Duke stood on the uppermost parapet of his castle, looking down on the city below him. Citizens and visitors alike hurried around the streets determined to complete whatever tasks they had before them. The sight lifted his mood as it was something that resembled normalcy in all the bizarre chaos around him daily. Standing up here, he was able to separate himself from all of it for a short time and just think. His mind was overtaken by questions with few answers.
Should I just feed Pahst to the dungeon? Should I seed the rest of the dungeons quickly or take my time to make sure they are in perfect areas? When will Sam bud again? Should I take over Pahst’s kingdom? Do I even want to be the king? Hell, I could set up an administrative counsel and step away from it all to plant dungeons and go on adventures. That would be a whole lot more fun, wouldn’t it?
Answers eluded him but he still felt a bit better when he came back down. He hadn’t addressed all the things on his mind or on his ever-growing to do list, but he had at least come to one decision. He had friends and advisors that he could lean on so he would do just that. Before he could head back down, he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Hello love.”
“Baslin told me you were up here. Are you alright?”
“I have a lot on my mind and I’m not finding the answers I am looking for very easily.”
“Perhaps you need another perspective.”
“That’s why I came up here.”
“You know that’s not what I meant. Share your troubles with me and maybe I can help you.”
Duke sighed, knowing she was right but hating that it was so hard for him to share his problems. Stupid pride telling me I have to do everything myself again. “You know that I’m not from this world and that my…I don’t know what to call it, sponsor? Yeah, I guess sponsor has changed. The Overmind talks to me much more than the others did. He gives me advice and his latest advice was…not good.”
“What advice was that?” Her tone had filled with even deeper concern.
“He told me that it was advice that I wouldn’t like or follow and he was right. He told me to abdicate my throne and leave all of you behind. To go build up my power for whatever the coming Contest will be.”
Her voice remained steady despite the shock of what he said. “I know you didn’t really want to be a king. Should we start looking for a replacement for you? But even if we do replace you as king, we are not going to let you abandon us. Especially me.”
“That is why he said I wouldn’t take the advice, because I am too anchored here with you and to a lesser extent the others, to step away. Could I step down as king? Sure, I could if there was someone I trusted to not fuck it all up. Not that I have done such a stellar job. But at least I know what I’m shooting for, you know?”
“I know what you are trying to do here. You’re trying to build a kingdom built on justice and honor. It’s admirable and a lofty goal. But I also know that it is doomed to fail.”
“That’s harsh.”
“Right now, everybody is falling in line because you are far too powerful to challenge, and most don’t even understand how powerful you are. But there is a limit to how long they will do so. Eventually, someone will find a way to take advantage of the system and build up their own power. And once there is a power imbalance, things will start to come apart. It’s what always happens.”
“Everyone is enjoying significant prosperity right now, Aurelia. They likely don’t know why but it’s an effect of one of my Abilities and it is allowing crafters to craft faster and with greater quality than could ever be reasonably imagined. Crops are providing yields beyond farmer’s capacity to store. Mines are producing ore so pure it may not even need smelting, but if they do smelt it, the useful ore that will come out will be even greater. And here’s the kicker that nobody knows – if they try to work against me or consider themselves apart from the kingdom, all that prosperity stops for them. It’s one hell of a trap.”
“That probably explains why the city guard has grown so quickly. They train up to minimum standards in a matter of days rather than weeks or even months.”
“Speaking of such things, how is the Legion? What have they been up to?”
Aurelia smiled, pride showing in her eyes. “They are mostly back in the training dungeon, continuing their leveling and honing their Abilities. I’m not sure how long I can keep them there though with the coming war with Pahst.”
“What war would that be?” Duke asked, knowing that he was leading her on but not able to help himself.
“They sent an assassin to kill you. There has to be a response.”
“Queen Pahst sent the assassin. It wasn’t the people of the nation that acted. Should I march the Thrice Blessed Legion over there and kill anyone who gets in our way to the capitol?”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“My love, you have to respond. If you do nothing, you will seem weak to the rest of the nations and that will only lead them to act similarly.”
“Since you put it that way, maybe we should publicly execute Queen Pahst since I already have her in custody.”
“You what?” Aurelia shouted, stepping back.
“I placed her under arrest yesterday. She is sitting in an isolated dungeon cell so unless she can transport herself through dimensional barriers, she’s not getting out if I don’t let her out.”
“How did that happen and why am I just hearing of this?”
“I simply reached out and TELEPORTED her to the dungeon. Master rank TELEPORTATION is frighteningly powerful. It also helped that she had no idea what was happening before it was too late for her – her defenses were down. And you are the first that I have told. I don’t want this capability to become public at all. I know that would cause all kinds of problems for us.”
“So, send the bitch’s head back to her court in a box with a note.” Aurelia’s voice was so heated that Duke nearly took a step back himself.
“I could do that, I suppose. That would definitely send the message that I’m not going to concern myself with the actions of minions; I’m going to hold the decision-maker responsible. Yes, I like that idea. But how do I ensure the messenger’s safety?”
“That’s something we’ll have to work out. Let’s grab Baslin and see if we can come up with something.”
Some time later, the three of them were in deep discussion in Baslin’s lab.
“I simply cannot make that enchantment small enough for someone to carry. It would be at least the size of a person and I’m not even sure it would work at all. We must find another way.”
“OK, so portable Archmage’s defense is out for this, but could you make one anyway? I can imagine being able to pull it out of my INVENTORY and stopping some ridiculous attack with it.”
“I’ll put it on my list of projects.” Baslin didn’t seem excited about that particular project and Duke suspected it was very far down the list, likely at the bottom.
“Then can we get back to the distress call approach? I do not want whomever I send to be killed or captured.”
“The problem with that approach is that I still haven’t discerned how to breach a dimensional barrier like a dungeon. You spend so much time in your dungeons that it is likely that you won’t get the message until it is far too late.”
“Do you think Sam could build such an enchantment?”
“That’s worth asking, love. As far as items go, I know he has some sort of limit to what he can just give us so it might not be possible. But it doesn’t hurt to ask.”
“Why don’t you just go yourself, Duke? It’s not like they could stop you from leaving.”
“Disproportionate response. If I go, it is a declaration of war. If I send a messenger with the ‘leave us the fuck alone’ message, they may take it as a proper warning and move to ‘good neighbor’ mode.”
“Do you really think they will just take the warning and leave well enough alone?”
“If Pahst is the driving factor for everything there like Chopie was here, then they quite possibly will. If it’s the culture of their nobility that made them like they are, there will be a mad scramble to fill the vacuum of power that will have them collapse into civil war for a while.”
“And if they are fighting each other, there’s not fighting us.” Baslin’s accompanying smile was a bit disturbing.
“But is that better for the people? That’s not what you have stood for this entire time, Duke.”
“The alternative is to march in ourselves and that will guarantee mass death. This way, peace is at least a possibility and if it does devolve into chaos, then we will have refugees to worry about, but it will be a long time before we have a hostile neighbor at our border. I protect my people. The people of another nation that is hostile to us? Those are not my people. And we can easily absorb refugees, can’t we? There are still hundreds of empty houses and apartment buildings here in Cloudspire.”
“That’s a lot more callous than I have heard you be before, Duke. It causes me, and I would expect others, some concern.”
“Good. I want you all to keep me in check from doing things that are objectively or morally wrong. So, everybody weigh in on this. Am I going too far? Handling this in the wrong way? There’s an expert on the noble court of Pahst that perhaps we should consult.”
“Who is that?”
“Lord Greengold. He knows their nobility well and may be able to tell us what to expect.”
Duke opened a communications Portal to Lord Greengold. “Are you in the middle of something or can you step away for a bit?”
“I…um…can take a break.” Before he finished speaking, Duke had TELEPORTED him to join the three of them. He looked around disoriented at the sudden change of scenery.
“Don’t worry, you get used to it.” Aurelia added helpfully with a slight chuckle.
Duke ignored her comment and jumped right in. “We have a situation that your unique knowledge might just be helpful with.”
“How can I help?”
“Here’s the situation. We all know Pahst sent the assassin to kill Duke.” Aurelia jumped into “explanation mode”. She continued, “We have debated a number of options for response. Duke here, has already taken a direct approach. He has Queen Pahst in custody.”
“You kidnapped the bitch queen?”
“You could put it that way, yes.” Duke took over. “I plan on sending her head back to the kingdom in a box. What do you think the reaction of her nobles will be?”
Greengold started to laugh. “Can I deliver the box? Oh my god, that will be funny!”
“What will their reaction be?” Baslin prompted.
“Oh, they’ll kill the messenger for sure. But I’d say that within a week, they would be in full civil war. Only about a third of the nobles are actually loyal but all of them are petty shitstains. They will be fighting with each other until someone takes enough others out to solidify their position. Six months minimum is my guess.”
“Were you serious about bringing the box yourself?” Duke asked, intrigued.
“Yes and no. I really want to see the looks on their faces, but I really don’t want to get my ass killed immediately afterwards. Some of her guards are as high as Tier Three in their classes. I was never able to confirm the rumor that her warlord is a tier Four. A freakin’ Tier Four! No, I don’t want to mess with that level of power.”
“And what if we had a way to get you out of there before they could hurt you?”
“If you really could do that, I’d jump on it for sure. My cover will not last long when I’m negotiating deals with merchants. It’s only a matter of time before someone recognizes me from a description or something like that.”
“OK, thanks, Lord Greengold. If I can find a way to safely extract you, I’ll hit you up for the job.” Duke TELEPORTED the man back to his office.
“Well, there you have it. I need a fancy box and a way to know when he has delivered the message. Back to work, Baslin. I’ll have a chat with Sam and see if he can help us.”