“That’s my familiar,” said Ashtoreth. “He’s sort of a jerk.”
“That’s not a real name,” said Dazel. “There’s no way. Hunter Wolfhard? It’s like if JK Rowling had to make a character for a CW show about a teen werewolf who hunts his own kind.”
“Case in point.”
“That’s my name,” said Hunter, looking supremely unamused.
“Why would you even say… the whole thing….” Dazel looked like he wanted to say more, but he was laughing to hard, literally beating a forepaw against the ground.
“I’m Ashtoreth!” she said. “This is Sir Frost. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Hunter.”
“You can call me Kevin,” said Frost. “And I’m not a sir.”
“Nice to meet you both,” Hunter said brusquely. “Now come on.” He jerked his head away toward the forest. “We should head deeper into the forest, away from the lava lake.”
He turned and began to walk off, clearly expecting them to follow him.
“What?” said Ashtoreth. “No, we’re following the lake’s edge, just a ways back into the forest.”
“But there’s more people that way,” said Hunter. “From what I’ve seen, everyone spawned in the ruined structures near the lake’s edge.”
“Exactly!” Ashtoreth said. “And we want to find and help as many of them as possible.”
“The stronger monsters are further out,” said Hunter. “If we take a path near the lake’s edge, we won’t just be getting weaker monster cores, the monsters we fight will already have been thinned by other players.”
“Players?” Ashtoreth said, cocking her head.
“Yeah, you know. Players. Other humans.”
Ashtoreth ignored his misconception for the moment. “Look,” she said. “I’m glad you’re involving yourself already in our group decision making process, but right now, that process is that I make the group decisions.”
“That’s… not really a group process….” said Hunter.
“I’m an archfiend and we’re in Hell,” said Ashtoreth. “So we should save time by just obeying me instead of deliberating.”
Hunter turned to Frost. “And you’re okay with this?”
“I don’t know about any of that,” said Frost. “But she wants to save as many people as possible. That’s the plan I’m getting behind.”
Hunter sighed and turned to Ashtoreth. “Listen, princess,” he began.
“Oh?” she said, letting all amicability fall from her face as she raised an eyebrow, her tone suddenly dangerous. She wondered, briefly, how many people Hunter had killed before.
Hunter seemed to deflate almost instantly. “Well, uh—”
Ashtoreth crossed her arms and made a face that said I’m waiting.
“You said you wanted to save Earth, right?” he asked, speaking more quietly and looking past her, not at her. “That means winning this tutorial and becoming as strong as possible.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So we need to level as fast as possible. If the whole planet is on the line, leaving some hypothetical people behind is, uh… a worthy sacrifice.”
“‘Hypothetical’ people?” Frost asked warily.
“Listen, Mister Wolfhard,” said Ashtoreth. “Hell has a lot more than cinderwolves and devils to throw at us. We need as broad a skillset across our group as possible if we want to optimize our chances of defeating the tutorial. We want to be able to fly, strike at long ranges, absorb enemy attention with sustainable minions, have defensive buffs, see and dispel illusions, strike incorporeal targets, anchor teleporting targets, run interference on enchantments, counter spells, heal the living, heal the undead, turn the undead, defend against psychic assaults… well, I hope you get the idea. The more the better.”
Hunter’s face fell as her list went on and on. “Uh… are you sure we need all of that?”
“I’m sure we’ll need some of that,” Ashtoreth said. “But I don’t know which ones, so it’s best to get as versatile as possible. Later, when we’ve got more magic items that can cover our blind spots, that’s when we go into the unknown in smaller numbers.”
“Right,” he said. “Well, if that’s really what Hell’s like… okay, yeah, your plan is probably better.”
“Great!” she chirped.
Hunter was already walking off in the direction of the lake. “You should probably stay behind me, princess,” he said over his shoulder. “My [Shadowstride] will let me evade the attacks of anything that comes for me, getting behind them to unleash a [Twin Fang Strike]. Because my [Phasing Fangs] allows me to penetrate almost all of an enemy’s [Defense], I can instantly kill most enemies.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“Say: that’s pretty cool,” said Ashtoreth. “I have infinite [Health] and [Mana].”
“...What?”
“Well, not [Health] and [Mana], technically. [Bloodfire], which is better,” Ashtoreth explained. “But yeah, as long as I can stop and eat a heart, I can almost completely replenish my resources. And I’ve got a lot of hearts. I keep them in my magical locket and in this cute bag, here.” She patted her satchel. It squished.
“That’s what’s in that bag?” Hunter asked.
“Mhmm!” she said, giving it another squishy pat. “Also, while I really appreciate that you’re trying to be respectful by calling me princess and all, it’s actually ‘Your Highness’. Ashtoreth is good too.”
Hunter looked away quickly. “Uh, okay. Ashtoreth.”
“Thanks!” she said. “And you know what else, Hunter?”
“Uh, yeah?”
“You’ve been doing great,” she said, beaming at him. “Killing that boss on your own—that’s amazing!”
“Uh, yeah,” he said, straightening a little.
“And you’ve got cool style, too. That tat looks rad.”
“Uh. Thanks,” he said. It was hard to tell in the light of the bloodleaf forest, but it almost looked like he was blushing.
“Don’t let Dazel get to you, all right?” she said. “He’s a real stick in the mud. Has been since I summoned him.”
“He’s the cat?”
“I’m actually a demon who has been unwillingly forced into the form of a cat,” Dazel said, walking along beside them.
“He won’t get to me,” he said. “Like I said, I’m resilient against psychological attacks like that.”
“Because you spent a ton of time training your resistance with the other kids at school, right?” Dazel asked.
“Ignore him,” Ashtoreth said. “Dazel comes from the Pit of Sorrow; he’s not good with social skills. Anyway, we should share all our fighting styles. You made it sound like you were more a spellsword.”
“Yeah,” said Hunter.
“I’m spellsword, too,” said Ashtoreth. “And Sir Frost here is a [Steelheart Paladin], so he’s pretty much just a tankier, divine spellsword.”
“So… we’re all spellswords,” Hunter said.
“Pretty much,” said Ashtoreth.
“Gee,” said Dazel. “How’d that happen?”
“Great minds think alike!” said Ashtoreth. “Anyway, my class is called [Bloodfire Annihilator]...”
She explained the working of her class, assuming that Hunter would be more forthcoming if she went first. She finished by conjuring a little hellfire in the palm of her hand. “Pretty soon, I’ll be able to make you both immune to it,” she said.
“Useful that they’re purple,” Frost added. “Given our current whereabouts, I’m sure we’ll be seeing plenty of fire that we’re not immune to.”
“Okay,” said Hunter. “All of that makes sense… but why are you in a baseball uniform, again?”
“I’m a fan of the sport,” she said. “Well, the games are boring, but the slow motion highlights are really cool. Honestly, I just wanted to wear something that humans do to let you know that I’m on your side.”
“Great,” said Hunter. “Good. Okay.”
“So what’s your class?” Ashtoreth asked.
“I’m a [Twinfang Assassin of the Shadowflame Dragon],” said Hunter. “I fight with the twin fangs granted me by the spirit of the shadowflame dragon that originated my bloodline.” He held up the katana he was wielding in his right hand. “This blade is the fang of flame. In combat, it wreathes itself in fiery—sorry, is he okay?”
Dazel was clinging hard to Ashtoreth’s neck, sniggering as holding in his laughter was a matter of life or death.
“I just, I thought of—” Dazel broke off and had to contain his laughter. “—Just thought of something funny. You, uh, tell us about your shadowflame fangs, bro.”
Hunter frowned, then looked back to his sword. “The fang of flame doesn’t just do fire damage and give me limited control of flames,” he said. “It allows all of the abilities that I have which are enabled by shadows to function within the light of my own flames.”
He raised his other sword. “And this is the fang of shadow. Not only does the fang of shadow allow me to gather darkness into solidified shadows, but it has a special connection to the shadows of those I attack, allowing me to penetrate—”
“Hold up,” said Frost. “We’ve got company.” He raised his shotgun to point off into the woods.
“Wait—is that a gun?” Hunter looked between the two of them. “There’s guns?” He looked back at his sword in seeming confusion.
“There were guns before,” Dazel said. “You’re from Earth.”
“There’s also vivinsects,” Ashtoreth said, watching several of the gigantic bugs she and Frost had fought earlier came through the trees. The angry red orbs that hovered over their horns made their carapaces glint and glitter, even where the trees obscured the moonlight.
“That’s a lot of meat and bug-shell to put between me and a core,” said Hunter, twirling both his katanas.
“Say, I like this guy,” Ashtoreth said, smiling over at Frost and Dazel. “The beetles have a low range on their magic, so Frost and I will pick a couple off as they come in to engage before I—”
“He’s gone, by the way,” Dazel said.
Ashtoreth looked over to see that Hunter had, indeed, disappeared.
“Huh,” she said. “Quiet ability, that [Shadowstride].”
She heard the demonic beetles ahead begin to shriek and cocked her head, confused. “Did he really just run into the firing line headfirst, with no plan, even though we have two tanks in a three person party—and he’s neither of them?”
“Looks like it,” said Frost.
Dazel snorted with laughter. “Hey,” he said. “Ashtoreth. Say: ‘baka!’”
Ashtoreth unshouldered her greatsword, then plunged it into the ground next to Dazel, forcing him to leap aside.
“Get blessed,” she told Dazel, scooping him up off the ground.
Then she launched herself off her sword and into the fray.
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