Lewd Dungeon, Chapter 208 (Patreon)

Chapter 208 – Negotiations

(Back in the main dungeon)

Being a dungeon naturally meant that I could have multiple points of view at the same time. It was necessary for running all the moving parts that a dungeon entailed, after all. This was especially useful for times where I wanted to personally entertain two different groups simultaneously.

For instance, when I was busy commentating on some new adventurers going on their first dive in a newly opened dungeon, and still wanted to have a chat with a representative of the US Military. Oh, I could have blown them off, of course. The military couldn’t invade my halls any more than the Pofmisians could, and the kind of weapons they’d need to destroy me from outside would make half of Florida a radioactive wasteland. And no one wanted that.

But I didn’t want to blow them off, or make the guy wait, or any of that. For one thing, the military had always played straight with me, never trying to get one over on me, despite how their negotiators worked while writing up contracts. And for another, I preferred having them as an interested party in my defense, rather than someone who might help others take me down.

And I wasn’t so stupid as to think I couldn’t be taken down. There were bigger, badder entities than me out there. That fleet of warships in orbit, for instance, could probably do the job, if they were allowed to bombard me from orbit long enough. And the only thing really keeping that from happening was the fact that enough people were, at the very least, not pissed enough at me to allow something like that to happen. Sure, that didn’t mean they liked me, or would shed any tears if I was gone, but they weren’t going to just stand back and watch South Florida get blasted beneath the ocean just to see me dead.

So, I was waiting in my ‘business office’, which was basically a larger, better appointed version of the one that I’d had Diego use a couple times, when he was my ‘liason’ to the outside. It was actually closer to something that you’d see in a corporate office building, for major executives. All fairly normal stuff.

I was sitting in my high-backed leather chair, wearing a black suit that I had actually gotten made especially for me by a designer in Miami. We had worked out a nice trade, actually, with me getting custom-designed, tailored outfits for myself and all my most important slaves, and him getting a thousand yards of a special fabric that I’d picked up through the dungeon exchange as part of one of the Atlantean packs (on top of what he used in making my order). The fabric was smooth as silk, breathable as cotton, warm as wool, and as durable as denim. It was a byproduct of one of the Tier 2 plant creatures that was in the pack, so I could even set up a supply line, if he liked it. And, for the moment, he was the only designer on the planet with access to the material.

Needless to say, we were both happy with that deal.

Nichole and Clarissa were with me in the office when the portal opened, and a Lieutenant Grant stepped through. The man had a kind of swagger to him, but I’d spent enough time watching people that I could tell it was an act. Play the big, brash ‘Murican, and people don’t look too deep beneath the surface, because there are plenty of that type who were surface all the way down, just with varying degrees of racism and bigotry.

It was his eyes that made it clear. He walked in, and his eyes checked everyone and everything out, analyzing them. He tried to play it off as a leer when he was looking at my girls in their matching miniskirt and blouse secretary outfits that were, literally, tailor-made to show off their ‘assets’ to the best effect, but I knew leers. I was guilty of leering on a regular basis, after all. He might have appreciated their looks, and tried to play it off as a leer, but he was analyzing the situation.

Which made sense, if you bothered to think about it for more than a second. The military doesn’t put stupid people who can’t read a room in their recruitment offices. Sure, they might not be CIA-level spooks, but they knew how to read people, and how to appeal to them, to get them to sign on the line, and join up.

I waved my hand to the seat in front of my large, executive-style desk. “Please, Lieutenant, have a seat. And you can drop the act. The military has played straight with me, and I see no reason to play games with you, when you’ve come to me directly looking for a deal.”

The Lieutenant took a breath, and sat down. His demeanor shifted noticeably, and he took on a more business-like tone. “Fine, fine. Guess I forgot that you’re always watching everyone in town.”

I smiled at him, and said, “No, I actually try to keep from watching everyone all the time. The dungeon dives would not be anywhere near as entertaining if I knew everything everyone was doing or planning ahead of time. What gave it away was your eyes. As a professional leerer, I can tell when someone is only pretending to leer at creatures as lovely as my pets.”

“Hah! All right, I’ll give you that one.” Grant took a breath, collecting his thoughts, and then said, “So, like I told your receptionist out front, I’m here on behalf of the US Marines. We have a bunch of shuttles parked in a burnt-out clearing just outside Swamptown that we would like to move off to a lab someplace so they can be properly studied. However, there’s the slight problem that none of our boys know how to turn the damn things on, much less fly them, and the pilots refused capture when the Marines went out there.”

“And you were hoping I could come up with some kind of solution, I take it?”

“Well, you do have that ship of yours that took some people up to the moon, right before you built a dome over Tranquility Base. Pretty obvious that you had to have someone who could pilot the ships.”

“True. Now, the nature of the shuttles is going to interfere with things a little bit. Because they’re dedicated to a goddess that I’m at odds with, it would be… problematic for any of my people to get on them without conducting some rites to at least desecrate them enough that they no longer have a connection to their church. Quirk of the System, you understand.”

I leaned back in my chair, considering. “However, I can arrange for skill books, that would give your pilots the knowledge to pilot them someplace that they can be broken down and remade. These books are not free for me, obviously, and so they’re not going to be free for you, either. I’m going to want something of value for them.”

“So, to be clear, these books would give our pilots the ability to fly the captured craft, and they would not have any hidden stings binding them to you?”

“That is correct. As I said, the Military has played fairly with me, so I see no reason to make an enemy of you. The pilots would not be bound to me by taking in the knowledge of the books, though I would reject them if they offered praise in my name. However, the shuttles are outside my influence, so I cannot tell whether or not they have been modified beyond just being sanctified shrines of their goddess. It might be that, unless the connection is broken, the shuttles will not function for anyone who isn’t of the faith.”

The Lieutenant frowned. “I am not authorized to get the US Government in the middle of this pissing match between you and some alien goddess, you know that, right? There’s a limit to what I can negotiate about.”

“Of course. I was watching through one of my creatures that was hiding at the edge of my influence when the Marines took the landing pad. The Marines were clearly fired upon, before returning fire. Taking possession of the shuttles won’t get you any more into this than you already are.”

I paused, and when I spoke my tone was as even as I could make it. “Now, there are a couple ways I can help you, besides just selling you the skill books and having you hope for the best, that don’t include breaking the consecration on the shuttles. But I doubt you’ll like those options any better.

“First, by expanding my aura to the point where it covers the shuttles, I could at least send one of my people out there, and see what protections there are in place. That, obviously, takes energy, and I have been devoting most of my energy to other projects recently, instead of expanding my influence. So, it would be much like when the organized culling of the goblins happened, in order to increase my abilities so I could produce higher-quality products.”

Grant frowned. “I was briefed on the options you gave that team. I can’t see it going over too well with the brass, especially since rounding up and transporting goblins or… anyone else would not be a quick affair, and we were hoping to keep the troops from sleeping out in the swamp too much.”

“The second option is that I can use my ship, and hook up tow lines to drag one of the shuttles inside my domain. Then, I could tell you what you need to know. But that will definitely be seen as the government at least working with me, if not for me, as some more dogmatic parties might see it.”

“And that would go over like a lead balloon here in the States, too.”

“Exactly. And I’m going to have to tell you that the US getting these shuttles and not sharing the goods will make other people very unhappy around the world. If someone like Russia or China feels like they’re getting shafted by this, then they are liable to do something stupid, which I don’t think any of us want.”

“Well, if you’re bringing up the international relations angle, I assume you have an idea?”

“Oh, I have plenty of ideas, depending on how much the government wants to get in bed with my church and my dungeon. But the way to best shield the US from any individual involvement with me, or my ‘conflicts’, while also keeping the ravening hordes from braying about unfairness would be to involve other countries. There are twenty-eight shuttles. I’m sure the US could get some major points in people’s books if they were seen to be publicly sharing new tech, instead of hoarding it.”

“Now wait a minute!”

“Oh, I’m not saying giving them to everyone, of course. There’s only twenty-eight, after all. But splitting them between, say, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany and Japan, would make sense, from a global perspective, and would keep Russia or China from crying too loudly.”

“That’s obviously above the level of what I can negotiate.”

“Of course. When we’re done, I’ll send you back to Swamptown, and you can get on a secure line to someone who can make those calls. I’m just looking to keep World War 3 from breaking out. I like this planet; it is where I keep most of my stuff. So, I would hate to see anything happen to it.”

I was about to continue, when my attention was suddenly drawn away by a new presence entering my influence. I looked up at the ceiling, muttering. “Those cheeky bastards.”

“What? What is it?”

I turned my attention back to the Lieutenant. “It would appear that the Church of Pofmis is about to land at my lunar retreat. The bastards just don’t know when to take their ball and go home.”