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Chapter 15 by TumblingMice TumblingMice

What does the final day bring?

New allies and sweet

You groan as you arrange your forces at the end of the tunnel which serves as your front door, having locked the iron gate the moment you awoke. The end of this bounty can't come soon enough: your dungeon is in **** need of an upgrade and at least some diversified scenery, and you're getting tired of the same old hit-and-run tactics through endless identical corridors. Not only is it just plain unoriginal, unfitting of a mighty (micro)boss such as yourself, but adventurers aren't stupid and they're going to figure out how to handle your tactics at some point.

The first few hours of the day are almost comically easy: they consist of occasional scattered groups of second and third-level casters, often with no melee support, clearly hoping to get some easy overpowered gear and sorely underestimating your defences. Finally, the sound of splintering wood announces an actual threat and sure enough the muscular warrior from yesterday emerges, this time with two allies in tow. The first one is the invoker from two days ago, seemingly having reached level 5 yesterday, while the other is a sight for sore eyes: your favourite Elven toy. You're quickly snapped out of your daydreams when she speaks, though: apparently she's currently the persona you've heard called "Sarah." You can't help but frown in jealousy as you notice her lick her lips and check out the warrior's backside when she thinks nobody is watching.

Unfortunately, the two veterans of your dungeon (hallway?) seem to have devised a plan since last time. The invoker holds up a green gem which projects a sphere around her while the warrior advances with his shield. Any projectiles you and your minions fire in an attempt to slip at least a few past the large wooden aegis are slowed to a crawl the moment they enter the bubble, at which point he can easily shift to deflect them. You finally see your chance when they advance past yet another side hallway. Although they're sure to check this time to make sure that you don't have any minions hiding nearby, they clearly underestimate some of your troops' speed, and you send Tlax with a contingent of imps to race around and encircle them. Springing the trap just when they're in front of a pit trap, Tlax rushes behind... only to be pierced immediately by a bolt of lightning.

You grimace as you see a familiar barbarian/archer combo flicker and appear, concealed by an invisibility potion until their sudden attack. All of a sudden your pincer movement has backfired: Tlax and the imps are caught between several adventurers who were very much prepared for them. Tlax coils up and hisses, ready to strike at whoever approaches, but the invoker just laughs. "Nice shot, Grungil! Glad you two could join us." The dwarf gives a nod and a wave, and then all hell breaks loose. Sarah/Ari holds up her mace and unleashes a blast of holy light that stuns several of your imps, while the warrior spins around to prevent any chance Tlax has of slipping away. You give her a sorry look and motion for her to buy what time she can as you retreat with your remaining forces back to the square hallway.

The great hall area, as you've come to think of it, is your last real chance for holding these adventurers off. Clearly they've already solved your tactics from the past two days, and you can only hope that with the open layout, hiding spots, and abundance of recently-installed traps you can cause enough chaos to hold them off and buy time while Tlax and the imps respawn. The plan is straightforward: your minions will do whatever they can to harass the invaders and get them to split up. You doubt it'll be nearly as easy as it was last time, given three of them already had this happen to them and have easily countered each of your tactics thus far, but you don't have much in the way of alternatives.

Thankfully, your imps start returning almost immediately: the only upside of their nearly useless combat power is that they respawn almost as quickly as they die. Fast, effective distractions are the main thing you need for this plan to work, and they're perfect for the job. You've marshalled most of your fallen ones and all but two imps by the time the heavy crunch of boots on stone announces that you're out of time. Glancing out, it looks as if the adventurers are alert but not actively on guard: no doubt conserving their resources for when the fighting resumes. You shoot a fireball, and on cue your minions spring out from either end of the perpendicular hallway and begin raining down projectiles of their own.

The adventurers immediately leap into action, and to your chagrin they've clearly rehearsed a plan. At least three of them know the layout of this part of the dungeon, having been here only two days ago, and the warrior and invoker begin advancing down the left hallway using their usual shieldwall strategy. The barbarian and archer go to the right. This time, rather than charge with her usual frenzy, Amara simply provides cover while Grungil shoots elemental arrows one after the other, picking off any of your minions who stay in one place a moment too long. Finally, Sarah steps into the room that you're in and casts some sort of spell which causes you to glow with a radiant light. She gives a triumphant "aha, got you!" as you see chains made of golden light tie you down.

Channel Divinity: Enileve
Attacks END of all daemons and undead within line of sight of the caster, even if the caster isn't aware of them. Targets successfully hit are chained for one minute, while targets missed are still illuminated.

She walks up to you with a smirk, tapping her mace against her hand, but you also can't help but notice her legs rubbing and her cheeks reddening as she does. You flail, attempting to break the chains to no avail, but only achieve flipping your loincloth to the side and revealing your erect member. Sarah suddenly pauses, licks her lips, then drops on all fours and begins to crawl towards you as a shocked expression covers her face.

"Wait, when I was offline she, eww, the poison does what? Gross! Nope! TMI! Screw this, new character time! And shower time first! Hopefully we have some bleach!"

With that, you see her eyes roll back in her head as her character goes inactive. Suddenly her character sheet changes to "Inactive [Account deleted]." Huh, what does that mean? Is the "Sarah" personality finally gone? You put on the most confident smirk you can muster given your current predicament and stare directly into your favourite cleric's eyes.

Ari is dazed for a moment, but then suddenly lets out a horrified gasp as she realizes what's going on. With a snap of her fingers and a "oh my god, sorry, sorry, sorry," the chains melt away, and then she resumes crawling towards you, with a look on her face that straddles the line between seductive, apologetic, and ****. She grabs your cock in her hand and begins to pump, and it takes every ounce of your willpower to push her away with your hand.

"Ah-ah-ah, not now, my delicious little morsel." She glances up at you, her eyes confused and pleading, and then an explosion wracks the nearby hallway. You walk around slowly behind her. "You've been a bad girl, destroying my house and killing my pets."

"Wait, I—" her voice cuts off to a sharp crack as you bring a hand down on her firm ass.

"Silence, pet! I'll punish you later." She shivers at the thought. "For now, be a good girl and help clean up this mess."

More explosions wrack the hallway as Tlax rejoins the two of you, rushing to attack Ari before you tell her to stand down. You quickly go over your plan. Ari runs off with an exaggerated, terrified squeal, and you can hear here voice over the din of combat in the hallway. "Jared! Selena! Quick! The imp got away and Amana and Grungil are cut off! I can't get to them: I need help!"

A man's voice, presumably Jared, shouts over another explosion in reply "Damnit, I thought they said they knew what they were doing! Go, I can hold them off here!" Soon after, you hear Ari run back with another set of footsteps close behind, then pausing outside the door to the great hall. "Wait, in here! It's a shortcut to get there faster!"

Selena has scarcely stepped inside the room Tlax wraps around her. She casts a confused glance at Ari, who sticks her pinkie in her mouth and gives a mischievous smirk in return, before Tlax sinks her fangs into the invoker's neck and she vanishes into a brown sack of loot. She pumps it in and out of her mouth a few times while gazing at you with half-lidded eyes before skipping off in the other direction. Grungil! Amana! Selena got cut off from Jared and is trapped in the central room! Hurry!"

"Damnit lassie! I thought she said she ken handle herself. Ach! Amana, do yer thing, I'll see if I ken clean up her mess." A familiar "yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah" from the barbarian fades into the distance, and soon after the door explodes open and the red-caped dwarven archer charges into the room. He spins around before locking eyes on you and readies an arrow. "Ye'll pay for killin' Selena, daemon!" he shouts before his eyes go wide with surprise and he lights up with a radiant glow. He releases an acid arrow harmlessly into the ceiling as he spins around, seeing the fading glow from Ari's hands with a "wha?" You recognize her spell as the same one the cleric hit you with back at the monastery: it makes attacks far more likely to hit the target. Seeing your chance, you snap your fingers and he collapses limply to the ground, only to be dispatched by Tlax's fanged maw moments later.

Although the remaining two adventurers are formidable foes in their own right, a slow game of luring them into traps, harassing them with your quicker forces, and making sure they never meet up slowly grinds them down. Finally, just after Amana is finally dispatched, a trumpet and popup announce that your gruelling four-day marathon is finally over.

World Bounty: Enileve's Wrath (Final Results)
Kills and deaths by day

  • Underlings Lost: 0; 47; 3,142; 130
  • Minions Lost: 0; 0; 5; 1
  • Champions Lost: 0; 0; 32; 1
  • Total Deaths: 0; 0; 97; 0
  • Adventurers Slain: 0; 11; 4; 17

Rewards
Survived Day 1: 100 fame.
Survived Day 2: 200 fame.
Survived Day 4: 400 fame.
Longest streak: 2 days (+1 free level of daemonic liegelord)
Kills in your dungeon: 320 fame.

Those rewards almost make the whole ordeal worth it, although you can't help but cringe when looking at the results of day 3. You issue a silent prayer to whatever gods will listen that they don't make you drop any more unique collectibles in the future. Your minions begin an impromptu celebration, running around with cheers of "red guy" and gleeful cackles with the imps, but you have no energy left to join in. You suddenly feel yet another wave of exhaustion wash over you as the events of the last day fully catch up to you, and turn to head to bed when a soft voice catches your attention.

"Um... weren't you supposed to punish me?"

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