"Other than the sacrifice. The only other ritual I've seen my father perform is the one that summoned the dark crawlers!" Nolruk stated, looking relieved to move on from the former subject.
"The what?" Greg posed, not having any idea what his cousin was referring to by 'dark crawlers'.
'Abyssals,' Greg 'heard' his familiar mutter before producing an annoyed tsk.
'Do you know them?' Greg ignored his cousin's description of gigantic centipede-like creatures and turned his attention to Olivia, knowing that she would be able to give him a more detailed answer.
'Dark crawlers are creatures from the seventh level of the abyssal plane,' The familiar replied. 'Equivalent in strength to a powerful third-tier mage. So long as they are well-fed, they mature within hours of coming into existence. They have a carapace that is almost impenetrable to anything below tier four. Their only weakness is that the carapace doesn't cover every inch of their body. Their underside is nowhere near as sturdy as their shell. That, however, doesn't mean that it's weak. Anything below tier three won't even put a dent in the things. The things have sharp legs that can tear through steel armor like it's rotting wood. Their strength is just obscene. Even if a boulder is big enough for the creatures to only be able to coil around it just once, so long as the tail meets the head, they can summon enough strength to crush the boulder. They have long pincers, large enough to split you in half at the waist, and a tail-end stinger shaped like a curved blade that can both stab and cut. A stab of that stinger would probably go right through both the mana shield and the moonlight silk armor like it was nothing. A swing of that tail blade, with next to no effort, would cut you in twain from your head, down through your chest, and out through your waist between your legs. For creatures as large as they are, they are surprisingly good burrowers. They can move through the ground faster than most people can sprint on the surface,' Olivia gave a summarized rundown of the creature.
'As bad as all that I've just told you sounded, it's nothing compared to its main weapon. The most dangerous of the dark crawler's weapons isn't its monstrous strength, sharp claws, pincers, or stinger, but the black liquid that drips off both its pincers and its stinger. Essence of corruption, it's usually called. It's not exactly a poison, a hallucinogen, or an acid. It can, however, show all three effects depending on how it's used,' She explained. 'The liquid 'corrupts' anything it touches. If it's an inanimate object, it will eat into that object like a strong acid. If it touches living flesh, it turns into a potent poison that is almost impossible to cure. The poison itself won't kill you quickly but you will wish that it did. In fact, I don't think anyone has ever died from being poisoned by a dark crawler. Most of those who are poisoned die within minutes of doing so because they kill themselves. You see, once the liquid comes in contact with living flesh, it causes constant, unrelenting, and excruciating pain. If it were to come into contact with the tip of your finger, then after just fifteen breaths of time, you would cry tears of joy and relief if I were to cut off that finger. That's how bad the pain can be,' Olivia relayed.
'If a dark crawler manages to inject the venom into your brain, then there is nothing that can be done for you other than death,' She declared. 'Not only will your whole body be subjected to a kind of mind-bending pain that you can not even begin to imagine, but all your worst nightmares will be brought to life around you. You'll be dragged into the deepest darkest part of your mind where all the worst things you can imagine are. You'll be forced to live in a warped reality where, you see all the things that you fear, hate, avoid, or are ashamed of the most, for every single moment of the rest of your living life. The worst part is that neither one interferes with the other, the pain won't stop you from hallucinating and the hallucinations won't stop you from feeling the pain,' She explained. The stuff is so bad that in most places it's an illegal substance to have. In the right markets, however, a single vial of it is worth more than your whole town and everyone in it combined,' Olivia explained.
"...it only took the things about three hours to decimate a whole herd of red-horned bisons," Nolruk was continuing when Greg cut in.
"How many?" He asked. "How many dark crawlers did your father summon?" he further clarified.
"Four?" Nolruk replied. "Three are currently with him and the fourth... the fourth..." Nolruk paused twice clearly hesitant to tell where the fourth dark crawler was.
Greg couldn't help the bad feeling that gripped his heart as he remembered the threat that his cousin had made against his family. "Where is the fourth one?" Greg growled, his tone turning glacial.
"The fourth one is deep in the ground, right under your house," Compelled by the confessor's tincture, his cousin was forced to answer the direct question.
Greg could feel his jaws clench tightly, a flame of rage burning within him. An overwhelming desire to run back to town and protect his mother and sister came over him. Greg, however, knew that it would be pointless. Until the root of the problem, which was his uncle, was dealt with, he'd just be playing whack-a-mole with every threat that the man sent his way and that of his family. Besides, it had probably already been there when his cousin came for him. The thing was probably left there as a way to ensure that Greg complied with their wishes. His uncle might die if left alone for two weeks, but clearly, Greg couldn't afford to let the lunatic go on breathing for even another day! "What about spells? What spells have you seen your father cast?" Greg posed, all the more eager to learn all that he could about the man
His cousin took about five minutes to list everything he had seen over the past few weeks. He didn't know the name of any of the spells that he had seen, so he just described their effects. When Greg learned of the scrying that had been done on him, he wasn't sure how to feel. A part of him knew that he couldn't be too hard on himself as he hadn't even been aware that his uncle had magic at the time. Before this interrogation, he'd been under the impression that his uncle was just a mundane human. Another part of him, however, chided him for being naïve and forgetting that he was no longer back on earth. He was now in a world of magic and should have therefore made plans to counter any magical means that might be used against him. To just assume that no magic would be used against him, no matter the circumstances, was just plain stupid. Greg engraved the lesson in himself to always be vigilant against both mundane and magical tactics.
A small part of him wanted to ask Olivia why she hadn't made him aware of this oversight. The familiar, however, had already given him the answer to this just the day prior. Unless his life was in danger through no fault of his own, she wouldn't be babying him. She was content to sit back and watch him stumble and make mistakes so that he could learn from them. Greg could have easily ordered her not to take this approach. The fact that he hadn't however, told him that, on some level, he too could see the wisdom of not being spoon-fed everything.
'What's your assessment?' Greg asked Olivia once his cousin finished listing out all the spells he had seen his father perform.
'He isn't as weak as I'd have liked him to be,' Olivia answered honestly. 'The dark crawlers around him are especially problematic. But as is the case with most summoning mages, the weak link is often the mages themselves. The dark crawlers are flesh summons. Since they came into being through the flesh of the summoner, their existence on this plane is anchored by your uncle. So long as he draws breath, they won't be dispelled as natural summons usually are. However, by the same token, if their anchor to this plane were to die, they would immediately be banished back to the Abyssal realm,' Olivia explained. 'Your uncle, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have powerful spells of his own. This is why I said at the start that his ignorance of magic is already a plus for us. The power and knowledge that he has obtained really shines through when he is given the space and chance to hold a ritual. Otherwise, he seems to only be able to cast the most basic of spells. That means that we have to make the person our main target. If we kill your uncle, then we eliminate all four dark crawlers in one fell swoop,' She relayed.
'We'll split up then,' Greg suggested. 'I can go deal with my uncle while you head back to town and protect my family,' He said. 'Just in case of anything, I can't have anything happening to them,' He declared.
'Aren't you forgetting something?' Olivia countered. 'I am your source of mana,' She reminded him. 'If I were to separate from you, and head back to town, I wouldn't be able to share my mana with you over such a distance. All the magical items on you would be rendered useless,' she informed him. Greg froze as this flaw in his thinking was pointed out to him. Since Olivia had always been with him, it had never crossed his mind to consider whether there were any distance limitations on the bond between them. Before he could get lost in his thoughts, Olivia presented him with a solution. 'Luckily for you, however, we don't have to pick between the two options,' The familiar relayed piquing Greg's interest.
