“William! Where have you been?”

I was generating some potions of regeneration, trying to estimate what level Alchemize would have to be before I could get the invisibility brew to work and how many alchemy sessions it would take me to get there when my wife’s voice brought me out of my reverie. She was standing with her hands on her hips near the entrance of the forge, a scarier posture than her diminutive stature would suggest.

“Oh, hi Esmelda.”

“Oh, hi? You’ve been gone all day, and you didn’t even tell me good morning before you left.”

“You were sleeping,” I said, defensively.

Esmelda marched across the forge to poke me in my armored chest. “I know I was sleeping. That doesn’t mean you can just disappear. I had to ask Zareth where you were, and he informed me you’ve been holed up with this demon,” she cast a less than appreciative glance toward Malphas, “all day. And he said something about you fighting monsters in the basement. Leto and I had no idea where you were.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I was just busy.”

Esmelda looked about as mad as I’d ever seen her, and she took a deep breath before continuing. “You’re not alone anymore, William. You can’t just forget about us. What are we doing here? This is your fortress, your empire. We don’t have roles here. Do you expect me to spend all day sitting in the living room, waiting for your return? Are we supposed to be ornaments for the new Dark Lord?”

“That’s not…” I did feel bad. I had just gotten into my routine, and not considered what it would be like for her to wake up and find me gone.

“You aren’t ornaments,” I said. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“You single-handedly fought an army yesterday,” she said, “which is not, as I recall, something we discussed beforehand. You came back drenched in blood and the goddess only knows what else. You can afford to take some time off from,” she gestured at the brewing stand, “whatever this is, to be with your family.”

“Do you…want to have dinner?”

“Yes,” Esmelda huffed. “That would be delightful.” She spun on her heel and walked out of the forge. I glanced back at Malphas and the brewing stand.

“Can you bottle those for me when they’re done?”

The demon nodded, his black eyes glittering with what better not have been amusement. “As you wish, young master.”

Zareth, ever diligent, had assigned a pair of servants to our household. The footman greeted me at the door to the royal suite. He was tall and lanky, with shaggy brown hair, and he bowed deeply as I approached. The uniform was fitted and gray, with a red eye sewn over his heart.

“My lord,” he said, “your family awaits you in the dining chamber.”

“Thanks,” I said, lifting my visor. “What was your name again?”

“Jasper, sir.” He seemed to shrink slightly at the direct address.

“Thank you, Jasper,” I said, “at ease.”

The footman straightened and saluted in the same manner as the soldiers, which wasn’t exactly at ease, but I would take it. Rather than go directly to the dining room, I stopped by my wardrobe to change. Esmelda would not have been happy to see me come to eat in full battle gear. As much time as I’d been spending in my armor, it felt weird to be wearing normal clothes, though normal hardly described the selection that Zareth had prepared for me.

I had to get past a lot of gaudy velvet and silk to find a more reasonable black tunic and a matching pair of boots. If the available selection was any indication, Dargothian nobility had a taste for elaborate red and purple robes.

Esmelda, Leto, and Gastard were already at the table when I arrived. Our maidservant, Ogness, saw me and retreated to the kitchen to bring out the food. She was an older woman who wore her hair pulled back in a bun. Her dress was the same color as Jasper’s uniform, with another insignia on her shoulder.

Gastard stood. “I’m glad to see you are well. After the events of yesterday, we were concerned.”

“I’m fine,” I said. “There was no need to worry.”

“He’s been busy,” Esmelda said, obviously still annoyed.

“Gastard and I went to the garrison,” Leto said. “We got to see them training.”

“Major Garron was most accommodating,” Gastard said, sitting back down. “He seemed open to the idea of my helping the guardsmen with their swordplay in the future.”

“That would be great,” I said. “They don’t have as much experience as they could.” It was also a very convenient role for Gastard, which meant that at least one out of three of them would have something to do while I was grinding Survivor System skills.

Ogness brought in the soup, served from an ornate ceramic bowl. It smelled rich, dark brown with thin slivers of something or other floating on top. I had no idea what was in it.

“What are we having?” I asked.

“Black truffle soup, my lord,” Ogness said, “followed by beef steaks.”

Having a personal chef was a serious perk. Dark Lording couldn’t be all bad.

“You don’t have to say my lord or my lady,” Esmelda said. “He gets enough of that already.”

Ogness glanced at me, and I smiled at her. It was one thing to have the demons and the soldiers address me a certain way, but if our servants were going to be around for very long, I didn’t mind the idea of having them be more casual.

“As you wish,” Ogness served the soup, saw that we all had wine and water, and stepped out of sight.

“Malphas has been helping me brew potions,” I said, “and I got a bit carried away.”

“Malphas,” Gastard paused with a soup spoon halfway to his mouth. “Was that not the demon leading the attack?”

“He’s sworn to me now,” I said, “so he’s on the team.”

Gastard frowned. “It would be better if you killed him. How can you trust such a creature? Fickle as well as wicked, hardly suitable as an advisor.”

“There are certainly enough demons in your retinue already,” Esmelda said, pondering her bowl.

“The oath he took, that all of them take, is magically binding,” I said. “I don’t have to trust them as I trust you, Gastard. They will work for me as long as I hold up my end of the bargain, just like they worked for Kevin.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Still,” Gastard said, setting down the spoon. “How many such oaths must you take? You have killed three demons that I know, and the forces you have at your disposal now have to be at least as great as any army in the Free Kingdoms. Why not take this chance to purge the rest? If you forge alliances with the other rulers of men, instead of placing demons over them, you can become a true king. Dargoth need not be a land of darkness any longer. With you at its head, a new order of templars could arise, and these lands could be changed. The other nations would look to it with hope, instead of fear.”

Esmelda was watching me carefully, and Leto looked curious as well.

“I do want that,” I said. “The way I am doing things now has to do with my agreement with Bojack. If the demons aren’t allowed a place in Dargoth, I could lose everything.”

“Not everything,” Esmelda said.

She wasn’t wrong. Now that I had her back, we could leave Dargoth together and set up somewhere else. Maybe find a place in King Egald’s court, and wage a war against all of demonkind. But if I broke my word to Bojack, the curse would weaken me until I was of no use to anyone.

Besides that, being a ruler was a hard thing to give up. Simple life, sure, but it would be difficult to pretend that absolute authority was not a tempting carrot. There was something offensively inefficient about the idea of leaving Mount Doom behind. As its lord, there were things I could do for Dargoth and its people that would be impossible if I were fighting a war from the other side. Not that I had actively done anything to improve the lives of the citizens of my empire so far, I had to admit.

Kevin was the real obstacle. Killing him wouldn’t kill him, and I needed Bojack on my side to ensure that he didn’t rise again the moment I left. Trying to move him while keeping his spawns in check would be a logistical nightmare without a demon’s help.

“You’re right,” I said. “I would still have you, but for once in my life, I want to play it safe. There’s not a good way to deal with Kevin without Bojack, so until I figure one out, we’re stuck with the demons.”

“Temporary compromises have a way of becoming permanent,” Gastard said, darkly.

“I know,” I sighed. “If you can come up with a way to deal with the Kevin situation without demonic help, then we can talk about it. Apart from that, I would just have to kill him until he stopped coming back, and I have no idea if that would work. As far as I know, his patron deity is the One Who Knocks, rather than Mizu, and I’m afraid if I deviate too far from what Bojack wants, the rules about respawning could change. What if he came back with a different power set, or back at his original spawn point, wherever that is? I’m not sure why things work the way they do, and for all I know, the One Who Knocks could change the program if he had enough of a reason to. So for now, I’ve got to play the role they want me to play.”

“And bring more demons into the world?” Esmelda's gaze was soft and sad. She understood the necessity, but that didn’t mean she liked it.

I nodded. The mood of the meal was effectively soured, and no one said much as we moved on to the main course. I barely tasted the beef, and Ogness seemed a little disappointed at the lack of praise for what she had obviously gone through a lot of trouble to prepare. It was Leto who broke the silence.

“What kind of potions did you make?”

It might have just been an attempt to change the atmosphere, rather than actual curiosity, but I was more than happy to fill him in.

“A lot,” I said. “We started with a base elixir, which is the requirement for all the actual potions I’ve learned about so far. I have recipes for increasing my strength, and speed and jumping, and once I’ve developed the skill further, there will be more I can do. We went to the pens to collect ingredients, and I was able to test them out.”

Leto moved a morsel of meat around on his plate with a fork. “If I took one, would it make me strong?”

“You’re already strong,” I said.

“I mean strong like Gastard, or like you.”

“It wouldn’t be safe for you to try them,” Esmelda said.

Gastard was more thoughtful. “I agree that such things should not be applied to children, but I do wonder at how the potions you’ve described would affect a warrior. You changed the course of a battle by yourself, surely, a few elixirs would not change me so much as that, but for a templar faced with a demonic opponent, those enhancements could be enough to place them on an even playing field.”

“It was my armor that kept me alive out there,” I said, “not any potions.”

“True enough, but you can produce more armor, can’t you? And if there were someone else, or a group of warriors, hunting demons, while you…”

“Shut up!” I snapped, and the table fell into a shocked silence. Gastard looked more confused than angry, and Esmelda knitted her brow in concern. The problem with my oath to Bojack was that it was magical. I couldn’t simply work in secret against him. If I knew what I was doing, handing out weapons to would-be templars to delay the arrival of the One Who Knocks, it could count as a violation. If I had equipped Gastard for other reasons, and he had started killing demons without my knowledge, there was no consequence there, because I would not be deliberately opposing the force I was sworn to uphold. Now that he had brought it up, however, I didn’t know if the penalty could be escaped.

“Don’t talk to him like that!” Leto shouted, getting up out of his chair and squaring up with me like he wanted to fight.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I’m not angry, it has to do with my oath. Gastard, I didn’t mean to insult you, but we can’t talk about this right now. Please, let’s change the subject.”

“Leto,” Esmelda said firmly, “sit back down. That is your father you’re speaking to.”

It looked like he wanted to disagree, but the boy obeyed his mother.

“There is something else I would like to talk about,” she said. “My people are still in Nargul. I want our son to meet his grandfather, Brenys, and the others. How long will it be before they come here?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, grateful that Esmelda had been willing to let the other matter drop. “We didn’t work it out at the time, but I needed to go back there soon anyway to check on Berith, and see how things were going for them in the city. We could all go.”

“Riding wyverns?” Esmelda asked, sounding none too enthusiastic about the idea.

“We could ride horses,” I said. “It would just be slower.”

“I liked the wyverns,” Leto said. The memory of flight was sufficient to distract him from his anger at me, at least for the moment.

“Horses would be better,” Gastard said.

“Maybe we could do flying lessons another time,” I said, and Leto looked away from me.

“I want to see them,” Esmelda said, “however we do it. How soon can we go?”

“There are a few things I would need to do first,” I said, “but soon.”

Over the next two days, I made sure to spend a decent amount of time with my family. We toured the farms, and Leto got a kick out of the mooshrooms, which were docile and friendly. I made sure to keep us far away from the slaughterhouse. Gastard began working with the garrison soldiers, sparring and giving pointers, and Leto joined in with the exercises.

Esmelda and I spent hours together exploring the fortress, and she told me more about what life had been like for her in our time apart. It hadn’t always been easy for them, especially in the beginning. Supplies had been tight, and neither Esmelda nor Gastard were farmers by trade.

There had been rough weeks before the gardens they had planted were sufficient to give them what they needed, though the plants around my origin had been growing almost as quickly as they would have if I had been there. During the winters, they depended on Gastard’s hunting and trapping to keep them fed. I would have made the man a king if I thought he wanted it.

They’d had almost no contact with the nearest town, which had been some distance away. Esmelda could not have gone herself, as Lord Godwod had issued a sizable bounty for the capture of lillits, and Gastard had made the trip only when it was absolutely necessary to do so.

Apart from the incident when soldiers had come looking for lillits, they had also had some trouble with wolves, and at one point, a bear.

“What did you do?” I asked, trying not to imagine Esmelda or Leto being cornered by a grizzly.

“Nothing, at first” she frowned. “It wandered through. But it kept returning, and Gastard eventually hunted it.”

I remembered the bear skin rug. Things had worked out, or they wouldn’t have been with me now, but it was nerve-wracking to think about the challenges they had faced in my absence. Simple survival in the wilderness without a System to cheat your way out of it was no small thing, even if they had started with a bunker.

The armory of Mount Doom did not carry anything made for lillits. Everything I crafted seemed to be one-size-fits-most, with me as the baseline, which wouldn’t work for her. After a discussion with Garron about fitting, I was able to procure chain shirts, iron caps, and steel boots that would suit both Esmelda and Leto and proceeded to enchant the bejeezus out of them.

Protection, Unbreaking, Fire Resistance, and Feather Fall, all taken from Kevin’s collection as well as leftovers from the underground base. With as much juice as there was in the Essence Stone, I didn’t even have to dip into my levels to enhance them. They were getting Shadowbane daggers as well for good measure, and short bows with magic arrows. I didn’t want them to do any fighting, but it was better to be prepared.

We were going on a trip.