by Marty Myers
Chapter 19
The guard he had been watching strip the old captain of his gear got up, put on the fist symbol onto his chest plate and strapped on the sword Hank had recently been threatened with before walking over and introducing himself. He was even a bit taller than the first captain had been but leaner, with more like a runner’s build and sharp features Hank saw. “ I am Kravous, now captain of the Black Guard detachment sent to guard the altar room of this dungeon,” he said. “ I would like to see the quarters that are meant to house my men.” There was both irony and assessment in Kravous’s manner as he spoke. He seemed more intelligent and less impulsive or belligerent than the first officer. Hank found himself wondering if this captain would turn out to be even more dangerous than the last.
Provoas said, “yes that seems best for now. Hank take our captain around and show him their chambers. Once they are settled in bring him to the Great Hall so that we may speak further.” Hank could see many of the orcish guards eyeing them as he escorted Kravous and two other guards who had come over out of the altar room area and down the hall to the chambers he and Alastor had cut out of the rock.
Alastor too came along with them to keep an eye on this new captain that seemed to be making all his extra senses cry out in alarm. Something about him seemed off, he thought. Maybe it was his obvious demonic half-breed looks or his strong, tightly controlled aura. He couldn’t pin down what exactly about him was so alarming. But he knew he didn’t want to leave him alone with Hank.
“ Here we are,” Hank, said, as they came to the first of the new rooms. “ This is Alastor by the way my and my master’s familiar demon. He is to be treated as I am. Now I had no idea who, what or how many the Dark would be sending to us beforehand so these are just basic chambers right now. However, I can make changes to them depending on what you and your guards need.”
“ First off how many guards are there and do you prefer them to have separate rooms or for them to share living space.” Kravous looked around at the space provided and then said, “we have been kept in a barracks-style communal hall lately with a couple smaller rooms set off of them for the officers and other guards who are being rewarded with space to themselves for a few days. There was a communal privy and a kitchen with cooks and serving staff set aside for our use, but other than that no real amenities and few indulgences. We have been cooped up too long in the Dark Citadel.”
Hank looked at the captain as he said this and wondered if there were some deeper meaning behind the orcs words. “ I can carve the same set up you had here within an hour if you wish it or leave these as separate rooms and just add a kitchen, dining hall, and privies either a large communal one down the hall or I could carve out separate garderobes and a privy for each room and make them into a suite. Just let me know how you want them and I will get them straightened out. ”
“ As to furniture that may be a bit more of a challenge. I do excellent work with stone and have an abundance of materials so I could carve bunks directly into the walls but I am still awaiting getting in enough wood to work on many of the doors and any other furniture that the dungeon needs.” Kravous took a while to think before answering. “ Stone bunks will do for now. We have our own bedding. My men and I are bigger than most other races so the fact they are not already carved out will work in our favor. Individual rooms and privies would be a luxury that few of the men have had. That may do a lot to settle them into this new dungeon assignment.”
“ We have 50 men in our guard detachment and another 50 of the skeletons that I presume your master took control of when they came across. As you know they are fine standing around wherever and do not need any housing. So if you can really carve all fifty rooms out in an hours time we would be glad to have them.” Kravous looked challengingly at Hank. Hank glanced over at Alastor and said, “ its time to get to work.” He set to altering the two dozen rooms they had already made adding the bunks into the walls set to a length and height that fit the three guards he had with them. Then carving the garderobe and privy off the back of the rooms. Hank and Alastor’s teamwork and teleportation skills still seemed to be improving as they quickly finished off the existing rooms and began carving out new ones all along the hall.
After a while watching them work Kravous suggested that they make sure there were other halls interconnecting to this one so that the one corridor couldn’t be used as a choke point to bottle the guards up if somehow they were caught in their rooms during an attack. Hank finished up the sleeping chambers and carved a large dining hall with two long stone tables fronted by a third table at the head of them for the captain and his officers or guests.
Beyond that he created a functional kitchen. The hardest part was setting up a fireplace chimney that could carry the smoke away and bring in some fresh air. He realized he needed to actually put in more air shafts through the mountain very soon now that so many living beings where living down here. To cover this lack for now he quickly worked out a way to teleport fresh air in from the mountainside above them into the corridors. He also found a couple springs to reroute to a holding tank he set above a pair of sinks here in the kitchen for water and made another one out by the main hall in a small room to serve as a well for the guards. He cut out cabinets and countertops and a prep table out of the stone walls and floor. He had had to draw on some of the dwarf’s memories of how his people set up kitchens to finish the place off.
Then he scryed through the mountain searching until he found a vein of coal which he teleported into a stone box near the fireplace. He created a refuse pit or cistern nearby to dump all the trash a kitchen created into, maybe he would have Alastor burn it all with hellfire every so often or no, that wouldn’t be smart when he could just teleport it out once in a while.
He even crafted a big stone caldron and some stone plates, bowls and mugs. Enough of them for the guards to all eat while he was thinking about it. Turning to look at the finished space he caught a look of astonishment on Kravous face before it vanished. “ How does this suit you captain,” Hank said. “ This looks good Hank, I would like to send my guards here to get some of my men and bring those who are not on watch here to their rooms right now before more time passes and they start getting into trouble.”
“ They will also need to be fed soon as well. Can you get us some food now?” Hank looked over at Alastor who was just finishing clearing away the last of the stone they had cut. “ Alastor what do you say to a bit of scrying for dinner.” Alastor set some coal in the fireplace and set the big cauldron right next to it. He then used a summoned a small amount of hellfire onto the coal and set it alight. A tiny effort teleported water into the cauldron to began heating up while they hunted.
They both focused on the cast and on the prospect of searching for some game. Alastor had been hunting like this for small game high on the mountain since they had arrived here so he knew about what was available and were to look for it. Looking around he decided that after this time he would have to move further afield to keep up with feeding fifty more mouths.
He spotted a couple mountain goats that would do for a start and teleported them. He had found a useful trick was if he didn’t want to kill the prey with his hands or teeth he could just delay the teleport for a minute or two, and leave them elsewhere before they popped back into existence where he was. Something about the process of not being anywhere was so traumatic that it often killed the animals. He remembered his almost failing to jump to and back from Hanks dimension with some dread and suspected that the stress he had endured then was to blame and that the animals smaller minds and pathetic auras simply couldn’t take the spiritual damage such an extended and unshielded trip caused. A minute later two dead goats arrived in the kitchen and Alastor simply carried them over to the table and began skinning them and carving them up into quarters that would fit in the cauldron.
Once again Kravous seemed impressed. “ How is it,” he said “ that you can teleport in this way? You are just an imp, even if a very big on
e.” Alastor looked at him for a moment before shrugging and saying, “ I have always been very talented as a teleporter and good at scrying but when the Darkness and Provoas cast their rituals to create Hank’s dungeon they also tampered with my talents and the bonds between us until they bound me to him and this dungeon and twisted my teleportation to where it works this way now. At first, it was a bit stunted and I had little range or ability but after much practice and hard work Hank and I have both developed it back up to this point.” Alastor had debated not answering at all but they had both displayed their talents and would be using it constantly to feed the guards as long as they were here, so he figured he wasn’t giving anything away that he wouldn’t have already had to reveal.
Kravous inspected the second goat closely. I do not see a mark upon this animal, he said as he sniffed it up and down. It does not smell poisoned how did it die? Alastor looked steadily at the big guard before deciding what to say. I have also learned of a way to kill outright with my talent he said. Kravous looked at Alastor with a cross between fear, envy and maybe some respect before saying that is quite a talent you have.
While Alastor had been talking Hank had finally found another goat. He had not mastered Alastor’s trick of killing it during transport so he simply waited until it had arrived and killed it with a swift death bolt. He wondered if the necromantic energy might sour the taste of the meat so he focused on the carcass and pulled the essence back out of the animal before Alastor got to butchering it.
“ Hank, Kravous said in the future I am sure my men would like to have some of the animals given to us alive so that we might enjoy them some before dinner. Not all the time,” he said as he saw Hank’s form stiffen a bit, “ just sometimes as a treat for them and to relieve the boredom of being confined in here.” “ We will see, Hank said, “ in the meantime, it is probably time we all went to the Great Hall and reported to master Provoas.”
“ As to kitchen staff and servants, I currently have nothing other than some skeletons and a few zombies which I think would perform poorly as kitchen staff. Cannot any of your guards handle cooking and kitchen duty themselves, perhaps a rotating schedule or as a punishment detail,” Hank said. Kravoas didn’t look happy and said, “ I can do that for now, but angry and unskilled cooks are going to make bad food which will make for angry dissatisfied guards. Can you not find someone to cook?”
“ You heard what the Darkness said about revealing ourselves unnecessarily,” he said. “ But I will give the matter some thought and even ask my master if I cannot come up with anything. As they left the kitchen and headed towards the great hall Hank thought that having the living in his dungeon was turning out to be a lot more work and bother than he wanted to deal with.
They passed by some guardsmen in the hall that had already begun settling into their rooms. Kravous growled at one of them to go and stir the stew in the kitchen. Having heard this Hank quickly fashioned a couple big stone spoons and a large two-pronged fork to stab the meat with out of the kitchen’s wall with a brief twist of talent and concentration he would not have believed possible mere days before. Stone, however, was not that good of a building material for everything including forks and spoons, so he determined he would need to get some wood to work with as soon as possible. The list of things he needed to do was getting bigger and bigger by the minute.
Hank lead them down the hallway and over to the great hall. They passed through the entrance where the doorway was still missing and on down the long hall to where Provoas was sitting upon his chair on the dais. “Master, Hank said, I believe we have the guardsmen’s quarters settled.” Provoas sat reading a grimoire. “ I was wondering what was taking you so long,” he said. Hank bowed and said, “ I am sorry master, I had not thought the guards would all be so alive, I needed to set them up a kitchen, privies and some other amenities I had not thought of. Most challenging is that I still need to find them a cook apparently.” Provoas frowned, actually it was hard to tell if anything about his face actually moved, but Hank could feel his minor displeasure through their bond. It worried Hank because it seemed like they were getting closer as time went on.
“ Master,” he said, “ with your much greater knowledge of the undead can you suggest anyone or thing that would be suited to cook for the guards.” Provoas beginning ire was defused as he turned to lecturing his student about necromancy and the undead, which he loved to do. “ Well, Provoas said, a very fresh zombie raised from a master chief and kept sharp by supplying them with regular feedings of brains would be the easiest answer to your dilemma. However, I have also seen ghostly head cooks paired up with a multiple skeleton cook line capable of turning out decently edible food before. The problem with ghosts is, of course, their intangibility. Although a few of them develop a limited ability to manipulate light objects, few have the strength or will to carry out full time cooking duties on their own. So, in that case, you would give over command of the skeletons to the ghost chief and have him try to shepherd them into doing all the manual labor.”
“ A Chef who rose to be a wight would be the ideal cook in this situation but unfortunately chefs almost always have a true zest for life and almost never arise in such an undead form that itself can no longer ingest regular food. One can attempt to force the issue of course, but for some reason such attempts have almost all ended in failure producing nearly brain dead savage wights that retain none of the skills and talents you are trying to bring over with the chosen subject.”
“ Now the few experiments with ghoul cooks I have seen or read of have all ended in rather grotesque culinary disasters. There is one spectacular failure that the necromantic college still cites to this very day as a cautionary tale, it is written of in the grimoire of Goethe the Hagridden to be precise. Definitely not something you or I would want to have repeated here my boy.”
“ I think since you have not yet worked upon your spirit summoning skills, that is the route you should take. Find us a ghostly chief but be warned most of them can no longer taste their food which occasionally leads to problems. I remember when I was still a necromantic apprentice being nearly poisoned to death in the crypt of my masters contemporary Alastasia the Risen when some of her alchemy ingredients got swapped out for spices in a soup.” Hank and his party were somewhat shocked at this unusually enthusiastic tirade coming from Master Provoas. Hank had only planned on distracting him in an attempt to escape punishment for not having everything ready as he had commanded, but his master was actually on quite a roll regarding the subject.
Finally, Kravous cleared his throat loudly and asked, “ Master Provoas do you require me for anything further? I would like to go check with my guards and make sure everything is all as it should be.” Provoas paused and then in a calmer, more studied voice dismissed the captain. “ You may go be about your duties captain. I will expect you to bring any minor problems to Hank to have settled and only come to me for anything major or truly deserving of my attention. Otherwise, I shall be coming and going from the altar room and here in the Great hall or in my chamber’s directly behind the dais here. Hank will finish giving you a tour of the dungeon later and you both can discuss with him any changes you may think would add to the defenses down here near the altar room. Otherwise, you and your men are to get along and not cause any problems while you perform your task, am I understood.” Kravous nodded and bowed shallowly. “ Yes Lord Provoas, In the Darkness We Stand,” he intoned before turning and walking out.
“ Something is off about that one,” Alastor said after he had left. “ I can’t pinpoint what it is, but I am going to be keeping my eye on him and his guards.” Provoas sorted and said, “ they are all off, a particularly degenerate breed of Dark spawn even amongst the legions of the Dark. Interbreeding between orcs, demons, and ghouls has produced something with few truly admirable qualities as we see here. But the Darkness has his uses for them just the same. At least they excel in fighting upon the battlefield. In any event, they need to be kept fed as all three of
their parent races become restless without nourishment and their appetites are substantial. Find them a kitchen staff and get them fed before it becomes a problem. I would oversee your efforts but I have much to study before the Dark’s next phase of the resurrection.”
Hank and Alastor took this as a dismissal and left the great hall. They went back down to the kitchen and saw a grumpy Black Guard grudgingly stirring the cauldron. Hank decided they needed a bit more space away from the glaring guard and quickly cut out a large pantry with shelves off of the kitchen where they could work in peace. “ Where should we begin Hank asked Alastor. I mean I have the spells in my head, but I know nothing about this worlds dead chiefs that might have decided to stick around and haunt someplace. How do we go about even finding one.” “ Well, Alastor said, we could just blindly summon the nearest spirits and look them over hoping to find one who would work. But the odds would be low we would find one that fits our needs.”
“ Secondly we could summon and bargain with a demon who has expertise in procuring specialized minions to get the ghost we need. That would work, but we would need to be very careful in the bargaining and I don’t think that was what Master Provoas had in mind. So there are some other options some of which you’re not going to like. We could scry out a living chief and do him in ourselves in such a way as he arises as a ghost. The downside to that being that he would have to be tightly bound to restrict him from trying to get revenge if he discovered it was us who was responsible for his demise.”