. They saved a ton of money on not having to buy healing items, assuming they had enough downtime between fights. Thankfully, they were usually short affairs, and they could recover on their own time.
As they reached the lobby of the inn, she knocked on the back of the coffin.
“We fought Edward again. He had a Golem that I couldn’t even scratch.”
“Sounds like something I could have dealt with.”
She narrowed her eyes. Although she was well aware his snappy attitude was due to the curse, it still ruffled her feathers when he was rude. “Perhaps… we didn’t give him any of our gold, and Humphrey cut him in half.”
“…where’d you get gold from?”
“Eating barbarians. I got some chance boxes. Did you want me to open them and tell you what I get?”
There was a few seconds of silence.
Sally grinned. “I can hear your eyes twitching in there, pup.”
Archie trotted up beside her. “It’s not a good idea to antagonise him, Sally. He is not in a good state.”
She pursed her lips but didn’t press the vampire further. He must really be in tough shape if she couldn’t even wind him up a little bit like usual. Theo was a lot more useful outside of the coffin than in it, but if he thought that he would be a danger to them… she would take that seriously. He may be a dork, but he was always competent enough when fighting. Could she one vs one him?
Perhaps not a good thought to entertain. If he were able to get out of his prison and had lost control, then they would really be in trouble. That would be a bloodied bridge to cross if it came to it.
“How far away is this place, Lucius?” Many miles or kilometres, no doubt, depending on how you like to count.
“Oh, it’s right here in Bordertown.”
“What…?” The group stopped, and all eyes turned to the demon.
“Not exactly - uh!” Sweatdrop emoji. “There’s a portal here that takes us to the underground part that has the bugged portal to hell.”
“Portal to hell,” Sally repeated quietly.
“So I can kill all demons.”
Humphrey sighed. “It’s not literal. You can’t go through that portal into Hell. That’s just a spawning point for demons.”
Sally shrugged. “Well, lead the way then, Lucius.” Farming demons to get a couple of levels sounded like a reasonable plan. She would feel a little safer if they had an easy escape - but it didn’t look like Bordertown would be able to offer up any [Portal Scrolls] with no System-created sellers around.
Ah, well. Danger was their collective names and titles, anyway.
As the demon set off, she brought up her STAR and Inventory and withdrew the Chance Boxes from earlier. This was fun; it had been a while since she had bothered to make a big deal about the suspense of getting random items.
She spun the locks of two Uncommon Weapon boxes and the Rare Armour box with eyes aglow.
