--Immersing, please don’t disconnect--

“What took you so long?”

“I crafted a magnificent toasted sandwich. It was honestly worth starting a religion for, but I’ll have to keep the recipe a secret. Some knowledge is too precious to be bestowed on the average human.”

Claire pouted. “Am I an average human?”

“Based on the shot you delivered to Ooze Man’s face, I think you’re well above average. Exceedingly above average.”

She made a hmph sound and started walking.

The wrong way.

“Claire? We came from that direction. Piliton’s is that way.”

She scurried back and passed by me with only a hurried sentence.

“Was just checking that Ooze Man wasn’t following us. I know where we’re going.”

**************

Piliton’s pumpkins were sufficiently mulched with pine needles when we returned. Seeing the efficiency of the workmen made me think that my employment chances were unlikely.

A herd of horses and carts stood in the massive parking area out the back of Piliton’s mansion. Tall sycamores bordered the place, throwing shade across the still-tethered horses and the well-dressed cart drivers. There were two dogs chasing each other between the carts and under the horses’ legs.

“Does this concern us?” I wondered aloud.

“It’s probably something to do with ‘spreading the word’. He might be a little surprised by our plan — we should probably tell him that we went with a more direct approach than digging potholes and burning a few heads of wheat.”

“Don’t jinx us. There’s no guarantee that Tabitha will want to go ahead with it.”

Claire raised an eyebrow at me and pushed me to the side of the road.

“We’ve got Marla, Tabitha for sure. If Ooze Man wasn’t impressed with the fact that he almost died while playing with his two newest toys, then I’ll go and repeat the process until he is. That’s three out of seven on our side — we just need one more to tick the box.”

“You think Marla’s father — I guess Tabitha’s husband — is a Stake as well?”

“It would make sense. Though I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t live in a whale’s mouth if I had a happy relationship with my spouse. Could work against us if he is.”

I considered the likelihood. Tabitha seemed to view humans as food, not sources of companionship. Certainly not fathers to her children. Assuming a father was required for Marla’s creation, they would have to be equally monstrous.

But the Stakes are still human, right?

I was starting to doubt it. The {Codglop} from Piliton’s Palace were more humanoid than the Stakes we’d met so far. Even the gnomes in the Hollow Forest were contenders for that accolade.

What a title. ‘Congratulations, monster! You are somewhat easier on the eyes than your supposedly human boss! Hooray!’

Percival was standing at the front steps when we completed our trek down the driveway. He was polishing his shoes with a coarse brush and some soft paste the colour of charcoal. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing some uncharacteristically huge biceps.

“Hey Percival. Does Piliton have company? We noticed all the carts.”

The butler looked up, threw back a gulp of tea from a mug sitting on a step, then burped loudly.

“Excuse me — I like to let my manners run wild when I’m on lunch break. It helps when it comes to acting perfectly for the rest of the day. You’ll have to forgive my vulgarity. And yes, that pompous prick has a boatload of visitors in there. They’re all dressed like turkeys, and their perfume smells like pig sweat.”

I broke out in laughter. “Holy hell, Percival! Do you actually mean that?”

“Mean what?”

“About Piliton!” Claire interjected.

“The pompous prick part? Of course not! Gods no, Lord Piliton thinks it’s funny. He’s a good man, as you’ve seen.”

I’m not quite sure ‘good’ is the word. I’ll stick with ‘capable’ and look the other way when it comes to his morals. At least until the krad is in the bank.

“I see. Right, well, do you think we’ll be able to see him today? We’ve got some important news regarding—”

“Don’t tell me! I don’t want to know the specifics until after they’ve happened. My role is to make this manor run smoothly. I can’t do that if I know that its occupants are doing silly things that may get them killed. Run along and wait in the lobby. Lord Piliton will kick out the rabble before too long.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

His directions were interspersed with gargling burps and the occasional hawking of phlegm, which he unceremoniously spat onto the gravel. He grabbed a rag and polished the toe of his shoe until it gleamed.

“Thanks, Percival. And thanks for breakfast yesterday, I felt great after I ate it.”

“As you should! I’m a goddamn lunatic in the kitchen.”

We left him to his polishing and buffing. Claire pushed open the manor doors, exposing the giant house to the outside world and vice versa.

As Percival had mentioned, the smell in here was unpleasant. It could’ve been nice — though perhaps a little overpowering — if all the visitors had worn the same, pleasant perfume, however each scent conflicted with the next, fighting to be the strongest, most potent smell in the room. The result was something like a cauldron full of every spice and ingredient in the kitchen cupboards.

“God, that is fragrant,” Claire complained. “You think we can wait somewhere that isn’t the sitting room? And grab those tomes over there — let’s keep this door open and air out the place.”

I jogged over to the designated books. One was a giant, leatherbound epic on Asterian military history, whilst the other was a compendium of books on engineering and architecture.

“Let’s check out that staircase leading from the sitting room,” Claire said. “Looks dark and scary up there, maybe we can spy some of Piliton’s secrets.”

I didn’t know how I felt about snooping around the house of a potential future king. He seemed pretty experienced in back-alley dealings, and I didn’t want to walk in and find an assortment of torture devices or other creepy shit that rich old men seem to manifest so easily.

But Claire’s heart was set. I had to.

“We could definitely just ask Percival. He’s in the perfect mood to tell us anything about Piliton. The guy is a menace — what kind of butler takes a break from manners?”

“A damn good one, I’m guessing. There are not many butlers who are allowed to call their masters ‘pompous pricks’.”

“How would you know? Have you got a butler?”

“In a way.”

We got to the top of the staircase, so I left the confusing conversation where it stood. I wasn’t quite sure what she meant by her last reply, but I got the feeling that I was the butler in question.

The door to this new section of rooms was basic — a single piece of striped brown wood that had two large rectangles inlaid. The top rectangle was slightly larger than the bottom one.

“Ready to release whatever hellspawn Piliton has snaffled away in here? I’m taking bets.”

“My bet is the bones of past political rivals, a faded collar from every dog he’s ever had, and a whole lot of weaponry.”

Surprisingly, I was right about one of those things. In a long line of glass cases, each locked and requiring a different key, was a rainbow of dog collars. The oldest was a blue one with ‘Miffy’ engraved on a beaten down circle of bronze or copper.

“Awww, this is so sweet,” Claire said. She was crooning over a red collar halfway down the line which had little white bones painted around the circumference. The dog was named Calvin.

“Really? Don’t you think it’s kind of creepy? Surely this is like, at least a sign of attachment issues. An inability to let go of the past or something. A psychiatrist would have a field day in here. Look! That one has tufts of hair on it. Why is it wet?”

Claire eyed off the collar I was pointing at. It had fingerprints on the glass, like it was recently opened.

“I…have no explanation for that. Actually, I do. Condensation.”

“Sure. We’ll go with that.”

This room led to another, which led to another. The interior design in these wasn’t nearly as discussion worthy as the dog collars, but a few of the artworks would probably sell for a good hunk of krad. Piliton didn’t seem like the kind of guy to have poser-art in his hallways. Or anywhere else.

Then, when I decided we would only check one more room, we stumbled upon the strangest one yet.

Literally stumbled. There was a massive step down into the room that would’ve had old people with walking frames quaking in their boots.

We were placed on an oval shaped balcony overlooking a similarly designed amphitheatre. The floor below us was covered in a light brown dust, accented by dark brown pillars that lined the room, somewhat similar to the B&B login room where the gardener always ignored me.

At each end of the oval, covered in every assortment of weapon you could think of, were two giant metal racks. Thick chains sprouted from the racks, long enough to reach almost to the other side of the oval.

I looked closer.

The dust was mostly light brown, but it was darker in patches, as though a great deal of blood had soaked in there and refused to dry out. There were seats lining the amphitheatre, all of them lush and comfortable with small tables on the sides for refreshments.

The more I discovered, the more I felt I knew what this was.

“Is this a freaking gladiator arena?” Claire gasped.

“I don’t think it’s something quite that grandiose,” I replied. “Pretty sure it’s a slave fighting pit. Look at the chains — they’re to stop the fighters from running away or jumping into the crowd. It’s non-consensual.”

Claire quieted, looking around.

“Why wasn’t there a lock on the door?” she asked.

“I really wish there was. There’s no way he’s open about this — there’s facemasks on the seats to hide the people that come to these.”

Even though I’d never felt absolutely at peace with dethroning the current king, finding Piliton’s guilty pleasure was causing some inner turmoil.

We ran back along the balcony and exited. I closed the doors extremely quietly behind us, not stopping until we found the dog collar room.

Claire stopped me just before I opened the final door. “Ollie, wait. You remember those dogs outside? The ones chasing each other?”

I was keen to be anywhere but here. If I heard someone walk up the steps, I was ready to instantly disconnect. I assumed Claire was ready to do something similar.

“Yeah. What about them?”

She looked across at the cases, then back at me. “They didn’t have collars.”

Oh. Oh.

I wasn’t sure how to respond. “Right. No collars. Maybe they just haven’t been trained yet? They might not even be his.”

“I think you know they are. And that means these are—”

“Specimens.”

The door was open, resting on well-oiled hinges that hadn’t made a single squeak.

Percival stood there, his shoes well-polished and the cup of tea in his right hand. It was somehow still hot.

For a moment, no one moved. I was waiting for Claire to say something, or for Percival to pull out a sword and show just how much more than a butler he really was.

But he paused. And Claire was waiting for the same thing from me.

“Umm…Specimens for what, exactly.”

“I think you already know.”

If he’d said something like ‘The Annual Asterian Dog Show’, I wouldn’t have complained. It would’ve been perfectly fine to sweep it all under the rug and continue doing business on the same terms, for the same goal.

Instead, he had to confirm our concerns. And then he added to them.

“Lord Piliton is a very cultured individual. Have you seen mine?”

“Your what? And what do you mean, ‘cultured’? How is forcing people to fight to the death considered ‘cultured’?”

“Ollie.”

I turned around to see Claire. She was looking at the names on each of the collars, inspecting them carefully rather than just passing over them like we’d done before. She beckoned me over, and I followed. Percival stood as the entrance and smiled at us.

His smile grew when we homed in on a glass case right near the end, closest to the room that eventually led to the amphitheatre. Inside was white collar with miniature sketches of different coloured dog-bowls. A few small metal loops connected a larger rectangular nametag.

There was a name engraved into the metal.

“Percival.”