1. Chapter 16

Lo and his new pack dashed through the shadows of the dungeon, exulting in the hunt. While he remained wary of the bond that the human had forced on him, continuing to nurse the spark of defiance in case the one called Tom should ask more of Lo than he was willing to give, Lo had no doubt that submitting had been the correct form of action. The humans had broken the strength of the hated gnolls, and all that remained were the stragglers.

Following his nose and other, more esoteric senses, Lo led the younger Korgoaths through the dungeon to their prey. They found the gnolls in twos and threes, and they were merciless, ripping the hyena-faced monsters apart and leaving the remains for the dungeon to reclaim. Even once they had hit the number sixteen, which Lo’s new master had claimed would represent the final gnoll, they continued to hunt, going all the way back to the entrance, where the horses still waited. It was not until they had made three full sweeps of the dungeon that Lo was satisfied, returning to his master to report his success.

Tom reached level four while the Korgoath were hunting. He hoped that the additional level would help him continue to resist the dungeon instincts that were telling him to spawn more monsters, regardless of the consequences. Instead, he Expanded the dungeon’s territory in order to increase its Mana regeneration rate, be it at the cost of maximum mana.

Once he had enough, he Spawned some more of that luminescent moss which was the primary light source this deep in the dungeon. The others rested, recovering from their injuries from the fights against the gnolls, but Tom worried over the Core constantly.

“You’re not going crazy again, are you?” Sevin asked nervously.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “Not yet at least. I just, I’m trying to figure out what to do with it. The core wants to spawn more gnolls. It doesn’t mind spawning Korgoath as well, but it prefers gnolls because they require less mana. Quantity over quality, I guess.”

That was when Lo returned from the hunt, and he hacked in amusement when he overheard the comment.

“The gnoll scourge is no more,” he announced.

“Thank you, Lo,” Tom said.

“It was pure pleasure,” the quadruped demurred. It yipped at its juniors, and they made their way into a corner of the room to lick the blood off of each other. Tom continued to study the menu, trying to figure out how to tame the Dungeon. He figured to start with, he would make it look like an actual dungeon instead of a natural cavern. He began Customizing it, straightening its twisting passageways and oblong rooms into proper hallways and rectangular rooms.

It took some time, but the dungeon quickly learned what shape its Controller wanted it to be in, and it put up no resistance. In fact, Tom thought it seemed eager to please. Except for the nagging urge to Spawn a gnoll or two, he felt that he actually had a handle on Controlling this dungeon.

Time passed. Antoine sent Sevin and Jessica to tend to the horses after Tom drilled a straighter path to the exit with Customize.

“How are you feeling, Tom?” Antoine asked while they were alone.

“It’s fine. The urge to create monsters is just like an annoying itch. I can ignore it,” he answered.

“That’s not what I meant,” the Hero said. He sighed. “Tom, do you want to be a Knight?”

“It’s that or an outlaw, isn’t it?” Tom asked. “That’s not much of a choice. And you’re the one who told me that those are my only options.”

“No, it’s not much of a choice,” Antoine admitted. “Tom, the truth is that I’ve been waiting for a chance to talk to you alone. You probably realize by now that the Kingdom intends to chew you up and spit you out, just like they have every other Controller for the last few hundred years. The other kingdoms won’t be any better, so there’s little point in even trying to defect. However, there is another option. One that they won’t be expecting. It will be difficult, and it’s not something to be taken lightly, but if you choose this path, you’ll have my full support. Both as Antoine Durand, and as The Vanquisher.”

“What are you talking about, Antoine?” Tom asked.

“You could become like the Ancient Kings, Tom,” Antoine said. “You could go out into the Wastes, or the Wilds, and you could establish a new kingdom. A seventh kingdom to rival all of the others. Surpass them even, seeing as they have been stagnating for centuries, chasing down those who should be kings to serve as plumbers and handymen. You could found and rule a kingdom, rather than live a life of servitude to this one.”

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Tom was silent. “How exactly would that work?”

So Antoine began explaining the plan that he’d been developing ever since the last Controller of Welsius, the man who had summoned him, had died. He gave it to Tom in broad strokes, avoiding the names of his co-conspirators and the specific details that would only bog down the conversation or confuse the boy. Tom was only fourteen, after all, and not prepared to handle politics on an international scale yet. It would take time to educate and prepare him for that. There was one detail that Antoine was avoiding specifically, but the boy saw on his own.

“The king wouldn’t be very happy to know you’re having this conversation with me, would he?” Tom asked.

Antoine shrugged. “Technically I might be committing treason right now,” he admitted. “If King Ferdy wants my head, he can come take it.”

Tom frowned, and Antoine decided that he’d given the boy enough to think about for now. “It’s just something to think about for now, Tom. I’m not expecting you to forswear Welsius and head out into the wilds tomorrow. The earliest I can see you making a play for independence is level twenty. Maybe not until level thirty or forty, depending on what skills you unlock. I just wanted to make you aware that it was an option. The Ancient Kings were Controllers, Tom. Just like you are. There’s a reason that the kingdoms don’t allow Controllers to run around unsupervised. They like their power dynamics the way they are.”

Tom nodded, and that was the end of the conversation. He went back to experimenting with his powers over the dungeon, and Antoine sat down to take a brief nap. Before he went to sleep, he caught Lo looking at him with that observational skill, and Antoine taught him a lesson by freezing the mana in the air around the Korgoath. Lo yipped and retreated to the far side of the room.

Klein made himself known to Tom not long after, jumping on the boy’s shoulder while he was still moving things about within the dungeon. The clever little Worsican Tree-Cat hadn’t gotten lost, it had simply been hiding until the violence settled down. Tom was relieved, as he had been worried about his familiar, and the animal’s weight on his shoulder was reassuring.

The party camped that night in the conquered dungeon. Antoine intended for them to move out in the morning, but Tom was suffering from a fever when he awoke the next day; his wounds had become infected. The party dithered on whether or not it would be better to get the boy to a healer, or to keep him near the conquered Dungeon Core, and they eventually settled on the latter. Antoine made the boy swallow bitter medicines and then vanished into the forest outside to hunt.

The fever broke three days later. Tom’s Health had continued to decline throughout his illness, reaching a low of fifty-nine. One of Sevin’s wounds also leaked pus on the second day, but he never grew as ill as Tom did. On the fourth day, Tom was feeling better, his health back in the low eighties, although he had no desire to continue on the journey without the Core Stone.

So he decided to bring it with them.

Once he was feeling better, he attempted to Customize the Core Stone from the monolith it began as into something portable, and he was surprised at how readily the stone changed size. The smallest he could get it was the size of a softball – according to Jessica at least, Tom would have called it slightly larger than the worthmus fruit of Tilluth valley.

However, when the party was finally ready to set out, the weather turned against them, and they retreated once more into the dungeon to avoid a deluge. They were sitting around a fire in the entryway when Jessica had a thought.

“So, this is just me spitballing here, but I noticed that Tom can rearrange the dungeon pretty fast. Is there any reason we can’t use the dungeon to tunnel south? Travel underground until the weather clears up?” she asked.

Deciding that there was no harm in trying her solution, Tom directed the Dungeon to extend itself into a long hallway heading south. He Expanded the Core’s Territory as far as he could, both to increase its mana regeneration and because he learned that doing so increased the length of the tunnels he could create.

Once he had turned the entire dungeon into a single long, straight path, he was forced to connect it back to the surface before collapsing the far end. From there he was able to repeat the process. With this method they were able to tunnel through the earth like a gigantic worm, and at a decent pace too. They walked their horses just behind the expanding tunnel almost at the same speed they would have walked the surface.

The rain continued for three days.

Tom felt mostly recovered. His health was back above one hundred, and the claw wounds and bites he had suffered from the gnoll had mostly healed. While the lack of sunshine affected the others, especially Jessica, he felt right at home with this method of travel, and in fact preferred it, as stepping outside the tunnel caused him to lose the sensation of being enveloped by its safety.

~~~~~~~

Silva was miserable. Her pegasus mount was miserable. Her squad was miserable, and her squad’s mounts were miserable. But the search must continue, and so they flew through the rain that would not stop, looking for four horseback riders heading south. They ruled out the road to Tuksan quickly enough, but knowing Antoine’s penchant for testing new recruits by exposing them to actual – if controlled – dangerous situations even before they’d gone through basic training, they split off and searched in an expanding spiral pattern.

When that turned up fruitless, and shortly before the rain stopped, she realized that she was being foolish. She flew to Tuksan and requested the location of all of the registered wild dungeons in the area and proceeded to check on them, expecting to find one of them conquered.

She was not expecting to find one of them missing entirely. It was, naturally, at about that moment when the rain stopped. She was still soaking wet when she opened her pocket scry-mirror to report in that Antoine and the Controller had stolen a dungeon together.