Chapter 7: Conqueror of Dungeons
DM couldn’t see anyone guarding the entrance to the dungeon, so he landed outside and ordered his flying escort to disperse. He couldn’t think of a good reason to bring them into the narrow dungeon halls with him. He entered the dungeon and descended the stairs, pausing in the dungeon’s first room.
Before proceeding deeper into the dungeon, DM decided to give his infect targets a quick check. He started with the four girls guarding his dungeon back in the Lower Gordu Forest. Vulp and Shiba were patrolling the bottom of the dungeon, not that there was really any need. DM would get an alert if someone new entered, whether he was in the dungeon or not. He could always send an infected morphling to encounter the intruders, if necessary. Where the girls might come in handy would be if he needed them to stall somehow until he himself could make it back.
Kat was resting in one of the spare beds, snuggled up against a dog. In the next bed, Lupy was… what? The minotaur, actually a morphling, was lying on the floor on its back. The creature was a little too big to use a normal-sized bed. Lupy was curled up on the minotaur’s abdomen, covered with whatever she was using as a makeshift blanket, fast asleep. DM could command the morphling to change to another form, but that would cause Lupy to fall down and certainly wake up. DM gave up and decided he’d worry about it later.
Vera and Bandit had returned to the city. Vera seemed to be getting ready for bed, likely planning to report her findings to the Church in the morning. DM hoped he wouldn’t regret secretly infecting her during their polite handshake earlier. Bandit was apparently with Thaw. DM guessed Thaw spotted her and flagged her down at some point after entering the city. If he had more time, he’d monitor them, but he was in a foreign dungeon and needed to pay attention to what he was doing. He’d put trust in Thaw for now.
Sasha’s party, including Ardreth, was traveling around the central regions of the Empire. DM didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary but he’d check back in on them later, when he had more time to see what they were really up to. Similarly, Barney was working his way north through the Nar Union and there wasn’t that much to watch or pay attention to yet. The southern portion of that nation was supposedly pretty sparse, even well north of the Upper Gordu Forest. Finally, Daphne’s party was nearing the capital, completing their escort mission along with several other parties.
Satisfied that he could focus fully on the dungeon now, DM began his one-man invasion. A low-level goblin soon spotted him and charged, dagger in hand. Clearly, the monsters in this dungeon would attack him just the same as if he were a human. He wasn’t surprised by that, but at least he confirmed the fact.
One swat of his appendage sent the goblin smashing into a wall. DM hadn’t even activated his tentacle slap ability; a minor whack was all it took. The intruding tentacle monster never even broke its slithery stride.
DM was already familiar with the dungeon’s layout due to monitoring Kat’s party recently. He skipped over side-chambers and proceeded directly towards the boss chamber at the bottom of the dungeon. On floor 2, the attacks became slightly more intense. However, the ranged attacks he couldn’t avoid weren’t doing much damage, and he could regenerate his health passively without any difficulty. None of the monsters were smart enough to keep back indefinitely and try to outrange him, anyway. Even if they did, he could always destroy them with ranged magic attacks or scoop up whatever was laying around to use as a projectile. Worst comes to worst, he could go to town on them with his spawn tentacle ability.
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Shortly before, as Bandit finished escorting Vera home, she heard a voice call out her new name, Nina, from behind her. Spinning around, she saw Thaw leaning against a wall.
“Come with me.”
Nina didn’t object, following Thaw to the usual hideout. They sat down to discuss what they each had been up to.
“Where’s the rest of your party?”
Nina explained that Olivia requested her party explore the dungeon in the Lower Gordu Forest, being careful not to reveal anything unnecessary. Also, due to them bringing a beginner priestess from the Church to train her on the basics, Nina was selected to escort her home while the rest of her party helped guard the dungeon overnight.
“Okay, I have a lot of questions about that, but first, I’ll tell you that I’ve been investigating the death of the previous Lord and his family.”
Nina nodded.
“Normally, this wouldn’t be my purview, but the attack on the Guild here while I was away means the capital branch cannot ignore everything that happened. I’m likely going to need your help as well. Consider this the next step of your training.”
“But I’m just a beginner…” Nina wasn’t trying to mislead Thaw; she really felt she was a long ways from having the skills to be useful as a Guild Agent.
“Nina, it’s still early for you operate independently like I do, and I can’t trust you with the most sensitive nature of our work yet, but your basic skills are developing faster than you realize.”
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“Really?”
“Yes. I think it’s almost time for you to start putting them to work for us. First of all, here’s what I learned. I don’t need to remind you what will happen if you blab about this to anyone else, right?”
Nina shook her head furiously.
“Lord Pool aside, most of the other deaths were caused by outsiders.”
“Outsiders?”
“There were several people involved and I traced them back to the capital. If not for something the Twin Cities Guildmaster told me, I’d be forced to assume that the murderer of Eddie Pool was connected to them as well.”
“They’re not?” Nina knew all about DM but was forced to feign ignorance.
“It looks like two separate parties wanted to eliminate Pool at the same time. The party that struck first did not intend to kill anyone else. The party that struck second must have decided to continue with their mission after finding Pool already dead.”
“Complicated…”
“Yes, these things are sometimes surprisingly complicated. Hm, who do you think might be responsible for the murders, either of the Lord or of his family?”
Nina hesitated, not sure what the right play here was. Thaw was probably just curious to see what wild theories Nina would come up with. Likely, Thaw didn’t expect Nina to realize that DM was responsible for the Lord’s death. The only other groups Nina could think of were rival lords in the Twin Cities such as Rufus’s family, the Church, the Guild, or perhaps others from the capital or even outside the country. However, Thaw had already made it clear that the suspects were outsiders.
“Since you’re asking me, it must not have been the Guild…”
“Correct. That foolish Guild Master may have inquired, but he didn’t take any direct action, to his credit. Obviously, it wasn’t me or I wouldn’t be investigating this so thoroughly. Even I wouldn’t take such drastic action on my own authority.”
“I hope it’s not the Church. I just spent the day with Vera and she seemed way too nice to think about killing anybody.”
“Ah, the Church. So, let me clear up a few things. Why did that Guild clerk ask your party to help out with that new dungeon?”
“I don’t know. I think we were just there and high enough level that she trusted us?”
“Hm. Nina, why did you bring that Church priestess with you?”
“Olivia asked us to. She wanted to join and Kat decided to accept the request. We just happened to meet at the right time, I think. Maybe because we’re a girl’s party?”
“Did she say why she wants to join the Guild?” Thaw narrowed her eyes as she asked the question, clearly suspicious of this priestess.
“Something about wanting to share her beliefs in places where people normally are ignored by the Church.”
“Hah. I find it hard to believe that’s her only motivation, but whatever. Make sure your white mage extracts anything useful she can about faith-based healing magic and shares it with the Guild.”
“Okay.”
“Why did the rest of your party need to stay behind?”
“The dungeon master’s puppet thing asked my party to stay and help protect the dungeon while he did something else. I don’t know what.”
“And your party agreed?”
“Y—Yes. He was nice and we weren’t in a rush or anything.”
“Hm.” Thaw brought her hand to her chin as she often did. “It only makes sense if he wanted to go somewhere…” Thaw seemed like she would give up on that topic for now. “Well, that girl from the Church is probably as close to innocent as they come from the Church, but she’s not the type of person they would send to assassinate a Lord’s family, you know.”
“Oh…”
“I’m pretty sure the local Church is not responsible, though. It could be a misdirection, but a small amount of clothing was stolen from the Church in the days leading up to the murders.”
“Was it the capital, then?”
“Most likely,” Thaw agreed. “What I can’t say for sure is whether it was the nobility, the royal family, or the Church based out of the capital. Until I can figure out why, specifically, Pool was targeted, I can’t say.”
“Maybe the Nar Union was involved. They’re not very nice…”
“Hah! If the Union is somehow behind it, we’ll just send you to knee them a few times.”
Nina’s raccoon ears drooped, not appreciating Thaw’s ribbing.
“I doubt it was foreign influence in this case. They wouldn’t get one over on me like this. You haven’t asked me the most important question, actually.”
“What?” Bandit’s heartrate increased a bit.
“I told you there were two parties that attacked Pool, one that targeted only Eddie Pool and another that also targeted his family. We’ve really been talking about the second party. Who is the first party?”
“I don’t know…”
“You said that dungeon master is nice. What else did you notice about him?”
“I didn’t speak with him much. He just seemed like he wanted to be friendly with the Guild and help train adventurers.”
“All right. Be careful with this information too, but he’s the one who eliminated Eddie Pool, and only Eddie Pool.
“Why?” Nina was actually curious to see what reason Thaw might provide.
“While you were elsewhere, Pool and his people targeted both the Guild and that dungeon in the Lower Gordu Forest. Apparently, the dungeon master and the local Guild Master collaborated for their revenge and to eliminate the threat.”
Bandit was a bit wide-eyed but didn’t respond.
“That’s about it, for now. Anyway, expect me to start utilizing you more directly once I finish up my investigation. In the meantime, keep developing your skills.”
“Okay.”
“Nina, I’m telling you all this so that when I need you to do something, I can command you with just a few quick words. I can’t afford to stop and explain everything in the world to you when action is urgently required. Most likely, the things I’ll have you do early on will be much more trivial, but be prepared for anything.”
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DM casually strolled into the Boss Chamber, feeling like some type of badass. The local dungeon master, a minotaur, stood to greet him. DM was reminded that the minotaur’s likeness was being used as a pillow for Lupy and he suddenly felt a bit guilty. He wasn’t sure whether or not it was necessary for the minotaur to be dead in order to troubleshoot the console, but killing the minotaur just seemed simpler.
At this point, the minotaur was no threat. Mostly, DM’s goal was to just minimize the suffering of the creatures. He still didn’t totally understand the level of sentience to expect from dungeon monsters. Tentacles rose to meet the minotaur and applied status effects, putting the minotaur to sleep among other influences.
After quickly dispatching the minotaur, DM inspected the console. This time, instead of touching it with a spawned tentacle, he would use his actual appendage. Mentally, he took a deep breath and made physical contact.
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