Lewd Dungeon, Chapter 441 (Patreon)

Chapter 441 – Game Start

Catalina Zorita took a moment to focus on her breathing, slowing it, and forcing herself to relax. She wasn’t the only one in the House Throk staging area that was trying to keep nerves in check. The Game was about to begin, after all, and every combatant in the House was eager to begin.

Her team was the rising star of the newcomers to the Game, she knew. They’d set out to take four high-profile bounties, before the Game started, to earn contribution points for their House. They’d managed to get all four of their bounties, plus a few extras they’d run across while hunting their prey. That bit of bounty hunting had been quite profitable, earning her team a very respectable 45,500 contribution points.

She wasn’t sure what they could purchase with contribution points, honestly. She hadn’t gone into the House stores and training houses with that in mind, not yet. Too busy hunting, and preparing for the Game. There was a time and place for shopping trips, after all.

That said, she had learned that earning over forty thousand points in one’s first Game was considered to be a major accomplishment. Most teams only earned six to ten thousand in their first Game. Even if they were eliminated right at the start of the Game, Catalina’s team had secured their place as part of House Throk, and would, no doubt, have hefty bounties on them by the time the next Game rolled around.

That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, of course. Yes, a bounty meant that members of other Houses would be hunting them. However, it also meant that bounties would be coming to them, instead of their needing to seek them out. So long as they controlled when and how the meeting happened, there was a good chance that they could good point totals in the next Game, too. Not as much as this Game, perhaps, but enough that the House would recognize them.

No group ever did particularly well two Games in a row, not unless they were truly at the heights of their power. She’d been told as much after turning in all her pre-Game bounties. Standing out too much made one an early target in the next Game, which meant that attrition usually got to them. The Houses knew this, and kept it within their expectations. No one would look down on a team for getting ‘handled’ early on in a Game when they stood out the time before. Which was a relief, in its own way. Not needing to perform at the highest level every time gave people more leeway, and meant they weren’t completely screwed if someone managed to get lucky, and catch them unprepared.

Catalina banished those thoughts, and turned back to the map of the city being displayed in front of everyone at the staging point. The city had been divided into six sections around a central area in the middle of the circle. House Alsin stood on the eastern edge of the circle, bordered by Houses Dren to the north and Nahlans to the south. House Vomhur stood next to Dren, and Ilzor beside Nahlans. House Throk was on the western edge. Simple, and easy to understand.

Well, on the face of it, but it got more complicated. The central area, called the High Seat, was considered part of the ruling house’s territory, and had to be defended as well, since capturing the Core Pillar in the central area was one of the win conditions for the Game. On the other hand, if an enemy reached the Core Pillar at the heart of each House’s home territory, that House would be eliminated, their combatants required to stand down and watch for the rest of the Game. The second win condition for the Game was to be the last House with your Core Pillar untouched.

That also gave another reason why no one immediately caught on that Throk, Nahlans, and Alsin were working together. Ilzor was caught between Throk and Nahlans, so they were an obvious first target. And if Alsin turned their fangs on Dren, first? That was simply proximity, which would free Nahlans to attack either Ilzor or Vomhur, and so on. And, more than once, one of the three Houses would send stealth units into ‘allied’ territory to attempt to capture a Core Pillar, which further muddied the waters, and kept any accusations of collusion at bay. It was just a ‘coincidence’ if, say, Nahlans was poised to strike, hard, at Dren’s core territory just as one of their assassins ‘luckily’ touched Alsin’s Core Pillar while Dren’s forces were focused on them, drawn out of position and unable to keep Nahlans from capitalizing on the sudden shift.

Kisruz Hellbreath, one of the lords of House Throk and a Half-Hellfire Dragon High Fimaazro, was in charge of their front. They would be heading southeast, into Ilzor territory, with the hopes of knocking the House out early. Other teams were stationed to the northeast, to put Vomhur on notice, and tie up some of their forces so other houses could attack. A core group of Demonbinders stood as the defensive line to defend the territory, but it had been four Games since they had actually needed to be used.

Kisruz looked at the teams gathering by the southeastern gate. “All right, you lot. Some of you are new, but most of you have some experience with the Games. I’m not going to go on and on like one of those windbags in Vomhur or the sanctimonious fools in Ilzor. The job is simple enough. Take out enemy combatants, as much as you can, until you’re no longer able to continue. The badges will revive you at the end of the Game, so no worries, there. At most, you’ll be dead for no more than a day or two.”

The Helldragon Sorcerer smiled a toothy smile. “That does not mean you lot get to slack off, and just go through the motions, though! Ilzor won’t just roll over for us, and you can expect the other Houses to take their shots at us, as well. That is what it is. Don’t worry about Vomhur unless they push down into Ilzor’s territory while we’re there. But they should be occupied with Dren and our other fighters. Dren and Nahlans will have their own games going, and Alsin isn’t going to just let everyone else have all the fun.

“House Alsin currently holds the High Seat, and they aren’t going to give it up easily, if at all, so you can expect that they’ll be sending their best out to crush anyone they think could be a threat. That means if we win too quickly against Ilzor, and either Vomhur or Nahlans fall to us after that, Alsin will see us as the biggest contender, and move to strike. That’s simply how the Game is played, and you all know it. So, strike hard, strike fast, but don’t empty yourself against Ilzor unless you must. Remember, we don’t have to slay every last combatant, though every kill does get you contribution points. But in order to win, the House just needs to get one of our combatants to Ilzor’s Control Pillar, and they are out, which will let us move to the next target.”

Catalina nodded slowly to herself. She remembered the lecture they’d been given during the orientation for new combatants. Kills in the Game awarded points based on the combatant’s level and seniority in their House. Capturing a House’s Control Pillar granted that party an extra five thousand points. Assists were a thing, too, and the Scorekeepers would be watching the battle, from a variety of angles, and award points to individuals and groups that held a line, or enabled another group to advance. Those on defense of Throk’s Control Pillar would be granted points based on how long the pillar remained under their control, as well.

One thing she had found interesting was that there were two extra sources of Contribution Points. If a House’s Control Pillar was claimed, then all remaining combatants of the claiming house got contribution points equal to about 1% of the points they would have gotten for killing every single remaining combatant of the eliminated House. And if the High Seat’s Control Pillar was claimed by a rival house to end the Game, every remaining combatant for that house gained contribution points equal to 1% of the value of every remaining combatant of all the other houses combined.

Because of the High Seat’s importance, the reigning champion had to split their forces. If they focused on the High Seat, and left their territory weak, someone could make a push, eliminate the House, and then walk past all the High Seat’s defenders who were now eliminated, and barred from fighting. If they focused on the territory, and left the High Seat understrength, then another House could simply come in and take it from them, winning the Game that way.

That setup was part of the reason why House Alsin hadn’t had two consecutive victories in quite some time, despite being the largest and strongest of the six houses. On the surface, the rule seemed to be there to try and prevent any one House from dominating the Games, since one House winning every game would delegitimize them, and that could not be allowed. However, it was really designed to ensure that House Ilzor, the weakest of the six Houses, would have to work miracles in order to hold on to the High Seat long enough for any changes they wanted to make to become permanent effects, since one had to win three consecutive Games in order for that to happen.

That meant that there was next to no chance of the House Ilzor achieving their dream of bringing an end to slavery in Khav-Srokzas. Not unless they could convince other houses to go along with their ideals. Unfortunately for them, Ilzor was too weak, both militarily and financially, to offer anything to the other Houses that they could not more easily get for themselves, or obtain through more profitable trades. The House simply had no leverage, and everyone knew it. But they kept trying, because anything else would be a moral failing on their part.

She’d asked, during the orientation, why the other Houses put up with Ilzor and their fanaticism, instead of just quietly eliminating them. Not surprisingly, the answer was much the same as the reason why Shatterchain was allowed to exist on the previous floor of the dungeon. Not only would permanently eliminating Ilzor be more troublesome than it was worth, but it also made a convenient dumping ground for elements that otherwise might be too disruptive to the city as a whole. Ilzor offered a pressure release, somewhere to put all the most fanatical zealots, and their continued failures disheartened any less zealous individuals, reinforcing the idea that there was no hope for Ilzor’s reforms, so they might as well make the best of it living in the city as it was.

Her thoughts were cut off by a chime that sounded throughout the city. The kind of sound that was felt more than heard. Lord Kisruz roared in anticipation. “That’s the ready chime! Everyone, prepare for battle!”

A second chime sounded, followed by a third. And then, the gates of the staging ground opened, and Kisruz held up his staff. “THE GAME BEGINS! FOR HOUSE THROK!”

“FOR HOUSE THROK!” Catalina roared, as she and her party surged forward, along with all the other House combatants. Her first Game in the Upper City was beginning!