CHAPTER FOUR-HUNDRED NINE

Olander

This may have been the most stressful ‘vacation’ he’s ever had. He’s going to need some good delves to recover his nerves and vent all this energy from having to do nothing for so long!

Is this what it’s like for Thedeim? Is this what it’s like for the King? If he gets saddled with something like this again, he might retire early. Griping and stress aside, things went… basically perfectly, as far as he can tell.

He has, of course, been keeping the Crown abreast of the situation from the beginning, despite how much he’s been pretending to not notice everything going on. Thedeim acting stupid was a gigantic hint that there was more going on than met the eye, and after the events of the funeral, he’s got a better idea of the odd dungeon.

If it were any other dungeon, he’d be terrified. Playing into Paulte’s preconceptions, acting the fool while maneuvering into position, gathering and distributing his forces with delicate precision… If a murderous dungeon were that clever, the kingdom would be in serious trouble.

But the way Thedeim handled himself in all this makes him hope the King might look to make a few actual treaties with the dungeon. He’s dropped the idea into a few of his reports, but it’ll be up to the King to act on it.

And not only Thedeim, but Rezlar handled the situation marvelously, too. He makes sure to hold nothing back with his current letter for how impressed he is with the young mayor. He even thinks the lad would do well in stepping into Paulte’s place as Earl, though he’s almost positive he’d politely decline. He’s too invested in Fourdock right now to be able to worry about so much more responsibility.

Maybe in a decade or two he’ll have the experience to step into the role, but right now, he doesn’t think it’d be a good fit for him, and he says as much in his report. A temporary steward Earl might be a good idea in his opinion, but he very deliberately keeps his nose out of the affairs of the nobility. If the Crown has a name in mind for the earlship, he’s not going to argue, though he does try to stress that, whoever takes the earldom, it should be someone who will largely leave Fourdock alone.

Even if said new Earl would probably be the only one to leave the place alone if they do.

There’s sure to be a new branch of the thieve’s guild forming soon. Toja herself may have slipped away, but Olander isn’t too worried about her. He’s seen the contract and the deal for assassinating Rezlar. Much as he’d like to be able to destroy the assassin’s guild, they’re far too good at staying hidden for him to be able to strike at. But being hidden isn’t being complacent. Once they get word of an assassination planned without their input, especially by someone in the thieves guild… well, he’ll be surprised if he ever hears about Toja ever again.

He’d put Paulte in the same camp, if it weren’t for the fact that the Crown itself will be seeking punishment for the former Earl. He’s not privy to the full details etched into the elf’s skin, but just the snippets he’s seen make him wonder if Paulte will be drawn and quartered in his coat of arms. The crimes he’s committed look severe enough to warrant it, but he doesn’t know if the King wants to fully abolish the if’Gofnar house and establish a new one.

His gut says the punishment won’t quite be so broad, but it’s hard to say. He’s personally more fond of the headsman’s axe, where capital punishment must be doled out. There’s something to be said for making the perpetrator suffer for their crimes, but he prefers to leave the suffering to the gods to place upon the souls they gain. Better to make it clean and drop them off to those who are not only better suited to know exactly the extent of the crimes, but also better able to balance the scales with a fitting punishment.

But it’s once again the King’s call to make, not his. He can give his recommendation, but he and the King both know he’s willfully ignorant of the politics of the nobles.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

He also makes sure to inform the King, if he’s not already aware, that Thedeim and Order apparently work together. He’s no expert in the divine, but with the cathedral consecrated for Thedeim, Order would only be able to have branded Paulte as an Oathbreaker with his permission. Add in how much the Shield seems to like him, too, and the Crown may need to start sending a few sanctioned priests if they want to negotiate with the dungeon at this rate.

He has no idea how that sort of negotiation works. He tries to stay out of the politics of nobles, and that goes doubly so for the divine. If he’s lucky, it’ll stay that way… even if, come to think of it, he might be part of any negotiations with Thedeim. The dungeon never made a big deal about being treated as a dungeon. He’d hope for good luck in not having to negotiate with him as a deity, but if he’s told to negotiate anything, his luck will have already run out.

On the bright side, he could have a rematch with Rocky… though if he doesn’t go challenge the zombie soon, he’ll probably need to wait until next year. He does still need to inspect the dungeons around the capital to ensure they’re still behaving as expected. The Royal cemetery is always a relaxing delve, the toybox and it’s fey always quiet and peaceful. The Capital Sewers is comfortably boring, despite how it straddles the line between toybox and belligerent. He should push to classify it as cooperative again, even if it means more paperwork for him. It might not fit the conversational definition of the word, but as the industry term, it fits. It doesn’t care about delvers, it just wants to process refuse. If a delver falls in, that’s their own fault for getting processed.

And the Horlon dungeon. He smiles at the thought of delving the large textbook example of a belligerent. The training that Thedeim gives is invaluable, and the fight with Rocky is one of his personal favorite victories, but there’s just something about actually having his life on the line that makes him look forward to getting back to his duties.

Though speaking of training, he makes sure to restate how beneficial it’s been to the army to train with Thedeim. Most of the military doesn’t take the risk of training in dungeons, only sending soldiers to a few specific dungeons to gain some levels once their training is complete. The attrition is just too high with most dungeons.

But with little else to overtly do all day, he’s spent a lot of his time watching the war games between Thedeim and Knight-Captain Ross. At first, they went very poorly for the elf and his soldiers, with Thedeim unleashing harmless pranks with each victory. He still doesn’t know why that particular song is supposed to be an insult. He finds it quite catchy. Maybe the lyrics would explain it, but Slash prefers to keep to instrumentals.

It would probably be a good idea to keep an eye on the command staff as well as the soldiers once they get reassigned, though. Not that he expects any of them to turn on the King, but rather he wonders if they might develop new class advancements thanks to Thedeim’s influence.

By now, he’s certain the Crown is aware of the fact that the Legionaire Paladin and Ice Sage are from Thedeim, though the latter isn’t exactly being spread by a major deity of the land just yet. He probably knows about the Teamster by now, too, though he doesn’t know if that class has started spreading just yet, either. He should try to interview the kobold… or have the King send someone more versed in classes do it. He’s only really versed in classes that hit things, not the underlying rules at play with the whole system. He would have said it was impossible for Hauler to advance, but he would have apparently been wrong.

He can also feel one more new class, though his gut is being vague about it. He can tell something clicked not long after the funeral, but nobody else seems to know anything. If he didn’t have Fate affinity, he’d brush it off. As it is, he’s pretty sure it’s one of Rezlar’s friends, but since he’s not getting a feeling of disaster, he’s content to let whoever it is keep their secret.

He sets his quill in the inkwell for a moment as he takes a few minutes to think, checking if there’s anything he’s forgotten. He might need to do another delve before he goes, just to have as much information about Thediem as possible, but that’s probably all there is left?

He checks over his report and shakes his head at how rambling and wandering it is. He probably spends as much on ink and parchment as any scribe with how often he has to rewrite and reorganize, not to mention all his notes. He’s pretty sure he spends more than Tula, at least. He smiles at the thought of her in the library for the Slim Chance, sitting at her desk with some book or another in front of her, the bees idly buzzing around.

He takes up his quill and a fresh parchment to write a more organized report, glad he won’t need to tell the King about his personal affairs in something like this. Oh, he’ll probably still end up telling him, but with his voice rather than in writing. He’s an incorrigible gossip when he has the time. Olander forces his mind back to the task at hand, though his lips twitch in a smile as he writes the new report.

He can jot down his gossip notes later, not that he’s likely to forget to talk about Tula when given the chance.