"So I just… write in it?"
"If you want."
"Aren't you supposed to write in it?"
"Not really. And I'd like to see them try to force me. I have several good comebacks, the least exciting being impromptu flying lessons."
"But what if I don't want to write in it?"
"Then don't."
A conversation faithfully transcribed into the Beasts of the Dungeon between Archmage Marcus Sepsimus Lannoy and Queen Elenoir Marsennius by scribe Estaban, later removed by Royal Decree. The scribe was told to 'stop taking things so literally'.
Excerpt from The Beasts of the Dungeon.
REPLACE WITH LINE BREAK p^o^q REPLACE WITH LINE BREAK
"And this part," Marcus lectured, the five mages around him leaning in close. "Completes the unstable weave. Any sufficiently disruptive motion, like a Hound jumping on it or a Champion pushing it aside, will make the enlarged space violently collapse."
His mages shared nervous glances, a fact he missed because he was too busy stroking the runic formation. He stopped after a moment, hoping none of them would snitch to Elly, but this was the most sophisticated spatial-runic combination he'd built to date.
With the war it was all about killing, both now and during the invasion, but just creating? Building new and interesting artifacts, even if they were going to explode?
Well, killing was work. Boring, mostly monotonous work. This was much more than that.
"Hound," one of his guards called. Marcus didn't even look up, ignoring the twang and whistle that followed the warning, and tuned out the other words too. "Threat neutralized."
Huzzah. Another win for humanity, that. Not like there were enough stragglers to fill a small lake, or anything. It had been not even three days since their first proper battle, and he was already used to the endless aggression.
Hounds were smart until they weren't, and things like 'being close to a castle full of soldiers' or 'smelling strangely like life itself' apparently didn't overly concern a hungry monster. Marcus supposed it made sense, since the entire continent would be absolutely covered with the things otherwise.
How nice of the Dungeon to make its denizens gracious in defeat.
"Alright, this one is done." Marcus motioned for his people to back up, something they did with great enthusiasm. "Ready?"
He didn't really wait for an answer, teleporting a decent sized rock on top of the trap. It activated, the enlarged space purposefully destabilizing in the most destructive manner possible, and the air screamed as reality violently reasserted itself.
The rock exploded, shrapnel flung every which way as opposing forces tore it apart. Marcus hummed as the small bits of stone were redirected away from himself, a layer of earth and even more shrapnel following.
That… Marcus sighed. "Can anyone tell me why I'm disappointed?"
"While the level of damage was impressive, the time and magical energy required, not to mention the technical skill needed, makes this manner of trap inefficient to create." Barcus responded, spine straightening as Marcus looked at the man. "Sir."
Always the soldier. Unlike most, though, Barcus had noticed his own magical potential and had spent decades training himself, his time in the Academy polishing the man's skills. An obvious candidate for the spatial program he was creating.
"Oh, oh." Donna was almost jumping up and down in her excitement, the seventeen year old possessing far too much energy for someone that short. "Its also easy to detonate, which will be a problem for Champions. And it can't be scaled up because it requires you, and I can't make heads or tails from what you just did."
She beamed, his four other 'apprentices' not seeming nearly so proud at their failure being verbalized. Well, perceived failure. They were here to learn, and his decision to train more spatial mages had been a recent one.
Marcus nodded at them both. "Exactly. Spatial magic seems to be a poor substitute for traditional runic traps, be that explosive or otherwise. I want two pages on how you would go about fixing this problem on my desk by morning."
No one groaned, though Donna's enthusiasm dimmed noticeably. Marcus finished the lesson by spinning up his arc exercise, a training method he'd come up with almost on the spot two days ago.
His spatial arcs were apparently rather difficult to recreate, even Vistus needing six matrices and deeming it inefficient. But that was without Marcus manually scaling it down, and it taught the principles of space rather well for those unaccustomed to them.
He spent some time going over it with each of them, pointing out flaws and correcting any wrong assumptions, and they seemed to take well to his method of teaching. He wasn't the most gentle soul, and frankly he didn't have the patience nor time for it, which was why he'd chosen people who wouldn't get mortally offended when he'd told them they were wrong.
Donna would probably maintain her positivity when faced with death itself, Barcus was a soldier through and through so had skin thick enough to stop crossbow bolts, and… well, Marcus hadn't really memorized the other three names yet. Not to be pessimistic, but those two were probably the only ones that were going to make it as spatial mages.
Marcus hummed, nodding to his last student. Tom? No, Tim. Something with a T. "That's all for today. Joseph, please escort them back inside."
The man saluted, taking three others and moving back towards the castle with the apprentices in tow. A good man, Joseph. One of Elly's people, but dedicated to his job. No, wait, that implied that being from Parna made someone undedicated. Uuuhm. He liked Joseph, was the point, and not just because the man was part of his personal guard.
Marcus stalled for a few minutes until his apprentices were back inside the Eastfort, killing time by inspecting the terraforming project. Even now almost a hundred support mages were busy slowly shaping the terrain, steepening the ground leading up to the castle walls. It made the Eastfort loom, but more importantly it would stop the Hounds from building a ramp with corpses.
Five thousand soldiers were with them, a quarter of their total number. Guarding the mages and digging holes both, simple pitfall traps being surprisingly effective against Hounds. Easy to make, mages could shape sharpened stone spikes in a short amount of time, and with twenty thousand idling souls they had plenty of labour.
Another smaller group of mages were laying more dangerous traps, long-term runic formations being etched into stone and buried under a thin layer of earth. Explosions of fire and force, for the most part, and he'd actually helped design the core of it. Most mages apparently didn't really know what it meant, but fortunately it was simple enough memorization was possible.
It mostly just gave the traps a little more oomph, but whatever. Not like he needed them to understand. It would be nice if they did, but having five hundred mages with them was already a luxury.
Marcus turned, his guards turning with him as he made his way back to the fort. Up the slope, the gate opened to let him through even as another four mages were busy reinforcing the wood. There was a second gate behind it, the space between perfect for slaughtering any attackers, and beyond that ran the courtyard.
Calling it a courtyard was inaccurate. It was like stepping into a small town, domes and barracks lining the outer wall. Soldiers were everywhere, working or eating or doing nothing much at all, and beyond the almost physical wall of chaos was the keep.
The inner wall protected it, identical to its outer brother but far smaller in scope. The escape tunnel was being dug inside, big enough to let ten souls march side by side but small enough to be defensive. Earth was being compressed to create thick walls, wood brought inside to create choke points. Or so he'd read, anyway. He hadn't actually seen it with his own eyes yet.
Marcus walked along the inner wall, the gate to the keep on the opposite side as the gate into the fort. It made rapid mobilization difficult, but at least there wasn't a straight line to the heart of the army.
It still took half an hour just to reach the second gate, and he only resisted teleporting to it because it was good to be seen. Especially seen while being calm and collected, which Elly had insisted had a measurable impact on morale.
He was pretty sure she was just filled with envy because he could teleport, but he'd been tired at the time. Besides, it did feel good to actually walk. Instantaneous movement was nice—very nice—but it did nothing for one's cardio.
The second gate loomed up ahead, four dozen guards stationed on top of it, and it creaked open after a brief check for his identity. Silver, a mage and a Life Enhanced soldier, in that order, to check if he wasn't a shapeshifter, to verify that he was a mage and to check his life energy against earlier readings.
It revealed the inner courtyard, which was a much more accurate description than before. Big enough for a thousand souls, if they didn't mind their personal space being non-existent, and filled with only a few buildings. Storage, for the most part, with the keep taking up the most space.
The Royal Guards took over from regular soldiers, here. Stationed every which way, their faceless helmets dull in the midday sun. A good number of mages and Life Enhanced warriors with them, too, though only part of those belonged to the order.
When he finally did get inside there was more chaos, it being both the home and workplace of the officers, but two floors up there was finally some peace and quiet. A shared private room for him and Elly, necessity forcing their usual arrangement to be changed, but he'd spent some time enlarging it.
It had been on the small side, before. Now it was big enough to house two dozen souls, even if it only did two. Two beds, thankfully, though the central couch was big enough as a third.
Marcus closed the door, guards peeling off to rest and eat. The moment he did sound was dampened, both from above as well as below, and he glanced up to ensure the runes were holding.
Spatially enlarging a room surrounded on all sides with other rooms had proposed… risks. Challenges, really, but then it wasn't him that designed it this way. Something about flying enemies making the top floor too dangerous to live in.
Elly shifted from where she was entangled in a prison of blankets, bleary eyes focusing on him briefly before closing again. "Where's you been?"
"Teaching and getting disappointed by spatial bombs," he replied, picking up a flagon of watered down wine. "You? I went to bed before you did, somehow."
She groaned. "No sleeps. Needed see a problem, no time for wink wink."
Right. Sleep-deprived Elly. He could deal with that. Yeah, definitely.
"Cuddles," she demanded, making grabby motions with her hands. "Sleep alone cold."
He couldn't deal with this.
Elly mumbled something else, too quiet to hear, and despite his instincts insisting he shouldn't get too close, he did anyway. She didn't quite lunge, that would have been ridiculous, but she did open her eyes again.
Ah fuck.
She looked… lonely. Tired and cold and sleepy, but mostly just alone. Huddled in a giant room with nothing but a pile of blankets, too exhausted to even light a fire. Too much of a mess to call for a servant to light it, since unlike him she'd actually internalized her childhood lessons on 'The Royal Image'.
Marcus moved closer, and a pulse of Life energy was all the warning he got. Then he had a terrifyingly strong, surprisingly light… wife wrapped around him. Oh damn, he was married.
Elly grinned up at him with too much glee and not enough remorse, shivering far too much to be real. "Cold. Blankets, warmth-slab."
"I am not a warmth-slab," he replied, indignant. He moved towards the couch anyway, sitting down more stiffly than he'd intended. Smooth. "And your body temperature is high enough that-"
She interrupted him by gathering the blankets back over herself, covering him by necessity, and then she just kind of went boneless. Half draped over his shoulder, half lying on the couch, touching far more than he could usually stomach.
Usually.
This was technically his lunch hour, but he had to push himself to eat, which meant skipping it was a decision he barely even considered before approving. Elly sighed, going still seconds after going boneless, and because he was a considerate man he spun up a simple tier-two spell.
Wind and fire, both subtle enough that it was nothing more than a warm breeze. Elly moaned and tried to grab it, which was impossible and thus failed, but settled down after another few moments.
He knew Life energy kept her warm. He knew she could probably sleep in the cold. But this wasn't bad, and running away was a cowardly move in the first place.
She was quite considerate of his personal space, usually, so it was a small sacrifice to make.
Besides, this was kind of… nice.
REPLACE WITH LINE BREAK p^o^q REPLACE WITH LINE BREAK
Marcus hummed and finished the letter by pressing his signet ring into the wax seal, handing it over to the waiting messenger. The woman bowed her head, turning to leave even before she'd tucked it away.
The Dungeon was relatively calm, for now, but no one knew how long that would last. She and her group would be returning to Mirrania with those too wounded for him to heal, using a number of carryable—and spatially enlarged—boxes to ensure their speed.
And the letter, of course. A letter detailing his order for the Academy to train more necromancers, which he rather embarrassingly underestimated the usefulness of against the Dungeon. Being told there would be a lot of corpses was one thing, but actually seeing the sheer amount of biological mass going to waste?
He wanted necromancers, and he wanted them yesterday.
Marcus stretched, glancing through the open door to see Elly was still asleep. He'd extracted himself half an hour after his surprisingly pleasant entrapment, replacing his body with a pillow, and it seemed he had more time before she woke up again.
Good, good. There was progress to be made, and his childhood fascination with mad science bubbled up. He moved to the next room, one set aside not two hours ago, and gently closed the door. Turned to the corpse sitting on one of the tables, legs hanging over the side.
A… What had it been called? Right, a centaur. A horse human hybrid, one of the many species of Hound that existed. Thin, incredibly so, but with tight muscles draped over its limbs. He could actually count the horse's ribs, the man himself having a strangely sunken chest.
He poked it, something all good scientists did yet no one ever dared to admit, and found it hollow. No internal organs on the human section? More poking revealed them to be almost entirely in the chest of the horse, which he supposed made sense.
Two more corpses took up his attention, both flyers. A bat-creature, big and almost all wings. Sharp claws but not too much muscle behind them, though he'd seen the things make up for it with gravity and speed.
The other flyer was more streamlined. An actual bird with a beak but no claws, the digits ending in crude fingers instead. Feathered, too, and surprisingly soft for something born of the Dungeon. Relatively normal looking, if one ignored its size and pseudo-fingers.
He spent some time poking them, alternating with his sixth-tier practice when he got annoyed or confused, and while no great progress was made, general understanding on the Dungeon increased.
How it could fuse species together, either on purpose or through environmental pressure, and how the Hounds twisted strangely to conform to the fifty kilogram weight limit. Almost like it was the ideal weight no matter the size, which was wrong here but maybe not down there.
They looked starved. That was the word. Some more than others, but most had that look about them. It wasn't a surprise, really, but it was strange. They could eat one another easily enough, if hunger was that extreme, and even if they avoided that for some reason, he doubted all of them would be hungry to the point of starvation.
Certainly some would have found food? Some would have eaten, would have had time to recover? But no, no corpse he'd seen suggested that. Which meant they might need something more than just biological matter, and the logical connector was…
Magic. It was relatively well known that magical levels increased when you go down the Dungeon. It wasn't a boon to mages, not really, but neither was it that dangerous. Certainly not more so than everything else that place held. But if one was born there, if they expected a certain level of magical pressure in the air. Well.
Starvation. Not just because of a lack of food, but because of a lack of magic. Champions didn't look so thin, which might imply the Hounds' weak nature suffered more heavily, and from what little he'd heard about Calamities they certainly didn't seem starved.
But then Calamities were magically resistant, weren't they? Held enough power in their bodies to make them hard to directly affect, which would surely serve to feed them. Questions and more questions, but this felt right. Logical.
Which meant the Empire had already discovered it and found no way to exploit the knowledge. Oh well. His personal understanding would have to be reward enough.
Ah, Elly was awake. He'd been working for some hours, hadn't he? Time always slipped by strangely when he got focused like that. She padded into the room, glancing briefly at the bloody blade in his hand before rolling her eyes.
"You abandoned me," she intoned, pointing an accusing finger in his general direction. "Foolish mortal. Weak-minded mage. Irritant wor-"
Marcus tsked, putting the blade he'd been using down. "I didn't abandon you, I escaped your vile clutches. And don't call me mortal. It's insulting."
"Egotistical, too." Elly sniffed imperiously, the corner of her lips threatening to twitch upwards into a smile. "I need breakfast."
"Dinner, you mean."
"I did not."
Marcus snorted, shaking his head and suppressing a fond smile before he turned her way. Best not to encourage this kind of behavior. "Whatever you say, princess. I need to wash my hands, but we can eat."
"I don't mind blood."
"Elf," he accused, washing them in a small bowl anyway. "Unhygienic. Barbaric. Other words that convey the same general meaning."
Elly rolled her eyes, turning and moving towards her section of the room. "I need to change."
Marcus shrugged, scrubbing his fingers where a stubborn fleck of blood refused to dissolve. He gave in some seconds later, spitting on it and letting that break down the obstinate blood.
Elly's voice rang from the other room, incredulous. "Did you just spit on something?"
"Stop sharpening your hearing to spy on me, wretched woman," he replied, not even bothering to shout. "And yes, yes I did."
"And you dare call me barbaric."
"Shut up."