Lewd Dungeon, Chapter 335 (Patreon)

Chapter 335 – Desert Heat

Dungeon Law

All creatures are restricted from flying, leaping, or otherwise attaining a height of 3 meters from the ground, measured from the lowest point on their body at any given time.

Bargulg frowned as he looked at the dungeon law that greeted them as they entered the first of the desert floors. He had seen dungeon laws that prevented flying before. But they all tended to be a more basic ‘no flying at all’ kind of law. This seemed more all-encompassing, and less so.

Such laws were typically made to keep adventurers from avoiding traps and obstacles on the ground. But allowing flight, while restricting the height, seemed counter to that. What was the reason for it?

“I think I get it, Master,” Ena said, clearly looking at the notification for the dungeon law, as he was. “This wording allows creatures who have limited mobility on the ground, like those creatures who naturally hover, or some avian creatures, to still maneuver with some degree of ability, but doesn’t allow them to simply fly up and scout the terrain. It also prevents anyone from using spells or abilities to enhance their leaping ability to jump up into the air, and get the same results. A normal restriction on flight would have gaps like that which could be exploited.”

“Oh, I see!” Ashera nodded. “And the bit with measuring from the lowest point means that, if someone was three meters tall, and had someone on their shoulders, that would be fine, but raising the lowest part of the person’s body above their head wouldn’t be allowed.”

Tanila shook her head. “It also limits how we can attack creatures. And there is a canyon in the middle of this floor, from what we’ve been told. Even if we could jump the width of the canyon normally, the dungeon law would take effect, and force us to the canyon’s depths.”

“We have another problem, Master,” Ratha said, looking at something on her display. “The heat here is enough that we’ll be taxing the environmental controls in our armor, unless we start spending mana on cooling ourselves. And if we start getting sand in the exhaust…”

Bargulg nodded, to show that he understood, and took a moment to think. “We will make for the canyon. There is a safe room there, which should allow us time to rest and repair any gear that needs maintenance after going through the desert. The main threats on the open sand are Needlelust Cacti, which will shoot needles at us if we get too close. They’ve been said to pierce armor, so we should assume that they’ll be able to get through our armor, especially if they’ve been advanced to Tier 3. The needles aren’t supposed to do much damage, but they do release a diluted version of the passionslime juice into someone’s system when they draw blood. And I don’t want to open up the armor for fun and games until we’re somewhere that we won’t be getting sand in uncomfortable places.”

There were a few laughs at that, so he continued. “Tanila and Ashera, I want you to be on the lookout for any patch of sand that appears to be off-color, compared to the rest of the desert. They’ll be hard to spot, since the color isn’t that different, but there are ‘trap rooms’ that open up under those sands. We go in, and we’ll have to fight off a bunch of slimes, but when we do, it should open a tunnel to the canyon floor. More slimes and traps in the tunnel, according to the guild reports, but it will be cooler than walking in the desert sun, which will help our systems handle the load.”

“Understood, Master!”

They moved slowly, but steadily, through the desert, taking their time, and avoiding unnecessary exertion. They could run, but the added exertion would force them to tax the environmental systems more. And there was the fact that moving faster would cause them to miss the other dangers present on the floor.

They knew of the Needlelust Cacti, of course. The plants were now Tier 3 creatures known as Lustpiercer Cacti. The needles they shot were apparently able to pierce barrier spells, shields, and armor as if they weren’t even there. Well, it was only ‘apparently’ because Ashera had been able to dodge when they found out that the Tier 3 plant had a far larger range than the ones they’d been warned about, and Ena had been able to use magic to determine the needle’s properties.

The other danger they found were ‘Sand Slimes’. While only being on the high end of Tier 1, they were plentiful, and hard to spot amongst the sand. Worse, they seemed to have an affinity for finding the joints in armor. That was bad since, even though they didn’t do any damage to Bargulg or his girls, they were reducing the durability of their armor. If that failed, they’d be vulnerable to many more of the dungeon’s tricks. Which meant that they spent more time shooting the slimes, taxing their systems further. The theme of the floor was definitely a battle of attrition, and they could not afford to wind up on the wrong side of it.

Lewd Giant Sand Slime

Level 50 Ooze

Lyrei frowned as she spotted two larger forms moving amongst the dunes. Each looked like the normal Sand Slimes, but they were roughly the size of a commercial ground transport vehicle. “This is bad, Master! The boss for this floor was supposed to be one of these creatures. That two are here, now, means that the boss is going to be something worse!”

Bargulg made a snap judgement. So far, he’d held back his sorceress, since more heat when they were already dealing with heat issues wasn’t a winning combination, but now it was time to let her off the leash. “Shift MP to boost environmental controls! Ena, flame them!”

“As you command, Master,” the Sorceress of the Abyssal Flame said, all too cheerily. The flames of the abyss descended upon the desert, then, turning sand to glass. The slimes, despite being at the peak of Tier 2, could not withstand the heat.

Unfortunately, the alarms appearing on his suit’s display were telling him that their armor couldn’t handle too much of this heat, at least not until they were back in cooler conditions. External temperatures were already at 52 degrees Celcius, to use the local measurements. That was halfway to the boiling point of water at normal elevation. Without their armor, they would have been in serious danger, just walking through this desert.

Another unfortunate side effect of turning the slimes to glass was that they did not give any loot that way. A minor annoyance, considering that there was little in this dungeon that was likely to improve their gear sets, which had already been the best that they could get for Tier 2. Tier 3 gear was on another level, after all, and was obviously made with Tier 3 materials, unless it was one of the rare scaling type of item, or an artifact crafted directly by a god.

Well, on that thought, there was a chance they might find artifacts in the dungeon, but those certainly wouldn’t be on any creatures but the bosses!

Sadly, they never did find one of the trap rooms that were a cooler path to the bottom of the canyon. Instead, they eventually found themselves at the canyon’s edge. Climbing down would be no great challenge, since the walls offered plenty of handholds, making for an easy climb. Easy, that is, if it weren’t for all the plant creatures growing along the walls, with thorny vines that were just begging to snatch someone up and inject aphrodisiacs into them while they drank the creature’s blood.

“Ena, stick to hellfire, but clear us a path down.”

“As you wish, Master,” she said, trying not to sulk.

He wasn’t fooled, though. She had been just like this when she ascended to Tier 2, and became a Hellfire Sorceress, wanting to use it on anything and everything she came across. Well, it wasn’t like he didn’t understand. He had some abilities as Lord of the Battle-Harem that he was looking forward to exploring, but he had enough discipline to know that there was a time and a place for such things. Like when they were no longer in a dungeon.

The wave of hellfire barely impacted the heat levels on their armor, which was a blessing. The plants on the wall, however, were less lucky, and a wide swathe of them were burned away in hellfire, opening a path down. Thankfully, the rocky walls of the canyon were dungeon stone, so a little hellfire didn’t even heat them up, which was good, since he was worried about the escalating alerts his armor was throwing off. The external heat was rising the longer they were out and about. They were currently sitting at 55 C, and creeping upwards.

Tanila looked down the cliff side. “All clear, to the water’s edge. The river turned pink, though, meaning it is full of aphrodisiacs. Likely from plants down by the riverbed getting torched. Guild report says that it happens whenever the plants by the riverbed are killed, but that it should go away soon. Of course, they also didn’t mention the temperatures rising this high.”

Bargulg nodded. “We’ll have to chance it. Ashera, lead the way down. Tanila, cover us from above until we get down, then join us. Everyone else, when we get to the bottom, start looking for the safe room. I want time for rest and repairs on our armor before we go challenging the second half of this floor.”

“Yes, Master!”

Thanks to his fire-happy sorceress, the climb down was easy enough. He knew that there were trails somewhere along the canyon walls allowing you to walk down, and then back up again, but with the rising heat, he found himself less willing to take chances. Better the quick way down, soon, than risking baking in their suits as the sun got hotter.

As they climbed, Lyrei messaged him on a private channel. “Master, the rising heat concerns me. What if it continues rising while we are in the safe room? At the rate it is rising, if we take the time to do a full maintenance run on the armors, the temperatures may rise to the point that, even with spellwork to bolster the environmental systems, we’ll be in trouble.”

“That thought had occurred to me, too, Lyrei. But ask yourself, do you think that our Lord, who all agree prides himself on being tough, but fair, in his dungeon, would do something like that, without offering a warning, first? My guess is that one of two things will happen. Either the temperature will fall once night comes, or that it will either remain static, or even go back to its initial starting point while we are in the safe room.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Well, then, we will see if Ena’s [Abyssal Flameward] is as potent as she claims it will be at protecting one from the heat.”

“Master, some luck at last!”

Ashera’s cry distracted him from that morbid thought, as he reached the riverbed where she was standing. Following her pointing finger, he saw what she said. There, hidden under an outcropping of rock made so that one could not see it from above, was the telltale metal door that the dungeon used to mark its safe rooms.

“Lord Kuronoth be praised,” Bargulg nodded. “Cover Tanila as she descends, to make sure that nothing attacks her while our attention is focused elsewhere. Then, we’ll go inside, and rest for a bit. The difficulty of these floors has just gone up dramatically.”