Chapter 19

Jessica was the one who thought to arm the gnolls. The creatures were reluctant to follow them outside into the sunlight, but they followed Tom’s instructions as they searched for deadfall suitable for clubs. Antoine informed them that higher level gnolls were clever enough to knap flint for spearheads, but these freshly Spawned creatures regarded his instructions with confusion and distrust.

In the end, Tom Spawned eight gnolls and twelve rock spiders for the purpose of clearing the breached dungeon. With the three Korgoath he already had, he thought that he had sufficient forces. Before he sent them in, he approached Lo.

“I just want to say, if you get overrun or anything in there, it’s okay if you lead the others into a retreat,” Tom told the monster. “I don’t expect you to commit suicide for this.”

Lo examined his master, uncertain what the human was getting at. “I would not if you commanded it. I am no foolish gnoll. I know when to fight and when to hide.”

“Yeah, I know you’re smart,” Tom said. “That’s why I don’t want you to die. I’m a little nervous sending you in there. You’re the strongest monster I have presently, however, and the only one that’s intelligent enough to lead the others. Do you think they’ll listen to you if you issue them commands?”

“No,” Lo admitted. “Only my pack will listen to me. But the filthy gnolls will stick together for safety. I do not know enough about the rock creatures to know how they will act.”

“Well, just do your best. And stay safe. I’d like you to come back, even if that means abandoning the rest of my monsters,” Tom said. Then he gathered the rest of the monsters, and he sent them into the breach.

Lo considered his master’s foolishness as he Stealthed ahead of the small army to scout. The human remained weak, except for his ability to summon endless forces. With that consideration in place, Tom was likely the strongest of the humans except for the frightful one. Lo knew that it was only his obsequiousness to Tom that prevented the frightful one from ending Lo. That alone was worth continuing the relationship, at least until an opportunity to escape from the party presented itself.

Of course Lo would abandon the gnolls and the skittering rocks if they encountered overwhelming odds. For that matter, Lo had little compunction with abandoning the two younger Korgoath. Tom hadn’t ordered Lo to do anything that wasn’t already self-obvious.

Then again, aside from participating in combat along with non-korgoath forces, Tom hadn’t instructed Lo to do anything at all that ran counter to the monster’s sensibilities. Lo did resent the boy’s decision to spawn more of the hated gnolls rather than giving Lo a proper pack of korgoath to lead. But then again, Lo didn’t expect any of the newly spawned jackals to survive the conquering of this spider-infested dungeon.

If necessary, he’d put his paw on the scales to ensure that they did not.

~~~~~~~

The Worthmus wine and the biscuit her mother gave her did much to settle her nerves, but Vella was still trembling as they walked the short distance from their home into the village. Changing into a dry skirt had helped her feel better as well. She kept looking around, expecting the monster to appear out of Stealth like it had before. She’d never been so frightened in her life, and only her mother’s insistence was enough to get her to leave her house.

They went to Elder Lukan’s house, and after explaining the situation, the Elder sat with her with a book, showing her pictures of monsters and asking her to identify which one she’d seen. Her mother left her alone with the old man while she went to inform Harvold, the leader of the militia, that there was a potentially high level monster in the valley.

The book was thick, and the drawings were detailed. She narrowed it down only slightly by telling the elder that the monster walked on four legs and describing its fur patterns. She hadn’t realized that so many different monsters existed in the world! The bestiary was thicker than any of the books in the small schoolhouse, and it was only one of the four such books that Elder Lukan possessed.

They reached the end of the book without finding the monster that had spooked her. They found it in the second book Elder Lukan had her look at, and she finally had a name for the monster. Elder Lukan turned the book away from her once she’d identified the monster, quickly scanning the text that accompanied the drawing.

“It says here that the Fire-Lynx does not typically prey on humans,” the elder informed her. “I’m not going to say that you weren’t in any danger, Vella, because I know you’re too smart to believe me. But we’re very lucky that if the valley has a new type of monster, it’s not one known to be a vicious man-eater.”

Vella swallowed and nodded, not very reassured by the information. Elder Lukan gave her another biscuit, which she nibbled on while waiting for her mother to return. Elder Lukan went on to explain that there was a very common method of discouraging a Fire-lynx from attacking; a combination of powdered herbs that would drive the monster away. He assured her that they would be buying a large quantity of these herbs from Tuskan at the first opportunity, and that once they had them in stock all of the children in the valley would be required to carry a pouch of the deterrent with them at all times to keep them safe.

Vella was clever enough to identify the discrepancy between “you were never in any danger” and “you’ll need a pouch of monster repellent to keep you safe.” She knew that Elder Lukkan was just trying to make her feel better by his reassurances, but she wasn’t certain that she’d ever feel safe playing outside again.

Lukan, for his part, was truly grateful that his favorite student had escaped the encounter unharmed. He didn’t lie to her when he said that the Fire-lynx wasn’t known for hunting humans. But he did neglect to mention the footnote on the page. When the monsters did attack humans, it was most often unsupervised children.

Lukan said a little prayer for the soul of the Tree-cat that the Fire-lynx had taken instead of the little girl. Hopefully the child would never realize just how lucky she had been. Although that was unlikely, given the measures that the village would be forced to take until they received the first delivery of the deterrent.

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She was a clever girl, after all.

~~~~~~~

Lo pounced on the unsuspecting Spider, his weight crushing it and his claws tearing through its chitin. It writhed beneath him, and his jaws clamped down on one of its legs, ripping the limb away with a sickening sound. He tasted the ichor and it tasted like victory.

The spider didn’t die right away, and he ripped another limb from the arachnid.

The others were in combat, but Lo ignored them for now. The small army of gnolls, loud and obnoxious though they were, were proving to be an effective distraction, allowing Lo to Stealth ahead and ambush the foreign monsters that rushed to confront the invaders.

Two of the gnolls and three of the rock spiders had perished so far during the offensive, but Tom’s monsters had cleared out a significant portion of the dungeon. Lo hadn’t been counting, but his erstwhile allies had slain dozens of the spiders and snakes that made up this new dungeon’s monsters. Lo felt the spider beneath him go limp with death, and he snorted in disdain. So weak.

He looked about, but the others had mostly finished crushing the latest group of enemies. Two of the gnolls looked to be on death’s door, one with three new spider bites and the other having suffered a snakebite. The fresh injuries were not those monster’s first, and as Lo Examined them he saw that they were both down into the single digits of Health, with their strength continuing to fade slowly as the venom took effect.

Like Lo, the other two Korgoath were hunting from Stealth, waiting for the gnolls and rock spiders to engage before ambushing the occupied enemy. Lo regarded his younger packmates with some disdain. The injured one was overly wary of suffering another attack and was showing signs of cowardice, for all that its body had already fought off the venom and its health was slowly regenerating. Weakling. The other Korgoath was slightly more bold, but it was slow and clumsy.

Useless. Lo again wished that one of them had been Spawned female, as at least then they could serve a purpose as his mate.

A skittering sound, and Lo immediately dropped back into stealth. He scanned around with his single eye, the darkness hiding no secrets from his gaze. He saw the shadows of the oncoming enemy; the noisy gnolls had alerted another group of the spiders, and they were about to be swarmed. Lo’s foolish allies hadn’t realized an attack was oncoming yet, but Lo wasn’t about to correct them.

Fortunately one of the gnolls spotted the enemies before it was too late and it barked out a warning to the others. Too late to make a difference, the other Korgoath attempted to stealth, but they had already been spotted by the leading spiders.

The gnolls laughed and charged into battle, their clubs rising and falling with savage fury as they attempted to beat the spiders to death. The fools, Lo thought. They would do better to wait until the Rock Spiders engaged, resistant as the earthen creatures were to venom. He waited until most of the enemies were engaged before pouncing on one at the edge of the melee, flipping the spider onto its back and ripping out its innards.

He left the writhing spider to die and pounced on a second one, pinning it beneath him and ripping one of its legs away. He was utterly unafraid of these enemies, seeing as their most dangerous weapon, their venom, hadn’t been enough to kill his lesser kinsman.

The snakes he was more wary of, as he’d yet to see the effects of their bite on one of his kind. One of the dead gnolls had died from a single snakebite. Granted that bite had been on the jackal’s neck, which was likely responsible for the lethality of the wound. Lo was unwilling to risk such an injury himself, so he was especially wary around the asps. Fortunately the slithering foes were less common than the spiders, and when they were found it was often in ones or twos rather than the swarms that the spiders attacked in.

The last of the spiders died beneath a gnoll’s clumsy clubbing. A different gnoll, one that had already been injured, sat on the ground. A moment later, it slumped to the side, dead. Lo would not mourn it one bit. He dropped back into stealth and went ahead of the others to scout out the next room.

~~~~~~~

Tom wrangled his hands. He was surprisingly worried about his monsters. He knew that they were just monsters, but he felt responsible for them. He knew that they were making progress by the slow trickle of experience he was getting.

Abruptly, a system notification appeared in his vision.

Congratulations, Controller, you have reached level 5.

Subclass selection is available. Select your subclass at your earliest convenience by interacting with the nearest Core Stone.

The nearest core stone to your location is 0 meters away.

Tom blinked and closed the notification. He pulled the Core Stone out of the sack he’d been using to carry it, and immediately the system gave him a new prompt.

Select from the following subclasses

Conqueror

Inheritor

Progenitor

“Um, Antoine?” he said. “I just reached level five, and the system is giving me the option to choose my subclass.”

“Congratulations,” Antoine said, carving the skin off of an apple. “I wasn’t expecting you to unlock one so early. Or to have a choice. I won’t make the choice for you, and I don’t know too much about the options. The two subclasses I’m somewhat of familiar with are Conqueror, which specializes in subduing wild dungeons, and Inheritor. My … the man who summoned me was an Inheritor. He claimed that the subclass was most useful for maintaining the infrastructure of the kingdom. I don’t know very much more than that.”

Tom considered for a moment. “What about progenitor? Do you have any information about that subclass?”

Antoine abruptly stopped, looking intently at Tom. “I will not tell you which class to pick, Tom,” he said eventually. “But if I were you, I’d pick that.”

“What do you know about it?” Tom pressed.

“Only that I’ve never heard of it until just now,” Antoine admitted. “I’ve read as much about your class as anyone outside of the royal family is allowed to read, Tom, and I’ve never heard of a Controller subclass with that name. That means that either it’s extremely rare or restricted information.” He paused to consider something. “There is a chance that it’s restricted information because the crown wants to discourage its new Controllers from selecting it. To me, that idea increases its allure. But it is your decision and you are the one who will have to live with the consequences. Whatever you choose, I’ll continue to support you.”

The information available to him was less than he wished for, but Tom knew there was no point in delaying. If he dithered, there was a chance that the system would make the selection for him, and if he had to live with the consequences he’d rather it be due to his own agency rather than allowing the choice to be taken away from him.

Conqueror sounded like it would give him more combat ability, and Tom was extremely tempted to select it on that criteria alone. Inheritor sounded rather less appealing; Tom was already disillusioned with the fact that he’d be expected to be the maintenance man for the Kingdom’s Core Stones. That left Progenitor, for which he knew very little other than the name.

He considered for several moments, then he made his selection.