by Hugo Huesca
Instead, he forced his anger down and thought clearly about his situation. He was stronger than the Dungeon Lord, yes, but Wraith had the better technique, was faster, had enchanted gear, and was sweating more magic than Blue-Eyes had cast in a lifetime.
The reasonable solution was obvious.
“Wait!” Mohnuran called, before Wraith closed in for another exchange of blows.
The Dungeon Lord took a step backward, without lowering his guard. “Yes?” he asked, loudly, over the sound of the surrounding fight.
“Is surrendering still on the table?” Mohnuran asked, raising his voice as well and trying not to pant.
“You almost took my head off back there,” Wraith pointed out. He wasn’t even winded. Thanks to Mohnuran’s stolen Endurance ranks, the Dungeon Lord was as fresh as a daisy.
“I had to at least try,” Mohnuran said. “Give the boys a good show. I’m sure you understand.” Tentatively, as a leap of faith and because he was defeated anyway, he laid down his axe and kicked it toward the Dungeon Lord. “There. See? I’m done. Let me call my men, order them to stand down. They’ll listen to me.”
He felt naked without his weapon and was painfully aware that Wraith could decide to kill him anyway for the couple extra experience points Objectivity granted for fights to the death. But the Dungeon Lord’s forces tended to take prisoners and accept surrenders instead of executing bandits on the spot, so Mohnuran had reason to hope their leader was the same way. If Wraith had had a reputation for being merciless, Mohnuran would have fought to the death without a second thought.
The Dungeon Lord looked down at the minotaur’s axe, then lowered his sword slightly while glancing past Mohnuran’s shoulder. “I believe we already took care of convincing your men to stand down. But thanks for the thought.”
Mohnuran looked behind him to see his brave company on their knees, weapons laid down in front of the kaftar. A few bandits gazed at Mohnuran with admiration, and he realized that, without meaning to at all, he’d been fighting the Dungeon Lord on his lonesome for a while now. The minotaur cursed bitterly.
2
Chapter Two
The Highway
The Dungeon Lord surveyed the aftermath of the battle. The small bandit camp was shredded, with splotches of blood quickly drying on the rocks. The chill of the night cooled his body, and the song of the crickets mixed with the moaning of the wounded to make for an eerie melody.
He strolled past the line of webbed bandits, who were sitting in the middle of the outcrop with a group of Monster Hunters keeping an eye on them while another tended to their wounds. The bandit group’s leader, the minotaur, sat on one end of the line, his arms almost completely covered in web to make up for his huge Brawn rank. The Dungeon Lord felt the gaze of the bandit follow him as he went around the line.
The Monster Hunters had laid out the casualties of the battle somewhere behind the bandits. Five bandits and, until a while ago, a couple horned spider warriors that their sisters had quickly absconded with to eat before they got too cold. One of the dead bandits was the spellcaster that had cast the ice bolt that almost ran the Dungeon Lord through—the kaftar’s envenomed darts were usually non-lethal, but using it in huge amounts was a different matter.
The Dungeon Lord stood next to the corpses and flared his Evil Eye, eldritch green light bursting out of his visor for an instant. He looked for a ley line—a pathway of invisible magical energy that ran deep underground—found one, and used it to spawn into existence a group of imp-like drones dressed in the purple-and-pink sash of the Haunt’s embroidery.
“Cover them and load them into the wagons,” he ordered the drones. The creatures hated any task that wasn’t directly related to dungeon-building, but they were also bound to the Dungeon Lord’s will and had no other option but to obey. Still, one of them spat on the ground and kicked at the spellcaster’s corpse, while the others hurried to gather a few blankets from the supply wagons hidden in an underground tunnel half a mile away from the outcrop.
While the Dungeon Lord waited for the drones to come back, the Haga’Anashi commander approached him.
“Everything is ready,” she said. “We can leave at any time you wish, Lord Wraith.”
The Dungeon Lord nodded. Now that the area was secure, he undid the straps of his helm and took it off, his black hair falling to his shoulders while the wind cooled the sweat off his forehead.
“Thanks, Yumiya,” Ed said, smiling at the kaftar. “Nice job as always.”
The kaftar stiffened with pride. “My warriors and myself are honored to have you fighting side-by-side with us, Lord Wraith. Most Dungeon Lords wouldn’t have bothered, but your thirst for battle is refreshingly kaftar-like.”
Ed’s smile wavered a bit. Truth be told, he needed the practice. With Kes away from the Haunt, most of his training had come from Kaga—the leader of the Monster Hunters—and a few other instructors that had sporadically visited the Haunt from the Netherworld. They were very skilled, but lacked Kes’ talent for teaching—and even then, no training session could compare with real battle experience.
Also, in the world of Ivalis, risking his life was the only way to earn the experience points he needed to increase his power. In the last couple of months, Ed had not risked his life much, busy as he was with the responsibilities of preparing the Haunt and Undercity for war against Heiliges—while at the same time doing his best to prepare for the upcoming Endeavor, where he surely would need every last experience point he could farm if he wanted to survive.
Going out on patrols against the bandits that roamed the roads all around the countryside was Ed’s best way of keeping in practice, but he rarely could make time for it. Even then, with all his magical talents and minions protecting him, Objectivity barely counted these trips as “risking his life,” so he earned few experience points.
The drones returned with the blankets and hurried to cover up the bodies.
“I expected you to look different,” the minotaur called while Ed watched the drones work. “Maybe taller. For a man called Wraith, you’re only human underneath that armor. Wetlands, you aren’t even pale.”
A Monster Hunter headed over to silence the bandit, but Ed gestured at him that it was alright. “You shouldn’t believe the hype, I guess,” Ed said. He clenched his skeletal left hand, glad for some reason that the minotaur had failed to notice it. It wasn’t the product of a talent or an enchantment, but a kind of magical scar, the product of an encounter with a real wraith in what seemed a lifetime ago. A bit of the undead creature’s essence now resided in him, giving those rumors going around a degree of truth.
“What are you going to do with them?” the minotaur asked, nodding toward the bodies as the drones carried them away.
Ed shrugged. “Think of anything Dark. You won’t be far from the truth.”
The minotaur accepted his words, but the bandit right behind him scowled and spat on the ground. “And they call us outlaws,” the man said. “Fucking disgusting.”
“Shut up,” the minotaur ordered. “Are you trying to get killed? Because if so, I can gut you myself.” The long horns atop his brown bull head were covered in web as well, but Ed had little doubt the minotaur could make good on his threat. The other bandit gave his leader a betrayed look and kept quiet. Then the minotaur turned back to Ed. “What do you intend to do with us, then?”
Ed took a deep breath and felt a pang of pain in his abdomen where the minotaur had kneed him. It was for sure going to hurt more in the morning. He walked to the middle of the line of prisoners, carrying his helm in one hand and his sword in the other.
He studied every bandit in front of him. Many had missing teeth, and everyone was covered in scars of all kinds. He saw missing fingers and misshaped arms that had healed wrong after being broken, malnourished bodies, and hard gazes that promised no mercy and expected none. If Ed had been in their place, bound and at their mercy, they probably would have killed him on the spot—if he was lucky.
&nb
sp; As the Dungeon Lord of the Haunt, Ed had killed men worth a hundred times more experience points than this rabble. He had reports that they had murdered two merchants and robbed a dozen others, roughing them up and leaving them battered and bruised in the road for the Haunt’s patrols to find.
Mercy was a scarce commodity in these lands.
“You all work for me now,” he said simply, as the tired gazes of the defeated men fell on him. Before, that kind of attention would’ve made him nervous. Nowadays, it was just another part of life.
Following Ed’s mental command, a drone brought him an ornate ebony box with the Haunt’s lasershark engraved in brass on the center of the lid. The creature left the box on the ground in front of Ed as he went on:
“You are criminals, though, not free minions with the privileges that implies. Your service to the Haunt shall be your sentence.”
While Ed spoke, Yumiya knelt over the box and opened it to reveal velvet lining under a pile of iron collars, each with a thumb-sized rune secured in the middle. Her kaftar grabbed one collar each and fastened it around the neck of a bandit until every prisoner wore one.
“After you take minionship, that collar will explode if you remove it or try to end the pact,” Ed explained, causing a wave of alarmed expressions to spread among the prisoners. “Don’t worry, it won’t go off randomly. We got rid of that bug in this batch.” Or so we think, he added in his mind.
“You’ll wear that collar for five years, after which you can either go on your merry way out of my land… or make a new pact with me and become a true minion of the Haunt. In the meantime, you will bolster a dungeon on the frontier between Raventa and Constantina and defend a Scrambling Tower from incursions. Equipment and training shall be provided to you, as well as provisions and magical gear as soon as you prove you can be trusted with it. Later, my men will explain the Haunt’s terms of engagement, as well as any other requirements of your pact. Failure to follow those terms and conditions will end the minionship and trigger the collar.” He paused to let his words sink in. “Finally, safety protocols require you to wear a helmet at all times. Any questions?”
The man next to the minotaur, the one that had complained about the corpses, lifted his chin in an attempt at defiance. “What good will it do us to end your pact after five years? The Inquisition will hunt us forever no matter what,” he said in a shaky voice.
“We’re no longer playing by the Inquisition’s rules,” Ed said. “The Haunt does not recognize their right to rule in Starevos. The country is now under my protection.”
All of what he’d said so far he’d repeated about a dozen times now to groups like this one, most of which now reinforced many small dungeons across the land.
Ed extended a hand toward the bandits. “I offer you a pact with the conditions I’ve laid out.” Frowns of rebellion flared on some faces. “Now would be a good time to mention that refusing also activates the collar.”
Ed’s group marched the newly minted minions into the tunnel entrance, which was hidden past the road underneath the bandit camp and partially covered by dry leaves and bushes. Even with the first light of dawn shining through the purple clouds, the entrance was almost invisible if you didn’t already know where to look.
“So that’s how you got the jump on us,” Mohnuran said bleakly, studying the rough tunnel wall, a few rough magical torches bathing the soil in a soft red light. The minotaur and former bandits looked almost like decent folk with their new leather helmets.
With the minionship and the collar there was no reason to bind them, so they walked freely under the direction of the kaftar. They even kept their weapons, although most were so shoddy that the Haunt’s armories would need to replace them all with standard equipment.
The procession walked down the tunnel, every footstep amplified by the cramped surroundings. The soil was humid and the air dense with the smell of wet ground and rotting vegetation.
Ed’s boots sloshed on the mud for a while until the group reached the entrance to one of the Haunt’s secondary tunnels. The walls and ceiling were reinforced with wooden arcs and hanging magical lamps, and the floor was flattened and strewn with an iron railway that extended down into the bowels of the earth, then disappeared past a bend in the road.
Ten rough iron wagons waited for the minions and the Dungeon Lord, parked to the side of the small tunnel they’d come from. The wagons were wide enough to fit six human-sized minions with some trouble. Ed had brought thirty minions with him, not counting the spider riders which had remained on the surface to patrol, so they could manage the entire trip in one go.
As the kaftar distributed the bandits onto each cart, the minotaur nodded toward an ugly wooden post standing at a side of the railway. “What’s that for?”
“Just a friendly suggestion to keep unwelcome visitors away,” Ed explained. The drones had carved the post into the facsimile of a human experiencing extreme agony, and the dry bones of a hell chicken hung from poles at the top of the post, along with batblin tribal charms.
Posts like that were strewn all over the Haunt’s tunnels, along with as many other morbid details as Ed could think of. Skulls, human and monster alike, had been embedded into the walls, and the underground breeze whistled like the wailing of the damned.
It was the best Ed could do to keep innocent folk from wandering too far into a tunnel. The secondary and main tunnels were all hidden, but they were also heavily trapped, so making them look as unwelcoming as possible was the best way to ensure the deadly traps only worked on their intended targets.
The kaftar guided the carts into the railway and had the bandits climb in. Ed jumped down into the middle wagon, his armor clanking loudly against the iron, and he for gestured Mohnuran to follow.
“Since you already led these men,” Ed explained as the minotaur struggled to fit his bulk on his side of the cart, “it makes sense for you to remain in command. Congratulations, you’re now a dungeon Boss.”
Right in the middle of the wagon was a lever about a meter in length. By pushing and pulling the lever over and over, the occupants could move the wagon forward, thanks to the mechanism underneath. Ed waited until the wagons in front of him inched ahead, slowly building momentum, and then he followed, the muscles of his back welcoming the exercise.
“I could do that,” Mohnuran said. He had 20 ranks in Brawn, more than anyone in Ed’s group, so he could probably carry the cart and outpace the others.
“I’m not doing it to be nice,” Ed explained. “Physical attributes don’t grow by lying on my ass and thinking about life, you know?”
“Ah,” the minotaur responded.
The rules that governed the world of Ivalis were called Objectivity. All inhabitants, including the gods, were bound by it. Living creatures had statistics that reflected in character sheets anyone could read. Objectivity never lied, but if you were strong enough, you could hide parts of your character sheet from an onlooker, which came in handy if you were a Dungeon Lord or a minion of one. Ed’s own sheet had started as a straightforward deal—his attributes, a few skills, and a couple talents. Nowadays, it took a while to get through.
Edward Wright
Species: Human
Total Exp: 750
Unused Exp: 245
Claims: Lordship, Undercity’s Ruler.
Attributes
Brawn: 14
Agility: 13
Endurance: 15
Mind: 14
Spirit: 16 (+1 Dungeon Lord mantle)=17
Charm: 13 (+1 Dungeon Lord mantle)=14
Skills
Athletics: Improved (IV) - The owner has trained their body to perform continuous physical activity without penalties to their Endurance. For a while.
-Basic ranks allows them to realize mild energy-consuming tasks (non-combat) such as running or swimming without tiring. Unlocks stamina-related talents.
-Improved ranks allows access to Improved stamina-related talents.
Melee: Improved (V) - Measures
the user’s progress in physical combat. It opens up melee-related talents as well as advanced martial skill specializations.
Swordsmanship Focus: Improved (I) - Represents the user’s specialization as a swordsman. Improves the efficiency and damage of martial talents that require swords to operate.
Dungeon Engineering: Improved (X) - This skill represents the user’s knowledge of magical constructs pertaining to dungeoncraft. As it improves, it opens new rooms and traps, as well as adds to the Dungeon Lord Mantle capacity of storing the user’s own blueprints.
Combat Casting: Improved (II) - Pertains to the speed and efficiency of spells cast during combat or life-threatening situations.
-Basic status allows the caster to use spells every 20 seconds - 1 second per extra rank. The caster must say the spell’s names aloud and perform the appropriate hand gestures.
Leadership: Improved (VIII) - Reflects the owner’s capacity of inspiring and managing his troops and minions. For a Dungeon Lord, improving this skill adds to the bonus he and his minions receive.
Talents
Evil Eye - Allows the Dungeon Lord to see the Objectivity of any creature or item. If the target of their gaze possesses a strong Spirit (or related Attribute or Skill) they may hide their information if the Lord’s own Spirit is not strong enough.
Veil-Piercing Evil Eye - The Dungeon Lord’s Evil Eye is upgraded with a constant effect. The Evil Eye can now detect invisibility and similar forms of concealment and has an advantage at piercing illusions and magical misdirection. Veil Piercing cannot affect Legendary-ranked magic or higher.