Lewd Dungeon, Chapter 202 (Patreon)

And we're back on track!

Chapter 202 – Skills

With some trepidation, I pulled up my list of available skills. A quick look at my status said that I had 38 Skill Points to spend. To say that I was excited to see what I could get by spending all those points would be a big understatement.

Racial   Skills

Mana Conversion – Able to   convert MP to Anima at a ratio of 100:1.

Anima Conversion (Mana) – Able   to convert Anima to MP at a ratio of 1:100. (Costs 2 skill points)

Anima Conversion (Experience) –   Able to convert Anima to XP at a ratio of 1:1. (Costs 2 skill points)

Enhanced Avatar – Increase the   stats of your avatar by 25%. (Costs 2 skill points)

Divine Territory – Claimed   territory outside dungeon treated as a shrine. Inside of dungeon treated as a   Temple. Core Room is treated as a Cathedral Altar. (Costs 2 Skill points)

Class Skills

Monster Index – Gain knowledge   of species observed in your dungeon. Dungeon monsters do 10% more damage to   species in the Monster Index.

Enhanced Magic Fields – Can   create areas where magic is more effective. (Costs 2 skill points)

Dampened Magic Fields – Can   create areas where magic is less effective. (Costs 2 skill points)

Altered Magic Fields – Can   create areas where magic functions differently, possibly gaining new elements   or effects. (Costs 2 skill points)

Magical Improvements – Magical traps   and fields are 10% more effective and 10% harder to detect. (Costs 2 skill   points)

Profession Skills

Enhanced Ability Training – Slaves   training under your direction can increase Abilities at a cost of 50% normal.   (Costs 2 Skill Points)

Enhanced Gladiator Training –   Slaves training under your direction as Gladiators gain +2 CON per level. (Costs   2 Skill Points)

Enhanced Slave Brand – Slave Brands   cost less mana to make, and able to make twice as many brands. (Costs 2 Skill   Points)

Forced Conversion – Slaves owned   by you are automatically converted to your chosen faith. (Costs 2 Skill   Points)

General Skills

Sadist – Inflicting damage and   suffering on a sentient heals you for a portion of the damage dealt.

Carnal Arts – The art of   sensuality, including many ways of bringing pleasure to you and your   partner(s).

Sword Mastery – You gain skill   and proficiency with swords.

That… was an impressive list. First off, I discarded the idea of picking up [Carnal Arts] and [Sword Mastery]. They were both quality skills, in my opinion, but the succubus sisters in the Black Temple had the [Carnal Arts] skill, and several of my minions had [Sword Mastery], and other weapon skills. Since I was a Divine Slaver now, those skills were, effectively, mine already, without needing to spend points on them.

[Sadistic] was another skill that I put to the side. It wasn’t a terrible skill, from what I could tell, but I didn’t actually take damage, even in my Avatar form, often enough for it to be worth the point. Plus, I wasn’t sure if damage caused by my minions and traps counted, or whether I needed to do the damage myself, directly. The System had some grey areas like that.

So, with the ‘general’ skills tossed aside, I turned my attention to the other skills I had available. The one that caught my eye immediately was [Forced Conversion]. Coincidentally, I had just come into ownership of more than a few Pofmis worshippers. If they were to suddenly be converted to my faith, that would give me more high-level worshippers, but also would twist the knife in that freedom bitch’s gut just a bit more.

Obviously, I took it. And as I did, I felt the screaming of not just the Pofmis followers but also the other slaves I had who worshipped other gods, or didn’t have any faith in particular, as they were all forcibly indoctrinated to my faith. That was a heady rush. Almost as good as the first time I took what I wanted from a certain paladin living in Swamptown.

Looking at my racial skills, I quickly picked up [Enhanced Avatar] and [Divine Territory]. I had to accept that I would likely face challengers from other angry gods in the future, so anything that strengthened my avatar was an obvious win. Turning my entire dungeon into a Temple, and my core room into an Altar, was just bonus points.

Things got a little bit more interesting when I turned my gaze outside the dungeon proper, to Swamptown. The entire town was stirring, since anyone with a divine connection would have felt the place becoming a shrine to me, and even those without no doubt felt the surge of energy as I broke through to Tier 2. What interested me was that there was an island in my ‘shrine field’, where the interfaith shrine was set up.

What drew my eye there, however, was the fact that my favorite paladin punching bag and her harem of boytoys were there. In fact, they were trapped there. Oh, they could leave the shrine easily enough, but the paladin was a follower of Pofmis, and, thus, Anathema to me. The moment she stepped out of the temple, she would be thrown out of Swamptown, and she was still only pregnant with the second of the three children she needed to bear, inside Swamptown’s limits. If she left the shrine, her entire group would wind up being my slaves.

Next, I went to class skills, and immediately picked up all three field skills, and the [Magical Improvements] skill. This would allow me to more easily create areas where magic could be altered. Enhancing and Dampening were obvious enough in use. But Altered? That could be as simple as switching elements (ice spells did fire damage, and vice-versus), or as complicated as having randomized effects (a fireball spell spontaneously summoning a turtle in the middle of battle). That had a great deal of potential, in my opinion.

I still had plenty of points left. Why did I have so many points, if the number of skills weren’t there to support them? Unfortunately, the answer was pretty simple. Most ‘normal’ people would have had plenty of life experience giving them a plethora of general skill options. Even if they were simple skills like [Cooking] and [Cleaning], or more complicated skills like [Blacksmithing] or [Weapon Maintenance], they would be options, that skill points could be spent on.

But I was a dungeon. I could simply wave a hand and make things happen, and most of the fighting was done not by me, but by my minions. When you thought about it like that, it was only natural that my skill points outpaced the number of skills to spend them on.

Still, that didn’t mean I wouldn’t take advantage of the bounty. I went through and picked up every skill available to me except for [Sadistic]. I didn’t skip that one out of any moral or ethical reasoning, but for the simple fact that I didn’t know how often it would apply, and leaving it unbought left me with an even 10 skill points available to me, which I thought was a nice, round number.

I was just going over my status once again, when I suddenly got several alerts from my computer. Looking over at it, I saw that I had quite a few messages piling up. Not surprising, since the whole town felt my going up in tier, and people knew how to contact me through the Adventurers’ Guild forums.

There were plenty of people who sent me messages every day. Most of them were self-indulgent, self-righteous crap, usually telling me what a horrible person I was. Funnily enough, over 95% of those messages came from people who had never been in my dungeon, and never would be, because they were strictly keyboard warriors. They talked a big game, but I was pretty sure that they would fold like wet cardboard the moment they actually had to put their lives on the line.

In that way, the Golden Host actually had more respect from me than those clowns. They were still self-righteous idiots who let their ideology get in the way of their brains, but at least they put their bodies on the line, instead of just talking shit. I could respect that. I would still crush them, but I could respect the attitude.

Some of the messages were from people wanting to make deals. I was always interested in making deals, of course, but anyone who actively reached out to me, instead of me going to them while they were struggling in the dungeon, was suspect, to say the least. I always went over those proposals extra thoroughly.

Most of them, obviously, were people who thought they were clever trying to get me to invest in their multi-level marketing pyramid scheme, help their Nigerian prince to transfer huge sums of money out of the country, or (and this was my favorite) trying to con me into doing the equivalent of trading away Manhattan for some beads. Those people I put on a list to give ‘special attention’ to, if they ever showed up in my dungeon, and deleted the messages. It was sad that people actually fell for that shit.

The people who weren’t trying to scam me were often just as desperate as those unfortunates who caught my attention in the dungeon. Financial woes were only a tiny fraction of them, actually. The Apocalypse had gone a long way towards helping to destroy poverty, since anyone could go into the dungeon and come out with enough gold to support themselves, if they survived. That, combined with people being able to use magic to increase crop yields and create clean water, meant that only people who didn’t have a way out of poverty were the sick, the elderly, and those who were too young to fend for themselves.

No, most of the requests for my help were of a different sort. Obviously, given my reputation, there were those looking for help in the love department, some just wanting a way to spice things up, or catch a girl’s eye, and some looking for more… forceful means. However, a large portion of the requests were actually from people with health problems.

Sure, the world had magic, but cancer was still a coldhearted bitch, and they were already starting to see the rise of magically-enhanced diseases and maladies. And not everyone could afford the costs of having a lost limb replaced, to say nothing of those who were paralyzed due to injuries. These people were the truly desperate, grasping at straws due to the tales of undead in my dungeon, hoping that, against all odds, being bound to the dungeon or turned into a vampire might cure what ailed them.

Unfortunately, while I had all kinds of options for the lovers who needed a bit of help, my powers were not really well suited for the whole ‘healing’ thing. The best I could do is bind them to the dungeon, which would keep them from dying permanently so long as the dungeon existed, but did not promise any improvement in their condition. Not without changing them on a fundamental level. Most people weren’t willing to give up their humanity, not while they had other options available to them.

This message, however, was in the vanishingly small last category of reasons people reached out to me. Namely, they wanted information from me. Through all the work I’ve done since revealing my existence to the world, there were quite a few people who understood that I had knowledge they lacked. It wasn’t like I was inherently smarter or more educated, but that I had contacts, and, through them, I heard things. So, there were a very few people who could message me with questions, and I would do my best to answer, as a ‘favor’. I had a special filter set up for when these people contacted me.

Looking at the message (well, messages, since I now had five of them, all coming from the same source), I had to grin. Apparently, someone in Swamptown had a good head attached to their shoulders, and realized that whatever was happening was beyond their pay grade. So, they had done what any self-respecting individual does in that situation: they kicked the problem up the chain.

I decided to answer the message. Only polite to do so, after all. It wasn’t nice to alienate business partners unless you had to.

Temptation: Hello, Miguel. I suppose you have questions. Why don’t you come around for a chat?