[You have Entered the Dungeon: Dark Fire]
"Dark is the operative term." We looked into the dungeon, the inky pitch black void looked back at us yawning, an immense amount of heat gushing out of every available orifice before us. "That is going to make things a little harder to work with."
The Frost of the two headed Frost Fang Genmu stated observing their surroundings. A pitch black environment with an incredible amount of heat backing it up.
"For note taking purposes I will be employing an animated skull with affinities for knowledge and sound to act as a recording tool." The Skull in question was neatly tucked away where my head would be if I was the mere robe that I looked like. "Thus far the only clue to the identity and abilities associated with the other dungeon is its name and the environment that it has created for itself. It calls itself Dark Fire, and it is both pitch black and dreadfully hot."
"Can we go inssside now?" The Fang of the Frost Fang Duo asked sounding more annoyed than anything else.
"Be my guess! You have the highest defensive power of the three of us." I asserted using flawless logic.
"Fine." The Snake stuck its head into the flame. ""YEOUCH!""
And immediately pulled it back as the head was now covered in intense black flames, the snake/turtle began repeatedly slamming their head/tail into the ground trying to put the fire out. Intriguing! The flame gives off no light, in fact it looks more like light is being drawn into the flames! A volatile pitch black flame that continuously consumes light around it in order to produce heat!
"If it's fire, I have this covered." Saying that Solarius held her hand out to the flame, and then immediately dropped and loosed the contents of her stomach onto the floor of Ouroboros's draconic mouth.
Vomiting? A symptom of mana exhaustion, Solarius is kin to a sun god, who are typically associated with light. The Light eating darkness directly consumed her mana when she tried to take the heat for herself! Amazing! But unfortunately this means that we don't currently have the ability to infiltrate this dungeon.
"A tactical withdrawal, until we can find a solution to deal with this conundrum."
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So loot drops were still in effect even with dungeons fighting against one another, as the main force of being grinded Solarius's were the most common drops we had available. I understood this but...
"I don't think I'm going to be wearing this outfit too much guys." My oddly feminine voice echoed out as I looked in a mirror the Cyclops girls had prepared for me.
[Quetzalcoatl Priestess Robes: Robes worn by the kin of Quetzalcoatl, the complete set dramatically amplifies all fire and light based abilities, significant bonus when in flight]
All of which I was okay with. What didn't make me happy though was having the damned robes change the shape of my body into a distinctly more feminine form.
"Genies are basically hermaphrodites." Apas was looking highly amused off to the side, even with three kits suckling on her. "The only thing that has been keeping you male all this time has been your own preferences." Apas was trying not to laugh, at me or at Cleo, Maat and Keket kneading into her it was hard to tell.
"Be that as it may it's still my preference, so I'll be taking the robe off for now." Which I did and to my surprise my body only slowly started turning back to normal. "In any case we should consider our next move against Leviathan." My voice was cracking up as I spoke. "The globe is handy, I would rather not give it up if I don't have to. But to not pay my bounty I need to kill Leviathan again."
"A task Levi has taken with gusto." Apas stated bluntly. "After you've spent time with our cubs after all, though Levi might be physically half a world away she is and always will be but one doorway away from us."
Well this is true. I had what you would call a problem. Leviathan had split itself up and was now going after multiple targets across the world. For now he wasn't moving to strike at the trinity again, he was however targeting groups of air-born monsters, and not killing them or harvesting their schema's, if what she had observed from the second of his ships that she had managed to destroy is accurate. What Leviathan was planning was unknown, what is a definitive fact though is that I would need to increase my own influence to beat him.
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I could feel the familiar tickle of Schema's inside of my body, unable to create them myself, merely use them as guidelines to initiate modifications to my own body. But there was information there, buried deep in the schema's was invaluable information about a variety of different sea monsters, and thus the first of my many targets were creating a opening for me. Kraken Season. Once a year female Kraken's go on a rampage, a flood of hormones released into their bodies demanding that they hunt the males of their species and swallow them whole so that they might be able to acquire the seed to produce more of their kind. I let the Schema guild me, discarding the flail snail's rainbow mana repelling shell and turning herself into a conical bone shape, the 'skull' of a Kraken, but she added more too.
The Maride's body was composed entirely out of water, it wasn't too difficult to replace all the fleshy parts of the Kraken using the seemingly universal compatibility that the Genies possess to create a body composed entirely out of water. I continuously produce and released hormones resembling those of male Krakens into the water with the explicit purpose of luring one of the females that meant to hunt me, needless to say she was quite surprised when I seized all the water around her and dragged her inside into my dungeon. And thus I now had a problem. The inside of one of the Kraken's tentacles that I had, accidentally, torn off when the creature refused to be captured of her own volition was lined completely with familiar looking jewels.
Jewels that I knew from part of me having once been a Kraken under Leviathan's control was not supposed to be there, so that led to the relevant question of what was going on? Releasing a sigh I took the sample of the prisoner and traveled up the tree roots into Levi's domain where I could meet the master.
"Greetings my core." The Keeper was with Apas, and their cubs. Was I jealous? Of course not! I would soon have thousands of the Master's offspring don't be silly!
"Where did you get this?" The Keeper's question immediately tore me out of my totally-not-jealous-fuge as we immediately got down to matters of concern.
"From a monster that attacked me." That I had baited into attacking me, but I didn't feel any particularly great need to go over details as minor and insignificant as this. "What do you make of this?"
"They look like Mana crystals like my core." The Keeper stated holding the tentacle in his hands. Experimentally I watched him tear a piece of flesh off and dissolve it away. "Corruption?" I could feel it too. A schema but broken, twisted, unrecognisable compared to the one that we already had.
"What does this mean?" I asked Keeper hoping that his wisdom might trickle down to me.
"Is this what everyone is talking about when they refer to stagnant mana?" I watched as he plucked another mana crystal and dissolved it away in his hand. "So I get Power just by dissolving these crystals? Well that's all well and good and all it's just not very useful right now. Levi if you find any more of these crystals I want you to collect them and put them somewhere safe." I clasped my fist and bowed to the Keeper. "Understood master! I will begin this job immediately." And so I returned to my prisoner, still twitching from the paralytic poison that I had fed into her body. "Don't worry it'll be okay. You'll be out of your misery soon enough I just require your eggs."
Kraken-me accepted Leviathan's contract as a way of protecting myself from the 'affections' of female Krakens, after all for the male half the process was often lethal. I'll try not to enjoy this too much!
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I trusted Levi to handle the situation with Leviathan for now, chances are good that the other dungeons are still taking shots at him anyway, for now I needed to come up with a way to deal with this so-called 'Dark Fire.'
"So you think I'm the only one that can deal with this Dark Fire?" I asked looking at Merlin as he gave me his report.
"Why does your voice sound so funny?" The cloak like monster somehow manages to convey confusion despite having no face.
"Just answer the question please." I was never wearing those priestess robes again.
"Whatever blessing is on that floor, it makes it impossible for us to enter it. Even Solarius with her affinity for fire and Frost and Fang with their control over temperature they couldn't so much as enter that floor." Considering the fact that was where the Dark Flame's core was likely located that made sense. A huge storm outside and a massive inferno inside, the warning signs were clear: cease, stop, do not enter! And honestly if it wasn't for the fact that tossing him back through to the other side was such a important part of my own survival I'd feel content to leave him there. As it stands though...
"So what do I just eat the blessing like what happened to Aziraphale?" Merlin just looked at me wide eyed, which was impressive considering he wasn't supposed to have eyes. "I really need to close my mouth some-" I spent the next few moments with a fleshy hyperactive cloak zipping around me bombarding me with questions while taking barely legible notes before I smacked him on his head approximation and got back to business. "So the Dungeon'll be easier to conquer if the mystery blessing that's keeping people from entering wasn't there any more?" The Fleshy cloak creature excitedly nodded his head imaginary eyes wide and shining. Somehow he looked more excited about what ever I was going to do than the fact that doing so means that he gets out of this gods forsaken place. For now I simply flew over and through Grave's dungeon into the enemy base.
"These bloody storms are going to tear my wings off if I stick around here any longer." Graves dragon mouth spat out as I stepped into the entrance of the dungeon. "Are you going to be okay?"
"In the worst case scenario I'll respawn, but if that dragon body gets destroyed you're screwed. Retreat for now."
Graves nodded before he allowed the winds to carry him away. That just left the dungeon and the yawning black void inside. I stuck my hand inside, the Black Flames weren't burning my hand but it was already made out of fire and ice to begin with, but I wasn't being smothered either. Well that's magic light eating flames for you. I concentrated and began absorbing the black flames into my body, unlike the case where I blew myself up after accidentally eating Hephaestus's realm then time I was releasing the accumulated energy as kinetic force, which was adding to the force of the galling winds that were around me. That however wasn't nearly as ominous as the messages I was getting.
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[The Hell are you doing here!?]
I haven't had gods using the chat function to talk to me in a while. When Oceanus or the Twins wanted to talk to me they just pulled me into their personal domains, in the tower I got a feeling of excitement from all the gods that were watching me beat the other monsters into submission. In this case though? Someone was pissed at me.
"I have come here to provide assistance Satan!"
[Piss off!]
"Alright lemme rephrase that. I'm gonna rip out the core of this dungeon and toss it back through the other side of the hole back into reality! So are you going to be a pain in the arse about this or am I gonna have to swallow this place up!?"
[Second Warning!]
It might just be the ever burning flames of wrath talking, but now I was mad.
"Alright fine be that way!" I flew up into the air. No wonder this place is locked down so tight, this place has at least twenty dungeons all around it and all of them are taking shots at this place. The monsters might not be able to leave the dungeons but it was easy to tell from the billowing clouds of smoke seeping out of every available crack and orifice what was presently going on.
"Pluto, do I really have to put my ass on the line to help this guy?"
[Yes]
Of course he was watching me. I was doing errands for him after all. Alright if I was an invading dungeon core where would I be? Well I would stick my butt as far away from the psychopathic pyromaniac spewing magical flames as possible. Alright then, let's see if you guys had the bare minimum reasoning skills to fire proof your dungeons! I gathered the kinetic energy in the air and turned them into flames, creating a spear of fire and force to hang over one of the dungeons in question I slammed it down, and watched as overwhelming cold blew my fire away. Right. Lucifer. Fantastic, now how do I dismantle this mess? For one thing I can't even get back to my dungeon right now without offing myself. Well. If suicide is in my future anyway, I might as well not be stingy about it.
"Satie!"
[Never call me that again!]
"I'm gonna borrow a little bit of power from your place for a while!" I plunged face fire into the Dark Fire Dungeon and sucked, like I was drinking the biggest smoothie that I had ever gotten my lips on, my body changed colours as I shot out of the Dark Fire Dungeon like a bat out of hell. "THIS IS HOW TO BREAK SOMETHING YOU PANSY DEMON LORD!"
[Brave talk coming from a no good thief!]
Lucifer's dungeon (KILL) tried to push me (KILL) away as I soaked up his (KILL) kinetic energy and fuelled my (KILL) own head on collision with the (KILL) same dungeon that tried to blow me away. (KILL) The explosion ripped through (KILL) the dungeon and I went from one straight into the next, carrying along a screaming ball of crystal mana as I went. (KILL) I tore through the next Dungeon. (KILL) And the Next. (KILL) And the next one after that. (KILL) My rampage carried me through all of Lucifer's dungeons and had me followed by a string of dungeon cores like little ducklings being led to the slaughter. (KILL) Thus I threw the trash into the incinerator.
"Now are you going to knock it off already, or do I have to come in there and make you!?"
[It's okay. We'll come to you!]
The Black void exploded forward, and I was back in my dungeon again. Okay so I'm certainly not getting Satan as a patron, even if I hadn't burned that bridge I don't think psychotic rage monster really suits my purposes very well. Here's hoping that little blessing doesn't affect the FFF or I may have really screwed myself over. Great. How do I break into this thing? With a wave of my hand a familiar mitami appeared, the ball of fire like spirit hovering around my point of awareness as I considered my next move. Okay so I possess this thing, go back into the enemy dungeon, and eat fire until I explode again... how does that help? No no I had to be smarter about this... Didn't one of you guys evolve a while back.
Lunazure was lounging about on the second floor. I remember that she worshipped some moon god or another when she was a mere E-Ranked Doggy but this floor was dedicated to another, so that left her and her general shrine maiden aesthetic in a pinch.
For now I asked her about my idea to take apart Dark Fire.
"The main issue is that Satan's power isn't being purified as you absorb it, instead of weakening his influence you're increasing it."
Lovely. How do we go about purification?
"Spiritual filth has to be washed away." Washed with water?
"Well... yes. Though I fear that might not be enough to deal with the brute that you're thinking of."
What do I need soap too?
"At the kinds of temperatures that dungeon is capable of the water would get so hot that it would split into hydrogen and oxygen, flammable gasses."
The hell? Why do you know about religious spiritual stuff and chemistry at the same time?
"Master, everything that we are comes from you. Our forms, personalities, our knowledge our preferences, they originate from your core."
Meaning that creating new monsters is eating away at my soul!? Is that what you're telling me!?
"We learn from you master, we no more take from you than a child takes from their parents or their teachers."
Okay... that's good to know. But throwing water onto the fire isn't going to be effective then... can we remove the fuel source? I thought through it some more. The Blessing is turning light into heat which is why the flames burn black. When you can't extinguish fire with water then the safest method is to just bury it so that it can't get anymore oxygen. That would also cut the bastard off from any light source too. The main issue that I have a problem with is that course of action would also keep me from moving around the other dungeon's core away too.
I folded my imaginary arms together again until I got another idea. Yeah that would work, but I can't go out of the dungeon to get him right now until my body respawns, even after it respawns I'll likely have to put it into quarantine until after I can deal with Satan's blessing. Apas!
"I'm a little busy with our own kids dear." My Sphinx was lounging about in her nest, our cubs running and flying around her. It's an emergency. "It's one of your insane plans again. Even worse this time you're actually considering throwing a outsider into a actual literal demon lord's dungeon." Really hitting me where it hurts there Apas.
Clay was what his name was, a hybrid of Earth Genie, a Dao, and Human, a genasi with a affinity for manipulating earth, which means that after I, theoretically, flood Dark Fire with Concrete he'd be able to extract and move the core out of the floor. He was also a child, one of several that were sent here for safe keeping by Jewel.
"Send the bone head instead." Archie? He'd be melted away in an instant.
"Archie's body is composed of clay and a bone, neither of these things burn very well."
Really? Archie!
"Master!"
My Walpurgis was supervising my bony mad scientist. Never mind what Frankenstein is doing. Are you fire proof?
"Most of my body can withstand 1000 degrees Fahrenheit, my bones can take up to twelve hundred."
But you're all fleshy like a person?
"I am a Walpurgis." Archie pinched and pulled away at the flesh of his arm, quickly giving away and turning into a ball of clay in his hand. "What you mistakenly think to be flesh and blood is but an approximation made out of clay."
So even if you went into Dark Fire's angry oven you'd still be okay?
"Most likely. There is a chance I would have a hard time moving around if the clay in my body dries out but that's it. In the worst case scenario I'd just remove it."
I called another meeting of the other cores while Archie went with Graves to take Dark Fire's core. I had turned a nearby wall into a makeshift chalk board with spaces for eight names written out, two were already occupied, Wolf's Den that already had a check-mark by it and the other was Dark Fire. The situation has progressed in a negative direction. My own exposure to the Dungeon's blessing has turned my main body into a psychotic rage monster, in the worse case scenario I'll still have to deal with it's murderous impulses for a while. So I'd like it if all of you were on your feet and the rest of the dungeons were dealt with by the time I respawn so that I can go into isolation. To begin with, there are eight dungeons in total we're supposed to move around, Hel would you mind listing them for us?
"It sounds suspiciously like you plan on tackling all the dungeons at once." Hel stated bluntly.
So I am. Only a couple of dungeons each time seems necessary to beat each of these buggers, the only thing that is really limiting us is that Graves can't be in more than one place at a time. Even then if something happens the worse that'll happen is that our monsters will respawn after a few days.
"You say that but the entire reason why we're having this meeting is because you got cursed in the first place." Frost stated making his blatant suspicions known.
Which happened because we lacked information about who blessed Dark Fire, so miss Hel, tell us everything that you know about the other cores we have yet to invade.
"There are nine 'rings' in total, each of them representing a realm that Lucifer has allied with or placed under his control. You've already gotten a look at Fenrir's gluttony." Hel let out a sigh at this. "My half brother. Technically. Absolute terror but not too bright. Managed to eat a few months a while back before we managed to lock him somewhere he can't hurt anyone."
He... 'ate a few months?'
"Like I said, a absolute terror, you're lucky he's not smart enough to come up with a good blessing on his own."
Well that's terrifying.
"You've seen Satan's dungeon. What was it again? Turning light into heat? Admittedly that's pretty good for the stupid brute."
Hel stated as she let out a sigh.
"After that is Asmodeus."
I think I heard about him before. Gave a friend of mine the blessing to turn lust into power and a bunch of succubuses?
"Sounds remarkably tame for Asmodeus, your friend must have had someone looking out for them."
I do not like the direction of this conversation.
"You shouldn't. Asmodeus's favourite monster is called a roper. You have a sphinx so you should somewhat understand all female monsters right? Ropers are all male."
Okay... how does that work?
"Ropers are near mindless abominations that are born with fully fertilised eggs inside of themselves but lack the tools to bring them to term, so they seek them out."
As in...?
"Yes. I've had the displeasure of seeing Asmodeus keep such viable units strung up along the walls whenever I've had the displeasure of coming to see him in his domain, with ropers actively at work."
Suddenly I don't feel quite so bad for pissing off Asmodeus that one time. Well Okay I know it was Jewel's place that I invaded not Asmodeus's but still.
"You're familiar with Pluto's home of Tartarus."
Yes, the guy who despite the fact that I'm rescuing his other dungeon is still trying to lay claims to a block of my city. Undead, Precious metals, Jewels and maybe dwarfs. Next.
"Hypnos, God of Sleep and Sloth, also Pluto's son. His all time favourite is the Beholder, a giant mass of eyeballs that looks into people's dreams and uses what it finds to wreak havoc." So no camping in the enemy dungeons. Check.
"Phthonus is the God governing Envy. Shapeshifters, power copiers and the likes are all his doing."
Sounds like something the god of Envy would come up with, I think I've already seen his work, the Mimic Mystery Mansion.
"I heard about that dungeon, but I don't think it's Pthonus that has it under control. I believe it's one of my father's, Loki's."
That one I haven't met yet.
"My father is the god of stories, though he's more widely known as the king of lies which places him as the ruler of the realm of Malebogia."
King of lies? How did he go from 'story teller' to 'Liar?'
"He killed Odin's son Baldur." Okay that might do it. I remembered that Odin was the one who helped to work out the details for my first floor's blessing so at the very least he wasn't holding a grudge against Hel but...
"I have two brothers. We've already talked about Fenrir, the other's Jormangandr, I was locked down here in the realm of the dead because of my appearance. Fenrir was chained and muzzled like an animal. Jormangandr was thrown into the ocean to die. I think my father grew tired of Odin's abuses, so he told a lie that killed Odin's son, then he told more lies that started a war."
Not the most pleasant god I've heard of. You think the Mystery mansion is under Loki's control?
"I remember him talking about it before." Lovely. There are eight dungeons we're going to have to raid right? What's the last two.
"Santa Muerta, who rules the Realm of Violence and the Ruler of Limbo."
Muerta? Violence? I thought that was Satan's thing.
"Satan deals with anger and retribution. That is not the same as being violent, though it might lead to people becoming violent, there's also violence that stems from a lust for power, sadism, the list goes on. Rivers of Blood, Trees Trapping Souls of the Suicidal, deserts of scorching heat are all things that she keeps in her realm."
Well... that's good to know. What about Limbo? You didn't mention its ruler by name.
"Limbo belongs to the ignorant, the ones who refuse to see what's around them or refuse to learn. By nature we're not supposed to know anything about its ruler."
Oh that sounds familiar. That sounds very familiar.
"Aye. I suspect that we've recently acquired information about him, or at least what he looks like." Our attention turned to Merlin who was busily taking notes about the situation before he looked up and looked around confused.
"Ooohh..."