It occurred to me that the ‘repressed growth rate’ that I have been mentioning has not precisely matched up to what I wrote in the past… some other minor things also do not match up and I am trying to correct those errors wherever I find them.
I credit this to the speed at which I am writing and releasing BKR – it has taken me just over 7 months to reach this point for example and I think that the pace of the story could have been better… I look forward to correcting that though, writing BKR has been more fun than I expected and while rewriting it will be slightly annoying I still look forward to the results :P
Speaking of which, I would like to officially report that my plan is to finish the first major story arc (before October) and then switch to biweekly releases after DeMorte/Bella settle accounts. That should be up through November, but there might be a delay because of certain plans of mine, but December should be a weekly release schedule again.
Small, but important, change in that I have been addressing the seasons as the summer/fall/winter/spring set, but I will be changing that to the first through fourth Earth quarters whenever it comes up. This is because of the 18 day earth phase after all the other phases – which also breaks the year up into 4 quarters of 90 days a piece.
…there may or may not be a calendar change eventually, but the phases do have a purpose within the magical community.
Also: when I say SRM or MIT that is just for you the reader and me the author, so we do not have to read/write those particular phrases over and over. DeMorte is still happily saying the full phrases – especially when he gets annoyed.
Thank you for your time, please enjoy.
Chapter 30: Gate to Tartarus
Early Water Phase of cycle 3084 AF
“Frotizon, it keeps getting colder.” I mumbled to myself, testing out the new curse I had picked up. Apparently Frotizon was the place of lost or consumed souls, I was surprised to learn that it was supposedly a cold place, in comparison to Anton’s ‘Hell’ or my own lesser circles. It was also, curiously, said to be a lawless plain of existence either ignored or shunned by the gods, depending on who you asked.
I looked around the entrance to the dungeon and saw what I had seen from a distance, a big pit, with some stairs build into its descending slope as it tunneled into the ground, surrounded by 18 large stone pillars with powerful interlocking wards.
There was also an old mercenary off to the side. He had lost one leg halfway up his thigh and it looked like a hand had been amputated at the wrist, but it was hard to tell if it was medical or just an injury from a sharp blade. His job was apparently to sit around and warn off children from entering the dungeon before they were ready.
Right now he was sitting on a bench under a large wooden roof that provided some shade as he spoke to a small crowd of children. I was listening in as best I could, but I stood off to the side, barely in the shade as I looked at the wards in the stone pillars in front of us.
The wards were anchored very efficiently into the stone pillars and the way that they interlocked with each other left me in awe. They were more completely interlinked and dependent on each other than anything that I would have created. In fact, they were far beyond anything that I could have created, even if I had their ward constructions memorized and had time to try, they were just too complicated. Even with the majority of their construction hidden beneath layer after layer of wards I could only guess at what type of genius had constructed those ward.
The old mercenary – who I liked too much to call a former SRM – was telling the children about his various adventures and the friends he had fought alongside of during his glory days. I could spin some tales myself, but no one would believe me so I felt conflicted. Part of me had a strong desire to share a drink with the old merc and see who could tell the better tale, but that was not who I was right now.
I grimaced, looking briefly to the sky, which was bringing in what looked like one monster of a storm. It suited both my purposes and my attitude right now, as I felt surrounded by the enemy and cut off from any reasonable expectation of friendly forces.
The dungeon town was called Gate, despite being one of the most foolishly named cities I had ever heard of, stood in stark contrast to almost every other city I had visited in either life time for a simple and depressing reason. Gate was, despite the relative importance of being very close to a key crossroads, almost completely under the control of the so-called “Adventurers’ Guild.”
I could pick fights with a handful of self-righteous idiots any day of the cycle, but there were thousands of them in this city. It was already accepted practice here to call other adventurers when someone got drunk and the guards willing stayed away from any and all self-righteous mercenaries when they were worked up. I was almost never against the idea a good fight, even in my current state, but that would be pushing it even for me…
Of course if I was about 6 cycles older, with a fully developed body and some preparations, I could permanently retire most of them and probably cause mass panic as the mercenaries became more and more heavy handed trying to find me. Slipping out of the city without being in a large deal of danger would be difficult unless I got in a mass of people all trying to leave together, but it would certainly be interesting.
Of course that would be only be possible under conditions that simply were not reasonable at the current time, but it was fun to plan it out regardless. Though the sense of anger and concern coming from the back of my mind made me move on to other thoughts before Bella tried to give me a lecture.
I turned back to the old man, who was fielding questions at this point and slid in to chat him up about some basic things. As I had put the majority of my iron equipment in my bag and stored it at a nearby inn, I actually blended in with the talkative little ones who were busy being conditioned.
By conditioned I mean that the kids were asking him questions like: what keeps the monsters from coming out of the dungeon? They were answered with lines: the noble adventurers are keeping their numbers down and protecting us all.
I had to exercise my (not inconsiderable) acting abilities to keep an up the appearance that I was interested in what was being said, but more important topics were all deflected and turned into more mental conditioning. Thus I was stuck asking basic questions like what the average adventurer’s group was composed of, how deep was the dungeon went, and how it was formed.
It was all valuable information, but not exactly enlightening in any major way. Before I could question him much further there was also clap of thunder that scared some of the very little ones, causing him to send them home. I stayed just long enough to ask if there would be a problem for the people inside of the dungeon in the event of large amounts of rain, but it apparently got absorbed somehow and never flooded.
I left afterwards for the Adventurers’ Guild guildhall to see if anyone had taken my job offering. Part of Dioxin’s advice concerning this job had been to ask for someone to take me down to the 29th floor, where the thing I was looking was, he even supplied a small amount of silver to pay for it. I could – and would, if necessary, – force my way down to the lower floors, but the SRMs would likely defend their territory and livelihoods violently, especially down in the dungeon, which was only owned by the kingdom on paper. In reality, the strong would rule down there and if I had to incapacitate anyone it was better that I had someone the guild would trust to back up my story… otherwise the safest course of action would be to face the Guilt.
The guildhall itself was weird as it was combination of a coordinating headquarters, inn, and an alchemic trading post as people came to both hand in collected materials from the dungeon and relax while the guild paid them, minus room and board, before it resold the ingredients. It somehow managed to accomplish all of this and cater to hundreds of its guild members and the people who wanted to hire them at any given time during the day.
It was both impressive and depressing. The majority of mercenaries were average people, individuals with no magic, but I had to grudgingly admit that the so-called ‘adventurers’ were a bit different. While each of the larger mercenary companies tended to have at least a handful of mages scattered throughout their ranks, the adventurers tended to have more mages by a factor of 10. In both of my lives this was partly to do with reputation as no commoner found out they were a mage and decided to become a mercenary, they all became adventurers.
In the beginning there was probably a large amount of differences between occupations, regular mercenaries followed money and tended to end up tied to the nobility, who tried to only call them up in times of war or revolt. While adventurers were the ones who went into dangerous areas hunting grounds (at least in my previous world) to hunt down magical beasts to capture or harvest for alchemic materials.
Mercenary therefore became something of a dirty word, a sword that killed whoever it was paid to, while adventurer became a word for a defender. It was just too bad that these differences tend to fade after nature is pushed back further and further. If adventurers cannot chase down monsters in the forest, they chased down bandits, then thieves, then guard jobs, then odd jobs, and finally, they start chasing whatever pays.
Of course Mercenaries frequently did all of those same jobs, just without feeling the need to justify the smaller jobs with the same vigor that hunting magical creatures invoked. They also tended to complete the job without everyone in a city hearing about it. I never met an experienced mercenary who berated me for being a bandit, but I almost never met an adventurer who did not, despite the fact that they both moved for the sake of money. In the end, it was a job, but only one group had the decency to admit it.
Between that and the casual way that adventurers seem to publicize that they were heroes, I had been disgusted with them back in my previous life, but in this one it was actually worse. Despite the adventures not having a large presence on the wild frontier in this world, they were apparently gathered around the few dungeons that existed in large numbers. This turned a large group of hunters into a fairly major political force. After all, they were effectively an instantly available army with combat experienced mages and a large amount of public opinion behind them.
I almost could not help it, whenever I came into this building, I shivered. It was their hub of power and even without the powerful wards woven throughout the building, it would be ill advisable to be rude here… as I had to keep reminding myself.
Thankfully they were at least very efficient, technically I could have waited in my room at the inn and wait to be notified of the acceptance of my offer. In the time it took me to eat dinner someone could accept my notice and a runner would show up at my room to notify me of that acceptance. That said, as someone who had been out exploring the town recently, it would have been harder to find me, so I just walked to the application desk to check if someone had accepted it.
There were a series of window that each had a person standing there with either adventurers or people like me moving up to and away from the open windows at a fairly decent rate. It barely took any time to get up to the young woman tending to the counter, but then I remembers some key facts, like my repressed growth. I looked far younger than my 14 cycles and the fact that I had to jump up to reach the counter and then hang off of it, with my feet dangling off the floor, did not help matters any.
“Hello, I am here to look into my request to see if anyone has accepted it yet. This should be on the request form.” I pushed forward a coin like piece of bone that I had reshaped into my old banner’s symbol – the three headed winged snake with 2 blind eyes. I had given the Guild one infused with a bit of my mana to serve as proof of the job’s completion. That way I could just give my escorts another coin and the guild could match it up to confirm the job was complete without me actually being present to tell them so.
Between the material, the design, and my mana, it would be nearly impossible to duplicate or fake without the consent and assistance of the Guild itself. Which I had not discounted, but it would make my own task functionally impossible without bloodshed.
The young woman, who was of a good stout weight and appeared to be in her late-20s, gave me a polite smile and started digging through a bunch of papers off to the side. I was still surprised at how much paper existed here that they could use it for everyday activities like this, or that almost all SRMs seemed literate. It might have been a cultural difference, or they could have mages that could produce more paper and more books than in my previous world, I did not know.
After a small period of alternating between searching and looking at my coin, I figured out that she was looking through search request forms and I politely told her that it was an escort request. This let her find my request, but lead to a different problem. “Why in the name of the gods would you want to go that deeply into the dungeon? You are only a child.”
“That is my business.” I replied evenly.
“Come now, you can tell me, I am sure that whatever you are looking for on that particular floor is-“
“My business.” I replied again, cutting her off, before giving her my biggest grin to try and soften the blow. “I take it that it has not been accepted then?”
The young woman stuttered for a moment before launching back into her protective tone. “I-I should say not, most adventurers would dislike the idea of taking anyone down that low as they would have to camp in the dungeon, but if they knew the poster was a child! How under the heavens did you even apply for such a thing?!”
“With paper and quill.” I replied dryly. “If that is all then I will be leaving now miss, thank you for your help and have a nice day.”
I dropped to the floor and retreated back to my inn. Outside the rain was just starting to pour as I got in.
This might end up taking more time than I originally thought, I grimaced, before putting on a childish grin of joy as one of the inn’s owners, a nice matronly woman made sure I had a warm bowl of some type of broth in my hands. It was free for me apparently, but I still made sure to ask for a full meal and to test the soup for poison after she turned away. There did not seem to anything else to do, but enjoy the meal and wait until someone accepted.
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I stared at the aging, and balding, man behind the desk with barely contained rage. “To make sure that I understand correctly.” I spoke slowly, very slowly. I wanted to tear him apart and put him back together in new and different shapes where his ears were with his brain – up his rectum – and his arm was where his testicles had been so many years ago. “You are removing my request because of your concern for my safety and in your generosity giving me this nice little ticket worth the full amount of the money I paid ahead. Minus the holding costs and delivery of cancellation fee that is.” Plus the small deduction for slamming the delivery man into the ground in anger, but who was counting that when it was smaller than the delivery cost!?
The man nodded, the thin layer of accumulating fat showing that he had only recently decided to take this position. “You are much too young to be risking your life in the dungeon like that young Set, no, this is for your own good.”
I nearly killed the aging fool on the spot, but I was very aware of his blighted wards that would likely catch me before I could spike the ward-stone that they were anchored in. “I know of the dangers and I have told you that I accept them. That is my life and my responsibility and why I came here to hire the guard escorts.”
“Which is why I feel the need to turn you away. I cannot convince of a reason to let someone so young go into that place. Take my word for it, it is incredibly dangerous and you will be able to do whatever you need to when you are older.”
“I am 14 cycles this last metal phase and-” I carefully pulled out a proof that the sparring partner Dioxin had set me up against had given me. It was now bound to me as proof of recognition of my skill. “I understand that this is proof of one Master Krampus that I can more than take care of myself.” I had not wanted to use this thing as it could be used to trace me, but it was given to me just in case something like this happened.
That got the aging man’s attention once again and he reassessed me for a moment before making a rolling gesture with his hand. It took me a moment before I understood that he wanted me to activate it, which I did and caused a small crane appeared with a number 6 on its head. The old man looked impressed, apparently 6 was a good thing?
He spoke slowly, “That is quite impressive, Master Krampus is known as something of a taskmaster and would not give you a 6 without making you work for it… Which is all the more reason not to let you go.”
I wanted to throw the proof at him. “Why?”
“Someone as talented as you will grow into someone great and I would look forward to seeing you alive and healthy in the future to-”
He kept talking as I quietly put the proof away, with the Guilt unable to deter me any longer by this point, if I could kill him and get away, I would.
DeMorte…
I know, my last resort for dealing with wards really does have to be a last resort.
Correct. Now, tell me why wards need an anchor, it might help distract you.
Wards… Wards need to be anchored somewhere physical…
I took a deep breath and released, concentrating on thinking and trying to let some of my anger go.
…because the world has natural mana that would interfere with and decay the ward instructions if they were not put some place solid, some place tangible. Usually stone because that is what lasts the longest.
Though it makes them vulnerable, right?
Yes, anyone who breaks the ward-stone shatters the wards, which is why short term wards for things like field battles or nightly encampments are not anchored into something definitive.
I concentrated again on the present and sent a thanks to Bella. The man had stopped talking and was looking at me expectantly, so I gave him one more chance. “I respect and appreciate that you are trying to look after my well-being, but that is my business and no one else’s. It is my life sir and honestly you have no right or responsibility to tell me what I can or cannot do with it.”
I met the fool’s eyes with all the strength and false respect that I could, but it was no use. “That may be, but it is my responsibility to determine who and what goes down into that dungeon and I do not think that you should be going down there without at least waiting a few cycles first. I am sorry if you feel that is unfair, but that is the way it is.”
I sighed and looked out the window into the rain. It did not look like it would be stopping any time soon. “I hope that you will reconsider as I will be stuck here until the rain passes and I cannot risk going down there without an escort.” I looked back at him, resisting the urge to prey that he would fold, as I was speaking in more hope than expectation.
“I am afraid that that will not happen, but I know that when you do go down there you will appreciate what I say now when I tell you that it is a bad idea. We lose fully prepared individuals who go in there and they train for cycles before they go in.”
At least with my parting line I made it sound like I would wait a few days… that should at least lessen the likelihood of him sticking a follow on my tail.
I stood up and declined to shake his hand. Apparently that was the newest fashion among mages in powerful wards, as a sign of trust of complete trust. Naturally, my killing intent, while diminished, would be transmitted through any physical contact and tip the fool to what I was planning.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
It was still early and I had time to get back and get some magically enforced sleep before I disregarded the fool and took matters into my own hands.
Bella did not say anything more as I walked out the Guild room that I had been brought to. I saw the annoying woman I had talked to earlier looking relieved and had to fight the urge to shoot her a large amount of killing intent. I was angry enough now that, even if I had forced that anger back under control, my killing intent might cause her to collapse in fear.
If her heart was weak I might have even killed her by accident.
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It was still raining after my rest, but had it not been, not even twilight would have lit the sky. It would still be dark as Gorith’s shroud and the rain was actually better for concealment than a night without clouds.
I quickly got geared up and prepared in my full armor set. Bone armor on the inside, padding, iron chainmail, and finally a thick cloak that would double as a blanket if I wanted it to. I also had my two swords along with some extra equipment that I had picked up on my way to the dungeon.
I had wanted another layer of leather armor over the top of my chainmail, but both the weight and bulk was already annoying, even for me and my enhanced muscles. Instead I picked up a set of 6 iron spikes, thick enough to survive being embedded in the wall by a Gía enhanced throw. As I had already asked around, I knew that my regular javelins were more useful against human targets as certain magical beasts had thick skin so I only took 2 of them with me.
The spikes and javelins were annoying to carry, but they might be worth it, so I tied them together like tent posts and carried them over my shoulder along with a good supply of food and a spare pouch for my target on the 29th floor, which apparently needed to be harvested and stored away from all sunlight…
Overall I was really overloaded, but I wanted to make sure that I had everything I could need. My Gía reserves were fairly high as well, meaning I could fight at super human levels for a few days before I would run low. I had even managed to spend some time expanding my mana instead of just storing more Gía, although I was still a good 5 or 6 cycles away from another circle expansion.
I left the inn through the back door after quietly making my way down the stairs and though the building. There was still one person up, but I dodged him and let the rain cover what loud clunking and clinking that I could not help making.
If I had not half expected trouble outside the front door, I would have simply covered up all of my supplies and carried them through the rain to lessen the sound I made, but I was not sure that the guild official that I talked to had not tried to stick a tail on me.
Of course, in this rain, any tail would stick out with a basic night vision spell and the only place that they could head me off was the dungeon itself, so I just concentrated on being ready for a confrontation. If I could get out of this without one that would be best – disappointing, but best – however, what I really did not want was anyone going in after me.
Still, I moved through the rain alone and tried to watch out for any followers without using magic. Naturally, in the pouring rain it was an unreasonable expectation, but I still tried to minimize any possible mana signature except when necessary to see where I was going when it got too dark, even for my eyes.
Eventually I arrived at the entrance to Tartarus, which seemed even more of a pit in the pouring rain. If the old man from earlier was right it should not matter how much water there was, but the steps descending to the entrance were flooding from the rain. Walking down those steps was tricky, but I took it slowly and managed to avoid being swept off my feet. Though I did do a rather creative dance at one point to keep from falling down.
As I approached the bottom of the stairs though, the small river that was flowing quite rapidly past my ankles, was suddenly sucked into the ground. It was an eerie effect to watch, but the torrent of water simply hit a certain point in the ground and lost a great deal of its speed, with the water that managed to move beyond that point quickly sinking into the ground.
After a small jump I went from almost being washed off my feet to standing on dry land while the rain poured behind me. It appeared that I was formally in the dungeon.
Although I had to work for the information I knew that the magical beasts and monsters which inhabited the dungeon would only start to appear after the first 3 floors of the dungeon so I moved along as quickly as possible, eager to get this over with.
I only paused to cast an illusion spell on me to make me look like I had in my previous life. Both Set and Bella were distinctive for their size, but my illusion spell made sure that anyone who saw me would first remember a grown man, instead of a compact child. In the event anyone had not seen me getting here, but was still waiting for me inside, it would be extremely convenient.
Surprisingly there was no one waiting for me inside either, the caverns were fairly big, but empty, simply open formations of some type of stone. The room that I was in was at least 5 meters wide at the entrance, but that varied, while the 4 meter height seemed fairly uniform. I could not see the end of the room as it curved out of sight.
The ground was not perfectly even, but it was smooth enough for the most part and I was not particularly worried about anything hiding in the occasional crack. It did not look completely natural, but there were no drill marks or anything like that. It was wrong in some way that I could not put my finger on, although that might have just been the red light that seemed to permeate the dungeon, removing my need for a magic based light or torch.
Something about the dungeon did seem familiar though…
Wait DeMorte, something is wrong…
What do you mean Bella? I can feel something is off, but unless you have a specific idea of what is it…
Actually I might, it feels like something is different about the mana and… actually it reminds me of a specific memory of yours: The one where you got Osiris to copy Gorith’s shroud.
I inhaled sharply, that was a particularly scary thought. If the mana around us was like Gorith’s shroud than it would mean that the air itself was already claimed. Perhaps by the dungeon itself, which was a particularly scary thought.
How did you notice that?
I was board and decided to compress our mana a little through cultivation, but the mana around us actually resisted me, try it yourself!
I reached out with my mana and tried to cultivate the natural mana around me, but it was just like Bella said, the mana resisted. Though I noticed that, instead of trying to pull away from me in whatever direction it could, it pulled towards one end of the hall, deeper into the dungeon.
Curious, I added it on my list of things to keep an eye on while in here.
As I walked I tried several experiments to see how the mana around me reacted. The results were mostly negligible, but there were 2 definite surprises. First, most of the mana naturally went in one direction, down deeper into the dungeon, with the rest of the mana disappearing into the walls. This was interesting, but the real surprise came when I reached the second floor and I realized that the mana seemed to be becoming thicker as well. Which meant that, despite the fact that some mana was being lost into the walls, more mana was coming from somewhere else.
The second surprise nearly scared my senseless. I was hallway through the second floor and had confirmed that there seemed to be no one near me (So far I had only passed one group who was heading out, but we only exchanged a brief greeting) I used Gorith’s Shroud.
Not only did I have to rip the mana in the air away from whatever had laid claim to it, the mana around me shook and reacted… violently. I had never heard of or seen mana acting like it did at that time. It reminded me of my old graveborn, Regus, and how he used MIT (mana implosion technique) to cause havoc in someone’s body, but much worse.
For natural mana to attack someone like that, was unheard of and I would have called it impossible if it had not happened to me. Of course, it was not truly ‘natural’ mana as it seemed to be under the control of the dungeon itself, but the fact that is was surrounding us on all sides and lacked anywhere near the oppressive atmosphere of Gorith’s shroud made it different.
Anyway, when I successfully created the shroud, the mana around it that I did not claim shook and then began to pick at my shroud, pulling at it in different directions. Then, after I refused to let the shroud be picked apart, the mana seemed to snap against it. To me it felt like a hammer of a spell coming down on one of my wards, but it did not stop. After a few more hammer blows it actually got worse and I had to deliberately start watching where the large concentrations of mana were to help brace against the blows.
It took me a while of being beaten around with mana before I finally realized that the mana was being directed from one specific point in the wall. I marked it in my mind and slowly let the shroud disperse. Fortunately, whatever had caused the violent reaction to my shroud also abated at this time, otherwise it would have been a very unpleasant trip to the top – iron only filters mana instructions, so raw mana like that could easily slam me into a wall or two if I was not careful… assuming that it did not work like MIT and tries to destroy my organs.
After that I investigated the area that seemed to have been controlling the mana, but there was nothing visible. It was the oddest thing I had ever experienced.
I was still thinking about what in the world that could mean when I ran into a checkpoint right before the sloped decent to the third floor. (Another mystery to figure out as the sloped decent seemed flawlessly added into the otherwise flat tunnels)
It turned out that adventurers had a proof with their combat ranking on it and would deliberately block anyone from going into the dungeon without this proof or an escort who had the requisite combat ranking.
When I tried to tell them that I was in a hurry and left it at the Guild they refused to let me pass. Even when I tried to tell them that I needed something from a specific monster on the fifth floor, they still would not bend. (The particular monster I named was well know because parts of it made a powerful variant of the pregnancy termination potion)
We were just arguing until I heard them say “this is for your own protection,” at which point I found myself standing over someone who was crying on the ground, holding a broken wrist.
“I would appreciate it,” I said coldly, “if you never assume to know what is best for my health. I am just trying to be polite and not force my way past, despite the fact that none of you lesser-souled could stop me.” I looked around and made sure that the half dozen men there understood that they were dealing with a mage, even though using the ‘lesser-souled’ insult made me feel sick.
One of them tried to stammer something about the Guild not standing for such action, but I calmly ignored him for a moment and constructed a healing spell for the crying wimp. I used it on him and turned to the stutterer “I think that my abilities should be evidence enough of my combat rank, but if you would like to report me, you are right the Guild will take action.” I stepped up closer to him. “I will be punished and then, you and all of your friends will run into a string of bad luck and regret having ever seem me. Or…” I smiled and stepped back, giving them room to breathe, “You can let me pass this one time and I promise to bring my proof next time.”
They let me pass. Though I had no confidence that they would refrain from reporting me to someone – that was what the illusion spell was for though.
I walked through most of the third floor without spotting anything of note before I started walking through a maze. It was creepy, all the passages of the maze were around an even meter wide and went up to the ceiling so that I could not jump over it. It also looked incredibly precise, with each wall and pathway looking the exact same despite the fact that they seemed to grow out of the ground.
Fortunately, it was easy enough to fallow the mana through the maze without issue, but right after I got out of the maze I came to the first of the Dungeon’s famed residents.
In this case, it looked like a giant rat… with an armor like shell. I tried to cast a stun spell on it and move on, but it partly resisted, reminding me of the modified humans inside the fear runes. The poor thing never knew that was a mistake and thought it could attack me.
One of the few unbroken rules that I had found in all my cycles on any world, was that anything that could resist mana could not use it. There was even a type of ‘bad iron’ out there that did not filter magic instructions, but nothing that resisted mana used it to attack. That was no exception this time, but my rat like specimen did manage to surprise me by spitting something I thought might be poison.
At that point it had my full attention. I stepped out of the way as it tried to bite me and kicked it as hard as I could, sending it sailing through the air into a wall.
I kicked the rat like thing around a few more times before it tried to run away. I took out one of my short swords and quickly gave the creature one last kick before gutting its more lightly armored underside. I did not even need to use any Gía.
Since I had never seem anything like the rat before and I was also curious on how it survived down here so I decided to dissect it.
I could feel curiosity radiating out from Bella and for the first time in a while we were in complete agreement. This is going to be “fascinating,” I finished quietly.
We smiled.
[Quick author’s question here, do I need to start putting parentheses around mental conversations or is it still easy enough to follow? Just curious]
* * *
City of Spina, on the western edge of the Eastern continent, in the slums:
5 weeks prior
Diogenes smiled on the outside, but inside his heart wept for the horrors around him. Tophon’s mighty beacon of light seemed to be unable to reach this dark place.
Diogenes could reach it though, he could reach it and he could change it, he knew he could. The aid work was going so well and the children seemed bright and full of energy. He tried to never judge them, but they were so used to being distrusted that seeing them relax and play because of his work made it worthwhile.
It was all the horrors beyond that haunted him though. He tried not to judge the whores for their trade, nor the prowling men looking for rich individuals to rob, but he did judge them on some level and despite his trust in Tophon’s holy light, he felt like he was fighting a battle up hill, on all sides when it came to distributing food to those in need.
The nobles and merchants were happy to take his coin, drawn from collections that they themselves had given, but they were not happy to have less of the lower classes surviving the fourth earth quarter. The cities were all populous enough and the sewer systems were backed up – or so they claimed.
When Diogenes had lead 200 people out to where there was supposedly an overflow, there was very little work to be done.
The problems in the slums also presented him with another issue as vicious gangs occasionally attacked him, wanting to claim the food he was going to distribute for themselves.
Others in the priesthood also disagreed with Diogenes, stating that the money would be better spent on preparing for the various visions that they had been receiving about the coming of a time of great change.
Still, they persisted and week after week, Diogenes shown the light of Tophon in the slums and made sure that the children had some place safe to rest after they took their fill.
Now though, a new problem was gathering outside of the building they were in, a building that had once been a temple dedicated to the great glory of Tophon’s light, a building that he had wanted to re-consecrate as a new temple. The guard were here, in force.
They were here to take him into custody for an old crime, one that he had committed before his eyes were opened to the glory that was Tophon’s light! That they were here, instead of waiting for him at his home or his formal church, spoke volumes of what they thought of him.
The children had not noticed, but a friend of Diogenes’ a good man in the corrupt guard, had come ahead to tell him – the guard were going to read the charges in public before they arrested him too, adding insult and stupidity to the already strong possibility of injury.
No, it is not my place to judge them, I am nothing more than a humble servant of the true judge, Tophon. Diogenes said a silent prayer and told one of his followers to look after the children, before making his way outside.
Even if the holy consecration was complete, he would not allow those wards to be used against the guard.
Walking out onto the front steps, Diogenes bathed himself in the light of the world. Even as his insides churned with anger and resentment at the sound of the guard’s boots, the light gave him a brief peace.
He walked forward, down the steps and to the guard captain, who was stepping forward and had just unfurled a scroll, his bright yellow cloak indicating his rank as one of Tophon’s chosen, a noble mage.
Diogenes reached out and placed a weathered hand on the scroll as the captain lifted it up. “There are children here.” Diogenes said simply, hoping that the man would understand.
The captain sneered and shifted the scroll for a moment to backhand Diogenes. The blow sent him spinning and landed him several paces away. On of Tophon’s chosen indeed, Diogenes thought ruefully to himself.
The guard captain then unfurled the scroll again and announced to the whole world that Diogenes was under arrest for ‘crimes against nature’ – the formal charge for the acts of buggery that Diogenes had committed so many years ago to stay alive on these same streets.
He felt many eyes upon him, but Diogenes had already confessed these sins under the light of Tophon and had never felt any guilt for his actions, he stayed alive when others died and had lived to feel the glory of Tophon’s light, which was what mattered.
By the time Diogenes had risen, a crowd had gathered and the guard had their weapons ready. There could be no violence though, so Diogenes simply walked up to the captain again and put his smile back on his face.
Shaking his head, the captain called him a cowardly creature of the lowest order. Diogenes however, walked past him, only pausing to look back and ask if they were going to the castle holding system or the local one.
The captain’s face seemed to turn colors and Diogenes felt an inner satisfaction despite himself before he turned away and slowly began walking towards the castle. The guard formed up around him naturally and they acted for a moment as if he was the actual caption.
The crowd grew while this happened.
Then the captain came up behind Diogenes and forced him to walk faster, pushing him as the guard formed a protective barrier around him.
Nearby, unseen, a Nalk was weighing the options and trying to determine how this should go, as it had yet to formally pick its player and was eager to see if his favorite stepped up like it hoped he would.
This Nalk was new to the Game after all and wanted to make sure that it had calculated correctly.