Lewd Dungeon, Chapter 331 (Patreon)

Chapter 331 – Not so Easy

“Everyone, out of armor, and rest up. Lyrei, do what you can for our armor.”

Bargulg took his own advice, and began stripping off his armor. What remained of it, at least. The tenth floor of the dungeon had not been terribly bad. Oh, if they weren’t as prepared as they were, then things could have gone bad, but, as it was, they’d been able to ignore most of the floor’s dangers.

The main threat of the tenth floor was the fact that anyone who did not worship Lord Kuronoth, and wasn’t a slave, found themselves stripped naked the moment they set foot on the floor, and subject to a second dungeon law that promoted submission and servility towards those who were fully dressed. The party would then have to make their way through the floor, avoiding relatively simple traps and different immobile plant monsters to find different shrines throughout the floor, which would return the naked people’s gear to them. While not extremely dangerous on their own, the traps and plants could be a rude awakening to those who relied too much on their gear, rather than their own skills.

With their whole party unaffected by those dungeon laws, the traps and plants had been a mild inconvenience, at best. Tanila’s Undaunted Survivalist profession made moving through the jungle a simple matter. What plants and traps they couldn’t avoid were either disarmed by Ashera, or were blown up by Ena. Either way, they were never a problem for the group. Especially with the sealed armor his group war blocking the scents and other such lures that most of the plants relied on in order to draw in prey.

Well, not all of them were wearing sealed armor any more. Tanila, Lyrei, and he had all grown wings during their ascension in Tier. Thankfully, the System adapted their armor automatically, so that they weren’t literally crushing their wings inside the armor, but that didn’t help with the fact that creating holes in the armor meant that it was no longer sealed.

That was something they would have to work out later, when they were out of the dungeon. It wasn’t like wings were an uncommon ‘present’ from ascending in Tier, so there were solutions out there, ways to protect the wings, without compromising the armor seals, while still allowing the wings to be used for their function. However, most of those methods either involved special skills, or enchantments that were not available to them while they were still in a dungeon.

No, for now, the wings were a vulnerability that they hadn’t had before. Especially Tanila, who had the insect-like wings some groups of Fey creature had. Those wings were known for being light, and easy to manage, but they were also easily damaged, and harder to heal than other sorts. If she weren’t already a sniper who liked to stay at long range, that would have been a lot more problematic.

As it was, his own wings, and Lyrei’s, were more of a vulnerability when it came to the tenth floor’s boss fight against an Ancient Floral Snapjaw named Fahaip the Everlasting. The massive creature, almost forty meters long, was quicker than any creature that size had a right to be. Fortunately, despite the plant creature’s resistance to normal fire, and even hellfire, Ena’s new Abyssal Flame spells were deadly to it. She even managed to burn away the Snapjaw’s area effects, since they were primarily plant-based. A lucky break, against a foe that could have been very dangerous.

It was the eleventh floor, where they currently were, that had been the first real problem. The floor looked as though it were the underground ruins of some Atlantean civilization, though there were clear marks of the Lord making it his own. No Atlantean world that he knew of would have a statue showing Lord Kuronoth in the middle of having sex with an Atlantean warrior woman bound in chains, after all.

The problem, of course, had nothing to do with the statuary and architecture. Rather, it was the pools that seemed to spawn random types of slimes to attack them as they drew near. The space was too contained to effectively hit them at range, which meant that they had to get up close and personal with the slimes.

Unfortunately, these were Demonic Slimes, all of them Tier 2, though on the high end of the tier. Unfortunately, their natural defenses and elemental nature meant that actually dealing with the things was a pain in the ass. Demonic Slimes were all incredibly resistant to piercing damage, and slashing damage caused them to split into two. Bludgeoning damage did well against them, though. Of course, any weapons or armor that touched them started to melt away unless they were protected from acid.

Making matters worse, the slimes had different magical immunities and vulnerabilities, depending on their type. The Demonic Fire Slime, for instance, was completely immune to Fire damage (even that of Abyssal Flame), but was horribly weak against Water damage. Meanwhile, the Demonic Water Slime was immune to Water damage, but weak against Lightning, and so on. And the groups that they faced were never just one type of slime, meaning that they had to vary their weapons and tactics accordingly.

The fights weren’t hard. After all, the slimes were Tier 2, and they were Tier 3. Even if they were only just over the line into the Tier, they were still over that line, which meant that Tier 2 attacks did less damage to them, and they were more effective against Tier 2 defenses. That was part of the advantage of going up in Tier, after all.

No, the fights weren’t hard. What they were, however, were a constant drain on the state of their weapons and armor. Sure, they had acid protection spells for their weapons. With the number of creatures who had acidic bodies, or acid for blood, or any number of other nastiness, it only made sense to learn spells to deal with that, even if you weren’t a caster class.

Unfortunately, their magitech armor was difficult to cast those spells on. Sure, their armor had some basic acid resistance ‘baked in’, to keep it from easily being melted into uselessness, but that resistance had its limits. By the time they’d almost gotten to the boss room, their armor was already at 50% durability, or worse.

Thankfully, they had Lyrei to help fix things. Lyrei’s Godblessed Armorer profession was easily capable of maintaining their armor, but such things still required time, and a place to do the work. Preferably while the armor was not being worn. Which was less than ideal when you were in a dungeon.

Tanila once more proved the worth of her profession, however. Just by the entrance to the Boss Room, there was a hidden door concealed in the stonework. Once alerted to the secret, Ashera quickly found the release for the door, and we found the floor’s Safe Room. Which meant that we could take a moment to rest, and let Lyrei make what repairs she could to our armor.

“This floor is absolutely miserable,” Ratha grumped, as she slid her metal body down, into the hot spring area. Bargulg chuckled as he looked over her body. She’d changed into an Adamantine Golemforged creature, and her skin was now the color of that famous metal. Yet it still moved and felt like a knelfi’s skin. The System truly made some interesting things possible.

“Yes, I agree,” he nodded, sitting next to her. “The floor is designed to wear down fighters. Not just their energy, or their will. Healers will need to spend more time healing. Weapons and armor will degrade, and potentially become useless. That is a danger on a whole different level from just slimes, since there is a boss after this, and, unless things have changed, a series of arena fights, with no chance to rest or repair damaged gear. There is a reason why few groups press on past the Arena, and none have made it through the desert floors below.

Ratha nodded, before stretching, arching her back as she tested her flexibility. “Fortunately, my new body offers me some defense, even without armor. Not as good as with the armor, obviously, but it is something. And since I am technically classed as a ‘Construct’ now, I’m immune to poisons and some mental effects. That will make defending easier, in this dungeon, but it also means that I am vulnerable to magics that seek to control constructs.”

That brought a frown to Bargulg’s face. Magic or other abilities to control constructs, especially intelligent constructs, weren’t exactly common, but they were far from rare. Usually they were temporary things, designed to immobilize or temporarily command golems or the like, turning an enemy’s defenders against them. However, he knew that there was a ‘Golemancer’ class, which focused on both making and controlling constructs like a Necromancer dealt with the undead.

“We’ll figure out a way to deal with that. We’re already going to have to find some methods to protect everyone against possession, so this is just one more thing to add to the mix.”

“Master, I don’t think you need to worry that hard,” Ashera said, as she slid into the water next to him. “While the possession trick is definitely something to look out for, you can put a Golemancer off the scent simply by having Ratha wear her armor. And simple charms to hide her [Appraise] information, as well as one to cast a subtle glamour over her, and make her look like a flesh-and-blood knelfi, instead of a metal one? It isn’t a perfect defense, but it should keep most people from trying to use golem control spells on her, unless the secret is out of the bag somehow.”

“Good point, Ashera,” he said, patting her on the head. Looking towards the door to the main part of the Safe Room, he called out, loud enough to be heard over the sound of grinding and hammering as the Godblessed Armorer went to work, “Lyrei, how long do you think you’ll need for the repairs?”

Her voice came back from the other room with an exhasperated sigh. “At least a couple hours, Master! Probably more like five or six. I have enough material to work in and fix the structure, but it takes time and mana to do it right. If you want me to just slap some steel on and weld it over the damage, I can do that much faster, but it won’t be nearly as effective as a full repair.”

“Work on Tanila and Ashera’s armors first, then. When you finish them up, those two can go out in stealth and attempt to scout the boss room a bit. According to the guide the Adventurer’s Guild gave us, there are supposed to be Cursed Slimes all through there, making it hard to approach the boss without even further weakening yourself. And the boss is a Black Pudding Lord. Or, at least, it was. I expect we’ll see a Tier 3 version of it, now.”

“Got it, Master!”

As Lyrei went back to work, Tanila came in and stepped into the bath. “The idea of a Tier 3 slime being in a dungeon is baffling. They almost never form like that. Usually, they’re killed before they can get much past the early stage of Tier 2. And the energies that would spawn the more powerful slimes are typically used up by elementals long before that could happen. They’re almost unheard of happening naturally, because of that.”

“Well, Lord Kuronoth is nothing if not reliable in his ability to turn what we all thought was common sense out in the wider galaxy up on its head. I expect that we will see far more things that are supposed to be impossible, or at least rare to the extreme, before we are finished with this delve, pet.”