Chapter 121: Claimed Ground
Ten days remained on the countdown in Max’s menu when five adventurers killed the wrong ridgebacks in Croathen.
The creatures had attacked from the brush beside the northern road. They were broad, low animals with plated backs and jaws capable of breaking a wagon wheel. The Copper Hounds reacted like an experienced party. Their shield bearer stopped the first charge. Their mage drove the second creature away from the horses. The remaining three focused on the largest ridgeback until it fell.
The fight lasted less than a minute.
By the time the second ridgeback died, the party had already begun discussing the value of its plates.
Ridgeback armor was not rare in Corathen. Every market from Redbrook to the capital carried pieces of the dark shell. Sanctuary craftsmen had only recently discovered how well the material accepted reinforcement runes. That discovery raised the price enough for merchants to begin posting purchase offers in the Grand Map Room.
The Copper Hounds had bought a copied hunting map from a man in the Sanctuary. Ridgeback Hollow was circled in red beside a note promising large herds and easy road access.
The map did not mention Mossbank.
The village stood less than two miles away. Its residents had managed the hollow for generations. They cleared brush from the nesting slopes, marked safe trails, culled dangerous males, and drove breeding groups away from farms during planting season. In return, the district granted the village the seasonal right to hunt and harvest the animals.
Blue cords tied around three nearby trees marked the legal boundary.
The Copper Hounds did not know what the cords meant. But they learned when eight local hunters emerged from the trees.
The woman leading them looked first at the dead ridgebacks and then at the copied map in the adventurer’s hand.
"Put down the cutting tools." She said.
The Copper Hounds’ leader did not reach for his sword. He also did not obey.
"They attacked us on a public road."
"The road is public. The hollow is claimed."
"They crossed out of it of the hollow and attacked us."
"Because you followed the bait trail into the boundary."
The party’s tracker looked behind him. Small pieces of bloody meat hung from bent reeds along the route they had taken. He had assumed another predator left them.
The local woman pointed toward the blue cords. "Those guide ridgebacks away from the lambing fields. You walked past six claim markers and killed two tagged females."
Both dead creatures carried small brass plates beneath the armor near their shoulders. The tags were invisible while they charged and obvious once someone knew where to look.
The Copper Hounds’ leader finally lowered the skinning hook.
"We did not know."
"That does not make them untagged."
The argument might have ended there if a second adventuring party had not arrived with an empty freight sled.
They carried the same copied map.
Their merchant had offered a bonus for every complete ridgeback plate delivered before the end of the week. The sight of two fresh carcasses looked like the answer to an expensive trip.
The second party’s leader crossed the first claim marker before anyone stopped him.
"We paid for this location." He said.
"You paid someone for a drawing." The local hunter answered. "You did not pay Mossbank for hunting rights."
The Copper Hounds wanted compensation for the potions used in the fight. The new party wanted access to the hollow. The local hunters wanted both groups off their claimed land before another tagged ridgeback followed the bait trail.
Voices rose.
Hands moved closer to weapons without drawing them.
The tracker from the Copper Hounds noticed the local woman’s bow was already strung. "Are you threatening us?"
"I was hunting before you arrived."
"That is not an answer."
"It is the only one you are getting."
A horn sounded from the road.
Four district wardens rode around the bend wearing green coats over light armor. A wagon driver heard the shouting, continued to the nearest road station, and reported armed groups disputing a claim.
The senior warden dismounted and listened to each side separately.
He inspected the tags, the bait trail, the copied maps, and the blue cords. Then he placed a temporary seizure mark on both carcasses.
"Nobody removes anything until the mayor’s office decides ownership." He said.
The second party protested. "We did not kill them."
"Then the seizure costs you nothing. Return to the road."
"What about the hunting ground?"
"Closed to you."
"On whose authority?"
The warden pointed toward the mark sewn above his heart that represent the authority of the Crown.
It was a plain answer. It worked.
The party returned to its sled. The Copper Hounds were required to accompany the wardens to Mossbank, but nobody chained them or confiscated their weapons. The local hunters remained to reset the bait trail and move the tagged herd farther from the road.
Mossbank did not welcome the Copper Hounds warmly.
Word of killing the tagged animals reached the village before the wardens did. Several residents waited outside the meeting hall. One family had expected to receive the larger female during the cooperative’s winter cull. A leatherworker had already promised finished pieces from its plate. To them, the adventurers had not killed two wandering monsters. They had destroyed animals the village had spent years managing. These adventures were nothing more than thieves and poachers.
The senior warden kept the crowd back and placed the Copper Hounds in the inn instead of the jail.
"They followed bad information and defended themselves on the road." He told the cooperative. "The hearing decides the rest."
The local hunters argued that ignorance would become every poacher’s excuse. The warden agreed it could. That was why he preserved the maps, marked the location of each carcass, took statements from the wagon driver, and posted a guard over the materials.
The Copper Hounds paid for rooms they had not intended to rent and ate beneath the attention of everyone in the common room. Their leader could have used a Sanctuary return item and abandoned the dispute. He did not. Leaving would turn an accident into flight and make it almost impossible to obtain legal work in the district again.
By evening, anger remained, but the immediate danger had passed into a process everyone recognized.
Max learned about it twenty-three minutes later.
He and Anna were in the Sanctuary reviewing the latest Deepvein reports when three notices appeared on her clipboard at once. One concerned a damaged rail cart inside an instance. One reported a missing pack at the riding grounds. The third described the armed claim dispute near Mossbank.
Anna opened that one first.
"Two parties, eight local hunters, four wardens, and no injuries." She summarized.
"Why are we being told?" Max asked.
"Because visitors from the Prime Universe are involved. The gnome who received the report did not know whether that made it a dungeon matter."
"Is it affecting a portal?"
"No."
"A safe zone?"
"No."
"Did someone break a dungeon rule?"
"Not yet. They may have broken Corathian hunting law."
Max read the warden’s report. The wording was direct. The animals were part of a managed herd. The Copper Hounds had crossed marked ground using a map purchased outside Corathen. Their actions did not appear deliberate. The carcasses were held pending a decision from Mossbank’s mayor.
"Then the mayor decides." Max said.
Anna made a note. "That was my conclusion."
"You still brought it to me."
"The report was brought to me. I am showing you why we need a better way to decide what reaches us."
Max looked at the other notices.
The damaged rail cart was Ketta Ironpick’s problem. The cart existed inside a Deepvein copy and reset when the party left, but the safety penalty remained on its contract. Ketta had already reduced the payment.
The missing pack had been found beneath the bench where its owner left it.
None required him.
That did not make the reports useless. If several parties began damaging Deepvein equipment, the instance design might be encouraging it. If packs repeatedly disappeared from the riding grounds, someone might be stealing them. A claim dispute could become a dungeon problem if visiting adventurers ignored local decisions and used Sanctuary services to avoid consequences.
One report meant almost nothing. A pattern could mean a great deal.
"How many notices did you receive this morning?" Max asked.
Anna turned several pages. "Thirty-seven."
"It is not even noon yet."
"I am aware."
The Sanctuary and Corathen had grown too large for every unusual event to reach the same clipboard with the same urgency. A cracked water barrel did not deserve the same attention as a failed portal. A trade disagreement in Redbrook did not become Max’s responsibility because one merchant came from outside the dungeon.
He had learned that lesson while creating rules for the Sanctuary.
Corathen made the problem larger. It contained villages, cities, districts, roads, guilds, courts, guards, and governments that existed before visitors arrived. Max designed the country, but he did not intend to replace every mayor whenever an adventurer disliked a decision.
"Tell the gnomes not to interfere with the hearing." he said. "If the mayor asks for information about where the map came from, provide it. Nothing else."
Anna wrote the instruction.
"And find the man selling these maps."
"He may not have known the claim was current."
"Then he can stop selling it until he does."
The copied map displayed three other circles. Anna sent clerks to check all of them before more parties followed the same directions.
One marked a public hunting area.
One marked private orchard land.
The third marked a dry riverbed that had not contained the promised mana flowers in eleven years.
The seller had copied an old Corathian survey and advertised it as a current hunting guide. He did not claim to represent the dungeon, so the Sanctuary’s existing fraud rules did not immediately settle the issue. He had sold inaccurate information about places in Corathen, but the customers had received exactly the piece of paper he showed them.
Max disliked the distinction. He disliked the idea of personally judging it more.
"Send the maps and sales notice to Mossbank." he said. "The mayor can decide whether it matters to the hunting case. Send copies to the other local governments too."
"And the seller?"
"Warn him that another false listing loses his market space while we review whether the current sales broke Sanctuary rules."
Anna added that instruction beneath the first.
The system notice appeared at the edge of Max’s vision.
[Champion Establishment Period Remaining: 9 Days.]
The unknown challenge was close enough that every report felt as though it might hide the first sign of it. Max could have treated armed adventurers near Mossbank as a possible attack and arrived with Quin, guards, and enough force to frighten everyone involved.
Instead, four wardens had ended the danger before he read the report.
That was not a weakness in his control. It was proof that Corathen could solve a problem without waiting for its creator.
Anna closed the three completed notices and turned to the thirty-four remaining ones.
"We need categories." She said.
Max looked at the stack. "We need fewer categories than that stack."
"Three?"
"Three sounds survivable."
The hearing in Mossbank would begin the next morning.
By then, Max intended to know which problems should interrupt breakfast.