Chapter 641: Friends or prey
Mason stared at nothing, mostly getting bored. There truly was nothing around the hag’s platform except endless dark too thick for his vision to pierce. He did a couple laps trying different powers and spells, sticking off a foot or tossing bits of corpse looking for invisible walkways.
There was nothing.
Feywalking seemed the right choice, but there was no source of nature power or terrain to do it. When he remembered he could create natural terrain he winced and realized he was maybe an idiot.
Also he’d started to wonder if he could have shut down the hag’s magic with his arena gem and ended that mist (and possibly the whole challenge) right at the start.
“And I’m the guy supposed to save the world,” he muttered, scooping the hag off the platform. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go make you the world’s ugliest ice sculpture.”
It would be pretty awkward carrying an unconscious hag and a giant head through the fey, but what could you do. He stuck the Night Shard in the waist of his vestments, put a hand on the head and held up the hag as he activated the active portion of Apex Predator to create natural terrain.
Nothing happened.
“Well fuck.” He let go of the giant and put a hand on his face. “I’m not jumping.” He looked out over the empty darkness again and shook his head. “But if I’m not jumping, what am I doing?”
He went with ‘sit there and wait’.
It took maybe an hour for the hag to regain consciousness, which was about two days on ‘Mason Patience Time’. He just sat there beside her in the middle of the platform, snapping awake when she groaned. Her eyes flicked open and widened when they found him. She looked ready to start casting a spell or turning to mist before he put the Shard of Night to her throat.
“I’m stuck in your shit hole. All I can think to try next is kill you and hope it warps me out. Want to try bargaining again?”
The hag eventually nodded, and he looked at her revolting face and sighed. There was something pitiful about the creature as she lay there helpless and afraid. He didn’t forget what she was, but how pleasant it must have been to be put in roboGod’s world as an ice princess instead of a hag.
“Give me power, and send me home, and I let you stay here alive. But I’m taking the knife and that head.”
She stared with those beady, cunning black eyes.
“You’ll kill me anyway.”
He clenched his jaw and stared.
“I am Mason Wolf, Champion of Cerebus, immortal and king of all men. So we’ll be trusting my word, or we’ll go the other way.”
The hag stared and stared, and eventually…smiled? She reached a clawed hand up towards his face. He didn’t move, and she stroked his fur covered cheek.
“I should have seen it. Mighty Cerebus doesn’t judge, does he? No. Strength, only strength. A pretty prince shows the mercy of might. I’ll give you power, young one. I swear, just like you. A holy oath made in the dark.”
Mason watched her eyes, then stood and lifted the knife off her throat and waited. She looked surprised. When she rose she gave him a big smile with a half toothless mouth, a hand on her throat.
“Ah, power!” She put a finger in the air like she’d forgotten already, then summoned the two potions she’d held before. “One for the body. One for the mind.”
He took a breath, not thrilled at the prospect of getting poisoned and then trapped in some floating plane of darkness. He had plenty of resistances, but then this wasn’t some orc snake’s venom.
No risk, no reward, he thought.
He couldn’t afford not to take chances with the fate of mankind at stake. He decided not to look at the liquid, and definitely not to smell it. He took one bottle and chugged it down, feeling nothing as he waited. The hag grinned her horrible grin and urged him on. He took a breath and grabbed the other, powering it down just as fast.
[Title gained: Hag Haggler. You convinced a hag of the night plane to give you her sacred elixirs of mind and body. No one should ever ask how. +5% effect of all statistics; 5% reduced cooldown to all powers.]
He felt his eyebrows raise as he read the title. That was no joke, especially for someone of his power. The hag was nodding and grinning like a maniac, trying to rub his hand. He pulled back but not as if disgusted or horrified.
“Thank you for keeping your bargain. I’ll keep mine. Give me the rose, and make me some kind of portal out, and I’ll leave.”
“Noble prince.” The hag put her clawed hands together and backed away bowing. “Knew he would keep his word. I will pray to your lord, oh yes, for a hundred years. But…” she frowned and looked around like someone might be listening. “The ice princess.” She spit. “Her fault, all this. My poor boy. Can’t be trusted. Not at all. She tried to trick you, hmm? Surely you see. Sent you to kill me, knowing I’d come here. Knowing you’d be trapped. Mustn’t trust her, mighty champion.”
Mason had very little doubt of that. He imagined Lilith thought this was a win-win. Either he was trapped and maybe required saving, probably after some awful negotiation for the ice princess’ benefit. Or he overcame it all and gave her what she wanted.
The hag materialized a long-stemmed rose with dozens of jagged thorns. She stroked the sharp points lovingly, slinking towards him to hand it over. He took it, and the hag fled back as if he may now break their bargain and attack her anyway. She gave him a sheepish grin, sweating visibly as she started glowing with power.
He figured it was fifty fifty whether it was a portal or a trick, but he went back and grabbed the giant troll’s head, and waited.
“Gooodbye, lovely prince,” she said as a blue, swirling circle sprang to life in the dark. “Kill that horrid princess, Champion. Kill her, and protect us both!”
Mason gave her one last nod, no intention of killing anyone, unless they made him. Then he dragged his items and grisly prize into the magic, hoping it didn’t drop him in some other plane of existence. But he imagined he could Wyrdwalk out of most.
He squinted his eyes against the bright blue of the portal, stepping in to vanish with a sizzling pop of arcane magic.
**
The Whispering Woods palace returned to view in all its frozen glory. Mason breathed a sigh of relief that he’d been sent to the right place, though he still didn’t know what he’d be dealing with inside.
He hadn’t done what he offered to do. But he’d killed the hag’s ‘son’ and brought back the rose. Honestly the potion title reward had been good enough to justify the whole trip (plus whatever the dagger was), so whatever he got from Lilith now was just bonus. Hopefully finishing the dungeon would also be a decent chunk of experience.
He made sure he still had the knife and rose. And the giant troll head. Check and check. Then he dragged the thing towards the palace doors, hoping he didn’t have to uh…shrink the skull down somehow to get it through.
After a bit of tugging, it squeezed through with a slimy pop.
“Welcome to the court of…oh. Um. Welcome back, Mr. Wolf.” The little tray construct stared with big, cute eyes. “Did you…need any assistance with your…lovely gift? Also wasn’t there supposed to be a, um…hag?”
“Just announce me, please.”
“Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear.”
The construct smiled politely, then zipped through its doggy door. He opened the second set of doors and tried to judge the space, but was soon forced to give another tug as he tried to yank it through. He was pretty sure he tore its ear this time.
“Mason Wolf, Champion of Cerebus!”
He walked towards the ice princess and her court dragging the troll’s head, doing his best to read the room. The salty scent of fear was palpable and made him shiver with pleasure, but it was clearly the ‘elven’ court and not the princess herself.
She sat on her throne exactly as before, staring down at him with that cold, imperious gaze, her dress the same. He stopped at the edge of her carpeted walkway, glancing back to see a thin trail of wetness from where he’d dragged the head.
“Sorry about the mess. No void storage.”
The princess stared, blue eyes shining with magic as she gripped her armrests and crossed her legs.
“Where is the hag?”
Here we go.
“In the night plane. You know, that ‘little swamp’ you sent me to. But I have your rose, and the son’s head. I think the hag got the message.”
He kept his voice pleasant, but he was still shapeshifted into his beast form, and he was already fighting the urge to teach these creatures the cost of fucking with him.
The princess kept staring. If she was afraid or concerned she wasn’t showing it.
“The bargain was for a captured hag. You’ve failed to deliver. I owe you nothing.”
Mason took a few steps forward, the claws on his feet clacking against marble.
“I’d think hard about that. I’m still wondering how you expected me to leave that place without the hag’s help. I didn’t see an exit door.”
“You should have forced her to open a portal, and then brought her through, obviously,” the princess snapped. “Must I do all your thinking for you?”
Mason heard himself growl. Two of the elves near the princess stood and raised spears at the foot of the dais. He could see their hands shake.
“Human houses have words,” he said. “Mine are simple: are you friend, or prey? Are we friends, Lilith? Or was that another lie?”
He knew the right thing here was negotiation. To get another reward and go on his merry way. But the beast wanted blood, and he was inclined to agree. The raw power of his Duality still tingled through his corded muscle, the urge to pounce and rip these things apart like a satisfying fantasy he could still make real.
Maybe Lilith sensed it. Her face finally twitched, her cold eyes blinking as she gestured subtly to an attendant.
“We are still friends, of course. We will be reasonable. We will accept the head, and the rose,” she said. “But your reward must lessen accordingly. I promise it will still please you. Are these terms acceptable?”
He nodded slowly, meeting the eyes of the two trembling spearmen with a fang-filled grin as he held out the rose.
“You need better guards, Lilith. These one stink like fear.” He looked her up and down again, the beast still not satisfied. “Battle always makes me…hungry. Do you still offer that private dinner?”
She watched him, pale face unreadable, no scent from her except the coldness of elemental magic. But she shifted on her throne like she was uncomfortable.
“We wouldn’t wish to be inhospitable,” she said finally. “Let us retire to my private hall.”
She rose and uncrossed her legs, stepping down the dais with that occasionally translucent dress still flickering before his eyes. She held out her hand and waited, and he pushed away the giant head and crossed.
He held out an arm so Lilith could put her hand on his wrist, then followed towards another set of marble doors at the back of the hall. He gave her undead elven guards a wink as he passed.