Chapter 1: What Flavour is the Taste of Defeat?
From atop the tallest of his remaining towers, Demon Lord Azanth tasted defeat and humiliation. He spat, to alleviate his choking, dry mouth and regarded the unholy spittle as it fizzled on a stone tile. The most powerful, evil being in the fifteen planes of existence was about to be reduced to an entity with less presence and bite than that globule of acidic saliva.
O Fortuna! What good all the quests, trials, raids, events, training, camping, and grinding? What good his levels and ranks? His artefacts? His rings? His weapons and armour? Everything that made him powerful was going to be stripped from him and Lord Azanth would have to restart a journey to his current status, one that had taken him over a century to reach.
He would not die. Arch-evil on the Planes of Wickedness, like arch-good on the Planes of Virtue, was immortal. After being slain, he would respawn at some random spot as a miserable level 1 mage class demon, grey promotion rank, zero star evolution. All his officers, however, were doomed and Lord Azanth very much mourned this. He said as much to his Chief of Spies who stood beside him on the tower, the only other person left with him.
‘My lord, it has been an honour,’ she replied. ‘I regret nothing other than I did not anticipate this assault by Earl Clarence, nor the treachery of your fellow demon lords.’
‘I will be reborn; I will nourish hate in my heart for every pathetic little quest I am required to complete on my journey back to power; and when I have finally regained the necessary strength, I will revenge you and all my other servants.
‘The traitors’ lot shall be ruin and destruction. Their eyes will be struck by arrows of pain and horror. Their ears shall be filled with the screams of their loved ones. Their skin will endure the torments of fire. Their nostrils will inhale sickness and decay. Their mouths will fill with poison.’
After a short silence, the assassin said, ‘Perhaps too they can suffer that heart-breaking moment when you unexpectedly find a toffee in your pocket and you are delighted and going to eat it when you notice that it’s sticky, covered in fluff and definitely inedible. And now your fingers are sticky too and all you have is a paper tissue that will just disintegrate rather than clean them.’
‘If you wish me to inflict this feeling upon those who abandoned their oaths to us, I will do so.’
‘I know you will, sire, and I take comfort from that.’ The cloaked dark elf gave a bow and then disappeared. ‘Our foes are nearly here. I shall attempt to backstab Earl Clarence at an opportune moment.’
The sounds of battle had entered the tower below, where his remaining troops and servants strove to do what harm they could to the army of good before their inevitable deaths.
‘I would rather you tried to escape. It’s too late to defeat them in battle.’
‘Very well my lord.’ The voice came from the shadows within the tower walls. ‘I will search for you across all the planes and serve you again.’
‘When they slay me, your obligations towards me are at an end.’
‘Even so. I will find you.’
Despite his determination to be stoical, Azanth was moved by the loyalty of his Chief of Spies and let out a deep sigh. It was a sigh that on the Plane of Life would have blighted crops, turned sunshine to rain, and caused humans to suddenly recall the saddest day of their lives. Ruins. His was a world of ruin and destruction. And there was worse to come, soon he’d have to endure the gloating of Earl Clarence. Another sigh issued from him, seemed to hesitate and then realise there was no better course of action than to flee into the purple clouds above.
The wizard lock on the tower door shattered in a shower of emerald sparks and two warriors strode forward, a dwarf and a human, both careful to keep within a pale glow of a Protection from Evil spell. Azanth’s build was anti-tank, which meant he could channel damage through armour and also slow the warriors to some extent. The battle was hopeless though, as to exploit his debuffs, Azanth needed a team of demons or allies with a variety of attack forms. Hewing at the dwarf with his two-handed staff simply wasn’t delivering enough damage.
Already a dozen enemies were on the roof and any hope Azanth had of taking down at least one of the warriors was ended by the presence of a high level healer who brought the injured dwarf back up to near full health points. Then the bright light and the psychic pain of the Protection from Evil spell intensified as Earl Clarence strode onto the tower roof, his raised vorpal sword pulsing with a blue radiance.
Surrounded and attacked from all sides, Azanth could see his health points pouring away and he was almost tempted to throw down his staff and cease casting spells and triggering buffs. There was something deep within him though, that did not care about impossible odds. He was like the spider hurrying from side to side as the hand comes down upon it. He would keep trying to survive, no matter what.
‘Well this is a moment to relish,’ cried Earl Clarence. ‘The greatest of the demon lords, defeated in his own castle. There’s a moral here or something… Bard! You there, bard! Can you think of something apt and pithy. Imagine me with my foot on this demon’s head, sword raised. What should the line of poetry read beneath such an image?’
‘The good in heart triumph; to evil comes only dust.’
‘Not bad. Shouldn’t it be more… you know: dah, dah, dah dum, de dada dum dadum?’
‘An iambic pentameter sire?’
‘Doesn’t matter. Careful now, don’t kill him.’ This addressed to the rogue who had just stabbed Azanth under the ribs with a magic rapier.
The pain was irrelevant. The cheerful paladin though, was unbearable.
Although he knew it would be better to remain silent, that Earl Clarence would enjoy the moment more if Azanth’s gave expression to his suffering, he couldn’t help but say, ‘You cannot destroy an arch-evil being on this plane. I will return.’
‘Very true; very true; unfortunately.’ The paladin was gesturing to his summoners, who were on their hands and knees, brushing a white liquid on the ground, making a large circle on the stones that Azanth was at the centre of. ‘For this plane. If you die on the Plane of Life, however, you will be banished from it forever.’
What was happening? Beyond his pain, beyond his wounds, with health points in single figures, and with no magic points left at all, Azanth felt magical constraints forming around him. The circle and the runes they were painting were tightening on him like a physical chain.
‘We are not going to kill you here; we are sending you to the Plane of Life in the most frail and vulnerable form our summoners can imagine: a crisp!’ Laughing again, the paladin’s teeth were nearly as brilliant as his protection spell.
‘A crisp?’ gasped Azanth.
‘You might know it as a potato chip. A flimsy, fragile, fried sliver of potato that humans like to eat. You’ll be gobbled up by a human within minutes of arrival. And so not only do we force you to respawn having lost everything, even after you grind your way back up to some kind of noticeable level, you’ll never be able to inflict your evil deeds on the poor mortals of the Plane of Life.’ The paladin laughed loudly, although there was no humour in his eyes, only hate.
The summoners were gathered around the outside of the circle they had painted and had begun to chant, causing Azanth’s head to spin. Just as the spell reached a crescendo, the spell casters stopped in a confusion of voices and the pressure on Azanth eased.
‘Sorry sire, we have to specify a flavour of crisp.’
‘Then let it be roast oxen!’ cried the paladin. ‘Hurry now!’
The chief summoner lifted his hands, then dropped them again, downcast. ‘Alas not sire. Perhaps salt and vinegar? Or cheese and onion?’
‘Sour cream and onion is nice,’ said another spellcaster.
‘Or prawn cocktail.’
‘Nobody likes prawn cocktail. He’ll never be eaten.’
‘I do. It’s my favourite actually.’
The summoners were arguing among themselves and Azanth caught the paladin’s eye. The demon lord wasn’t sure exactly what was happening, but the historic victory of good over evil was no longer the subject matter for a legendary song by the bard that Earl Clarence had brought along, presumably for just this purpose.
‘The prawn one!’ shouted Earl Clarence with a wave of his sword.
The chanting started again and the world shrank to a black dot.