Chapter 34: Warning the Guild
DM was stuck on what to do about offering Bandit a monster, so he decided to shelve the decision for now. He could wait until the next time she came into the dungeon to make the offer, anyway. He’d definitely keep thinking about it.
He turned his attention back to the Upper Gordu Dungeon. The soldiers were finally conquering the lower levels. If DM wanted to start using the dungeon again, he’d need to wait them out or overpower them. If the Union army didn’t know about DM’s capabilities, they might be incredibly susceptible to his battle tactics. Infect, spawn tentacle, charm: it was hard to defend against. Still, that was a last resort. DM didn’t want to pick a fight with an entire nation if he didn’t have to. For now, so long as they left his dungeon console alone, he didn’t really care what they did in the dungeon.
Daphne’s group was already returning to the Guild. They had been gone for a few days, so their return was apparently expected, if not overdue. Spying through Daphne’s eyes and ears, DM witnessed his request getting conveyed to the Guild staff. Although the staff pressed for further information, Alenia refused to offer any, saying only that they conquered the dungeon, had a nice chat at the bottom, and left the dungeon in its original state, as promised.
DM wasn’t sure if leveling up the dungeon counted as leaving the dungeon in its original state, but he wasn’t about to complain. Actually, the Guild had been slowly leveling up his dungeon as payment for allowing newbies to train in relative safety. They didn’t have much of a right to complain if Alenia just eased things forward a bit.
Just as Daphne’s group was leaving the Guild, DM noticed the staff calling for Olivia. Presumably, they would ask Olivia to report to the dungeon right away. That worked just fine for DM.
While he waited for her to arrive, he experimented with the succubus. She didn’t seem to be able to speak for DM. Even when he instructed her to say ‘hello’ similar to how he instructed morphlings to speak for him, she wouldn’t or couldn’t do it. Perhaps she needed to be a higher tier or perhaps succubi couldn’t speak at all. The incubus and vampire DM summoned each behaved the same way.
Next, DM had a morphling change forms from Daphne into the succubus.
“…It’s me, Mario.”
It was really creepy hearing those words in a sexy female voice but the experiment was a success. When a morphling changed into the form of a succubus, even a T1 succubus, it could speak DM’s words. As with other cases, it wasn’t smart enough to do anything complex, like discuss the weather or describe DM’s appearance. Still, this was beneficial. DM didn’t need to copy a real person anymore in order to use a morphling as a mouthpiece.
DM had similar results changing the morphling into an incubus and a vampire. Perhaps at higher tiers these monsters could talk normally. Curious about what type of monsters would be unlocked at the next level, DM acknowledged that it would probably be a while. He could gain a fair amount of experience by wiping out all the soldiers in the other dungeon, but he’d probably regret it later. He wasn’t totally sure he’d be successful, anyway. The soldiers’ levels varied a fair bit.
While DM was experimenting, Olivia must have entered the forest. He got an alert and soon met her on the first floor, at least with a morphling.
“I’m here. That’s… quite a form you have there.”
DM had chosen the incubus form to talk to Olivia, not wanting to annoy her with a succubus form or scare her with a vampire form. The morphling wouldn’t attempt to use the incubus’ abilities, but it was still quite handsome, DM thought. He had to admit he wasn’t a good judge of that.
“…One of the elves got annoyed when I borrowed her form so I chose this random one instead.”
“I see…” Olivia fidgeted a bit and looked away. “Well, what did you need?”
Was the morphling using some incubus ability without DM realizing it? To be safe, he reminded the morphling not to use any abilities other than its own morph skill before providing further words to speak aloud.
“…I have a report for you to share with the Guild staff. A small army from the Union intruded on the dungeon in the Upper Gordu.”
“What!?”
“…It may be related to how I linked the two dungeons together. I suspect the Union will use this as a pretext to annex the Lower Gordu Forest. …After all, this dungeon is now connected to that one.”
“What do we do!? They could even get here before I make it back to the city!” Olivia started pacing furiously. “We’ll need to tell the Lord, but there’s no way the capital will…”
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Olivia’s words and actions were getting more and more frantic. DM was pretty sure the Union hadn’t marched south into Holy State territory yet, so the woman’s concerns, while generally justified, were overblown, at least for now. At a minimum, DM had every reason to suspect she’d be able to make it back to the Twin Cities safely and pass the word along to the Guild Master or whoever else needed to know. In fact, he’d see to that himself, but first she needed to calm down.
As she was practically hyperventilating, DM had the morphling step over to her, put its hands on her shoulders, and tell her to calm down. She stopped mumbling mid-sentence and stared into the morphling’s eyes like a small animal face to face with a predator.
Regaining the ability to speak again, she asked, “Will the Union attack the Twin Cities?” in a small voice.
“…I don’t know what they’re planning but I’ll do my best to prevent that from happening.” As the morphling was conveying that sentence, DM noticed Olivia was tearing up slightly. Perhaps she was remembering some prior trauma caused by the Union or previous violence involving the Twin Cities. Olivia had bounced back surprisingly well from all she was put through recently, but it could be that she was sensitive in situations like this one.
Wanting to reassure her, DM had the morphling gently wrap its arms around her. That may have been a mistake. She went weak in the knees and the morphling ended up slowly lowering her to the ground as she shivered.
“…Is this form a problem? I can change it to something else.”
“N—No, it’s not…” She didn’t finish her statement, perhaps not knowing if it was even true.
Not sure how much of Olivia’s behavior was being driven by her alarm over the bad news from the Union and how much was due to the morphling interacting with her, DM decided to have his speaker stand and step back again. “…All I wanted is for you to deliver this message to the Guild and let them decide what to do from there. I’ll help if the Union gets violent towards us.”
“All right…” Olivia took her time but managed to return to her feet. DM wanted to give her a hand, but clearly having the morphling step forward again would only make things worse. He could also summon a tentacle to help lift her up, but other than maybe the five beast-kin girls, he couldn’t imagine anyone else being happy about that sort of assistance. He actually did summon one as a precaution, but it merely brushed against her leg such that she didn’t even notice. “I’ll go straight back to the Guild and tell the Guild Master about what the Union’s up to. He’ll decide what to do from there.”
“…Good. Thank you.”
Olivia trotted over to the stairs but paused to look back over her shoulder. The morphling waved at her, causing her to shake her head and run up the stairs.
----------------------------------------
DM had a theory about what just happened. Perhaps incubi, and likely also succubi, couldn’t entirely turn off their abilities. Olivia seemed pretty vulnerable to begin with, given how she reacted so negatively to the news that the Union was taking action near the border to the north. In other circumstances, DM would have asked her about what history, if any, might be weighing on her emotions right now. Now didn’t seem to be the time for that.
While she was distraught regarding the news, Olivia also knew that she was in the presence of a friendly dungeon master who didn’t wish her harm. Having no reason to suspect foul play, she wouldn’t be on guard for any type of physical or mental assaults. What then would happen if she spoke with a creature who could bewitch women simply with its appearance and mannerisms? She’d be affected, for sure.
That reminded DM. Succubi clearly targeted men, and Incubi were effective against women. What would happen if Rufus came into contact with either type of demon? He was a man, clearly, so the monster of choice to defeat him would normally be a succubus, but he was, by his own admission, not interested in women in that way. Maybe he’d be more susceptible to the incubus, like Olivia was? It would be rude to test this out, using Rufus as a Guinea Pig, but DM had to admit he was curious.
Setting that aside, he monitored Olivia’s return to the Guild. He was pretty sure she hadn’t noticed him gently apply infect again while she interacted with the morphling. This was rude as well, but DM really needed more eyes in the city right now. He justified it to himself as this being how he would protect Olivia, especially given the new threat potentially facing the city.
By now, the soldiers had finished capturing the Upper Gordu Dungeon. Or whatever it was they were attempting to accomplish. Honestly, DM wasn’t sure how a nation could go about annexing wilderness from a neighboring country. The border was just a line on a map. It only mattered because people on both sides of the border recognized it as such. If the Union claimed the Lower Gordu Forest was now part of the Union, it wouldn’t really change anything. Even if an army camped out right at the edge of the forest, all they would really be doing is stopping adventurers or hunters from going into the forest to hunt and gather. That, and they’d prevent Holy State residents from exploring the Lower Gordu Dungeon.
Could that be the Union’s goal? To monopolize entry into DM’s two dungeons? Surely, the local Guild would be unhappy to lose their current arrangement. Leveling up newbies so that their stats allowed them to go on other missions was proving to be extremely effective. Not a single young adventurer in DM’s care had received any serious wounds or had other problems which would call into question the arrangement with the Guild. One could argue the new adventurers would grow too complacent in such a situation, but the Guild was surely hammering into these newest members the importance of remaining vigilant as they transitioned to combat outside the dungeon.
It would definitely be a shame from the Guild’s perspective to lose access to this training environment. DM really doubted that was the Union’s goal, though. Guarding the Lower Gordu Forest, or even just the dungeon, was difficult to maintain long-term. The resources required would cost the Union even more than the Holy State.
Even if the Union knew all about the arrangement between the Lower Gordu Dungeon and the Twin Cities Guild, they couldn’t easily mimic it. If the Union tried sending in their own newbies under the current circumstances, DM would just pester them until they left. He wouldn’t really hurt them since the young adventurers would likely be innocent themselves, but he’d still perform some light experiments on them before giving them a kick in the butt and sending them back north. Like what he originally did to Daphne’s party, except perhaps more. Now, he had more monsters to play with, after all.