Chapter 25: My Reputation Has Escalated Beyond My Control

The first song about Nate Mercer reached the Blighted March at breakfast.

It arrived not as an official diplomatic insult, nor as a merchant’s exaggerated sales pitch, nor even as a drunken tavern rumor half-mangled by ale and distance. It arrived attached to a bard.

The bard wore a hat with three feathers, boots too shiny for the road, and the doomed confidence of a man who had once been applauded by strangers and had mistaken that experience for immunity to consequences. He stood in the middle of the newly paved market square beneath a string of lantern-mushrooms and drew a silver-stringed lute from his cloak with a flourish sharp enough to threaten nearby pastries.

Nate had been halfway through a mug of bitter root coffee and a very serious conversation with Gorvak about municipal trash collection.

“I’m just saying,” Nate said, squinting at a parchment map covered in tidy grid lines and tiny skull-shaped icons, “if the bone imps keep eating the compost bins, maybe we should stop making the bins out of treated bone.”

Gorvak, former demon general, current Chief of Security and Dental Benefits Advocacy, folded his enormous arms. His horns scraped faintly against the striped awning overhead. “The bone imps respect bone. They do not respect wood.”

“They’re eating the respect.”

“That is one interpretation.”

“It’s the interpretation with bite marks.”

Across the square, a few early shoppers paused. Goblin masons with sacks of lime on their shoulders turned. A trio of human adventurers fresh from the Dungeon Experience stood with meat skewers in hand, cheeks still flushed from surviving the Beginner Skeleton Maze. Two harpy couriers perched along the roofline of Mrs. Tallowick’s pie stall, feathers ruffling in the morning wind. Even the mushroom lanterns seemed to dim in anticipation.

The bard strummed one bright, heroic chord.

Nate looked up.

“Oh no,” he said.

The bard inhaled deeply and sang.

“O hear ye now of Mercer bold, whose eyes are storm and flame—”

Root coffee went down the wrong pipe.

Nate doubled over coughing so hard his vision sparkled. Gorvak’s expression sharpened with battlefield concern. “My lord?”

“I’m fine,” Nate wheezed. “I’ve just been critically wounded by metaphor.”

The bard, encouraged by the growing audience, stepped onto the rim of the fountain. The fountain had once been a cracked basin full of stagnant black water and curses. Now, thanks to Nate’s Divine Settlement interface and an extremely confused purification rune, it burbled clear water that tasted faintly of mint. The bard balanced there as though destiny itself had placed him upon a stage.

“He came from realms beyond the stars, with law and ledger bright,” the bard sang, fingers dancing over the strings. “He tamed the dead with rental forms, and turned the dark to light!”

A few goblins cheered. Someone clapped in rhythm.

Nate dragged a hand down his face. “No. No, no, no. This is how civilizations decline.”

Gorvak listened with solemn attention. “The rhyme is adequate.”

“That’s not the problem.”

“The rental forms were effective.”

“Also not the problem.”

The bard’s voice swelled.

“Beside him walks the midnight thorn, dark elf of beauty dire,”

From the direction of the alchemical greenhouses, a window slammed open.

Selene leaned out, silver hair braided with sprigs of carnivorous vine, amber eyes narrowing with such lethal precision that three pigeons abandoned the roof behind her. “What did he call me?”

The bard, either brave or unable to read survival cues, continued.

“Her kiss can bloom the poison rose, her glance can kindle fire!”

One of Selene’s experimental seed pods burst in her hand with a wet pop. Tiny crimson tendrils slithered over her fingers like offended noodles.

“Nate,” she called, sweetly enough to frost glass, “why is there a man in the square singing about my kissing habits?”

“I did not authorize folklore,” Nate called back.

“That is not an answer.”

The bard pivoted toward the fortress balcony, where pale morning light spilled over black stone softened by flowering vines and laundry lines. “And holy light in hiding dwells, the saint with golden hair—”

A teacup shattered somewhere above.

Lysandra appeared at the balcony rail in a soft blue morning robe, honey-blond hair unbound and eyes wide with horror. She had been raised in cathedrals where hymns were composed by committees and approved by archbishops. The expression on her face suggested she had just discovered music could commit crimes.

“Please stop,” she said faintly.

The bard did not stop.

“She fled the crown, she fled the vows, to warm his demon lair!”

The square exploded.

A fishmonger dropped a tray of eels. The adventurers burst into scandalized laughter. The harpies on the roof shrieked with delight and immediately began repeating the line to one another in increasingly dramatic voices. Gorvak’s tusks emerged in what might have been a grimace or a deeply uncomfortable smile.

Nate stood so fast his chair skidded backward. “Okay! Performance over!”

The bard held up one finger, eyes glittering. “My lord, the final verse—”

“There is a final verse?”

“The dragon verse,” the bard said proudly.

The air changed.

Somewhere beyond the square, beyond the bathhouses steaming gently in the cool morning and the rows of market stalls selling mushroom bread, mana lanterns, and novelty skeleton keychains, a shadow passed over the rooftops.

Virelle landed on the fountain behind the bard with the delicate grace of several tons of scaled aristocracy deciding not to crush anything important. In her smaller form she appeared almost humanoid, all coppery hair, slit-pupil green eyes, and elegant crimson horns sweeping from her brow. Her cloak fluttered around her as if afraid to touch her.

The bard slowly turned.

Virelle smiled.

It was the sort of smile ancient treasure vaults gave thieves before the doors closed.

“Do sing,” she said. “I adore knowing what mortals have decided about me.”

The bard’s fingers trembled on the lute. His hat feathers drooped.

“The dragon came for gold and war, but found—” His voice cracked. “—domestic bliss?”

A silence fell so complete Nate could hear the fountain bubbling around the bard’s boots.

Virelle blinked once.

“Domestic,” she repeated.

“Bliss,” Gorvak said, as if testing whether the words belonged near each other.

Nate reached the fountain in four long strides and gently removed the bard by the elbow. “Buddy, I’m going to save your life and possibly my property damage budget. You’re done.”

“But the audience—”

“The audience can purchase refunds from the concept of curiosity.”

Virelle’s smile widened another fraction. The nearby fountain water began to steam.

The bard swallowed. “Perhaps a brief intermission.”

“Excellent idea.” Nate pointed toward a stall selling fried dough. “Go eat something. Preferably somewhere outside blast radius.”

The bard stumbled away, clutching his lute like a flotation device. The square, robbed of immediate death but gifted with fresh gossip, erupted into chatter. Harpies took off to spread the news in six directions. A goblin child began singing the first two lines with complete lyrical inaccuracy. The human adventurers were already arguing over whether “rental forms” counted as a heroic instrument.

Nate stood in the center of it all and felt the familiar pressure behind his eyes that meant his life had located a new category of problem.

A translucent blue panel flickered into existence before him.

Settlement Notification
Reputation Threshold Reached: Regional Curiosity → Continental Rumor
New Passive Effect Unlocked: Mythic Misinterpretation
Warning: Public perception may now generate independent narrative momentum.

Nate stared at the words.

“Independent,” he said.

The panel chimed pleasantly.

Note: Narrative momentum cannot be taxed at current administrative level.

“Of course it can’t,” Nate said. “That would’ve made it useful.”

By noon, the rumors had organized themselves into factions.

This was discovered in the council chamber, which had once been a war room lined with cracked obsidian statues of snarling demons and now featured polished tables, filing cabinets, potted glow-ferns, and a snack tray. Nate had insisted on the snack tray after realizing meetings in Eidralis were twice as likely to end in bloodshed if people were hungry.

The chamber smelled of ink, warm bread, damp stone, and the faint ozone tang of the settlement core pulsing beneath the floor. Sunlight fell through arched windows repaired with enchanted glass, painting blue and gold squares across the table. Outside, hammers rang from the new row houses, vendors shouted prices, and somewhere in the distance a gelatinous cube assigned to street cleaning made satisfied slurping noises.

On the table lay evidence.

Letters. Pamphlets. Merchant bulletins. Copies of copied copies of tavern songs. A wax-sealed report from the Harpy Courier Cooperative, whose gossip-tracking services had become disturbingly professional. Several illustrated broadsheets had been smuggled in by goblin traders from the southern kingdoms.

Nate picked up one with two fingers.

The picture showed a towering version of himself standing on a mountain of coins, cloak billowing, one hand outstretched toward a crowd of grateful monsters. His jaw had been drawn square enough to cut cheese. His hair, normally brown and doing whatever it wanted, flowed heroically in imaginary wind.

The headline read:

THE MERCER OF THE MARCH: FRONTIER TYRANT OR ECONOMIC SAVIOR?

“They gave me cheekbones,” Nate said.

Selene leaned over his shoulder. “Inaccurate.”

“Thank you.”

“Your actual bone structure is much less propagandistic.”

“Still not thank you.”

Lysandra sat rigidly beside a stack of church correspondence, face pink to the tips of her ears. She had changed into a white dress with blue embroidery and looked determined to remain composed through sheer saintly force. Unfortunately, the pamphlet in front of her displayed a dramatic engraving of her swooning into Nate’s arms while demons wept with approval in the background.

She had placed a teacup on top of Nate’s illustrated face.

“This one claims,” she said in a voice of strangled calm, “that I healed three hundred wounded soldiers with one kiss from Lord Mercer.”

“That seems medically unsound,” Nate said.

“The kiss healed the soldiers?” Gorvak asked.

“Apparently his kiss empowered my miracle.”

Gorvak considered this with the heavy seriousness he brought to siege tactics and employee benefit packages. “Have we tested this?”

“We absolutely have not,” Nate said.

Lysandra made a small noise and hid behind the pamphlet.

Virelle lounged in a chair much too small for her dignity, boots propped on the table until Mrs. Tallowick had slapped them with a serving spoon. The dragon had been invited because, despite claiming she was not a resident, she attended every council meeting, stored several chests of jewels in a renovated tower, and had recently commissioned a custom hot spring bath “for temporary use over the next century.”

She flicked through a broadsheet with one lacquered claw. “This southern one alleges I have become your jealous concubine.”

Nate pinched the bridge of his nose. “Please don’t burn the south.”

“I did not say I disliked it.”

“That may actually be worse.”

“They describe my scales as ‘moonlit.’ My scales are obviously sunlit garnet in full form.” She tapped the page. “If one is to be slandered, one should be slandered accurately.”

At the far end of the table, Brindle the goblin accountant adjusted his spectacles and cleared his throat. He had three quills tucked behind each ear and the intense haunted look of someone who had recently discovered tourism taxes. “My lord, the economic faction is most concerning. Several merchant guilds have begun calling you the Ledger Demon.”

“That sounds like a mid-tier accounting boss,” Nate said.

Brindle slid another report forward. “They claim you are destabilizing regional markets by offering safe roads, standardized weights, worker injury compensation, affordable lodging, and non-predatory stall fees.”

“Those monsters,” Selene murmured.

“They used that word exactly,” Brindle said.

Nate took the report. The merchant guild complaint was written in ornate script so furious the ink seemed to bristle.

Apparently, the Blighted March’s new caravan road had cut travel time between three border towns by half. The monster-safe waystations, staffed by skeleton porters with cheerful painted hats, had reduced caravan losses to near zero. Goblin-made steel tools were undercutting traditional smiths. Blighted berry jam had become fashionable among nobles who enjoyed pretending danger tasted good. Worst of all, adventurers returning from the Dungeon Experience had spent so much money in Nate’s settlement that neighboring cities were complaining of “fun leakage.”

“Fun leakage,” Nate read aloud.

Mrs. Tallowick, the stout halfling baker who had somehow become Head of Hospitality by threatening to feed everyone properly, snorted. “Sounds treatable.”

Gorvak rumbled. “Should we prepare for sanctions?”

“Against jam?” Nate asked.

“Wars have begun over less.”

Selene’s smile sharpened. “My jam could win.”

“Not the point,” Nate said.

Brindle lifted another stack. “The visionary ruler faction is beneficial. Certain border villages are petitioning for protectorate status.”

Nate froze. “Protectorate status?”

“They wish to be administratively annexed,” Brindle said. “For road access, crop support, monster mediation, and sewer planning.”

Nate looked around the table for help and found none. Selene appeared intrigued. Gorvak looked proud. Lysandra seemed sympathetic but also had three more scandal pamphlets to emotionally survive. Virelle was sketching corrections to her illustrated dragon form in the margin of a broadsheet.

“We are not annexing people for sewer planning,” Nate said.

Brindle’s quill hovered. “May I write ‘not yet’?”

“You may write ‘stop asking Nate to become mayor of places he has never visited.’”

“A touch long for official policy.”

The door burst open.

A skeletal courier in a blue vest clattered inside, jawbone chattering. A scroll tube was wedged between its teeth.

Nate eyed it. “Why is it biting the message?”

Gorvak stood. “Courier Unit Seventeen has no hands today. They are being polished.”

“Right. Naturally.”

The skeleton crossed the chamber and deposited the scroll onto the table with a proud click. Gorvak removed it, broke the seal, and scanned the contents. His heavy brows drew together.

“From the Kingdom of Valcairn,” he said.

The room cooled by several degrees.

Valcairn was the largest human kingdom west of the March, a land of white walls, silver banners, and nobles who considered “monster” less a category than a verdict. Its armies had marched against the old Demon Lord. Its priests still blessed children against nightmares of black fortresses and horned tyrants. It also controlled several trade routes Nate desperately needed if his settlement was going to keep growing without turning every conversation into a smuggling opportunity.

Nate reached for the scroll. “Please tell me they’re mad about jam.”

Gorvak handed it over. “They are sending an investigative delegation.”

“That sounds polite.”

“Accompanied by paladins.”

“Less polite.”

“And a royal economist.”

Brindle gasped.

Everyone looked at him.

The goblin accountant’s spectacles had gone crooked. “Those people are dangerous.”

Nate skimmed the letter. Valcairn had, in the grand tradition of governments everywhere, used four paragraphs to say one sentence: We have heard alarming things and are coming to judge you.

There were phrases like “ascertain the nature of governance,” “verify reports of demonic influence,” “evaluate threat to continental price stability,” and “determine whether the so-called Dungeon Resort constitutes an unlawful death labyrinth.”

“It’s not a death labyrinth,” Nate muttered. “It has waivers.”

Lysandra drew in a breath. “If they send paladins, they may demand proof I am not being held here.”

“You can tell them you’re not.”

She hesitated.

Nate stared. “You are not, right?”

“No! Of course not. I only mean…” She folded her hands in her lap. “The Church of Radiant Dawn has influence in Valcairn. If they learn where I am, they may attempt to retrieve me.”

The word retrieve landed like a chain on stone.

Selene’s vines stirred around her wrists. Gorvak’s tusks bared. Even Virelle stopped correcting her broadsheet.

Nate felt something tight and cold curl behind his ribs.

He had renovated walls, assigned jobs, negotiated with undead, and argued with a dragon over towel theft. He had built roads through cursed soil and convinced adventurers to pay for controlled skeleton encounters. But every now and then, the world beyond his ridiculous frontier town reminded him it still had teeth.

“They can request a meeting,” Nate said quietly. “They can’t take residents.”

Lysandra’s eyes softened. “Lord Mercer—”

“Nate.”

“Nate,” she corrected, her voice nearly a whisper.

Gorvak placed one huge fist over his heart. “The fortress will not surrender its household.”

“See,” Nate said, forcing a grin, “that’s the kind of thing that gets turned into a song.”

As if summoned by bad timing itself, music drifted through the open window.

“The fortress will not yield its bride—”

Everyone moved at once.

Selene reached the window first and flung it open. Below, in the courtyard, the feather-hatted bard from morning stood beside two newly arrived musicians—a flute player and a woman with a hand drum—while a crowd gathered with horrifying speed.

The bard looked up, saw the entire council staring down at him, and brightened.

“My lord! I revised the saint verse for accuracy!”

Nate leaned out beside Selene. “Accuracy is banned.”

“But the people crave romance!”

“The people can crave soup.”

Mrs. Tallowick appeared beneath the window holding a tray. “Soup’s ready in twenty.”