Thanks
Between all sorts of stuff and having to study, I ended up with a lot less time this update. Sorry if it's short.
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Blitukus looked back at Kazo... they waved at eachother, and paused a moment... so the end begins. Blitukus sighed, and sat back down into the armored vehicle, closing the emerald-studded hatch above him. Blitukus looked at his controls... then turned the vehicle to face the bridge, resting the drill down against the cap he had made... he then started the drill, collapsing the blockage. He moved back, and waited for any demons to emerge, automatic crossbow ready... none did. Blitukus then dug a ramp down into the pit, at the same time focusing his will upon the vehicle, channeling mana into the drill which heated and fragmented the rock, further increasing digging speed. He drove down through the eternal rift into the other plane... Kazo stood at the edge of the pit, watching even after Blitukus had passed through... eventually, he walked away, walking back toward the cavern. Kazo had seen the answer to his question... but would he ever see his kobold friend again?
Blitukus found himself driving into a small, square, iron plated chamber with only one way out... it seemed locked shut by a blood-covered iron bulkhead. Blitukus noticed the vehicles external temperature reading was a flat 180 degrees... rather than giving the tortured souls here the relatively quick death of burning alive, they were all to slowly cook for perhaps even hours before dying... to be revived, just to die again. Indeed, the demons probably just wanted the pain to come from their teeth, claws, and tentacles rather than simple flame. This now worked very much against them... Blitukus was in no danger of having the water in his steam loops boil away, and could continue on. Blitukus turned toward this exit, and began to move toward it, automatic crossbow ready. There was a loud scream followed by a tentacle demon leaping out from behind the corner. The demon laughed for less than a second, hesitated, then yelled again, its eyes seeming to suddenly grow as it saw the immense adamantine-plated mass approaching it. Blitukus fired the automatic crossbow, the heated bolts proceeding in an exact path, one striking the demon in the gut, one hitting it in the chest, and one hitting it in the nose, each getting stuck firmly in the would. The demon let out a ceaseless scream and stumbled as the wounds cought flame from the red hot bolts, and as the goo that the demon called blood also ignited, the demon itself glew as it burned from the inside out, finally collapsing in a flaming heap. Blitukus sighed, driving over the burning body, and continuing to the bulkhead... he attempted to drill through the bulkhead, and found that this resulted in a small indentations and some shavings of iron on the floor. Luckily, the adamantine drill was nearly immune to damage. Blitukus tried again, channeling mana into the drill... occasional sparks shot out from where the tip of the drill met the iron. Blitukus focused himself, and channeled more energy from the emerald to the drill. The iron began to glow red where the drill contacted, and eventually the iron began to yield to the drill. Blitukus then drilled a hole through the bulkhead in this manner, clearing a hole large enough for him to drive through, and drove through to whatever lay beyond the bulkhead... it was pitch black. Blitukus realized for all he knew he could be driving off of the edge of a 5000 foot cliff... as darkness hit the runes upon the middle of the vehicle, the runes lit up, providing illumination in what was apparantly a stone tunnel barely wide enough for the vehicle to fit through.
Good thinking, Dracha. Thank you.
Blitukus continued. There was either a corner or a T-section ahead, off to the right, a tunnel of some kind glowing red. Blitukus checked his sphere of direction as he approached... the sphere pointed... down? A little bit to the right too... Blitukus chose the tunnel leading to the right, drilling the edges and sides to widen it enough for him to continue. He entered a room where the stones themselves seemed to glow red. The corridor continued on the other side of the room, leading downwards... Blitukus saw a three-quarters-dead kobold tied up and crucified alive, a demonic human planning to carve holes out of the kobold with a spear... the sight of this brought back Blitukus' anger... he realized... he now fought against the wishes of the true force behind his mothers death... that force had far too long reigned superior... its reign was over. Blitukus felt nothing would stop him. The demon drew back, intent on boring another hole with the spear, but soon was filled with fear as it turned to view a much larger instrument of a similar intent directed right at his body. Blitukus ran into the demon, impaling the demon on the idle drill. The demon grunted, and tried to pull itself off. Blitukus then ran the front of the drill into the wall, then turned it on. The demon yelled and was ripped apart as it was torn between the wall and the drill, ichor and gore flying out. Blitukus backed the vehicle up, revealing an ichor-covered indentation in the wall. Blitukus saw the now four-fifths dead kobold... it was doubtlessly in unimaginable suffering... Blitukus aimed carefully, and fired one bolt, striking the kobold in the head, killing it instantly, and ending its suffering instantly as well... at least, for the time being. Blitukus paused... but continued... it was better than leaving the kobold there to die slowly. Blitukus drilled down the ramp, expanding it to three spaces wide as he proceeded down it... at the bottom, he found a room full of tortured engravings and tortured beings in cages, the beings seemed mostly motionless... their mouths seemed to be fused shut, their cries, those that could, nearly inaudible... other corridors were leading out... for some reason, it seemed rather sparse about here... he had half expected to face a horde of demons and masses of tortured souls... but most of this place was simply empty... for some reason, perhaps, they were somewhere else. Blitukus skipped this room by tunneling downwards further through the stone... perhaps he would miss the crowd... then again, he could just as easily end up literally falling right into the middle of a crowd. Blitukus progressed, chunks of rock flying about as he drilled... the temperature seemed to drop slightly... this was odd, but it seemed a function of height. He then realized a potential reason for hell being so sparse there... it was close to the mortal plane... too close for their comfort. Perhaps there was a reason the pits led to what was apparantly a prison within hell for demons. As the red glow behind became more distant, the vehicles lights came on again.
The temperature dropped to 140... then began to rise again. He had left the outer strata it seemed, and was now piercing ever closer to the bottom of hell. He kept digging for a bit of time, th temperature rising back to 180... was this simply layers? Perhaps hell itself had temperature fluctuations? Eventually, the rock beneath seemed to give way, the vehicle falling through a few feet to a ledge, and slamming down. Blitukus grunted on the sudden impact, but nothing was damaged. This was a cavernous room, very tall... and down below were concentric circles of various demonic minions... spirits of fire around the periphery, tentacle demons within that, frog demons within that, and at the very center, a blood red, extremely large gem. The demons seemed to be channeling their energies into the gem... the earth around shook... There was only one way to go it looked like... Blitukus drove down the ramps, and slowly made his way over a bridge... it seemed the demons were so focused on whatever cataclysm they were summoning they didn't notice Blitukus. As Blitukus crossed the bridge, the earth shook again, this time with quite a bit of intensity... the extra weight of the vehicle caused the bridge to collapse in the middle, sending the vehicle falling down onto the crystal. The adamantine plate hit the crystal with immense force, shattering the crystal and leaving a minor dent in the adamantine. A silent moment passed, then various war cries broke out, the demons proceeding to annihilate one another! Goo, ichor, gore and flame flew about. Blitukus drove forward as quickly as he could. Various projectiles, arrows, stones, even ballista and catapult projectiles rained down, pelting the demons and the armored vehicle. The impacts combined with demons climbing on and throwing eachother against the armored vehicle caused it to rock and slide quite a bit as Blitukus tried to move toward one of the enormous halls leading out of the room. It seemed the demons were making rather short work of one another, under the fire of projectiles from above especially... the hatch above Blitukus opened, and tentacles slipped down. Blitukus moved the automatic crossbow, and, finding the lightweight crossbow from the future gave several advantages over his old one, fired it out the open hatch, striking the tentacle demon 3 times in the head. The demon fell off. Blitukus went to close the hatch, but it was ripped open once again, a frog demon leaping through the hatch, grabbing hold of Blitukus' leg and attempting to wrench it backwards. Before the demon could do so, Blitukus had already begun to pull the trigger. Two bolts lodged themselves in the demons head... the demon then fell limp, releasing its grip, ichor coming out of its mouth... Blitukus grabbed the demons body, and stood, raising it out of the hatch and throwing it to the side, knocking another demon off of the side of the vehicle. Blitukus then turned around and fired at another frog demon making its way up the other side, two bolts striking its chest, one striking its gut. Blitukus kept firing... 4 more bolts to the gut and 3 more to the chest and it was still coming... Blitukus finally managed to hit it in the head despite the flying projectiles and rocking motion, killing it. Blitukus shut the hatch after seating himself again... SLAM! Blitukus stopped the vehicle, and immediately reversed its motion. The exits were now sealed... the demons had all mostly killed themselves, leaving goo and gore painting the vehicle, two bodies impaled on the drill... even the siege operators above had taken eachother out, likely just for fun... save for one. The ballista fired again, missing Blitukus. Blitukus turned to face it... it rested in a cave high above the ground... it also reminded him of the dwarven siege machines he had once faced... Blitukus charged the cannon... he also noticed two demons... winged, horned, red-skinned goblins, standing among the ichor, goo, and gore, one male, one female, kissing eachother... ironic that the goblins would be the only ones at any sort of semblance of peace with one another here.
When the cannon was charged, Blitukus focused himself, and channeled energy from the emeralds into the rubies of the cannon... he built up quite a charge both of mana and of steam... he let them both loose simultaneously. A puff of steam shot out and the rubies flashed bright red, a fraction of a second later, a bright, yellow-hot mass of molten earth was projected forth... it arced through the air, striking the ceiling of the cave... it actually melted the rock where it hit, causing more magma to be formed which promptly fell down upon the ballista, killing its operator in a few moments of unimaginable pain. The goblin demons laughed loudly, almost maniacally... they likely would attack next. Blitukus turned the vehicle toward them, and drove toward them, aiming the crossbow, and firing... two bolts missed, one struck the females gut, one her knee, one her neck, and another landed on the top of the forehead. She was knocked back and over, falling limp. The male hesitated a moment... then laughed even louder. Blitukus growled, and activated the drill, parting the bodies impaled on it, headed right for the remaining goblin demon... the demon jumped up, and landed on the very top of Blitukus' vehicle. Blitukus aimed the crossbow at the hatch. The demon opened the hatch, and just as it was hopping down into the cabin, Blitukus pulled the trigger... CLICK! Not a good sound to hear... Blitukus dropped the crossbow. The demon grabbed Blitukus' helmet... it seemed he still had one advantage, a hard exterior... Blitukus punched the demon in the chest as hard as he could... he accidentally triggered the launcher to fire, the two bolts impaling themselves in the demons chest... Blitukus felt a sudden energy jump up through his arm... the demon jumped... felt his own chest... then stumbled back... Blitukus realized what had happened. Blitukus sucked the energy right out of the demons heart... and when he was done, the glow in the demons eyes faded, and the demon collapsed. Blitukus tore the bolts loose, reeled them back in, then tossed the demons body overboard, shutting the hatch again. Now he was alone in the room but... he felt the energy within him beginning to corrupt him... it was spreading throughout his soul... he felt himself begin to weaken, and weaken. He focused himself, trying to drive it away, but it was to no avail... he felt himself becoming weaker, until he felt himself losing consciousness... He would NOT allow his quest to end like that! Far too much rode on it! His friends... his mothers soul... indeed... the love for his mother was something that could never be tainted... NOTHING would stand in its way! as the corruption reached into his heart, it attempted to take it over, and encountered a surprise... suddenly, the corruption seemed to catch a small bit of the flame of Blitukus' drive forward... a force determined at its source to be unstoppable... and at an exponentially growing rate, the corruption was engulfed, the darkness bursting into a vapor. The darkness removed, only pure energy remained... Blitukus absorbed this in, and felt himself quickly returning, mana filling his soul and powerfully radiating outward, filtering into the crystals of his machine. Blitukus looked forward, and a moment later, drove toward the vast hall now locked shut by a bulkhead and mechanisms... what lay beyond the mechanisms? Had the demons not killed eachother, that would've been a much more difficult fight... and those were only minions... Whatever lay ahead was grave indeed... Blitukus found himself smiling. Whatever it was, he would overcome it. Nothing could possibly stand between him and saving his mother from the demons, not space or time, not angels or demons... but still... the sphere of direction marked out, his destination still lay quite below.
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Wow... I wrote a lot more than I thought I would! But I get the feeling I started too late, and starting out a bit tired meant not enough action... there wasn't meant to be all that much in the upper levels anyway.
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Topic: A Kobold's Quest II (Read 76106 times)