Lewd Dungeon, Chapter 151 (Patreon)

Chapter 151 – Harassment

I was greatly entertained by the show the three bounty hunting sisters from Bluemountain put on as they tried to decide whether it was worth it to take one of the men from the crowd or not. Lailah, the smart one, had quickly read through the new contracts that had been presented. After all, binding the men to them would need to be contractually done, with both sides consenting to it. She was less than pleased with the terms that were presented. Her sisters were also less than pleased, once she explained the terms. The crowd, which was obviously listening in, loved the terms.

Basically, the contract would have allowed each woman to create a bond with one male. Once established, the bond would allow the male to enter the dungeon and help them without making them in violation of their previous contracts. So long as the bond was in place, the men would not be held responsible for their actions in the dungeon that might contravene other contracts they had with me.

The first sticking point was how the bond was established. Namely, sex. The three wenches would have had to give it up to the men to establish the bond, before they ever entered the dungeon proper. This was problematic, since it was clear that they did not think putting on a show for the ‘heathens’ was their idea of fun.

The second issue the ladies had was with the fact that the bond had a timer. I was generous, and gave them six hours, so that they could sleep a bit, but they would have to reaffirm the bond every six hours, or it would be broken. If that happened, then both the man and his bond-mate would be teleported out of the dungeon immediately. This wasn’t exactly a sticking point, but the women were understandably put out that they were going to be expected to put out every six hours on the dot.

What may have been the least contentious part of the contract was that the bond-mates would share many things. Their health pools were the biggest thing. This meant that if the women let their men die, they’d die too. All fine on the face of it. However, more than just their health was shared. They would have a telepathic bond so they could share surface thoughts and emotions, which was always on. Which meant that the women would know exactly what the men thought of them as they forced them to ‘reaffirm their bonds’ every six hours.

The biggest issue though was the caveat that was basically a nod to the fertility goddesses that were enshrined in my dungeon. Any birth control or similar effects would be suppressed while they were in the dungeon, and, regardless of their cycles, they’d be fertile while in the dungeon. And they would be forced to carry any progeny to term. I had planned a lot of fun with this, but unfortunately Lailah had spotted it, and immediately understood that I hadn’t limited the terms to being just a pregnancy between one of the women and their bond-mate, but any progeny. For instance, if one of them were caught by Captain Hentai, then they would be forced to let the slimes be born, resulting in their death as the slimes ate their way out from inside her. For some reason, the women considered that to be unacceptable.

So, they fled the men who were leering at them and bragging about their prowess (in more ways than one), running into the dungeon without signing the contracts. Without any men to accompany them. Just as I’d hoped they would.

Lailah Freeheart

Atlantean Female

Level 42 Shadowblade / Tracker

Titles: Devoted, Silent Killer, Demon’s Bane, Chainbreaker

Daphiel Freeheart

Atlantean Female

Level 44 Divine Excoriator / Weaponsmith

Titles: Devoted, Goddess Touched, Weapon Mistress, Testifier

Sabrael Freeheart

Atlantean Female

Level 43 High Magus / Enchanter

Titles: Devoted, Genius, Arcane Blood, Seer

Looking at the three of them, I could tell that they were all high tier 2, almost to tier 3. Their classes were all upgrades, naturally, but they basically boiled down to being a team of a Rogue, Paladin, and Wizard. Not a bad party makeup for only three people, honestly. If they were going in normally, I could definitely see them getting to the Black Temple easily enough. Honestly, with their power level, they would probably get through anyways, but that wasn’t a problem, really. Power alone wasn’t enough to get you through the Black Temple’s challenges.

Dungeon Law

Welcome, victims! You have chosen to enter the Dungeon’s domain without   signing a contract, thereby making you a threat to the dungeon. As such, normal   restrictions that were in place have been removed, and new restrictions have   been implemented. The following changes have been made to the dungeon as a   whole:

· Dungeon   Creatures will always appear at their full strength, rather than limiting   their level to that of the challengers.

· All   teleportation spells, effects, and powers are disabled, unless they are of   divine origin, and the user worships one of the entities enshrined in the   dungeon.

· All   methods of exiting the dungeon save by finishing the final floor and reaching   the exit have been disabled unless the Demon of the Dungeon allows it.

· Mana   regeneration is disabled outside of marked safe zones unless an entity is   wearing the symbol of Kuronoth, Demon of the Dungeon.

· Health   regeneration is disabled outside of marked safe zones except for during sex,   and for thirty minutes afterwards.

· All   challenges that were previously optional are now mandatory.

· Lethality   of traps has been increased.

· Other   changes may be instituted on a floor by floor basis.

I was really quite proud of this new iteration of the Hardcore Mode for my dungeon. Oh, sure, I hadn’t been able to test it on anyone, since most people just signed the contract and were done with it, but I had worked hard on coming up with ways to make the dungeon more challenging without having to create entirely new rooms and traps, just for the few who might venture in without signing. I wanted anyone who survived Hardcore Mode to tell the tales of horror, so that more people were willing to sign my contracts.

The limits on mana and health regeneration were the real masterworks, in my opinion. I’d quickly realized that, once people got to a high enough level that their healers would be able to counter poisons more rapidly, or even have spells that protected against poison for a period of time, my poison-based traps were going to become far less threatening. I could just ban the spells, but that was a dick move, even for hardcore mode. Instead, I made it so that everything was a game of resource management.

Oh, sure, anyone who wanted to cast spells to remove or protect against poison would be able to do that. But they’d be sacrificing mana that could go towards healing spells to do it. That wasn’t normally a problem for high level adventurers, but with mana and health regeneration blocked, then they would be in serious trouble if it became a war of attrition. And I fully intended hardcore mode to be a war of attrition.

To their credit, the three sisters quickly realized the ramifications. I was rather delighted that they appeared to be more disgusted with the requirements to get their health regeneration back than they were with the mana regeneration one. Apparently, for servants of a Goddess of Freedom, the Atlantean sisters were not that different from humans when it came to thoughts of incest. Whether they would feel the same revulsion if they had a woman that wasn’t their sister along, I didn’t know. But the ‘sister’ part definitely repulsed them. Which meant that they were going to have to drain their resources to heal their wounds, unless they got to the Safe Zone.

It also meant that, by the time they’d cleared the first gauntlet, their cheeks were flushed red with repressed excitement, as they had been hit with Enflaming Gas no less than three times before they managed to get into the jungle swamp. For a tier 1 team, that would have been a death sentence, if they didn’t relieve the strain. Either they would die from the building excitement, or they’d be driven to distraction, and make a fatal error. As a tier 2 group, however, they had a good deal more self-control. Not only that, but their bodies (even the rogue and mage) were sturdier than those of a tier 1 party, so they could go longer before the strain would become dangerous.

Of course, they weren’t without their problems. The room with the spinning logs embedded with obsidian blades, for example, had almost claimed Lailah’s life when she discovered the hard way that a string of piano wire had been strung out between the upper and lower logs. The piano wire barely scratched her enchanted armor, but it did throw her off balance, which nearly ended in her death, as she fell to the ground in the midst of her jump, and landed, eyes locked on the lower log as it came spinning towards her, too fast for her to recover and try to jump again. Only the quick thinking of Sabreal saved her, as a bolt of magic hit the button that raised the log just in time.

Now, halfway through the jungle, I was waiting on their first meeting with one of the real challenges of my dungeon. Unlike many of the other groups, they had decided to avoid tracking down my Hunter. Whether it was confidence or a wish to try and avoid any of the Lewd creatures that they could, especially when they were already in a state of excitement, they were heading on the path I’d laid through the swamp, approaching where Earl lived.

“Now, remember, that Lewd Lizardfolk hunter likes to strike from ambush, and take someone while people are distracted by the ‘alligator’. He strikes equally from the right or the left, so be on guard.”

Lailah was whispering to her sisters as they approached Earl’s den. I could hear her, and sense her presence enough to target her, if I wanted to, thanks to my dungeon abilities, but her stealth ability was really quite impressive. She appeared to have literally melted into her sister Daphiel’s shadow. And maybe she had. She was a tier 2 class, after all. Regardless, she was able to whisper to her sisters while being utterly invisible, and probably immune to nonmagical attacks. Nice ability for an assassin to have.

Their plan was to engage Earl, and use the battle to lure Throsk out of hiding, where Lailah could kill him quickly with a surprise attack. It was a decent plan, that made good use of their abilities. I wasn’t quite sure how Lailah could actually see when she was possessing someone’s shadow, but clearly she was able to both see and speak while in that form. Unfortunately for her, their eyes were on the waters, knowing that both Earl and Throsk liked to hunt by springing an ambush from the waters below.

It was a good plan. It just relied on information from the Adventurer’s Guild and Lea. But Lea hadn’t entered the dungeon again since that first time, back when I only had two floors, and the Adventurer’s Guild didn’t have anyone who had experienced the dungeon on hardcore mode. Unfortunately, that meant that their information was either out of date or incorrect.

It was Sabrael that noticed it first. Whether it was a shift in the magic or whatever, or perhaps a glimpse from her Seer title, but her eyes looked upwards in alarm. Looking down at her, Throsk’s eyes met her own, and he offered a sharp-toothed grin crouched upon his perch in the trees above the path. Just as she opened her mouth to yell a warning, Throsk dropped the scent-binder he had been holding, and the pheromones of a Lewd Lizardfolk washed over the area.