Lewd Dungeon, Chapter 380

Chapter 380 – Backstory Generator

Unfortunately, things weren’t so easy for the last of their three targets. They had found the patrol, but the patrol had found them at the same time. Instead of an ambush, where they could try and put the enemy at a disadvantage from the beginning, it became a brawl, as they literally ran into each other at a blind intersection.

Eight on six, their advantage, meant that they weren’t too bad off. However, the patrol was heavily weighted towards overwhelming force, rather than the more generalized group they had. Two rogues, dual-wielding blades, two sword and shield fighters, a mage that looked just as happy in melee with a blade, and a warpriest with mace and shield. No, wait, one of those fighters was a paladin. Even better.

Fortunately, the close quarters of the tunnel worked in their favor. King and Dhon held the front line, locking it down with their defensive abilities. Ricardo and one of their rogues were in a duel of shadows, but the second rogue found out very quickly that Nalaea’s [Forcecage] was nothing to sneeze at. Liam peppered their warpriest with arrows, not doing much damage, between his armor and shield, but it was enough to keep the priest from intervening for a moment as they focused on defense. The mage tried to break the [Forcecage], but Gracie and Logan blasted her with spells, [Azure Blast] and [Mindcrush] burning the woman while temporarily reducing her to a drooling husk, unable to resist.

From there, the fight steadily turned their way. [Azure Pyre] and [Metal Paralysis] left the warpriest open to an arrow through the eye from Liam, putting them out of the fight. The first rogue, fighter, and paladin all went down shortly after, as everyone was able to gang up on them, leaving only the female knelfi rogue trapped in the [Forcecage] to deal with.

Gracie went around placing a [Slave Brand] on the ones that were still barely alive, before having Ramon heal them, enough to get them on their feet. She turned to look at the knelfi, only to see that she was already turning blue, with red blood coating the insides of the [Forcecage]. She’d slit her throat with a poisoned blade, from the looks of it. Evidently, she chose death instead of returning to slavery. So be it.

“What about the loot? Anything good from this lot?” Gracie asked.

Logan looked over to her, and shrugged. “Much the same as with the hunter. None of it is bad, but we already have better. Emphasis on gear with percentage boosts, rather than hard numbers. What do you want us to do with the living ones? Strip them, or sell them with gear included?”

“Selling them with the gear included won’t get us too much more. And we can probably make good money selling the gear, even if it is weak, back in Miami. Always young adventurers wanting to get into things, but needing gear. Strip them all, dead and living alike. Their new masters can decide whether they need clothes anymore.”

Eli Mack

High Human Male

Level 30 Righteous Defender / Holy Rebel

Titles: Righteous, Liberator, Well-Endowed, Slave

Orym Eilris

High Knelfi Male

Level 30 Shieldborn Bastion / Master Blacksmith

Titles: Gifted Crafter, Tough, Slave

Rosa Aparicio

Fey-blessed Human Female

Level 30 Assault Mage / Battle Courtesan

Titles: Masochist, Accommodating, Kinbred, Kinslayer, Slave

Three of the slave warband had survived, the two warriors, and the mage. Each of them looked as though they had a story to tell, going by their titles. All three of them looked at Gracie with undisguised hatred in their eyes as they stood there, naked, for her inspection. Following her orders to the letter, even if they weren’t happy about it.

Gracie turned her attention to Eli, first stroking his impressive weapon as she did so. “So, holy warrior, hmm? How did you get mixed up with this lot?”

The paladin grit his teeth, whether in an attempt to resist the pleasure, or to keep from speaking, before the magic compelled his word to flow. “The Lord of Freedom, Sevnir, bids all who follow in his glory to seek out those who use the slaver’s collar not as a necessary tool of justice, but for their own personal gain, and end them. I am proud to say that eighty-nine souls are freed from their unjust shackles, thanks to my actions.”

“Were you a slave before you found your way to Shatterchain?”

“No. I aided those who sought to undermine the foul practice in the festering sore upon the world that is Khav-Srokzas, and made my way to Shatterchain to help defend those who cannot defend themselves, until they grow strong enough to turn their fangs upon the damn spiders, and end them.”

“Well, they’re going to love you at Khav-Szarol,” Gracie laughed, before looking at the less-impressively equipped knelfi, even as she continued stroking Eli to hardness. “And you, knelfi? What is your story?”

The knelfi began speaking in his own tongue, before Gracie slapped him across the face. “Speak a language I can understand, or I’ll have Eli use you as a cocksheath the whole way back to the outpost!”

Orym looked fearfully at Eli’s weapon, which looked to be a bit longer than Gracie’s forearm, and instantly switched languages. “Name’s Orym, Mistress. Fighter and blacksmith, before my sister made some bad bets. Bitch forged my name, and sold me and my shop to the cartel she owed money to, trying to get out from under. Didn’t her any, though. She tried to cry about it not being fair when the laughing scum collared her as well, intending to use her as a whore. And, to rub it in, they ordered me to test all her holes, make sure that she didn’t need extra training before she went to the brothel. Bitch deserved worse.”

“Damn,” King laughed. “That’s like something you’d read on literotica or AO3!”

“Says the person who got the brilliant idea to let a Slave Mistress collar him and his friends because he wanted to get laid,” Gracie quipped back.

“To be fair, Mistress,” King said, “we do get laid a lot, now, and you and Logan aren’t exactly unwilling.”

“Point,” Gracie chuckled. Then, her eyes turned to Rosa. “And what about you, hmm? Kinbred and Kinslayer are not titles that are easily obtained, hmm?”

“Oh, it was easy, Mistress,” the Latina mage spat. “Just had to get collared by my younger brother in my sleep. My parents just shrugged, and said I should have had better protections on my room. Then, that little shit used me like a fucking toy for three years, and made me give him a son. Also made sure I had orders not to attack him, or any of the rest of the family. Too bad the asshole forgot to order me not to add sleeping potion to the wine he and my parents were drinking, and they didn’t order me to turn off the gas when I ‘accidentally’ caused a leak after they passed out. After that, I just had to use a [Firebolt] to take out a spider I saw next to that screaming brat’s crib. Found my way to Shatterchain after that.”

“So, another Master who thought too much with his dick, and not with his head?” Gracie shook her head. “Well, at least they’re dead, and no longer contributing to the gene pool. Don’t worry, Rosa, we’ll find you a nice new master to breed you up again.”

“Respectfully, I’d rather die.”

“Not allowed.”

“Mistress?” Logan tapped her shoulder. “Don’t you think these backstories are a little detailed for individuals we just so happened to meet in the dungeon? These sound like the lead ins to actual plot lines in a game. None of the other dungeon-made creatures have any lore like that. The closest would be some of the demons, but they were supposedly summoned, not created.”

“That is an excellent point, Logan. Of course, there’s only one being we could call upon to know the answer to that question. The question is, will he answer?” Gracie took a breath, and looked over to Ramon. “Ramon, if you would?”

The High Priest nodded, and then bowed his head in prayer to Lord Kuronoth, seeking the answer to their question. After all, knowing the answers to what was going on, here, would have a very big impact on how groups would approach these floors, and the raid. Blank slate monsters were one thing. People bound to the dungeon were another. But both were easier to wrap one’s brain around than the worrying concept that these new dungeon creatures were really alive, with a real society. That would get messy in a hurry.

“I was wondering when you’d call on me.” Between one breath and the next, Lord Kuronoth was there, in his persona as the Demon of the Dungeon, with a smile on his face. “I had a pool running on how long it would take. Dana and Mari won, so I’m going to spruce up the Twin Mages boss room a bit when this is done. But, anyways, go ahead and ask your question.”

Gracie looked to the slaves she’d taken on this floor, but none of them seemed to be responding to the fact that an actual god just manifested in their midst. As if she needed any further proof that something strange was going on. “Well, as you can guess, we’ve been exploring the floor, and found a lot of… interesting things. We were hoping you could tell us how the creatures for this floor are designed. How they become so lifelike, and all.”

“Oh, don’t worry about saying anything too revealing in front of these ones. There is a filter on their minds, so they can’t perceive discussions about things from outside the dungeon. That same filter keeps them from seeing me, for the moment. Of course, if you take your new pets out of the dungeon, then the filter will be permanently removed, and they’ll become just like any other dungeon creature that is captured and removed from the dungeon.

“Now, as for whether they are ‘real’? First, understand that I’m only answering you because this information is available on the System Shop, if you know where to look, so I’m not breaking any rules by telling you this. The answer is yes. All creatures made by a dungeon are real, just like all the items and loot we create is real. The process of creating monsters uses more than just mana, you know. There’s also a resource called ‘Anima’ which roughly translates to ‘life-force’. Sapient creatures obviously cost more mana and anima to create than non-sapient ones, but we recover most of that investment when those creatures die, so killing monsters in the dungeon doesn’t really weaken a dungeon, at its core.”

Gracie’s eyes widened, but she didn’t let that bombshell distract her from the real issue at hand. “In that case, my Lord, what is up with these backstories you’ve given the slaves? Just these three captures alone have rather lurid backstories, and the titles to back them up.”

“Ah, that is much simpler and easier to answer. I have several AI scripts generating sample backstories, names, relations, and the like. There are way too many names for me to actually come up with on my own, you know? We’re talking hundreds of thousands of different individuals. Way too much work, and way too time intensive. I can’t exactly just pick a few ‘major characters’ to focus on, and then ignore the background characters that are just part of the scenery, pretty much. Otherwise, I’d have to whip something up on the spot whenever someone goes to talk to an unnamed NPC.

“And if that weren’t bad enough, once I start getting more people getting to the Raid Zone, meaning more people will be in these zones, asking more questions of more people? Things would spiral out of control if I didn’t have some way to automat most of the work. I do check over things before any sapient creatures added to the dungeon, of course, just to make sure they’re not too crazy. But making up backstories for an entire city? I’d still be at it a year from now.”

Logan frowned. “Isn’t that unethical?”

“If I was an author or artist trying to claim that I had ‘written’ the background or ‘drawn’ these patterns, absolutely unethical. Especially if I was trying to turn around and monetize that work, selling it online, or something like that. Hell, I couldn’t even sell them on the different networks available to gods and dungeons, since they don’t allow script-created creatures to be sold that way.”

The god smirked at them, “But, since this is my dungeon, and I’m not spreading this around anywhere, a bit of cheating is fine.”