She looked at the newly populated rooms and was satisfied. The entry hall was now a sparse dining chamber, like that of a bandit camp, or something similar. A chest in the corner hid a leather jerkin, along with some gold. The treasures were protected by the lone Boy, who clicked happily, free of his statue. She even gave him a place to hide, by knocking the bottom out of a barrel, and letting him scuttle in. She was a bit surprised that he hadn’t evolved after his massacre, but she wasn’t planning to dwell on things like ‘reasons why’.
The room with Asmodeus and Dude was now a storeroom, crate-filled shelves making the space cramped and unpleasant to walk through. It was mostly a defensive tactic. Her nectarweaves would have no trouble with traversing the room’s area, but any intruders attempting to attack them would find the experience unpleasant. She placed no treasures in this room, reluctant to encourage any kind of intrusion on the vulnerable critters.
The room with the twins was now an armory. She didn’t feel confident about putting a forge in there, since she didn’t want to make it more dangerous for her kids, so instead the wall was lined with armor racks, unburdened by any garments. Weapon racks lined the opposite wall, also unfilled, and each door was flanked by a set of sconces.
The boss room was the one she was most proud of. The back wall was lit with light from a forge, and on the other side of the burning coals was the door to her chamber. On the ceiling, she placed a firevent, only to be activated if someone was directly under it, on or above the coals. This area too had a number of armor racks and weapon racks, but it also had shelves, and was high-ceilinged to give it a more grand feel. Tongs and hammers were strewn about the forge, and hidden away in chests and crates were a few ingots. Baby seemed happy with its new digs, immediately perching on top of the highest shelf and looking over its little fiefdom.
And she was miserable. She had a little taste of what it was like to have people around her, and she missed it. Every little chitter and click from her scorpions that she used to delight at and read as pleasure gave her no joy. It was all empty. She could get rid of each of them if she wanted. She could make more, overload her MGR, and just let herself fade. But though she had considered both options, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. There was more to discover. More to do. Scorpion evolutions to unlock, traps to build, stylez to design. And now she could customize them slightly too, creating rooms she was proud of, places she thought were comfortable, or scary, or awe-inspiring, or whatever else she wanted.
But she didn’t have anyone to share it with, no one to marvel over what she made, no one to critique it or even laugh at it. Her excitement over creation was at war with her loneliness. All she could do was sit and wait. Maybe someone would come intrude on her, and die. Maybe first, the nectarweaves would make more nodes and provide her with more mana, and she could turn that into a new creature, a new room, and a new task of decoration.
She laid down on the floor, and pretended she had a body, one that could feel the ground beneath her, one with a face, one with a name. One that wasn’t just the mental projections of a murdercrystal. She closed her eyes and imagined. Her skin against hard rock. Pebbles poking her body.
Alright, that was unpleasant to imagine. Changing it wouldn’t take much, though. She made a new room, coming off of the storage room, and disguised by a hidden door. It didn’t have to be a big room. Just big enough for that four-poster bed.
She pretended to lay down, and she had to admit, she was comfortable. Fake comfortable, since she couldn’t actually feel anything, but it felt nice. It felt right in that way where she ‘remembered’ the feeling of something. Where she subconsciously understood that she was meant to lie down in bed. She sighed, and let herself feel comfortable for the first time in a while. And once she went back to imagining she had a body, she got… really comfortable. Eventually, quite a bit of time has passed, with her barely noticing. It was nice. It was a great way of reducing the time spent bored.
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She was feeling so much better. Her hand slid down her midsection to the between her legs, and started stroking her clit, eyes closed. She did her best to remember the way that woman’s tits had looked, the arbal who was sharing a sleeping bag with one of her traveling companions. She moaned as she imagined that the woman was over her, mouthing at her neck, rubbing her fingers in circles across her clit, and moving lower and lower.
She slipped two fingers inside of herself as she imagined the woman doing it, and then curled them–yes.
Yes.
She was close, she could tell, just from fucking herself on her fingers for a bit. She hadn’t been touched at all for… well, as long as she could remember. Fuck, women are so hot, she thought as she came, imagining the woman stretching, massaging a breast in her palm, and grabbing her own in mirror with her fantasy.
And then someone walked down the steps into the first room. They had one deep brown eye, the other covered with an eyepatch, light skin and freckles, and short red hair. They looked thin, and strong, wiry, and there was a hunger in their frame as they spotted Boy.
She rushed to clean herself up, but then realized there wasn’t anything to clean. She had to ponder how any of that happened another time, since the intruder - a torch in one hand, a large ax in the other - was already fighting Boy. They blocked one of his attacks, and then ran back upstairs.
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So, a big fuck-off scorpion was in Lash’s way. One that didn’t seem native to the area. The ecosystem just wouldn’t be able to support something like that, not to mention the physical improbability of an arthropod that big being able to live. Lash was edging closer and closer to a premature celebration. Technically they still couldn’t be sure, technically they should wait to make sure there was a core or at least a second story with different monsters. They weren’t sure they wanted to battle through every level of the dungeon tonight, but if it was only a few, they might be able to do it.
But step one would be getting past this scorpion. It didn’t seem particularly special or magical. They were properly prepared for this. They hooked their ax onto it’s backstrap, and pulled out one of the bottles they bought earlier. Holding the torch out in front of them, they waited until they saw the scorpion, and then threw the bottle. It hit the scorpion dead on with a shattering noise, and the acerbic smell of alcohol-fuel burnt the inside of their nose.
All it took was the fumes hitting the fire for the Scorpion to light. It hissed and crackles as it burnt. Lash could almost imagine it was screaming, but they knew better. Just boiling fluids leaving the shell.
They entered and found a sort of camp room. Plenty inconspicuous. Not the kind of place some kind of giant scorpion would live. But a well designed room. With a completely empty table. They snorted. This place was almost certainly a dungeon. No dust anywhere, completely ready for use, and huge monsters as the only occupants? Even if they weren’t as interested in the subject as they were, this would be sending up flags left and right. They looked at their options. On the wall in front of them, there was a door. It seemed like the obvious route.
If Lash was in the dungeon for treasure, they’d avoid that door. But what they wanted instead was to confirm what they already knew. They swung their ax through the door, not willing to risk a trap in the handle, and after four hard swings, they used the prybar to break what was left of the lock. Entering right away, they knew, would be a bad plan. As a test, they tossed a pebble into the room, and as expected, two more scorpions scuttled out of the darkness to investigate. They met the same fate as the first one, burnt and hissing with steam. If they weren’t dungeon monsters, Lash thought, smug and near giddy as they passed the corpses, they might even taste good.
The room was a non-issue, bare racks of armor and weapons, little decoration. No obvious traps, and in a room where the scorpions could easily set them off, Lash wasn’t concerned.
They dealt with the room’s door in much the same way they did the first one, and as soon as they crossed the threshold, the air changed. They stood stock still - they had heard of this happening, even brave adventurers feeezing in dungeons, as if captive - as a huge scorpion, leaking glowing blood from its sickly-blue shell. It let out a threatening roar, and then the fight was on.