Dungeon Deposed

by William D. Arand

  Soldiers in a war of attrition that couldn’t be replaced easily.

  Instead though, the army of the bitch-queen ran headlong into a fortified position, and was, in turn, flanked.

  Even before midday, Veronica’s army was forced from the field, leaving their dead and wounded on the field, and tumbling back to their original camp as fast as possible.

  Lauren and her generals didn’t press the attack. They took their victory and quit the field.

  At which point Veronica immediately dismissed Ryker and Diane back home.

  He imagined she’d originally called them there to somehow show off, but only ended up having a defeat handed to her.

  Surprisingly, nothing happened on the way back to Dungeon either.

  Ryker had been half expecting an attack of some sort. Either on the part of Veronica or Chadwick.

  Half a dozen of one, six of the other, thought Ryker as they rolled through the wooden palisade that was on the furthest edge of the area that Dungeon controlled.

  Edwin had been managing the city and far better than Ryker ever could have. Palisades wouldn’t have even come to mind for him.

  “There was a planned attack on your return trip,” Wynne said.

  “Oh? Didn’t see anything.”

  “Charlotte took care of it. We matched them one for one so it cost us little. They were sent by Chadwick. Veronica warned him of your approach. They were supposed to only kill you, and not harm Diane. I’ve already sent all the cores into Robyn’s prison. Her core has… reacted badly,” Wynne said.

  Well that’s interesting. Veronica and Chadwick working together to get rid of me now.

  Which means Veronica fears the influence I have over her daughter, and for opposing the vicar.

  “And what do you mean? How can a core react badly?”

  “It turned black. I think you should check on her.”

  “Errr, alright. I probably should. I’ll do so the moment I have a chance.”

  “—ly to be back. I wonder if anything has changed? Probably not. Maybe we’ll get lucky and that living boil on humanity has simply left the city,” Diane said.

  Ryker couldn’t help but agree. He wished fervently for that all the way to the farmhouse.

  There was no way that’d happen of course. The church and Trevail were both hoping to profit from this war.

  And that thought hung around him right up until he sat down in his room in the farmhouse, staring down at the table.

  He’d had a carved wooden chair brought in with excellent padding. After spending so much time in here, he’d decided to make it more comfortable. Meino hadn’t complained about having been asked to move the chair. All she’d asked for was a new weapon in exchange, and a chair for herself.

  From which she now watched him.

  Wynne had been right about Robyn’s core. It was black, fuzzy, and looked like it had minute fractures in it.

  Sitting down and getting comfortable, Ryker pulled up his control spell and dove into the smoky core.

  And regretted it instantly.

  It was a realm of shattered views, torn buildings, and unceasing screams of rage and pain.

  I wonder if this is hell.

  “RYKER!” came a booming shout.

  The destroyed landscape fractured apart and reformed into his inn.

  His entryway and registration desk to be exact. He could see a bright and sunny day through the windows that lined the walls.

  Robyn stood in front of the desk while he stood behind it, the log book between them.

  She was dressed in a battered and dirty cassock. Her eyes were bloodshot, her face smeared with tears and snot.

  She was a mess.

  Standing in what could only be her memory of his inn.

  “Ryker… I didn’t know. I knew nothing. It’s all built on lies. All of it. Almost all of it was a means to an end. I was a means to an end. They were using me as a tool to gain power,” Robyn said, her voice catching at the end.

  There was a brittle crackling noise as fractures began to grow down along the walls.

  “And yet here you are. Spared of that,” Ryker said. “I’ll not mince words, and I’ll not give you the ass-licking a political person would. Do you want to get back at them?”

  The cracks stopped dead in their tracks.

  Robyn was staring at him. Her eyes carving through him.

  Her eyes were like pointed knives.

  “Get back at them?” she asked.

  “I admit I would use you. I’d be no better than they are. I’d wield you like a blade. But I would use you to throw them out of Dungeon. To free it. Would you let me?” Ryker asked.

  “Dangerous,” Wynne cautioned him.

  “Can we supply her with the power to be a paladin? If she asked for her powers from the dungeon instead of her god?”

  “If she pledged herself to our cause, and to abide by the rules of the dungeon, yes.”

  “What if I wanted to cleanse the church of the corruption, and rebuild it?” Robyn asked. The edge to her voice was cold.

  Chilling, really.

  “Then I’d help you wipe out the entire church. To the point that you could rebuild it, and no one would oppose you. I would release you from your service to me when that time came, so that you could pursue that goal,” Ryker said, and meant it.

  No objection came from Wynne at his proposition.

  Or Robyn.

  Then, in the span of a single breath, the world around them shattered, and rebuilt itself into a small chapel.

  Robyn had also changed.

  She was in her armor. The metal polished to a mirror shine. So much so, it nearly glowed. The white of her tabard was bleached a perfect and crisp white. Under her left arm was her helmet.

  Falling to one knee, she held her large two-handed sword in front of herself with her right hand. It was still sheathed, and she held it pommel up.

  “I then swear myself into your service and will pledge to uphold your laws, and commands. Till such a time as I may rebuild the order, I shall serve you without question,” Robyn said.

  Ryker said nothing in response as there was nothing to say. He took her core, and spun tendrils between it, himself, and the dungeon, and tied her into it. A raging storm of mana burned into her core, through it, and back out again.

  Robyn, the fallen paladin, was now part of the dungeon, and would draw her power from it.

  “Go now then, and challenge the location that they’re building the corrupted temple of light. They hold claim over the battlefield. I will dispatch with you whatever forces you need so that you always match their numbers. The battle will be yours to win, or lose,” Ryker said when he finished.

  There was a moment of confusion in Robyn’s face as her world expanded, from the single core she’d inhabited, to the entirety of the dungeon.

  An expression of surprise flickered across her face, then she was gone.

  Already having launched her avatar, matching herself in every way, into the temple.

  Ryker sped after her, curious at how she managed it so quickly, and worried at the same time.

  He arrived at the same time that Robyn unsheathed her sword and marched towards the group of church soldiers who had displaced Tris.

  They were very high level and high ability.

  Wynne began summoning Fairy Avatars as quick as could be to match their numbers. They popped into being on Robyn’s flanks.

  With a strange orchestral sound, the battleground exploded into a blue pulsing light that originated from Robyn.

  Then her and her impromptu force crashed into the defenders.

  It was obvious to him that the righteousness of Robyn’s rage and her proficiency would win the day.

  Even if she lost an arm and weapon, she’d pick up said arm and beat someone to death with it, he imagined.

  “I want to use the blades in a new way,” Ryker sent to Wynne. “I want to give them targets in the city. Human targets. To act as agents of the dungeon. Let�
�s break out those enchanted items and start offering them up.”

  “And how do you propose we make this deal to them?” Wynne asked curiously

  “Activate their blade badges. The tokens we gave them. Have it guide them to the dungeon tonight. When everyone else sleeps. Welcome them all in. Take them to one of the unused wings and leave messages and signs for them with what we want,” Ryker said.

  “My thought is this. They’re hiring assassins to kill me, the walkers, and anything else they can find from the dungeon. They attack it outright whenever they can. I think turnabout is only fair, and so, we use the blades. What do you think, Wynne?”

  “I think it pushes the boundaries,” Wynne said after a moment. “It’d be questionable since you’re not part of the dungeon, nor are the blades.”

  “Then explain the rules to me. That or make it happen. Your choice.”

  “It’ll be done, my king. Though I do plan on explaining the rules soon.”

  “Great. Thank you for taking care of that. Now, let’s plan for what’s to come next. Because if I don’t miss my guess, we’re probably going to have a problem with a mass of church soldiers.”

  “Yes… that’d be the next logical step on their part. Perhaps even trying to trample into the dungeon to destroy it.”

  “Heh. Too bad what they think is the core is only a decoy,” Ryker said. “That’ll buy us more time. Right up until they figure out that it isn’t real. That or they finally succeed in killing me.”

  Sighing, he watched Robyn lay about herself with the big two-hander she used. She was a whirlwind of death and dismemberment.

  Each time she used an ability, her trained powers, it pulled upon the dungeon, instead of a god, which made her an unattached whirlwind of death.

  This wasn’t normal. Wasn’t normal on any level. There had never been a fallen paladin who could still perform their duties.

  Ryker wondered if this would backfire on them. On him, really, since it had been his idea. If this would draw the attention of others just like his other dungeon ideas had.

  Truth be told, he was already fairly certain that this was going to blow up in his face.

  What Robyn was was more akin to a champion to a god, than a paladin. Being directly able to utilize a source of energy, instead of relying on answered prayers.

  Fallen paladins simply didn’t have their prayers answered, which was what empowered them to begin with.

  A stray thought carried Ryker straight to the dark lord of the north.

  The villain had four champions who served him. Four embodied virtues of gods. Champions fashioned from the darkest of feelings and desires from the pits of mankind’s heart.

  I sure as hell hope that I haven’t set bait on the line for that rotten bastard. If he could take fallen paladins in… to have them serve him directly instead of other gods, what would he do? Would he challenge the world?

  The last thing we need is another army trying to take the Queendom.

  Chapter 33- Ever Deeper -

  “I need a favor,” Rob said, leaning over the counter.

  Ryker felt his soul twitch.

  A large part of him wanted to simply pick up the letter opener at his side and plunge it into the man’s neck.

  To tear it to the side and tear open the man’s throat.

  Empty him out like a broken wineskin.

  “Okay,” Ryker said, curling his fingers into his palms. It was much easier to resist strangling the man if his hands were closed. “And what is it?”

  “I have three people, maybe four, coming into town in the next day or so. Could be five minutes from now, could be late tomorrow,” Rob said. “They have information on them that we have to get to Lauren. Unfortunately I can’t just take the info and send another courier. Supposedly this is something that they can’t trust with anyone else.”

  “Uh huh…” Ryker mumbled. “And?”

  “I need you to protect them, give them a place to hole up, and make sure they don’t get spotted. They’re members of the dark church. I’d use my own resources, but if they get caught, and they might, it’d bring down the entire information network here.”

  “Oh? And you’d rather have me risk myself?”

  “I’ve been watching. Closely. You’ve got your own little intelligence service you’re running. One that leaves no trace at all of itself,” Rob muttered.

  “He knows nothing. Only supposition and speculation,” Wynne said before Ryker could lose his cool.

  “I’ll consider it. How should I tell them apart from anyone else?” Ryker asked.

  “They’ll head straight for your inn, and ask for a room. Identification will be as simple as their intelligence cards,” Rob said, tapping the guest logbook. “Their classes will be Death Knight.”

  Ryker didn’t say anything.

  “See ya later, one-pump,” Rob said, leaving quickly.

  I’ll murder him! Murder him and bathe in his blood till it stinks!

  Lightning crackled along Ryker’s fingers as he considered simply murdering the man as he walked away. Turning the bastard into coal. Emptying Ryker’s entire mana pool in one go and seeing how much of a cinder he could burn Rob into.

  Tar lifted its head up from the counter and peered at him. “Need be calm. Not food, not care,” said the creature.

  It’d gone through a growth spurt in the last day and a half, doubling in size and rapidly approaching the size of a housecat. It was bigger as far as familiars went, but only in so much as it was definitely not the average. But not unheard of.

  “Easy for you to say,” Ryker grumbled, letting the power bleed out of him until nothing remained.

  Boiling with anger and without an outlet, Ryker went to his hidden office alcove. A mindless guard waited there for him, Meino having given up on the position long ago.

  Opening the private log book, he began reading through the details of everyone who had signed in for the day as guests.

  He didn’t trust Rob. Not in any way, shape or form. For all Ryker knew, they were already here, and Rob was playing some sort of power game.

  Or setting him up to fail.

  Or to get arrested.

  I’ll murder him. Gouge out his eyes and—

  Three Death Knights had logged into the inn a few hours previously.

  Rob’s information had indeed been wrong.

  “Already working on their protection. I have Arria and Sierra working on it,” Wynne said, cutting him off before he could start.

  “It might be nice to tell you what to do every now and then,” Ryker complained.

  “Yes, but then I’d be a poor queen to you. You can enjoy telling me what to do later.”

  “Hmph.”

  ***

  A sudden pressure pushed in on Ryker’s sense of the dungeon.

  The magnitude of the presence was unlike anything he’d ever felt before. It was sharp, explosive, and strong.

  Smiling, he turned to Edwin.

  “Apologies, my friend, I’m afraid I really need to take a minute to myself,” Ryker said.

  “Is that what we’re calling it now? Hah, no, no, it’s fine. There really hasn’t been any change since our last conversation,” Edwin said, waving him off. “Go, have fun.”

  As quickly as he could, Ryker excused himself from the small eatery.

  Moving at as brisk a pace as he dared, he made a beeline for the inn. It was the closest place he could cast his dungeon sense from with any expectation of privacy.

  Turning the corner, Ryker stopped dead in his tracks.

  A man in glowing white armaments stood in the street, looking up the road one way, then down the other.

  He could feel the man’s power from where he stood. He radiated it. Like a mantle.

  It was pure, holy, and terrifying. It had the feeling of a naked blade being pressed to Ryker’s throat. A bared sword pointed in his direction.

  The threat of religion without debate or understanding.

  Zealotry.

&
nbsp; Ryker ignored the man, and kept walking down the street towards his inn.

  People like this tended to view anyone that weren’t of the faith with suspicion. Backing up upon being spotted would only increase that view.

  Keep it cool. Keep it normal. He’s just a crazy fucker, and you’re just a citizen.

  Ryker managed to pass by the man without giving anything away or looking out of place.

  Just a normal person walking through the street.

  Nothing to hide.

  Everyday peasant right here. No need to look further into me.

  “You, peasant. This city has the stink of evil in it,” said the man. “I require your assistance.”

  Not bothering to respond, Ryker kept walking. Maybe he could simply avoid the situation entirely if he pretended to simply not notice the man.

  “Ha. I see this city is no better than the capital. It’s a wonder His Benevolence doesn’t wipe this place off the face of the continent and rebuild it in his image,” said the man as Ryker kept walking.

  Keeping his eyes front, and his demeanor as unaggressive as possible, he moved on. Leaving the champion in the road where he’d appeared.

  “I take it you’re aware of this?” Ryker queried the dungeon space.

  “Yes. But… I’m afraid our hands are tied. More so than I’d care to admit,” Wynne said. Her tone was strange.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The core is fractured. It is repairing itself, but it will not be quick. It will not be easy. It is not guaranteed,” she said.

  “And how did this happen?”

  “Too much misuse. Bending the rules. I fear I did not have a full understanding of their import. I only now do. I’m sorry, my king. I have failed you in this regard. The dungeon, the core, must not act in any way, except inside the dungeon. For a time, at least. Until the core can repair itself.”

  “Great. So I’m on my own for a bit.”

  “Yes. The avatars who were already outside the dungeon can assist, but no others can form, or leave the dungeon.”

  “What the actual fuck, Wynne? I thought you were on this.”

  “I thought I was. I wasn’t. I’ve failed you, my king. I will make amends, I swear it. I’ll explain everything after this.”