DungeonCultist

Chapter 244

Standing high atop the cliff, I look down at the strange landscape that is so far below me. Floor forty-nine. A large cliff-face spans the dungeon wall on this side of the floor. On the other end of the floor is another similar cliff-side. In-between is nothing but a giant, gaping chasm and a single, rickety rope bridge that sways uneasily in the winds. Down, so far below, it looks like there is a vast jungle. But at this height, you’d die if you ever fell down into it.

Tho...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 97: A heavy load

The ghoul teeth scrape across the floor as Fresh swipes her hand from one side to the other. The girl lays on her stomach on the floor of the store. It’s early in the morning, just after their breakfast and Basil hasn’t arrived yet.

“Ghoul-tooth. Ghoul-tooth. Ghoul-tooth. Ghoul-tooth… hmm…”

“What?” asks Jubilee, looking up from the counter.

“It’s not the same as ghost-goo.”

“What…?”

Chapter 243

“Open your heart a little,” says Misses Dainty-Doily. Doily is her maiden name you see, Dainty is her husband’s name. They decided to keep both, so they just combined them. It’s kind of cute I guess. Not my style. I think I’d like to keep my own name rather than take on someone else’s. Getting rid of your true name seems like a crass thing to do. An insult to everything you are and have been. Then again, I suppose the combination is a nice gesture. Combining your essences at the d...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 96: Graveyard Shift

Standing down at the bottom of the dungeon stairs, Fresh and Jubilee look at each other as they stand outside of the boss door just before floor sixteen.

“So. What are you going to do?” asks Jubilee knowingly, with their hands on their hips.

It’s the middle of the night, the rest of the day passed just as quietly as every other summer day and the two of them decided to go clear a new floor of the dungeon in a bid to level Fresh up a little more. If only...

Chapter 242

What do you think happens when someone dies?

I dive to the side, avoiding the lashing whip of fire flying past me as I continue my escape, leaving the hero-party behind once again in the realm of the dreamer who dreams an uneasy dream.

Anyways, I mean like, when you die-die. Not when I die. But when you die. You specifically, guy. We know what happens when I die, that’s too easy to answer.

Leaping, I rise above the clawing hands of the dead...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 95: Inner warmth

It’s a sleepy day. The air is still hot and radiating, but somehow the world just feels a little calmer than usual, just a little quieter. But not in a foreboding way that makes the girl think anxiously about their profits or about all of the things that she has to do. It’s simply quiet, in a calm, peaceful fashion. As if she were sitting on the bank of a gentle river, listening to the sound of the water babbling with a crystal shimmer and the songs of the many creatures of the forest aro...

Chapter 241

Fire lashes out of the dreamer’s body as they lay there, floating, lost entirely to whatever deep sleep it is that has consumed them. The ground smolders at my feet as they twist and turn, tossing uncomfortably in their slumber. With every uneasy movement, another eruption lashes out at the ground before me. Flailing tendrils whipping every which way, lashing out like so many reaching hands of the drowning, trying to claw their way up to the surface of the black-water ocean.

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 94: Dungeon Toy Shop

It is the middle of the night and Fresh and Jubilee sit downstairs together at the counter of the store. The girl fumbles with a few scraps of fabric and fluff as she tries to get her mind off of things. Despite the roaring summer that is currently underway, she can’t help but notice how she feels that the world is so particularly dark lately. But at the same time, she isn’t really sure if it’s the world itself, or just the old blues from her last life that are finally catching up with ...

Chapter 240

Something skitters in the darkness. I see the face of the priestess of the hero-party emerge and I feel sick looking at the corruption of the pure thing. Her eyes are missing. She speaks, but I can’t understand her words. They’re gibberish. But I see her face change, it looks so soft, so worried. So caring. For who? For me? Don’t. Don’t, I’m not worth it.

Her silhouette disappears into the darkness of the ocean, as if the strings holding her body upright had been ya...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 93: Everything has a price

Fresh looks down, her eyes meeting Mr. Mushroom’s wary gaze as she holds a sweet-roll out to him as her bargaining token.

“Nyah?” she repeats her question and Mr. Mushroom seems to think for a moment, apparently somewhat unsure. Understanding that she has to sell it a little more, Fresh waves the roll around, explaining. “Nyah. Nyah!” She breaks off a corner and eats it. “Nyaaaah~” says the girl, holding her cheek in a theatrical display with her free hand as sh...

Chapter 239

As I tread along the surface of the muck, my eyes wander up towards the above, where I see the shine of the bright, fake-morning light pierce through the distant surface of the water. Yet none of the rays ever seem to reach down far enough to touch me. Lifting a hand, I raise it upwards, grasping for one of the sun-beams. But the soft touch of the light never quite seems to reach me, it always seems to fade and die away, vanishing into the murk of the ocean just inches away before ever gettin...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 92: Round and round she goes

Fresh rolls the glass marble back and forth over the counter as she sits down on the other side of it, opposite of Basil, her head drooped down over it with her hands outstretched. The marble rolls to the left and lazily strikes against her fingers. With a slight nudge, she rolls it back towards the right just as listlessly. She had made it out of a piece of glass earlier, simply out of boredom. Neither Jubilee or Basil were interested in the jam, so it now sits upstairs, ignored. She sits do...

Chapter 238

It’s an obsession, I suppose.

The metal of my lance strikes out, the sound ringing with clear intensity as the tip of the blade strikes against the hero’s sword. Pushing off, I vault over him just in time as the world behind me erupts into an explosion of crystallizing white-magic.

Fighting, that is. It’s sort of an obsession of mine, though I can’t really say why.

My boots thud against the sand and I drop down low, just in time to du...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 91: The morning hours

It’s the morning of the next day and the shop is full with the usual rush. The red-wizard examines the small, flat, cylindrical glass-bottle. The small container, filled with the sweet-tea, is about a large gold Obol in diameter and a finger and a half in height. The tea is brightly red, but it looks translucent. Fresh had opted to use a tiny bit less of the fruit-paste for each bottle, so that the drink would be less sticky and stay more refreshing during the hot days. Even with a little l...

Chapter 237

Wind crashes through the tattered sails of the overturned ship. The metal of my gauntlets lets out a clank as I pull us up onto the rim of the rock-crashed boat, sitting afloat on the edge of a dead sea. The water is sweet and smells vaguely of vinegar. A deep, heavy dampness is in the air. As if it were as thick and as wet as the water below. Looking around the space that is floor fifty-one, I search for my next goal.

One step at a time, you know? It’s great to have big go...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 90: With friends like these

Fresh stands downstairs, staring at Basil who is standing behind the counter and fanning herself with a single piece of paper. The priestess sighs, perhaps lamenting the heat and then opens her eyes to look at the girl who is watching her closely.

“Yes…?” asks Basil, somewhat nervously.

“Oh. Uh. Nothing,” says Fresh as she thinks about the idea she just had. Returning to work, she finishes sweeping downstairs. It’s the middle of the afternoon and ...

Chapter 236

Nobody gets out alive, you know?

Where am I?

“I’m floating,” says the slime, dangling outside of my body as we hang, suspended in whatever abstract space this is. Looking up, I see a ledge and grab hold of it, pulling myself back up onto the floating rock. I don’t really remember what I was doing a second ago. Uh… I feel like it was something important though. Wasn’t it…?

Uh…

I feel like there are holes in my ...

Dungeon Item Shop - Poll 3

There's so much work to do and so little time. What do you think the best approach is? =)

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 89: Too much free time

“Are you stupid?” asks Jubilee, placing their hands on their hips, as Fresh looks back over her shoulder at them. It’s early in the morning and the two of them are standing upstairs in the kitchen. Fresh is cooking them both some breakfast, having woken up earlier than Jubilee, who just came by and saw the repaired golem-core sitting on the kitchen table.

“So you don’t want salt on your eggs?” asks Fresh, repeating her question and tilting her head, as she places ...

Chapter 235

It’s a giant hall of mirrors. But that’s not important right now. I’m trying to think.

I’ve been here too long. It’s all started to get a little muddy. A little foggy. How long do you think I’ve been here? Like… in total?

Just me, trapped down in the dungeon as whatever strange, hapless gestalt I happen to be. I’ve been in this particular body for a long time. A long time. This might be the longest life I’ve ever had. Maybe it’s even longe...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 88: Chill

There's not really a good way to do tables on Patreon as you might have noticed. Formatting is absolute garbage here. So please excuse the mess. I'll try to straighten it out as best as I can =/

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Fresh stares at the ball of ice, it’s late in the day and the three of them are starting to close the store up again. Not much happened during the rest of the day, apart from the three of them standing around the golem-core for seve...

Chapter 234

Shining metal rings out aloud as I run, scurrying over the length of the collapsing pillar as the world explodes behind me. The scene erupts into a great catastrophe, as the coiling fire, taking the form of the body of a giant serpent, winds out around the base of the crumbling stone and chases after me with a wide open maw. Jutting my lance into the ground, I vault, propelling myself over the next platform as the giant wyrm made entirely out of living flames consumes the world behind me. Gor...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 87: Flux

“It’s for clothes,” says Jubilee, somewhat annoyed at the hooded man examining the bottle of white fabric cleanser.

“Sure,” says the man, spinning it around to look at it. Fresh had gone out of her way to get rid of the skull which she had drawn on to the labels and replaced them with a little depiction of a flower. She and Jubilee had agreed to keep it behind the counter and only give it out on request with a specific explanation not to drink it. It has been workin...

Chapter 233

The floor is lava.

Literally.

Magma bubbles around me, as I stand atop the elevated stone pillar and look out over floor fifty-four. A great sea of bubbling ma…

Wait, didn’t we say we were going to call it lava?

Okay, yeah. Uh…

- A great sea of bubbling lava surrounds us. A deeply radiating heat fills the area, the sweltering inferno in the air rising up to reach me even on this high pillar I stand atop...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 86: Abomination

Glass shards fly everywhere, waves of the crystal daggers slicing through the air in a hailstorm as the ghoul runs along the walls of floor twelve. Thousands of glass splinters crash into the wall behind it, but always just miss the creature as it runs after Fresh on her second lap of the arena.

“JUBILEEEEEEEE~”

“I told you to stay upstairs! Idiot!” shouts Jubilee, swinging their arm out in a wide arc. The ground shakes and the ghoul leaps away just i...

Chapter 232

Quietly, I walk through the rose-garden, listening to the gentle sway of the high hedges surrounding me on all sides, as their dense foliage flows back and forth in the fake wind. Tilting my head, I look at one of the small, blooming flowers facing my way and reach towards it. I don’t pull it from the stem, that would be cruel. But I do let my fingers run along the soft body of the red petal.

It’s raining.

Not a lot. Just a little. A gentle stream of wate...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 85: Blood bonds

Fresh scrubs the floor of the shop, it’s late in the evening. They had spent the rest of the morning together. After they left the park, they walked around the church district and Basil basically gave them both an elaborate tour of the area. Despite her multiple attempts to get them to go into the church itself however, both of them declined, much to the priestess’ disappointment. Despite that and the somber mood of the late morning, it ended up being a lot of fun and Fresh thanked Basil ...

Chapter 231

What?

I walk through the empty throne room, my boots pressing against the paper floor, letting out not a clank, but a quiet tearing. Like stepping over freshly fallen leaves on an autumn day. The floor sags a little, as my weight presses against it, but it doesn’t tear. Looking around at the strange, literally picturesque floor that I find myself on, I run a finger over the paper throne of the storybook world. The colors smear and blur a little, not like wet paint, but like...

Early Version Story - Chapter 1

Playing around with a new side story idea. No title or cover artwork yet and no promises of completion. This is just an ideation of sorts. Consider the genre to be dungeon-core/Monster-eating, everything after that I'm still figuring out, hope you enjoy! =)

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“I’m so hungry,” thinks the man as he falls down, his body starts to tumble into a spiral as he hurtles...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 84: Morning in the park

It’s a beautifully peaceful morning. The summer heat is still held at bay by the early morning clouds covering the sky and the gentle breeze, wafting through the streets, carries away any muck and grime lingering in the air from the previous day. All of this leaves nothing but a gentle calmness in its wake. Fresh notices as they walk, that the sound of the birdsong has changed since she first arrived here. Looking up at the trees, she sees that the birds nesting and flying in and out of the...