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With mutual interest established, Plutus took center stage after dismissing his guards, except for two wearing black cloaks on either side of him.

“I will be frank, Necron lies on disputed territory, not only between the various noble factions within the Empire but between all forces on the continent.” Plutus, the ever-serious orange sloth, brought out a document from his spatial ring and cleared his throat. “Ahem. Currently, ten noble houses petitioned in court to send their armies to conquer the cursed forest and Necron in honor of the Emperor.”

Plutus cast some wind magic, and the parchment floated peacefully into Andrew’s waiting hands. The enormous ooze that looked like a gray slug caressed his goatee as he carefully examined each name. While he did so, Plutus continued. However, this time he focused on Victor’s shadowy avatar that lazily sat on a throne of darkness.

“Your Excellency…”

“Vox,” Victor replied. “You may refer to me as Vox, for I am the voice of His Excellency.”

“Ah! So you are a champion of the necromancer?”

Vox shrugged, and his teardrop eyes gleamed. “Something like that.” Victor had decided to use this avatar more and more, but he wanted it to be something separate from himself…a representative of sought, and the last name he gave—Voice—was far too awkward to use in casual conversations. Vox, the word for voice in Latin, was a far better name.

“Right…” Plutus straightened his back. “Well, I hope to meet your master one day.”

Plutus received no answer from the necromancer’s champion, so he continued his debriefing. “So, as previously mentioned, this is heavily disputed territory. You will be invaded by us, Eshnar, the Frostlands, or hell…even the Mystical Realm may be interested. So before I even bother to offer you our solutions…can you protect yourself? Or at least this part of the forest?”

There was a moment of silence until Vox’s haunted laughter suffocated the room. After that, even Andrew jiggled with laughter for a while.

“Hilarious! Did you not see the hundreds of ice sculptures containing some of the most feared monsters to ever roam these lands sitting outside for my viewing pleasure?” Vox rose from his throne, and immense pressure descended on the room as if a sleeping deity had been rudely awoken from a timeless sleep.

Reality cracked for a brief moment, and Plutus, alongside his guards, got a glimpse of Victor’s true form through the veil of smoke that clouded their mortal sight.

And then it faded as if the pressure that threatened to snap their bones and boil their blood and the view of the unknown creature from a plane of nothingness was all just a twisted nightmare, an illusion of a sick mind.

The two cloaked figures fell to a knee, but Plutus stood tall. Defiance painted on his orange-furred face and something else…admiration with a sprinkle of opportunity.

“Excellent.” Plutus clapped his paws and readjusted his gold-rimmed glasses that sat precariously on his snout with his long claw. “It seems you have defense well under control. Ahem, so I hope you won’t mind if we send some less desirable nobles your way? Just a little cleanup is all.”

Vox seemed to smile, despite his featureless face. “Oh, I see what that crafty bastard is doing. The Emperor is playing this surprisingly smart. Test our defenses while simultaneously eliminating some undesirable and power-hungry nobles that set their sights way too high. Am I correct, Guild Master? Are you sending ditzy, power-hungry nobles to my doorstep for slaughter?”

Plutus had a savage grin showing his needle-like teeth as Vox spoke. Gone was the nervous sloth, and now before Vox stood the most dangerous type of man…one who profited from the deaths of others.

“Send them my way. But be warned, all who come bearing arms in the name of the Emperor will face death. No exceptions.” Vox made his final declaration before turning his back on Plutus. “My master summons me. If you need anything else, speak to Andrew here.”

Before Plutus could reply, Vox snapped his fingers.

“Farewell.”

A clap of mana reverberated throughout the room. Then, before Plutus could even blink, the shadowy throne that dominated half the space with its looming presence and the necromancer’s champion was gone.

“Shall we go and see the various merchandise on offer?” Andrew asked the spaced-out sloth with a chuckle.

“Yes,” Plutus agreed and gestured for his guards to get off the marble floor. “I would like that. I am inquisitive about these ice sculptures Sir Vox mentioned moments ago.”

Andrew mentally commanded a legion of goblins to enter the room. The black-cloaked guards flanking Plutus tensed, and mana funneled to their hands, but to their surprise, the cloaked goblins strode right past them and surrounded Andrew’s titanic throne and lifted it clean off the ground in a heroic display of strength.

From atop his raised throne, Andrew dominated the room and overlooked Plutus. “Guild Master. Follow me.”

Plutus shook his head as he looked at the departing back of Andrew. “What a crazy day.”

***

“Yes, yes, I’m back. Why did you call for me?” Victor muttered as he returned his senses to his main body. Alice was beside him with stars in her eyes and a giddy excitement expected from a child on Christmas morning.

Confused, Victor decided to take a look around. Hours had passed since he had last checked in on the progress of his crew down in the Grand Dungeon, so they should have reached the next floor by now…

Surrounding him was completely new scenery—everywhere he looked, gems of every color imaginable decorated the landscape. It was so sparkly…as if a god had spilled a jar of glitter across an entire continent.

Stalagmites of amethyst rose to the sky as rivers of rubies meandered through rolling hills of emeralds adorned with flowers sprouting petals of gold. In the distance—mountains of ore with beautiful waterfalls of sparkling lapis lazuli dominated the horizon. Even from the floating platform, Victor could spot movement below as hulking gem golems, some the size of multistory homes, trudged aimlessly to their next destination. With every step, the ground quivered, and the gems were pulverized underneath and churned underfoot, becoming the land’s soil.

“What in all things holy is this?” Victor couldn’t hold back his pure shock. All the previous floors had been wastelands with nothing but sand, ice, water, and mud. Although he was now a void creature, that human greed and desire for all things shiny still remained. A part of him wanted to divebomb and scoop up even a little of that soil that was likely worth more than its weight in gold.

“Wow, look at that big one!” Alice remarked as she pointed to a gigantic golem directly below them that was munching on an amethyst stalagmite. The purple gem shattered like glass between the monstrous golem’s jaws like a snapping turtle. Victor then watched in amazement as the spikes of amethyst on the golem’s back shone a pale pink before expanding slightly in size.

“These golems look similar to Rock but also a little different.” Victor focused on the golem and watched its slow movements, carefree attitude, and lack of observation or care for its environment.

“Who is Rock?” Alice asked.

“Oh, yeah. You never met that team of Delvers…” Victor waved her off. “Not really important right now, but Rock is a golem chef at Necron.”

He returned his attention to the golem that was busy munching away. “If I had to put it simply, these golems seem less intelligent than Rock by a large margin. Everything about them screams robotic and thoughtless to me. As if they merely act on a set few instincts in an eternal cycle and cannot divert their thinking, whereas Rock is capable of some level of thought. He can even cook!”

That may have been an overly harsh and rash judgment, but watching a golem mindlessly munch on its food and not even looking up at the floating platform grated his nerves. Why? He wasn’t sure. But something about that dumb, carefree look made him mad. I just want to go down there, shake its shoulders, and slap it. Maybe then it will wake up…

Victor paused at that thought. He was a Netherborne. A creature from the void that ended nations and eradicated continents. If he wanted to do something, he could darn well do it. So, without hesitation, he hovered down to the ground and came face to face with the golem. He didn’t even have his Stealth activated and was in direct sight of the thing, yet it didn’t even react…just munching away.

Victor charged up a Doom Ray. Purple lightning crackled between his claws; the golem ignored him. Is it confidence or stupidity? Maybe Victor’s opinions of golems and their level of intelligence had been warped by Rock and his ability to strategize, cook, and even talk.

As the spell charged up, Victor debated if destroying this thing was worth it. It was like using a bazooka to obliterate a random farmer’s tractor. In the end, the only loser in this situation was him and the stat points wasted. But I wonder if my Raise Undead skill works on golems? The fact that he did not have an answer to such a question made this decision easy.

He had to do it in the name of science. So Victor raised his claw and unleashed a semi-charged Doom Ray at the unaware golem. A flash of purple lightning was followed by a thunderclap that created a shock wave so powerful the golem rocked on its feet. Like a hedgehog, the amethyst spikes covering its back burst with purple light as a mana shield rippled into existence—a dense purple hue coated the golem and spread out the impact of the lightning.

When everything cleared, the golem was on its side with a burning hole in its left flank. But overall, it was fine—the sound of glass shattering, followed by all of the amethyst spikes disintegrating into dust and blowing away with the westerly winds caught Victor off guard. The golem was now bare, with its white marble body exposed.

“Got worried for a second there.” Victor sneered and raised his hand again. Then, bringing his claws together to simulate a railgun, he didn’t even charge the spell and unleashed a much weaker but concentrated Doom Ray. The golem lay motionless and accepted its annihilation as the purple lightning burrowed through the partially made hole and superheated the golem from the inside, causing it to explode a moment later in a superheated cloud of rubble.

Victor cast Raise Undead with a wave of his hand, yet nothing happened. Floating closer and concentrating on the rubble, he cast Raise Undead a second time, but nothing happened. Finally, on the off chance it worked, he cast Consume, but the result was as expected. A dumb pile of rocks never had any lifeforce to begin with.

Deciding this whole thing was a waste of time, Victor turned to head back up to the floating platform, but something odd was caught in the corner of his perception.

Everything was so shiny on this floor, so something so dull, like a castle wall nestled inside a cave entrance, was bound to stand out…

“Are there people living down here?” Victor asked himself. Well, there’s only one way to find out…