Lewd Dungeon, Chapter 141 (Patreon)

Chapter 141 – Trap Sense

Charles was a very happy man at the moment.

Normally, saying something like that in the middle of a dungeon would mean that there was something wrong with him in the head. After all, dungeons were places of danger and death, punctuated by the receiving of loot of various degrees as you killed monsters and took their things. All right, when put that way, it wasn’t too out of the ordinary for someone to have a moment of happiness, when finding some particularly useful, or valuable, item, but that wasn’t the reason he was happy. Well, not the ENTIRE reason he was happy. One of the drops from the fight with MAGA, the Slime Emperor, had been particularly nice for a Rogue like himself.

“Yuge” Sword

Type

Dagger

Rank

Rare

Damage

10 – 35

Damage Type

Piercing

This dagger may be smaller than average, but its thin, needle-like   blade make it perfect for piercing an individual’s flesh without them ever   knowing an attack was made until it was long over. Despite initially appearing   as though it would be too small to be effective, it has enchantments that   make it a worthwhile tool for anyone who favors results over morals and   ethics.

Critical Damage x4

Yuge Promises - +10% Charisma while this dagger is sheathed or   concealed. -20% Charisma when this dagger is drawn and visible.

Crony Support – Can teleport up to 30 feet. Destination must be within   10 feet of a Crony (ally who has provided you with money or sexual services   within the last 6 hours) or a Minion (Slave, thrall, or subordinate as   defined by the System). Target Crony or Minion must be in melee combat with   another creature, and destination must be in melee range of that creature. The   next attack you make against the attacking creature with this weapon is an   automatic critical hit. (Cost: 20 MP. Cooldown: 30 seconds.)

Scapegoat – When they would be hit by an attack, the wielder of   this blade may switch places with a Crony or Minion within 30 feet, by   teleportation. After using Scapegoat, cannot use Crony Support for 24 hours.

In terms of raw damage output, the blade was actually worse than the daggers he already had, but that was to be expected from a boss that was only on the second floor. The real kicker, though, was the Crony Support ability. That could be a real gamechanger for them, if they used it correctly. After all, if he could teleport around during a fight, getting into creatures’ blind spots to get critical hits, darting around the battlefield? That was going to be very useful. And it wasn’t like he used his MP for anything else, really, since all his Rogue combat abilities were dependent on stamina. Trap Sense used MP, but other than that, none of his class skills were magic-based. He had learned a bit of basic magic, mostly cantrips, to make life easier on the road, but mostly he never touched his MP.

Why was he happy, then? Well, that had everything to do with the conditions of the ability. Lacey apparently counted as both a Crony and a Minion at the moment, thanks to the effects of the collar she wore, and how he kept her timer ‘topped up’. The other four girls… well, Soledad, Alice, and Diana each gave him a gold coin each, which allowed them to be counted as Cronies. But it was Inga that truly made his day.

The blonde-haired Swedish woman had simply bent over and bared her shapely behind to him. “Charles, just so you know, it is a safe day for me, so feel free to cum inside. I’ll also get the power boost from my shield that way.” Well, hearing that was simply too much for him. Any man would be a fool to turn down an offer like that. And he was no fool!

“Ugh. He’s going to be impossibly smug now. I liked him better when he was shy.”

Even Lacey’s words couldn’t blunt the grin on his face. He’d been unsure about going into this dungeon before, sure. But it was definitely growing on him. He hadn’t been a virgin before this, but he’d never exactly been popular with the girls before the Apocalypse, and most of his ‘experience’ came from massage parlors. The chaos of the Apocalypse didn’t leave much time for dating, and by the time things had settled down, he was deep into his course work for school. Now here he was, with five beautiful women, and he’d already had sex with three of them, and it was just their first day in the dungeon!

A glimmer of red in his vision caught his attention as they approached a doorway, and he stopped all of a sudden, forcing the rest of the group to come up short behind him. He may have been enjoying life at the moment, but Goblin Town had a reputation for a reason, which is why he had kept his Improved Trap Sense skill on, even if it reserved a portion of his MP while active. Now, what did they have here…

Alice leaned in close, and whispered, “Trap?”

Charles nodded. “Yeah, more than one. Looks like a similar setup to some of the things on the first floor. I can see an obvious tripwire here, and a pressure plate beyond it, followed by what looks like some kind of magic sigil. I’m not sure, but they look to be linked. I can’t see enough of it to know how to defuse it without setting it off.”

Soledad frowned. “Linked how? Linked so that if you set one off, the others turn off, like on the first floor? Or linked so that if one goes off, they all go off?”

Charles simply shook his head. “I can’t say for certain. The tripwire is too obvious, especially for anyone who has gone through the rest of this dungeon so far. Strung along the doorway a foot off the ground, high enough that people will have to struggle with it, especially in robes or heavy armor, but not impossible. Of course, if they just step over, they land on the pressure plate, which is probably the main trap. Don’t know what that will do. And the magic is on the far side, probably to catch anyone who tries and do some kind of diving roll over the string and the plate.”

Diana frowned as she used her Detect Magic ability. “Yes, I can see the sigil. I can’t quite make it out from here, but it looks like it is some kind of necromancy effect. I think it might be a type of curse. Probably used to punish people who think they have an easy way to get past the first two traps.”

Alice frowned. “But why? If the sigil shows up to a Rogue’s trap sense, then it should warn everyone, right?”

Charles shook his head. “No, normal Trap Sense doesn’t pick up magic traps. You need the Improved Trap Sense skill for that. A lot of people don’t get it, because it is two skill points for what is basically the same skill, but I knew that there were a lot of magic traps the further down you go in the dungeon.”

Alice sighed. “All right. We’ll just have to prepare. Poison Resistance!” She focused for a moment, and cast a spell on the group, allowing them to better resist poisons. It wasn’t something she could just keep active all the time, but for the next ten minutes, they’d be able to shrug off most poisons or drugs. “Right. Charles, trip the tripwire remotely, and we’ll see what happens to the other traps. If this is like the first floor, Enflaming Gas will flood the area.”

Charles nodded, and pulled a long, ten-foot pole from his bag. It wasn’t anything special, just a piece of wood whose primary reason for being was just for something like this. If it wasn’t Enflaming Gas, then they might still be in the blast radius, but it gave them a better chance to be outside of any lethal radius if it blew up. Reaching out with the pole, he pushed just right, to dislodge the string.

BANG! SPLASH! Sizzle sizzle sizzle.

Vibrant green liquid exploded from around the doorframe, coating everything within ten feet of the blast site with viscous liquid. Charles, already wary of the possibility, got his hands back out of the splatter zone just in time, though he had to let go of his pole to do so. Everywhere the liquid, clearly some form of acid, touched, it burned, eating away the wooden pole like it were nothing, and even pitting the stone floor.

At the other end of the room, two panels opened in the far wall, revealing a group of six goblins, each holding crossbows! Caught flatfooted by the sudden onslaught, all six of the crossbow bolts hit him in the chest and torso, piercing his leather armor. Wide-eyed, he fell back, into the arms of Alice, who quickly pulled him away from the door, so she could treat them.

“MASTER! NOOO!” Lacey, pushed by the compulsion of her collar, charged through the doorway, her hammer glowing with holy light as she leaped over the pressure plate, landing on the magic sigil… which did nothing. Whether that was because it was disabled from the other trap going off (either by design or by the acid ruining the symbols), or if it was some kind of trick, nothing happened to the Paladin as she crashed into one group of goblins, her hammer quickly turning one of their green heads to mush.

Soledad, Bagheera, and Inga all followed after the crazed Paladin, and between the four of them, the goblins were quickly taken care of. Deadly dangers for groups caught dealing with the traps, but under the circumstances they barely had time to draw their cruel, wicked-looking knives before the tide of angry women was upon them. All while Diana stayed back to cover Alice, a spell readied in case any spellcasters or other major threats showed themselves.

Alice, meanwhile, laid a low-level, healing over time spell on Charles, to try and keep him from bleeding out before she could do a proper examination. Fortunately, bolts were scattered about his torso, and most did relatively little damage, thanks to his armor. More worryingly, though, was the green liquid she found staining the tip of one of the bolts. Poison. Another spell, and she saw that, while Charles was indeed badly hurt, he had managed to resist the effects of the poison, which was, no doubt, why he was still alive. Breathing easier now, she pulled the bolts from his flesh, and lay another healing spell, this one more powerful than the last, and an instant heal.

Gasping for air, Charles regained consciousness as the healing magic worked upon him, knitting flesh back together once again. With a loud groan, he looked at the six crossbow bolts in Alice’s hands, and said, “Damn. I was so focused on the traps, that I never even thought about them maybe being a trap in themselves. Shows me for getting too confident.”

“MASTER!” A mail-clad missile tackled Charles as he attempted to rise to a sitting position, Lacey landing on top of him, worry crossing her face. And just as suddenly, her expression changed, as the compulsion faded from her mind. “Oh, fuck. That was intense. I thought you were dead for sure, and all I could think about was murdering everyone and everything responsible. It wasn’t until I heard your voice that I could stop attacking the dead goblins.”

Soledad chuckled, “Yes, she was rather emphatic in avenging you. I’m fairly certain that she crushed one of them to a bloody paste on the floor.”

Alice chuckled, and said, “All right, people. That’s enough. Lacey, if you aren’t going to fuck him again, let the man up. We need him to keep scouting for traps. The difficulty just went way up.”