Lewd Dungeon, Chapter 359

I need to go take the car for service today. Nothing big, just normal 80k miles thing. But who knows how long that will take, so I managed to write half the chapter yesterday, and finished up this morning. Because I'm not going to leave y'all hanging like that.

Chapter 359 – Status

Of course, I was listening in on the report the Azure Flames were making to the different adventuring teams. Properly running a dungeon was matter of give and take, after all. I needed to make the dungeon difficult, so that they earned their rewards, but I wanted to make sure things weren’t too difficult. Since this floor was a jump in difficulty and danger, I bent my normal rule on not listening in on the adventurers.

From what I was hearing, though, they were taking the jump in difficulty in stride. They were professional dungeon delvers, after all, so risk was part of the cost of doing business, and the general consensus from the Azure Flames was that none of the traps were unfair. You had to keep your head, but if you respected the dungeon, then you could get through them. Which was exactly what I wanted to hear.

With that in mind, I pulled my attention away from the rest of the meeting in my cathedral. Making sure I hadn’t gone too far was one thing. Listening in on all their plans was something else entirely. If I did that, then it would ruin the fun of watching adventurers try out new tactics as they attempted to go just that little bit further each time.

Every time a team entered my dungeon, the experience was different, true. This wasn’t like games, where the mobs were always in the same place, with the same attack patterns, and where you could perfectly memorize everything to speedrun things. Every time was different.

However, that didn’t mean that there weren’t patterns. Certain tactics and methods that became the ‘meta’, as the gamer crowd called it. People found a solution that worked, and then didn’t bother reinventing the wheel until something new was added, and made them readjust. So, seeing a team on their first time through a floor of the dungeon was a lot different from seeing them on their fiftieth, or five hundredth.

Which was why I rarely paid attention to the first couple floors of the dungeon anymore, unless there was a new party coming through, or I’d changed things somehow. Once they’d been through a few times, and learned the pattern that worked for them, I stopped watching so closely. Oh, sure, I didn’t stop watching anyone who entered my dungeon until they left, which was one benefit of my ‘dungeon physiology’, but it was the difference between a security guard ‘watching the cameras’ and actually focusing on something they were seeing.

Instead, I turned my attention to something that I hadn’t actually looked at in quite some time: my status screen. While none of my pilgrims actually died in the dungeon, I still got fed a bit from the sacrifice, and all the mana they were throwing around. Add in the trickle of XP from ‘normal business’, and I had actually gained a couple levels since the last time I’d actually bothered checking it. Probably would have gotten more if the actions I took as a god gave XP, but I guess you could only break the System so far before things got out of hand.

Name:

Kuronoth

Race:

Divine Dungeon Core

Class:

Magos

Profession:

Divine Slaver

Level:

21

XP:

2487000 / 2556000

MP:

4065000 / 4065000

MP Regen:

4065.0 per hour

Anima:

565,941,476

Evolution Tree(s):

Plant

Slime

Human

Titles:

The Original, Willbreaker, Conqueror, Dungeon Enslaver, Divinity, Divine Dungeon

Attributes

INT

360

WIS

280

CHA

360

Luck

114

Note: When manifesting Avatar, STR = CHA, DEX = INT, CON = WIS.

+10 INT, +10 WIS, +10 CHA per level

0 Attribute points remaining

Boons

Manifest Avatar

Varied Creatures

Second Tree

None too shabby, if I said so myself. Probably ought to work on adding some more Named creatures, or new ‘pets’ to my menagerie, but I didn’t want to just go snapping up randoms. And most of the groups that came to me, these days, usually had at least one member of the group who actively worshipped me, so I didn’t really get any benefit from taking them off the board, usually.

Of course, what would I really do with more pets? Most of them ended up either as bosses, or at least as minibosses in the dungeon. I didn’t have too many floors, at the moment, because people kept stalling out against Shai-Hulud. No reason to go crafting more floors when the current set hadn’t been cleared, after all. The ‘cavern’ floors, including the city and raid, had been a ton of creation, but who knew how long it would be until I had a full team of raiders to take on that raid?

The raid, including the faction divides and all the tasks to build up to ‘raider’ status, was designed as long-term growth, and repeatable content. However, there were going to be some people who, for one reason or another, didn’t get along with the factions, or with established groups, and would want to go pushing ahead to more floors, so I wasn’t worried about never needing to expand again. But there simply wasn’t a point in doing it now, with the current skills of ‘my’ adventurers.

Actually, speaking of skills, I had a total of twelve skill points saved up, including the four I got from these last couple levels. I hadn’t had anything really worth spending them on, earlier, so I decided to save them up, especially since there were more two-point and four-point skills as you leveled up. Since I passed level 20 of the tier, it was probably a good time to check on what I had available.

Racial Skills

Divine Messengers – Gain the ability to create messengers of your divine will, allowing you to intercede in more areas at once. (Costs 2 Skill Points)

Divine Domain – Sites dedicated to your worship are treated as though they are part of your dungeon domain, but are note actually added to the dungeon. (Costs 2 Skill Points)

Class Skills

Wild Magic Zone – Able to create areas of Wild Magic, where all spells used in that area have a chance to spawn random effects. (Costs 4 Skill Points)

Null Magic Zone – Able to create areas of Null Magic, where all spells and enchantments are suppressed, unless they are of a higher Tier than yours. (Costs 4 Skill Points)

Profession Skills

Slavish Devotion – Those who worship you may be counted as your Slaves for the purpose of skills and abilities, but are not actually Slaves. (Costs 2 Skill Points)

Devoted Slaves – Your slaves count as worshippers of you for the purpose of skills and abilities, but are not forced to convert. (Costs 2 Skill Points)

General Skills

Strategic Planning – Your ability to create long-term strategic plans is increased.

Architect – You know the fundamentals of architecture, allowing you to better design buildings.

Engineering – You know the basics of engineering, allowing you to build more structurally sound structures.

Basic Alchemy – You can craft basic alchemical recipes.

Basic Enchanting – You can create basic enchantments.

Agriculture – You know the fundamentals of agriculture, increasing crop yields in fields you manage.

City Planning – You are better able to plan out a city for efficient use of space and enhancing the flow of traffic.

City Management – You are skilled in the management of a city’s resources, and city governance.

Fortifications – You are skilled in the creation of fortifications, and know the best ways to create them.

I discounted all the general skills immediately. There was a bit of a question of why I was only getting some of them now, of course. I’d been building buildings in my dungeon since Goblin Town first showed up, after all. That should have counted for [Architecture] and [Engineering], right? And the [Basic Alchemy] and [Basic Enchanting] stuff ought to have been there before, too, since I gave out all kinds of loot.

I was grumbling about it with Felicity and Oninoki when I was relaxing at the shrine on floor three, and the Sprite Lord gave me a bit of good advice. According to him, just as with the Lightning Palm technique he taught people, there was a difference between what one could do, and what the System recognized. And since I had both dungeon and divine aspects tossed in, and was basically living in the gaps in the System, it made sense that I didn’t get offered the skills until I started using them in a more ‘System-like’ way, instead of just willing things into being.

In other words, the planning and work I put into the three ‘cave’ floors and the raid put things over the line, and got me the skills. Same with stuff like [City Planning] and [Fortifications]. I’d actually put work in on designing things, instead of just drawing from resource packs I’d purchased off the DEN, and so I was offered the skills. When you put it in that light, I wasn’t offered things like [Monster Breeder] until after I started trying to see what would happen when I purposefully bred monsters and people, so it made sense.

Even so, I wasn’t really feeling any of the General Skills. They were nice, and I’d probably grab some of them in the future, but right now I had other skills that were grabbing my attention. And some of them were four-point skills, which meant I couldn’t splurge on General Skills.

[Slavish Devotion] and [Devoted Slaves] looked like two sides of the same coin. If I was reading this right, then with [Slavish Devotion] I could treat any of my worshippers as my Slaves for most of my skills, letting me use things like [Career Planning] to help them reach their goals, [Training] to give them skills, or [Enhanced Breeding Stock] to cause their kids to be more powerful off the bat. And that was just the start of things! That… was actually really impressive, especially when you considered that [Enhanced Ability Training] would basically let them increase their abilities for half an ability point, letting them get four ability points with every two that most people got with a level-up! And I had other skills which gave attributes per level, and the like.

On the flip side, [Devoted Slaves] was less directly useful, unless I started enslaving more people, but getting it would let all of my slaves improve my power as a god, even if they worshipped someone else. That way, I could get power from them, without risking pissing off some of the gods that I actually liked. Not so useful right now, but it was definitely something with potential for the future, if only because it might keep me out of trouble.

Keeping with that theme, [Divine Messengers] and [Divine Domain] were looking like pretty choice options, as well. [Divine Messengers] would basically allow me to answer more prayers and intercede more often with my followers, by sending minions with a portion of my divine power out into the world. Basically, it was required for any god that had more than a token following, or who had expanded beyond an easily managed area. And [Divine Domain] would make it so that I didn’t need Core Spikes to act as though shrines were part of my domain, allowing me to adjust them at will with my dungeon abilities. Importantly, though, it wouldn’t actually make the shrine part of my dungeon, so it wouldn’t trigger dungeon wars. That would be a poor way of repaying my followers, after all.

All of that was eight points, if I took them all. That would leave me only four points for the Class Skills. Honestly, both of them were interesting. [Null Magic Zone] was basically like what I added to the Water Temple, but without any exceptions. On the other hand, dungeon features were easier to change than Dungeon Laws, so it would make something like dealing with an invasion easier. The Lewd Uranium Slime Lords didn’t use magic spells or items, after all. If I dropped a [Null Magic Zone] on some invaders, and then unleashed the slimes, they’d be fucked (in more ways than one) unless they were naturally resistant to radiation, or were into Tier 3.

On the other hand, [Wild Magic Zone] was a bit of chaos added to the mix. No magic items or spells would work as intended. A fireball might result in an explosion of flowers, and a magic sword might end up healing people. Or, a simple firebolt could turn into Abyssal Flame, and a healing potion could completely restore someone while taking off any curses or debuffs. Yes, it was a ‘sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander’ kind of situation, but, as with the [Null Magic Zone], a lot of my monsters didn’t use magic, so only the adventurers would be facing the randomness, which was basically a pure win for me. Even if things went their way, I’d get the amusement value, after all.

That said, [Null Magic Zone] was slightly friendlier to the adventurers, since it didn’t have the possibility of causing the healer’s healing spells turning into a fireball, roasting the entire party on accident. That was the kind of thing that would be HILLARIOUS, if people respawned. With any luck, by the time people actually got to the point where they could raid, I would have a couple more levels, and be able to pick up [Wild Magic Zone], but for now, I’d just grab all the Racial and Profession Skills, and [Null Magic Zone]. I wanted to be ‘tough but fair’, after all, not ‘oh fuck this’.