Volume 3 Blurb:
Feeling responsible for setting the Union against the Holy State, DM successfully assisted the Twin Cities in repelling a massive invasion, all while rescuing Vera from certain death. Before he could take a mental breath, he noticed trouble brewing in the Empire—trouble that places Ardreth and Sasha in danger. How deeply will DM involve himself in these happenings to the east, and what will happen when Kat’s party journeys west to the capital? Maybe’s DM’s new scaly friend will have some suggestions.
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Chapter 1: Dispute in the Empire
It took all of Sasha’s strength to hold Luna back. As Luna squirmed in Sasha’s grip, Ardreth reinforced an earthen wall he’d summoned with magic.
“She’s a spy!” one of the two young men shouted from the other side of the hastily raised wall.
“You’re the spies!” Luna shouted back at them, easing up on her struggling because she didn’t want to accidentally injure Sasha.
“Can we just agree that we’re all spies?” suggested Ardreth. “Let’s have a civil conversation and then go our separate ways if we can’t reconcile our differences.”
“Stay out of it, elf!” said one of the young men, probably the older one with the spear, although he and his brother were obscured by the wall.
“I’m not a spy!” Sasha yelled over Luna’s shoulder, muddying the waters.
“You’re just not aware enough to realize it…” Ardreth muttered privately. He raised his volume. “If you all don’t agree to talk this out, things will become quite bloody in a hurry.”
“Fine,” Luna agreed, discontinuing her squirming entirely.
“We’re not talking to that bitch,” the younger brother insisted, but his older brother offered a compromise.
“Okay, we’ll talk… to you. Not to her.”
“That will do,” Ardreth agreed. Using his druidic magic, he raised thrones of earth for each person to sit on. The seats formed a circle, with Ardreth and Sasha sitting on either side of Luna to separate her from the two brothers they’d teamed up with recently after entering the Empire.
“Let’s start with you, Luna,” said Ardreth, attempting to take charge of the situation. This was one of the many times when Sasha, the supposed leader, was happy to pawn off work to her highly-capable friend.
“Fine.”
“Luna, our esteemed party members are claiming you’re spying for the Emperor himself. Is this true?”
“Not really.”
“What the hell kind of answer is that?” the hunter and falcon tamer cut in.
Ardreth held up a hand to silence the hunter. “Please explain what you mean.”
“Spying is such a strong word, you know? I’m just seeing what’s going on here in the central region of the Empire.”
“Liar!”
Sasha drew her sword and pointed it at the brother with the spear sitting next to her. He noted her threatening facial expression and quieted down.
“On whose orders?” asked Ardreth, maintaining a calm and non-accusatory tone.
“Nobody’s orders. I chose to do it of my own accord.”
Ardreth didn’t relent. “And who besides you is an immediate beneficiary of you learning more about what’s going on in the central region?”
“Well…” Luna trailed off.
“It’s the Emperor,” the hunter answered, keeping his voice low to avoid drawing Sasha or Ardreth’s ire.
“Luna, what’s your connection to the Emperor?” Again, Ardreth maintained a calm voice to encourage Luna to answer his question.
“All right. I don’t know how well you know this country’s history, but due to certain circumstances, he and I were friends as kids.”
“I see. And what about now?”
Although Ardreth maintained his composure as he continued questioning Luna, Sasha’s eyes shot open in surprise.
“We still talk from time to time,” Luna answered. “We generally keep our connection a secret though, so we can’t meet that often.”
“Are you a fallen noble or something like that!?” asked Sasha, jumping in despite Ardreth’s displeasure.
“No, not at all. I really am just a blacksmith from a blacksmith family. It was just by chance that my friend became the Emperor. Some subjects blame the Emperor as though it’s his fault…”
“In that case, what motivated you to investigate the happenings of the central region?” This time, Ardreth asked his question with no interference from Sasha or the brothers.
“He mentioned to me that the Lords down here are plotting to rebel but he can’t prove it. He said the frequent wyvern attacks are related.”
Ardreth and Sasha made eye contact before Ardreth asked his next question. “In that case, why did you join our party when we first arrived?”
“Well…” Luna hesitated again, whereas the two brothers actually seemed bored now that the topic wasn’t about them. “I heard that you fought off a wyvern so I thought you might know something about what’s going on. Being from out of town, I thought it unlikely you’d be conspiring against my friend.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Rest assured,” Ardreth replied, “We are not conspiring against anyone in the Empire, whether from the capital region or the central region. I’ll confess Sasha and I are quite interested in why all these wyvern attacks are happening, but we have no ulterior motive.” The last part was a lie, but Ardreth didn’t want to complicate things by explaining that a tentacle monster they met in the Holy State asked them to investigate the Empire at their leisure.
“I’m… happy to hear that,” Luna acknowledged.
“So am I correct in assuming that you do intend to share what you learn with the Emperor upon returning to the capital? If it relates to the central Lords’ plans for rebellion or the origin of the wyvern attacks?”
“Pretty much.”
“See, a spy,” said the hunter.
“Not so fast,” Ardreth objected. "In order for our good Luna here to be a spy, she either needs to be formally spying on behalf of her employer or physically spying on a given person or organization. Based on her story, she is not employed for the purpose of spying. Who exactly would you gentlemen say she is spying on?”
“Uh…” The brothers looked at each other for help. Eventually, the older brother pointed at Luna while offering his response. “The Lords of the central region!”
“That’s a serious accusation,” Ardreth explained. “Luna, when’s the last time you were within throwing distance of any of the Lords of the central region or any of their retainers or messengers?”
Luna brought a hand to her chin, deep in thought. “Once, when I was five or six…”
“Luna, that doesn’t count!” Sasha shouted in exasperation.
“True I guess. Basically, never.”
“Now, Luna has urged us to adventure in the central region,” Ardreth admitted. “But short of any other evidence that she was trying to spy on anyone in particular, I think it’s a stretch to call her a spy. If what she’s said is true, then she’s merely investigating the region as a whole, and keeping her motivations secret. While this behavior is far from commendable, it isn’t something worth drawing weapons over.”
“Hold on,” the spearman objected. “If she’s just adventuring around the central region with no ulterior motive beyond seeing what she can see, why does she need to do it to begin with? Can’t the Emperor send dozens of people south like this to safely collect information? If this doesn’t count as spying, that is.”
“Luna, could you explain why you felt your help was even needed?” asked Ardreth, acknowledging the previous question as a valid one.
“I don’t think he knows who to trust,” she offered. “There really are spies in his midst. If he reaches out to one of them for help, they’re sure to feed him bad information or even use his request to drive a wedge between him and his supporters. I certainly don’t envy his position…”
Ardreth nodded. “As a disinterested party, at least for the most part, I can say your story is plausible. Before digging in more, we should see what your story is.” Ardreth turned his gaze to the brothers.
“We haven’t done anything suspicious…” the hunter complained. His older brother nodded in agreement.
Ardreth turned back to Luna. “Where in the Empire are hunters raised, such as one who would carry around a falcon on his shoulder?”
“That’s easy,” Luna responded. “The heart of the Empire, right in the middle of the central region.”
Sasha slapped her fist into her palm in realization.
“Is that true?” Ardreth asked the brothers for confirmation.
“Well…”
“Since that’s apparently a challenging question for you to answer, could you instead explain why you requested to join our party?”
After hearing Ardreth’s question, the two brothers looked at each other, exchanging silent words with their facial expressions, no doubt. The older brother spoke. “It was by chance.”
“...And I’m the liar?” Luna spat out.
“Even if that’s true, there must have been some reason why you requested to join our party, right?” Ardreth’s point was fair. “What was it?”
The younger brother jumped back into the conversation. “It was you! It’s rare we would have the opportunity to join a party with an elf… and a cute swordswoman!” He recoiled back as he realized the implications of what he just said with the girl in questions sitting right there.
Sasha blinked in surprise while Ardreth raised his eyebrows. He was faster to respond. “I’m… amazed. Judging from your tone and your words, the first half of your statement was you trying to convince yourself of something even more than anyone else. The second half was revealing something you didn’t want to reveal to anyone at all. I can’t for the life of me understand how the human mind works sometimes…”
“Wait, no!” The hunter tried to take back his words.
“How about we try again?” Ardreth proposed. “Tell us the real reason why you chose our party.” He turned to the older brother who was still patting his younger brother on the shoulder.
“We thought she was a spy!” He pointed at Luna. “And from the sound of it, we weren’t completely wrong.”
“And why would her being a spy for the Empire motivate you to keep an eye on her? To… spy on her, as it were?”
“Well…” The spearman wasn’t particularly interested in answering Ardreth’s pointed question.
Ardreth waited patiently for either brother to come up with an answer, but they both remained quiet, so he eventually offered to answer it for them.
“Could it be that you have been keeping an eye on Luna on behalf of another person or organization?”
“It’s not our fault…” the hunter whispered just loudly enough for everyone to hear. His older brother looked at him in shock.
“What’s not your fault?” Ardreth asked innocently, maintaining the same tone as always.
“We didn’t want to spy on her!”
“I did!” the older brother countered.
“Huh? Why?” Now the younger brother was confused by the older brother.
“Oh, uh…” the older brother trailed off.
Ardreth buried his face into his hands.
Eventually, the brothers acknowledged that they were being pressured by their family to keep an eye on Luna and hinder her if she tried to help the Emperor. Apparently, her connection to the seat of power was not quite as private as she thought. Neither the hunter nor the spearman seemed to know where the wyverns were coming from or what exactly the Lords in the central region had planned, but sentiments of rebellion against the young Emperor were growing stronger by the day. Even Ardreth and Sasha were able to tell that much.
Amazingly, the group decided to remain together for now. Even the brothers were interested to learn more about what was really happening in the central region, so tagging along with the party was beneficial. Each brother also had a target of their affections that they had failed to keep secret.
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DM was glad he didn’t need to intervene during that tense moment between the different members of Sasha’s party, but he’d clearly need to keep a very close eye on them. Whatever they learned could even portend conflict that spilled over into the Holy State.
Suddenly finding himself with a moment to relax, he remembered the thing that had skipped his mind during all the tumult. He’d leveled up the dungeon and unlocked more creatures. They all sounded interesting, but there was one in particular he wanted to try summoning. Perhaps it was a bit risky, but he couldn’t resist. He placed a dragon in a random chamber on the fourth floor of the dungeon.
The console was showing that the tier 1 dragon had spawned. He reached out to it using the same telepathic communication he normally used with charmed targets, but he was cautiously optimistic, at best, that the dragon would be capable of speech or even particularly intelligent.
“Dragon, this is the dungeon master. Do you understand me?”
“Of course.”