Journey of an Armaneran, Part II

Milsman Road, and finding yourself almost dead in 300 ways per hour

Written by SoleilArya

"For fuck's sake... For fuck's sake, I hate this fucking place!"
Val Mortan had gone to many places, all more dangerous than the previous one, but he never liked to travel the Milsman Road. As beautiful and eerie as it looked, it was very probably one of the most dangerous places you could ever travel on in all of Amaanturis, and possibly outside. The closest place to The Chaos in the Arcanic Matrix, it seeped in all the time, and it wasn't rare to find Demons on the way. And that was exactly what happened. Looking at him from a dozen of feet in front was a denizen of the Chaos, ready to shove his fangs in the adventurer's throat. Val had fought many of them, but never without risk, and he knew he couldn't pull the element of surprise on them.

Demons

Not as humanoid-looking as their Greater Demons superiors, Demons are nontheless a force to be reckoned with. Stronger physically than most humans, extremely sensitive to Arcane Energies, they make both dangerous sorcerers and frightful opponent even for veterans. It's rare to see theem roam out of the Chaos, but on places where the Arcane Matrix is thin enough to create an aspiration tunnel from it to Amaanturis, they tend to escape and cause issues, generally needing the intervention of a whole platoon of trainer elites.

Arcanic Seepages

An absolutely terrifying and not-so-uncommon occurence, Arcanic Seepages happen in places where the Arcanic Matrix is thin enough for Chaotic and Arcanic energies to exchange through the porous veil of the Cosmic Reality, creating huge aspiration tunnels sucking in everything from Amaanturis into the Chaos (generally to feed its inhabitants).

Pulling out his weapon, he prepared to fight, but strangely enough, the Demon didn't seem to be preoccupied. Val knew that Demons acted individually, and had entire subcultures, servants of Ramatha, Herald of Chaos being generally more interested in exploration and learning, but the silver armor of his opponent indicated clearly his service to Kratz, Warmaster of Chaos, and his appartenance to a warlike and aggressive culture. As he was trying to gauge his enemy's intentions, a glint of chaotic energy breached his vision, and he immediately groaned in frustration. An Arcanic Seepage at this moment was quite inconvenient, even if his goal was to enter the Chaos, and judging from his amused smirk, the Demon had predicted this.

"That's right, keep laughing, you asshole. I don't fear your kind, and I don't fear the Chaos."
Despite his bravado, he wasn't entirely confident about surviving the Chaos another time, but between his adventuring spirit and the necessity of the situation, he didn't have much of a choice. The energy pulling at him was too strong to resist, and he let his body be sucked in through the tunnel, hoping to any Divine that would hear him that he'd land not too far from the subdomain of Dalmenaa, the only Greater Demon he knew for a fact he could bargain with. He closed his eyes, waiting for the journey to end, and sighed.
"I hate this fucking road."

The Chaos

An everchanging domain of constant entropy, the Chaos is the deepest of the planes of the Cosmic Reality, and the furthest to the Immaterial Eternity. Domain of the Lords of Chaos and their Demons servants, it is as fascinating as it is terrifying, and most humans that risked to travel there came back changed, and understood the reality no church wanted to tell: Demons were not a monolithic, evil race, but a myriad of different cultures and ethnicities, focused on survival and looking to bring peace to the world, in a way no human could ever understand.