Blue Core Week Twenty-Four (Patreon)

Day 116 - Blue

I didn’t really agonize over whether or not I should indulge Ansae and let her take a piece of my core as long as I might have. If nothing else I had a redundant Core now, just on the off-chance this went badly, and if Ansae could fix my inability to communicate or use magic...well. That would absolutely be a massive improvement. I figured Ansae was more or less trustworthy since she so desperately needed the Purification only I could provide, even though I wasn’t there yet. It was in her own interests to keep me healthy and powerful.

For the first time I let a non-Companion into my Core room, where I’d put both of the Cores for now. Shayma actually seemed more nervous about it than I was, escorting Ansae through the teleport and onto the landing in front of the cottage. The dragon looked about the room appraisingly, though surely she’d seen it before with whatever she used to look straight through my walls, and followed Shayma into the cottage. She had to duck to make it through the door, but it was Shayma’s home, so I felt it wasn’t quite right to alter it to fit Ansae’s frame.

“Amazing.” Ansae studied my core with a little more hunger than I was comfortable with. In fact she had a downright acquisitive gleam in her eye as she stepped closer, stretching out her hand. She stopped just short of the surface of the crystal, while Shayma hovered nearby. “May I?”

“Go ahead. I can’t feel anything through it, I’m afraid.”

She put her hand flat against one of the facets of the Core crystal, slitted eyes narrowing. “That is an enormous amount of mana. Even I would want to be careful dealing with this.”

“Oh.” Shayma looked down at her bandaged arms. “I guess throwing at myself at the Red Core wasn’t the best idea.”

“Don’t knock it, it worked. Probably wouldn’t have managed to win that if you hadn’t, so don’t feel like you were an idiot. You were desperate, and you were right.”

Ansae just chuckled wordlessly, tapping the crystal with her claws. “I’ll just cut out a small piece. There may be some mana leakage but I can handle that. Ready?”

“Go ahead.” I braced myself, though I wasn’t sure how this would work. The best case was I wouldn’t even notice. The worst case was I’d lose a Core and who knew what that would cause. Just as an extra caution I was letting her take from the one I’d just acquired, though as far as I could tell they were identical and each one was as much me as the other. According to Shayma, the formerly Red Core had actually grown since she last saw it, as well as shifting its shape slightly, in order to duplicate mine.

Ansae’s claws blurred, and suddenly she was holding a faceted chunk of glowing blue crystal. The pain hit a moment later, a deep wrenching agony that compounded on all the aches I still had from the battle and more or less rendered me insensate for a few minutes. It wasn’t quite the fugue, but it was close. Apparently cutting a chunk of Core out did result in mana leakage Ansae dealt with that by the simple expedient of absorbing it herself, so that by the time I had recovered myself it had died away to nothing.

“Ow.”

“Are you okay?” Shayma brushed bandage-wrapped fingers against one of the core facets.

“Yeah I think so.” According to the overlay, doing that had dropped the Core’s HP by one, so now they were both at three of eight. The fact that I hadn’t recovered any yet was a little concerning, so I’d have to figure out what was needed to bring myself back to full.

“He’s fine,” she reported to Ansae, who simply nodded, still entranced by the chunk of crystal in her hands.

“Good,” she said absently. “This piece is still alive too, so it should be quite informative.” I could actually see the draconic glee in her eyes as she turned the chunk of blue-glowing crystal in her hands.

“Was there anything else?” Her obvious relish in having a piece of me was a little disturbing, and I was perfectly happy to let her go off and do whatever so long as I didn’t have to pay attention.

“No, this will do for now.”

Shayma ushered Ansae back to the teleport, but I stopped her from going through herself. “You’re taking today off.” I told her.

“Oh, I am?” She smiled in the direction of the core, clearly more relaxed now that Ansae was gone. Watching that surgery must have been just as disturbing to her as to me.

“Yup. And I’ve got enough mana now to set up a regeneration field for you, too. So I’m going to keep you stuck here until you’re feeling better.” I felt really bad about her doing as much as she had. Her Status said her hit points weren’t full, still seventy points under her maximum, and they probably wouldn’t go up until the “Affliction: Severe Burns” went away.

She settled into the heated pool, all but her arms, which she rested in some cool water I separated out by way of special armrests, populated with the healing moss just to provide some extra oomph. The little bit of extra temperature manipulation was enough to finally, finally level it after ages being stuck at nine.

[Temperature Control] advances to 10.

[Temperature Control] evolves to [Temperature Finesse]. Rank set to 5.

[Temperature Finesse] upgrades [Genius Loci].

[Temperature Finesse]: The dungeon has extreme control over temperature.

[Dungeon Ecology] and [Temperature Finesse] create new Category: [Dungeon Climate]. Rank set to 5.

[Dungeon Climate]: Unlocks Climate Category

Oh, Skills! And Categories! It had been a while since I’d gotten any of those. There was no good reason I hadn’t been pursuing them, really, save for a lack of any particular direction. I didn’t let myself get too distracted though, since Shayma was more important than shiny new toys. “Aside from the arms, how are you feeling? That battle sounded pretty awful and I wasn’t actually there to help.”

“Still a little shaken,” she admitted, settling more comfortably into the warm water as I molded the wooden seat to better fit her curves. “I’d only ever seen a mage-king from a distance, but Vok Nal…” She sighed. “If he were as good as a fourth-tier Classer, or even a third-tier, he would have killed us in seconds.”

“Sounds like we need to avoid actually trying to confront Tor Kot directly.”

“That means I’m going to have to go find that last cube,” Shayma said, leaning her head back and closing her eyes. “Not sure I’m ready for that.”

“Well don’t worry about it right now. There’ll be plenty of time to worry later.” I refrained from mentioning the three-month-ish time limit before Tor Kot moved. Assuming that still held now that Vok Nal had fallen. It might be something she’d need to do immediately, once she’d finished healing, but she didn’t need that worry.

Instead I distracted her with small talk as she rested in the healing waters, and at the same time considered the state of...me.

I could now sense temperature through [Genius Loci], but it wasn’t so much hot or cold as something like thermal sight. Absolute, rather than relative. That would certainly take time to get used to, but at least it didn’t throw me the way gaining Mana Sight had. It also meant I could really fine-tune certain things in my various chambers, especially with the brand new [Dungeon Climate].

Dungeon Climate 5: Climate is more resistant to disruption.

• Grassland
• Temperate Forest
• Rainforest
• Swamp
• Desert
• Volcano
• Glacier
• Conservatory

Before I started fiddling with the living chambers, I figured I would finish fixing them. Now that the dynamos were mostly back in operation, I was comfortable with expending the mana. I went to restore all their functions, such as the false sky or the growth Fields, and found out that I had been an idiot.

Using [Customization] to imitate the outside for four separate ceilings produced a heck of a mental strain, not to mention the manual balancing I had to do for Growth and Fertilizer. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do it, but it slowed me down. Made me stupid. I hadn’t much noticed it because I’d slowly increased the area that I’d been dealing with, but trying to take it up all at once made me realize it was a bad idea.

I dropped it all. They’d have to be content with faux blue sky and a painted-on sun. The farmer’s crops hadn’t been harmed when all my stuff withered, likely because it wasn’t actually tied into me, so they were about ready for another harvest. The Growth Field would have to wait until I had some way to automate the Fertilizer production. For the moment I abandoned the living and farming chambers and considered the basics.

I now had forty thousand mana, so maybe it was time to try once again something that had worked in the past. I shaped a cube of Stonesteel, and then after some consideration, ordinary steel, and an empty storage crystal. I wanted to try this with my metallurgy set but I didn’t quite have the resources for a second one yet, so it’d have to wait.

I applied [Customization] and mana, trying to crunch each of the things down. I didn’t bother to be restrained, just pouring all the mana into them as fast as I could. All three got me results.

Adamant Stone unlocked.

• Temperature Immunity
• Extreme physical resistance
• Mana Conductance

Cultivated Steel unlocked.

Affinity Storage Crystal unlocked. Stores mana of a specific Affinity.

All three were monstrously expensive, too. Adamant Stone, once I figured out the conversions, sucked down a thousand stone and thirty thousand mana per unit. The sad part was, I recognized it. The base of the Status Sigil had been made of it. Which meant I was just now breaking into what the Great Dungeons did.

Cultivated Steel looked like regular steel but with an odd sort of translucence, but since it took two regular steel to make one Cultivated, not to mention five thousand mana, I didn’t have enough metal to really make a lot of it. The Affinity Storage didn’t actually take mana, but it did take two Adamant Stone and ten gold to build, along with a Source of the appropriate Affinity. The cost made me suspicious, but maybe if I hadn’t unlocked Adamant Stone the equivalent price would have been paid in Stonesteel.

Either way, I was absolutely going to play with one. Unlike the Adamant Stone and Cultivated Steel, I didn’t actually get a version from the unlock, so it was going to take me some time to build up my reserves to make enough of the Adamant Stone to build one. Just as well, since I didn’t really know how I was going to use it yet. [Tempered Wisdom] told me I still wouldn’t be able to cast spells with it, which left...well, [Dungeon Ecology], mostly. That and [Metallurgy].

Or Fields. Now that I considered it, I was pretty sure I’d been dealing with Fields wrong, or at least, stupidly. Things like Regeneration and Murk were dynamic things, constantly consuming mana as they spread their effects. Forcing the full flow of mana from a dynamo into them was a brute-force sort of affair, and while it certainly had netted results there was no real control to it. Spatial Fields were set once and done, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t try and give them Affinity mana while they were still growing.

Since I was going to be doing some experimenting I made a series of tiny chambers for fields, large enough to hold a patch of grass and a few chrystheniums, and started by setting up [Regeneration], [Murk], and [Growth]. Since I’d maximized the Fields Category I could put two Fields in an area, but so far that hadn’t seemed very useful aside from being able to put an active field in a Spatially-expanded space.

Probably I’d been doing it wrong, like most things. Just because the two Fields were on top of each other didn’t mean they interacted. No, for that they needed to be linked...like with the skill that explicitly was meant for linking mana, [Mana Logic]. Thus far, I’d only use it to forge light switches, connecting tiny, [Customize]-altered doors to light panels. It was intensely difficult to do, and I was pretty sure it ate up a little bit of my mental ability when they were used, just like the false skies, so I hadn’t fixed all the links that had been broken yet.

As a test I filled one of the tiny chambers with [Regeneration] and [Murk], trying to forge a connection between the shifting mana constructs. It took me a lot longer than it probably should have, possibly because I still had half my attention on Shayma, but eventually I managed a link. Unfortunately, it clearly wasn’t enough. I could see that it needed another one to actually bind the fields together, and quick, before the first link broke.

[Restful Night] discovered. Provides Regeneration. Aids sleep. Aids mental recovery.

[Mana Manipulation] advances to 8.

“Oh, hey. I think I have something that can help, Shayma. Let me know if it feels at all weird though.”

Even with the monstrous mana regeneration I had, my reserves were pretty low at that point. Fortunately the derived Field didn’t take all that much mana - more than one of the Fields, but less than two. I wrapped it around the heated pool, replacing the regeneration field, and Shayma sighed in pleasure.

“Oh, that is nice. It smells like...summer nights when I was little.” She yawned. “Even the stars look like I remember.” I didn’t see any stars inside the Field myself, so there was some illusory component even if the description didn’t say that. “Do you mind if I try to nap? I didn’t get much sleep due to...well, arms.”

“I figured that might be the case. This Field is supposed to help you sleep, so don’t worry. I’ll keep an eye on you.”

“Thank you, Blue,” Shayma said with a smile, yawning again as I pillowed her head on a created cushion.

I watched Shayma until she was definitely asleep, by which time I had enough mana for more experiments.

[Lost Woods] discovered. Speeds flora growth. Generates Illusory Light. Flora actively impedes enemies.

[Rampant Growth] discovered. Massively increases growth of flora. Massively increases mutation of flora.

Unfortunately the new fields seemed to count as two, and I couldn’t layer another one on top of them try any further combinations. I really needed to work on getting more base Fields. Even if it was just in pairs of two, combinatorial explosion would be amazing. Despite not mentioning it, both [Restful Night] and [Lost Woods] inherited the darkness of [Murk], though not the physical weight and density that Field had, which made me wonder if some weird combination might net me a new Affinity. There were certainly new effects.

While I waited for mana and stone stores to replenish enough to try the new crystal, I tested the idea the stupid-dungeon-self had given me and mixed metals with the magicite. Oddly it didn’t give me magical variants on copper and iron, but new metals entirely. Or at least, the overlay named it something different, and when I put it through the hardening crystal the resulting bars looked more chalky than metallic.

Red Calamite discovered.

White Calamite discovered.

As usual, there was no explanation of what it actually was or what it was used for. The claim about [Genius Loci] improving my ability to appraise things was absolutely a lie. Even if I could get an identification on things like “A bar of Promise” the fact that it told me nothing about it was not much help at all. I’d have to ask Shayma if she knew what this stuff was.

I cast about for more things to put into the metallurgy apparatus without resorting to just mixing everything and realized I’d neglected one of my earliest staples. The tayantan tree. I’d really never done anything with it, but Ansae and that [Herbalist] had both been interested in the wood so surely there was something there.

Unfortunately it turned out that trying to crunch it like I had everything else resulted in dead trees. Even when I was being extremely careful, and watching extremely closely, the pressure generated by my mana and my dungeon biology just crushed them. Watching that closely made me realize that yes, I was actually threaded into my trees and my plants, even if it was the thinnest and faintest of tendrils. There were probably microscopic filaments I couldn’t even see, wound into the blades of grass.

I had kind of vaguely known it before, but now that I saw it I realized exactly why I had certain limitations. Other things I was less clear on, like how I managed to direct the boring beetles when they were clearly not physically connected. Their spawner was, which gave me hints at how maybe the monster path worked, but that was about it. According to Shayma my dungeon-self had melted all the monster infrastructure before melting the tower, so I didn’t have any existing Red Core stuff to compare to.

At least my dungeon-self hadn’t decided to melt the extra core.

It would only take another hour or so to reach full mana, but I could spend that time making good on the agreement I’d made with Iniri. It’d take more than that hour to finish the job though. Meil was a complete wreck. More than it even seemed from the surface, since both myself and the Red Core had spread out underground and the foundations of the city itself were compromised. Without repairs, I would bet that left alone one good rainstorm would drop everything into a muddy pit.

Fortunately I had more than a passing knowledge of architecture, mostly because I was architecture. I had an immense temptation to repair the shattered and crumbled buildings into something more along my tastes, but suppressed it. Barely.

The archeological remnants of Meil past were interesting to me, where they’d been unearthed by the previous dungeon digging into the ground. The same dungeon had brutalized the remnants beyond recognition in most cases, leaving only a few slabs that had been clearly welded together by earth magic. It made me wonder why modern Meil was mostly brick.

Even though I didn’t know all the details of Tarnil’s history, the picture that was slowly revealing itself was of a kingdom in decline. The Great Northern Waste, a young queen inheriting a throne. Only five cities and no important ports I’d heard of. A fourth-tier, true, but that was gone now and a sizeable number of the third-tiers Iniri had with her weren’t from Tarnil. Wildwood Retreat was holding strong, but in hindsight its independence seemed born from the weakness of the kingdom than the strength of the mana spring.

In all, it was not a very encouraging picture. Tarnil was most likely a minor power as it stood, and even without the mage-kings it might have been absorbed into something larger soon enough. Which actually made me wonder if that was why they had been targeted. If the mage-kings weren’t quite as powerful as they seemed, or had certain political sensitivities that kept them from assaulting a more hale kingdom.

Politics weren’t exactly my thing but I was already Core-deep in the Tarnil kingdom’s affairs, mostly by accident. I’d told Annit and Keri that once they started associating with me, it wasn’t likely they could ever break out, and the same might very well be true for me and Tarnil. Part of it was simple geography, as I was located in the northern part of the Tarnil kingdom, somewhat south of the Waste. Pragmatically, I’d carved off a chunk of it for myself already, though it wasn’t like they were using the mountain.

Part of it was the Bargain with Shayma. I didn’t regret it at all, but it was becoming clear how deeply it had involved me in things. Technically I only needed to shelter Iniri and her companions, but obviously there was no way to do that without taking an active role against the ones who had usurped her kingdom. Even if my aid stopped at kicking out Tor Kot and the mage-kings didn’t return, it wasn’t likely that any of the other governments around would view me as anything other than an ally.

I liked Iniri well enough, but having my wagon hitched to a small, broken, and possibly already fading kingdom was not really the best situation. Maybe it didn’t matter, especially in the long term, but I was pretty sure there’d be some issues I had no idea how to address. Shayma was my voice, but she was also her own person and I didn’t think she relished the idea of dealing with foreign dignitaries any more than I did.

Apparently one of the downsides of being able to think clearly again was worrying over things I couldn’t change.

Not only did I have to dip into my stone stocks to fix Meil’s foundations, I had to dig down to bedrock to shore up patches where clay and mud were no longer stable from the river leaking into the subterranean passages opened up by the Meil dungeon. With that as a base, I could leave the remnants of older buildings I found alone, enclosing them in their own chambers and running proper halls into nearby basements so they could be properly accessed in the future. It wasn’t strictly necessary to do that, and was a bit above and beyond in the task of simply repairing Meil, but it appealed to me for some reason.

It was only when I had properly stabilized the ground under the whole city that I started fixing buildings. Actually one of the first things I did was use [Customization] to return everything to the proper sandstone color, getting rid of the ugly brown color of the Red Core’s stone. Then I started restoring buildings. It was actually pretty fun to watch the reactions of Meil’s inhabitants as the buildings started to regrow themselves. People stopped, gawked, or ran, probably to go complain to Iniri through whatever channels.

I wished her luck with that.

Day 116 - Iniri

“With all due respect, your Highness,” Duke Lehrem Sarthi said, not sounding respectful at all. “We can’t possibly suffer this other dungeon to stay within our territory. Not after all the damage dungeons have done to us.”

Iniri took a deep breath, keeping a firm grip on her temper. Normally Lehrem was not this idiotic, but it was hard to blame the man. She wasn’t sure how many human kills Blue had to his credit, but it wasn’t many, and unfortunately Lehrem’s son was one of them. While she believed Blue when he said they were out for his core, there was no actual proof that he hadn’t just murdered an adventuring group for fun. Considering how every other dungeon worked, it was actually hard to believe that wasn’t what happened.

She wasn’t sure how much of the nobility was intact after the invasion. Since it had focused on the cities, a good number of the more economically or politically minded nobles had ended up dead. The ones who were still in their estates had been cut off, or had cut themselves off, and even now Iniri hadn’t managed to get messages to them. Now that Blue no longer had [Warding] up she could start using her divination to see if she could get in touch, but Lehrem was the one that was here now.

“We also cannot afford to remove him,” Iniri replied, feeling that she was stating the obvious. “We don’t have either the military or diplomatic capital to pressure him in any way, even if I felt it was a good idea to do so. Which I don’t. Even as we speak Blue is repairing Meil. At a cost we can actually afford. I appreciate your opinion, Duke Sarthi, but we simply do not have the money or laborers necessary to even feed ourselves without his assistance. Not yet.”

“But -” Lehrem said, red-faced, and she held up her hand.

“You wish to seek justice for your son,” she said, and he flinched as she dragged the real issue into the light. “If it were a Great Dungeon, you wouldn’t even think of such a thing. Blue may still be beyond our ability to hold accountable, regardless. It may be best to consider him the ruler of a sovereign nation, and approach him yourself. Or rather, Shayma as his ambassador.”

Lehrem blinked, taken aback. Iniri smiled thinly. Even among those who had stayed within Blue’s walls, most of them didn’t really understand that Blue was his own person. Or that he was a person. Those from Meil and its surrounds held the same opinion, assuming they knew about Blue at all. Some of them still didn’t really think the mage-kings and their dungeons existed, and it was just one of the neighboring kingdoms that had invaded.

The Duke wasn’t that under-informed but it was clear he still thought of Blue as Iniri’s property. Or at least under Iniri’s management. She supposed she might not be giving him enough credit, and that he was petitioning for her to deal with deal with things as a ruler. Unfortunately for him, she wasn’t in a position to do that.

True, Blue could have handled it more delicately. There were surely ways for him to return the adventurers to Refuge without killing them. Given his teleports he probably could have simply removed all the other tunnels anyway, which would definitely keep anyone from wandering around. Yet, those that crossed Powers were not let off easily. Despite what she’d said to Lehrem, Blue was not a ruler, and he was not bound by any laws made by man. He was barely bound by the laws of nature.

It would be nice if he were a little more conscious of how precarious her position was, though. Her subjects might rightly question the legitimacy of a ruler that had been utterly blindsided by an invasion force, and not managed much of any resistance against it until now. Her nobles were more accustomed to the regent who had presided over things between her parent’s death at sea and her breaking into the third tier and properly manifesting her Lineage Skill. The fact that even if she had known they were coming, there wouldn’t have been much she could do against the mage-kings was no real excuse.

Now that they’d taken Meil back things might be turning around, but that didn’t mean people would be any happier. Maybe the opposite, now that there was finally someone to vent spleen at. Not to mention there were surely those who had benefited under Vok Nal’s rule and would be loathe to give up whatever spoils had been allotted to them. Sorting out those who had turned their coat would be its own ordeal, since whatever records had been in the tower were long gone.

“Blue is not a mindless thing,” she told Lehrem, trying to be as diplomatic as possible. She didn’t want to simply tell him that she wasn’t in a position to demand anything from him, even if she were inclined to. “If you engage him, politely, you may get somewhere.” What she didn’t mention was that Blue was probably listening to them right now and had already formed opinions on what to do. “When Shayma returns I will tell her you wish to discuss things.”

The Duke seemed like he couldn’t decide whether he was infuriated or terrified, and with a few growled pleasantries he excused himself. Iniri sighed, in the brief span of time when nobody needed her attention. She really wished Cheya was still screening her supplicants, but her [Spymaster] needed a break. Not that Cheya was actually taking a break. If Iniri knew her, she was out trying to find out who had collaborated with Tor Kot and who was merely a victim of circumstance.

A faint vibration under her feet pulled her out of her mope, and she glanced out the window to see one of the nearby piles of rubble moving. If she remembered right, it had been some poor baron’s ancestral home, and The Hurricane had more or less flattened it. Blue was un-flattening it, and given that he had been able to do that sort of thing without even the briefest of tremors before, Iniri expected he was making some very foundational changes in Meil.

She trusted Blue marginally more, now. Part of it was simply being forthright about what his help would cost, and not trying to coax her into unspecified favors. Part of it was Shayma and her genuine like of the dungeon. Most of it, she had to admit, was how he’d treated her during her Purification. That topic still made her body tingle if she thought too hard about it, but he’d been so unexpectedly considerate that it was difficult to believe he wished her any ill.

“Send in the next petitioner,” she told the guard, and settled back into the overlarge chair. It wasn’t exactly a throne, but it was comfortable and helped with the stress of trying to do everything with effectively no resources. She owned Monat a lot for sending the third- and fourth-tiers to her, especially since the Wildwood Retreat was compensating them, but she couldn’t just order them to deal with the menial labor that needed to be done to keep Meil functioning.

Which left just the scarred and mourning citizenry. One of the more unpleasant things she’d found during the slow cleanup and reorganization was that there were almost no young women left in the city, only female children and elderly. It would take generations for Meil to recover. Even those who had snuck out of the city under one pretense or another had probably been caught up in the raids by the monsters Vok Nal produced. The only solace was that most of the abductions were recent, as Vok Nal tried to recover from the devastation of his army, so other occupied lands probably didn’t suffer the same degree of depredation.

Fortunately the next person actually had plans to help, for once. As a high level [Caravaneer], he had the Skills and resources necessary to start linking the farms and villages back together. He only needed official backing, which she gave without hesitation. Though not without marking his name down for Cheya to keep an eye on.

“Your Majesty.” It was one of the second-tiers who were patrolling the city outskirts, more to keep an eye out for any refugees than to fend of any potential attacks. If her expression weren't enough cause for alarm, the very fact that she’d come all the way in to consult Iniri meant something drastic had happened. “There’s a...monster that wants to speak with you.”

“...what.” She just stared at the woman.

“I know! But it approached under a messenger’s flag and hasn’t tried attacking or anything. It’s really creepy.”

Iniri dipped into her mana pool to cast a Divination sweep. It didn’t take much to find the monster in question, lounging against the outer wall while a half-dozen second- and third-tiers watched it. It was a shadowy humanoid, almost completely featureless and yet still managing to convey its amusement at the situation.

She didn’t like that. Monsters weren’t supposed to be amused. They were supposed to single mindedly carry out their orders, or if they were simple beasts, attack anything that came within reach. They could be clever, even more clever than Classers, and yes, some of them played with their prey. But they didn’t lounge around and appreciate the inherent humor in life.

At least, that was what she had thought. Admittedly, the Great Dungeons had generally more bestial monsters than the mage-kings used. She hadn’t run into any that showed any signs of civilization or speech, just raw animal cunning. The mage-king’s troops, on the other hand, could speak, but none of the forces she’d ever seen had acted this...normal.

“See if either Liril or The Hurricane are willing to escort me,” she said to her guard. “If not, find some third-tiers.” She wasn’t going to let that thing inside the walls, messenger or not, but she did want to talk to it. Though she couldn’t be certain, it seemed to be the same monster that Blue had described bringing the first message scroll, the one that had called Vok Nal an idiot.

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Iniri regarded the adventurer who had brought the news. “I’m going to speak to it from the top of the wall. Tell those who are guarding the monster to prepare for that.”

“Aye, ma’am. Er, Your Majesty.” The woman blushed and bowed deeply, and Iniri waved her off. That lack of formality was pretty common to the sorts that stayed out in the wilds all the time and never really bothered with politics. Once she had run into someone in a Great Dungeon who didn’t even know what country they were in.

Joce and Keel strolled in, and Joce shook his head at her inquiring look. “Liril says he’s done and The Hurricane refuses to talk to anyone but Shayma. Well, Blue, I guess.”

Iniri grimaced. They’d both gotten a chunk of Depletion during the fight, so she couldn’t blame either one of them. The Hurricane’s could at least be addressed, in theory, if Blue wanted to. So far, it seemed that he didn’t want to. “All right, to the wall, then.”

Stepping out of the manor, she was almost surprised by how much Blue had already fixed. Only almost, though, since she’d seen him at work before. That said, all the empty shells of buildings being raised back into place didn’t guarantee the interiors were fixed. They couldn’t be, really, since he’d never seen what they were like to begin with, and a number of the completely demolished buildings looked different than they used to. At least the massive cracks in the streets were gone.

Royalty usually traveled by carriage or mount, magical or mundane, but there were none of those to be had in Meil. Instead one of her [Gale Knights] supported a hastily constructed pseudo-palanquin, aided by her mages, while the rest of her entourage rode along. Iniri pitied any noble that was made queasy by flying, and thanked the gods above she wasn’t one of them, as even the short trip from manor to wall involved more swooping and tilting than she preferred.

They touched down smoothly on the rampart near where the monster stood, and even though she wasn’t intending to leave it, Iniri molded [Shield of Tarnil] over herself. She had no idea what this monster was capable of, and wasn’t intending to find out by becoming a target. Harold slipped out of the palanquin, calling orders before shouting down at the messenger. “Speak your piece, monster! Our queen is listening.”

For her part, Iniri fashioned some basic wind Affinity constructs with [Royal Mana], so she could hear and speak without having to shout herself. She didn’t expect that she’d have much to say, but she’d be a fool not to listen. Nobody she knew of actually had diplomatic dealing with the mage-kings, so anything she could learn would be valuable.

“You’re the one who took the Meil core?” The monster’s voice sounded like bubbles rising through thick tar.

Without even thinking about it, Iniri felt a sudden, burning need to keep Blue’s nature a secret. It was strange to have such an emotional decision arrive when she didn’t feel she liked Blue that much, but she’d always trusted her instincts. Besides, this was still her country, not Blue’s, whether the mage-kings recognized it or not.

“I am not, but I can speak for the one who has.”

“That’s fine with me.” The shadow didn’t sound particularly worried by the Classers surrounding it. “First, Tor Kot is going to want to check to make sure the core isn’t damaged. It isn’t, is it?”

“I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t see anything that looked like damage.” It wasn’t entirely a lie. Before it sank through the floor, the now-blue dungeon core seemed to be a single chunk of intact crystal. Not that she had any idea what to look for. “Nobody attacked it, though.” She was pretty sure Shayma’s contribution wasn’t exactly an attack, and Blue’s takeover was beyond her ken.

“Good. Tor Kot’s in enough trouble letting someone take one of his spare Cores without adding damaged Cores into it. You do know how much trouble he’s in, right?”

“I don’t. The master of the Cores doesn’t share much of his personal business with me.”

“Does this master have a name?”

“I don’t know his name, but I call him Blue.” The one thing she couldn’t do was give away what Blue actually was. The rest of his secrets she didn’t actually know, so she couldn’t betray them. It was easy enough to imagine herself as some subordinate noble under Blue, though, and act accordingly.

“Typical. Probably knows how much trouble he’s going to be in once Vok Lim figures him out. How is Vok Nal, anyway? Recovering from the transfer process?”

“...so far as I have heard, he has not recovered.” She would be surprised if mage-kings recovered from death. Vok Nal’s death was something else she didn’t want to reveal, and fortunately none of the Classers blurted it out, but she had no way of making sure it stayed that way. If someone like Duke Lehrem was willing to oppose a Power for the death of his son, what would a mage-king do?

“First time losing a Core, I suppose that’s not surprising.” The shadow monster waved a hand dismissively. “Serves him right. Losing a whole army and then his Core? What an idiot. Lim always coddled him. Anyway, not official but Tor Kot really wants Blue’s monster information. He can’t just be using humans and I haven’t seen a monster yet, even under stealth, so it must be something pretty exotic.”

“What is Tor Kot offering, not officially, for such information?”

“Forgiveness for stealing one of his experimental cores, for one. Keeping Vok Lim from locking your master in a siphon chamber for the next decade, for two,” the monster said dryly. Iniri’s eyes widened. Of course Blue was a refugee from the mage-kings. It was obvious in retrospect; where else would a dungeon core have come from? It didn’t explain anything else about him, because if Tor Kot and his ilk had even the slightest intimation he was independent they wouldn’t be assuming someone was controlling him.

“He is not the queen’s master, monster,” Harold said coldly, which made Iniri wince but there was no help for it. Even if they’d agreed on a story before they came, which in hindsight they should have, it’d be awful difficult for Harold to reign in his tongue.

“My mistake.” He didn’t sound at all apologetic.

“Do you have an actual message or just gossip? I am quite busy.” She didn’t actually want to cut the conversation short, but sooner or later someone would say something stupid and give away something they shouldn’t. Adventurers weren’t known for their diplomatic prowess.

“Aside from ensuring the Meil core is intact and undamaged, the summons by Tor Kot still stands. The time limit, though, is now one month from now.”

“I’ll pass that on,” Iniri said, though she winced. On the other hand, it implied they’d have a month without being bothered by anyone which was nice to know. Even that much breathing room was a gift. “Anything else?”

“Just really curious what monsters he uses. I would have thought I’d spot any stealth types, but so far I haven’t seen a single one. And with the city so intact, neither did Vok Nal.”

“You’ll understand that I can’t make any comment about that.”

“I suppose not. I suppose you won’t let me in, either.”

“No,” she said, flat as she could make it. She was quite tempted to order her Classers to kill it, but that would be a bad idea. Even if they could, which she doubted given its obvious shadow affinity and utter lack of concern, it’d probably get them into all kinds of trouble. It clearly was not the usual sort of monster.

“Well, then I will be seeing you - and your master - later.” He repeated the phrase that had made Harold fume with a little more emphasis this time, and then the Classers made various noises.

“He’s gone,” Harold reported, poking his head back inside the palanquin. “Some sort of shadow teleport.”

“That...doesn’t surprise me.” Iniri sighed. “Keep an eye out for him, but for now, let’s just go back to the manor.” She should be more worried about him infiltrating the city, but she was pretty sure Blue would object, and he was far more equipped to deal with a shadow-teleporting monster than she was.

She’d have to talk to him about the conversation though. Especially if he hadn’t been paying attention, though she was confident that he couldn’t miss something that drastic. Maybe she’d see about going back to the core room before bed. She could really use a soak in that hot spring.