Lewd dungeon, p.3
Lewd Dungeon, page 3
SportGod
That you do not shy away from the topic, despite the severity of the situation does you credit. Facing one’s troubles directly is a mark of strength. However, I would know who else may be invited to this meeting?
Pleasurable Domination
Obviously, I shall be there, and yourself. In addition, I thought to invite one or more of the major gods of Japan to this summit. Someone like Susanoo, perhaps? That would round out the divine portion of this meeting. The mortals and the dungeons would have other representatives.
SportGod
You would hold a meeting between gods, mortals, and dungeons?
Pleasurable Domination
Why not? While those invited may be there due to the current situation, I see no reason why this summit should be only about those events. Would it not be prudent, in this changing world, to build bridges and establish lines of communication between other spheres of power?
SportGod
I can see the reasoning behind that. What groups, then, would these mortals and dungeons represent?
Pleasurable Domination
For the dungeons, I would invite the fox-spirit that acts as voice of the Silver Mercy dungeon, especially since I thought that such a place would be a suitable location for the meeting, outside my own domain, where we could speak without raising suspicions or concerns, and need not fear those with prying eyes or overeager ears getting only pieces of the truth, and warping it into something outrageous. In addition to Silver Mercy, there might be representatives from other dungeons in Japan, as well.
SportGod
Would the dungeons agree to such a thing? My reading of things from the System says that they are far from unified, and that they dislike making overt moves or getting into direct contact with nondungeons, whether those beings be mortal or divine.
Pleasurable Domination
Well, I am not saying that such a thing would be easy to accomplish, or that every dungeon ‘awake’ and aware enough to communicate with the outside will send a mouthpiece to speak for it, but it is not an insurmountable task. However, such things would be made easier if all who attended the meeting consented to signing a Contract under the System, binding them from spreading certain information. This contract would be provided ahead of time for review by all those invited, and those who accept the contract would be allowed to come, while those who do not wish to be so bound would be able to walk away, with no hard feelings.
SportGod
That is not very ‘domination’ of you, you know.
Pleasurable Domination
In this case, it is less a matter of ‘Pleasure’ or ‘Domination’, but rather looking after the realm of ‘Dungeons’, even those who do not venerate me in their halls.
SportGod
I see. I understand that, with so many different beings attending, taking one’s word on trust alone is not viable, especially if you are intent on inviting hot-headed types like Susanoo, or reserved beings like dungeons. I would need to read the terms thoroughly before I agreed to anything, of course. You may be a newborn god, but your methods, especially when it comes to contracts and their penalties, are known.
Pleasurable Domination
Such a thing is fine. In fact, it is better that way. Because if anyone knows enough about me to know my fondness of System Contracts, then they also know that my words are truth, even if that truth is not yet revealed to the one hearing them. I would much rather bargain from such a position than from one where people assume every word from my lips is a lie.
SportGod
Very well, and what of the mortals, then? What purpose will they serve?
Pleasurable Domination
As mortals, it is only natural that they would be concerned with actions occurring within the mortal realm. First amongst the mortals, I would invite the Ambassador of the Fimaazro people. Until the ‘uplift period’ between Earth and the rest of the galaxy is completed, she is the main point of contact between the Galactic Federation and the people of Earth. Also, I would include the leader of the Japanese Adventurer’s Guild, or whatever it is they are calling it. Finally, I would bring in a representative of the civilian government of Japan, if only so that I can truly say that all those who might wish to speak on these issues may have a voice at the table.
SportGod
You’ve put thought into this. You knew this was coming already.
Pleasurable Domination
My plans were laid long before the current situation came to be. I figured that, at some point, it might be necessary to have some dialogue between the different spheres of power on Earth, if only so that we could head off debacles like when that fool Pofmis essentially took over Bluemountain, and led the planet into regression, and the brink of ruin, all in the name of ‘freedom’. Unlike the so-called ‘Good Gods’, I welcome dissenting voices at the table, so long as they remain respectful, and some measure of civility is maintained.
SportGod
But why?
Pleasurable Domination
Because even the most luxurious dish will taste bland when it is the only thing you eat, day after day. So, too, is it with the ways of Pleasure and Domination. One needs disagreements to truly appreciate the pleasures in life, and there can be no domination of a group that willingly follows your every whim. That is more the domain of slavery, purity, or order.
SportGod
I understand, and I find your reasoning sound, even if it is rather convenient that you had this all ready to go.
Pleasurable Domination
Oh, it was simply a matter of having a basic plan, one that can be easily adapted to the situation by adding in the proper names when the situation became relevant. Prophecy is not part of my portfolio, but my time as a human has given me some perspective, which I can parlay into some degree of predictions, based on some basic armchair psychology. And that was before I picked up the [Psychologist] skill, giving me insights into other peoples than just humans.
SportGod
Very well. I shall review the contract, when I receive it. If it is not too odious, then I will agree to sign, and to the meeting, when a time and place is decided. Provided that the time is not too far in the future. I may not mention things to the other gods, but some of them are bound to notice before too long.
Pleasurable Domination
Of course. Oh, just for my own personal edification, could you tell me how you were alerted to this event? Looking through my notifications, I only received notice just shortly before your message, and others, came in.
SportGod
I am a god of sports, and the location was a school. Even if it was nothing so grand as an actual temple or a full shrine, there was an altar dedicated to me in one of the locker rooms.
Pleasurable Domination
I see. That makes perfect sense. Well, I will send you the preliminary contract, and start speaking with other groups, so that a time and date can be set, hopefully as soon as may be, considering mortal requirements.
SportGod
Very well. I shall await your timely communications.
Chapter 284 – Opening the Summit
I was smiling as my avatar formed inside my shrine in Silver Mercy’s dungeon. It had taken a couple days to get everything set up, of course, but I was confident that this little summit would set a good tone, moving forward. This was just the first step, though, and I had to make sure that I didn’t tip my hand, or appear to be pushing too hard, one way or the other. People resented being bullied into things, after all.
Fortunately, no one had an issue with the contracts I’d laid out as a precondition for attending the conference. They were all fairly straightforward, essentially being a nondisclosure agreement. It bound each of the attendees equally, including myself. What was shared at the conference could not be shared with those who did not already know, unless a god, mortal, and dungeon who attended agreed with the sharing. And just to ensure that no one thought I was attempting to pull a fast one, I made sure the language said clearly that a person could only count for one corner of that triad at a time, so I could not unseal something by counting myself as both god and dungeon, and then getting a mortal to go along with it.
Honestly, getting people to read the contracts and then get back to me was the part that took the longest out of everything. I’d already had the basic structure of this summit in my head, after all. The only thing I needed to do was change the people invited to suit the country that it was going to happen in. I wasn’t lying, after all, when I told Seidai Myōjin that I had made these plans long before.
Actually, the real surprise in the whole thing, at least on my part, was that it was Japan where things burst to the point where I needed to call the summit. After all, I’d been far more visible with my actions in the US, and a great deal more confrontational with how I handled things in Russia, with my enclave warded off from the rest of the world in Siberia. That is where I’d expected the first problems to come from.
But then, my servant did go and do things in an overly flashy way. I had not told him to set the ritual off during school hours, trapping everyone inside, after all. Of course, I hadn’t told him not to, either. People were so much more entertaining when they did things of their own free will.
I’m sure someone would laugh, to hear a god of Domination talk about free will, but I did not see things that way. I never forced someone to sign my contracts, or submit to my will, not unless they’d done something to deserve it. They always had a choice.
Oh, sure, sometimes that choice was one between a gruesome death and signing a contract that was weighted against them. And sometimes fear, or arousal, clouded their minds and hindered their good judgement, keeping them from making proper assessments of the situation. And maybe sometimes I did not adequately explain all the terms and conditions so they could make an informed decision. But it was always their choice, their decision, to submit. And that was the difference between Domination and Conquest.
“What schemes are you coming up with now, Kuronoth?”
My attention was drawn away from my musings by a kitsune with a fox mask standing just outside the edge of my shrine’s domain. “Ah, Mercy. Sorry, I was just thinking. No schemes, honest. Just a self-evaluation, you might say.”
The avatar of the dungeon did not look entirely convinced. In fact, despite the mask she wore, I could swear I felt an eyebrow raise suspiciously at me. “You? Having second thoughts? Really? Are you well? Perhaps you are running a fever? I didn’t think dungeons or gods could get sick. This would be something to report on to the rest of the DEN, if true.”
“You don’t need to make me sound like some kind of thoughtless barbarian, you know? I regularly review my actions and motivations, to make sure I’m not getting pulled in one direction or another by a spur of the moment decision, or getting caught up in the emotions of the moment. It is why I’ve had the successes I’ve racked up. Yes, I enjoy what I do, but I make sure that I’m not getting sidetracked by things, and keep my eye on the larger goals. Evaluating things regularly helps me from doing things I’ll later regret.”
“Hmph. Well, you don’t lie, so you must at least believe that is true. But if you don’t regret any of the actions you’ve taken so far, then you truly are a monster, and were even before you became a dungeon.”
I chuckled. “Well, I won’t deny that. In fact, there are some people who would be all too eager to confirm that I was no saint before the Apocalypse, and I certainly didn’t transcend into purity after. But that is neither here nor there. I take it you are here to guide me to the meeting site?”
She nodded, as she began leading the way. “Yes. I know none of the traps or creatures I have nearby would threaten you, but I do have to invite you in for this not to be a dungeon war. And the last time I left you unattended in my domain, you went and corrupted a schoolchild.”
“That schoolchild, as you put it, was not corrupted by me. He called out to me, and I answered his prayers. If anyone ‘corrupted’ him, it would be those who bullied him, and those who looked the other way as that happened. It is part of why I gave him such lenient terms in the contract I offered him.”
“A contract that directly led to the current situation!”
“Yes, but perhaps we should save that talk for when we’re with everyone? I’d really rather not go over all of this more than once. It is tiresome repeating the same thing again and again.”
“Very well. You are the last to arrive, just so you know, despite being fifteen minutes early. Even the gods showed up early!”
“Really? Seidai Myōjin I could understand, since part of being on a sports team is ensuring that you are early to events, and as a protector of Japan, Hachiman would naturally know the value of arriving early to an engagement. But Susanoo? I’m honestly surprised.”
“Don’t be. He’s been going through the wine you set up for the meeting, trying to test whether those ‘Everfull Barrels’ live up to their name. So far, he’s not yet emptied one.”
“Heh,” I chuckled. “That makes sense. After all, there’s a trick to the barrels, that most people won’t realize until they’re too far into their cups to care.”
“Oh, do you mind sharing? That could be useful for festivals.”
“I’ll share the basics of the idea, but you’ll have to pay if you want the pattern for the enchantment. Simply put, the enchantment on the barrel uses the drinker’s mana to conjure more wine. The more mana someone possesses, the more wine they can drink.”
“Well, that works fine for those who are mages, or have otherwise boosted their mana pools, but what about fighters, and others who don’t use mana? Especially since those types are also the ones who are more likely to invest in their constitution, which would increase their tolerance, and enable them to drink more? Wouldn’t it run dry for them?”
“You would think so, wouldn’t you? Well, actually that isn’t true. And before, I should have said that the more mana someone has, the more they can drink without any but the normal consequences of overindulging in alcohol.”
“What did you do? I’m assuming that there’s some trap there, then?”
“Oh, yes. Once you drain your MP, the barrel siphons away between 2% and 5% of a random attribute, using that energy to continue to fuel the enchantment, and create more wine. That is 2 to 5% of that attribute’s normal total, not its current total, mind you. Oh, the reduction is temporary, of course, and goes away twenty-four hours after the person stops drinking. And it won’t reduce someone’s abilities lower than 1, so they won’t be completely helpless.”
Silver Mercy nodded. “And as their attributes drop, they’ll eventually be unable to withstand the alcohol in their system, unless they have a high degree of poison immunity.”
“Exactly. And the ones who are immune to all poisons are rarely the ones who seek everlasting drink to begin with, since it does nothing for them. So, while they could theoretically keep drinking until the Everfull Barrel ran dry, they would likely stop long before something like that happened. And even then, the barrel will absorb ambient mana from the local area, and refill itself over the course of a day.”
“Fascinating. Does it have to be wine? Or could it be any drink?”
“Each barrel is different. The first liquid poured inside after it is enchanted will be what it produces from then onward. I have one filled with a blood wine so that the vampires in my dungeon can have regular parties without bringing dungeon creatures or adventurers to slaughter for their blood to use as an ingredient, or forcing me to spend the mana to constantly create more alcohol for them.”
“Clever. All right, here we are.”
As the fox spirit spoke, a stand of bamboo split in front of us, revealing a clearing that even my senses hadn’t been able to detect before now. As I’d asked of her, there was a round table with ten chairs in the center of the clearing. The chairs were equal in workmanship and comfort, each tailored to the race of the one to be sitting in it. There were name cards denoting where each person was to sit, with the table roughly split so that, going clockwise around the table, there were three seats for dungeons, three seats for mortals, three seats for gods, and a seat for me, between the dungeons and the gods.
There was an open bar, with Everful Barrels of red wine, sake, mead, and a Fimaazro equivalent called regrani which was made from a plant called the Gold Regran. To actually be called regrani, however, it had to be made from the berries of gold regran grown in a specific region of the Fimaazro homeworld, much like how champagne could only be called that if it came from a certain area of France. I’d bought a couple bottles of the mid-range stuff off the System Shop once the Ambassador showed up, and found that it was quite good, even if it were a bit too fruity for my tastes.
Speaking of the Ambassador, I saw her standing by the bar, speaking carefully with Susanoo as the god was clearly attempting to empty one of the barrels of sake single-handedly. Near them, an elf and human I didn’t know were talking with Hachiman and Seidai Myōjin. Across the clearing, an Oni and a Troll were chatting, nervously. They would be the representatives from the Japanese dungeons that Silver Mercy had picked.
