Chapter 32 #2
Adventurers wouldn't know anything about the Forgotten One or why they were significant, but I suspected the demon merchants who frequented Penny's would.
Soon, word would spread through the hells that the Forgotten One allied with me.
The rumors and misinformation would, with some luck, keep the Forgotten One in hiding inside his 100-floor hole.
Even if Abaddon didn't ultimately fall for the ruse, which I knew was unlikely, sowing even hypothetical distrust could poison a relationship between allies.
No one could argue that I went into the Capital dungeon and yet still lived. Questions would naturally follow.
Now that I was safe and my misinformation campaign had begun, I returned to the Flowst dungeon and gave the dungeon core menus a more thorough review:
Flowst Dungeon Core
Lord: Brenin of Borja
Level: 1,007
Available DP: 55,391,769
Daily DP Gain: 11,254
Progress to Next Level: (482,654 / 999,999,999)
Status: Tethered
Holy shit that was a lot of DP. Given that the Flowst dungeon had 7 floors, I expected the level of the dungeon core to be in the 700s.
For whatever reason, the previous owners of the Flowst core didn’t purchase the unlocks to add new floors.
The Frozen Fiend only ever wanted to party, so that inactivity made sense.
But what was the dryad saving for that she forewent all kinds of unlocks and upgrades?
I couldn’t immediately divine what her strategy could have been, if she even had one.
But I wondered…
Yes. Fuck, yes. The Flowst dungeon core had Advanced Transportation unlocked. I could buy as many permanent gates as I desired. If I wanted, I could upgrade to Legendary Transportation:
Legendary Transportation
Cost: 25,000,000 DP
Gain the ability to create dynamic doorways between two locations. A dynamic doorway can have complex logic, impart buffs or debuffs, and be one-way. Cost of a doorway is dependent on its size. Note: Doorways made with Legendary Transportation are permanent doorways.
If the progression for the Transportation tree matched other progression paths in the dungeon core, and I had no reason to believe it didn’t, Mythic Transportation was next for a cost of 50,000,000 DP, and then Cosmic Transportation came after for a cost of 100,000,000 DP.
I wished I could read ahead to see what those would offer because I wanted movable gates more than any of the perks in Legendary Transportation.
Would the later tiers add that option, though? I had no real idea.
I skimmed through the other chosen unlocks to get a sense for what this core could do that, perhaps, the Grubiit core couldn’t.
For enemies, the core had Basic Jungle Creatures, Improved Living Statues, Advanced Undead, and Legendary Humans already purchased. I clicked into Legendary Humans to learn more:
Legendary Humans
Cost: 25,000,000
Gain the ability to spawn humans up to level 50 with your choice of class selections. Customize their appearance, personality, and fighting style.
That must have been how the dungeon got its sorceress queen and maybe even the old king miniboss from back when the dungeon was flooded and not frozen.
I clicked into the ability, wondering why so few mobs from this unlock were used in the dungeon.
The ice witches and fire witches were under this menu as well, so the unlock wasn’t as neglected as I first thought.
I kept browsing.
Improved Secret Passages was the source of the key puzzle we had to solve to access the crypt when the dryad was still alive.
Advanced Weather Systems was responsible for the powerful wind at the top of the tower.
Legendary Kill Bonus? What the hell was that?
Legendary Kill Bonus
Cost: 25,000,000
When an adventurer dies in your dungeon, earn more bonus DP based on their level. Note: Rewards are not fixed and scale with adventurer level.
The way that read to me was that the per-level bonus for a level 5 adventurer would be much lower than the per-level bonus for a level 10 or 20. That was disappointing, but it made sense from a fairness standpoint. Slaying 10 level 1 adventurers wasn’t the same as slaying 1 level 10 adventurer.
The nigh-unbeatable door guardian made a bit more sense now that I knew this unlock existed. The dryad may have been farming DP, so it wanted adventurers to fail.
I knew I received the option to write a new dungeon chapter at no cost as a reward for acquiring the dungeon core, but I had cleared the notification without fully reading it:
A New Era
One-Time
For defeating a Dungeon Lord and acquiring their dungeon core, submit a new chapter at no cost. Note: Owning more than one dungeon core entitles you to expand the story beyond the dungeon.
The bit about expanding beyond the dungeon wasn’t a part of that unlock when I first got the Grubiit core. The Frozen Fiend used that bonus to turn Flowst into a winter wonderland, I suspected.
On top of all the choices I could make with my new dungeon, I had also leveled up from defeating 10 elder liches. Reaching tier 10 antipaladin earned me a bonus ability:
Advanced Silkmancer
Passive Ability
The reach of your Silkmancer ability is extended an additional 90 ft.
This might be embarrassing for a two-time Dungeon Lord to admit, but when you achieve as much as I had, you become unapologetic about what you want and what makes you happy.
Advanced Silkmancer had obvious tactical advantages.
A greater reach meant far more versatility because an extension of a radius meant a rapidly expanding square footage for how much of the world I could influence.
But my first thought when I read Advanced Silkmancer was, “I can rub panties from even farther away now!”
So I had a hobby. I worked hard. I deserved some me-time.
Anyway, I knew I was taking Plague Bearer because I needed it to defeat Abaddon, but I read the new options anyway:
Lesser Necromancy
Active Ability
Reanimate dead organisms and control them with basic commands. Your reanimation will be 10% as strong as it was in life. Number of undead and duration of reanimation is based on your level.
Prerequisite: Shadows of Death
Summon Hell Fiend
Active Ability
In exchange for accepting a divine quest, summon a powerful fiend from the hells to fight on your behalf. This ability cannot be activated if you have a quest pending, and failing to complete the divine quest could offend the fiend who aided you.
Corpse Eater
Active Ability
Consume the hearts of paladins you've slain to gain rewards proportional to their level.
Prerequisite: 200 paladins slain, Corpse Builder
Corpse Eater was mostly useless now that so few paladins were left, and I had little use for necromancy or summons.
That made me feel better about diving into the unselected pool for Plague Bearer:
Plague Bearer
Active Ability
Cooldown: 1 Minute
Spread a corrupted fog in a circle surrounding your position. Living things who encounter the fog are afflicted with a disease whose strength scales with your level. Additionally, choosing this ability grants permanent immunity to all diseases.
Which was also useless to me, but I needed Plague Bearer to meet the prerequisites for the ability I would take when I leveled antipaladin again:
Plague Master
Active Ability
Cooldown: 12 Days
Spend good-aligned levels to design a unique disease.
Prerequisites: Plague Bearer, Corpse Builder
Having seen how Solara’s Spell Forgemaster ability worked, I suspected Plague Master would have a similar setup.
Once I had Plague Master, I would design a disease that completely eliminated the threat the abyssal plane posed to me, and I would trick Abaddon into exposing himself to the disease.
After he died a horrifically painful death, Mammoni could have whatever was left and do with it as she pleased.
I selected Plague Bearer.
-3 Progress to your fall.
Progress to Your Fall: 43 / 100 (Abaddon, King of the Abyss)
That notification suggested that the system believed my plan had merit. That was reassuring.
I reviewed the rest of my character sheet:
Level: 34
Progress to Next Level: (4,501,883 / 26,214,400)
Class: Abyssal Sovereign, Tier 16 (2,113,694 / 6,553,600)
Second Class: Fighter, Tier 10
Third Class: Antipaladin, Tier 10
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Strength 151
Dexterity 135
Constitution 142
Intelligence 146
Wisdom 40
Charisma 40
Loyalty Pledges: 577
Oaths of Devotion: 21
Followers of the Silk: 273
Progress to Your Fall: 43 / 100 (Abaddon, King of the Abyss)
Active Abilities: Sense Weakness+1, Abyssal Reward for the Loyal, Safe Word+25, Rope Burn+25, Ghostly Feint+4, Unholy Smite+10, Darkness+14, Wraith+5, Abyssal Permission, Blood Feast+10, Corpse Builder, Shadows of Death+1, Hymen Harvester, Plague Bearer
Passive Abilities: Bend, Finesse+8, Improved Footing, Improved Accuracy+3, Enemy Study+1, Sense Danger, Unrelenting, Sugar Daddy, Pact of the Ice Fiend, Afterglow, Sharpen+27, Enthrall, Oath of the Silk Noose, Tactician, Silkmancer+20, Devotion Reaper+21, Intoxicate+100, On Behalf of the Viceroy, Dark Champion+2, King of Kings, Path of the Emperor, Restraint, Abyssal Gaze, Harem Master, Advanced Silkmancer
Shared Abilities: Greater Touch of Ice, Touch of Abyssal Undeath
Equipment: Ring of Strength +1, Bonfire Amulet, Immunity to Poison Amulet, Ring of Legendary Obscurify, Ring of Mind Fortress, Ring of Magic Resistance, Necklace of Resistance to Holy, Bracelet of Nightsight.
21,712,517 XP until my next level of antipaladin. That number would have sickened me at one time in my life, but now I only saw it as 28 boss rush laps.
Shit. No, that math wasn’t right. The Flowst dungeon core belonged to me, so I couldn’t kill the Flowst boss for XP.
I would need something like 35 boss rush laps, but that was still nowhere near as much work and time as I would have spent earning the same amount of XP with traditional dungeon diving.
In that moment, I felt as if I could take on Abaddon with my bare hands.
Was this the hubris the Forgotten One was talking about?