“That was a threat, not a compliment.”
“Oh Beno, you scamp.”
Karson and Tarius, who had looked bored up to now, got to their feet. “What are you saying, Dark Lord?” asked Tarius.
“That I will requisition some wooden beams and iron rods from the clan above, and you can spend the next few days making sure all tunnels, chambers, and rooms are structurally sound, and that there is no chance of an accident happening in the dungeon.”
“We have to do the work to ensure our own safety on the job?” asked Karson.
“Unless the safety fairy comes along and sprinkles magic dust, yes. What, do you think all miners in Xynnar get this kind of lovely treatment? Do you think that there’s a bunch of rules that miners have? What a laugh. I suppose these magic rules are called safety standards, or something like that. And in your imaginary world where nobody gets hurt, there’s an officer in charge of enforcing these rules. Ludicrous.”
“That’s exactly what I think, Dark Lord.”
“Well, I have a narkleer to liberate, so I won’t argue. I’ll give you time and materials, and that’s it. Can’t say fairer than that. Now, everyone, it’s time to go to work. Chop chop. Wylie, you and your crew are to start improving dungeon safety. Gary, I’d like you to loot the dead heroes. But leave their clothes on, please. Last time you looted heroes for me, I came core-to-face with a hero's bare arse, and I didn’t enjoy it.”
“A pleasure, my good gem.”
“Great, then let’s get busy. And again, a big 'well done' to you all. You did the dungeon great honor today, every single one of you no matter what your role in the battle. I know I don’t say it enough, but I am proud of you all. There’s a lot of hate in the world these days, but there is no room for it in my lair.”
CHAPTER 18
For cores, killing a hero is like eating a pie. Just as some folks enjoy the pie’s pastry while others delight in slurping the gravy, different cores enjoy different parts of hero slaughter.
That’s because there are many satisfying things about killing a hero. For some of us, it’s the act of murder itself. The feeling of besting a sword-swinger or wand twirler in combat. It refreshes your soul, it’s the reason combat is glorified in so many poems, stories, plays. For other cores, it’s the knowledge that defeating heroes levels you up, bringing with it increased essence capabilities and new crafting options.
For me, it was all special, just as I am sure that when I was human, I probably enjoyed all the parts of a pie. But my most favorite part was messing with the heroes’ belongings and corpses and using a little inventiveness on them.
Now, I know how that sounds. Talking about enjoying playing around with dead bodies too much gives people the wrong impression. But consider this; hero corpses have fascinating powers.
With my clanmates sufficiently praised and motivated after our meeting, I needed to turn my attention to this kind of thing, with one eye on strengthening my dungeon, and the other on preparing to defeat the narkleer’s master.
A few hours after our loot room gathering, I was back in the alchemy chamber, with its colorful walls and rune symbols painted on the floor. This part of the dungeon was silent save for the echo of Wylie and his crew’s voices drifting from a distant tunnel, and the shifting of mud and dirt in a part of the lair I couldn’t see. Many folks liken natural dungeon sounds to those of an old house settling in the evening, the ancient wood creaking and groaning away. It is beautiful, in many ways. Peaceful yet threatening, like an ocean under a night-time sky, black as tar yet rhythmic in the swaying of its waves.
Beside me was a pile of dead heroes.
Two were the humans who succumbed to the kiss of death before they could use their wolf pendants. The other three were werewolves, stuck fast in their animal bodies now that they’d met their end.
Gulliver was with me, scribbling in his book as usual. He had changed his outfit since the meeting, something he did twice a day if he was in a slobbish mood and four times as common practice. Now, he wore mustard-yellow trousers and a cape, complemented by a salmon-pink shirt so hideous I could have tied it to a wooden pole and used it as a flag to scare away heroes.
“I have some good news,” he said. “I finished the first volume of your story.”
This didn’t just prick my attention, it stabbed it. “Finished? Already?”
“I publish serials, Beno, not epics. Fighting the wolves was a fine climax to my time with you so far. I’m ready to use artificery to send a copy to my printer Inky Mick, so he should receive it instantaneously. Then, it will circulate through Xynnar like clap through a brothel. Your reputation’s about to get a big boost, my friend.”
I was familiar with the practice of using artificed books to transmit words across vast spaces. It was an unwieldy method; an artificer would need to create two books using paper made from the same tree. These books would be twinned by a naming rite and then dipped in mana, before having a spell woven into them. Done properly, two people could possess a book each and when one wrote in his book, the words appeared in the others. An expensive practice, but useful for scribes like Gulliver, I suppose.
“That was quick work, Gull,” I said. “The battle only ended this morning. Let me see your book.”
“A scribe never shows his work before publication. Would you ask to visit the bride on the morn of her nuptials?”
“No, but I bet you’ve seen many brides before they tied the knot.”
He grinned. “And those memories are for my enjoyment only, you saucy core. Fine, since it’s going to Inky Mick anyway, you may as well get your peepers on my work.”
He opened his book and held it up, no doubt in an approximation of where he guessed my eyes would be if I had any. He was trying to be nice, so I didn’t spoil his gesture by telling him that he could have left the book in the northernmost region of my dungeon and my core vision would still allow me to read it from here.
Gulliver stared at me as I read. He was clenching one fist and messing with his shirt hem with his other hand, waiting for me to speak.
Knowing how it felt for your work to be evaluated, I decided not to play a joke on him and just cut to the point.
“This is outstanding work,” I said. “Your writing is lovely, and your account of the wolf battle, well…it reminded me a little of a scene from the Soul Bard if I’m honest.”
“Praise indeed, given it’s your favorite book.”
“This is great, Gulliver. I come across like a war general or something.”
“You sound like you expect something less.”
“It presents the nicer parts of my personality a lot better than I supposed,” I said. “I know I can be a bit of a scamp, always plotting how to kill people and things. But I’m not all bad. I’m just as sufficiently bad as I need to be, and pleasant for the rest of the time.”
“I’m glad you like it. And I have a title for the first volume.”
“Oh?”
Gulliver smiled, flashing his teeth. “Totemly Brilliant – The Ballad of Beno Versus the Beasts.”
“Top notch titling, Gull. Well done. You have my approval to publish it. How long until people read about my exploits? About my great battle strategy, about my glorious deeds?”
Gulliver tapped his book. “I have a way of transmitting my work to Inky Mick instantly, using ingenious artificed tomes. The book will be on sale before you can count to ten.”
“I am bad with numbers; it is well known.”
The scribed smiled. “Now, with my news broken, would you care to explain what we’re doing in a dingy room piled to the rafters with hero carcasses?”
“Pretty simple. This is where I perform dungeon alchemy. Can you do me a favor and drag a body onto the runemarks? I don’t mind which one; pick whichever you like.”
“Drag a body…Nope, Beno. Not a chance. I’m not touching them.”
“Demons Below, Gull. You’re in a dungeon and you’re enjoying a view of things few people ever get. Most
cores would have slaughtered you the minute you came down here, just to get a level up. Yet here I am, Muggins, letting you waltz around like it’s a fancy-dress ball.”
“I’m a scribe, Beno. Not a necromancer’s butler. I’m not touching dead bodies. Just like when I was a warscribe, I’m here to stay firmly out of the action. It’s called scribalistic neutrality, and it’s a reason scribes can enter warzones and the like without fear of being targeted. If we started breaking neutrality here and there, we become part of the fight, and thus it is acceptable to kill us. I just want to write my epics, publish my stuff, and make some coins.”
“Fine requests, but we can’t all go through life doing what we want. Sometimes, you have to help move dead bodies. That’s not an unreasonable thing to ask for is it, that you drag a couple of corpses for me? Unholy underworlds, Gull, didn’t your parents teach you any manners?”
Gulliver crossed his arms. “I never met my parents, in actuality. Forget it, Benodict. Not happening.”
“Fine.” I used my core voice now. “Gary? I need some help moving some bodies.”
Thirty minutes later, the five heroes were gone and Gary, who was much more helpful than Gulliver, had departed for his break, which he would spend in quiet contemplation to center his soul.
One by one I had processed the dead heroes using my alchemy chamber, and now their bodies had been alchemically stripped to their essence, leaving them as just five piles of dust on the floor.
Two of these essence piles proved to be useless, and these were the ones who died in a human state. Unlike most heroes, they didn’t have defined classes like scout, assassin, mage or whatever, and so didn’t leave useful essence behind.
But the other three…well. Their essence was both dangerous and tremendously powerful.
“Piles of ash,” said Gulliver. “Great. What’s next? Scatter their remains in their favorite flower garden?”
“That is concentrated werewolf essence,” I said. “When ingested it will…do something. What, is the question. If I feed this essence to, say, Wylie, would he turn into a werewolf-type creature permanently? Or would he develop the werewolf condition of only changing when there’s a full moon?”
“Lycanthropy is a tricky subject,” said Gulliver. “Some believe it is the result of a curse, others an affliction. That subtle difference affects how one views the lycanthropes; a curse suggests blame, while an affliction is to be pitied. Until I saw one, I always subscribed to the idea that the existence of were-anything was hog crap, and that it was merely a name given to perfectly explainable medical conditions. Photosensitivity, psychosis, excessive hair growth. Good, honest explanations that require neither pity nor blame, and could potentially be tackled by science.”
“Lots of people try to explain werewolves rationally, yet there’s a reason all the merchant roads are empty on the night of a full moon. Superstition is like a mouse and the cat is science. The mouse will hide while its hunter lurks, but the minute the mog is out of sight, the vermin comes scuttling out.”
“I’m told a sorcerer replicated lycanthropic symptoms using a mix of rare herbs,” said Gulliver.
“And no doubt he was soon selling this magical mix, and he now resides in a palace on the eastern coast, while the people who bought his concoction drink diluted elderberry and tarragon and howl at the moon, annoyed they haven’t changed yet. Forget fables and unrealistic things, Gull, because I have distilled werewolf essence right here. I’m wondering what would happen if I fed it to someone.”
“Perhaps the wolf part will be absent, leaving just the were. Whoever eats it may change into something else entirely. A weresnail. A weresheep, perhaps, baaing at the moon.”
“I’ll need to experiment.”
“Experiment by feeding this dust to your creatures, you mean?”
“Well, I can’t eat it myself.”
“This borders on the pale, Beno. In fact, it’s crossed the borders of Pale and is camped out firmly in the kingdom of Bloody Unethical. Far be it from me to tell a core how to run his dungeon, but I have spent time with you and your creatures. I have to say, I like you all. Well, most of you. I would not want to see this go wrong and irrevocably altering poor Wylie or Karius or Tarson.”
“It’s Tarius and Karson,” I said. “And no, I get your point. The world isn’t ready for a were-kobold with a topknot. Let’s shelve that for a moment because there is something else that I need to look at. Can you grab those necklaces from over there?”
“Sure thing,” said Gulliver, crossing the chamber. Then he stopped. “Wait. These necklaces…did they belong to the heroes?”
“No, I had them specially made as a gift to you. Of course, they did!”
“Then find someone else to mess around with a dead man’s stuff. Looting is specifically forbidden in scribalistic neutrality. Sorry, chum.”
I sighed. “Fine; just take a look at them for now. Those are the blaudy stone pendants. The heroes, knowing they could only change into werewolves at a certain part of the lunar cycle, must have left the pendants out during a full moon, allowing the blaudy stone to absorb full moonlight.”
“Fascinating.”
“Now, blaudy stones absorb the essence of anything and store it as a spell that the wearer can cast. That means even a non-mage can walk around with magic swinging on his neck, as long as his coin purse is full enough. One blaudy stone is worth enough gold to keep even chubby King Redruck in pies for a full decade. And I have five of the things! Think about what I could do with them.”
Gulliver tapped his chin. “They absorb essence, eh? Is luck an essence? One could absorb luck and use it to gamble your way to a fortune.”
“Luck…no, it isn’t. But emotions are a form of essence. I could store fear, anger…”
“Lust?” asked Gulliver.
“I suppose.”
“Mind if I borrow a pendant?”
“We aren’t teenage girls, Gull. I’m not lending you my jewelry. No, I’ll have to think of a use for them, but believe me, this could power me up tremendously. Things are falling into place for my narkleer capture. Yes. And I know what’s needed next. Follow me.”
CHAPTER 19
I transferred from the alchemy chamber and into the monster-melding room. There, I waited alone for a minute before my error occurred to me.
“I’m in the melding room,” I said, projecting my core voice. “Sorry; I tend to forget that you two-legged fools can’t pedestal hop.”
Gulliver arrived soon after, and waiting for him had given me a chance to plan things.
“I leveled up enough to have two boss monsters in my dungeon a while ago,” I said. “But I only have the hivemind shrooms as a boss monster currently. I have been saving my second boss slot until I could make something truly gruesome. You know, a real horror of a creature.”
Gulliver began scribbling madly, as he always did when learning about new dungeon stuff. “What’s so special about a boss monster?”
“Allocating boss status to a creature not only gives them boosts to their attack, defense, and relevant spells or abilities, but it’s a tonic for the creatures around them. When they’re close enough to a boss monster, all dungeon creatures get a boost to their abilities. The more powerful the boss monster, the more powerful the boost. Therefore, I need to make sure I don’t waste my boss monster slots. I could assign, say, Wylie as a boss and he’d get a boost, but the creatures around him would barely benefit.”
“Ah. So, boss monsters are like dukes. The more powerful a duke, the more power spreads to his friends. A weaker duke will still spread power to his buddies, but less of it.”
“Sort of, except boss monsters don’t tax the poor or take a new wife to bed every few months, having beheaded the old one.”
The monster melding room was similar to the alchemy chamber, in that it had runemarks on the floor. The walls were adorned with the carvings of monsters big and small, ones that existed or had yet to exist, as well as creatures that might never be bor
n. Dragon-sized snails with shells as big as a house. Snail-sized dragons whose fire was probably no more powerful than a match. There was no telling what bizarre combination of creatures this room might produce. The element of surprise was the melding room in all its splendor. A place of possibilities.
Gulliver completed a lap around the room, running his finger over the walls and then licking his fingertip. He pressed his ear against a wall carving of an antelope with two heads and a bogbadug’s legs. He sniffed the depiction of a bison as big as a troll who walked on two legs.
“The senses,” he said when he caught me looking. “A scribe must engage them all. An occupational hazard when you’re a warscribe, let me tell you. And the smells that came from Duke Canbridshire’s kitchen…”
“What do your senses tell you about this room?”
“Dust. Dust and dirt. It stinks as much as the rest of your lair, in the nicest possible way. What are we doing here?”
“See the three runemarks on the ground?” I said.
“I completed a course in runescript in scribe college. Let’s see what they each say…trans…fig…uration.”
“That’s symbolic of what this room does. The three runemarks make up a complete word, just as placing a creature in each of the three marks gives me a complete melded monster. This, my friend, is where I create a new boss creature. Take a look at this. What beasts would you blend to create something capable of mass slaughter?”
Gulliver tapped his chin. “Touch question. I suppose blending a dragon with a great big ice troll might work. They’re both sufficiently monstrous.”
“Great idea, blending a lizard with fire in its belly with a being made out of ice.”
“I’m not the dungeon core. The closest I’ve gotten to experimentation is deciding which cravat to wear with which shirt.”
“And you still haven’t mastered it. Fine, just watch.”
I brought up my monster list now, filtering it so that only the new craftable monsters showed. These were the creatures that became available to me after leveling up three times by beating the last hero party.
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