Ryker smiled at that, he had to admire her for being as direct as he was.
“Great. I assume you’ll remain here with me and your mother will go off to work on taking the throne?” Ryker asked, picking up a piece of ham.
“Once mother witnesses our consummation of marriage, she’ll be leaving,” Diane admitted. “Our plan is to direct our forces as we’re the leading faction. She’ll need to be there to keep a firm grasp on everyone. As you already said, I’ll be remaining here to assist you and… ensure your loyalty.”
Nodding at that, Ryker thought on the situation.
Veronica looked annoyed and angry at her daughter, but hadn’t stopped her.
“Pretty much what we thought. They want me to marry the duchess’s daughter. I imagine that’ll firm up their alliance against the queen in this area. Lauren won’t be happy with me, since I’m taking sides against her technically, but the alternative is death.”
“Well, I’m personally against death. We can always kill the daughter off later. Divorce is easier when one is dead.”
“A very good point.”
“Alright, I agree, but I’d like to add a few things to this deal, and a question or two, if you don’t mind,” Ryker said.
Diane bobbed her head once, chewing delicately on something.
“We’re willing to make concessions of course,” Veronica said.
“What plans do you have for Adele and Claire?” he asked.
“I’m not so sure—”
“Execute one, marry the other to a cousin of no worth,” Diane said, interrupting her mother.
“Ah. I suppose that’s prudent,” Ryker admitted.
Shit, shit, shit, shit.
“Do you have a suggestion?” Diane asked, silencing her mother with a glance.
“Give them to me,” Ryker said plainly. “Let me have them as concubine wives.”
Veronica’s eyes narrowed and she lifted her chin up a fraction. “And why should we do that?”
“It’d remove them from the line of succession and illegitimize any children they have. Would it not? In addition, you wouldn’t have a single ounce of royal blood on your hands. You could even claim I’d taken them as my own before you even got involved, and did your best to salvage the situation. You could play the hero,” Ryker offered up. “It’d also soothe my conscience. They’re nice people and I’d dislike seeing them used so poorly.”
The Duchess slowly nodded her head at that, then turned to Diane. “Could you handle them as lesser wives? This is your marriage, not mine,” she asked her daughter.
“Easily. In fact, it might make this more palatable for me as well,” Diane said to her mother, then turned to Ryker. “If I couldn’t service you for whatever reason, would you be content to sleep with one of them instead? You wouldn’t betray our marriage bed?”
“I… could agree to that. Yes,” Ryker said, pausing only for dramatic effect.
“And you’d ask for nothing else?” Diane asked, directing the conversation back to the arrangement.
“Well, I’d like for our marriage to be more than convenience. Could you promise me you’d try to love me as a man as well as your husband?” Ryker asked.
He wasn’t sure if he was laying it on too thick, but he wanted to seal this one up without suspicion. It’d make it that much easier to smother her in the night later.
“I… that… yes. Yes, I can promise that,” Diane said, her voice softening. Her eyes dropped down and her cheeks turned pink.
“I’ll need to watch you take the maidenhead of those two royals as well,” Veronica said, butting in.
“Of course. One would need proof they’d been deflowered and taken. I would suggest allowing that to happen previous to my marriage to your house, if only to preserve the fiction of them being taken first,” Ryker said.
“Mm, yes. Good. We’ll have this taken care of quickly. You’ll bed those girls tonight, and marry into Chas,” Veronica said quickly.
Nodding her head once, she seemed at a loss.
Went easier than you were expecting, hm?
“Diane,” Ryker said, leaning forward to the young woman. “Tell me more about yourself. I’d like to know all I can, if you don’t mind.”
Diane’s face turned bright red at the attention, her eyes looking everywhere but at him.
So we begin.
***
Adele was sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed only in a flimsy nightgown that didn’t fit her. The moment he entered the room, she stood up and crossed her arms over her chest.
“Oh,” she said after seeing him. “It’s you.”
Sitting back down on the bed, she glared at him.
“I take it you’re here to tell me on how this is a good idea to be given to some member of Duchess Chas’s family. To not fight it and just… lay there and take it. Like some prostitute. That’s the only thing left to my pride since they already forced me to sign away my claim on the throne,” Adele said, spitting the words out like fire.
“Kinda,” Ryker said, sitting down next to her. “Originally, they were going to kill one of you, and marry off the other. If I had to guess, you would have been the one killed but… that’s just a guess.”
“I… yeah. Yeah, I imagine that’d be how it went,” Adele said, deflating.
“If it makes you feel better. You’re not being married off to some cousin.”
“I’m not?”
“Nope. I argued that it’d be easier if you and Claire were given to me as concubine wives, rather than giving you to someone else or killing you,” Ryker said with a straight face, looking towards the wall. “I bartered myself in exchange. I’d be a willing participant and husband to Diane.”
Adele didn’t respond at first. Several seconds passed before she let out a slow breath.
“I see,” she mumbled. “And you’re here to… claim me…”
“Well. I’m here to talk to you first. Make sure you’re aware of it all. You could easily reject this and simply be executed. I don’t think they’d argue much at this point,” Ryker said.
“And Claire…?” Adele asked.
“She’s ah… already settled. I had a similar conversation with her two hours ago. Apparently that mind of hers had already expected it all to some degree. Especially after she signed away her lineage, just as you did. It’s that brain of hers, it’s well suited for this. She’s in her room, sleeping now. She didn’t take the whole thing very well, even if she did expect it. I’m afraid the Duchess will want to watch us, by the way. She wants to make sure you’re no longer a maiden and… not a threat. She was there when… with Claire… yeah,” Ryker finished lamely.
“Of course she would,” Adele said, her lip curling. Then she hung her head, pressing her hands to her temples. “I didn’t see myself being a concubine in my future. I mean, I wanted a relationship, but… not as a prisoner. A slave.”
“And you won’t be. I’ll give you the same promise I gave Claire. I’ll do my best to make sure you’re taken care of. Never treated like a prisoner or a slave. Never to be mistreated by anyone. I know that seems like an odd thing to say considering I’m more or less forcing myself on you but… there it is.”
“You’re not forcing anything. As you said. I have another option available if I wanted it. No… this… this’ll do for now. I swear to the heavens if you abuse me or expect me to just lay myself out whenever you want though, you’ve—”
“No, never. I’ll treat you exactly as you wish to be treated. Though I would suggest you don’t go looking for a lover. I imagine Diane would look for any excuse to execute you outside of my wishes,” Ryker said.
Diane had already intimated that she’d do exactly that if she thought her house was being insulted.
“What? No! Never. I’m a woman of royal lineage not some cheap floozy. Of course I wouldn’t go outside our marriage bed,” Adele hissed at him.
There was a sudden rap on the door, and then it opened. Veronica walked in sedately, along with
two other women. They looked to be noble ladies in waiting.
“Have you finished with the explanation?” she asked, looking to Ryker.
“Yeah. We were just going over the finer points of it. Making sure she understands her position in everything,” Ryker said to the Duchess.
Looking back at Adele he hesitated. The moment had come.
She could choose to become his and remain in this world, or elect to be forcefully removed from the land of the living.
With Claire it had gone alright. After he calmed her down, she recovered quickly.
She’d already undressed herself by the time the Duchess came in and was getting onto the bed for him. She’d almost seemed eager about being with him.
Claire is made of sterner stuff when it comes to politics. She probably already has an exit strategy and a path on how to help Lauren.
Adele had always been the concern for him. There was always the possibility of a problem from her. Her free attitude and hatred for politics made her a question mark that no one could bank on.
The wild princess eyed Ryker for a critical moment, then reached down and pulled the nightgown up over her head and tossed it to one side.
Sliding up into the center of the bed, she lay down naked on the covers. The spirited and gung-ho woman was gone, and all that was left was a young woman in a situation that no one would want to be in.
Her knees slowly spread apart until she was wide open without defense. She gave him a weak but brave smile.
“I’m ready then,” she said. “Just… be gentle with me.”
“Of course, Adele. Of course.”
Chapter 18- Blades -
Wynne stared down at the marriage certificate on the table.
“Boy, they really made sure to separate the county from the duchy. Only your children can inherit both,” she said.
Sighing, Ryker sunk further into his chair. “It’s a good thing,” he said to the Fairy. “It means that if they eliminate me, they get nothing. And vice versa.”
“You accepted it pretty quickly. I’m surprised.”
“What, that I didn’t fight them? It wouldn’t have done me any good. In accepting it as I did I got more out of the deal than if I resisted. Might as well be dealing with the dark lord of the north at that point. Him and his black warriors.”
Squinting, he looked at her a bit more closely. When he first met her, he swore she was two feet tall. Big for a fairy.
Now she seemed more like two and a half feet tall.
“Hey, did you get bigger?” he asked directly.
“Hm? Yes. That dungeon crystal you made gave me a larger domain, so I grew. In fact, all your Fairies grew a little. None are as big as me, but they’re all certainly larger than one would expect,” Wynne said.
She carefully rolled up the marriage certificate and set it next to the two for Claire and Adele.
“That’s interesting. Speaking of Fairies, how many do we have now?”
“A lot,” Wynne said, sitting down on the edge of the table. “I’ve lost count. Less than a hundred, more than eighty?”
“Not much left to go of your village then.”
“Mm. They’re aware of it now though. So it’ll be harder to get more of them, but that’s fine. We’ve managed to catch a few from other villages. We’re starting in on those next,” Wynne said, crossing one leg over the other. “We’re just capturing them outright and bringing them into the dungeon forcefully.”
“Going to be queen of the fairies, hm?”
“Why not? You’ll support me. And now that you can make dungeon cores, I can hand them out like parceled land. Each one will simply make me larger, and give them their own domains,” Wynne explained.
“Ah. Does that make me your king? Do I need another marriage certificate?”
“Eventually. If you keep your head on your shoulders. In the end, you’ll have to leave the land of the mortals after all,” Wynne said flippantly.
“Huh?”
“We talked about this. With every Fairy we bind to you, the longer your life gets. We’re not quite immortal but our essence is, and we share a part of our souls with you. With a dungeon core it doesn’t matter as our lifespan becomes infinite. With a human though… and now with the number we have you’re probably set for at least a thousand years of being your current age,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders.
He vaguely remembered her saying something to that effect, he just hadn’t considered it.
Not really at least.
“Alright then,” Ryker said lamely. He wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that.
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of our Fairy kingdom if you get tired of it. Husband,” Wynne said, pointing a delicate foot at him.
“Ha, you don’t get to call me that, yet. Besides, maybe I don’t want to marry you. I’m already married to three women.”
Wynne sniffed at that and gave him a smile. “I’m better than them.”
“I want to talk about the dungeon anyways,” Ryker said.
“Because I’m such an accommodating wife, and I already have a special place for you in my heart, I’ll let you change the subject,” Wynne said, resting her elbow on her knee and putting her chin in her palm.
Ryker wrinkled his nose at her, not quite sure how to respond to that. He wasn’t sure if she was teasing or being serious.
Fairies were tricky.
“I want to start chipping away at Diane’s forces. She has a significant population of soldiers and mercenaries here. I took a quick peak at the logbook. A large number of them are taking turns through the dungeon on their down time.”
“True. They see it as a way to get a secondary income. Or so I’ve heard from them. And are you sure about this? We could just as easily use Veronica as we could Lauren. Might even be easier.”
Managing to not wince at Lauren’s name, Ryker shifted his weight around in his chair.
He felt strange about Lauren. He enjoyed her company.
Quite a bit, actually. She felt real and down to earth. Which was strange considering she was the queen.
Veronica felt more like the duchess she was, and he didn’t believe for a second that she’d not get rid of him if she believed it to be in her best interest.
Lauren had already shown that she wanted him and would be prepared to gamble for him, and on him.
“I see,” Wynne said, quirking a brow at him. “Lauren it is, then. Well, dungeons are good at killing people. We just have to change it up a bit.”
“I was thinking of maybe going to a bit more traditional model,” Ryker said, not rising to the bait.
“We have the space for it. And it wouldn’t hurt to have it, honestly. I’m sure there are those traditionalists who don’t quite enjoy your story-based dungeon,” Wynne admitted.
“The goal is to set it up so we can keep chipping away at Veronica’s numbers. Only Lauren knew about my deal with the dungeon, so that keeps me blameless,” Ryker said, pausing. “I was thinking… what if we had two paths. They would eventually be above and below each other as they went along. Changing their positions. They could even see each other, if we let them. Maybe putting a wall of illusion between the two of them so that they’d see the other side differently.”
“Differently?”
“Differently. Like… instead of other humans, they saw Orcs and Goblins.”
“Ha! You want them to kill each other. That’d certainly fall within the rules of a dungeon,” Wynne said.
“Yeah. I figure if we get them to do our work for us, it’ll help. Then we could start offering that second path to other groups that we knew conflicted with the first group. Perhaps only allowing the second path to open every so often, and not all the time. It’d let us put them at odds with one another.”
“Why not take it one step farther? If you put both groups in at the same time, put a sign out that states the first one to the end wins a prize. They’d take those open spaces to fire on one another.”
“Oh, t
hat’s a good idea. Do you see any problems with this?” Ryker asked.
“No. We have the mana for it as well. We’ll need to leave the first wing open for a day or so after we open the new one. Just to make sure we have a nest egg, so to speak.”
“Great. For the dueling cubes, could we start offering another level of challenge, and let the Fairies get in there? Let them earn some things for themselves by killing adventurers we put a bounty on internally.”
“Could do that. Need a failsafe though. Some of the dungeon runners are… ah… less than savory. Some of them have taken to forcing themselves on the Hobgoblin women.”
“Uh, what?”
“They’re capturing the Hob peasant women and raping them,” Wynne clarified, leaning back onto the table. “I’ve taken the liberty of trying to send patrols in their direction when it happens. See if I can’t kill them, but they’ve learned to expect it.”
“Yeah… no. I want… no.” Ryker paused.
Who could they give this to?
Charlotte could do it. She’s our resident rogue, right?
“Where’s Charlotte? Charlotte?” Ryker called, raising his voice.
“Ryker, she’s—”
“Charlotte!” Ryker called with his dungeon sense.
With a pop, a one and a half foot tall Fairy popped into existence a few feet away.
“Master?” asked Charlotte.
“I want you to take your avatar, and start attacking anyone who’s sexually assaulting the monsters. Or other people for that matter. Murder is one thing, rape is another,” Ryker said, the tone of his voice cold.
“I’ll take care of it, Master,” she responded, bowing her head.
“Actually, take seven Fairies as your own and create a squad out of them. Train them up and use them to carry out your mission. In fact,” Ryker said, reaching into his satchel.
He pulled out the mock-dungeon core and set it down on the table.
Dungeon Deposed Page 19
