“I’ll think about it,” I said.
Reginal stood up and walked to the archway. His retinue shuffled along with him.
“Three days,” he said. “If you need the pretense of having a choice in this, I’ll give you three days.”
As Reginal the room, a thought hit me.
“Reginal?”
“Hmm?”
“How’s your son? Has his condition improved at all?”
“Devry’s the same as ever,” he said. “No change for better or worse. Why?”
“Just curious. He’s a good lad. See you in three days, Reginal.”
Reginal and his goblins stalked out of the tunnel then, the thuds of their boots getting quieter and quieter until they were gone, leaving me with a problem to solve.
“You’re floating, Beno. How wonderful! When did you learn to do that?”
“Thank you for noticing, Galatee,” I said. “You’re the first. It’s a fairly recent thing.”
“It suits you. Much better that a leader can move around on their own, rather than being carried everywhere, no? I always pitied you a little when you would come to Yondersun, carried to the surface by your little imp creatures.”
“Kobolds,” I said. “And thank you…I think.”
Chief Galatee leaned back in the chair. As a gnome who had spent her life underground, she was far more comfortable in my dungeon than Chief Reginal. And as someone who had never picked up a sword or seen battle, she was far more comfortable in a meeting chamber than him, too.
One thing she had in common with her co-chief was how the pressures of leadership weighed on her. Her face was looking more wrinkled by the week, and her eyes were more glaring than usual. Her temper was quick to fire and slow in cooling down, and it was said that lamp light burned in her quarters twenty-seven hours per day.
“Are you by yourself?” I asked.
She looked around. “Are you expecting anyone else?”
I thought back to the meeting with Reginal and his six guards earlier that morning. I still hadn’t decided what to do about him, and here was Galatee. Two chief visits on the same day. I felt blessed.
“Never mind,” I said. “What can I do for you?”
“Let me ask you something, Beno, if you don’t mind.”
“Nothing would give me more pleasure than to spend all day answering your questions.”
Galatee frowned for a second, then hid it behind a smiling façade. “Let’s say you are digging a hole. Just you and a shovel going down, down into the dirt. You’re hot, sweaty, your arms ache, and your daily progress is limited by what your muscles can handle.”
“I use a team of kobolds to mine for me,” I said. “But go on.”
“One day you are standing in your little hole, and a group of people approaches you. They’re experts at digging, they tell you. They have expertise, tools, and manpower. They will help you dig your hole much faster and much deeper than you ever imagined, and all they ask is that a tiny portion of the hole belongs to them. Most of it remains yours.”
As tough as it was for me to pierce her complex web of subtlety, she could only have been talking about the Silkers and their offers to boost Yondersun commerce. That meant Galatee had come here for the same reason that Reginal had.
Telling her about Reginal’s visit would be a mistake, of course. As would making Galatee aware of exactly how much I knew about the whole thing. One thing I had learned is that if you act dumb, people treat you like you are dumb, and nobody takes much care in leaving their guard up around dumb people.
“I would question how much gold there is to be made in simply digging holes,” I said.
“Beno, what do you think the goal of Yondersun is?”
“What’s the goal of any town? You spread like moss. Just grow and grow as far as you can. I didn’t know there was any other aim than to exist.”
“For the town as a collective, perhaps. Individuals should have dreams of how they want to shape it. Look around us, Beno. When you go to the surface, I mean. All you’ll see is desert, desert, and more desert.”
“That happens when you build your town in a desert.”
“Yondersun is at enough of a disadvantage as it is. If we’re to become something, we need to have a vision, and we need to take risks. Sometimes, that means allying with people who offer to lend you a shovel, even if you don’t much like the hand wielding it.”
“If it’s shovels that you want…”
“The Silker merchant guild has offered to invest in Yondersun, Beno. They will build a guildhall here and lend us their centuries of mercantile expertise. They will use their connections to establish favorable trade routes.”
“Really? That is surprising news.”
“I was surprised too,” said Galatee. “But Yondersun is in its infancy. The Silkers want to become our only merchant guild now, so that they will reap the profits when we grow even bigger.”
“What’s stopping you?”
She smiled. A genuine smile, one that she didn’t hide. Even so, it was like getting a grin from a coyote. “I thought you’d see the practical side of this. I like that about you, Beno. You’re colder than a grave.”
“Don’t butter me up,” I said. “What’s the problem?”
“In a word? Chief Reginal.”
“That was two words if my arithmetic is as good as it used to be.”
“The stubborn fool of a goblin won’t see that without this helping hand, Yondersun will forever be scrabbling around at the foot of the mountain, searching for a foothold. We’ll survive, yes, but little else. What is the point in just surviving, eh? We need to climb to the summit!”
“Plenty of people don’t even get the luxury of survival. Not so long ago, your people lived underground and survived on mushrooms and vermin, while engaged in a war with Reginal’s clan.”
“I don’t intend to be thankful for merely existing. No, if Yondersun is to become something more, we must accept the Silkers’ help. We need to climb the top! Reginal, oaf that he is, doesn’t see that. Instead, he sees Silker assassins in every shadow. He imagines them to be puppet masters, pulling the strings of all the nobility in Xynnar.”
She’s working her way up to it, I thought. The part where I get drawn in.
“Perhaps he has a point. A merchant guild doesn’t get to their size without underhand play.”
“They’re a bunch of jumped-up rug sellers, not diabolical masterminds operating from dark corners. They want to give us help, gambling that Yondersun will grow large enough for them to earn a profit on their investment.”
“If it’s that simple…it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission,” I said. “Don’t you think?”
“Just take their deal? No, Beno. The two clans’ peace is fragile enough as it is. As much as I know accepting the Silkers’ help will secure our future, I won’t threaten our present in order to do it. The Wrotuns and Eternals are living together, yes, but it will take a few generations before people truly believe we are one people. Not until our great-grandchildren are born inside Yondersun’s walls.”
“Then you’re hamstrung by your own democracy.”
“Aye. The problem is that Reginal and I are co-chiefs,” she continued. “Neither of us can act without the other’s agreement. As long as the fool resists, then I’m powerless. Soon, the Silkers will tire of waiting for a decision.”
“Why not kill Reginal?” I said.
Galatee said nothing then. She just stared at me for a minute. Then another.
I couldn’t read anything at all in her eyes. I had expected to see a flicker of something. Agreement, disgust, just something that would tell me more about this gnome. Galatee’s eyes were cold, hard, impenetrable.
“I’m joking, of course,” I said.
“Of course,” she agreed. “Chief Reginal’s goblins would cause a riot if anything were to happen to him. It would tear us apart, take us right back to the old days of Wrotuns and Eternals murdering each other, with no c
lan better off for it.”
I hadn’t meant it as a serious suggestion. With my dungeon in a precarious state, I didn’t need more chaos above me. No, I wanted to see Galatee’s reaction and get the measure of the gnome. Unfortunately, she was wily enough to control not just her words, but her facial expressions.
Her preamble was drawing to a close. I could feel it. Soon, she’d ask that I support her side of the argument, and help to convince Reginal that Yondersun should let the Silkers in.
With both chiefs needing something from me, I wondered if I could turn things around and make something of the situation, starting with Galatee. If I got something out of her, then I could go back to Reginal with more bargaining power.
“Quite a conundrum, then,” I said. “Maybe you could use some support in your argument. I’m told that they have found iron deposits on the far side of Yondersun. Perhaps if some of that found its way to a certain dungeon, your Silker argument might be strengthened.”
She leaned forward on her elbows. “Hmm? What would a dungeon need iron for?”
“Lots of things. Monsters can wear armor and use weapons, too. Many things can be constructed below ground just as well as on the surface.”
“Interesting. This anonymous dungeon does not have a supply of iron of its own?”
“Not one that’s plentiful enough for its needs.”
“Well, Beno, you have given me food for thought, and let me tell you, I was hungry. Now that I have digested it, I have a few queries I have to pick from between my teeth, if you’ll indulge me.”
“Pick away,” I said.
“It would be no good having weapons and armor in your dungeon, if you had no creatures to arm, would it? And as far as I understand it, a dungeon core needs essence to create monsters.”
“Your knowledge is unparalleled. What’s your point?”
“I learned a lot from Overseer Bolton before he headed back to the Dungeon Core Academy. Yes, I learned that essence vines have the unfortunate trait of being both extremely rare, and extremely flammable.”
There it was again. A faint flash of anger in my core.
You devious, self-important…
I recovered myself and made sure to keep my tone as calm as possible. “You shouldn’t believe everything you are told,” I bluffed. “Especially not from an academy overseer. They’re famously untrustworthy.”
She stood up from the table. “Well, it’s neither here nor there, I suppose. If I find my Silker argument receiving some much needed support, then this is all moot, and it doesn’t matter how easily a dungeon core’s essence vines could be wiped out by a few sneaky individuals with quiet footsteps and flaming torches. Take care, Beno. I’ll speak to you in a day or so.”
CHAPTER 5
Gulliver paced around the table, his winkle pickers making squeaking sounds as he completed circuit after circuit.
“They both want your support,” he said, “And they both had threats handy for if you refused. Reginal threatens to overwhelm you by sheer numbers, while Galatee will burn down the very plants that allow you to create things in your dungeon. Not a good position, Beno.”
“Thanks for clearing that up.”
“I’d love to just…grr!” said Gulliver, clenching his fists. “I tell you, in my time as a scribe I’ve served all sorts of fat-arsed, pompous gits. Ones born with silver spoons so far up their backsides that I saw the metal glint every time they flapped their gums. I never thought I’d have to deal with that sort of thing all the way out here. Their games, their manipulations, power plays. Is it inherent in people’s natures, Beno? That as soon as someone gets the tiniest bit of power, their brain shrinks to the size of a pebble?”
“I think it’s a prerequisite of getting power in the first place, the ability to shrink your mind at will. The power to close your eyes and ears to inconvenient truths also helps.”
“You should just move your dungeon, Beno. Get far away from here and go somewhere without lords and dukes and chiefs and the rest of the power-hungry sods.”
“If you ever hear of such a utopia, let me know. There’s barely an inch of real estate, above or below ground, left unclaimed in Xynnar. That’s why the Silkers are so interested in Yondersun. Nobody ever thought a settlement could be made in the wasteland, much less one that shows signs that it could grow larger. If Yondersun keeps expanding, it becomes a vital trading outpost, given that it’s out here in the wasteland.”
“I suppose it means more people could cross the wasteland. They’d use Yondersun as a midpoint.”
“Exactly. Think of the trading routes that would open up. As for me, I would never find as much underground space in other parts of Xynnar as I have here. The sheer amount of unclaimed subterranean space I have is too much of an opportunity to abandon.”
Gulliver completed one circuit around the table. Then another.
It wasn’t really a very big table.
“Then you’ll have to pick a side. Decide either which of them you think is right, or which threat would do you the least damage.”
“Or,” I said, “I find a way to nullify both threats.”
The scribe stopped walking. “How?”
“That’s the question. What time of day is it?”
“After midnight, Beno.”
“It’s considered rude to go knocking on doors after sundown, isn’t it?”
“That’s the general understanding.”
“I suppose it can wait until the morning.”
The sun was already blinding a mere hour after sunrise. Either that, or it was just especially bright to me, given I lived mostly in darkness. I didn’t enjoy leaving my dungeon to go to the surface just to be roasted alive by that big, yellow idiot in the sky, but I had no choice. I did, however, appreciate the novelty of being able to float up there myself, rather than relying on Wylie or Shadow to carry me around.
While the outdoor laborers of Yondersun had already been up for hours, taking advantage of the colder temperatures before sunrise, Cynthia the tinker was still wearing her ragged bedclothes when she admitted me into her tent.
“Come in,” she croaked, leading me into the tent while scratching her bum. “I’d apologize for the mess, but you’re a dungeon core so it’s not as if you’re much better.”
I floated in after her, doing my best to appear amicable and friendly that morning. If I was going to get leverage on Reginal then I needed information, and people are much more likely to divulge sensitive things to a pal.
“Don’t worry about airs and graces. They’re boring. What fun is a tidy house?”
“Exactly.”
Cynthia was the only ratbrid I had ever met, so I had no idea whether others of her kind shared her shrewd eyes and her whiskered snout. What I did know was that her goggles and her scorched leather chest piece were typical attire for a tinker-alchemist-artificer. If you were going to spend all your time fiddling with dangerous chemicals, it made sense to be prepared. It seemed that Cynthia slept in her goggles.
“Always nice to see you, Beno,” she said, putting a pipe in her mouth. She took two puffs and then strolled across her tent. Bottles clinked as she disturbed them from their resting places on the floor.
“Nice to see you too. Business good?”
“Good? Never bloody better! I have orders coming out of my ears, nose, and all kinds of places I won’t mention. In fact, I’ve been thinking for a while that I need a couple more apprentices. Any of your little kobold fellas fancy learning a trade?”
My instinct was to dismiss that out of hand. I had grown used to being asked if people could borrow my dungeon workforce, and although I granted it where possible in order to build relations, I had to say no quite a lot.
But this was an interesting offer.
“You’ll teach one of my kobolds to be a tinker?”
“I’ll give ‘em the basics in tinkering, artificery, and alchemy. I need an extra set of hands,” she said. She nodded to a glass jar on the ground, near a stack of wooden
crates. A scaly hand floated inside it, submerged in some kind of goop. “Hands still attached to a body, I mean. Don’t get alarmed, Beno. That hand there is for alchemy stuff. Already dead when I bought it.”
“Let me think about this. I have a few kobolds who might be interested.”
“Sure thing.”
She leaned on her tinker’s workbench, which took up most of the room and was bigger than her bed. A metal tube was fixed to it, and this stretched upwards and out of a hole in the top of the tent so that dangerous gases could be vented out.
“Now, what’s it to be? You need something that explodes? A toxin, perhaps?”
“I had a question, actually.”
“A question! Rather boring. Questions can’t explode or anything. I don’t have time for them, Beno. Reginal wants me to make a batch of alchemic fertilizer by tomorrow. Sorry.”
“You know,” I said. “We’ve been sending you all our surplus ores from our mining exploits, haven’t we? I know you need them for your alchemy.”
“Metallurgy, actually. Though I suppose alchemy does come into it.”
“There’s a problem, though, Cynthia. I think the supplies might be drying up.”
She puffed on her pipe and stared at me for a second. “And people say dungeon cores are crafty. I don’t know where they could get that idea! Fine, go on, then. I’m on edge waiting to answer your questions, you nitwit.”
“Thank you, you overgrown rat.”
Cynthia grinned making her snout whiskers twitch. “Let’s not fritter away the morning complimenting each other. What do you want to know?”
“Chief Reginal’s son, Devry. What exactly is his illness called?”
“A strange thing to ask, if you don’t mind me sayin’.”
“I like the boy, and I’ve had it in mind for a while now to see if there’s anything I can do to help him. But I realized I don’t know the first thing about his illness.”
“Ventriculus Ictas is a real bitch of a disease, let me tell you. Know what they call it in the east? Mother’s Woe, on account of its predilection for latching onto the young ‘uns. It begins with a little seed in the belly, but not just any seed. One that can grow with no sunlight, taking nourishment from stomach juices and growing larger, spreading roots. Slithering through veins, organs, spreading into cavities, slowly invading its host.”
Dungeon Core Academy: Books 1-7 (A LitRPG Series) Page 67