Dungeon Lord (The Wraith's Haunt Book 1)

by Hugo Huesca

  “Duly noted. Thanks for the heads-up.”

  “The reason,” added Alder, “is that the south is no-man’s land. Too close to the Vast Wetlands. You’d need an army to get through. A bunch of apprentices, without provisions or adequate clothing? I don’t think they’d manage to get past Hoia Forest, much less reach the mountains. No, the only realistic way to reach Lotia is through the east, and that’s a trip of many, many months through kaftar territories. Hell, even elvenlands, and those may be as dangerous as the Wetlands, according to some. It’s still an impossible venture for a bunch of apprentices.

  After Alder was done with his explanation, Ed realized that all the Bard had said was true for the three of them, too. It seemed that Kharon had chosen to drop Ed right in the middle of the action.

  Kharon had said that Starevos was a good place for a young Dungeon Lord to grow. To Ed, it seemed that such strength came heavy with risk. It wouldn’t be easy to leave Starevos. He was, essentially, trapped.

  Power came with a cost.

  Not like I have somewhere else to be, he thought. If he wanted to survive in Ivalis, he must start by surviving Starevos and all its dangers.

  Soon, the road to Burrova was visible through the tree-line. As far as Ed knew, they had been walking for hours, but the day still hadn’t lost the sleepy air of a cold morning. His legs and arms still pulsated painfully, and he was sure he’d suffer from cramps tomorrow. Still, the sight of the road reinvigorated him.

  “We’ll have to drop the blankets here,” said Lavy. “They’re clearly not man-made. If anyone asks why you’re shirtless, tell them you lost yours while taking a bath in the river. They’ll think you’re an idiot, but that’s better than raising suspicion.”

  They braced themselves for the bite of the cold to return to their bodies. It wasn’t as brutal as it had been in the morning, but Ed’s bruised chest still turned an unhealthy shade of blue.

  “What about Klek?” he asked. “Will he be safe?”

  “Say he’s your slave,” said Lavy. “He’s a batblin, so people won’t care. And you’re from Undercity, they’ll expect you to be quirky—such as using a batblin as a guide.”

  Ed neatly placed the knowledge that there was slavery in Ivalis in a mental box of “things to worry about later.”

  “I’ll do it,” said Klek. “Should help avoid me getting shot on sight.”

  And that was that.

  They reached Burrova not long afterward. Ed had been expecting the standard fantasy village of movies and videogames—including Ivalis Online—so in a way he both found what he did and didn’t anticipate.

  Burrova appeared small to his eyes, which were accustomed to the sprawling metropolis of Earth. It was small and isolated from the outside world by a big wooden fence as tall as five or six men.

  Palisade, his brain offered the adequate word. That’s a palisade.

  The idea of using wood as a defense had never appealed to him before. It sounded like a flimsy, cheaper alternative to stone walls, but seeing the real thing made him adjust his opinion a bit.

  Burrova’s palisade didn’t look flimsy. It had depth to it, and enough space for two or three men to walk comfortably shoulder to shoulder at the top of it. Two men were standing in such way over the entrance, which was used partly as a bridge that could be raised, if need arose, by pulling on thick ropes that connected it to the palisade.

  When Ed and his companions got close enough to Burrova that Ed could see the white in the sentinel’s eyes, they reached other people using the dirt road, or secondary ones connected to it. They were farmers, by the looks of it, with strong hands and backs bent by years of heavy work. Their skin was bronze, as Alder had described. They carried baskets filled with vegetables, tied to their backs and shoulders by straps. Some baskets looked as heavy as Ed himself, and the farmers carrying them were often old ladies who seemed to have little trouble with the weight.

  The clothing was made of wool, like Alder and Lavy’s simple dresses, but everyone else wore many more layers over the tunics. Brown capes, turned almost white by the sun, thick overalls that covered shoulders and arms. Old people wore several of them, one over the other. A few wore pelts, from animals Ed didn’t recognize, over the attire.

  It looked, to Ed, very uncomfortable and itchy. It also looked warm. He wished he had a pair of those overalls. Even a shirt would’ve been nice. He was so cold he could’ve used his nipples to cut glass.

  While he walked alongside the farmers, he garnered as much curious looks as Klek, who was almost hugging Ed’s leg and staring closely at the ground. Some farmers scowled at them, but no one said anything.

  “Everyone is too busy with their own shit to bother us, and we don’t seem like a threat,” explained Alder with a whisper. “Bothering us is the sentinel’s job.”

  Once the four of them reached the wooden bridge, the sentinels standing over the palisade gestured at them to stop, while letting the farmers close to them go into the village.

  All the villagers who carried goods with them were then stopped by a third sentinel, this one guarding the entrance. Most of the villagers grunted and complained loudly at this third man, some even went red in the face, but all of them tossed small, green rings or what looked like scraps of metal into a box the sentinel carried with him. The sentinel then handed them a small parchment from a pile next to the box, and the farmers finally entered the market.

  “Halt!” said one of the sentinels atop the palisade. He was wearing a dirty leather coat and a dented over-sized helmet the shape of a bowl. He was younger than Ed by several years, and malnourished in a way the Earthling couldn’t exactly relate to. The sentinel was missing several teeth and the others were clearly rotten. His face was scarred with pockmarks and exuded such a rank of acrid booze that Ed could smell him without trouble. “You came to buy, or to sell?”

  “I’ve seen you two before,” said the other sentinel. He was a bit older, with more meat to his bones. He had a nasty scar that crossed his mouth and made him look like he was scowling constantly. His demeanor wasn’t aggressive, though. Just curious. “Yesterday, I reckon. You said you came from Prolav, didn’t you? What are you still doing here, and who is this shirtless mongrel you have with you? And, by Alita, is that a batblin he has with him?”

  Alder greeted both guards with a wave. “Hi there, friends! The mongrel is an Undercity fellow, Edward, who we found lost. We brought him here so he didn’t get killed by kaftars or the spiders. As you can see, he has had such bad luck that he even managed to lose his shirt. The batblin’s name is Klek, and he was supposed to be our friend’s guide through the wilderness. I’m sure you can guess how that went. The smelly critter was also born and raised in Undercity and has never set foot into Starevos’ wilderness. Edward bought him for half a vyfara.”

  As if on cue, Klek took a few steps away from Ed and did a crude curtsy at the sentinels. “Klek wants to be useful!”

  A small part of Ed erupted in cold anger, and he had to remind himself it was all an act.

  The sentinels laughed. The same one from before said, “An Undercity dimwit, then! Why have you ventured here, friend Edward? Surely our humble village is a sad substitute for Stormbreaker’s whorehouses.”

  Ed lacked Alder’s talent for improvisation. He stared at the sentinel with his mouth open for a second, and then he started, “Uh, greetings, ah, good…sir—”

  He heard Lavy groan under her breath.

  “I came all the way here to do business. You see, I am—” Ed went on. One second too late, he realized he had absolutely no idea what business could mean in this world. He could assume Burrova and Undercity were the standard fantasy settlements, but he had assumed as such before, and he had been wrong. The guards would expect an answer that made sense, and if he said something strange, they would be very suspicious.

  He and Lavy exchanged panicking glances while Alder stared at the sentinels with a shiny smile.

  Ed activated his improved reflexes. Inste
ad of moving, he stood frozen in place and thought for a very long second.

  He frantically looked back at all the information he had gathered from his companions’ descriptions and chitchat, and to the precious little lore he had found by playing Ivalis Online.

  In a way, in gaming terms, this was a lore test. Some games liked to reward players that listened to the NPC dialogue by having small tests that only a player who had paid attention could solve. The sentinels, to Ed, were a timed test with more dire consequences than usual—because real life had no respawns, and no savepoints.

  I’m a farmer? No, I don’t look like one. Undercity is a port, anyway—

  A sailor? No idea what I’m doing here, then—

  Even though he wasn’t moving, all the muscles in his body were taut and tense and exuding so much heat it was overwhelming. Thinking, using the reflexes, required a constant effort.

  A second had already passed. He watched the sentinel’s expressions change in slow motion.

  Merchant? I have no goods. Perhaps I lost them? To what?

  Thinking of merchants getting assaulted made him think of monsters, and merchants and monsters made him think of…

  “I am an adventurer,” he proclaimed triumphantly, his voice firm and sure. “I’m here in search of worthy work—if the pay is good.”

  He saw the tension leave Lavy’s body. The sentinels’ smiles returned to their faces.

  “Ah, an Undercity cutthroat fancying himself a great hero,” said the first sentinel, the one with the pockmarks. “Let me guess, you owe money to some unsavory character and you’re no longer welcome in the city? Don’t even think about starting trouble here, adventurer.”

  Ed shrugged, which the sentinels took as confirmation. They talked with each other for a brief moment, and then the second one nodded at Ed and his companions and gestured for them to cross the bridge.

  “This may be your lucky day, friend Edward,” the second sentinel told him. “There’s work to be had this side of the drawbridge, if you’re up for it. Talk to Ranger Ioan, or to the woman, Kes. They’ll go spider-hunting in only a few hours. Someone as—ahem—tough as you surely won’t have any problems with that?”

  The young Dungeon Lord had to make an effort not to burst out laughing. He could get paid for spider-hunting?

  Hell, I would’ve done it for free!

  “Thanks for the tip,” he said. “As it turns out, I’ve a score to settle with some spiders. See you around, friends.”

  He crossed the drawbridge, leading the way. Alder caught up with him, still smiling placidly, but there was panic in his eyes.

  The Bard managed to whisper to Ed from the corner of his mouth, “Uh, surely, you aren’t thinking on taking that offer, right?”

  Ed grinned widely and winked at him. “Haven’t you heard? I’m an adventurer now. Killing monsters is what adventurers do.”

  If someone had poured a bucket of ice-cold water on Alder’s head, his expression would’ve been the same as in that instant. “Alita, have mercy on my pour soul.”

  Lavy caught up with them and clung to the arm of her “husband” with a dreamy expression. Her eyes, though, glinted maliciously.

  “If you want her mercy, perhaps you should stop swearing on your goddess’ tits every time things don’t go your way, my dear,” she said.

  12

  Chapter Twelve

  Adventurers

  The first impression Ed had of Burrova was that it didn’t justify the palisade built around it. The ground was completely covered by a thick crust of mud, and the dirt road that was the main avenue was kept free of the filth only by the constant passing of hundreds of feet.

  The buildings were sparse, and instead of the small huts that Ed was expecting to see, they were all built of planks, a clay-like mixture, and stone. They were mostly stores, as evidenced by the small, carved signs next to their fronts.

  “Not what you imagined?” asked Lavy while they waded through a small sea of farmers, vendors, and other characters.

  “I try not to expect anything,” said Ed, shrugging. “But where are the homes?”

  He was certain that the entirety of Burrova could fit within a single block of the city he had lived in all his life.

  It wasn’t empty, though. On the contrary, the flow of people was constant, and so was their smell. Ed had to dodge and push his way among a crowd of farmers that were possessed by a happy frenzy of activity. They recognized each other in the crowd, shouted greetings, or traded insults, made bartering deals for later.

  Klek clutched at Ed’s leg. The young Dungeon Lord glanced at the batblin and realized that, to Klek, this was the biggest gathering of people he had ever seen in his entire life. The batblin looked everywhere, like he expected to be drawn and quartered at any second. Ed placed a protective hand on the batblin’s coarse shoulder and made sure to keep the guy away from kicks and shoves.

  “Not many live behind the palisade,” Lavy told Ed, still hugging Alder’s forearm like she was a newlywed. “Technically, this is Burrova’s heart, not the village itself. Almost everyone you see around here lives in farms north of here, away from the forest and the roaming kaftar bands.”

  Something like a market, he thought. Then he corrected himself. This was the marketplace, the one upon which all modern versions were based on. It was the heart of civilization.

  Not everyone carried food, Ed realized. Some carried other materials: cloth, leather, tools, sacks of what looked like heavy, colored dust that had to be transported in crude cartwheels.

  I think that’s carbon, he guessed. The man who pushed that cartwheel cursed and elbowed his way through the crowd and went straight to one of the buildings, a low, open-fronted shed with a furnace right in the middle of it. Ed counted five apprentices bent over different tools, a blacksmith overseeing them. He was a huge man covered in carbon-grime.

  “Come,” said Alder. “We need food, and clothes for you.”

  “You have money?” asked Ed.

  “What little we could scavenge from Kael’s dungeon before it collapsed,” Alder said. “Just a few vyfaras. It should be enough for today.”

  Another reason to find work, thought Ed.

  The crowd wasn’t walking aimlessly, but with a purpose. The dirt avenue led them straight to the heart of Burrova, a wide circle with only one building near its center. The ground there had been stripped bare of grass or vegetation by the steps of a multitude of people, day after day.

  The smell of people was more pungent there, and the air was filled with acrid sweat, spilled alcohol, and other disgusting substances. The shock of switching from the pure forest air to this almost made Ed dizzy. He shook his head to clear it and dove into the crowd with a confidence he didn’t feel.

  He was a city guy. He knew, to the very core of his being, that the trick to surviving huge gatherings of people was to pretend he had somewhere to go, and then act accordingly.

  So, he followed Alder and Lavy looking like he was in his element, while on the inside he was doing his best to get used to the heat and the smell of the crowd.

  Some people set their goods straight on the ground over rugged pieces of cloth. Others carried a series of planks and leather strips on their backs that they used to create store stands in minutes. The market, right in front of Ed’s eyes, slowly took shape.

  It was like watching a plant grow in fast-forward. Stands sprouted here and there, the crowd shifted and divided to give space to the vendors on the ground. The smell of people was slowly fought back by others more pleasant.

  “This is like magic,” said Klek. “So much food…”

  Apple pies, charred veggies, fresh loafs of bread, wheels of cheese the size of a child, and milk so thick it may as well be cream. There were cauldrons as big as a man—Ed couldn’t fathom how they were carried—filled to the brim with soups whose vapor filled the air with meaty promises.

  “Oh, God,” Ed muttered. “I’m so hungry.”

  Alder patted him on the
back, “Let’s go fill our stomachs, then—courtesy of Kael’s coffers. Perhaps, once your belly is full, your good judgment will return and you’ll rethink your…adventuring ideas.”

  “Buy a tunic first,” said Lavy. “And remember, you’re supposed to pay us, not the other way around. Don’t get used to this, my Lor—ahem—friend Edward.”

  “Duly noted,” said Ed, who at this point was willing to sell a kingdom for one of those sensual meat pies a couple stands to his left.

  Alder followed his gaze. “Sorry, that’s a bit out of our budget. It’s pottage for us, my brave leader. Don’t worry, it’s quite good. I know a gal who has been refilling the same cauldron for years without stopping, and the flavor is quite the delicacy.”

  The same cauldron for years, Ed thought. He sighed, closed his eyes so no one would see the flash of green, and bought resist disease right then and there. He was left with only six free points of experience, setting him even farther away from his goal of getting spellcasting.

  But risking an early death due to dysentery—or whatever sickness was surely fostering around Burrova—would be an extremely dumb way to end his adventuring. He was from another world, and for all he knew, he was missing centuries of immunological responses the surrounding people already had.

  I just hope my presence here isn’t going to kill them by giving them the flu.

  That would definitely count as cheating on the side of Murmur and Kharon, if that was how they planned to come ahead on their gamble.

  After that, Alder got him a tunic exactly like his and Lavy’s, and the four of them devoured the stew a kind old lady served them in exchange for a few green rings from Alder’s purse.

  The stew was dense with fat, sprinkled with vegetables and the occasional chunk of tendon or meat-related product—without actually being meat. It didn’t look palatable, or even all that healthy, but the taste was passable.

  Ed ate until he was full. He was raving hungry, even if he hadn’t gone all that long without eating. Using his improved reflexes twice in a day had its cost, it seemed.