“Wrong!” Riven said cheerfully, trotting over and taking a seat a couple feet away with his legs crossed. “Worst-case scenario is you being dead. You got out, didn’t you?”
Jalel looked up to Riven and then suspiciously to Athela, but gradually he shook his head no and tried to rub the sleepiness out of his eyes again. “No. I am still here, damned to this dungeon until I am able to buy my way out by finding sothing of value. There are still many questions that I have for you…such as why you chose to leave all that treasure behind. We lost a fortune because you chose to save that spider instead of taking the bag last night.”
Treasure, huh? Jalel had been very nonspecific about what was in those two bags, but Riven’s anger spiked yet again at another negative comnt about Athela.
His eyes darkened, and he took an aggressive step forward with a quickly souring mood that was not unnoticed by Jalel. Riven’s voice lowered threateningly, coming out as almost a growl. “You ungrateful little punk. I’ll only say this once, Jalel, so listen very carefully. I don’t know you, and I don’t know what you went through to get here. I don’t know anything about your situation where you have to buy your way out of this place. However, if you keep talking about Athela like that, I’ll give you sothing to really cry about. I’ll leave you crippled, alone, and I’ll take that bag for myself so I don’t have to hear you whine like a little bitch about it every five seconds. Or I’ll just let Athela eat you. Got it?”
Jalel’s face quickly paled, and he slowly nodded his head in acknowledgnt of the very real threat.
Athela, on the other hand, seed to brighten up with newfound admiration, staring at Riven through those widened ruby eyes just like she’d done last night when he’d saved her from becoming lurker food. “You’ll let eat him?!”
[Optional Quest “Save the Prisoners” completed: You have saved two of two prisoners aside from Athela and have acquired half of Riven laughed loudly, feeling Athela’s weight shift as the spider’s cold legs skittered off his back. Lifting up his arms to either side and motioning out the window, he gave Jalel a flat look. “Does it look like I’m a native to hell? I already told you that my world is being integrated. Use so context clues.”
“I wouldn’t know. Warlocks tend to do things like involve themselves with hell’s inhabitants.”
Riven face-pald.
Jalel, on the other hand, kept going. “You’re from the last wave of integration. You’re going through the tutorials right now, that’s what you said, isn’t it? That ans your world is integrating.”
Riven gave the other man an incredulous stare and threw up his hands. Was this guy stupid? Or was Jalel doing this just to annoy him? “Yes. That is literally what I just said.”
Jalel snorted, then nodded in confirmation of his own question. “Well, as I said earlier, I can’t tell you too much about it, but there are so things that I can tell you. The integration is the rging of worlds from outside the multiverse. Every couple decades Elysium has a new integration of planets that join the systems of Elysium—a multitude of universes that it has underneath its own umbrella of control. It takes them from outer realms and stitches them into the realms of this multiverse, an ever-expanding and almost endless system of worlds. As to why you warlocks are hated…there’s a very long history to that. Warlocks have been accountable for nurous atrocities throughout the millennia and care little for the people they harm in pursuit of greater power. The Unholy pillar in general is looked down upon by the other, more civilized sects of society.”
The following silence was tangible, and only the sound of a far-off scream of panic broke the silence.
It caused Riven to turn and look out the balcony window onto the ruined city of flas and blood mists, but that scream could have been from anywhere…so it was only a minor distraction before Riven turned his attention back to the other man. “Tell more of what you can, please. I’d really like to know as much as possible. Surely there is more you can say without angering the system.”
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