Lewd Dungeon, Book 44 Epilogue (Patreon)

I'll be on several panels at Multiverse this weekend, so no chapters Thurs, Fri, or Mon. I have chapters pre-written for Freezing Shadows and Shadowrock, so those will get posted as normal.

Epilogue – Elsewhere

Lina Jordan breathed out softly as she stalked through the swamp that was the first floor of her new home. She had never asked to be a slave to a dungeon or the property of a god. There wasn’t much she could do about it, now. Not after that summoning circle opened up under her, and warped her into the middle of the broken dungeon.

But that was kind of the story of her life, wasn’t it? Before the System, she’d been twenty-two, drowning in student loan debt, trying to take care of her parents who were on disability and had medical debts stacking up, and unable to find a ‘normal’ job that wasn’t fast food, and that didn’t even cover rent, much less things like food. Which is why she’d started working for the Moretti family as a whore. Oh, they dressed it up nicely, calling it an escort service, but everyone knew what the real deal was. She wasn’t exactly proud of it, but you gotta do what you gotta do in order to survive.

When the System came, she had screwed up, slightly. Rogues were supposed to be sneaks and assassins, hiding in shadows and stabbing people in the back. And Courtesan was a profession that gave her better defense the prettier she was, and made her a better whore. Unfortunately, Courtesan also had a feature that made them the center of attention whenever they weren’t invisible, meaning that the Rogue’s stealthy nature was useless to her.

She’d joined the Massachusetts Adventurer League when it first started, hoping to find a way to make money that didn’t involve flipping burgers or laying on her back. However, there weren’t many parties willing to take on a Rogue who couldn’t sneak or a whore who didn’t want to use her body to pay her way onto a team. Forced to go solo, she didn’t make nearly enough to quit her night work, but at least she could stop working at the restaurant, and her night work actually gave her XP, since it was related to her profession. Better yet, as she gained levels, she found new abilities that she hadn’t considered before.

Turned out, the center of attention thing from Courtesan only applied to people who could see her. She could still walk softly and make no sound, and if she was invisible or hidden behind a tree, people wouldn’t notice her. Same if she approached someone from behind. And it didn’t stop her from finding or disarming traps. At the same time, her ‘Too Pretty to Hit’ ability from the profession added her Charisma to defense.

She’d spent some money on light armor, good daggers, and a couple Charisma-boosting items. The last ones also helped her with her night work, which helped her to stomach the expense, but it also made her defense enough that she could start running some of the weaker dungeons solo. At least she could do the first couple floors. There was diminishing returns on XP, but she’d started getting consistent coin from materials and drops.

Then the fucking goblins summoned her, and life socked her in the teeth again.

Still, it wasn’t all bad. Becoming dungeon property had basically wiped out all her debts, and she didn’t need to work because room and board were provided by her master, a literal god. She’d been surprised to learn that the dungeon god who made all the portals had actually started out as a dungeon, but with everything else that had happened in the last five years, that tracked. So, no rent, food provided, bills gone, and she got to grind in her Master’s dungeon, gaining XP to steadily go up in levels, with her Master providing her gear appropriate to her level, class, and profession. And even if she died, she came back to life, meaning she could afford to be more reckless than she had been. In the few weeks since she’d been freed from the goblins, she’d managed to push from level 19 to level 40 in Tier 1.

Of course, she’d died six times in the process. Four of those times were from Slime Lords like Captain Hentai, or the Slime Emperor that was the boss of the second floor. If she went the rest of her immortal life without repeating the experience of dying by having baby slimes eat their way out of her, it would be too soon. At least the giant electric eel thing Felicity on the third floor had as a pet had just bitten her into pieces, making for a quick death. And Earl had surprised her that first time, which was embarrassing.

Naturally, there was no such thing as a free lunch. Her godly master wasn’t letting her play around in his dungeon out of the goodness of his heart. Sure, after getting to know him, he wasn’t nearly as much of a bastard as some people portrayed him. Yes, he was a perv, and there was a reason people initially thought he was an incubus. But he didn’t make unreasonable demands of people, unless they did something to deserve getting fucked over. That didn’t mean he was just letting her level up without wanting something from her.

That something was not her body, though he didn’t mind using her when the mood struck. However, even in that, he’d been clever, using it to reinforce his reputation. He didn’t force her; he seduced her. Made her want to give it to him, by pointedly not taking her, while she saw how much the other women in the dungeon enjoyed their sessions with him. Making her ask to be used. So, maybe he was every bit the clever bastard people said he was.

Either way, the reason he was letting her train up, along with Ana Gálvez, the Mexican Army officer who had also been summoned by the goblins, was because he had plans for them. Every so often, he redesigned or reworked lower floors of the dungeon, to ensure that people didn’t get complacent, and to keep things interesting. The next change he was planning was to start playing with the boss fights on floors 1 and 4.

Currently, there were two former adventurers each as the bosses of those floors. The Twin Mages on floor 1, and the Fist and Shield duo of a monk and paladin on floor 4. Lord Kuronoth wanted to add her and Ana into the mix, rotating the six people through those four spots at random, making sure that people couldn’t just rely on one set of tactics.

However, to really get to that level, Lina and Ana needed to build up their strength to match, or at least come close to, the others. The dungeon’s scaling ability would help, somewhat, but there was only so much it could do if they weren’t used to having higher-level stats and skills. Basically, it was easier to scale people down, than up. Which was why she and Ana were currently going through the first few floors of the dungeon solo, and on repeat, until they broke through to Tier 2.

Privately, they already had a competition going between the two of them, to see who got Tier 2 first. Last she’d checked, Ana was at 41, but Lina was sure she could skip ahead. Rogues had better burst damage, after all, and Ana was more of a defensive fighter, using a hammer and shield. Neither of which were particularly useful against slimes, unless you used something like the Lightning Palm technique they learned from that Ironwood Sprite Lord on the third floor. Of course, her daggers weren’t great against slimes, either, unless she could hit the core, which moved around the slime’s body. But between coating her daggers in lightning, and her unlocking an ability to heal herself and others with a touch through her Courtesan profession, she had an edge.

Now, if she could just avoid Captain Hentai and Throsk on this run…