The desecration style wasn’t quite what the words ‘taboo’ and ‘infernia’ conjured in her head, but it was still pretty impressive.
Or at least, it could be made impressive. Once selected it gave the entire dungeon the appearance of a strange cathedral, made of black stone, almost volcanic in nature, and yet the entire dungeon still had the air of a place cool and safe from the outside heat. The ceiling was raised slightly, and supported by buttresses, each well crafted and sculpted, and yet almost natural seeming, purposefully sculpted with bubbles and sharp edges. The floor was smooth and polished, almost looking like onyx as it glittered and shone.
The scorpions were obviously a bit out of place, though. They could scuttle along the smooth surface just fine, but they didn’t make much aesthetic sense. This dark, gothic vibe, with yellow scorpions clicking around on the ground. She looked through her options. It would be a little strange if there was an altar in the room with the statue, but maybe it would be good for the next room, which was currently empty aside from Baby. What a sad thought. She could only hope it wasn’t lonely in there.
She went into the last room and placed down a Taboo Altar, hoping it would give the room a nice centerpiece to design around.
And oh it did. It was made of a dark grey stone, and looked almost like it had been shattered and glued back together with red metal that seemed to shine even in the darkness. On the surface of it, there was a dusty scarlet runner, and an ugly rust-colored stain in its middle. It was definitely menacing. Baby immediately scuttled to lie under an overhang that it created. There. Animal enrichment.
But the room was still lacking something. She decided to play around with the other decorations. The skull spikes looked good, but weren’t quite right. The Imp statues, however, seemed like the perfect way to flank the path to the altar.
First, she pushed the back wall father away, stretching the room and making it more of a hall. The altar she kept toward the back of the room, and she added a set of eight of the statues. Each one was a bit different, with a different expression and pose on each one, and yet they complemented each other, and neatly matched the one across from them.
She pulled out and looked at a top-down view of her halls so far. All pulled out, looking at her entire map, she first noticed how satisfying the boss room looked. Second, she noticed a menu option that she hadn’t seen before.
Room Settings:
> Change room type
> Mana balance
> Asset list
> Interloper statistics
She clicked on the change room type, and the boss room’s edges glowed blue.
Room type options:
> Puzzle Chamber 0/2
> Boss Chamber 2/3
> Wave Chamber 0/4
She clicked on the boss chamber option, since that’s what the room was meant to be.
> Room not configured as boss chamber!
>
> Missing monster that fits Boss requirements!
> Decorations acceptable: 9/8
> Room size acceptable: 1240/1200
A little rude. Baby is a lovely little scorpion. Although, “little” was probably a reason it didn’t fit the requirements. She selected it in the monster menu, and it had a new alert attached to it, letting her know it could potentially be turned into a boss monster.
Tapping on the option, she read out the requirements.
> Must be unique to floor
> Must have been upgraded at least twice (1/2)
> Must be alone in room OR be a swarm type monster
Hm. Well, she could upgrade baby into a Slainstone Scorpion. The option was right there, a big flashing evolve button that seemed to draw her in. Her mana tally had recovered, now that Boy was in the statue, hibernating.
She pressed it and she rushed back down to see how Baby would change. It was a bit like it was molting, it’s shell coming off and splitting as it grew. The slainstone scorpion that Baby was becoming had six vicious pedipalps sprouting from its mouth, each ending in a scarlet-dripping barb. Soon it was out of its husk and was covered in a dark blue-grey chiton. It writhed once more, and it’s new shell cracked, and suddenly the bloodish liquid began to pour from the asymmetrical chasm newly formed in Baby’s shell.
She scrambled to find and make sure that nothing was actually wrong, but once she was sure it was fine, she knelt down to hug it, only to find that now that she had knelt, it had grown to be taller than her. She wrapped her arms around it and tried not to cringe when it smeared it’s blood all over her face with it’s pointy mouth bits.
Now it was a real monster. She opened up the menu again, and made Baby into a boss creature, and the room into a boss room. She wiped her face as she read:
New room designation!
Boss room
> Increased mana tally: 15/t + 5/t -> 20/t
> Increased mana capacity: 140 + 40 -> 180
> Monster mana tax in room reduced by 1/2
That meant there was plenty of room for more upgrades. She moved the first room around and added one between the two. Now that there was so much extra mana, she could afford another room for… more scorpions, what else? She spawned in two more, both Shellhide Hatchlings in the new room and her available mana took a dip.
In spite of the drain on her mana tally, it was exhilarating to get another room set up. It would require more decoration, sure, but that too would be fun.
Asmodeus and Dude deserved attention first, as they had seniority. Boy too, stuck in a statue though he may be. The room once again had the issue of not making aesthetic sense for the monster type she had chosen.
Had she chosen it? She felt as though she did, even if she didn’t really remember her reasoning, or how she got to the point of choosing her themes. It wasn’t like she would trade her scorpions away. She loved them, after all! It was just strange how intuitive it was.
So, what sorts of things would make these disparate aesthetic choices work? She had barrels, chests… maybe the vibe could be ‘storage room of the church’. She placed a couple barrels, stacked against the wall, and hid a chest behind them, in the far corner of the room. She stacked a few more in the opposite corner, one nearer to the entrance, and looked at all of it. It blew through damn near half of her LI, but she thought it was well worth it. All she needed was to kill a tortoise or two and-
She got vertigo and fell backward as someone walked through the area she was conceiving of as her body.
“See?” They were saying, with sunburnt skin and fancy attire, “It’s plenty safe, we can hi–argh!”
Dude had pierced the person’s foot with his stinger, and they were now kicking wildly to get Dude away from them. Asmodeus barely reacted, seemingly resting and convinced that Dude had it in the bag, but still moved to cut off the exit after a moment.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
The person was backed toward the statue, and flailing, grabbed for the thing on the pedestal. The sacred hunk of horse meat smashed onto Dude, breaking a few legs, before Boy, newly appeared without the person noticing, stabbed them through the back of the neck and out the mouth.
It was a grizzly death, and she could tell that much for herself, but all she could really think about was the box that popped up when he went down.
She sent Boy away again to get her tally back into the positives, and went over what the box was saying.
> Transformations unlocked!
>
> Scorpion 3 “Asmodeus”
> Nectarweave Scorpion
>
> Scorpion 4 “Dude”
> Nectarweave Scorpion
>
> Requirements met!
> While making up more than 25% of the room’s total monster population, receive three assists and no kills.
>
> Activate transformation?
>
> Yes
> No
Yes. Obviously.
They grew thinner and smoother, and to her surprise, they shrank rather than grew. The hair they had everywhere disappeared, and they turned a pale white. Once they stopped changing, they were… sort of pretty, and delicate looking.
Which on its face felt like a total downgrade. Sure, they hadn’t gotten any kills, but she didn’t want them to be completely useless. She opened up her monster list to read what was so special about these two, but before she could, she heard something new.
“You said you heard him scream?”
“I’m sure I did!”
Silence.
The first voice again, “Marquis Tormotte? Are you, uh… Ya down there?”
“Fuck it, I say we cut our losses and try to make it to the town before the sandstorm hits. Fuck this hole in the ground and fuck Tormotte. We’ll just divide the pay for the haul among us workin’ boys.”
“We have to go in after him,” the first voice said, filled with consternation.
“Holy shit, did you see the size of that thing that just scurried past the stairs? We are not going in after him! If you want to, you can. We ain’t corpse retrieval, and I ain’t sentimental like that.”
“Dumbass, he had the delivery receipt.”
Silence, then, “Fuck.”
A delivery receipt? She searched through the corpse to find out what that was.
> Human (Stesset)(Dead)
>
> Body (100 LI)
> Journals (10 LI, 80 SI, 40 RG[T1 Decor])
> Flamboyant garb (30 SI, 50 AG, 40 RG[T2 Treasure], 60 RG [T1 Stylez])
> Important documents (1 LI, 500 RG[T2 Treasure])
Her eyes bulged. Why would the important documents be worth that much grist? Especially if they’re only worth one LI. The second treasure tier didn’t even need that much grist. She pulled the documents from the UI and flipped through them. It mostly seemed like a shipping manifest. It seemed pretty standard, but then, this was her first time ever seeing one. However, when she got to the last page, she at least discovered why it was so valuable to the two guys outside.
The merchant and the patron (heretofore collectively known as ‘the parties’) agree, by signing this contract, that each of the goods on the manifest are present, and that the payment listed in the manifest has been paid, excluding items missing or destroyed. The payment is not to be received prior to the examination of the manifest and the goods.
They wouldn’t get paid without this paper. It didn’t feel good to take away their payday, but she had to know why it was so valuable to her system. She gristed the journals for the decor, the clothes for the stylez, and the documents for the treasure. The body just became LI, and she listened to the conversation still happening up her steps, pointedly ignoring the pop-ups.
“Well what are you going to do when we get to town with no payday?”
“I’ll…” the voice that she was pretty sure belonged to the second speaker trailed off.
“See? Exactly! And I’m not cutting you in if you don’t back me up when I go down there.”
“Fine,” the second voice sighed, “Some bodyguards we are, huh?”
“Kid, the most dangerous thing in this biz is the client’s own stupidity. I wouldn’t take it too hard.”
“So we just run down, grab him, and come back?”
“Fuck that. He’s not screaming any more. If he’s not standing up, I’ll assume he’s dead, dig through his pockets, and book.”
“So I’ll just cover you while it happens?”
There was a sound of something unlatching, and then steps approaching down the stairs.
One looked determined, bald and eyebrowless, holding a mace in one hand and a torch in the other. Only a few feet behind him, was a much taller, brawnier man with a younger face, defined arms, and a bow and quiver. He also had a pretty blue and orange pattern coating his skin. The short bald one said, “What even is this place?”
He then stepped into a puddle of leftover blood from the corpse, and they looked down together. The short one moved the torch to examine the edges of the stain, checking for the corpse, trying to find the source of the blood. When they saw their employer wasn’t there, his voice wavered and the colorful one asked, “Drekka?”
“Mm?”
“Where’s the body of the Marquis?”
----------------------------------------
Lash was walking with a much heavier purse than before. By all accounts, they should be riding high. But the antiques appraiser had stiffed them on the mechanical arm, and when she had denied the value of the garnet they had decided to straight up not sell that item. It put Lash in the uncomfortable position of being frustratingly disappointed yet too fortunate to properly enjoy the feeling of spite.
That is to say, they were in a weird mood as they entered the pub. It was one of seven in Kaversee, but according to the woman at the inn’s desk, this one was the cheapest in town. It was also the fifth best, a welcome bonus to the price. Lash sat down on a barstool, ordered, and…
“You rented your room right after us, right?”
Two seats down from them, tail swishing and looking just as poorly as before, was the Arbal. An ear, along with a crooked grin that verged on a leer, was cocked in their direction, “Yeah, that is you. You’re the tallest veil I’ve ever seen.”
Lash was set to ignore them, but, “I’m actually caradine. I’m just from the North. We don’t get much sun. I probably have some veil blood in me, I guess, I’ve got some good night vision.”
“I shouldn’t’ve assumed. Sorry about that.”
“But all human,” Lash said, holding their glass out to clink against his.
“But all human,” he chorused, cheersing their cups together as he replied with the line of the caradine’s creed.
Lash’s eyebrows twitched up a bit at the man’s recognition of the phrase, “Have you been traveling with your companions long, then?”
“Since I can remember. Their matron taught me like a natural-bore caradine. Even though the twins called me ‘Kitty’ until they were three.”
They could tell he was flagging a little. He came off as a little bit of a charmer, a grifter, maybe a con artist, but whatever was wrong with him was definitely effecting him.
“Actually… should you be out with others right now? With…”
“It’s not contagious,” he assured, “Just my own little death sentence. Heh, little death. If only.”
Lash had to know if this guy was the one who killed the dungeon. They weren’t really in the business of bounty hunting, but a lack of profit motive didn’t sate the curiosity, “It’s Advent Withdrawal Syndrome, right? You beat the Helexiav?” You know, maybe they were in the business of bounty hunting. Depending on the cash-in.
The man’s smile turned sharp, agonized, and his tone read like he could very well be talking to some piss on the bar’s floor, “Yep. I don’t mind telling you. I’m the murderer.”
“That’s a bit strong of a way to talk about the people in town. Perhaps some will die, but most would find their way to Lorehein. Or out West there’s a dungeon. It’s far closer than Lorehein. Why did… Why did you come here?”
The man sat there for a second, chewing the words and staring holes into the bartop before he spit them out. “Yeah. The people in the town. Uh-huh.” Three coins landed on the counter and he stumbled surprisingly quickly out of the pub.
Later, Lash sat in their room, relaxing, and pretending they were coming up with a plan for what to do next when they were really just fantasizing about dungeons and tall arbals with big cocks and bigger bags under their eyes. It was hard to say what they liked about dungeons. If asked, they’d say it was purely practical, based solely on the ease with which one could make money doing that. But they’ve liked stories of dungeons since they were small. Stories of adventurers delving into them, horror stories of the monsters they could unleash. And more recently, a very specific genre of erotica that involved foolhardy looters falling into pit traps filled with tentacles.
They groaned into their palm and finished as they curled their fingers against their inner wall.
And like that, they felt empty again. They licked their fingers clean for a lack of anywhere else to wipe them, and rolled over to close their eyes. After a few seconds of trying to sleep, they sighed. The neighbors were arguing.
And they were doing it in familiar voices.
“I’m not leaving until the quest is done!” A man’s voice. The Arbal.
“And what if it’s wrong? Or if it’s lying? Do you think, Sylvain?” The slicked-back twin. Amber something?
“Does that sound like Xyxiltu to you?”
Some unintelligible talking, too quiet for them to hear.
“My problem isn’t that you insisted on coming here. I don’t like it, but… my real problem is that instead of trying to save yourself and find information you went to the bar. And I still can’t believe you told someone about it. In public too. Even if that thug doesn’t take you in, someone may have overheard.”
“Let them. If I survive the journey, it’s a free trip to a dungeon.”
“You’re going to survive!” the voice of the other twin. Even through the wall, Lash could hear the other two draw in breath. Lash wondered if yelling was something of a rarity for the other twin.
The conversation got quiet again.
“I just… trust me. And trust Xyxiltu too. I… if she sent me here to find a dungeon, I trust her. If she sent me on a wild goose chase to die, I trust that too. But I don’t think I’m being fucked with here.”
The conversation died down from there, and even straining, they couldn’t tell what was being said. Eventually, without even realizing it, they drifted off to dreams of tentacles filling holes.