FB: Chapter 99 – Groveling Before The Imperial Court

I entered the Imperial Court. “Announcing the supplicant Viscountess Foxy Blight,” the herald called out. I made my way before the Tri-Crystal Throne and kneeled in front of the empty chair on top of the large, tiered dais. Prime Minister Verus stood to the side. I had sent message of my arrival and quest completion ahead of time, asking for a time slot before the Imperial Court.

Prime Minister Verus had given me this time slot to appear. “You have come before the Tri-Crystal Throne to account for your misdeeds. His Imperial Majesty saw fit to give you a quest to permanently kill the Unmentionable Horror for the crime of breaking Imperial Edicts regarding the movement of large amounts of money and supplies to forces hostile to the Human Empire. State the progress of the quest and present your evidence,” the Prime Minister declared.

Just as I opened my mouth, I quickly snapped it shut as the herald spoke up once more. “All rise and pay homage to Emperor Catan Shadam Ixxion the Twelfth, Supreme Ruler of the Human Empire, Duke of the Imperial Capital, Protector of the Realm, and Divine Saint of the Trinity!”

I stood up and then quickly kneeled once more without hesitation. I also brought out the Crystal Capture Phial and held it up above my head towards the Tri-Crystal Throne in the palm of my hands. “All may rise. Except for the supplicant. You can stay kneeling.”

I felt the phial leave my hand and heard it flying up towards the Tri-Crystal Throne. “You truly did complete the quest. While you had help, there was no prohibition against such a thing. I am impressed Viscountess Foxy Blight. You may rise and once again join the ranks of nobility of the Imperial Court with your honor and name restored.”

I stood up to a round of applause from the rest of the nobles. I didn’t let myself relax just yet. This was the Human Emperor, and he liked to twist the metaphorical knives he had as deeply as possible.

“Your humble servant thanks you for allowing me this opportunity to complete a quest to restore my name. I will endeavor to remain an upstanding citizen and noble of the Human Empire along with my followers,” I declared.

“Indeed. The Prime Minister thought you would fail, but I always believed in you,” the Human Emperor said behind the veil that covered his visage on the Tri-Crystal Throne. Even then, I made sure to stare at his feet.

“Indeed, your divine Majesty. I am quite glad to be proven wrong,” the Prime Minister shamelessly declared. There were some chuckles from the surrounding nobility, since they all knew that the Human Emperor was just saying nonsense. He would never believe in anyone but himself and would never consult the Prime Minster over anything except telling him what to do.

“The mobilization of her guild is in good standing?” the Human Emperor asked.

“Yes, your divine Majesty. I have checked their war merits, they have been keeping up with their requirements,” Prime Minister Verus replied. I could tell the Human Emperor was looking for any cracks he could exploit. I was really hoping he didn’t find any.

“Perhaps another quest. For having completed the last one so valiantly, let us motivate Viscountess Foxy Blight in completion of another. State the reward you would want, and I will give you an appropriate quest,” the Human Emperor said. No! Why?! There was no way I could refuse a direct order either. While it was tempting to ask for an amazing set of armor, I knew he would scale the quest difficulty up as much as possible to whatever item I chose.

“I would request permission to purchase items from your personal vault, your divine Majesty,” I replied before I took too long to think on his demand for a reward suggestion and he came up with his own.

“Oh, how interesting. That is indeed a grand request. I don’t like handing my collection out, even for large sums of platinum. But I did offer to give you a quest and a reward of your choosing. I will just have to select a quest equal to the value of what you requested.” More like ten times the value of what you requested, but since there would be no time limit, I wasn’t worried. Even if the quest languished as long as I didn’t get in trouble again he couldn’t demand an immediate completion. But that was the real trick. The moment I got into any kind of legal trouble, the quest would have a time limit imposed on it. Like the sword of Damocles hanging over my head, ready to fall at any moment.

“Retrieve the Anvil of the Hellforge and present it to me before the Imperial Court,” the Human Emperor said. I had no idea what that was or the difficulty, but I had no doubt it would be impossibly hard. You don’t call a place the Hellforge if it was a nice and happy place you could trade with. My first time around there were rumors of a Hell location since there was a prison area called the Hell Pit for players level 111 and higher.

“I accept the quest your Imperial Majesty and thank you for this opportunity,” I replied while deeply bowing.

“You can handle the rest of the supplicants,” the Human Emperor stood up. I quickly knelt along with everyone else.

“All rise and pay homage to Emperor Catan Shadam Ixxion the Twelfth, Supreme Ruler of the Human Empire, Duke of the Imperial Capital, Protector of the Realm, and Divine Saint of the Trinity!” Once the Human Emperor had left the Prime Minister dismissed me from the Imperial Court. I did note that there were three players present at the rear of the courtiers. The other guilds were moving people in to monitor the court. It was time we did the same, even if it was an incredibly risky position. That was why my super guild had rotated people in attending the Imperial Court as proxies for their nobles. It wasn’t just the Human Emperor, but the schemes of the nobles one had to watch out for. There wasn’t a more well dressed hive of scum and villainy out there. Rotating people was meant to make it impossible to fall for schemes and ensuring information got back without being distorted. It was also a job role that was incredibly difficult to fill, since the risks were insanely high, the longer one remained in the Imperial Court.

The first stop I made after descending from the Imperial Palace in the sky was to go to an information broker and throw 100 platinum at them for information on the Anvil of the Hellforge.

“This is all we have available,” the information broker said while setting down a small collection of paper in front of me.

Hell was a separate area one could make a portal too. The demons were enemies of all the gods, including the dark gods. There had been ancient battles long before the Human Empire and the Trinity had come together where the demons had been banished. They were confined to Hell and their level started at level 400. The top demons were rumored to be above level 600, a match for the Human Emperor himself.

The Hell Pit was a one way portal that high level prisoners were tossed into. They had a small safe area and there was no good way to escape except past all the demons guarding the other portals of Hell. It was basically inescapable unless you got outside help.

The permanent portals were all in very hard to access locations a long distance from the Human Empire, with most of them located on islands in the Infinite Ocean that surrounded the continent of the Human Empire.

The continent was a crescent shape facing West or left if looked at from above. A reverse letter ‘C’. The Capital was closer to the West and the large bay that was located there. The North, East, and South were controlled by the forces of the dark gods. Beyond that were the various islands that had portals to Hell and other high-level areas or dimensions for endless end game content.

If the creatures from those dimensions entered the continent they got a massive debuff, since all the gods were against them. A form of divine protection for everyone located here. It was the only thing all the gods agreed on. They didn’t want others interfering with what they had going on.

The Hellforge was the central forge for weapon and equipment manufacturing for the demons and the Anvil of the Hellforge was supposedly enchanted to passively boost forging attempts and all items made using it. Stealing it was like trying to steal the Tri-Crystal throne out of the Imperial Palace floating in the air in the middle of the Imperial Capital protected by loads of high level NPCs. If the Human Emperor or the Hellsmith was present, you could kiss your ass goodbye.

The only estimate on the levels of the demons around the forge and in the forge was high, most likely over level 600. That was stupidly high. Clearly the Human Emperor never expected me to complete the quest. I had struggled against one boss monster which was level 400. That much of a level difference would be a nightmare.

Demons had maxed out resistances at 70%, incredibly high stats, powerful skills, and had combat intelligence greater than the Unmentionable Horror. The fact it didn’t use Vomitatis after the first time it hit me showed that it understood that the skill wouldn’t work against me. It was better to use melee attacks while using Death Beam to pin me in place once it had used up its super attacks or they had been countered. But it was a shambling horror, not skilled in weapons or knowing how to tactically retreat or attack my support like the demons would.

Hell itself handed out constant debuffs for anyone going there. It was clearly meant to be a very hard end game area, where you would need an elite team just to survive. I also didn’t doubt that the Anvil would be impossibly heavy and couldn’t be stored in one’s inventory, since that would be too easy. In fact it was probably molded into the floor itself with flows of magma integrated into it. There were probably support quests needed to remove it. Once it was removed, the entire place would probably descend into a molten pit while high level demons converged on the area.

While that information wasn’t included, it was easy enough to guess that something like that would occur. This was a stupidly impossible quest by the Human Emperor. It wasn’t meant to be completed. It was meant to punish me going forward. Any request made before the Imperial Court would have him raise this issue. A perfect example would be a Guild Sanction which was needed to have over a million members.

Any screw ups would see this being the assigned quest for me to complete on a deadline. I didn’t have a hope of completing it. Even if I prepared, I would need to be at least level 300 with maxed out skill slots and a really good set of armor before even considering this quest, let alone completing it. For now, it would be shelved, and I wouldn’t worry about it.