Act 2 Start – A most demanding supplicant

Act 2: The Sorceress and the Sisters

Swoosh

You dodge at the last second and feel the air sliced by the glowing curved longsword rush past your face, spinning around and launching a fireball at the elf charging by you. The explosion engulfs her body, scorching her leather jerkin and burning holes in her tunic, although her skin rebuffs the flames and prevents the worst of the potential damage. With a snap of your fingers a wall of fire erupts between you, and motion to one of your newest minions, a small flying batlike daemon with a cruel pitchfork. With a jabbing motion and a guttural sound he herds several blobs of melted flesh to charge the elf's position, waving grasping hands and moaning from twisted heads as they slide inhumanly quickly. She takes a longbow from her back and shoots arrows of black, necrotic fire which pierce the first blob, then the second, each one spraying acid all around the room. However, the third blob of flesh moves with its surprising agility and erupts under her feet, burning further holes in her armour with a hiss and causing her to collapse to the ground.

The pitchfork demon flies out of the room as you dismiss him with a wave, clap your hands to dismiss the fire, and walk over to Ari's prone form. She's gotten a lot better at armed combat in the last few days of training, but unfortunately her old, pure-caster skills don't translate perfectly to her new class, which mostly uses magic to enhance physical attacks. She takes your proffered hand and pulls herself up to her feet, her skin glistening with sweat from the recent exertion, and gives you a frustrated smile. You start giving her some tactical recommendations when you hear a loud rumble coming from the direction of the dungeon entrance. That can't be good.

Tlax rushes into the room with a hiss and motions for you to follow. You run out of the great hall, currently still empty and being used as an impromptu training ground, and towards the entrance to your dungeon. You recently got another liegelord summon, this time using your summoning circle's new power to summon a new class of underlings to your dungeon, which actually consists of two distinct types of daemons. The shappazus—the batlike pitchfork daemons—serve as light infantry, able to fight with red-hot pitchforks and shoot fans of flames at close range. More importantly, they herd the slimugons—the melted blobs of suicidal acidic flesh—whose only purpose is to get as close to the enemy as possible before expiring. Given the rather volatile nature of these new minions, you've placed them at the entrance to your dungeon in a large new room filled with pits of brackish water, perfect for ambushing unwary intruders and out of the way of ruining anything you're especially fond of.

The last few paces of the hallway are choked with the deafening roar of flames and air so saturated with acid it burns your throat. The last few shappazus appear to be spraying fire at a small, rough boulder standing in the middle of the room. Suddenly, the boulder shatters into shards, skewering every single daemon at once, leaving a woman in a gold-trimmed black robe and witch's hat standing in the middle of the shattered room. Her floor-length ivory hair cascades down her back, and her tight robe accentuates her pert B-cup breasts. Her beautiful, mature face sports bluish-purple skin, sharp eyes and a slight, cruel smile. A dark elf, and apparently a level 30 sorceress at that. You turn to run, but hear an ear-splitting grinding as the corridor behind you fills with a slab of solid rock.

"Do be a dear and stay. I've only come to chat." You look skeptical, given the scene around her. "Oh please, don't give me that look. If I wanted you dead you'd be dead right now. I asked your butlers here to invite me in but they weren't gracious enough to accept. Can you imagine? How very rude of them!" She gives a mock pout. "Oh!" She claps her hands together, giving a childish smile as she does. "Where are my manners? I am the mighty sorceress Zalreanne, and I hear you, good sir, are in the business of making bargains."

You try to feign your best look of confusion at her words, but before you can speak she cuts you off again. "Oh, please, don't give me that." Her sultry, confident tone switches to something that sounds more... excited, and she gets a greedy glint in her eye. "I saw some other players posting on the forum saying that you have a PKer working with you. That must be you right there!" She points to Ari.

"What's a PK—" She waves her hand dismissively as you open your mouth.

"Never mind that. As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted," she punctuates this with a mock pout, slipping back and forth between excitement and her usual, sultry manner of speaking, "some players mentioned that this cute little morsel was PKing in your dungeon. Now, I so happened to be a beta tester back in the day, and I remember when the devs were working on a system to allow players to make deals with daemons in exchange for power. It never ended up getting implemented, and instead only daemons could only give minor boons, but when hearing about the conflict in your little dungeon I figured the new patch might've changed things. And, looking at this little warlock," she motions to your companion, "I'm glad to see that my suspicious weren't unfounded."

"Why should I—" your vision goes black as a boulder crushes you before you can react.

Respawning... 1:00:00... 0:59:59... 0:59:58...

You groan as you pull yourself out of the summoning circle back into your respawn point/throne room hybrid, cracking your back to get rid of the lingering stiffness of being squashed by a boulder.

"So glad you could join us again. Do be a dear and work on your listening skills now. You men are all talk, talk, talk. Now, as I was saying, I'm interested in making a deal." You glance up to see the dark elf standing above you, smirking as Tlax and Ari struggle against rings of earth shackling them to the opposite wall. You raise your hand to interrupt and wince as you receive a smouldering glare.

"Wait, what are you talking about? Beta? PK?"

"Oh, right, a monster," she waves her hand. "Forget all that. To put things in terms your kind understands, the gods took away a certain powers from adventurers long ago. Something about 'breaking theme' and 'wanting to keep certain content for monsters.' Hmph. I fully intend to be Lady Zalreanne, first adventurer necromancer of Arkus, and you, daemon, are going to help me. For free."

You timidly begin to raise your hand, but anticipating your question, she snaps at you. "Because if were to be so inhospitable as to refuse, I can simply log off and let my avatar toss you around until you come to your senses. I'm sure even you have a breaking point, and I would so adore discovering. Exactly. Where. It. Is." She runs a sharp nail down your face, leaving a trickle of steaming blood as you shudder at the pure sadism in her voice.

She waves again to cut off your next attempt to speak, but this time you ignore her and speak up regardless. "Look, witch, if you want to make a deal you're going to have to listen to me eventually. And why would I help you? As much as I don't like having boulders dropped on me, it's not like my life will be any different the moment you go telling every adventurer in the forum of whatever town you were in that I'm capable of handing out secret powers to any adventurer who shoves me around."

"Very well, I suppose I can keep your secret. It would be much less fun with a bunch of other pretenders running around claiming my righful powers."

"Furthermore," you grow a little bolder seeing that she's willing to at least entertain you, "you do realize that this might make you a monster, yes?"

"Oh, pshaw, I don't care about that. It'll simply be easier to hide my new status as the only adventuring necromancer of Arkus."

Finally with a word in edgewise, you begin to come up with a contract. They terms still very much favour her, but they aren't so completely one-sided as her initial request. Honestly, you're getting off lucky here. Growing even bolder, you fish out your flaccid member. "Now, it's customary for mortals to offer us daemons tribute during the negotiations."

She let loose a fake, high-pitched trill of "ha ha ha ha ha"s, but her eyes find no humour in your request. Her voice is sweet—too sweet—and drips with venom. "Then it is a good thing we elves do not die of old age."

"Oh, right, of course. My mistake." You nervously chuckle. Deciding not to push your luck any further, you draw up the terms of the contract. In brief, it states:

• Azazel the Imp Lord will provide Zalreanne the Dark Elf Sorceress the Tome of Black Arts, which can be used to learn the forbidden secrets of necromancy.
• Zalreanne will stay in Azazel's lair when not adventuring and will provide minions to support its defences.
• Azazel will not ask Zalreanne to personally intervene in any conflicts in the lair.
• Zalreanne may come and go as she pleases.
• Zalreanne will not show anyone outside of Azazel's employ the Tome of Black Arts, nor tell them where, from whom, or how she learned her powers.
• Zalreanne will supply magical weapons and armour to Azazel suitable for use by an elf ranger (which is the closest thing you know of to Arialle's new class).

She reads the long, elaborate language of the contract with a look of serious concentration on her face, nodding as she reads each term. You're happy to see her this accepting: you figured you were really pushing your luck here. Suddenly, she pauses and looks up.

"I'm afraid I can't accept this clause here." Your heart sinks and you look over, but it isn't what you expected: she's pointing to the clause about magic items. "I don't have any such equipment on my person and I have no interest in playing fetch for you. However, I would be happy to inform you where you can locate some most interesting items should you wish to fetch them yourself." You nod and the language twists to accommodate the agreed-upon change. With the terms finalized, you both slit your palms and press them into the bottom of the page, and it bursts into flame as the contract is sealed. You feel a thick, heavy, chained book materialize in your hand, and groan as you realize it's not only completely drained your stored mana but is occupying most of the mana generated by your tower as well. Oh well, it wasn't like you had a choice.

New Contract
You have made a contract with Zalreanne!
Class: Sorceress -> Necromancer

New Ally
Zalreanne is now—at least technically—an ally of your dungeon. Due to the terms of your contract, she may freely leave your dungeon but low-level undead she summons in your presence will become your underlings.

"Pleasure doing business with you. Just drop by my house when you want to know where to find your equipment." You offer her the most businesslike hand you can muster in the moment, and she gives it a firm, smug shake and steps up to begin her research in her new abode. Just as her form disappears up the stairs, you hear her snap her fingers and the earth shackling Tlax and Ari crumbles away. You have hold person Tlax to prevent her from doing something everyone will regret. After you judge she's cooled off you release her, earning an angry hiss and nip on your arm, and watch her retreating form as she speeds off somewhere or other to sulk.

"Aww, my poor widdle daemon lord." Ari smirks at your frown and loops her arms around you from behind, pressing her breasts into your back.