Rogue Dungeon Four has landed! Chapters one to three exclusively here for you.

The Upstart

Lowen von Reich sat on the throne of the Vault of the Radiant Shield, perched on the hanging dais high above the throne room floor, and watched as a battle unfolded on the illuminated page of his gilt-edged Dungeon Lord’s grimoire. Absently, he tossed and worried a smooth stone in his hand, the glowing rune on its surface cold against his golden flesh. 

On the page, his least favorite hedge mage and thorn in the side, Roark von Graf, faced off against the strongest hero in Hearthworld, a man named Bad_Karma. The pair desperately tried to kill one another in a room rapidly filling with seawater. A few spells and hexes caught Lowen’s attention, but the combatants relied a tedious amount on physical weapons, like peasants brawling in the street. 

“I always said you had commoner’s blood,” Lowen sneered at his former rival. During their days at the Academy together, a snide remark alluding to von Graf’s mixed heritage had always been more than enough to rile him into a fight.

When the hero Bad_Karma ran von Graf through with his billhook and tore out a goodly chunk of the man’s entrails, Lowen chuckled. It was the fulfillment of a fantasy for anyone who had ever met von Graf, and true to form, the hero looked especially pleased with himself. Lowen had missed the beginning of the fight, but knowing that mouthy cur, it had likely been filled with I’m-too-clever insults and a predictable amount of trickery. Two decades of cheating death had turned Roark into a pest of plaguelike proportions. The whole von Graf family had always been snakes, lying in wait to strike at the foot of their betters. And worse, they’d constantly fawned over their sly cheats and schemes as though it somehow elevated them to greatness.

Lowen ran his thumb over the face of the stone, tracing the icy groove of the rune. He knew the truth—it wasn’t cleverness that made one great, but power.

Good riddance to that entire fool bloodline. 

The von Grafs had dug their graves with their own arrogance. Refusing to bow to the Tyrant King’s rule out of some outmoded sense of justice. More like naiveté. Lowen’s family, the von Reichs, had sensed which direction the wind was blowing. As a result of pledging their allegiance to Marek Konig Ustar, they had been granted not only more land and power, but Lowen had been afforded every advantage of education and luxury a mage could hope for. 
Lowen smirked. Before he killed von Graf, he should ask him whether holding to his parents’ foolish ideals had been worth shivering alone in filthy back alleys and fighting strays for the scraps the peasants had thrown out.

The battle in the Grimoire continued to play out, Roark and the hero treading icy water in the cursed room. Predictably, this Bad_Karma, who should have outmatched von Graf and had even struck numerous deadly blows, died with a whimper. Drowned in seawater while Roark transformed into some mer-type creature that looked as if it had come from Traisbin’s old fisherman tales about finfolk.

“You underestimated him,” Lowen tsked, shaking his head at the hero’s idiocy. 
Where a single moderate spell would work on a normal opponent, one should always use two or three vastly overwritten spells against a von Graf.

That was one thing Lowen had learned to avoid from his very first duels with Roark. The von Grafs were worse than cockroaches—Roark in particular—and what didn’t kill them outright only made them craftier. He’d heard similar stories about Roark’s father, who’d made a nuisance of himself time and again. At least that one had had the good graces to die right and proper on Bloederige Noct, the Night of Blood. Not Roark, though. Nothing seemed to properly stomp that one out.

If the battle Lowen had just witnessed was any indication, the mutt was growing too clever for the difference in their levels to subdue him for much longer. Roark was a lowly level 36 Troll, while Lowen and every Ustar in the Vault of the Radiant Shield were at level 99—the maximum available to Malaika Heralds—but Lowen knew he couldn’t rely solely on that to crush Roark. When dealing with a cheat who wasn’t afraid to stoop to commoner’s tactics and beyond, something far more underhanded was required.

Pocketing the rune stone, Lowen stood.

“Darith, mind the throne room,” he snapped at his second in command. His voice echoed through the cavernous chamber and bounced off the shining golden walls and ceilings. “I will return shortly.”

Darith stopped plucking the wings off the Greater Vigilant Gargoyle he’d captured.
“Aye, sir,” he agreed, dropping the porcine creature with a rocky clatter, then taking up a position at the throne room door and pulling out a shining glaive. “Will do.” 

Cruel, useful man, Darith. Strictly muscle, of course, but excellent at slaughtering heroes before they made it into the throne room. Essential for any Dungeon Lord who occasionally had to pop out of the dimension for a bit, and with the added benefit that Darith was too stupid to consider a power grab while said Dungeon Lord was gone.

Lowen sprung from the edge of the hanging dais and launched himself into the air. His wings responded as if he’d been born with them, carrying him in a graceful glide across the throne room. When he first followed Roark to this world, he’d been shocked to find he had transformed into some sort of angelic being with gold skin and wings growing from his shoulder blades. He’d been disoriented and more than a little incensed at the change. After having seen the twisted, demonic creature von Graf had become, however, Lowen had to admit he’d gotten the better shake.

He touched down lightly at the opposite end of the throne room next to a freestanding stone archway shimmering with violet light. 

A fixed portal to Traisbin.

Lowen hesitated before it. 

Most of his young life, he had been taught that portal magick was the most unstable of any magicks. That even with perfect spelling and grammar and the most clear and accurate wording in the world, mages who attempted to pass through them were frequently killed in all manner of gruesome and horrific ways. Even the oldest masters at the Academy had admitted that in the two hundred years since its founding, no one had yet been able to decipher the trick to safe portal travel. And a fixed, stable portal? Such a thing was less than legend. A myth too wild for any to believe.

Except it was no myth at all. 

Marek had learned the secret. Or, perhaps, had known it all along. 

That, more than anything, led Lowen to believe that the Tyrant King—an epithet he was smart enough never to call Marek to his face—was far more powerful mage than any who had come before. Others had been surprised that the man had crushed the entire continent of Terho under his bootheel in five short years, but not Lowen. When one controlled that much power, how could conquest end in any other way?

Though portal travel seemed prevalent and even commonplace here in Hearthworld, it remained a closely guarded secret in Traisbin. If the Rebel Council realized they could transport themselves anywhere at will with hardly any consequences, they could mount an offensive against the Ustari Empire. Marek hadn’t even wanted to send many of his own troops through the portal, concerned some of the brighter ones might work out the mechanics for themselves, but Lowen had convinced the Tyrant King that overkill was the only response for a nuisance like Roark von Graf. Desperate for the return of his World Stone Pendant, Marek had finally relented and sent waves of his mages and soldiers to Hearthworld under Lowen’s command.

Reminding himself that all would be well, but unable to completely avoid bracing for the worst, Lowen stepped into the portal.

An icy breeze ruffled his hair and feathers. His flesh prickled with goosebumps and he shivered involuntarily, but he was otherwise unaffected. There wasn’t even a sudden stabbing headache or twinge of nausea, as was common in even Marek’s perfectly-crafted portals in Traisbin. That was Hearthworld’s stabilizing magick at work.

A moment later, Lowen felt solid stone beneath his boots. The breeze dissipated, and heat suffused his body. He had stepped out of the portal beside the great hearth in the imperial stronghold’s war room. The emerald light from several burung lamps competed with the orange flames in the fireplace, giving the chamber a warm, inviting cast at odds with its brutal function.

“Lowen,” drawled the bored voice of the Tyrant King. “Unless you’ve come to put my World Stone Pendant back in my hand, I very much doubt I’ll be interested in what you have to report.”

Slowly, Lowen’s eyes—dazzled by the violet light of the portal—adjusted to the dimness of the war room.

Before him, Marek stood over an elaborately carved table covered in maps and lit by a trio of green-flamed lamps. A pair of tired looking burung wizards flanked him, and the war chiefs he commanded leaned over the table with him. A strategy meeting, then.
Salt and pepper hair fell back from the Tyrant King’s face as he lifted his chin a touch, piercing Lowen with his pale green gaze.

“Well?” The Tyrant King raised an eyebrow and held out his hand sardonically.

Though most people shrank with fear when faced with that cold, aristocratic glare, Lowen stood calm. He hadn’t fought his way up through the ranks to become Marek’s right-hand mage by cowering. In truth, it was because he was willing to stand tall that he had earned the position. Marek had an overabundance of sycophantic yes-men, more than happy to fill his ears with pleasant, lying whispers. Lowen could count on one hand those willing to risk Marek’s wrath with the hard truth. 

“I will have the World Stone for you soon, your eminence,” Lowen said, careful not to hem himself in with deadlines. Truth was valuable, but where Marek was concerned, it also needed to be tempered with prudence. A truly fine line to tread. “If that von Graf nuisance isn’t launching an attack on our Hearthworld stronghold as we speak, then he’ll be preparing to do so in short order.”

Marek didn’t bat an eye. “Don’t you think you would better serve me there, retrieving my pendant and crushing his attack, than standing here making promises you have yet to fulfill?”

“I came to ask for your leave to use the…” Lowen glanced at the war chiefs and wizards, making it abundantly clear that he thought them beneath this conversation. “…secret weapon,” he finished.

This time, Marek did blink. He smoothed over his surprise quickly, but Lowen had been around the man long enough to catch the heartbeat of uncertainty. Having just lost his precious World Stone—the secret to his universal-law-defying magick—the Tyrant King was afraid to lose another of his most powerful weapons. Lowen didn’t allow his disgust to show on his face, but it was appalling how attached to that trash the man had become in his old age.

“Did you come here to admit that with dozens of my best troops at your disposal you are still too incompetent to accomplish what I sent you to do?” Marek asked. 

Without missing a step, Lowen mentally backtracked and took another path.

“No, your eminence, I came to ask for a tool to prepare a secondary plan in case my first should fail.” Lowen reached into his pocket and ran his thumb over the surface of the rune stone. “I doubt it will, but only fools and zealots leave outcomes to chance.”

Marek gave the smallest of facial shrugs, a sign he approved. He was a pragmatic man above all else.

“Fine, you have my leave to use the weapon if your plan fails,” he agreed, turning back to his maps. “Whatever it takes to return the World Stone and kill that rebel upstart. Painfully.”
Lowen grinned and nodded. “It will be my pleasure.”Page Break


Late Shift Shenanigans  

“Welcome to Taco Bell. Would you like to try our new Baja Blast Twists?” Scott Bayani asked the latest car of stoners to pull up to the Bell’s drive-thru menu.

“Yeah, um… Like, let me get a large number eight with three chicken quesadillas and a party pack of tacos.”

Scott tapped the order into the ancient touchscreen.

“You want those tacos hard or soft?” He wasn’t going out of his way to get it right when he made the order, but he was required to ask.

Snickering came through the headset. “I like all my tacos soft. Real soft.”
Ha ha, great innuendo, dickbrain. “What do you want to drink with that? Bong water?”
Of course, Chaz, the overnight manager immediately appeared, glaring at him in a mixture of disapproval and judgement. Scott rolled his eyes.

“What?” the customer asked, leaning closer to the speaker.

“I said, what do you want to drink with that? We have sixteen different flavors of Mountain Dew, and our monthly special is a suicide of all of them.”

“Ah, sweet! Gimme the suicide.”

Scott jabbed the touchscreen way harder than he had to. “Please pull forward.”

As soon as he’d taken the stoners’ payment, he did an about-face and got to work on their order. It was just him and Chaz tonight because Raeanna had called in “sick,” so he had to work both the drive-thru and the kitchen. Scott probably should’ve been docked for showing up an hour late for his shift, but since they were so short-staffed, all Chaz had been able to do was get all sanctimonious and shit. Luckily, the douche couldn’t fire him without permission from the day manager, and Allie had a major lady-boner for Scott. 

Probably why Chaz hated him so much.

While he served the munchies crowd and the occasional out of state plate, Scott’s mind kept wandering back to the party he’d left behind in Hearthworld. The Griefer was still an asswad, but he sure as hell knew how to throw a rager. The mob party been as sick as any of the post-raid guild celebrations Scott had ever been to. That big troll, Kaz, could cook like a mofo, and he kept the booze flowing. Scott snorted at the memory of Randy falling backward over a bench and getting all tangled up in his own wings. Not that he liked the nerd, but it had been funny watching an admin get all sloppy over a couple glasses of virtual wine.

You’d think a level 40 would have better Constitution.

Thinking back, Scott could say without a doubt that going back to Hearthworld was the single best decision he’d ever made. Not only had it been stupidly gratifying to lead Bro_Fo and his train of ass-kissers into the trap that ultimately got all of them killed and hopefully camped by sentient mobs forever, but watching Karma get dead had made Scott’s day. BK should never have crossed him way back when he first wanted to raid the Griefer.

Scott guessed he had helped Roark a little out of compassion or whatever, too. So he was big-hearted and magnanimous and shit. Fucking sue him. The Griefer couldn’t have pulled it all off without him, and unlike Karma, Roark knew how to reward his MVP. Scott hadn’t had time to check the wikis yet, but he figured Greater Vassalhood probably came with all kinds of unique perks and enough Experience to drown a Selkie.

“Bayani,” Chaz droned, snapping his chode fingers in Scott’s face. “Are you with us?”

Scott jerked back to IRL. The quesadilla press was beeping frantically and emitting a stream of smoke as it burned the cheese-filled tortilla inside black.

“Oh. Shit.” He trashed that one and started putting together another to replace it.

“No big deal, it’s fine,” Chaz said in a smarmy voice. “I’m sure the hungry customer doesn’t mind waiting while you remake something that should’ve been done five minutes ago.”

“Be more passive-aggressive about it, Chaz,” Scott said, cranking the press back down again. “That makes it cook faster.”

“All I’m saying is, this is a simple job. If you pay even the smallest amount of attention in the first place, you only have to make something once.”

“Until the next car orders the exact same thing.”

“That’s not the point—”

“Look, Chaz, I’m feeling really attacked right now.” Scott pressed a hand to his chest like one of those touchy-feely wusses. “I’m thinking I might have to file a complaint of bullying in the workplace. So unless you want a permanent mark in your HR file, maybe don’t be a dick.” 

A shadow crossed Chaz’s face. Scott smirked. He’d known the threat would hit hard. Chaz was a Taco Bell lifer. Thirty-four, with no other prospects and on the fast track for day-shift manager. Headed for the Big Show, the douche liked to say. The tediousness of it made Scott want to barf. It was so plain and boring compared to Hearthworld. That was the worst part about VR, Scott supposed. The sheer badassery of grinding mobs, leveling up, and spamming spells against buttmunches like Bro-Fro put into perspective exactly how shitty the real world was. In Hearthworld Scott was everything. Right now, his avatar PwnrBwner_OG, was trending third on seedFeed because people couldn’t stop talking about Bad_Karma or how epically he’d been played.

Meanwhile, here in the real world, he was grilling quesadillas for a carful of stoners with less remaining braincells than Scott had in his pinky. Bullshit was what it was. 

“No one would believe you if you filed a hostile work environment complaint,” Chaz said, though he sounded less sure than he had a moment before. “You’re a total shit and everyone knows it.” 

Scott shrugged and bagged up the quesadilla. “Yeah, but I have nothing to lose and you do. Is that really a risk you’re willing to take, Chaz?”

He watched as the wheels cranked to life in Chaz’s head—just how bad would a mark in his file affect his chances at promotion? After a beat, the dumpy supervisor deflated, folding in on himself as he scowled down at the tacos in his plastic-gloved hands. Without a word, Chaz retreated deeper into the kitchen, capitulating like a little bitch. 

Score one for Scott.

Around two-thirty the late movie over at the Cineplex let out and the stoner rush all hit at the same time. Eight cars piled up at the drive-thru wanting their buck burritos with extra nacho cheese and cinnamon twists, and instead of doing something useful like dropping chalupas in the fryer, Chaz just stood around breathing down Scott’s neck making sure he wasn’t mouthing off to the customers. Wasn’t it just a wonderful life when he could spend eight hours slinging taco meat for minimum wage instead of farming a metric shitton of gold and leveling his new Rajthorne the Mighty Warding Prayer?

“Earth to Bayani.” Chaz was snapping his fingers again, back with a vengeance. “Extra large rainbow suicide. The customer’s waiting.”

Scott grabbed one bucket-sized cup and shoved it under each of the Mountain Dew fountains, letting all sixteen flavors mix and mingle into a single brownish-colored slush. He slapped a lid on it and took the abomination to the window.

Outside, a carful of dudes his age were squirming around in their seats and trying not to giggle like little girls.

“One extra-large suicide,” Scott said, leaning out to hand them the drink. “Wish it was mine.”
The kid in the back with long hair snorted like he’d just heard somebody rip one in an elevator. His driver buddy reached out and took the cup, face contorted as he tried to hold back a laugh.

“You want it,” The driver giggled, taking the lid off and looking down at the brown liquid, then up at Scott. “You got it, dude. Bombshell!” The dipshit howled, the other passengers squealing with giddy laughter as he pitched the cup back at Scott as hard as he could.
Scott threw up his hands and cussed at the top of his lungs, instinctively squeezing his eyes shut as he braced for impact.

He heard the cup smash and the Mountain Dew splash and ice cubes clatter while the assholes in the car burnt rubber out of there. Beside him, Chaz gasped.

Scott heard it all play out like a track on half speed, but he didn’t feel it. Not a drop. 

Reluctantly, he opened his eyes. For a split-second, he saw a translucent blue tower shield as tall as he was floating in front of him, attached to his outstretched palms with two thin strands of light. Then it was gone. 

Slack jawed, Scott turned his hands over, staring at his palms in confusion.
Ice skittered across the floor, and Chaz made a sound halfway between a gasp and a shout.

“Those… those punks!” He was drenched in soda from the top of his standard issue Taco Bell visor to the nonslip soles of his sneakers.

Chaz shook his hands and arms, flicking droplets of sixteen flavor blend everywhere. Scott backed up, but a drop got on the Bell monogram of his uniform shirt. He grimaced down at it.

“You!” Chaz’s face twisted with hatred. “This is your fault! I told you to be nicer to the customers, but did you listen? No, you always have to be an asshole! Do you think you’re cool? Do you think you’re funny? Well, news flash, Bayani, you’re not. You’re the worst employee we have—”

“Even worse than Raeanna?” Scott asked, his sarcasm kicking in on autopilot. “Miss Cough Cough, I’m Conveniently Sick on My Birthday?”

Chaz’s wet face turned red. “At least when she shows up to work, she’s friendly! You’re a dick from the time you clock in until the time you clock out! The customers complain about you, the rest of us have to suffer through you—”

The overnight manager went on reading the riot act at the top of his lungs. If he’d seen that blue light, he sure as hell didn’t act like it. Scott was almost willing to dismiss the whole thing as a trick of the light or an over-active imagination after spending so much time in Hearthworld… but there was his uniform to consider. Scott had been directly in the line of fire, taking up most of the window when the dickbrain threw the drink, but his uniform was still clean and dry, while Chaz was just fucking drenched in every flavor of Mountain Dew known to man—including several flavors that should’ve been outlawed as war crimes against humanity like Mango Rager and Screamin’ Acacia Fury.

Yeah, there was no getting around the dry uniform. That shield or light or whatever it was had really been there.

Scott tuned out Chaz’s rant and frowned down at his empty palms, trying to figure out what the balls it meant.Page Break


Endless Distractions

Roark von Graf, better known in Hearthworld as Roark the Griefer, Dungeon Lord of the Cruel Citadel and founder of the Troll Nation, leaned over his anvil, etching runes into a Peerless Wakizashi with precise strokes. The sweltering air was filled with the ring of hammers, the grating of rasps, the hiss of quenching troughs, and the rumble of customers and Smithing apprentices in the front half of the blacksmith’s shop. Trolls from a multitude of evolutionary paths—all covered in heavy leather aprons and wielding tongs or hammers—animated the smithy with life and purpose. 

There were over fifteen apprentices now, and their work was the lifeblood of Troll Nation; the specialty items forged in the Cruel Citadel drew legions of mobs from all across Hearthworld.

It was good and necessary work. 

Work Roark was trying fervently to ignore. 

The space between his private smithy and the front of the blacksmith’s shop was open by necessity—without proper ventilation, the heavy gasses released by the molten metals would kill them all in short order—but today, like many days, he wished it wasn’t. The racket. The cacophony of voices. All clamoring for attention inside his head. Roark steeled his resolve and pushed the tsunami of distractions to the back of his mind. Focused completely on the task at hand. Sweat dripped off the tip of his nose and onto the face of the weapon, marring the glimmering blade. He wiped it away with a quick swipe of a handy polishing rag and returned to etching.

Though he had defeated Bad_Karma and gained the allegiance of several powerful Dungeon Lords in doing so, Roark didn’t have the time to rest. The victory, though sweet, had come at the cost of revealing many of the tactics he relied upon. In the short time since the hero had died, the details of Roark’s cursed heads had spread from the myriad of Bad_Karma acolytes to every hero and mob in Hearthworld. Worse, it wasn’t only the heads that had lost their effectiveness, but his transportation plates were common knowledge now as well. When Roark had wondered aloud how in the seven hells full parties of heroes were being transported to the same floor, Griff had taken him to a page in his grimoire marked with a ribbon labeled WikiLore. This, apparently, was a repository for all the discovered knowledge in Hearthworld, a library anyone could access, and it had pages dedicated to the Cruel Citadel. 

Which, of course, meant that Lowen had access to pages of information on the Cruel Citadel as well.

The heroes had become quite smitten with Roark and his modest Dungeon over the past few weeks. Even more so since the unlikely demise of Bad_Karma. They had mapped out nearly every inch of every floor—barring the Troll Nation Marketplace—recorded spells that muffled and even counteracted the effects of Roark’s cursed heads, and detailed the assortment of Cursed weapons the Trolls now carried and how to avoid being killed when looting them. The portal plates had their own subsection dedicated to their layout, level restrictions, and the best team builds so that all members of your party would be transported to the same end location.

Even varying the plates and their locations was no use. As soon as Roark made a change, the new information was added to the WikiLore pages. If Roark hadn’t recognized the names of the heroes his Trolls had just killed on the misspelled and grammatically ludicrous updates, he would have thought the pages updated themselves by some sort of sophisticated divination sorcery.

With all of his secrets on display for the whole of Hearthworld to see, Roark knew he had to come up with something completely new. Something Lowen would never see coming. 
The problem was, he felt like he’d fallen into a creative rut. Even the bloody Curse Chain he was working on felt like a variation on the dozens he’d created since gaining the ability.
For a moment, Mac’s throaty snoring grew loud enough to break Roark’s concentration. The Young Turtle Dragon lay with his armored belly flat against the glowing bricks of Roark’s forge, soaking up the heat. The scaly monster scratched at his beard with one claw-tipped forepaw, then rolled over and scooted himself backward to press his spiked shell against the bricks. 

Keeping his back and front evenly warmed was the extent of the silly beast’s concerns. Roark couldn’t decide whether this meant that Mac was too dim to understand the depth of trouble the Citadel faced if Lowen attacked now or that Mac was so brilliant that he had figured out the secret to existence.

It was a question for wiser philosophers than him. Roark returned to his work on the Wakizashi.

Trying to keep his maneuvering a step ahead of the heroes was exhausting and wildly ineffective. It certainly wouldn’t hold water against that overwriting ass, Lowen. No, what Roark needed was a breakthrough. A paradigm shift. The only problem was, as soon as he began to cover new ground and make any real progress—

“Dungeon Lord!” A level 2 Changeling loped into the forge, pitching and rolling with its clumsy, uneven gait, scraggy arms flailing. “Dungeon Lord, help!”
With a sigh of frustration, Roark set the Greater Wakizashi on his workbench with a bang.
“What is it now?” he asked a little more harshly than he’d intended to. He would never succeed in outsmarting Lowen with so many cursed interruptions and there were always interruptions. Some urgent piece of business that only he could solve—or so everyone would have him believe. 

The Changeling scampered back a step, tucking its bald blue head back against its shoulders like a turtle.

Roark gritted his serrated teeth. At times he forgot that his Jotnar Infernali form cut an intimidating figure to the low-level Trolls. Though he’d started out in Hearthworld as scrawny and awkward as they were, he was now nearly twelve feet tall with razor-sharp obsidian talons, spiked demonic wings, and thick obsidian horns curling around each side of his head. When he’d leveled up, Roark had done what he could to return his appearance to normal, but he was still a towering, rangy Dungeon Lord covered in glowing violet tattoos of power. The Changeling might as well have been an ant under the heel of a rhinoceros.

He tried to soften his expression. “What’s the matter, Buke?”

The Changeling scurried forward again, bobbing his head in deference.

“Fighting in the marketplace, Dungeon Lord! The Witchdoctors and the Paragons are trying to curse one another to pieces again!”

“Where the bloody hells are Ick and Yevin?” The Witchdoctors and Paragons were their students, they should have been the ones to deal with this.

“Can’t find either one, Dungeon Lord,” Buke said, cringing back a step as he shook his head.
Roark scowled.

“Come on, Mac,” he called as he grabbed the upper half of his Peerless Leathers.
The Young Turtle Dragon chirped grumpily at the interruption to his basking, but rolled to his feet and followed Roark out of the blacksmith’s shop.

Roark shivered as he strode through the streets of the marketplace. He’d removed his stifling leathers while he worked to counter the baking heat of the forge, but out in the open air, his sweat had already turned icy. He shrugged into the light armor and residual heat soaked into his ghostly pale skin.

“Hullo, Dungeon Lord!”

“Greetingsssss, Dungeon Lord!”

“Everything all right, Dungeon Lord?”

Throughout the marketplace, sociable mobs and NPCs of all stripes called out to him, while many of the more withdrawn creatures and races pointed and whispered to their shopping companions. Dybuks, Blood Leeches, Naga, sentient rocks and crystals from the Gardens of the Deep. NPCs of all four humanoid races. Enormous faceless Mind Mantids, smoky Void Djinns, and wolf-bear-man hybrids that walked on two legs with their long, muscular arms trailing on the floor like enormous apes. Beings from all of the allied dungeons and NPCs who had relocated to the Troll Nation, all out doing their daily shopping. In the shops and stalls lining the streets, Trolls and trainers hawked their wares, haggled with customers, or plied their trades.

The scene changed drastically, however, as Roark came around the corner to the street where both the Arcane Paragon and the Witchdoctor of Night Magick’s schools were housed. 

Both schools and the surrounding shops were burning, colorful flames dancing, plumes of smoke rising up toward the ruffled undersides of the enormous bioluminescent fungus that towered over the Marketplace. Magick users of both Night and Light Magicks screamed curses and hurled spells at one another, casting with little regard for the bystanders who might be injured. Severed limbs leaked blood into the dust. Off to the right, a half-elf half-parsnip pulled himself across the ground with one arm and one leg. A carpet of enormous bloated toads hopped around underfoot, vomiting up pools of rainbow-colored slime.

As Roark watched, arms folded, a scowl etched into the lines of his face, a Witchdoctor student mid-cast stepped into one of the pools. Her leg immediately dissolved to the knee. That should have been the end of it for her, but no. Rather than drop her spell, she ratcheted up her insectile throat singing, calling down a brilliant beam of moonlight on a nearby Paragon student, whose flesh promptly began to melt away under invisible flames.
Roark scowled. The chaos and destruction were bad enough, but the fact that this was the third time in under a week that fighting had broken out between the two factions made his blood boil.  

“Enough!” snapped Roark. His shout echoed through the street, stopping the toads and a few of the combatants in their tracks.

[Congratulations, you have unlocked Intimidation Level 2. With Intimidation, beings with an Intelligence of less than .25 x your Intelligence suffer Fright for 45 seconds. Sometimes a big enough bark is all you need…]

Unfortunately, it wasn’t all Roark needed this time. Being magick users, many of the participants of this battle had leveled their Intelligence too high for him to stop them with simple Intimidation. 

Striding into the center of the fray, he cast Infernal Healing on the area, giving back the Infernally-aligned creatures ten times his own Character Level in Health, then tore open a Mass Heal scroll he’d looted from a hero’s corpse and restored those creatures with other alignments. A low-level fireball clipped him in the back of the right wing, nipping at his filigreed Health vial, but he ignored it.

Grabbing his Initiate’s Spellbook, he scribbled out a Level 4 Sound of Silence spell, then cast it on the area. Light flared, and shouted curses and undulating throat singing within a thirty-foot radius immediately died—cut off as though by a razor’s edge. Silvery beams of deadly moonlight and lethal blasts of multicolored light winked out.
On top of this, he fired off one of his pre-inscribed spells: a Level 6 Major Paralyzing spell.

[All opponents in a fifteen-foot radius with less than .25x caster’s Dexterity become instantly paralyzed for 30 seconds.]

Luckily for Roark, no one else in this magical battle had invested as heavily has he had in Dexterity. The remaining combatants froze in place.

All except for a pair of Yevin’s Arcane Paragon students who happened to be just outside the boundaries of the spell when Roark cast it—a sentient rock person and a human NPC. Neither seemed to have noticed that the Dungeon Lord had stepped in to quash the fighting, and both had expressions of rage twisting their faces. The human stabbed a Maple Wand into the ribs of a Paralyzed Witchdoctor like a poor excuse for a dagger, while the chunk of rock raised one enormous granite arm and swung it like a club at the Paralyzed Witchdoctor’s head.

Before the blow landed, Roark leapt into the air, his huge leathery wings fighting to rip him from the ground, and dove at the still-fighting Paragons. His Peerless Rapier and Peerless Kaiken Dagger appeared in his fists. He crashed into the sentient rock, exploiting its weakness to Blunt Trauma. The hulking stone behemoth—though a physical powerhouse by nature—was no match for Roark’s strength, size, speed. Stone crunched as Roark’s shoulder connected and the creature tumbled away from the helpless Witchdoctor.
The human NPC’s eyes landed on Roark’s snarling face and flew as wide as flagons. But before he even had time to scream, Roark lashed out with the rapier, beheading the brainless fool.

By then a sizeable crowd had gathered to watch the Dungeon Lord quell the chaos. Roark rounded on them, anger burning in his eyes, blood coating the length of his weapon.
“Let this be a lesson to any who would disturb the peace of this Marketplace,” he growled. “All are welcome here, but fighting and wanton destruction will not be tolerated.” 
Nearby, the sentient rock person had regained its feet. Roark glared at it. It put both hands into the air and fell back to its knees, bowing its granite head. Behind Roark, the spell wore off the students who had been paralyzed, and they dropped to the ground and bowed to him as well, all mumbling fearful apologies.

The crowd of mobs and NPCs cheered. 

A victory, though a sudden uncertainty niggled in the back of Roark’s mind.

“Get these fires put out and repair the buildings on this street,” he barked, infusing his voice with a harsh authority very close to Intimidation.

All around him, contrite, terrified students leapt into action, avoiding his gaze as they began to douse the fires and repair the burnt buildings. The problem was solved—at least, until the next time the two rival schools got into a row—but he couldn’t shake the feeling of doubt. The bloodshed had been stopped for today, but him stepping in and scorching the earth every time fighting broke out wasn’t a permanent solution. It wasn’t even a good short-term solution, really. Having a single person be judge, jury, and executioner was exactly how tyrants were born, and he’d already had his fill of tyrants.

Roark turned away from the frenzied patch-up activity. If this little experiment of his was going to thrive, the Troll Nation needed a system of laws that everyone adhered to—Dungeon Lords included—and someone to enforce them. Someone who wasn’t him. Someone who could temper power with authority, and if need be, keep Roark in check as well as the rest of the citizenry. But who could live up to such a task?

The crowd parted as Roark strode through, a few brave souls shouting praise and reaching up to pat him on the back. He didn’t stop. He needed to find Griff