Chapter 22

Inquisitor Baera looked up as a fist hammered on her office door. She frowned and put her pen down beside the reams of paperwork she had gradually been working through.

“You may enter.”

The door opened and a girl slumped through breathing hard. Her blonde hair was a tangled mess and lank with sweat. She looked as though she had run to her office from wherever she had come from. Judging from her appearance she was an active adventurer of the dungeon. Not that informative considering the town was built to service one. What was more curious was the huge patch of hair that appeared to have been ripped from her scalp leaving an angry red bleeding welt behind.

Baera leant to one side and rested her chin on her fist as she eyed the girl.

“Girl. What makes you think it wise to come to me in a state like this. You’re so out of breath you can barely get a word out and you look like you’ve been in a fight with a Barber’s wife.”

The girl shook her head and then seemed to steady herself. “I want to report a problem. Something new.”

“Please, go on. I am just in complete suspense to hear this,” said the Inquisitor so dryly that it made deserts appear as oceans.

The girl seemed to realise just who she was speaking to and cleared her throat awkwardly.

“Uhm, Right. I was on a trip into the dungeon, part of a slaving team that liked to focus on minor tribal monsters like Goblins-”

“To the point girl.”

“S-sorry. We were on our return trip when we came across a monster none of us had ever seen before. At first I only saw a glimpse of a shadowy figure, but later I saw it in full. It looked sort of like a bipedal wolf gone feral, with yellow eyes and black fur completely drenched in blood. Our team leader decided that he didn’t want us to fight it and so we avoided it and went up two floors of the dungeon.”

“I hope that there is more to this story than just a sighting or I will have you cleaning out the stables for a month for wasting my time.”

“Yes! There’s more. We made camp in east quadrant and thought we were safe but soon after we had gone to sleep the creature attacked and set our slaves free. It killed our Hobgoblin scout and then killed the leader of our team, a powerful Aeromancer. But what came after was why I came here.”

She took a deep breath.

“The black furred monster attacked me, I fought back, and then it spoke to me. It told me that it used to be someone I knew, a Human.”

Baera leaned forward, her brow furrowing.

“I, or rather a prior group that I was with, were given permission by the town’s ranker to kill that person. We took him out to the dungeon for ease of disposal, killed him, and threw his remains in the big lake on the bottom floor. The black furred creature knew of this and named everyone who was there, it claimed that it was that Human but returned from the dead and turned into a monster. He promised revenge, I only escaped due to my new unique magic.”

“Curious. It’s true I don’t know of any monster or species with that physical description and I know more than most. A human leveler that became a monster?”

“Yes! That’s the thing, it sounds insane, but it’s real! He had some strange ability that allowed him to consume and absorb things, I didn’t get to see what he was capable of but he let slip that it’s linked to growth.”

“And an ability I have also never heard of. Hrmm, if you did not seem so sincere I would suspect you were making this up.”

“Never! I would never lie to an Inquisitor, only a fool would do such a thing!”

“Quite. Very well, your name?”

“It’s Eliza. Uhm, t-there’s a reward right? It’s just I recently got a special Class and I lost my new water staff for th-that and you know how, they’re uhm, expensive.”

“Eliza. You did well to come to me. Inquisitors place high priority on seeking out dungeon anomalies before they become an issue and nipping them in the bud. If I can confirm your words, then yes, you will receive an appropriate reimbursement. However, I will command you not to breathe a singular word about this. If this truly is as you say, a leveler somehow become monster then this is a... highly confidential matter. Now go and get yourself cleaned up and leave this with me.”

The girl hesitated, bowed, and then fled from the Inquisitor’s presence.

Baera rubbed her chin. “A shadowy monster? Where did I read that recently?”

She rifled through some minor reports at the side of her desk and pulled a paper free, a single sheet. A statement on the demise of half of a team of adventurers to a horde of Shroomlian monsters. Nothing unusual for this dungeon. Idiot levelers got themselves killed all the time. What was curious was that one of the survivors seemed convinced that they were being stalked by a black furred shadowy bipedal thing, and that it had caused the shroomlians to swarm and attack the team. An interesting data point perhaps grounding this Eliza girl’s story. She noted that the two survivors of the team were currently accusing each other of having murdered the team’s healer. She put the report back from where she had retrieved it.

She tapped her pen on the table thinking.

An Inquisitor had many responsibilities as the Queen’s eyes and claws, ensuring that a dungeon didn’t become a problem was one of them. There were towns and cities wiped off the map when particularly powerful monsters escaped a dungeon, or a monster species had bred out of control and spilled out over the land.

Making up her mind she put her pen aside and stood from her desk. She opened her armoire and pulled on her favourite black pauldrons over her blouse and then affixed her black vambraces to her arms, then, at last, her favourite black gauntlets. High quality and lightweight, they were decorated around the edges with gold filigree, a gift from her mother. She affixed a ruby pommelled longsword to her hip, taking care to arrange it so it could be withdrawn with ease, a habit borne from long practice.

She checked herself in the mirror. A Human face, well, mostly, a pair of black Dragon horns emerged from atop her white wavy hair, a mark of her distant Dragon bloodline. She considered herself blessed to have even this small mark, her parents, both Human, had none as the mark was rarer to manifest so many descendants later. The horns gave her an imposing figure, not that she wasn’t already intimidatingly severe. She hummed contentedly with her appearance. Her parents had teased her about her vanity, she personally felt it appropriate as Dragons were known to be vain.

She spun on her heel and her armoured boots clicked as she left her office.

She snapped her fingers as she passed through, the sound like a whipcrack that hurt the ears. A red-haired human girl who had been napping in a chair in the hallway squeaked and jumped to her feet looking around in fear.

“Come Jilli. We’re going to the dungeon to look into an anomalous report. Maybe you can learn a thing or two.”

“Y-yes Inquisitor!” said the girl, flinching to attention and then hurriedly following after the striding Inquisitor as she blew past.

“Uhm, will it be dangerous? I have my sword, b-but.”

“I do not know, It may be nothing, though my instinct tells me something is afoot. It has been a while since the Queendom has seen a serious monster emergence from a dungeon, I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Of course Inquisitor!”

The pair clumped downstairs and emerged into a bustling room where scribes working under the Queen talked and exchanged paperwork. Baera strode up to the largest figure in the room, a Minotaur lazing on a chair, his hooves on the table. Several empty beer mugs lay strewn around him and a Goblin slave held a freshly filled one ready as the minotaur worked through his current one. He burped and gave the Inquisitor a sour look.

“About that time huh? Coulda given me some warning, I ain’t ate yet.”

“Then choose breakfast over beer next time you insufferable moron.”

“Oh! Never! The nectar of the gods fuels this body of mine!”

He belched loudly and Jilli covered her nose and mouth in disgust.

“You won’t be receiving coin to pay for said beer if you don’t get to your hooves and move Drumus.”

“Yeah yeah.” grumbled the Minotaur. He slugged back the last of the beer he was drinking and then grabbed the second beer from the Goblin slave causing her to stumble forward. He then chugged that to the dregs and belched lazily once more. Then with more effort than was probably warranted he slid his hooves off the table and climbed to his feet. He picked up a well worn mace from where it lay by his chair.

“Roight, I’m ready. Let’s go fuck up whatever needs fucking up.”

The Inquisitor set her lips in a line. “We need to acquire one other before heading to the dungeon. Come.”

The Minotaur nodded then paused. “One sec.” He clubbed the Goblin slave over the head and she fell to the ground limp. He then grabbed her by a leg and picked her up in the air.

“Oh, Mister Drumus, Minotaur sir? Is- is that legal?”

“Don’t worry yourself lass, it’s just a rental,” said the Minotaur stomping out the building after Baera, Goblin dangling in hand.

They passed by a wooden slave bin with the words ‘Temp-slave drop off’ marked on the side and he tossed the Goblin inside and closed the lid.

“See, their problem now.”

Jilli raised a hand as though to protest but the Minotaur ignored her and stomped after Baera

Baera stalked through the streets, passing pedestrians leaping to get out of her way when they noticed who she was. The trio arrived at an inn and without preamble she kicked open the door.

The noisy interior went silent as she stepped inside and looked around, a hundred eyes watching her in surprise or fear, beers halfway to mouths, coins held in the air mid-transaction.

Her violet eyes came to rest on one large table covered in cards and coins. Her eyes narrowed seeing a shirtless Halfling lying atop a mound of coin, a pipe in his mouth.

“Ah, shit.” said the Halfling.

Baera snapped her armoured fingers causing half the inn to flinch and Drumus charged toward the table. The Halfling tried to scramble away but a large meaty hand came down and grabbed him by the seat of his pants and yanked him into the air.

Baera beckoned and they began to leave. She paused at the door and glanced back.

“As you were.”

The inn moved back into motion and a number of fights started over the coin the Halfling had left behind.

They stepped back into the street and continued.

“Hey hey hey! What’s the big idea you can’t just kidnap me!”

“You know as well as I do Fosco that you are under contract to the Queen. If you do not wish to have your debauchery interrupted then I suggest you write a letter and have your contract voided. For the moment however you are mine and I am not pleased with your previous convenient disappearances whenever an excursion into the dungeon is planned. I suggest you make an example of yourself or I will use my superior level to end you. No one will stop me and I will face no repercussions.”

The Halfling quit struggling and gulped.

“Good. Now here we are.”

The group pulled into the towns stable, a huge thing due to the number of travellers who came to try the dungeon.

It only took a moment for a simpering stable master to find the Inquisitor and offer the group their best horses. Five minutes later the group galloped out of town and rode through the surrounding forest until they came upon the Inquisitor’s intended destination, the dungeon.