Ogre Tyrant

Ogre Tyrant: Chapter 33 - Stirring up trouble - Part One

Watching the last of the humans herded through the gateway, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to relax until the manager was found and we gained our answers. Unfortunately, the interrogation of the bookkeeper had revealed that the manager had left shortly before the collapse. Under Oath and Enslavement, it was incredibly unlikely that the bookkeeper had lied. Furthermore, he was able to allegorically support his claims by citing the manager’s departure time in addition to witnesses who could corroborate the information to varying degrees.

With Gargant dead, I had given the Soulless an ultimatum, a single chance at peaceful coexistence. They could use the Iron Hills camp and keep its Ward, and even engage in trade with Stone Well and the other tribes. However, Osa would rescind the pardon if the Soulless committed any form of violence against Stone Well’s people.

I held no delusions regarding the deal. I had offered them a peaceful and managed path to extinction in exchange for their immediate and violent execution. With no females, the Soulless Mountain Orcs, as a collective, would need to migrate back to their spawn point in order to recoup their numbers. But if they strayed from Stone Well, they would lose all access to water and become susceptible to blood diseases and dehydration before dying painful deaths.

With the complexity of the moral questions involved, I had decided to procrastinate the most radical options until I could better acclimate to the moral climate. I didn’t want to risk everyone else just on the off chance that some of the Soulless might be trusted to integrate. Similarly, I didn’t want to just slaughter them all without cause. Hence the procrastination…

My offer to the Iron Hill survivors had been just as straightforward. The formerly enslaved would be allowed, under Oath, to name their abusers and seek retribution they deemed commensurate to the offences. In exchange, the innocent would be allowed to relocate to Sanctuary.

It had not taken long for mob rule to subdue the remaining Slavers and subject themselves to accusations of the formerly enslaved.

As I had assumed would be the case, the overwhelming number of accusations were leveraged towards surviving male Mountain Orcs with the Taskmaster Class, although there were a few females as well. The victims were not just restricted to those kidnapped from the nomads and Stone Well, but from within the Iron Hills tribe itself as well.

As I had feared would be the case, slavery had been deeply rooted in their culture, normalised to the point that most of the enslaved Iron Hills tribespeople refused to nominate their abusers. This only made me feel even worse as the accusations continued throughout the day. Sexual assault and abuse had been commonplace, something I should have expected but perhaps hoped wouldn’t be the case.

The overwhelming number of accusers that would step forward wanted blood, and by the time I was done listening to the final accusation, I held no regrets in giving it to them.

Those who remained, predominantly women and older children, numbered two hundred and seven in all. Surprisingly, a single Slaver had survived unaccused and even vouched for by a number of the erstwhile accusers despite a prevailing negative reputation being held by most of the former Slaves. To hear the excuses made on the Slaver’s behalf, the opinions of both sides made sense.

The SlaverTargan, like most of the males in his tribe, had been pressed into taking the Taskmaster Class and serving under a senior Slaver. This form of apprenticeship actually involved Targan himself being Enslaved to his master and bound to the same obedience as the other Slaves. To hear the Slaves in support of pardoning his involvement, it boiled down to an unlikely character trait. Targan was a habitual liar.

If Targan was told to enact a punishment on a Slave and was not under observation, he would do the barest minimum to qualify the action being taken and then report the task fulfilled. Deliberately cultivating a reputation for excessively violent compliance, Targan was often given free rein to enact punishments as he saw fit. Those punishments in turn were changed by Targan to have the intended victim or victims howl and scream as if dying, only to then tear and stain their clothes with his own blood to complete the illusion of unrelenting brutality.

During these retellings, Targan made no attempts to defend or explain himself, remaining silent throughout. No larger than average for a Mountain Orc, Targan seemed quite young beneath the scarred tattoos common to all the Slavers. However, despite positive testimonies on his behalf, Targan gave the overall impression of acceptance and detachment that left me thinking that perhaps he was still expecting to be killed.

As the only surviving Iron Hills tribesman with an Advanced Class, Targan presented a unique problem. Whereas the surviving Taskmasters can be retrained into Advanced Classes to eliminate their Enslavement Abilities, Targan would need to be taught to unlock a Master Class to accomplish the same. The problem is that the few known Master Classes would be almost impossible to unlock, or would be off-limits anyway.

Ultimately, the only real solution was to ask the humans for the Class abolishing elixir and see if it worked on a Mountain Orc, or even monsters in general. I didn’t even know if they had tested its effects since converting to full monster status themselves.

Kestrel agreed to make the request and seemed somewhat subdued when I voiced my concerns regarding the Elixir.

“So you’re letting him live then?” Clarice asked curiously, “I mean, you weren’t exactly forgiving towards the others.” Despite her laid back attitude, there was an intensity to Clarice’s gaze that made it clear she was more invested in the answer than she was otherwise letting on.

“For now,” I agreed, “It seems like most of the Slavers didn’t really have much choice in what they were made to do-”

“Just like the others,” Clarice interjected with a nod and motioned for me to continue.

“Right-” I agreed but was interrupted by Nadine before I could elaborate.

“Isn’t it enough that the mob didn’t want to tear him apart?” Nadine demanded uncomfortably, “They said he didn’t abuse them unless he had no other choice-”

“And that’s still a crime!” Clarice snapped, “Someone blackmailing you doesn’t excuse you fucking up their life!”

Nadine balked.

“Do you think Targan should die?” I asked warily, hoping to gain more insight into what was upsetting Clarice.

Clarice scowled, eliciting an empathic response from Dhizi.

“There is every chance the reset elixir will prove fatal,” I explained patiently, “So think of this as a reprieve or probation.”

Targan’s uncaring emotionless mask faltered, a momentary flash of confusion and perhaps even anger passing through his eyes before returning to stoic indifference.

A quick glance back at Nadine told me that she had caught the momentary lapse as well.

“Fine!” Clarice snapped, hauling herself up and into Dhizi’s saddle in a single practiced motion, “Nothing good will come of this,” she hissed bitterly and headed for the elevator.

“I’ll, uh, I’ll go see what’s wrong,” Nadine volunteered.

I nodded supportively and watched Nadine run after Clarice. Recalling the previous discussions I had with Clarice regarding her life before becoming an adventurer, an unsettling theory began taking shape in my mind. All the same, I pushed it away. There was too much to do right now, and confirming the theory could prove more damaging than letting it lie.

All of the surviving Iron Hill’s tribesmen needed to be recruited and sent to Sanctuary before the locals began reforming the mob for another session of ‘justice’.

Using the gateway was not particularly different to using mana for my Class Abilities, but it had an alien presence to it that left me feeling like I was in the middle of a vast ocean and clinging to a piece of driftwood. Even with a return token borrowed from one of the Goblins, it only lent the sensation of spying something on the otherwise empty and distant horizon. Activating the mana inside of the gate and directing it towards the specified location initially felt like I was being drawn by the tide, and I felt a small amount of my mana, as well as that within the gateway flowing outwards. However, moments later, a wave of mana came rushing back, flooding into the gateway beneath my fingers and saturating the manastones to their full capacity.

Momentarily lost in the sensations, I barely noticed as the Iron Hill’s refugees were herded into the gateway. Each person that entered the gateway caused its mana to briefly flare before shooting a surge of mana back down the connection to the distant gateway. At first, the mana levels on Stone Well’s gateway remained relatively steady, being refilled almost as quickly as it was drained. However, after a hundred or so people passed through, the replenishment rate began to noticeably slow down.

When the mana of the Stone Well gateway had roughly ten percent left, I gave the signal to stop herding the refugees through the gateway’s portal. With roughly fifty refugees remaining, I decided to house them below the mesa, and have Skrit and the other warriors from Sanctuary stay a day longer to keep watch on them and serve as peacekeepers.

While all this was being organised, a casual review of Faction invitations informed me that the original Settlements along Sanctuary’s southern border had inflated their populations by an average of five or more times their original numbers. Port Gidian had also swollen close to ten times its original numbers, but the shifting numbers amongst the Settlement registries suggested that this was only the case because Port Gidian was serving as a registration and logistics redistribution hub. All told, there were now close to twenty-five thousand Humans in my faction, positively dwarfing the relatively small number of citizens in Sanctuary itself.

I could feel that I was growing closer to my own promotion to Tyrant with every passing moment, a sort of sixth sense I couldn’t otherwise justify whispering the information in the edges of my conscious mind.

Wondering how many people the Asrusian Regent intended to shelter inside of the Hurst Labyrinth, I made a point of organizing a meeting with Kestrel, Drake and Gaile.

The moment I breached the subject, two newcomers immediately took on defensive body language and shot each other worried glances.

“It depends…” Kestrel hedged, immediately earning somewhat panicked glances from her fellow officers.

“Depends on what?” I pressed, a multitude of possibilities running through my mind, few of them being benign.

“Well…” Kestrel briefly looked towards Drake and Gaile before sighing and averting her eyes, “It depends on a few different things…” She delayed awkwardly before taking a steadying breath and renewing eye contact. “All of the villages, and the towns too, if the army can relocate them fast enough,” Kestrel explained apologetically, “In open war, the villages are raided for supplies and most of the people are killed…”

I nodded to show I understood and then motioned for Kestrel to continue.

“Evacuating the towns means our soldiers can abandon them before being overrun, saving their strength without losing men and women in delaying actions to hold off the enemy,” Kestrel added somewhat hurriedly, “Besides the cities, only the castles can stand up to sieges for any real amount of time. So if we can relocate all of the people outside of the cities into the Labyrinth, we can make it that much easier to protect them since they are essentially all in the same place.”

“You mean that the enemy would have to go through Hurst first?” I asked for clarification.

Kestrel nodded.

“How many people,” I asked bluntly, envisioning the third floor of the Hurst Labyrinth in my mind.

Kestrel licked her lips nervously and briefly looked to the others for support, “Conservative estimates, based on the last tax census…Excluding the fortress cities…” She gulped and struggled to maintain eye contact, “Approximately one million citizens are to be relocated to the Hurst Labyrinth…”

The absurdly high number left me stunned for a few moments as my brain began vigorously processing the number into recognisable increments. Despite not being all that into sports, the best comparison my brain arrived at was the equivalent of twenty of my home city’s sports stadiums being sold out for a football or cricket match. The only problem was that these people needed more than a cheap plastic seat.

“One million…” I muttered, still trying to get my head around it. There was nowhere near enough room on the third floor to accommodate so many people. To say nothing of the space requirement, food would quickly become a real issue. Even though the labyrinth would supposedly replace food stocks indefinitely, there would only be so much to go around on any given day.

The three Human officers remained silent, cautiously waiting to see how I would react next.

There was no way a million people would be capable of cohabiting in such a small space, unless… “Your Regent wants to colonize other floors of the Labyrinth.” The awkward attempts at avoiding eye contact with one another were confirmation enough. In hindsight, I should have expected it. I had not exactly been discreet about my intentions to explore the other floors of the Labyrinth and bring more Variants into the fold. It only made sense that the Regent would try and gain an advantage from it. “Regarding this new information, I have an amendment to the existing agreement,” I stated cagily.

Kestrel paled somewhat, but nodded and took out her communicator.

“The conditions and taxation for all Settlements within the third-floor swamp will mirror those of the border Settlements, with the exception of Port Gidian. The previous agreement will extend to new Settlements on the opposite side of the river, and non-capital Settlements on other floors.” I wasn’t negotiating and I wanted that to be painfully clear. If my own forces were going to be outnumbered, then I was going to be damned sure that I secured our position with a higher concentration of promotions.

Gaile and Drake had grown pale as well but seemed somewhat relieved at the same time.

“I’ll let the Lord Regent know,” Kestrel agreed.

“Do you have a general idea…” Gaile momentarily lost her nerve as my attention shifted to rest solely on her, “Ahem, is there a timeframe on your expedition moving to the fifth floor?” Although pale, Gaile had seemingly recovered her nerve quite quickly or was incredibly adept at masking her distress at short notice.

“The portal is probably inaccessible…” I hedged, momentarily allowing my attention to drift out towards the horizon.

Gaile licked her lips and took a half step forwards, “There is always the option of using the primary portal…” She suggested somewhat surreptitiously.

Even before fully realizing what Gaile meant, I couldn’t help but scowl. “The portal monopolized by the Adventurers Guild?” I demanded.

To her credit, Gaile held her ground. “Not in such a direct manner,” she amended diplomatically. “If we borrow one of the stronger teleportation items, then it would be possible to infiltrate a small team into the fifth floor. All we would need is someone who has been there before. So long as the specialist capable of establishing gateways is part of the team, then the portal to the fifth floor being inaccessible no longer matters.”

“And you have ready access to someone who has been to the fifth floor, and the required teleportation item?” I asked somewhat sceptically.

Gaile flinched ever so slightly but was beaten to the punch by Drake, “Aye, both can be guaranteed if you agree to it,” he insisted.

“Fine…” I agreed glibly, “The refugees will be settled in Sanctuary, then we will take the alternate route to the fifth floor. How many people will we be able to take?”

“Excluding the Gateway specialist and yourself?” Gaile asked somewhat uncertainly, “Perhaps two others?”

That seemed painfully inadequate considering a Settlement would need to be established on the other side, requiring a solid day of fending off incursions by wild monsters. “Why not settle the first two floors? If they were willing to risk discovery by the Adventurers Guild, why not begin with the weaker locations?”

“We are not privy to that information,” Gaile replied suspiciously quickly.

I turned back to Kestrel, “I want answers.” Unwilling to back down, I was committed to waiting until the Asrusians explained themselves.

After a half-hour of communicating back and forth with her superiors, Kestrel finally had an answer. “The Guilds are suspected of high treason. Specifically, collaborating with the Empire to undermine crown authority,” She fidgeted anxiously and sighed. “An open move on any of the footholds would trigger a realm wide response that would consume resources we need for the war. Preparations are being made to excise the Guilds from the Labyrinths, but they aren’t ready yet.”

“So on top of everything else, I am being used for cover?” I asked, already convinced now that it was the case.

Kestrel meekly nodded, “I think that is the general idea.”

It now made a lot of sense why the Asrusians were so keen on living in the swamp. It was such a hostile location that everything short of Port Gidian itself would be hidden by the dangerous environment alone, let alone the monsters that lived inside of it. But that raised another question, “What about Port Gidian? Won’t adventurers see the Settlement and report it to the Guild?”

“The Regent already announced his intentions to establish military bases in the Labyrinth to help support the Adventurers Guild in the wake of the first-floor massacre,” Gaile rattled off loyally, “If it is discovered, then it will not be entirely unexpected. But until then, our enemies expect that the crown would focus on the easiest regions, just as you have.”

Already in something of a bad mood, it took me a moment to calm down and fully process what she was saying. If what Gaile was saying was true, it made sense as a basic strategy of deception. However, there was every chance that they would be discovered on higher floors in the meantime anyway. The only true advantage I could recognise was the possibility of ‘disappearing’ adventurers and mercs in the meantime to weaken the Guild’s positions in the Labyrinth. That gave me an idea, ”Why not take out the footholds?” I asked quietly.

Kestrel, Gaile and Drake all stared back at me in shock.

“If the Foothold for a floor is taken out, just like this one, it provides more time to build up the Settlements without interference or the risk of being discovered, right?” I pressed determinedly.

Drake scratched worriedly at his scarred chin, “That’s true, but stoppin’ word gettin’ out-”

“Assuming it begins like any other raid?” I countered, immediately eliciting confused and worried expressions from the trio.

“Assuming they believe it is a normal raid,” Gaile agreed, “Then once the portal is locked down, it would only be a matter of securing the foothold and taking everyone prisoner. The Adventurers Guild would take at least a week or two to investigate properly, potentially months to rebuild…”

Kestrel remained silent, no doubt understanding that I was not simply indulging in wishful thinking but seriously suggesting an attack against her own people.

“The attacks would need to be staggered to better avoid suspicion,” Gaile muttered, now slowly pacing back and forth. She continued muttering and mumbling to herself until eventually coming to a halt, a conflicted expression taking shape on her face. “What ends a Raid?” Gaile asked stiffly.

Drake seemed profoundly uncomfortable with the discussion but made no signs of leaving.

I actually wasn’t sure. The labyrinth had issued a life or death mandatory quest when founding Sanctuary, but the raid on the first-floor foothold had been completely different. “I don’t know,” I admitted.

Gaile remained quiet for some time, her brow furrowed in concentration. “Could you try the Ability on the third floor?” Gaile asked somewhat hesitantly.

I hadn’t thought of that, “Yes, I probably can.” Just the act of seriously considering the Raid was enough to initiate a small tug against my mana. Concentrating on cutting the flow of mana, I was surprised to find that I could envision what seemed like a barbed iron circlet anchored around my brain. Like crude barbed wire, a small shard of concentrated mana was anchored roughly in the centre of my forehead. Intuitively, I understood the shard of contracted mana was my own manastone, and the immaterial barbed crown circling my brain was a powerful artifact.

Considering Gaile’s question a little further, I realized I could probably attempt a raid against the abandoned foothold here on the fourth floor as well. However, I was rather sick of this floor and its problems and was ready to take the excuse to go back to Sanctuary.

Leaving the soldiers behind, I went looking for Clarice and Nadine in order to let them know of our imminent return to Sanctuary. As I had expected, Clarice still seemed quite ticked off that Targan was being allowed to live. However, as angry as Clarice was, she seemed just as keen to leave the fourth floor as I was.

With Nadine and Clarice locked in a bitter silent stalemate, and Ril and Toofy absent outright, I did not expect to be woken up in the middle of the night.

Staring blankly at the pair of black notifications, it took a few moments for the words to sink in. Targan was dead. He had killed himself.

Getting dressed, I made my way to the elevators and then descended to the staging grounds below and the refugee tents. On my way to the tents, I found Targan’s stiff lifeless body kneeling in the dirt.

A closer inspection revealed a Slave collar drawn tight and biting into the flesh of his throat, the buckle latched through a ragged custom hole punched in the leather. There were no signs of a struggle, no scratch marks or other defensive wounds of any kind.

Kneeling beside Targan’s body as I did my best to confirm the notifications assessment regarding his death. After about an hour or so, I was forced to accept that the notifications had been right. Lifting Targan’s body onto my shoulder, I carried him to the reclamation pits and left him there alongside the other dead Slavers. I tried not to think too much about it while returning to my bed, but the fact that I could so easily put Targan’s suicide out of mind was in and of itself somewhat disturbing.

While gathering the refugees in preparation for activating the migration to Sanctuary, I noticed Clarice balefully scanning the crowd.

“He’s dead Clarice,” I told her impassively.

Clarice looked confused, “What?”

“Targan, the Slaver I spared, he’s dead,” I explained.

Clarice only grew more confused, and more than a little angry. “What do you mean?” Her expression changed to a cruel sneer, “Did one of the women gut him in his sleep?”

I shook my head, “He killed himself.”

Clarice’s eyes grew wide and she opened and closed her mouth in stunned shock.

“He fixed a Slave collar around his own neck and suffocated to death,” I left Clarice behind and took my position in front of the gateway.

“Tim?” Nadine had just finished having a brief yet intense exchange with Clarice, who was now sulking beside Dhizi. “Is it true? Did the Orc kill himself?” The blend of optimism and scepticism in her voice made it clear Nadine was expecting me to deny it.

I shook my head and sighed, “Targan choked himself to death with a Slave colar some time after midnight,” I explained quietly, “I was woken up by a pair of notifications when it happened. He broke the oath, broke the first law, so I figure that’s why it woke me up.”

Nadine’s expression turned grey, “Oh…I…I’m sorry you had to see that Tim…Are you alright? Do you want to talk about it?”

“I’m fine,” I replied somewhat offhandedly, “I’ll let you know if I need to talk about it.”

“Alright,” Nadine agreed reluctantly and purposefully made her way back over to Clarice.

With everyone ready for the crossing, I activated the gateway and waited for everyone else to pass through before stepping through the portal myself.

After a momentary sense of overwhelming existential dread, reality reasserted itself and I found myself standing outside of the Grove in Sanctuary.

Unused to the moisture in the air, I suffered a few moments of hesitation trying to convince my lungs that the air was safe to breathe.

The Mountain Orcs had it far worse than I did, some of them falling to their knees and entering states of extreme distress.

Thankfully, Wraithe and a number of other Surgeons had been on standby in case of potential injuries.

Still somewhat lightheaded, I left the refugees in Wraithe’s care and headed for the Grove. In returning to Sanctuary I had two primary objectives. Firstly, Spending quality time with Lash, and secondly, beginning my new diet of tier ten manastones.

I was halfway up the stairs to the storage room when I suddenly stopped and turned to look back at the fountain.

The Dryads, Hana and her sister Kohana, were both sitting side by side in the shallows of the fountain. The contrast in their appearance was like spring and autumn respectively. Hana was positively brimming with vitality and had long willowy green hair. Kohana’s movements were stiff and filled with hesitation, her hair a tangled mess of thorny briars.

Catching Hana’s eye, she motioned for me to leave, so I nodded to show I understood and then continued on to the storage room.

I could sense the manastones location before even clearing the stairs, that same sixth sense from the previous day homing in on them like a shark scenting blood in the water.

Untying the cord on the satchel, I struggled to stop my hands from shaking. A deep hunger began manifesting itself in the edges of my mind, slowly yet inexorably increasing its pressure on my mental defenses.

Taking one manastone, I all but threw the satchel away, managing the feat only by focusing my attention on the stone in my hand in order to momentarily forget about the others. In the time it took to blink, the manastone was gone. It had disappeared down my throat in one rapid gulp, landed in my stomach and then dissolved.

As the raw mana flooding my system began to recede, the hunger took its place.

Staggering out of the storeroom I tried to focus on getting as far from the remaining stones as possible, to do anything in order to take my mind off of them.

When I came to my senses, I found myself completely out of breath, slathered in sweat and feeling like I had participated in the ironman challenge. If it weren't for Lash’s muscular body beneath me, I would have struggled to understand how I could feel so exhausted. Surrendering to the exhaustion and familiar comfort Lash’s presence provided, I drifted into a dreamless sleep.

Our bodies were so thoroughly entwined that Lash apparently had no choice but to wake me up in order to begin her day.

Blushing profusely as I took in her dishevelled state, Lash grinned lasciviously and made sure to pose as evocatively as possible, flexing her muscles while retrieving her towel and heading for the door.

Accepting the silent invitation, I snatched a towel from beside our bed and hurriedly wrapped it around my waist while following Lash downstairs to the fountain.

Helping each other wash, I hadn’t realized how much I missed bathing until this moment. Minimalist sponge baths might fend off infection and disease, but a bath, even a cold one, provided an opportunity to relax.

“Your stomach is less big,” Lash commented while rubbing her hand over my midsection for emphasis, “But is stronger!” She purred happily, perhaps finding muscles as attractive as I do.

“You think so?” I asked somewhat embarrassed. I wasn’t used to genuine compliments, and sometimes Lash’s broken speech sounded dangerously close to sarcasm.

Lash nodded with an intense look of longing, “You keep growing stronger?” She asked somewhat vacantly, her fingers probing deeper.

“I’ll try,” I agreed eagerly, feeling more than a little intoxicated by the praise and overt attraction.

As clean as we were going to get, we helped towel each other down and headed back to our room in order to get dressed. While Lash seemed unphased, the stench of our room nearly brought tears to my eyes. Lingering only long enough to pull on a set of clothes, I removed the courtesy curtains to our room, almost tore the curtains off the window, and then rushed back outside for fresh air.

Thoroughly amused, Lash leaned in for a kiss before descending the stairs ahead of me, donning a much more form-fitting suit of iron armour than I remembered seeing her in last.

Following Lash outside of the Grove revealed a number of other changes. Many of the monsters were now living in trees like ours, with large networks of rope bridges and walkways connecting the higher floors and providing alternate thoroughfares to the large winding staircases.

Somewhat primitive water wheels were built alongside a new lake, each fed with powerful streams of water from large trees grown for that explicit purpose.

Even the promised library showed signs of progress with teams of monsters working under the instruction of grey-haired masons and architects.

As significant as these changes were to Sanctuary, I didn’t find them nearly as interesting as the fact that my MP had risen by a full point since yesterday. Once I noticed that change it immediately directed my thoughts to the satchel of manastones in the storeroom. I tried distracting myself by visiting the smiths and being fitted for a new suit of armour. The combined effects of the noise and smoke helped for a time, but I still found my thoughts returning to the manastones without provocation.

By midday, I couldn’t take it anymore.

I came back to my senses in increments. Every nerve in my body was on edge and my breathing was ragged and uneven. The satchel with the remaining manastones was clutched tight in my right hand.

“Put. It. Down,” I hissed through clenched teeth. My hand trembled for a moment before suddenly letting the satchel go. Staggering back to the stairs, I felt the compulsion lessen with each inch of distance I gained between myself and the manastones.

Stripping to my underclothes, I settled into the fountain and did my best to clear my mind of all thoughts.

Just like the last time, the cool waters of the fountain slowly dulled and then began stripping away the desperate need for more manastones. For whatever reason, the fountain waters clearly acted as a balm against my mana addiction, perhaps even so far as a detoxing effect. I really had no way of knowing besides the effects I could feel it having on my body.

With a great deal of time on my hands to think things over, I quickly realized that there was no real need for me to do everything on my own. Issuing the quest, I patiently waited and used each passing moment to better centre my thoughts.

“Ahem, er, uh, y-you sent for me?” A young man asked timidly.

Opening my eyes, I found a tall lanky man in his early twenties with short ginger hair and a wispy moustache nervously clutching at a strange wooden backpack. “You are the apothecary,” I reasoned, eliciting a very nervous nod from the young man.

“M-My name is P-Peter…” The apothecary stammered nervously, thrusting out a hand suddenly only to retract it again and awkwardly bow one and a half times instead. “W-What c-can I do f-f-f-f. I-Is there s-something I c-can do? For you! I mean!” Thoroughly pale and perspiring heavily, the poor guy looked like he was on the verge of having a heart attack.

“You can calm down Peter,” I reassured him, “I have some questions for you, and possibly a task as well, depending on the answers.”

Peter nodded stiffly but didn’t seem to calm down all that much.

“What do you know about addiction?” I asked, deciding to keep things simple to begin with.

To my surprise, Peter knew a great deal. Far more familiar with addiction both as an abstract and a consequence of actions, it turned out that apothecaries’ training required them to master a number of treatments to counter addiction of different degrees. Once Peter explained the reason for this requirement, it felt incredibly obvious. Most of the rough and ready combat drugs used by soldiers and adventurers had medleys of addictive ingredients and compounds that would otherwise render the combat drugs worthless without available antidotes to dramatically lessen or break the addictive properties.

Unfortunately, after explaining the nature of my problem as best I could without revealing the fact that I was an Awakened, Peter was initially at a loss as to where to even begin treating my otherwise unique condition. It wasn’t until explaining the effects the fountain had on combating the compulsive effects of the addiction that Peter seemed somewhat optimistic.

“It is possible that the manastones contain certain impurities,” Peter mumbled, frantically writing notes in a small notepad, “And you said that the compulsive behaviour was triggered with weaker manastones?”

“It isn’t nearly so bad, unless I take more of them,” I clarified, “But otherwise yes,” I agreed.

Peter nodded and continued scribbling away. “It is rare, but sometimes an underlying condition causes different reactions…” He mumbled to himself while making additions to earlier notes.

Staring somewhat blankly in Peter’s general direction, I realized that he was almost certainly onto something. Just the same as how someone might not produce the correct enzyme due to a birth defect or evolutionary quirk, it was entirely possible that Awakened lacked a regulatory hormone to enable healthy ingestion of manastones. Without it they would be almost guaranteed to enter a brutal cycle of addiction, predation and violent mood swings.

This raised a couple of very uncomfortable questions. Were Awakened made defective on purpose? Or did the defect make them into something they were never intended to be?

Tasking Peter with finding a way for me to compensate for the assumed defect, I decided that I would take my next manastone along with copious amounts of the Grove’s mana infused waters.

Peter promised to do his best and made sure to take large samples of the fountain water as well as an armful of mana flowers before leaving the Grove with a manic grin on his face and a literal spring in his step.

Once I was sure the last of the manastone’s lingering effects had abated, I left the fountain and joined in on a training exercise taking place on the training fields. Just like the tournament grounds of Stone Well, Sanctuary’s training grounds had been changed to represent a more varied environment so the warriors could engage in more effective wargames.

After watching and participating in one such wargame, which fundamentally equated to capturing the enemy flag and returning it to a specified location, I decided to enact a competitive tournament that would pit four teams against one another simultaneously. I wanted to know if the relative safety of the game could be offset with more substantial odds.

In addition to capture the flag, I began putting together the rules for a last man standing battle royale. Since technically each participant would be fighting every other participant still remaining in the competition, everyone involved should technically be awarded a decent chunk of Exp. The problem was whether the Exp earned was worth the beating, and that would vary wildly based on the combat capabilities of those involved. Theoretically, weaker participants stood to gain much more than those who were stronger, which was weird but made sense in that the stronger participant could just go on a hunting expedition and spend a whole day killing monsters rather than getting beaten down and then spending an entire day recovering.

I was still lost in my musings when I returned to the grove. And just like the previous evening, Hana and her sister were sitting in the shallows of the fountain.

Not wanting to intrude if I wasn’t wanted, I waited until I was sure Hana had noticed me and was certain I hadn't missed any signals telling me to back off.

“Hello Tim, it has been quite some time since we last talked,” Hana motioned to place a short distance away in the fountain.

“It has been,” I agreed and sat on the edge of the fountain by where she had indicated, “Are you both alright?” The question felt inadequate to express the dozen or so questions I would have preferred to ask instead, but Hana was somewhat tense and had an aura of fragility that I found worrying.

“We will recover,” Hana sighed, “In time…”

“If there is anything I can do to help,” I offered, “Just let me know.”

Hana nodded before taking a deep breath and locking her eyes with mine, “The Destroyer is dead and gone, destroyed,” she sighed and shook her head at the unintended pun, “My sister lives, but her scars run deeper than my own. We just need somewhere quiet so we can grow strong again.”

“You made the Grove Hana. So far as I am concerned, you and your sister are entitled to stay here as long as you wish,” I insisted.

Hana nodded and the corners of her lips tilted into a small smile, “Thank you, Tim, we will not forget this.”

“No worries,” I grinned and then got to my feet.

Hana gave me a curious and slightly perplexed look.

“Just something we used to say back where I am from,” I explained with a chuckle, “It’s like saying you're welcome or think nothing of it.”

Hana nodded in understanding but still smiled when I left.

Careful to guard my thoughts while passing the storehouse while making my way up the stairs to my room, I sincerely hoped it wouldn’t take long for Peter the apothecary to devise something to lessen the effects of the compulsions.

Not at all comfortable with the idea of losing control again, I sincerely hoped that Peter would be able to find at least some small means of tipping the balance in my favour. Then again, if he could counter the addictive qualities entirely, that would change just about everything…

*****

Excitedly clearing his workbench, Peter then very carefully deposited the container of Grove water and the pile of mana flowers onto the open surface and then sent one of his assistants to request manastones for the experiments.

Wanting to keep things simple at first, Peter then brought out his best mortar and pestle and very carefully rendered a small portion of the mana flowers, stem and all, into a fine paste. Transferring the paste into a glass vessel, Peter then filled a second glass vessel with Grove water and set aside a third for the manastones.

While waiting on the manastones, Peter began preparing more specific variations, taking special care to thoroughly clean the mortar and pestle between each use. Possessing no other inherently magical ingredients, Peter set about preparing the remedies and antidotes used to counter other known addictions, as well as laying out the active ingredients to further experiment with later.

“Maester, I have the manastones!” Zix called from the entry hall, her clawed feet marking her progress towards the preparation room. Like the entire situation Peter found himself in, the Daemon had taken some getting used to, but had proven truly advantageous to his work. Covered in scales like those of the Swamp Lurkers, Zix’s otherwise slight frame was heavily resistant to exterior harm. Combined with her ability to hold her breath for up to an hour at a time and shield her eyes with translucent eyelids, Zix made for the perfect research assistant.

In Peter’s relatively short time within Sanctuary, Zix had already saved his life by carrying him to the Surgeons when an experiment produced a poisonous gas and nearly killed him. Seemingly unphased, Zix had reportedly just picked him up and ran him to the hospital before returning to the lab and cleansing the room.

The Goblins and Serpent-Kin were better than Peter had expected them to be, but they were nowhere near as indispensable as Zix. For the most part, Peter had them making soap and simple remedies for the Surgeons, not that they were complaining. In fact, they were incredibly grateful to Peter for the privilege. It had taken some time for Peter to properly adjust his expectations from the competitive world he had left behind and properly consider the meaningfulness of the tedious tasks he once despised.

Already fluent in the continental script, Zix was writing temporary labels for each of the glass vessels so they would not be confused for one another throughout the experiments. “This is to help the Overlord, yes?” The scaly Daemon asked excitedly, apparently already familiar with the Ogre’s condition.

Peter nodded, “He has spoken of this before?” He asked curiously.

Zix nodded enthusiastically, “It is the reason for the rule.”

It took Peter a few moments to realize what the Daemon was referring to. “Wait…That rule? You mean the one where you aren’t allowed to take more than one manastone a day without express exemption by himself or a designated representative?” He asked incredulously.

Zix gave him a warning look that lasted all of a fraction of a second, easily more than long enough for Peter to realize he was straying out into dangerous territory. “It is not without reason,” she added, “my kind who have been testing the limits, deliberately and otherwise, have felt similar urges. But this involved many times more manastones.”

Forgetting the earlier warning as his curiosity got the better of him, Peter pulled out his notebook and quickly jotted down Zix’s anecdotal evidence. If it was possible for anyone to become addicted to manastones even without a preexisting sensitivity or vulnerability, then it was perhaps quite prudent to enforce the rule in order to avoid a tragedy. Peter’s apprenticeship had involved memorizing the horrors of untreated addiction, and he was in no hurry to see what an addict of manastones would do when the nearest sources of their fix lay inside the heads of those around them.

With the experiments all prepared, Peter, Zix and two of the most trusted assistants began carefully combining the various ingredients into small batches, With only low-grade chemical reactions taking place, Peter found everything rather anticlimactic.

The two simplest experiments could be excused, consisting only of a whole mana stone submerged in Grove water and the same again with the single variation of the manastone being crushed first. Neither manastone showed signs of reacting with the Grove water, which Peter found quite disappointing. A part of him had expected a similar chemical reaction to lime being introduced to water, but he supposed the manastones hadn’t been heated, so that had been an unrealistic expectation to begin with.

Contrary to Peter’s own dissatisfaction, Zix seemed quite excited. “The two sources of mana are blending together!” She pointed emphatically at the crushed manastone fragments sitting at the bottom of the vessel of Grove water.

“Are you sure?” Peter asked curiously, pulling out a special magnifying lens normally restricted to jewellers and gem carvers, so he could get a closer look. Aware that the Daemons could sense mana in a way he could only dream of, Peter still held out hope that he might catch a glimpse of something. After staring intensely for a full minute, he finally saw it. Or, at least, Peter saw the consequence of the reaction. One of the small fragments had shed an even smaller particle into the surrounding grove water.

Repeating the experiment with the myriad of other combinations had similar results regardless of additives. That was until the addition of the pulped mana flower was added to the grove water and mostly dissolved manastone. As Peter slowly stirred the strange coloured slurry, he noticed a slow change in the consistency and Zix confirmed that the mana inside of the flower pulp was being broken apart in a similar fashion to the manastones. Wanting a closer look, Peter leaned down and pulled out his jeweller’s monocle. However, moving his face so close to the vessel made Peter suddenly feel lightheaded, and before he could react, his head slammed into the vessel and sent sheds of broken glass flying as the liquid inside splashed over the table and onto his clothes.

Dazed, Peter was only vaguely aware of Zix pulling him away from the table and pulling off his contaminated apron, clothes and mask.

“Call a Surgeon! Quick! Peter has a bad cut on his forehead!” Zix called out worriedly to the attending assistants.

Despite the blood running down his face and almost rendering him blind in one eye, Peter was still too shocked at what he was seeing to be able to react. The world had become a rainbow of ever-shifting colours, and at their centre, blocking the majority of his remaining vision was a small list of notifications. Unable to focus, Peter couldn’t read them, and he was in no state to ask Zix to do it either.

Drifting into unconsciousness, it took all of Peter’s flagging willpower to make out a single word before succumbing to the darkness. Alchemist. With no idea what the word meant, Peter felt somewhat cheated.