Chapter 12 - A New Quest: Escape from Oblivion

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Name: Trey Bon

HP 220/220

MP 100/100

SP 120/120

DP 1/1

Race: Human

Guild: None

Class: None

Level 4

Status Alerts:

Remaining Skill Points: 0 Remaining Stat Points: 0 Current Permanence cycle: ON Current Bound Point: Negaizer Runestone You have died in an ON permanence cycle. You have lost 1 level along with the 5 stat points and 1 skill point that come with it. Withdrawals have been randomized from your stats and skills. From here afterwards, your points will be taken from the highest stat and highest skill levels.

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“This place sucks ass...” said Trey as he pulled his clothes back on. Much to his surprise, his old body had still been there in the hall wearing them. Previously upon death he’d been eaten or blown up, so he hadn’t known that the body remained afterwards. As for the clothes, they were covered in blood and had numerous holes in them - so Trey had taken them outside to the river and washed them as best he could. With the recent impaling, on top of the holes from holy fire burning patches of cloth away days before, they were pretty damn ragged.

Aside from that, it was also kind of strange seeing himself dead.

‘That was painful.’ Sithis remarked. ‘I don’t ever want to experience that again. But… at least the hunger is gone now.’

That made Trey chuckle, and then cackle loudly as he thought about how many times he had died thus far. “Yeah man. Let’s just say I feel ya.”

Trey glanced down at his status page. “Are these points that were taken away done so at random? Do you know? Or is there a method to the madness here.”

Sithis laughed, ‘I’m not sure, master.’

“Stop calling me master and call me Trey. You’re the first friend I’ve had since coming to this god forsaken place.”

A moment of silence followed before Sithis replied again. ‘Friend? ...Interesting.’

“You can read my thoughts, you should know that I feel that way.” replied Trey sternly.

Sithis seemed to inwardly smile as a warm feeling spread over Trey’s body. Trey assumed it was the emotions let off from Sithis, but couldn’t be sure. ‘Very well Trey. I will call you by your name. Though I haven’t invaded the privacy of your thoughts since you mentioned you felt violated earlier. I will only do so when necessary from now on.’

Trey shrugged as he wiped down the somewhat dry clothes and proceeded to the left passage again. “Alright Sithis, I want you to look out for traps too as we go on... but I wana see what's down there now. If it’s guarded I bet you there’s something nice.”

Slowly, Trey approached the trapped spot he’d been killed at earlier. Water again could be heard rushing nearby and he carefully stepped over the stone that had sunk inwards earlier. Afterwards he awkwardly stood looking down the rest of the hallway. None of the stones looked like triggers for traps, but neither had the one he stepped on to commit unintentional suicide. He had no way of knowing which one was a trigger, if any more of them were triggers at all.

Thinking hard for a moment he tried turning himself into shadowform. After a couple seconds his body began to dematerialize into wisps of black, but then soon turned back to normal.

Apparently it would take a lot of practice to perfect.

He braced himself to start sprinting, and a second later he was running as fast as he could along to the left side of the hall. With his new speed he used the momentum to run up the side of the wall for a good two yards yards before clearing the rest of the length with a shadowstep as he came down. As he rematerialized with wisps of black shadow surrounding him, he was happy to see he’d cleared the hall to the other side.

“Hell yes!”

He looked about to see he was standing next to an underground river. It led out into the area he had come from and probably to the river he’d washed his clothes in earlier, and from where it came was a narrow walkway on either side of the flowing waters. Trey passed a point at which he saw the path from the hall he had not taken intersecting to merge with the one he was on via a small stone bridge further down. Following the path on the right side of the river he watched for traps, but none came as he closed in on a large circular door.

The door was somewhat ajar, and had one giant demonic face upon it smiling back towards the river. From inside the next room Trey could hear a loud shuffling sound. He got down into a crouching position and tried his best not to make any noise. Upon getting even closer, chains could be heard clanking together before he peeked inside. Looking within, Trey was surprised to see a long line of prisoners chained together by their necks. Their hands and feet were bound with rope, causing obvious rub marks and even wounds along the affected areas, with the feet of the prisoners given a little slack so that they could shuffle forward little by little. Most of the prisoners were human, but a few of them were what Trey assumed to be dwarves. There were both men and women in the long line of prisoners, and three guards were in the immediate room watching over them.

The guards were nothing like the prisoners they presided over. All were about seven feet tall and humanoid, but had deep purple skin with red markings across their facial features and two small black horns. Trey could only guess that they must have been from the same race of warriors he’d found so many skeletons of back on the battlefield earlier that day.

Name: Culn Guard

Race: Culn, Lesser Demon

Class: ???

Level: 4

HP: ???

MP: ???

SP: ???

‘Pulling from your memories I believe I have the correct phrase to define this situation: your Identification skills are ass.’ stated Sithis.

Trey’s eyes narrowed and he motioned with his hand for Sithis to shut up as if the Culn guards could hear what Sithis had said. This only made Sithis internally chuckle.

The line of prisoners was completely silent aside from the shuffling of their feet and the occasional clanking of their chains. The line was coming from another room further down and turned a corner to Trey’s right. It was slowly inching forward.

Trey heard a whimpering from the hall where they were turning that corner, but he was unable to see what was happening as a terror stricken scream rang out before quickly being silenced. The line continued to shuffle forward at a snail’s pace as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on.

He saw a man nearby shaking with what Trey assumed to be fear before the man urinated all over the floor and prisoner in front of him. Behind him, an elderly man with a long white beard slipped on the man’s urine as he tried to shuffle forward and brought three other people with him, including the man in front and two women behind. They were all connected via the chain around their neck and hit the floor nearly simultaneously while the other prisoners had to brace themselves to stop from falling too.

[Ancient Demon Dialect] “WORM!!! GET UP!!!” The culn guard closest to Trey looked at them in disgust before turning around and walking over to where the prisoners were trying to pick themselves up.

The culn guard drew his sword and made ready to cleave the bearded man’s head off with a sinister sneer. The old bearded man began pleading with them in a language that Trey didn’t understand, but Trey could tell what the gist of it was about.

The horned guard gave his two compatriots a nod. [Ancient Demon Dialect] “This is the third time he has tripped. I will kill him now and bring his body to feed the master so that he doesn’t slow the line any further.”

Then with an affirmative grunt from one of the others, he swiftly brought his sword down to cut the begging prisoner’s head off.

The next thing the culn warrior knew, a rift in space opened up in front of him in a ripple of black shadows - when a man with glowing red eyes and black claws abruptly materialized with a malicious grin.

In a split second, one of the claws had caught the downward strike of the sword and the other claw had ripped out the jugulars of the Culn. The warrior let out a surprised gurgle, eyes widening as he clutched at his throat and let go of his weapon. Before the other two guards had time to react Trey spun around and vaporized both of them with chaos balls that shot out from both hands, erupting against his enemies and blowing chunks off the walls behind them.

His chaos balls were impressively devastating, and Trey made a mental note not to fire them if the prisoners were too close. He’d almost vaporized a couple of the straggling captives near the end of the line just now and was grateful he’d not killed them in retrospect.

“You have gained XP.”

The prisoners began to panic, yell out and pull back as best they could in their restraints, many of them pushing up against the near wall. Shouts from the room where the slaves had turned the corner rose up and became louder as footsteps were heard.

Trey sneered in the direction of oncoming enemies, feeling Sithis’ hunger building evermore. He fearlessly strode over to the hall, saw five more culn coming forward with swords drawn, and let out a scream of challenge. The slaves all winced and the Culn soldiers began to sprint towards him with screams and battlecries.

Trey met their charge. The hallway was narrow. Even though he wanted to try using his sword, he felt that his claws were definitely a better option in such tight quarters as he wouldn’t be able to swing a longer weapon without hitting the wall or a random prisoner.

A swish of a blade whizzed by him and was about to come back to strike again when a chain of chaos launched itself from behind. The magical restraint wrapped the culn’s arm, burning away the demon’s flesh and causing its eyes to widen in surprise.

That look then turned to immediate fear as he registered the incoming attack from Trey. A swift uppercut and wrench left the first culn without a jaw, and a brutal slash to the neck left him bleeding out on the ground. Trey lifted his hands and summoned three more chaos chains that quickly bound the three culn in the back - appearing from extra dimensional rifts about the demons in unison. With his other enemies helplessly secured, Trey only needed to worry about the one in front of him. The culn warrior in front of him snarled and screamed in fury as it swept forward, cutting down one of the prisoners in the process and missing Trey by a mile.

As the momentum carried the sword to Trey’s right, he used the opportunity to pounce upon the demon and began ripping it’s guts out in chunks as it screamed in fear and agony. A surge of pleasure spiked through Trey and a feeling of lust for carnage overwhelmed him. In the past, when he’d killed people back on Earth… he’d never experienced the feeling he had now. He’d never wanted to continue, he’d never wanted to cause some living person pain just because he could.

But this was different.

He wanted more, and Sithis’ bloodlust hummed in agreement.

Looking up to the three other helpless demons who were screaming for help, a spreading smile crossed Trey’s lips. These creatures were... weak. Much weaker than the things he had fought back in the tomb. They seemed to be inexperienced, without any thought of strategy as they’d attacked him head on.

He tore through all the remaining culn with a vengeance and without a second thought, ripping one’s head off with razor claws and killing the other two a couple seconds later. The smoldering magical chains disappeared and the bodies fell in tatters to the floor behind Trey as he turned around and laughed like a maniac at the sight.

He’d cleared the hall and was in another room, but he didn’t get a good look at his attacker before Sithis moved his body with a shadowstep to avoid being hit by a huge double-sided axe. As Trey materialized behind his attacker, he realized that it was a large minotaur - easily three times his size with enormous muscles that bulged as it flexed.

Name: Minotaur

Race: Minotaur, Demon

Class: Berserker

Level: 12

HP: ???

MP: ???

SP: ???

The axe was embedded deep into the stone floor where Trey'd been moments before, and the beast was struggling to yank it out despite the large muscles it had. This gave Trey the opportunity to come in for a first strike. Now that he was in a larger open room, Trey summoned his newly found longsword from shadowform and slashed out at the huge creature, trying to get a cut on the back of the knee to cripple it. However, he was unsuccessful in his attempt. The sword only clipped the beast when it pivoted out of the way, being surprisingly fast for such a brute.

[Ancient Demon Dialect] “Puny human. You die now.” the minotaur grinned and roared, dropping the axe and bellowing as it charged with its horns down.

Trey ducked under its charge and rolled inbetween the monster’s legs, bringing his sword right up through the creatures genitals and causing it to scream as it fell into the ground adjacent to a strange pool nearby. Getting up and grunting angrily it turned with rage in its eyes, and after muttering something in a hushed tone the beast began to glow a faint red.

“Fuuucccckkkkk...” Trey muttered as the beast’s muscles and vasculature bulged soon thereafter, giving it a crazed rabid look. He knew just by looking at it and with certainty that if this thing got ahold of him... he’d be crushed in an instant.

It charged him again and he was barely able to roll out of the way, getting clipped in the thigh with one of its long horns before it blasted into the wall behind where Trey had just been standing. The room shuddered and Trey gritted his teeth against the pain but didn’t hesitate as he summoned another Chaos Ball. The enraged minotaur turned about to face him just as the flickering ball of black-crimson lightning and flames connected with its chest. The beast’s eyes went wide and it was sent flying backwards, crushing one of the unfortunate prisoners against another wall with a crunch and gasping as blood began to pour out of the traumatized gaping hole in its chest.

“Gotchya bitch.” Trey snarled as the minotaur looked up at him. Trey flung the sword in his hand as hard as he could in a spinning arc at the beast and expected a fatality, only to be surprised when the minotaur lifted a hand and caught the sword with a roar.

Blood trickled down the creature’s left hand and a finger dropped to the ground as it threw the sword down and stood back up, bellowing another challenge as the prisoners watched wide eyed with the two combattants going at it.

“Damn it!” Trey yelled out, going pale when the beast picked up one of the culn’s bodies and hurled it at him like a rocket.

Shadowstep was on cooldown and he couldn’t dodge the high-velocity corpse coming his way. It slammed into him, knocking the breath out of his chest and sending him sprawling with bruises and scrapes. He lay there stunned, his world was spinning. Trying to reorient himself and adjust his breathing again he felt a hoof come down onto his outstretched leg and screamed as he felt bones shatter underneath the weight of the enraged upright cow.

The creature laughed at the agony it was causing him only to cough up blood as it did, stopping the display of dominance in its tracks.

“PUNY HUMAN!” roared the beast just as the red light of the minotaur’s spell came to an end. When it did, the muscles of the creature relaxed back to their normal but still-huge size, and it looked like it had suddenly gotten sick.

Trey used that moment to twist, despite the pain of his shattered leg, and sent claws lashing out through the tendons of his enemy’s own lower leg. The brute screamed and fell backwards away from Trey, hitting the back of its head on the stone and stunning it just before he tried to summon another chaos ball to finish the beast off.

But then he realized he was out of mana.

His HP was at 111/220, while his MP was at a nearly rock bottom of 1/100. “Oh Jesus Christ, not again!!!”

Cursing himself internally for running out for the second fight in a row, he used his good leg and pushed himself up to vault forward. Colliding with the disoriented creature he took a chance and went for the neck. Sinking both claws in he successfully ripped out one of the jugulars with a scream and was thrown from the creature to slam against the ceiling with a sickening thud. He was certain at least most of his ribs were broken now along with the leg that had been stomped on. Hitting the ground at a twenty foot drop he coughed up blood and barely had enough strength to lift his head. Though he was able to see that the minotaur was at last in its death throes, internally giving him a sense of extreme satisfaction.

Meanwhile his HP bar was at 13/220. Trey was barely alive.

‘You must consume one of your kills to restore health! Hurry, before you bleed out!’ Sithis urged Trey as Trey’s hand moved him forward, crawling across the smooth cold floor and leaving a trail of blood across the stones.

His vision blurred in and out and he saw the health bar tick down again with the bleeding status ongoing. He felt faint, but another couple of arm motions and he’d reached the Culn soldier. He stopped to take a brief glance over at the awed prisoners who were still chained together, and then to the minotaur that had just then stopped its struggles to let out its very last breath.

“You have gained XP.”

He grinned victoriously before turning his attention back to the still-warm corpse of the nearest culn man he’d killed. It seemed natural as he sunk his teeth into the neck, soft flesh tearing away and warm blood filling his mouth. He relished it, savoring it, and found it odd how much he enjoyed it. He wasn’t at all disgusted, which was an immense surprise to him. Not only that, but as the first bite was swallowed: his HP, MP and SP bars all went up just slightly.

He continued to chow down in a monotone lackadaisical fashion, unable to push himself too far because of how exhausted and injured he was. But as he went on he felt his ribs snap back into place, his wounds began to seal shut, and his leg began to do the same. Trey was truly amazed.

He looked over across the room at a series of terrified prisoners that stood watching the scene unfold. In front of where they stood, large green pools of water were collected into stone basins with enormous grotesque larva swimming about. The disgusting creatures were chowing down on the helpless men and women that had already been thrown in.

One of the prisoners, gawking at Trey, accidentally slipped on the watery floor and landed a short distance from the closest pool. To his horror and as he did, a larva the size of a wolf leapt out of the green murky basin and clamped large brown jaws onto the man - dragging the screaming victim in and pulling the line forward with him. A couple seconds later the man had been pulled out of the pool and flung back onto the stone floor by Trey. A black, smoldering chaos chain had impaled the slug-like larva and whipped it into the air only to bring it back with a splat as it slammed violently against the far wall of the chamber.

Trey’s eyes glistened as he looked into the pools, and was able to tell that at least a dozen more were swimming about in the filthy muck.

“Gross…”

Trey waited a little while longer until he had enough mana to cast some more chaos balls. Consuming more of the corpses nearby also helped expedite this process, and soon all of the larva in the pools lay dead after he let off another series of explosions.

“You have gained XP.”

He nodded in satisfaction, eyeing the carnage he’d just created. Without any sort of warning and a couple seconds later, Trey began to feel… Funny. A surge of hunger caused Trey’s body to lunge forward against his will. He staggered, muttered to himself and looked around in a frenzy. What he’d eaten wasn’t enough and the humans or dwarves here… they seemed like tasty meals... Trey inched closer towards the nearest prisoner - a woman about his own age. He was hungry, ravenous even, and he felt himself begin to salivate. But before he reached her, just a couple feet away from his next potential meal, he snapped out of the trance.

“The fuck am I doing…?” Trey murmured with an expression of worry across his face. “Sithis? You there? What the fuck dude.”

Sithis did not reply, but yet another surge of hunger gripped Trey’s consciousness and he doubled over to let out a scream that soon turned into a low sinister growl. It didn’t sound human. The prisoners all backed up as best they could, terror stricken, as Trey’s body pulsed. The fear in the eyes of the men and women was growing, but the chains connecting them by the necks prevented them from individually running away.

Blood pooled across Trey’s hand while he remained growling on all fours, and he looked to his left to see the giant minotaur that he’d slain earlier gushing blood from its neck. Trey let out a triumphant roar and lunged forward to sink his teeth into the flesh of the monster. He began to devour it with a ravenous appetite and slowly whittled away at its flesh.

“You have gained 1 strength from consuming a fresh kill. You have gained the Blades skill. You have evolved, Aspect of the Devil: Mask is now part of your being.” stated the familiar, feminine mechanical voice.

Trey ignored the All Spirit’s prompts and continued to eat, but soon his facial features began to change… morphing into a pitch black skin all across his head, no lips, with long sharp dagger-like teeth encompassing the front of Trey’s face in a set grin. He continued to gorge himself on the corpse and his bites became larger, jaws unhinging to open much wider than any normal human should be able to do - and the additional teeth from the mask easily cut through the monster’s tough flesh like it was butter.

His regular features were still somewhat recognizable ignoring the long wicked jaws, but he literally looked like a man possessed. Using his claws he dug into the chest of the minotaur and removed the heart, which was the size of a small watermelon, and eagerly tore it into chunks as he devoured it.

He ate for the next fifteen minutes, with the prisoners frozen in place watching him. By the end of it, he had devoured nearly the entire minotaur, two culn, and gained yet another strength point. How he was able to eat so much or where it had all gone, Trey would never know.

The act of a small hand gently touching his shoulder was what evicted him from his absent state of mind. He was covered in blood from head to foot, his hair and clothes were soaked in it, and he turned to look at the prisoner who had touched him. It was a small girl with light brown hair, probably the age of 5 or 6, who stood wide eyed and staring. She wore a torn orange dress and had stitched sandals for shoes.

He stared back at her through glowing crimson eyes and a mouthful of culn flesh, razor-like teeth of his new jaws smiling savagely. Then he swallowed, expecting her to say something.

The little girl seemed to gain the courage to speak, and when she did her voice wavered. She spoke in a language Trey did not understand, but she was motioning to her bindings with a look of desperation. The other prisoners nearby held their breath as Trey stood up to tower above her.

He sighed, his eyes softened, and he tried to wipe the blood from his face without any luck. Slowly and gently he leaned down and crushed the chains connecting the little girl’s neck to another man behind her with one of his claws. Trey then snapped the chain between her and the man in front of her, cut the ropes tying her hands, and they stared at one another again for a good minute.

When Trey smiled down at her, and Aspect of the Devil: Mask was relinquished, she smiled back up at him and gave him a firm hug around his leg. Trey laughed gently and patted her head before cutting her feet loose. Within an hour Trey had freed all 37 of the prisoners, and soon many of them were desperately trying to talk to him.

[English Dialect] ”Do you speak English?” No one acknowledged him and he blinked in irritation. Trey held up his bloodied hands, [Ancient Demon Dialect] “What about this…? No? Nobody? Look… I don’t know what y’all are trying to tell me but I don’t know what any of you are saying.”

Trey shrugged helplessly and gave a crooked apologetic smile toward the mob surrounding him.

The bearded man who had fallen and had nearly been beheaded earlier waved his hands about in the air, then yelled something a couple of times before everyone else quieted down. He quickly came to the front of the group and stood before Trey. He was bald and dressed in what once was a nice green robe, but it’d definitely seen better days. He had large dark bags under his eyes, cuts along the spots where the ropes had bound him, and looked quite frail.

[Ancient Demon Dialect] “I speak for the group here, as I am the only scholar to know your tongue amongst us.” the old man stated as he tried to remain calm. Trey could tell that his grasp of the language was far from perfect as the words seemed mispronounced, but Trey got the general idea.

[Ancient Demon Dialect] “Nice! Good to see someone understands me.” Trey said with a smirk and stuck out his hand in greeting.

The old man inspected Trey’s hand, then frantically put on a fake smile and shook Trey’s hand quickly before letting go again. He looked back up to Trey. “Who are you?”

Trey and Sithis both laughed, this time Sithis made his voice heard and it echoed about the room with a demonic taint. The fear in the people around him was evident upon hearing the laugh and this only made Trey cackle even more loudly. Eventually he calmed down and took a look about before settling on the old man once again.

“My name is Trey.”

The man looked on questioningly after translating for the group behind him, as if expecting Trey to say more.

“What else do you want to know?” stated Trey with a blank expression. He put his hands on his hips and stretched, yawning soon thereafter.

The old man stuttered. “W-Why did you save us?”

Trey shrugged.

“I mean, you’re all the first humans I’ve seen since getting to this hellhole. I’ve had a really bad time by myself. I want to know if you know how to escape this place. I mean, not this place specifically but I want to know how to get back to civilization.” Trey threw out his hands in a hopeless gesture. “This place sucks. And on top of that… I would have done it anyways. It seemed like the right thing to do.”

Trey smiled innocently. It felt good to be helping people instead of hurting them, a stark contrast to the years he’d spent working for his father’s crime syndicate back on Earth.

The man translated the best he could as Trey spoke, and soon a flurry of questions were being thrown back at the man as he tried to calm everyone down.

“You do not know the way out of Oblivion?” The man looked worried at the idea. “We were hoping you did. We were taken from our town after a cult summoned demons to enslave us in exchange for power. We have not been here long and were meant to be food for their beasts or used in their mines.”

Trey shook his head sadly. “I just got here too. I’ve been here for 12 days.”

12 days if he didn't include the time he'd remained dead, anyways.

The man looked puzzled and scratched his head. “12 days? So you are not a demon then? I wasn’t sure.”

Trey grinned. “No. I’m human too. Long story short, I’m from a place called Earth. I woke up in this world 12 days ago and have been killed multiple times now. But for some reason I can’t seem to permanently die.”

The man’s eyes grew large. “You are Earthborn?!”

“I mean… yeah, I guess. I was born on Earth. And that’s actually one of my traits so I assume you’re correct.” Trey scowled. “Why? Does that mean something to you?”

The old man put a hand to his forehead and looked incredibly worried. “Do all Earthborn have your powers?”

Now it was Trey’s turn to look confused. “All Earthborn? So there ARE more here?”

The man looked curiously back to Trey. “Yes there have been others, but they are not likely here in Oblivion. It’s just that this situation seems so bizarre, I would likely believe anything you told me right now. You do not find humans walking around in the halls of Oblivion out on a whim. But back to the point, in the past your kind has come in small groups.”

Trey paused and raised one eyebrow. “Interesting, but to answer your question from earlier about them having my powers - it would likely be a no."

The man furrowed his brow. "Why is that?"

Trey considered telling this man about how he'd bonded with the 'Void Essence', but declined to do so. Letting on about his abilities and attributes wouldn't do him any favors, and if anything would leave him exposed. If these people became his enemies, or if they were captured and interrogated by others, letting on to what he could do would have been a very foolish decision.

"You'll just have to trust me..." Trey replied with a low chuckle with the demonic features reappearing across his face for a brief instant. He'd done it by accident, still being very new to the Aspect of the Devil: Mask trait. He didn't have total control over it yet.

However, it was enough to scare the daylights out of numerous people. One of the men in the group even staggered back, turned heel and ran out the circular entrance.

“I… would tell him not to go that way.” Trey said, nodding to the other man running out. “Those hallways have traps. I got killed yesterday trying to get through. Had a bunch of spikes sticking through me.”

"Killed...?" Quickly the older man nodded and ran to the doorway to scream something down the passage. He repeated it twice more before looking back with a sigh. “He refused to listen and kept running.”

The older man straightened. “But nevermind that, I have to think about the safety of myself and my granddaughter here. I was afraid you were a demon shifter of some kind, but I'll choose to trust you. Please don't make me regret it.” The man smiled at the little girl Trey had first freed. She looked up at her grandfather, then back over to Trey and smiled before waving shyly at him. She was by far the least afraid of Trey out of everyone here.

“Granddaughter huh? What are your names?” asked Trey as he bent down again and waved back.

“My name is Farthom, and my granddaughter's name is Inis.” The man looked up and then scanned the group. Most of them began to nod and a few of them commented before Farthom turned back to Trey. “You said you want to get back to civilization?”

Trey chuckled and nodded, crossing his arms in front of him and giving Farthom a ‘DUH’ look. “Yeah. I do.”

Farthom smiled slightly and lifted both of his eyebrows. “How about a trade then?”

Trey looked back to Farthom with a curious look on his face and waited for the man to continue without saying anything.

Farthom cleared his throat, squeezed his granddaughter's hand and took a large breath of air. “When we were taken from our homes and enslaved, an Oblivion portal was opened up to transfer us here. We were then taken, put in cages, flown through the air to transport us here, and herded like animals while being fed to those slugs until you intervened.”

Farthom’s eyes were downcast. “There were hundreds of us at first. And I’m sure there are others from our town that are still alive but aren’t here…” He motioned about him. “But I am getting off track. You are our best chance at survival. Trey, we need your help.”

The older man kneeled and put his hands on the floor to drop his head. “I watched as we were flown here and I think I can remember the way back to the portal… it was closed. But, I believe we can reactivate it. Please, accept my life oath and the promise to show you the way there - just take us with you.”

“You have been offered a quest: Escape from Oblivion - escort Farthom and Inis out of oblivion, and as many of the prisoners from Negaizer as you can for bonus XP. Completing this quest will result in a large sum of XP and a life oath from Farthom. Do you accept or decline?” a mechanical voice from deep in Trey’s brain echoed.

Trey saw the faces about him waiting anxiously. They were obviously nervous about his reply, and weren’t sure what was being said as they didn’t understand the language Trey and Farthom were speaking.

Trey scratched his head. “Yeah I can do that. Not sure what a life oath is, but… whatever it is I won’t hold you to it. Just show me the way out.” Trey paused and held up a hand as Farthom began to actively sob. “Yo I just want you to know that I’ll do my best. I can’t promise that all of you will make it, hell I can’t even promise that any of you will make it. And I may die again myself.”

“You have accepted the quest: Escape from Oblivion.”

The man shakily smiled and tried to stop from sobbing. The others in the group looked incredibly worried before he turned and translated for them. Immediately the crowd began hugging one another and exclaiming, crying and exchanging words. The little girl Inis smiled widely up to Trey and hugged him again, getting more blood across her dress. But she didn’t seem to care.

“Can any of you wield these things?” Trey asked as he began collecting the swords of the fallen Culn. He left the gigantic axe of the minotaur well enough alone, there was no way any of them could wield that monstrosity.

Farthom passed the swords around the room before handing all but two back. “Only two of the men from the town are able to meet the stat requirements.”

“What happens if you use them anyways? When I tried earlier with another weapon I didn’t qualify to use, it damaged me. Would it really have killed me?” Trey asked curiously. He remembered his previous encounter with the ruby crusader’s sword where he hadn’t been able to even lift the damnable thing.

Farthom’s brows furrowed but then softened again. “I forget, you really are new here.” He straightened his posture. “If you try to use a weapon or armor that is too high level for you, it makes you incredibly sluggish and clumsy. Yes, it can also damage and even kill you. Sometimes if the item has any special effects it will misfire too. Simply put, you aren’t able to control it properly. Similar things can happen with other items that aren’t weapons or armor.”

Trey let out a humph. Then walked over to the entrance where the prisoners had come from and pointed down the hall. “I assume you all came from that way? What’s down there?”

Farthom nodded. “That leads into a series of tunnels. We passed a couple rooms that seemed to be used for storage purposes. There was also a large gate into a prison… I think. I suggest we try to sneak by it when we get near. After that… we will come to the entrance leading outside.” He wiped his hands on his green robe then motioned for everyone to silence. The talking subsided. “You’ll be leading us until we get out of here Trey, so you tell us what to do.”

‘These lower lifeforms will just slow us down. We do not need them... aside from this Farthom human.’ stated Sithis out loud.

Farthom was outwardly startled as the symbiote’s voice rang out. Trey hadn’t moved his lips, but it was clearly audible to everyone there. Thankfully only Farthom and Trey had understood it though.

Trey glanced over the small crowd. Sithis was correct in one sense, they would definitely slow him down and would possibly - no - would probably get in the way. Half of them were women, some of them old. The men there were obviously not fighters, and as Trey turned to identify them he was able to see that they were all level 1 or 2. Farthom was a solid level 1 himself.

However, Trey shook his head before replying to his new friend and symbiote. “No Sithis. We will take them with us.”

‘Why?’ inquired Sithis. ‘What profit will we gain from helping these… things? I only see negative consequences from such a choice, unless you wish to take mates from some of the females.’

Trey smirked. “It is simply the right thing to do Sithis. And you forget, I am human too. I would want help if it were me in their position. Also… they can lead us out of this place.”

Sithis let out a loud audible scoff. ‘You are nothing like these creatures. Even before you acquired the Void Essence, you were immortal. You are much higher up on the food chain, do not insult us with such a comparison. Your soul is pristine, your aptitude for power is beyond that of any here by massive amounts.’

Trey laughed out loud and waved his hand dismissively. “Sorry man. Also, remind me to have a talk with you about those hunger urges later.”

Trey remembered how he had nearly just killed one of the women next to the pools and frowned. The urge to kill and feed had been almost uncontrollable, and he had been under the impression that the hunger had been satiated after he had died. It was something that definitely needed to be addressed.

Sithis paused for a couple seconds before replying. ‘Very well Trey. I disagree with your assessment, but you are my master.’

“I said to stop calling me master.” Trey motioned for the group to follow him, beginning to walk. Farthom grabbed Inis by her small hand and kept the pace to walk beside Trey down the corridor and towards the tunnels.

“Who... is that?” inquired Farthom hesitantly. “Or, better yet, what is it? Is that another creature, living inside you?"

Trey nodded, still looking forward. “Do you know how many more enemies we’re going to encounter here?”

Farthom grunted in surprise, and then scowled irritation. “Not a clue. I saw more in the dungeon, but aside from that I didn’t see any. I wouldn’t count on what I saw though. Things may have changed, they seemed to be coming and going from the entrance when we were taken here.”

Trey said nothing, but continued deep into Negaizer with 36 others following in his wake. Hopefully there wasn’t an entire goddamn garrison here waiting for him, because if that was the case… they were all pretty screwed.