“Could you see if the dungeon could provide me with all of the Adelonian service tags? It would help,” she said, resting a hand on his bicep, her lips practically in his ear and the warmth of her breath tickling his skin.
“Not a problem. I’ll see if the dungeon can have those brought over. I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t oblige that request. A service tag would do a dungeon little good, I imagine,” Ryker said.
The queen made a humming noise and moved back away from him.
“Grand. I’d appreciate you continuing to work as my representative to the dungeon and as mayor of Dungeon. I’ll have a permanent envoy stationed here to serve you and work for my own benefits,” said the queen. “Though I’m going to need to have you travel to the capital in a month or two.”
Ryker felt his face pull into a squinting frown as he shook his head.
“No arguments, Ryker. You’ll come see me at the capital. Yes?” the queen insisted.
For a brief moment, he contemplated arguing with her.
“Fine. I’m not one for travel, but fine. I can manage it I suppose,” Ryker said. Then he had a thought. “Who were you going to station as your envoy here?”
“Adele and Claire. They seem hellbent on remaining here anyways. If I leave one over the other I’ll just create problems for myself down the road. They’re your problems now,” Lauren said with a grin. “Now, I’ll take my leave. I look forward to seeing you in the capital in thirty to sixty days. Don’t be late. And try not to arrive on day sixty, would you? By that point I’ll be annoyed anyways.”
Ryker clicked his teeth shut on his reply and instead bowed at the waist to his queen.
She’d given him a large amount of room to work in, and he imagined her patience only went so far.
If he wanted to get his revenge, he’d have to play along for a little while yet.
At least until he could mount Rob’s head on a pole.
“Of course, Lauren,” Ryker said, standing upright again.
“Good. I’ll give them the news while you work with your… dungeon… envoys,” Lauren said, looking over his shoulder to the still kneeling dungeon squad.
“Of course. Yes, I’ll do that,” Ryker said.
Leaving the queen there, he moved over to the troop of women. He waved his hands at them. He was out of earshot of the queen and her guards so he could afford to be a bit more direct right now.
“Rise, rise already. Alright, let’s head out for the dungeon. We’ll need to collect those service tags. I’d like to have them gathered and handed over before the queen asks again. It’s a simple request and I can’t see why we couldn’t just load them into barrels and have some Hobs carry them out,” Ryker said.
“Of course, master. I’ll see that it’s carried out,” said the Elven avatar.
“Great. Let’s go then.”
Chapter 13- Travel Companions -
Ryker was sitting in a room in the human encampment. It was actually a hidden room with no entrance that sat to one side of a rear tower.
After heading back to the dungeon with the Fairy troop, he’d felt like hiding away. He didn’t want to do it in the inn or his home though. Or even the dungeon wing. He imagined someone might come track him down somehow.
Instead, he sent the Elven Fairy to hand over the tags. At the same time, he snuck into the empty wing and hid away.
Part of that reason why was that he wanted to sort through his loot.
His dungeon had taken out an entire army.
A whole army, down to the last soldier.
The number of memories that were now locked into cores was frightening. He didn’t catch all of them unfortunately, he’d run out of cores about eighty percent of the way through.
Thankfully the Fairies had already slaughtered all the officers of any import by then. The lost twenty percent was, for the most part, simple soldiers.
Ryker had been sitting on the bed he summoned for the better part of two hours now. Going through and sorting the cores out by type, sex, abilities, and mentality.
There were a number that he simply had no purpose or benefit to him. They were simply people who’d joined to fight in the civil war with simple and common backgrounds. Ryker started to stick altered versions of those cores into the blueprints, fusing them into the forms and runes directly.
He figured it’d give them an interesting personality as long as he wiped out anything that tied them back to the world they left behind. The goal of his dungeon was to entice everyone and anyone to come in, with the hope and goal that anyone and everyone would include all of those he wanted to crush with his bootheel.
That was perhaps the most annoying part of this whole situation.
Revenge was slow in coming. In fact, he’d had none at all, other than what he’d charged Rob. Not a single one of those who’d made his life a joke had been slain.
They hadn’t even showed up yet.
Only Rob and Robyn. One whose skull he wanted to use as a chamber pot, and the other he’d gone out of his way to protect.
This sucks.
Turning his thoughts back to the task, Ryker finished the blueprint he’d fused with a core.
The vast majority of his creatures now had a core put in them. Quite a number of the officers had been put into the human encampment itself, and he could already feel a difference.
It had looked the part of a fort previously, but now it felt right, too.
And he’d only been feeling those characters with his senses rather than actually seeing them. He imagined the sensation would be much stronger if he did it in person.
Except he couldn’t summon them right now. There was no mana left to support anything other than the first wing and the individual gladiator cubes.
Next on his project list was all the gear that’d been taken.
Overwhelmingly, it was simple equipment. Given to conscripts and basic soldiers who completed their boot camp training.
What there was, however, was a good amount of unique, one-off, or personal items. From shaving mirrors, to family photos, to strange mementos that held no significance but to the owner.
His troops hadn’t just taken the bodies with them when they left. They’d also cleared the entire supply camp, wagons, and personal bags. Nothing had been left in the field that would even hint at an army having been wiped out there.
Other than the blood and trampled grass.
All the gear he didn’t want to feed to the dungeon because it was the same, and didn’t want to drop as loot for adventurers, he dumped into a cavern. Maybe he’d find a use for it eventually. Ryker blamed spending years as a farmer with little to no money to his name for why he kept it all.
It didn’t hurt anyone to leave it a sealed cave with no oxygen or water in it.
“Why even keep it?” Wynne asked.
“Because I might have a use for it later. No reason to waste it,” Ryker thought back.
“Hmm. The Fairies did their part and then some. One did die in combat. Her soul fled back to her body. The avatar has to be rebuilt completely, the pattern vanished,” Wynne reported.
“That’s odd. At least she’s not dead. Good to know it’s not that big a deal to lose an avatar,” Ryker thought.
Looking at his dungeon, Ryker was pretty satisfied with it. He didn’t think he could expand on it anytime soon. He was out of creative ideas that would be interesting.
Not to mention this really had bankrupted their mana.
Anyone can throw together a bunch of creatures and mobs.
Come on down to the dungeon. Try and kill as many as you can. That sounds so dull though. So boring.
Cliché.
“The queen was looking for you,” Wynne thought.
“She already said goodbye to me. No point in seeing her again.”
“Hm. Tris said the queen seemed rather annoyed, but not surprised, that you weren’t in town.”
“Tris?”
“Tris, she’s… did you forget her name?”
“Ryker! You should learn their names. She’s the Elf.”
“Maybe another time. Been kinda busy.”
“Adele and Claire are both looking for you as well.”
“All the more reason to stay here. Or leave.”
“You’re incredibly stubborn.”
“I’ve been told that. Unsurprised then, unsurprised now.”
“Fine. And when do you plan on leaving for the capital?”
“I don’t know. I was thinking… maybe in a week? That’d give the queen time enough to get back after her trip. If I do it quick enough, maybe she’ll let me leave sooner rather than later.”
“Okay. I’ll take care of the dungeon while you’re gone. I imagine Edwin will be more than able to handle the city. We’ll be waiting for the mana to refill, really. That and with our bond we should be able to communicate regardless of distance. Be sure to bring back souvenirs for the dungeon. I’ll send Tris, Marybelle, and Charlotte with you as guards.”
“Good chance for me to learn their names. At least those three. And what races are they again?”
“Elf, Hobgoblin, and Human. They were with you in the fight with the dark church.”
“Ah. That should blend in alright. A Hob you say. The one I was with in the dungeon was actually really pretty? Fairly humanized and looked like a normal woman? With really big—”
“Yes. That one.”
Hobgoblin and Human relationships weren’t common, nor were they rare either. The problem was that the two races didn’t have the same measure of beauty.
“Great. Great. At least I’ll have something to look at. Long journey even on a horse. Should probably take a carriage from Warrenton. You think that they’d be up for some fun in the carri—”
“You’re an ass,” Wynne mentally hissed at him. “Yes. They’d probably be up for it. We have no experience in such things and being their master, they could do that.”
“Heard that name often, too. Good news about the Fairies then. Also, while I’m out, I wanted you to experiment with a few things.”
“What’d you have in mind?” Wynne communicated cautiously.
“Well, I’m tired of having to live off what we can save based on the normal intake. I want to see what we can do about increasing our mana load. Can we put in conduits at the edge of the territory that would bring in more?”
“Uhm. I don’t think so… it’s… hard to explain but we can only really affect things inside of the control of the dungeon. That includes mana.”
“Hm. Okay, how do we get more mana?” Ryker mused.
“We can’t, really. I mean. When casters come in and cast spells, we absorb a good portion of the mana they use to power the spell. Outside of that, it really comes down to having to bring in mana from the outside.”
“So… okay… we need to figure out a scheme to get wizards to come in and cast spells. If only to get their mana.”
“What about a tournament?’
“Huh?”
“A tournament. A casting competition.”
“That’d work. Casters as a whole are typically prideful. You could hold one while I’m gone.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“Ah, and the other thing I wanted to run by you was how long can we hold someone prisoner in a dungeon?”
“What, you mean, put them in a jail kind of thing?”
“Yeah. Do they eventually die if they stay in the dungeon just due to exposure?”
“No. But they won’t generate mana. Why?”
“I was thinking about having live missions. And to do that we’d need actual people. Think on how we can capture people alive, would ya? Alright. I’m going to go pack. Maybe I won’t wait after all and just head out now. Take the roads real, real slow. Spend some time with the girls. Really… get to know them.”
Ryker didn’t get an immediate response and wondered if he’d driven her over the edge.
“Ass. Raging ass,” Wynne grumped.
***
The next six days were spent in a very deliberate and slow carriage ride to the capital. If they’d done it at a normal pace it’d have only taken two to three days to reach Queensrest.
He’d only been kidding originally, but apparently Tris, Marybelle, and Charlotte were all rather eager to explore him and the carriage. It wasn’t quite big enough to make their fun completely comfortable, but big enough to enjoy it.
Though the Fairies had no interest in each other. Or in him if he was with one of the others.
In any way shape or form.
If he was occupied with one of them, the other two pretended they didn’t exist. No matter how loud or physical they got.
He’d even tried to get their attention a few times. Even going so far as to shove one up against the other as a backrest.
When he got Marybelle alone in a quiet moment for a rest stop, he’d asked her about her about the situation.
Apparently Dungeon Fairies didn’t actually sexually reproduce.
Or have sex.
There were no men of their race.
To them, this was a learning experience with someone they trusted, and could explore it with. Though they were extremely hesitant to the suggestion that they could always pursue relationships with other men.
Like hell he’d complain about it.
So when he rode into Queensrest in the carriage, the first thing he needed to do was get a proper bath.
And probably torch the ride since it reeked of sex.
Lots of it.
Sticking his head out the window, Ryker peered around for several seconds.
Focusing on a young man, Ryker pulled out a copper coin and held it up.
“Hey, kid. Where’s a nearby livery stable that buys coaches and carriages?” Ryker asked.
The boy eyed the coin and then nodded his head down the street.
“Straigh’ don the bouly. Canneh miss’et,” he drawled.
“Great.” Ryker flipped the coin at the kid and clambered back into the carriage.
“Down the street I guess, Tris. We’ll just get rid of the whole thing along with the horses. We can buy a new set for the way back,” Ryker said to Tris. They’d been relying on her borrowed Elven heritage to guide the horses without a driver. “After that I think we should get an inn, a bath, and change accordingly. It’s still early enough in the morning that we could probably notify the queen of our arrival before noon.”
“Of course,” Tris said. Turning her head to one side, she made a musical sound out the window, and the horses responded immediately.
Way too handy.
“Ryker,” said Charlotte, his dark haired human assassin. She was quick to offer help and a bloody way out of anything. “I’ll remain on watch tonight. I’ll sleep during the day.”
“Alright. That’ll work. I’ll keep Tris with me as the bodyguard. Between the two of us we should be able to handle most anything,” Ryker said.
“What about me?” Marybelle asked. The Hobgoblin avatar leaned forward towards him, her shirt slipping to one side and giving him an impressive view.
Clearly and deliberately.
She played the part of his personal willing sex toy and confidant all in one. If he had a need that required a soft touch, he already knew to go to her and it’d only been a few days.
“Play support. Don’t know yet. This is all new to me. I’m just a simple man with simple needs. Like watching Rob catch fire and burn to death.”
“You seem entirely focused on him,” Tris said without a hint of anything in her voice. It was hard to get a read on her sometimes. Her Elven heritage or her personality seemed to bleach the life out of her.
“Mm. He was definitely one of the biggest assholes on my list. Not the only one, but one of the bigger ones. He kept making problems for me, but I haven’t seen the others in a while.”
“We’ll get them all,” Charlotte promised, her fingers digging into her own knees
. Her eyes dark and malevolent.
I wonder if their avatars are affecting them, or if their avatars are a reflection of themselves.
“Wynne?” Ryker asked into the quiet of the bond.
“What?” came the flat response.
“Ah… sorry. Just making sure we can still talk. We entered the capital.”
“Oh? Oh. Good. I laid out the clothes you should wear on top. Be sure to take a bath first and maybe take some time to get a shave.”
“Ah, that’s a good idea. I hadn’t thought about getting a shave. Definitely need one. This’d be considerably harder without you.”
Ryker idly ran his fingers over the stubble growing on his jaw and chin.
“Of course. I’m more your wife than bond-mate. Or so it seems from watching the people in town.”
The fact that she was watching people in Dungeon was unsurprising. Even he was guilty of spying from time to time.
“Okay then, Wifey. Do the avatars of your Fairies effect their mentality, or does their mentality drive their avatar?”
“I… don’t know. Normally a Fairy doesn’t make one. We don’t normally leave the dungeon either. The simple fact that they’re feeding off of our bond is the only reason they’re able to be out in the world right now. This is all very new and unexplored territory.”
“Huh. Okay. We’ll talk more later. Anything going on?”
“Not really. Nothing out of the ordinary. I watched a stupid warrior who wandered off by himself get murdered by a Hob. I wasn’t able to capture him but we did try. Trying to give everyone a less lethal second weapon. Edwin is started to put that casting competition together.”
When the carriage came to a sudden and violent stop his thoughts fled in a flash.
“Damnit,” Tris hissed in a very un-Elflike curse.
Pushing the door open Tris clambered out, followed immediately by Marybelle. Ryker followed immediately, Charlotte laying a hand to the middle of his back and staying close to his side.
“—it! It’s an Elf,” said a man in leather armor carrying a club. Ranging out behind him were four other men with similar armor and arms.
City patrollers?
“Why are you blocking our way?” Tris asked, standing in front of the men who were getting an eyeful of her.
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