Lewd Dungeon, Chapter 421 (Patreon)

Chapter 421 – Consultation

Colonel Sam Powell, 75th Ranger Regiment, looked at the map table set up in the gym of Fort Lauderdale High School. He had requisitioned the gym as his command center for the coming operation, primarily because the school was close to the Exclusion Zone, without being right at the front lines. The Boca Raton Exclusion Zone ran from Boynton Beach in the north to Pompano Beach in the south. The ocean marked the eastern border, and a swampy forest sat to the west. While wards had been set to keep the goblins from spreading out of control, they usually only slowed the goblins, not stopped them. That meant walls were still important, and the only real ‘fortifications’ on the zone were walls thrown up with magic on the northern and southern borders. However, according to intel, the goblins stayed away from both the eastern and western areas due to predators. Monsters in the oceans, and gators in the swamp. Apparently, the gators were eating well enough that some of them were close to becoming Tier 2 creatures.

Thankfully, super-gators weren’t his problem today.

No, his problem was the ruins of Boca Raton and the surrounding communities. There were no civilians in the area, not anymore, but the entire zone was one big hazard zone, outside of the Transit Corridor using I-95. Adventurers kept that road clear of goblins, and in decent repair. Everywhere else in the Zone was falling apart.

Part of that was due to lack of human maintenance, of course. Boca had also been hit by Tropical Storm Brittney two years ago, along with Hurricane Terry last year, which didn’t help. Terry had been only Category 2 when it hit just south of Pompano Beach, but that meant Boca took the worst of the storm surge, and a lot of damage that emergency crews never bothered looking at.

Then, of course, there were the goblins. Adventurers went on regular ‘culls’ of the goblins, to keep them from gathering in numbers and levels large enough that they would consider rushing the barricades. The goblins weren’t complete idiots. Without a clear advantage in both numbers and levels, they’d rather fight on their turf, where they had the advantage. But since they were always fighting amongst themselves, and the broken dungeon constantly made more of them, they needed to be culled before too many started getting above level 15, or they might grow enough courage to think they wouldn’t be one of the ones dying in an assault on the walls. So long as the Adventurers kept them cowardly, they were a manageable threat.

However, those cullings had collateral damage. Area effects, bodies going through walls and traps that dropped buildings on people all combined to make what had once been high-end resort territory, retirement communities, and so on into piles of rubble and cobbled-together shantytowns. In his mind, that was both good and bad, considering the operation ahead of them.

Lieutenant Colonel Heidi Saunders, 1st Battalion, 9th Field Artillery Regiment, was also looking over the projected map, though her focus was on range details and possible obstructions. Women were not unheard of in artillery positions, but they were rare, and female officers who rose to command level were rarer. That said, Powell had always heard good things about the BattleKings of the 1-9, and Saunders had a reputation on base of being a solid commander who cared more about getting the job done than dotting I’s and crossing T’s, which he respected.

With the way she was frowning, Powell knew she had opinions on the job at hand. “What do you think, Saunders?”

“Well, sir, the ranges make it so we’ll need to split the battalion. Since the northern side of the zone is narrower than the southern side, I’m thinking two batteries in the north, and one in the south. That will give the best coverage for the entire zone, so we can provide fire support as needed. But my treads won’t exactly have a ton of room to maneuver if the goblins try for a breakout. What do we know about the people holding the walls?”

“Adventurers and volunteer militia types. They’ve been holding those walls for the past five years, keeping the goblins out. And the System Interdiction Field won’t be active on that side of the wall, meaning that the wards will still be up, and they’ll still have all their System abilities. It has been confirmed that System abilities fired into an Interdiction Field will still have their normal effects, meaning that they’ll be at full strength, while the goblins will be hampered, according to intel from the System Shop.”

Saunders looked as though she’d bitten into a lemon and onion simultaneously. “I don’t like relying on locals for this, sir. And I like relying on intel from the System Shop even less. We don’t know how reliable either of them really are. If the goblins break through, then we’re going to need to move, and you’re going to be down supporting fire.”

Powell nodded. “I’ve got concerns about that, too. Especially considering that the numbers from the intel are putting hostiles at estimated twenty to thirty thousand, though there’s the possibility of going up to eighty. If that’s how things play out, we’re going to be in trouble.”

“Also, sir, I cannot promise how much good we’ll be if the goblins try to stage a breakout to the west. I know they say that the wards slow the goblins, and there are gators in those woods that have been getting stronger off them, but if they make a concentrated push, they could overwhelm the gators and break out around the barriers, and then everything’s fucked.”

Their conversation was interrupted by a sergeant walking their way. “Sir! We have a civilian at the perimeter, wishing to speak to you. He identified himself as Kuronoth. Visual matches reports of the Demon of the Dungeon, sir.”

Powell bit back his initial response, since when enlisted saw officers cursing or looking uncertain before an op, it usually meant things were going to go sideways from the jump, and that was shit for morale. This operation was going to be trouble enough as is. No need to go making more. But a visit from a god was not something you could just ignore. And he really wished he didn’t live in a world where that was an actual sentence he had to say, even in the privacy of his own head.

“Show him in, Sergeant.”

A moment later, the Sergeant returned, with a man with demon horns, dressed all in black. The avatar used by God of Domination, Pleasure, and Dungeons was very familiar to anyone with a TV screen now, after five years of the System being around, not to mention him showing up on talk shows supporting the President’s Veritas Act and that big wedding in Greece with him getting hitched to Athena. Which meant that this operation was either going to be easier than expected, or everything was truly going to shit.

The Demon of the Dungeon spoke first. “Ah, Colonel Powell, Lieutenant Colonel Saunders. Thank you for seeing me. I was hoping to help out with your upcoming operation.”

Ah, so things were going to shit. Wonderful. “Lord Kuronoth, this is a surprise. How, exactly, were you hoping to help out?”

“Well, first off, there’s some supplementary intelligence I can provide, based off my own sources and knowledge. How much do you know about goblins?”

“Just what was in the briefing packets. There have been small goblin outbreaks throughout the country. Basic goblins are roughly three feet tall, green skinned, and are not smart, but clever. Usually use primitive-styled weapons, though some have magic or use alchemy-based grenades, amongst other things. Tribal structure. Roughly 90% male, and they make up their numbers by abducting women, with a ‘magical STD’ that transforms their partners into goblin females.”

“That’s correct. However, goblins bound to a dungeon lack that magical STD. Or, rather, the dungeon’s binding suppresses it. At the moment, the goblins in the zone are still bound to the broken dungeon, which means that the suppression is still active.”

Saunders spoke up. “We were just talking about concerns of an outbreak. What happens if the goblins escape the perimeter while the operation is underway?”

“Thank you for leading to my next point, Colonel Saunders. The answer is both good and bad. Any goblins which escape the cordon will be outside the broken dungeon’s influence, meaning their connection will snap. This means that their continued survival will not help the dungeon survive. However, it also means that the suppression will be removed, which will make any goblins that escape a problem in the long term. However, local adventurers have become quite skilled at hunting goblins.”

Powell nodded once, getting what the god was hinting at. “So, for this operation, goblins escaping out of the containment zone is less of a problem than goblins in the zone surviving. We’ll still try and limit escapes, but without the constant reinforcements, the goblins turn into a problem that can be more easily managed.”

“Precisely. However, some of the goblins in the zone will have become variants or higher forms. Goblin Elites, Hobgoblins, and more. These versions are typically recognizable by their larger size and different colorations or characteristics. If your people see any of them, they should be priority targets, as they are more intelligent, more dangerous, and better able to command their underlings. Kill those ‘officers’, and the goblins in their group will break any kind of formation they have.”

“So, anything that looks different from the normal green-skinned beasts with patchy armor and improvised weapons is a priority target. That’s something my men can work with, sure. I don’t suppose you have any definite target data?”

“Unfortunately, I do. Before the System Interdiction Field went up, I had some of my followers do some divinations on the zone. Saint Andrews School, near the center of the zone, has become a Goblin Nursery. Most of the Goblin Broodmothers and goblin children are there. They will all need to be destroyed. And your people will need to confirm that.”

Powell didn’t curse. It was a near thing, and he truly, desperately wanted to let out a string of language that would give even a drill sergeant new vocabulary for creative profanity. But he was an officer, and he was in command, and his subordinates were watching. He would keep it together.

“Well, that is just great. The chaplains and counselors will be earning their pay after this op, for certain. How will we confirm that all the goblins are dead?”

“Well, that gets complicated. The Mana Barrier keeping ambient mana from flowing into the Zone is keeping the dungeon from spawning in new goblins as quickly, but when you manage to kill them all, the spawns should stop completely. Depending on the situation, you might also see an energy pulse of some kind, as well, centered on the broken dungeon core. The core is also where most of the spawns happen, so you’ll have better luck figuring it out then. Of course, from here, I’ll be able to tell if it worked or not as soon as the System Interdiction Field goes down.”

Saunders looked at the Dark God. “So, if we don’t get all the goblins in one go, and you confirm that the dungeon is still up, will we be completely back at square one? Or will we be able to put the field back up, and search and destroy on the monsters?”

“It is possible, but not something you would want to do more than once or twice. The System reacts… poorly to people doing the equivalent of flicking the light switch on and off again and again. The only information I was able to find on such things were warnings that summed up as, ‘Just don’t.’ So, it would be best if the whole thing was done at once, or with no more than two resets.

“Fortunately, the dungeon won’t just suddenly replace all the monsters killed. So, you won’t have a situation where tens of thousands of goblins all suddenly show up around the rangers and catch them by surprise. But you would only have a few hours to put the field back before you started seriously losing ground. And it gets worse the longer it goes on, obviously. So, it would be better to take extra time dealing with it the first time to ensure they’re dead, than hoping for the best.

“Thankfully, I have the exact location of where the core was when it was shattered. It was in the Flight Deck, a bar in Boca Raton Airport. That will be the epicenter of the dungeon’s influence, and where the spawns will be heaviest. However, because this is a broken dungeon, the goblins being spawned will all start at Level 1, so it isn’t completely unreasonable to get people to try and clean things up.”

Powell looked at the God of Dungeons, and said, “Not that I’m not appreciative for the heads up about the Goblin Nursery and the location we need to aim for, but why are you here, helping us? No one summoned you, and we’re pretty far from your shrines and the portal network.”

“That’s simple, Colonel. I’m a God of Dungeons. Since you’re looking to clean up a broken dungeon, that gives me some extra leeway in where I can go, and what I can do. I still cannot fight the goblins for you, but giving advice or information, perhaps even my blessing on the affair? That is allowed, without any special invocations or contracts. Plus, this is the first attempt at cleansing a broken dungeon on Earth, and I want to look over the process, since it will help with the Orlando Zombie Horde, and possibly even the Uranium Slime Lords spawning from the broken dungeon in Nevada. But no one on Earth is ready to try and take that challenge on, yet.”