Troll Nation

by James A. Hunter

  Roark used the Dungeon Lord’s Grimoire to switch views, checking to ensure that the Changeling raiding team was safely in position down on the second floor. Perfect. One lanky limbed, potbellied Troll was waiting just on the other side of a hidden punji-pit. The rest were secreted away in niches a little farther down the dark corridor, ready to spring out and finish off whatever the poison-coated sticks didn’t. And while they were taking care of that party and marking the corpses for griefing, Druz and the first-floor honor guard would return topside to process the next group of heroes.

  Meanwhile, down on the third floor, a squad of newly evolved Thursrs and Reavers were taking apart the remains of a midlevel party trying to fight their way out of a massive acid pit while the bubbling liquid ate away at their flesh and Health in equal measure.

  Roark smiled. He was particularly fond of that trap.

  An explosion lit up the fourth floor, and a double portion of Experience points filtered in to Roark. One of the Brute Thursrs on griefing duty down there had just killed a fairly high-level War Druid with a cursed head of Roark’s design.

  Roark switched views once more, just in time to watch a set of spring-loaded spear traps impale the remaining heroes, skewering them in place while Elite Reavers and Brute Thursrs cut them to pieces. The heroes tried to fight back, of course, but they were beaten. The trap destroyed their last glimmer of hope for a favorable outcome, and the griefing squad mopped them up handily, spilling blood and hewing limbs with pitiful ease. When the last drop of red drained from the final hero’s Health bar, the Trolls began the process of looting and marking the bodies for griefing so the heroes could be killed again if they came back for their dropped belongings.

  The sheer, beautiful efficiency of the new griefing mechanism distracted Roark from brooding over Lowen. It worked like the perfectly fitted gears of a clock. Roark had stripped out the first floor and left nothing but a mazelike warren of tunnels and hidden passageways so Druz and her special teams could wear the heroes down and sort them into the appropriate staircase for their levels. Five sets of stairs descended into the Citadel, each letting out onto one of the primary floors, where a myriad of illusions, curses, deadly traps, and murderous Trolls in various states of Evolution waited for them.

  Kaz’s kitchen, Zyra’s laboratory, the library, smithy, training rooms, and living quarters Roark had moved down to the fifth floor within easy reach of the Keep. There were a few issues with this setup, of course, the biggest being that it cannibalized the entire first floor. No one could live or fight there because he needed all the available Floor Management Points just to make the tunnels, trapdoors, and staircases work.

  Which, in turn, forced all the first-floor Trolls down to the second floor with Wurgfozz’s lot ... an arrangement neither the Changelings nor their larger comrades were fond of. The Trolls of the Cruel Citadel had only been working as a team for little under a month. Many still harbored hard feelings from the backstabbing and infighting which had been the norm before Roark overthrew the former Dungeon Lord.

  Once Roark found a way to solve that last spacing hiccup, though, the Citadel would be a truly elegant griefing machine.

  Still, in spite of the minor growing pains and occasional petty revenge assassination, Roark was proud of how well the Trolls were adapting to this new way of life. They had come a long way in such a short time, and for the most part, they were working together with startling cohesion. So well, in fact, that the Cruel Citadel had been upgraded from a Tier Seven dungeon—out of only seven—to a Tier Six, attracting new, more powerful sets of heroes. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

  Roark focused on the ribbon marked Dungeon Stats, a function he’d found the day after acquiring the throne, and checked the Dungeon Leaderboard.

  Hearthworld was a massive place, home to more than a thousand dungeons. The Vault of the Radiant Shield was still in the far distant lead, with several times the kills of its closest rival and an average of less than one mob death per day. Damned near unbeatable numbers. The Cruel Citadel was nowhere near the bottom of the list, due in large part to Roark’s leadership, but it wasn’t even within screaming distance of Lowen’s dungeon. The Citadel was, however, quickly gaining on the dungeon just ahead of them—Blighted Soul Hollow.

  If they continued to rise through the rankings at this rate, it wouldn’t be long before they were upgraded to a Tier Five.

  The problem was, even if the Citadel maintained this upward progress, there was still no way they could defeat Lowen’s dungeon. Roark had spent a day studying Deadliest Catch–Exhaustive Field Guide to the Mobs of the Vast Barren Hearthworld, a book he’d turned up in the library. Troll abilities, even at the top Evolution, barely began to touch Heralds’. One on one, they’d be massacred as soundly as those heroes had been.

  Seven hells. No matter how he looked at it, Lowen had the upper hand.

  Something Griff had said to Roark once before ran through his mind: If I was up against somethin’ too big to defeat alone, I’d get an opponent to team up. At least ’til we killed the bigger threat.

  Sound advice, which had worked admirably against Azibek the Cruel—former Dungeon Lord of the Cruel Citadel.

  Roark’s eyes scanned the leaderboard again. If he could find a way to make allies out of a few of the other more powerful dungeons, perhaps they could all work together to grind Lowen and his forces down until Roark found a way to kill the bastard permanently. Not a great plan, but he saw no other way forward. He drummed his fingers once more, resuming his endless brooding. There just had to be a way. The question was how?

  Path to Progress

  USING THE TELEPATHY function of the Dungeon Lord’s throne, Roark contacted Kaz, Zyra, and Griff and told them to meet in the kitchen. Kaz was already there when Roark arrived. The Knight Thursr was nuzzling noses with Mai, the buxom young widow they had hired to train interested Trolls in the artistry of Cooking. Though it had initially looked as if there would be bloodshed between the two when Mai had insulted Kaz’s favorite chef and added additional spices to one of Kaz’s stews, they had become nearly inseparable. And sickeningly shameless about displaying their affection for one another.

  They were an odd pairing, to be sure. Kaz was easily twice the size of the buxom Mai, and no one in the Citadel had ever heard of a dungeon monster and a villager having a romantic relationship. But neither seemed to notice the oddness, and if they did, neither seemed to mind.

  As a round of giggling issued from the strange couple, Roark glanced around the kitchen, hoping to find Zyra skulking about, pretending to vomit. The shadows were disappointingly empty.

  “What’s this all about, Griefer?” Griff strode through the door, one hand wrapped around the hilt of the shortsword at his side.

  At the sound of the grizzled trainer’s voice, Mai leapt away from Kaz and began patting her hair and straightening her skirts, a bright blush filling out her pink cheeks like a young maid whose father had just caught her stealing kisses.

  “Have you seen Zyra?” Roark asked.

  “Just came from down that way,” Griff said, affixing Roark with his one remaining eye. “She wasn’t in the lab messin’ with her potions when I passed by, so your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Is everyone waiting on me, then?” The hooded Reaver Champion in question breezed into the kitchen. She sounded a touch out of breath, as if she had sprinted to the kitchen from a good distance away. Zyra made straight for the mead in the corner and poured herself a healthy flagon before downing it in a series of painfully large-looking gulps.

  “Where were you?” Roark asked.

  “Gathering supplies.” She refilled the cup, then took it to the rough-hewn table and sat. “It takes a ridiculous amount of ingredients to keep this place in Health Potions and Contact Poisons.”

  “Maybe we should put out a call for Trolls interested in Alchemy,” Roark suggested. Zyra was the Citadel’s only trained Alchemist, which was a bloody inefficient use of the resources. “A
few apprentices wouldn’t go amiss. They could fetch ingredients and run errands for you.”

  “I’m not interested in Changeling-sitting, thanks,” Zyra said.

  More likely, the paranoid Reaver Champion didn’t want another Troll working in close enough quarters to stab her in the back or slip a vial of deadly Coquelicot Extract into her ale. Roark would have to prove to her that the usefulness outweighed the risk—probably more than once—before she would give in. A fight for another day.

  “All right,” Roark said, folding his lean form into the bench at the head of the table. “We’ve seen what the Vault of the Radiant Shield has to offer, and one thing is abundantly clear—we can’t beat Lowen and his troops on our own.”

  “What we need’s allies,” Griff said, unknowingly echoing Roark’s thoughts. “More and stronger of ’em.”

  “Precisely,” Roark said, nodding in agreement. “The question is how do we go about making such allies? I’ve read up on the matter, but there’s still much I don’t know.”

  “Well, is it possible for us to just invade and claim another dungeon?” Zyra asked. “Get them fighting for us that way?”

  Roark frowned. “From what I’ve read in the Dungeon Lord Grimoire, such a thing is possible in theory, but wildly impractical in reality. If we take out another Dungeon Lord and occupy their dungeon, the rest of the Dungeon Lords will think we’re putting a target on all their backs, and that will ensure there will be no peaceful alliances made. It’ll spell war after war after war, and frankly, I’m bloody tired of civil wars.” Besides that, invading foreign territory and forcing its natives to fight for him felt much too close to a move the Tyrant King would make for Roark’s liking. “No, I think Griff is right on the mark. We need other dungeons to join us of their own free will. And to do that, we’ll need to provide some sort of incentive.”

  “Gry Feliri calls that the Honey-Glazed Carrot,” Kaz said, lifting an enormous claw-tipped finger into the air. “He says it is much more effective in creating repeat guests of your first-time diners than the Vinegar-Laced Wine approach.”

  Zyra shrugged one shoulder. “I like the Poisoned Mead for Everyone approach better. It’s faster.”

  “Faster, but not a long-term solution,” Roark said. “You’ll only make enemies, and like griefing, they’ll just keep coming back. What we need is a new way of life to offer the other dungeons, something that will help them not just survive, but thrive.”

  “Sounds like you got an idea,” Griff said, rubbing at his scruffy chin, regarding Roark through his squinted eye.

  Roark was definitely starting to get one. He kept talking, letting the inspiration unfold as he went.

  “If we can give them a chance at self-sufficiency, they won’t have to keep up the cycle of hero fighting. Skilled labor, a free market, a chance to flourish.” That had been what the Trolls of the Citadel craved. What they were still craving. A chance to live their own lives free of the invading heroes who plagued them. “What if we had a marketplace just for mobs? A place where they could gain access to Trade Skill books, training, better weapons and armor, potions, and even food. Anything that might make it possible for them to have a good life defined by more than just the heroes they’ve fought.”

  “There are already marketplaces all over Hearthworld,” Mai said. “You lot go all the time.”

  “We’ve got access to disguises,” Roark said. “The other dungeons don’t, and without a way to blend into the crowd, they’ll be killed on sight. But if they had the chance to access the same advantages the heroes can without the risk, they would be mad not to jump at it. If we could provide them an opportunity like that, I’d wager we’d have to beat allies away with a stick.”

  “But how can Roark make a market?” Kaz asked. “What will he sell? Weapons he’s smithed?”

  Griff cleared his throat. “Actually, I might know of a way. Gimme just a shake.”

  The grizzled weapons trainer ducked out of the kitchen, leaving the rest of them looking at one another in confusion.

  “You really think all this is necessary?” Mai asked. “Getting the mobs all riled up? Seems like it will just be a spot of trouble down the road.”

  Roark nodded grimly. “The man we’re up against will wipe us out without a second thought—you and Griff included—all so he can get his filthy hands on something I have.” The World Stone Pendant felt cold against his chest, though it sat atop his dark leather armor. “He’ll murder and torture and destroy anything or anyone who gets in his way. And when he finally does have his way, he’ll take the ...” Roark faltered for a beat. “The item back to a despot even worse than he is.”

  “If Roark says Lowen must be stopped, Kaz agrees,” the Knight Thursr said, puffing out his chest and straightening himself to an even greater height. “Kaz will let no one harm Roark. And if anyone even tries to harm Mai”—his blue face darkened, forehead creasing into a thundercloud of anger—“Kaz will be very upset.”

  “I told you to let me sneak into the Vault and coat everything with Virulent Contact Poison,” Zyra said, fishing a poison-coated flechette from her belt and walking it idly over her knuckles.

  Roark felt his insides go cold at the thought of Zyra getting that close to Lowen alone.

  “He’s more dangerous than you understand,” he said. “He would gladly capture and torture any one of you if he suspected you knew me. Hells, he would probably do it just for fun even if you didn’t.”

  Out in the corridor, Griff’’s boots rang on the stone floor.

  “Here it is.” The weapons trainer strode back into the kitchen and tossed a clothbound tome onto the table in front of Roark. “Settlements of Hearthworld. I’ve taken to readin’ of late to help me fall asleep. This one’s all about how to found yer own settlement. Most heroes do it by having their guild take over a small town and turn it to their uses, but a person could found a brand-new one if he were so inclined. Bein’ as you can do pretty much everything else I’ve seen heroes do, I figure you might be able to take this on, too.”

  Roark flipped open the book and began to scan the pages.

  The key to founding a new settlement was setting up the marketplace, which called for, at minimum, six hundred thousand gold pieces—no problem at the rate they were looting corpses—eleven senior officers, a coat of arms, a charter, and a series of specific professions. Roark could fill both the position of Master Blacksmith and Master Enchanter, and at the level of Gourmet, Kaz was already more than qualified to take the spot as Master Chef.

  “This says we need a Master Alchemist,” Roark said, glancing up from the page at Zyra.

  “Nearly there,” Zyra said. “A few days and I’ll have it.”

  Roark nodded. “We also need five distinct skill trainers. We’ve got Mai and Griff. We’ll need three more.” He traced a claw-tipped finger down the page and tap-tap-tapped. “And a dedicated Merchant.”

  The too-wide smile of Variok, the weapon merchant from Averi City, flashed through Roark’s mind.

  “Mai, have you talked to Variok since Kaz became a Gourmet?”

  The buxom chef shook her head. “He’s been gone the last three times I went to the market,” she replied, a tinge of irritation in her voice. “I been using another merchant. Slimy filth’s been gouging us blind. No one knows a thing about where the elf, Variok, might’ve got to. That, or they aren’t saying.”

  “We’ll have to find him,” Roark said. “If we can recruit him and fulfill the rest of the requirements laid out in the charter, we can officially found a settlement.” He read on. Having the marketplace would give them better prices, attract more and better skill trainers, and give a number of boosts to crafting—fewer ingredient costs, more efficient production, less waste when destroying an item, and faster crafting leveling.

  “Bang-up idea all around,” Zyra said dismissively. She set her cup on the table and leaned forward. “Say we do get it up and running. How is anyone from another dungeon going to visit it? It’s not as if t
hey can walk here. Roark’s the only reason we’re able to leave the Citadel at all. Are you going to go around making Vassals of everyone, or have you learned how to make Infinite Use portal scrolls that can be targeted from one dungeon to another?”

  “Fair point,” Roark conceded, dipping his head. “That’s one obstacle I don’t have a way around. Yet. But I will find one. Everyone thought killing Azibek was a fool notion as well, yet here we are.”

  “Kaz never thought such a thing!” the Knight Thursr protested, genuinely aghast. “Roark’s plans are brilliant!”

  Zyra raised her flechette.

  “I thought it was foolish.” Her hood turned to face Roark, and he thought he saw a teasing glint of teeth. “At times, I’m still undecided.”

  “After all Zyra has seen Roark do, how can she still have no faith?” Kaz insisted.

  Roark spread his hands wide to stop their bickering. “Let’s focus on the settlement. We can argue about who was right and who was wrong afterward.”

  “What should we do about Variok?” Mai asked. “It’s a decent struggle to get one merchant on your side, and that’s no lie. I’ve seen a fair few heroes try and fail, and they were high-renown folks, not terrifying Dungeon Lords of deadly Citadels.” She tucked a stray strand of blonde hair behind her ear and shot him an apologetic smile. “Only calling a spade a spade, mind you, I don’t mean no offense by it.”

  Roark waved her apology off, but Kaz spoke up.

  “Why would Roark be angry that Mai recognizes his might and excellent leadership?” the Knight Thursr asked. “Heroes should be afraid of the mighty Roark the Griefer.”

  “Because humans like to look all squishy and edible,” Zyra said.

  “Oh.” Kaz nodded. “It’s a cultural variance. Gry Feliri talks about those in Cooking With—”

  “Of course he does, love,” Mai cut him off, patting his hand. “My point is, Griefer, I’m thinking you were lucky to get the elf to warm up to you in the first place. You may not be able to do it again, and certainly not quickly.”