The Demonic Games (Disgardium Book #7): LitRPG Series, Dan Sugralinov [the read aloud family TXT] 📗

The elf girl’s face appeared before me, Destiny the silver ranger. She pushed her way through to me, leaned down and hissed: “Hello to you from our whole clan, you piece of trash. The Children of Kratos always pay their debts!” Her slap brought tears to my eyes, made my head ring. “That’s for my friends Defiler and Taranis. Remember them?” Another slap and a triumphant smile on the elf girl’s face.

Defiler and Taranis? I remembered them both well. The first was the reason for the short life of MonkeyWrench at Kinema, and the second had recorded my message to the world after the destruction of the portal in Vermillion.

“I remember them both,” I said, spitting out blood. “And now I’ll remember you too, Destiny, and your pretty little face.”

The ranger pulled her arm back for a third slap, but the gladiator caught her hand.

“Enough!” Quetzal snapped. “He can’t fight back.”

“Since when have you been so noble?” Destiny huffed. “Putting on a nice face for the public, huh? Maybe you need reminding of some things. Joshua…”

“Enough bullshit!” Quetzal roared again. I was starting to get the impression that the gladiator didn’t know how to speak calmly. “You can settle scores later, Des! How many in your group, twenty? More than enough. The rest of you surround the graveyard and wait.”

“Where are you going?” Tissa asked.

“Forty people are going with me to the first boss. We’ll open the gates, get the Memory Scrolls and come back. We need those to remember our crowd-control abilities. Then we’ll surround the graveyard, and…” He turned to the silver ranger: “Throw Scyth off at my signal, no sooner! Or else he’ll fly away and we’ll have to scour the whole Cursed Chasm for him.”

Quetzal’s raid moved toward the descent. Destiny’s group stayed with me. From what I could tell, this was an alliance made in advance, consisting of three Children and fifteen representatives of allied clans. Messiah was one of them. The others spread out through the village or headed for the graveyard.

Ten minutes passed in complete silence. A shout from Messiah interrupted it:

“Hey, Des, look!”

“Those sneaky devils!” Destiny laughed. “Blacklist them all! We’ll take them out once we’re rid of Scyth.”

“What is it?” Urkish the lopher asked, holding me by a leg. The elephant man spoke little and even asked the question lazily, as if he didn’t care.

“Ten players leveled up to two. They broke the seal and went inside,” Destiny answered. “Damn, we had an agreement that there’d be no leveling until the Threat was dealt with!”

“Who is it?”

“Who do you think? Berstan, Kara, Hellfish… You know, the traitors: Modus, Travelers and some other losers,” the elf girl answered dismissively. “We’ll deal with them later. Oh, Quetzal’s group is out. Messiah, ask how they’re doing.”

The shapeshifter came back five minutes later and reported:

“All’s well, they’re headed for the graveyard. We wait for the signal.”

Even I saw the promised signal — a gnomish rocket launched into the air with a whistle and exploded in a shower of sparks.

“Take him to the Pitfall, boys!” Destiny commanded. They pulled me to the edge and then started swinging me back and forth: “On the count of three! One! Two! Three!”

For a second I soared, then plummeted into the abyss.

Chapter 7. Rindzin’s Ghostly Talon

I FELL FOR SO LONG that I had time to examine the black walls of the Pitfall, speckled with fiery veins that belched fumes. Enormous gates flashed by like floors behind an elevator’s glass door, their numbers burning above and their seals glimmering.

The deeper I fell, the less light there was. Now I could no longer see the walls, but I could tell by the fact that the gate seals were getting further away that the Pitfall was widening like the bottom half of an hourglass. It got hotter with every second, but the heat wasn’t damaging me yet.

After a while, I found myself in total darkness that even the shining light of the seals and the burning numbers on the gates couldn’t pierce. When I landed, I felt only a flash of pain and saw a message:

You are dead.

 

Remaining time to respawn 9… 8… 7…

 

A timer began to count down in the darkness, and once the time ran out, it was as if I rose from the bottom and soared above the Cursed Chasm. Once again, everything fell into darkness. Letters flashed up in fire:

You have touched the astral plane and recalled your lost skills!

 

But your new body is weak, so you will have to train your abilities anew.

 

And I appeared at Cursed Chasm Churchyard. Interesting resurrection process.

Freezing, I looked around.

The world looked sepia, monotone. The interface was transparent, my experience bar was at zero. Another death would be my last. I couldn’t even see my own body, but I felt it.

The graveyard was already surrounded. Quetzal’s raid formed the front line, all of them now at level two. I saw them, but I heard nothing apart from the white noise of the spirit world. The mouths of the challengers opened; the players were probably wondering why it was taking me so long to revive. Never mind. They could wait. The important thing right then was not to hurry, to think things over carefully.

Opening my profile, I studied my recovered skills. The first thing I noticed was that I had none of my divine skills or perks, but my learned and class skills remained. Standard weapon abilities and Unarmed Combat, handy Stealth and Night Vision, the currently useless Cartography, Riding, Swimming, Persuasion, and…

Meditation, level 1

 

By meditating, you speed up your spirit restoration by 10%. Long hours of meditation lead to strengthening your spirit.

 

Resilience, level 1

 

Resistance to all types of damage increased by 1%. Pain sensation reduced