The Dungeon Con: One Foot in the Grave ( Hank Grave Book 1): One Foot in the Grave (Hank Grave series)

by Marty Myers

  Seeing Hanks objections already forming to the last one. Alastor said, “ I think I have one more idea. I vaguely remember the incident Provoas was talking about earlier where he was poisoned many years ago. I was there as Provoas and his master had used me to teleport them to Alastasia’s crypt that night. She was a nasty piece of work, that one. I’m almost positive that she perished beside the old master a few weeks ago when Provoas ascended to Master Lich status.”

  “ Anyway my point is that her kitchen staff, especially her ghost cook weren’t brought out to the battlefield. Maybe we can scry on her old crypt’s kitchen and see if the old guy is still bound there even now. Sometimes the bindings snap with the master’s death like they did for me, especially if you’re close to the event. Other times though they begin to slowly wear away gradually with time and a lack of maintenance.”

  Hank thought this was the best idea they had come up with and let Alastor begin the scrying. They managed to locate the crypt in question and saw that it’s doors had been bashed in recently. Alastor directed the view on inside where they found the burnt remains of several skeletons and a smashed up decorative stone coffin lid pushed aside to reveal steps leading down. “It’s always underground,” Hank said to himself. Their view slowly floated down the stairs and into a warren of tunnels and small passages before coming to a chamber that appeared to be an ossuary. Broken bones and more charred skeletons could be seen throughout their tour of the crypt.

  “ It definitely looks like some adventurers have been through here,” Alastor said. “ See all the destruction, but no sign of any attempt to clean it up or restore the burial grounds. The church would probably still have clergy or lay brothers here working on restoring it if they had been involved. This is a far as I came last time I was here. The servants brought the food through that doorway though, so the kitchen is probably there.” Having said this their view passed through a closed door and came to a short hall before the kitchen they were looking for came into sight. It too had been ransacked. Skeletons wearing smocks and aprons lay broken on the floor along with scattered pots and pans and a few small knives and other utensils. Even a couple books lay thrown down amongst the wreckage.

  Looking at it all Hank could see a faint glimmer of essence dimly glowing from one of the books. He focused his senses and realized he was looking at the fading aura of a spirit. Hank reviewed what information came to him through the grimoire and began calling upon the spirit to appear to them. Soon the essence surrounding the book flowed into the image of a short plump man in a white apron with thinning hair and a long curly black mustache.

  The spirit looked around the kitchen ringing his hands before seeming to notice the disturbance in the air where they were scrying from. “ Who is calling me.” the spirit said in a wavering voice. “ I am looking for a good cook to come run my kitchen,” Hank said. “ I have heard about your cooking and thought I would see if you would be interested in my offer. I am called Hank and I am a dungeon.” The spirit wavered at these words. “ You have heard of me,” the spirit asked? “ I have been lost here so long now I would have believed my name and my story would have been forgotten about by now.” “ Yes I have heard of you, but I do not know too much. Will you agree to come serve me? This kitchen your in is finished making food. I doubt any more will ever be served out of it.”

  The spirit wrung his hands once more. “ They came and destroyed my workers and my kitchen as they did all of Madam Alastasia’s remaining minions,” he cried. “ I felt her death a while back and knew she was gone of course. Several of the guardians and staff fell to pieces when it happened. I should have too, but for some reason, I am still here. I am so tired though. It should not be long before I have my rest.” Hank interrupted him, “ you need not go. I can restore you, even maybe improve on your old mistresses’ work to give you more essence and a better kitchen.” The spirit looked at him. “ You too serve the Darkness, your appearance says much Hank. I was forced to serve Alastasia these many years. I am not eager to serve another of your ilk.”

  “ Who or what would I even cook for in your kitchen?” “ Well, Hank said I must admit that you would be serving Master Dark’s Black Guards right now.” The ghost wailed and swooped around the kitchen at these words. “ Yes I know, Hank said, they are not exactly who I want in my dungeon either, but I don’t have a choice. Look can I offer you something in exchange for cooking for them? They aren’t supposed to be around for too long anyway, maybe a year or so and then I will likely return to being a dungeon of the dead.” The Spirit stopped flying about and focused back on Hank. “ Yes, you can give me something! if you promise it to me in a contract, a demon contract! I can sense your demon hovering there and know of their ways from my mistress. No matter how despicable you may be, a demon contract between us must be kept.”

  Hank paused at the sudden vehemence of the ghost’s words. “ What is it you want,” Hank said. “ I want the spirit of my wife Melody to be freed from her imprisonment and to have her restored to me if that is possible. I also want a letter and money to be delivered to my family or the descendants of my family to help them out. I want the stain upon my name to be lifted after all these years and my family to have peace and prosperity returned to them.”

  Hank was stunned by the little man’s demands. He said, “ well I am going to need a lot more details before I can agree to all of that. Why don’t you tell me where your wife might be first and we shall go from there. She is trapped in a pendant Alastasia often wore to torment me.” The little cook said. “ It is a black stone cabochon about thumb sized mounted upon an oval of polished bone. It hung upon a blackened chain necklace. She kept it hidden somewhere in her boudoir.”

  “ The stone has the power to hold a spirit trapped indefinitely and grant the wearer one of the spirits abilities to use as their own. My wife was a skilled illusionist who specialized in making charms for the King’s courtiers and ladies to enhance their beauty and hide their slights. Alastasia was a very vain woman and when she was not going to war she wanted to look as she did in life. So she kept my wife, both for her own vanity and to force me to comply with her demands.” “ Okay Hank said, I will look for your wife and see about freeing her. if I find the amulet I will be keeping that.”

  “ Now about the letter and money. I can be reasonable in providing some gold or coins to pay for your services. But what is this about the letter and how would it redeem your name?” “ I was the kings chief,” the spirit said. “ One day the king was poisoned despite the precautions taken to protect him from such a thing. I, as his chef, fell under suspicion. I was innocent but the queen, Alastasia had me taken to the dungeon and had a confession of regicide tortured out of me.”

  “ She appointed my best cook to take my place, but he knew I was innocent and indeed feared that she would turn on him too at the slightest sign of foul play in the kitchens. This was because he suspected the queen herself had had the king poisoned and had used me as an easy scapegoat. With my wives help, he slipped a complex two-part poison to the queen. One ingredient in a charm and the other in a soup. When both met in her system it combined and caused her to die in her sleep mysteriously.”

  “ Sadly after she was buried her spirit refused to rest and came back looking for revenge. She had secretly dabbled in dark arts as a girl before meeting and marrying the king and had somehow avoided the churches blessings. now as a self risen lich she set about taking back her life and her revenge upon us who had killed her. Being undead a host of options were closed to her now. She tried at retaking the thrown, but was rebuffed by the other nobles and those in the church.”

  “ Meanwhile although I was released from the dungeons I and my wife were out of favor with the new rulers. Soon enough rumors began to spread and we were shunned by everyone. Then one night Alastasia’s creatures came for us. She had deduced who had killed her by capturing and interrogating many of the other castle servants and had finally come for us. We were drug here and I was subjected to anothe
r round of torture, but this time with my wife and I taking turns. Eventually, Alastasia arranged for our deaths and captured our spirits as ghosts to serve her Dark Court faithfully here in the catacombs.”

  “ The only spot of hope was that my best apprentice, the cook who she had appointed to succeed me had escaped her clutches and that he had taken my daughter with him. They had been sweet on one another for a long time and I am all but certain that he ran off and married her. After years word eventually reached me that he had fled to a rival kingdom and became the King of that lands head Chef there. Once again though Alastasia was not happy that anyone connected with her death had a good life. She arranged for rumors of my families regicide to spread in that kingdom and the last I had heard he was banished from his post.”

  “ Much time has passed since then I know, but I want my family to know the truth about our disappearance and to have something that will help them get by. As to the letter I also plan to pen the truth about what happened and hope that it is enough to help them clear their name. I know I can not write, I ask that someone write my words for me and send it with the gold. Do these things and I will willingly serve you always Hank.”

  Hank talked it over with Alastor. “ There is much more this ghost is demanding of us than most necromancers would be willing to bargain for a spirits services, before just forcing them to serve Hank,” he said. “ A demon contract is a serious thing as I would hope you would know by now.” “ I know Alastor,” Hank said. “ Is there any way you can write it so that there is less risk involved.” Alastor thought about it for a while and questioned the cook on a few particulars before he wrote up a modified version for both parties to look over. In the end, it was agreed that Hank or his minions would search for the pendant with the chef’s wife here in the tomb to see if it was recoverable. If so they would set about freeing her. They would also go about writing the letter and finding the family and sending them the agreed upon gold from Hanks dungeon.

  And so it was that Birch with a hand full of skeletons was sent through to Alastasia’s crypt. Hank and Alastor decided to watch but remain quiet unless they saw something that Birch missed. He appeared in the kitchen where he picked up the chefs cookbook which the ghost was bound to and set off on an unusual quest to rescue the cook’s dead wife. As a local adventurer, Birch had heard the tale of Alastasia the Risen and was somewhat familiar with the story the cook had told. The beginning of it anyway for no one had known that the cook and his wife had truly been captured by her and made into ghostly servants in the end.

  Birch shuddered thinking about how much more evil some of the Dark’s followers were than his own master. He had gotten very lucky to have been brought back by Hank who still had a conscious. Shaking these thoughts off Birch said, “okay, so which way is it to Alastasia’s chambers chef?” “ You can call me Anatolius,” the ghost said as he came over and floated beside the book. “ It is this way down the hallway and three doors down on the left. Be careful I do not know if the adventurers who wrecked the kitchen set off all of the crypts traps. Alastasia in the past has had her personal quarters set with traps for when she was away.” At hearing this Birch commanded one of the skeletons to take the lead walking down the hallway.

  There wasn’t much sign of anything wrong until they came to a couple piles of bones wearing armor halfway down the hall. “ From the looks of it these guys may have just collapsed when your mistress fell,” Birch said as he looked them over. He was counting doors and looking down the hall when Anatolius motioned to the left. Birch looked but could only see more wall where the ghost pointed to. “ This is a very good sign,” the ghost said. “ An illusion is hiding the doorway still. Alastasia had no inherent skills with illusions, my wife supplied her with every bit that she used through the amulet. I think that means it is still here.”

  Birch looked closer at the wall and with some effort was finally able to make out a doorway that looked much like every other one they had passed. He stepped back and carefully had one of the skeletons try to open it. There was a surge of necromantic energies which shot into the skeleton harming it not at all as it opened the door. Birch sent it into the room that was revealed as a boudoir. There was an ornate dark wood vanity and a large folding screen with a scene of a springtime flowering garden set in one corner of the room. A couple chairs and a wardrobe were over on the other side of the room. With another closed door leading deeper into the chambers.

  Birch carefully looked in from the doorway directing the skeleton to step into the center of the room. With barely any noise several small darts shot across the room. One of them actually hit the skeleton while two others flew through the doorway where Birch had ducked and clattered onto the hallway floor. “ Any idea where we should look first,” he said to the ghost who had not moved.

  “ No, I have only been in here once long ago. I only know this is likely where my wife is hidden because of Alastasia’s bragging about it and due to the doorway being hidden under that illusion.” “ Well, Birch said, I am going to have the skeleton just walk around a bit before I enter and see if he can set off any more of the traps.” Three more times darts shot out of the corners targeting the skeleton and a couple other areas including the doorways.

  After a few more rounds around the room hadn’t produced any more surprises Birch gingerly stepped foot through the doorway and began looking around. Luckily he didn’t have to search very much before he noticed that the vanity mirror’s refection was showing him and Anatolius much differently than they currently appeared. He looked much as he had a week ago while the ghost looked like a happy living breathing man dressed in a chefs outfit and smiling everywhere he looked. Only the skeleton looked much as he did in reality.

  Anatolius seeing this flew straight to the mirror and began inspecting it, even sticking his head through the mirror to look behind it before exclaiming. “ Here it is, set into a slot on the back of the mirror!” Birch more carefully approached the vanity as he had cause to know Alastasia had been fond of traps and there was no reason to think she might not have set something nasty up to protect her vanity and her pendant. His caution was well placed as he studied the situation he saw that there was indeed some type of trap upon the slot the jewel was sitting in. He finally stepped back and had the skeleton try removing the pendant from the mirror. Powerful death bolts shot out of the mirror in all directions as the pendant came free. Birch, Anatolius and the skeleton all were struck by them. Luckily they each took only a small amount of the killing damage a living adventurer would have sustained from the necromantic energies.When they had taken a moment to recover Birch and the ghost looked over the amulet without touching it. Meanwhile, the mirror had lost its ability to show them their living reflections. Birch could see though that there was still a dark aura about it and the vanity hinting it had more tricks in store for the unwary.

  From where he watched Hank was torn. A large part of him wanted to loot almost everything here and since he thought he could teleport most of it right into a room he was very tempted to just go ahead and do so. However a tiny part of him was thinking about how they already had what they came for and that messing with anything else might spring another trap, one that they weren’t prepared to have brought down on Birch and his new chefs head. He decided to try to play it both ways. “ Alastor can you take over the scrying a bit more. I am going to see if I can control the skeletons from here.” Having said so Hank reached out with his will and with some effort took direct control of the boneheads. It was by far the furthest he had done this and he could feel that there was a slowly building strain that would limit his time controlling them.

  He spoke to Birch and Anatolius. “ Okay, I would think this meets the first requirement. Can you tell if your wife is truly residing in there?” The ghost flew around and after a minute finally said. “ Yes, I feel Melodie’s presence. It is faint but here.” “ Okay, Hank said. then I would like to bring you all back here to my dungeon as we agreed. I can’t work at releasing her ov
er all of this distance.” “ Yes, Anatolius agreed. Please hurry!” Hank immediately teleported Birch, the ghost and the skeleton holding the pendant back to his kitchen. Some of the strain he was feeling relented at this. “ Okay everyone just wait a minute.”

  Hank focused back onto the scrying of the crypts boudoir and saw his remaining skeletons standing just outside the doorway. He focused upon the vanity and all the other furniture and furnishings he could see and with an effort of will, he teleported everything back into another large empty room of his dungeon. Hank felt a headache pounding in his mind as he accomplished this. Alastor looked at him half in admiration and half in aggravation. “ You may not realize this, but there are some forms of magical traps and wards made strictly to stop or even punish that sort of thing. It can be dangerous to even try taking things with our talent.” “ True, Hank said, “ but I have been looking intently at the room since before Birch went in and I can see several broken spells decaying there. I think almost all of her protections blew when she was killed.”

  “ Speaking of my looting though would you please take a turn and pilfer everything usable from her kitchen. It will save us the trouble of having to make all of the other utensils and implements ourselves.” Alastor shook his head but went about the business of snatching all of the useful bits of cookware and cutlery from the kitchen as well as any intact furniture in the previous dining room. Meanwhile, Hank collected any intact skeletons they had stumbled across.