In the inner sanctum of the Ryka Kingdom -
Horus entered the council chambers without his crown. Here, he wasn't a king. Here, he was among equals. Technically. It still had to be acknowledged he had a difficult and time-consuming job. He was well respected enough to generally lead the council without the crown anyways.
There were people already sitting down and chatting away at a round table. He was the last to arrive due to his busy schedule. To his left, Minerva sounded a gavel to bring the meeting to order.
"Everyone. Let's get this meeting started. Before we begin, I'd like to welcome Octavius Infinus to the table. There are a few who haven't met him before, so you should know he is one of the Ancients. Older than 5 centuries, he has secluded himself for the sake of magic research. He has come out of the royal dungeon as the representative of the other Ancients."
Minerva gestured toward a man fully clothed in a dark cloak, as though he had just come from outside, and was just about to leave as well. He was adorned in jewelry of all manners, likely magic artifacts that showed his wealth and mastery. All others at the table looked at him with envy, wondering when they would learn the deeper magics or be have a chance to earn those artifacts.
"Thank you, Minerva. I'm just here to check up on things. It seems we've been experiencing some turmoil, and have yet to settle our issues…"
Minerva coughed at the insinuation. Though she had lived for a few centuries now herself, she was still unsettled in front of this Ancient. Everyone was, except for Horus. He looked unimpressed, as though nothing could faze him.
"We have a few issues to talk about today. We'll need to replenish our dungeon slave population, since we've abruptly used it. We'll also need to reinforce our milit-"
"I'd like to talk about the dungeon." Octavius interrupted Minerva, with a soft speaking voice. It wasn't loud, but it didn't need to be. With his position, everyone was listening closely.
"From what I've been briefed, the kingdom has used a fifth of its military to charge down to the 23rd floor of the dungeon. Firstly, can we hold it? And secondly, if so, the Ancients would like to move there."
Everyone looked to Horus at this moment. Recent events had been according to his plans, so they expected him to answer. And of course, no one wanted to be the bearer of bad news.
"We can hold it, maybe. It's too soon to tell. I can give you a definitive answer on that in a year or so. We're still building out our fortifications, and will need to send out scouting parties several times. In our rush, we didn't fully explore the 21st, 22nd or 23rd floors.
You probably won't be interested in moving down though. We've plundered the available mana on those floors." Horus sounded bored as responded to Octavius.
"All of it? Whatever for?"
"Yes, all of it. We used a teleportation portal to travel a rather ludicrous distance. You have heard about what we've done with the Mithril Knight, yes?"
Octavius began to look annoyed. Horus hadn't said anything wrong, but his tone bordered on the edge of disrespect.
"What I know is that you've set him to create another kingdom somewhere. I didn't expect that you would need to send him so far… How did you even know about that place?"
"Our Unseen have been very active this century. We have some idea of everything that's happening on this continent. The liveable areas at the very least." Horus' tone was flat, but there was an underlying tone of pride. The extent of Ryka's intelligence capability was one of his crowning achievements during his tenure. Only to be overshadowed by Prince Caiphus, were he still alive…
Octavius was even a little impressed. That was quite a change from when he had last surfaced, and he knew that this could not have been an easy task. In fact, there was quite a few impressive things that had been accomplished in the Ryka Kingdom recently. Remembering that, he decided to let this young creature be proud in front of him.
"We can wait. We weren't planning to move in right away anyways. The Ancients would be very appreciative of your cooperation in moving to the lower floors." Octavius' silky voice sounded much more pleasant this time.
"We were planning to use that dungeon mana again for another long distance teleport. We still need to make sure Jon Everheart's kingdom can be an effective threat." Horus' face twisted into dissatisfaction. He knew it was costly, and likely wouldn't be received well. Personally, he wished there was a better way, but such long distances was the key to ensuring that the Tulin Empire would never suspect them.
"Yes… About that. Is it really necessary though? This is the Mithril Knight we're talking about. Slayer of wyverns, Jon the Unkillable? I don't think we would be able to provide any sort of meaningful help. Furthermore, we need to focus on increasing our military might.
We just lost a large chunk of our army conquering the lower dungeon floors, and any one else we committed to the task will need to remain there. Wouldn't want our secrets to surface, now would we?
And of course, if the Mithril Knight is able to… make an opportunity for us, we need to be in a position to take advantage." Octavius smiled as he spoke. He knew he would get his way. He understood people very well, and knew the crux of the matter was revenge for the death of Caiphus.
Horus snapped to attention at Octavius' last words.
"Yes, Octavius… You're quite right. I overlooked that part. This plan was indeed too hastily put together. Thank you."
"Of course. We're all on the same side. Even the Ancients still regret Caiphus' passing. We all placed our hopes on him as well. We too cannot allow the Tulins to go unpunished.
The Ancients plan to start preparing for war. These new dungeon floors should be quite helpful to that cause." Octavius smiled.
Horus smiled too. This was greater news than he had imagined! He had thought the Ancients only liked to meddle with the surface, and hadn't taken his achievements seriously. But now with their cooperation, his vengeance felt closer within reach already.
----
These damn Unseen were a huge headache for Jon. A shadowy organization, Jon had only heard rumours of them in taverns. They were the King's spies, and no one knew how much reach they had, how they operated, or what they could do.
In his days as a general for the Ryka Kingdom, he had depended heavily on their intel, and knew that they were very, very good at their job. They cryptically left messages for him, and constantly were requiring him to learn their secret codes.
Sighing, Jon had to acknowledge they had him in a bind. Originally, he had planned to enact his revenge from the shadows, but he knew himself too well. It was impossible for him to abandon the lives of these people.
If Jon was going to get his revenge, he would first have to gather information about the Unseen watching him. Find out how many of them there were, how they operated. If he could dispose of them as well, that would be great.
For now, he resigned himself to going along with their plans. But could he really be a king? He had his doubts, but his anger led him to thinking he would definitely be better than the villainous royalty he had served.
"I wouldn't treat their lives like dirt, at least. Even if I failed, the people would know I was someone who tried to make lives better."
Jon fell asleep that night, resenting that he was still being toyed with by Horus.
---
The next day, he woke up when the sun was already high in the sky. As he left his room, he was intercepted by Sarabella again.
"Have you considered our proposal?" Sarabella said pleasantly.
"Proposal? You can't call it that when I don't have a choice in the matter." Jon shot back petulantly.
Sarabella just laughed it off. "I can't deny that! We're expecting an announcement from you within the week then. I've drawn a bath for you, just go that way. There's a change of clothes for you in there as well."
Jon glared at her as she went past. Looking at himself, he realized he WAS quite filthy though. So many things had happened, and he hadn't had the time to take care of himself yet. He went to the washroom where the bath was, and immediately scrubbed himself hard.
After he was done, he saw himself in a bronze mirror for the first time. He had entrancing purple eyes, and striking eyebrows. His body was thin, with a lean musculature. He had the young delicate face of his youth, framed by long silver hair. Examining it, he was irked by its length. It had been a minor annoyance that he had just tucked into his shirt before, but now he wanted it gone.
Long hair on men was the symbol of nobility. To maintain long, beautiful locks would require time and precious oils. It was another reminder of a world he despised, so he got one of his knives and cut it roughly. It didn't look good, but he felt better about it.
Heading downstairs, he saw Davius in the tavern, with a small group of people crowding around him. As Jon got closer, he realized Davius had already started listening to everyone's arguments about how much of Reek's loot they deserved. Upon seeing him though, Davius interrupted the conversation to give a him a greeting.
"Good morning! I hope you had a good rest last night! Would now be a good time to talk?"
Jon nodded, and watched as Davius dispersed the crowd. He knew them well, and everyone complied quickly.
"Thank you for sitting with me… I was wondering if you had given any thought to becoming our king. Everyone has been asking about it incessantly. They seem very hopeful about the idea."
"Why would I become your king? This land seems to be a terrible place to start a kingdom. It's poor, there's not many people about and its stuck between a large, aggressive empire and the vast wilderness. It's a miracle this place hasn't been wiped off the map by monster hordes." Jon replied. Though Jon had already made up his mind, he had become more suspicious after last night's events.
Davius became quite concerned at Jon's attitude. His demeanor instantly became nervous.
"Please, don't think like that, milord! There may not be a lot of us, but this place has good, honest people! I'm sure the empire will just ignore a small kingdom like us as well. They haven't sent anyone into the region for years. And we've got a dungeon! Not even just one in the area! There are lots of dungeons in the outlands!"
Jon was quite surprised to hear about multiple dungeons. They weren't that common where he was from, but he was definitely in a very strange place. Perhaps it had something to do with being so close to the searing mountains…
"Why do you want me to be your king? You seemed to be doing just fine without one before, and you don't seem to believe in this superstitious prophecy." Jon asked. It brought a sigh to Davius' chest.
"I don't believe in the prophecy, but I've seen the way you act. I do believe that you would do good things for this place. Our lives are harder than it seems, and we really need some good things to happen to us…"
"What do you think will happen if I don't become king?" Jon looked hard at Davius. Davius mumbled and bubblered, and this flustered reaction made Jon suspicious. He asked a follow-up question before Davius could collect himself. "Are you part of them? Do you know what's happening here?"
Davius, in his haste, blurted out "I don't know everything! I mean… umm… I don't know what I can tell you. I'm sorry."
Jon realized that Sarabella had probably threatened Davius, and was forcing him to cooperate. If they had given Davius the same ultimatum they had given him, that alone would have been enough.
A boy and a girl walked up to Davius at this time. Jon estimated they were maybe 8 years old. Their curious faces kept discreetly peeking at Jon in a very lovable and cute way.
"Sir," They said, addressing Davius, "We're done our chores. Can we go play?"
"Of course. Make sure to come back before sun down." Davius replied. He spoke kindly to the children, though they had acted somewhat formally. But that attitude disappeared in a moment as they ran away to meet up with kids outside the tavern.
Seeing Jon's eyes follow after the children, Davius explained. "Those two are the children of a hunter outside of the village. He disappeared some months ago, so I've been taking care of them since. Sadly, this kind of thing happens far more often than I'd like. There's also another pair of kids I'm taking care of too. I'd be happy to introduce you sometime, if you like children."
Jon's face turned back to Davius, much more relaxed than before. All suspicion he had was gone, and was instead replaced with an odd sense of trust. Davius reminded Jon of the village chief who had raised him, in fact. His parents had died to some illness, and he had no family to turn to. The village chief had been a poor, but warm and kindly elder. He had done as much as he could for Jon's sake. Jon took that kindness to heart, and it had become a part of him. A big part of him.
In his youth, much of Jon's reason for running away to apprentice under a hedge knight was to find a way to pay back that kindly old man. And here, in the middle of nowhere, he had found someone much like him.
"You're a good man, Davius. Much better than this world deserves. If the Outlands will take me as their king, I'll try to make a world that is good to people like you. I promise."