RAZE

Break. Tear. Kill. Raze’s eyes slowly snap open as he hears the familiar grating of stone against stone. Discarded around him are dozens of corpses made of both stone and flesh. Scattered around them are a few strange items, including two cubes, left to gather dust. His rest disrupted Raze reaches over and rips off a stone leg from one of the corpses, chewing on it as he waits for the noise to come closer. It doesn’t take long for the familiar creature to reach him.

Stone Gargoyle

[ Horror ]

Raze observes with cold eyes, his vision catching the subtle changes. The stone having turned from its gray to a cold blue. Its wings narrowed and sharpened to a point with claws thick and long. Different. But still weak. As it launches itself toward him Raze sidesteps its momentum. As it lands on the ground it twists unnaturally, its body whipping around at an extreme speed to claw into Raze’s body. Unfortunately it never makes it that far. Halfway through its turn it finds Raze’s hand clamped on its own, his impassive eyes staring down at it as he casually rips its arm out of its socket.

The gargoyle watches as Raze discards the other stone arm he held and starts to chew on its own. This one is at least a little stronger. Raze can feel a bit more strength return to him as he consumes the arm. The gargoyle feels, for the first time in its life, an emotion. Anger. With a cry it reaches up toward him only to freeze in place. Raze relinquishes his grip on the gargoyle, letting it fall to the ground as its head separates from its body. Continuing to chew on its arm, Raze stares down at the body. Break. Tear. Kill. His mouth twists down to a frown with distaste.

Soon what Raze is waiting for appears. Above the gargoyle’s body a small mass of light gathers itself together and condenses tightly. The light disappears and an item takes its place, falling on top of the body. Looking down Raze sees a flask with its narrow top flowing downward out into a large circular bottom. Inside rests a deep red liquid mixed together. Right in its center you can see a thick streak of purple, like a flash of lightning caught inside the mixture. It pulsates slightly in its own rhythm. A box reveals itself above the item.

Blood Potion Type Single-Use Familiarity 0 / 100 Rank Basic A small bottle containing a red liquid of mysterious origin. A thin purple vein strikes through the liquid, pulsing at an irregular rate.

A sliver of interest flickers across Raze’s face. He reaches down to pick it up, ignoring the way the sharp spikes in his arms and legs twist further into him. His eyes flicker over the few other potions laying discarded, noting the difference.

Health Potion Type Single-Use Familiarity 0 / 100 Rank Basic A small bottle containing a red liquid of mysterious origins.

Looking back down at it Raze grips the bottle tightly and starts to channel essence into it, watching the familiarity tick up and up until it hits one hundred. The potion glow stronger with each tick, its color growing deeper and the streak of purple growing more pronounced. By the end a brilliant, but subtle, light emanates out from the potion as a new box forms.

Evolution Strong Blood Potion Weak Elixir Reviving Blood Potion

His eyes drifting over the options, Raze settles over the third option. The potions glow recedes and congeals into a shape, a thin streak of light green now mirroring the purple that pierces itself through the potions center.

Reviving Blood Potion Type Single-Use Familiarity 0 / 1000 Rank Advanced A small bottle containing a red liquid of mysterious origin. A thin purple vein strikes through the liquid, pulsing at an irregular rate, alongside a green vein. The breathe of life is captured inside.

Once more Raze channels the essence he holds as the potion glows deeper, watching it dwindle quickly until it reaches the single digits. As it leaves him, he also feels the strength that had returned weaken further and further until frailty fills him. Still, he succeeds.

Evolution Miracle Blood potion Anti-reviving Blood Potion Reviving Weak Elixir

Raze selects the first option without hesitation. This time the streak of purple and green mix themselves together with the glow of light until they form a single streak of both colors. Though if one looks closely they will feel themselves drawn into its depths, the colors far more defined.

Miracle Blood Potion Type Single-Use Familiarity 0 / 5000 Rank Mastered A small bottle containing a red liquid of mysterious origin. A thin green and purple vein strikes through the liquid, pulsing at an irregular rate. The miracle of life is captured inside.

Raze stares at the bottle deeply as he weighs his options. His considerations last for a moment as he feels himself reminiscing Sera’s image. Raze’s eyes harden as his heart firms. With no more hesitation his hand reaches upward and pierces into the side of his head. His hand moves quickly as it sinks deep into his skull and pulls on a metal object held inside, next to his brain. As the object detects his movement it tries to send off a signal but fails to react in time when his hand instantly crushes it, pulling out its pieces in the same moment and clutching it deep against his body. With a loud boom the crushed pieces blow up, taking his hand and a larger part of his stomach with it.

Ignoring the pain as his body cries out, blood pouring out of him along with his organs, a weak laugh cannot help but escape Raze’s lips as he feels something he has missed for many years. Freedom. Only for it to be cut short as one of the chains pull against Raze’s movement, the biting chill deepening his pain. His features twist for a moment before smoothing out, a flicker of sadness passing over his eyes. Still some mirth cannot help but pass over his face as he looks at his pitiful self. For Raze, it is not life-threatening. But it’s definitely a problem.

Clutching the potion he holds with his remaining hand, he brings it up and immediately downs it. The affects are instantaneous. His body comes alive as his flesh and bone mend before his eyes, his arm regrowing at a rate visible to his eyes. His organs, damaged and destroyed, regenerate just as quickly. New blood flows along his veins as Raze feels some strength return to him. As the bones finish growing, and the flesh returns, the scales too form across his restored body. His skull takes the longest to recover but it as well reforms as if it had never been damaged at all. Raze stares down at himself in wonder, truly surprised for the first time since this happened. To think a tiny bottle could do so much. As he looks at the now empty bottle he watches it turn to dust and dissipates.

Turning away he walks over to a corner of the giant room, ignoring the pain as the chains struggle against him, trying to hold him in place. Reaching the wall’s edge Raze’s hand pushes through it. The stone crumbles around his arm as it extends further and further inside the wall until it reaches a certain point. This, too, is a metallic object. It’s silent except for a intermittent, soft beeping echoing out of it. Pulling it out of the wall Raze stares down at it gently. He thinks on what Sera may have had to go through, knowing the type of people near her. Still, she would be safe. And now, she will be free. Even if I am not yet.

With cold eyes Raze crushes the object, its beeping cut short. Letting the broken pieces fall out of his hand Raze turns to look up at the roof at the criss-cross of chains. His feet dig into the surface of the ground and the rebound, jumping straight up toward the tall roof. As his body reaches its height his hands reach over and grab at the chains, pulling them downward. With a grunt he strains the little strength he has and rips it away from the places it had dug itself into.

With a huge, thundering impact the giant chain falls to the ground. Gathering himself Raze repeats his actions, each jump taking another chain. Soon all of the chains except one lay on the ground. This chains is far larger, more than the size of the others combined. In the dead center of the room it extends upward like a huge trunk and pierces into the wall of the roof. Raze looks at it and knows he will never move it. The chain extends from this room all the way to the surface where it is widened and gripped by more chains.

They had explained it very thoroughly when they put him here. Nothing could move this chain. As for the ones pierced through his body…Raze looks down at them, not surprised that the potion, as miraculous as it is, changed nothing about the wounds surrounding the chains edges. His eyes trail alway from the wounds and instead turn to the deeper caverns. With the length of the chains now trailing the floor around him, he had a bit more freedom. Freedom enough to explore further in from where those monsters came.

The chains that lay behind him now no longer held his movement. Though he could never truly leave, he could still explore further. With steady steps Raze exits the cavern and advances further into the winding pathways, the chains screeching against the hard floor behind him. His eyes pierce through the veil of darkness as they trail along the sturdy walls. The path he treads on is narrow much like all the tunnels that extend from one cavern to another. It is said the Al’mardi were a strange species. They had many Queens who lived in harmony, each making their own cavern to dwell in. To this race of stone-devouring ants all of their kind was one family, and no Queen found themselves in conflict. The records say what they sought was ever stronger stone, with each piece consumed making them stronger.

How true those words are no-one knows. Much of history is, after all, the mutterings of the curious. As Raze travels along this narrow tunnel it starts to slope downward. Following that downward slope is the screeching of many creatures attracted by the clattering of metal behind him. It doesn’t take long for them to appear. Three more gargoyles and a huge armadillo, its shell spiked and its teeth sharp. The group is scratching and clawing at each other, the armadillo roaring at the group of gargoyles, when Raze appears causing them to freeze. Raze gazes at them passively, his eyes trailing toward their limbs.

The four of them turn toward Raze in concession and immediately pounce on him, their previous conflict forgotten. Raze watches as they close in, and steps forward. As if in co-ordination all four just barely miss him. The gargoyles crash into the ground along with the armadillo. But as the armadillo falls its shell suddenly expands and then retracts, the spikes on top shooting towards Raze at blinding speed. He ignores them and advances, the needles bouncing harmlessly off his scales.

As he reaches them the fallen gargoyles spring up in unison and claw at him. Raze’s hand clamps down on the armadillo and rips its shell off, causing it to screech in immense pain, as he whips it around and swings it against the three gargoyle’s attacks. Their bodies sink into the ground as they take the weight of Raze’s attack, and then their arms crumble into pieces. Another hand flashes by and three heads are taken. Turning back down to the armadillo Raze reaches down and pierces through its body, its eyes growing still and its body freezing.

Reach down Raze rips one of the gargoyle’s legs and starts chewing on it. It’s a pitiful amount, but still he draws some energy from it. He moves past the bodies and continues onward. The pathway is long and Raze finds himself encountering another five odd assortment of groups before he makes it to another cavern. In the middle of the cavern lies a strange oval-shaped tear in the air. Twice his size it stands tall, its inner shape a swirl of never-ending darkness. Looking at it Raze feels a strong presence emanating from it. His eyes narrowing he notices the swirl of darkness extend outward into the air as it trails seemingly harmless spirals in the air. But in each spiral he senses great strength.

Raze takes a step forward. Seeing the rift not react he takes another, and another. As he goes to take one more step he notices something shift inside it. His foot pauses in mid-air then settles back down. A few moments later the darkness seems to spin more wildly as the tear expands and a very familiar creature is thrown outward. A stone gargoyle. It staggers to its feet and, in its dazed state, stumbles toward Raze. His eyes settle on it as he watches it draw near, before turning back to look at the rift, this strange tear in the world. As the stone gargoyle reaches his location he reaches down and crushes its head, not giving it a chance to react as it keels over dead.

Then he pounces straight toward the rift. As his feet bound against the floor a high-pitched screech echoes out from the rift. It suddenly expands massively and twists and swirls around until it reveals itself to be a massive monster made of the inky darkness.

Kerberos

[ Rift Guardian ]

Raze stares up at the gigantic creature. Thin at the bottom, it extends upward like a billowing balloon as its huge upper body extends outward to create two thick arms and huge head, eyes of pure darkness staring down at him. A huge presence presses down on Raze and tries to overwhelm, but in return he only shows it his teeth. With a loud roar it spreads its hands and masses of darkness congeal together into a multitude of spears. All of them are flung at him, creating a wall of spears that descend onto him.

Raze reacts instantly as he twists his body between the spears, weaving and dodging as the creature flings more and more of the spears. A moment’s hesitation would result in death but Raze shows none as he continues to maintain his steady pace. Then Raze’s eyes snap across as he senses an opportunity, a moment of weakness in the attacks momentum. Grasping that precious second his hand whips up and grips one of the spears sent his way, twisting his body around in a full circle before flinging that same spear toward the monster.

The monster roars in anger and ceases its attack as it raises its hands to block the spear. To its surprise its hands are unable to stop its momentum at all and the spear passes right through, gouging a huge hole through its arms and its body. Anger fills it as it lets out another loud roar, the darkness instantly filling the wounds and returning them to before they were injured. By this time Raze is already in front of the creature and his fist is slamming toward it. As his fist is about to reach it the darkness twists once again and his fist hits air. Then the darkness congeals back together around his arm and tries to forcefully crush it.

Raze pulls his arm out, irrespective of the monsters attempts, and jumps back to observe it. As his eyes trail around its body he notices a certain spot where the darkness is much thicker, as if it’s trying to hide something behind it. His eyes narrow as he zeroes in on that area. The monster, too, notices his gaze and reacts instantly. Suddenly its entire body separates, leaving only that small area of thick darkness. The rest congeals into four long whips that extend immediately and latch onto the sharp spikes pierced through Raze’s body. Then it pulls.

Raze lets out his own scream as he feels the deathly cold spikes glee as it attempts to rip him apart, its edges cutting deeper still. Break. Tear. Kill. His hands reach over and crush the darkness latched onto them as he twists around and pulls the chains back into a stable situation. Ignoring the pain he disappears from the spot and instantly appears at the core the monster wished to protect. Without pause his hand passes through the thick darkness and grabs onto something small and circular. His hand closes into a fist and crushes it.

There are no cries this time. Before the monster has a chance to react it simply dissipates, the darkness all congealing onto the crushed item Raze held and, piece by piece, recreating it into an orb of inky darkness. At the same time an enormous rush of energy hits Raze, his body feeling overwhelmed as it cries out in relief as strength fills him again. Raze looks down at his screen and sees his essence ticking higher and higher until it settles down at 465.

Old Ticket Type Single-Use Familiarity n/a Rank Unique An accomplishment of strength. Entry fee to the Old Conglomerate.

Raze gazes at the strange item, unsure what to do with it. With a shrug he picks it up. After checking there is nothing else inside the cavern he goes to the next tunnel. However as he reaches the other side the chains behind him suddenly snap taut and Raze finds himself stuck from advancing any further. His eyes drift down toward the chains and his mouth twists at the sight. With a grunt Raze turns around and walks back the way he came, taking the orb along with him. He can take his time. After all.

There is plenty of food down here.