Chapter 10: The Church of Ereacht
The king retreated to the room behind the throne again. After a few minutes and a cacophony of violence, the king returned.
“Check every part of that map carefully. Find anything suspicious and change it immediately. Once that’s done, we’ll proceed with the road project. Any objections?” After a few moment of nothing but silence, the king continued. “I’ll stay out of whatever information that monster is sharing with the church, for now.”
The priest nodded wordlessly.
“However, I do not trust that monster.” The king turned back to Lord Davidson. “I want regular reports on everything we know and learn about that creature. No matter how helpful it is, remain cautious at all times. It must have ulterior motives, even if they are hidden right now.”
“What of the arrangement between the Guild and the dungeon master to allow training for the young adventurers, your Majesty?”
“The Guild will take responsibility for such matters, surely. I’m worried about our relationships with our allies and attempts at usurping the throne or victimizing our citizens.”
“I will diligently investigate the matter and remain vigilant at all times, your Majesty.”
“Good. Hm?”
A messenger came running into the throne room bearing a single page of information. A member of the royal guard collected the document and handed it directly to the king.
The king furrowed his brows as he began reading, only for his eyes to go wide a moment later. “W–Where is the Union’s missive?” he asked the messenger.
“It is being copied, your Majesty! I will retrieve it immediately!” The guard sprinted out of the room to check on its status elsewhere in the palace.
The Prime Minister, who had remained quiet until now, stepped over to the king and received the document to read it himself. “Th–This is…” His hand was visibly shaking. “Shall we send everyone away, Sir?”
“Don’t bother. It won’t be a secret for long.”
While the prime minister handed the document to the priest, the king stood from his throne and addressed the gathered leaders from around the kingdom. “We just received an opening salvo from the Union—a letter offering to mend our relationship with several major concessions already proposed.”
Many of the listeners suddenly cheered at those words. If the Union was this cooperative to start, the kingdom was sure to make out well. Beyond just the road project, there were many other ways the Holy State could take advantage of this situation.
Perhaps because Lord Davidson had been so personally involved in the Union’s siege, he saw past the good news and remained calm. “Your Majesty, while that is excellent news, I’m sure there is more to that brief you just received. The Prime Minister’s reaction makes that clear.”
“Quite so,” the king confirmed. “In addition to offering concessions, the Union chose to include a report, citing our longstanding relationship of sharing important information which could impact both our peoples.”
“Utter hogwash!” a random noble shouted from the back of the room.
“Your Majesty, may we ask what the important information is?” Lord Davidson was clearly bracing for something shocking.
“Yes. The Union reports that… the dungeon in the Upper Gordu forest is home to… a dragon.”
Before anyone could react to that bombshell, a crashing sound resounded from the back of the room. Everyone spun to see a servant who had accidently dropped several items, panicking at his mistake. The group exhaled in unison as they turned back to the front of the room.
“We shouldn’t take that report at face value!” the noble near the back of the room shouted again. “Don’t trust them!”
The Prime Minister responded, “But if it’s true, that might explain why the Union is suddenly so cooperative.”
“And there’s more,” said the king. “This dragon has offered to provide a suitable training environment… similar to what our dungeon master friend in the Lower Gordu Forest has worked out with the Twin Cities Guild already…”
The room erupted in shouting. Vulp could hear words of disbelief, angry yells that the information was false, and even a few optimistic predictions. All decorum was lost as people randomly voiced their thoughts.
“Why would a dragon show up now!?”
“It’s behaving just like the tentacle monster!”
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“Doesn’t the dungeon master control that dungeon as well!?”
“We must offer sacrifices before the Union wins their favor!”
The king had been listening to all the yelling, but tilted his head at the last suggestion and raised his hands to quiet everyone down. “Sacrifices? How barbaric. What are we, the Union?”
The man doubled down. “But the kingdom is in danger! A small number of people to quell the dungeon master’s anger and treasure for the dragon may—“
“Calm yourself,” Lord Davidson interrupted. “While I know nothing of this dragon, the tentacle monster has only, to my knowledge, established friendly relations with the Guild, aided the Twin Cities in their hour of need, and proposed an alternate map for paving roads in the kingdom. It’s hardly signaled anything like demanding sacrifices or tribute.”
“But the dragon!”
“As I said, calm yourself. It sounds like the Union’s in contact with the dragon, judging from how there’s an offer to provide a training environment for adventurers. As his Majesty said, we must proceed cautiously, but don’t get ahead of yourself.”
“But!”
“Enough!” The king shouted. “He’s right. Enough of these foolish suggestions. As I said before, we can’t trust this all-seeing dungeon master, and we can’t trust this new dragon, either. However, we won’t rush into doing anything stupid. Do I make myself clear?”
Nobody objected, so the king continued.
“As soon as the messenger returns with the complete missive from the Union, we will review it carefully and then provide a copy to the Guild. The Guild will need to investigate the claims about this dragon carefully. Very carefully. Next topic.”
Several people stared slack-jawed at the king as he moved on so unceremoniously from word of a dragon in their midst to an unrelated agenda item.
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“Vera, if you would.”
The priestess bowed and stepped to the front of the chamber.
“As you heard, I was assigned a special mission by the Twin Cities Cathedral to investigate an unusual dungeon in the Lower Gordu Forest. The dungeon master, despite being a monster, is highly intelligent and even agreed to teach me some of his knowledge.”
All the Church bigshots remained quiet while Vera summarized her lessons with DM. The focus of this talk was on astronomy and the math behind the planet’s orbit. She also briefly described the other types of physics problem she had been taught to solve. After several hours, she was invited to take a seat and drink some water. While she was doing that, the others finally peppered her with questions.
“Vera, it’s evident that the creature’s lessons line up completely with our teachings. Did you get the sense that you were being manipulated somehow, that is, you were being taught things that were designed to match our teachings regardless of their truthfulness?”
“No, not at all! In fact, DM tried very hard to make it all an inquiry-based experience rather than just a lecture. I suppose I can’t rule out the possibility he was fooling me given just how smart he is, but I really don’t think that’s the case.”
Another asked, “How did he come about this knowledge?”
“I don’t know. Although he’s always been a perfect gentleman while instructing me, I get the sense that he is quite jaded when it comes to the Church.”
“How could a monster in a dungeon be jaded with the Church?” a bishop asked rhetorically.
“Perhaps it retains knowledge of a previous life?” suggested an archbishop.
“Vera, does that make sense? That the creature has memories from a previous life?”
Vera turned her head to the cardinal who had asked the question. “That’s possible. I couldn’t say for sure.”
The cardinal turned to address the rest of the group. “I think we must proceed under the assumption that the creature was born with memories of a past life, likely human. Judging from what happened at the Twin Cities, the creature is friendly toward the nation. Also, judging from what’s occurred with Vera, the creature, while wary of the Church, is not an opponent either.”
Vera heard murmurs of agreement although she kept quiet.
“Therefore, I propose we maintain a policy of friendship and acceptance provided the creature does not do anything to poison our relationship, such as sacrilege.”
“But what if the creature is maneuvering to seize control of the nation?” asked a priest who had remained quiet until now. “Based on what we know so far, it may have that capacity.”
The cardinal answered. “We must maintain our neutrality in such a situation so that our institution is allowed to persist and flourish.”
Vera didn’t think DM had any such designs but she didn’t say anything.
“It is our duty to determine if this creature is a gift from above or merely a lost sheep in need of our guidance.”
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DM took stock of his situation. He’d been able to observe all the proceedings in the palace through Vulp. The king had seemed to notice Vulp was infected, but didn’t do anything about it other than quietly suggest she get herself checked out by a healer. Most likely, he didn’t understand what the status ‘infect’ meant and was simply trying not to embarrass an adventurer who had gotten infected during dungeon diving and the like.
While that was going on, Bandit had made contact with Thaw, as planned. Also, Vera had finally presented to the main branch of the Holy State’s church on her lessons with DM. While they appreciated the information Vera was able to pass on to them, it was clear the church was unsure of how to interact with DM in the future.
To summarize the major takeaways from the past couple days’ events: The kingdom came to learn of DM’s involvement in the battle at the Twin Cities and also accepted DM’s proposed map for their new road project. The Church’s policy was to maintain good relations with DM, even if DM personally usurped the throne. That part was weird but DM wouldn’t look a gift horse in the map.
Unsurprisingly, word of a dragon in the Upper Gordu Dungeon was spreading fast. It hadn’t occurred to DM before now, but since Grummanonth was offering the same deal to the Union Guild as DM had for the Twin Cities Guild, everyone could easily see that the two dungeons were joined at the hip. The only counterargument would be if DM claimed that the dragon was copying him, but that probably wouldn’t get taken seriously given how anomalous everything already was.
DM thought back to the tirade where the king had demanded DM show himself. While he could have spawned a tentacle to take some sort of action in that room, he thought it was a mistake to do so. The road project map he put together revealed that DM has influence even far away from his dungeon and the Twin Cities, but it didn’t directly reveal if DM was watching everyone’s conversations or not at a particular moment. Showing himself at that particular moment would have helped the kingdom narrow down exactly what DM could or couldn’t do, and he thought for now that would be a mistake. Although, the offer to avoid paying taxes in the future was tempting…