Utta produced a deck of Turo cards from his pocket, and he and Anna passed the time playing a game instead of getting some rest. Oh, to have a teenager’s energy again. Bolton was well beyond the twilight of his third life, and he found that he needed to take a nap to recover from his naps these days.
As much as the girl was a pain in his arse, there was something about her that he liked. Her honesty, for one, even if it was usually employed in a derogatory way. Still, Bolton always thought that blunt honesty beat lies, even if lies were more pleasing to the ear.
But there was something else Bolton liked, too. The ease with which Utta and Anna enjoyed each other’s company. Bolton didn’t have many real friends, and watching the two almost let him enjoy their friendship vicariously.
Even so, his thoughts still strayed to a life wasted. He’d lived three lives - two as a human and one as a core - and what did he have to show for it? Sure, as a dungeon core, he had built what was widely regarded as the greatest dungeon to ever exist. That, in turn, had earned him resurrection back into human form, and he had spent this new life as an overseer in the Dungeon Core Academy.
Had he wasted it all? Maybe so. Why hadn’t he traveled Xynnar? Why had it never occurred to him to find a wife, to have children, to live a peaceful, quiet life free from monsters, dungeons, and those damned pain-in-the-arse cores? He’d wasted his third life, and now he was on the last trek to death and he had nobody to share the journey with.
“Ha! I win!” shouted Anna, slamming a card on the ground.
Utta shrugged, taking the loss without losing his cool. He walked away for a few paces and dropped to the ground and began a circuit of pushups.
“Oh, you’re no fun when you lose,” said Anna. “I suppose it’s time I had some fun of my own.”
Anna hobbled over to Bolton, a grin on her face. She sat down in front of him. Without saying a word, she stared at him, her eyes piercing. She scrunched up her face.
“Your mind is blank,” she said.
Bolton’s mouth fell open. “Who…who are you?” he said. “What am I doing out here with you?”
“I’m Anna. I have beautiful hair and the greatest singing voice. You have taken us far enough from the dungeon, and we are going to part ways now, overseer.”
“Anna,” grunted Utta, now doing stomach crunches. “Are you messing with him?”
“I’m a Chosen One, Utta. I’m using my chosen gift. We don’t need him anymore.” She turned to face Bolton again. “As I said, Utta and I are going now. Before I do, you will strip down to just your unders. You will give us your food, water, and we will take your horses. You will stay all the way out here, half-naked. Understand?”
“But it is the wasteland,” said Bolton, his voice strangely empty. “I would die.”
“Even so, you will do it.”
“Yes, I will do it, Miss Anna.”
“Overseer Bolton, I want you to answer me honestly. What do you think of destiny?”
“Destiny doesn’t exist, Miss Anna. It is something those who fail at something use to console themselves, or it is an excuse people use to never try things. To never give themselves the chance to fail.”
“Destiny is a load of crap, isn’t it? Nobody is chosen. Nobody deserves anything just for existing. Life doesn’t have some big, grand purpose mapped out for us, does it? Stone tablets mean absolutely nothing, do they?”
“Exactly, Miss Anna.”
She laughed, tossing her hair. “Thank you, Bolton. Now come on, Utta,” she said, turning her back on the overseer. “If we hurry, we can-”
Bolton grabbed hold of her, yanked her back, and shoved her to the ground. Utta bolted to his feet and charged. Bolton held out a gloved hand, sending a blast of purple light at his chest. Utta crashed onto his back, winded.
“I’m an academy overseer, you stupid girl. Did you really think your little tricks would work on me? I have spent my life working with cores. Mind powers or not, they are a damned sight more devious than you.”
She scooted back on her arse. “Then you…you weren’t under my…”
“The water you drank from my canteen? It had kerowit in it, my girl. A useful herb, and one that suppresses powers like yours. Same with you, Utta. Don’t bother trying to use your abilities for the next day or so.”
“What do you want from us?” said Anna. “Where are you taking us?”
“To the Dungeon Core Academy. There is an old core we need to wake up, and your powers do the trick. Now get some rest, and we’ll set off when it’s dark. If you behave, Anna, I’ll teach you how to steer the horses. You might as well learn some practical life skills while we’re together.”
CHAPTER 20
“I’m in love, Beno. There, I said it.”
“Yes, Gull. You’ve said it a hundred times.”
The wagon made a clack-clack-click-clack as the three straight and one wonky wheel rolled over the wasteland.
“All the places I have been. All the ladies I have known. And now, finally, I have found my soul’s partner.”
“You believe in that stuff?” I said.
“No, it’s utter hogwash. But I’m a scribe, it’s in my blood to speak the language of the love gods.”
I laughed. “As long as you’re happy. Not that you asked, but I approve of your choice of a romantic partner, if only for her ability to get our arses out of trouble. Unfortunately, I feel like we’ve climbed out of a bog, only to find ourselves mired in the middle of…an even bigger bog.”
“Morphant?”
“Exactly. Somehow, he has broken free of his bond to me. Or, someone broke the bond for him. Either way, he serves another master now. My gut tells me that the person with the most to gain, the person conniving enough to do something like this, is Pvat. If he somehow rumbled Morphant’s mimicry, he would absolutely seize the chance to turn it to his advantage.”
“How would he know how to do it?”
“That’s the question. He wouldn’t, I don’t think. Pvat is an experienced hero, a master swordsman, and has no doubt seen lots of dungeons, cores, and monsters during his career. But he isn’t a magic-user. Only someone adept at magic could sever a bond between core and monster.”
“There’s only one mage in Hogsfeate, Beno.”
“Hardere.”
“Exactly. The mage with the ever-wandering nipples.”
“Well, we know he can be bought. He doesn’t exactly pretend otherwise. Pvat’s hero guild has been getting rich by sucking on Hogsfeate’s teat, so he wouldn’t lack the funds.”
“If Pvat paid Hardere to break Morphant’s bond to you and make him his new master, it means…”
“That the heroes’ guild now controls our mimic of Dullbright, and through him, they control the town. If Hogsfeate was hostile to cores and monsters before, it’s going to become downright dangerous now that Pvat has free rein.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“What can I do, Gull? I can’t exactly storm the town walls. Even if I had enough creatures to do it, I’d be leaving my dungeon completely unprotected. Reginal and Galatee have no idea about what I’ve been doing in Hogsfeate, and they wouldn’t approve of it if they did, and they certainly wouldn’t commit any of their people to fight Pvat. Nor would I ask them to. A bastard like Pvat isn’t worth Yondersunians dying for.”
“Surely you’re not going to going to float away and let Pvat have Hogsfeate for himself?”
“Only for now, Gull. I can’t beat him by force, so I’ll have to think of something else. There’s no point rushing into a fight that I won’t win. You used to be a warscribe. You must have seen plenty of battles that would have been best avoided.”
“True enough. I’ve watched a duke’s pride get thousands of men and women slaughtered.”
“Exactly. Look at poor old Klok here. Imagine him with a sword, charging at the walls of Hogsfeate. He’d get run through by the first moron with a spear. He wouldn’t want to be dragged into a fight like that, and I wouldn�
��t ask him to. Isn’t that right, Klok?” I said.
“I would prefer not to fight, Dark Lord. Some kobolds are born for fighting, some are for mining, some are for other things.”
“Fair enough,” said Gulliver.
“Yip!” said Rusty, suddenly standing up on the back of the wagon and pointing. “Dark Lord, look!”
“What in all hells…” said Gulliver.
Yondersun should have been just ahead of us. Instead, all I could see was a thick blanket of fog covering the town from the ground and all the way up to the heavens. Grey and thick like smoke, but with no smell, no hint of fire. It stretched from east to west, completely covering the horizon so that not a single house, shop, or person could be seen.
Chief Reginal spluttered into his handkerchief, only recovering after several deep coughs. “Can someone shut the…” he began, before coughing again. “Shut the damned windows?”
Every single window in the Yondersun meeting lodge was already shut. Although it was only early in the afternoon, the world outside the windows was darker than a tomb. An oppressive kind of fog smothered against the windows, a fog so thick that nothing outside could be seen.
“So what is it?” said Galatee. “Fog?”
“Can’t be actual fog,” I said. “It never gets cold enough for fog out here.”
“It’s mist,” said Reginal.
Galatee, rubbing his back, said, “There’s a difference?”
“Fog is natural. An element of weather. As Beno said, fog can't form out here. But a mist…well. Who knows what kind of mists a mage could conjure out of his arse?”
“Or her arse,” I said.
Galatee looked at her husband with concern. “Oh, Reginal. You’re stressed. You’re seeing swords in the shadows. Although we can’t explain how fog has formed here, that doesn’t mean that…”
“Reginal might be right,” I said. “Do we not know of a mage who can control a meager thing like the weather? A mage who carries strange little boxes with lightning and rainclouds and all kinds of weather patterns trapped inside?”
“But we paid him,” said Galatee. “Why would he cast a fog around our town?”
“Because the greedy rat wants more!” said Reginal. He pounded the table with his fist and then collapsed into another coughing fit. Recovering himself, he said, “Mark my words. He’ll show up soon, offering to lift the fog if we pay him a fortune. He’s blackmailing us. Oh, I knew we should never have employed the services of a mage.”
“Or,” I said, “He has a new employer. The weathermage has no loyalty to us. If someone were to pay him enough gold, he’d turn his boxes of tricks on anyone. Now, think very carefully, chiefs. Can you think of a single enemy of Yondersun? Say, a duke of some sort who was recently set on riding out here and holding us to ransom?”
“Duke Smit.”
“Yes, old Smitty himself.”
Reginal’s face paled. “The fog is toxic. He’s using it to poison us! To weaken us without having to lift a finger!”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“What do you know? You’re a damned lump of stone.”
“Well, that was very hurtful, Reginal.”
“I know. I know. I am…” Reginal spluttered. Galatee rubbed his back even harder as if her rubbing speed was directly linked to how fast his lungs cleared. “I am sorry, Beno. I shouldn’t use hurtful names. But listen to me! I can’t get a bloody word out without coughing up my diaphragm. This fog is toxic. It has affected me the worst, but mark me, townsfolk will start dropping.”
Galatee looked at Reginal, then at me. I could tell she was doubtful about her husband’s claims but didn’t want to directly contradict him. Then again, she would quickly lose chiefly integrity if she agreed with Reginal just because they were married.
“We’ll send everyone into the underground caverns next to Beno’s dungeon for a day or so until the fog clears,” she said.
“Live underground for a day? Close their shops and taverns, leave their houses, and squeeze together in that hovel? Unthinkable.” said Reginal.
“My tribe lived underground for decades. We haven’t suddenly forgotten how to stomach a little discomfort.”
“You’d be surprised. They’ve already been in their fancy townhouses long enough to forget how to sleep in the dirt.”
“Well, what do you want, Reginal? You tell me you think the fog is poisonous. I do not believe it is, yet I’m offering a solution to make sure our people are safe. Short of sucking the fog out of the air myself, what do you want me to do?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I am sorry, love. I do not like facing an enemy like this. If I swiped my sword at the fog, my blade would hit nothing but the cold air. I like an opponent with soft flesh that tears when it meets my sword.”
“That’s why we are both chiefs. Together we can adapt to face enemies the other can’t. Now, let’s have everyone moved underground at once. Beno, could you send your ravens out to scout and see how far the fog reaches?”
“Mist,” said Reginal.
“Already done,” I said. “It was the first thing I did when we got back to town.”
“And?”
“Bad news. The fog spreads from Yondersun and all the way north across the wasteland. Not an inch of it has been spared. My ravens could barely fly through it.”
“In all my time living on this dry rock, I have never seen anything like it.”
“Nor me,” said Reginal.
“Galatee, you are being sensible in protecting against possible poison,” I said. “And I believe we should prepare ourselves for another danger. It’s my belief that given how unlikely it is for this fog to be natural, someone created it. The weathermage would not waste such a spell on the slight chance he can blackmail us. He would only do so if his payment was certain. The only man who is both an enemy of Yondersun and has the gold to fund this is Duke Smit. We should act on the belief that Smit is going to bring his army out under the cover of fog and surround us before we can even realize what he’s done.”
“If we can’t see through it, then he can’t either,” said Reginal. “The fog of war blinds both armies’ eyes.”
“Not when you are paying the weathermage who cast it. Trust me, he will have some way around it. We should prepare our defenses now rather than wish we’d done it later.”
“I am with you on this, Beno,” said Galatee.
Reginal grumbled. “Then I suppose I am, too. I will tell my men to stop using their swords as toothpicks, put on their combat leathers, and stay alert.”
“And I’ll go back to my dungeon and get ready,” I said.
CHAPTER 21
The Yondersunians, who had become used to living in fancy new houses above ground instead of a damp cave deep under the wasteland, took the order as well as anyone would have expected. Their grumbles were loud enough to reach me and my creatures in our dungeon, but luckily, we were too busy to care.
“Ah, the monster melding chamber. What are we doing here?” said Gulliver who, for only the second time since I’d known him, was wearing the same outfit twice in a row. I guessed that having to flee Hogsfeate without his wardrobe of clothes was the worst thing that had ever happened to him.
“If Duke Smit is coming, I want to put out the welcome mat and make sure he feels at home.”
There were three circles drawn on the floor in runescript. To use the monster melding chamber, I would need to have a creature stand in each one. The melding chamber would combine them all, resulting in a single monster that possessed a mix of their appearance and abilities.
The first time I had ever used the chamber, I’d combined a spider, rock-troll, and a leech. This resulted in Gary - a spider who was the size of a troll, with rock-hard underbelly skin and giant leeches for legs. Sure, he wasn’t pleasant to most people’s eyes, but I thought he was a fine-looking specimen.
So…what would the melding chamber give me this time?
“The thing to remember here is that Duke Smit’s
men will be soldiers and not heroes,” I said.
“There’s a difference?” said Gulliver.
“On the face of it, they both swing their swords in exchange for payment. They just serve different paymasters. Soldiers report to their lord or duke, while all heroes kiss their guild’s arse. But there’s a more important difference. Heroes are trained to raid dungeons. They grow up learning about monsters, to the point where they become desensitized to them, and rarely get scared when entering a core’s lair. But a soldier is generally only used to fighting other soldiers. They aren’t as accustomed to facing a monster.”
“Ah. So, they won’t know how to fight one.”
“Well…swing a sword at anything in just the right way, and it’ll die. It’s more that because Smit’s army won’t have encountered monsters as much, so they won’t have become as desensitized to them. If I can create a horrible enough creature in here, I can make Smit’s men wet their britches. I need something really, really dreadful. Something disgusting, loathsome, so disgusting to look at that no sane man can bear to be in its presence for long.”
“Let me consult my records. I’m sure I wrote down the address of my last girlfriend’s mother…”
“You should be more respectful toward your partner’s mothers, Gull. Have a little decorum. Anyway, let’s see what I can come up with.”
Checking my essence, I saw that I had 2460 / 2460 essence points available to spend, after which I’d need to wait for them to regenerate. There was no telling how far away Smit was, so I couldn’t count on having the time to regenerate. I needed to spend my points wisely.
The problem was that the melding chamber was unpredictable. It could combine three creatures and come up with a monster of ferocious power, or it could spew out a complete mess. I’d once heard of a core combining a raven, poltergeist, and a spider, and ending up with an invisible raven that flew around crapping bits of web everywhere.
Randomness aside…there was a way to stack the odds. The way to do that was by choosing my three monsters carefully.
Dungeon Core Academy: Books 1-7 (A LitRPG Series) Page 103
