Shortly after the Overlord handed over the floor to his subordinates to allow them to begin splitting up the loot, one of the imps began to list off what they had procured. "There's 47 humans left now, with a variety of different skills," the weaselly demon croaked out before suddenly turning to Shukra with an accusing gaze, "...not counting those dozen or so that [i]this one[/i] already spirited off."

Slowly the Dungeon Keeper's withering gaze turned to Shukra, and he gave a long and silent stare. The look of his infernal eyes piercing one's soul would be enough to reduce most beings to a stammering mess, but Shukra's own demonic nature and his excessive pride would most likely make him indifferent. If anything, the warlord's face looked scornful. The Master correctly assumed that the look was agitation at his rather grandiose appearance, but what else would he have done? Waste his time walking through the labyrinth of moldy tunnels, when he could simply manifest here? [i]"Pah,"[/i] he thought, [i]"they need to be shown their own weakness through the occasional show of power of my part, lest thoughts of treason cross their greedy minds."[/i]

While the Dungeon Keeper had been lost in those thoughts, the imp had continued, "Beyond that, there's a few pounds of various silver objects and perhaps one pound of gold, ten kegs of ale, two hundred sacks of grain and other foodstuffs, some spices, some enchanted swords and armor from the manor, all sorts of fine cutlery and other weapons from the smith, bags of coal, all manner of tools..." The imp droned on for some time, listing many of the more mundane things that could be found in your average village.

"And of course, we will find a good use for anything that is not claimed," he finished, before looking at the captives with sadistic glee and adding, "...or any person, for that matter."

The shrill voice of another imp spoke out, "There's already plenty of [i]those[/i] things." The demon pointed a bony finger, its tip sharp like a claw, towards Emily's flame zombies.

Suddenly taking note of how Emily had seen fit to bring dozens of the burning corpses into the meeting room, the master felt agitated. With another flick of his hand the flame demons vanished in a way similar to the humans had. [b][i]"They will be kept in a safe place while they rest and await their orders,"[/i][/b] he explained before anybody could object, not as if he would have cared much if they had complained. At the end of the day this was not much of a democracy, after all.

When the others began to discuss possible plans for the nearby villages, the Keeper turned his gaze to each of them as they voiced their minds. He offered no comment yet, for he liked to weigh what they had to say before thinking for himself and coming to a decision. They seemed more worried than he was about the razed village being discovered. In rural areas like these, such villages received next to no visitors. It would be the farmers coming to sell produce or purchase tools from the larger towns that would be missed, but even then it would no doubt be some time before anyone thought to investigate such a small village suddenly ceasing its contact.