With the potential threat of his stats being revealed freshly looming in his mind, Thozronnath dropped into a low stance and took off at a sprint, hoping to overwhelm his enemies with a sudden and relatively unexpected attack. This was unfortunately, entirely expected. The enemy combatant to Thoz’s left slammed the palm of his hand against the wall by his side, causing the immediate surroundings of the tunnel to shake and shudder as if an earthquake had erupted.

Thoz had encountered magic users before, he’d even seen the occasional mage in the infernal legions. He had not, however, ever seen someone clad in full armor, that was clearly a warrior, command the same level of magic as a dedicated mage. It took his entire surprise attack tactic, flipped it on his head, and surprised the devil in return. A metaphorical ‘no fuck you’ from his enemy.

With no idea how to fight an enemy warrior with access to earth magic, or if this even was truly earth magic, Thoz was panicking more than a little bit. Struggling to stay on his feet amid the rattling terror the hallway had become, Thoz dropped one knee to the ground to steady himself. Just in time to see Prisaela go flying to one side in a flurry of limbs. Luckily the slimy miscreant Zildoxoxi didn’t seem overly affected by the sudden vibrations and the pile of filth was able to catch her with relative ease.

This momentary pause also gave Thoz his first real chance to glance over the enemies he was now facing. On the left stood a middle aged dwarf, barely showing flecks of grey in his neatly combed beard. He was the earth mage, and had a rather light looking mace/hammer type weapon on his hip that Thoz was entirely unfamiliar with. The dwarf had opted not to use this close range equipment for defending the barricade and was instead holding a full length spear.

This enemy was wearing similar armor to the guards up top that Thoz had defeated, but where they were too large for him to realistically use their armor, the dwarf would be too short. Maybe his arm guards would fit though, they didn’t seem to match the rest of the set the dwarf was wearing and were clearly a personal touch. A fact that made them all the more enticing.

Directly to the right of that, standing in the middle of the barricade and nearly three feet behind his other components was a seemingly elven woman. No, not quite elven, half-elf. The ears would be a dead give away if Thoz could see them from this distance, but her overall proportions were much heartier than one expected of most elves. She was wearing a form fitting set of leather armor, easy to move in while still providing some protection, and if it weren’t for her being a woman it would be a perfect height for Thoz. Perhaps Prisaela could wear them.

The Half-Elf had a short bow in one hand and was clearly waiting for her surroundings to steady before taking a shot.

Thoz’s final enemy, the one standing on the right, was as human as they come. Short shaved brown hair broken up by a few visible scars, with the majority of his body covered in some form of either lamellar armor or small pieces of dedicated plate. Similar to the dwarf on the other side, this combatant was holding a spear to defend the barricade, with his personal weapon strapped to his hip. Those spears would be a problem.

The enemy warrior-mage (spellsword? MagiMace?) took his hand off the wall and the shaking stopped simultaneously. The defender was clearly exhausted by the expenditure though, as he was audibly breathing heavy and wiping thick sweat away from his forehead. Thoz doubted he’d be able to do that again with any consistency. Now was his chance.

Standing from his crouched position and charging at the enemy line, Thozronnath let out his best roar. Something all devils of the legions were expected to be able to do, but a skill Thoz never had much practice in as an imp.

[Blood Frenzy] Activated with a mental nudge.

[Chains of Torment] would be useless here but thankfully he already had [Sword of Sin] active as well.

The Half-Elf let her arrow fly as the basement steadied, aimed for Thoz’s left leg. The devil tried his best to dodge, but the projectile still found purchase on his outer thigh. He pushed it the rest of the way through and snapped the arrow off.

You have suffered a significant injury. -17 HP.

The fifteen foot gap between him and his enemy's makeshift barricade was closed in a few large strides, every other step sending a shock of pain through his body. The barricade was frustratingly too high to be bound over but Thoz crashed into it anyway. The only thing keeping it from toppling over was the strength of the opposing forces trying to hold it in place. A few of the older boards among the boxes broke and splintered from the impact.

You have suffered a minor injury. -8 HP.

In blind anger Thozronnath swung his sword toward his promised foe, and found his shortened blade just mere centimeters too short to reach anything of importance. The shallow cut it left in its wake seemingly not even enough to prompt a system message.

A quick glance over his shoulder told Thoz that his minions were still regrouping back to their feet. The ones he could see at least. He imagined Uzdaax was just waiting on Prisaela to start things before doing anything ‘work’ related.

That momentary hesitation of concern was a costly mistake though, as it resulted in two spears being thrust directly towards him, his defenses momentarily lowered.

Thankfully it wouldn’t be a fatal mistake, as neither spear found anything life giving. They did still tear flesh and prompt an aggravating system message.

You have suffered a major injury. -45 HP.

With his healthpool quickly approaching it’s halfway point, and the anger of his [Blood Frenzy] skill slowly pounding in his ears, Thoz dropped his disguise. Whatever minimal concentration was being used to maintain his shapeshifted form would be better served in the fight anyway.

As the blood spattered human form stretched and popped with sickening sounds of flesh and bone rearranging, the defenders in the hallway let out a collection of stifled gasps. Not exactly the unbridled terror Thoz got some times, but they were clearly unprepared to face a literal devil. Even if they saw his status through [Appraisal].

The moment of hesitation this purchased for him allowed Thozronnath’s minions to regroup and move in behind him for support.

Needing no further instruction, Thozronnath crashed into the barricade and surged through and over it like a wave of corruption. His slime searing and burning the unprotected wood while he splashed into the enemies and began using his [Corrosive] skill to burn their arms and armor. The first thing to succumb to the damage being the half-elf’s fragile bowstring.

The slime was definitely focusing his assigned enemy, but when you command that much mass, it was hard to avoid a certain level of area of effect.

Prisaela’s borrowed sword faced a similar issue of reach as Thoz’s [Sword of Sin] but her mere presence was enough to harass enemies and shift the balance of combat slightly. This gave Uzdaax the opportunity to flutter between and behind the living humanoids and slowly apply [Call of Death] whenever an opening was found.

This brief respite gave Thoz more than enough time to dismiss his current sword form and resummon the skill in a more appropriate form for ranged fighting. A hand and a half blade built somewhere between a shortsword and a full longsword.

His blood raging in his ears kept the devil fanatically focused on the task at hand, and the lives that would be claimed one way or another. He ignored the humans themselves for now, realizing that his minions were doing more effective damage than even his improved sword could manage, and instead began hacking apart the wooden barricade with reckless abandon.

In his blind fury, the boards splintered and broke quite easily, raining shards of wood around the makeshift battle field.

Thoz did not notice the fear quickly mounting in his enemies eyes, nor was he prepared for their line to break as they began turning around and struggling to flee. The slime held their movements back significantly.

The only thing that took him out of this murder fueled stupor was a sudden system message he had not expected in the slightest, something not related to his immediate combat.

Congratulations!

Foreign magic successfully processed.

Proficiency gained! [Appraisal] is now level 1.

A new skill was always welcome, but this particular one reminded Thoz in the moment of his strategic failure not even an hour ago. If he recklessly charged after the fleeing humanoids they could lead him through traps, to another ambush, or any number of dangers. Best to be as prepared as possible.

Taking a momentary rest, the devil took stock of wounds and weapons, finding that he had no guaranteed way of effecting or improving either, and chose to catch his breath before proceeding further through the compound.

The standing orders he’d supplied to his minions before they even breached the door had them all fall cleanly into position without Thozronnath needing to issue another set of orders.

A few doors were busted down and rooms looted as the gang systematically made their way through the tunnel, and not once did Thoz ever find a suit of armor that fit his measurements. He was beginning to get angry.

The coins they looted off the few people they “found” hiding helped though. So did the blood. Gods Thoz loved the blood.

Now he just needed to find those warriors, and whoever was in charge around here and get some answers. And armor. The armor goes without saying by now.