Chapter 6: Deaf Ears
While Olivia and Emma escaped the dungeon and returned to the Twin Cities, DM reviewed his stats. All the stolen weapons and armor were absorbed into the dungeon shortly after the large group of beginner adventurers escaped. The experience was funneled directly to DM and he leveled up.
Name Dungeon Master Species Tentacle Monster (Tier 2) LVL 4 HP 241 MP 425 STR 32 DEF 27 MAG 16 MDEF 22 AGI 16 LUCK 1 Abilities Tentacle Slap (T1), Regenerate (T1), Absorb Equipment (T1), Poison Touch (T1), Poison Guard (T1), Slow Touch (T1), Bonus Damage to Monsters (T1), Reduced Damage from Monsters (T1), Infect, Charm Touch (T3), Sense (T1), Berserk Touch (T1), Fireball (T1), Heal (T1), Projectile (T1), Fire Guard (T1), Ice Guard (T1), Spawn Tentacle (T1)
“That list is getting unwieldy… Is there a way to categorize it somehow?"
>Categorizing abilities.
Abilities Offense Tentacle Slap (T1), Touch (Poison T1, Slow T1, Charm T3, Berserk T1), Fireball (T1), Projectile (T1) Defense Guard (Poison T1, Fire T1, Ice T1), Reduced Damage from Monsters (T1) Utility Regenerate (T1), Absorb Equipment (T1), Bonus Damage to Monsters (T1), Infect, Sense (T1), Heal (T1), Spawn Tentacle (T1)
“Oh. What does that new spawn tentacle ability do?”
>Spawn Tentacle (T1): Summons a tentacle to desired location. Targeted spot must be in view of caster. Tentacle persists until destroyed, dismissed, or replaced by using Spawn Tentacle.
“Hm, that could be very useful. Let me try it.”
A tentacle sprouted out of the ground on the opposite side of the room as DM desired. He could control it freely. At his command, the tentacle used the tentacle slap ability against a wall.
“Is it just me, or is this a bit of a broken combination? I guess normally a tentacle monster wouldn’t be smart enough to combine abilities like this.”
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“You’re back!”
“Yes, and Emma’s safe and sound at home.”
“Wonderful! That means everyone’s accounted for?”
“Yes. We lost some equipment but everyone’s safe.”
“That’s good news but, what the heck happened? None of us could get a straight answer out of any of the adventurers we saw returning to the city.”
“I should discuss that directly with the Guild Master.”
“All right… I’m sure he’s eager for your report.”
Olivia considered that clerk to be the only other nice employee in the whole Guild. She took a deep breath to prepare herself and then visited the Guild Master.
“You have a lot of explaining to do.”
“Yes. Organizing all those newbie adventurers—“
“Not that! I don’t care how many beginners you bring into a beginner dungeon! What I want to know is, how did you screw up the mission so badly that they lost their equipment!? Something about jackalopes? JACKALOPES!?”
“The dungeon was trapped in ways I’ve never seen before. If you’ll let me thoroughly explain—“
“Trapped!? EVERY SINGLE ADVENTURER LOST THEIR WEAPONS! And most lost their armor! Just what the HELL kind of trap causes that!?” The Guild Master’s voice was likely echoing throughout the whole building.
“Uh,” Olivia uttered, trying to decide what to even say.
“Uh!? That’s all you have to offer? Just what’s the point of sending Guild staff with adventurers if they turn a guaranteed victory into a total defeat!?”
“Sir, I’ll explain—“
“I can’t take it, just get the hell out of my office.”
“But—“
“Take some time off and think about what you’ve done. When you come back, you better be ready to take responsibility for all the aggravation you’ve created for us.” The Guild Master turned his attention to paperwork on his desk, ending the conversation.
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After what felt like a walk of shame out of the Guild, Olivia decided to go home. When she opened the door to her one-room unit, she noticed someone was already there.
“It’s your fault.”
“Hm!?” She wasn’t expecting one of the beginner adventurers she led earlier that day to be waiting in her home. He pulled her into the room and shut the door.
“You led us into a trap and we lost all our gear. You will make it up to us, right?”
“I—I’m very sorry about that, but how do you want me to make it up to you? I can’t exactly buy you all new gear…”
“You can’t, or you won’t?” The young adventurer’s mannerisms became threatening. ”You’re the one who tricked many of us into joining to begin with.”
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“I didn’t trick anyone!”
“Is seduction the only thing you’re good at?” He grabbed and pulled her to the other end of the room where her bed was.
“I swear, I’ve never—“ Her voice was getting too loud for comfort, so he slammed a hand over it. At this time of day, there probably wasn’t anyone in earshot anyway. He forcefully lowered her to the bed.
“This is the only thing you’re good for.” Before he could take things further, a tentacle popped up from the floorboards and wrapped around the young man, its tip terminating in his mouth so he couldn’t scream.
Olivia panicked at the unexpected arrival and hopped off the bed, backing up a few steps. She put two and two together, as DM would say. “DM?”
A few seconds later, the adventurer was charmed. “…Yes,” he stated in an emotionless voice.
“You protected me?”
“…I had nothing better to do.”
“Thank you, but what should we do?”
“…Where I’m from, rape is a very serious crime.”
“Where you’re from? Uh, anyway, what he did is serious here too. Can you just hit him once or twice? I’ll tie him up with something.”
“…Okay.” DM was worried his tentacle slap might actually kill the bastard. His stats were inflated from all the weapon absorption, and he was LVL 4 now. He’d need to wait until the guy was tied down anyway before releasing the charm effect.
“I’ll tie him to this chair.” Olivia was clearly not very experienced with rope.
“…No, that knot won’t hold well. You should…” After a while, DM finally talked Olivia through how to properly tie the guy down.
“I can’t believe I’m receiving a lesson in knot tying from a tentacle…”
“…I saw your conversation with the Guild Master.”
“Yea… I’m sorry, I haven’t had much luck yet.”
“…How do you intend to convey my offer to the Guild?”
“I’ll… write a letter to the Guild Master. He’ll probably be more patient if I write him.”
“…I will defer to your judgment. Oh, you’re bruised.” DM cast heal (T1) on Olivia.
“Thanks. Wait, you can heal, too!?”
“…Stand back.” Without using an actual ability, DM smacked the crap out of the guy until he was greatly weakened. He came to his senses, ending the conversation.
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DM hadn’t told Olivia, but he used his infect ability on the captive as well. He could now switch his focus between the two, although they were in the same room so it didn’t matter which perspective he used at the moment.
“Experiment successful!” The more DM could do without leaving the safety of his chamber, the better. Now, it seemed he could infect people, wait for them to relocate, spawn a tentacle, and infect other people. Of course, the city would resist these efforts as it learned of them.
“Even if I infect half the freaking city, there’s no way I can keep tabs on all of them. At least now, I have a way to counterattack if they come at me aggressively.” Even DM found it chilling that he could secretly infect people, wait for them to enter the city, and then start launching fireballs and charming people seemingly at random.
For such a strategy to be effective, he would need a large amount of MP. DM hadn’t found a way to manually boost his MP yet, but leveling up was clearly helpful for this plan. Keeping his dungeon level low, even as he leveled his body, would also avoid arousing too much suspicion. From what he could tell, his dungeon was just known as a beginner dungeon specialized in repelling newbies. There’d be no merit in experienced adventurers tackling it quite yet.
“Ah, Olivia finished turning the idiot over to the city guard. At least they believed her. I won’t be able to read whatever she writes in her letter, unfortunately.”
As she promised, Olivia wrote a letter and sent it to the Guild. DM noticed the would-be rapist was getting pretty poor treatment. He was locked up somewhere that made even DM’s dungeon look nice. “Hm?” The shackles he was wearing were magically enchanted.
DM used his sensing magic on them. “They seem to be enchanted with… absorb mana? That makes sense. You wouldn’t want a prisoner to start casting magic. I wonder what happens to the mana after it’s absorbed by the shackles…”
Nobody else was in sight, and the cell looked like it would hold even if the man lost his shackles, so DM decided to try absorbing them. He spawned a tentacle behind the man, wrapped him up again, and silenced him using the tried and true oral method.
“One potato, two potato…” The shackles sizzled and then disappeared. The tentacle disappeared as well, like it was never there.
>Unable to learn ability, Absorb Mana.
>Learned ability, Mana Touch (T1).
“What does that actually do?”
>Mana Touch: Allows caster to extract or inject mana through touch. The maximum rate depends on spell tier.
“So, that strategy I was just thinking about which requires a lot of mana…” It occurred to DM that he was suddenly incentivized to imprison a whole bunch of people and use them as mana batteries. That would be pretty evil, though. As he leveled up the dungeon, perhaps he could create higher-level minions to serve as mana batteries. He’d address that later.
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DM didn’t have much to do, so he mostly watched his two infected friends. The guards had already replaced the fool’s shackles with new ones. Olivia was keeping to herself at home. About a day after her letter was sent, she received a knock on her door.
When she opened the door, she noticed several guards in the hallway. “Olivia, Guild clerk?”
“Yes?”
“We’re under orders to bring you in for healing.”
“Healing?”
“The Guild reports that you may be under the influence of monsters after your last trip. Don’t worry, we’ll just get you checked out.”
“Oh, I’m sure I’m fine, but all right.” She went with the guards to the healer, where DM lost the ability to monitor her. He got tired of watching the idiot sitting in his jail cell, so DM released that infection as well.
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Around the same time as Olivia was gathered up by the guards, the Guild Master had a conversation with another employee that DM was not privy to.
“Can you believe it?”
“No, Guild Master. For her to be so delirious that she actually believes she was outsmarted by a tentacle monster… Just what ability could do something like that to her?”
“I don’t know. Hopefully, the healers will figure out something. I always knew she was on the dumb side, but even for her this is beyond the beyond.”
“What about her claim that the door to the boss chamber was locked with a puzzle? If true, that would at least add some credence to her claims.”
“If true, then how did she get past it? You think she could solve a puzzle?”
“Well, it would depend on the puzzle…”
“If nothing else, we do need to do something about all our fledgling adventurers losing their gear. I just heard that one of them turned to crime and was imprisoned by the city guard. We can’t allow the Guild’s reputation to degrade further.”
“Yes, but that was a great amount of gear which the dungeon absorbed, wasn’t it?”
“Wait a second.”
“What, Guild Master?”
“Was that enough gear to level up the dungeon? Last I checked, it was LVL 2 like we left it.”
“Hm, I’m sure that would be enough gear. Is the dungeon LVL 3 now?”
“Let’s go check.”
The pair proceeded to a rarely-used room in the Guild. “It’s… still LVL 2? How is that possible?”
“Guild Master, could the equipment have been quickly removed by a hostile actor? That would also explain why Olivia and everyone else was so easily outsmarted, not that it’s much of an accomplishment, I guess…”
“Yes, that’s definitely possible. The gear was all low-tier though so I’m not sure it would be worth the effort of someone capable of causing such a commotion in a dungeon.”
“What else could it be then?”
“Abilities to absorb or destroy equipment, perhaps? I doubt the jackalopes could do that, but maybe a different monster or the Dungeon Master?”
“Guild Master, if there are monsters capable of such schemes in that dungeon, we need to caution our junior adventurers before they go in there and also identify the critter responsible.”
“Yes, but I still can’t believe a LVL 2 dungeon is capable of giving us so much trouble. Let’s send a slightly more seasoned group to investigate.”
“Sir, you better choose your words carefully if you don’t want to insult them.”
“I’m beyond caring.”
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“You want us to do WHAT!?” Adventurers didn’t like being assigned missions that were even a couple of levels below their capability.
“Calm down. I need a party I can trust to investigate a new dungeon. There’s no reason for you to get offended.”
“Isn’t that a beginner dungeon, SIR?”
“And?”
“Send a few LVL 3s if you must! They’ll actually like the chance to go on an important mission to a childcare center.”
“There may be a dark wizard or some other bad actor holed up in the dungeon. I can’t afford to send a weaker party.”
“A dark wizard? Weren’t you all saying those rumors were made up crap a few days ago?”
“Yes. But we’ve received new intelligence which calls into question that conclusion. We can’t be sure until we send a trustworthy party to investigate.”
“Ugh. Fine, we’ll go. You’ll owe us.”
“Take this.”
“What tier is this?”
“It’s a second tier scrying orb. I expect you to return it to me in one piece.”
“You’re serious about this mission…”
“Yes. One of our employees is currently detained while we investigate this. Do not dawdle.”
“What, you want your eye candy back?”
“Get going.”