Alan stumbled slightly as he stepped out of the dungeon entrance and set foot back in the tier two valley. He had been moving quickly to get through the exit and the transition had left him off balance. It was also disorienting to go from such a crowded setting into his deserted zone.
“So, can we talk about it now?” Tamee’s voice came through in Alan’s head.
She usually didn’t speak to him while he was in a dungeon, saving her comments for a post-adventure breakdown. As a much higher leveled person, with experience in the wider universe, he usually listened to what she had to say. Not this time, however.
“Nope,” was his only reply.
The disappointment in her voice was clear, “aww, come on. That got really steamy at times.”
Alan just ignored her. Recently he had suffered a catastrophic injury, which had cost him his left hand. It had taken him quite a while to regrow it, using a combination of a special potion and a new spell. Until his hand had grown back, he hadn’t wanted to explore any dungeons since his combat ability was severely affected. Then, after healing, the first dungeon he entered hadn’t involved combat at all.
New Quest: The Coven’s Den (100)
[A family of witches guards a secret. Infiltrate the family and seduce the Matriarch to discover what they’re hiding.]
He had appeared just outside of a bustling town, whose occupants numbered somewhere around five thousand people. The town was controlled by a small family of witches. The Matriarch of the family was a beautiful older woman. How old, he couldn’t have said. She was an Orange grade human, and so her life expectancy was far beyond a normal persons’. Thinking back, he did allow himself a small smile. She might have been a couple hundred years old, but she was very attractive.
Of all the skills he had learned over his life, first growing up in the country, then from joining the Army, followed by the Green Berets, becoming a doctor, and finally training with the Space Force, wooing a woman was not one of them. However, since being press ganged into this tutorial where he had to fight for the survival of Earth’s people, he had noticed that women were finding him more alluring.
To be fair, he had never thought of himself as ugly, but many found his personality off putting. They were usually looking for someone a little more upbeat, less focused. But in the approximately three weeks since induction, he had been actively pursued by three different women. Well, after that dungeon he would have to up that number significantly.
Tamee had obviously gotten a kick out of it. “I mean, I know you hate it when…I mean if, I watch you take a bath. However, I would have had to cover my eyes for most of that dungeon if I wasn’t going to see anything.” Alan continued to ignore her.
The first few hours he spent in the dungeon involved scouting out the situation. Alan had walked the streets listening to conversations, and then spent some time in the many taverns. The witch, Gianna, was known to be lonely after her husband had recently passed away. Her most recent apprentice had also been killed under mysterious circumstances.
Alan had presented himself to Gianna’s manor as a potential replacement. He had a mage class, in addition to others, and Tamee had assured him that Witch was just a possible upgrade of that class. It turned out that he was acceptable as a new apprentice, but she was even more eager to use him as a replacement for her husband.
Very little seduction was required on his part. She did all of the flirting and Alan mostly tried not to screw it up. By the end of the first day he was already in her bed. By the end of the second he had discovered the family’s ‘secret’. It wasn’t even a good one, just something invented by the dungeon.
They had a collection of opal Witch stones that would allow him to upgrade his mage class. In return for his amorous activities she was willing to give him one. It didn’t seem like a bad class, but it was only uncommon and he already had a rare class upgrade stone.
The dungeon had awarded him the one hundred points, and the Witch stone for the completion of the quest. The problem was, even though he was ‘done’, he couldn’t leave the dungeon. Every time he tried to leave the manor, he was accosted by one of her servants who made sure to redirect him. They had even taken to locking the front doors.
“And some of those outfits she had you wear! Who knew that you would look so good in pink?”
That got a grumble out of him. Gianna was big into the idea of role-play, and he had been of a similar size to her late husband. The variety of costumes, and the embarrassing nature of some of them, didn’t bear thinking about. After the fourth day he had jumped out of a window. None of them opened, so he had been forced to crash right through the glass.
It caused quite the commotion, and the townspeople were quick to surround him, thinking foul play was afoot. If only they knew. The head of Gianna’s household came out and assured them that everything was okay and that they would take care of him inside.
The sixth day dawned with Alan tied up in the bed. It wasn’t as a punishment for trying to escape, no one had even told her about that, it was because she had wanted to try tickling. Alan was apparently very ticklish, but since he was stronger than she was, Gianna insisted he be restrained so he couldn’t resist.
That was the last straw. He became desperate and realized he would need help to get out. The servants all thought it was a great joke and felt sorry for their lonely mistress. They wouldn’t be any help. However, Gianna had a daughter who appeared to be around Alan’s age, but she was also an Orange grade human, so she was probably many times older. In trying to enlist her help, he had ended up in her bed as well. It turned out that Gianna kept her children fairly sheltered, and she was looking for a good time as well.
“I was surprised by how big of a family she had, I mean four daughters!” That comment caused Alan to blush, which only encouraged Tamee more.
“It was amazing how oblivious they were, too. The house wasn’t that big, and yet none of them seemed to realize you were boinking the whole lot.”
He hadn’t, in fact, been ‘boinking’ the whole lot. The youngest daughter, who was probably slightly older than he was, appeared to be a teenager. That was a line he wasn’t going to cross. The other three daughters, yes. The oldest had initially promised to help him sneak out of the house, but she kept delaying, telling him just one more day.
Alan had tried approaching the other two daughters after the tenth day he was trapped in that house of debauchery. Neither of those daughters had shown any sign of helping him either. In fact, the third daughter had threatened to tell her mother about them if he stopped her ‘morning lessons’.
That was when he found out how much trouble he was truly in. Gianna’s husband's death, and the apprentice’s untimely demise, were in fact linked. The matriarch had discovered that they were having an affair, and she had killed them both in a fit of rage. It seemed that the husband hadn’t been meant to die, but he had tried to get in the way and ended up as collateral damage. If she found out about what Alan was up to, there was no doubt she would murder him in an unpleasant fashion.
“The most shocking moment for me was when you convinced the son to help you.”
“I said I didn’t want to talk about it,” Alan snapped at her.
The witch had four daughters, but she also had a son. He was the middle child, and not favored by the rest. It was in his desperation that Alan approached him. Juadin was a large man who had ended up with more martial classes than magical. Technically he was a witch, but he focused on it very little. It turned out he was just as lonely as the daughters.
Tamee started in again, “I had no idea that you were willing to…”
“I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT!” Alan shouted back at her.
“Touchy.” was all that Tamee said with a giggle.
Alan put her out of his mind. It wasn’t difficult since she wasn’t actually present. She was an administrator overseeing his zone in the tutorial. Early on he had figured out how to include her in a sort of party chat so that he could gain information from her. The new universe he had become a part of came with a wiki, but it was light on the details. Tamee, unfortunately, was also not always that helpful.
It was on the twentieth day in the dungeon that he had finally made it out of Gianna’s manor, with the help of her son, and he had literally sprinted through the town and run through the exit. Much of his time there had been spent in idle, if pleasurable, pursuits. This meant that none of his skills had actually improved. Luckily it didn’t really cost him all that time. The dungeon time was accelerated by a factor of ten, so it had only been two days in the real world.
It also wasn’t a complete waste. The dungeon points he earned could be turned in for a variety of items. He had recently spent about half of his points upgrading his armor and collecting some more talents for his classes. The new points would help make up for that, a little, but he was in no rush to spend any more at the moment. Every couple of days the list of items to purchase would grow, and unless he ran into a need, Alan was going to wait till the end to see what the final items were. He didn’t want something great to pop up and not have enough points to purchase it.
The current zone was supposed to last for a month, but he wasn’t quite sure how much time was left. He had learned the hard way that the dungeons’ time dilation changed if you stayed in them too long, which he had. Hopefully this last one hadn’t also run too long. When he had come out of the previous one, he had lost anywhere from two to several days of his time.
That had been a nasty surprise, because he now had a town. It was pathetic, consisting of only a one room hovel and a small fruit garden. It also had a population of one. Well, maybe one and a half. However, that was apparently good enough for the Network. He had earned an achievement, but he now also had to worry about an obelisk near his house that would occasionally spawn monsters.
Alan could prevent that from happening if he killed the boss that showed up every three days. Because of the lost time before, he had returned home worried that his town was destroyed. Luckily, the other creature who made the town home had kept it safe. Two Socks had made himself a feature of the town when he was still a tiny wolf. He had since grown into an adolescent and even evolved into a rarer form. Alan had discovered that the wolf was quite capable of handling security.
This last dungeon had taken longer than he thought it would, again, and the boss timer had reset again while he was inside. Alan was less worried this time. He was counting on Two Socks to deal with the random spawns. The only concern he had was if the boss had made its way to the town. The last two times the wolf had been reluctant to take on the boss itself, and rightfully so. While the minions were only level two or three, the bosses had been at least level six and also more powerful variants.
He was actually hoping that there was still a boss to fight. He had spent a lot of effort improving himself to get ready for the last dungeon, and his fighting skills had proven useless. It would be nice to break some heads. Alan had long reconciled himself to the more violent nature of life in the Network, but it wasn’t like his previous life had been without bloodshed.
As a Green Beret, he felt himself uniquely suited to thriving in this new life he had been thrust into. It was a good thing too, because he was also the only person in his entire zone. At the end of the month he was going to be in direct contention with three other zones, all of which should contain ten thousand recruits. If he didn’t turn himself into a monster, metaphorically speaking, he would have no chance by his lonesome.
Before checking out the boss, Alan made the decision to head back to his house. He could make sure everything there was ok before tracking down the new boss. It would also be good to see Two Socks again, and to restock his snacks. It turned out that eating fruit off of each other’s bodies was a kink that the entire witch family had shared.
“Why are you blushing?” Tamee asked.
“Nothing, leave me alone.”
“Oooo, look at me, I’m Mr. Surly. Poor guy had to make love to an entire family of beautiful women for days on end. And then whatever that was with the son as well. Do you need some regrowth potion for your downstairs?”
That last one got a chuckle out of him. “Ok, ok. Sorry to be so surly. I just didn’t enjoy feeling like a piece of meat.” Even as he said it, he knew he was in trouble.
“Weird, as a woman I have no idea how that feels.”
Alan was saved by a disturbance ahead of him. The grass was still up near his waist so it wasn’t until it got close that he noticed the grass moving. Then the creature causing it stood up, and what looked like a pony charged at him.
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Beast: Adolescent Stalker Wolf (rare) level 10, threat: medium. A stalker wolf is adept at moving unseen and ambushing its prey.
Identify was the one skill that he could work on in the last dungeon. Unless the Network recognized carnal skills, which it apparently did not. He was now getting a little description about his target, in addition to the threat level. It wasn’t much, but it was a sign that it would become more useful than it already was as he improved it.
It was a good thing that the overly friendly wolf didn’t try and jump on Alan this time, he could have done some real damage. Instead he was content to rub his head up against his chest. He was now around one hundred and thirty centimeters tall and looked almost big enough to ride. That was actually a thing in his new world, riding around on beasts. The Network didn’t rely on technology like he was used to, it was more of a medieval society.
Two Socks had changed in more than just size. Previously he had been almost entirely white. Now his fur had shifted to a light brown color. Interestingly enough, his front two paws were still white, just like his namesake.
He had increased his level twice more, but his threat level was still rated medium. That could have been because of how much stronger Alan had gotten. He took out a large piece of watermelon he still had left, and spent a moment infusing it with mana. Setting it down before his friend, Alan sat and watched as he gobbled it down.
“How are you doing, everything okay at the house?” Alan asked him as he chewed.
He had never been able to tell exactly how much the wolf understood, but Alan felt like his furry friend could follow the general idea. Two Socks laid his ears back and growled. He started to get up with his treat only half finished. Something about his question must have set him off.
“Relax, whatever it is, we can take care of it together.” Alan had a feeling he wasn’t going to like what he found when he returned home.
His lupine friend settled down and resumed his feast, but his fur was still standing up. After he finished, they started the short journey back to the house. Alan had yet to see the wolf travel more than a couple of kilometers from the farm.
The fact that they hadn’t run into any dungeon creatures yet was a sign of how effective Two Socks was becoming as a warden. As they approached his stone and wood house, he was dismayed to see that his fruit garden had been attacked. Several plants had been uprooted, and others were eaten down to stalks. A few of his vines had been completely devoured.
The culprit was easy to find. A stranger might have thought there was a boulder in his front yard, but Alan knew there were no rocks that large in the area. He had scoured the surroundings for stones to build his house, so he knew it was something else.
Beast: Glyptodont (Boss) level 7, threat: high. A glyptodont is a previously extinct animal with a hard shell and a mace-like tail.
The boss reacted to their arrival by standing up. It looked like a giant armadillo that had been crossed with a morning star. In addition to standing even taller than Two Socks, its shell, made of small fused discs like a version of scale mail, looked incredibly tough. Its tail also extended about a meter behind it and had a knobby ball on the end with small protrusions. They weren’t spikes, barely sticking out more than a couple of centimeters, but they would dramatically increase the force a blow would deal, similar to the rounded side of his own weapon, a spewn.
Drawing it from its sheath, he admired it again. It was of dwarven make and a recent acquisition. He had been gifted it for helping to free almost forty prisoners captured from a mining camp. Its design was well suited to Alan’s fighting style, allowing him to use it as a long knife or a mace, depending on the situation.
He had fought a tortoise boss with it before, and he figured this encounter would be similar. The armadillo, he had trouble thinking of it using its real name, soon proved that it was much faster than the lumbering turtle. It was able to quickly close the distance between them and then it spun around, lashing out with its tail.
Fortunately, Alan had the reflexes of a trained killer and a dexterity that was greater than an Olympic gymnast’s. Jumping forward, he flipped over the tail and landed on the other side, already striking out with his spewn. For his first attack he was trying out the sharp edge that ran along the tip of his hybrid weapon. To his surprise, it actually managed to crack the armadillo’s shell.
It didn’t puncture all the way through, but the boss reacted to the blow by forming a partial ball and rolling away. As it did, Alan could see where his weapon had opened a small gap in its armor. No blood seemed to be leaking out, but it gave him hope that the blunt side of his spewn would be able to smash it apart.
Before Alan could chase it down, Two Socks decided to get in on the fight. He ran after the boss and shoulder checked it as it rolled. The scaly mammal was pushed out of line and quickly unfurled. As it did so, it sliced toward the wolf with an outrageously long claw on one of its back feet. Poor Two Socks wasn’t expecting the attack and it cut him open along his side, exposing ribs.
Blood gushed out, coating his fur, but that wasn’t all that was bathed red. Alan was usually a rather level headed guy. Being a Green Beret meant being able to think and assess in crisis. They weren’t jarheads who were full of rage and testosterone. However, seeing his only physical friend in this place get torn open had done something to him.
With an angry roar, he charged the armadillo. Now that he had two hands again, he had his spewn in one and his pugio in the other. This would be his first opportunity to use the dagger with his larger spewn. A smart man would have eased into the fight and tested out a newly adopted fighting style. Instead, Alan rushed in, weapons flailing.
The boss was also looking to play and it swung its heavy tail at him. Rather than dodging, he shifted his grip on the spewn and countered with the mace side of his weapon. The ball and egg met with a tremendous collision, but the strength of the blows cancelled each other out. The only casualty was Alan’s arm which was dealing with some impressive vibrations.
Ignoring the numbing in his right arm, he stabbed forward with his pugio and connected with the crack in the shell he had made previously. The blade plunged in up to the hilt, which was dragged out of his hand as the armadillo tried to gain some distance again by rolling away. The dagger served a second purpose, as it caused the boss to give up the attempt when the hilt jammed into the ground, stopping its momentum and probably causing it a lot of pain.
Two Socks was a fighter, and was still on his feet. He was a little hesitant, though, since he had likely never been this seriously injured. Alan’s head cleared enough for him to realize he was better off healing his friend, rather than attacking the boss at the moment.
His minor healing spell didn’t require him to be touching his target, but it did seem to make it more effective. He placed his hand on the wolf’s back, as near the cut as he dared, and sent healing energy coursing through his partner. It wasn’t enough to fully heal him, but it was enough to stop the bleeding and seal most of the wound. He would have cast it again, but the boss was turning around and shuffling towards him.
He had momentarily lost his second weapon, but he had several back-ups. However, he thought he might be better off using his new shield instead. While his spewn had been able to crack the beast’s shell, it was a far superior weapon to anything he was carrying. That meant that his other weapons would likely prove useless unless he could create another opening. His shield, on the other hand, had dropped from the tortoise boss, and could help deflect the boss’ claw, or even its tail. That would allow him to focus on dealing damage with his pride and joy.
As the armored beast closed, Alan tried to draw it away from Two Socks. The boss was only too happy to oblige. One of Alan’s Guardian class talents was Taunt and he seemed able to better hold the aggression of his enemies. When the beast was almost in range, he cast a spell.
Alan was all alone in his zone, but that had led to a special advantage. In the previous tier, recruits explored a set of eight dungeons to earn stones that would enable them to learn classes. These classes tied in with an attribute to both make their bodies more powerful, and also to give them knowledge of how to use their bodies in new ways.
Just because you earned a stone, didn’t mean you could gain the class associated with it, however. The stones varied in power, and would only work if you had a limited number of classes. Without anyone to compete with, Alan was able to get the best stones, which allowed him to gain all eight quartz classes. Most others would be limited to three or four.
The first class he had gained was rogue, which was why he favored daggers. The one he had seen the most growth in was his mage class, though. Much of that growth could be attributed to his time spent in a special realm with the man who became his Mentor, Dracon Mazus. There, he had learned how to improve his spells, and how to create new ones. It was one of his self-created spells he used now.
A rainbow hued ball shot out from his hand and exploded in front of the boss’ eyes. It didn’t deal any damage, but it left the creature disoriented and unable to see. Alan followed up with a solid mace blow to its head. It wasn’t as effective as he was hoping, the beast must have a very thick skull, but it did seem to disorient it further. He landed a second blow with his spewn on the beast’s side.
He had been correct earlier in thinking that the rounded side of the spewn would be able to break it open. A ripple of force spread out from the point of impact and a ten centimeter hole was left as the tiny scutes shattered apart. The pain was enough to get the armadillo focused back on the fight.
It turned to expose its unbroken side to Alan, and at the same time it brought its tail around toward his left. Positioning his shield to take the blow, he slammed his spewn into the unblemished scales in front of him. Another large hole was opened up in the shell. However, the boss’ tail was now unavoidable.
It slammed into the center of his tortoise shell buckler, forcing Alan back several steps. The shield was able to partially absorb any damage it blocked, and his Network enhanced body was quite capable of dealing with the rest. A silhouette appeared in his vision with its left arm showing yellow, but he was used to far more significant injuries.
Rather than close with the boss again and engage in melee, he pointed his spewn at the hole in the boss’ side and used it in a manner he had only recently discovered. In addition to being a knife/mace hybrid, it also acted as a wand. He sent a ball of fire shooting into the armadillo's body, straight through the hole in its shell. His aim was getting better all the time.
There was a plume of flame and shrieking from the boss. In its pain it must have forgotten about the dagger still sticking out of its shell, because it tried to roll away again. Alan was ready this time and he ran along with it. When it got stuck on the hilt again he bashed down with his spewn causing a third hole, this time near its spine.
As it uncurled, it tried to slice him with its claw, just like it had done to Two Socks. He was ready and got his shield in the way. This was a blow his shield was easily capable of blocking and his arm didn’t even darken on the silhouette.
It immediately tried to follow up with a tail whap, but Alan had anticipated it again. This time he didn’t block, or get out of the way. As the tail came around he sliced down with his spewn, having already shifted his grip so it would hit with its edge.
While the bony ball on the end was almost twenty centimeters across, the tail attaching to it was only six or seven centimeters thick. The spewn cut right through, and the severed end went sailing past him, since it was no longer connected to the body.
After that, the rest of the fight was clean-up. The boss still had those large claws, but it wasn’t nimble enough to really use them effectively. And while its armor was tough, his spewn was tougher still. Stamina had become a concern, but with the boss unable to escape by rolling away, and no longer needing to dodge attacks from multiple threats, he was able to slow down his attack to the point where his stamina leveled off.
He also started to rely on his spells more, mostly his fire bolts, but occasionally light and shadow bolts as well. In the end, the glyptodont, its persistence had earned Alan’s respect and so he forced himself to learn its real name, was burned all over and its shell was more holes than armor.
Alan switched out the spewn for his gladius to deliver what he hoped was the final blow. Just in case, he didn’t want his spewn stuck in the boss. With a burst of energy he slipped past the boss’ feeble attempt to catch him with a claw, and buried his sword in the beast up to the hilt. It did thrash a bit, ripping the sword out of his hand, but no more attacks were necessary.
Stepping back he watched as it slowed and then stopped moving, its chest no longer rising with its breath. Moving forward again, he retrieved his weapons, and then headed back to check on Two Socks. The wolf was lying on his side, panting lightly. Alan took out his alchemist cauldron and used conjure water to fill it.
The wolf gratefully lapped it up as he placed his hand on the partially healed wound. Using the last bit of his mana, he caused the wound to close all the way. There wasn’t even a scar, just a small line of hairless skin. Hopefully it would grow back.
Two Socks finished his drink and stood carefully. He seemed to test his movements, as if not believing he was healed. Once he realized there was no more pain he gave a happy yip and gamboled about. Finally he padded over and helped Alan check for loot.
This time there was no item, just another bag of gold. It would have been nice to get something to make up for all the work he would need to put his farm back in order, but the gold was appreciated. He had burned through quite a bit of the pile he had found in his necklace.
Alan had found the necklace on a dark elf that he had killed, and the item was actually a spatial storage device. It had contained a lot of stuff. Most of it was gone by now, except for some clothes, a class stone, and a much more reasonable pile of money.
It was only mid-afternoon, so Alan set about putting his fruit garden as right as it could be. A few plants he ripped out and replaced with seeds, not seeing how he could salvage what was left. Thankfully most of the rest would just need some TLC, and a little mana infusion, to fix.
Frustratingly, his special plants were still not bearing fruit. He had planted several seeds inside magic circles that were supposed to boost the mana levels inside of them. He wasn’t sure what the result would be, but so far they had grown to look like normal versions of the plants, but without producing any fruit.
With all of that done, he cooked dinner for the two of them. It was much easier to do now that he had both hands again. Tonight’s dinner was more of the lizard steaks he had gotten from the last time the town dungeon had started spawning monsters. He supposed that dealing with monsters was an important role that adventurers played in the Network.
If every town had a dungeon, and it would leak monsters into the surrounding area, you would need skilled individuals to take care of the bosses right away before the smaller creatures could attack the normal citizens. His dungeon obelisk only produced level two or three creatures, but his town was so basic, it didn’t even get a real grade. It was tier zero. He couldn’t imagine what it would look like for a town like the one Gianna had been in charge of. Thankfully, that hadn't been an issue since it wasn’t a ‘real’ town, but simply something created for the dungeon.
After dinner, Alan decided he would break with tradition. Normally, he would use this time to work on developing his aura reading and sharpening his weapons. Then he would get a good night’s sleep before cultivating in the morning while exercising.
The fight with the boss had gotten his blood pumping, and the work around his house hadn’t satisfied him. He decided that instead of resting tonight, he would get moving right away. He said his goodbyes to Two Socks and headed out for his next challenge. He had previously discovered a one way dungeon, meaning the only way out was to complete it, with a high difficulty level. There had to be some good fights in there.
He maybe could have waited, and instead worked on evolving one of his classes to opal. Before his most recent fight, he had leveled all of his classes but two all the way to the maximum. The last two had only been a few points off. This fight had pushed them even closer, and the dungeon he was about to run would probably max them out.
That meant he would lose out on some potential growth, but he was okay missing out for two reasons. The first was that his Mentor, that was an actual Network recognized relationship, had suggested he wait as long as possible to evolve. The second was because he still wanted to upgrade his rogue class first, and he hadn’t gotten his sneak skill high enough to use his upgrade stone yet.
Hopefully there would be a chance to work on it in this dungeon. This would be the highest difficulty dungeon he had attempted so far, so there should be plenty of chances to improve his skills. His last thought before he stepped inside was that it better not be another sex dungeon.
