“Now,” said Morphant. “Why is it that you disturb me so early?”
“Sir Lord Duke Mayor,” said the guard, “Your…lady…uh…companion is here.”
Morphant couldn’t help but smile. “Send her i-”
A lady strode into the chamber, bringing a waft of tobacco smell with her. Light from the yawning sun crept in through the window and shone upon her face, illuminating the pox scars on her right cheek. Her clothes were tattered and dirty, and Morphant caught the guard softly shaking his head at her.
“That will be all, Rufus,” said Morphant.
“I’m Jerome, sir. I mean, yes, Sir Lord Duke.”
The door shut, leaving Morphant alone with his favorite person in the whole of Hogsfeate. When he first took over Dullbright’s life, a handful of rich ladies called in on him. One almost every night. It seemed that the old Dullbright had an arrangement where he would give them gifts and favors, and they would in turn show him their bare skin and give him a close approximation of affection. The problem, Morphant found, was that they didn’t really mean any of the nice things they said to him.
Though Morphant found their duplicitousness sickening, something was comforting about their presence in his chamber, and he decided that there might be a way to keep that comfort while ridding himself of the posh harlots who wore smiles to hide the deceitful thoughts they thought he couldn’t see.
One morning, in Dullbright form, Morphant was walking through the plaza. Everyone smiled at him, called his name, moved out of his way. Merchants fell over themselves to give him samples of their wares. But behind all the smiles, he saw their lies.
It was only when he walked past a delightful lady who was sitting on the street with a cap by her feet and just one coin in it, that his luck changed.
She had scowled at him. “What the feck are you looking at, Lord Lard Arse?” she said.
His guards, obviously, were in uproar at the insolence, and Morphant heard the ring of steel.
“Settle down,” he told them.
“Yeah, listen to Lord Lard Arse,” said the beggar woman.
And with that, Morphant was enchanted.
The honesty of her. The bluntness. The face she showed the world, though blighted by the pox, was genuine and not a mask.
“Madam, I would be honored if you would come to my house at the top of the town hill tonight.”
“Wha’?”
“What?” said the guards, behind him.
“I will have my cook prepare us a dish of lovely human food. Of food, I mean.”
“You cruel son of a rat, joking with me like that.”
“I assure you that it is no joke. I will wait to receive you at my home tonight.”
Since that morning, Kargot the street lady had visited him every day, always giving him the truths that he craved. If he looked fat, she would tell him. If she thought he said something stupid, she made sure he was aware of it. Morphant began to enjoy his time with Lady Kargot – as she insisted that he call her – more than any of his other duties as Sir Dullbright.
He had not, of course, told Core Beno or Gulliver about her.
“You look especially tubby today, m’lord,” she said. “Your waist is like a pie crust spilling over the sides of the tray.”
Morphant beamed. “Thank you, Kargot. And, how are you?”
She sniffed. “Ah, you know. Life’s just a big fat bladder, and I’m the chamber pot.”
Four taps sounded on the chamber door.
“Yes?” said Morphant.
The door opened a crack to reveal a guard’s face.
“Ah, Jerome. What is it?”
“No, sir, I’m Rufus. Jerome just finished his shift. Beg my intrusion, sir, but Pvat of the heroes’ guild is here to see you.”
The heroes’ guild. Though Morphant hadn’t spent as much time in the dungeon as some of the other creatures, an aversion to the heroes’ guild was woven deep into his being. The mere mention of the name made him want to fling Pvat out of the chamber windows. Alas, Core Beno had already warned him about doing this. And then Gulliver had repeated the warnings again and again.
Right now, Pvat and the heroes’ guild enjoyed popularity among the people of Hogsfeate. Until Gulliver’s lies had spread through the population, Pvat couldn’t be harmed. No flinging him from windows. Not even from ground-floor ones.
“Send Pvat in,” he said.
Rufus nodded at Kargot. “Would you like to come with me, miss?”
“She stays.”
“Sir, Pvat is here on town business and…”
“And what?” bellowed Morphant. “You’ve decided that as my chamber guard, you are now the expert in diplomatic affairs? Get out of here, Rufus, before I have you…”
He struggled to think of a threat. What would Beno say?
“…before I have you covered in boiling oil and torn apart by wolves.”
Kargot laughed. “An’ then thrown into the sewer for the rats to feast on.”
“Exactly. Thank you, Lady Kargot.”
“Shut up, you bloated turnip.”
Ah. More sweet honesty. Morphant could sit there and be insulted by her all day, as long as her insults stayed genuine. The second she began making them up for effect was when their relationship might sour.
A man strode in. Slightly on the older side of life but still trim, and with badly receding hair that he hadn’t yet built the courage to attack with a well-oiled razor. He had a tattoo around his right eye. Letters, of some sort, but Morphant didn’t recognize them, and he’d never bothered to ask Pvat what they meant. He half-thought the tattoo was for attention, and that Pvat actually wanted people to ask what the strange symbols meant. Morphant wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“Take a seat, Pvat.”
“I’ll stand.”
“Suit yourself.”
Kargot took an apple from a bowl and bit into it. She grimaced, walked to the window, and spat the chunks out.
“They are wax,” said Morphant. “I am told that hu…that they make a good decoration.”
“Get some real bloody fruit,” said Kargot, spitting.
Pvat could barely look at Kargot. As she spat apple from the window, his expression was so strained it was like two demons were competing for control of his facial features. Anyone would think she was riddled with the plague or something.
Morphant would have respected Pvat so much more if he’d said what he thought about Kargot instead of trying to hide it. If he had told him that he didn’t like the woman being here and that her mere presence brought him in danger of an irreversible facial spasm. But no. Pvat, despite his shiny armor and fancy sword, was like everyone else, hiding his true thoughts.
“What brings you here so early, Pvat? I have to say, you are nothing if not unpredictable. You keep turning up at my house at all hours. Morning, noon, night. You never come here at the same time twice. Anyone would think you are trying to catch me out or something.”
“I would not be so ungracious, Mayor. You have been kind to the heroes’ guild.”
“Pvat, lately I have stripped away all the heroes’ guild grants and begun taxing your heroes on the loot they earn in dungeons. I have removed your influence over the town guards, and I also banned your heroes from taking jobs at the men-at-arms boards so that you don’t rob mercenaries of work. I have not been kind to your guild in the slightest. Now, I don’t mind if you tell me so.”
“Well, if I can be honest…”
“Please. If you are capable.”
“I do find your change of heart toward my guild troubling, Mayor. Just months ago, we discussed replacing the town guards completely and having my heroes…secure…the town. It seemed we were singing the same ballad, but then you changed your mind.”
“How does it make you feel, Pvat?”
“…aggrieved.”
“Aggrieved? That’s all?”
“I’d be pissed off,” said Kargot, reaching for another apple and then remembering they were w
ax.
“A natural reaction,” said Pvat. “But the feeling of anger doesn’t change the situation that caused it. I was merely a regular hero before I became head of my guild. A man of action. I find that it’s better to do something about a problem, than stew on it.”
“Meaning?” said Morphant.
Pvat stared at him for the longest time. Morphant stared back but caught even less meaning in the look than he did in the strange symbols around Pvat’s eye.
This man is hard to read.
He wasn’t just hiding his thoughts because he was scared of voicing them. He was hiding them because he was good at it and because he knew they needed hiding.
Though he wouldn’t say it, he was suspicious of Morphant…and that was worrying.
I need to talk to Core Beno.
There came five taps on the chamber door.
Before Morphant could say anything, a man strode in. A man even older than Pvat, wearing a long robe that trailed to his ankles, dog-eaten at the hem and covered in stains all over. He wore nothing underneath it, evidenced by flashes of wrinkled chest skin that said hello from time to time as he moved.
“Mage Hardere?” said Morphant. He looked at the doorway. “Rufus? Why didn’t you tell me-”
The mage held up a finger. Light pulsed at the tip. “Shh,” he said.
Morphant was silent. He tried to speak, but he couldn’t.
A spell.
Kargot leaped away from the windowsill. “Now just what the feck-”
Pvat buried his dagger in her belly before she could finish her sentence. He let her collapse to the ground, limp.
Morphant felt a stabbing pain. Not through a knife in his own gut, but when he looked at poor Kargot.
The mage walked right up to him until his face was just inches away from Morphant’s. Morphant couldn’t move. He could barely think. He needed to speak to Core Beno, but the core shavings were in the meeting chamber downstairs. He couldn’t talk to him without them.
Mage Hardere looked at Morphant from all angles. He prodded his skin. Poked his cheeks. Lifted his eyelids and inspected his eyeballs up close.
“Yes, I see what you mean,” he said. “Fascinating. A perfect copy, by all means, were it not for the smell of his skin. Somewhat masked by powder, but one wrought deep into him. They all have a tell, you see. They each have a way to spot them.”
“Then it’s true?” asked Pvat.
“I’m afraid so. Our Mayor has been replaced by a mimic.”
“Who would do a thing like that?”
The mage smiled. “You would be surprised at just how many of these creatures rule lands in Xynnar, Pvat.”
Watching through this now-useless body, Morphant strangely felt no fear. Instead, there was something he respected about Mage Hardere. Here, at last, was a man who didn’t filter his thoughts.
“But if it’s here then it has a master, yes? Someone who is controlling it?” said Pvat.
“Yes. One master, or perhaps several. Perhaps it is the tool of a council who is seeking to gain control of towns like ours. I have heard such rumors.”
“Can you do anything about it?”
“Bring old fool Dullbright back? No, unless you’d rather have a rotting corpse in charge of things. Even if I could restore Dullbright to his former self, why should we do that? There are much, much better things to do with our discovery. Mimics can be given a new master, you know. It is but a case of knowing the right spell. The real trick is identifying a mimic in the first place. Your hero instincts served you well, Pvat.”
“Then I want you to do it, Hardere. I will be its master.”
Mage Hardere turned to the hero and held out his hands palms upwards. He held one hand much higher than the other.
Pvat sighed. “Must we do the ridiculous scale game again? We have already paid you enough.”
“That was to confirm your suspicions, which I have done. If you require extra services, then you must balance things.”
“Can’t you do it out of a sense of patriotism, man? This thing killed our mayor and took his place!”
“I don’t give a rat’s arse if he killed the gods and sat in the upperworld farting rainbows down on us all. Think about this, Pvat. Though a mimic has been ruling this town for only the gods know how long, I noticed no change. Replacing our old mayor with a mimic made not a bit of difference to my life. If that isn’t a glowing evaluation of our old mayor, I don’t know what is. I care not a damn for whose noble posterior sweats in these fancy bed sheets. You, however, do care about things like that. If you want me to care as much as you, you will have to restore the balance.”
His face a picture of annoyance, Pvat took his coin purse from his pocket and began placing gold pieces in Hardere’s palm.
CHAPTER 6
Razensen waited for the perfect time before giving the order to send the heroes to the ice. A well-timed ambush was a thing of beauty and to him, it felt like how an archer must feel when they pull the drawstring taut and sense it trembling, letting them know it has reached the perfect tension.
He was in the loot room, hidden behind one of the mounds of earth that the little kobold, Wylie, had constructed with the help of his mining crew. There was another mound opposite, with the main area of the loot chamber in between, forming a natural ambush point. Now, Razensen and his unit were divided and waiting behind each mound.
The heroes strolled in. A kobold archer caught Razensen’s eyes, but he shook his head.
Not yet. Wait for it…
The heroes didn’t look like heroes at all. It wasn’t because of their armor or weapons, but something about their attitude. Something that told Razensen that these men and women were used to different terrain and that they didn’t spend much time underground.
The strangest of the group was the young girl and boy. Teenagers, perhaps. Maybe older, maybe younger. Razensen could not judge human age well; they were all just fleshy blobs no matter how many years they had faced.
“I still don’t understand why we’re poking around a trap infested dungeon,” said one hero. “We already lost Yeez, Gates, Bulwy, Gorka, Rodvine. This place is a bloody death trap!”
“Captain Endliver says we gots to hold up on land while the ship’s getting repaired,” said one. “An’ we can’t just hang around not earning gold. Since there are no ships to plunder, we gots to raid dungeons.”
“We’re not equipped for it, as evidenced by us losing five good men and women.”
“At least we gots the sneaky kobold as an ‘ostage. If we ain’t been able to get the information on the dungeon from her, things would ‘av been a lot worse!”
“Do you really have to talk like such an idiot? I know you put it on for show. You spent a year in college, did you not? Speaking like that doesn’t make you seem tough, if that’s the effect you’re going for.”
“Shut up.”
Razensen ignored their babble, focusing on two words he’d heard them say.
Sneaky kobold?
Did these heroes have possession of Shadow? The Stone had been sending his monsters out to the wasteland to look for Shadow. Though nobody had dared say it, Razensen had presumed the kobold had gone back to the ice. But if she was alive…
“Wait! Wha’s that over there? Sticking out behind the mud?”
Rumbled.
“Send them to the ice!” bellowed Razensen. “Try and keep one alive.”
His kobolds crawled to the top of the ambush mounds and pulled their bowstrings taut. His bone guys rattled as they charged out, swords raised, their dead eyes set on the heroes’ flanks. His shrub bandits formed at the base of the mound, thorns sticking out from their leaves and ready to shoot.
Answering in like, the heroes drew their swords. Strange, curved blades in some hands, long, thin rapiers in others.
Arrows zipped through the air, some landing in flesh with soft pops and resulting in cries of pain, others bouncing harmlessly off the chamber walls. Hero steel met bone guy iron, and the air
filled with the metallic musical clanging as the opponents danced with their swords.
“Argh!” yelled a hero, clutching the end of a thorn lodged in his throat. “Hegh gogh me!”
One hero sidestepped a bone guy’s swing and then struck a blow of his own, carving through the skeleton from collar bone to hip, breaking the bones apart and leaving it to collapse on the ground in an ivory heap.
Soon the heroes were dead, having taken one bone guy, two shrubs, and two kobolds to the ice with them.
Razensen stepped out in the center of the loot chamber, only to find that two heroes remained. They were the boy and the girl. He studied them. The boy was scared; though he tried to be brave and clenched his fists, his throat wobbled, and his eyes darted this way and that, his gaze taking in over the slaughter around him. The girl defiantly crossed her arms. She stood with a leaning gait, heavily favoring one leg. An injury, perhaps.
Razensen’s monsters were standing still as if they were frozen.
“Well? Leaving a job half done?” he boomed, feeling the heat in his eyes. “Send them to the ice!”
The girl smiled. A crooked smile, like a wolf licking its lips before a meal.
“I’m Anna,” she said, her voice infuriatingly perky. “What’s your name, big yeti man? It’s nice to meet me, isn’t it?”
“Kill her!” ordered Razensen.
Not a single monster moved.
The girl shook her head. “No, thank you! No death for me today!”
Razensen’s monsters turned on him. Bows were drawn, their arrows pointed at his face. Thorns protruded amidst shrub bandits’ leaves and pointed at him. His remaining bone guys lifted their swords and rattled in his direction.
“Have you gone mad? Kill the heroes!” he shouted, unable to believe it.
“They don’t feel like it,” said the girl. “They want to serve me now. And so do you, big yeti man.”
“What, little girl?”
She stared at him with a look of concentration.
Razensen felt something in his mind. Something...smothering his thoughts. Making him feel…
She isn’t so bad, this girl. Not so bad at all. A better master than…
Dungeon Core Academy: Books 1-7 (A LitRPG Series) Page 89
