by Nick Harrow
Table of Contents
Summary
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Chapter 1: Killing Time
Chapter 2: The Necropolis
Chapter 3: The Threat
Chapter 4: War Party
Chapter 5: Murder Chute
Chapter 6: The Brink
Chapter 7: Blood and Gore
Chapter 8: Defenders
Chapter 9: The Raid
Chapter 10: The Reckoning
Chapter 11: Revelation
Chapter 12: Forerunners
Chapter 13: Final Preparations
Chapter 14: Invaded
Chapter 15: The Spider
Chapter 16: Sacrifice
Chapter 17: The Princess Ploy
Chapter 18: Recuperation
Chapter 19: Company Man
Chapter 20: Peace Talks
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Copyright
About the Author
About the Publisher
Summary
EXPAND YOUR TERRITORY. Defeat your rivals. Satisfy your monster girls!
With the Raiders Guild crushed, Clay can finally relax and spend his time clearing the pesky monsters from around his dungeon.
But when a routine zombie bash uncovers a sinister new danger, Clay and his guardians find themselves locked in battle with a rival dungeon lord who really, really hates Lord Rathokhetra.
As the battle unfolds, Clay discovers there's a lot more to being a dungeon lord than taking territory and crushing adventurers. If he is to survive, he must master new tactics, stop threats from beyond this world, and keep his growing army of monster girls satisfied.
If he succeeds, Clay may become the most powerful dungeon lord to ever live.
But if he fails, all of reality will die with him.
Get the latest installment of the Dungeon Bringer saga now for your daily requirements of awesome battles, abominable villains, and deadly monster girls!
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Chapter 1: Killing Time
ZILLAH’S POINTED FINGERNAILS left tingling trails on my skin as she traced the grooves of my abdominal muscles. She snuggled in close to my right side and gently nipped my earlobe with her sharp, white teeth.
“You know what day it is?” she whispered. Her words were hot and hungry in my ear. Combined with what her hand was doing under my loincloth, her question was more than enough to distract me from the tablets I’d been studying while my guardians slept.
With twenty ka banked in my core, I had more than enough to buy a level-three upgrade of some sort or another, but I’d held off spending any of my hard-earned soul juice. Motes were rare as hen’s teeth, and with no raiders near at hand, I had no idea when I’d get more. There was also the matter of the other dungeon lords on the map the orc had given to me. We still hadn’t been able to figure out exactly where my potential enemies were, despite the scouting done by Zillah and the scorpions. Saving the ka for a rainy day seemed like the most prudent course of action.
Or inaction, I guess. As far as action went, I didn’t have to look any farther than the gorgeous guardians sprawled around me on our oversized bed.
I slid my hand down Zillah’s back to stroke the curve of her spine where it met her scorpion’s tail. She shivered and tightened her hand around me, mimicking my strokes with some of her own.
“I know what day it could be,” I said with a grin.
“It’s clean-up day,” Nephket murmured. My familiar was still curled up along my left side, her clawed hand spread flat over my heart. No matter how soundly she slept, the cat woman always woke up the instant I stirred. “It’s been three days since we cratered the Guild’s gate, and we still haven’t done anything about the hole it left behind. Or the fires the raiders set in my village.”
“That sounds like work.” Kezakazek’s muffled voice came from behind Nephket. “Boring, dirty work. We should just stay in bed. I declare today a bed day.”
The drow sorceress I’d pressed into my service after she’d tried to kill me had both of her dark arms arms wrapped around Nephket’s waist and one leg thrown over the cat woman’s thighs. Her hands slithered across Nephket’s body beneath our fur blankets, and the priestess sighed and pulled the dark elf closer with one hand. As much as Nephket wanted to get to work cleaning up the oasis, it was hard to turn down what Kezakazek offered.
“Those are very terrible guesses,” the scorpion queen said, but she didn’t pull away from my hand or let me go. “I bet Clay knows what day it is.”
I knew exactly what day it was, but I didn’t want to admit it and have to stir from that delicious cuddle puddle. I moved my hand in slow circles at the base of Zillah’s spine and turned to face her. Maybe my other guardians could help me distract her from the unpleasant task she had in mind.
“Let’s do something else first.” I flicked the tip of my tongue across her lush lips. “Then we can take a nap. When we’re all relaxed and rested, then—”
“Dungeon lords don’t sleep,” Zillah whispered into my ear. She nipped at the side of my neck, and her hand tightened.
Maybe I couldn’t enjoy a good steak or a shot of fine whiskey, but there were other carnal pleasures within reach. And reach I did.
My right hand sought out the curve of Zillah’s thigh, and I stroked her smooth, firm leg in slow, languid motions.
“Let’s stay right here,” I suggested. “There are so many things we can do today.”
Zillah threw her right leg over mine and trapped my hand beneath her. She retracted the thin plates of her chitinous armor and left behind smooth, warm skin that hungered for my touch.
“I’m going to do them all,” Zillah growled. She ground against my hand and reached across me to brush the hair from the triple streaks of fur on Nephket’s cheeks.
The cat woman’s eyes opened wider at the scorpion queen’s touch, and a hungry smile spread across her lips.
“Good morning,” she said and the “R” rumbled in her chest like a Bengal tiger’s purr. “I had the best dream, and you were all in it.”
Thirty seconds later, Nephket had pulled us all into a reenactment of her very, very pleasant dream, and ninety minutes after that we were all very relaxed. We were tangled on our bed, and the furs and blankets that had covered us were scattered across the floor.
“Nap,” Kezakazek said. “Now.”
“I think Zillah has another idea,” I said. Now that we were all chilled out, I decided to tease her a little. “I think she wanted to go hunting for those red dots on my map.”
The map of Soketra the Inkolana orc had left for me showed the location of several other dungeon lords, but it lacked important features like a scale and a compass rose that would have made it easier to track down those potential enemies. Fortunately for me, none of our scouting trips over the past few days had uncovered any dungeons nearby. As near as I could tell, the closest red dot on the map had to be more than three days’ travel from the oasis. Because Zillah would have liked nothing better than to hunt down and kill every other dungeon lord, the fact that they were all out of her reach drove her nuts.
She pinched my thigh to let me know just how much my little joke had irritated her.
“One day,” she said, then snapped her teeth like a triggered bear trap. “But you know that’s not what we’re doing today.”
“Tablet time?” Kezakazek asked. “I wanted to study those again, see if I could help you figure out what you should spend your ka on.”
&n
bsp; Zillah’s tail slithered across the bed and gave Kez a none-too-gentle bump on the ass.
“No,” Zillah said, a feigned pout pushing her lips out. “And you promised you’d help with what I have planned.”
“Don’t care,” Kez protested and buried her face in Nephket’s tousled hair. “I’m a drow, and we lie.”
“But it’s going to be so much fun,” the scorpion queen insisted. She shook the bed as she bounced with every word, and her stinger stabbed at the air above our heads to punctuate her excitement. “You know what we’re going to do?”
“Sleep,” Kezakazek pleaded. “I need so much sleep.”
“Not happening,” Nephket said with a throaty chuckle. She yawned and stretched her arms, then slipped out of the bed and dragged the drow along behind her. “And I don’t think we’re going to clean up the oasis, either. We did all make a promise to Zillah.”
“Yes!” Zillah pumped her fists into the air. “We’re going to kill so many undead! This is very exciting.”
I propped myself up on my pillows and hooked my hands behind my head as I watched Nephket and Kezakazek shimmy into their clothes.
The cat woman’s coin-studded halter and short leather skirt looked a bit worn, and I made a mental note to find her something more appropriate to her station. They were fine for casual wear, but Lord Rathokhetra’s high priestess deserved something swankier. Or at least more imposing.
The drow’s clothes, on the other hand, were far more alluring than they were functional. She wore little more than shreds of gauzy black cloth, and the rags seemed designed to reveal more than they concealed. I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit it was distracting as hell to watch her slither into that outfit.
“The necropolis isn’t far from here,” Zillah said. She bounced on the bed once more and came down with one leg on either side of my hips. Her long tail swirled in the air as she grew more and more excited, and her eyes were as wide and bright as a little kid’s on Christmas morning at the thought of the murder and mayhem in her immediate future. “Pinchy says we can walk there in a couple of hours. I’m so excited.”
She threw her arms over her head with that last sentence, which made her bounce and jiggle in a way that riveted my attention. For a half-scorpion woman with a taste for blood, Zillah was far hotter than she had any right to be.
“Draw me a map.” I gave her a playful slap on one hip. “A two-hour walk is a few miles’ hike, and I don’t have the open space to make a tunnel that long. You and Pinchy need to lay out a more direct route for us to follow.”
“On it, boss.” Zillah snapped me a sharp salute. She used her tail to spring off the bed, gathered her chitinous armor over her tender bits, and then scampered toward the bedroom’s exit. She shadowboxed enemies on her way out of the room and hummed some sort of battle hymn that was both familiar and strange to me.
What was that song?
“Now that she’s gone, can I study the tablets?” Kezakazek asked. She’d only been my guardian for a couple of days, but she was making herself right at home. When she wasn’t busy in bed with the rest of us, all the drow wanted to do was study my four dungeon lord tablets. “I want to help you shop for goodies.”
“If we have time, I’ll let you look at them,” I said. “But we probably won’t. Zillah’s in a hurry, and it won’t take her long to figure out which path we should take.”
“He’s right, you know,” Nephket said. “The wahket are already on their way from our camp on the hill. They’re almost as excited about this expedition as Zillah.”
That surprised me, but it wasn’t hard to believe. The wahket had once been a proud warrior race before some sort of curse that wiped out all their men and turned the women into hermits. They’d spent a very long time waiting for Lord Rathokhetra to return to their oasis and raise them up to their former glory. For the cat women, the events of the past few weeks since I’d arrived must have seemed like nothing short of a miracle.
And, honestly, I felt the same way. My days as a gray hat hacker were behind me now, and I didn’t miss them in the least. After Nephket had summoned me to Soketra to save her and her sisters, I’d had a little trouble adjusting. Now, though, I was all in on kicking ass and taking names as a dungeon lord. It wasn’t the easiest job in the world, but the perks included a trio of the hottest monster girls I’d ever laid eyes on, a whole tribe of cat women who worshipped the ground I walked on, and awesome magic powers ready for me to unlock.
The downside was I’d promised Zillah we could wipe out the necropolis once she and the scorpions found it. She’d been hot to deal with the undead ever since we’d finished off the raiders, and I’d promised her we’d get on it just as soon as Pinchy and the rest of the scorpion gang found the necropolis that had spawned the wight Zillah had battled.
I’d expected the scorpions to take a few days to find the damned zombie nest, but it had only taken them a little over forty-eight hours. Efficient little fuckers.
Kezakazek returned to the bed and started to crawl across it, but I shook my head and slid my legs over its edge.
“Sleep,” she moaned and sprawled out next to me. She laid her hand on my thigh and licked her lips. “Or maybe round two and then sleep?”
As much fun as that would have been, Zillah would not be amused if she came back to the bedroom and found us not only delaying her trip but also getting busy without her.
I hooked one arm around Kezakazek’s waist and hoisted her off the bed. The drow was short, not quite five feet tall, and quite slender despite her curves. She weighed almost nothing, and my dungeon lord strength was prodigious, so it took no effort at all to sling her over my shoulder.
“Sorry, spellslinger,” I said. “Today we’re killing undead.”
“But I don’t want to,” she groaned as I carried her out of the bedroom.
“I’ll bring the wahket to your burial chamber when they arrive,” Nephket said. “Try not to drop the drow. No matter how much she might deserve it.”
I paused and turned back to my priestess. It was easy to forget how tenuous our relationship had been not so long ago. She smiled at me, and I smiled back. In that instant, a soul-deep connection between us flared to life and warmth spread through my chest like sun-kissed honey.
“I couldn’t do this without you,” I said. They were simple words, but the emotional link I shared with my priestess filled them with a much deeper, stronger meaning.
Nephket responded by blowing me a kiss, and the gesture made my knees weak for a moment. She wasn’t the only woman in my life, and never would be, but she was the most important in so many ways.
“Gross,” the drow said. “You’re getting your gooey emotional spooge all over me. Come on, let’s go to the burial chamber. We’ll have at least a few minutes to look at your tablets.”
“Just for that, I shouldn’t show you the tablets at all,” I said.
Kezakazek pounded her tiny fists against my back in protest, but against my magically hardened skin, the blows had about as much impact as a sparrow’s fluttering wings had on its cage.
“If I’d known you’d be this cruel,” the drow snarled, “I would’ve let you drown me.”
“I can always find another hole full of water,” I offered.
Kezakazek wriggled off my shoulder and into my arms. I held her against my chest, and she wrapped her arms around my neck.
“You wouldn’t,” she said. Her violet eyes burrowed into mine as she looked to judge whether I was serious about dunking her.
“You never know what I might do,” I said with an offhanded yawn. “I’m a dungeon lord. We’re unpredictable and ornery.”
“You wouldn’t,” she said and snuggled up against my chest. “You’re not like that.”
I wasn’t sure how to take that last sentence. It was a nice thing for her to say, but there was something in her tone that made me think she didn’t mean it to be nice at all.
Dark elves are hard to read.
We entered the buria
l chamber, which was in serious need of an upgrade. I’d added cushions and divans for the wahket and my guardians to lounge on when we were gathered here. A low table in the center of the room held food I’d created with the Tablet of Transformation, along with a flagon of Gentleman Jack that I’d made for myself and planned to drink the next time I incarnated. Hopefully I wouldn’t end up with a dungeon lord hangover.
Despite the additions I’d made to the tomb, it just didn’t inspire awe the way I’d like. There were stray grains of sand in the corners, and the colorful tapestries that hid the two exits from my chamber looked drabber and more faded every time I saw them.
“I need to decorate this place,” I said to Kezakazek.
She stood from my arms as I took a seat on my throne and put her hands on her hips. The drow clucked her tongue as she turned slowly to take in our surroundings.
“Well, if this was my throne room, I’d put the flayed skins of a few of my enemies on the walls for starters,” she said. “There’s a startling lack of skulls here, too. No self-respecting drow would be seen in any audience chamber without at least a dozen skulls.”
That’s about what I’d expected her to say. While drow were a darkly beautiful people, the few stories Kezakazek had told me about her people made it clear that they were cruel and almost universally evil. For a drow, the only good enemy was a dead enemy, and the only good ally was one you had enough blackmail on to bury if they crossed you.
Because she was my guardian, I wasn’t worried about Kezakazek crossing me, but I did wonder about the thoughts that ran through her head sometimes.
“That’s not really my style,” I said. “I was thinking more impressive and less Marquis de Sade meets Hellraiser.”
“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, and I don’t care,” Kezakazek said with a fake yawn. “May I see the tablets, please?”
“Here you go,” I said. While I didn’t approve of Kezakazek’s fascination with the tablets, she was a sharp cookie and I’d appreciate her advice on my next round of upgrades. I summoned all four of the tablets. They floated in the air in front of me, and Kezakazek crawled into my lap to get a better view.
