CHAPTER FOUR-HUNDRED FOUR

I didn’t expect so many people to show up. We didn’t exactly give a whole lot of time, so I was expecting the people who would want to be there would mostly be locals. Considering how many are nobles… it’s probably the Earl’s doing.

That tickles my paranoia a bit, but I probably should have expected something like this. I don’t think it’ll mess with the plan, though it is keeping Zorro and Cappy busy. I’d say it’s a good 60% chance they’re here for the Earl to gloat to, and to provide witnesses for when he tries to accuse me of being murderous.

Hmm… closer to 90%, but I think there’s a lot of overlap in the percent chance they’re here for him to use as muscle or other leverage for his own schemes. They can definitely be more than one thing at once. Still, so far, they’re mostly just doing noble things, having balls and stuff at the mayoral manor. Much as it grinds my gears, with Rezlar ‘dead’, the Earl would be the one in charge of the place until he appoints a new mayor.

Miller must have the patience of a saint to be putting up with all of them right now.

Still, the nobles aren’t the only ones showing up. Apparently, Kennith is in town, too. He hasn’t officially stopped in to introduce himself to me, though he has gone in to visit Tarl and them, as well as Olander. If I had to guess, he’s going to be here on Order’s behalf. If so, he’d be staying away from me for propriety’s sake. If he has anything he needs to tell me, I’m sure he could slip something through the shortcuts. Or Order could give me a popup. Neither has happened just yet, so it’s probably best to just treat him like any other funeral guest for now.

The army is being pretty wary as well, which makes sense. The Knight-Captain knows Rezlar is fine, but he can’t just tell the troops that, can he? For now, the war games are on hold. I’m just glad the rank and file don’t seem to want to get any kind of revenge for Rezlar. They’re certainly not happy about what happened, but they seem to be willing to wait for whatever the orders are going to be.

But priests, nobles, and the army aren’t the only ones reacting to the news of Rezlar’s death. Delving has definitely declined over the last few days, with delvers sticking to the safest areas. Even then, the gatherers make sure to have full escorts when possible. With the Calm Seas boycotting me, that leaves things only to the Slim Chance. Mana is a bit tight, but I’m still in the positive, and I don’t really have any other major plans right now, so I’m mostly just waiting for reports to read.

It’s probably not healthy to be staring and waiting so hard for an update, but there’s not a whole lot else to do right now!

Poor stupid Thedeim has to be defensive for now, uncertain about what all’s going on. A lot of the regular delvers definitely recognize something weird is going on, and honestly, I think that’s more the reason for them to stay away than the supposed death of the mayor. Everyone knows dungeons have body counts, and I think deep down, most people expected I already had a couple, just not anyone they knew.

But me acting differently than usual has a lot of delvers deciding to stay home until they understand what’s going on. For the civilian classes, the risk isn’t worth it. I’m looking forward to them returning, though, and seeing my new spawners. The poppers and compies are still a secret, which means Doppler and Sue are, too.

Sue is taking it better, I think. She seems to have already decided her place, in fact, and has been joining Rocky and Fluffles with their spars, though with a different focus. While none of my scions really ignore defense, I wouldn’t call any of them tanks. Or I wouldn’t have, before Sue.

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She’s focusing a lot on defensive abilities, and I think she has a lot of potential. Physically, she’s a T-Rex, so she can take a beating, and that’s before the abilities I made sure to give my dinos. She’s also learning to use her affinities for defense, and Rocky and Fluffles are already starting to mimic a few of her techniques themselves.

She’s still perfecting it, but her attempts to parry with gravity are very cool to see in action. She first tried to block with it, but the mana needed to generate that kind of acceleration makes it not really viable. Fluffles could do it, but the inefficiency offends him too much for him to even try. But a parry is more about redirection than obstruction, and pulling a foe’s attack off course is a great way to protect yourself.

She’s also experimenting with fate, which is interesting. It makes me think of… like the opposite of Yvonne’s True Shot, deliberately taking a hit in the best possible place for it to reduce the damage, instead of basically being a guaranteed critical. I’d almost say she’s forcing minimal damage rolls and being immune to crits, but I don’t think that’s how things work. Either way, it’s a cool use of fate, and with her natural toughness, it’s a very viable way to keep herself and others safe in a fight.

Doppler, on the other hand, is still finding his place, but I think he’s getting close to settling into it. Slash has been spending a lot of time with him, and the two like to have little jam sessions, I guess would be the best term for it. Unsurprisingly, he likes music, and Slash is more than willing to take him under his wing and help him soar.

It’s also interesting how differently the two do their music. Slash uses his axe for almost all of his music, of course, but he’s also not above using his earth affinity to mimic drums. He’ll also occasionally grab the sounds from the hat directly to actually sing, but it tends to come out pretty distorted. I still think it sounds cool, but I think Slash wishes he could belt out some more pure notes.

Which is kinda where Doppler comes in. He can easily sing, though he took a few days to warm up to it. His first attempts sounded like a bad auto-tune, then a pretty good auto-tune, and now he’s sounding pretty natural. He starts sounding unnatural again when he starts singing a duet on his own, but that’s just because of two voices coming from one mouth. The sound is great, even if watching gives some deep uncanny valley vibes.

I can’t wait to hear him sing like a whole choir on his own. And more than words, he’s starting to get his own musical instrument practice. Slash has definitely helped him with it, and he’s still working on getting the poppers to do what he needs, but he’s starting to get them to act like a keyboard for him. He’s trying to get a traditional piano sound out of it, but I know he felt my excitement when I first heard his synthetic music.

It’s enough to make me want to make him an artifact, too. Slash has his axe of shredding, and I think a helm of the insane delinquent might be the perfect compliment for Doppler. If he can manage to get a light affinity, it’d fit him even better. The kind of concerts he and Slash could do… I’m looking forward to it.

Definitely not until after the funeral, though. As much as I bet the cathedral would have awesome acoustics for that, it’d send the wrong message to play that sort of music until after everything is sorted out.

At least I won’t have to wait much longer… well, for the funeral, at least. Doppler is still sorting himself out and properly finding his musical feet, so a concert is still a ways off. But the funeral will be very soon. Thanks to Tarl, Miller, and others, I know what the Earl is planning to do.

Honestly, it’d be a pretty good plan if Rezlar was actually dead. Grease a few palms, make a big dramatic public announcement, and people probably would buy a dungeon kidnapping people out of curiosity. I could even see a few of the locals buying it, if he presents it well enough, and anyone who hasn’t delved me before would easily be convinced.

Then, after I’m starved and gone, he reveals the thieves worked with me, their contract is an easily-seen dud, and he slides into the ownership of a port town at the start of a boom.

Unfortunately for him, there’s a lot of other things he doesn’t know, like how his son’s alive. The funeral is definitely going to be an eventful one, that’s for certain. It makes me wish I had some popcorn, because it’s almost time for the show.