by Nick Harrow
“Sorry,” she said. “You are going to be so bored here, Clay. You’re a dungeon lord, not a politician.”
“I know,” I said sadly. “But I don’t have a lot of choice. I need to figure out what the deal is with all these people and what I’m supposed to do with the settlement.”
“Grow it,” Delsinia advised. “Expand your territory. Raise an army. Prepare for conquest.”
“Sure, that’s just four things, right?” I said. “Three if you count grow and expand as the same thing.”
“Simple,” Delsinia agreed. “That is the life of a dungeon lord. As your dungeon grows in power, you will need a larger and more fertile territory to sustain it.”
The soultaker’s simplistic opinion of my job rankled me for several reasons. For starters, I didn’t want a goddamned empire; I wanted a cozy little dungeon where I could chill with my guardians and enjoy the pleasures of one another’s company. But that option didn’t seem to be on the table. The stronger I got, the more bad guys showed up, and then I had to get even stronger to kick the shit out of them, which led to more bad guys. It was a big ol’ Tilt-A-Whirl of blood and magic that I really wanted to get off before it got any more dangerous.
“Liar,” Rathokhetra rasped. “You want the wahket to return to their former glory. You want this world to be safe, and that will only happen when it is beneath your heel. You want to rule, and you shall. Embrace your fate, do not fight it, and everything will fall into place for you.”
My guardians watched me with confident smiles on their faces, love and admiration plain in their eyes. I might not have been confident I could pull off the leadership business, but they didn’t have any doubts. And if these awesome people and one piece-of-shit mummy dude had faith in me, what kind of asshole would I be to doubt them?
I could do this.
But first I had to figure out how.
“Let’s get down to business,” I said to the guardians. “Neph, get the wahket to patrol the city. Give the people a sense of security that we’re keeping an eye on things.”
“We’ll make sure they aren’t misbehaving,” my priestess said with a mischievous glimmer in her eye. She headed for the door and called over her shoulder, “And I’ll send a few scouts out to see about these bandits your people complained about.”
Kezakazek scrambled out of my throne and jumped onto Zillah’s tail with a squeal.
“Take me to the pantry!” she shouted.
“Upstairs,” I responded to Zillah’s questioning look. “Through the curtains behind the throne.”
Delsinia walked beside me as we approached the cobra throne. We stopped in front of the massive seat and looked up at the snake’s scimitar-sized fangs.
“This is not at all what I expected.” The former dungeon lord’s fingers brushed mine tentatively, then withdrew. “But I think it is what I have always wanted.”
“A throne?” I said. “You were a dungeon lord. You could totally have made that happen.”
“Not a—” she started, then caught my eye. A cautious smile crept over her lips. “You were teasing me?”
“Yes.” It was hard to remember that Delsinia, for all her strength and scary skills, had been through some horribly scarring shit during the centuries she’d been isolated in her dungeon. There were parts of her mind that weren’t right yet, and might never be right again.
“I meant a place like this,” she said. “Like the oasis. Filled with people. Not enemies or guardians, just regular people. That I could eat.”
She paused after she said that last bit, and I hooked my arm around her waist and pulled her close.
“Now who’s teasing?” I asked.
“Not me,” she said with a dour grimace. “I do not know how to tease.”
“You can’t—”
“I lied,” she said. “I was totally teasing you.”
And then she turned to me, wrapped her arms tightly around my neck, and kissed me so long and hard my head swam and my body burned. I had a hard time imagining why Kezakazek disliked the soultaker so much. The former dungeon lord seemed perfect to me.
“Upstairs,” I said.
“Upstairs,” she breathed and caught my lower lip with her teeth.
Chapter 2 – King Rathokhetra
NEPHKET CLEARED HER throat to get my attention as she padded across the audience chamber on nearly silent bare feet the next morning. She’d exchanged the coin-beaded halter that jingled and jangled to alert me to her presence for a curve-hugging sheath dress so tight it looked like someone had painted her with saffron. The pinkish rays of the early morning sun splashed through the windows and highlighted Neph as she strode toward me.
“Good morning,” she murmured. “How goes the city management?”
“Slowly,” I grumbled. “But we’ll get there. Did everyone settle into the new digs?”
“Kez left early this morning,” Nephket sighed. “She’s gone back to Kozerek’s library.”
“Figures.” I didn’t like how much time the sorceress spent with her nose in the necromancer’s notebooks. She hardly surfaced unless one of us went to fetch her, and it had taken a toll on her. She was obsessed with unraveling Kozerek’s secrets because she was positive his notes tied into her family’s fate. Somehow. “I’ll check on her later, but you and I both know she won’t let up on her research until she finds what she’s after.”
“Show me what you’re doing.” Nephket changed the subject and curled up in my lap. My familiar leaned her head against my shoulder, and a trickle of subtle floral scent tickled my nostrils.
“Perfume?” I asked.
“There’s a young woman who lives at the edge of the oasis where the Raiders Guild tent used to be,” Nephket said. “She makes the most amazing things. Like it?”
“Very much,” I said. It was an interesting change from the normal cinnamon scent of the wahket. And as much as I would have liked to spend the early morning hours resting with a sweet-smelling familiar in my lap, we had work to do. “Here’s what I’ve figured out so far.”
I pulled the Tablet of Conquest into position so Nephket could see it as I pointed out my findings.
“There are six different types of enhancement for settlements,” I said. My index finger tapped on each of the enhancement types as I called them out for Nephket. “Martial, defenses, agrarian, education, religion, and mercantile.”
My familiar peered at the tablet for a moment and then extended one sharp claw to scratch the edge of her jaw.
“And how much does it cost to purchase those enhancements?” she asked.
“Not much, at least not right now,” I said. “Enhancements are bought with build points, and at zero level each build point costs one hundred gold pieces.”
“We have lots of gold pieces,” Nephket said with a rumbling purr. “Over twelve thousand after what we looted from Insuxexara lair. Purchase all the enhancements and be done with it.”
“Yeah, you’d think that would work,” I said. “But here’s the fine print. According to these little hieroglyphics over here, I can only buy five build points at a time. And, once I invest those build points into the settlement, I can’t pick up more until the enhancements are complete. It looks like the number of enhancements I can spend in a day is based on the level of the settlement, which is at the bottom of the barrel.”
“Okay, so we’ll be here a while,” Nephket said with a shrug. “I wasn’t planning on going anywhere, were you?”
My mental to-do list unfurled like a red-lettered CVS receipt in my mind. I needed to come up with a more permanent solution for securing the Solamantic Web; there was the little matter of Kezakazek’s revenge quest; I wanted to make security renovations to my dungeon; the Inkolana cartel demanded I find some godmarrow for them; and there was probably a bunch of other shit that I’d already forgotten about.
Being Lord Rathokhetra could be a real pain in the ass.
The old fucker chuckled at that, and I pretended to ignore him.
�
��You’ve got a valid point. I guess we’re here for the duration. I’m not sure which of these enhancements to tackle first, though,” I said.
“Which of them holds you back from raising your dungeon’s level?” she asked. “That’s the one you should focus on.”
“It’s not that simple.” I ran my finger along another line of hieroglyphics. “The dungeon can’t be more powerful than the settlement it’s tied to. I’ll need to upgrade this village to level six before the dungeon gets any stronger, and I’ll have to keep upgrading it every time I want to level up the dungeon.”
“Then we’d better get started.” Nephket curled up against my chest. “What will we upgrade first?”
“Let’s start with the obvious,” I said. “We’ll need a martial and defensive enhancement, for sure.”
“Are you expecting a fight?” Nephket asked.
“Fucking always,” I said with a chuckle. “Hope for the best but prepare for the worst.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Nephket said. “What’s next?”
“Probably mercantile,” I said. “If it’s going to cost cold, hard gold to keep upgrading the settlement, then I want to keep the moolah pouring into my vaults.”
In my greedy secret heart I hoped an investment in mercantile enhancements would turn a profit that I could then reinvest into more enhancements to create an even bigger profit, and so on.
Even as little as I knew about the dungeon lord business told me that was probably a pipe dream.
“Let’s do this.” I tapped on the Build Points section of the tablet.
<<<>>>
Purchase Build Points at 100 gold pieces each?
0...1...2...3...4...5
<<<>>>
“Let’s have ’em all.” I pressed the tip of my finger against the 5.
The Soketran symbol for five appeared above the Enhancements part of the tablet. It glowed a warm and inviting amber color, but I knew it wouldn’t last. I was about to spend every one of those build points.
“All right.” I poked a finger at the tablet’s enhancement options. “Martial, Defensive, and Mercantile enhancements are a go. Let’s throw in an Agrarian enhancement to feed our people, too.”
“You should spend that last point on Religion,” Nephket said. “We need more temples.”
“We hardly have enough people to fill one church. I don’t think that’s a big priority,” I said. “Let’s push Education first. I could use a few eggheads to take over some of the mundane bullshit around here.”
Nephket grumbled at my decision but didn’t argue the point.
<<<>>>
Confirm selections? Y/N
<<<>>>
“Done.” I touched the tip of my index finger to the “Y.” The counter above the Enhancements section ticked down to zero in the blink of an eye, and a rippling ring of golden light burst from the tablet. The illuminated circle pushed a shimmering haze before it that obscured the world outside its perimeter. A split second later the circle’s diameter expanded beyond the throne room and I lost sight of it.
“Is it my imagination or does everything look cleaner?” Nephket asked. “No, not cleaner. Better?”
Nephket was right. The ring’s passage had left everything a little sharper, a little more refined. The statues on either side of my throne had taken on a lifelike level of detail, the marble floors gleamed as if they’d been freshly polished, and the designs on the walls were at once more complex and elegant than I’d originally created.
“Well, at least I know my five hundred gold pieces bought me something,” I said.
A sharp rap on the front door broke my train of thought and knocked my witty quip off the tip of my tongue.
“Are we expecting guests?” Nephket asked me. “Seems early for callers.”
My stomach clenched and my jaw tightened as I imagined a new threat on my doorstep. More raiders? A bandit attack? My thoughts flicked to my dungeon just to make sure no one had snuck in through the Solamantic Web. But, no, there was nothing there...
“The wahket are on their way from the bedrooms upstairs,” Nephket said. “How do you want them to greet our visitors?”
“A shield wall between us and whoever’s on the outside is a good start,” I said. “Let’s have a few of them stand at attention in two columns in front of the throne. It’ll look impressive even if our visitors don’t need their teeth kicked down their throats.”
Nephket nodded, and I felt her thoughts pull away from mine as she communed with the wahket, who now worshipped me. The cat women had always had a strong bond, but since they’d become my followers their ties to Nephket had grown much more powerful. It was impressive, and a little unnerving.
I’d thought I was the only one who got to play around in other people’s heads.
The wahket soldiers hustled down the steps behind the throne and fanned out to take their positions. Their chain shirts jingled as they moved, and they smacked their spears against their shields to mark every step. Our battles against the Kozerek’s drow and Delsinia’s undead had transformed the cat women into a powerful and disciplined force that was ready to put itself between me and any danger that came calling.
The sharp knock on my door came again, and then again. Whoever was out there was impatient and not used to waiting.
The wahket lined themselves up in perfect ranks, but I didn’t see any rush to open the door. In that moment, for just a few more seconds, we were still at peace. The door was the lid to my own personal Schrödinger’s box, and as long as I kept it closed anything could be on the other side.
Anunaset glanced at me from her position before the door. She had her hand firmly on its handle, but she wouldn’t open it until I gave the word.
With a wave of my hand, I banished the Tablet of Conquest. Another gesture with the same hand summoned my khopesh. I laid the weapon down across the arms of my throne, and its gleaming surface became an imposing barrier in front of me.
“Let ’em in,” I said. “But if they get stupid, stick a spear in their gizzard.”
Anunaset gave me a thumbs-up, surveyed the other wahket to make sure they were ready, and then opened the door.
“You may enter,” Anunaset said, but the rest of her words were drowned out by a sudden clamor of raised voices and the slap of reed sandals against the marble floor as a horde of men stampeded past her and rushed for the throne.
The intruders rushed my throne but pulled up short when the wahket slapped their spears against their shields and thrust their weapons’ sharpened tips forward to bar the mob’s approach.
Nephket eased my khopesh out of her way with the palm of one hand against the inside of its hooked blade and slid from my lap. She stalked down the steps from my throne to the marble floor and made her way slowly and confidently toward the rabble who shouted at me from beyond the line of wahket.
“Silence!” she snapped in a voice that echoed off the marble walls and ceiling of my audience chamber. “You stand before Lord Rathokhetra, not in the village commons. You will speak when you are told to speak, and you will remain silent until that time. Am I understood?”
The cat women thrust their spears forward to emphasize Nephket’s point, and the gathering bobbed their heads furiously.
“Very good,” Nephket said. “Now, you will approach the throne one at a time, at my command. You will kneel before Lord Rathokhetra, and when he has addressed you, you may state the reason for your coming before him in such a disrespectful manner. For your sakes, I hope he is more merciful than I would be in his position.”
Neph didn’t hurry back to the throne, which gave me plenty of time to eyeball the unruly mob of men gathered on the other side of the wahket shield wall. Eight of the twelve impatient men wore and the same blue or yellow kilts we’d seen earlier fastened with thick leather belts. Those same men wore undyed, loose-fitting vests that fastened in the front with a series of ornate ties. They carried no weapons that I could see, and I doubted their light clothes concealed anythin
g larger than a dagger.
Of those eight men, four were standard humans, their skin deeply bronzed from their time in the sun; one was a pale elf with long, loose golden hair and vivid patches of sunburn on his nose and forehead; two were stocky dwarves who could’ve been twins for all I could see of their faces through their thick, black beards; and one looked like a man except for the pair of stubby horns that jutted from the top of his head and the furry legs that ended in hooves instead of feet.
That last guy caught my attention, but I held my curiosity in check until I could make heads or tails of the other four dudes in my audience chamber.
Three of the final four wore robes and headwraps that might once have been white but had been stained dirty brown. They had a very Lawrence of Arabia vibe, and looked ready to punch out a few of the blue-and-yellow kilt crowd.
The last one wore loose linen wraps that concealed his face except for a narrow band of tanned skin around his steely eyes. Dusty robes covered him down to his toes, and he looked very uncomfortable in these regal surroundings. One of them stood apart from his fellows, head down, eyes focused firmly on the floor. His feet fidgeted a bit, and the rustle of his soft boots against the marble was clear even at this distance.
“You, in the back,” Nephket called in an imperious voice I’d never heard her use before that day. “Step forward.”
The elf opened his mouth as if to protest, saw Nephket’s angry glare, and then his cheeks, too, took on the bright pink of a second-degree sunburn.
The cloth-covered head of the approaching man bobbed up and down in erratic little jerks with every step, and I was reminded of the tics and twitches that had afflicted Delsinia when I’d first found her. Nephket had been kind to call this one first; it was obvious he struggled to maintain his composure and would likely have fled before speaking if she’d waited to summon him before the throne.
