Chapter 37: Memories of Temptation
DM sent a minotaur over to the room where each of the four adventurers was infatuated with a demon. Similar to what DM saw during his earlier experiment with the T1 tentacle monsters, it didn’t seem like the succubi and incubus were really trying to do anything to the adventurers other than effectively incapacitate them. The scary part was how the adventurers didn’t react even when the minotaur held its ax over their necks indicating that he was about to separate their heads from their bodies. They didn’t seem to notice or care.
Of course, DM didn’t have the minotaur actually bring the ax down; it was just a test. As he suspected, intruders who fell victim to these creatures would be at the mercy of any other monsters that came by. He wanted to test the effectiveness of a succubus or incubus against a much higher-level person, but doing so was risky for obvious reasons. He wouldn’t try out this “tempt” ability on anyone strong enough to actually defeat him. Fortunately, other than the recent elf visitors and maybe one or two dwarves DM could think of, there weren’t any folks DM had encountered who could potentially take him down one-on-one.
Right now, DM could summon a maximum of 30 LVL 10 creatures or 300 LVL 1 creatures. Since succubi had a minimum level of ten in DM’s dungeon, the most he could support right now was 30. Most of the soldiers in the Upper Gordu Dungeon were around LVL 10 or lower. While a couple were probably too high-level to fall victim to a LVL 10 succubus, DM was close to being able to overwhelmingly reclaim his dungeon. If he sent through an army of 25 succubi and say, three minotaur, he could tempt small groups of soldiers, have the minotaur cut them down, then move on to the next room. The advantage of this strategy was that DM wouldn’t need to get personally involved either by traveling there or even summoning tentacles to attack the enemy and turn them against each other. Still, it was a bit premature to actually execute any type of an aggressive plan like this. DM would wait and see what the Union’s next move was. After all, he had his backup army from the Upper Gordu Dungeon hanging out nearby, here in the Lower Gordu Dungeon.
DM returned his attention to the four captive adventurers. If they had been particular rude to him or his friends, he’d probably strip them of their gear before sending them on their way, but since they didn’t antagonize DM and actually proved helpful for his experiments, he’d let them go without further fuss. Wait a moment…
DM noticed that the adventurers were embracing their captor, sitting next to each other on the ground, although not really doing anything indecent. That much was fine, but DM wondered if the clock was ticking on these four adventurers gaining the ability to summon the monster they were in physical contact with. Did this situation count as being “outside of battle”? DM was tempted to just wait an hour or so and see, but that seemed like it was unnecessarily risky. Also, DM had only previously seen what happens when someone is able to summon the demon type that doesn’t target them. What would happen if a man summoned a succubus or a woman summoned an incubus? He didn’t know and he wasn’t sure he wanted to find out. He’d keep things quick for the rest of his experiment.
A morphling, of course in succubus form, entered the room and addressed one of the adventurers. “…Why did you choose to enter this dungeon?”
Of course, DM already knew the answer. He had been spying on the group as they discussed it. He was just seeing if they would provide an honest answer. Unfortunately, the question went unanswered as the morphling was ignored.
DM told one succubus that he wanted her target to answer the question. She grabbed the young man’s chin and turned his head to look at the morphling. She must have telepathically conveyed a directive for him to address the morphling’s question because he started speaking.
“We just wanted to give the dungeon a try. We thought it was silly that we couldn’t visit the dungeon, and we thought we’d get away with it.”
Well, the answer seemed honest enough. To complete the test, DM had the succubus will the young man into taking an item out of his pocket and handing it to her. It wasn’t anything valuable, but the success demonstrated that he was pretty much at the succubus’ mercy. The most interesting thing was that the guy was not afflicted with a status effect of any kind. Most likely, the demons’ control was not absolute. If DM ordered the guy, via the succubus, to brutally murder his three allies, he would probably resist the order. That’s quite different from charm where the person would comply so long as the status effect persisted and they were capable of carrying out the command.
Affection was another matter. If DM fully applied affection to someone, would they do something horribly evil and out of character? DM hadn’t tested that either, and frankly, he didn’t want to. As of now, his only test subject was Barney, and even if Barney carried out whatever crazy order DM gave, that wouldn’t really prove anything. Generally, DM didn’t want to actually test this out on people with a conscience. It went against his sensibilities and reminded him of events from certain stories he never liked much.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
DM knew that people didn’t remember anything they had done while charmed. He suspected strongly that people wouldn’t forget their actions taken while under the influence of “affection.” What about this new tempt ability? They weren’t really under the effect of a status effect, right? Olivia didn’t forget her run-in with the morphling. Granted, the tempt ability was doubly weakened due to the active ability being turned off and the creature being a morphling instead of an actual incubus. Regardless, it was time to find out for sure.
At DM’s command, the four demons released their ability and jogged out of the room, leaving behind several stupefied adventurers. They were also infected. DM was curious what they would do from here.
Well, the first thing they did was argue with each other. It seemed like the natural response was to try and place blame elsewhere rather than on oneself. Eventually, they all came to accept what had happened. DM couldn’t tell for sure, but it seemed like they retained their memories, although it was a bit foggy for each of them. In other words, the result was halfway between the effects of charm and affection.
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“I’m telling you, the dungeon seduced us with monsters!” One of the adventurers was making his case to the Guild clerk while DM observed from afar with amusement.
“The monsters… seduced you?”
“Yes! I mean, obviously, it was some type of monster ability! We’re not into monsters, right?” He looked back and forth at his allies for confirmation, although one just buried her face into her palm.
“I believe I understand,” the clerk confirmed, after hearing him out. “You snuck in to the Lower Gordu Dungeon without permission because you’re all oddly attracted to monsters. You took advantage of the fact that nobody was in the dungeon, but the dungeon master somehow pulled a fast one on you so you’re here pretending to be the victims.”
“Why don’t you believe us!”
“What are you even complaining about?” the clerk responded in her cross-examination. “You have all your gear intact, you aren’t injured, and clearly you weren’t charmed since your explanation shows you remember what happened.”
“That…”
The clerk just tilted her head cutely.
“We’re not into monsters!”
“I truly hope that is the case. I’m glad you all made it back safely. Next!”
The adventurers’ warning fell on deaf ears but DM didn’t mind. The adventurers should probably be thankful. After all, the Guild was apparently going to overlook the party’s unauthorized entry into the Lower Gordu Dungeon since they had already fallen victim to something…
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Bandit reached the border, having not spotted anyone from the Union so far. After scouting for a while according to her instructions, she slipped further into the Upper Gordu Forest. By now, the Lord’s scouts were surely nearing the border themselves, so it didn’t make sense for her to linger any longer. She wasn’t necessarily doing anything wrong, but she was also pretty sure the Guild wanted her extracurricular activities to remain secret from the city government. Even if there were suspicions about her, there couldn’t be any proof. Most likely, Thaw operated in the same manner.
Nearing the Upper Gordu Dungeon, Bandit was finally noticing signs of Union activity. She already knew the dungeon was occupied with at least a company of soldiers, and now she was able to confirm several scouts were monitoring the woods from poorly hidden position within trees. After circling around their formation for a couple of hours, she determined the nine or so scouts formed a rough half-circle around the dungeon, about 1 kilometer distant. Each of them seemed far enough from the others that they couldn’t monitor each other. That didn’t make much sense to Bandit, but it was to her benefit. She could question one of the scouts without interruption, at least until the next changing of the guard.
Bandit summoned a succubus and draped her own cloak over it to disguise its demon features. She and her demon split up.
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Hiding in a tree was extremely tiring. It wouldn’t be so bad if you could just relax in whatever stance came naturally. But no, you needed to maintain a positioning that made yourself harder to detect. Often, that meant using your muscles for hours on end. One scout was reminding himself for the umpteenth time how much he hated this assignment when he heard a noise nearby in the underbrush.
The noise was surprisingly close. If it were caused by some undetected person, he’d surely have noticed them before they got this close, unless they were quite skilled. It must have been a small animal. Still, he couldn’t afford to just ignore it.
Quietly lowering himself from the tree, he stalked towards the point where the sound originated. Just as he laid eyes on the cause, a fist-sized stone, a knife cut through his peripheral vision and settled just beyond his jugular. All these hours of waiting must have numbed him slightly.
“I’m not here to hurt anyone,” the scout announced, hoping to avoid bloodshed, at least until he was in a better position to be dealing the damage himself.
“Don’t move,” a muffled voice commanded.
While he debated internally whether or not to try making a move here, he heard footsteps coming from the front. Lifting his gaze, he noticed a woman walking towards him. He couldn’t really make out her form under her garments. Now that he was outnumbered, he’d act obedient, at least for the time being.
He locked eyes with the approaching woman. He couldn’t make out her features other than her eyes, but obviously she was quite a beauty.