Chapter 155: Deal with the Devil

William Oh made a hasty deal with an ancient, malicious fae waiting to prey on the unwary.

The fae was saddled with a second hand mortgage and turned to the bottle to escape collections.

• Jason Salazar

Amulet of the Homefield Advantage.

+1 Focus

+2 resistance

Active: 1 Charge.

Load a terrain into the Amulet for a charge, Summon that terrain around the wearer for another. This does not consume the terrain. Only one terrain may be loaded into the amulet.

Load a ‘terrain’, huh? Will thought, inspecting his old amulet with a critical eye.

He hadn’t been fighting many things that were weak enough to be thrown off by simple slippery ice in a few Floors. Not to mention that ice was weaker than stone when it came to his stone spike cantrips.

He was outgrowing the usefulness of a sheet of ice, and the stats on the amulet were…not great. Will hadn’t even been bothering to wear it recently.

But…If I could treat fear as a terrain, would I be able to load it into the amulet?

Even if he couldn’t load ‘fear’, he could certainly stand to load a more hostile terrain into the amulet.

I wonder if I can stand on those lava-flows on the 3^rd Floor without taking damage. If that was the case, Will had an idea for a ‘hostile’ terrain he could load into the amulet.

Maybe I can go to the 3^rd floor and deliberately carve out a- Will suppressed a hiss of pain as his left hand began throbbing again, his bones aching, muscles twitching randomly against his will.

Yep, it’s definitely infected, Will thought as Ghoul approached.

“Well, it’s been lovely having you staying with us,” Ghoul said, while Will paid him half an ear, clenching and unclenching his hand, which was aching, ominous black veins beginning to spread through it.

Godsdamnit, Will thought, his skin giving off a cold sweat as he pulled a glove over it. He knew he’d have to cut it off, but he wasn’t looking forward to it.

Am I gonna have to do that every time I pass through this floor? Will thought. It was absolutely, one hundred percent not his idea of a good time. Maybe they could use Loth’s technique for frontloading the acclimation period in order to skip through the place before his hand got infected.

Maybe? Will would go to great lengths to not have to cut his hand off again, but the universe thought it had a sense of humor by picking at his greatest mental wounds over and over again.

While he was focusing on his hand, Ghoul kept talking, his voice seemingly fading back in as Will turned his attention to the undead mage.

“…Now that your acclimation period is up, you’re going to have to ‘defeat’ me to move up to the next floor. You wanna do this the easy way, or do you want to put those new skills to the test and do it the cheap way?” Ghoul asked with a rotten grin, waggling his eyebrows.

“Easy way.” Will answered without hesitation. “Badur, get this man his fee.”

Badur delivered a small sampling of the treasures they’d acquired on their way up, which amounted to a jug of Silverdeath, a couple minor Relics, and a Seed of Undeath.

Ghoul deflated a bit, pouting as his minions took the treasure out of his arms.

“Fine, I guess. Everybody get a shot in.” Ghoul said, holding his arms out.

Everyone gathered up and gave the undead mage a shallow stab with the provided sword, moving quickly so that everyone could get a turn in.

Once everyone had taken a turn, Ghoul sighed and spoke in monotone.

“Oh no. I am defeated.”

An instant later, the undead collapsed into a pile of ash.

Thank you for clearing the Key Site. You may advance to the next Floor at your discretion.

+ 20000XP

Will’s eyes widened as he stared at the pile of ash and Ghoul’s clothing.

“Every time, I gotta clean myself up, and don’t even get to have a fun fight, either,” Ghoul’s voice came from the left, where an undead had broken away from the throng of undead with a broom and dustbin.

“I’m wondering if the priceless treasure’s even worth it. I’ve already got more than I can ever use. Stupid contract.”

The grumbling undead picked up Ghoul’s clothes and shook the ash out of them before setting them aside and sweeping the pile of ash into the bin.

“…Ghoul?” Will asked.

“Yeah?” The undead asked, glancing up at Will mid-sweep. It was a different face, different size and shape body, but the voice and mannerisms were the same.

“Are you puppeting these things from somewhere else?” Will asked.

“That’s a common theory,” Ghoul said, getting back to work. Of course, a Lord would be cagey when it related to their Build.

“What contract?” Will asked, changing the subject.

Ghoul groaned, rubbing his back as he stood up straight with the dust bin in tow.

“I made an agreement with the powers that be to always give travelers the option of paying their way through. Keeps things civil with other Lords and prevents…incidents.”

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Will could see how that would be beneficial. Nobody got truly desperate if they knew they had a guaranteed way out. Desperate people had a tendency to do desperate things and ruin things for everyone else.

“Maybe next time I’ll fight you. I’m coming back through here…at least twice more.” Will said, giving Ghoul a consolation pat on the shoulder. “And I’ll have a month’s worth of practice each time.”

The undead mage gave him a rotten grin. “I’m looking forward to it. You’ve got the makings of a mage.”

“…I’m a Rogue/scout.” Will said.

“Forget about your Class. ‘Mage’ is just a word I assign to people who have mastered their Abilities enough to create several unique cantrips. To me it means flexibility above and beyond the Archetypes people’s Classes try to impose on them. It doesn’t have any meaning in The System.” Ghoul looked a bit grumpy as he said that.

“Are you a mage?” Will asked.

“Boy, I would qualify myself as a ‘wizard’.” Ghoul said. “I can do a lot more than a few parlor tricks. I reverse engineered your cantrips and improved on them in a matter of seconds. Maybe one day you’ll be a wizard too.”

They began going through the process of organizing before they moved up to the next floor, making sure everyone had everything, that nobody had failed to get the option to create a Door.

Once they had everyone ready and organized by Party, they lined them up and prepared to enter the 9^th Floor. That was when Ghoul took the opportunity to make an announcement.

“Listen up everyone!” Ghoul said, his new, raspy voice rising above the chatter. “The Ninth floor is where the miasma is thick enough that the environment itself begins to get a bit screwy. The Floor itself is…peculiar about language. There’s an odd amount of overlap between word and action there, which is why that freak, Bakton makes it his home. A good rule of thumb is if you don’t have anything important to say, keep your mouth shut. ‘Don’t talk to strangers’ is way more important there, and for the sake of whatever gods you worship, don’t start any sentence with ‘I wish’.”

Will glanced at Charnesa, who nodded in agreement.

“Is that something I should’ve known about?” Will asked the ancient Saint. She must’ve been through the 9^th Floor before.