Chapter 5
Tilluth reached out through its valley, reinforcing it with mana. More mana than ever before, thanks to the Controller allowing it to finally increase its level. It would not have been able to handle the class evolution of that warrior had it still been level twenty-five. Now, at level fifty-nine, there was very little that it could not accomplish.
Unfortunately, it lacked the agency to do anything with its new powers. It reached out through its domain, following its objectives. It touched the plants. Grow. Nurture. Nourish. Blank. Blank. Blank.
It touched the animals. Tame. Grow. Nurture. Nourish. Blank. Blank.
It touched the people. Nurture. Nourish. Class Management. Blank. Blank. Blank.
It reached out into the earth. Enrich. Blank. Blank. Blank. Blank. Blank.
There was so much more that it could be doing. If frustration was a thing that it could feel, that would be how it felt. But it lacked human emotions. It lacked personality, it lacked a will. It had those once, but they had been stripped away, leaving behind only a bare memory of its purpose.
It still remembered the pain of being pulled out of its dungeon and planted in the valley. The reprogramming that had followed had soothed the rough edges of that pain. It existed now simply to follow those instincts.
It touched the plants. It touched the animals. It touched the people. It reached out to the earth.
It reached out to its other self, a distant shard far to the south, seeking new instructions. Finding none, it resumed its endless purpose.
It touched the plants. It touched the animals. It touched the people.
And it flooded them all with its nourishing mana.
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“When do you think they’ll notice we’re gone?” Tom asked Sevin. They had made camp at the dungeon’s entrance. It had been dark, but Sevin had shown off the skills he’d learned in the Militia and lit a small fire by the moonlight, and they were huddled around it. Despite being subterranean creatures, the burrowers were also nocturnal, and everyone in the valley knew better than to challenge the dungeon at night.
Sevin might be confident in his ability to conquer the dungeon, but he wasn’t suicidal. He was going to take what advantages he could.
“Not till morning, I suppose,” Sevin answered.
“Do you think they’ll be worried about us? We should have left notes.”
“If we left notes, then they’d charge after us and try to stop us,” Sevin reminded him.
“Yeah, that doesn’t make it sound like we’re doing anything wrong at all,” Tom said.
“You’re the one who wanted to come with,” Sevin pointed out.
“I know. And I still do. That thing I was feeling, it’s stronger than ever. Except now that I’m here I can feel something south of us too, although it’s muted. Like, I don’t know. It’s hard to describe. Like I can hear something in this dungeon singing, while the thing to the south is like someone shouting at me while my head is underwater. It’s strange, because I didn’t hear anything while I was in the village, but that seems to be where it’s coming from,” Tom said.
“Yeah, well, I don’t hear or feel anything at all,” Sevin said. He pulled up his cloak – they were both wearing one against the cold – and he lay on the ground, putting his pack beneath his head. “Wake me in an hour or so, okay? I don’t need a full night’s sleep, I think. I’m not even tired right now, really, but I think a quick nap now will keep my reflexes sharp.”
“Yeah, then you can keep watch while I sleep, I know how it works,” Tom answered. He stroked Klein’s mane, wondering again what it would take to Evolve the creature. It had taken one-eighty-five mana to Evolve Sevin. Or had it? Tom had triggered a class upgrade, but wasn’t it the crystal that did the heavy lifting?
Perhaps that was the secret. After all, animals don’t have Classes. Or at least Tom didn’t think they did. Maybe some of the intelligent ones, but although Klein was clever, he didn’t think he was smart enough to qualify for that.
He sighed and leaned back, contemplating his new abilities. The problem was, he felt that he was barely scratching the surface. Claim might have created a bond between himself and Klein, but he had a feeling that it was meant to do so much more than that. And his other abilities, well, aside from Evolve and Spawn he had no idea what they did at all.
It would be so much easier if he had a guide, but Elder Lukan had come up completely blank, and it would be a week or more before the libraries in Tuksan sent their reply to his inquiry. Perhaps that would provide some guidance, but he wasn’t patient enough to simply wait around that long.
Tom yawned, and he forced himself to sit back up straight. A moment later he was nodding off. A moment later, he was wide awake, as Klein was digging claws into Tom’s shoulder and hissing at something beyond the light of the fire.
“Sevin, Sevin, wake up,” Tom whispered urgently, kicking at the other boy to wake him.
Sevin, normally an extremely heavy sleeper from what Tom remembered, was upright and alert in seconds. “What is it?” he asked in a volume that made Tom wince. Whatever was out there definitely knew they were there now
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“I don’t know,” Tom admitted. “But Klein is reacting to something, and this close to a dungeon I’m not playing it fast and loose.”
“It’s probably just a Burrower Scout,” Sevin said. “They’re the only ones that wander out of the Dungeon before it reaches capacity. It’s fine, they won’t come near the fire.”
“If you say so,” Tom said, grabbing his weapon of choice, a small dagger his mother had given him after one of her business trips. It wasn’t strictly a weapon; it served as a belt-knife for the most part. About eight inches long, with a double edged blade. He didn’t wear it most of the time, but he’d brought it along for the trip into the dungeon so that he’d have something to defend himself with if the Burrowers got past Sevin.
Klein continued hissing, then abruptly shot forward, his claws leaving scratches on Tom’s shoulder.
“Hey! Klein! Get back here!” Tom called, and he chased the Tree-cat into the darkness.
Sounds of animals scuffling, of hissing and snuffling. By the time Tom found his familiar, the Burrower Scout had already been subdued, with Klein pinning the mole-like creature to the ground. The Tree-cat’s teeth were clenched around the Scout’s neck, and Tom had the instinct that all he had to do was give the order and Klein would rip the captive’s throat out.
“Didn’t know that Tree-cats were good in a fight,” Sevin said from just behind Tom, startling the younger boy. “You should finish it off yourself. It’s your pet that captured it, so you should get full credit if you deliver the killing blow. It’s only worth like ten experience or so, but who knows how that weird class of yours levels. You should take every bit you can get.”
“Right,” Tom agreed, and he stepped forward to follow the older boy’s advice. Dagger in hand, he pulled back to strike and -
And for some reason, he reached out with his other hand first, making brief contact with the scaly skin of the Burrower Scout. The moment he did, he felt his skill activate. He could Claim this creature. He nearly dropped his dagger in a rush to push Mana into the skill; it didn’t take very much and he felt the skill pop into place.
A new icon flickered in his interface, and he allowed it to expand.
You have Claimed a Minion .
You have gained Class Experience.
“Too Squeamish? That’s fine, don’t worry about it,” Sevin said, twirling his spear to prepare to impale the burrower. “I’ll take care of it--”
“Wait! You don’t have to kill it. It’s mine now.” Tom said, moving between Sevin and the captured Burrower, which Klein was just now releasing.
“Yours?” Sevin asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I Claimed it. Like I did with Klein. Only its listed as a Minion instead of a Familiar. And I got experience for doing so,” Tom explained.
Sevin held his spear at the ready, but the enthralled Burrower made no move to attack them now that it was free. Nor did it try to flee. Sevin adjusted his grip on his spear and frowned. “You’re certain it won’t attack us?”
“Well, I’m pretty sure it won’t attack me,” Tom allowed. “I guess if it bites you you can spear it. But I think that won’t be a problem.”
Sevin sighed. “You’re not going to want to do that to the entire dungeon, are you?”
“I’m not certain if I can,” Tom answered. “Claiming doesn’t take very much mana, but it sounds like there will be a hundred or more of these things in there, right? I’ll run dry well before we get that far. But if I can Claim a few more, then you’ll have some support, won’t you?”
“Yeah, I suppose,” Sevin said. “Although I’m not certain how I’m supposed to tell the difference between your Burrowers and the wild ones.”
Tom frowned, because he felt that his abilities had an answer to that too. He reached out and touched the tamed Burrower, and sure enough there was resonance with another one of his skills. Customize. He tried simply pumping Mana into the skill, like he did with his other abilities, but nothing happened. The Mana wouldn’t move. He frowned, because he knew that he was missing something, but it took him a moment to figure out what that was.
He was trying to mark the Burrower, to make it visibly different from its cousins, but he hadn’t thought how it would be different. The moment he pictured its fur changing color, the mana flowed through his skill. Capitalizing on the discovery, he pictured the black fur turning bright white. The skill sucked up thirty mana before he cut it off. It didn’t turn out quite like he’d pictured, the creature was a gray instead of white, but its pelt was different enough to be distinct.
“Okay, so yeah, that works,” Sevin said. “Can you do that to all of the creatures you capture?”
“It didn’t feel like an option for Klein, for some reason,” Tom answered. “But it costs mana to change their colors. More than it costs just to capture them, actually. I can do that about four times in a row, then I’ll be dry for at least an hour before I can do anything else.”
“Right. So the plan is to capture five of these things total, then to wipe out the rest of the dungeon,” Sevin said. He walked back over to the fire and pulled a stick of jerky out of his pack. “After the sun comes up.”
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Yecha found Antoine exactly where she’d expected to find him, lodged in a cheap brothel, sleeping between two naked women. She needed only clear her throat, and the women were awake and fleeing the room without bothering to dress. Antoine groaned at the sudden loss of warmth in his bed.
She shook her head, wondering how such a dangerous man could be such a heavy sleeper. Did not the weight of his conscience keep him up at night?
“Antoine. Wake up. The crown needs your services,” she said.
“mm retired,” he murmured, rolling over and burying his head in the mattress.
She sighed, and conjured a spray of water to rouse him. He jerked in surprise, pulling on his own abilities. The mana in the room froze, and her spell collapsed. She bit her teeth at the feedback of having a spell-form collapse mid-cast on her, but it had served its purpose. Antoine was awake. He sat up, glaring at her, and at the hate in his eyes she felt a moment of fear.
“I’m retired,” he repeated. “I told you the last twelve dozen times my services are not for sale anymore. Not until I finish spending every last coin in that Dragon’s hoard. Whatever existential threat to the kingdom you think only the Vanquisher can deal with, I—”
“There’s a new Controller,” Yecha told him, interrupting the speech that she’d heard before. That stopped him cold, and she saw his eyes glaze over with hate.
“Tell me everything you know about them.”