Chapter 11: The Exploits of a Prawn Cocktail Crisp
Behaviour that to a paladin would howl of double standards, to a demon was a delight. For this human boy was not averse to cheating. Abusing his fellow humans was not to his taste. Very well. Trying to circumvent the deep laws of the planes of existence, it seemed, was far from irreverent, indeed, it was entirely approved of. Lord Azanth had learned via the young mage that entire histories had been composed by human scholars on how best seize hold of opportunity when it arose. Now that was scholarship indeed!
Not that the undertaking of an ‘exploit’ as the human called it was ever easy. Sour offence such deeds did provoke in the very fabric of the heavens. An unweaving through which the stars could fall. Metaphorically. Practically, however, thought Lord Azanth with a shiver of delight, the next few minutes should be worth a few levels. And no one would miss a few metaphorical stars.
The boy too, had that flaw so common to the males of his species, which was a belief that the best suitor was he who poured the most treasure into the lap of the desired person. In this particular moment, the mage was more thrilled at the opportunity to gift new levels to the rogue than to himself. Perhaps Lord Azanth should be offended that a once-mighty demon ruler should be considered less of a priority than a fourth level rogue whom the boy had only met the previous week. Even so, no offense was felt. In fact, the demon was entirely unperturbed. No doubt the form of the girl was more pleasing to the boy’s eye than was that of a crisp, albeit a particularly thick and large potato slice with constellations of flavouring. Aesthetics aside, what mattered was that in his rush to believe he had found an exploit, the young mage was willing to vastly accelerate his acquisition of EXP.
Was it a true exploit? Lord Azanth was familiar with the graveyard of the arch-lich. The wizard Anu-Belshunu had achieved immortality by becoming a boss who even if defeated by a raid of human adventurers would reincarnate on the new moon. Should a demon desire a soul to adorn a collection, then the least valuable would be that of a wizard. While a pure heart required a long and persistent campaign before its defences gave way, a wizard of Anu-Belshunu’s character summoned demons in the hope of selling a soul that was no more an enhancement to a demon lord’s palace than was a mulch of leaves, piled up and rotting against the outer gate.
Did the wizard Anu-Belshunu regret the pact he had agreed with the forces of Wickedness? Probably not. When an oafish actor has a stage and a ready audience for a daily performance full of pomp and wind, he feels satisfied. Undead minions at the court of the arch-lich had no taste or refined sensibility and thus provided a perfect gallery for Anu-Belshunu to pose in front of. To the point, though. There was a hidden quest that was so trivial as to never had warranted the detailed attention of the demon lord. If it were to be activated, as could happen with the boy running amok, then would crisp on unhallowed ground lie? Helpless on the cold corpse of the human mage, whose giddy romp be overthrown. Human love and lust, poured out on the decaying weeds of the graves, leaving a Tupperware box and immobile demon. Possibly. But Lord Azanth would not until the last moment interrupt the boy in the act of accruing two months of EXP in ten minutes.
‘Stop Liam, stop, that’s crazy!’ The girl was merry, despite her words.
While the detail of the mage’s actions remained obscured as though in a cloud, the general spirit of them was easily discerned. The young human was running back and forth across the whole graveyard, awakening all the skeletons: all five hundred and fifteen of them.
The laughter of one skeleton was mocking. The laughter of ten skeletons was a cacophony. Yet the laughter of a five hundred, thought Lord Azanth as the skeletons followed in the wake of the running boy, was music. What unexpected delight. A choir of undead. The complexity of the phasing by which the mocking voices interacted was unfathomable. Beats and waves, crescendos, and moments of relative quiescence where individual laughter could be discerned. How marvellous.
To a demon, the soul of a human was of professional interest. Human society, too. Were he to place in order the type of social structure most conducive to the seduction of a pure soul, Lord Azanth would assign the top position to modern capitalism, while ancient theocracy would lie at the bottom. Modern society had this benefit too, it had taken learning out of the hands of a very few and educated very large sections of the population.
This contemplation of a sociological nature was stimulated by Lord Azanth’s admiration for the efficient pathing by which the youth in whose pocket he rested was navigating the graveyard in such a way as to ensure every skeleton was brought forth and drawn into the horde. In earlier epochs of human society, very rare indeed would be the scholar who knew, for instance, to vault over the broken gate for the skeleton that had been buried just outside of the graveyard. Now entire classes of humans were taught this information.
Pleasure unexpected is pleasure of a different and more ebullient quality to that of pleasure anticipated and for the first time since his fall from power, Lord Azanth felt an emotion he could even describe as cheerful. The choral symphony of the horde of the undead, the surprising competence of his young mage, and – above all – the prospect of a surge of EXP combined to lift the demon’s spirits from the dark trench of despond that had surrounded him in recent days.
‘That’s the lot!’ Liam stopped running and a moment later a tsunami of skeletons broke over them. Lord Azanth felt the arrival of hundreds of Magic Missiles as a flow of energy across the boy’s body. He felt presence of hundreds of skeleton warriors, crowding close, striking fast, and collapsing almost as quickly as thorns lashed out faster than the tip of a whip moving towards its target.
Never before had Lord Azanth seen so many menu messages flow past. Hundreds of blows registering 0 damage. Hundreds of dead skeletons each yielding up 5 EXP. It was necessary to mute them to retain his other senses.
At last, the frenzy was over. Three floating grey soul stones were all that remained of the skeleton army. Lord Azanth had gained 2,575 EXP and was a level four mage. When determination and opportunity combined, then a demon lord a mountain climbed.
Do I detect a feeling of considerable satisfaction in you, my young friend?
Do you what? That was awesome! Whoot! Get in you good thing!
‘Three spirit stones. Who gets the extra one?’ The girl had come closer.
‘What’s a guy got to do to impress a girl? I just killed over five hundred mobs in a few seconds. And in any case, the crisp needs spirit stones, so it’s one each. He can gain stars too.’
Well said, my bold ally. If you would be so good as to touch me to a stone, I would be glad to collect mine.
‘One each so. And well done Liam, that was… efficient.’
‘Six minutes to the respawns, right?’
Quite right. The path to this girl’s heart is a maze and I can inform you that there are many dead ends in it, such as those labelled vainglory, bravado, cock-a-hoop, braggartry, boastfulness, conceit, and full-frilled. You are more likely to find the route by being competent than by seeking praise.
‘Six minutes and four seconds. You know we could do this about fifteen more times before class?’ Even the phlegmatic rogue sounded a little excited at the thought. It was not, in fact, correct. For after killing a thousand skeletons within a timer of ten minutes the hidden quest would be activated. Should he speak and dissuade them from drawing the full complement of skeletons into the maelstrom next time? A limit of four hundred or so would be safer. Yet luck was an accident that manifested more often to the bold than the timid. Even should the humans die, and Lord Azanth were to lay for some time on the corpse of the young mage, another student would come along in due course. They had been educated to level up in this region after all.