by Nick Harrow
The priestess pretended not to notice our contact, but her cheeks flushed, and her pulse pounded in her throat. A pleasant, musky aroma wafted from her and hooked itself deep into the primal lust centers of my brain. Nephket made it very hard to concentrate when she was so close to me.
“The legend says it should be here,” she said. “But I can’t find it.”
“What are you looking for?” I asked, though I already had a sneaking suspicion.
“The Tablet of Guardians,” she said. “The legends said that when you returned, so too would the Tablets of Power.”
“Oh, that,” I said offhandedly. “It’s right here.”
I concentrated for a moment and stretched my thoughts out to the memory of the golden tablets. I wasn’t sure it would work, but I suddenly felt the weight of a thin metal plaque in my hand.
“Is that really it?” Nephket asked, her voice low and shocked.
“The Tablet of Guardians.” I rapped my knuckles against the golden slate. “Let’s see what it says.”
The tablet was covered in neat, even rows of hieroglyphics that I could somehow understand. It looked like an index of monsters that started with “bandit” and ended with “vulture.” There were fifty or so different kinds of guardian creatures listed on the page, including cats, snakes, giant hyenas, kobolds, and something called a stirge. Each monster name had a number next to it, mostly either a zero or a one, with some fractions thrown in for fun.
“These are all the creatures I can pick to guard my dungeon?” I asked. “Doesn’t look like I have a lot of choices.”
Nephket peered at the tablet for a moment before she responded.
“These are the monsters available to you at your current power level,” she said. “As you grow in strength, more options will open up. These numbers next to the guardians’ names represent their relative strengths. As you earn more ka, you will be able to summon more and more powerful creatures.”
That made sense, but it didn’t make me happy. I needed lions, and tigers, and dragons to guard my dungeon, not overgrown dogs and rats of unusual size. I scanned the list, and as my eyes focused on each of the monsters in turn, a list of their various attributes and abilities appeared before me in burning red text. All that time I’d spent running role-playing campaigns for my friends had finally paid off, because those numbers totally made sense to me.
Unfortunately, what I saw were a bunch of weak monsters that wouldn’t give even first-level raiders a run for their money. If I had more ka, I’d be able to combine different types of monsters into more dangerous encounters, but that wasn’t in the cards until I increased my power level.
“Can the wahket defend my dungeon?” I asked. “I know I’m here to protect them, but it would be a huge help if they could pitch in with the defense.”
“They could fight,” Nephket said thoughtfully. “But we have lived in peaceful isolation for many generations. Our experience in combat is limited, as our miserable performance against the raiders can attest. Any wahket who fall to the raiders will be lost to us, but dungeon guardians you summon will return to their lairs at sunset after they are slain.”
That changed things. If my monsters could respawn like mobs in a video game, I could afford more reckless tactics than if they were a limited resource. And if I had a few more motes of ka, I could summon a guardian who would give the raiders a run for their money. One mote just wasn’t enough to get a decent monster to watchdog my subterranean bachelor pad. I needed to save up my motes to get some more advanced monsters on the payroll.
But there still might be a way I could use the wahket to bolster my defenses without putting them at unnecessary risk.
“Can I change the dungeon?” I asked. “Its layout, I mean.”
“It is yours to do with as you command,” Nephket responded with a smile. “But you are limited in the number of chambers your dungeon may possess. At the first level of power, your dungeon may contain five chambers. At the second level, you can control seven chambers. The number of chambers you can control increases every level thereafter. At the twentieth level, you can have a total of thirty chambers with which to challenge raiders and protect your core.”
As Nephket rattled off this information, a bit of knowledge sank into my thoughts as if it had always been there. Like the Tablet of Guardians, each of the other four tablets contained powers I could use to manipulate my dungeon to make it stronger and more efficient at sucking the ka out of the raiders who came to rob me and slaughter my allies. I remembered another dungeon, in another place, filled with terrifying creatures and amazing treasures. My current tomb was little more than a hovel in comparison, but it wouldn’t stay that way.
I would reclaim what was once mine. I’d rebuild my kingdom greater than it had ever been before. The raiders would soon learn to fear me. And then I’d find the people who had betrayed Rathokhetra and crush them into the sand.
For now, though, I was at the maximum number of chambers in my dungeon. I shifted my perspective to the overhead map and studied each of them in turn. The rooms were adequate, but they didn’t provide much cover for my allies or hazards for my enemies.
I concentrated on my audience chamber. The door that led deeper into my tomb was directly behind my throne. That space was a perfect place for a trap that would take out an unwary intruder. I focused my attention on the grid square directly in front of the door and willed a pit into existence.
I imagined the surprise of the raiding party when their leader tumbled into that trap. With any luck, whoever fell into the pit would break a leg and slow down the rest of the group. Hell, if the raiders really were a bunch of scaredy-cats like Nephket said, they might retreat rather than risk life or limb if they encountered a trap so early on.
It was a good plan. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. The dungeon floor didn’t change, no matter how much I wanted it to.
“Why can’t I put a trap here?” I asked Nephket. “The dungeon refuses to obey me.”
The cat woman raised one finger like a teacher instructing a class of new pupils.
“Traps are dungeon features, and those require ka to manifest,” she said. “The Tablet of Engineering has details on which of those are available to you.”
“Forget it, then,” I muttered to myself. I only had enough ka to summon one guardian. I couldn’t squander it on a trap that might or might not slow the raiders. I’d revisit my options when I’d harvested the ka from a few more of those loot-hungry bastards. “Let’s try something else.”
I willed the Tablet of Engineering to manifest in my hands, and it replaced the Tablet of Guardians without fanfare. I searched its golden face for any information on traps or other treacherous dungeon features as Nephket had suggested, but I found nothing like that. I must not have had enough ka to unlock those abilities yet.
What else was new?
What the tablet did have was a perfect scale drawing of my dungeon inscribed on its surface. I focused my attention on the dungeon chamber closest to the surface. The rows of statues that flanked its center would provide good cover for the wahket if I stationed them there, but it wasn’t enough of an advantage to ensure victory against raiders. If the murder hoboes could reach the wahket, they’d carve the untrained cat women into bloody chunks.
As I concentrated on that room, a string of measurements appeared alongside it on my tablet. The current chamber was twenty-five feet square, with a ten-foot-high ceiling. That gave it a volume of six thousand two hundred and fifty feet, which seemed like a lot until I saw another notation that told me the maximum space available for a chamber was twenty-five thousand cubic feet. As long as I stayed within that volume of space and didn’t try to add any traps or other dangers, I could manipulate the room without burning my precious ka.
“All right, then,” I said. I could see all kinds of exciting opportunities here. “I’ll just add some barriers in front of the door. That’ll keep the jerks out.”
“I don’t think that’s what
you want to do,” Nephket interrupted. She blushed a little when she realized what she’d done but plowed ahead with her explanation. “It’s possible to cover the entrance with a stone wall, but that would turn this place into your prison. I know it doesn’t seem to make sense, but you want raiders to come to your dungeon. When you defeat them, you will gain ka.
“That power will make you stronger, which will let you summon more powerful guardians, but it will also allow you to improve your core. As your core grows stronger, the miracles you can perform with it will also become more powerful. Perhaps, in time, we could even travel back to the home you spoke of earlier. I would very much like to see what sort of place could have kept you away from your people for so long.”
That made me pause. Becoming a dungeon lord was a lot more complicated than I’d considered. Defeating raiders was my primary job, but Nephket was right. There’d be no one to defeat if I simply walled off my dungeon and isolated us from the outside world. I needed to lure the unwary in with the promise of treasure and power, because there was no way for me to gain ka if adventuring fools didn’t raid my dungeon.
I’d have to balance all these competing needs very carefully if I wanted to succeed.
“All right, I need to make this tough, but not too tough,” I mused as I concentrated on the dungeon’s first room again. If I couldn’t block it off, I could at least make it a dangerous gauntlet for raiders.
With a thought, I lowered the center of the room. A sunken path five feet wide and twenty feet long split the chamber in half. A steep set of stairs on its northern end led to the surface, while a ladder on its southern end led up to the rest of my dungeon. Any adventurers who entered my lair would now have to traverse a ten-foot-deep path between the rows of statues.
“High ground for the win,” I said with a grin. Nephket looked confused, but I didn’t explain my plan. I wanted to see how it worked first. “I think we’re ready for guests.”
“The Guild won’t allow any more raiders to enter the dungeon for three more days,” Nephket said with a furrowed brow. “Don’t you need to summon at least one guardian before that time?”
“I would like to,” I said. “But the monsters available to me now are chumps. I’d rather hoard my ka until I can get something more effective.”
Nephket frowned and arched one perfect eyebrow.
“Kezakazek and her team were no match for you, but they are very dangerous to the wahket and me,” she said. “If you don’t gain more ka before they return, you won’t be able to incarnate, and you won’t have any guardians. That seems like a recipe for a very grave disaster.”
“If there’s one group of raiders here, I’m sure there are others waiting for their crack at the dungeon lord’s fat loot, right?” I asked.
“You are very right there,” Nephket said. She let out a sad sigh and then continued. “When your core became active, the Raiders Guild arrived in force. At least fifty of the greedy animals have set up shop in our village. They drank the last of our wine, and they harassed the peaceful wahket who live there. And, as you have seen, they will try to kill us if we defend the dungeon.”
Fifty raiders? That seemed almost too good to be true.
“If that’s the case,” I said, “I know exactly what we need to do. Here’s the plan...”
Chapter 4: Come Hither
WHEN I’D FINISHED REVIEWING the Tablet of Engineering’s dungeon schematic, I was ready to head back to the rest of the wahket. I had a plan for how to defend my dungeon, even if I didn’t have enough ka to summon a dragon.
“Where did you store the gear the raiders dropped after I punched their tickets?” I asked once we’d rejoined the gathered cat folk. I had to admit, I’d never imagined I would have so many beautiful women so close to me. Being a dungeon lord definitely had its perks.
“Here,” Nephket said. She gestured toward the sarcophagus where I’d first woken in Soketra. “We need to get some chests and proper storage containers to hold all the loot I’m sure you’ll soon bring in, but this works for now. It’s all in there, except for your khopesh and headdress. Those are part of your dungeon, so you can summon them or dismiss them whenever you need, just like the tablets.”
The other wahket watched Neph with wide eyes. It must’ve looked very strange for them to see their priestess wandering about and holding the hand of an invisible man. I chuckled to myself and wondered how the faithful back on Earth would react if the Holy Spirit showed up to have afternoon tea with a local priest. Something told me humans wouldn’t be quite as devout or understanding as the cat women were.
The sarcophagus held two sets of chain mail, one very large and one child-sized with some impressive scorch marks marring its shiny links, an ornate mace that looked much less impressive now than it had when the gnome had held it, a longsword, a half-dozen daggers, and an elaborate set of skin-tight leather armor with a matching set of very ugly holes punched through the front and back sides. It wasn’t a king’s ransom, but it was a start. I could build on this.
“Can any of you use this gear?” I asked Nephket.
The cat woman’s pupils went so wide they swallowed her irises, and she caught her breath at the question. She took a deep gulp and smoothed her skirt across her thighs with the palms of her hands.
“No,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “We aren’t warriors. We might be able to use some of the daggers, and I suppose we could wear the armor, but perhaps there is a better use for it.”
I perched on the edge of my sarcophagus and crossed my arms.
“I’m listening.”
“These things belong to you now,” Nephket explained. “The Tablet of Transformation gives you the power to alter them just as the Tablet of Engineering allowed you to alter your dungeon.”
“I don’t have any ka,” I said. “Well, not much. How can I alter anything without that?”
Nephket paced back and forth in front of me, and the wahket watched her with rapt attention. They look like they were trying to figure out my half of the conversation from what Nephket said.
“Ka is for magic,” she said. “Summoning guardians, becoming incarnate, performing powerful rituals, and a few other more advanced techniques the legends speak of but which we won’t bother ourselves with just yet. But you can change your dungeon and some of its contents without any need to invest ka.”
“I can change anything into anything else?” I asked.
“You can transform items into other items of similar value, yes,” Nephket confirmed. “You cannot create something from nothing, however.”
Now there was an interesting thought. Before Nephket could continue her explanation, I reached into the sarcophagus and grabbed one of the daggers.
Or I tried to grab one.
While I could touch any part of the dungeon, including my sarcophagus, and I had no trouble at all feeling Nephket, my ghostly hand was useless when it came to lifting any of this equipment. That was annoying.
Fine, if I couldn’t touch the dagger, I’d just use my scary dungeon lord mind powers on it. I concentrated on the weapon, but it didn’t float out of the sarcophagus and into my hand, much to my disappointment.
Instead, the Tablet of Transformation popped into my grasp with a list of all the gear in the sarcophagus.
The value of each item appeared on the tablet as I examined it, and an understanding of this world’s economics soaked into my brain. Soketra used gold coins as its basic unit of currency, and this gear was worth a whopping one hundred and forty-two of them. Memories that weren’t my own told me this wasn’t a fortune, but it was more than enough to do everything I’d planned.
A dagger was worth a couple of gold pieces, which was just enough for what I had in mind. The wahket weren’t fighters, but I had another idea, and I hoped they’d be willing to give it a try.
I envisioned what I needed, and the dagger on the tablet twisted and lengthened like a metal snake uncoiling after a long winter’s sleep. A few moments later a p
air of new items replaced the weapon in the sarcophagus.
When I turned my attention back to the room, I was surprised to see all eyes were on me, including the wahket.
“They can see me now?” I asked Neph.
“No,” she said with a shake of her head. “But they could see the light that came out of the sarcophagus.”
I hadn’t noticed any light, but that didn’t surprise me. I’d been so focused on the tablet I’d been blind to the rest of the world. It was nice to know I could concentrate so thoroughly, but I needed to be careful. Losing myself in my dungeon lord fun times like that would be a fantastic way to end up with a dagger between my ribs. Or lightning bolt in my face. There were probably lots of horrible ways to die here on Soketra, even for a disincarnated dungeon lord.
“It was a pretty cool trick,” I said to Nephket. “Take a look at what I did.”
The cat woman leaned over the sarcophagus and picked up the new items. She lifted one in each hand and held them out in front of her. The dubious look on her face told me she wasn’t as impressed with my stunt as I had been.
“Rope?” she asked. “What are we going to do with rope?”
“Nothing, for now,” I said with a grin. “That’s for part two. Before we get there, I need to fill you in on part one.”
The priestess leaned back on the sarcophagus next to me, her hand just touching mine. It seemed like she took every opportunity to be close to me, not in a weird, gropey way, but to reassure herself that I was really there. It was friggin’ adorable.
I inched my hand toward Nephket’s until our pinkies touched.
“Tell me about your plan,” she said with a shy grin. “I’m very curious to see what you’ve come up with.”
“First, let me ask you a question. You said the raiders drank all your wine. Is there any other booze left in your village?” I asked.
“Of course,” she snorted. “These animals have nothing else to do while they await their turn to steal from you, so they spend their time and money on cheap rotgut the Guild imports for them. But why do you need alcohol?”