“You and I are going to talk when this is over, Shadow. For now, shut up.”
She scoffed. “And there we have it-”
“Enough!”
She was silent again.
Tapping into my core senses, I saw the heroes in the first chamber. They were still pondering over the tile puzzle on the ground, and after that they would need to solve a riddle door to leave the room. Good, that gave me time to think.
I badly needed a win today, but I couldn’t risk losing another dungeon creature. If I did, no victory would be enough to stop morale plummeting. So, what could I do?
Thus far, Cael Pickering and his brothers had eluded all my best ploys and traps. Then again, these new heroes weren’t Cael, and I needed to stop letting that arrogant nitwit get into my mind.
So, what could I tell about these heroes? Well, they were experienced. They hadn’t died yet. They had well-made weapons and armor. Surviving to their late thirties, no doubt raiding lots of dungeons, they probably fancied themselves as invulnerable. They wouldn’t expect too much from dungeon like mine, which was only rated as Hard-1 on the dungeon difficulty scale.
Perhaps that expectation was what I needed to encourage.
“Listen to me,” I said. “And do everything exactly as I say. I need you all to go through the dungeon before the heroes leave the first chamber. Strip every mana lamp, every trap, every puzzle, and then meet me in the loot room.”
The heroes solved the puzzle and riddle in the first chamber and make their way through the warren of tunnels in the center of my dungeon. Although the maze led them to various chambers, they saw not a single monster, they stumbled into not a single trap.
I watched them all the while. I saw them loosen their grips on their weapons. I heard them whisper to each other as they walked at first, and then speak louder and louder as their confidence grew. I heard the discuss my dungeon initially, but then their talk moved onto other things as they let their guard down. Their postures relaxed, their faces untensed, until soon they were walking at a stroll, chatting about how my dungeon must have been closed down and reminiscing about a time when dungeon cores weren’t beaten so easily.
Finally they came to my loot room, where an open loot chest waited in the middle. There was nothing else. No monsters, no obvious trap.
“Aye, this place is definitely shut down,” said one.
“Might as well check the chest before we leave,” said their leader, a half-orc with a balding head and a great buckler shield on his back.
The smallest of the group, clearly a rogue, crossed the room. In any other dungeon, he would have been the one they sent ahead to check for traps, creeping along and inspecting every inch of ground. Today, you’d think he was strolling into a tavern.
“Empty,” he said. “Someone’s cleared it out.”
The heroes behind him all sighed as one. “Waste of our feckin’ time!”
“Hang on…there’s something glinting at the bottom of the chest! Might be a ruby or an emerald or something. Let me just see…”
The rogue reached inside the chest. He had to really stretch to reach the bottom until soon half of him was inside it completely.
“Now!” I said.
The heroes heard me, since I had purposefully used my core voice. Before they could draw their weapons, Razensen stomped into the loot room and brought both his fists down on the loot chest lid with full force, smashing it down onto the rogue’s back as the chest were a set of teeth, almost severing him in half.
The resulting crack of spinal bones was delightfully sickening, and I began to find myself in the best mood I had enjoyed in a while.
Arrows shot from tunnel archways, peppering the heroes who scrambled for their shields. Shamanic fire blasted out, scorching their armor and setting their hair alight. Beetles charged out with flames washing over their black husks and pincers.
Although three of the heroes managed to draw their swords, none managed to actually swing them before they died clutching their necks or bellies, depending on the aim of my kobold shaman and crossbowmen.
After checking my core post-battle information and seeing that I hadn’t leveled up yet, and I dismissed it and concentrated on enjoying the best mood I had been in for a very long time.
“Remember what you saw today,” I said, using my core voice so that it projected into every tunnel, every passageway, every chamber. “Let’s not have any questions about my prowess again. Now, strip those chumps of their stuff, drag their corpses to the alchemy chamber, and then take the rest of the evening off.”
My dungeon filled with the sounds of miners getting back to work. Of kobolds huffing as they worked together to drag hero cadavers from the loot room. Of Gary singing to himself a song of his own composition, the lyrics of which concerned how much he enjoyed eating hero flesh.
“Dark Lord? Got a minute for me?”
It was Shadow and her canine protectors. “Shadow,” I said.
“I should not have doubted you.”
“Correct.”
“Not publicly, at least. But this doesn’t heal all the wounds, Dark Lord. The defeats from Cael still sting.”
“On that we can agree. I have a plan for Cael, don’t you worry.”
“I hope so, Dark Lord, because it may be even more dangerous to build morale with victories like this, only to let it crash down again. Regardless, I will not bring up such concerns in public in the future.”
“Thank you, Shadow. See that you don’t.”
“Arcas, Tentri, Mossgrove, Fenroy. Up! Come on!” she said, clicking her fingers at her dogs.
Shadow left, with her pack skulking alongside her.
CHAPTER 9
Power is such a temptation, always enticing you to use it in ways you shouldn’t. There I was, relaxing in my core room, and I began wondering about things. Strange thoughts about conspiracies and insurrection, irrational thoughts about dungeon mutinies.
I had always believed in the idea of treating my dungeon creatures as if they could be trusted. Thus, I rarely exercised a particular one of my powers, unless heroes were raiding my home.
Now, though, I felt I had no choice. The meeting in the remembrance chamber was the first time I had faced dungeon-wide complaints, and I couldn’t afford for the rot to spread.
I activated my core vision, and I cast images in the room around me, each rectangle of light showing a different chamber in my dungeon. I checked each one to see who was working, who wasn’t, and who might look like they were whispering certain complaints about a certain dungeon core.
Tarius heaved one last chunk of granite from the wall and then set his pickaxe down.
Wylie was in front of him in an instant. “Getting lazy, Tarius? Still have eight feet of new tunnel before time for break!”
Tarius pinched his shirt so that Wylie could see the words Hed of Dungeon Yunion. “I think you’ll find, Supervisor Wylie, that as union leader I negotiated with Core Beno for breaks every four hours.”
“Tarius calls him Core Beno, now? Wylie surprised that Tarius on first name terms with master.”
“Dark Lord, then. What’s the point in new tunnels now, supervisor Wylie? Our dungeon should be concentrating on defenses.”
“How Tarius think we get new defenses? With new chambers, idiot! Places to hide traps, places for heroes to stumble and meet monsters. Dungeon must always expand and evolve.”
The other three miners, Jopvitz, Klok, and Redjack, dropped their pickaxes with a clang. “Tarius is right,” said Redjack. “New tunnels? No sense. Dark Lord is just keeping us busy so we don’t complain.”
“We should strike,” said Tarius.
“Strike?” thundered Wylie. “Strike?”
There was something different about Wylie now. He seemed more than his usual self. Taller, without growing. Bigger, but physically unchanged. It was his Tongue Lashing skill at work, one he’d earned after leveling up his supervisor class enough.
His miners stared back at him,
unblinking, as he carried on.
“Wylie should beat arses for that! Strike, when Dark Lord has given orders? Make Wylie sick. Tarius is here long enough to know better. But new miners shouldn’t follow example. Need to realize that when dungeon fails, it is not Dark Lord failing. It is all of dungeon. Me. Tarius. Gary. Shadow, Peach, Kainhelm, Tomlin. Everyone! Do not think you can blame Dark Lord and escape from failure. All must play part! Do jobs. Pull together for good of dungeon.”
They were silent then, awkward under Wylie’s stare. Without a word, Tarius grabbed his pickaxe again and got back to work, with Jopvitz, Redjack, and Klok following. Wylie stared on, smiling, as the chamber chimed with the clanging of pickaxes.
Across the dungeon, rhythmic thwack-thwack-thwack sounds came from the arena as Shadow practiced with a bow. She fired three arrows, approached the target, and grunted at her lack of success. By the looks of it, she was leaning too much to the left when she fired. She retrieved her arrows and headed back to the mark.
Thwack-thwack-thwack.
Her next three arrows peppered the outside of the target, her aim worse than before.
“Damn it,” she said.
Not even caring to check her aim this time, she snapped her fingers at one of her pups. “Get!”
The dog scampered across the arena, tail wagging, and got on its back legs and gently bit each arrow and pulled them from the target, before taking them back to Shadow.
I wasn’t much of a dog person, but this was impressive to watch. This was one of the reasons that Shadow was so valuable to me. Aside from her stealth skills and her desire to learn more – evidenced by her archery – she also had the complete loyalty of the hounds. I hadn’t created the canines, so they did not answer to me. To lose Shadow would be to lose the beasts.
One dog growled now at the tunnel leading out of the arena, and the others quickly picked up the sound. They charged toward the archway.
“Argh!” shouted a voice.
Shadow clicked her fingers. “Leave it!” she said. “It’s only Tomlin. He might behave like a chicken, but he doesn’t taste like it.”
Tomlin entered the arena carrying a dagger. He tossed it to Shadow’s feet.
“Tomlin is returning this,” he said.
“I gave that to you,” said Shadow.
“Tomlin doesn’t want it.”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. It’s a dagger, for demons’ sake. I gave it to you so you can protect your miserable behind. Don’t give it back just because we aren’t together.”
Tomlin produced another, bigger, dagger from a leather holder on his belt. “Tomlin bought this from Yondersun with money from cultivation job. A better dagger.”
Shadows sighed. “Well, be careful you don’t trip and stab yourself in the eye. That would be a shame.”
“Tomlin will not, do not worry.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
Tomlin eyed the arrows on the ground. “Tomlin can help with archery,” he said.
“You? What do you know about it?”
“Dark Lord asked Tomlin to practice a new skill when cultivation work finished for day. Tomlin has level 10 in archery proficiency.”
A look of disbelief crossed Shadow’s face, and she looked like she was seeing Tomlin in a new light. To me, it seemed as if she wanted to accept his offer.
“You? What are you going to shoot, Tomlin? There’s no sign of you when heroes are around. I’ll be fine on my own,” she said.
“Alright.”
Tomlin began to walk away. The hounds followed him, tails wagging, as if they were escorting him out of the arena.
As I watched, I saw Shadow open her mouth to say something, but she stopped herself and instead picked up the dagger and threw it across the arena with all her strength. It spiraled in the air before lodging in the wooden target just shy of the bullseye.
Tomlin reached the arena tunnel, paused for a second. He stood still. Then, with a sigh, he left.
Alone except for her pups, Shadow collected her bow, knocked an arrow, squinted, and fired.
Thwack!
This time, the arrow found a home much nearer to the center.
Shadow has gained proficiency: Archery [Level 1]
“Get!” she said, and one of the hounds bounded toward the target. I left Shadow to her archery and focused my gaze elsewhere, far away from the arena.
On the opposite side of the dungeon was the eastern set of chambers. This was a complex of tunnels and chambers that I hadn’t built but instead had inherited when I discovered an old core living adjacent to me. Overseer Bolton had taken the core back to the Dungeon Core Academy, leaving me in possession of its dungeon and adding it to my own.
There was a definite clash of styles between this dungeon and mine. Where my dungeon was functional, the eastern labyrinth was decorated like a king’s tomb. Full of stone carvings, grotesque statues, morbid quotes chipped into the rock walls. All sufficiently monstrous, yes, but still a little too fancy for my liking.
Occupying the biggest chamber in the eastern dungeon was Kainhelm, my narkleer. He paced around the vast space, his bony feet making pattering sounds that echoed in the silence. He cut a lonesome figure, striding around and muttering to himself.
“A pox on it,” he muttered. “A plague on his ancestors! Breaks his promises. Tells lies. Never trust a blighting, scourging core.”
As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I knew who and what Kainhelm was mumbling about. He was talking about me, and my promise to him.
“Who’s breaking promises?” asked a voice.
Razensen stomped into the room, his giant legs making the place shudder.
Kainhelm froze in place. At eight feet tall, made of bone, and with a flap of skin hanging from his back like a cape, Kainhelm was never a welcoming sight. But when he glared like he was now at Razensen, he became positively unpleasant.
“Got snow for brains, eh, bogan? You must have, coming here, getting so close to old Kainhelm.” said Kainhelm. “Know what I am?”
“A walking fossil?”
“Fossil. Amusing.”
“You’re a narkleer, no?”
“That’s right, plague you. Getting too close hurts you. Didn’t that damned core explain?”
“Yetz, the stone said that narkleers give off deadly energy, and spending too long in your fine company will send most creatures to the ice.”
“Then you have come here seeking death, you furry snowman?”
Razensen laughed. “I am not most creatures. Ever been to the south, Kainhelm?”
“I haven’t left this plague pit in centuries, yeti.”
“Then you won’t know about the rocks that we got there. Ones way beyond the ice, miles and miles as the snowbear bounds. Now, don’t ask me where the rocks came from, because I have no clue. That doesn’t much matter. The important part is that these rocks have corrupted everything around them. Anything living dies when it spends too long near them. Only, we’ve always lived near them. Don’t get me wrong; we’re far enough away that it takes days to reach them, if we were ever snow-brained enough to do it. But close enough that we’re affected by them. Over the years, generation upon generation, we built resistance.”
“Resistance?”
“There’s not much that can harm me, Kainhelm. Certainly not whatever energy you give off.”
“Well done. I am most pleased for you. Yes, I am.”
“What I’m saying is, you don’t need any of that red paste around me. And you don’t need to be afraid to pay me a visit on the level below, if you ever want to talk. I might be gone from time to time, because I have things I need to do outside. But when I’m in this dungeon, you can always stop by my pool.”
“An intriguing offer,” said Kainhelm. “A blessing on your ancestors, then, for bestowing you with this protection.”
“I suppose it is a blessing. It’ll be good to get some company, Kainhelm.”
“Yes, pox it. I suppose it will. Thank y
ou, Razensen.”
“Tell me, what promise were you talking about?”
“The poxing core made a deal with me,” said Kainhelm. “I used to serve a stupid plaguing core who lived here. Beno ridded me of him, and persuaded me to join his dungeon. He promised to let me out onto the surface from time to time. To give me company after spending centuries almost alone.”
“And he hasn’t held up to that?”
“Oh, it isn’t all his plaguing fault. The bloody townsfolk are so precious, pox them. Their chiefs have ordered my destruction if I am ever within town boundaries.”
“There’s a lot of wasteland above,” said Razensen. “Trust me on that. Shouldn’t be too hard to go somewhere remote and explore a little.”
“Should not be too hard at all,” greed Kainhelm. “And yet, here I am.”
“Well, I have a deal with the stone myself. I don’t like the sounds of my terms, if you’re anything to go by.”
“The core is not a liar. He merely has a dungeon to think about, and not just poxing old Kainhelm.”
“Even so. If the stone thinks he can forget parts of our deal, he’s going to get a shock. I’ll give him a chance, but he better not think about breaking his word.”
“You were spying on everyone?” said Gulliver.
“Calm down,” I told him. “Spying implies trickery or obtaining information that is not mine. I made this dungeon, Gull, and I created almost every creature in it.”
“You made it in the same way a duke can say he produced all the crops this harvest.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your miners dug the tunnels and excavated the chambers. You might assign the work to them, but they are the ones who do it.”
“You’re getting awfully worked up about this.”
“Spend years as a scribe for various dukes, lords, and other noble arses, and you’d get worked up, too. All I’m saying, Beno, is remember to recognize hard work. Nothing can destroy morale more than having credit for your labor stolen from you. As the former apprentice of a scribe who used to cross out my name from my early works and add his own, you can trust me on that.”
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