Season 4: Ch3: Negotiable

  [Du&&eon Sy#@+em Inte

  9face!]

  [Name: Hiro Dungeon (MARKED!)]

  [Le34Ll: 5]

  [HP: 1&�/1/@00]

  [?P: )($00/3$&#]

  [DEVOTIN: 950]

  [EXP +2;?0/@000]

  Ta6Ed M0&sters: 59/&0

  p+7ons: 10/1$

  Since receiving the marked status, my dungeon abilities had been nullified. I could still feel my domain and my monsters still listened to me, but it was jarring, slightly off, like I lost a part of myself.

  My guess, is that it had something to do with the arbiter's mark. Of course, I wasn't fully sure but having Berus above with her retinue of paladins, inquisitors, and clerics was a handy buffer between me and anything hunting me.

  Eyeing my fractured system, I could feel the hunter getting close, its presence drawing nearer to my position each day. Almost like an itch at the back of my neck that grew worse and worse each minute.

  It would be here soon. And hopefully once that was dealt with, I’d be able to start growing food and raising up monsters again, in the meantime, I at least still had my church powers which were growing exponentially.

  [Religion: Cleaners]

  [Active Members: 821]

  [Devotion Points Available: 1085]

  Actually… This is growing too rapidly? In total my personal forces accounted to fifty-three minions, my dominated trustees who oversaw the other four hundred and fifty-eight monsters in my domain.

  So how was it my follower count was nearly double?

  Nani?

  Sl- Suddenly a sense of dread took me, the answer to my question staring down at me with a wide smile and even wider eyes, excitement in her gaze that was eager to explain.

  Yeah. Nope. I’m just going to add this to my growing list of unquestionables. Just like Slimey’s dungeon, Ayaka’s pit of random mold, and Gobledo’s treasure trove of hair products for his lush blonde hair.

  In the meantime, while I waited for this inevitable confrontation with my hunter, I might as well get busy.

  Slimy.

  Yes my glorious king?

  Let us pay a visit to Virgil, I tired of these eyes on me.

  “Shall I plunk them from their skulls?” Slimey said aloud, her face glowing positively despite her murderous aura.

  Maybe one day. I sent back as Slimey stood, taking us away from the garden and the scrutiny of Berus and her cronies.

  Entering my domain through the manor’s cellar, it wasn’t long before I was deep beneath the earth, presented before Virgil’s de-limbed metal bot as he lay on a pedestal surrounded by goblin helpers and tarantuals ferrying objects for him.

  “Oh, Hiro, how nice of you to pay me a visit. Ya know what would be even nicer?” The dwarf trapped in a body of a robot beeped, his voice oozing with sarcasm. “Arms! Or legs! Limbs I can use to work!”

  Slimey’s face twitched, the demon inside yearning to smash my friend into scrap.

  “You would still have your limbs, if you didn’t attempt to resist the will of our glorious master,” Slimey hissed, her eyes shifting to a crimson red.

  “Oh give it a break. I’m not scared of you you overgrown puddle, I once fought side by side with Hiro, I’ve drank, fought, and bled beside the real one!”

  Slimey began to shimmer in place, her human-like “skin” flashing red as every goblin and monster nearby seemed to vanish. Not that I blamed them per say. She was damn scary.

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  “If I had my lab still I’d stuff you in a jar,” Virgil chortled, the one-eyed bot happily taunting Slimey.

  “Enough,” I said, synchronizing and taking over Slimey’s body to adopt my form. “How are we on the foundry and workshop space?”

  “Good news or bad news first?”

  “Bad.”

  “This place is terrible. Theres no room for ventilation, the helpers you’ve given me barely know their left from right, you have no tools for smithing, and the materials you’re bringing in is such low quality anything I make would fall apart quickly, AND lets not get started on the equip-”

  “Okay, lets switch this up with the good news.”

  ‘Thats the neat part, there is no good news!”

  I couldn’t help but let out a sigh, “If the Heartforge was still running we could have based up there.”

  Virgil’s red eye flashed, “What do you mean the Heartforge is cold?

  Wait.

  I turned to Virgil, brow raised, “From what I’ve been told the furnaces no longer run. I was planning to form an expedition and loot tools and minerals from there.”

  “Impossible… the Heartforges are cold?”

  “Yeah, its kind of a bummer.”

  “No you nin-compoop!, it is IMPOSSIBLE for the Heartforges to go cold!” Virgil yelled, my body shimmering as Slimey reacted violently to the insult.

  “Elaborate.”

  Virgil looked at me, his robotic eye blinking repeatedly.

  “No.”

  Silence, the goblins and my minions gone.

  “What. Do you mean… no?”

  “I want to negotiate! You took my legs and arms, AND blew up my home! Now you’ve got me stuck down here trying to get me to build a workshop using goblins! The least you can do is make some concessions!”

  I pursed my lips, “Fair… list your terms.” I replied as I could feel Slimey forming in a different chamber, the not so subtle scream of “HOW DARE YOU!” echoing in the background.

  “I want dental.”

  “You don’t have teeth.”

  “I know! But still! I want dental!”

  “Fine, sure. Whatever,” I replied. Ya know, now that I think about it, dental hygiene is also pretty important, maybe I should get toothbrushes for my goblins.

  “And! If I get the Heartforge running, I want FULL control of it. That means no goblins wondering around, no spiders knocking over things or getting webs on stuff! Oh! And Keep that moving puddle away!”

  “Sure, provided you arm and equip my army. Also, I kinda need Slimey to communicate, so…”

  ‘FINE! But only when she’s with you! Oh, and I want new limbs!”

  “If you get new limbs how can I be sure you wont try and attack me?”

  “I’m no longer connected to the mainframe! Plus, if I wanted you dead I’d have made one of these goblins make a bomb to blow this whole operation up!”

  “Fair enough.”

  “I’m a dwarf! A dwarf’s gotta smith! You let me make it my home and I’ll tell you the secrets of the Heartforge.”

  “Deal.”

  Virgil vibrated slightly, an action that could almost be interpreted as happiness.

  “The truth is, the heartforge is built on an active magma stream.”

  “That has run cold…”

  “Thats the trick of it! It doesn’t! Magma comes from the depths of the planet’s mantle, it doesn’t stop unless the planet itself is dead.”

  “So… what you’re saying is that its blocked?”

  “Exactly! Magma cools quickly when it reaches the surface level! My bet, is that without dwarfs intervening, the lava cooled, blocking the channels. That or the mechanisms were damaged, all of which can be fixed.”

  “And you can fix it?”

  “With the proper tools and ARMS!” Virgil yelled, waving his broken limbs around, “I can fix anything! I’m a lemodian dwarf! Conqueror of the atomic generator! Master of AI! Legendary blacksmith!”

  “Right…”

  Hmmm. With the armaments provided by a proper forge, my army would no doubt improve by leaps and bounds. That, plus the tools I could make for constructing… The cost of excavating and renovating such a facility would no doubt draw eyes, but...

  Slimey. I sent, reaching out to the disgruntled slime playing in her dungeon, How is our petty cash?

  Doing well milord, the humans are keen to give us their funds. Removing operation costs, we have eight million to spend without damaging our operations. Is there something you wish to purchase milord?

  Yes. But first, we’ll need to scout the heartforge.

  Of course this had been part of the plan all along, but if Virgil felt as though he were getting a good deal, it was all the more better.

  Now how do I explain this to Berus… she would no doubt notice if I started moving shipments of metal and excavation equipment through her backyard. I could try tunneling, but that would take months…

  Hrrn… what to do…

  ****

  Elsewhere.

  “GAH!” a girl screamed in frustration, her small frame flaking of skin and particles of flesh that rapidly regrew on her burning limbs only for the decomposing to begin anew.

  Truck hissed, the radiation circulating through her body sending shivers of extreme pain as every movement she took left a trail of soupy flesh.

  After having an atomic bomb detonated in her face, the red-haired arbiter had managed to survive only thanks to her divine regeneration. However this didn't absolve her of the radioactivity, in fact, her entire body had been poisoned with every moment a painful waking nightmare.

  The culprit of her affliction?

  One Hiroyuki Sawano as she narrowed her eyes over the Gracemia valley below.

  “Kill…” Truck muttered as her eyes liquidied only for her golden orbs to reform again. “I will kill you HIRO! I WI-EHK?!”

  Suddenly Truck was flat, her body squished into the ground as large hooves ran over her followed by two pairs of wooden wheels.

  “Huh? What was that?”

  “I think we hit something.”

  “A monster?”

  “I don't know, go check!”

  “Alone?! Are you crazy? This isn't a horror play! You're coming with me!”

  “Ugh….” Truck let out, tears in her eyes as she looked up at the two sets of boots standing over her before she passed out.