Chapter 7: Demon Lord Azanth Level 3 Crisp (Prawn Cocktail flavour)

When cast into the form of a crisp, Lord Azanth had not allowed despair to overwhelm him. Though it were easier for an ant to climb a mountain than for an overthrown demon to regain his lost powers, Lord Azanth was resolved that he would achieve the summit that loomed far above him. And once there all the planes – evil and good – would shake and tremble at his name. Those who betrayed him would cry tears of regret and terror. How they would abase themselves and how he would spurn their pleadings and crush every one of them.

First, however, he had to survive or forever be forbidden entry to the Plane of Life. Every lurch of the boy’s backpack had thrown Azanth against the flimsy sides of the crisp packet. And at one point, the human had dropped his bag to the ground, causing half the crisps around the demon to shatter. Reckless mortal, light-minded as a butterfly. A curse on you.

Glorious moment, however, when the human girl had provided a container for his frail body. No bejewelled casket, no silver reliquary for a saint’s remains, no sarcophagus with golden paint, had ever been so valuable as the rectangle of plastic within which the demon lord now felt most secure. It would take a heavy blow to shatter this protective shell.

And then the boy had solved the riddle of the thorn maze, quicker, in fact than had Lord Azanth. No doubt this was because Lord Azanth lacked the detailed vision provided by the eye, also the limbs that were necessary for crossing the board successfully. The demon lord could sense the flow of spirits and magic much more accurately than he could perceive the specific features of the mundane world around him.

In the creation of an evil empire – the most powerful on the Seventh Plane of Wickedness – Lord Azanth had learned the value of rewarding his followers. Though Machiavelli had been only a mortal his wisdom was immortal and when the greatest human mind to have contemplated on the speculum principis had asked whether it were better to govern through fear or love, the answer he arrived at was correct. Polities built of love had deep foundations, of fear but shallow ones.

Thus Azanth, having solved his immediate challenges, and glowing with a golden feeling that he assumed must be akin to that experienced by a freshly fried slice of potato, was inclined to be beneficent. Begone, curse. Let the boy thrive. He may be weak, but he was brave, willing to take risks, and quick witted. He would suffice.

Expert in the ruination of humans, Azanth studied this soul, the first to come within range of his Telepathy spell. Liam Nowak. Poor but honest. This background was, on the whole, a shame. Poverty gave the lad’s soul some iron; it was so much easier to corrupt the souls of the self-serving rich. Still, this young human had the usual weaknesses of his kind: a desire to prove his worth before his peers; lust; and avarice… well not quite avarice. Liam Nowak would give away all his wealth to buy his parents a home. What else? A love of his parents and a sense of responsibility for his brother. These were cleats around which Lord Azanth could wrap cords and draw down the soul to wickedness. In due course.

As Lord Azanth steered his companion back out of the maze, careful to avoid a catastrophic encounter with one of its guardians, he contemplated with considerable satisfaction on his updated character sheet.

Demon Lord Azanth   Level 3 Crisp (Prawn Cocktail flavour)

Rank 0   Evolution 0

Cast down from the Seventh Plane of Wickedness, this arch-evil demon lord was reincarnated on the Plane of Life as a prawn cocktail crisp. Surviving only for revenge upon those other demons who betrayed him to a paladin, Lord Azanth nurtures nothing but hate in his brittle potato heart.

HP 5

Manna 18

Health 3

Strength 2

Agility 2

Intelligence 9

Physical Attack 10

Magical Attack 10

Natural Armour 10

Magical Defence 10

Available points: 4

Equipped Slots: Perimeter (empty), torso (empty)

Exp 14,000

Spirit Stones 0/100

Rank quests 1/20

Skills:

Telepathy (Level 2)

Choose one.

Titles:

Puzzle Solver

The experience gain of 14,000 brought Lord Azanth to Level 3. What a joyful feeling. The first three steps on his journey of revenge were already behind him. When a Viking captain launched a new ship (over the broken bones of an unfortunate slave) he must have felt the same sense of achievement as did Azanth now, in that the dark sea on which the pale planks rose and fell was a pathway to the whole of the world. Let all humanity tremble and twist in their nightmares, as a prophecy of iron and savage blows disturbs them. For Telepathy had gained a level and the demon lord would now be able to communicate properly, in full sentences instead of just one word at a time.

Nothing so swiftly created a realm of shadows and pitfalls around a human than a sentence. Foolish scholars of the mortal realm congratulated themselves on their languages and boasted of their mastery of nature with the power of the word. They scorned the beast who could but growl and roar. Yet it was precisely in the moment that two humans exchanged sentences that they surrounded themselves with mirrors and cut themselves off from the world beyond. No longer able to understand the language of the birds and of the winds and of the seas, they were extraordinarily susceptible to a demon stepping through their mirrors and – with carefully placed lanterns – guiding them downwards, ever downwards, into a shadows from which they could not emerge, even if they stopped admiring themselves long enough to realise that what felt like wisdom was the height of ignorance.

Tempting as it was to embark on a conversation with his companion and begin the entrapment of Liam Nowak, Lord Azanth had other priorities. With each new level he had gained two attribute points, which he could assign to Health, Strength, Agility, Intelligence, Physical Attack, Magical Attack, Natural Armour, or Magical Defence. These were all important, yet his choice was obvious. For battles to come and risk and war, the attribute most urgent was his Health score. Even a butterfly could dare the skies with more confidence than a demon with 3 Health and only 5 Hit Points. Peril attended his every movement, albeit that sturdy Tupperware his body guarded. By bringing his Health up to 7, he gained 4 HP per level, so another 12 and a total of 17. With good fortune, he wouldn’t be instantly killed by effects and spells that lowered health over time.

Those attribute points assigned, Lord Azanth felt a distinct swelling of his potato body. Already, he was evolving away from the slender and brittle crisp he had reincarnated as, towards a more robust and presumably less appetising figure. One day, perhaps, he would achieve an iron-hard, inedible, unbreakable, form.

The demon lord now turned his attention to his skills. New skills became available to him at levels 3, 7, 15, and 31, at which point he would have reached his maximum (unless he came into possession of certain very rare magic items). Again, he must choose carefully. The original skills from his character creation choices were all still available: assess magic; create scent; disguise; fast reflexes; heal fracture; invisibility; levitate; poison cloud; slice; stealth; and summon small animal.

Additionally, there were three new options: fortify; resist heat; glow. The first gave all his group members a temporary increase in health and therefore hit points, with the increase being worth 1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 12, 16, 20 and 25 for levels 1 – 8 of the skill. Resist heat was another spell to protect his entire group, while glow caused an object within range to radiate light: the high-level version of which could be set to blind. It seemed as though a crisp mage was by nature a support class, one who assisted the group’s fighters, rather than did the fighting.

In his prime, Lord Azanth had been an anti-tank mage. To him fell the task of arresting the charge of the most powerful enemy paladin, of breaking open their plate mail armour like prising apart a crab, and of preparing the way for the spells and weapons of his comrades to rend with cruel barbs the soft interior. Before his fall, even the boldest of tanks would quail at the thought that in among the line of their enemies was a demon lord whose skills would place pits and traps and invisible walls in front of their every step and who could thicken the air until all forward motion was more difficult than wading through a river in flood. Then too, with dread, the tank would have heard of Lord Azanth’s skill at smashing a hole through magical armour to expose their heart to the spears, swords, arrows, and darts of their gloating opponents.

No more the master of the battlefield, a crisp, it seemed, was destined only to assist. Was that a feature of his flavour? Were other flavours of crisp offered other skills more apt to a fighter? A healer? A DPS class? Could he, as a prawn cocktail crisp, never aspire to be a tank? A flying lump of potato, hardened to the consistency of diamond and surrounded in the thorns of the spell from the Hazel Wand of Syceus would be most formidable. Perhaps such a build was possible, but with none of the relevant skills an option at this time, he would be orientating towards a role that might never be available to him. Without fly, for instance, he would not be able to close upon his enemies and without the capacity to wield a weapon (with a skill like telekinesis?) then his opponents would be able to avoid harm by attacking him from a distance.

What about a solo class? Attractive though it was to imagine himself questing alone, with complete independence and without reliance on any being, especially upon a human, such an option was again ruled out by his lack of mobility. A ranger could scout to an enemy, draw them into a chase and lead them through prepared traps, land damage-over-time spells upon them, or simply release arrow after arrow until the enemy were dead. The crisp-ranger had its appeal: were he a swift-moving snack with poisonous DOTS, he would be hard to hit with missile weapons.

Could any of the skills available now also be part of a maximised strategy for some other role than being a support member of a group? Heal fracture worked with the solo class idea (but not that of the crisp-tank, as it would be a waste of a skill needed for front-line battle; moreover, the task of healing at the rate required for the intense fury of high-level melee must always fall to a dedicated healer). Poison Cloud drew his attention again. Once Lord Azanth had achieved level 10 and light green rank, this skill would be an essential choice for the solo path, since it would lower enemy hit points while he led them as merry chase as was possible for a nimble fried slice of potato. To get from level 3 to level 7 was his current priority, however, and it would be a mistake to take Poison Cloud while it only acted as a minor debuff.

Reluctantly, Lord Azanth came to the conclusion that there was no possibility of riding two horses. If he wanted a maximum build – and only a short-sighted fool mixed and matched – then he had to recognise and embrace his new manner of existence: he was a group support crisp. Gone was the demon who could transfix the most powerful member of the enemy forces. Behold, the demon who could lift the strength, health, and resistance of his group. Fortify was the right choice. At maximum level, it would give his group a 25 Health increase and if his group were large, as it would be for major battles, that would multiply the value of the skill by each group member.

The boy had a wand with Thornskin; with a healer and a tank and a crisp-mage-support demon, they should be able to level fast. When might and guile by demon be led, then havoc and vengeance must lay ahead.