Not for the first time, and likely far from the last, Edward awoke with a sense of impending doom. This was not because he had failed to suppress the dungeon before it could display its abnormal growth rate, instead, it was his genius yet foolish attempt at placating the dungeon that haunted him. Dungeon suppression was more than just suppressing the dungeon’s growth and expansion, it was more like gardening in the fact that what few suppressors survived the first few years were typically assigned to a dungeon to also help it grow and aid in removing obstacles to its prosperity. This alone wouldn’t make his offering to the dungeon all that unusual, but after leaving the dungeon space Edward broke out into a haunted sweat.

Dungeons were remarkably intelligent, especially the older ones that developed personalities, but by that point, they were already millennia old and were well understood. This made the heavy weight of the dungeon’s attention nearly give him a heart attack, for a dungeon to have already developed a mind of its own without the exposure to countless masses of new and veteran adventurers alike was staggering. Such a dungeon would surely become a modern-day tomb of the gods, for all the good or ill such a thing would bring. This discovery was something that took immediate priority over the material gains of the dungeon, something that both his father and brother would need to be appraised of before their plan went any further.

[Summon Gehennan Owl]

A rather expensive helbeast to summon, but the costs would be outweighed by the benefit it provided. Giving it his message, Edward commanded it to first seek out his brother, and once he was done with it to find his father. His father and he were far from loving toward each other, but even the stoic Uther Nightingale would understand the problem such a young intelligent dungeon would present. Not all was bad though, whether it understood the purpose of his offering or not, the dungeon was clearly pleased with it, and a happy dungeon was a dungeon that didn’t unleash horrible monsters. But with as much as he could be doing regarding the dungeon, he simply couldn’t, any more influence he exerted on the dungeon increased the chance of the dungeon developing the less desirable traits of most mortals, namely lying.

Turning his attention towards matters he could help with though, he had to start drawing up plans on how to deal with the ogres. They weren’t a problem so far and perhaps only their more magical members felt something was amiss, but with the dungeon’s sudden growth, it wasn’t long before they came knocking. The ogres themselves were actually quite nice, for ogres that is, and what that meant was crass, blunt, and uncomfortably friendly if they thought you were worth their time. Altogether, they were far more tolerable than the central empire’s royal shit sniffers or the imperial revenue legion, but few held the taxmen in high standing and the centrals were one inquisitor away from getting the noose, perhaps Ed could help them with that?

Back to the subject, ogres were large-bodied creatures, with thick hide and fearsome strength, they were infamous for their love of war and food these ogres in particular were one of the only clans that were willing to temper their natural bloodlust by worshipping Kraal, followed closely by Gluut, the remarkably famous goddess of food and parties. The issue of the clans, however, was that despite their worship of Kraal and despite the long-standing treaty they upheld with the Nightingales, they were still ogres, and ogre youths were still known to occasionally raid the lower lands when they thought they could get away with it. These raids were usually stopped though, either by the older ogres that understood the repercussions of breaking the treaty or by the somewhat famous Boulder knights, who weren't actual knights but a collection of experienced monster hunters working under the family, it made little distinction to the common folk. There were many angles Ed could use to deal with the ogres, the official method of dealing with them would be to enforce some of the small print of the treaty that gave the family the right to take land in exchange for resources, but the simplest would be to appeal to their culture and challenge their current leader to a duel and succeed with the nasty side effect of making him their leader. Of course, he had briefly considered killing them all, but with confirmed clerics and one unconfirmed paladin, such a task would be nigh impossible without his brother's forces so he would have to use the other two options.

Making his way toward their usual ranging spots, Ed quickly caught wind of them, not by ear of course, but by smell. Despite their nebulous grasp on honor and skill as cooks, the Ushenk ogres were still just as unhygienic as any other ogre clan, which wasn't much of a problem to them, strong bodies and thick skulls, unfortunately, make them resistant to disease and the smell is a perfume to them, a smell somewhere between rotten garlic and fish. Soon though, he laid eyes on an encirclement of ogres, cheering on some spectacle their large bodies hid, and with the help of a tree I could see why, either because they were raiders or these idiots got it in their head to enter their territory, a very much new and young, party of adventurers were being poked and thrown around by smaller ogre adolescents. In the party of five was a tall and broad-shouldered youth wielding a sword and shield, no doubt the leader given his constant barking towards the others, followed by a young woman using some kind of attack magic, with three other hooded members unskillfully waving spears around.

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"We need to keep together Lily, they want us to split up, Edmund try using that potion we found!"

Hmm, very new then, they can't be more than rank two or three at best. But to his credit, the leader was right that they were splitting them up, ogres preferred one-on-one fights, and given their level of experience that was a death sentence. The problem was that despite their thick skulls they were still smart enough to infer danger, and when Edmund pulled out a sickly green potion, the adults quickly moved to eliminate him, throwing a large harpoon spear through his chest right as he was about to use the strange potion which let out a thick and dangerous cloud that started to kill everything around it, including what was left of Edmund.

Sniff sniff

Blegh, cloudkill, a nasty potion inspired by an equally nasty spell that was often banned by most places, including the Nightingale fiefdom. I wasn't much of a stickler for the rules unless I needed to be, but cloudkill was pretty high on the list of things I would go out of my way to prevent, and thankfully my conjuration was good enough that I could began to siphon the initial cloud into the hells, probably fucking up some demon's day and getting the ogres attention away from the adventurers.

"Huh, wazz that?"

"It's magic, rock brains, but who's using it?"

"Maybe it's one of the chickens!? Quickly, ring their magical necks and get a stew ready!"

I would never accuse them of being intelligent, but it’s best if I announce myself before they suspect one of the adventurers of it.

“Clansmen of the Ushenk, followers of Kraal, in the name of Uther Nightingale and the treaty signed by our ancestors, I command you to cease your hostility!”

I think I did rather well for someone who got middle marks in his public speaking classes.

“It’s a humie wizord! Get him before he uses more magics!”

Well, shit, they’re Raiders, well I still think I did well so my point stands. All I needed to do now was beat them around and drag them back to the clan village. My summons would be too slow to form, and much too problematic, best to stick to other conjugation.

[Soulfire]!

And from my mana to my fingertips tips a gout of ethereal fire shot from my hand to the nearest ogre, an unarmored bowman.

“AAAAAAAHHH, I’M ON FIRE, IT HURTS!!!”

Rolling in the mud, he tried his best to smother the fire, and unfortunately, soulfire isn’t actually fire, it’s a fire curse that forces mana to burn under the skin, the visuals of flames are just for show. But with that the others began to scramble about; the remaining adults leaped for their weapons and broke into runs toward me.

Getting my weapons ready, I followed up with my signature combo, yelling for the kids as I did so.

“You better get your asses ready kids, [Barrier], [Curse of touch], [Vulnerability]!”

A hexagonal barrier of magic sprang up as the oversized arrow of one of the remaining bowmen impacted, smashing flat against the academy’s best barrier. Following this is placed my two curses on them, one of them eliminating the sense of touch and the other weakening their bodies, making them ripe for punishment.

Side-stepping one of their fighters, I leaped onto their back, using his reduced senses to reach up and thrust my sword into the now weakened hide, cleaving the brain stem.

[Curse of Vitality], a bit of insurance.

And not too soon, while I was busy with the fighter the party leader grabbed my leg, throwing me into a tree. What should have been a broken spine was instead a rapidly healing bruise, my vitality curse siphoning the life essence from the fighter into me.

Charging the leader, I ducked between his legs, which was smart since he hit himself in the groin, but stupid because I got a whiff of several years of all kinds of hell. Using another curse, I was fond of ai gave him the smell of his own medicine.

[Impose sense]

sniff, sniff “Ah, Daisies.”

…The kids, who had taken down their ogre, simply stared with utter confusion and disgust, and I was tempted to join them if the phantom smell wasn’t making me gag. It’s good I could blackmail them, no one will ever know this happened. But with him distracted I scrambled to cut his legs, removing his ability to walk with a loud snap sound coming from the now useless tendons.

“Neat trick humie, but we gonna eat you slowly for that, now remove whatever magics are binding my legs so I can kill you slowly.”

He didn’t notice, good, but with his followers dead the leader was in no position to fight or argue.

But as I thrust for his head, he used his waning strength to grab my arm, twisting it like those dwarven pretzels as my sword cut through his eye and into his brain. And as we both fell to the ground the three remaining adventurers rushed to catch me, the leader’s leg having been snapped in half, and the girl, Lily I think, was barely standing, to say nothing of the hooded third member who was missing half of his side.

“You saved us we- “

” I saved you from a mistake, but you need to settle down your party is nearly dead!”

I could see he was in shock as he barely registered my words, looking around confused and lost, he fell to the forest floor, not dead but almost. As the last of the ogre’s vitality healed my wounds, I was able to get them back to my camp, healed but still hurting from the damage. Unfortunately, infernal magic doesn't give much benefit to healing but thankfully money does, and after a full meal of healing potions and hardtack they were stable, in pain but no longer hurt. While they slept through their treatment though I considered just what to do with them, after going through their packs I found that they were here on a quest from the local guild to hunt some mountain seed root, a rare but useful alchemic ingredient found in most mountains and that they evidently hadn't expected the ogres. On the one hand, they weren't entirely to blame, their goal wasn't the ogres themselves despite their carelessness in encroaching on their territory, on the other hand though, I just scored myself some underlings, as a representative of the owner of the land I could conscript criminals into service, and the use of cloudkill made them fall squarely into that bracket. But how to use them best, I couldn't have them with me when I went to the ogres, and it would be a waste to throw them into the dungeon only to be a short snack...

Hmm, I wonder if the dungeon would like an ogre breakfast.