The Emperor Strikes Back

  Yohan stepped through the portal when Lillith’s glowing ball appeared before him. Not surprised at all when he appeared in the Dark Lord’s control room. Bowing deeply, he asked, “You wanted to see me Lord?”

  “Yes. I was wondering if you could tell me anything about the dungeon at the core of your planet.” The dark lord asked. “It is obviously ancient. I thought you might know something about it.”

  Yohan could only shake his head. “Most cultures had tales of evil dungeons in their folklore, but they were believed to be just fairy tales. No one even suspected dungeons were a real thing.”

  The Dark Lord nodded. “Not surprising. It seems to have sealed itself away with no access. Nothing for you to worry about. We’ll set up dungeon defenses in case it tries to make a move. That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. I’ve got a mission for you.”

  Yohan wasn’t sure whether he liked the sound of that or not. However, before he could think of an excuse to deny the request, The Dark Lord continued. “We’ve got a subordinate dungeon ready to go. You are not directly tied to the guilds and are strong enough now that you leveled your shadows and picked up some newer stronger ones. So…with you, I don’t have to worry about ulterior motives like forcing people to join your guild or anything happening to you. Just remember when in doubt, don’t leave the dungeon.”

  Yohan stared at him in such obvious confusion that it made the lord laugh. “You remind me of one of my protege’s. I’m giving you a dungeon to head out into the less populated areas and pick up people to bring back here to train.” He stopped explaining when he saw the lightbulb go off in Yohan’s eyes before more confusion set in.

  “How?” Yohan got out before the lord waved him off.

  “Dungeons don’t have to be stationary. The Drake Empire took it to the extreme and we are going to use some of their designs to speed things up. Your dungeon can fill you in on the options and the two of you can refine your strategies as you go, but speed is of the essence. The majority of the people of this planet are not prepared for the invasion or becoming part of the wider universe if they survive.”

  Yohan received a notification that a contract was offered to him. Opening it up he saw it was pretty much a standard resource gathering contract. The only thing strange about it was that it classified humans as the primary resource to be gathered. It stated he would be given complete control of a subordinate dungeon and freedom to operate however he saw fit. Yohan only saw a couple problems. “It doesn’t list a penalty for failure.”

  The Dark Lord raised an eyebrow and said, “Do you really think I need a system enforced contract to punish you for failing.”

  The scout could only shrug, he had a feeling the lord was absolutely correct in that. “I know nothing about running dungeons.” Yohan said, mentally preparing himself to learn to swim by being thrown in the deep end and left to figure things out.

  “No worries. Lilith has trained the dungeon and planned its future upgrades. You should follow its advice and give it autonomy over pretty much everything besides where you go and who to absorb.” the lord produced a crystal and handed it to the scout. “This contains information on dungeon development, training strategies, and battle tactics developed by the various masters of the Drake Empire. In your free time, you can learn the info. The crystal has to be soulbound. That is not something that is allowed outside of the innermost circles of the Empire, so it will self-destruct if you die or something breaks the soul binding.”

  Yohan accepted the binding and stored the crystal as the lord pulled out a larger sphere of crystal and held it out for him. As soon as Yohan grabbed the core, he felt it pull a tiny bit of his essence and he chose to become the core’s dungeon master. As soon as he accepted it, he heard a voice in his head, “Greetings master Yohan. I have studied some of your culture and would like for you to name me Ji-Ho if that is possible.” Yohan saw no reason to go against the dungeon's wishes.

  “Thank you master. Shall we leave Lilith and begin our mission?’ Ji-Ho asked. Yohan began walking towards the portal, but the lord stopped him one final time.

  “Yohan. You may claim to be a simple shadow scout, but we both know better. Your value exceeds millions of the citizens you rescue and bring here, so remember you are effectively immortal inside the dungeon. No need to take unnecessary risks. If you sense any danger, absorb the settlement and move on. Focus on your training. You and a handful of other people will determine the fate of this planet after the integration is complete. Train hard. Work hard. Live free.”

  “Yes. Lord.” Yohan said with a bow. Not really buying into his value, but he understood the sentiment. After stepping through the portal, he was surprised to see that they weren’t in the courtyard with the dungeon entrance. They were outside the wall. Looking around he saw nobody other than some guards the guilds had stationed on the walls.

  “Set me down, master.” Ji-Ho’s voice rang out inside Yohan’s head. Yohan bent over and set the core down. “Sorry, master. Not here. Give me at least 10 meters.” Yohan did as the core asked and stepped back. Suddenly a sleek flying vessel appeared before him and a portal opened. Yohan entered it.

  Looking around the scout found himself in what looked like a control room with projections on the walls of the area surrounding the vessel. A glowing ball appeared next to him and a map lit up on a table. Walking over it he saw it showed the entire region marked into zones. “Each zone represents approximately one week before Lillith can absorb the area. We should start our mission at least four weeks out, unless you have friends or family you wish to pick up first.”

  Yohan shook his head. “There is nobody I need to pick up.” He saw motion all around him and realized they were already moving at incredible speed. He noticed a blip representing them on the map moving away from the coast into the mainland of the continent.

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  “Lillith will focus on the more populated areas along the coast as she expands, so we’ll focus inland. I have set up a training session for you when you are ready to begin. You should focus on controlling and coordinating your shadows while looking for opportunities to use your skills to level them.”

  *****

  “Someone pour me up a double shot of whiskey. They know me and Jack Daniels got a history.“ Jim sang over and over.

  “You know there are more words to that song.” Lorem nearly shouted in frustration.

  “Yes. But that’s my favorite part.” Jim said. “As soon as I heard that, I approved it.”

  Lorem’s bony eyebrows curled together. “What do you mean, you approved it?”

  Jim waved a hand at him and just replied, “If my singing bothers you, go train your spells.” Lorem cocked his book a little and stared at Jim before giving up on getting an answer and disappeared as he teleported himself to a training room.

  Esmeralda stepped out of a portal and swayed across the room towards Jim, bending forward slightly to show off her assets as she greeted him, never taking her eyes off his face. Jim asked, “Did you get your people training?” When the enchantress nodded, he reminded her to make sure she kept up with her personal training. “You’ll need to be stronger to be a final boss in your sector.”

  “There will be more than us working for you?” Esmeralda asked, feeling like she was getting a demotion.

  Jim glanced at her and explained, “Stop pouting. You’ll have dozens of planets under your control and will probably have the second largest sector.”

  This caused Esmeralda’s eyebrows to rise slightly. Dozens of planets? “Who will have a larger sector?”

  “An old acquaintance of mine. We won’t pick him up until we are ready to leave after the invasion. Don’t worry. You won’t have to deal with him. You’ll report directly to me and Bessie.” Jim explained.

  “Where are we headed now?” Esmeralda asked.

  “We’ve been picking up settlements as we travel, but our next objective is some ruins in the mountains. We found some useful … artifacts in one not long ago, I hope to look for more items to help with our plan.”

  The two discussed training for a while before Esmeralda left. When she was gone, Bessie appeared and announced that they were nearing the ruins. Jim gave a tug on Lorem’s mental leash and he appeared beside Jim.

  Jim had Bessie cautiously approach the ruins and set down what he assumed was a safe distance away. Jim and the book went through a portal as soon as they landed and positioned themselves to defend the dungeon.

  On Jim’s command, Bessie began slowly spreading her influence in a thin strand towards the ruins while Lorem floated higher to better analyze what he could see. “Something dismantled the defenses and added…some sort of collectors that appear to transmit their essence elsewhere.”

  “Can you tell where?” Jim asked.

  “Down is all I can tell. Did this planet have underground settlements at some point?” Lorem asked.

  “I think I know what has happened. Go ahead and absorb it all, Bessie. Lorem stay alert. The two of you can do a thorough analysis as we move to the next site.” Jim ordered.

  *****

  “Binxie, do you think you can handle onboarding on your own for a few days? I’d like to see what I can do to help people train.” Drake asked.

  “Sure thing boss. The constabulary force I had to create has identified some decent people who can help me if I run into any difficulty or I can just lock them down until you have a chance to pull out the useful residents.” the always helpful Binxie answered. The constabulary force he referenced were dungeon creatures assigned to maintain the peace and protect people from each other. The guilds did a decent job of policing the areas they controlled, but couldn’t care less about the areas that they didn’t control.

  Drake had brought with him manuals on policing and maintaining the peace because he wasn’t sure what to expect with Gummy being the only earthling he had met. Unfortunately, instead of needing the force to protect people from brawling battle maniacs, they were needed to uphold the most basic of laws. The cities he was absorbing had sections inhabited by people who would rather steal or rob for a living instead of just train in the dungeon and gain wealth from the rewards earned. This was not something he had considered to be a concern. He was aware of brigands in the universe. The empire had created forces that had operated as pirates at times in their preparations to break the stranglehold of the sects. However, Drake during all his integrations or as the Emperor, had never had to concern himself about dealing with corrupt organizations. If they interfered with his plans, he just killed them and went on with his day.

  The crime was so bad and seemingly just accepted by society, that Drake began questioning whether the empire was as crime free and peaceful as he had assumed from his view sitting on his golden throne. He even went so far as to request in his notes that were sent to Destiny, who was project lead for this trial, that she ask her subordinate dungeons and the avatar acting as Emperor to put significant effort into looking into the lives of the inhabitants of their dungeons to ensure that life was truly as peaceful as he had assumed.

  Between dealing with the wannabe bardic philosophers and the concerns of the people who had been struggling to just survive prior to being absorbed by the dungeon, Drake could really use some time in the arena. And that was exactly what he planned to do.

  “Thanks Binxie. I really appreciate all your help. I couldn’t do this without you. I may have been emperor, but my only responsibilities were deciding who to hit and how hard. This…stuff is not something I’m used to dealing with. You’re a life saver.” Drake said before stepping through a portal to the gates of the arena Binxie had set up for training.

  Binxie transformed his glowing globe into the shape of the small humanoid he had been secretly working on as his avatar. Smiling proudly as he got to work he thought, “The Drake might not be a perfect leader, but he gets the most important parts right.”

  John created a quest to allow him to cut in line to challenge the current recognized champion of the arena in exchange for credits and it was quickly accepted by the nine people waiting to challenge the champion. Seeing it was a female archer he was challenging, John changed his armor and equipment to match hers.

  The woman looked terrified. Drake smiled at her and said, “Archery. It’s been a while. You ready?” The woman looked around wide eyed, then nodded, grimly accepting her fate. The arena control counted down from five and announced “Begin.” A crowd had started forming and the archer quickly fired an arrow that Drake moved just enough to make it miss before firing an arrow at the wide eyed archer that looked like she expected to be obliterated. Drake’s shot barely had any power and struck the ground five feet in front of her.

  The archer relaxed and smirked when Drake shrugged saying, “I’m a little rusty.” The archer quickly fired three more shots at him while circling towards her left. Drake side stepped the arrows and returned a shot that had the surprised archer diving before rolling back to her feet to fire at the now smiling dungeon master.

  During the match, Drake seemed to be always moving just slightly faster than the archer and just not quite fast enough to hit her. Both had an endless supply of arrows forming in their enchanted quivers, so the battle stayed at range the entire time. Drake began controlling the speed and flight of his arrows to keep the archer on her toes and off balance. When she would use a rapid fire or arrow rain spell, he used free form magic to simulate the skill.

  As the archer reached the end of her endurance, Drake finished the battle with a rain of arrows that drove her into an arrow that exploded on contact. The woman disappeared and reappeared standing where she had fallen. Drake bowed to her and thanked her for the training. The woman started to thank him in return, disappointed that she had been so close to winning so many times, but never could quite hit a finishing blow. However, the skill level increase notifications started scrolling across her interface. Her eyes went wide in surprise as she realized that she may have lost the battle and her participant fee, but it was most definitely worth it. She earnestly thanked him. Drake pointed at the sword and dagger hanging off her belt. “Make sure you’re training your secondary weapons also.”

  “Arena control. Wave the fee for all challengers to me and the reward for defeating me ten times higher.” Drake said as a man in heavy armor walked into the arena. The man pulled a large shield off his back and pulled a sword from its scabbard.

  “I appreciate the gesture. Penny saved and all that, but I’m a bad match for an archer.” the man said.

  Drake shifted his gear to match the man’s gear and asked, “Are you sure?”