“Why do you care what those nitwits think? Unless you crap gold coins, they certainly don’t care about you.”
“They hold sway over the town. The chiefs run it, but the larger the town grows, the more golds flows through purses. The traders are getting more influential by the day, and whoever they endorse in the chief election is nailed on to win.”
“Okay, fine. But why do you care about becoming chief?”
“The town is right above my dungeon,” I said. “What happens up there affects things down here. If I have more of a say about town issues, it makes my dungeon more secure.”
“Are you sure that’s the only reason?”
“What are you suggesting?”
“Back when I was an apprentice scribe…”
“Here we go. More tales from Gulliver’s youth.”
Gulliver carried on. He wasn’t to be baited today, apparently. “A few other lads and lasses joined the guild at the same time as me. Six of them. Five years later, I was the only one to pass my apprenticeship. Know why?”
“They found something more worthwhile to do?”
“Says the core who loves adventure books! Who do you think writes books like that, eh? Scribes, perhaps? Anyway, I was the only one to pass the apprenticeship, and that was because I actually wanted to be a scribe. The rest of them just liked the idea of it. You know, the air of mystery. The unconquerable charisma that being a master scribe brings. They loved what being a scribe sounded like in their heads, but they didn’t like the nitty-gritty.”
“I don’t give a damn about mystery or charisma or any crap like that. I want to be chief to secure my dungeon. That’s all.”
“Right,” said Gull, rolling his eyes and sipping his jasmine tea.
“How about you take your fat fingers out of my mind and stop kneading my brain,” I said. “I need you to help me come up with a new plan.”
He shrugged. “They seemed angry with you, Beno. Baby said he’s going to stop people voting for you.”
“Exactly. I need to turn it around.”
“Seems to me that you have two problems. One, there’s the problem of…well…you.”
“I love having a best friend.”
Gulliver laughed. “You know what I mean. They see you as a core. A lump of rock who summons monsters and lives in a dungeon. The dinner party was supposed to solve that, but things went tits up. The idea behind the party is unchanged: we need to boost your public image.”
“And the second problem?”
“Riston.”
Anger flashed through my core. It was gone quicker than lightning, but the after-rumble spread through me. What was it they said about lightning? Count the seconds between the flash and the sound of thunder, and you’d know how far away the storm was. When I thought about Riston, it was seconds away.
“That guy,” I said. “He shows up out of the blue with his stupidly immaculate beard and annoying smile. Two months later, he says he wants to be considered in the chief election! I don’t know how he became so popular.”
“He’s leading the polls now, Beno.”
“We need to learn from him. I’ve lived under Yondersun for ages. I’ve risked my non-existent neck for them. I’ve saved their lives. Riston shows up, says a few nice words, and they want to marry him. What’s he doing that we aren’t?”
“Good question,” said Gulliver.
“Do you think you can follow him for a while? See how he spends his days, who he meets, what kind of things he does to get so popular?”
Gulliver sucked his cheeks. “Hmm. Such a task will inevitably lead me to the Scorched Scorpion. I hope you understand what you’re getting me into. I’ll have to go and have a beer and ask around. See why people like Riston so much. It might even need three or four beers for me to get the information.”
“Whatever it takes. Just find out what you can. If Riston wins, then he and Galatee will be the joint chiefs. I know Galatee enough to manipulate her. But Riston? I don’t like the idea of a stranger having power in the town above my dungeon. He can’t be allowed to win.”
“Then we’re going to have to make you popular, Beno. This might just be the biggest task of my life.”
“Thanks.”
Gulliver finished his tea, tipped the tin mug so that the last drops fell out, and then wiped the inside with his sleeve. He put the mug back in his pack and left the chamber.
As he opened the door, I saw a kobold standing outside, his fist raised and ready to knock on the door. While most kobolds looked like bipedal wolves with a hint of a lizard side, this kobold was the opposite. He was all scales, little fur. His beady eyes were fully black, and his thin tongue stuck out of his mouth and rattled when he breathed.
“Maginhart,” I said. “Good to see you! Come in.”
Gulliver raised his hand. Maginhart slapped his own lizard claw against it. “Sorry I can’t stay, pal,” said Gulliver. “I’ll be in the Scorched Scorpion drinking…working…later if you want to catch up.”
“Sssee you then, ssscribe,” said Maginhart.
“So?” I said, when we were alone. “How’s it going? It’s the big day soon, right?”
Maginhart used to be part of the dungeon mining team. When he started to show dissatisfaction with manual labor, I had to find him something else. He was more of a thinker than a laborer. That was the problem. When I heard that Cynthia - the town’s tinker, alchemist, and artificer - was looking for an apprentice, I knew it was a great fit.
He was nearing the end of his apprenticeship now, and everyone in the dungeon was proud of him. I think he’d become a symbol to some of the newer kobolds. An idea that if they worked hard in the dungeon, there might be other opportunities.
I was as proud as anyone, but I had a selfish angle to all of this. Once he passed his apprenticeship, he’d be a fully-fledged artificer, tinker, and alchemist. We’d agreed that he would come back to the dungeon, where he’d be a great asset with those kinds of skills.
“I have brought you a gift, Dark Lord,” said Maginhart.
He reached into the pocket of his chemical-stained coat and took out an orb. It was colored black, but with a shock of blue light washing through it. The black color was actually smoke. Churning and churning inside the orb, with the blue flashing through like lightning.
“To passs my apprenticessship,” said Maginhart, “I mussst create an original device that employsss artificery, alchemy, and tinkering. Thisss isss my project, Dark Lord. I would like you to have it.”
“What is it?”
“When you activate the orb, it will sssend out a wave of light, Dark Lord. Or it would…if it worked.”
“I already have more mana lamps than I can count. I’m sick of them, actually. Dungeons are supposed to be gloomy. Everyone says so.”
Maginhart’s tongue rattled as he laughed. “Thisss light isss not to ssseee, Dark Lord. Though it may light the way…”
“You’ve adopted a very mysterious way of talking since you started studying alchemy. Do you know that? Everyone has commented on it. You talk in riddles.”
“A riddle can alssso ssshow the truth, Dark Lord.”
“I’ve had enough truth for one day. Thank you for this orb, Maginhart. But don’t you need to show this to Cynthia?”
“Thisss is a prototype. A failure.”
“Oh. I’m honored.”
“But sssometimesss, in failure, comesss…”
“Enough riddles! I hate them.”
“You have three riddle doorsss in your dungeon, do you not?” said Maginhart.
“Well, apart from them, I hate riddles.”
“Fine. Thisss isss an early prototype of my project, Dark Lord. Not perfect. But ssstil has sssome usssesss.”
“And what exactly does it do?”
“It makesss an excellent paperweight.”
“Great. I actually needed one, and I’m not even kidding! It’s Gulliver’s birthday soon, and I have to get him something. What would your orb do if it worked?�
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“The light that wassshesss out from thisss orb will cancel any mana in itsss proximity.”
“Ah. So it would nullify any spells cast against us?”
“Yesss.”
“Impressive. Very impressive.”
Maginhart grinned. It was a proud grin. One that he’d earned. He didn’t know this, but I had asked Cynthia to send me regular updates about his progress and his attitude. She usually told me his work ethic couldn’t be better. He was a little slow on the alchemy side of things, but he’d improved his artificery. And as a tinker, he was showing signs of being gifted. Course, he’d be embarrassed if he knew I was checking up on him. So I never told him.
“So you say this is a failed prototype,” I said. “How close are you to making a functioning one?”
“Clossse, Dark Lord. I am working hard. But I thought you may like proof of my ssstudiesss. To sssee the fruit.”
“Why would I need proof?”
He held his claws out, palms up. “Oh, I don’t know. In cassse you ever thought to asssk Cynthia about my progresss,” he said, and winked.
“Maginhart, you scamp. You’re more insightful than you look. Too much for your own good.”
“Part of artificery isss opening onessss eyesss to what isssnt there, Dark Lord.”
“Thank you for this, Maginhart. This is a great gift. I’m happy to see how far you’ve come.”
“Thank you for the opportunity.”
Eight successive knocks sounded on the core chamber door. There was a second of pause, then the knocking resumed. There was a definite sense of panic to the knocks. Usually, when people urgently wanted to see me, I liked to make them wait. No reason, really. Call it a core’s inner sense of fun.
Using my core vision, I saw Tomlin on the other side of the door, his eyes wide.
“Calm down, Tomlin! You’ll break the bloody door!”
I willed the door to open. Tomlin scampered in, breathing heavily. He gave Maginhart a flicker of a smile. It was clear to see the difference in composure between the two kobolds. Tomlin looked like he’d just been hit with a pan. Swaying movements, a complete lack of calm. Maginhart had learned the art of self-control. Cynthia had drilled it into him, and it made sense; tinkers worked with explosives. Alchemists worked with corrosive chemicals. You needed to be calm.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Tomlin tried to catch his breath. “I was in…town,” he said, gulping air. “Getting…supplies. There is a crowd, Dark Lord.”
“So?”
“I heard…them…talking. Something about Gary.”
Jahn’s Row was the main mercantile street in Yondersun, lined side-to-side and back-to-back with shops and services. Armorers, bakers, tailors, botanists. It made for a strange mix of smells. Nut oil, leather, warm bread, herbs, flowers. The merchants usually stood outside their shops and catcalled the passersby, competing for attention. Tempting them to come to look at their wares. Some of them made puns about their products, some of them offered low prices, others just tried shouting the loudest. Those were the ones who usually won.
Today, Jahn’s Row was the busiest I’d ever seen it. It wasn’t even a sale day, as far as I knew. The crowd filling the street wasn’t a bunch of folks looking to spend money. Normally they’d be in pairs spread evenly over the Row, peering through shop windows. Maybe a group of three or four guys would stumble into or out of the tavern. Today, they were all together. Must have been thirty gnomes, orcs, goblins, and a few humans. They were at the far end of Jahn’s Row, outside George’s bakery.
Before anyone noticed me, I took a second to size everything up. Amplified my core senses all the way and let the sounds and smells float in.
Surface level sounds at first. An excited babble of gossip coming from the crowd. Then I went deeper. Heard sharp intakes of air. Picked up on the undercurrent of fear spreading through the people like a sickness.
I smelled sweat. Grubby skin. Oily hair. The pong of people who’d left their homes without even washing. Something had brought them all out early morning so they could stand here, scared and curious. And it was something involving Gary.
I used my core voice now.
“Gary?”
He didn’t answer.
Ever since leveling up my core voice, I could talk to my core creatures wherever they were. Gary wasn’t answering, and that couldn’t be good.
Getting closer, I saw four soldiers standing guard outside the bakery. It was way too hot a day to be wearing combat leathers, but that was a guard’s life for you, I guessed. At least they had an excuse for dressing so stupidly. Gulliver didn’t have a job that required him to wear stuff completely inappropriate for the wasteland, but he still did. Frilly shirts, heavy necklaces. It’s a wonder he didn’t sweat himself to death.
The guards blocked the doorway so I couldn’t see anything in the shop. Someone had drawn the curtain in the windows so we couldn’t see through them. Or maybe they’d been drawn the night before and not opened since then. Hmm. Something wasn’t right, and I didn’t think it hadn’t anything to do with the baker’s jam rolls.
When the crowd saw me, some of them hushed. Others whispered to each other. Ah, let ‘em whisper. I was used to it. Being a floating lump of evil gemstone, I was different from them, and being different gives people something to talk about. Today, there was something strange about their whispering. A kind of tension.
The soldier stood a little straighter when I floated in front of them.
“This is guard business. Float back, core.”
“What’s going on?” I said.
“Yeah,” shouted a man in the crowd. “We deserve to know!”
The man stepped forward.
The guard blocked him, his hand straying toward his sword hilt.
“What are you going to do? Start beating us? Let me by!”
The man tried to push past the soldier. The guard drew his sword, but the man was flush with anger, and it made him stupid. He got smacked with a sword hilt for the effort. Tottering back, he stumbled on the step behind him and fell. The crowd caught him, dragged him away.
“The same treatment won’t work on me,” I said. “I’m made of gemstone. Your little toy will break if you try and rough me up.”
One soldier nodded to the other. His friend took a whip out of his pocket and unraveled it. Lashings of light buzzed from it.
“Is this toy any better, Core?” said the guard.
Ugh. A core whip. His sword might not have been able to hurt me, but the core whip would. It wouldn’t kill me; it wasn’t powerful enough for that. But it’d hurt like hell. And I didn’t like hurting like hell.
At the same time, something had happened in the bakery, and Gary was a part of it. I had to find out.
I tried to think about what might have happened.
Gary was supposed to be somewhere last night, wasn’t he? Some kind of party…a meeting…
Oh, hells.
He was supposed to be playing his new song at the Scorched Scorpion, and I’d promised I would be there. I’d been so wrapped up with the traders and Ulruk that I’d completely forgotten.
Was it true to just say forgotten, though? That implied a mistake. Something I hadn’t meant to do. Much more accurate to say I’d chosen to miss Gary’s show. I had prioritized the traders over one of my most loyal monsters.
I needed to get past the whip guard and his friend and find out what had happened. If Gary had gotten himself into trouble, I owed it to him to get him out of it.
“Listen,” I told the guard. “I’ve been on the town council for six months. I’ve fought battles to save this place. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be serving a duke right now.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” said the guard.
“You don’t appreciate what a precious thing freedom is. Yondersun doesn’t swear fealty to anyone in Xynnar, and I’m part of the reason for that.”
“Out of the goodness of your heart, was it?” said the whip
guard.
“If he even has a heart,” said the other.
I couldn’t believe their attitude. I was on the town council. I was running in the chief elections. For all they knew, I was going to win and I’d become their boss. They were stupid not to at least show me respect.
Unless they thought I wouldn’t win.
It was the only way to explain this change in attitude. Damn it, people used to fear me around here! Maybe I’d let them become too used to me. Too familiar. I should have kept an air of mystery. Maybe murder the occasional townsperson to keep things fresh. Ah well. Too late for that now.
The only way I’d get past the guards was to play dirty. Luckily, I’m a core. Playing dirty comes naturally.
A while ago, an anti-core movement had been getting popular in town. They hated cores like me and my friend Jahn and wanted us out. Their reasons were flimsy, but the essence of it was that their leader wanted power. To get it he needed support. To get support, he needed to give his supporters something to hate, and then to offer them a solution.
Cores are easy things to hate. We aren’t human. We live underground. We can create monsters, and we are trained to kill. I can’t blame people for being wary of us, and it doesn’t matter that some of us are pretty nice when we’re not murdering heroes.
To deal with the anti-core movement, I planted pieces of my dungeon in the houses of influential members. I then used my core vision to create a link to the pieces of the dungeon, allowing me to spy in their homes.
It worked so well that a while ago, I’d expanded my operations. I’d given every person in town a gift. Piece of dungeon rock that Maginhart made look like fancy ornaments by applying a chemical to them.
Of course, this gave me the option to see what was going on in people’s homes. And when you do that for long enough…you start to learn secrets.
So now, I tried to use my core vision to see inside the bakery, but it didn’t work.
Hadn’t we planted an ornament in there? I was sure we had.
Dungeon Core Academy: Books 1-7 (A LitRPG Series) Page 111
