"Not fair! I should be down there, explaining our brilliant project and rubbing my superior intellect in the faces of those idiots." Damien was pacing back and forth along the edge of the tall tower in the center of the keep, staring down at the courtyard where more and more people were emerging now that teleportation was unrestricted.

"Yes, yes. You want your moment of triumph where you put those idiots in their place." He made a face and twirled a figure in the air. " "Yadda-yadda, rabba-dabba-do. You are repeating yourself and are close to boring me. A sad thing, my good friend, because what I like about you best is that you don't bore me." Vladimir was watching as well, but seated, and with a half-empty bottle of fine elven wine on a nearby table. "Have some wine. It will take the edge off the coffee and help you relax."

"I don't need to relax! I need to gloat!"

Vladimir finished his glass, corked the bottle, and poured a pint of beer from a nearby keg. "No, you don't. Not to them! Those are prissy minor bureaucrats and piss-ant mages down there. Easy to gloat over and they grovel well, but it's petty. The people you want to annoy are far away, in tall towers, or hob-knobbing with nobility. But because you are a friend, I'll tell you a secret."

Damien quit pacing. "A secret?" Vladimir never gave up his secrets.

"Yes, a secret that few men know, and yet should be obvious. Come sit and finish the wine while I enjoy this lovely dark ale from the tavern. It's so thick with dark mana that my tongue wants to shout obscenities and pronounce curses on anyone I see. Great stuff."

Damien resisted throwing explosives into the courtyard to get some attention and sat. "So, what is the secret?"

Vladimir leaned in close and whispered, "You will cause more fear and dismay by doing nothing and making them wonder. What they imagine will be far worse than anything you might do."

Damien looked disappointed. "No gloating? No teaching them to fear science? How does that accomplish anything? And it doesn't sound fun."

"Oh, come now, think about it. If you run down those stairs and say 'Look what I have done.' you've spoiled the mystery. You're already wanted in most places for crimes against the natural order, and a bogeyman used to scare children. 'Learn your cantrips and eat your vegetables or the Mad Franklin will appear in a bolt of lightning and force you to learn Calculus!' Even your vacation in the tower didn't fade your reputation one bit."

"Maybe, but..."

"But Nothing!! Listen to me and think. Being an outcast, I've studied societies and their rules. Humans especially as they seem the most flexible. Baron William has accomplished something that couldn't be done! Everyone in the Mage's Guild knew he couldn't upgrade his teleportation system and they didn't make it easy for him to even guess that was the case. They expected him to fail. They knew he would fail. It was inconceivable that he wouldn't fail."

Vladimir paused and pointed at the wine he'd poured for Damien. With a sigh of exasperation, Damien took a small sip, swirled the wine in his glass, and took another. "Fine, I'm drinking your tasty Elven piss water. Look at me, Drinking Damien who Drinks and Relaxes. Get on with your story."

The half-elf refrained from smirking but mentally added a point to his tally.

"But then, somehow, he does the impossible, and not only that: Lo and Behold! A Tier Five stone linked to a mighty Shield, with the blessings of two gods on the project. That's going to have people shitting themselves trying to figure out how he accomplished such things. They're going to hold hearings, and secret meetings, accuse each other of taking bribes from the Baron, and argue endlessly. And you don't have to do anything but listen for the howls of angst and the sound of drama on the wind."

Damien smiled and got himself a beer. "I do like the sound of that, but..."

"I wasn't done! Be quiet, for once, Franklin! They won't know how he did it! That will drive them far crazier than your gloating. For all your insanity, you won't scare them nearly as much as the bogeymen they will conjure up from their own stunted brains. When the fact-finding committees are sent to investigate and the Inquisitors arrive, what will they find? Priests of Ares and Hermes. A Franklin, but not you! A college of rogue magicians now sponsored by the Baron and granted Tenure. A mysterious Senior Engineer and a Fay Knight. A circle of White Witches. All of whom had something to do with this project. And all of the Baron's strange minions who built in a year what would take the Imperial Engineers five years. Let them think you are missing and I'm dead. That steals the easy answers from them. They'll tie themselves in knots trying to figure things out."

Damien was thoughtful for a bit. "I see your point, but I can't sit still. You know that. Sooner or later they'll figure out I'm alive. Science is loud!"

"Maybe science needs to be somewhere that is louder. The Baron is granting that group of loveable crackpots a building in Gadobhra for a university. They'll make wonderful camouflage for the two of us to conduct our work, and with the protection of the Baron, we won't have to worry about Paladins knocking on our door."

"I'll still want to cause trouble."

Vladimir nodded in agreement. "As do I. They owe me for my imprisonment, and what they did to my wives. And if we need extra hands to help us do that, I think this is the right place. Do you notice who isn't down there? Your nephew absconded with the old stone and teleport array, and I'm sure it wasn't to destroy it. And you'll also note that a certain Engineer scurried off when no one was looking."

"Ah, your nose is twitching, you always could catch the scent of trouble brewing."

"Yes, and it's always brewing in this place. Let's finish this keg, catch up with our missing troublemakers, and then visit their Excellencies tonight to discuss how they can thank us for our work on this project, and those to come."

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

Roderick Kallvek was moving inventory into his sub-basement storage areas when he heard sounds coming from down the hallway, the unmistakable sound of a pick hitting stone. Not knowing what sort of thieves were trying to rob him he drew out a copper wand with a bright red tip. If they were thieves, a Torrent of Flames spell would dissuade them from entering. The wand had twelve charges and he wouldn't hesitate to use them all. Once a thief stole from you, the guild would send more. Better the first one never came back. A stone was dislodged from the wall and fell into the hallway. He moved up carefully next to the hole and listened.

A familiar voice said, "We're in. Someone run back up and find one of the Kallveks. We need them to let us know what we are doing and if this is a good spot for a door."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Sighing at the absurdity of the situation, he slid the wand back into his pocket. It was good he was a cautious man. Roasting the Baron's people would be bad for business. "No need, Benjamin. I heard you coming and came to see how big of a gopher I had to deal with. Could you explain what we are doing today and why you are lurking in the village's catacombs?"

Ben's face appeared in the hole. "I stole a teleport stone and need a good spot to install it. It will work best if it's near the bank and a helpful merchant who wants to be able to instantly ship his goods to other markets free of charge. I thought your basement would be a good spot."

Roderick went to the hole and Ben stepped back so the merchant could look through. He saw four strong men slowly maneuvering a teleport stone through the maze of tunnels beneath the village. It certainly looked like the teleport stone that had until recently been sitting in Rowan Keep. "And I don't have to worry about a phalanx or two of soldiers looking for it? I'm sure that stealing a stone like that breaks quite a few laws, including treason."

The workers laughed, and Ben explained. "Ah, but this stone is not needed, belongs to the Baron, and he ordered me to handle its disposal. And there are three ways I know to do that. The expected method was to destroy it so it wouldn't interfere with the operation of the new stone. The second is to place it at the proper distance from the new stone at Rowan Keep and create a feedback loop that turns one or the other into a bomb. It occurred to me that the Baron might like to use it against the ghouls, but there's a 50/50 chance of simply destroying the new keep and giving the ghouls a way to invade anywhere in the Empire.

The first solution is a waste of resources, and the second seems risky and counterproductive. However, if you are a clever fellow with a clever uncle who writes very clever books then a third option is available. This stone can be slaved to the one in Rowan Keep, without the means of receiving shipments, but able to send people and merchandise from here to the rest of the Empire. I'm sure a crafty merchant can see the value of that."

Roderick stood for a moment, with his head stuck through the hole in the stone wall, staring at the teleport stone. Ozzy grinned at him, and Jon waved. "Are you saying that no one will know we have this down here? That we can link it to the teleport system to ship our goods, and link it to the gnomish bank, allowing crafty merchants and crafty townsfolk to sell items through the catalog system in all the major cities, with quick delivery and cheap shipping?"

Ben bowed, "Indeed sir, you have brought light to the situation and stated a simplified version of our plan. The mayor thinks she will be able to add the stone to the town and link it to a mana storage device we already have available. We'll be able to supply all of the mana needed for our shipments, and at the other end it will appear as if the goods came from Rowan Keep."

"You have a mana storage building in the town? How on earth did you construct such a thing?"

Ben gestured to Ozzy. Roderick looked from one to the other as he realized what they meant. Only in Sedgewick would you turn a fire-belching demonic smokehouse into a mana storage building. "Oh, well then, I suppose we should get busy breaking down this wall. I'll get my sons down here to help with clearing a spot for it where we can efficiently ship our goods." He was going to have fun telling his father about this development. With teams working from both sides, a section of wall between the corridors was removed and the stone was taken to a storeroom recently cleared of merchandise by the younger Kallveks. Ben spent the next hour following the notes in Damien's books, double-checking the teleportation array, pulling out some pieces, and adding others. Finally, he was satisfied and the stone was placed flat on the floor. The runes on its surface winked for a moment and then settled to a steady glow.

"This will work. I've double-checked everything according to Damiens's schematics, and there's no chance of a feedback loop forming. It's now linked to the stone at Rowan keep, and subservient to it. We should go to the bank and speak with our friendly local gnome to make sure." Ben went with Roderick, while Ozzy, Jorges, Cham, and rebuilt the wall, leaving room for a stout Ironwood door. Jon and Cham brought down timbers to place on either side to support the stones above and then shaped more wood into the door. Jorges installed the locking mechanism.

Slowly over the months, Orik and Dorry had mapped the first two layers of the catacombs around Sedgewick. They spread from the town as far north as Gadobhra, a mile away, and several hundred yards to the east and west. Suzette had spent time with Ben mapping out the areas under buildings where they could add deep basements or use building points for the magical storage areas. Much stonework had been done by the stonemasons to reconstruct the maze into something usable. The next two layers were slowly being cleared out by people wanting to gain more experience and hone their fighting skills. The area wasn't a dungeon, and didn't have loot or bosses, but did have a lot of dangerous creatures. Luckily, once cleared, they didn't magically respawn although new monsters from the lower levels occasionally moved up to the empty levels. Everyone was worried that if they didn't deal with things now, the area might become part of a dungeon and that would eat into a lot of the town's storage space.

Roderick was met at the top of the stairs by his wife. She was smiling but looked suspiciously at him. "Anything you need to tell me about dear?"

He was instantly wary. "There is always good news, my beautiful wife. Perhaps you could give me a hint about why you ask?"

"Well, you know that we have certain items listed with other merchants in Wolfsburg. Normally, when they sell an item, they send a message by courier using the teleport system, informing us to ship the item, and then later, we receive our portion of the sale. But just now, I sold seven enchanted daggers and a bloody souvenir shirt from the Ghoul dungeon. The money is already in our bank account and the Banker's wife just delivered an invoice for the sale and shipping instructions for the items."

Ben made for the front door. "I'll double-check things at the bank, then wait for Suzette at the tavern."

Roderick took his wife by the arm and followed the Courier. "How would you like to hear a small story while we walk to the Inn to see my mother and father where you can watch their faces as I tell them the good news."

"I accept. Now tell me the story."

"Well, it starts when I bravely went to defend our basement from marauding gophers..."