Master the dungeon.

Your fingers tighten beneath Lauo's finely crafted hilt--polished, which shimmers by the light which sparks wildly from the enchanted blade. It started as a simple yet erotic effect from a magic sword found in a dungeon, though what you feel now is something far greater. This power is your own. It wasn't given to you by a mad mage or the witch in his shadow, but something you earned. Around you stand the sources of your strength, and together you're something greater than any Demon King. The invisible ties don't draw just to you, but between one another, like a cobweb of silver thread.

Dirt kicks up behind as you dart straight into danger. Though just as you near the great beast's foot, the hair stands up on the back of your neck. It was difficult to see at first behind the towering shadow, but a fist is now swinging in your direction. You duck and slide, narrowly dodging impact, and as you do, you speak the magic word, "Entangle". Then two more times as you leave a potent series of traps around a single location.

"Magic Bolt! Magic Bolt!" you hear Eva shout as she sends two sparkling darts directly into its midsection.

More immediately in the way is Niki. The Dungeon Master brings two fists up, balled into a meteor strike, which comes down with a disorienting explosion. There's still a weight difference between the two, so Niki can't help but be **** back across the tiles as their tear up in their wake, though it's an impressively short distance, and she looks to have taken no damage from the blow. She keeps her shield up, and the two remain locked in heated combat for a time.

And to take advantage of that, you buckle your knees and Bunny Hop straight towards the ceiling, activate your Boots of Herbes, and then come to a gradual stop against an upside down floor. You push off the moment your boots drop power, and as you plummet, you shout, "Flare Blade!" as a trail of flames follow you down to a thrust into the demon's head. Then you raise the weapon up once again, and as you do, the fire dissipates as swiftly as it came. It's instead replaced by an, "Entangle Blade!" which is driven into the point of impact. Suddenly its top is enveloped by blue tendrils, and before can be struck down, you Bunny Hop once more, landing by the rest of the party.

"I've got it," Xiaoqing says. Her long sleeves whip up, and she darts forward a short distance before bringing her gloved hands down against the tiled floor. A wave of frost moves quickly towards the demon's left foot, and as soon as it makes contact, ice bursts forth to completely freeze that limb from moving.

With a grunt, the Dungeon Master steps with the other, but directly onto a minefield. Your Entangle spell goes off, and suddenly that entire half of the creature is bound.

Amara raises a hand with her other grasping her staff. "C-Celestial--" But then she whimpers, and seems unable to finish channelling her mana. Just like she said before, she's made herself a little too sensitive.

You place a hand on her shoulder. "It's all right, Amara. You did enough."

A deafening scream draws the attention of yourself and the others. "I'm so done!" yells the Dungeon Master. "Rocks fall, everyone dies!" Then with two fists, she strikes the floor right around her feet. Starting at the center where she stands, everybody is drawn in like a whirlpool of stone. A sinkhole opens. The columns crumble into deadly shrapnel, and a landslide of coarse soil pours down to follow your tumbling descent.

Thank goodness everybody makes it down safe.

However, now you stand in a dimly lit lower chamber. The light from the upper ceiling is still visible, though it barely reaches much of the room you're inside. You look around to see the same symbols as were on the columns. There are words as well, though in a language you don't recognize. It looks dwarven, which makes sense given the mountain range you're under. You wonder if this entire section is what remains of the original ruins, hence why it appears more natural than the rest. It must be from where the dungeon spawned.

"Is everyone all right?" you call out, just to be sure.

In the middle of everything is a pile where most of the bits have landed. It doesn't stay stationary for long. Suddenly, the Dungeon Master erupts from inside, sending segments of dungeon out in all directions, though they pause in the air, and gradually begin to orbit her like satellites. Their velocity increases, and it soon becomes more similar to a tornado.

"I will not fall here!" the demon screeches. "I am the Dungeon Master, servant of the Demon King! All I do is in his name. I respect him. I love him. Compared to him, you're nothing. You think you can come in here and make a mockery of what we've done? It's all been pointless, because here you'll die, and after you've been hunted and slain, I'll return to him with more trophies than he could ever imagine!"

Then from above, the remaining tiles come hurling down to jab into the ground, interlocking with one another as she constructions a crude dungeon right before your eyes. It happens so quickly that you can't tell what happens to the others. You're left next to Eva, but even the nearby Amara is blocked by a wall between you. After less than half a minute, the torrential downpour of stone ceases and you're left with an unnerving silence.

Thankfully, Lauo lights the way, especially next to Eva. "Hello?" you call out.

"Is that you, Kyle?" Xiaoqing answers, but you can't tell from where, or how far away.

Then you hear stone grinding against stone, and her voice doesn't come through again.

"She's cutting us off," you say to Eva.

She nods. Though she seems distracted. With two hands tight between her legs, she bobs back and forth, from one foot to the other. "Mhm. She sure is... H-Hey, can you defeat her please? Like, within the next few minutes?"

Then two eyes tear open from the wall tile behind you, followed by a mouth. The narrator speaks through it. "In my dungeon, I'm the one in control. I could trap you hear forever if that was my goal." It stares for a moment, and its rocky lips curl. "Having some trouble, little rabbit?"

"No! I'm fine," she lies.

The mouth opens wide. From within, water runs down. The trickling noise doesn't seem to be doing Eva any favours, though you can immediately tell that it isn't ordinary water. It forms a blob where the wall meets the floor, and then it rises up into a humanoid shape of short stature--some kind of water elemental.

"Show yourself!" you shout, but the face disappears.

Behind you, Eva whimpers as the water elemental sloshes about.

"... Th-That noise--" Eva says through clenched teeth.

You point your sword around and speak, "Frost Bolt," to send a precision strike to the wobbly creature. It freezes solid. "I said show yourself, Dungeon Master. Fight me. If you want to isolate us from each other, go ahead, but face me yourself."

There's barely a pause before a wall comes down between the two of you. Then, around bend in the other direction, a passage slides open.

You make your way through. The stone itself, unlike before, is far from polished and orderly. The pieces barely fit together, and most if not all the tiles are cracked in some way. Keeping your sword--the only source of light--forward as you march, you turn the corner and continue into a chamber that opens up wider, at least compared to the claustrophobic tunnels.

The moment you step in, the wall closes behind you. It's straight away obvious why by the pink glow of your weapon. Though the room seems to only be roughly fifteen feet wide and long, much of it is taken up by the massive, dark-fleshed mass of the Dungeon Master's golem-like exterior.

You squint up at the beast. Lauo glows brighter. "Whatever you and William are doing, it's messed up. That's who you're working with, right? The Demon King of these lands. I know he does his own thing over here, but luring people into a dungeon is fucked."

"They chose their fate. Nobody forces them to try and loot my home."

"Rationalize it all you want. Tell me. What else is he up to?"

"There's no reason to keep talking. This is where you lose."

"If I make you scream, will you tell me?"

The hairs on the back of your neck stand on-end. Though the chamber is small, she still has enough room to throw a punch. Her fist connects with the back wall, dislodging it partially, though the pieces snap right back together like magnets. Meanwhile, you tumble down into a roll between her legs. Then after quickly standing up again, you Bunny Hop to the ceiling, and then flat onto the top of her head.

You can just barely make out the damage you dealt before, and the remnants of your tendrils expose the chips in her armour. With two hands on your weapon's handle, you hold it up and channel as much mana as you possibly can for a spell like this one. The blade burns bright--flashing and crackling with such luminosity that it feels for a moment like you're fighting outdoors. Then you scream the spell's name at last. "Pleasure... Blade!" A throbbing energy pulses up to the tip just as you thrust it down perfectly into the hole made previously. The effects are instant.

"Oohh... Ngghaah... Aaaaaaahhhhhh!" screams the beast in overwhelming ecstasy. "Gyaaaahhhh~!"

Deep cracks across the entirety of its body until it shatters into pieces like the shell of an egg. The pieces fly off in every direction, and then begin to melt down into dripping sludge. A woman remains laying in the dirt, covered in black ooze. She has incredibly long, white hair, with dark grey nipples, and pale skin covered in a strange pattern of jagged lines. There are no irises or pupils in her eyes, but instead a soft orange glow. She winces and twitches in a puddle of her melted armour--a hand between her legs as she continues through her climax even now. Her chest heaves up and down, and she can't do much else, especially knowing that she's lost the battle.

You look past the falling tiles to your party hustling over.

The walls around you aren't stable. Thankfully this is an area unchanged by the Dungeon Master, besides the destruction, so it's slower to collapse than what she made herself, but it's still dangerous to stay. The last time you bested a Dungeon Lord, the ruin started caving in on itself, but fortunately, with the magic gone, your Bunny Hop allowed you to escape.

The Dungeon Master grumbles out at last. It's just as it was, narrating your journey--proper and smooth, a good speaking voice. "Demon King Cresswell and I met awhile back. The story is long, but he not only saved me, he inspired me. Taught me things even I didn't know, as a demon who makes dungeons. He's from another world, and has knowledge beyond my understanding."

"Makes sense. That explains a lot." Though I have a feeling if he were in charge of making the dungeon directly, it would have been done a lot better. "So was it really just to harvest adventurers for their loot?"

"Yes. I promised not to kill them, and to send anything of value back to him. In return, he would teach me things. All I want is to make the perfect dungeon!"

"Well if you want to ever accomplish that goal, better grab that Prison Princess friend if yours before everything comes down and run off somewhere. If I hear about something like this happening again, I'll be back, and it'll be a lot worse for you. I don't care if you're allies with a Demon King. I will find out, and I'll be here again to take your head."

"Hey, Kyle!" Niki calls out. She comes to a stop and points behind her. "There's a partly collapsed room back there just filled with random stuff. Wanna see what we can grab before getting out of here?"

"What kinda stuff?"

"Dwarven artifacts, I think. Some weapons, pieces of armour, pots and mugs. They look fancy though."

"Hell, we earned some loot, right?"

After inspecting what she was talking about, you see glints of something shiny as well. You move some of the rocks way to find all sorts of coins and jewels mixed in with all else she mentioned. So you stretch open your Bag of Holding as wide as it can go, and you work with her to shove as much as you can fit inside. It takes some doing, especially with the larger relics, and each time you can feel the lips of its entrance twitch, but you feel confident in saying you've received a solid enough reward.

Eva agrees. She tugs on your cape and mutters, "Nngh... Please can we go? But uhm, when you Bunny Hop with me, please do it gently."

A large, loose chunk of stone falls from the level above, crashing down into the far corner of the room.

"Yep. Let's go. Everyone, grab on tight. I'll try to get us close to Tanver's Crossing."

"Ooh. You know who would love some of this stuff? Bek," Niki says. "We should let him pick out whatever he wants."

Amara grabs your arm firmly. "That does sound lovely." She then looks to you, leans in closely, and whispers with reddened cheeks. "Just remember what I promised you earlier, Kyle~."

You shiver. "Keep distracting me like that and I won't be able to get us out of here," you joke.

"Perhaps that would be a fine way to die."

"Th-That's a dark thing to say!" shouts Eva as she grapples your other arm, though still unable to stand still.

Amara giggles. "Apologies."

"What should we do about the other adventurers?" asks Snow.

"The front doors will be unsealed by now," you say. "So all they need to do is walk back to town. They'll be fine. With a group that large, wild animals won't even approach them."

Three... Two... One...