The Dark Lord of Crafting

My talk with Boffin was delayed by a monster crisis. While most of Berith’s stock of mobs was confined to chambers beneath the city, there were groups scattered across Nargul that had been used for labor and as a part of the city's defense. Even with the slow renewal of the sun, Nargul still offered ample spaces where the creatures of Bedlam could shelter during the day, and with the death of the demon, they reverted to their natural behaviors.

The guardsmen and soldiers could handle zombies, but trolls, hollows, and Voidmen were challenges of a different order for people who had no access to enchanted weapons or a System. After making a circuit of the major walls, I was exhausted, and the day was mostly gone. The exercise had at least allowed me to see and be seen by most of the officers in the city, and Nargul’s armed forces were now aware of the new situation.

Fortunately, the majority of the people I spoke to throughout the day were completely on board with the idea of a Dargoth without demons. While there was plenty of incredulity and fear to go around, the military hierarchy was still intact, and I was still the central authority. I received more oaths of renewed fealty than I could count, and it felt like the entire city mobilized to manage the threat. The streets cleared, businesses shuttered for the day, and the noncombatants who had any sense holed up in their homes.

It was late afternoon when I met with Boffin in the apartment he shared with Brenys. As he was technically a Count, he could have claimed a far more impressive residence for himself, but he’d chosen to remain in the tenements where most of the lillits still resided.

The living room was crowded with scrolls and books, the accumulated dross of the work he’d been doing since I left him responsible for engaging with the council of nobles and figuring out the place his people would occupy in Nargul. He looked frazzled, but he greeted me happily, gripping my hand in both of his and inviting me to join him for tea in a cramped kitchenette.

“Brenys is out,” he said, dragging over the biggest chair available and offering it to me. “There was a panic when the warning bells began to ring. We thought the city was under attack.”

“Not yet,” I said. “I’m the one causing trouble.”

“Not yet?” His brows drew down in concern. “Are you expecting a siege? We haven’t had much word of you since you left for Atlan. Your vizier lent us scribes to help with your decrees, but Varnish has been a thorn, and there are still a thousand questions to be answered. But I’m getting ahead of myself. What happened? Is it true that you’ve broken with the demons?”

I filled him in on the events he’d missed. He listened stoically at first, but with growing alarm as I explained that Gastard and Esmelda had both been granted Systems. Even leaving out the details surrounding the incident, that both of them had nearly died, it was a lot to take in.

“I don’t know whether to weep or rejoice,” he said, staring down at his hands. “To imagine that the goddess would mark my daughter as one of her servants…I suppose it is no more incredible than the rest of what has happened since you came to us. I have more hope than I can remember having since we lost our homes, but the future is far from clear. What are you going to do?”

I sighed, leaning back, and the wooden chair creaked dangerously under my weight. I’d removed the armor, and Boffin’s eyes roamed over my body, taking in signs of new corruption. He sucked in his lower lip when his gaze settled on the short talons that now adorned my fingers, but he did not comment.

“I’d like your advice,” I said. “There are so many demons left, and we don’t know where all of them are. This war could draw out, and I’m not sure what the safest path will be. We need Nargul, but I can’t stay here to protect it. With the sky clearing, it will be harder for Valefor and the others to march an army of monsters down here, but I don’t want to give the demons a chance to organize. If they all worked together, I don’t think we could hold Mount Doom.”

“Have you thought about who will take Berith’s place?”

“No idea. You don’t want to be a duke, do you?”

Boffin shook his head. “The nobles resent me enough already, and even with your backing, I hardly fit the figure of a military leader. I don’t have the knowledge or experience to be a general, and they wouldn’t take me seriously even if I did.”

“You’ve gotten to know the council. Who do you think I can trust?”

“Count Keldorn.” His answer was immediate. “He’s an alright sort, and I believe he was a soldier in his youth. He is certainly well known.”

I tried to remember who that was. I’d met with the noble council only once, and it had been a contentious event.

“Was he the bald guy?” I asked. “He runs a bunch of smithies or something?”

“A craftsman guild, yes.” Boffin scratched at his hairless chin. “While I can’t promise he won’t use the position to his advantage, among the nobles I have encountered, he strikes me as the least despicable.”

It wasn’t a ringing endorsement, but under the circumstances, I’d take what I could get. We talked for a while longer, and Brenys returned. She had more than a few comments to make about my appearance, but her casual jibes were a thin cover for genuine concern for my well-being. She could make light of my horns and my height, but the worry was in her eyes.

The seamstress was running a thriving business, with dozens of men and women working under her. The social atmosphere for the lillits in the city was still tense, and would likely remain so even if there wasn’t a war on the horizon. The majority had no interest in living off of handouts, but there was no way for them to get their old lives back. Some wanted to return to the Free Kingdoms, and they would have to wait until I settled things with Godwod. There were many craftsmen among them, but those who had been farmers couldn’t do so in the city, and those who sought work outside of their community were having a hard time of it.

Boffin, Brenys, and I talked it over, and they agreed that some of their people might want to come to Mount Doom. Zareth wouldn’t have any qualms about finding room for them. A deeper problem was that many lillits simply had not mentally recovered from the trauma of their ordeals under Kevin’s rule, and I had no idea what to do about that other than give them time to heal.

It was too risky for me to remain in the city after dark, so after ensuring that the mob pens were sealed off, I exited the city, carpeted my campsite with torches, and spent the night with a wyvern.

***

The following morning, I gave Keldorn a visit. He had no objections to the prospect of being made a duke, and it turned out that he had personal relationships with many of the ranking officers in the city already, which would make the transition easier. Being the supreme ruler of the nation meant I could knock out the restructuring in a few hours, with most of that time taken up by the seemingly endless sessions of oath swearing. Many officers, captains, majors, and everything else, introduced themselves to me, and I promptly forgot all of their names.

I did not have patience for or interest in the obligations of governance, and I got through it all as quickly as I could. It did give me a chance to form a firmer impression of the man I was charging with authority over my armed forces, and overall, my feelings about him were positive. Keldorn wasn’t a soft-handed noble. His family was influential, but they had a tradition of sending their sons to train with the city guard, and he’d ended up spending much of his youth in the army before apprenticing as a smith and eventually taking his father’s place as a count.

Once the formalities were over, we took a walk, heading down the main street toward the outer gate. Keldorn was carrying a lot of weight around his belly, but he was broad-shouldered and muscular, and it didn’t seem to slow him down.

“If the north is in rebellion,” he said, “there is much for us to do. While I do not doubt the wisdom of your proclamations, the mines have been empty since your last visit. There may not be enough steel to arm all the recruits.”

My proclamation. Funneling prisoners into the army and telling nobles they couldn’t own slaves anymore. There were sure to have been consequences, and I hoped that someone else would deal with them.

“Does no one in this city know how to pay workers? What’s holding them up?”

His lips curled down as he thought about how to answer. I’d let him know that we were dropping the “Dark” part of my title, but that didn’t change who I was. It was probably difficult for him to know how to talk to me, despite any assurances I gave that he wasn’t going to be executed for speaking his mind.

“The contracts are complex, and negotiations have stalled. I believe some of my fellow council members assumed you would change your mind if production fell, and Varnish has been stirring trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“There are rumors,” he said, lowering his voice, “that you are not the same man we have served all our lives. I would never allow such heresy to stand, but I have no proof that Varnish is the one who spread the lie. Some believe you are an imposter, and that the true master of Dargoth will return to restore the old order. What has become of the Aychar lends credence to such claims.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, the first part is true. I’m not Kevin. Everyone on Mount Doom already knows. I’m just avoiding making a big deal of it in Nargul right now because there’s too much going on.”

Keldorn almost walked face-first into a market stall, but no one saw it. Most of the citizens of Nargul were still in their homes, awaiting an announcement from the guard that they were no longer in danger of being attacked by stray monsters, so the street was empty.

“Is that a problem?” I asked.

“My…I…no, my lord.” His eyes were wide, and his amber skin had lost some of its color. “I have already given you my oath. What you have done, what you are doing, these things are for the good of Dargoth.”

It probably helped that my actions were turning out to be extremely beneficial for him personally, but there was no reason to belabor the point.

“See what you can do about the mines, and work with Boffin for whatever he needs. It may not be long before we march into the north. You don’t have to worry too much about equipment, though. I can provide most of that myself.” Kevin’s redstone factories had been mostly quiet since I took over, but they could print out armor and swords faster than all the smiths in Nargul. “Your job is to ensure the city remains peaceful, and everyone gets the training they need.”

We parted ways at the gate. I still wasn’t sure that marching an army anywhere would be the best move. Killing demons was more of a hero-only activity, but large forces were necessary to hold and administrate territory. Superman’s dilemma. He might be the master of wherever he happened to be standing. If you wanted to rule the world, however, you needed subordinates, and lots of them.

The wyvern was happy to be out of his hole, and even happier to be fed some of the troll meat I’d harvested the previous day. We couldn’t fly directly to Mount Doom, there were too many gaps in cloud coverage, but even with stops, starts, and a roundabout route, it was still faster than riding a horse would have been.

When I returned, I found Esmelda, Gastard, and Leto in the forge.

“Look what I made!” As soon as I arrived, Leto wasted no time in throwing up the lid of a chest beside the brewing stand, its interior lined with potions. Healing, Swiftness, and Darkvision, the recipes that didn’t require ingredients harvested from monsters.

“This is amazing,” I said, squeezing his shoulder, “I thought you could only make the base elixirs.”

“Uh-huh,” Leto shrugged. “I messed up a bunch, but now it works. I don’t know.”

It was still a mystery why Leto could use the brewing stand at all, let alone improve his talents. Some of my tools worked for him, and others didn’t. He couldn’t harvest materials, but he could start instant fires with my flint and tinder sets. There was some kind of essence requirement for Harmony to install a System in a would-be hero, but magic wasn’t limited to people with Systems. The Atlan shamans had no blue screens to summon, nor did demons, but could both cast spells. In my first conversation with Godwod, he’d made an offhand comment about how the children of Umberious Rex had been able to heal people with their hands. At the time, I’d assumed it was a false story. If Systems could be passed down through blood, Plana would have been full of them. But clearly, Leto had inherited something.

“I’m surprised you let him use this without me,” I said to Esmelda after Leto had finished pointing out every bottle that he’d filled and what they were. Her response was chilly.

“I’m surprised you left the door to this chamber open. This was already well underway when I realized where he was.”

Ah, so it was my fault, and I was going to hear about this later. Still, I was happy he’d done it. Brewing was time-consuming, and it was nice to have a renewed supply. It also allowed Leto to feel like he was contributing. He’d been sulking ever since he realized he wouldn’t be accompanying us on any more deadly adventures.

“What of Berith?” Gastard asked. I noted that he was wearing a Dargothian tunic, red sigil and all. Not something he had ever done while there were demons on our roster.

They listened to the story, though Esmelda was more interested in how her father and her former townsfolk were doing than my encounter with the demon, at least until I brought up almost drowning.

“You repelled his magic?” She said. “How?”

“I’m not really sure. Celaeno told me I could do it, and I did. Maybe we all need to take up meditation or something. I’m starting to think that our Systems are some kind of magic module. Like, they make it easier for us to do certain things, interface with essence, whatever. But there is so much we could be capable of outside of what our classes allow.”

“Perhaps,” Gastard said, “but I am content with the blessings Gotte has granted me.”

“Demonic magic is dangerous,” Esmelda stepped in close, “you aren’t considering trying to learn it, are you?”

“No,” I said, “there’s still too much Survivor stuff I don’t know how to use yet. It just makes me wonder about how the universe, everything, actually works. For now, I should be the one brewing potions, and I want to try some I’ve never made before.” Invisibility was of limited utility given that it didn’t affect equipment, and I had no idea what I was going to use Turtle Master for, but harm had some potential uses.

“I want to be invisible,” Leto said.

“It takes vorokai eyes,” I shrugged, “good thing they’ve got so many. I could stand to harvest more ingredients before I try though. What do you two say to clearing out the monster pens with me?”

Gastard’s smile was sharp. “I’m ready now.”