Chapter 62

Three weeks passed.

The Weavers arrived at Weaver Estate, and were flabbergasted at the extravagance of their new dwelling. One of the outbuildings was designated as Norman’s new workshop. Vella enjoyed gossiping with Jill while she wasn’t immersed in the books that Anaxis had acquired for her. Sue Weaver made the rounds to the local community, establishing contracts to purchase the materials for her husband’s trade.

Anaxis remained nearby, mostly in the shadows, as the guards that the weavers had paid to protect them from monsters along the way dispersed and the guards that Anaxis had hired to protect them from a different sort of monsters remained in full force. The two knights who had met them along the road remained as well, under orders from his majesty to keep the Weavers safe from all threats until instructed otherwise.

Anaxis, for his part, wasn’t altruistic; he fully intended to reveal his efforts to Tom at the earliest opportunity. But he saw no reason to alarm his charges of the threat that they were under when there was nothing that they could do about it.

He had reported to his superiors that Velund had attempted to make a move, and that the silent war to obtain Tom’s services had suffered its first casualty. Not that anyone would be grieving the spy that Anaxis had murdered. But the news would be valuable, and his information network had acquired it first. In the wake of the Velundian agent’s death, a rush to secure his known assets took place in the shadow, and the search for the loose variables that the man would have left behind began.

Tom received a steady stream of experience from the guardsmen delving the Caseville city dungeon, as well as the other four dungeons under his control. A lot of experience, actually. He reached level twenty three without lifting a finger, but at that point his growth stalled out. He was uncertain why until he shared the problem with King Fenard.

“While I’m uncertain how your Progenitor subclass affects matters, when a Conqueror or Inheritor suffers a sudden plateau in their growth, that indicates that it is time for them to move on to a new Core,” the king explained via the scry-mirror that Silva carried with her “Or, in your case, to claim a new one for your network.”

Tom, who had been reluctant about revealing his level twenty skill at this point, processed the information for several moments. “I think that, in that case, it might be time for me to return to Weaver Estate for a while. The Caseville Core and the two villages that are part of it seem to be stable and very happy with the dungeon that I’ve made for them, and I don’t think there’s any risk of those cores spawning a monster anywhere outside of it. Alpha core remains badly damaged, however, so I’d like to let it have some time to recover before I begin challenging new dungeons again.”

“I don’t suppose the Mend was your level twenty skill, or that wouldn’t be a concern,” the king commented.

“I told you, I’m not telling,” Tom said.

The king let out a long sigh. The boy’s reticence on the matter was frustrating. He understood it, to some extent. The boy, despite having earned a class known as Controller, had lost a significant amount of control over his own life. It was more than a bit childish, in the king’s opinion, to withhold this information from the people best equipped to help him develop his class. But pressing the boy too hard would only cause him to terminate the connection on the scry-mirror and go do something else.

It was perhaps disrespectful to the crown, but considering that Tom had received overtures from all six of the kingdoms at this point – and that the king had been helpless but to hear of those overtures secondhand from Silva, as they had been made in public and the agents hadn’t violated any laws – Fenard was rather reticent to press any issue with Tom which might alienate the boy.

Tom, for his part, had a very good reason to withhold the information.

He had unlocked Collaborate. If Fenard knew that he had this skill, the most desirable skill that a Controller could unlock – at least from the kingdom’s standpoint – then there was a chance that, pledge to support it or not, Tom’s quest might come to an end. He knew from the literature that the training of both Inheritors and Conquerors was considered complete once they had unlocked this skill, with every level gained afterwards considered superfluous and, for some reason, undesirable.

Even Sunder, should it for whatever reason be unlocked after Collaborate, was less desirable.

Tom had no intention of halting his quest or slowing down his leveling. In fact, if it weren’t for the excuse of seeing his family, which he had been informed had arrived at Weaver estate, he would have simply leveled Alpha Core to heal it and conquered a few new dungeons. As it was, however, he hadn’t seen his family all winter and the weather was now turning warm. He missed his parents, and he wanted to spend time with them.

And he needed their advice. He had been passive for some time now, simply accepting the changes and challenges in his life as they came. Ever since he had unlocked his class and had his entire future upended on him, he hadn’t known what to do. He still didn’t. But he thought that a few long conversations with his parents on the matter might help him come to a decision.

The king’s hesitation turned onto another matter, and Fenard finally decided that, with that weasel Anaxis patrolling the Weaver’s estate, it was inevitable that the boy would learn of it anyway, he decided it was time to share the news.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Tom, you should know, a few weeks ago, one of the Flame Lynx monsters that have been spawning in Tilluth valley since your departure became a maneater. It was slain by the lord that I sent to protect the valley, but the lord suffered grievous wounds. He is still recovering. Aside from the lord himself, there were six casualties. None of them children, thank the stones, but they might have been people that you know. I have the list of names here, if you’d like to hear them.”

Tom didn’t want to hear them, but he felt obligated to. None of the casualties of his mistake were people that he was especially close to. But they were dead because of his misuse of his powers. Their lives ended because he had leveled the Tilluth Valley Core. And, he had sort of pieced together after the king had revealed that residential cores required a dungeon outlet, he was also responsible for Antoine destroying the dungeon north of Tilluth village.

Were it not for his mistakes, those two things would not have happened, and the six names that the king read to him would be people still alive and well.

He resolved to do better.

“King Fenard, once I’ve returned Alpha Core to the Weaver Estate and spent some time with my family,” Tom began, “I would like to visit the capital. I need to give my network some time to recover anyway, and I think it’s time that I see this great map room that I’m expected to manage for you someday. I’m not ready to lock myself in a room with it just yet, but I might be able to fix Tilluth Valley by giving it a dungeon from there.”

The king considered, and bowed to the boy’s wisdom. “Perhaps giving the valley a dungeon is something that we should have had you do before departing from your home. It may have been an oversight on my part to sweep you away from where you were found before the damage caused by your early explorations of your power were mitigated. Rather than have you come to the capital, however, which I believe would be an uncomfortable experience for you, I will have the Command Core for Tilluth Valley to be brought to Weaver Estate. It will meet you there, upon your arrival.”

Tom, who had not been looking forward to visiting a city where he couldn’t Control the Core, exhaled a sigh of relief at the suggestion. “I would appreciate that, your majesty. Before I leave, however, I have something I have to tell you. One of my skills, and I’m uncertain whether this will affect the kingdom at large or not, but one of my skills allows me to set a bounty on monsters. I was wondering if I should use it or not for my dungeons. I think that it will only affect the Dungeons on my network.”

King Fenard waved a hand. “There is already a bounty system in place. Two marks for a gnoll, fifty for a minotaur, etc. Simply ask Silva for the bounty of whatever monsters you have spawning in your dungeon and do whatever it is that you must do.”

Tom nodded. He knew that information already, he was simply asking for permission to issue the bounties. Even if they were limited to his network, the kingdom had begun the process of establishing the financial records of the citizens of Caseville.

What he had been worried about, however, was that Fenard would recognize the ability to issue bounties as one of the aspects of his level twenty skill. If Fenard had been aware of the intricacies of that skill, he might have just revealed it to the monarch. Which meant that either the king wasn’t as familiar with the Controller class as he claimed, that he hadn’t been paying attention as the conversation came to a close, or, perhaps most troubling of all, that Tom’s Collaborate might function differently than the Inheritor or Conqueror versions of the Skill.

Regardless, after he had said farewell to the king and returned the scry-mirror to Madame Silva, he ventured out into the city square where the Core Stone resided. He drew some stares as he was recognized as the son of the man who had gotten the entire village council arrested – nobody had put much effort into correcting that misapprehension – but nobody bothered him as he went over to the Core, put his hands upon it, and began Collaborating with it.

The Bounty section had been blank beforehand, but he quickly entered in the assigned values for the monsters that he had spawning in the Caseville city dungeon. Then, since he saw no reason not to, he entered the rest of the list, including gnolls, rock spiders, mimics, and every other monster that he had encountered, and many that he had not. He went ahead and made the entries retroactive, since he didn’t see any reason not to.

He was relieved, the next day, when he returned to Alpha Core and learned by Collaborating with it that the bounties were network wide. From hence forth, he’d only have to enter a new bounty when he encountered a new monster. Or if the kingdom changed the price on one of the monsters on his list. Either way, having the bounty system network wide would meant that he could modify it from any core in the network, which would save him a significant amount of work.

~~~~~~

It was payday. Rory, still high of the unlocking of his class and the resulting pay increase, was relieved of his patrol duty by his replacement. He ventured to the money changers, which had set up shop near the core stone for the expedience.

The entire financial system of the city was a mess. Rory only understood part of it, but he knew now that everyone had two accounts. There was their city account, which they could access the same as always before through the Core Stone, and there was the Welsian account, which was updated once or twice a week as the moneychangers transferred the data between the Caseville Core and the nearest town that still had access to the national figures.

Most of the daily business of the city was now running on the local system, as it was too much of a hassle to wait a week to update your balance. Once the initial balances had been entered into the new financial system of the City Core, business in Caseville had more or less returned to normal.

So it was without much concern that Rory entered the bank and asked to withdraw the entirety of his pay, excluding the ten percent he was setting aside for his oldest sister’s Class Day. The teller checked his balance, went pale, and asked him to wait a moment while she consulted with her manager.

And that was how Rory got kicked out of the guard for bank fraud.