Succubus 5 (Hardcore Dungeon Core): A LitRPG Series Read online

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “The shortcut,” Jen said. “If you died now and resurrected back in the graveyard, you would enter the first level, see another door like this one, and just jump in and slide down to here. It’s sort of like Chutes and Ladders.”

  “If you died rather than climbing ladders,” Richard added drily.

  “Wait,” I said, the gears turning in my head again. “We saw that guy resurrect and run into the slime mold dungeon – what if he was going back to the 50th floor? We could have just run in after him and slid down to 50!”

  “You can only go through the passageway if you’ve already beaten that level. Otherwise – ”

  Slothfart interrupted. “Y’know that scene in the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark when that dude betrays Indy and gets skewered like a kabob in the temple?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s sort of like that.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  Jen and Russell laughed, and Richard even looked mildly amused.

  “I tried it.” Slothfart shuddered. “Just like a kabob. Talk about harshin’ yer buzz, dude…”

  So we kept going.

  Four more levels of mythological creatures, punctuated by the occasional slime mold, skeleton, or elemental. Gryphons, gorgons, ents, evil centaurs, chimeras, banshees, hobgoblins, golems (not war golems, but the earthen variety), and hags, in addition to everything we’d seen so far.

  Some of the floors expanded in size. Sometimes they contracted, like the claustrophobic passage where the ceiling was only three feet tall and we had to fight in crouched positions.

  The bosses included a minotaur, a cyclops, a rock giant, and an ogre. FINALLY after defeating the ogre we got something worthwhile: for me it was a pair of shoulder guards that added +10 armor and +5 Intelligence, in addition to 10 silver.

  It still kind of sucked, but we had a long way to go, so I was reasonably sure the loot would get better.

  I hoped.

  One thing was sure: the sixth floor got harder.

  22

  It was a cavernous grotto with pools, waterfalls, and winding tunnels. Gone were the reassuring angles and corners of the previous five floors; now it was full-on exploration.

  Part of me wondered how this underground cave fit in with the decidedly regular dimensions of all the previous floors, but – hey, you know – magic.

  The consistent lighting of the torches had been replaced with bioluminescent mushrooms and algae, and the dimmer light led to things suddenly leaping out of the shadows. And the creatures were all new, so we didn’t know what to expect. Tentacles that reached up out of pools. Black-Lagoon-like gill men. Moss beasts that looked like the Swamp Thing. Cute (but poisonous) mushroom creatures like the dancing ones in Fantasia.

  Slothfart slammed his foot down on the cave floor and announced, “I just stomped Toad from Mario Kart!”

  “I think you mean Donald Trump’s dick, mate!” Russell hooted, and the two laughed uproariously.

  Halfway through the cave we got a breather, so I yelled out, “Hold up, guys.”

  I cast Gravesite, and black tendrils of energy began to shoot from my fingertips and coalesce into a half-oval shape. Six seconds later, a tombstone jutted from the cave floor.

  “Whoa, you’re like a magical 3D printer or some shit,” Slothfart enthused. “Can you make a bong with that?”

  “No, but now if you die, you’ll come back here instead of resurrecting all the way back at the beginning.”

  “Oh. Okay,” Slothfart said, then scratched his ass. “That’s cool and all, but… see if you can make a bong next time.”

  However, his tune about the save point changed when we got to the end of the cavern.

  There was an island out in the middle of a pond, with a house-sized snapping turtle sitting quietly in the middle.

  “Hey, look, it’s Gamera!” Slothfart said. “Wonder if he has rockets in his ass? Hey, buddy, can you fly?”

  The turtle did not fly over to us.

  Thus we had to go to the turtle.

  First we had to get to the island, though.

  Slothfart dipped his toe in. “Okay, not too cold.”

  Russell just screamed at the top of his lungs and dove right in.

  And immediately got eaten by a shark.

  Actually, ‘immediately’ was a bit of an overstatement. There was a lot of teeth clanging on metal, which led me to believe Russell was still in its mouth and not in its belly.

  “Holy fuckin’ ball sacks – that’s a fuckin’ SHARK!” Slothfart screamed.

  “Yes, we see that,” Richard said as he pumped healing energy into Russell.

  “No, man, you don’t underSTAND – that’s a FUCKIN’ SHARK!” Slothfart shrieked.

  The giant orc tried to hide behind Richard’s willowy body, which was about as effective as a fat man trying to hide behind a cornstalk.

  “I don’t understand,” Richard said. “We’ve seen wyverns, harpies, gorgons, and any number of terrifying mythological creatures… and yet, you’re most disturbed by something that actually exists. Why is that?”

  “Because it’s not supposed to exist HERE!” Slothfart yelled. “They’re supposed to stay SAFELY back in the real world where they CAN’T EAT ME!”

  “There are giant spiders and snakes here, too,” Jen pointed out. “What about them?”

  “I don’t like them either, but I can stomp on fuckin’ spiders, and I live in a fuckin’ city, so the only snakes I see are on nature documentaries!”

  “You never see sharks, either.”

  “Uh-huh! On Shark Week!”

  “Why the hell do you watch Shark Week?”

  “I DON’T, but when you’re flipping past the channels, THERE IT IS ANYWAY!”

  “You don’t even go in the ocean!”

  “BECAUSE THERE’S FUCKIN’ SHARKS!” Slothfart screamed, then pointed at the thrashing out in the water. “And by the way, I don’t think you’re doin’ him any favors by keepin’ him alive to be a Great White’s CHEW toy!”

  “Call me silly, but I think you have a phobia,” Richard said.

  “Yeah, ever since Billy Jenkins’ sleepover in fifth grade and we watched fuckin’ Jaws in the middle of the night, man!” Slothfart yelled. “Two in the morning and I gotta see some dead guy’s head floatin’ out of a hole in a boat?! FUCK THAT SHIT!”

  At just that moment, the shark stopped thrashing and floated belly up to the surface. Russell emerged from its mouth, his armor massively dented and his Health considerably lessened – but he was alive.

  “Bugger that fish!” he called out cheerfully as he paddled back towards us. “Anybody want sushi? I’ve got – ”

  And then another shark got him.

  “AAAAAAH!” Slothfart screamed as it dragged Russell beneath the surface.

  The orc panicked and tried to jump into Richard’s arms – who immediately collapsed beneath his massive weight.

  “mm-mph-mm!” the troll yelled beneath Slothfart’s chain-mailed belly.

  “Sorry,” Slothfart muttered as he stood up.

  In the few seconds that Richard hadn’t been healing Russell, we watched

  helplessly as the goblin tank’s life bar dropped to zero.

  But 30 seconds later, he came running up behind us. His armor looked like it had been whacked a hundred times with a ballpeen hammer and somebody had taken a can opener to it, but his cheerfulness was still intact.

  “Hey Ian – that tombstone thing? Damn convenient!” Then Russell looked at Slothfart, who was visibly trembling. “What’s with you?”

  “He was traumatized by a Steven Spielberg movie,” Richard said in a deadpan voice.

  “What, The Color Purple? It’s a beautiful movie, mate! Or was it Lincoln? That was a bit long – ”

  “Not The Color Purple!” Slothfart roared. “Not Lincoln! JAWS!”

  “What?! I love that movie!” Russell shook his head in disbelief. “Are you seriously afraid of
a fish?”

  “It’s not a FISH, it’s a fuckin’ WATER DINOSAUR! It’s a fuckin’ WHALE WITH TEETH!”

  “It’s an overgrown minnow, you fuckin’ pussy! Come on, let’s go!”

  “I’m not goin’ in there!” Slothfart screamed, shaking his head wildly. “You can’t MAKE me go in there!”

  “I could have Soraiya fly us over one by one,” I suggested.

  “I am not doing that,” Soraiya said, crossing her arms. “He’s too big.”

  “That’s what she said,” Stig said.

  “I would be laughing my ass off right now if I weren’t shitting my pants!” Slothfart screamed. “Metaphorically!”

  “GUYS!” Jen yelled. “Allow me.”

  She blasted out a spell, and a floating column of ice formed from our bank over to the island.

  “…oh,” Slothfart murmured. “That was a surprisingly easy solution.”

  It was until we got over the water and onto the island.

  For one, the stone surface of the island was insanely slippery, to the point that it was hard to stand up.

  The second was, the sharks could actually propel themselves up out of the water and slide across the slick stone surface of the island – meaning they could attack in both water and on land.

  Video game biology. Darwin rules didn’t apply.

  This freaked Slothfart out more than seeing them in the water. I swear, even though bodily functions were not something that existed in the game, I just knew he was going to shit himself any second.

  “LAND SHARK, LAND SHARK!” Slothfart shrieked as he tried hopping out of the way and then falling on his ass, right into the path of more sliding sharks.

  I felt bad for the guy, having to face his phobias like that in the worst possible way, but we had other problems.

  The giant turtle woke up.

  It heaved itself up on its tree-trunk-sized legs and thundered over to us – and then began to spin. Its giant, spiked shell became a whirling, revolving dervish – and then it began to careen into us, knocking off 10% of our hit points and slamming us back into the water – where the sharks were waiting.

  Needless to say, just about everybody in the party had to resurrect at least twice.

  Slothfart only did it once, because he refused to come back over the ice bridge.

  “Get over here, you fuckin’ wanker!” Russell yelled as the turtle seized him in its giant beak.

  “Unh-unh!” Slothfart babbled. “Nope! Sorry, guys, but I’m sittin’ this one out!”

  Without a third damage dealer, the battle went far slower, and we all had to resurrect a lot more – but the battle suddenly turned when we realized that Fugly’s acid ate right through the turtle’s shell. Five shots in one spot, and it dissolved a hole big enough for Russell to jump into and start whaling away with his hammer at the tender skin beneath. The turtle only lasted 30 more seconds, and that was that.

  “Good job!” I said to Fugly, and fed him some salted meat.

  “yah,” he agreed.

  Russell just glared at Slothfart as we went back over the ice bridge to enter the passageway to the next floor.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Slothfart said. “I wouldn’t hold it against you if you didn’t want to fight a bunch of midget clowns – ”

  “Do NOT mention midget clowns!” Russell yelled as he pointed his finger at Slothfart. Then he turned away and tried to shake it off. “Fuckin’ creepy little greasepaint wankers…”

  23

  We continued on through the next seven floors. Luckily there were no more sharks or clowns – although demons started to show up. They tended towards the uglier, more savage-looking kind, not the friendlier, muppet-like variety that had crewed the pirate ship Revenge.

  I thought that being the Emancipator of Abaddon might have gotten me a pass, but nope. Not one bit.

  That was a joke.

  I didn’t go running through the dungeon yelling, I’m the Emancipator of Abaddon!

  Mostly because Alaria mocked me for it preemptively.

  - Are you going to ask them if they know who you are? she teased.

  “…NO,” I said, although I’d been considering it up until that moment.

  I also thought that at least my demons might get cut a little slack, but no: a trio of red, pink, and violet succubi attacked Soraiya and didn’t give a damn that she was one of them.

  Slothfart, Russell, and Richard all paused for a moment to watch the bobbing breasts and snarling catfight as the multicolored hotties tried to claw each other’s eyes out.

  “…I could watch this all day…” Slothfart murmured.

  “…I concur…” Richard said.

  “Fuck yeah!” Russell agreed.

  “GUYS, KILL THEM!” Jen roared as she blasted the violet one with ice.

  “This is so sad,” Slothfart whimpered as he pulled his scimitar and jumped into battle.

  His attitude shifted slightly after we killed them.

  “Is it wrong if I cop a feel when I’m searching them for loot?” he asked.

  “YES,” Jen yelled.

  “But they’re dead. And it would be, y’know, ‘accidental,’” he said, using his fingers to make air quotes.

  “GET AWAY FROM THEM!” Jen yelled as she stalked over. “I’LL search them.”

  “I shouldn’t have said anything,” Slothfart muttered as he stood on the sidelines watching.

  “That’s gross, mate,” Russell scowled. “That’s, like, necrophilia.”

  “That’s not ‘like’ necrophilia – that is necrophilia,” Richard said.

  “It is not!” Slothfart protested.

  “It is the very definition of necrophilia.”

  “I didn’t want to do ‘em, I just wanted to feel ‘em up!”

  “So you’re engaging in necrophiliac foreplay – what’s the bloody difference?” Richard asked loudly, more worked up than I’d ever seen him before.

  “Slippery slope, mate,” Russell agreed.

  “I don’t like ‘em cuz they’re dead, I like ‘em cuz they’re hot!” Slothfart yelled indignantly.

  “And I’m sure degenerates who work in mortuaries never fancy the more attractive corpses!” Richard yelled right back at him.

  Slothfart paused and thought about that for a second. “Ew…”

  “Oh, do you get it now?” Richard asked in exasperation.

  “Well, jeez, when you put it like that…” After another couple of seconds he called out, “Thanks for searching the dead hotties for me, Jen.”

  “Yeah, I just wish I could wash my brain in bleach and delete everything I heard in the last 30 seconds,” she yelled back.

  We weren’t finished with demons after the succubi, though.

  Instead, I got my first glimpse of an incubus.

  As soon as we rounded the corner, something was waiting for us: a 6-foot-6, bare-chested Calvin Klein underwear model. He had washboard abs, broad shoulders, bulging biceps, crimson skin, a prehensile tail, long black hair, and two ram’s horns curling out of his forehead. No wings, though.

  He carried a flaming sword in one hand, and the only things he wore were black boots and black leather pants.

  And there was a notable bulge in the front of those pants.

  Like… obscenely notable.

  Our entire group just stopped in our tracks in shock.

  “Wow… just… wow,” Jen gasped.

  “Yum,” Soraiya purred and licked her lips.

  - Mmmmmm, Alaria murmured.

  “Hey!” I snapped.

  - What? she said indignantly. I can LOOK.

  I frowned. “I thought you couldn’t see stuff, only ‘feel’ it.

  - Oh, I’m feeling it, alright.

  “HEY!”

  - GODDESS, I’m KIDDING.

  I wasn’t entirely sure she was, though.

  Slothfart shook his head in incomprehension. “It’s like he’s Fabio, if Fabio was red and actually hot.”

  “Who’s Fabio?” Soraiya
asked.

  “Not that guy, that’s for sure. It’s like his entire body is one giant ‘V’ pointing down to his dick. Wait, is that Russell in his pants?”

  “What’re you sayin’, I’m a poofter?” the goblin asked cheerfully.

  “Oh, there you are,” Slothfart joked. “I thought he stuffed you down the front of his pants, his wang’s so big.”

  “I think that’s a codpiece,” Richard said helpfully.

  “Dude,” Slothfart said, “that’s not a cod piece, that’s an ORCA piece.”

  “That’s a fuckin’ blue WHALE piece, mate,” Russell hooted.

  Slothfart held one hand out in front of his face like he was trying to block out the sun. “Come on, man, I don’t wanna see that shit…”

  “I’d like to see it,” Jen murmured, then immediately blushed.

  “HEY!” Slothfart said, putting out both his hands like What are you doing?! “Objectification!”

  “Oh, yeah, like you weren’t objectifying those succubi,” Jen snapped, then imitated Slothfart’s gravelly stoner voice. “‘Hey, can I feel them up after they’re dead?’”

  “But I didn’t!” the orc yelled.

  “Only after I told you NO!”

  “And only after the necrophilia birds and bees conversation,” Richard said.

  “That doesn’t OH SHIT, he’s comin’ over here,” Slothfart muttered, stepping back in alarm as the incubus advanced.

  “Good,” Jen murmured again.

  “Mm-hm,” Soraiya agreed lustily.

  The incubus attacked. Russell leapt towards him and CLANGED! his war hammer against the flaming sword.

  “That’s a big sword!” Slothfart yelled as he lifted his scimitar and joined the fray. “And his fiery weapon is pretty large, too!”

  Jen reluctantly blasted the demon with a spray of ice.

  I hit him with Doomsday and then Soul Suck.

  Soraiya was just standing there watching, though.

  “Why aren’t you fighting him?” I asked.

  She raised one eyebrow and smiled as she watched the incubus swing his sword around. “I prefer to watch this one.”