Lewd Dungeon, Chapter 224 (Patreon)

Sorry for the unplanned break. I was hitting a bit of a wall in several projects, so, instead of risking burnout, I took a week off to recharge. But we're back now, and rolling!

Chapter 224 – At Sea

It was, truth be told, an excellent day to be on the water.

The sun was shining, as only South Florida could shine. Not a cloud in the sky, and spray of water and the sea breeze meant that it was easy to ignore the heat, so long as you kept hydrated. The water was smooth, and without any chop. If you looked down, you could probably see all the way to the bottom.

Of course, there was the little fact that the waters were teeming with monsters, but, really, where in the world wasn’t, these days? If you wanted to get away from the cities, well, you were going to be facing monsters. That was just how things went. And, for people who had trained their whole lives to be out on the sharp end of the spear before the System Apocalypse changed everything, just sitting around in a nice, safe city was the worst torture imaginable.

Jacob Lane

Human   Male

Level   40 Priest/Medic

Titles:   Survivor, Lifesaver, Godtouched

At least, that’s what Jacob thought. He had been a medic, and a Marine, before. Got out after doing a couple tours, and never felt right in civilian life, until he found Jadesins. But then the world changed. Fortunately, his boss was a smart woman, and found them a place to get in on the ground floor of something huge.

Of course, he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t had reservations about the boss’s plan, when it was first explained to the company. Sure, gods had power in this new world, but that didn’t mean he wanted to find religion, per se. But that Kuronoth? Well, any god that was basically preaching, “Go out and fuck bitches,” was a god that he could get behind, for sure.

Liam Clark

Human Male

Level   40 Ranger/Marksman

Titles:   Sniper, Woodsman, Godtouched

Clark’s rifle cracked, twice, and a Dire Swordfish that had been leaping through the air to try and gut them fell to the deck. A quick look confirmed what he already knew would be the case. Two shots to the head, in quick succession, and the fish with the huge serrated blade on its nose was dead before it even hit the deck.

Clark was the only sniper in the company who could go toe to toe with Grehan in Team 1, and it showed. Both were wicked accurate with guns of any type, but Grehan favored the long guns, while Clark was better at closer ranges. Grehan was who you wanted on overwatch, taking out threats before they even had a chance to hit you. Clark was the one you wanted at your side when shit hit the fan.

Anna Gill

Dark   Elf Female

Level   40 Rogue/Assassin

Titles:   Stealthy, Silent Killer, Godtouched

Jacob focused on Clark, to keep from distracting himself with other things. Anna Gill had actually made it through SEAL training, before the program was cut. She got her pin, and could wear it whenever she was in uniform, but the way program to develop female operators had been canned stuck in her craw, which was why she joined Jadesins.

From what he’d heard, Anna had taken well to the stealth and close-quarters combat training. Words like ‘damn scary with a knife’ were thrown around, and, seeing what she was like before the Apocalypse, whenever wetwork was called for, he had to agree. The girl was like something out of the Matrix movies. The first two, not the crappy third one.

That was all before the Apocalypse, of course. Now? She’d been turned into some kind of dark-skinned elf that only helped her stealth abilities in the dark, and given her a body that men would worship, if she gave them half a chance. Sure, she had needed to spend a skill point on making it so that sunlight didn’t bother her eyes, but she was death walking whenever she decided someone or something needed killing.

Which is why he really didn’t want her to catch him staring at her ass, despite the fact that the wetsuit she was wearing clung so tightly that you could see EVERYTHING.

Rory Rogers

Dwarf   Male

Level   40 Artificer/Armorsmith

Titles:   Genius, Warforger, Godtouched

Shaking his head to ignore that train of thought, he watched as Rogers, their Artificer, started disassembling the dead swordfish. Monster meat was very nutritious, if cooked by someone with the Chef profession, but the real prize was the bits of the overgrown fish that the former support technician could repurpose into his creations.

Artificers were strange. They were like MacGuyver, except a bit crazier, and a LOT fonder of explosions. Give them a pile of materials, and they would be able to build all kinds of magic or quasi-magic items, including the chain gun currently mounted on the bow of their boat, which was supposedly capable of ripping anything Tier 3 or below to shreds. Of course, the less said about his attempts at Healing Grenades, the better.

Rogers’s magnum opus, to date, was the suit of armor he wore on his stocky frame. The System called it Magically Augmented Plate Armor, with a fancy technical name, before going into how it was a unique item and could only be used by him. Jacob and the rest called it what it was: Iron Man armor.

Naomi Lowe

Gnome   Female

Level   40 Magitech Engineer/Inventor

Titles:   Genius, Warforger, Godtouched

The yin to Rogers’s yang, Lowe was also a former support staff for Jadesins before the Apocalypse. The former human turned gnome was always the opposite of Rogers in everything except for her desire to find new things, tinker with them, and make them better, or at least deadlier. Which fit her class well, since the Magitech Engineer was less about improvising and creating singular items, and more about fusing magic and science together in a (mostly) rational way.

The boat they were riding on was proof of her skill. While the actual construction had been handled by their Lord, the design, from the keel to the engines to the controls to even the universal weapon mount that Rogers’s gun was sitting on? That was all her, the product of many hours work and untold gallons of coffee consumed.

The Variable Hull Cruiser Mark 01, or the VHC-01, for short, was a thing of beauty. It was currently speeding along on hydrofoils, but it could convert to a flat-bottom river boat, or rig to submerge like a submarine. Hell, the crazy girl had even figured out a way to let it go on land, as a hovercraft!

Kass

Lizardfolk   Female

Level   40 Water Sorceress/Tracker

Titles:   Huntress, Survivor, Godtouched

Behind the wheel of the VHC-01, which the Lord had named the Chimera, was the only member of Team 2 that wasn’t formerly from Jadesins. Kass (no last name), was a Water Sorceress and a Tracker. Sure, anyone with some military or hunting tracking could track a creature through the woods, but Kass could track her prey, even underwater! That was a huge benefit, if they ever had to do a mission like the one they were currently on.

Kass was actually one of the Lizardfolk who had been born outside the Dungeon, and come to join the Lord after the Necropolis sprang up, threatening the tribe with the very real possibility of being overrun by the undead. According to scuttlebutt, the adventurers they’d followed down to the Lord’s domain were heading up there now, to see about that Necropolis, now that it had turned into a dungeon. The Lord wanted to make sure it knew the score, it seemed, and didn’t do anything stupid.

Which was about what their job was, too. The dungeon that had sprouted out by Key West had grown up fast, what with all the people on the islands or passing through the gulf at any given moment. It was a field dungeon, so, instead of having set floors, it had what could better be described as ‘spheres’, where the monsters got progressively nastier the closer you got to the center. Getting into the dungeon was easy. Getting to the core? Well, that was going to be another story entirely.

Fortunately, they weren’t trying to kill the core, or even conquer it, like Team 1 had done on the moon. The Lord just needed us to reach the cores, so that he could influence them, and ensure that they would not do anything that caused problems for his domain. If they joined his fold, well, all the better, right? But, for the moment, it was best to keep the dungeons from acting out.

You have entered the Mooney Harbor Dungeon.

Jacob frowned. He was expecting the message, of course, since they WERE going to a dungeon. But, so soon? He looked over to Kass. “Where are we?”

“Just passing Stock Island, now. We’re going to need to head out into deeper water soon, or pass close between Fleming Key and Key West. Close enough we could get attacked from the land.”

“This is supposed to be an aquatic dungeon. I doubt it has much in the way of land monsters.”

Clark shook his head. “Sure, but the Lord’s dungeon isn’t supposed to have goblins, undead, or lizardfolk, and, well…”

“Point taken.”

Gill grinned. “Not to mention, the Lord’s dungeon has people working for it. Or just living inside its aura. This is a very fancy ship, and the bridges off the island were cut long ago, once monsters from the swamp tried taking the causeway in search of food. So, land vehicles are cut off, and how many boats that can stand up to a monster attack do they really have? Probably a bunch of people stranded on the islands.”

“Yeah, but are any of them even left alive?” Everyone turned to look at Rogers, who was tinkering with one of the weapons he was hoping to test on this trip. “What? There were only about twenty-five thousand residents, plus whatever tourists were there. And how many of those were old people? Or kids who were too drunk to do anything if a goblin went and stabbed them in the throat? Has anyone had any contact with the Keys since the Apocalypse?”

Lowe sighed. “As much as it pains me to admit it, the reports from the Keys dropped off once they destroyed the bridges. I checked the public databanks, once the Lord gave us this mission, and it doesn’t seem like anyone’s gotten contact with them, since then. It is just that no one noticed, what with everything going on. There are a lot of communities that just walled themselves up, and went full isolationist, for their own protection.”

Kass nodded, once. “Either way, it might be good to give the land a wide berth. If there are still people there, they might be desperate to try and leave, and overrun us. And if there are monsters there, well, they’ll be the dungeon’s by now.”

Jacob sighed. “Still, for the dungeon to have extended so far, so fast, without anyone noticing? That’s crazy. It is roughly twenty-five miles to where the dungeon’s supposed to be located from here!”

“Cut the chatter, all of you. We’ve got our first welcoming committee coming up!”

All conversation stopped at Kass’s words. She may have been piloting the ship, but between the Chimera’s sensors and her own ability to detect things moving through the water, she was also on ‘lookout’ duty, for the moment.

Clark stepped up, proving why he was the leader of Team 2. “Where, what, and how many?”

“Twenty degrees to starboard, about ten feet deep. Ten of them. Can’t tell what they are from here, but they have the same ‘taste’ as the dire swordfish we just nabbed. Perhaps a dungeon version? Or the one we caught was a scout, sent out of the dungeon?”

“If it was a dungeon creature, wouldn’t we have gotten loot, instead of watching Rogers dismantle the thing for components?”

Rogers laughed. “Sure, I could have done something like that. But it would have been less effective. Using [Harvesting] means you have to do it yourself, but you get more components that way. Really, it is a waste to loot creatures when you’re trying to get components. Only time you should loot is for System equipment.”

“Huh. Well, in that case, let’s go add some more components to your collection.”