Lewd Dungeon, Chapter 437 (Patreon)

Chapter 437 – Touching Base

“Ah, Miguel, it has been too long since we had a chat.”

Miguel Sanchez, Grandmaster of the American Adventurer’s Guild, sighed as I strolled into his Miami office. Apparently, he was not as happy to see me as I was to see him. Well, I could understand, since I usually only showed up when things were a bit chaotic.

“Now, now. Don’t be like that, Miguel. I did at least call ahead this time, to let you know I was coming.”

Miguel sighed again, and nodded. “Yes, you did. That doesn’t mean I’m any less worried about what you’re up to, or why you’re here. So, what brings you to my office today, Kuronoth? Another crisis?”

“Oh, no crisis today. At least, not any crisis I’m involved with. I’m sure there’s a crisis or two somewhere on Earth. There always is. But none of them are touching my domain, or involving my followers enough to draw my attention, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

The Grandmaster breathed a sigh of relief, this time, and said, “Well, that’s something, at least. So, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Well, part of it is to just check in on things. Cleaning up those two broken dungeons will have changed the playing field somewhat, and I wanted to ensure that there weren’t any unfortunate side effects. Also, I wanted to hear more about the survivors who got pulled out of Orlando.”

Miguel looked at me suspiciously. “That’s abnormally responsible of you, Kuronoth. Usually, you just do your bit, and dump the clean-up on whoever’s available. You’re not one for coming back and checking in to make sure everything worked out for the best.”

“Miguel, you wound me!” I chuckled. “Just because I don’t come and bother you with questions every time we’ve worked together to deal with a situation, doesn’t mean I ignore things. I just leave the work in the hands of those who are better able to handle it, without the restrictions I’m under, as a deity and dungeon. You know there’s limits on how active I can be, unless my followers invoke me directly, or something touches on one of my domains.”

For some reason, Miguel did not look convinced. “Uh-huh. And next you’ll be telling me that you plan to settle down and live a quiet married life with a white picket fence and two-point-five children and all that American Dream bullshit.”

“Hey, the economy was fucked before the System even turned on. I had nothing to do with that. At least now, people have actual options for advancement, since a lot of the dross has been cleared out by monsters, freeing up room for others. And that’s not even counting how people are using adventuring as a career path, instead of running the rat race in corporate hell.”

“I hate that you’re right about that.” Miguel looked as though he’d bitten into a lemon. Understandable, considering the ‘dross’ I mentioned was the fact that Earth’s population was roughly 25% lower than it had been five years ago, before the System turned on. And that was with kids still being born. Given that the 25% had been disproportionately elderly, that had cleared out a lot of senior positions in companies and governments around the world.

“It isn’t like any of us had any warning about the Initialization, you know. We’re all just trying to do what we can. But I really did come here to discuss things with you.”

“Right, right. So, what is this about?”

“First, I wanted to check in on those survivors, like I said. I’ve heard from other sources that the Greater Lich who survived Orlando has gone home to Puerto Rico, and has been working to try and reconnect with her family. They all thought she was dead, after all, which isn’t completely wrong. I have high hopes for her, once she’s come to grips with her new reality.”

The Grandmaster shook his head. “Does she know you have plans for her?”

“Oh, I don’t have plans, per se. Just a few things that she would be perfect for, if she chooses to pursue them. I haven’t spoken about this openly, but I was checking Orlando just before I popped over here. There’s going to be side-effects from that broken dungeon being there so long. The mana in the area is ‘aspected’, if you will. Slanted towards death magic, and the creation of undead. The Undead Kingdom dungeon nearby isn’t helping either, mind you. Even if it is a proper field dungeon, instead of a broken dungeon, the mana leakage is helping to reinforce the taint left over from the zombie dungeon.”

Miguel was no idiot, and he’d dealt with me enough by now that he knew a good bit about the way I worked. “You’re not just looking to recruit Señorita Caraballo. You want to see if you can get all the survivors of Orlando to go back.”

“Well, not all of them. But becoming Deathtouched, as the mortals have, will make them immune to the worst parts of the aspected mana field. Honestly, they’ll probably be healthier there, than elsewhere. And it will help with some of the problems you’re facing. The city ward your people tried to put down failed, didn’t it?”

Miguel frowned. “You knew it was going to fail?”

“I suspected. Not enough to give a warning, but I figured there was about a forty percent chance it would fail. Only a five percent chance of it failing catastrophically. The ward designs purchased from the System Shop are well researched, after all, and have been refined over centuries, so they are designed to fail ‘softly’ rather than melt down, or do something similar.”

“Small mercies.”

“Indeed. But the point is that you’re going to need people to patrol the Orlando Exclusion Zone, and put down undead that rise up, while researchers work on a way to cleanse the taint. Otherwise, you’re going to have different types of undead spawning, and they won’t be dungeon bound. And some of them will be able to climb walls, or go through them.”

“And having a bunch of adventurers who already know how to hunt the undead, while being nearly invisible to the mindless sort, would be useful. As would recruiting a Tier 2 Necromancer who already has a start on an undead army. That’s not going to go over well with the state, or the feds. You know that, right?”

I shrugged. “I don’t care if they’re comfortable with it. Unless the situation is managed properly, the undead will continue to spawn, which will further taint the area, and eventually start producing more powerful types of undead. So, the options are stationing people there to focus on a way to clean things up, or trying to concentrate the energies, so that you get a situation like the Dark Necropolis to the south.”

Miguel frowned. “I would think you, of all people, would want more dungeons out there. Since it would increase your power.”

“You’re forgetting about the Undead Kingdom,” I pointed out gently. “The only reason that dungeon hasn’t been involved in a dungeon war before now is because a broken dungeon isn’t dungeon enough for dungeon wars. Call it a glitch in the System, which is why cleaning them up requires turning the System off and eliminating all connections keeping the broken dungeon in existence. A new dungeon rising so close to Undead Kingdom would inevitably cause a dungeon war. Which is a problem because, like any war, the outcome is far from certain, and even when a dungeon wins, it doesn’t emerge unchanged, especially ones that are not ‘awake’ enough to truly be sapient.”

“And the Undead Kingdom is not to that point yet?”

“Correct. Unlike some of the other dungeons, which were made from people and creatures essentially getting a race change into ‘Dungeon’, the Undead Kingdom is a ‘natural’ dungeon, which means it will be a couple decades before it is awake enough to be considered sapient. And until then, even I have to be careful in my dealings with it, or I could end up warping the dungeon in some way. And it is frowned upon to try and ‘brainwash’ young dungeons, one way or the other. Just like humans frown upon indoctrinating children into becoming child soldiers and suicide bombers.”

“Fair enough. So, I need to have someone reach out to the survivors of Orlando, and see if they’d be willing to help keep undead from spawning. Or get other undead adventurers to help out with it. Could be worse, I guess.”

I grinned, and said, “With the unpleasant stuff out of the way, there’s also some good news.”

“Good for me? Good for the Guild? Good for people in general? Or just good for you?”

“Miguel, you really need to work on that cynical attitude. One might start thinking you don’t like me.”

“Oh no. Whatever would I do if the god who comes by to drop more work on my desk stopped coming around?”

I chuckled. “All right, that was a good one, so I’ll be nice and let this slide. Anyways, what I was going to tell you was that the first adventurers have qualified for the raid, and the next Great Game is scheduled for two weeks from now.”

Miguel’s eyes sharpened at that. “Really? I know there have been multiple groups grinding the reputations in the Lower City section you made as your eighteenth floor, but how many have actually gotten enough clout to make it into the raid?”

“So far, twenty-one parties have managed it, most of them from the different American guilds, but a few of them are international. None from off-planet, yet, but that could change, eventually. For now, though, only six out of the twenty-one parties are from outside the US, though they are all registered Adventurers from other guilds, using the portal network to come over for the dungeon.”

Miguel whistled softly. “Twenty-one parties, all with between four to six people, most likely? And you’ve gotten them all together? That’s the kind of concentration of talent that some people would kill for.”

I laughed at that. “Oh, they might try, but I’m rather predictable in my refusal to just allow people to take what is mine. At any rate, most of the raiders who signed up to play in the Great Games are normal adventurers, but Catalina and her team are part of the Games, now.”

Miguel groaned. “Of course, she is. She’s been much better about making time for dungeons and leveling than I’ve been able to do. It got so bad for a while that I gave up on having a dedicated party, and started joining as a ‘plus one’ when a party needed a ranged damage dealer, or going out and hunting monsters in the wild. But that still hasn’t gotten me to Tier 2, yet.”

“I could get you some more [Slave Collars], if you like. Your slave-secretary isn’t the only one in this building who would gladly take a collar from you if it meant getting a regular helping of Latin loving, Miguel. There are plenty of women, and some men, who have been sending me more than a few prayers about something just like that, actually.”

Miguel pinched the bridge of his nose with a pained expression. “I did not need to know that male adventurers wanted me like that. Honestly, I know I’m good looking, so I understand that the women want me. But I could do without knowing that some of the men in the guild are into me like that. Not that I have anything against such relationships, for other people. But I don’t swing that way, and never will.”

I had to laugh at that. “Then you definitely don’t want to dig around on the internet for information about the Guild too much. For instance, do you know how much fanfic and doujinshis there are of you? And they cover all the bases. Including the ones where Miguel becomes Miguela, sometimes with both sets of equipment. You have more entries on AO3 than the President does. Though more of yours are consensual, or at least reluctant, while hers? Not so much.”

“You’re not helping, Kuronoth.”

“At least you don’t have to worry about fanfiction changing your essence, if too many people read it. I’m a god, so I have to review the fanfic about me, to make sure people don’t start getting strange beliefs that would alter me in some way.”

“I hope the next twenty stories you read are tagged ‘Dead Dove: Do Not Eat’.”

I chuckled. “I knew we would make a man of culture out of you yet, Miguel.”