Telpin burned the monster's corpse some more, the town’s guard would be dealing with the lower level monster that Renna had released earlier so he wouldn’t need to worry about anyone finding out about what he had done to Ambrose.

Markus, his personal guard, would arrive shortly to deal with the bodies. Telpin, still bleeding from the large cut along his face, collapsed in a corner to wait, his vision blurring as his consciousness fled.

The next day, Telpin awoke lying in a bed within his manor. “Markus, get in here.” The large armoured man came in from the other side of the bedroom door.

“Greetings Lord Morncrest. It is good to see you have regained consciousness." The man hesitated briefly, not wanting to incur his lords wrath. "The town healer has done what they could to heal you, but the damage done to your eye was too severe. She said it couldn't be recovered and had to remove it to prevent infection from the monster's saliva.”

Telpin growled in annoyance, reaching for his bandaged face. “So Renna was right about the Sponsored having magic blocking Abilities.”

Markus scratched his face unsure how to correct his lord, worried that he would be blamed for the lost eye. It was under the lord’s orders that he was not there, directing the town’s guard away from the gates so that lord Morncrest and the adventurer could handle the danger that was the Sponsored. “Actually it wasn’t the Sponsored my lord, the healer didn’t have any restorative magic.”

“What kind of garbage heap of a town doesn’t have a healer with magic, do you know how much money is in healing.” Telpin yelled out.

“Never mind, let me get my thoughts in order so I can decide what you need to do.” Telpin said in a huff as he began replaying the events that had led him to last night in his head.

Telpin was beginning to worry that he had been tricked, or at least used. When an odd well dressed man claiming to be a Sponsored, had arrived and provided the evidence needed to solve the ownership issues between the kingdoms, he had told Telpin that he could press for control of the town. Telpin had been suspicious for sure, but he was sure it was the right idea at the time.

The island was a near perfect stop over point to restock ships heading to and from Limnus so it wouldn’t be hard to re-establish the old trading routes that had failed. The man had even warned Telpin of a Sponsored already on the island that he would need to deal with. Telpin was unsure at first, a Sponsored could be an extremely valuable asset aiding the growth of an area based on their Sponsor. But the mans information had been backed up when a former adventurer had approached Telpin upon his arrival, telling him about this Sponsored who was working with the dungeon, that he was empowering it; that his presence would doom the town as it was. She had even gone so far as to share her Character, and showed him her prophetic Magical Perception Skill to gain Telpin's trust. The Skill was called Whispers From Beyond and gave Renna information she had no way of knowing in the form of cryptic whispers from her dead party members. She explained how the Skill would then act up whenever the Sponsored was around, whispering that his presence would doom the town, his very presence had already begun knocking over a series of dominoes that would lead to the end of the town as they knew it, and promised her own death.

The Sponsored whose name he now knew to be Ambrose had then shown up late Telpin’s appointment ceremony. Telpin had arrived two days before the ceremony was to take place, and had intended to scope out the Sponsored he had been warned about first by a Sponsored and now an adventurer who had seen beyond the pale, but the man had spent the entire time inside of the dungeon. Telpin wasn’t even sure that the man would show up to the ceremony at all, ruining the plan that he had set in motion.

Ambrose had ingratiated himself to the town, getting to know them, spending time with all he could get his hands on. This had made him friendly with most of the town but the whispers had informed Renna that he was using them for something. She had then payed more attention, watched him observing the townsfolk, even catching him spying on those who wouldn’t speak to him.

The final nail in the coffin was when Ambrose had shown up to the ceremony, but hadn’t taken the opportunity to sell their patron to him, trying to avoid the conversation entirely by making up some random name. It was evident to Telpin that Ambrose was the Sponsored of some evil god. Even convinced of this, Telpin had intended to give him a chance to leave on the royal ship he had been sent on, sending him of to the kingdom where he could be safely dealt with. Risking the wrath of a god by killing their chosen was never a good idea, even the gods considered the most good would happily ruin the life of a mortal who interfered with their plans if given the chance, but this could be mitigated in several ways, namely sending him off on some quest that would get him killed. Unfortunately for Telpin, Renna had lost control of the monsters she had captured and was bringing into town, and had accidently released them earlier than expected, so he had had to rush the plan, making up some reason for the Sponsored to follow him to the gates where Renna was to kill the beast they had weakened and already burned.

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Fortunately, despite the mess up, things had worked out, Ambrose was lured out to the gate where Renna’s initial strike had inflicted the monsters strong paralytic on Ambrose by stabbing him through the chest. Immediately the Sponsored was down, Telpin used his Manipulation Skill to further demoralise the man while he prepared his new Fire Magic that he was learning from the book he had forced the Beastial Giant to sell to him, using it to defeat a Sponsored would grant him a huge starting boost to his learning and the man had seemed to be completely taken out of the fight.

But that was where things went wrong, Ambrose had been faking when he collapsed to the floor, and had shaken off the paralytic as well as the emotional damage that Telpin’s taunting should have inflicted, scoring the devastating blow that had claimed his eye. Renna had clearly been alerted to the Sponsored's crafty nature by her strange Skill, and had managed to stop Ambrose from finishing Telpin with a follow up strike.

Despite their eventual victory over Ambrose, and all the information pointing towards him being the Sponsored of some god with destructive machinations towards the town, Telpin still couldn’t shake the feeling that he was just some pawn, just being used like he had used Renna to remove a potential danger, and how he would use the town for his personal growth before leaving it behind. Telpin decided that he would need to be firm in his grasp on the town, carefully controlling what went in and out if he were to keep ahead of whatever divine originating retribution would come for him for taking part of Ambrose's murder.

That brought him to the most important choice he needed to make, what to do with the dungeon. On one hand it was an immensely valuable resource, if Telpin could encourage adventurers to come through the town, the amount of money passing through, and his experience gains, would go through the roof. On the other hand, without gaining control of the dungeon he wouldn’t be able to find out what Ambrose had been doing in there, and until such time as a group came through that could clear the thing out, the dungeon would be looming over Telpin and his town, with unknown horrors lying in wait.

It wasn’t common for a dungeon to gain the ability to have wandering monsters so long after creation, especially while it wasn't actively being cleared out, but it wasn’t out of possibility. If Ambrose’s patron was involved in a monster domain, all they had to do was convince the dungeon to accept the Sponsorship and it could very well gain such an ability, which it could then use to destroy the town and murder its residents, fulfilling Renna's prophecy.

As his paranoia began to grow, Telpin made his choice. “Markus, take some of the villagers and destroy the entrance to the dungeon, make sure the tunnel collapses from the middle onwards, I don’t want anything digging out. We starve it of energy for a decade or two to deal with whatever Ambrose did to it.” Then I can either use the remnants to birth a new dungeon or consume it to fuel my growth.

‘Right away Lord Morncrest” Markus replied with a salute, leaving his lord in the hands of one of the local guards as he set about his duty.

Telpin laid back, plotting out his rise to power. He would be stuck here ruling over the island until such time as his father died at which point Telpin would inherit lordship of his home and could flog the island off to whoever without incurring a penalty, alternatively he could leave by gaining control of territory elsewhere and finding someone with a substitute Character to act in his place, though this would just mean moving from what he saw as a garbage heap to some empty island. At least a garbage heap had value and a use.

First he would ensure the dungeon was secure, if Renna recovered she would be able to confirm if there were other entrances, if not he would simply have to send some of the guards to investigate. After that he would need to build up the town by restoring the trade routes that had run out and dissolved after the death of the previous lord. This was something that was already in progress, as Telpin had paid for messages to be sent out to the various docks around the thousand islands, kingdoms, and Limnus, these would then be passed on by the harbourmasters to anyone who docked there, informing them that the outpost was reopening to trade. He had brought plenty of materials and valuables with him to initialise these new deals and buy the townsfolk's admiration.

There was much to be done to make the town profitable for him, so Telpin began combing over all the existing information about the island and its Residents, writing out instructions for each of them. The most obvious change needed to be made was the variety and amount of professions. He would have to institute a new law about developing professions, too many residents spent most of their days doing little to nothing, only utilising the daylight hours.

“Time to turn these weaklings into something valuable.”