Chapter 7: The Sorcerer Salazar
DM spent some time scrolling through options in the console and settled on a throne that matched the atmosphere and fit his weird body well. Other than that, he reworked the first floor of his dungeon to increase the number of traps and ways to exploit the layout. If he could just get the Twin Cities off of his back, he could change focus from empowering himself to leveling up the dungeon.
He received an alert. “Oh, what now?” A party of four entered the dungeon. “Hm, a LVL 6 swordsman, as well as a black mage, white mage, and an axman, all LVL 5. The mages are both female. I guess the Guild sent in a stronger team to investigate.” Since that guild employee’s efforts weren’t proving successful, DM was going to change tactics.
The configuration of Floor 1 was ready to meet this challenge. Already, the party could see a spider way down the hall in front of them.
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“All right, there’s the first monster. It’s probably a waste for me to say this, but be careful,” their leader said over his shoulder, sword in hand. The group of four advanced casually, contrary to the spoken warning. The spider approached the leader. Shortly before contact, the white mage screamed from the back of the formation.
“Kya!” Her party saw her struggling against a pull on her ankle. Looking down, they saw a tentacle rising up out of hole in the floor and wrapped around her leg. She felt mana being drained from her body. The leader rushed over to help her while the axman faced off against the incoming spider.
The spider stopped just outside of the axman’s reach. Just as the leader was about to plunge his sword into the tentacle, it disappeared. The white mage was struggling to support her own weight due to being MP deprived. Just as the black mage offered her a shoulder, the party was surprised a second time.
“What the!?” A whole bunch of goblins jumped down from hidden recesses in the ceiling, surrounding all of the party members. The two warriors weren’t at great risk, but they needed to help their injured white mage as well as their black mage who was at a severe disadvantage in this situation.
Just as the axman turned his back on the spider to rush closer to his allies, he yelled. His fellow party members heard the sound of his axe clattering against the floor. The leader was the only person with enough leeway in his situation to glance over at the axman. His friend was coiled up by a tentacle that apparently appeared right behind the man. The tip of the tentacle gripped the man’s neck dangerously.
The goblins had already disarmed the two mages. The axman stopped struggling and said, “…Stop resisting or I’ll snap this guy’s neck.” The rest of his party was confused since their ally was referring to himself as ‘this guy.’
“What!?”
“…Nobody move.” The goblins all stopped moving, so the rest of the humans did the same. “…This axman’s fate rests in my hands.”
“Who are you!?”
“…I am… the Sorcerer Salazar!”
“Never heard of him.”
“…Watch your tongue, cur. If you displease me… you will watch your friend die shortly before the rest of you meet a similar fate.”
“Wait. What do you want?”
“…I use this dungeon for my magical experiments. Every time adventurers enter, it inconveniences me. Tell your Guild Master that absolutely nobody is to enter this dungeon.”
“If I tell him that an evil sorcerer is holed up in here, the city will probably put together a huge force to conquer the dungeon and drag you out…”
“…That won’t work, for I am not in the dungeon. Doing so would only annoy me and delay my work slightly. So long as my experiments are left alone I won’t meddle in your affairs.”
“Okay but, even if we do exactly as you say, what will you do if the Guild still insists on engaging the dungeon?”
“…I have avoided killing people because antagonizing the Guild would delay my research. …If you fools continue to oppose me, the number of dead will rise. You won’t be safe even within your city. Tell them.”
“Okay, if you release him, we’ll retreat and deliver the message.”
“…One more thing. Remove your equipment and leave all of your belongings on the floor.”
“What!?” For a short while, nobody spoke and nobody yielded. The tip of the tentacle suddenly curled to point towards the wall and launched a fireball.
“Jeez! Okay, okay!” The party dropped their remaining equipment. The tentacle gently put the axman down, and he removed his armor himself. The goblins stepped forward, grabbed all the items, and ran deeper into the dungeon. “What in the world…”
“…Now go and deliver the message.” The axman returned to his senses. After a short explanation from his friends, they retreated.
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DM decided it was time to revert the setting and resume leveling the dungeon, versus himself. He absorbed the scrying orb and the two mages’ staffs, but let the rest get absorbed by the dungeon for experience.
>Absorbed Orb of Scrying (T2).
>Sense has increased to T2.
>Absorbed staff (T1).
>Learned ability, Ice Shot (T1).
>Gained 3 MAG.
>Absorbed staff (T2).
>Learned ability, Antidote.
>Gained 5 MAG.
>Dungeon has reached LVL 3.
>Dungeon Master has reached LVL 5.
>Learned ability, Affection (T1).
>Tentacle Slap has increased to T2.
>Regenerate has increased to T2.
>Dungeon Floor 3 now available.
>Additional creatures now available.
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“Lots of goodies today! How am I doing?”
Name Dungeon Master Species Tentacle Monster (Tier 2) LVL 5 HP 324 MP 650 STR 42 DEF 34 MAG 31 MDEF 27 AGI 21 LUCK 1 Abilities
Offense Touch (Poison T1, Slow T1, Charm T3, Berserk T1, Mana T1), Fireball (T1), Projectile (T1), Ice Shot (T1), Affection (T1), Tentacle Slap (T2)
Defense Guard (Poison T1, Fire T1, Ice T1), Reduced Damage from Monsters (T1) Utility Absorb Equipment (T1), Bonus Damage to Monsters (T1), Infect, Heal (T1), Spawn Tentacle (T1), Sense (T2), Antidote, Regenerate (T2)
“Pretty neat that I leveled from 4 to 5 even though the dungeon level went from 2 to 3. What is that new ability, Affection?”
>Affection: While active, any target in contact with the caster develops an increasing fondness for the caster. Rate of effect depends on tier. Effect can be removed by the caster or with advanced healing methods.
“Woah, what’s with that ability!? It’s like charm except it isn’t easily removed? I assume the onset is much slower, but if you captured someone… how strong could the effect become?” DM actually shivered at the thought.
“That ability would be much more useful if I had the ability to communicate without charming people… I really hope I find a way to do that soon. Anyway, what creatures are available?”
>The following LVL 3 creatures are available: All creatures from LVL 1-2 as well as Goblin Priest, Goblin Archer, Zombie Mage, Morphling.
“Hm? What’s a morphling?”
>Morphling: Takes the form of a target, mimicking their appearance and behavior. Unable to attack and easily defeated.”
“That sounds, like, incredibly useful. It probably isn’t much of a threat in normal dungeons, but with me running the show, just imagine what I could do…” DM definitely wanted to test this.
First he checked how many minions he could control at dungeon LVL 3. “So, I can control 9 LVL 3, or any combination with lower level monsters that adds up to 27 levels? I mean, even 27 LVL 1 creatures is a lot. I could just drop them all from the ceiling and crush people under the weight…”
He summoned a goblin priest, a zombie mage, and a morphling. First he turned to the goblin priest. “Are you able to speak to me?” The goblin priest shook its head. Next he tried the zombie mage. “How about you?” Unfortunately, the zombie mage could not.
DM tried commanding the morphling to take the form of the goblin priest. It worked. Their appearances and mannerisms matched nicely, although defensively the morphling was even weaker than the goblin priest. “Now, revert back to your original form.” The morphling complied.
“Okay, I’m a bit nervous, but, let’s try it. Take my form.” The morphling grew into a 3-meter purple tentacle monster. “Can you communicate with me?” After a pause, the morphling wagged one tentacle back and forth. “Damn. I know you can’t attack, but can you support? Try healing the goblin priest.”
The morphling actually succeeded in casting a heal spell, although the effect was weaker than if DM had cast the spell. “Woah. Hm. Try spawning a tentacle.” The morphling succeeded and spawned a tentacle nearby.
“Next, try launching a fireball at the wall from that tentacle.” Strangely enough, the morphling was successful. “Hah!” DM figured out a way around the no-offense restriction. Still, the morphling’s stats were fairly low for LVL 3 so it wasn’t a big deal.
“Most likely, you can use my other abilities via the tentacle. Then again, so long as I infect you before you leave the dungeon, I can summon tentacles near you as well. I guess having access to a second tentacle could help until I further level up the tentacle ability…”
What DM really wanted to do was test out the morphling on a person, but he wasn’t sure when the next opportunity for that would be.
“An alert! This is pretty soon… I’m surprised…” He waited patiently for an update. Eventually, the map revealed the intruding party: A single LVL 1 female. She didn’t even have a class assigned to her. “What?” DM ordered his minions to avoid her while he thought about it.
“She seems to be in a hurry. Wait a second, she’s a beast-kin?” Shortly after she cleared the entrance area, a second target entered the dungeon.
“This time a LVL 4 male? Is he chasing her?” Based on the movement of the symbols, DM figured she was trying to escape from him. Escaping into a dungeon was probably a bad idea but today was her lucky day.
The man eventually cornered the girl in a random room in the dungeon. He didn’t notice the hidden minions observing him from multiple directions. “Finally. Sit!”
The slave collar activated and the girl complied, no longer able to run or resist. The man removed a whip from his inventory. “I take my eyes off of you for just a second and you run, after all our time together!” He raised his arm to the swing the whip, but it was caught by a tentacle. “What!?”
A small army of monsters surrounded him from all directions. “Oh crap!” A second tentacle appeared next to the stationary girl and made contact with the collar around her neck. The collar started sizzling. “Why aren’t they attacking?” the man wondered aloud. A few seconds later the slave collar shattered, although the man wasn’t paying attention to that.
>Absorbed slave collar.
>Unable to learn ability, control.
>Charm Touch has increased to T4.
Apparently, any equipment the morphling absorbed with its tentacle while applying absorb equipment turned into abilities for DM. Also, these slave collars were pretty impressive equipment if they could pump up DM’s charm spell above tier 3. DM checked, and a T4 charm would last for 1-2 days.
DM commanded the morphling to revert from tentacle monster form back to its normal visage and then copy yet a different target.
“…They aren’t attacking because we have questions for you.”
“What!?” The man’s confused response was due to a second slave girl walking towards him from the periphery of the room. She looked identical to the girl he had been chasing a moment ago.
“…The master of this dungeon has questions for you. Will you answer them, or should these creatures attack you?” In response to this question, the man hesitantly agreed to answer, not really understanding what was going on. The real slave girl was too busy shedding tears at her now-missing collar to pay the conversation any mind.
“I’ll answer!”
“…Why did you chase this girl into the dungeon?”
“She’s an escaped slave! She broke away a little while ago while we were traveling to the Twin Cities!”
“…Who else is in your traveling group besides you two?”
“It’s, uh, four other girls like this one and my partner.”
“…What is your plan for when you get to the Twin Cities?”
“We’ll knock them out, sneak them in, and try to sell them. Of course, we won’t do that if you don’t want us to!”
“…Who were you going to sell them to?”
“We know of a slave trading group here in the Twin Cities. I was going to ask around carefully until we found them.”
DM was pretty sure he knew who the guy was referring to. “…Is your partner as guilty of illegal slaving as you are?”
“Yes, we’ve been partners for a long time.”
DM activated the charm touch ability using the tentacle wrapped around the man’s wrist until it took effect. “Gather up the other slaves and bring them here.”
“I will. What should I do about my partner who will likely resist?”
“We will take care of him.”
“Very well.”
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As the man departed the dungeon to execute his orders, the morphling in beast-girl form turned to the former slave. “…You’re safe now.”
“Why do you look like me?”
“…I don’t have a body. I have to copy the appearance of somebody else in order to talk to them.”
“I see…”
“…What is your name?”
“I don’t have one. They just call me cat girl.”
“…Because you’re a cat beast-girl?”
The girl nodded.
“…What about the other slaves?”
“Dog, Fox, Wolf, and Raccoon.”
“…We will rescue them on… on the orders of my master.”
“Your master?”
“…The master of this dungeon. He is the one who wants for you all to be saved.”
“Oh…”
“…He has a bit of a scary appearance but he’s actually nice to people. Well… except for slavers.”
“Can I meet him?
“…Yes. Come with me.”