by Hugo Huesca
Vaines wondered how many generations it would take for the first descendant to drop the facade and title themselves King or Queen.
“A shame,” gasped Adolvar, nearing climax. “We were looking forward to celebrating with you.”
The Dungeon Lady had spent enough time among the Yhin nobility to know he was merely being polite—those people made a point to invest their lives accelerating the moral decay that eroded the Lotian culture. Sex was a pastime, a feast an expectation, the poisoning of a political rival a pleasant afternoon topic. They built their bodies for the erotic pursuit in all its forms, using and abusing magic to mask the toll of their excesses. Vaines lacked any kind of softness that could entice them.
The enjoyment of life’s pleasures was one of the Dark’s tenets that separated it from the strict, duty-obsessed demands the Light made of its followers. Many had pointed out that, some days, the Dungeon Lady of the Vros Shores had more in common with a Militant Inquisitor than with her own people. A proud Lotian, they claimed, knew to cultivate at least one good vice.
She had reacted by challenging them to duels, maiming or killing the lot, which in itself disproved their point:
The worst of vices is that of bloodlust unchecked. Another of Helens’ Maxims.
Vaines was Lotian to the marrow.
The Netherworld beckoned, its fiery sky like a membrane that covered the distant white world underneath Lady Vaines as she rode astride her favorite ice harpy while flying toward the temple at the heart of Müntar, the frozen region ruled by Demon Regent Tal Zamor, Lord of Embers.
Only the auras of elemental resistance enhancing Vaines’ body kept her alive as the impossibly cold winds roared against the feathered beast and tried to bring it down onto the frozen expanse below. Shards of ice flying as fast as siege projectiles turned to diamond dust as they smashed against the barrier spell glimmering around Vaines. Every breath the Dungeon Lady took was magically warmed and carried the sting of static. The ice harpy, a native of the region who couldn’t even survive in warmer climates, treated the sleetstorm as a pleasant breeze.
Vaines had always found it strange how Tal Zamor could rule such a frozen wasteland when his domain was that of Embers. His Priests claimed the demigod taught that only in such a place did fire burn brightest. The Dungeon Lady’s opinion was that “such a place” had obvious value as a base, because without access to mass elemental resistance magic, Müntar was unassailable. This ensured Tal Zamor only had to care about attack from other Regents and their hosts.
If only there was a way to encase the entirety of Lotia in a bed of ice… Vaines thought.
Halfway to Tal Zamor temple, a tribe of giants caught sight of her and tried to smite her out of the sky by throwing boulders at her. Her ice harpy screeched in anger and took evasive maneuvers, despite most shots going awfully wide—the giants weren’t famous for their aim.
But even a bad shot could get lucky, so Vaines grabbed onto her reins with one hand and aimed at the center of the giants with the other. At this distance, they looked like ants to her. Magic arced through her as the biological ley lines of her body awoke. “Rain of coal,” she uttered. Somewhere in a metaphysical plane beyond the reach of even the gods, Objectivity processed the series of instructions stored under the name rain of coal, a design of the Tal Zamor’ Priesthood, who specialized in combat magic.
Using one of Vaines’ advanced-ranked spell slots for power, a surge of heat spread out her hand and flew downward in the direction of the ice giants. It exploded well before reaching the ground, creating a fiery rift from which dozens of fist-sized flaming coals flew with the speed of arrows at the giants. The coals exploded all around the creatures as they scrambled for cover, grunting mutely through the scream of the wind whenever a projectile struck against them. A normal human would’ve suffered broken bones from the impact, but the giants were powerful enough to shrug it off—not the fire that clung to their pelts like tar, though, and Vaines could see them panic as the orange flames resisted the frozen wind and spread through the hirsute white-and-gray fiends.
Rain of coals kept firing nonstop for about a half a minute, forcing the giants to scramble out of its area of effect. “That was a warning,” she told them, although even if they could’ve heard her through the sleet they wouldn’t have understood her language. She wondered, not for the first time, if she could recruit a tribe of them as minions. Their stats were high enough to be worth the trouble, and their immunity against ice magic made them a perfect answer for low-to-mid-level Heroic Wizards, whose spellcasting kit often centered on ice.
They would need enchanted armor so they could survive outside Müntar, Vaines thought, calculating the extra expense in her head against the possible value they could offer. And a way to bypass the front-line Heroes so they can reach the Wizards.
She decided that housing them in an entirely ice-themed dungeon would work best. It would force the Heroes to overcompensate against ice magic, and then she could toss in a few emberfiends enchanted with elemental resistance to throw them for a loop.
A smile spread across her lips. Dungeon design was one of her small pleasures. It was a shame that most ideas weren’t feasible enough to put into practice, and thus would never see the light of day.
The temple of Tal Zamor had been carved into the side of a glacier, and was supported by a myriad of black steel cables like the stitches of a skin-graft. Unlike the muddy ice around the temple, its walls were shiny sheets of angular crystals, polished by magic until they were like mirrors reflecting the unnatural light of the Netherworld, which had no sun, into cold, eerie rainbows that seemed to turn the snow into fields of diamonds.
Vaines landed her harpy onto a flat rooftop with a polished ice floorboard marred by deep scratches. As the Dungeon Lady jumped off her seat, a Priest of Embers approached, their armored body clanking with each clumsy step.
“You arrive sooner than expected,” the Priest said after exchanging formal greetings.
“The city of Yhin grows grating the more time I spend there,” Vaines said. “Let’s skip the pleasantries, Phyelras. Why am I here?”
“We have found the third companion that will follow your lead during the Endeavor,” Priest Phyelras said.
The Priest would’ve been the front-line warrior of any other Regent. Members of his race were distant cousins of the feared devil knights, but had evolved to handle even more extreme temperatures. Phyelras’ body was like stone enveloped by sapphire scales, with elaborate spiral horns crowning his wedge-shaped head. He had four silver eyes, and a bifurcated tongue that could sense body heat. His ceremonial robe was bright red, old age had bent his back, and he used his golden trident as a walking stick more often than the weapon of war it was.
“I was told that Lady Xorander would be my third party member,” Vaines said as they walked through the ascetic corridors of the Temple. She could hear war-chants in the distance, and a warm light reflected on the floors—the light of Tal Zamor himself, lying in his century-long coma, recovering from a terrible wound sustained during the titanic struggle with his brother and sisters in a time before Dungeon Lords and Inquisitors.
“Our spies informed us that the Regent of Secrets bought Xorander’s loyalty recently,” said Phyelras, his black tongue twitching in anger at the mention of Tal Zamor’ enemy. “We do not know what Korghiran offered her, but the young Xorander is as naïve as she is ambitious. We are better off without her.”
Vaines shrugged. She cared little for the games of the Regents. There was nothing to say things wouldn’t go as bad as last time Dungeon Lords had tried to collaborate during the Endeavor, so Vaines had assumed it would be the same this time around: half would shank their “allies” right after they turned the first shadowy corner away from the others’ minions, and the other half would blow each other up straight away with advanced spells the very second they stepped into the Factory. “So who is our replacement?”
As far as she was aware, every Dungeon Lord brave or fo
olish enough to step into the Factory had already declared allegiance to one Regent or another. Molmeda, Redwood, and the smoldering piece of dung Sanguine, sided with Flesh as always. Crane, the creep Tenebris, and Zendrel had pledged themselves to Dolmanak, Regent of Bones. Lord Virion, her disciple, was with Tal Zamor, of course. Korghiran seemingly now had Xorander, Steros, and the Starevosi insurgent—Edward Wright.
“It is a peculiar story,” said Phyelras, raising his voice to be heard over the inhuman screaming as they went past a sacrificial chamber where a group of fiends tortured a different group of fiends. Their experience points would be burned to accelerate Tal Zamor’ recovery by a few minutes, which probably was not a tall comfort for those who got to see their heart ceremonially carved out of their chests. “We’ve been keeping the secret even from you, to avoid any leaks until the time was right.”
The Priest led her down into the heart of the temple, low enough that she began to wonder if he was guiding her to the heart of the glacier where the Regent of Embers rested. Instead they took a turn and then several others, bringing her to the living quarters, where she had never been before.
Priests, acolytes, and servant fiends trained and drank and argued with each other all around her. It reminded her of her own dungeons when the minions thought she wasn’t looking. Gone was the grim and severe attitude they displayed for visitors, although most tried to quickly get back in character when they saw her.
“A few months ago, the High Priest was contacted by a Dark emissary who offered us a deal.”
Vaines raised an eyebrow. “Another Regent?” If so, the newcomer was obviously a trap. A sacrificial pawn at most.
“If we go by the strictest theological doctrine, he is not a Regent. Yet he is a son of Murmur, nonetheless. The oldest.”
“You cannot mean…” Vaines said, perplexed. “The Boatman does not meddle in the affairs of mortals.” Never in all her years, since Tal Zamor had given Vaines her Mantle when she was a child had she ever heard of such a thing.
“Kharon does whatever he wants,” Phyelras said, although he shuddered at the mention of Murmur’s undead son. For some reason, he had seemed nervous around Vaines since her arrival. “He operates through agents and long ploys to advance the cause of the Dark and has brought men and women from distant lands into the Netherworld before. Even from other worlds, if the rumors of the Starevosi Dungeon Lord are to be believed. This newcomer is the same. Another ploy, surely, but one that benefits us.”
There is no us, thought Vaines. She worked with Embers because a Dungeon Lord without a Dark Sponsor was at a disadvantage. Her father before her had served Tal Zamor, and she saw no reason to change allegiances, even if everyone knew that any Regent would have her if she switched. The reason behind her loyalty was simple: Tal Zamor was weaker at the moment than his brothers. That meant he needed her, and thus was willing to offer far more.
“And you’ve kept this ‘chosen one’ here, hidden from everyone else?”
“Indeed. We had a lot of training to go through. It… wasn’t easy. He is an adult by Ivalian standards, but apparently the world he comes from has sheltered him most of his life. In this way, he is immature.”
“A prince, then,” said Vaines, thinking of the Marquis.
“Yes, but a merchant prince. The heir of the fearsome Randall Conglomerate. Reading between the lines of what he told us, the Conglomerate is his world’s equivalent of Saint Claire & Tillman—focusing instead on repairing Artifacts of Power.”
That caught Vaines’ attention. “A company that repairs Artifacts? Their arcane knowledge must rival that of the old ages,” she said. “How are they a business instead of an Empire?”
“We believe they earn their fortune by having the world’s kingdoms pay them tribute so the Conglomerate won’t use their Artifacts on them.”
“Makes sense. That way they get to rule from the shadows, away from the attention of rebels and Heroes.”
Phyelras nodded. “The Conglomerate could be a world-level threat if they find out about our plane of existence. Luckily for us, Kharon’s Chosen lacks the power at the moment to return to his home-world.”
Vaines was interested, despite herself. At the moment, the Priest had said. The Towers of the Starevosi already threatened to change the balance of power within Ivalis. Soon enough, she’d have the designs in her possession, as well as the unfathomable resources of the Factory of Nightmares to improve upon them and spread them all over Lotia. She had foreseen everything… except Kharon’s intervention. Part of the reason the Boatman was the most feared of Murmur’s servants was not because of his power, but his unpredictability. In many ways, he was more human than his brothers. And it was his humanity that made him terrifying.
This newcomer was a wildcard.
One of the favorite sayings of the famous Kruvoc Nezlozur, Lord Sephar’s trusted Marshal, was:
“Whenever your plan seems about to work perfectly, it’s time to look for cover.”
“Hm? Did you say something, Lady Vaines?”
“Never mind, I was merely thinking aloud.”
Phyelras brought her to the far end of the quarters, a section that—by the looks of it—didn’t have much activity. A pair of fiends armed with tridents kept guard to the sides of a door. Vaines could sense powerful Dark wards protecting this area. “Lady Vaines, it is my pleasure to introduce you to the Boatman’s Champion, Argent Planeshifter. He is the first of his kind, separate from the Lordship but of equal standing.” His voice trembled a little at the end.
The door opened to reveal an old acolyte teaching defensive swordsmanship forms to a bored-looking blond man in his mid-twenties. Kharon’s Champion had a petulant air to him, as if nothing that had happened in the last few months had been out of the ordinary. He wore black, and he was tall and trim, but his attributes were abysmal, even with training, as his highest was a boosted Charm of 15. He had less than 300 experience points, no doubt acquired with the help of the Priests. The only talent that got her attention was Mantle of the Traveler.
Interesting, she thought, as she read the talent’s description.
At first glance, Argent could be a fearsome asset. But that dismal character sheet left her no doubt her worst fears had been confirmed. Kharon was playing a joke on someone—possibly Tal Zamor—and thus she could be caught in the crossfire.
The man glanced at her with a bored expression. “Are you my new party member?” he asked, lowering his practice sword. “I asked for someone hot.”
The old acolyte and Priest Phyelras gave Vaines a nervous look. She wondered if maybe it would be best for everyone if she simply killed Argent right then and there and tried to fight her way out of the temple.
“And I expected a man instead of a child,” she returned. She strolled casually to the space the old acolyte had been occupying—the fiend hurried to get out of her way. “Kharon’s Champion, eh? Of equal standing to a Dungeon Lord. Interesting choice of words, Phyelras. Where I’m from, people earn the right to call themselves that.”
“Please, Lady Vaines, he is not from around here, he doesn’t know—”
“But I’m sure you told him to be careful around me, didn’t you?” The look of panic the Priest gave her confirmed he had. “If after whatever you told him he still has an attitude, he’s clearly hiding a trick up his sleeve. I want to see it. So how about a friendly match, Chosen One? The first one to land a hit wins.”
Phyelras made a move as if to get between them, then stopped. There was something monumental in this simple offer of a duel. The best of the Lordship against Kharon’s Chosen. It was the kind of thing ballads were made of, had a Bard been present. Vaines didn’t need a high Charm to know what Phyelras was thinking: There’s no way he can do it… but what if…
The man called Argent raised an eyebrow and read Vaines’ character sheet. She allowed him to take a good look at her attributes and skills, hiding only her most powerful talents. Argent swallowed, but stood his ground and entered a bas
ic combat stance. He discreetly moved his hand behind his back. From the micro-movements in his arm, Vaines judged that he was about to cast a spell. He opened his mouth to say something sarcastic.
And then Argent lay sprawled and bloodied on the floor, with Vaines towering above him.
Phyelras and the old acolyte rushed to the fallen Champion. “You killed him!” Blood flowed from Argent’s face and stained the carpet.
“Relax, it was merely a non-empowered love tap. Not even I would challenge a demigod by one-shotting his plaything,” Vaines said with a shrug. She glanced behind the spot where Argent had been standing. Apparently, he had managed to cast his spell after all. A small ripple in reality, about big enough for a fist, floated immobile in the air. Like a stable Portal, without the need for the constant, massive influx of ley line magical energy. Vaines looked at where it led, and then looked at her own back to find another ripple, twin to the first.
So that’s what Mantle of the Traveler does. Interesting, she thought. Stable, at-will Portals was a power only the Boatman could’ve bestowed, so Argent’s origin had to be true. Her mind on automatic, like it had done with the giants, began thinking of ways to use the man to advance her cause. He’ll need far more experience points to be of any use.
The acolyte crumbled up some dry herbs in front of Argent’s face. The man opened his eyes, coughed, moaned in pain, and covered his bloody nose with his hands. “You bish, you brokeh mah noseh! Agahn!” He looked at the blood on his hands, then gave Vaines an incredulous, indignant look. “You cheateah, ah washt readyh!”
Vaines smiled broadly. “Welcome to Ivalis,” she said.
6
