I wanted coffee. I didn’t need it, [Endurance] was overkill when it came to powering through desk work, but I wanted it. Sitting at a desk going over papers had reawakened old habits, causing the craving. I made do with tea.

In lieu of coffee, Huette brought over a small folder. “The report on the attack on the barracks last night,” she said, handing it over. “…and Captain Rodakis is here to complain about it,” she added.

I frowned. “Which one of those got delayed to get them turned into the same agenda item?” I asked.

“I rushed the report because the adventurers said that he found out about it at the time, and wasn’t pleased,” she explained. “The Captain has been waiting for about half an hour?”

I sighed. “That’s fine. Send him in, please.”

I skimmed the report as I waited for the man. This would be our first actual meeting, not counting our brief introduction during his arrival. Back then, I hadn’t really grasped how big he was. He didn’t have to stoop in the doorway or turn sideways to get in, but it was close enough that he had to be a bit nervous.

“Madame Councillor,” he said, giving me a brief bow.

“Captain Rodakis, how nice to see you,” I lied. “Please take a seat.” There wasn’t room in my office for me to join him on his side of my desk, but I gave the little seated bow, the [Charm] told me was an appropriate greeting from a superior. I was, technically, his superior here. So very technically.

“I prefer to stand, ma’am,” he said, stiffly.

“Well, I prefer you to sit,” I said evenly. “Otherwise, I’d think that you’re trying to intimidate me, looming over me the way you are.”

“Of course ma’am,” He gingerly lowered himself into the one chair that would fit in my office. He needn’t have worried, it had been supplied by a craftsman with a high skill, so it was much tougher than it looked.

OK. Dominance established. I’ve got my desk — such as it is — in front of me to establish a zone of authority. It would have worked better if I had a bigger desk, but then I’d have needed a bigger office.

“So what can I do for you, Captain?” I said, smiling warmly. I was pleased to see it had an effect. Thank you, [Charm].

“I- well- it’s about the attack last night?” he said, suddenly less certain.

“Ah, of course. I was just reading the report now,” I said. “Would you like to read it yourself?”

“A report? I’m not used to getting reports from adventurers.”

“I insisted on it as part of the hiring conditions,” I explained, smiling wryly.

“So you did hire them… to protect the barracks.” He frowned. “May I ask why you thought my unit incapable?”

“I don’t think of them as incapable at all,” I said easily, leaning back as much as I could on my uncomfortable chair. “I’d wager that their capability would be at its low ebb last night — just moved in, recovering from a long march — but that wasn’t why I tasked adventurers to guard the barracks.”

“Why then?” Rodakis asked, eyes narrowed.

“I assume you’ve been briefed on the recent… tensions between the townsfolk and the Tribals,” I said. I was sure that he had. Exactly what that briefing had consisted of… I had my suspicions.

“Of course,” he said, giving away nothing.

“My understanding is that there are elements of the tribes trying to disrupt the trade treaty and provoke an attack from the Kingdom.” Given my audience, I chose not to mention the other group. “I thought it likely that they would try to attack your men when they were at their most vulnerable.”

I tapped the report. “It was only a small group, but if they had made it past the sentries, they could have done quite a bit of damage amongst your sleeping men.”

He shook his head. “My men would not have been caught napping!”

“That wasn’t my main concern,” I said.

“It wasn’t?”

“An attack — successful or not — would have been a provocation, would it not? You would have felt the need to respond. Successfully dealing with it would have left us with five dead beast-kin bodies — which the tribes would have taken as a provocation in turn.”

“You think they were sent there to die?” he asked, taken aback.

“I think that however it ended, a confrontation would have served the ends of whoever sent them.”

“So you hired adventurers.”

“Beast-kin adventurers,” I said, stressing the word. “The attackers might have been willing to die, but they weren’t willing to murder their fellow beast-kin.”

“But…” he trailed off. “Your people let the miscreants go!”

“Two reasons,” I calmly explained. “One, there was no attack, so there was no reason to stop them. They committed no crime. Two, they were concerned that if they went after the attackers, they’d circle around and have another try at you. It’s all in this report.”

I passed the sheaf of paper across the desk.

“Of course, it’s a shame we weren’t able to arrest them, but the conspirators know that we’re on to them now, so I’d expect them to think twice before trying anything else.”

And that goes for anyone else that might be thinking of starting trouble.

Rodakis looked down at the report and then back at me, warily. “I can keep this?”

“Of course, you are responsible for the defence of the city, after all. Since you’re here, I wonder if we should discuss protocols for all the potential traders arriving once this treaty is signed. We wouldn’t want our golden geese to be harassed at the gate would we?”

“No. The King wouldn’t like it if this new source of income was impaired.”

He looked at me and sighed. I smiled back with not a trace of sincerity and braced myself for a long discussion. Thank goodness for [Endurance].

“Huette could you bring us some tea please?”

Having arrived back home, I sank back into my comfiest chair and let out a sigh of relief.

“Cloridan, did you forget that I can always see through my own illusions?” I asked the empty air in the corner.

Cloridan appeared with a frown. “I thought it might be different if it was an item casting the spell,” he admitted.

“Fortunately, no.” That had been a serious concern, but I guess Cloridan had been out when we were testing it. “I was already leery of making that thing. If I couldn’t see through the invisibility, I’d have had nightmares about someone using it against me.”

“Fair enough,” Cloridan said, shrugging.

“So did it work?” I asked.

“Perfectly,” he replied smugly. “Neither side knew I was there.

“And you could follow them back?”

He nodded. “They eventually regrouped at the Temple of Naldyna.”

“Ugh.” This wasn’t exactly an ‘Oh Shit’ moment. I’d known that the Temple was willing to act against the Kingdom authorities — this just showed that they were still at it.

“Did you actually see who they talked to in there?”

“No, I stayed well clear. Spies and thieves entering their temples… well it’s not a guaranteed smiting, but there’s a good chance Naldyna would have identified me to her priests at least.”

“You don’t think she identified you?”

“Well, it's a given that she saw me, [Greater Invisibility] or no. Generally, they don’t do anything about it as long as you don’t challenge them directly. I’m not sure how the rule changes when I’m working for a different God’s Champion.”

“Yeah, me either.” I paused to think about what this meant. “I guess my next move is to see if Kaito can put some pressure on her to cut it out,” I mused.

“You think that will work?”

“I have no idea about how it works when a [Priestess] is at odds with the Champion,” I admitted. “I guess we’ll see.”

“Thank you for the warning, but I don’t think it applies to us,” Mandel said, sipping at an excellently brewed cup of tea. The new troops in place meant that the Griffin riders were free to take transportation jobs, so I could take a much-delayed trip to see him and his family.

“Why not?” I asked, sipping at my own cup of tea. Edele had been with us earlier, thanking me for getting her out of the Baron’s clutches, but she had ‘study' to do. ‘Study’, when I’d asked had turned out to be killing dungeon monsters under her mother’s supervision, which felt all kinds of weird, but I was trying not to judge.

Marie was also here with us — splitting her attention that way was apparently something a dungeon could do. As an apparition, though, she didn’t have any tea.

“I’ve felt the compulsion you describe,” she said, “And while it is there, I’ve never felt in danger of it overcoming me.”

“Has it grown over time?” I asked. “I got the impression that it took a while before anyone noticed it in the original Dungeons.”

“Not noticeably,” she said thoughtfully. “I may have reduced the compulsion by all the recent killing.”

“Right… on another subject, do you think that it would be safe to bring Rhis into this dungeon?” I asked.

“I don’t think so,” Mandel said. “Kari told me that if you bring a second core into a Dungeon it tries to take over the mana. It only ends when one of them loses and becomes a secondary core.”

“I’ve never heard of that,” I admitted.

“I hadn’t either. Kari told me that having one provides a few benefits, but nothing overwhelming. For one, it can link two mana pools into being the same Dungeon.

I thought about it. “You’re right, it doesn’t sound overwhelmingly good. I can’t really think of an advantage over having two dungeons over one.”

“It might provide benefits for the Master of that dungeon,” Mandel said. “They don’t want to leave the Dungeon, so having it in two places gives them more options.”

“Can you be a Master of two Dungeons?” I asked.

“I… don’t know.” Mandel paused in thought. “I don’t think so, but that’s just speculation.”

I nodded. “Any idea why Marie can talk to us? I asked around, and I haven’t heard of another Dungeon that does that. Rhis doesn’t know how she’s doing it either.”

“It’s a Feat,” Marie said. “You get them based on your Level… not the Levels of the Dungeon, but your own Level. I actually kept my Level from when I was alive, so I qualified for a few Feats right from the start.”

“As the Master, I was able to communicate with her from the start as well. It takes away from combat potential, so I doubt many Masters allow it.”

“It also mentioned a requirement that I understand a mortal tongue,” Marie added. “Rhis was probably — maybe still is — getting a translation when he speaks to you.”

“How many Dungeons have Masters, do you think?”

“No idea,” Mandel replied, but then reconsidered. “All of the big Mage names are probably Masters. After a little while spent terrorising everyone, they end up settling down in a tower and hardly ever leaving. That says Master to me.”

I nodded. “The Noble dungeons?”

“Maybe… they have social obligations, so they can’t just stay in their lair. Maybe the real power stays in the Dungeon, and the heir actually deals with the politics?”

“That didn’t seem to be the case in Anchorbury,” I said. ‘But… do you need for there to be a Controller before there can be a Master?”

“Yes, absolutely.” Mandel nodded with certainty. “Kari told me that was the case.”

“How did she find out so much about this?” I wondered. “It’s not common knowledge among adventurers.”

“She didn’t say… but I know she visited a [Sage] somewhere in Saarwald several times.”

Saarwald was the Duchy to the south, I knew, but not much more than that.

“I’ll have to find out where, and take a trip,” I said. “What else did I have to ask about? Oh yeah, mana crystals.”

“What about them?”

“Any idea why they’re the currency in the Capital?”

“Mana is the real currency in the Capital,” he corrected me. “Crystals are just how you store it.”

“So… higher grade crystals are more valued because you can transfer the mana quicker?” I guessed.

“Partly. Also, they hold more. That’s not really a concern with spatial storage… but making a noble wait for their payment to complete can be a big deal.”

“What do they use all that mana for?” I asked. “Is there a Noble [Skill] that uses mana?”

“Not as far as I know. They partly use it for taxes — the King uses an immense amount of it.”

“And what does he use it for?”

“The defence of the Realm? His own comfort? I can’t really say for sure.” Mandel shrugged. “But eventually you’ll go to Dorsay and see for yourself. They use mana for everything there.”