Chapter Twenty-Three

Threats & Deals

Wraith stared after Dryad and felt the familiar presence of Ruin step next to him.

“She’s a dangerous one,” said Ruin of Djinn. “She has destroyed three other dungeons who have crossed her.”

“Destroy them, how?” Wraith asked both confused and concerned that this revelation.

“She sent her Lord Spark and her army with soul cages, they captured every soul spark there was and their lord sparks then she took them back to her dungeon and wiped their memories, she gave them back their lord sparks but kept the regular soul sparks. They don’t even bother to come to conclave anymore, they just sit in their dungeons unable to do anything but create things they can never use. In a way it is worse than death. If I were you I’d consider yourself at war, come on I have some friends I want to introduce you too.”

Wraith followed Ruin to a table of dark stained oak and they sat down, and three other dungeons joined them. “Hello Wraith, I apologize for the hoods and not saying our names, but you have become a target and anyone associating with you now is in danger, Ruin is taking a big stand openly associating with you. We are brokers, rather than having to sift through the few hundred dungeons and having trades denied to you based on what side you have chosen. Dungeons come to us tell us what they are trading and what they are looking for,” The dungeon broker in the middle of the trio explained.

“I see,” Wraith said leaning back.

“You may have guessed but the pattern of runes you described to make a slough of mana enter one’s dungeon like the one you described is greatly desired, you could have almost anything you want with something like that to trade,” the broker on the right added.

“What’s in it for you?” Wraith asked staring at was visible below their hoods trying to get a read on these three bland individuals in brown robes.

“Naturally we get a look at any patterns people are selling also, slivers of metals, woods and other such materials, we are after all a business. We are neutral in the nature of politics, we exist only to gain profit and secure our own dungeons; we will leave the politics to dungeons like you,” the broker on the left said.

“So, Wraith, what can we get for you?” the broker in the center asked.

I want patterns for wind elementals, also any other patterns on undead that other dungeons have come across. I am interest in exotic animals, magical weapons and armor and spells,” Wraith said laying out his list.

“And to trade?” the broker on the left asked.

“For ninth ranked and above materials, spells and patterns I am prepared to give the pattern for portal mana extraction, for others I have mithril, adamantine, some spells and patterns on undead and a few large beasts, and books on other languages particularly celestial,” Wraith offered.

“That will do nicely, we will come to collect once we have brokered some deals,” the middle broker said the trio rose and left.

Blackened sat down heavily in their place a few moments later and let out a sigh. “Things are getting tense between us and the Old Ones.”

“What do you mean?” Wraith asked leaning forward.

Blackened snorted. “Do you honestly think Dryad just stumbled across some new dungeon here at conclave who happened to have beaten your record by that much? No, she went out looking for a new dungeon; my scouts had seen her troops searching the land, but we didn’t know what she was looking for. I got a look at her weapons and armor too, high class shit, fifteenth ranked enchanted mithril swords, tarasque leather you don’t get that kind of stuff from your first adventurers especially not if they’re only fifth ranked. Dryad equipped a brand-new dungeon with weapons and equipment you haven’t even seen before. This is an unprecedented act on behalf of the Old Ones I suggest you pay whatever you have to to get the equipment and armor you need,” Blackened warned. “Here,” he added tossing a obsidian rapier onto the table. “That’s a hell-blade you can only get them by sending a soul spark into one of the higher levels of hell or above and having them kill a demon there, any attempt to recreate it will only make a passable weapon. When you get back to your dungeon, hole up, don’t lure adventures in, don’t send out large expeditions. We can’t act against Dryad yet not until she breaks the law, she’s bent it but if we move against her it will be war between our two factions.”

“Understood, and thank you sir,” Wraith said with a bow strapping the hell blade to his waist.

Wraith stood and stepped back into the crowd and went to a staircase and made his way to the top of a balcony. He overlooked the conclave his fingers drumming on the railing. “This is a deadly game we play,” he said to himself and felt the spine of the black tome he had brought with him. Even through his gloves it hummed with power. He could probably sell it for an infinite supply of arms and armor; but the secrets the book contained were too tempting to leave behind. He had to know.

Wraith felt a stirring in the air and Glade stepped up beside him. “Well played Wraith, you have one this round. Can I ask you a question?” she asked.

“You just did,” Wraith said dryly.

Glade glared at him her pleasant demeaner dissolving. “Why do you work with the ‘Noble Order’?” she asked saying the name in a condescending voice.

“Why don’t you, you act against the interests of yourself and the rest of us, I believe we are the superior species, but your kind would have us support the human races and waste our resources on bettering them. Tell me what sense is there in that?” Wraith asked turning to face her.

“I do what I do for the survival of our race, there are more and more adventures every year scouring the land, more core rooms are broken into every year. It is only a matter time before our existence is revealed to all the humanoids. What do you think will happen then? Do you think they won’t care we have been manipulating and destroying cities and villages at will? There will be war and we will lose, there are too many of them, to many heroes who lead armies that will overwhelm our dungeons and then they will crush our cores and drive us to extinction. So, tell me Wraith, what will you do when that happens?” she asked leaning in until they were nose to nose.

“If, that happens,” Wraith enunciated, “then we will show the lesser races their place and they will learn who their masters are. With each death they suffer we will grow stronger and, in the end, it will be there race that is driven to extinction and penned like cattle. The hawk does not bow to the mouse,” Wraith said stepping forward forcing Glade took a step back until her back was pressed against the wall.

“It appears we are an impasse,” Glade said staring Wraith resolutely in the eye. “It will be a shame when Dryad is forced to destroy you.

Wraith laughed. “Did your master send you to deliver that message?” he asked.

Glade smacked him her eyes flashing with rage. “I have no master?”

“Oh really, you don’t think that Dryad owns you that she doesn’t intend to enslave us to the humans? If we follow her path the humans will discover us, they may tolerate our existence as a way to gain wealth, but they will have to power. If we cross them they will destroy us, we will be handing the existence of our race to a creature that can barely keep from wiping themselves out; do you think this will end well?” Wraith asked taking another step forward until they were almost pressed up against each other.

“We must have faith,” Glade said her body trembling.

“Faith?” Wraith asked incredulously. “Faith is for lesser creatures, when even the gods can die creatures such as us have no need or use for faith,” Wraith said reaching out and brushing his fingers against Glade’s neck feeling her body tremble. “This is the first time you have used a body isn’t it? I can tell the raw unbridled instincts and hormones of the flesh can be confusing. Did your Lord Spark not teach you how to suppress them?”

“No,” Glade breathed taking a step forward, Wraith didn’t step back and the two were pressed together.

A horn blared through the ballroom and Glade and Wraith looked down to see Blackened take his place on the stage. “My apologies for the interruption but it appears a group of wandering adventures have stumbled upon this fortress. I am sorry, but I must confine you all to the ballroom, but I will be displaying the adventurers on the wall for you viewing, please enjoy,” Blackened said his voice filling the ballroom.

There was some light applause and Wraith and Glade stepped away from each other the moment broken as they sat in the two seats in the balcony overlooking the ballroom as people turned to the front wall which turned transparent as Blackened used an advanced scrying spell to display the adventurers. An elf flew up to the top of the wall tiny wings beating on his boots. He landed and began battling the dark-skinned orcs atop the wall knocking some to their death and impaling others on his blades. An orc from atop a nearby tower opened fire with a repeating artillery crossbow, and the elf had time to react, he lifted the corpse of an orc and used it as a shield. Even so a few of the massive bolts pierced through the flesh and going and inch or so into the elf.

Two dwarfs on the back of a bear rushed the gate. One of the dwarfs muttered a spell and the gate was blasted from its hinges. The first row of orcs was knocked down but the second rows of orcs with pikes engaged the trio. The bear roared swiping with his claws, one of the dwarfs slid to the ground and began firing with his crossbow taking out three orcs in the span of six seconds. The dwarf still on the bears back raised a wand and black tentacles rose out of the ground pulled orcs to the ground where they fell in a screaming mass.

Three more humanoids appeared, a silver haired man with a thick beard and crescent curved ears and carrying a dwarven repeating crossbow. Second was a human in monk’s robes carrying a longbow and behind him loomed a massive hulking figure in plate armor carrying a great-sword. The ranger and monk fired their bows felling a half-dozen orcs and the hulking brute of a man fell in among the orcs and lay about him with his sword cleaving a dozen orcs in two.

The band of six adventurers rushed forward clearing the walls of artillery and guards and rushed towards the main doors of the fort slaying two hundred orcs. The doors of the fort swung open and a single orc stepped out. His body was frail and emaciated, his eyes sunken and an unseen ghostly wind blew his robes about him, he raised a staff that clattered with hundreds of bones that hung from it. Two nearby corpses of orcs slain by errors were ripped apart as their bones tore free and began to circle around the shaman in a cyclone of bone. The arrows of the three adventurer’s archers bounced off the bones as the shaman walked forward a tiny glowing translucent scorpion sitting on his shoulder. He raised the staff again and a black circle emanated out from the dwarf on the bear.

The bear and dwarf and elf both screamed as they collapsed to the ground their eyes and nose gushing blood as their eyes stared out lifelessly. The four remaining adventurers rushed the Lord Spark who used his shaman body to duck their attacks and weave in and out among them. The orc shaman pulled a curved sword in his other hand and began chanting his feat beating out a rhythm on the blood-soaked ground, the enlarged warrior and elf both froze as their bones locked in place and the shamans blade struck forward stabbing them both in the chest. They stumbled back bleeding out and began casting healing spells the ranger continued firing two of his arrows getting through and hitting the shaman in the shoulder. The shaman turned on the ranger and uttered a spell, the ranger’s flesh waisted away and he fell to his knees and then toppled over. The dwarf had moved around and lunged forward with an axe biting into the shaman’s thigh but the scorpion on its shoulder jumped landing on the dwarf and stabbing down its stinger releasing a pent-up spell and the dwarf was blasted back by a ebony inferno that reduced him to a pile of bones.

The two warriors moved in on the shaman and the orc stepped back beginning a new chant. The corpses on the ground twitched and rose and then began to fall on mass the shaman raising new ones as soon as the warriors were dispatched. The warriors fell to their knees weakened and the shaman swung his staff forward and a black burst of lightening struck the two warriors and they collapsed.

The assembly in the ballroom cheered and the scrying spell was cut off. Wraith turned to Glade who looked down upon the assembly. “Those are the creatures you want us to submit to? Did you see how hungry for blood they were? I will never submit myself to creatures like them, they would take our cores and use them for our spells given the chance,” he said.

“We shall have to agree to differ in our opinions then,” Glade said rising from her seat to stand.

“What type of dungeon are you?” Wraith asked.

“Much to my regret I am a black core like you, but my hope is to become like Dryad and the rest of the Old Ones,” she said turning to go.

“You should not reject your nature,” Wraith said to her finding to his surprise that there was compassion in his voice. “It will make you weaker and lead only to misery.

Glade paused for a moment and then pushed through the curtain and left Wraith alone in the balcony.

Wraith participated in many more arguments and debates with other dungeons, but all the arguments touched on the same things that he and Glade had argued about. In the end no new decisions were made to the conclave as a whole, but many young dungeons joined the New Order. The brokers took almost all the copies of spells Wraith had as well as shavings of mithril and adamantine and demon bone and also five copies of the pattern for portal mana extraction. In return Wraith gained two cockatrice eggs (one male and one female) ass well as one male and female car-car egg. He received the patterns for creating ogres, fire-giants, orcs, gnolls and half-dragons and ghosts. He also received rank five plate armor, rank ten enchanted long-bow and a rank fifteen scimitar. He also gained two dozen new pages each written with a new spell and a seed that would finally provide him with the one type of mana that up to this time he had been barely been able to gather, Wisp-Stems which let of copious amounts of light mana and a bit of earth mana.

Above all the things he traded for though the books were what Wraith treasured the most, histories, journals, books of diagrams, theories on magic, books on the laws of science or mechanics. Knowledge was the one thing that Wraith craved above all else. He placed his items in his bag of holding and rode with all speed back to his dungeon. War would soon be at his doorstep.