Baby scratched his ear. “So the rumors are true. We had something to ask you. It’s a rather, uhm, delicate-”
“We want you to become chief!” blurted another trader, a dumpy gnome with his beard oiled into three forks.
“We want to support your bid to become chief, that is,” added Baby. “There is still an election, after all.”
So now they wanted to use their influence in my favor, huh? And all it had taken was for me to stop giving a crap about it, and to mercilessly slaughter a psyche-mage in front of the whole town.
“All we’d ask is you make one or two promises to us. We won’t ask anything too great, Mr. Core. We just need to know our gold is in safe hands.”
They waited for my answer. Though they had shown a modicum of humility, at least more than when they had last been here, Baby still managed to look smug. As if he was the king, offering pardon to a man sentenced for death if only he would serve him.
“Nah,” I said.
“Excuse me?”
“No thanks, Baby. I’m removing myself from the race. Consider this my retirement from politics.”
Baby looked ruffled. He glanced at his trader friends. Tried to stay composed, but failed, badly.
“I don’t think you understand, Mr. Core. We are offering-”
“You’re offering to make me chief. Something I don’t need or want. I’m a dungeon core. I’m not supposed to be ruling a town. Deciding whether we need to build a new water well, or if the town hall needs redecoration.”
“That’s not all a chief does.”
“I think I covered the gist of it. To that effect, I also gave up my seat on the town council.”
The traders looked anxiously at one another.
They’d come here to make me an offer. They thought they had something I wanted, and that they could use it to control me. I saw it on their faces; they were salivating at the prospect of having a dungeon core being grateful to them.
Now, they were leaving with nothing.
When the traders were gone, Jahn and I went to my core chamber to talk alone. Jahn was on the pedestal in the center. He hadn’t earned the same float ability as me, which I had won through killing enough heroes. Jahn would probably get it another way. After all, all the cores in Ray’s vision had been floating.
Jahn looked around the room. This was the last chamber we had to pack. My bookcase was still there. My vast collection of adventure books. A painting Wylie made for me. I hadn’t gotten around to doing anything yet. This place was my sanctuary. A place I went for peace and quiet. A place from which I acted as general and planned the doom of the heroes who entered my lair. So many fond memories.
“I suppose we should…” began Jahn. He tried to put on his most confident voice, which was something he’d been doing since learning who he was. He made a special effort around Bolton, who insisted on reminding Jahn what a responsibility he had.
I waited patiently, but he didn’t finish. That was why he was here, talking to me. He wanted me to finish the sentence for him.
“We have to find the ancient cores,” I said. “That’s why I can’t be chief. Can’t be on the chief council. Can’t even have my dungeon under the town anymore. I’ve been stretching myself too thin. Trying too hard to fit in with civilized people, while doing core things. The two don’t mix. While you and I have a job to do, I’ll focus on my core instincts.”
“Aren’t you sad to leave?”
I was. But I also knew Jahn was miserable about having to leave Yondersun. He’d built most of the town, after all. I didn’t think we should both wallow.
“A little bit. But we’re onto better things, and we’re not moving far away.”
“I suppose it’s only across the wasteland.”
“It just makes sense, Jahn. We move my dungeon to Ray’s lair. After all, he’s not using it anymore. We’ll be far enough from town that we won’t be distracted, and whatever trouble finds us, won’t end up with the town getting wrapped up in it. It’s for the best.”
“I suppose. But what about essence? You need it to build a dungeon. For monsters and traps and stuff.”
“I’ve got that covered.”
“No, Beno!”
“What?”
“You can’t use Ray’s black essence.”
“Not that,” I said. “Tomlin took cuttings of my vines in case they ever got destroyed. We had Maginhart make a solution to preserve them. I’ll be able to strip out the black essence and start growing new vines.”
“Maginhart is so clever. He passed his apprenticeship, didn’t he?”
“Everyone in the dungeon is very proud of him,” I said.
“It was smart to preserve the vines. But why can’t you just stay here?”
“We need to focus, Jahn. We can’t have the distractions of the town being right above us. This is going to be tough, finding all those old cores.”
“I wish you and Overseer Bolton wouldn’t keep saying how hard it will be.”
“We’re not trying to scare you. We’ll be here for you, you know? That’s the whole point. That’s why I’m leaving my dungeon and building a new one.”
“That, and your essence vines were destroyed,” said Jahn.
“I prefer to think that I’m helping a friend. Doing something worthwhile with my second life. What’s the point of resurrection if you just waste it?”
Later that day, Jopvitz visited my core chamber.
“Hey, Anvil!” I said.
Despite wearing his spy hood and trying to look mysterious, he couldn’t help but smile.
“Dark Lord,” he said.
“What brings my best spy here this afternoon?”
A bigger smile. “Overseer Bolton wants to see you, Dark Lord.”
The overseer couldn’t come to my core chamber and announce himself, of course. He still had his stupid need to be powerful, to have people come to him. Even when he was in my dungeon.
That was the thing, though. I was done caring what Bolton thought. It seemed ridiculous that I’d even lied to him about Riston and the dungeon. That I’d tried to make myself look better in front of him. I simply couldn’t give a damn anymore.
So, I went to see him. He was in a chamber in the northwest. It used to have an acid trap in it. I’d done some of my best hero melting in there. For the last few days, Anna had been sleeping inside. She was lucky she didn’t get her head ripped off in her sleep by a kobold.
Outside the chamber, I overheard her and Bolton talking.
“I’m ready, Overseer,” said Anna.
Her tone was unbelievably polite. It made me think of brain parasites we’d learned about in the academy. Ones who seized control of a person’s mind. I really wasn’t ready for more mental problems.
She carried on. “I’m ready to walk the path.”
“It’s not one path,” answered Bolton. “But dozens. Hundreds. Every step, you will be asked to choose a direction. Tempted onto routes good and bad. You will need to listen to your heart.”
“Gods! I said I’d walk the path, didn’t I? I tried to be all humble and mystical like you wanted.”
“Anna, just this moment you have placed a foot onto one of those wrong paths.”
She huffed. “Sorry, Overseer. I want to do this. For Utta. I’ll become a Chosen One for real. I’ll work as hard as it takes. Try to be good. I’ll help both those cores. The stupid one, and the mean one.”
“Beno is not mean,” said Bolton. “He just cares for his friends and his dungeon creatures and is ruthless in his protection of them. That is a very different thing to being mean, though the two ideals may seem like siblings at first. You would do well to apologize to him, Anna.”
“For what I did to the kobold?”
“Yes.”
“Some things don’t get fixed with sorry.”
“Without an apology they might not get fixed at all. Would Utta want you to-”
“No!” shouted Anna. “Don’t ever use him against me to prove a point.
That’s not a fair thing to do.”
Silence.
“I’m sorry, Anna. It seems even overseers are capable of choosing the wrong route. You can stray from a path sometimes. Get lost. Wander into the wrong horizon. But as long as you don’t stray too far, there’s always a chance you can turn back. It will be hard for you to undo the things you did. But there’s always a chance.”
“Why did it have to be Utta, though? Why couldn’t the arrows have hit me? Or both of us? Why just him? I don’t want to be here when Utta isn’t.”
“You know the answer to that, Anna.”
“Being chosen. That’s stupid. Utta was chosen too.”
“We know that not everyone stays that way.”
“I don’t deserve to stay as chosen. At least if the arrows got us both, he wouldn’t be alone. I wouldn’t be alone.”
I had never heard Anna talk this way. Tell the truth, I hadn’t thought her capable of concern for anyone else. I certainly didn’t think she’d have chosen someone else’s life over her own.
“Yet, we can’t go back and make it so. The best thing you can do is respect Utta, and make something of being chosen,” said Bolton.
Feeling bad for listening in, I floated into the archway so they could see me.
“Beno!” said Bolton. “Thank you for agreeing to see me.”
Hmm. It looked like Bolton had learned to be humble. Maybe not everything he did was about power games.
Anna stared at me. She looked a shell of her former self. She’d been crying. A lot. I knew this because Tomlin had asked me several times to go shut her up. It seemed that after what she’d done to Shadow, sympathy for Anna was hard to come by. I couldn’t say I blamed my dungeon mates for thinking that way.
She seemed to be struggling with what to say. Not in finding words, but maybe forcing herself to say the right ones.
“Beno,” she said, finally.
That was all she said, and then she walked past me.
“I always thought her lovable charm was her best feature,” I said.
“You ought to have more patience, Beno. The boy was like a brother to her.”
“What is Shadow to everyone else? What was Redjack? When a monster dies fighting a hero, it’s sad. When a dungeon creature is forced to murder one of their own…”
“Death has many flavors. Sometimes, one has to learn that a chef can-”
“I don’t want you hanging around spouting metaphors and analogies like a wise old sage, Bolton. Quite frankly, I’m sick of hearing the quotes you pull out of your arse.”
“It seems you and Anna share that lovable charm. Whatever you feel about her, you need her. Jahn certainly does. With the powers she has now, and the ones she is capable of, she is vital.”
“That’s why I took the acid trap out of this chamber before I agreed to let her sleep in it.”
“Generosity has always been one of your strong points.”
“What did you want to talk about?” I said.
“I got word from the Dungeon Core Academy yesterday, Beno,” he said. “They have made you an offer.”
“Go on.”
“Still bitter about failing? I told you the reason.”
“Well, the constant lies are also a part of it. But I’m nothing if not practical. What are they offering me, and what do they want?”
“The academy has tasked me, for the past year, in starting the search for the ancient cores. They know that you and Jahn are now going to do so.”
“Okay. What are they asking?”
“That any cores we find and subdue are handed over to the academy.”
Handing ancient cores over to the academy.
It left a bitter taste. The academy had manipulated Jahn. Hidden his heritage from him so they could make him loyal to the academy. No doubt that they’d do the same to any ancient cores that we found.
It was hard to know what that’d mean without meeting the ancient cores. What powers would it give the academy? Jahn’s talent was in creating things. But what if there were ancient cores who could control the weather? Others who could change people into monsters, as Ray had done?
It was a hell of a lot of power to hand to a bunch of duplicitous overseers.
I’d fixed it in my mind that we’d be destroying any cores we found. After meeting Ray, it seemed the only sensible thing.
I was about to tell him so when Bolton spoke.
“They’ll offer you another resurrection,” said Bolton.
“What?”
“Resurrection as a man. Or a woman. Or a goblin, orc, gnome…whatever you want. The point is, they believe so strongly in this that they’ll offer you the greatest prize of all.”
“And all I have to do is help Jahn find them.”
“I don’t need to tell you that finding the cores is the least of it.”
I thought about the wraiths. The insects. It made me wonder what else the ancient ones were capable of.
Destroying them was one thing. It was a net good for Xynnar. It had to be.
But handing them over to the academy didn’t mean the cores lost their powers. It just meant new hands would wield them.
Then again, not all the ancient ones were bad. I saw that in Ray’s vision. More than that, I saw it every day in Jahn. One of the purest souls around.
But they were offering me resurrection as a man again.
A chance of a normal life.
“Well?” said Bolton.
Just then, I heard a kobold scampering down the corridor.
Then two kobolds.
Then I heard beetles scuttling, and dogs sprinting.
Tomlin and Wylie appeared in the archway, followed by Death, Kill, and Shadow’s hounds. The beetles and dogs had become inseparable lately, so that shouldn’t have surprised me much. It was just good to see them bonding so well. Fight and Kill weren’t back to their usual self, but they were finding comfort in the company of each other and the hounds.
“Gary is back!” said Wylie.
“Now? I didn’t expect him so soon.”
After we’d killed Riston, we spent a few days away from Yondersun while the spells he’d used on the townsfolk wore off. When we got back, we found that people in town didn’t remember much. It was like the time they spent under his magic was simply gouged out of their heads.
That meant it didn’t take much to convince Galatee that, while he lay pulverized and dying in the street, Riston had confessed to killing the people in the bakery and blaming Gary.
And now my friend was back.
We were in our core chamber. Me, Gary, and Gulliver. It could only be Gulliver, because he was the person I trusted the most. Whatever happened in the next few minutes had to be kept secret.
“How are you?” I said.
It wasn’t what I wanted to say, or what I should have said. But I’m not the best with words.
Gary looked morose. Nothing like his cheery self. Not that I’d expected smiles and jokes.
“Oh, you know…” he said, waving one of his leech legs dismissively.
“I’m sorry this didn’t happen sooner.”
“You didn’t visit me, Beno.”
My instinct was to say that the townsfolk wouldn’t let me. But back when we found Gary in the bakery and they took him away, not everyone was under Riston’s sway. I could have used my influence with Galatee so I could visit Gary in his cell, but I didn’t. I was too wrapped up in finding a solution, that I didn’t think enough about Gary. That was on me.
“I’m sorry, Gary.”
Gary gently patted me with a leech leg. “Come on, now. Don’t feel bad, Beno.”
Gulliver stepped away from the chamber wall. After getting back into town and regaining access to her alchemy tent, Cynthia had been able to take care of his leg properly. I was glad to see him looking so well.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he said.
Gary nodded.
“You still don’t remember what happened, do you?” I said.
/> “I’m afraid not.”
“We could always leave it that way…” said Gulliver.
“We could?” said Gary. He shook his head. “No. I have to know what I’m capable of. You said that you could help me remember.”
“We can,” I said.
“What do you need to do? Hypnotize me? Use some sort of mind spell? I can’t say I find it appealing, good chaps, but if it lets me know the truth…”
“No hypnotism. No spells. Gulliver?”
Gulliver went to the corner of the room and grabbed something. He walked back to us holding a giant hammer with little shocks of red and blue light running over it.
Gary’s eight eyes widened. “You’re going to beat it out of me?”
“This is the Hammer of Truth,” I said. “Rather unimaginatively named, but the hero I killed to get it wasn’t the brightest. One hit with this and the truth will come spilling out.”
“I don’t think I want to…”
“It will only take a tap,” I said. “Besides, Gull couldn’t swing it hard enough to hurt. He’s a scribe, remember? He has the tiny muscles to prove it.”
“If you’re sure, Core Beno.”
“No, this is about you. Are you sure?”
“I have to know.”
Gulliver lifted the hammer, and all three of us braced for it.
The next day, the entire dungeon walked through the streets of Yondersun. Kobolds, beetles, barbarians. Gary walked in front of us all. He walked through Jahn’s Row, and we followed, giving him a march of honor. It was only right that we were all there.
Townsfolk watched from windows and shop doorways. There were no traders today. No shoppers. They were all standing there, yes, but not as merchants. Not as people looking to spend a pleasant day visiting the shops in Jahn’s Row. They were there as normal folk. As mourners, still in grief for the people who’d lost their lives.
There had been a ceremony to bury those who had become wraiths. It had lasted a full day. Friends and family gave eulogies for their loved ones. None of the townsfolk could remember what had happened the last few days, but the memories of their loved ones were untouched. They told sad stories. They made jokes. They celebrated the lives of the people who Riston and Ray had killed.
My last act on the Yondersun council had been to tell Galatee and Reginal what happened. They didn’t remember any of it, of course. Riston’s spells had made sure of that.
Dungeon Core Academy: Books 1-7 (A LitRPG Series) Page 132