Enchanter Tornay cursed under his breath for perhaps the thousandth time, as yet another test told him that the small purple crystal he was looking at was a perfectly ordinary and unremarkable dungeon core. The weakest dungeon core he had ever seen, little better than freshly spawned, but completely normal for a dungeon core of that weakness.

It was drawing in mana from its surroundings. It was connected to the field of ambient mana in the area. If not for his array of control disruption items surrounding it, the dungeon core would be in control of the ambient mana field. It was most definitely anchored by that field, as all dungeon cores naturally are. Most baffling of all, however, was that he could not detect even the slightest trace of any external magic on it at all.

There should have been something from whatever Carlos did to break its anchor originally, or at least from when he made it establish a new anchor more recently, but Tornay had found no sign of it. Those things, at least, he could think of plausible explanations for. Time and distance from the event would both have diminished any lingering signs of breaking the original anchor, perhaps beyond what he could detect with field equipment, and establishing a new anchor might simply have been a matter of allowing the dungeon core to do what it naturally would on its own.

The truly strange thing, however, was that the dungeon was now bonded when it had not been before, and Tornay found no trace of the magic that established the bond. The creation of that bond was recent enough and near enough that traces of it should have still been detectable, even with the limitations of equipment he could deploy quickly away from home. The bond itself certainly should hold readily detectable mana from its maker. And yet, every single inspection, every single device and test, every last one found only the dungeon's own mana.

It was as though the dungeon had formed the bond on its own, but that was preposterous. Dungeon cores weren't especially smart, but they would still refuse to grant any wish that would harm or bind themselves.

Tornay muttered another curse as he pulled out his enchanted magnifying glass again. It was one of his least sophisticated tools, but that also meant it didn't try to filter what it detected for significance. Maybe if he just looked closer and more carefully, he might spot some tiny wisp of out of place mana that his other tools were ignoring.

----------------------------------------

Darmelkon had to call out to Tornay twice before the enchanter responded irritably.

"What?"

"Enough of wasting your time over there! Carlos has revealed something we need to discuss!"

Tornay put his tools down and stomped over. "This had better be important."

Darmelkon held out a hand towards Carlos. In response, Carlos raised his hands together, displaying the cuffs that were still locked on his wrists, and incanted the light spell.

Tornay raised an eyebrow and smirked when Carlos began the incantation, but his jaw dropped and he stared in shock when the spell actually worked, a gentle white glow emanating from Carlos's clasped hands. He snapped his fingers and looked through the magnifying glass he was suddenly holding again, and muttered something under his breath, then turned to the side, spotted a figure sitting and leaning back against the cave wall, and called out to him. "Hey! Apprentice!"

The apprentice did not respond, and Tornay stalked over to him. Carlos heard a yelp, and then Tornay stalked back with the apprentice accompanying him. Tornay pulled out a key from somewhere, swiftly unlocked the cuffs and almost tore them off of Carlos's wrists, then handed them to the apprentice. "Put these on and then try to cast something. Now."

Carlos let out a quiet sigh of relief as the apprentice hastily complied. He'd been a little worried that the enchanter might somehow detect how he had beaten the suppression cuffs, or at least that it wasn't by preventing the mana absorber from even entering his soul.

The apprentice spoke a quick spell activation command, rather than going through a full incantation, and nothing happened. Tornay got out his magnifying glass to watch through it, and spoke a terse command. "Again." The apprentice repeated himself, and again nothing happened.

Tornay turned back to Carlos and stared for several seconds. Slowly, stiffly, Tornay gave a shallow bow. "Young lord. If I may ask, why are you traveling with so few servants and so little money?"

Carlos adopted his best haughty tone. "First, I would appreciate it if you remove my servant's cuffs as well." He nodded towards Amber.

[Hey! I'm not your servant.]

[Just play along for now, please. We need to make this convincing.]

Amber held up her cuffs for Tornay to remove, her neutral expression spoiled somewhat by a few sidelong glances at Carlos. Tornay grumbled quietly, but unlocked and removed the cuffs as requested. Then his apprentice coughed and held up his hands too, and Tornay rolled his eyes and removed those cuffs as well. A ring on his right hand flashed, and both pairs of cuffs disappeared, along with their keys.

"There. The cuffs are gone. Now, my question?" Tornay paused, then added in a flat tone, "If I may. Young lord."

Carlos nodded slightly. "You may ask, but that is not your business and I see no need to answer." Best to play up the idea of a haughty noble as much as he could, to avoid giving Tornay any reason for suspicion. "What is important right now is that I would prefer to end this confrontation amicably, without making enemies. Regrettably, I cannot give you what you want. It is a secret of my house, and in any case has constraints and limitations that would prevent the large scale use of it that you no doubt hoped for."

"How convenient for you. Young lord."

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

"Take a moment to think, Enchanter. Any noble house that possessed such a secret without severe limitations would surely have used it extensively by now. Have you heard of any house with an incredible number of items made from dungeon cores?"

Tornay hesitated a moment, then shook his head. "I have not, but I assumed this was a new discovery."

"Assumptions are often wrong."

"True." Tornay sighed. "Even so, I cannot afford to fail in my task. My Guild will assess a fine I cannot possibly pay."

Darmelkon interjected, "What exactly is the fine? How did they specify it?"

"One tenth the value of the dungeon core."

"The value of the, at the time, unanchored and presumed ready to craft into an item, dungeon core?"

Tornay blinked. "...Yes?"

"But were those traits specified, or did it simply refer to 'this dungeon core'?"

One of Tornay's rings flashed, and a piece of paper appeared in his hand, followed a moment later by a second piece of paper. He held them out to Darmelkon. "Read them for yourself."

Darmelkon quickly skimmed the letters. "Hmm. 'The package' is ambiguous, but the followup refers to my contract, which is far more precisely specified. We already have a royal assessor coming to evaluate the dungeon core, which is anchored as normal and in no way ready for crafting, and even the Guild would not dare disregard a royal assessor's valuation of an item in a contract's terms. You would have strong grounds to appeal to the Crown to mediate if they try to fine you more than that."

Darmelkon grinned. "If the Guild tries to fine you more anyway, well... To paraphrase yourself, the Enchanters Guild can be broken. When the dust settles, the Crown will remain. No one is above the Crown's laws."

Tornay frowned, tilted his head, and stared. He sighed. "I hope you are right." He turned to Carlos. "Young lord, will your house support my appeal against the Guild, if it proves necessary?"

Carlos nodded. "If you leave my dungeon core and other belongings to me without interference, then yes." He very much doubted his "house's" support would actually be worth anything for a fair while still to come, but if a promise of worthless support was all he had to give to get out of this mess he would give it gladly.

Tornay sighed again, and shook his head ruefully. "Very well. I see no other option. The dungeon core is yours."

"Thank you." Carlos turned toward Darmelkon. "Lord Merchant, I assume you deal with formal contracts regularly. I want our agreements in writing."

Darmelkon nodded. "Of course. I will have the appropriate documents drawn up and ready to sign well before the royal assessor gets here tomorrow. We will have to wait for him to tie up all loose ends properly, in particular the valuation of the dungeon core."

"Very good. See that you do." Carlos nodded firmly and turned toward Amber, hoping that would come across as an appropriately noble dismissal of his supposed lessers. Fortunately, Tornay and Darmelkon both seemed to take it as such; Darmelkon carried his chair away again, and Tornay returned to Purple, where he started disassembling and removing the various contraptions of tubes, levers, lenses, and metallic script filigree that he'd surrounded the dungeon core with.

Amber's voice sounded in Carlos's mind. [Wow. That was a great bluff. I thought for sure we'd have to give up Purple. But, um, now what?]

[Now, we wait. And avoid doing anything that would reveal the bluff. Would they notice if I make another soul structure?]

[Yes. Even I can sense the amount of mana flow involved in making a soul structure. I'm not sure if Darmelkon would notice - he's a merchant and probably not into much external mana interaction - but Tornay definitely would. In fact, don't even let him inspect you too closely. If he takes a close enough look, he might notice you have too much soul shell left to have made 10 soul structures already.]

[Right. Well, I guess this will be a very boring wait, then. Might as well go ahead and pack some things up.] Carlos stood up, gathered his notes from where Darmelkon had left them, and put them back in his pack where they belonged. Soon, there was nothing left to pack that wouldn't have to wait for morning, and he settled back down to just wait.

----------------------------------------

The wait was every bit as boring as Carlos feared it would be. He couldn't even solve sudoku puzzles to pass the time, because he'd have to create them first, and he didn't know how to make one that would be guaranteed solvable. Maybe he could make a spell to do that eventually, once he got his development environment properly set up in his soul, and once he learned enough of the keywords and syntax.

He should focus on more practical things first, though. Like a spell to kill a bear. He never wanted to be panicking behind a swinging piece of metal ever again.

He chatted telepathically with Amber for a while, but eventually they both ran out of topics to talk about.

At least the largest portion of the wait passed in the blissful embrace of sleep that night, and Darmelkon got the formality of signing contracts and Carlos's drop of blood out of the way that evening.

----------------------------------------

The royal assessor's arrival was heralded by the sudden appearance of a blazing orb of light in the darkness of the cave, as the man simply popped into existence in an instant. By the time Carlos stopped blinking and could see clearly again, the man was already facing Darmelkon, who bowed deeply to him.

The assessor was tall and stood straight. His dark brown hair was trimmed and well combed, not a hair out of place, elegantly framing his face. His immaculately crisp and clean clothes were all the same shade of almost black, from his leather shoes, up his trousers, to his long sleeved shirt and the sharp crease lines of its collar and cuffs. Thin lines of a dark rich orange color decorated the starkly dark cloth, outlining the collar and cuffs, running up the outer crease of each leg, and lining the edges of his belt.

He stood calmly, holding his hands clasped behind his back, and impassively nodded slightly to acknowledge Darmelkon's bow. "I am Assessor Varlinden, upper servant of the Crown. Lord Merchant Darmelkon, you requested my service here to assess a dungeon core?"

"Yes, Assessor. The dungeon core to assess is right over there." Darmelkon gestured toward Purple, and bowed again.

Tornay, his apprentice, and Darmelkon's servant all stood quietly, well out of the way with their backs straight and arms by their sides, like they were in a parade or military formation or something. Carlos looked at Amber uncertainly, only to see her looking back at him, just as uncertain. After a moment of hesitation, they both stood and emulated the examples of the other people present.

Assessor Varlinden marched over to Purple and leaned forward to inspect the small crystal. "Hmm. Seems a normal and rather weak dungeon core. I don't see why you called me out here."

Darmelkon gave a smaller bow, again. "My apologies, Assessor. When I made the request, I believed this core would be a great deal more valuable than it turned out to be. In the process of discovering the truth of it, contractual complications arose that require going through with the assessment regardless."

Varlinden frowned. "Very well. For the sake of your contractual duties, then." He snapped his fingers, and a small magnifying glass appeared in his hands, rimmed with brilliant lines of white light. He circled around Purple, studying the small crystal through the lense of his magnifying glass for perhaps half a minute.

The assessor released his magnifying glass, which promptly vanished into thin air, and procured a small piece of paper and a pen from nowhere. He wrote as he spoke. "I formally Assess this dungeon core's value as worth 10 gold." He handed the paper to Darmelkon. "Are we done here?"

"My apology again, Assessor, but there is one more matter. I was wondering if you could identify the noble house of this young man for me." He held out a hand towards Carlos.