Of Sulfur and Parchment

I proceeded with the greatest of care. Step one was to investigate the corpse. I walked as quietly as I could towards it and pushed it towards me with the end of my staff. The creature was nasty and fucked-up looking when it was alive- as a refresher, it looked like a newborn baby covered in a dense brown fur, with spines like those of a porcupine, but even sharper, covering much of its body. I did not like that it was here. There could be more hiding nearby, or even the fully grown version. First, I needed information, so I looked carefully over the gross little thing, and found that the left side of it was crushed soft, several of the spines on that side of the body being broken or broken off. It could be a thousand things, but it probably wasn't any sort of elemental magic or another spike gremlin. I tried to break off one of the other spikes, just to gauge the power required. It wasn't as easy as I might have thought, but I managed to break it off with one hand.

I had come here, because I thought that a wizard should know things. It seemed like a sensible, even clever move back in the lounge, but now that I was here, it was flimsy. Like I was just playing a game, trying to fit an archetype. But knowledge and wit had been the difference between life and death, ever since I came to this place. In fact, aside from dumb luck, that was the only thing that ever had worked. And I had spent very little time in the library actually reading. Chum hadn't found anything he believed to be worthwhile except for the spellbook, but that was with him coming along. I wasn't looking for a way to solve the Tower, I knew that I couldn't find that sort of information here. I was hoping for any general knowledge, or books that could raise my knowledge skills.

The knowledge skills were strange, but more useful than I first assumed. I thought that I would become better at, for example, doing historical research by increasing the History skill. In reality, I noticed that here and again I found myself referring to historical events I knew I hadn't learned about, and could only assume that my level 1 history skill was responsible. And, more importantly, I was hoping to find a dictionary that could translate Glouach's notes from whatever language they were in to English.

And, frankly, I felt no threat from a juvenile spike gremlin at this time. Even if there was a nest of ten, I was sure I could clear it out without dying. Something had killed one, but it hadn't vaporized it, so I expected that I would have a chance against whatever had killed it too.

And so I went low and I went quiet and I walked into Library #4. I closed the door behind me. After a moment's hesitation I sealed it with a spell. I could always open it myself, and I didn't want anything coming in behind me. The library was as large as ever, and it seemed empty at a first glance. But after looking around a little more carefully, I did see something red among the stacks of the lower floor. Red cloth, not fluid. I didn't see movement, and I approached slowly and carefully. Potential hiding places all around me, I held my spellbook open on the invisible wall spell to cast it as quickly as possible as soon as everything went wrong.

I found the bodies among the shelves. The red was from a long cloak around the neck of a young man in a bloodied white button up shirt and slacks. But there were bodies stacked a foot high in between the two shelves here. Human and spike gremlin both. I should have smelled it, but the scent was definitely masked and the bodies were very recently dead. There was nobody that I recognized there.

Shit.

It was easy to think of the Guild as the sum total of the humans in the Tower, but there was no way that was true, was there? These might have been another group traveling together running across something that they couldn't defeat, or it might have been- I counted- thirteen separate people, traveling alone, picked off one by one. I hoped it was the latter. Juvenile spike gremlins couldn't kill me and a couple of college kids less than an hour into the Tower; the number of them required to kill an equipped group of Tower survivors in the second day would be too large to fit in even the many hiding spots in the library.

My staff was charged with two icicle spells. I expected the quick-draw advantage would be significant, no matter what I encountered. I went very quiet and listened for any noise, any sign that I wasn't alone in here aside from the bodies.

There.

There was a sound. If I was still back on Earth it might have been the creaking of the building, or perhaps the wind blowing along some strange shape of piping. The sort of sounds that one spends a lifetime learning to ignore. But there was no building, and there was no wind, and when I thought of it that way, I knew that I was hearing breathing. It was large. I couldn't judge the distance, but I thought it must be upstairs. I held my own breath. I walked so quietly that I resented my sandals, for walking barefoot I could be even quieter. I held my staff and book and mind ready for an instant explosion of spellcraft. And I walked slowly towards the sound above.

A floorboard creaked behind me. The breathing continued. I turned my head around. Nothing between me and the nearest shelf. Maybe there was more than one thing. I should start at the top. If I get distracted by every single thing, I might be here too long. I walked upstairs and slowly reached the two shelves that I thought the sound must becoming from. I looked. I saw a device, cycling liquid mana, making a whirring sound that I had mistaken for breathing.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

I regained my sense of smell. The corpses from below now dominated with their scent of blood and decay. Then, a flash of sulfur. A voice from behind me said: "Well, well, well, a wizard, someone worth talking to, afore I kill them at last."

I slowly turned around. The creature talking to me was another devilish, humanoid male. His skin was dark red, and he wore beige slacks, white shirt and black-and red suspenders. His hair was shoulder-length and black, and he had a face too asymmetrical to be called handsome, but striking nonetheless. His eyes were yellow, and there were ram's horns coming out of the sides of his head.

"It doesn't feel like there's much point in talking to you, if you are going to kill me anyways," I said. I was still scared from violence and threats thereof, but at about the twentieth time that I experienced it in less than two days, the fear was wearing itself down to annoyance. "Well, kid, there's no need to rush into things, we've got time. Maybe you can entertain me a while," the devil said. "I am sure I could, but I have my pride too. Maybe I would rather die than dance to your tune," I said. "My tunes are a delight to dance to, and pride is my favorite sin. Come now, surely we have questions to one another," he said. "I do have questions, and I wouldn't mind sharing answers, but if you hail from Hell, then I should tell you that I had a familiar from that realm and he taught me as much as he could about this demiplane of heroism. Could you tell me about the multiverse beyond that? Or grant me spells or experience?" I said. "Ah, and here we have an explanation for my own summoning. You see, kid, I couldn't-a been summoned into a fresh demiplane, the concentration of magic would be much too weak to hold me here. So they must've grabbed an imp from the abyss below and granted it just a smidgen of power. And then you went and got 'em killed, and there was a vacancy to be filled. Good looking out, kid," he said.

I retrieved Chum's business card and showed the back of it to the devil.

"We parted ways on good terms, actually. Chum was a wonderful familiar and an excellent guide in my early hours here," I said. "Can I see the front of that, pal?" he said. "I don't think so. It has his true name on it, as I'm sure you're aware, and I don't know if he'd like me sharing it with anybody," I said. "Reckon I'll just get a good long look at that card when you're dead," he said. "Maybe you will, maybe you won't. I've killed two apprentices of the wizard that created this Tower. If I understand how magic in this Tower works correctly, you cannot be able to use more powerful magic than they did," I said. "There is always a way if'n you are willing to pay the piper," the devil said. "And yet, here I still stand," I said. He took in a deep breath and said: "Aaah, there's that pride of yours. I couldn't smell it right when I first caught you unawares, but now it's showing like cinnamon and apple." "It is not so wonderful as all that, only a human vice. The truth is I really do not want to die, and I'm trying each and every way to avoid it. If I'm talking to you, you're not killing me, right?" I said. "No, you've got it all wrong, kid. This life of yours is a game now, and you ought to play it for fun. Death is just the best stake, and you're really playing for keeps," he said. "Easy words, coming from an immortal," I said. "Immortality ain't what it used to be. Sin enough or sign the right deals and you'll have a grand ol' time burning eternity away in a fire," he said. "Maybe I should just try to kill you in the name of some god then. I've saved a few lives in the last day or two, and if I die fighting evil, I'm sure I'll get to live out eternity in paradise," I said. "Wouldn't be a bad plan, kid, but this place is sealed off from divine intervention, I'm sure of it. Wouldn't do to break the laws of nature and man where gods can reach you, now would it?" he said.

He was still talking. I was still alive. There was no way that I could reach for my spellbook, flip to a good page and use my magic to fight this creature. I walked a little away from him, towards one of the many, oddly out-of-place reading chairs in the library and sat down.

"What happened to the people down there?" I said. "When I came to in this here library, there was all sorts of noise and fighting and ruckus. In a library! So I filled the whole place with a gas made with sulfuric acid until the humans calmed down. Then I beat the gremlins to death with a folding chair. So that now it is all quiet in the library again," he said.

So he had killed everybody. Vengeance would be appropriate, but then, if the room was filled with corrosive gas, I didn't really have any defense against it.

"That was impolite of them," I said. "And those were my thoughts exactly," he said. "They must have been worth some experience at least," I said. "Oh that they were, though none of them was more than level ten, which doesn't do much for me," he said. "Well, then I have a few things to tell you, which might disincline you from killing me," I said. "Oh do tell," he said. "First of all, I am level eight. Second of all my class is Coward," I said. "Nonsense, that can't be right," he said and chanted a dark spell while holding his fingers out in devil horns. Then he looked at me and after a moment furrowed his brow and said: "Well if I ain't damned all over again." "You won't be getting much out of killing me as I am now," I said. "But the screamin' might be entertaining. Always love to hear a coward scream," he said. "I'm about to lose the class. I just need one more level, and to kill one of the adult spike gremlins," I said. "There's adult spike gremlins in here? Didn't think they'd fit," he said. "Sorry?" I said. "Adult spike gremlins? Well, we call 'em Boneshard Abominations most times. They'd fill the room in one of those classrooms about half-way. Prob'ly grew from eating a bunch of flesh since comin' here," he said.

Shit. Shit. Fuck. Shit.

"Shit, yeah, I probably need to kill one of those. But it's going to be harder to do than I thought," I said.

A smile white as raw cotton split his face and he said:

"Say, kid, do you want to make a deal?"

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.