Chapter 43

Tom had been hoping more than a little bit that the destruction of Alpha Dungeon would gain him experience. Dozens of gnolls died as the tunnels collapsed on them, and many more burrowers, rock spiders, and of course the denizens of floor four. Brutus had eagerly returned to Tom’s service when the party had ventured onto floor five, and gone so far as to wrestle with the other two minotaurs which the dungeon had spawned until Tom could Claim them. However, although many monsters died in the collapse, none of them granted Tom a single point of experience.

Before departing, Tom had taken a chance and leveled Alpha Core again. This time the core had jumped by only one level at a time, but Tom, confident in his ability to resist its influence, had brought it all the way up to level twenty in preparation for claiming some of the nearby dungeons.

While he was at it, he reached out through the core and triggered Beta Core to level as well. Beta Core took the chance to shoot up to level nineteen, fully healing itself with the five levels that it gained. Gamma Core, the highest level of the dungeons Tom had Linked to his small network, he left alone. He didn’t trust that core not to use the opportunity to use all of its stored experience should Tom use Level on it, and he didn’t trust that he’d be able to control it properly once it he did.

This left him with a primary core (Alpha) of level twenty with full health, and networked cores of level nineteen and level forty-one. Unfortunately Gamma Core had not yet fully healed itself since it had been Linked to the network. It was the only one of the three cores that remained damaged with thirty-nine of forty-six health, having regenerated three hit points over the weeks that they had been idle at the Weaver Estate.

He remained uncertain exactly how core health worked. After researching the books given to him by the Queen of Koratia’s agent, as well as those provided to him by King Fenard, Tom remained unable to find any mention of the Link skill, which seemed to be the trigger for the cores in Tom’s network losing HP.

Traditionally, the management of HP was for the use of Sunder. A core could be physically damaged by, for example, striking it with a sledgehammer, but such damage would be unlikely to actually create fissures in the Core material. It would lower the HP however. This would allow the Controllers to control how many shards were generated with Sunder, as each shard would possess one HP, with the levels of the core being likewise divided equally among the shards.

This was the only known way to lower a shard’s level, in addition to creating shards which were linked together. Except that they were not Linked the way that Tom’s network was linked; they operated individually in some aspects and as a unified whole in others. Tom still hadn’t figured it out completely; apparently it might make more sense if he had Collaboration and used it on a Sundered Core.

Considering that most of the tamed cores in cities, towns and villages were sundered, and that the sundered shards which were not in those locations were often ‘part of those that were,’ Fenard was reluctant to have Tom interact with those shards until he unlocked the Collaboration skill himself. As such, the dungeons which Fenard was sending Tom after were those which had spawned naturally, rather than those which had been made and placed somewhere by Tom’s predecessors.

Their party was fairly large this time. Tom, Sevin, and Jessica remained the youngest members. Antoine continued to join them, although this time he specified that the only time he would get involved was to save Tom’s life. The summoned heroes Grant and Emil were joining them on this quest as well. Aisha was notified, but elected to remain in the city of Profons healing the sick and injured.

The final humans in their party were three members of the winged knights, including Silva and two of her associates, Nolan and Rebekah. The three of them were to act as both guardians and guides. While the Winged Knights were higher leveled than Tom, Sevin, and the recently summoned Heroes, they insisted that they were mostly being sent as backup in case the party encountered monsters that were too strong for the heroes to deal with.

The remaining members of the party were not human, but Claimed monsters. Five Korgoath, led by Lo, and three minotaur, led by Brutus. At Grant’s suggestion, the other two minotaur were named Caesar and Cicero. Aside from the monsters, there were the mounts; the crown provided each of the humans with a horse. The winged knights of course had their own pegasi.

The stable boys of Weaver Estate ended up coming with on two ponies to care for the animals and see to the baggage train, which consisted of a pair of mules. The butler was annoyed at this decision, as although the party needed the services of the boys more, the estate still needed at least one hand in the stable, which forced him to hire another to replace the boys while they were off on their adventure.

The boys were Mark, age twelve, and Tony, age fifteen. They were both in awe of their companions, particularly the Vanquisher and Madame Silva, but with a health dose left over for Sevin, who was only a few years older than them yet a Warrior. They were awed by the Heroes and Heroine of the party, of course, but Jessica and the two men hadn’t made a name for themselves yet, so they were slightly further down the two boys’ list in regards to outstanding figures.

Tom wasn’t on that list at all, as while he was their employer, they were in the dark about the uniqueness of his Controller class.

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At least, they were until they had traveled twenty kilometers from the Estate and Tom decided that it was time to begin tunneling. That changed their opinions slightly. But the Vanquisher’s place at the top of their list was never in question.

~~~~~~~

The knocking at the door woke him after noon. Lubald grumbled and stumbled getting out of bed to answer it, his head hurting and his mouth tasting sour from the worthmus brandy. Fortunately the solution to both of those problems was more brandy, and he’d just so happened to have placed a half empty bottle of that on his bedside table before passing out late last night.

Or was it early this morning? He wasn’t certain.

Life as a lord was not living up to his expectations. Before he had ridden off to this backwater, he had bragged to his friends how he would bed the local women and sire a dozen bastards, then return with wagon loads of Flame Lynx pelts. Unfortunately for him, the women here were as frigid as the weather, and the damn monsters that he was supposed to cull were as elusive as any sort of drink that wasn’t purple.

When he had arrived, the worthmus wine and brandy had been free, and the people of his village eager to make his acquaintance. The cost of his drink had increased, while the friendliness of the villagers had decreased proportionally. The women, whom he had thought would fawn over him, were all either married (and frustratingly loyal to their husbands) or unmarried for very obvious reasons. Either visible ones, or ones that became apparent after five minutes of conversation.

And then there were the monsters. The damn things were impossible to find, let alone hunt! So far, the only villagers who would reliably spot one of the blasted creatures were the children, who were growing increasingly inured to the encounters. A few adults reported sightings occasionally, but not frequently. Usually in response to the cries of a farm animal being slaughtered by the monsters, or the shouts of a child throwing rocks at the cat-like monsters after having dusted themselves in the bitter powder they were expected to carry with them.

Lubald opened the door, and the cold spring air made him regret not putting on a robe. He wore just his trousers, having lost his shirt at some point the night before. Thankfully the Weavers had left behind their magical heating stones when they’d sold him their sty of a two-story house. While it was one of the nicer buildings in the village, it fell far short of Lubald’s standards for long term habitation.

Elder Lukan and Harvold the head of the local militia stood at the door. Harvold had a stern expression on his face.

“Lord Lubald. I heard you’ve been making inappropriate advances towards Lillianna Tulendoter,” Harvold said, his tone matching his expression.

Lubald frowned for a moment, trying to remember which of the village women that was. “You’ll have to be more specific, my fellow, for I’ve been making inappropriate advances to half of the whores of this little shithole you call a village, and thus far they’re all as frigid as … I can’t think of a metaphor, it’s too early.”

“It’s half past noon,” Lukan said.

“Yes, much too early for clever words,” Lubald agreed, taking a drink of his brandy. “Is that why you’ve come knocking on the door at this ungodly hour? To reprimand me for my flirtatious nature? Is the woman’s husband too cowardly to confront me himself?”

That was most likely the case, seeing as nobody in the village had an honest class like himself. He could hardly blame the man for --

“She isn’t married, because she is fifteen and yet a child,” Harvold said, his voice seething.

“Oh,” Lubald said, and he had the grace to be ashamed of himself. For a moment. “When’s her birthday? You know, so that I can pay my respects.”

Harvold threw a punch, but although the Militiaman was the highest level Commoner in the village, Lubald was about his equal in level and, more importantly, had a class to be proud of. He caught the blow and returned it with one of his own to send the man sprawling into the melting snow several feet away.

Had he used a Skill, he might have killed the man just now.

“If that is all, I’d appreciate if you left me alone to sleep off this hangover,” he said as Harvold sputtered on the ground.

Lukan caught his foot in the door before it slammed shut; a mistake because Lubald used a bit of Strength in slamming it, but the schoolmaster simply flinched. “Lord Lubald, I’m not here to chastise you. I believe you made an honest mistake and, now that you have been informed of it, you will desist. I am actually here to deliver your mail. The post just arrived, and several letters were for you. I was waiting to see you about the village, but when I saw Harvold making his way to your door I took the opportunity. If I had realized what the topic of conversation would be, I would have waited until later.”

The old man handed Lubald a stack of letters through the door, which Lubald accepted before slamming, this time without the elder’s foot in the way.

Lubald threw them on a table – he had purchased the finer pieces of the Weaver’s furniture from them, so it was in fact the same table that Tom had eaten breakfast at for the vast majority of his life – before making his way into the kitchen to fry himself some eggs and sausage to go with his brandy. He resolved to read his correspondence as he was eating his post-noon breakfast, but with each letter, he lost a little bit of his appetite.

The first letter was from one of the women he had been courting in the south, officially ending their relationship. No reason was given.

The second was from his father, informing him that, now that he was a lord and had established a place of residence in his land, his room in the family estate was being converted into a guestroom and his allowance was being reduced by thirty percent. While Lubald should be able to make up the difference by enacting a tax on the village he now governed for his protection, the loss of his income left a sour taste in his mouth.

The final letter, by which point his delicious breakfast tasted like ashes in his mouth, was from an agent of the king inquiring as to how his management of his new lands was going, reminding him in explicit terms that he was expected to cull the monsters of the valley in order to earn the lands he had been given. The letter contained the veiled threat that what was given could be taken away.

Taking one final drink from the bottle and finding it empty, he threw it into the corner, where it bounced but did not shatter, joining several other bottles already there. Returning to his bedroom, he began dressing for a hunt.

Perhaps if he used one of the children as bait, he would finally see one of the slippery bastard monsters he was supposed to cull.