Lewd Dungeon, Chapter 111 (Patreon)

Chapter 111 – Background Information

The Headquarters for the Miami Adventurer’s Guild was far busier than normal. That was to be expected, what with the news that the Ambassador Prime from the Galactic Assembly had come to town and was visiting the Guild personally. The confirmation that was given over the Guild chatroom was enough to have all sorts of people coming to the guild hall, electing to turn in completed jobs or sell materials and the like sooner, rather than later, in the hopes of getting a sight of the Ambassador or her guards. While it wasn’t like the response in Japan or other East Asian countries, a ‘catgirl’ was still a catgirl to a certain portion of the population.

Sarah Valentine grimaced as she maneuvered her way through the crowd. It had been months since she’d last stopped by this building, when the Demon had let them out of his dungeon. Her excitement at having plenty of material to use for her paper was diminished somewhat by having to go and get a procedure done at the clinic. She had been on the pill, but the Demon’s machinations had made it impossible to keep up with her schedule, and she was quick to make sure she didn’t get a brat to deal with. When she asked that reporter, Maria, about it, she confessed that both she and her camerawoman had gotten the implant that would last for five years. They had been fine, despite the constant abuse from the Demon while they watched his design process.

Shaking her head, Doctor Valentine cleared her mind of thoughts about the damn demon for the moment. She made her way to the front desk, weaving through the crowd, and was instructed to head to a conference room on the second floor. That involved another exercise in maneuvering through a crowd, and something that should have taken a minute ended up being ten, as a group of adventurers passed by, carrying a large wrapped object, likely the corpse of some creature they had found in the wild, and had brought back to the guild for an autopsy, so that people could learn the anatomy of monsters. Bringing in the bodies of new or rare monsters (including variants) was one of the standing quests in the guild, always looking for an advantage against the monsters they faced out in the wild.

Two guards were stationed outside the conference room, one a young man who looked to have some kind of ‘warrior’ type class, and the other a Fimaazro male, dressed in a uniform that hugged his lithe, muscled frame. While the human guard was armed with a sword and shield, the alien carried a strange, scimitar-like blade and some kind of pistol, and probably other weapons that Sarah just hadn’t spotted or recognized. She presented her ID to the human guard. “I’m Doctor Valentine. I believe I’m expected?”

The human checked the ID against a list, while the alien muttered something into what clearly was some kind of microphone on his collar. The human handed her ID back, and knocked three times on the conference room door. A moment later, there was a small pulse, as the doorknob glowed briefly and then faded. The human guard nodded to me, and said, “You can go in, ma’am.”

Sarah forced herself not to try and figure out how the locking spell, which is what the thing had to have been, worked. There were at least four different methods she could come up with, depending on how ‘secure’ you needed the door to be. But that wasn’t her concern at the moment. Stepping into the room, there were five people waiting for her, four of whom were sitting at the small conference table that could easily seat ten. She recognized the Guildmaster, but the rest were new to her.

“Ah, Doctor Valentine! So good of you to come on such short notice. Please, take a seat.” She moved towards one of the offered seats, sitting down on the less-occupied side of the table, and pulled out her laptop, so she could access her notes more easily. The Guildmaster continued, “Now that everyone’s here, I think introductions are in order. As you all know, I am Miguel Sanchez, Guildmaster of the Miami Adventurer’s Guild.”

He pointed at the blonde woman seated to his right. “Bethany Johnston is my Vice-guildmaster, and is my second in the running of this place, as well as being chief of our logistics.” The woman nodded coolly, not being rude or unfriendly, but exuding an air of quiet professionalism and competence that matched her business suit quite well.

Miguel pointed to the third person on his side of the table, a trim military man, with a bit of grey starting to streak into his hair. “General Zach Bradley is from the nearby military base. It was his people that brought the first confirmed reports of the dungeon, and the first successful contact with the Demon of the Dungeon. His people are currently in the dungeon, and I understand that it is the reason the dungeon has temporarily shut its portals.”

His hand moved to indicate Sarah, and he said, “Doctor Sarah Valentine is a sociologist, and has quickly become one of our planet’s leading authorities on dungeons in general, and is the academic authority when it comes to the local dungeon. She was part of the group that we managed to convince the Demon to allow in to observe as a new floor was created.”

He took a breath, and then indicated the Fimaazro female dressed in what had to be official robes of some kind. “And I’m sure anyone who has been within reach of a working television will recognize Ambassador Prime Nyca Zygrash of the Fimaazro, head of the Galactic Assembly delegation that recently made contact with Earth.”

There was a pause, and then he said, “My apologies, Ambassador, but I am afraid I have had only a little time to study the protocol, so I am unsure whether it is customary to introduce the protectors of a delegation?”

Zygrash smiled, and shook her head. “There is no need for concern, Guildmaster. That you have learned as much as you have to try and respect cultures that are not your own in such a short time is more than enough. For reference, however, it is not customary for the Protectors to be introduced in formal settings, though they might be in more social settings, at the discretion of their primary, but distracting them from their duties is not permitted. That gets into the relationship between the Protector and their primary, of course. When they are off duty, it is acceptable for them to be introduced and converse as they desire.”

General Bradley nodded slowly. “That sounds similar to typical protocols for bodyguards here on Earth, as well. Thankfully, that will make integration between security details easier when we get more visitors from off-world, or when our diplomats eventually make their way to other worlds.”

Miguel smiled. “Very well, then. In that case, since the first successful contact was made by your people, General, would you care to get the ball rolling on the history of the dungeon and the demon?”

The General nodded. “Sounds good.” Looking over to the Ambassador, he said, “I’ll start with the basic facts as we know them, and let Doctor Valentine and the Guildmaster chime in when it comes to the details more pertinent to researchers and adventurers. Since they were more involved in the recent events, it is best they speak after, anyways.” He paused, and then said, “It was almost exactly two months after the System Apocalypse that we detected a mana pulse that was thought to be the opening of a dungeon, given what little we knew from the System at that time.”

Zygarsh frowned, “My apologies, General. But ‘Apocalypse’? I am afraid we haven’t been able to properly translate this word, as most of the sources go back to one or more of your ancient languages, talking about religious texts. I’m afraid that there are so many religions on this world that we have not been able to make a study of them yet.”

The General smiled sadly. “Yes, well, the fact that you have our languages in such a short time is nothing short of miraculous. At any rate, you have to understand that the System coming ‘online’ literally started with a bang. There’s a crater ten miles wide where a military base used to be. Immediately after, with such rapid changes, and the massive loss of life, it felt like we had come to the end of the world. Certainly, the end of the world as we knew it.”

The Ambassador sighed. “We knew that there were issues, but it seems that, by the time we got our ships here to start the researching your people, most of the initial chaos had settled down. If it was as bad as you say, then perhaps we should have sent the diplomatic delegation sooner.”

The General shook his head. “Oh, absolutely not. Your arrival would have been fine with the academics like Doctor Valentine here, but things would have been a hundred times worse if you had shown up before we had time to come to grips with things. Humans can do a lot of things, but even after thousands of years of evolution, we still aren’t that far from the primal hunter-gatherers that had only two responses to perceived threats: fight or flight. And if there is one thing that humans are good at, it is fighting. If we hadn’t had to remake our weapons to be ‘System-compatible’ then there wouldn’t have been nearly the trouble.”

Bethany cleared her throat, and said, “Perhaps we should get back to the dungeon, sir?”

“Yes, you’re right. So, when we detected the dungeon, a pair of investigators from one of our federal agencies went out into the swamp to find out whether this was actually a dungeon, or something else. They never returned.”

Zygarsh nodded. “A newfound dungeon often claims one or more victims when they are first discovered, especially if there isn’t a trained exploration team on hand.”

The General nodded. “Well, this is where things go differently from what we know of ‘normal’ dungeons. We sent in a group of soldiers, to try and find the agents who were lost. One soldier was killed, and the rest were attacked with an aphrodisiac gas of some kind that… well, made ‘mating’ their only focus for a time, and there was only one female for the three remaining males.”

“They eventually made their way to what we believe was the core room at that time, and found the female agent still alive, though she had been enslaved with something from the System, while her partner had been killed. The Demon introduced himself at that time. The soldiers, not having weapons appropriate for a dungeon in those early days, made a deal with the demon to get out of the dungeon without fighting.”

Zygarsh leaned back in her chair. “Then this ‘Demon’ definitely sounds like the boss of the dungeon. While it is not a requirement, most dungeons prefer to keep the same boss, advancing it in strength over time, unless they get something stronger, or more fitting to their evolving theme. But you said that the Demon enslaved the female agent?”

“Yes, and that dungeon was the source for the introduction of Slave Collars in this world, something the government is not happy with, I assure you, since we outlawed slavery over a hundred of our years ago.”

“If the Demon is a former human, then he may have gained the Slave Master profession when the System activated. Has he ever said how he became the boss of the dungeon?”

The Guildmaster cut in, “No, he has not. And while we have been able to confirm his identity before the System, he apparently disappeared in that initial chaos, and wasn’t seen again until he was found in the dungeon.”

“So, what did the demon demand in exchange for letting your soldiers go free, General?”

“The Demon wanted four ‘boons’ as tribute, one for each of the surviving soldiers. The language he used was… fancy and old-fashioned, not what normal people usually speak, even in formal situations. The analysts believe that this was the Demon ‘playing a role’, so that people wouldn’t ask whether he was a former human. The analysts believe that his later admission of that fact suggests that he is now more secure in his power base, and doesn’t need to keep up the pretenses.”

“Even as a dungeon boss, he would be vulnerable if a young dungeon was overwhelmed by people intent on destroying him and the dungeon, yes.”

General Bradley nodded. “Yes, that’s what our analysts concluded, but once they had the information to make that analysis, it was too late to do anything about it. The Demon made the soldier sign a magical contract, that had some harshly written penalties in it if they did not comply with the terms. Those terms included bringing back samples of technology and books of knowledge, so that the dungeon could assimilate them, and helping to establish the outpost which people have started calling Swamptown. The final condition was that he wanted to… have his way with the female soldier for two hours, while her team watched. He was not gentle with her.”

The Ambassador nodded her head. “So, he used the exploration team to expand the dungeon’s capabilities faster than they might otherwise happen. This is something guilds in other worlds do as a matter of course, leaving a ‘gift box’, if you will, for a new dungeon, so they can get more benefits from it.”

The General nodded. “Now that we’ve got the basics down, I think I’ll let the Guildmaster talk about how the Demon has interacted with the adventurers since they started going there.”