Lewd Dungeon, Chapter 225 (Patreon)

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Chapter 225 – Fleshwerk

“OH FUCK!”

Brad cursed as the blade of bone scythed out of the wall in front of the group. Thankfully, his pet, Mary, had been diligent in searching for traps as they walked through the corridor, and spotted it before they reached the trigger. But none of them were prepared for the violence of the trap.

“Oh, man,” Mary said, “that was worse than I was expecting. You see how thick the bone is, and how the blade is curved? Anything that didn’t get cut in two by that thing would have to have a lot of mass, or they’d be carried with it, pinned against the wall! But why would—AHH!”

Her question cut off with a shriek of surprise as bone spikes burst out of the wall, exactly where an unfortunate person not yet dead from the scythe blade would have been pinned. It was a wicked trap, far more complex than a dungeon this young had any right to make. It was almost like some of the ones in the Lord’s dungeon, but they all knew the Lord designed those Himself.

“Did the dungeon come up with this?” Mark asked.

Father Jacobs shook his head. “No, I don’t believe so. I would say that this, like the sacrificial offerings to enter the necropolis itself, are left over from the failed summoning ritual that brought the Necropolis into being. If these were part of the Necropolis, then the dungeon need not have come up with them itself.”

Stephanie nodded. “And just because the dungeon didn’t come up with the idea, doesn’t mean that they can’t replicate it somehow. The dungeon may well have copied this trap, or parts of it, into other traps throughout the Necropolis, like using a template.”

Brad slapped Mary on her rear, and the Darkblade moaned in response. “Good job, pet. Keep on the lookout for any more of those traps. Do a good job, and I’ll reward you when we get back to camp.”

“Yes, Master!”

Edging their way past the trap, they cautiously made their way further into the dungeon. They had found the stairs down to the next floor, but they were blocked by a weave of bone spikes. Next to this, they had found an obvious (if oversized) keyhole.

Which meant that they were now looking for the key. A key that, if this dungeon was anything like how dungeons were supposed to be, would be found on the floor boss’s corpse. Of course, if the dungeon was anything like normal dungeons, then the stairs would have been in the boss room, rather than on a corridor, but that was easily chalked up to the dungeon taking over an existing space, rather than designing something from scratch.

They fought more undead as they came across them. For the most part, they were skeletal in nature, though certainly not the tattered-looking things like had been present on the floor above. No, here on the third floor, the traps were deadlier and more devious, and so, too, were the monsters.

These monsters had been soaking in the miasma for weeks, if not months, and it showed. They were armed and armored, and though their armor appeared at first glance to be rusty and worthless, it soon became clear that they had lost none of their potency, and had gained a minor curse effect, causing part of the damage they caused to resist magical healing and outright ignore natural healing!

Finally, they arrived in a circular room at the end of a passage, the last passage they had left to map. Opposite the lone door was a sigil in blood-flecked obsidian depicting the symbol of the Necropolis. Looking up, they saw that the room was actually a cylinder, and a green glow suggesting that there was another floor up there, lit by the same necrotic flames as had been outside the Necropolis.

Carla looked around, appraisingly. “So, an elevator of some kind to get to the first boss room?”

That was the obvious conclusion, given the circumstances. Even a necropolis summoned from some dark plane wouldn’t expect people to just try and climb the walls. And going up an elevator would both allow for a more expansive boss room, as well as providing a handy way of keeping enemies from trying to run away, if the boss were too much for them.

Mary nodded. “Yes, I can see the outlines on the floor. I think the whole floor goes up. My [Trapfinder] skill isn’t going off, so it either isn’t trapped, or it is concealed in some way. But [Search] is saying that the sigil is important. Looks like you can push it in? Probably how you send the lift up.”

Father Jacobs nodded. “Then, everyone onto the lift, since we don’t know if it will come down once it goes up, or whether it is stuck at the top until the boss is killed. Splitting the group at this point would be a bad idea.”

With no objections, they all moved into the center of the lift, their weapons at the ready. Mary pressed the obsidian sigil, and it pushed inward about half an inch, so that the upraised edge was just even with the wall. There was a clicking sound, of a mechanism falling into place, and then the sound of stone sliding along stone as the floor began moving upward, perfectly filling the cylinder at the top of the room, so there could be no escape without magic.

Looking around, they found themselves on a square platform, ten feet above the stone floor below, and set at one end of what could only be the boss room. A wide, oval-shaped arena, nearly fifty feet by thirty, and twenty high, made up the room.

There were no stands, or places for viewers. No cheering fans or jeering hooligans. Nothing to distract from the grim purpose of the hall. This was a room for killing, pure and simple.

Dozens of sconces lit the room with their necrotic green flames that burned with magic, harming body and soul. Thankfully, they didn’t consume oxygen, or breathing would soon be an issue. Even so, it was hot, hotter than anywhere in the dungeon so far. Not to the point where it was damaging, but any foe in heavy armor was going to be having a bad day as the heat sapped their stamina.

At the far end of the arena, opposite the platform they now stood on, was a colossal undead abomination. That was not an opinion Father Jacobs had because of his religious mindset. Even without any kind of religious overtones, there was nothing that one could call the hulking mass of flesh and bone standing before them except for an abomination.

Standing fifteen feet tall at the shoulder, the hulking mass of flesh and bone, clearly stitched together and melded into the misshapen, malformed horror in a crude shape that could only charitably be called ‘humanoid’ towered above the arena. The first thing one noticed, besides the smell, was the almost leering ‘grin’ that was simply the result of the undead creature’s face being longer on the right side than the left (with the right eye being larger to match). Not a moment later, though, the eye was torn to the six bone spikes sticking out the front of the creature’s bloated torso, surrounding a gaping cavity where a multitude of violet intestines, far too many to be from less than three or four individuals, were kept barely in check by steel bands, holding them in and keeping them from spilling out (or spilling out any more than they already were) and dragging along the floor.

Then, there were the thing’s three arms, two in the ‘normal’ positions, each as thick as a man in plate armor, and a third, a tad leaner, but still easily the size of an unarmored man, sprouting from the joint between the neck and left shoulder, for no clear reason. Each of the three arms were armed. The shoulder arm had a wicked sickle, thick and cruel. The left arm had a massive weapon that was halfway between an axe and a cleaver, and sized for his giant frame. And the right arm? That had a wicked hook, with a chain attached, and the other end of that chain grafted into the creature’s flesh.

Fleshwerk

Level 40   Abomination

Mary stiffened as she [Analyze]d the boss. “It is level forty, and race and class listed as just an ‘abomination’, but it has a Name, Fleshflayer.” They all knew that Named creatures were far more powerful than normal creatures of their type. There was no way that this fight was going to be easy.

Brad took a breath. “All right, how do we want to play this?”

Mark shook his head. “Don’t know. Three weapons, looks like all melee, though that hook can probably be thrown. Probably a Scorpion, ‘Get over here’ kind of thing. Doubt you want to—SHIT!”

The Fel Reaver’s words were cut off as the patchwork abomination’s eyes began to glow, and then the thing began to move. “FLESHWERK WANT TO PLAY!” And, with that announcement, the hook flew forward, impossibly far and fast.

Stephanie only missed getting caught by the flying hook because Brad, thinking fast, stood in front of her, his shield raised. The hook rebounded off the shield, though it knocked him back half a step from the impact alone. But then, some magic in the hook caused it to quickly loop around the Darksoul Protector, binding him in the chain for a moment, before the massive abomination pulled, and caused Brad to go flying towards it, all the way across the room.

“MASTER, NO!”

Mary screamed, and darted after her master. Father Jacobs cursed. “Everyone, move! This platform is no protection, it seems. Melee to the front, casters spread out! We don’t know what other tricks the thing might have!”

The ensuing fight was, at the same time, both easy and horrifyingly difficult. If no one was in melee range of the thing, it used the hook and chain to drag the furthest person in. While in melee, it would attack with some ability called ‘Hateful Strike’, which would do insane damage to whoever it hit. And, as the fight went on, the abomination started using magic to enhance its abilities, making it attack faster, and hit harder, which required using magic to dispel the effect.

There were several close calls and near deaths, but, in the end, they triumphed. With a final blast of icy power, Carla got the killing blow, sending the abomination to the ground, even as it tried to cry out, dumbly, “What… happen to-“. A second later, the abomination disappeared in purple smoke, leaving behind a small pile of System gold, an oversized iron key, and two items, loot provided by the System.

Desecrated Shoulderpads

Type

Shoulder

Rank

Epic

These   cloth shoulderpads have been soaked in miasma far too long to be worn by even   the hardiest of living creatures without succumbing to some vile curse or   malediction, likely involving the wearer’s quick (and painful) demise,   followed by rising as one of the undead. However, it is possible that there   is someone knowledgeable enough to purify it.

The first bit of loot was so foul and so dripping with the taint of the undead that Father Jacobs could barely touch it, much less even think of wearing the item. The item’s description was clearly downplaying the amount of purification needed to make this item something that anyone could wear without suffering a needlessly gruesome death. Thankfully, it wouldn’t cause any trouble tucked away in his bag of holding.

Cloak of Suturing

Type

Back

Rank

Epic

This   cloak, made from skin cleaned and stitched together in a macabre patchwork,   is, despite its unholy origin and disturbing aesthetic, a powerful boon to   any who would wield magic to heal the wounds of others.

Binds   to the wearer instantly, so that it cannot be lost or stolen.

+20   INT, +20 WIS

Equip:   Increases healing done by spells and effects by 100.

Equip:   Restores 5 MP every 5 seconds.

That second piece of loot, however, was as useful as it was horrifying. Even following one of the ‘dark’ gods, the idea of wearing human flesh stitched together into a garment had never occurred to him. There were simply things that you just did not do, and wearing people’s skin like a cape was one of them!

However, the effects of the item were too good to not at least make him pick up the cloak and consider using it. After all, passive mana restoration was no small boon in a long fight, and increasing the healing of every spell he got off by 100 points would make his spells do more, for less. That was not something he could just discount out of hand.

He would deal with the moral implications later, when, hopefully, his party were all alive and safe outside, with this dungeon at their backs.