Chapter 58

Riven took in what the dungeon avatar had said concerning his affinities and rubbed his forehead. “Have you found something obviously worth the full amount yet?”

“My treasurers are still looking.”

The only thing he could truly compare to with Athela gone was the basic system of one copper equals one dollar, give or take. Trying to gauge just how much each of these were worth without a baseline was guesswork, so he put out some feelers and tried a shot in the dark—calling Negrada out on potential bluff. The dungeon had said one item was worth all the money Riven had, but there’s no way he’d part with everything over one item. Not when the dungeon seemed so eager to get the money back.

“Well, if you don’t find anything that is of obvious value beyond these items, I want both the staff and the amulet. I think that’d be a fair trade for both.”

Negrada scoffed. “Absolutely not. The Amulet of Many Faces or the staff, not both.”

“The staff and the claymore, then.”

“No.”

“The staff is what I primarily want here, but I feel like it might not be worth all the money I have. Sure, it’s good, but it’s not that good, and I’d be foolish to trust you outright.”

“What makes you think that, little vampire?”

“Because I found a low-quality claymore in the dungeon that dealt just slightly more damage than the staff and just a little bit less than the claymore you’re offering me.”

“That claymore had a Strength requirement and wasn’t a spirit weapon, thus it could never better itself, eventually have sentience, or evolve. It also didn’t have any abilities associated with it or a mana-regeneration perk.”

Riven thought about it, then nodded in agreement. “Fair point. However, I’m at a distinct disadvantage here, not knowing what these items are really worth, so if you don’t bend here, I’ll just take the money, conjure a portal, and leave. Again, I frankly don’t trust you.” Riven stared the flaming eyeball down in challenge, and when there was no reply, he continued. “Final offer. The staff and something else thrown in for…let’s say one hundred and fifty thousand. I keep twenty-four thousand of the coins for you being a pain in the ass. Is it a deal or not? You’re giving me bad vibes, so I’m not backing down from this. At the very least, I’ll know it’s a fair deal if I find an altar to the system beyond this dungeon. Plus, what do you have to lose? I’m sure you don’t get many buyers here.”

The eyeball narrowed its pupil slightly and grumbled something in a language Riven didn’t understand but eventually nodded. “Very well. You have yourself a deal, fledgling undead.”

“Well, you’ve still gotta add something to the pot.”

“Patience. I’m working on finding something I have no use for. In the meantime, here is your staff. The deal is not struck yet; you will have your coins returned if you do not find the additional item worthy.”

In a burst of light, Riven saw a single item appear in front of him as the coins in the chests quickly began to vanish—though he did see his backpack fill up as Negrada deposited a few thousand different types of coins into the bag along with the ones he already had in there.

It was a staff far superior to the shoddy, chipped one he’d been carrying around since the Chalgathi trials. It may have been basic, according to Negrada, but to Riven, who was newly oriented in this universe, it was great. This gnarled staff was a beauty despite its plain design, carved from black-stained oak that was polished to glint in the dim light. It came up to a knobby, twisted end where the tree branch had been left somewhat intact, and upon touching it he could feel a mana influx that was far superior to his normal rejuvenation potential.

[Black Redemption (Tier 1 Awakened Staff): 74 average shadow damage on strike, with each hit drawing a small amount of mana from you to apply a knock-back effect with a minor explosion of shadow magic. All cost of Shadow spells is decreased by 7%, mana regeneration is increased by 68%. Shadow magics all have damage modifiers applied by +27% while channeling through this staff. Black Lightning: This staff can passively build up charges of black lightning. Power of black lightning depends on the amount of charge emitted.]

The gnarled staff was cool to the touch and just a little shorter than he was when placed on the ground, making it rather large. He also didn’t have any offensive Shadow abilities, with only Riftwalk being available as a movement ability. Despite this, though, the 68 percent buff to mana regeneration alone was reason enough to carry it, and he was sure he’d be getting some more Shadow abilities over time. Plus the black lightning attack seemed pretty nifty, and upon trying to push mana into the staff, he felt the weapon in his hands begin to slowly charge up—storing the mana within the wooden shaft, which began to lightly flare with shadows when he pressed on the power mentally.

“Neat.”

He slid his hands along the polished black wood of the staff for another few moments until a jolt of surprise ran through him, and he felt a consciousness touch his mind.

It wasn’t an overwhelming presence, but he could still feel the consciousness of the staff in his hand as it evaluated him just like he was evaluating it. Curiously staring at the weapon for some time, Riven eventually got a prompt:

[Black Redemption accepts you as a suitable wielder for surface-level bonding. Do you wish to bond with this spirit weapon?]

Surface level? He could only assume that meant there were deeper levels of connection that he could attain. Riven nodded thoughtfully with a small grin, and the prompt went away to be replaced by a new one.

[Black Redemption is now bonded to you on a surface level, allowing it the opportunity to grow based on shared experiences with you. Congratulations.]

Riven gave a thoughtful humph and rested the end of his new staff onto the ground. He put his runic mask back on and picked up his sturdy bag and hoisted it over his shoulder to strap it onto his back. He would have once thought the bag heavy, but now he could carry it pretty easily with one hand.

“I have found something suitable,” Negrada stated after a few more moments of Riven admiring the staff. “However, there is a catch.”

A vision was conjured, and then another, and another. It was a series of pictures showing off a rather luxurious-looking stone mansion, three stories high, resembling Victorian architecture with a rectangular build and a wide tower climbing up over the front entrance. Stone gargoyles lined the balconies, and a wide metal gate encircled a courtyard out front with gardens in the back.

“A house?” Riven asked doubtfully.

“Not just a house, a guild hall. One that I took off a foolhardy group of adventurers a few years ago.”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

The pictures changed, this time showing the interior. Red carpets lined the hallways, with picture frames hanging empty on the walls. An indoor pool with a skylight, a large dining room and kitchen, dozens of rooms or storage areas, a large library at the top of the tower, and a huge meeting area for social gatherings in the front were all present. There was even a small dungeon and an armory in the lower levels, displayed last before the images winked out.

“It looks fancy,” Riven stated with a shrug and sideways glance. “Though in terms of end-of-the-world stuff, I can’t say I’d find it useful. How am I supposed to move a house, anyways?”

Negrada gave off an amused hum. “Guild halls are only called such by the system when they have three basic conveniences that other buildings do not. The first would be a recall option, allowing you and anyone in your guild to recall back to the guild hall after channeling for a given time based on distance away from the guild hall. This can be done from anywhere in the cosmos, though you can’t teleport back once you arrive home again. The second would be the binding of servants, creatures, or guardians. Guild halls can bind these to their cores and maintain permanence within a radius, meaning that bound beings cannot venture outside a certain perimeter from the hall’s core based on how advanced your guild hall is, lest it teleport them back, but it also keeps them from dying permanently as long as the core remains intact. Then, third and last, would be the ability for guild halls to transition between locations. Per system rules, it takes an entire year of channeling the core to transition between guild hall locations. There are also a lot of restrictions to prevent interplanetary guild hall invasions, sometimes requiring a system administrator request ticket, but otherwise the location will be able to move. Everything and everyone bound to it can transition.”

“Oh.” Riven blinked a couple times and folded his arms. “Now, that actually is interesting. A teleporting home that keeps bound workers and guards alive as long as it isn’t destroyed? Very neat.”

“Elysium emphasizes guild activities quite often, so guild halls are a commodity many would consider valuable. Being a dungeon, I do not find it so. However, you would probably make better use of it. Take this orb, plant it where you want this guild hall to appear, and it shall materialize. Remember, after your initial use it will need to be channeled for an entire year before it can change locations. So be wary about where you plant it.”

“And by servants, creatures, or guardians…would I be able to hire on additional demonic familiars?”

“Ones that you could not summon to you, yes. They’d need to stay within the guild hall’s perimeter. This particular hall allows them to travel out a few miles from the hall’s core, but then it forcefully relocates them back when they go beyond the boundary. You’ll also be limited based on how advanced your core is. This one, though the building itself looks pristine, is a low-quality guild core and only allows for fifteen hiree spots. Each spot also requires you to pay Elysium’s administrator a tax to keep your attendants on board… Here, I’ll just pass over the information and you can take a look at it yourself.”

[Guild Hall: Stone Manor

*Plant this at a chosen location to create your premade guild hall. This is a packaged, onetime-use item*

Homeward Teleportation: Very long channel time

Fifteen attendant spots available; six hundred Elysium coins per month per active attendant are taxed by the system administrator.

Three-mile exploration radius for attendants before forced retrieval back to guild hall.

Core Sturdiness: Moderate

Defensive wards: None

Other features: Library, kitchen, dungeon, cellar, armory]

“So if I hire attendants as guards, servants, etc., if they die—will they respawn later or what?”

“Their souls are bound to the guild hall. As long as the core remains intact, they will live. If they are bound to the hall when the core is shattered, they will then lose their permanence. It’s very much like the contracts you already have, except that they’re bound to a specific physical area and cost upkeep paid directly to the system administrator. I hear many mortals like to hire cooks, smiths, and other craftsmen, too. Others aside from just soldiers to guard your home, but ultimately it is up to you.”

“I see. How often will they be able to bind and unbind?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve never used one of these things before, but I do know there are limits. So how is that for making it obvious? Is the deal struck?”

Riven could only nod slowly. The price to keep attendants was a little rough for him now, but it likely wouldn’t be in the future, and it provided a nice home base of sorts. “Yeah. Keep the hundred and fifty thousand.”

“No. I’ll be taking all of it if you want the guild hall, too, including the money you managed to scrounge up while here before the satyr fight.”

Riven opened his mouth to protest, but then closed it again. The guild hall alone was probably worth a hell of a lot more than two hundred grand, so he nodded again. “Fine, take all the money I have and be done with it.”

“Nice doing business with you.”

His backpack suddenly felt lighter, and all the coins in those two splendid chests evaporated in a wink of light. A portal appeared a second later, and out of it materialized a globe of sparkling lights. It was the size of a golf ball but weighed significantly more as he took it out of the air and embraced it between his fingers.

“Feels warm.”

He placed the bauble inside his backpack. Dusting himself off, he gave another sidelong look at the corpse of Ben and felt a little sick to his stomach, but he brushed the feeling off with a shake of his head. He still had to pick up the supplies that he’d taken off Jalel a while back, but then he’d get the hell out of here and onto the next stage of his life. Hopefully it’d be a more pleasant experience than this one had been.

“Well, I’m off to see the wizard. Thanks for the transaction, Negrada, it’s been a pleasure.”

The flaming eye did a literal eye roll and gave a snorting sound in return. “Truly. But before you go, I have some words of advice for you, vampire. Advice, and yet another deal.”

Riven raised an eyebrow. “Advice?”

“Yes, advice. I realize you are new to the transition, so I thought I should tell you. It is the least I could do considering you were willing to barter with me and trade some of the coins back to me, even if you are somewhat of a thief about it.” Negrada’s avatar paused, and it examined Riven a little bit more thoroughly this time. “When you exit this dungeon and finish your tutorial, you must try to find a destination that holds a coven if you wish to survive. That, or you will need to create your own.”

Riven frowned from underneath the black mask that glowed with red sigils and turned fully to face the eyeball, holding his rickety old staff in one hand and his new staff in the other as he curiously cocked his head to the side. “Why?”

A deep chuckle was elicited from the dungeon’s avatar. “Your kind are considered monsters by the rest of the multiverse. Just like I am plundered for being what I am, just like so many invaders try to find my core to destroy me for being a native to the hells, so, too, will you be hunted down simply because you are a vampire. For every level you gain, you will likely go deeper and deeper into the negative with your Charisma, and that alone will cause humans and other mortal races to both fear and hate you. They will be repulsed by negative emotions upon first meeting you, and making good impressions with those who are not of your kind or do not also have negative Charisma will be a hard thing indeed. If you do not join your own kind, you will find it all the more difficult to survive…and believe me when I say that the early years of integration for any new world are not easy ones. You may falsely assume acquiring your newfound power as a vampire will benefit you, and in some cases it will, but in the grand scheme of things, you have just doomed yourself to a very hard life.”

Riven didn’t know what to think of that. He just stared blankly back at the floating fiery eyeball, trying to find what words to say. Eventually he let out a sigh and pursued the other topic the dungeon had mentioned. “What’s this other deal you’re talking about, then?”

Negrada chuckled. “Well…that phantom you’ve got locked down in your soul? I want her.”

Immediately there was a flare of power, and Kajit was floating there, wide-eyed and panicked. She whipped around to lay eyes on Riven, brought up a hand to begin casting a spell with a flare of neon-teal light, and for a brief moment he thought the attack was going to discharge.

Immediately he clamped down on her soul with Gluttony, and she let out a shriek.

The attempted attack had been so sudden he hadn’t had time to comprehend anything but a knee-jerk reaction, and the phantom began writhing around on the floor screaming while Gluttony’s jaws ripped at her soul structure from within his own.

“You see…she is untrustworthy,” Negrada coolly stated with a billow of flames. “Let me take her off your hands… She just tried to kill you and escape, after all. I’ve been trying to catch this one for a very long time, and she’s been rather pesky. She and her sister…”

“Riven, please!” Kajit shrieked between gasps, but after what he’d just seen her try to do, he wasn’t even going to try and hear her out.

Riven blinked, and his heart rate began to settle down.

Wait. Wasn’t he undead now? Why did he still have a heartbeat?

He scratched his head and looked at the floating eyeball. “What do I get?”

“What she stole from you,” Negrada stated simply. “The dagger the system provided, the one that allows you to gain access back to my dungeon.”

Riven glanced back over to the writhing, deep-blue spirit on the floor—and nodded. He certainly had no love for the phantom. “She tried to blackmail me and stole my stuff. Then she tried to kill me. So go right ahead—it’ll be good to get her out of my soul space.”

Kajit’s eyes went wide, and teal power surged out of them just before a pool of flames tore out of the floor underneath her. Arms of souls damned to the hells reached for her and began to drag her down, screaming and writhing, while she cursed both Negrada and Riven.

“THIS WILL NOT BE THE LAST TIME YOU SEE ME, RIVEN THANE! I WILL REMEMBER THIS! KAJIT TAKE REVENGE!” The phantom swore, screaming in rage just before she was sucked under and the pool of fire died away.

Riven promptly felt her soul’s presence leave his own soul structure.

“No need to worry about that one,” Negrada stated rather happily, or as happily as a floating fiery eyeball could. “Now, let me fetch your dagger. It’s located in an older acquaintance of mine, another dungeon holding that one’s sister, but shouldn’t be too hard to get ahold of. In the meantime, as you complete your stay here in my very humble first level, I’d like to wish you luck when you get back to your world. Thanks for doing business with me.”