"What to talk about? Should I expand on the virtues I brought to this land? Should I glorify my reforms of the army? Perhaps it will be the sheer grace I showed my husband, a man who I did not know? Or is it perhaps my willingness to allow the King to believe he runs this country, while it is widely known I am loved by all?"
"I'm going to remove your writing privileges."
"Do it, coward."
"I want a divorce."
"Nope. I claimed you, so you're all mine."
"I want separate summer homes, then."
"I'll think about it."
A conversation recorded between the King and Queen. This scribe notes that no entry save for one has concerned the Dungeon or its Beasts, and will most likely be removed by Imperial censorship before the next iteration of the book is distributed.
When the scribe pointed this out, he was told to 'take it up with the Empress'.
Excerpt from The Beasts of the Dungeon.
REPLACE WITH LINE BREAK p^o^q REPLACE WITH LINE BREAK
Marcus hummed. "Please do. I'm curious about how the Empire has been faring."
And how they did better than we did, hopefully.
The Empress frowned. "We're surviving, I'm afraid. Once we would have tightened our circle of defenses, sent Archmage-led armies to kill any Calamity that dared to crawl out of the hole. Now five forts have already fallen, and we're scrambling to contain the flood of Hounds surging into populated areas. That isn't what I should be telling you, perhaps, but we don't have time for politics."
"You want me to leave the Eastfort and help with the Calamities, then?"
"No," she replied, and Marcus raised an eyebrow. Izzolma shrugged. "I'm not going to throw you into the deep end without experience. Vistus is hunting them himself, me and my son are taking care of the two to the north, and Horzo will have his fleet in the air by next week. What I need from you is to keep the eastern front stable."
Marcus frowned. "Which I have been doing and would have continued to do without your visit. If you're not here to send me to fight Calamities, then why are you here?"
"I rule an Empire," she replied after a moment. "It takes weeks for a Legion to move any significant distance, not to mention the number of resources required for longer expeditions. I have a thousand specialists, but they're scattered over a dozen major cities. My problem isn't necessarily a lack of power to deal with catastrophe, Marcus. It's getting the right people to where they need to be quickly enough to matter."
"And then a spatial Archmage was awoken."
The Empress nodded. "If things weren't so dire I'd stationed ten defensive Legions around your Kingdom and have Horzo bring his fleet, then wait until you figure out how to create stable portals. But I can't waste that many resources, not now, and neither can I spare you. But let me be frank for a moment."
She paused, which was strange, and a shimmering barrier of refracted light settled around them. Elly tensed, Marcus himself stiffening slightly, but the Empress didn't seem to care. Brandon smiled and kept his hands very far from his weapon, which was good, but still.
Izzolma grunted, and Marcus' magical senses picked up what almost sounded like a 'click'. The Empress shook her hands. "Privacy ward. Apologies for the confusion, but it isn't so effective if I spent a few minutes explaining how it works to any interested party. And if you're curious, which of course you are, yes, this works against both divination and temporal mages."
Temporal? What would a Temporal Archmage even look like?
"Now then, me being frank," Izzolma sighed. "If you feel like your life is in danger, run. I don't care if it costs a hundred thousand lives, I don't care if a quarter of the Empire is razed to the ground, get yourself to safety. The Imperial Capital has standing orders to safeguard you, so make your way over there if possible. If not, seal off Mirrania and wait out the storm. I need those portals, Marcus. I need them more than I need just about anything."
"That seems like a poor negotiation strategy."
The Empress snorted. "Negotiation? If we survive this Dungeon break, we won't survive the next. If by some miracle we survive the next anyway, we definitely won't survive the one afterwards. Something needs to change, and as powerful as Vistus is, as powerful as I am, it isn't people like us that tend to provide it. It's the Archmages capable of creating long-lasting, widely implementable artifacts that change the paradigm, and we need that more than anything."
"Portals, in this case."
"Portals, yes," Izzolma agreed. "But more than that, we need to explore the Dungeon. Need to find some way to end this, because if we don't, we're all going to die. But the Dungeon is deep, and we don't have the resources to fight through every obstacle. Through every army of Hounds, every Calamity that's still climbing upwards. But with you, we might not have to."
Oh. Well, that was… nice? Not great? Properly horrific? Being important was good, but being told he was worth more than millions of people was not. Even putting aside his ego, which was rather easy ever since the School of Life, it put things nicely into perspective.
A perspective he'd really rather wish would fuck off.
There was the chance she was lying, of course. Manipulating him. But why? Even putting aside her own power, which only the terminally stupid would ever do, she ran an Empire. There was little he could do if the Empress really wanted him dead.
Well, maybe he could run, but to where, exactly?
"So, just for my own understanding, the point is to; endure until I can create portals, which neither of us are one hundred percent sure I can actually do yet, then hope I can move an army deep enough into the Dungeon to find a solution."
The Empress shrugged. "Essentially."
"So this would be a really good time for me to make demands, then."
"Indeed it would be."
Silence reigned, and Marcus let it stretch. Both Elly and Brandon were silent, looking at one another and seeming to pulse Life energy, but he put it out of his mind. Elly was far, far stronger than him, anyway, though his patterns did seem extraordinarily well controlled.
No, focus. What, if anything, did he want from the Empress? Power would come with strings, so that was out. Knowledge was good, but he doubted she had anything he would be overly interested in. Better to look at his specialty with fresh eyes and hopefully find something no one else had, even if it risked rediscovering the wheel.
…What else did he want? More resources for Mirrania, maybe, but that would break the economy. Make it dependent on the Empire even more than it already was. Anything for his Academy was out for the same reason, and that left pretty much nothing.
"Well, I'm glad we established that," he finally said, not bothering with anything more subtle. Targeted bluntness, Vess had called it. "I'll make creating portals my priority. Anything I should know about the Calamity coming our way?"
The Empress paused, probably considering a way to push him, but, well… she'd led with a poor negotiation strategy. A good strategy for relationship building, but poor for getting what one wanted right here and now.
"Big," she said, a hovering shape forming over her palm. "Six legs, building sized, either made of stone or using it as armor. Not an elemental, though relatively similar. Highly magically resistant, so indirect magical attacks only, and extraordinarily tough besides. My scouts didn't get too close, but according to them it was more brutish than clever. Likes to crush things beneath its feet. A good beginner Calamity for you to fight."
Elly's tone was level as she spoke, but Marcus could almost hear the distaste. "Us. A good beginner Calamity for us to fight."
"Of course."
Great. That was going to be fun to deal with. Not that he could blame Elly. If his entire continent had been abandoned and he was standing in front of the persona who'd given that order, he'd be pissed too. Fortunately, she was a soldier. Self discipline was a required skill.
Conversation stalled after that, which he was definitely going to blame on Elly, but it seemed most of the important things had been discussed. The Empress lowered the privacy barrier, leaving to return to her guards, and Marcus prepared to do the same.
Except Brandon didn't go with his mother, lingering behind and glancing at Elly. Marcus shrugged, shooting her a glance, and she rolled her eyes. "I'll go return to the guards, then. Make sure they know there won't be any fighting today."
She seemed almost disappointed by that, but it was much more concerning that the Crown Prince of the Empire seemed to share the feeling. Either way he and Brandon were left alone, the man in a nearly legendary suit of armor shuffling like he was nervous.
"I've known about you since I was a child."
Marcus turned to the Crown Prince fully, wondering if teleporting away would be considered an insult. Brandon flushed, mostly hidden by his beard but still evident, and Marcus sighed.
"I hope that was as awkward to say as it was to hear," Marcus replied dryly. "And I'm just going to assume you're talking about the Scroll of Wisdrog."
Brandon nodded a touch too quickly. "Yeah. Mom wanted me to have all the names memorized, just in case. You were the only one who hadn't awoken yet, so I used to play a game of guessing your specialty. Summoning was my favorite, but I never even guessed spatial."
Well, no need to visit the Hells anymore. This was surely it, and everything up to this point had been an elaborate illusion. Ahah, his mother the illusion Archmage. It all made so much sense.
Reality didn't melt away to reveal laughing demons, unfortunately, so he was stuck actually coming up with an answer to that question. Not question? Statement. Dammit, that should have been obvious. This was throwing him off his limited game.
"Thank you," Marcus replied, not sure what he was thanking the man for. "You're not a mage."
Brandon flinched, and it was almost remarkable how the Imperial Crown Prince wore his heart on his sleeve. Maybe he was better at politics than what was being shown here, but still. This whole conversation was horrific and Marcus wished for death.
Ironic that the spatial Archmage couldn't find a way out of a simple conversation.
"I'm not," Brandon replied, straightening. He was… proud of that fact? "Mom doesn't care, and neither do I. It doesn't mean I don't like magic, or that I'm weak."
Marcus hummed. "Never meant to imply either of those things. It just struck me as odd that the son of an Archmage wouldn't have magical talent."
"You and every political opponent my mother has," the man replied, shrugging. "I got used to it pretty early. It helped when I proved skilled at using the Armor of Aversion, and that I had a minor talent with Life Enhancement. Your wife has incredible control over her own power."
Was he angling for lessons? Elly would be more likely to steal the armor off his frame, never mind teach him the secrets of the home his mother had let burn. Marcus cleared his throat. "Elly doesn't really share that kind of thing with people. Not even me."
Mostly because he had absolutely zero talent, interest or time for it, but that was beside the point. Brandon looked briefly disappointed, perking up a moment later as a pair of men joined them. Both bowed towards the Crown Prince, and to Marcus' surprise, to him.
Probably shouldn't have been surprised, but he was still getting used to his assumed political power. Power that stemmed from tradition, was brittle and likely to be unusable, but power all the same. Hells, he might rank equal to Brandon, if only in a technical sense.
Brandon nodded to the pair, smiling again. "Marcus, meet Kason and Ponos. You two, Archmage Marcus Sepsimus Lannoy, Steward of the Ninth Province."
Well, that rankled. More than he thought it would have, really. Kason and Ponos bowed again, and Marcus narrowed his eyes at the latter. He seemed familiar, somehow. No, not him. His armor.
A Hunter.
He'd pretended to be one in the School of Life, using their reputation to bully his way into controlling parts of the siege. Mage-killers created when the Empire was still young, an order that cursory research had shown was far from its former strength.
Some still existed, apparently, and at least one served on the Crown Prince's guard. Maybe all did. For all that their numbers had plummeted, the man didn't seem any less dangerous for it.
The other was more a typical mage. On the older side, scarred and weathered, but healthy and fit. Actually, no. The man was older than he looked. Almost ancient. But also not? What?
Brandon laughed, nudging the old man. "I know that look. You're confusing the Archmage, Kason."
Kason didn't seem to find that nearly as funny as the Crown Prince did, though there wasn't exactly fear either. Marcus supposed if someone got to that age death was something you got used to.
The old mage grunted, clearing his throat. "I underwent a ritual of age regression two decades ago. It failed, but my appearance and trace magical nature decay have both been infused with raw illusion-aligned energy. This is not why I am here, Crown Prince."
"No, no. You're right," Brandon agreed, sighing. "Marcus, meet the only other living soul that has used the School of Life and lived to tell the tale."
Marcus snapped his attention to the mage, and Kason shifted as he looked deep. Looked with actual intent rather than a curious glance, something most mages agreed wasn't done in polite company. But fuck it, that wasn't something he'd ever expected to hear.
The School of Life had been in the Mirranian Royal Vault for at least his father's lifetime, but that wasn't actually all that long. Certainly not if Karson had used it as a child, though Marcus assumed he'd at least been a teenager.
"I was young," Kason explained, apparently not needing to be prompted. "It was part of an experimental research program aimed to test the supposed alteration to its core that would give it self-repairing qualities. I do not claim to be a runic specialist, so forgive any lack of detail."
Marcus shrugged, having to work harder than usual to stay calm. "It was also a long time ago."
"Oh, that won't be a problem." Kason barked out a laugh, tone dark. "I won't forget about it for as long as I live, though that doesn't mean as much as it used to. I was part of the third phase in testing, after initial and 'thorough' verification had passed with flying colors."
"You got stuck."
"Nine years," the man said, grimacing. "The first two were… bearable. Not fun, especially not after finding out the escape mechanism was locked behind an incomprehensible language of runes, but bearable. The next seven grew increasingly horrific. I went through the lessons just fine, at first. One after the other, from magical in nature to martial to meditative. Find the goal, die, learn, achieve the goal, move on. Then things grew weird."
Marcus didn't interrupt, Kason continuing after drinking from an old flask. Not alcohol, though he couldn't begin to guess what it was. "It started pulling me from each lesson early. Threw me into scenarios that were half finished, keeping me there for months. Then it stopped moving me at all, trapped in a decaying manor filled with half-alive servants. Three years I spent in that place. Three years of loneliness and food that wasn't quite there. They got me out, eventually. I even benefited, in a way. But never again."
"Then what happened?"
Kason glanced at the Crown Prince, who nodded. "At the time? Nothing. I rested, tried to move on, and eventually succeeded. I only learned what happened to the School of Life six months ago, learned that another poor soul had gotten stuck inside. Guess you got out too."
"I managed to find the release mechanism," Marcus replied. Kason didn't seem overly surprised. "Reality was decaying, so I didn't have much of a choice. It functioned just fine for months, though. Nearly a year."
The old mage shrugged. "Maybe decades of rest allowed it to recharge. I'm not in the habit of underestimating artifacts crafted by Archmages, especially not those made by Balthazar. Maybe the experiment I was a part of actually achieved something, I don't know. Neither does the report say, and I was a young man then. Everyone who worked on the project is long dead."
Right, of course. Marcus suppressed a sigh, but maybe it was for the best. The School of Life had left its marks, but these days it wasn't the turning point of his reality anymore. Being told there would be no answers made it a lot easier to decide not to go looking for records or second-hand stories.
Besides, he still had the thing, and the Empire hadn't asked for it back. It was broken beyond repair, and the most talented runic experts on the continent agreed, if only with their silence.
"Thank you," Marcus said, nodding to the old man. "Its good to hear someone else survived, even if it wasn't any kinder to you than it was to me. But at the very least we got something to show for the pain. It's more than most people get."
Kason smiled humorlessly, and Brandon stuck out his hand. Marcus shook it as the Crown Prince spoke. "I hope to see you again, Marcus, and in better circumstances."
"Goodbye," he replied, reasoning saying that was better than lying. "I hope the Dungeon doesn't kill us all."
Brandon snorted, turned, and Marcus made his way back to Elly as the Crown Prince moved towards his Archmage mother.
Right then, that was more than enough talking. He was feeling cautiously optimistic about his continued relationship with the Imperial Royal Family, the threat was known and he got what he suspected was the closest thing to closure he would ever get.
It was time to hunt a Calamity.