oisinmuldowney

Demon Lord Azanth was one of the greatest demons of the planes of wickedness. Liam Nowak is just your average first year student mage. Azanth is evil. Liam is good. An unlikely partnership comes about when Azanth's enemies overthrow him and force him into the weakest, most flimsy and impossible-to-comeback form they can think of on the Plane of Life: a crisp (also known as a potato chip).

Like Mephistopheles and Faust, the Master and Marguerite, Bert and Ernie, one can't help being evil and the other... wavers.

For Lord Azanth, his journey towards revenge is complicated by a growing awareness that beyond good and evil is primordial chaos, long thought to have been subdued, but which is making an accelerating return.

From being a 5-star, prismatic ranked, level-100 anti-tank mage, the demon's character sheet now reads:

Demon Lord Azanth   Level 0 Crisp (Prawn Cocktail flavour)

 Rank 0   Evolution 0

 Cast down from the Seventh Plane of Wickedness, this arch-evil demon lord was reincarnated on the Plane of Life as a prawn cocktail crisp. Surviving only for revenge upon those other demons who betrayed him to a paladin, Lord Azanth nurtures nothing but hate in his brittle potato heart.

Health 1

Strength 0

Agility 0

Intelligence 7

Physical Attack 0

Magical Attack 0

Armour 0

Magical Defence 0

 

Equipped Slots: Perimeter (empty), torso (empty)

Spirit Stones 0/100

Rank quests 0/20

 

Skills

Choose one from: assess magic; create scent; disguise; fast reflexes; heal fracture; invisibility; levitate; poison cloud; slice; stealth; summon small animal; and telepathy.

Summoned! To a Prawn Cocktail Crisp

On his third battle, with a Giant Beetle, Aengus took a hit: a snap of a claw ripped his through his hoodie and into his ribs. Blood poured out of him and his Hit Points dropped by half. Almost at once the scent of prawn cocktail crisp was everywhere. Lord Azanth must have used his new skill. The beetle paused, clearly stunned, and a moment later it was dead to Liam's Magic Missile.

'You okay?' Liam hurried over to his brother.

'Fine.' Aengus was sitting and he wriggled until his back got enough support from the bushes behind him that he could relax against it. 'That smell is strong. I really fancy a bag of crisps right now though.'

Let us continue while your brother recovers. He will still gain group experience if we draw our enemies back to this vicinity.

Sure, just let me go back and get the drops.

In just a little over an hour of pulling and slaughtering a variety of giant insects, bixies and sprites, Aegnus levelled up. His wound had fully regenerated by then, although the hoodie remained torn. That could be a problem, thought Liam, they were going to need money for new clothing.

Aegnus looked over at Liam. 'I should put my two attribute points into Health, right?'

Glad to be asked, Liam gave his brother a smile. 'Definitely. You need to be able to survive more than two hits.'

'Shame though, because Physical Attack and Natural Armour need a boost; Agility too.'

'Welcome to my world. Where you never have enough attribute points, or levels, or soul stones, or quests.'

Getting to his feet, Aengus said, 'I'm up to sixteen hit points, from ten. Let's keep going.'

Aegnus shrugged, then set off down a path they had yet to clear.

Another two hours of battling yard trash, almost without rest, and Liam was pleased to hear Aengus call out that he'd reached Level 2. With his Hit Points up to 24, his brother was now perfectly safe from the Level 1 mobs they were destroying. One more level and he'd have a second skill. Perhaps then they could move to a zone where the EXP gain was significant for Liam and Lord Azanth. Here, it was negligible.

'Can we take a break for dinner?' asked Aengus and Liam immediately realised how hungry he was. The difficulty was that they had no food at home and very little money to buy some.

You should cook some of these creatures and eat their flesh.

That sounds unpleasant. And in any case, Aengus is a vegan.

A vegan? Lord Azanth sounded dismayed.

You must have come across humans who are vegan? He doesn't eat meat or diary.

There was a pause. What about elves? I'm fairly sure they are some kind of vegetable. Why don't we move to the Forest of Lady Hekla and hunt elves?

Fortunately for you, he won't eat any kind of sentient creature.

'Let's go to the portal. I've about eighteen Euro, we can buy some food and come back here to get you to Level Three.'

'Yeah. This is so much better than school.'

Liam shook his head. Still, the Rubicon had been crossed and there was no going back.

To Be Crushed or to Become a Diamond PART 2