1. Chapter 15

“So, the Controller is in Antoine’s care, and the village seems secure for the moment?” King Fenard confirmed, speaking to the scry-mirror that connected him to Lieutenant Silva. His version was a full body sized object, one of two dozen in the room that were linked to more portable artifacts which allowed him to communicate with his agents over vast distances. Or for his spymistress to do so, as was more often the case. She was the one who determined who carried the majority of the pocket scry-mirrors.

Yecha stood at his side, listening in to the conversation, but had made no comment at Silva’s summary.

“That’s about the size of things as they stand. I’m searching for the Vanquisher at the moment, since he headed south without waiting for us to catch up with him,” Silva confirmed. “How exactly was he convinced to emerge from retirement?”

“Antoine has a soft spot in his heart for Controllers,” Yecha explained. “Seeing as he was quite close with the one who summoned him. While he is usually difficult to control, in this case he was quite predictable. Although he nearly took my head off for exploiting him this way.”

“I wish we did not have to rely on him,” Fenard lamented. “I fear he still has not forgiven me for my father’s sins. But he is simply too effective an agent to leave idle in a crisis, and one of the few people in the kingdom who can deal with a rogue dungeon. What intel do we have on the Controller?”

“The son of a Weaver and a Merchant. They plan on joining him in the capital once they get their finances liquidated. The boy is fourteen years old, early to unlock a Class, but not excessively so. Otherwise, I don’t know much,” Silva admitted. “My squad that remained behind will know more once they finish interviewing the villagers.”

“Does he have a bloodline?” Fenard pressed. “Is he related to one of the old families?”

It would certainly solve a number of political problems if the boy could be adopted into one of the great noble houses as a lost scion. While he could justify conscripting a peasant into the Royal Knights without issue, the fact was that he needed to marry the boy into the royal family as soon as possible. A drop of noble blood, no matter how dilute, would go a long way towards validating that marriage.

The fact that he had acquired the class of the Ancient Kings implied some tie to nobility. Once, long ago, the class was considered a prerequisite to ascending the throne. Over time, however, Controller began skipping generations, appearing less frequently within the royal family and the associated bloodlines. Had the traditions not changed centuries prior, King Fenard might have been expected to step down to make way for this “Tom Weaver.”

Fenard suffered no delusions that his kingdom was in anything but decline. Without a Controller, at best, he could hold it in stagnation and pass it on to the next generation. No controller in his service meant no new village, town, or city Cores. What Cores they had, although there were presently hundreds of the things, were finite resources.

Tom Weaver changed things. Once the boy was trained in using his class, he could begin leveling the many cores which had been gathering experience for the last sixty years, expanding their territory and power. The effects of the increased mana would trickle down throughout his society, allowing the population to grow and the kingdom to expand into the empty no-man’s-land between nations.

It was a lot of pressure to put on a teenage boy, especially a peasant boy who had likely been expecting to inherit his family’s business instead of being responsible for the prosperity of one of the six great nations.

“Aside from the fact that his mother is a Merchant, I’ve heard no evidence that he has any ties to nobility,” came Silva’s answer.

Fenard tsked. His own Class was, in fact, Merchant. His Subclass was Noble, and King was but a Title. That was fine, however. Being recognized as the King by the system gave him de jure sovereignty. The proof of his right to rule was literally in his status screen, which he could prove on demand. He wished that the system would develop a class specific for those of the noble blood, but the majority of the peerage, those who were not some variety of Mage or Warrior, were Merchants.

But then again, so were all of the damned merchants.

“At least the Vanquisher has the boy under control,” he said, as much to himself as anyone. “Silva, continue as you are. Find the boy and relieve Antoine Durand, then fly the boy to the capital with all due haste.”

“What about the village, your majesty?” she inquired.

“Oh, yes. Continue to monitor it for safety concerns. Its beacon in the map room is no longer flashing, so hopefully it has stabilized safely. You have sufficient manpower for both tasks, I hope?”

“With the extra hands from Tuksan, we’ll manage,” she confirmed. “Is there anything else you would have of me, my king?”

“You are dismissed,” King Fenard said, and he cut the magical connection to her pocket mirror himself.

~~~~~~~

The missive came to Nelz through the usual channels. One of the libraries he helped administer had received an inquiry that possessed a keyword, and the letter from one “Elder Lukan” was sent up the ladder to him. He examined the message carefully, then considered how to handle it. He was one of the few outside the official government who understood the significance of the information within.

He would, of course, notify the proper authorities. Tilluth was not so very far away, and he didn’t want his neighborhood overflowing with dungeon spawn. Let the authorities deal with that, he thought. The question was, who else would he notify.

Welsius was not the only kingdom to be suffering from a lack of Controllers. Many spies and informants would pay handsomely for the information he’d just acquired. After a few moments of consideration, he decided that his purse was a little light after all, so after he penned a letter to send to the mayor and passed it off to a page, he excused himself for the day and journeyed to his favorite teahouse.

Which just so happened to also house the local information broker. He left thirty minutes later with the taste of sweet tea on his lips and thirty silver coins in his purse.

~~~~~~~

They suffered two more waves of gnolls, both larger than the first two, until they had killed a total of forty of the villainous beasts. Fortunately the attacks were staggered enough that Jessica had enough time to regenerate mana for her Napalm spell, and the magic went a long way for frightening and disorienting the attackers. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to finish the groups off by itself, and by the time the last gnolls were dead, all of the group had suffered as much or more damage than Tom did in the first wave.

Except of course for Antoine, who interfered three times in the fight, but only to take out single opponents. Tom was feeling rather useless, as he didn’t manage to kill anything himself, although Lo managed to kill as many of the Gnolls as Sevin did. Tom had tried to claim another one of the gnolls, but doing so during the mayhem proved to be too difficult.

After Antoine had bound their wounds following the fourth wave, he informed them that it was time to delve deeper into the dungeon, where the only light was the occasional patch of luminescent moss. Tom was nervous to give up their choke point, but they set out. Lo vanished into the darkness ahead of them to scout, and twice they came across gnolls that the Korgoath had ambushed.

Another time he came back to warn them of another approaching patrol, and the party set an ambush for it. Six of them this time, although Jessica reduced that number to three with her initial Napalm Salvo. Lo took care of one of the survivors, and Sevin’s spear made an end for the other two.

Despite feeling like he wasn’t doing anything, Tom was surprised when he checked his status to find that he had reached level three.

Name

Tom Weaver

Health

89/120

Age

14

Mana

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153/212

Race

Human

Stamina

99/110

Class

Controller

Strength

11

Level

3

Dexterity

12

Constitution

12

Endurance

11

It concerned him that he was lacking so much health from the attacks the gnoll had inflicted on him, and the wounds bothered him, but he was still pleased to see his stats going up. Claiming Lo had been a stroke of luck, considering how effective the cyclops beast was in battle. Without his new minions, the teenagers of the party would have been forced to rely far more heavily on Antoine’s interdiction, and Antoine seemed to believe that some lessons could only be learned through trial, error, and painful consequences.

The dungeon twisted left and right several times, and there were a number of forks in the path, but Tom always knew in which direction the Core waited, that sense of something pulling at him, singing at him, drawing him closer.

When they found it, it was obvious to everyone; a shining monolith of crystal sticking out of the ground in the center of the cavern. Unfortunately, it was guarded by a Gnoll larger than the rest; their chieftain, and three others.

Fortunately, their chieftain was just as vulnerable to Napalm as the rest of the gnolls had been, and Jessica targeted him first. The others died to a mixture of spear and claw without much resistance. Once the guardians were dead, Tom approached the Core.

“Do not level or evolve it, Tom,” Antoine reminded him. “In fact, don’t even claim it at first. Just touch it and read me its status.”

Tom nodded, and pressed his hand against the Core Stone.

Core Name

Unnamed

Controller Options:

Claim

Level

13

Level

HP

18/18

Expand

Mana

1451/1532

Reduce

Territory

1278 M^2

Evolve

Floors

1

Summon

Inhabitants

1 Korgoath, 16 gnolls

Spawn

Experience

9.7*10^5/34100

Customize

“It’s ten levels higher than me,” He summarized when he finished reading the stats. “Do you think I an handle claiming it without going insane again?”

“If you can’t, I’ll Vanquish it,” Antoine promised. “Go ahead and Claim it.”

Tom swallowed nervously, then activated his Skill, pumping his mana into Claiming the stone. It sucked him completely dry, but the moment he thought that he didn’t have enough mana to succeed the skill clicked into place, and the mana from the stone rushed into him, refilling what he had lost. He once again gained a faint sense of the dungeon, and the naked feeling of being without a Core went away. He exhaled a sigh of relief.

“There’s sixteen gnolls left,” he pointed out. “I don’t think we’ll be safe in the dungeon until we’ve slain them all. I’m pretty sure that Claiming the Core didn’t Claim them at the same time.”

“Very good. How do you plan on disposing of them?”

Tom frowned, wondering why it was his responsibility to plan the hunt, but, cycling through his menu, he came up with the solution. Placing a hand back on the Core stone, he used Spawn twice, completely draining the Core’s Mana, and his own. His reward was two new Korgoaths. The newly spawned creatures looked around with their massive eye and, seeing Lo, immediately displayed their bellies to their larger and higher leveled elder.

Lo was much pleased with the development, although he was disappointed that both of the new creatures were male. The second disappointment was that they were only level twelve, immature, and nameless. They couldn’t even speak, yipping and yelping like pups. But then, he’d been like that once too.

“Lo, can you lead them and hunt down the remaining gnolls?” Tom asked.

“It would be a pleasure,” the Korgoath confirmed. He barked at his juniors, a sound like he had phlegm stuck in his throat, and they straightened up before following him into the darkness.