Lewd Dungeon, Book 25 Prologue (Patreon)

(Adventurer’s Guild Official Forums, Miami Branch)

SunnyBunz, MightyMouse, ImAPally, DontYouWantMe, AsaAkiraIsBae, BestGirl, LatinHeat, Salty, Backpage, Craig34, l33tpally, Anonymous3, Anonymous4, RedFox, Kimiko, DonnyJuan, Crusader, BadCompany, HurricaneGal, Ambassador, Scholar, Righteous, Id10t, Satyr, DarkEnchanter, RangerMiguel, ScoopGirl, VenusFlyTramp, MagicMike, TsundereHealer, Max, LightningLegacy, SwiftTaylor, Domino, Bacchus, Aegis, Temptation, and Lord_Kickass are in the chat.

BestGirl: So, I don’t know what I was expecting from a service at the Demon’s church, but that wasn’t it.

Salty: What are you talking about?

BestGirl: Oh, sorry. A friend from another party here in Swamptown was getting, well, I guess you could say hitched. Enslaved and married at the same time, to her party member, who is now her owner and husband. Ceremony was held at the little cathedral the Demon put up in Swamptown.

Scholar: I’m almost afraid to ask, but what was that like?

BestGirl: Well, the ceremony was presided over by the fallen angel girl who took up residence there. She actually has ‘Sword of Kuronoth’ as her class, as well as the ‘Slave’ title.

RedFox: Yes, she came and swore herself to the Master, and asked him to bind her. In so doing, he changed her.

Righteous: Why in the hell would anyone ASK to be enslaved to the Demon?

RedFox: The way she told it to me, it was because the very ‘religious’ types who raised her were abusive, and the other righteous types in her town either turned a blind eye, or helped themselves. So, after the Apocalypse, she returned home, settled some scores, and then came to Swamptown.

RedFox: Yes, Master uses and abuses me and his other pets, but he is honest about it. He doesn’t like hypocrites who cannot admit, both to themselves and the world, what kind of people they are. Apparently, even when he was a human, he didn’t lie, or pretend to be the good church-going saint that some of these people like to play themselves off as. He knew what he was, and while he didn’t shout it from the rooftops, he didn’t give anyone the impression that he was ‘righteous’.

Crusader: … As much as I’d like to argue, that is true. He just kept to himself, but the team won games, and there were never problems in his classes, so no one had problems with him. It wasn’t until he had something on me that he let the other part of himself show.

VenusFlyTramp: You ok, girl? You’re usually a lot more… vitriolic when it comes to him.

Crusader: I’ve been going to therapy. Online, of course. I can’t actually leave the building without risking getting thrown out of Swamptown, and then I’d be in trouble. And sleep is in short supply with two kids, with a third on the way.

ImAPally: How much longer you have on your sentence?

Crusader: When the third child is born, I’ll be able to leave, without any backlash from the contract.

VenusFlyTramp: Oof. Three kids in two years? That’d be enough for even me to swear off sex for a while. At least a couple months.

LatinHeat: So, BG, what was the service like?

BestGirl: Oh, it was weird, like I could see how it was based on traditional weddings in some parts, but everyone was naked, with only these long cloaks on. And kissing the bride was followed by collaring her, and then a blowjob and a facial.

Backpage: Like, in front of the whole congregation?

BestGirl: Yeah! And it didn’t seem weird, which is the weird thing. You know? But anyone who’s been in the Demon’s Dungeon has seen, or done, worse in front of an audience.

Craig34: True. Kind of shifts your perceptions, doesn’t it? What’s that called?

Scholar: The Overton Window. Usually describes politics, but it works in this case, too. Basically, if you push something far enough, and it becomes normalized. So, people who spend too much time around the Demon’s Dungeon find their views of sex and sexuality, specifically with what is ‘normal’, changed from the rest of the population.

MightyMouse: So, other than a wedding, what has been going on in Swamptown?

AsaAkiraIsBae: Well, there was a bit of a shakeup earlier. At the church, now that I think about it.

Bacchus: You mean when the stained-glass windows lit up, and the pillars changed? Yeah, I would say that constitutes a ‘shakeup’.

Salty: Wait, what?

AsaAkiraIsBae: Well, I was offering a few prayers before my party went into the dungeon on a dive, and the whole church shook. The stained-glass window over the altar, showing the demon getting head from someone with Pofmis’s symbol on her back glowed brightly for a second, and then the pillars changed.

Salty: Changed how?

Bacchus: They were nothing special at first. Stone pillars, like you’d see anywhere, right? I mean, they flowed with the room to support the ceiling and all, so they weren’t just decorative, but they weren’t ornate.

AsaAkiraIsBae: Functional. Like, they fit in with the rest of the place, and were designed to look good, but they had a ‘function first’ kind of feeling.

Bacchus: so, anyways, the pillars all suddenly had engraved images on them, and they were moving!

VenusFlyTramp: What were they doing? And what did they show?

AsaAkiraIsBae: They showed a demon and a woman. Couldn’t say much more than that, since it was just an engraved image, rather than a high-def picture. As for what they were doing? Well, let’s just say I learned a few new positions just from watching them.

LatinHeat: Man, if church had been more like that when I was a kid, maybe I’d have paid more attention!

Bacchus: Also, there are symbols that have started repeating around the cathedral. The System tells me that they are runes for Domination and Pleasure, which makes sense, but they are often circled by runes for things like Humans, Slavery, Undead, and Demons. There were others, as well. Anyways, about the time things changed, a new rune, for Dungeons, was added to that.

Scholar: Domination and Pleasure are the Demon’s domain, his primary focus as a deity, so the other ones might be lesser qualities, perhaps relating to his worshippers?

HurricaneGal: You know, Temptation has been pretty quiet for the last week or so.

ScoopGirl: Hmm. Now that you mention it, he’s usually posted something at least once a day, even if it was just a little comment on someone else’s conversation. But he hasn’t said anything in a week. I smell a scoop!

RedFox: Master has been… preoccupied abroad. If you like, I will let him know you would like to speak when his attention returns to the dungeon.

Id10t: Wait, so for the past week or so, the dungeon has just been, what, running on automatic?

RedFox: Essentially, yes.

Id10t: What about people who get to the final floor?

RedFox: Most don’t press their luck that far, but for the three teams that did manage a full clear, they each got the fight they asked for. But that reflection was only a sliver of the Master’s attention.

Ambassador: Oh, dear. That would explain why I’m getting reports of strange occurrences from several different systems.

ScoopGirl: What do you mean?

Ambassador: Well, there are shrines to Kuronoth popping up in dungeons all over the spiral arm, and it is spreading.

RangerMiguel: Well, that can’t be good.