The First Legendary Beast Master

Chapter 961: See The Truth

The new guests arrived all at once, and the city guard barred the door to the tavern, keeping everyone inside, and prying eyes outside.

Needless to say, Cara was quite annoyed when she got to the door, and they shooed her away.

She simply stepped into her space and then settled on the back of the boothʼs bench behind Lotus. But the audacity of those guards, telling her where she could and couldnʼt go.

Unacceptable.

The City Lord, a Mythic Ranked Dwarven Warrior, sat at a large round table in the middle of the room, and the Totem ranked Mage from the corner moved to join him and the other Totems.

”Alright, what is so important that I had to come here on my day off?” The City Lord demanded.

”Other than the fact that the entire city knows that the city was never renovated, it was just put under a cursed illusion that made it look new? Or that the curse applies to everything in the city, including the food and the people?

Oh, the thousands of undead might be a good place to start as well. The people who have died since the renovation are all still around as Undead. I donʼt know how we missed that in the city census.

But with the illusion in place, nobody can see what food has spoiled, and now we have a cause for all the mystery illnesses that have been coming to the Clerics.” The Dwarf who had been in the corner of the room demanded in a dry tone.

The City Lord looked like a deer in the headlights, unsure how to respond to the accusations.

”Thatʼs not possible, it has to be a lie.” He insisted.

Cara snorted in amusement, and Rae smirked.

”You know, we can prove it to you. Who here has a Totem Ranked or higher [Dispel] or [Nullify] ability? Even a perception spell to see through illusions should do.” Rae insisted.

One of the Dwarves took out a magical device and activated it.

”Everything looks fine to me. What do you mean, there is an illusion?”

Rae gestured to the door. ”Look outside. The interior of the building was renovated by the owner. Look at everything that was done during the renovation effort.”

The mage stepped to the door with his magical device, then gasped as he looked at the market, and slammed the door shut again.

”What the hell? Why are there undead selling vegetables in the market?” He demanded.

”Because the curse keeps them looking just like new. They donʼt know that theyʼre dead. If you go talk to them, theyʼll answer like normal. Until they can see through the curse, they wonʼt realize that anything is wrong.”

”How could we miss something like this?” One of the others demanded.

They were Totems, they should be able to see through any illusion that the spider did.

Rae shrugged. ”Youʼre likely cursed as well. Would you like to be Nullified? We have a Winged Void Badger, and she can disenchant most curses, at least for a while. The city returned to normal after she inspected it, so the curse has a core somewhere.”

The City Lord went paper white at the mention of a core for the curse.

”I think that I know what it is. When I invited the Stone Lord here, he presented the city with a gift, a puzzle box with a magical item inside. I never opened it, just put it in the treasury with all the other random gifts the city has gotten.” He whispered.

”So, we just destroy the core, or deactivate it, and the city will return to its real appearance?” One of the other Council members asked.

The Lord shook his head, just now realizing what Cara and Rae had been the first to conclude.

”If we do destroy the curse, all of the undead will die. The locals will think we murdered a quarter of the population. And then thereʼs the issue of the other curse that was on the city, stopping it from raining.”

The council member who had been sitting in the tavern from the start frowned and downed his ale.

”Well, weʼre going to have to do something about both before the end of the day. The curse that was stopping it from raining has been mostly taken care of, so thatʼs just a public announcement.

But the state of the city is a whole other matter. Soon, the buildings will start collapsing if theyʼre not properly repaired. Thatʼs why we authorized the funding to have it done the first time.

And thatʼs another issue. We need to fix everything, and the residents will not be happy if we ask them to pay twice, after letting everyone be deceived the first time.”

One of the other councilmen laughed. ”Well, itʼs not like we can call the Lordʼs friend back to come fix things now, can we? As he turned out to be a master illusionist and not an earth mage at all.”

”Or a Necromancer. Itʼs a bit hard to tell with what I am hearing from outside.” One of the others insisted, then held up a stone tablet that had rows of text scrolling over it.

Karl was intrigued by the item. It looked like System Messages, but appearing on the tablet. The messages started with the same format for names, so it seemed safe to assume that it was a projection of his interface, and not part of a group of networked items.

The City Lord was clearly getting annoyed by all the jabs at him, but this debacle appeared to be completely a result of his choices. He had handpicked the contractor to do the renovations, and he had gotten the whole city cursed and scammed.

What Karl was most interested in was the method he was going to try to talk himself out of this situation. From the look on everyone elseʼs faces, it was not going to be easy.

But so far, none of them had a viable solution, either. If they did, they would have put it forward just to make the City Lord sweat a bit harder.