Dungeon Annihilation 2 - 5

Hey Everyone! Sorry for no post the last two days. Took a unplanned mini break. Enjoyed some family time you know. Here is the chapter!

Regan

This little lord was too easy. If she had lived during my time on Earth, I worried she might have been quite the hussy. I could almost taste the greed washing off from her. It was worth this little act I was putting on with my other form. I could foster two sets of connections by taking different personas with people, had been my initial reason for doing this, but I didn’t think it would be this fun.

“Surely you want something in return?” the Countess asked. 

She just barely managed to pull her eyes from the gold. Her bodyguard seemed much less inclined to go along with this transaction, but even her eyes kept going back to the gold. The goal of this was to make her want more. If I made this one an easy enough trade, then she would come back to me for more and more in the future. With each transaction requiring more from her. 

“The number of people coming to my dungeon has fallen. If people stop coming in, then I fail as a dungeon core. I want you to fix this for me.” I was sure as the lord of the town outside she must know that as well. Though she could be incompetent, and spoon fed the information that mattered by her advisors.

She glanced back at her bodyguard who nodded making me wonder again which of the two she was. “Cassie was planning on telling you after the tournament,” her bodyguard said with a bowed head. 

The countess turned back to me. “The death rate is too high. Only people with a certain level of strength will attempt it.” At least she knew the fundamental problem. 

“I see.” Though I already knew that. I held out my hand and dropped one of the newest blades created by Envy. It was enchanted to never dull and could slice through steel. “Weapons of this caliber can be found in the Workshops of Envy. After the Gothic City as you people are calling it are the Mines of Greed.”

The countess took the blade and looked to Ezal. The bodyguard pulled out a dagger and the countess swung. The blade of the dagger went flying as it was cut like paper. I was glad that I didn’t have to pay the Oni working in the workshops. I wasn’t sure I would have been able to afford them.

“This is a decent weapon. I’ll have to get it appraised, but I believe you. I will get more people in your dungeon.” She had a new determined expression which I decided wasn’t too bad on her.

“Good. The one named Earle has been to the mines. He can vouch for their existence if your people don’t believe you,” I said deciding to throw my other self some glory. With that, I allowed my shadow form to break into liquid and seep through the cracks under us. 

Returning to where I left Raven and Set with my dragon-kin form, Ivan was talking to me about slave trade picking up around the country. It had been interesting to split my avatar like that. Mentally exhausting, but I was glad I knew I could do it. 

“Does that signal an upturn or downturn in the economy?” I asked. 

“Depends. Since the recent war between the two countries ended, I would say upturn, but trade is still limited. Many villages can’t afford to pay their taxes and send a few young bodies to the lords in compensation.”

“I see. Good time to get into the business then.”

“Yes. Many of the villages have strong men and plenty beautiful women that have little choice in the matter.”

“I’ll need to try my hand at it.” I looked at his slaves, a few of them were looking curiously at Raven but were keeping their mouths smartly shut. I would hate to have to slaughter them all. “You plan to head to the tavern later?” I asked turning my attention back to Ivan.

“I don’t think I could survive this hole of a town if not for the mead at the Inn,” Ivan said with a laugh.

“Until later then,” I said with a nod before walking with the ladies to the matrix. 

Just outside my dungeon at the bottom of the mountain wall, the construction of the arena for the tournament was well under way. At first I thought they were putting it there not realizing that my sight reached it, but according to Set there were mages that could tell where my aura truly stopped so they knew perfectly well what they were doing.

The arena itself reminded me of a gladiator ring from Rome. Stands circled a ring for combat. A decent amount of magic had been worked into the structure to protect the audience and the stage from damage. I estimated that it could take up to tier two level five before things started to get hairy. 

We left the dungeon like regular adventurers and made our way to town. It was a good hour when walking like normal and made me want to install a tram or train to speed it up. Maybe later once I’ve reached a good level of power. The first of the walls came into view letting up know we had reached the town.

“Let’s head to the adventurer’s guild. I want to say we reached the mines before the countess comes looking for us,” I said heading for the building. It was on the path so not far out of our way.

Pushing through the doors, the first-floor tavern revealed itself. A few of the parties looked up but otherwise disregarded us. More than a few of the men’s gazes lingered on Set and Raven. We moved up to the counter and I handed for a few sheaf of parchment. It had information of the Mines and what we ‘found’ there.

The attended looked it over before turning an unbelieving look on me. “Seriously? No dungeon has ever had a mine that large before. I find this hard to accept.” His voice carried to some of the nearby parties who turned to look on with interest.

“I don’t believe its my job to make you accept it. I turned it in, give me the information reward,” I demanded holding out my hand, my claws on full display. I really could care less about the gold, but I needed people to realize that Earle was not to be messed with. 

The man clicked his tongue but handed over the two gold pieces. I grinned and took them. “Here!” 

“Smart move.” Judging by his attitude, he likely intended to keep them for himself. I flicked one of the coins over to the barkeeper. “As many rounds as this will buy for everyone in the tavern.” A cheer resounded and the night began.

~~~

“That was a gold coin well spent,” I commented as we walked back to the dungeon in the morning. All the adventurers were quite open to talk once they had some alcohol in them. Much of it was mainly bragging, but I did get a few tidbits of information I thought was worth it.

One such pearl was that the church in the south of Lecazar was no better than a military gang. They would take what they wanted lords and commoners be damned. Rumor had it that their goddess had been rather distant as of late. I wasn’t sure how gods fit into this world yet, but I knew religion back on Earth. There were points in the various religions that they were corrupted from the inside and usually resulted in a purge of sorts. It might not affect me up here, but it was something to pay attention to, as I’d met the Lelune they talked about, at least sort of.

“It might do us good to create an infiltration group for some of the cities. They could feed us information about the power and influence of the people living there, as well as, help us destroy it in the future. Reaching out to some of these other dungeon might an idea, master,” Set added. 

I put a hand to my heart. “I’m so proud of you. I couldn’t have said it better myself.” I turned to Raven. “Where did you get off to last night?”

“I was playing with a cat,” she replied straight-faced.

I didn’t take her for an animal person, but there are times that people tended to hide that sort of information. She was bond to me though, and I couldn’t detect any malicious intent or desire. If she did harbor such things, I would be surprised given I had saved her life and given her power. 

We soon made it back to the dungeon. Once we were out of sight of any of the early risers, I dismissed my avatar and Set dismissed her illusion. Raven moved to her room deeper in the dungeon for some rest as well. More than a few men had tried to get her drunk so they could have some fun with her, but all had ended up drunk and throwing up outside. That said, she was still affected by the alcohol, just not as strongly.

I checked the time, I had a few hours before I was supposed to meet a few parties that intended to hit the mines. I wanted to see what their reaction would be to the ore available thus I planned to help for a while, before I sale the token to someone else. Perhaps Ivan given the recourse I had going with him. I’m sure it would piss the little countess off as well. 

Quickly casting my sight around my influence, I found there was only a few parties that had started for the day. They were all a notch above the parties that first entered the dungeon meaning. I watched for a while but decided that while they were better, it was mainly only in terms of teamwork. These parties likely had been together for a while and knew each other well.

There wouldn’t be much to learn from them. Other than the Marquis’s party, there were only two others in the area that I knew of that were actively diving my dungeon in the tier two range. Those were the parties I was watching for, I could actually learn something from their magic. 

Glancing at my mana pool, I debated working on another section of the dungeon. Ideally, I wanted to wait until I had more mana. My work on the Lust floor took a bit more mana than I wanted and there was still some work that needed to be done on that floor with spreading the monsters out more evenly.

Moving to the top of my tower, I took in the sight. The tower was roughly two hundred meters and some change tall now. Not even close to the tallest buildings from back on Earth, but not bad for only being in this world for close to three months. The mountain next to me still soared into the sky. I was sure it was taller than Everest though I wasn’t sure by how much. 

As I took the mountain in, I remembered the vision or communication I had with the dungeon across it. I did tell her I would help her, but the how was the question. I was sure that whatever force resided on the other side of this pile of rocks wouldn’t just roll over and take it. Not to mention, if I wasn’t careful, I might end a prisoner like her. 

At tier two level two as the locals would classify my power, most of the mana generating schemes that had gotten me to this point were barely trickles. With the colony of Care, the undead, and the necromancers all pumping tainted mana into my dungeon, I was nowhere near short, but it never hurt to have too much when planning a war.

Looking at the mountain again, I got an idea. I wasn’t sure if it would work, but if it did, I would be over the mountain in only a few minutes. Not one to let sleeping dogs lie, I mentally cracked my knuckles as I got to work.

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