Dungeon Tour Guide ch. 43 (Patreon)

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“W—wait, wait, hold on,” I said, stumbling over my own words in my haste. “Kill him?”

“Of course,” Jackson said, preparing his shield once more. “What else?”

“I don’t know, maybe, fucking, ugh—“ I threw my hands up, my words failing me.

I couldn’t quite articulate the reasoning for it. The words were at the tip of my tongue, but there was just something that felt wrong about this.

“If you have no alternative,” Jackson said, “then perhaps there is only one logical course of action.”

“I just don’t want to kill the defenseless guy that we already beat, okay?” I asked. “I don’t like… kicking people when they’re down, I guess.”

Goddess knows that’s happened to me enough.

“Healers,” Ed sighed, shouldering his bow. “All you lot ‘ave soft hearts.”

“I do appreciate you keeping me on my feet,” Jackson said. “I am indebted to you for it. Despite that, though, I can’t agree with your decision.”

“Why not?” I asked. “Is that just your policy? Kill people that are issues for you?”

“I choose to kill those who attempt to kill me,” Jackson said. “I would recommend you do the same. What would you rather do?”

“A fair trial, I guess,” I said. “Which would probably result in a really long imprisonment or something anyway, but still. That feels more right.”

Then again, how much of that was because I was an otherworlder? Things worked a bit differently around here, especially when it came to enemy soldiers actively trying to end your life.

Besides, I couldn’t even claim to completely stick to that philosophy. The first time I’d had Kingsguard invade my dungeon, I’d trapped two of them, and I’d ended up killing one of them. Then, it had felt justified because he’d actively been trying to kill both my human and core halves.

What was different between now and then? Was the only difference that we’d managed to subdue them this time?

Jackson stared at me, piercing green eyes boring into mine. “Are you an otherworlder?”

“Huh?” Whatever I’d been expecting, it hadn’t been that.

“Aye, don’t harp on the boy too much,” Ed said. “He saved your life.”

“Apologies,” he said, leaning back. “I only ask because these sentiments are ones that I hear the most from otherworlders. Many seem to fail to understand what the proper course of action is.”

“Proper course of action?” I asked. “You mean murder?”

“Do it on a battlefield and it’s honorable,” Jackson sighed. “Do it moments later and the otherworlders call you a criminal.”

“He’s no threat to us as he is,” I said, unsure how much I believed my own words. “We could imprison him.”

“And then what?” Jackson asked. “Let him build up mana and then [Shadow Step] away before he can be locked in one of our [Antimagic Field]s? Let an enemy soldier wreak havoc on our heartlands?”

“I mean…”

“The result is set in stone anyway,” Jackson said. “Iris owns the courts in Ketz. He’s an enemy. That’s that.”

I frowned. “When you put it that way, I can kind of see what you mean? Still, it makes me feel a little uncomfortable.”

As I spoke, I cast another [Spare the Dying]. The Kingsguard was barely alive at this point, but I didn’t want to heal him any more than I needed to keep him alive. For one, he’d be an actual threat if he woke up, and for two, I wasn’t sure if the two level 10s would react poorly to me trying to heal the enemy.

While I cast, I realized that I’d pinpointed the difference between the two events. The first time, I’d killed someone who’d still been cursing at me, still been trying to carve his way to me. This time, if I went through with their plan, I’d be killing someone that couldn’t fight back. That was it. The only difference.

If I was okay then, why not now?

“I’m sorry, Lucas,” Ed said, placing a hand on my shoulder. “But this is war.”

“What do you mean, war?” I asked. “You learned about the Kingsguard being active, like, two minutes ago.”

“I’m familiar with the adages,” Jackson said. “There is no war in the kingdom. There never is. Just because there is no war, however, does not mean that there is no war.”

“That… that doesn’t make any sense at all,” I said. “I think I get the point you’re going at, but the wording you used is just edgy bullshit.”

“We fought before,” Ed said, staring off into the distance. “Two years ago. Our first adventure.”

I nodded. Okay, that makes more sense. I was functionally unkillable inside the dungeon, and even I was pretty okay with committing acts of violence against anyone attacking me. For these two, who’d dealt with them before—probably with their lives on the line—the stakes were different.

This world was different. If I had to equate this situation to one back on Earth, it’d be like trying to arrest someone who would always have a loaded pistol in their pockets with little to no way to remove said weapon.

Well, not even that—arrest a soldier of an enemy state who would always possess a loaded weapon.

I breathed in, out. Things are different. You need to adapt.

My resolve hardened. I couldn’t let anyone get hurt because of a stupid decision I made.

“If it helps,” Jackson said. “I can kill him somewhere else. You don’t have to watch.”

“One moment,” I said, and I surprised even myself with how cold my voice was. “There are other considerations to be had. Practical ones.”

“Oh?” Ed asked. “A change of heart from ya?”

“Not a change of heart,” I said. “A resolution of some internal conflicts, you could call it.”

“I can understand that,” Jackson said. “You said practical considerations?”

“There’s a number of things you can do with a prisoner other than imprisoning or killing them,” I said. “I’m not sure if you’ve considered them?”

“I’ll be the first to admit that we aren’t experts on the matter,” Jackson said. “We’re guards and adventurers, not generals.”

“First of all, prisoner exchange,” I said. “This guy is obviously someone important, right?”

“More reason to kill him, I’d say,” Jackson said, glancing over at the Kingsguard in question. “He’s not about to wake up, right?”

“No,” I said. “I can tell. Healer skill. Anyway, that might be a reason to kill him, but it might also be beneficial. Imagine, say, Iris gets kidnapped. That’d result in a fair number of organizations crumbling apart, right?”

“Followin’ you,” Ed said, nodding. “You’re saying that we could give the Omen this guy?”

“He’s not exactly known for taking prisoners,” Jackson said.

“We could trade the prisoners, yes,” I said. “It’s a common practice in some areas. If the Omen doesn’t take prisoners, then that’s a lot less viable, but that brings me to my second point.”

“Go on,” the [Shieldbearer] said, casting another vaguely worried glance over to the downed Kingsguard.

“Interrogation,” I said. Kind of blindingly obvious, but I could forgive them for not thinking of it in the heat of the moment. “The two of you hadn’t heard of the Kingsguard move before today. I don’t know why the fuck there’s so many of them intruding into my dungeon. Iris doesn’t know why her town got attacked. Nobody knows how the dungeon breaks are progressing and why.”

That got me nods from both of them, which was encouraging.

“He knows,” I said. “If not everything, he knows more than us. More about the motives of the Kingsguard, more about what they’re doing, all of that.”

“How could we verify that he’s telling the truth?” Jackson asked. “Once again, information gathering was never our forte.”

“[Zone of Truth], [Detect Thoughts], [Truthtell], and similar skills,” I said. “I’m a [Healer] and both of you are purely combat-oriented classes, so it’s unlikely that any of us have it. If you know of any [Analyst]s, human-oriented [Druid]s, truth-oriented [Paladin]s or [Cleric]s, anything like that, then we could bring one over and interrogate him.”

“And then kill him,” Jackson said.

“You seem awfully set on that,” I said, putting aside the rising bile at the thought of that and steeling myself. “But yes. If we can’t use him for a prisoner exchange and he still poses a threat to us, then that will likely be our only option.”

“There’s an [Analyst] on-site at the Alder Corporation’s Ketz headquarters,” Jackson said. “If I recall correctly, at least. He’s not far and it’s not late, so I could go seek him out and be back in under an hour.”

“That would be ideal,” I said.

I’d surprised myself with the thoughts, but they made sense. I’d been too wrapped up in my own qualms with the situations to analyze it carefully, but once I’d managed to sort through my thoughts, I’d found cold logic at the bottom.

Ideally, we’d find an opening in his psyche that would let us set him on the path to rehabilitation, but Ed hadn’t exactly been wrong when he’d said that this was war. Even if the kingdom wouldn’t acknowledge it, that was what this was.

“I’ll head out right now,” Jackson said.

“Leave the cards,” Ed said.

“Right.”

And just like that, the [Shieldbearer] was off, leaving the shield behind. I supposed he was faster without it, at least.

“Well,” I said. “Here we are.”

“Here we are,” Ed agreed. “By the by, I do have a question.”

“Shoot.”

He mimed the action of nocking an arrow and releasing it, chuckling. “Shouldn’t we, er, restrain him?”

“Ah, that’s a good point,” I said. “I suppose it’ll be hard to talk to him properly if he’s fully awake and unrestrained.”

“I can’t think of many ways to do it,” Ed said. “Yer a healer, right?”

“I am indeed.”

“How strong?”

“Strong enough.”

Before I could react properly, he took a real arrow out of his quiver and fired it, sinking it into the Kingsguard’s gut.

There was something special about his arrow, apparently, because mana flared from its tip and it sank its way into the rock as well.

“Fuck!” I shouted, activating another [Spare the Dying] and following it with a [Rejuvenating Pulse]. “Give me some warning!”

I could understand why he’d done that, at least. Impaling people did tend to make it harder for them to cast spells. Still…

“You know I can speak with the dungeon, right?” I said. “I could’ve just asked it to capture him. Please don’t do that again.”

“Ah,” Ed said. “Jackson would go on for hours if he heard that.”

“Just, ugh, okay,” I said, forming skintight stone restraints as I spoke, face in my palms, “talk things out with me first?”

“Sorry,” he said. “I get a little trigger happy.”

I can see that.

“Here,” I said, taking a seat. There was definitely something about the Kingsguard that was setting Ed and Jackson off, and changing the subject would probably help keep them from constantly attempting violence against our prisoner. “How about we play some cards, yeah? Worry about the Kingsguard when they come back? I assure you the dungeon’s got this under control.”

“Sounds good,” he said, joining me with the deck he’d gotten from his partner. “Drops?”

“Drops is just fine,” I said, burying a sigh in my throat. “I’ll bet in at a quarter coin.”

___________________________________

“Dungeons and dragons, doubles,” Ed declared, triumphant. “I’ll take your two coins now.”

“Fine, fine,” I said, passing him the two freshly generated coins. He had to be, like, ten coins up now, but that was fine by me so long as he wasn’t still attempting to mur—er, execute my prisoner.

As he dealt out the next hand, I saw the two presences appear at the gates.

I stood.

“I can sense them,” I said.

Our [Analyst] was here, and hopefully that meant answers.