Lewd Dungeon, Chapter 357

Chapter 357 – Pharaoh

I watched with interest as the party made its way to the boss room. Sure, they were going in on the ‘normal’ difficulty, so things weren’t going to be too bad. Well, not as bad as they could be. I wasn’t going to just let them waltz through without a challenge, after all.

My new boss for the Pyramid was sitting on his throne, on the central platform, just as I had been when my Pilgrims came to visit. I Named him Set-mena, a name that I shamelessly took from a random name generator that focused on ancient Egyptian names. His base form was a Human Mummy Lord Warlock / Enchanter, but for these Tier 2 adventurers, he was a High Human Mummy Lord Soulbinder / Master Enchanter. If another Tier 3 group came in, they’d find a Godblessed True Human Mummy Lord Keeper of Souls / Divine Enchanter.

Of course, that wasn’t likely anytime soon. The people of Earth were progressing well, don’t get me wrong, but there was a reason why the population of different tiers dropped off so severely, anywhere in the galaxy. Simply put, it wasn’t that easy to level up if you didn’t have some kind of cheat on your side.

To get XP at any reasonable rate, you needed to take on challenges at or above your level. That didn’t mean just fighting, naturally. A Weaponsmith creating weapons of higher and higher quality would level up, just like how a Fighter killing stronger and stronger creatures would. However, as you rose in power, finding creatures that could challenge you was more difficult. There were some worlds where the pinnacle of strength was breaking into Tier 3, and even that required either a great deal of effort, or special professions, like some ‘ruler’ professions, which plucked a portion of the XP from their followers to enhance the ruler.

Sure, it was technically possible to break into Tier 4, just by slaughtering Tier 1 goblins. After all, they never stopped giving you XP. Sure, as your level gap increased, the amount of XP a goblin gave you dropped, but it never went below 1 XP per kill. However, getting from Tier 3, Level 1 to Tier 3, Level 2 required a staggering 101,000 XP. You would run out of goblins in the area long before you got to that point. And that was just for the first level of the Tier. Trying to get all the way through Tier 3 without finding Tier 3 foes to fight was basically impossible, if you didn’t want to sit around all-day, every day, killing billions of creatures. The only ones who could even remotely pull something like that off were immortal races, who could spend their time lazily killing low-level creatures without dying of old age.

I broke off that train of thought as the adventurers stepped off the platform, and into the boss room proper. From the way that they avoided the black squares, I could tell that they had been briefed by Bargulg on the nature of the room. Good, it wouldn’t be a true challenge unless they had some idea of what to expect, and how to combat it.

Set-mena rose from his throne, scepter in hand, and his attendants readied their weapons. There were four of them. Two melee fighters, an archer, and a healer. Well, the ‘healer’ was actually on the Dark Priest path, since their spells healed the undead while harming the living, but still.  A fairly standard combination.

The ‘pharaoh’ called out a word of command, and a trio of undead soldiers, like those outside the Pyramid, appeared, between the central platform and the party. The black squares flashed, signaling that their curses were discharged, before the squares flipped colors. The party had a little time to react, of course. I wasn’t heartless. They had a whole six seconds to get off the newly-blackened squares before the curse armed itself, and twenty seconds before they changed again.

“MOVE!”

The party burst into action at their leader’s command. Gracie Dixon was an interesting one. She was one of the few Slave Mistresses I’d seen come to the dungeon. Oh, there were more than just a few women who had come here with a pack of well-trained men serving them, but for some reason, most of them had classes like Dominatrix or professions like Seductress, not Slave Mistress. On the other hand, I had seen very few Dominators or Seducers amongst the men in the dungeon.

Of course, the discrepancy amongst the men was probably due to the nature of my dungeon, more than anything else. Most of the people delving my dungeon were men, and most men, unless they were batting from the other side of the plate, didn’t care as much for dominating or seducing men. Which meant that those types looked for greener pastures elsewhere. But I still had no clue why things broke down that way for the women. Perhaps I’d ask this Gracie, if she made it to my chamber.

As I watched, their archer began firing arrows through the barrier, dancing around the black squares as he did so. Clearly someone with very high Dexterity, as expected of a bowman. Three arrows hit the Dark Apostle (which was the basic advancement of Dark Priest), interrupting the undead’s attempt to cast a spell. Smart, since that spell would have buffed the boss’s other companions.

The other party members surged forward. A blast of blue flame reduced the three undead on the floor to piles of sand that quickly disappeared, courtesy of the sorceress. The next moment, they were up close with the Pharaoh and his party, with the bowman being the only one staying back.

The Angel with a Paladin base used a mix of holy magic and taunts to force the two melee fighters to turn their attention to him, as he landed on the platform, hammer already striking a telling blow on one of them. The priest stood side-by side with him, making for a powerful united front with the two holy types facing off against the undead. As they pushed from the right side of the platform, to open up space behind them, the sorceress and wizard took up residence there, and began adding their spells to the mix, while the rogue took the time to explode from the shadows, focusing their attacks on the Dark Apostle.

Clearly, their goal was to eliminate the healer first, while the mages attacked the archer and boss, and the two holy types held back the fighters. Once the healer went down, they’d be able to take out the bowman, and work on the fighters, until only the boss was left. Meanwhile, their own archer was outside the barrier, so they had at least one person who couldn’t be targeted by the boss’s spells, and he could also make sure that any additional undead that spawned didn’t take them from behind.

Their attack strategy was basic and uninspired. However, that was because it was a time-honored strategy that worked, and worked consistently through the years, all across the galaxy. A wheel was basic, uninteresting shape. Sure, you could pretty it up with rims, or do different designs on the outer edge to try and help it deal with different types of terrain, but the basic shape was basic, and uninteresting. Because it worked.

Of course, that didn’t mean that my boss didn’t have their own strategy. The fighters may not have been able to overcome the two holy warriors, especially as they healed themselves in the midst of combat, but the boss and archer were matching the two casters attack for attack. The sorceress and wizard were forced to cut off spells to either dodge or defend themselves as often as they were able to send a spell the other way. Clearly, they had used Appraise on Set-mena, and realized his class could affect their souls directly, which is why they focused entirely on dodging his spells, while they trusted in magical shields and other defenses to stop the archer’s arrows. Even so, that distraction was causing the fight to drag on, and the undead had the advantage in any battle of stamina and attrition.

A wave of black light flashed out from the Dark Apostle. I recognized it as his [Dark Tide] spell. The spell healed Undead within its range, including the caster, but while it didn’t do any damage to the living, there was a knockback effect whenever the wave hit a living creature. The adventurers weren’t expecting that! I grinned as I saw them all get pushed back by the spell, with the rogue, sorceress, and wizard all getting thrown off the platform, and onto the floor!

The rogue managed to react quickly enough, bounding to their feet without touching a single black tile, and then leaping back into the fray. However, the other two were not so fortunate. The wizard landed on their back on one of the black squares, and was petrified for thirty seconds. Meanwhile, the sorceress found herself stripped of all gear and equipment as a blue flash hit her the moment she hit a black square!

That wasn’t the only knock-on effect of the Dark Apostle’s spell, however. The two holy warriors had weathered the knockback without being pushed off the platform, but they’d lost their positioning, and their stance was broken. The undead warriors did not miss that chance. Together, they surged forward, a black aura surrounding their curved blades as they did so. The blades, based on the design of a khopesh, hit both priest and paladin cleanly, and discharged their aura as another knockback!

Both warriors flew off the platform. The paladin, at least, managed to use his wings to keep from sprawling on the ground, but his foot still touched a black square, cursing him to laugh uncontrollably for thirty seconds. The priest yelled a curse as they landed on their head and shoulders, rolling across one of the black tiles. On top of being stunned for five seconds from the impact, he also was poisoned by the curse, losing 5% of his total HP every three seconds for thirty seconds, or until he was cured.

Gracie clearly saw how this fight was going, and decided that discretion was the better part of valor. Not that I blamed her. That one series of attacks had put her team at a horrible disadvantage, and healed much of the damage they’d done to the boss and his party. Sure, it had taken twenty-five percent of the Dark Apostle’s mana to do it, but anyone could see which way the wind was blowing now.

Frantically, she scrambled on the ground, grabbing up the pile of equipment and neatly folded clothes left behind by the stripping curse. She managed to get her Escape charm in one hand, while still holding the bundle of her things in her arms, and touched the petrified wizard with one bare foot.

“Escape charms, now!”

Order given, she disappeared in a flash of light, along with the wizard. That was a feature of the Escape Charms I’d added after they’d been around a few months. So long as both people had an Escape Charm on them, and they weren’t inside the one-week cooldown, then you could have one person activate the charm for someone they were in physical contact with. The change was made for just this reason, so that someone could haul out a companion that was disabled in some way, and unable to use their charm. Both charms were still counted as being used, of course, so you couldn’t cheat with it and have half a group haul people out and then the other half use the charms during the cooldown period. I was generous, but not THAT generous.

The other adventurers all left in flashes of light as well, following their Mistress’s command. I was a little sad to see that the first team to reach the new boss of the Pyramid got beaten like that, but it did show that I had a proper challenge here. More importantly, it showed that the adventurers still respected the dangers present in my dungeon. These were veterans of my halls, and they refused to let themselves become complacent, or take things for granted. They knew when they were in a losing position, and when to cut their losses, and try again.

And, as they appeared in my entrance hall, and the curses faded, they each offered a prayer to me. Each one of them giving thanks to their Lord for the trial they went through, and for my giving them a means to escape it. Their faith grew, and with that faith, I grew stronger, even though I did not gain XP from their deaths.