Backwoods Dungeon

Epilogue One

The Broken Seal

Cimigda

‘Damn. Damn! Curse the humans. The Valam! The Elders and all!’ Cimigda thought as he frantically swallowed the essence of his lessers, healing the devastating wound. Nothing the humans had used thus far had been strong enough to truly damage him until he’d tempted fate.

But what did that matter? He’d destroyed the seal. He’d done it! He’d accomplished everything he’d set out to do. The powers of the cursed Valam should be gone!

They weren’t. Had the elders lied? It wasn’t impossible. Polkiss did delight in despair after all. Could this have all been his doing, sowing his element even in his own kin?

Cimigda refused to believe that it had all been lies. The seal had been there, lodged in the mountains where stories said it had been hidden by the last of the Valam. It was exactly as he’d been told. It was every bit as difficult to destroy as he’d expected it to be.

But he’d done it! So why…? Why did they retain their abilities?

A theory began to form.

He sank down to the depths of his lair. He’d kept several of those little creatures for just this sort of experiment.

Perhaps… perhaps he’d done it after all. The curse spread like a virus, latching on to each Valam and then each human. But without the seal, perhaps that just stopped it at the source?

He had many rooms in his lair below the lava, far below the prison. He found it warm and comforting. It took him a moment to recall where he’d stored the uncursed humans, but he found one of them in short order. Locked in a room with pillows and blankets and all of the raw meats and fruits and waters that the fodder needed to survive.

“Hello human,” he rasped. He was winded. The bullet, enforced by whatever ability the damn girl had, was more than strong enough to hurt him and had done a number on his pride. That didn’t matter, though. All that mattered was the seal. If he truly had broken it, then who cared if one human had one attack that might hurt him? Mortals. They lived an eyeblink and were gone. He could wait them out.

Perhaps the destruction of the seal wouldn’t instantly remove the stench of the Valam’s curse from those who’d already tasted it, but… perhaps…

“H-hello…” came a terrified voice.

“How would you like to return to the surface?”

“I… w-would like that very much,” it said meekly. Without the Valam’s curse, all humans were so wonderfully docile.

“Very well. Take this,” Cimigda said, tossing a gun to the human. He’d made sure it was loaded.

The human jerked, shocked as it heard the gun hit the stone, but didn’t see it. Right. Humans needed light. Pitiful.

He reached out, and the braziers lit with glowing green gas.

It screamed as it saw him and frantically backed away.

Horror. Diared’s throne. That was what he hoped to claim, and he was succeeding so beautifully.

Doubt and Poison were inferior to the vacant throne. Even Polkiss and Borugos would bow to him when he became the Demon of Dread. If the curse was truly broken, then he would have the right. The lessers, all of them, would support his rise. He’d been brave enough to return. He’d been willing to risk the final death, and he’d succeeded.

Or… so he hoped.

Unfortunately, he didn’t need this human terrified out of its wits. He needed to know.

“None of that. I’ll not harm you,” he said. “What is your name?”

“N-Nora. I’m Nora,” it stammered.

“Nora. Let me give you a deal, Nora,” Cimigda said before summoning one of the lessers. A tiny one. Even this broken human should have no trouble killing it.

“O-okay?” she whispered. Disgusting thing.

“There is a gun in front of you. Take it and kill this creature, then tell me what you see. Do so, and I will return you home to the surface.”

The lesser blinked. It didn’t understand the human language. It had no idea it had been summoned to die.

“Y-you... You want me to kill it?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“I… th-then you’ll let me go home? Y-you promise!?”

“I will return you to the surface,” Cimigda said.

Slowly. Ever so slowly, she picked up the gun. The lesser remained still as Cimigda had told it to. This one was freshly born. It had never interacted with its peers and had no knowledge of the power of the weapon in the human’s trembling hands.

She pointed it, and it seemed as if she was dragging the moment out for some reason. For such a bloodthirsty race, their non-warriors could be so very meek.

“Shoot it, or I will kill you and find someone who will,” Cimigda insisted. Impatient.

Fearful of losing the opportunity, the girl fired. She missed somehow but then fired again and successfully slew the lesser before it could react.

The human screamed and dropped the weapon, as scared of what she had done as she was of him.

He’d had plenty of victims to experiment on. He knew what the humans saw when they killed his lessers. What they would see if they managed to kill him. Stats and skills. Abilities of wonderous power, gifted from the Valam. Abilities that made them threats, like that damn girl with her cursed bullet.

He’d been stupid. He wouldn’t let that happen again.

“Well done. What do you see now, human?”

“H-Huh?” Nora asked. “S-see? I… see you. Th-the green candles.”

“No. What buttons have appeared? What form has the Valam’s Curse taken upon you?”

“Curse!?” she screeched.

It greatly amused him that the humans were initially hesitant to take up the arms of the Valam most of the time. They did not like curses any more than his own kind did.

“The buttons, human. What do you see!?”

“I… I don’t see any buttons!”

“Classes. Think of them!”

“L-like school!? What do you want from me? I don’t understand! I don’t see any fucking buttons! I killed the creepy Imp now bring me back home!”

She didn’t have it. She didn’t have the curse. The Valam’s curse was broken! There would be no more warriors from the humans capable of wielding the Valam’s abilities.

Cimigda truly had done it.

He’d thought he might live the rest of his days here. He’d believed that the seal might not exist or that he wouldn’t be strong enough to break it. He hadn’t dared believe he could succeed. The elders refused to allow him to go to this reality for fear of creating more warriors.

If the seal had proven too much for him, he’d have had no choice but to reign here until he could challenge them himself. Now, though! With the seal broken and the pieces in his hands, he could return. He could claim the throne of the greatest of the elders.

He could rule.

Making sure not to go back on his deal, he grasped the human by the throat. It tried to scream, but he ignored it.

Hurtling up through the halls of his reality, he quickly found the closest exit before pushing the human into the water.

It immediately began to choke, drowning, as it was returned to the surface, just beneath the ocean.

As promised.

Cimigda practically sprinted back down to the depths where the last seal remained. The one placed by Valam Luca that barred the way between his kind’s reality and this one. So flimsy now. The elders could’ve destroyed it with a thought. He’d had to slip through it to come here.

Armed with the broken crystals of the Valam’s seal, he would take his rightful place on the empty throne.

With little heed to the countless lessers he was leaving behind, Cimigda stepped back through the treacherous seal, returning home once more. He no longer feared its bite. He’d grown strong on all the potent doubt the humans had fed him.

He was greater now. He was more. Soon, he would be the greatest of all.

And he would rule.