Lewd Dungeon, Chapter 371

Chapter 371 – Relaxation

“Mommy!”

Catalina smiled as a red-skinned missile collided with her the moment she and her party entered the ‘living area’ of her Lord’s domain. Swooping the little girl up into a hug, she grinned, before transferring the girl into one arm. “How is Mommy’s little princess, hmm? Been good for Daddy?” One of the benefits of the System was that physics sometimes took a back seat to the numbers. Even if she had been actually trying to tackle her, Lucia wouldn’t have been able to knock her off her feet, and the little succubus was far past the age where Catalina would have been able to casually hold her in one arm.

“Yes, Mommy, I was good. And Daddy said that we could look at puppies, and pick one out to come home with us!”

Catalina looked up at where her Lord stood, smiling, and grinned, “Yes, he mentioned that to me in one of his messages, and I said yes. However, I’m going to put you in charge of the pup. You are old enough, now, to take on a bit of responsibility. You’ll have to wash the pup, feed them, clean up after them, take them on walks, and so on, understand?”

Lucia frowned for a second, no doubt disliking that there was more to having a puppy than just cuteness, but nodded. “Can I ask Uncle Billy at the guild for advice?”

“Of course, sweetness. I’m sure he would love to help teach you to care for animals.” Looking back up at her Lord, she said, “Billy is one of our Beast Tamers. Always had a soft spot for animals, even before the System. He’s pretty much in charge of compiling the Bestiary for our region.”

“Of course,” her god nodded, and then smiled as he looked at everyone. “Come along to the dining area. Don’t worry if you see some familiar faces. They’ll only bite if you ask nicely.”

The rest of her party was clearly a bit nervous, but seeing their leader stroll confidently after their Lord as she walked towards the dining room settled those nerves, a bit. None of them had been expecting the dinner invitation, as they made use of the Escape Charms to get out of the dungeon. But the little warlock that sometimes acted as His messenger made the invitation, for after they reported to the Guild.

Still, relaxed or not, safe zone or not, even she had a momentary burst of panic as she turned the corner, and saw the Twin Mages of the first floor, the Water Princess of the third floor, the Fist and Blade of the fourth floor, the Fertile Priestess of the seventh ‘rest’ floor, the Vampire Ranger and his Brides from the eighth floor, the Succubus Sisters and their hound from the ninth floor, the entire contingent of Champions from the arena of the twelfth floor, and the Lord’s Companions from wherever her Lord now made his boss room. This was probably the first time anyone outside the dungeon had seen so many of the dungeon’s bosses together. And they were all just… going to sit down to dinner, like some kind of extended family gathering?

She felt her Lord chuckle beside her. “Like I said, some familiar faces. But they were all eager to talk to Lucia’s mother and her companions after your run through the dungeon, so I simply had to invite you. It is important to reward one’s servants when they do well, something that my followers often forget.”

“Like the idiot who couldn’t properly manage his slaves,” she said, nodding.

“Precisely,” Lord Kuronoth answered. “Domination is about more than having the strength or power to crush your opponents. That is part of it, certainly, since one cannot dominate without power enough to maintain your control, but true domination is carrot and stick, making it so that, while you can force people to serve, and that force may be required in the beginning, over time they come to serve because they want to. Because they do not wish to think of a world that is otherwise. When the slave becomes a willing servant, that is true domination.”

“Which is why the Dominator or Dominatrix class does not compel actions or service, right?” Catalina asked. “Because to dominate means that some part of the person wants to serve, not simply slapping a brand or collar on them and calling it done.”

“Indeed,” he grinned, before clapping his hands twice. The single table in the room, which had been large enough to seat six, was replaced by three circular tables, each large enough to seat nine, and with placements for that many. Place cards appeared on the tables, creating a seating arrangement. A quick glance told her that her party was being split between the three tables.

Catalina smiled as she sat at her Lord’s right hand, with their daughter on his left, and said, in a teasing voice, “Clever, my Lord. You’re not trying to seduce any of my party members from me, by chance?”

“Haha, no, my dear. Why would I need to seduce them away from you, when I could just seduce you, and you’d bring them along with you?” Then, his gaze turned to Jonathan, who was also seated at this table. “And don’t worry, I promise I did feed Lucia balanced meals, most of the time,”

The Blade of Devotion and Master Chef coughed once in embarrassment, before smiling. “My thanks, my Lord. I try to make sure everyone in the group has an optimal diet. While magic changes things, somewhat, it doesn’t change the fact that people have certain needs for healthy living. And children more than most.”

“Uncle Jooonnn!” Lucia whined. “I promise I ate all my veggies. Even when we had hamburgers, Daddy had oranges on the table, as well, to eat.”

Catalina raised an eyebrow at her Lord, but he just shrugged. “It might not be worthy of a chef, but a simple orange cut into quarters is more ‘fun’ than, say, lima beans. Which means there are fewer objections to eating it. Especially since a tray of them can be brought into the living room so you can eat while watching TV.”

“We got to watch you fighting several of the bosses, Mommy! You all were so cool!”

“Oh?” Catalina asked, suddenly a bit concerned. It was one thing letting Lucia know about and see what a healthy sex life was like, even if she was not participating. She was a young succubus, after all, so that much was like learning basic math and literacy for humans. However, some of the boss fights were a little too graphic in the violence and gore department for a four-year-old girl to be watching!

“Don’t worry, dearie,” Zellora, the Succubus priestess from the Black Temple said, soothingly. “Our Master made sure to avoid any of the bad ones, like showing what happened in the Ranger’s Mansion or the Black Temple. But I can tell you that she was very impressed with the fight against Felicity on the third floor.”

“Oh, yes, Mommy!” Lucia said, practically bouncing in her chair with all the excitement inherent to a four-year-old who saw their parent do something awesome. “That fight was so cool! She was doing all this cool stuff with water! I was a little worried when she snuffed out Uncle Ryan’s fire, because that’s supposed to be really hard to do, but then you used your whip to drag her off of her water snake creature, and then Aunt Charity was like stab stab stab, and it was done! Even Daddy said that it was one of the better fights he’s seen on that floor!”

“Still wish I knew how she snuffed out my Hellfire so easily,” grumbled Ryan, from one of the other tables, where he was sitting with Dante and, coincidentally, the Water Princess, Felicity.

Felicity just grinned. “Your Hellfire is an advanced attribute, meaning it acts as more than just Fire, and simple Water is less effective at stopping it. My element is Darkwater, which is also an advanced element, and a hard counter to Hellfire, since Darkwater has some antimagic properies, wearing away at mana constructs and spells it touches, and resisting outside control.”

Charity was at the third table with Jose, and just shook her head as she eyed the Vampire Lord and his Brides. “But seriously, what is up with that mansion? I get that the teleport trap is supposed to get everyone separated, and send them off to different parts of the mansion, so that they have to try and fight their way through to recover, but some of the things there…?”

Diego just shook his head. “That was not my doing. The most impact I had on that floor’s design was in making suggestions for the boss room, to make the fight more difficult, without making things unfair. After all, even like I am, a ranger is not exactly a frontline combatant, and inside a building is hardly a ranger’s favored battleground. Even worse, surprise attacks aren’t as effective when people know they’re coming, which meant there was some concern about how to make the fight a worthy one, without trashing the theme of the floor.”

“Now, now, Diego,” her Lord called out, a smile on his face. “I may have designed most of the floor to see what I could do with a horror theme, but you did get to pick the aesthetic of the mansion, and how your outfits looked.”

“As you say, Master,” the Vampire Lord grinned. “However, when the choice is between Medieval finery, and Victorian English bullshit? I’ll take the medieval style every time. At least it has some flair to it, instead of just stuck-up snobbishness.”

Catalina just shook her head. “So, the Ranger’s Mansion floor was just you deciding to play at horror? What about the Black Temple, then? Where did you get the inspiration for all of that?”

“Well, I thought about putting a fake shrine in my dungeon, for flair, you know? But it turned out that there was a big, crazy war a long time ago that got so wild that there are System restrictions in place. Any shrine in a dungeon has to be bound to someone, and that being gets a bit of control over the dungeon, starting with the shrine. So, instead of dumping the idea altogether, I decided to build on it, while making sure that no one deity could ever get enough influence over the dungeon to dominate me.”

Jonathan frowned again. “That as may be, my Lord. However, what about the shrine challenges, or the different challenge rooms with the ‘lock and key’? Those were… very definite choices.”

“The shrines are not my doing,” He said. “The shrine guardians and their trials are the result of the gods involved. As for the rest, I found an interesting game on one of the seedier parts of the internet. A Japanese hentai game, that also spawned a six-part series. Good art style, but the content, well, is all like those challenge rooms, so maybe not everyone’s personal flavor. But it is good for stripping away the façade too many people believe in. It is why those who know what they are fare better in the Black Temple than those who believe they are holy and pure.”

“So it wasn’t just to stick your finger in the eye of the religious types?”

Her Lord laughed at that. “Oh, that was very much part of the design, but it wasn’t the whole point of the temple. Plus, I wanted to set myself on the path to godhood, if I could, so it was well worth the effort and research.”

The Warlock who attended her Lord during his boss battles chuckled. “And you wouldn’t believe how much ‘research’ he has done, but not yet added into the dungeon as a whole.”

“Well, some of the things are a little too direct to be used as challenges in the dungeon, not without creating specialized scenarios. Some things of that nature do show up in the floors leading to the Raid, and others are part of the Raid prep, in the time between raids. Lots of things that you wouldn’t normally be able to do, even if you were willing, because of that silly business with mortal lives and the like. Once people are accepted into the raid scheme, though, anyone who dies in the raid zone will revive after the next raid, meaning that I can have more fun, without making things unfair, or too lethal.”