Reborn as the First Boss, Chapter 55

Chapter 55 – Rest, and Reading

The boss of the seventh floor Treasure Room, Da Big Guy, had been an ogre zombie that looked ugly as sin and smelled worse. He was also a level 21 Barbarian / Thug, when he was supposed to be a level 16 Barbarian. The club he carried was more like a small tree. As was his other ‘club’ which, despite him being dead, still reacted to my [Cursed Bracers of Ogre Strength]. Fortunately, he was too busy chasing me to react to anyone trying to kill him, so he fell in short order, giving us some decent loot, and 5000 XP.

Demontouched Bracers of Ogre’s Might

Type

Arms

Rank

Rare

Price

25000 gp

Weight

0.5 kg

These well-made leather bracers are enchanted to give the wearer great strength, like the brutish ogres they’re named after, but without the smell. However, Demon’s Blood was used in the tanning process for this item, tainting it in the eyes of some, empowering it for others.

+30 STR

Demonic Fortitude – Add (CON/2) to the wearer’s STR, but they take a 20% penalty to resist all spells cast by demons, and this item is treated as cursed, preventing the wearer from removing it. If the wearer has demonic blood in their veins, add (CON/2) to STR, and add the wearer’s STR when calculating HP. Wearers with demonic blood take no penalty to resist spells cast by demons, and the item is not cursed for them.

Fortunately, one of the items that Da Big Guy dropped was a nice upgrade for me. A straight upgrade, since I definitely had demon blood in me, meaning I added 50 points to my STR, and then added all 256 of that to the calculations for my HP, which more than doubled my max HP.

The undead ogre being stronger than he was supposed to be was another sign that someone had meddled with the dungeon, but that item gave a bit of a clue as to who it might have been. I knew from Mhyrsha’s memories that I was not the only demon who had infiltrated the different lands. It probably wasn’t a surprise that the cause of the problems here was another demon.

Still, we needed to get through the dungeon before we could deal with that, one way or another. For now, we needed to rest. Fortunately, the [Spiritual Retreat] made that a possibility. Though we did wait until we weren’t in the Treasure Room to use it. No one wanted to step out of their ‘tent’ to have an undead ogre smashing their face in.

To activate the pocket dimension, I set the circular token on the ground, and said the command phrase, locking it in place and turning it invisible. A spectral ‘tag’ appeared just above the disk, one that only I could see or touch. I drew the tag up, like unzipping the flap of a tent, stopping once I had gotten a few inches over my head. In front of us, a portal opened.

Once we were all inside the [Spiritual Retreat], I drew the tag back to the ground, closing the portal. Looking around, I saw that the interior was a well-appointed home. We were standing in a living room, with chairs by a fire, and a quick exploration revealed not just a dining room, kitchen, and a luxurious bedroom with a bed that could easily fit all five of us, but there was a BATH, also large enough for us to go in together! Not just that, but working toilets!

I never realized just how important some of the little things were to enjoying life until I found myself in this world. Sure, as Baroness I had a bath in my manor, but I’d been so busy lately I hadn’t been able to properly enjoy it. And we certainly hadn’t been able to find a decent bath on the road (sitting in a wooden bucket and pouring water over your head didn’t count!), so that was something that all the women in our group were happy for.

I had to explain to everyone how the toilet worked, though. This world just didn’t have the plumbing to handle flush toilets. At least, not out in our neck of the woods. I didn’t know how they dealt with waste in my manor, and I didn’t want to know. I especially didn’t want to know how they handled it for the barony at large.

Once we’d all eaten, bathed, and refreshed ourselves, I took some time to skim through the entries in the [Sacraments of the Dark Night] grimoire, without absorbing them. The ‘Arcana’ part of [Arcane Ritualist] let me get the general idea of what the different spells or rituals would do. That way, I could pick what I wanted to use, what I wanted to keep locked away, and what might be cast aside. After all, if there was a ritual that destroyed demons in there, I didn’t want it getting out into the world.

Communion of Tongues was simple enough. Absorbing that entry would give one the [Tongues] spell, if they had [Divination Magic], and the [All-speaker’s Rite] ritual, if they did not. The ritual was a bit more complex, and involved eating a freshly plucked human tongue, but permanently allowed you to speak, read, and write any language, while the spell reserved MP while it was active, but otherwise was just a normal spell. On the other hand, you could learn languages the normal way, use items to understand foreign speech, or find a scribe who could create a [Language Scroll] for you, allowing you to instantly learn a language, if they knew it already. So, nice, but not spectacular.

Abjuration of Omens taught a ritual of the same name, which basically made one invisible to divination magic. Useful for most people. However, as a noblewoman, being completely unable to see me in divinations would stoke more fires than it might avoid. Not something that I could really use.

The Ghostly Evocation of Forbidden Chains taught you the spell [Soulchain], which was used to bind incorporeal undead, or keep an individual’s soul from passing on when they died. Supposedly, that would allow someone with the right skills to then use the trapped undead or soul for other things. However, [Soulchain] was only available to people who had classes like Necromancer, so that chapter was useless for me.

Next was the Inverted Working of the Bloodstained Pits chapter. This was an interesting one. Basically, if you conducted this ritual, the more health you lost, the more potent your damage was, whether with weapons or spells. Literally, you took the difference between your maximum HP and your minimum HP, and added that to the damage of every weapon or spell attack. For someone with a lot of HP and fast attacks, that could get very nasty, very quickly.

But it wasn’t something I wanted for me, or mine. For one thing, it relied heavily on people taking a lot of damage to power it up. Adding on to that, it played a little too fast and loose with one’s life for my liking. Unless they had something to help keep them from dying, then if the damage they took outpaced what their healer’s spells, or if they got a nasty critical hit at the wrong time, then they’d be dead. I’m sure there were people who would love it, if I sold this grimoire, though.

So far, the grimoire hadn’t exactly been knocking it out of the park. Fortunately, the next chapter, Golden Ritual of the Spirit, looked promising. The [Soul-Gilding Ritual] it taught basically allowed one to hybridize the person it was cast upon, adding Celestial traits to their base race. So, if I used it on myself, I would basically become a hybrid of Greater Succubus and some type of angel, which would almost certainly give me some interesting options when I rose to the next Tier. I’m sure there was some sort of catch, but I wouldn’t know what it was unless I absorbed the knowledge.

The Souls’ Invocation of Torture was out. Period. Basically, you had to round up a bunch of people, and torture them to death as part of the ritual, which basically bottled up all those souls’ torment, and turned it into a power source. You could use it to enchant an item, or you could turn all the pain they suffered upon an enemy, all at once. Frankly, both options would be WILDLY incompatible with my Baroness persona. And, frankly, there were better ways to get at someone than torturing a hundred people just so you could use their pain as a weapon.

Now, the Dreaming Lady’s Enchantment of Damnation was interesting. For anyone with the [Enchantment Magic] skill, it taught them [Dreams of Corruption]. Basically, it was a curse that caused the victim to dream about a life of corruption, chosen by the caster, designed to haunt them until they either went mad, or gave in, becoming the person they were in their dreams. I was definitely taking this one.

Lady’s Transfiguration of the Ghostly Sword was a very fancy way of saying that the next chapter taught the [Ghost Touch Weapon] ritual. You needed some essence from incorporeal undead as a reagent, but we had plenty of that from our time in the dungeon so far. In return, you made a weapon able to strike incorporeal undead without issue. It even applied that ability to ammunition, in the case of ranged weapons. The flip side was that incorporeal undead could wield the weapon just fine, as well, which could be a problem if you were disarmed. Still, could be useful.

Incantation of Annihilation was scary. If I absorbed it, the [Annihilation] spell would go into my Spellshooter spells, and, basically, was a pocket nuke. If I was reading this correctly, I could basically dump all of my MP into a single attack, dealing damage equal to (MP Spent x INT x WIS x CHA) split evenly amongst everything in a (MP Spent/10) meter radius. Plus all of the bonuses from my skills, items, and blessings that might apply.

Quick ‘back of the napkin’ math said that, if I dumped all my MP into that spell, minus what I typically kept reserved for the protections on myself and my pets, I would be doing just short of 289 BILLION damage, split evenly between everyone and everything in an almost 2.8 kilometer radius from the target point. Problem was, you needed line of sight to your target. Which meant that, functionally, there was no way you were getting out of the blast radius. Any thought of selling the grimoire disappeared then and there.

After downing a strong drink to calm my nerves, I looked at the final chapter in the grimoire. The Lady’s Forbidden Sacrament of Beastly Power was interesting. Basically, the [Ritual of the Beast] it taught gave the user a version of the [Wild Shape] ability that Druids had. The only thing was that, in order to change into a creature, the user first had to be mounted by that creature. In other words, if I wanted to turn into a wolf, I needed a wolf to take me doggy style.

Normally, the idea of getting railed by a beast would have disgusted me. The idea was taboo for a reason, after all. However, even though I knew that, in my head, I instead found the prospect enticing. Except, it wasn’t really me thinking that, was it? The ‘curse of the monster fucker’ on my [Succubus’s Cursed Circlet of Brilliance] overwrote any objections I might normally have to something like that. I knew it was messing with my head, but the curse wouldn’t let me care about that. A delightfully subtle piece of work. I’d have to remember this, if I ever got to the point where I could design my own spells.

Looking back over the grimoire, I decided right away to absorb the Communion of Tongues, Golden Ritual of the Spirit, Dreaming Lady’s Enchantment of Damnation, Lady’s Transfiguration of the Ghostly Sword, and Lady’s Forbidden Sacrament of Beastly Power chapters. I wasn’t sure how useful any of those spells and rituals would be, but more bullets in the magazine were always better than less. I was about to put the book back in my inventory, when I stopped, and turned to the Incantation of Annihilation chapter once more. I could always just… not use the spell. I’d have it if I ever needed it, and no one else would be able to get it. Then I could sell the grimoire and let someone else consider using the rest of the chapters. I absorbed the chapter before I had time to talk myself out of it.

A touch on my shoulder brought me out of my thoughts. Looking up, I saw Linette standing there, my other pets gathered around her. The maid smiled at me, and said, “Mistress, we have prepared the bath for you.”

“Thank you, Linette,” I smiled back, pushing myself to my feet. “All right, let’s all go in together, and enjoy ourselves before enjoying ourselves in bed. Sorry, Astruth, but you’ll have to put up with bathing with all us girls.”

“Oh, no, having to get naked with a bunch of beautiful women,” he said, his voice dripping sarcasm. “How ever will I survive?”

I laughed at the perfectly delivered line, and said, “Well, girls, I guess we’re just going to have to make it hard for him. Repeatedly. Until we’re all satisfied. With his washing, of course.”

“Of course, Mistress,” Angelina giggled.