Lewd Dungeon, Chapter 227 (Patreon)

Chapter 227 – Bad Dog

“Eeew. Do we really need to go through this?”

Father Jacobs was not surprised at Mary’s reaction. It mirrored his own, after all. He was a firm believer that anyone who was jumping for joy at the ‘opportunity’ to walk through what looked for all the world like a giant sewer pipe with glowing green sludge in it was so far gone that killing them would be a mercy.

“Unfortunately, this looks to be the way forward.” He paused, as whispered screams of tortured souls rose up around them from the depths. “The Lord has commanded us to seek out the core, and make contact. That means we must press on, and this wretched pipe looks to be the only way forward.”

Brad just nodded once. “All right. I’ll lead, everyone follow quick. I don’t know what the green shit is, but it is probably not healthy to stay around it for long. So, we go forward fast as we can.”

Toxic   fumes deal 25 damage.

No one had any objections to getting through the tunnel as quickly as possible, so that is what they did. There were plenty of objections to actually being in the tunnel, especially when the notifications started popping up, about once every 1.5 seconds, informing them of the toxic fumes in the tunnel, but that only served to get them moving faster. Thankfully, the pipe was short, only about sixty or seventy feet, if you counted the dog-leg turns.

Unfortunately, the pipe ended abruptly in open air, with the ground fifty feet below. Worse, still, the circular chamber was clearly the boss room for this floor. As evidenced by the massive, undead hound the size of a house, covered in pustules that looked to be filled with the same glowing green ooze as the pipe.

“Fuck it, jump!”

Without questioning, they followed Brad’s lead as he jumped down from the pipe. Thankfully, fifty feet wasn’t really that much when they were all in Tier 2, so the drop barely hurt. Unfortunately, the scent of new prey in its domain attracted the undead hound’s attention.

Kluth

Level   42 Mutated Zombie Hound

As the zombie dog howled in challenge, Father Jacobs cast a quick healing spell over the party to recover some of the damage from the tunnel. Quickly, the others formed their usual formation for larger bosses, with Brad and Mark working to get and keep the dog’s attention, while Mary ducked in and out of the shadows and the spellcasters kept back, out of the melee. It was a simple formation, sure, but it had worked for them, so far.

The sound of flesh meeting steel resounded as Brad’s shield slammed into the massive dog’s nose when it tried to take a bite of him. Mary’s blades stabbed deep, but there was only so much she could do against that massive beast with just her daggers. Mark had better luck, his two-handed axe being perfect for hewing down big, heavy creatures like this.

A blast of ice and a bolt of channeled starlight struck home, causing Kluth to howl in pain, turning his eyes upon the Rimeblood Sorceress and the Dreadwood Druidess. Before it could do anything, however, a blast of holy power struck the creature between the eyes, courtesy of Father Jacobs. That attack did not do much damage, but it staggered the creature for a second, allowing Brad to slash the dog’s foreleg, refocusing the enemy’s attention on him.

Zombie Chow

Level   30 Zombie

A moment later, there was the sound of a door opening, drawing their attention to a small hatch just under the pipe they’d dropped down from. A hatch that was now open. A single shambling zombie entered the boss room through that door, which slammed shut behind the brainless creature.

The first thought Father Jacobs had was that if this is what the dungeon considered to be ‘reinforcements’, then this battle was going to be easier than they thought. But the zombie ignored them all, and, instead, began slowly trodding towards the giant dog. Not seeing an immediate threat, the group continued cutting away at the zombie hound’s health, as the dog was surrounded by a reddish haze, and started attacking with a frenzied quickness.

Brad staggered back under the renewed assault, just barely keeping himself out of the creature’s jaws. “Gah! There’s some kind of debuff mixed in with this monster’s attacks. It is reducing the healing I get. Looks like 10% reduction per stack.”

But they were a practiced team. Mark roared forward, the Fel Reaver hacking a massive rent in the dog’s hunches, which distracted it from Brad. “Time the debuff, see when it fades. If nothing else, we can just keep switching back and—”

His words were cut off when the hound suddenly turned, and focused on the Zombie Chow that had finally gotten within about ten yards of the creature. With a single snap of its jaws, the Zombie Chow was gone. However, the six adventurers looked on in horror as the hound’s wounds began knitting themselves back together!

GRAAAAAAR!

Kluth unleashed a terrifying roar, laced with magic. Brad and Mark both looked wide-eyed, and began fleeing with all their might away from the hound. Carla, back with the spellcasters (and thankfully out of range), cursed. “The thing has a fear effect! Master, you’ll have to ward whoever is holding the beast’s attention, or it will run rampant!”

The fear lasted only five seconds, but, in those five seconds, Mary had been left to duck and dive, avoiding tooth and claw from the zombie hound. How had she missed getting caught in the fear? That much was simple, she had been a shadow, hiding between sneak attacks as a way to force the creature to forget about her for a bit, whenever she started doing any big combos.

The hatch opened again, and another Zombie Chow came out, just as Mark distracted the dog from Mary. He was rewarded for that with a cone of burning flame that spewed from the enraged creature’s mouth. That would have been bad, but Father Jacobs was ready, and a healing spell hit him almost before the flames did.

Mary flitted between shadows, and appeared by the new Zombie Chow. A slash of her blade, and the zombie began following her, instead of walking to its doom. “Right, I’ll keep this guy, and any others that show up, from getting to the boss.” No one answered, though she knew they heard her, by the slight nods, and the healing over time spell that the druidess put on her as she began leading the zombie on a chase.

Father Jacobs took a breath as he threw out a warding spell on Brad, who had just switched back with Mark, his debuff having fallen off after fifteen seconds of being spared the dog’s ire. “Keep it going! The Lord is with us! We cannot fall!”

And, in truth, they had the pattern now. Brad and Mark traded off, fighting hard to keep the hound’s attention solely on them. Mary collected the zombies, darting in and out of reach to keep their attention. Carla, Father Jacobs, and Stephanie all used spells and other abilities to support the others, either through direct damage, or through their support spells. It was just a matter of rinse and repeat, right?

Wrong. Mary had just collected her ninth zombie chow, when Kluth roared, and stomped down on the ground, unleashing a wave of magic that dropped everyone’s HP to roughly five percent of their max. Worse, the Zombie Chow, all nine of them, turned, and began charging towards Kluth, moving faster than they had before!

Mary, recognizing the danger, yelled out, “AoE!” Carla and Stephanie, acting on instincts honed in battle, unleashed a massive blizzard and a collection of falling stars, respectively, which wiped out the zombie chow that had already had their health decimated. A moment later, another of Father Jacobs’ area healing spells, a stronger version, this time, washed over them, before he turned his attention to Mark, in particular, who was taking over from Brad as the tank.

“I don’t know how much of that my mana can take,” Stephanie called out. “Is there any way to make this go faster? Otherwise we’re going to be in big trouble.”

An icy spear flew through the air at the hound, piercing one of the giant, glowing boils. The hound howled in pain, as the green sludge sizzled and burned away its flesh. Why had it not burned before, when it was inside the creature? Carla had no idea about that, beyond the vagaries of the System and its casual relationship with the rules of reality before the Apocalypse.

What she did know was that this was an opportunity. Even as Brad and Mark struggled to get the creature’s attention back on them, she called out, “Mary, I’ll distract the next zombie! Pop the boils! Just don’t get any of that shit on you!”

That, it turned out, was the trick. The pustules burst, and melted their way through the zombie dog’s legs. Of course, if Mary hadn’t been coating her blades in shadow energy, they likely would have melted before she could have popped more than two or three. But that didn’t matter. All that mattered was that, once the hound was limbless on the ground, it was helpless.

Mark’s two-handed axe proved to be quite capable at chopping through the creature’s neck, severing its head and ending its life. With the hound defeated, rounding up and destroying the zombie chow which had been frozen in place by Carla’s magic was child’s play. It was always better to take on helpless foes, ones that couldn’t fight back, rather than those who could actually try and repay the favor in kind. Oh, there might not be much glory in that, but honor and glory meant very little to a dead man.

As the last zombie fell, they felt the crushing weight of a dungeon’s full attention being turned upon them. The Lord had told them that the dungeon was smart, on the verge of sentience, if it hadn’t crossed that line already, but this only proved it. The dungeon was aware, and it was NOT PLEASED that they had cut their way through its defenders.

That much was understandable. According to the Lord, dungeons needed ‘invaders’ to survive, the same way that Father Jacobs or the others needed food. They were the first ‘food’ to venture into the dungeon since it had ‘woken up’, and they were very stubbornly not giving up all their life force and whatever else dungeons ate. However, Father Jacobs was allergic to death, so he’d have to pass on the dying, for now.

Desecrated Bracers

Type

Arms

Rank

Epic

These bracers   made of leather and mail 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.

Desecrated Boots

Type

Feet

Rank

Epic

These boots   made of reinforced leather 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 loot was a little depressing, if one only looked at the short term. It was, after all, just another couple pieces of ‘desecrated’ gear. However, the identical wording on the descriptions meant that there had to be a way to purify them, and turn them into something useful. Actually, the desecrated items probably formed a set of some kind. Who knew what kind of boons that set could give them?

Another scream of torment from the depths shattered their momentary triumph, causing them all to sigh, instead. There was nothing more they could do in this chamber. They had to keep going, towards the screams, and the core.