Dungeon Lord- Ancient Traditions

by Hugo Huesca

  The thing about the altered terms of the minionship pact that Ed offered the Haunt’s prisoners was that it had no “we must tell the truth” clause like the normal pact had. Because of that, if the Inquisition captured Mohnuran or his bandits and interrogated them, the Inquisition wouldn’t know if their information about the Haunt was trustworthy.

  Few members of the Haunt knew about every scheme going on, and anyone involved knew only as much as needed for his task inside the bigger whole. Kes, Marshal of the Haunt and the one responsible for its security, called this policy “compartmentalization.”

  It had other uses, though.

  “Very well, Mohnuran. I’ve decided to satisfy your curiosity,” he said. A long time ago, back on Earth, he had worked under an asshole named Ryan. Ed recalled the way Ryan had once boasted about his expensive gaming laptop and imitated his former boss’ tone and body language. He straightened his shoulders, raised his chin, and adopted a pompous demeanor, the perfect image of a proud Dungeon Lord. Then he began to lie:

  “The Highway is meant to support the dungeons like the one you’ll command. With it, I can build them faster than the Inquisition can take them down, and when it’s finished, I’ll be able to bypass the Inquisition’s blockade completely! Surprised? Don’t be. My reach is longer than you could know. The Inquisition thinks they have me contained, but in truth, the Haunt shall spread across the entire world while they’re focused on Starevos!” Ed chuckled. “When the time is right, my minions and I will bypass Galtia and spread out through all of Ivalis.”

  Mohnuran looked disappointed. He bent forward, as if desperate for Ed to continue. “Impressive, Lord Wraith. Truly, the Inquisition is right to fear you,” the minotaur said, although this time Ed was able to see the contempt barely hidden in his brown bull eyes.

  “Indeed,” Ed said. He relaxed as best he could and closed his eyes. “Now be quiet. All this talk tires me, and I could use some sleep.”

  With his eyes closed, the Dungeon Lord shifted his gaze upward, using his dungeon vision to follow the carts as they headed back home. Since the Gray Highway was actually several dozen different dungeons right next to each other, his gaze flickered as they crossed the invisible frontier between sections of the tunnel.

  Before arriving back home, the group made a stop to offload the new minions into a secondary tunnel that would deliver them to their new dungeon. A few Haga’Anashi went along to train them and make sure everything was in order. For a while, Ed did fall asleep, even with the effects of the Vigor potion still coursing through his veins.

  When he woke, the bandits and Mohnuran were gone, and Yumiya was handling the lever of his cart, whistling happily to herself.

  “We’re almost home, Lord Wraith,” she told him.

  “Good to know,” he said, stretching painfully. Sleeping with his armor on was as uncomfortable as it got.

  “I caught a bit of your speech back there, Lord Wraith. What was that about?”

  “Well, he’s probably a spy,” Ed said. “So I fed him as much bullshit as I could. If the Inquisition reacts to it, then we’ll know he works for them.”

  “Ah, so that explains why he was the only one of the bandits that wasn’t half-starved. Been wondering about that.”

  “He has been tallying our resources since we got him here as well.”

  Yumiya’s snout trembled, showing her yellowed fangs. “Would you like him executed, Lord?” she asked.

  “Leave him be,” Ed said. “The Inquisition already knows about the tunnels, so no loss if he tells them. As long as we control what he knows, a spy can be very useful… even if he thinks he’s working for our enemies.”

  More people joined the trip back to the Haunt near the end of the Highway, pouring through secondary tunnels that connected the Haunt with neighboring towns and villages, but mainly from the one that connected the dungeon with Undercity. Almost everyone walked, since there weren’t nearly enough carts for all of them. A few mounted donkeys or horses. The sight made Ed wince inwardly. He was aware that the carts weren’t the ideal way to transport people—originally he’d meant for them to move around resources. Devising a more efficient method of transportation was one of his main priorities. Had the days had fifty hours instead of twenty-four, he was sure he would’ve found a solution already.

  Starevosi men and women carried packs filled with goods to trade for the more exotic products the Haunt had to offer. Others were empty-handed—it was their own services they offered. Musicians, blacksmiths, soldiers, academics; the list was never-ending. Their reasons for risking the anger of the Inquisition by associating with a Dungeon Lord were as varied as themselves.

  A couple carts moved slowly through the on-foot travelers. Most of those carts carried dwarves and were helped along by mules like any surface caravan. The dwarves brought exotic resources into the Haunt. Silver ore, gemstones needed for powerful rituals, ivory, and broken magical items unearthed from deep within Undercity’s catacombs as well as ancient, mummified corpses and skeletons, some of which rattled menacingly under their iron shackles.

  Other carts were headed in the other direction, back toward Undercity. They hauled crates and barrels full of resources produced in the Haunt that were in high demand in the rest of the world. The Haunt’s main export was its alcohol: traditional Starevosi tzuika, spicy-sweet red hell wine made from Netherworldly grapes, and Andreena’s Vigor ale, which was finding much success among the city laborers. Along with the booze, the Haunt also sold spider-silk clothes to the rich merchants and decadent nobility of the city who could afford the high prices of the vaporous, stab-resistant, silvery-gray material that was currently in fashion. The Haunt also sold magical items as well as trinkets designed to help their owner with the tasks of daily life: hammers that never wore down, horseshoes that didn’t slip on mud, copper dowsers that could cast detect water once per day, and furniture that could repair itself after a brawl—which made it incredibly popular among tavern owners.

  Ed had told Mohnuran that the Highway was meant to support the dungeons, but the truth was the exact opposite. He had no intention of leaving Starevos. With roads like these, he’d bring this dead kingdom back to life. Roads allowed for trade and warfare. Back on Earth, he’d been a computer programmer, so he knew the importance of moving data around quickly better than anyone. Now, he was a Dungeon Lord commanding a city’s worth of manpower, so he applied the same principles of data to state government. And a state was exactly what the Haunt was becoming—there was no denying it now.

  That was the secret power of the Lordship. Most of the talents—magical or not—required to make a dungeon thrive could also be applied to a kingdom.

  After a while, Ed and the kaftars parked the carts and continued the journey on foot, ignoring the curious and excited gazes of the travelers as they realized the Dungeon Lord of the Haunt was among them. The Haga’Anashi formed a defensive circle around him. The security measures of the Haunt made it hard for an assassin to slip into the dungeon, though it wasn’t impossible, so the caution was needed.

  No one tried to kill him this time, so Ed strolled unimpeded out of the Gray Highway’s exit and into the pleasant, pale sunlight of Hoia Forest in the early hours of the morning. The fog was retreating back into the trees, leaving behind grass wet with dew and a sky of a comfortable pale blue with only a hint of purple undertone. Dozens of pillars of purple smoke rose from the treetops of Hoia up into the sky like the emanations from a primordial landscape, and in the distance six huge Scrambling Towers rose like lances challenging the gods, circling the Haunted valley and the mountainous slopes that surrounded it.

  A smile danced on Ed’s lips. He enjoyed feeling the grass under his boots, and breathing the slightly sulfurous air mixed with evergreen leaves, and hearing the laughter of children as they chased each other out of the wooden buildings of the Exterior Market.

  The area had been a small clearing surrounded by trees, engulfed by undergrowth, and besieged by hungry predator
s. Ed and his friends had fought for their lives here, fed the grass with their sweat and blood, and in doing so they had brought into Hoia something unexpected; civilization.

  The floor around the mouth of the Gray Highway was paved with white stone blocks and the area was lit and warmed by standing brass braziers. Two batblin guards had a wooden stand next to the Highway, and they were busy collecting a couple coins as toll from the merchants that used the tunnel to transport goods. A multitude of people went about their daily business on the circle of storefronts that had sprouted naturally in the space between the Highway and the entrance to the Haunt itself—the dungeon, that is. No one had planned the Market; it had appeared like magic because there had been a need for it, and coin to pay for its services. There was a tavern manned by a family of entrepreneurial batblins, a couple inns built by former villagers of Burrova, a small blacksmith that mostly fixed horseshoes, and a room-sized church of Hogbus whose function was mainly to provide access to an official-ish clerk that could oversee small transactions among non-minions. Spider riders—tough batblins mounted on horned spider warriors—kept the peace and made sure the Haga’Anashi didn’t start any drunken brawls. There was a fountain at the center square of the Market, carved out of a block of stone and lacquered with a sheet of brass and marble, courtesy of Ed’s drones. It depicted a man-sized batblin with its loincloth down as it unleashed a stream of crystalline water inside the fountain.

  The Haunt’s artisans were working on a more suitable statue, but in the meantime at least the kids liked that one.

  “Lord Edward, you’re back!” a couple spider riders called as the crowd parted to let Ed and his kaftar pass. “You gave some dung-heads a good thumping, didn’t you?”

  “We sure did,” Yumiya called back with a wave. “Next time you should come along! It was fun.”

  Men and women cheered, mostly sworn minions. The visitors smiled nervously, and a few clapped, as if the Dungeon Lord had come back from a glorious conquest in a distant land instead of just roughing up some down-on-their-luck bandits. People saluted as Ed went by, striking their chests above their hearts with their fists in the way of the Haga’Anashi. He recognized most of them, some by name.

  A rugged farmer with big buckteeth approached the group, dragging along a mule carrying a pair of baskets full of a sort of baseball-sized violet grapefruit.

  “Patrin, nice to see you up and sober,” Ed called, grinning at the man. “How’s the harvest coming along?” Technically, it wouldn’t be harvest season for another couple months, but Patrin worked one of the Haunt’s underground farms, which used Netherworld seed and thus were governed by different rules than Ivalian crops. Patrin and the other farmers liked to say that Netherworldly grapes, used to make the Haunted wine, were only harvested whenever the grapes fucking felt like it or not at all.

  “These grapes are a pain in the ass to grow, Lord, but they’re goddamn bigger than Miron’s mother—” Miron, a man near Patrin, gave him the stink eye as he went by “—and certainly sweeter, so I won’t complain, oh no! Here, Lord, catch!” Patrin tossed Ed one of the grapes.

  Ed caught it. The fruit was very big, almost ink-black, and had a pair of pointy leaves above the brown-green stem that looked like horns. He took a bite, filling his mouth with sweet jelly-like fruit that quenched his thirst. It was more sour than a normal grape, and spicy enough to make his mouth burn.

  He passed half the grape to Yumiya, who ate it in seconds. “Not bad, but hell chicken is more up my alley,” she said, then nodded toward the pillars of smoke in the distance. “To be honest, I can’t help but wonder if that damn fruit will turn out to be toxic somehow.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean,” Ed said. The underground farms were the source of the smoke. Saint Claire and Tillman’s dossiers insisted the growing process was perfectly safe. Dungeon Lord magic used underground ley lines to simulate Netherworldly conditions in which the crop could thrive. Tillman’s assurances pretty much guaranteed to Ed that somehow, somewhere, that damned smoke would end up biting him in the ass. “A couple spellcasters are keeping an eye on it, though, and so far nothing has gone wrong.”

  The simplest solution would be not to use the Netherworld’s seeds as crops at all, but Ed had only entertained that idea until Governor Brett had shown him the earning log for the first batch of hell wine. As it turned out, it was quite easy to look the other way when that direction had a huge pile of gold waiting.

  The Dungeon Lord shrugged. Soon enough, he’d left the Exterior Market behind and reached the skirt of the small sloped outcrop that edged the mountainous region north of Undercity. Right there, hidden by powerful illusions and security runes, was the entrance to the heart of his Haunt: the dungeon itself.

  Before climbing the carved stairs surrounded by two lines of gargoyles, he turned and gave his territories one long look.

  If someone would’ve told him three years ago back on Earth—stuck in a dead-end job and slaving away to pay rent for an apartment he shared with three others—that he would come to love a bunch of soil and rock with all of his soul, Ed would’ve laughed his face off. What was land, after all, besides a bunch of dirt and the vague threat of property tax? He never had understood the reason people in distant places were willing to die—and kill—for such abstract concepts… mostly because he had been too busy fending off homelessness to give it much thought.

  He understood now.

  The main hall was busy with activity. Spider warriors skittered through the black-domed ceiling, throwing long angular shadows across the polished checkered black-and-white floor. Dozens of drones raced angrily through a small crowd of minions to disappear in and out of service tunnels. Two chandeliers, one of silver and the other of brass, swung lazily at the dome’s center, while engraved diamonds glinted through the candlelight and the eldritch light of the skeletal braziers hugged the walls. Gnomes, dwarves, and humans mixed together as they came and went to the different sections of the sprawling dungeon, whose tendrils extended deep into the heart of the mountain like the roots of a gargantuan tree reaching far down, always, as if yearning to hug Ivalis’ molten core.

  Through the wind and the magical light, the tapestries and banners that adorned the walls seemed to shift, and the beasts and monstrous creatures they depicted appeared ready to rise and lunge at the unwary passerby. The floor was warm, as well as the walls, and the aroma of Lotian incenses and spices permeated the air.

  The minions wore the purple and pink of the Haunt mixed with their normal clothing. Some men sported green capes fashioned in the style of the Thieves Guild, a few women carried silver jewelry in the shape of a shark, and a couple daring courtiers strolled around proudly displaying a metal gauntlet fashioned like a skeletal hand. Even without the clothes, a perceptive man could easily tell a minion of the Haunt apart from normal townsfolk. The Haunted folk were slightly sturdier and healthier, and a spark of magic hinted itself behind their eyes. Most carried weapons, and all had basic martial training. Their demeanor was different too; men and women were quick to smile and laugh, and also were prone to strong bursts of dramatic emotions and bouts of menacing proclamations, as if they were doing their best to act like minions of a Dungeon Lord were supposed to act—only no one had actually bothered to explain to them exactly what that entailed.

  Inside the dungeon, surrounded by his minions, there was no need for the Monster Hunter to protect him, so Yumiya and her men took their leave while Ed made his way into the inner dungeon. It took a while, though, since he couldn’t go a single step without stopping to hear recent rumors, or mediate through a dispute, or listen to some new update about the myriad different schemes the Haunted minions entertained.

  “—my cousin in Undercity says there’s a cave the pirates are using to stow contraband—”

  “Carl owes me fifteen Balts and not only did he refuse to pay, he also called me an idiot—”

  “—then the hell chicken broke into the baths, I swear I was only chasing after it—�
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  “Any news from Dolny’s survivors, Lord? My mother is from there—”

  “The boys and I came up with a plan to take Raventa last night, Lord Wright. Let me tell you all about it! First, we sneak Jarlen’s blood into their water supply—”

  Ed dealt with it as best he could. He directed the people with disputes to ask for an audience later in the day, encouraged the mad schemes no matter how unfeasible, took a note of all rumors, and reassured the people with families on the ravaged countryside.

  Judging from the rumble in his stomach, the morning was well underway by the time he was done. Usually, he could’ve broken his fast in the Mess Hall or asked the drones to bring food to his private quarters, but he was already behind with his duties, so he simply summoned a couple drones and ordered them to bring him something to eat while he went about his day. A different set of drones relieved him of his armor and brought him a black surcoat inlaid with silver thread, which he wore over his spider-silk vest. His breakfast consisted of a snack of hard Starevosi bread soaked with spider jam, a side of salted ham, and a mug of sour goat milk.

  As he ate on the go, he used his dungeon vision to find his friends.

  Lavy was, as usual, inside her library and doing some research. Tendrils of black energy sizzled out of her fingertips as the Witch flicked through the pages of the leather-bound book on her lap. The tome was screaming.

  Alder and a couple of spin-maidens strolled around the gardens. The Bard seemed busy play-pretending to drive a sword through some invisible monster. The girls looked bored until Alder called out some spell and a monstrous illusion appeared for him to fight.

  Jarlen, who wasn’t really anyone’s friend except for herself, was sleeping in her coffin. She wouldn’t be around until sundown. Ed disliked the insane murdering monster, but she was useful. Her coffin was surrounded by bones covered in bite marks, all that remained of the vampire’s latest raid through slaver slums.