Elysium's Multiverse

Chapter 8

He looked over the items list first, choosing the Crude Scythe for a couple reasons despite his regrets on wanting the mana regeneration from the staff or the protection of the amulet. Of course, this was all assuming that mana was essentially what powered magic—based on previous lore from Earth. The first reason was that he wouldn’t have much mana yet, and if he ran out by spamming abilities, he’d be left with what—exactly? A stick or his fists if he chose the staff or amulet. The daggers would be nice in that regard, too, as they did good physical damage like the scythe, but they lacked range and Riven lacked any experience in really serious fighting besides a couple brawls or gang fights he’d gotten into over the years. It certainly wasn’t significant enough for him to feel comfortable using daggers here where people could use magic. Also, the scythe gave a bonus to Unholy damage—which was a category he had now chosen.

That brought him to the next choices: his two abilities. He’d already decided what he wanted before he’d selected the scythe, and he was relatively certain it was a good combination.

The first ability tome he picked was both a crowd-control and damage-over-time ability.

This would hopefully give him some versatility and the ability to lock down opponents, especially if an enemy chose a tanking or close-combat minion to attack him. The scythe would also increase the snare’s damage done over time by an average of five.

The second ability tome he chose was Bloody Razors.

He specifically chose this ability due to the lock-on effect it had. He was unsure of how accurate his aim would be, so this would hopefully compensate. He needed to make sure he actually hit his opponent instead of wasting all his mana missing when he’d had relatively no time to practice the spells.

This brought him to what was probably the most important choice for his upcoming battle: a minion companion. As for which minion he wanted to begin with—the options that caught his eye most were Succubus, Shadow Fiend, Ravager, and Blood Weaver.

Honestly, he was ashamed to admit that he was very curious about how the succubus would turn out, but Mama didn’t raise no simp. So…with a sigh…he declined the option. At least for now, because he already had one crowd-control ability of his own, and the message pertaining to the succubus seemed geared toward that category…even though it truly, truly caused him pain to turn the succubus down. His Latin maid and other related fantasies would have to wait for now.

The Shadow Fiend was very interesting to him, but looking around his flat, floating island, he couldn’t see any real objects or obstacles the creature could use to its advantage pertaining to stealthy moves. Maybe that wouldn’t matter, but he didn’t want to risk it.

The Ravager was a really interesting choice. Riven could use a tank, as this class of his was probably very weak defensively. The Ravager even had passive regeneration! That was a huge plus, but the description also called it slow and dumb. So…it was basically a brutish creature of some sort. Slow was definitely a negative, but would being dumb be a huge hindrance to Riven if he was trying to use it as a meat shield? He wasn’t sure.

Then there was the Blood Weaver. Riven didn’t like that the description called it fragile, but everything else about the arachnid screamed this is great! to him. It was very fast, stealthy, smart, and had good crowd control. Surely that wouldn’t be a bad pick, would it?

Truthfully, though, it was mostly a guessing game, as these descriptions gave very little in terms of information. Wanting them all, he eventually ended up choosing the Blood Weaver…and hoped that it wasn’t a mistake that would cost him his life here in the next twenty minutes or so.

In a flash, Riven was staring at a pair of realistic holograms of two different spiders. The first was a pitch-black spider the size of a hound with silver fangs, two red eyes instead of eight that looked like rubies, and similar red patches painted along its body. She had twelve long and slender legs, and they each came down to a sharp point. She looked very pretty, even though Riven had always hated spiders, and there was an elegance to it that he hadn’t expected. Its name was Athela.

The next Blood Weaver was rather different in its presentation. Its coating was black, with orange spikes down its back up to its head, and it was a little larger. It had an extra pair of fangs, one of which dripped acid, but it, too, had a pair of similar red eyes to Athela—and it, too, had twelve legs instead of eight. Its name was Veriksha.

The choice was a rather hard one. Athela’s starting skills were about the same as Veriksha’s, though Veriksha did have a ranged attack and Athela didn’t—Athela’s blood venom and therefore close combat seemed to be more potent. At least that’s what he got out of the description.

Veriksha’s Thermal Insides trait was interesting, though he didn’t look favorably on it when comparing it to Athela’s Adrenaline Junkie trait. Thermal Insides would basically make him immune to cold weather or cold-based attacks, while the Adrenaline Junkie trait made him faster with an outright percentage. The problem with Thermal Insides was that it only helped him in very specific situations, and Adrenaline Junkie would help him all the time.

So that’s what sealed the deal for him, and he selected Athela as his first minion choice.

In a flash of light, the holograms were gone, and in their place a red pentagram with a spider in the center was etched into the ground in front of him.

Then he lurched forward, grimacing as light of a similar color began etching itself into his skin. He looked down, gritting his teeth as a numbing, chilling cold blossomed along his sternum. Again the symbol of a spider was drawn first, and it was then surrounded by a red pentagram that remained inked into his skin as he got yet another notification.

The tattoo was rather neat now that he looked at it some more and the pain had gone away, but he didn’t have too much time to appreciate it. A moment later, Athela began to rise out of the ground in the center of the pentagram. The creature was exactly as the hologram had depicted her—a large red-and-black spider that was a rather pretty creature for an arachnid, which was odd, considering how he’d always thought most spiders looked disgusting. Athela’s blood-tipped legs tapped rapidly in excitement as she looked around, and as her two red eyes settled on him, she lifted the two front legs and spread her fangs while getting up on her hind legs. “Hi, there, Master! How’s your day going?”

Riven was taken aback. The spider could talk? The voice was high-pitched, feminine, and was the equivalent to a soft summer’s breeze or wind chimes—it was nice, pleasant to hear, and he couldn’t help but chuckle. Not only was the spider very pretty for an animal, but even her voice was pleasant and friendly?

He gave Athela a mixed expression of confusion and amusement before getting up and walking over to the dog-size arachnid. Extending a hand and shaking one of her rather cold, sharpened front legs, he smiled down as she clicked her mandibles together. “You’re rather cute. How’d I get so lucky with my minion choice?”

He could have sworn that the spider flushed pink for a moment before she shook his hand vigorously with dramatic affect.

“Now, now, human, I can’t have you hitting on me right after summoning me. We’re different species and it wouldn’t work out.”

Riven stifled a laugh, and he felt himself relax as he heard the clicking laughter of the arachnid when Athela got back down to all twelve legs. “Seriously, though, you’re not what I expected. At least when concerning your…demeanor.”