The Primal Hunter

“Now, where did you hear of the Secret Scrolls?” the Prime Consort asked with a raised eyebrow. She did not use her lie-detection skill, though.

“Eh… somewhere, I think?” Jake said, a bit slurred. “People are all secretive about them…”

“They are called Secret Scrolls,” the Prime Consort giggled.

“Yeah, but, like… what are they? Who even decided they are secret?”

The Prime Consort seemed to consider for a moment and had a moment of sobriety as she asked while using her lie-detection skill. “Let’s say the Secret Scrolls were potentially capable of weakening the Demon Lord… would you use them if given the chance? Or allow others to use them?”

“Heh,” Jake laughed. “Why would I ever want the Demon Lord to be weaker? The stronger he is, the better! Shit, if these super Secret Scrolls could make the Demon Lord stronger, it would be awesome!”

And those were 100% his genuine thoughts. Something the Prime Consort clearly noticed as she snuggled up to him and whispered in his ear.

“Wanna see one?”

Jake raised an eyebrow. “Really? You know where they are?”

“Oh, course I do, silly… I helped make them,” the Prime Consort smiled.

“How can I possibly not look forward to seeing something like that?” Jake smiled.

“If I show you, perhaps you can show me something of yours after?” she said, looking down.

“That could certainly be arranged,” Jake smiled.

“In that case, you just wait right here,” the Prime Consort said as she stood up.

Jake smiled after her as she went out of the room. The second she closed the door, Jake’s smile disappeared, and he looked at the wine glass she had left on the table. After not even a moment of hesitation, he activated his stealth skill and the enchantment on his cloak as he touched the wine glass, and his hand began glowing dark green. Touch of the Malefic Viper was on full power as he amplified the level of toxicity – alcohol potency - within the wine. After only a brief second, Jake also began doing the same to his own glass to make sure they at least had the same level of energy within them.

He kept track of the Prime Consort as he did this using his Sphere of Perception and even sent out a few Pulses. The alcohol level within the two glasses quickly increased as he amplified it using Touch. While he had confidence in resisting any effects, he doubted the Prime Consort could as she was already getting tipsy.

Also… yes, the messed up implications of what he was doing weren’t lost on him, but to be fair, she was the one who wanted to get him drunk first. Only a few minutes after she had left, the Prime Consort was returning, having gone to the underground pentagram cellar to fetch the Secret Scroll. When he saw her returning, Jake quickly stopped using his stealth skill and deactivated the cloak as he leaned back and just lay on the floor with a pillow under his head and eyes closed. He had to sell being plenty drunk, after all.

The Prime Consort entered the room soon after and saw him relax. She flashed a slightly sinister smile for a second before quickly returning to her usual demeanor. Seeing that brief smile flashing across her face instantly made Jake aware he wasn’t the one with ulterior motives. And no, he was not talking about only trying to get the other person blackout drunk and into bed. He had a feeling she wanted something else.

“Already asleep?” she asked, walking toward him.

Jake quickly sat back up and momentarily seemed disoriented. “Oh, no, I was just resting my eyes.”

“Sure,” she smiled as she showed off the scrolls in her hands. Or, well, the metal tube with a scroll sealed within. Looking at it, Jake could instantly tell opening the tube wouldn’t be easy. It looked to have some kind of locking mechanism.

“Is that the Boring Scroll?” Jake grinned, trying to act the fool.

“It is indeed,” she answered as she infused some energy into the metal tube as seven magical circles appeared across it. The Prime Consort infused energy into each of them in a set pattern, and they all changed as the end of the tube opened up.

Seems easy enough, Jake thought, seeing how to open it. Perception came in tight once more, allowing him to see everything that was going on with just one glance.

Out of the tube, the Prime Consort took a scroll that looked to be made out of old golden parchment. Jake stared at it for a bit. “Looks boring too…”

“Oh, but it is just the opposite,” the Prime Consort said as she sat down beside him. “Do you know what these Secret Scrolls really are?”

The lie detection skill was activated once more.

“Not really,” Jake said, shrugging.

Seeing him once more be truthful, she gladly explained.

“The Demon Lord was already powerful the moment he was summoned, but he was far from invincible as he still had to grow. We constructed what is now the Demon Lord’s castle to nurture the Demon Lord and created artifacts to make him powerful enough to battle the entire kingdom… and it worked,” she said proudly as she held up the scroll.

“And this… this is one of the control scrolls for the artifacts. This one controls the Heart of the Demon Lord, an incredibly powerful fire affinity natural treasure that bathes his throne room in flames and allows the Demon Lord to grow far more powerful than he initially was in a short amount of time. After his return, he is once more bathing in the accumulated energy that has gathered during his sealing.”

“Wow,” Jake said, amazed. It sounded like that artifact would add a domain of sorts that helped the Demon Lord. “What about the four other artifacts?”

“Four?” she giggled. “There are only two more… well, three if we count the Sword of the Demon Lord, but that never had a Secret Scroll. No, the two others are the Armor of the Demon Lord and, finally, the Crown of the Demon Lord. Two artifacts that have also only grown more powerful in his absence.”

“Those all sound amazing,” Jake kept up the act. “The Demon Lord must be so much more powerful now…”

“Yes… indeed,” the Prime Consort said as she had a slight change in expression. “Now… I believe you had something you promised to show me too?”

She leaned on him and pushed him onto the floor. He momentarily panicked, but then he saw she had done it to obscure his vision of the two wine glasses. With a hand behind her back, she summoned a small pill from her spatial storage and put it into Jake’s wine glass using telekinesis. Sense of the Malefic Viper went kind of wild feeling that pill… making him aware it was quite the potent poison. A neurotoxin, as far as he could tell.

“Oh, goodness, I almost lost myself there,” she smiled flirtatiously as she looked down at Jake.

Jake smiled in return as she backed off, sitting up again with her. “I wasn’t complaining.”

“We have all day and night,” she winked at him as she picked up his wine glass and handed it to him, the pill entirely dissolved within. Picking up her own glass, she looked him in the eyes.

Lifting the glass, Jake smiled goofily. “Cheers!”

She followed suit as they both downed the wine glasses. Jake saw her wince slightly as she drank it, but she didn’t spit it out or anything.

Jake also didn’t show anything despite feeling a powerful toxin begin spreading through his system. It had merged with the alcohol and was quite a high-level toxin at that. It was clearly made to be hidden, and if someone already had a lot of alcohol in their system, it would bind to that, effectively making it undetectable and more potent than usual. Sadly for her, Jake did not have a lot of alcohol, and even if he did…

Well, it had just entered the body of the Chosen of the Malefic Viper. He quickly analyzed it and had it under control within seconds, but he didn’t dispel it; he just controlled the majority of it, as he allowed some to spread through his system.

As he felt it spread more, he began to purposefully slouch even more as he muttered. “Man, that one hit hard… my arms and legs are tingling.”

It was effectively a paralysis poison he had been fed. One that would work fast and make him completely unable to move while not shutting down his mind and usual bodily functions. It more or less made all voluntary movement impossible.

The Prime Consort smiled. “There is one thing I didn’t quite share before… while these artifacts have strengthened, this empowerment is not active. You see, in the absence of the Demon Lord, a lot of things changed. While we do need a protector… the Demon Lord can no longer be controlled like before. He was sealed, yes, and while it made him weaker, it also gave him time to develop… let’s just call it independence.”

“Wha are yo…” Jake said, his mouth hanging a bit as he allowed the paralysis poison to partly affect him.

“That means he is not quite as… required as before. No, we need a new Demon Lord. A better one,” the Prime Consort said, smiling deeply as she stood up, a bit unsteady on her feet. “You see, my specialty was never just summoning rituals. It was demonification rituals. But to do that, I need a good base. Rejoice, for I shall give you the chance to be reborn more powerful than ever. Do not worry; I shall allow you to retain as much of what makes you, you as I possibly can. We wouldn’t want to risk the improved you not having that Bloodline, now do we?”

“I...” he tried as the poison spread more in his system.

“Shush, do not overexert yourself. This is a good thing,” she said, sitting down beside him and laying a hand on his chest. “You shall become the new Demon Lord… the new master of this entire domain. Of course, we will need to get rid of the old Demon Lord for that, but as I said, I made these Secret Scrolls. While the artifacts can indeed help empower the Demon Lord, they can also do just the opposite. The Secret Scrolls do not only contain the method to empower but also a way to weaken, if not outright kill him.”

Jake just lay on the floor, unmoving, acting utterly paralyzed. He glared up at her with angry eyes, only making her smile more as she leaned in and kissed his forehead.

“Do not be angry. Once you are reborn, we will have plenty of time together, just you and I.”

He didn’t stop glaring at her.

The Prime Consort kept smiling before getting off him. After that brief movement, she held her head before shaking it. “That wine was a bit stronger than I thought it would be…”

She tried to stand up once more but briefly lost her footing. The Prime Consort managed to stabilize herself. Having turned her back, Jake now had the opportunity. His hand began to glow dark green as he amplified the alcohol within her body even more than before, as it now counted as “his” poison.

The Prime Consort kept trying to walk but soon wobbled and nearly fell. “Goodness…” she said before giggling.

Trying to stand up, she fell on the floor again. She tried two more times before giving up. Instead, she did a silly roll as she went back to Jake and leaned on him. “Heh… I guess we got time… all day… night… and…”

Jake was almost expecting a notification from killing her with alcohol poisoning, but she had only passed out. Breathing out in relief, Jake stood up and stretched as he contacted the group using his golden mark, not bothering to act paralyzed anymore.

“So… I have one Secret Scroll from the Prime Consort, but I did not get any information out of her regarding the location of the lost one… though I did learn something interesting,” Jake shared as he began to tell all the information the Prime Consort had given about the artifacts.

“A way to make the final encounter either easier or harder unlocked from gathering the Secret Scrolls? That does seem to track with prior floors,” the Sword Saint answered. He was polite enough to not ask for any details about how Jake had gotten this information.

“What are the chances you can make the Prime Consort tell you about the location of the final Secret Scroll? Or did you manage to turn her into an enemy?” the Fallen King asked.

Looking at her snuggling up to him on the floor, Jake wasn’t quite sure how to answer that. In the end, he just had to share the situation he found himself in.

“Well…”

After he was done explaining, he expected the Sword Saint or the King to make fun of him, but it ended up being Dina, who spoke first.

“That makes no sense… a Demon Lord cannot be born from a single sacrifice, much less will it ever retain the Bloodline or any part of the personality of the sacrificed person. At most, she should be able to do a demonification ritual that will turn you part-demon, but even that would require your enthusiastic consent…” Dina said, poking holes in the entire narrative.

Now, Jake could choose to make fun of Minaga for not knowing how stuff worked, but he imagined there was a better chance the Prime Consort was just wrong or had purposefully lied to him. However, with that being the case, what would have happened if Jake had indeed been paralyzed? He asked their resident expert.

“Well…” Dina muttered. “You would just die, probably. No, definitely.”

“So, either she is a misinformed idiot who doesn’t know how the ritual actually works, or she is maliciously intending to kill me through a demonic ritual?” Jake summarized it. “Well, this is officially the worst date I have ever been on.”

“You got the Secret Scroll from her, and you also learned to unlock the containers they were in. That is an acceptable level of success for a date,” the Fallen King said. “The scroll possessed by the Guard Captain is also in a similar container, so just give me the go-ahead when it is time to retrieve it. However, we still have to find the final scroll.”

Jake looked at the scroll that was still in the room and picked it up along with the container. He lifted it up to his nose and took a whiff as he analyzed it. Feeling the energy from the container, he detected a very distinct signature. Activating his tracking, he felt for a similar signature in the Prime Consort’s residence but felt nothing.

“Do we have any idea at all where it might be? If I am inside the same room as the container, I am fairly confident I can find it,” Jake shared.

“None of the Mistresses I spoke with have it, so I would guess it is within the main room,” the Sword Saint said.

“Alright,” Jake said. “Say, any idea what I should do with the Prime Consort?”

“Bring her to the residence of the Second Mistress,” the Sword Saint answered. “We are here, and she wants revenge, correct? At the very least, we can allow her to have the kill, which I believe could give us an achievement.”

“Good thinking,” Jake said. Now he just had to figure out how to smuggle her out of the room and back to the Second Mistress. Ultimately, he took off his cloak, put the half-demon lady into it, and swung it over his back in the most cliché kidnapping imaginable.

He thought it would be hard to sneak out, but once more, it came in tight that they had integrated themselves with all of the factions on the floor. The Fallen King diverted nearly all the patrolling guards to another area, and the Sword Saint convinced two Mistresses to go and “visit” the Prime Consort, allowing Jake to quite easily get out and back to the residence of the Second Mistress.

The guards at her residence were in full NPC mode and didn’t even question Jake as they let him in.

Right inside, Jake saw that all the guards had been dismissed. His entire party, save for the Fallen King, stood just inside, along with seven women – all of the Mistresses beside the two who went to the Prime Consort. Upon entering, all eyes landed on him.

“Did he truly?”

“How…”

“Truly a master,” the Second Mistress said as all the other Mistresses were also admiring Jake’s accomplishment as he dumped the unconscious Prime Consort on the ground. He had made sure the level of alcohol in her body had stayed stable as it could by using Touch on his way there.

Jake nodded and wanted to question why all the Mistresses had gathered, but before that, he had just one tiny question as he looked at the Second Mistress. “Say, how come you have a Secret Scroll hidden in a secret cabinet within your house?”