by Alston Sleet
The diviner felt a headache coming on, with that statement poor Kendun’s family was probably going to experience some very severe scrutiny. Kendun would be lucky if he were allowed to keep his position. At this point, it was a matter of saving his own self rather than Kendun.
“The king has far better ways of rooting out a single rebel. But if the entire city is in rebellion, and we both know it isn’t then such a command from the king would be just and good.”
The young man didn’t look pleased with that response, but he noticed the glare from some of his fellow soldiers and so finally took the hint to move back into formation and to stop asking dangerous questions. Far too late in Josedus’ opinion.
Josedus spent a few hours silently riding before he decided to check in with the king. Pulling up near the king’s carriage he hopped off his horse and passed his reins to the baggage boy riding on top of the transport. The young man was picked because he was deaf. He might be close enough to snoop on the king, but his physical ailment made him perfect for the job.
Standing on the riding board to the side of the swing out door, Josedus knocked and waited for the king to decide if he would let him in. When the curtain moved aside, and the king saw who was looking in, he unlocked the carriage door and opened it to allow the not nearly as spry as he once was diviner to enter.
“So, you decide to perform your duties finally?” the king asked, his face scrunched up in a sour mood. The king had never liked riding in carriages. The roadways always left a carriage ride a poor jostling affair. He much preferred to ride a horse with his men, but his station, and paranoia, no longer allowed him the luxury.
Smothering his annoyance Josedus put on his best court smile before answering his king.
“My king, I was just talking with the men to see if anything was amiss in the ranks. I have one possible lead, but I think it’s mostly just a young man new to his station rather than anything of note.”
The king nodded, his skill could feel every minor grumble of dissatisfaction and every act against the realm, but distance and severity shifted how strongly it reacted. It was only those who took actions against the kingdom or himself which caused the locking on of the bonus effects of his skill. These were the instances to really worry about.
The entire troop of the king's men and the diviner's guard had set out at first light. The king had decided he would be in on the hunt of this rebel, the man who had dared to kill the kingdom’s greatest mage. While the troops had formed up and prepared to march on a moments notice, the [Royal Diviner] had spent his time casting spells to investigate the city of Vermild. Vermild was a medium-sized city to the north of the capital which was rich in trade but was noticeably closer to the kingdom center than the magical academy. How then had this rebel entered the kingdom undetected and entered Vermild?
Casting his spell, Josedus remained locked rigid, sweat dripping from his brow as he peered through the astral at the far away city. After a few minutes of his efforts, his eyes fluttered open, and his breathing slowly returned to normal.
“My king,” Josedus wheezed before taking a sip from the wine housed in the carriage, “My spell tells me only of the importance of a stone gateway in the city. The central square draws my attention each time, but no specific person draws my gaze.”
The king frowned before sitting back in the thick cushion of his uncomfortable carriage.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
No! Don't Do That! You'll Stretch It!
Ding!
New pattern, Brown Rat.
Ding!
New pattern, Cat.
Ding!
New pattern, Gull.
Ding!
New pattern, Pigeon.
…
Oh man, beyond the sweet memories, the huge collection of new patterns was awesome. Admittedly, I did just watch a seventeen-year-old, a failed blacksmith’s apprentice who wanted to become an adventurer, die a gruesome death. But on the other non-existent hand, I did get to enjoy his memories. I was slightly conflicted about the entire thing. But hey, as the saying goes ‘buy the ticket, take the ride’, though he didn’t actually get a ticket, he did, in fact, pay to ride!
Putting ‘Wentel Sunders’ on his bronze plaque in the Hall of the Fallen was a bit more annoying then it needed to be since the young boy hired by Mister Saltfelt was there and watching, but I did understand his reasoning. Knowing when someone failed and the challenges were free to be used again sped things up immensely.
Wentel Sunders joined the fifteen other names from the town in the last three days. I had considered my early challenges to be excessively easy, akin to playground equipment. It was. But what I hadn’t considered was the severe malnourishment and desperation of a typical poor person in the city.
Some of the challengers, like the late young Sunders, were paying for the right to run the challenges. They were hoping to gain achievements and so gain unique and powerful skills. Other challengers were taking a special deal that mister Saltfelt had set up. You could run the challenge for free, but you had to hand over one of the copper coins the dungeon gave for a success. In addition, anything else won, mister Saltfelt had first right of offer to purchase. I did watch one female challenger sell a magical glowstone to Saltfelt, and for five gold coins! I was sure he would be able to get more than that in resale, but by the tears she shed - and the way Saltfelt’s minions were tasked with walking her to a bank - he had paid a good sum to the woman.
I wasn’t exactly happy about the sideshow-like display and the profiting the man was achieving. Not to mention the moral quandary I was in around his trade of potential death for cash, my murder for memory and pattern profits, or frankly any part of this entire system. I felt like when I was a kid and found out where meat came from. I still liked my chicken nuggets, but I tried really hard to not think about chickens. Here, the deaths were being shoved almost literally down my throat. The worst feeling was that I wasn’t feeling worse about the whole thing.
Saltfelt was an interesting character. I could already tell he was in love with money and willing to do some unsavory things to get it. He also was familiar with the wrong side of the law, his bribery and obvious manipulation of the land claim office had said that for him. But then, when the young man in my Hall of the Fallen had wanted to run my challenge, mister Saltfelt had instead hired him to watch for new plaques, something he had noticed after the first death. So not a nice man, but not evil either. By this worlds morals though, he was practically a saint of the people.
After my new patterns rolled in, I felt my [Etheric Pattern Formation] skill hit level one hundred and that satisfying feeling of a new bonus also flooded my mind. First I decided to review my status to see if anything else jumped out at me.
True Name: Dale Erickson Ender.
Race: Dungeon Core (Variant: Sapient)
Class: [Spatial Hedge-Mage][Spatial Traveler][High Priest].
Level: 38
Mind: 5
Body: 1
Soul: 8
Blessings:
[Blessing of Secrets] (hidden)
[Blessing of Cunning] (hidden)
[Blessing of Wealth]
[Blessing of Fame]
[Blessing of Magic]
[Blessing of Travel]
Traits:
[Focus of the Divine]
[Soul Seal - Divine]
Skills:
[Far Seeing]: Level 113
[Directed Prayer]: Level 4
[Mana Sensing]: Level 89
[Spatial Manipulation]: Level 92
[Will of the World]: Level 71
[Conjuration]: Level 69
[Etheric Pattern Formation]: Level 100
I was eager to find out what would come from [Spatial Manipulation] and [Mana Sensing] when they reached one hundred and was also surprised to notice I had leveled up at some point, but for now, my curiosity was centered around my [Etheric Pattern Formation].
[Etheric Pattern Formation] allows for the formation of etheric
patterns from the absorption and deconstruction of objects or memories. A highly prized skill that allows skilled magicians to create spell scrolls, spell books, memory orbs, and at higher levels, training stones.
Rank 100 Bonus: Allows for the direct combining and modification of Etheric Patterns.
I could feel some of what this bonus would allow. In combination with my [Conjuration] skill, I could do something like take the pattern for a flaming sword and the pattern for an ice beam casting amulet and combine them to get an ice beam casting sword…but something more daring like a horse sized duck would fail. But, the horse sized duck was possible…it was there…just out of reach.
The edges of what a skill can do are always very nebulous, very fuzzy, which made sense. If you could tell exactly how to do something and how it worked, then that’s solidly part of your skill. But, philosophy aside, one day there would be a challenge which offered the choice of fighting a horse sized duck or a horde of duck sized horses. It had to happen. No one else in history had the chance of creating such a thing until now and I owed it to the world to make it possible.
My internal musings were interrupted by my newest challenger. Not because it was an old man, I had devoured one older man and one of my wild kobolds had been beaten into slime by an older man, no. My interest was drawn because this older man proceeded to wander around my halls and then into my magical challenges. The entire time he was muttering to himself and squinting at my walls. My interest turned into full-blown terror after he entered my first magic trial. His muttering turned shifted to hand waving and magical phrases and then I felt someone poking at my spatial manipulations!
“Hmm, yes, definitely a modified [Galmen’s Spatial Stretch] though it also seems to have a hint of [Pearlson’s Pinch], the blowhard always did love alliteration.”
I was having a full on emotional meltdown, while this guy was poking at the fabric of space and by extension my body. I had thought that I was beyond danger, my twisting maze-like structure had been beyond the feeble means of pitchforks and torches. It didn’t matter how dangerous the peasants were, I was locked away safely and securely.
Then this old man with his pinched eyes muttered ramblings about the textual preferences of unknown academics, and worn wool robes, brought awareness of the danger crashing down around me. Every single trap, misdirection, and safeguard in my dungeon designed to keep me safe…was based on my [Spatial Manipulation]. If someone was a mage who could get around that then they could reach me!
I studied the old man as he wandered around the challenge hall. He avoided the swords embedded in the stones, he seemed to be uninterested in their spells, but he did study the exit ‘wall’ very closely. After maybe thirty minutes of intense scrutiny and a few mumbled spells, he finally crunched up his eyes in concentration. I watched as he snapped out something in a sharp voweled language while he grasped at my spatial walls with his outstretched hands. With pulling motions he slowly widened the closed doorway until it was visibly as large as a clenched fist. At this point he kept his eyes clenched in his focus while he stepped forward and through the seemingly impossible hole in the wall. His body shrank and twisted as it slipped through my dimensional shenanigans.
Once he was through he stared off into space in the same way that I had seen many others do when checking their statuses, especially when they had earned a new achievement.
“Ha! [Cheater of the Copper Magical Challenge]? That’s interesting. Hmm…” the older mage muttered as he wandered back towards my vestibule.
Ok, so Mister Blue Box apparently had my back a bit or at least would label cheaters for me. Not exactly killing my enemies, but I’ll take it. I wish someone would give me a guidebook to how this screwy status magic worked, but I would take anything that was working in my favor at this point.
I spent most of that day just reviewing the maze and the difficulties on the route to my core. I couldn’t rely on just my [Spatial Manipulation] to save me. Throughout my hallways, I placed falling pit traps with poison spikes, floor trigger plates which would launch spikes or acid squirters, false walls which now housed monsters, and every other trap I could think of that was in my walls or floors. At my core room, right outside my door, I left one last trap that would be hidden in the ceiling. Every trap before had been either on the floor or triggered from the floor, so I was hoping that if the worst came, I would have trained my assailant to not look up.
Always look up.
While I feverishly toiled I was gaining patterns - and oh how I loved those memories - but I was still unsettled by the thought of what that old man could have done if he wanted to.
On a brighter side, the Lord Mayor and Lord Vertan were absolutely hosed and unable to do a thing about it. I watched mister Saltfelt offer the Lord Mayor a free trip through his dungeon if he would like. Being that the Lord Mayor was the most overweight person I had seen in this world to date I was not surprised that he decided not to take him up on it. Saltfelt hadn’t run any of my challenges either so it wasn’t as harsh of a blow of wordplay as it could have been. The only jab in their conversation the Lord Mayor got in was that he had sent a letter to the king asking what were the taxes for a dungeon.
Beyond the steady stream of victims…I mean customers…that Saltfelt sent me, I learned a bit more about finances from the venerable mister Saltfelt. First was his gift of half a dozen different metals, plants, potions, and other items. He walked in, set them down in the middle of my vestibule, made a passing comment about ‘this is from a short yellow-eyed friend of mine’, then walked out. I learned the finances from him since all those wonderful patterns matched up to the logbook of expenses he kept in his house. Not the one in his private study, the one in the wall of his private study.
I also had a chance to learn a bit more about the value of the things I was handing out in my dungeon. My coins, for example, were overly large, way too pretty, and insanely pure. One of my coins was worth roughly thirty copper ‘slugs’ (little copper bits), though that was probably because some rich snobs had run up the value of them by collecting all of them they could. I was estimating they were more likely around twelve or thirteen ‘slugs’. A single slug was enough for a full meal. The meal probably wouldn’t have meat, but bread, ale, and a hearty vegetable and barley soup? Sure.
That explained why so many poor and down on their luck people were willing to try my dungeon and why so many that had gained two coins for my agility challenge had been willing to try for a second, third, and even fourth challenge. Passing one of those coins over to mister Saltfelt, after having two in their hand, and thinking the challenge was just so easy…
It wasn’t that the bodies stunted from youthful hunger or those malnourished from a life on the street were unable to complete the easiest of my challenges, it was that after winning at one of the easy challenges they pressed their luck seeing the possibilities. It was those who were only recently down on their luck or those who wanted to just get the achievement that normally left when they had felt any difficulty. It was those who had been beaten down to almost nothing who were willing to throw it all one more dangerous roll of the dice.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I am the Standard Cup of Tea
Philosophy is such an odd subject. It covers a ton of the unanswered questions, almost any of the ones you can’t answer and still ask ‘why?’. Sure, it focuses on the questions about ‘what is our purpose?’ and ‘what does it mean to be human?’ A couple questions I had been dwelling on over the last few months. But, it also covers questions like ‘why do my challenges give achievements?’ I had been noodling this problem around a while, ever since the stream of poor people had slowed down, and I think I had finally come to a conclusion.
Like most difficult questions, the final answer came to me when I wasn’t expecting it. Specifically, when I was snooping around with [Far Seeing]. I had noticed this delightful eatery in the wealthy district which seemed to only focus on brewed beverages and teas when I focused intently on
a teacup and had an epiphany.
Back when I was human, had a job as a graphic artist, a girlfriend, more weight, and generally wasn’t a complete failure at my own life, I had a coworker who did the technical stuff for the websites we designed. Fred was generally a friendly enough guy for a geek, and socially awkward as the stereotype would attest, and he would fill any awkward halt in the conversation with some weird bit of trivia. Sometimes it made sense in context, was interesting, and it would help him get over the strange pause. Sometimes it made no sense in context, was socially awkward all in its own, and occasionally disgusting. His discussion on toiletry practices of the middle ages comes to mind, mostly because this place reminds me on a regular basis.
One tidbit of his odd facts I had remembered was when we had been waiting for the coffee machine to spew out the delightful black gold. He turned to me and said ‘the British have an official standard cup of tea, and it isn’t very good.’
I had been more than usually confused by this, what does an ‘official standard cup of tea’ even mean? It turned out that there was a company, or an official office for Britain, or the UK, or something, the details were unclear, but the point was that they described a way to make tea. Officially. It was a standard. This way if you want to test how fast your loose leaf tea steeped in water, or how much flavor is released, or what have you, then there is an official marker to base everything else from. It wasn’t a particularly good tea making process, the cup was smaller than most liked, the material making up the cup wasn’t what most liked, etc. etc. But the interesting bit was that the company, or department, whatever, had other standards for all kinds of other things. It turns out that standards are important, but you have to all agree on who makes the standard and then use it. If you get people to adopt one standard of yours, it’s easier to get other standards officially accepted.