Lewd Dungeon, Chapter 223 (Patreon)

Chapter 223 – Report

The doors swung open at their approach, and the black shield faded away. They didn’t know what the shield would have done, but none of them were willing to test it, so it was well worth sacrificing someone they didn’t care about to bypass it. The hallway beyond was made of dark stone, and lit with purple-flamed torches, giving the whole area an unearthly, otherworldly look. A purple mist hung, about ankle-height, across the floor, a miasma common to undead dungeons, though more concentrated than they’d seen before.

Making their way inside, they quickly found themselves in a square stone room, with the same purple torchlight as the only illumination. Four skeletons, wearing tattered leather armor, and armed with weapons that had clearly seen better days, moved towards them, green light in their eyes. Their leather armor was uniform at one point, but had deteriorated and degraded in different ways due to time and hard use without maintenance.

Their weapons were a mismatch, as well. One had a curved one-handed sword like a scimitar and a shield. A second had a spear that was a head taller than it was. The third carried a pair of axes. Finally, the last skeleton had a massive iron-shod club that it held in both hands. That one was also slightly larger than the other three.

The battle, if it could be called such, was over quickly. Mark nodded slightly as they watched the last skeleton fall, almost before it had begun moving. “Well, that was slightly more difficult than I expected. They were, what, Level 30 in Tier 1?”

Mary nodded. “Level 32, actually. And yeah, even though they only had basic Warrior classes, they were surprisingly tough for that level. If we weren’t into Tier 2, they could have been a problem for us.”

Stephanie frowned. “And this is only the first room! How did they get so strong? I mean, we’re the first people to even come to the Necropolis since the barrier was put up, trapping the undead in. The dungeon shouldn’t have been getting anyone to come in and fight it.”

Carla shook her head. “I think it has something to do with the miasma. I remember hearing something about it from someone in the Atlanta guild. Something about how miasma makes the undead stronger?”

Father Jacobs considered that for a moment, and said, “I think this is something we should pass along to the Lord. I’m sure that he will want to let someone know about this, even if it is only so that the undead here do not grow to become too much of a problem.”

Brad nodded. “In that case, why don’t we fight our way to the first boss room, so that, when you offer a prayer to the Lord, you can include a report on the floor as a whole? That should give him more to go on.”

The priest nodded. “That is a good idea, Brad. Let’s keep moving. I want to contact the Lord sooner rather than later about this.”

(Forbidden Chambers of Exotic Pleasures)

I was relaxing in the wide, heated bath when I ‘heard’ the call from Father Jacobs come in. That was a new sensation. Whenever someone prayed to me, I felt it, and heard their prayers. My church was still small, relatively speaking, so individual prayers, especially from my more important worshippers, came through clearly, but the information I’d been reading said that, as my church grew, it would take more and more attention and effort to respond to individual prayers, which explained why some of the larger gods often moved slowly, if at all, to answer prayers, unless they were particularly fervent, or had many prayers all about the same thing to better focus attention on something.

Of course, the System included documentation (when you knew where to look for it) that said something about low- to mid-level gods being able to set up preset responses to some prayers. Essentially, it was the deific version of calling a business, and hearing, “For healing the sick, press 1.” In that scenario, the fervent prayers, or the repeated prayers in large numbers, were like hitting the button to speak to a live representative.

And representative wasn’t far off. Once you got into the mid-level faiths, spanning entire worlds, or even going into different systems, gods started having some of their angels, or servants, act as a clearing house, responding to prayers on a regional basis. That wasn’t something I’d unlocked yet, unfortunately, meaning I had to do things personally.

At any rate, that also meant that, when my Head Priest began trying to get my attention, so soon after dedicating the altar atop the Necropolis to me, I was aware of him instantly. That got me thinking about the altar. I could feel the connection there, and I was able to tap into the dungeon’s aura to manipulate the area of the shrine, but the dungeon itself couldn’t follow suit.

And yet, this didn’t constitute an invasion or a dungeon war. Though the altar was devoted to me, it did not count as part of my dungeon territory, but rather as divine territory! So, it was basically a case of me being on the other side of the fence from when I invited all those other gods into my dungeon, to fill out the Black Temple. It felt like ages ago, but was really only a little more than a year and a half. Crazy how time flies.

The connection between me and the priest solidified more, as it always did when he was in prayer, and I heard his thoughts. I could respond, either with ‘feelings’ or outright speaking, but I’d quickly figured out that I should restrict such things. Direct contact with a god, even a fledgling god, in the mindspace could be damaging to mortals, and I didn’t want to wreck my perfect tools.

And, really, the Father and his team had become my perfect ambassadors and agents, when I wanted a ‘soft touch’ out in the world. I had my angel and her friend for enticement closer to home, and the mercenaries for when I needed to ‘reach out and touch someone’ whenever lead would get better results than words. But the Father and his team were my apostles out in the world, spreading my gospel, and they were clever enough to also act as scouts, bringing me the information I needed to know.

Like the report he was giving me about the Dark Necropolis dungeon. Not that I blamed them for the speedy report. Clearly, from their eyes, something was out of order for things to have progressed so far, so fast. After all, the Necropolis was half as old as I was, and did not have my human mind guiding it, with memories of a past life to bolster it.

Father Jacobs’s pet sorceress had figured out part of it, through half-remembered reports. From what I knew through the System, miasma was indeed a part of the problem. Actually, the same problem had played itself out in my dungeon, as well, on the undead floor, until I figured out how to properly configure the limiters.

I let the Father go with a sense of acknowledgement, and my pleasure at their progress and decisions so far. I knew he would be happy with that, and spread the word to the rest of the team. I could have sent an actual message, but I didn’t want to risk too much direct contact before I was able to contact the dungeon directly.

Instead, I summoned my phone to my hand, and dialed a number I’d been quick to put on speed dial. There was someone who was going to need to know what I’d learned. Oh, it wasn’t like I was doing this out of the goodness of my heart. Far from it. But you can’t give your friends all stick and no carrot, or they stop being friends, and start being rivals.

“Hello, who is this? How did you get this number?”

I chuckled at the sound of my friend’s distrusting voice. He was under a lot of pressure, obviously, what with his responsibilities, so I figured I’d cut him some slack. Especially since he didn’t know I had his private number until just this moment.

“Hello, Miguel. How is life as the American Guildmaster treating you?”

I could hear Miguel groan on the other side of the connection. “Of course, it is you. I don’t know what I was thinking, wondering who could have gotten my private line, but would be calling from a number with Caller ID blocked.”

The guildmaster sighed. “I guess you’re calling me, instead of contacting me through some official means, because you want something, but don’t want anyone to track it back to your dungeon or your followers?”

“Oh, not today, Miguel. I’m well set on everything I might need. I just decided to go and give you a bit of a shout, since something has come up, which you probably want to get a handle on.”

Miguel’s voice got serious, reaffirming my appraisal of the man. “What is it? What’s happened? No, wait a moment before answering.”There was a pause, and then, the telltale change in sound that accompanied going to speakerphone. “All right, you’re on speaker. Bethany Johnston, the new Miami guildmaster, is here with me, but we cleared the room of anyone else.”

“Well, as you know, due to my unique situation as both dungeon master and fledgling god, I hear a bunch of things. In this case, I heard some interesting rumors about a couple of local dungeons, so I sent a team of adventurers who are loyal to me to go check things out, and see if the rumors were true.”

“And I assume these dungeons are local?”

“Yes, one is a ‘field dungeon’. You’ve probably gotten reports about it already, from anyone trying to travel down around Key West. I haven’t checked the current dimensions of the dungeon’s field, yet, but I believe it is safe to say that it is fairly large.”

A woman’s voice came on. This must have been Ms. Johnston. I hadn’t met her in person, but she was a follower of mine, which allowed me to speak through her, once. It was interesting to hear her actual voice.

“Lord Kuronoth, we are aware of the dungeon, which is called the Seas of Blood. Our current reports have the dungeon reaching from Key West to Big Pine Key. That is a distance of roughly twenty to twenty-five miles. Is the dungeon’s field a perfect circle?”

“You’ll have to send someone to map it out, since I haven’t done much research on field dungeons. They may push following terrain features, for all I know, and I’m not certain whether the field is spherical or cylindrical. Might be something to get that Scholar on. At any rate, I know the dungeon is still outside of my field of influence, or we would have been having conversations before now.”

“All right. What should we know about the Seas of Blood, Lord Kuronoth?”

“I have had indications that the Seas of Blood and the other dungeon I spoke of are close to gaining consciousness. As in, actual sapience, not just feral intelligence. They just need a bit of a push, and they’ll be able to consciously think, which means you can make deals with them. I am sure the University has a few marine biologists who would love to find a way to study aquatic dungeon creatures without getting attacked, no?”

Miguel’s voice cut back in. “Yes, I’m sure they would. But what about this second dungeon you keep hinting at?”

“Ah, that would be the Dark Necropolis dungeon. The barrier that you adventurers put around the failed ritual site to control the undead has caused the place to form a dungeon far faster than it naturally would. More importantly, because the dungeon is piggybacking off the failed ritual’s summoned pyramid, it is fairly advanced for its young age.”

“Well, that isn’t disturbing at all.”

“Yes, but that isn’t the worst of it.”

“I didn’t think it would be. What is it?”

“You are going to want to set up a dungeon town outside the barrier, and do it soon. I have a group of my followers who have ventured into the pyramid, and they confirm that the undead are quite strong, being level 30 to 35, on average, and with the first-floor boss at level 38. All Tier 1, of course.”

“That… isn’t something I can just toss random adventurers at, you know.”

“Nonetheless, you’re going to have to get it set up, and organize regular cullings. There’s something about dungeon undead that people don’t realize. They grow in strength over time, not just from combat. The longer they live, the stronger they get. This is something like a level every three days when they’re low-level, but, by the time they get to level 20, it is a level every three to four weeks.

“Worse, when they are destroyed, that level does not reset back to what they spawned at, but gains roughly half the increase, each time. So, the only way you can keep that place in a manageable state would be to have teams regularly clearing it. Otherwise, you might get undead that are strong enough, and intelligent enough, to break through that barrier and cause all kinds of trouble.”

Miguel cursed, but I cut him off. “Which brings us to the worst bit of news I have for you. Because the dungeon grew out of a failed necromantic ritual, the pyramid requires sacrifice to get into. That means either personal sacrifice, by giving up gold or pieces of yourself, or by sacrificing a living being upon the altar at the top of the pyramid.”

“Dios mio. That is not going to go over well with anyone.”

“Now, the good news is that my followers managed to sanctify the sacrificial altar to me, so the power of any sacrifices won’t go to some unknown god of undeath. Don’t want one of those showing up around here, for more than the obvious reasons. If one did show up, after they took over the Dark Necropolis, they’d probably find some way to take over the broken dungeon in the Undead House of Mouse. And that would be a huge problem.”

Miguel sighed. “All right. Thank you, Kuronoth. I’m afraid I have to go. I’ve got some calls to make.”

“Of course, Miguel. Until next time.”