The Apprentice of Ouroboros [Monster Evo LitRPG Adventure]

Risha whirled around and shoved Markus away. She grabbed the athame off her belt and thrust it to press against the scales of his neck, a cold, uncomfortable anger etched in her eyes.

“Don’t you ever. Ever question my reasons or my motivations again, Markus. Don’t you dare presume you know me.” Energy primed along the athame, and a dazzle of blue sparks lit up Risha’s eyes.

He leaned in, knife point pressing against his neck, no fear in those lizard eyes of his. He gave her a slasher smile, speaking so playfully, wearing his ominous grin. “Or you’ll what, Risha? Kill me? You already did that once to make me your experiment, your little one-monster freak show. Once everyone got past their squeamishness and paid lip service to their questions of ethics? Once they were done prodding and poking me and using me, everyone jumped onto your plan without hesitation. You were their savior, and they banded behind you even when you told them the price of that power. But what about me, Risha?”

Her hand remained steady, even when a drop of blood leaked past the blade point, dripping down his neck. He clasped his hand gently over hers, gripping the dagger firmly and whispering with a forked tongue. “You. Owe. Me.”

Please tell me she killed him then and there. Please. Neska knew with certainty the witch didn't.

She clenched the athame in her own hand and was half a thought away from throwing it away and ending the ritual then and there. She couldn't hear it, but she could feel the disgust radiating from the others in her ritual circle.

But, as she predicted, Risha let him guide her dagger away from his body, ever so slowly. “I taught you better than this, Markus. I warned you of my mistakes so that you would be better than me.”

“Yeah. You did a really good job, Risha. As if anyone would turn down the offer to be the disciple of the incarnation of death and destruction.” He turned on clawed toes, looking smug, walking a few steps away. As if that were a safe distance. “I expect the final preparations in a week. We received word about an Instance Core uncomfortably close to the Carkanat mountain range. Isolated, low population, and limited collateral should anything go wrong. Maybe that’ll ease the guilt clenching around your heart.”

Risha's face conveyed her disdain. “Markus. You need to ask yourself what the price of victory is. We can defeat the Varadur. But not at the cost of such reprehensible, evil acts.”

“You call it evil. I call it a necessary evil. I sure did learn from the best.” Risha gritted her teeth, but offered no rebuttal. “So I have your support? Or do I need to go get Serkin to do it? I know he'll listen to me, if you won't.”

“You will have my support. But you need to dial in expectations, Markus. This will not end the way you want. We are introducing another terrible weapon into the world.”

Markus let out a cruel laugh, even as he reached for the office door. “Oh? Well, what's one more? I mean, you made us. We're your magnus optim. The peak of your accomplishments. Aside from letting a king tear a hole in reality, resulting in invasive monsters mutating and pushing us to extinction, one ruined nation at a time.”

“That,” she said, her hand clenched around her athame, “was the last time I ever let someone take advantage of me.”

“So you say.” The door swung open with a soft creak of hinges. “Well, maybe you can teach your little apprentice to learn from your mistakes. Before it's too late.”

Markus latched the door just as Risha launched a crackling [Mana Bolt] at where his head would have been, scorching and cracking the wood. The mists of the ritual faded in around him as Markus stormed down a dark flight of stairs; Neska saw the one expression she'd never seen on Risha's face before she faded to the limits of the ritual's sight radius.

She was terrified.

The scene shifted, billowing smoke blurring past Markus as he paced down a corridor, then another. Then even his image faded. For a moment, she thought that the ritual was failing or running out of power.

No. Keep going. Don’t let that man into your head. This was ten years ago. Seeing Risha afraid, for the first time she’d ever seen such an expression on the witch, brought to light a certain vulnerability that hadn’t been there before. Risha was still just a human being and not an immutable legend. She’d made mistakes.

And miscalculations about who she should trust.

“Neska, are you…okay?” Brent’s surprisingly soft voice came through.

“I’m fine.” It was the lie she told herself to keep this ritual running. “Something to add?”

“Uh…I can’t see it, but I hear stuff you guys can’t. It’s like Markus was activating some anti-tracking spell. But it didn’t hide his sounds or the scents around him.” The wolfling broke through her internal churn. “Listen. What do you hear?”

Splashing. Echoes. The sound of flowing water. She heard the sharp slap of water as he trudged through something at least ankle-high. She couldn’t smell anything, but Brent filled her in. “Offal. Mold. Mildew. I also smell something salty, metallic. Smells like raw mana crystal. Also some fungus. Bloodcap mushrooms maybe; they’re very distinct, with a meaty scent.”

It was enough for her to figure out where he was. A sewer, somewhere. The hidden body of Markus stopped as the billowing mists parted, and she saw the surly expression permanently stamped on his face.

“Stupid bitch. She won’t do it. I know that tone too well.” His angry words were followed by a jarring sound of metal against stone, scraping lightly, and the squeak of a rusty hinge. Footsteps echoed down a flight of stairs, the sound echoing in a sharply confined space. The sound continued for some time, along with the crackle of a torch in his hand. This, too, she couldn’t see, only the foggy outline.

“He’s going down really far. At least a hundred yards down. Damn, I can’t see anything, but he’s deep, Neska.” Juni’s voice cut through the air.

The footsteps halted. Then, the sound of stone scraping against stone, grinding and grating, followed by the crackle of something arcane. More footsteps echoed, and in the distance, the sound faded.

Now his footsteps fell softly, as if walking across carpet. Now, the billowing mists departed, and she could see Markus’s face and surroundings. He stood in a dimly lit laboratory, the walls made of ancient, smooth grey stone chipped at the edges. Books lined a rack on one row, and an alchemist station bubbled nearby. He unbelted the athame and tossed it on the desk, scowling when it nearly slipped off the wooden surface. She tried to read the papers on the desk, but they were gibberish. That seemed to be a common theme.

Markus violently pulled the chair back, nearly tipping it over, before roughly setting down, crossing his legs and tapping one claw against the desk, brow furrowed. “I think that bitch will try to kill me to try and stop me. Well, time to pull out some contingencies.” He went to the alchemical station, grabbed several sample jars, and got to work, brewing and preparing something.

When he was finished, he filled each jar at the station with a cyan fluid. “Huh. I wonder how much I’ll have to leave behind to make it convincing.” He went back to the desk and grabbed the athame, running his finger across the blade. “I should start with the tail. Gotta leave enough to be realistic. Bits and pieces.”

What is he doing? It didn’t click at first, until he laid out several layers of straw in a loose pile on the ground, and she saw him curl around his tail in his seat, holding his dagger with one hand, hesitating, and then placed his tail onto a metal cart, as if one were placing meat on a cutting board.

Oh no. She knew exactly what he was about to do, and her stomach roiled.

“Neska. Stop the ritual. I don’t think we need to see the rest.” Kalloway’s voice rang distantly.

I do. I need to confirm what he did. I need to see this to remember.

She kept the ritual going as the first cut happened. Then the second. Then a muffled grunt.

When she heard the bone crack and a scream of anguish emerged, she cringed, and the ritual broke apart into billowing mists; then blackness enveloped her senses.

Neska blinked, and the room came back into focus. A stinging sensation ran along her right palm, the athame's blade held tightly against her scales, cutting through them, and blood dripped onto the floor. The tallow candles had gone out, and the room was darker now.

Juni stood by her side and reached up to hug her unexpectedly, as her two professors looked at each other uneasily.

But Brent looked nauseous. “Divines. He cut off pieces of himself to leave preserved body parts for his last mission. He blew apart his own team to sell the story.”

“Likely. I knew he could regenerate,” Kalloway grunted, taking a sharp breath. “But to do it in advance, to yourself? I...he's insane. Truly.”

Juni's voice was barely a whisper, barely concealing the fervor as she spoke through her teeth. “When we find him? That bastard is dead.”

Brent, Syra, and the others met up with Neska and Juni in Kalloway's tower room to discuss their findings. Serkin and Kalloway looked disturbed, more than usual now.

“Well, in short? We found Markus. He's down beneath our feet.” With Juni’s assistance, they had partially completed a three-dimensional map of the city below the plateau, based on all known records over the past few days.

Neska pointed at an undefined point just below one of the ruined buildings. “This is what's been described as some chapel buried deep below the surface, at the center point, the most likely spot. There are several buildings in the general radius, along with several pathways and suspected side passageways, owing to various margins of error in our measurements. It's barely been searched, only their presence marked. But Kalloway was able to trace the dagger's vector and give us a general direction.

"We also know about Risha's old office. It's right below the cathedral. Given the points of interest, the elevation, and the rough vector, we were able to triangulate a search area smaller than what we started with. He still clearly has a connection to the dagger since almost no one touched it in ten years.”

Brent put a hand up, brow furrowed. “Neska. You sure you don’t want to talk about what we…saw?”

“No. I’d rather not talk about it.” She continued before he could get a word in. There was no point in discussing how she was going to kill Markus with her own bare hands if she ever got that close. “What matters is we were able to use his old weapon to get us a bead on a location. Though difficult to get to. Juni, show them.”

“No, wait. Guys, hold up a minute. Neska, a word aside?” Brent ignored her dismissal and pulled her aside–a rather impressive motion considering her size, and she felt her scales slide across the floor as he guided her to the doorway to the hallway.

She could dig in, but he seemed rather insistent this time around. “Okay, fine. One second, guys,” she fumed before he latched the doorway shut. “What the hell, Brent?” she hissed.

“You have to ask?” he grunted, folding his arms.

“Yes, I do! Who are you to question–”

He waved his hand, interrupting her. “I need to get this off my chest first. Markus is one genuinely fucked-up monster and a half, Neska. I’m worried about what pursuing this man is doing to you. I’m more worried about what he’ll do to you if he turns the tables on us.”

“He’s not going to.”

“He’s a slippery bastard who can get onto campus whenever he wants. Neska, for all your strength, you think you can do just about anything. And on almost any day you’d be right: You got weird powers and a hardened determination in your voice that I liked about you since I met you.”

His gaze softened. “But Markus is obsessed, intelligent, and stark raving mad. He can't be reasoned with. He tried to kill two professors already, likely blew up his own team ten years ago, and got dozens of others killed with wanton disregard for safety. There is no scenario where we don’t kill him for what he’s done so far, and eliminate a risk of danger in our own home.”

“I fully plan to kill him.”

“Neska, this man rattles you more than the Radiant King does." She opened her mouth to speak, but fell silent when the realization hit home. She hated the Radiant King because of the untold damage he'd inflicted on the world.

She despised Markus and wanted to rip him into monster giblets for his direct involvement in Risha's death, and for taking away from her the one person in her life that mattered most. If he hadn't been there to twist the goddamn knife and bait out her position to Markiand and his Seekers, Risha would be alive right now. Brent read her silence as his permission to continue. "I know it’s hard to compare the two: a distant raging god, versus the sneak running behind the home front and hurting people we know. You know why he picked Harvine, right?”

It had occurred to her that it wasn’t random. “To send a message: no one is safe.” Her tail trembled, a motion that Brent didn’t miss.

“Yeah.” He scuffed one paw on the wooden floor. “Sorry, I don’t normally get all abrupt like that. Ever since you slithered onto campus, things have been interesting, in a good way. But Neska, sometimes you can be so determined you don’t realize that others worry about you. Why? Because you feel like you owe your life to Risha and her legacy? The woman–hell, the legend who saved your life?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“I understand it better than you might think.” He splayed out his fingers on one hand before gesturing to himself. “The first month I was here, I hit my second Tier. I had three evolution choices: Wolfling, Razor Wolf, or Arcanhound. Of those, two were ‘safe’ choices. The third…has a higher potential evolution chain, but was marred by the actions of one person. I picked it anyway, consequence be damned. And it hurt, being called Felix Junior and maneater. But I shrugged it off.”

Even though he said it with confidence, his ears drooped, and his nostrils flared. “I did it to change the perception that no evolution is inherently good or bad. I did it because I knew the other two choices would push me further away from the person I used to be. I set a higher expectation for myself. Just like you raise the expectations of yourself to almost impossible levels.”

“Because you think I need to make her sacrifice worth it. That the wrong person didn’t die that night.” She almost bit down through her gums with her fangs, saying that.

“Yeah. I think that’s exactly the kind of dread you live with. Not to mention the whole ‘I might be the world-ender serpent’ thing. Which, for the record, I don’t think you’d ever let come to pass, as long as you had a choice in the matter.”

He bowed his head, shaking his muzzle. “What I’m saying is, you can talk to us, Neska. Because you don’t have to say it outright for me to know that you’re hurting, ever since you lost her.”

“What happened to the cocksure, slightly arrogant wolf that I knew from day one?” she asked, arching a brow.

His jaw unclenched, and his ears perked back up. “Oh, he’s there. For most of the time. But occasionally, when a friend needs help, that mask slips for a bit.”

Had she missed this aspect of Brent all along? Maybe she wasn’t the only one wearing a facade to hide her own gnawing worries. “Juni and I do…occasionally talk about all this. She also is usually more…vocal about it.” Her gaze sank to the floor. “You know what the worst part is, Brent? I don’t know who my father is. I mean, there’s that whole ominous Title that Ouroboros himself might be. But I’ve suspected for a long time…Risha is my mother.”

His ears drooped. “That would certainly explain a lot of things. But she never told you, directly? Why? Hell, even after she Awakened you?”

“I think pride, or the necessity to protect a secret, drove her to that.” She found it annoying that her tail tried to wrap around Brent, and she glared at it to behave itself, before turning back to him. “Just…I’m both hoping…and dreading I’ll find that answer sooner than I’d like.”

He nodded and cleared his throat awkwardly. “Well, hey, you got us. You don’t have to shoulder the burden of saving the world yourself. Or, just the burden of really awful shit happening on a routine basis.”

“Am I…permitted to give you a snug?” Neska asked suddenly.

“As long as you don’t break my ribs in the process.” He did wheeze a little as she wrapped around him, and he patted her spine gently. “Okay, okay there. Huh. Maybe this is more cozy than I thought.”

“Oh, opening up to the idea of snugs with benefits?” Internally, she recoiled. Where did that idea come from?

He chortled and fortunately missed her panicked expression. “One step at a time. Alright, let’s get back to it, or Juni might get mad that she no longer has exclusivity on the ‘talking the lamia out of terrible ideas’ power.”

A moment later, Juni unfurled maps from a small library located in the opposite wing of the Cathedral. “Professors, how much do we know about the city below? This area is likely inaccessible from any of the open-cavern plazas we’ve witnessed.”

“This plateau is one giant honeycomb. Oh, sorry, no stinging insects this time,” Serkin said, drawing a groan from the others.

“Too soon,” Neska hissed. “Though I daresay you should be going nowhere near this one.”

“I have to. The security and safety of my students are at risk. I prefer taking Markus alive, now that we’ve confirmed his identity, but this raises several unsettling questions. What’s his entrance and egress if his theoretical lair is deep below ground?”

“Likely, a portal entry. Possibly one that isn’t mapped out. I am thinking it is only a one-way portal. He can use it to escape his lair, but can’t portal back through it,” Trevor theorized. “It’s doable, though it does limit the functionality of such a portal. He would likely need to traverse through dangerous terrain to ensure no one could follow him.”

“There are these mana-laden areas below, some kind of mine on the south end, that overlap with our search area. Could be a source for plenty of critters and runs adjacent to this large underground area.” Juni tapped the map. “Professors, who is the most experienced delver in the academy in these regions?”

“Professor Durim has headed numerous expeditions. It’s a preparation area for Instances, given the varied caverns and terrain we’ll find below,” Kalloway input. “But we need to keep a damn tight lid on this. We only have one shot at catching Markus by surprise. If we blow it, that’s it. We’ll never find him again.”

Brent studied the maps, slowly being parsed into the projection stone. The device was a small flat white gem with metal banding around one half. Lenses adjusted the light beamed through it to different wavelengths. This light then created a skeleton of the three-dimensional geometry, illuminating small motes of mana that the light bounced off. It was crude, but conveyed the relevant information. “This is his terrain. He’s had years to prepare for this. I don’t like it. If I were as smart as him, every pathway leading home would be mined and trapped, with multiple escape routes planned. Neska, he wants you to go after him.”

“A distinct possibility. Ever since Harvine was jumped, no other students attacked. Not even whispers.” It unsettled her that he might have done it to unnerve her, remind her he was still there, waiting in the shadows.

If he’d wanted Harvine dead, he probably could have pulled it off. “What we need is a path he can’t expect. We still haven’t explored the waterways.”

“Well, we know you can swim, but you’ll have to ferry Juni.” The mouse let out an irritated squeak, but otherwise Brent continued. “I mean, yeah? Add a dangerous underground cavern, toss in an underwater excursion on top of it? No one would be that crazy to try that. Well, no one but you.”

Syra grinned. “I’d be able to scout it. There are only so many contingencies he could have in place.”

“Good. Next plan: side paths. We go to the nearest open area and search for other entryways from the city. There are bound to be connecting pathways to this old chapel.”

Neska pondered this one. “Why a chapel, though? Do we know what they worshipped, this old civilization?”

“Unknown. Most of the language is some script language we haven’t fully deciphered, and there are other languages written in moldering texts that no one can read. Not even arcane means of reconstructing the language have gotten us all the way.” Kalloway waved to his wall where scrolls were stored in tubes nearby. “I’ve got a few samples for translation services, but I gave up on them years ago. Academia came to a standstill when the monsters upped their efforts to run us off the face of the planet.”

“What about trying to connect to the portal?” Juni proposed. “Trevor, you seem to know quite a bit about them. Actually, Kasfew does too.”

A soft, clucking chuckle emanated from him as he sat perched on the rafter above them, along with Nori. Neska noted that preference for higher terrain must be instinctive, just like how cats preferred their vantage points. “Kasfew, anything to input?”

“Yeah. Don't bother. You’d first need precise coordinates of the portal. Then a sequencer code. Then, assuming you can do both of those, it’s likely a trap waiting for anyone dumb enough to go that way.”

“I kind of find it funny you want to try yet another close-quarters, underground battle where wings are a hindrance,” Neska commented, raising a brow. “Any particular reason?”

“Yes. Where you go, there’s power and challenges to be had.” He fluttered down, landing with a few orange feathers floating through the air. Neska grabbed one and ran it across her fingers.

Still warm. Maybe if she got enough of them from this bird, she could make an insulated set of gear that would suit her well. “No, you can keep that one,” Kasfew laughed. “Glad you’re fascinated by my presence.”

“I tolerate your presence because Nori is the chill one,” Neska quipped.

“Oh, ho-ho! That was sharper than your fangs, dear!” Nori landed next to her, ruffling Kasfew’s feathers and leaving him looking irritated. The teal-and-blue feathered woman pointed one of her wing claws on her half-hand toward the map. “Why do this the hard way? Why don’t we lure him out?”

“Have you tried getting a snake out of a hole before?” Kalloway grunted. “Easier said than done.”

“I’ll try not to be offended by that,” Neska said, clicking her tongue. “We need to assume there is no ruse he will fall for easily. Think. What would force him out of cover?”

“You, as an easy target?” Nori tapped her beak, frowning as she considered the possibilities. “It’s an idea. I don’t like this idea of going into his home turf and getting ripped up by the hazards of the underground before we even get a chance to take him down.”

Time was not being kind to them. Neska knew that whatever Markus was planning, it would be ruinous to the academy. He had one goal: to ensure the survival of the Awakened, at the detriment of everyone else. That included wiping her out, and it wasn’t a stretch to say he would be a deadly match. That vision and her own experience all assured her that his up-close powers were dangerous.

In addition to his evasion abilities, he had poisons, traps, and lots and lots of daggers, based on what Kalloway and Serkin knew. She couldn’t rule out basic alchemical weaponry, either, and she needed counters to his known means of attack. Given his obvious tier advantage, she doubted she could take him on right now, not when he was no longer showboating and quite capable of brutally killing single targets.

“So it’s settled then: we need to scout out the area to pinpoint his base of operations. But he also has support. Do we assume other students are part of the conspiracy and have access?” Neska asked, gesturing to Serkin.

He shook his head. “He uses others when he needs to. He was almost always self-sufficient to a fault, and using others was more his style.”

A shiver ran down Neska’s tail. She knew that particular aspect of this man far too well. “We still have other means of preparing. Trevor, you’ve been quiet for most of this.”

He straightened and pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “You know, given that we had a whole stack of dead wasp corpses, I made good use of them. And if this son of a bitch thinks we’ll keel over to toxins like he’s likely to employ, he’s got another thing coming. I also may need samples of your venom.”

Neska blinked. “How much, exactly?”

“A lot. The final steps of making us a bit more toxin-proof are going to take some work.” He produced a bottle of water and an empty beaker. “Better get started.”

Syrona let out a trilling wail as the motion disturbed her resting spot on his shoulders, and he got a face full of wings before the small creature grumbled and rested her chin back down on his head. He glanced up, sighing softly. “Sorry, I forgot you were up there. Why are you using me as a perch, though?”

“As compensation for using me as an alchemical donation source,” Neska added with a fanged grin. “Alright. Prep first. Then we need to pitch this plan to Resalio and the others.”

“You know there’s a good chance she says ‘hell, no’ and keeps you from doing it, right?” Juni pointed out.

“Sure. But I’ll tell her it’s either that, or I put myself out in the field to get a few more levels for an evolution.”

Juni bit her snout before nodding. “Yeah, that evolution is a touch closer than I like for myself and Syra. Not everyone is enthused when you go through a radical form change.”