Ryker blew out a breath. He really didn’t want to deal with the man.
***
“Ah, there you are, Count,” Vicar Chadwick said, stepping through Ryker’s office door.
“Indeed. Here I am. What can I do for you, Vicar?” Ryker asked, leaning back in his chair.
Arria had given him a stairway straight to his office practically, letting him get here without being seen.
“I wanted to discuss the temple with you. As well as my priests and priestesses.” The older man entered the room and took a seat in an empty chair without being invited to do so.
Mm. And so the power games begin already I guess. I hate this crap.
“Okay,” Ryker said, getting comfortable in his chair and facing the vicar. “What about it? Them?”
“The temple is being constructed out of the church coffers. I was wondering if you could help offset that cost?”
“No,” Ryker said directly.
“I… no?”
“No. The church is here at the behest of Veronica, and not by my admission. You’re welcome to the plot of land that was given to you, but I’ll not be giving you anything to help with that. What else?”
The vicar stared at him with those cold dead eyes.
“I see. Then you’re not a believer?”
“No. As I’m sure you know, I forbade both the pantheons of light and dark from Dungeon. The dungeon also forbade it.”
“In other words, you’ll not hinder me, nor support me. Even if it is to assist your mother-in-law,” Chadwick said, tilting his head to one side.
“Not likely, no. This is feeling more like a proxy war that’ll favor neither side. Win or lose, the Queendom of Dale is going to lose,” Ryker said.
The shocked look on the vicar’s face was a surprise. Ryker figured the man to have more of a poker face.
“I beg your pardon?” asked the vicar.
“What. You’re going to flood the country with soldiers and worshipers. Unless Queen Veronica or Queen Lauren can mount an equal number of soldiers, it’ll become a simple invasion from Trevail. So that leaves Lauren with no choice but to go to another country, or the dark pantheon. This whole damn thing is just an escalation,” Ryker said. He was now quite happy he’d had a private discussion with Diane about the entire affair. She was every bit as cunning as her mother, and seemingly more loyal towards him right now.
But that was yet to be tested.
Chadwick seemed to finally unfreeze a few seconds after Ryker finished.
Without another word the vicar stood up, nodded his head to Ryker, and left the office entirely.
“That could have gone significantly better, my silly king,” Wynne chided him.
“Don’t care. I’m not some politicking bootheel. This is all stupid,” Ryker sent back.
Groaning, Ryker stared at the ceiling above him in contemplation. A minute passed in silence before there was a loud thump in the hallway outside his office. Followed by a crash.
“There are assassins in the manse. Stay put. Charlotte and her team are dealing with them. Tris is on her way to escort you back to the—”
“No. I’ll stay here, just have Tris join me. When Charlotte finishes up, take the heads, and dump them in the center of the temple. Cut out their hearts and stuff them in their mouths as well,” Ryker said.
“Why the temple?”
“Because the vicar is the only logical answer. Just check their memories afterward to confirm it if you want. Guarantee it though.”
Ryker took a second to open his control spell.
“Charlotte, I’m sure you can hear me. Make sure you detail a team of your people to Adele, Claire, and Diane as well. If you need more people under you, I’ll give you two cores to put lieutenants under you,” Ryker sent into the general dungeon area.
“I hear you and obey,” came the Fairy’s response.
Ryker spun back towards his desk and started to work through the papers in front of him again. The occasional thud, groan, or clash of blades came from the hallway outside. Even going so far as the door shuddering once as something slammed into it.
“Just how many did they send?” Ryker asked into the void of the dungeon.
“Many,” came Tris’ response.
“Just finished reading the first one’s memories. You’re right. It’s the vicar. Apparently he’d planned to either have you on his side or not at all. Diane and Claire aren’t a target at this time, but Adele is,” Wynne said.
Ryker nodded his head, signing a document that was asking to have a street named. He didn’t even read what they wanted to name it and didn’t really care. This busywork would be the death of him.
There was a resounding crash that sounded more like it came from the street, followed by someone screaming at the top of their lungs.
Sighing, Ryker did his best to concentrate on the task at hand.
***
The city of Dungeon was shocked to find a pyramid of heads with their hearts stuffed in their mouths the next day.
In the very center of the temple construction.
The bodies were nowhere to be found
Not a single worker was willing to enter the construction area until the vicar had the place cleaned and blessed.
Which lasted all of one day. Broken in spirit and fact when the headless bodies appeared the next day in the same spot.
Chapter 28- Rocks Fall -
Ryker walked along in his avatar form, having spent considerable time modifying the face into something that wouldn’t be recognizable as him.
Most people gave him a second glance as he went by.
Probably should have redone the body. I look like a warrior who trains all day.
The clothing didn’t do him any favors either. He looked clearly like an outsider in his banded armor. Most preferred chainmail or leather for their dungeon dives.
Whatever. I can fix it later, and now that I can change the face I can at least make this one never come back.
He was trailing a walker from the dungeon, wondering if he’d get a chance to assist with the counterattack.
Most of the church of light members seemed to be on alert, but weren’t making any moves.
One particular paladin had already passed by several times seemingly at random. Eying the walker, but not actually engaging it.
For its part, the walker didn’t notice or pay attention. It wasn’t in its blueprint to notice.
“I think they may wonder about you following it, silly king of mine,” Marybelle chided him.
“Bah. Fine. Probably right anyways. I’ll follow the paladin. You take care of the walker,” Ryker sent back.
Instead of turning with the walker as it went about its route as he’d done up to this point, Ryker followed the paladin instead.
The Paladin had crossed in front of the walker. Practically stepping on it as he went and kept going. As if he had business down a road that led to nothing in particular.
Other than homes at least.
The paladin was no master of subtlety. He looked downright shocked as soon as Ryker fell in behind him. For his part, Ryker tried to keep his tailing of the man as nonchalant as possible.
Even if it was about as obvious as the paladin had been.
Moving immediately into a side street that might as well have been an alley, the paladin made it impossible for Ryker to follow without being obvious.
Good thing I don’t give a crap.
“You sure I can act however I want? Won’t hurt the core at all?” Ryker said to the invisible sense of Wynne following him.
“I’m positive of it. The feedback will vanish into nothing. I’ve watched it happen personally,” she said immediately.
Turning into the side street, Ryker didn’t need to look for the paladin. Ryker knew the man had turned up ahead and was waiting around the corner of a building.
Surprisingly enough, several others had even joined the paladin.
“I think they realized I was following, or mar
ked me as not human,” Ryker said to Wynne.
“I agree. I’ll look into their memories as soon as you’re done. Try to use as little magic as possible. And if you can’t help it, try not to blow things up. We both know what they trained you for at the university wasn’t gentle love taps,” Wynne said.
His avatar wasn’t exactly made with complex spell forms in mind, but it wasn’t like he couldn’t do it either.
Spell forms were a matter of control and calculation.
Splitting his focus, he began drawing a pattern together for a force attack. Force constructs were simple things that first years normally used to move things around. They were meant to help build control, focus, and manage one’s mana. The reason Ryker was using it right now was that it was silent as far as spells went, hard to see, and could be used as a battering ram.
At the same time, he began work up a bubble of mana into a half dome pattern. Keeping his focus on two things of this level at once was difficult.
Even for someone with as much control as Ryker.
I miss being a student. Classes were always so interesting. Ah well.
Better to shield what we can for now. Fix the rest later.
He doubted this fight would be quiet, or non-destructive.
In fact, he was damn well betting on it. Wynne’s request might as well have been a plea for rain in the desert.
Then the time for thinking was over, and the paladin leapt out at him with his large two-handed sword already in motion.
It was a flat cut straight across, meant to crash into Ryker’s side or remove an arm at the elbow.
Ryker went flat to the ground, skipping under the blade by a few inches, his second spell he’d been holding coming to the front of his mind.
He activated it, and the half dome went up around the entire area.
Swinging his arm out in front of him as the first spell settled he activated the force construct in an arc in front of himself.
Soaring out in front of him the spell flashed out. It amounted to being visible by only a faint shimmer through the air and nothing else.
The three individuals who’d joined the paladin stepped out just in time to be caught up by the spell. Each one of them was struck in the torso, most of that force being transferred to the unprepared fighters’ mid-sections.
Each went down in a whoosh of stolen breath.
Unfortunately the paladin had ended up just outside of the arc through an error in Ryker’s cast.
Standing upright, Ryker shouted at the top of his lungs, channeling a massive wave of mana through that shout. By their very nature, warcries were physical spells that spent the magical reserves of the warrior and the intent or need.
They were wildly inaccurate and had results that were unique to the user.
Ryker had a raging need to tear someone’s head off.
Swinging with all his might with his left hand, and bleeding more than a little magic into the swing, he aimed for the paladin’s chin.
Not being completely caught off guard, the man managed to shuffle backward, Ryker’s fist passing through air.
His sword scraped along the wall as he did so, the screech of metal on stone grating on Ryker’s nerves.
Working with the momentum of the wild throw, Ryker pushed himself forward, moving with the strike. Bringing his feet around, he let the whole movement become a spin.
As his right hand came behind him he cast a Wind Blast to propel himself sideways. Hopefully getting him out of harm’s way.
Harm being the angry paladin.
This body is way too much fun. It’s a shame I’m not him.
Controlling himself with a level of ability he never knew possible, he landed on the back of the neck of one of the people he downed earlier.
There was a sharp crack as they were forced down into the stones.
Rolling forward, Ryker stood up and took a defensive stance, looking to the paladin and the two remaining problems.
Problem one and two were still recovering, while the zealot was bringing his sword around to prepare to battle in earnest.
Which was exactly what Ryker didn’t want to do. Fighting anyone in their own field was the quickest way to losing.
One of his instructors had told him the best way to kill anything was with heat, as there was little to block, and nothing to dodge.
That instructor had been one of his favorites. Every lecture came down to winning, or killing your foe.
Everything else, including morals, be damned.
Pulling up the pattern for a continued blast of heat, Ryker splayed his hands out in front of him and pushed his mana through that pattern.
Heat burned through the air in front of him, crashing into the paladin like a wave.
The paladin was baked in a matter of seconds, and the heat rebounded from him and the half dome to start to rapidly fill the area.
Fuck it, fuck you, fuck everyone.
Ryker gritted his teeth and smiled, dumping more and more mana into the pattern.
What had been a gradual increase in heat became a magically induced inferno.
The paladin simply blackened and fell over, the other two slumping to the ground as the heat reached them.
Ryker felt his skin crisp up for a second before he simply cut the feed to the avatar.
He snapped out of the body with a gut-wrenching tearing sensation, then watched as the avatar vanished into nothing. The four corpses rapidly became little more than blackened ash as the heat had nowhere else to go.
Heat wasn’t an actual force that would deplete the shield’s strength. So the half-dome wasn’t fighting anything. It remained in place and would until the initial power he gave it ran out.
Smoke filled the shield fairly quickly, and nothing could be seen after that.
“Whatever. Clean that up when it’s done. The walls will probably need to be replaced and I doubt the black charcoal skeletons will be much of a problem. I need to go work on another body for the next bit I guess. Did they end up attacking the walker?” Ryker asked.
“Not yet. But Charlotte is watching them. She thinks they’ll bite in a minute though now that you’re no longer there.
“Tris is still waiting in the woods. Last I heard they’d finished with the first part of the plan. She wouldn’t mind your presence though,” Wynne said. “Headstrong as she is, even she finds comfort when you’re there. You give orders that you want followed and there’s almost no room for debate.”
Not the best thing for a leader on her part, but good for a subordinate.
Nodding his head, Ryker sighed.
Making avatars was annoying.
Better than trying my hand at reincarnation.
Ha.
***
Standing in a freshly minted avatar, Ryker was squatting down in a bush staring out at… nothing.
A considerable amount of nothing.
An endless spread of greenery surrounding an open area and not a darn thing to do.
“No,” Tris whispered at his unspoken complaint.
Ryker raised his eyebrows at that, turning to face her.
“We wait. We do nothing but that. The task force should be arriving for the camp soon enough,” she said, keeping her volume and tone low. “That scout we killed was practically dropped on the road itself.”
Looking back into the same unchanging view, he shrugged his shoulders.
He’d opted to be here, far be it for him to complain now.
Tris had already killed the scout, planted the false information on the corpse, and set up the ambush. Which meant most of the work had already been done. Now it was just matching the dungeon forces to what was being sent and then crushing them.
He was here as a force multiplier since he could act without concern. Other than that, there was no reason for him to be here.
“Fine. Do we even have an idea of how long though? I mean, I could think of a few better things to do than sit here,” Ryker said.
“Hate to say no, kinda so
unds fun out here, but not the right time. As to when, should be soon. One of my people actually just spotted the group heading our way. On the bare edge of my core’s reach. Didn’t get a good count on how many though,” Tris murmured. There was a touch of steel to her voice as if that person had failed her.
“Well that’s great news. We can get this carnival of mistakes moving and Chadwick can catch another slap across his forehead. It’s a shame we’ll have to leave the corpses here though and make it look like the dark pantheon did it. I’d love to dump them on the temple grounds again,” Ryker said.
Tris grunted and then shoved him deeper into the bush, crawling in beside him.
Getting the hint, Ryker fell silent and waited.
He fell into his conditioned battle trance quickly. All this fighting had really honed his senses back to what they used to be.
When he still had a normal life and a future in adventuring.
“Normal doctrine is a blast of holy light to burn up any living shadows. Then charge in and engage. There is no subtlety to them. Especially if they think they have the initiative,” Tris whispered.
Seems like she’s been sorting through some core memories to get intel.
“So. What? We just wait for them to—” Ryker said, stopping in mid-sentence as the evening exploded with blinding white light.
The entire field was bathed in that bright glaring glow. Eliminating the darkness.
The church of light lackeys all rushed into the field, only to pause just as they entered. They’d been expecting a camp of the dark church and hadn’t bothered to even scout the area.
“Amateurs,” Tris muttered.
Casting a glance back at the people behind her, she waved a hand at them, then punched the air in front of her.
Every avatar stood up and drew back a bow, or prepared a spell.
Looking back to the church of light who were now clumped up in a group at the edge of the field, he smirked.
“Fuckers are all standing around with their dicks in their hands. Waiting for—”
Arrows, fireballs, and bolts of lightning streaked across the field and blasted into the milling ranks of the church.
Dungeon Deposed Page 30
