"And so we commend our dead to the sky," intoned Mattimeus Aureate, "in the hopes that their souls might find a higher joy in the hereafter than they did on earth." He raised his hands before the funeral pyre, making the final few gestures of the memorial. The pyre was larger by far than it needed to be for the bodies they'd recovered. That was the unfortunate reality for delvers: only rarely were there bodies to burn. Still, one held the services. One observed the rites. It was respectful. It was how you separated people from monsters.
Mattimeus lowered his hands and stepped down from the dais. People came up to him, some of whom he recognized, most of whom were strangers to him. They offered him kind words: "That was beautiful." "Your classmates would have been proud." "You did your best." He forced a smile and nodded. It was hideous. His classmates were dead. His best wasn't good enough.
No, his best hadn't been good enough, and that was the damnation of it all. Mattimeus was top of the class; he tried not to be proud but he had been raised to never show false humility. He could have led his classmates to victory against any reasonable gathering of first-floor enemies—by the depths, he could have beaten a decent crowd of them on his own. But attercopes? A basic attercope was one of the most dangerous enemies of the second floor, and there'd been elites from even deeper. The Academy's graduation field had been safe for as long as anyone could remember. How had such monsters made it to the surface?
Mattimeus shuddered. Nothing good walked on eight legs.
There were already theories brewing as to the attercopes' origin, already adventuring parties being dispatched to investigate with the usual haste and clamor of such things. Mattimeus doubted they would uncover any clear answers. In his experience, adventuring parties were good for direct solutions to obvious problems. They lacked the subtlety to answer complicated questions, and so this would eventually fade into another inexplicable tragedy, part of the sad but necessary toll exacted by the Perrigenese National Dungeon in exchange for its riches. Already he could hear it in the voices around him: the shift from "How horrifying!" to "How tragic!" to "What a Tragedy," with the capital letter included. Eventually someone would give the incident a name, someone else would build a memorial, and the world would move on.
When Mattimeus returned to the House Aureate mansion, his parents were waiting in the main hall. They didn't go out much these days. They hadn't been at the memorial, not that they would have been welcome, and it had been years since anyone had trusted them enough to team with them for a delving party. They clung to wealth like withered skin to old bones: because they'd die without it.
Mattimeus bowed respectfully and would have left immediately, but his father spoke up.
"You represented House Aureate well?" he asked.
"I did my best," Mattimeus said.
"That wasn't my question," his father said.
"No one complained," Mattimeus said. "Many people said it was a beautiful service. I could not have represented House Aureate any better. Certainly you could not have done so."
Lord Aureate's nostrils flared, but it was Lady Aureate who spoke. "They may love you now," she said, "but that is the way of the masses. As soon as you show a fault, they will turn on you and devour you. Remember who you can rely on."
"I am incapable, dear parents, of forgetting," Mattimeus said. Myself and only myself, he thought, and perhaps not even that. He turned and left, feeling his parents' eyes on him the entire time.
Mattimeus went to his room, resisting a childish urge to slam the door behind him. The mansion was large enough that his parents might not even be able to hear it, and they'd deny it if they did. Once he was alone and the door locked, Mattimeus opened his recent kill log, a nervous habit he'd picked up in the three days since the attercope attack. He hadn't been delving since then. It wouldn't be proper, and an Aureate was always proper. But he needed to kill something, needed to fill up his kill log with new enemies, needed to drive the memories out of his head and the name out of his record.
Recent kills:
Attercope
Octavian Septimaris
Attercope Hatchling
Attercope
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Attercope
With a gesture, Mattimeus flicked his kill log closed, checked yet again that it was set to private. Then he opened the log again, checked that the name was still there, then closed it and kept pacing. He hadn't expected the fight. He'd been surprised. He hadn't been prepared. He'd been clumsy. He'd been trying to save Octavian.
He'd shoved a sword straight through his classmate and let an attercope drag his body down into the dungeon to devour.
Octavian was a bit of a clown, a bit annoying, but he was a good man. He didn't deserve that. Mattimeus wondered if Octavian had recognized his murderer, or if the chaos and pain had kept him anonymous. Mattimeus wondered a lot of things, when he replayed the attack in his head each night.
Nobody else had known, of course. Mattimeus didn't brag, so it was perfectly in character for him to keep his kill log private. Everyone had seen him killing attercopes, leading the charge to drive off the monsters. He'd scored the killing blow on the Deepspawned Attercope, although that more-welcome name must have slipped off the back of his kill list. And he was Mattimeus Aureate, top of the class, Golden Boy of the Academy every year he'd attended. Family name aside, what sort of commander would do something as clumsy as impale an injured teammate?
The family name was the curse of it, of course. If word ever got out it would be yet another chink in House Aureate's tarnished armor. They'd say it was obvious, and of course an Aureate would kill a classmate for glory, experience, maybe just for spite. Octavian had dyed Mattimeus bright yellow once, and obviously an Aureate would take violent revenge for such a slight.
Mattimeus would not let himself be painted with the same brush as the rest of his House, so he had kept his mouth shut, and led the service, and mourned his classmates. If one name among the memorial had stung more than the others, he had not let it show.
Sometimes Mattimeus wondered if his parents' mutterings about a blood curse were true. He'd heard his family try to defend themselves in so many ways—a family curse, or a political conspiracy, or any justification other than their own sordid vices. Over and over, House Aureate had risen high only to come crashing down, every generation since the founding of the House. Over and over they'd clung to a council seat by virtue of their levels, but lost any influence they'd managed to gather. Mattimeus knew, or at least suspected, that many of his hangers-on were only waiting to see when and how he'd disgrace himself. Would it be accusations of treachery, like his grandfather? Thievery, like his father?
Would he be convicted of murdering his own party members, like the storied founder of House Aureate? That seemed the likeliest outcome now.
Assuming, of course, that his mistake was ever found. And it was a mistake, to be sure—tragic, deadly, but like all mistakes it was a learning opportunity. Mattimeus would take every scrap of useful knowledge for this experience. He would hold it close to his heart, and he would make sure it never got away from him.
The first step in concealing his mistake was to find something else to kill. Only dungeon-related kills were recorded, and only recent kills were visible in history. All he needed was two dungeon creatures dead at his hand, and Octavian's name would be off the list, the bright text permanently remanded to Mattimeus's memory.
Mattimeus had briefly considered the idea of a solo delve—a quick dive into the dungeon, squash a few slimes, and the name would be gone. But it would be improper and unusual, possibly to a degree where the guard would interrogate him before allowing him through the dungeon gate. No, Mattimeus had concluded, he should do things classically. Properly. By the book.
That meant going in a party.
That meant people who would trust him, and trust his skills, enough that he wouldn't have to prove anything—such as by displaying his kill history. And that meant his former classmates, who knew Mattimeus well enough that he could bluff past any suspicions. They were all Academy graduates now, officially; they'd been training as delvers for years, so surely they'd be eager to have their first post-graduation Delve. If he framed it as righteous vengeance for Octavian's death, perhaps he could even persuade some of Octavian's more competent friends to join him.
Mattimeus flicked open his Achievement log. Even more trouble. Even harder to conceal. The Academy had quietly allowed its alumni to earn their graduation achievement, calling them in privately to touch the Academy Keystone, but that was only one achievement of the necessary five.
Recent Achievements:
Dedicated Hunter: Common Slime! You have killed one thousand Common Slimes! Benefit: You deal 5% increased damage to creatures in the same
family!
Perrigen's Descent 2! You have entered the Second Floor of the Perrigenese National Dungeon! Cosmetic achievement!
Bad Boss! You have slain a creature under the effect of one of your Leadership skills! Benefit: Creatures under the effect of your Leadership skills deal 10% more damage in combat, but expend 10% more stamina for all actions! This benefit cannot be deactivated!
Kinslayer 2! You have slain three Authorized members of your own species! Benefit: You deal 5% more damage to members of your own species!
Keystone of Learning! You have touched the Keystone of Learning, a greater artifact! Benefit: Your experience gains are permanently increased by 5%!
Mattimeus considered, not for the first time, confessing his crimes and throwing himself upon the mercy of the Council. He was still a good fighter, he'd make a good penal delver. Nobody would trust him any more, but he didn't deserve trust. He deserved punishment.
But he discarded the idea as he had every time before. He was the scion of House Aureate and would do as his family wished. He had been raised to believe in Poise, Propriety, and Power. He'd assemble his party and go delving in the morning, and he'd bury his guilt under enough new kills and achievements that Octavian could never claw his way to the surface.