Lewd Dungeon, Chapter 245

Chapter 245 – Explanation

I smiled at the Ambassador as I sat down at the table across from her, with Miguel sitting at the head of the table between us. “Of course, of course. Now, I’ve been told that you and Miguel were worried I might have been up to some kind of ‘mischief’, yes?”

The Ambassador narrowed her eyes as she glared at me. “You are damn right! I’ve been getting reports from across the spiral arm about dungeons suddenly getting shrines to Kuronoth! And now you’ve apparently added dungeons to your list of followers? What the hell is going on?”

“Ah, well that’s a simple enough place to start.” I looked over to Miguel, and asked, “This room’s warded against eavesdroppers or prying magic, right?”

“Yes. This is the most securely warded room, other than the offices. Since you have us under contract not to reveal your true nature, I thought it best to hold the meeting here.”

I grinned at the Grandmaster, and nodded. “And this is why I like dealing with you, Miguel. Always on top of things.” Turning back to the Ambassador, I said, “So, once before, I mentioned the Dungeon Exchange Network, confirming something researchers like yourself had long suspected, yes?”

Zygrash nodded. “Yes, I remember. It was something of a shock to us all. Though I also remember it being one of the lesser shocks we got that day, thanks to you revealing yourself as the avatar of the dungeon just a few seconds before.”

“Well, the ‘Exchange’ should make it clear that there was a marketplace, of sorts, and I put up a few copies of my ‘gospel’ on the exchange. Some dungeons bought them, either as bait for traps, or for any number of reasons. One of the dungeons that bought the tome converted to follow me.

“Unfortunately, when he altered his dungeon to better serve me, that caused him to run afoul of some puritanical types. They were very religious, see, and frowned on the whole ‘sex before marriage’ thing, so a massive orgy where, among other things, a brother knocked up his sister. Needless to say, the families were very upset, and because they were both very religious and very rich, they managed to buy off enough religious leaders to get a crusade rolling.”

Twin groans from my audience quickly made it clear that people misusing faith for their own ends was truly universal. I just nodded in agreement, and continued, “So, I received a prayer, and decided to intervene on my follower’s behalf.”

With a sigh, Zygrash asked, “What did you do?”

“Oh, I gave the dungeon ideas, and encouraged him to spread those ideas far and wide. Ideas like Dungeon Contracts and Dungeon Laws, like what I set up in my dungeon, and the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction. It was that concept that allowed me to persuade the crusaders to go home, and sort out the corruption in their churches. After what happened to Pofmis, no one wanted the same thing to happen to their churches, or their pantheons.

“Because of this success, my faith spread quite rapidly through the dungeons, to the point where the System has now officially added dungeons to my list of followers, and I expect that, before the year is out, it will be added to my domains, as well.”

The Ambassador looked stunned. That was only natural, given what I’d just revealed. Miguel was also shocked, but he recovered quicker.

“So, other than getting believers, what is needed for the System to recognize something as part of your domain?”

“Well, you have to be able to hold a certain amount of sway over it. For instance, I have both humans and undead as my followers, right? Well, while that allows me to do a few things related to those types of creatures, it does not make me a god of Humans or a god of Undeath. If I worked to get enough influence over humans or undead, to the point where a sizeable percentage of the total population followed me as their patron, then that would be possible. But both groups are too fractured for that, and I don’t have the kinds of rewards that would entice that many of them to the fold.

“Dungeons, on the other hand, are different. Most dungeons, as you know, aren’t committed to one faith or the other. Or, if they are, it is because a church influenced them in their creation, and brainwashed them. There are treaties and the like that the good Ambassador could quote to you that prevents gods from meddling in the affairs of dungeons directly, for various reasons.”

“Treaties that you ignore,” the Ambassador said, almost accusingly.

“Treaties that do not apply to me,” I corrected. “Those treaties apply to gods, yes, but they do not prevent a dungeon from speaking to other dungeons, and sharing what they know, or have heard, of the gods. As I am both god and dungeon, I can speak to them as an equal, and attempt to convert them, like any mortal proselytizer might speak to you about their god.”

Zygrash just groaned as she held her head in her hands. “Gods damn this world and all the damn exceptions to the rules that start here!” She raised her head to glare at me. “Do you know how badly your actions could threaten the balance of power in the galaxy?”

I waved off her concern. “Ah, but you see, I’m actually making things better. The Dungeon Contracts that I’m spreading, along with my worship? They’re effectively creating a Geneva Convention for how dungeons and their delvers interact. Yes, there are far-reaching consequences for delvers who try and force their way through, but it also limits the dungeons, and provides a way to negotiate changes, rather than simply having to declare a dungeon rogue, and destroy them. Both sides are limited, and protected, by the contracts, and the System enforces the outcomes.”

Miguel sighed, shaking his head. “I see where you are coming from, Kuronoth, but I have a feeling that there are going to be a lot of people in the galaxy that won’t understand, not until it is too late.”

I chuckled. “Don’t worry, I thought of that, too. After I struck a deal with the crusaders’ gods, I went and had a couple more chats with different deities. A few of those were gods of law, truth, and contracts, amongst other things. They have some priests on the way that I’m going to introduce to different lawyers, and let them have fun.”

“You mean, like you did with the three who visited you just before the Golden Host attacked?”

“Exactly! I actually plan to put two of them in contact with the Bar Association, since one is a god of Justice, and the other is a god of Contracts. The third is a god of Truth, and I thought I’d introduce her to Amnesty International. She’ll like them, I think, especially with the way they work to try and free wrongly convicted prisoners.”

Zygrash took a breath, and said, “Could you tell me the names of these gods, so I can at least be prepared, instead of getting blindsided?”

“Of course, my dear. Selphie, the Atlantean Goddess of Truth, Justice, and Prosperity, is the one I wanted to introduce to Amnesty International. The ones I wanted to introduce to the lawyers were Athtar, the Knelfi God of Justice and Judgement, and Kou, the Fimaazro Goddess of Law and Contracts.”

Zygrash’s eyes went wide, her ears perked up, and she sat up straight in an instant. “Y-you managed to talk with Lady Kou? And she is sending one of her priests here?”

“Yes, it is one of the favors she won when we were playing poker and talking shop. If you like, I could inform you when the priest sets up a shrine or temple to her. Or I could simply give the priest your contact information, so that you could speak to them in private?”

The feline woman’s mouth moved, but no sound came out. Miguel just shook his head. “Most of the Ambassador’s family have been devout followers of Kou for generations, you see. So, you just told her that you spoke with her family’s goddess, and that a priest of their faith was coming directly to see you.”

“Ah, I see.” And I could, honestly. It was one thing to know gods and goddesses were real. Knowing your family’s patron goddess was real made sense, academically. But that was very different from someone sitting across from you in the flesh and saying they’d had a nice chat over cards with that goddess. That was several levels of craziness that most people couldn’t process in an instant.

When she finally managed to control herself, Zygrash took a deep breath, and then said, “So, did anything else happen while you were away?”

I chuckled. “Nothing that will affect Earth, or the people here. Just some networking, chatting with gods and getting my name out there. That kind of stuff.”

Miguel nodded. “Dare I ask what you’re going to be doing next?”

“Well, I do have a meeting with the President of the United States two days from now. That will be a lot of fun, I’m sure.” I laughed as Miguel and the Ambassador’s eyes went wide in panic. “Oh, don’t worry, I’ve been informed that the topics under discussion are going to be strictly limited, to keep anyone from getting the wrong ideas. I doubt I’ll be making any deals, and if I do, they’ll be very different from my normal kind of deal.”

Miguel breathed a bit easier. “It might be about the press reform bill she campaigned on. Basically, forcing a larger degree of transparency to keep ‘opinion’ pieces from being disguised as actual news.”

“Oh, dear. That’s going to get a lot of people up in arms. That will probably be a most interesting conversation, then.

“I’m sure it will be. But what else are you going to be doing. I seriously doubt that just meeting with the President is on your agenda.”

“Hmm. Well, I had been considering putting in another couple floors of the dungeon, as well as reorganizing some of the existing floors. That would allow me to start playing with themes more.”

Zygrash nodded slowly. “I forget that, because you’re a former human, you don’t have a dungeon’s instincts. Your dungeon is definitely out of the ordinary, in many ways. Getting more coherent themes would help those used to more normal dungeons adjust to your dungeon.”

Miguel leaned forward, interested. “So, what kind of modifications were you thinking about?”

“Well, I was going to put rest floors after every fifth floor, separate from the ‘numbered’ floors. The numbered floors will have a theme for those five floors. And I’ll be expanding things so that there will be fifteen numbered floors.”

The guildmaster brought out a tablet, and then pulled up a simple document detailing the floors I had in place. “Hmm. So, if you put the current seventh floor as the first ‘rest’ floor after level 5, that leaves ‘swamps’ as a consistent theme for the first five floors.”

“Exactly,” I nodded happily. “And then I’ll add a couple floors in the ‘Black Temple’ section, with a rest floor before leading into the ‘Atlantean Ruin’ section, which will also get expanded by a couple floors. That’ll give me fifteen numbered floors, with two unnumbered rest floors.”

“Ha!” The Ambassador laughed. “A dungeon less than two galactic standard years old, already having fifteen floors? As if being ‘born’ sentient and all the other insanity you’ve been up to wasn’t enough, now you are going to start breaking records on how fast a dungeon expands!”

I chuckled. “Well, if you count the dungeon I conquered, and my ‘annex’ on the moon, then I was already well past that. Though I’ll admit I will need to work on increasing my different types of monsters, if I’m going to expand at this rate. Maybe I can do something with my pet dragon?”

Miguel groaned. “Oh, god. I forgot about you enslaving the damn dragon. I was half hoping that that was just a bad dream.”

I grinned at him. “A nightmare, hmm? Perhaps I should make my next boss a guy with knives on one glove, wearing an ugly sweater?”

“I hate you so much.”