Dungeon Status:

Tier 2

Level 32/100

Heart 3,686,400/3,686,400

Experience 276,843/921,600

Mithril 5,560

Adamantine 3,202

Mana 6,420

Poison, Greater 500

Deadly Scorpion Venom 51

Quest: Kill 10 city dwellers.

Quest: Half populate your dungeon: Workers 46/66 | Monsters 52/67 | Traps 117/162

Quest: Reach level 50.

"The best thing about being a dragon, Elanor, is that when people get in your way, you can ignore them." Penelope stepped outside the council building with Elanor Fitzgerald on her back. "Do you want to know how we do that?"

"Y-Yeah."

"Hold tight," Penelope said, spread her wings, and launched herself into the sky the moment the woman complied. Harold and the two guards immediately protested, but Travis wasn't sure if they were aware how little their protests mattered to someone who could fly.

Hearing Elanor's squeal of shock turn to a laugh of pure joy brought a big metaphorical smile to Travis' similarly not-actually-existing face. "You saw that?" The purr coming directly from someone in his head told Travis all he needed to know about Felna's thoughts on it. "Brayden is on his way. He's backing Fife up against those two bodyguards. I described them to her, and she sounded a mix between annoyed and excited."

"What you did, Travis, was invite Fife to a party and ask her to bring some friends." Felna's purring didn't decrease as she spoke. "She is irrepressible. Beating her in a fight is never a victory, since it will encourage her to fight harder. I feel sorry for those goblins in their dungeon."

Travis noticed Fife was moving, walking to stand in the doorway of the council building. Through several other pairs of eyes, he got to watch her stop and turn, then slowly lean sideways against the door jamb. The building groaned a little at her weight.

"I don't often push my weight around in the city, but the people inside have asked me to keep the peace here. You can wait out here and talk, if you want?" Fife's tone was even, but Travis could definitely feel her eagerness to act.

"You idiots. It's only a lizard kin. Shove it aside!" Harold glared not at Fife, but the doorway she was standing in.

"Brayden, Luddy, and Wild are almost there. Jack was busy in the library, and is on his way, but you have Stratus and Tom not far behind the others."

Fife's head perked at Travis' voice. She stood straight up and, as the two guards advanced on her, reached to the shield at her back and drew her sword. "First, I'm a kobold, not a lizard kin. Second, what's wrong with lizard kin? Oh, and third, also a floor boss of a dungeon—the bottom floor of it."

Facing off against something only about two thirds of his height, the guard with the buckler walked up and tried to shove Fife aside. She shoved back and neither made any progress.

Barking a laugh, Fife nodded up at the guy. "Good arm. You'd make a good delver if you got yourself a full sized shield. Does your friend want to try next? You get a big toy if you manage to get me to move."

Travis saw Fife's defense of the doorway from fresh eyes. Two pairs across the street, approaching directly, and another pair that walked right by Harold and the two bodyguards as if they didn't notice the owner. That made it easy for Travis to figure out when Ludmiller had slipped in against the side of the building.

"Fife, Luddy's two feet to your right. If this gets ugly, make opportunities for her," Travis said, giving her the good news.

With the stage set, Travis contacted the only other person he could that'd be able to help. "Northridge?" He felt the presence of the city coalesce around the council building and then focus on the events at the doorway. "These are the compatriots of the spy we'd found. They are trying to bully a young woman into being their tool, and now they want to barge into the council building."

Northridge's focus, Travis could feel, narrowed on the council building and the fight brewing in front of it. "Champion of my walls, come forth and protect your city!"

Jerking upright in his seat, then standing, Brolly Windchime felt power and purpose both flooding into him. The voice in his head was rich and warm, but underpinned with all the solidness of bedrock. He moved around the table of people staring at him, and only when he was approaching the doorway that led outside did he draw his longsword.

"Fife," Ludmiller said, trying to avoid touching her friend, "step to your left two paces right now."

It wasn't like Brayden's shouts, but Fife had plied her trade with Ludmiller enough to trust her words. She took the steps needed and felt a presence move up beside her. When she tilted her head to look up at Brolly, she let out an audible gasp at the flaming sword he carried.

"Who brings violence to the council of Northridge?" Even to Brolly, the sound of his voice was odd. It boomed with power and was almost literally the last thing he would normally have said. With his free hand, he gestured to the two bodyguards. "You. Both of you. What do you have to say for yourselves?"

Pausing, taking stock of the man now facing them, the bodyguard with a pair of swords sheathed them one at a time. "That this job isn't worth what we're getting paid. Harold, you're on your own. I quit."

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Watching his partner walk away, the other bodyguard shook his head and likewise sheathed his sword. "And he's the smart one. Yeah, screw this job."

With the fury of Northridge still boiling inside him, Brolly turned his attention onto Harold. "What about you? Who was your master in all this?" The power in his voice startled Brolly. He'd heard of cities that bestowed their might to various followers of the city, but he'd never thought to feel it himself.

"I-I am the legal representative of the Marquess of West Reaches! I demand you to bring his niece to me at once!" Harold, despite things going wrong, still tried to take the high road by flexing his position.

Words came easily to Brolly. He'd never been much of a politician, even in his time working in the King's Guard, but now he knew exactly what needed saying. "You are far outside your lord's domain. I would suggest you organize a return to it by the end of the day." It was the kind of thing a simple guard could never say. It was an executive order, as if from a lord—which made sense to Brolly now he realized he was a lord. "I'll have you declared outlaw in Northridge at sundown."

Harold wanted to argue further. He could build a dozen delaying arguments in his mind while he worked on something to get Elanor back so he could find his agent, but the look in Brolly's eyes spoke to the conviction of the man. Nothing about this situation was good, so he did the only thing he could under the circumstances and returned to the house they'd been given.

"That—was—so—cool! Hey, can I see what you did to your sword? Does it set things on fire? Can it cut adamantine?" Fife had her own sword back in its sheath and was doing her best to get a better look at Brolly's weapon.

Blinking in surprise as he felt the mantle Northridge had placed on him fade to a more tolerable level, Brolly looked down at his sword. Flames still licked from the steel, dancing in the air. Trusting the magic wouldn't hurt him, he sheathed the sword. "I'll figure that out later. Thanks for stopping those idiots from busting in."

Fife, still wanting to get a look at Brolly's sword, decided that she'd have to employ some strategy to gain access to it. "Eh. Seemed like a good thing to stop. You might want to post actual guards here from now on though. I caught on to some of what happened inside. Do you have everything under control now?"

"Liz decided to take the worst way possible out of this mess. Felna stopped her from getting her first choice of poison up her nose, but the second hit both of them." Running the event back through his mind, Brolly reminded himself to issue a warrant for Liz. "I'll need to go and take care of—"

"Can we spar later? I want to see how well your sword works."

For all Brolly wanted to tell Fife no, he also wanted to see what the effect his sword had gained was, and valued her input on all things to do with martial combat. "I'll see what I can do. With everything going on—and this mess on top of it—I have a lot of boring work to do where I don't get to swing a sword at all." Fife's gasp, a perfect reaction to his joke, prompted Brolly to add, "Exactly!"

"Have you tried hiring an assistant or something? I know Christine had Blake helping her for a while there. Think someone else is now; Blake likes making dungeons." Rolling her shoulders, Fife slipped her shield off her left arm and slung it around to her back and onto a hook there. "There's no reason not to get someone to help."

With the weather growing warmer, wearing a heavy leather duster was less comfortable than Anichka's latest foray south. She wasn't going to give it up, though, since it still did a reasonable job of making her not look like a walking armory. "My Lord?"

Howard Tailor reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Please don't call me that. I told you, I'm just—"

"… just a baron and council member of Northridge, sir." Tammy smirked a little as she said it. "You're too important to sound like we are not offering the right amount of respect."

Narrowing his eyes, Howard asked, "Who told you about that?"

"Stephan gave us both a briefing about how to act around you, outside of Northridge." Anichka trailed her eyes over the other people present. Most weren't nobles, so were waiting further down the hall of petitioners.

"Did he now?" Despite his misgivings, Howard sighed and nodded. "Probably for the best. I—"

"Announcing Baron Howard Tailor of Northridge!"

Taking a breath, Howard turned and followed the sound toward where the announcement had come from. The room was little more than an oversized office. It was furnished with sturdy chairs and a little opulence. The figure behind the huge desk looked up from a ledger and paused as she made eye contact with Howard. Dipping his head forward and bowing, Howard asked, "How are you faring, Judy?"

The young woman he'd known all those years ago, third child of the Earl Sanderson at the time, had been far more carefree than the dignified lady now sitting in the seat before him.

"Howard? Well, well, well. I'd heard there were some new additions to the peerage in my little corner of the kingdom. All it said was Baron Tailor. Take a seat, please." It had been a long day, and though it would make the next longer, Earl Judith Sanderson lifted her head toward her steward. "I'll be spending the rest of my day with the Baron." The man nodded to her, stepped out, and closed the doors behind him. "This isn't a social visit, is it?"

"The last time I checked, Judy, you were third in line? I'm sorry for your losses." Waiting for her gesture to continue, Howard said, "It concerns Far Reach—"

"Shit." Judith's hand threatened to break the stylus she was working with in half. "What did those oafs do this time?" The raised eyebrow pointed in her direction got a groan from her. "My father had built that city up. He'd sent his most loyal knight there to rule, as a retirement gift. By the time we got word he'd died, somehow without his talismans, of some mysterious disease that the churches couldn't cure, some western noble had already swooped in and picked up the pieces."

"They are trying the same thing in Northridge. We have a spy there—that is under a close watch—and we're waiting for them to move-in a noble to act. Things will get dirty for a while, but I can assure you we have this in hand. We are very fortunate to have allies that I trust implicitly." Howard went on to describe the city's relationship with Travis, Breeze, and in particular Stephan.

"That's quite the story. I'd be less inclined to believe it if you hadn't paid for three peerages before most cities quicken their genius loci. You have two guards out there with enough guns on them that my page, who is the son of a gunsmith, wouldn't shut up about them. If he runs away to your city, you will be finding me a new page."

"Well, bringing it back to Far Reach, they are delaying our construction of a rail connection with them. Please wait," Howard held up a hand to forestall any interjection. "We'd like to ask if perhaps Hearthhome would be more amenable?"

It was ludicrous. Judith had been heir at the time her father had instigated the railway expansion to Far Reach, and it had been horridly expensive to obtain the steel needed. For some reason, though, she believed the man before her might be able to pull it off—which is why she laughed.