As soon as it stopped, the Outpost Leader said, “So you are. Three gold then; two for your Raider Level and one for returning this tracker.”
“What…was that?”
The Elven woman looked confused as well before she smiled at him. “Oh, I was just using my Analyze Ability on you; I guess you’ve never felt that before, am I right?”
“Uh…no?”
“I’m sorry, I should’ve warned you. All it does is see your Raider Level and Class, which allowed me to see that you were telling the truth.”
Sterge didn’t like it, but if it allowed them to get another gold piece then he guessed the strange feeling was worth the temporary discomfort. “So, six gold pieces total for the both of us?”
“No, three gold pieces for your group to share. Since it seems as though you’re a group of two, then that won’t be too hard to split up,” the Elf said, pulling three flashy gold coins from her belt pouch.
He looked at Gwenda and shrugged. It was completely unfair after all they had gone through that they didn’t even qualify for more of a reward, but he assumed that if they had been part of the Raider Delving Clan before their recent joining that they would’ve known those rules. There was so much they didn’t know about what they were doing that they could only blame themselves for not asking. At least they would still be getting some sort of reward; three gold pieces was still a lot of money for a pair of farmers.
Of course, they had been planning on spreading the reward around to the rest of the people in their village, as the coming days would likely be hard on them with the influx of Raiders that were sure to be heading their way. Three gold wouldn’t go far for everyone, though each would receive at least a little; Sterge and Gwenda had no need for all the gold, after all, so it was better to spread it around to those who would likely need it.
As she handed the coins over – to Gwenda, as she was the one that would carry their money – the Clan Outpost Leader added something that might end up solving their village’s problem. “Also, since you were the ones that found the dungeon, there is no Clan tax on anything you – or your group, up to five members – find inside the dungeon. In addition, you’ll receive a tenth of a percent of the normal 5% tax collected from anyone who delves through this particular dungeon for the period of five years, payable by the local Outpost after every year. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but over the years it can add up; though, with a new dungeon like this, it might only amount to maybe a dozen or two gold all told. So, it’s not all bad, right?”
That sounded much better. It still wasn’t the 50,000 gold that they could’ve gotten, but it was better than nothing.
“One last thing. When we get set up and groups of Raiders are delving through the dungeon on the regular, the two of you – as long as you’re in the same group – will be able access the dungeon without having to put your names on the list once a week; just let those in charge know at least six hours beforehand so they can shuffle some things around.”
“List? What are you talking about?” Gwenda asked.
The Elven Outpost Leader chuckled softly. “I forget that you two are relatively new to being Raiders. This place is about to get inundated with new Raiders from all over the land, because there aren’t any other safe, lower-difficulty dungeons around. The only way we can keep any sense of order is by compiling a list – a schedule if you will – of when groups can get into it; it’s been…oh…at least a dozen years since the last new quality dungeon was found, and if I remember correctly, the list at that time went months into the future,” she said, shaking her head. “Like I said, though, as long as you’re both in the same group, your entire group will have priority…so choose your groupmates wisely, because there are those that might want to take advantage of your inexperience.” She said it as though it was a bad thing.
Some of what she said echoed some of what the dungeon’s poem had hinted at, which had to mean something. Sterge still wasn’t exactly sure what that might be, but if they did decide to go back to the dungeon they would certainly be selective in who they went with. For now, though, it was time they got back home; as it was, it would probably be dark by the time they got back.
They thanked the Clan Outpost Leader and she showed them out, where they started their journey back home. Sterge couldn’t help but think of all the work that he needed to do in the fields the next day; he hadn’t been planning on using an entire day to do all of this.
And strangely enough, I’m hungry again.
* * *
The door closed behind the two Hill Dwarves and Trevelyan walked back to her desk, glancing at the hated paperwork that seemed to permeate her life – even in this backwater Outpost on the edge of nowhere. She had taken this post because she wanted a quieter life for a few decades; ever since she lost her love to a delve gone bad a few years ago, nothing seemed to interest her anymore. Although she still had the skills to fight through some of the toughest dungeons around, she…didn’t really care. She was prepared to just fade into the background and retire somewhere – perhaps back home in the Eldenwood Forest – but there was a saying in the Clan: once in the Clan, you’re always in the Clan.
That was especially true once you got to a certain Level of Power and achieved a little – or a lot – of notoriety. After hitting Raider Level 98, there were very few in the Raider Delving Clan that didn’t know her name – other than raw recruits like the two that had just left – and it was almost impossible to “fade into the background”. By refusing to actually delve anymore, however, she was stuck with the only other choice for someone like her: management. She wanted to be as far away from the hustle-and-bustle of the big cities near the most popular dungeons because there were entirely too many people who reminded her of…good times.
In Heftington, however, most of the residents didn’t know who she was; even the few groups of Raiders that frequented the Outpost and helped her run it didn’t recognize her because of her appearance. Once they learned her name they knew who she was, of course, but she didn’t advertise the fact that she was there. It had been a relatively quiet couple of years there and she was enjoying herself…but that was obviously about to change.
Trevelyan hadn’t been at the Outpost the day when Harwood’s corpse had been returned by the two Hill Dwarves, but she certainly heard about the incident. She was just glad her subordinates didn’t kill them out of hand for the supposed murder of the Ranger, because that would’ve reflected poorly on her administration; it would’ve been wrong too, she supposed, but that was beside the point. She applauded their decision to make them Raiders, though, because it didn’t cost them anything but two sets of old starter gear that only the rawest of Clan recruits would deign to wear – and they didn’t get many new recruits out this way.
While she might not be killing dangerous monsters inside dungeons anymore, sometimes it felt like the Outpost’s budget was trying to kill her; anything to save a few coppers or silvers here and there was important.
Take the finder’s fee, for example. Trevelyan didn’t actually lie or cheat the two Hill Dwarves, but she didn’t tell them everything, either. While they couldn’t get the maximum amount of the reward because they weren’t Raider Level 20 yet, they certainly could’ve registered as a search participant and spent a day drawing some maps and making sketches. That would’ve entitled them to up to 500 gold pieces if they had asked to do that…and yet they hadn’t thought to ask. She would’ve paid them using the Outpost’s funds first and then her own – sizable – reserve when that was used up, and then be reimbursed…at some point in time.
That was the hitch there; reimbursement tended to take a long time, years sometimes; she had just gotten the Outpost’s budget stable over the last few months and she didn’t want anything to mess it up. That’s why she paid the two inexperienced Raiders out of her own reserve, rather than mess it up; it was worth the expense for peace of mind, if nothing else.
Then again, the absolute craziness that was about to descend o
n her corner of the world – if the two Raiders were telling the truth, which was likely after looking at the tracker – was about to mess everything up anyway. True, it would probably inject more income into the budget, which was always a good thing, but she was not looking forward to policing the hordes of snot-nosed, stuck-up, worthless excuses of trash that were likely to come with the normal, everyday Raiders that just wanted somewhere to go and develop their skills without having to hope that they’d survive in one of the more dangerous dungeons.
Wealthy merchant trash, granted, but still trash.
Thousands of years ago, they still had nobility ruling the different lands, but now everything was run by the Raider Delving Clan; no one could compete with the raw power and strength that millions of Raiders could present, though the Merchant Guilds had been pushing against that authority for hundreds of years. No one was denied access to the Clan, of course, which led wealthy merchants to register their sons and daughters as Clan members, so that they could become powerful in their own right. Of course, they never really saw much danger while they improved their Raider Level, because deep pockets could afford to pay for “bodyguards” that would protect them as they delved through difficult dungeons.
But if there was anything she knew about merchants – they were always looking for a better deal and a way to save some coin. A new dungeon like the one near Heftington would certainly qualify for that, as they wouldn’t need to shell out hundreds of golds to those bodyguards each time they wanted their offspring to earn Power. That was why she was sure there would be hundreds or thousands of them flocking south like a locust swarm, consuming and destroying everything in their path.
There was nothing to be done for it, however. Trevelyan did feel a little bad for the residents of her little town here, and even more for the nameless village farther south – they had no idea what was coming their way.
As she sat down to start writing the various correspondence that would soon be communicated to those in charge of the Raider Clan Headquarters back north, and from there to all of the known world, Trevelyan couldn’t help but think of the two Hill Dwarves that had upset the gentle and peaceful life she had there – not that it was their fault, necessarily. What she really thought about, though, was what she saw when she Analyzed them both; more specifically, it was what she couldn’t see that bothered her the most.
The two new Raider recruits appeared as inexperienced as could be, even if they were Level 2; everything looked as normal as she had expected, and she had to admit that she was a bit surprised that they had already achieved so much so quickly – and survived their first taste of a dungeon without anyone dying. That wasn’t always a given with these new dungeons, especially when the inside was unknown; what was even more impressive was that they made it out alive with only two people in their group.
Toward the bottom of the list – she had omitted to the two that she could see more than just their Raider Level and Class – were their Abilities, which also seemed normal. However, besides the normal Abilities she would expect to see in a Melee and Caster Class, they each had two more…that hurt her head when she tried to investigate what they were. She’d never encountered something like that before in all of her 216 years of life, though there were many times when an Ability or other information was deliberately hidden from her Analyze skill. When that happened, there was nothing to indicate that it was even there; this, though, was like something wanted her to see that there were Abilities there but didn’t want to actually show her what they were.
The failure to see them was perplexing, but she had enough practice training her face and emotions that she was pretty sure she didn’t let the two know she had seen the obscured Abilities. What they actually meant was a mystery, but she wasn’t one to pry into someone’s business like that – unless it somehow threatened her or those under her charge. If that was the case, then she would use all of the Power at her command to rip that information out of their heads whether they wanted to tell her or not. For now, she’d let them keep their secret; she didn’t want something else to bother her while she prepared for the arrival of thousands of Raiders.
It couldn’t be that important, right? I mean, they’re only Level 2 and barely know how to hold a mace, for goodness sake.
Trevelyan put them out of her mind as she finished up her missives and called for a pair of runners. As the two messengers left, she sat back down at her desk and put her head in her hands, thinking about everything else she needed to arrange. And so it begins…
Chapter 31
You’re Lily MageDaisy, and you can’t allow yourself to panic. She kept telling herself not to lose it after the last few months of disaster. What had started as a few hopefully isolated incidents of unexpected Dungeon Core destruction had turned into a full-scale epidemic. In the entire world there were thousands of dungeons scattered around, which helped to regulate the Raider population and power to keep the world in balance; however, starting with the destruction of a Core almost ten months ago, over a dozen middling-to-low powered Cores had been destroyed for no explicable reason.
To make things worse, the frequency of such occurrences seemed to be increasing.
“Where was this last one?” she asked, looking towards the Council’s leader, Malachite. For being nearly 15,000 years old, the stern-faced Fairy looked remarkably good for his age and moved as quickly as a sprightly youngster. She watched him descend from the viewing platform and silently point to a spot to the northeast of the continent of Abenlure, where there was now an empty space. He placed a red flag there, joining the other flags that were dotted all over the rest of the continent.
Lily flew up above the massive Core Map and tried to see if there was any correlation between them. Thousands of glowing lights showed where Cores were located, with their intensity indicating how powerful they were in relation to each other; she had been told at one point that the “trackers” that Raiders used to find new dungeons were based on something similar, but the ones that the Fairies used were much more detailed and inclusive. The only thing that the Raiders’ trackers had over their Core Map was the ability to see if a dungeon was already open to the surface, but then again, they reportedly had to be fairly close to determine that information – so she didn’t really see the benefit.
“I see absolutely nothing linking any of these incidents. Do you?” Lily asked after looking at everything over the last few hours. Each dungeon that had been destroyed was located in wildly different areas, were fairly different in their construction and the creatures and traps that they consisted of, and they were of varying strength; the only thing that they all had in common was that they were all on the Abenlure continent. That didn’t really mean much, though, as 95% of the world’s population of intelligent races and 99% of all dungeons were located on the giant continental landmass.
Malachite said nothing as he shook his head and none of the other three Council members had any other suggestions, either. Lily looked worriedly at the large rectangular indicator that floated 15 feet above the Core Map, otherwise known as the Balance Bar. It glowed with a direct link to the primordial forces that permeated the world, and was a way for them to see how “in balance” everything in the world was at the moment. Currently, it was tilted slightly in one direction, which from experience she knew was towards the intelligent races of the world. It wasn’t dangerously unbalanced yet, but it was sure to get there unless they figured out why everything was happening – and somehow put a stop to it.
As she was staring at the map, out of the corner of her eye she saw a Core light flicker. Less than a second after she focused on it, she saw it disappear. “Ok, this is getting out of hand. Can anyone tell me which one that was?”
One of the other Council members flew over to their Core List located off to the side, where she began flipping through sheets of paper. “It looks like it was—”
“Excuse me, Council members,” Lily heard from behind her. It took her a moment to recognize Azalea, who
was keeping an eye on the waiting room. “There’s a frantic Assistant by the name of Dahlia here to see you.”
Lily looked back down on the Core Map and sighed; Dahlia is Bonded with a Core right around where that light just disappeared; or maybe I should say was Bonded to a Core there.
“Tell her I’ll be there in a moment,” Lily said sadly without even turning around as she watched the Balance Bar tilt the tiniest fraction more. A hesitant throat-clearing from Azalea caused her to finally look at her before she snapped out. “Yes? Is there something else?”
“Uh, there’s also another Assistant named Shale here with a report of some kind?”
Shale…Shale…oh! “Tell him that I’m not really concerned about Tacca’s death anymore – we have much bigger problems. If he says his Bonded Core’s development is progressing well enough, then he can continue doing what he’s doing and not to worry about the investigation; you might mention that I may need to keep him there longer than originally planned, however.”
“Umm…but he mentioned something strange about Tacca’s death that you should probably—”
“I DON’T CARE ABOUT THAT RIGHT NOW!” she yelled without thinking. She took in a calming breath and let it out slowly as she closed her eyes. She wasn’t sure what color her Mood Dress was at the moment, but the silence that descended over the Council chamber and her own raging emotions probably meant it was a murderous red color. The stress of the situation was starting to get to her, and she had to take control of herself before she did something to exacerbate the problem.
When she finally calmed down enough to open her eyes, she glanced down to see that her Dress was the calming light-blue she usually tried to maintain, and she suddenly felt a little better. Looking around, she saw that the other Council Members were staring at her except for Malachite, who was staring intently at the Core Map. Of Azalea, there was no sign – she must’ve followed my orders, then.
The Dungeon Fairy: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 1) Page 30