Lewd Dungeon, Chapter 216 (Patreon)

Chapter 216 – Stirring

(Atlantic Ocean)

Deep below the ocean’s surface, the object that had been quietly growing since the world had changed shifted, rocking slowly back and forth in the darkness. The object, an egg, had weathered the centuries without the mana necessary for it to grow by sheltering in the eternal warmth of the vents at the utter depths of the abyss. There, in the Milwaukee Depth, the egg had slumbered, forgotten, as the world left it behind.

But now, magic had returned, and its position allowed it to soak in one of the ancient mana currents that was now active once more. And the magic made it stronger, roused the little creature from near death hibernation, and it began growing, stronger and stronger as it bathed in pure mana. The egg grew larger, until, a few months after the return of mana, it began to hatch.

The creature was young, but it was a creature born of another time, before the world had changed. A creature of magic, in a world that only just now had magic returned to it. It was strong, and it was clever, and it was hungry.

Soon, a new apex predator reigned in the Milwaukee Depth, but reigning over one little trench at the bottom of the ocean was not something it would accept. Feeding well, the creature grew quickly in both size and levels. As it did so, it ranged out further and further, into the lightless cold outside the Depth, where ancient horrors of the sea lived.

Lived. Past tense. The creature had found the horrors, and fought them. The giant squid was ripped asunder, and the mighty kraken, itself reborn after magic’s return, was forced to flee before its might. This was the creature’s territory, and none dared challenge it.

It was patrolling its territory, when the magical echoes of battle came to it. The creature knew that direction. It was where the tasty fishmen lived. They were good food, when it was hungry.

While the creature considered all the seas its rightful territory, that did not mean it wished to hunt all others to extinction. These fishmen were tasty, and if they were all dead, then there would be no more to snack on. And the creatures offered tribute. Worship. So, the creature left them alone, for the most part.

But now, it heard a disturbance in the waters. Battle magics echoed in the sea. Someone was hunting the fishmen! The creature snarled in anger, and changed its course. None were allowed to hunt the fishmen but it, after all! They belonged to it, and it was the only one that could eat them.

(Near the Vurlock Spawning Grounds, Miami Beach)

Jen Sanders, better known as Salty to her friends and the denizens of the Adventurer’s Guild chat rooms, was grinned wickedly as she skewered another of the damn vurlocks. Fighting underwater was always a challenge. Her special coral armor worked like a charm, but there were still certain realities of physics that she hadn’t found a way to ignore, meaning that the spear was the best weapon for taking on the vurlocks, rather than the sword and shield she usually used.

But that was just a minor annoyance. She had system skills for spear mastery and underwater fighting, in addition to the other skills she had, and her items allowed her to breathe easily underwater. She might have been only 75% as effective as she was on dry land, but that was still more than enough to take on these vurlocks, especially with her team behind her.

It had been a couple months since the last scouring to keep their numbers in check, so her team had decided to return, and make sure they didn’t get bold enough to attack the beaches. They hadn’t known the vurlocks were even around, before then, but they knew better, now. The disgusting fishmen were the result of a broken dungeon, like the goblins in Boca Raton, which meant that their numbers would always be multiplying unless they were culled.

Other groups could handle the goblin culling to the north. Their team had been the first group to engage in vurlock culling, and had been the ones to gather some vurlocks and materials to stock the dungeon down in Swamptown’s Water Temple level. More importantly, they had spent a month as ‘property’ of the dungeon, testing the floor as it was crafted, gaining plenty of experience fighting underwater as they did so. That kind of experience, and the difference in their levels, meant that hunting vurlocks was easy as pie, even in their home waters.

A trio of vurlocks tried to swarm her, but Carlos appeared out of—well, she would have said ‘thin air’, but they were underwater. His leather armor, made from the hide of sea creatures, was enchanted, like hers was, giving him the ability to swim like a fish, which was obviously very useful when hunting underwater. At any rate, he appeared out of stealth just in time to stab two of the vurlocks in the throat with his twin daggers, leaving the last one to be quickly dispatched by her spear.

She nodded to the rogue, before he disappeared back into stealth, continuing his hunt. Momentarily free from enemies, she scanned the battlefield. Two pockets of vurlocks were forming. One around her and the invisible Carlos, and the other around the rest of her party. That group was even larger than the ones hunting her, but they were having even worse luck than her foes were.

Danny, their priest, had sunk to the ground, and planted his feet, using a spear to take on anything that came close enough, but focusing most of his energy on healing his teammates’ minor wounds before they became more serious, or affected their combat ability. He was safe enough, despite being immobile, because Rashaan, their mage, had erected an illusionary maze existing in the vurlocks’ minds, forcing them to wander back and forth around them in an attempt to get close to the pair. All the while, Raquel swam about, transformed into what the System called a Dire Saltwater Crocodile, coming in at almost twenty feet long, and ripped through any of the fishmen that were too slow to escape her jaws, while simply letting the vurlock spears break on her leathery hide.

Jen saw a new group of vurlocks gathering, centered around some kind of crude altar. Their motions looked like they were conducting a ritual of some kind. Trying to summon help? They couldn’t take that chance.

Diving forward, she sped past the few vurlocks who tried to intercept her. She stabbed one through the eye, but kept going, barely managing to wrench her spear free in time before it was ripped from her hands as she passed the dying vurlock. She couldn’t lose her best weapon for fighting underwater. She had another spear, of course, but it was not as good as this one, and the chances of her finding her spear if she lost it in the murky water was not good.

Like a thunderbolt, she descended upon the vurlocks. Her spear passed through one vurlock’s chest, coming out the other side as it gurgled in that horrible language they used. She used her feet to kick the vurlock free, and barely missed having a spear tear her own throat out as she jerked her head back just in time.

The vurlocks were no longer praying, or conducting their ritual, or whatever they were doing. One, larger than the others, with a nicer spear and something approaching armor, roared a challenge, and stabbed his spear at her, but she managed to dodge out of the way. This one had to be the current leader.

A dome formed around them as the vurlocks joined ranks to keep her from escaping, and her friends from coming to help. This was something she understood. The vurlock… king? priest? Whatever they were, they had challenged her, and she needed to fight them on her own.

Jen held her spear in both hands, readying for a charge. As she did so, she took stock of the leader. It was hard to tell the gender of fishmen in the wild, since they didn’t have the… obvious tells that you found in the Dungeon with its Lewd creatures, but she thought this one was a male. He was certainly larger, stronger-looking. His armor was a breastplate and bracers made of coral, like hers, but more crudely made. He wore a crown of coral, with colored shells set in it like jewels.

The spear in his hand was made of bone, hardened by magic, sharpened to a wicked point, with a hook on the back end, to make it do even more damage on the way out. There was an enchantment on the spearhead, causing it to glow with a sickly green-black aura. She didn’t know what effects the enchantment had, but she knew they wouldn’t be good.

The leader thrust forward with a quickness she wouldn’t expect from one of the fishmen. She barely managed to deflect the spear thrust enough that it scratched the side of her armor instead of piercing through her. Quickly, she jabbed forward with her spear, forcing the vurlock back a step to avoid being skewered.

Circling around the vurlock leader, she tried to find an opening. This one may have been bigger and stronger than the normal vurlocks, but he was clearly also smarter, or at least more cunning. He didn’t give her any openings, and kept his thrusts tight, and controlled, probing her defenses.

No, wait. He wasn’t probing her defenses. He was attacking her armor! Risking a glance, she saw that green-black smoke rose from the coral armor she wore, as it slowly melted or burned away. Well, not either of those, exactly, since it was coral, not metal or wood, but the fact remained that the enchantment on the vurlock leader’s spear was eating her armor! Suddenly, time was no longer on her side.

“Need some help?”

Carlos’s mental voice came through the [Mindlink] spell that Rashaan had cast on the group, allowing them to communicate while underwater. She couldn’t spare the attention to try and find the rogue, but she knew he was around, somewhere. Probably looking for an opening.

“This guy’s spear eats armor. Don’t know what it will do to flesh. I can hold him off, though. If the others are done, see if you can break the encirclement, so we can fight him together.”

“Sounds good.”

Suddenly, the water thrummed with magic and power. The shock was enough that even the vurlocks were thrown off their feet, though they recovered quickly. Jen had been a bit off the sea floor, readying herself for another strike, when the shockwave hit, and was thrown from the dome of vurlocks, crashing through one of the warriors as she did sol

“Wh-what in the hells was that?”

Carlos was the first to answer. “I don’t know, but I don’t like it.”

“Lord Kuronoth preserve us!” Danny had never been quite the same after their time as testers, and had recently converted to the new religion the Demon started. It was actually spreading pretty quickly through the adventurer community in Miami.

Rashaan’s voice was grim. “I don’t think he’ll be of much use against whatever that was.”

Suddenly, Raquel’s panicked voice came through the link, “Everyone teleport out, NOW!”

She didn’t pause to argue. She didn’t think about it. They were a team forged in blood, and they knew each other well. Without a second thought, Jen immediately activated the single-use teleport charm she carried.

The charms were inspired by the ones that the Demon sold in his Dungeon. However, instead of returning someone from the depths of the dungeon to its entrance, these charms sent the user directly to the nearest Adventurers’ Guild hall. They were just one of the many ‘get out of shit quick’ trinkets that the team carried, which is part of what made them different from the teams that were more likely to lose people.

There was a flash of light, and then she found herself, and all four of her team, standing outside the Adventurers’ Guild, still dripping wet. The guild had learned early on that setting the lobby as the teleport spot was a bad idea. So, instead, they had an area of the parking lot set aside for teleports.

As the team [Re-equip]ped their armor to something that wouldn’t dry out and become useless in the sun, the giant crocodile shifted, and returned to her human form. Jen nodded to the druid. “So, Raquel, what was that all about?”

The druid shuddered. “I don’t know. I just knew that my [Danger Sense] skill was going off in overdrive. If we had stayed there any longer, we would be dead.”

Anything she might have said after that was forgotten, as a pillar of light burst from the ocean in the distance, and a mighty roar could be heard all across the city, and a form began rising from the water. Danny shuddered, and said, “Lord Kuronoth grant me strength. It is a dragon!”