Survivor: Definitely Not Minecraft

Grimwald, the lands under the control of Duke Valefor, rolled out before us. Like the rest of Dargoth, it suffered from the presence of the storm, with much of the region rendered lifeless and gray. Wild forests of Bedlam Wart multiplied in profusion, haunted by phantoms and zombies.

Human habitations and agriculture existed within pockets of light, areas where the clouds opened to allow the sun’s rays to pass undiluted. The skies were a strange sight, the same roiling clouds and silent flashes of eldritch lightning, but dotted with wide gaps where the storm was held back by vast, invisible barriers.

Within those safe zones, villagers tended to fields of wheat and barley, as they would have in any other kingdom. Kevin’s underground farms were not productive enough to feed all of Dargoth, so the demons here had found another solution. It hadn’t occurred to me that the storm could be managed in this way, and seeing it was encouraging. Maybe there was a way for humanity and Bedlam to coexist.

The edge of Grimwald was marked by a way station and a system of roads linking all the farms with each other and the city. The few soldiers stationed there were expecting our arrival, and as there were still many hours left in the day, we continued past it without stopping.

Zareth had sent our responses to the various demons who had sent us messages, which meant we were either heading into a welcome or an ambush. I hoped that deposing Agares would have given the rest of the dukes something to think about. Demons were immortal, and they could afford to be patient. Bojack had been confident that Valefor would at least meet with me before he decided whether or not he was going to try to kill me.

The wagon pulled much better now that we were on a formal road, and Leto had taken to riding beside Fladnag so he could ask for pointers about sleight-of-hand as we went along. Gastard stayed ahead of the wagon, while Esmelda and I were traveling alongside. She greeted the sight of green fields with evident relief.

“I was worried that all of it was as barren as the mountain.” She said.

“Hey, we’ve got mooshrooms.”

“An endless supply of fungus is not a comfort. I knew Dargoth was barren, but I had thought the old descriptions were an exaggeration.” She shook her head. “When I was younger, I wondered why Kevin gave up his conquest, but now I think that the empire became too large to be managed. Wherever the storm grows, the lands die. There must have been more people here in the past, but the earth cannot support them.”

“That probably has something to do with it,” I said. As overwhelming as monsters spawning every night could be, they didn’t breed. The demons could amass tremendous armies over time, but the rate at which they gathered them didn’t increase. Between Nargul and Mount Doom, I had thousands of mobs at my disposal, but if I lost them in Atlan, it would be a slow recovery. Still, that didn’t explain centuries going by without conflict.

“Zareth told me that the skirmishes with Atlan are periodic,” I said, “they’ll go to war for a while before backing off, and that there’s something similar that happens with Thalassos. It’s like they know they can’t leave Dargoth alone for too long.”

“The Free Kingdoms are the exception then,” Esmelda said. “Their kings have always been happy enough to pretend Dargoth doesn’t exist until it strikes.”

“Between the mountains and the Wastes, it would be hard to stage a meaningful offensive from that side. But I think there’s more to it than that. Bojack was fed up with Kevin as a Dark Lord, and some of the other demons were as well. He hasn’t been supporting them for a long time.”

She raised an eyebrow. “How do you mean?”

“They want to bring the whole world under the storm, so they can open a door for their god into Plana.”

“The One Who Knocks,” Esmelda said, touching her forehead. “It’s hard to imagine that Kevin had a change of heart, after all he’s done.”

“I don’t think he did. He was on Mizu’s side a long time ago, when more survivors were running around. He switched sides, but I don’t think he likes them. I’m not saying he’s a good person at heart or anything, but he’s not exactly pro-demon. They used him to get what they wanted, and he used them to get what he wanted, freedom and power and safety, and then he just did whatever he felt like.”

“Is that why you haven’t tried to kill him? You sympathize?”

“I can’t kill him, he’ll just come back.”

“You know what I mean.”

I did. Esmelda was well aware of what Kevin had done to me, and why he had done it. Capturing a survivor was a way to get a fresh supply of spawns, as well as grief them until they stopped coming back. Either the System was broken, and I would keep respawning forever, or I had chosen to come back every time I’d died, and I just didn’t remember doing it. Maybe Mizu and I had cooked up a plan together on the other side, though I couldn’t imagine why she wouldn’t have allowed me to know what it was now that I was here.

A few hints would have been nice.

“He died in the cage,” I said. “Killed himself. When he came back, his skin was different. Now that it's The One Who Knocks he has a deal with instead of Mizu, I think he can’t give up. It would eat his soul or something. And if he keeps dying, it will make him into a monster. That wouldn’t solve any problems for me.”

Esmelda shuddered. “I didn’t know that.”

“The taint doesn’t get fixed by respawning. It’s why I still have cat eyes. And these horns, I’m stuck with them. I’m just lucky killing Bael didn’t turn me into a frog.” At least my nubs had stopped growing. They were pointed now, and almost two inches tall.

“Why do you think that is?” Esmelda asked. “Bael was stronger than the others. Shouldn’t his corruption have been the most potent?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s not like there’s a handbook. Everything Fladnag has said about the templars points to there being a cost to killing demons. Unless you're pure of heart, or whatever, and obviously, I’m not.”

“Was there anything different about the way you fought him?”

“I had my armor. But I had this armor when I fought Agares too. I used Kevin’s knife on Beleth, and an atreanum dagger for the other two.”

“Is that how Agares died, from the atreanum?”

“No, I beheaded him after I stabbed him.”

Was that the difference? Templars wouldn’t have had access to meta-materials unless someone like me gave it to them. Atreanum could only be mined in Bedlam, and the daggers were too fragile to be used more than once in a fight.

“I’ve gotten used to your eyes,” Esmelda said, “even the horns, I can make peace with. But if you take on many more of their aspects, I’m going to stop asking you to take off your helmet when we are at dinner.”

“Noted,” I said.

“Can you make more daggers?”

“I have to go back to Bedlam for the material. But I can put it on the to-do list.”

Valefor’s home was called Gundurgon. It was more castle than city, definitely one of Kevin’s bigger builds. The structure rose before us, a dark titan poised to give a melodramatic performance. Towering ramparts formed the outer curtain, interrupted by fortified bastions at regular intervals. The outposts bristled with spikes and peaks, all riddled with arrow slits. There were statues on either side of the main gate, twenty-foot monsters that looked like an evolved form of a zombie. Humanoid, but with distorted proportions and plenty of tentacles.

A central keep rose well above the walls, crenelated so that its highest tower looked like it was wearing a crown. Its walls were mostly granite but dotted with red and black stone like the mottled skin of a troll.

The main gate of the city was open, though the sharp teeth of its portcullis were less than inviting. All in all, it was a stronghold that would do any Dark Lord proud.

Fladnag pulled at the reins of his ox, and the wagon came to a halt.

“What’s up?” I said. Closer to the wagon, I could smell the smoke of his pipe. It reminded me of tobacco, though a little sweeter. Maybe Leto shouldn’t have been sitting so close to him, assuming cancer worked the same way here as it did on Earth.

“It occurs to me,” Fladnag said, “that the arrival of one’s Lord should be accompanied by a little fanfare.”

“There’s an army an hour behind us,” I said, “they’ll probably figure it out.”

The mention of the army made Fladnag frown. “Even so, a display is in order.”

“Your illuminators?” Esmelda pulled up beside me. “Please, I’d love to see them again.”

Fladnag scratched his beard. “I might have given you a show sooner, my lady, but the ingredients are in short supply, and I was saving what I have for a special occasion. With your permission, perhaps now is the time.”

“I want to see them,” Leto said, standing up. “Can I light one?”

“Absolutely not,” Esmelda said. “They’re dangerous.”

“She’s quite right,” Fladnag reached under his seat to produce a wooden box. “They are not for the uninitiated. You may watch how it is done.”

“Go ahead,” I said. I’d been meaning to ask Fladnag about his fireworks, but he’d been cagey about the subject of illuminators since we’d been on the road. If he was willing to show them off, it was the perfect opportunity to bring it up.

In the days that we had been traveling together, I’d never seen Fladnag struggle for having only one hand. He carried the box ten paces ahead of the wagon and set it down to crouch over it. From within it, he produced a hardwood cylinder and a fire striker, a piece of steel with a flint attached to it by a string. The fire striker went under his chin as he pressed the cylinder to his chest with his wrist before striking a spark. The fuse caught, and he allowed the firestarter to drop, raising the cylinder above his head as the fuse burned.

“Is that wise?” Gastard said, drawing up beside us.

“It’s alright,” Esmelda said, “it’s a Thallasan candle.”

“It doesn’t look like a candle,” Gastard said.

I glanced up. Though the entire flock did not remain with us at all times, harpies were circling overhead, and I wasn’t sure how they would react to what was about to happen.

“Hey!” I said, pointing, “My birds!”

Fladnag grinned. “It’s perfectly safe.”

Light exploded from the tip of the cylinder, a white bolt shrieking up into the sky. Leto gasped. It would have been more impressive at night, but with the cloud cover, the firework was still plainly visible as it reached its peak and died out. The harpies were started by the display, but the bolt didn’t quite reach their altitude, and the only response was a few annoyed caws. The first launch was followed by two more, leaving the cylinder smoking but intact at the end of Fladnag’s hand. We clapped.

“Do you have any more?” Leto asked.

“A few,” Fladnag said, collecting the box and walking back and patting his ox’s nose. The beast had failed to react to the candle, likely accustomed to being exposed to the magician’s toys. “But I don’t want Gundurgon to think we are declaring war.”

“What do you use to make those?” I asked.

“It’s proprietary, I’m afraid.”

“Charcoal and guano,” I said, “right? What am I missing?”

“Guano?” Fladnag furrowed his brow. “I suppose you could do it, but the quantity required might be prohibitive. Tell me, Dark Lord, what would you use them for, were I to give you the secrets of my illuminators?”

“Explosives,” I said. “I really could have used a few grenades the first time I had to deal with an army of monsters.”

“Ah,” Fladnag nodded, “but you are the one with that army now, aren’t you? So if you were to turn one of my candles into a weapon, it would be used against men, would it not?”

The air of excitement faded as quickly as the fireworks. Esmelda looked between the two of us. “There will always be more monsters for us to face,” she said.

Fladnag sighed. “Fire is a dangerous mistress, difficult to control, and the wounds it leaves are slow to heal. You have not been the first lord to consider using my illuminators as a tool of conquest, and I have refused them all.”

“Swords and arrows are as deadly as any flame,” Gastard said. “I do not see how a candle like that would be of any use in a battle, except as a signal flag.”

“Then you haven’t begun to use your imagination,” Fladnag said, “but our William has. What do you imagine, tossing one of my devices into a line of troops, filling a bottle with nails, perhaps? Undermining a city wall, and watching it crumble, the men atop it flung from the battlements to their deaths?”

“Can you do that?” Leto asked, wide-eyed.

“I can already crumble a wall,” I said. “And yes, a couple of grenades could stop a cavalry charge in its tracks. Gunpowder is a tremendous advantage, even if we don’t invent guns. I’d be dropping bombs from Noivern’s back if I had them. The faster a battle is won, the fewer people have to die, and if I have the formula for your powder, I think I can stop a lot of battles.”

“Guns?” Esmelda asked.

“Like a crossbow,” I said, “but with the bolt propelled by a tiny explosion.”

She shook her head, her long hair falling over one shoulder. “That sounds less reliable than a good string.”

“It has a lot of advantages,” I said, “but that’s beside the point. I’m not planning on giving guns to all our soldiers. I want explosives to be another tool in my kit. There are monsters in Bedlam that are too big to hurt with a sword or a bow.”

“If the formula for my illuminators became widely known,” Fladnag said. “It would change this world, and not for the better. I do not want to be responsible for battlefields riddled with fire.”

“I wasn’t planning on sharing,” I said. “I would happily swear to keep the formula a secret. Even not to use it against the Orkhans, if that’s what you’re worried about. Demons and monsters and Dark Lords, that’s what I need this for.”

Fladnag took a deep breath. “Very well. If that is your promise, step into my office.”

The interior of Fladnag’s wagon was not roomy. The sides were lined with boxes and shelves, and the remaining space was taken up by the narrow bed on which we sat side by side. Scraps of parchment were pinned to the ceiling, sketches, most of them depicting Fladnag himself. Either he had a wildly inconsistent style, or they had been penned by multiple artists.

“Gifts,” he said, following my gaze, “from admirers. I do not keep much with me as I travel, there is hardly room, but I admit to some vanity, and I find that I cannot refuse a rendering when it is offered.”

“Why don’t you ever settle down,” I asked. “It has to be lonely for you, to always be on the road like this.”

“Here we are,” Fladnag said, ignoring my question as he dug out a set of jars from under his bed. He handed them to me one by one.

“Powdered charcoal,” he said, “simple enough, though I would recommend wearing a mask while you work with it.” I set that jar aside as he handed me the next, which looked like it was filled with salt.

“Saltpeter,” he explained. “It can be found in caves, or produced from manure. I can jot down the process for you if you would like. That would be the use of your guano, though as I said, you will need large quantities to make even this much saltpeter.”

“Don’t worry,” I said, “I’ve got a guy.” As the Dark Lord of Dargoth, I was certain that I could procure as much bat poop as I wanted. The last jar, sealed with wax, contained yellowish rocks.

“Your missing piece,” Fladnag said, “sulfur. It must be mined, and there is not always a ready supply. The process of refining these ingredients into a usable powder is somewhat involved,” the old man tapped the glass jar in my hands, “and not without risks.” I glanced at the sleeve that concealed his missing hand but didn’t say anything. Even if he had blown it off by accident, dying and respawning should have brought his hand back. He must have been choosing not to.

“I will teach you the method,” he said. “If the Dark Lord doesn't object to becoming the student of this old wanderer.”

“Not at all,” I said. “But I think we should head into the city first, seeing as how we announced ourselves. If we hang out here, Valefor might get antsy.”

“As to that, perhaps it would be better to wait for an envoy. This is your first visit to Gundurgon, and you do not know how welcome you may be.”

“Nope,” I said. “It’s a Dark Lord thing. I’m going to walk in there like I own the place, or not at all.”

“Ah,” Fladnag ran his fingers through his beard. “Perhaps I will wait outside then.”