Dungeon Lord- Ancient Traditions

by Hugo Huesca

  “Well, your master better keep an eye on my back in that case,” Ed said nonchalantly. “Because the Towers’ designs are connected to me and Witch Lavina. If any of us were to die, the designs would be destroyed.”

  All the other Dungeon Lords’ envoys got to hear that part as well. It wasn’t a bluff. The magical dead-man switch set over the Scrambling Tower design was more or less the same they used for the prisoner collars. Not a perfect deterrence by any means, since a clever Dungeon Lord could simply capture Lavy right before killing him, but it was better than nothing, and it made things harder for his enemies. Like with the Portal delays, a minute or two of leeway could make all the difference when his life was on the line.

  “Dungeon Lord, that helps no one but the Inquisition,” Dorrez said. “The Heiligian army is coming to pacify Starevos and there is no way you can stand against it alone. It doesn’t take 20 ranks in Perception to see you’re overextended as it is. Take the hand that is offered before another closes around your neck. Eventually, a different Dungeon Lord is going to discover how to build your Scrambler Towers, or the Militant Church will find a way to bypass them, and then your technology will be worthless and you’ll be alone in this broken country. You will end up in the Netherworld then, if you’re lucky, as a puppet to Regent Korghiran, and you shall suffer an ignominious fate worse than death for a proud Dungeon Lord: becoming party entertainment. You’ll stay there until she bores of you and tosses you away, a forgotten, broken doll, remembered only by Bards as a cautionary tale of wasted potential.”

  A vein pulsed in Ed’s forehead. He took a deep breath to steady his temper. It wouldn’t do him any good to start executing messengers—people would just stop sending them, then, and isolation was a death sentence. Dorrez wasn’t mistaken—which was the reason he pissed Ed off. The Haunt needed more Dungeon Lords.

  But not like Vandran.

  “Let’s suppose I say yes,” Ed said. “Vandran gets the Towers. Then what? He has all he wants from me. I’m sure the friendship he so highly values would be worth far less after the first months. A favor he may happily do now would seem bothersome to him then, even if he truly intends to keep his word. No, Dorrez, I’ll tell you the only terms under which Vandran gets to see one of the Haunt’s Scrambling Towers: him defending them here in Constantina. Have your master pact with me, and then we can see how well he defends a couple of them. If he proves his worth, he can watch over more. The Haunt has a very rewarding improvement system.”

  Now Dorrez dropped both sets of arms, his hands tense like claws. “How dare you! A Dungeon Lord to become another’s minion?” Ed’s spider riders reached for their weapons, and the spellcasters behind him began coughing discreetly—clearing their throats in case they had to start casting quickly. “Wright, you may be a foreigner in this world, and you may claim to be unaware of our ways, but no one in their right mind would dare utter such humiliating idea! If my Lord Vandran were here, he could rightfully consider this offense as cause to invade your dungeons!”

  “So that’s a no,” Ed said, crossing his arms. “I think I’ll wait here sitting in my Seat until a Dungeon Lord comes along who isn’t as dead set on the ancient customs as your master is.”

  “You dare—!”

  “I haven’t drunk miragefiend in a while,” Jarlen whispered with that dry rasp of hers. “The experience wasn’t pleasurable, if I recall correctly. But maybe that cousin of yours wasn’t as well fed as you clearly are. Shall we find out?”

  Dorrez tensed, and a part of Ed he tried to keep confined to a dark corner of his being stirred. That part wished the creature would just try its luck. The fight with the minotaur had been the first fight where Ed had risked his life in a long while. The jolt of adrenaline surging through his veins like wildfire, the taste of sweat and blood in his mouth, his lungs burning with each mouthful of cold air knowing each breath could be his last. The pain of being wounded, of feeling life draining from his lungs. The joy of drawing victory from the claws of defeat. During battle, a second was an eternity. The core of life and death was struggle.

  Violence could be addictive, and more so with a heart that lent itself to it.

  Reason enough to refrain from it unless I really have to, Ed thought.

  “You are tiring me,” he said. “Tell your master that if he wants to have a go, he knows where to find me. But he better get me on the first try, because otherwise I’m going to find out which Lotians he claims to love really don’t like him, and then I’ll talk to them instead. Now get the fuck out of my dungeon before I have you flayed, fiend.”

  The creature Dorrez shook his head as if counting the number of spears aimed his way. “Then we shall meet in the Endeavor, Lord Wright, if not before. Until then.” He bowed, his veiny stalk bending mockingly as he disappeared back into the Portal, the cart following right next to him.

  With Dorrez gone, tension leaving the room was almost palpable, with more than a dozen people who had been holding their breaths now remembering to empty their lungs and take a mouthful of air.

  “Oh, dunghill,” Alder said, breaking the silence. “This one remembered to take his gifts with him.”

  The night was cold and clear, with the twin moons rising proud like queens of the firmament. Pearl Camcanna towering over topaz Ullira among uncountable stars, shining down on the open observatory with otherworldly intensity in a way no modern city back on Earth had seen since the times before the invention of the lightbulb. Tonight the western wind rushing toward the ocean had cleared the Netherworldly smoke away. As if the Haunt and its master had never appeared in this world.

  The mirage in front of Ed was displayed by white threads of magic coming from the metallic half-sphere embedded into the floor. Silver glyphs adorned its surface, and complex magical circuitry lined its insides, connecting it to the ley line of the dungeon below so the information gleamed daily by the Haunt’s Diviners could be displayed in an efficient way. Building the device hadn’t been cheap—a feat mostly accomplished by Diviner Pholk—but it was the kind of expense that was easy to shrug off when dealing with a city-level treasury, and without displays like it Ed would’ve been drowned by the amount of data he had to process on a daily basis. As far as Alder knew, the Heiligian generals of distant history used displays that dwarfed this one in size, if not in complexity. Magical research had advanced since those times, after all. Some of them had spent fortunes on Diviners just to keep an edge on their enemies, the Lotian Dungeon Lords, who favored occlusion, deception, and non-detection magic.

  The white lines showed a rough map of Constantina divided into dozens of circular sections, with Undercity to its southern edge, flanked by the sea and the mountain range above it, which extended northward and out of reach from the map in the shape of a half-moon, deep into the heart of Starevos. The Haunt was close to the city, about a day’s march away, surrounded by the Hoia Forest, and then farmland and many small villages for miles on end. The circular sections of the map started just past the Haunt, overlapping in most cases like the rings of mail armor. A Scrambling Tower was in the center of each ring, and each was protected by a dungeon. The rings were connected by many small underground jagged lines like veins flowing down toward a main artery; the unfinished Gray Highway, broken in many spots, yet slowly extending the Haunt’s reach toward the rest of Starevos.

  Responding to Ed’s command, the display updated. Two rings by the northwestern frontier, the one shared with the Raventian holdings, blinked out of existence, and a third one nearby flickered and dimmed. Another gesture of the Dungeon Lord prompted arrays of information to appear.

  He had lost two Scrambling Towers during the week and half he had been absent securing the roads, although a third dungeon had managed to repel the attackers. Three raids in ten days, when at first weeks would go by without any combat whatsoever. Perhaps the Inquisition had better spies than Ed gave them credit for, since they had seemed to know exactly when his attention would be set elsewhere.

  Or, more
likely, the reinforcements brought by summoning circle were slowly making their presence felt. Although the Haunt’s strength grew by the day as well, a grim part of Ed’s mind was well aware that, at this rate, it wouldn’t be enough.

  But acknowledging that won’t help us in any way, he thought, gritting his teeth, forcing himself to think of now. His hands hovered over the display. Three attacks. Frontier Dungeon B1 and D3, lost. Most of the minions within D3 had managed to retreat in time into the escape tunnels.

  The report showed that D3 had been attacked by a team of powerful griffin riders. The riders were recruited from Heiligian nobility, as it was a highly glamorous occupation. All noble houses maintained at least one griffin ready for battle at all times, although for many years as of late the mounts had been used for friendly tournaments and to crush peasant rebellions—almost like a sport to them. The fact that their new enjoyment came from hunting his minions down was a sore spot for Ed, made even worse since he currently lacked a consistent answer against a coordinated, magically assisted aerial attack. He could only hope that would change when Kes returned from her diplomatic talks with her distant cousins.

  She should be back soon enough, he thought, trying to give himself hope.

  The minions had mounted a brief defense and effected an orderly retreat when it was clear they were no match for the expertly equipped and trained Heiligian riders. The Tower had been lost, but at least the minions were still around, and they had earned experience points because of the ordeal.

  Perhaps Mohnuran’s very-likely relationship with the Militant Church had had something to do with the attack. Ed decided to figure out how to react to that possibility after handling the most pressing matter: how to reallocate his resources.

  Frontier Dungeon F2 not only had sustained few losses, they had also won their battle and taken a couple prisoners. It was their second victory, and their Boss’ reputation as a brave warrior was spreading through the neighboring towns. The invading force had been led by an Inquisitor, though its bulk had come from local mercenaries, probably a few of them recruited from bandits and outlaws just like Ed did. Ed allowed his minions to choose their own experience point distribution, so he made a note to ask the Boss for an update on his forces’ capabilities. Jarlen had told him that some Dungeon Lords forced their minions into builds, but others let them decide. Ed’s stance was that Ivalians lived their entire life under the rules of Objectivity. It was as natural to them as breathing, and so they knew what they were doing. Leaving the choice up to them kept morale high and allowed his minions to adapt to dangers that he may never see in time. Some Guilds in his gaming days micromanaged their members too much, and they usually were at a disadvantage against a flexible Guild full of disciplined players working together.

  At least there’s some good news along with the bad, Ed thought.

  Reading about Dungeon B1, though, threw a shadow over Ed’s mood that the stars could do nothing to pierce. Dungeon B1 had been an absolute massacre, its forces butchered. The Boss, a boisterous half-werewolf whom Ed had hired of the man’s own free will, hadn’t been among the survivors.

  From the accounts of the spiderlings and the minions who weren’t too wounded to speak, Ed pieced together what had happened, a weight like lead setting on his stomach as he did. Apparently, a high-level Inquisitorial strike force had sailed downriver under the veil of night, with the help of a Bardic Illusionist, and a Church-sanctioned Rogue to bypass most of the dungeon’s warning spells and defenses. Dungeon Lord magic was weakened by running water, since reliable connection to the ley lines that powered a dungeon was impossible with a large enough current between the lines and the magical systems. In divine magical theory, apparently, water favored Light, while the underground was the Dark’s element. This made rivers and seas natural weaknesses for a Dungeon Lord, a fact that the Inquisition had seemingly learned to exploit after generations of warring with the Lotians.

  The strike team had infiltrated the dungeon right above the living quarters through a spot where the distance between the dungeon and the ground was the smallest. It had taken them five hours to dig through using magic, and the assistance of a dwarven power leveler. The power leveler was a new addition to the Inquisition’s roster—the Militant Church must have been pulling strings with the Heiligian dwarves. After infiltration had been achieved, the strike team had moved expertly through the trapped tunnels, avoiding most traps and dealing with the local contingent of spider warriors before the human minions had had time to figure out they were under attack. By then, with the strike team cutting off the route to the escape tunnels, it had been too late.

  The only reason there had been any survivors at all was because of the heroic last-stand of the Boss, who charged against the strike team along with his two trusted companions. They’d managed to hold back the Inquisitors long enough for the survivors to get away thanks to the half-werewolf’s regeneration and his resistance against non-magical weapons. The account of how the Boss had finally been cut down was muddy, with spiderlings of one cluster saying he had fallen when the Inquisitors brought forth silver weapons, and a different cluster claiming it had been because someone had cast a devastating sunwave. Either way, Dungeon B1 was lost, its Tower self-destructed before the Inquisitors could claim it, and now Heroes could march freely across its territory. They could now kill those loyal to Ed indiscriminately, and push Ed’s reach back, closer to the upcoming doom that threatened to consume him and everyone he cared about.

  His jaw was clenched shut so tight that sharp pain traveled down his face. Those men had died because of him. The truth was plain for him to see under the cold light of the Ivalian stars. I knew the river was a danger, he thought. I knew, but I chose to risk it anyway because B1’s location was too good for the Inquisition to hold. Men died because I thought those nice flat valleys could make for an excellent staging point for those fucking griffins, so we needed to claim it instead! Worse yet, because frontier B1 had repelled attacks twice before, Ed had grown confident—the absolute worst sin during wartime. Have I learned nothing after all I’ve gone through? He should have changed the dungeon’s layout, he should have predicted they’d use the river, he should have known, he should have been there, he should have—

  I should have done better!

  The illusionary display turned into spray like fireflies as his fist swept sideways through it.

  “Oh, is this a bad moment, Lord Wraith?”

  Silver mist flowed from the darkness of the door behind Ed onto the observatory and pooled into itself into the shape of a blond woman in her mid-twenties. Her gray flesh was taut over her frame, and her long, black fingernails sharp like daggers protruded from her boney fingers like the branches of a winter tree. She wore a Lotian mortuary dress that had belonged to a noble Dungeon Lady’s daughter a century ago, and a silken white mask hid her corpse face.

  “Jarlen,” Ed said. He straightened his back and masked his feelings from the vampire. “What do you want?”

  As always, the smell of dust and decay reached his nostrils, and the night’s temperature dropped a few degrees. Jarlen had quickly grown in size after their first meeting, and now she was almost as tall as an average adult Lotian woman.

  Ignoring his question, the vampire glanced around at the open dome of the observatory and at the carved balcony still in progress. “It is dangerous to have an open observatory in a dungeon. I don’t think the Marshal would approve,” she said amusedly.

  “Everything worthwhile has a risk. Life happens on the edge between safety and beauty.”

  “Ah, how delightful you are, my Lord. You’re growing to be of an age where mortals can mistake wisdom for eloquence.”

  The Dungeon Lord made a gesture, and the night sky disappeared as if someone had ripped a curtain away to reveal a domed ceiling behind it, carved with small holes to let some outside air inside.

  “An illusion,” Jarlen said amusedly. “How quaint.”

  “What do you want?” Ed rep
eated.

  “Well, judging by—” she nodded girlishly toward the metal half-sphere in a way that would’ve been charming had it come from anyone else “—your mood, what I want is to bring you some good news. I have a way to sunder those pesky winged lions out of the sky.”

  Ed raised an eyebrow.

  The vampire strolled around the sphere, the frills and lace of her white dress brushing against the lacquered floor. “That botched regeneration attempt took more than my height when we first met, Lord Wraith. My powers were also greatly diminished. Thanks to the plentiful sustenance you’ve provided me, though, most of my magic is back. Including the capacity to create progeny.”

  She stood in front of him, then, hands behind her back, the muscles of her neck taut and at an angle just a tad too unnatural for a living person to hold for long. “Give me the word, my Lord, and I shall create for you four loyal Nightshade servants. Not as powerful as me, of course, but useful.”

  To Ed’s horror, he found himself considering Jarlen’s words, and the vampire seemed to realize it, for she pushed further, like a shark smelling blood.

  “You seem unsure, my Lord. Head Researcher Lavina and her men already create zombies and skeletons at will, and you are fine with it. This is no different.”

  “An animated skeleton is little more than an automaton. A vampire is a thinking being.”

  “Exactly. Our immortal minds make us the kings of the undead. There will be four Nightshades at first, Lord Wraith, combat ready before the end of Winter. With the amount of blood available, we can have them create progeny soon enough. Hundreds of weak Nightshades could be ready to fight for us by the time the Heiligian army arrives. It will be enough to make a difference. You have seen what one Nightshade alone can do. Imagine hundreds of them.”