Elysium's Multiverse

Chapter 32

His searching had resulted in failure. He’d escaped the swarm but had then been chased again three times after that. The calm he’d initially experienced when first presenting here in the hellscape dungeon was now replaced with fight-or-flight situations every couple hours. First he’d run into a pack of red-skinned, fire-flinging imps; he’d he managed to kill three before getting out of dodge—and he picked up a level while doing it. Then he took a dive in the river of blood to get away from a pack of hell bears, which were essentially flaming grizzlies twice Riven’s size. Then he ended up running into patches of other patrolling undead similar to the ghoul he’d killed, although they were all scrawnier and less misshapen than the one he’d encountered in the ballroom. He’d picked up yet another level there as well, after having plastered the floors and walls with ghoul guts numerous times over. If someone were to have asked him, he’d say he was getting pretty good at killing things by now. He’d stuck most of his stat points into Intelligence, some into Willpower, and a few points into Sturdiness to keep himself alive, so he was feeling pretty good about himself.

Worry about Athela, Jose, and his little sister, Allie, kept him going at a fast pace, though. He had to find Athela to make sure she didn’t die a permanent death, and he had to believe Jose would keep Allie safe until he finished the tutorial. These thoughts continued to haunt him little by little until he’d ended up passing out from exhaustion while looking for the statue his quest spoke of.

But that had been hours ago, and this was now.

His mind flashed with Athela’s image, and an impulse rushed through his body, sending him into a spasming and uncontrolled fit while he remained asleep on the floor. Possibilities and potential events clashed with one another in a battle of fate within his soul structure, reorienting his soul pillars and even altering the course of his Gluttony core for a few moments before it resumed its normal cyclic rotation. Images of his bonded minion in a cage, of her death at the hands of some obscured enormous monstrosity, and then of her escape with her small body in his arms all plastered themselves against his semiconscious mind. They presented themselves as conflicting scenarios, directly opposing one another before evaporating with a single remnant feeling being left in their wake.

He needed to get the fuck up.

Riven abruptly woke to a shrill scream of panic—a sound that could have been pulled from his very nightmares—and he sat up abruptly while clutching his staff. Blinking a couple times and rubbing his eyes, he tried to settle his heart rate by taking in long breaths and exhaling slowly, and then oriented himself to his surroundings again.

He was in a dark closet from an age past strung up with cobwebs and layers of grime. He’d found it last minute before the lidless eye in the sky completely vanished, bathing the area in darkness without warning a couple hours ago when he’d been searching for a safe haven to get some shut-eye anyways. This had happened more than once now, and he assumed this was the dungeon’s version of nighttime.

The closet was very small and cramped, but big enough for him to curl up and lie down while shutting the door behind him. The stone floor was uncomfortable, but it was a lot better than being out there in the open.

Another scream, and the sounds of begging and crying echoed up through the adjacent hallway. It sounded like both men and women, human voices, but Riven couldn’t be sure at this distance. That was odd, because usually the ruins were devoid of sound other than the occasional roar of a monster.

Were there really other people here? If so, they were in obvious danger…and not only that, but they’d be the first true contact he’d had with his own kind since arriving in this dungeon. They might even be able to help him.

And beyond that, a feeling was tugging at him that he needed to move now. It was an impulse, something coercing him to not wait any longer, and trying to ignore it only caused a sinking feeling in his gut.

His heart rate began to spike with mixed emotions of excitement, curiosity, and worry, but he slowly opened up the door. Thankfully it wasn’t nearly as creaky as a lot of the other doors that remained intact in this godforsaken place. He took a look left and then right, making sure the hallway was clear before he slipped out into an almost equally dark hallway. The path was poorly illuminated where he stood now, other than a few windows that let in the pale light that emanated from pools of fire in the distant cityscape, but farther down the hallway from where the screaming was heard… here was another faint orange glow from around a corner.

Fluidly going heel to toe in the direction of the noises and charging another Blood Lance across his right arm, he passed by another couple rooms that he hadn’t gotten around to checking yet. Most of the doors were already open, showing signs of recent activity and a lack of dust layers that much of the rest of these ruins had, and the ones with shut doors he didn’t bother venturing into just yet. He had more pressing matters to attend to.

The begging, crying, and shouting were getting louder now—and he rubbed his eyes again to clear his sleep-deprived vision. He was still really, really tired, but his adrenaline was starting to kick into high gear as he peeked his head around the corner.

It was another long and windowless hallway, but this one was a little odd. There was a mounted torch that hadn’t been there when he’d gone to sleep—flickering yellow and orange light from flames that danced not far off. It was stationed in an iron rack off to the end and left-hand side, and it only had one exit point—the door that the torch was set up next to. This door wasn’t wooden, rather, it was made of metal and had a trail of recently spilled blood splattered across the ground leading up to it. There were also bloody handprints along the front, and as Riven crept closer, he saw that there were also smear marks along the edge where fingers had been desperately trying to cling to the door before being pulled off.

A sinister, deep laugh rang out from the other side, followed by muffled voices and another shrill scream of a woman before she was abruptly cut off into silence. Then there were some crunching sounds, some ripping sounds, and another muffled round of cackling laughter.

As quietly as he could, Riven slowly placed his hand on the bloodied door and turned his wrist. The handle was utterly silent, as was the door when he very gingerly pulled it back to see through the slightly ajar opening. His eyes went wide, and his jaw dropped.

There, sitting just a little ways away from him, was a monster the size of a bus. Its skin was red with twenty insectoid legs, two clawed arms coming off a humanoid upper half, three curved demonic horns, eight buggy eyes, and a gaping mouth full of rows of teeth. Dark rows of spikes were stationed on its forehead, and its long body below the waist snaked around to curl up about itself. It was male, or at least looked male by the more recognizable features, and was chewing on a bare humanoid leg. Blood and fleshy bits dropped to the floor, splattering against the ground below where half of a head was resting—brains and all, with one strangely pointed ear still intact.

The door led out to a slightly elevated platform off the rubble-strewn ground beyond, not a room, and the mists swirled around them under the dark of the night sky. Torches illuminated most of the large and rectangular platform rather well, though, being placed in racks a lot like the one outside the door, and there were three shorter, lanky, hooded figures dressed in black that stood together near a number of large metal cages. They probably stood at four and a half feet tall each and had arms as long as their legs, which made them look apelike. Their skin was red as well, and they each had a third eye perched along their foreheads between sets of small black horns. Thick white beards that came down across their chests were knotted or braided in various patterns, and they all clutched small staves while chuckling through sharp teeth.

Just beyond the platform at a five-foot drop was solid ground, though Riven had no idea how he’d gotten to the bottom level in all this time. He’d thought he was far above the base level, or perhaps he was just on the edge of a cliff. Running around in the maze of ruins was definitely an easy way to get disoriented.

There were ten cages in total when he counted, and scattered around them were barrels and boxes of various sorts. All the cages had thick metal bars, and two of them had a total of three occupants. The occupants had been stripped naked, with thick metal collars around their necks that glowed with green runic markings. One of them was a blonde human girl with long hair who looked to be about twenty years old, maybe even younger, and the other was a young human man sporting silver hair bound into a medium-length ponytail behind him.

Then, lastly, there was his Blood Weaver minion.

Athela and the man were opposite from each other in the same cage; the man was obviously more afraid of her than she was of him, but the spider, for whatever reason, was still in that cage with him and had three of her legs missing with green ichor leaking out of fresh wounds. She was battered and bruised, shaking and curled up in the corner in an obvious state of pain and fear. There was also a long gash across her thorax…but she was definitely alive.

Riven’s heart melted at seeing Athela like that, wanting to scream out and tell her he was here to help, and he had to quickly suppress the urge to sprint out there toward her.

He took a deep breath, clenched his fists, and thought hard about how he was going to approach this. All of them were utterly terrified, and the blonde woman was outright sobbing as she shook and wrapped her arms around her shoulders while in a cage of her own—secluded from the other prisoners.

“Please! My father will pay you if you let me go! He’ll send you more sacrifices! I promise!” She was desperately pleading with the robed creatures, who simply ignored her and continued to speak in hushed tones as the larger ate nearby. “PLEASE! I DON’T WANT TO DIE!”

Demon cultists? Really?! Why were there so many goddamned cultists in this new multiverse?!

Riven gritted his teeth, nerves climbing high as his eyes latched onto his minion again. She’d obviously gotten into a few scuffles since their time apart and had plainly failed to escape this lot. He tried to think of what to do, but all he could think of in that moment—in that scrambled state of mind—was to harshly whisper to himself:

“You’ve gotta be fist fucking me!”