Adventurers

The steel longsword cut through the last imp as the villagers still cowered in their homes. Westly was more used to cheers from villagers at his heroics, given that he was a Knight, but he supposed that three weeks under the heel of a monster and his army of imps would break such weak souls. Wiping the blood from the blade he sheathed it as he made sure that his steel armor was still pristine and his shield was in good shape. Glancing around he snorted in disappointment at no one admiring his styled blond hair and chiseled features before deciding that he was simply too imposing for these simple common villagers.

"None left." Rava, the Ranger of their party said as she jumped down from the roof she'd been perched on. With her short silver hair and dark brown skin she would've been a jaw dropping beauty to him if she would dress more like a woman and lose that unflattering leather armor she wore. She moved through the corpses, retrieving her arrows as she did and giving Westly a view of her backside that the Knight admired briefly before looking to the two remaining members of their party, Tilon the Sorcerer and Amila the Priestess.

Tilon was what Westly deemed a stereotypical Sorcerer would look like, scrawny instead of building up a proper physique, dressed in robes instead of actual armor, carrying a staff instead of a proper weapon, books inside his bag instead of provisions or useful tools. He was everything that Westly wasn't, including somehow earning the affections of Amila their beautiful Priestess. Amila was a true beauty with her long curly blond hair, dazzling blue eyes, perfect hourglass figure that her cleric robes hugged perfectly. She was perfect, except for her taste in men as she had rejected every advance Westly had made towards her while showering Tilon with her affections. If Tilon wasn't so useful Westly would've let some monster finish the wimp off so he could slide into the void his passing would leave, in more ways than one.

"These imps behavior was rather odd." Tilon noted as Rava joined them "They were acting as though they were protecting the town. They were particularly careful with aiming their fire away from homes."

"The kid the village sent said the devil ordered them to guard this place." Rava shrugged.

"But they went further than acting like prison guards. It was behavior more like a guardsman..." Tilon trailed off.

"Does it matter? They're all dead now." Westly shrugged indifferently.

"It could matter a great deal." Amila answered with a concerned frown "We might not be dealing with your average devil."

"It doesn't change our job. The village hired us to get rid of the monsters and rescue the hostages if possible." Rava said firmly.

The party was quiet as they started towards the treeline, Rava spotting the trodden path that the devil had used to get to and from the town. The ranger led the way with slow and careful steps that the party were quick to follow, traveling for 20 minutes before Rava stopped and frowned at the ground ahead of them. It was obvious that people had gone through here, and rather frequently from the way the underbrush was trampled, and more tellingly was the mix of human and imp tracks. From where they crouched they could see ahead that the treeline was lessened and that they were likely close to the devil's lair, meaning more enemies and traps if they weren't careful. Moving carefully the party stopped just short of the treeline revealing an old stone fortress with what appeared to be basic repairs done to it as the wooden palisade set up in the crumbled portions of the wall showed.

"Interesting choice in lairs. Any idea what this place is Tilon?" Rava asked quietly.

"The design is too rough to be certain but it could be an early human fortress placed here back in the second age, before the Dryad army attacked and caused the forest to grow rapidly." Tilon mused "It is more impressive that the devil found this place..."

"Doesn't matter how it found this place, long as it's here." Westly snorted in scorn.

"Would it have secret tunnels?" Amila asked, getting Tilon to let a low hum out as he thought on the question.

"If it is from the second age then probably not, especially considering that this is only a minor fortress. Humans in that age only had those kinds of tunnels made for buildings with large civilian populations or important individuals, like royalty." Tilon said with a level of conviction.

That seemed to placate their healer as Rava drew an arrow and nodded for Westly to move to the front. As the Knight of their party he was also their tank, meant to withstand anything and everything that the enemy threw at them. While he did this Tilon and Rava would take out any long range threats while Amila kept healing him, ensuring that they could handle any threats. Moving towards the palisade he smashed it with his shield, finding it was rather sturdy as it only splintered instead of shattering. As he struck he heard the sounds of imps moving and saw the fireballs being lobbed over the wooden defense, but barely batted an eye at this as he prepared to strike again as he heard the sound of Tilon casting Ice Bullet, sending an equal number of ice bullets into the fireballs to disperse them before they even got close to singing any of them. The second Shield Bash smashed through the wooden barrier to reveal another ten imps inside of the courtyard all sending fireballs directly towards him as he moved his shield in front of him.

"Guardian Wall!" he declared as he used his skill to reinforce his physical and magical defenses as he let the shield take the majority of the blows, barely taking a scratch as Rava was already standing on the ruined wood and firing arrows into two of the imps eye sockets. Tilon struck next as he sent three Ice Lances into the imps as Westly rushed in, ruining their attempts at long range combat as he swung his sword up to take the head off one of the imps as he used Shield Bash into another imp, knocking it back in a daze. Claws skittered off his armor as he felt the strike hit from another imp that Rava soon killed as he turned and smote another imp, letting the two halves of the body fall. Tilon finished off the last few stragglers as Amila followed after them checking for wounds as Rava recovered arrows again.

"That makes 30 so far. Villagers said it was 50 right?" Westly asked as he looked at the ruined fort.

"Indeed." Rava nodded firmly as she nocked an arrow "Plus a devil capable of using status effect magic and skilled with a dagger from what they said."

"An unusual combination." Amila noted "Most debuff based skills would be from the Dark Knight tree but to use a dagger instead of a sword seems to imply a different skill set."

"He's a monster. Most monsters don't even have a class." Westly snorted.

"That's not entirely true." Tilon countered "Most monsters in the Goblinoid family are capable of gaining a class, with the strongest recorded being a Goblin Warlord that managed to become a Class V. The Undead are also usually able to retain their classes before being raised again, and Devils are known to gain classes as they grown in strength, though they rarely reach the same level as those who are of the Light's chosen people."

Westly rolled his eyes at this as Amila beamed at their Sorcerer. He didn't particular care what this Devil could do, all he knew was that he was going to kill it and collect the reward for doing so, along with selling the core back at the guild. Heading towards the ruined keep they saw that the stairs lead down to the basement where they could see a trapdoor that likely lead to the dungeons below. Stepping cautiously to avoid potential traps they reached the door and pulled it open to reveal stone stairs leading down with dark purple crystals set into the walls every few steps to give off a minimal amount of light. Walking slowly the four could feel a chill to the air as they slowly descended deeper and deeper before reaching a larger chamber where 20 imps were waiting, all having fireballs in their hands as they sent them streaking towards the party of adventurers.

"Down!" Westly shouted as he moved his shield forward and muttered a curse as his Guardian Wall was still on cooldown for another 30 seconds. The blasts of fire struck his shield with enough ferocity that it moved him back several steps as he could feel the heat through his armor as his skin began to redden underneath it.

Amila was not waiting around during this time as she already began the chant to heal him as Tilon began chanting as well, preparing to use one of his two Tier 3 spells as Rava took quick shots towards the imps around Westly. The imps here were far better prepared as they moved makeshift shields up to deflect arrows as they would only expose themselves during very brief moments of sending the fire at them before raising the makeshift wooden shields. Amila's chant was finished first as the healing spell began working, soothing the burns and restoring the strength to his muscles as he continued to withstand the onslaught, and after an agonizing two minutes Tilon finished his own spell with a yell.

"Frozen Rain!"

Above the heads of the imps hundreds of frozen blades began to form before dropping down onto the imps heads, breaking through the shields of those that had been quick enough to try and block the spell only to be impaled to the floor nonetheless. The spell didn't last too long before all that remained was the blood stained icicles sticking out of the corpses of the imps and the sound of Tilon panting at having used so much magic.

"Good work." Rava said as she looked at their Sorcerer as he had pulled out a potion to help restore his mana.

"I won't be able to do that again for awhile." Tilon reminded them, getting Westly to snort. It was the major drawback for being any sort of magic user and using spells above your skill level, if your own class wasn't already up to the level to learn it naturally the cooldown time was astronomical and the mana drain was 1.5x the cost. Tilon only knew Frozen Rain and Severing Gale, both extremely useful spells that could deal with larger groups of well protected enemies, but the drawbacks in Westly's mind were barely worth the benefits. Moving towards the imps bodies they blinked as they began to disappear into dust, leaving only the blood stained ice.

"What just happened?" Amila asked in shock.

"It couldn't be..." Tilon whispered in shock.

"Care to share?" Rava scowled as she glanced around expecting a trap.

"This isn't a normal fortress. It's a Dungeon."

"Wait, are you saying that this devil is actually a Dungeon Master?" Westly blinked, already mentally calculating the worth that a devil dungeon core would go for with the guild.

"It would seem so, or he is a boss that the Dungeon Master created..." Tilon added the last bit with a worried glance around.

"If this is a Dungeon, then this is way more dangerous than what we signed up for." Rava shook her head "We need to fall back and better prepare."

"We've already dealt with all the monsters that it had." Westly argued "There should only be that devil. We can handle one devil." Tilon and Amila traded looks, not quite as sure as their companion was but Westly continued "Besides if things get dangerous we still have Tilon's last Tier 3 spell. We can use that to blast back whatever it is that this devil has and then run if it's still standing."

The group was quiet for a few more moments before Tilon and Amila agreed with Westly's plan and Rava let out an annoyed sigh as she followed after them. The next passage was straightforward as well, leading to an ornate door that they stopped in front of as Westly prepared to use his Guardian Wall. Pushing it open was an ominously huge room with a long red carpet with more purple crystals set in braziers every few feet to illuminate the path to a large wooden throne where the devil in question sat. From what they could tell it was tall, just under seven feet tall if Westly had to guess, dressed in a simple vest and pants that revealed its toned muscles and dark purple skin along with short blood red hair that grew in short spikes. Westly could make out the dagger's hilt from how the devil sat and from the way it stared at them he knew that it was likely arrogant.

"I must admit, I wasn't expecting guests to my domain so soon." it said, a voice that while not particularly loud or deep resonated with a level of power that set the hairs of the four adventurers on edge as they moved into range for Rava or Tilon to strike at the monster "If I had known that you were coming I'd have had food prepared."

"I've no interest in sharing a meal with a monster." Westly snarled.

"A rather rude Knight aren't we?" the devil chuckled "But you misunderstand me. I wasn't offering the food to you. After all you are invaders not guests."

Rava nocked an arrow as she spoke, pulling the string back to her cheek "Then let's not waste time then." She released the arrow that flew directly towards the devil who only leaned its head to the side as the arrow slammed into the throne, getting the monster to chuckle.

"A good shot. If I wasn't here, in my own domain, I would likely have had a very hard time avoiding such a precise shot." Standing slowly it brushed its pants smooth as it looked down at the four of them "Now then allow me to properly introduce myself to you, so you know who it was that sent you to your next life." This drew a scoff from Westly as the devil continued as though it hadn't heard him "I am Vastator, the chosen of Melanoche and Caranachias, and the one that will rule this world. And you, Westly the Knight, Rava the Ranger, Tilon the Sorcerer, and Amila the Priestess will be the first adventurers to fall to me." Snapping its fingers caused crystals around the room to brighten, revealing the entirety of the room and that the party of 4 were surrounded by more than a hundred glowing humanoid looking beings that had already moved to cut off all retreat.