Dungeon Lord- Ancient Traditions

by Hugo Huesca

  “Of course we surrender,” said Lord Steros, rushing into the circle with some degree of dignity. “Not only did Lord Wright cheat, but his face is covered in blood. Duel’s over. Congratulations, Lady Vaines.” He tried to drag Ed away, but Ed brushed him off.

  Vaines scowled as the Dungeon Lords showered her in praise. Ed was too weak to make sense of the insults, and quite frankly he didn’t give a damn. “I’m disappointed, Lord Wright. Not because of you cheating—we’re both Dungeon Lords, after all—but because you thought a mere knife was worth the risk of me striking at you in full force. That kick was a warning. The Lordship is not going to go as easy on you as, apparently, the Inquisition did.”

  Ed groaned from the bottom of his heart. Vaines was giving him an I didn’t even use my full power! speech. How the almost mighty had fallen.

  “The knife was… a distraction,” Ed mumbled. The noise from the others died down.

  Vaines stiffened. “Have some dignity,” she said. Regardless, she looked down at the spot where Ed was pointing a bloody finger.

  A purple-and-pink drone stood trembling right beneath her feet, covered by her own shadow. The creature held up a rune with both hands, aimed at Vaines’ face. Her eyes widened as she saw the glyph on the rune.

  “Vaines, get down!” Lord Virion exclaimed.

  Vaines stood her ground. Very slowly, she lifted her gaze and fixed two shining green eyes on Ed. “You’re bluffing. The rules of the duel said no spells. You can’t trigger the rune without breaking the truce.”

  Ed’s smile was red.

  A flaming ball of green fire surged straight up from the garden and exploded in the air, breaking the nearest windows. For an instant its light was like that of a purple sun. Alder stood in terrified awe as the light died away. “Oh, shit,” he mumbled.

  Vaines stumbled back a step, tendrils of smoke floating off her cloak. The fireball had missed her, but only because Ed had aimed right above her in the first place.

  Someone with her experience points probably could’ve tanked the spell, even point-blank, had it hit. But they wouldn’t emerge unscathed. Maybe she would’ve lost an arm, or a leg. Broken bones would’ve been a given. It wouldn’t be a lethal strike, but one that almost certainly would’ve slowed her down during the Endeavor.

  And judging from the way she looked at Ed right then, Vaines had come to the same realization. The Dungeon Lord faced her, certain that his life hung by a thread. The people behind him, those that hadn’t gone to ground with the explosion, parted, as if getting out of blast-radius.

  “A rune is not a spell.” He resisted the urge to cough, which was almost as painful as actually doing it. Almost. “It’s a magical weapon. Which you allowed.”

  “So you are a competent cheater after all,” she said, dangerously quiet. “But you achieved nothing. I would’ve been hurt, but then I would’ve killed you. You raised the stakes of this conflict for no reason. You still lost Argent, as well your standing. The only thing you managed is to prove you cannot play our game.”

  Ed turned back and stared at the deadly serious expressions of the other Dungeon Lords. A dozen pairs of Evil Eyes stared right back. “This is not a game, and I’m not playing.” He wanted to tell them with his silence, I may not be one of you, but I still have a bite. Try your luck and maybe you’ll take me down, but you won’t be standing unscathed afterward. “You can win a battle and still lose the war.”

  “Yet tonight, you managed to lose both,” Vaines said. “It’s time for you to leave, Lord Wright. Our truce has run its course.”

  “Agreed,” Ed said, stumbling through the open path in the crowd, acting as if it had been made for him, trying to hold on to whatever dignity he had left. “I’ll just take my Bard and go.” He saw Lord Steros’ back as the young Dungeon Lord walked away, and he heard Lord Sanguine exchange some biting comment with Lady Redwood. Sanguine’s companion, a sycophant with Starevosi features, grinned at Ed as if he could read the Dungeon Lord’s mind.

  One flying shadow dove straight at Ed. Ed looked at Vaines as the carrion avian approached, an unspoken question on his lips. Are you going to stop me from leaving?

  Vaines studied the carrion avian’s character sheet for an instant, raised a curious eyebrow, then marched back to the Main Hall without looking at Ed. The other Dungeon Lords followed her lead.

  Shrukew landed after an aerial pirouette that went unnoticed. He ruffled his feathers in disappointment. “Walkers should look to the skies more often. There are such sights they’re missing,” he said, the very image of wounded pride. He studied the empty circle, Ed’s bloodied face, and the broken windows. “At least you know how to party,” he said. He licked his lips with a dark gray, worm-like tongue. “Any food left?”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Ed said hurriedly. Any second now, Vaines would realize what had happened. “You got Alder?”

  “He and his prey are with Crait and Zcaceet.” Shrukew jumped up, digging his talons hard around Ed’s shoulders. He flapped his arms hard, activating a couple of talents to handle Ed’s weight and still take flight.

  As his feet slowly left the ground and pain spread from his belly throughout his body, Ed recalled how Kes had told him carrion avians hunted by lifting their prey high up to the skies and then dropping them. Shrukew carried him the way he would carry a calf. At the very least, it was not a dignified way of traveling.

  Then again, it was just one of those nights.

  You have gained 50 experience points for surviving a duel against a Heroic-ranked opponent.

  Your attributes have increased: Brawn +1, Mind +1.

  Your skills have increased: Swordsmanship Focus +2, Melee +3.

  There are new talent advancement options for you.

  11

  Chapter Eleven

  Interlude: Gallio

  The moans of the wounded extended from the corridor leading up to the Infirmary wing like the wailing of the damned. Depending on the severity of the damage, perhaps they were damned, Gallio thought as he marched down the corridor, his steel-tipped boots leaving a faint echo that added a martial rhythm to the screaming.

  Castle Vadyahun, the heart of Galtia, was vast, with many tall stone towers like rows of titanic spears. The castle was a maze of corridors and secret passageways, a nightmare for the Heiligians used to functional architecture and castles designed with a specific purpose in mind. Vadyahun held the half-finished designs of a long line of rulers, some of them from enemy families, that had seeded the castle with their own specific design. Palace, fortress, center of commerce, a display of power, cathedral, Vadyahun did it all and more. A Bard had once described it as an above-ground dungeon, which had greatly annoyed the Militant Church.

  According to the locals, the castle had been at first nothing more than a lousy wooden hall with a fire pit at its center and a big wooden table to hold feasts. The passage of time had changed it, like an innocent child growing into an adult tyrant. Invasions, fires, and bloody coups through which power had changed hands faster than one can make up a claim to divine right, had all had transformed the castle into a single massive structure that was almost as a small city unto itself. Built over an underground granite bank, it was all but impervious to man or Dungeon Lord’s attacks.

  Of course, it hadn’t done the Starevosi kings any good when the griffins came, bringing holy admonition from the skies.

  The Heiligian elite had speared deep into the castle’s bowels and had set up summoning circles there. Those allowed the Militant Church to spread through the castle like gangrene. Kings had fought in these walls. The rest was history.

  It’s always the hit you don’t see coming that dooms you, Gallio thought.

  Mighty as it was, Vadyahun did many things but not efficiently. Half the ruling families that lived between the frigid, moldy walls had been bitter enemies and had wrested control of Starevos by force. The first thing they’d done after fucking all over the beddings of their defeated rivals had been to stop the o
ngoing projects and switch them out for their own. As such, the castle was ripe with corridors that led to nowhere, ancient dusty storage rooms that held historical relics gathering dust. There were even the rumors of ghosts and worse hiding in the dark shadows of forgotten wings no living creature had stepped into in a hundred years.

  Gallio believed the rumors. Just ask any spellcaster and they’d say the stone was magical. A vast ley line split the granite foundation like an underground river. The fault ran deep, all the way to the fiery bowels of the earth, the Bards claimed, and had been born from a cataclysmic earthquake in primordial times. There was nothing preventing another one from finishing the job, some old, drunk Bard had told Gallio after a couple mugs of ale. It could come long after civilization’s end, or it could happen tomorrow. When it did, there’d be nothing left of Galtia but rubble, thousands of years of history erased from the map just like that, in a god-like blink of dust and smoke and fire.

  The Bard’s eyes had glinted, as if he could see it through the haze of alcohol, a hint of sorrow and excitement adding definition to the wrinkles of his forehead.

  Gallio hated spiteful Vadyahun. It indeed reminded him of a dungeon. He could almost feel the massive weight of all that stone pushing down against the ceiling. Pushing and pushing, like the fist of a titan coming down to squish an insect.

  Some architects of the castle hadn’t been as good as the others. Sometimes, small sections of the castle caved in for no reason at all.

  Every night the stone above his bed creaked.

  He passed peeling paintings of unknown rulers with raven hair, pointed black beards and sharp mustaches, all wearing furred hats and cloaks. Their shiny black eyes followed after him, the disapproval clear as day in their stern features. The Heiligians were unwelcome strangers in these halls, and even if there was no living ancestor to hate them for what they’d done, the walls remembered.

  “Eminence Gallio,” one of the guards flanking the entrance to Infirmary wing said with a salute. “We thought you were on medical leave.”

  Gallio masked his awkwardness with stern discipline. “I cut it short.” Sometimes he felt as if the gaze of the entire Militant Church, from the lowly servant cleaning a podium up to the Examiners themselves, kept a watchful eye on his comings and goings.

  The reasons, though, were different. Gallio saw the way the guards looked at him, like a kid watching a famous adventurer strolling into town. You’re wrong, he wanted to tell them. I am but a sinful man that has done evil every time he attempted to do good.

  “Of course, you’re worried about the wounded,” the guard was saying. He and the other guard, both of them blond Heiligians no older than sixteen, exchanged a glance. “We’re not supposed to let anyone in besides the Examiners and the Clerics,” the guard explained. “However, I just dropped my spear—” He clumsily let go of the weapon, and the heavy wooden shaft bounced loudly on the floor. “It would be terrible if someone slipped through while I was picking it up.”

  “I should help you with that,” the other guard said. “Oh, how foolish of me, I just dropped mine.”

  If Gallio had been ten years younger, he would’ve whipped them bloody for that blatant disregard of their duties—and for the tenets. Hell, he would’ve been considered merciful for choosing the whip instead of the gallows.

  Now, he only felt a deep dismay. They were following his example. They challenged the authority of the Militant Church because he did, yet he was the Inquisitor that held the power of the sunwave in his character sheet.

  They looked up to him.

  Young. Foolish. How little did they know!

  Gallio said nothing. He merely went on ahead, a small metaphor for his entire life; a man too stubborn to die leaving only disaster in his wake.

  As he got a closer look at the kids, he realized one had the sharp features and knotted nose of a Starevosi, and the other had laughter glinting in his eyes. Like Gallio, they had been raised by the Inquisition, but at least one of their parents was Starevosi.

  He felt as if he had stumbled upon some kind of revelation about this war with Wright—if only he could reach out and grasp it. But the screams of the wounded were too loud, and they clamored for his attention, drowned him in guilt.

  The revelation disappeared into the deep recesses of his mind, hidden like one of the relics in Vadyahun’s old towers.

  The pungent smell of herbs and medicinal droughts permeated this particular room of the Infirmary, clinging to Gallio’s cotton shirt like oil. Behind it was a different smell. Old blood, fever, and infection.

  A Cleric and his acolytes tended to what remained of a twelve-man team, four Inquisitors leading eight Militant warriors. A week ago, Alvedhra and Gallio had seen them off to the countryside, two Rangers leading them into Starevosi lands—Haunted lands now—in what had seemed at the time like a safe-enough foray against a recently spawned dungeon. Gallio and Alvedhra would’ve gladly joined them further, but the Examiners had given orders to the contrary, and besides, the mission was merely routine.

  Of the twelve, six had come back, three tied to the team’s remaining horses. Of those six, two were buried outside Vadyahun’s chapel, and the remaining four could still join them if the Cleric’s faith wasn’t as steady as his scalpel.

  “Inquisitor Gallio, the Examiners forbade your entrance,” Cleric Daizas said calmly, without looking up from his bloody work. “I shall have to inform them. However, they didn’t specify when I should do so, so I guess an hour from now shall have to suffice.” One of the soldier’s hands had been mangled during the incursion, and judging from the black tendrils snaking through his ashen skin, the necrotic magic in the dungeon had bit deep enough into his bones to cause the Cleric’s healing magic to fail, leaving surgery as his only chance of survival. The man was thankfully unconscious as the Cleric’s bone-saw bit through his wrist and sang its wet, dull song.

  “You have my gratitude,” Gallio told Daizas. He ignored the way the acolytes looked at him, as if Alita herself had come down from heaven. Instead, he focused on the wounded. Another soldier was unconscious, his face covered in bloody bandages. One had been sleeping, but woke after hearing Gallio, and groaned as he sat on his bed. He was the only remaining Inquisitor, a mid-twenties man with brown hair and a strong chin. He would’ve been handsome, but his nose and a good chunk of his face had been burned off and were a raw, melted mess barely hidden by the herbal plaster covering his wounds. The rest of him was like a map of the damage done to him. He was only alive thanks to the Inquisitors’ physical talents that gave them resistance beyond a normal human’s means.

  It wasn’t always a blessing. The healing magic of mortals could not mend a mind broken from enduring pain that should have been lethal.

  “Eminence, you needn’t have risked yourself by coming here,” the kid said. “We know… we know the Examiners keep a close eye on you.”

  “Never mind that,” Gallio told him sternly. Only through a lifetime of seeing wounds as terrible as these did he manage to keep a blank expression. “I came here as soon as I heard. You look well, but you need to rest. Let the Light mend your body. And call me ‘Inquisitor.’ We are of the same rank.”

  “Like hell,” the Inquisitor said. “You’re a hero. Alita’s Chosen. I’ve heard all about you. How you faced the Wraith twice. How the Church cast you out and the Light welcomed you back.” He coughed wetly and one of the acolytes hurried to his side and had him drink something that smelled acrid and looked muddy. “Thank you for coming. It’s an honor. Sorry… that we failed.” The kid’s eyelids turned drowsy, and then he fell asleep.

  “Will he live?” Gallio asked Daizas.

  “Probably,” Daizas answered through a grunt of effort. There was a chilling sound as his saw went through and the soldier’s hand fell into a bucket another acolyte carried. The acolyte, no older than twelve, seemed ready to puke into it. “If you must, grab another bucket,” Daizas told the kid as he worked to stem the hemorrhaging. Then he cleane
d his hands in a holy water receptacle—which instantly cleansed him, but also ended the water’s enchantment. “Some of you Inquisitors can take a vicious beating and shrug it off. Others die just as easily as any man, and for the life of me I cannot tell which one will be which. He showed a positive reaction to advanced healing spells, so there’s a chance he’ll beat the infection. Whether he’ll hold a sword again, though, is the Light’s will.”

  The acolyte fed the unconscious soldier a blood-replenishing potion, though only a couple small sips—they had used enough potions on him already and there was only so much a liver could take without permanent damage.

  The Light should do well to remember how under-manned we are, Gallio thought bitterly. Even with reinforcements pouring in from Heiliges day after day, there were only so many the summoning circles could bring, and Wright’s hordes seemed fiercer after every fight.

  Better put, the King wouldn’t strain his coffers for a few summonings when that coin was needed to feed the Militant Army as it readied to sail across the sea. It was a careful balance, Gallio was aware, but some days he wondered if Heiliges wasn’t punishing the Starevosi side of the Militant Church for their failure to hold Undercity.

  “What happened to them?” he asked finally.

  “Examiner Harmon asked the same,” answered a man sitting on the farthest bed. The man had been one of the Rangers of the team, a Starevosi in his early fifties with a skin so tanned by the sun it was like old leather. In comparison with the others, he was barely wounded, only a scratch on his arm and a bandage covering his forehead. According to the report Gallio had heard, he had been the one who brought the other survivors back. “I think the answer is self-evident, Eminence. We got our ass handed to us.”

  “You’re Ranger Silas, right?” Gallio asked. “Did you go inside the dungeon with the others?”