Tricky little thing… well, I would have probably done something to her so… smart move.
“Anything else?” Ryker asked, glaring up at the corners of the room.
“A bath to cool off and clean up!” shouted Wynne.
Then a wave of cold water dumped over his head and washed down him.
Shuddering with absolute fury and unconfined desire to cause harm, Ryker lifted his head up and screamed at the ceiling.
The sound of Wynne’s tinkling laughter was all that he heard.
Chapter 11- A Message -
Ryker went about cleaning up as quickly as he could. There wasn’t much he could do to Wynne right now. She was being very cautious about staying far back from him right now. She didn’t trust anything he said that involved her coming within arm’s reach of him.
He got dressed in what she’d suggested. Even if he wanted to pop her head off and use her corpse to scrub a toilet, she wasn’t wrong about what to wear.
Making sure to comb his hair into something presentable and giving himself a shave, Ryker now felt strange when he was done.
It was the first time in a long time that he was nervous about being introduced to someone.
Feeling fidgety, Ryker stared down the road at the column that was getting ever closer. Adele was on his left, and Claire on his right.
“It’ll be fine. She isn’t expecting a noble. She’s expecting a dirty peasant farmer,” Adele groused, taking a sip from a flask she pulled from somewhere.
“Must you?” Claire asked, her voice going up an octave. “The queen is coming and you’re working your way through a bottle.”
“It’s a flask, not a bottle,” Adele said, leaning forward and giving her cousin a look. Then she deliberately took a deep swig from the metal flask. “And besides, our dear royal cousin doesn’t care. So long as I’m not drunk.”
Claire visibly shook for a split second, and then calmed herself.
“I look forward to when you leave here. Perhaps our cousin will send you on a drunken adventure to the west. I hear they have some wolf problems out that way. You can go run around with your friends, drink, and get out of the way,” Claire said.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you. So you can sit here and play wannabe queen with Ryker. That innocent mask of yours is fooling no one,” Adele said with a leer. “Going to try to wed and bed the man? You might have to get in line. The way this is all playing out, our dear cousin might want a go instead.”
“What?” Claire said, her head whipping around. “And where’d you hear that?”
“She mentioned it. Asked about Ryker,” Adele said, taking another sip from her flask. Or trying to. Peering at the mouth of it after she upended it, she gave it a shake. “Damn. I forgot to fill it up.”
“I didn’t realize. Wait, I don’t… oh. Oh… I see,” Claire said, looking much more subdued.
“Uh…” Ryker said intelligently. “I’m not quite sure I follow this conversation, but I think this is a good time to point out that I don’t have any intention of dealing with anyone once this is all set up. Sure as hell don’t have any nobility in my blood either. So knock it off.”
Adele shrugged at that. “Not that I blame you. I would, too.”
“That’d be a mistake,” Claire said neutrally. “There’s no reason to leave, not when an entire city is springing up around you.”
Except as soon as I kill some bastards, I’m gone. No reason to be here. Not really. Already made more than enough money to buy a house and not work a day in my life further.
“We’ll see,” Ryker said noncommittally. “At this point, I don’t even know what’s going to happen. The queen herself is arriving and we’ve little better than a hotel and a bunch of men and women who make a living by murdering magical creatures in a hole in the ground. Murder hobos, the lot of them.”
Claire blinked and then sighed softly. “This really isn’t the best setting for her, is it.”
“No. Not really,” Ryker said. “I still don’t understand why she’s coming.”
“Because she can train an army here,” Adele said. “Anyone could. Whoever holds access to the dungeon could build an army out of sending people in every day to learn tactics, fight as an army, and train. On top of that, they’d gain ability levels, money, and the possibility of loot. The dungeon… is a cash cow at a national level. A problem too, since it’d be a reason to invade us.”
Ryker found himself going back to the same conversation he had with Wynne.
He’d really fucked this one up, hadn’t he.
“That… makes sense. And she’s rushing here to confirm it,” Claire said. “I wonder what she plans to do from there. I don’t think she’s left the capital like this in a very long time.”
“Think we’re about to find out… that marker puts them at about two minutes out,” Ryker said as they passed a stump along the road.
Claire and Adele both fell silent at that. Watching as the carriage, and the extreme number of royal guards surrounding it, drew ever closer.
Wynne decided to appear at that point, and settled down on Ryker’s shoulder.
“Oh, now you show up,” Ryker said, reaching up to wrap a hand around Wynne’s legs.
“Now, now,” said the dungeon fairy. “Be nice. The queen is coming. You wouldn’t want to look insan—Ow!”
Ryker dropped his hand to his side after pinching her hip.
“Consider us even,” Ryker growled out.
“Okay, okay. You don’t have to be so violent. Going to bruise me,” complained the Fairy, looking at her side. She made no move to leave his shoulder though.
Then Ryker felt people entering the border of the dungeon. Except it was far to the east. The very edge of its reach, in fact.
The only thing out that way was open rolling hills. It was one of the reasons this part of the Queendom of Dale was so underpopulated. That area wasn’t good for much of anything. Trying to work a farm any further east than Ryker’s home was more akin to farming rocks. Much of the soil was full of stones, and rock could be found only a few feet down in many places.
Resisting the urge to turn his head and look in that direction, Ryker instead stared out at the queen and cast his senses to the east. As he did, the number of people he felt coming in from that direction doubled.
Then it tripled.
A heartbeat later and Ryker felt hundreds of people all walking towards Dungeon.
Now he was alarmed. Very alarmed
So much so that he raced to the east as fast as he could. Apparently Wynne had felt it too, as he could sense her catching up to him from behind.
“What is it?” she asked in his mind.
“I have no idea. A whole lot of people though. Maybe a portal team that lost their way? Ended up on the east end of fucking nowhere?”
“No, I have a very bad feeling about this, Ryker. I think this is—”
Ryker saw what it was before she could finish her sentence. It was an army.
Line upon line of infantry in the colors of the loyal soldiers of Adelona. These were the soldiers who remained true to their emperor in the civil war. They weren’t as numerous as their counterparts to the north, the rebels, but they were better equipped and trained.
Adelona had been torn asunder. The north siding with a republic and the dark pantheon, the south remaining loyal to the empire, and the church of light.
And they were now here, in the backyard of the Queendom.
Hundreds of footmen, and behind them, knights, priests, and a general.
“They must be here for the dungeon. There’s no other reason to invade. They don’t want a war on two fronts,” Wynne conveyed to him.
Ryker had a moment of self-recrimination. His lack of forethought had caused this.
It lasted only a moment. He immediately replaced it with anger.
How dare they. I’ll drown them in their own blood.
“Remember to address her as Your Majesty. She doesn’t go in for titles privately,
but in public she doesn’t have a choice,” Adele said, snapping Ryker’s mind and spirit back to the present.
The queen’s carriage was rolling ever closer.
“He should address her the same in private as he does in public,” Claire said.
“Nah. I honestly think she might make a play for him. Or at least, make him nobility and try down the road. He’s a safe bet and gets Dungeon tied to her much more closely,” Adele said. She sounded sincere, but grumpy at the same time.
“I have no idea how to tell them there’s an army coming in from the east,” Ryker thought at Wynne.
“Leave it to me. I have an idea. It’ll be about twenty minutes though. Act natural till I give you a heads up,” Wynne sent back.
Ryker felt his face tighten up as the situation started to spiral out of control.
He had a few minutes before the queen arrived. As quickly as he could, he rebuilt the blueprint that every creature in the war wing shared. He made it so that they would all obey whatever command he gave them through the control, and stop what they were doing. That these commands would supersede everything else they’d been set to do.
Moving to the newly built human encampment he did the same.
There was no point in trying to force the same change on the first and second wing. They wouldn’t be strong enough, or have the right blueprints, to be of any use in a battle.
The queen’s carriage came to a stop in front of him, her guard encircling everything around them. Squaring his shoulders, Ryker did his best to look the part of a presentable citizen of the Queendom.
Even if I’m anything but that. I mean… we own the dungeon and actively plot to murder numerous citizens. Heh… presentable citizen my ass.
A woman opened the carriage door and stepped out into the sunlight. She was clearly a relative of both Adele and Claire. Where Adele ran closer to athleticism, and Claire towards a womanly figure, the queen herself looked average. She’ wasn’t as pretty as either cousin, but was definitely cute. She shared their bright blue eyes and dark black hair. Her figure was modest, only a touch better than Adele’s, though not quite as good as Claire’s. But she was on the slimmer side which gave her an hourglass figure.
I bet she never sits still. If she’s anything like Adele.
“Her Royal Majesty, Lauren the second,” said one of the retainers.
Ryker bowed his head and slipped down to one knee.
“Your Majesty,” he said. On the edge of his vision, he could see Adele and Claire curtsy to their cousin.
“Cousin,” they both said.
“Arise. I’ve come ahead of schedule, and I apologize for that. Word reached me that the dungeon had changed yet again,” she said.
Her voice was like warm honey to his ears. Clear, smooth, and lower toned.
Standing upright, Ryker glanced to his left and right, then settled on the queen.
“I welcome you to Dungeon, Your Majesty. I’m afraid we didn’t name our city quick enough, and public opinion named it for us,” Ryker said, grinning.
“So I hear. Please, call me Lauren,” said the queen, closing the distance between them.
She was about his own height, and smelled like cinnamon.
“Err. I’m not sure how proper that would be,” Ryker said cautiously. He didn’t back up from her approach, but he did fold his hands behind his back.
The queen stared into his eyes for a second, before she smiled slowly.
“About as proper as Adele, as I’m sure you’ve found out. I think this would be an exce—”
A voice was shouting from back the way of the city.
It was one of his servants. They were waving their arms back and forth over their head as they came at a run.
“It’s one of my servants. They work at the inn,” Ryker said, hoping to keep the guards from skewering them as they came.
“—er attack!” they shouted. “An army to the east!”
Subtle. Real subtle.
“Did… did he just say there was an army to the east?” Ryker asked aloud.
“An army from Adelona! They’re coming for the queen or the dungeon!” shouted the male Gnoll as he got close.
Ryker looked to the queen for direction. She was his sovereign, and he was duty bound and forsworn to listen to her orders.
Worst case scenario, Ryker could tip his hand to a degree and have the dungeon respond to the threat. Or so he hoped. That’d be what he needed to ask Wynne as soon as he could.
If he could do that, there was no reason to be concerned for himself or Dungeon as a whole. He just didn’t want to have to reveal his abilities if he didn’t have to.
One doesn’t get ahead giving up their secrets.
Her eyes were clouded as she stared off into space towards the Gnoll.
“Captain,” she said finally. “Draw ranks and put the guard into a formation. Dungeon isn’t something we can afford to lose. Send a runner off to the closest garrison and have them leave only a holding force behind and come here. We’ll need them. If we can hold them off for a day or two, we can get reinforcements here.”
“I’m mildly flattered. She’s not willing to run away and views my little town as that important,” Ryker thought to Wynne as her presence stirred again.
“She’s not wrong. The normal benefits of a dungeon are massive. Yours is… beyond contemplation. It’s one of the reasons why we’re being attacked,” she thought back to him. “Shame she’s going to die if she actually stays. Their numbers are just too high.”
Ryker frowned as the queen’s guard formed up and began leading everyone back to Dungeon, and to plan the defense.
“About that. Can we mobilize the dungeon to defend us? I modified all their blueprints in both the second and third wings so that they could. But I’m not certain about actually doing it,” Ryker communicated.
“I… well… yes. We could. But the cost would be… immense. You’d bankrupt our entire mana pool. It’s likely we’d have to mothball wings two and three until we recharged up some. And that could take a few months,” Wynne responded.
Not really liking where this was going, Ryker started to think about what he wanted to do.
He had two options available. Let the queen take the lead and only intervene at the last possible second, possibly after she was dead and gone, or it was just too late.
Or get involved now, while she still had a chance, and end up taking a huge portion of his dungeon offline for a while.
Adele and Claire flanked the queen, all three of them talking in low tones about how to handle the situation.
The queen cast a look back at him. The look she gave him was unmistakably royal, and stubborn.
“I don’t think you’ll mind me taking control over the local militia and guards?” she asked him.
The fact that she asked him at all was a surprise.
“Not at all, Lauren,” Ryker said, trying out the name.
She gave him a smile, then turned back to her cousins.
Ryker liked her. She was exactly what she presented herself to be. At least with him.
He could easily imagine she was far more like Claire with her peerage and the nobility, though.
A blend between Adele and Claire, most likely.
As the trio of royal women worked, Ryker checked on the dungeon. All of the spells denoting time limits had been activated. All of the adventurers were heading for the exits.
Wynne had been busy prepping things.
In fact, when he checked on the avatars he and the Fairies had made, they were getting ready. Except there were thirty of them now.
Wynne had been very busy.
Unfortunately he wouldn’t be able to use his avatar. Not while remaining in the queen’s company at least. He had a decent ability to focus, but not on two different bodies at the same time.
“Get those Fairies ready. We’re going to engage this army with the dungeon. This might be a good opportunity to showcase why the dungeon is needed, and why it isn’t to be
fought over,” Ryker thought to her.
“Will do,” Wynne thought back at him. “As soon as it’s over I’m going to bring down the other wings to budget our mana.”
Dividing his attention between following the queen and his dungeon changes, Ryker worked furiously to get his forces ready.
He went into the human kingdom encampment and got them moving towards the exit using the remote commands he put in previously. For the war wing he did the same.
They all marched towards the exit with the command set to line themselves up to the northwest of the enemy line.
Lastly, he pulled up one of the quest walkers. Specifically, one that was operating with kingdom instructions. They were on the stronger side.
Sorting through the pre-made dialogues he’d put together, he cobbled together a message for the queen.
Then, with a quick command, he sent it at a jog towards the queen.
Disengaging all the spells, he eased back into the situation that was going on around him.
Claire, Adele, and Lauren were all standing at the east edge of town, staring out into the empty fields.
Walls hadn’t been a priority since there was no reason to attack the town.
Raiders or otherwise wouldn’t be interested. At least, originally.
Now he wished it had been a priority. Ryker wasn’t half as paranoid as he probably should be.
A Royal Guardsman dropped a table down, and four others brought chairs over. As quick as could be, the Royal Guardsmen had a command post set up. Out in front of this by a hundred yards or so the royal guards lined up in the formation the queen had asked for.
“Your Majesty. First reports are coming in, something close to six hundred enemy foot soldiers. Our force numbers at one hundred or so, including the garrison here,” said the guardsman.
Queen Lauren blinked once, then nodded her head. “Deploy the troops and tell them to stay in tight formation. Our best course is to hold the day, and dig earthworks overnight with the help of the town,” said Lauren.
Her controlled reaction was as telling as if it were uncontrolled. She didn’t believe they could stand and hold, but she wasn’t willing to give up Dungeon.
“Halt!” shouted a guardsman from behind. Looking over his shoulder, Ryker found the quest walker standing stiffly in front of a guard. “State your business,” said the same guard.
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