Dungeon Lord- Ancient Traditions

by Hugo Huesca

  He did. Hundreds of intelligent corpses descending upon silver-clad Inquisitors, sinking their fangs into the griffins, drowning them under a sea of mist. Jarlen herself kept his enemies in Undercity in check. With four more like her, he could take Raventa almost immediately.

  About a month ago, rumors had reached him that Jarlen had managed to twist the terms of her pact to feed on prisoners of the Xovia Citadel on death row. Apparently, a prisoner that was to be executed anyway didn’t trigger the limits Ed had shackled her with—she genuinely thought she was doing him a favor by handling the role of executioner for Ed’s supposed allies.

  How useful his pet vampire had been lately! How many lives Ed had saved by using Jarlen against the Akathunian assassins instead of the kaftars or the batblins?

  But she killed for the fun of it. Because she was thirsty. Because she could.

  A chill traveled down his spine. Just a year ago, the mere sight of the vampire had been enough to terrify him. And now he was contemplating unleashing hundreds like her against other people?

  “Do you know about the trouble with the Spider Empire?” Ed asked quietly.

  “What does that have to do with anything—?”

  “Before we unified the spider clusters, they spent most of their time at war with themselves. This warfare kept their numbers down. But now, with Laurel ruling all of them, even their natural predators cannot handle their combined strength.”

  “My Lord, it sounds as if you’re confusing the meaning of the word ‘trouble.’ You rule over the Spider Empress. Her forces are yours to command.”

  “There’s not enough food in the forest to feed the horned spiders,” Ed said. “Laurel keeps throwing them at the Inquisition just to keep their numbers down, and it still is not enough.” He reeled at the prospect of doing something akin to that to a human population. Although horned spiders were cluster predators with little to no individual attachment to anyone but their Queen, they were still sentient. It was yet another unforeseen consequence of Ed’s actions, something that threatened to run out of his control and have catastrophic results for everyone.

  A long time ago, Kharon had told him that Murmur didn’t care at all what Ed did with the power invested in him by the Mantle, because, eventually, all roads Ed could choose would deliver him to the Dark.

  Not much later, Gallio had told him the same thing.

  “Suppose I say yes and you make those vampires,” Ed said. “They fight and win in my name. What do they eat once the Inquisitors are gone?” A starving vampire, just like a starving horned spider, would care not one iota for pacts, magical or not. They would end their agreement with the Haunt as soon as the hunger was too much to bear, and then they would prey upon innocent men and woman the same way they had the Inquisitors. They would be like a plague, their numbers growing with every kill as they slowly turned Starevos into a nightmare kingdom that would eventually succumb to hunger and darkness… or burst and spill its disease across the entire world.

  Ed had read about Dungeon Lords who had tried to build an army of vampires. The Inquisition hunted them with almost as much zeal as they did those who messed with Sephar’s Bane—the mindbroods. He could understand why. In their shoes, he would do the same.

  “If the prospect bothers you so much,” Jarlen said, “just make sure few of them survive the war. Cull the weakest so the strong may rule. That’s how the Haunt shall rise.”

  “I won’t unleash that into the world,” Ed said.

  The vampire hissed in anger. “Would you smother your kingdom in its cradle because you’re scared of growing too powerful? A Dungeon Lord, scared of his power like an old crone scared of the night! Rise to the place destined for you, and then worry about the consequences!”

  “The risk is not worth it.”

  “People are going to die because of that decision.” In her anger, the vampire’s feet seemed to float inches above the ground through tendrils of mist. “Maybe it will be cute little Lavy. Or gentle Alder. Or brave Klek. You are the one that claims to care about them, aren’t you, Lord Wraith? Do you realize you carry their lives on your back?”

  “Yes!”

  Jarlen’s words hung in the silence that surrounded them, with only the light of his Evil Eye separating the Dungeon Lord from the vampire.

  “My apologies, my Lord,” Jarlen said after a while. “In my eagerness to serve your interests, I have pushed too far.”

  Ed shook his head, which was pounding so hard that at any other point would have made him think a visit from Kharon was imminent. “Four Nightshades. I’ll consider allowing five, but that’s it.”

  Gods help me, am I really thinking about this? he asked himself.

  Jarlen bowed and crossed her arm across her chest. “Thank you, my Lord. I shall use that chance to prove the usefulness my progeny can have.”

  “Leave now,” he said. “I have a war to plan.”

  He didn’t notice when the vampire left. He had already willed his attention back to his duties, the sweat marring his forehead the only evidence of the encounter with the undead. If he allowed himself to fall into despair, then all would be lost. He simply could not afford it. If only doom was in his future, it would have to drag him kicking and screaming into its clutches.

  With a gesture, he restored the display. He took a deep breath. The minions of D3 would man a new dungeon, built over the ruins of frontier A2, which the Inquisitors had destroyed twice already but had failed to find the connecting tunnels. If the new A3 held, it would hopefully draw a bit of pressure away from areas B1 and C.

  Frontier Dungeon C1 had survived again, by the skin of their teeth, and its minions had the experience points to show for it.

  If they can manage it a third time… Ed thought. But leaving them as they were was the same mistake he had made with B. Instead, the survivors of B would reinforce C1, and he would head there tomorrow morning to personally enhance the dungeon’s defenses. After a few battles, he could transfer the minions of B to a new dungeon along with a batch of rookies that the veterans could train.

  All in all, after he finished shuffling his forces around, he found that he hadn’t lost as much as he’d first thought. Still a defeat, though—he had just managed to lose more slowly. Everyone was counting on him to pull out a victory. He rested his back against the cold wall and considered Jarlen’s offer.

  5

  Chapter Five

  A Champion's Welcome

  A roar rose up from the travertine walls of the Great Amphitheater of the Free City of Yhin as the two creatures smashed against each other. A dusky cloud emerged from the impact, thick splotches of blood and gore falling onto the thirsting sands.

  Somewhere under the stands, a spellcaster summoned a gale of wind to disperse the dust and give the screaming crowd a better view. The lampagos, a giant lion with a shaggy humanoid head, sank its rows of teeth into the forearm of the eight-foot-tall ogre Warmaster, tearing through his brass armor as if it were nothing and ripping out a chunk of muscle as thick as a man’s head. A jet of blood sprayed out of the wounded ogre’s arm, and his mace fell to the ground as he bellowed out and tried to retreat.

  The crowd screamed its excitement when the lampagos pounded down at the bloodied Warmaster, sending both of them down into the hot sand with the beast sitting atop the ogre’s chest; its claws ripped out chunks of hairy, thick skin in flashes too fast to follow.

  Thousands of Lotians, men and women of all ages and walks of life, held their breath in unison, for the result of the fight seemed decided. The ogre, though, attempted to stand and push the lampagos away. He slipped in his own blood. The lampagos, never letting go of his arm, pulled and shook as if attempting to rip it out. The sharp crack of bone as a joint broke echoed through the expectant silence, and claws raked hot red streaks across the ogre’s face—

  Then his other arm struck against the side of the lampagos’ snout with a fist thick like a boulder. Teeth, saliva, and blood flew out of the crushed snout. The lampagos
recoiled, its bloodied tongue hanging limp from the ruin, and in that moment the Warmaster grabbed it from the lower jaw and pulled hard to the side as he rolled to lie atop of the lampagos. He then tore the lampagos’ jaw off. The lampagos yelped in agony as its bestial brain sent a warning through the mist of pain, and its talons dug deep into the ogre’s abdomen, drawing a long gash from which smoking red guts poured into view like the heads of a dozen snakes.

  The ogre’s green eyes flared and his fist struck against the lampagos’ head with the fury of a hammer, using the ground of the Amphitheater as its anvil. He struck again and split the lion’s ocular cavity in half. A blazing green eye bounced wetly on the sand, optic nerve still connecting it to the ruins of the lampagos’ skull. Frantic claws dug deeper into the ogre, then went slack. A third punch, another, and then more still until the dull clunk of the strikes became wet chunks. The lion’s head, which at this point was little more than an unrecognizable red mass, cracked open and spilled its contents out across the sand. Finally, the light faded from the creature’s only remaining eye.

  Slowly, with the claws of his enemy still inside him, the Warmaster stumbled up, the lion’s torn jaw slipping out of his grasp. The Warmaster had 18 ranks of Endurance, lower than his Brawn, so his fist had turned into a purple, bloated mess of broken bones that barely resembled a hand. He weakly used it to keep his intestines inside him. The forearm on his other arm was hanging on by a thread, but he nevertheless managed to raise his shoulder up as if saluting the bystanders. A slash had opened his cheek to reveal the teeth behind and made it look as if he were smiling. His body was covered in other wounds just as terrible, and steaming blood streaked down his torso and legs like a river as his regeneration attempted to keep his body from going into shock. It failed miserably.

  The stands of the Great Amphitheater erupted into cheers as a magically enhanced voice announced the winner of the bout: “Good people of Lotia, you have your champion!”

  The green light abandoned the monster’s eyes, leaving behind animal pupils, pained and confused. A squad of Unholy Clerics and Fleshmancers marched down the aisles and into the arena, flanked by a row of spearmen with gleaming black armor. Shackle spells went off, with spiked magical chains grabbing the ogre’s neck and forcing him to kneel. Several spellcasters held him down while the others set to work at keeping him alive and mending his wounds with grim efficiency. Since Lotia lacked access to the restoration domain, working their so-called healing was a spectacle as traumatic as the battle. The ogre bellowed in agony as tendons snapped back together. Cubes of troll flesh were set against his wounds, and Dark magic was used to convince the cubes that they belonged to the ogre—so they would become as patches to stem the hemorrhaging and eventually replace the missing muscle. Ugly, misshapen white lumps covering the ogre’s body were the long-healed results of similar field surgeries. A couple of slaves stabbed a hollow spear into the ogre’s chest and another two emptied jars of charcoal-black troll blood straight into his heart. The spellcasters then lifted their charge using magic and dragged him out of the arena to finish the surgery, leaving behind a bloody trail as the announcer finished his spiel:

  “—The terror of the Vros Shores, the doom of the Order of the Silver Knights, death-bringer, master of the Great Amphitheater for the eight time, feared by the Light and savior of her people! Raise your arms up for Lady Aramis Vaines, citizens of Yhin!”

  The Dungeon Lady, now back in her own body, walked to the parapet of her private pavilion and came into view of the people below, her fist raised grandly above her head as the crowd screamed their hearts out at their champion and the scorching sun shone across her black hair like a halo.

  Dungeon Lord Molmeda aimed a finger like a spear at Vaines’ chest. “It is not fair. Your ogre was fresh for the finals; my beast was already winded!”

  Molmeda was a middle-aged man with a shaved head and a long, curly beard that covered his neck. He wore ceremonial armor that had never seen battle, and a white-furred cape enchanted for heat and comfort. Years ago, the armor would’ve complemented a powerful build, but now Vaines knew it hid a big, round belly and flabby arms.

  “Only in victory is strength redeemed,” Vaines said, quoting a passage from the ancient ‘Maxims of Warfare’ by Lord Commander Helens. She did not bother hiding the annoyance in her voice. “Dungeon Lords play for keeps, Lord Molmeda. I took a gamble by bringing a weaker creature to the semifinals instead of the Warlord; you chose to play it safe and use your lampagos in both matches. In the end, my triumph proves the merit of my plan. I am strong because I won. I won because I am strong.”

  “Don’t you babble old foolishness at me, Vaines. The Amphitheater is a noble spectacle, meant to showcase honor and elegance through ceremonial combat. It is not a place for a rabid war-bitch!”

  Vaines smiled, and the scars all over her face tensed like snakes about to leap. “We shall see how much elegance there is in combat when we find each other in the Endeavor, Lord Molmeda,” she said. “It will do you well to experience the pain our minions feel on the Amphitheater in your own flesh—for once.”

  The Dungeon Lord stiffened. He turned sharply, flourishing his cape, and strolled out of the hall. “You should keep a tight leash on that crazy dog,” he told the Marquis before disappearing past a silken curtain in a hurry. The Marquis flashed Vaines a fake apologetic smile and raised his shoulders as if to say, “You know how she gets.” Around him, whines and moans arose from his entourage and an alabaster hand pulled him back into the celebratory orgy.

  “With Dungeon Lords like him I wonder how the Dark has managed to survive this long,” Vaines muttered, taking a sip from her cup of warm wine, the only affectation she indulged in as acknowledgment of her victory.

  Am I really supposed to fight this war on my own? she wondered. Some days it seemed that not even the few competent Dungeon Lords left cared about their sacred duty to push back the hordes of the Light. They preferred to fight among themselves for power and glory, doing only the bare minimum to keep the Heroes from reaching the Free Cities.

  Some nights, despite the elder magic flowing through her veins, Vaines could feel how old she truly was. Outwardly, her body was that of a noble warrior in her mid-forties, with black hair cut short, proud purple Lotian eyes whenever the Evil Eye wasn’t blazing, and tanned arms marred by battle scars and troll-flesh injections. She wore no jewelry, covering herself mostly in fur and a tight dress underneath, styled in the revealing fashion preferred by the noblewomen of Yhin, though she always felt naked and clumsy without the steadying weight of her full battle-armor.

  In her soul, she had lived through almost eighty years of constant warfare. Whenever she closed her eyes, she could feel the weight of the hopes and dreams of the people she had lost along the way. Vaines was the only one left.

  “Don’t pay him any mind, dear Lady,” Marquis Adolvar said. “He’s just a sore loser.” A leg wrapped around his waist and he disappeared briefly under a devout succubus Priest. He came back up gasping for air. “Although Molmeda is right in one regard. People have complained that most of your matches end the same way; on the floor after only a few seconds, with one mostly dead victor having turned its competitor into a gory mess. No fanfare, no glorious display of technical prowess or ancient martial arts. Perhaps give the public what they like once in a while? They enjoy longer matches, perhaps with a few cartwheels.” Having said that, he fell under a coordinated attack from two slime girl dancers, one bright green and the second mustard yellow. Giggles and playful curses echoed on the walls.

  Vaines glanced outside, past the crimson mezzanines of the towering noble district and at the slums of the Free City of Yhin, where people sold themselves into arrow-fodder minionships to avoid starvation.

  “Nine tenths of all fights to the death end like that,” Vaines explained. “That is the true meaning of the Great Amphitheater. It was built by the ancients so people could experience the terrible realities of life without having to die to
learn the lesson.”

  “Surely the life of the peasants is hard enough without those grim reminders?” Adolvar’s muffled voice suggested from somewhere in the pile. “Sometimes people just need a good show. The other Dungeon Lords don’t mind bending the ancient traditions a bit.”

  “Most of the other Dungeon Lords have never been in a fight to the death with their real bodies on the line.”

  Adolvar visibly gave up. He lacked the patience for long discussions. “Well, as you wish. You know your business better than anyone, I guess. Let’s focus on your victory instead. Why don’t you join us? Have a good time, Aramis, enjoy life for a little while.”

  Cozy orange tongues of flame crackled from the chimney embedded into a wall close to where the Marquis languished, surrounded in a tangle of sweating flesh and aromatic incense by the best courtesans from House Vandran. He was in his early thirties, of noble features marred by a hollowness in his cheeks that came from a lifetime of untampered pleasures and excesses. A neatly trimmed beard and black curls gave him an air of wisdom he hadn’t yet earned, and that reminded Vaines of the Marquis’ father, Count Bastavar, who despite all he had done had undeniably been a great man.

  “No, thanks,” she said. “The Grand Priest of Tal Zamor has sent a message calling for my presence in the Netherworld. Better if I leave at once.” Sharing the Marquis’ bed would’ve been like lying with a child, such was the age difference between them. In truth, despite who his father had been, and despite his 18 ranks in Charm, she disliked Adolvar. How could she respect a leader that always stood at attention for his whores, yet never on the battlefield?

  Technically, the Counts, rulers of the Free Cities, were “separate but equal” from Dungeon Lords. While Murmur’s chosen led Lotia’s sword, the Counts kept its people fed and warm. Or, at least, that had been Bastavar’s plan after the rebellion. He had chosen to title himself “Count” to signal to the people he was not above the Lordship. Nowadays, his own son had named himself Marquis.