Chapter 33
I submitted a new chapter to the Flowst core:
The sorceress queen, having mastered the element of ice in her revenge against the royal family, had captured a fire witch to learn more about the element of fire.
The fire witch became a test subject and plaything for the twisted queen.
When she grew bored of the fire witch, she passed the prisoner off to her ice witches so they too could have their fun.
Meanwhile, the succubus wife and flesh golem husband that owned the Grubiit dungeon sent golem scouts into the world so that they might have advance notice of demon hunters and other threats that might act against their dungeon.
One of those scouts discovered the Flowst dungeon and learned of the fire witch in captivity.
Seeing an opportunity to bolster their defenses and to secure a new ally, the Grubiit dungeon bosses designed Ice-resistant golems and invaded the sorceress queen’s domain.
Taken by surprise and ill-prepared to repel an invasion of that size, the queen’s forces wilted against the assault.
The golems reached the tower, freed the fire witch, and joined her in storming the throne room.
The fire witch took the queen and her ice witch minions hostage.
When the fire witch’s victory was absolute, word spread, and soon earth and air witches migrated to the Flowst dungeon.
They too despised the ice witches and desired the safety that only numbers could provide.
The new ruler and her allies transformed the dungeon into a celebration of their elements.
The frozen swamp was drained and cleared of trees.
Half became the sanctuary of an air witch, and the other half became the sanctuary of an earth witch.
The region that was once behind walls of ice became the domain of fire.
Elementals and aspiring witches flocked to their respective elements, while ice witches were put on display as a reminder of their treachery.
Golems of each element joined flesh golems in laboring for the new kingdom.
The elementals guarded their masters, while the flesh golems were tasked with sating the bottomless desires of the witches.
The air and earth witches, as servants of the fire witch, became minibosses willing to protect the kingdom from interlopers.
At the top of the tower, the fire witch now watches over her land with a powerful weapon: the captive sorceress queen. With the queen on her knees, the false winter retracted from Flowst. Now, at night, the orgasmic moans of conquerors and prisoners echo out of the dungeon.
New chapter accepted. Dungeon will update after the next reset.
For the new Grubiit chapter, I decided an experiment was in order because I still knew very little about how dungeon cores worked or the rules with which they operated.
I risked wasting a bonus chapter to learn more about the most valuable tools in my arsenal.
Instead of writing a detailed chapter with exact requests, I wanted to see how many blanks the dungeon core itself would fill.
So for the Grubiit chapter, I wrote:
Word of the Grubiit dungeon couple spread to the heavens.
Disgusted by the hedonism on display in the dungeon, an invading horde of celestials–of all types and varieties and rank–descended on the dungeon.
Presently, the demons that claimed the dungeon city for their own are locked in a bitter battle to keep their enemies from advancing deeper into the dungeon.
At the same time, the legend of the secret establishment known only as “Penny’s” spread across the land.
Fearing that the celestials might eventually overrun their defenses, the succubus and the flesh golem sought to rally new allies with their unique offering.
They established a grand beacon at the dungeon entrance to attract new patrons who could aid in repelling the celestials on their way to nights of endless decadence and luxury in the arms of Penny’s beautiful hostesses.
New chapter accepted. Dungeon will update after the next reset.
“Abby!” I called when I returned to my room in Sanctuary.
“Yes, Master?” she asked when she appeared.
“Fetch Podni and Cici.”
The liluti bowed and vanished. Several minutes later, my fit saboteur entered my room with Cici following behind. Where Podni walked with purpose and confidence, Cici bounced and danced as if her every step had to be more playful than the last.
Podni smiled warmly. “Yes, Father?”
“You and Cici are coming with me to Flowst.”
Entering the Flowst chapter of the Dungeon Brawlers with a grigori in tow silenced the boisterous fanfare so common to guild halls, but I saw more than a few adventurers eyeing Podni’s figure. Frankly, I couldn’t blame them.
“Are Lyle and Trina in?” I asked one of the counter girls, speaking over the line of adventurers waiting to cash in loot or take care of other business with the guild.
An exceptionally curvy brunette nodded and pointed to the stairs.
I knocked on Lyle’s office door on my way to Trina’s. He opened his right when I rapped my knuckles on hers.
“Byron?” Lyle asked. “Everything alright?”
Trina yelled from inside her office, “Come in!”
“I bring business,” I said over my shoulder to Lyle. “Cici, please stand guard out here.”
“Yes, Father. A Cici will stand guard.”
Lyle attempted to resist the temptation of staring at Cici’s marble body and broken angel wings but failed. His eyes didn’t leave her until he joined Podni and me in Trina’s office, and the door had shut.
Trina frowned at me from behind her desk. I knew she hated it when I showed up at the guild hall like this, unannounced and without an appointment, but she knew I was a powerful earner, so she did her best to hide her annoyance.
“What brings you and your entourage to Flowst?” Trina asked.
“Samson Oliverry has left Flowst and will not return,” I said. “My proposal: the Guild can have everything but the dreamdust business. My people will take over manufacturing, and I’ll give the guild a percentage of the profits if they take over managing distribution on my behalf.”
“The Guild doesn’t play in the drug market,” Trina reminded me.
“I know. That’s why I’m offering you the rest of the Oliverry empire. Run dreamdust under the Flowst chapter or run it separately from the Guild and pocket the profits yourself; I don’t care. If the dreamdust keeps flowing, I’ll be happy. However that happens doesn’t matter to me.”
“How certain are you that Lord Oliverry has moved on?” Lyle asked. “That’s a sudden and extreme change for a noble of that pedigree.”
“Absolutely certain. He will likely attempt to run his empire from Lopav, which is where he will be from now on. He did not expect this either and will be disorganized for some time, I suspect. If we act now, we can make sure he doesn’t reclaim his grip on Flowst, and the Guild can have all of his business instead. ”
Lyle crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. To Trina, he said, “Byron has never been wrong about a tip. If any other outfit takes over the dreamdust market, we’ll have a new, very well-funded enemy.”
“The other guild masters will cry foul,” Trina warned.
“Then I’ll run it myself outside of Guild business,” Lyle proposed.
“And still cut the Guild in?”
Lyle laughed. “Come on, Trina. If the Guild isn’t supporting it, then they don’t get to profit from it.”
“Are you concerned someone will challenge your membership or my title?”
He shrugged. “So what if they do? You and I both know that Bruhelmond did serious damage to guild cohesion with his tantrum over Byron. Everyone in this chapter would back us if the Guild tried to remove or demote us for dabbling in the drug trade.”
“Which includes me,” I added.
“We busted our asses to get this chapter to where it is,” Lyle continued. “The town guard, Lady Sarah, whatever was left of the Ravens–With Oliverry out of the picture, we can own Flowst. All of it.”
Trina’s frown deepened. “We may encounter resistance.”
“That’s why I brought Cici,” I said. “She will be Podni’s bodyguard for however long it takes to locate and secure control of Oliverry’s dreamdust. If there is any issue, Cici can handle it.”
With a skeptical glance toward the door my grigori waited behind, Trina asked, “Is she strong enough?”
Lyle cleared his throat. “Trina, she’s the strongest being I’ve ever seen, by a substantial margin. We could win a war with just her.”
Right. Lyle had an ability that let him analyze targets to see their levels and classes. He had done the same to me once upon a time. Seeing that Cici was level 127 must have been quite a shock for him.
“Okay, I’m in,” Trina said.
“Good. Podni will take it from here. Her voice is my voice, so you have no need to doubt how I might react or feel about a decision she makes.” I opened the office door. “Cici, do what Podni says.”
“Yes, Father,” Cici said with a smile. Trina and Lyle both seemed uncomfortable with her calling me “father.”
For how long they had known me, a being from another plane calling me “father” should have been pretty damn close to normal by now.
Before I left, I kissed Podni on the cheek and said, “You’re going to do great.”
“I know.”
Her confidence was such a turn-on. Podni always made it so hard for me to walk away.
At the same time, I knew the dreamdust operation would be in good hands. As soon as we controlled it, we could incorporate Intoxicate+100 into the recipe and distribution, adding a new dimension to dreamdust addiction for customers all across the plane.
The dungeon update brought my new chapters to life.
Flowst became the elemental dungeon I envisioned.
The ice witches were now slaves to the other witches, every one of them wearing gags and collars.
All of the witches were above the ice witches now, but the more powerful elemental witches wore strap-ons and carried whips.
An adventurer could turn a corner almost anywhere in the dungeon and find one witch hate-fucking an ice witch.
The fire witch queen, who now served as the dungeon boss, kept the sorceress queen alive.
A flesh golem held her from behind, one arm under each armpit, and carried her so that her back was always against his chest. The flesh golem’s cock was the size of my forearm and impaled the sorceress.
When adventurers eventually found their way to the top of the tower, the flesh golem would use the sorceress queen’s magic against them.
The harder he fucked her, the stronger the ice magic she produced. With the strength of the fire witch queen also at play in that battle, I suspected it would be some time before adventurers could conquer that combination of advanced fire and ice magic.
As I requested, the permanent winter on Flowst was lifted, and while I was mostly disappointed with the Grubiit dungeon update, I was pleased by how the core implemented my request to advertise Penny’s at the dungeon entrance.
A beam of light shot straight up into the sky and cycled through projected animated line art of men and women fucking. That display could be seen from miles away. Periodically, the lewd art would disappear, and “Penny’s” with a downward arrow beneath it would flash. Then the porn resumed.
But the celestial addition was meh. I got 11 new celestial units out of it, but most of them were variations of grigori and angeli. Only one mob was from the plane of archangeli, and I estimated it was maybe three-fourths as strong as Solara’s Abyssal Silk Knight summon.
“You seem disappointed,” Purity observed when I returned to my room after inspecting my dungeons. She lounged on a chair by the window in pink underwear. Her legs were draped over one armrest, and she leaned against the other while she sipped wine and read a book.
“I learned I need to be as specific as possible with dungeon core chapters,” I replied. “That’s good to know, but wasting a free chapter still stings.”
“I was surprised to hear you added celestials of all things to the Grubiit dungeon.”
“We’re immune to Holy now, but our enemies on the abyssal plane aren’t. They won’t expect an undead sovereign to put Holy units onto a battlefield.”
“No, I don’t suppose they would. Very clever, Master. You should sit with me and enjoy the view you created.”
“If only I could,” I said. “I have more to do.”
Purity closed her book. “How can I help?”
“You’ve been doing public appearances all day. I know you’re tired.”
“That’s sweet of you, but I’m not tired. Use me, Master.”
I swallowed. It always got me when she looked at me with her big brown eyes and said fucked-up shit like that. No matter how many times and how many ways I had her, she still made me weak.
“Please ask Ashley and Invia to write letters to the monarchs of the other kingdoms. In those letters, they should make a renewed emphasis on our desire for peace while giving advanced notice of my coming arrival in their capitals. With that notice, they can reveal that my intention is to offer them a gate to Sanctuary South, connecting their cities to a global trade network. Furthermore, their citizens will be permitted to use the gates to travel as they please. A trip between two capitals will take minutes instead of weeks as a result.”
Purity nodded, stood, and walked across the room to put her hands on my hips. She bent her neck back to look up at me. I caught a peek of her tan lines when the cups of her bra shifted.
“You’re a great man, and I’m glad we have eternity to spend together,” she said, her eyes sparkling.
“Just because we have a lot of time doesn’t mean we still shouldn’t be careful about wasting it, though.
So often it’s you who does all the work to bring us pleasure, so don’t forget to lie back sometimes and let yourself enjoy what you’ve built. ”
“I’m lucky to have you.”
“I’m yours until the end of time.”