Damaged Dungeon

by Robin Rhodes

He stood at her face this time and watched her screaming as the belt hit her again and again. She started by staring at him, by meeting his gaze and refusing to back down. By the fifth, she was staring at the floor, cheeks flushed with pain and mortification.

  Aaron counted ten and then said to Delilah again, "Suck me off."

  This time she told him to go fuck himself, and spat. She only hit his feet this time. He was wearing her down.

  "Ten more."

  Afterward, he was getting impatient. His stroking of his cock through his pants had almost brought him to the edge, and he was desperate to get it inside something hot and tight.

  "Suck me off. This is your last chance."

  Delilah couldn't muster the energy to spit on him this time, but she still barely shook her head. "If you think I'm going anywhere near your cock then you're delusional."

  "You'll break," he said, trying to hide his annoyance that he wasn't going to get to use his slave tonight. He could have forced her—she was bound with her ass in the air, ripe for the taking—but it would be more satisfying when she gave it to him. Besides, he had the rest of his life like this. Who knew whether normal life expectancy still applied. He might be this way for hundreds of years, even thousands. Wasting her by making her surrender after only a few hours would have been a disappointment in the long run, he knew it.

  So he instructed Elizabeth to come to him.

  Then he wrapped a hand around the back of her neck, tilting it backward, and kissed her. He didn't need to instruct her verbally, she melted into his touch, body pressing against his as their lips moved in sync.

  When he dipped his hand between her naked legs, she was already wet.

  Pulling back from the kiss and cupping her face, he said, "Suck me off," softly.

  She was immediately on her knees in front of him, pulling him out of his pants and wrapping her mouth around his cock.

  Delilah struggled against her binds as she watched Elizabeth's head bob up and down on his dick. She kept begging her to stop, to rethink what she was doing, to think about Aiden.

  Aaron thought about Aiden, stuck somewhere in the world above planning his revenge while his girlfriend sucked Aaron's cock.

  It was a combination of all of it that sent him over the edge. He'd already been close, having Elizabeth's obedient little mouth around his cock was everything he needed.

  He didn't spill down her throat, although he was tempted. Instead he pulled out of her mouth at the last second and came all over Delilah's still protesting face instead. Some of it went in her mouth.

  She spluttered, spitting repeatedly on the floor. "You're disgusting," she said, words mangled as she continued to spit. "I will kill you. Stop being a pussy and let me out of here, turn off your immunity. I'm going to kill you."

  Aaron turned away from her and strode away. He'd gotten exactly what he wanted, and now he had other things to do.

  Elizabeth, who was still under his spell, stood watching him leave.

  "You can lie down," he told her. "But don't let Delilah out of those stocks. And don't clean her face."

  Chapter Four

 

  Aaron left his women in their room and didn't keep his attention there. Delilah would keep screeching and Elizabeth would lay on the bed staring at the ceiling without a thought of her own in her head.

  He'd had his fun with them, and now he needed to turn his attention to his dungeon.

  He wasn't going to have a repeat of what had happened when Mark and his party had come into the dungeon. It made him cringe just thinking about his avatar's body lying there on the floor full of stab wounds, them standing above him not caring that they'd just taken his life.

  He refused to ever be in that situation again.

  And that meant changing his dungeon significantly.

  Abandoning his avatar, he returned to the dungeon core and started browsing the catalog to see what his options were.

  The desert was boring. That was the problem. It was too large and took too long to traverse. There were too many spaces without anything happening. The heat took all the energy out of them.

  Aaron knew that if he was more patient, if his sole motivation was to level up as quickly as possible and become the best dungeon he could be, it would have been a perfect biome to have within his dungeon. There was nothing inherently wrong with it. It worked well with the classes of monster he'd chosen, and the sheer size of it meant that his loot wasn't guaranteed to be found.

  But he didn't just want to be the best dungeon he could be, he wanted to have fun. He wanted to spend time with his slaves, to see how far he could push the bounds of his new powers.

  Controlling people, luring them in, making sure his life was full of action, that was what he wanted.

  And so the desert had to go. He'd tried it and it had failed.

  He wasn't opposed to completely overhauling it and trying something new.

  The question was what new thing he wanted to try.

  He looked through his monsters. Orcs and lizards. The lizards had been perfect for the desert, being able to burrow under the sand and surprise people. Maybe a jungle room would work like that—lizards up trees jumping down and attacking people.

  There was a new creature in his arsenal now, though. The siren.

  And the first thing he thought of when he saw the word siren was the ocean. Mermaids luring sailors to their deaths on the rocks.

  An ocean biome would be fun.

  Ideas fired through his mind like rockets. There were so many possibilities with an ocean. Ships, islands, mermaids, buried treasure.

  His desert disappeared from the dungeon in an instant, and he didn't even think about saving the layout in case he ever returned to it. That was dead and buried. He cashed in and got his Credits and materials back from everything that he'd had in there.

  Then he created an ocean. A huge, open body of water. He put beaches at either end. One for when people first entered the room and another to escape it and move onto the gauntlet.

  The gauntlet would be changing, too, but Aaron would get to that later.

  Then he created some islands. Some were smaller. Flat islands with just sand. Bigger rockier islands which would require ingenuity to climb. An island with a refuge like the one he'd had in the middle of the desert. One he created a small jungle on as homage to his earlier idea. He liked the idea of putting lizards in the jungle where they could camouflage themselves against the trees and surprise people.

  It was the ships he was most excited about, though. He created a small harbor at the edge of the ocean where people would enter the biome and several types of ship. Bigger galleons, a small sailing boat, and multiple medium-sized vessels. They were all old-school boats—no engines or electricity at all. Sails or oars were the only option.

  Aaron had no idea how to sail at all, but he liked the aesthetic of it. All old-school pirates and swashbuckling. That was what he wanted.

  It would probably be easier than it looked in this fantasy world to sail. Things were based on stats now rather than pure skill.

  And finally Aaron was going to put some points in his personal stats.

  Being a passive participant in his own game wasn't as satisfying as he'd expected. He did feel like a god, sitting and watching his traps come to life, but it got boring after a while. He wanted to take a more active role.

  As the events of the day had proven, he couldn't resist intervening when he wanted to do something, and that meant that he needed some meat on his body to make sure he didn't end up in a similar situation.

  He decked himself out with attack stats, and went limited with the defense. He'd enjoyed watching Delilah dance around with her knives, and wanted something similar. He would be less agile with his short swords—slightly heavier weapons—but he would have enough mobility that he wasn't just standing still tanking attacks.

  Besides, his new home on the high seas would reward mobility more than strength. He had boats to be hopping all over.


  Satisfied with his stats, Aaron turned to creating his own vessel. He bought himself a caravel from the store with some of his remaining Credits. It was a highly mobile ship. Small, but he liked it that way. It wouldn't be intimidating compared to some of the larger ships he'd left at the docks.

  They wouldn't expect him to be powerful when they met him.

  It matched his personal play style, too. Low defense but high agility. He would be able to outmaneuver any ship he came against.

  Dropping out of the dungeon core and into the skin of his avatar, he walked the deck of his new boat.

  It felt a lot bigger than it had looked when he was actually walking along the bare wooden floors, the sails whipping above him. He'd created the boat in the middle of his ocean, but the weather was calm. He had complete control over that. He would be able to make it storm, to make waves as high as skyscrapers if he wanted to.

  What he needed now was a crew.

  He had access to some more intelligent orcs now he was Level 3, but he was still unsure whether they'd be able to man a ship like this effectively. They were stupid by nature, it was part of their being. Dumb but strong.

  What he needed was to make sure that they could follow instructions.

  He spawned an orc from the most advanced tier. It was an ugly-looking thing, with a big hooked nose and thin lips. Things which looked like boils, but were the same color as its dark green skin, covered the bits of his body which were exposed. Its armor was simple; light and leather. Its sword was curved, and close enough to looking like a cutlass that Aaron was pleased.

  It stood and stared at Aaron, no intelligence in its eyes.

  "You can understand me?" Aaron asked. He had the ability to give it general objectives as part of his dungeon programming, but he didn't know whether he could only do that from behind the scenes, or if he could actually speak to the thing face to face.

  "Yes," it grunted.

  "And you'll follow my instructions?"

  "Yes."

  Aaron grinned. "Great. Do you know how to work this boat, by any chance?"

  The orc looked around, and then shut its eyes. Aaron wondered if he'd made it overheat by asking it a semi-complicated question, but then the orc reopened its yellow eyes and nodded. "I have downloaded that information."

  Of course he could just download information like that. He had access to whatever computer the Braxians had, no doubt.

  Aaron didn't hesitate before creating a whole crew of orcs almost identical to the one in front of him. Some he gave bows and arrows instead of swords, a couple he decked out in heavy armor and shields. There was no need to designate one as a leader and the rest as followers. Aaron was the leader, and they'd listen to his every command. There was no possibility of mutiny on a ship like this.

  He instructed the orcs to keep sailing them in open waters—he wanted to make sure that they actually knew how to pilot the thing—and began exploring the below-deck area of new ship.

  There were plenty of rooms, but the nature of their universe now meant that many of them wouldn't be used. Aaron didn't need to sleep anymore, and neither did the orcs. None of them needed to eat, either. Rooms which would have been used as sleeping quarters, or a mess hall or galley were without purpose now.

  Aaron was sure he'd find a use for all of them.

  He still made himself a personal quarters aboard the boat. He made it similar to the slaves’ quarters he'd created in the back of his dungeon. A large four-poster bed, complete with manacles just in case he felt like bringing his slaves aboard at some point. Opulent ruby drapes hung from the four-poster, and his sheets were silk.

  He might not need sleep, but he enjoyed being in his avatar's body while he watched whatever was happening in the rest of his dungeon. Having a physical presence was oddly reassuring.

  When it was complete, he lay on the bed and raised his hands behind his head, sinking into the comfortable mattress. The boat rocked on the waves, but it didn't make him feel nauseous. It was nice, soothing.

  He shut his eyes and cast his mind out to the rest of the dungeon. Instead of to his slaves, who weren't speaking, he went to the entrance of his dungeon.

  Chapter Five

 

  The entrance to his dungeon was the only access to the outside world which Aaron had. He had limited access to the forums as a dungeon core—he wasn't allowed to go on and read what people were saying about his dungeon, presumably because the Braxians feared it would give him too great an advantage.

  He could only read general chatter about game mechanics, or about chatter in general. A surprising amount of people went on the forums just to play word games, or talk about completely unrelated things like TV shows or books. He talked on those forums more than he liked to admit. He'd always liked forums. All his friends had been online before the expansion hit, and he missed talking to them now. He hoped to find them on there at some point.

  At the entrance to his dungeon, his access was similarly limited. He could send his eyes to the surface, and no further. That meant his vision was severely restricted to the things happening in the immediate vicinity.

  What Aaron was surprised to see there was a police officer.

  He was sitting in a camping chair, a flimsy thing with metal legs and a canvas seat. He had a flask in a cupholder, and was reading a book. He looked young—couldn't have been more than thirty and was still in full uniform.

  Aaron had no idea why he was doing that. Did he know it was the entrance to his dungeon, or did he just think he was guarding people to make sure they didn't fall into a hole?

  No, he had to be there for Aaron. What were the chances he just chose to sit and read in the sunshine in full uniform at the entrance to the dungeon?

  It wasn't a coincidence, or a misunderstanding.

  Aaron knew he was being watched.

  He expected the approach of adventurers before he actually saw them. The officer had closed his book and stood up, fingering the ID badge which hung around his neck.

  "I'm sorry, you can't go down there," the officer said.

  Three potential challengers came into view.

  They looked powerful. A healer, a paladin and a rogue. Much better geared than anyone he'd come across so far. He couldn’t assess them properly to find out their exact levels until they entered the walls of his dungeon, but they looked like worthy challengers.

  Perfect for testing out his new biome and seeing how successful it was.

  They stopped when the officer spoke though, and said, "Why?"

  "This dungeon isn't currently accessible. It's under investigation by the police force." He held up his badge to emphasize his point. "I'm sorry, but you'll have to find somewhere else."

  The healer peered at the badge. "This says you're from New York City."

  The officer visibly faltered. He knew as much as they knew that they could take him out without blinking. He was both outnumbered and outleveled. If they wanted to go past him, they would.

  Aaron just hoped they wanted it badly enough. They were obviously ambitious. To be such a high level this early in the game meant that they'd been working hard.

  "This is a joint effort between the New Jersey and New York police forces," he said. "We're investigating this dungeon for multiple claims of malicious intent and kidnapping. I really have to insist that you don't go down there."

  "Malicious intent?" the tank asked. "It's a dungeon, it's supposed to try and kill you. Did one of your officers get a little bit beaten up and now you're getting pissy about it?"

  The officer folded his arms. He was somehow not intimidated. "I can't stop you from going down if you want to, but I've had reports of women being taken and forced to do things against their will down there." He looked at the paladin, a woman, as he said this. "This one isn't worth the risk."

  The paladin looked at her male companions and shook her head. "Let's just call it on this one, shall we?" she said. "There are two more in New Jersey that aren't that fa
r away. We can try another."

  The others looked unsure, but the healer eventually nodded. "I'm not interested in getting on the wrong side of the police."

  "We could take this thing, though," the rogue argued. "We've rolled through everything we've come up against so far."

  "So we'll roll through the other two in New Jersey," the healer said. "It's no big deal. We can come back to this one when it's opened again."

  The officer was waiting with bated breath, and slumped with relief when the party turned on their heels and left again.

  Aaron, lying on the bed in his ship, was fuming. They would have been perfect. It would have been the perfect test for the new biome he'd created.

  And how would anyone get into his dungeon now? Sure, the officer could stop anyone from entering, but the world hadn't changed that much yet. People still respected the authority the police held, and if they said something wasn't a good idea, that was often trusted.

  He might never get another adventurer within his walls if the police kept this up, and he would easily fall behind in levels and have no way to catch up.

  Why had the police even taken such a keen interest in him? The reason was bound to be Aiden. Or Mark. Mark and Delilah were from NYC. They'd probably gone to the police after Delilah's enslavement and now Aaron had a guard dog at the entrance to his abode.

  He was going to have to find some way to fix this, or his time in the Braxian Expansion would be limited.

  Chapter Six

 

  Aiden took the phone call from Kyle, who replaced Jake stationed at the edge of the dungeon. Jake had left his post to bring back more people who had suffered at the hands of Aaron Donoghue.

  They were all in the briefing room now, having gone through everything that had happened when Mark and his party were inside the dungeon. They'd had a much easier time of it than Aiden had, and he'd struggled to keep his anger in check when listening to their story.

  Aiden had lost everything in there, but Mark seemed to have powered through as if it was a piece of cake. It riled him.