Lewd Dungeon - Chapter 366

Chapter 366 – Free-ish Man

I watched as the Dark Sage collected the fruits, and then used his escape charm to leave the dungeon. The [Slave Brand] on his back had disappeared, along with the Slave title. That meant that Tyrone was three times a failure as a Master. First, he failed to properly break or control his slaves. Second, he failed to anticipate betrayal and have orders in place to prevent it. And third, he failed to have anything set up so that his slaves might be transferred to a new owner upon his death. Which meant that anything he might have built up was now going to come crashing down.

Honestly, it was good for my church that people like Tyrone got their comeuppance, now and then. Tyrone misunderstood some of the fundamental tenets of Domination. What he practiced was closer towards Conquest, not Domination. To truly be a Master of Domination, you couldn’t simply overpower and overwhelm your foes.

Oh, overwhelming your opposition was part of Domination, certainly. But that was only part of it. However, another part of Domination was outthinking and outmaneuvering your foes, or even convincing them that your path was their idea. True Domination was not Conquest, and it wasn’t Trickery, but a combination of the two. That is the lesson that Tyrone failed to learn, and that is why he was dead.

Shifting my attention, I saw that the Dark Sage was heading towards the local office for the Adventurer’s Guild, no doubt going to report on his team’s deaths. That was smart of him. It wouldn’t be the first time that a lone survivor walked out of a dungeon, and not reporting it would have made it seem like he’d deliberately killed them, instead of simply not saving them. That was an important distinction, if he wanted a life in the non-adventuring world, but either way I doubted he’d find a team willing to take him on as an adventurer.

Inside the branch office, I could see that Catalina’s party, the Demonthralls, were making final preparations before heading into the dungeon for their next dive. Most of her party had stayed in Swamptown since they’d arrived, but Catalina had used the portal network to pop back to LA a couple times between delves so that she could actually do her job as LA’s Guildmaster. And I saw that she’d brought Lucia with her, as well.

Peter Franks, the guy in charge of this Guild office, looked up as the Dark Sage entered. “You’re Jamie Foster, of the Crimson Claws, right? Just you today? Have something to report?”

The Dark Sage nodded. “Yes, I’m here to report that the Crimson Claws broke through the fifteenth-floor boss fight, and into the new floors. However, the rest of my party, including my former Master, are dead.”

That got everyone’s attention. “Explain,” ordered Franks.

“The sixteenth floor appears to be a labyrinth of caves, without any natural light. There was an open pit, with spikes at the bottom, like one of the pit traps the dungeon uses, but appearing as though it had already gone off. At the bottom of the pit was a skeleton with a backpack, and a Lewd Slime Lord hiding under an overhang. After recovering the pack, we discovered a torch, some rations, a journal, and a map.”

“No way those were just randomly left there,” Catalina said. “Those were a hint, and a warning. Other dungeons do the same thing, where the only light is what you bring in with you. Lights can be seen further off than you can see with them, drawing monsters to you, but even if you have the ability to see in the dark, without light you won’t be able to read maps, or see any signs on the wall, unless they are specially made. We’ve seen some of these things in California, especially in some of the dungeons that occupy mines, or the Sewer Dungeon in San Diego.”

One of the other Demonthralls, their fighter, asked, “Other than the slime lord, what other monsters were there? What killed your team?”

“Zombies and skeletons, for the most part. Though many of them had some kind of fungus on them. Fire worked extra well on those, but I can’t say what effect the fire would have on them. As for what killed them, a psychic tree ate them.”

The whole room looked at the Dark Sage in disbelief for a moment. Then Franks took a breath, and called out, “Lord Kuronoth, if you’re watching, could we have a moment of your time?”

I chuckled as I manifested in the room with a swirl of smoke. I was immediately greeted by Lucia calling, “Dad!” She rushed up to me, and gave me a hug.

“Hello, Princess,” I said, returning the hug. “I hope you’ve been a good girl for your mother.” She nodded, and received a head pat in return. “Excellent. Now, I need to speak with these people for a bit. So, listen, and learn, OK?”

“OK!”

Looking back at Franks and the others, I said, “Now, since you called me so nicely, I’ll be happy to answer a few questions.”

The local guild leader nodded, doing a good job of keeping patient, despite my blatantly ignoring him and the other adventurers to greet my daughter. Well, if he wasn’t that kind of guy, he wouldn’t have been assigned out here. “Well, Lord Kuronoth, we just heard the report from the lone survivor of the Crimson Claws. Something about a psychic tree eating his team?”

I chuckled, and waggled my hand in a ‘not really’ kind of motion. “Eh, eating conveys more of a Venus flytrap kind of thing. It would be more appropriate to compare the tree he spoke of to a pitcher plant. But, honestly, they would have been fine if their leader hadn’t been a complete failure as a Master.”

“What do you mean?” Franks asked.

I looked over at the Dark Sage. “Why don’t you explain, hmm? I think you deserve that much, at least, for the entertaining show.”

The man looked like I had just given him a Christmas gift out of season. “That fucking bastard was an abusive prick, but he was never the brightest. If the fucking Initialization hadn’t happened, I was about six months from using him as the fall guy for embezzlement from the company we worked for. But I didn’t realize he had the Slave Master profession until after he had the brand on me. So, I bided my time, and waited.”

He smiled wide as he looked at the other adventurers. “Dumbass didn’t give me orders to warn him about danger. He always did orders in the moment, didn’t plan ahead. So, when I detected something trying to influence me, I protected myself, but I didn’t have to protect him, or the others. And he never gave me any orders to not put a [Silence] spell on myself, making it so I couldn’t hear him if he wanted to order me around.”

Franks looked sick. “So, you let the rest of your team walk up and get, what, dropped in acid?”

“Not quite,” I cut in. “The tree’s sap has adhesive powers, and the vines also held them close. After that, the sap digested them alive. Took about twenty minutes for them to die, and another ten for the digestion process to finish. Like I said, the leader of the Crimson Claws was a failure as a Master. Don’t you agree, Catalina?”

“Yes, dear,” the LA Guildmaster nodded. “Silly boy apparently thought mostly with his dick, if the stories I’ve heard are even half true, and the way he and his team appeared with an [Appraise] certainly fits that. By the way, Foster, you’ll be happy to know that [Appraise] no longer calls you “Fuckpuppet”, as well as you no longer having the Slave title.” The Dark Sage nodded, and she continued, “At any rate, if the leader had been attentive, or at least did more ‘give and take’, rather than just taking, he probably wouldn’t have been in that position.”

Franks took a breath, and said, “Putting aside the fact that Mister Foster here just sat back for half an hour and let the rest of his team, which I believe included his wife and daughter, die, what are you willing to tell us about this tree, Lord Kuronoth? This is a very different type of threat from what we’ve seen in the dungeon so far.”

“Well, I’ll leave out any more about the tree, for now. What you have already should be enough for clever adventurers to figure things out. And if you aren’t clever enough to overcome a tree, then the rest of the floors are going to be a problem for you. Especially since the tree isn’t even the floor boss.”

I smiled at the adventurers, and said, “With that in mind, I will tell you that the floor works much like Goblin Town, shifting to a new, random pattern every time someone enters. The map the Claws found was there for a reason. It shows the current layout of the floor, as well as a couple landmarks. No, the tree is not on the map. If you read the journal that our Dark Sage, here, picked up, or get your own, you’ll get some nice lore that will help prepare you for the rest of this section of the dungeon. At the very least, it should start you thinking about the future.”

“I think we can figure things out from there,” Catalina said. “If you gave us all the answers, it would take away much of the excitement of going into the unknown. So, my Lord, do you have anything to add about Foster or the Crimson Claws?”

“No,” I shook my head. “I actually approve of what he did, and why. As I said, Tyrone was a bad Master. Too many people like that join my faith, and it could start twisting me, making me more about Conquest, instead of Domination. But there are limits to how much a god can actively influence their followers. Especially if you want them to be anything other than puppets incapable of taking a shit without you giving them your blessing. My Sword and my Hand in the Cathedral will be giving sermons about this, in the days ahead, now that there is a perfect example to hold up of what not to do.”

“About that,” Franks said, a grim edge to his voice, “the Guild has guidelines about what to do with a guildmember who intentionally abandons their team to their deaths. US and state law doesn’t extend into the dungeon, of course, but the Guild will be putting a notice out on you, Jamie Foster. You’ll probably get a notification in a couple days, but once Guildmistress Johnston in Miami hears this report, you’re going to be blacklisted by the American Adventurer’s Guild.”

The other adventurers all nodded, grimly, but I could see that Foster either didn’t know what that meant, or didn’t care. Probably the latter, considering what he had been through. But I was still curious about what the Guild meant by blacklisting, since it hadn’t come up anywhere I’d been paying attention.

“What does blacklisting entail?”

Franks looked over to me, and said, “Basically, his name goes on a list, along with [Appraise] information and the reason for blacklisting. Blacklisted adventurers can’t take jobs through the Guild, and Guild members can’t include blacklisted adventurers in their parties except under emergency conditions. No Guild-associated crafters or merchants will deal with them. Their access to Guild resources, like the legal teams and forums, will be cut off. This will apply to the entire American Adventurer’s Guild, but there are agreements in place with other country’s guilds to share blacklists. He can appeal, but if the blacklisting is upheld, and it likely will be, he won’t be able to make a second appeal for ten years.”

I raised an eyebrow, and Catalina shrugged. “Most dungeons aren’t as forgiving as yours is, my Lord. Being an adventurer is dangerous enough. This is the best way to discourage team-killers and other nastiness, without going too far and making contracts that might have unintended consequences, or intentional abuses.”

“Ah, makes sense,” I nodded. “A very fair and rational system. Boring, but necessary, I guess.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Foster said. “I just came by to give this last report. Going to Miami to pick up a few things I kept hidden away from my ‘glorious Master’, and then back through the portals, and off to Bluemountain, where there’s probably tons of scrolls and books that I can use to gain new spells and abilities.”

Catalina nodded. “So long as you aren’t going to LA, where you’d be my problem, I don’t care.” She turned to look at me, and grinned. “Honey, my team and I were about to go into the dungeon. Would you like to watch Lucia while we’re down there?”

“Of course,” I laughed. “Some of the girls were heartbroken that they didn’t get to meet her last time.”

Franks just shook his head. “Never thought I’d see someone calling on a god for babysitting duty before.” He sighed, and said, “Just get out of here, the lot of you. I need to send this report to Miami, and get things moving.”