The slaves nodded. This wasn’t an uncommon thing, so they understood the basics well enough. There was still some resentment at the fact that they were slaves, but I noticed the rogue understood that they were going to be getting some special treatment because of this. She would be one to watch. Either she would become a problem, or she would become one of my more successful slaves.
As we entered the master’s suite, I saw that Kylana and Iqnora were already there. I split the three guards into shifts. Ratha would have the first shift, stretching from 4 AM to Noon. Ayla would have the second shift, lasting from Noon to 8 PM. And Thaola would guard through the night, from 8 PM to 4 AM. That meant that it was now Ayla’s shift, and I allowed the other two to go relax until someone called them or it was time for their shift.
Looking to Jastra, I said, “You shall be my Stewardess. Your job is to manage my chambers, prepare my clothes for the next day, and so on. You are a monk, yes? You shall share my bed unless I say otherwise, and shall use your skills to protect myself and guests to my chamber. Understood?” The drow shuddered as she realized what she’d be doing, but nodded, none too pleased with these events. She was a proud drowess, not a maid, and now she was an incubus’s sex pet. The thought was galling to her, to be sure.
I turned to look at the other two, and was amused by Kylana’s embarrassed look at me telling the drowess that she’d be warming my bed for me. Reaching up, I lifted the Hellion’s face up to look at mine. “My dear, you’re going to have to get used to the fact that, regardless of my new nature, I am still an Incubus, and have needs. You’re my familiar, not my slave, so I will never force you to indulge me, but I can promise you many new experiences if you simply let me.”
Iqnora cut in, her arms slipping around my waist as she pushed herself against my back. I could feel two large and lovely orbs pressing against my shoulder blades. “Master, if she isn’t willing, I still haven’t thanked you properly for saving me from the Terror.” The tone of her voice left little doubt about how she wished to ‘thank’ me.
Looking back at Kylana, I leaned down and kissed her lightly upon the lips. “You may stay and watch, or join in. I’ll let you decide.” Looking over to Jastra, I said, “Pleasure yourself as you watch the show. You may stop when I fall asleep, or command otherwise.” The drowess simply scowled, but began pulling her clothes aside so she could do as commanded.
I turned my back on Kylana to look at Iqnora as I began pulling off my clothes. The woman blushed, and muttered something. “…in front of an audience!” I simply smiled as I finished removing my clothes, and placed one hand on the elf woman’s shoulder, guiding her down to her knees. “Oh, wow!”
That shook Kylana out of her shocked reaction, and she moved down to her knees as well. “I’m joining in!”
Needless to say, I had a very good night.
In the morning, however, I was inundated with reports on the status of the castle and the village. As I’d instructed yesterday, work had begun on making suitable living areas for the people of the village. While it was a far cry from actual homes, thatched rooves had been made to cover the remains of several buildings, at least providing shelter for the people.
Some of the farmers had begun a survey of the nearby fields. While there were still low stone walls denoting the edges of the fields, the fields had not been tended in centuries, and had begun growing wild with both weeds and useful things intermixed. There was even an orchard with a good many apple trees that would need tending to, but offered fresh fruit at this time of year. Clearing the land would have been difficult with the simple tools they brought, if it were not for a couple of the farmers knowing enough Earth Magic to help with the task.
With the game the hunters brought back from the forest, we looked to be in good shape as far as food and shelter went. I also told my lieutenants to let the villagers know that I had arranged for the Everfilling Well and Everful Larder, so that they could know that, even if it took a while for the village to be self-sustaining, there was no risk of their children starving. That, and the Mist Workers helping to clear debris and plow the fields once they had been cleared would do wonders for morale, now that most people at least had a roof over their head.
The big news, though, came from one of my guild members, who thought to work on his Mining skill in the nearby mines. We had Undead in the mines!
Hrozne was practically giddy. It was sickening, really.
Chapter 57 – Cursed Mine
On the way to the mine, I forced Hrozne to spill why shi was so happy. As I thought, it was more than just a necromancer with the ‘Lichloved’ title being weird about undead. Oh sure, the fact that there were undead shi would be able to ‘enjoy’ was part of it. We all had our fetishes, so I wasn’t going to judge, but I drew the line at mindless undead. Hrozne, on the other hand, did not. OK, so maybe I’m judging just a bit. But zombie boning just isn’t my deal.
It seems that, while Severa picked up a hot chick to enslave, and I grabbed a couple women as well, Hrozne had picked up a quest from Mirelth’s daughter, Merkath. Merkath the Dark, actually, and she was a vampiric dragon who had been trapped in the trials much like Iqnora had, except I gathered there wasn’t much about it that was Merkath’s choice.
Free the Dark Daughter
One of the last daughters of Mirelth the Adorable, Merkath the Dark, has survived defeat at the hands of those who captured her mother by becoming a vampire, but she has been trapped within a tomb in the Wyrmwood. Seek the tomb where she has been sealed, and release her.
Rank
B
Success
Free Merkath the Dark from her imprisonment in the Astral Planes.
Failure
Give up on the quest.
Refuse to free Merkath the Dark.
Reward
Experience
Gold
1 item from the Dragon’s hoard
Increased faction relationship with Mirelth
Consequences
Decreased faction relationship with Mirelth
Dragon’s Curse
Once the quest was shared, and everything was explained, I admit I was more excited to go hunting undead. Not like Hrozne, but still, this looked like it would be a solid chunk of XP, and a secret chance to move that Mirelth quest event forward. Plus, I needed to get these undead out of my mine so I could get Mithral gear!
Finding the mine was easy enough, given that the guildie that found it marked it on the guild map so someone could play exterminator later. It was your standard fantasy-style mine. Wood beams, rails for the cars, and so on. Oh, and it was dark, but Hrozne had a Shadow Magic spell that gave people darkvision, so we didn’t need to carry torches for the humans in the group.
As we entered the mine, I saw a notification that this was the ‘Cursed Mine’. Apparently, the mine was now a minidungeon now that we knew undead were crawling around in here. It wasn’t long before we saw the first ‘volunteer’ for destruction.
Miner
Elf Zombie Male
Level 42 Zombie
Slightly stronger than our individual levels, but nothing we couldn’t tear through easily. Especially since the only one without the Undead Bane title was the necromancer. The loot was basic, since it was only wearing tattered work clothes. The shoes and clothing was all beyond hope, and the only gear the zombie had on him were a mining pick and a dagger. The pick was fairly mundane, if well-made and still in good condition after all this time. The dagger, on the other hand, had been embedded in the zombie’s back, pinning a note there. The note was written in blood. That made it a LOT more interesting.
Renard’s Dagger
Type
Dagger
Rank
Uncommon
Damage
60 – 85
Damage Type
Piercing
Forged from steel, this dagger is a solid military piece, though the design is from ages past. Intended to be as beautiful as it is deadly, the blade is engrav
ed with the image of a crashing wave, while the hilt is inset with the symbol of a knight’s order.
Requires: Good Alignment
+50 Attack
+20 DEX
Blessed – Deals 50% more damage to Evil creatures. Deals 50% less damage to Good creatures.
Enchanted: Dragonbane – Deals 3x damage to Dragons.
To whomever reads this note, know that the work is not yet done! I tracked the beast to the land of the elves, but the coming Terrors have kept them from all sense about the dangers of the beast and her kin. They will not aid me in my quest.
Despite Grendit’s interference, I tracked the beast to a temple to the elven gods, and found the damned elves trying to aid the beast. They were attempting to remove the wasting curse that had been placed upon the beast, restoring it to full power!
I have stopped them, but my body is broken and the beast is not yet dead. I beg of you, send word to the order, so that this evil might be purged.
Sir Renard Proudmore the Black
Order of St. George
New Quest alert!
The Knight’s Missive
Sir Rendard Proudmore the Black, a Knight of the Order of St. George, has written a message in his own blood, begging those who read it to see that the evil his order pursued into elven lands is destroyed.
Rank
B
Success
Discover Sir Renard’s fate and report to the Order.
Failure
Refuse to report to the order or protect Sir Renard’s quarry.
Rewards
An item from the Order’s armories.
Order of St. George faction reputation increases to Friendly.
Consequences
Order of St. George faction reputation becomes Hatred.
Bounty placed on your heads by the Order.
So most gamers wouldn’t have a clue what this meant, except for a quest to get some gear and the friendship of a knight order. For lightsiders, especially warrior or paladin types, this is a no brainer. But living in WoD and the lore there, which often pulled from real life history, I knew a few things average people might not. Like St. George. Sounds like some Catholic dude, right? Except he was supposedly a Knight who went about slaying dragons. So this was a Dragonslayer order.
Add on what Hrozne’s quest told us, and the Knight’s note, and I was starting to get a picture of what happened here. Merkath tried to free her mother from slavery, but was forced to flee. Apparently, the dragonslayers put some kind of curse on her, to boot, and she came to the elves to try and get free of the curse. The knight interrupted a magic ritual in the middle of casting. This resulted in Merkath becoming undead, and trapped in the Trials somehow, and who knows what else.
So at best, this order was a bunch of well-meaning zealots who saw it as their holy mission to wipe out dragons and blah blah blah. More likely, there were a few ‘true believers’ in the mix, but most were assholes out for power, and wanted a cause that sounded righteous. And I had a feeling they were already going to be hating me quite a bit, since I was a Dragonfriend and Dragon Consort. Oh, and I had freed a dragon goddess.
I shook my head. “Let’s keep going. Seems there’s more going on here than we thought.”
Ancient abandoned mines are tricky things. Cave-ins are a major concern, as the age of support beams becomes questionable. Magic doesn’t help much in that regard, since even permanent enchantments can fade or become warped over centuries. Especially if any damage happens to the item enchanted. Mines are also dark, and torches are a major risk, because sometimes gas builds up in places, and fire tends to make it go boom. Then there’s underground chasms, flooded tunnels, and more. And that’s just the NATRUAL issues. When you start thinking about monsters, bandits, or greedy people, then there’s a reason that any miner with a high skill level probably also has some decent combat skills.
Which made the fact that all these miner zombies we kept seeing all the more worrisome. If they had all been killed by the Knight on his way in, that was one thing. But that didn’t seem quite right. Hrozne said that Merkath told him the entrance to the cave was elsewhere, and had since caved in. The mine later broke into the temple corridors by accident, likely long after whatever happened with Merkath and the knight. Which meant something else killed these miners and raised them as undead.
The zombie miners continued to come at us, sometimes in groups of two or three, and occasionally a Foreman in the mix, a few levels higher. But they were mindless, and we were high enough level that they weren’t much trouble. Honestly, the biggest difficulty with these mindless undead types is that they weren’t like living people. You had to beat them until they stopped moving. A quick blade slitting their throat wouldn’t do it. Annoying!
Eventually, we found our way down to the place the miners broke through into the temple’s tunnels. I could tell, because there was a big hole in one wall, where someone obviously broke into another passage, with a golden barrier set up, keeping the undead back. It looked to be powered by runes gathering local mana to keep the barrier going, rather than the caster powering it. Which was good, since the skeleton wearing a knight’s plate mail on the other side of the barrier didn’t look like it was capable of maintaining a holy barrier.
Severa checked the barrier over, before using her rogue skills to take it down without blowing us all up (always a plus). Scratching one of the runes with her dagger caused the barrier to flicker, and then fade. The key was in scratching the right rune. Take out the one that draws in mana, and you’re fine. Take out the one that channels it, or the one that tells the mana what to do, and you’ve got a bomb set to go critical.
As I stepped forward, the skeleton stirred, and rose to its feet with a clacking of bones and the sound of shifting metal. And when it spoke, it was in a cold voice, tinged with magic.
Renard Proudmore
Human Deathless Knight Male
Level 60 Holy Avenger (Paladin) / Dragonslayer (Fighter)
Titles: Knight, Pious One, Undead Bane, Demonslayer, Dragonslayer, Elf Bane, Cursed One
“Hold, adventurers! I seek no quarrel with you, but shall allow none to pass. Beyond this point, a great evil has been sealed.”
“Evil? I think not. Just a dutiful daughter trying to free her mother from slavery, no?” I chuckled. I had to admit, I enjoyed getting a rise out of the ‘holier than thou’ types. That might explain why the New Jehovah’s Witnesses never came to my door after that first time when I tried to convert them to being Jedis.
The deathless knight visibly bristled at this, and drew his sword, a wicked greatsword that still glowed with a holy light. I wondered, for a moment, about how the undead creature could bear to hold it, before realizing it was speaking again. “Have the years been so long that fools have become senile enough to think that dragons are ‘people’? They are not! They are monsters born of evil that thrive on the suffering of mortals! It is the duty of all righteous souls to stamp out their filth wherever they can be found.”
“Yeah, no. See, my name is Zayn Darkmore, and I am called Dragonfriend. And you are not worth my time. Hrozne? Deal with this fool.”
Hrozne chuckled, and stepped forward, a staff in hir hand. “Ah, I hadn’t hoped to meet a ‘Deathless Knight’! A rare kind of undead that sometimes happens when a holy warrior is cursed or killed by some powerful necromantic effect, no? I shall enjoy studying you!”
The knight uttered a curse, the dark red orbs where the skeleton’s ‘eyes’ would be seeming to grow brighter with his rage. “Insolent necromancer! You and all your friends shall be purged by the holy light! In the name of Pelor, God of the Light, Protector of the Righteous, I shall end you!” And with that, the knight launched himself forward, his glowing two-handed sword raised high above his head, aiming to cleave Hrozne in two with a single blow!
And Hrozne just smiled, and cast a single spell. “Death’s Slave.”
Chapter 58 – Knightmares
The deathless knight froze in
place as Hrozne’s spell took hold. The necromancer chuckled, and said, “Honestly, don’t you paladin types learn anything besides propaganda? You may call yourself ‘deathless’, but you are an undead. Which means that a necromancer like myself is quite capable of making you my toy.”
I smiled, and said, “Well, that was good. Now, shall we continue on and free the undead dragon so she can join her mother?”
The knight laughed smugly, and said, “You may have enslaved me, but you’ll never find Mirelth! The Order made sure of that! She was too much for us alone, but when we made her an enemy of all lands, we were victorious!”
“Ah, so you manipulated events so Mirelth attacked the kingdoms, and they sent their best warriors against her to do what pathetic, hateful weaklings like you couldn’t. Got it. Anyways, that’s not an issue. I personally freed Mirelth months ago and I believe she’s currently hunting down the descendants of those who captured her. I’m sure she’ll be happy to know that your Order was behind it all.”
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