The Dark Lord of Crafting

Gargoyles ringed the entrance hall, tall, winged statues posed as if ready to spring upon unwelcome guests. Each statue was unique, a family of different monsters, though all of the same species. Some crouched, frowning and watchful, while others loomed with their mouths open to display fangs as thick as my thumb. There were no windows on the ground floor, but a single torch rested on a pillar in the hall's center, its light casting huge shadows behind the gargoyles along the curving wall. If these represented real beasts, I was glad nothing like them had ever spawned around me.

One of Kevin’s, now my, stormtroopers stood beside the door, a halberd planted in the smooth stone floor. He saluted with a fist to his chest, and I nodded in acknowledgment.

“Where are my viziers?” I asked. The gargoyles were the only other occupants of the hall, circling to flank the enclosed spiral stair at the opposite end.

“Shall I fetch them, my Dark?” His voice sounded tinny from behind his visor. I was going to have to do something about the “my dark” thing, being addressed that way was ridiculous.

“No,” I said. “Bring me to them.”

“As you wish.” The soldier instantly obeyed, striding to the stairs, and I followed. I saw there was a lower level as well, but he led me up. The next floor was a war room, complete with the viziers I was looking for.

The scent of old parchment and aged leather filled the air, a testament to Kevin’s completionist bent. Numerous maps adorned the walls, each meticulously detailing the lands under Dargoth’s sway, the free kingdoms, and other realms that I didn’t recognize.

The heart of the room was a massive, red granite table. A world map stretched across its surface, an intricate landscape rendered in three-dimensional topography. The table was dotted with miniature figures representing armies, fortifications, and strongholds, waiting to be manipulated like pieces in a set-up for the most elaborate game of Warhammer ever devised.

Aside from the maps and the table, bookshelves lined the edge of the room, brimming with leather-bound tomes. If I was lucky, they were filled with ancient knowledge and forbidden powers, but it was more likely they were blanks placed for decoration. Kevin hadn’t struck me as a big reader.

The pieces of the gameboard were not labeled, so I was probably expected to recognize them all by sight. The three men in tan robes standing around it certainly seemed to know what they were looking at.

One was broad and fat, with a wide face and mouth that made him appear almost to be a human version of the toad demon. His dark hair was tied back in a ponytail, and his wrinkled eyes widened when he saw me.

The stormtrooper tapped the butt of his weapon on the tiles.

“All hail the Lord of Dargoth,” he announced.

The trio bowed, though the fat man was the slowest to do so, keeping his head up as if he didn’t want to let me out of his sight.

“Thank you,” I said to the soldier, “you’re dismissed.”

The man saluted again and tramped back down the stairs. While there were a lot of issues with my current place in the world, it was certainly nice to be obeyed.

“There is much you don’t know,” I’d never heard how Kevin spoke to his subordinates, but since I was LARPing as a guy who’d been LARPing as a Dark Lord, I found myself automatically adopting a more formal speech pattern, as well as slipping into my lower register. “Bael is no longer first among the demons. He was part of a plot to usurp me, and Orobas, who proved instrumental in uncovering it, is now foremost among my advisors.”

The far man narrowed his eyes. On the other side of the table, a gangly, bald man with a goatee took in a sharp breath. The last of the three, an octogenarian supporting himself with a cane, either nodded in understanding or because he was having trouble holding his head up.

“Bael was allowed too much influence for too long,” I continued, “as I have been absorbed by my own designs. That changes today. Give me a briefing, one of you. What are the most pressing issues facing my empire?” I approached the table, “and introduce yourselves, you’ve never been important enough for me to learn your names before. But as I’m taking a more hands-on approach, I may as well hear them again.”

It was a bit of a giveaway, but I genuinely doubted that Kevin would have bothered to learn any of these men’s names, however often he may have heard them. Throughout his reign, he’d probably had scores of people serving as viziers, and they didn’t even work for him directly.

The man with a goatee shot the fat one a concerned look, and the elderly gentleman looked confused.

“I am Hildar,” the frog-faced vizier said, gesturing to a part of the map I recognized, the strip of land representing the region controlled by Henterfell, including my original spawn point. Plana, or at least Dargoth’s understanding of it, seemed to be limited to a single continent reminiscent of Australia with an archipelago to the east of the main body of land. It wasn’t difficult to pick out the areas I knew, though there was more that was new to me than what I could recognize. The Wastes were obvious, being a pool of actual sand running up against a set of uncannily detailed clay mountains. And I was pretty sure I could pick out Williamsburg, its location marked by an iron coin close to a toy castle I took to be Henterfell.

“I assume Orobas has already spoken to you regarding your vassal, Godwod. We heard the call for aid, and we await your decision. Would you like our advice on the matter?”

“We can come back to that,” I said. “What else threatens my kingdom?”

Dargoth’s borders were marked by tiny flags, it was a lot of land, but mostly empty. Mount Doom stood out in a vast reddish region with only a handful of significant markers. There were more cities to the north, as well as what looked like swaths of farms, and a scattering of coins representing mines. A big castle in the south had several of those around it; iron, coal, and gold.

Hildar waved his hand toward the archipelago.

“Thalasso has been quiet for some time,” the vizier answered, “though they share King Egard’s enthusiasm for embargo. Atlan, however, has grown restless. The Orkhans make regular raids across the border. They ignore our fortresses, content to harass less well-defended settlements and pillage our supply lines. The nomads are difficult to pin down, as they do not build true cities of their own, so your generals in the region are forced to deal with them piecemeal. As you can see, the bulk of our forces are stationed to protect the farmlands. Dargoth cannot feed itself without the north.”

Many of the markers were silver tokens inscribed with a sigil like something out of the Goetia, and I assumed they kept track of demons. A stack of them rested beside the largest northern castle, close to the border of a yellow region painted to look like an endless field of high grass.

That must have been Atlan. It was interesting to learn that Dargoth was at odds with more than just the Free Kingdoms, but I didn’t care about that now.

“What of the lillits?” I said.

It was a non-sequitur, and it won a surprised look from the vizier, though it quickly reverted to blank professionalism.

“What do you mean?”

Before I could think of a way to ask where they were and how they were doing without revealing that I didn’t know as much as I should, the bald vizier cut in.

“The lillits are in Nargul, as you commanded. They maintain the Eternal Engine and have not slacked in their duty. Ah, um, Zareth, my Dark.” He gave a curt bow along with his name. I noticed he was holding a scroll and a pen that looked suspiciously modern in one hand, while the others held nothing. Maybe he was in charge of keeping the minutes of their meetings. His expression was more curious than anything, asking a question that his words did not.

“How long would it take to have them brought here?”

The old man coughed, and Hildar’s expression turned sour. Zareth pointed to Mount Doom and then moved his finger to target the castle surrounded by mines. “Ah,” he said, knitting his brows, “all of them?”

“All of them.”

“Not more than a week or two, I should think. Would you like me to send a wyvern to Duke Agares commanding they be moved?”

“Yes..” My first instinct was to ride there myself, but if Duke Agares was the demon in charge of the city, he wasn’t likely to respond well to a personal visit. Until Bojack brought more of the harbingers on board with me being the new dark lord, I would have to be careful. The fight with Bael had been three-on-one, and it had felt like it could have gone either way. Now Vepar was dead or banished back to Bedlam, however that worked, and I needed Bojack to stick around Mount Doom to keep an eye on Kevin.

There wasn’t anyone else I could trust to keep him in his cage.

How would Agares feel about the coup? Flying monsters were still spawning around Kevin at night, and Bojack was taking control of them, just like he did for everything that spawned around me. Given that they treated the monsters like currency, that would give us some leverage as far as winning the loyalties of the demons, but they could also see this as an opportunity to replace Bael as the number one if they restored Kevin to power. If I showed up at Nargul unannounced, there was every chance that Agares would treat me as the usurper I was. Right now, however, the other demons shouldn’t be aware that Kevin had been overthrown. It was business as usual, and he’d always been particular about the lillits, for whatever reason.

The vizier opened his mouth to say something, and closed it, seemingly conflicted. These men knew everything I needed to know about Dargoth, but so much of it was information Kevin would already have, so I couldn’t ask Zareth for details without breaking the illusion that I was him.

“Speak your mind,” I said.

“It is merely” the vizier looked at me directly for the first time, “you are so different than the last time we spoke, my lord.” He bowed his head quickly. “Forgive me for my impertinence.”

Hildar shot him a mean look, his expression souring further, but held his tongue. The old man raised his eyebrows, startled, looking from me to the others in succession. What was his deal?

“Forgiven. With Bael indisposed, I need advisors who can be honest with me.”

“I am sure that is true, my lord. It is not merely your armor, which is magnificent, but I feel almost as if I am met with a different person entirely.” His eyes darted up again before returning to the table. Well, if I was going to have a vizier, it was probably a good thing that he wasn’t stupid. The common soldiers wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, but if this man had spent any significant amount of time with Kevin, he might have realized something was going on as soon as I started speaking.

“There is only one Dark Lord,” I said firmly.

Zareth came around the table, stepping wide to avoid bumping into Hildar, who seemed to be about to croak. “I have sworn my life to the Dark Lord’s service, and I would do so again. Please do not doubt my loyalty.”

Did he know or not? Was he just paranoid? I held out a gauntlet.

“Swear to me.”

He took my gauntlet in both his hands and recited an oath.

“By my life and the realm, I swear fealty to the Dark Lord of Mount Doom. My skills, knowledge, and counsel are yours to command. I pledge to serve you faithfully and keep your secrets close, as long as you sit the Throne of Shadows. May my every act be in service to your designs, and no thought of betrayal cross my heart, my essence be forfeit.”

That was quite specific; as long as I sat the Throne of Shadows, not a moment more.

“I accept your oath,” I said solemnly, “you may rise.”

“Excellent,” he got back to his feet, his gaze suddenly direct, and his manner less cautious. “If you would forgive my impertinence once more, you should be aware that a message has already been sent to Agares—”

“Silence, you fool!” Hildar lunged at Zareth’s back, and I reacted on instinct, grabbing Zareth’s shoulder and pulling him to one side. Hildar had pulled a knife, barely more than a letter opener, out of his sleeve. Instead of plunging into Zareth’s back, it snapped against my breastplate.

Hildar looked up at me in open horror, while Zareth continued speaking as if he hadn’t just been assaulted and manhandled out of the way in the same instant.

“–indicating suspicion of a coup. While my devotion has been steadfast, I fear my colleagues are prone to doubt, as their first loyalty was to Bael.”

“Lies,” Hildar said, desperate, “he speaks only lies. I am loyal to you, of course.”

The old man was visibly shaking. “I know nothing about any of this,” he said.

Zareth remained calm, though he did take a polite step back, inclining his head to me. While the fact that he had instantly sold out his fellow viziers was worthy of note, he’d done so after swearing to me. He’d already indicated that he knew I wasn’t Kevin, and sworn anyway. Even if he was merely being opportunistic, he’d chosen the right horse to back, and I had to give him credit for that.

“Do we have dungeons?” I asked.

“We do my Dark,” though his head remained bowed, a slight smile played at the edges of his lips.

“Alright,” I said, “you two are coming with me until we get this sorted out.”

They weren’t happy about it, but resistance was futile. I didn’t have time or the inclination to mess around with oaths or try to magically enforce the loyalty of Hildar and the old guy right now. The pair could sit still for a while. Zareth seemed amenable, and one vizier was just as good as three for my purposes.

“There are holding cells beneath the tower,” Zareth said.

“Perfect.”