-[Act 1 * Part 4]-

With their comrades lost to the reality warping effects of the illusion spell, Aidan and Nadia now stood alone before the steps of the demon’s throne. Their journey had taken the twins deep into the lair of their sworn enemy—a lifetime of training had given them the tools and means to accomplish their goal of slaying him, of this they were sure. Granted, they would have preferred to have arrived here at the head of a victorious army, having crushed the dark lord’s forces in the field, but that had proven to be beyond the abilities of their people. Instead of achieving a crushing victory, they now sought to at least end the slaughter by destroying the beast responsible for it.

In truth, with the imperial capital—their final bastion of resistance—under siege at this very moment, their attempt on his life was a last-ditch effort to try and stem the tide of monsters that had all but decimated their once powerful Empire Solar.

For his part, Basil was well aware of their intentions. From a purely tactical point of view the dungeon keeper agreed with their chosen course of action. It was a solid plan, to strike at the core of a dungeon, but one that he had seen executed countless times before. This was, of course, not known to the invaders. There were many things that they did not know, in fact. Not the least of which were the true intentions of the dungeon keeper; the monster that now welcomed them in his home.

“Before we start, I wished to express my sincerest admiration for the two of you,” Basil said. “It is no small feat for a baseline human to max out and reach the [Elite] status. A level 50 human warrior and priestess duo is something of a rare sight to behold. Truly, you are the best that your world has to offer.

“If only you had stronger friends than those thirty something kith that you elected to bring along for the slaughter. A shame, really, as they could have grown a bit stronger for my pleasure, but now they will just have to perish here alongside you two.”

Basil plucked at his patch of a beard as he mused. “Truly, a group of four to six heroes around your power level would have fared much better than the scrap you managed to put together. But I suppose it was the best you could do under the circumstances.”

“Elnora,” Basil waived for his assistant to lean in closer, “be ready to attack on my command. When I cast the ritual spell, make sure to—”

His conversation was interrupted by a loud roar. It was coming from somewhere on the left of the throne.

From the warping embrace of the illusion spell emerged a lone dwarven warrior. Visibly confused, the walking bush of a beard stumbled around in an apparent fit of delirious rage all the while swinging wildly at the air.

“Grendel!” Aidan called out to his companion. “Have you successfully resisted the illusion spell? Follow my voice, friend!”

“Oh, by the love of Maiden Solar,” Nadia said and covered her eyes in shame.

Grendel did not respond to Aidan’s calls. He had broken the mind altering effects of Basil’s illusion spell with the help of his {Berserk} ability, but, unfortunately for the dwarf, he had incurred several side effects by doing so. Suffice to say that while the {Berserk} ability granted a massive boost to his strength and willpower, the dwarf’s intelligence and perception attributes had taken quite the heavy hit.

With his mental abilities now severely hampered, Grendel had apparently decided that he didn’t need his armor anymore. Thus, his muscled warrior’s body was on full display for everyone to see, finer details included.

“That’s not something you get to witness every day,” Basil noted. “Well, I mean it worked out for him… in a way. He did break the spell’s effect, but… Yeah. Hmm.”

Far from being surprised by it, Elnora relished the sight of the naked dwarven warrior rampaging across the room. Her succubus nature was showing as her sharp gaze measured up the herculean form of the rampaging dwarf.

Basil’s presence eventually caught Grendel’s attention—dulled as it was—and having sighted his enemy the dwarf launched into a mad dash for the throne. With the {Berserk} status granting him all the intellectual complexity of a townhouse brick, he paid no mind to how reckless the move was, or how predictable and easy it was to counter.

Tasked with guarding his sister, Aidan could do nothing but look on helplessly as the butt naked dwarf charged the throne, his weapon swinging about wildly in the breeze.

…The dwarf also carried an axe.

“Nice,” Elnora nodded. “Should I handle this?” she asked.

Basil sighed wearily. He then cast a trap spell slightly ahead of the charging dwarf in an effort to end this charade: “[Greater Frost Mine]!”

With his mind completely consumed by the effects of his {Berserk} state, the dwarf ran straight into the obvious trap and triggered it. An explosion followed and a blast of foaming ice consumed him whole. Soon all that remained to tell of this bizarre encounter was the frozen expression of a crazed dwarf encased in transparent ice.

“[Permafrost]!” Basil followed up the first freezing spell with another one, hardening the temporary ice formation into a permanent prison for the dwarf.

“Can we keep it?” Elnora asked as she bit down on the corner of her lip. “We could put it near the quarters of the succubae. I think the girls would enjoy the eye candy.”

“I don’t think we should keep that one,” Basil said. “It doesn’t fit in ‘thematically’ with the rest of the Mansion.”

“Anyway,” he said and pointed his hand down at the two remaining opponents. “Let us begin!”

“[Frost Nova]!”

A wave of white frost shot down the steps of the throne and spread out through the chamber below. It climbed the pillars and covered up the piles of gold coins in a thin layer of ice.

Aidan seemed unfazed by the freezing effects of Basil’s magic as he advanced towards the throne. Meanwhile Nadia was busy buffing him with various spells, all the while keeping a close watch on her magic tomes. Among the heavy books hovering in front of her were several arcane volumes that she could use to gage the effects that her magic was having on her allies or foes. They would also keep track of their status effects.

Information on her brother was present in one of the books, but Basil was still out of its reach and so the priestess couldn’t know exactly what the dungeon keeper was, aside from his general creature class and corresponding racial abilities.

Basil rose to his feet and reached back behind his throne to retrieve a massive two handed war hammer. The stone slab on a stick did not look to be a particularly nimble weapon, but it was unlikely that anyone other than a high level creature could survive getting hit by it more than once. At least that is how it appeared at first.

Aidan was almost at the steps of the throne when Basil finally launched into action. In one swift movement the dungeon keeper leapt down and was upon the surprised warrior.

The human dodged to the left, barely avoiding the heavy impact of the hammer as it landed. Basil’s attack sent shards of ice and rock flying off in all directions as it hit the spot where Aidan had been standing just a moment prior.

Faced with the presumably sluggish fighting style of his opponent, Aidan activated some of his class abilities to counter Basil. “{Greater Parry}! {Greater Strength}!”

He was now ready to slug it out with the demon.

Nadia noticed that Basil had finally entered the range of her bestiary. To her great horror the information that popped up in her monster manual went completely counter to how Basil appeared.

“It’s an illusion!” she called out to Aidan. “He’s a monk!”

But it was too late.

“[Dispel]!” At Basil’s command the cumbersome armor surrounding his body sizzled away into fine blue specks of mana. The hammer in his hands disintegrated in a similar fashion.

With the illusion vanquished his true form was revealed. Free from the burdens of armor, Basil used his superior agility to avoid Aidan’s counterattack. He then delivered several lightning quick punches to the warrior’s lower abdomen in response.

The human was sent sliding backwards by the impact of Basil’s fists. He traveled a short distance across the iced covered floor, but managed to retain his footing.

For a moment it looked like the plate armor that he was wearing had negated the unarmed attack, but then, to his own great surprise, Aidan coughed up a mouthful of blood. An immense sensation of pain shot through his chest and the warrior was left reeling in the aftermath of the demon’s assault.

Basil did not follow up his surprise attack with more aggression. The dungeon keeper instead opted to straighten out his posture and wiped the shards of ice from his body as a courtesy to his surprised foe.

As the fake smoke of his hammer’s impact disappeared, the demon prince was revealed to be carrying no armor on him at all, save for his cloth trousers—and even those were on the short side. Across his chest stretched a bandolier that housed several scrolls and pouches, but, other than this strip of fur trimmed leather, his muscled body was completely naked.

“What in the nine hells!?” Aidan cursed. He spat out a mouthful of blood and wiped his lips on his gauntlet.

“Demon prince, level 47, [Legendary],” Nadia informed her brother on the status report that was now displayed in her monster manual. “And he has stats all over the place.”

Aidan furrowed his brows. “Level 47?” he said. “That’s lower than—”

“Expected?” Basil asked. “It is till more than enough to beat you two. Two [Elites] against a [Legend]—I believe the odds to be firmly in my favor. Otherwise I wouldn’t be facing you two on my own.”

“He has almost no armor,” Nadia informed her brother, “But the resistances of his monk class are beyond absurd. I basically pointless to use any of my elemental magic—it’s that high!”

“This is no time to debate my greatness,” Basil said and advanced towards Aidan. “I still have half a minute until your defense abilities reset. See if you can keep up.”

Aidan gritted his teeth. “Come on then!” he yelled and lunged at Basil with his sword braced for the strike. “With no armor I will just cut your red ass to shreds!”

Basil easily dodged out of the way of the weapon and stepped one foot forward to deliver a strike on Aidan’s right arm. He struck him on the shoulder, but the full impact of his attack was somewhat lessened by Aidan ducking to the left.

The demon prince easily matched the warrior’s movements and followed him, striking low at his right thigh.

The swift strike on his leg caused Aidan to falter, but he managed to swat away the infernal monk, swinging wide with his sword to clear his path. That respite only lasted for a split second however, as Basil went back in with a high kick to Aidan’s upper chest. This time the warrior failed to maintain his balance and was sent falling backwards.

Basil should have had ample opportunity the beat the fallen warrior into the floor, but the demon prince was forced to duck and scramble for cover behind the nearest pillar as Nadia went on the offensive.

“[Sunburst]!” The priestess said and fired several bolts of golden light from her staff at waist height. She did not hold back on covering the entire area with a fan of projectiles as her brother was now well below their line of travel.

This just won’t do, Basil thought. He knew that he could dodge the warrior’s attacks all day long, but the priestess was less predictable. She has to be disarmed first.

The dungeon keeper sprinted across from the cover of one pillar to the next until he was as close to the priestess as possible. Basil then emerged out into the open and made a dash for the spell caster. Along the way he evaded several magic attacks, but a few did land, scorching his flesh with divine power—as a demon he had no natural resistance against it.

With the demon almost upon her, Nadia struck down with her staff and cast a defensive barrier spell: “[Divine Fortress]!”

A golden globe enveloped the priestess and Basil halted his fist mere moments away from striking the barrier.

“You can’t help him by sitting around inside that bubble,” he said. “If you don’t fight me, your brother doesn’t stand a chance.” He glance back to see if the warrior was yet to recover from his fall, but to Basil's surprise the man was already upon him and swinging.

“Get away from her!” Aidan yelled as he drove his weapon towards Basil.

The demon prince jumped out of the way and then several paces more, placing him well out of the warrior’s reach.

“[Hellfire],” Basil said and pointed his finger at the feet of the cowering priestess. The area around the golden globe was immediately encased in a field of black and red flames that caressed the magic barrier with their vicious trails, threatening to burn Nadia if her defense was lifted.

“Give us more time,” Basil told the priestess. “Your brother still has more than enough strength remaining to face me one on one.”

The dungeon keeper raised his fists towards Aidan. “Our second round is about to start,” he said. “Show me the true power of your class, warrior. Give me all that you’ve got.”