Lewd Dungeon, Book 35 Epilogue (Patreon)

Epilogue – Elsewhere

(Nighthold, Knightmarch, Bluemountain)

The former soldier breathed in the air of an alien world as he stepped through the portal. It had been morning, in Miami, when he set out, but it was clearly the middle of the night here. Looking around, he saw that he was in a temple, one dedicated to Kuronoth, the God of Pleasure, Domination, and Dungeons. However, there were also signs that the place had been dedicated to someone else before, when it was first built.

“So, Cap’n, what’s the plan?”

“Not a captain anymore,” Matthew Hicks said, turning to look at the rest of his old team. “None of us are in the service, now. Don’t need to go throwing around titles anymore. You can call me Matt, or Hicks, if you prefer.”

“Don’t be like that, Cap’n,” Kyle Hudson said. “We might be out, but that doesn’t mean you’re not the boss. You kept us mostly all right in that dungeon, so we might as well keep with you.”

Hicks sighed, and looked at his team. They at least somewhat resembled the group that had gone into the dungeon with him on that last, horrible delve. The ones who had been changed by the different items the Demon had forced on them were back to normal, part of the medical care they’d received. The lawyers had been able to arrange a medical discharge for them, at least, instead of a bad conduct discharge, so they’d been able to keep seeing the doctors on base until someone found a way to reverse the changes.

He felt a hand snake around his waist, and looked over to see Catalina Vasquez-Hicks smiling at him. “Come on, big guy. Don’t be like that. We got plans, right? No sense in worrying too much about things we couldn’t control, especially since they’re in the past.”

“You sound like the therapist.”

“Well, I’m Latina. That means I’m stubborn, not stupid,” she laughed. “Now, let’s go find the local equivalent of the Adventurers’ Guild, and find out what the best way to get some levels and local experience is, before we start looking at that dungeon.”

“She’s right, you know,” Ema Drake (formerly Ema Howe) said, happily back to being an elf, instead of the canine creature she’d been before. Her husband’s arm was wrapped around her, possessively. “We came here to escape the pressure of being known as ‘those soldiers’ on base, or in Swamptown. And none of us are cut out for civilian life in Miami. At least here, we are just another team of adventurers. We aren’t even the first group from Earth to come through the portal.”

Willa Turner-Hicks slipped up on the other side of him from Cat. “Yeah, stud. Let’s go find the Guild, and then find someplace to sleep. Or at least another bed to break in, the three of us.”

“Lucky bastard,” Hudson fake-muttered, easily loud enough for them all to hear.

Adam Drake laughed, pulling his Ema close as he did so. “Come on. Maybe you’ll find someone at the guild, Kyle. Or at the market. I hear that’s totally legal here, after all.”

“All right, all right.” Hicks said laughing. They were right, after all. No sense getting hung up on the past. “Let’s go find the guild hall. Hopefully, they’re still open at whatever time of night it is.”

“Don’t worry,” another voice called to them. Hicks whipped his head around to see a young woman in an acolyte’s robes standing by the door out of the portal room, a slave collar around her throat. She looked human enough, except for the brilliant pink of her hair. Atlantean, then, like the bounty hunters that had been caught by the dungeon back home. “The guild usually has at least one person on staff all night, for situations like this. They probably also have at least someplace where you can rest until morning, and find a more suitable inn.”

“Ah, pardon us,” Hicks said. “As you can imagine, we’re strangers here, and are still getting used to everything.”

“Oh, think nothing of it,” she said, fingering the collar around her throat. “There is not a single person in this city who is not still getting used to major changes. Perhaps not so vibrant or violent as the changes your world has gone through, from what the Lord Kuronoth tells me, but still changes, all the same.”

Ema moved towards the woman, looking at the collar. “Do you mind if I ask…”

“How I came to be collared?” She smiled. “It isn’t some terrible conspiracy, or anything. I was a priestess of Pofmis the Chainbreaker, in a farming village just a day’s ride from the city. When the combined armies of nations and dungeons broke the forces of Vinastra and the host of Pofmis’s own forces, Lord Kuronoth struck down the Goddess of Freedom, and forced her to submit, making her Pofmis the Willing, Goddess of Willing Servitude. Her last command as the Chainbreaker was to force all followers of hers to find someone not of her faith to enslave themselves to.”

“And your new master gave you to the temple?”

“Indeed. He was actually a follower of Selphie, Goddess of Truth and Justice. Now, I tend the shrine of Pofmis the Willing in this temple that used to be hers, and now honors the one who defeated her. He said that there is Justice in that, especially after how Vinastra treated all those who did not follow the commands of Pofmis’s church.

“Of course, I didn’t know any of that, at the time. I was just an acolyte doing what I could to help the people of my village, after all. However, as the forces of Nighthold expanded to claim some of the surrounding lands in the name of their new kingdom, Knightmarch, I learned the truth of how people had been oppressed in the name of freedom. Since then, I’ve been serving here, to help atone for what the church of Pofmis did in her name.”

“And what of your village?” Hicks asked.

“The village is fine. My former master is still there, and he is a priest, as well. And the new learning coming from Nighthold has already started changing the lives of people here, and in the surrounding lands. New medicinces, machines, and more are flowing throughout Knightmarch, and into Bluemountain as a whole.”

She paused, and then said, “But please, allow me to give you directions to the Adventurers’ Guild. There, you may learn all you wish about Bluemountain, Knightmarch, and, most importantly, the Mesmerizing Cells of the Black Knight, the dungeon that now rules this land. Just tell the person at the desk that Ysmena from the temple sent you, and they’ll understand.”