Valknar
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NM - Chapter 41
🕑 Added 2025-05-04 08:27:04 +0000 UTCThings continued as normal after he left.
March 1890 ended with one interesting news story.
Otto von Bismarck had to announce his retirement, but Kaiser Wilhelm II had convinced him to stay on to help cement the three emperors' alliance. Von Bismarck was the architect and was seen as key in stabilising and strengthening it. This was quite the departure from my world, where von Bismarck was known to be more of a diplomat who kept Europe in balance, not tying Germany to any major alliances or defensive pacts to prevent war.
“I wonder what caused that change?”
Right then, I knew it was doubtful I would ever get an answer. If I survive into the future, I might be able to find some biographies or historical books that explain the change in the timeline more to me. Until then, it was another question for me to think about.
President Samuel Fredrickson had a busy month in April. I did not, so the national news was more interesting than watching the world go by. I did entertain myself somewhat with my gardening, but that only gave me so much time away from my duties.
The first international conference of American states was held in Washington, D.C. It was heralded as a great meeting of American states coming together to discuss diplomatic resolutions to problems and increasing trade. It was held over most of the month, and nothing seemed to happen as there were no significant announcements outside of a few small treaties.
The second was that the Oklahoma territory was organised and prepared for statehood. In my time, the state had a large native population transplanted from the east during the Trail of Tears, but they weren't there in this one. There were a few tribes in the area, but they had been pushed down into Mexico or placed into very small reservations. This was after extensive US cavalry pacification campaigns against them.
There was a Tariff Act that many were unhappy with, which he supported.
The start of May brought a traveller to my gates. The man came up on horseback, and from his attire and demeanour, I was willing to bet he was a member of the Way of Athamos. I watched him prepare himself in the area outside the gates, and when he revealed the same knife that all the other members had wielded, my suspicions were confirmed.
It was late afternoon when he entered the gates and decided to go north.
[A Hunter has made a Kill]
Roberson did not take long to kill him, and he hauled the body off after searching it. He was quite the disappointment. Brother Michael had proven to be at least a competent opponent, but this one had died within mere minutes of being discovered by my hunter.
The horse was disposed of, and the little loot discovered was split, which was very little. I spent the rest of May wandering around the dungeon, checking on various things. I realised that my hunters were starting to run low on clothing. Quite often, spare clothing was salvaged from those killed, but I'm not sure where terror and combat were taking their toll on what little we had on hand.
“I might have to organise clothes runs. What a thought.”
Another thing I considered was sending a message to Senior Ahmad asking if you could please send competent people. It was an entertaining thought, but I ultimately decided against it because they would add to my kill count. The count was now at 50, and I was making steady progress to my next level.
June brought a change in my mood. It was either this month or July twenty years ago that I arrived here. Twenty years. I couldn't help but think back and look over the changes to the dungeon, my hunters, and ultimately myself.
Was I proud of what I had done?
That was a complicated question with an even more complicated answer. I mulled it over for a few days. However, the arrival of a new group disrupted my thoughts.
Six riders dismount their horses. These aren't frontiersmen but professional-looking men who were all very well-armed.
“This does not look good.”
They dismounted in unison and moved with a practised ease. Just spoke of military training or a great deal of time working together. They moved as a group towards the gates and stopped at the threshold. One man stood slightly forward of the others in the middle and was clearly the leader.
“He would have come here.” He spoke. The others said nothing but awaited instructions. “We have a good six hours of light; we shall use it to our advantage and search as far as we are able.”
They crossed the threshold. They ignored the plinth.
“Mr Cauldwell, North.” The man indicated that path, but he turned down the southern path. Two men followed each man.
[Alert! Intruders are not recognised as Challengers.]
I reached out to inform my hunters of the intruders. I told Rigger he would need to be involved as these men were dangerous, and I was not taking any chances. I had to choose which group to deal with first. I went with the southern.
“Why are they here anyway? They say something about looking for someone.”
I directed my hunters to one of the places in the dungeon I had already decided was a good ambush point. I thought that attacking them might not be a good idea and that I should let them have a look around. That risked exposing my hidden fortune under the church, but it was a risk that could be worth it. I did not know who they were or what organisation they represented. I was sure they were representing something, but I did not know what resources they had.
I debated the ambush until they approached where it would take place. I knew my hunters were already in position and awaiting my order. As they walked to the junction, the debate in my mind became more intense: Kill or leave, kill or leave.
“Go.”
Once the word was given, my hunters moved quickly. The closer you came to the dungeon's heart, the denser the mausoleums. The men spotted McGregor as he approached, and they turned to face him, drawing their weapons. The leader started to talk but was interrupted. Rigger was coming from the opposite way. Several hunters were now using them to strike at their targets from above. Roberson and Rodriguez used this angle. They fell on the two men following the leader, which distracted him long enough to allow the others to get close enough.
A gunshot echoed through the area. One of the revolvers they were carrying had discharged, but none of my hunters were hit.
The fight was now close up and personal, but these three men proved to be somewhat tougher than the average fair. Punching, kicking, head-butting, and biting were all taking place. It did not, however, save them.
[A Hunter has made a Kill]
Rodriguez used his tomahawk to reduce the head of the man he jumped on to a bloody mess.
The hunters had dominated the fight and were not willing to give up their advantage.
[A Hunter has made a Kill]
Roberson claimed the next one, striking his neck so hard with his cleaver that he almost decapitated him. Blood pumps from the wound covering my hunter and a large area around him.
[A Hunter has made a Kill]
Rigger killed the leader, almost disembowelling him with several savage cuts to his midsection. McGregor snarled at missing his chance at a kill.
I raised my view, looking around the graveyard for the other three. They heard the shot, and we were moving south as fast as we could, trying to bypass as much of the maze as possible by cutting through the gravestones. They had their guns out and were ready for trouble.
“Another three coming. Leave the dead and head to the junction on the next ring.”
My hunch is that they understood where I was indicating and quickly headed off. They reached it before the men did, doing their best to find ambush positions before they arrived.
Unfortunately, Rigger was spotted and did not get into a good place in time. Cauldwell directed the others to shoot at him. They quickly started firing off their revolvers in his direction, forcing him to take cover behind several gravestones. Bullets impacted the stone and ricocheted off. Chips of stone and dust were scattered around the area as each bullet impacted. This forced him to lie down on the floor to avoid being hit.
The three men closed on him to get a better position to fire and kill him. From the look on their faces, I didn't think they were willing to take him prisoner.
They never saw the other three until it was too late.
McGregor jumped out from behind a tree, catching the first. His evil smile was on full display as he savagely and sadistically sliced the man apart. He cried out in pain, and this only drove my hunter to more extraordinary acts of depravity.
[A Hunter has made a Kill]
This distracted the other two men, who were trying to get into a clear firing position on my prone hunter. Rodrigues caught the second with a tomahawk to the back of his skull.
[A Hunter has made a Kill]
As he collapsed forward, the final man standing realised he was in far too deep and tried to run. Roberson took out a leg as he ran past the statue he was hiding behind. The man collapsed forward with a scream of pain, losing his grip on the revolver. As he turned around, trying to escape, my hunter moved in and made his second kill of the day.
[A Hunter has made a Kill]
“Let's get this cleaned up.”
I returned to the leader of the group. His body was lying on the grass, and the blood was seeping into the earth. I summoned my avatar next to the body. Kneeling, I started to search for what I could of his jacket that was not saturated in blood.
In one of the inner pockets, I found a small notebook. Opening the notebook, I found a niche and organised cursive writing filling many pages. I went to the end of the filled-in pages and began working back.
I discovered two things very quickly. First, they were private detectives from a company out east. Second, they were looking for a man named Grayson. I knew that name. It turns out that Mr Grayson had not made his regular check-in with his family, and they had become concerned as the days turned into weeks. They had commissioned these private detectives to come out and find out what had happened to him. They had followed the trail to here.
“This is going to be a problem.”
From what I could tell, this was not some small operation, but the detective agency was quite large. They were not to the scale of the Pinkertons in my timeline but they were pretty damn big. When this group did not make their scheduled check-in, there was a good chance more would come.
“How am I going to deal with this?”
It was more annoying because it referenced a code sent with each check-in to confirm it was them. Whatever this code was, it was not written down and must have only been in the group leader's mind.
“[Hide the Crime!]”
My hunters removed the bodies, and I triggered the ability to reduce the signs of the murders and fighting. I walked with them back towards the gates as they were moving on to taking care of the horses. I was still reading through the notebook the whole time.
Looking up briefly, I realised that Rigger was still with us and was not handling the sunlight well. He was all bundled up, but I could tell he was suffering.
“Rigger, head back to the church. Everyone, give him whatever you've got on you for the loot pile.”
He nodded gratefully to me and took what limited items we had gathered, which mainly comprised the gun belts and guns of the men we had killed. He turned around and headed back into the depths of the graveyard while we continued on to the gates.
I stood in the courtyard and watched my hunters quickly gather the saddlebags and other items they found attached to the horses' saddles. Roberson volunteered to take them to the Driver family.
“Roberson, have Herbert take them up to Crossway. Have him tell the locals that they were found wandering at the forest's edge.”
“Will that not bring attention you are not seeking, Keeper?” He asked. It was a fair question.
“The men we killed were private detectives, not from around here, and I doubt these are their horses. They are more likely to be rented from someone in Crossway, so returning them might buy some goodwill, but I doubt it.”
He nodded and then led the horses away. Rodriguez and McGregor returned the saddle bags and a few other things to the church. I had to assist him as there was more than we had expected.
When we returned to the church, I felt the strain of holding my avatar form. Rigger came out and helped us carry what we had brought back. There was no alcohol, but quite a bit of tobacco. There was some money, but no silver dollars. But I did get a couple of decent pocket watches and a few cigarette cases printed in precious metals, mostly silver.
Roberson had claimed one of the bodies as his own. I kept a few other items he would be interested in; the rest was split amongst the hunters. They withdrew, and I waited for his return. When he did, he seemed happy with his cut and retreated to his lair.
The rest of the day passed peacefully.
June passed with no other visitors.
One major story piqued my interest internationally. The Irish Dominion was created, with the Home Rule Act coming into full effect, and the Irish parliament was formed in Dublin. The Irish people had now taken control of their local affairs from Westminster. I had no idea what this would bring in the future, as there were still tensions with the Unionists in the north of the island.
It was decided to keep the Union flag as it was.
July saw two interesting events. First was the Heligoland–Zanzibar and Naval Treaty site between Great Britain and Germany. Von Bismarck orchestrated the treaty, which he hailed as one of his most important. It covered the exchange of several island territories that either side controlled. The treaty also covered the size of the German Imperial Navy and stipulated that it would not exceed a certain percentage in tonnage compared to the Royal Navy. Von Bismarck was recorded saying that Germany was a European power with few colonies that did not require a large Navy to support them. It was believed that the Kaiser was not happy with the limitations of his Navy, but he accepted it as a means to avoid a future conflict with Britain.
The second thing was that I was sure this was technically my birthday this month. This was regarding me being a dungeon core and not a human being, of course. After thinking extensively about it and racking all my memories of the first few days I was here, I was confident that I had arrived in July 1870. This marked my 20th year, and I looked over everything I controlled. I did this from the top of the bubble, looking down.
Two miles hidden in the one-mile spatial bubble. As you approached the dungeon's centre, the gravestones, trees, statues and mausoleums were dense and denser. Underground, there are several mausoleums with multiple crypts. Five hunters reside within the graveyard. The church, which was the centre of my domain, was shot up, but I knew it would be repaired as soon as I reached my next level. However, it still irks me. Looking over everything, I am happy with what I have brought into being and oversee.
Yet, at the same time, I am concerned.
I have changed; I know this and cannot deny it. My earlier squeamishness to death and blood was gone. I tolerated my hunter's dark traits with little complaint now. Only the death of children still stirred any emotion, even though they were still distant to me.
If I were like this after twenty years, what would I be like in another twenty?
If I could sleep, this question would keep me awake at night. As I could not, I had to deal with it. Unfortunately, the answer is that I could not tell. It was one of those things I would only know the answer to once I got there.
I briefly considered throwing a little party, but the only people I could really have invited were my hunters and the Driver family. I knew I could not invite them for their safety.
There were threats and dangers outside of my dungeon gathering for different ends. This was another thing I could not do anything about until the dangers manifested. So, I did what I could only do: I waited.
August came with no visitors. Herbert appeared with the local paper and gossip from the local area. The return of the horses had left a few questions unanswered, and the local population decided not to look for any more answers outside the story they were told. I was glad about that.
With the success of the treaty with Britain, Von Bismarck organised another major diplomatic meeting with the Russian tsar Alexander III to strengthen the three-emperor alliance. Part of what came out of the meeting was a deal with the Russian Empire to supply them with several modern ships, which would be split between the western and eastern fleets.
September arrives, and I know that the weather will start changing soon. So far, the summer has been quite a pleasant one. Still, no visitors came to my dungeon, and I was content for the moment, as I knew that if too many died too quickly, I would be forced to deal with questions and investigations.
I was still concerned about the private investigators who had died here and what their company would do, but they had not made an appearance so far. The Way of Athamos was still active in Crossway, but they had made no move against me or sent anyone else to test themselves.
By the end of September, it was clear that the weather was changing. The green sea around me started tingling with brown and gold. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints outlawed polygamy under threat from the US government. They protested extensively and made several bids in the Supreme Court to block it, but they were blocked at every turn and ultimately conceded.
With October now arriving, the days were shorter, and the nights were getting longer. I expected to start preparing for the winter as no one else would arrive this time of year, but I was proven wrong.
