It was a dark and stormy night.
This phrase was a famous literary cliche from Archmund’s previous life. He didn’t know where it came from, only that it often indicated trite, hackish writing.
And yet it fit — almost. The sky boiled with clouds, and lightning arced across the heavens — and yet it never struck the ground. And unlike anything he’d seen in this life or the last, this lightning was hued violet.
It was deeply atypical for the summer storms. Perhaps the skies wanted to purge all their pent-up tears in the last storm of the season?
There was a knock at the door.
“Archie? Your lord father’s calling for you,” said Mary, her voice muffled behind the wood.
This was most irregular. Archmund opened the door to face her.
“I thought he was at the capital.”
“He returned not even an hour ago. And he wants to see you immediately.”
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They met in his father’s study.
“What do you think of tonight?” said the Lord Reginald Granavale, not turning to look at him. He kept his eyes fixed on the roiling clouds outside the window.
“It’s dark and stormy,” Archmund said. His father raised an eyebrow, not knowing what to make of it.
Now that he had an opportunity to look, Archmund thought his father looked rather calm for someone who’d rushed home from the Imperial Capital. And dry, for someone who’d been traveling in a storm. Not a strand of hair out of place, not a drop of water in his beard.
“What’s so special about this storm?”
And now his father turned to him. His face was grave.
“It’s a Dungeon Storm. Do you know what a Dungeon is?”
Archmund suppressed a groan. The word ‘Dungeon’ had been spoken like a proper noun, heavy with import and connotation. There were lots of generic fantasy dungeons in the generic fantasy books he’d read in his past life, but unfortunately this was reality and this world had displayed a certain level of internal consistency. This was going to be a whole ordeal.
He shook his head. And his father began to explain.
The Omnio Empire was not, despite Imperial messaging, fully tamed land. There were skirmishes on the frontier, entire ‘provinces’ that were nations in all but name, and there were Dungeons — dangerous labyrinths full of monsters that appeared after Dungeon Storms, that were an integral part of the Omnio Empire’s economic system..
There were Four Great Dungeons. The first was the ancient Omnio Dungeon that lay beneath the Imperial Capital, kept exclusively for the use of House Omnio and their vassals. The second was the Arcane Dungeon at the westernmost point, held by the University of Imperial Mages, which they harvested extensively for Gems. The third was the Holy Dungeon, claimed by an ancient Saintess for the Church, and they claimed it was their sacred duty to purify the souls within, but mainly it was one of their sources of great wealth. And the last was the Wild Dungeon, on the Frontier, the final challenge of many an adventurer.
Those were the Great Dungeons that had lasted for decades if not more; Lesser Dungeons could appear anywhere on the continent, at any time, but would often run dry within a decade.
Dungeons were spawned from the wrath of the restless dead. The Church, the Empire, and the University of Imperial Mages agreed on this; Archmund wondered whether it was literally true or if it was highly coordinated propaganda. But when the restless dead grew wrathful, they would erupt from the ground, uniting the powers of hell to strike at heaven. As the strongest of the dead degassed from the depths of the earth, they carved a labyrinthine Dungeon that echoed the memories and regrets they’d held in life. Lesser ghosts and spirits would emerge as Monsters, trapped in physical form, and haunt the halls of the Dungeon. Over time, the most vengeful dead with the deepest grudges would forsake disembodied form and materialize as truly fearsome Monsters. No one knew why.
“Is this common knowledge?”
It was not; it was a state secret. House Granavale had been given the privilege of knowledge because the Dungeon was in their lands. Even then, Archmund suspected it could not be fully trusted; it was clear to him even then that the Church, the Empire, and the University had their own agendas and this rare agreement likely served them.
“But why here?”
It was random, supposedly. Or rather, the matter was so unknown, so it appeared random. The entirety of Omnio was built on wars so ancient they had long been forgotten, so the restless dead were buried infinitely in unmarked graves below the whole continent. If someone had a way of detecting the next Dungeon Storm, they were keeping it secret.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Two things struck Archmund about the mechanics of Dungeons.
First, there were many, many inconsistencies in these explanations. Archmund was sure there was a fundamental truth that was unknown or, more likely, being concealed.
Second, it seemed awfully like these Dungeons resembled generic dungeons (the common noun) from popular fantasy media in his past life. They could pop up anywhere, had a mechanism that caused monsters in deeper levels to be stronger than those in higher levels, and were just dangerous enough to necessitate force but not mundane enough to support an economy based on lone adventurers. It was either too convenient, or he was missing important nuances because he was filtering his experience through his questionable past memories.
But now was not the time to investigate any of this. There were bigger priorities grounded in the socioeconomic reality of his current life.
“What happens now?”
Legally, since the Dungeon appeared on Granavale land, it and its spoils were Granavale property. Practically, whenever a Dungeon appeared in a minor county, the local rulers were too poor to exploit it to its fullest. They didn’t have the troops to subjugate the Monsters that spawned, so they couldn’t harvest their resources and wealth. Because of that same weakness, Monsters risked breaching the walls of the Dungeons and becoming genuine threats to the safety of the people.
So the only option for poorer nobles was to open their Dungeons up to the forces of the wider Empire and give up the vast majority of the spoils.
The Venato Family had a stranglehold over trade. They could provide the necessary supplies to support the inevitable rush of treasure hunters and Dungeon delvers, but would keep the majority of the profits for themselves and their affiliates. Similarly, House Omnio had the strongest, most elite Dungeon subjugators, but their aid meant surrendering the easy spoils of the upper levels. Taking aid from the University of Imperial Mages or the Church had similar issues. In the long term, the only sustainable solution was the cultivation of dedicated local adventurers, but this almost never happened because Dungeons so often lasted only a few years.
Archmund knew how this went from how often it happened in his past life.
There was a certain part of the world known as America. Broadly speaking, it could be divided into two cultural blocs: North America, which had been colonized by the seafaring British, and Latin America, which had been colonized by the Catholic Spaniards.
The British had practiced a form of colonization later known as “settling. Their primary interest was in claiming and developing the lands, while exiling some of their political dissidents in the process. The Spanish, however, had practiced something more akin to extraction. They were less interested in transplanting their people to this untamed landmass, and more interested in extracting wealth from the New World. At the peak of Spanish extraction, they had mined so much silver from the famed Cerro de Potosi that they crashed the market entirely in the Old World of Europe. But even hundreds of years later, North America thrived and was wealthy, while Latin American nations still suffered from the “resource curse”: They were seen as a place where the “developed” world could take and take and take, and the wealth of their lands rarely went to their own people.
This was a fate Archmund wanted to avoid for his lands. And thankfully, his father agreed.
The Lord Granavale had a plan to play the Empire, the Church, the University of Imperial Mages, and the Venato Family against each other, and in doing so keep wealth within Granavale County. The Lord Granavale had cultivated a reputation of being hopelessly and slavishly devoted to the whims of his spoiled son; it was a wonderful coincidence that said son had recently become wise beyond his years, but that no one knew it.
Said son was perfectly entitled to sit in on meetings with these powerful and influential groups. And if he happened to make ridiculous, unreasonable demands, then the Lord Granavale’s self-serving demands would look all the more reasonable in comparison.
“Any questions?” the Lord Granavale asked.
“Just one,” Archmund said. “How will this change our plans for me?”
The Lord Granavale stared out the window. “If it works, none at all. You’ll go to the Academy richer, and inherit a Granavale that’s much healthier.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then the Granavale you inherit might be a ghost of its former self.”
The carriages arrived. The dignitaries approached. It was time for his first steps onto the world stage.
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Archmund’s Journal:
Year 0, Day 95 (part 1??)
Push-ups: 100 in 5 minutes
Magic: Light lasts past dawn
Dungeons? Seriously?
The way Father talks about them, it’s like striking oil.
If Monsters are the spirits of the dead, and they drop Gems, does that mean Gems are the stuff of souls?
Is this the secret to power? Have Omnio, the Church, and the Mages figured out how to successfully farm soul-stuff?
What even is soul-stuff? If it’s so powerful then how come I have some as a night light??
Those are questions I only have the luxury of asking once our economic situation is secure.
Either this destroys us — or it’s a way to establish Granavale as a world power. As much as I’d like a free life, the second is preferable to the first.