Empire Builder 1: Breed, Populate, Conquer by Dante King (free e books to read online txt) 📕

very pale when he said this. Imogen most likely did too, but it didn’t show on her already stone-white skin.

Melody looked concerned, but her tail maintained a steady rhythm behind her.

“Do you know of something I could do, Melody?” Ben asked.

Melody smiled. “You are the Forgotten Ruler. Your power has progressed faster than I ever dreamed possible. There must be something you can still do. What about using the monsters in the dungeon?”

“That’s an interesting idea. I’m sure even these mages would have difficulty dealing with them.”

Ben turned to look at Sir Gallant the Elder. “Would this be possible?”

“There is a control room in the dungeons, sire,” the larger knight said.

“The Younger mentioned something about that,” Ben said.

The Younger looked up at the Elder in surprise. “How would the control room help?”

“The monsters are generated using the moveable glyph totems in the control room. That’s how you produced the monsters, you should know that.”

“I don’t think I can convince the mages to come to the dungeons,” Ben said.

“I wasn’t thinking of that,” the elder knight said. “Perhaps we can bring these totems to the tower.”

“Do you think that’s possible?” Ben asked. “Can we power them in this tower?”

The younger knight nodded. “I can’t think why not. There must be a control room in here somewhere. I believe I saw one earlier.”

“Great,” Ben said. “So how do we remove the totems from the dungeon?”

“With your help, we put those totems there in the first place, we should be able to bring them back out again. They only require power crystals to operate, and this tower contains plenty of those.”

“Those are the glowing crystals in the hallways?” Ben asked.

Sir Gallant the Younger nodded. “Just like the glowing crystals in the dungeon chambers.”

The elder knight looked at Ben, at least Ben assumed he was looking at him, though all he could see was a visor pointed at him.

“You are the Forgotten Ruler. You designed these mechanisms eons ago. If anyone can work it out, it would be you, sire.”

“That’s our only hope, as I see it,” Ben said. “These mages are too strong to kill any other way.”

“What will happen to us?” Vinata asked, her voice trembling.

Ben looked at the three of them. They were shaking with worry. He couldn’t imagine what it was like to be in the same tower with mages who’d hunted them since childhood. His blood boiled at the thought.

“These mages deserve to die, I am sure of it now,” Ben said. “I will not let anything happen to you three. I promise, I will kill these mages or die in the attempt.”

Ben felt conviction behind every word. He hadn’t been in this world for long, but already he’d come to love these women. And the way these mages behaved repulsed him utterly. As the returned ruler of this world, it was up to him to deal justice.

Chapter Sixteen

It took around a half hour for Sir Gallant the Elder and Ben to return to the dungeons. Ben had his rucksack on his back to transport the glyphs back to the tower.

This time there was no voice to welcome them when they entered the dungeons. While surprising at first, it made sense to Ben after a moment’s thought. The voice that had spoken before had belonged to Sir Gallant the Younger, and he was back in the tower.

Together with Sir Gallant the Elder, Ben made his way back through the halls. This time, no monsters appeared to fight them. It was eerily calm in the dungeon, and a little surreal. Ben recalled that only a short time ago he’d been fighting for his life in these halls.

“The control room is connected to the chamber you found us in, sire,” Sir Gallant the Elder said. “It is hidden by a secret panel. Once we get there, I’m sure you will have an idea of what devices to take with you. One of those should be useful in summoning monsters in your tower.”

“Great. Let's not waste any more time.”

It took them ten minutes to reach the control room. Some of the corridors were familiar, others utilized shortcuts that only Sir Gallant knew how to activate. The control room reminded Ben of a pilot’s cockpit, with all kinds of lights and switches and buttons. Rather than an electronic switchboard, the ones featured in this control room were arrays of runes and glyphs.

“Which ones control the monsters?” he asked Sir Gallant the Elder.

The knight motioned toward a series of runes on the right. “They are here.”

Ben put his hand over the runes. His vision was transformed, and he could see various monsters in front of his eyes. They floated in front of him and rotated, almost like a selection screen from a video game.

He saw gravel ghouls, large earth elemental rodents, vine monsters, and others he didn’t recognize. He wasn’t sure how exactly these runes worked, or how he could remove them. However, he was the one who had created this dungeon—even though it might have been a previous incarnation of himself—and he would have wanted the ability to move these summoning runes around.

He pressed his hand to the rune and felt a buzz of energy. The rune rose out of the control panel. It was a cylinder made of a hard ceramic substance.

Ben hurried to remove the rest of the monster glyphs, until he had six in all. They were all the ones in the control room. And while there were many other glyph totems here, he wasn’t sure what they would do. These six would have to suffice. He put the glyphs in his rucksack, and they left the room.

Ben and Sir Gallant the Elder navigated back through the dungeons and the forest, and hurried back to the tower. Ben hoped that Melody had managed to keep the mages and their soldiers entertained. The trio were a bloodthirsty bunch—or at least Adremor the Force Wizard and Uzax the Pyromancer were; he hadn’t confirmed whether or not Lexi the Sunstone Cleric was