I used my core vision, tuning it into the core shavings in Hogsfeate. I looked upon Sir Dullbright’s meeting room, where the furniture was covered in blood and there were corpses everywhere. Whatever had happened, it looked like they’d had a great time. They appeared to be dead guards. One, two, three, four…and Pvat, the head of the heroes’ guild.
Was this my birthday?
“Mage Hardere?” I said. “You seem to have been enjoying yourself.”
“Heavens above, this bloody thing works!” said Hardere. “Astounding. We mages have our ways of sending messages, of course, but nothing like this. Amazing.”
“Amazing indeed. Things are starting to make a little more sense now that I’m hearing your voice,” I said. “You cast a spell to remove my control over my mimic, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did.”
Hmm. This was strange. I’d expected him to deny it.
“What do you want?” I said.
“What if I said that I could give you control over the heroes’ guild in Hogsfeate?”
“The heroes’ guild would never follow a core. Why would I even want them to?”
“Think of what you could do, Core Beno. A dungeon core in control of a chapter of his enemies. I’m sure you are creative enough to imagine the uses you’d have for such power.”
“Even so,” I said, “They’d never follow me.”
“No. They follow Pvat, their elected leader. Only, poor Pvat had an accident involving his gut and a sword.”
“Was it you?”
“In a manner of speaking. Pvat is dead, but only in the same way poor Sir Dullbright is dead, but isn’t, at the same time.”
“Ah. Morphant has mimicked Pvat, and you control Morphant now.”
“Quite right, Beno. You’re clever, for a core.”
“What’s your price?” I said.
“Nothing you cannot pay. You just need to balance the scales a little. Let’s say if Dullbright were to leave Hogsfeate for good. The town would need a new mayor, no? I intend to win the election, and I am sure I could find ways to use your support in that.”
“And in return you’ll give Morphant back to me?”
“You’ll get your mimic back. You will control the heroes’ guild, and I will control the town. I’m sure we will enjoy working together.”
I only needed a second to think about it.
“We have a few things to work out, but I don’t see why not.”
“Splendid! Oh, and by the way. I have heard that my brother is peddling his wares in the wasteland. Offering to create storms and such like. You’d be well advised to have no dealings with him; he is a slippery bugger.”
“Thanks for the warning,” I said.
CHAPTER 27
Jahn’s Row was alive with activity as I floated across it. Yondersunians worked together with my kobolds who, overseen by Wylie, were cleaning debris and scrubbing blood stains from the streets. Core Jahn, sitting atop his pedestal, barked orders at a gaggle of workers and supervised the rebuilding of the shops and houses damaged by the battle, most of which came from the fight between Razensen and Nazenfyord.
I met Galatee and Reginal not in our usual meeting lodge, but instead in their own, personal lodge, where Reginal was sitting on a chair and Galatee was standing next to him. I had never been inside it before, and it gave me an inner view of the chiefs’ life together.
It was normal. Drearily normal. They even had little pieces of fabric stuffed with feathers that Reginal told me were called cushions. They served no purpose other than to be left on the couch and moved out of the way when somebody wanted to sit down. There was an easel with a half-finished painting in the corner of the room, though I couldn’t tell if it was Reginal’s or Galatee’s.
“What was the material cost of the battle, dear?” asked Reginal. “how much will it cost to fix up our town?”
“Devry has calculated as best he can, and…”
“My son was in charge of costing up the battle damage?”
“He’s the cleverest in town when it comes to these things.”
“He’s just a lad!” said Reginal.
“So? Talent doesn’t need to wait for age to catch up to it. In fact, the faster it sprints away, the better. You always brag that you killed your first man when you were ten years old.”
“Aye, well, those were different days.”
“And supposing if your father said you were too young to swing your sword?”
“Well, this is about me and Devry, not my father.”
“A little hypocritical, no?” said Galatee. “You need to give the lad some room to live.”
“He’s ill, woman!”
“He’s sick, but he’s not useless, no matter how much you try to treat him so. I know it’s because you’re scared of something happening to him, but you need to have faith in him. Let him become his own person.”
Reginal said nothing for a minute, instead just glowering at his wife. Soon, he said, “He’s lucky to have a stepmother like you. I take it as proof of my own sterling judgment.”
Galatee smiled. “Thank you. In any case, the damage is far beyond what we can pay for. Core Jahn can do much of the construction repairs, but there are things he can’t take care of. Jutch Armade, for example.”
“The town blacksmith?” I said.
“The only one we had. Nazenfyord completely destroyed his workshop while Jutch was in it.”
“Poor bugger,” said Reginal.
“It leaves us completely lacking Jutch’s set of skills. We desperately need a blacksmith in town, and we’re a little stuck.”
“Damn it,” said Reginal.
“Wait a second,” I said. “There’s a man who came to Yondersun with his family. Salt, he said his name was.”
“Like the condiment?”
“That’s right. He’s a blacksmith and he’s looking for work. If we can give him a workshop and a lodge for his family, he’d probably work quite cheaply.”
“Settled. Thank you.”
Galatee nodded. “Now that’s out of the way, we wanted to thank you, Beno, for what you did. If you hadn’t recognized what the duke was, and if you haven’t been able to persuade him…” said Galatee, stopping when her voice choked.
Reginal squeezed her hand. “I’m stepping down, Beno.”
“You don’t want to be chief anymore?”
“It’s not a question of want, but of need. It’s time I started listening to my healer. The pressures of being a chief in peacetime are just as strenuous as those in wartime, and I do not wish to sacrifice what years I have remaining.”
“Then you have more sense than most heroes, Reginal. There’s a reason you rarely see one with grey hair – they don’t know when to hang up their sword. How do you feel about this, Galatee? You’d have to take on twice the responsibility.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” she said. “We have found that having two chiefs works better than one.”
“We want you to become chief,” said Reginal.
It took me a second to process that.
Me? Joint chief of Yondersun? Part of the idea was flattering, but another part was an insult. There wasn’t much slaughter involved in being chief of a town like Yondersun, recent events excluded. It made me wonder why they would choose me. They wouldn’t pick someone who was bloodthirsty to be their chief, after all. They’d settle on someone calm and levelheaded.
Demons below, what had become of me, that they thought I was even-tempered enough for a job like that?
Even so, I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t interested. Being a chief meant power. It meant having a louder say in the affairs of the town that was right above my dungeon. I would be stupid to say no.
But would I be taking on too much again?
No. Not this time. I wanted to spread my influence as far as I could, and now, I knew how to do it without risking the place that was closest to my heart – the dungeon.
“Well,” I said. “Perhaps I can help. There would be condi
tions…”
“You didn’t let me finish,” said Reginal. “Galatee and I want you to be chief because we believe that the town’s defenses are secure with you in the role and with Galatee balancing your…somewhat unhinged…attitude toward leadership. However…”
“Reginal and I discussed it, and we do not feel we have the right to hand power to whoever we see fit. It wasn’t just Reginal and I fighting the duke and his men. Lots of townsfolk lost their lives to protect their home, and they deserve a say in its future,” said Galatee.
“An election then,” I said. “Democracy. How disgusting.”
“Well, we can’t run our town as if it was a dungeon, can we?”
“You could do worse.”
“Nevertheless, we have decided. We will hold an election to decide who is our next chief. We would be gladdened if you would consider taking part.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“And Beno?” said Reginal.
“Yes?”
“Thank you, again. You have proven to be a true friend.”
“And so have you both. Strange how things turn out, isn’t it? After Galatee bought Core Jahn and me from the academy, and transported us here in a burlap sack and installed us as protectors of your clan, as your only defense against the big, bad goblins of the Eternal clan… the chief of which is now your husband.”
“And yet, you have every chance of becoming a chief yourself, Beno. Lady Fate has a sense of humor.”
“She’s hilarious.”
“Alas, some jokes are at our expense,” said Reginal. “I fear whoever our new chief is, they will have more problems than they can count. Chief among them, if you’ll forgive my wit, is Duke Smit.”
“He won’t be troubling anyone any longer, dear,” said Galatee.
“One thing I learned as a soldier is that a battle is never over. Instead, the combatants merely take a rest, whether that be for weeks, months, or years, until a new opponent struts onto the battlefield. Every man has a master, and dukes are no exception.”
“I was talking to Gulliver about this,” I said. “Duke Smit swore fealty to Lord Dresden. A nasty bugger, by all accounts, and a nasty bugger with thousands of more men than Smit.”
“He won’t be happy that we slaughtered one of his vassals,” said Reginal.
“Then we have a choice,” I said. “We can either clean up the town and carry on as normal and pray nothing comes of this, or we can be proactive.”
“How? The battle winded us badly,” said Galatee. “Even now, we haven’t caught our breath.”
“There’s a reason why wild animals tend to form packs. We need a pack of our own, chiefs. Yondersun needs allies.”
“No, damn it,” said Reginal. “We will swear fealty to nobody. I didn’t spend decades fighting just to have to kiss some other duke’s arse.”
“I’m talking about allies of mutual consent, not a relationship of servitude,” I said. “The bogans, for one. I happen to know their leader. The Silkers merchants offer another avenue to explore. The Dungeon Core Academy, also, can be bought if you know their price. I don’t have all the answers yet, but I know the question. Who can we get on our side?”
I left the meeting feeling peculiar. It had always seemed right that Reginal was one of the Yondersun chiefs. It seemed to fit. I couldn’t imagine myself being a chief, but nor could I just refuse the opportunity without considering it. It would give me significant power, and it would mean I had even more of a say in what went on around here.
That was something to think about, but not today. Today, I had done enough thinking. I just wanted to go to my dungeon, settle in my core chamber, and read a book or listen to one of Gulliver’s stories. To just let my mind rest for a while and think of nothing.
When I got to my dungeon, though, I got the feeling that it wasn’t quite time for rest.
The whole lair was silent. Not a single voice drifted through the tunnels. Something was wrong here.
Using my core vision, I saw that all my dungeon mates were in the loot chamber. All the mana lamps were extinguished, and they appeared to be crouching down, holding their breath, and trying to stay as quiet as possible.
What in the name of the underworlds was going on?
Cautiously, I floated through the passageways and tunnels until I reached the loot chamber.
“Right, you bunch of miscreants, you better explain just what in all hells is going-”
“Surprise!” cried a multitude of voices.
Mana lamps flickered to life one by one, and I saw that someone had put a banner on the chamber wall. It read: ‘Happy Rebirthday Day, Dark Lord!’
In the center of the chamber were piles of book-shaped, wrapped gifts, as well as a flattering portrait of me floating above the corpse of a fallen hero.
“You bloody soft-hearted fools,” I said. “You did this for me? You knew when my resurrection day was?”
“You didn’t think we’d forget, did you?” said Gulliver. “It’s not every day a guy can mark the anniversary of when he was brought back to life. Have a rest and enjoy yourself for a while, Beno. You earned it.”
End of Book 5
Dungeon Core Academy: Book 6
CHAPTER 1
“Folks are going missing every day. I’m bloody sick of waiting for something to be done about it!” he shouted, pounding his fist on the table.
I took the liberty of translating what the trader said, because he’d stuffed a pie in his mouth before speaking. It’d be nice if people finished chewing before they talked. So what if this was a dungeon? We didn’t need to forget our manners.
Then again, describing it as a dungeon was pretty generous right now. If heroes wandered into my lair today, they’d think they’d taken a wrong turn somewhere.
The loot chamber, usually home to furious hero-monster battles, boasted a twenty-feet-long oak table. I’d bought it from a carpenter in Yondersun. A flower-pattern cloth was spread over the table. Dozens of mana lamps lined the walls, glowing silver and white so they looked like stars.
Brecht, my kobold bard, tapped his tambourine and sang songs about disgusting concepts like hope, peace, and love. My blood-soaked loot chamber was a horribly pleasant place today, and I hated it.
I also hated entertaining. If I didn’t need these traders’ influence in the upcoming Yondersun elections, I’d have been more likely to feed them to my monsters than to feed their bellies.
“They say a little girl is the latest to go,” said one trader. “Poor lass.”
A gnome, his chin hair into three oiled forks, nodded. “Vanishing out of thin air, I ‘erd. What a nasty business. Makes you scared to leave your house! Can’t we be left to make money in peace, eh? That’s the tragedy of it all.”
“And the girl. That’s a tragedy too.”
“Yeah, yeah, and her. That’s a given, obviously. But think of all the gold we’ll lose if this carries on…”
“Damn it! If the chiefs were in charge of the sun, we’d have a month of nighttime.”
“That ain’t everything. Rumors are that corpses are being stolen.”
“What?”
“Heard it from a rug merchant. He’d just come back from Hogsfeate, where they’re having to post night guards on graveyards. Some sicko is stealing corpses!”
“Makes me scared to leave my bloody latrine, never mind my house! And now I find myself in a dungeon, of all places.”
“I’m sure our friend Beno has a good reason for persuading us to join him here.”
I listened to them prattle on, and it took every ounce of self-control not to unleash a swarm of deadly hornets on them. Did they never shut up about money? Was all they cared about their stupid coin purses?
If only I had placed a boulder trap directly above them. One pull of the lever and they’d be splatted into little trader patties. It was nice to dream, but I couldn’t afford to flatten them.
Not when I had to convince them to help me.
Of the four influenti
al merchants, only one had stayed silent. Baby Blakemore. A tubby dwarf with huge biceps that could crush an apple with one flex. Which he often did when he had enjoyed too many ales in the Scorched Scorpion tavern. I still didn’t know why they called him Baby. Nobody did. One of my friends, Eric the barbarian, had once met a stone troll called Baby, named so because he had a very particular favorite food. I didn’t think this Baby got his name the same way. Judging from his gut, he looked like he was carrying one.
He spoke for the first time. “It’s reducing trade, is what it’s doing. Folks won’t travel to a town where they’re just as likely to go missing as to reach the gates. A travesty! A travesty that nobody has done anything about it. Our chiefs…what do they do? Barely lift a finger.”
I saw a chance for political point-scoring. “You need a man…a being…of action. Someone who was trained to kill and would make the town safer.”
The other three traders looked uncomfortable.
Mentioning the word ‘kill’ was a mistake, and a voice in my head confirmed it.
“I thought we said you wouldn’t draw attention to the fact you’re a bloodthirsty dungeon core? It makes them uncomfortable.”
The voice was Gulliver’s, who was in an adjoining chamber. He was watching the scene through a core vision projection I had made for him. We were talking using my core hearing and core voice, senses vital for running a chaotic dungeon that usually had dozens of things going on at once.
“You’re right,” I said. “I need to draw attention away from the fact I’m a killer.”
“Be more like them. People need something they can empathize with.”
“Okay. Empathy.”
I turned my attention back to the traders.
How could I play up the fact I’d be a strong chief, while also being more like them?
I had to show them two sides. The killer and the…uh…puppy.
“When I’m not out in the streets of Yondersun feeding the poor…” I began.
“Feeding the poor?”
The grimaces on their faces said they found that distasteful.
Dungeon Core Academy: Books 1-7 (A LitRPG Series) Page 108
