Lewd Dungeon, Chapter 377

Chapter 377 – Targets

“So, how are you feeling, Ricardo?” Gracie asked, one hand around her favorite slave’s waist as they walked out of Dreamy Delights a couple hours later. The act was more than a simple show of concern for the man. She was concerned for him, yes, but that was only part of why she had her arm around him. The other part was so that he would have harder time dashing off or doing something problematic if the phobia was not fully suppressed.

Ricardo tensed slightly as he saw several Dogik walking along the street, or climbing up one of the walls to get to entrances on higher floors of a building. Then he breathed out, slowly. “It’s weird, Mistress. I was expecting… something. But there’s nothing. Well, not nothing. But more like when we were dealing with that Minotaur dungeon in Wyoming last month. They’re different, but they don’t trigger me like they used to.”

“Good, good,” Gracie smiled. “That means the procedure worked. Now, what about the rest? You had your ‘strike zone’ widened, yes? In what ways? What are your thoughts on the rest of the party?”

The Shadowblade took a breath, and looked at the other members of the party. “I’m, not sure. It didn’t make me a sex-mad fiend or anything. I’m still definitely attracted to you, Mistress, and Logan is as pretty as she’s ever been since she changed. The new girl is scrumptious, too. Dhon doesn’t do anything for me, so I’m pretty sure monsters are still off the table, at least willingly. As for the guys?” He shrugged. “I’m not burning to see any of them bent over or sucking me off, or me doing the same for them, but I don’t think I’m opposed.”

“Interesting,” Gracie said. “So, no real change in your impulses or reduction in your self-control, but it just, removed the personal or cultural barriers? Maybe like how incubus and succubus households are supposed to not have any cultural taboos against family loving, but that doesn’t mean they just jump into bed with their families on a whim?”

“If I may, Mistress?” Nalaea spoke. Gracie nodded to the Dedicated Scholar, and she continued, with a tone almost like a professor giving a lecture in class. “I believe you are correct. As you can imagine, the major subspecies of the incubus/succubus evolution path have been studied extensively. The Dreameater variant is a fairly common Tier 2 evolution when the Tier 1 creature has a mental-focused class like Mind Sorcerer. They are rarely seen in Tier 1 creatures, however, with less than one in a ten thousand, unless both parents are of the incubus/succubus evolution line, and there is some genetic heritage of the subspecies, in which case the chances of it expressing at birth are closer to one in one hundred.”

Gracie motioned for the scholar to get to the point, instead of lingering in statistics and genealogy. “Because of this,” Nalaea said, “the basic abilities of the Dreameater Succubus are well-known. Obviously, which racial skills they take and their class and profession skills will likely alter their effectiveness and specific toolkits, but the core of the racial abilities are firmly established lore. More precisely, a Dreameater has to balance out the changes they make. There are three ways they can make this balance. First, they can adjust the subject to have one or more other changes. Second, they can drain XP from either their own soul or their subject’s. Third, they can create an XP debt in themselves or their subject.”

“And they didn’t mention those choices because they weren’t going to volunteer their own XP, and probably knew I wouldn’t approve of Ricardo losing XP, or taking longer to level, right?”

Mental Transformation Categories

Category

Description

1

Minor Restructuring/Changes

Example: Minor memory alteration, erasing minor phobias, expanding sexual attraction within current sexuality

2

Moderate Restructuring/Changes

Example: Moderate or lengthy memory alteration, erasing moderate/deep-seated phobias, expanding current sexuality within current racial preference

3

Major Restructuring/Changes

Example: Major and impactful memory alteration, erasing overwhelming phobias, expanding current sexuality to include animals or monsters

4

Total Restructuring/Changes

Example: Complete memory or personality alteration, erasing sense of fear permanently, eliminating all inhibitions and sexual preferenes

“Exactly, Mistress,” Nalaea nodded, as she used [Force Construct] to create an image of a simple table in the air. “Now, if the phobia around spiders that Ricardo formerly had was as deeply ingrained and intense as described, that would be a Category 2 mental transformation, which would require either another Category 2 mental shift to compensate, or two Category 1 shifts. In this case, it sounds like she performed a single Category 2 shift.”

King frowned, as his angel wings fluttered uncomfortably. “What about him getting twitchy at the sight of the Dogik, to the point where he was about to go on a mad killing spree just from being so close makes that a ‘moderate’ phobia?”

Nalaea turned to him. “You all would know him better, but I am assuming his phobia is based on normal spiders, the kinds that are smaller than your thumb, yes? And you did not start stabbing or burning things?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Ricardo nodded. “Never could stand them as a kid. But no, I never burnt down a house because of a spider, or anything like that.”

The Force Mage nodded. “The reaction to a phobia scales with the triggering force. To use a different example, someone who has a phobia about snakes might be uncomfortable with a simple, small, nonmagical constrictor barely the length of their forearm, but when confronted with an Atlantean Death Serpent, which is five meters long and has venom that can kill in seconds, that is going to provoke a much greater response. Put that person in an outpost of the serpentine Naga, which are intelligent, spellcasting snake-people, and it would hardly be a surprise if they started getting overwhelming destructive urges. The intensity of the phobia didn’t change, however, just the scale of both the trigger and response.”

“I see,” Gracie nodded. “So, run through the different Categories for the ‘expanded sexuality’ thing. Having a better idea of what we’re working with will help, especially if we need to make adjustments in the future.”

“Of course, Mistress. If we take Ricardo’s former preference of women of a human or human-like race as a basis, then this is a simple discussion. A Category 1 change would expand that preference, so if he had a preference for, example, tall, slender women, that could change to the point where a Rodaini woman or a seriously overweight human woman would be acceptable partners. A Category 2 change would be expanding their sexual preferences to include men, women, both, and neither, so long as they are of the appropriate racial types. A Category 3 change, then, would expand the selection to very nonhuman creatures, like a dire hellhound, or different types of undead, plant creatures, base animals, and so forth, so long as it has a hole to stick it in. Finally, a Category 4 change would remove all restrictions. Any place, any time, with anything that struck their fancy. It would also remove deep-seated cultural taboos, such as those dealing with children, family members, or inanimate corpses, to name a few.”

Ricardo winced. “Yes, I really don’t want to go that far. I still have some self-respect, damn it!”

Gracie clapped her hands softly to cut off that line of conversation. “At any rate, now that we are resupplied, and Ricardo’s problem is settled, we should see about how to continue our exploration from here. No doubt, getting to Khav-Srokzas will require some work on our part, since I doubt there won’t be any troubles in our way.”

“Well, Mistress,” Logan said, pointing towards one building towards the end of the ‘main strip’ of the town, “that building is marked as ‘Command’, so that’s probably where the captain of the guards, at least, could be found. Maybe even the person in charge of the outpost itself. Very least, they should be able to tell us where to go.”

“Good eye, Logan. I’ll be sure to reward you later, when we’re somewhere private. Let’s go see what we can find out.”

Dattae

Dogik Female

Level 39 Webspinner Warrior / Battlemaster

Titles: Violator, Tough, Captain

As they walked in, a Dogik female (according to the System, Gracie couldn’t tell the difference) looked up from the desk where she had been, apparently, wrestling with the eternal foe that stymied the best efforts of even the most determined warriors, paperwork. “Ah, new faces,” she said. “Well, not all new. The hound and the Atlantean were brought in recently, as I recall. More escaped slaves caught in the tunnels. But you lot? Adventurers, by the looks of you. Come to find a way to make some coin, then?”

Gracie stepped to the front of the group, and nodded, “That we are, Captain Dattae, is it? We’re travelers from abroad, but found mention of Khav-Srokzas in a dead traveler’s bag. Figured marking the way would make a good bit of coin, assuming the way was safe. But we have no knowledge of the tunnels beyond this outpost.”

“Well, you’re in luck, and you’re not. Not far from here there’s a ley-line nexus, where we’ve built a teleport circle, taking you to the Lower City in Khav-Srokzas. We have crafters who can make a keystone to get through the gate, and power the circle, but can’t just go giving them out to those who aren’t citizens of the city or better, understand? Too much of a risk, especially since the secret to making the ones which recharge instead of shatter on use is only known to crafters in the City, and they don’t let that knowledge out. However, if you were willing to solve a couple problems for us, then I can let go of a single-use keystone.”

Ah, this was sounding familiar. Basically, they needed to go out and take care of a few jobs that ‘just so happened’ to involve minibosses, and they’d get the key to get to the next floor. Gracie nodded evenly. “Well, that depends on what kind of problems you’d be asking us to solve, of course. I’m not putting me and mine up against some immortal killer of gods, or some crazy shit like that. Not unless I had something that would give me a guaranteed kill on them. I don’t like throwing away good material on a whim, you know.”

“Hah!” the spider alien laughed. “I like you, girl. Probably make a fine breeder someday, bringing lots of strong hunters out into the world. Now, if you’ve come this far, have you heard of those escaped slaves, have some kind of refugee town called Shatterchain?”

“My pets saw messages on the walls out in the tunnels, talking about them, but the writing was hidden from my sight. I take it they’re causing trouble?”

“Nothing we can’t handle, as a rule. Shatterchain is a blight on the Underground, but it provides a release, allowing problematic types to try and find it, usually dying or getting recaptured in the attempt. Because of that, the more disruptive types of slaves, and their free sympathizers, have a focus outside the City, which means they don’t cause as much trouble in the city proper. So long as they don’t start getting too many ideas, it is cheaper to keep them holed up, unable to escape to the surface, than it is to try and root them out, only for them to start efforts elsewhere, possibly even within the City!”

“Better the devil you know, hmm?”

“Precisely,” Dattae nodded. “Now, that’s only if they aren’t getting too many ideas. Unfortunately, when you give a bunch of slaves too much time without a whip to guide them, and all you get out of them is bad ideas and new product with uncertain breeding. So, every so often, they start trying to help other slaves escape, or hamper our work here. But if we hit them too hard, the rats will scatter, and then we won’t know where they’re plotting from. So, we like to call in Adventurers, and let them cull a few of the pests.”

“Pragmatic,” Gracie nodded, her tone nonjudgemental. “And I suppose you have a few specific targets?”

“That I do. Three, in fact. First is a tough one. The slaves have a hunter in their ranks, a good one. Uses stealth like he was born to it. Archer of some sort, but anyone who’s survived an encounter never saw them. Mostly sticks to the northern caverns, from what we can tell. Take him out, and a good portion of the fresh meat for the slaves goes up in smoke, as well as getting rid of a constant thorn in our side.

“Second target is a group of fighters, not hunters. Some stealth training, but they’re mainly melee types. They go around, looking to ambush our patrols, and take them out. Trying to bleed us so that it isn’t worth it to keep patrolling, and they can have free reign of the middle caverns.

“Third one is a bit of a target of opportunity. Message spell from Khav-Srokzas, letting us know that a convoy of escaped slaves are making a run for it, coming this way. If you can intercept them, near the southern gate, and keep them from joining up with Shatterchain, that’d do wonders against their morale.”

She took a breath, and said, “All three jobs are simple. Kill or capture, your choice. But you’ll get a bonus on the pay for each former or escaped slave you bring back in chains, and if you find a free sympathizer amongst them, and bring them back, you’ll get one-third of the sale price when they slap the collar on them. So, you ready to work?”

Gracie nodded. “Sounds good. We’ll find an inn or someplace to spend the night, and then head out fresh to go hunting.”

“Good, good. Then head on over to the Homeweb Inn. Ailxel is a terrible cook, but has the best drink in Khav-Szarol, and the beds are comfortable as any you’ll find here. And good hunting, Mistress Gracie.”