Chapter Fourteen

Breaking the Law

Toot arrived back at the crevice after visiting the Full Mug, which was the cleaner pub in the town. The Mug was owned by a nice woman named Stella, who had been more than happy to deliver her spirits to wherever he wanted so long as he paid in gold. The amount of gold had helped her to be expeditious for certain, but she had been pleasant and jovial before she’d even known what Toot had been after.

Stella was a short fiery woman, she wasn’t a looker, but what did that matter? She carried an inner fire that Toot had found admirable. He’d paid her double what she’d asked and still had funds to spare. Not that dosh was going to be hard to come by, but he still was happy to have stayed beneath his initial assessment of twenty gold pieces. His biggest expenditure had been what he’d given to the boy, Q’uillen, but he was justified in doing that.

As he approached the crevice Toot saw that all of his goods were still there and were untouched. That put a little jaunt in his step since it meant that he’d already garnered a reputation of not being someone to contend with. It also meant that he knew the people that dealt in the darker side of things in town. A thug mayor and a rude bartender were not likely to be the leaders of a Thieves guild or clandestine operation, but they would most certainly be a involved in something such as that.

Hey, Toot! Dev said with their mental connection. You won’t believe what I figured out while you were gone!

Really? Sounds promising. I’ve had some things happen, too. Let me put this stuff in the hole so you can absorb it, and then we’ll talk. Toot thought.

There’s no need, I can get it from here, Dev replied, and everything vanished in a haze of grey smoke before Toot knew what was happening. The rapidity of the absorption was impressive. Most dungeons took a few seconds to break things down and the process often looked like items and bodies were melting into the floor, but Dev had developed a technique that allowed him to essentially swallow a target whole. Toot recognized that his memory of the time he spent with individual cores had been wiped each time that they entered their various worlds, but he still knew everything that happened if the overseers found it to be significant. Techniques such as Mesh Acquisitions, as the absorption process was referred to among the overseers generally involved dismantling an item at the molecular level in a piecemeal fashion.

Dev was like a megalodon shark inhaling a guppy. It all went in at once. He was deviating once again. Most dungeons could create items out of thin air instantly, but they expended mana in doing so. Toot expended half the normal cost to reproduce things in comparison to other cores. He had deviated there as well, without even realizing it. It was how he compressed the mana, it was like the grip of a miser holding onto a gold coin that was being pulled from his fingers. Dev gripped the mana so hard that he increased the mana’s density.

He realized that Dev, with this technique Dev had doubled his mana capacity. It would be the same for the blood and fear he took in. Most dungeons started with a mana capacity of one-thousand units, Dev he knew, only had a five-hundred unit capacity but if that was for each of his units of energy. Giving him a total of a possible fifteen hundred power units to work with until he leveled as a dungeon. The truth was, that fifteen-hundred was actually a potential three-thousand points of power to work with meaning that if he garnered enough blood and fear he would be the most powerful dungeon at his current level to ever exist. The things he might achieve at higher levels was mindboggling to contemplate.

Toot hadn’t expected separate power bars for each energy source, he’d assumed that they would all fill one bar, he hadn’t expected three. So that had been a bonus. Now that he could see the raw possibility of the dungeon he was certain that he’d made a good choice in opting to become his companion. Any other dungeon helper would have been out of their depth with Dev. It was the whole megalodon metaphor again. They were in deep water territory and it would take more than a minnow to guide Dev to the heights he could reach. The question was just how big of a fish Toot really was.

He stared at the empty space around him. There wasn’t a trace of the items of having ever been there. Not even depressions in the earth; nor were there footprints from when he’d unloaded everything. It was like it had never been. Toot was just about to enter the crack in the outcropping when he heard a voice in the distance.

Voices, in truth. Three men complaining about having to carry a body that weighed close to three-hundred pounds down the main street two hours after dark. It was the mayor’s delivery boys with the body of the late Mr. Rufus. His golden eyes could see them clearly in the darkness. They stumbled and strained but maintained a steady course arriving at Toot’s location unseen and unheard by anyone but him.

The men wasted no time dropping the body at Toot’s feet as indelicately as possible. It landed with a heavy thud and kicked up dust upon impact. The three thugs assessed Toot and looked unimpressed. Either they didn’t know that he’d been the one to kill the departed Rufus or they didn’t believe it if they did. It didn’t matter to Toot one way or another what they thought of him. They’d done their job and could go.

A short stocky frog-faced man with an unlit cigar in his mouth gave Toot a nod and pulled down the tip of his cap. Toot returned the nod and the man left along with his companions without a single exchange of words. As it should be, Toot thought.

As what should be, Dev asked.

Clandestine exchanges in the dark should not require the bandying of words, he informed Dev. Talking brings the attention of authorities, and no one wants that. No if your meeting is supposed to be clandestine. He stared at the tightly wrapped body. They had taken a lot of care to preserve him. All they needed to do was to stick him in a barrel or a bag and it would have been enough, but Mayor Keong’s people had gone out of their way to wrap him up like a lost king.

He was much more prepared for the afterlife than your standard disposable corpse. Something smelled wrong, but he couldn’t smell anything from the corpse other than some the hint of the early stages of decay. It just didn’t sit right.

So, what’s in the wrappings? Toot could tell that Dev was eager to absorb more …well, just more. It was natural for him to want to process as much information as possible. That’s what core’s had been designed to do. They were supposed to take in little bits of the outside world in small stages and reinvent new magics, creatures, items, and architectural designs that could then be implemented on new worlds. Is it for me, the dungeon asked eagerly?

Yes, but don’t absorb it yet, Toot thought to Dev, there’s something hinky about this whole thing.

What do you mean, Dev inquired. His enthusiasm about having a new snack was quelled by his companion’s cautious nature.

I mean, those men went to a lot of work to preserve this body, there are resined bandages that make it practically waterproof. Then they unceremoniously dump him and don’t even make a holy sign or say a few words before they left. They didn’t even wait to watch me shove the corpse into the crevice. I would think that they would want to make certain the thing was disposed of. Toot explained to Dev.

Oh, is it a fresh body?

Not fresh enough for you to do more than gather a new mesh and skin. Toot bent down and reached out to unwrap the body of the man named Rufus. Rufus who had ceased to be. He’d ceased to be anything but a perfect tool for the mayor to use against him. Toot cursed himself for not seeing it coming!

“Halt,” came a commanding voice from one of the nearby shops. “What have you there?” The unseen figure’s voice carried an air of authority, and Toot knew that he’d been set up. A town constable stepped from the shadows and stalked towards determinedly Toot, as a man with a mission would be expected to carry himself. He was dressed in what Toot assumed to be dark navy blue clothes made of thick wool. It was a Peeler styled uniform, with large brass buttons down the coat’s middle, a leather belt with a large buckle, a swallow-tailed coat with a raised leather collar that had been designed to mitigate getting strangled from behind, and a stovepipe hat. He also wore a half cloak to stave off the night’s chill.

Do you want me to dispose of the corpse, Dev asked a hint of hope in his words.

No, Toot replied quickly, the last thing I need is for him to see you disintegrate something. Everyone will be accusing me of sorcery or calling upon demonic forces. Let’s just see how this plays out.

Ok, but if you need me, I’m right here, Dev said supportively.

“Good eve, constable,” Toot said with a wave. “I was passing along and saw that someone had just placed something odd onto my lots.”

“You’re lots? It is my understanding that the Town Council has permanently designated these lots as dangerous and that they were never to be sold under any circumstances.” The constable’s eyes drilled into Toot and unabashedly called him a liar with their stare.

“That might have been the case,” Toot stressed, “But I met with Mayor Keong earlier today and we came to an agreement in which he sold the lots to me at a reduced price.”

“Most unlikely, sir. Mayor Keong wouldn’t let go of a turd if they didn’t fall from his bottom due to gravity. His hands, as I suspect of yours, are quite sticky.”

“I can’t speak of the mayor’s hygiene, but I can quite assure you that I wash my hands after my ablutions.” Toot had misconstrued the constable’s implications and was received by the officer as if he were being snide.

“Do not mock me, sir.” A thin rapier whistled through the air fast enough that Toot had a hard time tracking its movements. “I do not appreciate jackanapes, so spare me your pitiful attempts at humor.” His sword swept down and pointed at the lump of body-shaped wrappings. “What is that?”

“What’s what?” Toot felt the words crawl out of his mouth before he had time to bite down on them. He hadn’t meant for it to come out the way it’d sounded, especially after what the officer had just said. Toot had no desire to hurt the man, nor did he see any reason to get him worked up. Explanations could be made and everything dealt with in the morning light.

The constable moaned.

“What is that body shaped bundle at your feet? Preserved meats? A bundle of sticks perhaps? Do not play games with me.” His eyes crawled to the rocky cleft that Toot had escaped from earlier in the day; as his sword somehow managed to make its way inches from Toot’s throat. “I supposed that you had no intention of throwing whatever is in that cadaver curved casings into that crevice over there.”

“No sir, I can say with one hundred percent honesty that I had no such intentions,” which was a complete and utter lie. When he’d arranged for the rotting Rufus to be delivered that was precisely his plan. He hadn’t expected to find Dev expanded this far out. Once he’d learned that he’d intended to let the dungeon deal with it the way he had all the other bodies, but he’d held the dungeon up and now was about to be arrested for a murder that he’d … committed.

“Bah, I want you to step back. I will exhume the contents and we will see what happens after that.” The officer set his blade atop the resined wrappings and dragged it back slowly, taking care not to cut too deeply. The coverings parted from one another with a crunch as the blade slid down the length of the body. The bandages unfurled like a flag in a high wind splitting apart like a large zipper as the sword did its work.

“Is that Rufus Xavier? The man is a criminal’s criminal. Is he dead?” The constable bent over and held a finger to the man’s neck feeling for a pulse. He pulled his hand back after verifying Rufus’s questionable status in the life/afterlife dept, looked at the tips of his fingers, and rubbed them together as if to confirm the presence of a strange substance. He brought his fingers to his nose and sniffed.

“Poison! This man is covered in poison!” The words had no sooner left his lips than white foam began to form in the corners of his mouth. His eyes began to bleed, followed his ears, and then his nose. The peace officer shuddered once, in an oddly nonviolent quiver, and died.

“I had no idea that Goulcrest was such a hard place to live,” Toot said as he stared at the newly demised detective.

Can I eat them now, Dev asked politely.