Nearly 230 followers 0.0? Does that mean I can finally put up the next bonus poll? Or does everyone just want another bonus chapter? I feel like there has been a distinct lack of comments lately, but that might have something to do with the rapid scene changes? Or perhaps you readers feel that there is not much going on? Idk, this chapter was slower, but the next 2 are basically dialog, blood, the dungeon, and SRMs going nuts, so I do not feel bad about it. Hopefully, I can start closing some holes and start going for some reveals in those 2 chapters.
Chapter 35 will be different than the others and may or may not be after a cycle long time skip, depending on the story.
Change/Addition list:
-DeMorte’s original favorite weapon was the atlatl dart, but I am going to change that to just a simple javelin.
-The whole scene with DeMorte body packing his mithril disk? That stays only because of the impromptu nature of the whole thing, but right now he simply has the disk in a cloth pouch with a lot of iron filings. This keeps all spells from finding it, though it does look extremely suspicious and as it is so valuable, so he took it down into the dungeon with him.
-DeMorte’s ‘monitor’ magical devices worked by using both the natural mana around them to charge and the person who had the ‘monitor’ device implanted in them – DeMorte also removed them before leaving the Entrials area – these devices used very little magic though, which is why they could more or less recharge on their own, unlike most MDs.
-the rest areas occasionally get attacked from either side by the dungeon, but never by a boss, which is why they fortify on both sides despite the fact that areas between floors are meant to be rest areas.
-The last few PoV changes to the city of Spina will be backdated a bit so that they occur as flashbacks, with this chapter’s 3rd person PoV being concurrent with the story.
Possible future changes:
-I had a few points were DeMorte was going down a list in his head of possible actions to take and what he thought the consequences of those actions would be, but that might be removed soon. It was meant to show you how he thinks, but I have been looking at it lately and wondering if I should not change it to paragraph form – please post if you have an opinion one way or another.
Chapter 32: Encounter
“Wanker!”
I felt a little piece of myself die as I watched the non-epic struggle of a group of adventurers against something that looked like an oversized cat with thin, moveable, fleshy tentacles that the adventurers called ‘stingers’ coming out of its back. I could not even revel in the new curse as the fight seemed to be completely unworthy of it.
Why do none of them realize that this is about technique? I wondered, watching them dance around and miss opportunity after opportunity.
Then I realized what they were waiting for, as the creature snapped at one of them, another stepped in and stabbed the side of its neck with his spear. The blow was not instantly fatal, which was what made me think of the answer, these people were hunting this particular creature for its body and were trying to preserve as much of the body, and their profit by extension, as possible.
It was good, straightforward, mercenary work, and although I was tempted to remind them of that fact, I kept it to myself. Though the fact that I was stalking them from a fair distance back did help in that regard.
The group had a mage with them, but between nature of the dungeon and my own skill at hiding my magical power, they had not noticed me. We were currently near the sloping entrance on the 15th floor and I was not going to wait forever, but the passage had yet to branch off into multiple paths, leaving me with this group in the way.
I could backtrack a little by going back up to the 14th floor, but I had no idea how fast or slow my pursuers would be as they might be checking every possible hiding place, or just be racing through as fast as they could.
They quickly switched to defense and played for time until their prey was dead, at which point the mage and one other member of the group of 6 stood guard (both looking away from me oddly) while 3 of the others got to work dismembering the corpse. The last one had a few minor injuries and took the time to rest while watching the 3 work quickly to get their materials.
So I instead decided to wait just long enough for them to come down off of their battle high and start the dissection of the corpse before I calmly walked out.
I was using a slightly different illusion, this time I was an older, uglier version of myself. Not ugly enough to be easily remembered of course, but enough to make me discomforting to the eyes. I also added around 80 kilos of fat to him, to make sure that once the mage felt my strength, he would assume that I was well prepared for my dive… or at least rich and powerful enough to make their lives miserable if they decided to annoy me.
Of course, there was one thing that I forgot, I was alone and that was an oddity.
As a result, when I started walking up to the group, the first question out of their collective mouths concerned the location of the rest of my group. I ignored them and strolled past without a word.
To my slight surprise, they only yelled a few insults at me and went back to work dissecting the corpse. Though it would make sense that they wanted to concentrate on the money… Well, their reaction did not matter to me, as long as they were not going to make unnecessary drama.
After I turned a corner and walked through a room with 3 of those same cat-like-things I decided to conserve my mana and cancelled my illusion spell. The 3 creatures had only taken a few stabs to kill with a quickly formed bone spear, but keeping up an illusion spell without anyone around was just a waste of mana.
Of course, I kept my senses on the lookout for anyone else in the dungeon, but I was clear for now.
I shifted the weight of my iron spikes and gave a quiet sigh of annoyance. There had still been no magical creatures that actually used magic, much less something that justified using the spikes. The giant snake was the best target I had found so far and even that was simply not work risking the iron for.
In fact, very few of the creatures here were even worth making a bone javelin for, as a spear was much more effective for killing almost every creature I ran into. With or without Gía, I could still make my way through these floors with minimal danger… although it was at least a little more challenging without Gía to speed me up.
Naturally, I still stopped just long enough to check the creature’s anatomy and see what its stingers could actually do, before quickly moving on.
Even so, I was somewhat disappointed with the lack of powerful magical creatures that the SRMs liked to talk about up on the surface. So far, the majority of difficulty for any non-mage would be to find the weak spots in every creature’s armor and to team up with a mage of any level to kill something like the snake.
Stones, steel blades were sharper than iron and could – to a limited extent – channel mana, so one mage who used their Gía correctly could easily kill everything up to this point by themselves. Non-mages would find it annoying, but if they worked together well enough, the dangers outside of some of the larger creatures would be practically non-existent.
The cat-like monstrosities were the most dangerous creatures so far and that was mostly because their stingers possessed a fairly powerful numbing agent and their fur was magically resistant.
In fact, with this large supply of magically resistant creatures, some of which were obviously quite big, why were there not more armor and cloaks made out of the creatures? Surely some of them could be used to make clothing or as an alternative to iron armor?
I could not answer that question yet of course, but I added it to my list of things to find out at some point in the future.
I continued into the dungeon and I found myself wondering how much money I could make as an adventurer. It had been laughably easy so far with my Gía and even without it the dungeon did not seem all that dangerous or challenging yet. Of course, I would be more likely to destroy the dungeon than to use it as a working space with those SRMs... In fact…
…
Wow, I did not know that you could project silence Bella, but relax that would cause too big of an effect on the local population. Assuming I could actually destroy the dungeon that is. This place is ridiculously big after all.
The populous above had not just built up around the dungeon, it was dependent on the materials and the money that could be brought in from those materials. As it was, this place fueled the trade of the town above to the point where collapsing or destroying this dungeon would likely ruin thousands of livelihoods and drive the residences into already populous cities.
Even back in my previous world, it had been tough to find people work with the sear number of them that existed. Although not as prevalent here, the masses of people that could be supported through the magic-enhanced farms was very well known. Even with the massive boost from the magical tool’s portion of the market (something that was lacking here), there had been thousands upon thousands of people who became bandits or joined violent gangs every year in the hope that they could just survive.
In fact, it was arguably worse here. Although things like the newer farming methods and implements were helping people move past subsistence farming, there simply was not enough jobs, much less coin, to go around. The slums outside of the capital were apparently extremely mild in comparison to some of the cities further west, with even small clippings of copper coins being nearly untradeable to the lowest members of the slums.
I was not sure if it was true, but it was said that there were once 12 cities in the central continent that used to be dedicated to each of the 12 gods and that they had grown together into the ‘holy city’ that seemed to be the center of all religious affairs in the world. The level of poverty in that particular city was something that even the Histones could not comment on and they had lost many people just trying to research it.
Though, as always, that was more for non-magic users than mages. Almost anyone born with some level of magical talent beyond a single circle was going to have a better life than most of the non-nobility. It would not be a life of pure luxury, but it would afford the mage in question an opportunity to become part of a unique class that was viewed as being above those outside of it.
Single circle ‘sensitives’ were the only exception in my old world as trying to train them was just too time consuming to be practical.
The ‘burnout’ epidemic of this world lowered the number of mages and increased the costs of recharging of magical devices and decreasing the number of devices created. There were a fair amount of jobs that could be opened up with the simple expansion of the number of mages if that one problem could be solved.
Of course, it would only be on the most basic level, but the average person had much more contact with mages on my previous world than this one and they were seen as much more human. If I were to guess, I would say that a quarter of all mages were below 3 circles and their absence in this world clearly had its effects.
Curing the cause of burnout could certainly make me famous, or infamous, depending on how the nobility received it, but who knew what the cause was? In fact, if the nobles felt that an increase in mages would dilute their power, then they could and would ignore the problem, as they may have been doing all along.
Though I could not imagine the precise reaction to finding out that so many burnouts were actually supposed to be the weakest of mages, it would likely be… apathetic. I would imagine that the reactions to that apathy though, would be worse if the burnouts discovered that the nobles had refused to help heal them or prevent their children from suffering the same fate.
There had never been a successful popular uprising against a king by the masses. The nobles and their incredible levels of magical power were just too much of an obstacle to overcome. If a non-mage had control over powerful wards, it might be slightly different, but wards were anchored to a specific place or object.
Of course, none of that was even a concern until someone both discovered the source and managed to get people to believe them, but it was still the powers that be who decided what would happen
That was one of the few joys of being in this new world for me, so many things to explore and learn. Unlike my previous life, I might be able to get close to someone with a good library… In fact, that could be my goal after I became male again… maybe after some sex experiments.
How about exploring what it is like to be a woman? Really now DeMorte, why are you even trying so hard to become male again?
You likely would not even be able to convince me to masturbate in this body Bella, yet you want me to think about staying in one? I have lain with men before in my previous life and I prefer to be a man with one or more women than try that again as a female. Stones, even if I discounted the sex, I still would rather not stay a woman permanently, there are just too many disadvantages in society.
I never objected to us spending time with Janeen, I would prefer you to keep an open mind, but I never said that I had zero interest in that area. Besides you are pretending to be a male now, through both physical changes and illusion spells.
Janeen was, and hopefully still is, a good woman, but even you must have noticed her lack of interest in us, not just as a child, but women, in general, did not appeal to her. I would still prefer to be a male instead of fighting societal norms and foolish ideals of what women should be… besides there are specifically designed spells to view what a person used to look like – they just do not get used often.
The internal debate continued until I had to step out of the way of a fireball.
The first magic wielding creature I encountered was an oversized toad – about 2 meters in any given direction – that could belch fireballs… It was barely 15 meters away, so I slowly walked towards it, firing off an extremely weak death spell to test its defenses. The pathetic thing had trouble blocking even that spell with its magical armor.
I shrugged and took out an iron dagger and I dodged another fireball. This thing should have focused on dodging if its armor was that weak, but I did not bother trying to break down its mana armor. Instead, I threw my dagger into the thing’s mouth as hard as I could without using Gía, right as it started to belch another fireball.
It died easily enough, but I had to put another dagger through the creature’s eye to end it quickly.
Floor 10 saw a large monster try to test me and now I find my first magic-using creature on the 15th floor, then what would be waiting for me on the 20th?
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I met 3 more adventurer groups on my descent into the dungeon, but it was only when I reached the entrance to the 19th floor that I found one that I could not avoid. The design of the dungeon had turned the sloped descents between floors into rest havens and natural choke-points.
While I was wondering if I should just walk past them, I hear a familiar voice who I really did not need to meet again, especially here… although she did owe me that favor.
There were 3 people standing near the back of a group, arguing about the safety of the group going forward. By the sounds of it, they had expected more out of the group, or something along those lines, with the Healer woman who owed me arguing that they should go back.
“-not ready for this. We should send them all back now.” That was the Healer’s voice, although I couldn’t remember if I had heard her name. Her magical power was still odd to me.
“We are one floor away from the rest area, Nina. Why should we have to stop just because they are not up to the usual level? They hired us to take them down there, but there is always danger in the dungeon, that is something that they have to learn to take into account of for themselves.” The person who responded had magic, but he was not the same adventurer as the person from before, the Healer was likely hired our through her church to travel with various groups.
“I am not so sure we can handle one more floor of ‘training’ them, Leroy.” The third member of the group, a fidgeting non-mage, spoke up, “If we double back right now the dungeon will limit the number of monsters it sends at us and it will get easier as we go up, but-”
“’But’ nothing, we have a job to do and we know it well enough without you reminding us how the dungeon works. Besides we are lower on food supplies than I would like, we will be far better off rushing through this last floor and then resting. Besides, that was what the request was for, remember? To take them to the village.” Leroy responded, rather rudely cutting off a new piece of information, no one told me that the dungeon lets you retreat so easily. Was there someone controlling it after all? Or did the dungeon just have some sort of ‘instinct’ that was just trying to keep people out?
Not that the idea that the dungeon was sentient made any sense to me, how could that possibly come about?
“They are too young and I have already had to heal them too many times, unless you forgot why are low on food in the first place?” Nina countered. “I cannot keep healing them and you know what comes out on this floor.”
“For the love of- fine, we can compromise and take the lead for this last floor. With us at the front of the group, going directly through the floor, there should not be any problems. Okay?” He looked tired, or at least his body language said he was, it was fairly hard to stay out of sight.
There was a general agreement and the trio returned to their group, which was about 9 other people and started to get them moving. It left me with the interesting task of following them quietly while I decided what to do.
I was rather well caught by the situation, if they really did go the shortest route – I assume by following the mana-flow – then I would be stuck behind them until they finally reached the next floor. Of course, I could try and get around them, but that might lead to me getting lost and having to backtrack later.
Forcing my way past them was possible, but then I would both lose the chance for more information and have a possibly confused and angry group behind me. I still had my would-be pursuers, who I had started to think of as a possible deception, to worry about too, despite their lack of presence.
To made it even more annoying, the Healer might recognize my mana or killing intent. It would be extremely difficult to dissuade her as her mage sight would be able to see any spells and likely identify them because of our previous meeting.
Or you could just ask to join the group? I know that you do not want to trust people DeMorte, but do you really think that the trouble their having would seem as significant if they had another mage along with them?
The first thing they would do would be to ask to see my identification and my face, once they realized that I was using an illusion spell, which would be annoying. Plus I cannot trust them.
You have to trust people DeMorte, or do you plan on testing your food for poison for the rest of your life?
Absolutely, the one time I did not check, I died from my lack of caution. Although I almost want to applauded my dear for going so far as to fake her own death and conspiring with one of my sons to kill me.
What?
The only thing I consumed without testing it for poison was a private stash of alcohol for special purposes – like mourning the death of my wife. Even if we were not on speaking terms by that point.
…you are more eager to believe that your own wife betrayed you than she was killed?
I am surprised that you have to ask, of course I am. If she willingly betrayed me, again, then she might still be happy and alive somewhere. Besides everyone betrays you, which is why you need to get as much as possible out of them… while you can… oh, I see what you did Bella, fine, I might as well call in my favor with the Healer now and pump her for as much information as possible.
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Bella fell silent while I created some distance between me and the group. Concentrating my mana into my ears I reshaped them into their old pointed shape, which seemed to make my ears pop for some reason. Despite there being no obvious biological advantage to have my ears shaped like this, the Nalks had obviously done something to affect my hearing when my ears were like this.
I could feel only the smallest trace of that odd Nalk energy or mana or whatever it was affecting me, but I could not grasp, much less control it.
Whatever the case, I concentrated on making sure that my ears were as ‘elfish’ as possible. When the adventurers asked me to remove my illusion spell, it would be an easy distraction and explanation, especially when combined with my current height. I then added a piece of manipulated bone as a fake tooth to replace the one I had lost at the capital and grew my hair out a little.
I also changed my facial structure to look more feminine, as it had been back when I first met the Healer. There were 2 reasons for this, first was that I had already asked around at the capital and found that, as far as groups like the Histones knew, the only way to change someone’s physical bone structure was to break their bones and let them heal in a different spot. There were healing potions and the like that could speed up the recovery, but no one would see my current face and connect DeMorte to Set.
I then changed my illusion spell slightly to that of a large, slightly scared, woman. I wanted to avoid female illusions while descending this far because they would receive more interference and I would likely run into even more people who wanted to ‘protect’ me. The fact that I had avoided as many people as I could not withstanding, people seemed more likely to enjoy the company of a woman than a man and I would rather not run into the situation… under normal circumstances.
The odds that they would eventually figure out that I was the figure who broke in was much higher this way, but DeMorte was still a relatively unknown little girl to the SRMs. Set on the other hand, was a slightly more known figure, with a slight history in the capital. Between the two, I would rather be discovered as DeMorte than Set as I still had to return to the capital after I finished my little quest.
With over a cycle before I rebuilt my body completely, even if the SRMs found out who DeMorte was and started trying to keep track of me, I could simply change my body to avoid them.
If they were somehow able to not only find a link between Set and DeMorte, but went even farther to out about Nathan and his family… then they should be at least smart enough not to test my familial relations too much. I might not like all of them, but I could appreciate the fact that they were family. If I heard that Mother or Carlatus were hurt… Then I would just burn them all.
It would not be the first time.
Concentrating on the present though, I followed the mana flow and quickly caught up with the group. Sure enough, they were following the flow of mana and despite having gone through 2 different diverging paths and being just beyond a third, it was easy to catch up to them.
They were currently fighting some type of giant magical turtle… or at least that was what I thought it was, it was hard to know given my lack of exposure to most aquatic wildlife. The shell seemed to be acting like a giant shield, protecting from both physical and magic-based attacks, while the turtle itself would stick out its head to fire off a verity of spells. Of course, it seemed to have a layer of mana armor around the various holes that it poked its head out of, leaving the timing to counter attack surprisingly short.
Right now the adventurers were taking turns dodging the spells while whoever was not being targeted lunged for the head as it popped out.
I was not sure if they were moving at a fast pace, but I did notice that I encountered no magical creatures or monsters while I was catching up to them. They might be having a problem changing their attack habits though as if this was their best speed with this many mages… even if they were supposed to train the… oh.
I realized that I had made an erroneous assumption: When I heard the Healer and her companions talking, I had assumed that they were taking junior mercenaries into the dungeon on a training run, but 8 of the 9 people who were observing the fight were mages. Even if one of the mages was the Healer herself, I was surprised to see so many in one place.
Suddenly I started wondering if I should not simply stalk them instead and wait until they had entered the resupply area they talked about, the ‘village’ or whatever, before forcing my way past them. Although the fact that they were talking about a ‘village’ suggested that there might be a larger than normal population at this rest area and it would be nice to blend in.
Still, having this many novice mages around was never a good thing as they were… arrogant was a good word to start with, unless they had actually been broken in enough to know their place. Too many of novices thought that they should be treated better than those who could power fewer mana circles than them, even if such a person was a teacher.
Since magical power was hereditary it could lead to dangerous situations if, for example, a powerful male student found his slightly less magically powerful female teacher attractive. It was not… unheard of for such students to regret their actions only after they made a suggestion that the female should be ‘happy to carry their child.’ Permanent damage was not always avoided either.
They were standing back to observe the fight quietly enough though, so they might not be too much of a problem, still, amateurs were dangerous.
As I was revaluating my possibilities though something that looked like a 2 headed mountain goat crossed with a cow walked into view down the other path. The thing had the body of a cow and a goat head on both its neck and one on its back, making it quite the sight. Since I was trying to keep back from the group of mages, I was in its line of sight.
The goat-cow started what became a slow charge in my direction and I just took a few steps back before setting down my pack and pulling out an iron spike. If this thing was going to use mana like some of the other creatures around here, then it might actually be worth using the spike.
It charged faster and, sure enough, it started to use magic, wrapping the wind around it somehow and moving even faster while forming mana armor over its head. I was excited for a moment before realizing that this thing might not be worth risking my spike, as a bone spike or sword could do through its magic and keep me safe as long as I kept my distance. The iron spikes would be best for things that relied on more powerful armor and magical defenses.
I sighed and stood at an angle to the charging hybrid and twisting my whole body, leveraging my muscles as best I could, while using only the slightest amount of Gía to throw the spike exactly where I wanted it. The winds that the charging creature produced were not enough to knock the heavy spike aside and the creature could not turn in time at the speed it was going by this point.
The spike penetrated deep into the creature’s chest and it almost instantly died, with only momentum propelling it forward as it collapsed.
I sighed to myself and went to retrieve my spike. Perhaps I should go with the group, if just to figure out why there would ever have trouble with this darn place. If Osiris, Cook, and a few others from my old life were here we could likely conquer the whole thing without any trouble beyond carrying out the spoils.
Since the spike was rather well embedded I used my mana roots spell to both absorb some of the creature as well as free up my weapon. When I could retrieve my spike with relative ease I noted some damage as a result of crashing through the creature’s body. As I took a moment to clean it, I realized that the damage was worse than I expected, but not unusable, likely more the result of fast work while creating the spike than my use of it.
I turned around to find a pair of young mages staring at me. I ignored and walked past them while trying to think up what I was supposed to say. Fortunately or unfortunately, Healer Nina showed up and more or less ended up settling the issue for me. “What are you two- wait, who are you and why are you alone? It is dangerous in here!”
I suddenly felt the desire to give her a good knock upside the head, this woman was not the brightest candle in the chandelier. I made sure that my voice was the same as it had been when we first met and put up a simple ward so that only she would hear what I said before responding casually. “Why would this place be dangerous? The creatures are easy enough to kill and I am happy enough to be alone if it means I do not have to look after a group of SRMs.”
To my surprise, it only took her a moment to connect the dots and I reassessed my opinion of her intelligence as she spoke. “A privacy- wait self-righteous… DeMorte is that you? Illusion magic? What under the light of the gods are you doing down here you- what are you doing down here?” I smirked, wondering what curse she had barely cut off. Although not the smartest person, she was not the most foolish either… maybe she just thought differently or something. “I will not let you hurt these young ones, do you understand?” Or maybe she really was incompetent.
I disliked unknowns for the possible damage they could cause, but I had very few choices at the moment. Did I go on without her or use my favor like I planned? “Yes, it is me, but I will remind you that I only teach lessons to those who need them.” I changed my voice back to something that suited my current form better and let the ward dissolve. “Although if you are teaching them to act like ‘adventurers’ then I might need to repeatedly discipline them just on principle.”
“You will not touch these-”
“What is going on back here?” One of the mage adventurers, Leroy, had come back after finishing the magic turtle and had brought along the rest of the class.
Feeling uncomfortable at the sudden increase in people, I decided to give Nina one chance before simply deciding to move on. “You owe me a favor miss Healer and I would have you pay it by answering some questions and preferably escorting me into the village.” I turned to look at her in the eyes, a favor could be called in at any time and for any purpose and I was calling in hers.
She squirmed, realizing that she could limit herself or refuse to comply, but that would lead to problems. Technically a favor was not binding in any way, but declining to return a favor you owed, especially in front of others was typically unwise. She was also in quite the position as, if she accepted, she could reasonably assume that I would help protect her group, despite the fact that such a favor was totally out of balance with the favor she originally granted. “Fine.”
Given how she spat the word out, I wondered if she was someone who thought refusing to return favors somehow weighed on your soul. Some fools were like that though, they felt like favors had a physical or magical weight to be repaid no matter the cost. Fools like that could be given bread one day and be called into your bed the next. Smarter individuals would know to negotiate, preferably in private, before agreeing, but whatever worked was fine by me.
“DeMorte Tyrentus, nice to meet you all,” I announced.
“Leroy.” The SRM mage responded, “However, I am not sure if we can help you, even if Nina owes you a favor, we already have this class to take to the village. May I at least see your adventuring license if we are going to be diving together?”
Diving? Had this place once been filled with water or something? “I am not an adventurer, I hired a group to take me in, but things happened.”
“And exactly what ‘things’ would you be talking about?” He was tense and the group that had been fighting the turtle was now surrounding me. I casually made sure that a sword and my Gía were ready to be called on, while my ears could easily pick up the confused voiced of the novice mages.
“We had a disagreement about my ability to defend myself. I told them that I wanted them to move faster and started ending the monsters we found before they moved.” I made my voice grow darker as I tried to avoid telling any direct lies. “I do not like people telling me that something is ‘too dangerous’ for me, especially when they are weaker than me.”
Leroy simply looked at me. “That was enough for you to separate from your group? How far behind you are they?”
I shrugged, “They are not in the dungeon anymore to my knowledge, but the last time I spoke to anyone else was on the 9th floor. After that, I just took care of things myself, but I would appreciate the help getting past the village without violence.”
That brought a laugh from all the SRMs, except Nina who just paled, even some of the students chuckled. Leroy controlled himself quickly enough “Do you actually expect us to believe that you made it up here by yourself? More importantly, do you actually think that you could force your way past 100 experienced adventurers?”
Was that all? I was expecting several hundred, but if they were only of the level that would find this place difficult… “I would put the odds at 1-in-4”
“You would risk your life when you think that you would die 3 out of 4 times?”
I smiled coldly. “I have a 1-in-4 chance of dying if all of you here attacked me right now. I have not seen anything dangerous or challenging so far, so I cannot even guess at how strong or weak those people in the village are.”
Leroy looked like he was about to say something rude before he saw Nina’s face. The SRM then paused to look me in the face and seemed to realize that I was serious because he shivered, which was more than fine by me. Regardless of what caused it, his reaction was driven by fear and fear was something that I could use to my advantage.
“Shall we get going then?” I asked politely.
“Are you at least going to drop that illusion spell?”
I relaxed a bit, keeping a hand on my sword, but making my voice calmer “I find people take me more seriously and are more polite when I have it on, but Nina can tell you herself if she wishes.”
“I see,” he shifted and the others seemed to relax as well, “you are a combat mage then?”
I gave him a friendly enough smile, “Biomancer.”
* * *
City of Palos: noble manor of house Nova
The lord of house Lux dined quietly as he waited for his host to get to the reason they were dining together tonight. The food was reasonable in his opinion, roasted duck, rich wine, fresh vegetables and ripe fruit, no doubt from the private house Nova gardens. There had already been a course of fish soup, a roasted chicken, and he expected a beef plate to follow out soon enough.
It could have been worse though, the city had been in revolt just last week so the lord decided to overlook the lack of an appropriate spread. At least they had not seen fit to serve him the insult of avotatoes as a side. If house Nova had fallen that far, he might as well disassociate himself and his own house from them, revolt or no.
The lord of house Lux was a Count after all, to be subjected to peasant food was an insult that would not be born unless a war was ongoing and even then it would be frowned upon as a sure sign of desperation on the part of the army commander.
Finally, the lord of house Nova, Baron Nova, put down his silverware and leaned back. “Count Lux, I do believe that you have close ties to the church of Tophon – may his glorious light shine on us all.”
Count Lux finished his wine and put the goblet on the table before turning towards the Baron. “I do not detect a question in your voice Baron Nova, but surely you did not have me come all this way to ask me to expedite the argument in the central continent?” If he had, it would have guaranteed trouble, even if the food had been of a much higher quality.
“Of course not Count, I know that your time is valuable, especially given your impressive new acquisition.”
The Count smiled and graciously nodded his head at the compliment. He had recently been able to lay claim to the Southern Gate, ironically located in the north of the Kingdom, which allowed him to control all of the trade that came overland from the holy continent. Although not as profitable as his trading ventures on the sea, it was still a very valuable location to be able to claim as occasionally the churches tried to send their Templars into the continent to enforce some holy edict and he controlled one of the only two land passages.
“No.” The Baron continued, “What I would like to ask of you is to simply help ensure that a proper list of malcontents is drawn up. It will be easy for one such as you, with so numerous ties to the church to help sift the grain from the chaff.”
The Count nodded understandingly, but this was unusually forward for the Baron or any other noble for that regard. He took a generous sip of his now full wine glass and tried to come up with an explanation for this meeting in his head.
As someone who knew the Baron well, it did not take him long to figure it out. “You want to personally lead the purge of these malcontents?” The Count asked, his massive second chin quaking as he shook his head, “that is below you Baron, even if they did insult you with such a petty uprising.”
“I will delegate the drudgery of the deed to someone else Count Lux I assure you, I just wanted to ensure that my forces were the ones who were at the front of the line. If the city guard were to get a list of other troublesome individuals to round up during that time I would not pay any attention.”
The Count turned and studied the Baron for a moment, reading between the lines. “You know that the churches prefer to do such in-house cleaning themselves Baron, why not just send a request for a squad of Templars?”
The Baron kept his face very neutral and seemed to choose his words especially carefully. “The Templars are a fine force, but it seems to me that they would be preoccupied in discovering the extent on the rot before actually removing it – something that would involve quite the force if some of the reports are to be believed.”
“How extensive is the rot – according to these reports of yours?”
There was a moment of silence before the Baron spoke. “The reports suggest that the Histones have made plans to retrieve or copy every record in our kingdom as fast as they can manage to do so.”
The Count froze at the information and heard a small gasp from nearby. Suddenly, the manor’s wards activated and a silencing spell was quickly followed by an incineration spell, a cleaning spell, and a fragrance spell in quick succession.
The Baron grimaced, “It is so hard to find good help these days.”
The Count nodded, glancing down at his new plate, “The beef looks better than I remember, do you have a new cook?” His mind was racing as they took a moment to make small talk.
Eventually, the Count decided to pay back the new information directly. “The King ordered the army to be increased, without much explanation. I thought it had to do with their shameful performance putting down the rabble, but it might be more than that… It looks like my friends within the church might want to prepare for a storm.”
The Baron nodded, “I had hoped that you might warn them as much as me. As for any other names, it is like I said, no one will notice the names if the commoners are going to make that much noise.”
The Count and the Baron continued to talk for quite some time before they came to an agreement. If that much annoyance was actually coming, certain goods would be in short supply and they both agreed to ensure that the city of Palos, which was the closest city to the Southern Gate and not far away from a small port, should take special care to keep its land routes open and safe.
If a few innocents lost their lives in the deal, no one would care, certainly not them and certainly not the Nalks… who were nowhere nearby at any time during the deal.
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Yes we know what the last chapter’s title was, but DeMorte does not =P
I hope you enjoyed the chapter, see you next week.