Demonic Devourer: First, I Eat the Babies

“Four of them got away,” I sigh, bunching up my undershirt and wringing it. Seawater splashes to the deck of the ferry, joining the rest of the slowly-draining deluge. Adrian uses his skills to send the flood overboard, but there’s so much water here that I’m sure it’s going to be wet until the day we arrive.

The currents aren’t subsiding, either. Before we got into the fight against the pirates, one of whom was evidently linked to the Titan of the Nameless Sea in some way, the ocean was relatively placid. Now, despite the entirely clear skies, the waters shake under the boat, roiling like the seas are boiling over.

“Better four escape than we lose any of ours,” Sierra replies, patting me on the shoulder. Somehow, she’s avoided the worst of the water. “Let’s get you warmed up.”

I nod silently, surveying the ferry around me.

Adrian’s denfense was more successful than I thought it would be. Though there’s some signs of damage to the various parts of the boat’s exterior, nothing critical looks to be broken. Not that I can tell. Of the plethora of skills that my soul-amalgam grants me, ferry engineering is not one of them.

“I doubt anyone’s going to be tanning out here,” I say out loud.

Adrian snorts. “Buncha pussies. Bet you anything these peddlers wouldn’t come out here on the calmest day.”

Sierra, in turn, offers a polite chuckle. “I am sure there are those who will make user of all available amenities. I plan to, if you would like to join.”

“They got beer on the deck?” Adrian asks, shaking the water our of his hair like a dog. “Was having a drink when those shits came for us.”

“There are refreshments available,” Sierra says. “I’ll call for some.”

Sure enough, she’s able to locate a mildly shell-shocked attendant cowering within one of the most intact facilities above here. A bar? What kind of boat needs a bar on top of everything? It’s almost as nice as the one that the Raven Baron frequented in Ravendale, which is a pretty damn high bar.

A fair number of the drinks on the wall have fallen, victims of the ferry’s sudden rocking, but very few of them seem to be broken. Shatterproof glass, I suppose. Quite practical of whoever designed the place.

The man behind the bar is half a head taller than Sierra, but his meek presence, half-broken glasses, and rumpled suit makes him seem smaller somehow.

“I’ll take whatever beer you can fish from that mess down there,” Adrian grumbles.

“R-right away, sir!” the bartender says, nearly tripping over himself in his hurry to grab a bottle. He comes back up with a nondescript bottle of frothy golden fluid, which Adrian takes without another word.

“A glass of sparkling sweetwine, please,” Sierra requests. Her eyes flick over to me. “Two?”

“Two,” I confirm. Alcohol doesn’t have that much of an effect on my demon body, but if the others are partaking, I may as well.

“Yes, madame,” the bartender replies.

I resist the urge to squint at him. There’s something ever so slightly off about the meekness, something that makes me think he’s Acting.

Just in case he proves to be a threat later, I Appraise him.

Hm. Level 14. That’s quite respectable—same level as me, even. He’s definitely hiding how strong he is.

Not strong enough to take me on, though, and that’s all I really care about.

“Your drinks, my ladies,” he says, pushing a tall glass of some fizzy dark purple liquid towards Sierra and me. “Payment is… not required. Your service is worth enough.”

“If you say so,” Sierra says, rising. “Come. You wanted to go outside, yes?”

“Yeah,” Adrian replies, taking a swig from his already-open bottle. “Let’s hit it.”

As we exit, Sierra tosses a golden coin over her shoulder, not even watching as it lands perfectly in front of the bartender. Only I catch the sight of him giving her a respectful nod.

“So,” Sierra says as we exit back onto the still-slippery deck, “You encountered resistance.”

“‘Course she did,” Adrian mutters, swaying on his feet and stretching. “Nobody’d have lived otherwise.”

“I received a vision,” I say. “Scintilla came into contact with me. It bore witness to me.”

That stops both of them short, even the more-than-half drunk Adrian.

“Witnessed,” Adrian says. “Why? Why here? Why now?”

“I sense no immediate divine presence,” Sierra says, gripping her wineglass tight enough that her knuckles whiten. “Then one of them must have been a conduit of some kind.”

“There was one that might’ve been,” I say, the word “conduit” triggering another bevy of false memories.

“Even then,” Sierra says, a note of worry obvious in her voice, “That means danger, Evelyn. Imminent, personal, extreme danger.”

I shrug, raising my glass and lightly tapping it against hers. “Let the danger come. That’s what I live for. Quite literally, I might add.”

Besides, it’s not like this is the first greater being to take note of me. I still have the Godsmarked and Voidtouched traits, neither of which I gained consensually. Something else out there wants its turn with my soul.

Sierra takes a deep breath in and clinks her glass against mine, repeating the gesture. “I suppose you’re right. Since we aren’t running from a rapidly-approaching Titan right now, I believe it is safe to assume that Scintilla is playing a longer game.”

I know it’s a significant thing to have been witnessed, though the details of it are murky to me.

Whatever. I haven’t received an objective with any stupid goals like “Kill a Titan,” so I’m assuming it’s not immediately relevant. If it forces itself further into my life, then I’ll worry. For now, I have another set of goals.

Goals that unfortunately currently involve Sapphire.

I have two objectives right now. One involves tracing down four people in the vast, unending ocean, which is patently impossible even with Locate Person. The other involves finding the same woman that’s left me in increasingly life-threatening situations, and that’s not a reunion I’m looking forward to.

Hopefully, arriving at the Seven Kingdoms will trigger the creation of new ones.

“Evelyn?” Sierra asks, poking my forehead. “You there?”

“Yes, sorry,” I reply automatically. “Just thinking.”

“Drink now,” Adrian slurs. “Think later.”

I look at him. He’s already halfway through his bottle.

Sierra laughs quietly and raises her glass, downing it in two gulps.

I drink. The flavor is sugary and bitter and rich all at the same time, dancing over my tongue like the sweetest blood I’ve ever tasted.

Though it grants me no experience, it tastes of promise.

“Not a bad choice of drink,” I tell Sierra.

She just smiles back.

_________________________

After the burst of excitement with the Titan and the pirates, the remainder of our trip is disappointingly boring. There must be some kind of network in which information about the seas passes through, because every tiny vessel that Sierra locates with her mile-long threat detection skill turns away from us as soon as they catch sight of the name of the ferry.

The Titan’s activity stops soon after, too. The captain warns us that Scintilla’s surface may mean that the port city we arrive at will suffer, but I almost manage to forget about that warning thanks to the dullness of the wait.

Now that we’ve revealed some of our combat abilities, I’m more comfortable in displaying some of them in public. Adrian and I spar quite a few times on the deck over the course of the next few days, which most other people avoid for some reason. I manage to advance Knifefighting to level 19, increasing it about once per day, but progress is noticeably slower when it’s just sparring.

I wonder why I was able to raise it so fast when I sparred with him in the time bubble in Ravendale. Does the amount of danger I’m in directly correlate to the speed of my progression?

The sight of land in the distance is a welcome relief to me after over a week straight spent in a boat. This is a fairly large ferry—according to Sierra, it’s the largest the Crowned Islands has to offer—but with nothing to fight, I can’t help but feel suffocated here.

“Ah, this is us,” Sierra says. “Tsubera. The Sunken Kingdom.”

As more of the coastline comes into sight, I can say that it’s… honestly quite unimpressive. The aftereffects of Scintilla’s surfacing must’ve caught up to this place, because a solid half-mile of land is scoured clean of everything but dark, muddy sand. Another quarter mile after that is chock full of debris that vaguely reminds me of the scene in Ravendale after the demon tree tore everything apart.

There are a scant few buildings still standing, but they resemble a fishing village more than an actual port city. A handful of them lay scattered at the base of a cliff that seems to stretch across the entire coastline, but that’s all I see.

“First time?” Sierra asks as we depart from the ship. “You don’t seem very enthused.”

“To be completely honest, I was expecting something slightly grander,” I admit, taking a good look around. Even taking into account the damages that Scintilla’s inflicted onto this region, it’s rather unimpressive.

“It looks better up there,” Adrian says, remarkably sober for once. He does have a cigarette in between two of his fingers, but it’s unlit. “Trust me.”

“Up there,” I repeat. “The cliff?”

“Correct,” Sierra says, pointing at a gathering of people just past the edge of the fishing village. “The merchants and traders are likely going to take the assisted path.”

“And we’re not?”

“Of course not,” Sierra scoffs. “They respect power first and foremost, and nothing about accepting help from the weakest Tsuberrans gives the correct impression to these people.”

Sure enough, the other temporary residents of the ferry—most of whom I haven’t seen yet—set themselves on the rickety road to the village, each and every one of them lugging a heavy bag or car overloaded with goods.

Sierra and Adrian lead the way, both of them apparently familiar with this place. We diverge from the path, drawing quite a few confused looks from the Crowned Island traders, and the three of us find ourselves at the base of the cliff a couple minutes later.

“Broken gods, it’s so nice to not have the fucking cloak,” Adrian says, storing his unlit cigarette back into his pocket.

Water surges out from his spread palms, spilling forth and rising up into a cyclone under his feet. He rises, water surrounding his body as a thin layer of magical armor. Not the same skill he used on the ferry.

I do recognize it, and it takes me a moment to place it. Right. When he was using this skill against me, I wasn’t exactly fully present in my own mind.

Sierra, in turn, just uses her Personal Telekinesis.

“Do I have to use a skill?” I ask. Bloodpath would get me to the top of this pretty swiftly, but that feels like an unnecessary waste of magic power and blood just to… show off?

“Not necessarily,” Sierra says, hovering five feet above my head. “Just get there.”

I start climbing. Sierra and Adrian both easily outpace me, but physical exertion barely strains my body thanks to my enhanced stats, and it lets me build up more magic power instead of needlessly expending it.

The cliff isn’t particularly easy to climb up, but there’s no magical smoothness or dangerous monsters that obstruct my path. Sierra, at least, waits for me to catch up. Adrian, on the other hand, reaches the top of the five-hundred-foot cliff before I’m even halfway up.

I hear the water mage talking as I start on the latter half of my ascent.

“Yes—yes, they’re coming. I told you to wait, okay? Sierra’s taking a bit, and the other girl is fucking climbing.”

“Climbing?” An unfamiliar voice scoffs. “Who would climb the godsdamned cliff? Maybe one of the elders or the deranged shits on the lower levels, but you’d be out of your damn… mind…”

He’s just about finishing his statement when I reach up for another handhold and realize that there’s nothing further to climb. I hoist myself up, not even breathing hard as I get to my feet on the uneven granite surface of what I quickly realize isn’t just a cliff but a wall.

The guard (I think he’s a guard, at least) stands there slack-jawed for another second before addressing us. “Name and purpose, please.”

Sierra and Adrian give their responses, but I’m too busy staring at the city beyond the walls to say one of my own.

The cliffs hid the sight of what Tsubera truly looks like, and it’s nothing like what I could’ve imagined. We stand on a makeshift wall about fifty feet long. Ahead of us, the cliff drops off sharply. I can’t see all of it from here, but the drop is far longer than the cliff is tall. Everything past the cliff is a crater, one that goes so far down that it has to be deep below sea level.

From that yawning abyss, buildings rise. None of them even come close to reaching the tip of the wall, but I can see a metropolis rising out of the pits. Clouds float through the city—it’s a bit surreal to be standing only five hundred feet above the ground and see them far below us.

The Sunken City.

“Evelyn,” Sierra says, gently prodding me. “Tell the man your name.”

“Right,” I say, coming back to my senses. “Evelyn Carnelian. Purpose, uhh… the same as theirs?”

I turn to Sierra.

She winks back at me. “That’s correct.”

“And your stated purpose is?” the guard asks, halfway between nervous and bored. It’s an interesting combination of emotions. I file it down mentally. I might copy it later.

“We’re here on a contract with the Lady Jade,” Sierra says. “We will be delving.”

“Voluntarily?” the guard asks, suddenly more alert. “How far?”

Sierra sighs. “All the way.”

 

Somewhere on the Nameless Sea

“Oh, fuck! I picked up a signal again!” Rin exclaims.

“Did you?” Sy practically jumps to his feet, the book he was reading forgotten.

The two of them ride on one of the seaborne vehicles they commissioned from home base. If they had an exact trace on their targets, Sy could have just teleported them all the way, but a Titan’s interference will destroy even the best-laid plans.

“Yeah, yeah!” Rin says, practically screeching in delight. “The water-fucker went back to the abyss, I guess. I can’t tell exactly where they are, but it’s getting clearer!”

“Then I guess we might be able to pack this up,” Sy says, adjusting his coat. “Destination?”

“Tsubera,” Rin replies. “Shoot for the capital. We’ll be able to trace more clearly from there.”

“Got it.”

It takes Sy forty-seven seconds to stash the boat into his extradimensional storage. Rin keeps the two of them above water as he does so, utilizing her telekinesis.

“Can’t hold this for much longer,” Rin points out. “Let’s hurry it up.”

“Yeah,” Sy says.

He clasps her arm, and the two of them vanish.