Chapter 16: Subterfuge
Daphne walked through the forest immediately behind her home, explaining to the fighter from her party what signs to look for when hunting various prey. The swordsman and mage were back in the village working with the elves to maintain their weapons.
As Daphne pointed to scratch marks in the bark of a tree, she noticed sudden movement in her peripheral vision. Turning her head, she saw a tentacle spawn at the fighter’s feet and hook around her ankle.
Daphne spun around, unsure what to do since her friend was apparently being grabbed by DM, most decidedly an ally so far.
The surprised fighter’s expression went blank, and she spoke in a deadpan voice. “…Help–“ As soon as she uttered the word, she collapsed to the ground in confusion, getting her bearings once again. “W–What just happened…?”
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Clank.
DM wasn’t sure if this collar would work on him or not, but he knew he had only a short moment to decide what to do and try something. His top priority was to make sure somebody knew he was under attack. He cycled his vision to the first available infected person, which by chance happened to be Daphne. Not his first choice, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
Thankfully, Daphne was alone with just one of her friends. DM immediately spawned a tentacle and charmed the fighter from Daphne’s party, intending to convey as much information as quickly as he could. He started with the most meaningful word, help. He was about to follow up with a brief one-sentence explanation when Karen addressed him.
“You may not use or continue to use any skills, abilities, or communication except when explicitly ordered to!”
DM’s connection to Daphne was severed, as was his charm effect on the fighter. Further, every infect he had active cancelled all at once. He could feel it; he couldn’t use any abilities or telepathically communicate with anyone right away. That meant he couldn’t use absorb equipment on the slave collar, or whatever this odd thing was. Although DM’s offensive charm ability was very high-tier, his charm guard was only at T3. As DM had learned when rescuing Kat’s group from slave collars, they were quite nasty objects. Charm Guard T3 didn’t seem to prevent him from being affected by this collar.
“Dismiss all morphlings!”
“Sister, why? He cannot communicate with them right now, right?”
“Hmph.” Karen acted like that was the dumbest question ever. “This thing’s greatest weapon is its intelligence. We must do everything to keep it from trying to trick us and our allies with words.”
While the siblings quarreled, DM noticed that he wasn’t feeling compelled to dismiss his morphlings. Was the collar not working? In actuality, this situation worked to his benefit, being unable to speak, at least for the time being, so he decided to dismiss the morphling of his own accord before they got suspicious.
“Oh, creature, you may not injure or kill me, my brother, or anyone we are allied with unless you receive specific instructions to do so.”
“Uh, I thought you already restricted him from using any of his skills and abilities, offensive or otherwise?”
“Jonathan, the creature is tremendous. It could hurt or kill us just by walking into us.”
“That’s true…”
Once again, DM noticed he wasn’t feeling restricted. He still couldn’t use tentacle slap or his other abilities, but if he wanted to he could just defeat the two of them with brute force. The brother seemed to have some skill, so that would be a bit risky, and the adventurers nearby would likely come to help, but for the time being DM felt relieved that at least it was up to him when to rebel. Before he did anything suspicious, he needed to make sense of his current situation.
“Let’s conduct a simple test, shall we?” Karen pointed at one of the adventurers. “Heal him.”
The adventurer took a step back, obviously nervous to let the tentacle monster do anything to him, but at least the order was for healing and not something more painful.
Yet again, DM noticed that the collar wasn’t actually compelling him to do anything. He decided to continue playing along. He slithered over to the adventurer, extended an appendage, and cast Heal T1. The adventurer breathed a sigh of relief once the spell completed without incident.
“There, he’s under our control.”
Her brother didn’t seem totally convinced. “I thought you were concerned that we hadn’t tested using a collar like this.”
“What do you mean?”
“Didn’t you say that the collars being tested on monsters are different than the collars used for humans?”
“And?”
Jonathan’s head drooped in momentary frustration. “This one is intelligent like a human, right? Doesn’t that mean we need the collar to have the capabilities of both a collar for humans and a collar for monsters?”
“Yes, and this collar is the result of that.”
“But it wasn’t tested properly!”
“Well, it’s been tested now. Honestly, Jonathan, what are you so worried about.”
Jonathan turned to stare at DM, sizing him up. “All right, I hope you’re right. But please don’t antagonize the poor creature. This doesn’t sit right with me.”
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“Oh for crying out loud. We aren’t using collars on humans like the Union. What more do you want?”
“Honestly? For us to never have been given this mission.”
“There’s no use crying over spilt milk, dear Brother. We must do what is best for the Empire, even if the Emperor doesn’t realize it.”
“I have some opinions about that as well—“
“Jonathan! Enough!”
While the siblings continued arguing, DM thought more about his situation. It seemed like the first order he received, to not use any skills or abilities unless instructed, had taken hold. He couldn’t communicate telepathically with Grummanonth or the other monsters he’d previously summoned either. His wasps were simply hovering in the previous chamber, waiting for orders. Surely, DM would receive instructions from Karen for what to do with them soon.
The subsequent orders he’d received were not being enforced by the collar. DM’s best guess was that the collar was only able to enforce one order at a time, and subsequent orders couldn’t be issued until the previous one was retracted. Of course, Karen didn’t seem to realize this. Jonathan had made it clear that the Empire’s experimenting with placing collars on monsters did not adequately prepare them for this gambit. DM could probably bust free any time he wanted simply by defeating Karen, an intimidating woman but basically a noncombatant.
But should he? DM weighed the pros and cons. If DM played along, he’d gain an inside look into everything happening in the Empire from the perspective of the central lords. He’d essentially reserve the right to bust free of his handler and the collar whenever he wanted. It’s possible they’d all take measures to prevent that such as not letting him overhear anything important, but this Karen seemed to be incredibly overconfident. DM bet Karen would let DM overhear everything in a bold display of foolishness. She’d probably enjoy knowing that DM couldn’t do anything about what he heard, at least unless Jonathan put his foot down. He seemed to realize that playing with fire was a bad idea.
This route carried some risk. First, DM could find himself losing the ability to escape from his predicament, such as if someone realized the collar wasn’t working as intended and took immediate corrective action. This seemed unlikely. The other drawback, which worried DM more, was that he was out of touch with all the people he was friendly with. Grummanonth he trusted to hold the fort, but Daphne was probably very confused about what was going on with DM, and he couldn’t even monitor Kat’s group anymore or protect them. Sasha’s group was wrist-deep in an investigation and DM wouldn’t benefit from that anymore.
Still, busting free now, or soon after, would be a waste of an opportunity. Sure, DM could get revenge against Karen, and maybe a few other people in the vicinity, but he didn’t really know who in particular was responsible for his situation among the central lords or other people of influence in the Empire. All he’d really have gained from this experience was learning that the central region was acting hostile towards him as they worked towards their own ends. And ridding the world of one piece of work. Given Karen’s behavior, the choice was tempting, but DM decided to go with patience for the time being.
“So, what will we do next?”
“Don’t you know?” Once again, Karen acted as condescending as possible towards her brother. At least DM was in good company. “We depart for the wyvern dungeon immediately.”
“What? Won’t we use this dungeon first, while we’re here?”
“No, we’ll forget all about this dungeon.” Sarcasm, clearly. “Of course we’ll use this dungeon. We’ll put together a monster army from this dungeon as well as the one in the Holy State. Only once everything’s in place will we make a move on the wyvern dungeon proper.”
“You said immediately…”
“Oh, stop nitpicking me Jonathan!”
“Nitpicking, she says.”
“This is why you aren’t in charge of anything.”
“Well, Boss, what’s next? Before what’s immediately next?”
“You’re not cute, you know. I should have our newest friend slap you around a little.”
DM was wondering if he would even need to do anything to sabotage the central lords’ ongoing efforts, if this relationship was anything to go by.
“Anyway,” she turned to DM. “Here are your orders. First, get rid of all those wasps behind us. I don’t care much for insects.”
DM hesitated. Although he couldn’t currently order the wasps to do anything, once he dismissed them, it would be a while before he could bring any monsters from the Lower Gordu back to his current location. Still, if he didn’t follow the order, his secret freedom was blown. He decided to just do it before Karen got suspicious.
“Good. Summon an army in the Holy State’s dungeon of similar size and level but with less disgusting creatures than insects. Choose monsters that will be effective for conquest.”
DM noted that he was being given a large amount of latitude here. The instructions were rather vague, and he would totally capitalize on that. While he could blatantly disregard the order if he wanted, it made more sense for now to pretend to fully comply. If he wanted to play nice, a good bet would be to amass a whole bunch of living armor. They weren’t gross and were effective in combat, especially given their bleed ability. Of course, he had no intention of playing nice. Using the dungeon console, he quickly entered his instructions, resulting in the army of his choice spawning on the top floor of the Lower Gordu Dungeon. It wasn’t the army Karen wanted, but it was the army she deserved.
“Once that’s done, order them to march to the wyvern dungeon.”
That order had a whole bunch of issues. First, why did Karen expect DM to know where this supposed wyvern dungeon was? He kinda did, thanks to Sasha and Ardreth, but she had no way of knowing that.
Second, how were these monsters supposed to know the way? DM was unable to infect them or spawn tentacles or do anything else involving abilities unless ordered. This wasn’t going to work. Unfortunately for Karen, DM had no way to explain this, not that he would if he could.
He ordered the assembled army to simply march east toward the rising sun and away from the setting sun. That would get them into the Empire eventually, but beyond that they’d be pretty helpless. He also took advantage of this allowance for telepathic communication to order them not to attack except in self-defense, and only to the minimum extent possible to escape further bloodshed. These orders were about the limit of what DM could accomplish without being able to infect them or travel with them. He’d need further instructions from Karen in order to communicate with them more, although he could dismiss them at any time if he wanted to.
“Sister…”
“What now?”
“How is he supposed to know where the wyvern dungeon is? That’s not even its name. Isn’t that just something you chose to call it?”
“Oh.”
“Oh, she says.”
“Dammit, if you’re not going to be helpful, then go away.”
“I’m being helpful.”
“Then enough with your snide remarks!”
Jonathan raised his eyebrows but didn’t respond otherwise, leaving Karen to continue the conversation.
“Okay, fine. Creature, just get your army over the border into the Empire. In the meantime, pay close attention as we march to the wyvern dungeon. Then, order your army as needed to meet us at that dungeon.”
Karen’s plan was still kind of half-baked but at least now DM had license to communicate with his summoned army as much as he wanted. Anything his monsters were doing that ultimately resulted in them getting to the wyvern dungeon was fair game to discuss and issue orders telepathically. DM could work with this, although without use of infect it was still going to be very challenging.
“Now, summon an army using this dungeon as well. Hm, kobolds are one of the less disgusting monsters, no? Summon up as many LVL 5 kobolds as you can and have them march behind us.”
This time, DM followed her order to the letter. Several rows of LVL 5 kobolds spawned in the chamber, causing the nearby adventurers to retreat to the door. Although kobolds really were nowhere near disgusting on the scale, DM questioned if a creature specialized in stealing really was the way to go.
“G–Good. Let’s go.”