Throne Hunters Book 1, Chapter 4

Harald awoke in the tepid gloom of his dying lantern. He sat against the tunnel wall, legs kicked out before him, hands lying limp in his lap.

Alive.

It took him what felt like a decade to gather his wits. Fragments of memories came back to him in snatches. Rats. His blade flashing. Blood. Pain.

Vorakhar.

With a gasp, he sat up, heart suddenly thundering.

Had that been real? Had his father’s greatest conquest returned to interrogate him?

But his father had slain Vorakhar. It was his claim to fame. He’d wrested the Nightshard scale from the demon and cut off his finger as a memento.

Harald stared out at nothing, trying to wrestle what he’d seen with what he’d been told all his life.

But… how was he even… alive?

He touched his neck. The wound was gone. The skin was smooth and unblemished. But his hands. His front. Everything was sticky with drying gore. The memory of pain returned, and he touched the side of his head.

His ear was healed.

Had this all been a nightmare? Sufficiently powerful scales could heal even the most grievous of wounds, but he’d only brought a Copper Crescent. Enough to soothe a bruise and little more.

Then?

He simply couldn’t wrap his mind around it.

Until words came whispering back: know hunger, human child. Know endless, unsatiable, ravenous hunger. Now go forth, and consume the world.

Harald shivered, his skin prickling down the length of his arms. He wasn’t hungry. He felt numb. Alive, healthy even, but not starving.

Why had the demon healed him? Why had he brought him back from the precipice of death?

None of it made sense. If the demon had wanted vengeance on his father, then why help his son? Then again, had he already had his vengeance? His father had disappeared during a dungeon raid four years ago. Had Vorakhar claimed him?

Ceaseless, endless questions.

But something had indeed changed.

Harald realized that despite his confusion, he no longer felt afraid. It was a simple but profound shift. He stared at the doorway before him, the dim light of the lantern illuminating the wreckage and refuse. No sign of the rats, but the prospect of facing them, while distasteful and clearly dangerous, no longer filled him with anxiety and terror.

Harald looked down both sides of the corridor. The darkness pressed as close as ever, could possibly hide terrible monsters, but…

Harald couldn’t muster the emotion to care.

If something came ravening out of the darkness to murder him, well, then he’d die.

Was it because he’d nearly died already? He’d never had this kind of indifference before. Or had the demon done something to him?

Curious, he opened his window.

Name: Harald Darrowdelve

Soul Nature: Insatiable Void
Soul Rank: Divine
Soul Ability: Condemnation of Success

Class: None
Class Actives: None
Class Passives: None

Endowments: Demon Seed

Strength: 6
Dexterity: 6
Constitution: 5
Ego: 18
Presence: 8

Thrones: 0/7
Scales: 1,024/10,000

Artifacts: None
Servitors: None

“What the hell?” whispered Harald, staring at the changes.

His Soul Nature had changed? That was meant to be impossible. Well, not technically, but virtually so - people were resistant to change, and only one in a million managed to grow and evolve their basic sense of self to the point of changing their very soul. More often it happened to people who suffered overwhelming tragedy, whose minds and spirit were broken, who lost so much that they could never again see the same person in the mirror.

But what did it even mean? “Insatiable Void”? That resonated with what the demon had promised, but again, he didn’t feel hungry.

And it didn’t sound good.

Harald shifted his weight against the wall, and reconsidered. It definitely had a better ring to it than “Hero’s Son”, but to be defined as Insatiable, to be a Void? It sounded more in line with what a demonic creature might boast than a human. He’d never heard of anything like it.

Hesitant, he focused on the title so that a description appeared:

Insatiable Void: You are the aching heart of ambition, the howling hunger that yearns to consume the world. A child of darkness, you will always seek the light, but will destroy all that you pursue.

Harald’s eyes widened in shock, and he reflexively dismissed the description.

For a moment, he could only stare out at nothing. Then he blinked and looked at the new rank, which was perhaps even more insane than the change itself: Divine.

The word seemed to pulse with its own inner power.

Divine. The ultimate rank. The highest accolade. One or two people every generation might be bestowed such a rank. It meant that his Soul Nature was sublime, the rarest of the rare, and of the greatest potential. He could grow to the ultimate heights. If any of the noble Houses discovered he was now so ranked, they’d start a war to recruit him.

Harald would have been thrilled if it wasn’t intrinsically tied to Insatiable Void.

And gone was his Moment of Resolve. Instead he now had… Condemnation of Success?

Reluctant, he activated the description:

Condemnation of Success: Every success can be outdone. There is no end for you, for every end is but a beginning, and always will your eye be drawn to the horizon. Every peak shall prove false, and every victory bitter. Nothing shall suffice, and this shall be your goad, your lash, your blessing, your torment.

“What the actual fuck?” Harald whispered, stunned. He glared into the darkness, searching out some sign of the demon. “What kind of Ability is that? Torment? Give me back my Moment of Resolve!”

But there was no response.

Snarling, Harald sat back and dropped to the next changes. His physical stats hadn’t changed, more was the pity. Most folks didn’t grow above 12 or 13, sure, but theoretically one could develop one’s stats to god-like levels… Gustav the Just, one of the old, pre-oligarchy kings and Harald’s personal favorite, was said to have a Strength in the 30s.

A stat boost there would have been nice.

But… his Ego had raised to… 18?

“Impossible.” He stared at the number. It didn’t change. It had been 3 before, the mark of a weak mind, an irresolute will, a condemnation of everything he was and his every venture. A strong-willed man might have an Ego of 10. His father had possessed a stunning Ego of 14.

Eighteen?

That didn’t even make sense.

The only way to raise your Ego was to grow into yourself, to have formative experiences that affirmed your confidence and sense of self. It wasn’t something you could target. Something you could work on. It simply reflected the kind of person you were.

Ego 18?

Harald grimaced. That meant… what? That he could accomplish anything he set his mind to?

But other than his lack of fear - which might be a natural consequence to dying - he still felt like himself.

Harald Darrowdelve.

Again he stared at this bloodied palms. He hadn’t changed, had he?

It was hard to tell, he finally admitted. He felt… different. The lack of fear was part of it. But something else was off. He just couldn’t pin it down.

In comparison to his leap in Ego, his Presence of 8 was almost banal. Presence measured your forcefulness, your charisma, your bravery, confidence, bearing, how compelling a leader you were. It’d been 3 before, just barely above what a child might possess.

Not that he’d ever been surprised. If it hadn’t been for his wealth, he’d never have made any friends. Never have received any attention. Something about him, some fundamental quality had made him feel like he was made of glass, insubstantial, and easily overlooked.

Only his wealth had allowed him to live otherwise.

But now he had a Presence of 8?

That put him right up there with any competent adult. It wasn’t the 12 or 13 of a noble House grandee, or a general, or whomever else, but it was rock solid.

Maybe it was due solely to his new Nature? Maybe a bleed-over effect that people would somehow sense…?

Harald had no idea.

And finally, his Endowment: Demon Seed.

He didn’t like the look of that. Hesitant, almost wincing, he activated the description:

Demon Seed: In the depths of your being an unholy black seed has been planted. Water this seed, nurture its growth, and you shall become a conflagration of power and despair.

“What the actual hell?” Harald whispered, eyes wide. Vorakhar’s doing, obviously, a gift, the way he’d healed him, but… demons were the enemy. There was no greater or simpler truth. It was the demons who reigned in the lowest depths of the dungeon, and who were the architects of the Shudderings that swamped Flutic with the rare but perilous floods of dungeon monsters who’d swarm out into the streets.

He placed his hand on his chest, half-expecting to feel a swelling over his heart indicating the new presence.

Nothing.

Could he reject it? Would the death he’d escaped claim him if he did? Did this make him Vorakhar’s creature? Was he marked? Would the Inquisitors of the Fallen Angel now notice him as they supposedly did any demonic corruption?

“Damn,” he whispered, resting his head back against the wall. Water this seed, nurture its growth… was that an inducement to engage in heinous, demonic activity? That he’d be rewarded if he indulged in evil like a demon?

If that was the case, then he was fine. There was no way he was about to start torturing children and murdering innocents. Perhaps he could simply ignore the seed. Render it powerless by refusing to engage in the evil acts it craved.

Somehow, Harald didn’t think it would be that simple.

Harald dismissed his window and stared at his dying lantern. The dungeon was silent. Not a scratch, not a whisper to be heard.

His own breathing was deep and slow. He felt dense, heavy, as if his body had been turned to lead.

Everything, apparently, had changed. But he couldn’t fathom what that meant. He didn’t even try to wrestle with the new terms, the descriptions.

Instead, he simply sat there, just being.

Feeling himself out. Observing his emotions.

Perhaps that was the greatest change.

His ability to just sit still. He’d always been restless. Driven by countless ideas and preoccupations. He’d hated being alone.

Sitting like this before would have been a torment.

But now? It felt… right.

His lantern continued to fade, and that was what prompted him at last to move. If it died, he’d be trapped here in the dark, and finding his way out would have been a chore.

A chore?

He recalled his panic upon entering the dungeon. His febrile attempts to light the lantern. The terror, the horror.

He could remember the emotions, but they didn’t feel real any longer. As if they’d happened in a dream.

That was weird. He should be terrified of the darkness. If a monster crept up on him in the dark, he’d be done for.

But his own fate no longer moved him.

Well, that wasn’t quite true.

The idea of his dying here didn’t terrify him, but rather, it… stirred a deep sense of… outrage?

Harald closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Pictured himself being attacked by a horde of rats and pulled down in the dark. Dying. Lying still as they feasted on his flabby body.

No.

The refusal was absolute.

But it wasn’t fueled by fear. Nor a greedy desire to just live.

Well, almost. It came from…

Harald forced himself to focus, to dig deep into that absolute sense of negation.

He didn’t want to die because he wanted… more.

More?

More from life, perhaps. From himself.

It was a massive, inchoate feeling. He couldn’t put it into words. But if anything tried to kill him down here, he’d fight harder than he’d ever fought before to live.

Because… because he wasn’t done.

Harald opened his eyes. What did that even mean?

His lantern flickered.

He’d figure it out later. For now, he had to get out.

His body ached. Whatever the demon had done to him, it hadn’t changed his basic Constitution. Grimacing, he rose, and stepped into the doorway.

There was no sign of the rats.

His blade lay on the ground, its edge smeared with black blood and rat hair. He took it up, hefted it. It was as alien in his grip as ever. He went to sheath it, then stopped. Instead, he wiped its length carefully on his leg, clearing off the blood as best he could, but the gore had dried, grown sticky.

If he sheathed it now, it’d just gum up the scabbard.

So he took up the lantern and simply kept the sword out.

He cast one look around the area. A single dead rat lay where he’d stabbed it just inside the doorway, a Copper Crescent hovering in the air above it. Beyond it lay a second corpse, the one whose head he’d crushed. It had managed to crawl a few yards into the room before expiring.

A second Copper Crescent hovered over it.

Harald snorted in bleak amusement. The spoils of his raid. He took both scales from the air and dropped them into his pouch. Not even enough to pay for a ride home.

Ah, well.

Resting his sword over one shoulder, he strode back to the Dungeon Portal.

It waited for him, massive and ponderous, its pentagonal form filling the corridor. Returning home was simple. You simply held your hand out a Copper Crescent to the portal, waited for it to awaken, and then stepped through.

All returns took raiders back to the Dungeon Plaza.

Harald raised his hand, scale in hand, and drew closer. The center of the portal swirled to life, streams of dark smoke swirling into a spiral and then widening out until the whole face was filled with shimmering nothingness.

Incredible.

Harald watched the shimmering surface, then took a deep breath and stepped through.

Only to emerge onto the Petitioner’s platform, right where he’d started.

Dawn was breaking. The sky above Flutic was a delicate tracery of cream-colored clouds touched salmon pink at the edges. The air was crisp, cool, and laden with the smells of the plaza. Sawdust and metal, sweat and the mineral tang of dew.

Harald closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, filling his lungs.

Glorious.

“Hey.”

Harald opened his eyes.

A new guard stood off to one side, eyes wide. “What the hell happened to you?”

Harald glanced down at himself. Oh. Right. He was drenched in congealed blood. Glancing up, he saw that the guard at the gate and the first dozen Humble Petitioners were also staring.

“Nothing much,” he said at last.

“Well, damn. You can’t walk around the city like that. After you pay up, either get a shower at the Angel’s Rest or use a rain barrel to wash up.”

The Angel’s Rest was a massive inn that took up an entire side of the plaza. Three stories tall, it housed hundreds, most of them visiting foreigners intent on raiding. But its huge common room and immense selection of beers were legendary, as well as the basic services it offered raiders going in or coming out of the dungeon.

“All right,” Harald said.

“Then pay the tax and get moving,” snapped the guard. “Let’s go, people are waiting.”

Harald nodded, descended the steps, and made his way to the broad counter beside the gate behind which an accountant and guard waited.

They watched him approach with horrified fascination. Harald stopped before them, blade still resting on his shoulder, and raised his brows.

“Oh.” The guard rose to her feet. She was young, a fresh cut on her cheek inflamed and healing into a scar, her eyes a beautiful piercing blue. “Right. Sorry. Please place all recovered scales in the appropriate buckets for evaluation. And do you have your entry invoice? Any attempt to smuggle scales out will both fail and, ah, result in your arrest.”

“Sure.” Harald dug out his two new Copper Crescents and dropped them in the first of the ten buckets. “That’s all.”

The accountant, a spindly, older man with half-moon spectacles, leaned forward to peer into the bucket. “Two Coppers? From the way you look, young man, I’d expected an Aurora Veil at the very least!”

“Two Coppers,” confirmed Harald. “Here’s the invoice.” And he pulled out the bloodied paper and handed it to the accountant.

“Oh.” The man was less than enthused. “You entered with two others, which I can detect on you. Very well, we’ll take the one Copper and you can continue with the other.”

“What happened?” asked the young guard, her eyes wide. “You look like…” She shook her head in wonder.

“It’s hard to explain.” Harald took his invoice back after the man signed it, then picked up his one scale from the bucket. “Can I go?”

“Sure,” said the guard.

Harald nodded, dropped his scale into his pouch, then made his way out the exit, as demarcated by roped pylons.

Everyone stared at him, but he met no eyes. Instead, he crossed the plaza to the closest rain barrel set flush against a wall and, there, considered himself.

His leather armor was both badly damaged and soaked in blood. The smartest thing would be to simply remove it. This he did, unknotting and unclasping the different pieces until they all lay in a pile at this feet.

The dawn air was cool on his sweaty shirt, whose white contrasted sharply with the red stripes and swathes at the elbows, cuffs, and neck.

That done, he considered the barrel. The water within was murky from past usage. Once, he’d have recoiled from the film that scummed the surface, insisted on a bath, but he was too tired to care.

So he dunked his head in.

The water was chill, and he rubbed at his long hair and face while submerged. Again and again, he repeated this until his shirt was soaked, and then worked on his hands until they were marginally clean.

The water was muddy brown when he was done.

He washed the length of his sword with a small cloth, then dried it as best he could on his breeches before sheathing it at last.

Gasping from the cold, he considered his pile of leathers, then fit the smaller pieces inside the large and bound them all together with some of the thongs. This he hefted over one shoulder, and finally done, he looked around the plaza once more.

The Humble Petitioner’s line was already forming, raiders with tickets rushing to get into line and presenting them to assistants as they did so. The floating dungeon polyhedron revolved in place, presenting a triangular portal to a group of House Celestara raiders who stood on the Silver departure platform, their armor gleaming in the morning light.

Hawkers cried out their wares, and the smell of freshly baked meat pastries and chicken skewers filled the air.

Harald’s mouth flooded with saliva, and he considered buying breakfast.

But his two Coppers were all the scales he had left in the world.

Best to save them.

Hefting his armor, he raked his sodden hair back from his face and set to returning home. It was going to be a long walk back to the Angelic Quarter where his manor house was located.

No sense in waiting.