DWMN 25-27

CH25

We had what amounted to a VIP caught committing acts of banditry, and we couldn’t even turn her in. The councilman would most likely come after us, and the police wouldn’t or couldn’t do anything. Killing her could have disastrous consequences as well.

She wasn’t a bad-looking girl; hell, the beak was kind of sexy. Her body was shapely, and her ass looked tight enough to bounce a gold coin off of. I would buy her for a night of debauchery. Those feathers looked like they would be warm on a cold night, and her eyes were so big brown and almost catlike. Her beauty was something I could get behind.

I reached for her, and her beak snapped on my finger. There was a slight pressure on the metal and leather protecting my fingers.

Her look would have been fierce if she had the stats to back it up or the size and muscle mass.

“Stop flirting with the terrorist so I can figure out how we’re going to get out of this without dying,” Azizi said.

The girl perked up at that.

Azizi had led them to the elevator. Hyenas had an incredible sense of smell, and she had stopped to pee every few acres we crossed. She also chugged water like a hole in a bucket. I thought she had a problem but apparently not.

“If you want out of this, kill one of your guys, and I’ll join your party.” I flicked her forehead, knocking the ostrich girl on her big sexy feathered ass. This world was clearly messing me up; it must be the brothel I planned to visit. “Are you volunteering because I don’t like you?” The ostrich girl said.

“Azizi, you’re overthinking it. Let’s add her to the party and let the dungeon naturally cull our weakest link. It won’t be our fault she died; it would be the dungeon.” I said.

“He’s right. Sometimes the simplest plans work the best.” Hati said.

The girl’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates.

“We can’t handle a dungeon surge with our current stats on this floor.” Zeff tapped the floor. “We should do it on the first floor. While our gains will be slower, we can end this threat swiftly.” Zeff said.

“My charisma has increased. I should be able to handle capturing some more mobs. I think I’ll call this one Tye, and when I make the velociraptor one, I’ll name it Vel. We should stay on this floor and add a second mob to our team. That would practically give us a 7-man party. The dungeon will be swinging at just above what a 5 man party can handle.” I said.

“Don’t get greedy like me,” Hati said.

“Yeah, I heard about your stunt buying three frog girls,” Azizi said.

“Going into a dungeon surge is a little different than getting spit roasted by 3 girls,” Zeff said.

“They all had dicks.” Azizi said.

I nodded my head. Hati was a braver man than me. There was one rule I lived by inherited from one of my favorite podcasters. Never take anything dick shaped in the ass. It's probably why Azizi and I will never be lovers, and she isn’t into dick.

“Congrats, girl, it looks like you’re joining the party through popular vote. If you try and screw us over, I’ll hit you in the back of the head with my mace.” Azizi said.

“You can’t be serious,” Zeff said.

“Don’t worry, I’ll let the dungeon finish her off,” Azizi said.

“That’s ok then,” Zeff said.

“I could leave and promise not to tell anyone.” The girl said.

We froze and gave the girl a joint look. Our party hasn’t been in combat together long, but we gained some cohesion over the last few hours. Hati had 3 sisters but didn’t want Azizi to find out because they would bang her to piss him off. He was here to make enough money to send back to them so they don’t become sluts or get sold off as breeding stock by his mother. Zeff let it slip that he had a bunch of gambling debts inherited from his father, and to pay them off, he had to join the church. Azizi was a runaway from her clan and went to Alaya town to hide from her overbearing mother and sisters.

People talk in their downtime, especially when the next fight could be their last. We were new, but with every fight, we were getting closer. Adding another fuckup to the party seemed par for the course. While there would be more mobs to deal with, a second archer wasn’t a bad thing.

“Since you’re officially joining the party, my name is Vincent Hawk, and if we survive tonight, I think I’m going to fuck a bunny girl,” I said.

“Azizi and maybe a nice wolf girl with black fur like Hati,” Azizi said.

“Fuck you, my name is Hati, and I’m thinking of a nice zebra girl,” Hati said.

“Fuck all of you very much; this is a bad idea.” The Zebra sucked in an unsteady breath. “My name is Zeff, and I’m going to fuck a bitch tonight that looks like Hati,” Zeff said.

The ostrich girl looked like she was not having a good time but quickly sucked it up.

“Melony is my name. I’m going to fuck a monkey that looks like Vincent.” Melony said.

I rolled my eyes and mentally changed my target from a nice, sweet bunny girl to an ostrich with Melony’s features.

…

CH26

We were taking a break on a rock and taking watches in shifts. The hazy red landscape stretched seemingly forever, and mobs hunted through the tall red grass. The further from the elevator we traveled, the taller the red grass until stalks were the size of trees and signs started appearing. While I sketched an idea out in my notebook to the sounds of snoring teammates, Melony kept looking back at me.

Endurance was a great stat, but the undead were naturally tireless. If one of the undead could move at the speed of a raptor and use weapons like the undead on the first floor, they would be unstoppable. That was the idea behind an alteration I had planned.

I was wrong about my capture skill and its link to my charisma. Time was a factor in the number of monsters I could capture, and my charisma determined how many I could control. When I fused two mobs together, the result took the same amount of my charisma to control as two mobs, except after a few hours, that number declined. Controlling Dom took the same effort as controlling one undead, even though it was made of four.

After capturing 3 raptors, I concluded that fusing them while useful wouldn’t raise their effectiveness much. What if I combine Dom, my four-armed 3 faced undead, with the body of a raptor? He already had a tower shield and a war hammer, so if we gave him a lance, then he would be set to become a more efficient battlefield weapon.

“Don’t you trust me?” Melony asked.

I looked up from my sketching and raised an eyebrow. Melony glared at me with her hands on her hips. Before, she had tried to kill us and then turn the group on me. Unfortunately for her, my party had a hyena who smelled bullshit from a mile away.

“If you don’t betray us in a week, I’ll think about it.” The bird girl grumbled. “Why bother with the banditry down here? It's bad enough with the dungeon trying to kill us; why make it worse for everyone?” I asked.

I flicked four cards out and summoned my undead. While staring at the sketch, I focused on my undead, conveying the message through our shared connection. Once, it felt like they received the picture I sketched. As worms erupted from the monsters, they molded into a ball of flesh. At the same time, the hives attempted to work together to fulfill my vision.

“What the dungeon is going on?” Melony asked.

“This is my mob,” I said.

“You were supposed to combine three raptors into one, so we had two more powerful helpers.” Melony squawked and hopped from foot to foot. She looked ready to charge me. “What will we do when the dungeon surge hits us?” Melony said.

I watched my mob transform as wiggling green worms and a single red worm worked to bring his image to life. While I wasn’t an artist previously, I knew enough about techniques for my increased intelligence, wisdom, and dexterity to see me through. 3d modeling wasn’t easy on paper, and it was hard to get the dimensions right. My mind was better at creating abstract 3d models and translating them into reality than ever. I had better control over my hands than any surgeon or artist because my stats made it so.

Translating that information from myself through the dubious connection to the undead might not work out. It was something of a dice roll hedged with experience and better planning. Everything I could do to prepare the worms for the alterations had been done.

I tested Dom by having it make minor alterations to itself, streamlining its body to look and move better. Unfortunately, Dom had reached the end of its evolution without new additions.

The meatball of undead flesh and writhing worms slowly formed Dom’s three face wolf heads. Its arms are covered in a mix of scales and hide stretched out with tight, streamlined muscles. Below the waist was the raptor body in all its glory with a long whip-like tail, six sturdy legs, and a great raptor head in the front. Long boney scythe-like arms replaced the raptor’s natural tools, able to fold out like the wheel blades of a chariot. They were made to lock into place like a cow’s legs when the undead charged through crowds of enemies. A cranium of 4-inch thick bone, an inch of fat, and layered scales would protect it from impact. It was a thing of destructive beauty.

Some of Dom’s muscles had to be moved to reinforce its body, and I sent messages for minor changes. The red worm seemed to lead the green worms; the changes happened in real-time. Like an artist removing and shading others, Dom slowly changed, becoming deadlier.

My connection to the mob was maxed out for several hours. That was a problem if we needed to capture more monsters, but Dom looked nice and strong. I kept Melony in my peripheral in case she tried any backstabs.

Hati’s eye opened for a moment, then closed. We couldn’t be certain she wouldn’t betray us at an opportune moment.

“You could let me go, and I won’t tell my father anything.”

The ostrich girl hopped from foot to foot, digging into the ground with her thick talons. A kick from one of those could be devastating with the right build. How did she end up as an archer? Having two archers in the group without the right abilities to handle large hordes of mobs wasn’t that useful. By his own admission, Hati was more of a sniper type and had an armor-piercing ability.

Most likely, Hati was lying, but who knew. Melony seemed to have a cloaking ability. That would make both equally less useful in the coming dungeon surge.

Picking up Melony was more like a handicap than having 5 members. If anything, the dungeon should give us less of a dungeon surge.

On the bright side, Melony had two distinct advantages that Hati didn’t have. She smelled like a ray of sunshine in a miserable miasma of blood and iron the second floor spritzed all over. The ostrich girl also had a nice give ass and big brown eyes. Melony fluttered her eyes at me.

“Come on, forget the brothel; you can have me when we get out of here if you let me go,” Melony said.

A roar echoed through the dungeon, met by hundreds of claws digging into the ground. Loud grunts filled the air, and we heard movement, almost indicating a change in tactics from an intelligent foe. Then there was the roar; it resounded over the second floor again, loud and proud.

“Go ahead and run; you’re free to go,” I said.

…

CH27

I strapped my helmet and checked my armor to ensure everything was right. Some plates would have been nice, but beggars can’t be choosers. Our dungeon drops were down a rank, which must have included plate mail. Lucky me, I missed out on a vital layer of protection. I turned left and right to feel my new blind sides.

Winning or losing depended solely on if we could break the coming horde and scatter them. If we can maintain cohesion while they scatter, we have a chance. The entire point of taking the risk was to prepare for the future. We lacked the armor, weapons, spells, and abilities for the 3rd floor.

We would retreat together for the elevator if it looked like we would break.

My fists were better weapons in the short run than double helix. Adding her to the party was one thing; flashing a legendary weapon in front of her was another. On the bright side, I felt much stronger than I had a few hours ago. It was the stats, the deal with the dungeon, and the second floor. They made me confident I could destroy undead raptors with my bare hands.

A command had Dom get into position while the first group of raptors charged on our position. We picked a spot with low red grass and flat ground perfect for Dom. The second the raptors were in sight, the massive undead charged, eating the distance between it and the raptors in record time. Its scythe-like wings spread in its charge, and it cut a line out of the undead like white-out on black. The kills counted toward my next level, which was all that mattered.

Tireless and fast, Dom hit any group that passed through the tall red grass with unwavering destruction. A mountain of undead flesh and worms fell like an avalanche on the invading army.

Arrows from Hati and Melony picked off the stragglers as Dom swept to us for Zeff to buff him. I stood on Zeff’s 9, and Azizi stood on the zebra man’s 3. The raptors barely paid us attention and went for the heeler, as dungeon surge monsters were known to do. I punched one when it closed in and returned to my position.

There was a method to our madness. Loot was a numbers game; the more mobs, the better; our plan was simple: we would play the odds and get some good gear. Then we would go after the easier puzzles and go to the 3rdfloor.

A roar echoed through the floor as something shook the ground.

“When I tell you to draw your spear and break formation. We’re in no state to take a boss.” Azizi said.

I punched a raptor with a low left hook, taking it off the ground and ripping its insides to shreds. The monster’s body tumbled to the ground. Its worms twitched the muscles and tried to move it, but the damage was too much. We were gaining stats double time, and fighting increased the stat gains even more. It was something about the mana in the air being used to help reforge us. By killing more monsters, more mana was in the air for gains. I kicked one of the raptors in the leg and felt the monster’s bone snap. The weight of my armor made delivering solid blows easier.

Burst wasn’t active yet; I needed the spell for whatever was coming.

It broke from the red grass forest, sprinting for us. 60ft and 10 tons of angry undead lizard charged, and I shot forward while unraveling double helix. The spear hummed excitedly as I stepped out of our relaxed formation into no man’s land.